[00:00:01] East: [Music Playing]

[00:00:13] Trees, grasses, water, sun, stars, moon, clouds, rain, all are our friends, are us. Nature embraces us, and we embrace nature. We are nature. We are the trees and the clouds and the waters. When you hug a tree, you're hugging yourself. We are human beings. Human beings are part of nature. When you're seeing the ocean or the lake or the river, you're seeing yourself. Nature is a manifestation of God, and that manifestation is love all the way.

[00:03:04] Luke: How many times have you journeyed with mushrooms? Or have you counted?

[00:03:09] East: Well, it depends if I have to take them in my mouth to consider it to be a journey.

[00:03:14] Luke: Not including microdosing, but the full send.

[00:03:17] East: Oh, I don't know. Not that many. 100, maybe, or less. But I honestly feel that if you've had a big journey, you're entering these spaces that are beyond time, certainly place, and that as long as I'm open to listening to that message, that energy, it continues to speak to me. It feels just alive to me today as it did in some of those very first journeys, and I think because it's almost like time is folding on itself. So it's just a matter of how much I'm willing to listen. And that way, it's somewhat irrelevant if it's 101, or 1,000, or 1.

[00:03:57] Luke: Totally.

[00:03:58] East: And I think it was Pablo Amaringo, the painter, if I'm saying that right, who painted ayahuasca paintings? The story I heard is that he had one journey, and spent the rest of his life painting about it and interpreting it.

[00:04:13] Luke: My question was a smart-ass question based on one time I asked an ayahuasquero, a shaman, how many times they sat with the medicine, and they said, if you're counting, you got the whole thing wrong or something to that effect. It's not about the number of times. It's about the level of devotion. And for some, it is only one. And for some it's none.

[00:04:35] East: Right. And I do do a lot of, I guess you could call it micro dosing when I'm playing, because a lot of the way I record music for journeys is in a journey, playing music, and it's improvising. It's a ceremony. And it's important to me to have imbibed at least a little bit because I do feel that I'm very, very sensitive to it, so I feel like I'm in that space.

[00:05:00] But you're opening yourself up to a spirit, an energy, and you want to be on the same wavelength. So in that regard, a lot more, but it's just been an ally for me and a teacher that I can't really explain why that came into my life, but I'm very grateful for it. And it's just something that I feel like I'm an ambassador or an affiliate. I'm just out here like, I don't know.

[00:05:27] Luke: An unpaid affiliate.

[00:05:29] East: Yeah. Oh, I'm paid in the many riches of, I feel like, just meeting cool people and creating the music. There's music that comes through in those ceremonies that I don't know where that comes from. It comes through once in a sense, some kind of song, and I'll go back and listen to it and think like, okay, if I wanted to try, let's say it ends up on a record, like music for mushrooms.

[00:05:54] And then years later, I think maybe I should play this in a concert or something, one of our traditional concerts. I had to go back and learn it. I have to figure out, all right, I think it's this chord to this chord. And you can write it all out and play it, but it doesn't have the same bop or the juju is not-- it's like demoitis.

[00:06:16] Luke: Right.

[00:06:17] East: Chasing some special feeling in there that sometimes it's very difficult to recreate.

[00:06:23] Luke: How many of your albums have been improvised?

[00:06:27] East: So I have like ceremony records and I have studio records, and most people are probably like, whatever. I don't know. What's the difference? But my music for mushroom records, I have this series called a soundtrack for the psychedelic practitioner volume one, volume two, so those.

[00:06:42] And then some of my previous records that I just didn't say what they were because back then,15 years of it, it was not a very safe environment to talk about psychedelics, let alone, put yourself out there in that way. So probably another half dozen of my records before that, Music to Die To, Music to Be Born To, Crystal Starship, Prana, they were all in ceremonies. I just didn't say that.

[00:07:11] Luke: Okay.

[00:07:11] East: Yeah. I maybe alluded to it. But I was afraid, and it wasn't until 2018 that I just felt, I think it's time to, instead of just putting out a part of it, 45 minutes, and not saying, I said, I'm going to say what it is and release all of it. So we did that. It was Music for Mushrooms, and it was a five-hour album. And then I was like, I'm just going to talk about this. I'm going to be more open. I'm going to come out of the psychedelic closet, as it were.

[00:07:47] Luke: Yeah. Well, I think it is safer than probably ever before to do that.

[00:07:52] East: It has moved very quickly. Let's just put it this way. We weren't doing podcasts or anything. If you talked about it online on a website, the website would lose their advertisers.

[00:08:04] Luke: Really?

[00:08:05] East: Yeah. And there was one place that I knew of called Reality Sandwich. And that was a bunch of weirdos where we all were like, we can talk about this, or we could write about it. And there's a very small community. And now there's publicly traded companies.

[00:08:19] Luke: Neurotropics. It's crazy.

[00:08:19] East: It's order and laws. It's amazing. It's amazing how it's burgeoning out, but it's surprising. When I say 2018, it's not that long ago. The record came out in 2019. I remember it was a new thing in that sense. But we could talk about like music in that space, but it's just that there's still a big gap of, I would say, resources and tools for the ceremony space in that way. And that's the main reason I put it out. I was like instead of complaining about it, I thought I'd try offering just a particular flavor of something to use.

[00:09:01] Luke: So cool. One thing I've noticed in terms of people's willingness to be vulnerable in the sense of sharing their work around psychedelics is a few years ago, if I would host someone who was a facilitator, for example, they would request that I was super low key about where they're doing it.

[00:09:25] East: They put them in this shadow and their voice has changed.

[00:09:29] Luke: Yeah. Like in one of those informant videos. Their voices is changed and they're blacked out. In fact, I had one. It was after a peyote ceremony and I was in the afterglow. I was like, hey, we should record a podcast. And they're like, yeah, cool. And then I said, hey, just be mindful. This is going out to the general public.

[00:09:52] So talk about whatever you want to and don't. And we did it and it was beautiful. And then afterward they thought about it and were like, actually, can you take this part out and this part out and this part out? Because there was some technically incriminating information shared.

[00:10:06] But I always now prep people if they're in that field. Like, what do you want to talk about? What do you want? And I don't know, it seems like people aren't really concerned when it comes to the legality part of it, at least now.

[00:10:18] East: Yeah, I still have various concerns, but I think you have to live a pretty clean life too. You can't have it both ways. I am very strict with certain boundaries in the world, that is. People come up to you after shows or stuff. They want to give you stuff.

[00:10:38] And you're always like, I don't know. It's like, yeah, I can't. I don't want to. What am I stepping into here? But what's wrong with talking about it? I think that's what we need, is a conversation and sharing resources. People are going to be doing this stuff no matter what.

[00:10:55] And more and more people are coming into the fold where they're looking for genuine answers and ways to face this crisis, this collapse that we're in, this poly crisis. And we need tools like psychedelics to do that. So I'm like, well, then let's give tools to work with the psychedelics in a way that are democratized.

[00:11:19] And then we have the most positive effect with the lowest friction. And I think music, hands down, is our doorway to do that because most people are not going to be able to get on an airplane and go to another country or hire an expensive facilitator or work in a medical clinic. That's great if you can, but most can't. But music is something that you probably could find it and press play and have that guide you from start to finish. And it might not have cost you anything.

[00:11:51] Luke: Totally. Yeah. And the music is such an important-- it's not important. It's a non-negotiable element of those experiences.

[00:12:02] East: It can very well become the experience. I would say it's like the medicine and the setting you're in in the music are the three pieces. It's like a triangle. And the fact that the musical element is not being at more of the forefront of the conversation in whatever this is that we're in is a real blind spot. It really is.

[00:12:24] Because it has been a part of the "conversation" for millennia, and you go to any indigenous ceremony and every single one I've been a part of, it's all about the songs. And the songs are the technology that not only guides you, but in some cases they've said it's what's calling forth the spirit, the actual medicine itself, not just the thing you imbibed. It's the songs.

[00:12:48] And beyond that, they are the structure of the ceremony. So it's just weird to me that we're not thinking like, okay, what is the modern context of this so that we can work with this technology? And it's weird too, because it's so fun and artistic and infinite. There's infinite colors you can paint with, and yet it's not really considered as much.

[00:13:16] And I think part of that is a capitalist thing. We're not supporting it financially in a way. So it doesn't always make sense. We're not incentivizing it to be made. Putting out a five-hour record is like the kryptonite of-- the music industry is going the opposite direction. TikTok videos and things being very short and you get paid per spin. But what's the Bayo Akomolafe line? The times are urgent. We must slow down. Or let us slow down.

[00:13:43] Luke: That's great. I love that.

[00:13:44] East: That's the medicine

[00:13:45] Luke: Yeah. I probably have never done this, but I was thinking about how terrifying it would probably be to do a deep journey in complete silence. I don't think I ever have.

[00:14:03] East: [Inaudible] did that.

[00:14:04] Luke: Really?

[00:14:04] East: Yeah. But he put out a bunch of joints and he said he'd be in the silence. There's many roads to Rome. But I think also, what's the difference of silence and noise? Silence being the absence of noise, not the absence of sound. That's Gordon Hampton. And we always have sound, but it's just like, what is the sound we're placing ourselves in?

[00:14:35] Luke: Actually, just reminded me, I have, of course, on a number of occasions, just been in nature with the music of the forest or the jungle without--

[00:14:44] East: That's a good way to describe it.

[00:14:45] Luke: With real instruments. But yeah, I was thinking just being indoors somewhere in a quiet room.

[00:14:51] East: Hum of the refrigerator

[00:14:52] Luke: Yeah, exactly. And everything gets amplified. Your senses get so heightened that you literally could hear like an ant crawling across the floor.

[00:15:01] East: Absolutely, man.

[00:15:02] Luke: And also the, I think the mood and the essence of music is also so important, which I learned the hard way. One time I, won't say I overdosed, but I took a bigger ketamine dose than I planned on and my wife had fallen asleep and I just couldn't sleep. And I was like, oh, I'll just have a little microdose and meditate myself to sleep. And I had saved a playlist on Spotify that was just called Ketamine. And I was like, oh, yeah, I have that playlist. I've never listened to it. Now it'd be a great time. Horrible idea. It was all this really harsh sort of acidic mechanical--

[00:15:38] East: Dentist music?

