Listening to Earthsong: an artist in ceremony with Mother Earth with artist & filmmaker Deborah…

Podcast Introduction and Curiosity 0:00

To me, it was all about being curious. How else do we learn? How do else we really come back to ourselves? Curiosity. Let's be curious, let's get into it. Try and remember those pieces by that childlike wonder, that all energy. Because everything outside of ourselves, trust me, we can see it. It's not working. And so that coming within peace, because we're living so much without peace is where it all begins. Curiosity is my favorite. All wonder and curiosity. Welcome to the To Curious MD podcast.

I'm Dr. Ali Ahmed. And I am Dr Surya Ravan. With the wisdom from holistic, alternative, and these conventional medicines, we are here to challenge the status quo. We're curious about the connectivity and complexity between diverse fields of knowledge as a relief to consciousness, chronic illness, mental health, resilience, learning more about the art and science of healing, or listening to stories of extraordinary healing. You're in the right place. Let's dive in. All right. Welcome to the Two Curious MDs podcast.

My name is Saraya Raman and today we have a really special guest here, Deborah Anderson, also known as Aura, who is an artist, filmmaker, and creatrix. I love that. I think we've had a chance to talk some time ago and for whatever reason that recording didn't quite take.

Deborah Andersonu2019s Creative Journey 1:35

And so today we have managed to come back to pick up the story, the narrative, and we find ourselves in a completely new place. which is really a wonderful start to this conversation because Deborah has traveled all over the world to bring us her stories. And so with that, I don't want to get in the way of an introduction, but if you're looking for her, you can find her at Deborah Anderson Creative. and on LinkedIn, a visionary artist, an intuitive creative partner, and a filmmaker who's here to introduce us to this beautiful project that you've been engaged in, which started in one place, the lost language of her and now has turned into an even more beautiful love letter from Mother Earth.

And I'm just so excited on Two Curious MDs to really share that news. It seems like it's a creative project in evolution and happening. So thank you so much, Deborah, for being here or Aura. And with that, I'll just kind of launch into anything you'd like to share about how you introduce yourself and introductions themselves. Then we can dive into some of those questions. Thank you, Soraya. I love this idea of, introduce yourself. And as we were just saying, this ideas of what does that look like?

And for me at this point in my life, I feel like it's ever evolving. So ultimately, yes, an ambassador for Leica. I've done some beautiful shows with them, and they, Leika, brought me into this storytelling space truly by gifting me an opportunity to do a couple of shows them. And when they offered me that, I was like, what am I going to show? And this was probably now, gosh, five, six years ago. Gosh, where does the time go? We're in 2026. This was in 2018. I'd had a conversation with Leica and I really wanted to create something new.

Had been working as a photographer, shooting many different iconic singers, songwriters, actors, George Clooney, Sharon Stone, Elton John, Pink for her album covers. And I wanted a shift out of that space. and do something that felt bigger than myself. By way of the invitation with Leica to gift a show of some sort to them, I ended up going to South Dakota and creating a film called Women of The White Buffalo. So in short, my journey from learning The art of capturing story through photography shifted into wanting to make film and capture the stories of the indigenous peoples of United States by way of Women of The White Buffalo.

And how that began was through a photograph that I took of an indigenous woman, Delicina Chief Eagle, with a red handprint on her mouth, because I'd found out that there were no counts for the murdered and missing indigenous women of America, of the United States, and of of The Americas, if we were ready to sort of open up and go a little more broad. And because of that, this vision of this image of the red handprint, the silencing of indigenous voices came through and I created that image and then it went viral.

And so that was kind of beginnings of exploration into becoming truly a filmmaker, a storyteller, and being able to bring stories that are hard. to watch, to listen to, hear, understand to the forefront by way of film, because I do believe that art heals. So that's my introduction. I don't know if that is an introduction, but that got me to where I am now. Yeah, absolutely. And I remember that the journey of actually being out there in South Dakota with the tribes was a personal journey as well,

Women of the White Buffalo and Indigenous Voices 5:40

and kind of brought you into and kind of a connection and intimacy. And I think that's where a lot of this work connects with psychedelic healing and this idea that, you know, the mushrooms, nature, what we have seen in the literature as saying that when people do psychedelics, they become more nature-oriented. or we become more sensitive somehow to this idea that we are also nature. And so this conversation, this work that you've been doing, and especially these voices that have been speaking to you and through you, in your project, you know, just the other, our last podcast interview that did, we had Joe Tafour on the show and there was this kind of like moment where I kind connected with this ideas that when you're in medicine and you are in the jungle, You are connected to and you are within that sphere and what you're kind of finding communicated to you is so rich and so vivid because, you know, we have people who are doing psychedelic journeys here in the city, in beautiful offices and everything and they're wanting the exact same experience and it's not.

