War, Peace, and Integration

[00:00:00] Pascal: Hi, welcome to One Degree Shifts. I'm your host, Pascal Tremblay, and I'm the co founder of Nectar. We're a psychedelic support ecosystem, and today we're met by the lovely Shiri Goddessai. She's the director of integration at Nectar. Hi,

[00:00:12] Shiri: Shiri. Hi, Pascal. Thank you for this beautiful opportunity to converge.

[00:00:18] Pascal: Yeah, likewise. And today we're talking about something that's been permeating the collective for a number of weeks now, which is war and peace. And if you've been paying attention at all to the news cycle, it's been a little bit of a bit of a chaotic time for a lot of people, a lot of things are going on in the Middle East as it has in the past.

And it's been moving people. It's been Triggering conversations have been triggering a lot of political stuff, which we won't talk about today. I promise. And it's been, yeah, a heavy lift for a lot of people, especially the people that are involved in this conflict. And today we're talking about the relationship between war, peace and integration within ourselves, within the collective and within the healing path.

And what does it all mean to go through the healing path when we're faced with such chaotic. evil things and things that challenges our world perspectives. And Shiri, you're a descendant from Israel. You've been speaking up loudly about the war and sharing your perspectives on it.

How's the journey been for you navigating this conflict?

[00:01:23] Shiri: Yeah, thank you so much.

anD I do want to just start the conversation just by saying a few words and the name of all the thousands of people, thousands and thousands of people that are in direct and grave danger and suffering currently in the land in the Middle East. And also all across the world, because definitely these conflicts have made a global impact.

So I just want to name that there are thousands of really innocent people that have been directly and are being directly impacted. And I just really want to share their presence here right now. And send a lot of love to all the people that are in the region right now, because there is so much suffering.

Yes, I was born in Israel. I grew up there until the age of 11 before my family decided to immigrate to the United States specifically for the reason, so my brothers and I would not be drafted into the Israeli military, which I think is interesting. My father. Which moved to Israel in the sixties from Iran.

They immigrated. My dad immigrated separately. My mom as well. So both sides of my family immigrated from Iran in the sixties. They were Jews living at the time. This was before the the radical Muslim the Ayatollah have taken over the country. But they still decided to move to Israel and hopes for a better future for the Jews to just come together and not be in the diaspora anymore.

And my dad immediately was drafted into the IDF and he has been through all the wars. My mom specifically keeps hashing to this day how much the family has suffered with my dad being away at war all the time, even just for the fact that she was a young mom with three young children and having to care for them while, her husband was away.

She gave birth to my brother when my dad was away at war. He received the news of his firstborn while he was, I think it was Lebanon at the time. So they made a decision. When we were Children to leave the country, so we will not have to go through being drafted into the military. And so that is something that is literally shaped our entire course of our lives, literally moving a continent.

And my parents, when they made this decision, they did not speak English. They, they were blue collared, working, modest, making a modest living. They weren't highly educated. They didn't even have a visa to immigrate to this country. But they still made the move just to try to avoid this conflict.

And I just want to, this is what I want to start off my side of the story with.

[00:04:20] Pascal: Yeah, thanks for sharing. That's a, quite a journey that you've had. I didn't know that about you. Actually, I didn't know that you thought it was in the IDF and, how impactful war has been on your life.

And and for me, and I also want to honor, like you said so well that the people that are facing other types of war as well For example, indigenous peoples and people of the South that are facing the greatest war out there, climate change.

So I also want to honor them and bring them into the conversation. my. Personal relationship with war. As my mom is from Aleppo and Aleppo was one of the greatest cities in the world and was destroyed by war and Syria overall has just been destroyed by war. And so she left Syria when she was a young kid.

Her dog died in the war and her family fled to Egypt. And they lived there after and in Lebanon as well. And then she moved to Canada, when she was 18. She had met my dad once only and moved to Canada and essentially gave up a lot of her culture and lineage to becoming my dad's wife and becoming Canadian.

