You Gotta Put Down the Duckie if you Wanna Play the Saxophone

Summary

---

Podcast Summary: Bewildered – “You Gotta Put Down the Duckie if you Wanna Play the Saxophone”

Hosts: Martha Beck (A), Rowan Mangan (B)
Date: November 12, 2025

---

Episode Overview

In this lively and thoughtful episode, Martha Beck and Rowan Mangan explore a deceptively simple truth: to truly pursue what matters, we must be willing to let go of what no longer serves us—even if we’ve grown fond of our metaphorical “duckies.” Using humor, stories, and gentle self-reflection, the hosts examine how cultural conditioning drives us to grasp, hoard, and avoid making space for what our inner nature truly longs for. Through everything from school PTA stories, home repair disasters, fables, and Sesame Street, Martha and Rowan argue for the countercultural act of giving things up to invite joy, clarity, and “the nameless” into our lives.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Comedy and Challenge of Everyday Bewilderment

(00:03–13:53)

• Martha and Rowan open with banter about trying to “figure it out”—accepting life as a never-ending process.
• Rowan recounts attempting to build community in a new town, only to be trapped in a heated PTA debate about fun runs and water quality.
  • “I just want to share in case any of our listeners know how to figure this out, I just want to share the topic of this argument, which began, hey, so we're having a fun run. And most of the room was like, yeah, okay, cool. That sounds good. Sounds like fun.” (04:13, B)
• Martha shares house woes—everything broken, tales of painted-over mice and “sculptural biographies” left by eccentric former owners.
  • “I think a few times ago, we talked about how the former owner painted over an entire mouse. ... A whole mouse just under the paint roller.” (07:05, A)
• Both hosts riff on the persistence of human nature, quirks of community, and the comedy of disarray.

2. The Central Theme: Letting Go to Receive

(13:53–29:03)

• Martha introduces the episode’s key insight:
  • “If you would be given everything, give everything up.” (15:50, A, citing the Daodejing)
• Both discuss the cultural aversion to letting go, touching on moving house, decluttering, and the subtle fear of scarcity that drives hoarding.
• Martha draws a distinction between societies of sufficiency (accepting cycles, living in harmony) and scarcity/hoarding, illustrated by Aesop’s fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper.
• Rowan connects this to Mary Oliver’s poem (“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”), asking if “hauling stuff” is really the point.
  • “You're gonna fucking haul whatever it is that ants haul. Crumbs, dirt.” (20:13, B)
• The conversation returns to the futility of trying to cram more goodness in without creating space:
  • “So many people have too many things and they think they're getting rid of all the things would be a loss. But the real loss is in they never put down the ducky. So they never play the saxophone.” (31:55, A)

3. Pop Culture: Sesame Street’s Wisdom

(22:28–24:38)

• The hosts introduce the standout metaphor of the episode:
  • “You gotta put down the ducky if you want to play the saxophone”—from Ernie’s song on Sesame Street.
• Martha offers:
  • “Talk about words to live by. And you'd think that it basically speaks for itself. But in fact, every experience I've had in culture says no. Hold onto the ducky and learn to play the saxophone.” (24:12, A)
• This becomes a recurring, playful refrain and the core metaphor: relinquishing what you cling to in order to create or experience new possibilities.

4. Scarcity vs. Sufficiency, and the Metaphysical Longing for Space

(29:03–45:08)

• Both hosts reflect on the instinct to “clutch everything” (Martha) and the need to consciously create emptiness.
• Rowan describes literally quitting her job for the sake of “the sunbeam at 2:30pm” and more meditation, even at the expense of status and security.
  • “I started getting—it's almost like the opposite from you—is I was wanting to have more... have more less. That's what you always say. I need more less.” (35:08, B)
• Martha connects the search for emptiness (as a spiritual longing) to the experience of excruciating “stripping away,” including withdrawal from busyness, status, and mental noise. Both hosts recount how meditation or sitting with stillness initially produces anxiety, then transforms into deep fulfillment.
• Memorable exchange:
  • “I am starving for it. I would give anything for nothing.” (37:18, A)
  • “You gave it up because you wanted the nameless to make a name. You wanted to encounter the nameless.” (36:23, A)

5. The Culture’s Attachment to Stuff: Meat Self vs. Meta Self

(45:06–46:22)

• Martha relates a tech moment: autocorrect changes “meta self” (the longing, spiritual self) to “meat self” (the physical, acquisitive self):
  • “The culture's gonna autocorrect your meta self to your meat self every time.” (46:10, B)
• The episode threads this comparison—our spiritual hunger is for openness and “the nameless,” but cultural conditioning insists we want more ‘meat’—status, stuff, achievement.

6. Personal Stories of Giving Up and the Resulting Joy

(46:22–49:42)

• The hosts recount moments of giving up careers, homes, or years’ worth of possessions to gain intangibles—peace, a mountain view, or just a beam of light.
• Rowan: “I can't right now because I'm busy going through the sometimes difficult experience of all my dreams coming true and I don't have any space for what's next. Right now I just have to sit in the space between me and the mountain.” (48:41, B)
• Martha: “I realized I had given up absolutely everything I had in that life. And now I was walking in the woods like Mary Oliver. And I thought, well, that's the whole thing.” (48:13, A)

7. Stillness, the Nameless, and Bliss

(54:06–56:58)

• Martha describes her transformation through meditation—not reaching for more, but making space for “nothingness,” which brings unexpected bliss:
  • “After four months of continuous horror, something happened. And I went into this stillness. ... It was like I'd found a spring of water that was absolutely pure...” (54:46–55:22, A)
• Rowan recalls a poem she wrote, ending “and then came the time of the great unbuilding when everyone's name is Stillness”—a synchronicity with Martha’s meditation experience.

8. Nature’s Response to Stillness

(57:32–58:48)

• Martha tells a proverbial “Woo Woo” anecdote:
  • Meditating in the forest, she observes turkeys freezing in place and then relaxing, seemingly responding to her shift from counting (left-brain) to stillness (right-brain, open presence).
  • Rowan suggests we may just be measuring “energetic fields” science hasn’t caught up with yet; Martha relates intuitive wisdom to innate sensitivity and the need for emptiness.

9. Concluding Philosophy: The Wild Inside

(61:14–63:32)

• The hosts conclude: Our “meta self” always knows when we’re overloaded and what needs to be released, even as culture pushes us to cram in more.
• Rowan: “If nothing else, that’s how we’re going to stay wild.” (63:32, B)
• Martha: “Put it down when there is nothing to grab.” (63:22, A)
• The act of honoring longing, seeking emptiness, and relinquishing the unnecessary is a radical—yet vital—act of reclaiming our true and wild natures.

