SHF Podcast, Season 2, Episode 6- The Ringing Cedars Teachings with Gabriel Miguel

This podcast episode features Gabriel Miguel, founder and director of the Anastasia Foundation, discussing the Ringing Cedars of Russia book series and the teachings of Anastasia. The series, written by Vladimir Megré, tells the story of his encounters with Anastasia, a woman living in the Siberian wilderness who represents an ancient lineage of humans living in harmony with nature. After meeting her in 1994, Vladimir was inspired to write about her extraordinary wisdom regarding humanity's relationship with God, nature, and each other. The books have sold an estimated 30 million copies worldwide and spread organically through word-of-mouth without advertising.

The central teaching revolves around the concept of "kin's domains" - two-and-a-half-acre family homesteads where people create living spaces of love by planting gardens, forests, and ponds while maintaining conscious communion with all plant life. Gabriel describes visiting a thriving settlement in Russia with 300 families living this way for over 20 years, where he witnessed profound joy and contentment among residents who had materialized their spirituality through caring for the land. The Anastasia Foundation works to connect English-speaking readers and facilitate the creation of similar communities worldwide, with Russia currently having approximately 400 such settlements. The teachings emphasize that love requires a living space to occupy, and that by consciously tending to nature with love, families can preserve and grow their bonds while contributing to Earth's transformation into a flourishing garden.

Learn more about Gabriel and the Anastasia Foundation here:
Anastasia.foundation

books@ringingcedarsbooks.com 

Anastasia.foundation\books

Find Katherine at Sovereignheartcoaching.com

Find Miriah at Wholebeingcounseling.com 

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to the Sovereign Heart Frequency Podcast. I'm Katherine Finley with Sovereign Heart Coaching and I'm here with my co host Miriah Feehery of Whole Being Counseling. We recognize that we're living through an intense time on our planet. There seems to be more polarization and division and less connected communication than ever before. We are here to change that. We intention to hold conversations in a container of love and authenticity. We believe that when humans come together from a heart centered place, we can not only understand one another, but we can get creative together, solving problems we couldn't solve alone. It's time to reimagine and rebirth a new world in which everyone's authentic voice is included in the harmonic orchestra of human voices, to create a world that works for all of us. Thank you for being part of this conversation, we're excited to have you. Hi everybody. Welcome back to the Sovereign Heart Frequency Podcast. I'm your host, Miriah Feehery, here with my co-host Katherine Finley. And today we have a very special guest, Gabriel Miguel, who's here to talk about his work with the Anastasia Foundation. And, he is been the creator and and director of that foundation since its beginning. Gabriel, how, when did you start the foundation? Yeah. It didn't become the foundation until 2021. It was Anastasia USA from 2015 to 2021 and then became the foundation or, or late 2020 or early 2021, something like that. Gotcha. So you started in 2015, which was right after you read the book. So right away, immediately you were, yeah. Let me, let me bring this work to the world. And here you are. And we're so lucky to have you joining us today to share the, the teachings of Anastasia from the ringing Cedars of Russia book series. Mm-hmm. Thank you for joining us and if you wanna just share with our audience what the ringing Cedars of Russia book series is and who Anastasia is, in case they don't already know. We've already mentioned it several times on our podcast before, but Oh, yeah. Since we have you here, I wanna hear it from your words.'cause I'm sure you much more eloquent. I, I try. Thank you for having me here. I'm excited to be here with you both and, and to discuss this thing which is, you know, the center of my life and, and is, I'm so passionate about. I guess a, a very brief overview of the books. Like what, what is the Ringing Cedars book series? It's a series of books written by vladimir McGee and then published in the late nineties, early two thousands in Russia, I estimate it sold roughly 30 million copies. A a lot of the numbers that you see online are kind of old, so if you do some math, you could get around that number. In roughly 30 languages, at least 700,000 copies in English. But again, that number that reported that was reported was very old. So you could probably say a million, 2 million. And then the used book market. So the books have circulated quite a bit in English. So the idea was that what happened, who is Anastasia and what are these books are about? Right? So in 1994, Vladimir McGee is a entrepreneur going up the high Siberian, you know. Latitudes on, uh, river Trading Expeditions. He has these boats and they stop in little villages and trade goods and services with the residents of these tiny remote villages. And so during one of these stops on one of these villages and on the ABB River in Northern Siberia, he meets these two old fellows, these unusual old men that's are dressed unusually and talk unusually. And they start telling him about the existence of ringing cedars. And they say that these cedars are 550 years old. They spend their life accumulating this cosmic energy from the stars, the sun and the moon, and the whole universe. And they store it up and they need to give it back to man. And if they don't give it back, they will burn up and die. So he, they ask Vladimir to send a crew to cut down these, this single ringing cedars tree. I. And why is it called a ringing cedar is because when it hits the end of its lifespan, it's so full of cosmic energy that it begins to give off an audible kind of ringing sound if you put your, like, you know, like a high voltage power line if you put your ear up to it. So Vladimir denies their request to cut it down and make pieces and give it to people, but he gets really curious about like, what are these ringing cedars? What did these men tell me? He goes back to Moscow, spends a bunch of time researching about the Cedars, finds a lot of incredible historical references, decides to come back and visit this place. His second visit he meets. Granddaughter of those two old men. And she is Anastasia, and she says she will take him to see the ringing cedar, but it's really far deep in the Siberian tga. And he was like, okay, cool. He just decides to go with her and he has no, no gear, no nothing, just like some dress shoes on and takes like a many, many kilometer hike. It's pretty hardcore. And then he spends several days with her, in the forest and she starts telling him all these things, right? He has these really transformative experiences with her, during his first visit. And she talks about every, every aspect of life you could imagine, right? Like our connection. And who and what is God really? What is our connection with him? What is the purpose of our connection with nature? And how do we do