59: John Wolfstone on Mythology, Eros, Rites of Passage & Cosmic Guidance

Johnwolfstone.earth
The Village of Lovers Film
The School of Mythopoetics
Latest Musings: From the Dragon Heart

Michael Pollan – How to Change Your Mind
Tamera – Portugal
Rainbow Gathering
Gabor Maté – Trauma
Daniel Pinchbeck – 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl
2012: Time for Change
Favela da Paz, Brazil
Jorge Ferrer – Novogamy
The Emerald Podcast
Dune: Part One (2021)
Bruce Parry – Iboga
Wisdom of Trauma – Gabor Maté
ISTA
Rafa Manacorda
Bruce Lyon
Joseph Campbell – Hero’s Journey
Tierra Iris

Giancarlo: [00:00:00] Hello, welcome to this new episode of the Mango TV podcast. Today I’m very happy to have John Wolfstone. John is an initiatory witch, emergence facilitator, wilderness guide, and transmedia bard, focused on the work of cultural redemption. Holding space for the great grief of our times, He designs and facilitates rituals and rites of transformations in service to regulating the personal and collective nervous system back to [00:01:00] belonging with the earth.

In 2021, John co founded the School of Mito Poetic, dedicated to the initiation of soul. In 2024, his decade long award winning documentary, The Village of Lovers, about the Tamera Peace Village in Portugal, premiered globally alongside A cry from the future. Visionary gatherings he co produced. You can find more information at his website www.

johnwolfstone. earth Thank you for doing this. Thank you for coming, John. 

John: Yeah. Thank you, John. Carlo. It’s a pleasure to be here. 

Giancarlo: Yes. I’ve been following your work for many years and, you know, as I usually say, you know, we, we like to really discuss out there topic, but, you know, we keep up. pretty conservative format on present, past, future.

So let’s start a little bit with your biography. Where did you grow up? What informed your childhood, your belief, any specific cathartic moment [00:02:00] that accelerated or changed the direction of your interest? Let’s, let’s start there if you don’t mind. 

John: Yeah. Thank you. I love this and just thank you for holding space for people’s stories because I think that is actually what is what like matters and what really connects to others.

So I’m actually sitting in my childhood home in Fort Collins, Colorado, where I grew up right at the edge of where the Great Plains of North America meet the Rocky Mountains. 

So this beautiful like edge zone. And I think definitely nature. connection really awakened my soul to the sense of mystery and magic and like something greater than myself.

Also kind of con currently in my childhood, I grew up in quite, yeah, quite a abusive home with my, with my family, you know, I know that’s the experience that many of us have, and it’s taken me a long time to really [00:03:00] realize the way that my soul chose that life, chose that family system. And my soul chose that because that abusive dynamic, that trauma really allowed my system to become quite sensitive.

To the pains of the world, you know, as I’m not sure what it’s like, I’m guessing you maybe grew up in Italy. I grew up in the United States, which is probably one of the most culturally insulated countries, right? Living in this place where we have this overarching dominant narrative that all is good and we’re the heroes and the world’s great.

And because I was sensitive as I started to get older into my teens and beyond. I started to really feel, both from just the media, from school, but I think just even from a deeper innate sense of connection to Gaia, of connection to Earth, that things [00:04:00] were not well on planet Earth. And slowly, this feeling started to grow, and my consciousness started to shift, where I started to realize, like, holy shit.

Like, I’ve been told the biggest lie, that humanity is at its apex, and all is well, and actually, we’re at the brink of crisis. And as I got older, this really started to hit me and I couldn’t just go on. 

Giancarlo (2): How old were you when you had this realization that you were told a big lie? 

John (2): Yeah, I mean, I think it was really starting like 15, 16.

Many of my friends started getting into like punk music. And the punk movement is pretty anti capitalist, anti authoritarian. And kind of reckoning with that the establishment is selling us lies. And this kind of started to awaken this consciousness in me. And I just started to realize, like, the typical American life set out for [00:05:00] me.

Of going to college, getting a job, and just, like, having a house. All that story, the American dream was ultimately not going to work if the rest of the world was burning and collapsing. So my life really shifted. And that also awakened a certain spiritual orientation to like, well, what’s, what’s the deeper thing going on here.

And it awakened this thing in me of like, wait. If we’re in a crisis, my life has to be connected to and really about supporting the healing of that. Cause it’s like, I’m not going to be safe if I just like pretend like it’s not happening. So that, that, that, yeah. 

Giancarlo (2): There was a cathartic moment that you think created that awakening in consciousness.

What, what makes you feel, I mean, at 15 people don’t think about the planet being harmonious or. the, you know, about the American dream, not being real. Do you remember if there was a, 

John (2): yeah, it doesn’t necessarily, there was, I mean, there was honestly a [00:06:00] few times growing up where I was bullied quite a bit.

Like I always had this position. This also is a type of like ancestral wound I carry, especially on my Jewish side of, I became the person in friendship groups that was like there for other people to like. Make fun of and shit on and I had this deep these deep moments a few times in my childhood of being really exiled and outcast Socially, which is interesting now making the film about Tamera because that’s so much what they’re working on.

But that deep pain, which is honestly Ancestrally the deepest pain for human beings to be outcast from a social group. I think that really awakened a certain self consciousness. 

Yeah. 

That, you know, it’s been at times detrimental, but also awaken this like reflective capacity in my psyche to reflect on what the fuck’s going on because I was in so much pain.

Giancarlo (2): Yeah. Like a sense of injustice. 

John (2): Yeah. Yeah, exactly. 

Giancarlo (2): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [00:07:00] And, and, and, and then, and then, and then what happened? Yeah. 

John (2): Yeah. So, you know, I went to college. In 

Giancarlo (2): Colorado? 

John (2): Yeah, in Colorado at CU Boulder. And somehow, I don’t even really know how it came across my radar that I could go travel. I think actually one of my friends from high school went to South America instead of going to college and he came back actually and told us all about it.

And me and my friends were all like, Oh, we can go travel. Like, let’s go do that. And this was the same time we were starting to experiment with psychedelics and having a general sense of like, Awakening to the greater cultural underground, but something happened for me that was very specific, which is that I was supposed to go with my four best friends to South America when I was 19.

And actually a series of synchronicities essentially began to happen to me that led me to go to Central America [00:08:00] alone. This is in 2006, and this is when the, the like cultural meme about 2012 being some sort of like transformational moment was happening, and my psyche somehow started to cue towards that, and all these synchronicities started to pull me, and I ended up making the very hard choice.

Even though I’d finally found a friendship group to like belong to, which is all that I ever wanted, I decided to follow synchronicity and go alone. And this is like 19, going to South America with your four best friends is like the most epic thing ever. So to choose to go alone was pretty wild and risky, but that trip where I went for four months alone and backpacked and just really let my heart guide me completely changed the course of my life and really started putting me towards on the path that I’m, that I am on now.

Giancarlo (2): Yeah. But so let me ask you something because already you mentioned two things that, you know, if I put [00:09:00] them together, it gives me a, an idea of your, of your cosmo vision. You mentioned that. you know, your soul decided to, you know, incarnate in that abusive seed family. And then you mentioned this concept of synchronicities, which is also, you know, like a cosmic concept.

But so, can you maybe elaborate a little bit on that? So, clearly from mentioning soldier near synchronicity, synchronicities, you don’t buy the Western secular Newtonian Cartesian materialist paradigm of the big gigantic mechanic mechanical clock. And what do you believe instead? 

John (2): I mean, I can say kind of what it, what it like was then when it started to happen and what it is now.

