Annalouiza Armendariz (00:01.324)
Welcome everyone to end of life conversations where we gather midweek to discuss current affairs in our world and how death and dying grief is part of our our landscape. So I am the Reverend Mother Annlouiza Armendariz and here we are once again.

Wakil David Matthews (00:21.731)
Yeah, I'm Reverend Akhil David Matthews and I'm really glad to have you here with us again. We always look forward to this because there's so much going on and it's a chance for the three of us to really kind of walk through this together and I know a lot of you are also probably feeling a lot of what we're going to talk about today.

Sam Lee Zemke (00:43.444)
I am Sam Lee Zemke, editor at all here and elsewhere. yeah, we're very excited to talk with you today. So excited that we had to remind ourselves to start recording before we got too into the juicy bits when we meet often happens.

Wakil David Matthews (00:47.917)
Yeah.

Annalouiza Armendariz (01:02.254)
That's right. That's right.

Wakil David Matthews (01:02.819)
It does. Yeah, we just can't help ourselves.

Sam Lee Zemke (01:09.128)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza Armendariz (01:10.816)
No, but today we were talking about war and the death, dying grief that is attributable to this almost now ever present activity that world leaders deem important to our lives. So, yes, we had just started chatting about the war in the Ukraine that has just passed its four year mark.

Wakil David Matthews (01:30.179)
He

Annalouiza Armendariz (01:41.31)
and how I was reading an article about how people's lives have been changed from this constant perpetual bombing that they have in these towns and cities across this country. And I noted that there must be a lot of grief with regards to the dreams of families and what they had hoped to, the lives that they had hoped for, their sons that may be dead.

They're children who have been robbed of a very sweet and simple, formative time. That was how would I brought to this.

Wakil David Matthews (02:20.295)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I was looking at a picture of Tehran that somebody posted. what I and what was impressive about it was, you know, this what they would say on the picture was this is a city. This is a city full of families and people going to work and people, you know, shining shoes and riding bicycles. And it's just a city like your city, probably. And it's not.

the enemy and it's not a place and we're now ramping up to start bombing it, you know. And I just, it's not something I hate. I hate it. I hate it to be in my name that our government is thinking that that's okay. It's just another place we can destroy because we disagree with whatever. It's not the way to deal with disagreements. And we've had so many ways, so many opportunities to change our ways. And throughout time, we just don't seem to be able to figure it out.

It's, I have grief just for the fact that as human beings, we can't seem to stop beating each other up and low, low, low, know, small levels and great levels.

Sam Lee Zemke (03:23.826)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (03:30.787)
and

Sam Lee Zemke (03:31.014)
I know it's my turn, but it's hard to follow those. Yeah, it's.

Wakil David Matthews (03:35.297)
No, but that's a good response.

Annalouiza Armendariz (03:37.804)
Yeah, I'm feeling that too though, Sam. Like as we just started, like, it's pretty, it's a weight. It's a very big weight. Not only acknowledging what others across the world experience on a moment to moment basis in their day to day lives, but us as witnesses and what we encounter in our feelings. I mean, I think we probably read the news and we go through it and we spend a moment, but then it's like we're

cast into the next article with the next war and the next fray that is happening. And it's overwhelming and it's deeply troubling as Joaquin said, like we didn't choose this for others and how can we get it so wrong time and time again?

Sam Lee Zemke (04:23.666)
And you were, before we started recording, you were talking about the...

the, I guess, privilege of not having it at our very doorstep. It's closer. It's closer than it has ever been in this country, maybe except, you know, civil war, or, you know, for or right, right, or for, for our, our non white, you know, brothers and sisters who deal live in this occupation.

Annalouiza Armendariz (04:36.664)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza Armendariz (04:44.75)
or the towers of 9-11, right? Like that happened that, but it was just like a

Annalouiza Armendariz (04:57.112)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Lee Zemke (04:59.098)
all the time. But there's a back edge to that sword of not having it as close on your doorstep. And there's a lot of study and discussion that I've encountered around the, I guess I call it a trauma or the grief of living in the Imperial core.

