Loading summary
Transcript243 lines
- [00:07]
Warwick Schiller
Journey on Magic lies within the trails we ride.
- [00:12]
Kansas Carradine
You're listening to the Journey On Podcast with Warwick Schiller.
- [00:15]
Warwick Schiller
Warwick is a horseman trainer, international clinician and author who helps empower horse people from all over the world with the skills, knowledge and mindsets needed to create trusting partnerships with their horses.
- [00:28]
Kansas Carradine
Warrick offers a free seven day trial.
- [00:30]
Warwick Schiller
To his comprehensive online video library that includes hundreds of full length training videos and several home study courses@videos.war schiller.com just because you see what he shows G'day everyone. Welcome back to the Journey On Podcast. I'm your host, Warwick Schiller and this week on the podcast I'm joined by Kansas Carradine for round number two. You know, when I had Kansas on the podcast the first time I had her on because she would, you know, she's the daughter of a famous Hollywood actor, has done some acting herself, done a bit of stunt work and was a trick writer in Cavalier and was a trick roper for a lot of her teenage years too. And so I thought her story was really interesting. But what I didn't realize was that Kansas also has quite a bit more of a story as far as her personal growth and her spirituality. You know, after she was on the podcast, I she showed up at a horse expo in Australia that I was at and I think we went out to dinner three out of the four nights I was there and I learned a great deal about Kansas and I thought I've got to get you back on the podcast to talk about some of this stuff. And then since then we've been on our amazing Gaucho Derby adventure. So I thought I'd get Candice back on here to talk about our adventure in the Gaucho Derby and also, you know, just her journey of personal development and her spiritual journey as well. You know, last year when she presented at the Journey on Podcast Summit and I introduced her, I said that she's down, she's as far down a lot of these spiritual rabbit holes that people who kind of specialize in spiritual rabbit holes. And speaking of people that specialize in rabbit holes, I want to tell you guys about our podcast summit we're having here in Paso Robles, California, October 24th to 27th, or actually 28 this year. You know, this is our third year doing the podcast summit and as I speak right now, we're leaving in a few days to go and do one in the UK as well. But these gatherings are so special that the presenters are amazing and the people that show up to listen to the presenters are just as amazing and it just makes the energy just, it's like nothing I've ever experienced before. You know, some of the amazing guests coming to the summit here in Paso Robles, California. Emily Kott is coming all the way from Sweden. Noni Boone's coming from Australia. Kelly Wilson is coming from New Zealand. And then, you know, we've just got so many, had so many amazing guests these last year or so, you know. Stacy Westfall, who was on the first season of the podcast, is coming. Jordana Annawal, Donna Gamarka, guard Stacy Westball, Hollywood stunt woman, Hannah Betts, Leif Halberg, the amazing Kelly Windorp. That list just goes on. But I'm really, really excited to have them all come here to our hometown, our new hometown of Paso Robles, California. There's still tickets available for that. If you want to get a ticket to come and attend and listen to these and meet these amazing people, you can go to summit.warwickshiller.com and that's where you can get your tickets. So now, without any further ado, we'll get to my conversation with the amazing Kansas Carradine. Kansas Carradine. Welcome back to the Journey on podcast.
- [03:59]
Kansas Carradine
Oh, thank you so much for having me here, Warwick. It's absolutely a pleasure.
- [04:03]
Warwick Schiller
It's so good to see you again.
- [04:05]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, it's in a totally different context where before we had never met and now we've had many hours of face time, horse time and gaucho time together.
- [04:14]
Warwick Schiller
Gaucho time. Yeah. You know, it's really interesting. When I first had you on the podcast, you know, you had this interesting story, you know, daughter of, you know, Hollywood royalty sort of thing. And then you, you joined Cavalier. Oh, sorry, you go to Riata Ranch or a trick rider, you're a trick rope. And then you join Cavalier and you had all these, you know, it was more focused on that part of your life. But in the ensuing, it's probably been a couple of years since I had you on the podcast the first time I've become aware that you have got this very deep spiritual life. And you know, I became aware of it and then we spent some time together earlier, quite a bit of time earlier this year and I became more aware of it, which was the Gaucho Derby. And well, even before the Gaucho Derby we went and did that endurance race in Southern California. And, and you know, it was a gaucho derby practice. So we had our, we had our tents, we're going to eat the freeze dried food and we had tents side by side there. And first thing in the morning, I'd wake up and hear you in there chanting in what I believe is Sanskrit. Is that correct?
- [05:28]
Kansas Carradine
Yes, that's correct. And that's a practice that I've. I've had for definitely more than a decade. So you would have had a little glimpse to my, you know, personal morning routine, which just kind of sets the tone for the day. But, yes, I've been very attracted to Vedic knowledge or Vedic East Indian influences and teachings, as well as Native American and other, you know, I think Buddhism is quite common and then other religious, spiritual practices as well.
- [06:01]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, we're going to. We're going to get into that, but we probably should talk about some of our adventures on the Gaucho Derby. You know, I did a podcast where I interviewed some of the people who were on the race with us, and I haven't actually got to talk to you about it. And I spent. Apart from one night, we. We spent the whole race together.
- [06:22]
Kansas Carradine
We certainly did. Yeah, we did. We clocked a lot of. A lot of hours. Long, beautiful days and many adventures and jokes and mishaps and everything. Blood, sweat and tears.
- [06:33]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. What was so interesting was, you know, we decided we were going to do this thing together. And, you know, Dan and Elliot were along, too, but Dan and Elliot were pretty gung ho and were, you know, kind of in race mode, where we were kind of more in want to enjoy the journey mode. And so we kind of had decided, you know, if the boys get going faster than us, then we'll just decide to split up. But when we drew our horses, like today, we started. When we drew our horses, you, you know, they drew them in alphabetical order. So you're a carradine, I'm a sheller. So you drew way early, I drew way late. You drew number 201 and I drew number 202, which we thought, well, that was interesting. But then when we go and look at those horses in the corrals, they're a pair. Like, they. They made it up there. And. And then when we got going, I spent the first day and a half talking to the back of your head, because my horse didn't want to go beside your horse. Just wanted to kind of follow along.
- [07:36]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, well, it's funny because in the official photography, there's pictures of your horse and my horse together, and you can see also the great difference in size and type. And so you had what seemed to be kind of like a gated cross, little short steps, and I was on like the 16:1 hand paint that had a really long stride. And the fascinating thing is that we did seem to go together as long as you were just butted up right against me. And we covered all that ground on that first day.
- [08:02]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, you were right about mine being some sort of a gated horse that, you know, for you listeners, the terrain there, even when it's not rough terrain, it's very rough. Whatever looks flat is not flat at all. And a horse's front foot, left front foot might land 12 inches lower than its right front foot, and it's pretty rough. And when we first took off, right from the very start, we started trotting, and I've got had the GoPro on, and I heard myself say, oh, God, this horse is rough. And the horse was rough until we hit the rough stuff, the uneven stuff. And when it was uneven, it kind of evened that horse out, and it wasn't quite so rough. But I thought I was in for a rough couple of days because when we first trotted off, that horse was really rough.
- [08:50]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah. I mean, there was such a variance in the type of horses, whether they were draft crosses or had, you know, short backs and short stride. We had a whole range gamut of it. And of course, it was the luck of the drawing each morning when we drew, or each day, rather.
- [09:05]
Warwick Schiller
Each day that we drew. Yeah.
- [09:07]
Kansas Carradine
And, you know, I never told you this, but I will say that the last night was very poignant before we actually embarked on the race day. So the last night at sunset, I kind of drifted away. And as you know, I wasn't really into the late nights of rum or wine. And so I went out drinking, I think. Oh, that's right. It was gin. The sun was setting and I went out to the herd and a bunch of horses were all dispersed. And I just found it interesting as I was watching the geometry of the horse placement, and there was four horses and two geldings kind of paired off with each other, and then a mare and this older gelding kind of paired off with each other. And in that moment, it showed me an interesting thing that what you had just said at the beginning that we have these other kind of friends that we had thought that we were going to spend more time with. And then you and I ended up, right from the get go, really having a kind of a different destiny.
- [10:05]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, it was interesting how that ended up, you know, Dan. Right. You know, five minutes after we left the start line, or maybe 15 minutes, I don't know, dropped his GoPro and had to go back and try and find it. So we got, you know, Elliot went back with him, so we kind of get separated there a little bit. And then when we got to that first vet check and Nico's horse got tangled up in the wire fence and I kind of had to help him for a bit and Daniel, it kind of caught up then. But then we come out of that vet check and we go the wrong side of a fence and end of the first day, we're at the back of the pack.
- [10:43]
Kansas Carradine
Well, it's funny because that moment to me was really pivotal as we veered off and. Or actually when we came into VC1. So the first vet check station and that horse that you say was Nico's horse was actually the horse that I rode for the whole academy. So I rode him for three days. They asked me, do you want to change horses? I said, no, Ian are getting along great. And I grew quite attached to this gray kind of Percheron.
- [11:07]
Warwick Schiller
He's a big horse.
- [11:08]
Kansas Carradine
So when we came into that vet check and saw him in the fence, I don't know if you remember, but I kind of freaked out and was like, go save him now, please. I'll hold your horse. Because you had the wire or some, some, you know, not real fence cutters, but wire cutters. And not everybody went to go and rescue that. Like, if we had not made that choice, we probably kind of would have been in a different time schedule. But that. And I was looking at the video recently, it was, it was definitely a moment that I got triggered right from the get go because I was really emotionally drawn to his care and wanting to make sure he was okay. And thank goodness you did get him out. But it was, there was no question in the moment, like, a lot of people kind of cruised onto their next placement in the vet check. But in that moment it was like, no, we're looking back behind and we're going to take care of that horse.
- [12:01]
Warwick Schiller
Well, I was kind of set out in the rules that, you know.
- [12:08]
Kansas Carradine
One.
- [12:08]
Warwick Schiller
Of the most important things is horse health care and sportsmanship too. And like, you know, I don't think anybody was going to get that horse out of the fence on his own. Nico wasn't going to get him out of the fence on his own. He was pretty stuck in there. But yeah, it's interesting how things like that kind of changed the course of the whole race.
- [12:29]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah. And that is one of the beautiful aspects of it because as along the way, it became very clear right away that everybody was there to help Each other. When the going got tough, there was never a question of, oh, do I help? It was always, I would say, everybody across the board right away would rush in in a moment in need. And that was the most beautiful thing to see. And so then you realize that the winner, so to speak, the people who are at the leaders of the pack, it's. There's so many more variables that are really unexpected, that it was less about, you know, performance or talent or, you know, even, like combinations of chemistry between, you know, writing and partnerships. And it was really about all of these other aspects that came into play, which is really a symbol for life. Right. Those unexpected events. And it's not about the end result, but what you learn along the way.
- [13:19]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, most certainly. And I was just thinking about you. You know, you signed up very late for the race, so I kind of had a year and a half to get ready for it. You had six weeks to get ready for it, and two weeks or maybe 10 days before we left, you and I went to Southern California and did some in an endurance. A couple of endurance races. And you did a 30 miler one day, a 50 miler the next day, and a 30 mile of the third day. And I think in the endurance world that's, you know, that's a relatively good sized feat. And you'd never really done anything like that before, had you? Apart from a couple of practices not long before that?
- [14:02]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah. I think the biggest ride that I had done private prior to that point was some great, you know, endurance riders, Andrew and who Stevie had recommended and some other friends of mine from the California region that they hooked us up with. It was the. Sorry, I totally lost my train of thought. That 30 and that 50 and that 30 back to back.
- [14:29]
Warwick Schiller
What?
- [14:29]
Kansas Carradine
The longest ride I had ever been on before. Sorry, it was 18 miles. And so really to do basically 110 miles in three days was a big ask. And I'm sure you remember I was hurting by the end of day three because I really didn't take into account on the first day the importance of get dialing in your gear properly. And I had used different stirrups and different stirrup lengths. And this is kind of a funny back story, but as a trick writer, we really don't care that much about the length of our stirrups because they're made for tricks. So one might be three inches shorter than the other for different tricks. So you just become less reliant on it. And you're like, yeah, I'll go with it. It's Fine. Um, but not when you're riding 30 or 50 miles. So I took a quite a toll on, on my knees and my ankle. And I actually started out going to Argentina where I couldn't even hike up an incline at all. Like, I couldn't go a hundred feet up a hill and was a little bit fragile and wondering how that would pan out. So luckily it did work, um, in my. In, you know, my whole body stayed in. In good shape and in good condition. But that practice ride, I think also was good for us all to just understand, like, pacing and the mental solitude with it. Because I don't know if you remember, but I wrote a lot with Topsy, but on my own, which was great. And those Sanskrit mantras that you were talking about, you know, Topsy and I were just hanging out, sometimes singing cowboy songs or sometimes chanting Indian scripture.