it right? How do we raise happy children? Many, many things about the illusions of the world. The purpose, of the energy of love and how to cultivate it and make sure that it never goes away. You know, like humanities function and purpose. Like what did God make us to do? How to turn this earth into a beautiful paradise. Where, you know, there's flourishing gardens everywhere. I mean, every subject you can imagine, right? Education, anything. So he, you know, Vladimir is floored. She asked him to write a book, right? But who is Anastasia? Anyway, a little bit about her. I'm just gonna read something that Vladimir wrote about her. He said, Anastasia lives in the forest altogether alone. She has no house to call her own. She hardly wears any clothes and does not store any provisions. She's the descendant of people who've been living here for thousands of years and represents what is literally a whole different civilization. She and those like her have survived to the present day through what I can only term, the wisest possible decisions. Anastasia was born here and as an integral part of the natural surroundings. She did not go off into the forest simply for a short time as they, and he's referring to Buddha, Jesus, Moses, who went into the forest and retreated for short periods of time, as they did. She was born in the Taiga and visits our world only for brief periods. Anastasia has one extraordinary ability when she's telling a story about something. Pictures of the events she's narrating arise in the listener's consciousness or an actual space. The images are three dimensional, complete with the smells and sounds of the time she's describing. Anastasia has shown me pictures from the lives of people of a variety of periods, starting from the very creation of the world. Nearly all of the events are connected with her ancestors. If you were to try to characterize Anastasia's capabilities in one phrase, here's what you could say. She preserves the experiences and emotions of the members of her extended family, starting with the creation of the very first human in her genetic memory. And she's able to call them all up at will. She can also model pictures from the lives of people in the future. So she has all these extraordinary abilities that she's preserved because of her lifestyle and the culture that she was raised in a whole separate line of, you know, small but separate line of humans, that have lived separately from the rest of us. And he, I like the way he says it. He says, they have survived due to what I can only term, the wisest possible decisions, living rightly in harmony with God and nature. So she asked him to write the book about all these things that she talks about and things that she shows him. She says the. The feelings that will arise in people from reading these books will facilitate the birth of a new awareness inherent in the people of the future. So he goes on a hard mission. He writes these books. He's not a writer, but he becomes an incredibly good one over the course of writing 10 books. And the books are so powerful, the messages are so powerful, that they just spread like wildfire. So all those millions of copies of books that were sold were sold without any advertising budget or anything like that. It was just word of mouth. So Vladimir over the years, returns many times to see Anastasia. They have children together, all these things, and he keeps writing about all his experiences. And just one short thing, from book one that I like that. A little snippet of their conversation. Vladimir ask her, what do you think awaits our civilization? And she replies in the long term, a realization of the futility, of the technocratic path of development and a movement back to our pristine origins. And that's really what she's talking about, right? Like, how do we, we move back to this paradise that we have, you know, through our own self-created delusion that we've lost, right? And how can we restore all that to ourselves and our family and, and make the world beautiful? So that's my, that's my attempt at a brief synopsis. If that tickles anyone's interest here, please go and read it for yourself.'cause I can only give you a very small sliver of what the actual content is. But that's my attempt. Yeah. Having read all 10 books, I, I would say that you really, got to the heart of it, of the. The work of Anastasia, of her message to humanity. That she, that she works through Vladimir to share with the world through these books. And yeah, I, I always find the parts in the books that are just about how she lives. So interesting because as you read in that excerpt, she, she doesn't have a house or any material possessions whatsoever. And she just, you got a couple dresses, like some bowls made outta cedar, you know, no house, no. Yeah. None of that. No car. Yeah. In Siberia. In Siberia, high Northern Siberia. How to survive the, the winters and how all of this is innate in, man, that she's not some supernatural, mythical creature. Her message is so emphatic, repeated again and again. I am, man. I am not something separate. This is what I can do is what is innate in every human being on this planet. If you can kind of separate from the, the technocracy and return to nature, basically. Hmm. Yeah, that's very well said. That's very well said. And I like that you highlighted that she constantly, maybe my description could have made her sound like a supernatural, extraordinary person in a way. She is you, but at the same time, she constantly affirms her humanity. Right. And she tells everyone not to put her on this pedestal. And, she wants to be treated like a normal woman. And, and she is a, she's a woman, right? She's a, she's a person and sure she has extraordinary capabilities, but she's not above anyone, which I really appreciate. She doesn't try to frame herself in this guise of mystical glory, you know what I mean? Right. And, that's what I really appreciate about the books. She doesn't put on this aura of I am, this great wise being, and you must bow down to my spiritual glory kind of thing. everything she says is so accessible and so human and so appealing to the heart. Right. And, yeah, I love that you brought that up. And so Vladimir met her about three decades ago. And I'm curious what you think about how it feels like these books and her message are picking up traction now in this time. It makes me think of the telepathy tapes. Like we're more ready to hear and receive this information about our intrinsic gifts. Do you have any thoughts on that? Do you also feel like it's picking up traction in this time in humanity? Yeah. I definitely feel that way. I mean, and, and at least in relation, directly to the books themselves, there was kind of a spike in popularity that was associated with, the books being actively published. They haven't been printed. The last print run was 2010. There was a falling out with the old publishers, but if you look on Google Trends, there's a giant spike 2007, 8, 9, 10, early 2011. Then it kind of dips off and tapers out for a long time. And then there's another spike happening now, not as big as original, but once the books are in circulation again, it'll be bigger. But I have been involved in connecting readers of the books for the last decade. Right. And, I