No. It cannot. Right. And so I really want to get to this authenticity. this kind of groundedness that is available through the Indigenous stories and practices and this love letter to Mother Earth, because that's exactly this moment we're in. Whereas we need to fall back in love. We need remove all the barriers to loving Mother earth. And here the love that she has for us in a way that is incontrovertible. And I love that you've been out there gathering the evidence. So I look at your work as this, you know, just this really important voicing.

Um, so thank you so much for this journey that. Thank you. I mean, ultimately, because of that first connection to the first nations of the United States, it woke up in me this desire to go deeper. And that was the starting point really of the idea of, okay, nature is speaking through these people. These people hold that language in ways that most do not. I want to go the next step, the stage. What does that look like? So since we did connect and then disconnected, because it didn't come through.

The idea is that I come from connecting to the indigenous peoples, and create this piece of film. I then want know more about the medicine people, that hold the understanding of Mother Earth. And I'd never taken plant medicine. So everyone kept saying, if you're going to do this next film, If it's anything to do with Mother Earth, then you need to take the medicine so you can understand what it is that she's saying. And I'm like, I feel that I am constantly in conversation with her. I have a very deep practice.

I said, okay, let me take the medicine. But I was very aware that when you are faced with her, because that is what the Medicine is, that you get to face her. You're facing yourself because we are her and ultimately, are you ready to Face yourself? What are the demons or the dragons or there the shadows that You are not wanting or willing to look at? And are You ready truly step through all of that to come into that space of healing, seeing truth and walking in a way that is clear of the stories that aren't serving you anymore.

And I do believe that medicine supports that, plant medicine. So I went to South America, to Brazil, and I sat with the Shenanaua tribe. I spent three days taking medicine And the first night was with the Pajay Manar in his beautiful church, as he calls it, the medicine. It's where he holds all the medicines ceremonies. And there was a few other students that were there that we're learning the ways of the pajay and of people of Shananao tribe understanding and the ayahuasca understanding. And I was so prepared.

If I tell you, sorry, I had all the things that I needed in order to get there in one piece and leave in on piece. I brought a friend with me, had someone that could translate. Because I'm a very open person anyway. And very connected to the Unseen Realms and I just was hoping it wouldn't open me up, blast me open and then I would feel like I am losing the plot. It was the reverse, it was gentle and she said to me Mother Earth, I heard her very clearly saying that this path of creating this film will happen when I listen fully, when i listen with every cell of my being and that she has been speaking with me and will continue to do so.

And then the guardians of Mother Earth showed themselves and the vision that they revealed was so beautiful. There was no being thrown off a cliff, there was not purging and you know all the pieces that you hear about ayahuasca and all I kept thinking was like All I've heard is that ayahuasca is this nightmare. You know, good luck. If you take ayhuasco, like, people are panicking over, you know. Make sure you're with the right people. And I will say, absolutely, it needs to be held with reverence and respect and with a shaman or a medicine person that knows what they're doing.

Because that spirit is a powerful spirit. I met with that Spirit for three nights. on the second night when I saw the children go, 11, 12, 13 year olds going up for their third cup. I knew I was absolutely fine. There's nothing wrong with me. We danced all night, we sang all nights. It was the most, I'm going to say it's not that it was like profound. it, was this centering and stillness And everything just came into one energetic field of knowing. Like everything was present and all is well. And when I...

left the jungle, that's where I was, and I came back to Costa Rica for a couple of weeks. Iwas able to fully integrate what I felt, what i heard,what I saw. And I realized that she will meet you where you're at and she is only a reflection of who you are because you cannot see that which you And so when you

Ayahuasca in Brazil and Listening to Mother Earth 12:40

take that medicine, you think ayahuasca, when he take the psilocybin, whether you're taking San Pedro or you taking the mushrooms, whatever medicine you are taking, it will meet you where you at. And I was gifted such stillness and gentleness and awareness and I couldn't unsee her. at that point. It was so clear. And I've done my work. You know, and that's the piece is like, okay, so now what are you going to do with that? So I went off for 11 weeks and traveled around the world from I want back to South Dakota with my camera this time.

But that was my last stop with South Dakota. I won't back too Brazil with Mike camera because I'd gone at first take the medicine to get to see the people. And then I asked them, I ask the 11-year-olds, the Pagé, asked the grandmother, ask a medicine man, what is mother saying? And I got to capture those voices from Sierra Nevadas in Colombia, Yaruaco, Cogiz, going into Peru with the Quechua peoples, Australia, New Zealand, Bali with the most ancient peoples that speak the ancient language, to South Africa to speak to a woman who speaks her language fluently, which is the oldest language apparently in Africa for sure.

