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Who On Earth?
Who On Earth?
From Pain to Purpose: Native American Elder Iniigoos on Ancestral Healing & the Spirit Path
Alcoholism. Ancestral Rupture. Generational pain.
Native American Elder Iniigoos McKay doesn’t shy away from the hard truths of his past — but nor does he remain trapped in them.
In this raw and reverent conversation on Who On Earth?, he shares how the inherited pain of his upbringing almost consumed him… until the ancient ceremonies of his people called him back to purpose.
Now travelling the world to pass on the wisdom of his ancestors, Iniigoos leads sacred sweat lodges, creates powerful ceremonial art, and offers teachings that speak directly to the spirit.
This is a story of survival — but more than that, it’s a story of sacred remembrance.
Connect with Iniigoos
Facebook | Iniigoos McKay
Connect with Michael Hill
Website | www.meditationwithmichael.co.uk
Linktree | https://linktr.ee/meditationwithmichael
Instagram | @meditationwithmichael
Facebook | MeditationwithMichael
TikTok | @MeditationwithMichael
This episode is sponsored by:
TRANSMUTE STUDIO
Instagram | @transmute_studio_uk
Website | www.transmutestudio.co.uk
I was going to blow my head off. I was looking at my thumb and I was ready to pull the trigger when my brother walked around the corner and he saw me. And he says, what the hell are you doing? And he ran over and he grabbed the trigger. rifle. I pulled it out of my mouth and then I blacked out. And I don't know how long I slept, but when I woke up, the first thing I looked for was more beer. There wasn't one empty beer. There wasn't one full beer left. All the cases were completely drank. We pierce. A piece of our skin is pinched on our chest and then a scalpel is put through to make a hole. And then a stick is inserted through. So there'll be two sticks on my chest and that would be tied together and tied to the sanitary and then I'd pull back so my skin would stretch and then that's where I danced the whole time.
SPEAKER_00:Yes people, welcome back to Who on Earth. So this is episode 11 of season 2 and it's one of those ones where you sort of, I don't want to say there's a lot but you are pinching yourself. I was sat at the Ignite Festival and we're around this fire, it's like 4, 5am, probably later and And there's this Native American elder that's turned up to the festival to do sweat lodges afterwards on the land. And this guy started spitting some wisdom that got me believing in Sasquatch and that. And I am not easy to convince. So I was like, I'm going to have to ask this Native American elder that's randomly turned up to come on the show. And he did. This is Inigoose McKay. And he's graciously going to just... let you know about the sort of impact on the Native American people as a whole and then specifically his community and how that played out we're talking things like alcoholism a lot of that was prevalent he said and then he took that on himself there's a lot of just being lost fighting really just a man who was in a lot of pain and suffering and then he remembered what had been passed down through the ancestral lineage started going down that route instead. And it's really beautiful to see. So that spiritual healing path, I'm going to leave to Inna Goose to let you know about it. This one is very exciting, by the way. If you're not excited yet, let me just give you that vibe that this one is going to be an epic one. So buckle up, buckle up and get ready. Now, before I do that, I just would like to remind you all about the meditation stuff that I'm doing. So obviously we've got the beautiful products like the Dream Healer. From the Aether Drops. Aether Spray, the Agua de Florida. This one, if you're interested in the dream world, you're going to have some right fun. There's only one left right now. So there's a new batch being made with a special new ingredient. But if you want to get your pre-orders in or this episode is something you're watching five or six weeks from now, Aether Drops. Aether Drops. Dream healer. And then we've got the spray. I always like that one.
UNKNOWN:Mmm.
SPEAKER_00:see how fresh it is took me a few tries there didn't it for those who can't see Well, it's a spray. You have to smell it. And I can't do that through a podcast. So if you want to try it out and smell it for yourself, you'll see why I'm so passionate about it. And then just all the meditation stuff. Well, I tell you what, there's an advert in the middle for that. So I'm not going to bore you with it now. Before I pass you on to myself, I guess, to tell you about the Transmute Studio that sponsors the podcast, just want to remind you all that. Any little like you can give this episode, that little click, it's going to allow me to use the algorithm correctly to say, hey, this is actually something people want to see and we want to see more of it. So then it only helps the show grow. Again, if you want to share it to a friend because you think Native American elder, you might be up for that. Much loved. And if you don't want to miss anybody else, feel free to subscribe. All that bits out the way now, isn't it? Shall we? Well, we'll let you know about Transmute because they are awesome. absolutely mint and that's why i do like the floating meditation journeys and the dances there but after that full episode for you from inner goose our native american elder enjoy the show it's a new season but it's the same old sponsor, and that's Transmute Studio. Beautiful centre in the centre of Manchester, Northern Quarter. It's got loads of the old stuff like the African drumming, the African dance classes. They've got salsa now as well. They've got the beautiful Arrignani, ceremonial ecstatic dance with wizardry from the show, but also my alter ego DJ Moxha has made an appearance with his new ecstatic dance, Liberation. So, sound baths. Kundalini yoga, candlelit yoga, loads of beautiful events. It's all about wellness, culture, creativity. What's going to do a better job of explaining it than my little mouth is going down to the socials, the website and seeing it for yourself. So I'll put a link in the description. You could maybe come float in one of them hammocks with myself. But for now, guys, enjoy the episode. Peace and love. In a goose, our Native American elder that's graciously just chosen to share his story with us. About to take you on a little journey. Now, before we do, do you mind serenading us with a little chant, my friend?
SPEAKER_05:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_05:This song was gifted to me. I picked it up about 15 years ago. It was floating by and I was able to grab it.
SPEAKER_00:So if you're not driving, I invite you to close down your eyes and just let yourself be taken on a journey.
SPEAKER_03:hey hey oh hey Hey yo, hey yo, hey yo Hey yo, hey yo, hey yo Hey-oh, hey, hey-oh, hey Hey-oh, hey, hey-oh, hey Hey-oh, hey, hey-oh, hey Hey-oh, hey, hey-oh, hey Hey-oh, hey, hey-oh, hey Hey-oh, hey, hey-oh, hey Hey-oh, hey, hey-oh, hey Hey-oh, hey, hey-oh, hey Hey-oh, hey, hey-oh, hey Hey-oh, hey, hey-oh, hey oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh Mmm.
SPEAKER_00:So you guys know when I was there, when I first met Ina Goose, we were at the Ignite Festival. Shout out to the Ignite boys, they did a fantastic job. And Andy as well, our mutual friend whose land it is. Everyone around the fire was a bit flamboyant, weren't they? We were saying earlier in a goose, weren't we, how I was singing. We had all these fantastic musicians. Amazing, yeah. It was fantastic, but we were very loud. And then all of a sudden, this gentleman turns up late to the festival. You're doing sweat lodges, which we'll get on to, won't we?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I was doing them last weekend, so it was the weekend after the festival. Unfortunately, I didn't make it. I showed up on the Monday.
SPEAKER_00:Well, the point being is, when we were around the circle, all of a sudden, this absolute spiritual gangster just starts, and everyone just shut the fuck up. And he starts with that, and everyone starts joining in. It was really something to behold, but it led to me wanting to get you on the show, not just that, but lying around the fire in the early morning, hearing your wisdom, and hearing you talk to some of the people as I just lay there, just in bliss. Drained bliss. I thought this is a man I would love to get on the show. So thanks for gracing us. I always like to start Who on Earth with the beginning. We didn't start as a Native American elder, did we? So what was it like for you growing up? Where was it that you've come from?
SPEAKER_05:Okay, I was born in 1965. I'll be 60 years old this year.
SPEAKER_00:The big six home.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which is central Canada. I was born in the Soto tribe of the Anishinaabe people. And there's six different tribes within our nation. And there's also clans within each tribe. So I'm from the Sturgeon clan, a fish clan from Manitoba.
SPEAKER_00:So can you paint a picture for us and what did that look like for you?
SPEAKER_05:Well, in 1965, like the... And around 1958, the Canadian government made it not illegal to perform our rituals and our ceremonies. Up until then, all our songs, our drums, our medicine instruments were all taken away and were persecuted. If we were caught performing or speaking our language, it was with the government and the different denominations of the church that were involved with that. And so by the mid-60s, it was an era called the child grab era where Native children were taken away from the families and adopted out, both in Canada and into the United States. And so there was a lot of disconnection from our people. There's a percentage, a high percentage in the high 90s that the people that were abducted, the children that were taken away, became alcoholics and drug addicts, even though they were raised in non-Native families with no drugs or no alcohol. It was a disconnection to culture that was a driving factor.
SPEAKER_00:So we didn't get into that straight away, though. We were a baby at one point,
SPEAKER_05:right? Yeah. No, but it's a good understanding to get a little background into the society that I was born into. And so my parents, they spoke Anishinaabe together, but they didn't speak to us in Anishinaabe. And whenever they left the home, they just spoke in English. So all their friends, everybody that they knew, knew that they just spoke No one knew that they spoke Anishinaabe. And so, it was hidden. And my younger brother, he was born in 1966. That's one day. So we're the same age for one day. But he was born in Northern British Columbia in a town called Dawson Creek.
SPEAKER_00:I've heard of that, probably because of the show.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, but it's quite a ways from there. It's in Northern British Columbia. But the thing was, as soon as I was born, my parents started moving us around because... Even though that we weren't registered as being Indian, the federal government still apprehended Métis children. And so in order to keep from being apprehended, my parents moved us around and my dad was looking for work. He worked with heavy equipment and built roads and worked in mines and such. So we're going from place to place. And a year after I was born, we were in northern British Columbia. And... We spent some time in the Northwest Territories in Hay River and at Pine Point. But in 1970, my parents, they flipped a coin. It was heads going up north to the Yukon or tails going down south. And so it was heads. So we ended up moving to the Yukon Territory in 1970. And the Yukon Territory is right by Alaska. If you visualize the geography of Canada, it's to the left but to the north, right by the American border. And so I lived up there in the UConn territory up until I was 25 years old.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. So that's a big jump then. So we've got, so we're 25 years old.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So you're saying that it was very much a rejection of the culture. Was that sort of a defense mechanism
SPEAKER_05:to... Well, absolutely. The... What happened was through the last hundred years, what the federal government, the Canadian government and the churches put our nations through, there was a lot of dysfunction, a lot of hurts and pains that were passed on through intergenerational trauma. The parents getting traumatized and then them having children and passing it on. Yeah, all that. So I was raised in a society where everybody drank alcohol and it wasn't just on a weekend it was regularly
SPEAKER_00:so a bit like Manchester then
SPEAKER_05:yeah it wasn't going for a beer after work it was going to drink as much as you can to get drunk and that was the main purpose of
SPEAKER_00:drinking at home that was why me and my friends used to do it it wasn't a quiet drink like I told you in the van on the way here it was very much a binge culture so it wasn't that I drank all the time but as I always say I fucking made up for it mate and I can relate to that sense because I never knew anything different. To me, my parents drank, everybody around me drank. It was natural that you just go to the pub, you know, good old English pub. Now, Manchester, we also had, by this point, the rave culture coming in. So that's when it started bringing in the pie drugs as well. Was it just alcohol that was prevalent? Back in the 70s,
SPEAKER_05:it was just the alcohol. The Yukon Territory is approximately this... around the same size as England, and there was 28,000 people in the whole territory. I
SPEAKER_00:think you remember you saying there was a lot of nature.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, a lot of nature. 21,000 people lived in the city of Whitehorse, and 6,000 people lived in the rest of the territory. So there wasn't very many people, and there was large spaces in between the communities. And so it was easy for the church and for the government to squash all the ceremonies. Okay. So
SPEAKER_00:it wasn't held with reverence. It wasn't seen as a religious practice that should be respected then?
