Speaker 1: I think we have to be willing to trust that
Speaker 1: life is teaching us, and often it's through enduring and experiencing,
Speaker 1: suffering and difficulties that allows us to become much stronger.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us back, I believe for the third time
Speaker 1: on the One You Feed podcast is our friends. Spring
Speaker 1: Washam a well known meditation and dharma teacher based in Oakland, California.
Speaker 1: She's the founding member and core teacher at the East
Speaker 1: Bay Meditation Center there in Oakland, She's also the founder
Speaker 1: of Lotus Fine Journeys, an organization that blends indigenous healing
Speaker 1: practices with Buddhist wisdom. Spring was trained by Jack Hornfield
Speaker 1: and has studied numerous meditation practices in Buddhist philosophy since
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven. She is also a member of the
Speaker 1: Spirit Rock Teachers Council. Today, Eric In Spring discuss her
Speaker 1: newest book, The Spirit of Harriet Tubman, Away from the Underground. Hi, Spring,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thank you, Eric. I'm so happy
Speaker 1: to be back with you. Yeah, third time, third time.
Speaker 1: So I love when I can connect with guests multiple
Speaker 1: times over the years. It's a warm feeling I have.
Speaker 1: And I love to see how people's work evolves and
Speaker 1: they're thinking changes and grows. And we're going to be
Speaker 1: discussing your latest book called The Spirit of Harriet Tubman,
Speaker 1: Awakening from the Underground. But before we do that, we'll start,
Speaker 1: like we always do, with the Parable of the Wolves.
Speaker 1: And in the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with
Speaker 1: their grandchild and they say, in life, there are two
Speaker 1: wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One
Speaker 1: it's a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and
Speaker 1: bravery and love, and the other's a bad wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the
Speaker 1: grandchild stops, thinks about it for a second, looks up
Speaker 1: at their grandparents, says, well, which one wins, And the
Speaker 1: grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to
Speaker 1: start off by asking you what that parable means to
Speaker 1: you in your life and in the work that you do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I was thinking about this topic last night.
Speaker 1: I was teaching an online class at Spirit Rock, where
Speaker 1: I'm on the Teachers Council Meditation Community in California, and
Speaker 1: I was talking about the stories of the great leaders
Speaker 1: throughout time. I was talking about the Buddhisatvas, and I
Speaker 1: was talking about Harriet Tubman, and I was talking about
Speaker 1: how important it is for us to tell these stories.
Speaker 1: We must tell the stories of these beautiful heroes over
Speaker 1: and over from every tradition, those who represent love and
Speaker 1: bravery and courage and have great heart. We can't forget
Speaker 1: them right now, and particularly in the face of so
Speaker 1: much violence and so much greed and hatred and delusion.
Speaker 1: These stories are so important of people who fed the
Speaker 1: good wolf and led others, and so for me right now.
Speaker 1: These stories that we tell that we must remember and share.
Speaker 1: They're very important. Yeah, they are. As you were talking,
Speaker 1: it made me think of an exercise that I've done
Speaker 1: with people before. I didn't make it up. It was
Speaker 1: taught to me, but I don't remember by who. But
Speaker 1: it's in trying to figure out what your values are,
Speaker 1: what's important to you. One way of doing it is
Speaker 1: to look at somebody you really admire, and what is
Speaker 1: it about that person that you admire so much that
Speaker 1: tells you something about what you really value, you know,
Speaker 1: and it points a direction for you to go. So
Speaker 1: I agree. I think looking at these people who are
Speaker 1: so extraordinary, Harriet Tubman being an exceptional example of that,
Speaker 1: is a really powerful pointer to us in pointing the
Speaker 1: direction towards who we want to be exactly. And the
Speaker 1: stories from all the traditions, our mythology, our stories of
Speaker 1: all the heroes and the heroines, and these are stories
Speaker 1: that we love to tell. As a Buddhist teacher, we
Speaker 1: tell so many were storytellers and roomy stories and poems
Speaker 1: from this to that, and we gather and we tell
Speaker 1: stories from the past and the stories about how to
Speaker 1: live with more joy and compassion, and you know, that's
Speaker 1: all we're doing is telling stories, our stories, our personal stories,
Speaker 1: and so I think it's a good time to be
Speaker 1: remembering the stories of the goodness of the human heart
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, it's funny because we look at these stories,
Speaker 1: and any good story, there is challenge, there is conflict,
Speaker 1: there is overcoming and most of the time we don't
Speaker 1: want our stories to look anything like that, right, we
Speaker 1: want just a story of everything being good. But A
Speaker 1: doesn't make for a very good story. B isn't the
Speaker 1: way the world works, and C isn't you know really
Speaker 1: how we grow in life. Yeah, I mean we all
Speaker 1: know that we grow through challenge, but we don't like it.
Speaker 1: You know, we do have this idea that we're on
Speaker 1: this sometimes this elevator, are awakening, go straight up one floor,
Speaker 1: then the next floor, and we just go higher and higher,
Speaker 1: faster and faster. Well it's really not like that. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you go straight down to the basement and the hell
Speaker 1: realm for a while, and then here and there and then.
Speaker 1: But I think we have to be willing to trust
Speaker 1: that life is teaching us, and often it's through enduring
Speaker 1: and experiencing, suffering and difficulties. That allows us to become
Speaker 1: much stronger. It allows us to awaken qualities that we
Speaker 1: didn't know we had. You need some struggle in this life,
Speaker 1: and nobody has struggle free. Let me just say that,
Speaker 1: you know, nobody gets out of this without some scratches
Speaker 1: and the hardship, no matter who you are. But I
Speaker 1: think it's a time that we have to kind of
Speaker 1: embrace this idea that, yeah, there will be hardships, there
Speaker 1: will be the ten thousand sorrows, and if we can
Speaker 1: lean into them as seeing them as val valuable, will
Speaker 1: learn and we'll be resilient in a different way. Let
Speaker 1: me ask you a question about that, because this has
Speaker 1: been on my mind a lot lately. We interviewed a
Speaker 1: woman you may know her. Her name's doctor Joan Catchutory.
Speaker 1: She focuses a lot on traumatic grief. A lot of
Speaker 1: the work you've done, you know, focuses on trauma and
Speaker 1: healing of trauma. And so on one hand, we have
Speaker 1: this idea that, yeah, it is through struggle and difficulty
Speaker 1: that we transform and we grow, and yet oftentimes it's
Speaker 1: the very worst thing to say to somebody who's in
Speaker 1: the middle of deep struggle and difficulty or trauma like
Speaker 1: it's a growth opportunity, right, Like you know it makes
Speaker 1: you want to stab somebody. So I'm curious for you
Speaker 1: in your own life as you're going through challenge, is
Speaker 1: how do you navigate that. Maybe I want to keep
Speaker 1: one eye on the fact that there is growth here
Speaker 1: in this, but I also want to allow myself to
Speaker 1: be where I'm at and experience the emotion and not
Speaker 1: try and spiritually bypass it. Right, Well, I think you
Speaker 1: do both. You know. When I'm going through difficulties and
Speaker 1: as we were having our conversation before we started taping,
Speaker 1: I went through this period of tremendous suffering. I got
Speaker 1: this jungle disease, and I thought it was going to
Speaker 1: die from the treatment and all these difficulties. And what
Speaker 1: I realized is that I knew in the moment that
Speaker 1: this might be the hardest thing I'm facing. It was
Speaker 1: really like a life or death shamanically, at least, it
Speaker 1: felt like dark night of the soul. But deep down
Speaker 1: I did know that this is going to be of benefit.