I mean, when it first started to happen, because I want to also speak to this, I think it’s important to also bridge to where people might be or how it is to start that journey, which is. It started to feel like there was some sense of destiny, you know, and looking back, maybe that’s a [00:10:00] bit grandiose and I don’t fully believe there’s just one set thing our souls are here to do.

But there, there was essentially this feeling that my life was meant that like, because we were in this great crisis, perhaps my life was meant. For also something great at some level and something more cosmic and beautiful and mysterious than I could ever dream of just in the stories that had been told and that there was essentially a intelligence somehow in the universe that was in this like relational conversation with me.

So that’s, that’s what started on the journey. I’d say 20 years later now, you know, and I’ve built a whole body of work around this. I firmly believe, and it’s been my experience, that the universe is primarily relational, and that there is an intelligence moving through the universe, which I often feel like is the force of Eros, [00:11:00] which we can talk about in a different moment, but that, that intelligence is constantly in a communication, and that human beings do have souls.

And that our souls do have a sense of, not necessarily destiny, but they do have a sense of a soul like duty, like sacred task that we come in here to really fulfill, which is really about finding our ecological place in the universe, like finding our perfect fit, our like niche, the same way anything finds its perfect fit in nature, in the greater ecology it is in, in nature.

But that there is, and still I’m saying this, that there is a sense of like like track that our soul wants to like be on. And I think that can manifest in many ways, but ultimately we’re here to awaken our deepest gifts and give them. And that is like a purpose of being, of being human. And that, that, that will tug through [00:12:00] synchronicity and guidance, which relates to a whole It’s for me spiritual belief system that there is a spiritual ecology on planet earth full of spirits and ancestors and guiding forces and even actually for like me that there’s even in that there’s even interstellar there’s like galactic spirits and forces.

That are can that are available to connect with if we learn how to perceive them if we learn how to open up to like them, but that’s all help. That’s all resource coming in, wanting to support a certain kind of guidance. And I think ultimately a healing on this planet amidst this time of really great change.

like turmoil and pain. 

Giancarlo (2): Yeah. So that’s the key question, right? So how do you open up to receive this information, this data? 

John: Well, that’s a really good question. Like what is the origin point of opening up? I mean, [00:13:00] I think at 

John (2): some level it’s learning to really be in relationship with pain. Like I’d say that maybe the like journey for humanity right now is really a grief journey.

And it’s really, really learning to hold space for our grief and get out of the grief phobic culture that we live in, where somehow grief, because I think grief is actually a psychedelic and grief is actually a superpower that unlocks that relational intelligence, actually, this morning, I was writing a little essay about relational repair, and relational repair of any kind, whether it’s like you and me getting a fight, It’s helps the repair is both of us feeling the heartbreak, not about who’s right, who’s wrong, but just feeling like, Oh man, I’m sad.

I’m feeling grief that me and my bud got in a fight or got in a falling out or there was pain doesn’t matter who caused the pain or how it happened. And right now on planet earth, I think the [00:14:00] start is one for me. It was feeling my own pain. I had enough resource, enough capacity. I don’t know why. To start to actually feel the pain of my, like, abusive childhood.

Which is really the pain of my ancestors, right? Because that’s all ancestral trauma coming down. And then, starting to feel with that, the pain of the earth. And I think that began, somehow, a, like, relational process. Which is the spiritual path. Like, I think the opening up. That pain is information fields that begins to open up guidance.

So that for me is, yeah, the path. 

Giancarlo (2): Yeah. So let me try to paraphrase that. So you’re saying that the key to access this cosmic design or this cosmic intelligence is really holding space for your pain to, you know, It’s counterintuitive because in our culture we are educated and everything points to numbing and evading the pain, not feeling the pain, right?

Our health care is so based on, you know, reducing the symptoms and we don’t want to be in pain. And so our [00:15:00] culture is really designed to escape the pain. But whereas, whereas you say, you know, the key to get in sync with the design is to, to feel the pain. Is that right? 

John (2): Yeah. I mean, we essentially live in a, Anesthetize culture, which like when you, yeah, anesthetize culture and the thing is the capacity to feel also the deepest pleasure and the deepest joy comes from our capacity to feel the deepest pain.

So in some ways going down into the shadow, into the pain is what will awaken the most energy. To feel the most like complete whole picture and give us the most information to make good choices like baseline. 

Giancarlo (2): Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and we can call it like the egoic armor that we have built and you know, like Michael Pollan on his, on his, how to change your, I have to change your mind on this book. On psychedelic calls, you know, the default mode network that the neuropsychopharmacology have identified, that gets [00:16:00] weakens with the tryptamines, with the d mt. And the s Michael Poland. Call it the closest thing to the egoic armor. So I resonate with this concept of now, you know, melting the armor and, and feeling the pain and, and, and connecting with the, with our soul, soul journey.

John (2): And, and, and let me, there’s, there’s actually a like story from that first trip that I really want to share because it, for me, highlights almost perfectly this paradigm shift and the implications of it relationally and for really a culture of peace. Which is really what our film about Tamera that we just made for nine years is about which is so I was on this quest Like I was 19 and I was really questing with like, what is 2012 about?

Right. There’s this paradigm shift end of the Mayan calendar. But I was like, what does this mean? What is this about? And I was eventually led at the end of my trip to this rainbow gathering and a [00:17:00] rainbow gathering is where people come together. And they just essentially live without any really rules without any really sense of leadership or governance.

And it’s just really there to live in complete in complete egalitarian sharing and peace. And so at this rainbow, which was from people from all over the world, there’s maybe 60 of us in this beautiful, like jungle in Guatemala. And the only means of like governance was once a day, we had this council where everybody got a talking stick.

Like for one, like one time and it went around in the circle and people shared and that was it. So one day, these two these two ironically Italian men, that had been the organizers of the, of the Rainbow, they got the like, talking stick, and they stepped into the middle of the circle, and they were fucking pissed.

Because they had organized this Rainbow, and they, of course, had these expectations, and in their mind, sometimes [00:18:00] in the like, Rainbow worldview, there is this oppositional place called Babylon. And like Babylon’s the bad thing, which I think is actually not maybe the most evolved worldview, but these guys had this idea that any technology was Babylon and was tainting rainbow.

So people were like, they’re using headlamps and this is back in the days of like iPods previous to iPhones, iPods. So these guys got in, in the center of the, of the circle. And they were livid, they were angry, and they started to like, cuss, be super angry, be almost violent, and they were yelling at the whole circle, and even at, like, yelling at specific people, being like, You’re bad, and you’re Babylon, and you are like, ruining this, and like, it was so In my own mind, like, so anti like rainbow, I was sitting there getting angry and just being like, what is happening?

And like, these guys are assholes and who’s going to like kick them out. And so [00:19:00] eventually these guys have their, like, essentially tantrum. They have this like huge fit and they stop and they’re just like breathing heavily in the center of the circle. And because there isn’t any clear leadership, there’s no, there’s no clear, there’s no clear like sense of what’s going to happen next.

And so the whole circle is kind of silent and maybe stunned seeing these like guys who just like had this outburst of like almost violent anger and I’m sitting there being like, you know, is anybody going to do anything? Like, obviously we have to like kick these guys out. There’s such assholes. And I’m sitting there feeling kind of also angry.

And then like another minute goes by and this incredible thing happens. All of a sudden, somebody gets up. Like, somebody in the circle stands up. And then another person stands up. And all of a sudden, the whole circle is standing up. And I’m like, what’s going on? Is like, are people like, communicating secretly?

Like, but the whole circle [00:20:00] stands up. So I stand up. And without any words, intuitively, the whole circle moves in towards these guys. And hugs them. 

They 

both break down crying completely. They cried. We held them. We sang and that was it. It was done and we just moved on and like their hearts were burst open.