- [16:02]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, I think the days on that 30 and the 50, when I think it was the 30, the last day, the Sunday when your ankle and knee were really bothering you, that's when you really got tuned in the Sanskrit.
- [16:15]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, exactly. It all added up. And that's such a. Just a good reminder. Like, it's cumulative. If you don't care for it in the beginning, then it can be a problem down the road. And I remember in the course briefing at the derby itself, the medics really stressed the importance of self care. If you don't take care of yourself, if you don't hydrate, if you don't take care of those saddle sores, those blisters, those things like that, you actually become not only more vulnerable and susceptible, but also a burden to others. And so I think if there's one thing that all of this has, you know, that I walk away from is that really extreme attention to self care as a way to be responsible for how we contribute in the community.
- [16:58]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, I know on the Gaucho Derby, you know, it would take a couple of hours in the morning from waking up to getting on your horse and like all the, you know, I'm sure you had a routine too, but all the, like the blister medication, just, you know, just like all the. In your tent, just getting all the things organized so that you don't run into problems. That's before you even start pulling you, you know, rolling your sleeping bag up and, you know, make sure you put all the things on the things. And yeah, it was, it was quite the routine. And I remember when we're in Southern California, before we went at that, at that race you, that last day, you were what was it you. What was really painful trotting downhill, wasn't it?
- [17:46]
Kansas Carradine
Absolutely, yeah. Oh, it was excruciating. It was, you know, it was definitely like an 8 or a 9 out of 10. I was. I was calling uncle.
- [17:55]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, I remember you said we get off.
- [17:57]
Kansas Carradine
We got off and ran a little bit and everything, but that was. That last 30 in those last 10 miles or something downhill were really tough.
- [18:03]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah.
- [18:04]
Kansas Carradine
And again, it was just because I was. I pushed through some discomfort on the first day, and then the second day I was like, ah, it's kind of nagging. It's a little bit there, but I'm good. And then by the third day, it was like, no, this is. This is not sustainable. But I. I pushed through it anyway, and then I couldn't walk very well.
- [18:24]
Warwick Schiller
You know what's really interesting, though? Like, I had the same problem. Trotting downhill was bothering. I've got to arthritic knee and it was bothering me trotting downhill. But none of that, none of that bothered me on the actual couch. I do mean, I don't know if you're. If you're running on adrenaline or what it is, but, you know, you know that I was. I was totally surprised that my body held up during the getcha.
- [18:49]
Kansas Carradine
Sure. Well, and I think also in these curated courses where people have been running some of these courses for a long time in the AERC or in the endurance community, you know, those tracks are kind of groomed in a way to be able to hustle along. And you know, obviously in the gaucho, a lot of times we were not on any recognized trail and going down really steep downhills that we had to get off and walk. So that's one piece. And then also the medics did a really great taping job. So. Oh, I'm forgetting her name right now. Who does the Antarctica? And I want to say Chloe, but that's not right. Claire.
- [19:27]
Warwick Schiller
No, Clara.
- [19:30]
Kansas Carradine
And so she did. She also does ultra runners. Right. And so these incredible athletes are doing like 200k runs. And so she taped me up real good. And I think that that had a lot to do with it. It's just, you know, having really good.
- [19:44]
Warwick Schiller
Support medics like her, though, that do all sorts of crazy other adventures, you know.
- [19:51]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, expeditions.
- [19:53]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah.
- [19:53]
Kansas Carradine
You know, I keep repeating over and over again that the race directors, when they said people think this is a horse race, but it's not. It's an endurance wilderness survival expedition on horses. And that's, that's, that's a whole different Ballgame. We, we have horses or horsemanship and experience, but you got to have a whole other skill set as well.
- [20:17]
Warwick Schiller
I think that's the cool thing about.
- [20:18]
Kansas Carradine
It, to get out in that kind of environment again and just live simply with just your 10k of belongings and to be on a horse.
- [20:29]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, it was, I think it was. For me, it was a bit of a dopamine detox. But also, it's just, it's pretty simple, isn't it? Like, keep you and your horse safe and get to where you got to go to. That's it.
- [20:45]
Kansas Carradine
Well, and the thing that I really enjoyed, you know, crossing it with you too, is from the very get go, it's like we're on an adventure.
- [20:53]
Warwick Schiller
We were an adventure.
- [20:53]
Kansas Carradine
Just appreciating the beauty, appreciating the beauty, appreciating nature, appreciating the animals. It was, it was great to share that because, you know, you and I were definitely, and I will be very blunt, like, I think both of us took a hit of just a little bit of disappointment when your yellow horse went lame that one day because it was a bummer. It's like, oh, we got to turn around and go backwards. And there was a natural, you know, disappointment. That's just a human experience. You get attached, you're going forward, everything's supposed to be moving forward, and all of a sudden you have a setback. And that was unplanned. And I had written down my intention or motivation for going on the derby, and I went down by the river at that wonderful camp that we love. And I read that to myself a couple times and was like, okay, this is what it's about. And once I did that clearing, it was allowing the care and the understanding. Yeah, there was an attachment to keep moving forward or maybe to catch up with our friends, but that acceptance of what is in the moment and, you know, traveling across all those 430 miles, 600 what, 70 kilometers together.
- [22:03]
Warwick Schiller
80, 87 kilometers.
- [22:06]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, it was great. Most of the time. We both had smiles on our faces.
- [22:13]
Warwick Schiller
Most of the time. You know the thing, after you presented at our podcast summit last year, someone posted a picture of you on somewhere on Facebook and said something about the spiritually serene Kantus Caridine. And I've got to say that spending that whole 10 days with you on the race, I got to see that up close. Like, nothing bothers you, at least on the outside, but you can, you can keep your calm in all sorts of. All sorts of scenarios. And it was, it was actually quite a Pleasure to watch.
- [22:56]
Kansas Carradine
Well, I would. I'm human like anybody else. And so there's things that definitely bother and trigger me. And like every other human, we just keep striving to find the things to keep ourselves in balance. Yeah, that's been an ongoing journey. And the things that trigger get. Get in a way, like bigger and bigger and louder. And then we just, you know, have opportunities to recalibrate and use our tools and bring it back to center. Otherwise, what are we gathering all this information for? We have to use it and apply it.
- [23:28]
Warwick Schiller
Well, you got to see me not at my best a few times. And the grace with which you endured, that was actually quite humbling to watch or be a part of.
- [23:44]
Kansas Carradine
I don't think I would reframe it and say I didn't have to endure it. I genuinely was happy to be there with you. And holding space.
- [23:54]
Warwick Schiller
That's what you were doing, was holding space. Yeah, it was.
- [23:58]
Kansas Carradine
And I'll also say, too, you know, you held space for me, because if we can, you know, just be real. I think it was the morning after we had left what's the name of that nice camp that we went back to?
- [24:12]
Warwick Schiller
La Caninera.
- [24:13]
Kansas Carradine
La Caninera. And, you know, there's a real significant drought taking place in the climate region of the Santa Cruz of Argentina. And so I was really worried about not getting to water. I was worried about my horse. And I think, you know, if we track back, the first time you invited me to do this, I just thought, you don't want to be in a situation where I compromised my horse's welfare. That feels really uncomfortable for me. And so I was being challenged in that moment. And we were climbing up this one ridge that, you know what? Emily and Wendy found that arrowhead. But everything within me was like, this doesn't feel right. And I was falling apart. And you could feel. You're like, kansas, are you okay? And there was a very big, long pause as I tried to compose myself to speak without just bursting out crying, because that was another moment where I was really stretched. I was like, this is very hard. And that horse, I was worried about, and he came through the vet check. Fantastic. And then he ended up, you know, that last leg when we were trying to make it in on time, following you, and we ended up, you know, cantering that last leg in. He fed it fine. And I had no. It gave me such an incredible appreciation for how much more the horses are capable are than we are give them credit for or we have any idea.
- [25:34]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, we kind of learned that we learned that every day, didn't we? Like, how capable they were. But what was interesting about that day, like, okay, so we, you know, we leave my horse went lane the day before. We go back, we leave there in the morning, we get to the first vet check, not too bad. Then we cross the river, and then we make some decisions that, you know, make our day a whole lot longer. Several, if not three or four decisions that make our day a whole lot longer. And we just get in in time that night, and we think we've had a bad day. And then we start hearing the stories of some of the other people, and it's like, oh, we actually didn't have too bad a day at all.
- [26:13]
Kansas Carradine
Mm. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you start to realize really quick that you can be grateful for the small things. That our horses didn't get stuck in a bog, that our gear didn't fall off, that we were not, you know, bucked off or having stitches sewn up or being transported out of the race because of pneumonia due to impact and wrecks. All that was all that day happened? Yeah, on that particular day.
- [26:39]
Warwick Schiller
So all that happened that day. That was Mary's horse bucked off the cliff. Todd got drug and got stitches, and then Braden had pneumonia, and. Yeah, yeah. And we were thinking we didn't have the best day, but we had a pretty darn good day.
- [26:56]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah. And I think that's such an important, you know, takeaway, is that we just have to appreciate those small things, even when it seems like we've got a, you know, we're in a gloomy moment or the reign of misfortune is falling upon us. But actually, you know, we're here, our horses are great, and we're in Argentina on an adventure. I remember you repeated that several times.
- [27:23]
Warwick Schiller
Well, we did have a mantra, though, didn't we? At least we're in Argentina riding horses.
- [27:29]
Kansas Carradine
That was it. That was it.
- [27:30]
Warwick Schiller
No matter. No matter what happened, it's like, hey, look, we're in Argentina riding horses.
- [27:34]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, exactly.
- [27:35]
Warwick Schiller
Patagonia riding horses is what I think we'll say.
- [27:37]
Kansas Carradine
That's it. Yeah. And there was another thing that we talked about, too, a lot, which was being in the right time, being in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing for the right reasons with the right people.
- [27:48]
Warwick Schiller
We kept adding to it with the right people.
- [27:51]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah. So fun.
- [27:53]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. That got. That got. That got longer and longer and longer. How did you. How did you feel at the finish line when we finally all crossed that together and, like, met up with Dan and Elliot again. And how was that. How was that finish line for you?
- [28:08]
Kansas Carradine
Oh, you know, I mean, the finish line moment is one thing, but it was really the whole advent of it. So I would say the whole day leading up when we were, you know, crossing and saying, okay, we're going to reach finish camp today, because that whole day was one of the most beautiful, very difficult. There's no question. We crossed some of the most challenging sections. And that was after having, you know, completed the meseta or the plateau of death. And crossing the finish line itself. I have to admit, I seriously considered, oh, if I could just stay out one more night with my horse and just enjoy it as much as possible. I did not want to get off, but it was such a beautiful moment to see everybody and see the appreciation also for the people who had already arrived and just that mutual kind of relief of shared experience and the joy from everybody being able to cross with their horses safely and everybody being. Well, I mean, again, it's just appreciating the little moments.
- [29:09]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. And I think at some point in time there during that race, at least, I thought, we're not going to. We're not going to finish this thing in time. We won't. We won't actually finish in time. So to actually get across the finish line, it's not that I wanted it to end then. I was a bit like, you, like, yeah, I could go out and spend another night with my horse. Wasn't like I wanted it to end then, but I was actually glad to, like, yeah, we actually did. We did make it. And we did finish the thing because, you know, I thought for me, finishing was going to be a. A stretch. So. Yeah, so there was those. Those parts of the finishing that I. That I thought were really cool.
- [29:52]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah. Yeah, you made it. And I would say with a lot of comfort and ease, even on that last day. I mean, your body was strong. Horse was good. If there was one thing I would change that I talked to other people about, never take the high, shortest route.
- [30:11]
Warwick Schiller
That's the. Those are the two mistakes we made that second day. We went high twice.
- [30:18]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah.
- [30:20]
Warwick Schiller
And both times were not the best. That first high race, that first long detour, we went, oh, my goodness, that was a big old mountain that I didn't think was that big, looking at it from the bottom.
- [30:32]
Kansas Carradine
Yep, exactly. And the footing was such that it's not like you could have easy passage over it because it was so rocky with all this, you know, really, it wasn't like the pampas, you Know, with the uneven terrain that was soft, it was volcanic rock, it was just wasn't even shale. So that was really slow going.
- [30:51]
Warwick Schiller
And what was really interesting was there's was a lot of pyramid shaped, naturally formed rocks that had those little ayahuasca looking lizards on them too.
- [31:04]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, they were pretty cool and colorful. And then all my heart rocks, I mean, I must have seen, you know, at least a dozen or a couple dozen a day. Took as many pictures as I naturally could. I know I got scolded once for hopping off and catching too many feathers because I kept jumping up and off and on to collect treasures along the way. Heart rocks and feathers.
