Transcript
Speaker: Hello, hello, hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Reconnect with Plant Wisdom. It's me, Tigre Gartenia. This episode got me all choked up. You know how I talk often about this moment where words are not enough to truly capture, were better said, the words haven't come in yet to truly capture the experience.
Speaker: And I think this was most of my conversation with Marco because his path was very much mirrors, it's kind of almost the silent version of of aspects of my, it was just so beautiful to see how Marco has embodied and lived through so these principles. And there's there's just so much I can say, and there's no way for me to explain it well enough or better than Marco himself and his presence really transmits. I have to admit,
Speaker: I wasn't sure where our conversation would go. And especially because his relationship, which is kind of what's happening to mine, just transcends ah the idea of thinking of a single plant or a single being of nature, but to, as he puts it in his own words, really walking the mysteries of life.
Speaker: And so I know you're going to absolutely love this episode just as much as I loved having this conversation with Marco. So I'm not even going to, you know, try to put fancy words around it.
Speaker: I am just going to present to you episode 117, The Path of a Mystic with Marco Petrovich.
Speaker: Welcome to Reconnect with Plant Wisdom. I'm your host, Tigria Gardenia, nature-inspired mentor, certified life coach, and the founder of the Naturally Conscious Community. For over a decade, I've been known as a world ambassador for plant advocacy, working closely with plants to share their practical wisdom to help you consciously embody the elements of life that nourish your evolution.
Speaker: In this podcast, I delve into ancient and modern knowledge from biology to spirituality about the wondrous ways of plants. Together, we'll explore how ecosystem thinking helps you overcome limiting beliefs, understand the true nature of relationships, and live an authentic, impactful life.
Speaker: Marco, well, we were just having this conversation two seconds ago. You're super chill. So I have a feeling I'm going to be like, kind of like, you're going to bring me down into what we're going to talk about. You're going to ground me today.
Speaker: so So in your very relaxed, grounding way, can you tell everybody who is Marco? I'm assuming it's Petrovic, right? Yeah. Yeah. michael petro um I guess one of the recent podcasts that I spoke on, the host referred to me as a modern mystic.
Speaker: And I'd in a few words, that's probably the most accurate way to express it. And within that, I'd say modern mystic fused with an entrepreneur who looks to create businesses that ah do something good for the planet and for humanity as a whole.
Speaker: So what that looked like for me was I took a spiritual sabbatical about five years ago and did a nine month vow of silence during which I planted the seed for this life that I now get to live which is running my own econ business authoring a couple of books and running some retreats around sacred good sites around the world
Speaker: You've already touched on so many topics I want to ask questions about. So I'm going to start with the with the word mystic because i have to admit, so in the last probably about six months, maybe ah maybe a little bit less, I um have been going back to my Kabbalistic roots in the work that I've in my own personal studies.
Speaker: um For lots of different reasons, Kabbalah has always been kind of my framework, but it it flows in and out of my life, especially as a kind of education tool in different ways. and um And it's just sort of come back in a really different way than I've ever worked with, you know, the Tree of Life and the Sephiroth than I've ever done before.
Speaker: And this word mystic, this mystical mystic, um I'm working with somebody on the mystical relationship with the Hebrew letters and all these different pieces are coming in.
Speaker: And I'd love for you to define that word. Like what does being a mystic What does it feel like? What does it look like? What is it for you? Because I have my definition, but I just want to kind of like explore that a little.
Speaker: Yeah, of course. Well, my response is by no means a textbook definition. It's mostly through direct experience. And I'd say a mystic is someone who ah recognizes that to live truthfully in connection with life is to live a life of humility.
Speaker: where we're in relationship to that, which some people refer to as the great mystery of life and that we recognize that and no matter how much we learn, there's so much more that we can learn.
Speaker: And ah mystic to me is one who develops a relationship with that mystery of life. Right in a world that ah is so focused on knowing and having all the information, having all the data for me, the mystic is the one who abandons all of that, not for lack of usefulness, but sort of through a very clear sense of awareness that, Hey, there's actually so much more that I don't know.
Speaker: And to the degree that I engage myself with understanding the mystery of life is the natural degree to which I can best express myself.
Speaker: I really like that. I like that way of of putting it into kind of giving it a context about the great, you know, the the great mystery of life. And I feel like life, I always qualify. It's like, excuse me, life with a capital L, right? It's not just life in the perspective of, oh, how I'm living my life, but life as in In biomimicry, we use this expression, create the conditions conducive to life.
Speaker: And it's that that kind of life where where life exists, where life flows, where life starts, where life ends, where where life is much more than your life, but it is everything that is moving in and out in the the greater web of life And so the idea of of exploring those mysteries, yeah, I totally i totally see it.
Speaker: I totally see it. and And I'm sure, and I'll get into the the whole silence thing in a minute because it connects to some a practice that we have here in Damanhur. And even there, I'd love to break it down. But, you know, the mystic is about, and probably why the the silence is about that contemplation.
Speaker: It's about ah deep, deep connection to the natural world in order to Not so much, what's the right word I'm looking for, process, you know, life, but more of experience it and not in the doing sense, but like, like feel it's its I guess it's a somatic feeling. And I think that that's the really interesting part that that comes with that mystical work. Mystical is is ah is kind of less about talking and more about just being.
Speaker: Yeah, totally. I feel that like at least the way that I've come to relate to it is two simple words that I call direct experience, right? So it's not so much about what I know, what I think, or what I believe, or any of the above.
Speaker: It's being in direct experience with life. And for me, that path of a mystic is the path that's less traveled. But oftentimes when people hear those words, the path less traveled, they think that it's a one size fits all when it's really not.
Speaker: And what I mean by that is like, I mentioned my nine month period of silence for a while. That was a path less traveled for me. But then after a while, it wasn't anymore because it's a path that I was very comfortable with.
Speaker: And so then the pathless travel actually became authoring my own book. And I feel like the mystic is the one who consistently engages with ah that felt sense of where the inspiration of life is calling to us and continues to engage with it and and live with it.
