EMBRACING YOUR EGO, Animal Medicine with Dr. Steven Farmer - Bytes of Light
Today's episode discusses various forms of Animal Medicine, dealing with our shadows, and ways we can enter healthy meditative states with renowned guest Dr. Steven Farmer.
Shadows are the negative thoughts that can reside in our subconscious, sparking from events in our lives like past traumas. Recovery can truly take hold when we do what we call our "shadow work," addressing those emotions within us instead of pushing them down to be ignored.
Dr. Steven Farmer is a licensed psychotherapist, shamanic practitioner, and author of several best-selling books and oracle cards, including Animal Spirit Guides, Earth Magic, Earth Magic Oracle Cards, and the recently released Messages from the Spirits of Nature. Dr. Farmer offers individual consultations and a popular Private Mentoring program and serves on the board of the Society of Shamanic Practice. Dr. Farmer’s practices are grounded in many years of collegiate studies, culminating in the form of three degrees, including a B.A. in psychology from University of California, an M.A. in counseling psychology from Chapman University, and a Ph.D. from Madison University.
For more information please visit:
Website https://www.DrStevenFarmer.com/
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[Episode Transcription]
 Welcome back to another episode of Bytes of Light Snacks for Your Soul. And today we have an amazing and wonderful guest with us, Dr. Steven Farmer. Thank you so much for coming and spending some time
with us. Oh yeah, very very pleased to be here. Thank you, Angel. Thank you, Seth.
Yes. So the first time I met you was at the gathering of the shamans the very first time the event took place, and I was thinking about.
how our interactions came to be the first time we saw each other. And I can remember sitting in the airport getting ready to go, having your Earth Magic book. That was one of my first spiritual awakenings through that book. Like that was a huge part of my process and wanting to come to the gathering of the shamans because knowing that you were gonna be there and that I was gonna get to meet you.
So, you know, I've been following your work for a really long time, and. Part of your Earth. Magic Oracle cards have been a very big part of my process and tools that I use, and I'm dying to, to have a further conversation around what you do and specifically the animal medicine. With this new book that we have coming out Bytes of Light, evolving Leadership for the Spiritual Entrepreneur, which you have graciously given us a recommendation for.
Thank you so much. Yes, you're very
welcome.
Yeah, so why don't you just give us a little bit about how you got started and, and the animal medicine piece and Sure. All the
good things. First, I wanna say congratulations, you know, on the book, you know I know what it takes to put something together like that and then ultimately to have it published too.
So there's a lot of work to go into it. Sometimes people will say, I'm gonna write a book and Good, you know, good for you. Just hang in there, you know, cuz it takes a lot to do.Let's see, how did I get started? I'm going to be relatively brief about that, but as a psychotherapist, I had a very active practice as a therapist.
Yeah, I think I did some good work, you know, in a lot of different kind of trainings. Hypnosis well, somatic experiencing, which is somatic therapy for trauma recovery, basically.. Oh, geez. Emdr, I'm, you know, just different trainings that I've had and I, I really love my work. I feel really blessed and grateful and then, you know, things as happens.
I think even people I talk with and I work with, you know, there's a point comes in one's life when you start to feel like a, a. Kind of a wriggling. I don't know how to describe it. You know, there's a few words, but just like ready for something new, you know, something's emerging, you know, I don't quite know what it is, and I like that way of describing it.
It's emerging. Mm-hmm. . And that was Shamanism. A friend gave me a book called Way of the Shaman by Michael Harner, who I attribute, he's ancestor now. Thank you, Michael. A tribute. That was really the start of it that really kicked me into gear. I was very curious. My partner at the time, she was very supportive of that.
So I went to a two day workshop on the introduction to Shamanism, you know what he called Core sha core Shamanism, which is taking a lot of the different trainings. He was an anthropologist, excuse me, not trainings, but different Belief systems and ways of working with that general realm of shamanism from various indigenous cultures and sort of cold from it for the contemporary culture to introduce that, you know, as, yes, you can do this, you know, you certain practices, et cetera.
I went to the two day course and not that you, you know, it's not about becoming a shaman too. I gotta dispel that myth. It's not, that's not the point. You know, a shamani practitioner, shamani healer, that's what I call myself. I don't pretend to be a shaman. You know? I have no desire to claim that. There's no reason to, although people call me a shaman.
It's okay. I don't if they want to call that, but I've been called a few other names too, but let's put that aside. Not for our show here. . Anyway I came out of there really on fire. Angel, I, I and Seth. I, I just really knew this was the next step and so then I, I was gobbling up training.
