71: Swan Dao on Community Living, Sexuality, Consciousness and Personal Growth (part two)

Institute of Devotional Arts

Contact Improvisation
Georgian Polyphony
Kogi – Aluna Documentary
‘All art is quite useless’ Oscar Wilde
Elizabeth Gilbert
Anthropomorphism
Vegetalismo
Paratheatre
Hetronormativity
Difuso
Ken Wilber’s Call to Wake Up

Giancarlo: [00:00:00] Hi, welcome to part two of this conversation with Swan. Thank you for tuning back. And if you’re just arriving here, I strongly recommend you start with the previous episode with Part one. So Swan, thank you for coming back.

Swan: Delighted to be back. Welcome back.

Giancarlo: Thank you. Thank you. We were just discussing you now back in Canada, living in community living with seven flatmate, and you were starting to explain to what extent communal [00:01:00] living, it’s really one of the measure or the method for, for a, for a stable and centered mind.

Can, can you explain more what you meant?

Swan: Certainly

Giancarlo: for you to really explain, because you mentioned that you know, you can do all the study in the world, but then, you know, you can think you’re super conscious, you can think you’re super aware, but then when it comes down to live 24 7. So

Swan: living in community for me was a way to integrate all the practices I discovered in other circumstances and other contexts.

And I think we lack that in our society. And it’s great to have workshops and seminars and retreats, and festivals extremely valuable. But life is not a retreat and life is not a festival. So what, and it’s very difficult for some that don’t have those spaces and those people around them to, to, to, to engage differently, to relate differently and living in a community with like-minded people, with people who have the same intention.

It [00:02:00] is a way to put into practice those things on a daily basis and realizing that the social dynamics how you feel after not just a week or a few, few hours or a few days with people, but a few weeks and a few months change significantly. And I feel like in a way that’s when the real, real work starts, when it becomes more sustainable, longer lasting.

And that’s what we need as a society to stay. More sustainability. Sustainability, absolutely. But so do you mind sharing your personal experience when you went to live with with this, with this, with this group of people?

So I was I was at the time so my official day job, but I was, I was still a, a researcher and an assistant professor at university in Montreal.

And I was trained as, as a therapist and as a conflict mediator. And I was really seeing how, you know, I grew up also seeing conflict as failure. Like it shouldn’t happen. Why are we arguing such a shame? It’s, it’s, it’s sad. Well, now I see, and I encourage people to approach conflict not as [00:03:00] a, a failed relationship under contrary, as something that is an opportunity to, and to get to know each other.

To get to know yourself better and to get to know the other person better, to grow together, basically. We win. We’ll never see eye to eye with everything. We’re bound to argue, and that’s what makes life interesting. If we just agreed on everything, it would be boring. It’s like, do you, what do you think about this?

I, I think the same thing. I wanna do the same thing. It’s, and then what? So this unavoidable friction tension can actually be very interesting and, and empowering if we are to regard conflict as a means to grow together rather than failure.

Giancarlo: Can you be a little bit more specific on how how did it work out for you guys?

There was, so it, it was seven of you living in one house, so one kitchen. How long did you last, what was the takeaway? The insight? What was the difficult things? What did you learn? Did some people leave? There was some fight. There was a big, big turnover.

Swan: Yeah. You wanted to, [00:04:00] you wanted to to juicy details, so to speak.

But I, I don’t wanna to describe it. It’s, it’s not easy work, like, like living in a family. It can be the most rewarding, nourishing, and meaningful thing, but it can be extremely challenging and sometimes unhealthy and. So it does take patience. Sometimes we’d sit for 2, 3, 4 hours processing things and you know, and sometimes the following day we’ll have to do the same thing for this, for the same thing because it wasn’t addressed properly.

So there is also that side of it. And so how

Giancarlo: long you guys were living together?

Swan: The community itself, or me and the community? I was, I was there for a year.

Giancarlo: And then you joined and then you left. You, you left community living or you joined another community?

Swan: No, then the pandemic hit and that brought us apart.

I did join other communities after that, but that was extremely tough. It forced me to force several of us to leave the community. One person had asthma and other people were concerned. As you can imagine, people had different levels of [00:05:00] concern. So we went our separate ways and we thought it was only for a matter of weeks and, you know, what happened with the pandemic?

And that led me to leave Canada. And that was an extremely tough time for me. A, a breakdown you could call it. And a few other things happened. I ended up you could say, you know, it was a, a heartbreak with the community, but also with another relationship. I started, I also broke a body in some ways.

I, I fractured several bones and I felt like I’d also broken my mind if, for lack of a better term, because I also had a, a very difficult psychological experience, which involved psychedelics actually. So the time after Montreal was was extremely challenging, painful and, and tough for me.

Giancarlo: I see. I, I’d love to know more about about this you know, psychological crisis you went through after, after Covid.

I just have one last question regarding community. What is the.

Group work, do you think it would in, [00:06:00] in, in improve the, you know, self knowledge and self-improvement?

Swan: Certainly. And, you know, we call it group work and practices and processes, but then it becomes your daily life. You know, it’s becomes second nature. It’s just what you do. You don’t think, oh yes, now let’s sit down and apply non-violent communication.

You know, yes, you learn a few tools, but ideally then it, it’s just what you, how you live on a daily basis. And so that’s when it becomes most meaningful, when it becomes integrated into a daily life. And I develop relationships that are pretty unique. So they, some of them I didn’t consider my friends because I wouldn’t do, there were some things I wouldn’t, I would do with my friends that I wouldn’t do with them, but I also knew them extremely intimately.

And more intimately than I knew some of my friends. And we mentioned, you know, not being open to, to, to showing different aspects of our personality of ourselves. So when we feel a little down, sometimes we some of us prefer not to hang out with our friends ’cause we don’t want to show that [00:07:00] side of ourselves.

But seeing people going through all sorts of highs and lows and having them see you in this way being fully seen as they said is, is extremely meaningful. So if you wanna call that collective personal growth Sure. I think in, in, in all sorts of ways it is one of the most meaningful things that you can do for so-called personal and collective growth.

Giancarlo: Nice. And then I imagine it would also give the opportunity to practice empathy and forgiveness and understanding all things that we deeply need today, right?

Swan: Yes. And it goes without saying that it, it’s. It’s helpful if people are aligned with the shared intention, hence the term intentional community because it’s, it’s much harder when you’re surrounded by people who might not want to go there and might not want to, may not be ready, or it may not be the right time for them to be open and vulnerable in this way, or just might not have the, the time to devote to, to some of that.

