The Moment is Now

Anne Mason and Thea Mason

“Imbue thyself with the power of imagination.” Our conscious participation is essential to manifest the Christ Consciousness. Rise to our soul’s responsibility.

TRANSCRIPT:

Anne (00:01):

Okay. Thea, we’re recording now. Hi.

Thea (00:05):

Hi.

Anne (00:08):

And so we want to cover a lot and we’re going to want to do it in like 20 minutes. And we want to get a bit deep and real, and I’m going to open though with a kind of more personal mundane perspective on what I want to get into. We are each going through various situations in our lives that seem to be revealing, more starkly, patterns that are not serving us. And we’ve each witnessed many of our friends, family, and associates going through a similar kind of what I call it, a bit of a dark night of the soul, where, you know, I mean, throughout our lives, these patterns emerge that we have an opportunity to recognize, put language on and work through and try to heal, try to repattern.

Anne (01:22):

And I think we’ve each done that to more or less degree, but it almost seems like it’s accelerated right now where perhaps what hasn’t been addressed or “pushed into the past,” as Paul Tillich says, maybe those are now just really just rearing their head. We’re being given this opportunity in a kind of more compact time to just knock them out of the park and, and come out the other side. And I say this with an awareness of a larger cosmic and human event taking place on a more macro level.

Anne (02:17):

This, this past year has been enormous for everyone. Existential fear, existential threat has been perceived by most of us, whether or not we are afraid of a virus––which I’m not––or afraid of tyranny, which is more my concern, or afraid of an increasing evidence of cult programming among human beings around us, or more and more and more. There are many, many different things we can choose to focus on and be fearful of. I think that this is coinciding with what many people in many Christian denominations would suggest is End Times, or whether you go by the Mayan calendar, or moving into a different age astrologically, or more. I mean, we’ve touched on this a bit, But we are in a moment in time, a very significant moment in time. And we have an opportunity now, and I want to share my insight. I am right now, living in an area very different than the area I moved from. There are many people here who are followers of one sect, denomination of Christianity or another. And I’m witnessing folks being very aware of the significant time we’re in, but who from my outside perspective seem to be awaiting an external event to steward them out of the darkness.

Anne (04:35):

And I think that is missing the mark. If that is the focus. I, as you, as folks who are familiar with us know, we are, informed by a lot of Rudolf Steiner’s insights, lectures, and writings, and the way he presents it is that the––so let me back up, people are awaiting the return of Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ. Right? So Steiner explains that humanity has the opportunity to manifest the Christ in the Etheric, rather than..go ahead. Would you help me?

Thea (05:41):

Just maybe instead of going directly like that, but more that humanity has the tools to work with the Christ impulse as we are, but it takes the will to do so. So we have to direct that action. But we are responsible. We have been given that––as humanity’s state now––to have the Christ impulse within us, as well as outside of us. And that’s where the importance of the relationship of each human being to the greater whole of humanity and the cosmic order, that relationship and directed action is essential. And that’s what I think you’re saying. You’re seeing and hearing a sleepiness, a childlikeness––which we’re all––I’ll speak for myself, waking from. There is this waking up into my own tasks and my responsibility, but that it is mine. It’s not going to come to me or directly lead me. I must seek it. I must take a step and it will come to meet me when I’m doing that work of creating the movement of, with my will and with will itself.

Anne (07:28):

Yes. And perhaps that’s the distinction that I am seeking to articulate. That it is––I believe it is––more than just being a good Christian or, or good Muslim, good Jew, good person, good atheist. I believe that it is requiring a consciousness, uh, of our, of our responsibility in bringing this event about, and, and I don’t want to get too literal about what the event is, but I do think it’s an actualization of our true human nature. And I believe, see, we have a unique perspective as human beings in relation to the divine beings. We have entered matter in such a way that provides a unique perspective, and we can bring it through that perspective of perceiving through matter, and through the intellect, the very heavy intellect that we have developed as a result of our material inhabitation. We have the remarkable opportunity to recognize our eternal nature in that temporal matter.

New Speaker (09:30):

I want to add something if you don’t mind, please, to your stream, because I’ve been thinking about this and we’ve been talking about it, there’s this––what is it when you’re saying this developed intellect, if I’m not missing it, but the idea that the intellect is not bound to our head, right? It’s not severed from every other perceiving aspect of our humanness. And I feel like it’s important because I think an old view of our intellect, or maybe just a lost view–– maybe it’s not old, I don’t know––because what about our humanness that’s so individual or so necessary for this evolution of the Involution is, is that we are thinking, perceiving. Thinking is not just of the head, I guess that’s all I’m trying to say.

Anne (10:53):

Are you talking about Aristotelian logic as intellect?

Thea (10:58):

No, I don’t think, I mean, I don’t know what I’m thinking of. Exactly. Just that true intelligence, intellect is not just of the head thinking. It is of the wholeness of perceiving and understanding that we are keenly designed to do.

Anne (11:24):

Well, that’s the intelligence. Right? And my understanding is that because we have had this, have this experience, on the material plane, there s a danger in separating the intelligence from the intellect and that, in order to merge that again, to be in communion with the intelligence, we have to infuse our intellect with spirit. But that doesn’t come in the same manner it came perhaps 2000 years ago, 600 years ago, 150 years ago. It has, it requires more consciousness on our part to infuse that intellect with spirit and to see the spiritual, see the divine in matter in the material world around us.

Thea (12:42):

Which also includes us.

Anne (12:47):

Exactly. Well, exactly! Our divine being or eternal being is inhabiting matter right now. So we’re getting heady and abstract and who knows who’s going to even follow any of this. But what I’m recognizing is, so maybe how about you read that Terence McKenna quote that you were sharing with me?

Thea (13:19):

Sure. Yeah. This, this quote I have come back to again and again, through different stages of life. And it continues to resonate, exponentially. “Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream, and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted––who really touched the alchemical gold––this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed.” And we as a whole society right now are on this ledge, or walking to this ledge of, of all of the structures that we have grown into filling and functioning within are cracking and crumbling and dissembling. And we must, I think simply imbue these structures with this divine nature of each human, that we each hold, to transform what we’re living and seeing.

Anne (15:03):

And what I realized as you were reading that quote is hat’s faith. So, you know, don’t, don’t misperceive what faith is, right? Faith is a belief in possibility really, right? It’s even a belief in the impossibility, right? And that guards against fear.

Thea (15:35):

Well it’s because it is strengthening courage. It is, it takes courage to have faith because there’s a moment of unseeing of not seeing or not the tangibility it’s intangible in a moment.