- [31:25]
Warwick Schiller
Heart rocks and feathers. Even saw a heart cloud one day.
- [31:28]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, we got that one documented too. And heart divots from the horse's hooves and again, some of the pompous or the grasses, how they would grow and yeah, hearts everywhere. It was pretty significant in my world. And the ride that we did in Ridgecrest, there was a huge heart that somebody had done with an airplane. The day that I rode the 50 where you were hanging out at the vet check station, I took a picture of that and sent it out to the crew before I was going. You know, it's like the hearts are everywhere. Follow your heart, stay in your heart.
- [32:03]
Warwick Schiller
They're everywhere. So for you, post, post gaucho derby, what do you. What do you feel like? What do you feel like the gaucho derby did for you, if anything?
- [32:16]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, I mean, I think I already explained that our capacities are way more beyond than what you expect and really to appreciate. Just I appreciated the application of tools that I put in before. So it really helped me have a deeper understanding of how I work with, communicating with animals on an energetic realm before, because I think I shared a little bit about you is just really broadcasting and communicating with them before you ever meet. It's not based on proximity. And that was a real amazing takeaway. And then the other piece is just how simple life can be. And paring things down actually brings a massive amount of joy. I had been in a complicated, I would say, like kind of city life. And although I love being out in nature, like a lot of us, it resources us to really make a deliberate time. Like I've. I've penciled in sometime in the calendar this fall to really go out into the wilderness again, more backpacking and things like that. I think it just brought a greater awareness of those things that are the most important to me.
- [33:33]
Warwick Schiller
You've done a lot of like hiking in the Sierras. And stuff, haven't you?
- [33:39]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah. I did my first backpacking trips, like, right out of high school, and then I did a lot of camping. You know, I would say starting in like sixth or seventh grade, we actually would camp with the girls at Rieta Ranch. No parents since, like, you know, between 8 and 13 year olds. I would say it was kind of like Lord of the Flies with girls, but we would go out into the back paddock, which was like 30 acres, and it was all these hog wallows and oaks and things like that, and horses were out there in burrows and things. And we would go out for the long weekends, holiday weekends, President's Day, you know, if we didn't have a show. So it was usually the winter holidays because the summer we were always busy. And we'd go out for a few days and then we would, you know, make makeshift bridles out of baling wire and twine and try and pretend that we were indigenous cultures living out there in the wild. So I always loved just being in the dirt and living with as little as possible and then living up in the Sierras. And I led a couple of groups up into eastern Oregon as well, where we did these high backpacking kind of horse camping, pack trips. And there's just. My kids have done a lot of cool things. They've lived a really fun life. And the kids would always walk away saying that was the best week of our lives ever. You know, I mean, literally crying when we had to come back into the little village that had like 2,000 people. Because there's just something really great about being in the wilderness and just being there with your horse and living really simply.
- [35:17]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. So let's. You just kind of touched on it right there from Router Ranch. But let's talk about your. How would I explain this? Well, last. Last year at the podcast summit, you know, we had amazing people there. You know, we're like, we had Denise, Elizabeth Byron, everybody's favorite astrologer. You know, we had yoga people. We had. We had all kinds of people. And when I introduced you, I said, any of you guys here that are down a rabbit hole, whether it's like Denise is down the astrology rabbit hole and someone else is down the yoga rabbit hole, or someone else is down the meditation rabbit hole, I said, I guarantee you Kansas is as far down that rabbit hole as you are, except she's down all the rabbit holes. So can we talk a bit about how that came about? I know you. You had told me that your. Funny enough, your dad, you know, Played the kung fu guy on the TV show. But your dad was kind of into Eastern philosophy, too, wasn't he?
- [36:20]
Kansas Carradine
He was. And so that was an authentic curiosity, I would say, or natural interest. But the other thing that I would say is that growing up in California or on the west coast at that time, there was just a lot of exposure to spirituality from all realms. So my mom was Catholic, my grandmother very Catholic. My dad was raised Christian Science, and very strong belief in the power of God to heal always. And then when I was born, there was more of this expanded, you know, hippie culture that we could say that was really prevalent in the late 70s and 80s. And my father was actually playing. He had long finished kung fu, which ended in 72, I think he was also playing a black elk speaks on stage. And so that's for those who don't know, that's the Lakota prophet who did a lot of channeling. And they actually documented a lot of the visions that he had for the Lakota nation. And so Native American artifacts were all around the house. And yet I would watch my dad, you know, getting acupuncture and working with Chinese doctors and being influenced by Zen Buddhism. And so all of that was just. I was raised in that kind of a soup. And that, I think, gave me a type of awareness that there's more to life than just this 3D experience. There's something else, and there's all of these other kind of pieces of the pie, and around the center of it, each of them have, like, a little tiny bit of the truth all sprinkled in. So, yeah, a lot of exposure to many different things. And then that just, I would say, created a natural curiosity to continue to explore. And there was a desire inside me to search for truth and for meaning and for a deeper awareness and understanding of the human experience.
- [38:25]
Warwick Schiller
Before we go further into that, remind me again, what was the stuff that your dad used to make and bury in a bottle in the backyard?
- [38:32]
Kansas Carradine
And what the Jiao Zhao. Dita Zhao. So dita zhao is. It's kind of like a common term for, like, a healing salve, from what I understand. I do not speak Chinese, so anybody can correct me, but a lot of the martial arts community, they call it jiao, and there's different recipes for people's jow. And basically, it's like a concoction of herbs that steeps in, you know, alcohol, where you make, like, a tincture, and then you put it on, like, you know, you can even have a carrier agent, like DMSO to Really get it to penetrate. And so I remember growing up, and my dad would make his own ditto that he got from an old recipe that was written in Chinese, and he would, like, take it to a Chinatown, because he was always in different Chinatowns over the years. And they would look at it and look at the ingredients and look at him with kind of quizzical expressions. And then they'd tell him that it'll take a while to get all the ingredients, but he would compile them, and some of them were like, you know, a snake coiled up in the bottom. I remember seeing, like, a seahorse in there, you know, claw talons of birds and things like that. So it. And then you would bury it in the ground in a glass jar for a year, and that's where it would steep and also basically get kind of earth energy. And I actually took some contemporary. Did a job from another herbalist that's, you know, modern on the gaucho derby with me to help with any pains and strains and things like that. So it seemed to be useful. I put it on my. My healing or, excuse me, my ailing ankle in order to heal it before I started.
- [40:09]
Warwick Schiller
I think that's where I. You told me about that, because you had that little bottle, and you tell me, yeah, my dad used to make this thing and bury it in the ground for a year and.
- [40:18]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Did such a job. And, you know, it's funny, I've had a reflection in the last couple years because people always ask me, did you do martial arts? And I said, no. But I was really influenced by watching that show, which, again, was off the air maybe six years before I was even born. But I do remember watching the reruns, and I thought, oh, my gosh, it was such an influence that there's, like, this master disciple relationship. And I ended up, you know, moving into Riata Ranch, where there was this apprenticeship that took place. And horsemanship, the art of horsemanship from the last, what, 2,000 plus years, is very much apprenticeship and master disciple type of relationship. And then there's still this extra level of, like, guru disciple or spiritual. Spiritual knowledge that is being given when the student is ready. And so I thought that was fascinating how that was kind of steeped into my subconscious for a long time since I was, you know, a child. And I realized, okay, I've never done martial arts in the traditional sense, but trick writing is indeed a martial art because it was created and generated out of, I would say, warfare or improving the skill set of the mounted soldier. So all of that repetition, training the mind to be very, I don't want to say austere, but very focused, being capable of doing difficult tasks, going through pain. The number one thing I say if I ever teach trick riding to people is trick riding is not comfortable. It's very painful in lots of ways. So that martial arts came about through a western entertainment group, but it was the same type of training just through a different medium.
- [42:05]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, it's not necessarily a martial art, but it is a discipline that has all the, the same ingredients as a martial art. You know, there's the pain, there's the, you know, there's the dedication, there's the, you know, having that. Oh, what's the word I'm looking for that I'm stuck for right now? I mean, just the discipline of showing up and doing the work.
- [42:38]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, it's very methodical. And you mention a lot in your horsemanship conversations. You gotta put in those 10,000 hours or putting in the work. And most people just see the easy end result. People see this trick riding and wow, that looks so fun. But you don't see the times that you fall off and hit the dirt or all the bruises and building up the calluses and going through each trick, you know, hundreds of times at a standstill, then hundreds of times at a walk, and then hundreds of times at a, at a trot. And that gives you, you know, you build capacity in the struggle. So in the struggle to get back on, you're building the muscles that you need to make it look easy when you're at a gallop.
- [43:23]
Warwick Schiller
Right.
- [43:24]
Kansas Carradine
And that's with everything in life. We build capacity when we're struggling. Yeah.
- [43:28]
Warwick Schiller
And I think you build a capacity in those, those early stages, like you said, practicing the trick at the standstill thousands of times. I mean, that's where the discipline is, because you're not doing the thing yet. And I don't think it matters what you do. If you're going to be have mastery at anything, you've got to put in the work. You know, I like to quote, you know, karma yoga, focusing on a task with no thought as to the outcome of that task. You're not worried about the end result. You're just doing what you're doing right now in the moment.
- [44:06]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah. It specifically said that we are not entitled to the fruits of our actions. We just perform them without expectation.
- [44:19]
Warwick Schiller
That sounds like something.
- [44:20]
Kansas Carradine
And that's. That takes a while to get a lot get around to. Right. But it's something to ponder. Yeah.
- [44:26]
Warwick Schiller
It seems like something the character your dad played would have said.
- [44:30]
Kansas Carradine
Well, it's funny. And you say that because. Actually, I was thinking that recently, the traveling, you know, we talked before you started pressing record, you know, because I move around a lot. I mean, I haven't stayed longer in one place more than a month in probably the last three years. And usually I'm moving every few days or every week, which is very similar to kind of like a wandering monk or quiet chain cane in Kung Fu. And I thought, oh, my gosh, here I am just acting out this particular caricature.
- [44:58]
Warwick Schiller
It's so funny what myself and another. A number of other people on the Gacha, Debbie noticed, is because you're a professional gypsy, you're the best packer we've ever seen. You know how to pack.
- [45:13]
Kansas Carradine
I am pretty good at packing and unpacking and repacking and, yeah, being efficient. It was funny because I have somewhere a video when I went up to Stevie Delahunt's in Oregon in the very beginning, because I had only those six weeks. So in the first, I would say two weeks of my, my crash course to get ready, we weighed all of our stuff. And she was like, well, you look pretty good. You're at like 8 kilos. And I was like, huh? Do you think I need anything else? And she goes, this is pretty great. Most people are over. It's like, well, I'm going to add this, this and that. She's like, yeah, I think it's pretty good. So I was pretty relaxed with that going into it. And then when we actually had to do the weigh in, in the moment, I mean, you and I both, even though I'm a good packer, I also must have weighed my items 1500 times because you just go back and forth. I mean, the amount of time I spent weighing things. But when I got there, it was just done. There was nothing to remove. It was. It was clear and clean and we were ready to go.
- [46:11]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, that whole packing thing was a. Was a great lesson in, you know, I was so disappointed I couldn't take enough food and whatever. And, you know, by the time I got to that last horse station the night before we finished and I got another resupply bag, I tipped it all out in the ground. I looked at it and said, I don't need any stuff. And I put it all back, which is. Which is not the same person that packed it nine days previously, like, I need some stuff.
- [46:39]
Kansas Carradine
Absolutely. Yeah. I was happy to share a little bit, but of course, all my meals are vegetarian.
- [46:45]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, but You. You. What was that thing with the ginger crystals?
- [46:52]
Kansas Carradine
Oh, yeah, that disposable ginger crystal teas. And then the. I had, like, a chia seed porridge.
- [46:59]
Warwick Schiller
Chia seed porridge with the ginger crystals. You. You gave me that for breakfast one morning, and it was delicious.
- [47:05]
Kansas Carradine
Good.
- [47:06]
Warwick Schiller
I'm glad I was delicious, or I was just really hungry, but it was good.
- [47:11]
Kansas Carradine
Good.
- [47:12]
Warwick Schiller
That was good. It was good.
- [47:14]
Kansas Carradine
Well, and I think being the traveling gypsy also with two kids in tow, made me pretty ingenious about, you know, snacks on the go when you don't have access to a kitchen and around the world where the food is not necessarily going to please a North American toddler palate. And so I get really good at, you know, being the soccer mom, bringing out the snacks and all the time.
- [47:36]
Warwick Schiller
Right.
- [47:37]
Kansas Carradine
Over the years and just being able to pack efficiently with that. So I got to put all of those things into use. This whole gacha experience, I felt like the kids told me afterward, they're like, oh, my gosh, this. You were so made for this. It was so fun.
- [47:51]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, it was the. You've been preparing for that for a lot longer than six weeks, I think.
