Be Irresistible, Click Here This is by far the most controversial podcast we have ever released, triggering equal amounts of radical...
This is by far the most controversial podcast we have ever released, triggering equal amounts of radical praise and intense hatred.
one of the reasons why we haven't shared this is because the path has been arduous and bumpy and we've been in our own cryis of understanding what this looks like how it could be You know I had a little bit of hesitancy about this podcast just cuz it's exposing you know the most vulnerable part of my journey that I am here with my beloved wife Vana and we're also here with beloved Alana who is a part of our relationship constellation and shares a deep love with both myself and Vana and we're also here with my beloved and esteemed teacher Revy Dr Mark Gaffne who's helped us navigate what this all means how we're going to not only live in this moment to moment but to create something that is pointing towards one possibility in the future of relationships It's beyond complex Can we make it through this there's nothing more whole than a broken heart Maybe we can't go backwards Now what does it look like to go forwards i never viewed it as my job to make this work This is not prescriptive And I can also hypothesize an evolution of consciousness a new story places within all of us I think that we've had to die too or ideas or expectations and really just knowing that like oh we're moving through this together and this is actually something that is forging like a deeper bond within all of us We've given this a name We're calling it radical monogamy in the field of erotic mystics lifelong committed relationship but not in the classical monogamous sense It's an expanded monogamy of deep exclusivity between Aubrey and Vi And then there's going to be a new goddess who will step into the field for me in my life journey It has never brought me to anywhere but the most liberated beautiful beyond what I could possibly imagine if I had a million hours to think that this would be where I would have been guided to from just listening to the whispers not submitting to the fears that can feel so real and are so can be so validated So many times like when we're in conflict you're there for both of us Like you're such a stand for our relationship You have shown over and over and over like you're not here to take anything from me So worth it to forge and attune what truth feels like in your body and to you and to create a relationship with truth Can I trust my deepest heart's desire and can I clarify that desire and if I can't clarify it I shouldn't do it the hardest and most radically beautiful and majestic path that I've ever walked And it's not an easy one All three of you have shown purity You've all been exceedingly complex and a huge pain in the ass Through all of those moments our love deepens and roots It's like our love is like an oak tree and those roots are so deep down into the earth We know the insides of each other If you're in this type of construct you have to be willing to put your money where your mouth is proverbally in the erotic jealousy arena because both Alana and Vana have had lovers while we're in this construct There's actually this interesting place where it's deepened our relationship radical commitment and total freedom the idea that there are many possibilities and if you stay with truth and with love and with honesty grace compassion and compassion you really care for each other there's possibilities that can develop And I think that's where we find ourselves [Music] now Well buckle your seat belts everyone because this is going to be a podcast that is going to be shocking for some of y'all It's going to be stimulating for many of y'all It's going to raise a lot of questions And the reason is is that I am here with my beloved wife Vana which many of you who follow me on social media or have listened to our podcasts have met and love And we're also here with beloved Alana who is a part of our relationship constellation and shares a deep love with both myself and Vana in their own unique qualities And we're also here with my beloved and esteemed teacher Reby Dr from Mark Gaffne who's helped us navigate what this all means how we're going to not only live in this moment to moment but to create something that is pointing towards one possibility in the future of relationships relationships that as we know if you look at the statistics there's staggering staggering percentages of infidelity There's staggering and disappointing numbers that come from statistics and studies about the decline of aeros inside relationship containers And so people are looking for different options What are they do they work is it possible and for some people the traditional models monogamy as it has been for thousands of years just works perfectly And so we're not here to be advocates of our way but we're here to just humbly tell the story of our way And the reality is that we didn't plan to be here This was not like we set out with this intention We arrived at this intention through a variety of choices and mystical interventions and just the acceptance of what is and what is has really guided us to where we are now And where we are now is a story that we have not yet told And so here we are to tell the story and also tell the story in the context of a world a planet that's really as you would say rebi drenched in shame I mean maybe that's you know I mean there's there's going to be so much to hear from you Aubrey and from Vilon from Milana So maybe we'll just kind of just set the frame and then you know away we go So first I I think what what Aubrey said was so important which is we're not here to suggest that there's this new optimal form of relationship which we are procilitizing for you know Joseph Smith starting Mormonism nothing of the kind you know so one Two for most people most of the time classical monogamy and I say classical monogamy is probably the best road and not a simple one because actually in this kind of classical monogamy vision everyone envisions classical monogamy as this you know perfect man and woman first off right heteronormative if we can use that that word There's always a man and a woman There's four perfect kids incredible grandchildren There's a philanthropic organization that they're all working in to make the world better They have insanely beautiful Christmas parties and Thanksgiving They all love each other or at least pictures unimaginably of just like this bliss and harmony and you can just see the picture of all of them and that is and everything else is somehow reaching for that Now Donnie Osman might have made that happen in Salt Lake City or may not have That's a question But that's not actually how it works Classical monogamy which again I think is probably the best path for most people most of the time is filled with holy and broken hallelujah And the reason why Leonard Cohen song Hallelujah has more covers made of it than any other story is because it's about wow Love is not a victory march right it's a it's a cold and it's a broken it's a holy and broken hallelujah right meaning it's not simple There's agony there's ecstasy there's pain there's abandonment there's trauma So monogamy itself is a beautiful and gorgeous journey which works for many people or doesn't but it's a gorgeous sacred possibility which should be at the center of culture Beautiful We got that And and here's and it's a it's a critical and historically what's happened is the way monogamy has been lived is through deception There's actually a series of deceptions that are always at play So for example right now it's about 60 to 70% in classical monogamies of people who are having sexuality of some kind that violates the agreement outside of the monogous container And there's a range of what that means Does that mean cheating of this kind does it mean pornographic play does it mean emotion whatever it means But basically 60 to 70% of people color outside of the lines without telling anyone Which means that there's a fundamental lack of safety in the container because there's a fundamental deception at play which is hidden every day And it takes an enormous amount of energy to keep hiding it because you got to keep hiding it every day You got to keep making sure it's not discovered And then of course you know about it so you feel shamed And your your essential shame is this experience that if everybody really knew what was going on if they really knew where my mind heart and body were playing whether in the palace of the real or the palace of the imagination they wouldn't actually love me or honor me the way they do So therefore I feel like a fraud So there's an impostor phenomena You have a place where 65 to 70% of the population of the classical let's say western world for now but it's true also in the eastern blocks actually live in shame and essential fundamental shame which means that we have to actually begin to deepen because a planet drenched in shame which is the experience not that I did something wrong but I am wrong right not that I I made a mistake I am a mistake Right is a devastating planet That's a planet which becomes rife with war starvation abuse So that's part one That's just kind of frame one Just have that frame Let's just throw one more frame and then open it up and we'll we'll weave as we go But one more kind of critical frame which is crazy important Reality is as we've we've we've talked about so much reality is evolution That's just true Reality is evolution means it's a story It's an evolving story and it's a love story Right reality is not merely a fact It's a story and it's a love story Two is reality is relationships That's just true Atoms are relationships Molecules are relationships between parts So reality is evolution Reality is relationships And reality is the evolution of relationships Reality is at at its core structure the evolution of relationships And what moves reality forward from the molecular to the the world of animals of life to the world of humans is crisis Every crisis is always a crisis of relationship It's never not So every crisis is a crisis of intimacy You solve a crisis of intimacy by actually reaching for a next and new structure of intimacy Reality is the progressive deepening of intimacies So when we run into a crisis of relationship okay so monogamy right classically it's not exactly working so what do we do so we move to serial monogamy oh it's the right structure but didn't work with that person ah the problem was the person let me try it another time didn't work let me try it again oh let me try it again so we move from monogamy to serial monogamy meaning we're not willing to actually configure a new structure of intimacy publicly privately we're doing it all the time and no one's willing to admit it So therefore we generate a planet drenched in shame It's like huh it's like huh right So what we need to do is we need to participate in the evolution of relationship Not to make something better than monogamy No Monogamy should be deepened It's a deep and beautiful and holy journey It's a holy and broken Hallelujah Absolutely But it's not the only journey There are other journeys that are sacred and beautiful and need to be held with integrity And maybe the last the last piece I just want to honor all all three of you You know Alana Vilana Aubrey I'm crazy proud of you because all three of you have said we want to live with integrity We want to live without deception We want to live without artifice We want to live without cheating without lying We want to live in a full profound authenticity and grace And we want to do it not just for ourselves We want to do it for the sake of the evolution of love Not to procilitize but to model wider possibilities of intimacy so that people can begin to find their own unique configurations of intimacy Not to imitate yours but to find their own And all three of you have been through a thousand hours of journey and holy and broken hallelujah have been madly committed to living with integrity and with kind of a radical authenticity and open you know radical open hearts It's like oh my god just crazy proud of you and away we go Away we go And away we go I'm going to start the story and then I'm going to move to all of these stories We'll keep a a semblance of chronology here as we kind of tell the story And the story really begins with me recognizing fundamentally that I was unwilling to actually be in deception and that I had a thriving wild stallion of aeros that desired you know different experiences different connections So I'm in around 2013 I'm coupled with my partner at the time Whitney Miller And I have I'm starting to rise as the CEO of On It I'm starting to get a platform I'm starting to network with a lot of influential people and athletes And I see that the majority of the men which were mostly my friends but also some of the women that I knew were unfaithful There was so many of them not all of them but so many of them were And they would tell the stories of the stress that they would hold in their body breaking out as psoriasis breaking out as all of these neurological conditions to physiological conditions and the stress of worried about whether they'd been caught or and I was So not only is it the the selfish desire not to have to bear that burden you know which I simply couldn't I'm I'm I have a tendency towards far too much neurosis and also a too deep a commitment to God every time I'm in a plant medicine journey you know Mother Iwasa sits me down and lets me know every place that I've been out of integrity So it was not a possibility So then I sat down with Whitney and I said "Hey Whitney like I love you but I don't think I can do this monogamy thing Like I want to try polyamory." And she was like "Fuck off." You know like I have no interest And I was like damn All right Well this path is true to me and I want you to know it's totally fair You know there's no no special rights or privileges for me that are not granted to you Like this is what I'm proposing She's like "Still you know [ __ ] off." And we separated for a few months and I found a lover And then we eventually got back together And then we tried to make it work And this journey was very public during those times And I learned a lot learned a lot about jealousy I learned a lot about what works and what doesn't work But through this whole process I was always honest There was nothing that I ever did that wasn't in the clear light of day And despite the conflict and the challenges that arose it was honest and I could live with that And you know there were other challenges but there was something that was at peace in my heart Yeah And I felt comfortable there And that's during that period that I met Vana And Vana you know I'm with Whitney and I'm starting to dance with Vana and she's like "What the hell are you doing bro that's your girlfriend over there We were at Burning Man She didn't get it And then we sat down in the RV and I explained like "No this is a different construct It's called polyamory Everything we're doing is is blessed in the in the arrangement that we have." And you know I kind of let her know without being too overt at that moment that I was quite interested And she was also like "Hey [ __ ] off I'm not interested in being one of your girlfriends like I'm I got main character energy I got main chick energy here So like I was like damn that's a bummer And I was and we've talked about this a little bit but I was faced with this like I had a vision like well if I got rid of everybody else then potentially I could accelerate the possibility of being with Vana because I felt this really strong urge and attraction and had mystical signs that came in actually You know we had a an intimate encounter and a white star of light came in my third eye and it was openeyed closedeyed vision I wasn't on any medicine and it was like God put an asterisk in this moment and I was like "Fuck." And then she coupled with somebody else and I just remained friends with her and carried on with my polyamory journey And eventually she uncoupled And at the point that she uncoupled then this was this huge kind of uncinking of a hose And I was like I'm all in All in You know it took me like a couple weeks to propose after you know after we gave some time and space for the uncoupling and and respected the boundaries of that But we moved really really fast And you know part of that covenant was hey you know I'm I'm still going to be interested in some sexual experiences we'll do them together but it was largely under the opaces of monogamy with some exceptions and Vi was exploring her comfortability with those and she'd had some experiences with you know multiple partners and had some had