Hawaiian shamanism. Let's say Tibetan shamanism. What else? Celtic more with what? Michael's and his wife's organization foundation for Shamanic studies. , they offered other courses too, from other people that had been trained. So I was taking courses, you know, just gobbling stuff up and integrating it as much as possible.
And then I'm here with a psychotherapy practice, you know, so how do I integrate or what do I do? And ultimately what I did is I retired the practice, you know, I closed the practice down, went full, full speed into shamanism, started writing. I had written some books as a therapist. Four books that were published and then nothing for a few years.
And then Shamanism came along. And so then I started writing in that genre. And I, my intention was very clear. It was like to take elements of Shamanism and Shamani practice and introduce them to I won't say mainstream, but a larger audience. Mm-hmm. , the first book in that that arena was sacred. And the idea was to cu or take different ideas about sacred ceremony or sacred rituals and give it describe it how that you, like, you too can do this at home, you know, and it really involves being able to make some kind of connection and honoring it as sacred.
that when you go out and do a dance under the full moon, you know, it's not, it's, yes, it's just dancing under the full moon, but it could be dancing to thank grandmother moon. Right. You know, to start to, to think differently about the relationship with the natural world. I think that's one of the greatest gifts that the advent of contemporary shamonic practice has brought to us as an awaken.
We have, we have been so frigging forgetful, you know, about our, our relationship. I mean a felt, embodied, felt relationship with the natural world. And we're doing the best we can, you know, to regain that, to remember to put that together. You know, remember, if you look at it literally means put it together again.
You know, versus dismember, pull it apart. Remember to touch that deep memory, that ancestral memory of what it was like to live, not on the land, but with the land. That's a tough one. Yeah, it's a tough one. Yeah. We have these things and you won't, you can't see this of course, but you know, cell phones, computers, TVs, this and that.
You know, so many things that we can get distracted. . Yeah, but why not? You know, even though in the sixties. , you know, there was a name for hippies called Tree Huggers. . I wanna say, yeah, let's bring that back. Go hug a tree. You know, breathe with a tree, you know, put your back up against her spine. You know, feel the presence that's there.
Not just the physical presence, but the spiritual presence, the life force, the emanation from that and know that you're connecting it with your own life force. In some fashion. It's often one that you. , you can't think about it. , you go do and then you experience it. Yeah. In fact, on one one of my forays in, listen, listening to my team I, it was so simple.
I, and it almost sounds too simple when you think about it, but. We were in a dialogue and this is what I do. I'm one of those weird people, you know, I'm professional, weird people, you know, I get paid for it. , yes, again, I'm preaching to the choir as they say. But anyway, this is this last piece and then I'm gonna shut up for a bit.
I was having a conversation, which is not unusual for me as I'm walking my dogs in the evening and I just questions philosophizing about life, you know, and all I heard and it re kept repeating. It repeated, I think about two more times. Life is just about experience, period. Everything else is details.
that's a tough one. You know, to just remain in experience, you know presence is involved, you know, really being presence. I had an experience just earlier today that where I wasn't present, you know, I was carrying my coffee cup from this morning out and I put it on wrongly on the counter, and it spilled.
and I went, Steven, there you go again. You weren't here. . Yeah. Anyway, I'm saying a lot, you know, but that's my story. I, I, and I really enjoy it. I, I synthesized my work now, mainly what I, now, I won't say mainly, but one of the strong components of what I've off, I've been offering here, the last I think about the last three years is a mentorship program.
You know, I've got my well, white or whatever you wanna call, it's white hair really, but gray or white. And I am, I suppose, technically an elder of the tribe. And so a lot of my experiences and what I've gained along the way, I'll, I get to offer that to people, you know, as a truly as a mentor. . Yeah.
And I really like that. I jokingly say cuz I get to tell people what to do, but you know, it's not quite, not, not quite, you know, it's a collaborative process. Definitely. So that's a large component. And I still do work with healing, you know, healing work, et cetera. And workshops, like you mentioned, the gathering of shamans.
Yeah. You know, I, wow, that's, I had forgotten that. And thank you for reminding me. That's right. That's where we met the very first one. Wow. Yeah, because it's long, it's probably about six, seven years now that it's been going on every year. Yeah. And during Pandemic online, but now it's live and in action.
Coming right up here, actually in Sedona. So after beginning of May.
Are you guys going? I'm not going this year. Yeah, I'm not this year, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Middle of our book stuff and yeah, with this book launch happening, we're gonna be in Salt Lake the week after that. So Good for you, Jorge.