So when I grew up in my household, it was a very Canadian Quebecois upbringing. And my interface with my Syrian lineage was through my aunt. I would go to her house and she would put Arabic music on and welcome us. And and so that was the only real connection I've had with it. And so I did a constellations process last night.

And I was trying to tap into my mom's lineage and felt like a huge void of lack of connection to my lineage. And a lot of that has been because of war is because the, the place has been destroyed. And so there's a big part of me that has been impacted by war. And of course, it doesn't compare to having bombs hitting your house, but there's a longing for me for a culture and for connection to that side.

And so my connection to the Middle East is is a. Very powerful, but also mysterious one that I, when I hear about Middle Eastern things, I feel connected to it. True lineage, true energy and things of that nature. So for me, the war has been interesting to, to relate to and.

Chris Hedges says it really well. He says that war is the greatest evil. And when we talked about this podcast earlier, I asked you what do you want to bring into this conversation? It's such a charged conversation. And I was a bit apprehensive even to have the conversation because of that void I feel within myself and also understanding the privilege of.

of being in a position to speak about this, but not having felt the direct war. But however, we all go to war in different ways and within ourselves and within the world. What's what's your, what's been your relationship to this conflict?

There was a beautiful article in Double Blind this week that talked about psychedelics as sacred activism. What does that mean to you? Yeah.

[00:07:07] Shiri: Thank you. And I want to name that this apprehension that you were feeling that we have been in discussion with for a couple of weeks when we were just like mulling the over the idea of this podcast.

I feel like even as I speak, I feel like there is a level of apprehension, right? Because we do have that privilege of first of all, not being directly in the land, even though our ancestors are bloodline. In my case, I have family that lives there. My parents live in Israel and are going through war. My closest friends.

Dozens of family members. anD I'm sitting here in Costa Rica, in the middle of the jungle, doing my thing, teaching classes, having these like amazing conversations, and realizing the, both the responsibility, um, in, in speaking up. Right alongside the apprehension. And the privilege I have in doing so.

And I think the apprehension piece is really key here because, it's, this is, and this is conversations. This is a type of conversation that I've been having with other leaders in the back end of things in the DMs on Instagram, on WhatsApp, people. Asking, how do we talk about this? I've already lost, people, this is like conversations I've had, like people saying that they've lost many followers due to trying to voice an opinion people being attacked on the DMs, literally attacked for their views, myself included, by the way being dragged, seemingly dragged into conversations.

And, you have Your words being taken out of context. People putting, words in your mouth. People are trying hail or high water for you to articulate your voice into a specific side. And I think this is such a key point in this whole conversation is this type of forcing for people to take a side and take a stance.

I feel is extremely dangerous because this is exactly what is polarizing us. And this is exactly What political war is trying to get us to do to turn ourselves against one another.

But again, we're not here to talk about politics, but , this idea of how do we stand up for not just what we believe in or what we feel is right, but how do we stand up and and speak up for a cause that We feel is necessary to have conversations about as a method of illuminating shadow conflict and war that is within our psyche and duration person, everything that we view as a psychedelic people.

We've everything looks psychedelic to us, right? And I feel it's really interesting to be able to apply psychedelic terminology on all of this, right? So like you mentioned, Pascal, in the beginning of the conversation, war is happening globally, it's happening collectively. But why is it happening collectively?

It's because we ourselves, within each and every single one of us, there is conflict and war and disintegration and conflict. There is polarization across the globe because within us, We are still not able to completely consolidate all the different parts and forces and energies and archetypes and memories and desires and feelings into one cohesive, individuated being that is able to accept the complexity of reality.

And these conversations like what we're having right now is, and why I feel it's so vital and why it's so important to practice sacred activism. And, I view that term sacred activism is, every day is sacred. Every day, as we know in Nektar, I know we share the view that every day is a ceremony, but the idea of activism, again, is taking a stance towards a reality that you want to see manifesting and coming to life.

