Navigating Times of Change: Finding Peace and Purpose in Uncertainty

In this episode hosts Tava Baird and Jennifer Taylor dive deep into handling the complexities of our rapidly changing world.   Jennifer expresses her quest for guidance, clarity and purpose while living in challenging times. Through her sharing of song, she catalyses an unusually lengthy response to her questions, from Samael. Tava and Jennifer explore various spiritual insights and messages, emphasizing the importance of following personal guidance and focusing on the work that aligns with one's true path, including practical tips on shifting focus from distressing news to impactful actions.

Listeners will hear inspiring stories about the power of community, sustainable living, and small acts of kindness that can lead to significant change. The episode concludes with a song Samael called, "Sanctuary", intended to help listeners transition from a state of survival to one of thriving and embracing the hope and possibilities of the future. 

SHOW NOTES:

Transcript of Samaels' words on the Falling of the City: https://www.tavabaird.com/blog

Toni Morrison in The Marginalian: https://www.themarginalian.org/2016/11/15/toni-morrison-art-despair/

Book (so you can see and read about it): Instructions to the Cook

Videos: Virtual Choirs During the Pandemic:

STUNNING - Tava's favorite: Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir 4: Fly to Paradise

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir 6: Sing Gently

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia8l2T3-JAw (Short Film)

Stay at Home Choir: Caledonia 

Pandemic Virtual Choir: I'll Fly Away

Thank you joining us today, remember to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to keep up to date with your tribe.

Connect with your Hosts!

Tava Baird: tavabaird.com or https://darkflowerbooks.etsy.com.

Jennifer Taylor: Willow Ridge Reiki and Healing Arts https://www.willowridgereiki.com/

Transcript

[00:00:05] Jennifer Taylor: Good morning, 

Jennifer Taylor. Good morning, Tava Baird. I am so excited to see where we go today. 

[00:00:13] Tava Baird: I am too. It's, this podcast is now essentially we've taken off the brakes and we just get in the car and, give ourselves a little Flintstone running forward and see where we end up.

And, I never fail to be surprised by it. 

[00:00:28] Jennifer Taylor: Yeah, It is always fun and always surprising. So yeah, I look forward to seeing where we go. I definitely, I have some questions for Samuel and some things that, I feel like at least for me, Erin, it's kind of the elephant in the room right now with all the things that are happening in our world and our, uh, in our country.

Just kind of looking for some clarity and some sense of, I know what to do and, you know, I know what my work is and, and this is how to move through these times. So I'm hoping it will be a podcast filled with a little bit of kind of peace and clarity. 

[00:01:07] Tava Baird: Yes, I'm really excited to talk about this today, not that I have anything planned.

I'm literally going to sit back, as I like to say, with my bag of chips and let the seraphine sort of start the conversation and see where it goes. you know, it is a time of tremendous change and also, there's a lot of fear and a lot of grief and a lot of, very, very high emotion.

And so, I'm curious to hear, what, you're Samuel has to say, and hopefully he won't be sitting there with a bag of Fritos as well, waiting for us to figure it out. So, um, I will say, um, so for those of you who are listening, Jen's been doing some really interesting, incredible work with music lately.

And there is a particular song that she sang earlier this week that she sent me on a Marco with, I think is like Samuel snack food. It has been just constantly, it's been a constant request of his, and I, I've probably listened to it a hundred times this week. Um, And I'm like, Oh, you know, when we want to feel happy, we go get a slice of chocolate cake or a lollipop.

And it seems like angels snack on music. So, um, it's really interesting. But speaking of music, um. Do you want to go ahead and bring us into a nice, rounded space for conversation? 

[00:02:35] Jennifer Taylor: Sure, I will. And it'll be interesting to see what comes through. I know now I have that part playing in my mind, so I'm like, we'll see, uh, if that's what's supposed to come through or what happens.

[00:02:48] Tava Baird: So he will not mind if you sing that part again. Yeah. 

[00:02:51] Jennifer Taylor: I feel like it might be good just to at least start with singing that, that just so people know it has now been going on in your mind as well in the background and we can, it's always good to start by making the seraphim happy. 

[00:03:04] Tava Baird: Always. Yeah.

I think I should get a t shirt that says just start by making the seraphim happy. 

[00:03:12] Jennifer Taylor: All right. I will switch mics and let's see what happens.

(singing)

[00:05:36] Tava Baird: . Might just need a minute. There are pages and pages and pages coming out. Take your time. Sorry. That's a lot. 

[00:07:31] Jennifer Taylor: No, that's okay. Actually, I have stuff seeming to come through also, so I'm like, 

[00:07:36] Tava Baird: um, 

okay. We have one, two, three, four, five pages. 

[00:07:44] Jennifer Taylor: All right, and I haven't even asked a question yet. Although I'm sure he heard me going through the question before this. Yeah, 

[00:07:52] Tava Baird: this is very much in response to that. And I'm curious to see what came through on your end too. Would you like to go first? And talk about maybe the experience of the song a little bit?

I would love to know what goes on. with that, because Samuel is so drawn to that particular song, I would love to know sort of like what your experience of it is as you're singing it. 

[00:08:17] Jennifer Taylor: Um, gosh, that's really interesting. That's a good question. Um, so originally when I received it, I received it in the context of a healing session for someone else.

So. I was really engulfed in that, just the energy of moving and I really had just completely turned over to the energy and being moved and singing what was coming through and,originally when that was coming through the images and the motions were And I'm almost positive this is, that I'm remembering this part right because it's kind of like a dream after the fact.

Um, it doesn't, it's not in that part of my mind that is storing things. But 

[00:09:05] Tava Baird: I 

[00:09:06] Jennifer Taylor: was moving my arms initially low and I, I started realizing I was like this big black bird or especially the lower half of me was this black, some kind of raptor sort of bird. and, you know, just kind of flapping the wings and bringing them up and it, it felt like a.

Sacred darkness that I was working with that was working on the lower half and then this higher part like that, that kind of lilting a higher part. My hands were up above me and moving around, which I think happened again when I was when I was thinking it does now. And then there was this. There's this line that is kind of that follows that which was sort of this in between space and the when my hands were up higher.

It was this Really bright white light kind of that I would see above me and the bottom part was that that big black bird and slowly the longer I did it and I'm I think I must have done it for 20 straight minutes or longer and as it was happening, it would get stronger and so that black bird was coming up higher and higher and That white light from above was starting to come down and then almost to kind of blend with it.

And I realized I was making these big motions back and forth and at one point where it was like, it was getting like stronger and stronger and the two were building to where it was like that, that sacred darkness kind of energy or whatever was coming through with that big black bird. And I guess I would say bird of prey.