Good for you. Jorge Luis Delgado, who is gonna be at the gathering of the shamans with you, is actually coming to our house and spending a couple of days with us, and then we're driving to Salt Lake City and we're doing an event with him in Salt Lake City the week after
gathering the show. Cool.
Yeah. Say hi to him. You know, we did something together to a while back, about three years. Yeah, absolutely. So anyway, that's how I got, that's how, pardon?
You'll get to see him in May.
Oh, okay, good. That's right. No, I'll say hi to him, mayor. Okay.
Yeah, he's gonna be in the gathering in the shamans this
year.
Yeah, that's coming up what, May 4th through seventh, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great. So anyway, that's, that's how I evolved into doing shamonic healing. Like I say, equipment practice. I really dedicated. , you know, my energies, you know, to shamanism and shamanic healing and just amazing, you know, what can be done with it.
And it, again, I think the fundamental purpose in the larger sense of why are we being drawn to shamanism is that it is much a, an earth-based practice, you know, that we recognize and. , not just mentally and philosophically, but we do our best, you know, to live some of the principles. And one of the main principles is to really, yeah, that's a tree, but so much more than a tree, right?
Yeah. Let's find out
and describe it as, as the relationship with life. , right? That's the shamonic practices establishing that relationship with life. Engaging with life.
Yeah. And you can't do that if
your mind is taking you into the future and you're always thinking about what? What you're gonna be doing, what could be happening.
that's where that presence comes in. If you're not, if you're not present in this moment, if you're stuck in the past and, and dealing with all those things that don't exist anymore, or you're trying to project out into the future to another place that doesn't exist, you're not here
where things do exist in this present moment.
And yeah,
building that relationship with life
itself. Yeah, that's a good way to put it, Seth. Yeah, it's It's astounding to me, especially after, you know, a lot of the work that I've done that I can do something so idiotic as spilling my coffee in the morning because,
well, I still in a human soul basket, right.
drifting. Yeah. You know, so, well, I just had a conversation earlier about ego and spirit, you know, and I, there's, there's some traditions that feel like, oh, we gotta get rid of the ego.
And I said, baloney, you know, the ego's an important part of our makeup. You know, it's, and the word that came up in the conversation was subjugation. , you know, to, to, as best we can to learn how to subjugate the ego. And what that means to me is not that it's an underling or there's a hierarchical or a status thing or something like that.
It's just that, you know, the ego is part of what got me here. Right? You know, I, you know, I confess, I like the accolades. I like people, you know, the feedback that I get from people. I like it. That's my. Oh, that's okay. I don't need, I don't need it to survive. I don't need it to do my work. But boy, when it comes through, I feel good.
I, I'm just grateful. And as I was told recently, I reminded recently Steven, you know, appreciation and gratitude. Keep those in focus. Keep those in focus. So it's a relationship, even though it's not really dual dualistic. It's the relat. between spirit and ego that we developed that capacity or that remembrance.
Mm-hmm. of how we can communicate with spirit, not in just an etheric sense, an abstract sense that it's out here, but I can walk outside my backyard in their spirit. Right. I can look up the, I can climb a mountain, their spirit. Mm-hmm. , you know, that the, the Earth is truly. Like you were referring to Seth, you know that it's life.
You know that it's our relationship with life, specifically life in the natural world. That is an emanation. Every aspect of the physical beings in this world are emanations of spirit or God, if you prefer, I don't care what you or yeah. Universe the force. Use the force. Luke , good old Luke. Thanks Luke. Use the force.
Exactly. Anyway, so that, yeah. And again, I. do feel, I'd say much of the time. Most of the time. Really just really grateful, you know, an experience to have a conversation with the two of you. Mm-hmm.grateful for that. Grateful that the works that I've put out there have had some influence, you know, it had some effect or as a friend of mine said, I live my life.
How did he put it? Let me see if I could catch. I live my life as, as if what I do is really important, knowing that 3000 years from now, it probably won't matter. . I love that. I love that. Both. So both. And it's not either or People get caught up in the, oh, this doesn't really matter, you know, whatever. Not.
There's so much stuff going on right now in the world. You know, the planet's evolving like it's been doing for billions of years, and we're kind of caught in up in that evolution in so many different ways. What I've been thinking about lately, if I may just Yep. You know, riff a little bit.
Mm-hmm. , I started this article and we'll see if it becomes an article. I don't know, but it felt good to write it, you know, it felt really good once I get into my writing, I love it. You know, it. Absorbed with it. But the title is really what intrigued me. That came to me embracing chaos and uncertainty. And then the subtitle, finding San Sanctity in the craziness of the world.