So how do we do that first within ourselves, articulate this reality within ourselves so that it benefits the greater good.

[00:11:06] Pascal: And a part of that, and you touched it really well, I think that's part of my apprehension is that war is gross, war, like Chris had said, the greatest of evils, it's gross to face that it's possible for humans to bomb themselves for an idea, it's gross to look at, it feels almost like you're going through an ayahuasca purge and your greatest shadows are coming out, it feels really like churning within us.

It's reflecting our own relationship to our own shadows and yeah, accepting the totality of everything. And that's a really challenging thing to do. There's a a mantra that says Sata Nama, which is the cycle of life and rebirth. And I like to speak that mantra because it reminds me of non attachment.

And part of that non attachment is attachment to everything being okay. And that everything is positive and that everything needs to be positive for me to relate to it in a good way. So war is probably the one of the hardest things to relate to in a healthy and good way because we haven't acknowledged the gross parts.

Of ourselves that exists within all of us, and I'm doing constellations work right now and a big part of the concept of constellations work is bringing in the whole system and giving everything a place in it so that it can become whole and the energy can flow in a healthy way again. So I think you're touching on something quite powerful here is honoring and seeing that dark part within ourselves and what are psychedelics trying to teach us

[00:12:38] Shiri: about that?

The parts work that you just mentioned, right? The idea of examining all the different parts and allowing them to be expressed is really the idea of psychedelic integration as well. I think you did use a word that I think is important to touch on and reiterate, which you use the term positive.

And I think the term positive can be misconstrued in the idea of psychedelic integration and psychedelic experiences in general. As human beings, we have a natural aversion to suffering to contend with pain and suffering. It's quite interesting because it's probably, it's probably one of those things that we are less interested in and really try to avoid as humans.

And yet, as far as I see it, I truly believe, the Buddhist said this is not like my idea but suffering. And pain there are the essence of the human experience, right? If we are essentially, as it's been said, spiritual being undergoing a human experience, we are limitless beings going through a very limited, minimized, physical form, the limitations of time and space, and then in that tension between the two of feeling our limitlessness and contending with the limitations of the human body and the experience in that tension, in that discomfort, in that clashing, in that struggle is where creation is and where integration is.

So I think my question is, why? Is it that knowing that, especially as people that are step, are, have been in ceremony are leaning into this work, we understand that there are parts of us that we need to heal. We have shadow and darkness, but is the shadow really dark, or rather is the light the only thing that is positive, or can we just view the energies and view all the different parts, dark light.

Conscious, unconscious trauma possibility, can we view them all in a neutral manner and not label them as negative or positive? I think once that we are, when we do our, when we show up to ceremony and we see all the visions and see all the possibility, the greatest opportunity we have is to release any judgments we have.

Against all these parts and the judgment is labeling things as positive or negative.

[00:15:05] Pascal: YEah. And that's the higher consciousness perspective on more it's really well said, as I think there's like a human element of the perspective on a more, which is justice. And morality, and I think I'd love to hear thoughts on this.

Is that where the trappings are for people like I just reflecting that within myself is that sense of no, this is right. And this is wrong. You're wrong. I'm right. This shouldn't be happening, which is the lack of honoring of the dark side of things. But where do you see justice and morality in that?

Because we can't just be like neutral beings and be like, everything is fine, this is what, this is Shiva Shakti or whatever, this is okay. But there's a sense of justice, I think, in a lot of us and where does that play a role in our perspective and more?

[00:15:52] Shiri: Such an amazing question. I think justice is such a loaded term, particularly in this conflict, because, there's, Practically speaking, there's thousands of years of history here on the table that people are trying to find justice for and I think what has been true for me in the integration process and the healing process is learning how to find justice and peace.

Without meeting the other side, the perpetrator, the oppressor, the whatever term is feels right for you without them needing to participate in my healing process, meaning, I could choose. And this is I can use like a specific example for my own journey is I remember like being in and going through ceremony for years trying to figure out one particular issue that I was sitting with and just going in again and asking, Why is this happening?