Speaker: I really, really, really like that because it explains, it puts into very concise and easy to understand words, a series of things that I've also experienced in my life. Cause I'm, I am in that similar way, always kind of, you know, looking to travel the road less traveled. But as you said, it's not about less traveled by others. This isn't about a competition or looking at it through the lens of someone else.
Speaker: It's more of what is the road that I haven't allowed myself most likely to experience and that could provide, you know, and you don't even know if it can provide, that's not the point of it. You don't do it because you think, Oh, I'm going to learn from it. You do it because you've never done it before. And it's a chance.
Speaker: When I moved to Dhammenhur, Dhammenhur has something called the game of life. And the game of life is one of the bodies of Dhammenhur, one of the four main bodies of Dhammenhur and their entire kind of existence is around change. And a big part of that change is something we call viaggio or journeys.
Speaker: The idea that at any time the game of life can call you and, you know, say to you, hey, are you ready? And if you're ready, if you feel up to it, they'll tell you where to meet and off you go on a journey. You don't know how long you're going to be gone. You don't know when you're going to be coming back. You don't know what you're going to be doing. You know, nothing. It's kind of like this idea of the journey.
Speaker: And when I first arrived and they would first call me to do the Viaggio, I would very rarely say yes. and ah And of course, nobody understood. And I'm like, you have to get like, for me, I had been living kind of moving around from place to place nomadically almost for years before that. Yeah, sure. For a while, I had a home base here and a home base there. But, you know, anytime a friend would call or somebody, something would kind of catch my attention, I'd pack up myself and I'd just head off.
Speaker: The idea of having a weekly meeting or like a set time of something that I had to do and a schedule that had things that I had to be at every single week or every month was terrifying.
Speaker: Terrifying. Terrifying. So for me, staying home was like the road less traveled because I hadn't done it in in the context of many, many years by this point that I had been traveling and such.
Speaker: So like you said, the silence even the silence becomes the norm. And therefore, at that point, you're not really learning from it anymore. You're just doing it because it's something you know how to do.
Speaker: Yeah, totally. it' I feel like there's an interesting piece there that you spoke to around this sense of being ready. Like how mentioned when when you get the invite for this those journeys, that the question would be like, are you ready?
Speaker: And for me, there's a ah clear awareness that
Speaker: We're never truly ready. if we're If one's a devout mystic, then you're dancing with the mystery of life. And to dance with the mystery of life is to say that I don't know.
Speaker: And if I'm truly honest with myself and in not knowing, then how could I possibly ever be ready when I have no idea what I'm up for? And so for me, a nice reframe that I've enjoyed in my life that's helped me out tremendously is less about readiness and more about willingness.
Speaker: And the question being one of, am I willing? And that being a complete game changer in how I can move mountains in my life as a result of being willing and not even giving a second thought to this sense of readiness.
Speaker: I love that. i was I was just, as you were talking, as you started, that was the word that popped in my head. I was like, oh, ready is not the right word. Willing is the right word. And then you said it. I was like, yes, confirmation right there.
Speaker: Because it is true. It's like, how do I build a life where I am willing to move you know, to follow that flow, to really get into the current and and not even even in the deep unknowing of such. And I do find that so, that's true freedom, right? When people talk to me about freedom is like having such and such money in the bank or having this or having that. And it's it's not true. It's false.
Speaker: Freedom is a feeling that you have from from the fact that you're you trusting yourself and that you're willing to follow that mystery wherever it may take you. And I feel like that's the truly liberating, you know, sensation that we we really do want to get to.
Speaker: And it comes from... I find that it comes from a combination of know thyself, right? Your typical, very esoteric piece of I know who I am, and I'm comfortable in my skin. And therefore, I know, you know, I know my abilities, I know who I am, and I trust in that. And then also,
Speaker: I know, like you you mentioned it earlier, it's that great awareness of the environment that is around me and the fact that how I interact and am part of that environment. And so the trust kind of goes both ways. It's a within trust.
Speaker: I know me. And it's a without trust that is i know my connection to what's outside of me will always take me in the direction and I need to go. And so I'm willing to follow that flow because I am a part of nature. And so as you know I move through this, I know that nature is there with me. we're We're in this together. I'm always in at that safe space.
Speaker: And so I really do think that that's kind of, it's it's hard to put it into words. And I think that that's the whole concept of mysticism. It's about feeling it and and really kind of letting it land. But it is dot that that internal compass, I guess you might say, that guides you through things.
Speaker: Yeah, it could be said that it's about dancing with the pieces that are slippery for the mind. Yeah, yeah, my favorite, my favorite, part like, i'm I'm a talk going talking about the the the road less traveled, as you can tell, I'm a talker, I love talking, and I process things out loud.
Speaker: But I profoundly love and have fallen in love with the sensation of lost words, like when my mind cannot catch up to what I know, i find that to be like, I'm getting emotional as I'm saying it, like my eyes are tearing up because to me that is profound beauty in the sense of, you know, that expansive Kabbalistic sense of teferit beauty is I'm so in it that I don't have to put words in
Speaker: I can just feel it and I can be it. And, and like you said, it it is a dance for me. It's very much a dance. It's very, it's very much a ah movement of flow, a sensation through all this. And so i I hiccup through words, but that's also my way of, of living it, of embodying it.
Speaker: How do you like, I guess I'm curious, you know, mysticism oftentimes is is deeply connected to to nature, to to the natural world, to the relationship with other with the more than human and with other kin.
Speaker: How does that piece fit into all this for you?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, the more time I spend on the journey, the more I realize that and like nature is the guide and that ah across across the world, think that's been the case for each and every one of us.
Speaker: And so there's this interesting thing when we speak about you're like connecting to one's ancestors and what does that mean and for a long time I used to think that connecting to my ancestors was connecting to my bloodline right those that came before me the that are of my blood or of of my land so to speak but actually the truest ancestors are the elements that we have and the truest ancestor to all of us is the mountains because no matter which part of the part of the world we're from we all actually have the same ancestor and it's this earth
Speaker: And she was there ah before any one of us were. And she was the one that gave the original codes, the original transmissions to different mystery schools around the world. And the only difference and deviation in these mystery schools is that like the energy concentrates differently around the world, right?