I don't know exactly what kind of bird, but it didn't feel vulture like it felt more like a. bird of prey. And that light then started to kind of blend more together. And I ended up being called to pick up one of my rattles and, and use the rattle. And on the rattle is this big black raven with, these white like little white spots like little white like drops of paint all over it and I was thinking that feels Really a lot of like there was a lot of power in it.

Like it felt very powerful, but also Joyful, like things were happening and the energy was moving and I knew it was really really powerful But it also had This sense of hope to it. Like it was like positive things are happening. Things are really moving. And thenthings felt just kind of balanced where like all of those energies felt like they were really balanced and things felt really good.

And as I was then singing it this time, it took me a little bit to kind of get a little bit more into that space, but it's interesting once I get into it. I could probably just stand there and sing that over and over and over. It's like I don't want to stop at once to just keep coming out. I feel really empowered and at peace and more clear coming out of it.

it's hard to describe. I feel like there's probably a word that I'm not getting to be able to describe, the feeling of it.

Yeah, it's not coming. I'm not gonna get, not getting anywhere with that. Oh, but you know what? I will show you the rattle real quick so you can see, what it looks like. And then you hear it at the end of that piece that I, I sent. And when I 

[00:12:41] Tava Baird: get this up on YouTube, people will be able to see it then too.

[00:12:45] Jennifer Taylor: Yes. Oh wow, you know what? I haven't looked at it since I really haven't looked at the rattle since then, and I only barely glimpsed it because my eyes were closed, and so I remembered it looking a little bit different and only having a few little, um, specks of white, but it's not, it's like super, let me turn the light away maybe, but it's like super streaked with it, and then has this, I guess for people who can't see this, it has these big, black wings, and then it has Bye.

It's almost like these white, I wonder if it's like white where the chakras are, or it looks almost like stars kind of going down the center line of it, and then these, like vertical stripes of white. And little black dots at the end of them all on the wings. There's so much more white on that than I ever realized until I'm looking at it right now.

[00:13:40] Tava Baird: It's funny because we think of it, you know, oh, it's a raven, so it's got to be black. But there's literally like an equal amount of black and white on that raven, but it's still recognizable as a raven. 

[00:13:48] Jennifer Taylor: There is. It is. Isn't that so funny? It's like my brain just went, that's the raven rattle. Ravens are black.

It's black. But, yeah, and then there's this, I'm trying to think what that is, like a, there's a symbol behind it. And I know this was actually made by Native Americans, for sun reed, instruments. And so I think that's probably some sort of symbol. And then there's the black around it.

With the stars. It's almost like a sun kind of energy. It's like flying over the sun, but then there's the night behind it. 

[00:14:25] Tava Baird: It's interesting to me because it reminds me, do you know the story of how the Norse story of how Ravens, um, got black feathers? 

[00:14:35] Jennifer Taylor: I remember you telling me that story. I could probably never tell it properly myself, but I remember, you telling me that now that you, say that.

[00:14:44] Tava Baird: So it was interesting with that raven that is half black and half white. It just reminds me of the fact that, you know, the Norse believed that at one point ravens were, were white and that it wasn't until Odin told, Huginn and Muninn, and I'm sorry, my, I don't pronounce Norse very well, but he told his ravens, that, you know, the ravens are supposed to fly around the world and bring him back information, and he kept telling them, you're missing something, you're missing something, and wouldn't tell them how it was that they were missing things until one you One evening, instead of returning to report to Odin, they think, what if we fly all night?

And it's the first time that they can actually see the dreams of men and what people do in the darkness. And, when they returned the next morning to Odin to tell him about this entire other half of life that they had now seen, their feathers had turned from white to black. And I, I just, I love that story, you know, and the idea that the white raven and the, and the dark raven and But they, you know, representing the day and the night and the people we are out in society versus the things that we keep hidden and private.

Um, so yeah, it's cool stuff. Love that story. 

[00:15:58] Jennifer Taylor: Yeah, that rattle does go really perfectly with that story and having the, divine light and the darkness altogether is really cool. and I guess to answer the second part of what you were saying, so it was interesting.

is I sat down or, you know, I finished singing and then I was working on switching mics and you were like, you know, hold on, there is like pages and pages and pages of stuff coming through. So I was like, that's great. I'm just going to kind of sit here in the energy. And I felt like then all of these answers to the questions that I was, I had been asking were just coming out and I don't know if it was Archangel Michael or if I was tapping into all that was coming through from Samuel or if this was from, you know, some other source or maybe it was just my intuition, but I, I was thinking, you know, so, and I guess I realized, I haven't really asked the question so that the listeners can hear it to know what it is that I was posing and what it is that I was saying.

So the questions and what I was,talking to, Tava about as kind of a possibility of what we might talk about today was that it feels like right now, you know, there's so much going on. There's so much going on, you know, politically and environmentally and all these things. And I'm trying to get a sense of how to be a good citizen, you know, how to be a responsible, contributing, caring part of this world and this planet and to do the work that I'm being told that I'm supposed to do and that it's, it can be really challenging.

I think my biggest question is that I keep being told not to look at, like, to kind of look away from all of the, the strife and the things that are happening and to keep my vision on the, you.

Envisioning and dreaming the world into being that I see as being in the highest good and not necessarily in putting my version of how everything should be, but just continuing to envision a world that is whole and worth living in. balanced and where the planet and all of the creatures on it, humans and animals and plants and all are being respected and valued and loved and safe and that, you know, continuing to dream.

Kind of a better world into being is, is our job and that when we start looking at or when I start looking at the things that are happening, I glimpse the news and I hear about various things that are happening, it lowers my energy and I start getting distracted and getting stressed and worried. And then I start trying to figure out You know, what do I do?

What do I need to do about this? You know, do. I need to, join this organization or give money to this organization that is, fighting for the rights of people and doing things, that seem to be in the highest good of everyone. And then, you know, kind of going down rabbit holes of, well, where should I spend my money?

You know, should I be trying to figure out which companies to support and which not to support based on how they're caring for the planet and how they're caring for the people and animals. And all of that though, lowers my energy and gets me really stressed and distracted. And I could spend. my entire days just trying to figure out where the most responsible place to buy toothpaste is.

And, may not even be able to get there because everything is intertwined. everything is enmeshed, you know, even going to the farmer's market. The, the farmers had to buy their seed and their fertilizer from somewhere and where is that money going? And you know, it's like everything is enmeshed.

