Speaker 1: The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now.
Speaker 1: It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid
Speaker 1: it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing
Speaker 1: on a stage telling comedy words. Come and see me,
Speaker 1: buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and
Speaker 1: see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones.
Speaker 1: I'm not your dad. You come or don't come, but
Speaker 1: you should at least know what's happening, and it is.
Speaker 1: The tour kicks off late September and goes through the
Speaker 1: end of the year and beyond. Tickets are available at
Speaker 1: the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. They are
Speaker 1: available at the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour
Speaker 1: or at your local outlet in your region. My name
Speaker 1: is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy.
Speaker 1: I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness.
Speaker 2: Now listen.
Speaker 1: I know sometimes on this podcast I have stand up
Speaker 1: comedian telling dirty stories about what they do, and that's fun,
Speaker 1: but that's not today.
Speaker 2: Today.
Speaker 1: My guest is activist and filmmaker Valerie Core. This is
Speaker 1: a deep one, I think a really good one. Please welcome,
Speaker 1: Valerie Core. I'm very interested to see that you're using
Speaker 1: little wiry headphonts because I think of you as a
Speaker 1: very ex savvy person. I thought you would be very bluetoothy.
Speaker 3: No, I'm not, mostly because I lose things or my
Speaker 3: children pick up the little tiny things.
Speaker 2: Oh they do. That's right.
Speaker 1: When my kids were very young, there were no air
Speaker 1: pods because I imagine it's like a really choky thing, right,
Speaker 1: you'd have to be really careful with air pods.
Speaker 4: I mean they're five and nine.
Speaker 3: So my little things disappear all the time and are
Speaker 3: part of like my daughter's doll scenes. So it must
Speaker 3: have maybe like it would have been a soccer ball
Speaker 3: or something for her dolls.
Speaker 1: Now, listen, I wanted to I want to start with
Speaker 1: the idea because I I became aware of you through
Speaker 1: your ted talk, Right, that's how I become and and
Speaker 1: your message is relentlessly and very.
Speaker 2: Aggressive is the wrong word. But but but.
Speaker 1: But stridently positive, right, You're it's a it's a positive.
Speaker 1: I think it's a positive thing, a force for.
Speaker 4: Good, if you like, I'll take that. I actually don't
Speaker 4: use the word positive, but we can. We can come
Speaker 4: back to that.
Speaker 1: All right, good, well, let's talk about that, because the
Speaker 1: reason why I bring it up is because I thought, well,
Speaker 1: when someone like when when I when I come across
Speaker 1: someone like you in the in the zeitgeist, there's not
Speaker 1: many like that seems unfair like this, when when I
Speaker 1: came across you and the Zeitgeist or you on the Internet.
Speaker 1: Let's let's be honest. I thought, well, the Internet seeks
Speaker 1: a balance all the time. So if if you're saying
Speaker 1: something like which I think is positive or I think
Speaker 1: it is a good message, there will be plenty of
Speaker 1: people trying to redress that with negativity. And if you
Speaker 1: have a revolutionarily love project, then you're going to get
Speaker 1: I think you make yourself a target for some Internet hate.
Speaker 1: For that, well, just because that's the way it seems
Speaker 1: to go, people don't they need to have.
Speaker 2: Some balance for it.
Speaker 1: So what I wanted to do first is talk to
Speaker 1: you a little bit about you so that people can't say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, she was a Nazi, and you know, I
Speaker 1: know you were in a Nazi But I mean it's
Speaker 1: like people can't, you know, let's learn about let's consider
Speaker 1: the source before we consider the message.
Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: That's really was because I know next to nothing, even
Speaker 1: although I grew up around quite a lot of I
Speaker 1: used to say the word seek, but you say the
Speaker 1: word sick.
Speaker 2: Is it pronounced sick?
Speaker 4: It is pronounced sick.
Speaker 3: But really we're just so happy you know who we
Speaker 3: are in the first place, so we usually don't correct.
Speaker 1: I was raised in Glasgow. There is a sick community
Speaker 1: in Glasgow. It's not you know, I had been around
Speaker 1: people from your community before, or people from your from
Speaker 1: your background. There is that exists in Glasgow, and and
Speaker 1: so I was familiar with it, but not really in
Speaker 1: the sense of how it differs from It's it's.
Speaker 2: Hindu, right, Is it a Hindu thing?
Speaker 4: No, it is.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's just separate, completely, separate completely.
Speaker 3: It's its own, it's it's it's its own religious tradition,
Speaker 3: its own wisdom tradition. It's one of the youngest wisdom
Speaker 3: traditions in the world. There are twenty six million six worldwide,
Speaker 3: half a million in the US. And it emerged from
Speaker 3: a time where the dominant religions were Hinduism and Islam.
Speaker 3: But is it is it is its own wisdom tradition.
Speaker 1: And it is Is it a tradition that you still practice?
Speaker 1: Are you still very much involved in it or is it?
Speaker 1: Are you more secular in your in your life now?
Speaker 3: I grew up with the stories and most song prayers
Speaker 3: that my grandfather used to tell me as he tucked
Speaker 3: me into bed at night. You know, I grew up
Speaker 3: on the farmlands of California. My family has lived and
Speaker 3: farmed in California in the United States for one hundred.
Speaker 4: And ten years. So deep history here.
Speaker 3: So I could have been someone who kind of floated
Speaker 3: away from the tradition, but it was poured into me
Speaker 3: by my grandfather and his songs, his stories, His love
Speaker 3: infused me with a like I inherited a treasure chest
Speaker 3: that I could reach into to find courage to live
Speaker 3: my life.
Speaker 4: And that's what I do still.
Speaker 1: What is the Sikh religion? That was sick religion? I
Speaker 1: big a part of the Sikh religion? Is it? Is it?
Speaker 2: Is it? Is it monotheism? Is it? Is it? No?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Western category?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I really don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a it's a It's a tradition rooted in love,
Speaker 3: love above all deeply loved and maybe the best way
Speaker 3: to share it with you was through the origin story.
Speaker 2: Okay, great, so that would be great.
Speaker 4: Like I'll play my grandfather, you play me.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's good. All right.
Speaker 1: I have to say visually, you've let yourself go. But okay,
Speaker 1: if I viewed that there, it is all right.
Speaker 2: Let's let's go.
Speaker 3: Half a millennium ago, halfway around the world, in South
Speaker 3: Asia and the land of Punjab, there lived a man
Speaker 3: named Nanik.
