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Ayahuasca: The Mother Of All The Plants And The Voice Of Pachamama | Matthew Pallamary
74 Plays20 hours ago
We welcome back Matt Pallamary to show to discuss his 24th book, Ayahuasca: The Mother Of All The Plants And The Voice Of Pachamama.
Based on close to four decades of study, Ayahuasca: The Mother Of All The Plants And The Voice Of Pachamama is a comprehensive guide to the history and use of Ayahuasca from its murky mythological origins up to present day. Beginning with a sampling of prehistoric myths, this book chronicles the first western explorers who came in contact with this magical and controversial plant brew followed by the history and evolution of the first organized religions that have embraced it as a sacrament, and how they have spread throughout the United States and the rest of the world. This in-depth analysis of Ayahuasca and its companion “teacher plants” also covers the history and present day legalities of this revered plant medicine and the landmark Supreme Court case that made it legal in the United States.
Additionally the text includes an analysis of Ayahuasca’s psychoactive components, its physiological effects, a section on safe practices, dietary restrictions, contraindications, and advice on integrating the life changing experiences that this mythical plant brew engenders.
Get the book, Ayahuasca: The Mother Of All The Plants And The Voice Of Pachamama: https://mysticinkpublishing.com/ayahuasca-the-mother-of-all-the-plants-and-the-voice-of-pachamama/
Website: https://mattpallamary.com/
Mystic Ink Publishing: https://mysticinkpublishing.com/
All of Mateo's books: https://mattpallamary.com/writings/
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Recommended
Transcript
00:00:01
Christian Yordanov
Hey folks, Christian Jordanov here.
Return to Podcasting and New Book Update
00:00:03
Christian Yordanov
Welcome back to the Connecting Minds podcast. Today we have a returning guest, Matteo, also known as Matthew Palomari. He is the author of now his 24th book, which is the topic of our discussion today. it is He's also been on the podcast a few times, so you know if you haven't heard those episodes, you may want to check back. They're really good.
Is Fasting a Psyop?
00:00:24
Christian Yordanov
And so today's book is Matteo's latest one, the 24th one in his long, illustrious author career. So the book is called Ayahuasca, the mother of all the plants and the voice of Pachamama. And looking forward to getting into this today with your brother. Welcome back to the show.
00:00:42
Mateo
It's great to be back, Christian. I always love your show. appreciate you having me back. You ask great questions. You are the host with the most.
00:00:51
Christian Yordanov
Thank you so much. here's You're too kind. So ah for the listeners, maybe just in case someone new is listening, give us kind of a little bit of a whirlwind tour of your life and how you got here because it's a pretty interesting story. You've published a couple of memoirs. They're really amazing, especially on on the Audible when you you know you listen to you sharing the stories. very like You get
Plans for Live Longer Formula Podcast
00:01:17
Christian Yordanov
goosebumps. I get adrenaline rushes sometimes during your story. So give us a quick whirlwind tour for the listeners.
00:01:24
Christian Yordanov
Who are you?
00:01:25
Mateo
Yeah, sure. I'm always asking myself, who am I? every Every morning, on or what am I? But I um ah grew up in Dorchester, which is the biggest neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, here in the U.S. I grew up in a really tough neighborhood.
00:01:43
Mateo
um And I've been searching for, really, for truth all of my life. So when I was young, when I was really little, I loved to get myself dizzy.
00:01:55
Mateo
Then I learned how to hyperventilate. Then I discovered sniffing
Insights from Editing on Big Pharma and Eugenics
00:02:00
Mateo
glue and cannabis. And few years after that, LSD, I've always been fascinated with altered states.
00:02:07
Mateo
And then um I started researching shamanism. um And then i when I realized the connection between shamanism and altered states, particularly in South America, in the in the tropical jungle, I was fascinated and I had to go.
00:02:27
Mateo
So I researched, i've done I've done everything just about, you can imagine, in terms of altering my consciousness, really looking for answers.
00:02:37
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:02:38
Mateo
when When I was younger, I really didn't know what I was doing. There was no guidance. There was no such thing as micro dosing. There were no guides.
Fasting as a Historical and Modern Psyop?
00:02:46
Mateo
you you took I always took big doses because that's what it was.
00:02:53
Mateo
And then I learned as I went. And then when I started learning about ayahuasca, I actually i researched it for 10 years before I found it. And then, um, I got connected with the, they used to have, uh, nthiobotany seminars.
00:03:08
Mateo
And for the listeners who may not know, ah Theo, the Latin root is God. And so nthiobotany in essence is sort of the God within the plant that brings up the God within you.
00:03:20
Mateo
So I started going to those, uh, background, 1996. ninety six And then, uh, I did, a ah four more of them. Um,
00:03:32
Mateo
The first one was in Uxmal Yucatan at the Maya ruins. And the next three were at the Maya ruins in Palenque, Chiapas. And Terrence McKenna was there. Paul Stamets was there. Sasha n and Sasha Shogun were there.
00:03:46
Mateo
um Jonathan Hart, Christian Reich. Everybody was there. And it was like a combination. Yeah, it was beautiful. I mean, my fascination was shamanism and writing.
00:03:58
Mateo
But artists, writers, musicians, chemists, um other people, consciousness researchers, for
The Fasting Delusion: Upcoming Book Preview
00:04:07
Mateo
lack of better words, they were all there.
00:04:11
Mateo
And it was a week long. And they would have long morning lectures, afternoon lectures, and evening lectures. And um I really learned a lot. And the the gentleman who facilitated it, I discovered he was going down to the Peruvian Amazon.
00:04:30
Mateo
So it took me a while. I think he thought I was a little crazy. He was a little leery of me in the beginning. He kept blowing me off.
00:04:35
Christian Yordanov
Wow.
00:04:36
Mateo
But ah I finally got to go down, and I went down the first time 2000 and did my first 10-day shamanic plant dieta.
00:04:49
Mateo
I'm getting ready. This coming October, I'm going to go down for my 15th 10-day dieta. And
Audiobook Setup and Content Production
00:04:56
Mateo
it's about... um ah rough So it's 10 days in the jungle.
00:05:01
Mateo
takes a few days to get there. And then generally speaking, you do an ayahuasca ceremony every other night. And then every day you get a full pitcher of a plant or a mixture of plants.
00:05:16
Mateo
And so you have to drink that during the course of the day. And then when you get to be an old dog like me, they'll bring it to you once or twice and you do it by yourself. So you spend most of your time alone in your tombo, which is open air hut.
00:05:31
Mateo
They bring you food twice a day, very bland. I can get into the dieta after if you want me to discuss that. um Because I know you're very much into health and nutrition and aging and anti-aging and all that, just like me.
00:05:41
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
00:05:43
Mateo
You're probably more so than me. You're more of a specialist maybe, but I'm a i'm a walking science fair experiment. um
00:05:53
Christian Yordanov
Likewise, likewise.
00:05:54
Mateo
Yeah, of course, right? but um So it's 10 days, mostly alone. You go and do the ceremonies roughly every other night.
00:06:05
Mateo
So one of the things I did, among other things in this new
Evolutionary Arguments for Fasting: Valid or Not?
00:06:08
Mateo
book, is I i gave a whole bunch of stuff about ayahuasca. You you said you know you looked at it, you saw it. The second section of the book,
00:06:18
Mateo
I did the botany and the taxonomy of all of the individual secondary teacher plants that I worked with. So those chapters, generally speaking, have the first three pages of all that sort of technical botanical you know stuff.
00:06:35
Mateo
And then the second half of each one of those chapters is my experience with ayahuasca and that particular plant.
00:06:42
Christian Yordanov
m
00:06:43
Mateo
i um I don't know if you know, or your listeners know much about
Does Fasting Lead to Longevity?
00:06:47
Mateo
Sasha Shogun. um Kind of, yeah, okay.
00:06:49
Christian Yordanov
I'm sure some do.
00:06:51
Mateo
So, well, I was close with Joshua and his wife, Anne. oh They've been gone for quite a while now. But he wrote two books, two big ones. One was, oh, T.
00:07:01
Christian Yordanov
I have them.
00:07:02
Mateo
Carl and P. Carl.
00:07:04
Christian Yordanov
Yes, I have them in my in my library here. I'm looking at them from here, right there.
00:07:06
Mateo
Oh, there you go. well Well, great minds read alike. So one of the things that ah Sasha did in both those books is he would develop a new compound.
00:07:21
Mateo
He would give the recipe and then he would give his experience with it. So I followed that model in terms of the different plants that I worked with. Some of them are very hard to come by They're very rare. Excuse me. And my good friend, Jim Fadiman, who wrote the Psychedelic Explorer's Guide, he went nuts over that part of the book. He loved that part the most.
00:07:44
Mateo
I was a little concerned because it's very subjective. So I have some very insane dreams and experiences in there that are in some respects are nonsense. But I wanted to show the subjective experience of ayahuasca in those plants because in the end, and that's the essence of shamanism.
00:08:03
Mateo
You can't beat personal experience. you know you can't You can read all the books you want, but you're never really gonna know what it is until you experience it directly by yourself.
00:08:15
Mateo
So shamanism is based on direct experience. So I wanted to show that, and I was very concerned about that, but that's the part that ah Jim Fadiman really loved the most. And I have huge respect for Jim.
00:08:27
Mateo
He's done some real groundbreaking work. So I was very lucky. ah to get his endorsement, his enthusiasm for it too.
00:08:35
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah. I read his little piece. Looks like he was impressed as well. That's great.
00:08:42
Mateo
Yeah, yeah. Validation always helps, especially when you're a writer.
00:08:46
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, of course.
00:08:46
Mateo
I mean, you got a couple of books yourself, so you're probably having some of those experiences yourself.
00:08:53
Christian Yordanov
Bro, I would love to actually just because I'm i'm right ah in the final sort of journey with my editor to finish my book. I'm just curious, like after 24 books, is it, I mean, you were like that this is like your, your suppose your main thing, you know, but For me, it's such, i don't know, dude.
00:09:14
Christian Yordanov
I don't want to like come across as a common complainer or something, but it's such a ordeal.
00:09:18
Mateo
No.
00:09:21
Christian Yordanov
It's an ordeal.
00:09:21
Mateo
oh Oh, yeah. Ordeal
Fasting's Longevity Claims: Fact or Fiction?
00:09:24
Mateo
is a great word.
00:09:24
Christian Yordanov
oh
00:09:25
Mateo
It's an ordeal.
00:09:27
Christian Yordanov
I have one neighbor, like I was out with my kid and my dog at like 9 p.m. a few weeks ago, and she just looked at me, and I was like, and she's like, you look tired. I'm like, I'm writing a book. She's like, oh, I have no idea what that's like. I told her, go to up to your garage door there and bang your head against it for like six months, and then you will kind of know what it's like. She's like, oh, okay, that sounds pretty horrible.
00:09:50
Mateo
It's the biggest thing now is procrastination. But I've discovered that and this is one of my things and I won't go off on a tangent, I promise. But one of the things i i'm I'm not a fan of AI.
00:10:00
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:10:04
Mateo
I mean, it has some uses. But I'll tell you, when I beat my brains out for two or three days struggling over a plot point or a chapter or something I'm trying to convey and drive myself crazy and I'm pulling my hair out and maybe even to the point of losing sleep, when I finally get it and it hits, it's more brilliant than anything I could ever begin to think of.
00:10:29
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:10:30
Mateo
And so the the process of dialoguing with your subconscious, and to me with the subconscious, when you're tapping in, you're tapping into something bigger than you, bigger than us. You're looking for that inspiration.
00:10:43
Mateo
So I've read stuff that I've written in the past, and I'm reading it, and I'm going, this is really good. Who wrote this? Right? Because it it comes out like that. But it's it's the process. I tell my writing students all the time,
00:10:57
Mateo
It's the process, it's the journey. um
00:10:59
Christian Yordanov
Yes.
00:11:00
Mateo
it's Stephen King calls it falling into the page. And when it's flowing, suddenly three hours have gone by and you've got two two or three, four good pages, right?
00:11:12
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:11:12
Mateo
And then another day you may sit there and beat yourself crazy and you may end up with a paragraph, right?
00:11:17
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:11:18
Mateo
It comes in fits and starts. But understanding the process is what's really important.
00:11:23
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:11:24
Mateo
And what I've discovered, so now I have maybe half a dozen fiction titles, and then I have a half a dozen nonfiction titles.
00:11:34
Mateo
I mean, you're familiar with a lot of my stuff. um
00:11:36
Christian Yordanov
Yes.