Wakil David Matthews (05:28.973)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Lee Zemke (05:29.41)
of living and benefiting from the actions of empire and the terror of empire around the world and being in the place that benefits of it and having such a limited impact on how that plays out and not agreeing with it and thinking about how atomized and divided and disempowered

Wakil David Matthews (05:37.133)
Yeah.

Sam Lee Zemke (05:59.13)
we in America have become.

Wakil David Matthews (06:04.163)
Yeah. Yeah.

Annalouiza Armendariz (06:05.214)
I'm going to just come in because you know I'm the contrarian of this bunch. for my own peace of mind I want to also note Sam America connotes North America, Central and South and it really upsets me when I hear people consider the United States as American. So just point of notice.

Wakil David Matthews (06:08.896)
Hahaha.

Sam Lee Zemke (06:13.5)
Yes.

Sam Lee Zemke (06:26.312)
Thank you. Thank you for correcting me on that. I think that's something that's worthwhile to be like reminding us in our consciousness as things in our continents, Right. The US centrism.

Wakil David Matthews (06:27.295)
Yeah. Yeah.

Annalouiza Armendariz (06:39.116)
Right. It's it happens across. Yes, it it had it all the time. And I get very tired of of saying it to people because they like death dying. Why surprise you? It's sick of me. But but I'm just like, it is a thing and it is the United States. We do have that privilege to keep thinking of us as the the only Americans.

Wakil David Matthews (06:39.811)
Yeah. yeah, I hear it all the time, yeah. I think of it too.

Wakil David Matthews (06:48.865)
Yeah.

Sam Lee Zemke (06:50.053)
Yeah

Wakil David Matthews (06:56.429)
Yeah, yeah.

Sam Lee Zemke (06:59.268)
as America. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (07:00.407)
the only America, yeah, Estados Unidos. Well, and I think that part of the grief, the inner grief for those of us who are living in empire, love that perspective, is that we can now more than ever experience vicariously what's going on around the world. think maybe in the past, maybe when our grandparents were growing up,

Annalouiza Armendariz (07:12.822)
I do too.

Wakil David Matthews (07:27.821)
they didn't see it so in their faces. Like we had this episode a while back about tragedy in our pockets, Nowadays we can look at our phones or we can look at the computer or we can look on the news and we can see the bodies, you know, and we can see the horror and the children and really, I think it's deeper. I don't know, maybe not. Maybe people felt it just as well because they were smart enough to know, but.

Annalouiza Armendariz (07:29.774)
Close.

Wakil David Matthews (07:54.691)
But I think there's something about that that's just really, really ripping us apart inside that we maybe don't even recognize because we are so exposed to the horrors going around. And here we are sitting in fat and tappy and nobody's bombing us. And even I've got a friend who's in Puerto Vallarta right now and we just read about Puerto Vallarta being under siege and people having to stay home, our poor.

Our poor white friends who are what we call them, they're illegal immigrants. Yeah, the expat illegal immigrant community who are poor people. They're having to hide out because, you know, outdoors in their town right now and all over Mexico right now, there's there's a war going on with the cartels because they're pissed off that the government actually shot one of their leaders, you know.

Sam Lee Zemke (08:28.809)
illegal immigrants. There you go.

Annalouiza Armendariz (08:29.838)
legal immigrants in the expat community.

Annalouiza Armendariz (08:42.542)
Right.

Annalouiza Armendariz (08:51.168)
And also they got shot because the US is aiming to invade. Like it's a hard spot to be in.

Wakil David Matthews (08:56.268)
Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah, that's that's what motivated the government to say, well, you know, don't invade us because we're taking care of this. So they aren't. You can tell that they really aren't taking care of it. And there's a long, long history there of the cartels and the government trying to, you know, for a while saying, well, you know, we just kind of live hand in hand or, you know, better than having a war. And now it's back to war. And probably, yeah, I think you could directly relate that to the United States bullying that we've been. Yeah.

Annalouiza Armendariz (09:01.932)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza Armendariz (09:05.4)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Lee Zemke (09:27.475)
of chaos.

Annalouiza Armendariz (09:28.94)
Yes. And I mean, we're very complicit in all of that. You know, it's the US government pushing. It's the US, you know, drug obsession. It's the you know, it's it's we really are. There is grief around watching this happen.

