In this deeply engaging episode with Manda Scott we explore themes of every day spirituality, heart connected culture and the possibility for a world where everyone feels safe to be. Manda shares her vision of humanity deeply reconnecting with the web of life, embracing connections with nature, and recognising our roles as conscious participants in a greater whole. She presents the beautiful possibility of our capacity of feeling the weave of our interconnectedness with all beings through time and space when we open to it. The conversation delves into the importance of cultivating coherence in our lives through mindful practices, gratitude, and reflection, which can shift our experiences from chaos to flow.
To dive deeper into these themes and explore detailed podcast notes inclduing more about Manda's new novel Any Human Power, check out my latest blog post here.
More about Manda Scott
Manda Scott is an award-winning novelist and host of the acclaimed Accidental Gods podcast. Best known for the Boudica: Dreaming series, her previous novels have been short-listed for the Orange Prize, the Edgar, Wilbur Smith and Saltire Awards and won the McIlvanney Prize. Her latest novel ANY HUMAN POWER is a Mytho-Political thriller which lays out a Thrutopian road map to a Flourishing future we’d be proud to leave to the generations that come after us. With degrees inveterinary medicine and a Masters in Regenerative Economics, Manda’s life is oriented towards creating radical new narratives that will pave the way to the total systemic change our culture and our world needs. Any Human Power is available for sale on Amazon. Readers can connect with Manda Scott on Facebook, Bluesky, Goodreads, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
To learn more, visit https://mandascott.co.uk/ and https://accidentalgods.life
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Hey, Amanda, welcome to connection matters podcast. It's really lovely to see you.
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Manda Scott: Thank you. It's lovely to be back. It's a real honor to be here.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: I would like to start if you're willing to invite you to share
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: the vision of your longing.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Quite a large.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: a large vision here. But
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: yeah, I'm imagining. You know, we're
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: yeah coming coming into this space.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: as though
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: as it is a sacred space for dreaming.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: And
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: from you, who has,
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: connected so deeply with the way the world is, and the potential of the future
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: would really love to hear.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: What does Charles eisenstates and say,
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: The more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.
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Manda Scott: Yes, thank you. Thank you for the depth and the breadth of that.
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Manda Scott: So
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Manda Scott: so at heart.
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Manda Scott: My own heart's longing
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Manda Scott: is that everybody become heart connected to the web of life, that every human being
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Manda Scott: take their place
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Manda Scott: as a
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Manda Scott: self-aware conscious node
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Manda Scott: in the extraordinary complexity that is the web of life.
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Manda Scott: Really, that's where I
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Manda Scott: where I feel
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Manda Scott: humanity could go. And also
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Manda Scott: I think that would be an extraordinary expression of what humanity is.
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Manda Scott: And
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Manda Scott: if that were to arise.
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Manda Scott: A kind of more prosaic version of my heart's longing
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Manda Scott: is that we who are alive now, whatever age we are, if we're
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Manda Scott: here present in this moment of total transition
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Manda Scott: on of our ecosphere, of
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Manda Scott: who we are, and how we see ourselves
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Manda Scott: is that we lay the foundations for a future
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Manda Scott: that we would be proud to leave to the generations who are not yet born.
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Manda Scott: I want to be able to step 7 generations
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Manda Scott: down the line of our descendants.
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Manda Scott: of our blood and of our spirit. And look those people in the eye and say.
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Manda Scott: How did we do?
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Manda Scott: And for them to look us back in the eye and say.
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Manda Scott: you did good.
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Manda Scott: We are proud of you.
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Manda Scott: and and clearly we've left it kind of a long way late. We could have done this a while ago.
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Manda Scott: and
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Manda Scott: we've taken a number of wrong turns on the way. But I still think there's time to do that.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Yeah.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: So we have the capacity as humans to
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: to be
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and feel and know
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: our interconnectedness with all of life, much more than we're taught
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: in this culture. What does it feel like? What would it feel like
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: to be connected in that way? And how would we act differently.
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Manda Scott: There are so many layers to that. So I'm I'm stepping down through the layers at the, at the outer.
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Manda Scott: at the level that we are at the moment it would feel safe.
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Manda Scott: we would feel confident we would know our connectedness. We would know that we are held in a mesh
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Manda Scott: of connectivity.
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Manda Scott: and that
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Manda Scott: we don't need to plan what to do.
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Manda Scott: So for me. Heart connection, if we take it a bit deeper.
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Manda Scott: Heart connection to the web of life
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Manda Scott: is
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Manda Scott: an extraordinary numinous
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Manda Scott: liminal place, where nothing is predictable with our head, mind, and everything is
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Manda Scott: predicated on
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Manda Scott: being part of a flow.
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Manda Scott: a flow through me as if I were the hollow bone through my heart space and out to all of the things that connect with me
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Manda Scott: in my as as my node in this
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Manda Scott: extraordinary complex, hyper complex web, where everything is everything else. So I have both individuality and a sense of self still. But I also have a sense of being part of a greater whole
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Manda Scott: which has its own intelligence. My head mind is then freed up from the weight of having to plan of having to know, of having to be able to predict.
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Manda Scott: because I am an integral part of the web of life.
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Manda Scott: And so there's a
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Manda Scott: there's an ease.
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Manda Scott: but ease is too little a word, because
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Manda Scott: when I
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Manda Scott: step into that level of connection and it
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Manda Scott: isn't necessarily continuous, I'm working on it becoming continuous. But it isn't.
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Manda Scott: But when it when it's there, there's
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Manda Scott: there's a sense of relief and release and and of overwhelming. There's
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Manda Scott: our English language.
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Manda Scott: perhaps any language, but definitely English
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Manda Scott: doesn't have the words
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Manda Scott: for the level of compassion that is available, and even compassion itself.
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Manda Scott: I always tend to find myself putting adjectives in front of it raw
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Manda Scott: are wild
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Manda Scott: or magical, something that
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Manda Scott: gives a sense of the scope and the scale and the vastness
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Manda Scott: and the power of it in a way that is empowering.
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Manda Scott: not power over
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Manda Scott: so, and then
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Manda Scott: and then, once the flow starts.
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Manda Scott: synchronicity happens, we become alive to the fact that we live in a world of synchronicity
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Manda Scott: that
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Manda Scott: that we are porous. I've been reading a lot recently. There's a lady called Tanya Luhrman, who
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Manda Scott: was an anthropologist. We don't need to go into detail, but she talks about citadel mind being
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Manda Scott: one of the defining features of our Western culture. This bizarre concept that we are
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Manda Scott: enclosed, that we are a sealed unit, that nothing comes in, and what goes out is only what we choose to go out, and nothing comes in beyond our
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Manda Scott: 5 senses.
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Manda Scott: and and it's manifestly untrue, and there isn't a single other whole and healthy culture in the world that subscribes to this.
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Manda Scott: But the separation of that is what has allowed our culture to take us to the edge places that we now inhabit.
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Manda Scott: but when that
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Manda Scott: when we abandon the concepts of such a dull mind, and allow the porosity of what Tanya Lerman calls porous mind, which is.
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Manda Scott: I am
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Manda Scott: because the greater we
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Manda Scott: exists
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Manda Scott: on
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Manda Scott: more
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Manda Scott: levels than I could possibly begin to express, and I don't have to express them because I just am there.
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Manda Scott: Then then anything becomes possible, and I become.
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Manda Scott: I was going to say an agent. It's not the right word, but I become
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Manda Scott: an integral part of this.
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Manda Scott: and I have agency.
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Manda Scott: but I have agency in service to the greater whole, in service to life.
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Manda Scott: in service, to love.
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Manda Scott: so that I can't even remember what your question was. Now I'm sorry.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Yeah, I can. I can go with that feeling. And and yeah, that feels really alive, that sense of
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: greater
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: experiencing potential that we have.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: that we many of us
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: might never
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: have
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: have understood
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: from a mind perspective. Maybe we've had moments where we feel connected. We're alone in nature.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Maybe we've had times where we
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: no, we just know
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: when we're in connection. Wherever we have these moments, where everything feels right.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and we'll know that we're exactly where we're supposed to be.
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Manda Scott: Yes.
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Manda Scott: Yes. Right? Person, right? Place. Right? Time. Yeah. Yeah.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: And that that but but those times can be quite few and far between in our culture, and also they feel
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: outside of our control.
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Manda Scott: Okay, say more about that.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: I guess.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: What I mean is that in in modern culture, in the consensus reality.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: when we have those experiences, they seem
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: unexpected.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: what I am starting to
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: believe and understand and experiences that actually we can influence
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: that level of connectedness. We can create conditions that enable us to come more deeply in the sense of connection that you're describing.
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Manda Scott: Yes.
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Manda Scott: yes, so that I
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Manda Scott: my feeling, is that it it?
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Manda Scott: It's not impossible, even within our current culture, for this to become continuous.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Hmm.
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Manda Scott: And and so
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Manda Scott: so for everyone. The the
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Manda Scott: the work of the moment is to look at. When do I get knocked off balance, and what knocks me off balance, and how do I do the inner work?
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Manda Scott: I think.
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Manda Scott: partly because I'm now in internal family systems therapy, and it's it's blown open a whole bunch of doors, and it's made the link
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Manda Scott: to the shamanic work much more apparent.
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Manda Scott: and and has given me a bunch of tools that I didn't have before, or at least
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Manda Scott: framed the tools, perhaps slightly differently.
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Manda Scott: And
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Manda Scott: I'm looking at
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Manda Scott: the parts of us that are skeptical.
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Manda Scott: and the parts that judge, and the parts that need to sweep our legs out from under us, whatever we're doing.
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Manda Scott: and that those parts.
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Manda Scott: once we
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Manda Scott: don't have to identify with them completely, and can look at them as a part, and then begin to engage with them and heal them.
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Manda Scott: Then then the capacity to
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Manda Scott: to remain on the balance beam of the moment, say.
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Manda Scott: becomes
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Manda Scott: less effort.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Hmm.
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Manda Scott: And then that in itself
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Manda Scott: gains its own momentum.
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Manda Scott: I I very much feels like a, you know, cracking a windscreen. It's tiny to begin with, but it reaches a tipping point when the whole windscreen is gone. That's probably not the best metaphor, but but tipping points happen, and they happen internally.
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Manda Scott: and and it feels like pushing water uphill to begin with.
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Manda Scott: But the more we
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Manda Scott: commit to the practice of whatever the practice is that works for us.