00:11:38
Mateo
So it's the process. And I've discovered over the years, here's how bad I am.
00:11:40
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:11:43
Mateo
I'm not a good example. Don't try this at home. Over the years, when I finish a book I'm empty and I go through some psychological version of postpartum depression.
00:11:57
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yes.
00:11:59
Mateo
and and And then I've discovered the only way out is to keep writing more, right? If I'm writing a novel, suddenly I miss all my characters, all these people that have been living in my head and having entire lives and existences in my mind and they're gone.
00:12:15
Mateo
And it's like, ah, where are they, right?
00:12:18
Christian Yordanov
My babies!
00:12:19
Mateo
Yeah, exactly. And then sometimes in some things you have to kill some of your babies. That's horrific.
00:12:25
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:12:26
Mateo
Right?
00:12:26
Christian Yordanov
Yes.
00:12:26
Mateo
You go, yeah yeah.
00:12:27
Christian Yordanov
It's painful.
00:12:28
Mateo
So the only thing I've discovered I've been able to do is to start a new one. Because what happens, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, I do all this research.
00:12:41
Mateo
And I do a rough outline. I don't do, you know, section seven, paragraph three subdivision. i don't do any of that. I do stream of consciousness, parts of a scene,
Why Does Fasting Appeal to Different Beliefs?
00:12:50
Mateo
a little bit of dialogue.
00:12:52
Mateo
I usually end up with about 10 pages. If it's anybody else would read it, probably couldn't make any sense out of it at all. But it's a general a roadmap moving forward.
00:13:00
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:13:05
Mateo
And then sometimes I get frustrated because publishing has changed so much, especially in the past 10 to 20 years, dramatically changed. All the mediums have changed, you know writing, publishing, music, art.
00:13:21
Mateo
ah AI is involved in sometimes not very good ways, but it's all changed. I get frustrated and I go, all right, I'm done with this. I'm not doing it anymore.
00:13:34
Mateo
And that lasts a few minutes and then it's like, okay, Einstein, now what are you gonna do, right? Well, you know, you've been writing for over 40 years, right?
00:13:40
Christian Yordanov
Go fishing.
00:13:44
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:13:45
Mateo
And the books tend to keep coming. And then I have kinds of little little tricks here and there.
00:13:49
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:13:51
Mateo
Like I'm gonna admit, cannabis really helps my writing.
00:13:56
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:13:56
Mateo
And this is just me, everybody's different, but i I'll get up in the morning, I'll have my regular coffee, I'll write for a while and then I'll make myself wait until 420. Then I'll take a couple of hits and I'll get sometimes a whole nother three or four pages.
00:14:18
Mateo
You know, you you could drink coffee all day, but towards the afternoon, you start to kind of burn out.
00:14:18
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:14:22
Mateo
It's not as effective. You get a little kind of edgy, you know, a little brittle and all that.
00:14:24
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:28
Mateo
But when I smoke the cannabis like that, I get a whole new thing. And there ah there was ah a while back where I'm like, because I take long breaks from it too. I was more chronic when I was younger.
00:14:39
Mateo
But now I may take a month or two off, sometimes longer. But there was a, I was about a year ago, was really stuck on a book for like a week. And I was purposely staying off smoking any cannabis.
00:14:52
Mateo
But I was stuck. So I said, oh, the heck with it. i'll have I'll have a couple little hits, right? And a couple of little hits and bang.
00:14:57
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:14:58
Mateo
Dude, I exploded. i mean, I got like six good pages. All these other things came into play. So for me, a lot of years I was drinking the coffee and smoking cannabis and cranking it out every day because one of the keys to writing is being consistent and showing up.
00:15:18
Mateo
um
00:15:19
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:15:20
Mateo
I learned from Ray Bradbury, if you basically show up in the same place at the same time every day to write, your body gets into the rhythm and suddenly you find yourself there.
00:15:29
Christian Yordanov
okay
00:15:32
Mateo
So in me, if you think about it psychologically, for me, all these years, the coffee and the cannabis, that sort of puts me in that psychological space.
00:15:42
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:15:43
Mateo
and And I spent months going to coffee shops because once I take on a project, that's all I do.
00:15:51
Christian Yordanov
Oh, dude, I'm the same.
00:15:53
Mateo
Yeah.
00:15:53
Christian Yordanov
That's everything. Everything is the book. Everything, dude.
00:15:56
Mateo
Yep. That's it as it should be. Right.
00:15:59
Christian Yordanov
ah I'm glad I'm not the only one. Yeah.
00:16:01
Mateo
Oh no, no. It's, it's, it's pretty normal. And then when you get really stuck, sometimes the best thing to do is set it down and take a walk.
00:16:11
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:16:11
Mateo
to actually get out and physically move around and get into another place. You know, it's similar like, um I had a very good friend, he is a specialist in sleep disorders.
00:16:24
Mateo
And this is kind of common knowledge now, but if you're suffering some from insomnia, one of the best things to do is to get out of bed and then read or do something, but but get yourself out of that spot.
00:16:32
Christian Yordanov
Yeah,
00:16:38
Christian Yordanov
yeah. yeah
00:16:38
Mateo
And
Is Fasting's Popularity a Universal Psyop?
00:16:39
Mateo
read for, reads one of the best things and not online, like from a page book, your eyes get tired and then you can go to sleep, but it's it's changing it. So when you're stuck in a book, even though you might not think so, and you're beating yourself up because you're not getting a bunch of pages, one of the best things to do is just forget about it and take a walk.
00:17:00
Mateo
And that allows your subconscious to to do its thing without you kind of jumping in and getting all freaked out. And oh my God, I only got one page today. You know, that kind of a thing.
00:17:09
Christian Yordanov
yeah man for sure i luckily with the way i write because it's mostly it's pretty technical it's more like there's no real story narrative that has of a lot of uh linearity or progression so i can just dip in in scrivener oh you know what i can just finish this thing off it oh this is too hard gotta read like 10 studies so like okay do that tomorrow morning when you're fresh so are going, ah let me flesh out this little thing and let me talk about this little quote from a paper and it just kind of allows it to cobble. So I mean, that's kind of like the, the my wife, she does she tries to like not ah ask too many questions about how it's going.
00:17:47
Christian Yordanov
But when she asks, I'm like, how's it going? I'm like, ah, cobbling, cobbling. I'm just cobbling this shit together. it But it, hey, and I find like ah i was camping with my kid last week for like five days. I said, you know, I need a break. I'm burning out.
00:18:03
Christian Yordanov
Came back and it's like looking at a a fresh manuscript. You're like wow, there's so many like little things you see because you become you become numb to your creation.
00:18:14
Christian Yordanov
You you can't see like you can't even see like typos that you would see in in somebody else's writing like immediately.
00:18:14
Mateo
That's right.
00:18:21
Christian Yordanov
you know you You know, sure.
00:18:21
Mateo
Yep. that that That proves my point.
00:18:25
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah.
00:18:26
Mateo
So like like for me, when I finished the first draft, I print it out and then I don't even look at it for a month. I forget about it for a month.
00:18:39
Mateo
Then I pick up the printout and I go through it with a red pen and and I line edit and change it as I go. and And at that point after a month, I've got that fresh perspective that you just referred to.
00:18:54
Mateo
I'll go through that and then I'll incorporate that into the computer, which actually brings in like another edit, that process.
00:18:59
Christian Yordanov
m
00:19:02
Mateo
There's things I might've redlined when I'm going on the computer and and I'm looking at it with a different set of eyes and seeing it differently.
00:19:08
Christian Yordanov
Yes.
00:19:09
Mateo
I put those in. When I finished that second draft, I print it out. And I set it aside and I don't look at it for a month.
00:19:19
Christian Yordanov
How do you do that though, man? How do you, like to me, as I want to get it done as soon as possible. And it's always like my arbitrary deadlines always get pushed back. And as soon as it's kind of like, as soon as ahs it's not like embarrassingly bad, I'm like, okay, I think this can go to an editor now.
00:19:37
Christian Yordanov
And then as soon
Scientific Evidence for Fasting and Lifespan
00:19:38
Christian Yordanov
as I look, I read it, I'm like, this isn't terrible. I think I can put it out to the world. I just want to get it out there as quickly as possible. So how do you have the that patience, bro?
00:19:47
Mateo
That's more experienced than anything else. A good, I'm not a drinker. I don't, I haven't drank alcohol in years, but you know what they say?
00:19:58
Mateo
We shall sell we shall sell no fine wine before it's time or, you know, such and such scotch bourbon is aged to perfection for, you know, 87 years in an oak barrel whatever they do, right?
00:20:07
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:20:11
Mateo
You need to process on different levels. Because when you're doing it, it's fresh. you know As an example from my own work, I've written something and then I'm going through a second revision and I realize, oh man, I can foreshadow what's gonna happen in chapter 27 here.
00:20:29
Mateo
And I can put in these little details and it comes and it gets more and more formed, but it needs time to form. and If you hurry it, it's gonna be rushed.
00:20:37
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:20:39
Mateo
And you know you want you don't out in the world
00:20:39
Christian Yordanov
Yes.
00:20:44
Mateo
for a job interview with lint all over your suit. You wanna clean up the lint. You wanna comb your hair, brush your
00:20:49
Christian Yordanov
Yes.
Short-term Benefits vs. Long-term Health Issues
00:20:51
Mateo
teeth, take a shower, or whatever.
00:20:52
Mateo
You wanna as clean as you can. And if it takes a little more time to get prepared, it's it's well worth it.
00:20:54
Christian Yordanov
Yes.
00:20:59
Mateo
And you see things when you look at it.
00:21:00
Christian Yordanov
Sure.
00:21:01
Mateo
When I print it out and I'm looking at it on a page, it's like a different person is looking at it.
00:21:07
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:21:08
Mateo
Like you just said, in your own experience, suddenly you're seeing it fresh. So that freshness is really worth the extra effort. Ray Bradbury, who was one of my mentors, he's I can't do this.
00:21:17
Christian Yordanov
and
00:21:22
Mateo
But he would say, take a book and write the whole first draft and then set it in your bot print it out and set it in your bottom drawer so you know it's there if you need it.
00:21:35
Mateo
But then write the whole book all over again from scratch.
00:21:37
Christian Yordanov
Oh, dude.
00:21:39
Mateo
I can't do it.
00:21:39
Christian Yordanov
You gotta be kidding me.
00:21:42
Mateo
Now, but I think to myself, well, Ray, you could say that. You've made a gazillion dollars now as a writer, right? But to to give it that hour, and I'm sorry, that month off is a really great, great reset. It freshest things.
00:21:57
Mateo
And and my i don't i don't I always push, like I said, when I work on a project, that's all I do. But if i when I take a break between drafts,
00:22:09
Mateo
I know that I've reached a particular level of being finished. And then I can hit it again fresh and I'm gonna see a lot of things I never would have seen.
00:22:20
Mateo
You know, it's kind of like, you know, when you do a math problem and you keep making the same mistake over and over again, right?
00:22:25
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:22:29
Mateo
Well, you'll see it and you'll see, you can see a typo and your mind is filling in the blank.
00:22:34
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:22:35
Mateo
And you might read that typo over half a dozen times and still not see it because your mind is filling in that blank. So getting the distance from it um really makes a difference. And I see it as a process.
00:22:50
Mateo
And when I go forward um each time, it's better and better. and And these steps I'm telling you right now, they're probably for me used to be like a dozen or more steps.
00:23:02
Mateo
But now with all my experience, I can incorporate things. So I can do something in one edit that maybe used to take me four or five edits.
00:23:13
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:23:13
Mateo
it's It's more from my experience of the way things form up and you know get put down on the page and all that. But and you you really you need to give yourself some slack.
00:23:21
Christian Yordanov
yeah it's yeah yeah it's yeah it's reassuring to hear this because you know even between my last book from 24 and this one i noticed this one is double the size in terms of length and it um
00:23:24
Mateo
And then I play...
00:23:40
Christian Yordanov
it in terms of like the editing, in terms of like the actual, like the flow of the the sections, the chapters, the themes, I found that along the way i would have this something like, I have like a feeling deep inside that, no, this isn't right.
00:23:58
Christian Yordanov
And then I'm like, okay, I don't know. I don't know what happens here, but you know, a week or two later, I get back to that chapter. I'm like, oh, okay. So this entire thing, this needs to be in a different chapter, this needs to be earlier. And like the whole sort of self-editing aspect, i find you get better each time.