And so I started getting really overwhelmed and thinking, I just need a sense of how do we go through our lives and go through these times of tremendous change and feels like there's a lot of breakdown happening, a breakdown of systems and breakdown of things that, you know, I've I've been told through so many different sources is a natural part of the building up that needs to happen.

just like you have to have, compost, you compost the stuff in the garden and it goes back into the soil and then, feeds things, but that living through that sort of process is really challenging and so how can we How can I move through this time in a way that is responsible and supportive and doing the greatest amount of good that we can do?

I think I have eventually gotten somewhere to where my question was. 

[00:21:10] Tava Baird: No, and I think that's, you know, this is these are questions that a lot of us have, you know, if we end up spending most of our day trying to figure out if the toothpaste cap manufacturer is just as ethical as the marketer for the toothpaste is, you know, like, we are going to drown in minutiae and become immobilized Yeah.

And so, there comes a point where you have to say, okay, as Samuel frequently says, nothing is one pure thing. Like, we are never going to find the perfect toothpaste. We have to, we have to accept that. What we have to do is find the toothpaste that does the least amount of damage. with the information we have now.

And then on down the line, if somebody else tells us about a better toothpaste, then we switch. You know, I know the same thing is happening a lot with, with social media. and this has been going on for years at this point where there are people who say, you know, there's this, basically huge evil corporate entity running this thing.

and it's making choices that are allowing hate speech and stuff to come into it. And then, but then you also have people who say, Yeah, but I feel like if I don't stand my ground here, they'll just keep taking from me and no place, there'll be no place where I can express myself. So then you have to sort of be able to make that personal choice of am I leaving and that's my act of protest or am I staying and that's my act of protest and balance all those things and it is.

exhausting. It is exhausting to have to look at literally everything and also, I think, one of the things that has happened in recent years is, I grew up with this idea, you know, maybe it was mostly because I was a military kid or whatever, but I grew up with this idea that, America was basically run by people who do what they were doing all the time and that, Americans will always make.

strong choices, well informed choices, and the older I've gotten, the more I realize that, each individual person is completely different and that while we call ourselves the United States of America, we have in fact never really been united. we have ideals of being united, but in practice that's never been the case.

And so I know one of the things that's happened to me over the last decade, as looking at things from an adult point of view and going, wow, all of these lofty ideals that, I thought were already in place. As a kid, are not in fact in place and that my sort of, I was sort of looking at the world through rose colored glasses, um, and I'm sure a ton of that just has to do with, you know, I'm a middle aged white woman in America.

And, so, you know, there's a certain amount of privilege that comes with who I am. Um, and so this has been, not only is there, you know, strife, but a lot of us are, we're, it's really hitting home. Um, I know a lot of people say we feel like we've gone back in time 40 years in the course of a very short period of time.

And Samaya actually talks about that in the pages that, that I just, transcribed from him. 

[00:24:26] Jennifer Taylor: Um, let's have 

[00:24:26] Tava Baird: you go first cause he talked for five pages. So

[00:24:33] Jennifer Taylor: basically what, what immediately came through was that I need to listen to the messages that I receive. And that they're not the same for everyone. And that everyone will have their own work to do and their own messages. And what's important is that we not generalize to others, but act on our messages and do our work.

And, you know, I am being told as a healer to do my healing work and to look away from all that would distract me from that. And not all are being given that message. And that it's for each of us to receive and follow the messages that we're receiving. Because my concern was kind of that.

You know, if I keep being told your work is still your work, like it doesn't matter what else is happening around you, you know, your work, we've been telling you what to do. Your work is still your work. Do not get distracted. And I keep thinking, well, if everybody is supposed to be doing this, is this really sustainable?

And I don't want to be someone who just ignores the damage that Is happening or, you know, and just lives in my little bubble of privilege and while every while things are getting worse for everyone else, and but at the same time, I want to be following the guidance that I'm given, because that's absolutely really, really important.

so it sounded like, everyone isn't being given the same message. So, you know, it's not everyone's going to be doing their own thing. And I said, well, how do we. How do we know that we are clear on what our work is? Like how, will it feel? How can people know for sure? And I know what my answer has been but I wanted to see what would come through and it just said, you know, it will feel solid and grounded and good and the idea of doing it will feel like the only right thing and the dust will settle and the sun will come out and it's like that is what it feels like when you are being placed onto your true path and I said, it's everyone meant to be dreaming this new world into being and I got everyone is doing that already.

It's simply a matter of doing it consciously or not. And I was starting to ask, you know, basically what are, if, you know, if everyone has. is receiving different messages and has different, um, you know, different specific work to do, which makes total sense that, you know, we would not all be told to do the same thing.

like we've talked about before. Like if everybody's just given a hammer, you're still not going to ever be able to build a, house. Um, and so one of my questions was, are there some messages that are good for all to hear and all to heed that is something that we can all know but then it felt like everything was sort of fading and, and the, uh, that was, that was kind of the end of what was coming through.

So I'm very, very interested to hear what was coming through for you. 

[00:27:49] Tava Baird: So here we go. 

He says, let us speak of cities. Why do humans make cities? Let us think on that. The embodied live together for comfort, for convenience. But most of all, for safety.

Together, humans make the bricks and mix the mortar to build the walls. And yet, cities can be places of great danger on their own. Disease spreads quickly inside the walls. Humans can become locked in to their own starvation, trapped with the fire. They convince themselves that it is still the best choice.

But no, umshallah, not in times such as these. What is it you said? And I have to laugh at this next part. Do you remember it was going around on the internet a couple of months ago and it had been out before that. And it was a lot of women talking about, would they rather be in the woods with a bear at night?

Or in, I think it's in the woods with a strange man. and women kept posting, I choose the bear. Right? Because they felt more safe taking their chances. In a lot of situations with a wild animal than with man that they didn't know. And I remember reading a lot of those.

and he says, No, Umshala, not in times such as these. What is it you said? I would rather exist with the bear. Then the man, when those in power behind the walls show themselves to only crave regression, you must leave the city and build a new home. It is time for a pilgrimage. When a tree becomes too top heavy, it must be pruned.

First, decide what you will take with you, and whom. You will be forming a new tribe and each must earn their place. The city wants you frantic, move in calm instead. You need healers, leaders, farmers, laborers, teachers, Warriors, priestesses, gatherers, artists, assemble your circle and go through your things.

Do not dwell in minutia. that is not the divine view. And then he says, Dream of what your new homestead, your new village, will be. Disassemble your old and give what is left to the needy. Your perspective will be different once you start walking. Once free of the stale air and stagnation of life between the walls.

For. Where are you going, Umshala? Back towards the wild. Back towards nature. And so, back towards God. They will not want you to leave, for they wish your obedience. But you have only one leader, and it is the wild. Learn to defend yourself. Form collectives to share resources and trade and defend. With no one to rule, the kings will fall in ways you could never have predicted.