Anne (15:55):

Yeah. Yeah. It’s intangible, which is all the more reason. I mean, gosh, it’s like so many conversations I can think of to go tangent on. Okay. I’m thinking about the fact that that’s why it’s very important to recognize how limiting, the purely material vision is. You come up against how narrowing, how narrowing it is, whether it is allowing your intellect to override your instinct and intuition and imagination. If you let your intellect do that, you can spiral just into the smaller and smaller and smaller points of being that in my experience leads to a more fearful, anxious state of existence.

Thea (17:05):

Well, it’s a contraction. So, so that’s exactly what that is. And we’ve all experienced that at some point, right?

Anne (17:18):

Totally! In many levels and capacities of our lives. And of course I can see where, you know, this crazy, seriously insane obsession with this like, these flying germs that are to be feared. When, when you are focusing your fear into this tiny little concept, it’s neverending the measures that you’re going to try to take to safeguard yourself against it. It’s just, it’s reductivism at its absolute insane possibility, but whatever. I mean, whatever, we’ve all got our stuff and we all came in for a reason with this. And we’re all facing our fears in different ways. The key is to face it with consciousness. And, let me just read this, this one thing I’ve shared with you from Paul Tillich’s “The Eternal Now.” He said, “This is what ‘last judgment’ means––to separate in us, as in everything, what has true and final being from what is merely transitory and empty of true being.”

Anne (18:43):

So I guess I just kind of want to conclude with my understanding right now, my increasing understanding or my journey of understanding, I guess, is what I should say. I just thought of something. There’s some meme that I saw going around, that’s this picture of a butterfly sitting across the table, having coffee with a caterpillar and the caterpillar says “You’ve changed.” And the butterfly says, “We’re supposed to.” And I think to myself with that, you know, beyond that, like, “And why haven’t you?” Right? “Why haven’t you changed?” It’s very important to continue examining what we are being presented with every day. I think that we can transcend this, the fearful state of existence and bring about the Christ consciousness by recognizing our freedom to do so. The power of our thought, the fact that we now control our thoughts and consequently control our reality.

Anne (20:26):

We must be conscious and put into practice anything we can to be conscious to when the fears––I’m starting just to refer to them as––when the demons try to enter. When the Ahrimanic spirits try to get in there, when the fear tries to enter, and throw us off course. Now, first off, think about this. When we are in a state of fear, we are not clear. We are certainly never at our best. I don’t think clearly when I’m in a state of fear or anxiety. Let’s just also talk about anxiety because some of our obstacles and patterns come to us as just anxieties about this or that or that, right? When we are in that state, we are somewhat paralyzed to a greater or lesser degree. Some of us are very functional in it, but still not free to dream and be our full self. So that alone should be a sign that that’s not a state of being that one should cultivate for any reason. It doesn’t mean to escape from it, by zoning out in whatever way you can zone out. But it means to recognize that those fears are our enemies. Like the FDR quote, “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.” What were you going to say?

Thea (22:20):

Well, there are a few things along the way. One, just to go to the beginning of it was with your Caterpillar meme––which I love that my friend calls it a “Memé”–– is that with that “And why haven’t you?” I would say, it’s the timing. It’s the season. And I was going to say for the change, now is the time. And so that’s one part. And then with the dynamics of anxiety and fear––which as, you know, talking about those movements of feeling that spiral into a small space to inhabit in ourselves––and we can know that when we feel anxious, we get smaller, we get tighter, which means we’re less present. And so if finding our ways to become more fully present, when those contracting energies are coming at us or coming in towards us––one of my main teachers kind of describes it as––fill up all of the spaces. That’s something we’ve spoken about. If we are not filling ourselves up, something will fill that if it’s simply a void of fear, if it’s of an unknown anxiety. So, like a glass of water, let’s fill it to the top and spill over the top so that we are like a fountain of light and fullness of being.

Anne (24:26):

Yeah, you just made me realize, I mean, it’s so obvious, but fear prevents us from being present. So it kind of drives parts of ourselves out, away somewhere, into the shadows or something. So I shared with you that something I’ve been saying is my own mantra, whenever any of those things, whatever they are come in. I say, “I choose faith and freedom over fear.” And I focus on that. “I choose faith and freedom over fear. I choose faith and freedom over fear.” And it doesn’t mean that I’m going to not––at a point that I’ve moved past that initial kind of danger zone of letting the fear take hold––it doesn’t mean I’m not going to return a little more consciously and even keeled to that thought that maybe I need to address. But I’m starting to recognize this as a metaphysical battle. And I think we’re all warriors in it. And I think the sooner we all realize that, the easier time of it we’ll be having. Because kind of like, you know, a drug trip, right? When you’re having a bad drug trip and you realize, if you don’t let that take hold and you recognize that it’s something that you’ll move out of once the drug itself leaves your system, kind of the same goes. So kind of meta-conceptualize these fears, these anxieties, put them a little further away from you.

Thea (26:15):

Or even turn them inside out is what I think of when a fearful habit or journey or thought, or a descent into darkness is coming in to your sphere. I have the picture of wrap it up and then turn it inside out. So it’s not even I have to push it away, but you can just turn it around. And it just made me think of the song in “Battlestar Galactica,” you know, “There must be some kind of way out of here….”

Anne (27:00):

Yeah. And of course, “Battlestar Galactica” and any hero’s journey, tale, describes this beautifully and illustrates it. And by the way, of course, I’m getting the signal from my son that we went way over time. So let’s wrap it up for now.

Thea (27:26):

And I’d love to conclude with the Steiner verse that many people that are familiar with Steiner are familiar with. And this is one that I work with quite a bit too, which sort of wraps it up in a nutshell.

Anne (27:54):

Oh, and you know what, let me say something right before you do it. It’s not just fear. It’s not just anxiety. It’s grief, it’s sadness, it’s pain. It’s anything that we can drown in. And it doesn’t take away from the realness of that pain. The realness of that grief and struggle, it doesn’t take away from it at all, but we can separate ourselves to a degree whether it’s turning, or maybe separate ourselves, isn’t the right word. We can take it, we can be mindful of it. Let’s just be conscious of it.

Thea (28:37):

Yeah. And I mean, it makes me think of, with a young animal or a young child, or anyone when fear is coming in, our gesture to dissolve it is to embrace them. Right? We give them the warmth and holding, and we can do that with ourselves too. Because you know, I haven’t thought of fear this way before, but that it needs to be held to be transformed out of that singular way of being. That it can be, it can be changed, and maybe that’s part of the opportunity. I haven’t seen it this way before right now, but with the world and people living in so many different qualities of fear that that’s really what it’s asking for. Is for us to open our arms fully and embrace it all so that it can be transformed into warmth and light and love. Which makes me want to cry a little bit. So…good old Rudolf––”Imbue thyself with the power of imagination. Have courage for the truth. Sharpen thy feeling for responsibility of soul.” And each of those lines means more and more every day. I see more in each one. So you know, this task of humanity, responsibility of soul, the courage for the truth, which means it’s a dispelling or a transforming of the fear, you know? And the power of imagination to dream the impossible dream. So we’re here together to do it, yo. And the earth, the cosmos need us to. That’s it.

