Dr. Edith Ubuntu Chan Expanding Consciousness and Raising Luminous Kids

[Speaker 4] (0:00 - 0:07) You are now listening to the Here for the Truth podcast, hosted by Joel Rafiti and Yerasimos. [Speaker 2] (0:12 - 0:13) Yerasimos, what's on your lips, man? [Speaker 3] (0:16 - 0:46) Well, I was at Music in the Sky this past weekend in the desert, this amazing event that Sophie and I spoke at. We talked about human design. I also had the opportunity to interview Dr. Melissa Sell and introduce everyone at that event. Well, some people knew about it, about Germanic Healing Knowledge, aka German New Medicine. And yeah, my lips got a little chap, and I don't use chapstick. So I had to, like, before our episode today, I had to run into Sophie's bathroom and I found something that I think was chapstick, and I put it on my lips. Wow, man. [Speaker 2] (0:47 - 3:21) They're glistening. The shimmer from the ring light is just blinding me at the moment. Guys, today we have the incredible Dr. Edith Ubuntu-Chan in the house, and she has some incredible experiences and stories to share with you, which are very, very enlightening, for sure. Before we get to that, our eight-week private group coaching program Rise Above the Herd is filling up for round two. It's limited to 20 spots only, and we kick off June 20. So if you're interested in really embodying your hero's journey, stepping into the full individuation process, developing authentic health esteem, and walking the path of your highest potential, and developing and knowing within you that you have the competence to do that, please head to riseabovetheherd.com.au and get an application in, and potentially and hopefully reserve a spot for yourself. Our website hereforthetruth.com has all our episodes, and you can grab our free ebook for truth seekers there as well on 55 signs of low self-esteem. Without further ado, guys, please enjoy this episode with Dr. Chan. All right, everybody, welcome to episode 73 of the Here for the Truth podcast. As always, we have an amazing guest for you here today. Dr. Edith Ubuntu Chan is a teacher of consciousness and human potential, a holistic Chinese medicine doctor, author, speaker, coach, and mama of two luminous kids. Her journey began in 2003 after a series of meditation-induced mystical experiences that changed her perception of human possibilities forever. Since then, she's devoted her life to unlocking the secrets of our human potential. Her work weaves together ancient wisdom with the new science of consciousness, medicine, and spirituality. Dr. Edith's first book, Super Wellness, features a foreword by Wim Hof and offers a powerful distillation of her first 15 years of clinical experience. Her upcoming second book, Luminous Kids, explores humanity's transition into the new paradigm of awakened living with a focus on children, education, parenthood, and family life. It draws inspiration from her personal journey of conscious conception, home birth, child-led, self-directed education, homeschooling, unschooling, and holistic family life. It aims to spark a new conversation about our evolution in consciousness as a human family. She has a list of credentials as long as my arm and it's so amazing to have her here. Dr. Edith, thanks for being here for The Truth. [Speaker 1] (3:22 - 3:33) Yay, thank you so much for having me and thank you for reading the bio with your sexy accent. It just sounds even more awesome that way. Thank you. It's my absolute pleasure. [Speaker 2] (3:33 - 3:34) I can read it again if you want. [Speaker 1] (3:36 - 3:38) Thank you. It sounds more fancy. [Speaker 2] (3:39 - 4:01) I agree. No worries. Dr. Edith, as always, we just want to get like a, to start off a brief history into your major rites of passage, I guess, on this process of awakening and this journey into discovering human potential that you've been on. What were the key catalysts or key moments where you really had, I guess, shifts and transitions in your modality of thinking and conscious expansion? [Speaker 1] (4:03 - 5:53) Yeah, it's always interesting to answer these kinds of questions. It's still the essence of who you are into a little story or a little soundbite, but I think the type of audience that you have, we can share words, but really what we're sharing is an energy, right? There's a soul resonance that we're all tapping into. I may say some words in the apparent world of time and space, but I think what we're creating is an energy together through this conversation. I think if I were to distill it down to probably the most transformative experience that led me to being the truth seeker that I am today is probably in 2003. I was in Chinese medicine school. As part of Chinese medicine school, it's really awesome. My luminous kids are running in the background. Is that too loud? It's fine. It's like hide and seek going on over there. Yeah, so in 2003, I was still in Chinese medicine school. As part of Chinese medicine school, you study all kinds of cool topics and you're required to study qigong and tai chi, which was my favorite because not just always thinking in analytical, academic, philosophical kind of terms, but actually embodying it through breath work, through meditation, through movement practices. It was actually required curriculum as part of Chinese medicine school and it was my favorite. So there was a particular qigong class that the teacher was awesome and after the required courses, I kept studying and practicing with this teacher outside of school to go deeper into the practice. And there was this particular practice where it was just, do you guys practice qigong too? [Speaker 3] (5:53 - 5:54) I have a few times. [Speaker 2] (5:55 - 6:06) I practice qigong a little bit. I'm a very, very basic student of it. We recently had Chris Shelton, who's a master qigong practitioner based in LA recently on and yeah, but very interested in qigong for sure. [Speaker 1] (6:07 - 10:26) Awesome. So something awesome happens because just being aware of your breath, of your body, being really conscious and intentional about your intention, guiding the flow of energy in your body, you always win. So I always love my practices. I always come out feeling more balanced, more centered, more peaceful. So this particular class, I thought, Hey, I'll feel good too. But what actually happened was something that it has taken me the last two decades to unpack pretty much. One moment I'm sitting there doing this breathing meditation, following the guided meditation. The next moment it was like, I don't know why for some reason, this particular meditation, I dropped so much more deeply than usual that all of a sudden I went just exploded into trillions of pieces of love and light. Suddenly there was no more body. I experienced myself as the entire cosmos. I experienced myself as these trillions of pieces of love and light, the size of the whole cosmos. And I had, it was like this strange thing where I had questions, but I had all the answers. Every question was instantaneously answered. So the feeling was intense bliss and intense contentment because there were no more questions and you were completely at one with all of creation. This feeling is so hard to put into words, this experience. All I knew was that I was home and this is our natural state. I just knew that this is who we really are. This is who all of us really are. This state of being is who we really are. The other stuff was fake. And so I don't know how long I was in this space, but eventually from far, far away, I heard this distant voice that was really soft. And I was like, wait, that's my Qigong teacher. Wait, there is a body. There is this person called Edith Chan in the world of time and space in a Qigong class. Maybe I should go back there. And so it was this ridiculous notion of squishing trillions and trillions, pieces of love and life and size of the entire cosmos back into this pretense of a physical body in 2003, sitting in a class. And the feeling was so kind of absurd and ridiculous to take the truth of who you really are, which is the entire cosmos, all the trillions of pieces of love and life, squishing it into this physical body. It was almost painful to come back. And it took a long time to articulate what happened right after that as this consciousness returned and densified back into the physical. It was like a clashing of intense gratitude for having the opportunity to go home and intense grief that up until this point, basically my life was a bunch of lies. And so that turned into avalanches of tears, that just uncontrollable avalanches of tears just came gushing and gushing and gushing down. And I sat there kind of dumbfounded at what just happened here. So it took a long time. After that experience for a while, actually, you know, people are like, wow, that's so amazing. You got to have this like, basically sounds like a Samadhi experience or enlightenment experience so young in your 20s. That's amazing. And I would say, kind of be careful what you ask for. [Speaker 3] (10:26 - 10:26) Hmm. [Speaker 1] (10:27 - 12:46) Because right after that, I started looking at our reality. And I saw everything as it really is, this reality is totally inverted and backwards and upside down. And all the things that have been told in school, and I had gone to some of the best schools, I have all these letters after my name, and I had been successful in the corporate world before I switched careers to go into Chinese medicine, all these things. They were all fake. And it became kind of this intense dark night of the soul for a number of years, but it turned into a secret. I started reading spiritual books, I started doing past life regression, like who am I really, you know, I could understand this, this, this feeling, I had that as a reference point now for what is closer to the truth, and what is further from the truth. And so that turned into reading 1000s of books, traveling around the world, attending retreats, and studying with different teachers and doing hypnosis, going deep into meditation retreats. And, and subsequently, a bunch more of these kinds of experiences happen that started to integrate deeper and deeper and deeper. And the conclusion I've reached today, I'm still still learning and growing, just like all the rest of us, is that we came here for this time of intense transformation, that that we came here for this, we came here to correct the inversion, and to make this physical reality be in integrity with greater cosmic truths. And that this, this feeling we have in our bodies of stress and discomfort, and all these things, those are actually sacred signs that something is out of alignment with truth. And so when we listen to that, that's actually there's a there's a lot of support here. And these, you know, this was back in 2003. The internet wasn't where it is today. So it was very lonely, I didn't know who to talk to, there was a few books about near death experiences and past life regression, and some