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Manda Scott: It gains its own momentum within us. And some of this is basic neurophysiology. What fires together wires together
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Manda Scott: together. Hebb's postulate's been around now for for nearly a hundred years and and it and it works. So I have no problem using left brain knowledge stuff
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Manda Scott: in service to what we're doing. And I think again that was discovering that that if I
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Manda Scott: work through the weeds of my own mind into unfamiliar pathways, it's really hard to begin with, but as soon as I've started making new neural connections.
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Manda Scott: provided I maintain those
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Manda Scott: they become, they can become defaults.
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Manda Scott: And they can
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Manda Scott: supplant my previous defaults of despair, and
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Manda Scott: all of the things fear and terror, and rage and grief and horror, and the things that
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Manda Scott: can otherwise
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Manda Scott: overwhelm us.
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Manda Scott: And in any moment there is a choice. I think this is one of the other things that
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Manda Scott: I am really focusing on at the moment is that at any moment we have a choice of what we
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Manda Scott: flow because we're connected to the web. Anyway.
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Manda Scott: The question is whether we're aware of it, and are and are working with it consciously, or whether we're trying to seal ourselves off in our little citadel mind and pretend it isn't there.
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Manda Scott: And what am I giving out into the web
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Manda Scott: at any moment from my heart? Because heart, it's heart connection to the web. It's definitely not head connection.
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Manda Scott: And and I have a choice. And I it doesn't mean I go into denial about
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Manda Scott: at the edge places that we're at, or that I have less
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Manda Scott: grief and despair, but I don't have to be
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Manda Scott: filling my heart with those. I can look at them and say, Yes, you're there, and I can weep and rage, and all of the things
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Manda Scott: that are there. But they flow through and underlying
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Manda Scott: is a trust and a connection
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Manda Scott: and a compassion
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Manda Scott: that flows that sense of reciprocal relationship
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Manda Scott: that underpins everything else.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Hmm.
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Manda Scott: Means that the rest have their own container. In a way.
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Manda Scott: Does that make sense.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Yeah, do you have something that you tell yourself, or that you remind yourself that brings you
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: back into
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: that connection when you need.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: when you need it.
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Manda Scott: Yes.
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Manda Scott: although it
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Manda Scott: potentially can be a little esoteric if if I'm explaining it to other people, what I
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Manda Scott: would say probably is.
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Manda Scott: I've I've gone through a series of steps.
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Manda Scott: I
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Manda Scott: have looked at what? What brings me back into my own heart, mind
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Manda Scott: and and I have a concept that at the moment is working for me, which is, that there are 3 pillars to my heart, mind that really matter, gratitude, compassion, and joyful curiosity.
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Manda Scott: and
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Manda Scott: my experience is that, provided I'm
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Manda Scott: for inflow with 2 out of the 3 of those.
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Manda Scott: then I can. I can sit in my heart, mind.
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Manda Scott: and then I have actively looked in the days for what triggers my gratitude.
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Manda Scott: And I'm you know, actually just living triggers. My gratitude. I have an extraordinary privileged life, and I'm very well aware of it. I live on a small holding, you know. I I look out of a window and and it triggers great
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Manda Scott: fires of gratitude in my life most of the time. Sometimes I get a bit overwhelmed, but
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Manda Scott: the overwhelming is always head overwhelm rather than heart overwhelm
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Manda Scott: compassion. Similarly.
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Manda Scott: I have
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Manda Scott: worked a lot, put a lot of time into
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Manda Scott: developing reciprocal heart connections with the land that I live on.
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Manda Scott: so that I can look at a tree, or look at the hill, or look at the red kites or the cats, or
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Manda Scott: we've got a farmer renting the fields, look at the cattle and and feel a surge of compassion.
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Manda Scott: And then, again, I've spent quite a lot of time in meditation, really meditating on
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Manda Scott: the concept of joyful curiosity which for me is what allows my head mind to unhinge
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Manda Scott: it gives. If I have the framing of
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Manda Scott: wow! That's amazing.
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Manda Scott: I wonder what happens next
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Manda Scott: to every moment.
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Manda Scott: Even the phrasing of. I wonder what happens next? Allows my head mind
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Manda Scott: to relax from
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Manda Scott: certainly what I was
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Manda Scott: socialized into for decades as a child was having to know what's going to happen next, having to predict, partly because of a somewhat dysfunctional childhood where predicting what was coming was quite important.
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Manda Scott: But also just I trained as a vet. It's your job to know what happens. I was an anaesthetist. It's absolutely my job to know exactly what's going to happen next, and if it's bad to head it off at the pass. That was the whole of my world, and I think our Western citadel mind left brain trauma culture, whatever we call it, is predicated on having to predict what's going to happen
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Manda Scott: and then make it okay. And that sense of command and control.
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Manda Scott: and and our heads are exhausted.
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Manda Scott: And if I can get into that magical space of Wow, this is amazing. I wonder what happens next
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Manda Scott: to every moment.
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Manda Scott: then my head can step back and and step into that place of wonder and unknowing
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Manda Scott: which is a huge relief
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Manda Scott: and release and relax, and all I have to do
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Manda Scott: is be in awe and wonder of the happening of what happens next.
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Manda Scott: not pattern matching and predicting.
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Manda Scott: So so those 3 together, so
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Manda Scott: as as an actual basic practice. I have tagged
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Manda Scott: various things. So let's say, for instance, I would tag
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Manda Scott: putting water in the kettle and switching it on to make myself a cup of herbal tea, because I do that a lot in the day, and it's a it's a discrete and individual act, and if I tag that which I did
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Manda Scott: then, and remember at that moment to be grateful for the water that comes out of a spring, and the fact that we have power, and I can go out and pick a nettle, and whatever all of that I'm grateful for, I'm I. And then also, then I can take a moment and look out of the kitchen window at trees and feel the compassion, and I can settle into that
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Manda Scott: joyful curiosity. Wow! I wonder what happens next, and
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Manda Scott: I can make that a practice while the kettle is boiling.
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Manda Scott: Yeah, 2 and a half minutes of that.
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Manda Scott: And then
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Manda Scott: I do a lot of dog behavior, training. And and we're always looking at what's the thing that comes
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Manda Scott: before the thing that comes before the thing?
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Manda Scott: and
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Manda Scott: antecedent behaviour
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Manda Scott: consequence. If I tag the kettle boiling quite soon. I'm also tagging, going to fill up the water bottle
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Manda Scott: from
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Manda Scott: the filter that we put the water through when we get it from the spring, and then I'm tagging coming downstairs from my office, and then I'm tagging, thinking I'll go make another cup of tea, and then it's and it's back chaining.
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Manda Scott: and it's also forward training. So I've got my cup of tea, and I'm walking up this up the stairs with my cup of tea, and that's extraordinary. And then I,
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Manda Scott: because I found it useful in something else that I do in the day. I have also very deliberately tagged
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Manda Scott: the act of walking up the stairs.
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Manda Scott: and then they train together.
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Manda Scott: and then I might tag
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Manda Scott: feeding the animals
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Manda Scott: because I love it, and it's a chance to engage them, and then going to feed the animals and coming from feeding the animals, and and then
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Manda Scott: the more events that are discrete that I can tag and really use them as a as a means of coming back into my heart. Mind.
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Manda Scott: the more they begin to ripple into each other, and
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Manda Scott: and I have a very specific practice when I wake up, of sending gratitude, compassion on curiosity back to the me that was going to sleep last night, and the me that was waking tomorrow and forward to the me that will sleep tonight, and the me that will wake tomorrow, and then doing the same in the at night. I I send it back up to the me that was waking this morning, and the me that was going to sleep last night, and then up to the me that will wait tomorrow, and the me that will go to sleep tonight tomorrow, and I I can feel
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Manda Scott: those rippling along the timelines. And so the day starts and ends with those very deliberately also.
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Manda Scott: And then.
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Manda Scott: if
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Manda Scott: if the world is a beautiful place which it is, they they begin to connect. And then then there's rather than there being, isolated islands of coherence within the chaos of my days
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Manda Scott: becomes isolated islands of chaos. When something happens. If somebody sends an email, it just knocks me completely off balance. Because I it's easy to follow the balance. I follow the balance all the time, but at least then, you know, the next time I go to touch my mug with the tea it'll be a cue to come back.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Oh, oh, I love that! I love that you've named the, you know the isolated moments of coherence as the dominant and the isolated moments of chaos as the as the singular, and that is
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: that is huge. That's what we are.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: that's what
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: I guess those of us who are working to create and deepen
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: interconnectedness within our own lives and with through the work that we're doing are working to create
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: And I also want to pick up on the
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: amazing
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: meta perspective that came through the practice that you described, that you do every morning of sending the gratitude forwards and backwards through time, because
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: that is a concept that I think is
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: not in everybody's awareness, that we have the power
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: to travel, that we have the power to dream and to create, and that we ourselves are creators.
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Manda Scott: Yes.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: And
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: it brings me to.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: When we met a few weeks ago, we were in the same place that the Nature culture Connection camp
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: in Bedfordshire, which was
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Yeah, for those
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: who are listening. The nature culture connection. Campus is a
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: 8 shields. It's it's 8. Shields is a model of
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: connection that aims to create the optimum conditions for connection
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: for the whole
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: of the people who are there. So the people who are holding the space. The people who are cooking the people who live on the land, all the beings there.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: it's
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: offers the opportunity to be held in
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: what is attempting to be a connected culture, a culture that has people of all generations, from babies to elders. There is an elders.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: a circle. There are people there who are tending to the young people. The adults all have
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: their own experiences of being
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: taught in guilds of different themes. There's a Fire Guild. There was a deep Nature Connection guild. There was a Basketry Guild. So people who are learning particular skills to deepen their connections.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and then there is the experience of being held by a team of people who are
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: explicitly hope, sorry that they are holding particular energies that are needed
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: for a community to be able to thrive. So there are people there who are specifically there to tend to
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: conflict and grief, and look out for any needs that might need attending to. There are people there who are there to engage and inspire and raise the energy, and bring
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: excitement in the morning, and sing songs and and many other things. I won't describe the whole model here, but the the essence is a very unique experience. Where the people who are there get to drop into the sense of
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: regulation in the nervous system that enables us to really experience the more than human world, and the interconnect interconnectedness that we have with that safety that you discussed with that awe and wonder and magic.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: knowing that when things come up
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: there are, there's enough in place.
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Manda Scott: Yeah.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: To trust that things will be worked through in a good way, that the will and the intent is clear
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: that we are all here to heal.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: to love.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: to grow.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and to experience the interconnectedness of the full potential of our power as humans. And so that you were there was really super special. Amanda came to to give a talk on
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: all things wonderful, and it was really lovely to to see you in person. So, Amanda, how did you experience that camp.