Wakil David Matthews (09:29.133)
Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (09:32.579)
Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (09:43.907)
You

Annalouiza Armendariz (09:55.183)
and recognizing that it is completely our fault, ours as a community of this of this country. and you know, where is where is the government for the people by the people? Right. Like I feel so far away from this. The grief of being so powerless to say no more. Not in my name. You know, let's figure out this drug issue like for reals now, not just.

Wakil David Matthews (10:16.824)
Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (10:22.615)
Yeah.

Annalouiza Armendariz (10:23.534)
you know, turn our blind eye or castigate all these folks, but take care of the needs that create this addiction.

Wakil David Matthews (10:32.867)
Yeah, yeah. There's an addiction. It almost feels like one of the biggest addictions in our world is addiction to fighting with each other. I remember at one point I was thinking, you know, this has gone on for as long as there's been humans pretty much. you know, in tribal tribes fought with each other over land or over food or whatever. And I remember reading and thinking about, OK, is there a place at which that starts? And I think there is.

anthropological studies that, when you get more than this many people too close together, they start arguing. Yeah, they say, right, right. They start fighting with each other over food or whatever. So what that indicates to me is that we just haven't grown up. You we're still in the teenage or younger, you know, we're still in that kind of beginning phase of being human. Wouldn't it be lovely if we could actually graduate and become

Annalouiza Armendariz (11:06.492)
it's the mouse thing too, right? They eat each other. Yes.

Annalouiza Armendariz (11:19.726)
HODLERS.

Wakil David Matthews (11:29.495)
that next level of human that doesn't have to do that. It knows better and it spends all of our time finding a way to do something different and do it differently. And there's certainly people working on that and there's certain people with that mindset. But as you said, we feel so powerless when the authorities are doing the opposite and are just so wrapped up in greed and fear and using fear to justify their greed.

Annalouiza Armendariz (11:37.4)
for others, yeah.

Annalouiza Armendariz (11:48.5)
The Empire.

Annalouiza Armendariz (11:56.503)
Right. It's a scarcity piece. It's water. Everything's scarce. It's scarce. And I saw that firsthand this weekend. I was a little shocked by this. But I won't go into the gory details. But it truly is about wanting whatever I have to stay within my group. I don't want to share at all. Even if it's another disenfranchised group, I don't want to share.

Sam Lee Zemke (11:59.399)
with gap.

Annalouiza Armendariz (12:24.782)
It's a really it is and I think you're right. What kill I think it is a very? Intrinsic human condition. It's like it's like our genetic mess up You know, it's like we keep wanting to hoard things for ourselves

Wakil David Matthews (12:36.331)
You

Wakil David Matthews (12:42.531)
Out of fear, I think.

Sam Lee Zemke (12:44.776)
fear potentially. So with a background in anthropology, there are theories about where the proliferation of conflict in this way came from. And one of the predominant theories that I learned about, just to sort of aside and dovetail into some of the other things we've been talking about, is that the current mode when

when a lot of conflicts shifted from like small tribal conflicts into larger scale like raiding and and that scarcity mindset was about 13,000 years ago in the last major climatic shift and it came with a sense of climate grief and grief at abandonment by the spiritual forms by the

Wakil David Matthews (13:34.463)
Mm.

Sam Lee Zemke (13:43.581)
the current deities of the time and the sense as I understand it that, okay, if the gods can steal from us, if the gods are fickle in that way, then why not be fickle ourselves? And so then it shifts your perspective of your neighboring community.

Annalouiza Armendariz (13:46.264)
Christine.

Wakil David Matthews (13:54.787)
Hmm.

Annalouiza Armendariz (14:03.156)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Sam Lee Zemke (14:11.16)
as the climate shifts and your pasture land dries up and dies, or your food forests die or shift or move and you're being forced to move and you're encroaching on other people. Immigration issues 13,000 years ago of people bumping into each other and going increasingly, okay, you're not like me.

Wakil David Matthews (14:26.669)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (14:38.285)
Yeah.

Sam Lee Zemke (14:38.31)
You're not my in group. so I can take from you. And this is justified on a larger cosmic scale and that that balloons and, and shifts into like Imperial mass. That's modes.

