Ian Byington: Connection Through Community

Ross Tayler: Today I'm excited to welcome brother Ian to the Sacred Sundays podcast. Ian has long been a connector, the kind of guy who says, I know someone you should meet, you're going to love them. After getting his first websites done in 1994 and his first directory a year later, it was a natural move to make a site where the metaphysical community on Vancouver Island could meet up. Spirit of Victoria Metaphysical Hub was born ten years ago, in 2015, and now has some 300 practitioners listed. Why do all this? He says it's easy to help us all find the connection we're looking for. Welcome, Ian. So good to have you on the Sacred Sundays podcast.

Ian Byington: Well, thank you, Ross. It's sure good to be here.

Ross Tayler: Your bio speaks true. My experience when I met you was just after I arrived back on Vancouver Island, in March of this year. I think it was the beginning of April that we had the Sidney [?] Wellness Fair, and that's where I met you. Someone we both know said, when you're at the fair, make sure to introduce yourself to Ian, because I think you guys are like brothers. I thought that was quite funny, and sure enough, when I met you, I thought, yeah, we're quite similar in how we move through the world. At that fair, you were connecting me with so many people. I watched you walking around the fair doing exactly what you described.

Ian Byington: Thank you, I appreciate it. It felt really easy to visit with you, and to see you at other fairs and other things since then. That's why I'm excited to visit with you today, but also to visit with folks and just let them know they're not alone. You can look up folks in the directory, and if you're a kindred spirit, the kind of person who would listen to Sacred Sundays, I'm hoping you find some folks, some events, things that will make you want to give them a call and go to things and meet people and hang out with people. Because within that connection, magic happens, doesn't it?

Ross Tayler: Absolutely. Ian has shared a song with me that he would like to share with our listeners. We're going to play that song and listen to it together, and we'll continue the conversation after.

[Song plays: "Give Yourself to Love," written by Kate Wolf]

Ross Tayler: Thank you for sharing that beautiful song. I forgot to mention at the beginning that the song is called "Give Yourself to Love."

Ian Byington: Written by Kate Wolf.

Ross Tayler: Okay.

Ian Byington: Ross, when you hear that song, what happens? Are there any words in there that stick with you, or any ideas?

Ross Tayler: I think the overall message is so potent, and I would probably have a different experience every time I listen to it. Elements of the lyrics speak so cleanly to the experiences we have in life, and really this journey is about opening ourselves to love and returning to that energy that we've always carried with us. I'm curious, why did you choose this song?

Ian Byington: You just said it.

Ross Tayler: Ha!

Ian Byington: I've sung it at 47 straight weddings. And yes, I keep stats on that sort of thing. The reason it's 47 is that somebody will ask me to sing at their wedding and tell me they want this Celine Dion song and this Lone Star song, different things. Then I say, hey, let me show you a song. Maybe you want this in there somewhere too. And they always say yes. What I love about it is what you just said: it depends on what verse you're on at any given moment. [Ian quotes the opening lyric.] Isn't that a good thing to say right before your four o'clock meeting in the afternoon? It's just a variation on that.

I was at a wedding over on San Juan Island, next to Victoria, and it was a cloudy day. I'm out in the garden, we're doing our thing, and right as we sang [lyric], dead gum, if there wasn't a crack in the clouds. I stopped and said, everybody look behind you. And everybody clapped. I did not arrange that, and I'm not taking credit for it.

There's a little bit in there, and you said it nicely: [lyric] love is born in fire. So many people are excited about getting fired up. I don't know. I've been around disasters with fires, houses that have burned up. Fire is a two-way street, which includes knocking you down as well as being part of the energy that gets us going again. That's the kind of stuff that goes off in my head when I hear a song like that.

Ross Tayler: Ian, one of the things that strikes me about you, and you mentioned it when you shared the story of singing at weddings and saying, there's this song we could sing as well, is that you are all about curating an experience. I had that experience with you after I joined the directory. You didn't just take my subscription and never talk to me. You reached out and said, how can I help you use the directory to your best advantage, and showed me how to do it. I was blown away by that. I believe it shows up in all that you do, your attention to detail and to what people are sharing with you. At least in my experience, you're always looking for those cracks where you can fill something in to make it even better. Is that accurate?