Speaker: So that's where their language came from. That's where their poetry came from. That's where their art came from. and that's where their knowing ways came from. But at its core, it's all the same in that like it's the the stones that have the memory.
Speaker: So for a period of time, for me, it there was like this deep sadness of ah being of Serbian origin and being from the Balkans and in a land that's been war-torn for thousands of years, thanks to various empires and various attempts to conquer land.
Speaker: There was this sense of like the tradition being lost and the culture being lost. but as i went further along the journey i realized that it's not that it's lost it's just been forgotten and it's been forgotten because on these lands there's been the influence of the church for over 2 000 years right and when i look at some other nations like in australia were where they're a lot more uh connected to the the memory of their original ways well there's only been three to four hundred years of uh conquest and those attempts on their land so it's a lot closer generationally but regardless of how many years have passed the exciting piece to me was that whoever's ready to go sit on a mountain and spend some time connecting with the land can open up those channels of memory and perhaps not in one lifetime but the sense that i got was that i can start a really positive ri ripple effect with my life
Speaker: and my devotion so for me that piece around your question like really came down to understanding my relationship to to the elements and you know it's a conversation of complexity as time goes on and what i mean by that is sometimes i have these conversations with people and they go oh this sounds really complicated And there's a really valuable nuance for me between having something be complicated and having something saying be complex.
Speaker: Because when we look at the flower of life, for example, or the seed of life, that's a pattern that looks extremely complex, but it starts out of something really simple. which is just four strands right and i experienced my connection to this whole mystic realm and very much the same it's like no matter how far i've gone along this journey with silence with exploring space with exploring fire water earth air like the teaching is that simple you know it's in a glass of water and it's in the the stones that are my bones and it's in the stones on the earth that i walk on and
Speaker: Yeah, so so there's a few a few thoughts for yeah and theres my relationship. It's so beautiful that as I you know continue on my own path and then especially doing this podcast and being able to have these conversations, these deep conversations with others, I love the kind of confirmations, the synchronicities and the understandings and the ways that each of us are interpreting things they're We're coming to the same place from very different directions. i am
Speaker: Years ago, was research group here in Dhammenhur, where um we were all exploring our connection to plants in very, very different ways. like I was working on imagination with one specific plant.
Speaker: Another person was exploring a plant that was, you know, in a specific area, land, and all these other different ways. One was working with like an avocado plant and, and you know, in a pot and and had come from a supermarket. Like it was really fascinating. But, and at first you're you're like listening to all these random stories as we would get together and, you know, share where we were and what we had tried and what we were doing.
Speaker: And then when it came time to put everything together into like our final kind of thesis for the year, it was amazing. We had all reached the same place. We had all come to this place of like unconditional love and wonder and beauty and these these core. we couldn't we we We ended up all kind of losing our words and ending up on these things.
Speaker: such, to a certain extent, cliched words that we you know people use and throw out. And we we were like, oh my goodness, we're all in the same... like We have all gone so down, like you said, that mystical experience because each one was having...
Speaker: with this one you know plant being that they had chosen to work with. And we all ended up after the silence, after the long periods of being there, after the, you know, it wasn't about doing, you know, these 17 steps. It was about just having these experiences with these plants. And we all ended up in the same place.
Speaker: And I think that that's such a beautiful confirmation that like the mountain has many different paths on it. And each of us has to kind of find our way of connecting in and and following, like you said, that that um following those mysteries to where they're supposed to take us. And complexity is, ah is I mean, it's it's a law of the universe from a Dhamman-Hurrian perspective in spiritual physics.
Speaker: It's not about complicating things. As a matter of fact, you know, we all started off with, okay, I'm going to do this with this plant and I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. And little by little, all of that would wash away and it would wash away and it was wash away. And it was just about intention and relation and openness and just, and be that what we, what I call the plant, your plantness, which is your inner plantness is that beingness, that presence.
Speaker: And when I am present, I'm, then everything else just sort of finds its place in it. So I really, really, really like that, how how you, you know, you you do bring it down to its core essence because it is just essence, that that's all it is. And, and you know, as I hear you speak and as I can feel it, I can feel that that that that this is coming from lived experience, not from like, oh, I didn't read this in a textbook somewhere. Like, although you might have, but I'm just, that's not the point of it.
Speaker: How did you, um because I think a lot of people, oh, sorry, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, please. No, I was just going to dovetail off what you were mentioning that you've touched on a few times of like entering that space where words don't seem to feel the the experience.
Speaker: And I feel like that's a common place that many people can find themselves along the journey. And to me, that's, the state that I refer to as like being in touch with the poetry of life. It's like the point where regular conversation dialogue no longer makes sense, and one is inspired by that divine grace and beauty of life that they end up writing songs or poetry or art.
Speaker: And that that state is actually... our birthright and the state from which we're naturally supposed to live but it's very much forgotten thanks to the structure and the society of the world that we live in and it's kind of the difference between these these two frequencies that i was taught which is 1320 and 1260 and the 1320 frequency is that frequency of where we're constantly in a state of flow and there's actually no there's no stop start there's no left right like we are in motion in movement
Speaker: And even if we're completely standing still, there is still motion and movement all around us. And 1320, the reason it's called that is because we have 13 articulations if we go down from our ankles, knees, hips, wrists, elbows, shoulders, and the 13th being this one here, the neck, and the point of expression, right, and how we relate to life through through our word, through our song.
Speaker: And then the 20 is actually the 20 digits that we have. That speaks about the way that we engage with life. So when we see like Da Vinci's man standing like in the shape of a star, right? That's the 1320 symbology right there, which is,
Speaker: His, like the way I interpret that imagery is that was his way of communicating to everyone to like switch on the faculties of the body and just to remove life from this theater of the mind and to actually bring it deeper into the body.