have watched it grow from literally nothing. When I got involved, there was no way to connect with readers. You'd go online and you'd look for a forum or something back then, 2014, they're, they're all shut down. There's no way to talk to readers. So I'm like, this is a crime against humanity. I've read these books and I'm alone. I can't talk to anyone, so I have to do something. So I created ways for people to connect. And overall, this time I've just watched it steadily, steadily, steadily grow. And I've seen, I've been really shocked at how receptive people are to the material and the ideas. People that you wouldn't expect, you know, because what we think of as like, something spiritual or this is a spiritual idea or whatever. To me, it's like everything she puts forward is so practical. I. It's so appealing to the heart and to the rationality that it's like if a person has some level of awareness that you know it, it'll appeal to them. It's very common sense. And so I've been really excited and happy to see how people from all kinds of walks of life, highest levels of society, regular people, love these ideas. And I think, you know, at least in the work that we've been doing it, it's different because in Russia when things got started, they had a nonprofit there that helped facilitate communication and connection between all the readers, the Anastasia Foundation and Russia. But when the books were published here, there was nothing like that. There were publishing books and they were giving speeches and stuff, but no one was connecting in meaningful ways. And so actually, one of the. People behind the ringing Cedars Press who was distributing these books, he passed away in 2022, but he found our community a couple months before he passed away. And he came in and he said, what you're doing here is what has always been needed. I'm so glad to see all these people connecting and you've done the right thing, you know, and, and I'm friends with the other woman who runs this, and they love what we do. Vladimir loves what we do. He told me, he said. I have this email that I showed you guys earlier that he wrote me, and he said, I intuitively feel that you could create a large and powerful community in the English speaking countries. It could present the world with a new paradigm for overcoming the crisis. The correctness of my assumptions has been proven in practice in all countries where I've ever spoken to readers. They've expressed their desire to create and to be friends. I'm grateful to you that you feel the situation well and are able to do a great deal for all the people in the world is like one of the most affirming messages I've ever received. But, it's Because people, yeah, people are very receptive to the material. COVID, OVID was our biggest time of growth. We grew tremendously during COVID., the foundation was formed officially during, you know, the nonprofit structure was formed during COVID, and it's just been upshot ever since and shows no sign of slowing down. I think we're at the moment of like. The bamboo grows for five years, and then it shoots up 30 feet in one year. Right. It grows five, five years underground, and you don't see it. The roots are growing. Then on, you know, the fifth or sixth year, it just shoots up 30 feet. That's kind of like, I feel where we're at. So sorry, that was a long-winded answer to your question. No, it's great. I, I want to hear more actually about, you know, what Anastasia Foundation does, the, the website and how, how you personally have witnessed people coming together. Maybe you could share some stories of cool moments where the, the connections being made have really, impacted people's lives. I, I'll give you one that just happened two days ago., So there's, because we're Asheville residents, right? And so, do you guys know the Mandala Chocolate Company? I. Yeah. Oh yeah. Mandala Springs. Mandala Springs. So I got invited to come over there by some friends, sitting around the fire. I've been giving friends who live there and visit their copies of the books.'cause I'm, I'm like Santa Claus. I just have all these books and I give them out to people who are receptive. And it's really fun. And, so as I'm leaving, it's like one o'clock in the morning sitting around the fire on this beautiful outdoor nature property. Like Eco Village thing, I'm about to leave. One of the guys around the fire mentions to, I guess the guy who founded the community or something, this gentleman named Rob, that like, oh, this guy, he gave me this book called Anastasia. He's like, oh, of Vladimir McCree. And I was like, he's like, yeah, and, and I'm, and I'm like, yeah, we're publishing the books. I know Vladimir all this and we have this nonprofit. He's like, are you kidding me? Those books are the whole reason why I founded this community. I read all 10 of them, all nine of them in 2009. And that gave me the inspiration to buy this land and start this beautiful community. And I went and got a copy of the books from the car'cause I always have'em. And I gave him a Siberian Cedar pendant and he's like in near tears and he was like, oh my God, thank you. This is such a confirmation for me. And he started reading the books again that night and he. Spent a huge part of his life cleaning up this land that was a junkyard before and turning it into this beautiful piece of land and starting this. Beautiful. So I have, so I, I could go like, that just happened two days ago, and it's like, I have so many stories of, incredible connections. We did a, a reader's gathering with Vladimir in 2016, like a year and a half after I read the book. Somehow I was able to get involved with bringing him here and, uh, you know, doing a reader's gathering with him. And I don't know, I could tell millions of stories, but I mean, the, the beautiful thing is that, I felt so isolated when I first got into the material that I, you know, kind of needed to create a way to connect. So I was really alone for a long time and we do all these in-person events, online events. Miriah, you host a book club here in Asheville, which I am so grateful for and I look forward to attending the next one and, and all of them. Yeah.'cause they are fantastic. And we do events all over the world. Like on June 1st we had three events and you know, we do online events and people will come on my international community calls, Zoom calls to connect with other readers and they'll be like, I read the books 12 years ago and I've never met another reader until now. You know, and I've heard that kind of thing so many times and it breaks my heart, but also makes me so happy. I'm like, wow, you finally found some other people who see the world the way that you do. You know, and you can talk freely with them and people are so happy and it brings me a lot of joy, to be able to make a space for people to just shine and do their thing, you know? I try not to facilitate as much stuff directly through our organization. I try to just connect people to do their own thing.'cause we're very powerful if we simply just knew each other and did things, you know, and tell. Yeah. Tell us some of the ways that Anastasia teaches us how to live in the books. It sounds like Ann created the Mandala community. How is she teaching us to live in harmony with