SPEAKER_05:Not by the Canadian people, no. It wasn't whether it's through the government or through the church or just the general public. Everybody knew what was going on in Canada with the last hundred years with the residential schools and the tragedies that have happened to our people.
SPEAKER_00:Is there any way you could just, I want to make sure the mic's on. So for those who are listening rather than watching, my OCD is going crazy with that mic. But so for the people, have you got any anecdotes, a story that sort of epitomizes this that's happened to you personally that can help them understand from a story basis?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, when I was growing up, my parents, I remember when I was five, I was six, I was in grade one, and my parents went out drinking in the afternoon. and I had my older brother with me. He was seven and my younger brother, he was five.
SPEAKER_00:So was it just three of you?
SPEAKER_05:Three brothers, two brothers and one sister. My sister was two and a half years older. But my parents, they used to go out drinking on the weekends and they'd leave on a Saturday afternoon and then come back at 2.30 at night. So there was no babysitters or anything. And
SPEAKER_00:what was the oldest? Sorry, what was your sister? How old was she then?
SPEAKER_05:My sister, she was eight and a half. And that was the babysitter. Well, yeah, she was there playing with us. She's the elder. Yeah, and we weren't the only family that was like that. There was lots of kids in the neighborhood that used to run around.
SPEAKER_00:So it was quite normalized by that point. The parents just go out and drink.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it was quite normal. And then I used to be able to, I remembered a lot of country songs, Charlie Pryde and Hank Williams Sr., johnny cash and what they do is they they come home with the drinking party at 2 30 or 3 o'clock in the morning and wake me up get me to stand in front of everybody and sing country songs i was i was their entertainment
SPEAKER_00:so that's where that beautiful voice came from at least every every trauma is channeled correctly and turn into beauty
SPEAKER_05:yeah yeah well unfortunately what what happened was was that um Well, part of the story is healing from traumas in my lifetime. And that was one of the things I had to shine the light on was to overcome that fear of singing. And it wasn't until I was 44 that I started singing. Is
SPEAKER_00:that because at that moment it didn't feel safe to sing?
SPEAKER_05:No, what happened was we moved to a mining town and I was in grade three and we had music class and I wanted to impress a little girl, Monique Owens,
SPEAKER_00:with my beautiful voice. I love how you remember the name as well. She stuck, didn't she?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I wanted to impress her and be my friend. So I was singing real loud and proud. My friend Stacy Pond was sitting beside me, and I was trying to encourage him to sing. I was like, come on, Stacy, sing, sing. I can't sing, and I'm singing. And just at that moment, the teacher, Mrs. Lippitz, was walking by. And she looked right in my eyes, and she said, we all know you can't sing. We can hear you. and then right from then on I didn't sing one word not until I was 44 I tried singing when I was 40 and finally I was able to get a song
SPEAKER_00:was it feeling like it was almost like there was a block there
SPEAKER_05:yeah I tried to learn it and it would just disappear right away and I used to say I was monotone and I can't sing so I never tried I believed that and through that trauma I really had to shine a light to find out why I wasn't singing
SPEAKER_00:and we'll get into what helped you with that so You jumped to 25. But there is obviously that growing up period.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah. There was a lot of times, like living in Whitehorse, where not only they'd leave us at home, but they'd bring us to the bar also, park outside the bar. There'd be us four kids. And there'd be other kids running around too. And we'd poke our head inside the bar and call our mom out or my dad to come out and buy us some chips or pop or something. And we'd spend all the day running around outside the bar playing along the riverbank. And
SPEAKER_00:with that being the case then, how would you describe your relationship with your parents?
SPEAKER_05:It was just, I loved them. I didn't know anything better, anything different, so it was just normal. So I couldn't say someone else's life is better than mine because it was just normal.
SPEAKER_00:But there was still that respect, that connection that children should have with their
SPEAKER_05:parents. Yeah, there was still out there. And My mom died when I was 10, and my dad died when I was 21. And even though that we'd gone through a lot of traumas, like witnessed a lot of violence, that I didn't have any anger towards them. later on in life I knew that he was just doing the best he could and at some point I knew yeah so he's going through his own traumas and I was fortunate enough to realize that I didn't want a life like that so I had to make some decisions yeah some life changing decisions and that's followed through me with me throughout my whole life making those hard decisions
SPEAKER_00:well that's the thing I mean everyone's going to get trials and tribulations it's how we interact with the situation and if we aren't shown ways to process it better because that's just the way the society is no fault of it it just is it's going to then be perpetuated through our actions until we finally sit with it yeah and we go why the fuck am i actually behaving this way so
SPEAKER_05:so we moved to uh to white horse in 1970 and in 1970 uh 74 we moved to uh farrell which is a mining town of about 1400 people in the middle of nowhere in the Yukon Territory. And a year after we got there, that's when my mom died. How
SPEAKER_00:did that affect
SPEAKER_05:you? Well, it caused a lot of pain and not knowing how to release it or to understand it. I didn't have any guides. I just suffered through it. And with the loss, it was always there, always around me. And when I was 11, That's when I drank my first alcohol. That young? Yeah, yeah. I mean, another friend, Keith Wolf, he was 14 at the time. We stole some alcohol from the recreation center and there was about a dozen of us, all little kids, all got totally drunk, blacked out type of drunk, flopping around, playing follow the leader because we were just little kids. And right from then on, whenever I drank, it was just like how I've seen my parents do and the friends and the adults just drink as much. as much as you can just to get drunk. Until you run out of money or even further beyond that, you can still drink. And that's how I experienced alcohol in my life. And it led me down a path where I didn't like what I was doing or sad. I didn't like my life. I tried killing myself a few times.
SPEAKER_00:How old were you then?
SPEAKER_05:I was 19. I was 19. I had my stomach pumped for the first time when I was 18. I hitchhiked up to the Arctic Ocean. Well, going back a little ways, I was in grade 10 when I was 17, and I got a job at the mine. I was working with my dad for 11 days, and then after that experience, I quit. I didn't want to become a miner. And up until that point, during the summer holidays, I'd paint houses as a summer job. So I told my dad that I'd quit working at the mine. He was a little bit sad, but I told him I had a job in Whitehorse, which was 500 kilometers away, and he got all happy. So I hitchhiked to Whitehorse, and I spent the summer there. working under the table, painting. And the mine shut down, so my dad had to leave the mining town. The mine owned all the houses. They were shutting them all down. So he moved to Whitehorse. And he rented a motel room. And at the end of the year, that summer I was painting, I only had a couple thousand dollars, and that went pretty quick.
SPEAKER_00:Because you said the art... It's something that you really love to channel
SPEAKER_05:through. Yeah, yeah. When I was smaller, whenever the flyers were delivered in order to give out information there was no internet or anything back back then some of the younglings are like no internet what did you do and so on the back sheet of each each flyer it was a blank piece of paper so i was always drawing as as young as i could remember sketching so they just came in eight this year yeah it was just natural i i could draw and draw well um But I didn't pursue that as a career or as a goal in my life. I got swayed and started painting and construction. And so I ended up leaving Farrell when I was 17. And then my dad moved to Whitehorse. And then me, my older brother Luke, he was 18. And my younger brother Bobby was 16. We all moved to Whitehorse. And we all stayed with my dad the first night and then my brother Bobby, the youngest, he left the next day. He had a girlfriend he had to go see. And the next day after that, my older brother Luke left. And then the third day, it was my time to leave. and it was one of those moments where he was staying in a motel and at the end of the walkway it was a real sunny day and there was a little bit of fat snowflakes falling down and I turned around and I stood at the end of that walkway and I looked back at that door and I knew life was never going to be the same again growing up in your childhood you're always relying on your parents to buy me this to provide the homes and your clothes
SPEAKER_00:so I leave in the nest
SPEAKER_05:yeah so right at that moment I turned around and I walked away
SPEAKER_00:And then that led to you feeling like
SPEAKER_05:suicide then? Well, at that time I was drinking quite a bit on the weekends. I was a binge drinker. Can relate. So when winter came along, it would get to minus 40, minus 45 during the winter for a couple months. And that first year I was too young to get welfare and I didn't have enough weeks for unemployment insurance. So I didn't have any income And all the construction went down to nothing. So I had nothing. And I didn't have a home to stay in or a vehicle or anything. So what I'd do was I'd hang out at a couple bars where they had pool tables. And I'd play for... one or two dollars a game.
SPEAKER_00:So it's like the American version, the billiards
SPEAKER_05:one. Yeah, it was like the bar box, the small little tables with the big pockets.
SPEAKER_00:We have the same thing, but we use red and yellow balls rather than the numbered circle balls. Yeah,
SPEAKER_05:it's quite a bit harder.
SPEAKER_00:Playing pool and darts and snooker as a kid in the pub was, I'm very much sat here saying, try not to go, me too, me too.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I played pool throughout most of my life. But at that time when I was 17 and 18, it allowed me to make$14 or$15 during the day. So
SPEAKER_00:you played for money then? Yeah. Were you
SPEAKER_05:a shark? Well, a shark is kind of like most people think of a shark as a real good player, but actually a shark is someone who interferes with someone's shot. When they're sharking you, that means that they're trying to get in your way or do something, cough or something to distract you in your
SPEAKER_00:shot. In Manchester, a shark is someone who pretends to be bad until you play for money and then sweeps up
SPEAKER_05:yeah that's a hustler are you a hustler? I've been known to hustle a few times but it wasn't the mainstay like I mainly played leagues and played friends but I was good enough to win some money here and there But by the end of the day, when I was 18, after playing pool all day, just hanging around, having a beer throughout the day or at night, I'd go to this one bar called the 98 Hotel in Whitehorse. And there was always a party somewhere in that city every day of the year. So the people that were out drinking during the day and during the night when the bars closed, they'd all congregate. And that's where the place where the alcohol was sold, cases of beer or whiskey or rye or rum or anything. Hard liquor was called off sales. So between 80 and 200 people would show up there, depending on if it was winter or night or winter or summer. And everybody would figure out where the parties were, and then everybody would jump into the trucks. It doesn't matter who owned the truck or not. You'd jump in and then go to the party. And I'd find a place on the couch. If someone got up from the couch, then that would be my place. I'd sleep. And so I was able to survive that year. There was... There was a couple times, though, when it got so cold, when it was 42 below, that only about 20 people showed up. And then everybody realized there was no party. And then everybody just started leaving. And then I'd just stand there. I just remember standing there by myself. It's 42 below, just cold. It's hard to describe how bitterly dry and cold it is. But I knew... where there was an apartment building that had a door open. But it was a four-hour walk, and so I had to walk there. And I got there at 6.30 in the morning, but I was grateful. I had to sleep on the stairs, but I was grateful to not be frozen stiff outside. I
SPEAKER_00:mean, I know there's obviously this pain from the alcohol. I can see that lineage in me and personally, but there must have also been the positive side. There must have been some moments where you were serving a purpose.