Anne (31:00):

All right. That’s it!

Thea (31:03):

Until next time.

Anne (31:06):

Okay. See ya.

Thea (31:08):

Bye.

The Road from Left to Right

by Anne Mason

Photo by Jared S. on Unsplash

An old friend of mine and I recently reconnected. She expressed fascination and curiosity about my shift in politics, my support for President Trump and more. Like many Trump supporters these days, I used to be a Democrat. I told her I’d try to put some of my thoughts and experiences down on paper to shed some light on my shift from Left to Right.

I grew up in Democratic campaign headquarters in the Chicago area. My father ran campaigns for local politicians in the area, as well as regional campaigns for national Democratic candidates. Our family photo albums show my dad with Teddy Kennedy, Birch Bayh and other politicians on the campaign trail. My dad was a fierce and loyal supporter of the party and particularly the Kennedy family whom he felt embodied the ideals of the party with Arthurian nobility.

I grew up without question that the Democrats were the good guys, and that the Republicans were bad. I also grew up in a Democratic county RFK called the most corrupt county in the US, and my father worked in East Chicago, IN, which ran on nepotism, political favors and corruption. To this day, whenever I read about the latest indictments in the news, I see names of my father’s associates and family friends. It was and apparently still is the culture there. It is how things work.

I grew up with the implicit understanding that the ends justified the means. That every politician had to get their hands dirty to stay in power. And that staying in power was critical to making sure the good guys won.

I voted Democrat in every election for every office all my life. The only debate I’d have with friends or family was over which Democrat to choose––until I got involved in the California state legislative process a few years ago to campaign against a series of medical mandates, as well as to protect educational choice.

I first got very actively involved in the fight against California’s bill SB277, which removed religious and personal belief exemptions from any vaccine in 2015. I won’t get into the details of vaccination here, as it’s too large a topic to cover, but you can get a sense of my perspective from articles I’ve written on the subject: Measles Scare Tactics Hurt Us All and Inside the Mind of the Vaccine Hesitant, as well as A Voice for Choice podcast series I participated in.

The experience opened my eyes, as did subsequent Spring Legislative sessions. The Democrat legislators paid lip service to their constituents, then voted against their concerns as if they didn’t exist. This was the case from the local level all the way up to the state, and crony nepotism loyalty was the unwritten code. When it looked like Dem sponsored bills would die in committee, they would postpone the votes, reshuffle the committees to their favor, then reconvene and pass it through.

The more we looked into it, the more we discovered the industry sponsorship behind the legislation––in our state as well as across the US. While most of us know both parties are sponsored by corporate interests, the most powerful industry by far––the Pharmaceutical Industry––sponsors the Dems. One of the ways Big Pharma increases revenue and profits is through state medical mandates, and the Democrat’s platform of Big Government and the Greater Good is the mechanism by which this is achieved.

Big Pharma writes the legislation and finds the state congresspeople to put their names on it. In turn, they fund their re-election campaigns. This has been happening rapidly all over the country. If you want to blow your mind, go to the National Vaccine Information Center advocacy page and scroll down to the “Action Needed Now” section and select “Expired” view on the right. It will display a staggeringly long list of bills Pharma has managed to pass through over the last several years in many states, as well as the bills they’ve got in now. Coupled with the release from liability for vaccine injury or death Pharma managed to push through in 1986, it’s a golden goose that keeps laying eggs.

My experience in California with Republican/Conservative legislators and elected officials was the exact opposite of my experience with the Dems. And pretty much all the activists I worked with reported the same. The Republicans engaged in actual discourse and reasonable debate, asking logical questions and listening to the concerns of their constituents. They called out the lack of justification for the various mandates and legislation in committee and floor hearings and they cited actual facts and numbers to back up their arguments. This was in stark contrast to the Dems who would play purely to emotion by holding press conferences with 7 year old cancer patients, bring in polio survivors in wheelchairs to testify before the committees, and present “epidemic modeling projections” to scare folks into believing a measles pandemic––the likes of which we’ve never seen––would suddenly hit if they didn’t pass this bill NOW! (Remind anyone of good old Professor Ferguson’s wildly inaccurate COVID-19 modeling predictions which has been used as justification for all the lockdowns and economic ruin throughout the developed world?)

I have always worked in business in the private sector, and I had always been a fiscal conservative. But like many of my generation, I thought the more meaningful social issues important to me were best represented by the Dems. I was wrong. When I took a closer look and examined what each party stood for, I realized that I was far more aligned with the Republicans. To me, self reliance, self responsibility and sovereignty of the individual are the cornerstones of a functioning and sustainable person, family, society.

The righteous sanctimony of the Left had actually begun to wear on me in 2008. Even though it would be years before I left the Left, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and the rest of MSNBC––at the time my standard go-to for news––started sounding more and more over the top in their sermonizing, virtue signaling, identity politics and celebration of victim culture.

I left the Democratic party before 2016, but it was the 2016 election and all that it revealed about the Left that sent me all the way over to the Right. I’ve liked Donald Trump since I saw him on the Ali G show before America really knew Sacha Baron Cohen’s shtick––when I was living in London in the 90s. Trump saw through it quickly and cut the interview short.


Trump had been publicly critical of the vaccine program for years before entering the race. For anyone who doesn’t know this yet, the vaccine schedule exploded since vaccine manufacturers were released from liability in 1986, and the CDC schedule now recommends 72 doses of vaccines by the time a child is 18 years old.

Auto immune disorders, cancer and autism rates have coincidentally exploded along the same timeline. Despite the relentless propaganda to depict vaccine critics as nutjobs, it doesn’t take a genius to wonder whether there is a connection. Trump has posed such questions, and when Jake Tapper asked about it in the Republican primary debates, Trump confirmed that he had concerns about the schedule and whether it’s connected to the autism epidemic.

His stance on trade, the economy, Common Core, educational choice, the Paris Accord, immigration and more all seemed to make sense to me. Having lived in hyper-regulated Marin County, California for years, I had grown weary of the priority of ENVIRONMENT over business (and I write that as someone who gardens biodynamically and has always been very conscious about living in harmony with the environment as much as reasonably possible.) I find the whole immigration controversy contrived. We’re a country. We have borders. Like any other country’s borders, they need to be crossed legally.