[00:15:40] Luke: Yeah, it was brutal and took me to some super weird places in the void. So I learned my lesson about that. Have preordained musical choices or have someone like you play in it that you trust so you don't end up in a weird k hole.

[00:15:59] East: Yeah, man. I want to add a little piece here about playlists versus the album. There is a big difference. And one of the main ones when you use it for ceremony guidance is, a playlist, every time a new song comes on it, it's almost like a new soul walking into the room. Not a bad thing, but you have to orient like, okay, okay.

[00:16:19] We shifted. Who is this? What is this? Sorry, I'm just getting-- okay, we're getting in a flow. And most of these songs, probably all of them, are being used in essence off label. They weren't made for the ceremony experience. Maybe they're not super long, but what does it mean when you have one artistic voice carrying you through?

[00:16:38] What does it mean when those songs are bespoke for the experience? And so you can design elements into it that are conducive to guiding the journey in a particular way. And there are many things we could talk about are what those might be musically, but most people haven't experienced that. So it's more like you don't know what you don't know.

[00:16:58] And that is also the way it was done forever. There usually was one person, voice, whatever, shaman, taking you through. And in some ways there's maybe an epigenetic familiarity there. It's comforting. It's like someone's like, I got you. And you can really drop into a space for hours of like, you trust the sonics in a way. And that's why when people are experiencing playlists, it's not that some of the magnet work. It's like, oh, but it can be so much more.

[00:17:30] Luke: That's really interesting. I have had a couple of occasions where I was in charge of the playlist and I have just this massive medicine journey playlist that I can play anytime I hear a song that I think, ooh, I'd love to hear that in ceremony. I add it to that.

[00:17:45] That said, to your point, there have been times where I'm like taking off my blindfold and reaching over and trying to delete or skip a track because it just doesn't resonate. It's just jarring for some reason. So that is interesting of having a continuum of the artist's energy and consciousness perspective throughout an experience. That's super cool.

[00:18:07] East: Yeah. And think about you take it to the next level of where it's being done live in the room, which of course is awesome because now it can respond to what's happening energetically. It's like surfing. You go on these waves. There are times where you're like fully in the pocket and like, whoa, we are in this together, creating this.

[00:18:24] And then times where you're trying to find that wave. You're swimming around. It just feels very alive and responsive and dynamic in that sense. And I hope that's not something we lose as we go into more AI generative music because inevitably we're going to have more generative music in the wellness space first. Because it's already shitty spa music. It's like, well, now we can make a lot of it.

[00:18:54] Luke: Right.

[00:18:55] East: And we'll just throw that into a--

[00:18:56] Luke: Ambience spa music that's on every time you get a massage.

[00:18:58] East: Your Apple watch will follow your heartbeat, and it'll be dynamic.

[00:19:01] Luke: Where do you see music going in, I guess what you would consider the positive and the negative with AI? I've not really thought about that. All I've seen so far is where they take, yeah, like Johnny Cash, Ring of Fire, and they have Jay Z singing it or something. You know what I mean?

[00:19:18] Those mashups. I think, wow, this could be really cool or really lame depending on who you're mashing. But what do you see as the future of music as someone who creates largely electronic music yourself in a manual old-school analog way?

[00:19:34] East: I think that recorded music will become so diluted and devalued that it will have no longer have financial value. And so in short term, and certainly the long term, that won't be a thing. It won't have the same role it has. It'll be more pervasive in our lives in the same way it is now versus a year ago versus 10 years ago and so forth, but there'll be so much of it because it's an infinite way to create it and almost anyone can create it. It's one of the most valued. It's like you have more bitcoins. Now they're worth less.

[00:20:08] And so I think the models we have of what recorded music is, every year that goes by, this is less and less. But we value listening to something that was hard to do or special. That's essentially why we like it. Because we're like, this is not something I can do. I'm paying someone else to do it, and I like what they're coming up with.

[00:20:31] And that's been an exchange we've had for a hundred plus years, roughly, that we've had recorded music. And it's evolving to a place where anyone will be able to create any song. It won't be hard. And I think it's an inevitable result that therefore-- we're going to reach peak content soon in many respects, not just with music, in my opinion. And when we reach that state, I don't know what that will do to us culturally and as a society, because what does that mean if we don't value something that used to be hard?

[00:21:09] Luke: What if every 16-year-old boy in their bedroom with an electric guitar was Jimi Hendrix or had the capacity to be with using AI?

[00:21:17] East: Well, that's the main difference though. It's one thing to say, I can make a song that looks amazing versus learning how to play it and the satisfaction that it takes of really shedding for years. That human journey of learning a craft. For instance, I used to be a photographer.

[00:21:38] And I remember when the iPhone started coming and got real popular. I was like, okay, it's going to be harder to get jobs. And then soon enough, now we have Instagram and all those filters. It used to be you had to have all these packs of actions and things that you'd have in Photoshop and people would trade them to create sense of what we do on Instagram now in seconds just flipping through lots of options and filters.

[00:21:59] And that's it. That's an analogy of like, I don't think anybody knows that there was another way. And of course there was, and before that there was some other way and some other harder way. And it is a natural progression in a sense. I just think the disruptiveness for the industry will be profound.

[00:22:20] And I think that will be across many industries, both the creative and the mundane. But you asked about positive, or I should just say another polarity? Live events will be more in demand. Not sure that's necessarily a good thing from a green perspective or even for a person like myself. It was like, man, touring's hard.

[00:22:41] But getting together, seeing something real, seeing something happening right in front of you, collective experiences will become more and more desired. And so we'll see a shift in that regard. And it's already happening. But this would just be much more as a symptom of a world of infinite content.

[00:23:07] Luke: Can you see a benefit in someone like you that composes music and then performs it and brings in other musicians where you would write a piece, throw it in pro tools and be able to give a prompt, I'd like some Spanish guitar in this, bling? It's like self-created versus somebody having to come in and figure out parts and mic-ing things and just getting the sound you want and all.

[00:23:33] East: I like mic-ing things. My music is actually mostly acoustic, and I have some electronic beats and stuff, but I like playing a piano and mic-ing and hearing the imperfections because I often just discover that with limitations, it works better. It's almost like, for an instance, if I have a one piano, and I did this record in 2016 called held, and I want to make a record with just this piano and I hadn't really done that before. And I hadn't really mic-ed a piano.

[00:24:04] And so I was learning how to do it and watching videos, and it's a very simple, straightforward record, but those limitations of like, you only have these colors to paint with, it made a very special vibe, and it unlocks something creatively in you when you have less options. And I have to find it very difficult when I sit down at the computer. I have almost limitless soft sense inside digital tools, but I don't know where to start.

[00:24:35] It's like, I don't know. But if you slap down one thing in front of me and like, okay, make something with this, I'd be like, okay. And I only figure out three ways to make sounds. You just start going with it. And that's what I like about playing in a ceremony, which is so different than making a studio record where it's over time and you can think about it and you can add to it and take things away and collaborators can come in, which is cool.

[00:24:59] In a ceremony, I'm like, look, I have the setup I have in front of me. There's only so many things I can do with that. It's looping and my voice and some pianos and keyboards and some percussion. And I have to play for these people. I have to hold my hand on the wheel of this ship, and that's it.

[00:25:17] And that's the priority. And so whatever comes out, comes out. And within that, those limitations, sometimes there's magic that I don't think I can think up just sitting down and like devising a plan.

[00:25:31] Luke: I watched your documentary that'll be coming out in September, right? Music for Mushrooms?

[00:25:36] East: Yeah, 2024 September is the plan right now.

[00:25:38] Luke: Cool. So thank you for the advanced screening. I felt really special. I had a password. I got to sit and watch on my-- it still had the time code on it. And I was like, oh, I'm getting the real shit right here. But there were so many just beautiful moments. And we'll put that in the show notes, you guys, at lukestorey.com/eastforest, and anything else we talk about today.

[00:25:59] Oh, before I talk about that, would it be okay with you, and I guess it'd be awkward if you said no, since we're recording, but could I put one of your meditations and pieces at the end of the episode?

[00:26:07] East: Oh, absolutely. I have a Patreon, and I do a lot of them on there. And so I have lots more now, but there's a couple on Spotify and several on my podcast, like 15 of them I think on there.

[00:26:16] Luke: Yeah, I listened to it in the sauna this morning piece, and I was like, this is so epic. This would make a beautiful closing bookmark. So you guys make sure--

[00:26:27] East: I'll make sure we give you one that I like.

[00:26:30] Luke: You want to give me your favorite one?

[00:26:32] East: Yeah.

[00:26:32] Luke: Okay, cool.

[00:26:33] East: Let me dig in and maybe something I even haven't put out. That'd be cool.

[00:26:35] Luke: Nice. Okay. So back to the film, and I want to talk about a number of things from it, but one of the things I think as a former musician that I was just gritting my teeth, waiting for something to go wrong is the complexity of your setup with the electronics.

[00:26:53] And then there was one part where there was some feedback, some hum on one of the lines or something. And I'm just like, oh my God, how does he deal with that? Especially if you're imbibing in a, I'm sure you know, full journey.

[00:27:04] East: And you're alone. It's not even like, hey, man.

[00:27:06] Luke: You don't have a guitar tech.

[00:27:06] East: Yeah. Or you can blame them. You're like, man, the drummer.

[00:27:10] Luke: Yeah. And there was a one scene where it's like there's noise on one of the lines. And I know that. It's like you have to unplug every single thing and then one at a time, plug them back in to find the noise. And I'm just like--

[00:27:21] East: I have stories. Let me you.

[00:27:22] Luke: How do you deal with just the technical aspect of doing those ceremony performances?

[00:27:28] East: Jesus. For better or worse, I'm very reliant on technology, and it's so much for me to talk about. It's such a private thing that I don't ever get to exercise the fears or the frustrations. And a lot of times you're just sitting there staring at it, thinking about it yourself or talking with friends or colleagues about, hey, I'm having this-- I had a problem with some weird static, that would happen randomly, of course.