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Manda Scott: It was. It was glorious, everything about it. It was
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Manda Scott: even where it was held it. It's a place in the middle of Bedfordshire, and it's surrounded by industrial farmland.
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Manda Scott: and the people who hold the land had
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Manda Scott: 24 years ago turning the millennium.
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Manda Scott: turned it into a sacred grove. It's astonishing. I'm just, was in awe of the beauty and the depth of
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Manda Scott: stillness and groundedness and connection
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Manda Scott: in a place that was literally surrounded by industrial farmland on all sites and and the Earth Chamber. I could have
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Manda Scott: spent a long, long, long time in that Earth chamber. That was just everything about it was magical, and then
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Manda Scott: stepping into because I
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Manda Scott: came
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Manda Scott: as an outsider and
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Manda Scott: stepping into what was very clearly an evolving
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Manda Scott: serotonin mesh of of relating in community
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Manda Scott: and
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Manda Scott: and feeling
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Manda Scott: the aliveness of that and the groundedness of it, and the care of it, and the trust that it evokes and the relaxation that it facilitates
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Manda Scott: was beautiful.
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Manda Scott: I'm just watching the practicalities of this is how we
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Manda Scott: bring everybody together without
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Manda Scott: without having
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Manda Scott: clock watching. As far as I can tell, nobody was wearing a watch but also without
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Manda Scott: flowing into. I remember in the old days doing stuff with
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Manda Scott: people in in the early parts of the the shamanic movement over here, and and they would move on to
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Manda Scott: a different timeframe, where, fundamentally, sometimes, things just didn't happen because nobody was holding any time, space at all.
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Manda Scott: and
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Manda Scott: and it felt messy to be honest and and
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Manda Scott: and quite frustrating. And and you know I was. That was half a lifetime ago, and and I was a lot more left brain and parts of me going just for goodness sake go on and do what you said you were, gonna do and and they never did. You know, sweat lot. It just would not happen because nobody had made them happen.
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Manda Scott: And I think what I felt at Nature culture Connection camp was that the things that needed to happen were going to happen. But they were going to happen in a healthy way.
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Manda Scott: It was much more.
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Manda Scott: It. It had a flowing structure. It felt like a sweat lodge in the sense that it wasn't a brick house. It didn't have rigid, square walls. It had that
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Manda Scott: flexible frame, but it did have a frame.
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Manda Scott: I loved it. It was really beautiful, and I was felt very, very honored to have been invited to be there.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Hmm, yeah, thank you. I love that.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: that. It felt like a sweat lodge.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: And then I don't know exactly what you mean. It's like being in the womb of the earth, where where
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: where we can leave behind what doesn't serve us and recreate and become the creators that we are. Yeah, super powerful. So.
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Manda Scott: Think it's our birthright. Just very briefly, I think that sense of connectedness and trust in community. I think we're all born
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Manda Scott: assuming. That's what we're being born into. And I think a lot of our internal winding here in the west is that that's not what we meet.
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Manda Scott: And so the one of the many beauties of this camp was that there were children who
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Manda Scott: who were alive in that.
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Manda Scott: and who were therefore going to have grown, knowing that this is possible.
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Manda Scott: and that that in itself is a kind of magic. I think. Yeah.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Yeah, absolutely. I mean my, my, both of my children were there, and they happened to be the oldest children, and
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: they're they're 10 and and 13, and they got the experience of
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: being part of the
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: My older one was part of the adult guilds, so he was held
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: in a group of really good men who were doing the fire, you know, who were tending the fire. There was a group, all, all
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: throughout. Who who were.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: you know, connecting and growing and
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: deepening their relationship to
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: all that is fire. And he got to tend the sacred fire which was
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Such a beautiful
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and powerful experience for most people there to witness, because this is all about the future generations being able to have the spaces that are there for them to for them to step into
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: their power and their
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: reverence for life, and
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: honoring the beauty and being seen and witnessed, it was definitely an edge for him when he was invited to do it. He didn't at 1st want to, but he was encouraged and supported and able to to make that happen. And yeah, I feel very, quite emotional. Actually, you know.
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Manda Scott: It's it.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Know, that
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: these spaces are opening up for our young people is very powerful and amazing, and
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and that grief tending was also a part of that process. Is also very, very important, because if we don't have healthy spaces to acknowledge the grief that we feel.
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: even if everything in the world that's going on wasn't going on just the normal and natural process of living, experiencing death and rebirth that happens
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: all the time is something that we need to acknowledge, accept
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: on the
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and move through
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and and
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and being able to do that supported by community
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and have
392
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Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: an understanding as a culture
393
00:31:05.170 --> 00:31:10.180
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: that it is something that's necessary and needed, and when we don't do it, the ripples of that.
394
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Manda Scott: Hmm.
395
00:31:11.890 --> 00:31:17.350
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Move out into the communities and come out sideways, as it were then.
396
00:31:18.530 --> 00:31:23.319
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: you know, that's that's a that's a really different consciousness to live within. Yeah.
397
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Manda Scott: Completely, yes.
398
00:31:26.250 --> 00:31:31.500
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Would be very powerful to actually to to experience that over a longer period of time.
399
00:31:32.070 --> 00:31:32.670
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: But I.
400
00:31:32.670 --> 00:31:40.170
Manda Scott: Was one of the things I came away with was, what would it be like to live like that right just forever? Not to end it? What would it be like.
401
00:31:40.170 --> 00:31:48.908
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: What would it be like? Yeah. And I I've thought about that, too, because, you know, it wasn't perfect. There were things that still need to be worked on, and
402
00:31:50.120 --> 00:31:51.190
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and
403
00:31:52.330 --> 00:32:06.519
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: for example, you know that those who were looking after the the children. You know they had a huge job of looking after a large group of children over a long period of time in a space that they weren't used to.
404
00:32:06.530 --> 00:32:14.860
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: But I've got to say all credit to those humans that stepped up to do that work because they were able to
405
00:32:14.900 --> 00:32:16.030
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: hold
406
00:32:18.320 --> 00:32:23.149
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: some children who, I guess, in in our society.
407
00:32:24.770 --> 00:32:26.809
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: that expects children to do
408
00:32:27.276 --> 00:32:34.430
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: sitting at desks, and expects them to not shout and not be rude and not be. You know they.
409
00:32:35.230 --> 00:32:36.920
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: the the
410
00:32:37.060 --> 00:32:56.999
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: the people who were attending that space were able to hold children who who might have struggled, who might not have been able to, by really honoring the beauty in each of them, and I know from speaking to some of the parents that that it was truly transformational for them to have had
411
00:32:57.523 --> 00:33:13.880
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: a space where their children were really seen in their beauty, and be able to be held in that group in that space. And for them the difference between the beginning of the week to the end was life changing, and I find that magical.
412
00:33:14.120 --> 00:33:21.099
Manda Scott: And then imagine if it was a month, or 6 months, or a year, because and what are we for? If it's not
413
00:33:21.590 --> 00:33:22.640
Manda Scott: to
414
00:33:22.750 --> 00:33:26.049
Manda Scott: help the next generation become the best that they can be.
415
00:33:26.840 --> 00:33:34.709
Manda Scott: What? What else is humanity for? I speak as someone who hasn't had kids. But I I saw the kids there, and and they looked like
416
00:33:34.820 --> 00:33:37.369
Manda Scott: it was the wildest and best
417
00:33:37.980 --> 00:33:45.360
Manda Scott: childhood one could imagine. I would have given my eye teeth as a kid to be able to experience what those kids were experiencing, and
418
00:33:46.600 --> 00:33:51.119
Manda Scott: and in every culture there has ever been except our current one.
419
00:33:52.310 --> 00:33:55.860
Manda Scott: The function of the tribe is to rear the children.
420
00:33:55.900 --> 00:34:08.420
Manda Scott: That's what you're there for is to create the space where the new people become good people so they can help the new people become good people, and in the becoming good people. Everybody has an extraordinary connected
421
00:34:08.620 --> 00:34:09.500
Manda Scott: life.
422
00:34:11.050 --> 00:34:19.770
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: One of the things that I wanted to raise with you actually, was you guided us through a collective visioning experience.
423
00:34:20.760 --> 00:34:21.989
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: And
424
00:34:22.911 --> 00:34:27.589
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: well, firstly, would you introduce what it is that you that you shared if you.
425
00:34:28.110 --> 00:34:37.570
Manda Scott: Yeah, I I would be put a coder around it of. I think it is a thing to be guided in, and I that doing it on one's own people. Listening is probably
426
00:34:38.614 --> 00:34:42.340
Manda Scott: there are safety issues. I was quite careful to
427
00:34:42.530 --> 00:34:43.690
Manda Scott: to set
428
00:34:43.719 --> 00:34:48.230
Manda Scott: energetic and and actual practical logistical boundaries around this
429
00:34:49.018 --> 00:34:52.300
Manda Scott: so in essence, what we did was
430
00:34:52.710 --> 00:34:53.750
Manda Scott: 2,
431
00:34:55.400 --> 00:34:58.959
Manda Scott: take ourselves to a place from which it was safe
432
00:34:59.180 --> 00:35:04.319
Manda Scott: for our dream bodies to move, and then we moved back through time.
433
00:35:04.590 --> 00:35:09.669
Manda Scott: basically all the way to the Big Bang to give ourselves a perspective of where we'd come from.
434
00:35:10.600 --> 00:35:18.429
Manda Scott: And then we came back forward again to the present moment, and then we turned round. Our dream bodies turned around and stepped forward. 7 generations
435
00:35:18.540 --> 00:35:22.010
Manda Scott: to meet our grandchildren's grandchildren's children
436
00:35:22.800 --> 00:35:25.590
Manda Scott: and and look them in the eye, and ask them
437
00:35:25.930 --> 00:35:27.479
Manda Scott: what we needed to ask.
438
00:35:27.970 --> 00:35:29.230
Manda Scott: and then come back.
439
00:35:29.260 --> 00:35:31.899
Manda Scott: Is that? Does that cover it for you?
440
00:35:32.300 --> 00:35:37.440
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Yes, so I thought I would. I I nearly shared with you in the space when we were all
441
00:35:37.610 --> 00:35:46.278
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: collecting our thoughts afterwards, but I thought I would share it, for now to share my experience and save it for now. And and
442
00:35:47.210 --> 00:35:53.289
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: yeah, when I moved forwards to the future 7 generations. What I saw
443
00:35:53.380 --> 00:35:56.319
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: was a being that was
444
00:35:58.730 --> 00:36:07.160
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Well, it was a cross between both my my son and my daughter, which is no surprise, because 7 generations from me would have hopefully some connection to them.