And that for me in that moment, I knew why the spirits, why soul led me down there, why it led me on the whole trip. And I knew what 2012 meant in that moment. That’s the paradigm shift. People coming at us with their anger, their defensiveness, and our capacity to hold their pain and just meet them in the heartbreak and just love them.

Like, if we had met these guys with anger, with defense, with trying to exile them, they would have blown up more and it would have been a whole fucking drama. But just because we simply silently, all of us [00:21:00] circled them, hugged them, they got to break through to their grief and it created a deeper healing than the whole circle.

And for me, I was like, that’s it. That’s the path for humanity. How can we now create that in deeper structures? Which is what led me ultimately to Temera that is essentially a culture that is living that piecework in the actual Structures of how they are living in their daily lives. 

Giancarlo (2): Yeah, beautiful.

Basically these guys Anger was a cry to be seen 

John (2): Yeah, 

Giancarlo (2): it was like the little the little child in them that wanted attention and love and care But so can you elaborate on the change of paradigm? So what was before what was after? 

John (2): Yeah, what was before is essentially, like, pain and defensive energy being met with more defensive energy, more exiling, more even, like, head butting violence, whether that’s happening in [00:22:00] ourselves, okay, I’m feeling pain, I’m gonna exile myself and be like, you idiot, why are you feeling this pain, why are you feeling sad, that’s, or somebody else, and getting into a fight, and the paradigm shift What’s now is holding space, just even holding a space of listening, of silence, and as we’re able, holding space just to love that too.

The pain comes, the violence comes, and we say, Oh, this too, you are accepted. There is a place for you here. Like, I still love you even if you’re angry at me. Even if you’ve hurt me, I still love you. 

Speaker 5: Yeah. 

John (2): And again, it takes a lot of work to get to that place. And it’s not that we don’t tend all of those emotions as they come up in ourselves.

We do. But that’s kind of the framing. Yeah. We need to be hanging our hats on as a culture right now. 

Giancarlo (2): Yeah. Yeah. And we, we starting with ourself a 

John (2): [00:23:00] hundred percent starting with ourselves. Yeah. 

Giancarlo (2): Yeah. I don’t know if Gabor says this, this, this this line, which I think it’s very simple, but it really says it all.

Which is, it’s not about what’s wrong with you. It’s about what happened to you. 

John (2): Exactly. 

Giancarlo (2): And I think it’s a very powerful line. So you were, you were in Guatemala and and then let’s continue on your biography, if you don’t mind. 

John (2): Yeah. I mean, I’ll just share the parts of synchronicity that kind of led part of that journey to 2012 involved.

essentially seeing this author, Daniel Pinchbeck, who you know, who was on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. He wrote a book about 2012. And that was part of what like awakened me to that 2012 travel journey. Yeah. Yeah. 

Giancarlo (2): Do you remember that? I, I produced a documentary based on 2012, the return of Quezcoatl.

called 2012 time for change. 

John (2): Oh, you did. Oh, great. Okay. I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t. Yeah. I’ll send you. 

Giancarlo (2): I’ll send you a link about what you know about the [00:24:00] documentary. 

John (2): Yeah, I do, which I haven’t seen. So I’d love, I’d love to see it. That’s amazing. So again, how secrecy works in tooth in the year 2012, I’m living in San Francisco and I’ve recently become a like filmmaker and I go to some.

I think I go to the MAPS conference, the like, the like psychedelic conference and Daniel Pinchbeck’s there and I meet him and I’m like, Daniel, like you’re a hero of mine. I really want to like interview you. So he agrees and he comes back to the art collective where I’m living. And I do this interview with Daniel Pinchbeck.

And he starts talking to me about Tamera and he just come back from Tamera, this echo village in Portugal, which I just made a film on for the last 10 years. And he is just floored by the culture of transparency and truth and peacemaking from this culture. And it puts Tamera in my mind. So a couple of years go, go by and.

This is a really big point in my, my story. I’m like [00:25:00] 26 and I start to learn about I have to learn about initiation and that in every indigenous culture, there was a process by which like adolescents, young people became initiated into adulthood’s initiated into the tribe and really initiated into the like interdependent worldview that their culture depended on people having.

And I started to like learn about this and I was like, wait, if this wasn’t every indigenous culture and if this is true, there’s nothing else for like me going on as a quote, adult, if I don’t go do this. So, but there wasn’t people offering like initiations at this time and like, What’s 

Giancarlo (2): the difference with initiation and rite of passage?

Similar? 

John (2): Yeah. So a rite of passage is really any shift. I mean, there’s two ways to think of it. I think in the bigger sense, a, a, a rite of passage, it’s a shift from one life stage to another, [00:26:00] say from like 

Giancarlo (2): adulthood, from childhood to adulthood. 

John (2): Yeah. But say that is the specific adulthood initiation rite of passage, but there’s also a rite of passage.

From being an older adult to being a like elder there is a rite of passage into death There’s a rite of passage into birth and there’s also a rite of passage into like puberty which again healthy cultures Culturally create containers to hold all these because without those containers people don’t really like psychosomatically or psychoculturally Actually transition into these next cultural life stages and that’s where a lot of problems always starting to really track that, like, perhaps another framing for like the mass cultural mess we’re in is that we are a uninitiated culture addicted to our own adolescence, which is addicted to endless growth and a initiated adult It’s not an endless growth.

It knows limits because what happens at the adulthood initiation portal is [00:27:00] the encounter with death. And by encountering death, there’s enough ego, I guess, like disillusion or space. that you can actually come into relationship with life and limits and start to live from a place of really like life giving versus just ego of fulfillment and really in service to the whole.

And in traditional cultures, this process was also the moment where you got initiated into soul. You got initiated into your specific gift, your specific path within the whole within the tribe. So I started to be like, okay, I have to go find this. So I went on. A quest again, I was like, okay, I’m going to go and travel and I’m not going to stop until this happens.

And that led me really like to Alaska. I bicycled from Cardo to Montana. I did my first vision quest, which has been a big part of my, of my path, which is where you go fast without food and water in the like wilderness for four, for four days and nights for a vision. Something [00:28:00] I’ve done eight times, and it’s definitely a big part of spaces that I hold.

And then I went to the Middle East. I’m, I’m, I’m Jewish on my mother’s side. And I decided to go to Israel and Palestine, and I ended up doing a lot of peace work. And this is actually where at a peace village in Portugal, I mean, a peace village in Palestine, that I first came across, again, the work of Tamara.

Because this peace village in Palestine was a sister project of Tamara. Tamara and I got a book about Tamara, which I put in my backpack and kind of forgot about. And months later I joined this like bicycling social circus. So I was traveling by, by bicycle, doing like circus arts and filmmaking. And we ended up going to this refugee camp in North Jordan.

This was during the Syrian civil war. So we were there holding space for circus and like theater and filmmaking in the largest [00:29:00] refugee camp in the world at the time, working with like refugee youth. So I was experiencing the impact of war daily, working with these war refugees. And. At that time, I started reading this book from Temera, which was essentially sharing their story of creating a daily peace culture and going into the deepest shadows of love, sex, power, money, and that really creating a culture of peace.

We’re starting to integrate these deepest shadows of humanity. If we actually were going to create a like long arc regenerative culture of peace. And I was like, Oh my God, it isn’t enough just to go to like, like refugee camp. Like that, that’s like great, but that’s not really getting to the roots of why war happens.

So I decided to go to Tamara that summer and, you know, that just kind of snowballed a process where I eventually met Ian, my film partner, again, through a few synchronicities and me and him in [00:30:00] 2014. So 10 years ago, shook hands and we’re like, we’re going to do a 10 minute short film on Tamara. 10 years later, that short film has become, you know, a feature length documentary that took us 10 years to make sharing kind of their like origin story and their whole story.