[00:28:03] And two years took me to figure it out. And I didn't know if it was the Mac or the interface or the software or the electrical. And I would talk to these companies and eventually someone had the answer and it solved it. But things like that, where you're just like, especially with computers, there's voodoo there. There's voodoo.

[00:28:22] I have a relationship with my gear where I'm gentle with it and I talk to it and it's always with me. And the way the cables are coiled have to be done. It's ritualistic for me. Because I rely on it. And I'm very intentional with my touring gear in particular. Traveling is difficult because I have to carry some of it on with me on the airplane and TSA and that stuff, but I always have to say like-- because they always want it. They go through the x ray, and sometimes they're cool, and sometimes they freak out. It's just a solid block of cables and batteries.

[00:29:03] Luke: All these wires that look a lot like a bomb in an x ray machine.

[00:29:07] East: And they want to lecture me. I always say like, we're time rich, my friend. It's cool. We can take this out slowly. We can run it again, and it's a lot.

[00:29:18] Luke: Have you ever had a situation in which you have a very captive audience and in one of your ceremony performances where people are deep in the medicine and all of a sudden it's like, mic it's unplugged and you have like a jarring, ridiculously disturbing noise happening?

[00:29:33] East: There's been a few times where the power went out. And honestly, sometimes that maybe is magical because then I'll just keep singing, but it's just in the room, very quiet. And you wait till something gets fixed. I had a time where I was playing and it was the climax of the last song and all of the power went out and you look down and you instantly are troubleshooting.

[00:29:52] Is it me or is it the venue? Are there lights on in the room? And there were lights on in the room. I'm like, well, how did the power go out? And I turned my head upstage. And there was a woman who must have been 80 years old. We're in a club. And she was walking across the back of the stage and kicked the power out of the wall.

[00:30:10] And it was someone's grandmother. I was actually with Trevor Hall on tour. It was, I think, one of his friend's grandmother, his grandmother. And I didn't know she was there. It was just one of those cosmic jokes of like, who's the old lady that just kicked the power out of the wall? You just flow with it.

[00:30:27] Luke: I'm picturing a few people ripping their eye mask off and sitting up going, what the fuck is going on?

[00:30:31] East: It's definitely a high wire act, but I have a mantra when these thoughts come up, and it's like a meditation where you're just reminding yourself that you're not in charge, and you're being guided, and that you are loved, these sorts of things. Because it really is. Anytime you take a psychedelic, you're giving yourself over to something larger.

[00:30:53] And we have this illusion in our lives that we're in control, but boy, you're out of control in those spaces. That's the point. You take something and it unlocks something by you giving over your control. And the same thing happens in a performance where the stakes feel higher, but I have to remind myself that that's okay.

[00:31:14] And there's things working with us and working with me and we're all in this together. And it's not just me. If I can grip harder, then I can steer this ship better. It's like, you got to let go. And that is scary, but that is also what allows for moments of magic. You have to give space for it.

[00:31:36] It's a great metaphor for life, but it's so true in those spaces. That's like, if I don't let go and if I don't allow through improvisation for moments where it doesn't feel like it's in the flow, then there's no way to get to the-- you have to allow it to go in those waves, which is tough because I'm half German and I want to be in control. I'm detail-oriented.

[00:31:57] Luke: I have no German and that's been one of my big life lessons. It's one thing that the ceremony space has really helped me with. It's just seeing that all the exertion of control throughout my life has been really futile.

[00:32:12] East: Yeah, especially in hindsight. It's just like, did any of that matter? But looking forward to me, it mattered. At the same time, not to go too much in the technical stuff, but it is very detailed. And those details, the sum of those add up to something.

[00:32:30] And I'm very into the details of an experience. I have a lot of host energy in me that I enjoy people having the right experience. If we have a party how it smells and the temperature and the lighting, all that really matters. And when they come into a concert, it's the same thing.

[00:32:48] I think there's a scene in there at the end where I'm really struggling because I was at a venue that there was another event near next door. The sub was just like, and I was like, people are not going to be able to drop in. And you know it, and you're just like--

[00:33:03] Luke: I remember that scene. And then someone was there trying to calm you down like, oh, I don't think we can hear it. And you're like, yes, you fucking can.

[00:33:09] East: And guess what, people did complain, and yeah, it was a problem. And that's heartbreaking because you've worked so hard to get to that moment in the room.

[00:33:18] Luke: And the temperature too. There was a thing where people were cold. I think you did an apology video on your Instagram or something like, hey, guys, certain things are out of our control. Sorry about that.

[00:33:27] East: And I fight for it, but we walk in places that have no heat, and you're like, how is this possible that we're renting these fancy venues and there's no heat. I guess that maybe works when it's dancing, but when you're lying down on the floor on a yoga mat, it's cold. It's got to be a lot warmer.

[00:33:49] Luke: Yeah. And also you get those--

[00:33:49] East: That's set and setting stuff.

[00:33:50] Luke: weird temperature fluctuations too in the medicine space. You'll be sweating your ass off one minute and then you're freezing. It's very strange like that.

[00:33:59] East: Yeah. And a lot of these are hybrid spaces. I work on a spectrum of places and I'd say on one side of that spectrum is like-- we were just in Costa Rica at a place called Reunion doing a psilocybin retreat with my partner, Radha, who's over here.

[00:34:13] Luke: Yay, Radha. Radha was in the film too.

[00:34:16] East: Oh yeah, she's the second biggest character.

[00:34:19] Luke: Yeah, yeah. She a co-star

[00:34:201] East: She absolutely is a co-star. Yeah. Gunning for Best Supporting Actress. She's a therapist, academy therapist, life coach, great talent and teacher. And we were down in Costa Rica doing a medicine retreat. So that's one end of the spectrum where the medicine is provided. There's doctors. It's intentional. You know about people. We're there for a week, full immersion.

[00:34:46] And then the other side of it, a festival where it's like, I don't know who's out there. I'm only playing for 40 minutes. You do your best. And then there's this hybrid in between where we do a lot of events. We did a lot of those that you saw in the film, where it's a bit more of a ceremony.

[00:35:04] There might be 500-plus people lying down. So I can't know. There's no way. And we have people in the room that are sitters, but they're like psychedelic air marshals. We don't want to say fully like, oh, we got you fully because obviously we can't handle 500-plus people, but we were here to support as best we can.

[00:35:23] But it's about personal responsibility. And I think that's a big part of this revolution that we're in, is it coming from the inside out. It's coming from the bottom up. Because the change that we need to see in the world is not going to come. It's impossible for it to come fast enough from the top down.

[00:35:44] And all change that we've ever seen in the world has been from the inside out. It sounds sort of reductive and obvious, but it's true. Every revolution started from individuals making changes internally, and that turns into collective changes and action in the world. And so inner work in that regard matters, not just matters, it's fundamental. It's critical.

[00:36:10] And we're told a story that's the opposite, that it's irrelevant. It's flippant. What matters is the next president, or so forth. I'm not saying it doesn't matter, but that's not going to solve the problems. And so most of us are waiting. And when you're waiting, you feel like you're a victim.

[00:36:31] I'm just responding. And so there's a narrative arc, but the message, the subtext for me that I hope comes across is to say that your inner work matters, and whatever it is for you, just enter that path. It's different for all of us. It's not to say it's mushrooms. It's not.

[00:36:55] It may be part of it, but certainly not the answer. It's just going to show you things. But most likely, like that Duncan Trussell line, at the end of it, it's about what's right in front of you. Probably your family. How you're treating yourself or your partner, our relationships are that crucible of our work. It's not the thing that's the sideshow, and it's what we are publicly. The public thing is a few steps down the line.

[00:37:22] Luke: 100%, dude.

[00:37:23] East: That Ram Dass line, it's so beautiful that the real work is in the privacy of your own heart.

[00:37:30] Luke: Oh, beautiful. That was in the film, right?

[00:37:32] East: Yeah, there's a little clip for that--

[00:37:32] Luke: Beautiful. Yeah, yeah. Beautiful. I can't wait to talk about Ram Dass with you, but one of my favorite and famous lines of his is something to the effect of, if you think you've reached enlightenment, go spend a week with your family. And it really is. In my own healing journey, healing those relationships and core wounds with the people with whom I've been most intimate in my life, family and otherwise, have been by far the most transformative.

[00:38:04] And I think also had the most positive impact on the collective versus, I don't know, when I'm posting about chemtrails on Instagram, thinking I'm fighting the man or changing the world or whatever. And it's like, how about if I can generate love in my heart and unconditional kindness for all beings in all of creation?

[00:38:26] If you just focus on that in your life, you're never going to achieve it with perfection, but I think that has more impact than a lot of the outer work that we try to do of fixing the world from the outside in.

[00:38:39] East: Yeah. Love everyone. Tell the truth. Maharaji is teaching. Look, righteousness is one of the hardest things to overcome or work with on the spiritual path. And I think we're just in a righteousness swamp, especially online. We're in a space where it doesn't take much to-- actually, what helps you create a platform is outrage and division in a sense.

[00:39:03] So it's a snake eating its own tail of, in a sense, the opposite medicine of what we need. And what we need is loving, awareness, compassion, acceptance, and service in a sense. That's not all we need, but in that direction.

[00:39:16] Luke: Yeah.

[00:39:17] East: As opposed to like, I have the answer, you don't, or I'm wrong, or this person's the problem. It's like, maybe all that's true, but still, it's an inclusiveness, I think, that often comes from an inner introspection in a sense and working with the traumas that we've been carrying and handed down and doing what we can to transform those.

[00:39:48] The real transformation through those, I would imagine, comes through wanting to help others or just that loving awareness of just that authority of your witness, just being truly present.

[00:40:00] That's what Ram Dass-- people ask often, like, what did you get out of that? That was my favorite, I should say, teaching of his when I first arrived and we were sitting like this about this far apart and he's in his chair in his study in Maui. And I put up the mics like this, or a mic on him, and they shut the door.