Speaker 1: I knew it was impermanent, and so yeah, it doesn't
Speaker 1: help when someone's in their darkest hour to go, hey,
Speaker 1: you're gonna love this in six months. You know, No,
Speaker 1: I just show up compassionately. But I do remind people
Speaker 1: of their strength and moments of hardship. I do remind
Speaker 1: them that, you know, this is why we remind ourselves
Speaker 1: by telling stories of who have endured. This is why
Speaker 1: we take comfort and oh, somebody else has been through
Speaker 1: this experience and let's talk about the story of how
Speaker 1: they did it. That does give us a kind of comfort,
Speaker 1: a compassion. I do recognize in the moment when we're
Speaker 1: experiencing something, there's the belief that it'll never end and
Speaker 1: I'll never survive and I'll be like this forever. The
Speaker 1: ego mind tells us that absolutely. But then you know,
Speaker 1: that's what I love about our hearts is that they recover. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we recover. Let us take joy in that we recover
Speaker 1: and we go on to a new day. There is
Speaker 1: something about that deeper truth. Yeah, I love that idea
Speaker 1: of reminding people of their strength and reminding ourselves of
Speaker 1: our own strength is really important. And our ability to
Speaker 1: cope and to weather storms without minimizing the real pain
Speaker 1: and difficulty, but also remembering exactly what you said, our strength,
Speaker 1: our ability to cope, and that we do indeed recover.
Speaker 1: It's one of the great human attributes, as we are
Speaker 1: remarkably resilient. Yes, especially if you've ever had a broken
Speaker 1: heart or you know, that's a place where you can
Speaker 1: really see, you can feel devastated, and then you know,
Speaker 1: six months later or even shorter, you're back. You know,
Speaker 1: and you thought I would I thought I was going
Speaker 1: to die of this, and you're like, wow, no, it's
Speaker 1: just it hurts. But I'm all, I'm good, I'm good,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, And I think it's important for us
Speaker 1: to remind ourselves that when we're in the grip of something,
Speaker 1: it's not to negate it. It's to say, yes, this
Speaker 1: is really hard, this is really painful, I'm challenged, I'm
Speaker 1: at the edge. This is almost more than I can bear.
Speaker 1: And we meet people there and we were with them.
Speaker 1: I'm with myself in those moments, so we don't negate
Speaker 1: what's happening. We're always opening to that depth with them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get into the book in a second, but
Speaker 1: I want to go a little bit more into the
Speaker 1: Peru situation. So you have led retreats in Peru. How
Speaker 1: would you describe in plant medicine retreats in Peru. Would
Speaker 1: that be an accurate representation. Yeah. As a Buddhist teacher,
Speaker 1: I created an organization that we do these four teen
Speaker 1: day journeys where we blend Buddhist practice, embodiment practice, and
Speaker 1: plant based medicine in South America. So you've been doing
Speaker 1: that for a while and then you got this jungle
Speaker 1: based disease that made you really really sick, and then
Speaker 1: the treatment made you even sicker. I'm curious were you
Speaker 1: at a crossroads about going back and continuing to do that,
Speaker 1: because that's the sort of story that I hear. Am like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well that's why I'm not going to the jungles of Peru. Now.
Speaker 1: You know, you might be much braver than I am,
Speaker 1: But I'm just curious, like, how did you sort of
Speaker 1: think through that and go, you know what? I'm assuming
Speaker 1: you got to some internal calculus that said the work
Speaker 1: I'm doing down here in the benefit I get outweighs
Speaker 1: whatever this risk and fear is. Can you sort of
Speaker 1: share how you got through that for yourself? Well, the
Speaker 1: whole thing was very surprising. I've been going to Peru
Speaker 1: since two thousand and seven. I even lived in the
Speaker 1: Upper Amazon in a jungle lodge, but no electricity for
Speaker 1: a year. I was fine. I never even had much
Speaker 1: of a fever. I had always found Peru in the
Speaker 1: jungle to be my power spot, you know. I went
Speaker 1: there and I was restored and I was renewed. I was.
Speaker 1: I loved Peru. I loved the jungle there, And yeah,
Speaker 1: I got bit by this bug and it was rare
Speaker 1: and contracted. This jungle disease as like a flesh eating disease.
Speaker 1: Literally starts to go into your body and yeah, it
Speaker 1: takes chunks out. Yeah that's terrifying. Oh yeah, and if
Speaker 1: you don't cure it, it goes into your organs and
Speaker 1: it's fatal and it creates all this havoc and so
Speaker 1: then you have to do the treatment. But the treatment
Speaker 1: is like chemotherapy. You have to to go many days
Speaker 1: and endure this. You know, almost the same kind of
Speaker 1: medicines that are in cancer treatments, and it's really toxic
Speaker 1: and dangerous. So you have to often be in a
Speaker 1: hospital where they can monitor your organs. Why you get
Speaker 1: this IV for hours of this toxic medicine and I
Speaker 1: have a severe allergic reaction to that, but it did
Speaker 1: give me a breakthrough. I didn't leave Perua now I'm
Speaker 1: based in Costa Rica. I was already kind of thinking
Speaker 1: of making radical changes. So that did wake me up.
Speaker 1: You know, when you're lying there and you think you're
Speaker 1: going to die, everything comes into kind of this clarity.
Speaker 1: You know, you're like, okay, Universe, you know I'm here,
Speaker 1: I'm paying attention. It does put a stop to things,
Speaker 1: and I think now it went from being my apocalypse.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty one was just brutal for me. It was
Speaker 1: just everything dismantled. I mean it was wow, yeah, battles
Speaker 1: to being this breakthrough year that opened my heart. And
Speaker 1: I'm not just saying that to be cheesy teacher. It
Speaker 1: really did. The worst thing became the best thing because
Speaker 1: I grew. I changed in a good way from that experience. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love how open you are in your writings about
Speaker 1: current struggles that you have or very recent struggles, because
Speaker 1: there is a tendency. I mean, I know, I have
Speaker 1: this tendency to talk about a struggle from fifteen years
Speaker 1: ago and how all my inner work is transcended and
Speaker 1: overcome and all this. I love teachers who are really
Speaker 1: open about like, yeah, and you know what just last year,
Speaker 1: I had like three really crappy months, you know, because
Speaker 1: I think it shows the truth of what the spiritual
Speaker 1: journey is like. Yeah, and I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: as teachers, I'm also forever as student. Yes, I don't
Speaker 1: tell my students. I don't tell people I work with.
Speaker 1: I'm awakened, I'm on the path, I'm walking, We're together
Speaker 1: or side by side. That's just always how I have felt.
Speaker 1: I have never tried to put myself above others. I'm struggling.
Speaker 1: There's days that are great, days that are hard. I'm
Speaker 1: doing the practices I talk about. I'm not just advising them,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm like, you know, so I'd like to
Speaker 1: talk about what's real and what's authentic. I'm just a
Speaker 1: human being. We all are. Yeah, let's turn our attention
Speaker 1: now to your new book. It's called The Spirit of
Speaker 1: Harriet Tubman Awakening from the Underground. How did that book
Speaker 1: come about? Well, the book, it was a shock to me.
Speaker 1: You know. I had always admired Harriet Tubman, but I
Speaker 1: wasn't like a Harriet Tubman fanatic who doesn't love Harry Tubman.
Speaker 1: Every year they pull out Harriet Tubman's picture and story
Speaker 1: and we'd think, yeay, Harriet, Yeah, like everybody Black History Month.
Speaker 1: I would learn a few facts that I didn't know.
Speaker 1: And I watched the movie in twenty nineteen, big Hollywood
Speaker 1: movie that came out, and again this great admiration. But
Speaker 1: this relationship that happened was is the biggest shock to
Speaker 1: me as anyone. I mean, I wasn't expecting this, and
Speaker 1: I could say the spirit of Harriet Tebman began appearing
Speaker 1: in my consciousness. It was May of twenty twenty. It
Speaker 1: was a week before George Floyd was murdered. For those
Speaker 1: of you, you know, this whole case of police brutality
Speaker 1: is everywhere again right now because of all these recent murders.