Of how they became really a peace culture And what that means and what they learned about really creating community and really, truly becoming a culture of peace and how that could perhaps be a, like model for like a global culture of peace. 

Giancarlo (2): Okay. Maybe, maybe let’s spend a few minutes on what is this model of peace of the meta?

John: Great. 

Giancarlo (2): You know, one thing, one thing I can say, just. Is that, you know, we also were there, we also tried to, to put a little documentary together that is still, you know, how this project sometimes they have their own karma, right? So we’ll see where we’re going. Maybe we’re cutting a short. Anyhow, I think [00:31:00] Martin’s told us this story that they, they were working with this favela outside Sao Paulo, one of the most violent favela in, in Brazil.

And they had this exchange program where they would explore their, their belief, their protocol, their methodology that now you’re going to explain much better than me. And, and basically this favela in, I don’t know how long, but became from the most violent to nicknamed the favela, the pass, the favela of peace.

And they tell a global, the Brazilian TV made a, made a documentary about this incredible transformation. Thanks to Tamara peace process that you’re going to tell us a little bit more about how they are, how they work. 

John: Yeah, 

John (2): You know, I think for Tamera, what they realized, you know, and they’re coming out of World War II Germany.

And kind of this feeling of like, never again, can we, can we like have the conditions be led to like the Holocaust? And what they realized in their [00:32:00] early research was that, you know, a lot of the like leftists, you know, like like communist people were really fighting against the system, but the same system of fighting in their efforts for like peace.

And so in Tamara’s early years. When they were trying to build community, what they realized is that we’re inheriting the legacy of trauma as a species at this point. And that one of the main kind of conditions of the old paradigm is that in order to be accepted into community, in order to be accepted into love, because their work really focuses also on love and sexuality, I have to essentially lie.

I have to essentially present to you. Some acceptable image of who I am so the whole culture at some level the whole over culture is built on like us Pretending and trying to fit into these cultural images of acceptance and what Tamara realizes that that creates violence because When [00:33:00] we have this shadow underground of all that we’re not showing of all that we’re suppressing all that pain We’re like not feeling all of our deepest longings it, that that will eventually come out sideways and erupt as essentially violence somewhere at some point.

So what Tamara realizes that the foundation for a peace culture is a culture of truth and transparency, a culture where you create enough safety and acceptance where people can start to reveal who they really are. And that takes layers. That takes a long time and layers and layers unpeel on with, again, the same acceptance.

That those two men found in that circle down in Guatemala, like Tamir has created a cultural model where people are constantly revealing their most vulnerable selves. And in that process, they’re even like having revelation about who they are deeper. And the key is that they are holding this as like my John’s personal therapy.[00:34:00] 

They’re really seeing that this is a political question and that all of us are aspects of humanity. So my personal vulnerable, like, oh my God, I feel so much shame is not mine alone. And when I, when I reveal it publicly, like they’re, they’re like doing this work. Publicly in front of the whole, the front of the whole community that you start to realize, Oh, this is actually a collective question.

We all have that part in it somewhere. And as it starts to be healed and like, and revealed in like me, it starts to heal in the whole. So that framing that the personal is the political. And again, it’s also this place where what attracted me to Tamara was their deep work on Because yes, I also, I want like global peace.

But fuck, as a human being, I want love, I want to be in love, and this place where my failures in love, which directly relate to my childhood trauma, and the like, early shaping my [00:35:00] nervous system had and why it’s difficult to be in a relationship, completely relates to like the larger systems of war on this planet.

So learning the war in love. And the places I get hurt and defensive and like starting to actually unfold that also in love and the capacity for me to have a fulfilling love life directly relates to a greater culture of peace because if I can be in love, if I can be a channel for love in my body and experiencing love with other human beings.

I’m not going to want to fight, I’m not going to want to go to war, and that just starts to ripple out as a peace culture, because a peace culture is a love culture, inherently. So that’s kind of my like basic overview, I hope that was comprehensible enough. 

Giancarlo (2): Yeah, yeah. I mean, I remember I was there in one of these community meetings and, you know, the idea is that first, you really need to build the trust.

John: Yes. 

Giancarlo (2): That these 70, 80 people really are there to, you [00:36:00] know you know, hold each other’s back and really helping each other so people can feel, you know, safe to be vulnerable. And also you know, sometimes the group will get this job of mirroring some potential blind spots. So it’s like an extended family, right?

It’s like a conscious relationship where you mirror each other’s blind spot. And that work is made on the community level. That’s my takeaway. But so how does. Arrows fits in all this. 

John (2): Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. And first I just wanna say something about the last thing and I’ll link it to arrows. Just that, yeah, there’s that process of you, of you like sharing, but then there is the process of the feedback loops of the, of the A community mirroring you is one that’s an evolutionary process for the community.

It’s like having a dialogue. We’re starting to build and grow and Tamara, the people there are some of the most self involved people, the most integrated people I’ve ever met [00:37:00] because these feedback loops are helping us see our blind spots and actually a deep longing, like a form of, of like love. We’re all, I’d say, not all, but like most of us in mass culture are desperate for, is the type of love of people tracking us and giving us feedback so we can grow.

And we’re so cut off because again, we’re in this culture of like hiding and then like hiding also feedback. So we don’t actually, and then things in like group systems never get clear because there’s no truth being spoken and no feedback loops. And when feedback loops kick in, like that is how nature evolves.

So to be able to actually unlock that in group social processes, it is a faster. More, I’d say, pure form of, like, healing and, like, self growth or self evolution than anything I’ve found. And the way Eros kicks in is that, like, Temera believes, and I’d say that we also have come to understand that Eros It’s not just sexual energy.

[00:38:00] Eros is the inherent life force. It is the thing right now like moving through me with passion as I’m speaking about this subject. It’s outside when I’m looking at this like tree starting to have its little like blossoms come towards the sun. It’s like that is the energy of Eros, which we kind of understand as life’s longing for itself.

It’s this propulsion in life for more life, for more connection. For more like sense of love and that Eros is actually the deepest gauge of our deepest truth and that energy of truth moving through us is a Eros energy. So for, for, for Tamara, and it also happens sexually, but it’s really. By unlocking people’s truth and unlocking all these shadows contents, we actually unlock the power of their arrows.

Because when we’re blocked and repressed, we’re kind of like dead zombies, which is the culture that we have. You look at any like politician, they’re like a weird zombie, you know, speaking like rhetoric. And to actually [00:39:00] Unlock that is to unlock again our full creative because Eros is life force is second shock or creative like energy and it unlocks our full capacity to listen and receive and be in a creative flow.

So erotically awake culture is a peace culture is a culture with the most consciousness and the most intelligence. And it’s really for me the deepest level. It’s actually receiving that intelligence of Gaia of like Earth. Because I think Gaia moves through eras. So when we awaken our eras We awaken that like deeper collective intelligence to move through us, which does mean unlocking some of the deepest hurts in sexuality, which is some of the place of deepest hurt in our species.

And again, it doesn’t always need to be manifested as sexual energy. But as Tamara found like people are generally happier when they’re more sexually alive And this is some of our deepest suppressed longings We look at the underground like [00:40:00] billion trillion dollar porn industry or all of the abuses like, you know It’s like classic at this point that people in power essentially like participate in sexual abuse, like that is the shadow because there is like at the deepest level of our like primate, the urge to like sexually procreate is like so basic to life.

You look at the animal kingdom, all these species are because that’s the like most primal way life force is moving. So to unlock that, we also unlock its potential in every other facet of life, not just in sexuality, but in everything else that gets turned on and alive. 

Giancarlo (2): Yes, do you remember, what was the myth that they were talking about, about, you know, the patriarchy repressing Eros.