And, you know, that's, that sounds great. And in fact, I started the article with, you know, what do you. Embracing, you know, if you embrace something doesn't mean it's going, you know, it's gonna overwhelm you, you know, especially chaos and uncertainty. But I think that a lot of people are feeling that, of course.
Mm-hmm. , I think there's a, there's a phenomena, if you will, amongst humans where we a col if there's a collective that experiences enough of a certain, let's say, , you know, that, that, that vibe, if you will, that wave, that psychic wave, however you might say, it will spread in effect, especially empaths, right?
People. And I would include the two of you in that, and your listeners as well sensitivity that say above and beyond the norm. Mm-hmm. . And so we pick up on that fear, you know, in some way. I've really noticed it in simple ways, you know, and I think the pandemic. emphasize that or highlighted it, you know, Ooh, you know, social distance, you know, keep away from other people cuz you might catch the bug, right?
Mm-hmm. such a crazy time for two years, but something shifted and I'm aware of it in myself as well as others. You know, I observe people. For instance, I walk, I live in a fairly. Suburban neighborhood. You know, people think I have a 30 acre ranch or something out in Colorado. No, I live in Dana Point in a really nice neighborhood, you know, and God put me here, I think to go knock it off, farmer, get over your arrogance.
You know, it's a good neighborhood, you know, , you got a nice house, you know, blah, blah, blah. Be grateful. But anyway, I'll notice that, you know, with the neighbors sometimes you know, and we've lived here a few years, but especially in the twilight hour, you. People walking their dogs. We've got a real dog community here.
I'll say this ha has happened like three times. You know where I'll go? Somebody's sitting in the other side of the street walking their, I'll go, Hey neighbor, how you doing? Nothing.
Hmm
hmm. And I going, wow, this is so interesting. And then I look at myself and, you know, there's, I got a list. Not a big list, but there's 1, 2, 3 people that have been my list this last week to reach out to.
And I could feel this, this sort of reluctance, you know, and again, shadows that come up. Oh, I'm so busy. I've got so many things to do. You know, my, I mean, here, look at this list. You know, I must be important, you know, that kind of stuff. And I, I say that without shame or guilt. I just recognize it that it's there and I know that I'll act on it, you know, eventually.
But there's this, I could feel this tug to just stay safe. . You know what I
mean? Yeah. Well there is this duality, you know, if we go back, circle back to staying in the present and, you know, honoring life as Seth had said. But you know, in shamanism we know that there's cycles in the earth and death is a very important part of the human condition of about the earth itself.
Mama Gaia goes through a death cycle as well. Winter, right? The winter season. Yeah. And so many humans. Are afraid of that. A lot of their fear comes from the root is, you know, I'm gonna die. And so for me, my last couple of years going through this journey of shamanism and having some near death experiences myself over the last couple of years, stepping into that present space, knowing this is just, is what it is.
this is where I'm at in this moment and, and trying to wrangle that fear that comes up inside our bodies because we've been programmed to believe that death is bad, right? We, we've attached these labels to it, and I think Shamanism has really helped me in that, in that. In that realm, understand a little bit deeper about the winter cycles, the death cycles, and you know, coming from the high performance trampoline community, every time one of my national athletes stepped on the trampoline, they were putting their life at risk.
You know, the one second that you are not fully present with your body. When you're jumping 25 feet in the air and multiple flips and twists, there is a risk that you're, you could kill yourself. And we did see it in our world. So coming with that kind of background, knowing how to hold that space with, with people that were, were afraid for their lives.
And I did that for a living for 30 years. Mm-hmm. , transferring all that knowledge base into kind of like what you did with your. Practice of in psychology and then coming into this, we choose to, to bring what worked out of that world and marry it with the new stuff we're learning. And this is where some of this new language, and that's where we talk about the evolving leadership that we're trying to bring forward, is understanding that we can walk in both worlds without fear.
It's a good way to put, it's walking in both worlds, you know, having the bridge accessible as much of the time as possible. , right. This bridge between ordinary reality. Yeah. And you know, it's an experience. There's been an advent lately. You know, I'm sure you're aware of it, you know. Michael Paul wrote a book, which I was so happy to see, called how to Change Your Mind.
Yes. Mm-hmm. . It's wonderful. And it's about the advent of, of e explorations, shall we say, with sacred plant Medicine. That's right. Yeah. The two best known are ayahuasca. and mushrooms. Yeah. Right. There's also a couple others, you know, lurking around there. Like M Dmma is being used in therapy sessions for P T S D, et cetera.