Speaker 1: But this was in the quarantine at that moment, in
Speaker 1: a quarantine where it was just so hard right the
Speaker 1: whole world was going into lockdown, and there was something
Speaker 1: I think in the summer of twenty twenty that it
Speaker 1: feels like the tectonic plates underneath our feet were quaking.
Speaker 1: There was a crack I feel in the matrix, and
Speaker 1: I felt like it was a crack of compassion that
Speaker 1: started to emerge in consciousness through the violence, through the chaos,
Speaker 1: through the pandemic, and I think Harriet through that crack,
Speaker 1: just appeared in a dream. And I write about this
Speaker 1: in the first chapter. I wade through the book chronicling
Speaker 1: what happened in this real languige as clearly and honestly
Speaker 1: as I can articulate, Like it's still a mystery how
Speaker 1: this is happening, how an ancestor can come and begin
Speaker 1: to share ideas and thoughts and feelings. It's not something
Speaker 1: that has ever happened to me before. So when Harriet
Speaker 1: appeared in this nightmarish dream and I was running from
Speaker 1: my life, and I was holding on to something, and
Speaker 1: all I remember was my hands burning, and it was
Speaker 1: the back of Harriet Tubman's dress, and I remember going, what,
Speaker 1: but then feeling relieved, like, yes, Harriet understands these problems
Speaker 1: or having Harriet has been here before, and this is
Speaker 1: the right person who can't help me. And I remember
Speaker 1: there was this great relief, And from there it just
Speaker 1: ticks on a life of its own, the whole journey,
Speaker 1: which I share about very clearly in each chapter, how
Speaker 1: it led up to the finishing the book. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so you have a dream about Harriet Tubman, you become
Speaker 1: a little more interested. You start this Church of Harriet
Speaker 1: Tubman and it's enormously well received and it's a beautiful
Speaker 1: and joyous and vibrant thing. Talk to me about the
Speaker 1: journey from sort of where that is to starting the
Speaker 1: book and what sort of things were happening for you
Speaker 1: well during that time where you know, the first dream
Speaker 1: and then what was happening in society. I started feeling
Speaker 1: Harry Tubman around me all the time. I started thinking
Speaker 1: about it. The name would come. I started doing research
Speaker 1: and I just thought, well, maybe other people are having
Speaker 1: this experience with Harry Tubman. I'll put on a zoom class.
Speaker 1: That's what everybody was doing, right. I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: let's do the zoom class. And then the class you
Speaker 1: know when viral is started out. It is just a
Speaker 1: five week class actually, and it was the darm of
Speaker 1: Harriet Tubman, and unbeknownst to me and that sea of faces,
Speaker 1: you know, all those faces in the zoom rooms, my publisher,
Speaker 1: Patty Gift from hey House, the vice president, was taking
Speaker 1: the five week course. I didn't know. They just signed
Speaker 1: up and so contacted me during that time and said,
Speaker 1: you have to write a book about this. You had
Speaker 1: to write a book about Harriet Tubman, and I obviously
Speaker 1: felt completely inadequate. I was like, what are you crazy.
Speaker 1: I'm not a historian. I didn't study African American history.
Speaker 1: This is way too much. So, Harriet Tubman, I know,
Speaker 1: I write spiritual books. I don't want to write a
Speaker 1: historical book. This is way no, no, no, I'm not
Speaker 1: the right person called this person called it. You know,
Speaker 1: I was referring to other people. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: take on that. But that's when Harriet kind of appeared.
Speaker 1: Shortly after that, I said, well, I'll wait for a sign,
Speaker 1: but I'm a no, this is way too deep, way
Speaker 1: too complex. I can't. And then Harriet Tubman's spirit began
Speaker 1: to appear in one particular night and a very unmistakable experience.
Speaker 1: I write in the second chapter, she gives me the task.
Speaker 1: He shows me, Oh, no, you aren't supposed to write
Speaker 1: this book, and you agreed to this a long time ago.
Speaker 1: And it was like, what you know? And so I
Speaker 1: don't call the book channeling. That word connotes if I'm
Speaker 1: going to sit here with you, Eric, and you're gonna say,
Speaker 1: let me talk to Harriet, and I go. Harriet Tadman
Speaker 1: has speaking. Now you know what this is. Not what
Speaker 1: it is. This is a conversation with an ancestor, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't just come on. This is a deep process.
Speaker 1: This is something that I call sessions, and it's like
Speaker 1: an agreed upon moment too for the greater good. And
Speaker 1: the stories that Harriet wanted me to help convey was
Speaker 1: the stories about her heart, her heart message. We know
Speaker 1: the facts, we know that she was a warrior, we
Speaker 1: know all these things, but we also don't recognize Harriet
Speaker 1: as a great teacher. And there's like more to the
Speaker 1: story of this being than just this lave woman who
Speaker 1: led some missions and freed some people. Now, it's deeper
Speaker 1: than that. There's a very profound spirit to this ancestor.
Speaker 1: And that's what my role, my real task is to convey,
Speaker 1: to have a different conversation about this being, this ancestor,
Speaker 1: who I will say, doesn't just belong to me. This
Speaker 1: is a primordial ancestor. She's your ancestors. Yes, she happens
Speaker 1: to be African American and I'm African American. Yes, but
Speaker 1: this is beyond color, This goes beyond She's everyone's ancestor.
Speaker 1: So I think I'd like to put it in that context,
Speaker 1: because it goes beyond these labels and boxes of gender, color, religion, class.
Speaker 1: It's beyond that. I want to get to that inner
Speaker 1: message of Harriet Tubman, what came to you and your
Speaker 1: interpretation of it. But I think it would be helpful
Speaker 1: if maybe we do a brief sketch of her life.
Speaker 1: You hear it, but I don't know that everybody remembers.
Speaker 1: There are parts of her story I didn't remember as
Speaker 1: I was kind of going through your book. So maybe
Speaker 1: we could just spend a minute and you could just
Speaker 1: lead us through like a several minute sort of arc
Speaker 1: of her life and what she did, just so that
Speaker 1: everybody has that picture before we go into some of
Speaker 1: the underlying pieces. Sure, so when we talk about Harriet
Speaker 1: Tubman's live and another reason that I was inspired about
Speaker 1: this book was to tell the real story of her life.
Speaker 1: So there's these messages, that conversations, and they're all about
Speaker 1: each stage of her life right where we talk about
Speaker 1: one thing. So it's all very historically accurate. Step by step,
Speaker 1: the dates, the times, everything is very historically accurate. So
Speaker 1: we know Harriet Tubman was born around the eighteen twenty
Speaker 1: to eighteen twenty five somewhere in there, and her grandmother
Speaker 1: came over on a slave ship, and then her mother
Speaker 1: was born and started kind of Harriet Tubman's lineage. Harriet
Speaker 1: was born and was born enslaved in Maryland and was
Speaker 1: on a big timber plantation and her whole family was there,
Speaker 1: and you know, her childhood was just brutal. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's all of the things that you see on TV
Speaker 1: shows and specials, just beatings and the abuse and all
Speaker 1: of that. Harriet endured a tremendous amount of child abuse
Speaker 1: and being lent out an enslaved child that no one
Speaker 1: cared about, and was subject to all of that and
Speaker 1: felt very very passionate that she should be free, right,
Speaker 1: very much, always leaning into that. And then when Harriet
Speaker 1: was maybe somewhere between ten to thirteen. We don't know
Speaker 1: that much about Harry's exact age because nothing was documented
Speaker 1: when slaves were born. There was no birth certificates or
Speaker 1: you know, we don't know times and all of that,
Speaker 1: so there's always a little mystery about her exact date
Speaker 1: of birth. But she had this head injury. She went
Speaker 1: to a store to get some items, and in that
Speaker 1: moment she saw a slave running into the store being
Speaker 1: chased by an overseer, somebody who oversees the plantations and
Speaker 1: keeps everyone in a very brutal working condition there. And
Speaker 1: he asked her to hold down the slave. She denied immediately, no,
Speaker 1: I will not hold him down, so you can beat him,
Speaker 1: And he threw a weight that was on the counter
Speaker 1: and hit her in the head. I think this is
Speaker 1: the first significant thing. There's like some key things about
Speaker 1: her life, born into slavery, her whole family, many siblings.