[00:40:23] And I remember thinking like, this is the spiritual white house that I definitely had fooled someone. Someone's going to be like, wait a minute. Who's in there right now? And I realized how special it was. And he was looking at me for the first time when he was finally quiet and just fully present.

[00:40:44] And not in a weird way or like a cold way, in a very loving way. And it was the first time I got a full fire hydrant blast of that loving awareness. And not only did I feel so special, but I realized that any of us can give this to anyone at any time. You don't have to learn it or earn it. And that's really what we all want, it's just to be seen and witnessed.

[00:41:14] And that witnessing, you can do it to yourself and you can do it to others. There's no action. It's not like I need something from you or we have to solve something. And that was an amazing teaching. And he taught it without saying a word, actually it's silence.

[00:41:34] Luke: I have a funny story about your music and Ram Dass. So about three years ago, I was set to interview Wayne Dyer's daughter, Serena. And so they sent me her book, and I have a random playlist on Spotify. It was just the music I liked to jam to, yours included, but it wasn't your playlist. It was just a bunch of plant medicine songs and stuff.

[00:41:59] I'm laying on the couch, reading her book, and it gets to a part in the story where she was talking about her dad's relationship with Ram Dass. And I swear it gives me chills right now, dude. It's just the cosmic giggle. So random playlist, randomly reading a book, and she's like, yeah, it was one of my favorite things about Ram Dass used to say to my dad, was, I am loving awareness.

[00:42:21] And right as I read that, your song is playing where he says that mantra. I was just like, come on, man. Maybe it's not that random, but it's pretty damn random. Out of all the thousands of songs that could have been playing at that moment when I'm reading that book, and I shared that with her when we did that recording and she said, dude, that kind of stuff happened all the time when you were around Ram Dass and around her dad too.

[00:42:44] It was just like, oh yeah, that's my entire life, was synchronicities like that, which are probably happening much more than we even realize. It's just back to your point of presence, many of us, myself included at times, just lack the presence to see the magic in life and the orchestration of the unseen hand that's always happening.

[00:43:01] East: The web of connection.

[00:43:03] Luke: Yeah.

[00:43:04] East: Synchronicity, I like to think about it that the element of choice is what allows it to exist in the sense that it's not wrong when that moment happened to you, how you wanted to look at it. You could say this is random, or you could say it as meaning. And both are correct in a sense, but one has a doorway to more meaning, and that meaning seems to then build on itself.

[00:43:30] There's some kind of conversation there where your element of choice is what unlocks it to speak to you further. And that goes back to the level of individual choice we have as each of us in this form of transformation and the role we play like that. That choice to enter, that choice to open, that choice to listen is critical.

[00:43:50] It's everything. Because without it, where is your agency? Where's your volition in it? And that's when it becomes what people talk about, a co-creative experience or something. But I think it boils down to something as simply as making that choice internally. That's where a ritual can be useful or what ceremony really is.

[00:44:14] I like to call it creating the invitation to be spoken to. And I say that to audiences in different ways, like, look, we can enter tonight in different ways. And they're not wrong. But I'm giving you the invitation here with me tonight that what if we wanted it to be deeper, or what if you wanted to enter it in a slightly different way than maybe what we normally do at concerts because of our conventions and so forth, social decisions we've made? And there's a lot of opportunity there. I think hopefully that feels empowering to people.

[00:44:51] Luke: I think in the context of a crowd, when you're mixing music and a psychedelic, there's such a difference between presence and intention versus what I used to do when I was younger is take copious amounts of acid and/or mushrooms and I go see the Grateful Dead or go to a festival. And nothing against that, but I definitely wasn't having any insights or spiritual awakening because there was no presence. It was like a running away from--

[00:45:20] East: It's like a blitzkrieg of-- maybe you'll run into certain things, and that happens, but it's just increasing your odds in a way, setting yourself up for success.

[00:45:30] Luke: Yeah, yeah.

[00:45:31] East: That's what music is. We're going back to the tools we can provide. I just think if we provide certain music for people in psychedelic journeys that's designed for that space, your odds now of them having a positive experience go way up, way up. And it can be simple things that increase those odds. I'm really interested in that conversation right now about like, well, what is the most base parts of ceremony that we can get out there in the world that can increase the chances that people have non-traumatic but positive experiences?

[00:46:04] Luke: Have you ever thought about how different music and different people and everything really in the universe sits at different levels of consciousness? I love to listen to classical music in the house. It's like the only music my wife won't go mute. It's not annoying.

[00:46:23] I don't know, Chopin, I think we had on today is just beautiful, soft piano music. And there's a certain energy, a certain consciousness to that music versus if I was playing Slayer. And it's like, do you feel with your music in the context of ceremonial spaces that the consciousness, the calibration of vibration of the music has that kind of an impact because of the intentionality of it and how it sounds versus what one might-- you might enjoy some music when you work out, but you wouldn't necessarily want that same music to be played when you're in a vulnerable, really open place.

[00:47:01] East: Yeah. Look, on the most basic level, music is pressure waves. It's physical. So you're in a very tender, vulnerable space. How do you want to be touched?

[00:47:14] Luke: Wow, wow.

[00:47:15] East: And it's just logical in that way. It's like there are times you want to be pushed, or it's like an acoustical massage where there's tension and release, or rises and falls, or minors, majors, or it's modal, or it's not fully defined.

[00:47:29] All those are choices you can make with rhythm, or there's less defined rhythm, ways that your body is in training with that or aligning with it in essence. And so, absolutely. It does come down to a level of taste. And I think that's what's cool about it. Look, if you just zoom out, how cool is it that we're talking about the thing that guides the journeys is something that has infinite combinations and people like it different ways.

[00:48:01] It's all like ice cream, but there's different flavors. It's all good. But it's like, man, we can just keep making up flavors of ice cream. And that's cool. That's just cool. So beautiful. Even, what is music in the first place? Why does that exist? And why do we have it and respond to it? It really is like asking a fish what water is.

[00:48:22] It's so present in our lives. We're talking with sound and kinds of music right now, and that conveys ideas and understanding, and that's how we relate in society and even in our own minds. We talk to ourselves. It's very strange. And then you take relationships of tones, which is just like math, how those things are in alignment across time, rhythm, we have music.

[00:48:49] And why does that exist in the universe? Why? It's like, why does humor exist? It serves on a similar wavelength. And thank God it does, but it is a strange thing that we just take for granted. And then when I've been in psychedelic spaces doing my own work with music and my personal work, I have these sensations like the music is taking me almost to another dimensional space and then the music itself is like a sonic architecture that I'm in, sometimes becoming it aesthetically, and having all these understandings and experiences through this music, this technology, that makes sense in that space in a hyper dimensional way.

[00:49:34] And then as I come back to 3D reality, that same tether, that same ribbon that's connecting, it's the same song, and I'm listening to it here, and it makes sense in this reality, but you remember through feeling those revelations of the psychedelic multidimensional space, the non-dual space.

[00:49:55] Luke: Yes.

[00:49:56] East: And there's a bridge. It's a translator. And what does music do? It just engenders feeling. And then it's this aha of like, holy shit. There's a boundary condition of our consciousness, almost like keys on a piano. And on one level it's like the base level stuff, like we go to sleep. I have the physical properties of a rock, and I breathe oxygen like a plant, and so forth and so on.

[00:50:23] And then you go up the octaves to like, we're able to have compassion and brother and sisterly love and agape consciousness and so forth. We are able to witness our consciousness, all these unique things. And then we take psychedelics and we can jump up into oneness and non-duality and understandings and somehow music works across this scale.

[00:50:44] It's of the rocks and stone in a way, but it's able to translate and take us in these other places. And I feel like it's here for that reason in a sense. It's a bridge or a spaceship, but it's something about what it means to be human, writing songs. We've been writing songs forever, forever, to connect, to build bonds, to tell stories, to take history, to guide us.

[00:51:11] And in that sense, that's that line-- well, there's a line in the film about, it's one great song, perhaps. And we just really almost take it for granted. And so when I talk about things like AI and washing out music, of course, I worry about this on a simple level of my life, but I also think like, well, it's all divine. What does that mean? Are infinite songs literally becoming one? It's like, well, maybe there's some kind of thing there, some boundary. I don't know. But it's a trip.

[00:51:44] Luke: Speaking of boundaries and non-duality, have you ever had the experience in journey space where you're listening to music that has vocals and had the realization that that singer was singing directly to you in real time from the context that in that space, there is no time?

[00:52:09] East: Yeah. Well, it's even weirder because I'm often testing of my music and I'm hearing myself sing to me and it feels like another part of me that's not me and I can't remember how any of it happened. And then it gets really meta. Because it feels like my soul singing to my ego. And I'm sitting there just like this child scared like, but I'm sorry. And the soul representing all that is being. It's just love. But it's me singing to me. And that's when it gets very strange.

[00:52:39] Luke: That's deep.

[00:52:40] East: So I prefer it when it's like Ram Dass talking or something and I can be like, all right.

[00:52:44] Luke: I've had that experience a couple of times, and it's difficult to articulate and probably would sound insane to some people, but I have had a very real sense that even though I'm listening to pre-recorded music with someone that might not even be in their body anymore, that they're with me in that moment, singing to me.

[00:53:02] And I'm quite certain that that's the case in that moment. Then I come back to what we call a real time reality and go, oh, that's impossible. But if we think about the true reality that time really is a construct and that there's no beginning to it and there's no end to it. It's just our particular vantage point using our senses places us right here, sitting together in this moment, it's not like the moment 10 years ago is gone and doesn't exist, or the one that's coming doesn't exist. We just can't see it in the same way because we're not in that timestamp.

[00:53:36] And I think that's where those realizations have come from. And it's really beautiful. I've had a couple of really profound experiences where I'm listening to a, I don't know, someone singing mantra or something. And I realized, oh, this person's in the space with me, especially in the DMT, when you get in the real Akashic records space where it's like, whoa, you're talking to people's souls and you're all in there and everything is known and everything is seen. It's in those spaces. It's a very unique flavor of experience in which I've had that realization. It's so cool.