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• “If you would be given everything, give everything up.” (15:50, A, quoting Daodejing)
• “You gotta put down the ducky if you want to play the saxophone.” (24:01, A, recurring theme)
• “You never put down the ducky. So they never play the saxophone.” (31:55, A)
• “The culture's gonna autocorrect your meta self to your meat self every time.” (46:10, B)
• On meditation and longing: “I am starving for it. I would give anything for nothing.” (37:18, A)
• “I needed more less.” (35:21, B)
• “And then came the time of the great unbuilding when everyone's name is stillness.” (55:22, B, quoting her poem)
• “If you want everything...be prepared to give up everything.” (62:34, B)
• “The act of honoring longing, seeking emptiness, and relinquishing the unnecessary is a radical act of reclaiming our true and wild natures.” (Summary, recurring point)

---

Structuring the Journey – Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:03–07:14: Welcomes, Banter, PTA Story, Community-building Woes
• 07:14–12:17: House Troubles, Culture’s Absurdities
• 13:53–16:52: Main Theme Introduced – Letting Go to Receive
• 22:28–24:38: Sesame Street Metaphor – “Put Down the Ducky”
• 29:03–32:30: Discussion of Stuff, Sufficiency, and Clinging
• 35:08–38:15: Meditation, Longing for Nothingness
• 46:06–47:32: Meta Self vs. Meat Self, Tech Anecdote
• 54:06–56:58: Stillness, Poetic Alignment, Bliss
• 57:32–58:48: Turkey Story, Nature and Stillness
• 61:14–63:32: Final Thoughts, Staying Wild, Importance of Letting Go

---

Tone & Style

• Tone: Irreverent, playful, intimate, wise; mixing practical humor with genuine spiritual yearning.
• Language: Candid, metaphorical, anecdotal, with references ranging from Chinese philosophy to Leonard Cohen and Sesame Street.

---

For Listeners: Takeaways

• Personal Insight: If you’re overwhelmed or stuck, consider what you must release, not what else you could acquire.
• Practical Wisdom: The space to “play the saxophone” (create, discover, feel awe) comes only when the “ducky” (our comfort, attachments, busyness) is put down—even when culture pressures you to hold on.
• Invitation to Wildness: Listen to your longings for less. Your wild, bewildered nature may have been right all along.

---

This episode is an invitation to the Bewildered: seeking, stumbling, and laughing toward the freedom that comes only from willingly letting go.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Bewildered. I'm Martha Beck, here with Rowan Mangan. At this crazy moment in history, a lot of people are feeling bewildered. But that actually may be a sign we're on track. Human culture teaches us to come to consensus, but nature, our own true nature, helps us come to our senses. Rowan and I believe that the best way to figure it all out is by going through bewilderment into bewilderment. That's why we're here. Hi, I'm Martha Beck.

[B]

And I'm Rowan Mangan. And this is another episode of Bewildered, the podcast for people who are, despite their best efforts, still trying to figure it out.

[A]

Not ever finishing figuring it out. Not ever.

[B]

We've always seemed to have new material, don't we? Yep.

[A]

It's. It's. It's an asymptotic relationship with figuring it out.

[B]

Shall we pause while everyone goes and finds their ancient, dusty Oxford English Dictionary?

[A]

An asymptote means you go half the distance to your goal every time. You're always going half the distance to your goal. Think about it. And the crazy thing is you never, ever reach your goal because there's always a remaining distance. You only can go half.

[B]

You've been listening to Bewildered. I hope you've enjoyed the show. Next week, we'll define another polysyllabic word.

[A]

What are you trying to figure out? Miss Fancy Pants? No. Asymptotic. Anything. What? What is bothering you? I just wandered the world.

[B]

I need it. What I'm trying to figure out is how to get a new nickname that's not Ms. Fancy Pants. Not asymptotic.

[A]

Anything. All right.

[B]

What I'm trying to figure out this week is, like, the tendency of people to be people y no matter where you go. And so I had this experience where regular listeners will know I'm trying to be very brave against all my social anxieties and create community in this new place we've moved to now.

[A]

You told them now they'll fake it.

[B]

Fake what?

[A]

You can't let people know you want to be in community. You have to play hard to get. It's my experience you move into a community and spend all your time in your bedroom and just wait because otherwise you look desperate.

[B]

That's not been my experience so far, but no worries. You do. You and I will continue to go to post drop off coffee time at school, which I thought was going to be a get a coffee. And where are you from? Oh, where are you from? But no, what I walked into was full on PTA vibes and our daughter has just started school. Real school.

[A]

Sorry, I'm having flashbacks of PTA trauma.

[B]

Okay, you just let me know when you're ready, okay?

[A]

They were all there together.

[B]

No, that's the thing. They were all there together.

[A]

Exactly. They seem to know.

[B]

And. And initially there was a bit of the, hey, how you doing? But then everyone sat down and got, like, got down to it. And I just. I need to preface this by saying I am as in love with this school that we are sending our daughter to. I am as in love with it as I am with you and Karen. Okay. It is. I love this place. It's amazing. But people will be people. Like, they cannot help it, wherever they are. And so while thinking I was, like, going to make friends, I ended up in a very heated argument about a fun run and a subcommittee. And so where things. I just want to share in case any of our listeners know how to figure this out, I just want to share the topic of this argument, which began, hey, so we're having a fun run. And most of the room was like, yeah, okay, cool. That sounds good. Sounds like fun.

[A]

Does that mean you get to run away from them? That would be fun.

[B]

And Marty doesn't like people, so that's established. Anyway, so I was like, oh, fun run.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I personally will not be running, but sounds fun. And immediately someone was in there, like, excuse me, if there's going to be a fun run, what is going to be done by the school to ensure that the big kids don't win? Because they'll always win. They'll always beat the little kids. What are we going to do for the little kids? And I was like, it's just like.

[A]

World history in a nutshell.

[B]

And I was like, okay. And the school, the people, like, God love them. The. The school teachers, admin people were like, well, it's a fun run. That said, we'll give some thought to this. Like, no one's going to win. Just saying it's not really a winning thing. And then at that point, someone put up her hand and said, and what are we doing about the water? And how far is the fun run? Everyone did, like, a double take. And they. They said, you mean water for the fun run? We'll have, like, coolers and stuff. She's like, no, that's not what I mean. I mean, the water in the school generally. My daughter came home from school yesterday and said, the water at school tasted funny. So what are we doing about that? And then another person puts up their hand and they're like, I'm sorry, we haven't even sorted out who's going to be on the subcommittee for the fun run. Wait, there's the fun. But it's just a fun run. It's okay. Like, we've got. We've got this.

[A]

No, I think you should. What you should do is, like, every time somebody says something like that, you just scream, fun run. Fun run. And just rush at them, tell them to just run away. Run away.

[B]

Just run away. Fun run. And just run out the door, people.

[A]

Well, that's. You could flee.

[B]

You're a fighter.

[A]

I'm a flighter. Yeah. No, I think attacking. They seem to be in attack mode. So it's like, make them take the fun run.

[B]

So you could just like walk up to them, stand in front of them, point at the door and go, fun run. Yes, now.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

I'll count to three.

[A]

Wow. That. Oh, boy. I'm glad it wasn't me. Yeah.

[B]

People are going to be people.

[A]

Y.

[B]

It's okay. I got out of there. I did my own little fun run.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

What are you trying to figure out?