nature it's hard be to say what is the central idea of the ringing cedars books, right? I would say maybe the central idea or one of the top two or three is the idea of what she calls a kin's domain, and so kin being your family, your ancestors, past, present, and future, and domain being space, or a place that you have dominion or, as we say, sovereignty, right? You have some sovereignty, right? Throw that in there. Mm-hmm. That you're the sovereign of this place. So the space of your family over which you have dominion and different from the idea of a homestead. So it's a two and a half acre piece of land, one hectare. You can visualize it as 100 meters in one direction and 100 meters, you know, lengthen width a hundred meters, is a hectare. So pretty nice size space, and. You fence it off with a living fence, trees and bushes and everything. So you create this membrane around the, the domain, she says 50 to 75% of it you reserve for forest. You dig a pond, approximately 16 meters across. These are just general guidelines. You build your house, preferably not, overly large or overly, you know, sturdy house. Because she says your grandchildren will, will need a different type of house and they don't want to go through the hassle of tearing yours down. So you plant all your flowers and trees and, and garden and everything. And the idea is that you two people who are in love, right? So one of the things that I love about these books is she gives a very practical understanding of the energy of love. Like why does love go away in families? Why does love go away between people and how do we actually. Consciously work with this energy and, and preserve it between people and actually not just preserve it, but make it grow over time. Because, you know, if, if we say we believe in God and God is good and God is benevolent, he couldn't have wished in existence for us where love comes and goes and we experience tremendous heartbreak and loss and it's an unnatural state of affairs that we find ourselves in to where all of us are having our hearts broken and we're in misery. It's really sad. It's not supposed to be like that, right? There's a better way of living. And so part of the idea of the kin's domain of, of the many aspects of it, and one thing that separates it from just being a homestead is the fact that she calls it a space of love. She says that love needs a space to occupy. And she says, love aspires to the divine creation. It aspires to the divine creation, it aspires to life and things that are living. And so she says it can't give inspiration to annihilation. It cannot be present in places that are decaying and lifeless entirely. So she, she references like apartment buildings and things like lifeless vaults of stone and things. But she's like, it aspires to the divine creation and it requires a living space to fill. The energy of love can spread itself out and fill a space. So the idea is that, you know, two people love each other and this energy is there between them. They take this and design this beautiful kin's domain according to the dictates of their heart and mind and dream, right? They take this two and a half acre canvas and paint there a beautiful, painting of, of their heart and dream. And it manifests according to the people, whatever, flowers, trees, however you want to arrange them. She puts an emphasis on living structures as well. Like she says, you make summer sleeping areas out of trees, outdoor workshop made out of trees, you know, a pen for your goat or something made out of saplings and things like this. Living structures. Very interesting idea. Um, but then people feel this love. They say they're gonna manifest this tangibly. You can actually give a manifestation to that energy plant, this garden, this orchard, this little paradise for yourself and your family. And then give birth to your kids here. Conceive your kids here, raise them here and hand that space down to them generationally. Right? So then when the kids are born, everywhere they look, they're gonna say, my mom and dad planted this place for me. Right? This apple tree was, was done for me to enjoy. Right? And there's a part where Anastasia's describing what is the kin's domain to Vladimir. And once he gets it at the end he's like, it's not gonna be a forest, but it's gonna be a palace. And she says, only the palace will be a living entity and continue to grow in perpetuity. This is how the creator himself thought up the whole balance of things, everything around you was charged with the task of cherishing and delighting you and your children cherishing and feeding them. And it's this nurturing space that nourishes you and your children, forever, and she says, when people come together and they plant the trees and they do this, that that energy will be preserved by those plants and everything living and reflect it back to them. And love will occupy this space. And those people will not get separated and fall outta love. And it's a compelling idea because it's like society is made up of families and individuals, and if we have these little domestic wars happening everywhere, it's not something that can be ignored. It's a present thing that we all have to grapple with. So she puts forward an incredibly compelling solution to that, right? And it's also an environmental solution because, each family. Creating a kin's domain. It's a little paradise for themselves and their family. What happens is, they come together and build communities of these domains, right? So they're, they're called kin's domain settlements. So in Russia, there's roughly 400, if not more of them. The largest ones are like 300, 350 families, and they've been around for like 25 years, right? So I went to one in 2016. It was 600 hectares, 300 families, all with their two and a half acres, and so now you have, people living together in harmony with the earth, right? And why two and a half acres? This is another question, is because you don't want it to be too big to where you can't manage it yourself. So two and a half acres is a very good size, but the, the core idea. Another thing that separates it from what we know as regular homesteading is that you have a direct relationship with everything living and growing, right? You have a loving communion, a loving relationship with all the plants and everything. The point is to interact with it. And she says by, perfecting the land that we're given, we perfect ourselves and we refine ourselves. And she also says that, God's material body is, all of the creations of, of nature, he doesn't have a physical body like you and we do, but his body is all of nature, right? And his thoughts are materialized as nature. And we can understand him and his thoughts by. Interacting deeply and consciously with those creations. So by, you know, understanding space, we understand God, right? And, uh, so sure you're providing food for your family. It's cherishing and delighting them, as she says, but on the deepest level that you could imagine, you have such a deep personal connection with this space that it's, it's hard for us to be able to appreciate it from an outsider's perspective because we haven't experienced that. I have friends in Russia who've been building their domains for, as, you know, like 20 years or something