a little bit of that and so she was cautiously open I would say I don't know if that would be fair but cautiously open but it was kind of on the table but it was an idea of pretty much classical monogamy with a little bit of play right so then we start off and it's this wild and passionate love affair of course bringing things up for us as we've made this leap of commitment and got married by Elvis and so much love and passion and so much beauty that's come in and we start the process of exploring and that exploring you know certainly brought up a lot of different things for you and I'd love for you now to pass it over for you to start telling the story here from your perspective Because particularly as Mark was saying you had never really experienced a relationship that was in truth and integrity all the way Mhm And so go through kind of what those early days were like leading up of course to the moment where Alana enters the scene And then we'll hear Alana's story that'll bring us up to present And we'll kind of tell the story the most interesting part of the story of how we figured out what this was and what spirit was trying to communicate to us Yeah So you know I don't want to get too far into my history but my history was the 70% of deception and shame and lying and betrayal So my you know physical body has had a whole lifetime of a lot of trauma around that particular you know like a lot of things in relationship like there being something that was hidden there was always something that was hidden you know like there would be I would feel like this was a beautiful relationship and we're deeply in love and all these things and then there was like something that would just come out of left field and just like totally take my legs out from under me because there was something that was hidden And so I stepped into our relationship you know knowing the sensitivity around like my animal body um and my desire at that point to just really desiring to feel a sense of safety I'd never known safety and stability and and and in some ways just feeling like radically chosen by somebody And so entering into it you know like that was that was our agreement It was I guess monogamish if you could call it We didn't have you know Mark here to kind of help walk us through and and help us to see alternate you know possibilities and also just create the structure that creates you know a lot of the safety And so we were sort of just you know trusting in ourselves and and what the what the journey felt like for me was feeling you in your desire and really wanting to find the place within myself where I could meet you in that desire Not from a place of me like submitting to you but how can I actually be on the inside with you and so a lot of those earlier experiences that we had I mean I I've our whole relationship has felt like me just pressing pressing edge like pressing okay here's my edge All right Okay then there's I'm I'm good here And then like okay here's my next [ __ ] edge And it's just like a constant pressing forward into really showing me a lot of the places where I've not been free because I've been so driven by fear I think we have a a we have a choice when we're in fear It's like you can try to control and contain to feel safe but how alive is that relationship really and so what I felt like I I've always been left with with you is like like I want you to feel like you can be yourself I want you to feel like you can be loved in being all of who you are And that has that choice and me you know willing that choice has meant a lot of shedding and dying for me of like my stories of comparison or competition or now if you you know look at them that way am I not as important like you know it's just like all of those things that can arise in just feeling the the thing that the the person that you love the most placing their attention on something else you know like it brings it brings up a lot of stuff So it's you know even our journey in the exploration like there's there's been so much beauty you know like and that's what I really carry with me but it's felt you know it's it's it's like a a a diamond that's been constantly forged over and over and over and over through the fire But the fire is the truth The fire is this paradox that I'm actually the most safe because there is nothing hiding in the shadows that's left to bite me And now that doesn't make it easy you know and we'll we'll continue to progress through the story but like it's been the most difficult um initiation of my whole life like by far and the most rewarding and the deepest love and the deepest intimacy and ultimately what I can feel over and over again when I'm in the choosing of this love and and the the loving you in the way that you deserve to be loved because you really love me in that way Um I found that through every death there comes so much freedom cuz there's not a lot there's not a lot that I'm afraid of anymore And and I think that that you know understanding of it's I mean it's so nuanced and it's so complex It's like the the the intimacy and aliveness just gets like wider which sometimes it's so so so so hard and sometimes it's so and most of the time it's radically beautiful but through all of those moments our love like deepens and roots it's like our love is like an oak tree and those roots are so deep down into the earth that like we know the insides of each other We're honest about everything We're honest about every desire any fantasy any challenge that we have in perspective like whatever it is It's like we're our our relationship is so rooted in truth Um and that's the and that's the the life that you know I I want to live So that was my experience leading up to Alana um making her way into our life You know it's it's it's been it's been a wild journey and and I've died I mean I've died so many times I can't even like I can't even count It's just hundreds and hundreds But but ultimately um yeah to kind of like bring us to to that point uh even even before we get to Alana which is entering stage left in a second you said one sentence which I just want to reflect back It was a passing sentence but it was so important You said to to AB you said "I wanted to meet your desire and to love you the way you deserve to be loved." And then you added a really critical sentence which was because you've loved me in that way And I want to just really really just to hear that right that actually you're wanting to meet your man in the depth of his desire because you feel he's meeting you in the depth of your desire And so it's not a model of oh how can we how can we please the man It's how do we please the beloveds who are madly pleased Yeah And it's and it's also not like an equal like I haven't had a natural inclination towards desiring other men That's not really been true for me So it's also not an equal like you give me this and you know it's not like this this um there's there's a reciprocity of energy in the ways that he loves me is different you know and I've had to kind of overcome these things in my mind of feeling like this should be equal because if I give this you know and I think that I think a lot of relationships get stuck in that it's like what do I get you know which was a frame that was really helpful that you know you've offered to me and and and I also just want to give the context that you know we started working with Mark as our teacher to learn dharma and then you know found ourselves with with you being the main person that we come to whenever we have struggles in our relationship When Alana came into the picture like you have been such a uh a necessary anchor to us being able to sit here right now So in the same way just really wanting to like honor and recognize like there's no I could I cannot see a way that we could be sitting here right now without you Yeah We we we've all been together Yeah Just just so so beautiful And I know you're about to unfold and we're going to unfold the next step I just want to just reflect back that last sentence again So you made this great distinction right Alana obid proquo Mhm And we all have this like list right i remember when I got bar mitzvah It's like a lot of bar not so much mitzvah but anyways there was everyone was getting presents right and you you got like these people gave us a $7 present and these people a $15 present And my parents had a big list and you checked off and then when you went to their bar mitzvah you had to make sure you gave okay the the exchange present So it's it's not that right it's not this kind of quid pro It's that OBS is pouring into you in a thousand ways Mhm And you're pouring into him in a thousand ways And they're not always the same ways But in I love the phrase in the reciprocity of energies in a thousand different ways of exchanging there's the sense of deep mutuality and wholeness Is that fair That's that's integrity Yeah Yeah We all have this innate sense that love is the most powerful force in the universe and in our own lives And yet we only have one word for it Well the ancient Greeks had seven Aeros was erotic love Mania that obsessive love Pragma that rational love Stoay that parental love Felia the brotherly love theia selflove and agape universal love And each of these tones of love have their own characteristics And I ultimately realized that all of the poetry that was pouring out of my heart came from love But it was through these different fractals mediated by these different types of love that my poetry was actually emerging So all of that came together in my new book Love to the Seventh Power All Poetry Comes from Love There's wildly erotic poems There's fierce protective poems There's divine fatherly loving poems to the son that I'm going to have There are poems with the fierceness of a warrior who is standing for what is good This is a snapshot into the inner sanctum of my own heart Everything that I truly feel and have felt all of the heartaches all of the triumphs all of those dark low moments all of those vulnerable confessions all of it is contained and wrapped in verse in this new book So check it out You can go to chakaruna.com chakaru na.com We have some beautiful golden bookmarks there and signed copies of the book and also it's available on Amazon We have an amazing audio book recording and you can buy the book on Amazon there as well and also an ebook So for those of you who haven't gotten it already I hope you guys enjoy my book Love to the Seventh Power: All Poetry Comes from Love I think you know I want to I want to get to this the the entry of Alana into our story you know I'm super eager to get there I think you know one of the things that also prepared me is for you know eventually and we'll get to this part of the story but there's a lot of men who pretend that they're in a place where they can bless their women to do the same things that they do and then when it comes down to actually auntie up the chips on the table the the hand gets a little shaky and the cards fold And you know Vi although it hasn't been the richness and depth and love that I've shared with Alana also had that moment where she had a lovership and she got to watch me you know put my chips unflinchingly on the table actually be her wingman help her you know help her make this connection with someone she was interested someone I played ball with who I thought you know this is a good man And she got to watch me bless her in this path And I think that's also important to recognize is it's not these these rules are good for me but not for we you know and it's there is so while it's not quidd proquo there's the openness in the space that I think also profound equality there is equality not quit proquo but there's a deep equality there's fundamental mutual respect deep respect of full possibility and love within and this is just the name we're calling it and that'll be a perfect time to go to the next we've given this a name We're calling it radical monogamy in the field of erotic mystics So paradoxically this is not about polyamory That's the paradox It's actually about radical monogamy meaning deep exclusive lifelong committed relationship right but not in the classical monogous sense It's an expanded monogamy But there's a radical monogamy but it's just not a monogamy of two It's a slightly bigger monogamy but it's not okay we're not like moving in and out of partners No it's not the polyamory road It's not the classical monogamy mode It's a radical monogamy of deep exclusivity between Aubrey and Vi And then there's going to be a new goddess who will step into the field who will also step into this field of radical monogamy in the field of erotic mystics So it's a very deep structure I just I'm just remembering a person right now and if you all remember Aubrey this is dating ourselves Um I'm a little older than you but there was in the Vietnam War there's a man named Daniel Ellsberg who challenged the war and he did the Pentagon Papers It was the big explosion in the '60s So Daniel was actually in this exact configuration in his life relationally And you know I knew his sister-in-law Barbara Mark Hubard very well and his wife then Patricia Ellburg And you know Daniel and I met with him He sat and chatted before he died And had he not had this configuration he said he couldn't have done anything He couldn't have stood in integrity He couldn't have been in his aliveness He couldn't have had fought the battles that needed to be fought because he would have been so empty right so in deception that he would have lost his connection with his full value and ethos Yeah I just remember Daniel just comes to mind you know and I can think of 10 other people you know off the top of my head who are in different configurations Our friend Paul Czech is in a kind of right you know postclass configuration and there there's a wonderful book by Rophi called uncommon arrangements and it's about the greatest people in history eight stories all of which what she calls uncommon arrangements and when we allow for uncommon arrangements something beautiful emerges we don't make it classical we don't procilitize we say but Something beautiful wants to emerge And here in this place something beautiful has emerged Yeah I think even Carl Jung had a uncommon arrangement He was getting really uncommon That's a That's too uncommon He was getting too uncommon We'll go getting really uncommon All right So I I would love I would love to Sorry to to interrupt Um I would love I would love to to be able to to speak to that because for for me in in my experience in my lovership there was such a depth and a richness to it and so much perspective and um I couldn't move forward I know this is like interrupting the conversation but I just wanted to sort of um land that cuz that felt really true but like the there was a there was a really deep depth and richness that I would love to you know bring a lot of love and and light to and Yeah Yeah for sure For sure And that's and that's a part of it you know it's a part of this love that does it isn't ephemeral and this in this way that it just disappears You know when you form these connections you know if it's true you know as Paul Helic says what is true is always true in the love that you feel it doesn't doesn't go away It's there And so I think it's beautiful that you know and you took that moment in your own integrity to say yeah you know that love that love was there and it was real and and and rich and it remains Yeah Meaning there's a depth of love The love doesn't ready You say it beautifully Aubrey We think that when the this relational context is over oh love's over Change the locks The locks on my heart We change We close our hearts And what Obsess and what you're stepping into is so crazy beautiful The relationship structure that you were in particularly might be over but you haven't closed the lock of your heart You're still loving You're still honoring And that's forever Absolutely That's forever Absolutely It was beautiful All right All right So Vi and I are in Miami We've made it through some trials and tribulations of you know having a lot of fun with different loverships and different experiences and and all of them had kind of gone in in different separate directions And we'd had so much fun you know although there was challenges We'd had so much fun Both of us were like we're here in Miami for a month We're going to look around we're going to see if we can find anybody here in Miami And it was coming towards the end of the trip and I go downstairs to beautiful gym there called Anatomy I'm down in the gym and you know so both of us were on Rya and we were not actively pursuing but we were just kind of leaving I was checking all the time Yeah I was in there I'm like I wonder what they think of profile and what