[A]

I think this is what I was trying to figure out last time, but it's just gotten deeper. I'm trying to figure out how to function in a house where literally everything is broken. Like, last time we talked, I think a few times ago, we talked about how the former owner painted over an entire mouse. I say that again because every time I say it, even to people here who seem accustomed to some odd things, that just stops them. They're like a whole mouse. Yes, a whole mouse just under the paint roller.

[B]

Not half a mouse. Because that would be ordinary.

[A]

Yeah. Or a mouse pelt, for example. A mouse pelt that was lying there decoratively, like a sheepskin or something. No, no, no. It was just a whole mouse with all its bones intact. Anyway. Yeah. The thing is, such odd things were done in the house. Okay. You know and I know that for the past few days we have had not four people, but four teams of people wandering around our house like termites on a mound.

[B]

Four teams and one guy putting together a trampoline.

[A]

Yes. But like, I've been taking freezing cold baths. Why not showers? Because the shower is broken. Why cold? Because the water heater's broken. Why broken? Electricity not coming from solar panels. Need new solar panels while they're up there. Oops. We need a new roof. And they. I mean, let's not even talk about the Internet. So there are. It's literally like a city in Egypt when they were building the pyramids. Like, people just everywhere carrying stuff. And I keep having to answer for the misdeeds of the previous owner. So yesterday, the electrician came to me, and he looked at me askance.

[B]

Do you not want to say what happened the night before?

[A]

Oh, well, Alex. Okay. So after they'd all been everywhere, I went over to my little room, and it was, like, scalding hot. Like, touch the walls and burn your hand hot. It was bad. It was about to burst into flames.

[B]

You were not pleased?

[A]

No, I was not pleased. Cause I also had stomach flu, and I was pukey. And you don't want to be in a boiling hot room that could explode at any moment, even when you're not nauseated. But if you are nauseated, it's not ideal. I'm just saying, thank God Karen is, like, more butch than the butchest man ever born because she found a switch on a pile of rocks in something that I will not call a basement. It was just under the house. It wasn't a crawl space because it was too big, but it definitely wasn't a basement. It's just rocks.

[B]

It was like a stoop space.

[A]

It was like rocks. It was like a rock ledge on which the house had been sort of built. So she turned off something that looked. It said, 152 degrees. That's what we knew. So we turned it off, not knowing what to call it. It just. We knew what 152 degrees was. Like, that's, like, almost quite hot enough to bake your bread. So that worked better. The walls cooled off by morning. And then the electrician came, and he went down there because we asked him to. And he was very friendly until he came back from under there. And then he was like, yeah, I was down there. And I was like, what? What's happening? And he said, and this is a quote. Do you just, like, go to appliances and just pluck the wires? Just pluck them like flowers. Like, not unplug them, but just pluck the wires and then skin them. Like, of their little rubber plastic sheathing. And I was just like.

[B]

Like, you're trying to get the pelt of a mouse.

[A]

Yes. Like, she didn't skin the mouse, but she skinned all the wires. So he was like, yeah, a bunch of. And he looked at me, and he could see I was aghast. And so his face softened again. He was like, it wasn't you. I was like, no, it wasn't me, dude. He's like, somebody skinned all the wires from the appliances and then twisted all.

[B]

The braided them yeah, like twisted all.

[A]

The wiry parts together. So if you turn on one thing, everything turns on, like, full blast and there's nothing to be done about it. And so I told him about the mouse. Of course, that always. That stopped him even after seeing the pluck twice, but he kept doing this little gesture like he was picking flowers.

[B]

I could make a new dance move. Pluck.

[A]

That's true. But you've got to sweat profusely. It's like hot yoga, because I've got that covered. I've got 52 freaking degrees in there. So, yeah, I'm just getting this image. We never met the previous owner, but reading her biography in sculpture as represented in the house is a very weird experience. Yeah, I'm not sure she was from this planet.

[B]

I have been encountering her via a book of handwritten recipes that she left in a drawer that also includes, like, strips of photos from those photo machines that I would think she'd probably want those.

[A]

But did she say, knead the bread, let it rise and then just put it in a room? Flip on any switch and it will bake.

[B]

Let the rooms be your oven.

[A]

Yes, indeed.

[B]

So, yeah, figure it out. Life is interesting. We will figure it out and. Or die trying, right?

[A]

Definitely.

[B]

Hi there. I'm Ro and I'll be your podcaster for today. Do you know how to tip your podcaster? It's actually pretty easy. You can rate our pod with lots of stars, all your stars. You can review it with your best superlatives. You can even subscribe or follow Bewildered, so you'll never miss an episode. Then, of course, if you're ready to go all in. Our paid online community is called Wilder A Sanctuary for the Bewildered. And I can honestly say it's one of the few true sanctuaries online. You can go to wildercommunity.com to check it out. Rate, review, subscribe, join, and you all.

[A]

Have a great day now. Hello, the lovely peoples. This is Marty Martha, inviting you to a free masterclass that I have made called Five Paths to youo Purpose. Probably the most common question I get from people is, how do I find my purpose? Why don't I feel that I'm on purpose? Well, it turns out there are certain things you have to do to find your purpose, and I broke them down into five and I made a little masterclass about it. So if you'd like to see it, just go to marthabeck.compurpose and you will be able to watch it without any charge at all.

[B]

But we do have a topic for the Podcast today, which is wonderful. Isn't that amazing?

[A]

It's like living in a house with hot water.

[B]

What is our topic, Marty?

[A]

Well, it came to me. It sort of blurted out of my mouth when I was walking along in.

[B]

The woods the other day, not worrying anyone.

[A]

I was walking along and I was thinking about when I lived in Phoenix. For a long time I lived in Phoenix. And I remember this time in the gym when I was reading a book of Mary Oliver poetry while I was like, on the bicycle. Stationary bicycle. The stationary bicycle. I no longer read on regular mobile bicycles. I used to.

[B]

Very wise. Learned that one the hard way.

[A]

Did indeed. Anyway, I remember thinking, because she wrote almost all her poems, at least in this one anthology, were about the walks she took in the woods. And I remembered thinking, in this scorching hot place in the gym, I would give anything to be able to go for walks in the woods like Mary Oliver. And then I looked around and I thought, so I did, and here I am.

[B]

I would give anything to be able.

[A]

To walk in the woods like Mary Oliver.

[B]

And you had to give everything that you had.

[A]

Yeah, everything I had. Then I gave up so that I could walk in the woods with Mary Oliver. And I started to think about the number of times I've said or implied I would give anything to be able to do that, but I actually wasn't willing to give anything. And so it didn't happen. But when I think my idea about this is if we are willing to give up things. It's a quote from the Daodejing that I love. If you would be given everything, give everything up. And I started to think about that, about the voluntary giving up of anything. And I realized I don't think we're encouraged culturally, socially, in this culture to.