There was one of the founder, the German lady, she had this this book about this meat. Do you remember? 

John (2): About meat, like, like, like [00:41:00] meat I would eat. No, 

Giancarlo (2): no, no. Like a myth. Sorry.

It’s my accent. There was like, they have this myth about, about Eros being, being, being co opted by the patriarchy. And that was the beginning of the end of civilization. 

John (2): Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s a few different, I mean, yeah. The founder Sabine, Sabine, exactly. 

Giancarlo (2): Sabine. Yeah. 

John (2): Yeah. She has written a story of these two people, Manu and Merit.

Exactly. And essentially in the story, it’s a little bit more complex, but it’s actually a like story where it’s from a time where culture held sexual initiation in temples. And that like young people learned about the mysteries of Eros and sexuality through being initiated in a temple culture in a more sacred container.

And that were even Temple priestesses [00:42:00] and priests, which there has been evidence. There’s been historical evidence in my Jewish culture in ancient Greece for this type of culture to existed. That actually was a pretty big fundament of peace culture, but in this story, essentially a young man, like a young warrior in this tribe Manu.

essentially falls in love with this love priestess, Merit, and the two of them become so intoxicated in personal love. And Manu, this man, starts to experience like possessiveness, like he wants to possess this love priestess. And they, instead of listening to their, to their elders and to the cultural protocols, which Essentially needed them to take more time and needed Manu and Merit both, because she was like a love priestess in training, to really fully go through with their Initiations to then step into needed them to go through their initiations [00:43:00] to then step into a mature form of love, which also like as a side note, Martine Prichtel also writes that in this culture in down in Guatemala, cause he was like initiated and held initiations in the Zutu Heel Mayan culture, this indigenous group in Guatemala, the same thing, young people were not allowed to fall in love.

Pursue love until they were initiated because the intoxication of love personally, without initiation becomes possessiveness. So in this mythology, Manu starts to become like possessive and him and Merit, this love priest, this kind of run off, but Manu starts to kind of dominate her with his sense of like possessiveness.

And this is like an origin point for where this patriarchal sense. of possessiveness in love, which is no longer seeing love as a infinite resource, but it’s starting to fear it as a finite resource. We need to essentially [00:44:00] possess, control, and this starts because essentially like patriarchy really just means a culture of scarcity.

Patriarchy is a scarcity based, fear based, like, cultural form where, based on that belief system of finiteness and scarcity, we, of course, start to want to control and possess, and from that unfolds this entire fucked up culture of, essentially, war, because eventually I’m going to fight you in order to control this finite resource, whether that’s love.

Or, but, you know, love is maybe the most, the like, the most the most intangible, like, energetic force, but it relates to water, land, power, everything else now. 

Giancarlo (2): Yes, but so can you create a segue from addressing addressing this phenomenal possession with non monogamy? 

John (2): Yeah, and I want to say, you know, that many people think that Temera is a [00:45:00] polyamorous culture or a non monogamous culture.

And I think that’s actually not fully true. And I think that this that this binary. of polyamory versus monogamy is part of the problem because again, that’s still a control oriented way of thinking that I’m going to be safe through creating some kind of like identity. So another part of this paradigm shift is like, I no longer derive belonging or safety through my identity.

It’s not that, Oh, I’m a American or I’m a Jew, or I’m polyamorous that I find belonging in that group and then safety. So I want to say Temera is really a culture of truth in love and love free of fear and that to like counteract the patriarchal possessiveness, which again, because it can also like manifest as somebody being like a sexual predators endlessly eating, you know, or somebody being asexual because they’re totally shut down, which again, actually all of those things, I mean, any, any, [00:46:00] any way that our Eros is moving can be okay.

If we’re able to be honest about it and not try to like, again, force it to be a certain way, but in their culture of like revealing deeper and deeper truth in love, they found out that for like a majority of people in their culture. And I reckon this is my theory now with enough safety. You know, and enough like belonging.

This also has to do with like attachment theory, which is another subject. But when attachment gets shifted from the nuclear family or the individual to community where it actually belongs, attachment primarily always was a community tribal effort. That people, it just is natural, or is there truth, that they start to love and feel attracted to more than one person.

And that doesn’t mean they always have sex with more than one person, but could be. But it definitely, I think, means that we feel erotic attraction to more than one person. [00:47:00] And the culture of like, essentially, monogamy, or like that being faithful means that you are, like, have sexual fidelity to just one person, like, that’s a big thing that, oh, it only means you are in love in the old culture if you can be sexually, like sexually faithful to one person, and that’s totally not true, because at a deeper layer you’re We are connecting beings, and as we like, open, honestly Jean Claude, at this point, I can feel Eros, I can feel attraction to almost every human.

When I fully open myself, doesn’t, does not mean it’s appropriate or right for me to go fuck everybody, but it is for me when I step out of this idea that even possessiveness Or that control in a partnership or a sexual relationship is going to make me safe. Of course it starts to open up that actually, I might feel that connection with many people.

And furthermore, that you’re never [00:48:00] going to land at like, This relationship is this, or I’m this one way. That a fully, like a fully alive, awakened culture of truth is that that truth can keep changing and that so in relationships at Temera, people might choose to be life partners, but knowing that even that you can’t fully ever rest and like counteract uncertainty because maybe at the deepest paradigm shift, 2012, it’s us starting to trust it.

In the mystery, in the uncertainty. So it’s great. I want a life partnership, quote, unquote, but at the same time, if I ever committed to life, I would be committing to the mystery of life and that that could pull me in a different like direction, but I can stay committed to like love. Right. But I think that’s the deepest like awakening of a peace culture of this paradigm shifting culture we’re in is that we actually commit to being in relationship with mystery.[00:49:00] 

And that brings us to that spiritual fabric. We start to have a relationship with spirits and energies and ancestors. And we start to be in this reciprocity of feeding those energies and them feeding us back. And that becomes our bridge of safety. no longer control or identity. 

Giancarlo (2): Yeah. No, beautifully said.

And you remind me of this is a professor of, of, of, of sexuology called Jorge Ferrer, who was came on the podcast a couple of times. He wrote a book called Novogamy, which is basically, you know, like you just said, this idea of, you know, he proposed to depolarize monogamy, non monogamy, like we’ve been depolarized gender.

He proposed a new term, which is novogamy, which is, you know, like more fluid, more in between, more on the scale and people, so people don’t identify with one side of the other, which doesn’t help. the authenticity of the movement at all. But so, so where should we go with [00:50:00] this? I’m curious from your biography, you talk about metopoetic, I know there is the Emerald podcast was very popular, but so tell me a little bit, what does it mean for you and how do you interact with this?

You know, with this force, if it, if it is a force. 

John (2): Yeah, you know, at a really early time in my journey here, like, you know, starting previous to this to mirror film, there was understanding that, you know, paradigm at some level, like cultural fabric is held together through mythos, through mythology, through these like overarching cultural stories that we internalize and essentially live out.

And that like story, like narrative is the basic way. Our brains organize reality and experience reality. And so that actually to really create cultural change, the level I was being called to, to create paradigm shift, it’s really [00:51:00] to step into like different mythology. But even more than that, it’s a step into a.

Awareness of mythology and what we’re calling mytho poetics because at some level in this journey of awakening soul and again, the process of initiation is really where the soul becomes initiated and awakened and a person becomes in relationship with their soul and that starts to like guide them and that the soul speaks in the language of mytho poetics.

So the soul doesn’t speak in rationality. So you are not going to be told you should become an airline pilot, that’s your sole mission, or you should become a firefighter, those could be great strategies or great jobs that could be an expression of your soul, but that actually soul, and I’d say even the like earth herself or the soul of the earth, which is a lot of what we’re working on in the school of mythopoetics is how can our personal [00:52:00] souls Start to relate with the soul of the earth that happens in the language of mythopoetics.