[00:54:13] East: It's always been this moment. Ram Dass would sometimes lean into someone and just be like, it's just this. Just this. Always just been this. Always will be just be this. There is nothing else. And in the medicine space, I've often felt that too, man. You can call forth energies of people in a way that's in real time, anyone or anything.

[00:54:38] And just feels like that soul, that being, there it is for you to do that work. And my heart tells me that that work matters. Maybe my brain has some questions, but that skepticism is part of our collective story too. And that goes back to that heart wisdom of choice. You get to choose if it matters to you. You don't have to wait for it to be proven, so to speak.

[00:55:04] It defies that whole system. That's the point, in a way. And we were trying to bake that into the film where it's a non-answer answer. And our world wants it to be like, what are the seven things I do? Give me the list. And it's like, we can point you in certain directions, but at the end of the day, the point is that it's up to you.

[00:55:26] And that's the revelation, is that you get to choose. And my friend Court Johnson, there's a scene in there, he's the voice of a song I have called 10 Laws and some other things. Been a teacher of mine for a long time. And I love when he says, all choices are valid and everybody graduates. It's just a soothing idea. And that goes back to about righteousness.

[00:55:52] Luke: That was actually something I wanted to ask you about was Court, who appeared briefly in the film. We didn't learn a lot about him, but he--

[00:55:58] East: I could do a whole film about Court.

[00:55:59] Luke: He dropped a couple nuggets and I was like, that guy's got it. He's got it. What's his story?

[00:56:06] East: He's a very well-known artist in the skateboard world, VCJ or VC Johnson.

[00:56:10] Luke: I saw in the film he was doing something with a skateboard. It just didn't match him. You know what I mean? It's like, what's he doing with the skateboard?

[00:56:18] East: He's been in Santa Barbara, born and raised back when it was dirt roads. And he does all the artwork for Powell Peralta skateboards. And so in that world, he's very well known for the skate heads. But beyond that, he had a Satori moment, I think in the 80s where he's at a Chinese restaurant and the waiter was pouring tea and all of a sudden, he could just see all the ghosts in the room and past lives, and he had a breakthrough. And he hasn't really come back from that. So some people call that crazy, but once I've sat with him for years, it ain't crazy.

[00:56:54] Luke: I call people that aren't like that crazy.

[00:56:56] East: He's name's Court. He's a court jester. He's a trickster. And so I go there and he does readings where through smoking copious amounts of tobacco and muscle testing with his hand, he holds a crystal and he's muscle testing. He's reading through all the past lives you've had together and everything going on in the room and clearing things in your body and energy systems, but he never leaves the house really.

[00:57:23] And he doesn't have a website. You don't hire him. This is old-school, man. You align. You bump into each other and anyone who shows up, he opens the door and he's always like, oh, I'm so glad you are here, Luke. It was 2000 years ago, and I cut off your head. And boy, we can finally clear this karma.

[00:57:44] It's like, sit in, and he's just like, I can't believe it. Just go through all the things, and we're clearing it. But there's many, many things he said that make more sense as time goes on. And I wanted to have him in the film because he's been so influential to me, but it's so difficult.

[00:58:02] You can't pin this guy down. We just had to show up and see. And it's always like that when you're bringing a camera crew and I'm like, I hope he's home and he's down with this and there aren't other people there. And it's one of those magical moments where it all worked.

[00:58:18] Luke: I've had some podcast recordings like that, trying to lock someone into a time and date not happening. And then they'll text me and be like, can you be here in an hour?

[00:58:26] East: Yeah.

[00:58:27] Luke: With what crew? But yeah, Court, he really struck me. Something about him really stood out. I think even though he just said a few things, the things he said had such a depth of simplicity.

[00:58:39] East: It's so beautiful what he says. There's so many lines he said to me that I pass on, whether in songs or on stage. He says that line at the end where he's like, I'm going to stick around and watch a nation wake up. You can see him seeing, and he's like, wow. Yeah, I'm going to stick around. I was thinking of checking out.

[00:59:03] Luke: Yeah. That was cool.

[00:59:05] East: I want to watch this happen.

[00:59:06] Luke: That was cool. How do you feel about where we are as a species in terms of, are we awakening or are we on the brink of absolute collapse?

[00:59:26] East: Both. I don't know. If we were to design a universe, would it be any different? Would it not have Slayer and Chopin? It would have the fullest extremes of every side of the spectrum because it would be everything. And so in that way, it'd be like, well, I guess it'd be like this.

[00:59:53] I can't think of anything possibly. There's no concept that I could hold. And psychedelics are part of that too. And the smallest microbes to the biggest genocides, to the largest artistic flourishes, to the synchronicities. In that sense, I can't possibly have the hubris to say that there's not some interconnectedness there, or dare I say design that is beyond my mind being able to hold it or certainly put it in a box.

[01:00:31] My podcast, I had a conversation with Matthew Fox, and I love the line. He says that when you have an experience with the numinous or psychedelics or a mystical moment that the only rational response is silence or art, because there is nothing to say.

[01:00:52] That moment with Ram Dass where he was sharing that loving awareness was the answer in a sense. The answer is the silent love, and the only way we can explore the mystery is through metaphor. That's why music's so amazing. And that's why as the years go on, here I am talking, but I may honestly feel like there's less and less to say.

[01:01:15] And I don't have the answer and the film doesn't have the answer, but the film or whatever it is, it has inspiration. And that, in a sense, is the flavor of the answer, is to inspire us each to enter our journey and to continue walking, and that there's no destination. That's the point. That would be bad, in a way, but we think there's the place, there's the answers, there's the thing. There's the election, whatever.

[01:01:46] Going back to Ram Dass again, that same song, Sit Around the Fire, he's got another line in there that all there is for us to do for eternity is to sit around the fire together. And when you think about it that way, it goes back to singing songs, telling stories, listening, the warmth of just being together. That's it.

[01:02:11] Luke: One thing that helps me reconcile the extreme polarity in the world who has been naive and idealistic about the world should just be utopia and everyone should be enlightened and there should be no problems and no suffering and violence and wars and all the things, if the purpose of being here in a body is to evolve as a point of consciousness, as a soul, then the world as it exists now is absolutely perfect. Nothing needs to change.

[01:02:44] East: Pretty rich school.

[01:02:45] Luke: You know what I'm saying? If it is an earth school, then it makes perfect sense to me. Because if it was a utopia, how would you you possibly create a diamond? You know what I'm saying? If there was no pressure, it's like, well, what would we be doing here? Just singing Kumbaya and just remaining stagnant at a certain level.

[01:03:07] East: Or conversely, it's just like listening to house music and taking cocaine. I think we're all--

[01:03:14] Luke: God, that sounds horrible.

[01:03:21] East: We all are wanting to go to God whether we know it or not. We're all wanting to go home in a sense, but some of us it's Monday night football or heroin. Some of its mantra and probably many different things in your life. But it's all grist for the mill.

[01:03:36] And I agree with you that if it's a perfect campus, it's a perfect world, the Dharma's playing field is our life in a sense. All choices are valid, but it's like, we're time rich. You're going to come back. There's nowhere to go. It's just this.

[01:03:53] So you can work with stuff now or not, but I think there's a level of compassion probably for others by saying, I am willing to do my internal work because I know that that will benefit the world. If it's done with truth and it's done in a sense where you have a mirror, you have a witness to say, hey, I think you're a little bit in delusion here or something. It's like, I can get you back on course.

[01:04:24] But that's why we need community and that's why we need honest feedback and diversity of feedback. That's why we need diversity in our communities. So we need feedback that's not a feedback loop of approval, because we need dissent to say, maybe I do have a blind spot.

[01:04:40] Or it's like, no one's always right 100% of the time. Sometimes there isn't even one right. And so that's why it's important that we have that friction like you're talking about. A sense of utopia in a sense, it doesn't exist fully because the whole plan is about change and shift and movement.

[01:04:57] All of nature is about one system shifting into another system. That's all it is. And it's all our lives are, waking, sleeping, so forth. Hungry, not hungry. That's the point, it feels like, at least to me.

[01:05:11] Luke: I think the bandwidth that we have on the spectrum of duality is such a gift. When I think about my own life, you mentioned heroin and cocaine, I spent a lot of years wrestling with those demons. I was at a really low level of consciousness, depression, anxiety, horrible moral character.

[01:05:33] East: You're in pain. It probably helped you get out of pain momentarily.

[01:05:37] Luke: It was a way to mask trauma for a while, and it worked until it didn't work. But thinking about when I was a little kid, for example, I had no qualms with breaking into someone's house and stealing their shit. The moral question of that, it wasn't even like, I don't know, is this right or wrong?

[01:05:56] There was no sense of right or wrong, no sense of boundaries. And there are worse people than me, and many of them end up in prison. I was lucky to avoid that. But just thinking about where I used to exist and just suicidal ideation and resentment and hatred and fear, and just totally self-consumed, to be able to live that guy and the guy I am today in the same lifetime is pretty incredible.

[01:06:18] East: It's pretty wild.

[01:06:19] Luke: It's cool as shit. So if I didn't have the opportunity to live at that animal base level just instinctive survival, it's like, I wouldn't have the compassion for people who were still there, and there would be nothing to work up from. I had to have that low place in order to be able to have a ladder to climb, to find something new and different and higher.

[01:06:44] East: You need wounds too. And you need something to press against. You're right. The friction is the point. It really is. And often we're always trying to run from that. That's a hard lesson for me, for any of us, I would imagine. But to be able to hold a congruency of feelings, to be able to hold maybe that depression, as Ram Dass says-- we have a song from the record we did called Dark Thoughts, which is about loving your dark thoughts.

[01:07:12] So what a wild idea, as opposed to getting rid of them. Or we hear a lot about maybe the ego dying or transcending your ego. And perhaps it's more of holding space to love your ego and allow it to be in the room too. You're not trying to remove anything. It's saying, okay, yeah. What do you do with a child that's having a tantrum?