- [47:57]
Kansas Carradine
So, yeah. Life had been preparing me unknowingly.
- [48:01]
Warwick Schiller
Yes. So speaking of preparing unknowingly, I talked about, you know, some of the. The spirituality you got from your family growing up. What was. What was next after that? Because I know that you have a. You have a guru from India that you are quite fond of, and I'm just wondering, what was the next part of your spiritual journey?
- [48:24]
Kansas Carradine
Well, you know, I actually was really connected to Christianity through high school and had a really deep love for Christ and for singing praise and being involved and in fellowship. And I also. I actually have Native American ancestry. So that's been told to me my whole life, although it wasn't. It was kind of frowned upon from my grandmother's generation. So it was hidden. And I really wanted to explore that after I just had that natural desire in my early twenties to learn more about that connection as well. And so I was. I mean, it was really serendipitously that I was connected to Lakota, Cheyenne and Chumash Nation, people from the Chumash, Lakota, and Cheyenne nations. So the Chumash is the region in California coastal indigenous people. And then Lakota is, of course, North American plains, and then Cheyenne is also North American plains. Very strong horse culture as well. And I began to participate and learn about their ceremonies and spend time on the reservations and learn the ways of really listening. And there's a different. Anybody who spent any time with, you know, first nations, people of America, there's a very specific languaging pace, expression, perception of time, assignment of meaning. And it all just clicked with me. I would say my descent. I've always been told that I was Cree, although I haven't ever been able to, you know, trace all of that back. But it really, I would say, touched my heart in such a way. And I would always explore spirituality with relation to sound. So with music, and it just opened. Broke up in my heart. So I very easily would just start weeping for no reason and be really touched on a deep level in terms of that communion. Both in Native American sweat lodges as well as in Sunday church services, there was no different. To me, it's all. It's all the same. And I would add that a lot of people associate the Carradine name with the lineage of actors, but I want to say it's five generations back. There's a famous Carradine named Beverly Carradine who's written over 20 books on sanctification and was one of the founding members of, like, the Holy Roller movement and was a very strong evangelist and documented a lot of it. So it's fascinating to see that that was also kind of, you know, in my lineage. And how.
- [51:17]
Warwick Schiller
How far back was that?
- [51:18]
Kansas Carradine
Oh, he was born in the 18, mid-1800s. So I think it was. If I count back, maybe it's four generations. So my dad, grandpa. Oh, maybe it's just three. So my dad, Reed. Yeah, so sorry. It's just three generations back. So my great, great, great grandfather. Yeah.
- [51:41]
Warwick Schiller
Speaking of your family, not that I want to harp on your family, I wanted to talk more about the other stuff, but when we were riding either in Argentina or went to the. To the endurance race, you know, you get a lot of time to just ride along and chat and so your. Your grandfather was an actor who was in Stagecoach with John Wayne, is that right?
- [52:02]
Kansas Carradine
Yes, he was. And I mean, he. So my grandfather worked in the days before, um, there was even sound, so talkies. He was there for that whole revolution. You know, we talk about being here for the digital version, moving away from celluloid, but he was there when sound first came on the scene and worked on a lot of films without ever even getting billing. So he did over 500 films. And then eventually he was really famous for his voice, but he was like a classically trained Shakespearean actor who had a lot of stage experience and then, you know, took it into. Into cinema.
- [52:40]
Warwick Schiller
Wow. And then you Told me a crazy story about your mum. Your mum was good friends with some rather famous musicians, and one of them wrote a famous song in her living room.
- [52:54]
Kansas Carradine
Well, my mom was married to Roger McGuinn, who was a lead singer of the Birds. And so the Birds are famous for the song Turn, Turn, Turn and him, Mr. Tambourine man, which was written by, know, Dylan. But, you know, in the 60s that was. They were one of the biggest recording artists out there. And so she rubbed shoulders with everybody in that kind of Laurel Canyon scene, from the Beach Boys to, you know, Dylan as well as, you know, met Beatles and, you know, Jim Morrison, like, all those big crazy names. She was right alongside. And it was just very casual. Growing up in LA at that time. She was at Woodstock, she was at Altamont.
- [53:38]
Warwick Schiller
Okay, so, Tui, I want to hear about your guru, Amma. How did you. How did you come across her, and what was the story behind that?
- [53:50]
Kansas Carradine
So, Amma, for those who don't know, quite commonly it's referred to as the hugging saint of India. Her Sanskrit name is Mata Amitanandama, but most people refer to her as Amma, which basically just means mother. It's mother in the South Indian language. And she's really an embodiment of that motherly energy. And the first time that I heard about her was when I was living in Los Angeles and I was more doing stunt work down there in la. And there was these signs around for a spiritual leader that was coming to visit, much like we would see a sign posting a visit by the Dalai Lama or TikTok Hanh or something, and I just saw it and thought, oh, that'd be really cool to go to someday. It was just a casual passing thought. And year after year I would see these posters, but it was like passing ships in the night. I was never in town, like, shuck somebody be out of town that weekend. Or. And maybe I was off doing, you know, Cheval Passion in Avignon, France, with Fred and Magali Delgado. Or maybe I was in the. On the Lakota nation in the, you know, focusing on Native American spirituality, like, who knows? But I was never in the same town that time that Amma was there. And then fast forward when I was on the Cavalier tour and had taken a break because I trick road up until I was like, four months pregnant. But I decided I would finally take a break. And my midwife who helped me, you know, prepare for the home birth that I had was my older daughter, Phoenix. She had seen and met Amma and was actually, you know, what they call a devotee and was very intimately connected and knew all of these stories. So every one of my prenatal visits was filled with stories about this spiritual teacher. And she had every single book on the shelves and I was, you know, ravenously reading through them. She had, you know, magazines and documentary films and just really personal stories and stories and stories about, you go. You could call it miraculous things that happen and awareness and really this human who's an embodiment of love and compassion in a very motherly form. And I thought, gosh, I really want to meet Ama now. I feel so connected. Still didn't meet her. And so this is 2005, 2006, and went out and traveled around the world a couple times, again with Kavalia. And then when we had taken a break, it was actually right after meeting Dan James. So maybe Dan James was part of, you know, me meeting Cabela. We met him at Spirit of the Horse in WA in Perth, Australia, and then came back and I contacted my midwife and I said, hey, we're coming back into town. She said, oh, perfect, Amma's going to be here. You'll go see her on the Saturday night. And, you know, just made the arrangement for us. And I thought, oh, well, here it is. I didn't have to do any effort. I was just basically escorted in. And when I first showed up, it was this very busy scene, festival scene. You know, at the time, I was this natural granola hippie mum who didn't want too many, you know, bright colors or things that weren't organic in the environment. And all of a sudden I was just thrust into this very stimulating environment of, like, you know, giant Indian festival and concert. And I was like, okay, thank you. Got my hug, let me get out of here. Meaning I wasn't somebody who right away was, you know, caught by the bug, by being in the presence. But I came back and read every book and I just felt such a. A touch in my heart that every day, excuse me, every year that Amma came back to California, I always make sure. Made sure that I paid attention and to the schedule and was there attending a program for the visits. And it was really some of the first times I started meditating when I was in my early 20s, but it was really the first time that I was involved in a more, I would say, structured spiritual environment. And not to say that Native American spirituality isn't structured because it is absolutely steeped in tradition. And I would say, like, protocol. And there's containers for ceremonies, meaning there's Like a protocol for the way things unfold. But it was the first time I really been deeply done a deep dive into Indian culture, East Indian, so Vedic culture. And, you know, to be honest, Amma's influence, I would say, is definitely the number one factor in me becoming a person, like you mentioned earlier, that can roll with the punches, that can have an equanimous attitude about things from the 17 years now that I've been aware of her and listening to her teachings and being involved. So it was really after my dad's death in 2009 that I finally got that much closer and decided that I was going to really consciously say that, yes, she is my guru and take a mantra from her. Because the first two years, I thought, oh, that's too much responsibility. I don't know if this is the right thing. And then it was really after that that I started practicing chanting. So those first two years, I didn't. I was just kind of an observer on the periphery. And then it was in 2009 that just got cranked up a notch, I would say. And I didn't study a lot of other things, but I can rattle off for hours these different shlokas and mantras and different, basically, songs and ancient hymns that have been repeated for a long time. I spent a lot of time memorizing those. Which you heard a lot.
- [59:25]
Warwick Schiller
I heard a lot on the gaucho. You know, when the days got long and we were kind of weary, you'd be back there chanting in Sanskrit or up there, whichever. Whether you're behind me or in front.
- [59:38]
Kansas Carradine
Of me or singing cowboy songs.
- [59:40]
Warwick Schiller
I would alternate, I think, all singing cowboy songs. I remember one day. I think it was the day that. Second. The second day or the third? The third day. The third day when we. We made some navigational blunders and you were singing cowboy songs. And then you told me, didn't you, did you sing cowboy songs at, like, the Grand Ole Opry or the. What was the famous place that you sang at?
- [60:06]
Kansas Carradine
Oh, oh, I didn't on my own. No. But I was part of a magical choir in high school, and so we sang at Carnegie Hall.
- [60:15]
Warwick Schiller
Carnegie hall, that's right. That's right.
- [60:17]
Kansas Carradine
Carnegie hall is kind of a big deal. Yeah.
- [60:19]
Warwick Schiller
I remember exactly where we were when you. When you. When you told me that we're heading up that big Steve Hill.
- [60:24]
Kansas Carradine
Oh, gosh, of course. Well. And I would say that, you know, my connection to Amma is very similar in that song is very much a part of it. So anybody who's Ever seen an Indian spiritual teacher? A lot of times they'll be, you know, chanting, but there's also song. So it can either be called kirtan or bhajans. And so Amma, as part of every daily program, has about an hour and a half of singing. And some of those songs are these ballads to the human experience that we all undergo suffering. We are all experiencing the vicissitudes of life that throw us back and forth. And then some of them are purely devotional and joyful of just singing praise and enjoy with these different embodiments and forms. And really, you know, a lot of people have questions about the idolatry that's present in Hinduism. And it's really about respecting the qualities that are inherent in that particular form or deity. That's what is being praised and, you know, devotion itself. In the beginning, I found that when we're giving, when we're worshiping, we're first giving appreciation so that we can get some knowledge. So you sit down and you do a puja or you offer a prayer because you're looking to receive something. And then after some time, that same intention or prayerful ceremony or prayerful offering becomes really just something of gratitude because you have received so much or, you know, one is present to the infinite blessings that have really been coming down. So, yeah, at this point, after 17 years, I just show up to be happy to serve. I'm not trying to get. I'm really grateful to be able to give back.
- [62:10]
Warwick Schiller
Tell me more about Amma. How did she become the hugging saint? Do you know?
- [62:18]
Kansas Carradine
I do. So her story is quite interesting because she was born in early 50s in a small fishing village in South India in the middle of nowhere, really, and very, very conservative community. And she had, from a very young age, always exhibited this altruistic nature. So wanting to feed those who were hungry, even taking possessions from her own family, whether in the form of like, you know, jewelry or clothes or actual food and things like that, into the homes of those who are less fortunate, to the point that she was getting scolded, to the point that she was ostracized even by her community and her family at one point because they just didn't understand this crazy girl who didn't abide by normal protocol and rules of kind of social interaction. And she also didn't want to get married. She was not interested in being married off in a traditional Indian family. And she. It was very taboo to embrace someone of the opposite sex. And so she would care for everyone as though it was A motherly affection, even as a young girl, and embrace and, you know, lovingly touch people with real compassion, not with any other intentions. And so that was hard to accept. And she experienced a lot of opposition. Most people don't know this, but Kerala is a state in South India that has all religions very present. So Christianity, some of the oldest Jewish settlements and temples are there in Kerala, as well as Islam and then Hinduism, all concurrently operating. And so there was a lot of also rationalism that was emerging out of that, and those who felt that any devotion or attachment to dogmatic Hinduism should be eradicated. And so that led to real, you know, violence upon her. There was. She had to. I wouldn't say Amma had to try to work hard to overcome that. She just continued to flow with her natural expression of love. And eventually those who were in opposition became some of her most ardent supporters because they. They. They saw the authenticity and I would say the sincerity in her real embodiment of love. And so now she's 70, and for over 40 years, she has embraced what they estimate is over 33 million people around the world, where she'll travel tirelessly and give her darshan. And so darshan is a word that means having the sight of a holy person. And many saints, they will refrain from actual physical touch. But that's the unique thing about Amma's meeting with each individual, is that she wants to embrace them. And so for more than three, four decades, she's been individually meeting people with a loving embrace. And to the point that these crowds were totally unmanageable. I mean, thousands and thousands and thousands of people would come to receive amazhan. In India, the crowds were so great that at times she would sit for over 24 hours individually embracing, you know, without food, without rest, without getting up. And so. And then in the pandemic, it was interesting because as everything was locked down around the world, Amma continued to distribute programs, distribute food to those in need, and to create a massive humanitarian outwork network. So all of the charitable initiatives really came into play during that time. And she never stopped giving the daily programs of. Even though it was closed to outsiders. There was a live stream that was available to offer spiritual talks to create opportunities for support and outreach so that people would still feel that they were connected and had that wisdom, really, that her message is the compassion is the number one thing that can really solve all of the world's problems. That's really the essence of her teachings.