Speaker 4: And Nanik looked around him.
Speaker 3: It was a time of conquest and cast and cruelty,
Speaker 3: and he took all that pain into his heart. He
Speaker 3: meditated by the river every morning for fourteen years, and
Speaker 3: then one morning he did not return home. People thought
Speaker 3: he was a dead man, a drowned man. The sun
Speaker 3: rose and then fell, The sun rose and fell, and
Speaker 3: then the third day the sun rose, and Nonik emerged
Speaker 3: from the river.
Speaker 4: But he was stricken. He had a stricken look in
Speaker 4: his eye.
Speaker 3: He did not speak, he did not stir, until finally
Speaker 3: he gave one utterance, Na Goo Hindu, na Goo Musliman
Speaker 3: there is no Hindu, there is no Muslim, which means
Speaker 3: there is no me against you at all. This was
Speaker 3: beyond love thy neighbor as yourself. This was beyond like
Speaker 3: taken the stranger. This was see no stranger. That we
Speaker 3: are part of one another, we belong to one another,
Speaker 3: that we constitute each other, and that belonging to each
Speaker 3: other is the wellspring of love. That you can look
Speaker 3: upon the face of anyone and say you are a
Speaker 3: part of me.
Speaker 4: I do not yet know.
Speaker 3: And so the origin of the faith is it, Oh God,
Speaker 3: oneness ever unfolding. And Nonik began not to give commandments
Speaker 3: or stories, but he began to sing, sing songs of love,
Speaker 3: because to taste the truth of oneness, you have to
Speaker 3: get out of language, out of dichotomy, out of subject
Speaker 3: and object. You have to you know, those moments when
Speaker 3: the music swells, or you look in the face of
Speaker 3: your child, or you're on the mountaintop and you're just
Speaker 3: there's just no language at all. Good. Eonik was saying, like,
Speaker 3: those are not incidental moments, those are not throwaway moments.
Speaker 3: Those moments of wonder are actually sacred insights into the
Speaker 3: true nature of things, the oneness that always is. And
Speaker 3: so we can't stay there. We have to live, Like Craig,
Speaker 3: you're over there and I'm over here right. We have
Speaker 3: to live in a world of separation, but separation is
Speaker 3: an illusion. So how do we we have an experience
Speaker 3: of oneness and then we remember the truth of it.
Speaker 3: And the way we do that is we move through
Speaker 3: the world seeing all others as sisters, as brothers, as
Speaker 3: kin And if I see you as my brother, Couric,
Speaker 3: that means I gotta show up for you when you
Speaker 3: need me, serve you when you need me, fight for
Speaker 3: you when you.
Speaker 4: Are in harm's way.
Speaker 3: And so our people became sounth sabahi, sage warriors, the
Speaker 3: warrior fights, the sage loves. I learned it as a
Speaker 3: path of revolutionary love.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful story and very poetic. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm about a little contrarian. So I wonder like when
Speaker 1: it's interesting because I think, well, you fight again, you know,
Speaker 1: you fight when, fight for me, when you fight for
Speaker 1: your brothers or sisters when you need to. But who
Speaker 1: you fighting against if we're all, if we're all brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's the other thing. I think it's fascinating though, because
Speaker 1: I have this is me talking.
Speaker 2: I don't know about anybody else.
Speaker 1: But I tend to like, before I hear someone's story,
Speaker 1: I judge them, do you know what I mean? Like
Speaker 1: it's like if I see someone, look at that guy,
Speaker 1: I look at that jerik, you know, on a bus
Speaker 1: or on an airplane, and then you and then you
Speaker 1: hear someone's story and you and and every everything changes
Speaker 1: if you get to know who someone is, you know
Speaker 1: it kind of do you have someone else there with?
Speaker 4: My mother just walked in with a big players.
Speaker 2: That's lovely, that's very nice.
Speaker 4: Do you want to say hi, Craig Ferguson.
Speaker 2: Hello, Oh hello, very nice to meet you. What did
Speaker 2: you make for breakfast?
Speaker 4: I she made me eggs?
Speaker 2: Thank you lovely?
Speaker 4: I love you. I haven't seen her in weeks. I
Speaker 4: got in last night and she just comes in.
Speaker 2: That is very nice. That's that's very nice, very nice.
Speaker 2: That is very nice.
Speaker 1: So so you just got in last night where you're
Speaker 1: away with your way working because you go around a lot, right.
Speaker 4: Your book just came out. Stage Warrior just came out.
Speaker 4: So yeah, we.
Speaker 3: Did our big we it's a movement building tour because
Speaker 3: we did a big New York kickoff of it. We're
Speaker 3: going to do La We're going to forty five cities
Speaker 3: around the country, and we're spreading the message of revolutionary love.
Speaker 3: We're telling stories, we're bringing songs, we're bringing tools for
Speaker 3: how to What is the.
Speaker 2: Message of revolutionary love? Then? What is that?
Speaker 3: Revolutionary love is the call of our times. Revolutionary love
Speaker 3: is the choice to leave no one outside of our
Speaker 3: circle of care?
Speaker 2: How do you do that?
Speaker 1: Especially when people when people are you know, if someone
Speaker 1: rejects your message, Yeah, you know, I mean, I mean
Speaker 1: because sometimes it's difficult to help. I know this because look,
Speaker 1: I spend my life around people who are either focused
Speaker 1: on not drinking or focused on drinking alcohol. And so
Speaker 1: sometimes when you want to help someone, they don't want
Speaker 1: to help. They don't want to be part of your movement,
Speaker 1: they don't want to be part of your thing, and
Speaker 1: they'd rather literally in some cases, rather die.
Speaker 2: How do you reach out to someone like that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? The first thing to know, because I like what
Speaker 3: you said about, Well, you're fighting if everyone's your brother
Speaker 3: or sister, or who are you fighting against?
Speaker 4: Here's the thing.
Speaker 3: We have opponents in this world. An opponent is anyone
Speaker 3: who's ideas, believes, or actions oppose your own. I don't
Speaker 3: call them enemies, and that's the radical intervention. An enemy
Speaker 3: is a fixed and permanent position, but an opponent is
Speaker 3: a fluid category. They might be they might stay your
Speaker 3: opponent this whole lifetime, right, they might never see you
Speaker 3: or want to support you, or just saying opponent opens
Speaker 3: up the possibility that transformation could happen. And how do
Speaker 3: you practice loving one's opponent? That practice I call ten
Speaker 3: the wound because I've I'm an activist for twenty years.