Speaker 1: Then she gets this head injury. And the head injury,
Speaker 1: they thought she would die, right They carried her back
Speaker 1: to her house and for two days she went in
Speaker 1: and out of consciousness. But Harriet says that was the
Speaker 1: beginning of an awakening and this incredible connection to the
Speaker 1: spirit world. It was like something open, and she journeyed
Speaker 1: and saw herself and talked about throughout her whole life,
Speaker 1: this conversation with the divine. She became clairvoyant. She just
Speaker 1: had this awakening that happened there. So then she goes
Speaker 1: on to continue living as a slave, but it runs
Speaker 1: away when she's in her twenties, twenty six, somewhere around
Speaker 1: their twenty seven finally runs away makes it alone. Nobody
Speaker 1: knew what to make of Harriet Tubman because of the injury.
Speaker 1: She had an arcolepsy seizures, and she would just pass
Speaker 1: out at any moment in the middle of a conversation,
Speaker 1: just fall into a sleep state. They could never wake
Speaker 1: her up no matter what they did, but when she
Speaker 1: did wake up, she would have these stories, and they
Speaker 1: just thought, this lady is crazy. She was seeing visions
Speaker 1: of the future and her role and being a conductor
Speaker 1: and being free, and everyone thought she was just crazy.
Speaker 1: And Harriet was one hundred pounds five feet tall. This
Speaker 1: was no large person, right, so they thought this crazy woman.
Speaker 1: But Harriet's tiller enough made her way on her own
Speaker 1: all the way to Philadelphia, walked one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: miles to get there, and then joined the Abolitionist Society,
Speaker 1: the Antislavery Society, and became a leader. And even though
Speaker 1: she was wanted fugitive, began speaking out right away when
Speaker 1: she got to Philadelphia and she was wanted, and she
Speaker 1: began her first mission by rescuing a niece and her
Speaker 1: two children that were on the auction blocks going to
Speaker 1: be sold away from the farm that she grew up on,
Speaker 1: and that led her into rescuing people, and then she
Speaker 1: became one of the most famous conductors and her nickname
Speaker 1: was Moses after she conducted on the railroad for ten
Speaker 1: years and rescued all of her family members, including her
Speaker 1: parents and a very daring rescue as an underground operative.
Speaker 1: She then became involved and was recruited into the Civil War.
Speaker 1: And this is a part of the story that many
Speaker 1: people don't know about. And also this has been kind
Speaker 1: of suppressed that Harriet was a great war hero. It
Speaker 1: was extremely patriotic, was a nurse, and she had this
Speaker 1: magical ability with making plant concoctions that cured dysentery. She
Speaker 1: had some gift with it, and she was saving countless
Speaker 1: lives with her medicine bruise and her tinctuirts. But also
Speaker 1: she was recruited to be a spy for the Union
Speaker 1: Army and she was the first woman in history to lead,
Speaker 1: plan and execute her own military raids with her own
Speaker 1: troop of black soldiers and led very amazing successful attacks
Speaker 1: on the Confederate stronghold places and rescuing people. And I mean,
Speaker 1: who does this right, It's incredible. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: a woman who's formerly enslaved leading. I mean, it just
Speaker 1: makes no sense, and then went on to join the
Speaker 1: Woman's movement and fought with Susan B. Anthony for the
Speaker 1: passing of the woman's voting right to act. And her
Speaker 1: whole life was just dedicated to liberation and freedom, that
Speaker 1: every being born should have the same equal rights. I
Speaker 1: could say more, but those are some of the main
Speaker 1: things that stand out. Another part of that story that
Speaker 1: I had never heard was that her mother's slave owner,
Speaker 1: when he passed in his will, what you can tell
Speaker 1: that part? I had never heard that, and it's sort
Speaker 1: of astounding and heartbreaking. Oh, yes, this is like a
Speaker 1: big one. Yes. So Harriet's grandmother came over on a
Speaker 1: slave ship. Her name was Modesty, and then Modesty gave birth.
Speaker 1: And I have a chapter call Harriet's and her grandmother
Speaker 1: Modesty and the family tree that her mother was born
Speaker 1: on the plantation gave birth to. Harriet was married. Harry's
Speaker 1: parents were married. Harry's family was very close knit. Her
Speaker 1: parents managed to stay loving and married and died at
Speaker 1: an old age together. They stayed throughout their entire life
Speaker 1: in marriage, and unbeknowns to her mother, Rich her mother's
Speaker 1: name was writ Ridia the grandfather who purchased her grandmother,
Speaker 1: and then the whole family came freed. Her mother said
Speaker 1: wrote in his will upon death, writ is to be
Speaker 1: freed at the age of forty and all of her offsprings. Well.
Speaker 1: When the patriarchal father died, they didn't honor the request
Speaker 1: and the will. But the thing is Harriet knew though.
Speaker 1: Harriet had this unwavering knowledge that her family was being betrayed,
Speaker 1: and saved up money even though she was a slave,
Speaker 1: did side job, somehow, hustled together some money, went into town,
Speaker 1: hired a lawyer to look into her family records. The
Speaker 1: lawyer found the record and said, well, here's the record
Speaker 1: of the will. You are free, but there's nothing we
Speaker 1: can do. There's no court that's going to listen to you.
Speaker 1: Just go back to slavery. But that burning feeling that
Speaker 1: you know everything that's happening to you is wrong, and
Speaker 1: that family that was locked into this battle with Harriet's
Speaker 1: family for all those years, fueled Harriet's motivation. And it
Speaker 1: was so painful to see her mother working when she
Speaker 1: knew her mother was supposed to be free and they
Speaker 1: were all supposed to have been let go, you know,
Speaker 1: and to live free, live. So that's a very powerful
Speaker 1: story of betrayal. Yeah. And this family that owned them,
Speaker 1: oh my, they did everything everything you could think of
Speaker 1: to Harriet's family, including sold three of her sisters away.
Speaker 1: And it was a painful dynamic, I would say the least.
Speaker 1: And it's remarkable that she had the fortitude to instead
Speaker 1: of being broken by it, she was fueled by it. Yes,
Speaker 1: if you just also just use this analogy of you're
Speaker 1: supposed to be led out of prison, right, You're supposed
Speaker 1: to be out of prison, but the prison doesn't tell you.
Speaker 1: They hide it from you and keep you in jail
Speaker 1: another twenty years, right, and go, oh well they told
Speaker 1: the governor said you could go, but we decided to
Speaker 1: hide that paperwork. You know. That's the kind of betrayal
Speaker 1: this is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's incredible. And the stuff
Speaker 1: about her in the Civil War leading troops and it's
Speaker 1: she's just truly remarkable, more so even than the basic
Speaker 1: facts that I knew about her, you know, the fact
Speaker 1: that she was a conductor on the underground railroad and
Speaker 1: how many people she had rescued, and but that other
Speaker 1: stuff too, It's just it's kind of amazing. I'd like
Speaker 1: to shift us a little bit into some of the
Speaker 1: deeper messages embodied in her its life, in your interactions
Speaker 1: with her spirit, and how that also ties in with
Speaker 1: your dharma teaching, and so, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: places I'd like to start is talking a little bit
Speaker 1: about prisons of the mind. We can clearly see the
Speaker 1: external prison that slaves are in. We can see the
Speaker 1: external structures that black people still live in today. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's external prisons of varying shapes and sizes and dimensions,
Speaker 1: but there's also kind of the prisons of our mind.