different channeling books. And that was about it. So I'm so grateful that now 20, almost 20 years later, this, we can just talk openly about this kind of stuff. [Speaker 2] (12:48 - 13:29) Wow, that is absolutely incredible. Thank you so much for sharing. Like, it's interesting. I've had I've had certain mystical experiences in my life, too. Like, I don't think to the extent that you're describing. But it's almost like once you gain that reference points, does that does that, does that wear off for you? You know, like, ultimately coming back and being human with this reality that we have? Does it eventually has eventually like, I guess, diminished on some level that feeling or that experience? Or is it still with you to the same degree as to when you first experienced it? [Speaker 1] (13:29 - 14:37) I think, I think those kinds of experiences are like, the portal got open, you got to peer into the truth. Yeah. And then the real work happens after that. You know, you see people go to retreats, have these breakthrough experiences, go do medicine journeys, and have these amazing, enlightening insights, like, Oh, my God, I see it now I get it. And then now the real work begins, when you come back to your life, to purify all of your relationships, you might change your career, you might have to move cities, you might have to do all kinds of not very pleasant things, because your life up until that point was a snapshot of, you know, the result of your consciousness leading up to that moment. So now you've had a change in consciousness, you could just read back, revert back to your old life, or you could do the actual unpleasant, not very sexy, and often very messy work of recalibrating your life and actually clean this thing up, you know, so the work's not complete until you actually change how you engage with your physical life. [Speaker 3] (14:37 - 15:16) Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head there. Because a lot of people have these, these mystical experiences, where they get this wisdom, and yet, how do they integrate it into their lives? How do they apply into their lives and make the changes necessary, because it's one thing to have a moment, or they keep, they go after and they keep chasing it, they keep chasing and looking for that, as opposed to, hey, you had it. Now, what are you going to do now in your day to day living, as opposed to just running and chasing that same experience? That's what I find. Now, it's up to each individual to figure out what works best for them. But I think that the applied knowledge and taking conscious action to better yourself based on these enlightening experiences is key. [Speaker 1] (15:17 - 16:47) Yes. Yes. Yeah, in the beginning days back in 2003, right after that experience, I kept I became kind of addicted to meditation, always with the intention of escaping this reality, because it became so dense and unbearable down here, you know. So because of the reference point that had been, you know, gifted to me for some whatever reason, I have some theories about that, including having recalled some, some past life memories. And I was told by one of multiple teachers I've studied with that all paths can lead to awakening. But in his opinion, this particular teacher, there's often a reason you incarnated into a specific bloodline and lineage. And so because I, in this particular lifetime, I incarnated into a Chinese body, that the Chinese practices could probably activate my DNA more quickly. This is an idea, you know, and so that's an interesting thought. And so, so once you have that memory, reawaken, now go and live your life in alignment and integrity with that. That's really, that's the hard work. And so for me, I used to just go back to meditation to escape it. But then I was like, well, but then I'm back here again, and nothing's changed. You know, the real solution is how can I engage with life in a different way and use meditation to inspire a different way of engaging with life? [Speaker 2] (16:48 - 17:53) Yeah, that's, that's 100% the challenge. Because I had my experience, I guess, in 2015. And like, I just wanted to, I was blissed out, I just wanted to live a life of bliss. And for a year, I absolutely did. I found the deepest joy in every single thing that I did, whether it was emptying a dishwasher or taking the garbage out, it was just like, oh, my goodness, you know, here I am, this is life. But ultimately, yeah, I guess I got, I didn't want that to go, I was, I was clinging, I was clinging to it, like I didn't want to leave this space, you know. And eventually, that led to my shadow journey, because I noticed that became all this toxicity, which I was just allowing, because I was accepting everything, allowing everything, I didn't want to tamp with any part of it. And then the other, the real work begins, you know, and you begin to notice the rampant inauthenticity, which you've allowed within and without yourself, and the toxicity that you've allowed. And then you decide, okay, if I'm going to live completely in alignment with authenticity and integrity, then I'm going to be ruthless in my choices. Really, and that is that is the job. And that is the work. So yeah, I really appreciate you sharing that's actually given a little bit of clarity to myself. For sure. [Speaker 3] (17:54 - 18:05) Yeah. And now I'm thinking I need to read all the Greek philosophers, because if Chinese practices brought you to this state, then maybe, you know, I need to go back to the ancient Greeks and see what see what, what gold is there for me. [Speaker 2] (18:05 - 18:21) I think I think I think it makes sense, man. I mean, I come from Palestinian lineage. My father was born in Jerusalem, you know, so there's obviously the Essenes and sort of mystical texts coming from that land as well, which definitely, on some level resonate deeper than others. So I think that could be something to that. [Speaker 1] (18:23 - 19:09) Yeah, and back to this idea of purifying, you know, being a bliss junkie, versus really dealing with your life and cleaning it up on a practical everyday basis. Isn't that the biggest gift of these last couple years is like, okay, well, now they're going to back us into a corner. So we have to deal with this stuff now. So we have to have a strong spine and say no and have boundaries and all these things. And all of us spiritual people, we could use some practice with that. So thank goodness for all those people I who I won't name for pushing our boundaries so that we have to get stronger, more stable, so that we can be really solid within ourselves in order to build a more beautiful new earth that that I think that's really what we came here to do. [Speaker 3] (19:10 - 19:53) Yeah. I was gonna say, yeah. I agree. I think the people that have stood their ground and have stood in their truth more the last two years, they're the ones that are thriving more now, you know, that have have gone towards being more creative, that have been gone towards more love and acceptance, as opposed to living in fear and worry. It's like, okay, yeah, what's what's happened last two and a half years. And yet we're building these these new realities and these the new earth and these new creations and building community. And that's how you and I met, you know, but music and sky last year. And it's just incredible to witness and to see what happens when you're living with that, living in freedom and within yourself, whereas where it starts first, before you want to see it externally in the world. [Speaker 2] (19:54 - 20:34) Yeah, yeah, I think we're all being called to become far more grounded, far more censored, and really deal with our lives in a practical sense, you know, because we are, as you said, we've been given no choice. Okay, we were aware that the predators at the gate, and it's there. So what are you going to do? What kind of decisions are you going to make? How are you going to curate your life, knowing what you know, you know, in the in the in the most in a way that you can actually strive and live in satisfaction and live up to your potential and create. And that's the basis of a lot of our work for sure. And it's stimulated a creative expansion beyond belief, what's taken place, particularly for those who are stubborn and are saying, no, there's no chance, you know, I'm living my life my way. [Speaker 1] (20:35 - 22:23) Yeah, and the planetary energies and cosmic energies and all the solar flares and so many things is stirring up, it can be destabilizing and confusing. And it feels like often you the rug got pulled from under your feet, and you feel kind of dizzy and unsure. But it's also this is the opportunity to stir up all the old deep shadow stuff and just delete those things like disconnect from those ones and for all. And we really see in our freedom communities here in my local area, we have some different groups of basically villages being formed. Now, it's really cool with the kids, maybe we'll talk about the kids later. But the kids you start to look at, wow, it's not just having play dates with a few families or kids as they grow up, we're homeschooling, unschooling, doing self directed learning. So we want our kids to be surrounded by all kinds of role models and mentors and awesome people with a diverse viewpoints and and just a wonderful good vibes in the village that they can, we're all basically raising our children together as a village, right. And so as we build community, we really start to see where people have unhealed stuff from the past. Yes, we're all oriented toward truth and freedom, but on a practical day to day basis, like when we, you know, organize activities and events, and when there's money involved, and small business ideas being collaborated on, and you just you start to see where people still have some work to do, right? Where if you haven't healed it in the past, you're going to bring this into the village of the new earth, and that's not going to serve our children. So we better get working on ourselves. [Speaker 2] (22:24 - 22:59) Yeah, for sure. But I think on some level, like the outer work as we walk this path brings forth that inner stuff, which remains unhealed, that shadow material, you know. So what some of, I guess, my philosophy is start doing something, start walking the path, start building. And as you do that, as you meet the next precipice, you're going to have the opportunity to go deeper as well, and do deeper shadow work as a result of this new horizon you're being called to. Yeah. Dr. Edith, I've got a question for you. What is human potential? [Speaker 1] (23:02 - 23:06) Oh, do you ask your other guests this question? [Speaker 2] (23:07 - 23:08) I've never heard him ask it before. [Speaker 1] (23:09 - 23:10) Good question. [Speaker 2] (23:10 - 23:13) The first line of your bio is I'm a teacher of human potential. [Speaker 1] (23:14 - 24:38) Yeah. So this is a question that evolves over time. You know, I wrote this book called Super