The media and the Left’s demonization of Trump leading up to the election spun way out of control, and in the process, identity politics and victim culture took over the extreme Left like some kind of syndrome. The intolerance of the supposedly tolerant group of Liberal friends I had was off the charts. I’ve lost long time friends and been on the receiving end of a lot of hate and shaming attempts simply because I supported Trump.

Trump Derangement Syndrome appears to be a real thing. The media has done a remarkable job at convincing many folks that Trump is the Devil incarnate, and it’s astounding to me. The guy is a former Democrat from New York who has managed a number of successful businesses over the course of his life in a few different industries. The notion that he was suddenly going to turn into Hitler at 70 years old is absurd. And the last 3 1/2 years of his presidency are proof of that, if anyone needs it. Yet the derangement is still in full swing, and remarkably to me, the media and those left on the Left are blaming the COVID lockdown economic ruin, the BLM riots and every bad thing that ever happens on the guy.

Following the 2016 election, I got more involved in Conservative groups and the Republican party on a local level. I campaigned for Travis Allen, a former Republican CA Assemblyman turned gubernatorial candidate running against Gavin Newsom. (He was also a former Democrat.) Through that, I met more and more lifelong Conservatives in California––some of the most politically literate, sensible and kind people I’ve ever known, and more and more younger Conservatives who had recently left the Left.

There is a growing movement in the SF Bay Area of folks my age and younger from companies like Google and other Silicon Valley companies who have rejected the extreme policies of the Left––along with the rapidly increasing tech company and platform censorship of Conservative figures and ideas––and until the COVID lockdown world, had been formally organizing and meeting up. The WalkAway movement, founded by gay New Yorker and former liberal Brandon Straka, was growing rapidly before the COVID lockdowns/BLM riots and has now grown exponentially since the business districts in the Democrat run cities/states have been transformed into ghost towns––many businesses already closed permanently, some continuing to be fined or their utilities shut off for non compliance with the shut down orders, and residents being criminalized for not adhering to the mask mandates.

Because of my involvement fighting against medical mandates in California, it became clear to me that the Globalist/Democrat agenda would attempt to use medical fascism on a broader and broader scale to achieve its goals––across the US and beyond. I didn’t anticipate the rapid ease with which they could implement it––as illustrated by the gobsmacking compliance with the egregious COVID lockdowns and mandates in the Democrat strongholds, but we had still been making preparations to move our family out of California before COVID.

The new Stasi citizenry brigade.

We are now terribly grateful to have moved to a particularly Republican stronghold of a Republican state. USA flags wave proudly at almost every house. Veterans like my husband are appreciated and honored with reserved parking spaces and military discounts everywhere we go. Kindness, respect, regard, tolerance, inclusivity and generosity are what we have found in our new community. There is a common sense I find here that is largely missing in the SF Bay Area, and it is the same common sense I found in the minority Conservatives I’d meet back there.

I believe one of the most insidious threats to freedom is political correctness. When folks are afraid to say the wrong thing, they become increasingly afraid to call out absurdity and nonsense––and illogical policies, regulations, and intrusive violations on our basic freedoms can be ushered in and transform our world irreparably. I see this happening on a grand scale in places like the SF Bay Area. And since he entered the race before becoming president, I’ve regarded President Trump’s very politically incorrect manner of speaking and tweeting the necessary antidote.

The folks in my new community are not afraid to speak their truth for fear of being politically incorrect. That doesn’t result in racist, sexist, homophobic epithets, contrary to what the social justice brigade preaches. It results in people calling a spade a spade, speaking up for what they feel to be right, applying their common sense to what they will and won’t accept––and above all, judging a person by their character, and not the color of their skin or the way they look.

That’s probably why Conservatives/Republicans voted for and will vote again for Donald Trump, even though many didn’t and still don’t like his style, his manner, his trappings. In this day and age, I find folks who vote Republican much more accepting of folks’ differences and appearances. I find the Republicans able to get past the superficial aspects and hone in on the core of a person in assessing their character, while the Democrats seem unable to see anything BUT race, gender, sexual orientation and the trappings––or lack thereof––of material wealth.

Which of those groups would you rather spend your time with?

The Blessings of Home Birth

Anne Mason and Thea Mason

What better entry into the world than the loving sanctuary of one’s family home? The medicalization of birth in the US may account for its alarmingly high infant and maternal mortality rates––so let’s take a closer look when evaluating which environment poses the bigger risk.

Home Birth “veterans” and sisters Anne Mason and Thea Mason examine and discuss.

**NOTE TO VIEWER/LISTENER: Anne read from a few online articles she had printed out right before their chat, but the print outs didn’t display a few things properly, and she guessed at source and date of a couple. The piece she thought was from Harvard Medical Review was actually from Harvard Business Review (link below), and the NPR piece on the Johns Hopkins study was from May 2016 (link below as well.)

We’ve included a few additional links as well, in order to help anyone get started in doing their own research about the risks and benefits of natural home birth vs medicalized hospital births. The transcript to the video can be found below the links:


New Studies Confirm Safety of Home Birth With Midwives in the U.S.

To lower maternal and infant mortality rates, we need more midwives

American Babies Are Less Likely to Survive Their First Year Than Babies in Other Rich Countries

The Rising U.S. Maternal Mortality Rate Demands Action from Employers

Medical Errors Are No. 3 Cause Of U.S Deaths, Researchers Say


TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Anne:                                         00:01                       Hey Thea.

Thea:                                         00:02                       Hey there, Anne.

Anne:                                         00:05                       So we decided we want to talk about home birth this episode, and it follows on a friend is coming up to having her third child and has decided to do a home birth. And we were talking about it, and given that you had all of your boys at home, your healthy boys at home, and I had both my kids at home, and our mother had our youngest at home, we have some experience with that and thought it related to a lot of the other discussions we’ve had about empowerment, authority, autonomy, self responsibility and more. (That’s A loud, long train horn!)

Thea:                                         01:09                       You know, it all depends on the personality, I think, of the train driver. They vary. Sometimes it’s like “HONNNNNK!”

Anne:                                         01:19                       And what kind of day they’re having! So, just to start out with a couple of thoughts, and we’ll go from there. A lot of times I’ll be in a group of women or be talking to women about birth, and having had a home birth, and those that haven’t had that experience will often say, “Oh, how brave. You’re so brave.” (Wow. That guy is really agro!) So yeah, they’ll say, “Oh, you’re so brave.” And I always say, “No trust me, I think you’re the brave one.” The women who manage to have uncomplicated births without intervention, according to the plan that they had set forth when they came into the hospital––I can’t really even imagine having that experience. How much harder you would be to have had you know, as gentle a birth as birth can be.

