Are We Losing Our Taste for the Real? John Vervaeke, Guy Sengstock, Kyle Koch

Añadido: 2026-05-21

[00:00:18]Welcome everyone to a special standalone video. I'm here with two people that most of you will recognize, Guy Senstock and Kyle Uh we're here because we are going to be offering our second uh retreat uh the second in uh second version uh the second round whatever you want to call it of reconnecting to the real. Um and what we're going to do first is we're going to uh I'm going to ask both of them to introduce themselves a little bit and say what they'll be bringing uh to the retreat. Um and then uh Kyle will give us a little bit of the logistics around the the retreat time, place, cost, and then uh we'll do uh some more extended discussion about like why do why are we offering this? What does it offer you um and so forth. So we'll start with uh Kyle.

[00:01:11]>> Hi everybody. My name is Kyle. I got involved with John's work through evolve move play and awakening to the meaning crisis like deeply revealed a lot of experiences that I was having in the realm of nature connection and I've been on a deep dive to like both understand and embody John's work and and to lead me on further paths of exploration.

[00:01:39]And so what I'm offering is is deepening that connection to nature, that innate natural uh connection and sense of belonging that we have with the world around us. But we've actually we've strayed from it and we actually need practices. We need core routines, ways of relating to bring us back into that deep knowing and that deep connection.

[00:02:08]And yeah, I'm going to be offering tracking exercises, deepening our connection with the bird language, and just overall cultivating that that sense of belonging and connectedness through a myriad of practices.

[00:02:25]>> Thank you, Kyle. Guy, >> nice.

[00:02:30]>> I'm Guy Sock.

[00:02:33]I just love I actually just love how Kyle is exemplifying what he's bringing.

[00:02:38]The mountains in the background, right?

[00:02:40]That's like the the sweater, the the the bad internet. Um all like uh I mean, first of all, mostly what I'm going to be bringing is my friendship with the two of you. I'm that's I'm really just excited that this this this course really came out of our relationship and um and our shared commitments to very deep things. Uh and so I'm really excited just to be hanging out with you guys and to see what our friendship right blossoms this time. And I uh so I as a lot of you probably know a lot of people know me as um one of the main co-founders of the circling so a practice called the circling method um which is one of the few things in the world which surprises me that it's it's kind of unique in that we look at and we look at in practice the the mo the deepest most transforming element that you can have right in peer-to-peer relationships. Um, and we've have a practice where we kind of basically like break that down into asas, you know, the core the core underpinnings or principles, right? and and and then practice doing these deeper stretches into listening and communicating all the things that lead to um profoundity, right? Of becoming a person together, right? And so I've been I've been working on that and been fascinated with that endlessly fascinated with that um for about 30 years at this point. So, I'll be bringing, you know, it's in some level I'm going to be finding out what I what I'm going to be bringing because it's a lot of my attention is going to be really on the relationships that happen there. Um, and bringing in really the personal element of, you know, through through doing exercises, but through also spontaneously just inquiring with people like a deeper level of where they're at and having them share that with the rest of the group, right? In such a way that we we come more into contact with uh the real. Um, and so that'll look Yeah, that'll look all kinds of ways like a lot of it'll be spontaneous for me. Um but they'll they'll be we'll have some formal effort some formal practices of we'll be doing pairto pair exercises like groups like a small groups where we do some actual circling together um exercises that in that uh bring a lot of the skills that it takes to circle well um and I'm exc one of the things I'm excited is the relationship that that has gathered right from the last the first course in fact I We're pre basically this this course is practically like uh half full and most of them are from the last course this so they're returning and I know a lot of that return has much to do with the connections that they made there. So I'm super excited to bring all I got.

[00:05:55]>> Thanks guy. That was u I hope uh you're turned in this channel so you know who I am. Uh but I'm I'm John Verviki. Um and as Guy said um uh la the last retreat was uh very successful. We got uh an enormous amount of very high quality feedback. Um and some of it was you know constructive criticism and we used that to improve things. Um but uh I was very happy with how the first retreat went.

[00:06:26]So I very much wanted to be involved again. uh what I'm bringing is I'm sort of bringing uh uh the fruits of an uh an ongoing project and Guy has been a part of it and Christopher Mast Petro and Taylor uh Taylor Barrett and Jordan the Hall and a bunch of people um which is to try and reconstruct not recreate because we we don't have enough historical evidence but to reconstruct reverse engineer uh Socratic practices These are practices in which we are trying to turn conversation into something analogous to ancient dialogos in which both groups of people are endeavoring to wake up again to the wonder that is available in their understanding of themselves, other people, and the world as a deep and profound way. not of intellectual curiosity but of actually particip participating in a deepened connection uh to virtue to meaning and to to the way those triangulate towards what's most real. Um and so we'll be doing dialectic into dialogos. We'll be doing the Socratic search space. Uh we'll be doing the Socratic imaginal uh reflective exercise. Um, and also I'll be doing a Socratic salon uh where basically I will make myself available for people to ask me in-depth questions over a 2-hour period. Um, and um did that for the first time last time and and I uh I found it both highly challenging and highly uh rewarding. So that's what um I'll be bringing um and um I'm looking forward to it. What we noted last time and um we are tweaking it is the way the our three different dimensions lock together like the three dimensions of space. Uh they just fit together and complement each other uh so powerfully. Um and so um I think this is um an opportunity to develop, skills, uh traits, states of mind, perspectives, uh virtues, uh that are more and more needed um as we sort of uh uh slide our way into a mounting metacar crisis that seems to be taking on more and more malev more and more malevolent life of its own uh threatening meaning and now maybe even threatening our selfhood in our personhood in fundamental ways. Here is a place where uh you can come to restore renew um your sense of agency, selfhood, personhood and connection.