’cause it does require time and patience. So some people want to practice [00:08:00] that within their own communities in the larger sense or in their families with their partners. But it’s, it’s difficult if there’s not this shared intention to start with. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Giancarlo: So, so now you had a pretty much of a, of a meltdown you were saying, and you had, you know, you left Canada and that’s when I met you like in Barcelona.

Like when, when, so what happened after, after Covid or during Covid?

Swan: So, as I said I. I had difficult experiences and I had my experience the second depression of my life. I also had lung covid. I, I lost my sense of smell and it was quite tough for me. And funnily enough, I think I had covid again recently, and I’ve lost my sense of smell again.

And I hope it won’t last a whole year like it did the first time. But as I said, it wasn’t just covid, it was also being away from the community. You know, the first time I kind of fell at home somewhere. So having lost those, those roots there was also an emotion, emotional breakup, and [00:09:00] there was this difficult psychospiritual experience that I experienced.

And I eventually got over it, fortunately enough, and I moved to Georgia. I moved to Georgia because I, I was working on the voice at the time. I was engaged in a lot of embodied practices and I mentioned contract improvisation that I discovered in my early twenties and when I was 19, and I’d been practicing that and I trained in physical theater in Paris and various other physical practices.

But I, I had neglected a voice, partly because I was using it a lot in an intellectual and analytical way. So I was lecturing and I was guiding workshops and very, I was very comfortable speaking in public and, and talking about things intellectually, but not so much exploring a voice in other ways and that, that is in two main ways.

One, obviously singing. Using the voice to, to chance to sing. Even though I was, as you know, I had these amazing experiences in Chapelle, in Melbourne and many other monies and chaffs and temples but mostly as a, as a passive listener. And I was, I was amazed and, and bedazzled and, [00:10:00] but I would rarely take part myself.

And another way to use the voice is to express emotions and beyond emotions to make sounds. And it may seem trivial, but actually when you, when you are around babies that can’t speak, even babies who can’t speak infants, they make all sorts of interesting sounds that we don’t usually allow ourselves to make as adults.

And I believe that actually these sounds remain trapped within us. And we can express a lot through sound or we have on, and we can go like, ah, ah, you, we have that. That’s fair enough. That’s fine. That’s socially accepted. But there are a lot of other sounds that are not socially accepted and that we never make.

And that’s sometimes linked to emotions like expressing anger. And they, I’m not saying shouting, screaming is necessarily a good thing, but for people who’ve never allowed themselves to do that, perhaps people who are socialized as women, for example, who oftentimes are not allowed to express anger in those ways, it could be useful.

And then all these sounds that we make as children, and we make as, as mammals, as, as human beings, as animals that are worth exploring. And so I discovered the Ro heart theater, which basically, I’ll [00:11:00] give you the, the brief story ’cause it’s a good one. It’s a German soldier during the, the First World War, I believe, who was a therapist and who heard soldiers agonizing under battlefield.

And obviously he was heavily traumatized when he, when he got back, he was one of the only survivors. And he healed himself by imitating those agonizing sounds, those screams that his fellow soldiers were making. And he developed a therapeutic practice based on the voice. And a, a student from Radha, a famous drama school in London, became his disciple and eventually founded a theater company based on, mainly based on voice work.

They, they acquired a property in southern France and they all moved there and also lived in community. So it was, again, as I, as I described with with a La Cox School of Physical Theater, it wasn’t so much just, you know, look how beautiful I can sing. It was about exploring the depth of the voice as the main human instrument.

And I became convinced at the time, just like I’d experienced with movement, that you could enter deep states of let’s call them trance or expanded states of consciousness, also through the [00:12:00] voice. And I had an experience that I’d experienced it through movement, through the breath and in, in other ways.

And so I was really curious to, to find just as much freedom through the voice as I’d found through the body. And not just freedom, also discovering more about myself and about the world.

Giancarlo: It’s fascinating. But, but so Georgia has something to do with the, with the throat singer in, in Georgia or

Swan: actually something.

It’s linked to community living in a way, and to this, the balance to be found between the individual and the collective, which has always fascinated me and which is why I also experimented and experienced in community also part of my thesis. And I think what we’re all trying to, to find we’re in an over individualistic society, but you can easily imagine, and there are still overly collective societies perhaps, in which there is no place for the individual.

So finding some sort of equilibrium and balance between the two is, is key and in a, in a way, through polyphonic singing, which is the type of singing practiced in Georgia and in many other tra [00:13:00] traditional societies. You can also explore that. So basically it’s different voices singing different parts together.

In Georgia, it tends to be three part harmonies. So there’s a top voice, a middle voice, and and a bass and low voice. And what’s so special about it is that when you sing your part by yourself, it doesn’t necessarily sound good. So you need to sing alongside others in a particular way for it to sound so special.

And I’ll, I’ll, I’ll share with you a beautiful anecdote that Frank Cain, who is one of the people responsible for bringing Georgian singing to the west shared with me. He was studying Georgian polyphony in great detail. And he did, just did not understand because he would, he would see tradit classically trained singers, you know, opera singers in the west.

Singing these songs, and they wouldn’t sound quite as good as when traditional singers sang them. The only thing is those opera singers, you know, they had perfect posture, perfect training, perfect pitch. Everything was perfect, and yet it didn’t sound good. Whilst Georgian Singers, they were half drunk, you know under dinner table lying [00:14:00] down, you know, no, no posture, nothing.

And yet, you know, they would make these amazing, you know, sing these amazing chants and, and melodies and songs. And when he asked them like, you know, what makes what? You know, what’s your secret? A Georgian singer looked at him and said, Frank, we are good mates. And that was it. They were good friends.

They knew each other intimately. They’d been singing together for as long as I could remember. They grew up with these songs. And it wasn’t about performing the songs. It wasn’t about a big show. It wasn’t about perfection. It was mainly about being together. And that’s the real meaning of harmony.

Giancarlo: So n now, now we are in Georgia.

How long were you living there for? About half a year, I

Swan: believe.

Giancarlo: And so what, what, what, what was

Swan: next for you? So, at the time I’d already, I found, I, I, I established a a human rewilding organization in France and Nature connection practices like, like foraging learning about bird songs, about wild plants tracking and so on and so forth.