Do not worry the wounds they deliver. Ditch them and leave the abuser behind. Move from churches to circles, move from townhouse to cottage, purge the commercial poison from you, draw inward, but once your energy is marshaled, find new ways to reach out. Do not give hate attention. Instead, feed those around you, and prepare for the day when the city does fall.

In its place, you will have made a society anew. Be ready. Grow strong, in body and spirit. You say, we have gone backwards by decades. But not all progress is lost. You cannot see it, based on where you stand. The walls shake before they fall. The jackals growl before they consume themselves. Remember, this is not the only country.

Find your own allies. Turn off the boxes, go outside, and find a hand to hold. This next part is the part that I find the most interesting out of all of this. Look to the victory garden and build your own. Do you know what a victory garden is? I don't know. 

[00:33:16] Jennifer Taylor: I remember there being a show on like PBS or something called Victory Garden.

[00:33:22] Tava Baird: Yes. So, during World War II, people built these things called Victory Gardens. A lot of the resources in America, a lot of the commercial, um, resources were being, and I hope I've got this all correct because I haven't looked this up, this is the first time hearing him talk about this. Um, but a lot of things were switched so that the war could be, could be supplied.

And people started building these little gardens around their houses and growing their own food. And sharing it among the communities and they were called Victory Gardens. And so I think this is the sentiment that he's trying to take us forward is moving away from the reliance on the big and the commercial in ways that we can.

And rolling up our sleeves, going outside, touching the wild. And in doing so, finding our center and a way to ground to get us through times of war. Um, so he says, look to the victory garden and build your own place of nourishment in a time of war. You do not need to watch the unstoppable wounds being delivered.

Thread your needle to prepare for repair. It is now time. The someday when you would step into your own. It is here. Build. Crowd out what does not deserve your energy and attention. Lead. So, it seems like we have, and there's this one more note, and I'm not sure where it was supposed to go in that. There was one more line, which is, With all growth comes death, and death throes are often not easy.

It's funny because one of the things, I read this really interesting article that was talking about, Um, it seems like we're going backwards because we have a lot of people who want things to remain The way they were pre 1980, and if we go back and we look at the 80s, right? Okay, so what was happening in the 80s?

We had, um, jelly shoes and Bermuda bags and, the threat of nuclear war. We had an AIDS epidemic. We had, rampant cocaine usage. We had the commercialism was on the rise, and it actually It feels a lot like a lot of the things that are going on now, but we did make it through the 80s. We made it through World War II.

So there are, we're not existing in a vacuum. There are people and there are generations before us that figured out how to do this and, endure difficult times. And I think he's saying we can take a lot of our cues from them. Um, Cities Falling is a big theme with him we originally turned to them.

You know, if you look at European cities especially. The whole reason they started up was defense, you know, if, if another kingdom is coming to attack you, you need walls and you need weaponry and then over time it became, you know, hey, all of the, the blacksmith is here and the seamstress is here and, and they became places of convenience and places where it was considered that life was better, but when you, When the city is deteriorating and the city has disease in it, we can't be afraid to say, okay, it's now time for me to step outside of the structure that I thought was going to protect me forever.

And let's face it, we all have lots of habits and structures that we get really, really conditioned to. You know, I'm just watching people, bemoan social media, what am I going to do if I leave Facebook or what am I going to do if I leave, you know, I've been hearing people talk about leaving Twitter for years and they speak of it with the passion as though they are having to abandon a child.

You know, we have to remember that social media was basically started as a way for us to share pictures of our lunches. Right? Like it wasn't meant to be the end all be all of our social interaction. and we have tons and tons and tons, and of course I say this as I'm about to, you know, go advertise this podcast on social media afterwards, um, but there has to be a balance here.

And I think what's happened is we are swinging so far in one direction that now there is disease inside the city walls and it's going to be a tremendous amount of work. You talked about, you know, sort of dreaming what we want to come to fruition. I think Samuel is now pushing us to we, we have been dreaming.

Let's examine the dreams, see if they are what we really want. If not, dream something else. And then don't be afraid to actually step outside and look at the people around you and say, Okay, you know what? We're not super excited about the way that our social media is. Why don't we start a newsletter instead?

There's actually like a lot of people who are going back to old fashioned zines and newsletters and stuff like that, you know? and, sort of this do it yourself mentality. We can exist outside these systems, and if you think about it, what a lot of the systems want is simply attention. I was thinking a little bit about this the other day.

So, I've started watching Supernatural about 15 years after everybody else. It is my brain candy, you know, when I'm eating dinner and I just want to watch something kind of fun. Um, and, but I am a squeamish person. I cannot make it through a horror film in one piece. So I spend, there is a lot of sort of like graphic violence in Supernatural.

So, I spend a lot of time watching the screen with one hand covering up, the blood or whatever it is that's coming out. And, I can still enjoy the story and understand what is going on without having to watch every, squirting of fake blood and every gunshot wound that happens in that.

Watching those happen stresses me out, and so I almost think, like, it reminds me of when I was a teacher. Gosh, you guys, I'm jumping all over the place today. I would have parents that never missed a parent teacher conference. They would come to every activity. Jen, you were one of them. You know, they were always there at like the school night.

and these parents were so tuned in and they knew what was going on and they wanted to do the right thing and they wanted to be involved in their child school and they, they wanted to form a partnership. Those were the parents that worried constantly about being vigilant and I wanted to be like if you're worried about, are you coming to enough items to enough, you know, activities.

You're coming to enough activities. You're not the problem. It's the people who have no idea what's going on and have never come to anything and forget to show up to their child's parent teacher conference. Those are the ones that I'm worried about. So I think if we're sitting here thinking, Oh God, if I don't watch the news.

Who's going to be watching the news, right? We have to remember that a tremendous amount of our news at this point is simply trying to fill a 24 hour void, a vacuum, right? The world got on great for many years with no 24 hour News cycle. People would turn it on at 6 when they were eating dinner, and then they would turn it off.

And, but the structures we have built in our modern society now are, I need to be informed all the time. But that, that level of information is sapping us. We all know shit's going down. We don't necessarily need to watch the cuts being made. Instead, let's spend that time gathering the bandages for the wounded and being there to support them.

Because there's a lot of cuts that we can't stop. at this point, but putting our attention and our energy onto those that we can help around us is going to make the communities that we do have so much stronger, so that when the war is over, when the city does fall, when the emperor no longer has clothes, we are able to say, Okay, you guys, we actually already have headway on a new and better Way to be underway. 

So, um, that was a lot of, of Samael. 

[00:42:48] Jennifer Taylor: Yeah, I mean, it's, it's so interesting and I think sometimes, I know he tends to speak so much in, parables, maybe not the, right word but , you know, it's all very, um, Oh, what's the word? 

