Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:14 Welcome to my Bob Thurman podcast. I'm so grateful and some good trends enabled me to present them to you. If you enjoy him and find them useful, please think of becoming a member of Tibet house us to help preserve Tibetan culture. If that house is the Dalai Lama's cultural center in America, All best wishes. Have a great day.
Speaker 2 00:00:48 This is episode 274 an interview with Laura Galloway
Speaker 4 00:01:16 And, uh, welcome everybody and especially welcome Laura Galloway. What a pleasure to see you. I haven't seen you at the flesh for a years, several years, but we've corresponded. And, um, I was to receive your book, I guess, last fall, or was it I forget when I, it exactly. And, um, let me just introduce you a little bit. Lower Galloway is a writer and communications strategist. I need your help by the way, professionally, he began her career at the Los Angeles times and holds a master of arts in indigenous journalism from the Sammy university of applied sciences in calc two keynote, Norway, and a bachelor of arts in political science from the U USC in Southern California and art into animal lover. She and her partner live with her two reindeer, herding dogs and two cats, but the dogs have no reindeer to her. I think it ain't right. You're taking them up to Scotland to find reindeer
Speaker 5 00:02:19 Squirrels. Now, Bob,
Speaker 4 00:02:22 Aren't there some reindeer in Scotland? No, there are no reindeer, maybe other kinds of deal.
Speaker 5 00:02:27 Well, it's so
Speaker 4 00:02:29 Good. You're welcome, Laura. And I actually, I have another reason for being excited about Laura in that, uh, the relationship with the Sammy, because what people don't know is that the Dalai Lama loves the Sammy. And when he got his Nobel prize, I went to Norway as part of the nominating having been nominated him. And, um, and when I met him first time we bumped, you know, we met in the lobby of the hotel. He says, I'm so excited. I said, why? Because I knew he wasn't that excited about the prize. He was very humble about it. He said, the government is going to take me to meet the Sammy. And at the time I didn't know much about us. He said, are you coming? Unfortunately, could I saw it video tape of him doing a reindeer sleigh ride with the Sammy and people taking pictures and people excited. And it was amazing, you know, and he, and he actually turned to the camera, the one I saw and he's looked at the camera, stare at it. And he said, as the sled went by, he said, I am having fun. He said
Speaker 4 00:03:42 He was wearing a bigger orange parka, you know? And then what you did didn't show the video was that there was a famous event among the Tibetans because the reindeer kind of were spooked by so many cameras flashing until I suppose, press and they kind of galloped away. And then one of his bodyguards lipped on the back of the sled and dug his boots into the snow and sort of became a natural break on the thing. I mean, I don't know how badly it wasn't how really dangerous it was, but he was then later credited of saving the next decade or two that was years ago. Right? So the fact that Laura Galloway, my dear friend, who I knew from Ted and from other things, she was there with the Sammy flipped me out. And so I did read through the book as much as I can read any particular book. I loved the book. So there you are. So Laura, so how does it, how is it now? How is it? What's the aftertaste of it all? What do you say? Well,
Speaker 5 00:04:50 It's interesting. So I just to give some background on the book, it's, uh, it's I ended up living in the north of Norway as you know, Bob. So the book is a memoir and it's about why I ended up in the north of Norway. And I ended up in the north of Norway because many, many years ago, I took a DNA test that an early stage commercial DNA test that suggested that I had some ancient DNA shared with the Sami people, which is Bob said the Dalai Lama was with the Sami people. And those are the indigenous inhabitants of Arctic Norway, Sweden, Finland, Finland in the Cola peninsula of Russia. And I was quite taken aback by that result because I'd thought I was a well-traveled person. And I didn't, I had never heard of Sami people. I didn't know that that, that the Arctic or the, the north of Norway had indigenous people.