I do You think they would believe we're just here for friends cuz we could just be here for friends but also it'd be cool if it'd be more than friends I was looking all the time Yeah So know that I love them I'm in the wait room and again the mystical plays a it's a it's a it's a theme It's a motif in this And this was where the mystical first steps in I'm in the middle of a set and we just worked out today you know you saw me my phone was there fell out of my pocket But that was about the only time I gave it attention When I'm working out I'm [ __ ] working out You know I've done that for most of my life right like workout is almost like a it's a sanctuary It's a sacred place for me So I'm in the middle of my workout and I just get this message and the message is go on Rya right now and you're going to find somebody there that's important And I go "Huh huh Huh Okay You know and I've I've had enough messages from spirit that I tend to listen especially if it's low cost You know it's interrupting my workout but that's a low cost To ignore God at that point to to finish your workout would be absurd So I open it up First picture pops up I'm like "Nope that's not it." Click one time and there's Alana And I'm like and I just get this kind of like like chills And I'm like "Fuck." You showed me immediately too I was like "Fuck." Like "This is I think this is it I think this is what spirit was telling me about." So I sent her this message on the app And the message is something like "Hey like this is going to sound super woo woo." And I totally understand if you think I'm like a crazy person but I got a message from Spirit and it said I would meet somebody right at this specific time on this app And so I'm just messaging you you know all good either way You know I was kind of embarrassed And then she hits me back real fast and says "Woo that's the place that I live and love." And I was like "Damn." So that was that was the kind of mystical beginning So I'd love for you Alana to take us you know people don't know you here yet on the podcast and they don't know your story So just moving through some of the kind of key points that brought you to that moment finding yourself in Miami Yeah In many ways not even knowing why you're in Miami Totally At that point So give us a little bit of of your story so we can get to know you a little bit Yeah that was really interesting because I think one of the most one of the most interesting pieces of that was that I had been on Rya for a day I had downloaded it the day before I had never really done like the dating app scenario but prior to that I had decided to leave a relationship that I was in for a couple of years And ultimately it was one of those relationships that externally was beautiful but there was just a deeper truth running through me that I knew wasn't in alignment And so I'm kind of in Miami in this limbo place just kind of um not really knowing what I'm going to do or what's next and feeling anxious and leaving um what I had done for most of my life as a career and feeling that there was something more but not knowing how that was going to unfold Largely a model Yeah Modeling mostly and just feeling like that was completed I wanted to do something more and um yeah just not not really honestly being in kind of a place of being really lost and I had a friend who was like just download Rya and just like just talk to people cuz it's so not my pace to online date and just be in that exploration and so I was like okay like I'll do it and then the next day was when I got your message So and also for most of my life I've like really had the beautiful opportunity of having synchronicity be such a part of what's led me through so many beautiful portals And so always listening and being willing to lean in So I got your message you know it was like great like let's see what what's here and like have a fun whatever lunch or whatever it will be you know it was exciting Yeah Yeah Beautiful So uh talked to Vi Chauvi and we see like some Hawaii connections that are there and we're like "Oh this is awesome." Cuz obviously Vi's Hawaiian and you'd spent a good portion of your life living in Hawaii So it's like "Wow there's some there's some you know crossover here This is going to be cool." So we only had a couple days left in our Miami trip We'd been largely unsuccessful in our own quest Although we got tried to get picked up by a couple swappers at different different restaurants and things and we're like no no thank you very much but not interested Swingers swingers swingers I was also moving out of Miami in 2 weeks This is an also an interesting and my age limit was set to the age up to that you were just turning essentially So there was like all of these little pieces It had to happen within at that moment if it would have waited a month Yeah I would have aged out of her I would have aged out of her limit So I'm currently aged out of her limit Thankfully Thankfully it's a preset limit It's a preset limit It's a moving limit It was exact You said it exactly right Uh so anyways we're like "Hey let's go grab some lunch." We'll grab some lunch at Los Fueos Good Argentinian steak restaurant And we go there and really I don't even say much during that whole lunch because it was us cuz Bana and Alana were just hitting it off talking about special spots in Hawaii just a it's just a different thing when you have somebody that is from Hawaii and like has the Aloha spirit and they understand the lingo and the food and all the thing like I don't get to ever experience that and that's all my family and so immediately was just like yes I get to experience this super exciting part of me and we just like yeah shot off Yeah So for our second date we share with Alana that Vana and I had been developing you know what we really believe is a lineage medicine practice that we call the God bomb And there's been many people who've come on here and shared their experiences with the God bomb from you know Leila who's shared it to you know Shaman Jen and Valco who shared it and many people have shared it and we were in the developing of this and we let you know We're like "Hey we have this particular type of ceremony It's quite intense but it's really safe and we'll be there with you you know to guide you through this process." And you're like "Yeah let's go." And we're like we're like "Really?" Okay Wow She really trusts I was like "For sure really." Like we're good and we deserve the trust but like you you also just met her I mean I know we're great but yeah So like good read of character in that and uh and good discretion and so you show up for a ceremony It's not a ceremony that you were familiar with and you know the purpose of this isn't to describe that ceremony There'll be many other chances to do that But we've been with a lot of people and a lot of people's energy in those ceremonies It's a it's a place where we merge consciousness in a very kind of fundamental way and we're on the inside of the inside together and it's just me and Vi and you on the bodywork table and the energy that you were putting off while you're in this was so profoundly different than anything that Vai and I had ever experienced We're like whoa like who is this being i had like all this shocked first of all I'm I'm normally doing energy work and you know shamanic breath and doing sound and all the things and I sat there for a lot of it cuz there wasn't really a whole lot to do but like my shock D was so open and I and there was this moment it there was this moment where I was just feeling you know it's almost like you you feel like what it feels to be that person and there was this part of me that was like man I want to be you when I grow up I was just like you're so much younger than me but on a soul level I kind of want to be like you when I grow up And it was uh and it was really beautiful cuz everything that we shared after that I remember you having like a thank god like almost like somebody can like somebody can really see me And there's so many more details we don't have to get into but it was like almost like a my experience of of the the afterlow of that process was like the a kind of at home feeling of feeling like really deeply seen in a way that almost felt like you've been looking for Totally Yeah definitely Um yeah it's like it was interesting because up until that point and I think also what I wanted to mention in here was that it's just to distinguish like I've had so many opportunities to really forge what truth feels like in my body And I feel like that's what a lot of my life leading up to this period was preparing me for And so like in meeting you yes there was like the newness and having gotten out of a relationship but there was like a deep coursing I could feel the truth just running through both of you And that was like really where the permission and the openness to step into whatever you were offering I could just feel that there was a quality of truth And also in the listening like there was something for me here And yeah coming out of that ceremony first of all going into it I hadn't ever really experienced I had some experiences with medicine but nothing like on this level And I just remember dropping in and being like "Oh this is a real like this is like I just remember kind of being like "Oh this is real." And like no fear but just like "Okay like wow." And yeah it was it was this deep sense of like feeling so seen in a way that I don't even think I fully knew I was looking for Maybe I had abandoned being possible because there is somewhat of nuance and I had been around people who could see me But just to be on that level of the inside and feel such safety and feel so um honored in like the naked truth of my being was so so so profound Yeah Yeah It it's it's something to two things to pick up here that are so beautiful You know I'm thinking about Neo and Trinity We always have to go back to the matrix And when Neo and Trinity first meet you know they don't meet in the kind of classical romantic way Trinity whispers in Neo's ear we've been asking the same question right and you know you know Alana just said so beautifully and Vi you're pointing to it and Aubrey you're pointing to it You said it's not just that I was open because I had just broken up from a previous relationship It's like this was the truth I was questing for Mhm And there was a recognition because all three of you had been and were on and are on the same currency the same journey And so there's this very deep recognition and sometimes you know Neo meets one Trinity and sometimes he meets two right you know it's it goes the way it goes We've all been asking the same question right and and and or or you meet Trinity and then Trinity's friends in a different context right which is right more of a but but it's we've all been asking the same question that that's one and and the second thing is you know Aubrey you've referred to it and Vi you've alluded to it in many conversations and Alana you alluded to it which was listening into the signs and it's very easy to kind of dismiss that as some oh is that a new age thing well that's not a new age thing right I think anyone who knows me well knows that in terms of intellectual integrity New age is a little bit anathema to me But there's actually this deep sense of the intimate universe And the intimate universe whispers The mystics you the the the interior scientists call it the erotic mystics Reesei de ora the glimmerings of she the glimmerings of light And of course you can over listen and think that that tower deck told you to sell your house Probably not a good idea But but there's a discernment Mhm There's a discernment We can discern We can listen deeply And we're all in this intimate meshwork where there's there's direct personal address We're all personally addressed And cultivating the capacity to listen to those unique intimate whispers is a very big deal And all three of you and I want to just say this because it's a really big deal all three of you have said thousands of nos And that's really important for people to understand right in other words I think two things are important One you've said thousands of nos So you guys are very big on no right you say very few yeses So that's a big deal There's a thousand 10,000 nos that allow for any yes And two is and this is a strange thing to say but let's say a strange thing The three of you would be at this table if you were poor That's a really important thing to say This is not oh wow we've got some dispensable time a little extra income you know we're kind of in Miami No no And it's in other words and we've been through these depths If you guys were like for whatever reason wow right the whole world turned around and we were poor God forbid right because everyone should be filled with plenty and we should take care and there should be no poor people on Earth right but if you were you would still be in this constellation And that's deep So there was a deep searching There was a deep integrity And there's a deep listening to the intimate universe And there's not a bone in my body that's not proud of that Yay That's beautiful That's beautiful Away we go So thus thus begins our pre-tragic stage of this constellation And I remember Vi I remember you saying you sang so unbelievably beautiful because you had your crystal bowls out and you sang as part of our God bomb ceremony That's one of the things you offer I offer the body work I've apprenticed with Panga You offer the and some words and you offer your song and also your magical practices But there's always the sound healing that's at some point in that And you sang with so much force and precision and things unlocked in your voice in such a way that you were like "Oh my god like I want Alana everywhere to be there for when I'm whenever whenever I'm singing got to be in the field while I'm singing It'll be good for everyone." So Alana starts journeying along with us where we go and anytime Vi has a performance or something like that Alana's there like helping with the bulls and offering her presence and Vi's stepping into new octaves and levels of your own capacity partly because of this shared field So that was beautiful And then we started tiptoeing into the erotic intimacy and I and I kind of embarrassingly tiptoeing actually moving real real slow so slow that we laugh at it now He's just like you know you were we had I think so much just respect for your purity you know in that way that we didn't actually we couldn't quite see yet the primal actually aspect that you had where your your roots and your leaves both stretch down but we tiptoe into that and that's beautiful and that's like that's exciting And so we've spent quite a bit of a stretch in that period of the pre-tragic We're like "This is [ __ ] awesome." Mhm And then of course as with all stories the pre-tragic moves into the tragic And you've heard us talk about this on many podcasts but you know Mark if you want to actually I'll turn it over to you rather than you know since you're the source that's transmitted this teaching talk about the just briefly and I know we could spend the whole podcast on pre-tragic tragic post-traic We're going to use this model to kind of explain some of the other elements of the story So just let's let's totally do that The the pre-tragic tragic and the post-traic is just so crazy helpful to understand life So the pre-tragic as we've we've all done deep dives in The pre-tragic is clarity You're ecstatic It's clear Let's say in the realm of love which is one of like 60 examples of the pre-tragic but in the vector of love I'm madly in love Love conquers all My beloved is filled with pristine purity and grace there Obviously without blemish right love is is quite beautiful and blind And there's a radical clarity Everything is clear It's pre-tragic And it's important to know that it's clarity So even it can also be theologically right I'm a I'm a fundamentalist pre-tragic it's all clear even if bad things happen I know exactly why there's no mystery pre-tragic is clear and then at some point we always hid the tragic so in the realm of love we're like we fall out of love or it's complicated or it's painful or it's not the way I thought it would be or it's not clear or I'm confused right there's there's clashes there's holy and broken And hallelujah right that's the the tragic And that's station one is pre-tragic Station two oh my god tragic And most people when they hit the tragic as we know it's tragic Let's get back to the pre-tragic So we get to station one to station two Station two That's a little complicated Let's get back to station one And most people spend their lives in a station one station two dance step But as we've said there's a third station the post-tragic And the