Ian Byington: Yeah, I never think of it that way. It's more like playing, isn't it? You remember when you're 16. I was a nerd sitting around reading my books, and I had three friends, and if I read a book and it was awesome, I might only be halfway through it, but I was excited to show it to them. The key, and you touched on it, is that we're sharing. It's not just, hey, you really should read this, but knowing it's going to come back. That sharing is, like it says in the song's first line, [lyric] a circle that holds us all inside. It's a circle for it to be sharing. In my mind, sharing isn't just, I've got ten dollars, here's ten dollars, and then you go away. It includes you saying thank you. It includes you saying, let me buy the next cup of coffee. It's the circle of sharing.

And not just sharing stuff. We've got this directory going, and a bunch of people are looking at it every given day, every given minute, after ten years of doing it. I want to show that to you. I want people in it to know this isn't just something where we hope Google finds us. It actually is a good way to let people know things are happening, and to keep that sharing going.

Ross Tayler: I imagine you have quite the experience connecting with all the people on that directory, and with the conversations that happen before, during and after. Tell me what it is about that experience that lights you up.

Ian Byington: Something tells me I could ask you the same thing about doing Sacred Sundays, and the same answer would apply. Last weekend, as it happens, we went to the Parksville psychic fair, and it took us three or four hours to get out of there. You go to talk to a practitioner, whatever they're doing. It might be a reader, a body worker, a craniosacral person. There are all these different modalities, different things you can approach that help one way or another open up a conversation about Spirit, and where Spirit might reside, where Spirit might be let loose, shared, experienced. That is a conversation starter if one needed one. But it's not even a conversation starter. It takes three or four hours to get through the crowd because I love hearing the stories.

What's really cool is when I can share those stories with other folks, and they tell me, wow, I've always been interested in past life regression. I say, well, when I went to see this person, here's that part of the story. I get them together, and then a month later I hear, I'm so glad I went to see them. I found out that I was this and that, and we found out about something. It just makes the day. How much cooler is it to give somebody something that makes them beam? Maybe not right at that moment, because you have to be patient, but they come back around and say, I'm glad I get to go to that circle now, that I wouldn't have known about if I hadn't looked in the events section of Spirit of Victoria, or wherever they found it.

Ross Tayler: So you're not just connecting people to practitioners. You're connecting practitioners to experiences, and people to experiences, and all the stories that come from those connections. It's wild, isn't it? I imagine you couldn't possibly anticipate all the magic that happens just from having this directory, and when you hear the stories back, it's probably unexpected in some ways.

Ian Byington: I had a student write to me the other day. I used to teach junior high school and high school. The student wrote, I just wanted to let you know you're my favorite teacher. I was an English teacher, and it tickles me that "favorite" and "teacher" were misspelled. That doesn't matter. All that matters is that they took the time to say it.

In answer to your question, do I expect it? You really hope when you're teaching that something's sinking in, that it's helping. My sense was that being good, whatever you want to call good, at English was helping smooth things in the world, giving articulation for connection and communication. I don't know why, but back then I had that in my head. But in terms of anticipating the magic of waiting, she was in my class 42 years ago. And yes, I'm really 107, so that was when I was young. But I didn't wait for it. You just do it, and who knows where paths may lead. It's also how long it's going to take to get there. To get a note back 42 years later, I wasn't waiting, and I don't think they were waiting. Something happened and they saw, he's on Facebook, I'll just send a note. If anything, the wonderful thing about hearing that is that they have it within their heart to know it would bring a moment of joy to remember this with the person they're appreciating. Not just to tell your husband, yeah, I had this teacher and I really liked him. That's cool too. It has its place, and that's part of the circle going around.

About two years ago, one of my students and his wife came to visit here in Victoria, and she mentioned it. I said, well, why don't we go visit him? He said, I never thought of that, let's go. And they did. That sharing is kind of what keeps us going, isn't it?

Ross Tayler: I can totally relate to that. You're making me reflect on the pivotal characters who show up in our lives, where you're just being yourself, showing up in alignment with your values and your beliefs and your ways of being. I constantly think back to my grade 7 teacher. He was a pivotal character. He believed in me, showed me some things, and involved me in some projects, and for the first time in school, and in some ways the last time, unfortunately, that experience really shifted my way of being in the world internally.