00:24:15
Christian Yordanov
and And then, but that makes your your editor's job even easier because they they can now look to polish a better sculpted thing as opposed to a pile of crap. Like that's how I felt like with the first book, like here's here's my piece of crap, make it you know a better looking third out of it. And it just gets better and better and easier and easier, even though you know the the pain The pain is the same, but it's I can only imagine like at your level.
00:24:44
Christian Yordanov
like he probably I think you told me last time we spoke, you don't actually have an editor because you teach editors editing and stuff and writing.
00:24:49
Mateo
No.
00:24:53
Christian Yordanov
So like after 40 years and 24 books, like can you find all that many people that are better? Yeah.
00:24:53
Mateo
Yeah.
00:25:00
Mateo
No. And that's just that's just experience. Like I tell people, even like i was last month I was at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. That was my 38th year.
00:25:12
Christian Yordanov
Wow.
00:25:13
Mateo
And now half the other workshop leaders are my former students So I'm a proud daddy, right? And I'm doing things I can't, sometimes I'll have somebody who doesn't know
00:25:23
Christian Yordanov
So cool.
Why Do People Feel Better When Fasting?
00:25:28
Mateo
anything about writing.
00:25:30
Mateo
I'll let them read through a draft, a polished draft, because then I can get sort of cold, objective. They don't know, they're not looking for commas or, you know, sentence structure and all that.
00:25:44
Mateo
They're reading it for the experience of the reading and that's valuable.
00:25:47
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah,
00:25:48
Mateo
The best thing I can do, which I've lagged on, but i now I'm getting better at it, is reading the last draft out loud. Because then you really hear and you whatever you thought was a smooth sentence, you catch yourself stumbling over it and you know, oh, and maybe I better take that comma out or maybe put that comma in or shift it around like that, but it's that distance.
00:26:09
Christian Yordanov
yeah yeah
00:26:12
Mateo
And so i have you know hundreds of students and And I just finished editing a memoir for a guy. He's a big kind of famous surfer guy.
00:26:25
Mateo
Dude, that was miserable. Two weeks of misery. Because, yeah, he's a good, it's a good story.
00:26:31
Christian Yordanov
to To edit it?
00:26:37
Mateo
But he's not a writer.
00:26:38
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:26:39
Mateo
So all these grammatical things that were really lame sounding and not working and all that. I spent two full weeks nonstop just doing that. Now that we consider to be a developmental edit.
00:26:54
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:26:55
Mateo
He's going to send it back to me and then I'll do a content edit. So that should take maybe half as long as the first one. And all the crap that I've already cleaned up will be mostly gone. So that'll be easier.
00:27:06
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:27:07
Mateo
You know, then I'll send it back to him. He'll go through it. I'll send it back to me again and I'll go through it one more time. And then we'll polish it And then the publisher that I'm working with and working for to do this editing where this whole client came from, they'll do a copy edit after that.
00:27:23
Mateo
Because I'm transposing sentences, I'm moving paragraphs, I'm doing a major structure.
00:27:24
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:27:29
Mateo
So I'm going to incorporate errors into it.
00:27:32
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:27:32
Mateo
Nothing like it is when I start. But when you mess with it like that, um you just lose that objectivity because you're really working toward content and structure and evolution and pacing and all that things.
00:27:38
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:27:41
Christian Yordanov
Yes, yes.
00:27:47
Mateo
So they can look at it strictly from a copy editor's eye and go, yeah, no, let's move that comma. Or, you know, there's a double space at the end of that sentence.
00:27:56
Christian Yordanov
Yes.
00:27:56
Mateo
Should only be a single space, you all that stuff.
00:27:57
Christian Yordanov
Little things.
00:27:58
Mateo
I don't want to worry about that.
00:28:01
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:28:01
Mateo
I do on my own work.
00:28:03
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:28:04
Mateo
But that's when I take the time to really slow down and look at it from a different perspective. And even with this last book, the new one, i had a friend who's not a writer who said he was he could do a good job copy editing and he offered to do it. so I said, go for it.
00:28:20
Mateo
So he did. had some good input. Not all of it was great, but it was still good.
00:28:24
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:28:24
Mateo
But, you know, yeah.
00:28:26
Christian Yordanov
That's great.
00:28:28
Mateo
So.
00:28:28
Christian Yordanov
That's amazing, brother. Yeah, like ah it's it's ah for me, it's always like such a such a wonderful experience to kind of soak in some some of the wisdom, not just not just about writing, but even ah the whole sort of psychedelic exploration journey that you've been on. and like Because I i've i actually realized I do have a few of your print books. I thought I'd, for whatever reason, because i have i have them all over the place, Audible, Kindle,
00:28:54
Christian Yordanov
But I do have a couple more. But so I've learned a lot from you. I listened. I used to listen to you a lot on on the, you know, the psychedelic salon, wherever else I could find you.
00:29:02
Mateo
Oh yeah.
00:29:02
Christian Yordanov
So, been yeah, man, you had some amazing episodes there with ah Lorenzo.
00:29:07
Mateo
Lorenzo. Yeah.
00:29:08
Christian Yordanov
um So I'm just curious because i did I did start reading the book today. Thank you so much for the for the copy of it.
00:29:15
Mateo
Oh, thank you.
00:29:16
Christian Yordanov
I'm just curious because I recently kind of started doing a little bit of Bufo, 5-M-E-O-D-M-T.
00:29:24
Mateo
Oh, I've got, yeah, I got 20 years of experience with that.
00:29:25
Christian Yordanov
the yeah you Really? ah to tell i'm I'm sorry. I know the the book is about ayahuasca.
00:29:33
Mateo
Yeah, no, it's okay.
00:29:33
Christian Yordanov
Tell me more about that because I'm...
00:29:36
Mateo
So i let me think for one second.
00:29:36
Christian Yordanov
um
00:29:39
Mateo
family i got I got just shy of actually 30 years of experience with it.
00:29:45
Christian Yordanov
Are you serious?
00:29:46
Mateo
Yeah.
00:29:46
Christian Yordanov
Wow.
00:29:47
Mateo
um I first learned about it at the Entheobotany Seminars back in January of 98.
00:29:57
Mateo
Back then, hardly anybody really knew what it was. And we used to pitch in and we used to get it from laboratories in China.
00:30:06
Christian Yordanov
Wow.
00:30:07
Mateo
Yeah, so it was pure 5-MeO. When you smoke the toad, there's 5-MeO DMT, but there's also bufotinine and some other elements, excuse me.
00:30:17
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:30:20
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:30:20
Mateo
And then there's the the synthesized 5-MeO. There are qualitative differences in the experiences. but nothing really major and drastic. I can tell, i can sense the differences of it, ah the experience, the taste. They're subtle, but they are.
00:30:41
Mateo
So um I learned about it then, and I started working with it. And at first I was terrified. Both.
00:30:51
Christian Yordanov
When you did it or or before you were doing it?
00:30:54
Mateo
um both
00:30:56
Christian Yordanov
Both in here.
00:30:59
Mateo
hanna I had had an intense, dark mushroom experience about three months prior to that.
00:30:59
Christian Yordanov
Same here.
00:31:06
Mateo
um Those are in my memoirs. i won't I won't get into those right now unless you want to talk about them later. But I was already there. And then I didn't know what to expect.
00:31:19
Mateo
Now, back then, back then, sonny boy, when we were older people, yeah, I'd had a bomb. And I'd put a little bit of cannabis in it, little hit, one hit.
00:31:33
Mateo
And then I'd have it figured out. I think it might have been about 10 milligrams of the 5-MeO. And I'd sprinkle it on top of the cannabis. One good hit, bang, out of the park, right?
00:31:49
Mateo
So it really got into it. And I've taken hundreds of people on it.
00:31:54
Christian Yordanov
wow
00:31:55
Mateo
Yeah, and and I always sat very closely with them. And I would observe absolutely everything, how they were breathing, this and that. And I made sure I held the space and that when they came out of it, I was right there, landing crew, right?
00:32:12
Mateo
Wait for them and and ease them back gently.
00:32:12
Christian Yordanov
ahead
00:32:17
Mateo
Now, some other people I was working with similarly got irresponsible with it. And it really got out of control. And at one point, I won't get into all the nitty gritty of it, but this idiot who called himself a shaman was doing it with people in a jacuzzi, like he was birthing them.
00:32:45
Mateo
He did some messed up things. He messed around on his girlfriend. And to make a long story short, she decided to do it in a jacuzzi. And she filmed it.
00:32:57
Mateo
And she purposely drowned herself.
00:33:00
Christian Yordanov
Christ.
00:33:01
Mateo
Right? It was horrible. Horrible.
00:33:03
Christian Yordanov
Oh my goodness gracious.
00:33:06
Mateo
Interestingly enough, and this is just a nitty gritty. This is in my second memoir, Pico Flora. But interestingly enough, about a few months before that,
Weight Loss: Fasting or Caloric Deficit?
00:33:15
Mateo
I told my ex, we were talking. I said, he's out of control. We got to get out of here. We're not doing this anymore. And we actually got away from him.
00:33:23
Mateo
And then when his partner ah committed suicide with it, I got pulled back and we did a full on intervention with him.
00:33:36
Mateo
Are you familiar with Ralph Metzner?
00:33:40
Christian Yordanov
Yes.
00:33:41
Mateo
Yeah, Ralph helped me and helped us in terms of doing the intervention. And there were some other people, I'm not gonna mention any other names but they were there as part of it and we did that. And and I told him, gotta stop, it's out of control.
00:33:55
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:33:56
Mateo
And he kept doing it.
00:33:58
Christian Yordanov
Peace.
00:33:59
Mateo
And then he showed up when one night at my door about 10 o'clock at night wanting to do it. And I said, no, get out of here, right? And he was kind of pushing me with his buddy.
00:34:10
Mateo
And I gotta tell you, I was shaking because I was ready to go.
00:34:14
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:34:15
Mateo
I was ready to i was ready to fight, right? right And I finally got rid of him. I said, you're not listening to me. You're just creating problems. You're not being responsible.
00:34:28
Mateo
cant i don't want anything to do with you. So for a while after that, at that point, it was, let me see.
00:34:38
Mateo
I might have been working with it for about a dozen years, maybe at that point. And I thought, all right, you know what? I'm not really getting that much more out of it. So I had a little ceremony and I buried my ah buried my pipe under one of my plants, under a dottura actually.
00:34:55
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:34:56
Mateo
And then I stopped. And then every once in a while, so I was part of a big visionary art exhibit about 10 years ago. And these guys had the real genuine bufo and they offered it.
00:35:13
Mateo
And I thought everybody was doing it. I said, why not? It's been a bunch of years. you know They had a great space. So I did it. Had a great journey. And then a few years back, a friend of mine showed up with some.
00:35:27
Mateo
Had a bit. and And now he had it and it was in a vape pen.
00:35:33
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:35:34
Mateo
In a fluid.
00:35:35
Christian Yordanov
I've seen those.
00:35:36
Mateo
You know, like the cannabis oil stuff, right?
00:35:36
Christian Yordanov
Yes. yes Yeah, yeah.
00:35:39
Mateo
So that that, you could take a hit and you can go as far as you want. You could take another hit and go further. You could calibrate how much you're taking as opposed to just blowing your brains out.
00:35:50
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:35:50
Mateo
Right? So I worked with that for bit and it was nice. ah I love it. But, you know, Alan Watts is famous for saying,
00:36:01
Christian Yordanov
When you get the message, hang up the phone.
00:36:03
Mateo
you got it, brother, exactly that.
00:36:04
Christian Yordanov
and
00:36:05
Mateo
So I had that.
00:36:06
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:36:07
Mateo
So i'm just not inclined to do as many things as much as I used to because I've done so much with the ayahuasca.
00:36:15
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:36:16
Mateo
But ah in the fairly recent past, another friend of mine showed up with some really pure 5-MeO that he actually got through through the Shulgin people, whoever's running things there, and he wanted to test it.
00:36:28
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:36:33
Mateo
And so he had it, me and another buddy were his guinea pigs.
00:36:39
Mateo
Dude, it was pure, it was powerful, it blew me out in the best way. And I loved it. So never say never, but I don't have the urge like I used to for all those years.
00:36:52
Mateo
All those different people, if if you do it in the right way at the right time, it can be a very profound experience.
00:36:52
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:36:59
Mateo
But I get upset. There are people going around purporting to be shamans and they're like a big deal.
00:37:04
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:37:05
Mateo
i amm the I'm the toad shaman, blah, blah, blah, right?
00:37:08
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah.
00:37:09
Mateo
And I've seen him some a bit of irresponsibility.
00:37:13
Christian Yordanov
Mm.