Thea:                                         02:30                       Right? Yeah. I mean, as birth is this place of absolutely power and vulnerability at the same time, and to be in a situation that you aren’t even really comfortable or quite relaxed. I can’t even fathom.

Anne:                                         02:52                       I mean, any woman who’s gone through this knows––you’re in a different state of mind.

Thea:                                         03:01                       If you’re allowed to be. And I wonder about that too. I mean, I think, I don’t know, I haven’t done it in the hospital. And I wonder if women who have given birth in hospitals have had varying experiences of being in that altered state. Or not.

Anne:                                         03:18                       Or if they have to always kind of be on in order to say no or to watch what’s going on––I mean, just alone, so, you know obviously complications can happen in any situation, right? But first off most midwives are incredibly experienced at delivering babies, actually delivering them, not C-sections, but actually delivering them. And delivering them in a number of different circumstances. I mean, my son for example, the cord was wrapped around his head as happens In think in like a quarter of births. Right? My midwife who delivered our daughter, helped me deliver our daughter, she worked in the back countries of Amish land, right? She delivered twins, she delivered breech babies. She could do anything, you know? And it was wonderful to be in the hands of someone so beautifully experienced, no matter what came up. And of course, midwives, they bring the oxygen, they have a lot of things at their disposal right here at the house. And they have relationships with doctors at hospitals so that if you need to transfer, you can go there. But. Provided it goes just the normal course, you’re in your own home, you’re in your own bed or bathtub or whatever you choose. You are able to go at your own pace. You don’t have to speed it up or, or either say no constantly to Pitocin or finally accept taking Pitocin to stimulate your contractions in order to get things moving because the hospital won’t allow you to be there for longer than a couple of days, et cetera. Right? So many things. And on top of it, you don’t have to worry about people coming and checking, taking blood, all the things, who knows. I mean, I have no idea what it’s like ’cause I’ve not done it except for having watched documentaries on the difference between those types of births. But you know, you don’t need to be hooked up to machines. You don’t have the constant intrusion of people coming in and out. And more. So it just facilitates the birth experience happening healthily and smoothly.

Thea:                                         05:53                       It does. As so many pieces of literature about the space of birth liken it to love making in a way, too. Because anything that requires a space of settling in, relaxing, letting down, opening up––t’s a very intimate experience. And picturing love making in the hospital, they don’t go so well together, you know. So I think that’s one picture. And another thing that was sparking in my mind while you were laying out those examples is––being a midwife, which is “with woman”, is “with them, is much like being a parent, knowing when to intervene and when to stay back and allow the process to simply occur. And you’re frankly allowing that space to be there. We’re doing that as parents for our children. Sometimes failing, sometimes being right on point. We’re doing that as teachers. Anything that is a guiding post requires that ability to know when to intervene and when to sit back to let the wisdom of the process have its place. And that’s what gets lost in the hospital, right? Because since we have all these things to check, we do. So that’s one part.

Anne:                                         07:31                       Agreed. I remember even as a child being able to hold my youngest sister in my arms before she was even, you know, washed off and like insisting on that. I remember insisting that I wanted to. And mom was on the bean bag in our family room. It was an extraordinarily different experience than she had had with her previous three births with me and our other sister, she had had them in one hospital and had just pretty bad experiences being forced to inducebeing kept away from her child at length and more. I remember then with you, she tried a different hospital hoping that would be better. Not at all. And finally went to the next obvious choice, which was not even legal in the state at the time.

Thea:                                         08:39                       I don’t know if it is yet. It wasn’t even 20 years ago.

Anne:                                         08:42                       Right, where we grew up. Right. So I guess what I’d like to do, I think you had articulated this, maybe you want to say it again about just inverting…

Thea:                                         08:55                       Well I’ve had those conversations with people too who’ve said how courageous to do it at home and my feeling quite the same as you. That, “No.” And then I was thinking that it’s really about taking that image, that picture of what birth is and it’s become inverted. It’s slipped through the wormhole to the other side, you know, the images of what’s courageous, and what’s comforting and safe, you know? And I think that there’s a lot of movement of that, at least in the communities that we live in, of people recognizing that birth needs to be re looked at to be redone, to be safe. And to be non medicalized to give families the best start. You know, I think one of the big parts of it being so medicalized is that it seems to create distance when there should be connection right off the bat, you know? And it’s hard enough. I mean, that’s the part that boggles my mind. It’s hard enough, just the actual physical laboring of it. And then really the weeks after of the care, I mean, it’s amazing what we do.

Anne:                                         10:24                       Well, it’s, I mean, let’s go further. It’s not just, yes, the actual physical laboring, but I’ve never experienced anything like it. Right? And having done it we all, most women I think would agree you get to a point and I guess that that’s around transition, but you get to a point where you cannot imagine going further. It is unbearable. Right? And it’s hard to describe. It’s not a pain like, like a wound. It’s the most unpleasant discomfort I’ve ever had. That goes beyond pain, but it’s not sharp pain.

Thea:                                         11:21                       I would even call it more, I mean, I know we all have our different colorings of it and I think that that’s such an interesting idea we’ve talked about even in another conversation––about what we identify as pain and how we articulate it and how we hold it in our understanding. But it’s more like “unbelievable.” It’s going to a space that is unbelievable. And there is required a complete surrender into what is unbelievable.

Anne:                                         11:54                       Yes, yes. And a courage, I mean, and I, I remember…

Thea:                                         12:02                       Your first birth? I remember it, too.

Anne:                                         12:04                       Well, the first birth you remember because, and I’ll say to the viewer, this is after Thea’s third birth, third home birth, and she has her youngest in a sling having been born seven weeks before. And she’s there in my little apartment, you know, helping me along. And me in my heady way and crazy trippy way that birth sends you into not realizing that I was as close as I was, just somehow thinking that it was just getting, I was just getting more, more pathetically weak and unable to, to deal with it. And I remember you just marveling that I was still talking about it instead of just going into myself. Right? And then the second time Thea got there 15 minutes after the delivery of my daughter. And I remember at the point where my midwife was saying she’s, because of course the midwives arethey’re checking all the time. They’re monitoring the heart rate of the baby, yours, everything. Right? And intimately, and frequently. They’re right there. And she said, “Okay, you know, if they don’t come out,”––we weren’t sure, boy or girl––”they don’t come out in the next one or doesn’t start coming out, we’re going to have you change your position.” And in that moment, and she told me why, because her heart rate was, not coming up as quickly as it should. And I remember thinking, “Okay,” and all I could think of was that scene from Braveheart where Mel Gibson’s character’s be being disemboweled and he shouts “Freedom!” And I think to myself, because it’s based on a true story, I thought to myself, “If somebody could do that and shout ‘Freedom!”, I can do this and I can get her out.” And I did. Right? So it’s like we all go through all these different processes. (Laughter).