Basically [00:15:00] languages, ways of relating to nature that we’ve completely forgotten. And I think we should spend a lot more time learning those wilderness skills, those, you know, bits of an ancestral wisdom, so to speak, rather than debating the amount of CO2 and the atmosphere. Well, we should also do that and be very much aware of that, but on an individual level, recycling is great.

We should do all of it and what we’re doing now, but you know, learning about the plants in your backyard I think is just as essential. So that, so I was facilitating that. I’d already started in Montreal and I was in addition to my academic position giving a lot of workshops so mainly theater and human welding and, and tantra conscious relating.

And so I continued doing that in, in, in Georgia and in, in other places during the pandemic. But then I started being nomadic and moving to different places to, to teach and to offer my own work, to organize my own events, retreats and festivals and seminars. After Georgia, I briefly visited Columbia where I spent time with the Kogi.

Believe you are [00:16:00] familiar with the Ogies. I think you recommended a, a famous documentary, a Luna amongst others on, on that beautiful tribe from from Columbia. And I’ve, I eventually founded the Institute of Devotional Arts. And it’s linked to what it’s described with Georgian Georgian polyphony, which is very simple.

It’s basically recovering the place of art within life and that the service of life, as I said, art that is not so much about putting on a show about the most skilled artist performance, perfection let alone about the art world and selling you art, but it’s about community and divinity. And that’s what art, I believe was always about.

It’s about bringing people together to honor and celebrate that which is greater than us for that nature of the divine. And Oscar Wild famously said that all art is useless. And I fundamentally disagree. I think it’s a historical mistake. I think art is used us now because we’ve made, we’ve turned art into this category that’s [00:17:00] separate from life and that sometimes no longer serves life.

And that’s fine. It’s fine to have art that is denounces things, art, that is political protest art that is self-expression. That’s all well and good and I’m happy we have that kind of art. But I would want to retrieve, to recover and to revalue. Art that serves a different purpose. The purpose I just described, an art that allows us to also go deeper into the human experience art that reconnects us, not only with the body, but also with imagination and the power of the imaginal, that dimension of existence that we also neglect and overlook in society, which is neither totally embodied nor intellectual, which is in between the realm of imagination.

And anyone creative, not just artists can tap into this dimension of awareness, of perception that is essential and that we are also neglecting in our society.

Giancarlo: But, so this is, it, is it, is it fair to say that this kind of devotional art is almost a type of channeling some sort of [00:18:00] divine creativity?

Are, are you familiar with the Elizabeth Gilbert? She, she, she’s a writer, English American writer. She says that basically creativity comes from from, it’s like a form of divinity that, that, that touches people that are open and has the integrity to receive it. And that’s, that’s, that’s what comes to mind.

When, when I hear talking about devotional art, is this something where it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, you partly become like a vessel of a, of a, of a transcendental energy? Yes and no. It’s quite common to say and to hear that the creative process is a sacred process, that art is sacred and to some extent I agree.

Swan: However, there is a slightly different way of looking at it. First I should say, I believe as human [00:19:00] beings, we are both spectators and actors. We are observers and participants of life, and I think we neglect the former a little too much. That is our place’s witness and as observers and creating from this place of deep observation, stillness, and silence leads to a rather different kind of creativity.

And sure, there’s one thing about, you know, feeling like we are only a vessel, a conduit, a vehicle for whatever you wanna call it, greater forces like the divine. But I also like to think of it as response. Basically, when you observe, you hear certain things, you see certain things, and you feel the urge to respond to the call.

And then we use the word calling in English when we feel, you know, the urge when we can’t help but respond. And so instead of, or not, instead of in addition [00:20:00] to us as. Channeling something. I’d also want to consider art as responding, art as singing back and how the world sings in all sorts of ways and we’ve forgotten how to listen and so we dunno how to respond.

It’s also very common to, to think of, as I said, art. You know, artistic practice is something precious and sacred, which is true, but it’s rarer to think as spiritual practice, as creative and artistic. And let’s face it, when you go to any ritual ceremony, it’s also beautiful. And that has value in and of itself.

And sure, it’s also a means to an end that is the practice and, and what it, but also, you know, so instead of saying, oh, I’m painting and it’s a meditative practice, yes, of course it is. And it’s beautiful. How can you think of meditation as in a way, an artistic performance? Not just performing for other [00:21:00] people.

In a way you are pleasing that which is greater than us. And responding to that something just came to mind because in our previous conversation I also mentioned theater and I gave the example of the tiger and acting like a tiger. And I don’t think we did justice sort of example because I mentioned having a clear intention and you said it was a good way to get out on the mind.

And I think that’s true, but I also believe that it’s always helpful to think about different levels of experience, of perception, of understanding. And I would say getting outta the mind and reconnected to body is one, but it may be the, the more basic one, which is essential. But other levels would be to first level.

One could be you are kind of pretending to be the tiger. So it could be a bit of a caricature. And maybe that’s also you allow your, you indirectly allow to express certain emotions through that. And then the other level [00:22:00] could be, you know, you, you, you really study intimately The Tiger and at, at Lacock and various other physical school, physical theater schools.

We spend a whole year on one animal to adopt it. You know, it’s, it’s the quality of the movement we study very intimately. The animal it’s hard work as you, as you can imagine. And so on that level, say level two, then it’s not just a caricature of the animal and being like, I’m a tiger, you know, then it’s, it’s a lot more subtle than that.

And they know things and they see things and they feel things about the animal that other people may not see at first sight, at first glance. And then it could be an even deeper level. And that is what if you were to sit with a tiger, actually go to Africa, wherever there are tigers, Asia, and just observe and be with a tiger.

If you were to even try to dream or about the tiger and also engage with, with the tiger on this more imaginal level. And I think we, we criticize anthropomorphism, but I think anthropomorphism actually can actually be quite helpful because one way is to think, oh, we are making nature like us, [00:23:00] but another way to approach it is to think this is our way to try to, to, to not to try.

This is our way to understand and to relate to nature through imagination, through the body. And, you know, when shamans and other spiritual guides for, for lack of a better term embody those animals or those experiences that people have when they take certain substances, they get to relate to nature in a much deeper and su and, and, and subtler way and, and subtle ways and through theoretical practices that allow you to enter this state of trance.

At this stage, I would say it is a, it is a state of, of trance, which is just another state of consciousness. You can understand things about the tiger very intimately. And not just a tiger. Also, this, the, the, the shared living essence that you share with the tiger, the interrelationship. And I mentioned the tiger, and it’s come kind of easy enough for us to think, oh yeah, it’s a mammal and I see it has eyes and it cares about its whatever, you know, so it’s easily enough to relate.