[B]

Give things up, give it up that you will receive. Right. Not that everything should be framed that way, but I think, to me, there's a cultural way of thinking, which is when I just get through all this stuff, be it things in my schedule or shit on my floor, not shit, mouse corpses, stuff on my floor, dishes in my sink, whatever it is, meetings, then there will be space and time. And so what we were talking about is what if you have to invert that way of thinking, like you have to give up first in order for it that space to appear, and then whatever wants to be born in your life, that's where it will come from. Is that.

[A]

Yeah. Yes. And I've spent so much time coaching people who were trying to shove things into their lives that they wanted, but Their lives were already crammed full. And when it came down to letting go of something, there's this sort of. I think it's actually. I bet some good money that it's the left hemisphere of the brain that says, in humans at least, I must clutch everything I've got. I can't let go of anything. And, you know, if you go, since we just moved house, it's interesting how you'll hold an object in your hands and then try to give it up and then think, but maybe I'll need it someday. You know, like, some people, like Karen can just throw things away. I don't care. I don't need my nose. You know, like, she's amazing. She never has anything except clean space, which is what we want.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I think that this. This cultural tendency to grasp and hold certainly characterizes the sort of colonizing forces that went out and. And in many of the societies that they colonized, there was a mentality of sufficiency. And the culture that spread all over the world and ended up sort of guns, germs, and steel winning had a culture of scarcity and hoarding. You know, it's a little like, there's an Aesop's Fable about. I don't know if Aesop really said it, but it's about the ant and the grasshopper. There's an ant, There are ants who work and work and work and work. And there's a cricket who makes music. And then he says, don't you want to make music? And the aunts were like, no, we got to save for the winter. So they work and work and work and work. And then it gets cold, and the cricket is hungry and cold. And he comes up and he says, please, can you give me some food? And they were like, no, you didn't. You just sat around making music when we were making stuff and that. And that's the Pilgrim's.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Pilgrim's Progress. You know, we're gonna. We're gonna make stuff and hang onto stuff and hoard stuff, and you can't.

[B]

Have our stuff and hold it against others who don't.

[A]

Exactly. And I'm not saying that there's not some validity to you need to, you know, have a savings account by all means, like, marshal your forces and keep some kind of supply. But the idea that you always need to be working and hoarding has only really characterized a few societies. And the others have gotten by knowing that nature provides different things in different seasons and learning to figure out how to work in harmony with a supply that goes up and down.

[B]

You get more music that way.

[A]

You get. That's the only way you get music.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, and the implicit assertion in that fable is that the music is worthless.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And it's so funny because while we've been thinking about this topic, and then you mentioned Mary Oliver, and I just. I think, like, so often it comes back to that. Tell me, what is it you're going to do with your one wild and precious life? You're gonna fucking haul whatever it is that ants haul. Crumbs, dirt.

[A]

I don't know what they do.

[B]

What do they do?

[A]

It depends on the ant. I mean, some of them carry aphids, and then they get special leaves to feed the aphids, and then they stroke them with their.

[B]

Never last.

[A]

And the aphids put out a little drop of, like, honeydew, and that's what the ants eat. So they literally are keeping livestock. They are.

[B]

What do they do? They stroke the aphids?

[A]

Yes, they pet them.

[B]

Stroke the aphids. That sounds like it's gotta be a euphemism for something.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Just gotta stray for.

[A]

Yeah, but I mean, other ants do other things. Thank you. Other ants come to our houses and eat things so that the men can come and say, that thing is being eaten by ants. We'll take care of it for you.

[B]

We've got preemptive. This is. I mean, this is where it starts getting like. I think we may be the problem. We've had someone come in and put preemptive termite things. They're like. They're like bait for termites that are like, hey, termites, you don't want to go eat that house, Come eat me.

[A]

Right? I'm like, you're gonna get a lot of termites in the area, and then there's more of them to go after that. It's like. It's like us saying, well, we'll just put garbage out for the bears and then they won't come in the house. Yeah, no, we don't come close to the house. We found that out the first day we were here.

[B]

Yeah, we did.

[A]

Had a bear. We had a bear. Right in broad daylight.

[B]

Bit of a bear.

[A]

Bit of a bear. Okay. So here's the other thing, though, that I wanted to say about this. When my older kids were little, there was much Sesame street watching in my house. And I remember being just out of my mind, crazy busy. I was in that zone you're in now where I was the bio mom of small ones. And I was trying to work and I was trying to get my degree and I was trying to do. And I was sick all the, like constantly sick. And I remember the lying there on this king sized bed where I raised those children because I couldn't really get up and watching Sesame Street. And there was a brilliant, brilliant song.

[B]

That we could all learn that can teach us all. In a way, it's an anthem for our time.

[A]

It is. And it was sung by an owl who played the jazz saxophone and Ernie of Bert and Ernie, the gay couple who I didn't realize were gay until like 20 years later. Oh my God. Yeah, I know. I have no gaydar. When you're born Mormon, they take it out of you.

[B]

All get burned. It's like circumcision.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Or they knocked gay directomy.

[A]

Yeah, I had a gaydrectomy. That's why I didn't know I was gay for 30 years. I have no clue. And you're always like, well, that's a lesbian. And I was like, really?

[B]

He was a real lesbian in the wild. Wait, where'd she go? I want to see her. Can I take a photo?

[A]

Anyway, the song was. And I'm sure everybody's breath is bated. The song was called oh, Ernie. Wait. First I didn't set the stage enough. Ernie of Burton. Ernie the gay couple. Ernie wants to learn to play the saxophone. But as you know, if you're a fan of Ernie, I only like Bert better. But Ernie.

[B]

No, Ernie's my guy.

[A]

You gotta accept Ernie if you're gonna take Bert. He's his boyfriend. So Ernie had a ducky. He sang to it a lot. Rubber ducky, you're the one. You make my bathtub so much fun.

[B]

So much fun.

[A]

Rubber ducky, I'm awfully fond of you. That was his song. I'm awfully fond of you. You know it. See, it's like it was injected to instead of the gatorectomy. They just gave you all the Sesame street songs. But the owl sings a song to Ernie and it's called you gotta put down the ducky if you want to play the saxophone.

[B]

Just give that a minute.

[A]

Wait, you've got to put down the ducky if you want to play the saxophone.

[B]

It's so true.

[A]

That is. And talk about words to live by. And you'd think that it basically speaks for itself. But in fact, every experience I've had in culture says no. Hold onto the ducky and learn to play the saxophone. Yes, like you have to. You have to do it. All you have to do it.

[B]

All you have to have your cake and eat your cake and. Saxophone. Eat the saxophone. Hold onto the ducky.

[A]

Yeah. And I thought that Americans were particularly horrible at this. But when I was on a book tour in Germany once, I read that in Germany, every year about three people are killed when their stuff collapses on them in the night. Why in the night?

[B]

Why does it happen in the night?

[A]

Because they're asleep, See? And so when the stuff starts to wobble, they're not watching it, and it collapses on them and suffocates them.

[B]

So you said, all right, I'm not going to interrogate you, but you did say about three.

[A]

I know. And it's like, I'm assuming that some.