post-traic is "Oh my god I'm not bypassing the tragic We're working through it We're staying in We're saying this is where we're going to stay and do the work." And then we get to a place that y'all are beginning to experience And then I'll pass it back to you all but just we'll leave it with the poet You know the post-t tragic the poet says when such as I cast out remorse so great a sweetness fills my breast We can dance and we can sing We're blessed by everything and everything we look upon is blessed The post-tragic So that that's a beautiful context for this conversation Yeah Yeah Beautiful Well we're going to go to a moment where the tragic hit like a lightning bolt The tragic really it wasn't a creeping tragic Yeah it was tragic that hit like a lightning bolt So in this general frame of Alana makes both of us better We love her being around She's just such lovely company always helpful very present listening you know to all of us supporting us and and she just has a natural way and an ease about her energy that made it just a lovely addition to any adventure that we were on So we were going to take an adventure to Egypt taking a boat up the Nile and we go to our first stop on this And in this first stop it's the temple of Isis and beautiful temple And I'm just kind of cruising around and we're all cruising around Wow Like this is this is powerful This is beautiful And then we enter this one dark chamber And I'm in there in the dark chamber This the holy of holies The holy of holies like the sanctum sanctorum of this temple And Matias is there and he's doing an activation in there and we're in the dark and Alana and V are in there and I receive a message as clear as any message I've ever received And it felt to me coming through the voice of Isis She didn't announce herself but that was implicit in my understanding and this almost telekinetic understanding And it says "You need to have children with both of them." And I go "Excuse me?" Like "What?" And then the voice repeated itself and I go "What?" Like I was just like my my heart sank into my belly and I was like "Fuck." So I quietly exit the Holy of Holies and find some place where I could look out at the water and just go like "What the [ __ ] was that?" Because I knew that that was not the covenant that I'd made with Vi that brought her in That was not when I got down on my knee and proposed That was not part of the plan And so now I was in this tragic place of complexity where I just received what I felt like was a clarified voice Although I'm always suspicious of any god voice that comes in and that's another important topic of conversation You can't take these at face value Also a child could mean a book It could mean a tarot deck It could mean a variety of different things It could be a birthing of something else So I'm going through all of these possibilities trying to figure it out But I'm deeply troubled deeply troubled and Vi is deeply attuned to me So you know we kind of make it through the the Isis temple and we're back on the boat and you know we're lying in bed together and Vi asks me like "Hey what happened what happened in the temple there?" And she'd asked me before I was like "Ah you know I I don't you know I don't feel like I I want to talk about it." And I was trying to avoid it But she just point blank She's like "What happened what happened there in the dark?" And I take a deep breath and I tell her what happened And that was just such a a deeply you know painful moment for you to receive that It's felt like at first when you shared that with me I felt pretty calm and collected and was able to like hold it from a place But the more that our conversation continued you know like it was it was bringing up that piece of me that feels like um you know like I always get like hit out of left field just like as soon as I feel safe like there's something else And so it was a lot of that woundedness around like this always [ __ ] happens and like I've been so open in the blessing and trusting and then like the thing that I literally was the most afraid of Um and this is like you know I had a little bit of hesitancy about this podcast just cuz it's it's exposing the you know the most vulnerable part of my journey Um and you know we had a really difficult day as you can imagine Um and you know once we kind of both of us are very dramatic so we went like full out I have a little thing on my ring but I like tried to like pull off my ring and I couldn't pull it off And then that hate when that happens You're trying to get the ring off in a dramatic manner I mean it was just doesn't work Full drama Um I almost threw myself in the Nile like dramatic people next door just like Jesus Christ Um but you know kind of coming down from like the big energy like there I feel like there's so many dimensions of myself There's like my my wound itself the the part of my imprinting and programming and fear and um everything that I've been through in my life that's like one dimension of me but I also have a really deep access to seeing above that And and so a lot of times you know especially throughout this relationship it feels like this tear between the two of like me trying to bridge them together But when I could lift myself out of my own personal fears and ego and all of the things like there was a part of me that was reflecting that could see the beauty of that and and I expressed at that time I don't know if I could ever choose that I don't know like I can I can I can see it and I can totally hold that as a possibility but I am so not there to be moving towards that reality of you know just still all the things that we were working through in our relationship and so you know I was I was sort of like holding the whole landscape and then simultaneously feeling like my love for you you know like you're not you're not just a You're not just this like random exploration of like you know bodies that pair well together by like rubbing genitals Like it's not you're not just like a you're not just like a a person like you're you Thank you for that description Violet Um it's it's not you know it's not just it it is about that and it's not about that you know it's like there's it's all about sex and it's not about sex at all Totally So um so yeah just in that moment was really like and and and at the same time we're just we're in Egypt I'm having like the most like supernatural experiences of my life and then this just felt like what I mean it felt like my whole world was like falling before me in front of my eyes and there was you know and I'm just trying to like hold it together to keep make it through the rest of the trip with like every new temple that we're going through but um you know luckily luckily at that point um was able to see beyond just my woundedness but a but a real clarity that like I don't know that I could ever choose that and I'm not going to try to figure that out right now Um but ultimately we you know ultimately we shared that with Alana which you know our relationship is so much about just radical truth you know like I I definitely in my comfortability could have just like held that and not shared that cuz that would feel for sure more safe But you know our relationship there's just such a flow of truth and we all feel each other so much it's impossible to hold anything Um and you know you had a very interesting reflection when we shared that to you Mhm Yeah Um yeah I was actually just tracking the same thing and was going to thank you for thinking back to that moment of like coming and sharing it with me and just feeling how easy it would be to not or to let it sit And it was also surprising to me in um a lot of ways And it was also very much um probably the first like extremely mystical moment of this path because within the p the previous month to that trip I had had two experiences with friends who for me are people who I like really honor their channel and like what they see in their reflection and they didn't know that we were kind of um dancing in any kind of like romantic context ex I hadn't shared that with them yet And both of them had shared that they had had some kind of vision of me and Aubrey having children And at that time I kind of dismissed them because you know in my mind one that was not a possibility And I was tracking how you know like my brain could see you as like you know the divine masculine in this example And so it would wanted to you know make this context And so I hadn't really tracked those super clearly Um and then when you brought this to me it was kind of the moment of being like okay like maybe there's something here that's tied to my destiny and also sharing in the well how does this even work like what does this mean not being like oh yeah perfect We'll just figure it out You know I've always I've been very blessed to have really great relationships with most of the sisters in my life Always been very much what you would call a girl's girl and like our relationship as well like never would never want to hurt you or like you know bring you know bypass or like I want you to be in your happiness and seeing how that could had the potential to do that And so in that moment I think we all just kind of shared this like what do we do with this while also acknowledging that there was something that was coming to meet us yeah And I think we made a intentional choice to kind of bracket this mystical experience and temporarily regress back into our pre-tragic Let's just try to keep things back to where they were And and that's a that's a good moment right i remember in this moment I remember where I was sitting and Aubra you left a long message from Egypt and I looked at I said that's a really long message like what's that about so I listened to the whole message and you know I turned to KK Christina you know my wife and I said they're in trouble and I said I thought this was going to be easy we were just studying said this is going to be a long year but but everyone everyone was so so deeply authentic and graceful ful and pained and and broken and there's nothing more whole than than a broken heart And Aubrey what you just mentioned there in passing and what we're all pointing to was this thing of bracketing So I want to get this bracketing thing you know in in play You know a a a genuine person who's on a quest knows when to bracket And bracketing means I don't know I don't know what to do with that It's radically irresponsible to act on I can't close down and just pretend it didn't happen So what I do is I I bracket it and I I step back into my life and then we see is it going to be persistent is it going to come calling again or will it recede was it a moment and there's a great maturity and depth Trustable people know how to bracket right it's not an impulsive move This wasn't an impulsive leap into the abyss It was like whoa whoa We listened and we bracketed and then the journey begins But now we're we're trying to go back to the pre-tragic But once the tragic has disclosed itself and the tragic is not horror the tragic is lack of clarity Right pre-tragic is clear The tragic is where should we go what should we do and the depth in which you vi were able to sit in the question Mhm The depth Alana that you were able to sit in the question The depth Aubrey that you were able to sit in the question bracket Let's reenter life and keep listening Yeah Yeah Yeah And and I think that as you said once the tragic has disclosed itself despite the fact that we bracketed it and tried to move back there was a fundamental lack of safety that had touched you know because there was that question mark that was there that could not be you can't you can't erase it from the memory I always think it's hilarious when judges tell the jurors to strike that from their records as if we have a you know you can bracket you can't delete Yeah you can't delete button delete things from the mind and so the the normal encounters that we would have became more difficult and became more challenging of course you know in that process and it started more things started to come to the surface in the relationship and I don't think it's worthwhile to belabor all of the different little points but I will share that you know I'm as a psychonaut I'm kind of a wild I I push the edges I push the boundaries And occasionally you know every psychonaut knows that there's boundaries that need to be kept and there's boundaries that need to be broken And sometimes the discernment about which of these boundaries should be kept and which ones should be broken is not always perfectly clear So I've made mistakes along the way And it was actually a mistake that I made where I went into a journey that was far deeper than I anticipated it was going to be which left me in a really shitty situation where I couldn't actually go support VI for one of her you know kind of uh sound checks for a big performance that she had I was just unable to leave I was like you know and so but I was like okay I gotta go you know and this is you know and then I was like but I was not in any place to be by myself because the depth of the of the medicine journey was such and Alana and Vana and I were used to navigating this medicine space So it was like Alana all right stay here Stay here with OB Make sure he's okay And in that moment you know there was this kind of like you know kind of crosseyed from the medicine journey but there was another point that actually pointed to that man there's something deeper there in this in this diad in the love that in the love that's you know kind of blossoming between Alana and I that was also a just an there was an isness to it and it was again it was like [ __ ] you know because we were trying to like trying to go back to this pre-tragic but then this other thing happens and it's like I don't know if the pre-tragic's available anymore And that kicked off the exploration of okay maybe we can't go backwards now What does it look like to go forwards and that's been a long and bumpy path And one of the reasons why we haven't shared this is because the path has been arduous and bumpy and we've been in our own cryalis of understanding what this looks like how it could be and we've had glimpses of the post-traic I remember we were having dinner in Kawaii drinking heaven saki and it was like a glimpse of what the post tragic we got just a taste the goddess like gave us just a taste and it was like wow But then the tragic was still there and strong And you know all of us have made countless choices throughout this process to stay in to stay in and figure out because there was something there that was us and beyond us And we've always come back to that and now it lands us where we are which is in you know this kind of much more stable posttragic and I don't have the hubris to say that the tragic you know the chimera that comes from the tragic won't rear its head of course however we've navigated those challenges in our odyssey many times and have landed to a place of real comfort and stability that points to a stable structure That is one avenue of you know as your latest book the evolution of love points to not necessarily in the structural form but the idea that there are many possibilities and if you stay with truth and with love and with honesty and with grace and compassion and compassion and you really care for each other there's possibilities that can develop and I think that's where we find ourselves now but I'd love to you know open up you know to both of you you know anything that feels really important in each of your journeys during this process that you'd like to share and obviously any reflections Yeah from you is and then ultimately getting to our model and then what the what that means for the for the bigger for the bigger picture Yeah I think um you know there's there's so much about this whole thing that has been a really familiar path I I guess I'll give a little bit of context to where I want to go So I am the older sister I have a younger sister that was born when I was two and a half And as you could imagine you know like I'm a very you know like I'm a very bigwilled kind of human and I and I loved my mother so much that when my sister was born I've had this come up in a lot of medicine journeys you know it's like I couldn't understand at that age when my brain was still developing how all of the love and and particularly attention it's not really about the love it's the attention that is placed then transferred to this little crying thing all about attention It's it's the attention and you know and I I love my parents so much and you know that I know that they did their absolute best but not but and I didn't I I I've had to I've had a lot of things with sisterhood in my life because I ultimately made my sister my enemy and