SPEAKER_05:Well, with the alcohol, it became a lifestyle. I was pretty much a happy drunk.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so you weren't like me. I was the mess drunk, just chaos on legs, basically. You were more of a jolly being.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, yeah, by people drinks. But it was the sobering part that was the hardest. That was the overwhelming loneliness that would come along with it. It wasn't that I would want to keep on drinking. I just didn't want to move out of bed the next day. It's not because I was sick. It's because I didn't want to see the world. older I didn't like myself and I just wanted to curl up in a cocoon and hide and my brother he ended up saving my life one time my younger brother Bobby when When I was 19, Bobby was 18, Luke was 20, we hitchhiked back to Faroe. And back in the 80s, the economy was really down, so the Canadian government was putting up make-work projects. So we got a job working, all three of us got a job making ski trails, cutting wood and preparing trails for skiing, cross-country skiing. And so... We went back, we hitchhiked back to Faro to pick up our final check, and we decided to buy some beer, and we got there on the Friday night. And what we did was we bought 36 cases of beer, 12 beer to a case, and we stacked it up in the living room in a pyramid, and we started drinking one after the other. And it took us four days to finally drink all those cases of beer, but at some point towards the end, I recall having my dad's rifle in my mouth and I was crying and I was thinking about my mom and I was missing her and the pain of not knowing how to deal with the loss of a loved one, death. I was going to blow my head off. I was looking at my thumb and I was ready to pull the trigger when my brother walked around the corner and he saw me. And he says, what the hell are you doing? And he ran over and he grabbed the rifle, pulled it out of my mouth. And he said, if you want to shoot something, I'll show you what to shoot. And so we got up my dad's other hunting rifle, and we started shooting up houses. But because the mine was closed down, there were houses that were boarded up. The windows were boarded up. So we were shooting those houses. And then I blacked out. And I don't know how long I slept, but when I woke up, The first thing I looked for was more beer. There wasn't one empty beer. There wasn't one full beer left. All the cases were completely drank. And Luke was there and our friend Patrick. Bobby wasn't there. Apparently, an hour after we shot up the houses, the RCMP came rushing through the door. And since me, Luke, and Patrick were sleeping, Bobby was the only one awake. They took Bobby.
SPEAKER_00:And who were they?
SPEAKER_05:The police. They were alternating them out to police. Yeah. And there were times when, when, when my life was, was just so, uh, could have went either way. Uh, another time when I was 15 living in Farrell, some neighbors came over, neighbor's kids, and they were, they were, uh, they were scared and they said their auntie's trying to kill their mom. And so I sent them over to this house, uh, that had a, I knew they had a phone. Uh, we didn't have a phone, but so I decided, well, you know, If the police are going to take a half hour to come down, which they would, half an hour to an hour, maybe I could stop something from happening. So I went through the back alley and through the backyard, up the stairs and through the sliding door, through the living room. And as I crossed the living room, went around the corner to the kitchen, the lady, the auntie, came around with a.30-06 rifle. And she had it pointed right at me. And I reached out, and as I reached out, she pulled the trigger. and it just went click. So I ended up ripping it out of her hand and then she started coming at me.
SPEAKER_00:So it was literally pointed at you but it didn't fire.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, so she came at me and I punched her. And she kept on coming at me. She wouldn't stop. And so I kept on punching. And by the time we got to the front door, because we went down out of the kitchen, down the stairs to the front door and it was locked. And I didn't have time to unlock it because she was right on me. And we went down into the basement and across the basement. And by that time, my shoulder was dead tired and I could barely lift it up. And she was ready to attack me, and that's when the RCMP showed up. The police showed up, and they grabbed her, and they stopped her. And I told them my version of what happened, and they didn't charge me. I don't know what happened to her.
SPEAKER_00:Was she drunk?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, she was drunk out of her head. She
SPEAKER_00:just lost it.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, drinking whiskey. And so one of the police officers came up behind the other police officer that was speaking to me, and he said, you're one very, very lucky young man. And he said, I just pulled this bullet out of that rifle. And he said, if you look closely at it, there's a little tick there. it misfired
SPEAKER_00:so it wasn't that she hadn't loaded it or the same it was in there someone's looking out for you in it mate yeah
SPEAKER_05:yeah yeah it would have blown it would have blown a hole in my back the size of a size size of an orange yeah would have went through as a little dot but come out and yeah i borrowed a rifle so that was close
SPEAKER_00:just a bit just a bit mate i mean as an englishman with there is no guns
SPEAKER_05:Oh,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. So when you hear those conversations, it's mind-blowing. It almost sounds like something from a film.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, so there were times when I was 20, I got a job working in Whitehorse. And I'd already been up by the Arctic Ocean for a couple years during the summer holidays, during the summer, spring, summer, and fall. But when I went back to Whitehorse when I was 20, I got a job actually at the end of 19. I got a job in painting, which I was doing in Inuvik. And I'd been doing during the summer holidays as a profession. I got... offered an apprenticeship. So I stayed in Whitehorse and finished my apprenticeship. So it was 1920, I was 21 when I completed my apprenticeship. Interprovincial painting and decorating ticket is what I received. When I first went down there, I was... I went down there to Vancouver. I flew out of Whitehorse with no room, but I knew I had to be in school. So I flew down there and rented a hotel room for the night, and then I went to the orientation to BCIT, British Columbia Institute of Technology. That's where they offered the trade. And so I went to the orientation, and there was one guy sitting beside me that had a room for rent, and he only lived a block away from NBIT. It was nothing better than that, so I rented a room from him. But he also sold pot, and he also sold cocaine. And that wasn't so good. I tried it for about a month, but I didn't like it. At the same time? Yeah. Yeah, during my apprenticeship. So after each day of going to the school, we'd go back to his place where I was staying, and we'd have cocktails. He'd call them cocktails. But it'd be vodka, just drinks. And we'd get drunk every night. I tried that. And after that, after trying that cocaine for about a month, the bill came in.
SPEAKER_01:That
SPEAKER_05:put a stop to that.
SPEAKER_01:Where's the fucking, where's that
SPEAKER_05:cheap
SPEAKER_00:beer at? I thought it was for free. I was waiting for some proper profound thing. And yeah, I couldn't fucking afford it. I had to carry it on. So I know another thing you mentioned on the drive here was that you were really into ice hockey.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yeah, yeah. When my mom died, my dad put us into ice hockey. I remember when I was just a little boy, like around three, I'd have these two little skates with two little blades on them, two on each skate. But it wasn't until I was 10 that I started playing hockey, which is quite late for a Canadian boy.
SPEAKER_00:You wouldn't like watching me. I've done ice skating a few times and I like Bambi on ice.
SPEAKER_05:That's how I was when I first started. I'd be able to go, but I couldn't stop, so I'd slam into the But eventually I learned. And I ended up playing for 36 years. It wasn't until I was 46 that I stopped playing hockey. I played my last game.
SPEAKER_00:I know you were telling me a little story of, you said you were sort of getting scouted, but then there was a bit of a mishap, got you blacklisted, was it?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, during, I was 15, I went to play for a white horse team and we're from the small mining town of Farrell, but I made the team and we went down to Alberta to play in an international tournament. There was 22 teams, 11 from Alberta, and the other 11 came from different parts like Sweden, United States, and Denmark. We just got pummeled. We weren't a good team. A bit
SPEAKER_00:like Man United right now,
SPEAKER_05:isn't it? But the junior teams, they liked how aggressive I was.
SPEAKER_00:You said you were quite a big lad, were
SPEAKER_05:you? Yeah, I was quite big, and I lifted weights back then, so I was quite strong also.
SPEAKER_00:So for those who can see Imagine the opposite of me.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, so I got invited to go down and try out for a Junior A Tier 2, not the major juniors, but Tier 2 Junior Leagues in Alberta. But as soon as my brother found out I'd been scouted, then he wanted to come down. So we trained all summer together, a lot of running, lifting weights and preparing. Was he any good? He was good, yeah. He's a good player. Yeah, him and I worked well together. And so we made the first cut, but then we ended up– going drinking in a town called Ponoka, from a town where we were in Hobima, Muscogee. They had a junior team there. And it was about 10 kilometers. And we knew some people there, friends of my dad's that had moved from Faroe down there. So they took us to this town, Ponoka, and they went to the bingo. And my brother and I, Luke, we went to the bar. So you only had to be 18 to get in the bar. So Luke was old enough, but I wasn't old enough. 16, 17, yeah, no, I was 16, Luke was 17, so he was just old enough. Well, not quite old enough, but when it was time to go, we were both pretty drunk, and we heard two guys coming out of the bar, and they were being quite loud, and Luke was quite violent when he was younger, so he started a fight with them. And we got in a fight with those two guys and it just started raining. And I knocked the one guy out and I started crying because I thought I killed him. Not bad. Yeah, he was just all cold and the rain was splashing on his face. And so I grabbed Luke off the other guy and I told him, he says, grab the beer. So we grabbed the beer and we took off running about five blocks.
SPEAKER_00:I love how you didn't forget the beer though.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, we can't forget about
SPEAKER_00:the beer. Might kill the man. Got the beers though.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, so we ended up sitting by the train tracks about five blocks away. And we were laughing about it, shooting back the beer that we just stole from him. And we saw a set of headlights coming. And as soon as the headlights got close to us, and it was in an isolated area, and the car came screeching to a stop. And one guy pokes his head out the window, and he says, those are the bastards. And then all four doors opened up. And they brought back their buddies.
SPEAKER_00:It's always a bigger fish.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. So the first guy that saw us, he came running at me and I punched him in the face and I jumped on him and got him in a headlock and I was just feeding him. And I was curled up in a ball. And I don't know how much time passed. It wasn't that many. It wasn't that long, maybe about three or four minutes. And I wouldn't let go. So they finally said, look what we're doing to your buddy. And I looked over at my brother. And there was one guy on each arm. And the other guy had Luke's head tilted back. And they were just punching him right in the mouth real hard. So I let the guy that I was going– that I was beaten on. I let him go, and I went to go help Luke, and they dropped Luke, and they were all getting in the car. And then Luke says, your knife. And I had a little pocket knife. It was about... 9 centimeters long, 10 centimeters long. It wasn't a big pocket knife, but it was a knife. It was long, long enough. So I called them back. They were all getting in the car and before they closed the car, I was right by the end of the car, I called them back out and the back door opened and the one guy was stepping out and I stabbed the car. So if he would have stepped out further and got further in an altercation with me, I would have stabbed him for
SPEAKER_00:sure. You really had some close calls, hadn't you, with life going a completely different way?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah. It's your head. It's ups and downs.
SPEAKER_00:Do you believe that there's something else guiding that path?
SPEAKER_05:Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I've had friends that have come to the crossroads the same as me, and they didn't pull through. It didn't end well. No. So we ended up getting put in jail, and what happened was right after that, me and Luke were kind of licking our wounds, and we seen another set of headlights coming down the same road. So Luke says, your knife, throw it. So I threw my knife, and it was the police, and Luke says, let me do all the talking. I said, okay. So as soon as he gets in the car, as soon as we get put in the car, the police car, he starts saying, F you this, F you that. And by the time we got to the police station, they'd had enough of him. So they ended up taking him out of the cop car. And I was about to step out. They slammed the door on my leg. And they told me to stay in the car. So I was sitting in the car in the garage, in the police garage, and they grabbed Luke's head and they smashed it against the steel door. And then they opened up the door and they threw him in and they walked behind him. When I saw that, I freaked out and I started kicking the door. And I broke the window and I was climbing out when they finally come and got me. And then they took me into the room, the interrogation room, and they handcuffed my hands and then they started beating on me. And when they were finished, they threw me into the drunk tank. And there was maybe about eight or nine people in there, all sleeping on the floor, all drunk, going through the drunk tank. And Luke was at the end of the drunk tank. And so I was walking towards him to go sit beside him. And I accidentally touched this one guy's foot, and he jumped up in a fighting position. And Luke says, kick his ass. So the fight was on again. And I laid a beating on the guy. And the police came in and they separated us. And then we ended up staying in that jail for three days until they found the people that we were fighting with first. And then we got charged. But I didn't end up going to court. They dropped the charges. But they kept us in Ponoka jail for three days and then in the Edmonton remand for three days. So six days after we left the training camp, We were out. It was eight days for Luke. They kept him in there. So what we did was we ended up going back to the tryouts and we're putting on our equipment. I thought you still went to tryouts. Yeah, we still figured we had a chance. We could still do it. You'll just see it. Face off and, you know. The coach comes in. He looks at us and he says, you two guys, the general manager wants to see you. You can take off your equipment. So we went up there. to the general manager's office and he said by then he'd heard all about what had happened to us and so they sent us packing and me and Luke we said well there's Junior A another Junior A team about 80 kilometers from here let's go over there so we went over there and the general manager there knew us right away and they said you guys are welcome here
SPEAKER_00:so we
SPEAKER_05:ended up going back to to Manitoba and I stayed with my uncle for a year then on my dad's reserve. My dad had 11 brothers and three sisters.