[00:43:04] Tava Baird: Biblical. He talks like this. Yeah, 

[00:43:05] Jennifer Taylor: it is very biblical. Like, metaphorical, I guess, is maybe what I'm thinking, is that it tends to be very metaphorical, and I was thinking this, though, it does have a lot of elements of things that sounds very much like he's telling us what to actually Physically do and I was wondering as I was listening it, like initially I started in a very metaphorical kind of place and interpretation of it and then he kept going and I was thinking, I don't know, this is starting to sound much more specifically, instructional and it's, it's so funny that he said that like, and what he was saying, because just this week, I was, You know, dealing with kind of a barn horse crisis and I spent the entire day doing it and I ended up at this market 

just trying to have a moment to get something to eat and to rest And I ended up in this conversation with, a lovely man who is actually part of an organization. I guess it's a, an entire way of living.

That's like, like a commune kind of way of living that sounds. Kind of exactly like, or very, very much like what Samael was just describing, where, they've left all of their, material possessions, they've pooled everything together, they buy these huge farms, and everything is centered around kind of the way that things are centered in a much less industrialized kind of way.

environment, you know, they have the farms and they build houses around the farms and they all work together andthey always make sure that the farm is built at a place where they can have like a market or a bakery or something and they, work together to run that in order to support their entire community and everything is communal.

Everything is supporting each other. And he kept talking about the piece that that they find in that in this, simple supportive. way of living where they all know that all of their needs are going to be met and that they're all there for each other and that they have these all over the world.

Like they bought a new farm in Romania and are doing these things. And it's funny because I was listening to You described that and I was like, that sounds very much like what this man was describing. And I was thinking when he was talking about, you know, pilgrimage and, you know, this isn't the only country.

I'm like, is he actually talking about find another place to be? because I know people have talked about expatriating for the last. I don't know, probably like 10 years off and on. And like that idea has been a really big thing of, you know, like, oh, we'll just go to Canada or we'll, you know, we'll go to Brazil or we'll, we'll go somewhere else.

and I was wondering how much of what he was saying really was metaphorical and how much of it was him actually saying, no, do more like these things. I was like, whoa, this is really not what I was expecting. 

[00:46:08] Tava Baird: It's, interesting to me because I think he sort of talks in two layers, like it's really hard to expatriate unless you're really wealthy.

Yeah, because yeah, it just is for most of us. It isn't an option But like, there was one thing I really loved yesterday. There was a site that 

had put out this article that I actually sent to my friend who's an environmental scientist that was great news in the environment.

And I went, what? Right. So of course I click on it because who doesn't want good environmental news? And they had like six or seven really brief stories that were about huge environmental gains in other parts of the world where other countries have, you know, set aside thousands and thousands of, area sections of rainforest as a preserve or, that suddenly this coral reef has been given legal rights.

You know, and all of these different things, and I thought I would never have found any of those stories, because when I do read the news, it's all local stuff. You know, and Jen and I both live really close to, D. C. We're like, what, an hour from D. C. 

and so everything here is just that news. I, you know what, I will actually post a link to the article. Um, yeah, I could use some good news. That sounds awesome. Yeah. They said like France is apparently so far ahead on renewable energy. It's something crazy like 85 percent of their energy is renewable and they're now exporting it to other countries.

Like wow, France has become this powerhouse and they were going through, stuff in South America and stuff in Asian stuff in Europe. And I kept thinking, well, heck. You know, instead of sitting here banging my head against the desk, as our own environmental regulations, seem to be going down the toilet.

Why don't I volunteer for those organizations? Maybe there's something I could do from afar. Maybe I can give my money to them. Because you know what? There are Positive strides being made in other parts of the world. It just might not be happening in your neighborhood right now. So, I don't know that, you know, Samuel wants everybody to slide away their mortgage today and have to grab a move.

That's not going to be practical to us. But, we can say, Okay, where are my allies? They might be much closer to me than I realize, and they might also be in other places that are, doing wonderful things. It's hard, you know, we can't read the news from every single country every day. So, when, when I find a story like that, like, putting a link up here so everybody on the podcast can click and go, Hey, the environment's not totally dead.

You know, um, And, you know, there are some absolutely wonderful small organizations locally that just don't get a lot of press. And so if you do have a voice on social media or a podcast, or even just when talking to your friends, you know, spread the word about the ones that are doing good. Give. Then your attention and, and energy, and the, then the ones that aren't in line with what you hope for the world, eventually people stop paying attention to them because they're excited about, you know, the, the new thing that is actually joyful.

going back to that sort of social media diet, this is, an exercise that it's actually a business exercise that I was taught years ago. Um, a lot of times we get into habits and we totally don't realize how we actually spend our time. Six o'clock rolls around and we go, whew, what did I do all day, right?

And so there is an exercise that they teach you where they say, okay, so you don't know where your work day is going. Carry a notebook with you for three to five days and every time you switch to a new activity, write it down and how long you spent on it. So unloading the dishwasher, 10 minutes. I took a two hour nap.

I spent an hour doom scrolling. I, you know, and what you generally find after several days is you go back and kind of average it out and say, where are my blocks of time going? And then generally everyone is. So shocked despite the fact that we live these lives every day often not paying attention.

Actually, to what we do with them. And when you look down and realize that you spend nine hours in the last two days on the internet, you go, Okay, there could probably be a little more balance there. I'm very proud to announce that, you know, I, one of the things that happened with this is I, you know, I have.

six novels out and, wanted to get that seventh one done and, months were passing and I wasn't getting this novel finished. And it wasn't that I didn't know what I wanted to write. I knew exactly what I wanted to write. But the days just seemed to be getting away from me. And when I sat down and looked at the amount of time that I was just reading random stuff online, all of that time I could have spent And I went, Oh my God.

And that's when I put myself on a social media and internet diet and I would sit down at the computer and instead I would just have my book open and start writing. And so last night I finished my next novel and I feel fantastic because it's done. It took me a year to do it because I spent. Six months of that probably on the internet, but you know, the things I think becoming really aware of how we spend our time and what we give our attention to really is step one, because it's true wherever you put your attention is where the energy is going to go.

And, you know, Samael said in this last piece, he said, Don't worry the wounds they deliver. I mean, I don't know about anybody else, but I'm a person who bites my nails. And sometimes you start biting your nails, and then you just kind of can't stop, and you worry it, and worry it, and worry it. Like, just get that fingernail clippers out, cut that sucker off, and move on with your day, right?

You know? so, if we're spending a lot of time just bemoaning things that we cannot change, that's robbing us of the time and energy to go after the things that we can do. 