But what about a plant, for example, and it may seem ludicrous and foolish us to think that we [00:24:00] can interact with plants because we’re not animus society. But in most, for most of human history, people did believe that. Other entities, other life forms have what we call sore spirits, or are not just inanimate matter, are not just automata, are not just robots without a conscience, without consciousness.

And so what, you know, again, you could just pretend to be a plant, but what if you were to. Sit with the plant, eat nothing but one plant for three weeks, sleep with the plant and see how then you begin interacting with that plant. And in traditional practices, that’s what they do. You know, you, you, you know, you go, people do that these days and they go to Amazon, but you don’t need to go to the Amazon.

Just take, eat nettle, you know, for, for, for four months and, and have nettle on your bedside table and start reading myths about nettle and see how deeply you can understand nettle and see what that reveals about your relationship to the natural world.

Giancarlo: Thank you. I think [00:25:00] what I understood is that, you know, why you are explaining this idea of you know, devotional art did a couple of comment, which is example of the tiger.

I said there was a way to get outta your mind. Then I call devotional art like a vessel. And, and if I understand correctly, you say, okay, that’s the first level. But then there is a, a dance, there is a reci, a reciprocity with, with the sacred which need to be cultivated and which it’s, it’s, it’s a much deeper experience than, than just being out of your mind or being a vessel.

And I, I hear you when you talk about, I know, try to, you know, in, in the ve practice there is diet where you eat the only one plant for a year, two years to really become, to really start a relationship with, with, with that specific plant kingdom. So I understand. Thank you so much for the clarification.

Swan: [00:26:00] I appreciate Giancarlo. I appreciate that you used the word reciprocity ’cause it is precisely about infusing the world with greater relationality, relationality. We talk about interconnection, that that’s nice, you know, but how can we ex actually experience it on a deeper level? And I do want to emphasize rather than trying too hard, which we all also tempted to do in our society, starting from a place of greater observation and silence.

And that’s how children learn and that’s how we learn best. And we need to unlearn a lot of things. And we need to learn a lot of things again as you know. And to use another analogy perhaps that will shed greater light on these different levels. We mentioned, or I mentioned briefly my, my, my love for a practice called contact improvisation.

And I, I was, wanted to say a brief thing about improvisation to also illustrate what I mean. And, you know, level comedy improvisation usually. So all improvisation is about say attention. You need to be acutely aware of what’s happening. So attention and you need acceptance. [00:27:00] The basic rule of improvisation is yes, and you have to, you know, you accept what’s happening.

And then the third thing is action. You have to do something about it. And when it comes to comedy, improv, so what’s happening? You, you observe, you are attentive then you accept, okay, yes. And then you suggest something. You, you, you know, you, you carry out an action that is supposed to be interesting, you know, it’s supposed to make, to make the plot more compelling for the audience.

Maybe it’s supposed to be funny. So yeah, so that’s level one. Now, contact improvisation, which could be level two, you could say. Here you’re not necessarily trying now perhaps more of a vessel, and because you’re not using speech language, it’s obviously more, a lot more embodied in a way. And so you’re just going with the flow and listening to how other bodies react in this, in this different way.

And then with practices, which could be considered a type of improvisation. And we mentioned systemic constellations to use the, the example that we, we cited in our previous conversation but also para theater or other forms of theater. In this case, as you said, you’re more of a vessel and, but you start from nothing.

So [00:28:00] when you are doing obviously a systemic cons constellation, you’re not trying to be interesting. You’re not trying to embody anything. Like, you’re not trying to know what’s the tiger like, and I’m gonna pretend to be a tiger. You’re not pretending to be anything. So there’s greater emphasis on the first step, which is that deep attention.

And then you are moving. So the action doesn’t come. It doesn’t come from something making something interesting. It doesn’t come, even come from flow. It comes from silence and stillness, and it takes time and patience. Just like, as you said, eating a plant for a whole month and see what happens.

Giancarlo: Beautiful.

But, so just to continue on the institution for devotional art, you mentioned the word tantra. But so what, there’s a lot of confusion as you know, nowadays of, you know, the tantra, the neo tantra, sexual liberation, sexual empowerment. There’s a lot of lot of confusion. What does it mean to you and how is that part of your foundation of the Institute of Devotional Art?[00:29:00] [00:30:00] [00:31:00] [00:32:00]

Yeah. Yes. Thank you very much. And can I ask you your personal experience with that discipline? How did it start? How did [00:33:00] the evolving, what did it give you? How you’re integrating with your work? So it

Swan: started, so I just, I, I studied strands of classical tantra in an academic setting. But when it comes to neo tantra, which was more, more embodied and especially relational, basically I was engaged in various spiritual practices.

So now we we’re back to my early twenties. I was like, oh, this is nice. I’m meditating by myself. But I was seeking relational practices that were also intimate. And I, I mentioned non-binary communication, which was one, but I also wanted to connect in other ways. And that’s how I discovered Neo.

And at the time I was with old school groups so to speak, everyone was in their, you know, fifties, sixties, and I was by far the, the youngest. And I wasn’t that interested in, in the sex sacred sexual side of things that, that came later. It was mainly about relation relating to people on a, on a deeper and more intimate level.

And what I was dissatisfied with, what I grew dissatisfied with was, and disillusioned with in a way, [00:34:00] was that it’s remained quite, quite binary and heteronormative. And I never quite, you know, was never quite able to fit in those categories. That is, you know, we have women wearing red and men wearing whites and the circle around each other.

And to me they were replicating a lot of a lot of things that society were, were teaching us that I didn’t really feel comfortable with. And there’s a lot of talk about sexual energy, but there’s actually little practice, so to speak when it comes to sexuality. And so then I discovered what is sometimes known as as sex positivity and, and the BDSM world.

And that is approaching sexuality in a, in a free way. That’s not to say that, you know, everyone is having sex with everyone all the time. Actually there are people who consider themselves asexual who spend time in those spaces because they feel free enough to be v vulnerable enough to say, actually, I have no interest in that type of sexuality.

But see, that’s not the norm and that’s not accepted in our society. Usually people would think there’s something wrong with you if you say you have no interest in interest [00:35:00] in sexuality. So just to use an extreme example of you know, people of those spaces offering safer spaces, so to speak.