SPEAKER_00:Big family then? Yeah. Are you still in touch with them?
SPEAKER_05:Yep. Not my uncles because they've all passed. It's just my two aunts that are left. I went back to Canada in November. I was in Ireland in October, this past October, and my auntie, Stella, she's 84, she called me and she said, geez, I really miss you, nephew. I really would like to see you one more time. I'll be 84 this year. And that sealed it. As soon as she said that, I knew that she was meaning that she doesn't have much time left. So I changed my plans. Instead of going to Alberta, I went to Manitoba and stayed with my two aunties for a week, just about 10 days. And before I left, I called a cousin of mine, my uncle's grandson. His name's Henry McKay. And I know he runs a sweat lodge. So I asked him to put put a sweat lodge up for us. And he says, even better yet, you could run it. I said, Oh, great. Yeah. So, so there was, uh, me and my two aunties, uh, Stella's, uh, two Stella's children. Uh, they're both in their sixties and, uh, Jess and her daughter and Henry. And so it was, there was 13 of us in there, uh, but it was far less from, from all my relatives, but that was, that was good.
SPEAKER_00:So, um, You said your dad passed away when you were 21, didn't
SPEAKER_05:you? Yeah, yeah. I left home already by then, and he had a stroke. He was only 52 when he died. Very young then. Yeah, yeah. So he got old instantly. i remember and uh he didn't he didn't like walking with a cane or seeing seeing people uh having people see him uh in that way bit
SPEAKER_00:of pride
SPEAKER_05:yeah yeah and and he wasn't changing his his eating habits and so it was like three months later that he had a major stroke and that major stroke was the one that took him
SPEAKER_00:how did that play out in your life then because you've already seemed to be full of rage you've had the mother's death
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it wasn't so much rage. It was more of sorrow, sadness. The last time I hitchhiked up to Inuvik, the Arctic Ocean, I hitchhiked up there when I was 18 and 19. That was the first time that I woke up. I was stuck in my body, and I went on a five-day bender, and I found myself at a bush party, about 80 or 90 people in Inuvik. It was outside, about 25 kilometers away from the middle of the town, and it was an Eskimo town in Inuvik. And there was a big glass jug, like a glass vase, like a flower vase. They were passing around, and everybody was pouring whiskey, rum, everything, all the hard
SPEAKER_00:liquor. You would call that a Manchester shit mix.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I drank that. And they'd pass it around, and everybody would take a sip. But when it got to me, I remember drinking it, and it didn't burn. It just had no flavor. You can't drink that much amount of water. But that alcohol I was drinking, and he finally had to pull it away from me, otherwise I would have drunk the whole thing. But I couldn't even sit on the log. I was falling over, and my equilibrium was totally shot. One guy didn't like me, and he got in a fight with me, and finally he just pushed me over. Yeah, I couldn't even defend myself. But then I woke up. I was stuck in that body, stuck in that mind. And the clarity was so clear, I became the watcher. And I didn't know what had happened to me, but it was so fearful that I became so fearful that I didn't like what I was doing. I didn't like how I thought or acted. I didn't like the repetition of the weekend binge drinking. But at the time when I was in Inuvik, I was drinking almost every night. I lived right in the hotel. The company I was working for paid for the hotel room and the meals. And so it was right above the bar. So I was drinking a little bit too much then. But for the main part, I was a binge drinker. And it wasn't until I was... 21 that I decided to quit drinking. So was
SPEAKER_00:that just because suffering was too much?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah. I knew there had to be a better way things that I'd say that I'd never say when I was drinking or when I was sober. The most
SPEAKER_00:damaged, unfiltered parts were just spilling out.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, there was a lot of regrets and I missed that innocence of being a child. that wonder and imagination wasn't there anymore it was just a repetitive going to work and drinking playing hockey going to work it was just repeating itself and it was really unfulfilling and along with all the sadness and not knowing my thoughts and I was totally lost. And so I stopped drinking for seven months, but I didn't work on myself. I thought it was the alcohol that was the problem.
SPEAKER_00:Just stop the alcohol and everything will get better.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. And then I thought, well, maybe it's the hard liquor, the whiskey, or the rum, dark rum. So I'll stop drinking that. But it wasn't until I'd moved down to British Columbia and Kamloops that I actually quit drinking.
SPEAKER_00:How was that, by the way? Because you've done it your whole life. From 11 until that point, it's been
SPEAKER_05:around before. Yeah, it was difficult. I was still hanging out with the same people, doing the same thing, playing hockey, and everybody drank, I played hockey. But I was still in that same society, not really changing anything, just not drinking. And so I eventually went back out drinking, but just stuck with the beer. But the chaos was still there, and It wasn't until I was 27 when I was living in Kamloops that I quit drinking for good.
SPEAKER_00:Was there anything that helped that particular time?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it was Alcoholics Anonymous, 12 Steps. before then I used to say I was an atheist and there was no God there was no spirit
SPEAKER_00:so you didn't believe in the great spirit
SPEAKER_05:no there was a lot of doubt and a lot of questions like as I was growing up questioning if there is a God why did he take my mom and a lot of that and unanswered questions and so I rejected everything spiritual the only really spiritual connection that was in my life was Christianity going to church and Catholicism and that didn't resonate with me but it's a good thing that the 12 steps are worded the way that it is because believing in a higher power doesn't mean believe in Jesus Christ it means coming to your own
SPEAKER_00:it transcends religion
SPEAKER_05:yeah so for myself what I had to do because it was in the 80s that I decided to start searching out Native spirituality, Mother Earth spirituality. And so I started going to peyote ceremonies called the Native American Church. Imagine you're
SPEAKER_00:talking to someone who's never heard of peyote. Could you just explain what that is
SPEAKER_05:to the audience? It's a cactus. It's a small little cactus looking like a little ball. Bottom-like,
SPEAKER_00:isn't it?
SPEAKER_05:Pardon me?
SPEAKER_00:Like a bottom-like
SPEAKER_05:cactus. Yeah, yeah. They grow smaller. They can grow large, different sizes. Yeah. And it's used in peyote ceremonies that are held at night.
SPEAKER_00:And it's seen as very sacred, from what I understand.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, yeah. It allows us to access what's all around us. The psychedelic part of it is. Yeah. kind of like, if you're looking at a flame, you can see, distinguish the colors in the flame.
SPEAKER_00:But when I say psychedelic, I don't mean hallucinatory. I mean psychedelic in terms of changing consciousness.
SPEAKER_05:Oh yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
SPEAKER_00:absolutely. So I don't believe in that. We're seeing something that isn't there. I actually believe that we're just changing the filter in which we see reality. We see a small sliver. Absolutely. And that helps you see a little bit more of the puzzle. So how was that for you then?
SPEAKER_05:Well, it was very powerful to go there and then hear the Cree language was spoken in those ceremonies. So it was good. It was very similar to Anishinaabe, so I could understand some of the words that were said in the prayers. And so it was really good to... to go to the ceremonies, but the only problem was that they'd only have the ceremonies every 7, 10, 11 months. So it wasn't continuous. And then they didn't allow non-natives into the ceremony. That goes back to American law about possessing the the priority
SPEAKER_00:so it's illegal for the white man to have it right but if it's with yourselves done in a religion it's actually seen as a religious thing so you can't you can't basically attack it but the other dudes you're not part of that religion exactly
SPEAKER_05:yeah yeah so so uh i went there to those ceremonies for about 10 years and i was also going to uh to uh um 12-step meetings for the first 10 years I was going.
SPEAKER_00:Are we sober this whole time or is it realizes?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. So it's working.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it was working. But I was doing it quite surface. It wasn't like I was staying sober, but I wasn't working on myself. I'd say a prayer every once in a while, and I'd go to the meetings, and I was just using the 12-step meetings to stay sober. But
SPEAKER_00:you weren't living,
SPEAKER_05:living. No, no. Later on in life, I learned that the 12-step program is made to aid in your life, not to become your life, where a lot of people, when they go to AA, they're going to a lot of meetings, and then they're making it all their life. It becomes their identity. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's really not what it's supposed to be for.
SPEAKER_00:So Michael's, the name Meditation is the Game and Meditation with Michael has now launched its very own website. Everything I'm doing is going to be on there. from meditation classes which you can join in person catch up if you missed one or just join online from the comfort of your own home one-to-one sessions we've got loads of freebies like the chakra meditations and we've also got a new 10-day beginners course so if you really want to build that strong foundation i've suffered with anxiety depression suicidal tendencies i've lost family members i've been an addict unhealthy relationships coming out my ears meditation was the panacea learning how to sit with any sensation that rises really just helps you to master that patience and those who master patience will master everything else so I want to pass that on it is my purpose to alleviate my own suffering show us how to do the same and we can all live more peacefully it sounds alright that doesn't it so this website is a lovely little hub for you to find everything I'm doing from the ecstatic dances to the floating meditation journeys I'll put a link in the description go check out meditationwithmichael.co.uk and awaken the power within. Peace and love guys.
SPEAKER_05:So I ended up going there for about 10 years to those meetings. And then I'd met a woman in the year 2000. I was contracting. I owned a painting company and had a partnership. And so for my first seven years and then the last eight years, I was a sole proprietor. But during those seven years as a partnership, there was a project that we picked up, a health center in a small town called Karamias. And one of my workers had met a woman there. And then I asked her to set me up with someone. And she was a little hesitant, but after a couple of weeks of getting to know me. Don't know why. She said, okay, I'll– I'll set you up with my sister. She had three sisters. Oh, great. So I met her and we hit it off right away. I was very honest with her, very open.
SPEAKER_00:So that was not respected then, I imagine. Yeah. The authenticity,
SPEAKER_05:the authenticity. Yeah, yeah. One of the first things that I told her was, all I want is sex. And she said, me too. So we're on the same plane.
SPEAKER_01:We understand each other.
SPEAKER_00:And then lo and behold... a lot of men just don't come in with that authenticity so the woman feels like there is something else there and that's where the pain comes but if you both just say yeah you know what what's wrong with that what is wrong with that
SPEAKER_05:yeah a week a week later we're in love with each other
SPEAKER_00:it wasn't just sex
SPEAKER_05:no no there was a there was a connection there that that we
SPEAKER_00:made by the way
SPEAKER_05:donna um but i it was a conscious decision i could have walked away at that point And I knew that she wasn't going to be allowed to sit in the ceremony, in the peyote ceremonies with me. I only knew one altar that would allow non-natives. And she came up to two ceremonies with me, but then I realized that I wasn't going to continue going to those ceremonies. If the woman I loved wasn't welcome to sit with me in prayer that didn't sit right with me. So that's why I left.