[01:07:38] We know it will pass. We know it's ridiculous, whatever the thing is. You just give it space, weight, and some love, maybe some boundaries, and it will pass. We know that. It's obvious to us. But not from the child's perspective. So just like you changed in your life to now means it's going to happen again.

[01:07:56] To what? I don't know. When I see that, I need to drop some hubris because whatever I think is the answer that I know now, I know 10 years, 20 years, if I'm still around, God willing, I'll look back and be like, oh boy. Listen to him on The Life Stylist. That'd be me judging it.

[01:08:18] Luke: I've had that experience so many times.

[01:08:20] East: Loosen the grip.

[01:08:21] Luke: Yeah. Just things that I held to be true and were maybe true at that level of development, but I think back on some of the things.

[01:08:29] East: It's okay. In some ways, it loosens truth itself, is just to say like, look, it's all just loose, and it's okay. Do your best. Throw some things out there. Some things will stick, some things won't. And that's a big teaching for myself. It's just like, whatever it is, it doesn't have to be perfect because when you look back, do you even remember? Just the fact that we forget things, we forget most things, that's crazy too.

[01:09:01] Luke: Yeah. How did you first meet Ram Dass and get involved with him? That's such an interesting collaboration.

[01:09:08] East: Yeah, he was the teacher for me, like most people. I just had read Be Here Now and I'd heard some talks and I really loved him because he was an intellectual and he was funny. And he had the psychedelic angle. And that was it. And I think I had really yearned to go to one of his retreats that I'd heard about, but I didn't think that was even attainable financially or any other way.

[01:09:33] And as time went on, I was making music where I was using spoken word. I'd record stuff, whether it's nature sounds or Court talking, and it just became something I liked recording in life, just stuff that I was coming across. And so I had a little bit of a fluency with that. And so 2017 or '18, I was talking to my manager at the time, and we're just kicking out ideas.

[01:09:56] And I had an idea to make a record with spiritual teachers, multiple songs. I think he said, how do you want your music to be remembered? We were having a big once-a-year little meeting. Okay, let's zoom out. How do you want your music to be remembered? And I think I said, well, I want my work to be remembered like Ram Dass's work is remembered.

[01:10:16] It has a legacy, and it's about the spirit of the gift, and it feels loving and more than just about him. I want to go in that direction. And eventually the manager suggested, Tim, why don't you make a record with just Ram Dass? And I'm like, well, yeah, but how?

[01:10:35] And it was actually through a podcast. It's the magic of podcasts, because you get to know someone in a podcast. And I'd done a podcast with Ragu Marcus, who's the executive director of Love, Serve, Remember, which is Ram Dass's foundation. Ragu's the boss.

[01:10:49] And so by doing that, I could pitch him the idea, and it was just the right timing. And part of my idea was featuring other artists on the record, so I was like, I'll essentially be the producer for this, and I'll work with other people.

[01:11:04] So it was good timing. But look, man, of course, that's the answer answer, but it's Maharaji. It's the mushrooms. They were all in service to something unfolding in all respects. And when I was in the room with Ram Dass on that one first day and the door shut, that's when it finally hit me that it wasn't just something I thought up, got a plan. Worked my way through. You know what I mean?

[01:11:30] I had that idea most of my life is like, well, I willed this. I worked hard. I squeezed it harder. I still have a lot of that in me that I have to be like, really? Really? And when you give yourself over to that divine grace of I'm being gifted this, I'm in the flow with this.

[01:11:50] Ram Dass and I are passing across as souls right now. Holy shit. Just this, just this. That's Ram Dass. And then there's this picture of Maharaji, his guru, over him. It was sort of exploding at me, him laughing in the picture of me. It's one of those revelations of like, this is real.

[01:12:12] Not just real, like, oh my God, I've achieved something. No, more like, we're all just people crossing paths, and this is happening. And it wasn't a trick. None of it's a trick. It's all just this, and I think that's something for me to continue to learn from.

[01:12:29] Luke: On the music that you created with his voice, how much of it was you recording him talking versus taking archival audio?

[01:12:38] East: It was all from the recordings, except for that. Yeah, so originally I went there not knowing what we get. I was a little bit too cavalier thinking like, oh, we'll just chat, and maybe it'll be like poetry just a little bit here and there. And I remember when he was staring at me, also, he wasn't saying anything, and we're recording. And I'm remembering that this is an audio experience and it's like, I guess I need to ask some questions.

[01:13:05] So I would ask him a question. I think the very first one was about nature because we were looking out the window down at the ocean in Maui. How do we use it, etc. It was a rambling question. I was nervous. And he had aphasia. He had a stroke. So it's difficult to speak. His brain was there, but difficult to speak.

[01:13:28] So he was looking out the window minutes. I still hadn't recorded anything. I'm thinking, this might be a failure. And I thought he didn't like my question or just was like, I don't know, chose to meditate or something. And then Mike's right here like this in front of him and he's meditating with his beats looking out, like this, you to me, and not looking at me.

[01:13:53] The first song on the record is called Nature. It might be fun to play at the end because what he says is exactly what he said. And you'll hear him say like trees, or water. But imagine there was a minute in between each word. And I don't know where he's going. So he lists out all those things and then eventually he's like, are all our friends, are us. And you'll hear the song.

[01:14:23] And again, just imagine that that took 15 minutes or 20 minutes and it gets compressed into a song. When it's inside the music, you don't think about pause. It just flows. And when he finished, he looked over at me and was like, mic drop kind of thing, because I was like, holy shit. You are at the top of your game, and you just gave me a perfect, one minute piece of poetry that had an arc and a story, a bit of humor, inspiration, and a tag. I didn't delete or change anything. I just put it in the music.

[01:15:56] Luke: Really?

[01:15:57] East: Yeah. And they were almost all of them like that. And what was so cool is when he would speak, because of the aphasia, it was a little difficult to still get the teachings in the same way, but the technology of music unlocked him fully in a way that now it's like he was really at the height of his wisdom and technical prowess, but he needed a technology like that so it could be transmitted in a sense. And I didn't fully know that until we heard it, and it was really profound. So everything we recorded was just enough for what you hear on the record.

[01:15:35] Luke: It's crazy.

[01:15:36] East: There's a song, perfect, perfect. It's just him laughing. Because I was like, well, I have this laughter of his. Maybe that's a song.

[01:15:44] Luke: That's so cool. What an incredible experience for you as a musician. How cool. One thing I thought was so interesting about him later in his life after the stroke, you think about, I don't know, you're an average person like me going through something like that, where obviously it's physically limiting, but you would have to have a really solid sense of self identity to not feel victimized by something like that. And he just seemed to get happier and more free all the time as he aged with post stroke.

[01:16:22] He didn't seem vexed by it at all. I didn't know the guy, but when you see him doing interviews, obviously, especially for someone who was such a phenomenal orator, his voice is his thing. That's why we listen to all these hours and hours of recordings. I don't know. It's like, if you're a guitar player and you lose four fingers on your left hand kind of thing, it's like, well, I can thumb a couple of notes, and that has to be enough. It was a real testament to the work that he'd put in.

[01:16:53] East: I'm sure it was a journey for him, and I know there was a really beautiful doc called fierce grace. That was early--

[01:16:59] Luke: Oh yeah, that was epic.

[01:17:00] East: Yeah, and that was earlier. And we just met him in the last two years of his life, Rod and I, and witnessing that final decline, but also, as he spoke less and less-- the recordings we did in 2018, as far as I know, were the last recorded teachings because he just wasn't speaking much after that. His body was sicker and sicker in a sense, but he got lighter and lighter.

[01:17:31] We were talking with Bob Thurman a few days ago, actually, and he was telling me that he knew Ram Dass back in his Richard Alpert at Harvard. And he said he saw Ram Dass in his view become a saint, one of our only American saints in the last two years though of his life. And there really was this opening of lightness, of pure presence, of loving awareness.

[01:17:55] What a blessing that we got to see that or just literally feel it in the room. And that's something that started to get really psychedelic, like I think we can feel it in this moment, and it's something that's within all of us. And amazing message to think that Richard Alpert is just like anybody else, a guy with problems, Jewish guy from New England, and in the end, he came off as a saint to some people.

[01:18:25] Luke: It's wild, man.

[01:18:26] East: It's possible.

[01:18:27] Luke: It's wild.

[01:18:28] East: And it was the last two years. It's a process. And he kept developing and doing his own work and shedding and letting go as opposed to just being like, I'm done with that, or I'm tired. I'm like, I'm sure he was tired, but he kept loosening that grip to the point of just bliss. And I think that's a really beautiful manifestation that we can all be able to witness.

[01:19:00] Luke: It's also somewhat rare that he never seemed to give into temptation in terms of taking advantage of or exploiting or capitalizing on his gifts.

[01:19:15] East: And maybe he did. I don't know.

[01:19:17] Luke: I don't know the guy.

[01:19:18] East: Little ways.

[01:19:19] Luke: But you think of like the fallen guru syndrome where someone does have innate gifts and the veil is thin and they do have that consciousness.

[01:19:29] East: Yeah, he shunned the riches in a sense. He didn't take the big speaking fees. It was all this spirit of the gift.

[01:19:36] Luke: Yeah. And he didn't collect followers and adorning fans.

[01:19:40] East: He didn't have a lot of money.

[01:19:41] Luke: Exploit that. You know what I mean? That path. Some people have legitimate gifts and then they fall prey to power.

[01:19:49] East: All the time.

[01:19:49] Luke: All the things, which is super depressing. Because then when you follow someone's work and then they have a fall from grace, you're like, wait, so was everything bullshit that I've been learning from them.

[01:20:00] East: That's more common.

[01:20:01] Luke: That's what I'm saying.

[01:20:02] East: It's very difficult. Yeah. I think these days, too, every day, there's some sorts of carrots dangled in front of you. Some of them are very quiet and insidious and only you might notice them, but there's these choices you're constantly making about, what is your North Star? How do I navigate to, to make these choices?

[01:20:26] Court Johnson, my buddy, one of his first teachings was that song, 10 Laws. And he has this hunter gatherer's code of ten that he goes across his fingers and it's how he keeps, as he calls it, his ship of life sailing straight. And it's like, if I have these things covered the rest is gravy. This is important stuff for him. And we all can develop our code of ten or even just one thing.