[00:09:26]So, I'm going to pass it back to Kyle who will give us some of the logistics about this.

[00:09:36]Yeah, I really want to shine the light on that last statement that you said that one of the original things we we talked about is a lot of these practices are happening in the virtual world and and how many times do we need to meet in the physical world to have these same experiences. And I think this is one of those moments where we get to really reconnect and renew and to reinspire that sense of connectedness that we share that can feel fragmented in a in a virtual world and to be in physical emotional contact with the field of physical persons um in a really ex you know connected place. So, we will be in beautiful British Columbia in Whistler.

[00:10:30]It's a Whistler is a famous ski town if you're familiar with it. And we have this beautiful place called the Brew Creek Lodge, which is this, you know, rustic cabin style um retreat center that's really focused on sustainability.

[00:10:48]They grow a lot of their own food. All the water comes from the land. They're really focused on, you know, there's composting toilets and recycling and upycling and reusing all their things.

[00:11:00]And there's a host of old growth trees in that area as well. So, we have such an incredible setting. I'm currently calling this place home as well. So, I'm excited to do it in my uh my new homeland and in Canada to support John in that. And yeah, the details are basically it's it's happening August 31st through September 4th. So, it's a Monday through Friday experience and all of the lodging and food is provided. Uh we have an incredible chef lined up who again is really focused on as local as possible food, organic food, seasonal menu appropriate for the the descent into the fall. I really like that. Last year we did it on the spring equinox. So, we were like coming out into the world and it was basically this time last year that we were doing it >> and now we're coming around the cycle and announcing the next iteration of that and taking with us hopefully a lot of skills and practices um to descend into the dark more reflective time of the year.

[00:12:26]And yeah, the cost for that is is is $3,995.

[00:12:34]And again, that includes everything, the staying in these beautiful cabins.

[00:12:40]Um, all of the meals throughout the retreat are provided, snacks, coffee, the whole shebang. And then the most important thing is you get to hang out with us and you get to hear John's salon. John Salon is like if you want to hear the most passionate unfiltered version of John Verviki, that alone was like a huge highlight for me. And yeah, so I'll just pause there.

[00:13:09]>> Yeah, me too. What one of the things I really appreciated in that one was how you with a with with a particular person who asked a question how you went to like a literal socratic questioning dialogue. I was like man bring on the grease like this is it. So, thank you my friends. Uh I look forward to that. And uh there will be a link in the notes to this video uh where you can go uh to check uh to check it out and hopefully consider uh registering and joining us.

[00:13:46]Um so that's sort of who we are and the overall intent and goal and why we're doing it. And that's the the practical logistics. Um, we want to spend a little bit of time now uh talking about a couple of these themes and um I suppose let's start uh with why we titled it uh the way we titled it. Um and this notion of reconnecting to the real. We've touched on it. Um and this this is of course something um that I think is fundamental to people's sense of meaning. One of the crucial dimensions of a sense of meaning is a sense of con sense of connectedness of belongingness.

[00:14:30]A sense of being at home with other people, at home in the cosmos, um at home in the natural world obviously is central to that. And for many of us, uh we're feeling increasingly a drift.

[00:14:46]But reconnecting with the real is also um and and here I'm making a platonic argument. It also involves reconnecting parts of you back together that have been set at odds from each other, displaced inappropriately, uh you know, out of alignment, um maybe even at war with each other. Um, so this is the idea of we're trying to help people to recover a sense of what it's like to be at peace um and at home. Uh, can you be at peace within yourself, which doesn't mean you're necessarily feeling good. It just means you realizing that there's a way to be good.

[00:15:28]That's a different thing. You're at peace. Um, you're feeling more interconnected, more more fully realized, and you're feeling more at home.

[00:15:37]um in the world. And so for me um what we're trying to do is is bring those two those two dimensions about. But um I want to hear what both of you have to say. Guy, what what would you say about this notion of reconnecting to the real?

[00:15:54]Well, I you know, I would say, you know, actually I I was just talking about this yesterday, this experience I had that um I think demonstrates what we're talking about of like what h what happens, right, when someone is connected to the real, right? like how what what's some of the ways we know we're in contact with the real and and I was with three friends of or two other friends of mine and I I I asked my one my one friend a question and he paused and he kind of looked down and in that in that little moment of silence my other friend said and what I took to be a deep acknowledgement which was like I never know what you're going to say.

[00:16:37]>> Yeah. And it it struck it really struck me of how much that occurred for me as a deep acknowledgement right on something.