SPEAKER_00:You get a fist bump for that and you go, it's welcome. You never abandon your woman or your friends for anything, do you? So it's nice to see. Have you always had that loyalty? I think so. Or is it just the
SPEAKER_05:love? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've always had that loyalty. So I didn't go to any ceremonies for about– two years after I left the priority ceremonies. And I used to play in a pool league, nine ball, ten ball, eight ball in Kamloops. And at the pool hall, I met my mentor, Buffalo Stoneman, Neil Leonard. And he asked me if I went to sweat lodges. And I said, yeah, yeah, I go to sweats. But up until that point, I'd only been in maybe 15, 16 sweat lodges and he said he told me where it was and it was only two kilometers from where I lived and so I went over to tell Donna and she was all excited she was all ready so that Saturday we went to the sweat lodge to Neil and Dennis' sweat lodge and they built a building around the sweat lodge an area where the actual lodge was and an area where there was a women and men's change room and an area to smoke our medicine pipes and and to feast. And as soon as we entered that one area, everybody in that room gave us a hug and said, welcome, welcome. And my mentors, Dennis Pearson and Neil Leonard, they ran their sweat lodge once a week. So right from then on, The next week came along and I had a little bit of work to complete. So I rushed off to work on that Saturday early in the morning. I got what I had to do done. And I came back to see if Donna wanted to go to the lodge because I was going. But she already had her sweat dress sewn up and already a dish made to contribute to the feast afterwards. So she was already going. And right from then on, we started going once a week.
SPEAKER_00:So that's why we met. We were at the Ignite Festival. We were on the fire and you'd come to Andy's land to put on a sweat lodge. I want people to understand what you're actually offering. So let's imagine you're talking to someone who's never even heard of a sweat lodge. Why is it?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Well, it's a structure where we cleanse and purify ourselves and look within to help ourselves heal through the guidance of the Spirit. And we make it with willows. And we make like a dome, a small dome, about four to five meters diameter. Well, yeah. And diameter. And it's covered with blankets. And we heat up lava stones outside in a fire until they're red hot. And then we bring in, it'll vary between different sweat lodges on how many grandfathers, I'll call them grandfathers, the stones, how many grandfathers we bring in. With the lodge that I run, it's called the Buffalo Lodge, and we only bring in seven. seventh round and we go into the Buffalo Lodge four times and then in between the rounds we could come out and drink medicine or cool off medicine being water and then after the five
SPEAKER_00:I was going to ask that and I was like what kind of bloody sweat lodge is it it's medicine you say
SPEAKER_05:yeah the medicine of life
SPEAKER_01:water
SPEAKER_05:yeah some lodges they keep you in all four rounds but this lodge that I run it's a it's a public site Sundance Buffalo Lodge. So sometimes I'll keep the people in if there's lots of Sundancers in there or if we're approaching the Sundance or Vision Quest and I'll keep them in extra rounds where no one will leave the lodge. But for the most part, everybody's new on this part of the world to going into the sweat lodge.
SPEAKER_00:So you're not trying to make it too overwhelming then, sort
SPEAKER_05:of
SPEAKER_00:helping them understand it without making it to the point where, like going to the gym and then you don't want to go again because you went too hard. Yeah,
SPEAKER_05:exactly. Yeah, yeah. That's where a lot of people like... when they just jump into the lodge. Like for myself, when I went to my mentor's lodge, I was 39 and then... I went to my first Sundance when I was 40 and I touched the tree and I didn't Sundance until I was 41 and I was still going to their sweat lodge once a week year in and year out and it wasn't until my fourth year of Sundancing I'd been going for five years almost five years once a week that my mentors allowed me to sit behind the bucket and pour one round where over here in the western world in Europe people in certain countries are approaching it differently where they just want to take shortcuts and make it events as opposed to a way of life and
SPEAKER_00:I've only ever been in one I got employed to do some meditations before a ceremony with Ruben Yontani who's been on the show remember the Mexican sound healing show I told you about and I turned my friend had told me the wrong time so I've turned up early and I can't fucking see anyone but there's this big as you say this big dome with blankets on it and I can
SPEAKER_02:And
SPEAKER_00:then to Mexicans. So they were doing it probably a bit different to yourself. But it must have been first round was over. I'm just sat there. It's meditation with Michael. At the end of the day, I'll just meditate, listening to it, fine, whatever. And then it comes open. Do you want to come in? I'll come to close in my boxes. Let's get in. And I had missed the start where they said, just make a small offering. When we do a little share, I'd miss that bit. So when they're saying that, i start trying to do a 20 minute water meditation so i'm like like really just because i do things properly i'm really trying to get on i can and i can see people are looking around this guy do it and i'm like i've committed by this point i can't start but in the end the guys have touched my shoulder about 10 minutes 15 minutes it was meant to be a short offering there's other people like that embarrassment of i've come here to try and help be this meditation dude and help people ground and I'm like fucking out but at this point I have laughter laughter gets rid of the rigidity so it's like laughing and laughing and obviously that I've learned my lesson, but it would be nice to go into one of these. I'm going to have to do one with you. Because you've come to England a few times, right?
SPEAKER_05:Yes, I've been to Forest Row. I ran four or five over there. A few years ago, I was there. Four years ago. And I was in Glastonbury. and then here the last few years.
SPEAKER_00:Well, what we'll do, I told you at the end of the Meditation with Michael website, we'll have the community links bit. I'm going to put your links in the description of this episode, but then for people who want to maybe book you, or they want to see what it's about, we'll put all that information. So, doing the sweat lodges then, we'll come back to the way you're running it. Is there any bits that we've missed that you think are important?
SPEAKER_05:No. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So, By this point, Donna's excited.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's excited and she's going. And so we go there.
SPEAKER_00:How was that for you, by the way, her embracing and all that?
SPEAKER_05:Oh, I loved it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:She was very, very kind and open-hearted, gentle, gentle human being.
SPEAKER_00:Sounds like that was something you really needed as well.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did. And my daughter, Red Willow, she was just over two at the time. Red
SPEAKER_00:willow, that's beautiful.
SPEAKER_05:And she's 21 now. And so for the first four months, I'd stay out two rounds and then Donna would stay out two rounds. So we'd switch. And so after four months, we both decided, let's just bring her into the sweat
SPEAKER_02:lodge
SPEAKER_05:and see how she does. And we brought her in. She went right to sleep. Sometimes you get 12, 15 drums all pounding at the same time and everybody knowing the same songs. And so the vibration is very high, very loud. And she just sleep through the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00:She clearly was just, that was her zen place. Yeah,
SPEAKER_05:yeah. I was able to bless her with a ceremonial way of life. How
SPEAKER_00:did that feel for you, by the way, giving her that? Because obviously you said about your childhood.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Was it very important to you to do this differently?
SPEAKER_05:It was. Red Willow is my second family. My first family, I was 23 when my son was born. Okay. And I was 26 then. when my daughter was born, my first daughter. What was
SPEAKER_00:your first daughter called?
SPEAKER_05:Rochelle. Her mother gave her that name. Mitch, he's 36, and Rochelle is 32 now. So we... I was just talking about the children, my children. I miss them. But the mother of my first two children, she didn't want anything to do with anything native. So at that time, I was still in society, working and drinking. And so I didn't go to very many ceremonies, none actually with her. And I went to a couple of powwows with her, but she wanted to leave right away. So she didn't like anything that I did.
SPEAKER_00:So it must have been so refreshing for Donna to have this enthusiasm.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was. Yeah, for the first eight or nine years, we were stuck at the hip whenever I'd go out hunting. She was a vegan vegetarian, but she was always out with me hunting, getting wood or fishing or picking medicines. She was always right there. And then one time I... I really wanted to go to the pool hall and so I ended up, I shot a moose and I still had half a moose to take care of to cut and wrap and I told her I was going to be back later and I didn't get back until one o'clock at night and When I got back, the whole moose was done. She continued cutting and wrapping. But she told me never again.
SPEAKER_00:But I'm a vegetarian, but I've got nothing against someone doing that sort of stuff reverently, where if all the animals are going to get used, like, for example, one of the rattles that we've made there. Could you show the audience just for a second one of the rattles? So I'm sorry for those who are listening, but this is basically one of the rattles that, as you can see with the turtle shell, and for those who can hear... And we're going to be looking at selling a few of these, aren't we?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:yeah, exactly. Now, sorry for those who are listening. So we won't do too much visual, but these are some of the offerings that you do. And you said that helps to bring in that creativity that you obviously said was innate within you. Yeah. How long have you been making these rattles?
SPEAKER_05:Well, let's see now. I was in my early 40s when I started making them. How
SPEAKER_00:did it feel to start bringing that creative edge back in again?
SPEAKER_05:Well, after I left home and started living on my own and started working in society, I was painting. I got my ticket in painting and decorating. And right from then on, when I left home, I stopped painting. doing anything creative. And it wasn't until, I think it was around 27, 28 when I did a painting, first painting I'd ever done with acrylic. And I gave it away as a gift to a friend of mine's mother my friend, his brother had passed away. So he took me to my first Bioti ceremony. So I wanted to do something special for his parents. So I gave them that painting. And then I saw it about 10 years ago, and I was flabbergasted. I was amazed. It was so good. But my friend's wife said, you shouldn't go back to painting. You should just... focusing on painting pictures but at the time when I quit drinking I'd done some upgrading because I dropped out when I was in grade 10 and I did college prep and then a year at university and by then I'd been making only$425 a month so after a few years of being penniless and just getting by I went back out into the workforce and didn't do anything creative for many, many, many years.
SPEAKER_00:But now this has come back into your life. Yeah, yeah. It's
SPEAKER_05:something you're quite passionate about. Yeah. Right from when I first started sun dancing, then the creativity started coming back and I started having a shop. I had a shop and I started making drums and then painting on drums and then realized that I'm a decent painter. It comes out quite nice.
SPEAKER_00:So... One thing that I bring up as well, so for some people, they will see you using, say, the turtle shell or bow or different stuff like that, and it might trigger them. they might see that as inhumane or not okay. Could you just help them understand why it is you use those materials?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah. Actually, a friend of mine on Facebook had made a comment on one of the turtle shells, but we really didn't get into it. But the one thought that came to mind was she's– I'm obviously not happy about me using the turtle shells question where I got them. Yes. I don't know whether or not this turtle was raised just if they had it in a big pool and then they harvest them at certain times a year. But I got this when I went back to visit my son in November. at Halford Heights. I know that they're not sea turtles. The sea turtles, they look different, and it's against the law to have them or transport them or go from country to country. But with these land turtles, it's okay. But the different... items we use to make our spiritual items the different animals we put those on there to for the spirit of the animal to guide us and it's not that we worship the animal it's just that we acknowledge their gifts that that they possess
SPEAKER_00:i feel like this sets you up perfectly for what i heard you saying around the fire yeah so and that's why i brought this up not to catch you out but because i know you have reverence behind it and i just want people to hear the authentic reason behind it so you're saying Obviously, it's not that you worship them. It's more for their qualities, their values. Could you bring in a little bit that you're telling us? You're saying something about the Native American in terms of the six or seven and they're represented by an animal and each one's like true for love. Could you just let the audience know about
SPEAKER_05:that? Yeah, I can. I'm an Anishinaabe. And Source of Life gave, meaning the people, that's what Anishinaabe means, is the people, human beings. Source of Life gave us a directive called the Great Binding Law, K'ichi Tabako, K'ichi Minowa. And there's seven great binding laws to the... to the teaching the first one is respect and it's about giving and that's represented by the buffalo and this right
SPEAKER_00:here for those who can't see he's got his rattle with the buffalo tail
SPEAKER_05:yeah Yeah, with a buffalo tail and little horns here. So the buffalo represents respect. And traditionally in our communities, it was all about sharing. in order to survive when someone didn't have enough. And it wasn't so much about how much stuff we can accumulate through our lifetime. Gifting is huge in our society.