And they all told me what it is that she was saying, what she is saying without the medicine. They're just deep knowledge of who she And in many ways, their connection to her is pure medicine because they're sitting there in full alignment with her. Not all of them have to ingest certain trees, shrubs, bushes, you know, teas, whatever it is that they make or how they the medicine because it's within them. It's like part of who they are. Yeah, it was fascinating. So I got back a week ago. Oh my goodness.

And so, wow. I'm feeling that sense of calm and groundedness as you're talking. And this idea, and thank you for bringing that up, that yeah, some people have terrible experiences, right? But I have felt this, what you were describing of this message from the earth. you know, this feeling of this is who you are. This is where you belong. So I guess we'll just dive right in because I think you've talked to so many different people in so different ways and these languages. I'm just curious to hear what's it like to here some of these old languages?

It's like I was literally traveling through different timelines. I mean, I'd say one thing to just share about taking plant medicine, about the psychedelic nature of connecting to her through the various portals, because they really are portles. You can't be met with silence if your spirit is not in silence. You cannot be with gentleness if you're spirit isn't in gentleness. you will be meet with the very thing that you want to be rid of. That is why people have crazy times and they have a hard time because they're being met the with very think they want be to rid off which isn' always fun.

And the idea that, to me, it's quantum leaping. When you take the medicine, you can quantum-leap into your healing because she will show you as quick as lightning the very thing that you are not. and she will support you in releasing that because she is pure love. And so to be able to understand that with something that was shared throughout all of the tribes is that no, not all the Tribes are pure. They're going through their own poisons with alcoholism. with various different problems as we know the meth addiction amongst the Lakota people as I had witnessed when I made Women of the White Buffalo.

And then of course, as i travel around the globe, I see that that poison is very much present as they want to stop these languages because these language is whole medicine of healing and connection not only to the ancient world but also to our future. And so this remembering, this reconnecting is of utmost importance if we humanity want to survive truly what is coming because Mother Earth's doing just fine. If there's any complication around, we need to save her. No, no, we need to remember who we are.

And so the thread that I felt through these languages was this deep remembrance. I was gifted healings and ceremony with all of these different peoples so that they could clear me in order to then do the interview. So it wasn't just, oh, welcome, sit down, let me tell you everything. There were a lot of tears, there were lots of moments of me questioning What have I put myself into, you know, this idea of traveling alone with nothing but my Leica camera, having the support of different tribe members, carrying my equipment on my bags and whatnot, and then sitting in front of, like, let's say the Yungo tribe in Arnhem Land, which is northern part of Australia, these beautiful Aboriginal elders.

And then the grandmothers take me into the bush and bathing me and me feeling a hundred women touching my back. I look up to one of the grandmother's and I want to say, they're here. She says, just as I'm about to speak, the ancestors are here, to being with the Arawako people and then lining the families up in a configuration which would be a birthing canal as I would walk through and they would pray prayers on my head, pray on equipment. and pray so that they could speak the right way, so the Spirit could through them in the way to make sure that their message was gifted in a right.

I mean, it was next level, all in their language. And even though I didn't understand, I understood. So that was really fascinating to me, that there was a feeling of connection through all of these moments, even though these are languages that I've never heard before, some of them specific. Yeah. And going to the idea of how these tribes know that language is powerful, Words are powerful, intentions are power. And when we choose to speak in such a way, just the reverence that they showed your process and also that the reference in which it's like, let me speak the truth about what I know and not be swayed by this or that and the other.

In that ceremony, both getting in right relationship, the teller and And so that sacred container already being there for truth to be spoken, because that's what it needs. Because we can always take something and distort it into ego. There's so much that we know as a vulnerability in the human mind-body space. that these ancient tribes and their languages have actually discovered and held on to and know to be the case. And here we are, you know, in our kind of modern mindset.

Traveling Through Indigenous Languages and Ceremonies 20:40

I feel like we just went right into the kind ancient, like a couple of millennia old, teachings and knowings and the relationality that the people of that time had for the earth. Because they weren't flying in airplanes, they were telecommunicating like we are. They were not as disconnected from the earth. And so for us now in this moment, you said Mother Earth is going to be fine. It's us that we need to, we're really confronted with our own annihilation. And so can I bring it back a little bit to you?

You went to the Lakota people, you saw what was happening and you embarked on this journey and all of this work that you've done over the course of your life to be in that space to receive purely, I feel like almost like it's a photographic project. It's about capturing the light in a certain way that speaks. Tell me a little bit about, you know, what this was like for you to go into these spaces, be part of these healings, like what has shifted or changed and what are you kind of finding within yourselves?