we hated each other until we were in our 20s And so I I kind of came out of you know came into life having this sort of conflict with the feminine particularly in in relation to attention being placed love time all of those types of things And so you know as everything progressed into you know this isn't just about an experience that we're having together you know which was the the place of comfort that I you know found in in our exploration but now there is a desire for there to be their own intimacy where I'm not there which was another really huge death death for me and and and coming up to a really you know big place of my fear which ultimately you know ensued into like a breaking point in our relationship of like can we even can we make it through this like I mean I think that's important to I think that's important to note is like it it reached a total breaking point where we actually spent 3 months apart to just sort of you know come back into our own energy to try to find the clarification with your support and all of us during that time were suffering ing you know like you're you're knowing that this was something you know so deep and true and sticking in while we're trying to figure it out I mean it was it's it's beyond complex And there were so many moments during that time too where it's like I could feel this like wounded sister you know are you trying to take something from me are you trying to take my place are you know like all of those things that can arise Like I mean I went through so many waves of all of that over and over and over again And and one thing that I've learned through our relationship is when when I like really lean in into the love instead of isolating and making you other but I lean into our relationship It feels the best in my system I feel so much more at home and I feel like it's been healing the parts of me from my younger self that has needed that love and sisterhood and care And so there's been such a big piece of the deepening of our relationship as like a really big driver to the unfolding but in the total I mean you've been there for all of it the messiness of just all of the intricacies and wounds and fears and desires and all of the things and and and I'll say for myself like there there was a part of me for a time that was really angry about you know being in this blessing and opening and then everything unfolding in the way that it did I I've had to process a lot of a lot of really really deep stuff Um but then you know we moved to a place where we came back together in this in in our breaking like the ultimate crisis of like can we even stay together in our relationship like how do how do we do this neither of us know if we can you know like he was so like really clear in his truth and desire which at this point of me sitting here right now in this seat I'm so grateful for you trusting that at that time I could not see what was ahead But I I think that there's something to say for like the the the trust if if a desire is clarified And if it's love it's true This isn't just like a sat satiation of some kind of emptiness Like our relationship is so rich and full It's not like there's anything lacking for either of us But I think that there's something to say about like trusting what feels true and trusting in trusting in the love And and for me I can say sitting in in in this seat like it has been the greatest liberator for me of everything that I've always been afraid of of everything that I've been trying to control so that I could feel more safety of you know all the wounds that I've had with the feminine It's like "No lean in Lean in Lean in more Love more Be open more Soften more." And like every single time that I've done that they've just been these little baby steps of helping me to find my way through Um and yeah I'm just really I'm really grateful to you I would love to say obviously very publicly you've and Aubrey has said this so many times like when we're in conflict you're there for both of us Like you're such a stand for our relationship You have shown over and over and over like you're not here to take anything from me Yeah There's no part of you that doesn't want me to be in this picture because you desire you know like there's no there's no conflict in you You're just such a stand for our relationship And we don't need to go into all of the stories but like in our more most recent one like really really feeling like my sister has my back And in a way that our shared intimacy you know we both know you on the inside so deeply when I'm struggling with something and the way that she's able to see me hold space for me resonate with me and just like be there as this like beacon of just love light presence devotion listening in so many of the ways Like it's because of it's because of you It's not like you're just some thing like it's because of you that we're able to sit here right now and and and in a big way like why our relationship could come to its full fruition and I couldn't always see that and you've seen me in all sorts of crazy lots of times like there's no you've seen me in the most m both of you have seen me in the most maximum crazy you could possibly imagine but both of you have held you know so much love and patience and and honor honor and and just so just you know thank you from the depths of me for like those the the places in me that have felt so um just not entrusted in safety with the feminine and it's it's it's touching me in different places that I've never been able to access cuz I have a lot of beautiful friends and you know a lot of friends actually that came from you know me and the other woman being involved with the same man and so this is like a pattern in my life but it's really it's really healed um places of me that you almost feel like a guardian of and um yeah I'm just really really I'm really really grateful for you Yeah thank you Thank you Yeah the the entire process again I think having this experience of just knowing what truth feels like in my body and knowing and that never leaving you know within the witnessing of the difficulty and like feeling both of you so deeply and my own you know struggles of like am I a disruptor is there you know like and never not being clear in my intention but just also the fear of will I be received in what the true intention is cuz I could see the ease of assuming or especially when you have other patterns from the past like there were so many places where that could have unfolded and to just feel like I got to witness you continuing leaning in and receiving me truthfully and like feeling the truth of my intention and trusting choosing to trust the truth of my intention I think really allowed for us to deepen and for that truth to stay alive within all of us and for us to be able to share in that space of the unknown but know that we were in it together And obviously not without its challenges and you know very scary moments and like all of our own individual fears And there's been so many places within all of us I think that we've had to die to or ideas or expectations and really just knowing that like oh we're moving through this together and this is actually something that is forging like a deeper bond within all of us Um and also you know just to for me I think a tone that's been constant throughout our connection is that again like you really seeing me but also that these natural expressions of my being and just how I be which isn't always necessarily um attuned to in a certain the capacity that you both do like seeing my beingness my presence my intention the purity of the intention that I carry very be of service and be like expansive to both of you has given me such a deep confirmation and such a deep sense of purpose beyond just my small world And it's so it just feels so incredible to be received and to for that to be so additive to two incredible human beings Yeah I want to just share too that you know there's been many many private moments that I've had with Alana where Vana and I were in some form of conflict and there was we're in the tragic and the tragic all things are on the table There's questions and to understand that from a selfish perspective right the idea of us being able to share a bed every night I mean you have strong sugar glider energy Like you really like a good cuddle Like really really do I do And so all of the selfish desire would be to say like "Yeah maybe it's not going to work with by." But for you to have never once taken that road or even hinted at it is like a shocking testament to a purity that is it's really like transcendent of what I've known in the world And that that purity that you that is a part of your essential quality I was just talking with Mark about this in the car is like people who if you don't have an experience of purity you don't know what you're fighting for in the world you know and like to and we all have our purity in our different forms And you know Vana and I we're not I mean we have it in our different two sides of the same coin which is like awesome and crazy A little bit of good little bit of bad Little bit good a little bit of bad But the the goodness and purity that you've maintained through this process is is this is like it's really been absolutely stunning and exceptional and been such a blessing and and it's such a blessing to now be able to share you on this world stage as as an archetype and not to reduce you to a single archetype but the archetype of purity you know and and that's like there's just there's just something so potent about that which was also an aspect of this that was like it evokes it evokes something that's very important I think particularly in the masculine is like in a in the purity of the world is what evokes the warrior the protector the one that says this world I'm willing to die for this world and every movie shows that you know the the bad guys kill the pure one whether It's Murin and Braveheart or whatever It's like you done [ __ ] up There was purity and you took it and now my life doesn't matter anymore It's like what matters is my commitment to the purity of she ultimately And it's not just in one person can't be reduced It's it's spread all around But to have the visceral contact with that purity you know it's what causes the sword to gleam respplendant you know M and for the for the warrior to to smile and say like like I'm ready for whatever is next It's been a real gift Yeah And and really I mean so beautiful and and really OB all three of you have shown purity Yeah Meaning you've all been exceedingly complex and a huge pain in the ass I don't know if I'm about to cry receiving that because I don't know Just to be clear right like like everybody these guys are such a pain in the ass to be clear But but but you've all been like wonderfully complex but also also you've all held at different moments the place of purity So there were times when Alana was holding the purity and the clarity and and was the kind of stable arc and at other times Vi would go down into her deepest place and clarify and find her purity and it would hold everything And at other times Aubrey right would find his deepest purity And you know when you have three people you know we were talking yesterday there's like nine relationships right at least right right There's everybody with themselves and then with the other person then with God And there's moments where where at each moment we turn to one of us to hold it and then we kind of pass the torch and then the end we hold it together Yeah Right So I think that that's one But but the second thing is I I just want to kind of say something just a little bit to kind of you know people listening No one here needs rescuing So just relax everyone Yeah Please don't project onto me that I'm not choosing this for myself No one really right Everyone made beautiful choices and that that's really important In other words we never had a sense in this last journey that this has to work Mhm And there was always a moment where where everyone said "Okay let's really go deep What is our deepest heart's desire?" Mhm What's our clarified will and there was an enormous sense of freedom here And I never viewed just in kind of my my little seat here I never viewed it as my job to make this work Not at all It was to have the maximum integrity in this journey And if the maximum integrity in this journey means that there's going to be an evolution of love and there's going to be a new configuration of intimacy then oh my god like blessings on high And if it means something else then it will mean something else And we've really followed this deep listening and this deep deep refusal to bypass Mhm And if you would ask me which you haven't but I'm talking so what the [ __ ] right you but if you'd ask me like what should a person listening you know take from this so there's definitely like lots of guys saying I want my wife to hear this because well bad idea Okay that that's not the way to go It it's more like this is a model for radical commitment to purity to love and clarity And that means something utterly different to each person listening So whether I'm single or whether I'm in a a classically beautiful monogous monogous relationship with all of its holy and broken hallelujah whatever whatever my model is all the split off parts need to be brought into the conversation and I also just want to say something there are hundreds of millions of people sleeping alone who don't want to be sleeping alone and so the notion that there's only a particular version of a city on a shining hill which looks only a particular way with a particular white picket fence with a particular kind of dog wagging its tail with particular configurations of children and grandchildren That's nonsense Love comes in many distressing and wondrous and gorgeous and complex disguises We have to love with integrity and everyone has a right to love and everyone has a right to be loved And it's just simply not true that you only have a right to love and be loved if it fits into that model And if you don't fit into that model you should be ashamed of yourself And you don't have a right to love or be loved You know as the Bible says [ __ ] that Right that's just not true That's not true Right there's a fundamental right to love and be loved M and so we have to we have to hold what are the highest possibilities and everyone's got to find their way Vi take it away Yeah I think um something that feels like it's pressing and wanting to come through that I think would be really helpful that you helped me to really meet within myself because it's been such a journey of um can I really choose this can I really choose this cuz you know in a in a beautiful sound ceremony that we did with Alexand I met a part of myself that felt like I could potentially be really happy in just a monogous relationship where there isn't this shared time and attention and all of these things and I was sort of overriding that with my will to choose right but I actually met that very real part of me and so I was in this inquiry for a while of who am I am am I the woman that abandons myself and it was torturous cuz it's so not who I am And I think it's important to speak into the space of like beautiful you know you can look at it as me you know submitting myself to his desire but I I would love for you to speak to it's beautiful the unique the unique sacrifice Yeah Yeah And we we we've talked and Aubrey we've talked about this so much and and Alana and Vi and and it's just true for all of us We all have a unique risk and my unique risk is not Aubre's or or Alana's or Vise and we also have a unique sacrifice but sacrifice and I I love the distinction that we've made together We can never abandon ourselves A and all the people are thinking oh right you know Alana with her background Mark with his Aubrey with his Vi right we pathize Mhm We have to mythologize not pathize What's the great myth of my life and of course all of my early stories play in But there's a moment in which in order to be a hero to be the hero of my own life there's a sacrificial act There's there's a reciprocity of the sacrificial in all great relationship And anyone who thinks they can do great relationship without an act of radical sacrifice that's born of love is wrong It's not possible Not abandonment I want to I want to make that distinction Yeah That discernment I'm not You never abandon yourself But what is what is right sacrifice and just for a moment to be kind of mystics the infinite intimate God sacrifices some of the divine in order to bring the world into being Just ask Jesus on the cross as the nails are going in Right i'm I'm there's a sacrificial act that's made in love So what's the sacrifice that's right Sacrifice Now there's no teacher who can tell