Thea:                                         14:25                       (Laughter) Wow!

Anne:                                         14:25                       But doing that, or as we were talking about earlier knowing very deep down that something has to be.You’re in touch with what’s going on there with your child. And I’ve heard so many stories from so many women who have said, whether it’s the doctor or the midwife or anybody saying no, you know, you’re not far, or you’ve still got a while…And the woman is just like, “No, I know they need to come out, and not only do they need to come out, I need to transfer because they need to come out now.” And the mother gets in touch with an instinct in her that she’s never had before. That that puts her authority over her child above all else. And in home birth in, in my experience and mind, really allows that to happen in a much more conducive way, I guess. Pardon me. Than the hospital, medicalized births.

Thea:                                         15:42                       Yeah. A total different framework. Can we pause for one quick second?

Anne:                                         15:50                       Yeah. As I get a drink of water so I don’t hack all over the place. Hold on. Yeah. Okay. So we just got off on a tangent, but I want to point out a couple of things to folks who are looking at this and are interested in the idea of home birth but are concerned about the risks. So this came out this last year or so (NOTE: IT WAS ACTUALLY MAY 2016) ––a study by researchers at Johns Hopkins medicine says medical errors should rank as the third leading cause of death in the United States. And that’s I have a feeling that’s probably even higher, you know, because that’s really what’s, what’s attributed to medical errors. And our experience you know, extensive experience in the hospitals taking care of our parents suggests to me that there are a lot of things, a lot of dots that are not connected where intervention causes more complications that lead to death as well.

Thea:                                         16:52                       And unnecessary interventions and even mis and ill communicated Interventions. So much of it I think is like the whole system is so big that the communication channels are not connected and cohesive and things get missed, or whatever.

Anne:                                         17:13                       Absolutely. It’s become quite dehumanized, you know, and you don’t want to really bring a child into such an dehumanised system to give them a good start, you know? And it’s not to say that there aren’t some hospitals with some really great teams and great departments that really––and I know there’s a movement to revamp that too, and to give women more options of even like water births in hospitals and try to create an environment that’s a little closer to a birth center. So I know that consciousness is there, but you could also just do it at home, you know? So then here’s another I think this was like Harvard Medical Review. (NOTE: IT WAS ACTUALLY HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW.) I don’t have it printed out where it is, but “Rising US maternal mortality rate demands action from employers,” and it goes in to say “The US maternal mortality rate has more than doubled from 10.3 per 100,000 live births in 1991 to 23.8 in 2014. Over 700 women a year die of complications related to pregnancy each year in the United States. And two thirds of those deaths are preventable. 50,000 women suffer from life threatening complications of pregnancy. A report from the Commonwealth Fund released in December found American women have the greatest risk of dying from pregnancy complications among 11 high income countries.” Wow. And then another one I think this was CBS News. Yeah, and I think this is, let’s see. This was a 2013 story, but “US has highest first day infant mortality out of industrialized world, group reports. About 11,300 newborns die within 24 hours of their birth in the U S each year, 50% more first day deaths than all other industrialized countries combined. I mean…

Anne:                                         19:33                       So, the other thing I want to bring up, and I don’t have all the data in front of me, but if you really, if you look into the history of midwifery and then the involvement ofthe movement toward surgeons getting involved in birth. I mean, because since time immemorial, really women have been…

Thea:                                         20:10                       The carriers of birth. The holders.

Anne:                                         20:13                       Yeah. The midwives have always been women. Until really the last couple hundred years. I imagine, I mean, it seemed like an easy gig. Right? And, you know, and they’re also, there’s good intention behind it too, because there were complications and there were complications for lots of reasons that don’t actually apply anymore.

Thea:                                         20:38                       Sanitation, cleanliness, poverty.

Anne:                                         20:39                       Absolutely. Not to mention––okay. Well then, then let’s get into this. So it’s like a little known tidbit that should be discussed a lot more in our history books when we’re looking at childbirth infant mortality infectious disease and more. But there was an epidemic of puerperal fever1700’s and on through the 1800s and the advent and during the real explosion of the industrialized revolution where surgeons were not washing their hands. And there was this, you know, it was like a progressive idea that washing hands is helpful in the medical field. There seemed to be a resistance to washing one’s hands. And so you would have the doctors, the surgeons leaving the corpse and death and going straight over to deliver babies. And that resulted in this huge epidemic of maternal mortality. It was this epidemic of puerperal fever. And that really didn’t start changing on an institutionalized level until the forties, the 1940s, where that became implemented as a rule that you have to wash your hands before helping deliver a baby. So it’s the implications of that are staggering. And it’s its own conversation or book really where you have to consider how that impacted the society, the societal fabric. You had hundreds of thousands of women dying in childbirth. So you had this staggering number of orphans resulting from that right around the time of the industrial revolution, which led to, you know, families without mothers child labor…

Thea:                                         23:07                       The misery of a time. The children. Yeah. That’s amazing.

Anne:                                         23:11                       Oh my God. When the women aren’t around to manage things on a whole, widespread level. So you had that and, and what was the other thing we were talking about? We’re just talking about like even just the birth practices of you know, the earlier part of last century, I mean, Twilight, chloroform, forceps, all those interventions…

Thea:                                         23:42                       Vacuum.

Anne:                                         23:42                       They look at that now and they realize how many deaths and complications that caused. Right? So I think that if anyone is remotely interested in the empowering and healthy experience of delivering your child at home, I would recommend, you know, a cursory examination of the real history of that. And why we have gotten so afraid of childbirth’s dangers and what those dangers really are now and how those factors can be controlled or what of those factors even apply anymore.

Thea:                                         24:31                       Right. And, and what it would mean, really in a vast way, if as large portions of our communities started to really bring it back to the home space, what would that do to our communities in a broad and far seeing line? What ways would that change our initial bonding with our children and therefore our relationship and dynamics of parenting? I mean the relationship aspect goes on and on and on and trickles. If we can minimize those pivotal, intrinsic to who we become and what we work with traumas, as we come into the world. Because we all have our traumas to work through. And if in this basic, deep realm of entering the earth, if there’s love and warmth and safety filling us and feeding us as the parent and as the baby coming in, what would that do to our world? As opposed to the fear and tension and separation we experience.

Anne:                                         25:45                       Absolutely. And traumas. I mean, just the interventions that are practiced as routine in the US birth practicesis traumatic. On first day of life, second day of life, you know. Just iimagine what it could be like for a human being to enter this realm and be laying there in one’s mother’s arms, in the warm and dimly lit room, quiet, surrounded only by loving family and friends.