That is the language of birdsong. That is the language of dreams. That is the language of when thunder cracks and you feel an energy course through your body. That is the language of synchronicity, like that journey of synchronicity. That is experienced mytho poetically. It’s not necessarily rational.

It’s kind of the way that mystery, I think, communicates to our deepest intelligence in us. That is a more mythic reality, which is much more, like, image based. And it’s much more, like, narrative based. I’d say it’s more of a, like spiral. It is more of a, like spirillic way of consciousness being experienced.

It’s more of an integrated masculine feminine in that, in that sense. And learning to really perceive the, like, stories of land, of our ancestors, the, like, myths, and start to consciously create the, like, [00:53:00] myths that we want to live into. I think that is, like, part and parcel of what a truly regenerative culture will like be built upon.

Giancarlo (2): Wow. But so for you, when you talk about the language of the soul what kind of language does the subconscious speak? Similar language with maybe a different accent? 

John (2): Yeah. I mean, I would say at some, at some level that the like subconscious Is the like change way. It’s like the, it’s the, I’m trying to find the right word.

It’s the like change station between soul and your like ego, right? So the subconscious will speak to you from your soul place, but that might be with like horrible nightmares, or it might be with like deep erotic longings. But it, but again, like when you have a like dream, in my experience dreams, Occasionally, there’s the occasional like prophetic dream, which can be like pretty like literal.

But for the most [00:54:00] part, dreams are coming through psyche as symbolic language. So this is all symbolic, but it is this like way station that your ego mind is starting to have like clues. To your deeper soul yearnings or the soul yearnings of the like world, you know I just watched Dune last night and they just Dune 2 came out great great series of films great books and That that like series of like novels or stories Which is so common in all these all these great stories where there’s like Lord of the Rings or Avatar there’s such an element where there’s this like dream language of intuition and that the main characters are going through.

So the main character Paul is having these dreams which are coming to him and they’re part real but they’re part also like symbolically showing him what is his path. So the soul is speaking to us through the subconscious through essentially and and for like me dreams aren’t just when we like [00:55:00] sleep.

When I go outside in nature and something happens that has that like resonance, like prickle, we all have that experience of like, deja vu, or that synchronistic skin prickle. That is our, like, somatic intelligence cueing us to that like subconscious mythic layer. And learning to be mythosomatic, which is something that Josh Stry of the like Emerald has really coined.

That mythology also isn’t some just like disembodied, like mental plane thing. It is a somatic intelligence that we also feel and we learn to become attuned to, especially as we open up to arrows. That somatic opening cues us to like the mythic language, but then we can work with our minds or our like imagery to build story with it.

And again, it’s all playful. It’s never meant to be again, set in stone. The ability for it to be more artistic is what gives it its ability to affect your life. If you get. Like [00:56:00] to, if you get too identified in your like ego with the like language of the soul, you’re essentially going to start a fucking cult and become a like ego narcissist or like something about it.

Giancarlo (2): Yeah. Wow. There is, you put so much stuff on the plate. Yeah. I mean, what I’m thinking now, what you just described brought to mind this episode, you know, Bruce Perry is English, a BBC celebrity who popularized anthropology. He, he, he, he took the story on this podcast when he did Iboga and, and, and so the shaman was really following step by step, you know, what do you see?

What do you, and, and, and Bruce was keep on sharing more like his feelings. It was like, Oh, I feel. I felt from, you know, I felt the breakup of my, when the girlfriend from her point of view, I felt this, I felt that. It was more sharing thing. And the, and the shaman was like, no, no. But what do you, what do you see?

And there was like, you know, they really didn’t understand each other. Finally, [00:57:00] Bruce says, okay, I see a red triangle. And then finally the shaman was happy. It says, okay, it means a spirit was there, you know, it means that this indigenous culture was, you know, really resonate with, you know, with, with, with images being the, the, the voice of the subconscious.

But you know, I must admit, I, you know, it’s quite new stuff for me. Tell me again, Josh says, what’s a term he created? Mythosomatic. So it’s when the soul, it’s when your body resonate with the mythology. But can you give an example? 

John (2): Yeah, I recently went to a nature connection gathering and I found this owl on the way there and I really work with nature so I found this owl and I took it and I ended up processing its wings and its talons because I use those as ceremonial tools.

In my like more shamanic quote unquote work, although I don’t like that word so much, but, [00:58:00] and then when I was there, I kept seeing this like woman and I’d get this like skin prickly, you know what I mean? And again, it’s taken me a long time to discern my just like sexual longings from a more intuitive sense of like, there’s something with this woman at a deeper mythic layer.

So I was getting those like skin pricks 

Speaker 6: and 

John (2): eventually one night. I found myself, like, sitting with some other friends, and I started talking about owl feathers. And then that woman is right, like, behind me, I didn’t know, and she, like, leans in, and she’s like, oh, you’re talking about an owl? She was like, I found an owl on the, like, way here.

And then there was, like, this total synchronistic, like, wait, we both found owls on the way here? And it became, essentially, like, the, like, spirit of owl. was finding both of us, which again, that already there is like a mythic layer of like, what does owl symbolically mean in most cultures, it’s death and like rebirth, it’s actually pretty dark, like many tribes don’t even work with like [00:59:00] owl, because it’s so intense, but some do, but it’s something that like, a soul needs to be ready for.

But all of a sudden, me and her were having this conversation having this connection, but it was mediated by the like, mythic energy of Owl. And what me and her were there to explore was essentially this energy of Owl. So like my own first, like like somatic, like prickliness towards her. And then later how that energy was moving through us, kind of manifesting as Eros.

But we weren’t meant to have sex. We were like feeling the arrows of this energy of nature and this like spirit of nature coming to us. Which for us both is becoming a like guide. It’s becoming animal power that we are going deeper with. And we’re learning like together. Like we’re becoming initiates. in some way of owl energy together.

And that’s how it was apparently meant to go, but it was both of our kind of somatic energies drew us to that and our ability to feel that. 

Giancarlo (2): [01:00:00] Well, but so how do you, do you use this you know, mythosomatic poetic erotic tools for your own personal healing? 

John (2): Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can give you a clear example that I think exactly also to go deeper into it like, hey, say it is baseline.

I’m feeling like angry. I can I can say I am feeling angry, which is already like over ego egoically for like me. I’m identifying with this energy and I’m like, Okay. Possessed by it, which is maybe true, but another way to see it is that the, like, gods of anger, which in, like, mythology, say, like, for instance, Mars, or say, for instance, like Apollo, a certain god of war, but it’s other qualities, you could say that god You know, some people do this as like archetypes, but I don’t really like reducing mythology to archetypes, but this, I can say this God or this [01:01:00] energy or this like mythic layer of reality is inhabiting me is asking something of me.

So instead of being like, I’m angry, I need to go punch a pillow, which also is great. There’s this like mythic relationship. I can be like, wait. What is Apollo? I’m about what is Mars? I’m about like how like what is what is what is that story teaching me? About how to beat with anger, and what, what is the role of Mars in the greater canon of like, Roman mythology?

This like, god of like, war? Why was he, or the, like, I could say Thor, in Norse. Norse, who gets very angry. But also has this great power of like protection. So what can I learn about how this anger is working through me by going to the eldership? Because what we say is that myths or old stories are elders.

And we live in a time where we are often bereft of many living elders, just because there hasn’t been enough cultural initiation for people to psycho, [01:02:00] to like psycho culturally become elders. But we can become eldered by the old stories. So if I go to these mythologies, I can learn how to be with anger in relationship in a more mature way.

