Tei Taiyarï: The Forest Knows Where You Are

Ross Tayler (00:00)

Hello, I'm Ross Tayler, your host and guide for Sacred Sundays, a space to slow down, tune in, and return to what's sacred within and around you. I'm also a life coach for empaths and sensitive souls, walking alongside those who are ready to come home to who they actually are. These conversations are part of fulfilling that purpose, a collective exploration of what it means to live in connection with the sacred. Some weeks you'll hear a sound-based offering to open the space. Other times we'll simply begin in conversation. However it unfolds, this is an invitation into presence, connection, and the beauty of the unseen. If these conversations find you, please subscribe, rate, and share so others can find their way here. Pour a cup of tea, settle in, and let's begin.

Ross Tayler (00:48)

Today on Sacred Sundays, our guest is Tei Taiyarï. Tei is a heart-led student of simplicity, guided by movement and nurtured by nature. As a wanderer, wonderer, and edge walker, he is passionate about supporting those on the fringes, souls exploring beyond conventional boundaries in search of deeper, wilder truths. As a counsellor, ecotherapist, death doula, podcast host, wayfarer, and writer, he companions others through life's important thresholds, supporting them in reclaiming the wisdom of their wild hearts as they navigate transformative moments with deeper meaning, greater resilience, creativity, and grace. Welcome to the podcast. So happy to have you here for this conversation.

Ross Tayler (01:32)

Before we jump into the episode, I just need to insert a little message, because we lost the first couple of minutes of our conversation. What Tei shared was a really powerful reflection on the fact that I had retrieved his bio from a previous podcast he had been on, and I read that bio at the beginning, as you heard. Tei found it fascinating to reflect on the fact that since that bio was written, he's changed so much that he really didn't identify with it anymore. It was a reflection of how much change he has been going through, and how we shift as human beings as we grow and change.

So his portion speaking to that is missing. What you're going to hear is my response to him, and then another section where it gets cut off, but he finishes his thoughts after my response. And then we jump into the episode. Unfortunately, I can't possibly do it justice, because what he said was so powerful and poetic. But I wanted to make this note so that you understand why the beginning of the episode is disjointed. I'll blame it on Mercury retrograde, because that is what we were in at the time of recording. I hope you enjoy the episode.

Ross Tayler (02:51)

I love that, because we were talking about how we've both been going through so much change in recent months. And I can identify with that as well. Who I was six months ago is not who I am now, because the universe has shifted me into a different flow and a different way of being, and we're always changing. So it's cool to have that experience show up in this way.

Tei Taiyarï (03:10)

It's a delicate balance, because we do need to hold the strength and vitality of who we are in any given moment. But there's also this liquidy, watery movement that's constantly scintillating in our being. And that takes a deep sensitivity to really follow that movement in an honest, truthful way. And yeah, it's exciting. Anyway, I just wanted to reflect on that for a moment. Thank you for that.

I wanted to start this by offering something. So apart from that reflection, I would like to offer this poem that I brought.

Ross Tayler (03:48)

Please do, go ahead.

Tei Taiyarï (03:49)

I didn't write it. You may have heard of it at some point. The listeners probably have at some point. But I find this poem one that is timeless, that I can keep coming back to. And as I change and grow, I am able to access deeper layers of what this poem really is, what it speaks to in the heart and soul of humanity, and how it redirects us back to the heart of the world. So this is a poem titled Lost, by David Wagoner.

[Tei reads the poem "Lost" by David Wagoner.]

Ross Tayler (05:30)

I have not heard that before. That's powerful. I love that. And as someone who spends a lot of time walking in nature and being with nature, I really resonate with the importance of that. Because we can walk the same path and see it the same way, unless we slow down and see what we didn't see before.

Tei Taiyarï (05:49)

Yeah. And that idea at the end there, the forest knows where you are. I chose that poem because it's becoming increasingly obvious to me that this innate biophobic orientation of modernity is destroying who we are as real humans, as true humans, and at the same rate destroying the wildness of the world that birthed us and allows us to be who we are.