Why is this happening? I need to get to the bottom of this to find justice so I can understand this and then You know, maybe I can move on until one day. It also hit me in ceremony that it's not about understanding why things happen the way they do and advocating for things to be right, but it's more about just seeing things for what they are and understanding that I could literally be spending the rest of my life on trying to figure something out and be in that conflict.

ANd I can all the same decide that. It's not for me necessarily to find justice for this thing, but for my own well being for my own healing for the fact that my time on earth is limited, this right is so short. Do I want to spend and getting to the bottom of things or do I want to spend it in wellness and peace and joy.

So understanding that key. began understanding, okay, instead of asking why things are happening the way they do, ask how can I move forward from things and how can I bring thing, how can I bring peace and be peace despite the fact that there are things that I don't understand that may never be peaceful and they may never be.

What I need them from to be for me to attain peace,

[00:18:14] Pascal: right? Yeah, it's like personal healing and relationship to war itself is grounds for creating more peace within ourselves and within our environments, essentially. foR when you hear about global wars and political strife and, all that stuff, it can be easy to lose yourself in the bigness of it.

And what can I do? And oh it's present, but it's so big and so large and so distant that it feels this permeation of the field of war and the bigness of it. And yet. The invitation and what I'm taking from what you're sharing here is the invitation is to look within us and be how do I bring peace within this body in this environment and spread that around as an antidote to the war and to the darkness.

And to the things that are difficult to navigate. How do we bring that within ourselves? And so much of the psychedelic integration journey is about that. What else can you say about the psychedelic integration path and how it relates to agency in bringing peace in the world.

[00:19:24] Shiri: Yeah. I also want to tie something up from the previous question which relates to this because there was a term justice which again I think is a really big term here because of the rich history, and I just want to tie that up with. We may never really understand who was right and who was wrong.

And with that, there's still an invitation for each of us because some of the events were so incredibly brutal. Like you said, evil that we probably have never seen on the planet ever before. This is like a whole different I've heard it described as a whole new level of evil. So there is an invitation for each of us to really examine our own values and how do we stand in the face of evil and again, what do, what are we willing to entertain?

What are we not willing to entertain? But the challenge that we have is to not get lost in our own projections and what I mean by that is, we can become enraged. Of course, it's hard to just say neutral, facing facing a lot of what is transpired. And then we have the responsibility as we make that that observation to really make sure that we're not being activated by our own.

Potential unresolved trauma by our own cultural events. There are some certain groups that are really advocating for one of the sides. And, they're saying, when we see this type of X, Y, Z, it's because we've been there. We've experienced this as a people. Therefore, this is what we see.

And I think we really need to be careful of again that these types of projections and really just try to look at things as mean as much as possible. Of course, it's not easy, but it's just an opportunity for all of us to look at our own judgments and what is feeding what is motivating our opinions.

So values versus justice. I bet you really wanted to make that clarification.

[00:21:21] Pascal: Yeah, thank you. And what's coming up from as you're sharing that is the word forgiveness as well. There's a sense of wanting things to be good within ourselves and within the world outside. And part of it is seeing that shadow and accepting that is there.

But can we also forgive ourselves for our own shadows and for the world at large? Can we forgive Hamas? Can we forgive Israel or the people that are killing people? Can we find empathy for everyone and hold all of that in? That's hard. And also I think the word forgiveness is an important one to also bring up.

[00:21:59] Shiri: Exactly. Can we forgive the perpetrators for wronging humanity? Can we? And again, who is this for? We're not trying to rectify anything. We're just attempting. To accelerate the path towards peace. And then, whatever attachments we need to dissolve within ourselves for our need to heal along with our perpetrators.

This is our own work. And this is the work that we do with our within ourselves and within our communities. This is conversations we can have together. But, I think what you said earlier, Pascal, about this idea of, um, the conflict being so big. And I was meditating today on the idea of okay, like world peace, wouldn't that be amazing?