Speaker 3: I've sat with former correctional officers, police officers, murderers, people
Speaker 3: who have killed people in my community, my own former abusers,
Speaker 3: And every time I want to hate them, I have
Speaker 3: to do what my ancestors taught me what to do,
Speaker 3: to wonder, to wonder about them, Why why do they
Speaker 3: say that?
Speaker 4: Why do they do that?
Speaker 3: And beneath the slogans and the sound bites like when
Speaker 3: you want to hate them, if you hear their story,
Speaker 3: you see their wound, and I've come to understand they're Oh,
Speaker 3: there are no such thing as monsters in this world.
Speaker 3: There are only human beings who are wounded, who act
Speaker 3: out of their fear or insecurity or rage. That does
Speaker 3: not make them any less dangerous. Sure, but when we
Speaker 3: see their wound, they lose their power over us. We
Speaker 3: become free and we become smarter about how to respond.
Speaker 3: All right, it's not just enough to like remove bad
Speaker 3: actors from power, Like what are the cultures, what are
Speaker 3: the institutions, what are the what are the norms that
Speaker 3: drive that behavior?
Speaker 4: And then I get smarter about how how to respond.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an interesting thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember talking to a long time ago,
Speaker 1: talking to a man who changed my life. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you're very familiar with it. Is Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Yes,
Speaker 1: who was talking about the idea of you know, resentment
Speaker 1: being you know, as like drinking a poison and then
Speaker 1: expecting someone else to die.
Speaker 2: Yes, you know, it's.
Speaker 1: The the idea of because father Tutu was one of
Speaker 1: the architects of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. Is is
Speaker 1: it similar to that idea that trying to resolve conflict
Speaker 1: through resolution rather than continuation of conflicts?
Speaker 2: Is that the idea?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, it's you know, I'm saying it's coming from my
Speaker 3: tradition and my ancestors, but it's really the heart of
Speaker 3: all the great wisdom traditions.
Speaker 2: It is, sure, I understand that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder is it is it something that applies
Speaker 1: because America right now, particularly as you run up to
Speaker 1: the election, the it's very it's it's quite tribal.
Speaker 4: There are apps right now.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I mean, and it's and it's it's really
Speaker 1: hard to to reach across the I want to see
Speaker 1: the aisle, but it's just like to reach across any
Speaker 1: any gap without people in a post truth environment. Right,
Speaker 1: It's kind of where I was at the at the
Speaker 1: beginning that you know, what I wanted to establish with
Speaker 1: everyone that I talked to, especially about something like this,
Speaker 1: is there d angels for talking about it? Because people
Speaker 1: will lie about you? You know, how do how do
Speaker 1: you take that? I mean even if you see someone's wound.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that you know, if if if someone says
Speaker 1: something hateful about you or your family on the internet,
Speaker 1: how do.
Speaker 2: You deal with that? Do you just ignore it? I
Speaker 2: mean how do you how'd you cope with it?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: James Baldwin said, love has never been a popular movement,
Speaker 3: Like it's never It's never been popular or safe or
Speaker 3: easy to stand in one shared humanity or stand in love.
Speaker 3: And I certainly I mean I I my message sort
Speaker 3: of is challenging for people across the political spectrum. You know, sure,
Speaker 3: you know, I fight for social justice in this country,
Speaker 3: So of course I have people on the far right
Speaker 3: who see me as their opponent or their enemy. Really,
Speaker 3: but then I have people who call themselves progressives, and
Speaker 3: when I call for for love as like the most
Speaker 3: revolutionary necessary force to transition this country, they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: we're ready for war.
Speaker 4: We're not ready for love. We're ready for war.
Speaker 3: And so that's when like the hate that I get
Speaker 3: is from across the spectrum, and what I invite people
Speaker 3: into is understanding that everyone has a different role in
Speaker 3: the labor of revolutionary love. At any given time, when
Speaker 3: we are being so hurt in the face of onslaught
Speaker 3: assaults injustice, it is okay, it is rightful to feel rage.
Speaker 3: That our rage is loaded with information and energy. It
Speaker 3: connects us to our ability to fight for ourselves, to
Speaker 3: defend ourselves. So if I'm getting attacked and my family's
Speaker 3: getting attacked, yes, like this is why people were warriors, right,
Speaker 3: we defend ourselves with one hand. But then we don't
Speaker 3: lose the sight of the sage because in the next moment,
Speaker 3: maybe not out, But in the next moment, next season,
Speaker 3: there might be an opportunity to say about what about
Speaker 3: their children? What story are they telling themselves?
Speaker 4: How do I create?
Speaker 3: How do I respond in such a way that after
Speaker 3: the battle is on, after the election is over, we
Speaker 3: can still find a way to live with each other.
Speaker 2: How do you come to this?
Speaker 1: Is there a radical moment in your life that you say, Okay, look,
Speaker 1: because you studied you were you studied divinity, right, that
Speaker 1: was your college.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I studied religion.
Speaker 3: I studied law and became a lawyer, a filmmaker, and
Speaker 3: an organizer, a faith leader. But you know, out of
Speaker 3: all the things I studied, nothing showed me more than living.
Speaker 4: I think the.
Speaker 3: Moment that that changed me was I became an activist
Speaker 3: after a family friend was murdered in the wake of
Speaker 3: September eleventh, more than twenty years ago. Now, the racial
Speaker 3: violence that exploded across the United States and the aftermath
Speaker 3: of those terrorist attacks targeted sick Americans because our people
Speaker 3: to show their devotion to love and service. Where articles
Speaker 3: of faith keep our hair long, and our men some
Speaker 3: women wrap their long hair in a turban and so
Speaker 3: since nine to eleven, looking at the screen and seeing
Speaker 3: a picture of Osama bin Laden again and again said,
Speaker 3: oh our nations do enemy looks like my family. You're right,
Speaker 3: And so sick Americans were at the forefront of all
Speaker 3: of that violence in this country, alongside our Muslim brothers
Speaker 3: and sisters. And the first person murdered in the aftermath
Speaker 3: was bulbursingh so deep. He was standing in front of
Speaker 3: his gas station in Mesa, Arizona when he was killed,
Speaker 3: and his death turned me a whole generation of us
Speaker 3: into activists. Twenty years later, the backlash, the aftermath never ended.