You know what's so beautiful, which you just mentioned, it's like, oh, we've just gone back into ancient time. And the crazy thing is it is not that ancient. It's right here right now. Like it was almost like I was going through portals where there was no time. And I kept feeling that it's not that difficult to be like them. It's that not difficult remember and put your hand on the ground. it is not so difficult say thank you to Mother Earth for every single thing that you have, because every thing you had comes from her.

I think someone had said to me, you know, how does mother show her love? I'm like, have you looked around? Your telephone? You know like everything comes form her, so even though It took me a minute to, you know, of course, traveling 36 hours to get into the jungle after literally plane trains, automobiles, and then a boat. And then, a, boat down this beautiful, crazy Acre River. I was seeing these amazing tribes. on little boats going past with all of the red paint and markings and feathers. And I thought I was in a National Geographic film.

There was definitely moments of awe, inspiring moments, of beauty, such beauty that I saw. But it very quickly became so familiar, like suddenly I felt like I knew them. And I would even in my very broken Spanish or my broken Portuguese, trying to share that I thought this kinship and they were saying the same thing with me. The children were hugging me, you know, like the first day of arriving with the Aroaco up in the Sierra Nevadas of Colombia, the children are looking at me and everyone's kind of very stummed, not really saying much.

The second day the kids are fully engaged and they're looking my computer and looking in my camera. And day two the women are starting to look at my. Day three the grandmothers are hugging my, day four the men are smiling. I could have moved in day five, it could be like, right, I'm home. And I'm not speaking their language, but it's like there's this oneness that when you sit and you are present and listen, you can hear everything in every cell of your being. And we are not being present. We are not listening.

So the idea of my going and spending five days, four days sometimes six days. I think I was lucky enough to spend six day with one tribe. In general, it was quite quick, the time that I got to spent with them. It was so in the moment that i could feel everything that they were. I would spend the day with them, whether I'd go fishing with or whether we would pray all day or we'd sing and dance or I go to a birthday celebration and I got to be very much sort of woven into the fabric of who they are.

Because I wasn't on my cell, because I was worried about what I had to do tonight or what's the next person I'm about to go see, I spearheaded in the beingness, in this stillness of their world, that I felt that became that energy with them and they saw me and I saw them. And so the process was a lot easier than I thought it would be. It was like I said, I feel like i've gone through multiverses. So at night I would be interviewing them in the day and capturing what it was that I was there to capture.

At night, i would have dreams where their ancestors would come to me and talk to. It was, bar none, the most extraordinary experience, but they allowed that. They wanted that to happen for me. And that was the entrance into their world was done with a prayer and that they opened up the energy so that that could happen for me. They knew why I was there, you know? Beautiful. As you're speaking, it goes back to that you were asked to listen deeply, listen with your entire being, and I feel like you just described that.

What's it like to listening to a way of life? You know, I can just imagine you're, you know the more we can be clear in our own selves we Can receive and that interpretation and how medicine exactly we see this when we're in medicine in groups We're all on the same wavelength. There's a way of information kind of making itself available in the conscious and unconscious spaces, subconscious spaces. And I love that in your dreams, even you were visited by the ancestors. Oh my gosh, what a gift. Well, think about it, right?

You take the medicine. Sorry, just to rip off what you're saying, you take medicine, whether it's to, a lot of people are doing medicine because they want to have the experience, not everybody's going in to heal. They want the have experience. There's a very focused energy about, it right. You show up, You know you are about to consume something that's gonna take you on a journey. So you showing up with that intention to take that journey, whatever it may be. And because you are so present in that and you're looking, you know, because I was looking I have my eyes closed and I'm like, where is it?

Where is the thing that's going to come in and give me the, the experience that you can only but get on the train. And when she's got you, she got, you and you have no choice but to buckle your seatbelt and honor that journey and on the relationship of that and I think that we are not honoring one another. We're not honoring our relationships. we don't give each other enough time.we don t listen to one other.We're too busy wanting to get on Instagram or Facebook or whatever it may be, TikTok, to Get as many likes like this deficit disorder of constant movement.

And I feel like we are rushing towards destruction, and Mother Earth is asking us to slow down. We watch it as we watch the seasons. She knows when to come back to life, you know, she's never dead. You know she'll be shedding her leaves, should be taking her rest. And now as it started to rain here in Costa Rica over the past few days, She's starting to drink in that water and slowly I'm noticing everything coming back. to life again, you know, having this moment of like, so the listening is super important.