So that idea of the forest knowing where you are is like the knowing, the gnosis, that life knows us. We are the children of earth. Humans are the youngest species. Life knows us. Life lives within us. It's like the way that a mother or a dear relative knows you in deep ways that you don't even know yourself, especially if you remain intimate with each other over time. And the thing is, we can't get out of the intimacy that is innate between us and earth, because it lives deep in us. We rely on the food and the water and the air and all these things. We cannot live, we cannot exist without it.

Now, there's a veil within us that's heavy, this shroud, where that innate intimacy is forgotten. It's shaded over, it's shadowed. And so in that way, we are not intimate in a real, rooted way. We don't have this biophilic propensity to love and exult in the glory of being in deep kinship and relationship with all that's around us and sustains us. So the forest knows who we are, where we are. We just need to actually slow down, as you said, and still ourselves enough to remember. So that's why.

Ross Tayler (08:19)

And at the same time, I think this circles back to what you were saying before you read the poem, this idea of finding ourselves and being ourselves, which is an interesting thing to try and connect with, because so much of who we are is not what you just described. The conditioning that we receive from this modern world, and all of the layers of that. When I work with people one-on-one, it's like we're trying to relieve them of that conditioning. So this idea of the forest knowing who we are, and we don't, is fascinating, because we really don't, in so many ways. We've been told to be this way and that way, and there are all the expectations of family, which is conditioning upon conditioning. And yet underneath it all, it's so simple. But it's so complicated to get back to that.

Tei Taiyarï (09:17)

Well, that's because there's an ocean of grief between us and that, right? And we're completely grief illiterate in our society. We don't even know how to begin to orient toward this ocean of grief. And there is that deep knowing within that if we orient and move toward that oceanic, churning mass of life force that is the grief that lives within, it's going to tear us apart. Necessarily so. But we don't trust that, because we've been torn apart in different ways in our lives, and we've felt how much of a lack there is of holding, sociocultural, socio-spiritual holding. The lack is profound, absolutely profound. And so we're terrified, and we should be, honestly.

But that doesn't mean we don't try. That's where we need to be courageous, right? To be with heart, to re-root into the heart and say, I'm going to try, because there's no other way. The only alternative is to not live a real life. And when I look back over my decades of living, I can see how unreal things have been, in large part. That's another aspect of the immensity of grief. So much unreality, so much illusion, so much falsity. It hurts. It really hurts.

That's the thing. When you slow down enough to be with the forest, or to remember and reconnect with the wildness of the world and the mirrored kin that are here, part of that process is recognizing that there's so much pain there. There's a lot of joy too, of course. When you feel real connection with a landscape, it's one of the best experiences in the world, because we need it. It's necessary. But it's also painful, because let's say you're in a protected forest of a dozen hectares or something. It's like, wow, what a magical place. But just beyond that, there are clear-cuts and developments and poisoned streams and all these things, right? So connecting more deeply with that protected area is also opening you up to more and more pain. And that's how it is within, too, in our inner landscape. So I don't even know what I'm getting at here, but I'm just trying to speak honestly about whatever this is.

Ross Tayler (12:04)

I can relate to what you're saying. I recently had the gift of going to see the Cheewhat Giant, which is a protected cedar that's fifteen hundred years old. It's apparently the biggest cedar in Canada. It's off a forest road outside Lake Cowichan, on the way to Port Alberni, kind of in between. It's kind of hard to find. It's not signed or anything. But it's a beautiful sight. And I could really feel the timelessness of standing in front of this massive tree. Photos don't do it justice, if you've never been there.

And yet there's the contrast of how we're living outside of that. This beautiful tree that is protected is surrounded by clear-cuts, and that is what we're doing to keep this culture moving forward and to have houses. So the duality of that is certainly interesting to notice. And at the same time, I think about that experience and how it touched me on the inside. You can feel the presence of being known by that tree. You can feel the energy that is different in that spot, because nothing has disturbed it other than nature itself.