Speaker 5 00:05:41 So I started getting really interested in the area. And, um, I had been living in New York for a long time and, you know, doing some work with Bob among others and living a really busy, busy frenetic life in New York as a communications executive and the life was starting slowly to sort of not fit for me anymore, just in terms of, I wondered why I was doing what I was doing. I was getting very burnt out. I had a very challenging, you know, home, home life or not home life, but, um, a backstory to my family, which I'll get more into in a moment. But I, in any event, the Arctic was a huge juxtaposition from the life that I was having in New York city. And I kept visiting again and again, and I loved the cold and the silence. And I eventually got invited to a wedding in a small village in north of Norway called cow to Kaino or gout decayed new in semi language.
Speaker 5 00:06:38 And, um, at the wedding I met a reindeer herder, as one is likely to do at a Sammy wedding of reindeer orders. And we started to relationship and I, um, just kind of, um, communicated with him after I left over and over things were really, life was not great in New York and I was very burnt out. And, um, I thought I'll just go to Norway for a few months with my two rescue cats and see if go work there for a few months and, and do consulting from there. And the reindeer herder invited me to come to <inaudible>, which I did. And we were living, we lived together and were together for six months. And then in the dead of winter, my first winter there, the reindeer herder left, just went to the mountains, said, said, you're on your own. We're broken up. And I had a decision to make, do I stay or do I go? And that's when I decided to stay in the Arctic alone and I stayed there for six years.
Speaker 4 00:07:42 Amazing. Amazing. I know it's brave and wonderful. Have you really? Yes. And, uh, it's really, really, really marvelous. I really, I really love it. And so then, uh, so then who were, you had to fill out a job there and you even did a degree and you learned the Samuel language. It was a very difficult language.
Speaker 5 00:08:07 Oh, it's, it's horribly. It's very difficult and I'm terrible. I'm terrible at the language. And, you know, I went there in my forties and I don't have a brain for language, but at some point you just can't get away with only winks and nods. It's not fair to the people that have to suffer through being with you every day. I tried my best. Um, oddly enough, I did go to school to learn some new language and I ended up making best friends with a Japanese woman called Yoko because she, she was there studying the, I knew and, and doing, uh, uh, secondary sort of semester away. And the, I knew, or of course the indigenous of Japan. So she was learning semi language for whatever reason. And the language of instruction is Norwegian or Swedish. And I didn't speak either of those languages when I arrived, but Yoko happened to have this little red book by a Japanese man who had gone to the north of Norway and decided to write a book of verbs. And so I was learning through Japanese learning Sami language. It was just a very circuitous route to, to try and to learn the language.
Speaker 4 00:09:21 Yeah. It didn't have any relationship to Norwegian or Russian or
Speaker 5 00:09:27 Very close to finish. It's very similar to finish. And what most people don't know about Norway is that Norway does have two official languages. They are they're Norwegian and Sammy. So you can get your driver's license and Sami language sound. Magilla. Some is how we say Sami language. You can get your snowmobile license in that the kids go to Sami language school in the north. So it's, it's two, two national languages in Norway.
Speaker 4 00:10:01 Yeah. I didn't know that, but that's another good thing for Norwegians regions. I regions actually, even though my wife is Sweden, Sweden, something I can, I read a little passage from your book that I loved a lot.
Speaker 5 00:10:23 Sure. I'd love you to,
Speaker 4 00:10:25 Or maybe you should read it yourself
Speaker 5 00:10:27 With me. You have to do, I don't have the book here. I don't have the book with me.
Speaker 4 00:10:33 It's such a great book. People. I just want to show people this lovely book. What does he mean by the way? I know you said it
Speaker 5 00:10:40 Sammy word for winter
Speaker 4 00:10:43 For wind your dial, the winter. This I love it says here. He said, um, I need to start to think, to think about my life in the north with more of a plan in place. I do not want to return to America each day. I feel as if I'm peeling off the layers of two onions, one is me and who I really am in the absence of trying to be someone else, a person that I think others want me to be in order to be loved and accepted. The other is this place itself is deeply, deeply unknowable place. In which every day I am forced to stretch and learn and discover something new because there simply is no other choice. And the land for some explicable reason has for me and magnetic draw, for which words are difficult, it is being in a space that leaves no choice, but for self reflection and meditation cradled by nature all around me strangely, I am more alone than I've ever been, but I feel safe here.