445
00:36:07.650 --> 00:36:12.939
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: But what, I asked, when I asked, what do I need to be doing? What should I be doing
446
00:36:13.260 --> 00:36:16.390
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: what I heard and what I felt was.
447
00:36:17.380 --> 00:36:18.880
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: you're doing it.
448
00:36:19.040 --> 00:36:28.880
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: We're here. We were in the space where we were all sat round the fire dreaming together, and there had been song, and there had been
449
00:36:28.890 --> 00:36:31.899
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: all of the the care that
450
00:36:32.160 --> 00:36:34.420
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: been taken before the camp
451
00:36:34.530 --> 00:36:44.179
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: on the welcoming to the camp, and the the being that had enabled people to drop into a space of connection so quickly. And so I I got that message you're doing it, and
452
00:36:45.160 --> 00:36:48.560
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: which was obviously very affirming and beautiful.
453
00:36:48.570 --> 00:36:53.500
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: And then you asked us to travel to ask the fire and
454
00:36:53.680 --> 00:36:55.010
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: the fire
455
00:36:55.140 --> 00:37:05.159
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: I I lead questing with fire programs. So I support adults through initiation processes with questing and fire in order to
456
00:37:06.610 --> 00:37:09.480
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: build their interconnectedness and their relationship.
457
00:37:09.990 --> 00:37:16.000
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: So with the the elements and to step more fully into their higher potential.
458
00:37:16.080 --> 00:37:17.180
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: And
459
00:37:17.676 --> 00:37:25.960
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: when I got to the fire the fire said, What you know, what do I need to to learn, and then the fire said, to sit with me more.
460
00:37:25.960 --> 00:37:26.430
Manda Scott: Okay.
461
00:37:26.430 --> 00:37:39.410
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Felt like a bit like a oh, yes, I know I've guided I guess in the last few years I've guided 5 programs and have do and do regularly sit with 5, but haven't done my own quest fully for a while, and.
462
00:37:39.410 --> 00:37:40.040
Manda Scott: Right.
463
00:37:40.390 --> 00:37:42.540
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: And it just felt like a really clear
464
00:37:43.820 --> 00:37:59.960
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: gosh! I know I do know that I need to do it. And then you offered you. You offered the idea that we would offer something, and to each of those beings that I met I offered one of my songs
465
00:38:00.560 --> 00:38:02.269
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: songs that had come to me.
466
00:38:02.650 --> 00:38:05.050
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: And then I had this really
467
00:38:05.750 --> 00:38:07.149
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: It was quite a
468
00:38:07.800 --> 00:38:11.719
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: a sort of a big feeling of this
469
00:38:12.040 --> 00:38:15.860
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: cyclical almost like a
470
00:38:15.910 --> 00:38:28.879
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: it's not like a hurricane, because that's kind of violent, but like this energy of this cycle, because the songs weren't mine. Anyway, the songs had come to me through
471
00:38:29.050 --> 00:38:34.960
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: my through ceremony. They were spirit songs that I was giving back to spirit as a.
472
00:38:34.960 --> 00:38:38.199
Manda Scott: Right, the reciprocal nature of the flow.
473
00:38:38.610 --> 00:38:44.159
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: And and it was just really I I don't know if it comes across
474
00:38:45.500 --> 00:38:54.700
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: in words, because it never does adequately. But it was just this really deep sense of belonging and knowing and
475
00:38:54.900 --> 00:38:56.540
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: re-remembering
476
00:38:56.760 --> 00:38:57.620
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: right.
477
00:38:57.620 --> 00:39:03.809
Manda Scott: And and because I can see you because we have the video as well as the audio, it I it's coming across fairly well.
478
00:39:03.870 --> 00:39:07.050
Manda Scott: Are you able to do what the fire? Asked.
479
00:39:08.450 --> 00:39:09.000
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Yes.
480
00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:09.960
Manda Scott: Okay. Good.
481
00:39:10.680 --> 00:39:12.590
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Yes, absolutely.
482
00:39:12.860 --> 00:39:13.825
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: I.
483
00:39:16.580 --> 00:39:18.350
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: yeah, I it's
484
00:39:18.440 --> 00:39:26.770
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: part of I mean that this is the. This is what for me is one of the things that I think we all need to do more, and that is
485
00:39:27.040 --> 00:39:28.015
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: to
486
00:39:29.370 --> 00:39:32.130
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: have places and
487
00:39:34.200 --> 00:39:37.080
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: ceremonies or rituals that are
488
00:39:37.320 --> 00:39:38.620
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: powerful
489
00:39:39.290 --> 00:39:46.950
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: to us, that we do regularly. In fact, one thing that you said whenever when we were in that space was that I
490
00:39:47.050 --> 00:40:00.910
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: you, you mentioned that you you could do a number of things next. You could write a next book, or you could do this, or you could do that, and either, and any of them might be logical and rational, but that you're not going to do any of them
491
00:40:01.130 --> 00:40:06.839
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: until you go up and sit on the hill and ask, I don't. I'm completely paraphrasing, but.
492
00:40:06.840 --> 00:40:15.879
Manda Scott: Yeah, I'm sitting on the hill on a regular basis. And and it can take a while. It's it's not a 1 off event. I think that's really important to say I'm going up the hill most evenings.
493
00:40:16.470 --> 00:40:22.390
Manda Scott: And it's it's I. I live on the side of a hill. So we're talking. You know. It's a 10 min walk. It's not far.
494
00:40:22.741 --> 00:40:32.079
Manda Scott: I don't want to make it sound like I'm kind of climbing half of Everest, but I'm going to my particular sit spot and sitting and just staying open. And
495
00:40:32.200 --> 00:40:36.409
Manda Scott: and what's really interesting is, things are flowing in that
496
00:40:36.640 --> 00:40:59.519
Manda Scott: were not even on my list of potentials. And I should know this one. I've I. In fact, I have realized, just let go of the list of potential. It's not. Let me put a tick in a box of 6 things. It's what do you want me to do? Because it's going to be? Not one of those 6? I think it's not. There's not 6. But I had a list of options and and the things that are coming in out of left field and right field that that were not anywhere on my radar.
497
00:40:59.550 --> 00:41:01.960
Manda Scott: as as potentials are.
498
00:41:03.570 --> 00:41:13.159
Manda Scott: It should be predictable by now that this is what happens. When I started to write the book, I I genuinely thought I'd stop writing. It wasn't on my radar to do that at all.
499
00:41:13.240 --> 00:41:14.250
Manda Scott: So
500
00:41:14.650 --> 00:41:21.439
Manda Scott: so, reminding myself of these things that you you go and say, what do you need of me, and you don't go
501
00:41:21.470 --> 00:41:28.699
Manda Scott: with a preconceived set of answers, but it can take a long time. It could take me another couple of years to get the answer to that I don't know.
502
00:41:29.120 --> 00:41:31.530
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Yeah, learning how to listen. I think.
503
00:41:34.120 --> 00:41:36.170
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: you know, this is a huge.
504
00:41:36.950 --> 00:41:42.019
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: probably one of the hugest lessons of our time. Say that
505
00:41:42.250 --> 00:41:49.549
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: that we feel like we're alone. We can often feel like we're alone, and that everything is our our responsibility.
506
00:41:49.580 --> 00:41:52.569
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: But if we are going to make changes in our lives.
507
00:41:52.920 --> 00:41:55.470
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: We have to make the changes or we have.
508
00:41:56.030 --> 00:41:56.810
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: And it's.
509
00:41:56.810 --> 00:42:09.810
Manda Scott: Stuff our heads, have to plan it all out, know the consequences, do all of the mapping of the pros and the cons, and then pick the best line. It's terrifying. It's a huge weight to put on anybody, and we put it on ourselves all the time.
510
00:42:12.590 --> 00:42:25.159
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: one of the things. So moving on to the amazing book that I have just read that you have just released any human power. Oh, my goodness
511
00:42:25.740 --> 00:42:30.179
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: it! I feel emotional again, just thinking about it, because
512
00:42:32.100 --> 00:42:34.474
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: I don't think I really
513
00:42:35.020 --> 00:42:37.419
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: understood the power of
514
00:42:39.020 --> 00:42:39.980
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: myth
515
00:42:40.420 --> 00:42:42.069
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and story
516
00:42:42.814 --> 00:42:48.160
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: as much as when I read the book and felt
517
00:42:48.280 --> 00:42:50.450
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: so connected to
518
00:42:52.407 --> 00:42:57.580
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: well, part firstly because the book the is set in
519
00:42:57.940 --> 00:43:09.040
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: now in our current time very, very connected to so many of the issues that we're facing in modern culture, and
520
00:43:09.210 --> 00:43:14.330
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and that it travels through so many of the
521
00:43:14.550 --> 00:43:20.460
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: the fears, the the anger that the experiences of what?
522
00:43:23.240 --> 00:43:28.429
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Many of us in different sections of society, will be experiencing
523
00:43:28.600 --> 00:43:30.860
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: similarly and differently.
524
00:43:30.860 --> 00:43:31.440
Manda Scott: Hmm.
525
00:43:31.700 --> 00:43:33.980
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Because of the current
526
00:43:34.160 --> 00:43:36.980
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: global, political, social
527
00:43:37.748 --> 00:43:40.020
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: situation that we're in.
528
00:43:42.230 --> 00:43:44.460
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: So, firstly, thank you. Thank you.
529
00:43:44.460 --> 00:43:46.039
Manda Scott: You thank you for reading.
530
00:43:46.200 --> 00:43:47.389
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Bringing the book
531
00:43:47.400 --> 00:43:55.820
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: through, and for telling such a potent and powerful story of possibility and beauty.
532
00:43:57.770 --> 00:44:03.124
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: well, I'd absolutely recommend it to anybody who's who's interested.
533
00:44:06.960 --> 00:44:09.050
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: mythopolitical.
534
00:44:09.300 --> 00:44:09.920
Manda Scott: Hmm.
535
00:44:10.790 --> 00:44:12.760
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Thriller. What does that mean?
536
00:44:13.570 --> 00:44:15.890
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: And why did you to go there.
537
00:44:19.840 --> 00:44:20.780
Manda Scott: Why.
538
00:44:20.930 --> 00:44:36.209
Manda Scott: you know, on a particularly flippant level, I like the feel of it, and and this is a book that is incredibly hard to categorize it arose directly out of my own dreaming. It rose out of sitting up the hill and sitting up the hill, arose out of being told to go and sit up the hill within a shamanic context.
539
00:44:38.390 --> 00:44:44.059
Manda Scott: and I had been given the very 1st scene which we can describe if you want, and
540
00:44:44.100 --> 00:44:46.450
Manda Scott: and 3 events.