[B]

People just, like, just their arm and leg got taken.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I'm rounding up. So anyway, like, okay, so we were both. We were talking about how we both had. We both had areas where we were socialized to have more stuff than we actually needed, but we're also afraid to let it go.

[B]

Yes. And you never feel this more than when you're trying to unpack your life's possessions in a house that's a lot smaller than your last house. And you will pick something up and you will hold it and you'll go, I'll just put it. Nope, there's nowhere for it. I'll have to. You know, it's going in the thrift.

[A]

Pile.

[B]

And it's like Frodo trying to throw the ring.

[A]

Are you telling me that when you go to the donate pile, when you go to St. Vincent's to donate your clothes, you want me there to bite your arm off if you can't let go 100%. Those of you who don't know Lord of the Rings, look up that reference. Spoiler. Yeah, it's true. It's really, really hard to let go of things. And I think that's probably a biological tendency, but I also think it's culturally reinforced. And reinforced and reinforced, absolutely. Because I also think there's a natural instinct that says, let go. And I was thinking about this when I read H is for Hawk. Have you read this book?

[B]

I have.

[A]

Who wrote it?

[B]

Susan. Or something like that by Susan.

[A]

Anyone you know named Susan wrote this book?

[B]

Yeah, it's brilliant. I'd have been like, holly, I'll have.

[A]

To put it, like, in the notes or something. Julia, please put it in the show notes. Yes, show notes. Look for ages for hawker. Just Google it. It's a great book. Seriously, a great book. But she talks about It's a really literary piece, and part of it is about her owning and training a goshawk, which is apparently a very difficult bird to train.

[B]

Please be aware that goshawk is pronounced goshawk, not goshawk like I assumed when.

[A]

I first read it. Oh, goshawk, goshawk, goshawk. Now, she describes this hawk as being terrifying. Like, it flies to her and lands on her arm like it's about to kill her. And she's called harrified. It's fascinating, her relationship with this bird. Anyway, one of the things I learned from this was that falconers know exactly how much their bird weighs at any point during the day in terms of fractions of ounces, because it will determine how willing they are to hunt and whether they can fly it effectively or not. And like, I used to think, birds never had to think about their weight. Seriously, when I was in high school, I used to. When I got, like, obsessed with my weight, I would look at birds and think, you never have to think about it, but they do. They think about it way more than we do. And if you feed a hawk too much and it starts to get over its ideal flying weight, the result is that it gets upset. And she. Another spoiler alert part of the book is about T.H. white, the author who wrote Sword in the Stone, who also had a goshawk. And he was terrified of it, and he kept feeding it to make it like him. Because we humans, we just. We take it. Give me something to eat, give me possessions, give me stuff, give me attention, give me time. I'm ravenous. I'll take as much of it as I can get.

[B]

There's never enough.

[A]

There's never enough. But feeding a goshawk to make it like you is not the right idea. Not the right idea.

[B]

Even a goshawk wouldn't appreciate that.

[A]

A goshawk would not like it because as it feels itself getting sluggish and a little too, like, too much ballast, it becomes enraged, maybe because they think, because, like, it's not flying around. So it has to get so mad that it will start attacking things violently and burn off the calories. Yes. That's why we think it does this. So, and if you're the only person, the only thing in this hawk's world, it's gonna attack you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So TH White, it'll be like you'll.

[B]

Become the hawk's peloton for that moment.

[A]

Yes. And TH White, like, it nearly his hawk nearly did away with him because he fed it so much. It just wanted to kill him.

[B]

Tried to pull the sword from the stone out of his body, out of.

[A]

His neck and the beak and the.

[B]

No, no. It's like his tongue was the sword and the hawk tried to pull it out to see if he was the chosen one.

[A]

That's a horrible, horrible image.

[B]

I love it.

[A]

I'm never going to get rid of it now. But here is my point, and I do have one. I recognize this when I read it, that when I have too much of something, when I don't, when I haven't left enough space, enough nothing in my life, or I'm taking in more than I can really justifiably need.

[B]

Like accommodate.

[A]

Yeah, accommodate, include, own, whatever. If one is too much for me, and I'm talking at a very subtle intuitive and psychological level, because there's always. I can get more storage space and just put up lots of canned goods or whatever. It never ends. That's another thing about being raised Mormon. You're supposed to have two years supply of food in your place.

[B]

There's also a thing about living through the end of days that I'm participating. Same Same.

[A]

Exactly same.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Mormons were all about the end of days and now they're making it happen. So sorry. Sorry, Mormons.

[B]

The Mormons love this podcast.

[A]

Yeah. It's got so many listeners, so many gay Mormon listeners. So when you give me more than I can have, like, I used to go to fancy shindigs where they would give us swag bags sometimes. Really nice swag bags. When I was writing for the Oprah Magazine, I would go to these parties and you'd get a swag bag that had all kinds of whippy things in it. But you'd get a certain amount of whippy things that you didn't really ask for, I didn't really need. And I would start to get uncomfortable. And then if I got more, I would start to really feel unhappy. And then I'd get out of bed in the morning, look at it, and feel really dejected and then irritated and finally completely overwhelmed. Just too much.

[B]

I used to say, she always says.

[A]

I say that all the time because that means too many things. And I think so many people have too many things and they think they're getting rid of all the things would be a loss. But the real loss is in they never put down the ducky. So they never play the saxophone. Yeah, Think about it.

[B]

No, you've got to put down the ducky. If you want to play the saxophone, you've got to. I mean, let's go Back to the original text. That's right here.

[A]

But it could be metaphor. It is metaphorical. The point still stands. So you were telling me. We were talking about this, and you told me something I didn't know about you, which was really, I thought, worth knowing. And that is why you quit your.

[B]

Job in Australia to join the circus?

[A]

Yeah, keep talking.

[B]

No, I was trying to think of what was my example of this. And I realized that there was a time in my life living in Melbourne. Throw back to the Melbourne days. We all love thinking back to the Melbourne days.

[A]

Waltzing Matilda.

[B]

Waltzing Matilda. And I had a job.

[A]

I was.

[B]

I was going for that kind of a life at that point. And a job. I had a mortgage.

[A]

I was a young single woman. You bought a house, which is. It's not like you were. You were born with a silver spoon. You made that happen.

[B]

Yeah, I wasn't all that young. The record will show. I wasn't that young.

[A]

You were in your early 30s.

[B]

All right.

[A]

You were freaking young.

[B]

All right.

[A]

You don't think that's young?

[B]

All right. Jesus.

[A]

Go on, settle down, please.

[B]

Go on. Have you eaten too much?

[A]

Are you getting cranky? Yes, exactly.

[B]

All right. And I had to quit that job because I was finding that it was cutting into my meditation time of a morning. I was getting up earlier and earlier in order to meditate before I went to work. And after a while, in fact, the more meditation I did, the less wanting to go to work I did. And eventually, the less going to work and then eventually the quitting. The other thing that just used to drive me crazy was that there was a window in my house that at a certain time of day had a really beautiful beam of sunshine that would come through. And you know when all the little dust motes go in the beam of sunshine and everything's right with the world, because you can. Like, there's something so peaceful about watching the dust.