Tei Taiyarï (13:15)

Yeah. One of my most beloved teachers in this life is Stephen Harrod Buhner, and he died a few years ago. Bless his soul. Something that he teaches, talks about, explores, is that we are born into this world with empty places within us. And those empty places can only be filled by certain relationships, experiences, specifically relationships, and many of those empty places can only be filled by relationship with wildness.

So when you say that 1,500-year-old cedar touched something inside, it's like, yeah, there's probably something empty within you that's just been waiting for decades to feel the living touch of an elder of that enormity, the wisdom of that elder. And the trippy thing is that many of our ancestors, most of them, when you go back through time, had regular contact with elders of that enormity. Not necessarily trees that big, but beings and landscapes and ecosystems and mycelial mats and aspen groves, things of that ageless quality that you're describing. This deep earth elderhood.

And systematically, over the last few hundred years, and especially the last hundred years, we as a global organism of humans have destroyed and killed off these elders and their wisdom. And so those empty places within remain empty and hollow, and they echo. And the echoing makes us mad. It should. But lots of us don't even know what is happening there. You don't know what you don't know until you dive deep enough. And our society doesn't really support deep diving. In fact, it's militarily the opposite, right? Get on your phone, get distracted. Get on the news cycle, get distracted. Get to work. Make enough money to buy this thing and do this. You're not on time, you're late. Everything is in opposition to depth.

So I just wanted to share one thing here too. This is from Brooke Medicine Eagle.

[Tei reads a short passage from Brooke Medicine Eagle about the trees as teachers and the forest as the true university.]

Ross Tayler (16:39)

That reminds me, there was a podcast guest who shared with us that the trees are beginning to speak to us again, that we're in a time where the trees are starting to share their messages again. So that really speaks to me when you read that, because there is wisdom in the forest.

Tei Taiyarï (17:00)

Absolutely. And the number of community herbalists that are just exploding out of the cracks and seams of the cemented, paved-over linearity of society. So many people I know right now are diving deep into herbalism. Why is that? People aren't gathering and saying, hey, are we going to do this? Yeah, we're going to do this. No, there's something beckoning to us. There's something deep within the matrix, the living matrix of earth, that's beckoning humans to reconnect and to listen more deeply, because there's no other way. The alternative is extinction.

Ross Tayler (17:46)

I want to circle back. You mentioned the emptiness in us that we're trying to reconcile, and to me, that emptiness relates directly to the grief. So I want to come back to that piece of you talking about grief. What would you say to our listeners about stepping into that ocean of grief? How do we do that? Because as you shared that story about the forest, I could feel that emptiness within me, and I see how I and others fill that emptiness with these things you mentioned. So how do we turn around and face the grief? If I look at my own story, my own history, it was too much to face, at least at the time. So I'm curious what you want to say about entering that ocean of grief, as you described it.

Tei Taiyarï (18:34)

Yeah. Well, we're not meant to do it alone. You were speaking earlier about how difficult it can be to know who we are, to figure out who we are and why we're here. And I was thinking in that moment, as you were describing it, well, we're so human-centric. Everything's about us.

So when I think about this ocean of grief, I think about how an essential aspect of it is to open ourselves to a larger context of connection and family making and friendship. And this isn't just with the human. This is with life. This is why I'm talking a lot about biophilia lately, this affinity to deepen and sweeten our love for life.

So in approaching the oceanic mass of grief that lives within all of us in these times, we have to recognize that we need others to be involved in it. I can dip my toes at the shore of that grief on my own. But there's an intelligent part of me that knows, don't dive in. You won't make it. Now, if I have others with me at that shore, and we're holding hands, and we slowly walk out together, okay, well, we might make it. And even more so if, as we're holding hands and walking out into that sea, we're also in deep connection and support with the land mass behind us, and recognizing the life of that ocean that's receiving us, to churn us and change us and transform us, to fill us with more life.