[00:52:52] Jennifer Taylor: Yeah, I like that. And I like the idea that kind of stepping outside of these things and leaving the cities and that the images that he was, he was presenting can be leaving the cities as, you know, turning off your social media and going and doing something else, not necessarily physically having to move out of the city, you know, it's the metaphorical cities with the walls, the Internet the news feeds, 

all of those things that keep us stuck in that way of being in that way of thinking and, really, kind of paralyzed then from it, but that the stepping outside of the cities can be as simple as turning our phone off or sitting it down and focusing on the good work that we have to do,

And maybe that good work is just going and sitting. Outside and connecting again, or, you know, starting to write that novel that you've been thinking, gosh, maybe I want to do this or, painting or, connecting, picking up the phone and actually talking to a friend or walking out and, going somewhere and connecting with other people.

And, um, I like the. Images that he was giving of, you know, it's like basically be ready with your thread and needle to mend things. And the more I think of what he was saying and more of those metaphorical terms, if we are caring for ourselves. And we are filling ourselves up and we're stepping outside of all of the trauma and the trauma of watching trauma, you know, we're all traumatize just from the things that we hear on the news and the things that we hear about and the things that we watch and see.

And. the more we step away from that and the more we're healing ourselves and we're spending time in nature and we're connecting the more we're prepared for when someone is harmed and they do need some kind of refuge or they need healing in one way or another. And it may just be, someone to listen to and a hug or.

sharing food from our garden or whatever those things are, we're more in a place to do that when we are not in this, post traumatic stress kind of place of just the constant trauma of what's happening. And if we're not embroiled in the fear and the worry then we're in a place to help to care for each other as opposed to.

just joining the chaos and the fear and all of the kind of mass hysteria of people getting upset about things. 

[00:55:29] Tava Baird: Funny because I think a lot of us, we're accustomed to think you need to be near a television set or a phone or a computer because then I will know what's going on.

No, you know what's going on from certain people's points of view many hours from you. And while you're in front of those screens, you don't know what's going on outside in your yard or your street or the local markets or the local library. Yeah. If you are actually out there in the community, you are going to be access.

It's not that you're going to be cutting yourself off from news. You're going to be getting a different type of news. You're going to be getting information from people in your village or town or neighborhood that you can actually use. you can go outside and hear somebody say, Oh my gosh, I'm so worried about Samantha.

Um, you know, gee, so and so is sick, and she's got three kids to take care of. And, you know, they're having insurance troubles due to new regulations and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, you know what? I can go down the street and visit Samantha. I can make a freaking casserole. I can see if her kids want to come over to my place one day.

I can, you know, campaign for her to get what she needs. That's actual concrete stuff you can do, as opposed to, you know, a hit like when someone says something that I like, that like, Okay. ain't going anywhere. It's going to make somebody feel good for a little bit. Yeah, I got 78 likes on my post, but that is not the same power as I'm going to go out.

I'm going to reach into the earth. I'm going to connect with the divine. I'm going to grow food. I'm going to use The best seeds that I can find, but I'm not going to kill myself over whether or not the printer who made the seed packet was 100 percent ethical in their entire life, you know, but I'm going to grow those tomatoes and have a, pasta canning party that I invite my neighbors to.

We can do a tremendous amount of good with picnics once it, once it stops being freezing cold, out here. I, I would like to tell you guys a lovely little story about this. Um, as many of you know, about a year ago, I guess a year ago last April, um, I started volunteering doing archaeology at the Blue Ball Inn.

And it started off with me, you know, in the backyard at a market saying, does anybody want to be on a Facebook group? And I got like five names and I set up a Facebook group. And now less than a year later, we have, you know, over 100 people that are. interested in watching the project or volunteering. And, you know, it's become its whole own program and now we have a board of directors that's working together to save this house.

there's about to be a paper on the inn and the community that the archaeology program is building there, presented at the Southern Humanities Conference. Like, It's a real thing now. It's an inclusive group that allows people from all walks of life and all communities to come together and enjoy history and hands on work outside in the sunshine when it's warm and, exploration of and sharing about the paranormal and spirituality whenever we hang out.

And we like each other so much that, you know, in January, even though it was freezing and the house has no heat, we fired up the wood stove and we had a big potluck there. And it was an absolutelast, to just bring a dish and feed the people around you and celebrate good work that you had done in the past year and to get that fuel to continue forward.

There are places like this all over in your communities. You know, it doesn't have to be an archaeology program. if you're not sure who to give your money to, start your own nonprofit. It's, not that hard or find a local one that's getting off the ground and, and go there. And, I think probably first that starting, where is my time going?

And is this the person that I want to be? And then the garden and who do you want to take with you? That part I found really important that it wasn't only what do you take with you? Who do you want to take with you? a lot of people feel like, every time I go to this gathering, my Uncle Frank gets everybody all upset just talking ad nauseum about political subjects.

You know what? Maybe it's time to take a break from Uncle Frank. That's okay. It's what Maria Montessori called natural consequences for behavior. if we give Uncle Frank a path to upset everybody every single time, Uncle Frank's behavior will never change. And these are hard, hard things to do.

[01:00:39] Jennifer Taylor: something that I wanted to add, because I know we've been talking for quite a while, which is very much like us. And I was thinking, I was trying to think of, you know, have, have we brought through a sense of. Is there a sense of clarity and peace that is coming through? And I was thinking one of the things that I wanted to, add is I, I'd kind of reached a point in the last week or so, and usually I'm really good at holding that higher vision and holding that higher, perspective and focusing on my work and knowing that those internal shifts and those internal changes have actual real ripples out into the world and that the more I can do that, the better, but then I had a day when it was like all of a sudden, all of those things sort of fell down and things seem to be coming in and, taking my focus.

And I was asking Archangel Michael, what You know, like what, what do I do? I'm getting a little bit freaking freaked out. And he was like, you know, do not fear. There is still hope as long as the light exists in the world and the sun still shines, there is hope. And you know, sometimes I think just that seeing the sun rise in the morning and going, the sun is still rising and it's going to continue to rise and letting things go for a moment and just being. grateful for that and connecting in with that helps to change things. And I was like, is there anything certain about, outcome of things? can you tell me anything? And he said, nothing is certain, but that can be a good thing as well. For things are always changeable.

Time is always malleable, which I thought was really interesting. And, He also said something about, to tear down that which is broken is a good thing. You know, we tend to see things falling apart and thinking of that as a bad thing. And he's like, to tear down that which is broken is a good thing.

And, things are not always quite, as they seem and, to trust that things are in the hands of the divine and to trust in that and, just to continue to do my part and not veer from my path and to do my work. And not get distracted and, holding up that vision of a higher path.