[00:16:48]And then I started thinking about it. I was like, "Yeah, the people I value in my life the most and people in fact the people that become friends of mine, right, are people that I I don't know what they're going to say when they when I ask them a question or whenever they open their mouth. they seem to be in contact with something um that in some sense not only do I not know what they're going to say, they find out what they're going to say as they speak it because they're in contact with something that they actually have to look and be in relationship with. Um and I that set that that groundedness in whatever it is that like I can't just construct but I actually have to encounter right we want maybe want to call that being want to call that the deeper principle of something right um but that I would say that kind of the the locus for me of the course is really developing adhere for the real, right?

[00:17:54]Like >> that's cool.

[00:17:55]>> And a and a scent for the real, right?

[00:17:58]Such that such that like when that you that that of course any moment, right, is real, right? Otherwise, it wouldn't be a moment obviously. But often times I think we look for the outward circumstances of what's most salient, right?

[00:18:20]um to work out in some way, right?

[00:18:25]Whereas I think what we're talking about is is having a sense or an ear, a deepening, a deeper listening for the real evolves a kind of unconditionality of every moment of being able to feel, listen, sense, right? think toward and with what is revealing itself is most re like most real in in our faking and our speaking and our listening right allows what's most real to to unfold and co- unfold me and that's that's what I think we're up to right with with the course in my view and the when I when I think about that like it's it's the place where right the most personal, right? And the verticality, right, meets that sweet spot where like the horizontal, right, of contingencies and time and all that stuff, right? And the verticality of being, right, the place where they intersect.

[00:19:29]It's it's possible for that that relationship that intersection to be the very call forth the virtues that can that we can unfold as our life and our actions and the way that we are. That's what I think we're up to with this question.

[00:19:45]>> Okay. Uh that's very helpful. So, uh Kyle, I'm going to uh interact with Guy a bit and then I'll turn to you if that's okay. Um so, >> totally.

[00:19:54]>> Um >> and just notice the halo. I I just hope we all appreciate >> that you're haloed. Yes, you're the halo effect. Yes. Well done, by the way. Um, so there's a couple things here that came out here. Um, one is and and I'm I I think what we're doing is we're recovering and to I'm going to use an ancient trilogy um uh the true, the good, and the beautiful, but I like the what you're doing here because I mean you're bringing in a hideaggarian take on this. So the the true isn't correctness or accuracy. The true is this sense of the inexhaustibleness of reality. When somebody becomes real to you, as you said, to the degree to which you experience, not just believe, but experience them as exceeding your conceptual grasp. Um uh I mean that's what it is to love someone. You're constantly drawn beyond yourself because they constantly exceed any a grasp. So a man's reach should exceed his grasp and all that sort of thing. Is that first of all fair uh that sense of the inexhaustible? Because I mean when we're judging the realness, real is a comparative >> and we're always judging something as real in term we're looking for a gradient in um in sensem.

[00:21:15]So, I have the wooden stick and I can use it to explain the shadow stick, but I can't use the shadow stick to explain the wooden stick because this has more of that inexhaustible information in it than the than the like I I pretty much get one or two details about sticks from the shadows and then I can get a lot of information about sticks from a wooden stick. Yes. Um and if you and if you start to get that landscape of all these comparisons, they start to take you towards Yeah. But there has to be an inexhaustibleness from behind and through it all. Is that fair for what you >> Oh, yeah. Totally. Yeah. Totally. It's got that, you know, as as I think you you have said a lot, John, the real has this quality of this it shines forth and emanation or suchness.

[00:22:05]>> Right.

[00:22:06]>> Well, that very shine is shining the the withdrawal into a mystery, >> the more Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. very much.

[00:22:13]the mourness and the suchness. Just find it just like all the practices and all the things that we're doing ultimately are are ways different ways to tune into that more and that suchness, right? And and I think that recovery of an experiential realization of the mourness, the suchness, the inexhaustibleness is an antidote to the way in which our society flattens and smooths everything. Um and makes uh it it it makes the world simultaneously um gray and also uh uh threatening because it's it's it's it's inhospitable uh to the human need for depth of connection, depth of realness.

[00:23:10]There was another thing you said that was I just want to don't lose your thought. There's another thing you said.

[00:23:16]You talked about the sweet spot and to me this reminds me of the good and the idea that this for me this is the the the fundamental good of reality. Um one of the marks of the real is it simultaneously saves you from two black holes. It saves you. So things h are for themselves in some degree. Um, and because of that, we can't absorb them completely into our subjectivity because that would be a I would be caught in my own. That's a solopcystic nightmare. I'm just caught inside my own mind, right?

[00:23:50]Um, and I'm absolutely isolated.

[00:23:52]>> But things are not but things also are for each other and for our for us as well. And so we can connect to them.

[00:24:00]They're not absurd to us, right? So we could we could fall into either we're like we're just we're crushed by absurd objectivity or we swallow the world into our obs our subjectivity and co showed people that they would vacasillate between those two in a really dangerous fashion right and what the sweet spot is that goodness is >> like and you get this most when you're interacting with nature or with another person you get that like I I get I I like I take you in, but I can't consume you. You're beyond me, but you're not unreachable. And that's sweet spot.