So that's the other thing. This grief, it's life. It's love. But it's so big that we can't do it alone, just like we can't do life and love alone. We were never meant to. It's impossible. In fact, it's never happened, ever, right? No matter how self-consumed or human-centric we've been at different moments in our lives, we're full of all kinds of life forms, just in our physical body, within and on our skin. And the cells of our bodies are made up of mitochondria and other cells, like two beings coming together in symbiosis to create energy. So it's all this coming together of life. And grief is that too.

So that's all I can say about it. I don't have cultural roots. No one has ever shown me how to grieve properly. Over the years, I've come into contact with certain teachers and teachings, and patched together this raggedy tapestry of what it could possibly be, and had momentary experiences of what might be possible. But I don't know. And I would say that lots of us don't know. So it's the messy, courageous act of attempting to learn.

And I'm reminded of how Charles Eisenstein talks about the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. Many people are talking about this these days. Stephen Jenkinson says, well, yeah, we know it's possible, but it's probably not going to happen in our lifetimes. The way I take that is, don't get hung up on the outcome. Don't get hung up on the arrival. You're not going to get to where you want to. That's not the point. And actually, if you're attached to that, it's going to get in the way of what's really here. So maybe your children, or your grandchildren or great-grandchildren, if creator allows humanity to go that far, maybe they will inherit what you imagine could be. And that's worthy enough of the effort. So my point is that it's this messy process of relearning. But we can't do it alone. So that's what I would say.

Ross Tayler (23:28)

And what you said about not being able to do it alone reminds me that over the last six or seven years, I've done journeys with psilocybin. You're making me think of some of the experiences that I've had that were so beautiful and so overwhelming, to the point of feeling like I'm going to die in the presence of this energy. And somehow, in those journeys, I'm doing it alone. Yes, I've done these journeys with other people, sitting together, but you're still on your own when you have that experience. So to walk into that ocean of grief with others seems very, very aligned, because that in and of itself, I'm not alone in this, is huge.

And I think about some of the death cafes that I've attended, just a few, actually, and the conversations that happen. Again, that's an example of not doing it alone, of actually talking about the thing that we fear so much. It's such a beautiful experience. It's hard to describe. When I say to someone, yeah, I went to this death cafe and we talked about this, this and that, they're like, what? But we're so isolated in this culture. We live in individual boxes. We're in each other's aura, even though we're disconnected from the person who lives beside us. It's wild to me. And so that concept of doing it with others, in and of itself, brings up a layer of grief and love, right?

I love where you pointed with that. And I guess the other thing I want to talk about, and I think I read this somewhere on one of your websites, is this lack of connection to our culture, our heritage. We're not rooted in that. You said that you're not, and I know I'm not. I've had some experiences where I've dipped my toes in that, but I have no deep, rich connection to culture, and no teachers, no elders, no lineage that I'm connected to. And that's part of it too. We're so disconnected from that piece. So, who am I, is such a broad question. And who am I underneath all the conditioning?

Tei Taiyarï (25:37)

I would say that question is more difficult to answer than ever. We're all cultural orphans, and we can't even fathom the immensity of the repercussions of that. Colonialism absolutely, horrifically devastated the indigeneity of the earthly realm. It's just beyond painful to honestly recognize.

And the thing to remember, I think, is that everyone was colonized. Indigenous people were the ones who were massacred and tortured and eradicated. But it also happened to those who were descendants of the colonizers. And in fact, the people who were doing the act of colonization were also experiencing that within themselves. So whatever virus it was that propelled people to take up the colonizer archetype, it just wrecked humanity and this earth.

And part of that wreckage is that so many of us literally don't have roots in the earth. Just sense into, really honestly, the fact that most people don't grow any of their own food. It's outrageous. It's absolutely outrageous. And you could chalk it up as a win for modernity. Now I get more time for leisure. It's like, do you? People have less time for leisure than ever. And who's to say growing food for your family isn't leisure? Sure, you work hard in some moments, but wow, what a gift. The greatest gift. And there you are, actually working with roots. You're working with seeds. You're working with the transmission of knowledge that's connected to place.