Wakil David Matthews (14:45.507)
Yeah.

Annalouiza Armendariz (14:50.446)
Right. I mean, yeah, it's interesting, too, because didn't that happen in Exodus in the Old Testament? I was like, the plagues and everything. Of course, that's like a thing. And and then all of sudden, you know, slaves and it was all there. It's all there. That's the template for a continual like human activity that's the same over and over again.

Wakil David Matthews (14:51.351)
Yeah, yeah, I think.

Wakil David Matthews (14:57.315)
Exactly.

Sam Lee Zemke (15:04.552)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (15:05.623)
You

Wakil David Matthews (15:10.381)
Yeah, yeah.

Sam Lee Zemke (15:10.556)
you

Wakil David Matthews (15:18.787)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think it's true too that almost every one of those conflicts comes with the gods are on our side. That, you know, God would want us to take your land because we are obviously the right tribe and your tribe's, you know, obviously the corrupt tribe. I mean, yeah, you're right. All the way back in Exodus in the Jewish Bible, there's many stories of one tribe over another and, you know, the tribe next door.

Annalouiza Armendariz (15:37.15)
Yeah.

Annalouiza Armendariz (15:43.36)
A Torah, yeah. That's right.

Wakil David Matthews (15:48.619)
is obviously the corrupt and evil tribe and our tribe is the one with the connection to the one God. And so therefore, you know, let's knock down their walls, you know. Yeah, it's so true. And even, know, we like to think that the indigenous people are immune to that or didn't do that too, but in the Northwest where I live, there was consistent and constant battles going on. And it wasn't so much over

resources. This was a rich, rich place. was sort of a, it was like, who's the best? Who's the top warriors? And they would take slaves. They weren't chattel slaves like we had, and they were part of the community. They started at the lowest rung of the community and eventually worked their way up. In fact, Seattle was the daughter of a slave. And so, I mean, son of a slave. And so the...

Annalouiza Armendariz (16:22.862)
Something to do? yeah.

Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (16:47.183)
You know, so it's like cultural, it's everywhere. I do think it's often the case that it's based on this fear that you or your children won't have enough. And that somehow the only way to fix that is to justify yourself with your best, your being the best and everybody else not being worthy. And therefore you're there the enemy. that's the oldest story in the world for armies.

Annalouiza Armendariz (17:04.782)
hoarding, fighting.

Wakil David Matthews (17:15.427)
That's how you create an army, is you tell them everybody else is evil. You create that sense of evil. And armies fall apart when they can't do that.

Annalouiza Armendariz (17:17.368)
Right.

Sam Lee Zemke (17:26.222)
And to contrast and take on the, what did you call it Annalouiza, the contrarian, and keep us from becoming overly pessimistic, there is the other side, and maybe it's the growing out of the adolescence that humanity is experiencing, and maybe it's the growing interconnectedness.

Wakil David Matthews (17:34.285)
Contrarian.

Annalouiza Armendariz (17:36.462)
You

Wakil David Matthews (17:40.459)
You

Annalouiza Armendariz (17:41.262)
You

Sam Lee Zemke (17:56.199)
But there's a lot of evidence being found now that reality is quite counter to that narrative that when stuff gets rough, we eat each other. And maybe it has to do with time frame and if it's a sustained period of lack or scarcity. But you look at

Wakil David Matthews (18:11.33)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Lee Zemke (18:24.562)
like Hurricane Katrina and all of these natural disasters and the way that communities band together. the flooding in North Carolina last year, Minneapolis currently is people, when the stuff hits the fan, people often band together and share resources and show up in those ways. And there's a lot of us, I think,

Annalouiza Armendariz (18:32.226)
Right.

Wakil David Matthews (18:35.096)
Yeah.

Annalouiza Armendariz (18:36.206)
All

Wakil David Matthews (18:46.989)
Yeah.

Sam Lee Zemke (18:53.254)
working really hard to stay in that place right now, even as the conflict and the stress ramps up.

Annalouiza Armendariz (19:00.246)
Yep. wasn't there a Star Trek episode with Q? This is exactly what was going on. I think I remember that one.

Wakil David Matthews (19:04.587)
You

Sam Lee Zemke (19:08.4)
I think it's the first episode of Star Trek The Next Generation where humanity is put on trial for their...