And one of the things, I, time is definitely a big thing for me lately and the idea of timelines and skipping timelines and accessing other timelines and things and that I'm sure will be its own, podcast at some point. But when he said time is always malleable and things are still changeable.

I think part of what he was referring and I've done a lot of listening to And I say listening to, I'm in the car so much that I'm listening to books on audible so I've been doing a lot of, listening to a books on quantum physics and, all different kinds of things in this realm.

And they were talking about that Many, many physicists now believe that everything exists in a quantum superposition of states, which basically, in my understanding, is that everything is overlapping, like every possibility, every possible outcome, every possible thing is all existing all at once.

And I know we've talked at one point about sort of that. Every being in a wave or form or being in a particle state and that wave form. It's like All possibilities, all potential exists and all these wave forms are in a superposition of state. So they're all like stacked on top of each other, all over top of each other all at once and what collapses that into this particle state.

So think of the wave state is like sort of the realm of possibility and the particle state as having like manifested into this physicalized reality and that what What causes that shift from all the different potential outcomes to that particle state is the observation of it, like putting your attention on one possible outcome that actually dissolves a wave and brings it into a particle state.

And I think that's so fascinating to me because, you know, we hear that, energy flows where attention goes. And we hear, about how, our observation of something and our giving our attention to something really brings it into manifestation. And I think hearing about it on that quantum kind of level is really interesting to me.

And there are all kinds of studies and all sorts of things that they're doing, that demonstrate this kind of thing. But I think it's so interesting when I think about, okay, What I, what thing is it that I want to give my attention to that would collapse that possibility into this? This particle state this actual manifestation.

And so, when tava was talking about the good news and the environment, the more we can put our focus on that, rather than all the possibilities of what could be happening that looking for the signs. That say, this is what's happening, that something good is happening, something positive is going to happen, and it's amazing how that, works, and that it really, on a quantum level, and that they were talking about, that We think of all this quantum stuff as these teeny tiny little particle kinds of things, you know, going from a wave to a particle that you can't be seeing with your eyes, but that in a real life, everyday kind of reality way, the same thing is happening, that the same things are happening.

In our everyday life, when we give our attention to something and we look at something and we see it as evidence of whatever it is that we believe, we will see more of that and it actually brings it into manifestation, which is just really, really fascinating to me and really hopeful and then also adds so much more power to the idea of because it's so easy to think, well, you know, You know, so what I'm thinking, I mean, how big it, you know, it's like, so I thought about all the terrible things that are happening in this part of the world, or I thought about those things all day, and the idea of like, just shifting it, it's like, yeah, well, it'll make me feel better, but recognizing that it has real manifesting kind of power, what we give our focus to, I think, is, is really hopeful and empowering, at least for me.

[01:07:46] Tava Baird: You can see it with human behavior too. It was one of the big things that I learned as a teacher, because I taught toddlers for years and years and years. And when toddlers are, you know, when you have a two year olds, a bunch of two year olds in a room, some of them sometimes come with behaviors that they've learned somewhere where they throw a fit, they're going to get the attention.

And you can see it because the child can turn it on and off. And you go, okay, that's not actual sadness. That's a little manipulation thing you've learned somewhere. And it would be really interesting because I remember as a new teacher, going to my trainers and saying, what do I do when Jimmy is, and I know because in observing him, I can watch him hitch an actual fit.

And the minute that it looks like his wishes are being given into, he shuts it right off. Like, he has control over what he's doing. What do I do? Because it's disruptive to the whole class. And they would say to me, Let him pitch the fit. Do not remark on it. Do not get frustrated by it. Don't even look at it.

Tell your assistant, keep an eye on Jimmy, you know, don't go over to him, but just keep an eye to make sure he's safe, because you want to make sure the child is safe, right? But instead, just start singing a happy song with the other kids in the room. You know, pull out the puppets and enjoy yourself. Get out some crayons and start an art project and start baking a cake together.

It's going to be hard the first few days, but Jimmy will catch on that the attention for his Manipulative choice is not coming and that he can get more attention by refocusing and coming over and being part of the group that's doing something good. And it is stunning to watch. I mean hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times over decades of teaching, I would just be some child is.

Absolutely just raging in the corner because they want to be the center and focus of attention in that moment. And they can't always be the center of attention and focus because there's 15 two year olds in the room. And you can actually watch it on their faces. You know, people do what works, right? They always would tell us that.

Children do what work. And so you could see on their face, Oh, this isn't working for me anymore. Oh, but the people over there baking bread with her, they're involved and they're getting attention as part of the group. And those children would stand up, turn off the tears, dust themselves off, and walk over and say, can I bake bread too?

And we would say, of course, and they would never do it again. And so we have to remember that, you know, it's not just the two year olds. People do what works. People in the media do what gets them clicked. People on TV do what gets them, you know, people to post about them on social media. Politicians say outrageous things to get attention because they, you know, name recognition is the number one way that people get elected, not their records.

Most people don't have an attention span long enough to look into how the politician actually voted. They tend to check off the box with the name that they know. And the way that you get known is to get yourself in the news. So we have to remember that these things are all feeding each other. And instead of letting, you know, some adult who should know better, and whose job it actually is to govern and make the world a better place for their constituents, instead, if all they're doing is throwing fits on social media, Don't give them that attention, go over and bake bread with the other two year olds and eventually they'll get the idea where they won't be, you know.

So um, it's what you're talking about. You absolutely see it in human behavior and we can put it in practice right now. Um, I have a website up on my screen and I'm going to put the link In the show notes, it, I just happened to pull it up. It's 'cause I was looking for something. This is called the Maral, M-A-R-G-I-N-A-L-I-A-N.

And it is a one woman website. She doesn't even have an assistant. Um, and she has been doing this, I believe, since about 2006. And her entire, like the things that she posts. Half to do with, uh, she says, ideas of timeless nourishment, which I like, but the reason I found it is I was looking for a Toni Morrison quote, and some of you may have seen this quote come up a lot lately, but I wanted to know a little bit about the context.

So, uh, writer Toni Morrison, um, and she passed away in 2019. She wrote an essay titled, No Place for Self Pity, No Room for Fear, was included in the 150th issue of The Nation. And this website has a little excerpt from it, and I thought it would give a very hopeful turn, um, to what we're talking about today.

So this is from her essay. Christmas, the day after in 2004. Following the presidential re election of George W. Bush, I am staring out the window in an extremely dark mood, feeling helpless. Then a friend, a fellow artist, calls to wish me happy holidays. He asks, How are you? And instead of, Oh, fine, and you? I blurt out the truth.