But what does that even look like?

[00:22:43] Pascal: Is it possible? Is it truly possible? That's, I'd love for it to be possible. I want to fight for that. No, not fighting. I want to but yeah, is that even possible? Can humans ever be completely peaceful and are we just tricking ourselves into this duality way of thinking to be like, Oh, it should be, why is there war?

Obviously it's a, it's no one wants war, but yeah is total peace ever possible and does it align with the reality of the world we live in?

[00:23:09] Shiri: Exactly. Is it even possible? Is it possible in our lifetime that we will eradicate thousands of years of hatred of indoctrination that is literally steeped.

So deep inside the collective psyche. That's number two and number three. If conflict just in general is the essence of the human experience, just as a natural evolutionary force, as we discussed earlier, then why would world peace ever been, how could it benefit that? Because if everything is peachy and idealistic, then how do we grow?

So I'm not, I'm not sure. I just think it's really it's a good, it's a good way to find discernment as to, again, what are we advocating for, right? World peace. But, it's, And in another way is how can we ground that idea? Okay, if it's if it really is out of reach, what can we do to bring more peace into our lives?

What can we do to be in peace at this very moment in our closest relationships, in our family, in our community? Every single one of us can do something right now to bring peace into their lives.

[00:24:21] Pascal: Yes, and can we have real peace if we don't have internal peace within ourselves, how is it possible to have full world peace if our insides are churning and darkening it up a lot, it's like making space for more peace within ourselves ends up making space for everyone else.

And I think this speaks to a little bit of a disconnection we have. As people in terms of the way society has shaped us and the social norms and capitalism and all those systems that are really bringing us into this space of siloed beings, whereas the psychedelic experience, of course, one of the first things that teaches us is.

United Collective. It's we're all connected. We're all one. And so I think it's very empowering to approach this topic of war and peace as a way to work on the ground zero of war and peace in the world, which is ourself. And I find that there's a lot of tools that are available for us to work with that within ourselves, of course, doing our own shadow work and all those things, but also things like.

Prayer in terms of sending prayers to the world in terms of sharing our inner peace and our own insights and with other people that we meet, there's a lot we can do to build world peace today, like you said, and I really liked that approach.

[00:25:40] Shiri: Yeah. So much. And, so there was practices like you mentioned, and also it could literally be as simple as just becoming aware that each and every single one of us.

Especially if you're listening to this, if you're listening to this, you are so incredibly privileged just like us and in that privilege, in that awareness, you can literally make a choice right now to just be a voice for peace or just be a stand for peace. And, a couple of years ago when I was myself going through my own, again, my own inner battles.

And I became aware of all the ways that there is war in my relationships, how I was literally creating war in my relationships. This was part of my system, uh, my psychological and psychic system. And at the moment that I became aware of that and realized it and saw the havoc that it was wrecking on my life, I made an internal, I gave, I took a vow for myself.

To just to become aware that constantly and just be take a stand for peace. And basically, I became in every interaction that I've had trying to maintain that that zoomed out level of awareness of okay, like, how was this interaction? Was it peaceful or not? And if not, why? What was my part in my role in it?

So it was just a decision to create that awareness. And then work with that in real time again, with no ceremony, with no ritual, just a decision in the here and now. And this is what I want to do. And this is, I want to live my life where every one of us can make that decision. Yeah,

[00:27:21] Pascal: because war can look so many different ways.

Like maybe I'm, having war of my body and the way I'm sitting and not holding my back properly. Like I'm damaging my cells and I'm having a cellular level war with my own body and my own thoughts and my relationship. And the community at large, there's definitely a lot to, to dig into for a lot of us, all of us, probably like, where is violence present in our being, like in our relationships, especially how do we relate to certain things and bring war to the things that are present?