And this is so fucking different, Giancarlo, than like, psychologizing my like, anger as a problem. Or just like, almost like, infantil in, in infantilizing it. Which is like, where you make something kind of small, like almost a child. Like, oh, my like, anger, I need to just like, deal with my anger and like, Go be like angry at a pillow.

It’s like anger isn’t something to deal with. It’s a fucking mythic power. The same with sadness, the same with fear. Those are all mythic powers that are not problems to be solved, but to have a relationship with and to unlock the deeper fucking mythic wisdom of them. Sorry, I’m getting passionate. 

Giancarlo (2): No, but I love, I love, I love your energy is amazing.

But so, but [01:03:00] so the bullying you had in school had nothing to do with some anger you might have had. 

John (2): Oh, no, for like, sure, like mythically, like my childhood, the abuse story was that my mother was very hurt and traumatized and it’s not her fault, you know, and I’ve done so many, my, the fourth anniversary of my mother’s death just passed and actually our film is dedicated to my mother and also to the children of Ian and Julia, my, my film partners, because she was my greatest gift, but as a young child, she was, She had zero control of her anger.

She was like carrying this like ancestral trauma that was manifesting as anger. And I was the recipient as a young, helpless child. Repeatedly of that anger. And so at some level I was carrying this like energetic like frequency of like repressed anger, which is also drawing in people to be angry or make [01:04:00] fun of me or bully me.

So there was like a tuning fork, which I’ve had to go on my own journey. Cause this passion you’re experiencing right now can become red hot. But again, for me, it’s like trying to unlock the power. Mythically and in my ancestors and in my quote trauma like what is what is the wisdom of trauma as like Gabor says you know And what is the power?

Mythically of this coming through my ancestral lineage like I’m a fucking warrior I’m a hunter and like but I’m learning how to apply that in a really like peace cultural Like generative way, but there is a there is a, there is a pure energy being unlocked. So certainly my being bullied had something to do with the repressed anger.

I was carrying given to me by my mother and my ancestors. 

Giancarlo (2): Well, it’s a very interesting perspective. If we go down a little bit more on a, you know, like implementable, practical, experiential advice, you know, people that want to [01:05:00] maybe deal with this topic of, you know, Aero spirituality, shamanism, you know, what comes to mind are the ISTA, the International School of Temple Arts.

What, what do you think of this? You know, they, they basically, they basically integrate spirituality, shamanism, and erotism, right? Are you familiar with this model? I, I saw you had a, you had Rafa Manacorda. 

John (2): Yeah, I’m very connected to them and their, their culture. Can you 

Giancarlo (2): elaborate on this triptych? How does a workshop how does the ISTA workshop integrate these three interesting concepts, spirituality, shamanism, and eros?

John (2): Yeah, I mean, I’ve never actually been to an ISTA workshop, but I’ve been part of like ISTA culture and ISTA temple culture and I’ve been in this offshoot like mystery school that Bruce Lyon, one of the founders of ISTA started. So I’ve been in this inquiry. And, you know, it’s my [01:06:00] understanding because again, it’s like beyond ISTA and it’s not the only triptych out there of of connection.

But I’d say that basically first, you know, when I hear like shamanic, I really just hear soul and that the, the relationship between spirit and soul is that spirit is a path of ascension. It is going up into the light and it is the place like spirituality ultimately I think is a vector towards oneness.

It is a vector towards feeling and experiencing the unity of the universe. of the universe and our sense of unity, which is the place of like ego disillusion and the place of like death is all good because we’re all like one and we’re all one so peace can happen. But spirituality without soul is only half the picture because soul is a descent.

It is the journey down even the journey quote into hell, which is the [01:07:00] journey down into the darkness is the journey into like the blackness. It is the journey into the place where our most unique Like gift and soul like offering needs to come forth in the because if it’s just a journey into like spirituality We might just become a spirit that is disembodied I mean like might as well die and go back but our bot I believe our spirits came into bodies So that they could experience that journey of soul more deeply, which is the awakening in this life of like, what is our, what is our soul’s place in the greater ecology and the pathway between spirit and soul between this like shamanic realm of soul is really arrows.

It is that energy exchange because if we, cause the thing about like Tamera or any any regenerative cultural, like project now. Is it needs to have both where we are bringing our deepest sense [01:08:00] of individuality because soul is where you are most individuated, not in a egoic way, but it’s where I’m the most like uniquely connected to my role on this planet and my soul’s expression.

And I bring that into a community field. Of oneness of community of common unity, and that unlocks a new paradigm aspect of community, which our planet hasn’t really seen until possibly now of initiated community. And Eros is that pathway. It’s that like energetic circuit. It’s that Jacob’s ladder. Going up and down where we have to walk between those.

And in that place, that is where like communities of the future or the so called Aquarian age happens. Where individuals fully, because the thing is without that journey of soul people coming into unity becomes a cult. You can have unity in a cult, but there’s no, but there’s no sense of like individual [01:09:00] sovereignty.

So people become manipulated, but to have that sense of complete soul initiation, you can then stand and you can create a community that is based on emergence. That is not based on like one person’s leadership or one person’s vision, but it is a emergent process between all of those souls interacting. 

Giancarlo (2): I see.

But so is it fair to say that the, the, the, the completion of the soul must include the shadows. 

John (2): Yeah, that is, that is, that is the path to souls down into the shadows. That’s what I’m trying to say. That’s the journey down to hell is to bring up that energy of the shadows, which is what any individual or any community that’s going to be soul initiated.

That is, that is the path, which is why the journey of adulthood initiation, where the soul comes online, is a journey into the grief, into the pain, into the shadows. You can’t really see my hands, but I’m like pointing down, you know, constantly down [01:10:00] into the earth, into that shadowy place. 

Giancarlo (2): Wow. I love how passionate you are about this topic.

But so where are you putting all this energy now? Do you have another movie, another project? 

John (2): Well, no. So the, our film, the village of lovers is only out part one. We had this big summit, we released it. And now it’s like, we’re kind of. Integrating and then seeing what’s next. And there’s a few things in my personal life.

I do personal I mean, me personally, I do industry work where I guide groups and individuals in like ritual rites of passage to move through certain life stages. I focus a lot on the adulthood initiation portal, but I’m trying also to create cultural initiation through like greater rituals, even trance rituals that have mythic layers and story guiding them and really serve to create culture.

[01:11:00] And then long term, I want to create like my soul is here to create village. And beyond that, I’m here to be part of a movement of re villaging. So our film is really in service to, I think, actually a global movement. of many other communities forming, which are going to look so many ways. It’s not just about going and living in the woods.

That’s one form, but communities forming and those communities becoming connected like acupuncture points. To be part of a global peace culture awakening, like I’m really here to become part of to really help support a like movement, a greater movement of peace happening, but that’s going to happen in very local ways, but those local ways, having a global, like connected NIS and consciousness.

So for me personally, that’s coming through initiation work, that’s coming through this cultural, like initiation work through like ritual. And that’s coming through one day, hopefully starting a village [01:12:00] I will live in, but helping many others start a village in this movement. And that’s kind of the platform we’re trying to build with this film and this greater cultural unfolding around it.

Giancarlo (2): Yeah, but so do you believe, what do you think about this you know, mass awakening this, you know, I remember our friend Pinchback when he wrote 2012, he would say that 2012 was a tipping point in consciousness and and you know, the crisis doesn’t, you know, you, you would say that the etymology of the word crisis is unveiling of discovering and, but so where are we now with this mass awakening?

It depends where you look, right? Yeah. 