[A]

That's that Leonard Cohen line.

[B]

All busy.

[A]

Yeah. In beams of light I clearly saw the dust you seldom see out of which the nameless makes a name for ones like me.

[B]

Yeah, there you go. Out of which the nameless makes a name for one. Like, that's kind of what we're saying. Yes. Yeah. Is that. That's what we're creating when we create nothing, when we make emptiness, when we make space.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And. Yeah. So I started getting. It's almost like the opposite from you is I was wanting to have more.

[A]

Have more. Less. That's what you always say. I need more. Less.

[B]

Yeah. I needed More, less. And the more of my job was starting to encroach on that. And so it had to go. It had to go, Maddie. I needed to. That light.

[A]

I hear you.

[B]

That light was only visible at like 2:30pm And I'll tell you, if you look very carefully at the hours 9 to 5, you'll find that 2:30 is like right in there.

[A]

Smack dab in an asymptotic relationship with 5. Not really.

[B]

Not at all. Although it does sometimes feel like it at 2:30 when you're working in an office.

[A]

That's true. Yeah. It never ends. But you actually did. You quit a really good job to see that sunbeam come through your particular window at 2:30 in the afternoon. And that would sound insane to most people, but here's the thing. You didn't give it up because you didn't want to do it. You gave it up because you wanted the nameless to make a name. You wanted to encounter the nameless.

[B]

Yeah. I think when the nameless is making names, it's usually not like marketing and communications director.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, like, I think that's less the kind of name.

[A]

It's the name substitute. Like you're creating something that is seen as something valuable in the culture, but.

[B]

To your soul, you're looking for a name and it gives you a title.

[A]

Right? Yeah.

[B]

It's like, who am I? Marketing and communications director. Oh, why does that not feel good?

[A]

That fills everything up. And so clearly you need more and more and more. No, no, you actually need. You need to drop. You need to put down the ducky. And I had the same. Sorry, it's boring. It's probably why we're together that we both have this relationship with meditation. But before I really knew you.

[B]

The.

[A]

Craving for total emptiness hit me so hard. And I had been meditating for like 20 minutes a day for years. But this was like I was insatiable for nothing. And so first I stopped. Like, no visualizing, no mantra, no nothing. I went pure Zen. I was just. No thought, no anything. And then I thought, I need to do this a lot longer every day because I'm starving for it. I am starving for it. I would give anything for nothing. So I started sitting out in the forest covered in birdseed, which is, you know, that wasn't right.

[B]

Little bit. Little bit off.

[A]

Yeah. I actually realized I. That was bird watching.

[B]

Yeah. And so I was kind of the ducky.

[A]

It was the ducky. Yeah. I still couldn't put down the ducky.

[B]

No.

[A]

It was fun.

[B]

In this case, the Ducky would like chipmunks on your lap.

[A]

Yes, chipmunks and possibly literal duckies from time to time. Anyway, I remember when I was sitting there and all the animals got disturbed, and then this lump rose in the earth. Oh, God. I would. I was there for this head popped out, and it had, like, these horrible orange teeth. And I thought it was a mole. And I had had no thought for like, an hour and a half. And I saw this thing come out of the earth like a zit. And I thought, like, something screamed in my head, that mole is ruining the world. And I really believed it.

[B]

You were so pissed off that day.

[A]

I was so angry at that thing. It was a pocket gopher. They're not pretty. And that's not their fault. It's not that. That's not the problem. The eruption into my meditation was.

[B]

I would argue that maybe your thoughts about the eruptions.

[A]

My thoughts about it were the problem, yeah. So I had to get rid of thought. And I would sit out there or sit inside, and Karen sometimes would come and say, you've got a phone call. And I would look at her like a goshawk, right? Like, I am going to attack you. Or even a meaty goshawk, a heavy gosh. She would hold out her phone or my phone and say, but it's. And then name a famous person. Because sometimes famous people call me. So she wasn't. I told her, no, no, no interruptions at all. But then somebody would call, but it's the president.

[B]

He needs your advice.

[A]

Almost like some really famous. No, seriously. And she'd say, but it's this person. And I would just stare at her and say, I'm like. I would get violently angry. Anyway, that's not good. You don't want to do that. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that there are these stages of realizing that you need more, less. And the first one is just this discomfiture. And then the second one is like. Disagree.

[B]

Okay, point of order. Yes.

[A]

The chair recognizes you.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

My chair.

[B]

Where's my subcommittee? Anterior. No, not anterior, but before. See, when I try to asymptotic you, I get it wrong.

[A]

Anterior, I think that works. Anterior to what?

[B]

Chronologically? Anterior to the discomfiture. Yes. I would argue.

[A]

Wow, that's a sentence. Right.

[B]

I wanted to call this episode. Just for the record, I wanted to call this episode Navigational Discombobulation because we couldn't find the studio this morning.

[A]

That's true, but that's a whole different.

[B]

Tell you that.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

We've been here a lot. We just couldn't find it.

[B]

Let's just say before you get the discomfiture, I think there is a really nice spot. And because I'm always extremely kind to myself, unlike you, who drives yourself like a rented mule. Thank you. I think I'm. I'm. I don't want to, you know, like, I'm good at putting down the ducky if the Ducky is a 9 to 5 job. And so before, I was not even really getting antsy. I just wanted. I had like a feeling of pure longing.

[A]

Flower.

[B]

The. The. Not hectic. The slow time.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The staring into space. And that space being full of, you know, and what we. I want you to talk about the stages, but I feel like what we're not saying, and I'm not quite sure how to bring it in because there's a. There's a problematic cultural part of this too. But it's in that space that the nameless does make a name right for you. And so not. Not to say if you want good stuff, like a new home and all of that, yeah, you've got to do this. But also, like, if you do this, that's where the stuff comes from. Not the stuff.

[A]

It comes from the giving up. It doesn't come from the push to acquire. It comes from sensitivity to the longing for space, openness.

[B]

Can I give an example?

[A]

Yes, please.

[B]

In our new house.

[A]

I.

[B]

We have the most unbelievable view of mountains. And I didn't know with any specificity that that's what I needed in my life, but I did. And there's a way in which this wide open space that has been crafted by the people who were in this space before. It's not the chick who painted over mice, but before. Before that, we had a very special person living in our house and caring for our land. And the view was. Was sort of carefully crafted. And it's surrounded by trees, and then there's this distance out to these mountains. And I feel like that was created. That is the void that was created from the void. And it is how it feels to embro. To be given everything and to give everything up, is that the space in which I walk into a room and go every day.