Speaker 1: Share a little bit more about that, because that's really
Speaker 1: very much in line with the Buddhist teachings on liberation.
Speaker 1: I mean, we can definitely see where we're imprisoned by
Speaker 1: our thoughts, right, and how we can get imprisoned by greed,
Speaker 1: we can be imprisoned by hatred and delusion, and that
Speaker 1: to be walking the path is to be breaking out
Speaker 1: of all these constructs about who we are, who other
Speaker 1: people are, and ultimately letting go of greed and letting
Speaker 1: go of hatred, and letting go of delusion and seeing
Speaker 1: the truth of who we are. But I really believe
Speaker 1: that these mind states are real prisons, and the ideas
Speaker 1: that we're freeing ourselves from them. And I think what
Speaker 1: stood out for me about Harry Tubman was she was
Speaker 1: never imprisoned by the inferiority demon. They tried to beat
Speaker 1: it into her, You're a worthless you'll never be free.
Speaker 1: You know, you're a woman. Who do you think you are?
Speaker 1: And it was this ability of Harriet. Somehow she was
Speaker 1: never beholden to the program. She was always like, I'm
Speaker 1: outside of that. I don't subscribe to that right, I
Speaker 1: won't adopt I'm inferior because I'm black and a slave
Speaker 1: and a woman. And those were hard conditions to overcome
Speaker 1: and born into slavery, and your mother was born into slavery,
Speaker 1: and your grandmother was brought over as a slave. I mean,
Speaker 1: to have a vision of seeing yourself as somebody other
Speaker 1: than that, to see yourself as you are in the
Speaker 1: eyes of what do you call God or Buddha, or
Speaker 1: to see or true nature, to rise up. That's what
Speaker 1: I mean by breaking out of the prison. It's the
Speaker 1: prison of concepts that limit us to who we are.
Speaker 1: And Harriet was trying to liberate people from hatred doctor
Speaker 1: King used to say that I'm going to liberate you
Speaker 1: from your hatred. You don't see it as a prison.
Speaker 1: You like it or you're involved in it. Right, Brutalizing others,
Speaker 1: hating other people is a prison. There's no freedom in that,
Speaker 1: there's no happy result in that, there's no winning in that.
Speaker 1: That's a path of destruction. And so that's what prisons do.
Speaker 1: They imprison us from seeing our goodness. So the whole
Speaker 1: of the spiritual path is waking up and letting go
Speaker 1: and shedding more and more of these cells that we
Speaker 1: lock ourselves in. And now on the outer level, yes,
Speaker 1: our people literally inside I was literally experiencing on the
Speaker 1: physical level imprisonment, but many more are dealing with the
Speaker 1: prison of their mind. And we can see this now
Speaker 1: that where we are in this time is a war
Speaker 1: of consciousness. Right, It's like who's going to win the war?
Speaker 1: Which wolf wins? Right now? Right, It's so classic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And we all know examples of people in situations that
Speaker 1: they are not free in many ways, but they are
Speaker 1: in many other ways very free, freer than most of us,
Speaker 1: you know. Nelson Mandela is a historical example of that.
Speaker 1: But we can read memoirs of people in prison, and
Speaker 1: we can see like, wow, that person. Yes, while they
Speaker 1: were living in terrible circumstances, but inwardly they were free.
Speaker 1: Nicole on our team who helps put these episodes together
Speaker 1: and do research, she really drew a parallel that I'm
Speaker 1: glad she did about when you're talking about her yet Tubman,
Speaker 1: and you know, having to free not only the slaves
Speaker 1: once they were physically free, but having to free their minds,
Speaker 1: and it reminded of Edith Eager. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you knew who she is. She was in the Holocaust camps,
Speaker 1: I think at Auschwitz, but she talks about that even
Speaker 1: after being freed, she had work to do to free
Speaker 1: her mind from captivity. And how many people remain imprisoned
Speaker 1: in their mind even after they were set free. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and even trauma is a form of being imprisoned still, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: we're still enacting. We're still reacting until we even hail
Speaker 1: our trauma. We're imprisoned by it. We're imprisoned by a
Speaker 1: fear and what has happened to us? Our bodies hold on.
Speaker 1: So freeing your mind is no easy job. At times,
Speaker 1: you know, we've got like it's it's not easy on
Speaker 1: the external level, right, But this is the time that
Speaker 1: we're in now. We're in a time and space where
Speaker 1: we have to look at our mind and what we
Speaker 1: are creating the hell realm, because exactly, you meet people
Speaker 1: all over who live in very difficult situations but are
Speaker 1: experiencing much more joy. We see billionaires on TV right
Speaker 1: now creating hell realms and saying crazy. You know, they're
Speaker 1: in a hell realm of their mind. They might have
Speaker 1: a billion dollars, but it doesn't buy you real freedom,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't buy you compassion, it doesn't buy you wisdom.
Speaker 1: And so there's a guy that I love a lot
Speaker 1: who's on death row right now named Jarvis J. Masters.
Speaker 1: He's at Saint Quentin Prison, and he's someone that I
Speaker 1: think about every time I drive over the Richmond Bridge,
Speaker 1: you know, because he's in a tiny unit right there
Speaker 1: on death row and practicing hour after hour after hour
Speaker 1: after hour. Right He's like, if I die here, okay,
Speaker 1: so be it. I was freed a long time ago.
Speaker 1: My heart is free. They can do whatever they want
Speaker 1: to my body now, prison it, beat it, lay it here,
Speaker 1: or even kill it, you know, but I know my
Speaker 1: heart is free. And so this is what we talk about,
Speaker 1: the prison of the mind. And this is a high
Speaker 1: level we're talking about. You know, this is a higher
Speaker 1: level of consciousness. I love what you said there about
Speaker 1: how difficult this is, right, I mean, it is extraordinarily
Speaker 1: difficult to free ourselves from the prisons of our mind.
Speaker 1: But in my experience, to do it to whatever extent
Speaker 1: we are able to free ourselves is valuable. You talk
Speaker 1: about abolitionism later on in the book, and you say
Speaker 1: that there's three levels of it, inner, outer, and ultimate.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about what you mean by that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I was thinking a lot about that word
Speaker 1: abolitionism and abolitionists, you know, those who that word was
Speaker 1: so popular when people were seeking to abolish slavery, right,
Speaker 1: they wanted to abolish this law, They wanted to abolish
Speaker 1: this mind state, right, and then you know, the word
Speaker 1: kind of went out of style a little bit. It
Speaker 1: was very popular the abolitionist society. These were kind of
Speaker 1: like the activists of our time, you know. So that
Speaker 1: we're abolishing, you know, and I think about that right now,
Speaker 1: inner abolitionists. Is this abolishing our own greed, hatred, and delusion.
Speaker 1: It's the seeking to abolish that which is destroying us. Right,
Speaker 1: We're going to abolish these habits, these patterns, and we're
Speaker 1: going to liberate ourselves from them. I mean, as a
Speaker 1: dharma practitioner, it's all we're ever doing is uprooting these
Speaker 1: seeds and planting new ones. Right, we're cultivators, we're farmers
Speaker 1: of our consciousness, and you've got to be willing to
Speaker 1: tackle these habits in these mind states. So the inner
Speaker 1: is the willingness to do the work of abolishing our racism,
Speaker 1: our cruelty, our inner hatred. And we don't do that
Speaker 1: with a state, you know, the baseball bat. We're doing
Speaker 1: this with the heart of compassion, you know. So we're
Speaker 1: the inner abolition. The outer is just that we've become
Speaker 1: all so sensitive to what is happening around us. We
Speaker 1: don't walk around with blinders on. Oh sorry, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: that's happening to you, it's not happening to me. Why
Speaker 1: someone's being murdered outside in front of us, well, sorry,
Speaker 1: Like we seek also to end it in our environments,
Speaker 1: it becomes an extension. This is an extension of me,
Speaker 1: you know. And when I see the suffering right outside
Speaker 1: my house, there's a movement to reduce it, to help
Speaker 1: support abolishing any place where this hatred is living in society.