And what came up while you were sharing is something that I'd like to touch on as well is the idea of rage and what is the role of, how does someone work with rage? Because it's all, intuitively going to come up for a lot of us, and I know a lot of people who are feeling rage, not just because of war in Middle East, but climate change, economical disparities, injustices, everything that's going on in the world is really challenging us to, it sounds really good to be at peace with everything and be neutral, but there's also the thing of burgeoning.

raGe that's going on. We've got late stage capitalism going on. We've got a lot of things to deal with. So how does someone work with rage and what is the role of rage and transformation? Oh, my

[00:28:35] Shiri: goodness. raGe and passion are both rooted in the same energy, right? They're both fiery energies.

They're from our root chakras. And they, because they're the same energy, it all depends on how we are able to transmute and transcend. So rage, and I love what you posed earlier, Pascal, about the idea of what, how does violence exist in our system, right? And. I think once each and maybe this is a practice that we can just assign our listeners to literally sit down and create a list of all the ways that violence is present in your life.

And so I think this is really good practice. Again, the body, maybe with our neighbors, maybe with any type of resistance that we have to anything. Anytime we get upset when someone cuts us off on the road, like just make a laundry list of each and every single one of these maybe at the end of the day and.

Literally see how it's such a part of our building blocks, and we don't even realize it necessarily, it's become such a norm for us that we have Agreed to this level to this type of violence that it's just a part of who we are. So I think this is just really good practice to bring more awareness.

And then once we are aware that rage and passion, they're basically very similar energies, we can use the rage. For sacred activism in the sense that we, if we allow ourselves to sit and look at the conflict and observe it. Not get into it. And I think this is key right now.

[00:30:09] Pascal: So appealing. I really want to get triggered and start raging and all that stuff.

Why is it so appealing? It's so appealing.

[00:30:15] Shiri: That's a really good question, right? We, and obviously like it it touches us in a very deep place because if. If violence is so deeply indoctrinated into our psyche, into our collective psyche, we are all products of trauma. We are all essentially products of war, no matter where we live on the planet.

We've had multiple world wars. We don't even need world wars for violence. Again, it's enough that you, if you have a car and you're driving in a city, someone's going to cut you off. You're a product of trauma and violence. We live

[00:30:44] Pascal: in a violent system. Let's talk about capitalism for a second and how that's just rooted in extraction and oppressiveness.

That's by itself is the prevalent system around the world. So we live in a violent system to begin with.

[00:30:56] Shiri: Correct. And I think, all these qualities, when you're a person that's walking the psychedelic path, these qualities will be amplified. People are more activated. Archetypes are more enlarged.

Rage, especially when we are thinking not only, but particularly, I feel like it's very noticeable when we're just like making our first steps into the ceremonial world, into the awakening world. Typically at this stage there is a lot of Unresolved issues that have to do with a family lineage with early childhood trauma for most of us.

This is just how we begin. And this is usually our first meeting of rage. And we can make a choice. I think number one, one of the biggest tips I can share is You know, a lot of people want to, again, really get to the bottom of anger and rage and eradicate it. And I think maybe changing the approach to, again, just seeing it as a pillar of energy to those running through the universe.

And you will probably never get to the bottom of it, but it's more about learning how to be on it, managing it. is a really huge mindset shift that can be very helpful. And again, anger management. And once you're able to again, extract yourself out of it and just view it as a force that's living in the universe, we can decide how to interact with this force again, with this energy, this fiery energy.

And allow it to motivate us to take action for what we believe in and sacred activism. sO I think the key here is just awareness. Is it managing us or are we managing it when we manage it, we're able to make better decisions and how to allow it to motivate us and create again the reality that we believe in.

[00:32:46] Pascal: Yeah, it's yeah, awareness and working with it and then channeling it in the right way which requires the treatment and also like a certain level of, I think, inner space to create that within ourselves, but also tools and techniques. And I'm curious, what are ways that you work with rage or, things that might come up when you interface with this idea of war on an everyday level?

What's helpful for you?