like this. They can talk about that experience and it's insanely profound. So Okay. Settlements, 400 of them in Russia, 350 families, dozens of them across Europe. And we're trying to connect people to build these in the United States, and internationally, anywhere people speak English. So we're active in many countries and regions and all these things. And that's the, that's the main idea, right? If every willing family took a piece of land and they did this, the earth slowly bit by bit would turn into a beautiful, flourishing garden. And also, it wouldn't require, crazy government expenditure or crazy programs or nothing. Just give people a little bit of land and they'll do the rest. And I could talk at length about this. So I will stop here because I'm going on like a long thing. I hope, I hope that was, that made sense. I loved that. Could you say more about when you visited the Community. What it was like, what did it feel like? Oh my God. Yeah. It was unbelievable. I was there for 10 days, at one of the largest and oldest settlements that still exists. And dude, it was so crazy. It was like in a little village in the south of Russia, outside of this little village, you have to go up this crazy long dirt road. And then you get to this giant place and it felt like I was on another planet. It felt like I was on another planet because they are a sufficient distance away from the rest of the city to where you don't really feel its influence. So they have 600 hectares to themselves. The authorities and people don't really bother them. They don't cause each other problems. So they just kind of exist. They had all these roads, they have um, common houses. They called them all over the settlement that in their case they did geodesic domes in various locations across the settlement that people could use. Um. They used them for schooling for the kids. So many of the parents would take turns teaching classes and being involved in the schooling of their children directly on the settlement in the common houses, like the woman I was staying with was an English teacher, so she would teach English several times a week in one of the common houses. Right. And it was so cool. Or they would use these common houses for birthday parties and celebrations and concerts, of which there was many I attended like, I don't know how many celebrations while I was there. It just felt like it was endless. Like there's a party every day or someone's doing something or some Bards are coming. In Russia, they have a group called the Sunny Bards. It's a traveling caravan of ringing cedars, inspired Bards and musicians, and they go to all these settlements and they give concerts for free. I happened to be there while a, a group of them was there, so we're just like jamming out and having like the most joyful concert of my life. Dancing traditional Russian circle dances and stuff. Anyway, so then. It was fascinating to see the domains are created based on the level of consciousness of the person. Some people have incredibly developed, like Paradise Garden of Eden Gardens, their hedges were fully grown in. You can't see inside of them from the outside. They have tall trees and everything. It's incredible. You look inside Paradise Garden, others, like one of the domains right across the street from where I was staying, you know, little Settlement Street was like, there were some photographers from Moscow and they had this really big house and then it was just buildings and very little garden, you know what I mean? Just a couple trees here and there, and right next to like some paradise domain right next door. I was like, that's fascinating, you know, like where people are at. But it was, it was incredible to be there. They were bartering with each other. The woman's domain that I was staying on, she had some amreth flour and all other things that she grew that she bartered for a giant 50 kilogram thing of honey. I'd never seen that much honey in my life in a big plastic container. And they're just doing this, they're just bartering. They're riding horses around the settlement, on these dirt roads. And for anyone who's read the books, check this out. They had some dolmans on the settlement. They actually like seven minutes away from the domain I was staying. There was several dolmans. It was unbelievable. I was like, you people are so blessed. I spent so much time meditating at the Dolmans, which was an extremely profound experience. And, I mean, all in all, you know it. And I don't want to paint a picture that isn't true. We're in a, a transition period. And so there are some, like, people get catty with each other. There's some gossip. This lady from this domain said some thing about this person. They got some beef. You know what I mean? It's not like it doesn't happen, right? But on the whole, the direction of the development that they're going is insanely positive, right? Like at you, at the end of the day, net those, you know, we will resolve those issues and build cohesion over time and get out of the nonsense we put ourselves in. We're deprogramming and de learning. So it's not like everyone goes there and they're a saint immediately, but it's like we're really working towards a better way, you know? And, uh, it that, my impression was very strong. I was very grateful to be there. I felt like I was on another planet. I felt like I was not on earth anymore. I was in this joyful, crazy realm of many beautiful things and I was just so grateful to be there. I remember standing next to one guy who built his house with his hands, planted his beautiful like Paradise Garden and had his kids on his domain, these beautiful little daughters that he had. And I remember the energy coming off this one guy, I could send you pictures of him. He was such a beautiful person, him and his family and his wife, and. He was radiating such joy and love that I could feel this warmth coming off of his body and standing next to him, I felt like this cold shriveled little thing. I felt like I was dead and lifeless next to this person who's overflowing with love and joy and contentment that I'd never seen in my life. And I was like, wow, you're so happy. Your experience of happiness is so profound that I am having a hard time grasping it. And I was like, I feel dead standing next to you. I feel shriveled and cold and dead and you're so vibrant and full. And I was like, that's amazing. So I do. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm feeling the, the warmth loving radiance coming off of you right now. As you described the, the beauty that you witnessed and this one settlement over there and. Yeah, it definitely, it's is translating through your story and, and inspiring to know. But yeah, people do care about being good to one another, being good to the earth, living a more simple life that is, that's just connected to the earth to one another, to their spiritual beliefs. Hmm, yeah. Yeah. So that there's, in America, we're such a, a melting pot hodgepodge of all the cultures, all the beliefs and yeah. So it's kind of cats. Everyone's going in their own direction trying to right. All of these options that we have, and. And it can be, hard to make community in America because of that. And so here's the opportunity for people to, yes, have their own diverse upbringings and origins, but come together around some shared values, some shared ideas. Yeah, this is the most important thing. Yeah. That's one of the things that Anastasia also talks about, like between people and like, why does love go away? Because people don't have, she says she uses the term like conjugal aspirations, right? Like they have separate interests and separate things, and they don't have a joint aspiration and vision towards a future, right? That they're both completely participating in with their whole mind and their whole heart and whole soul, right? But here, people have a vision that unites them so strongly, they're so compelled of like creating this garden. Raising their kids in this way. They do it with all their heart. It's the most beautiful thing. It, would bring you to tears. How, how, like there's, Vladimir told this story of, there was this guy, he was like a World War II veteran. He is very old man in a wheelchair, but decided he wanted to create this domain. And he's like, I, he can't walk, but was on a wheelchair and started building what he could doing it in a wheelchair. And somehow he attracted this woman who was in her seventies or something younger than him. And then she saw what he was building and was so inspired and decided to start helping him. And they lived this beautiful life. He lived the rest of his years and happiness with her on this beautiful piece of land. And their grandchildren came and visited and all the, you know, like his children and grown adult children came and saw what he did and he passed away and was buried on his domain. And it was like, what a fitting, beautiful. Glorious end to his life, you know, and, and now his children and his adult children are gonna inherit this land and be involved. They don't wanna let it die like their dad. You know, this beautiful man made this happen, couldn't even walk and started doing it right? And it's like what people do, when they're inspired is insane. And it's also, there's that conjugal vision between the, the partners. But then all this, you know, there's 400 of these settlements in Russia alone, there isn't a single system of what we could say of like Eco Village living that has 400 communities, right? So what's also interesting is they, they aren't centrally governed or something. There isn't an organizing body. They all have the same overarching vision. They all see kin's domains and they all want to have this connection with the land. They want to give birth to their kids there. They all the two and a half acres and right handing down this land, how it manifests is particular to each person and how they choose to relate to each other. And there's a big diversity, but there's this huge overarching uniting vision and that's what's enabled so many of them to pop up around the world. There's no other system of living in this way that could claim numbers like that, especially over such a long period of time. The most successful settlements are you know, 25 years old. We're doing an event this weekend in two days with a 23-year-old settlement, from Siberia, there's like 50 families living on the settlement. 23 years, one of the women that we're interviewing grew up on the settlement. She's a documentary filmmaker, travels around Russia filming the domains and showing people the beauty of them. And, we're doing a live question and answers thing with them this weekend. So this stuff is all very real. And this unified vision that they have is probably the most important thing. It's spreading across the world, a decentralized yet overarching united thing. It's very unique really because it compels the soul so much. You know, it's so compelling to the heart that people will do anything to make it happen. And would you say there's a spiritual cohesion in these settlements as well, from what Anastasia's taught? Yeah, definitely, definitely. And then it, it, it also depends on how people organize things in their level of intentionality. Like the settlement that I visited was interesting because they said, they made some mistakes early in the formation of the settlement where they were very indiscriminate with who they allowed in, and didn't really care about the beliefs or value alignment too much. They just were kind of letting people occupy pieces of land. And it led to some downstream consequences many years later of people having very, differing spiritual beliefs, right? And to a point where there's a degree of conflict and tension among the settlement members and things like this. Because there's just different views on life at that point, right? In a, in a relatively big way. But that's not a common experience across all the settlements. A lot of them are, you know, their idea is like you bring in people who've read the books and you talk with them and you get to know them and you see, right? And you do your best to select people and be intentional about it. And there is definitely a big cohesion because people see it, you know, the same. Way they see life the same way, and they're just so happy to find other people that see life the same way, that want the same thing, and want to do this. So yeah, I, I would say there's a lot of cohesion. Otherwise there, the settlements wouldn't last that long and there wouldn't be so many of'em. You know what I mean? Like 400 in Russia alone, dozens in all the surrounding, you know, former Soviet Union countries and these countries around Ukraine and Belarus have dozens. You know, there's dozens across Europe and things like this. And, you know, if there wasn't, if there wasn't that kind of cohesion, they, they wouldn't be springing up like that and lasting so long. But it feels like the spiritual values or tenets that Anastasia teaches about is really about being close to nature and everything to be learned about that can be learned through our connection with nature. So it feels very grounded. Well said. You know, and, and as you're saying that, it makes me think of a quote that I think encapsulates these ideas, incredibly well that I want to just pull up, on, I have it on the homepage of our website because it's, it's such a good quote, from the eighth book. This to me encapsulates the whole idea. So this is Vladimir speaking, and he says, let each one of us take a small plot of his land. You know, one hectare, pull his whole mind and whole spirituality together and create a very small but concrete paradise. He will transform his little piece of land on our large planet into a flourishing garden, giving a material embodiment to his spirituality, following God's example. If millions of people do this in a whole lot of countries, then the whole earth will become a flourishing garden. Here, here's the part that I love so much. I mean, I loved all that, but even this speaks to your point. A father and mother who are actually creating a space of love for their children are more spiritual than the most celebrated wise men who only talk about spirituality. Let the spirit of each man spring up from the ground as a beautiful flower, a tree with fragrant fruit, and let this take place on every single hectare of our planet. There it is right there. To me that says everything. Because we talk about spirituality, we say we're spiritual, but yet we are complicit in the