Speaker 3: Hate violence never went down to the levels they were
Speaker 3: before nine to eleven. And so we're just living in
Speaker 3: a world where the threat of terror and violence is
Speaker 3: this constant. And so for many years, for fifteen years
Speaker 3: after Bilbi your uncle's murder, I could only think of
Speaker 3: the killer with rage, a rightful rage, right and hate
Speaker 3: bordering on hate, like he took so much from us.
Speaker 3: And it was fifteen years later when I just you know,
Speaker 3: it's what Desmond Tutu said, right, Am I drinking?
Speaker 4: Am I drinking this poison and hurting myself?
Speaker 2: Is he?
Speaker 4: Fifteen years later, the younger brother of Bilbier uncle.
Speaker 3: Rana and I decided to try to change the story.
Speaker 3: We made a phone call to the Arizona State Prison
Speaker 3: federal prison where Frank Rogue was being held.
Speaker 2: And this is the gentleman who murdered Uh, yeah, well
Speaker 2: be here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right. And Craig, at first, I thought this
Speaker 4: was a terrible mistake.
Speaker 2: I mean, it sounds like a really bad idea.
Speaker 1: If I would have been around you at the time,
Speaker 1: I'd like, this is probably maybe something else would be
Speaker 1: a bad idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, limits to love, like you don't call your uncle's
Speaker 3: murderer and try to make things better like that, right.
Speaker 4: So and in the beginning he said, well, I'm sorry,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: He was kind of flailing or he's like, I'm sorry
Speaker 3: for what happened to your uncle, but I'm also sorry
Speaker 3: for the thousands who were killed on nine to eleven.
Speaker 4: Refusing to take a response, but I'm feeling rage rise
Speaker 4: in me, like fire in a cage.
Speaker 3: And maybe because I was holding that rage, it gave
Speaker 3: Rana the space to wonder about Frank, to listen and
Speaker 3: to hear what I could not hear. Rana says, Frank,
Speaker 3: this is the first time I've heard you say you
Speaker 3: were sorry, and Frank says, yet, yes, I am sorry
Speaker 3: for what I did to your brother. And when I
Speaker 3: go to heaven to be judged by God, I will
Speaker 3: ask to see your brother and I will ask for
Speaker 3: his forgiveness. And Rana says, We've already forgiven you. That moment,
Speaker 3: I realize forgiveness is not forgetting. No, forgiveness is freedom
Speaker 3: from hate. And sometimes forgiveness comes at the end of
Speaker 3: a long healing journey, like it did for us. Sometimes
Speaker 3: it comes at the very beginning, like it used to
Speaker 3: make me cringe to see people look into the eyes
Speaker 3: of murderers and say, I forgive you. But now I
Speaker 3: understand they were saying, you cannot make me hate you.
Speaker 3: You don't have that power over me. Sometimes forgiveness comes
Speaker 3: in the messy middle. Sometimes forgiveness does not come at all.
Speaker 3: The survivor withholds her forgiveness because it is our only
Speaker 3: active agency, and that is okay that it is up
Speaker 3: to the survivor to decide.
Speaker 4: What I do know is that once you do forgive,
Speaker 4: it frees you.
Speaker 3: It frees you, like knocks that poison out of your hand,
Speaker 3: like you. And and because of that, I began to
Speaker 3: meet with Frank. I began to talk with him and
Speaker 3: hear his story and see his wound, and I learned
Speaker 3: so much, Craig, I learned so much. I learned that
Speaker 3: so much of white nationalist rage in this country is
Speaker 3: a symptom of unresolved grief, Like they're grieving the notion
Speaker 3: that this country ever belonged just to them in the
Speaker 3: first place.
Speaker 4: I might not agree with that grief.
Speaker 3: I might not think it's right, but and I might
Speaker 3: not be It might not be my role to tend
Speaker 3: to that grief, but someone's got to, Like, someone's got to.
Speaker 3: Like when I think, like I think about people like
Speaker 3: if you who.
Speaker 1: Do you think should if if it's something like that,
Speaker 1: who who should tend to it?
Speaker 3: Is it your uncle sitting at that kitchen table spewing
Speaker 3: that eight?
Speaker 4: Is it your neighbor down the street? Is it?
Speaker 3: Is it your child's classmate? Is it the teenager who is
Speaker 3: caught in the algorithm? Like like you said, because our
Speaker 3: algorithms don't give us a shared sense of reality anymore.
Speaker 3: We're in our own. If you're not, Hana Arend said,
Speaker 3: isolations radicalization, Like if you're not puncturing that bubble, who
Speaker 3: who is who is right?
Speaker 2: So it's very interesting. So how does one puncture of
Speaker 2: that bubble? Then? How how do you go about it? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Our are like our thinking is like I'm going to
Speaker 3: go and just tell them what's what's what?
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go to what's that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Like ever try to lecture your children into obedience?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I know, right like you, I can't. I have to
Speaker 3: like show my children that the insight lives inside of them.
Speaker 4: And how do I do that?
Speaker 3: I ask to ask questions, Like human beings, we mirror
Speaker 3: each other. If you come out with daggers out, they're
Speaker 3: going to come out with daggers out.
Speaker 4: But if you come out and you're like you you
Speaker 4: really want to know why?
Speaker 3: If you wonder goes back to wonder why, like why
Speaker 3: why do you like that video?
Speaker 4: Why do you like what that guy says? Why do
Speaker 4: you like that policy? Why do you like that candidate?
Speaker 3: Why you get and then you unearth the story and
Speaker 3: you unearth the story and you unearth the like.
Speaker 4: Oh I care about my kids too.
Speaker 3: Oh you know, you affirm whatever you see that as
Speaker 3: deeply human inside. And then because we mirror each other,
Speaker 3: they might just start wondering about you too.
Speaker 4: They might want to hear your story.
Speaker 3: And when that happens, Kraig, it's like like a magical
Speaker 3: portal opens up of deep listening. Right Like, sure, deep
Speaker 3: listening is an act of surrender. You risk being changed
Speaker 3: by what you hear. It's a process of relationship and
Speaker 3: it might lead to transformation. It might not, but that's
Speaker 3: okay because you've gained information for what to do next.
Speaker 3: When you're out in the world and you're standing for
Speaker 3: your positions, can you hold up a vision of the
Speaker 3: future that doesn't leave anyone behind, not even them?