00:37:14
Mateo
I've seen a couple of videos that really have kind of upset me. And I've heard of a couple of people dying here and there because people aren't being responsible.
00:37:20
Christian Yordanov
Yes. yeah yeah yeah i've heard i've heard some yeah yeah and but what what what is i'm always curious what what was the experience what is the experience of 5meo for you just curious
00:37:23
Mateo
So that's kind of one of my one of my my pet peeves, you know?
00:37:38
Mateo
Well, initially, it was like, it wasn't like I disappeared. It was like all of reality in the world disappeared. And I disappeared into the void.
00:37:51
Mateo
And who knows, 10, 15 minutes? You never know unless somebody else is there to tell you. and And I did it for a lot, a lot of years by myself.
00:38:05
Mateo
And then when I was taking people in those earlier days, I would do it. with them or before or after. So they could know, look at how you want to do this with me.
00:38:18
Mateo
I'm doing it myself.
Mainstream Views on Autophagy: Misconstrued?
00:38:20
Mateo
So I'm not doing anything with you that I haven't done or were tested and all that.
00:38:23
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:38:25
Mateo
And um to me, it kind of comes down to love in a way, going back to source.
00:38:31
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:38:32
Mateo
But I have a theory. The 5-MeO from the toad, the bufo is reptilian.
00:38:44
Mateo
Our mind, we have, it's called the tripartite mind. There's the, you know, the human, the neo-mammalian, the mammalian, the the core of it is reptilian.
00:38:54
Christian Yordanov
there Yeah. yeah.
00:38:58
Mateo
It's pure survival instinct, you know, kind of an essence, um
00:39:05
Mateo
nurturing, reproduction, nutrition, safety. It's, you know, yeah, hardcore reptilian is cold.
00:39:10
Christian Yordanov
surviv yeah
00:39:14
Mateo
It's strictly survival. So I think because you're ingesting a reptilian excretion, when you smoke it, I think it goes right down to that core of your reptilian brain.
00:39:30
Mateo
And, you know, intuition and emotion, the core underneath them So, you know, mammals are more nurturing.
00:39:40
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:39:41
Mateo
So when you get to the core of the nurturing and all that, that goes to the reptilian. So I think it goes right to the core of that reptilian brain. And that's why it can be such an intense and profound experience because everything that comes out of that, it's like going down through through all this emotion, feeling, instinct stuff to the core.
00:40:03
Mateo
And I think it's similar in some respects to, you know, they the the the old saw that, Your life passes before your eyes when you die. i think it's similar to that.
00:40:14
Mateo
Now when I've done it, like I said just recently, and it had been ah it been a while, a year or two before, since since I had done it.
00:40:23
Christian Yordanov
Yeah
00:40:24
Mateo
At this time, I just feel the feeling and I embrace it and surrender and say, take me away, right? Because you get in trouble when you try to fight it.
00:40:36
Christian Yordanov
Oh I know I know bro Yes
00:40:37
Mateo
That's where the terror comes from. So you surrender to spirit and the guy I did it with, he did a little ceremony thing, all that. He sat right there with me.
00:40:49
Mateo
um And like I said, I did it so many times alone that I'm um'm confident that I don't need that. But he was there and a couple of other really solid bros were there.
00:40:57
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:41:01
Mateo
um And it was a wonderfully clearing experience. Now, It's like a reset. When I go to the jungle and I do the dieta, the ayahuasca dieta, it's a full-on reset.
00:41:16
Mateo
I come back and I am Mr. Zen. Hell could be breaking loose all around me and I am Mr. Zen. So this is a similar thing, but sort of in a shorter term.
00:41:27
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:41:29
Mateo
You know, kind of set your mind right.
00:41:29
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, definitely. It's definitely like ah an ego reset. You're like, wait,
00:41:34
Mateo
Yep.
00:41:34
Christian Yordanov
Don't worry about all the things you're worrying about. It's just God having a bit of fun playing a game and you just come back. You're okay, well, at my core, I'm safe.
00:41:46
Christian Yordanov
At the real core, I'm safe.
00:41:48
Mateo
Yeah.
00:41:48
Christian Yordanov
This other stuff is a little bit of theater god God is creating, but it's all God, you know, and it can last a good two, three, four weeks at least for me.
00:41:56
Mateo
yeah
00:42:01
Christian Yordanov
So pretty profound.
00:42:02
Mateo
Yeah. Yeah. ah you're you're You're newer at it than I am. I'm an old burnout. ah Not really, but you know what I'm saying.
00:42:13
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:42:13
Mateo
um And I just don't, I get stuff, people give me stuff all the time, substances.
00:42:19
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:42:20
Mateo
Yeah, but it's like, I'm not just not inclined. I'm getting to a point now. I always tell everybody I'm in a constant state of integration 24 seven.
00:42:28
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:42:29
Mateo
Soon as I wake up in the morning, I'm integrating. You know, if I do different things, but a lot of times I'm going for days on a real good energetic and I don't want to take anything to alter my consciousness.
00:42:42
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:42:43
Mateo
I want to cultivate what I've built over all these years. And one of the great things about going to the jungle is it's, I can compare myself to where I was last time I was there.
00:42:55
Mateo
And I can see where where I've grown and what, you know, what have I learned since then? How much have I changed? Because that's one of the things that really makes you do when you're down there for 10 days, mostly alone.
00:43:01
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:43:05
Mateo
Um,
00:43:07
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. I'm curious. So, because you've been going down to these guys for like 20, 25 years, right? In in the jungle.
00:43:12
Mateo
Yeah, 25 years, John.
00:43:14
Christian Yordanov
So, I'm curious. Never mind kind of the the popularity of Ayahuasca and lots lots of sort of tourists going there and doing a But, like, how is... How have they changed, you know, the people or the other folks you kind of know? How is sort of their practice? do you do Do you think like, is it the same as it was?
00:43:36
Christian Yordanov
Is it sort of stuck in time because they figured all the stuff out or are they progressing? Are they kind of changing things around, learning new things? What's your kind of take on that?
00:43:45
Mateo
Well, it's it is shifting. um Other things, Westerners and technology and more and more people going down there, which is a mixed bag. I've got mixed feelings about that. But like when i aside from doing these dietas, I spent maybe a month and a half total with the Shipibos.
00:44:08
Mateo
I spent time in their village. I stayed with them for like three weeks, once or twice. All of that. When I first went, if they were they had one phone in the whole village.
00:44:21
Mateo
And they had a PA speaker. And if somebody got a phone call, yeah and then they'd have to go take them five minutes to go to the main place in the village and answer the phone.
00:44:36
Mateo
Now you get on and everybody and their mother has a cell phone, right?
00:44:36
Christian Yordanov
Cool. Hmm.
00:44:41
Mateo
And I notice different places, for lack of better words, they're not quite as pristine as they used to be. um There's just more and more people going down.
00:44:54
Mateo
Now, shamanism, you make it up as you go. So I stick, when I did ceremonies, I sing the Icaros. I really stick to the roots But I have some innovations.
00:45:08
Mateo
um The great, great musician that I work with, he p plays didgeridoo. Didgeridoo in Ayahuasca Ceremony is magical and epic and life-changing, I swear to God.
00:45:22
Mateo
But they didn't have didgeridoos in the jungle. They didn't have, they had you know Icaros and maybe charongo, which is like a little mandolin some percussion, maybe some guitar.
00:45:37
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:45:38
Mateo
But as time moves forward and things evolve, and you shift the way you do it. So you you want to be original, but you want to stick to the roots, but you want to keep it fresh.
00:45:54
Mateo
One of the things that bothers me, among other things, I I got a bunch of make could be cranky all day if I want. But, you know, hey, come to our retreat. We're going to do five MEO on Monday, and Tuesday's going to be mushrooms, and Wednesday's going to be ayahuasca.
00:46:10
Mateo
That's a bunch of crap. You know, ayahuasca is very powerful. And I'm working in a literally a prehistoric tradition with these plants that have gone on since prehistoric times.
00:46:26
Mateo
And I want to stick to that. I have to make some exceptions here and there. You know, like if I'm leading ceremonies and we start running out of gas.
00:46:37
Mateo
So there's one one group of ceremonies I lead. There are four of us. There's another group of ceremonies I lead where there's only two of us. So we go on the ceremonies and toward the end of the night when we're starting to get a little wired down, I'll put on some recorded music.
00:46:55
Mateo
It'll be like Icarus or, you know, and it's spiritual stuff, but I'm using recorder.
00:46:59
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:47:00
Mateo
They never used to have recording like that. So one of the big reasons I wrote this book when I did now is because there are so many people out there who don't have good information. And I want everybody to have good information.
00:47:18
Mateo
You know, I ah do a lecture and shamanism and some cute little 21 year old girl will run up. Oh yeah, my boyfriend's a shaman. Here's his business card. And I'm like, ah, right.
00:47:30
Mateo
Cause yeah.
00:47:30
Christian Yordanov
I know, dude. I know. oh
00:47:32
Mateo
and And it's, you know, ayahuasca can be, it is a profound experience. So people do it two or three times have profound experiences and suddenly they're a shaman, right?
00:47:45
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:47:46
Mateo
And that's where things get to be dangerous because they don't know what to do. One of the things I tell people but before I have anybody in a ceremony, I thoroughly, thoroughly screen them.
00:47:59
Mateo
I have a whole confidential questionnaire that I put in the book.
00:48:04
Christian Yordanov
I saw that.
00:48:05
Mateo
And then, yeah, and I talked to them on the phone because there are contraindications. It's not for everybody.
00:48:11
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:48:11
Mateo
fact, I'm proud that the opening line of the book is, ayahuasca is most definitively not for everybody. So I screen everybody. And then some of them have some fear, which a little fear is healthy.
00:48:26
Mateo
But I always tell them, you know what? I will go absolutely anywhere in the dark with you. And I will. And they find comfort in that.
00:48:37
Mateo
How can I say that? Well, I've been at it for 26 years with ayahuasca, right? Not to mention all the other things I've done.
00:48:46
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:48:47
Mateo
And pretty much almost, maybe there's some I don't know about, but um pretty much every experience I've seen from somebody I've been through, and I understand what they're going through. So I'm right there with them.
00:49:00
Mateo
um to guide them and keep them protected. And if they get in the ceremonies I do, if they start getting too loud and thrashing around or making too much noise, I have sitars sitters who don't take anything.
00:49:15
Mateo
So I have the sitters take them out of the room and go to another place and stay with them so they go through their process. And I always tell them, if you could take them out of the room, this isn't a punishment. It's not a walk of shame. None of that.
00:49:27
Mateo
You just need to process and you are disruptive to everybody else in the circle. So we take you out for
00:49:32
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
Health Trends and Algorithmic Influences
00:49:33
Mateo
the benefit of the circle, but you're not alone.
00:49:35
Christian Yordanov
Yeah,
00:49:36
Mateo
And I'll go work with them if they need some more individual work. a ah One of my people will, you we'll make sure they're okay. And when they kind of come down a bit, we'll bring them back.
00:49:48
Mateo
But, you know, it's about having integrity and taking care of people and ensuring. So, you know, my mentors, my mentor who took me down here originally from the jungle, he died a few years ago. He was 94.
00:50:01
Christian Yordanov
wow
00:50:02
Mateo
a Good long life, but I am carrying the torch. It's it's it's my turn to be the elder.
00:50:10
Christian Yordanov
yeah just remind me remind me how old are you again 70.
00:50:11
Mateo
It's the same thing in the writing community. 70. Yeah. Yeah.
00:50:18
Christian Yordanov
yeah after after 65 you're allowed to take on that sort of role title whatever that may be think so think so
00:50:26
Mateo
Yeah, I'm with that. with you know I could never fill his shoes, but I'm filling that role at the Writers' Conference from Ray Bradbury.
00:50:34
Christian Yordanov
Mmm.
00:50:35
Mateo
they call them they they ah they Among other things, they made me the ombudsman.
00:50:42
Christian Yordanov
Mmm.
00:50:43
Mateo
so when i And it used to be the vice president of Phantom Double Day Delo, who was the ombudsman before me. But I get up in front of the whole conference, I'm speaking, and I'm going, yeah, they made me the ombudsman.
00:50:55
Mateo
but I pronounce it on buds, man, because I really love the buds, man.
00:51:00
Christian Yordanov
i was Dude, I was thinking something similar in my head. I was like, no, dude, that's too immature. Don't drop that joke.
00:51:06
Mateo
Yeah. nope
00:51:07
Christian Yordanov
Budsman.