Ian Byington: That's awesome.

Ross Tayler: To this day I have so much gratitude. A few years later I ran into him. I think there was a school strike and he happened to be outside picketing. I made an effort to go see him and tell him, you were a big deal in terms of my experience. I feel like that's part of the story you shared, that we don't always realize until it comes back around. I worked in treatment centers, and every once in a while someone will reach out, and it's a powerful experience when that happens.

Ian Byington: At both ends, including that they're at a place now of being able to get hold of love, and the word sharing, which I just don't see as a one-way thing. It's not, I've got a bunch of books, I'll share them with the neighbourhood. That has its place, in terms of the giving beginning the sharing. But hopefully the person who got the book comes back and says, wow, I read it too, let's talk. Time for coffee.

Ross Tayler: During your share about connecting with practitioners, you spoke to this piece of spirituality and connecting with everyone's version of it. How does that show up in your life? Where's that connection for you, and how does it play out?

Ian Byington: There's the obvious stuff. Somebody invites me to a sound bath, which is basically an hour or an hour and a half of sitting with the sound. It's another way to meditate, or, if you don't use the word meditate, to sit still and listen. I love it when it's simple. It's a chance to be quiet and listen, and call it dreams, call it visions, call it a nap, call it whatever you want. Within that is a chance to see what's there.

One of my favorite things, to touch on that, is that I read Rex Weyler's [?] book on the sayings of Jesus. He looks at the ancient places where the things Jesus said were recorded, and one thing you just don't think about is that the four gospels are not exactly the same. One has this and one has that. There are only nine sayings that appear in all four. One of them, which makes me think, ah, this might be something he really said, is the bit about those who have ears to hear, let them hear.

I went to Catholic school as a kid, though I was not Catholic. They were telling us what most people would say: you listen to your parents, you listen to the Pope, you listen to the bosses, you listen to the father or the sister when they tell you. You have ears? You'd better listen, or you go sit in the corner or stay after school. It hit me about 20 years ago: wait a minute, those who have ears to hear. That includes knowing when to plug them up and not listen to the outside. Let us have ears for the inside, the inner voice, the stirrings, the inner feelings. Words get in the way, don't they? Even calling it an ear is saying we're hearing. To touch on what you asked, what do I get out of this, or what do I experience? Looking for ways to hear.

Here's something different. To get past the idea of school, and schools are good at what they do, but one of the things schools do is say you've got to know stuff. And you do. But how about if we get okay with not knowing stuff, and that being a place where maybe we can learn? Especially when you're really, really old like I am, you still want to learn new stuff. There is new stuff, and that's why it's cool to think, who knows where paths may lead, and we're not done yet. The words "I know" are a deal killer. Well, I know. Then you don't need to listen anymore.

Ross Tayler: I love that. If I'm hearing you correctly, to sum that down to its core essence, it sounds like you're not aligning with any dogma. You've done a lot of research and learning about the different things that are out there. And when you talk about listening, being at a sound bath, and being with the quiet within, I'm thinking your way of experiencing spirituality is by listening at its core. I think that's quite profound and also simple, because when we quiet all the noise in our mind, which is the ego, and that noise subsides, what are we actually left with? We're left with a state of peace and curiosity and trying to explore things. You didn't name it specifically, but that's what I heard in what you said.

Ian Byington: Thank you. I think you touched on it. I don't want to name it. There's a story about St. Francis, that he's talking to somebody, and they ask, what do I do? He said, it doesn't matter where you are. If you're in the forest, preach the love of Jesus. If you're in the fields, preach the love. If you're talking to Brother Sun or Sister Moon, preach the love of Jesus. If you're talking to the people who are hungry in the streets, preach the love of Jesus. Preach it every chance you get, and if necessary, use words.

Ross Tayler: Ha!

Ian Byington: And only if necessary.

Ross Tayler: Right. You're speaking to a fundamental piece. I work with a lot of people to help them connect with their purpose, through Human Design and other things I do, and it's all about being versus doing. In this society we put so much value on what you're doing in the world, how you're doing it, what it is you do. And yet purpose is really a byproduct of who we're being, and it isn't an active thing we can necessarily quantify.