You know someone else who's coming in on this project and another project I'm actually doing with him is Dr. Zach Bush and he just arrived into Nosara in Costa Rica a couple of days ago and so, the two of us were just like. Can you smell what's happening? You know, we just spent 10 minutes doing that. Like a lot of sort of new smell. Now that that rain has come down, like nature is just drinking that up and the smells are different, you know? And the information and I love Zach Bush's work because he talks about this integration.

of there's information that is around us all the time if we know how to receive it, how pay attention to it and how interpret it. And what you just said, right, is that smell, that taste, you know, oh you see the sap kind of run up in the trees. It tells you our bodies are the same. We are watching our own bodies, and in that way this idea of, not just idea, but this real sense that Earth is reflecting us back to ourselves.

Grounding, Nature, and the Wisdom of the Earth 29:20

You know, Mother is always reflecting back us to our selves and it's hard to see that message. It's really hard because we are so far down this path of destruction and You know, just these patterns that have been caused. You're talking about how addictions are really pulling us away and speeding us up versus where we need to slow down. And this is something that we're noticing in the medical world, right? Like mental health issues are when the machine is working so fast, it's overheated. It doesn't have enough nutrients, Right?

It's a motor that's running too fast without enough rest in between. What's an immaculate machine? It rests when it needs to. It cleans everything out. I mean, it just takes care of itself. We just have to get out of its way. And so many ways in which our society and our structures and everything about how we have you know, kind of structured our world is about disconnection. It's about, you, know I challenge people to remember the last time their feet touched the grass because we're usually inside our homes.

We're wearing shoes or we are walking on pavements in our shoes. Like there is very little time that we actually spend barefoot touching grass, right? I'm going to have to share something about that piece because I was telling Zach this is like so interesting. I said I just traveled the world and I never got jet lag. I went from continent literally was all over the place and it was three or four days, five days and on a plane of three planes, four planes trying to get to where I was going. And I realized it's because I feel I would arrive and I will be on the land filming probably a day later with no shoes on.

So I'll be walking barefoot on all over the world, literally. And for some reason, that grounding, and I was also very aware of nature, very well of the trees, taking in every moment I could. I taking a lot of photos as well. So being present and getting my rhythm just went straight into waking up at six in the morning, doing my meditation. Like it was really super interesting. Wow. Super interesting. I think it had something to do with grounding with the barefoot. Yeah, I believe that I actually think that that is amazing that you in 11 weeks, right?

That's what you're talking about 11 Weeks and you went in you were traveling probably for half of it and You went to South America, Central America Australia, New Zealand, Bali South Africa, then up to Scotland, and South and North Dakota. When I got home, I was definitely discombobulated, but it wasn't like I needed to sleep for days. I just went in and out. Lots of just connecting. Look, at the end of the day, we can sit here all day long and we preach. I actually do what I say one has to do. You know, I do my work.

And I'm definitely in practice constantly. It was gifted something else that was also something to speak to because I know I didn't mention this because it wasn't yet sort of fully formed. However, it was a gifted opportunity to capture the voices of all of these different peoples to form a prayer for Mother Earth. So Zach Bush and Chris Decker are creating this space called Origin. October the 17th, I believe it is, in South Africa will be the incubus for this festival where they want a billion people to touch the ground at the same time.

And so they asked me if I would create a prayer because of the traveling and they actually supported a lot of traveling. It became a sort of working together moment. to create a prayer that honors Mother Earth. And that's kind of how the call to action for me was so important. I was like, absolutely. But that is how title of the film from the lost language of her became a love letter from Mother Earth. So we would be gifting her our love letter through this prayer and the response. And that'll be, to me, it feels like the trailer for this film that I'm putting together.

The response will be the film, which will a love-letter from Mother earth. Wow. That's definitely coming together now. It'll revealed in the next few months. and the images and some of the pieces that I recorded for this prayer, which will then finally come to light in October. And that's something that on Instagram, I think it's the Origin. I'll give you the exact handle for the origin project that Zach Bush is at the helm of with a few other amazing people. Beautiful, beautiful, and thank you for sharing that piece about go and, you know, a billion people touching the earth and how touching, the Earth is such a confirmation, energetically, physically, spiritually, emotionally, And how healing that can be and then how this project is kind of now giving rise to and connecting with this other larger project.

And, as you're kind also reminding us that it's about a call and response. You know, our relationship to everything there is, is always about finding your way to your own voice first. Can you speak a little bit to that? Like, I love how this is kind of like, the trailer is going to be the call and the movie is gonna be response. And what you've described today has been kind just like you seek and you shall find, you know? Kind of back to the idea, but tell me a bit about that. Sorry, most important that you just said is back to our own voice.

So if we don't know who we are, how are we ever going to know she is? The idea of this project for me with the film, it was always about coming home to ourselves. And if we can remember that piece, the remembering, they're reconnecting to yourselves, we will then know how to connect to her because we are her. She is our first mother. You know, from being fortunate enough to sit with enough people with this understanding of Mother Earth being mother and that we all made up of her. I couldn't understand that piece of we are all one.