Wellness. So people ask me, well, what is wellness exactly? And what is health exactly? And you can go into some really deep rabbit holes, just like it sounds simple, right? Like what is health? What is wellness? So in this case, what is human potential? To me, human potential is the ability to live in integrity with that 2003 Qigong experience that I was describing, you know, is a directional orientation towards expanding our practical 3D day-to-day life to be in such a way that is in alignment with this energy. So it's not a static thing. It's a direction or an orientation towards expanding, breaking free from old limiting thoughts and ideas, and expanding towards greater and greater possibilities. So it's a process more than is some kind of like destination. Yeah. So it would be, how do we live so that our infinite cosmic nature can be fully expressed in the physical reality? That's how I would look at human potential. Yeah. [Speaker 3] (24:39 - 24:39) Cool. [Speaker 2] (24:42 - 24:55) Now, you can say something, Joel. I was going to say, so I guess like in your teaching, what are some, I guess, practical tools that people can begin to embody to really start that process for themselves? [Speaker 1] (24:56 - 29:20) Yeah. So for most people actually is super simple because what is the full expression of our human potential? I'm thinking a lot about that as I'm writing this book with the children because they come with all kinds of possibilities and they come with something that you can tell. They came here in this lifetime with a certain divine blueprint that wants to express itself. So somebody is meant to be like an amazing musician. Then are you going to be like, wait, but you should be expressing your full potential as a gardener or something, but that's not their thing, even though both things are really cool. So part of this expression of human potential is also tapping into what you came here to do in this particular lifetime and how to fully express that. But simple tools for most of us as adults, most of it is about letting go of a lot of the old programming and then what's left then is the natural expression of our divine purpose and full potential. So letting go of all of those old programs, I think life shows you. You're going to bump into the same situation over and over again and you start to observe a pattern at play. So if you have the intention of observing your own patterns, eventually it becomes very obvious what are those patterns that it's time to let go of. So how to let go of patterns, there's many different ways, but the piece that I think is often missing is that if you're running different patterns energetically, you're going to have like a distorted energy pattern. So I love Qigong because it teaches us to not really have a story about it, but just to observe the movement of energies without the story of like, oh, I'm running this pattern and psychoanalyze yourself. You could do that, but in my opinion, experience a more direct path is simply to practice being locked into your center. So I just invite people to take a deep breath and become aware of your head, your heart, your belly, your hands, and your feet. So let's do it again. Become aware of your head, your heart, your belly, your hands, and your feet. Good. And then from your heart center, take a big breath and radiate it out into your energy field and just observe and feel and sense into the quality of energy that you're carrying with you. And sometimes it can just take one breath before you walk into a room to disconnect from the baggage of that last crappy interaction you had at the store or talking with a friend or whatever, disconnect from that and alchemize that energy or just let it go. And from your heart, radiate the purest light and just walk into a space with this beautiful, bright new energy. So every breath, every moment, we have the possibility to brighten, enlighten, and clear up the energy. It can just take a moment or it can just take one breath. I love using breath work. I love using energy awareness practices so that we don't necessarily have to get into lots of psychoanalysis of what happened in our past. You know, it's a little bit urgent right now. The planet, a lot of things are happening. It really demands that we all step into the very best of ourselves in the most efficient way possible right now. And I love Chico. I love breath work. I love just simple, simple energy awareness practices so that we can stay solid and clear and center and not bring all the mixed energies of the past with us. [Speaker 3] (29:21 - 31:23) It's amazing how something simple can have such a huge impact, even just like with myself or even when I work with people, just to have them focus on taking a few breaths in and breaths out and how that automatically can shift their state from a place of maybe confusion, anger, worry, et cetera, to just more peace, more calmness, more presence, more intention. And so I think sometimes we're looking for something really, really complex and yet just slowing down and bringing our gaze inward. Because again, we're focused so much on everything outside and we have more and more and more and more distractions in the world than we have ever before. And yet to bring the gaze inward and to do something as simple as even just knowing, oh, I have this area, this heart center area, like what would happen if I even just thought about it for 10 seconds? And how would that change things? And earlier you said something about a divine blueprint. Now, Joel and I are students of different esoteric divination practices. Sophie and I are students and teachers of human design, which I think is an amazing tool that shares your genetic blueprint in a sense, because each individual, each soul has a purpose. When I look around, and I've said this before, at every single thing around me right now, everything, this mug, this phone, this microphone, my wallet over here, everything has a purpose. And so to think that each person walking this planet doesn't have a unique purpose, a unique blueprint, seems silly to me. And so part of this process of returning home is deconditioning from all the ways that parents, culture, society, et cetera, told you to be something other than the person you were born to be. And so that seems to be like, well, it's definitely part of my life's mission. I know Joel's mission is supporting people on that truth-seeking journey, but it's just not external. Like, oh, what's going on in the world? It's internal. That's where it starts. Who are you? And who are you meant to be in this lifetime? And how can you give your gifts to the best of your ability and shine that light of truth and of love? And so, yeah, it's pretty, pretty incredible. [Speaker 1] (31:24 - 31:48) So here's the thing about this kind of centering practice and bringing this quality of energy into the situations of your life, is that that's just really the first step, but it is a profound first step, because when you bring a different kind of energy, and these, I only dabbled a little bit into human design. I studied a little bit about the gene keys and dabble in a lot of these fun things. [Speaker 3] (31:48 - 31:49) I get it. [Speaker 1] (31:50 - 33:49) So many awesome things to explore. I think they all awaken this inner memory. It's like, yes, that's right. That's what I came here to do. That's right. Thank you for the reminder. And so what it does energetically is brings you into a more solid state of stability within you, a deep inner confidence and excitement to express this divine blueprint. So then you radiate a different quality of energy when you walk into a space or you engage with the situations of your life, right? But ultimately, it's back to the whole practical thing again. Ultimately, now life will show you situations, and it's not complete until you engage with life from this state of deep inner clarity from the inside out, instead of constantly letting life jerk you around and reacting to things and don't quite know where you stand on things and feeling so confused and discombobulated all the time, right? So many people live their lives in constant reactivity, and you just let the media and maybe some people, not the conventional media, but we let the social media jerk us around and stuff. And then we let the different conspiracy rabbit holes jerk us around. Let's be honest, in the truth community, we let our energy get jerked around left and right by this conspiracy and that conspiracy. So come back to the center, breathe and check in with your head, your heart, your belly, your hands, and your feet. If you can engage with reading all this kind of media, staying totally peaceful and calm and centered within yourself and observe all these different narratives, great. If you can't do that though, and you're getting all jerked around and thrown off your center and discombobulated by it, I suggest you turn that stuff off, you know? [Speaker 2] (33:49 - 34:52) Yeah, 100%. Definitely. It's almost like the exit one matrix being the mainstream media just to enter the truly industrial complex matrix. And it's just a continual distraction from this true purpose, from this divine purpose, from being censored, from navigating your life to meet your potential on a deeper level, you know? And people really do get stuck there for sure. Definitely. Do you think, just briefly going back to the ways of censoring and I guess addressing our stuff from a somatic perspective or a breathwork perspective or a Qigong perspective, do you think on some level that people enjoy having a complex story to resolve with their minds? Enjoy the psychoanalytical process of diving deep into everything that happened to me, et cetera, et cetera, as a way to, I guess, stay there and actually bypass coming to a place of peace and centeredness and groundedness? [Speaker 1] (34:53 - 35:58) Yeah, I think that we're all always doing our best also, right? So no judgment. We've all been through different phases in different areas of our lives where you need to wallow in the sorrow of something. And maybe some people would be like, stop wallowing. And other people would be like, you know what? I need time to grief. I need time to feel it. I suppress it for too long. So who are we to judge, right? Like maybe someone really needs to sit in that sadness, that dark night of the soul for a little bit longer and create some compost that turns into flowers eventually, so to speak, right? Like they're creating the soil that will create the fertility for something huge. So people don't evolve and awaken on our timeline. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just control it all, right? But it's not up to us. Yeah, so I think it's up to each of us to decide for ourselves. When it's time to move on, we move on. [Speaker 3] (35:59 - 36:02) Yeah, it's definitely an individual journey in that regard. [Speaker 1] (36:03 - 36:35) Yeah, but as a facilitator, I find it really helpful to just hold that very sacred, safe space like, hey, you know, if you need time here, I'll sit here in silence with you. I'll hand you tissues. I've been there. I've done the years of dark night of the soul. And I appreciated deeply the sacredness of taking that time is sometimes what's needed, you know? And when you're ready, I'm ready to accompany you on the next phase of the journey too, you know? [Speaker 3] (36:36 - 37:24) Yeah, and I think that's a key point too is as someone who is a facilitator, it's that the people that I find are the best facilitators are the ones that have been through the fire and come out on the other side, you know, reborn and aren't trying to fix you, you know, aren't trying to tell you what to do, you know, can hold that space for you so you can ultimately go through the process on your own on some level. But knowing that there's some support there as well, it doesn't mean there aren't any prompts or knowledge that you can share. But really, I think the profound healing happens when you're witnessed in your process as well. And so I found the most incredible experiences have been with someone who hasn't even said anything. They've just been there with me and have been resonating in a certain place of knowing, of understanding. And it's been really powerful. [Speaker 2] (37:26 - 37:36) Yeah. Let's jump on to your upcoming book, Luminous Kids. Can you let us know a bit about the foundation of that and the basis of that? [Speaker 1] (37:37 - 40:08) Well, Yerasimoz has heard some of these stories. I'd love to hear it again. The stories, I wasn't even planning to be a parent. And now I'm like, is that some kind of like New World Order agenda, something, something programming that I was like, you know, we have overpopulation. And, you know, I am a parent who would just like weigh me down and time. I don't know what was the I just my husband and I were freedom loving hippies. We like being free. And we're like, you know, having kids would just be like too complicated and expensive. We live in Northern California. I don't think we could even afford the cost of having kids in Northern California with the prices up here. So so we're like, we're not probably going to have kids. And then in 2013, I went away to Thailand to a really profound, beautiful meditation retreat that just like my experience back in 2003, it's like one of those things that, you know, when you have a really profound experience, it's like not a day goes by where, you know, consider it and or think about it or integrate it in some ways. And so in 2003, I went to Thailand for this beautiful meditation retreat. 11 days with nine days and nine nights in complete darkness is called the dark room meditation retreat that Dow Gardens at Dow Gardens, but it was with a meditation teacher named Jasmine who's from Australia. And so she has a little bit different process than Mantak Chia's process, but it's the same building, she rents it out. And it was a profound experience. And when I came out of that retreat, everything looked different and felt different. And my engagement with life was a lot more integrated. And also my intuition skyrocketed that became hyper sensitive to everything. I came back to San Francisco, and um, I could hear and feel all of my neighbors, emotions and thoughts. And it was too much for me. During the day as a Chinese medicine practitioner, I go into the clinic. And that sensitivity and intuition, of course, is really helpful when you're working with clients. But at night, to sense all the mixed energies of the neighborhood and the apartment building and all the neighbors, it was too much. So basically, I dragged my husband out to the countryside, we moved over an hour outside the city, into a little town called Sebastopol, which is like beautiful, fertile grounds and nature. [Speaker 3] (40:08 - 40:13) And we got we got we got our chickens from there. There's a place called the alchemist farm. [Speaker 1] (40:13 - 40:15) And we got our those are my friends. [Speaker 3] (40:15 - 40:25) Yeah, yeah, we got our chicks like two and a half months ago. And now they're two and a half, three months old. And 1111 hens and one rooster. Awesome. Cool. [Speaker 1] (40:25 - 54:59) Yay. Yeah. So you know, the vibe there is very fertile, and the energy is beautiful. And so we had a little cottage, one bedroom cottage, tiny little place with an acre of land with fruit trees and all of this. And for the first time in my life, I'd lived in cities all my life, I discover who I really was, if I got beautiful natural sunshine during the day, sleep in darkness at night, barefoot on bare earth all the time, just because it was just fine to do that in the city is like you have to make an effort to take off your shoes at the park to ground, right? You have to make an effort to be like, oh, I should synchronize my circadian rhythm, I should turn off the light and get blackout curtains, because the street lights glaring and all this, and there's 20 or 30 different Wi Fi hubs, and I'll just turn off my one, but there's still 19 left in the building blasting me with these EMS, right? It's kind of almost hopeless in the city sometimes, you know? So in the countryside, all of that came back into resonance with my natural state. Like, wow, this is who I am when I'm well rested and sleeping deeply at night, and I wake up with the sunrise, not with the alarm, just because I'm well rested. And when I'm barefoot on bare earth almost all the time, my menstrual cycle synced up and my energy and just my vitality changed so profoundly. So my fertility cycle became clockwork synchronized to full moon and new moon. I practically knew the moment that I ovulated. Everything just became so beautifully synchronized. And at night, I started having very clear dreams. If I had a question about something, I just lay down in bed and just asked to get the guidance in my dreams, and it would just come. When I meditated, there wasn't like all this muckety-muck like in the city, all this energetic noise to like alchemize and clear, clear, clear. I spend most of my time in the city kind of like clearing all those energies. In nature, you just drop in and you go and you get deep quickly, right? And so in this state, this baby started showing up in my dreams and my meditation day after day, month after month. And I would tell Dave, my husband, like, baby is here again. And he's like, la la la la la, I'm not ready to have kids, la la la la la. And I'm like, but it's the same baby boy over and over and over again. And he's pretty cute. And so our baby, I just started being buddies with him. Like every night I go to sleep, and I just have these play days with this cute little boy, you know? And eventually one time, Dave and I were drifting into half-wake, half-dream state, and baby arrives again. And I was like, hey, baby's here again. And he was like, oh, here we go. And so it turned into a three-way cosmic powwow between the three of us, talking about, look, we're not sure if we're ready or not. And so baby started showing us this beautiful scene. He says, look, right now there is this whole web work of all of these baby souls. And we're all wanting to come to planet Earth right now in precisely coordinated ways, incarnating ourselves into specifically families and communities in these ways that are so profound and so intricate, there's no way I could properly explain it to you. But he showed me this scene of all these orbs of light, so beautiful. And they're all connected with these strings of light. It was like this ocean, this whole web work of light. He says that we're all going to come down and blanket the Earth with a new consciousness. We're going to show you a new way of being human, a new way of humanness that we haven't seen before. So we can't keep just talking to you and inspiring you through meditation. We actually need bodies to come down here and do our work. And so he said, now the thing is that there is free will in this universe. So here's the thing. I've scoured the entire cosmos, and I've decided that I wanted to come to Earth and have you as my parents. And so each of these babies you see have scoured the entire cosmos. In fact, everybody scours the whole cosmos and chooses precisely the timing and alignment of their birth, their incarnation, which family structures to incarnate into. The intentionality and elegance of all these interconnections is so profound and so beautiful and intricate. I can't properly explain it to you. You just have to take my word for it. But I just want you guys to know that my incarnating through you guys is not just about our little nuclear family unit. It's about all of this. Because if I don't incarnate with your family in this timing, then he disappeared the whole scene. We'll just go back to the drawing board and figure out a new permutation for all of this, the whole thing. And so he says, no pressure or anything. You know, so it's like, wow, okay. And while that was happening, I experienced this beautiful sensation of an energetic upgrade, including something like an energetic massage in my womb space. I felt that my womb space was getting brighter and lighter and something like an etheric surgery happened. And so after that, Dave was like, wow, okay. I'll think about it. And shortly after that, he's an athlete. So he goes to yoga class to stretch his body and get more limber. And he was in yoga class and in Shavasana. Our boy came to him and they had a little dream time play date. And after that, Dave said, the boy's pretty cute. Maybe I'll consider it. And then there was a certain moment a couple of months later where we sensed his presence. And we kind of looked at each other and were like, yeah, this is the time. And so it was very much an experience of all three of us making a choice in that moment. We could all three of us feel it. And as soon as he was conceived, there was an experience of this pulsation of a new breathing cycle that got activated in my belly that I could feel. And I didn't even need to do a pregnancy test. There was this very clear sensation that there was a life cycle, a breathing cycle that was awakened. That was not the same womb energy that I had previous to the conception. And naturally, since you already know this, he was my friend for so long, right? So the whole time with the pregnancy, I was like, well, I haven't been pregnant before. Baby, what do you think? What do you want to eat today? So it was just always this dialogue, like, hey, do you want more hydration? What do you want to eat? And we would go into a meeting different midwives and just letting the baby guide us. And it turned into a beautiful life transforming home birth and the water tub. And then I'm like, wow, here's a fresh new baby. I guess I need to learn how to breastfeed. And the whole thing was just like, I don't know what I'm doing, baby, but I'm listening. You guide me into what you need. I'm here to listen and observe and be your buddy and accompany you on