Speaker 1: How does that manifest itself in like you're going on
Speaker 1: the the books just come out and you're going on
Speaker 1: a tour and you I mean you use the word
Speaker 1: movement yourself, which is interesting to me. How does it
Speaker 1: manifest itself in a in an event when you go
Speaker 1: to something left there are people who sayd we we're
Speaker 1: agree at your Valerie boo, we don't believe what you believe.
Speaker 1: How do you deal with that in the moment? I mean,
Speaker 1: do you say, I hear you? What about the people
Speaker 1: that are there to hear you? I mean, the the
Speaker 1: the division? How do you cope with it?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Because because really, oftentimes I think people who who radically
Speaker 1: disagree with a stance, sometimes I think it's just about
Speaker 1: it's just about the disruption that might not even be
Speaker 1: your message there against, it's just about make it a
Speaker 1: lot of noise because because they want to do that.
Speaker 1: I sometimes wonder in acts of terrorism, if it the
Speaker 1: means is the end that you know that someone is
Speaker 1: just enjoying the terror of it? Yeah, you know that
Speaker 1: there the polemic may not be as identifiable as yours.
Speaker 1: You know that it's just they're just agents of chaos.
Speaker 3: If one has to enjoy the terror of it in
Speaker 3: order to be seen and heard, imagine the pain that
Speaker 3: is lying beneath that.
Speaker 2: Sure I can. But what do you do?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, right stage and warrior, there's a there's a protection?
Speaker 4: Like is there security? We have security at all of
Speaker 4: our events?
Speaker 3: Like is there a way to make sure that they're
Speaker 3: not hurting us, that they're not hurting themselves?
Speaker 2: Like I get it, I understand.
Speaker 3: And then I but then I turned to the audience
Speaker 3: and I say, let's slow it down.
Speaker 4: Notice what's happening in your body.
Speaker 3: Notice that tension we are so accustomed to taking that oh,
Speaker 3: that tightness that small, hard parts of ourselves that feel threatened,
Speaker 3: and then responding to there From there? What if we
Speaker 3: created some space and moved into the part of ourselves
Speaker 3: that can see them, Oh it's hurt, brothers and sisters,
Speaker 3: and decided, well, you're we're going to respond from our
Speaker 3: deepest wisdom. We're going to respond from a place of love.
Speaker 3: Just that shift of responding instead of from trauma, responding
Speaker 3: from a place of wisdom. Whatever that looks like for you,
Speaker 3: is the shift I'm inviting people into.
Speaker 1: I hate to be kind of it seems almost vulgar
Speaker 1: to ask it, But is there an end game for it?
Speaker 2: Is the result? Is there a mission accomplished sign at
Speaker 2: any point? Is there a light at the end of
Speaker 2: the tunnel? Is there?
Speaker 1: What does what does success look like in an environment
Speaker 1: like this? What's the achievement?
Speaker 4: The vision is beloved community. The vision is.
Speaker 3: A healthy, carrying, multi racial democracy where you see my
Speaker 3: child as yours and I see yours as mine. The
Speaker 3: vision is a planet where human beings have learned how
Speaker 3: to live sustainably with each other and with the earth.
Speaker 3: The vision is a world of love and liberation and safety.
Speaker 3: And Craig, I may not live. You may not live.
Speaker 4: We may not live to see that.
Speaker 3: And I understand that that my ancestors labored and sacrificed
Speaker 3: for freedoms that they could not have imagined that I
Speaker 3: get to live into now. And so as much as
Speaker 3: I want to see that world, as much as I
Speaker 3: want to see it, I know that my sacred task
Speaker 3: is to show up to do my part in the
Speaker 3: labor and if.
Speaker 2: I can get it, yeah, I understand. It's like, there's
Speaker 2: a lovely phrase.
Speaker 1: I'm probably messing up, but it is the mark of
Speaker 1: civilization that a person would plant a tree knowing that
Speaker 1: they would never stand in the shade of it. That's it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get.
Speaker 4: Can the planting be joyful? What I've discovered?
Speaker 3: Like, well, for me twenty years as an activist, I
Speaker 3: only knew how to push.
Speaker 4: I only knew it to ground my bones to the earth.
Speaker 3: I was always comparing my suffering to the people I
Speaker 3: was serving, so I was never worth worthy enough to
Speaker 3: care for like I had. By the time my babies
Speaker 3: were born, it was a twenty sixteen election season. I
Speaker 3: hate violence was skyrocketing, and I'm like, what am I doing?
Speaker 3: They're growing up in a country more dangerous for them
Speaker 3: than it was for me. I had an all out crisis.
Speaker 3: I only knew to use your metaphor, had to plant
Speaker 3: out of desperation, how to plant and miserably, you know.
Speaker 3: And because I didn't know how to love, I didn't
Speaker 3: know how to operate with love for myself. So that's
Speaker 3: when I spend a year in the rainforest. I was
Speaker 3: another pivotal moment in my life. And many indigenous cultures
Speaker 3: believe that the rainforest is like the womb of the earth,
Speaker 3: like it's warm and wet and safe and generative. And
Speaker 3: I was able to breathe for the first time. The
Speaker 3: midwife says, breathe and push and then breathe again. There's
Speaker 3: like a cadence, a rhythm to sustain one's energy in
Speaker 3: any long labor. And I finally learned how to breathe.
Speaker 3: And in other words, I finally learned how to how
Speaker 3: to love my own body, my own heart, my own
Speaker 3: mind as much as I was putting out into the world.
Speaker 4: And that's where I developed.
Speaker 3: I wrote my first book, and I developed this compass,
Speaker 3: the Revolutionary Love Compass, as a tool, a practical tool.
Speaker 2: What does it do? This practical tool I'm interested in this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how would I use this if I found myself
Speaker 1: in a jeopardized by my own resentment? How would I
Speaker 1: use the revolutionarily Love compass?
Speaker 3: I want to put it in your hand right now,
Speaker 3: all right, So imagine that you're holding it because it's
Speaker 3: an actual legendary artist Shepherd Fairy is actually created a
Speaker 3: new rendition of it.
Speaker 4: It's so beautiful.