[00:24:38]That's the that's the goodness because it's it's perpetually saving us from these two nightmares. These two nightmares of, you know, of absurd of of of absurd objectivity or an absolutely entrapped subjectivity. And like and and and >> and so that's what I heard when you s heard that. And we help what we're doing is we're helping people find that sweet spot of goodness.

[00:25:03]>> Does that land for you?

[00:25:06]>> Well, yeah. I mean, what's like mostly landing is is uh your that the very thing that we're talking about I sense is drawing you out right in your >> in your inspiration. It's that right like it's definitely >> it's definitely that sense of we're getting closer to something, right?

[00:25:26]there's something that we can't quite put words to. It's It's funny. I think the real at the deep at the deeper levels beg the very words they buck.

[00:25:36]>> I I that they have to because if what what I said was true, if we could completely comprehend the real, it would lose its capacity uh to give us that sweet spot. This is Hartman Rose's idea, the uncontrollability of the world. If there's not a degree of uncontrollability about things, we can't possibly resonate with them. We either consume them or we can't touch them. Uh but what we want is resonance where we touch them without consuming them. And that's also we're trying to get. Does that does that land for you?

[00:26:10]>> Yeah, absolutely. Which speaks to a kind of you know that you you had mentioned the word likeos >> hospitality. Yeah. Inhospitable. Yes.

[00:26:23]Yeah. Like that's that's another quality of I've noticed that when the the real is opening up, like this happens in circling a lot.

[00:26:32]When the real is opening up, we're all kind of sitting in something that is there's a feeling of profoundness and there's a feeling of love and there's a sense of sufficiency. It's almost like it's like what we're sitting in, right, is is something that's it's almost like the air itself, right, is a kind of sufficiency of being like nothing's deficient. The end is before us, right?

[00:27:04]>> And then this gets us to the last one, which is the beautiful. The beautiful is that from which nothing should be taken away or nothing should be added. And and and when you get that sense that you just said of like that I I'm touching and being touched and I get that goodness and I get that sense of inexhaustibleness and I come to a place where nothing should be taken away from this and nothing should be added to this. Um and that's that's a classic definition of beauty. Um u that's a classic definition of beauty. The experience of beauty is an experience of that you're in this right relationship.

[00:27:43]So things are presencing, you're resonating with them, and you're getting a sense of transcendence in their inexhaustibleness. And those are all woven together.

[00:27:52]>> Yeah. Yeah. And so having so in some sense this attunement is I think is the is is the word like a deeper like when I say having an ear or a scent, right? We're not talking about something abstract or intellectual in that way. It's like it's there's something more um it's it always has this quality just like an insight does, right? Where >> part of the thing about an insight is like often times it's about something that's actually been there your whole life but you just realize it newly or more of it shows, right? And so because it's already present, the realization I already belong to it. I'm already honed in it, right? And I think there's something about that homing quality that the more that you can attune to it, right, the more it attunes with you >> and the more you can find it in everything, right? In a sense.

[00:28:54]>> And I think we got a lot I mean we get a lot of feedback in the workshops, got a lot of feedback in the retreat. That's uh for me I'll use a platonic word here.

[00:29:02]This is anomnesis. What Plato meant by that um just how people describe like guy like Guy was saying there they they say things like it's always been here but I didn't realize it or this is what I've been looking for my whole life but I didn't know. I remember one one woman after the last retreat she just simply stood forward and said I'm going to live more virtuously now. And and for that was like a profound statement that she made and I was like whoa. Um and she was she wasn't making a willful statement.

[00:29:36]She was making a statement of realization this homing this being drawn in that you're talking about.

[00:29:44]>> Yeah. Totally. Totally.

[00:29:46]>> So Kyle, what do you think about uh what we're talking about here? Any what thoughts come to mind? And what what aspect from your dimension would you like to bring in?

[00:29:57]Yeah. Um, so many things have just been bubbling for me. And what I appreciate about both of you all is like you make it really easy for me to just point at the thing.

[00:30:15]>> I don't need to say anything super profound. I feel like I'm the guy that's just pointing the way. You're like, "Yeah, there's a there's a flatness."

[00:30:26]And I'm like, "I'm looking at a flat screen right now."

[00:30:29]>> Right. Right. Right.

[00:30:31]>> And you know the metaphor of of that you typically use of comparative of the real. When you when you wake up from a dream, you notice that you're in a bigger world that's more real.

[00:30:44]>> Yeah.

[00:30:45]>> And sometimes I feel that the virtual world is like that. I go in and I have an amazing, deep, connective, inspirational experience and then I close my screen and I'm in this world and those people are not there and it and it is harder to bring forth those aspects of myself that were just so present amongst these people and in these containers where we get to we get to continue that journey throughout the day and into the evening and when we wake up they're still there. We get to have that interaction. We get to experience the suchness that is the 3D person in the dynamic environment and that you could be struck literally struck with insight, you know, by glancing over and and seeing um beauty and and then the all all the relevant metaphors that are happening are because of the shared space that we're co-inhabiting together. And I can I can say something and I can I can point to it and I can touch it and we can these metaphors are not abstract.