So that's just one simple fragment of the massive wreckage, that we tend to not even grow our own food. And then you can follow the threads of that into different aspects of our lives, and recognize all the ways that we've lost touch with real, rooted reality, because we were all colonized, our hearts and our minds. Our roots and our cultures were taken from us, destroyed, in many cases lost forever. But there are fragments and tatters. And so when we ask ourselves today, who am I, part of that is searching for these fragments and picking them up and going, whoa, how do I make sense of these? How do I fit them together into some kind of ragged outfit that I could don, on any day that I feel courageous enough, and say, okay, this is what I think it could be. Do you want to try with me?

Ross Tayler (28:58)

And yet so much of this, and I think you've already alluded to this, is still in our DNA. We remember. I was part of a Tao study group for quite a while in Vernon. And there was this one piece where, I don't even know how to describe it, but essentially what I saw was this 5,000-plus-year-old tradition reflecting what I would call the medicine wheel. The Tao has these Asian influences, and yet there are these elements of the medicine wheel that we see in Indigenous culture. To me, it just spoke to, wow, this is part of all of us. It's just not able to wake up again because of how we're living.

So when you come back to the trees knowing who we are, it's that. It's in our DNA, if we connect to it and allow it the space to wake up. And maybe that's what all of this relieving ourselves of our conditioning is about, returning to that essence. Because at some point, in every culture, we lived on the land, and now we're not. At least the majority of us are not.

Tei Taiyarï (30:07)

Yeah. I would say lived with the land, right? Even that language, lived on the land, as if you can be separate from it. Right there in the language, and we just take that. It's because of our worldview. And I sense you're a good man who cares and is sensitive, and you do your best to connect, but there it is in our language. It's in our worldview. The conditioning goes so deep. It's so strong. It's intense.

I just wanted to say about the medicine wheel, I'm not surprised at all that you would find it. As far as I understand, you do find the medicine wheel by different names all across the world. And the reason why is because it's the truth. That's it. In earth-centered spirituality, it's the truth because it's experiential, through the human experience of being a child of earth, in the way that we are able to perceive, with our unique capacities for perception and experience. That's what comes out of us, in order to navigate more wholesomely and to stay connected.

So I think this idea, or term, earth-centered spirituality, is another important thread to consider in the context of all that we're talking about. Many circles that I've orbited around over the years could be considered spiritual circles. I don't even really use the word spiritual often, but it's coming through right now, so I'm just going with it. In fact, I tend to back away from people who talk about spirituality in a direct way like that. I just want to be around people who I sense live with spirit. That's it. I don't want you to talk about it. What is there to talk about, in that way?

But the reason I'm saying it now is that so much of so-called spirituality these days, this new age, post-new age spiritualism, the commodification of spiritualism, is so amiss. It's so far from the rootedness that is our inheritance as humans. It's so concerned with ascension, ascending, rising, high vibes. This idea of looking up and going up and out, right? Even that teaching that people talk about from Yeshua of the Bible, I'm in this earth but not of this earth. Who knows if that dude said that? I don't know. But people take that on as this valiant cause. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. First and foremost, you're earth.

I know people say, I'm a soul experiencing a physical incarnation, or whatever. Sure, that's probably true on one level. But also, I can touch you. You're made of food. You're made of plants and animal flesh and minerals, and the waters flow through you like they flow down the watersheds into the ocean. You're earth. So if your spirituality isn't centered in earth, then you're missing the assignment, in my opinion. And I don't usually take super strong opinions, but I'm down to be strong with that one. You're missing the assignment. You are an earthen being. And I think that comes before everything, because it's the center of your experience here at this time.