Right. But. Yeah. And also breath work. I want to add one other piece to that breath work, which is you don't have to take any substances other than air. Absolutely. And people who don't want to en indulge in let's say mushrooms or ayahuasca, don't blame you. You know? That's scary. Frigging stuff. . Yeah, it can be.
Terrence McKenna years ago, wrote a book called Food of the Gods, and that's what he was talking about. And he says, if you aren't scared, you're planning to do something like this. Something's wrong, , right? Because there's a party you have to have healthy
respect for it, right? . Yeah.
There's party that's gonna die.
Yeah, no doubt. And again, I, I, it's a long story. I won't go into it, but I had an initiation like that, a shamonic initiation up on mile high in the sky, A cone peak in the Ventana wilderness, which is typically called big. and it changed my life, you know, it really, if I had any doubts about shamanism and shamanic practice being part of it, you know, it zoomed me into this.
And then integrated process. The reason I'm bringing that up is that's, that's one thing that has become, you know, I, I think it's still used as more like tripping, you know, which is fine. , but Ayahuasca for instance, there's so much involved, you know, with Ayahuasca, it's a longstanding traditional medicine from South America that people have journeyed to South America, you know, to partake in this.
And this is with shamans, not shaman practitioners, but shamans who have a lineage behind them of sometimes literally thousands of years. Yeah. And working with this mushrooms on the other hand are, they're readily available, right? So they can be both used as sh dare I say, you know, to trip out on.
But I wouldn't recommend it. I would treat it also as a sacred medicine, you know, because it opens up as all as heck, Huxley, call it the doors of perception. Mm-hmm. , you know, the doors or the cloudy windows, you know, open up. So we begin to see something. Ordinary reality. Yeah. Now there's one thing I measure is breath work.
For instance, like holotropic breath work. Stan sl Goff's work, you know that he's brought. Into the world. You know, he used to do L s D therapy in the sixties, and then it became illegal, so he shifted over and he discovered that a certain kind of breathing pattern can induce an altered state. And having done several sessions of breath work and actually have run workshops on it, I can sw, I can testify to that.
We
can testify
to that as well. Okay. You guys know ok. Absolutely. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah. I think that there's. Yeah. There's ways, you know, and that's one way that's, that's really safe. You know, if you get scared, you just stop, you know that pattern.
Yeah. You, you have, you have access to the gas pedal, and I think that's what the difference is between the plant medicine and breath work is that the, the plant medicine, you have to completely surrender and you go for the ride.
and with breath work, you have a little bit more control about how deep you go.
I know. Yeah. Like halfway through the mushroom journey, you go, okay, I'm done.
Yeah. And you're like, no, not a guy is like, oh no sweetheart. We just started .
Right? Yeah. You haven't seen anything yet. Here we're gonna show you a few other things you know here.
Some are gonna scare you a little bit, but That's right, dude. You're gonna be okay. You'll
survive. You will now have. Expect for planning. That was my experience anyways. . Yeah.
Yeah. The other one is though last I forget, is the basic. Fundamental practice in shamanism, which is the shamonic journey.
Mm-hmm. . Now having mentioned the plant medicine, yes, that's a shamonic journey. Breath work. I consider that to be a shamonic journey. It depends partly on your set when you go in, but really these are, but again, there's another way to do it. You know, it could be done through chanting through drumming, through rattling, but inducing an altered state.
With some practice so that you can travel into what again, harner called non-ordinary reality. And there you work with helping spirits and then you bring that information back either to serve some healing process with yourself or the community or the individual that you're working with, whatever may be.
And I tell you, it's phenomenal. You mentioned near death experience. , which, you know, if you really did die, then it's a death experience, but you come back, you know, it's kind of, well,
I believe you re I believe you can reincarnate in the same, in in the same life cycle. I, I feel like I've done it. So a
good way to put it.
Yeah. Yeah. Here we go again. Okay. Next thing. Yeah. Anyway, the journey itself is a fundamental practice that if anyone who's listening is interested in Shamanism, I highly recommend it. There are, there's places that you can look up, just look it up, you know, shamanic shamanism training, et cetera, et cetera.
And you'll find places where you can get some initial training in it. And one I highly recommend is the foundation for Shamonic, stu studies shamanism.org. shamanism.org. And that's Michael and Sandra, his wife, Sandra, Michael and Sandra Harness's Foundation that was created. Sandra's still alive.