You know, it took me years to sort of wrap my head around this understanding of what does that really mean that we all are one? Well, that divine consciousness that runs in all things, all living conscious beings, sentient from the plants to the trees to animals to birds to humans. it's all the same. We're running with the consciousness that runs through us on a biological level. If you do listen, obviously, I think he's far more articulate than I could ever because I'm not a biologist, but Zach talks about the biology of the body and the connection to the geology of earth and soil.

and what is in our body is very similar to that of the earth. And when I started to really do my homework around that, it just started make so much sense. I mean, the very oxygen that we breathe, where does that come from? You know, this idea that We are this living, breathing, moving, reciprocal, energetic field, all of us, in this constant flow of life. How could we be separate from that? So the idea of remembering who we are in turn, understanding who she is, that's where the healing is going to start.

Yes, we can talk about the machines and yes, We can't talk About progress and while we're all so connected now that we have Instagram, with the most disconnected we've ever been in the history of being human, of Being here. We're so far from our truth. And the only way in which we truly are going To come back to our center is to remember who we truly are. Yeah. Thank you for that. And the remembering, remembering. You know, we've been disconnected. We are in pieces and we are the human body, like humanity as a body.

Right? Kind of we're all constituted that way. The patterns, you know. you talk about patterns of trees. Talk about the patterns in our veins. We talk about the patterns of colors and textures that exist in our, you know, and the big kind of just forces and how breath is really that anchor. You know in in, our work we talk, about how important the breath, is this oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange, that if we are cut off from it from five to ten minutes we, are done. You know what I love about that thought, right, is if we are cut off from oxygen, we fall unconscious.

That's the first thing that will happen is we'll fall I just love that. Our entire consciousness is dependent on the supply of oxygen, which, oh, guess what? The trees in exchange for our carbon dioxide are constantly making oxygen and growing food and basically literally taking care of us. We would be nothing, we would not be here. and this kind of gratitude, this immensity, and, you know, on the other side with science, we're finding out that, oh, awe is one of the most healing feelings to have.

And here you're describing the sense of awe and wonder that you got to be in and really carry and how, being grounded with Earth while you were going through and also following your passion, your creativity, direction.

Art, Consciousness, and Infinite Possibilities 39:20

You said you are a pointed arrow. You know, you're in the tip of the spear. You're right where you were supposed to be. Right. And in in total curiosity, just like give the name of your podcast. To me, it was all about being curious. How else do we learn? How do? We really come back to ourselves curiosity. Let's be curious, let's get into it. Just get in to it, that's trying to remember those pieces by that childlike wonder that all energy. Because everything outside of ourselves, trust me, we can see it is not working.

It's not work. And so that coming within peace, because we're living so much without peace is where it all begins. Curiosity, it's my favorite. All wonder and curiosity. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, we feel the same way, you know, curiosity is when we are, and also curiosity, is the state that becomes available when feel safe. You know it's the other piece of when talk about a nervous system that's in safety that is regulated, that has dealt with its, aspects of the work that it needs to do. And it's obvious that, you know, to be able to sustain such a project in such way and keep it all together and bring it altogether, that needs a certain kind of a work, inner work and capability.

to maintain that state of curiosity and not lose it, you know, to feel that ability that, this work that you're doing. So can you tell me a little bit about like, what is it as an artist? Now let's talk about Aura as a artist. What is is as artist that your wanting to share about consciousness, the human body and nature at this time? Yeah, I love the idea that art can be so many things and it allows an audience to delve into a realm that they may not have had access to. So I can bring them into the story of her by way of the voices of indigenous peoples that remember her.

And by the way, having traveled through these portals as I was sharing, think I'm able to bring an authenticity to this film through art, through the voice of being an artist in a way that isn't going to have everyone be, oh, this is the way, it has to be. It's the one way. No, I'm going gift you the many possibilities that you can connect to this art, you know, this story, understanding, remembrance. Because the one thing that she said, Mother Earth, when I was on the Metis and the Ayahuasca in the jungle, she says, I am infinite possibilities.

And so are you. And I think art gifts us infinite possibilities, that we can look at something and I might see it one way and someone else may see another way. Dependent, you know, I mean, obviously, we see a portrait of somebody. Is she happy? Is he sad? That's one thing. But when you create something like this where you can go into worlds, which is what I intend to do, by way of the stories that the indigenous peoples have shared with me and then visualizing that, through going into nature and getting to show you what she looks like throughout all the seasons.