this journey. You know, so he guided us into being a co-sleeping family. And later people are like, oh, you're doing attachment parenting. So I go on the internet. What's attachment parenting? And there's something called RIE parenting. I'm looking up this stuff. I'm like, yeah, this is good. I resonate with this stuff. And I'm so sad and heartbroken that we have a humanity that we have to explain this, right? It's like, like the RIE parenting is like, treat your baby as if they're a whole being with a complete consciousness. It's so exciting that it's getting popular and so heartbreaking at the same time that you have to tell people this baby is this divine consciousness manifesting in physical form. How could you treat it as not that, right? And so the heartbreak I have is that how long we got indoctrinated out of this. And I'm grateful that we're waking up from that nightmare, honestly, of treating each other as just whatever they used to do with babies. They thought babies didn't have sentience. They thought babies didn't even have like, you know, I don't want to get into all the gruesome things of the over-medicalized birth practices and all of that. But in our family, it turned into a magical experience that I never imagined would be like this, this co-creative journey as a family. Like, okay, well, bumble on, we'll figure it out. Baby, you guide us. We're listening. And gradually that turned into, hmm, he's like preschool age now. I guess we should enroll him in a preschool. So we look up the most holistic, organic, outdoor nature-based preschool and we found one that was, they were all organic, gluten-free. You could be vegan. You could be paleo. You could be all these things and nut-free and non-GMO everything. Like all the hippie-dippie stuff was there and they spent most of their time outdoors. They do gardening with the kids and it was awesome. And our kid went there and for the most part, he enjoyed it in the beginning. And then gradually, as he gets to be like three and a half, starts to be four, he's got the language skills now. And he starts saying things like, mama, I don't like it that, why do you pee-pee and poo-poo when the teacher says it's potty break time? I want to pee-pee and poo-poo when my body says pee-pee and poo-poo, not when they say it's potty break. And why, why do we eat snacks when they have snack time? I want to eat snacks when my body's hungry and not eat snacks when my body's not hungry. And he just kept saying that like over and over again to me because I was so dense. Like what, why does he keep saying this? And gradually it evolved into him kicking and screaming and refusing to get out of the car when we dropped him off. And it was only two or three half days. It was just very little, but it was, he started expressing like, this is an assault to my soul. This isn't a small thing that I have to live a life based on other people's agendas. And it gradually, it just hit me, you know, now almost two decades working with clients and patients, healing all kinds of supposedly incurable conditions, right? In my clinical practice, what Western medicine might say, oh, there's nothing you can do. This is incurable. I see over and over again, the miraculous results happen when somebody says, you know what, I'm going to listen deeply to my body. I'm going to take full personal responsibility and listen deeply and do what my body is needing and asking for. And then the question is how did humanity get so disconnected with this inner guidance system to begin with? And here's my three and a half year old, almost four year old showing me like, don't do this to me, please. Right? So I would go, I'd be like, okay, I'll stay with you, go to preschool and I'll stick around and see what's happening. And I'm noticing that he's like building blocks and stuff, and he's having a good time building blocks. And they have this really sweet thing where they're like, ding, ring a bell and let's sing a song and march over here. We're going to do music now. And he's like, why I'm building Taj Mahal over here. Well, I know I have to suddenly stop and be on your agenda to do nothing wrong with music, but right now I'm an engineer and I'm really immersed in this. This is just all kinds of weird. My body doesn't like this. And so I just noticed this pattern. And I noticed that with the kids transitioning to kindergarten and with first grade, that they have very specific scheduled agenda to train them, to listen to Pavlov bells, to get to the point where you're like, you just show up and ding, now you're supposed to do math and ding, now you're supposed to do English and history. And so gradually over say 18 years or so, this is how a human becomes completely disconnected with their inner guidance system, their inner joys and passions and interests. And most importantly, their divine blueprint, which expresses through this joy and passion that is bubbling up like constantly, as you can see with all the kids. So yeah, so our boy guided us into becoming a homeschooling family and eventually an unschooling family. And when he was three and a half, he also started talking about, well, my sister, my sister, my sister is still in space. She needs to come now. And so we connected with our sister who was also consciously conceived. And that's long story long. That's how we became a family of four. [Speaker 3] (55:00 - 55:24) I love hearing it for the second time. I think it's incredible. What a beautiful story. And I feel like this to so many, they would just be like, what? Like all that was happening. And yet it's so real. And so it's just beautiful to hear. I have no words. Joel's a parent of two, so he probably gets it more. I don't have any children. [Speaker 2] (55:24 - 55:42) I've got two myself, two home births. Definitely never going to school. They're here with us throughout our day. I want to ask you, so does your boy look like he did in your dreams? Yes. [Speaker 1] (55:42 - 55:43) Yes. Yeah. [Speaker 2] (55:45 - 55:45) Wow. [Speaker 1] (55:46 - 55:58) He showed me what he looked like as a baby up until he was about three years old. And, you know, he's seven and a half almost now. So, yeah. So we have a seven and a half year old and a two and a half year old now. [Speaker 2] (55:58 - 56:21) Yeah. That's just so incredible that you develop the relationship with this being like pre utero, so to speak, you know. And I can't, I can't imagine the incredible benefit that comes with having cultivated such a deep relationship, the entire pregnancy journey, you know, let alone into what his life is now. So, yeah. [Speaker 1] (56:23 - 56:48) When he was about four and a half, five, he started telling us a lot of stories about what he remembers from before he jumped into my belly. And so that's a really fun part of our journey as a family, too. And he he talks about the process of choosing your parents and choosing your incarnation and jumping into the portal that led him into my belly and all those things that he remembers. [Speaker 3] (56:49 - 57:01) And yeah. Does he talk about any past lives? Because I know I've read and heard things out like especially young children, they remember and they can speak about. And I think unless a parent is aware or conscious, they're probably just like, oh, stop that nonsense, you know? [Speaker 1] (57:01 - 59:41) Yeah, yeah. So he's aware that I've had other human and non-human past lives, and he's aware that this is his first cycle. He's very clear about that. He says, yeah, when I was he calls this space when I was in space before I jumped in your belly, I met different, different space babies. That's what he calls them. These different space babies, some of them had just come back from planet Earth, and they're gonna go around again. And but this for me and baby, this is our first time ever. And so he says that there is something like a machine or portal that takes recycled stars. It sounds like some kind of a black hole system. He remembers something that takes recycled stars and in some case recycles, recycled dead people and turn them into a fresh new space baby. And when they come out as a fresh new space baby, they just have a good time because space is very fun and joyful. And he says, yeah, when you're in space, as a space baby, you don't know about loneliness. You don't know about being cranky or angry or sad or any of these things. So part of coming here is that we we can we can see on the screens when we look onto the planet, we can see that humans get they get upset, they get cranky. I was like, do you remember me being cranky? He's like, yeah, I remember you were telling Baba to clean the house and vacuum and all of this. And I was like, what did you think of that? Even though I was cranky, you still picked me as your mama. And he was like, yeah, I thought it was really funny. I wanted to see what that was all about, you know. And so, yeah, so he says that we look on these screens to look at our future parents. And he said, I looked at this one, this one, this one, not this one, not this one, not that one, that one, that's the one. And so he said that him and his baby sister, they both picked us together. And so they they, according to him, wanted to be twins. But they knew that it would be too hard on my body. So they came one at a time. These are all the stories I can't prove. It's a true memory. But these are the kinds of things that we talk about at bedtime. Instead of doing bedtime stories, we just lay in bed and snuggle and talk about all these things that he remembers. He's already seven now. And I know that the brain does some changes around age seven. So I'm treasuring all that he's still bringing through each and every night, little details of all the stuff he remembers from his cosmic memory. [Speaker 2] (59:42 - 59:56) Wow. There's an awesome animation movie that came out a couple of years ago, which seems very reminiscent of the way you're describing, I guess, his version of the incarnation process or whatnot. I can't remember what it's called. [Speaker 1] (59:57 - 1:00:24) But yeah, when you're talking about it, people mentioned it, and I've made it a point to not watch it. Okay, so that we can keep our, our exchange as untainted by media as possible. So, you know, until maybe when he's older, I'll watch it when at some point, maybe all these nighttime, bedtime cosmic stories will fade away. And then I might watch it to just compare notes. [Speaker 2] (1:00:25 - 1:00:26) So did he name himself as well? [Speaker 1] (1:00:28 - 1:01:20) Yes. His name is Kabrim. And when he used to come to my dreams, when we first moved to Sebastopol, I would always be almost a little bit startled because he would announce his entry into my dream with a ring, and then suddenly be really bright. And then here's a little baby that I would interact with. So I kept telling my husband. And then after my husband met him, he was like, Yeah, this kid has a really like dynamic, sunshiny energy. I don't know, should we call