Michael has passed on, he's now ancestors. Left quite a legacy. Mm-hmm. . Where was I? Just, anyway, that's another way to access this place that we're calling non-ordinary reality. Right. Another piece of that is, is to develop relationship with your spirit guides. Yes. Back to the animal medicine, for instance.
Mm-hmm. One of the first spirit guides that came to me in a men's event. and it was a meditation. I had no idea about power animals, spirit animals, totem animals or anything like that. But we were standing and I can't remember, I think we danced a little bit or something like that. And then we went into this meditation, this guided meditation, and it was to find an animal that really resonated with you.
Mm-hmm.
I was interesting. Okay. I'll take it. And subsequent to that, it was probably oh, just a handful of years later, that's when I e evolved and started looking into shamanism and learned that snake really was not just a spirit. Because there is a distinction, but what I would deem a power animal. Power animal, yeah.
And power animals are those spirit animals that we develop a long-standing relationship with typically, and they come and go, you know, I mean, over years, you know, they can come and go. You can, yes, you can have more than one, but we're not looking to have 23 power animals, you know, or something like that.
That's, you don't need that many, you know, one, maybe two, depending upon your work. If you do Shamonic work, you might find over years like, like I have that certain ones come in with certain medicine or gifts. Example would be snake. I learned since Snake came to me, a story that I heard and I, I don't recall some of the specifics, but it was a Native American tribe that someone came forward and was being.
to be what we would call a shaman. So the community gathered around in circle, set the fire up in the middle, and this individual would dance around the fire and they would throw rattlesnakes and this individual would get bitten. And if they survived, they were considered to be a great healer. Wow.
There's a metaphor there. You can hear it, you know, but li but also the, that story itself has lent credence to this idea that snake spirit is definitely the one actually I call two snakes now, but two snakes or snake spirit is the one that I call on for any kind of healing work that I'm specifically shamonic healing work that I may be doing.
What you see in this image over here that I'm pointing to is a piece of work by a friend of mine in Australia, and he did this at my request and it's also in the, the Earth Magic Oracle cards. It's the d n A card. Mm-hmm. . And that comes from some study that took me further. A book called The Cosmic Serpent.
Highly recommend it. One of my favorite songs I've
heard of that. I have not read
that one yet. Check it out. You know, it's, I've read it twice, you know, it's one of the few books I've read more than Once. The Cosmic Serpent, Jeremy Nay and a r b y I think it's Phenomenal anthropologist pretty straightforward anthropologist that read something in Michael Harner's book about, you know, these beings that came across time and.
And he had a harder, had a little footnote saying, I don't, I'm not a microbiologist, but it might, it kind of reminded me of DNA N he went, ha, bingo. So he investigated different images of snakes and surfaces and how many there are on so many different cultures, not just the, I. But serpents themselves sometimes in twos like this, and his premise, which I think is an interesting one, is that early shamans were seeing D n A.
but they had no repre, you know? Yeah. They didn't know how to translate
what
they were saying. Right. Snakes, two snakes, the intertwined servants look at the ama, the caduceus. Yes. You'll see one example of that. Yeah. So that led me to actually, when I on my 70th birthday, I decided I wanna get a tattoo, you know, cuz my dad and my grandpa both died in 69.
I thought, well, okay, for whatever the grace of God, you know, Still breathing and still healthy. So I got a, I got this tattoo Wow. Off my left shoulder, you know, as a marker. on many in different levels. Yeah. Anyway, I, I kind of went off on that. I hope that's okay. ,
well, snake. Absolutely. Snake medicine is actually really big and, you know, representing the Kundalini energy and, you know, the priest and priestess like that is teacher medicine as well.
Oh,
You know, that's it, you know, again, it's all over. So
it doesn't surprise me that you, you've been drawn to it and to the point where you wanna put it on your body because that is the mission that you've
accept. And Yes, and it, it, it you know, that's what I, that's my purpose. You know, I'm a teacher healer, you know, I capture it in those two words.
And I sometimes say I, I, I'd add communicator to that too, but I'm not sure my wife would agree all the time, . But we do pretty well, you know? I think so. But anyway, yeah. I'm a healer and a teacher and that's, that's, that's what I'm here for. Well,
and being a healer and being a tr a teacher also, you know, you used the word communicator, but for me it is translator.
You know, when we step into those realms, like you said, we go in and, and do, go into dream time, get the information, and then it's our jobs to translate it. That's no. And in my apprenticeship with Miguel, like with the, the ruiz's, he said, you know, when you, when you go in and, and translate it, as soon as you put human language into it, then it's no longer the truth because it's still coming through your filters and your perceptions.