Speaker 1: And so that's kind of the outer it's that movement
Speaker 1: to reduce and that abolitionists. Our ancestors who were some
Speaker 1: of the greatest abolitionists ever, they didn't live in slave states,
Speaker 1: they didn't have to. They wanted to abolish it because
Speaker 1: of its cruelty. So I know, for a lot of
Speaker 1: us right now, I want to abolish the current way
Speaker 1: policing is done in America and re envision another way,
Speaker 1: a safer way, our loving way. You know, that's something
Speaker 1: that that word is picking up steam again. Abolition you
Speaker 1: know what, Let's abolish this system and create something else.
Speaker 1: And then ultimate is just kind of moving on the
Speaker 1: path of the Buddhas and the prophets and the awakened beings.
Speaker 1: It's seeing that all of this is just a dream. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: it's the abolishing of the ego itself. Right, ultimate liberation
Speaker 1: is the self. The whole idea is gone and we're
Speaker 1: just in a sea of compassion and we're just being
Speaker 1: used in the service of humanity in that way. So
Speaker 1: I write that as the ultimate level of it. When
Speaker 1: the ego has been abolished. Now you're really free. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love thinking of it in those ways, and that
Speaker 1: we do have work to do inner outer and at
Speaker 1: least a glimpsing occasionally at that ultimate freedom is there.
Speaker 1: I want to change directions a little bit here and
Speaker 1: talk about the North north Star. What is the historical
Speaker 1: importance of the North Star and what's the symbolic importance
Speaker 1: of the North Star? Wise, there a chapter that's very
Speaker 1: much focused in that direction. When I think of the
Speaker 1: North Star, you know, first of all, Harriet Tubman was
Speaker 1: someone who followed the North Star by herself, walked all
Speaker 1: the way from Maryland to Philadelphia, following just the lights
Speaker 1: in the sky. I mean, imagine there was no cell phones.
Speaker 1: There's some maps. This is someone who could not read
Speaker 1: or write. This is someone who was avoiding slave catchers
Speaker 1: and dogs and you know, bounty hunters and its bathe
Speaker 1: in the stars. This kind of reminds me of when
Speaker 1: Doctor King used to say, the strong arc of the
Speaker 1: universe bends toward justice, right, And the history of the
Speaker 1: North Star is so interesting. It used to think it
Speaker 1: was the Star of Bethlehem going back that far. And
Speaker 1: the North Star is an interesting polarist. It doesn't move,
Speaker 1: it stays like in the same direction. North and sailors
Speaker 1: used it and it has this amazing history. Native American
Speaker 1: tribes used it. They would refer to it as their
Speaker 1: chief star, right, and they would build their lodging around
Speaker 1: looking at the star, and it felt like a star
Speaker 1: that was a protector star. So here you have this
Speaker 1: star system that's leading people, that actually becomes a map,
Speaker 1: a light, a beacon to what they were figuring was
Speaker 1: the Promised Land. But they'd been dreaming a place out
Speaker 1: of slavery, out of change, into a place where they
Speaker 1: could be free and not be brutalized. So Harriet's belief
Speaker 1: in faith in the North Star was profound. She had
Speaker 1: a great like this is I know I can follow this,
Speaker 1: and I know these stars are helping me. And at
Speaker 1: night would walk all through the night, slept in the
Speaker 1: day hiding, and all through the night walk just following
Speaker 1: the stars. And because I'm such a stargazer, I love it. Know,
Speaker 1: I always feel that when I look in the sky
Speaker 1: and see the stars, you feel like there's a benevolence there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Frederick Douglas's antislavery paper was called
Speaker 1: the North Star, which I found another really interesting parallel.
Speaker 1: There A question for you historically, was Frederick Douglas and
Speaker 1: Harriet Tubman. Were they contemporaries or was one later or
Speaker 1: earlier in the other where their timelines their lives overlap
Speaker 1: a lot. First of all, they were born in Maryland
Speaker 1: and both escaped from slavery. Frederick Douglas was first, and
Speaker 1: also incredible, there's more stories coming out around. Frederick Douglas
Speaker 1: is such a hero. I mean, I didn't know that
Speaker 1: much about Frederick Douglas until I read his He had
Speaker 1: three biographies chronicling his long life, and I remember when
Speaker 1: I was writing the book, I read all three of them.
Speaker 1: I listened to them in audible and I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: you know, just his journey is so incredible. But they
Speaker 1: knew each other. Frederick Douglas was a great supporter of
Speaker 1: Harriet Tubman. In fact, Harriet Tubman had taken refuge and
Speaker 1: Frederick Douglas's home in New York. His home was a
Speaker 1: stop on the underground. This is all very secret society. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but so apparently she had come through his home on
Speaker 1: her when she was conducting and had a group of
Speaker 1: passengers he wrote very beautiful things about Harriet Tubman and
Speaker 1: saw her as a great hero. And I wrote a
Speaker 1: quote in there that he had written about Harriet and
Speaker 1: his paper the North Star, And yeah, he called his
Speaker 1: paper the north Star. After the star, such a symbolism
Speaker 1: of hope and freedom, you say, in its deepest spiritual meaning,
Speaker 1: they'll light in the sky, and especially the north Star
Speaker 1: represent our own inner light, the light of truth, love
Speaker 1: and wisdom. At times, our light can be obscured like
Speaker 1: clouds temporarily hide in the moon, but its essence can
Speaker 1: never be destroyed. Talk a little bit more about that idea, well,
Speaker 1: I think this is really something that came through a
Speaker 1: lot in the book with Harriet Tubman too, and as
Speaker 1: with all great teachers, they talk about this innate goodness
Speaker 1: that we have. That you know, even though right now
Speaker 1: we are being bombarded with violence and negativity in our media.
Speaker 1: For every one terrible action, I believe there's million more
Speaker 1: than are not being aired, that are not being amplified
Speaker 1: this goodness that we have, Like there's this natural movement
Speaker 1: to our compassion. And I think that Harriet sees this
Speaker 1: as our inner light, you know, in the Buddhist tradition
Speaker 1: they say, you're all buddhais you just for good? You know,
Speaker 1: and the whole journey is about waking up to that truth,
Speaker 1: to who we are, you know. And that light than
Speaker 1: the sky feels like the universe like you know, imagined
Speaker 1: when these people were walking and praying and they had
Speaker 1: their hopes and their dreams and this new life and
Speaker 1: the universe is twinkling the follow me backoning you. You
Speaker 1: feel like, yes, there's something greater that's moving me, that's
Speaker 1: moving this spirit of love and truth. And you know,
Speaker 1: I believe the universe is a compassionate place and we
Speaker 1: are reflections of that. We are cells in the mind
Speaker 1: of this universe, you know, So that goodness is in
Speaker 1: us now. Confusion, Wow, we're in the depths of it, right,
Speaker 1: We're in the depths of it. But that doesn't mean that,
Speaker 1: you know, the sun is still shining even when the
Speaker 1: clouds are there, right, And I believe that, So I
Speaker 1: believe it. There's something about this light that we are light,
Speaker 1: we are spirit. Let's transition a little bit from here
Speaker 1: to a chapter you've got called General Tubman in the
Speaker 1: Civil War, where you sort of bring out what we've
Speaker 1: shared a little bit about what Harriet Tubman did in
Speaker 1: the Civil War, which is remarkable. But you also then
Speaker 1: go into the deeper underlying idea of a nation that's divided.
Speaker 1: We certainly see that today. We hear all the time
Speaker 1: that polarization is really bad, and it does seem to be.
Speaker 1: But you point out very rightly, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of historians who also point out this is not new.