Thea:                                         26:42                       Reverent.

Anne:                                         26:42                       Loving midwives. Because by the way, for anyone also wondering, the midwife always brings an assist, another midwife, they assist each other. There’s always two of them. What a difference would that make to our world if that’s how we all came into the world, right? So, so think about that. You know, we’re, we’re up on time. Maybe we’ll talk more about this.

Thea:                                         27:10                       Yeah, there are so many angles and, and colorings of this dialogue that really play out into all of the things we think about. Really.

Anne:                                         27:20                       It reverberates, right? So, hey, so if you want to give your child the right start? Let’s start at birth. Let’s start at birth.

Thea:                                         27:33                       Yeah, let’s start at birth. Thanks. Great. Talk to you later.

Anne:                                         27:38                       See you later. Okay. Let me end this again.

Claiming Our Authority

Anne Mason and Thea Mason

In a world full of pretense and artifice, we’ve been taught to look outside ourselves for answers. Let’s penetrate this false belief by reaching for the essence beyond the image.

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Anne:                                         00:01                       And we’re recording. Hi, Thea.

Thea:                                         00:03                       Hello there.

Anne:                                         00:06                       So we’re going to try to make this another quickie. And what, and I’ll, I’ll lead right in to where we’re going, I think. I was telling you before we started recording that my son, a couple of days ago, had asked for some advice. And the advice was at, at our homeschool park day, we have a variety of ages and, it was a new member park day too, so we had even more new people, new kids. There were a lot of youngers. And when I say youngers, I mean even younger than school age. So four year olds, five year olds. And he asked me, he said that he and one of his other homeschool buddies––they’re both about 11––were playing one-on-one basketball. And they were playing with my son’s ball and his friend’s ball was to the side.

Anne:                                         01:10                       And this little girl, this four year old came over and she wanted to play with the ball and shoot baskets, join in with them. And they tried to I think redirect her, which didn’t work too well, and it sounds like in the end she grabbed the ball and was shooting hoops, trying to shoot hoops right in the midst of them playing. Right? So what to do, how to manage that. And I said, well, if your friend is okay with her playing with his ball, the thing to do is to say “If you bring your mom or dad, whomever’s there with you at the park over to supervise you, you can then go play at the other basket with this ball. We’ll allow you to do that. But we want someone watching you so you don’t get hurt.” And it led to a discussion about boundaries and about the fact that what I find is that we are often helping people, children reminding them that there are boundaries. That we, we are helping children establish boundaries. And really, ultimately we are helping parents be parents, I find a lot these days. Because I explained to my son, the parent should have been there. The parent should have been aware of where their four year old was if the four-year-old is not capable of recognizing that there is something going on here that they need to respect and not intrude upon. The parent needs to be there, and the parent wasn’t there. Right?

Thea:                                         03:00                       Right. And can I jump in here? And then there’s that part where the 11 year old boys have that opportunity to say, “Hey we see you want to play, but we’ve got a game going on. So you can sit and watch for a little while, ’cause we don’t want to knock you over ’cause we might be getting a little rough. You know. So there’s that, that teaching moment that comes for those young children to teach a younger and that’s how, that’s part of that village picture too. You know, if the parent isn’t available or isn’t around, ’cause that’s what, that’s what they would do if it was their younger sibling. Like “No, sorry you can’t play. We’re already playing and we don’t want to have to totally alter our experience right now.” And then there are those times where, I mean I, in terms of those kind of social dynamics where you know, my boys ranging eight years, you know, they would go down to the park and shoot hoops and then other kids in the neighborhood would join in. And there is something that’s just so beautiful about that ability to play safely with those varying degrees, which we’ve talked about in various conversations about the youngest being the oldest, sometimes. The oldest being the, you know, the different roles they get to inhabit.

Thea:                                         04:22                       And then I can recall in the early days of my eldest, when I had time to spend at the park at that time, those experiences of meeting other children and parents and, and those social things, that’s a learning sphere right there for new parents. And I remember sensing that nobody really knows what the rules are. There aren’t any rules here. And how do we find our way and shape and hold this for our children, right? Because there’d be some people who would bring toys. There’d be some people here. And so are we expecting them all to share? What works out here? And then there is that step as a parent where one comes into, “these are my rules and this is how we’re going to do it.” Right? And then that lets the kids know where they are too, you know? And so other parents, as long as people are civil and courteous with one another, everyone can know where everyone is and can respect those spaces. But that doesn’t happen until someone steps up and says, Hey, this really isn’t appropriate for you right now, four year old. Dear sweet child, you can come sit over here and watch. You know, but no one knows until someone says something.

Anne:                                         05:48                       Right! And, and so and what we’ve talked about, like you’re saying here and we talked about in the past is that there is an extreme lack, I think of parents knowing to step up and say that. And, and so what you and I have talked about throughout many of our talks, we’ve talked about resilience, we’ve talked about autonomy. We have talked about boundaries spacial dynamics, spacial relationships, respect breeding, you know, begetting resilience, right? And it comes down to, what we were talking about earlier this morning, is claiming your authority. This needs to be worked on. People need to be empowered to reclaim or claim their authority, their authority as grownups, their authority, as parents, their authority, as people as empowered individuals.

Thea:                                         06:51                       Individuals, yeah. I mean claiming one’s authority as an individual. And we were just talking about that a little bit in terms of the reclaiming of that authority of the individual throughout our broader culture in society. We see that as a trend of lack of real authority figures, you know, standing tall. I’m sorry, I kinda got a little sidetracked, but also that’s what’s necessary for true relationship. Right? Because that’s self responsibility. To really claim my authority in my life, in my sphere. That comes from me being responsible for myself, recognizing what I’m responsible for and who I’m responsible for.

Anne:                                         07:46                       Yeah. And trusting one’s compass, I think. And what we talked about a little bit is that, I mean, again, I am 48 going on 49, you know, we’re both in our forties. How old are you? I always forget.

Thea:                                         08:04                       I’ll be 43 this month.

Anne:                                         08:06                       Right. So it has taken me certainly to my forties, to feel very comfortable with my authority. And you know, and I reflect on this. It’s like, I do think it’s a societal thing. I think that it is certainly a product of our educational system. And many other things. I think intentionally it is cultivating a culture of people who look outside themselves to know what to do to look to experts and authorities that are not them. Right? Whether it is, I mean, we have, we have experts in every realm. All walks, people pay experts for everything. People won’t do things because, until their doctor tells them to. People won’t make choices and instinctively act in certain ways without their lawyer’s advice and, and on and on and on. Right? So I think we all have to work through that to come out the other side and recognize that WE are our best authority. But what I think has really emerged from that culture is this lack of parental authority, too, right? And lack of individual authority in relationships, in marriages. Also people going to their shrinks. You know, spouses who have problems. They, you know, they won’t talk about their problems without a counselor or therapist leading them lead them through it. Right? This is not the way to go. Right? This is, this is, this is false belief. That’s a foundation of false belief.