541
00:44:46.790 --> 00:44:49.630
Manda Scott: and that was it. And then, okay, now go and write this.
542
00:44:51.530 --> 00:44:54.630
Manda Scott: so let's I think it's probably worth describing that scene. So.
543
00:44:54.710 --> 00:44:59.339
Manda Scott: And let's take a step back, because I think for your listeners this is probably worth it. I was.
544
00:44:59.410 --> 00:45:10.770
Manda Scott: It was lockdown pandemic. I was teaching online a dreaming awake course that I had said I would never teach online that absolutely had to be in the room with people. And
545
00:45:10.890 --> 00:45:29.319
Manda Scott: and it was the second year of the pandemic, and it was 2 weeks quarantine for anyone. I had students in Germany and Switzerland and Ireland who would have literally had to go through 2 weeks, quarantine coming in, and 2 weeks quarantine going out to come and do some work with me, and they were not really happy at the idea of that. And they were also because I teach a very long term
546
00:45:29.900 --> 00:45:36.079
Manda Scott: course that technically is 10 years. But actually no one has done it. In less than 16, they were in a holding pattern.
547
00:45:36.370 --> 00:45:38.189
Manda Scott: And so so they begged me
548
00:45:38.210 --> 00:45:41.360
Manda Scott: to do online the thing that I had said I wouldn't do online. So I did.
549
00:45:41.610 --> 00:45:42.610
Manda Scott: And
550
00:45:44.360 --> 00:46:03.250
Manda Scott: in the journey I was drumming a particular. The the journey that I had was the reason I didn't want to do it online, because I thought I really had to be in the room with people. And so I went into that journey, assuming that my entire focus, like a blinking laser would be on the students. And actually, what happened was I got taken out up the hill
551
00:46:03.250 --> 00:46:21.250
Manda Scott: totally. I basically wasn't present for the whole of the journey part of me. That's not true. But anyway, the instruction was really clear. And again, with most of shamanic work. I'm sure you've worked with the fire enough. That's it's usually felt senses and nudges and metaphors, and it can take a long time to unspool the meaning of something.
552
00:46:22.050 --> 00:46:23.279
Manda Scott: This was.
553
00:46:23.550 --> 00:46:28.439
Manda Scott: take the 30,000 year old fossilised horse's tooth that holds the
554
00:46:28.540 --> 00:46:31.359
Manda Scott: one part of the southeast gate which is the one I was working with
555
00:46:32.100 --> 00:46:35.140
Manda Scott: source, some ethically sourced horse height.
556
00:46:35.450 --> 00:46:55.000
Manda Scott: which took me a month, which is fine, because I was sitting a homeopathic exam at the time, and I my brain was a little busy. Bind it on. I I live on the side of a hill. This has been a farm for many centuries, and there's a very old laid hedge many hundreds of years old, where there's a hawthorn bough that goes parallel to the ground, basically
557
00:46:55.040 --> 00:46:56.470
Manda Scott: bind on.
558
00:46:56.540 --> 00:47:06.860
Manda Scott: Bind the tooth onto that. Sit with the small of my back against the tooth, looking southwest down the valley in a particular frame of mind for at least an hour, as the sun goes down every day until further notice.
559
00:47:06.880 --> 00:47:15.880
Manda Scott: And and it was that much plain text, I think probably 3 times in my life I've had that much plain text. One was writing the Bodica books. One was going to Schumacher, and there was this.
560
00:47:16.080 --> 00:47:19.260
Manda Scott: And and if I've learned anything over the time, it's
561
00:47:19.730 --> 00:47:42.849
Manda Scott: you, if if something is crisp and clear. You don't argue, and you don't ask why you just make it happen. And it was by the I that event happened on the summer solstice the night of the summer solstice, and it took me until the end of July to find the Horse Skin. And so so it was. August. I'm sitting at the hill as the sun goes out in August. It was beautiful. And
562
00:47:43.310 --> 00:47:50.220
Manda Scott: and I really enjoyed it, and by the end of the week I had the 1st scene and the 3 events, and then the instruction was, go and write the book.
563
00:47:50.600 --> 00:47:51.540
Manda Scott: and
564
00:47:51.760 --> 00:47:56.959
Manda Scott: and I thought I was going to be a homeopath. And and I realized I and I discovered very fast. I didn't have
565
00:47:57.440 --> 00:48:04.240
Manda Scott: the bandwidth. I can either be really focused on writing what turned out to be an extraordinarily complicated book, or
566
00:48:04.340 --> 00:48:05.270
Manda Scott: I could
567
00:48:05.460 --> 00:48:09.560
Manda Scott: worry about remedies. I couldn't do both. So, being a homeopath, went out the window.
568
00:48:10.041 --> 00:48:15.950
Manda Scott: And that's 1 of the things I was saying earlier about you. Hold open, you ask, what do you want of me? And you don't predict the answers.
569
00:48:16.600 --> 00:48:25.620
Manda Scott: If you'd asked me about, I had said to people in podcasts that I wasn't writing anymore. So anyway, there we go. I I thought, the podcast was a way of
570
00:48:25.720 --> 00:48:29.590
Manda Scott: bringing stuff to the world. But what the instruction was.
571
00:48:30.490 --> 00:48:36.520
Manda Scott: The the 1st scene is a woman in her sixties, lying on a bed, and her 15 year old grandson
572
00:48:36.880 --> 00:48:42.730
Manda Scott: is sitting at her side, and he says, when you come home, can we go up the hill and watch the crows go to bed? Which is what I had been doing.
573
00:48:42.760 --> 00:48:48.839
Manda Scott: and she says, No, I'm not coming home, you know this. I'm dying. There is no coming home from this. We have spoken about this.
574
00:48:49.060 --> 00:48:59.400
Manda Scott: and in the course of the ensuing conversation he says, you're the only one who gets me. I don't want to live in a world with you, not in it, and she realizes he's serious.
575
00:48:59.500 --> 00:49:00.849
Manda Scott: and she says
576
00:49:01.070 --> 00:49:07.050
Manda Scott: I don't know what happens next. But if you really need me and you call, if it's possible, I promise I will come.
577
00:49:07.780 --> 00:49:08.620
Manda Scott: And
578
00:49:09.390 --> 00:49:16.299
Manda Scott: he and she and we feel the gods pause in their labors and look down and go. Okay, that is a promise. We are holding you to that.
579
00:49:16.410 --> 00:49:19.700
Manda Scott: and then she dies. And this is not a spoiler. It's basically on the back cover.
580
00:49:20.147 --> 00:49:25.760
Manda Scott: And then the whole of the rest of the book is told from her perspective of being held to that promise.
581
00:49:26.120 --> 00:49:28.349
Manda Scott: and then the so I saw that
582
00:49:29.420 --> 00:49:44.819
Manda Scott: I saw 3 separate events where she is immediately after her death is the 1st one she's taken into the void by the crow that is her guide, and shown how to split the timelines so she can see along the many ways where Finn does kill himself.
583
00:49:44.900 --> 00:49:55.149
Manda Scott: But then the implication is, if she is in that place out of space and time has the capacity to do that. Then there is a potential. It's not guaranteed that if she can take agency
584
00:49:55.250 --> 00:49:57.930
Manda Scott: she can create a timeline that she hasn't seen yet.
585
00:49:58.340 --> 00:50:01.979
Manda Scott: That doesn't exist, so she can't see what she does because she hasn't done it.
586
00:50:02.340 --> 00:50:09.390
Manda Scott: But she could, and then she's kicked back into space and time. And and okay, do what you do whatever you can.
587
00:50:09.430 --> 00:50:12.820
Manda Scott: And she has to work out as the newly led how to have agency.
588
00:50:13.490 --> 00:50:24.219
Manda Scott: and then she does that twice more, once for the rest of the family, and once for the whole of the growing movement. Insurrection! Really that is arising around them 15 years later.
589
00:50:24.660 --> 00:50:25.750
Manda Scott: to
590
00:50:25.920 --> 00:50:34.400
Manda Scott: see all the ways humanity crashes and burns. We go over the edge of the cliff and the ways that the predatory capital super organism is taking us.
591
00:50:34.590 --> 00:50:40.050
Manda Scott: But the implication is that if she's there she can take agency, she can change and create
592
00:50:40.310 --> 00:50:46.230
Manda Scott: a different outcome. And how then, 15 years on, she has less agency. The family is different.
593
00:50:46.540 --> 00:50:47.980
Manda Scott: How does she
594
00:50:48.030 --> 00:50:51.860
Manda Scott: help the whole of humanity to steer the bus away from the edge of the cliff.
595
00:50:52.290 --> 00:50:53.470
Manda Scott: And so
596
00:50:54.120 --> 00:50:55.240
Manda Scott: I had spent
597
00:50:55.810 --> 00:51:05.750
Manda Scott: 2 decades writing historical novels, really believing, certainly with the Boudican ones, that if I could show who we were before the Romans came. In our our whole healthy initiation culture.
598
00:51:06.380 --> 00:51:08.080
Manda Scott: people would see who we could be
599
00:51:09.000 --> 00:51:11.290
Manda Scott: and what I realised, or what was
600
00:51:11.580 --> 00:51:16.290
Manda Scott: basically explicitly laid out up the hill was actually what we need now is
601
00:51:16.310 --> 00:51:18.769
Manda Scott: what you said, a recognisable present
602
00:51:18.960 --> 00:51:21.509
Manda Scott: and actual steps forward
603
00:51:21.770 --> 00:51:26.739
Manda Scott: that you and I could take now, at this minute, things that we could actually tangibly do
604
00:51:26.750 --> 00:51:32.390
Manda Scott: that would take us towards that more flourishing future our hearts know is possible that we would be proud to leave behind.
605
00:51:32.410 --> 00:51:44.720
Manda Scott: And what do they look like? And if I hadn't been running the podcast for a couple of years by then talking to people every single week who are right at the leading edge of what we're calling the emergent edge of into becoming, I would have had no idea.
606
00:51:44.930 --> 00:51:46.190
Manda Scott: And even then
607
00:51:46.430 --> 00:51:49.410
Manda Scott: it's stitching together. Historical stuff.
608
00:51:50.150 --> 00:51:59.570
Manda Scott: I thought, was quite hard when I was doing it, but stitching together stuff that actually works here now, and and it has to be peaceful. It has to be predicated on a new paradigm.
609
00:51:59.750 --> 00:52:04.499
Manda Scott: How do you take people from the existing paradigm because you have to start where people are
610
00:52:05.450 --> 00:52:15.560
Manda Scott: towards edging towards a new paradigm without sounding like you're preaching at them, and in a but in a way that when you look back, you can go. Yeah, we could do that. Let's do that. We could do that now.