Speaker: Whereas 1260 frequency is a chronological time, right? We have the 12 hours of the day, 12 hours of the night and 60 minutes within each one of those.
Speaker: And it's the stuff that it's like just slightly ever so off in its expression that It's like the person who tells you 95% of the truths, but lies 5% of the time.
Speaker: And then you stick around and you hang out with him. Cause you're like, I feel like most of it's good, but there's just a few white lies. And so like, I don't know, but like, they seem like a good person, right? That's the way I experienced 1260. And in that 5%, it actually starts to strip away at our essence and puts us more into ah very rigid,
Speaker: method of of understanding life rather than what's our birth rate and being 13, 20.
Speaker: Oh man, there's so many pieces in there. I'm so glad that, you know, we have this as a recording because it's the kind of recording you want to go back and listen to because there's so many different elements that I could see, you know, going off.
Speaker: And again, it experiencing. It's not sure you can go grab a book and like look up everything and try to figure it out. But like you said, sometimes it's about standing as a Vesuvian man, like standing there open in that position and seeing kind of similar to the silence, right? What comes out.
Speaker: When I do this and I just allow myself to open my senses, i'm I'm on a big kick right now, which is very connected to the things that you were saying about the the senses. You know, i've I've worked for a very long time with plants um on the five main senses and then expanding even our five, you know, known senses. But as you said, i feel like we've lost...
Speaker: We've forgotten, not lost, we've forgotten our ability to connect into other senses that we know that plants and other you know other beings have. And so therefore, because we're all connected, we have to have them too.
Speaker: And I've been experimenting a lot and teaching a lot on the concept of just giving yourself that space to embody, re-embody these senses. And so much of it is about deep, you know, when you when you give yourself that space with another being with a plant or with the land, just as as a being, there is so much that comes through that relationship that It's that resonance that starts to hum between the both of you that then reconnects you. It's almost as if they pass to you how they how they experience something, how can experience it so that you can experience it.
Speaker: you were You were talking earlier about like the the land. It's, you know, how, where was it? How the your ancestors, you know, are the is the earth. Yeah. And the earth has so much to share still. When I was in Australia, actually, the first time I kind of brought this to my awareness.
Speaker: um I was ah listening to, i work a lot with the music of the plants and I had brought the device with me. I was doing these really amazing, beautiful workshop with a professor of song lines and you know song lines were the you know how the aboriginal people would ah map out locations through song right they could hear sort of what was happening and they would then create these really very simple catchy tunes that they could sing along and that was what guided them when they didn't have written maps and and
Speaker: we were We were working on modern song lines connected. We were in Melbourne and we were working on on modern song lines connected to the location, this this reserve park that we were in too. And I realized as I started to listen to the music of the plants with that optic, like a ah kind of was immersed in this field of, I want to listen to this land so much that I can design song lines and um And I was listening to the music and I was like, oh, my goodness, like this music, the music these plants were playing was felt very much.
Speaker: like what we think of as traditional music from this area. And i was I started to actively then listen in other locations to native plants, to plants that had been in the area. For example, um a friend of ours had sent a recording of a plant playing music to so to a musicologist friend of theirs and the musicologist ah wrote them back and was like, um where did you get this music? And he was like, why? And he says, because this is like 300 year old music from this particular part of Italy.
Speaker: And he's like, from a 300 year old tree from that part of Italy. and And so it was like this kind of flash of, um my goodness, when we give that space.
Speaker: all of a sudden you recognize that what we think of as language and culture and, and because language is a musicality and culture and all these things is all coming from the earth. It's, it's the earth giving it to the humans and the humans thinking, Oh, I invented this clothing choice and this dance move and this sound, you know, as like Balkan or American or Italian or whatever.
Speaker: But most likely That all is all just handed to you from the frequencies and the resonances of that particular location. And how different does your relationship to home or to my native lands become different?
Speaker: when you realize that it's yes, cultural is the people. But as somebody just said recently in a, in a conference I was listening to, who was saying ecology is just natural sociology because it's all about the relationship of the beings.
Speaker: Yeah. I was like, Oh, such a different way of, of living where you are, of hearing, of, of feeling where you live.
Speaker: yeah So here's a weird question for you. as some go go Go into it. Get into it. No, no, no. I want to hear it because I have a question, but but it's going to take you into a little bit more of theoreticalizing. theoretical <unk> And I want to hear what you know what's coming out for you.
Speaker: Well, I just felt to speak to a recent memory. I was hanging out with an indigenous elder in Mexico just a couple of weeks ago, and he was commenting to me how like I live a very nomadic life at this point in time. i haven't been in one place for more than eight weeks in the last five years.
Speaker: And he's noticed that because I've known him for three or four years years now. And he was like didn't you didn't you we get um like, don't you ever feel like you want to be at home? And the natural inspired response that came out without a second thought was, I feel like the world is my home.
Speaker: And I don't say that in a romantic fantasy kind of way. It's what I genuinely feel that wherever my feet have landed me, I feel a sense of being at home. And that's not down to anything else rather other than the connection that I developed with my own instrument, my own antenna.
Speaker: So that when I am on on land, that I can actually like coordinate myself and have a sense of orientation respective to the life that's around me.
Speaker: Cause I feel like that sense of home that we feel is like the place that we know, right? It's like, ah, home, like my mother's cooking or, know, a loved one's voice or whatever it may be a painting on the wall.
Speaker: But for me, it's just been over the years, an expansion of what that experience actually is into the lived natural world. And so once I develop a connection with the water, like no no matter where I find water, it brings me right back home.
Speaker: But it brings me back home in a new way. And what I mean by that is like when when i give myself a little blessing with the water, if I drink a little bit of that water, it's now informing me of that land that's there. And so there's like a piece that's around cultivating oneself to a point where we can actually embrace embrace the elements within our ourselves and get to know their song.
Speaker: and recognizing that ah the deeper deeper intention for what I'm speaking to here is the possibility to open up our aperture for our relationship to life. And I remember this beautiful and feedback from a researcher who went out to study the Kalahari Bushmen.