Thea:                                         09:55                       Yes. Whew!

Anne:                                         09:56                       So, you know, in brief, we, you know, we’ve got just a few minutes, let’s discuss what steps we can take to cultivate that for people, for ourselves, for our children. And, and one last thing, just to give you a little something to think about is, I honestly have learned a great deal about that from you. You’re my six years younger sister, right? But I grew up being the people pleaser, the parent pleaser. I was the oldest. I didn’t take my own risks that I felt worth taking until I was much older than you did when you were taking your risks, I think. I did what I was supposed to do, right? So it took me a lot longer. And then you had children before I did. And so I got to look to you as a model, because I saw what incredible kids you have. You’ve done an amazing job. If anyone knows her kids, I mean they’re remarkable, extraordinary human beings. And with such a sense of themselves, other people as they maneuver and navigate through the world. So you’ve, you’ve really helped me in that way. So I kind of look to you to impart some words of wisdom, I suppose.

Thea:                                         11:24                       Well, that’s very generous in that. I think that there are some things that we all have helped each other, you know, see, for sure. And when we were talking about this a little bit previous, I think it came out of a remark when I was reflecting on what my work. What essentially I do for my work is really help to teach young people what it means to respect themselves and others. That’s what we touch in upon in relationship. So we can’t really have relationship until we learn where one is and where the other is––until we learn how those two spaces can meet and separate in a respectful way. And I mean that’s the work I’m continuing to do in my own life for sure. But in terms of this sort of work and, and then that sparked this reflection of something that happened in the playground because these are social games that I bring to young people. And so in those social spheres, that’s where we learn. We learn by messing up, and then we learn by trying it again. We learn that what I said wasn’t clear. And so I have to say it again in a more clear way. I don’t know if that’s bringing a pointed example, but I do also feel like this is one other part to share with this. I remember one of my parenting mentors, Misty––cause she had a daughter eight years older than our children––and I remember her saying, “Don’t say ‘NO’ unless you mean it, but say it when you mean it.” And I feel like I’ve seen that in our culture––there’s a lot of resistance to using absolutes, “NOs”, you know, “this is a boundary you cannot cross.” But then when people do use it, they’re using it and not backing it up, without following through, which makes “NO” mean nothing, you know.

Anne:                                         13:47                       Because they actually don’t know really what requires the “NO” or doesn’t. And that gets back to, gosh, it makes me even think about the whole, that’s a whole other discussion too, but in terms of the relationship between men and women and “no means no.” It’s like no, it’s not just language. You know, you have to truly know what feels right and what feels wrong. And when something feels wrong, it’s, you know, act upon it. When something feels right, act upon it.

Thea:                                         14:26                       Yeah. And it’s the recognizing, yes, that the language is like the 10% of our communication. I don’t know if there’s some study. But everything that’s behind it is what people are responding to. And I think we’ve talked about that a little bit in different things here––when we’re trying to create rules that are just material or just arbitrary, they fail. They mean nothing. And so we now look at where we are, and a lot of it is due to that, I think, you know.

Anne:                                         15:08                       And I’m just sparking right now. I’ve been sensing this and this is where I see it. It relates to artifice and pretense. You have brought this up a couple of times recently where, what did you say? It’s about the image as opposed to substance?

Thea:                                         15:28                       Yeah, things get caught up into the image rather than the essence. So much. I mean, I remember talking about this years and years back when we talked about, you know, different realms that I’ve lived in, you know, and where the substance, the essence seems to be lost and people just grab onto the image. The artificial, the material things that represent the image of the essence.

Anne:                                         15:55                       The trappings. Yes. And we’re going to actually wrap it up pretty soon, but basically, it makes me think of just like, like this: I mean, you know, we’re not made up, makeup, all that. Right? It’s like, I was telling my husband this, that like, as time has gone on in my life, perhaps as I have lived and forged more of myself, I have a harder and harder time indulging or engaging in anything like that. It feels so unreal, somehow. Putting make-up on, even. Right?

Thea:                                         16:37                       Pointless.

Anne:                                         16:37                       Yeah. so there’s that. Same with, I remember years and years and years ago, in my 20s, starting to have this sense of people in my adult life––as I was encountering adults, I would recognize that some people seemed, or a lot of people seemed like they were pretending to be grownups. They would say things that sounded to me like things they had heard that they think sounds grown up, but I could tell they weren’t really grownups. Right? So it’s all wrapped up in that similar thing of artifice, pretense, academic learning, abstract learning versus knowing this. Right? So there’s, there’s so much of that that we have to explore in another conversation.

Thea:                                         17:26                       We will, and I have to say one more thing before we close it, because there’s something here. I’m gonna try to be really brief, but there’s something in the image. Because I think when you’re talking like that––of people that you would see that would be acting like they were grownups, right? Imitation. And so that, that draws me to the young child. They learn through imitation. We learn through imitation, but it has to then translate. It has to evolve into the being. It has to evolve into the beingness of the essence. But what we’re seeing in our culture so much is that it, it circles and circles and circles around in the image. Into the image imitation rather than it dropping into the essence and then the evolution. There’s something there for us to go more with next time. But that has something to do with the inability to step into true authority. Because if you are functioning in this artifice, this image, and you’re only in the imitation––which is a process! Part of that is necessary. Right? I mean, I think of, when I’ve learned to teach, who do I sound like? My teacher. Until I digest it and it’s become myself and then I’m me. So it’s a process.

Anne:                                         18:54                       Right. We model, we model and then learn, right? We model and try things out. Until we embrace or discard what doesn’t work for us. Right? But we seem to be caught in this cycle of imitation and pretense and fear.

Thea:                                         19:10                       And the appearance.

Anne:                                         19:10                       The appearance. Where the appearance is so important, as opposed to the truth. Truth! And substance.

Thea:                                         19:19                       Substance and truth. Yeah.

Anne:                                         19:21                       Which is messy too. So.

Thea:                                         19:22                       Oh, and but, but so clean. The substance and the truth is clean because everything else falls off of it. But let’s stop there.

Anne:                                         19:35                       Yeah. I get it. Yeah. This one’s a teaser, it’s a teaser, so, all right. Well, we’ll go from that and talk a little bit about this before we go to our next deeper one following on this. Okay. Thank you.

Thea:                                         19:49                       Thanks so much. Be true.

Anne:                                         19:54                       Be true. All right.

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