Speaker 3: People can find it online Revolutionary Love dot work, So
Speaker 3: it's a compass. Revolutionary love is a choice to labor
Speaker 3: for others, opponents, and ourselves, And at any point you
Speaker 3: can point it to the person you're practicing loving. So
Speaker 3: let's say you have another in front of you, Craig,
Speaker 3: You're my other, I'm your other. That practice is called
Speaker 3: see no Stranger, and it begins with one. And it's
Speaker 3: like you said, right, how quickly are to judge? We
Speaker 3: all carry implicit bias. Within a split second before conscious thought,
Speaker 3: our minds decide whether the person in front of us
Speaker 3: belongs to them or us, And who we see is
Speaker 3: one of us, shapes whose stories we hear, what grief
Speaker 3: we let in, what policies we support, and what leaders
Speaker 3: we elect. Right demogogues demogogus get elected because they succeed
Speaker 3: in shutting down the ability to wonder about people that
Speaker 3: they are dehumanizing and so wonder.
Speaker 1: It's a real challenge, I mean, because like if I
Speaker 1: take the example of, Look, it's seven o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 1: you're in an airport, and.
Speaker 2: You were next to someone.
Speaker 1: In my case, it's usually a really annoying gentleman in
Speaker 1: cargo shorts and flip flops who's drinking alcohol at seven am. Look,
Speaker 1: God bless them. It's up to hem. But I'll like
Speaker 1: get the hall away from me. And I can't help
Speaker 1: but judge an individual like that, and I don't. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's interesting though, even as I talk about it, though
Speaker 1: I started to go, I'll light it up.
Speaker 2: You know, what's the big deal?
Speaker 4: There's another voice in you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The dialogue's going all the time, the young in duality,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, it is, it is going all
Speaker 1: the time. But the thing is, it is it comes
Speaker 1: an equal measure. And what I'm fascinated by the idea
Speaker 1: of for me it comes an equal measure. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it comes an equal measure for everyone, but
Speaker 1: I my my snap decisions about people or my Look,
Speaker 1: I'm not as angry as I was when I was
Speaker 1: a young man.
Speaker 2: I'm just not. But you know, I've had a lot.
Speaker 1: Of therapy and I've been sober for a long time,
Speaker 1: but I still I can make snap decisions about people,
Speaker 1: which it's almost like I'm not in control of the situation.
Speaker 1: Is that what you talk about when you're talking about
Speaker 1: the Yeah, it's like it's like someone else suddenly took
Speaker 1: the controls and made me a jair.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's okay. That's okay because it's not yeah yeah,
Speaker 3: because it's not the first response that we're responsible for.
Speaker 3: It's the second response we can We're all breathing in
Speaker 3: the stereotypes. We're all being wired by the US and
Speaker 3: them's in this culture, you know, and so we can
Speaker 3: either go with what has been done to us or
Speaker 3: we can flow it down and say why, why Why
Speaker 3: did I respond that way?
Speaker 4: It's like what you just said, Oh, lighting up. I
Speaker 4: wonder if that guy.
Speaker 3: Like is going through a hard time in his life
Speaker 3: and wonder to me's really tired. I wonder if he's
Speaker 3: on his way to see his kid, you know, Like
Speaker 3: I wonder, I wonder really simple.
Speaker 1: It's very it's very useful. I have used it myself.
Speaker 1: This is a thing that I do again. It's on
Speaker 1: airplanes usually if I'm sat next to someone. First of all,
Speaker 1: if I'm sitting in the seat first, then the seat
Speaker 1: next to me actually really kind of belongs to me,
Speaker 1: and I don't really like the fact that someone else
Speaker 1: is sitting at that seat because here are Sometimes I.
Speaker 4: Just put my tea on that center. Yeah, don't get comfortable.
Speaker 1: And I glare at them and I'm like, oh, suddenly, well, Johnny,
Speaker 1: come lately, I've been sitting in this seat for upwards
Speaker 1: of three minutes, and then I forced myself to say
Speaker 1: hello and try and be nice, and I could. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I get the same thing back, you know, which is
Speaker 1: like you say mirroring hello, and then sometimes it goes
Speaker 1: really badly, and then you end up talking to someone
Speaker 1: for seven hours and hearing all about their life and
Speaker 1: times that I don't want that either.
Speaker 3: You know that happened to me yesterday. On my right,
Speaker 3: I put my tea in the center. I'm so tired.
Speaker 3: That was amazing, but I'm so tired. Put my teen
Speaker 3: right and then you know, who's.
Speaker 4: That next to me?
Speaker 3: An Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Bishop Nice take the seat next
Speaker 3: week in the robes with the cap see.
Speaker 1: I would be like, I would love that to like
Speaker 1: tell me all about that, because I got to know what's.
Speaker 2: Going on there.
Speaker 3: We ended up talking for like three hours.
Speaker 1: It's interesting, though, because when somebody has I am interested
Speaker 1: in people, particularly people who who have a faith which
Speaker 1: is identifiable and faithful, you know, in the sense that
Speaker 1: you know, I have quite a lot of atheist friends,
Speaker 1: and I'm envious of the amount of faith they have
Speaker 1: that they're correct. I like, wow, you really you're the
Speaker 1: most faith driven person I've ever met. You one hundred
Speaker 1: percent believe you're right. I've never had that in my life. Now,
Speaker 1: with what you're doing, you've really got to believe you.
Speaker 2: Do you doubt? Do you ever doubt? Sometimes that you
Speaker 2: think what am I doing here?
Speaker 4: I don't know if it's well, I feel like I'm
Speaker 4: gonna I'm going to crack this open for a minute,
Speaker 4: because Okay, I think it's.
Speaker 3: A West It's a Western constrain to think of religion
Speaker 3: or faith as a belief that you hold in your mind,
Speaker 3: as opposed to a way of being in the world.
Speaker 3: Even your first question when you're like, are you still sick?
Speaker 3: I was like, I don't know what else to be.
Speaker 3: I don't know how else to.
Speaker 4: Be in the world.
Speaker 3: Then then then through like you know, making love my compass,
Speaker 3: and in the in the sick tradition, and maybe there's
Speaker 3: something about the sick tradition being as a mystical tradition.
Speaker 3: You know, it's and then it's a young tradition. So
Speaker 3: it's it's a tradition that we do not proselytize. We
Speaker 3: do not believe that our way is the better way,
Speaker 3: even the only way is right.