you that And there's no guru who can tell you that and there's no psychologist who can tell you that Although there can be guides but in the end we have this deep trust Can I trust my deepest heart's desire and can I clarify that desire and if I can't clarify it I shouldn't do it But but that's true whether we're a Southern Baptist couple and who've been together for 50 years There's a sacrifice that needs to be made And if you don't make that sacrifice you will wind up living together familiarly But intimacy aliveness surprise and delight will be gone And once aeros collapses so does ethics So this is the big deal This is about ethics This whole conversation here is about ethics And I want to just get this last because it's it's this book you pointed to Aubrey about the evolution of love It's based on this this very deep premise that we've all talked about so much that all ethical failures ethical failures are based on a collapse of aos I don't feel my aliveness I don't feel the fullness of presence in my life I don't feel radically engaged and alive and and moved by life anymore So I feel this deadness Then I cover up that deadness with what was pseudo aeros But pseudoeros becomes exponentialized war abuse destruction addiction right addiction of every kind So everyone thinks oh right this is just some you know kind of highfulutin kind of wildly exclusive privileged No no no no This is a great journey into what's possible in being fully alive for us particular people in our particular lives in order for us to live in that full aliveness so we can be radically ethical beings pouring that aliveness into service Mhm And every single person watching has a completely different story But in that story you have to ask yourself the question you never abandon yourself but what are you willing to sacrifice as a great sacrificial act you know in Hebrew the word for intimate and the word for sacrifice are the same word It's a threeletter root corban The sacrificial act and the intimate act are the same And unless I'm willing to sacrifice I can't be alive And if I'm not alive I ultimately become to borrow the biblical phrase an [ __ ] I'm not ethical I can't give So wow There's so much to unpack in understanding the difference between compromise and sacrifice as well Yes Because without this kind of understanding of sacrifice where you're laying something with full heart and even a kind of joy to the altar rather than saying "Oh I got to [ __ ] compromise." You know compromise always feels like I had to give up something that I didn't want to give up Where sacrifice when it's intended I'm intending this sacrifice for a greater for something greater than myself I'm giving my best to the highest you know which is so I'm giving something that is important to me onto the altar for something that's even more important to me So it's not a compromise you know cuz we could look at this and like what are the compromises we all had to make but it's not that It's really the right question is what are the sacrifices and the unique sacrifices and the unique sacrifices that we've all had to make to make this work because we believe we believe in something that's higher than these separate self desires that would be seen as a compromise from the separate self But looking in into the future of our own lives our own stories we see no no that's not a compromise that's a sacrifice Yeah No it just was that was a really helpful frame that you gave to me as I was sort of wrestling with this piece of me because you know we spoke after that and you we were both in just such a loving place of like you not wanting for me to you know abandon that part of me that's real that's not from woundedness that's not from my trauma that's not from all of these things that my mind was trying to orchestrate to help me to understand but it was just actually a a true piece of me that was partial There's also you know the piece of me that the the the ability to have a connection with somebody which we can get into that later but the ability to have a connection with somebody if it's true and having that level of freedom like that's actually another piece of me that is so absolutely true And so kind of in that in that inquiry what I was really recognizing was like this unique sacrifice for me is not just in devotion to our love or our love or specifically our relationship This was something when I lied on my back you know tortured by this inquiry and asked God like "What do you want from me?" And God said to choose this So this isn't just my devotion to you This isn't just my devotion to you This isn't just my devotion to we this is actually what I am being guided from God and it is my devotion to God And so even though that there is this piece of me that in some imagined place I've never actually experienced monogamy So it's just imagined like there's never been one time that I've actually known that But the interesting thing is there's always going to be sacrifice cuz say I made that partial piece of me the whole thing and I left this I leave the potential of my dharma and everything that we can do in the world and our children and what they can do for the world It's like it's it's sacrificing something so much greater And so I wanted to make that distinction because this isn't this is unique to me and it's the thing you know that you that you shared that you know sort of in the pre-tragic it's like what do I get in the tragic it's what do I give up and that's going to be the case for everybody and post tragic it's what do I sacrifice in a holy sacrifice and it's such a right and there's a and there's a and there's actually the beauty of it is that love deepens through that sacrifice Mhm Because there's the distinction between compromise and sacrifice like our love has grown and deepened through that sacrifice and we all you know everyone has sacrifices I just you know wanted to share that story because it's my own personal experience But you know I can feel for for a lot of women watching you know who have had discomfort around you know something like this or an expanded context or their partner having these kinds of feelings like from my own um sense of myself this feels like my unique sacrifice that's in devotion to God Yeah And and you know when I went to I I went to uh that that's so beautiful Van Alana Aubrey I I was in Oxford and I was you know writing there in the Baldian library and outside my window on Friday morning there would be like 50 Romanian men who would be lining up who were working in Great Britain who were sending money back to their families Right And you know whenever I see kind of the demonization of men I think of those men you know kind of working like 17 hours a day And that was their devotion That that was their sacrifice It was gorgeous And it was beautiful And for those men that that model was their stunning and beautiful model And I am on my knees in devotion to that beauty just like I'm on my knees in devotion to your beauty There's not one path up the mountain And I I would just ask just so tenderly ab you know with with Vana with Alana that people give up being threatened as you listen this there's no sense that you should be doing this or that this is better than anything you're doing but there is a demand here there is an invitation which is whatever your authenticity is whatever your integrity is right on your unique path for your unique risk for your unique sacrifice Don't compromise To thine own self be true right really to thine own self be true and live great love Most people have given up the possibility They can have great love And that's not true And if we don't have great love if we don't live as outrageous lovers something wilts inside of us We're no longer You described Lana so beautifully as you met in this place how you were I'm seen right i'm recognized and we're all systematically misrecognized And then all of a sudden I'm recognized and I'm I'm welcome in the universe Right So this this story for me is another welcome home sign in the universe Great love is possible Yeah Right And maybe last sentence I can't tell you how many people in the last couple of weeks when I mentioned that I was going to do this podcast they said "Don't do that That's just too controversial." And of course I've avoided all controversy in my life I certainly wouldn't want to step into right But the truth is is that I I wasn't willing not to do it because I'm proud of you and I'm proud to be proud of you right i'm proud to be proud of you right cuz you're standing and living in great love and you should be proud of yourselves Divine pride And y'all said in the last couple weeks everyone in their different ways we would do this no matter what right rich or poor in sick sickness or in health however the ways of beauty go we're three souls together Not with radical distinction a marriage a lovership deep honor You know Alana never wants to have a day where she feels my love is less important Vine never wants to have a day where she feels I'm less married Right radical monogamy in the field of erotic mystics And Aubrey has got to be awake all the time And V's got to be awake all the time And Alana's got to be awake all the time because we we have to actually place attention and be surprised and new every day and let the blessings spread And this the post-traic garden is it's uh it is an arduous path because it takes you through you know the it takes you through the tragic There's no way to get to the post-traic garden without navigating the tragic And the tragic is full of the proverbial sillas and sheribdises the rocks and the hard places and the eddies and the whirlpools And it's a hero's journey to get there And there's lots of different places where particularly I'll speak from the masculine perspective that you can stumble and you can stumble in your ethics and become the dark sorcerer who's manipulative And one of those ways is if you're controlling the resources you could try to use the control of that resources to not give a true you know blessed option you know So in the in the inquiry of whether Vana wanted to choose I wanted to make sure that if she didn't choose I promised I'd love her forever I'd make sure that she would have you know a share in the resources of our kingdom and she would have a a beautiful blessed path that I wasn't using my resources to control her in any way And then also you know you have to be if you're in this type of construct you really as I said you have to be willing to put your money where your mouth is proverbally in the erotic jealousy arena because both Alana and Vana have had lovers while we're in this construct And if I folded in that moment you know it's not that there aren't difficulties or things Fortunately I've had a lot of practice of losing my mind over that jealousy and my own you know experience there So I've been able to be like yeah like I can love you madly I'm not going to love you less I'm not going to hold the grievance I'm not going to and I'm not one of those people that enjoys that idea I'm not thinking about like oh they're with another lover That it's not erotic for me you know but I'm also able to just be it'd be okay if it was all I know I'm just saying But everybody wants to assume it's the only way It's the only way they can think that it makes sense You know people call me cuck Norris Like I must love this [ __ ] I don't love this [ __ ] but I love I love my partners and I love the ethics and the value and the truth of actually playing this playing this fair and loving and straight the whole way because the love is real and the and the aeros is real and that's inextricable from the ethics and the ethics are okay like you know like let's look at this let's and you know one of the key things in these constructs is can you trust that when your partner is with somebody else that they'll leave the garden that is your partner better than when they found it you know and like that's really the key And in that are they coming back with more vitality with more energy with more love to pour back into the relationship And you know fortunately in our construct it is that and in in many of the construct you know for for most of the time in that lovership that you're with it was that you know Vi would come back more alive Yeah and be a better version of herself and then it would be more ecstatic on the reunion you know and Alana exploring and figuring things out and it was exciting and then ultimately her saying "I don't know necessarily that I'm better from this." And are saying "Okay I'll wait and I'll explore and feel." But I think you know for all of those the men are out there like "Oh Aubre's got it made and figured out." Like really really think like if your sweetheart your beloved goes to spend the night with another man and they're having sex and doggy style sex and oral sex Hopefully not any more than that That's about the limit of what I could take But nonetheless like could you really be okay with that like could you really could you really really champion that could you really be a wingman and be like I want I want this for you and also hold the discretion I want your pleasure even when it doesn't come through me Yes exactly That's been like the big Yeah the big compersion piece And I just want to I want to honor you for you know my own my own exploration with a very unexpected you know lover that came to into my life in very same thing like very synchronistic ways That's never I never we talked about it so much like I thought maybe I would have like a ton teacher or something like that but I wasn't really like putting my vibes out there to have uh any kind of lovership but you know um really wonderful human Joshua came into my life and like Aubrey was my wingman like he had my back like he reached out to him and gave his blessing before I even knew and all these things unfolded and and what I want to share you know about that particular experience was you know I've never had that experience for myself So my imagination of what you receive from this dynamic is is has always been imagined But what being in my own you know lovership with somebody else and feeling of really profound deep love and connection and intimacy and the richness you know both Joshua and I are very musical So there's part of like my muse and my soul that would come alive in the time that we would spend together that's just its own unique essence It's not in competition or comparison with Aubrey it's just feeding a different part of my soul that's like generating more aliveness and more depth and more richness and um you know I'm really grateful to him for that and and one of the things that it it has offered me is a really deep perspective of understanding wow I can have this deep profound relationship with someone where there's so much allurement and desire and you know creativity and all of these things and it doesn't compete with the depth of my relationship that I am so fulfilled by There's actually this interesting place where it's deepened our relationship You know you would think that like things are in competition or in conflict but it's actually the more alive I've been the more alive our relationship has been And so it's really given me that perspective of knowing you from the inside of like I I'm not I'm never going to be Alana and Alana is never going to be me They're both poets They love Roomie I don't understand what the [ __ ] those poems say Like for the life of me You can read me a million of them I don't get it I wish I did I just don't you know like my lovership like I'm so musical and sound is my nature And I got to really experience like this generative aliveness that somebody outside of our relationship could really you know bring to our life And you know it was a really beautiful path and I'm super grateful for it And there's just like so much love and honor there and deep respect But um yeah I think in in the context of what we're really forging here there's like this necessity for there to be an all-inness Like it you know Alana is allin And then there's also it's kind of paradoxical because it's like we're so deep We're so in agreement We're so committed And there's also the freedom you know like it's like radical commitment and total freedom that whatever comes it's like I can actually walk out into the world and if there's some synchronicity and I feel a connection with somebody you know it's not that I'm going to like act on it in that moment like we have to be in agreement that that feels you know right for our relationship but like the freedom to know that I can trust in whatever is true for me like that's ultimate freedom in the context of monog in the context of radical commitment which is like it feels like total paradox um but something that I just wanted