[A]

And I think what it mostly feels like, even when I get my irritation, it's actually just another aspect of your longing, because it is the motivation of a seeker. And the seeker doesn't always know what the thing sought is going to look like. But very, very often it looks like openness which you can't even really define. So we know the spiritual teacher, Byron, Katie. We're lucky enough to have spent some time with her. And I remember she said to me one day, people think that they want. They call me enlightened, which she doesn't call herself. Then she laughed for like five minutes. And then she said, and they say they want enlightenment too. And then she laughed for about 10 minutes and she said, they think they're going to be getting everything they want. And what they don't know is they're going to be losing everything. And then she laughed for about 20 minutes. So it's so counterintuitive to go seeking nothing.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

To go. Go to, like, put down all the duckies. And you don't even know what the saxophone is going to sound like, right?

[B]

Yes. You don't know what it's going to look like, sound like, feel. Well, you do know what it's going to feel like. It's going to feel like.

[A]

Yes. Because the seeker is after the experience of all. So one of the parallels that I sometimes use is something called. I was thinking of something called the meta self. Meta is like metaphysical. It means apart from other than metamorphosis, change into a different shape. So I thought, okay, we have a meta self that is always looking for things that are not material, that is always looking for the openness, that's always looking for the music. And it doesn't want to just busy itself stroking aphids every day, all day. Oh, my God, Really? I love how I can mix a metaphor like, we've got Sesame street, we've got the ants with the aphids. It's amazing.

[B]

It's incredible.

[A]

Thank you. I didn't even know I was looking for it.

[B]

But we've got duckies.

[A]

So it's. I was talking about metaself and I typed it into my computer and it automatically space corrected to meet self. M E A T. The self made of meat. And I think the self made of meat wants to be meteor. It wants more stuff.

[B]

And the culture's gonna autocorrect your meta self to your meat self every time.

[A]

There's a reason that that computer changed it from meta self to meat self. Because the culture says, she didn't mean meta, she meant meat.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's what we always think we're gonna get, Stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And what it really wants to be is other.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And for you, it comes as longing. It does for me, too. But if I can't respond to the longing or I'm not aware of it because I'm paying too much attention to other things. It comes up as irritability with what I'm doing. Yes. It makes me want to push away from what I'm doing. Poor Karen. When she brought me the famous people on the phone, I nearly strangled her. I didn't really. Anyway, this is like this whole concept, you quitting your job to go sit in a shaft of light or me not taking calls from famous people so I could sit and think absolutely nothing. We're not encouraged to do this unless we're in a meditation class somewhere in some other cultural context. But I think it's innate and I think we are seeking the awe that you find in that view of the mountains.

[B]

And.

[A]

And may I add, it's not like you just tripped and fell there. You did a lot of house hunting. You know, you went into a lot of houses and looked at a lot of views.

[B]

Yeah, I said a lot of. Not this.

[A]

Yeah. And when we got this house, it was the only thing that works is that view.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Everything else is broken.

[B]

If you want to get everything, which is the view, you've got to give up everything which is heating, cooling, Internet. A house that doesn't smell like Animal Corps.

[A]

Pretty much every physical thing.

[B]

Yeah. Hot water.

[A]

We sound so self congratulatory here. It's not like I haven't spent my whole life trying to like hold on to things, but I love this idea of letting go.

[B]

I think everyone is aware who's been listening closely that we're not thrilled with the state of the house.

[A]

No, no, no, no. I'm not self satisfied about that, but. Self satisfied as in I gave everything up so I get to have everything. No, now I'm satisfied. I am satisfied. And the other day while I was walking in the woods and then I was remembering saying I would give anything to walk in the woods like Mary Oliver. And I realized I had given up absolutely everything I had in that life. And now I was walking in the woods like Mary Oliver. And I thought, well, that's the whole thing.

[B]

I was walking along the street with you last week and you were like, look at all this amazing stuff that we've manifested around us. All the things that we were talking about, what should we do next? And I had this feeling of, I can't right now because I'm busy going through the sometimes difficult experience of all my dreams coming true and I don't have any space for what's next. Right now I just have to sit in the space between me and the mountain. Right. And let that be. And then I think it's out of that space that the nameless makes your name.

[A]

I love that. And I love sitting in it and soaking it in. I love taking the time to absorb whatever has come, including freedom, including nothingness.

[B]

Can I say something about meditation?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So I feel like, much as the ants and the grasshopper, that our culture has taken meditation, has taken the music and turned it into hauling junk and hoarding food for the winter. Because when I think about how I was spending my time in that point of my life, it feels so different from when I use the word meditation with the cultural connotations that it has to me when I think of the word and I pull in, like, I open the file in my brain that the culture has installed in that meditation is a type of hygiene. Yes. Like, you don't want to, but you don't want to get yelled at by the dentist in six months. So you. So you do your flossing, right?

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And I. That is so not the experience of it. And it's. I was thinking, but where we get stuck and this is like culture, left hemisphere of the brain is like, what is it then? It's not work, but it's not the feeling of work. And it's not fun. You would never say fun because fun is popcorn and action movies, and it's not popcorn and action movies, but there is. It's still utterly delicious and exquisite and feels like we're still doing it for pleasure.

[A]

Well, except that it's not always the first four months, when I decided to meditate for two hours at a time, which was, for me, a long stretch then. And for me, nothing really hit the road until I was like 55 minutes in. And then, like, everything in my brain would start to quake and change. Like Pascal said, the reason we live in misery is that we're unable to sit quietly alone in a room. Well, I could do it for 55 minutes, and it turned out that when I got to 55 minutes and I still had an hour and five minutes to go, hell was set loose.

[B]

Ants crawling on the skin.

[A]

Oh, my God, it was so hard. My anxiety would just go absolutely sky high. And I would just sit there and sit there. And I was telling you about a friend of ours, Boyd Vardy, the animal tracker, who. He went on a run with the San people in the Kalahari desert in, like, 120 degree heat, and they ran down a kudu. They just hunted it by running after it until it gave up. And. Sorry, that's graphic, but it's an ancient thing. And he was like. He said his mind was so full of stories about why he could not do this. And they kept coming up, I don't have enough water. I'm going to die. This is too hot. I can't do this. There's too much sun. This is not right. And he said he had to decide on every few steps to commit to it or not. And so a story would come up, you know, this is too hot. And he would just think, commit, I'm going to die. Commit. I'm not saying that everybody should do it. But he felt that deep in his, as you say, deep in my waters, I felt that I should do it.

[B]

Boy doesn't have waters.

[A]

No, not anymore. They all went. But the whole thing about meditation is very similar to that. And it was like, make space. And I think this. When we get to this sort of, how do we break free from the culture? And what do we do instead? It's this, make space, make space. So I would sit there, I'd be fine 55 minutes. And then it was like, I can't do this. Make space. I have got to get up. Make space. I have to do that thing. Make space. Like, it wasn't mean. It was just this continuous knowing, make space, make space. And I had panic attacks, and the itching nearly killed me because I would create it by fearing it. Oh, my God, it was horrible. For four months, every day, for hours. And then something happened.

[B]

Why'd you do it then?

[A]

Because I longed for it. Because I just. I couldn't understand why. I was longing for it. But when I couldn't do it, I would get very agitated, like a goshawk, goshawk, goshawk, goshawk. And so I just knew to do it, I had to. It was like. It was like I needed to breathe. It was that intense. And after four months of continuous horror, something happened. And I went into this stillness. Could I tell a woo woo story?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So you were in Australia.