Annalouiza Armendariz (19:13.472)
Yes. It's not the first episode, but he comes to me. There's there's yeah, but that is very true. Like, you know, when that starts happening, how do humanity support each other? I will say it's also really hard because I just I mean, this is a really great conversation. And I think about this so much. I spend some days making food and give it away.

Wakil David Matthews (19:19.287)
Yeah.

Annalouiza Armendariz (19:43.129)
for unhoused populations. And every week, we have certain folks who show up time time again. This weekend, I've been thinking about this interaction with this person because they came in and very much, and I understand things get stolen a lot for these folks. So there's a lot of like, I need to hold on to what I get. And so this person was like hollering a lot, making sure like their stuff was not touched by anybody. And I was like, okay.

And then was very upset when, you know, we couldn't give them money for cigarettes. And it was like a very strange moment for me because we do show up for people. You know, we're trying to show up as on the Maslow level of need, right? Like food, shelter, you know, trying to get people health care or whatever. But humanity asks for more every single time, like.

We beggar for more, even though we have what we need. So I'm like, I mean, I can I can find times I've done the same thing, you know, like, can I just have one more of that cute swag that you just set out? Why? I don't know. Right. Like, but I it is an intrinsic. It's it's a weird. It's a weird thing. It's a very weird thing.

Wakil David Matthews (20:45.505)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (21:05.58)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Lee Zemke (21:06.472)
I think it ties into that feeling, the pervasive feeling of scarcity that especially our homeless neighbors and community experience on a daily basis. And we're all in the soup. Our entire culture is based around scarcity.

Annalouiza Armendariz (21:14.241)
Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (21:14.263)
Yeah. Yeah.

Annalouiza Armendariz (21:27.202)
Right.

Annalouiza Armendariz (21:30.862)
All right. But don't you think our our current acting president, I say acting, pretending president also has that issue in space, right? Like there was something about that need to have more and more and more and more guild everything and gold show. I like it is very strange to me that it is over the top. It is a need.

Wakil David Matthews (21:38.924)
Hahaha.

Sam Lee Zemke (21:40.712)
Mm.

In spades. In spades. Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (21:43.986)
yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (21:59.265)
Yeah, his whole that whole gang is steeped in it. They've actually created a whole culture around, you know, the only way this is going to work is if we are the boss, you if we have everything, if we have all the money, if we have all the resources. Yeah. And it's it's it's become institutionalized really. That's, you know, for them, this whole sense of and there's, course, many, many old books about, you know, back when

Annalouiza Armendariz (22:14.958)
It's like Dragon Mines.

Sam Lee Zemke (22:17.213)
Yes.

Wakil David Matthews (22:28.907)
And the Germans went through this. fact, I just read something from one of the authors saying, you you guys are doing, this sounds way too familiar. You know, let me just school you a bit. You're going down a road that you're going to end up in history being one of the horrors of history because that's what we did and that's what we ended up being. Don't do this. But yeah, think, and I think that also what you guys were talking about this sense that

Annalouiza Armendariz (22:38.168)
Yeah.

Annalouiza Armendariz (22:44.438)
Yep. Yep.

Wakil David Matthews (22:56.449)
You know, we look around and we feel this so deeply. And I mean, we look at the earth too. talked, Sam, you had a quote you were talking about earlier about the way the earth and all these wars, you know, you look at the Ukraine, you look at even put the Varta today, there's smoke filling the air, right? It's destroying the planet. It's not just destroying each other. mean, that's of course horrible enough that children and women and men.

boys and girls, everybody is dying or getting sick or being injured, but the planet is being destroyed. We're watching the planet fall. Ukraine is a wasteland in many, many places right now, and it's going to take thousands of years to actually recover from that.

Sam Lee Zemke (23:42.009)
Whether it's negligent or intentional, as you speak, I am reminded of the images of olive trees being burned and poisoned and dug up in Palestine and the mountains of buffalo skulls on this land and the ecological damage. I do have something to read about that from that book.

Wakil David Matthews (23:54.899)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (24:02.797)
Yeah. Yeah.

Annalouiza Armendariz (24:04.589)
That's right.