Ian Byington: It really isn't. And what's cool, to add to what you said, is when you feel that sense of peace, when you feel that sense of, let's look around and see what I hear, then you end up doing something. If necessary, use words, but don't use words. Again, the most beautiful line, and I'm going back to the New Testament, is in the Acts of the Apostles, and I forget the context. There's a song about it: they'll know we are Christians by our love. The Romans could pick out which ones were the Christians because of the way they treated each other, the way they looked after each other, the way they shared everything. If they had something, they shared it. Within that sharing, how about: they'll know we're people by our love. They'll know we're tribe members. They'll know we're family. They'll know we're friends.

Somebody the other day said, I love Spirit of Victoria, it's so aligned with everything I do, it's the only thing I want. And I thought, that's too bad. For us to have any role in giving somebody a hand, like you do with your counseling, I'm not sure what "aligned" means most days, because somebody needs a hand. I'm not going to sit and give them ten questions to make sure they get on my alignment list.

Ross Tayler: Right.

Ian Byington: So that's part of it too, that place of peace, that place of inner strength, at the end of the day leads to action. But we don't have to act first and then say, that's what I do.

Ross Tayler: What you shared aligns with that full circle you were mentioning, where things happen and they come back around. To that extent, we're just showing up authentically, as ourselves, and the experiences are a byproduct of that.

Ian Byington: And not just a byproduct. It's something we can all have a hand in together. It's so cool.

I went to see my parents. I looked after them for the last ten years before they died, and Josie, my wife, and my whole family teamed up and did that. One of the things we did on Sundays was take them to the Anglican Holy Communion service. The last bit of the service is called the dismissal, the blessing the priest gives. It says, the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds, and go love stuff. For the first time, maybe 12 years ago, and I'd been listening to this since I was three, my parents took me to the Anglican church, I heard it: the peace of God which passeth all understanding. Holy moly! I nearly said that out loud. It was a eureka moment. You don't have to understand it to have the peace. It's there anyway. Whether you get it or not. We think we've got to study. We think we've got to read a book. We think we've got to talk to everybody who's got it when we don't. How about if it's just there, and we can set all that trying aside and get to work? It might be as simple as looking at who's hungry, or really, who needs a hand. It might be somebody who needs directions downtown. It might be somebody who wonders where to put out their cigarette.

Ross Tayler: You woke up a question in me that I'd like to explore a little, which is our orientation. This has been coming up a lot lately. You're revealing these readings and messages that I think are really interesting and powerful when viewed in the right context. At the same time, there's this outer orientation, which you mentioned when you were talking about Catholicism, of a different energy being brought to it. I wonder sometimes whether we've been guided away from our inner knowing. I think I just heard you say that these answers, as much as they exist in a book outside of us, exist in our being and in our DNA in some way, and our job is to come back to that. What I witness is a reorienting to our wisdom inside instead of putting all our trust and faith into something outside. I'm not saying it's all or nothing, but ultimately the truth exists within us, and if we're disconnected from that on this path, it might show up as a problem. I'm curious whether that stirs anything in you that you'd like to clarify or add.

Ian Byington: For starters, thanks for the observation. I think the outside stuff really serves a purpose when it helps take us to that place you just described. When the words are "he who has ears to hear, let him hear," it suggests: make sure that when you get up in the morning you have a few minutes to sit and listen, and not ask, what am I supposed to do today, what's my great purpose, what am I almost aligned with. Whatever. Where's the coffee? That will take care of itself. Those things will happen.

If we can find that place of quiet, and know it's there for us at the moments of the day when we need it, I just love the idea that it's beyond understanding. It's just there, and we don't have to work so hard. The things outside, yeah, there are retreats and workshops, maybe a session with you, if a client or a friend or a patient is doing that. You're the outside thing. At the end of the day, you're trying to get them in touch with whatever we're going to call it. I'm just going to call it that inner thing, because I don't want to call it something. It's a strength, it's wisdom, maybe the kind of wisdom that doesn't talk or draw attention to itself. It's not big-headed, and it doesn't have a title. It's just that thing that's always there. You ask, hey, what should I do now? Hmm, I think I'd better go give him a hand. He looks like he's struggling. I don't know his name, I've never met him, well, we'll take care of that. Looking for places to share comes not from an outside place of somebody telling you that you have to, but from an inside place of opening our eyes, opening our ears, opening our hearts. And that opening can be just a little bit, and then go do some stuff. Nobody's keeping score.