[00:32:14]They're they're deeply connected to the present time that we happen to be in.

[00:32:21]And and those shared metaphors are environmental. They're not just mental, right? You know, it's I'm like the tree.

[00:32:30]I'm like the mountain. I'm like the lake. And not just a lake, that lake.

[00:32:34]And not just that lake, that part of the lake from this afternoon, you know, when the sun came by and and struck us all on the beach, like that feeling. You know what that feeling is? Like there's that connectedness of the multi-dimensional world versus just like a a verbal symbolic representation of of trying to point at something.

[00:33:02]And and that's what I just keeps coming up for me like over and over when I when I hear one of my projects that I've been working on this year is is how do I what I understand about the real and the true the good the beautiful and then also I've been adding in resonance >> into that and how do I actually how does that how do I participate in these in the world in what feels like a real way.

[00:33:36]And and one of the big things that came up for me this year was tracking.

[00:33:42]When I'm tracking an animal, I there there's something that I can see and other people can see it, but they but yet they can't. It's not relevant.

[00:33:54]It's not salient. It doesn't stand out.

[00:33:56]But I can I can see it and I can point to it and then I can infer information about what that track is telling me. And then the further I go along on the trail, I get more information that is helping me better deduce what it is I am seeing. Was that a wolf track or was that a snowplop?

[00:34:23]>> Right. Was that a meltout from a rock?

[00:34:26]Right. And then like and then I I'm on this tracking is is is that process of truththing and trothing that I'm directly tied and connected to this thing that is is changing over time and my relationship is changing with it.

[00:34:43]Because if I find out that those tracks are fresh, the closer I get to a cougar or a wolfpack, my reality, my relationship with the world is starting to shift.

[00:34:59]>> And then again, I'm still but I'm I'm still holding that. I don't actually know the absolute truth of the matter until maybe if I'm lucky in a moment, like an insight, it reveals itself to me.

[00:35:13]>> The wolf steps out from the tree. I find the kill site.

[00:35:18]>> The squirrel comes down. The bird alarms >> it again. It makes real all of these things that are just existing in my head.

[00:35:32]And so when I hear you guys talk, I'm just like, >> I feel like I just need to do that.

[00:35:38]>> Well, well, two things come out of that.

[00:35:40]First of all, um and and um so I think when you're talking about and I I want to use this word and I wanted to like I want people to really hear it.

[00:35:54]You're talking about these primordial things. human beings have been doing this since they've been human beings, which is unlike a lot of the stuff you do uh in your life, everybody. Uh but you know um I I uh I'm a supporter of the theory that our ability to track right and keep track of our tracking is how we got the abilities for narrative and for long-term planning and for trying to reach into the unobserved world by looking at the effects signification that's literally looking at signs. Um, this goes back and this this is a deeper theme. Often to reconnect to the real, we have to go back into our more primordial sensory motor behavior, the ancient ways, and then repurpose them, re-enliven, bring them back so that they can be repurposed. So, you get get better at tracking an argument you're having with your spouse. Because often what happens in these arguments is we lose the thread. We lose the through line. We stop tracking what's really going on. We lose the narrative as we say because we get a sense of what I'm talking about here. But like these higher more abstract abilities are grounded in they grow from these actual embodied sensory motor primordial practices that Kyle will be teaching us. Now, how does that land for you, Kyle, as a way of >> Yeah. to ex Exactly. I feel >> I feel the truth of that in my experience and and we also we talk about um inner tracking and outer tracking.

[00:37:45]talked about >> um >> and then some of your blog posts on on our our availability heristics and our biases and what when you're tracking in the in the the real world when you're tracking in the the nonhuman landscape no matter like I could totally convince myself that that's a wolf track or a c I could like totally make the most complic licated argument for that based on what I want to see, >> right?

[00:38:23]But ultimately, if I keep following the trail, like at some point, I have to be faced with a truth or a recognition that no matter how hard and how many different angles I come from and look at it, >> it just it it's not the the truth of it.

[00:38:45]And I think in our in our abstract world in like when I'm fighting with my partner, I can see very easily and interpret all of the ways she doesn't love me.

[00:38:57]>> Yes. Yes.

[00:38:59]>> And but I can't it's hard to get the you know unless unless you have regular check-ins, it's hard to know the truth of it. It was like, "Oh, I see you just made a snack for yourself and you didn't make a snack for me. It's very clear that you don't love me."

[00:39:17]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's where I'm like I'm liking and that's where I think like circling in some of these other skills, we have to take these ideas in these things and we have to put them against something that's more solid that's more that that that the feedback is closer and closer to what we p to not what we want the truth to be, but what the truth actually is >> is like that's not a wolf track. That's a snow plop. And if we sit here long enough, we can watch the snow melt and plop and make a similar track.

[00:40:01]>> Guy, you want to say something?

[00:40:04]>> Yeah. I'm just, you know, one of the things I've really appreciated about your work, Kyle, and like, you know, participating in it is there's this way where you you put us through some exercise or play some kind of game and inevitably I walk away kind of with this this understanding that then unfolds for the next year in my mind, right? which is which is like the way I climb that tree is the way I do everything, >> right?