00:51:08
Mateo
Yeah, no, they love it. They love it. Cause they all know. Cause I, to me, knowledge, one of the reasons I helped Lorenzo start the psychedelic salon is that people have good knowledge.
00:51:18
Christian Yordanov
you start You helped him start it
00:51:20
Mateo
Oh yeah.
00:51:21
Christian Yordanov
Oh, wow.
00:51:22
Mateo
Yeah. So, um, we we used to go to the NCO botany seminars I was telling you about.
00:51:29
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah.
00:51:30
Mateo
So I met him um and an ayahuasca ceremony for the first time. And then um when I used to go to the NCO botany seminars, how I would bring boxes of cassette tapes and I would record everything.
00:51:49
Mateo
So I had Sasha Shulgin, Christian Reich, Jonathan A. Paul Stamets, Ann Shulgin, Terence McKenna, had them all on tape.
00:52:02
Mateo
So Lorenzo came to me and says, hey, I'm going to start the psychedelic salon, blah, blah, blah. And I handed them the boxes of tapes. I said, here you go. Do it. Here's your jumpstart.
00:52:11
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, so some of those like kind of lo-fi recordings, that that's some of your tapes, right? Because I remember some of those were like, was listening, i'm like, holy cow, this is like back from like the 90s.
00:52:17
Mateo
Absolutely.
00:52:23
Christian Yordanov
I remember when I used to record like ah radio on cassette tapes, like my favorite song at night, I'd let it run. to record for like the next hour and a half whatever it could could record because i knew that guy would play more edgier like rock and and metal and stuff like that you know but yeah that's cool man that's very cool
00:52:40
Mateo
Yeah.
00:52:42
Mateo
Yeah, I had, so a famous thriller writer friend of mine, Gail Linz, she writes big thrillers, and I had recorded her at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference on cassette years ago.
00:52:59
Mateo
And I sent her a copy of the recording from her lecture. And she was really appreciative of it. But she said, but you know, it kind of goes up and down. And I had to explain to her that was from a cassette tape.
00:53:12
Mateo
And even things like if the battery's running low, you know, hey, i would do gene right?
00:53:16
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:53:18
Mateo
um And so that you're correct. The quality is not...
00:53:22
Christian Yordanov
yeah yeah yeah
00:53:22
Mateo
crystal clear the way it is, you know, digitally. So I had to explain to her all of that technology. And then she got, oh okay, I get it. Thank you. Right. And so a lot of the older ones are like that. And some of my older podcasts and interviews that I've done are like that. Things are improved now with technology.
00:53:41
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:53:42
Mateo
But yeah, I had a whole bunch of them.
00:53:43
Christian Yordanov
But we're lucky to even have this stuff, you know, because like Terrence had some good talks and Stamets and so i've I've listened to some really, Sasha Shogun was such an animated sort of interesting person to listen to. So we're lucky to have this stuff from...
00:54:01
Christian Yordanov
from back in the day because a lot of like is like look look at look at you know the ship peoples and all these other folks i mean everything is going down you know by word of mouth and like how much like imagine a human even if you were to like write daily 16 hours a day for the rest of your life man you couldn't put down on paper all the stuff you've learned as one human So a lot of stuff gets sort of lost through the cracks over time.
00:54:27
Mateo
That's right.
00:54:32
Christian Yordanov
So the fact that we have a little bit of extra doesn't matter the quality. It's the information at the end of the day.
00:54:38
Mateo
Yeah, yeah, I got Ralph Metzner on there. And I used to have a blast with Sasha. We used to sit there and trade bad puns all day. And he would get up there, i can see it clearly on my mind, he'd have a lecture.
00:54:52
Mateo
And he'd get the whiteboard out, right, with the markers. And he'd say, now I'm going to share with you some dirty pictures. And then he'd write like a DMT molecule, you know, and this and that. And he'd explain. And he had a whole group of protégés who came and followed him.
00:55:12
Mateo
So when you go to the end, you know, when I went to the back in the day, and we were really, really, really, really cutting edge. And we didn't even know it at the time. We were doing it. you know, this was like the late 90s, early 2000s, right there at the around the turn of the century, so to speak, right?
00:55:26
Christian Yordanov
right.
00:55:26
Mateo
And um we would, you'd have the three three lectures a day. And then all the chemists, his protégés would bring all their new creations.
00:55:40
Mateo
So you'd get to try all these different things. um they were just, hey, i just I just created this, you know, here. Okay, right? So there was sometimes I was trying to record somebody and I was really altered.
00:55:57
Mateo
And just trying to like find the record button, you know, and where's the microphone, you know, was like a real challenge.
00:56:03
Christian Yordanov
Dude. Uh.
00:56:04
Mateo
um
00:56:05
Christian Yordanov
Hum.
00:56:05
Mateo
But, you know, but but yeah you go you go with the flow. And then we'd go to the Maya ruins, you know, um One of my best experiences ever, I felt like I was three years old, going to the Maya ruins in Palenque and doing a big dose of the local mushrooms.
00:56:23
Mateo
My God, that was epic. you know Because for me, I was, it's I mean, a lot of their technology and art and mathematics were clearly mushroom influenced.
00:56:35
Mateo
So I got to do it like they did it and sort of in my own weird way to see the world through their eyes. And I felt like I got far more out of that than I would have if I was just there being baseline consciousness, you know what i mean?
00:56:49
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:51
Mateo
And i I did that at Chichen Itza, I did that at Tulum.
00:56:57
Mateo
To me, it's just ah it's just a way to go.
00:56:59
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. I'm curious regarding so so the the kind of folks you take down to South America now. what What sort of purpose would you say for the most or various types of purpose do people go for? Is it for kind of for healing? Is it just for exploration of consciousness? What do you think is the reason more and more people or go with you?
00:57:23
Mateo
Well, the the answer overall is yes. But, you know, like in my case, it really has radically changed my life. I mean, I grew up in a violent background, you know, street fighting, people getting shot, killed, stabbed, violence all over the place.
00:57:44
Mateo
And I had no feminine side. i didn't cry for 30 years. I was just a tough guy, right? That's how I grew up.
00:57:54
Christian Yordanov
m
00:57:55
Mateo
I grew up in a tough neighborhood and now I was a little kid. So I got picked on a lot. I had to fight a lot. So ayahuasca reconnected me with my feminine, which was missing.
00:58:10
Mateo
And it was part of my shadow. it was my shadow, actually. My feminine was in my shadow. And then I went through a few periods of like the stupidest things would make me bawl my eyes out. And then that went on in for a a couple of years or whatever. And then I kind of balanced out. And the interesting thing happened.
00:58:28
Mateo
My intuition went like that. And I became more balanced, more compassionate. um It really helped me and in the end.
00:58:42
Mateo
Ultimately, it's evolved this way. It wasn't so much back in the prehistoric times as much. But it's shadow work.
00:58:49
Christian Yordanov
Hmm.
00:58:50
Mateo
It forces you to see your shadow. And when you do the ceremonies and then you're by yourself in your tombo, there's nobody to project your stuff onto. There's nobody to blame for anything. You're on your own. You got to sit in your shit, right? um And you learn more and more about yourself.
00:59:09
Mateo
And then, you know, one of the definitions of shamanism is the wounded healer. So if you discover... For me, like I discovered I had some really deep-seated hidden resentments.
00:59:22
Mateo
And I finally discovered them and and worked through them. Well, in the so what would happen in the past is somebody could do something and that what was inside of me would project it onto them.
00:59:39
Mateo
So it didn't get caught inside of me.
00:59:42
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:59:42
Mateo
So I would see that and go, oh, you know, that asshole. And I would like resent them and I would judge them. And then over time doing the work.
00:59:54
Mateo
And I saw that in me. Then I would see it in other people. And instead of, ah you know, resenting and judging them, I have compassion. I'm like, oh, my God, I'm looking at myself 10 years ago or two years ago.
01:00:09
Mateo
And so if now where I had judgment, now I have compassion. It's one of the reasons why they call shamans the wounded healer. So I recognize those things in people.
01:00:20
Mateo
And then if they come out during the course of a ceremony or a discussion, I can help guide them if they're ready to figure out exactly what's going on. And you know you know, you hear all this crap about kill your ego.
01:00:34
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:00:35
Mateo
That's crap. you it's You give it a new job.
01:00:40
Christian Yordanov
I like that.
01:00:40
Mateo
Or I always like to say egos. I'm a cast of thousands. You know, the monkey mind gets going.
01:00:45
Christian Yordanov
yeah
01:00:46
Mateo
Give it a new job because it's trying to protect you in its own way. It just needs more guidance.
01:00:51
Christian Yordanov
that's so well put man it's such a such a great way to because i have this one book by um ryan holiday he's a good writer and you know his stuff is
Is Fasting Suitable for the Elderly?
01:01:00
Christian Yordanov
he he's he learned a lot working with robert green you know and and um but he has this book called ego is the enemy and i but i buy I bought all his stuff just because you know like i like I like his work.
01:01:14
Christian Yordanov
But I'm like, when I think about...
01:01:15
Mateo
Sure.
01:01:16
Christian Yordanov
And the the and the sort of the themes he talks about in the book do make sense. But I think the title... Because a lot of his titles alliterate.
01:01:28
Christian Yordanov
So, you know... so I'm blanking on some of the other ones. but So Ego is the Enemy. it It sounds well because it alliterates. But when you think about it's... it's the ego is not the enemy. If you see your ego as ah as the enemy, it's yet another way the ego sort of asserts control over your life.
01:01:49
Mateo
That's right.
01:01:49
Christian Yordanov
It just creates further um sort of conflict within you that makes life even harder for yourself.
01:01:56
Mateo
Yep.
01:01:58
Christian Yordanov
And then the ego can create an identity out of that And then you're stuck in this sort of loop of vicious cycle of suffering.
01:02:04
Mateo
That's right.
01:02:06
Christian Yordanov
Whereas I think the the the plant medicines, the the Bufo, and there's other strategies, you know, like you you actually talk about internal family systems. That's an ah an amazing, amazing thing.
01:02:15
Mateo
Yeah.
01:02:17
Christian Yordanov
But the idea is to just kind of help that coax the ego and just kind of help it relax and loosen the reins and then just things.
01:02:27
Mateo
That's right.
01:02:29
Christian Yordanov
It's like when you're on a horse. I've never been on a horse or anything, but it's like the the more... The more you sort tighten, like, oh okay, I've been on a camel this year in Egypt. um So yeah, on the camel, if you just tighten up, like you're just going to bounce around like crazy. But you just kind of relax, go with the flow and become one with the camel, that's beautiful, smelly ass creature. you Your whole journey is a lot more pleasant for you and the camel probably.
01:02:55
Mateo
Absolutely. Are you familiar with Gurdjieff?
01:02:59
Christian Yordanov
um I have ah one of Ospensky's books but I um haven't gone deep into it it's a little bit too advanced for me it feels
01:03:03
Mateo
Yeah.
01:03:08
Mateo
Yeah, the Ospensky book is probably about something miracles. Yeah.
01:03:14
Christian Yordanov
the fourth way or the third way was it the fourth yeah
01:03:15
Mateo
Oh, no, it's the fourth way. i I've read all his stuff, and and that's how I discovered Gurdjieff. Well, in a nutshell, Gurdjieff says we come into the world as essence, and then we develop a personality in order to function within the world.
01:03:35
Mateo
So how do you develop personality? Well, you copy your parents, you have genetic, you have habitual things that have passed on for generations. You have brothers and sisters, the kid next door. That's how you learn.
01:03:48
Mateo
So we create these egos and strategies, and it's even more intense if there's trauma connected to it.
01:03:54
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:03:55
Mateo
But we create these sub-personalities. and And in traumatic situations, when it's very traumatic, we we bury them and we forget about them and we forget they're there. They're so deeply buried.
01:04:09
Mateo
And that's one of the things that a mind will do. And in severe cases of trauma, it'll black out, blank out as protection.
01:04:17
Christian Yordanov
okay
01:04:17
Mateo
So that personality, sub-personality, that that habit that you do is for protection and you created it. Now, when those initial traumas happen, they're unprecedented.
01:04:30
Mateo
They go back to birth. maybe even beyond, right? But they're unprecedented.
01:04:34
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
01:04:35
Mateo
You don't know how to act. Your mind takes over or breaks or blocks it out, whatever it does. When you do ayahuasca and other substances or other things, doesn't even have to be a substance. It could be in a dream, whatever.