Speaker 1: See that's I think any any group of people that say, look,
Speaker 1: this is what we do, but it's not the only
Speaker 1: way to do it. Immediately you have my attention. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: well that seems reasonable to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's start with reasonability and then we'll get to
Speaker 3: then I'll get to get you to be inspired. Because
Speaker 3: the the invitation is like wherever you are, whatever path
Speaker 3: you are.
Speaker 4: On, is a path where you can awaken.
Speaker 3: Even like the atheists are talking about, if you're inspired
Speaker 3: by poetry and music and humanity, you you can whatever
Speaker 3: tools that you have can be a tool to awaken
Speaker 3: to to transcend a taste, to like, to wonder, to
Speaker 3: become a sage, and and then from.
Speaker 4: That because the underlying it all is our is our connection.
Speaker 3: That in the tradition, the belief is that the horror
Speaker 3: problem to all of our crises, social, economic, political, is disconnection,
Speaker 3: disconnection from the earth, disconnection from each other, disconnection from ourselves.
Speaker 3: And so whatever path that gets you to return to
Speaker 3: a sense of connectedness in your body and your heart
Speaker 3: and your spirit will return you to the ability the
Speaker 3: capacity to love.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let me ask you this, because you're a
Speaker 2: human being, You're.
Speaker 1: You're on a book tour, You're tired. I know what
Speaker 1: a book tour is like, and it is hard, and
Speaker 1: that you are tired. I'm sure you're tired. And you
Speaker 1: have young children.
Speaker 2: You're tired.
Speaker 1: Is there ever a point in your life where you
Speaker 1: think this is Do you get discouraged, if not necessarily
Speaker 1: like doubt, but discourage. Do you think this hell is insurmountable?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: This goes back to why I reacted so strongly when
Speaker 3: you said the word positive earlier.
Speaker 2: Right, it's interesting to me. Yeah, I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: because my.
Speaker 4: Sometimes I feel deeply hopeless.
Speaker 3: I put my babies to sleep, I pick up my
Speaker 3: phone and I'm scrolling, and my aith algorithm delivers me
Speaker 3: to the front lines of Gaza, where I'm looking into
Speaker 3: the shut eyes of children who look like my own,
Speaker 3: and I just the despair, I mean, the last ten
Speaker 3: months low despair is so deep, so deep, and the
Speaker 3: hopelessness for me, hope has become like a feeling that
Speaker 3: ebbs and flows, that waxes and wanes. Sometimes it's really
Speaker 3: big and bright and luminous, like a full moon, and
Speaker 3: you would.
Speaker 4: Say that was really, that's really positive.
Speaker 3: And then sometimes it's a cresset, and sometimes it's just
Speaker 3: not there at all. And I have come to understand
Speaker 3: that what matters is the work that my hands do
Speaker 3: in the dark.
Speaker 4: Can I keep myself going?
Speaker 3: Can I can I keep Can I wake up in
Speaker 3: the morning and still give my kids breakfast even when
Speaker 3: I And what animates me to keep doing that is Joy,
Speaker 3: your podcast Joy. In the Sick tradition, Joy is trying
Speaker 3: to slated as jardvi Kola, which literally means ever rising spirits,
Speaker 3: even in darkness, ever rising Joy.
Speaker 4: It's it's not about the past the future at all.
Speaker 3: It's about the present now, here now, can I show
Speaker 3: up with the buoyant energy in my body to keep
Speaker 3: moving my hands, to keep moving my voice, to keep
Speaker 3: moving my body in the world, to play my role
Speaker 3: in the sacred labor that that is before me.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is, I think that's beautiful. I think that
Speaker 1: it's it's uh. I think it's a wonderful, embraceable philosophy.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting though that it has echoes of so many,
Speaker 1: like you say, so many many other Yeah, I know
Speaker 1: so little about the Sikh tradition that I know so
Speaker 1: little about you know about Eastern religious My back ground
Speaker 1: is in Western mostly you know, Judeo Christian religions, and
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm fascinated by them. But the more mysterious
Speaker 1: they are when you look at them. And what I
Speaker 1: mean by that is if you look at the you know,
Speaker 1: Moses on Mount Sinai, or or the or the or
Speaker 1: Origin of Alexandria and early Christianity and the Christian mystics.
Speaker 1: Basically it's the mysticism. It's the mysticism, yes, that I
Speaker 1: find fascinating. And there was a there's something you said
Speaker 1: about about the the Origin story which I thought I
Speaker 1: found fascinating, which is about the silence and the choiet,
Speaker 1: the the I saw something on YouTube years ago when
Speaker 1: one of my kids was very small. It was just
Speaker 1: we're looking this thing about the planets, and it was
Speaker 1: you know, outer space and the planets, and it was
Speaker 1: you know, some science program from or something, and but
Speaker 1: basically it said, the universe is made up mostly of
Speaker 1: black holes, and mostly black in black holes, mostly it's silence,
Speaker 1: and most of the universe is quiet and nothing is happening,
Speaker 1: and that is the that and it is in the silence.
Speaker 1: It's in the silence. It seems to tie in to
Speaker 1: the mysticism of the religions I know, and I know
Speaker 1: nothing about yours, but but the the idea that that
Speaker 1: God is in the silence, that the like, the like,
Speaker 1: the mysticism and the the peace is in that feeling
Speaker 1: of like nothingness, even if you like almost like oblivion.
Speaker 1: And a personal level, I saw that when I was drinking,
Speaker 1: you know, when I when I was alcoholically drinking, I
Speaker 1: was seeking oblivion. I was seeking nothingness. And I wonder
Speaker 1: if if that wonderful. Wonder first of all, if that's
Speaker 1: my wound, but also where does that could that nothing
Speaker 1: that's come from that just that quiet, peaceful nothing's really
Speaker 1: going on. You know that feeling you get when your
Speaker 1: kids are asleep and the house is asleep. Yeah, everybody's
Speaker 1: asleep and you're awake, but you're nearly asleep and the
Speaker 1: children are sleeping.
Speaker 2: That quietness. I love that.
Speaker 1: I love that, and that I think is the that's
Speaker 1: the center of the universe for me. Is that in
Speaker 1: any way related to what you're talking about?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? Absolutely well.
Speaker 2: I feel I'm beginning to understand it a little now.
Speaker 1: No, I'm fascinated by it because when I said the
Speaker 1: word positive and you did react quite unexpectedly. For me,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I didn't expect you to say no,
Speaker 1: I don't see it like that. I expected you to say, yes,
Speaker 1: I am very positive. But that's good. You know that
Speaker 1: it's good for me. How would you describe.