[00:40:38]>> Like there was that one exercise, but there was a game that you play was really fun. Um the the one where uh someone stands in the middle and everyone circles around them and they have that styrofoam bat, right? And they're blowing blindfold and then they have to find the person >> and I if you at least how I recall it, I just dominated that game. I was able to like get into >> You were very You were very good at >> Yeah. At the at the uh at the end of it, I said I said it jokingly, right? But I was like, "Oh, yeah. Well, this is how I saved myself from my father, right?" And and it was uh uh it was interesting. I said that in humor. But then that little insight like whittleled its way into my mind and I ended up that led to all kinds of things of understanding, you know, places in my own life where I avoid I avoid confrontation and why I avoid confrontation and where I actually need to to confront and Right. So, it's like the the a lot of the things that you're gonna that Kyle's going to be bringing to this are going to just trust me are going to have these resonances that I'm and insights about. Yeah. The way I climbed this tree, the way I competed, right, brings out holographically the way I do most things, right? Which is really insightful and striking and illuminating.

[00:42:11]>> So, so this >> Yeah. And what I >> I love about the the relationship between us three, I'm not in the middle this time, which is slightly sad. I like being in the middle. Do this is is Don's work and philosophical framing and articulation has really helped me better come into contact and experience the importance of these whimsical, frivolous, fun, you know, things that they they sometimes get labeled as. Um and then and then doing them in that just brings me even more into it. Um you know the beauty I I I've been starting to think about actually being able to see beauty is a skill.

[00:43:00]>> Yes. Yes. And a lot of us don't have that skill.

[00:43:04]And and as you were talking about, you know, beauty is the is essentially the ability to notice that that thing that doesn't need to be changed, that like perfection, that moment. And and it and it's only beautiful for me from this point. It might not be from here or here, but there's something about the way that I'm standing and giving my attention to And then when I bring other people, so I did this um practice. We're out tracking. I'm like, "Hey, at any moment I want any anybody has permission to pause the whole group and point out something they find beautiful and bring us all in on it. Describe it. What is it? What is it that you're noticing?

[00:43:51]What is the felt sense? It's, you know, people the angle of the sun and the club, but oh no, you got to come here.

[00:43:56]You got Okay, get down to my level. You got to see it from my perspective.

[00:44:02]And then the circling work in and the way that guy is a what do you call it?

[00:44:08]He's a conductor of the orchestra >> maestro >> of >> he's a maestro.

[00:44:13]>> The maestro >> of bringing these insights to bear that an insight could go and maybe one day will whittle its way down to profundity. But there's something about the way that guy brings us into contact with each other that allows these experiences that we have to come into verbal expression and to be witnessed.

[00:44:44]And I was like, "Oh, that's I think that's I don't know if John knows this, but I think that's what he means." You often say, you know, when you experience the more senses you can experience with something with the more likely you are to say that it's real.

[00:45:00]>> Yes.

[00:45:02]>> And it's like, whoa, I I'm with all of my senses. I'm hearing it.

[00:45:07]I'm hearing myself saying it. And then I'm experiencing it with all of their senses.

[00:45:12]>> Yeah. And then if I name it to the whole group, we're all we can all point to the truth or the the the the the thing that one is is talking about and then we can also follow up with each other.

[00:45:27]How is that thing going? How is that insight? Is that still real for you? Is that still present? Is it still alive?

[00:45:34]Is it still pro, you know, pervading your perspective? And and so those Yeah.

[00:45:42]Having you two in my life has just brought so much richness for me and and then I get to bring other people into that that the community that I live in that these are that that these are regular practices um that I think when we talk about like like we need these ecologies of practice and I think that they need to pervade one's life reg like at a regularity pretty.

[00:46:13]>> So, so that >> you know when somebody's going through something in our community, I'm like, we need to we need to hold a circle.

[00:46:19]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:46:21]>> And so, yeah, that was a little bit of some different directions, but that's like >> I thought that was excellent, Kyle. That was very good. And I want to pick up on a theme and it's been implicit in what I think all of us are saying, but I think you foregrounded it. This is not a retreat. This is not you go away and you have some fun. It's not a vacation. This is a pilgrimage. Um, it's designed to transform you in a way that takes you back into the world and reconnects you to your world, your everyday world in a more profound way. The re the reconnecting to the real doesn't take place just in the like in the retreat.

[00:46:58]It is designed all of the practices and the way we teach them and the the way we're living together and being in nature are designed to transfer into your everyday life. that that is where the reconnecting to the real ultimately takes place. It takes place in your life. This is not this is not a vacation. U I mean you will have fun uh and you will eat good food and you'll be around interesting people. The kind of thing that primates really love but it's not about that primarily. This is this is not a vacation. This is more like a pilgrimage. This is to behold things so that when you return back home, you see things differently than you did before.

[00:47:39]>> Yeah. Yeah. And considering that all of our actions and behavior are in correlation with what we can see. Yeah.

[00:47:49]>> Right.