01:04:51
Mateo
But when those things arise again, you now have the benefit of of being objective. It's not unprecedented. Now you're re-experiencing it, but you're experiencing it with an observer perspective, what I like to call witness consciousness. It's actually the definition of mindfulness.
01:05:09
Mateo
And now you're seeing it from that way where initially you didn't, you had nobody and nothing. So I like to say mommy's home or daddy's home when even in normal, whatever that is, normal life, when the monkey mind starts going, i go, you, shut up and go to your room. I don't want to hear it.
01:05:32
Mateo
I love you, but I don't want to hear it.
01:05:35
Christian Yordanov
But you're a brat.
01:05:36
Mateo
Yeah, you're a brat. You're being a drama queen. Go to your room. I'm not listening. But daddy's home. Daddy's taken over.
01:05:47
Mateo
And the more you continue to do that process, the more unified over time you become. And the sub-personalities are working together. Even when they're unconscious doing their thing, they're often working together.
01:06:04
Mateo
Like I've discovered in myself, the core of the gang. The baby, the infant is the gang leader. He's in charge. But he's also got the wise guy and the muscle.
01:06:17
Mateo
And they work together. They tag team because everybody's protecting the baby.
01:06:22
Christian Yordanov
yeah yeah
01:06:23
Mateo
And and
Evaluating Fasting's Long-term Viability
01:06:24
Mateo
and ultimately, a baby, by its very nature, has to begin as a narcissist because they can't they can't even wipe their butt.
01:06:35
Mateo
They can't even eat. They can't do anything. They're helpless. they dependent. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then, of course, if you're doing a good job parenting and they grow, then you have to wean them and you have to sometimes be the bad guy and correct them to let them know.
01:06:38
Christian Yordanov
they're the center of the universe yeah
01:06:49
Mateo
And kids will act up. You know this. Kids will act up because they're looking for the boundaries.
01:06:51
Christian Yordanov
yeah
01:06:54
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:06:55
Mateo
That's why they're acting up. But you got to be loving. You also have to hold the line and be disciplined. And if you do it right, they'll evolve into a wonderful human being. If you don't,
01:07:07
Mateo
And the they whatever whoever the the kid is realizes that if they scream and throw a tantrum and all that, going to kind of get their way. And if they never outgrow that, they'll go on through their life being a full-on narcissist and they'll never figure it out.
01:07:25
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:07:25
Mateo
But the point is discovering all these hidden aspects of yourself, which are often related in the deepest ones are the traumas that you don't remember that come up in ayahuasca. And um you get to face them and look at it and not run and realize you got to take responsibility for yourself.
01:07:47
Mateo
You have to be daddy or a mommy's home, I always like to say. Right. So it's that process.
01:07:53
Christian Yordanov
yeah
01:07:54
Mateo
And and it Westerners have brought that more and more to the forefront in terms of doing the ayahuasca work and psychedelics in general.
01:08:02
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:08:02
Mateo
I mean, you know, there's been some great breakthroughs with MDMA and microdosing and mushrooms and trauma.
01:08:06
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
01:08:12
Christian Yordanov
yeah
01:08:12
Mateo
It's now getting to be, back when I was doing it, you were like, you ah you were worm sweat. I mean, you weren't, you know, you were a criminal lawbreaker, crazy person.
01:08:25
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:08:26
Mateo
And, uh,
01:08:26
Christian Yordanov
I think so that, that what you just talked about is probably one of the biggest ones along with the the fear of death. So depending of course on the, on the medicine, that's the other thing that's kind of constantly on the ego's sort of doorstep.
01:08:42
Mateo
Yep.
01:08:42
Christian Yordanov
It's constantly fearing death. And I, so for me, particularly with the, the Bufo, I had a lot of just energetic release. You don't even like with, I think with ayahuasca, with LSD, with maybe MDMA, kind of the longer lasting antiragents, you have time to sort of, oh, this is probably around my birth when I was a kid.
01:09:03
Christian Yordanov
With with the ah the Bufo, it's so fast that you just process it out. It could have been when you were 2, 12, doesn't matter.
01:09:13
Mateo
Mm-hmm.
01:09:13
Christian Yordanov
And you just feel, at least in my case, the the the previous three experiences, you just feel like you're releasing all this stuck energy. You feel really light and kind of almost empty, but in in a good way.
01:09:26
Christian Yordanov
But in addition, it' particularly with the Bufo, you also, when you kind of realize, well, this sort of duo ah world is just kind of like a superimposed on top of God's consciousness, you know, the the ground of all reality it just takes away that sort of at least for a while for the because the ego reasserts itself pretty pretty fast depending on the person. But at least for a while you're like, well, death is death only of like the the flesh and and and the sort of the mental ego construct that's been created over the last whatever decades. But death doesn't really technically doesn't exist because if God if if god can't die because God you know is eternal, all that stuff,
01:10:13
Christian Yordanov
and you were a part of God, how can a part of God die when God is like everything, the all, it's impossible? And you just kind of, I suppose, you just feel that and you feel like a little bit safer.
01:10:28
Christian Yordanov
And then, of course, over time, the ego will again start to... reassemble as martin Martin Ball likes to say, the ego reassembles and then some of these things can come back but it seems like at least at least in my experience it's not at the same intensity as before so you kind of, again it's loosening the hold, the grip, the reins on your life and freaking amazing that we have access to this.
01:10:44
Mateo
No.
01:10:49
Mateo
Yeah.
01:10:52
Mateo
Yeah, you're, yeah, no, exactly. We're we're really blessed. You know, my my father was a codeine addict. He was, he went to prison and all kinds of stuff. He was wounded in World War II.
01:11:06
Christian Yordanov
Wow.
01:11:07
Mateo
And that's how he originally got addicted to the codeine. But then all they really had was alcohol, drugs, and they had cannabis, but it was really illegal then.
01:11:19
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:11:19
Mateo
That was it. You know, look at us now, man. we got We got DMT. We got 5-MeO. We got LSD. We got MDMA. We got Iboga.
01:11:30
Christian Yordanov
yeah Oh yeah.
01:11:31
Mateo
All this stuff.
01:11:32
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:11:33
Mateo
and And they're just starting to wake up to the fact that it can be very healing.
01:11:33
Christian Yordanov
yeah
01:11:37
Mateo
And they're, they're you know, prehistoric traditions, right? It's very, very effective. So we're we're lucky.
01:11:45
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
01:11:46
Mateo
That's why I was saying, we didn't realize just how cutting edge we were back in the late 90s, early 2000s, when I was going to the Antio Botanyist seminars.
01:11:57
Mateo
And I was really blessed to be able to hang out with Sasha Shogun and Paul Stamets and all those guys.
01:12:02
Christian Yordanov
yeah
01:12:03
Mateo
I realize it more and more every day. And now most of them I mean, Paul's still here and a bunch of them are still here, but a lot of them are gone. And that's why it's so important for me to carry the torch for, you know, for what I got from them and all the gifts they've given me.
01:12:15
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:12:20
Mateo
Um,
01:12:20
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, brother. And that's the the other thing is also like,
Conclusion and Book Themes Recap
01:12:23
Christian Yordanov
we're lucky because our parents and their grand and their parents, they didn't have a lot of these tools. And look beyond this beyond the psychedelics and the intelligence, like even like we have people that you can do hypnosis and you can do the emotional freedom technique and the internal family systems.
01:12:37
Mateo
Yeah.
01:12:42
Christian Yordanov
There's just, so many other modes. So if someone doesn't have that proclivity to to go towards entheogens, there's so many other tools in our disposal right now.
01:12:51
Mateo
yeah
01:12:52
Christian Yordanov
You have all these ah sort of these neuro brain training things for like kids with ADHD and man, some these things are incredible. Absolutely incredible. um So we, like, it's it just kind of, we were talking with my wife about this, like, we have to be a little bit more forgiving how our parents raised us.
01:13:10
Christian Yordanov
And because nobody's perfect anyway, even if you have all these tools, you're not going perfect.
01:13:11
Mateo
Yeah.
01:13:15
Christian Yordanov
So its it was a hard time. Communism, poverty, ah food shortages, trying to do your best you can, working your ass off.
01:13:23
Mateo
Yeah.
01:13:24
Christian Yordanov
So they did their best their best and,
01:13:26
Mateo
Absolutely.
01:13:27
Christian Yordanov
without all the stuff without all the stuff so we gotta be gotta cut off some slack and it i i have i have you know more and more over the years appreciate what they've done for us you know
01:13:29
Mateo
Yeah.
01:13:41
Mateo
Yeah. I say that to people all the time. You have to realize our parents did the best, the absolute best they could with what they had at their disposal.
01:13:50
Christian Yordanov
yeah which wasn't lot
01:13:51
Mateo
And I, no. And I like to tease people a little bit. I said, Oh, now you got a kid and you're dealing with a kid. Guess what? You have returned to the scene of the crime.
01:14:02
Mateo
Right. Um,
01:14:04
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
01:14:05
Mateo
And and your you know your your kids become your teachers. Just like when I started teaching writing, all my students really became my teachers. right And I always learn something from somebody somewhere.
01:14:18
Mateo
you know i it's One of the things I love about the path is that it's infinite. And I tell people that if somebody comes up and tells you who you that they are enlightened, run.
01:14:32
Christian Yordanov
yeah
01:14:33
Mateo
that Because they're delusional. And every time you reach a new level, yeah, exactly.
01:14:36
Christian Yordanov
That's the ego again. Yeah. Yeah.
01:14:40
Mateo
Yeah, that's what happened with the guy with the 5MEO guy, and Mr. Shaman.
01:14:46
Mateo
His ego got out of control. And all his followers were, oh, you're the shaman. You are the channel for God, blah, blah.
01:14:56
Mateo
And I'm like, all right, give me a break.
01:14:58
Christian Yordanov
Gross. Yeah, it's disgusting.
01:14:59
Mateo
Well, yeah.
01:15:00
Christian Yordanov
yeah Especially when people get hurt, man.
01:15:01
Mateo
Yeah.
01:15:02
Christian Yordanov
Especially when women get taken advantage of. It's it's horrific, you know. horrific.
01:15:08
Mateo
Yeah, yeah. No, I couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more.
01:15:11
Christian Yordanov
So tell me, you're probably thinking, I'm sure you got some irons in the fire, but what's the next project after this? You're going to take a break, but...
01:15:20
Mateo
Well, yes and no. I have a bit of editing work, but I've been plugging away. i did, ah my last novel was called The Hummingbird Whisperer.
01:15:32
Mateo
It was about the first genetically perfect child who evolves with supernatural abilities and is essentially a channel for higher consciousness.
01:15:40
Christian Yordanov
Whoa. Nice.
01:15:45
Mateo
So I'm working on a sequel to that. So that's the Hummingbird Whisperer and the sequel is Hummingbird Whisperers. So there's more and I've got, I just, yesterday I hit, I got 90 pages first draft so far.
01:16:01
Mateo
And I'm, and I'm fired up because I had the Santa Barbara Writers Conference last month and at the Santa Barbara writers conference, I get to be a rock star for a week.
01:16:12
Mateo
I've got groupies and everything.
01:16:12
Christian Yordanov
bro I I'm sure you do I remember the i think maybe the last um the last episode we did a while back dude you like your voice was a little bit shot you were like you looked like physically like you were at a festival like partying for a week or whatever it is you looked a little bit tired man I swear to god i was like oh shit I think I ah shouldn't have and I shouldn't have imposed on his recovery time here but that's good that's good
01:16:13
Mateo
They even tell me that they're my groupies.
01:16:30
Mateo
Yeah. yeah
01:16:42
Mateo
I'm always, I'm always happy to be on. I appreciate it. i appreciate the discussion. Uh, it helps you.
01:16:47
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:16:48
Mateo
It helps me. We help each other. That's the way it should work. It should be, know, uh,
01:16:51
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah. And I love, i love, i love what you're doing, man. And, you know, I've learned so much from you and not, not, not just from the books, but just, just listening to you on various podcasts, you know, it just, and I always got this, um, just from the, that the voice is kind of, you know, the sort of voice you have, it's a little bit like just very distinctive kind of just,
01:17:12
Christian Yordanov
pretty sort of alpha type voice and The first time I was like just can feel the sort of the authority the the behind your words, you know just like spewing and and Opposing i did this and with the ayahuasca and the shamans I've been like now you you knew your shit and it just you feel that confidence in people something hey, this guy's cool and So I kept listening and listening.
01:17:16
Mateo
Mm-hmm.