’cause to, to be able to address the, this question which is central to our lives, which is, as you know, life force. And this is, you know, the, the fundamental, a long, vital,

Giancarlo: tell me more about the, in the intersection of tantra, sex, positivism, BDSM, and if you don’t mind, color it with your personal experience.

Swan: Sure. So I, I grew up being raised as a, as a man. Even though I, I never felt really comfortable with that label. I remember I was in, you know, just changing rooms with, with kids with boys and being told to act as a, as a boy in some ways and never felt quite right to me. And when I was trying to seduce her girls as a teenager, I didn’t know any better.

And it was about, you know, the both of us getting drunk. And then that way we, you know, if something [00:36:00] goes wrong, you can, you can pretend you don’t remember. So, very immature as you can imagine. And also not knowing how to have conversations. And I think it’s true of a lot of people today, regardless of their age about intimacy and sexuality.

For example, I remember it hurt when I, when I had sexual intercourse a few first, and I just never mentioned it to my partner, Thomas 15. And various other examples like that. And then also not really talking about what, what we like or dislike or consent, what is okay or what is not okay. And so again, it was, it was always about developing greater honesty, intimacy.

And so not it’s, it’s not about, oh, you know, it’s just, it’s not hedonism, it was not that, or that it, it can be for sure, and that’s, that’s fine if people seek that. It’s not what attracted me. I had actually, some of my most amazing sexual experiences were fully closed. And people may not answer, but you know, and you know, no, no, no, no genital play, so to speak.

And yet yeah, there remains some. And [00:37:00] then I also had amazing sexual experiences in more traditional sense which includes Alia and so on. So just deconstructing also standards of beauty and what I’m attracted to what I should be attracted to different physiques different ages and so on.

So the whole journey through, through Tantra and my whole life has been about deconstructing everything and trying to really embody that and to see, see at this at different phases of my life, what was, what was, was nourishing, and how I could be more, be, be most honest with what was present for me and for others in this space.

Giancarlo: Yeah, no, I think this is very useful. You know, that’s why I’m keeping you for three hours because I, I hope that your story, I hope, I hope your story and, and your, your, you know, a life dedicated to deconstructing will inspire people to just, you know, don’t accept, [00:38:00] don’t surrender to the limitation from the cultural conditioning or the family conditioning.

And keep on, keep on deconstructing, because that’s, I feel, that’s where truth and freedom

Swan: lies. People may not see the connection or relationship between social liberation and addressing a topic like sexuality, but I, I ought to. Reiterate and stress the feminist, the famous feminist slogan that the person is political and that you think that what hap what is happening inside of the bedroom is just between you and your partner or the person you’re connecting with, but not at all.

We are reflecting society in all sorts of ways and patriarchy and system of systems of oppression and repressed feelings and, and sexuality is one of the most intimate ways in which you can address that. It has to do with your body, with your emotions, with the way in which you relate to the other person.

It’s, you know, we feel a lot of shame around sexuality. It’s taboo in many cultures. So [00:39:00] it’s, it’s not, sexuality as such is beautiful and we keep talking about it, but it’s also about how you can be, how through addressing the question of sexuality, you can be empowered to realize how or to you can be empowered to find freedom in other aspects of life.

As I say, take consent, for example, if you learn to say no or to ask for, to express your, your desires your preference and your boundaries which takes self-awareness and then the courage to communicate those things in an, in an intimate setting. And again, the, you know, gender is quite important here.

I’ve been with several people who were socialized of women and who told me, you know, people in their mid thirties and older sometimes who said, I, I, I’ve never been asked about what I liked or not liked. Something as basic as that. And, and what if, if, if we could or could not do things. ’cause we go with the flow.

And the flow is, is not something we’ve really chosen. And so learning to [00:40:00] say no in this intimate context and to say, actually, I don’t want that right now, even though this is what we’re supposed to do. This is how what we’ve been sold, so to speak. This is what we see on tv. This is what the media sells us, and so and so on.

Saying we could do things differently. It’s hugely empowering. And then you can, you realize in lots of other aspects of life, in all aspects of life, you can do things differently. Yeah. This is very well said. Do you mind commenting a little bit on BDSM?

Sure. So briefly. I mean, it’s again, very stigmatized, very taboo, but you need not be, and now there’s such a thing as conscious kink as it’s called, and kink sometimes uses a synonym for, for BDSM.

And B-D-S-M-I would say mainly focuses on power dynamics. But the interesting thing also from a, from a sociological perspective is that as KO says, relationships are force or power dynamics are found everywhere, are unavoidable. They’re not necessarily bad, they become pernicious and when they’re fixed.

Mm-hmm. And that becomes domination, worse still when you don’t see them, [00:41:00] when they’re invisible. And when you use those, when you reveal this paradynamics or play with them. It’s also a way like theater of the oppressed to deconstruct those paradynamics. And, and it may not involve sexuality and again, genital play because when people hear sexuality or sex, all of a sudden, you know, most of the time people think, okay, genitals, orgasm.

And what I’m saying here is that sexuality obviously is much broader than that. And, and when they think BDSM, they think people whipping each other and then having penetrative sex. Which is again, not the case. It, I mean, it can involve some of that, but it’s actually much broader and, and much more interesting than that.

And it can, it can be, I think we’ll say therapeutic and healing in many ways. It can also be re-traumatizing and there are also always different facets of any practice be it meditation or BDSM. But I, I, I think it can be very valuable practice and it could also be very playful and simple.

It may not be this, you know, dark practice that people sometimes imagine.

Giancarlo: Do, do you mind [00:42:00] explaining a little bit the, the mechanism behind possible healing result from this BDSM pro practice? It does it have to do about trust? What is the mechanism where this practice can be healing?

Swan: So I think it’s.

Similar in a sense, again, it, there are lots of different BDSM practices and now I’m thinking of enacting different roles and that’s how it can be tied to theater and to ritual. To recovering things like rites of passage that we don’t have or reliving situations, traumatic situations in a different way.

But I think we need not, we, we don’t just need to express them verbally to say, oh, yes, now I realize I’m able to share it verbally with my therapist or with my loved ones. I went through this, this was my trauma. We need to experience it, express it, process it on a deeper level, and practices that I mentioned, like playback theater or theater de oppressed for the artistic side of things or BDSM or systemic considerations.

[00:43:00] Also, you know, do those group processes like detect forum. Those are all ways to, to heal in more, in deeper, more embodied ways. And I’m using the word healing in its original etymological sense that it’s not just to make you feel better and to fix certain things and to address pathologies which is what a lot of psychotherapy today is about.