I don't know, I'm hoping that that language in itself will be broad enough to gift people the opportunity to make their minds up as to what it is that they feel is their connection to that, and how can they shift the way that are living in this world. It's not like this is the where it needs to be, like I said, it's the handbook on how to I guess in my own curiosity as an artist, I'm going to assemble something that in mind feels like a direct response to what I've just witnessed and experienced whilst traveling the world and getting to hear her through the different voices.

If that makes sense, I hope that make sense. Absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, that idea of infinite possibilities, as we're recognizing what this consciousness is, what reality is. You talked about quantum mechanics and just that this idea that where we place our attention matters. It changes things. The stories we tell ourselves, the ways in which we remember And so what you bring us back to is this, it's actually a very powerful place. And I feel that power, as you're talking, is like if humans were to actually, if us, all of us as humanity, were actually reclaim that place of power that we are in, that have the ability to deal with infinite possibilities, we're doing it every day, and that's an everyday miracle.

Because we, you know, part of this everyday This empowerment is a message that I feel like I hope that the audiences, the people who are watching this movie and kind of connecting with these ideas, and the more and more people I think who were recognizing this innate depression, this real despair that we have, is actually this. At the root of it all, it's actually this, that we know what's happening. We know to our deepest subconscious, every single person can feel that, we're not living in balance.

And all the different ways in which we try to run away from that message, We try not to feel it, feel the discomfort, numb out the discomfort and distract ourselves from the discomfort, and all of that. The more I've been doing the psychedelic medicine practice with my own patients, we come back to that place of empowerment, because once you've seen this, once, you felt it, Once you encountered that I am she, she is me, we are the same, I'm being reflected back. I think it goes against everything that we have been taught in our Right?

In our 20th century, whatever this is that, you know, we're telling people, well, your this because you're born into this. This is what your life is. And it's so predetermined and kind of boxed in and really making our brains box in that we just accept it. You know? On some level we become like the rats in a lab and we don't know a world outside of this lab. Right, there's some sort of kind of feeling and when we do touch into our true selves, into are greater selves our divine selves if you want to call it, or our spiritual selves or connected selves that everything shifts.

I'm going to say our True Selves. you know, panic of like, oh, so esoteric, Oh, it's so spiritual. No, we are having a spiritual experience. Absolutely. However, our true nature is right relationship with nature, Our true Nature. It's actually simple compared to where we think we need to, you get into doing yoga, do breath work, sit and do the sound baths, take the medicine. We'll find the truth. Or you can take your shoes off and take a walk and listen. And then it's like, well, how do I silence the mind?

Practice. Where do we start? Close your eyes. It's free. And guess what? You're right where you need to be. You are right here. you don't need open a book. To listen to certain music, you know, go outside, touch a tree. If you've got a park near you, do that. and if you dont have that available to you close your eye and imagine yourself being in nature. We're so intelligent, it's crazy, not the mind. The mind gets us into trouble. We can imagine ourselves having certain experiences and the body actually feels like it is actually having that experience.

It has been proven over and over again. we are nearly 100% water. You know, the more that we speak about this idea of what we're made up of, right? Definitely 80% and then everything's broken down. is an intelligence that I do believe is yet to fully be understood. It is the God molecule. it holds all memory from the beginning of time. And so if we are made of water, this idea of manifesting your life and creating the thing that you want, when you believe the things that want to experience, that water within you becomes a conduit, the magnet to calling in the thing you want to experience, good or bad.

Because water is the ultimate intelligence. It is The God Molecule. And so understanding the mechanics of this body, understanding why we receive and create the way we create, and understanding how it truly works would, I think, shift how we use it. how we speak, what we eat, how he sleep, How we talk with one another, the gossiping, you know, getting rid of all of that negative stuff and really sitting in that right relationship with ourselves, let alone with her. A lot of the indigenous tribes that I met with, they don't go into the water to swim.

They go in to the waters to heal, to connect with the ultimate intelligence, which is her, and to lay in her waters and ask for the body to be repaired. So we just have to wake up now. Just that. And as simple, right? Like that's the other thing about these profound truths is, and this is something that I felt this psychedelic medicines do bring us to this awareness that the veil is very, the veal, once it thins, you realize just how thin it is. Like, I'm using ketamine sessions here with my patients and, you know, everybody walks in in the beginning thinking, oh, think I know what we're going into or, they know.

And then they drop into their kind of, that's true self. At the end of the day, we can access that true selves through all of these medicines. Then they come back and only an hour and a half has passed. And yet it's there, right? Only 90 minutes have passed and all that's shifted is something in the water, like you're saying, something the in, the mix of how much blood is pumping

The Film, the Prayer, and Closing Reflections 50:00

through your heart and pumping into your brain and which receptors are opening and closing, which networks are open and shifting and, and here you are more receptive all of a sudden to this larger amount of information. and it may be memories, it maybe a connection to a deceased relative, It maybe connection your own body and what it's holding, you know, in the form of trauma. All of this information we can think of is kind of just in existence just next to us and all that is preventing us from getting there is the makeup of of what is happening in the body.