[01:20:48] What are the things that are really important to you that if you follow those stars amidst this maelstrom of our lives that you're going to be going in a direction you've chosen? You're like, that's the horizon I want to at least point for. I might lose my way at times. The clouds come. But it's like, I know what my stars are.

[01:21:06] You can change them. They're not immutable. But I think that's critical. And that's part of what inner work does for us, is that it helps you not just develop in psychedelic work, is understanding what you want to navigate by. It clears away the noise. I think that's the name of the game right now, in our information sickness, another Court line. Information sickness is what we have.

[01:21:34] Luke: We need to get Court on the podcast.

[01:21:36] East: Good luck.

[01:21:37] Luke: Just show up at his house.

[01:21:39] East: I had him on mine on Zoom, and it was his first Zoom ever. And I was--

[01:21:42] Luke: I love this dude.

[01:21:43] East: I was amazed that he even showed up on the screen. He's like, what's going on here?

[01:21:47] Luke: I love this dude already. Yeah. It's a classic. There's meme about boomers, like, they don't ever know how to work their phone and Zoom and stuff like that. How do I turn the camera on? Thinking about my dad. God bless him. What do your parents think of the work you do as a musician and as a journeyman?

[01:22:09] East: My parents are awesome, and they're very loving. My mom probably thinks she understands it and has put it in a box kind of thing. She likes to like, I got it. I explained an ayahuasca ceremony in my experience. She asks a bunch of questions like, okay, great. Cataloged. Done. And nothing more that I need to learn there in that regard.

[01:22:31] But I've invited them into the spaces in different ways and they come in the ways I think they feel comfortable with. And I stopped trying to change them or an agenda of saying that you have to do this or you need to be anything different. So I think they're probably more proud of it as the years have gone on because early on, it was probably a little bit of worry about what is this stuff you're doing? Are you dealing drugs?

[01:23:00] Because there was no mainstream validation of an article in John Hopkins. One of their friends now maybe read Michael Pollan's book and is talking to them about it. So it's coming from different angles. And I think that's a whole different thing. But I love my parents. They're 78. They're baby boomers. And I think for different generations, there's different work at different time to be done in different ways. Maharaji told Ram Dass that his mom was a very high soul.

[01:23:28] Luke: Yeah, I remember that. Yeah.

[01:23:29] East: Did you hear that story when he said, what are you talking about? My Jewish mother from New Hampshire. But then it blew his mind because he's like, holy shit. And that's why when we have that righteousness, again, that judgment of people, it's important to remember that we don't know the dances we're doing and the roles were all playing in this web, this artistic tapestry that is all of creation.

[01:23:53] And it could be that the person spinning circles on the sidewalk-- it's like that butterfly effect of like everything is needed and happening exactly as it needs to. It doesn't mean you don't interact with compassion or action or love. It's to say, what if Ram Dass mother's incarnation, a large piece of it, was to play a role so he could be Ram Dass in this life?

[01:24:16] How beautiful is that? And he had the judgment and then the teaching for him was like, wow, I think I'm Ram Dass, and now there's more love that I can give, more compassion, more like I don't know everything.

[01:24:32] Luke: When I've heard him talk about that particular teaching, I've thought about my parents, and it's changed the way I contextualize our relationship and where they are in their journey in a really beautiful way.

[01:24:45] East: Absolutely.

[01:24:47] Luke: Back to that everything is perfect, and it is exactly how it's supposed to be for your highest good kind of thing, even though on the surface sometimes you might have a difficult time seeing the perfection in it.

[01:24:58] East: Yeah. I think it's a powerful lesson for all of us. Especially how we contextualize the other online and the polarization, the tribalization we feel because it's exacerbating our feelings of otherness and separateness.

[01:25:14] Luke: Yeah.

[01:25:15] East: We're not separate. We might have different ideas or things we don't agree with, but in the ways that we're not different, which is our humanity and our feelings, the way we all feel things, where those fringes overlap is where the transformation is going to happen. That's the fertile ground that we need to lean into. It's not pointing out and highlighting the things that make us different. Especially the beliefs we have, even when we feel like they're existentially threatening to who we are.

[01:25:47] Look, I'm not saying it isn't tricky. It is tricky. And I actually think technologically speaking, long-form conversations like this are probably a lot better than short form algorithmic stuff because that is really feeding the most base level of our dopamine. So it's candy. It's heroin, in a way. It's digital heroin in the name the attention economy, in the name of profit, short-term profit, at the expense of life.

[01:26:20] Going back to AI, we were at an event of some tech people and someone came up to us at breakfast and we were just chit chatting. He's an AI, whatever, expert, one of these people in the field, which I love talking about. And he said something like, well, it's true that AI will destroy us and consume us, cease to exist. But he said, I'm a nihilist, and that's okay.

[01:26:47] So in his mind, not only is that going to happen, it's okay, so he might as well have a good time. It's this madness. We're literally creating this. Marshall McLuhan line, we're the sex organs of the machines. It's like, choose things. But we have these collective momentum, this inertia of choices, and that goes back to like the individual.

[01:27:10] That's I'm spending my life energy working on myself, but also sending a message of, hey, your work matters too, and I'm not telling you what to work on or what to believe, but please do anything. Open your heart, and there's some answer here that's trying to speak through us.

[01:27:29] It is speaking through us. It is becoming. But we want to midwife that process in all the ways. And I think art and silence and support, these are the way. These are the way. It's not the sideshow.

[01:27:44] Luke: Have you considered creating music with other spiritual teachers' speaking tracks?

[01:27:52] East: Yeah. I've done a little bit. I did a track with Muji. Have you met Muji?

[01:27:57] Luke: No.

[01:27:57] East: You should get him on your show. He's a Jamaican descent, UK-based spiritual teacher. And we did a track, and that was lovely. And of course Court. And I recently did a podcast with Lama Tsultrim, and there's some stuff I'm thinking-- well, it's on the to-do list of working with some recordings of hers. So I'm always open to whatever. I like working with what comes into my path.

[01:28:26] Luke: Yeah.

[01:28:27] East: The reason I went to Ram Dass and recorded him beyond wanting to meet him is because I said to Ragu, look, I've only used samples of things that I record. Mostly it's limiting the options. It's going back to the less colors to paint with.

[01:28:41] Because that's just how I do it and I feel like it was given to me as opposed to I said, I'm going to decide, I'm going to search the internet, I'm going to pick these things. It's too much mind. I want it to be like, hey, what is Ram Dass and what happens? And I only got this, so that's what I have to use.

[01:28:57] Luke: Right.

[01:28:58] East: And of course, guess what? That's where the magic then is. And that's where all these synchronicities happen. And all these things he said, I'm like, I never would have thought of that, never.

[01:29:06] Luke: The one that comes to mind for me is David Hawkins. I don't know if you ever listened to any of his lectures. His books are more famous, but he did a lot of speaking for many years. Some of his talks are just like, I've listened to thousands of hours of his stuff over the years and I fairly--

[01:29:24] East: I don't know him.

[01:29:24] Luke: His most famous book is called Power vs. Force. And he created something called the map of consciousness. That's quite well known, but later in his life, he went next level, teachings of non-duality, basically. And I don't care how many times I listened to these damn recordings.

[01:29:43] I'll think I kind of get it. You know what I mean? I'm like, oh, and I have little epiphanies and go, oh, I got it. And then a couple of years go by. I go back and listen to it and go, oh my God, I had no idea how deep it was. It was just really profound stuff. Unfortunately though, whoever controls his estate and copyrights and stuff are quite uptight because I've talked about him and just not even playing his stuff, but just mentioned his work in different YouTube videos and they've said, hey, you can't say his name basically.

[01:30:15] So probably wouldn't fly, but I've always wondered because there's so many nuggets and in his work is so, I don't know, there's just so much density to it in a positive sense. It's just like you could have a field day for 100 years just taking clips out of it. And it's really beautiful and moving stuff.

[01:30:33] East: There's so much stuff out there. But I'll even listen to songs and years go by and I hear the song, someone's song in a different way. I feel like I have deeper levels of understanding. It's almost like your antenna becomes more nuanced

[01:30:47] Luke: Yeah.

[01:30:48] East: Or the filter becomes softer in a way. You're picking up on things you literally just didn't feel or hear before. I love that.

[01:30:57] Luke: Yeah. Me too.

[01:30:58] East: There's just endless layers of interpretation and feeling, really. I had someone in our little town in Utah who I remember she was in her 60s and she had a birthday and she told me like, yeah, more stuff hurts. It's hard, but it's richer. Life gets richer. And it's such a beautiful way of looking at it. [Inaudible] with Judith. And two weeks later, she died. Just died. Had an infection, ended up in the hospital, and died.

[01:31:30] We think about spiritual little gifts from the soul. I almost feel like it's just a little soul, a little gift from her soul, a little message, and it does get richer. Doesn't mean it's easier, but it gets richer.

[01:31:47] Luke: It certainly does. Where does the name East Forest come from?

[01:31:51] East: Oh, that's easy. It's just my last name, Ostwald, translated from German, Ost-Wald, East Forest.

[01:31:58] Luke: Really?

[01:31:59] East: Yeah, except Germans tell me that's not 100% accurate because they're German and the grammar is like, well, it's like Forest East.

[01:32:05] Luke: Yeah. You have to be precise.

[01:32:06] East: Come on, man. Please. I've said that to German audiences and it's just stone-cold faces of no laughter. They're just like, no, sort of.

[01:32:15] Luke: That's funny. That's funny. Who have been three teachers, obviously Ram Das, maybe you could name someone else, or teachings that have influenced your life and your work?

[01:32:25] East: Well, of course, Ram Dass. And he's just someone that came early on in a really important way. And there were a lot of people, I'm going to name more than three in that era, because there's also Terrence McKenna, Eckhart Tolle, of course, in that time. But I'm going to say beyond people, the mushroom has been and is by far the biggest teacher.