01:17:36
Christian Yordanov
And then at some point I invited you on the show and you were super, super cool, super gracious. So always love having you on and always love sort of sharing your stuff with others because, man, like these, your books, um the the non-fictions one, that they they need to be part of like our libraries that we give to our kids when we are kind of gone.
01:17:56
Mateo
There you go.
01:17:57
Christian Yordanov
ah and that That's 100%. But i i it's a big sort of um issue with me. I'm not a big um fiction reader.
01:18:08
Christian Yordanov
i just, I've never gotten into it, mostly because time and and I have to do a lot of fiction stuff. But I have like, dude, I have all the good shit. from tom sawyer lord of the rings i have it all i just haven't had the time but i definitely gonna get a few of your of your novels because uh i need to get into fiction more and more i realize and then it would be good for for my kiddo to kind of have a little bit of a base in that so i'm definitely gonna try to over the next couple years try to get it and i think your books will be the perfect sort of
01:18:19
Mateo
Yeah.
01:18:28
Mateo
Mm-hmm.
01:18:34
Mateo
Yeah.
01:18:39
Christian Yordanov
because your storytelling ability is so captivating think it'll be one of the first things i get into before the lord of the rings because that shit is long as hell dog i don't know if you noticed yeah yeah it's good
01:18:43
Mateo
Mm.
01:18:51
Mateo
It's I've been yeah, and I've been reading a lot of the classics to get back to a lot of the roots.
01:18:57
Mateo
Yeah, I just finished a couple of I've finished Les Miserables, Victor Hugo and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. And I read Dickens.
01:19:05
Christian Yordanov
in
01:19:07
Mateo
I read that Dostoevsky.
01:19:07
Christian Yordanov
nice Oh, wow. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for you. Yes.
01:19:12
Mateo
Yeah, well, you know, I'm ah um'm a writer and I want to see what did they do and how did they language it and what was the era that they were writing in because a lot of the newer stuff is just crap.
01:19:15
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:19:20
Christian Yordanov
yeah It is crap and I'll be 100% honest with you, like my my my writing in this book, like it's almost like I'm talking to you here. So I'm using like slang and one of my clients, she was gracious enough to look at the the manuscript before i sent it to the editor.
01:19:38
Christian Yordanov
and she really helped me kind of tone down a bunch of a little particularly unhinged jokes because I'm trying to be funny to keep people entertained.
01:19:46
Mateo
Yeah, yeah.
01:19:48
Christian Yordanov
But I realized that's that's kind of, if you look at like Rudolf Steiner and and kind of the writing of today, like it we definitely seem to have like, it's deep it's I don't want to say we became dumped down, but you know, you got to call a spade a spade.
01:19:52
Mateo
Hmm.
01:20:03
Christian Yordanov
um So I intentionally did it because so so that people are a little bit more engaged because if if you go to write the way Dickens or Dostoevsky did, I think you would probably lose a lot of people in today's world as well.
01:20:04
Mateo
Nice, great.
01:20:14
Mateo
You would. Yeah, did the language has evolved. Today, I call it attention span theater. Right? yeah TikTok and YouTube, all that.
01:20:26
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
01:20:27
Mateo
And younger people, a lot of them just aren't reading anymore.
01:20:31
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:20:32
Mateo
I like to get it involved. And i when I edit, I try to make every word count. And you know, way back, for argument's sake, Edgar Allan Poe could write three pages describing a woman's face, right?
01:20:48
Mateo
Well, they didn't have radio, TV, media, none of that, right?
01:20:51
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:20:56
Mateo
So you would indulge them.
01:20:58
Christian Yordanov
Yeah,
01:20:58
Mateo
But now in this day and age, you say, you know, beach in Hawaii. We've only seen it a million times on TV and in videos, so we know what it is, right?
01:21:08
Christian Yordanov
yeah. Yeah.
01:21:09
Mateo
So we don't go into as much description of detail because that visual audio visual component has made the language more concise.
01:21:13
Christian Yordanov
Hmm.
01:21:23
Christian Yordanov
Mmm. Mm-hmm.
01:21:25
Mateo
So you have to pay attention to the details that you pick and how you use them.
01:21:29
Christian Yordanov
whom
01:21:31
Mateo
One of the greatest things I learned from one of my mentors years ago in writing is that information is the enemy of drama.
01:21:39
Mateo
If you sit there and go, hey, John Smith was a PhD and he graduated from Harvard and blah, blah, blah, you got to lose your audience right away, right? But if John Smith walked into his office and pulled out a shotgun and blew away his diploma, well, maybe you got to pay attention to that, right?
01:21:56
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:21:57
Mateo
And how did he get to do that? So an interesting thing, the Greeks had written language for maybe 250, 300 years, ever used it. but they hardly ever used it because the performers, the bards were storytellers and they were performers.
01:22:17
Mateo
So they were getting up and performing the Odyssey, you know, whatever they performed their work. And so it was a pushback against the written word, which was there, but they just, they wanted to perform. They are performers.
01:22:34
Mateo
Then it was held back to to a point, and then like the monks were transcribing everything, right?
01:22:41
Christian Yordanov
Yes.
01:22:43
Mateo
So that was done by hand. That was also sort of protected protected knowledge by the church, right?
01:22:48
Christian Yordanov
Yes. Yes.
01:22:50
Mateo
So they kind of they were recording it. And of course, when you record it, you freeze it in time. It's not dynamic. Whereas the storytellers, every year or decade, they would shift the stories to fit the times they were speaking in.
01:23:04
Christian Yordanov
in
01:23:06
Mateo
But it was protected in that way. Then came the invention of the Gutenberg press. And then they could begin to mass produce books and the masses became more literate and they could they could enjoy the stories in that way, right?
01:23:21
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
01:23:26
Christian Yordanov
see
01:23:27
Mateo
And then it evolved into e-publishing. Or for me, I was a customer engineer back in the 80s and 90s for a computer typesetting company.
01:23:40
Mateo
At the time, every printer used our gear. it was computer typesetters, photo typesetting using all these servo mechanisms and special tubes and all that. and And every newspaper, financial printers, check printers, phone books, real estate listings, they all used our gear.
01:24:01
Mateo
until the first 1200 dot per inch laser printers came through the door. And that, so they went from what used to be called hot press, mechanical printing presses, to photo type setting, to computerized.
01:24:16
Mateo
Then you get into eBooks and print on demand and audio books. Now, audio books are popular with young people.
01:24:29
Mateo
So the point of all this is is we went from verbal storytelling full circle all the way back to verbal storytelling again.
01:24:35
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:24:39
Mateo
And, you know, ive got nephews.
01:24:40
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, man.
01:24:41
Mateo
I got nephews in their 30s and stuff. They don't read. A lot of people just don't read.
01:24:45
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:24:48
Mateo
A lot of people only read Kindle or they just do audio books. They like podcasts. You know, they're driving to work.
01:24:53
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:24:54
Mateo
They can listen. But it's gone full circle back to oral storytelling, which I find fascinating.
01:24:55
Christian Yordanov
Exactly.
01:24:59
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, man, it is fascinating. And and it also kind of, um I'm also like now, because I have a lot of like technical cit quotes and citations from from research papers. So I'm thinking as I'm kind of finalizing, see I'm like, i screwed my shot myself in the foot because like, okay,
01:25:18
Christian Yordanov
You can see this on on paper, reread some things that are like are hard to compute, but this will not go down well in an audio your book. Now, the rest of the the story in between the technical details where I have a bit of humor,
01:25:32
Christian Yordanov
Like that will actually work well on and an audio format. But all these other quotes, what the heck am I going to do with those? But it it also kind of makes you think like it changes your writing because how you write your paperback, your hardcover, you have to also factor in how is this going to sound when you're reading it word or when a narrator is reading it because it it could sound really sort of formal and nice and packaged perfectly on on paper.
01:25:40
Mateo
And
01:26:01
Christian Yordanov
But then it can come off as dry and boring, especially if you have if you don't do it yourself and you pay someone to do it and they don't have the kind of they don't know where to enunciate and kind of add emphasis or or a little bit of suspense.
01:26:15
Christian Yordanov
so just But it's again, it makes you think and continue craft honing your craft. So that's the beat like you said, the journey is infinite. you know
01:26:24
Mateo
Yeah, yeah, yeah. i This new book, I purposely, I'm not doing an audio book of this new book because there's a lot of graphics in it and there's pictures of the plants and things like that.
01:26:34
Christian Yordanov
beautiful pictures too yeah
01:26:35
Mateo
yeah, thank you. um I'm purposely not doing an audio book of that. Of course, the novel I will. I have fun doing the different voices.
01:26:44
Christian Yordanov
and did you say you record at home or you're in a studio just curious yeah
01:26:48
Mateo
I record at home. My first memoir, of Spirit Matters, I recorded in a studio. Then I got the gear and I drove myself crazy learning to get everything working right.
01:27:02
Mateo
And maybe half of my books are audio books. And there's a couple that I purposely, like I have, I have one that you may have, we may have talked about it.
01:27:13
Mateo
I have holographic cosmic man, which is about sacred geometry and all that that's full of graphics.
01:27:16
Christian Yordanov
Yes. Yes.
01:27:20
Mateo
So I'm, I didn't narrate that one.
01:27:23
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:27:24
Mateo
But the novels, I have that book I did on death, where it's the voice of death. Of course I narrated that one. That was fun. you know And then I did my i just i ah just got an award-winning finalist in the national and International Book Awards for Drug Wars, which is a Star Wars parody.
01:27:44
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
01:27:48
Mateo
And I had a lot of fun writing it and a lot of fun narrating it. this I won't get into all the details, but there' there's doobie one, can you be and yeah, do dope Tucker.
01:27:56
Christian Yordanov
Beautiful. of ah i gotta get I saw that one.
01:27:59
Mateo
And instead of may the force be with you, they say, may the buzz be with you.
01:27:59
Christian Yordanov
i got again I gotta get that one.
01:28:04
Christian Yordanov
That's cool.
01:28:05
Mateo
Princess since Amelia, her hair looks like a big cannabis, but hash stoner is the ship is the pineapple express.
01:28:09
Christian Yordanov
Nice. Nice.
01:28:14
Mateo
Um, there The big weapon is the death bong. it It looks like a big penis, and it shoots paraquat rays and destroys planets. And the the rebel Rasta underground, the the corporate empire is trying to destroy the Rasta underground growers so they can take over production of cannabis throughout the empire.
01:28:30
Christian Yordanov
Oh,
01:28:34
Christian Yordanov
that's funny, brother.
01:28:38
Mateo
Anyway, that was good.
01:28:39
Christian Yordanov
That's hilarious.
01:28:39
Mateo
I narrated that and got to do the different voices and all that. So that one was a lot of fun. And it's not a really long book, but other ones.
01:28:47
Christian Yordanov
And you edit them yourself after?
01:28:49
Mateo
What's that?
01:28:50
Christian Yordanov
You edit them yourself as well?
01:28:52
Mateo
Yeah. Yeah.
01:28:53
Christian Yordanov
Oh, bro.
01:28:53
Mateo
Yeah. No, I'm obsessive.
01:28:55
Christian Yordanov
ah get tired I get tired just listening to it. Because my wife convinced me to record the audiobook of the next one that's coming out. I'm like, oh, jeez. I'm like, love, have you any idea what that's going to do to my health, my psychological health, my my physical health?
01:29:15
Christian Yordanov
But anyway, six months of suffering. What's another month of suffering after that, right?
01:29:20
Mateo
ah Yeah, it's your it's your baby. I mean, if this makes you feel any better, I'm close to the San Diego airport.
01:29:22
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:29:28
Mateo
It goes until 1130 at night and then starts up again at 630 in the morning. So when I'm narrating an audio book, I'm up at three or four in the morning and get two or three, a couple, or three good hours in there.
01:29:46
Mateo
um And it's clean because it's quiet. but you wanna talk about getting all discombobulated and your sleep all thrown off and everything else, right?
01:29:57
Christian Yordanov
Oh yeah.
01:29:57
Mateo
But you know you get it and somebody really enjoys it and get something out of it.
01:29:58
Christian Yordanov
Damn.
01:30:01
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, of course.
01:30:02
Mateo
um And then I yeah i took a, yeah last year I took a ah voiceover acting class and I nailed it. I was like the teacher's pet because I already did a bunch of audio books. so i already I was way better than I thought I was.
01:30:18
Mateo
and I still learned a lot. um the The class?
01:30:21
Christian Yordanov
Was that live?
01:30:25
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:30:26
Mateo
Yeah. Yeah.
01:30:28
Christian Yordanov
Maybe i need to do that.
01:30:30
Mateo
You know what I'll do?