Ross Tayler: I've heard the expression, we're spiritual beings having a human experience. We are meant to have the struggles. We're meant to fall down and scrape our knee and get back up, and it's in the getting back up that we learn something. Part of what you said made me think of a documentary called Finding Joe, about Joseph Campbell and the hero's journey. In that documentary there's a line about waking up and realizing you've got your ladder against the wrong wall. I hear that so often. I've been working in this career, doing all these things, and all of a sudden I wake up one day and think, who am I, what am I doing, is this really what life is about? We witnessed a lot of that in COVID, when people got to take a break from what they were doing and realized, wow, maybe I don't need to go back to that, or this relationship I'm in isn't as fulfilling as I thought. Things started to crumble in our everyday lives and something woke up in their place. I think that's what you're alluding to, finding the thing that brings you joy. Sometimes it's both, like you mentioned, bringing those ways of being into our vocation. Then it becomes more than the sum of its parts because of what we bring to it. The person working at Walmart saying hello to everybody who comes in is actually lightening everybody's day.

Ian Byington: We get to do that too. When we go to the coffee shop, and the last three people have been in a rush to get their coffee and barely said thank you, you take a moment while they're fixing it to say, how's it going, what are you doing? Sometimes you end up with a 15-minute counseling session for free, and that's cool too. Either way, they might counsel you because you're having trouble at work.

One of the Spirit of Victoria friends, and you alluded to how we try to stay in touch with everybody, said, I've been working on this for a year and I just have not found joy. I've been looking for it and it's not there. My question to them was, while you were looking, what were you doing? Because if you're so busy looking for joy that you don't notice the guy who just smiled at you, the woman who just offered to help you with your bags, the kid who said, Daddy, he looks like he's got an angel next to him, and you didn't hear it because you were busy looking for joy. It's in each moment.

Ross Tayler: That reminds me of something I say so often, mostly in relation to Human Design, and I've probably said it on this podcast, but it's worth saying again and again: we're moving through the world too quickly. I recently got this lesson walking in the forest. I kept getting nudges to slow down. I often take pictures of mushrooms, and you can only see the mushrooms if you're going slow enough. When we slow down, like you said, there are things we notice. Did you notice that little boy saying that to his dad? That's where the magic is. And we can still get stuff done when we slow down. I think we become more productive, and we also become more receptive. I love what you said because it reminds me of that.

Ian Byington: And that reminds me there are places and times we need to go fast. We're trying to get to the hockey game on time, or to the doctor on time. Cool. We've got the body to do that, and the smarts to take the back street. We know how to get there. But don't confuse that with looking at the cell phone all day, and most especially looking at it and missing the person who's right there. Not just missing them, but missing the chance to slow down. You move too fast, [lyric] you've got to make the morning last. I love that. Paul says that's the worst song he ever wrote. It might be, but the first line is a nice reminder that if we're looking for treasure, if we're looking for amazingness, if we're looking for joy, if we're looking for quiet and peace, slow down. It just might be right here.

Ross Tayler: You shared with me that you wrote "10 Things to Teach and Know," and there are some great points in there. The one that jumped out at me, and that I want to reflect back to you, says: for a good wrestling match, tackle the places in your life where fear lives and shine a light on it so it shrinks and disappears. I chose it because we live in a world with so much fear. There's so much fear being projected at us, fear because of financial pressures, fear because of responsibilities that feel like too much, fear around not being able to make as big an impact as we want, or having to do work we don't enjoy and not seeing a way out. It felt like an aligned statement for the times we're in. I also know there's a lot of good happening in the world, a lot of joy and beautiful things. I'm curious what you'd want to say about that statement.