611
00:52:15.760 --> 00:52:23.880
Manda Scott: and and the only way I know how to do that is to wrap it into a thriller. I I have always been a thriller writer. It's a useful narrative arc.
612
00:52:24.340 --> 00:52:30.089
Manda Scott: So so it's a thriller because I like writing thrillers, and also because it gives that momentum
613
00:52:30.100 --> 00:52:35.080
Manda Scott: to a book and gives people reasons to act if they're under threat, which is what a thriller is.
614
00:52:35.090 --> 00:52:37.959
Manda Scott: Characters you care about are under threat, then
615
00:52:38.430 --> 00:52:40.189
Manda Scott: we and they care about
616
00:52:40.450 --> 00:52:41.980
Manda Scott: not being under threat.
617
00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:46.319
Manda Scott: and then mythopolitical, partly because it started with that vision.
618
00:52:46.400 --> 00:52:48.860
Manda Scott: And so a lot of the book is about.
619
00:52:48.920 --> 00:52:50.590
Manda Scott: Learn learning
620
00:52:50.680 --> 00:52:54.859
Manda Scott: what it is to be caught in the between place between the lands of life and the lands of death.
621
00:52:54.950 --> 00:52:56.719
Manda Scott: How does she move into
622
00:52:56.820 --> 00:53:09.869
Manda Scott: the lands of living? How can she have agency? I read a lot of books, of experiences people had had, where they felt that the newly dead had influenced their lives. And I read a lot of near death experience work.
623
00:53:11.260 --> 00:53:16.389
Manda Scott: And and so it has its own dreaming, and one of the things I realised on the way through was
624
00:53:17.710 --> 00:53:25.480
Manda Scott: if Francis Weller's framing of trauma culture, our culture versus initiation culture, which otherwise might be indigenous. Culture
625
00:53:25.550 --> 00:53:33.249
Manda Scott: is an accurate one, and our trauma goes back many thousands of years to before what we laughingly call the agricultural revolution.
626
00:53:33.830 --> 00:53:34.860
Manda Scott: Then
627
00:53:35.100 --> 00:53:36.890
Manda Scott: all of our mythology
628
00:53:37.010 --> 00:53:41.619
Manda Scott: in our culture is trauma, culture, mythology, all of our heroic
629
00:53:42.020 --> 00:53:47.589
Manda Scott: narratives, hero's journey, all of those things are predicated on trauma, culture.
630
00:53:47.840 --> 00:53:53.639
Manda Scott: senses of separation, scarcity, and powerlessness, the the underlying narratives of our culture, that
631
00:53:53.790 --> 00:53:58.950
Manda Scott: the the citadel mind. We are separate. There is not enough stuff, everything is competitive.
632
00:54:00.020 --> 00:54:02.679
Manda Scott: and we need a new mythology
633
00:54:02.920 --> 00:54:11.840
Manda Scott: that is, allows us to step from that into something else. You can't just wrench people out of it and go. No, you're all wrong. Here. Look, here's another set of paradigms. It doesn't work like that.
634
00:54:12.290 --> 00:54:15.699
Manda Scott: People in our space are aware.
635
00:54:15.760 --> 00:54:21.090
Manda Scott: I think, that modernity is yeah, we're hospicing modernity and and Vanessa's beautiful book.
636
00:54:21.100 --> 00:54:24.549
Manda Scott: Yes, that needs to happen. But most people don't know that
637
00:54:24.680 --> 00:54:36.870
Manda Scott: most people switch on the television and watch soaps and news and documentaries and game shows, and the world is carrying on exactly as it always has. And it. This is progress, and progress is right.
638
00:54:37.260 --> 00:54:45.210
Manda Scott: and and we might disagree with all of that, but that telling people that we disagree with them is a fast way to lose their attention.
639
00:54:45.210 --> 00:54:45.960
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Perfect.
640
00:54:45.960 --> 00:54:47.899
Manda Scott: We need to start where people are.
641
00:54:48.120 --> 00:54:49.950
Manda Scott: And so the book is.
642
00:54:50.510 --> 00:55:01.250
Manda Scott: It's many layered on many levels. We're calling it through Topian because it's not Dystopian or Utopian, it's showing a way through. And and I, mythopolitical, seemed to me
643
00:55:01.360 --> 00:55:02.320
Manda Scott: to
644
00:55:02.740 --> 00:55:11.539
Manda Scott: encapsulated. It ends on the night after a general election. It is unashamedly, deeply. This is how we change our governance systems, because I think that's key
645
00:55:11.650 --> 00:55:13.479
Manda Scott: to something that would actually work.
646
00:55:14.070 --> 00:55:17.690
Manda Scott: And in doing so, this is how we change who we are.
647
00:55:18.870 --> 00:55:21.959
Manda Scott: Did that make sense? And did it reflect what you feel? You read.
648
00:55:21.960 --> 00:55:25.910
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. And
649
00:55:26.599 --> 00:55:30.660
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: oh, gosh! There's so many things I wanna pick up on.
650
00:55:31.030 --> 00:55:31.760
Manda Scott: For it.
651
00:55:32.080 --> 00:55:33.929
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Oh, where do I start?
652
00:55:37.700 --> 00:55:40.369
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Firstly, I want to say I love the family.
653
00:55:40.810 --> 00:55:41.320
Manda Scott: Thank you.
654
00:55:41.320 --> 00:55:46.060
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: They're like the modern day incredibles, or you know that, like
655
00:55:46.080 --> 00:55:59.269
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: incredibles, or anything in in terms of changing life. But you know they like to see superhuman versions of all the different versions, that that of the the kinds of
656
00:55:59.630 --> 00:56:09.259
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: people that we need to act, which is everyone, and and also the intergenerational aspect and the perspective, the depth of
657
00:56:09.800 --> 00:56:12.220
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: wisdom that comes through
658
00:56:12.230 --> 00:56:17.190
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: each generation, who shares their perspective, and how they interconnect
659
00:56:17.230 --> 00:56:21.810
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and honor each other and recognise each other. And
660
00:56:22.275 --> 00:56:30.999
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: I definitely identified with the Kirsten of I think that probably everyone will identify with somebody in the family.
661
00:56:31.000 --> 00:56:32.020
Manda Scott: So we have.
662
00:56:32.020 --> 00:56:34.560
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Is super powerful.
663
00:56:34.800 --> 00:56:35.150
Manda Scott: He's a.
664
00:56:35.150 --> 00:56:36.570
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: All of them are
665
00:56:37.127 --> 00:56:42.202
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: coming from that place of pure love, compassion, curiosity, and
666
00:56:43.070 --> 00:56:58.479
Manda Scott: Sometimes rage and despair and frustration with each other. I mean, it's not, I think. Yes, but it's I didn't want to build a completely dysfunctional family. We know what they look like. This is, I mean, it's a complex family, and it's and there are moments of of extreme conflict. But
667
00:56:58.560 --> 00:57:00.670
Manda Scott: but fundamentally they actually do
668
00:57:00.890 --> 00:57:02.810
Manda Scott: really love each other.
669
00:57:03.310 --> 00:57:04.970
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: But what they've heard
670
00:57:05.460 --> 00:57:09.199
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: is the privilege of having had an elder.
671
00:57:09.450 --> 00:57:12.839
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: or at least a a number of elders
672
00:57:13.010 --> 00:57:16.670
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: who took responsibility throughout their lives.
673
00:57:16.700 --> 00:57:20.560
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: To elder the younger people. The younger generations.
674
00:57:20.560 --> 00:57:23.280
Manda Scott: Yeah. And land continues even after she's dead.
675
00:57:23.280 --> 00:57:32.190
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Continues, even after she's dead, and that to me just spoke volumes of the importance of that. You know, that we
676
00:57:32.520 --> 00:57:43.120
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: really see ourselves. That every act, that every way we show up that everything that we intend through each action matters.
677
00:57:43.960 --> 00:57:50.349
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and and this and it has ripples through the generations, so that
678
00:57:50.850 --> 00:57:55.000
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: 3 generations or 4 generations down the line.
679
00:57:55.140 --> 00:57:58.330
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: there will be people in our families.
680
00:57:58.370 --> 00:58:00.509
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: you know, potentially or or
681
00:58:00.720 --> 00:58:02.340
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: in our
682
00:58:02.630 --> 00:58:08.490
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: families of of connection, people that we connect with, who will be acting and doing
683
00:58:08.590 --> 00:58:14.710
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: things because of the way that we've held ourselves true and in alignment
684
00:58:14.900 --> 00:58:16.320
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and modeled.
685
00:58:16.320 --> 00:58:16.740
Manda Scott: Yes.
686
00:58:16.740 --> 00:58:22.290
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: We can be the most connected that we can be with true intention. Yeah.
687
00:58:22.340 --> 00:58:37.230
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: very beautiful. One of the things that I that stood out to me 1st and quite shocked me. Actually, was the within a few chapters I could tell that the writer you
688
00:58:37.640 --> 00:58:40.924
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: very clearly had a lot of knowledge about gaming.
689
00:58:41.290 --> 00:58:42.310
Manda Scott: Oh, yeah. Yes.
690
00:58:42.310 --> 00:58:43.800
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: I was just like, Wow.
691
00:58:44.360 --> 00:58:44.920
Manda Scott: Yes!
692
00:58:44.920 --> 00:58:47.559
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Oh, my goodness! I did not expect that.
693
00:58:47.560 --> 00:59:02.830
Manda Scott: World of Warcraft. I've given up World of Warcraft 5 times so far. I and I totally assume that that won't be it forever. I quite often still dream about setting up a new character and starting again. I have to wake up in the morning. Go! No, I've given up. I'm not doing that now.
694
00:59:03.144 --> 00:59:11.790
Manda Scott: So no, I I love. Well, I worked for a while in a computer games company way back in between being a vet, and being a full time writer, I was 3 years in
695
00:59:11.830 --> 00:59:16.379
Manda Scott: a computer games company. So it's always been a parallel part of my life.
696
00:59:17.256 --> 00:59:31.029
Manda Scott: And I've been playing World of Warcraft since vanilla since it came out. It's so, yeah. And and I absolutely was playing with people where I am easily old enough to be their grandmother. And the thing is, they don't know. They have no idea.
697
00:59:31.120 --> 00:59:46.799
Manda Scott: Yeah, these are people who will quite happily sit online and talk about really old people being 35, and I just sit there very, very quietly and occasionally I'll go. How old are you? Character name? No, not your business. You want heels in the battleground. You don't ask questions like that, and they go. Oh, sorry. Okay.