SPEAKER_00:That's one of the things that resonated with me because I really love the culture. I've listened to a lot and read a lot about it. That's why I was very excited to get you on. And so, you know, you're crazy horses, you're black elves, you're red clouds and that sort of stuff. But one thing that struck me was he said that the chief... would be the poorest person because they would give everything away. Whereas when obviously the white man come over the colonialization and that was all about the leaders taking, it just, they couldn't understand it. So that's where that respect, that gift giving comes from.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the second great binding law is the law of wisdom represented by the beaver. Each one of us human beings has been given a gift, but in most cases we get guided by society and our parents, our grandparents, even our sisters and brothers. We've been programmed right from day one into believing we should be living our life a certain way. Um, but as just, just like myself where I was given the gift, uh, to become an artist, I was swayed to, to get into painting and decorating and not living my passion. And, and, uh, But that was one of the things that the baby represents is his passion. His gift is to chew down the trees and to make dams. If he didn't have that gift, his teeth would grow long and would eventually kill him. So he's using his wisdom to keep his life alive, to continue doing what he's doing, to live his gift. The third great binding law is represented by the bear, and that's the gift of the law of courage. It also represents health and medicine. A lot of times it takes courage to make decisions in our life that we live by. And sometimes it means going against the grain, going against the crowd, going against your family, just to be honest and live your truth. So those are the decisions that we have to make in our life that are very hard.
SPEAKER_00:I'm known as the black sheep of the family. The authenticity was always... being pushed down, but it just kept coming out. And now it's going to shake it out.
SPEAKER_05:And the next great binding law is represented by the wolf. And that's the law of humility, where in society we're taught that you're more important than the next person because you've got a bigger house or you've got better clothes or more money in the bank. And your value is determined by that. But To be respectful and to know that we're all human beings. We all take our first breath, and there's always going to be a time when we're going to let that breath out.
SPEAKER_02:There's
SPEAKER_05:a birth and a death in our lives. None of us are more special than the other. These are the teachings that I talk about in the Sweat Lodge. To be kind, to be loving to your brothers and sisters. The next great binding law is the law of honesty. And that's where the Bigfoot... resides
SPEAKER_00:this is the one that got me like big foot Sasquatch and I'm there on the fire and then my little cynical side came out and went oh here we go and by the end I was like you know what you know what so go on tell the people you have to say also the stories that a few of your friends have had please
SPEAKER_05:okay I
SPEAKER_00:uh
SPEAKER_05:Honesty is really hard to come by, and that's why it's one of the great binding laws. Just as not everybody can be honest, not everybody can see the Sasquatch. And I know a lot of people that are listening to me right now speak have doubts. For myself, I have no doubts whatsoever that that being exists, even though I haven't seen the Sasquatch. I have friends that have seen the Sasquatch, and my friend Ray, he... He's not a bullshitter. He tells it straight out like it is. I've never caught him in a lie. Maybe
SPEAKER_00:that's why he saw
SPEAKER_05:it. Could be. But he was, back before Canada was made marijuana legal, he used to run the borders bringing marijuana into the United States. And so he brought along three guys from the Res, Skeech Res, Reserve Reservation. And there was Motts, Yam, St. George. And Ray was out front. And he's a very strong, strong, strong man. Quite small, but very strong. Very wiry. And he got ahead of the last three. And they heard someone... walking on the side of the trail and they kept on yelling out his name there was no response and finally they caught up to him and they asked ray why uh why he wasn't responding and he said well i've been ahead of you this whole time whatever you guys were hearing wasn't me and they had to travel over top the mountain this mountain range in the dark in the dead of night to get into the united states And so they continued on their way. And once again, Ray got ahead of them. And he eventually slowed down to let them catch up. And when they finally did catch up, he was at the edge of this clearing up on the mountains. And he motioned for them to kneel down beside him. And he told them, what I'm about to tell you, don't get scared. And told him to keep an eye on a thicket of willows across the field on the other side. And after about seven or eight minutes, they were keeping an eye all crouched down and then up jumped this Sasquatch. And he said it was about eight or nine feet tall and it was full of hair. And then it ran up the rest of that mountain. He said it was incredibly fast. Like when it was running up the side of the mountain, it was grabbing trees and breaking it, pulling itself up as it was running up. So it was gaining speed as it was going up the rest of that mountain. And Yams was there. I went to go visit Jay a couple of years ago when he was telling me this story. And Yams was sitting there and he was nodding. He said, yep, that's exactly how it happened. If Yams was telling me the story, I'd have a little bit of doubt. But it was
SPEAKER_00:a friend who doesn't take it. The Sasquatch man. Yeah, yeah. Honestly. And you said there was another one where It jumped in front of it. Was it a lady?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, no, no. Kenny Richter, he used to come to my sweat lodge. After I was gifted a sweat lodge, after six years of sun dancing, my mentors and elders from the society came over and gifted me a lodge. And so I was running it once a week, like my mentors were, ran theirs once a week. And so this one guy that my sister had met at a hand game, At Skeetch Reserve, you had to go from Skeetch through Logan Lake to get the merit. And Kenny lived past Merritt. So he started coming once a week to my sweat lodge. And he'd drive two and a half hours, come and sweat. And I built a building like my mentors around my lodge. And so there would be a stove in there. So even during the winter, even if it was 30 or 35 below, it was still warm inside. So we can change in relative comfort and spend the night, just keep the fire going. So Kenny would spend the night. And after about three and a half months, he started bringing his girlfriend, And they'd spend the night. And after about seven months, Kenny decided to bring his mom and his auntie. And usually, it was about 11 o'clock when we were finally finishing up. And they didn't want to spend the night, the auntie and the mother. So they decided to go back at night. So they headed out by about 11, 11.30. They were heading out. And they got to this one area about a half hour from where they lived in the Karamias Reserve. And there's one area where it's really windy and there's lots of cedar trees. So it's kind of like dark because they're so big and towering. And they rounded this one corner. And right at the edge of the headlight... this one Sasquatch, it jumped, took one step on the road, and then jumped out into the darkness. But the way that they described it was it didn't just jump and then start going down into the embankment and disappear. They said when it took that one step and jumped, and as it jumped in midair, it disappeared. And so they continued driving the half hour in silence. and then finally when they got back to the reserve Kenny's girlfriend and his mom were sleeping in the back seat and so they pulled up to his house and he said did you see what I saw and her response was it all depends on what you saw and they corroborated what they both saw and they both saw one jump jump in the middle of the road so they are around and Yeah. And there's willows in the lodge. We use 28 willows. Each willow that goes into the earth has a representation. So each of the willows of the 28 represents something. And one of the willows, four of the willows on the bottom layer go horizontal. That represents the underworld. And that's the dimension where the Sasquatch goes to.
SPEAKER_00:So you believe that it's actually an interdimensional being. That's why we see it and then we don't. it's sort of almost, what's the word, skipping through them.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, because, yeah, for me to say specifically where they go, I can't
SPEAKER_00:say, I've never been there. Well, as you can tell, he's honouring the satchel, she's not going to bullshit you. So, we've got the satchel, I just had to get that. When I was listening to that, half conscious, drained, but loving life on the side of the files, like this guy's definitely coming on the show. So, the sasquatch was one of the qualities that's being represented.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, yeah, for honesty, the, um, One of the great binding laws and the sixth great binding law is a law of love represented by the eagle and it also has the spiritual gift of insight and because on this plane, it can see a long distance, but we also use it when we need help in remembering or to make decisions for the future. We call upon that spiritual being to help guide us in our
SPEAKER_00:decisions. So is it less about the animal, more about the archetypal energy that it represents? Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And so the one thing that we often say, if you ask someone, you know, who's the most important person in your life? Who do you love the most? And they'll often say my children or my husband or my wife or my grandmother. But in reality, it should be us. I
SPEAKER_00:was going to say, if you don't love yourself first how can you love the rest anyway
SPEAKER_05:yeah yeah exactly loving your life because you're you're the you're the one person that has has seen everything heard everything experienced everything in your life
SPEAKER_00:so no one knows you as intimately as you do exactly and therefore that deep connection to that part of yourself yeah well that's what love is it's understanding being able
SPEAKER_05:to tap into that self-love where where it's just Endless.
SPEAKER_00:So stop projecting outward and start looking inward. Because if parts of you, get me wrong, are trying to seek love from outside of yourself, you're actually using somebody else's qualities rather than having presence and appreciation for who they just are as they are. And when they disappear or they don't fulfill that need, that quality, that's when the projection of maybe anger or resentment, bitterness, whatever. Whereas if you're already receiving that love from yourself... well now you're not trying to get something from somebody else because you're already feeding yourself and you can just appreciate them.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yeah. That's true.
SPEAKER_00:I'll be putting a sweat lodge on soon. So did you say there were six or seven?
SPEAKER_05:Seven. So the seventh great binding law is the law of truth. So whenever when we say live your truth or speak your truth, We're saying speak with respect, speak with wisdom, courage, humility, honesty, and love. So whenever I'm playing using this instrument, that's what that represents. So whenever I'm shaking it, that's what's going through me and I'm singing it.
SPEAKER_00:So for those who might have been triggered, I wanted them to understand what was behind it all, really. That's what's behind it all. And that's why you're probably so passionate with making them as well and gifting them. Well, not gifting. You do have to pay. Sometimes you raffle them.
SPEAKER_05:Well, over the years, I gifted everything that I had that I made away.
SPEAKER_00:Very Native American of you. Yeah. So the seventh one, is there anything that we
SPEAKER_05:missed? The turtle.
SPEAKER_00:Turtle. There we go. That's why you were referencing the shape.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, yeah, the turtle. So the six previous laws are carried on the back of the turtle. And so that's why we...
SPEAKER_00:Beautiful. So I'm just going to quickly check time a little bit. It's been about an hour and a half. I generally like to keep it no longer than two hours. For my audience, they're not your scrolling through Instagram, wanting quick surface level shit. They come to these shows. Hopefully, if we've got somebody listening, usually there's at least one, me mum. No, for me, it's all about depth. And that's why I prefer the conversation to be as long as it needs to be. Obviously, we can't summarize a human being in a couple of hours, but we can do a good job of somebody understanding your history, your qualities. And then, like I said, your passions your adversities what's helped you overcome them they're going to hear that in the telling of the story so I'm very mindful we've got about half an hour left
SPEAKER_01:okay
SPEAKER_00:it doesn't have to be half an hour if we finish we finish but one thing I wanted to touch on when we were in the car you said you'd sat with the grandmother the ayahuasca and I'm just curious how because the POT is obviously that's from your people that's very religious but doing something that was outside of those parameters how was that for you and if there were any experiences that feel like sharing?
SPEAKER_05:Well, we'd have to go back and continue. The reason why I decided to go to my first Sundance and my younger brother Bobby.
SPEAKER_00:Just for people that Sundance is what?
SPEAKER_05:It's a celebration. It's a four-day dance where we dance 32 rounds, each round being an hour to two hours long and then we get a break in between the rounds. We have a sweat lodge in the morning and a sweat lodge at night. And we don't drink any water during that time, during the four days. And we don't eat food. On the third day, sometimes...
SPEAKER_00:Why would you not eat moral food? Is it to at least need anything outside of yourself?