[00:33:11] Shiri: Yeah, well, I think, at first, just be mindful of how consumed practically speaking, day to day speaking, how consumed are we by, these events? I think in the, especially in the beginning, it was, if you're like me, I was like literally on my phone for 20 hours, like almost every living moment, just trying to understand what was happening, trying to get more information, trying to be a part of the conversation, wanting to be involved because, obviously for us, it it's close to home.

So maybe we have more of a direct tie to it. So I think just being aware of, again, how much time is it taking out of your schedule and then making a decision, is it. How is this, how is it helpful or not helpful to spend so much time online? How is this helping anyone to be, part of all these like online conversations and battles and, okay, you want to make a comment on this, but can you spare the next like 24 hours just answering comments to people that, who knows where they are in the world.

And then you may never see again in your life, like how much. How do we actually get to spend our energy if we want to be involved? And if we care about this cause, how can we put our energy? Like you said, channel it towards A sacred activism in a way that actually moves the needle. Okay.

So what can we do? For me, that's been very helpful in the practical aspect of managing the rage being grateful for the fact that and first of all, becoming aware that there's nothing to be taken for granted anymore. Every night as a mom, when I go to bed and my daughter is sleeping next to me now, I'm in tears just being grateful for the fact that my child is sleeping safely in bed.

It's, we can't even take that for granted anymore. Knowing that there are so many countless families that their children are probably maybe even not alive. Maybe they're sleeping in tunnels, who knows where they are, so just that level of gratitude. For the privilege that we have, I think for me has actually been really helpful in channeling the rage again being grateful for what I have and then being more motivated to create from that place.

So I think just that again, that mindset, it's all a mindset switch. Yeah,

[00:35:28] Pascal: I've been reflecting with this with my son as well, Noah. When he's like rolling on the floor because he doesn't like his socks that morning, I'm like, you're really lucky to have socks.

You know what? You're really lucky to have this roof and the basics. And when I reflect on that every day as well, I think gratitude is a very powerful agent for change. whEn I'm hearing you speak about what's working for you, it reminds me of why this podcast is called One Degree Shifts. It's like, how can we use that awareness and attunement and purpose, purposeful action, spirited action towards making peace in ourselves and the world around us.

It starts with everyday little moments of The way you talk to people, how you talk to yourself, or I place flowers on the Buddha every morning to connect with sweetness every morning so I can bring peace within myself because I wake up and I'm in my head. I'm like thinking about all the stuff I have to do.

And then I just put the flower and be like, just be sweet about it. Just be sweet about it. That creates more peace within myself. And yeah, I think it's very empowering to approach life that way. And yeah, thank you for bringing gratitude up. I think it's very powerful We are very privileged.

If we have food on the table, if we have clean water, if we have a roof over our heads, I feel very grateful for that every day. And it's a good foundation to build from and start to spread change around us.

[00:36:44] Shiri: Absolutely. And gratitude as well as prayer. And these two practices are interestingly enough, essential skills for also transmuting any type of energy and psychedelic ceremony in the depth of the most profound, difficult, challenging darker moments that we may have in ceremony, the two.

Most powerful navigation skill sets again both to allow yourself to zoom out and again be taken from extract yourself from within the energy to be on top of the energy as we talked about again, don't be in and be on it to have that higher level of awareness and raise your vibration energy in the energetic sense as prayer and gratitude and that reminds you to again to see the bigger picture.

And, when we see the bigger picture we, it makes everything more comical, obviously we're going through a majorly historic event, one that will be like literally is going down in the pages of history. And, in a few years, we're not even going to be here to remember any of this.

We're all just we're, I think our point of view sometimes gets really minimized to a point that we forget that there is a big story that's being weaved here and we're just living through it. And just again, zooming out, looking at the bigger picture really helps.

[00:38:07] Pascal: Yeah, thank you.