system that is constantly destroying God's creations. And we're not doing anything about it. We say we love God, we believe in God and this and that. And we participate in the system that destroys, what he has made. And if people come together and they say, we're gonna take this. Piece of land, build this paradise, plant, all these trees, they've tangibly, they've manifested the goodness of their souls in that land. They've made their spirituality visible and material and apparent. And you, that's what I was saying on the different domains, you can see the consciousness level of people like what they've done. Did I only make buildings and Oh, that, that one domain I was talking about, they had a bunch of range rovers parked out in the front and big buildings and horse stables and stuff, but no garden. But right next door was that guy Dima, the happiest dude I've ever met. And his beautiful paradise, garden of Eden right next door. And it's like different universes. And I love the idea of we can give a material embodiment to our spirituality. We can give a material embodiment to our love. And it doesn't matter what you say, right? Like I. I love how she doesn't put an emphasis on appearing spiritual or saying spiritual things. It's about who are you, you know, she says, I think in the first book, if you can't make, the people around you happy, if you can't make the people around you feel love and feel warmth, then your presence, then your spirituality is a pseudo spirituality, right? If you really can't make the people around you feel loved and feel warm and feel happy around you. Whatever you call spirituality, it's not there. And it doesn't matter how you appear. You can wear all the cool white flowing yoga clothes and the sacred geometry stuff. You can say you write all these books, but you can be a real jerk. You know what I mean? You can get better and we can do these things and I'm not perfect either. But I, I love the, the very practical, grounded understanding as you're saying, um, Catherine, it's very, very practical. There's these high concepts of love and eternity and family and these things, but it's also so practical, which is why I think it appeals to so many people. It's very appealing to the, your rational sensibilities. Yeah. And I wanna just elaborate a little bit on this space of love that you've been describing, because there's this. Beautiful interrelationship that she describes that really was what awakened me in reading her books and kind of got me to dive deeper into, into her work and her teachings was describing how when you love a plant mm-hmm. That it you back Yeah. And that every, every plant in the world is blessed by our fond attention. That if we just smile at a flower that it is literally happy. Yeah. And if we then let that flower turn into a, a strawberry that then we eat, or in her first example in Book one A cherry that we then mm-hmm. Eat then that cherry or strawberry that we loved, that loved us back Will spiritually awaken us. It will create health and mentality in our life that will then feed our spiritual growth and our ability to love the, the people and communities and other visions that we aspire towards. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So when you're making these kins domains, you really are creating this space of love.'cause you're planting things that please you and your pleasure at those things then feeds you the love back. And it's this reverberation yes. Space of right love that is just, exponentially rippling out into the universe. And then your kids eat that food and, and then right. Your grandkids and great grandkids eat that food that you loved. Had apple tree granddad planted Yeah. A hundred years ago. You know, that vitality just ripples through the generations. Right. And you say it so perfectly, it's this conscious communication with the plant world. It responds to us, and she says the food that we eat from our factory farms are grown for money, not for love. And so they don't have that energy to nourish our souls. The way something you grow with love and tenderness and attention can, it's like I grow, even if it's a little tiny apple tree or something, but it gives me those apples with all that it can. Right? It's conscious and we can develop this ability to communicate. So then you imagine a two and a half acre piece of land where everything knows you and has felt your love and your care. It's endeavoring to give all this back to you, as you're saying, it's reflecting that energy. So this is what I'm talking about of like, you know, she says love requires a space, right? It has, has to fill up a, a living space. And this is the perfect way to do it. Like all that plant life, everything living and growing is trying to give all that back to you. And how could love not be preserved and grow in an environment like that, like you're saying, like this tural kind of feedback loop. You know what I mean? That's exactly it. And is that not how we're meant to live in ever increasing love and joy? If we talk about our creator so grand and wonderful, what he do must to like, you know, cycles of heartbreak and misery and all these things. Or would it just be perpetually increasing joy and love? Right. And that's An actual reality that we can have if we do that. And so yeah. I love, I love how you bring that up. It's a very, very good point. It's so simple and accessible to everyone. I feel, you know, it may seem hard for someone to own two and a half acres here in America. I know in Russia, Vladimir, I think influenced the government to maybe, oh, I could tell you all about that. Yeah. There's a lot of laws on it. Yeah. And they don't tax the food that's produced on it, or at least that's the hope that in the near future they won't. So there's a lot of support there in Russia, but here in America, you know, it might be hard for someone to imagine having, a farmable plot of two and a half acres. But even if that is a distant dream that you haven't quite found the practical materialization for yet, you can still Plant some things in some soil and Yep. Start there. Just start, smiling, unifying the space around you. Yeah. Anastasia talks about planting your family trees, you know, plant it in a, in a little pot and put it in your window sill. And when you water it, tell it your deepest thoughts and your deepest feelings. And communicate with this tree as it grows, right? Or if you just have a little piece of land, plant some things, and you're perfecting that space and making it more beautiful and making the world a better place by these simple little acts, right? And you have these, this communication with nature. And I could talk all about the laws too, very briefly. They're voting on a national law on kin's domains. Now it was written by residents of the settlements. They said it wasn't professional enough, so they needed to revise it. So they're revising and we're gonna submit it to the Duma again in four regions, at least across Russia. I have the laws and have translated them into English. They've passed laws granting two and a half acres of land to any willing family, generally without much condition other than you can't resell the land or use it for some kind of, nonsensical purpose. I can't resell the land for a profit, in four