Ross Tayler (34:04)

And I think I read on your website that instead of ascending, we need to descend. We need to grow down into the earth in order to grow up. That really touched me, because I really believe a lot in shadow work and going into the depths of things. And it makes sense with what you just said. If we're of the earth, then we need to go back to the earth.

Tei Taiyarï (34:26)

Yeah. We need stronger roots, and we need to tie our roots to other roots, as Sophie Strand says so beautifully. And Carl Jung, I think I wrote this on my website, says modern man doesn't find God because he doesn't look low enough. Right? It's so true. And the consequences are tragic. Truly tragic.

Ross Tayler (34:53)

One of the things that comes up in the conversations here, well, there are two things, and I think I say it every time now, which is quite funny. The slowing down, and then the reorientation. We're so focused on, God is up there, or whatever I need is out here. But it's actually an inside-out thing. We need to reorient inside ourselves, because that's where all of our answers are. And that's why I love some of these modern systems, like the Gene Keys, that are reorienting us to our inner world.

I don't know if you're familiar with the Gene Keys. Richard Rudd tells this story about how we are like the dragonfly emerging right now. We are the nymph that has come up out of the water, and we're about to have this transformational experience. But the nymph under the water is this predatory kind of creature that is pillaging and taking and destroying, all the things that are manifesting in our everyday world. And yet it emerges as this beautiful dragonfly, and it happens so quickly. So he says that we are the nymph that one day decides to climb up the blade of grass and evolve into this beautiful dragonfly. And it can happen so quickly if we allow it. And from that place, everything is very different.

I've seen Richard Rudd with Pam Gregory, an astrologer, and Zach Bush, who is a pretty prolific speaker, the three of them talking about how this shows up in each of their worlds and how it is reflected in all these different places. It's happening. We are part of this change. But it is of the earth. It is an earth-based experience that we're evolving with. And coming back to that feels really important.

Tei Taiyarï (36:39)

Yeah, I like that example. I have a lot of thoughts around it. I'm trying to see which one matters most right now. Well, I'm thinking about environment and context, and how it shapes who we are. I'm actually thinking about grasshoppers and locusts. They're the same organisms. What happens is that the ecology of a place becomes so confining to a population of grasshoppers that they literally morphologically transform into locusts. Not their descendants. An individual turns from a grasshopper into a locust when a certain environmental context puts enough pressure on them. And then what the locusts do is swarm, and they eat each other, and they eat everything in their environment to the point where there's nothing left, and then most of them die off, so that grasshoppers can then live in more harmony with that environment.

And I see humans like that right now. The trippy thing is that we created our own environment that's turning us into these mad, volatile, violent creatures. I don't think that's who we are deep down. It's a part of it, but it's the confines, the kind of zoo that we've created for ourselves, that has forced us into these styles of behavior and relating that are inherently destructive to earth and ourselves.

Now, the thing with the locust example that's interesting is, well, they go all out, and then things come back into balance, as all things do, right? But the thing with humans is that our capacity for destruction is tremendous. So how far does it have to go before things come into balance? That's a question people have been asking for decades now. But it keeps going and ramping up. So it's like, whoa, we're going far. And it's terrifying.

But as the machine and the machinations of modernity continue to churn through the earth, and rape the earth of all that she gives us so abundantly, people like you and I can recognize it and feel it. And we do have choices. We have choices every moment, every day, every week, every year of our lives.

And something that's been happening for me, as part of this big change we were chatting about a little before the conversation, is that I'm becoming increasingly intolerant of my lack of integrity around my deep values. I'll give one very simple example that I know everyone listening will resonate with. I produce way too much garbage. The amount that I put into the living systems that sustain me, compared to the amount that I take out and extract so that I can live the life I live, is way out of balance. And I would say that probably everyone listening is in that same situation.

Now, for me, and probably for many listening, my deep values are not that. When I touch down deep, deep within, I don't want to be out of balance like that. I don't want to be out of integrity like that, extracting more than I'm giving back to life. So that's one example. There are others too. But I'm becoming increasingly intolerant of pushing that knowing aside because I'm busy, because I have these things to do, because I have responsibilities. At what point do I go, okay, enough is enough?