But not only to deepen your experience, but also to be whole and healing shares the same. Its terminological root as wholeness. It’s about being whole again and being having the different parts of ourselves communicate with each other. And here there’s the, there’s obviously, there’s the, the famous debate within psychology, between individuation and having different parts.

And I think at, on some level, talking about different levels, all paradoxes are resolved. And on some level we have to be happy with the paradoxes. And on some level we have to navigate between the different paradoxes. I think it doesn’t matter [00:44:00] if you so much at this stage, if you think I need to be whole, as in I need to be one and for everything to make sense, or I need for the, my different inner parts to be in dialogue with each other.

But what I do need, what I do think we need is to first listen deeply to, to, to what needs to be felt. And shared. And experienced.

Giancarlo: This is so interesting, but, so how would you say this different approach to psychology, the, the, the parts approach and individuation approach, how would they, would they interpret the potential healing property of BDSM differently or not?

Yes,

Swan: I I’m, I’m sure they would. I don’t, I don’t know if I, if I want to explore that too deeply. It’s a very interesting question. And again, I would have to, one would have to explore, well, which BD sm practice are you actually talking about? Again, we’re talking about basically playing with power dynamics in an intimate way, if I’m to use [00:45:00] this very broad definition.

And then again, what kind of, what kind of indivi, what kind of part work as, as a philosopher, I can’t really give you a broad and vague answer to this.

Giancarlo: Okay. This has been so interesting. I feel I have access to this incredible source of information that I can push in any direction and I get smart answers.

Okay. So I know, I know you’re not a philosopher of mind, but I would like still to ask you, I don’t know how much you’ve been following. There is there is finally more and more exploration of paradigm where consciousness is. Fundamental is primary, right? So there’s been Bernardo Castro with a bunch of new books.

There’s been a lot of physicists. Basically, just to make it clear for, for, for, for the listener is this idea that you know, you could say that [00:46:00] H2O molecule create water, but it’s not wet. Right? That’s the example that they use. Whereas people that believe that. Consciousness is primary. It’s not a result of a complicate neuro phenomenon in the brain, but it’s primary.

It comes before it’s this idea of mind before matter. My question to you is, you know, like even some Harry’s wife, Anika Harris just came out with the audio book on, on, in on, on this idea that consciousness is primary and, and, and the subtitle. Of the audio book is once you understand consciousness as a primary and fundamentally you understand the universe better, and that’s for sure, but my question to you is, don’t you think that if, once you surrender to this theory, don’t you think that, that it would also allow to understand yourself better?

Swan: [00:47:00] It’s funny, you, you, you said to surrender to this theory. What do you mean by that?

Giancarlo: Believing in that. Believing, believing in that believ that there is, yes. Be believing that there is a cosmic consciousness that is, is primordial, is, is, is a fundamental fabric of society. Even before time and space and matter.

Because if you do, and I, I just want your, your idea, but I feel that that would explain so many. You know, paranormal phenomenon and the psychedelic experience and the, the life after death. And it per, I mean, I can tell you my opinion, but I want yours, which is much more informed, an expert

Swan: First, I, I want to say that I don’t think life is an equation to be solved.

And I think we have to come to terms [00:48:00] with, you know, the apres and paradoxes, and we need not try to make sense of everything in, in this analytical way as you know. Now we could go deep into the philosophy of mind exploration that I see you’re very interested in and that I studied as well. And I think that could be a whole podcast rather than me giving you a, a sophisticated answer on philosophy of mind and consciousness.

I also want to, I’m a little wary sometimes that these studies, because these people don’t have clients and patience. And real people and even great theorists like Kendo Integral Theory and so on are they really working with people or are they ivory tower philosophers? And what of, what use is your great theory, even if it’s true, if it’s not promatically true romanticism, as you know, from our common friend JGE is what works, what makes a difference in people’s lives.

And so I’ve, I favor and I’ve made a favor, an approach that very much includes still intellectual understanding. And I don’t want to [00:49:00] undermine the importance of that, but that starts from practice. And that is grounded in practice, in lived experience and felt experience. And I think there’s nothing new under the sun.

I don’t think we’re making great scientific discoveries. We are rediscovering things in different ways. We have a different language, just like, and, and maybe some things are a little more sophisticated. And yes, we have technology and we’re able to achieve in a way certain things never achieved.

Acknowledge that. However, I also think that in the past we knew and can understand things in very deep levels, and I think as, as people are rediscovering indigenous traditions now let’s ask how are those cultures? So instead of a philosophy of my perspective, I want to encourage a more anthropological approach.

Basically, that’s my, that’s my answer. I don’t want to ask, what does the cleverest, scientist and philosopher think about this by themselves, even their experience. I wanna ask, what do you know millions of people have experience for millions of years in different cultures, and how do they express [00:50:00] it?

As in, how do they explain it? You know, do they write about it? How would they, you know, that I would, I, I’m more interested in the experiential and anthropological and historical questions than the critical analytical philosophy of mind questions. Obviously both can, can inform each other and both have interesting.

But, so to answer your question, do I think consciousness is primary or I think our reductive materialist worldview is obviously partial, but I also think that all our worldviews are partial and limited, but that they’re also true. So, glass half full or half empty, you decide which perspective you want to adopt.

So, for example, there’s a famous atheist, I forget his name, Sam Harris, I think. Yeah. Sam Harris, one of the four horsemen of atheism with Richard Daw Kings and a few others. And neuroscientists criticizing religion, critique and religion said that he’s a possibility because he think, I can’t quite remember his definition, but he said that all all [00:51:00] religions are, are, are wrong in some way.

And is it true in another way? I can’t quite what he, I can’t quite remember what he said. It doesn’t really matter. What I mean to say is that I think that if you, if you dig deep within any tradition and I used tradition in a broad sense in a way of relating and interpret interpreting reality, philosophy of mind science are just different ways, then you will get to something that is real.

With a different language, just like we have different words to describe different objects and just like one language itself we know is limited. And you mentioned how when we communicate an emotion to each other we lose sort of information. But it’s not just the information that we communicate through the word that we’ve used in one language.

I am sad, I am happy when you say that. You say with a particular tone of voice, with a particular body posture and also some other things that we can detect and understand and relate to in other ways that we don’t pick up on just through language. Which unfortunately this conversation is bound to be limited because we are showing ideas.