Ian Byington: All the places in your life, and shine a light on it. The light is the hard part, because it's hard for us to admit we're scared, to admit we're weak, or whatever goes with that. Sometimes it can be hard to do. Rinpoche said, smile at fear. I just love that expression, especially when you're in the middle of something that really is kind of scary. Take a moment to think, hmm, joke's on fear, because here's what I'm going to do.

Fear comes in different sizes and different intensities and different formats. Sometimes it's a little thing, like I'm afraid to cross the street, I think I'll wait. Sometimes part of our discretion is to not go chase after the bear. That kind of fear. Then there are the things that are pretty doggone scary, like some of the things we know are going on around the world, that we've learned from great teachers. We get to watch Jane Goodall, who told us the Earth is in danger, that the Earth has too much pollution, too much of all the things humans have added to it. But she also said, keep smiling, keep looking for the good stuff. I think that's the real thing you find out.

If you really think, oh, I'm going to die young because of the way the world's being run, okay, find the laugh in it, find the smile in it. If that happens, then I'll only have ten years instead of 40 left. What am I going to do for those ten? Not, what trips am I going to take, but who am I going to get in touch with? That was great about COVID. I decided I was going to call ten people a day. I was working a lot less because my work outside the office was gone for a moment. Every single one of them said, wow, thank you. I had a little fear that I'd be bothering them, or that since we hadn't talked for a while, the first thing they'd say is, wow, you haven't called in a long time, what's wrong with you? I was sort of scared of that. So what? Take it on and decide you're going to shine a light. Whatever shining a light looks like, it might mean calling people. It might mean you're afraid to talk to somebody, so you tell them: it's bugging me that I said that and I think it bothers you, I just want to let you know I'm sorry. Whatever you have to say to take the fear out of us going and doing the things we really want to do and be, and really want to sit quiet with or get active with. Sometimes it's just go do the thing you're scared of.

Ross Tayler: You're reminding me of a book I've referenced recently, a book that actually got me on this path, called Fierce Conversations.

Ian Byington: Who is that by?

Ross Tayler: Susan Scott, I think. She had all these ways of being that you could bring to communication, and one of them was: come out from behind yourself and interrogate reality. Interrogate is a key word, because it's about really looking at what's going on. It makes me think of what you were saying. To come out from behind the fear and interrogate reality is like smiling at fear, bringing a different energy to it. Okay, I see you, I'm not going to ignore you, I know you're trying to give me a message. Often that's all it is, like the check engine light trying to tell you something isn't right. We can also have a relationship to that check engine light that is out of whack and not aligned with what's actually going on. It's more historical. Once we take that step, like you're describing, it's not as bad as I thought, not as big as my mind made it. Then we can step into a different energy of relaxing and relief, and all the things that come next when we step through that experience instead of running from it.

Ian Byington: Bingo. What's cool about it is that getting ready for an interrogation, if that's the decided approach, puts you in a whole different place. You've got to think of a question. You might be frustrated, but it doesn't matter if you're frustrated. What's the question? What's the best question? Almost always you find that whatever you were concerned about is so little compared to all the things you could imagine. And if you find out it is as big as you imagined, cool. Now you know what it is. That's cool too. Most of the time, when you find out what you were worried about was such a little thing, you feel kind of silly. After you get over that, it's kind of funny, and then you can go on to the next thing. And remember, don't take a long time to get to that interrogation. Let's go.

Ross Tayler: I love that.

Ian Byington: I love that you pulled that in. The thing Ross referenced: I have a web page that started a long time ago, that I sometimes put things in and sometimes don't. It's kind of a blog, with something like 1,100 entries of different people who have told me different things. The "10 Things" piece, I didn't write that. Well, I guess I did, but it came to me in a dream, all ten things, at two o'clock in the morning. That's where most of the songs I write come from as well. I think, oh, that's so good, I'll just remember that. Then at five or seven o'clock I get the guitar out, and the dog was purple and I walked him anyway. What kind of song is this? Where did that come from? It just isn't there.