And it's not a hard stop on everything, but I can focus on one aspect of my life at least, like the garbage situation, and go, okay, it's been decades of being like this. I've done my best over time, recycling, not using unnecessary things, not buying random bullshit. But I'm still producing garbage weekly. Can I really focus on that? And then what other aspects of my life can I take some time to actually focus on, and ask, is this deeply connected to who I really want to be? And if it isn't, and I'm courageous enough to be really honest with myself, then what the fuck am I going to do about that? Am I going to do anything? Well, if I don't do anything, am I just going to suffer forever, because I'm going against who I really am?

I think many of us are in that situation, where we're consistently ignoring the deeper parts of who we are and who we want to be, because we're caught in this momentum of modernity and its machinations. I know it's a huge force, and it's difficult to face. But someone's got to. And people are. We all are, in our own ways. But it's usually not enough for who we really are deep down. That's what I'm trying to say.

Ross Tayler (42:23)

And I'll reflect back to you an observation I had a couple of weeks ago driving to Victoria, which was the number of Amazon trucks that I saw going the other way. I was shocked. I was like, my God. There must have been 40 or more. And those are the marked ones. Then there are all the white trucks that don't have markings on them. And it's like, how did we get here? How did we get to where, on a Saturday, and now even on Sundays, all of this is happening? And think about all the packaging. It just goes so far.

Tei Taiyarï (42:56)

So far. Yeah.

Ross Tayler (42:58)

But we're in a culture that believes that's the only way now. It's the quick way. I can get something the next day. I don't have to leave my house. I don't need to go to the mall. And then you go to malls and they're empty. Anyway, not to go down that road too deeply, but it's such a...

Tei Taiyarï (43:13)

Man, it matters, because we're not talking about it enough. No, go down the road deeply. Talk about it more. You don't need to be an asshole about it, condemning. Look, I totally get why it's happening. I participate too. But I need to be honest that it doesn't feel right. It's not rooted. The amount of bullshit that I give my life force to really hurts me deep down. And I turn away from that hurt. So we're talking about the grief. That's part of it.

Ross Tayler (43:46)

That's part of the ocean of grief.

Tei Taiyarï (43:48)

Over and over and over again. And you do, and I do. We're all turning away from this real, rooted reality that we know deep down, and we're doing it every day of our lives. But we want things to change too. We want things to be different. We want things to be more wholesome. We want to feel the love, and we want to feel like we're a part of beloved community. We want to feel healthy and vital. We want our children to thrive, and so on. But we make choices every day that are in direct opposition to that.

So to be a true human in these times is to honestly recognize that and say, okay, I see that. And then go, I'm willing to feel it. I'm willing to talk about it and share about it. I'm willing to make some change. But look, it's hard if I do it alone. Can we do it together?

Ross Tayler (44:41)

Right. And you haven't really named it, but something I've felt, and it showed up in a small way in my life, surprisingly, is that I'm now living in a small communal situation, whereas I was living alone before. And I think that is part of it, that we need to return to living with each other and supporting each other. When we do that, things change as well, because we're not alone in that journey. So there's an element you've been hinting at that is important. And it can look all sorts of ways, right? There can be small housing on land where many people live together and independently at the same time. I think it shifts some of these things we're talking about. Cooking together, whatever that means. We're reducing our footprint, and also easing how much time it takes. That concept has been out there forever. But, as you said, modernity is taking us down a different road.

Tei Taiyarï (45:41)

Well, yeah. The Amazon delivery system becomes so much more irrelevant when you are living deeply connected to people, in a way where you rely on each other. And I think this is also one of the troubles of these times, that our relationships have also become, in many ways, transactional and convenient. Usually they rely on fun times. I hang out with you because I like you and because I want to have a good time, but if that's not happening, ooh, I don't know, maybe I'll take a rain check. It's very rare for people today to be so connected to others that it's, I don't live today without you. Me and my children don't survive without your effort, and vice versa. But that was humanity forever. Almost all of our ancestors relied on each other to that depth. That was real relationship.