And so I, I can’t [00:52:00] help but think is this conversation part of the problem or part of the solution? And I think it’s part, it’s both and it’s fine. And I think, I hope it’ll, it’ll, you know, give people some ideas to think about. But what I would recommend is not so much. You know, getting lost in ideas, even however interesting and fascinating it can be, and I’ve been there.

But I think in our society, if anything, you know, if there’s something is of interest to you, read three books, listen to three podcasts, but then go meet the people who are living whatever it is in, in their daily lives or, you know, go, go experiment, go experience it. And in, in different ways. That’s what I would recommend.

So when it comes to consciousness let’s have a conversation with lots of people from different cultures with different backgrounds to talk about their experience of consciousness. That would be of greater interest to me than having a grand theory about the nature of consciousness being prior to matter or, or something along those lines.

Giancarlo: Sorry to disappoint you, Carlo. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. But, but my question was much more practical. I didn’t want to have the grand conversation about Oh, I see.

Swan: Sorry. Sorry. You shoulda have interrupted [00:53:00] me.

Giancarlo: My, no, but my question, my, my question was, if we believe consciousness primary, do we have an extra tool in, in our arsenal to helping people?

I don’t want, I don’t know which, which ex which word do you like to heal, to find themself, to self connect, to connect with other I don’t know which one is your favorite term, but and then so you know that, that my question was like I asked you how can BDSM be healing? I’m ask you, how can the belief of consciousness as fundamental be healing?

Swan: Thank you for clarifying the question. I apologize for misinterpreting it. Can belief be healing? I’m not sure that mere belief can be healing. I think it always goes deeper than thinking, depends what you call belief. So I don’t wanna get too philosophical about this but if I think, I believe that Lisbon is a capital of Portugal, or I believe that my mother loves [00:54:00] me, these are already quite different beliefs, you know, or I believe in in the dignity of the human race.

Yet another level of belief. So I think to answer your question, we’d really have to dissect what you mean by belief. But I I, I, I, with, without going through philosophical on this, I really wanna understand the root of the question and what prompts you to ask it. What, what do you wanna get out of it, so to speak.

Okay. What’s the aim? What’s the, what’s behind the question?

Giancarlo: Okay, fair enough. I feel that when, you know, for people that are interested in this you know, self-inquiry and, and inner journey to understand, you know, to understand and resolve their inner conflict and, and potentially develop development trauma and to reach some, you know, like a more harmonious relationship with self and other, this idea of this idea of having a cosmic [00:55:00] design for me.

Can, would help in the process of letting go in the process of life happens for me and not to me. This idea that, you know, like when I met my wife 20 years ago, she would say that, you know, what would she say? She would say something like trust the universe. And, and I was very confused by this sentence.

I was like, you know, the universe seems awfully distracted to me, and I don’t know if he can help everybody. And, and, but, but now, you know, with, with all this work, including the work I did with you in that famous holotropic breath work where I had a full on blown mystical experience, that connection with the divine, with this idea of a primordial consciousness.

It, I find personally very helpful in getting out of my head, getting [00:56:00] out of this very earthly, non-significant and non-important problems. Does it make sense?

Swan: Yes.

Giancarlo: I thank

Swan: you, jal. Well, I, I remain a pragmatist an anarchist and a plural list at heart. So I don’t wanna say live and let live and, and if it works for you, then great.

But in a way, in a way, yes, I was like, follow your intuition. Rather, you know, this is, this is what is meaningful to you and what speaks to you now rather than trying to convince everyone, which I don’t think you’re necessarily doing, that this is the one and only truth that you found, and that will now solve everything and help the whole world.

I’m not saying that’s what you’re saying at all, but that’s can, that can be the tendency, you know, really following and this is quite individualistic of me to say, but where wherever, whoever’s listening now, wherever you are, you are at in life. What inspires you? The, the former moto of the Institute of Devotional Arts was Memento inspir, which means [00:57:00] remember that which inspires you.

And so in a world where we’re overwhelmed and bombarded with information and we dunno where to start and where things end, and if it’ll ever end, and if it’ll ever start, I was starting small and I, I, I don’t see spirituality as a se an endless series of peak experiences. I’m much more interested in the ordinary daily life and in deepening our humanity.

A bottom up approach, if you will. And I think the deeper you go, the deeper we go within our humanity somehow we’ll cannot but end up finding some sort of divinity. C

Giancarlo: can you elaborate on this la on this last con concept. When you, when you, when you go bottom up, how did you end up to, to, to find divinity?

There are various ways in which one can

Swan: interrogate or explore reality, right? And what we’ve been focusing on is mainly external, you know, studying things out there with tools and we’ve neglected [00:58:00] looking within, but there are lots of different ways to look within and also to share what’s within externally.

It’s not simply sitting in silence and breathing, which could be sufficient and could work for some, but not for others. So my advice of this to be advice is basically start with wrong practice that you, you attracted to that. Makes you not just see things from a different perspectives at the level of belief, but really experience things in a, in an embodied and imaginal way differently and see how this, just like addressing sexuality, can then become a portal a window a springboard for all sorts of other types of realizations or awakenings, if you wanna call them that.

About a place within the collective within society within the world, perhaps within the universe. Understood.

Giancarlo: Yeah, it’s very, it’s very clear. It’s very accessible. Yeah. Still, I still, I mean, you, you don’t need me, my, my own,

Swan: my own language [00:59:00] is I love plants and I, and, and, and chants for example.

So I, my, my thing is to learn about ethnobotany and I’m fascinated about learning different properties of plants and how they have different textures. I had no idea that some of them, you know, feel like leather and others like fur and, and others are, are, are very smooth. I mean, obviously it’s, it’s endless and extremely beautiful.

And then, and, but that’s, that’s me. And that may speak, that may not speak to you, although I do think the natural world speaks to all of us because we’re part of it. But then when it comes to other, the, the, the myriad of practices I described, you need not explore all of it. And sometimes one is enough.

And in with devotional arts, you know, we, we, we use the arts because they have value in and of themselves, but they’re also a way to simply adorn and embellish things. So it’s. Precious, if not priceless, but it’s also what’s the word, [01:00:00] superfluous. We don’t really need it. It’s much more simpler than we think.

Just like people go on silent retreats for three years to realize all the things that they need to realize instead of engaging in all those elaborate practices. So let’s not forget that, as I mentioned in our previous conversations, let’s not make things more complicated than they are, than they are.

But let’s respect and honor the complexity and the complexity. I, I hope I tried to share with the different levels, like the improv example and how you can do the same thing, the exact same action, the exact same experience from an Altos perspective. Engage with it, experience it, share it in very different ways.