Mm-hmm. So it, it is hard to translate that experience. Like you said, they saw the two snakes and didn't realize that it might have been DNA n what they were looking at. Yeah. But as humans, we do the best we can. With the, and try to clear our vessels as much as we can so that we can be clean mirrors, that we can translate it to the best of our abilities.
And that's why with our book, we use the word evolving leadership because we're trying to bring new language to what's already there through our perceptions and, and the channeled spaces that Seth and I are in. And then the other people that have collaborated in this book. It's our translation. of what we're channeling from source.
Oh, the experience. Yeah. Right. Yeah. The information you're receiving. Yes. I totally understand that. Yeah. Yeah. I have, I have a practice of I would say almost every morning, you know, there's exceptions of course, you know, but I, I, I don't, I don't formally meditate like you usually think of meditating.
What I'll do is I'll sit down, pull my computer up, you know, get it going. Place my hands on the proper place on the keyboard, and then. You know, put the date in and then I'll write a little bit like a journal, you know, what's going on. I might have questions that come up experiences, et cetera. So I might write a paragraph or so, and then I shift gears.
I sometimes stand up, walk around a little bit, come back or replace it. And just with the breath, cuz I can access an altered state pretty quickly. Yes. I might hear from the ancestors, I might hear from, I just, one I call the. Raven sometimes pipes in. Yeah, sometimes, you know, wants to talk, so that's great.
Whoever's, whoever, you know, ancestors quite often and I just start downloading. This is the best way I'd describe it. It really is like a download. Yeah. Like you said, I translate, you know, whatever's coming through, I translate, but I'm, my ego's like over here. Right. I'm not trying to censor, eliminate. , you know, correct the spelling or any of that stuff.
The funny part is when I accidentally hit the cap lock, you know, and all of a sudden everything's in , I go, wait a minute. Maybe that's meant to be, you know, so I'll take a look at it, like shouting at me. But it's a great exercise. I, and that's one way I encourage people, you know, to try something a little different, you know, to do, translate what you receive, whether you write it by hand, which.
Client that I've talked with, you know, she writes it by hand. What she gets is amazing, the messages that come through and the clarity, not just for the individual necessarily, but especially in the position I'm in, to be able to put it out in some way, right? To take the translation from the download and be able to further translate it, you know, into a, a wider field, if you will, websites, social media, and all that stuff.
Yeah. And that is a gift to be able to do that. So, and fun. Yeah, it's fun. The, the years and years of practice and, you know, it becomes muscle memory. Like you said, you, you, you can put yourself into that altered state quickly, but that it's mu muscle memory. It's the same thing I was teaching my athletes.
You know, it's, yes. It's, it, the more you do it just like anything else in your life, if you wanna be able to have these skills. You can't just go to a weekend workshop and expect to have mastery. It's just like everything else. The, the consistency and the practice has to be there until you can embody it, right?
Until, like you said, Steven, you can sit down at the computer and just go, okay, it's time. Boom.that takes mastery, that, that takes practice.
Finding a, it's a good way. Be consistent with it. And I think it's a good point to, for the listeners that there's lots of ways to do what people refer to as meditation.
Yeah. You know, we, we typically think of it as, you gotta go sit quietly in the dark space for minutes, hours, weeks, days, you know? Right. And, and it's not, that's just not true any. you develop that allows you to access that, that non-ordinary reality, the ancestors that you know, that space outside of our, you know, out our time.
That's your meditation.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Goal is to be in walking meditation. Like, can, wouldn't it be great if we could just live in that space all the time? You know, that's what I strive for, that, that presence and that calm and that piece, that aligned space. You know, we, we try to maintain. All the time, and that's why I talk about work walking in both worlds.
Can you do that and engage in the matrix at the same time and still hold yourself in the center?
One of my favorite, this has come up a lot lately, is before Zen chop wood carry water after zen chop wood carry water, right. . In other words, it's a great saying. It's like, yeah, you know, you can go into the mystery and have some kind of relationship that you've, you've consciously developed with the mystery to use a.
One way to describe it. And then you gotta go and do the dishes. You gotta clean up the kitchen, you know, you gotta take the trash out, you know, all that stuff. But you can do it with a, a different sense about you, you know, that you're, you're more aware, shall we say You're aware of that. That bridge sometimes will disappear and you'll just see or feel or sense or think or whatever it may be that something's something else is happening.
you know that takes us maybe out of the presence, but into a different kind of presence. Mm-hmm. . Yeah.