Wakil David Matthews (24:09.557)
Yeah, please do.

Sam Lee Zemke (24:11.656)
And just before I read that, draw the parallel because it talks about clear cutting a forest. And so there is the literal clear cutting of a forest and the tragedy and grief around that. And I think there is a symbolic parallel between

Wakil David Matthews (24:20.93)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Lee Zemke (24:39.538)
the mind that can clear cut a forest and the mind that can clear cut human beings. It is of the same, the same root.

Wakil David Matthews (24:45.758)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah. Ow. That makes me shudder.

Sam Lee Zemke (24:53.756)
What a person feels when they unexpectedly come upon a human damaged forest is a combination of two things. The kind of wound and its ramification that touches them and the particular climate of mind of the people who destroyed the wholeness that was once present. Those who clear cut a forest are able to do so in the way they do because they live within a particular climate of mind.

One that has dissociated itself from the livingness of the world. And yes, there are other ways to harvest trees, ways that do not possess or come from a pathological climate of mind.

Wakil David Matthews (25:39.299)
Tell us the author in the book.

Sam Lee Zemke (25:43.9)
That is Earth and Grief by Steven Herod Uner.

Annalouiza Armendariz (25:49.134)
I think I just got that book. Didn't I send you a picture that I got that book to? I think I did buy it.

Wakil David Matthews (25:53.281)
Yeah, that's an incredible book. Yeah.

Sam Lee Zemke (25:53.753)
I don't know about that one. It is a fascinating book. I read from this one, I think in one of our previous friend events episodes too. Yes.

Annalouiza Armendariz (25:56.75)
Good book.

Annalouiza Armendariz (26:01.055)
Yes.

Wakil David Matthews (26:01.751)
Yeah, comes around, comes around.

Annalouiza Armendariz (26:03.886)
So I know that we're probably getting close to the time, but I think I'd like to offer our listeners not necessarily a panacea, but this is grief work. This is death and dying. How do we hold ourselves in this time when things are we're in the soup? As Sam likes to say, we're deep in that soup. So what do we do?

Wakil David Matthews (26:26.551)
Yeah, yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (26:30.465)
Yeah, good point. Good point. Yeah, well, and my answer or what I, my practice is a lot of breath work, a lot of experiencing the spring coming. I think spring in the Northern Hemisphere right now is one of the things that reminds us of the intrinsic hope that things do return and that there is, there are flowers.

even in the midst of destruction and disappearance of those things. And that's not to, by any means, diminish the suffering and the pain or to by any means not feel that. I think the other thing is really a part of our responsibility is to hold on, is to hold that pain and to feel it, to really feel it and know it. Because that's the only way we are going to grow up is if we can actually feel it and know that we have to do something different.

So holding that in balance with hope and knowledge, like Sam was saying earlier, that there are a lot of people thinking about ways to do this differently, and we know ways to do this differently. And so we keep lifting that up in our own communities and doing whatever we can in our place, in our world, like Analuisa, you know, feeding people, all the different things that we can do. Do what you can in your own world. Breathe it through.

let it go, but don't ignore it either. And community, gather your communities, because that's how we're going to get through this, and that's how we're going to come out the other end.

Annalouiza Armendariz (27:59.3)
Yeah.

Annalouiza Armendariz (28:03.661)
Yeah.

Annalouiza Armendariz (28:11.256)
That's a, that is a really great foundational piece for people who are trying to figure out how to get through this time. I think that I get a little, I'm a little nuttier sometimes when I'm really desperate. I do breathe, I take long walks and I reach out and make sure people are doing all right. And then I start daydreaming and I really, I'm still, you know, picking around the quantum physics.

Wakil David Matthews (28:21.847)
You

Wakil David Matthews (28:33.698)
Hmm.