[B]

I was not.

[A]

Yes. No, you were. Originally, you were. You cannot deny that you were, for a period of time, in Australia. I put it to the court for.

[B]

The purposes of the tape. The witness declines to answer.

[A]

She was born in Australia. She was in Australia. She stayed in Australia.

[B]

She died in Australia.

[A]

No, she didn't. Okay, okay. So you had read my books. And I was like, we can save the world, which I still think, but it's a total pipe dream. But you got into the pipe dream.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Master's in political Science that said the world is ending. And then there was me. We can say that. Okay, so you got into it.

[B]

Whatever she's selling, I'm buying.

[A]

And you wrote this poem as if it were written from somewhere further on in history, about, and I quote, the time we almost broke the world. And there's a part of it that's about the horrors we're seeing right now and everything that's happening to the climate and everything like that. And then you get toward the end of the poem and you say, and then came the time of the great unbuilding when everyone's name is Stillness. Well, after my four months of absolute hell, what happened is it was as if I heard someone outside me say, you, name is Stillness. And I went, bam. Like, into a space that was so deep and so generative, it was like I'd found a spring of water that was absolutely pure, and I could just. Touching it filled me with bliss, Let alone drinking it. I could bathe in it. All I wanted to do was. And then every day I would sit down. Your name is. Repeat that. Your name is Stillness. Boom in. And then later, you showed me that poem, and I'd been thinking this thought, your name is Stillness, simply because it triggered the bliss. And then you wrote it in a poem. You showed it to me in a poem that had been written before. That is my Woo Woo story.

[B]

And then years later, we did a podcast where we premised the whole thing on two songs, One being, you've got to put down the ducky if you want to play the saxophone. And the other being a Leonard Cohen song where it says, out of which the nameless makes a name for one like me. Yeah, your name is Stillness. That's your name. Smart marketing and communications director, Stillness.

[A]

Can I tell another story about it?

[B]

No, you may not. Of course you can.

[A]

So I was sitting in the forest and I was meditating. I had my eyes closed. I opened them, and parading past me was a group, a flock of wild turkeys.

[B]

Do you have any turkey facts you'd like to share before we move on?

[A]

There's so many turkey facts, but I'm gonna spare you that because I want to tell you the. The meat of this story.

[B]

Turkey meat.

[A]

Turkey meat. Absolutely. So I opened my eyes, and they were all going past. And I swear to God, Ro, the moment I opened my eyes, they all froze. Like we were playing the game. Statue like one foot up, their heads, off to the side, and they just froze, all of them. And I was like, that's so freaking weird. And Then they just stayed that way. And then I said, I wonder how many there are. And I started counting them. The moment I started counting, they all like came out of their freeze and started walking around again. That's interesting, but I was so obsessed with meditation, I really didn't care. So I just went, your name is stillness in closed my eyes, opened them up maybe half an hour, 40 minutes later, all 17 of these turkeys that were 17 were lying on the ground. Lying with their heads totally stretched out, which is not even how they sleep. They sleep perched.

[B]

Turkey facts.

[A]

Turkey facts. Turkey facts. They sleep perched. There's something. There's a meta thing that wants us to give everything up. Not because it wants to rob us of anything, but because it wants us to hear music, you know? Yeah, that grasshopper was playing a saxophone.

[B]

You gotta put down the aphids if you want to hear the grasshopper. Yeah, it feels like I've heard you tell that story about the turkeys before, but not since you wrote Beyond Anxiety, where your research and breaking things down to be super easy led me to understand a little bit about the brain. And I. It now feels kind of like very easily explained in terms of like a combination of things like energetic fields, which I feel like we're pretty close to being able to measure with some instrument or whatever.

[A]

You know, if you magnetometers can measure electromagnetic energy like 10ft away from your.

[B]

Body, what I guess what I mean is you clearly between the meditative state and the counting, you flipped from your right hemisphere dominated.

[A]

Yeah, from my whole brain to the left.

[B]

So you were broadcasting right hemisphere. You were broadcasting all that good stuff. You, the, you know, the nameless. And then you started counting and that's like a switch over. And then. Yeah, everyone comes out of their trance. Like, it almost feels less. Woo, woo. Thank you. The chipmunks coming and sitting on your lap.

[A]

To us it does. I think a lot of people are like, I don't know, with the fields and the brain and everything.

[B]

Look, have you ever seen a mood ring? Okay, the jury is back. Like, the jury is not still out about auras. I rest my case, your honor.

[A]

How many cases are you arguing here today? I have many skills, and part of it's a legislative thing, but part of it's in the courtroom, and part of.

[B]

It is like we're recording in the interrogation room.

[A]

Ah, yes, yes.

[B]

For the purposes of the tape. Is this thing on? Hello, hello. Testing, testing.

[A]

A witness declines to answer. So here's the thing.

[B]

On the grounds that I may incriminate Myself, always.

[A]

So here's the thing that I think we all have these senses that are telling us where to go for the nameless. And I think that deep inside ourselves, we know when we're too full of the world's things to fly, too full to hunt for that. I mean, the word raptor for hawk is the same word as the word rapture. It means to be taken by something away. So we have.

[B]

That's a really good hawk fact.

[A]

That is a good hawk fact, isn't it?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I'm just gonna sit with that for a second. Okay. So we feel inside ourselves just like a goshawk does when we're being overfed. Stuff, information, jobs, chores, wealth, status and power, it can all be overdone. And it makes us feel either longing for something else or edginess and then, in my case, real frustration and then panic that I have to go in search of the nameless. But to do that, we have to be countercultural. Quit your job for a beam of sunlight. Quit your life to go walk in the woods. Quit it all.

[B]

Yeah. If you want everything, be prepared to give up everything.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Sorry, that's a bad.

[A]

If you would be given everything, give everything up. Thank you. Stephen Mitchell's translation.

[B]

Thank you, Stephen Mitchell. Yeah, I was gonna say. I don't think. Whatever.

[A]

Yeah, that was his. Yeah. And Laud's, obviously. Yeah. So, yeah, that's a way to be wilder, for sure.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

To listen for that. For the thirst.

[B]

For the thirst to go into the beam of sunlight and dance around with the.

[A]

With the dust motes and to remember, you cannot stuff that in. It's not an item that can be shoved in with what you've got. It relies on putting things down.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And if you. At first, the culture says don't put everything down until there's something to grab, but what we're saying is put it down when there is nothing to grab.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Because that, if nothing else, is how we're going to stay wild.

[A]

People are always asking me, how did you get into training life coaches? And the answer is backwards. I did it backwards. That is, I didn't set up a program and then look for people to fill it. It's just that so many people were coming to me for coaching that I realized in order to serve the market, I was going to have to train other people in my methods. That was decades ago. And now the Wayfinder program contains all my very best wisdom and tools for living, boiled down to their savory essence. Now, if that sounds interesting to you, head on over to MarthaBeck.com and find your way.