Speaker 1: You say, the idea that the United States has ever
Speaker 1: been truly united as a figment of our collective imagination,
Speaker 1: a fantasy many of us are slowly giving up on.
Speaker 1: Black people really understand that America has always had two
Speaker 1: distinct sides with radically different ideas about what freedom and
Speaker 1: democracy are. And then you go on to share this idea,
Speaker 1: which is talking about this crack goes back to our
Speaker 1: founding fathers in a very very clear way. George Washington
Speaker 1: owned more than a hundred slaves, where another founding father,
Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin, freed his slaves and became an abolitionist. And
Speaker 1: both these guys wrote the Constitution together. And so this
Speaker 1: divide is there kind of from the start. Share a
Speaker 1: little more about that. Yeah, I mean, I think this
Speaker 1: is why Understanding history is so important because people don't
Speaker 1: understand how do we get here? You know. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of young people there's a movement to try
Speaker 1: to suppress history or to suppress all this information about
Speaker 1: how the US, how the America came to be with
Speaker 1: its ten thousand joys and it's ten thousand sorrows. So
Speaker 1: we just want to tell the joys and focus on
Speaker 1: the Mayflower and the Gate. But then no one understands it.
Speaker 1: But why are we having so many problems if it
Speaker 1: was so beautiful? Right? And I think it's important to
Speaker 1: know the history, to know that this difference of opinion
Speaker 1: around life and human rights for all beings goes back
Speaker 1: to the very beginning. There was a difference. Some agreed
Speaker 1: and some didn't, and some were totally against this, you know.
Speaker 1: And we saw that even with Abraham Lincoln it was
Speaker 1: very against the idea of slavery, and there was others
Speaker 1: that were very in favor of it. So again we
Speaker 1: have these figureheads over and over who represent this battle
Speaker 1: line like I don't agree with this, I don't want this,
Speaker 1: and then other people saying this is our way of life,
Speaker 1: we do want this, and we don't agree with you.
Speaker 1: So history is definitely coming back. What we are experiencing now,
Speaker 1: Eric feels very similar when I studied our history of
Speaker 1: the lead up to the Civil War that happened in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty It started and went to eighteen sixty four.
Speaker 1: But everything is mirroring, including people believing half the country
Speaker 1: believing there's another president and the other half. It's astounding, though.
Speaker 1: I'm raising the alarms on all this, and I think
Speaker 1: Harriet is back because there is another war brewing, and
Speaker 1: we all feel that we feel like where is this going?
Speaker 1: This can't be going anywhere good. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: build up of military happening, militarization of people in their
Speaker 1: own home. So this is what happened. This is what
Speaker 1: happened in the eighteen hundreds, and it's interesting to see that.
Speaker 1: So I think it's important that we understand history so
Speaker 1: that we have more compassion to what is happening now
Speaker 1: and we can bring more awareness to what's happening now.
Speaker 1: How do we heal this crack? Yeah, you know what
Speaker 1: is it going to take for us to heal this?
Speaker 1: You know? How can we find commonality around human rights
Speaker 1: and equal justice for all beings? So this is our
Speaker 1: challenge for this generation. Yeah, I think so too. And
Speaker 1: you know, with the idea of a civil war, you know,
Speaker 1: I generally stay fairly far from politics on this show.
Speaker 1: It is scary in a way, and I sometimes worry
Speaker 1: though that by us forecasting that's where we're headed. And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that's what you're doing. You're just saying
Speaker 1: there are signs here that mirror it that we are
Speaker 1: pushing ourselves in that direction, that we're tallying up our differences.
Speaker 1: I always think about the stock market, and I'm always like, well,
Speaker 1: I mean the stock market is like it's bad because
Speaker 1: people think it should be bad. Like, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: this very strange thing that responds. You know, people always
Speaker 1: talk about the stock marrilgle the market was feeling fear today,
Speaker 1: like it's this living creature, which in some ways it is.
Speaker 1: It just always weirds me out, though, because I'm like,
Speaker 1: but we're the consciousness that's driving the entire thing. So
Speaker 1: same thing with the divide that is very real and
Speaker 1: is here and does need healed, you know, is like
Speaker 1: what way of relating to it helps us, Like you said,
Speaker 1: to bridget, to narrow it, to stop it from getting
Speaker 1: to the point where we have to fight each other,
Speaker 1: you know, because there's nothing good that comes out of that.
Speaker 1: My belief is, and I know yours, is that, like,
Speaker 1: whatever the question is, violence is a bad answer. Well,
Speaker 1: I absolutely agree with you. And I know that without
Speaker 1: the Civil War, slavery would not have ended. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: in order for that system to collapse, it had to
Speaker 1: be a battle because it was so dug in, Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have There was no resolution. People were willing
Speaker 1: to go to battle over it, right, they were willing.
Speaker 1: And so I hear you, like, you know, all of
Speaker 1: this is our minds. We are creating it. We are
Speaker 1: create the divide, we create the stock market. It's all
Speaker 1: our dream, right, We create our concepts. And these are
Speaker 1: the prisons that people are willing to die for. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the prisons of our concepts, you know. And so I
Speaker 1: don't know what it would mean to have another civil
Speaker 1: war or if that's eminent. All I'm saying is that
Speaker 1: when you study the three four years before, you know,
Speaker 1: in the eighteen sixties, Wow, it almost is an exact
Speaker 1: replica of what's happening now. The divide is even the
Speaker 1: same states. Yeah, it's almost like a history it's trying
Speaker 1: to repeat itself all these years later, but now we
Speaker 1: have more awareness, So what does this mean for a
Speaker 1: more conscious society? Yes, and I think it's hard to
Speaker 1: know if talking about it creates something more real or
Speaker 1: not talking about it. Inevitably we wind up there like
Speaker 1: what hells ignoring it? Are going nothing's happening, Let's focus
Speaker 1: on the joy everybody, And then there's a you know,
Speaker 1: next thing. You know, there's a build up outside your
Speaker 1: front door, and you go, how did this happen? Well,
Speaker 1: it was happening, So it's hard to know what's creating
Speaker 1: what agreed? No right answer there. I want to go
Speaker 1: back a little bit to something that you said a
Speaker 1: little while ago, which was, you know, for every terrible
Speaker 1: act we see on the news, you know, you believe
Speaker 1: there's lots and lots and lots of other acts of
Speaker 1: love and compassion and kindness and decency that are out there.
Speaker 1: And I share a very similar belief. So we know
Speaker 1: that news can be toxic for us in many different ways.
Speaker 1: I mean, at the very least, it's just one view
Speaker 1: of the world, and it's a view of everything that's
Speaker 1: going wrong in the world, largely that's what it is,
Speaker 1: that's its view and its orientation, and so on one hand,
Speaker 1: being exposed to it too much will at the very
Speaker 1: least skew our belief about what's happening in the world,
Speaker 1: because we will say, oh, we're only looking at the bad,
Speaker 1: not again all the wonderful acts of kindness that if
Speaker 1: you walked out your front door you would be seeing.
Speaker 1: So how do you orient towards being in touch with
Speaker 1: what's happening, paying attention to the news so that you
Speaker 1: do know what's happening, but not getting lost in it,
Speaker 1: because I do think that you still have a view
Speaker 1: of humanity. That's as you said earlier, the universe is
Speaker 1: a compassionate place. So how do you in your own
Speaker 1: life very practically manage that desire to be informed with
Speaker 1: the desire not to drown in negativity. Well, I don't
Speaker 1: have a television, that's for sure. I haven't for years.
Speaker 1: So I don't have CNN on while I'm cooking and
Speaker 1: cleaning or whatever. People laugh box any of it. It
Speaker 1: is going twenty four hours. It's an addiction. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: an addiction I think to the media, and so I'm
Speaker 1: very aware of what I watch and also I'm very
Speaker 1: somatic and very sensitive. And you know, in all the
Speaker 1: media rather or Netflix or Hulu, if you see the
Speaker 1: amount of violent programming, I still feel like Hollywood's responsible
Speaker 1: for mental illness by just putting out endless crimes and
Speaker 1: violence and stories and homicide X and killer of this,
Speaker 1: and it's all sensationalized, you know, all these serial killers.