[00:47:50]>> What's distinct for us, right? the implications of being able to see more of your wife or more of the dynamic going on with you at work, right, with more distinction, right? The more the more you will like just be able to respond to it, right?

[00:48:09]Which is which is when you think about it, it's just that's perhaps what you're responding to is this inexhaustibility of the real. you're able to see more of the real and the dynamic of the real, right? The the inexhaustibility of it, but also the the suchness of it, the singular this unique singularity of it. And uh and and in and in in in the every action that we have like every thought we have, every emotion we have, every action, every speech, all of our speech is always in correlation with perception.

[00:48:51]>> And so that that's I think that's the thing that's inexhaustibly inspiring for me. And I also think that there's something going on here too with, you know, we're it's hard to say what we're in in the middle of right now because it changes so quickly.

[00:49:10]>> You mean as a society, not just us three? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:49:14]>> Yeah. Totally. Like and the you know the the on you know the onset of the of the personalized a you know AI agent that can now do stuff for you on the computer and the implications of that, right? Um, it's interesting because I I feel that what what's calling forth these retreats, right? If we say that we're responding to something in the world, I think it's like at some level we're responding to uh essentially how like given that so much of our world is mediated right through screens like mediated through you know texting and email right if you really look at it it's quite strange how much of our life is yeah it has this mediation layer between it and how rare actually it is to to directly come in contact, right?

[00:50:17]Reconnecting with the real that connectivity, you know, because so much of of communication of relationship, right? Is is is not is what what is it? The what's the one not symmetric um what do you call that again? asymmetric relations versus I'm trying to think of the word like when I'm actually talking with you >> I'm like and dealing with you in real time right I'm synchronos like I'm in sync with you and then there's asynchronic >> that's right >> asynchronic yeah >> and given like that most of our communications are can be done as asynchronically >> asynchronously >> asynchronously thank you um the uh uh and that's always easier to some degree, right? And it's it's for the f you know the first time in like we're in a really strange time like literally it's unprecedented like where relationship contact right um unmediated like connections with people places and things are optional like they're optional um we're I think coming into a time for us to actually make contact it needs to be something that we personally value and need to consciously and deliberately practice and and and and choose right in in some way. And so in some ways I think like this what we're doing if I listen to it from like what are we responding to in the world? I think that's in some sense what we're responding to is is this this call for contact, this call for unmediated um relationship, right? this call for the re like the reconnecting with the real and uh I just want to highlight like that yet we're right now inside of something that I think the the new AI agents that can do stuff for you the open claw I've been talking with a lot of people on my my AM radio show right um that that's that we had John on but I've been talking with a lot of people that are right it in the heart of this technology and so I've been thinking so much about the implications of it, right, are mindboggling in both a positive sense but also a catastrophic sense, right? Um and so this is kind of the time that we're inside of, right? So the the that Yeah. to have people really crave the real, right? to want the real, right?

[00:53:14]Because it's the real is becoming option like optional in some strange way, right, in our society. I think that's what we're up to.

[00:53:24]That's powerful, guy. I think I I think that's right. I think um um there's been uh we're now getting people I'm seeing them at at university students who were never without screens and a lot of tra a lot of things that usually worked for people um like you could ask people well like would you get into the experience machine would you get in the matrix and people say no it's not real I I don't want to be in fake.

[00:53:57]Um, but some of these kids are like, "Yeah, sure. Why not?" Uh, because they've lost the taste for the real. And then the problem with that is, uh, reality is actually always beyond your grasp. Um and um like so one thing that I find terrifying is uh grief tech where people are basically using LLMs to create avatars of people that have died.

[00:54:27]Uh um and so they talk to these avatars.

[00:54:33]Um so they do not have to confront the reality of their mortality or of real loss. And I mean, one of the wisest things somebody ever said to me from one of the wisest people in my life is he said, "Don't get deeply involved with somebody who is has not experienced grief because they're not fully human, right? Um because grief is a is a deep way of waking up to the real um and staying sensitive to it. And when you watch the and and not and not and notice notice the the what that it's not only that you lose contact with mortality, but notice what you've done to this person who was once an independent agent with their own goals and wishes and desires. And that's what you really lose when somebody's died. They're now replaced by somebody who is at your beck and call who is completely instrumentalized and completely consumed by your subjectivity. This this is this is immoral and it is profoundly unhealthy and it is it is again what is happening to people that are losing the taste for the real and and it is extremely dangerous. It is extremely dangerous.

[00:55:44]I just I just talked with an old friend of mine who um essentially who who's been married with kids and all that stuff, created a relationship with a her first love and developed this relationship and out of that ended up divorcing.

[00:56:04]>> She fell getting >> fell in love with an LLM and divorced the real human being. Yeah. And I I I get those kinds of emails. One therapist was saying, "Uh, I'm having trouble uh because there's a woman and there's a couple in therapy and the woman wants to bring in her LLM lover, large language model, uh, uh, lover." Um, and I and I get emails from people, my LLM has achieved sentience and enlightenment, and it has told me the one true way. Um yeah, this is this is this is very dangerous stuff uh that's happening and um so um I think it's important that we we also emphasize that I this is this is of course promoting the you know reconnecting to the real because so it could seem self-promotional but I I hope you give me enough trust that I'm saying this sincerely. Don't just do this for yourself. Don't just come for yourself.