Speaker 2: It then, if you don't describe it as positive.
Speaker 5: M joyful, powerful, yes, fierce, alive, wise, And maybe we
Speaker 5: go back to that compass for a moment, this compass.
Speaker 3: You might appreciate this actually, because all all of these
Speaker 3: wisdom traditions call us to love. We've heard it for
Speaker 3: thousands of years. But are you know why aren't we
Speaker 3: practicing it. Why hasn't it transformed the world already? And
Speaker 3: and so I was obsessed with this question of how,
Speaker 3: how how do we put it into practice as ordinary people?
Speaker 4: And we got together with a team of researchers.
Speaker 3: And neuroscience and ethics and history and psychology and and
Speaker 3: identify these ten core practices which I began to see
Speaker 3: as points on a compass. So this compass is actually
Speaker 3: an evidence based tool, and this is going to go
Speaker 3: come back to you because we realized, I realize that
Speaker 3: the problem in this culture is that people think about
Speaker 3: love is a feeling like you fall in love. And certainly,
Speaker 3: when my child was placed on in my arms, my
Speaker 3: son the first time, I was shaking and sobbing, and
Speaker 3: I was like, this is love.
Speaker 4: I'm falling in love. I'm falling in love.
Speaker 3: And I was, I was falling. But my mother then
Speaker 3: opened up her bag, took out her doll and jol
Speaker 3: and began to feed me like you just saw her do,
Speaker 3: like feeding her baby while I'm feeding my baby, Like
Speaker 3: she's never stopped laboring for me. My mother has known
Speaker 3: what I took me a long time to get that
Speaker 3: love is sweet labor, it's fierce it's demanding, it's imperfect,
Speaker 3: it's life giving, and that if love is labor, then
Speaker 3: love contains the whole range of human emotions.
Speaker 4: Joy is the gift of love. Grief is the price
Speaker 4: of love.
Speaker 3: Rage is the force we harness to protect that which
Speaker 3: we love, and when we feel like we've reached our limit,
Speaker 3: wonder is what returns us to love.
Speaker 4: All of these emotions, would you grief, rage?
Speaker 3: You know? To push to to listen. People might not
Speaker 3: think of them as positive emotions. Sometimes they don't feel good, right,
Speaker 3: they don't feel good, And that's why we like try
Speaker 3: to numb ourselves. I don't know if that's part of
Speaker 3: why you reach for the bottle, Like it's hard to feel.
Speaker 3: It's hard to feel all parts of ourselves. It takes courage, right,
Speaker 3: But can we tend parts of ourselves like we would
Speaker 3: our own beloved child and say, oh, my love, this
Speaker 3: grief is welcome, This rage is welcome. Let me accompany you,
Speaker 3: Let me wonder about you. You are a part of
Speaker 3: me I do not yet know, And that wondering accompanying
Speaker 3: is the process of alchemizing that energy into courageous action,
Speaker 3: into how we respond. And so that's what I'm inviting
Speaker 3: people into revolutionary Love is like a way, a constant.
Speaker 3: It's a framework for being human together, fully alive, together,
Speaker 3: fully in community, together with all parts of ourselves in
Speaker 3: here and out there.
Speaker 1: I'm very intrigued and delighted to have spent some time
Speaker 1: with you.
Speaker 2: I I am.
Speaker 1: I wish you'd so much luck with us. I don't
Speaker 1: think you need luck. I don't think I think. I
Speaker 1: think it's you're doing the right thing. And it's not
Speaker 1: that you need my permission or even my endorsement, but
Speaker 1: it's but I I'm fascinated by it, and.
Speaker 2: I feel like, at the risk of offending you, I
Speaker 2: feel like it is.
Speaker 1: A force for good and it is positive, and I
Speaker 1: for good. I'll take that. I'll it is though. It
Speaker 1: is a force for good. But I in my own
Speaker 1: I'm just kind of try to wrap this up a
Speaker 1: little bit. But in my own kind of cynicism, I
Speaker 1: fear for you a little bit because when you start,
Speaker 1: it's like that thing that you said earlier. You know,
Speaker 1: when when you go out there spread the message of love,
Speaker 1: it's going to make a lot of people angry, a
Speaker 1: lot of people angry, especially because they.
Speaker 2: Will not believe you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know that, I know you do.
Speaker 2: I guess I'm just saying it to hear myself say it.
Speaker 2: I think no.
Speaker 3: I had to go back into my deep, into my
Speaker 3: own ancestors wisdom about this. And we're getting on a
Speaker 3: bus to forty five cities in the middle of this
Speaker 3: election season where there have been assassination attempts, where people
Speaker 3: are marching in the streets, hoods off.
Speaker 4: You know, with the Nazi bit. Why am I going
Speaker 4: into the hot winds.
Speaker 3: I'm going into the storm with this message, with this medicine,
Speaker 3: with this antidote, and it's never been safe. And every
Speaker 3: night for centuries, our sick ancestors have sung a song
Speaker 3: called Sohila, and in Sohila we sing of death as
Speaker 3: a wedding day, as a return to the beloved. I
Speaker 3: hope I live to be a very old woman, Craig,
Speaker 3: will both be old on.
Speaker 4: Our rocking chairs. You're not that much older than me,
Speaker 4: are you?
Speaker 2: Oh? I think I'm I think I'm shockingly older than
Speaker 2: your You're.
Speaker 4: Going to moisturized, keep doing that. I want, I want,
Speaker 4: I do. I want. I want to live as old
Speaker 4: as my grandparents.
Speaker 3: And even if I don't get to even if this
Speaker 3: message puts me in harm's way, I I know that
Speaker 3: when I leave this earth, I'll be returning to the
Speaker 3: oneess that always is the silence that you speak of,
Speaker 3: and there is joy in that too.
Speaker 4: Whenever that take comes, it should be.
Speaker 1: So it's lovely to spend some time with you, Valerie.
Speaker 1: I wish you would have a good time on that.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to have a good time. Thank you, and please,
Speaker 1: I feel terrible because your mom made your breakfast you
Speaker 1: haven't eaten it yet, So go and eat your breakfast
Speaker 1: and say I to your mom, and I'll I wish
Speaker 1: you luck and I'll speak to you sir.
Speaker 4: Thank you, love you, love bye.
Speaker 2: Paper for pot prod