[01:32:55] And I wouldn't even pretend to say that I can tell you exactly what that is. That's what's so beautiful about it. And my third biggest teacher is my partner, Radha, and our relationship and leaning into the guru of the relationship. And that's been a really profound lesson in becoming more of a man and be stepping into more of my own power. And that being the crucible of a lot of my work and the foundation and taking that out into the world so that you can speak with more authority when you feel that your house is in order.

[01:33:33] Luke: Absolutely. Yeah, I share that perspective too. My wife is such a great teacher.

[01:33:39] East: If it isn't, then you're not paying attention to it.

[01:33:41] Luke: To call forth the very best in me and settle for nothing less ever. It's amazing.

[01:33:49] East: God bless the women.

[01:33:51] Luke: Yeah, I'm such a better man as a result of having her in my life. It's unfathomable where I would be if I was just on my own trying to figure this shit out.

[01:34:00] East: Yeah. Can I tell the story of the ketamine journey? It's an analogy that sums it up where she's a ketamine therapist, and we were at her clinic, and I was very cavalier because I'm like, I've been around the block. I've done some psychedelics, ketamine, whatever.

[01:34:16] Luke: I like where this is going.

[01:34:16] East: Yeah, whatever. And it is a group session. There's six of us. This is in the pandemic. And I roll in, and they didn't have the lozenges, so they're going, we can give you a shot. And I am. No big deal. Never had that before. Can't be that big of a deal. And they just pop it in my arm. The guy leaves. The music starts. I'm leaning back. Nothing's happening.

[01:34:39] And then five minutes pass and I feel this energy, and it came on like a freight train. You know those moments on a psychedelic where you get into a space and you're thinking like, okay, we're going here today, and you have to accept it? It's going to be that thing is happening now.

[01:34:57] And maybe remember it and you're like, all right, fine. All right, loosen the belt. What are the practices? And that was a whole thing. This is Wednesday or something, and I'm like, it's only a Wednesday. And then it just kept going very quickly, rocketing into other zones.

[01:35:13] And I'm like, where's there? And then you'd have to fall into that. And then it would keep going. And it just blasted me into zones that felt like, if I go there, there's a no turning back feeling. Now it's after that in my existence kind of stuff. Strange negotiations with consciousness. And I wasn't prepared for this.

[01:35:38] Luke: That's a good album title, Strange Negotiations with Consciousness. Save that, someone. That's beautiful.

[01:35:45] East: And all the while, I'm thinking that they obviously gave me a thousand times too much ketamine. Because there's no way in hell that this is a dose for any human being at some ketamine clinic that you just watch. This is not legal. There's no way this is legal or illegal. This is a mistake. And I remember thinking before I was falling into the whole cosmic space, I don't think I'll die.

[01:36:07] I remembered something like, you don't think you'd die from this, but this might be it. And in that space of I'm physically shaking, I'm freaked out, man. I'm freaking out, having a hard time. I was doing this, just opening my hand. And it was a recognition of help. I couldn't speak.

[01:36:30] And in that moment I was about to fall into something. It felt like it's either oblivion, like, this is truly all just chaos, or it goes 0.1 degree the other way, and there's something. And right at that moment, I felt her hold my hand.

[01:36:51] Luke: Oh, man.

[01:36:51] East: It was just this recognition of the cosmic mother of like, we are all held, and you can't actually fall outside of that. It's impossible.

[01:37:03] Luke: Ooh.

[01:37:04] East: And I had this message of you can't fall out of love. And it became a song, but it trickles down to the feminine is my message there of like, that is the role of the mother and the feminine and the lover on this planet, is that we all come from women, literally. We come from a circle, literally. And that came from a circle and that came from a circle, and there's a great original circle, if we just want to be logical about it in a sense.

[01:37:42] One of them was a supernova and the big bang. And I was just overwhelmed by the beauty of the summation, and that translated into my hand held by my lover at a time of need when I was righteous. I walked in with righteousness, and instead of being slapped down and being like the world we're told of original sin was like and now you would be punished forever and it's over and you fucked it up, it's like, we're here, and we love you. Those are the things where I'm like, what else is there to say?

[01:38:17] It was a gift. That's grace, as Ram Dass would say. That is grace. And thank God that we are graced, because without it, this truly would be a pretty horrible place. And with it, it's the other polarity of what it just is, is pure love and grace. Even with the horror and the destruction, it's giving us the gift of the fullness of choice in our experience.

[01:38:47] But as Court says, all choices are valid. You can't be lost. You can't be lost. It's just a matter of time, and actually, the time parts are relevant. That's just a gift saying like, you have freedom and choice and we love you, and wherever you go, however path you fall down, we're going to slowly give you-- it's not even being forced to do things. That's what even makes it crazier. We get to just choose.

[01:39:17] So harnessing that choice, I think that's what psychedelics and music and art at all is about, is just clearing away the noise so that we can make choices that we want to make, that we really want to make, not that we think we want to make, but you get to make them.

[01:39:32] And that's the original gift, and I think that's such a beautiful and empowering message that if people can start to tap into that as they are-- Court would say to me that, look, for what's happening on the planet, we don't need everybody to turn on right now. It's like yeast in a loaf of bread. It's a very small additive, but it makes the loaf rise. What is that? I don't know. 15 million people.

[01:40:05] I don't know what the number is, but perhaps we're getting there. And that's also what the internet is all about. It's helping us understand and learn faster. There's the other side of it, but it's beautiful how there's a dance there where we're like on this razor's edge of like the tools are there, but there are also those tools are the thing that destroy us at the same time. We have to curate our attention.

[01:40:31] Luke: Thank you for joining me today. Thank you for the gift of your music, your heart, your presence. It was everything I knew it would be.

[01:40:38] East: Yeah, it's great that this could happen, that we were crossing paths, so thank you.

[01:40:41] Luke: Yeah, it worked out well. And thank you for the invite to your film screening tomorrow night too. I'll be watching it again and bringing [Inaudible] some mushrooms. Excited to be out there.

[01:40:48] East: Music for Mushrooms, yeah.

[01:40:49] Luke: Yeah. And again, you guys, will put everything we talked about the show notes at lukestorey.com/eastforest and stay tuned for the guided meditation to follow. Thanks, brother.

[01:41:00] East: This is a meditation for chaotic times, for change, for when forces are swirling around us. First, let's just take a moment to arrive. Maybe close your eyes. Get comfortable. Just take a few breaths. In through the nose, and out through the mouth. At your pace, just take a few breaths into the nose, out through the mouth at a normal rate, watching as things can calm down just a little bit.

[01:42:28] As your mind starts to wander, just bring it back to your breath or the music, the cadence of the piano, the sounds of the crickets. Fall into it with your breath. With each exhale, a little bit of tension can release, and we can just arrive to right now. Right here, right now.

[01:43:23] Even with so much going on around us, we can just agree to blockade off those thoughts for now and let them go like clouds passing by and just be right here, right now, as a break, breathing in, breathing out at a normal pace.

[01:43:57] If there's any tension in your body, you're feeling it in your hands or your neck, your fingers or your eyes, stretch those out a little bit and find more ways to roll those shoulders and just release more into just this moment, this little break from the storm around us. As we breathe in through our nose, and out through the mouth, the music takes us inward.

[01:44:28] Good. In times of chaos, in times of great change, great transition, when it feels like things are coming at us, forces from outside that we can't control, the medicine we need and what is being asked of us is an inner fortitude to bring as much presence as we can because the mind will want to go to the future and the past to protect ourselves and we can say thank you to the mind to say thank you for doing your job. We have to keep returning to the now, into our hearts.

[01:45:24] Right now, let's breathe into the heart, into the nose. Expand it out as you feel the energy in your heart moving through your whole body. It's happening right now. Breathe into your heart, into your knowing of now. Let the music hold you. And as you breathe into your heart and expand it out on the exhale, expand it to everything around you. The room you're in, breathe out to expand through the walls, through the earth, into the sky, into all the beings around you, all living life, expanding outward.

[01:46:46] You hold all that is around you in your heart. You give with the exhale. You are here now. Nowhere else to be. When the thoughts come up, you see them, you witness them from the seat of your heart. Breathe them out as they dissipate into the wind, into the earth. With the love of your heart, pushing everything outward and outward. A gift.

[01:47:46] You are love. You are a brave soul, incarnated in a time of change. And you can do it. You are needed. What is needed is simply just your presence here. Now, the ground in this, you are able to bring with your breath.

[01:48:31] Place a hand on your heart and hand on your stomach as you breathe in into this heart space, and feel this presence in this wonderful energy that you have. Strength. Maybe it only feels like a small candle flame in you and not a large fire, but it's there.

[01:49:04] I am strong. I am here. I am fortitude. I am needed. I am held. Release your hands. Let a small smile curve upon your face. Continue to breathe at your pace. Stay focused, in through your nose, out through your mouth.

[01:50:06] Plant the seed in your heart now, in your mind, in the tender parts of your being, that you can do this. You can do this. You are doing it. I can do this. Not a fear of the future, an apparition of the past, but right now, you're doing it. You're here. You're needed. You're strong.

[01:50:46] Instead of pushing the world away with our fears, we will bring it in with the energy of our hearts, the presence of the now. We are in the dance of life. Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it takes a bit of courage. And you have that courage. You are that courage. Rest into the courage. Rest and release into the knowing that you're okay.

[01:51:52] Wherever you are, whatever's going on, it's okay. Trust you are held. Accept the love. Accept the love holding you. Accept the love holding you. We can give ourselves over to the river that we are flowing in with the trust that the river is holding us, always returning back to the great mother of the ocean that is us as well. You cannot be lost.

[01:52:55] You are safe even when you do not feel safe. Because there is a part of you. Maybe even in a small way, you can feel it right now in this moment the candle flame inside you is always there. And you can return to it in any moment with your breath. And place your hand on your heart, on your stomach. Your body will remember. And you can trust in the dance that you are in, the dance of your life, your incarnation, your choice. It's okay to take a break. It's okay to be here now. It's needed. You are needed. You are here.

[01:55:15] [Upbeat Music Playing]