[00:38:08] Shiri: I have a question for you, Pascal. . So we started off the conversation just lightly treading into the roots. We didn't really get to talk too much about our personal histories, since we are aware that we are both children to to lands, to families, to lineages that have Endured war, and we have that rage and fire and those systems encoded within us, even though you know we have, we're doing our best to be aware of it and really to transmute this energy.

I wonder how it has potentially shaped your path as a sacred advocate for psychedelic integration and education. Yeah,

[00:38:48] Pascal: it's a good question. For me, it's been a my life has been a process of discovering myself and knowing myself. anD I feel, I had years of very dark depression, social anxiety and feeling like I didn't belong.

And for me, it's been a discovery process of understanding the power of lineage and the power of culture in place that in a way that it has shaped me. And for me, that process of trying to know myself has pushed me to discover myself more. So it's helped me to reflect back to different actions, different places, different ways that I'm interfacing with the world so that I can know myself better.

For example, Nektar, to me, is the biggest mirror ever. It puts everything back in, back to me. And I've learned a lot from that. So yeah, essentially the disconnection from place and lineage for me has created this longing and this void within me that has pushed me outside of myself to discover what does it mean to be me?

What are the different facets of Pascal? What does it mean? Where are the things that I need to let go? How can I contribute to the greater whole? And all of it has been healing for me. All of it has been discovering myself and all of it has been growth to me. So I'm very grateful for the dark side.

I'm very grateful for the things that have pushed me outside of my shell and have pushed me to when I did the podcast of Andrea a few weeks ago, she talked about the mycelial network and how at the edges of the network is where the greatest growth happens because essentially shit happens, something gets blocked or whatever, and then it feeds back the information.

Back to the network and then grow some that. And when you talk about gratitude, I'm very grateful for all the challenges and all the things that have happened because without them, I wouldn't have grown. So all hail our mycelial overlords, by the way, for showing us the way and how to deal with those.

[00:40:42] Shiri: Yeah. And I also just thank you for sharing. I also want to just Name that I love how you know, we're both again Children to that land that if potentially our elders would have stayed on the land and we would have been born and raised in the land and have been there. Currently, we may have very well been enemies and it turned against one another just as our governments would have wanted us to.

And it doesn't, I'm just very much aware and very grateful of how, you and I, we've never met in real life. We've only met on the interwebs and then we become friends and collaborators through a sacred and shared mission that we share, which is to bring more awareness and possibility to the potential reality of peace and love and joy when we all learn to put our Whatever differences we think we have a side and just again join in that shared mission, and I'm so grateful that you and I have been able to connect in this way and the potential that we have on just to have that hard connection that is disconnected from politics and is just connected at the core with something that we both believe in.

So thank you so much for that.

[00:42:01] Pascal: Yeah, thank you as well. And I think it reflects back the greatest illusion of the world we live in is that we're separated and different. If I could share one thing to the whole world and integrate that into every being would be like, we all want the same things, all clean water and clean air and purpose and love and family and friends.

We all want the same thing. So how can we push together in the right direction in the same direction? Because that's all we really want. It's either love or wanting love. A lot of times with anyone's actions. It's either one of those. So can we just love each other? And yeah, understand our shared humanity.

And yeah, thank you for sharing that. It means a lot to me.

[00:42:41] Shiri: Thank you. And if, loving humanity maybe seems like too big of a visionary idea, just like world peace does, then, I just want to invite every listener out there to just think of one person who maybe

there is some clashing happening in terms of ideologies of sides of narratives and just reach out to this person and maybe have a conversation again, not about politics, but just about finding that heart connection and finding a way to become peace with one another. And if you've done that then you've done everything you can.

So yeah.

[00:43:15] Pascal: Yeah, and I just beautifully said how do you love yourself too in the process? I think a life well lived is a life well loved. How are we loving? Are we loving fully? That's an interesting question for a lot of us. So I'm inviting everyone to love really well today.

And

[00:43:30] Shiri: so it is. Yeah. Thank you, Shiri. Thank you, Pascal. Blessings. Thank you so much.