01:30:30
Christian Yordanov
Maybe that's why.
01:30:31
Mateo
i'll um after we After we're done with the show, I did one thing for the class.
01:30:35
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:30:40
Mateo
It was a graduation thing. And it was recorded in a major recording studio. And I took and I made a slideshow based on the narrative that I recorded for the audio.
01:30:55
Mateo
So I'm going to send you the YouTube. It's like two minutes long or something.
01:30:59
Christian Yordanov
OK.
01:30:59
Mateo
it's It's the Drug Wars one.
01:31:01
Christian Yordanov
OK. OK.
01:31:02
Mateo
I'll send it to you and you'll see the slideshow I did with it. And the guy, that the producer, director, he put in these really cool sound effects and things like that.
01:31:06
Christian Yordanov
Awesome.
01:31:13
Mateo
and it And it came out really, really, really good. So, um you know, if that helps, um you know,
01:31:16
Christian Yordanov
Nice.
01:31:21
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Ah, like, listen, I, I've just, to me, it's
01:31:29
Christian Yordanov
it's it's gotta be done that's that's the there is no like because my my uh sort of my level of sarcasm cringy dad jokes and cynicism nobody nobody is gonna be able to replicate that and unless i do it people be like what the hell is this drivel but if i do it If I do it, people are like, oh, this guy's a bit of a clown.
01:31:44
Mateo
yeah Yeah.
01:31:55
Christian Yordanov
Okay, he's a joker. I'll get it. Okay, I'm trying to either ask a refund from Audible for the book or ah but I think I can, you know, try to get into this. Maybe I like this guy.
01:32:06
Mateo
Yeah.
01:32:06
Christian Yordanov
Maybe he's a grower.
01:32:06
Mateo
yeah Yeah. And you and you you kind of referred to this a little while ago. You know when you're narrating it, how to emphasize different things.
01:32:15
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:32:15
Mateo
Like, you know, that guy thought he was a really good writer, but he stunk, right? You you know, you modulate your voice and add, and how you're reading about particular subjects or action scenes, you want to find that balance.
01:32:22
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:32:26
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:32:32
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
01:32:32
Mateo
So that people enjoy listening to you. I've gotten some good responses from lot of my audio stuff.
01:32:38
Christian Yordanov
oh yeah i told you already like a man i was listening to the the spirit matters book and i swear to you dude that's certain and the the the worst part when this happened a couple of times i remember is i was like i go to bed listening to stuff you know so i was listening and at one point dude my adrenaline was freaking going up but you were talking about one of the one of the action scenes in in in the book, you know, dude, my adrenaline was, my heart rate was going, this is, this is not the right time to be listening to this kind of material, but I didn't know this, this sort of story was coming up, you know, but like, that's, that's the kind of feelings you can evoke with, with your, particularly your narration, you, you specifically, you know, so it's, it's pretty damn good.
01:33:23
Mateo
You just totally totally, totally, totally, totally made my day.
01:33:26
Christian Yordanov
yeah
01:33:27
Mateo
a little thing about Spirit Matters. I was doing a radio show up in Laguna Beach. That was my first audio book. And it had to be me. It was my memoir.
01:33:39
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:33:40
Mateo
And the guy whose show I was on got the radio station to let us use their studio. So they would record their shows all week. And on Sundays, they just play the tapes of the shows. And so the the studio wasn't being used and they let us use it.
01:33:55
Mateo
And he coached me and he drove me nuts in a good way.
01:34:00
Christian Yordanov
yeah
01:34:01
Mateo
And then we got through the first 30 pages and decided they really sucked. Let's start all over again. And he'd be like, dude, you just read about when a guy pulled a knife on you and you acted like it wasn't any big deal. i was like, well, you know, it kind of happened a lot. He goes, no, man, he's put some drama behind it.
01:34:18
Mateo
Right. And he really beat on me in a good way.
01:34:22
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:34:23
Mateo
And then he did the mixing and his brother owned couple of recording studios in LA and his brother mastered it and And I really appreciate the comments.
01:34:33
Mateo
It shows off in all the the work that he and I both did.
01:34:34
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:34:36
Mateo
and So I went up for a few months. I went up there every Sunday. I drove about hour and a half, to ah couple hours probably, up to the studio and recorded until my voice got hoarse.
01:34:49
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:34:50
Mateo
And then I kept going back and we finally finished it.
01:34:53
Christian Yordanov
Man, that that that's it's amazing because the way I'm thinking about it is probably I'll try to record over two weeks, just jam-pack it's going to be hard two weeks because like your voice, your cadence, your voice, everything like changes week to week somewhat, you know, so just to get it as uniform as possible.
01:35:12
Mateo
me
01:35:13
Christian Yordanov
Because when you're in a narrator, you have your criteria, you have your cadence, your whatever. oh You have all the stuff you've trained. But when you're doing this for the first time, you better just, kind in my my opinion, just get it done.
01:35:25
Christian Yordanov
So to be able to do that you know every week and have sort of this consistency through the book is pretty damn difficult, especially when you're doing it the first time, I would imagine.
01:35:36
Mateo
Yeah, it's hard. I had an extra challenge because I'm from Boston. and I have an accent, I can park my car and have a yard with the best of them. Well, it doesn't always come across as clear on a recording.
01:35:49
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:35:50
Mateo
So I had to alter it in places because otherwise didn't know what the hell I was talking about. But I wanted to keep the Boston accent, but back off on it. you know And that's one one of the things I learned.
01:35:58
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:36:01
Christian Yordanov
you have ah any tips on the Borat accent? How to reduce Borat accent?
01:36:07
Mateo
How to reduce what was
01:36:08
Christian Yordanov
How to reduce Borat, Borat, you know, Borat accent from Kazakhstan, Eastern to Europe?
01:36:12
Mateo
hello um Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, Borat, Borat. Oh, yeah.
01:36:16
Christian Yordanov
Because ah i was like I was like, I told my wife, like, who the hell's gonna, like, what American is gonna want to listen to some freaking, what they think is like some Polish guy talking, this you're gonna get healthy like this, you're gonna get healthy. Like, I'm like, who the hell's gonna want listen to list that?
01:36:31
Christian Yordanov
But she still convinced me, right?
01:36:32
Mateo
Yeah.
01:36:33
Christian Yordanov
Women can be very persuasive.
01:36:35
Mateo
Good bet. Heck yeah, that's how that's how we get in trouble, right?
01:36:38
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah.
01:36:39
Mateo
But probably me the best piece of advice I would say is to slow down.
01:36:46
Mateo
Go a little slower than you think. You're really enunciating things. So for me, like um certain consonants like T um or sometimes the S, like I could say, you spit on the sidewalk.
01:37:06
Mateo
Well, you could barely hear that T. It's a bad example, but I might say he spit on the sidewalk. Well, if I say he spit, that's a little bit hard.
01:37:17
Mateo
Spit, spit, spit on the sidewalk is a little too too soft.
01:37:18
Christian Yordanov
Spit
01:37:21
Mateo
So you wanna find someplace in between. He spit on the sidewalk where they're really clear.
01:37:24
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
01:37:26
Mateo
I know with my accent, what sounds harder for people to listen to.
01:37:32
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:37:33
Mateo
So you listen to yourself. they're They're actually with your accent It has its own unique charms to it.
01:37:41
Christian Yordanov
Oh, thank you.
01:37:42
Mateo
Yeah, yeah. And you can play to your advantage.
01:37:45
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. I'll try to tone down the Borat-ness of it little bit.
01:37:46
Mateo
You know?
01:37:50
Mateo
Yeah, a little bit. um Oftentimes too.
01:37:53
Christian Yordanov
Hello, you want to get healthy? Come right in.
01:37:55
Mateo
Yeah.
01:37:57
Christian Yordanov
Come. dramas travelvo come me Come in.
01:37:58
Mateo
Yeah.
01:37:59
Christian Yordanov
Come in.
01:38:00
Mateo
Yeah. and you Now you can also do the narration like that. Just normal narration. And every once in a while, pull that in just like you just did on purpose, right? You can get some comedy comedic effect out of it.
01:38:14
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah.
01:38:15
Mateo
And you're showing a different aspect, you know, a variation on it.
01:38:18
Christian Yordanov
Yes. Actually, in the introduction, I have some ah caveman, hypothetical caveman conversations, where in the first one, it's really bad ah grammar because they're like cavemen, you know?
01:38:31
Christian Yordanov
And then in the second one, ah the the the caveman's grammar is perfect. And then in parentheses, I'm like, I know, I i realized that Grok's grammar is a lot better than Og's because he's ah a cave painter and you know Og is more of a basher.
01:38:37
Mateo
Hmm.
01:38:46
Christian Yordanov
So, like, that that's the idea.
01:38:47
Mateo
Uh-huh.
01:38:49
Christian Yordanov
I'm going to have to, bro, you know what? At the end of the day, I'm not freaking Stephen King or Robert Greene or whatever. i don't i don't care. I'm going to have fun with it.
01:38:58
Mateo
Yeah.
01:38:58
Christian Yordanov
It's going to reach whoever it's going to reach. us Some people will love it. Some people will like it. Other people will hate it. And you can't please everybody, but I know I'm going to help people with it. that's And I'm going to have fun doing it because that's what it's all about. I'm not i'm not going to sort of do the the dry arm arm arm this bullshit.
01:39:18
Christian Yordanov
I'm gonna be who I am. I'm gonna raise those people will resonate with me that we resonate with each other.
01:39:19
Mateo
Yeah.
01:39:24
Christian Yordanov
And I'm gonna have fun helping them. And they're gonna come in and they're gonna be fun. And we're gonna have a whole bucket of fun together. So that's it. Simple as
01:39:34
Mateo
that's That's the best. Nobody can tell it like you.
01:39:38
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:39:39
Mateo
And I still occasionally get a fan fan letter. Thank you for writing Spirit Matters. It's changed my life. Even one of those makes it worth it, right?
01:39:50
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:39:51
Mateo
you have You have a unique background, you have unique experience, you have knowledge that many people do not have.
01:39:51
Christian Yordanov
Absolutely.
01:40:00
Mateo
So your attitude about getting out there and sharing sharing your light with the world, you know what's that old, think it's a biblical saying, don't don't hide your light under a bushel.
01:40:12
Mateo
Get out there and shine on you crazy diamond
01:40:14
Christian Yordanov
Shadow. That's right.
01:40:16
Mateo
Yeah, the world needs you, man.
01:40:16
Christian Yordanov
That's right, brother.
01:40:18
Mateo
Yeah.
01:40:18
Christian Yordanov
That's it, man. Well, listen, love you. Thank you so much for being on, brother.
01:40:25
Mateo
Yeah.
01:40:25
Christian Yordanov
will be doing it again, of course. I'm sure multiple times in the future. But before we we wrap, please just kind of, I'll have a bunch of your links in the description, of course, but just kind of let everybody know the main channels to connect with you, find your work, all that good stuff.
01:40:29
Mateo
Yeah.
01:40:40
Mateo
Yeah, thank you. Thanks again for having me on. It's always a pleasure.
01:40:44
Christian Yordanov
Thank you.
01:40:44
Mateo
You're a rock star, bro.
01:40:46
Christian Yordanov
Thank you, brother.
01:40:47
Mateo
So my webpage is mattpalomary.com, M-A-T-T-P-A-L-L-A, M as in Mary, A-R-Y.com. And if there's a contact thing there. So if anybody fills that out, it'll email me.
01:41:04
Mateo
And there's a whole section under media, audio and video, which has your shows and a couple of other shows like Coast to Coast and other ones. They're all under there. So if people want to hear more stuff,
01:41:15
Mateo
And then my books are all on Amazon. They're all, let's say maybe half of them are audio books. They're all eBooks. They're all tree books. And then my website is
01:41:37
Mateo
And those are, you can get books directly from me there or on Amazon. If you Google my name,
01:41:43
Christian Yordanov
Nice.
01:41:45
Mateo
Matthew Palomari, the first thing that comes up is my website. So it's all there. It's my story and I'm sticking to it.
01:41:54
Christian Yordanov
Perfect. Thank so much. We're going to have the links in the description for the listeners. And Matteo, once again, brother, thank you so much for gracing us with your presence and your wisdom.
01:42:05
Christian Yordanov
And wishing you, of course, all the very best with your you know next projects. And, of course, hoping to have you on probably next year at some point, hopefully.
01:42:16
Mateo
Always at your service, brother. Always a pleasure. Thank you again.
01:42:19
Christian Yordanov
Thank you.
01:42:21
Mateo
right.