Well, I like to think when you're, when you're doing your dishes and you're taking out the trash to me, that you're cleaning your physical space, which is mother Earth, but our bodies are mother, mother earth.
So when you're cleaning that space, you're also cleaning yourself. So I, I've kind of, it's sacred cleaning.
Sacred cleaning. Okay. And again, it's a, it's that's a good way to put it, you know. Good way to put it is if you're, Yeah, you're aware of the presence, you know, capital,
Feng, our, our, our publisher Laura, she says, Feng your soul.
Right? You're not just Feng, you're, you're external. You're Fng here too. .
Yeah. Yeah. Good to not,
not sacrifice one relationship for the other. Right? Don't, if you're in such deep pursuit of the mystery as you call it, which I think is a great way to describe it. that you neglect your relationship with life here on Earth that we're here to experience.
And if you only, like, I'm only, I'm only gonna just do life, then you never explore that relationship with the mystery. Mm-hmm. and mystery. Those two relationships build on each other and they create, you know, a, a more a, a, I guess a deeper relationship with both. So, Walking in that, that walking in world, that's
why we walking into both worlds is
in that balance, not neglecting
one for the other.
Yeah. It comes to mind again, what I, the story I told earlier that life is about experience, you know? Yeah. We get tangled up in this and that, especially when you're, you're pulled by, or pushed by, or kicked into this awakening process it can become somewhat consum. Workshop after workshop, after workshop, after workshop, after workshop, after workshop.
You know, and not to put that down, I don't, it sounds like I'm putting it down and not, cuz everybody does what they need to do and God bless you for doing that. But it is an awakening process and I think that's a great term. Those two words. Awakening process is a process for sure. You know, suddenly I'm awake.
Okay. . And then two minutes later I spill coffee on myself. You know, Well, it's
building that spiritual muscle. Yeah. That, that's the, that's the training over,
that's the practice. Yeah. Amen. That
is the practice. And speaking of workshops, you have some stuff coming up. Why don't you
Yeah, I, I'll share that with I've got the gathering of the Sean, as I mentioned.
I got the dates here. It's May 4th through seventh, and that's in Sedona at this incredible retreat space that you Amazing. And it's called the Mago Retreat Center. Mm-hmm. . And those of you are listening, if you wanna have an experience, go there. And then I'm doing a breakout workshop that's connected to, but separate from the , the main, the, you know, the main retreat is on Sunday.
Yeah. And that's gonna be on Sunday. On Sunday, okay. Yeah. It ends like Sunday morning, and then I go into my, my workshop. I'm also doing I'm gonna be a Joshua Tree Retreat center, twice, one coming right up April 27th through the 31st with my dear friend, colleague, Marissa Ryan. Very gifted psychic medium.
We've been doing this off and on. mostly off during the pandemic, but off and on for, you know, a few years now. And she's delightful to work with and we have a lot of fun and just these miraculous experiences take place. I think we have room for one space in the retreat center, I think. And, but we're also saying if you still want to come, you can come, but you have to.
Housing right outside of the retreat center and then with some other colleagues, which should be fun. This will be your first time with Marilyn Aloia, who again is also a psychic medium, and Annamaria Vasquez, who also deals a lot with animal medicine. The three of us are putting on something in. At Joshua Tree Retreat Center, I think we're calling it Deep Dive in the Desert.
Mm. So I'm gonna be a little busy here and there, and I'm looking forward to actually getting with three dimensional people and then working with other dimensions if you'll . Awesome. You know, same time. Oh, that's a lot of fun. And thanks for asking. Yeah. Before we. Closed and I wanted to make sure that, and also people can, you know you can sign up for my newsletter, go to my website.
It's dr. Like dr steven farmer.com. Real easy to remember. Explore there. There's articles, there's all sorts of good stuff there that you can check into. And again, I congratulate you on your book. Thank you. Thank you very much. When's it gonna be out?
When's it gonna be out? Summer Solstice. His launch date.
June 21st, you said that.
Yeah.
Right. Very excited about that, and it's just been such a pleasure to have you along my journey and your books and your, like I said, your two Oracle decks are some of my favorites that I use, and I, I just love you. Thank you so much for shining your light on this planet and being who you are
and returning to you too.
Thank you both. You know, for the work that you're. Yeah. Yeah.
For being here. And, and thank you to the listeners for being here as well. I hope you uh, I know there's, there's great material here to to snack on and, and feed your soul as, as we say,
so you got it. Thank you so much. All right.
Thanks. All right.
Thank
you. All my love. All my love. Same blessing.
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