- [66:32]
Warwick Schiller
What's. What's it like to be in her presence? Is there. Is there, like, can you feel her in the room? Is it like an energy comes off her?
- [66:46]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, absolutely. Such that it's hard to see Amma when you're around her. She's constantly surrounded by a crowd of people, and so oftentimes the crowd is so thick, you can barely pick out maybe just the top of her head and her bun and their characteristic, you know, white sari that she wears. So she's always creating a magnetism. So, like bees to honey, everyone is buzzing around. And I would say that in the early days, I wasn't as perceptive to that. Energetic. I wasn't as energetically sensitive. And I could attribute that to, you know, my own walls that had been put up, different layers that had yet to be softened. But now, and especially with my awareness of learning about, you know, different energetic sensitivities with heart, mouth, with coherence, you know, learning about spectra analysis, what we're broadcasting is always being perceived by our animal beings. Like, we feel that. And so now I absolutely feel that we're setting. Stepping into a very great coherence that she broadcasts. So many people will try to sit as close as possible as they can when they're in physical proximity. But of course, I've also learned, and I said that earlier, connection isn't based on proximity. So after some time, we can choose to just attune ourselves to that particular resonance or that particular radio station, if you will, and be able to feel that same level of joy, comfort, compassion. For many people, it's quite striking. And for me as well, it's just been a long time. For the first time, to really feel this flow of love that is more profound and deep and authentic. And it's not based on any merit. It's not based on worthiness. It's just love for the sake of love, compassion for. Without a cost.
- [68:52]
Warwick Schiller
To quote another podcast guest, Emily K's daughter, it's. It's giving versus trading.
- [69:01]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, absolutely.
- [69:03]
Warwick Schiller
There's no. There's no. There's no expectation of getting anything back from it.
- [69:08]
Kansas Carradine
Mm, absolutely.
- [69:12]
Warwick Schiller
So in there, you mentioned heart math, and I know that you're really big into heart math these days, and you do a lot of teaching with that. Do you want to tell us about your foray into heartmath, how that started and. And its progression?
- [69:24]
Kansas Carradine
Sure, sure. Yeah. So about 20 years ago, I was at another spiritual teachers retreat before I met Amma named Gangaji, and I met someone there who became a dear, dear friend and mentor to me in heart math named Shavakar. And she taught me about the. The basic understanding that our emotions affect our physiology. And that by looking at our. The beat to beat changes in our heart, which is known as hrv, which obviously is now a big buzzword that that can affect our. Our thinking, our awareness, our perceptions. And that when we consciously make a decision to really activate the heart and collaborate with our heart intelligence, that that actually produces a measurable result so that we're in that flow state and that we can practice how to manually bring ourselves into that place. And so I was first introduced to it and as my own practice to manage through, you know, really the dark night of the soul and the challenges of life and the mental anguish of, am I doing the right thing? In my early 20s, where should I be in life? How can I be of service? You know, the Hollywood struggle was just not in alignment with my heart's blueprint. And it was painful because I was trying to do it for it seemed like it was a logical choice, but it really was uncomfortable. And so I felt like I was out of sync. And then when I found my alignment again, really with horses, with the horse world, and with live entertainment, that felt more in alignment. And so my joy started to unfold again, but naturally in life, it doesn't mean that there's a healing that occurs, that we never will experience sadness again. And so I continued to draw upon the heart math tools and, you know, as I became a new mother and then started to experience what we call over care, we're getting nervous or anxious about, oh, is the baby okay? Are they getting sick from this? Do I need to do that? Have they had enough sleep? Do they getting enough to eat? You know, all those things that we worry about. I didn't worry about horses. I was pretty calm and cool about that because I'd been raised in it, right? But all of a sudden I started to worry about this little human. And so the heart math tools became really effective to help me navigate through my own emotional highs and lows. And I became a heart math sort of a trainer just recently because I really wanted to be able to share that on a greater scale with groups. And so now it's been a perfect blend to marry the heart math teachings with some of the horsemanship conversation, because I find them to be so complementary. And it just creates such a rich dialogue as, you know, and, you know, our mammalian nervous systems. When we learn about ourselves, we learn about our horses. When we learn about our horses, we can apply it to ourselves, to our relationships between two leggets. And four Legates, as I call it.
- [72:28]
Warwick Schiller
Do you want to tell us a bit more about HeartMath? I don't think I've had anybody on the podcast who really went into HeartMath, and I think it's a subject that I think people would be interested in. So it was, isn't it, was it starting Boulder Creek or the headquarters in Boulder Creek, California?
- [72:47]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, the headquarters are in Boulder. Headquarters are in Boulder Creek, which is in the Santa Cruz Mountains and the coast of California, south of San Francisco. And really it started, you know, the first research that came out was in the mid-90s talking what I just said about how our emotions affect our physiology. And since then, there's a wide body of research that's began to explore that more and more about the power of what the term is called coherence. And so coherence is really looked at as a synchronization or an organization of all of our physiology. So your hormonal system, so your endocrine system, your cardiology, your nervous system, your immune system, when all of this is organized and synchronized, that's when we're getting into that flow state. It's an optimal state that's actually measurable. And we do that by measuring HRV with a really precise metric that's a little bit different than your average Fitbit or Apple watch. It's really a medical grade device that starts to notice the beat to beat changes that are broadcast by our hearts. And it's a really simple, there's a very simple technique called heart focused breathing, which is the most widely disseminated tool, I would say, and many people are familiar with a biofeedback device called the Inner Balance or the M wave. And these are some of the really pioneering biofeedback devices that started out in the late 90s to start to measure that coherence or that flow state based on an ordered rhythm that comes from your heart and gets documented as heart rate variability. So what we see is that when someone is experiencing an emotion such as frustration or anger, there's an erratic rhythm from the heart rate variability and that's really the ability to flex. So heart rate is not a metronome that's always 60 beats per minute or 90 beats per minute. On the inhale, there's actually an increase in heart rate and on an exhale it's naturally decreasing. And the heart focused breathing is really a regulated breath with even inhale and exhale. We did it at the beginning of our call, before we started the record button. And in the Military, when it's taught, it's looked at as tactical breathing or box breathing, where if you count to have that even inhale and exhale and it's imagining that the breath is coming in through the heart or chest area and exiting through the heart. And so it does two things. One, it creates that order. It creates focus and concentration, and there's an intention behind it to collaborate with our heart's intelligence. And so when those three things are present, it just starts to begin to unwind this fight or flight response. Or we get in a normal operating system that might be a little bit disorganized, we can say. And then we start to bring more mindfulness into that, to create that organization and to really begin to open up our perceptions. So the logo of heart math, which is quite interesting, is a plus sign with heart. And the idea is that when we add heart, we can actually open ourselves up to new possibilities, access that higher cortical thinking that is switched off when we're in a fight or flight state. And so having cortical facilitation allows us to really have the foresight and make better decisions so that we're responding to things as opposed to reacting. And so now over 30 years of documented research, they're starting to see how this is applied, how it's effective for frontline healthcare workers in educational systems, high level executives, and even circus cowgirls like myself.
- [76:28]
Warwick Schiller
So this, there's a couple of terms in there. One is hiv, heart rate variability, and one is coherence. And so can you explain those to me? Because variability sounds like it's supposed to be different, whereas coherence sounds like it's supposed to be the same. What exactly those, the, the beat to beat changes, are they supposed to be similar or they're supposed to be different? Are they supposed to be variable or they're supposed to be the same?
- [76:57]
Kansas Carradine
So it's a great question. So the beat to beat changes. What we're looking for is actually the capacity to be able to flex and have a higher heart rate when needed, but be able to down regulate and have that parasympathetic response as well. So it's a balance between the parasympathetic and a sympathetic nervous system. And when these are charted along on a, on a grid, if you will, through the biofeedback technology, you'll see that that equal inhale and exhale of that mindful breath coming as you rise, excuse me, as you inhale, the heart rate increases. And as you exhale with mindfulness and counting, it creates an even wave. And you'll see me on the screen right now, if the audience can see I'm moving my hand up and down like a sine curve with even peaks and valleys. When we have, when we hold our breath, when we're having these kind of shortness of breath, it's disorganized and chaotic and it's out of rhythm. So if the analogy I like to give is think of a 72 piece orchestra, everyone there might be playing a different phrasing with their different instruments, but they're all governed by the conductor who keeps the rhythm. And so in that sense, 72 different beings organized to create, to create beautiful music. But if there's one that has a different conductor, or five or six of them, or 17 of them get out of sync, the music doesn't sound as nice. And so that disorganized rhythm we look at is like static on the screen. Excuse me, static on the line. So it makes our broadcast just a little bit muddier. And this is why I found it to be really helpful to give languaging and explain how our horse messages might be confusing because they're coming in a disorganized fashion. So in preparing the individual to learn to step into coherence. So coherence we could say is really being in sync, synchronizing with that conductor, which is the heart, and in training with that heart rhythm through the mindfulness of being aware of our breath and then having that intention of collaborating with our heart. So there's actually an intrinsic cardiac system, a heart brain, if you will, that there's over 40,000 neurons in the heart itself. And when we look at even all of the conversation now about, you know, the vagal nerves, there's 80% of information that's actually coming from the heart up to the brain. So the brain receives the signals and then sends a message to like our gut. But the heart is sending those first. It's perceiving and receiving on a very intuitive kind of precognitive timing. And then the heart actually receives that sends the messages to the brain. Then the brain sends us, oh, I'm hungry, or oh, I'm nervous, or oh, I'm feeling cold.
- [80:09]
Warwick Schiller
You know, Candace, speaking of heartmath, you know, listeners might not know, but when we have someone present at the podcast summit the next, for the next year, after the podcast summit, once every I can remember, it's two weeks or a month, we have one of the guests who have been on the podcast and presented at the summit, they do an online Zoom to people who attended the summit. And I remember when you did yours, you were talking about heart math stuff and you said, I actually took notes. I wrote a line down that I, you know, I've done a little bit of work, but I'd never heard this before. You know, I have suffered from some depression, depressive type things in the past. But anyway, there was a. There was a thing that you said, and it said, unexpressed anger turned inward leads to depression. And I. And that was before the Gaucho derby. I'm pretty sure that was before the Gacha derby, wasn't it? When you.
- [81:12]
Kansas Carradine
Yes, yes.
- [81:14]
Warwick Schiller
And, yeah. And so part of depression is your senses are depressed, your emotions are depressed or suppressed. And, you know, I had a few. I did a whole podcast on it, but I had a few angry outbursts on the Gaucho derby that I haven't actually had in the past. And after the Gaucho derby, my emotions were working better than ever worked my entire life. No, you know, I've done some different therapies and all sorts of things. And after those, Those outbursts on the Gaucho derby, I had some stuff going on in my torso that was like, super cool. So I thought that was really interesting when you said that unexpressed anger turn inwards is depression. That is super cool. Can you tell us more about that?
- [82:06]
Kansas Carradine
Well, that's something that, in my own journey was really helpful because I. I mentioned that part of the first things that introduced me to heart math and looking for strategies to achieve balance or basically to have balanced mental health was also navigating through depression. And so that was part of the coaching that I received that was really helpful is when we're not allowed to express. And I had a lot of influence as well. That was keep your mouth shut, just keep it in, kind of the show must go on and not create an opportunity for connected dialogue or to be able to really share what you're feeling at all. There was no. It was like, cut off your feeling. Right. This is what I was taught and that was kind of valued, that if you can numb everything out and just forge forward like a soy soldier, like a warrior, that that is a metric of success. But really, we find out over time that that requires a lot of energy and that eventually holding that wears us out and it becomes an energy drain, and then that can lead to this lower lack of motivation that exhibits oftentimes as depression. And I certainly experienced that personally. And then looking and learning at the conversation that heart math brings, it's really that those unexpressed emotions or negative emotions that when they're looping in our mind, they drain us over time. But renewing emotions such as, you know, this is why gratitude practices are so universally recognized as being therapeutic, supportive and helping us. So renewing emotions, like when we get connected to joy or get connected to something we care about that naturally gives us a boost in energy, it becomes regenerative. And so in that sense we actually bring ourselves organically into coherence. We get synchronized, we feel like we're in that flow state and it doesn't even require effort. It's like laughter is something that can bring people into the heart and we feel like we have that natural energy boost and it actually is measurable. So there's like over 1400 different chemical reactions that take place in our body that heartmath has researched that when we are having a positive emotion or a renewing emotion, that that really helps us tap into that inner reservoir in a very real way. It makes us feel good. And so we want to keep seeking that, you know, the DHEA that gets activated those positive feel good hormones. But oftentimes our baseline gets adapted to a normal that that gets used to being at a low level, you know, we could say like an underlying anxiety or sometimes a low level depression. And that feels familiar to us. For example, you know, this happens both, I can say it happened to me and also, you know, people who have to be in survival mode quite often. And in fact, this is one of the reasons why I questioned doing the gaucho derby at first because I was speaking with Christine Dickinson and she was sharing with me, you know, when we feel that we are doing our best in a crisis situation because that feels normal, when we've perhaps grown up through childhood experiences that we thrive in crisis and so we put ourselves into dangerous situations or we want to be gravitating toward challenges or extreme sports and things like that to make us feel like we are using the best parts of our skillset. But over time we can also learn that we don't have to put ourselves into a life threatening situation in order to feel balanced, healthy, vibrant and connected to joy, basically. So the beauty of understanding really how our nervous systems work and again how our emotions affect our physiology, you know, we can tap inwardly to what we care about and we can allow ourselves to rejuvenate and like plug into that inner battery without relying on an external circumstance to change.