regions across Russia. Oh, well, five the Far Eastern Hectare Act. So they, they launched this program called the Far East, hectare Program in 2016 or 17, the Russian Far East region. Very remote, tons of land available. There was an online application for you to apply for two and a half acres of land. The first day they received like 66,000 applications and crashed the website. And, and uh, I have friends that are younger than me who went to their local government in a region called Belgar. They have a law giving two and a half acres to families there. They went with a group of 50 families, requested 150 hectares. Got it. And then also got grants to start doing businesses on the settlement. And did that. And so now they've been living on that settlement for seven or eight years and it's thriving. And this young couple, they gave birth to their children at home. They have a thriving business. They made a brand of products for the settlement. They have a very successful Instagram page and online store where they sell collectively products from the settlement. And it's thriving and it was fully government supported. And these young kids did not have to break their backs to get the money to do this. It was just given to them. So it's incredible. Yeah, and, and we could totally do that here, you know, I'm sure. Oh yeah. You know, a couple decades in history, it's happened. I don't know if anyone is familiar with the Homestead Act of 8 18 62. Mm. Um. One of the greatest laws ever passed in human history, and actually the Russians and Vladimir, you can find him on record in the last year or two referencing this American law and saying how great it was and using it as an example for the kin's domain people in Russia. The Homestead Act of 1862, granted families land in perpetuity all across the country and large pieces of land, you know, much larger than a hectare. So, you know, we have historical precedents in this country for granting land, and in 1862 and the decades following, obviously there's a civil war and all this, but the fact that people owned land and were able to do with it what they willed, created the. Productivity necessary for America to become the superpower that it became.'Cause we became so strong and prosperous from everyone, doing things on their land makes a lot of sense. But anyway, don't get me started on the history stuff. It's interesting but we have precedents to do these things again and they use our historical things as examples in Russia, which is very cool. Vladimir talks about this law all the time, which is very funny. Awesome. Thanks for bringing it back full circle like that so we can feel inspired, not just by what Russia's doing in modern times, but by our own history here in America. They're inspired by us. Yeah. They were like, this is the best law ever. Yeah. I'm so aware of how right all of this feels in my heart and body as you speak about it. It just lands as, of course, this is the way we're meant to live in sacred relationship with. Of God's creatures in the earth, right? Mm-hmm. Of course. Yeah. And, and so thank you for bringing us all of this information and inspiring us. This has been one of my favorite podcasts, I think. Yeah. Thank you for having me. And I, I have to say thank you to Anastasia, right? You know, in the book she says, I give the whole of my soul to people. She says through, through people, you know, I, I will prevail through the souls of other people, right? I give all of myself. So if anyone is, if any of these ideas, humble, dear listeners who've, who've journeyed with us this far are interesting to you, I would highly suggest, getting some books or PDF copies and going on the journey yourself because, this is just a, the most surface level of surface and, and it's like this is deep and beautiful, but it's like, man, there's so much more in that iceberg for you. You know, if you go, so, I can say we sell just the first three copies of the books@ringingcedarsbooks.com at the lowest prices we can. If you want physical ones, there's PDFs at Anastasia Foundation slash books. It takes you to a folder that has all the books in them, if you want to download'em and you can print'em out. There's PDF to book printing services. Read the, there's a read me file in that folder so you can get all the books for free. I ain't trying to sell you nothing. And so yeah, there's so much there. And I'm just so glad to be here to have the opportunity to share and I give thanks to her for, you know, setting, setting the path. And I'm just here, as a foot soldier. So here we are. Well, thank you for spreading the good word and inspiring so many people through your awesome website, Anastasia Foundation, and the wonderful connections you can make. And, I just really appreciate how inspired you are about this mission. Yeah. My story very briefly is that halfway through book one in 2014, I was a very lost young man, was looking for truth. I was so amazed at the clarity and the lack of mysticism and how appealing all these ideas were and how joyful it was. I realized that my life would be a very happy one if I followed these things. It was so over. I just saw this bright light in my mind of how happy my life would be, and I was like, but I can't be that happy in isolation. I have to do something to bring other people with me or else I'll be miserable. So that's what compelled me to just start connecting people and it's been joy after joy after joy. Lots of difficulty, but also. We have people that have, you know, families and children that have been born because of the connections in our community. And so many gardens have, I mean, it just, it's very humbling, you know? And so that was my experience and I'm, I'm glad to be able to do something, you know, I've done something with my life and I feel good about it. So what a gift. What a gift. Anything else you wanna say about how people can stay connected to you? Yeah, Anastasia Foundation is the website. There's a little popup and options to get on the email list. Highly suggest that'cause we're sending out emails all the time. We're doing all kinds of events online and in person. You'll get news about publishing the books. We're also gonna be selling Siberian Cedar Oil. Very soon I'm launching a business. We partner with a settlement in Russia to produce handmade Siberian cedar oil. It's incredible. Miriah, I'll show you some next time I see you. It's so good. And, yeah, get on the email list, follow us on social media, like common, subscribe on YouTube, all that stuff. But we're doing our best. So. Just get involved with the community, meet other readers, you'll be welcomed with very warm and open arms. Many people comment that our telegram group is the most positive and warm telegram group that they've ever been in. And it's just a testament to the beauty of the people who make that group. It ain't nothing about me, it's about the people who are there. And, I'm just humbled to be a part of it. And so find us anywhere you can. We are there except Twitter. Awesome. Well, thank you Gabriel. It's been a treasure to have you here today. My pleasure. I wish we could go longer, but I'm very glad that we were able to, to do this. So thank you for having me. You. Make sure you subscribe, like and share the video for more content!