Sam Lee Zemke (28:34.6)
Thank

Annalouiza Armendariz (28:41.79)
a fringe world and recognizing that we don't know so much about the human potential. I think we are aware that we have not grown up yet. We're still toddlers grabbing those toys and trying to hold it for ourselves. And you know, I do practice like daydreaming, like active daydreaming and seeing.

communities alight with love and joy and peace. You know, it's not this like Nirvana, Shangri-La, kind of like we're going to head this direction. It's like little by little, like, you know, we've always talked about the mycelium connections between all of the rooted, you know, kin and kith of the world. And I think that there is something to be said for this. Like, if we can keep just putting that vision forward of what we are.

looking towards, I think that is part of my personal work. And those become prayers and those become conversations I have with the elements. And like, this is what I think would be beneficial for all of us. And, you know, so that's kind of my that's my gift to listeners, if you're a little bit on the weird side. Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (29:38.199)
Yes.

Wakil David Matthews (29:43.031)
Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (29:59.267)
Well, and dream that with your communities, too. Share that. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, go ahead, Sam.

Sam Lee Zemke (30:03.484)
That that's what I was going to say. Yeah. That that those those prayers, those imaginings, intentional imaginings, there's a whole world to talk about the imaginal and I'm not going to go down that road, but someday. But.

Annalouiza Armendariz (30:19.094)
We'll go out there sometime soon.

Wakil David Matthews (30:19.331)
Another time, another time.

Sam Lee Zemke (30:25.788)
But let that guide your actions toward other people. And to not... I struggle with the adolescence of mind, maybe. I don't want to denigrate it because I think sometimes there is a great need for the fire of a passionate heart to act.

Annalouiza Armendariz (30:31.725)
right.

Sam Lee Zemke (30:55.844)
in response to the injustices in the world. But when I get a little out there and desperate, I get real hot about it. And so I don't want to necessarily recommend those things for a myriad of reasons. But as we were talking about, this is a pattern. This is a rhythmic pattern that has happened throughout human history.

Wakil David Matthews (31:02.156)
Absolutely, yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (31:09.74)
Hahaha.

Annalouiza Armendariz (31:10.135)
Hahaha!

Wakil David Matthews (31:24.993)
Yeah.

Sam Lee Zemke (31:25.264)
And there are, there's a wealth of, of resources of how people have met these moments in the past. And whether it is a literal reading connection, learning from those past movements, from those past teachers who have met moments like this, and, and synthesizing what they've done for the present moment and for your present skills.

Wakil David Matthews (31:34.346)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sam Lee Zemke (31:54.978)
or a more out there, less literal, like prayerful connection of like ancestors who have, who have worked in these times. Lift me up, keep me going, inspire my thoughts, inspire my imaginations and my moves. Know that there are generations.

Wakil David Matthews (32:11.297)
Yeah. Yeah.

Annalouiza Armendariz (32:18.766)
That's right.

Wakil David Matthews (32:19.948)
Yeah.

Sam Lee Zemke (32:22.866)
generations and millions and millions of people backing you up in this way.

Annalouiza Armendariz (32:27.16)
That's right.

Wakil David Matthews (32:27.809)
Yeah, yeah, so true. Thank you.

Annalouiza Armendariz (32:32.568)
Woof!

Wakil David Matthews (32:33.308)
you guys are awesome. I really enjoy this. Thank you everybody for watching us. Anything final, any final words?

Annalouiza Armendariz (32:39.383)
Yes.

Annalouiza Armendariz (32:44.6)
Keep listening, recognize death and dying in your world, and don't be afraid to just sit with it for a minute or two. And this too shall pass.

Wakil David Matthews (32:52.471)
Yeah, yeah.

Sam Lee Zemke (32:53.51)
And this too shall pass. This too shall pass.

Wakil David Matthews (32:55.563)
Yeah, and find your people. Find your people. So we really appreciate you all for joining us and look forward to seeing you again next week when we do this fun thing again. Also, our pre-recorded episodes are continuing. We usually post them on Saturday now. So please look for those. We have some special ones coming up. So we thank you again for joining us and we would love to hear from you. Please do let us know.

Annalouiza Armendariz (32:58.615)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Lee Zemke (33:09.906)
fun.

Annalouiza Armendariz (33:23.982)
That's right.

Wakil David Matthews (33:25.599)
anything you'd like to talk about or get together with us or any ideas you have or anything you'd like to share. like and subscribe, tell all your friends and we'll see you again. Adios.

Annalouiza Armendariz (33:36.622)
Adios!

Sam Lee Zemke (33:38.172)
Adios