- [86:22]
Warwick Schiller
That's super cool. It's funny you mentioned Christine Dixon then and like that was a, that was A Christine Dixon type speech she just made because she can make some of those soliloquies that I just sit there kind of dumbfounded with my mouth hanging open, a bit of drool running out, you know.
- [86:36]
Kansas Carradine
Oh, I see you're nodding your head in agreement. And it's funny, we talk about that when we walk, watch equine therapy, and when the horses, you know, start to lick and chew, there's that. There's that resonance. It's just a mutual understanding, like we're vibing on each other. And yeah, I definitely vibe a lot with Christine. She's a gem and I've learned so much from her. That's just such an example of how this tribe has really continued to generate and give us all boost because we're naturally going to fall in and out of coherence. We're going to be challenged in our lives, and then we can boost each other up. We can start to identify where are those things that naturally give us a boost and start to, you know, plug ourselves in. Just like a Tesla battery, like, you have to go. And if you ride a Tesla or you drive. Ride a Tesla, if you drive a Tesla, if you're driving an electric car, you start getting really clever about learning where you need to plug in so that you don't drain your battery too low. And we have to look at our physiology as the same way. So when you start to track and like, oh, I'm getting a little bit depleted, I need to really, what can I do to resource myself? And then we can really come from that place where we're giving from overflow and begin to feed back into the field.
- [87:52]
Warwick Schiller
I read a book a while ago and that was talking about pretty much body aware, you know, being aware of your own body being in your body, not in your head sort of thing. But they're talking about stockbrokers who can make snap decisions, like, decisions like that without even knowing all the facts. And of course, they'd be the ones who make the most money. Well, they did a survey of stockbrokers, and the ones that made the most money were all aware of their own heartbeat. Like, they could feel their own heartbeat in their body, whereas the ones who didn't make as much money couldn't feel their own heartbeat in their own body. Which means. And the point they were trying to make was that the ones who can feel their own heartbeat a kind of in touch with that intuitive part of you that can make decisions without actually quantifying the answers. And it was just a, you know, it was A very short passage in a long book about that sort of thing. But it was just like. I thought that was quite fascinating.
- [88:56]
Kansas Carradine
Oh, I love that. That's fantastic. Yeah. Because there's a whole, you know, body of research that HeartMath has actually done on physiology. And intuition is really when we start to have a greater reflex, when we cultivate a habitual tendency that we go to the heart for guidance, ask inwardly to our higher self, or ask inwardly. That creates an access point to our intuition that can also come when we're not deliberately pausing. So like you said, in the moment, in the heat of the moment, you naturally can just have this non local intuition that. That seems very easily accessible.
- [89:41]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. And I've read quite a bit about how they use, you know, heart mouth is not just this wackadoodle thing, but, you know, I think they're like the, like the special forces use it for, you know, it's got so many applications.
- [89:57]
Kansas Carradine
Absolutely. Yeah. There's many those in military who have been taught heart mouth skills. And probably one of the most poignant testimonials that I've heard is there was an individual who was at Desert Storm who said of all the weapons that he used, it's the only one he wanted to take home and it was the most valuable.
- [90:17]
Warwick Schiller
Wow. Wow, that's very cool. Something else that you touched on before that I want to hear more about was the Native American spirituality. Because when we had the podcast summit last year and you came there and previous podcast guest who presented our first one was Jessica White Plume. And it turned out that you and Jess like met many, many years ago in ceremony somewhere. Is that correct?
- [90:48]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, it is. So when I talk a lot about working, you know, in, in the plains, so that's, you know, South Dakota and west eastern Montana with Lakota nation, that Jessica was actually there. And, you know, I had both my little ones at the time, so probably like a baby and a toddler, and was invited to participate in both ceremonies and be there at powwow events. And. And really looking at the, you know, a fascinating thing is the idea that horses never left North America. There's many who see an unbroken tradition of horse culture within the Cheyenne and Lakota nations and others, I'm sure as well. And so really looking at the indigenous way of working with horses, if you haven't, it's such a fascinating thing to check out, really, because you and I have been around the world in many different disciplines, whether it's dressage or, you know, gaucho reigning Olympics or backyard trail Riding. And all of it's pretty derivative. You can kind of see where people learn from. There's like a clear thread of lineage, so to speak. But this is totally different. When you. When a horse passes stool, or when a horse, you know, passes manure and you smudge yourself with it, when you never let the yourself turn away from the horse, and you always let the horse turn away from you when you are finishing, when you're actually discouraged from using circles, it just starts to create a different awareness of, wow. There. There's a whole different piece going on here. Looking at the four sides of the horse, there's like the four directions or the four pieces of the medicine wheel. There's a. An adult side, and there's a child side of the horse. What we would call the near side and the offside. And it's just fascinating, and it was absolutely unique wisdom that I did not hear as being derivative from anything else.
- [92:57]
Warwick Schiller
Tell me about the adult child and the adult side and the child side. Which side's which?
- [93:03]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, so the near side is the adult side, and the offside is the child side.
- [93:06]
Warwick Schiller
Really?
- [93:08]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah. And everything that, you know, understanding that you have to have balance, so do things on both sides. But noticing that that what we call the offside, the side that we don't tend to work on that as much, which is the horse's right side, was being acknowledged as the child side. It's just a little bit more of a youthful, you know, immature, without a negative context, but not quite reached its level of maturity. Isn't that fascinating?
- [93:36]
Warwick Schiller
Very. And tell me about the. Tell me about the. The idea that the horses never left the North American continent. Tell me more about that.
- [93:46]
Kansas Carradine
So the first time that I actually ever heard about that was from Ariana Strozzi and Mazuki, and I don't know, you know, where her. If that's just something that she downloaded. But then when I went and spent more time in the. With different first nations, they were saying the same thing, like, we've always had horses. That there was an unbroken tradition of horse culture, and it was not. Because obviously, I'm skipping over the fact that it's commonly documented in all educational institutions that horses had been in North America, and then at some point, they went extinct, and then they were reintroduced by the Spanish settlers. And that what we have here as the mustang is more of, you know, introduced from that Spanish barb and that vaquero culture. And of course, that's what, you know, you and I are always raised with. That's a traditional Common idea. But this was challenging, that saying that there was a totally unbroken horse culture and that they always had their own authentic ways. They weren't basically brought horses and then taught or, you know, figured it out by the white man invasion.
- [95:00]
Warwick Schiller
Wow. I actually heard he read a story about, you know, a lot of. A lot of Appaloosas can be somewhat. How do I say this? I'm not going to say it nicely. Jugheaded, you know, like they got kind of big.
- [95:22]
Kansas Carradine
I was going to say independent.
- [95:24]
Warwick Schiller
And. No, I don't. I don't mean temperament wise. I mean, to look at their head, they're like. They get this big old box.
- [95:29]
Kansas Carradine
Okay.
- [95:30]
Warwick Schiller
And.
- [95:31]
Kansas Carradine
Okay.
- [95:31]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. And the story that I'd read was that when they were. When the cavalry was chasing, and I'm not sure which Plains Indians it was, they couldn't catch him. They'd wear out four horses. And they. When they finally did catch them, they bred the Indians horses with their horses that pulled the wagons because they said, we never want to have to chase them ever again. And. And the story I read was that's where the. The Appaloosa breed, sometimes they can have like a big old head, like a suitcase sort of a thing. And I'd heard that's. That's where that came from. And I think that's when they were chasing Geronimo, maybe. Not quite sure. Don't quote me on that. But, you know, it's interesting how. How some of those things come about.
- [96:29]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, when we look at, I mean, still the preservation of the lucid breed or the Nez Perce Society, it's. Yeah. You can't really trace it back as far as one would like to. Yeah. The connection to that history. I mean, I'm reflecting right now on a lot of the creation stories for horse in Native American spirituality, is that the horses emerge from water and that they always come out of a body of water. And there's a similar stories, actually, in Greek mythology, you'll see the horses emerging from, like, a aquatic landscape. And.
- [97:13]
Warwick Schiller
And in. In Scotland, they have a similar horse creation story, though, called the Kelpies.
- [97:19]
Kansas Carradine
Mm. Yeah, exactly. And the similarity. When I was, you know, near Pine Ridge Reservation, I was hearing some of the star stories, like, about the Pleiades. So the Pleiades is a constellation that has usually seven major stars. Six of them are visible, and one is a dark star. And the creation stories, or the star stories, I would say, from the Lakota, was that there was seven sisters, one whose back was turned, and it's the same thing from the Pleiades in Greek mythology. But how would they have known that? It's not until modern instrumentation and telescopes that we would actually be able to see, oh, there's a dark star there. But meanwhile, you've got these Native Americans and Greeks thousands of miles apart, thousands of years apart, having the exact same storytelling taking place. And, you know, when one starts to be a gatherer of these stories, it's just, it's really fun and fascinating to see the complexity that exists in all of our, all of our creation and cultures.
- [98:26]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. You know, when I had Jessica Waiplam on the podcast the first time, and I was talking about being quite interested in indigenous wisdom, put it that way, and I was talking about cultural appropriation, and I said, you know, I don't feel wanting to learn that sort of thing is cultural appropriation, because you can find that same wisdom in so many other indigenous cultures that it's like it's a common Earth wisdom. It's not a, oh, I'm trying to culturally appropriate the Plains Indians or whatever that if you, if you look at those creation stories in some of the beliefs they had and things like that, it's just so common no matter where on the planet you go. So, I mean, where is this wisdom coming from? You know?
- [99:18]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah. And at the same time, I appreciate also the awareness because I think that there's a sensitivity to allowing those who can really be wisdom keepers retain the sanctity of their stories and their storytelling and their connection to culture. So we definitely, you know, honor and acknowledge that. And in the, the receiving of these stories, we obviously benefit in knowing that we're connected to a greater complex universe. I think that's really what you're speaking to is it just shows us like, wow, there's something really big going on here that we don't have everything figured out yet. But it's like this non local intuition. You know, in old times, we looked at civilization as being somebody who has, you know, a society that has advancements or language and where things were written down. But so much of the oral storytelling and the oral traditions will depict very vast cultures that are very developed. You know, the longest story of the Ramayana that comes from the ancient Indian Vedic scriptures in India. You know, this was handed down and it's like 24,000 verses. You know, the song goes on for, for several days and it was memorized and that's how it was passed on. And they have a very complex culture that, you know, had mathematics and, you know, irrigation and Animal husbandry and astronomy and all of these kind of things just wasn't written down until a little bit later. But these things were downloaded right? Or nowadays we would consider that modern mysticism of being channeled or receiving it in meditation, and then they would be shared with the community. And I think that's actually what you do right now, even though you read a lot, but you actually talk to people, is you disseminate information to this vast community and network that has been created through the journey on podcast, doing the same thing as a. As a ancient Rishi, we'll call you. Your nickname can be Rishi.
- [101:29]
Warwick Schiller
Rishi. Okay, I'll take that. What else have you dove into? Because you're quite into astrology too, aren't you?