Speaker: And in conversation with them, he found that they entered a profound sadness when they learned that he couldn't hear the echoes of the stars.
Speaker: And so for me, that's like a big, well, like and most of us have never even considered that the stars have an echo that can be heard, right? Yet for them, it's how they live each and every day. it's a completely normal thing. And so for me, there's this like undertone within our conversation that there's an opportunity to really open up our aperture for what relating to life looks like, what turning on our faculties through the 13, 20 frequency looks like,
Speaker: what tapping into our reserves and understanding our relationship to nature looks like. And, you like more of it can be discovered through studying different languages. And that's something that has helped me out tremendously. Like I consider myself blessed that I was born in a...
Speaker: fairly strong Serbian culture. And so we were forced to speak Serbian in a house, even though we lived in Australia. So I grew up speaking two languages. I've learned Spanish in the meantime in study and studied and continued to study quite a few indigenous languages.
Speaker: And what I found fascinating about the word for nature in Serbian is prírodá, which means before birth. So like the word itself tells you exactly where we're from and exactly and exactly where we we return.
Speaker: And just having those little insights through language, especially languages that are a little bit older, it opens up doorways for the imagination and for our relationship to life that I feel we don't quite have access to through the English language.
Speaker: Mariko, I just want to stop you for one second because I want to share with everyone, because I feel it's really appropriate right now, one of our eco-conscious business partners. For over a decade, I've had the profound joy of working with the music of the plants, a musical instrument made just for plants.
Speaker: This very music is what's marked my own plant reawakening, guiding me to reconnect with nature in an entirely new way. Imagine in listening to the harmonious melodies of your plant companions and feeling their wisdom and presence through the language of music.
Speaker: It's an experience that has transformed my life and the lives of so many other people. If you're curious about the hidden songs of plants and want to connect to your plant friends in a completely new way, I invite you to discover more at tigriadagenia.com slash music of the plants.
Speaker: It's in the show notes. Plant music is great for healing, sharing, and personal connection. Let's continue our journey of personal evolution and plant consciousness together with the songs of plants.
Speaker: There are so many pieces that you're touching on that i Literally, I'm so emotional right now in such a beautiful way because you're touching on so many things that I also live and, you know, put into words in a very, very different way than the way you explain it. And that's the beauty of it. Like there's a ah deep resonance for me in the things that you're saying that are really touching me profoundly. Like I'm seriously like all teared up right now because, for example, the whole language component, I,
Speaker: i love language from the perspective of the connection it gives me not just to be able to communicate. I mean, that's sure, um,
Speaker: um the the culture and the land culture that comes from a ah language. I also, you know, was blessed to be raised in the same kind of perspective. In my case, it was Spanish inside of an American cult, you know, context and having, you know, my parents make sure that we learned it well and we speak it well. And then when, you know, I lived in Spain and so, and Spanish, you know,
Speaker: Cuban Spanish and Spanish, Spain Spanish are slightly different and having to be able to relate to that. And then all the other languages like Italian that I speak and French. And and like you said, i've I've also studied, you know, Russian and ah I was just working in Croatian over the weekend and stuff like that. And I don't speak any of them well enough, but just enough to understand.
Speaker: I feel like it's just so important to hear it to, especially when I'm there, I was just in Croatia like two weeks ago from when we're recording this. And, you know, there was several people who asked me like, oh, you speak Croatian because of the way that I listen. Cause I, and, and I listen intently because it's part words, but it's part relation that's coming through those words and a deep, deep understanding of what the land has,
Speaker: infused in the people from, you know, the way that those words are expressed in these other pieces. And the idea of opening up, like you said, I mean, you use the word aperture, and I called, you know, i i work, um I talk about them in the senses perspective, probably a little bit more biological because of the work that I do.
Speaker: But it's the same thing. It's the idea of Anywhere I am, and I also am somebody who anywhere I am feels like home. And when I was with, for example, Cirque du Soleil, when I first started to travel extensively, you know, I would call every place that I've lived.
Speaker: First of all, that I've lived, even if I was there for six weeks or you know, two or three months, I feel like it's the place that I lived. And I've always, you know, in the moments that I was there, they were home.
Speaker: And i've I've never understood people who are like, oh, yeah, I just transited through or, you know, would didn't really know the place because I feel like what a gift to be able to in the moment that you're in, sure, you know, Miami is still the place I grew up in the place that I have the strongest bonds. But for example, Barcelona for me is another place that I feel I can feel my ancestral roots kind of in there and connected through to that Catalan culture that that is a part of who I am physically.
Speaker: But I also have a really, really strong connection to Norway, which I discovered only in the last few years comes from my soul's journey and the way my soul has journeyed through this planet and the experiences that I've had and why I ended up here in the land of the Salasi, where I don't think of this little pocket of where I am besides the fact of Dhammenhir, but I feel very much a connection to the Salasi people who are peoples that have almost been forgotten because they didn't have a written language. So there's not a lot, you know, other than what resonates when you, you know, sit on on the Celtic altar that's about 45 minutes from my house and you, you know, you put you put your skin on it and you gather the memories of what was
Speaker: experience there and the people that transit through there and all of this musicality, right? That comes the, the musicality that becomes language, the musicality that is vibration, the musicality that is, you know, the, the way the plants are communicating with us, all of this swirls around.
Speaker: And I feel like it it wraps me in and becomes part of me in some ways in the moment that I am there i am that because I am nature and I can adapt and integrate and relate in those ways and I'm moving my hands a lot because that's the way that I express things and it's these are those places that are so hard to put into words and To a certain extent, we don't have to put them into the perfect words, right? That's not the point of it.
Speaker: The point is words are just one more of the musicality that I'm using to express it. And why I also do this in video, because I want people to be able to see the expressions my face is making, the movements my arms are making, the way that's for me, where somebody else might internalize it in a completely different way. But my way is that somatic feeling And every part of my body resonating in the different cells that I have, finding their connections and saying, yes, this is the piece that is, you know, me in this moment.
Speaker: And I am this. I am this location. i am this moment. I am this experience. I am this, you know, everything else with it. I don't even know if that made any sense, but I tried. I'm with you.