to touch on because it's you know it's it's been so helpful for me to see through your eyes you know and it wasn't something that I was looking for but it was the perfect thing that really met what I needed and the you know it also offered me so many deeper places of um healing things within myself that are just different from our dynamic so it's like it's not in competition ition It's actually like it's actually really generative And I think that's the key like it has to be generative Yeah You know if it's if it's if it's um I don't want to like reduce it but if it's sort of like taking energy and and there isn't like the the full weness in the field like that's where it can get a little bit complicated Real ineimacy is always creative Yeah Is always creative Yeah Mhm Hold on you got you got some some thoughts there What's what's stirring in that mind heart of yours anything you're thinking um I think that one piece in that was just you having that experience helped us deepen so much because it wasn't that there was an unwillingness to see me or see my position in this constellation but I think that that allowed you to see me on such a deeper level and also my unique sacrifices And not that it was exactly the same but I think that that was really like a key moment of opening for us to really just feel and deepen in our intimacy and understanding of each other Mhm Yeah Yeah And I think you know for for Alana the you know the the depth of love there's no ceiling on the on the depth of love There's structural uniqueness in our relationship but the there's maximum freedom and then there's the constraint of the love that it's just natural It's it's it's a natural law It's not a contractual law It's just the natural law of how much love there is that we won't violate that love with another thing unless it is genuinely additive to the love that's already there or hypothetically it could be a different greater love that could cause a sacrifice But none of us feel that even in the slightest It's like okay whatever is going to work whichever other players come into this come into this you know field that we're in this field of erotic mystics whatever they are they have to be generative to the whole you know they have to really work in a way that that works and synergizes and and makes all of us greater and is like additive you know it's like adding it's almost like a soup you know you want to add the right flavors it it's worth saying that most people most of the time are struggling to make ends meet So they're like I've got about six minutes today to work on my relationship And that's actually tragic That's not a good thing right that's not that's not the vision The vision of returning to Eden is that people can actually be in the dance of love That we can be creative in love And you've decided to be erotic mystics And to be an erotic mystic means that part of my great experiment in life is that I want to for the sake of all actually try and generate new configurations of intimacy and then to vulnerably share about them and to experience the holy and broken hallelujah to see what's possible And not everyone should be a physicist and not everyone should be a chemist right and and not everyone has that possibility But what we do want to do is we want to also recognize and I want to just kind of feel this for a second that that a as people listen just you have to feel into your own life what in your own life no matter where you are no matter what you're doing what is this evoke in you you don't want to imitate this bad idea bad idea right you want to see what creativity did this evoke in me so for example if I'm with my partner what are the split split off parts of me that I can't bring to the table Well now we got three people again It was just me and you but oh there's the split off part What's the split off part of you that I haven't allowed to come to the table so this is about this is about you know you want to watch this podcast as a movie It's a late night French foreign film right you know about this wild cast of characters you know someplace somewhere only you could see into all the drama that Right Right And right and you know and and it hasn't been cheap grace right no cheap grace No cheap grace But it's got to evoke something in you which is what's your journey of love Love is gorgeous and love's hard It takes everything full commitment full fierceness full tenderness And so the invitation I think and correct me but that you're issuing together as erotic mystics is not be like us Mhm We certainly don't have any sense that we're doing anything better than you Not not in the slightest More like you know if we can share who we are in some way which provokes your own journey your own story your own love story and your love story somehow deepens because you're called into that depth And and by seeing this podcast you're just not willing to settle right you don't not you don't want to leave your context You want to deepen your context You want to take not the wrong risk Don't be foolish Take the unique risk And for most people again and I I apologize insincerely but I want to say it again For most people most of the time that's usually with two people That's that's the that's the right path for most people most of the time But it's definitely not the right path for all people all of the time M and I would rather not have hundreds of millions of people going to sleep alone at night who are desperate right to create some depth of intimacy So let love dance and let new configurations arise and let every person's right to love and be loved to desire and be desired fill them with aeros so we can be filled with ethos and we can create a good world which no one's left out of the circle of intimacy So beautiful So beautiful Alana I'd love to hear from your perspective because there will be a lot of people and and Vi and I have shared from our perspective I shared from the masculine perspective certain things traps that you could fall in Vi shared traps that she could fall in and the competitiveness the world you know there's a there is a kind of intensity this is challenging that we have this and and it's almost like people are afraid that this this unique configuration is going to be contagious you know like we got to quarantine we got to quarantine people from this from this you know construct so that it's not contagious and nobody gets any wild ideas but from your perspective coming into you know coming into this relationship as it was like what are the things that you've learned and what are some of the traps that you see and and speak to other people because there will be hundreds if not thousands who've found themsel in a similar position to you and like I know you have some you know beautiful thoughts about a king and a false king and different ways that which you can actually align your devotion if you are in your position Now of course you can only speak from your own uniqueness but also just for anyone who's positionally similar It's not going to be the same cuz you're uniquely you and it's uniquely mine and it's uniquely me but positionally similar what guidance would you give that you've kind of learned in this process cuz I'm sure it wasn't what you imagined you know yeah I mean I think so much of coming into this has again forged my capacity and my faith in the unknown because there have been so many things that were you just weren't able to see through And again going back to that felt sense and that nosis of trust in my and truth in my system um has really been the guiding light and I can speak a bit to like the unique sacrifices I think that that's a something that a lot of people would imagine into or come across if they were in my position And you know I think there's a constant evolution of like different things that we all meet And some of you know one of the things for me is the way that I love and love to be loved is like very fullon and um very intimately and kind of consistently And obviously within our constellation there's different availability And so you know one of one of the specific challenges that came up for me was you know going to sleep most nights by myself and just like these pieces of desiring for these um moments of life that you know attribute to a certain level of intimacy that you do have in more of a normal partnered context And I think that I've seen all of these things as provision and really approaching things from what is this here for me and not I think there's like a basis of having to consistently feel that truth not abandoning and really recognizing and I can really resonate with your experience of that questioning as well It's like getting really clear is if I'm am I abandoning something that I truly want and desire and that is like true for me or is this bringing me to a threshold where there is more possibility and you know with these like different pieces I think I've just consistently been brought to a place where I've witnessed that whatever is available or what's available is really like a deepening for me with God you know like those moments where there is spaciousness and I am alone How can I not see it as lack but I can see it as like okay what is this mystical third thing that is here for me what is waiting for me why is this a provision what's offered in this moment and I think that there such a gift of our love is that it is so full and so rich And so there isn't actually like the feeling of lack It's just getting it's in deepening into what the deeper levels of some of these expectations that you have in relationship or these ideas of what relationship will look like and feel like And one thing that I recently like moved through and observed was like a big piece for me was the feeling of being witnessed just in like the small day-to-day moments and things like that But again it's it's a unique sacrifice because it's like well I actually feel the most witnessed and the most seen in the context of this relationship And so it's not saying that those feelings aren't not there aren't true but it's like there's something deeper for me there you know and and also Yeah I mean I think that there's a deep the reason that this is so true is because like you are a good man and like you are a good woman and like the speaking to the false king and the true king that you mentioned like as my teacher Kelsey um shares it's you know the false king perpetuates distortion and so if I was feeding into you know this relationship and I could track that there was true distortion you know resulting from either one of our um individual relationships Like it would be a sign that there is something not true But that's never happened It's always been an initiation into more love and more truth and also just more possibility like how can you really how much can you be willing to be uncomfortable to allow the possibility and the potential and also it actually feels so good and it's so much more liberating you know to to my being than what I think my ideas of what love or relationship look Like Mhm And also again like our shared mission like you both have been so supportive and helpful and like celebratory of my unique being and helped to bring me into a place where I can see that as something of service and just given me permission to be who I am and to see that that can be a service And I think that that's another quality of relationship that like in a true exchange of of dynamic you will always feel like more empowered and more encouraged to be who you are at the core without changing what is true Yeah I mean I think you know again this is not prescriptive and I can also hypothesize an evolution of consciousness a new story you know in a new in a new level of consciousness where even if just seasonally you know there are younger men or younger women that encounter a couple that have great life experience and great wisdom and great you know great opportunities and great growth that's available and entertaining these dynamics these triads Some you know would be seasonal some may last in eternity you know but I but there's so much taboo around this subject and people play around with it and they stretch edges a little bit But I can see a world where this is far more normalized and that there's actually places and conversations that people can have And I think that's another one of the challenges It's just hard You know I imagine there's probably you know uh I don't know Reddit groups where people are talking about this and gathering together to talk but there's not real it's so rare actually that people are really talking about it to really understand okay what are the what are the sacrifices what are the benefits what are the traps what is the what are the things to look out for you know and and I think that's that's I think what I hope and what my desire in sharing anything that I ever share whether it's a psychonautic journey What are the virtues and benefits what are the traps what are the perils what are the costs what is the preparation what is the integration what is all of this look like what is the communication technology what is the what does all this look like and and I think that's you know something else that can drive this then does drive this forward for us is just saying okay we're we're here in this place opensourcing our technology and it's not recommending it but it's open sourcing it and whatever you can learn from it Beautiful Yeah Yeah That would have been so helpful to have some other kind of model of like this is how it works These are the traps These are you know just like anything to be in the exploration of feeling a little bit more like there's a little bit of a map when I meet this you know that has a little bit of of structure and ethos and agreement um you know with this we we were just other than with you like we're just figuring it out as we go like step by step every single step is just this totally mysterious horizon of like okay now we're here all right now what do we do here and how do we make it through here and how do we love more here and so yeah I guess I guess for me again so not prescriptive this has been the hardest and most radically beautiful and majestic you know path that I've ever walked And it's not an easy one Yeah And I just feel like there is so there is so much depth that can be seen through any lens of whatever kind of relationship constellation where it could be serving Yeah Yeah No it's it's beautiful I mean it's funny The job of the teacher is almost never to tell people what to do If a teacher starts telling you what to do leave Right in other words we never give up our own autonomy ever But what we do need to do is to actually live inside a story of value Live inside a story of aeros value And you know Aubrey we were talking about you know earlier and we've talked about in other context You know I I remember a moment when I was it was 2016 and Hillary Clinton was debating Donald Trump right it's a moment in you know kind of world There about 80 million people watching I was at Terry Nelson's house in Mil Valley you know kind of watching the debate And then Donald Trump has brought Melania That that was clearly not going all that well There were lots of other things kind of in the news about that So there's kind of that happening Then Anthony Weiner and Huma Abodine are there Then there's all this press about Huma and Hillary because that what's going on Anony's sexing other people That's a problem So that couple wasn't doing that well right bill and Hillary let's not even go there right that was that was not going that well right and and Trump has brought a whole bunch of women who have sued Bill And then you kind of you look at the scene and you know you say to yourself what do children think watching this right this is these are the leaders of the western free world and all of it is acted out pathology hidden manipulated used hijacked commodified right in the lowest level of political power games So huh something's wrong with this story and and just to pretend that that's not true is to look away And so what we tried to do and you have that over there we tried to do in this book right which it's called the evolution of love And it's called the evolution of love from from quirks to culture is tell the story of the evolution of love And and in this book there's actually a an attempt to try and talk about the history of the world as the history of relationships And we do the third essay is like a deepening of science Reality is relationships The second essay levels of relationship The first essay how the metacrisis existential risk is because our relationships are alienated from the whole Our relationships are breaking down So we try and we try and write so we try to and we've all been in this together And as I was