- [101:41]
Kansas Carradine
I mean, quite into it. I couldn't give somebody else a reading, but I definitely have an awareness of some of the Western astrology, because there's Western astrology and then there's Indian astrology or Jyotish, which is like the revealing of light. And they're a little bit different, but a lot of them describe this container that we're in. And I do believe that the moon has its effect on our tides. So these giant bodies that are out there, planetary bodies, they have an effect as well on our human systems. Looking at the sun and the solar flares, that is really something that we can see. If you look over historical moments in time, big solar activity is as synonymous with sometimes violent episodes in human history. But it's also great breakthroughs in the arts or in technology and innovations. So basically it's an energy burst. And whether you're able to channel that in a coherent way or an incoherent way, it can either be something that creates beauty or can be something that shakes things up and seems to be a destroying energy. Other things I guess that I've delved into is I was into the stars and appreciating the idea that we're probably not alone here. And looking at the idea that studying ancient Lemurian civilizations, the ideas of Atlantis and basically beings that are not from our realm, that are communicating, coordinating and influencing, that there's these different dimensions that exist. And I think for me, Hinduism and Advaita, or non dualism and the science that has been documented for thousands of years helped explain a lot of these worlds, or they call them lokas. And so, you know, we have many different dimensions and we're just here perceiving this one. But there's so many other layers on the subtle realm we're starting to describe Them by saying, like, there's a vibrational spectra that we can measure from our, from out, from our brain or from our heart. So there's subtle realms, there's elemental realms that are part of the five elements. And there's beings both above in the heavens as well as down, you know, into the earth. And we're just what we, what we see on a 3D superficial level is only the tip of the iceberg of that I feel certain. And in studying all these different phenomena, I guess I became satiated with believing that there was a lot of credibility in looking at again, a lot of the Hindu scriptures that started to explain all of that. It's like, okay, all that other stuff exists. You know, my dad, actually, this is a funny comment of my dad. My dad used to say everything exists, you know, unicorns, vampires, parallel universes, all of it. And he said it with such a cavalier kind of casual blanket statement. And it's like, okay, all that exists now what, like what are we going to do with ourselves with our human incarnation? You know, we are very blessed with the power of discernment. And that's really what. We're all animals. We have this physiological mammalian body just like other animals. But we have this power of discernment, this rationality. We can make a choice. And a lot of our animal teachers and masters, they work. They're so connected with, I would say, the universe and all that is they work on instinct, they work on energy, but they don't sit and rationalize and ruminate about it like humans do. That's our unique signature, if you will. And so what are we going to do with our power of rumination? How are we going to focus our attention? And where, where can we really, you know, align ourselves for the greater good is the ideal, at least in, in my world.
- [105:42]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, I think I tend to over ruminate. I've got to get more in touch with that other stuff.
- [105:50]
Kansas Carradine
The power of the intellect. It's useful. It's useful. And then in partnership with our feeling world, we really have these infinite capacities that I think we're all stepping into where you are. And I mean, I can say for myself, where I am now is not where I thought I'd be 10 years ago. And I'm very grateful for the awareness that both the people that you've introduced me to and just the community that is, you know, quickening and awakening around the planet in these different pods, we're all contributing to a deeper level of awareness of how we can navigate through life with joy, with Love with compassion and with maturity.
- [106:36]
Warwick Schiller
So let me ask you about some of the things you're doing these days, keeping yourself busy. I know you go around and teach a lot of heart math stuff. And you do that with horses.
- [106:50]
Kansas Carradine
Well, I mean, obviously part of my. The. My experience is largely in the horse world. And so that's where I have a lot of, you know, relevancy or I guess expertise or competency. And so people want to learn about horses. But what I started to notice is that. And you see this as, well, people want to get to technique. But you talk about, okay, we'll be more relaxed, you know, have a quieter mind. Okay, well, how do we do that? And so I got super excited about saying, hey, this is actually a helpful way. Let's learn about how we can, you know, be more coherent, have some grounding practices, and then apply technique. And so what naturally just started to kind of evolve and emerge was a way to prepare the container, if you will, or the group environment and to clear away those limits, to connection those limiting beliefs that. And it can be the belief of, like, I'm not good enough for my horse. I don't trust my horse. I feel like they want somebody else. Maybe they don't like me. Or there could be a lot of guilt and shame. Like, I feel so bad because I did so wrong because I didn't know what I was doing. And so we really take an opportunity to learn about heart mass, to be able to clear away the emotional entanglement and just really create a compassionate field environment so that everyone can feel that they can take a step to harmonious connection. That's really. With new eyes. And like I talked about earlier, it's getting ourselves to open up to kind of that expanded view and a higher perspective. And heart math just really helps. You know, sometimes I'll pull out the biofeedback devices and people can get an idea of, like, what does coherence feel like? Oh, this is how it feels. Like it's a little bit different than I thought. And then you can kind of practice just like going to the gym initially when you learn a new sport, whether it's, you know, I mean, I never played any ball sports, so I. I'm terrible at throwing. I can catch a little bit, but can't hit a baseball. Didn't play volleyball, none of that. So I'm really awkward at it, right? But if you put in those 10,000 hours, it starts to become. You don't even think about it. It just becomes that reflex. And it's the Same thing with starting to put yourself into a natural state. And by a natural. I should refine that by saying, explaining to your physiology that being centered is a natural state as opposed to being like in that rushing energy as being. That can be some. A lot of people's default setting. So heart math is a great way to, number one, give language and then really give a step by step procedure to bring us back into balance. And the horses respond so well to it. Like they're the teachers. They show me. I mean, it's. The workshops now are very much an integrative equine guided education. So a lot of the stuff, you know, with Ariana that I started back in 2008 as a more in the equine therapy realm. What are the horses showing? What are their horses mirroring to us? And then the other level is, yeah, we want some nuts and bolts horsemanship because. But at the end of the day, you need to be able to sometimes to, you know, put a halter on and get in the trailer or go from A to B.
- [110:06]
Warwick Schiller
But I love what you're doing because, you know, clearing out that negative energy or whatever, you know, because a lot of times people's perceptions creates the reality with horses, you know, like there's, there's nothing going wrong until you think it is, or you have a. You have a perception of what's going on. You know, you were saying before, maybe my horse doesn't like me. And a lot of. But a lot of times it's. It's the opposite. It's, it's, you know, sometimes it's, it's focus on self. Like, maybe my horse doesn't like me, but sometimes it's a focus on a judgment of the horse, like, he's a butthead, he's whatever. And I think clearing those, those perceptions go a long way to helping things. And especially when you talked about be doing their stuff before the technique, because I, I feel like any technique with the wrong intention behind it does not work or does not work the same as it should.
- [111:07]
Kansas Carradine
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, really, what is your motivation behind any action? That's. That's just getting really clear about that. How can we. And so one of the things that I talk about a lot is how do you want your horse to feel when you work together? And how do you want to feel? Right. You heard me ask this question. And then we focus on how to broadcast that so that it's not about, oh, well, I want XYZ to happen and then I'll feel successful. It's more of like, oh, what I really want is connection. Or I want to feel safe and relaxed and let that become the metric of success. Because when we oftentimes, you know, see unachie, I don't want to say unachievable goals or sometimes unrealistic goals or we get too agenda oriented, it can take us away from, like, the richness of the moment. Like, there might be some beautiful thing that just happens spontaneously and you're like, oh, well, that was it. I think I'm done for the day. We had our connection and then let that, you know, or that. Let that curiosity kind of take you down a different, you know, rabbit hole. I mean, I think one of the beauties of being an equestrian entertainer is we get to work with horses in a very nonlinear way, because there's not really a rule book, even though can kind of have, you know, judgments and expectations around it for sure. But when you're in the exploratory development phase, this is. I. I made. I actually responded to a post that you had about that sliding stop. They said, hey, Tyler, why don't you take a picture of this? This might be cool, right? As you're in that discovery curiosity phase, well, let's try it with no bridle and see what we get. And that's the same thing with horse exhibition, is you're not having to fit a judge's metric. So you can do whatever you want and you can make your horse look really cool in something that's totally quirky and unique and that gives us a kind of a liberation to really play and explore. And that's what I love. Giving people the opportunity is like, oh, okay, well, maybe he's not going to be your perfect western pleasure horse, but maybe they have a great interest in, you know, liberty, or maybe they don't want to slow down, so take up mounted archery or something like that. And just being willing to open up and seeing how can we use the best parts of ourselves and with them and blend and find that the harmonious connection and mutual understanding.
- [113:28]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. Allow them to tell you what they. What they're good at and what they want to do, rather than trying to put a square peg in a round hole.
- [113:35]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, yeah.
- [113:37]
Warwick Schiller
You know, yeah. You were talking about, you know, not being focused on the outcome of things and kind of enjoying things along the way. And I was just thinking when you said that about. About our gaucho derby experience, like, we had. We had a goal going to get to the end, but, you know, there were some people in the Race who were racing, you know what I mean? They're like that their focus was on the end, whereas our focus is on the here and now. Like what's going on right here. We're looking at the, looking at the little ayahuasca lizards and looking for heart shaped rocks and clouds and counting how many rivers we crossed. We, we, we stopped counting at like 22 and that was like day two or something. We thought, oh yeah, it'd be quite cool to know how many times we crossed a river. And then that got old after a while. We lost count.
- [114:36]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, absolutely. I think one of my favorite days was actually when we, you know, we had that what we thought was the worst day ever ended up being, you know, one of the best days. So it would have been, was it morning a day four and we rode out in the rain and that rainy ride to start, that was a really cool moment. And we rode most of the day with Wendy and Emily. That was a really fun day. And.
- [115:05]
Warwick Schiller
That was the day we rode through the forest and the forest. We slowly, you had to get off and lead a lot and all sorts of things like that. It was slow but we never got stuck in a place where we had to backtrack and stuff. And what we didn't realize is that say Dan and Elliot, they were leading the thing, they got stuck in the forest overnight. And I can't fathom how do you get stuck in there. But yeah, we didn't, we didn't have a lot of trouble with that one. But that, that ride up the hill in the rain that morning, you know, because we, we had, we were prepared for rain and cold and we got, you know, that morning we put all our rain gear on before we got on and it's kind of like I was kind of excited like this is it. We get to test out our rain gear. We get to have some extremes and yeah, it was super cool, right?
- [115:54]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, yeah it was. We had some, some good horses that, that morning too. That was pretty exciting. And I'd have to say probably the last day was, was one of my favorites as well. And that, you know, I ended up going out with, with oh Katie and Will and then meeting up with all you guys and I just had. I, I loved that last horse that I had. He was just amazing. I don't remember that little paint with a blue eye. And he was always happy to lead and I swear at the end he could have done another 40 miles. He was just so fit, so strong and it was just the most breathtaking scenery to come up into that, the shadow of, I want to say, El Capitan, El Chelten. And that last drop from VC19, Mount Fitzroy. Sorry, that drop after VC19, when we left Fakundo. Yeah. And came down that trail. And I think, if I'm not mistaken, I don't have any footage of it because I was leading it, because I couldn't. Some of the best footage we couldn't get because, you know, you're actually riding like, you're riding hard, you're riding in a more technical terrain or you're going faster. So we couldn't film it. But that was such a highlight. Coming into that valley and then coming in and the wild horses that are loose horses, they're probably feral, but coming up and the heavenly scenery that we saw, I mean, it was just, it's just spectacular.
- [117:22]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, it was so cool. And what was funny, coming down that last mountainside before we hit the flat, before we finished, if we'd have gone down there on day three, we'd have been like, oh my goodness, it's so steep. And the, like, there were, there were.
- [117:36]
Kansas Carradine
Steps we would have dismounted.
- [117:38]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, there were steps of rock that the horses kind of had to jump down. They couldn't step down them. And by this point in time I was like, oh, yeah, we just, we almost trotted down that hill and on day three, we'd have been like, oh my goodness, can we do this?
- [117:51]
Kansas Carradine
Totally, totally. Yeah. It really expands your idea of possibility. But the key to it, as you and I, you know, obviously really know, is those horses are raised in it. And that to me is such a testament to letting them being out on uneven terrain, especially when they're young. And as much as possible throughout their lives, because they develop a coordination and a strength that you cannot simulate through gymnastics, dressage or flat work.
- [118:23]
Warwick Schiller
Right. Yeah. No, they were amazing. And I think, you know, I think the horses that we needed to be really good were really good. Like the horses for the Plateau of Death were amazing and the horses for that last day were amazing. You know, the, the horses we had for the previous two days before that were not quite so amazing. You know, they weren't near as fit.
- [118:48]
Kansas Carradine
No, I have to correct. But all my horses were amazing. Even the one who was like puffing and puffing after 1km, but he was sweet. But he was good looking and sweet.
- [119:00]
Warwick Schiller
If you think about that group of horses though, that's where Dan James got backed off. That's where Morgan got backed off and broke a leg. You know, they were that, that group of horses were. Yeah, probably not. Yeah, just. Just different than the rest of them. But the ones that mayor had the last day that I crossed the finish line with, she was, she was amazing. Okay, let's, let's get back to Candace here. Your heart math stuff that you were doing, is that what you did? You did some work with the Compton Cowboys a while ago? Is that what you did with those guys? What were you doing in there?