him sunbeam or kaboom or like something, you know, and so gradually, it evolved into Kabrim, K-A-B-R-E-M. So and then, as he got older, I asked him, Do you like your name? He's like, Yeah, that's my name. That's my name. But it's actually maybe not quite my name. It's just how I announce myself. You know, it's almost like a doorbell. Yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:01:21 - 1:01:28) Yeah. So is is the is the book, I guess, does it go into like your homeschooling methods, particularly or? [Speaker 1] (1:01:29 - 1:03:55) Yeah, so I'm working on this book. And also, this fall will be the second annual luminous education revolution summit. I'm just starting to work on this because the fall is a really great time where a lot of families are transitioning out of out of public school or different school systems into homeschooling and into unschooling. So the fall is a really good time, at least here in North America for a lot of families to dive deep into maybe looking at is there a better, more rich and fulfilling way that we can go through this education journey together. So both the book and the summit are planning to launch in the fall. So you get really busy this summer. The book talks a bit more about this kind of conscious conception and this deep soul connection that we have as a family and that that what arises out of that is a natural, deeper respect for one another. So things like nonviolent communication, a more collaborative, co-creative way of doing family life and making choices as a family, it just arises naturally from it. So a lot of these things like like home birthing, conscious conception, attachment, parenting, arrived philosophy, self-directed interest-led learning, these are the natural arising of, forgive the cliche of knowing more deeply who we really are. You naturally respect each other and you're not going to want to be in the coercive, tyrannical paradigm. Like people that know who they are, are just naturally more laid back, I think. They're naturally more respectful of each other, naturally easier to collaborate with. So what does education look like? What does family life look like? What does village life and community life look like when everybody's more solid within themselves and everyone respects and honors each other and wants to be in this collaborative, co-creative energy instead of a top-down, tyrannical energy? So the book explores that and then the conference is much more tactical about the education and homeschooling, unschooling. On a day-to-day basis, how do we execute on, you know, there's just some very practical, tactical questions that people often have about how do I actually do homeschooling in this paradigm. [Speaker 2] (1:03:57 - 1:04:12) Awesome. I want to ask you, so like what's your philosophy or strategy against like difficult times when you feel like you might, there might be some kind of discipline necessary or what it might be. How's that approached in your method? [Speaker 1] (1:04:13 - 1:04:14) Give me an example. [Speaker 2] (1:04:15 - 1:04:27) What's conscious, what's conscious discipline? You know, like how do you, how do you, how do you be like you need to stop hitting your sister, you know, but if you continue to hit your sister something's going to shift, you know, kind of, kind of, kind of thing. [Speaker 1] (1:04:29 - 1:07:27) Yeah, so for this I really appreciate non-violent communication gives you a good framework. Like when you're in your joyful, peaceful, well-rested, harmonious state, the right words and the right intelligent, wisdom-filled way to deal with these situations, it just arises naturally. But when everybody is like, you know, as a parent you're like underslapped and you've, the house is a little bit messy, you don't have time to fold those eight loads of laundry and, you know, then, then somebody says it's just a little bit irritable or cranky and you just, one person says one thing and then it just escalates, right? That's when frameworks for taking a deep breath, take a step back and, and how to facilitate a conversation where everybody's needs are met and heard. That takes practice. That's, that's the cultivation, you know, so, so I would say, well, honey, can you, can you tell me what was happening? And here are all sides of the story, which takes a lot of, a lot from the parent to not be like, oh, you're grounded. That's when your old patterns come up, right? In the heat of the moment, you can, you see that you still, myself included, there's, there's more layers of work that needs to be done. But in general, this paradigm is about being more respectful and honoring. And so on the whole, I think we've probably all noticed this around kids and around anybody, is that when you're more calm and centered within yourself, you radiate an energy that makes this so that everybody else is more calm and centered to begin with. So these kinds of things are way less likely to happen, right? And then, and then when they do happen to orient ourselves towards, hey, are some needs not being heard or met that escalated into this? Can I unwind it and make sure the needs are being heard and met? And then as a side effect, these, these kinds of conflicts don't need to happen like this, you know, which is often much easier said than done, of course, right? In that moment, everybody's so triggered, right? So, so somebody that has the cultivation would might say, you know what, everybody, let's pause on this. Let's talk about this later. Right now, let's just take a break, right? Or, in our case, sometimes, I'll just, instead of there's, I forget where I heard this, instead of time out, doing time in, just like, okay, honey, let's um, you know, do you want to hug and we just hold each other and we don't even say anything and just stabilize the energy first and give some love. And then sometimes it's like, are you hungry or tired or cranky? Are you needing a nap? And take care of those basic physiological needs first before talking about it, right? [Speaker 2] (1:07:28 - 1:07:47) Yeah. Awesome. I love that. And have you found that, like, I guess your parenthood journey has, um, given you an opportunity to reparent yourself in some ways? Because obviously those, those patterns, which we carry from our parents and the way that they, I guess, parented us are dormant. And often, I guess they come to the surface when we have to experience that role for ourselves. [Speaker 1] (1:07:48 - 1:09:27) Yeah, for sure. That, that is the thing. That is the thing. It's a incredible opportunity and sometimes, um, filled with grief because I, you know, you have many flashbacks to your own childhood at this stage in your development and growth. When you wanted to express your divine potential in this very joyful way and those hopes and dreams got squashed by your teacher, by the families, who's like, sit down, shut up, do your workbook, and don't be so, um, such a troublemaker. I was on detention like every day in, in elementary school because I was like, oh, but what about this? Oh, can I do this? I was just like an eager learner and they didn't know what to do with that. But interestingly, I was also a straight A student because I knew how to play the game of the standardized test, you know, so they didn't know what to do with the most troublemaking kid in the class that was always like, oh, but what about this? What about this? I couldn't sit still. I just like wanted to do projects all the time. And it's like, I look back and like, wow, I, I would have thrived as a self-directed homeschooling, unschooling kid. I think I turned out okay, but man, how many layers of programming and I, am I still trying to shed that didn't even have to necessarily be there in the first place? What is this new generation going to look like if they're not laden with all this crap that I had to do so much work to let go of and they could just start fresh, right? What is that going to look like? I think we have no idea how awesome this new generation could become if we don't lay all this crap on them at an early age. [Speaker 3] (1:09:27 - 1:10:17) I was going to say that before too, in the conversation, like, you don't really have many regrets and yet, wow, I can only imagine if I was raised in this manner and, you know, didn't have such a traumatic birth and wasn't circumcised and, and, and, and, um, was breastfed and all this stuff that, you know, that like when you raise a child in a loving, nurturing way, like, you know, you don't, you don't do those things. Like you actually breastfed, you don't traumatize them within the first couple of days of birth, et cetera. And then they're able to learn and, and, and be inspired to, to self-direct their education. Uh, it's just incredible. And so I too, I'm so, I'm so, I'm so looking forward to seeing how this next generation of these luminous kids, as you call them, um, alter and shift the world. [Speaker 1] (1:10:17 - 1:12:46) There's some very basic mundane things that are really, maybe we take for granted, but they are a huge deal such as how does a growing child learn when they're like jerked out of bed before their bodies are ready. And then, you know, put in a school bus and then sit in a prison like environment and forced to do things that, that they're not really interested in. And just starting with the simplicity of our homeschooling families, um, of course we have appointments and we want to honor our agreement and show up on time and be dependable and reliable human beings, right? We demonstrate that to our kids. So they are aware of what it is to be a responsible person that honors your promises and agreements to other people. If you say you're going to show up, show up, right? So this is not about being just a flaking on everything, but on the whole, our default rhythm is you sleep until your body is done sleeping. No alarm clock, except when we really have an appointment to go to. And we have a nature school that instead of starting at eight or eight 30 starts at 10. So that if we want to sleep in, we can have a leisurely morning routine as a family and not be like so stressful hustling to the school, you know? And so just that alone, and when you are allowed to eat, when you're hungry to pee and poop without asking for permission, the relaxation in your physiology to learn and grow and explore new ideas is you're a completely different person. You know, I was, um, in writing the book, I was researching about education and school, you know, do you guys know the root word for education versus the root word for school? I was inspired because David Rodriguez, I don't know if you guys know him. He's kind of an awesome freedom guy. He's become a good friend. He's also here at Northern California. So I interviewed him for my conference last year. One of the big things that he said was, um, I think he learned this from his mentor, John Taylor Gatto, who's a big famous author in the unschooling world is to think about school versus education. And he