This one was interesting because all ten things were very clear. It was ten, not eleven. Looking at it, I realized, wow, I don't know what I would take out of this, and I don't know what I would put into it. It was just ten little one-liners. The amazing part was that I got up at five o'clock and thought, I'd better write it down before I forget it, and it was all right there. Now, that doesn't prove its wisdom. It doesn't prove I have a good memory. It doesn't prove that at all. I reworded it a little to make it cleaner from my scribbles. What's fun is that it touches on what the teachers, whether it's Thich Nhat Hanh or Ram Dass or Trungpa Rinpoche or the Christ, or anybody, say. It comes down to the basic things they say. Once you have those little lines in your head, it's about those little lines. It's not about the peace of God which you only get if you understand it. No. Maybe you don't understand. If it comes down to one or two lines of what do I do here, the thing you think is: share and heal. What can I share? What can I do? Who needs a hand? What have I got? And maybe it's share back. Maybe say thank you and receive things. But share. Keep the circle going. I don't know, it's pretty fun to watch.

Ross Tayler: I love that. It feels like I could ask another question and we could go much deeper into what you just shared, because I think it is powerful. At the same time, I like the idea of leaving that as a contemplation for our listeners and bringing this conversation to a close. I always like to close with the same question for my guests: what's one simple way someone could connect with the sacred today?

Ian Byington: I was just in Vancouver last week, and I went to two places I would call sacred. One is a cathedral that's over a hundred years old. It was just a little church there, a place where people came and collected food to feed other people in the community. You can just feel that people have a sense of the sacred there. Then we went over to the Bill Reid [?] Gallery, a First Nations artist whose art is so amazing. You can go to places like that, see the art and the building, and there's a sacred within that. I think most people would say that's there. And if you can't see it, you can sit still for a while and maybe feel it. I really believe it's cool that people have put little places like that together.

I like it even better that in five minutes, when I go get a bit more coffee around the corner, I'm going to see somebody, I don't know who, and say, how you doing? Last week before I went to the big city, it was raining and I brought my umbrella for once. I parked it at the front, and somebody else came in dripping wet. Before they left I said, hey, you're all wet. They said, yeah. I said, I come here all the time and I'm going to be here another two hours. It's going to quit raining. Take my umbrella, and next time you come, just park it right there. They said, no, I can't take it. You know how people are. And they did. The next time I went, it was in the corner, dried out, because they did take it and they did use it. Is that a big deal? I didn't feed anybody, clothe anybody or house anybody. I wasn't even funny. That can cheer people up too, if you're funny. But look for those moments, and be ready to get rid of the "what if I lose it?" What if I did lose my umbrella? Which, by the way, just occurred to me now. It did not occur to me then, or when I looked for it again and happened to notice it was there, or even as I started to tell you this story. Find a way to get rid of the "what if I lose it." The sacred is in as many moments as we want to embrace it and make it come alive. And alive does not mean big. I love Tony Robbins, he's great at what he does, but it doesn't have to be that big and that loud on that stage. It can be just an umbrella in a coffee shop, and that's okay.

Ross Tayler: Thank you, Ian, for those beautiful reflections. If people want to stay connected with you, where's the main place they can find you and your work?

Ian Byington: Thank you. I love hearing from people. Spirit of Victoria has its website, and I'm happy to hear from you, just to visit. If you want to be in the directory and connect with people, or you want to call me and ask who you should call, people do that and it makes me feel good. When somebody says, I need an intuitive massage, but I want it physical and not a Reiki kind of thing, well, here are seven people you might look at, depending on who it's for. That's cool. I'm on Facebook under my name, Ian Byington, and Spirit of Victoria is on Instagram and Facebook under Spirit of Victoria. You'll probably find it.

I do Spirit of Victoria, by the way, and it's important for me to say my business partner is Allison Spokes [?], who is full of advice and ideas and follow-through on making it solid as an online piece. Josie, my wife, has been part of it since a year before we launched, when we started trying to figure out what to do. I had done directories before and made all the mistakes, so I didn't have to do those over again. I got new mistakes, but anyway, I'd love to hear from folks.

Ross Tayler: Excellent, thank you. I've really enjoyed this conversation and gotten to know you on a different level through it. I'm sure the listeners will appreciate it too. It's really been a gift to share this time with you today.

Ian Byington: I can't tell you how glad I am to get a chance to hang with you, Ross, today and in the times we have coming. Thanks so much. And I hope everybody has a great day. If you're listening now, wow, thank you for hanging with us.

Ross Tayler: You're very welcome.