Speaker 1: And I mean, if you're a child, then you're just
Speaker 1: us all you absorb. O. My god, no wonder our children,
Speaker 1: you know, are suffering from mental health crisises. So watching
Speaker 1: dehumanization happen hour after hour after hour after hour does
Speaker 1: something to your consciousness. It's a form of programming. The
Speaker 1: world's not safe. It's terrible. People are horrible. They're everywhere,
Speaker 1: you know. So I limit everything I watch. I am
Speaker 1: very aware of what I take in, and I try
Speaker 1: very consciously to watch positive things. If I'm going to
Speaker 1: engage in something on my computer, I'm going to make
Speaker 1: sure that there's some positive spin on it, because I
Speaker 1: need everything I can get right now. So I implore people,
Speaker 1: we need every help we can have. You know, the
Speaker 1: help was with our minds, because this an onslaught of violence.
Speaker 1: It's just if you really just go look at what's
Speaker 1: treading all the top things. They're all basically greed, hatred,
Speaker 1: and delusion magnified and package in a glamorous way. Sadly
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, well, I'm in the middle of watching
Speaker 1: a series called Vikings, which, yeah, the level of violence
Speaker 1: in it is for me personally, the battle scenes, I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's not what I want. It's the story that's happening here.
Speaker 1: You know, Jenny puts a blanket over her head and
Speaker 1: I start hitting fast forward, fast forward to get through it.
Speaker 1: But but imagine it eight year old's mind alone. Oh,
Speaker 1: I guess it's so plugged into TV and online. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, we had they had to live like that
Speaker 1: for years, absorbing hours and hours of just like you know,
Speaker 1: we just dehumanize, you know, you show it over and
Speaker 1: over again. It creates a violence society. So just something
Speaker 1: for us all to think about what we do all
Speaker 1: the time. I know, yes, yes, I certainly can fall
Speaker 1: prey to it. I wanted to end. We started talking
Speaker 1: about the importance and value of stories, and you tell
Speaker 1: in chapter eleven, which is really about women, you know,
Speaker 1: the heart of women, and you know, Harriet Tubman, after
Speaker 1: working on free enslavery became, as you mentioned, a part
Speaker 1: of the women's movement. And but you tell a story
Speaker 1: in there about a important part of the story of
Speaker 1: the Buddha, Sujata. Am I pronouncing that correctly. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: she often gets a footnote when we tell sort of
Speaker 1: you know, what happened with the Buddha, right, but share
Speaker 1: a little bit more about that part of the story
Speaker 1: and what it means to you. Well, I have such
Speaker 1: a good connection with that story, and the story about
Speaker 1: Sujata always was very meaningful. I remember when I went
Speaker 1: on a pilgrimage to India, I went to Sujatha village
Speaker 1: and went to this place where they created this whole shrine,
Speaker 1: and you know, I took photos and there was an orphanage,
Speaker 1: and I gave a bunch of donations to the orphans,
Speaker 1: and I prayed outside that a little edge of her
Speaker 1: with a rice bowl, you know, and it felt like
Speaker 1: a very special place. But it felt so neglected compared
Speaker 1: to all these other monuments. You know, It's like Sadjatta's
Speaker 1: off over here and it looks kind of like a
Speaker 1: graveyard and here, you know, it was like it kind
Speaker 1: of symbolized the feminine in the in the role like
Speaker 1: off over here. Yeah, there's this person to Jata who
Speaker 1: basically saved Siddhartha's life. But you know who cares. You know,
Speaker 1: she's over here. But I just remember going and I
Speaker 1: found such a connection. Yeah. But the story is, you know,
Speaker 1: the put out to be Siddharta was killing himself, practicing
Speaker 1: in this warrior way and destroying his body, you know,
Speaker 1: eating only a grain of rice a day and not
Speaker 1: sleeping and not bathing and just practicing this kind of
Speaker 1: aesthetic way that was so violent. He was near death.
Speaker 1: And in the story that there's a very beautiful story
Speaker 1: where the gods and the heaven we're like, oh no,
Speaker 1: he's gonna die. He's killing himself, you know. And then
Speaker 1: we have the story of Sujata, who, on that day
Speaker 1: the Siddharta was face planted near death, couldn't even move
Speaker 1: his body any longer to practice. Sijata comes through the
Speaker 1: forest having made this bowl of rice, putting all morning,
Speaker 1: hour after hour, and was going to make an offering,
Speaker 1: as his customary in many cultures where we make offerings
Speaker 1: to spirits, when we make offerings to these altars, we
Speaker 1: make offerings to our ancestors and the Buddhas and the
Speaker 1: buddy Suffas and then saw this mangled man and the dirt,
Speaker 1: you know, and her heart opened, and she then gives
Speaker 1: this bowl of food and then helps him. And this
Speaker 1: becomes the balance of the feminine, the feminine spirit, Like
Speaker 1: you can't just think that we're a blend of masculine
Speaker 1: and feminine energies. And she represents the mother everything he
Speaker 1: had suppressed, the wife, his mother, the femine malone and
Speaker 1: I'm a man, I'm gonna do this. She kind of
Speaker 1: comes in and feeds him and then bathes him. And
Speaker 1: interesting enough in other stories and tick not han story,
Speaker 1: they become lovers. Interesting. So, yeah, she nurses him back
Speaker 1: to health, not just for a day or two days,
Speaker 1: but over a long period of time because he was
Speaker 1: so ill from how he had needed a long period
Speaker 1: of restoration. But as you know, these stories, nobody wants
Speaker 1: to talk about the Buddha having a girlfriend or Jesus
Speaker 1: being married or I mean, these are life right. This
Speaker 1: evokes I mean, I don't even want to get into
Speaker 1: you know, Islam and what that would mean if a
Speaker 1: woman appeared anywhere in the story. You know, it's such
Speaker 1: a it's so much destructive energy toward the feminine, you know.
Speaker 1: So so I talk about that story and how Sujata
Speaker 1: his making resurgence, the lost women in the Buddha's life,
Speaker 1: his aunt and the people who raised him, and also
Speaker 1: the gospels of Mary Magdalene, you know, are rising, and
Speaker 1: you know, the Pope recently said, yes, these are legitimate gospels.
Speaker 1: We have destroyed them for a long time. But here,
Speaker 1: you know, it's tell a different story. And so Harriet
Speaker 1: loves that that that does this feminine and masculine they
Speaker 1: need to work together. One doesn't overpower the other. It's
Speaker 1: like the eagle and condor prophecy, right, these these energies
Speaker 1: fly together, one doesn't dominate. And so this chapter was
Speaker 1: about Harriet's leaf and the feminine spirit needing to rise
Speaker 1: and to be in harmony with the masculine. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a beautiful story, and I love the way you sort
Speaker 1: of pull more out of it, because again, in the
Speaker 1: way the Buddhist story is normally told, it's just sort
Speaker 1: of like, well, and then someone gave him food and
Speaker 1: then he went on and you know, became enlightened, and
Speaker 1: there's more there, and it is a real turning point
Speaker 1: and so I love the way you've brought that out.
Speaker 1: We are out of time, so spring, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming on. I always love talking with you.
Speaker 1: The new book is called The Spirit of Harriet Tubman
Speaker 1: Awakening from the Underground, and we'll have links in the
Speaker 1: show notes to where people can get the book and
Speaker 1: learn more about you and your work. So thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on again. Thank you, Eric. I
Speaker 1: always have so much insight and joy talking with you.
Speaker 1: So thank you. If what you just heard was helpful
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