SPEAKER_05:no it's a way that we attain a higher level of awareness consciousness
SPEAKER_00:would there be that because the body's no longer processing anything else and directing energy there
SPEAKER_05:yeah yeah and then squeezing squeezing all the moisture out we can within our body so it doesn't matter if it's if it's raining out or if it's sunny out if it's 35 40 degrees out we're out there dancing it
SPEAKER_00:can be a rain dance or a sun dance
SPEAKER_05:yeah mostly it's not
SPEAKER_00:in Manchester so sorry we've about to say the third bit as well
SPEAKER_05:that you don't have well what happened was that my brother Bobby he was nine years old when my mum died and his memory got erased the trauma was so great that he couldn't remember anything of her and so over the years he wasn't able to finish his education or hold down a job for too long and he always had to have a girlfriend that would pay the bills for him and They kicked him off of welfare when he was 38. And then around 38, all long-term recipients of welfare in British Columbia, the province in Canada, kicked everybody off. So there was a lot of homeless people. And they shut down all the mental facilities. So there was a lot of homeless. And so Bobby, he came to live with me. And I gave him a room and I didn't charge him for rent or food and I gave him a job. And so he was able to buy some clothes for himself and sustain himself. But that's not what he needed. What he needed was spiritual guidance. And so he had asked me to take him to Alcoholics Anonymous on two different occasions. And I said, yeah, yeah, okay, I'll take you. By that time I was 13 years sober, but I was just focusing on work and get a bigger house, get a bigger truck and get more toys. And he came to work with me and we got in a disagreement and he ended up quitting on me. And he took a bus back to Kamloops. We were working out of town in Fort St. John. And so a week after he quit on me, Donna was on the phone. She says, Bobby's here and he's drinking and he's got someone in his room. I said, okay, put him on, put him on. So Bobby got on the phone and we called him Bobby because he was the baby of the family. And so we just... It just stuck. So Bobby got on the phone and he said, yeah, I know my brother. I know.
SPEAKER_04:I'm
SPEAKER_05:leaving right now. I didn't have to say anything. He knew that I didn't allow alcohol in my place. So he said, I love you. And I went, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love you too. And he got off the phone. I spoke with Donna. And then he went on his way. And then about a week later, I finished up that project. And I went back to Kamloops. And the second day I was there, the police came to my door. And they told me that Bobby had died. He had a full prescription of diabetic medicine, medication, and he hadn't taken it in 11 days, and he didn't have any food in his stomach, and they found rubbing alcohol in his autopsy, in his system, and so he drank himself to death. He committed suicide with alcohol and gave up. And right at that point, that was before I knew that I was going to the Sundance. So I knew that there was, even though that I was sober, I was very selfish and I was just doing it for myself and I was just going through the emotions, spirituality and going to the meetings to stay sober. But then I'd already stopped going to meetings for a few years, so I didn't take Bobby to the Alcoholics Anonymous AA meetings. So when I went to my first Sundance, I knew that I could do better. And so I touched a tree and I pledged. And we only pledged to dance for four years, four days out of each year. In
SPEAKER_00:four days, four years?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yeah. So it was a four-year commitment. And so I did that. And most people, around 98% of the people that Sundance, they only dance for the four years and then they never dance again. Is it quite difficult then? Yeah, it's extremely difficult.
SPEAKER_00:Because you're speaking to an ecstatic dancer.
SPEAKER_05:It's more or less like walking upstairs. It's a very humbling dance. And what we also do is... We pierce, which a piece of our skin is pinched on our chest, and then a scalpel is put through to make a hole, and then a stick is inserted through. So there would be two sticks on my chest, and that would be tied together and tied to the center tree, and then I'd pull back so my skin would stretch, and then that's where I'd dance the whole time. Pierce to the tree. And on the 30th round, then we break free. We pull back, and then our skin breaks, and we set ourselves free.
SPEAKER_00:So you rip it up literally off?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And so I continued sun dancing and picked up a medicine pipe. The very first year I was sun dancing. And it wasn't until my sixth year of dancing that I was– I was gifted a lodge by my mentors and the elders of the society. And that's when I started running my sweat lodge once a week.
SPEAKER_00:So the ayahuasca then, how did that? come into your life?
SPEAKER_05:Well, what happened was that when I was 46, I really started questioning what I was doing. And I was going to the sweat lodges once a week. I'd been doing that for seven years. And I just felt so unfulfilled. I had a house and a family and a nice vehicle and toys. But it just wasn't fulfilling. And I asked myself... Like I was doing some really huge, huge jobs. And like this one job I did by myself, it was 87,000 square feet. It was a middle school. And I ended up getting$10,000 stolen from me on a project. Yeah. And that, yeah, that was 10% of the job, what the job was worth. But that was my profit. So, yeah. So, I didn't want to contract anymore, work in painting. It wasn't that I was lazy. I asked myself when I was 46– If I lived to be 70, my grandparents passed away in the early 70s, so that was just an arbitrary number I was using. So if I lived to be 70, do I want to be doing this for the next 24 years? And the answer was no, no matter what. I didn't want to be doing it. But because I'd... I went to university. We're funded. Native people are funded through the bands, our secondary education. But because I didn't complete that first year a month before I was going to be complete, I went back into the workforce. And so I screwed up my funding. So I'm always at the bottom of the list now. So education wasn't an option. And... At the time, my wife wanted me to get a job working at a mining town that we moved to. I did find a job there. An elder that retired there spent 25 years working at the mine. He knew the guy that was going to do the hiring. They offered me a job at$75,000 a year, tax-free. All I had to do was show up there, bring my hard hat, work boots, and give them my resume. And then I was in. And then three months after that, I could have applied for a job for$100,000 a year. But I just couldn't go into the ceremonies, go into the sweat lodges and pray for Mother Earth. And then the next day... turn around and work in a mine and leave all that poison. Because I know in seven generations that poison is still going to be there, that effluence ponds, and they're not going to clean it up. Canada is the worst for that. And I had also at that time an opportunity to contract, to go back into contracting and work for$90 an hour working in the oil patch. But once again, I just couldn't do that. You know, I could be a millionaire right now, literally. But I can't do that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that's what's actually strong in you. You need to be true to yourself.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. I ended up giving... So... I ended up... That caused a lot of problems with my relationship because I was no longer bringing in the money I used to when I was contracting. And so... My wife was going to work 11 hours a day, six days a week. And so that didn't leave very much time for us. There would only be a couple hours at night where she'd come home and then Red Willow would take up that time and then she'd go to bed. And it was just a slow progression of us drifting apart.
SPEAKER_00:There must have been a bit of resentment for her, hadn't it? really tap into the masculine qualities within her to
SPEAKER_05:do that yeah it was it was hard she loved the job where she was working at when we first got out to the ranch like after I got really tired and stopped contracting and paid off my bills and shut down the company we both got a job working at a working at a horse ranch cattle ranch and there was 42 horses there and she had a horse since she was 13 and her most of most of her life and And so she came home one day after the first week and made the claim, if I had to do this job for free, I'd do it. I thought, oh my God, I'm going to have trouble getting her away from this place. And that's exactly what happened. Okay. Yeah, so we ended up apart in ways. And you know that question about when I was 46, if I lived to be 70? Well, it's just over 10 years left before I turned 70. so time is going by really really fast
SPEAKER_00:he said to me around the fire it's getting real scary because one thing I'd like to bring up was that you said that when you were getting initiated into being the elder and he was just like oh So can you just explain to people what that's like
SPEAKER_05:for you? Well, I don't feel like I'm 60 right now.
SPEAKER_00:That's because your body is, you're not. You're an eternal being.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Well, I played hockey up until I was 46 and I'm still very active. I'm a little overweight right now, but there's nothing that's really slowing me down. Like my right knee, I could never play hockey again because I'd release the attachments to that game and gave it away. But my My knees are in bad shape where I can't skate anymore. But yeah, so I actually ended up... That was a big change in my life when I was around in my mid-40s. I guess a midlife crisis is what it's called. I went through that. So it's real. Yeah, so I ended up... It was like I was on a train and I just couldn't get off it. There was something pulling me and I started giving away everything that I owned. And I couldn't make a promise to my wife, even though that I loved her so much. Every time I told her I loved her, there would be tears coming down. I just felt it so, so strong inside. But when she told me she didn't want to be married to me any longer, to go out into the world, to become the man I'm supposed to be, And all I could say was, no. And that was it. That was my response. But I had to accept it. I loved her so much. I knew that I didn't own her if she didn't want me to. Didn't want to be married to me any longer. I'm
SPEAKER_00:not sure if you love something like her.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. So I did that. And then I gave her the house. And then the next thing was my vehicles. The truck and car and then everything after that. It was just the smaller stuff like the pool tables and my pool cues. I bought a pool cue one time for$1,200. And I had it in a plastic bag. And I slept with it the first night I had it. I was just like, wow, is it so beautiful. It's amazing. Yeah, so I treasured it. In the year 2000, I gave myself a$20,000 bonus, me and my partner, and then I bought a pool table. The first year we were in business, I ended up giving that away, everything.
SPEAKER_00:How did it feel giving everything away?
SPEAKER_05:I didn't know why I was doing it, but I knew that it was dragging me down.
SPEAKER_00:So more of an unburdening.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what it was.
SPEAKER_00:This ownership thing. It's just more to lose.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and some of my friends were telling me, like once they found out I'd given away certain things, they were saying, well, I would have bought this, I would have bought that. But then I had to tell them, like, it wasn't for sale. I
SPEAKER_00:was going to say, you're just giving it away.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah. So it was like I was releasing the value. that I was putting onto the object, giving it away. So it wasn't,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. It would have been about the money if you'd have made it about the money. Yeah,
SPEAKER_05:yeah, yeah, it would have went. So when I ended up splitting up with my wife, I ended up just having my pack, my suitcase and my medicine bag. No bank account or no visa. It's kind of like going out into the unknown, but knowing that it's pulling me away. There's something that I have to fulfill. The calling. Yeah, yeah. In Canada, through the hundreds and hundreds of sweat lodges and ceremonies I've run, I only ever received$15 for everything.$15. So I buy my own chainsaw and my own gas, and we go and go and do it week after week, year after year, without any expectation of anything in return, just to live my passion.
SPEAKER_00:So if somebody wanted to join the sweat lodge, they have to pay, though,
SPEAKER_05:right? In Canada, no.
SPEAKER_00:But if they're in England?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, with the choices that I've made, it set me free, but it also... I can't travel. I can't pay for plane flights with tobacco.
SPEAKER_00:I say that. My friends go, oh, you teach meditation. Why are you charging people? Well, my bills aren't paid with fucking goodwill. If they were. Yeah, yeah. It's a monetary exchange. It's an exchange of energy.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, that's exactly it. One of my friends, Nasko, he explained it to me a few years ago. And it was still hard. I've been traveling for six and a half years in 17 different countries. And the way he explained it was that it is an exchange of energy and it's not what I offer it's not just from going to one ten or twenty or fifty or a hundred sweat lodges it's going through thousands of sweat lodges in a lifetime of experiences that I bring to the sweat lodge to help guide people to that place
SPEAKER_00:of darkness you have value you have value in that that is worth an exchange for somebody because sometimes when you don't pay for something you actually won't value it as much as well
SPEAKER_05:yeah it's kind of who I live listened to quite a few years ago talked about it was a philosopher he talked about finding your passion and just continuing to do it passionately and even if you've got to find a job going somewhere else to pay the bills everyday things still continue doing your passions at some point in your life someone in this world is going to want to pay for your passion what you've developed well
SPEAKER_00:everyone's got their own unique genius everybody it's a whole universe where basically none of their ancestors have ever been defeated to pass the baton on for the next child to be then raised and then obviously that one does and that one does so your whole lineage has never been defeated before passing the baton on and then raising that child to sufficiently pass the baton on so we've already got that in your dna that should make people feel a bit stronger than they might do sometimes but then you've never been defeated You have never, no matter how, all these times you're saying and talking about, all the times I have anyone who's listening where they thought, fucking hell, this is a bit much. I can't do this. I can't do that. This is too, you're sat here listening. You're sat here speaking to me. I'm sat here speaking to you. Undefeated. lineage and you're undefeated if that doesn't make you feel a bit more confident in yourself I don't bloody know what it is and when you do get defeated you won't know about it so don't worry so I'm mindful of time yeah you've been very very gracious and I appreciate you coming on I hope we can do some work together maybe look at getting some of the stuff on the website as well for people who are interested I'm mindful that you did mention the ayahuasca, but yeah. Yeah,
SPEAKER_05:we didn't get to it.