Not well. Not only am I depressed, I can't seem to work or write. It is dark. It's as though I am paralyzed, unable to write anything more in the novel I've begun. I've never felt this way before. The election, I'm about to explain with further detail when he interrupts, shouting, No, no, no, no. This is precisely the time when artists go to work.

When not everything is fine, but in times of dread. That's our job. I felt foolish the rest of the morning, especially when I recalled the artists who had done their work in gulags, prison cells, hospital beds, who did their work while hounded, exiled, reviled, and pilloried, and those who were executed. And then she says, this is precisely the time when artists go to work.

There is no time for despair, no place for self pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal. I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence.

Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge, even wisdom, like art. So, if you want to look up the entire essay, and I think I've quoted a little bit of this before on a podcast, but if you want to look up the entire essay, it's amazing, and I'm sure the nation would have it, and it reminds me of, COVID when we were all in lockdown was a wretched time, right?

We were all afraid. We were all worried. COVID also did something. It showed us what our world looked like when the highways weren't clogged with traffic. It showed us that the animals would come back into our natural areas when we weren't, you know, in them in, in such huge overwhelming numbers. And the amount of art that came out of people during COVID.

Just the, the writing, the, the music there is, and I'll put a link to it on here. During COVID, my friend Jennifer Rakow, who I knew I've mentioned before, there was a composer, I want to say he was in England, and he decided to start an online choir. And he had singers from all over the world send him clips of their voice.

And then he had them all learn. Songs and he had this special equipment made so that he could stream them like thousands of some of them simultaneously. And he made videos and you can see all these separate thousands of little boxes of people singing together from all over the world. It is some of the most stunning music I have ever heard.

And Jen actually got to participate in one of those. And so, you know, the singers who were used to being in choirs and wanted to go and raise their voices together and couldn't, the artists found a different way to make it happen. And so that is our job here. We're going to find a different way to make it happen.

So I will put links up to this website. I will, um, look up, I will get a link to the video of the choir singing. It is absolutely amazing. And, um, Yeah. 

[01:17:29] Jennifer Taylor: Wonderful. Well, this is, as always, definitely completely different information and completely different stuff than I thought that we would get, but I think sounds like a good place.

Maybe in the show notes we can also have Samael's words but I think it would be cool for people to be able to kind of read back over that 

[01:17:53] Tava Baird: If not I can put it up on my website and then I'll make a link to it so you can just click on it.

Oh 

[01:17:57] Jennifer Taylor: yeah there you go 

[01:17:58] Tava Baird: Yeah. Um, and there's the other thing that I'm going to put in the show notes is There is an extraordinary book that I read actually on my honeymoon many, many, many years ago. I think it might be out of print now. called, Instructions to the Cook 

and the story, it's a true story. it is about, a Zen monk in New York City. So he's surrounded by, An area that you would think probably isn't very zen when you think New York City, you don't think, yeah, New York City is like totally chill all the time.

Right. You know, it's crowded. There's lots going on. If I'm remembering the story correctly. He wanted to open a bakery. And his big dream was to transform. living options. for low income people. That was his big dream. But his small dream was open a tiny bakery. And that was the point at which he would start.

So he went into an impoverished neighborhood, and found this little building that was in not great shape. And basically put out feelers and got another monk. Who was in the area to help him and they painted and they, did fundraisers and they saved their money and they opened this bakery on the corner and it was right before, right near these huge housing projects and unfortunately, a lot of the housing projects in those neighborhoods were being shut down or some of them were just in terrible repair where nobody should be living in them.

So he opened up this little bakery and he and his fellow monk started making bread. And they would take it to the local farmer's market and sell it. And they would, they were putting part of the money aside. And they also started employing some teenagers that lived in the neighborhood. And before you know it, the bakery was starting to get popular and starting to grow.

They were able to start giving away some of their bread to soup kitchens in the area. And they were able to hire more employees. And then it, when they got, they ended up with enough that they could open a second location. And over time, this one guy, with, you know, just kind of a dream to change the way New York worked, was able to start buying buildings.

And he and, groups of volunteers and people who worked at the bakery and, people from the Zen community would come in and overhaul these buildings and create affordable housing that was leagues above, what was available in that area. And then after, over a time, they started getting noticed by city council members and other people that wanted to make change.

And he was able to take the Zen principles, his beliefs, and that dream he had, and start with the tiniest thing, and build this incredible community. That helps supply soup kitchens, that housed people, that was able to bring about employment, and to basically just spread this joy. And that's the mindset that I think we're all needing right now, is we all want to go out and make the world a better place.

[01:21:22] Jennifer Taylor: We have to figure out who are our allies around us, and can we start it with one little vegetable garden in our yard. End. No offense, but screw anybody who says we can't. All right. That is such a beautiful story. I love, that. 

[01:21:39] Tava Baird: The book is incredible. I've read it multiple, multiple times. And it's, you know, it's literally a let, let me roll up my sleeves and work where I am to transform things. And, and the impact that he had on people's lives, you know, giving them a safe place to live.

Giving them employment when they couldn't find any, giving them a community that would cheer them on as they pulled themselves up out of poverty. You can't, you can't quantify that. 

[01:22:10] Jennifer Taylor: Yeah. Wow. Well, let's see, should we move into a little music to bring it all together and bring us to a good place from which to move through the rest of our day.

[01:22:27] Tava Baird: That would be really lovely. Something to move us from the mindset of I am just trying to survive into I am ready to thrive. 

[01:22:37] Jennifer Taylor: Absolutely. 

(singing)

[01:25:37] Tava Baird: thank you so, much , Jennifer, that was. Absolutely incredible. 

So, you go to start singing. And when you're sitting in that like quiet space before you start, Samael said, sanctuary is coming. Michael will send pay attention. And I went Okay, the thing that you just sang, he said, "add drums, rhythm, this, meaning what you were doing, goes over top, a driving solid beat", and he actually drummed out what the rhythm was for me.

And I've made some notes and I hope I can reproduce it. And then he said, "rattle bells interwoven deep. voice." So it appears our composer is back at work.

[01:26:30] Jennifer Taylor: All right. 

I love it. I love it. I love it.

I love it. 

[01:26:34] Tava Baird: thank you everyone for joining us today. And for the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of downloads that we have gotten for Mystical Musings.

It is growing very quickly and beyond anything we could have expected. And we really, really appreciate you tuning in. 

[01:26:52] Jennifer Taylor: Absolutely. And I really appreciate those of you too, who are reaching out and sharing your experiences with the podcast or sharing, what this is meaning for you and how this is, helping you in your life.

we're really touched to hear that it's a benefit because that is absolutely our intention. go with all of our blessings and we look forward to exploring this incredible world with you next week.

Absolutely. Stay well, everybody.