And you've mentioned things like breath, and it's right in this moment. We can just breathe in a little bit consistently for five minutes, just making sure you take nice, deep, even breaths. You're already oxygenating more of your body, you're all ready moving things into a different state. Just the fact that we've known this for millennia. It's the way of survival. That was how we survived. We survived because we listened to her. You know, any book you might read on a shaman or a medicine man, like how they have their gifts or powers is because they listen to Her.

They're always working with Her, the spirits of the plants, and the unseen realms of Mother Earth. and all of nature. That's how they get their powers. They're actually listening and they're working with her for good and for bad. I learned this when I went to South Africa. Beyond, I was having my hair braided and the stories I heard for the seven hours during the braiding from very normal everyday, you know, women going to shamans, they call them witch doctors to fall in love or have a man fall enough with them and the spells that they were doing.

All of it is evoked through spirit work, unseen realm work and plants, nature, drink this tea, put this under your bed, all of the different things, bury that. So there's a lot of ancient practices from the beginning of time. And then of course, as we very well know, you know the witches will burn to the stake and there weren't witches, they were medicine women, there were women that could connect to nature and speak to elements and the unseen realms. They had those gifts and they're still amongst us and still very much practice what they do and we just call them by different names and such.

Yet healing truly does come from within. It's like participating with energy that you will work with the plants and you'll be in dialogue with plants. and then the spirit of these plants will speak with your spirit and have you back in right relationship with yourself, if you so desire that. And then, the big piece is, when you leave, what do you do with that information? So I've traveled the world, I now have this information, and I'm gonna create this film. My desire is that it's a prayer, it is a transmission, so that when people watch it, they leave and something has ignited within them that has them want to tread on the earth in a different way, that hasn't want be in right relationship with themselves.

You can take the medicine all day long, whether it's Ayahuasca or San Pedro or whatever it is that these people are taking globally. It's like the phenomena of this sort of plant medicine world or psychedelics in a more controlled environment. You still have to do the work after you've seen the light or you're seen, the truth, or, you'd been witnessed to a reality that really, in most incidents, if it held in the right way, You will be gifted the opportunity to hear. We have do do to the follow up.

you have to do the continuum of that connection to her and yourself in that right relationship again. So it isn't just a quick fix, you know? So I love the idea that I have an opportunity to create something that will allow people to, it's almost like I liken the film to going on an ayahuasca journey without actually having to take the medicine, that you'll be gifted this buckle up moment. And when you come out on the other end, My desire is that you see who you are. And it's only good. Everything's perfect.

You know, everything is perfect, and in, as I say, perfect divine order, we just have to remember that peace, you know? Wow. Oh, what a beautiful gift today, Aura, from you, From the mother and the voice of love. Thank you so, so much. I think that was just a perfect place to end our conversation, just to put a pause in it today. And if you could let people know when to expect to see your movie and how they can support you as they're listening to this story. And thank you so much for sharing your process and your project.

Yes, it works. Your heart and soul. Thank you. The whole diary of my past three months, feels like, is all on my Instagram, Deborah Anderson Creative. and you'll see the whole journey of how I met with everybody glimpses. And I will continue to share the stories of Mother Earth and the language of mother Earth through these peoples over the coming months as the film won't be out until next year. Now I just have to get into a lot of editing. So yeah, I'm looking forward to sharing more, but you can definitely see The Journey on my Instagram page.

Perfect. Thank you so much. And we can't wait for, you know, the editing process to take, take its time and get this movie out into the world. thinking about these medicines, you know, people listen to our podcasts for different reasons and we hope that we keep a balance in the perspectives and that, we don't run down one way or the other, but I think today's conversation has really brought in, especially this is April, it's the month where we celebrate Earth Day. This is also the months that humanity flew out away from planet Earth, the longest distance that we've been from Earth and we got another picture, you know, lots of series of pictures from space of our beautiful home and to see how tiny the atmosphere is, just how delicate we are.

And I think this conversation brings really all of that to bear in humility and wisdom. So with that, I will end and thank you so, so much for being here. Thank you. Thanks for joining us on the Two Curious Andy podcast. We hope today's episode inspired you to ask new questions and explore fresh perspectives. We challenge you to ask us those unasked questions that you're curious about in your medical practice, condition, health and wellness. If you enjoyed the podcast, don't forget to subscribe, share it with somebody just as curious and leave us a review.

It helps us keep the curiosity alive. Post a comment with a question or curious inquiry that have and seek to explore or learn with us. Stay curious, and we'll see you next time.