SPEAKER_00:But I'll just touch on maybe some experiences or something you get from it, and I did want to really touch on the fact that it wasn't your native medicine.
SPEAKER_05:Okay. Well, what happened was about 15 years ago, I met this one guy from Basque, and I was called to the International Indigenous Leadership Gathering to run a sweat, and it was in British Columbia. Eight lodge keepers were called, and there was two lodges– sweat lodges so they'd have we'd have two in the morning and two at night and then we just alternate the uh who's run them and during that time they brought in elders from south america And they were talking about the prophecy of merging the condor and the eagle. But I didn't pay it much time, much attention because at that time I was attached to beliefs, beliefs taught to me by my mentors. And they said, well, if you're a sun dancer, you believe in your pipe and this is your path and you don't go to these other ceremonies because they're not valid. I'm trying to validate them. But the truth is that medicine comes from all different sources. These are
SPEAKER_00:the ways of
SPEAKER_05:the moment. Yeah, and so when I was asked to go to my first ceremony, my first ayahuasca ceremony six and a half years ago, he was in the Czech Republic. I was already well on my way to releasing the attachments, so I automatically said, yes, I'll go. And how I understood that was the flow of energy is always flowing around us. And when you put blockages in front of it, you never know where that energy is going to take you. It's, yeah, limitless, the possibilities. So I went to my first ayahuasca ceremony in Czech Republic. And the guy who was giving it out, his name was Redik, he found out what I was doing there, what I was doing in Czech. I'd already been there for a few months. staying with the Sundance brother, running sweat lodges and fasts. And he asked me to return during the solstice ceremony, solstice where he was giving out medicine. And he asked me to run a sweat lodge. And I said I would. So I returned. And then the second time I drank the medicine, like the first time there was a lot of visuals and a lot of color. And I was really feeling the vibration. It was hard to walk. The second time...
SPEAKER_02:Oh,
SPEAKER_05:I know. The second time I was... I went there we had we put up a sweat lodge and in the middle of the night the Friday night when we drank ayahuasca I just felt so much love just rushing right back and I was so at peace and I can feel the vibrations and see them of love and then every so often there'd be a little red dot that would be like a heart monitor and it would be jumping and connecting all these vibrations together and then I was as I was looking at it I started following where they were coming from and they were coming from myself and And I felt so at peace. And then the next morning, I started questioning, like, if that was pure love that I felt. Yeah, should it be a white light or a bright yellow light or something? Because in between the vibrations, like it was kind of like a turquoise, purple, blue, but in between, like there was a little white line in the very center of it, the vibrations, but in between it was black. And then I had that conception of love being white light so I ran a sweat lodge that morning at 10 o'clock and during the second round which is the healing round that feeling of love just came rushing right back to me it was amazing exactly where I should be and it was complete darkness and right at that moment I realized why it was black in between that vibration of love that I see in the night before. And I realized that I was part of the prophecy that's merging the eagle and the condor together. It just raises both levels of the ceremonies together.
SPEAKER_00:It's
SPEAKER_05:amazing.
SPEAKER_00:And obviously you've said you've done like 170, was it?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So that's a lot. I've done two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But just before we finish up, is there any other standout moments that you think would be really important to your story just to share with people?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah. Let's see, it was not this past November, but November before I was drinking ayahuasca in Domizlica, a friend of mine's. It was a small gathering, about six or seven people. And during that night, ceremonial night, ayahuasca, she showed me a picture. And it was kind of like a, it wasn't a stationary picture, but it wasn't a video either. But I was laying in bed and I had tubes going in my arms and I had an oxygen mask on and I had white hair and I was looking very old, really old. And as I looked into my eyes, there was a contentment, a peacefulness, knowing that I did the best I could while I was here. to help and radic he was looking a lot older like i met him he's 36 so he's 42 now so uh he's looking a lot older and then from from from the base of the bed there was light and then just the number of people just went into the darkness further than i could see so that's uh I know that I'm helping a lot of people. People are coming back. And what happens is that when people come to the sweat lodge, they get inspired and feel the love and the healing that takes place. They ask me to go to another location, and I'll say yes. And then it's just been expanding out further and further in different locations. As I said, I've been to 18 different countries. If I don't make money... If I lose money, if I go to a country, chances are I won't be going back because I can't sustain myself if I keep on going to different places and lose and lose.
SPEAKER_00:Can't be an idealist to the point that we can't even do the thing that we're passionate about.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, the money I receive gets me from point A to point B. It's not going to build a house for me or anything.
SPEAKER_00:Just give it away if
SPEAKER_05:you
SPEAKER_00:did. Yeah, I live in my
SPEAKER_05:body right now and I'm totally fine with that. I'm good with that.
SPEAKER_00:So do you feel a lot more content, a lot more at peace with where you are? than you have done before
SPEAKER_05:oh yeah yeah i'm not i'm not getting up at six o'clock every morning working every day and you know paying the mortgage light bills full bills all these bills and
SPEAKER_00:pressure going to work to continue this existence that you're not enjoying it seems a bit fucking weird right yeah it's just propagated as if that's the normal way to live Yeah. Well, I agree with you for that. Align your purpose with your income. The rest of all, just take care of itself. Have faith. Have faith. So we're coming to the end. How can people gain? So I'm very sold. I'm doing a sweat lodge with you. I want to shake. I want it all. People are also feeling the same way I am. How do they gain touch with you?
SPEAKER_05:Well, yeah, I booked up until September, beginning of September. I'll make arrangements to come back to England. Yeah. near Sowerby Bridge.
SPEAKER_00:That's Amnit Leeds for those who don't
SPEAKER_05:know how it works. Since I travel to different countries, once in a while, I'll buy a SIM card. I bought one while I was in Ireland for five weeks. But for the most part, I just use Messenger and Facebook. and people get a hold of me through that. I'm always checking the messages.
SPEAKER_00:So I'll put any of his details in. We'll get him on the community links page. So for those who want to see a bit more about him, I'll just put your details on the community links page for people. It'll be in the description as well. Is there anything else you'd like to leave people with that you feel you've
SPEAKER_05:not said? I'll be... I'll be running a Vision Quest and Sundance in Bulgaria and be there in the whole month of July. And that's, yeah, if you have a chance, an opportunity,
SPEAKER_00:yeah,
SPEAKER_05:come and join us. That's special. That's very special.
SPEAKER_00:I'm converting a band so I can just fucking do the same thing as you, but I'm a bit of a princess. I want a shower. I want a kitchen. I want a bed. Last words then. Is there any last words? He's not going to die, don't worry. Any final words on the show that you'd like to share with people before we end it?
SPEAKER_05:Just be kind to yourself. Do your best to live in the moment. Life is really short. If this is your last day to be alive, what would you be doing? Ask yourself different questions. Live a good life.
SPEAKER_00:and you'll be at the end of the end of the road lying on your bed with white hair looking content because you did the best you could yeah it doesn't matter what that turns into it really doesn't matter what the results are the fact that you did your best is all that ever mattered and i'm sure that'll have a big effect because everything ripples into everything because we're all connected thank you so much for coming on the show and a goose oh you're so very welcome appreciate it
SPEAKER_05:thank you for inviting me
SPEAKER_00:i couldn't not i couldn't not i couldn't not i've said to my friend uh yeah because i was maybe teaching a bit well not teaching but practicing a bit dj we said I'm going to have to let you down I've got a Native American elder coming round for a happy ceremony and the show and she went I've never been blown off for a Native American elder would it I feel like that's okay
SPEAKER_05:I'd like to just point out a very young young elder
SPEAKER_00:yes still a baby elder he is but a very wise one I hope you enjoyed the show as much as me peace and love guys bye Hey, I told you he had a story, didn't I? And that was one of the deeper ones I felt. I really just, you can see that because I thought sometimes, you know, I've had it difficult and then I hear a story like that and I'm like, I was pretty lucky actually. But look what he did with it. He used it to now be able to just pass on this wisdom that's been passed down, echoes from the ages and he's helping people to heal and process their own suffering in a more healthy way. So thank you and Agus for coming on the show last minute. I know it was, but he was very gracious to come on. Spiritual gangster. That's the sort of words that I think align very well with this guy. Now, you've heard whispers of the great spirit. Now we're going to move it slightly from episode 11 to episode 12, which is going to be with Arachai. He was also at the Ignite Festival. He was part of the Ignite Festival this time, though. A conscious musician using the looping format. And he was very good, like didgeridoo, handpan and all that sort of stuff. And good messages. And I didn't get a chance to chat to him. But I did this thing that I trusted in the Great Spirit, that all were aligned, and I didn't get a chance to chat with him. He was the only person I didn't chat with at the festival, but I did reach out, and he was really kind, and he said, yeah, come all the way down to Bridlington. It was about a two-and-a-half-hour drive for me, but I'm like, nah, worth it for you, and it was. He was a bit ill, so he'd had to cancel a few things, Arachai, so it was very lucky to get him on the show. So that'll be the next episode. He's very cool. If you haven't heard of Arachai, go check him out on all the socials and the music platforms and then for inner goose if you want to see what he's been up to and he's got the sweat lodges that he's doing around the world he's got his different practices he's got his art as well that he's making as you saw with those crazy rattles that he's got that's like done in a reverent way as well really just passing down that reverent culture that respect for the animals and wanting to use them in such a ceremonial way so anyway All of Inigoose's details will be in the description. Anything for Transmute as well, if you want to go check them out. They've got loads of cool stuff. People like Craig Seaton are doing stuff there. People like Dr. Imelda J. People like Meditation with Michael. So go check them out. The description will have all their details. And of course, for myself, I'm going to say it over and over again to you. Meditation is a panacea. All those pills, all those clothes, all that chocolate, all that alcohol, drugs, people... betting, whatever it is man, breath work even, yoga, all these things are great but you can't be fully present and contain the moment, it'll all slip through your fingers, the energy will be scattered and you'll manifest what you don't want rather than what you do want so if you want to choose where your focus is going so the energy flows there and you manifest more of what you want please man, come down, let me just show you what I've learnt It's helped me with things like anxiety, grief, suicidal tendencies, toxic relationships, just addictions out of my head. And if I can help one person, and if that's you, and you think enough's enough, if not now, then when, all the details for myself, whether it's courses, classes, free stuff, loads of things out there, the events will be in the description as well. All right. And whilst you're waiting, why not go and check out a load of the other great episodes that we've had. Who else could we have? We've got the Ruben Yontons episodes. Make sure you go on YouTube because the sound was weird on that. But that's episode three and four from season one. You might like that if you like this. Anyway, there's loads of them. Loads of fantastic episodes. Maybe the Huni Kuin episode in season one as well might be for you. Go check them out while you're waiting for the next one with Arachai. But I hope these whispers of the great spirit from our Native American elder in Agusa have just enlightened you. Any likes that you can do for the show, remember, this doesn't grow without your help. If you want this more... You want more cool guests? That like is a vote. Sharing it to somebody you think might just benefit from the wisdom of a goose. Someone where you just think, you know what, that's right up their street. Sharing's caring. And then if you don't want to miss any of the episodes, subscribe and you'll see everything that I'm doing. Plus, we're going to start having loads more stuff on this YouTube channel. So, yeah, have fun with that. Otherwise, guys, I'm going to love you and leave you. Peace and love.