698
00:59:46.910 --> 00:59:48.024
Manda Scott: so.
699
00:59:49.140 --> 00:59:52.110
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: I love it. It was a real education for me
700
00:59:52.180 --> 01:00:03.370
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: really like I mean I I my children. Neither of my children have phones. Yet, right? And so, like I, I'm really out of that world
701
01:00:03.420 --> 01:00:21.709
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and have been quite resistant. Not in a I mean, I I enjoy technology and I appreciate it for what it's enabled me and others to do but but in terms of gaming particularly, I've been so resistant and judgmental, and blocked.
702
01:00:22.050 --> 01:00:24.399
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Essential and power of it. And
703
01:00:24.800 --> 01:00:27.350
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and so, yeah, it was. It was a huge
704
01:00:28.154 --> 01:00:34.930
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: revelation to me. And and I thought it was beautiful the way
705
01:00:37.870 --> 01:00:40.910
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: that connection, relationship.
706
01:00:41.150 --> 01:00:47.020
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: trust all still was able to shine through. And very interesting.
707
01:00:48.620 --> 01:00:49.370
Manda Scott: Yes.
708
01:00:49.860 --> 01:00:51.009
Manda Scott: and I think.
709
01:00:51.860 --> 01:00:56.969
Manda Scott: yeah, we build, what's there to be built? And partly that all arose because I had read
710
01:00:57.100 --> 01:01:00.890
Manda Scott: an account in one of the books that I read of people influenced
711
01:01:01.010 --> 01:01:03.870
Manda Scott: by people who had died, and there was a particular
712
01:01:03.880 --> 01:01:16.879
Manda Scott: man who, I I think, was a surgeon. He was quite a left brain person, and he got a phone call. One night he was in the States from his closest friend's wife that his close friend had just drowned rescuing their child in the ocean.
713
01:01:17.030 --> 01:01:18.610
Manda Scott: and he was broken.
714
01:01:18.810 --> 01:01:22.090
Manda Scott: and this must have been in the eighties. He and his friend.
715
01:01:22.210 --> 01:01:46.359
Manda Scott: when they were kidding about had their way of bonding was a computer game, but one of the very, very early computer games. And and when you scored us something it went Whoopee. And so he got on. He got onto his game, and he just played because he was grieving, and it was just his way of connecting, and he said all night it was going. I said it was. This was impossible, it it within the structure of the game, within the coding that could not happen.
716
01:01:46.500 --> 01:01:50.610
Manda Scott: and he felt it was his friend reaching in and saying, It's okay. I'm all right.
717
01:01:51.300 --> 01:02:07.569
Manda Scott: And so I wanted there to be a way for land to connect with Finn, and and I was gaming it. So you know it's it's my! It's how I relax. There was a while when I could not get sleep. I hadn't done at least 3 battlegrounds at night, just to switch my head off from everything else, go to bed.
718
01:02:07.849 --> 01:02:32.060
Manda Scott: and so and so it was obvious. And I I understood the mechanics of it, and it helped me to shape her and him and give them that depth of relationship that he would have said, I don't want to live in a world with you. He was living with them by then. Yes, single mother. His mother had been a single mother, and things had got complicated, and he just moved in with his grandmothers. And and the key one of the things I wanted to point out is that none of these people was a blood relation of lambs.
719
01:02:32.170 --> 01:02:34.890
Manda Scott: They, she and her wife had had
720
01:02:35.070 --> 01:02:36.180
Manda Scott: Maddie
721
01:02:36.550 --> 01:02:37.740
Manda Scott: and and
722
01:02:37.970 --> 01:02:47.270
Manda Scott: Maddie was Kate's by blood. But lands obvious was there as an elder. And so Finn and she bonded completely.
723
01:02:47.470 --> 01:02:53.139
Manda Scott: regardless of the fact. They didn't share any genetics. I think this is really important is that the bonds of our heart
724
01:02:53.170 --> 01:02:55.769
Manda Scott: don't always follow the bonds of our blood
725
01:02:55.940 --> 01:03:00.109
Manda Scott: and and their blood lineages and spirit lineages, both matter.
726
01:03:00.970 --> 01:03:17.539
Manda Scott: And so, and you know it's the way of books. You. You create a character to complete the balance of a sentence, and then, you know, a chapter on you discover they're really, really important. It's part of the evolution of creativity. And so gaming became a part of it. And I knew also
727
01:03:18.310 --> 01:03:19.200
Manda Scott: that
728
01:03:19.770 --> 01:03:21.640
Manda Scott: the younger generations
729
01:03:22.930 --> 01:03:26.899
Manda Scott: whose lives are built online, which your kids aren't. But a lot of people are.
730
01:03:27.600 --> 01:03:32.149
Manda Scott: They do learn to trust you. I I did. You did grow to know
731
01:03:32.340 --> 01:03:41.670
Manda Scott: who of the team was trustworthy, and who, basically, if they're caught with you in a fight, you're going down because they just can't be relied on, and
732
01:03:42.930 --> 01:03:56.089
Manda Scott: it's a very powerful bond. It's it's very similar. I used to battle reenactment, and exactly the same. If you're in a line fight, you know who you want to be next to, because you're going to come out the other side, alive and alive and inverted commas. But it feels real in the time.
733
01:03:56.240 --> 01:03:59.339
Manda Scott: And I'd also listened to a podcast way back.
734
01:03:59.420 --> 01:04:00.620
Manda Scott: pre-pandemic
735
01:04:00.980 --> 01:04:01.930
Manda Scott: with.
736
01:04:02.800 --> 01:04:06.390
Manda Scott: I think, Jordan Green hope. I can't remember. Anyway, he was a
737
01:04:07.080 --> 01:04:22.370
Manda Scott: he's an entrepreneur. His daughter was playing Minecraft 12 years old, and so, and you know he either could despair that his daughter's gaming or he can go. Okay, let's do something with this. So he did the latter, and he offered her, waved a handful of dollars in front of her. That was a substantial number for her age, and said.
738
01:04:22.630 --> 01:04:26.339
Manda Scott: if by the end of the summer you and whoever you want to bring together
739
01:04:26.550 --> 01:04:28.939
Manda Scott: have created something I've never seen before.
740
01:04:29.060 --> 01:04:34.249
Manda Scott: you win the you win it. Okay? So full full on predatory capital incentives.
741
01:04:34.700 --> 01:04:39.949
Manda Scott: And by the end of the evening she's gathered 7 other friends, and they've g1. 0, yeah, that's a good idea. Can we share the money? Yes, no problem.
742
01:04:39.960 --> 01:04:48.630
Manda Scott: And then she goes back to playing mine, Minecraft, and he sees no evidence of them building anything that that he hasn't seen before, and it gets to about 2 days before she's due to go back to school. And
743
01:04:48.830 --> 01:05:04.559
Manda Scott: did did you want this money? Yeah, yeah, no problem. And he said, within the next 48 h he watched something he had never seen before, and he didn't even want to name it, because by naming it he would have broken it. Of these 7 young people who'd never met.
744
01:05:04.980 --> 01:05:14.919
Manda Scott: all 1213 got together and self organised into a creative group that built something that not only had he never seen before, he could not have conceived of.
745
01:05:15.990 --> 01:05:23.439
Manda Scott: and they allocated tasks, and they fulfilled them, and they sorted conflicts, and they shared. And they were a functioning unit.
746
01:05:23.580 --> 01:05:29.609
Manda Scott: And and he came out of that saying, We just have to keep the world on a steady trajectory because these people
747
01:05:29.740 --> 01:05:35.740
Manda Scott: work in ways that we do not understand, and we don't need to understand it. We just need to know it's possible.
748
01:05:35.990 --> 01:05:37.300
Manda Scott: and I wanted
749
01:05:37.430 --> 01:05:39.950
Manda Scott: to evoke some of that for the
750
01:05:40.050 --> 01:05:52.820
Manda Scott: people of my generation who don't get it. I I don't get it. Get it in that I've only been on the edges of it, and I know that the flow in a battleground is an astonishing and beautiful thing, and and one becomes part of
751
01:05:53.150 --> 01:06:00.830
Manda Scott: a multi-layered. It's almost like connecting to the web of life when you connect to the rest of the team, and it's flowing really. Well, it's an astonishing thing.
752
01:06:00.950 --> 01:06:06.000
Manda Scott: And what happens? If I had started that when I was 12, instead of starting when I was in my forties.
753
01:06:06.500 --> 01:06:24.589
Manda Scott: I would be a different person, and I would trust that if I'm let's say the healer and the tank in a battleground, and we fought several 1,000 battlegrounds together, I basically know how you feel and think. And we're doing things on an instinctive level that that goes so far. It's deep, deep, limbic stuff.
754
01:06:24.750 --> 01:06:27.289
Manda Scott: And if you reached out to me and said.
755
01:06:27.630 --> 01:06:34.729
Manda Scott: Yeah, my, I'm in Russia. My country's just going down. I need help. I would. I would turn the world over to help you.
756
01:06:35.090 --> 01:06:40.870
Manda Scott: because you've saved my life so often. I've saved your life so often, and it's it may be a digital life, but it feels important.
757
01:06:41.340 --> 01:06:42.740
Manda Scott: And I wanted
758
01:06:42.890 --> 01:06:49.700
Manda Scott: people of our generation to understand and to not be as afraid of the fact that our some of our kids
759
01:06:51.240 --> 01:07:01.019
Manda Scott: function in the webs of the Internet, the way that a dog functions in a world of scent that we just can't see. But we know it's there.
760
01:07:01.460 --> 01:07:02.460
Manda Scott: And it's okay.
761
01:07:02.580 --> 01:07:05.490
Manda Scott: And it can be, of course it. It's
762
01:07:06.410 --> 01:07:12.850
Manda Scott: a potential for something really wonderful as well as a potential for turning them all into baby fascists who want to kill everything.
763
01:07:14.759 --> 01:07:20.790
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: yes. I experienced that from the way that you wrote it. And I and it felt very
764
01:07:23.200 --> 01:07:25.370
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: interesting to me.
765
01:07:25.540 --> 01:07:28.189
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: how much. I you know I have
766
01:07:28.250 --> 01:07:38.180
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: a story that I place upon the next generation. One is of hope, and also one is of complete despair and the lack of connection, the lack of actual physical
767
01:07:38.230 --> 01:07:42.779
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: connection that that children are having today. And I hold both still.
768
01:07:42.840 --> 01:07:48.530
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: but to be able to to look into and see a possibility.