Speaker: one One of the other pieces like on language that's really fascinating to me, particularly when looking at some of the older languages of like First Nations peoples, is how their language formed their reality.
Speaker: And what I mean by that is like this, so like in the Aboriginal languages of Australia, they very rarely spoke about location as far as here and now. They always spoke about it in terms of where they're going and their movement, which speaks to the fact that like we're in this constant state of motion in life, right? or one of the other pieces that shared with me from one of the elders in Mexico is that they didn't have words for stop, for don't, for can't.
Speaker: and they didn't have swear words either. So when their children were being raised and they wanted their children to stop doing what they're doing, they couldn't tell them to stop. The best that they could do was just to re-divert their energy to do something else.
Speaker: And so you think about what that does for us at the level of human of our own personal expression and the way that we can express ourselves. If during our whole ah childhood, teenagehood into early adulthood, no one ever told us not to do something,
Speaker: Instead, they just redirected our energy to express it in a different way. It's a completely different world that they live in. And I had the opportunity to spend time with those children who are still raised in those cultures.
Speaker: And they're like adults in tiny bodies. They're so well aware of themselves and the way that they move and they operate.
Speaker: And they don't even have to speak sometimes. Like, and sometimes they just let out a little sound that tells you everything and allows like adults who are coming out of their culture in to like have a taste of what they how they live just this profound state of like i've had little little children that have just hummed to me like and in that hum it's like all my energy falls into place and into into line because they like they just live in transmission right
Speaker: it It is that, ah you know, we we kind of keep circling around this word, but you keep coming back to it which I love that you keep coming back to it, is is awareness. You know, the the kind of modern culture, mostly Western culture, is the complete opposite from awareness, right? That presence has been sort of conditioned out of us.
Speaker: The awareness of my body, of my space, of my of of where I am, not just physically, but beyond, as you said, the awareness of I am who i am and what I'm taking in and where does that lead me? All these different aspects, we were kind of almost taught not to listen to it.
Speaker: You know, we're taught children are no longer taught to to listen to their bodies. You eat when I tell you to eat. If you don't eat now, you won't eat. Like even just something simple as that, like the the rigid timelines of get up for breakfast and eat this now.
Speaker: And you know, breakfast, lunch, and when I moved to to Italy, i had been living in Barcelona before this. And in Barcelona, I had done this massive experiment, like kind of put myself into like a little bit of an ecological field test, you might say, to understand certain rhythms of my body, because I wanted to understand like, when am I most creative? When am I most strategic? When am I hungry? You know, especially around food.
Speaker: um because I had come from you know a world of body dysmorphia and other different things. And I had found it was fascinating when I let myself just sort of have permission to follow those natural instincts.
Speaker: I learned a lot about my up cycles, my down cycles, when I work. And to this day, I still basically take siesta. Like right after right after my lunch period, I am not capable of doing anything and ah you know all these different pieces of myself.
Speaker: And then I came here to Dominher, which is very, very Italian when it comes, which Italians are super rigid when it comes to their like eating times. um Because eating times have a social context to them and not in the food and the whole nine yards.
Speaker: And I'm neither connected to the food. And I especially didn't connect to the times of food. And I can't tell you how many times I've been yelled at because i either didn't eat with the family, like I would come and sit and hang out and chat. And they were like, what do you mean? Why aren't you eating? And I'm like, this is not when I, my body doesn't, doesn't do well. And I would get like chastised for it or chastised because maybe, you know, I was more in movement during when it was time to eat, because again, that wasn't when it came, when it was, or, you know, time for me to eat. So as I tried to eat with the family from that context,
Speaker: I ended up like feeling physically like crap for so long until i finally said to them one day, I was like, we're have to have a conversation because my body doesn't work on this timeline. And I don't have any problem with the fact that you have this timeline. Great for you.
Speaker: But just let me be me. Like, I'm going to come, I'm going to sit, I'm going to chat, I'm going to get up, I might pick at something and then I'm going to, and I'm going to have my meals, which are completely different configuration of food too, because my body just doesn't react very well.
Speaker: you know, from, come on, I'm from a Caribbean island, like I am meant to eat different things. And so, um you know, but that whole understanding of how do we get out of the conditioning that tells me don't listen to what your body needs, you do this, because that's what's socially acceptable, and slowly disconnects me, I can't tell you how many people tell me I'm disconnected from the from the neck down.
Speaker: Because your awareness has been systematically shut down and compare that to the children that you're talking about who are on the opposite end, which is like, feel what you feel. Don't stop.
Speaker: But what if you feel that in this direction? Like, like, let's help you experience it in other ways. And you come to the realization of which one is better for you type of thing.
Speaker: Yeah, totally. And to dovetail off that theme of awareness, there's the interesting perspective of most indigenous cultures share more more or less the same view that when it comes to to our body that we have three brains rather than just the one.
Speaker: And that in the modern world, we just use them back to front or in some instances don't even use them. So what you spoke to there of like people feeling disconnected from the head down. That's nothing more than a symptom of the modern world and all the conditions and structures that come with it.
Speaker: Whereas indigenous teachings say that we actually have three brains. First is the gut, second is the heart, third is the brain. And the one teaching that i was shared with me that I love the most is that um at the level of the gut, that's about honoring instinct.
Speaker: So sometimes... We go into conversations with feeling and emotion and people kind of blur the lines of those two. But to me, they're very two different ah experiences. Feeling is at the level of the gut.
Speaker: Oh, don't know about that person. I don't have an emotional word for this, but it's ah not quite a fit, right? Or whatever it is. Even with food on the menu, like from ah very young age, even before I got into you know this world of falling, like ah the path of the the modern mystic, like I mentioned, I used to look at a menu and I choose based of gut instinct.
Speaker: I didn't choose based of what I thought would be nice. It was like, ah, this kind feels like a vibe. I'll go with that. That might seem silly. That might seem like illusion. It might seem like I'm just making things up.