- [119:36]
Kansas Carradine
Well, to be honest, there's nothing I don't do without heart math now. So pretty much everything. Unless you know, if it's like a performance thing and I don't, you know, have a microphone in my hand. But if I'm talking to people and if I'm teaching, I'll start with, with, with heart math. No matter what. Even just like quick micro moments of understanding. Because I believe it's so foundational and essential as you know, to help people regulate. It creates safety. Right. So humans were thinking better and they're paying attention a little bit more, have a little bit more their wits about them or awareness. And then the horses feel better as well. And when I went down to the Compton Cowboys and I'll continue working within their program, they have two different branches, right? So they have the Compton Cowboys, which is actually in Compton. It's like a beginner western based program that is an after school program for inner city kids. And then there's another program that's been called the Compton Junior Equestrians, where they have like a high level show jumping youth team. And so I've worked with both of those groups and basically same thing, teaching simple breathing practices, awareness practices, grounding, and then looking at seeing how the horse responds to it is the ultimate teacher because people will watch and see like, oh, I can see the horses lowering his head below its withers, you know, softening and licking and chewing. And the eye starts to relax or they let out a big exhale all when we begin to co regulate. And it's so great to see the kids really respond to that because the biggest difference that we have, and it's not just Compton, this would be all over the world. This could be Boise, Idaho. This could be, you know, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Any demographic, any race, any class. Humans are not around animals as much anymore, especially large animals and livestock. So they're intimidated, they're impressed and they're afraid. And it's just, you know, when I grew up, you could always find somebody who had a cousin or a grandpa or a friend who had horses in their backyard. And it's just not so Anymore. So we really are introducing a completely different experience to be just in the space of a large animal, much less being on their back and riding. And I find that adults need to have more of a specific protocol to also drop in and get to the barn. Because we have all these phones and these, you know, things that we think and to do lists running through our heads. It's hard to just be present. And kids as well, who used to naturally be out running outside all the time and you know, being mischievous and maybe jumping on the back of the neighbor's horse without even asking permission, now they're just, they have fear about it. So it's really useful to start to bring language to that and say. And not shame them either, but just understand with compassion like they haven't been exposed to it. So, you know, how are you feeling? Do you notice if you're getting tight? Let's make sure that we really come back to our breath. Can you feel your feet in your boots? And I just bring them back to somatic awareness practices so that they can be at ease with the learning. Because there's a lot of things that we took for granted in the writing process that it was just different when we grew up. It's very different now.
- [122:57]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. You know, growing up, you know, I think everywhere you grow up, you think your normal is everybody else's normal. That I, you know, I grew up on a 1200 acre farm in Australia and I thought everybody came home from school and jumped on the horse and went riding around 1200 acres. You know, I didn't, didn't really think any different of it. And then you realize not everybody, we've had a very. Not everybody has an opportunity.
- [123:19]
Kansas Carradine
Quite a privileged experience and being able to share that. Yeah. With others because, I mean, this is where again, it's about a bigger picture. It feels like helping those connections, help foster those connections is a way to improve interspecies relations. Because if a youth can feel comfortable with a big horse and kind of go through that intimidation, then perhaps they can also feel more comfortable with the wildness of nature in the wilderness or life, and also be called to want to preserve it. So that I found that there's a. An interrelated teaching with that piece.
- [124:04]
Warwick Schiller
Do you do much? Because I think you have in the past. You don't much wilderness teaching, guiding, that sort of thing.
- [124:13]
Kansas Carradine
No, I mean, other than my kids and kind of like for school life and, you know, going out before when I was really delving deep in my early 20s into, you know, spirituality and I started practicing just the physical Hatha yoga as well as meditating. And, you know, people talk about what's odd job that nobody ever thought you would have. Well, I was a cocktail waitress, I was a sushi server, and I was also the assistant for a crystal, you know, medium healer. And in those days I used. I was still had the gypsy spirit. And so I would drive around and sometimes just throw my. What do you call it in Australia? Your swag.
- [124:55]
Warwick Schiller
Your swag.
- [124:55]
Kansas Carradine
In like a wash or an arroyo or something. Throw my swagger sleeping bag or just a blanket and sleep out under the stars. And so this feeling really comfortable in nature, where by contrast, I remember taking a friend of mine up into, you know, the Sierra Nevada mountains, Tahoe National Forest, and we're close to a city, and he was like, where are you taking us? Into this woods? You know, you're going to kill us out here in the middle of nowhere and we're maybe 30 miles away from a town. It wasn't that far away, but, yeah, I tend to gravitate toward the wild places and love being off the grid, off the beaten path. And then it's interesting because Cavalier was really drawing us into urban centers for many, many, many years. So for 15 years, I was in every major city around the world, and that included places like Singapore and Beijing and, you know, Nanjing, these Hong Kong. Really densely populated, populated places. I mean, when I joined Cavalier, I'd never been on a subway, so needless to say, I can now navigate public transportation everywhere pretty comfortably. But I was intimidated. Just like, you know, kids now might be intimidated by big horses. I was intimidated by big cities and traffic and all that stuff because I, you know, grew up on the ranch a little bit farther away.
- [126:21]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, I'm still not much of an urban dweller. I'm. I don't have much in the way of street common sense, you know, city common sense.
- [126:32]
Kansas Carradine
Oh, you. You guided me through Melbourne pretty well when we were there for Ekwatana. Let's not forget that. That's where all this started again. When you told me to come on the derby, when we saw each other serendipitously at Ekwatana.
- [126:47]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, that was. That was the start of the whole thing, wasn't it? Well, I'm so glad you joined me because we had quite the excellent adventure.
- [126:55]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, absolutely. We'll do it again in a heartbeat.
- [126:58]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, it was super fun. I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't do that one again because I feel like knowing what sort of unknowns there are would take the mystery of the intrigue out of it. You know, if you think about Daniel who won it this year, he'd done it before, so he'd only done like three days of it because he got kicked in the head and left in helicopter. But it's one of those things, you don't know what it's going to be like until you actually start it, you know, So I probably wouldn't do. I wouldn't choose to do that one. I wouldn't choose to do that one again.
- [127:33]
Kansas Carradine
For me, the draw is number one, the horses. I would love to find some of my favorite horses again. And number two, those places aren't accessible by roads. So you see vistas that you can't see any other way. You know, some of those views of the Andes, you know, it's very seldom do any humans see it from that angle. And that to me was truly remarkable.
- [127:58]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, some of that, some of that especially, you know, after the plateau of death and the vet check and we came over the hill and that beautiful blue lake down there in front of.
- [128:07]
Kansas Carradine
Us, you know, Magic. Absolutely. It was absolutely magic. Breathtakingly magic. I hope we get to visit again and go through some more footage because that would be fun to revisit. I know you got lots of cool, cool images and videos.
- [128:22]
Warwick Schiller
Dan was here a month or so ago and gave me all his footage and looking through it and it's like. So I got to see the wreck of. Not the wreck of Mary's horse, but the aftermath and he had his GoPro on and. Yeah. So I got to see some stuff that I hadn't really seen before and it was super cool.
- [128:38]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, I have a feeling that there'll be derby reunions for many years to come.
- [128:44]
Warwick Schiller
Yes, yes. I'm thinking we should have one here, actually. But anyway, so tell me, what's the best way for people to find out about what Kansas Carradine's up to these days and how can people be involved?
- [128:56]
Kansas Carradine
Well, There's a website, circuscowgirl.com and then there's also a Facebook page now fledgling Facebook and Presence, which is a circus cowgirl Facebook page. And I have. Obviously you create this amazing network of like minded souls. And so I've had the opportunity to collaborate with Rupert Isaacson. I was just talking to Christine yesterday about doing something. Christine Dixon. And then in November I'll be going down to visit with Nan and Z in Costa Rica. So I'm excited about a retreat that's happening down there.
- [129:32]
Warwick Schiller
Are you really going to see Nan.
- [129:34]
Kansas Carradine
And Z, you know, how could I say no? So, yeah, when she said it'd be great to have you down here, I said, okay, well, let's pick a date.
- [129:41]
Warwick Schiller
So.
- [129:41]
Kansas Carradine
So away we're going. I've never been to Costa Rica. In fact, the trip to Argentina is the first time I've been south of Mexico. For some reason, I've never traveled much in Central or South America. So I'm excited to go see it and that beautiful place because you told me all about it.
- [129:57]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, my goodness. The lake and the volcano, it's. And the jungle all meet right there. It's insane.
- [130:05]
Kansas Carradine
Yeah, it's going to be a fun retreat. So just I'm having a wonderful time blending the things that I care about, which is the horses and evolution of spirit or consciousness and connecting people to their hearts. So the heart math piece and then with fun, you know, playing and entertainment, so circus stuff and some yoga for both. Mind, body, spirit, health. And yeah, every event that I get to do has lots of gaucho stories in it. So you have been a big influence and a big. A big piece of the puzzle. So thanks.
- [130:42]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, you're welcome. It's been such a pleasure and honor to get to know you. It's been. Yeah. Thanks for accepting my invitation to come join me on the adventure of a lifetime.
- [130:53]
Kansas Carradine
It absolutely was. Yeah. I wouldn't. Have. Wouldn't have had it any other way. It was super, super cool. Thanks, Warwick.
- [131:02]
Warwick Schiller
You're welcome. Well, thanks for joining me again and it was so good for people to learn more about the legend of Kansas Keratin.
- [131:11]
Kansas Carradine
Well, thanks for having me on and I know I'll get a chance to cross you somewhere down the trail. And yeah, to all your listeners, I appreciate all of them as well and can't wait to connect in person because you've created this wonderful community that we all feel like family.
- [131:32]
Warwick Schiller
Yes, everybody feels like family and we. I'm headed off in a couple of days to England for the. For the UK Podcast Summit. And you've been to one of our podcast summits, so you kind of know what the energy is like there. So I'm pretty excited about that.
- [131:45]
Kansas Carradine
They are absolutely amazing. And the only disappointment that I'm experiencing right now is because I'm not going to be at the podcast summit in the uk because I know that'll be fabulous, fabulous event. You know, with Rupert, Christine, Denise, Elizabeth, Byron, Kathy Price. I mean, the list goes on. It's going to be an amazing room because the room that was. Or the field environment that was generated In Texas, in San Antonio last year, was so magical, and I can say that, and I've been in lots of really magical experiences and ceremonies, and it definitely has an incredible special vibe to it. And actually, I'll tell you this one last thing, but when I met Linda Koanov in person at that event, she told me this piece of the puzzle, and I feel like that's what your. Your summits create, is you get all of these clues of synchronicities and understanding of this bigger picture. So Linda Konov told me that she had this idea for a book which eventually became the Tao of Equus, and that she met my guru, Amma, back in, like, 2001, and she told her, hey, I have this book I really would like to create. Can I have your blessing for that? And she said, Amma put her hand on her head and gave her a darshan. And the book was written afterward. And that book was spread throughout the whole world, basically. And then out came, you know, cavalier on the coattails of this book, which was the Dao of Equus. And so learning that story, that's just one of the many magical stories that I learned at. At. At Texas. That's the kind of magic that gets created at your events. You know, I got to hang out with. With Chantelle. Dr. Chantelle Pratt as well. She's going to be there. And we all are just, you know, so genuinely enthusiastic, enthusiastic to meet the other hosts as well as the participants, because it's. It's just this really cool kind of intergalactic, interconnective moment.
- [133:54]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, that's the super cool thing about it. One of our presenters for the uk, someone is not someone who's normally on stage in front of people. And they. I was chatting with them the other day and they're feeling a little. Little anxious about it. And I said, well, the thing about this is you are up there on stage, not only in front of the audience, but the other presenters, and every single one of them is a fan. You know, no one's. There's no. No one's waiting for you to stub your toe. Everybody's, like, on the edge of their seat, just can't wait to hear what you have to say. So I said this. You know, it's such a. Such a welcoming energy. And I think it might have been. I know it was Linda or. I don't mean someone else, but someone who does a lot of those types of events at that last one said, you know, normally I speak and then I go back up to the room and this person said, I just sat here on the edge of my seat, transfixed the whole time. So, yeah, it's certainly, certainly a great energy.
- [134:54]
Kansas Carradine
Well, thanks to you and Robin and Tyler for setting that. For many, many years you guys have been working on this. So.
- [135:01]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah.
- [135:01]
Kansas Carradine
So execution and the actualization, it's, it's awesome.
- [135:05]
Warwick Schiller
It's all part of the plan. Okay, we're going to let you go. You guys at home. Thanks so much for joining us on another episode of the Journey on Podcast. Thanks for being a part of the Journey on Podcast with Warwick Schiller. Warrick has over 850 full length training videos on his online video library@videos.warwickshiller.com Be.
- [135:27]
Kansas Carradine
Sure to follow Warwick on YouTube, Facebook.
- [135:29]
Warwick Schiller
And Instagram to see his latest training advice and insights.