writing this this constellation of course emerged cuz that's what happens I'm writing and then we're going through this kind of story together and of course we all realize that this is a story about the evolution of love and your commitment has always been how do we participate in the evolution of love mhm Right does this configuration of intimacy evolve love and it's funny we we call new configurations of intimacy We don't we can't recognize them So we call them in evolutionary theory mutations Mutation But mutation means a mutant Something aberrant happened But it's not what a mutation is in biology Mutation means there's a new configuration of intimacy that actually has an ability to give more life And so therefore the system of life chooses that configuration So it gives more aliveness into the world And so this is a story which is a love story right the story that's been told today is a love story A and sex is a love story right sex is love in the body at its best And and and sex is always at the altar right there's always sacrifice There's always a sacrificial act And we've tried to share here today a great a great love story so that we can all be called to live great love stories I mean that's and what a what a what a holy and broken and beautiful moment to be in together Yeah And you know I I think that we're coming to a time where the workarounds to make the old story work You know I remember reading Bertrren Russell and it's complicated but also brilliant and he said prostitutes are the safeguard of the home I remember that phrase very particularly Right Right You know and it was that was just the way it was in his time where actually you know you have your committed monogous relationship and then you go to the bordello and you know you have your sexual experience but it's a safeguard of the home because it prevents some other form of adultery I suppose you know was his reasoning And we even look at a hero that many of us hold as a hero who I believe was probably the greatest president you know that I've been aware of JFK we all know he was sleeping with Marilyn you know and Jackie was lovely and we love her too And then but somehow we're like we've just made that exception you know and kind of normalized but actually it's [ __ ] up in some way you know and but so all of these workarounds you know it's time for instead of the workarounds that make a system not work like and my advice to people who are in the you know in the realm of infidelity is I don't come to them with judgment I understand the the crisis and the challenge that they're dealing with I just ask like is that is that the only option are you sure you know and and that's that's it That's all I'll say is like is there a way is there a way that this could be in the full light of truth and and evolve into something more and I don't press it beyond that you know I don't I'm not trying to be the moral judge here And there'll be lots of people who are judging judging me and judging us and calling this some unholy coupling and all this you know pressure and and that'll come in But fundamentally the ultimately it's just a question like are you sure is there is there a way that you can live in full integrity and full love and that you can max out your categories and also to say for me in my unique configuration of desire I know that in this unique configuration that we have I will be happy to the day that I die Amen I know that I just know that to be true And it doesn't mean that I couldn't have fun in some other situation But I'm fundamentally I'm fundamentally like I can I I can rest and know like no matter what else is going on in the world like I will be happy to the day that I die as long as we're happy you know like and and I'll fight as hard as I can to protect it because and then so it's not the hungry ghost constant need for novelty to generate some you know some form of aeros that only lasts for a fleeting moment like the burst of a firefly or the breath of a buffalo and the cold plains that just evaporates into nothingness No this is growing and it's getting stronger and sturdier and more alive and actually separating each one of our each each of our individual relationships separating more and more from the field so that everything else is like yeah that's sounds complicated and you know only the like it's it's not even interesting and so for me I've found this interesting place in me that I that I can just really rest and know that I can live a life of full integrity and full love What a blessing blessing And and here's a vision of a redeemed world And we have scripture on this Right Right A redeemed world is what and where everyone in the world has the possibility to go through if they choose it this journey Aubrey Vana Alana that you've gone through In other words the possibility of being in the field of aeros isn't limited to a small group of people That the hundreds of millions of men in China that can't find a bride right that the the man without a job that no one will look at right that we begin to look at each other with different eyes we begin to create new configurations new possibilities that made this be a spark right to actually flame love in the world and all of her creative possibilities because no one who doesn't want to should be going to sleep alone right reality is about intimate communion and it's about the utter joy and fullness of loving each other madly intimately deeply and closely And it's not good says the scripture for the human being to be lonely So let's let's move beyond loneliness and actually come together in this in this wild cacophony of intimate communions of which you have all lit a flame and and issued a challenge Amen Amen And add sugar gliders and Savannah cats to fill in to fill in to fill in the gap Damn I'd love to just offer uh you know one final you know closing sentiment from uh from you Vi and you Alana and uh and and Alana you know this is you know thank you for being willing to jump into the into the public eye here with us and and share that and there's so much depth of wisdom that you have to share and and um but to both of you to to offer anything to the listener directly you know some piece from your own heart related ated or unrelated but anything that's moving through in the listening of uh of something to share Yeah I mean I think that I've said it so many times but it really has been the pillar throughout my life And then watching it you know be such a guiding light in this experience is like really it is so worth it to forge and attune what truth feels like in your body and to you and to create a relationship in with truth and with faith So that each time you're met with something that feels like it might be testing it you just know that you can lean into that place Because for me in my life journey it has never brought me to anywhere But the most liberated beautiful beyond what I could possibly imagine if I had a million minutes or a million hours to think that this would be where I would have been guided to from just listening to the whispers and trusting the whispers and not submitting to the fears that can feel so real and are so can be so validated you know in the external world or in our own mind sometimes to just really it's so worth it and It's so beautiful and it's something that I think yeah can only cultivate more beauty and more alignment with whatever your destiny is Do you have any you know and I know we're at the you know we're wrapping this up and so I don't want to open up you know huge new rabbit holes but you know one thing that we've talked about extensively is anthroontology the ability to actually know what is real in your body And often the mind will seduce us into a lot of different things and we'll feel something and the mind will quickly create a bunch of scaffolding to justify a story to explain the feeling and make it make sense How you know how what's some guidance that you have for how how do you feel this truth in your body like your cognition is distributed in in some of the most balanced ways from from your mind all the way to your bare feet which are always walking on the sand and rocks in Kawaii I mean we took a 9-h hour hike and she didn't put her shoes on once It's [ __ ] crazy So I think that has something to do with it But but what is it how how does somebody feel how does somebody feel how do you feel the truth yeah I think it's unique for everybody but in my experience um there is a deep quality of resonance and ease and clarity And I think that um you know there's um thinking into it it's it's so sematic and it's almost in my experience so quick It's almost the first thing that I feel or know and then I can track you know moving into the fear or moving into places of distortion where that starts to come in afterwards But if you can like attune and and honestly a big a big piece of it for me has been presence like if I can be present enough to feel that first nosis and it's it's just a practice of feeling nosis in your body and I think it will be different for everyone and honestly I've practiced it so much that I don't even know if there's a particular formula for me but there's a familiarity to that and I can feel you know anxiety or worry or contraction or um competition like so many of the qualities of the smaller self that we've talked to here tend to be products of something that is not true and I think also truth you know in its nature can be disruptive but it's important to recognize what is it disrupting is it disrupting something that's trying to keep you small or trying to continue a story of comfort or is it disrupting something to liberate you into something greater and just really using presence and stillness and spaciousness to attune to that Yeah Yeah It's like it's almost like even you know say Mark and I you know we're not we're not skilled musicians but if you know Derek over there was playing a guitar that was out of tune something in us would be like I think I think that instrument's out of tune You know there's a there's a vibrational frequency that's when it lands on my body I just feel like it's not quite in tune And I think truth I think we are we're beautiful instruments that are tuned to the frequency and harmony of truth And if we can actually remember ourselves and be in the truth of ourselves and be and like hone that instrument I think it can be as it has been for you you know an incredible guide and and has been for us as well the ability to you know detect that Now of course Filana and I have you know we have a lot of energy that moves that moves up between the ears you know and it can get in the way you know and we all do but but I think that's it's an important lesson to feel truth with the wholeness the wholeness of your body Yeah Thanks for sharing that B Any any beautiful any final words yeah there's a a couple things that come to mind You know I always I feel like particularly from reading this book from Martine Prect called uh The Smell of Rain on Dust He talks about the importance of grieving And you know I think that importance for me there's been so many different cycles of our relationships where there have been big deaths of the life that I imagined for myself or you know what my small self would deem as comfortable And I've really given the space to grieve those parts of myself And in one of the more recent ones you know with that part that I made contact with of the part of me that imagines that I could be happy in a just total monogous relationship you know through my unique sacrifice you know I grieved that part of me because it deserved that love and honor like really And in that process you know I just hugged myself and and what was coming through was like I know this isn't what you wanted but it's what you need And I think that that's like one thing that I'd really love to leave with people just you know maybe in being in the exploration of like you know life isn't ever going to turn out always the way that you want but it's it's there's there's an element of it that can be exactly what you need And and I think for my own becoming and liberation from my small self's comfortability you know that ultimately wasn't driving me it was driving me towards comfort as you said It wasn't driving me towards like this total liberated possibility of so much more beauty and so much more intimacy Um that I really yeah just really wanted to share that piece And then the other one that's been really helpful for me is in relation to the small self is like what who's in the driver's seat of my consciousness who is it that I am serving is it my small self's desire for the comfort and the perceived safety that I could get by trying to control or contract or all of these things or am I actually allowing for my soul and my higher self to be in the driver's seat of my consciousness and I've been really deeply in devotion to that And there's this beautiful thing that can happen when you can elevate yourself out of you know the separate self that it's just like everything is here This is my trauma This is my this is the these are all the things that I know This is what I think I need You know like it's like so defined But when I lift myself out of that and really inquire into what am I being of service to and for me this relationship you know and softening and dying over and over and over again I can feel the part that feels like it's in greater it's in service to just something that is greater than me I'm part of it and I'm an active player within it that is willing it and choosing it and devoting to it But it also feels like it is something greater than me that like when I look up at God and I and and I ask our son like what am I what do I choose and it's so clear you know and there's no part of me that can be in conflict with that because that's this divine relationship that all of the other details and things like they work themselves out as long as you're authentic as long as you're telling the truth as long as you show up for the difficult conversations you know no matter what they may look like like this relationship is so important to have because it's just it has helped me to overcome all of the places where I was too afraid to get over myself Yeah Yeah That relationship with God Rebby Wow Huh Right Yeah Right And maybe our last word and OB you'll you'll close it is if this was just a personal exploration of three people trying to maximize their psychological breath It'd be okay but somewhat boring Sorry But all three of you are madly devoted to being in service All three of you are madly devoted to showing up in the world and participating in this evolution of love And so what you've been looking for if I can and what we've been trying to clarify is what is the configuration of intimacy that makes me most ethical most in integrity most alive most devoted most feeling of the whole most committed right to creating a world in which there are no more lonely people and which every man woman and child right actually has a seat at the table And you've been doing it and we've been doing it not just for today but to heal all of the yesterdays And for the trillions of unborn children which actually won't be born if we can't actually participate in the evolution of love M so this is the context of this whole conversation isn't actually merely personal fulfillment looking at each other's eyes it's been looking at a shared horizon and then from that place coming back and looking at each other's eyes and what kind of intimacy and wholeness and communion can we create that will radically enliven us to be in mad devotion right to the whole world yeah so thank you thank Thank you Thank you You know I think the there's an affirmation that comes from uh our brother Paul Selig and the affirmation is I know who I am in truth I know what I am in truth I know how I serve in truth I am here I am here I am here And I have come as love I am love Yeah And there's deep deep deep wisdom in that And if you know those the answer to those questions you feel them deep and that you know that you're love in motion You're evolving love and you really trust that about yourself Then you open yourself to the mystery of what does love want from me today you know and that's service to God You know like when you ask that here we are Here we are Thank you so much I love you all individually and collectively exponentially maximally infinitely to the ends of time Everyone hands in the air Make this real holy Holy We love you guys and we'll see you next week Thanks for tuning into this video Make sure you hit subscribe follow me Aubrey Marcus check out the Aubrey Marcus podcast available everywhere and leave a comment Let me know if this video resonated or what else you would like to hear from me in the future Thank you so much ...