Speaker: Or it may be actually me honoring the fact that I'm in a conscious field when I step into a restaurant or a cafe or whether wherever I am. And I'm tuning into like what actually feels appropriate for my body at that point in time. And that's it.
Speaker: There's nothing more to it. And there's an incredible intelligence there that when we honor it, we can undo a lot of unnecessary karma that we engage with. Perfect example, I invested in something not too long ago that felt like that and I went through with the investment because i justified at the level of the mind.
Speaker: So rather than honoring indigenous teaching and and living through the gut first, I lived through the mind first and then I ended up getting getting caught in an 18 month cycle of money never being returned to me, right?
Speaker: On a promise that we will come back within a few weeks. so but i feel like we can undo a lot of unnecessary karma that we can get entangled in by honoring the gut first second being at the heart which is like the brain of the emotions and allowing ourselves to process and filter emotions and having no uh no judgment or like any kind of relationship to it other than the fact that it's an emotion it's alive let me live with it and then the third one being the the brain of the mind which is The instruction that I was given with that was, this is used for one purpose, to cast a beautiful thought.
Speaker: And that for me was a revelation in the simplicity of the teaching, because most of us in the modern world use our minds to create chaos and destruction and turmoil and suffering and all this kind of stuff, because we don't know how to use it effectively.
Speaker: And the beautiful teachings around these are that like if this is new information to anyone, well then like how do i go about activating these well first up like if we're full of shit in our guts literally then it's gonna we're gonna have a really tough time actually knowing what our gut instinct is so a detox a bowel cleanse and so some basic housekeeping a great way to start and then the rest of the system will just start to switch on
Speaker: And this is ah you ah putting it again, putting things into different words. I often tell people that when they reconnect back into the natural world and they find that not that plantness within themselves, the naturalness, the fact that you are animal, all these different parts.
Speaker: The whole from a, you know, we talk about it from sustainability and people think, oh, it's because when you love something, you're not going to hurt it. I'm like, it's, it's way more than that. And the fact that your health and your food relationships completely change, not because you're thinking about it, like, what am I supposed to eat? But like, you just said it perfectly.
Speaker: I naturally choose what's best for me. I most likely will do it in harmony with the location that I'm in So, you know, if I'm sitting in a place like where I am right now, where I have such a ah close relationship with the seasons and such, it's I see it sometimes like luckily I go to a Dumb and Hurry grocery store. So what's on the vegetables are the vegetables that her son actually grows.
Speaker: So I know I'm getting seasonal. But like when I go into a big supermarket now, I just avoid three quarters of the things because it's not. connected to this land, you know, it's not connected to the seasonality.
Speaker: And I find that I have very little waste because i buy from that place. And I cook from that place. And there's this pleasure that comes and my body really feeling in connection. So as a person who has had, you know, body dysmorphia, who is a Taurus and loves food and, you know, who, who craves certain things, getting out of, like you said, the the mind part or even the the moments. And I would, I would,
Speaker: my little nitpicky thing would be a little bit opposite. I would say it's the mind of the gut, the mind of the heart and the mind of the brain, because to me, the brain is this limited thing that we've given all this importance to, but that's a whole other story and a whole other episode that we can have one day.
Speaker: um But I just find it super beautiful that how we just come in tune, I guess, maybe like we come in tune with things,
Speaker: when the connection exists there, because then, as you said, you're going from that instinct, you're going from that presence of that, that plantness, and you're allowing your animalness to, you know, to be a part of it and to intertwine and to give you aspects where,
Speaker: But you're not just being led by, you know oh i'm so I'm supposed to be able to come into a store and buy this thing, even though this isn't the season, and who cares where it's coming from, and all these different pieces.
Speaker: I just don't even have to think about those anymore. I don't have to read the label in that way. because my body just naturally gravitates towards other things. And that's the reason why it took me a while to figure this out. When I'm here, i eat in one way. When I'm like, for example, visiting other places, I eat very differently because again, you tune in and your body sort of finds this harmony and says, okay, this land offers my body this, and this is how we work together.
Speaker: And so, um you know, going into stores, if I have to go into a store, going to the farm, um you know, directly, where or the farmer's market where I can feel into that kind of as we were talking about the song line the the the frequency of that land and then harmonize that with my own frequency I'm I'm just going to naturally make the better choices it's it's it's not a it's not a mental thing we don't have to think about it in that way it just sort of happens
Speaker: I don't know why this is so hard. I think it's hard for people because, again, we're we're shielded from so much of it. It's um we we just don't give ourselves enough space, enough permission and enough space to to explore all of this.
Speaker: This is why friends of mine, I have friends of mine who um he's a lawyer, she's ah a professor. a college professor, amazing people, and their spiritual practice is to do Vipassana every year. Like, she has to have those 10 days, 11 days of silence every year.
Speaker: She's like, that's what, you know, as a person who has to teach and been a lot of students and the whole academic world, she says, this is what resets us. And as a, as a couple, I mean, they've, they've gone, they don't go together, obviously they go into different locations always, but she's like, this thing is just like such an important reset for us to do as we're kind of wrapping up. Cause I, I'm like, a this is another one of those calls. Well, like we could just sit here forever and, and go deeper into it.
Speaker: I want two, two questions that I have for you. One of them is i know that you've um got this amazing, I was just looking at it, amazing kind of ah spray that you work on. And I want to give you space for you to explain to people what this is, where it comes from, why is this important and everything that is relating to that. So I'll ask you that first and I'll ask you the last question.
Speaker: Sure. The spray is called Dragon Breath and it's a extract from a plant that I learned about during my pilgrimages in Mexico.
Speaker: And i initially started using it because it's a plant that when you spray it has a really a beautiful sensory experience. And part of that sensory experience is kind of like pop rock candy for people who know what that is.
Speaker: It creates a popping, tingling, numbing sensation in the mouth, but also increases saliva flow quite a bit. So it regenerates the enzymes around the mouth, the teeth and the gums, incredible for oral health and and or all around powerhouses as ah far as wellness products goes.