says, education for him is what I do to myself to create a good life. School is what somebody else external does to me based on their ideas and agenda. [Speaker 3] (1:12:46 - 1:12:48) Yeah, very true. [Speaker 1] (1:12:48 - 1:18:49) So he's when he said that it was like, okay, a few corollaries came to my mind, which is like, okay, well, if education is what I do to create a good life, then the first step is like, what is the good life that I'm envisioning for myself and my family? How do I, what are the tools and skills and how do I support myself and empower myself to create that beautiful life that I envision? I love that. And then he says, school is what somebody else does to you based on their ideas and agendas. Like, well, then it's not always bad. School could be good if it's actually in alignment with your own agenda for yourself, right? It's about alignment. I think so. So we are not necessarily anti-school, but maybe we're anti being coerced into people's agendas that we don't actually even agree with. That's, that's the thing. So I went and did some research in my writing, like, what is the root word for education, the root word for school? Turns out the root for education is Latin, is educo or educare. Sorry if I'm pronouncing it wrong. And then school, when I looked up the root word for school, that shocked me. The school is, it's actually from a Greek root. It's like schola. I don't know. Maybe you can look it up and pronounce the Greek word properly. It's, it's from the ancient Greek idea of putting people in an environment of leisure. So the root word for school in Greek is supposed to mean leisure. It's not supposed to be some government indoctrination camp prison cell situation with Pavlovian bell ringing at your head every hour. Like, it's not at all supposed to be that kind of environment. It's a place where you drop into a space of relaxation and creativity and openness to new thinking and new idea where you can have these like enlightenment moments of realizing new possibilities and new learning and new growth that is possible when you're relaxed and, you know, in more like a vacation type of environment. So I think what's happening right now is that we've been pushed to the brink in these artificial ways, this artificial scarcity, artificial stress, artificial pressure. And we're like, you know what, that's, that's just not going to work. It doesn't work anymore. It's literally killing people. Right? So we're returning back to our natural state as natural learners. I'm often thinking, should we even call it homeschooling, unschooling, all of these, it's like just be a natural human being. Which a natural human being is joyful and passionate and loves to learn all the time, is learning and growing all the time, is naturally self-directed. You can listen to your inner guidance, be like, oh, this is really cool. This is what I want to build and allow the next thing to lead me to the next thing. That's just, it just all unfolds naturally. And our boy loves to do math just because it's fun to solve problems. And we go to the store and we discovered that when he was six and a half, I'm like, I think he's just naturally pretty good at math. We go to the market and I give him the change and he figures out all the addition, subtraction and multiplication. And with his little fingers, he stands there for a long time. And the farmers are like, here, do you need more fingers? You can borrow my fingers. And it's so sweet. The farmers just know him as the little banker that is standing there counting little fingers and toes and finally figures it out. They're super patient with him. And then we're like, wow, let's go on Khan Academy and check us some math. So it's backwards. We do life and we realize math is really useful in life. And so, hmm, how can we like refine our math skills? Let's go on the internet, do some research and see what tools supports us in creating a good life. That's what education is for. We go on Khan Academy and we realize that he already just from living life as a six and a half year old has body knowledge of first, second, third grade math. And so, so then at some point before his seventh birthday, he was like, you know, I wonder if I can just finish all of first and second grade math. And so in two weeks, we just blasted through all of first grade, all of second grade. And then we just took a break and then spottily just started checking into some third grade. And recently we finished all of third grade after, if I estimate correctly, this is going to sound braggy mom. And I don't mean that. I mean that we are naturally all very awesome, brilliant learners. If you do it in life and then you can go and take a class, you're there to supplement it. Right. And you discover that in his case, all of third grade math took about total of 10 hours, maybe 12 hours. And now he's into fourth grade math. And, you know, he's actually technically in first grade from living life. And Dana Martin is a mentor of ours from the unschooling world. And she has a really amazing story with her daughter who wanted to be a vet and realized she had to jump through a bunch of hoops with the math. And so she'd never done a workbook. So at age 15, she sat down and did all of common core math from first grade to 12 grade in about three-ish weeks. But meanwhile, she's having a good life. It took me 12 years to do 12 grades of math and took her three weeks. You know, it's like, okay, I turned out okay. But this is back to that question. How much more awesome of a life could we have created for ourselves if we weren't sitting in a little prison cell of a classroom? [Speaker 2] (1:18:49 - 1:19:47) It's incredible because you're self-motivated based on what you're naturally inclined towards. You know, okay, this is life. These are my motivations. What are the things that I need to learn, which I'm excited to learn about, to continue to improve and build upon that? I mean, life is incredible once you embody this concept of self-directed learning. I mean, I'm stepping into it now more so, Yerasmus and I, as growing entrepreneurs, so to speak. We're learning the things which we love to learn so we can teach the things which we love to teach and talk to the people that we want to talk to, you know? And it just, it's so much more vital. It completely shifts everything. And you realize and there's a bit of sadness as well for how many dreams have been burned at the stake or left at the wayside with all these people that just went through these indoctrination programs just to be fit into cookie-cutter roles for 50 years of their life, you know? When there's so much potential that's untapped as well. So yeah. [Speaker 1] (1:19:48 - 1:27:56) This gets into many profound directions such as returning what we value to life to what we truly value instead of letting the education system distort us into thinking like, oh, okay, these are, these things are valuable and these things are not. If it can be like, if I can be a gear pusher of the GDP machines and make more widgets, that's valuable. But being an artist, unless you're the top like 1%, that's not valuable. It's so messed up, you know? That's how we all created such a messed up society. And then how, what we consider intelligence. Can I read a little list that for you guys that are the parents in my community? Let's see if I can dig it up. Let's see. The parents in my community, we talk about this a lot. It's like, it's like what constitute intelligence, right? The school system made us think of, you know, IQ, I'm having trouble digging up the document, the IQ, the EQ and these kinds of things. But what about, what about being street smart? You know, what about what we were talking about earlier, being energy aware, intelligent about the energetic quality, intelligent about your intuitive intelligence and your spiritual intelligence. Why are these not at least as important, probably even more important than just our IQ. And I'm glad we're talking about EQ, but that's just like the first step into a whole new world of all the different ways we can be intelligent, you know, musical intelligence, creative intelligence, and all these, I'm sure the list can go on and on so many different ways we could be intelligent. And then now with this new generation, we can raise them in such a way that we value and honor all the different ways that their intelligences wants to express itself and, and become a more holistic kind of human that appreciates and values all these things. And then in terms of subjects, this one, I want to read, let's see if I can read this to you. Yeah, here we go. Okay. Some skills and subjects. This is a list that I made for our family and see the audience, see if you guys resonate with this, you know, like to do life, how do you create an awesome life? So in my opinion, for our family, we started jotting down a list is an ever evolving list. It's like, what are skills and subjects? And some of these sound like schooly subjects, like math is important to do life, but maybe not like calculus and differential equations. And, you know, Fourier transforms, I had a applied math degree in my undergrad. And so it's like, I don't use any of that stuff. It's not really like, practical to have to learn some of those really nerdy levels of math, but, but up until about six or seven grade math, very practical to just like run a small business for day to day life, right? Let's get really good at that kind of practical math, English, reading, writing, learning different languages, they're useful for life. Sciences. Now, this is where we start to get divergent, because we see the school curriculum, luckily, things are starting to change. But what about the new physics and the new biology that's based on light and frequency and energetic resonance, the integration of our consciousness into physical reality? Where is that in the science conversation in our upbringing and education, the new science of water, which is so amazing, looking at terrain medicine versus germ theory in our biology and health studies, right? Like, let's, let's get that going in the science conversation. What about true history and civics and learning law, including these days, constitutional law, common law, and natural law, these are probably subjects that are very helpful and useful in life. Music, arts, crafts, playful expression and fun and creativity, all these kinds of things, sports, yoga, movement, martial arts, qigong, breathwork, healthy lifestyle, how to take beautiful care of your health and do yourself care, nature connection, and, you know, forest school, nature school, gardening, how to grow our own food, learning about permaculture, biodynamics, etc. Basic survival skills, wilderness first aid, these are practical things for doing life that why isn't it just if I were to do some kind of standard common core, it might look something like this, right? But exactly when you learn each thing, eventually, I think to be a well-rounded