John (2): I think that, I think that 2012 was, okay, so say like a typical mythic, like, journey, you know, Joseph Campbell you know, called this the hero’s journey, but I think the hero’s journey, we’re not at all trying to be heroes, but there is this, like, call to adventure, I think 2012 was the point [01:13:00] where we heard the call, this is like Frodo Baggins hearing, hearing the call from whatever that, like, sorcerer guy was, I’m not, I’m not forgetting all the characters in the, like, Lord of the Gandalf.

And and started this adventure, but that adventure for us as a species the last 12 years has been down into the underworld. So shit has apparently gotten worse, but we’re getting more in relationship. We’re getting more into conscious relationship from that call that happened with 2012, or that kind of, like, threshold costing that was 2012.

We’ve just been on a downward journey into the underworld and I feel like we’re about we’re coming towards really like apex tipping point in the like underworld where we’re going to be facing, I think the greatest trials collectively we’ve ever faced. And COVID was just a like overture to what we’re going to face, but that, that [01:14:00] those trials are going to awaken more and more like collective coming together and more soul awakening.

And slowly, it’s already happening, but the movement of like, of like regenerative consciousness and like, and like a regenerative culture of people coming together. And like non capitalist community ways is going to start like mushrooming up and eventually, or this is the idea. We hope that’s going to start to like counteract and go from the fringe to, to the center.

But the thing is like any initiation getting to the other side, like initiation only works because it’s dangerous and it’s not guaranteed in a true initiation. You could die. You might not make it out that encounter with death. We are experiencing that encounter with death on a collective level, and it’s called extinction, and it’s happening to many species were in the sixth mass extinction, but [01:15:00] human species might go extinct.

Like given our course that’s likely, but if we make it through this initial portal, which is going to be us coming together and collectively asking for help from the spiritual ecology, from the ancestors and receiving like a spiritual help that only can be unlocked collectively. I do believe that our narrow passage to a truly regenerative peace culture can happen globally, but it’s going to be a initiatory journey.

Where it’s going to look a lot worse before it looks better. So, but that’s going to happen also like simultaneously, so it’s not, and it’s going to be more required that if you and me are going to go deeper into the shit, we need to also get more resourced in like beautiful communities of joy and pleasure, and also together holding space for grief and pain, but together in a like fabric of belonging.

So again, we [01:16:00] need to get more resourced together if we’re going to like do this work, which is definitely here on our doorstep. 

Giancarlo (2): Amazing. Let me ask you the last question. When you were talking about you organizing this rite of passage, this you know, initiation into adulthood, are we talking for teenagers, for kids?

No, not specifically. 

John (2): I’ve also done work with kids. I’ve done work with 12. And 13 year old boys, which is the right of passage into adolescence. And I mean, just most, I’d say it more happens around the Saturn, a return time. But for like many people, like I held a men’s initiation journey last, last year, it was a full year long journey.

And it was just the start of something even deeper. Right. Cause we’re like taking steps, but that had people from 27 to like 52, because honestly, most adults never had it. So it’s like, and again, And part of even doing that adulthood initiation journey was us going back and [01:17:00] revisiting the adolescent initiation time and having to like stitch up that.

And so even right now, maybe you’re closer to elderhood, but if I was to design a elderhood initiation journey, it would have to include going back and doing adolescent initiation and adulthood initiation as part of the greater journey to elderhood. Cause these things like nest upon each other and you really can’t skip a step.

So yeah, that’s, that’s kind of how it’s been unfolding. 

Giancarlo (2): Yeah, yeah, yeah. My, my son will be turned 12 in a couple of months and you know, with all the parents here in Ibiza, there’s a lot of talk about organizing, you know a rite of passage for those kids and you know, this different theory, different approach you know, maybe one day we’ll persuade you to come over and guide.

Initiation. Yeah. Or, 

John (2): or I’d say I’d love to at least have like a hour call with you and that group. ’cause I could set out frames. [01:18:00] I’ve consulted people how to do this. ’cause the, the thing is the, the, the, I think the common misnomer is that it’s some kinda one-off experience. ’cause even the actual like rite of passage ritual, like for our 12 and 13-year-old boys, they tend to fire overnight by themselves.

That’s the like rite of passage. But actually. That’s built upon a two year process that just doing the outer like ritual doesn’t mean shit if you didn’t do all that other work. So putting the kid out on a fire without all this other work isn’t gonna, so there has to be preparation, then the like right of passage journey, then integration without that full thought that full and people in our culture.

I’m going to go sit with ayahuasca and that’s gonna, it’s like, that ain’t going to do anything if you’re not nested in a bigger like cultural arc of the rite of passage. So I really, I really want to support people because the thing is that work with your son is going to [01:19:00] also ask you and your friends or your other parents to start to up level your own personal work.

And it’s going to be this whole cultural like movement. That’s for me, how community happens. And that actually, I think that community or village isn’t a goal. It’s a side effect of rites of passage happening in a culture again. Community isn’t a goal. It’s a side effect of healthy rites of passage happening because it’s a consequence.

Giancarlo (2): Yeah, 

John (2): it’s a consequence of that happening, right? 

Giancarlo (2): Yeah. 

John (2): And that’s a huge shift because many people think I need to go build community. It’s like, no, you don’t. Community is a consequence of tending some other things. Yes, 

Giancarlo (2): yes, I totally get that. But so, yeah, you’re so right, because what I hear among these parents is like, okay, should we do a sweat lodge for the kids?

We do like a vision quest. So we ask the kids and the kid says, oh, who, I don’t want to be alone in the mountain. We prefer the sweat lodge because there are other kids. And it’s just very fragmented and very reductionist. And I [01:20:00] totally get how it should be incorporated on a, on a, on a larger discussion.

But so. You know, I’ve been talking with Martin about hosting and also I mentioned to Ian hosting a screening of Village of Lovers here in Ibiza. Maybe we can maybe we can make that happen. And, and, and having the three of you here, we can also have that meeting with parents in person.

John: Yes. 

Giancarlo (2): Yeah. There’s a beautiful community here called Terra Iris. They really have been doing very good work. And what I really like about them, it’s, it’s pretty much a permaculture community. And what I like about them is that it’s a replicable model here in Ibiza. There’s a movement here to regenerate the land.

And, you know, there’s different model, you know, we. I’ve been using the, you know, philanthropic model, asking for donation, but that’s not replicable. You know, where is, where is, where is Theraitis? You know, it’s, it’s 10, 15 people that can, that, you know, they can, they can share the rent. They are, you know, [01:21:00] selling the product and, and, And yeah, I see, I see the screening happen there, but we’ll, we’ll, we’ll be in touch about that.

John, listen, thank you so much. So give us some links of all these, all these activities your personal, your personal, the movie, the screenings, everything. Yeah. 

John (2): Yeah. Personally go to John Wolfstone dot earth. I’m still building that, but it’s enough there. So you can connect with me and see my personal work.

Also, I want to say I’m putting a lot of energy into my sub stack. I’m going to be writing about this topic. I’m also going to be holding other like interviews with people. And that’s from the dragonheart. substack. com. Just look up from the dragon heart. It’s going to powerful space. And then the film is the villageoflovers.

com. We also have a Facebook group and we have a online. School, S K O O L, community, you can join from our, like, website where we’re having lots of dialogue about this, like, community process. And then, finally, you can [01:22:00] look up the School of Mythopoetics at theschoolofmythopoetics. com. 

Giancarlo (2): Amazing, amazing.

And if you guys, if we manage to get you guys in Ibiza with the movie. We need to organize a real good tight panel about all this topic, which I will study more and I will be more prepared, but thank you very much, John. 

John: Yeah. Thank you so much, Giancarlo. It was a pleasure. It 

Giancarlo (2): was a pleasure. Thank you very [01:23:00] much.