Speaker: But as time has gone on, I've actually found that that sensory experience, what it's actually doing for a lot of people is it's helping them to drop into greater presence. So in a world where like, even for someone like myself, I do my best to live very much connected with nature and all that. But like I'm on podcasts, my my phone has a mountain of notifications that need tending to, I run a business through it, all all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: Like it's very easy to get drawn into the screens, even if we're not doom scrolling. And so for me, this is a way that when I spray it, it just drops, all of that static noise that we accumulate from engaging with tech and all that stuff and all the mental dialogues that we can be having in organizing our life and it just drops me drops me into a really present state and helps me stay in in flow essentially so i call it a dragon breath because it allows in a single spray it's like a portal into
Speaker: that world of the mystic and the mythic and coming into connection with the primal uh i like to say that it's you like the birth child of lightning and fire in a bottle it just connects you that elemental wisdom and yeah the snap of a finger a single spray Fantastic. So of course I'm going to put all the show link, you know, all the notes, notes, all the links in the show notes, lack of words.
Speaker: And so that people can definitely contact you and also find the product and everything like that, which is great. So here's my last question for you and you can answer it however you want. In a world that is noisy, to be honest,
Speaker: And knowing that not, you know, everybody is willing yet, even if they have a desire, but they're not necessarily there yet to, you know, shut off for nine months or even just shut off for a day and go into silence for a day, which is a big element also of certain paths here at Dom and Her.
Speaker: what would you what What words of wisdom would you offer them to start to cultivate an inner silence and a greater awareness?
Speaker: I mean, the words that come up for me immediately are to consider the sadness of the other side. And what I mean by that is many times people give me the feedback of, oh, you were silent for nine months. I couldn't do that for an hour.
Speaker: And it's oftentimes because they consider
Speaker: Only one side of the coin, which is, well, what would I have to give up and they don't consider what the benefit is and the profound clarity that they could have if they allowed themselves that time and space.
Speaker: And so for me, there's a natural invitation there for people to consider the other side and
Speaker: The other piece around considering the other side for me is that we rarely actually consider the worst case scenario through to its final end. And what I mean by that is ah we hit the brakes on life many times because we spend most of our lives living through the illusions of how we anticipate that other people are perceiving us so it's like i have an idea of the idea that i think that you have of me and as a result i'll try and live my life responding to that which is ah sick way to live
Speaker: in my opinion, and much greater is to give ourselves the liberation, the freedom to live exactly according to where our inspirations are. And when searching our inspirations, they can oftentimes lead us down path less traveled and they can land us in places that we don't know.
Speaker: And in those places of not knowing, we can find ourselves being
Speaker: and experiences of friction against like survival needs, right? Like, well, what if I can't figure it out? What what if I don't make the money that i need to make? Well, what if this, what if that? And I actually encourage people to entertain that. Like, what if?
Speaker: And to entertain it through to its end. So what I mean by that is like when i decided to sell everything that I owned in Australia, pack my life down into a suitcase and book a one-way ticket to Mexico in a country where I only knew one person and couldn't speak the the language, I considered my worst case scenario.
Speaker: In reality, it was I booked a return flight back to Australia. Like, it wasn't that scary. We get oftentimes when I speak to people, they say to me, wow, like the courage it must have taken for you to go to Mexico.
Speaker: And for me, it's like, yeah, maybe, but not really. Because what was the flip side? I keep living a life of a, like like a half-baked life, partly inspired, partly not, and just pretending like life's okay.
Speaker: And I was like, why not just bet it all and see where the journey takes me? And if it takes me absolutely nowhere, Well, my worst case scenario is I go back and I can make money again. But the part that I can't offer myself again in my life is the freedom to actually pursue the opportunity when the inspiration is alive.
Speaker: And yeah that speaks to piece of readiness that we discussed that we're ultimately never going to be ready. And there's never going to be a perfect time. If you're into astrology and that kind of stuff, yes, there's more opportune times for certain things.
Speaker: But that doesn't give an excuse to hold back on life. When the inspiration is there, it's there for a reason. And the sooner we take that inspiration by the horns and live with it, ah the sooner that we start to enter into those magical states of life that we spoke about, where the poetry of life starts to speak to us.
Speaker: And from there, it's like you're both the ah the main actor, the writer, the choreographer, director, the director. and the audience at the same time. And that's my invitation to everyone, to have an experience to really open up to what life has in store for them and to follow their own soul path.
Speaker: Beautifully put. i have i have nothing more to add to that because it's it's perfect. It's absolutely perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Marco. This has been such an inspiring conversation, a a confirming conversation, ah emotional, but like in in all the right ways type of conversation. And I am deeply appreciative of everything that you shared and and just, you know, your your way of being like, I i appreciate that so much.
Speaker: Thank you. Thank you for everyone. Thank you for offering the space. please go Please go check out everything that Marco has to offer and everything will be in the show notes. And remember that if you want to continue conversations like this, please first share this, hit the like, hit you know all those those things that you do in order to ensure that there is a new tomorrow for the work that we're doing. But also remember that you can always come into the naturally conscious community and continue these conversations. It's a place where you're going to find information.
Speaker: you know, that mysticism, this, this location, this presence, and where you can feel supported and to help you find your willingness to move into those unexplored paths in your own life.
Speaker: That's it for this week. Remember, re resist the urge to hold back your emerging green brilliance. Bye.
Speaker: Thanks for tuning into this episode of reconnect with plant wisdom. To continue these conversations, join us in the naturally conscious community. your premier online ecosystem for plant reawakening and accelerated evolution and co-creation with other kin.
Speaker: Here, you'll find expansive discussions, interactive courses, live events, and supportive group programs like the Plant Wisdom Book Club and the Sprouts Writing and Creativity Group. Connect with like-minded individuals collaborating with plants to integrate these insights into life. Intro and outro music by Steve Shuley and Poinsettia from the singing Life of Plants.
Speaker: That's it for me, Tigria Gardenia, and my plant collaborators. Until next time, remember, resist the urge to hold back your emerging green brilliance. I'm out. Bye.