human, it's nice for us to learn all these things, but on whose terms and whose timeline, though, I think honoring each child's natural development, when we naturally want to learn each of these things, finance, business, entrepreneurship. And of course, a lot of schools are talking about STEAM skills, like science and technology and engineering and math and so on, computer skills, design and building skills, hands-on woodworking skills, very practical. And then core to doing life, relationship skills, the art of communication and presentation and deep listening skills. And here's another big one, what are they doing with sex ed and all the gender studies in the schools right now, very deeply concerning. What if we brought a more sacred, healthy conversation into what is the sacred wise use of our sexual energy? What does conscious conception look like? Like really valuing this sacred thing called life and this life force energy that is part of our sexual energy and how do we use this energy wisely? Values, character, integrity, the right use of power, money, fame, sex, all these things. How do we build this into our education, our conversation as we're being brought up in our families and community? And then, you know, there's all this spirituality stuff that we value, but also we value getting stuff done, project management, time management, being responsible, reliable human being, you know, being an integrated, well-balanced human being. And then exploring intuition with telepathy, remote viewing with our kids. We do blindfold perceptions. We have a bunch of kids here that are all reading books and doing all kinds of things blindfolded, able to completely see through their blindfolds with their third eye, playing with spoon bending, energy healing, conscious manifestation, co-creation, just being aware of all the dimensions of life. Sacred geometry arts and crafts and cosmology, astronomy, astrology, and so on. World cultures and indigenous wisdom, sacred rites of passage and ceremonies, and mind mastery, resilience, consciousness, meditation, dream work. Like what an awesome education curriculum that we could create together. If each of us just took time as the family sat down, like what does it take to create an awesome life? Let's write out all the subjects and let's see what our hearts call ourselves to. What's the next topic to explore together as a family? And when I have families write down their similar lists, once you have this on paper, you're like, whoa, this is so awesome. I'm just going to pack up from that old paradigm and completely move over here. If you compare the side by side with their common core curriculum, it's just like, come on, this is absurd. Why did I waste so much time over there? [Speaker 3] (1:27:57 - 1:28:01) I think I need to die now, visit you in your dreams, and come back as your third kid. [Speaker 1] (1:28:02 - 1:28:10) Yay, I can sense you already have some spirit babies are whispering over there. I don't know. [Speaker 3] (1:28:10 - 1:28:18) We'll see. That's a conversation for another time. Let's have the conversation now, I suppose. Another time. [Speaker 1] (1:28:18 - 1:28:19) Hey, Sophie, come on over here. [Speaker 3] (1:28:19 - 1:30:18) Yeah, she's not here. I don't know where she is right now. Probably resting after our music and sky weekend. But I love everything you're saying because when I think about even my education, everything that I feel like that has really served me was post-college. I knew how to play the game. I knew how to do what I needed to do to get the grades. I was able to cram, memorize, regurgitate. I did that pretty well. And yet my real journey started after college when I started really reading books and was able to self-direct my education. And I'm grateful for that. But then again, you read this entire list and it's like, wow, imagine being 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 15, learning about all this stuff, understanding the Soma, understanding consciousness in a certain way, getting into law, all the things you talked about. And it's like, whoa, we have no idea what the world will look like when more and more people start engaging this way with their children. Yeah. So anyway, to go back to what you were saying, I was going to ask you a question earlier. Do you think every couple should have children? I know free will plays into it, but I'm going to be really vulnerable and honest here. I've never felt called to be a father. I don't know if it comes from some trauma or something. And it's not because I'm like, the world's overpopulated or I don't want to bring a kid into this world. Those aren't any of the reasons. It's just like an inner knowing that I don't know if that's meant for me in this lifetime. And I was told by other people in the past that I had many lives in the past where I was a father and that this life is not about that. And it resonates with what's my personal experience. But I get, and Sophie, we get so much projection from a lot of people that like, you need to, if anyone should have kids, you should be the one that have kids. And I'm like, all right. But I don't know. I'm also open and willing for it to change. If some baby starts visiting in my dreams, that's going to be a whole different story, but I've yet to have a baby visit me in my dreams. So maybe I need to take a trip to Thailand and get in the dark for like 10 days. [Speaker 1] (1:30:19 - 1:32:05) Yeah. It's not my place to say, honestly, and I can just share my personal journey is that we were just busy working on becoming better versions of ourselves. And according to my baby, who is now seven and a half, he said that whole time he was watching us on the screen. And he said, mama, do you remember that I knew you when you were in space before you jumped into the portal and went to your mama's belly? Wow. I said, well, had you already picked me as your mama at that point? He's like, no, I had to see how it was like, was it going to turn out well or not? He was like, it's like I said, I said, bye-bye. See you later. Good luck. Good luck on planet earth to lots of people that could potentially become my mama and baba, he said, but then I would watch on the screen and I could see how things were, were shifting for people. And, and then you and baba were the ones that were the most bright and shiny ones that I loved. And I thought that one, that one, that's the one for sure. After we had gotten through a certain level of evolution and growth in our lives first thinking we were just working on ourselves. You know, that's the thing about doing yourself work is that it ends up benefiting everybody in all kinds of different ways. And if you do choose to become a mom or dad, of course, that's going to benefit all the future generations, but it doesn't your legacy is so much more vast than that, right? Like all these podcasts, all the people's lives, who's who you touch doing your healing work and transformational work and everything we do to cultivate the very best of ourselves is going to create profound ripple effects way beyond what we could actually see or calculate, you know? [Speaker 3] (1:32:06 - 1:32:37) Yeah, no, it's, it's a, it's a great conversation and something internally that I'm really curious about and we'll see how my path unfolds, you know, our, our path unfolds, but this has been such an awesome conversation. I'm so grateful to, for, to you for, for sharing your time with us and, and sharing just such a beautiful, amazing story, you know, of, of your life and your experience with, with having children and I mean, your dream story, like that just stays with me. It's, it's, it's magical and amazing. [Speaker 1] (1:32:38 - 1:33:17) Yeah. Thank you so much. And when I bring our kids to these festivals and gatherings, you know, you're actually helping me to co-parent them and co-tutor them. Like this is how the best education happens. We go to all these amazing gatherings and meet amazing people and they get to be swimming in this beautiful energy of all these super awesome self-directed humans that are also able to navigate, you know, being, being very centered and strong and have stable boundaries, but also very open-hearted and generous and able to collaborate and co-create together. And, you know, you're, you're the kind of people that I want my kids around. [Speaker 3] (1:33:17 - 1:33:21) Awesome. I can't wait to see you again in person and give you a hug. [Speaker 1] (1:33:21 - 1:33:22) Yeah. Thank you. [Speaker 2] (1:33:23 - 1:33:38) Dr. Edith, we have a final question for you. Say, for example, if you had every single social media user, their ears pricked, you could send one message and every person in the entire social media world would see your message. What would that single message be? [Speaker 1] (1:33:43 - 1:33:44) It's a lot of pressure. [Speaker 3] (1:33:46 - 1:33:51) And he has asked this to someone else. He has asked someone else. [Speaker 1] (1:33:52 - 1:34:11) Yeah. My answer to this evolves, um, evolves over time. I think if I were to put today as a current snapshot in time, it might be something like, you got this, you got this. [Speaker 2] (1:34:11 - 1:34:11) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (1:34:11 - 1:34:14) Well, I believe in you. You've got this. [Speaker 2] (1:34:15 - 1:34:17) I like it. I feel that for sure. I feel that. [Speaker 1] (1:34:18 - 1:34:53) Yeah. I think we get yanked yanked into self-doubt and it's like, take a deep breath. You came here for this. We got each other's backs. And I know you got this as tough as the going gets sometimes, you know, because we're all this old crap is being stirred up and it gets really intense sometimes. And it's just like life doesn't give you any challenge that you're not ready for. And I know you got this, you know, and I'm here together with you going through the challenges just like you, and we get to do this together. You got this. [Speaker 2] (1:34:54 - 1:35:01) That's amazing. Thank you so much. Where can I, where can that people find you? What do you, what do you have going on? How can they get in touch if they want to? [Speaker 1] (1:35:01 - 1:35:37) Um, I have too many websites. I need to consolidate the one website that portals into everything is drEdithUpuntu.com. So drEdithUpuntu.com. And if you're specifically interested in the luminous education, luminous kids stuff, the URL is luminousrevolution.com, which will jump you into that specific body of work. Um, I'm on Telegram. So I have an Instagram account. I have a Facebook account, all these accounts, but Telegram is where the juice is at. [Speaker 2] (1:35:37 - 1:35:53) Mm. Beautiful. Thank you so much for your time. We're so grateful. Thank you for walking the path you've walked and offering what you continue to offer. Um, it is super valuable. Um, so deep gratitude and guys, thank you so much for listening to this episode. We'll see you next week. Take care, everyone. [Speaker 4] (1:35:54 - 1:35:55) Thank you.