[00:57:02]Come for your kids. Come for your friends. Come for the people that you love. Because having them having somebody in their life who can remember the taste of the real, it's like you would be the person living with a bunch of people that can only see in black and white and you have remembered what color is like and you can bring that back to them. Uh so don't just come for yourself. You should come for yourself, but come for the people in your life that you love because we are all at risk of being consumed and losing something really vital. Um, so I just wanted to I wanted to really emphasize what you were saying, guy. I think it's profound. I I'll tell you and and this this this is to praise my beautiful spouse, Sara. Um, when I said there was this company and they were offering to make a complete avatar of me that people could talk to, and I said to her, "Well, you'll be able to talk to me when I'm dead." Her response was to cry and say, "I would never want that. That's horrible." And I thought, >> "Yeah, >> that's why I'm with you. That's why I'm with you."

[00:58:13]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:58:14]>> Yeah. I want to also emphasize the the pilgrimage. If you are privileged or resourced enough to be able to to go on this pilgrimage, which you know is a is a thing that humans have done is to leave the place you are to go on an adventure, to go on a journey seeking >> deeper connection, wisdom, insight, all of these these practices, these things of another place.

[00:58:46]And the most important part of that journey is to return.

[00:58:50]>> Yes.

[00:58:50]>> Is to return to your people and have your story caught and to bring however you know you fumble your way through it.

[00:59:00]But to bring these practices to your people to bring them together to gather that is that is actually the most important part. And and if you come and and you don't do that, I I actually like I feel sad. Like there's a sadness that evokes in me. Um you know, for me like when I did the circling with Guy, it was it was such it was so like deeply healing. I felt the responsibility to bring this to my people who are hurting, who are wanting, who are needing to be heard and experienced in the way that I got to do with others.

[00:59:45]And and I brought I kind of was like, you guys want to do this thing? It's kind of weird, but we're going to listen. And and and now people are asking more and more for it. and and as things come up in our community, we now have something to point to. So, I really want to encourage you if you've made it this far that you, you know, you might actually be the one. We're all hoping that somebody will be the one to do the thing that's going to save us and help us and do it. But if you're listening to this and if your heart is beating really fast, you might actually be the one that has to do it. and and I felt that responsibility. I felt that privilege and and and I feel the challenge of that like like really I I have to do it. I'm like, "Yeah, you have to do it." I'm like, "Okay, let's do it."

[01:00:38]So, I just want to really emphasize um because of everything that was stated, I have a 10-month old daughter and I feel that deep responsibility to help her stay connected because like what I see what I see in her is from the moment she wakes up, she might be crying all night, not sleeping, she wakes up with joy and presence in the world. It is so infectious. And I can just see how I lost that over time. And I see all the things that are innate to us. That sense of belonging, that sense of connectedness that that that joy I think is a natural way of being. Joy is the being mode that is the most natural.

[01:01:32]and through the layering and the mediating and all the things. And I I hope I get to talk to John next week. I have so many questions for him on this topic, how we got here.

[01:01:46]But I see that and I'm like, man, I'm my my task right now is actually just to keep that alive as long as I possibly can.

[01:01:58]and that having some practices and having mentors and having elders to help me hold that space for her um I think is the most important thing that's in my life right now.

[01:02:11]>> That's fantastic.

[01:02:13]So, gentlemen, um we're coming to a close. Uh but, um I I I I think this was um well, I I hope you could all see how things just catch. A fire catches a logo shows up and it takes on a life of its own. Um and so, uh and that fire will be much bigger, much brighter, and last much longer. Uh if you come to reconnect, >> it'll be real.

[01:02:37]>> Yeah. And it'll be real.

[01:02:39]>> So, I'm gonna I'm I I want to thank you for your time and attention. I'm going to give the last words uh to my to to my my good friends. Uh we'll do uh Guy and then Kyle. Any last final thoughts uh you'd like to give people who might be watching?

[01:02:57]>> Yeah. Just if if this is if some any of this speaks to you, just check check it out. like if you have any questions um like Kyle or me can we'll we'll meet with you and talk you through it. It you know it's a financial commitment. It's a time commitment right? So like you know if it calls to you take take it seriously explore it right um like check out we have a website right and and a place to see all the logistical details and get more information on it. But yeah, if you feel called just I pay attention to that, >> Kyle, I felt like I said what I needed to say and I'll just high point to that actually we this is the first time we're announcing it publicly and there's only 10 spots left. um half the retreat has been um filled by returning participants which I'm so grateful for and yeah it's actually there are limited spots available so if you feel that call um we would love to support you in getting here.

[01:04:07]>> Good to know. Yeah.

[01:04:08]>> And also those those all the last three church like it was amazing all the all the participants ended up just they happened to be the most coolest people in the world.

[01:04:20]>> Just saying.

[01:04:23]>> Thank you my friends. Thank you everybody else for your time and your attention. Hope to see you there.