Ross Tayler (46:54)

And our nervous systems are wired for that kind of connection, and are responding to things that don't match that.

Tei Taiyarï (47:00)

Yeah. So now we get the veins of Amazon to send us all these things, to try and fill those empty spaces within that, like I said earlier, can only be filled by the wildness of the world. And that includes our other human kin. What I'm saying is, it's wild. It's a wild thing to rely on someone for your life, and for them to rely on you.

Ross Tayler (47:29)

So this feels like the perfect place to pause our conversation. I think there's lots for the listeners to digest.

Tei Taiyarï (47:35)

Yeah, sure.

Ross Tayler (47:36)

Even though I would love to ask more questions and go down different paths. That would be awesome. But this feels like the perfect place to stop. I always close with the same question, so I'll throw it out for you. What is one simple way someone could connect with the sacred today?

Tei Taiyarï (47:57)

Listen. Deeply listen, and be willing to be changed by what you hear.

Ross Tayler (48:06)

I love that. Thank you.

So, Tei, thank you for this conversation. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I love the energy that you bring and the richness of the way that you see the world. I think there's just so much story, and so many pieces that people can relate to. So I appreciate the journey that we took, and I'm very grateful for getting to spend this time with you today.

Tei Taiyarï (48:34)

Yeah, man, me too. Thanks for having me. I hope I wasn't a downer. I want people to know that I just really care about life and love. And I want you all to feel like you're living a real life, because I want to feel that. I think we all do. I want to feel like I love life deeply, and that life loves me. I want to know that deep down. I want my children to know that. I want us all to know that. I want to look into each other's eyes and really see that this person loves life. Not in the way of, I'm always happy, I love life, this is a joy. No, no. I want you to be in that deep, horrific, beautiful, painful, glorious, ecstatic love for life, where you're just so present for the mystery of what's unfolding. So that's really what it is.

And I'll just say here, Ross, that you're inspiring me. I have had a podcast project for a couple of years, but because of the changes in my life over the last half a year, it's been on pause. I'm using this as tinder, as the fuel to reignite my project. So I do want to invite folks to check that out. It's called Wild Heart Revival. There are 50 episodes up there. We talk about all sorts of things, but you can get a sense of what I'm into through this conversation.

And I'll also say this. If anyone's on Salt Spring Island and you want to work in an earth-centered counselling context, and if you're interested in what I call eco-therapeutics, reach out. That's what I'm offering here on Salt Spring Island. I also have virtual clients as well. It's different, but it's also very meaningful. So that's how people can connect with me. And also just reach out. I love having meaningful conversations. The number of times I've met with people, random people, through a video chat, just to say, hey, what's up? Many, many. I really love that. So I'm open to connection and collaboration, is what I'm saying.

Ross Tayler (50:51)

Beautiful. And I'll make sure that those links are in the show notes. And I just have to say something that's really funny. You said you have fifty episodes on your podcast, and when this conversation gets published, it will be episode fifty as well.

Tei Taiyarï (51:07)

Well, okay. Yes. Yeah. I take that meaningfully.

Ross Tayler (51:14)

Yeah, I got chills when you said that. It's like, interesting.

Tei Taiyarï (51:17)

Wonderful. Makes sense.

Ross Tayler (51:19)

Thank you again for this time. I look forward to where our paths cross again in the future.

Thank you for joining us on Sacred Sundays. I hope something in today's offering spoke to your spirit, stirred something true, or simply gave you a moment to breathe. If this conversation resonated, please subscribe, rate, or share. It truly helps this work reach the people who are meant to find it. If you'd like to step inside my world a little further, I host a free live practice three mornings a week called Start With You. Just 20 minutes on Zoom to return to your own energy. Everything you need can be found at the link in the show notes. Until next time, may your day be slow and sacred.