So that’s the complexity under different levels. But how the practice is simple, you just, like the Buddha just sat beneath the Bodhi tree for, I dunno, how long in silence. And, you know and with us and there just watching your breath and many other practices are extremely simple and breath work that you experienced.

And we all, we all have access to that. And we can also remember [01:01:00] I used the example of the tiger and I said that I lost a sense of my sense of smell for a whole year during covid. And what I was doing was olfactory, reeducation. I was using essential oil and thinking Rose, rose, peppermint, peppermint. And trying to remember, and it worked eventually, fortunately enough.

But can we remember things that we’d not even aware that we’ve forgotten? And I think so. So by engaging with this practices saying, I have no idea, you know, even if you don’t believe it again, play, pretend and see how, what emerges that you’ve forgotten that you don’t even know, that you’ve forgotten. And this is deep remembrance.

Giancarlo: Beautiful. But so you would say that. What, what, what deeply inspire you. That’s the starting point, right? For everybody. So what would be, what would be for you? You said, you said plants and music. No, what did you say? Plants. And for me, yeah.

Swan: I, I like to, I like, I like to think I’ll, I’ll end my life with plants, painting and poetry, but because it sounds nice, it’s three Ps.

But at the moment [01:02:00] I’m very passionate about. I’m very NY also works. I could keep phony at the moment. I’m very passionate about polyphonic singing and I’m recording an album with a friend soon. And yes medicinal and, and edible plants and just plants in general. Those are two things that really like me up.

Giancarlo: It’s so, it’s so, it’s so ironical in a way, right? That you spend, I don’t know how many years, 10, 20 years, and two PhDs and one master, two master and all these courses, and you went so deep in all, you went so deep in all these different discipline to at the end, coming on the other side where just focus on what inspires you.

It’s quite, it’s quite ironic. No,

Swan: well, well, in a way that’s what I did. And I think it’s not just, it’s, it’s also as neat and many others said, it’s rediscovering the child, but in a way with greater maturity serious play. And, and I think there are also, again, I, I, I don’t mean I don’t want to dissect the word [01:03:00] inspiration and the different levels of inspiration but there are different ways in which one can respond to the call.

So my question is, how are you responding to the call? To the call? Yes.

Giancarlo: Mm-hmm. But first you need to be able to listen to, to hear the call. That’s right. Yeah. It’s an important step indeed. Yeah. Now, now how for people that want to engage with you, so do what, what, what, you know, people, people that heard you now talking for three hours and they say, I really like this guy’s mind.

I want to work, I want to work with him. How, how they can go about to do that.

Swan: Yeah. Thanks for asking. N Nicolo, there are three main ways. So I do offer one-on-one work, although not a whole lot. Not, not really taking on new clients at the moment, but very happy to hear from people. And I do a lot of group work.

So through the Institute, Institute of Divisional Arts divisional arts.org, at the website we organize training courses for therapists, coaches and people guiding others. [01:04:00] We organize retreats for the general public. We go to Georgia if people want to discover polyphonic singing and to other places soon, Bulgaria and Sardinia.

And then we’re putting together an MFA program. So that’ll be a, a year long hybrid program online, offline for people who want to delve deeper into those themes. I’m very happy to hear from people on, on LinkedIn. I’m quite active on there. So you can find me easily. And Dr. Swan do.

Giancarlo: Thank you.

We’ll put everything on the show notes. But MFA is master in Fine Art.

Swan: That’s right.

Giancarlo: I see. But so that is within an umbrella of university.

Swan: So we yet to decide whether or not it’ll be accredited by university. We may be collaborating with the LF Trust, which is credited by LEED University.

But that’s not clear yet. So we’re currently putting together the program. So I’m very happy to share more with you once we’re clear as to what we’ll offer.

Giancarlo: Amazing. Amazing. And I hope we’re gonna have you as visiting therapist or visiting scholar or visiting facilitator. Or, or visiting inspirational [01:05:00] guru to, to, to Ibiza, to our long-term retreat.

Diffusal, we, we, we want to invite some special character like you to, to share your gift with us.

Swan: I should Peter delight it to contribute. And so just I can, Karl, we talk about, you know, we didn’t mention devotion much, but I’ll briefly share that. I do think we, we’ll have the surge deep within us to simply give thanks.

You know, we talk about observation and change and personal growth, but in our individualistic society, I think we need a little less of personal growth and focusing on ourselves, and even not just the collective, but let’s not forget the transpersonal. And there’s a reason why we’re using the word devotion.

You know, words like praise and worship. We rarely, we rarely used outside of organized religion. And to me, devotion is intimately interwoven with service. How can, what can you do? What’s the best thing you can do to serve others? So when I talked about inspiration and then when I talked about relationality, I don’t think inspiration is just about you and about you deepening whatever you are [01:06:00] experiencing and being the greatest person you can be and living your best life.

I think in the end, like any real spiritual teacher would tell you, it’s about service. It’s about giving back, and it’s about giving thanks.

Giancarlo: Oh my God. Now you, you, you open another major topic, but, so let me just ask you quickly, so how much personal development is too much? What do you, what do you draw the line?

I feel that some work is needed until there is some sort of inner peace, maybe not complete, but. I’m not talking about narcissistic personal development, self-centered, but, but I feel many people need to address some of their issue because even, even like service from an unhealed point of view might be counterproductive.

Don’t you think? I chose

Swan: a degree Dcarlo? Which is why, you know, other categories and levels like Ken Wilber’s [01:07:00] integral theory with growing up, the waking up and so on are, are helpful and all the work needs to be done. But it also depends, you know, we have to look at this on a case by case basis. Where are you at in your life?

You know, what phase of life are you in? What wounds do you have to address? How so? Of, of course, it really depends on the individual and where they’re at. And I think communi traditionally in some communities, not all obviously guides, mentors could tell people this, this is where I think you’re at and where you should go.

And it’s a great tragedy that we’ve also lost. There’s mentors and mentors and also just rise of passage where you are encouraged to say, well, at this age you, you know, this is, this is a good time for you to transition and to move on to the next phase. So it makes it confusing because we are, we always go through lots of different phases at different times in our lives.

Some in our midlife crises some in our spiritual emergencies and everything in between.

Giancarlo: Beautiful. Thank you so much Swan. I find it extremely interesting and I hope that, you know, love this conversation as much as I did. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you.