769
01:07:48.650 --> 01:07:54.370
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: And and the magic of that interconnectedness within the the web
770
01:07:54.430 --> 01:07:59.759
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: there is. Yeah, was definitely an enlightening perspective and
771
01:08:00.030 --> 01:08:01.549
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and overall
772
01:08:03.020 --> 01:08:04.130
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: the
773
01:08:04.540 --> 01:08:08.970
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: the need for all of the different channels.
774
01:08:11.370 --> 01:08:13.599
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and for us to have
775
01:08:13.700 --> 01:08:17.750
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: a deeper capacity to listen to each other
776
01:08:18.010 --> 01:08:19.109
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and
777
01:08:19.310 --> 01:08:23.069
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and know that we've all got something to bring
778
01:08:23.170 --> 01:08:23.870
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: right.
779
01:08:24.000 --> 01:08:29.379
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: And everybody has a place. Yes, and that without one of the pieces.
780
01:08:29.529 --> 01:08:49.210
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Maybe we're missing, you know. So that actually, you know, really finding ways to, to listen, to, open to new perspectives, to find agreement, or at least the fundamentals of what we all believe in the values that underpin. What is that? We want to come next.
781
01:08:49.210 --> 01:08:51.920
Manda Scott: Thank you for picking that out. Yes.
782
01:08:52.340 --> 01:09:07.679
Manda Scott: yes, and this goes back to what you were saying at the camp about people learning to really value the children that perhaps were not valued in mainstream education. And what we said at the beginning about what is it that we're here to do? We're each here to take our position in the web of life and be the best that we can be.
783
01:09:08.189 --> 01:09:11.389
Manda Scott: And so if I can create a fictional
784
01:09:12.609 --> 01:09:15.109
Manda Scott: evocation of that happening.
785
01:09:15.260 --> 01:09:27.330
Manda Scott: Without people going be the best that you can be. Find your life's purpose. Go and sit under a tree for at least you know 6 h and find your life's purpose and come back and do it, which is a huge weight to put on people and basically doesn't happen.
786
01:09:27.520 --> 01:09:32.800
Manda Scott: You know it takes a lot longer than that, and and potentially many dark alleys. But if I can show
787
01:09:33.250 --> 01:09:52.699
Manda Scott: that this is a this is how it might feel, because I think the great thing. Books are astonishing magic. I put black marks on a white page, and and a world comes alive in your mind, and it's a different world on everybody's mind. It's amazing. But these people are alive within, you know, and their experiences evoke experiences within you.
788
01:09:52.930 --> 01:09:58.440
Manda Scott: And we know from neurophysiology that your experience of what happened in a book
789
01:09:58.730 --> 01:10:03.339
Manda Scott: is as real to your system as if it had actually played out in front of you.
790
01:10:04.120 --> 01:10:08.460
Manda Scott: And so it helps to rewire your sense of possibility.
791
01:10:09.566 --> 01:10:10.093
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Absolutely.
792
01:10:10.790 --> 01:10:11.760
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: So
793
01:10:12.180 --> 01:10:23.119
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: I'm I'm aware of time. And i'd really love to keep going into this because there's so much there, but in summary. I would like to just share how I
794
01:10:24.020 --> 01:10:29.022
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: you know what the magic, what you actually said was, these words are magic
795
01:10:29.960 --> 01:10:30.990
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: and
796
01:10:31.110 --> 01:10:32.150
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: that
797
01:10:32.570 --> 01:10:38.469
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: within the book I learned so much about what it brought together was
798
01:10:38.690 --> 01:10:41.169
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: so many things I've learned about death.
799
01:10:41.280 --> 01:11:06.959
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: past life experiences peep, the ways people connect with the other than human world the ways that people can connect to the web of life. And and whilst it's a story, I know that it will have come from your deep research and experience that's brought together so many threads into a way that's like, Oh, I can, really, I really get it. I really get it.
800
01:11:07.090 --> 01:11:08.280
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: And
801
01:11:09.220 --> 01:11:16.410
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: so yes, it's a fictional book. But actually, what comes through is a way of knowing
802
01:11:16.580 --> 01:11:39.573
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: that is powerful. And there are tools within it. There are actual examples of ways that the characters ground in order to open in order to be anchored in all that there is rather than their own thinking mind in order to to make better decisions. There are ways that they come together and really, deeply listen. There's the ways that
803
01:11:40.000 --> 01:11:55.310
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: the the power and potential of what might be there for us if we choose to open our minds to the possibility of connection to the other realms. And so it's it's a super super work of art and and
804
01:11:55.480 --> 01:12:00.953
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: speaks very much to what I feel is needed in these times.
805
01:12:04.340 --> 01:12:07.149
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: yeah. So I'll say again, thank you.
806
01:12:07.150 --> 01:12:07.890
Manda Scott: He is.
807
01:12:08.762 --> 01:12:14.130
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: And with that I wonder if you would like to share with people
808
01:12:14.330 --> 01:12:19.070
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: how else they can get in touch with you. Find out more about what you do, and
809
01:12:19.190 --> 01:12:26.999
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: well, let me go back a peg before that. Is there anything given the scope and the the
810
01:12:27.040 --> 01:12:35.749
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: the weave of this conversation that we've had, that you think would still be useful to be shared that's still alive in you, that you would like to say to the listeners.
811
01:12:36.610 --> 01:12:37.530
Manda Scott: Well
812
01:12:40.130 --> 01:12:52.909
Manda Scott: make space inside yourself, I think, inner spaciousness. However, you do it to really connect with your heart, mind, and for me gratitude, compassion and joyful curiosity are the 3 pillars. You may have other pillars.
813
01:12:53.080 --> 01:12:54.590
Manda Scott: but our heart mind
814
01:12:54.780 --> 01:13:02.230
Manda Scott: is aligned with love and compassion, and wonder and awe and gratitude and the magic of the world.
815
01:13:02.490 --> 01:13:04.050
Manda Scott: and if we allow
816
01:13:04.310 --> 01:13:07.360
Manda Scott: ourselves to become aware of our connection to the web of life.
817
01:13:07.690 --> 01:13:09.109
Manda Scott: it will guide us
818
01:13:10.030 --> 01:13:14.149
Manda Scott: but inner space, and doing the work to connect
819
01:13:14.390 --> 01:13:21.569
Manda Scott: with the parts of us that resist and resent and hide, and are shadows and helping to heal those
820
01:13:21.590 --> 01:13:25.929
Manda Scott: is absolutely key. Now we have a choice. In any moment we can
821
01:13:26.290 --> 01:13:29.670
Manda Scott: give to the web our joy and our wonder, or we can give
822
01:13:29.700 --> 01:13:31.619
Manda Scott: our despair and despondency.
823
01:13:32.060 --> 01:13:37.539
Manda Scott: and making an active choice. To give the awe and the wonder and the compassion, I think.
824
01:13:37.720 --> 01:13:41.569
Manda Scott: is, is enormously important just now, so that.
825
01:13:43.150 --> 01:13:44.250
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: And can we do it?
826
01:13:45.000 --> 01:13:48.329
Manda Scott: Of course we can. Yes, yes, definitely, yes, we can.
827
01:13:49.490 --> 01:13:54.879
Manda Scott: but it will take all of us every moment of every day, I think, accepting that modernity is over.
828
01:13:55.430 --> 01:14:00.890
Manda Scott: and and letting go of the idea that that any of the things that you and I grew up expecting
829
01:14:01.280 --> 01:14:06.420
Manda Scott: are are even vaguely possible. And it's up to us to to shape what we want instead.
830
01:14:06.880 --> 01:14:08.810
Manda Scott: I think that's also really important.
831
01:14:09.470 --> 01:14:10.130
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Hmm.
832
01:14:10.640 --> 01:14:11.420
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: yeah.
833
01:14:11.700 --> 01:14:15.430
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Yeah. Believing, seeing ourselves as creators.
834
01:14:15.750 --> 01:14:16.600
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: creating.
835
01:14:16.600 --> 01:14:21.830
Manda Scott: Co-creators with the web of life. What do you want me to do? We don't have to figure it out ourselves.
836
01:14:22.490 --> 01:14:27.269
Manda Scott: And the more we try and figure it out, the less likely we are to actually be doing something useful. Frankly.
837
01:14:27.390 --> 01:14:30.310
Manda Scott: it's not a head, mind, task. It's a heart-mind task.
838
01:14:31.690 --> 01:14:33.539
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: beautiful! Thank you so much.
839
01:14:33.910 --> 01:14:34.459
Manda Scott: Thank you.
840
01:14:34.460 --> 01:14:36.510
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Oh! Would you be willing to share.
841
01:14:36.510 --> 01:14:44.889
Manda Scott: Sure. Yes, okay. So the baseline one is is my name is Amanda Scotts. That's Amanda, with an a Scott with 2 t's dot co.uk.
842
01:14:45.210 --> 01:14:55.380
Manda Scott: if you're interested in the accidental gods membership which endeavors to teach all of this, then that's accidentalgods, all one word dot life.
843
01:14:55.890 --> 01:15:08.420
Manda Scott: and then the shamanic work, the dreaming awake is dreaming awake all. One word.co.uk, that all of the early work is taught by my senior apprentice. Now, she's an amazing and wonderful human being, and she's taken over all that.
844
01:15:08.530 --> 01:15:17.669
Manda Scott: So that's that's 1 to one teaching in small groups. Some of it is online now. So we can teach people in other time zones. And and quite a lot of it's still in person.
845
01:15:17.740 --> 01:15:22.889
Manda Scott: Accidental gods is a prerequisite. You have to have done certain amounts of accidental gods. Now
846
01:15:23.010 --> 01:15:25.529
Manda Scott: come into the dreaming awake, just because
847
01:15:25.700 --> 01:15:28.209
Manda Scott: it provides quite a useful foundation.
848
01:15:29.310 --> 01:15:36.439
Manda Scott: So there we go, and the book is called Any Human Power. It's available anywhere. You get your books, and it's an audio book, an ebook, and all of those things.
849
01:15:37.250 --> 01:15:37.740
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: What's a.
850
01:15:37.740 --> 01:15:38.420
Manda Scott: Thank you.
851
01:15:38.960 --> 01:15:43.060
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Thank you. Thank you. And yeah, it's been a joy. And
852
01:15:43.400 --> 01:15:47.320
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: to speak with you. And so inspiring as always.
853
01:15:47.320 --> 01:15:49.419
Manda Scott: Thank you likewise.
854
01:15:49.460 --> 01:15:51.019
Manda Scott: Let's do it again sometime.
855
01:15:51.450 --> 01:15:53.679
Connection Matters - Leona Johnson: Absolutely. I would love that.