Speaker 4 00:11:49 Nature is my endlessly fascinating companion leaving every day in all of its complexity and power and the absolute interconnectedness of everything, of how nature works like the finest and most intricate machine ever created, where everything has a purpose and the divine symbiosis. I start to see it in small ways from Lomi the salmon named for the bright orange cloud berries that grow in late summer and have exceeding amounts of vitamin C to keep, or who eat them going for the winter when the sun will not show itself to the natural migration of the reindeer, to the coast, to escape the mosquitoes and fatten up on the rich lighter. And that grows there with abundance nature has a plan as I am learning every day with reverence. So I just love it. You know, it's like a, it's a really great meditative and sort of reflecting about your inner transformations. And you're interesting and I'm particularly, but what, so, so did you, would you say that the land or the people or the reindeer, or being there alone helped you feel more loved on earth?
Speaker 5 00:13:08 I do I do. I think that the healing power of nature can't be underestimated because it's, uh, you know, I feel like we, we face our daily lives with so many addictions in the modern world. I mean, they are to be on the internet to, you know, to, they can be healthy or unhealthy to work out, to drink, to go shopping, to do stuff, to network. And there, I just, you know, as a person, who's not been a great meditator. I had to spend every single day. I, I walked in the nature and nature and you've just so many things to see. And that became a huge meditation for me. And it had a huge power in sort of making, separating me from all of these external things that I kept throwing in my path. There's something about nature that is, that integrates you, you, you do feel connected to something you can't look at the way the world works in that part of the world that is so harsh for part of the year. And then it explodes with all of this life, like almost overnight, the snow melts. You have gushes of mud everywhere. And it's as if nature doesn't have a lot of times, so everything pops up, you can wake up in one morning and everything is, feels like it's green. And you just see everybody has a job and a part working together in nature. And it just, it really changes you when you've locked on this all the
Speaker 4 00:14:37 Time. It's the greatest thing that's
Speaker 5 00:14:40 Ever happened to me, really.
Speaker 4 00:14:42 It was a, did it really come to the forum for you around that time? And tell us more about that?
Speaker 5 00:14:48 I did well. So the book is not just about my time in the Arctic, but in order to explain why somebody would make such a big decision to move somewhere that far away. Um, I, my mother died when I was three and a half. I was in bed with her. Um, my father remarried a woman that was not very fond of the chilled of my father's children. I had one birth sister that I was very close to and loved. We have a lot of mother karma at our family because then that sister, when she, all she wanted was to have a baby. And when that sister got pregnant, a few weeks later, she was diagnosed with acute leukemia and she died a couple of days after my 16th birthday. So there was, so there was a lot of loss in my life and also having a mother figure that was quite rejects in my life and also having a mother figure that was quite rejectable.
Speaker 5 00:15:54 And I constantly felt like I didn't belong anywhere. And, and I didn't that I didn't have a supportive, a family that was there and my siblings were older, but I think they were all, you know, dealing with their own drama and scars. And they're all much older than I am. I was the baby of the family, but I, and so this impacted me a lot because it creates a lot of lifelong wanting to belong somewhere. And this really came, came to a head for me when I was in the Arctic, because I had to reflect on how that had impacted every decision I had made in my life wanting to belong, not being true. You know, I was working on the basis of my ego and not my heart. And unless you do a lot, and unless you do a lot of funny, which, um, and then at that, I really learned that the idea of home and belonging, I realized that so many people had stepped into my life to help me along through my life, because the book shows up into this point.
Speaker 5 00:17:08 And then also that home and belonging is inside of you. And it's not, it's a state of mind, it's not a physical place and it's transitory. And that was very life-changing for me to make those realizations, but it took a long time. And, you know, it's still a daily struggle. I, I started to have compassion for even my stepmother, but people ask me all the time because there's quite a lot about how difficult it was growing up. But I don't think you come to a place of forgiveness where you forgiven it's, it's like a muscle it's like, you have to constantly practice. And I'm, you know, your audience knows this, but I'm a newcomer to all of these big epiphany's,
Speaker 4 00:17:58 It's about like, not bothering to carry on the disappointment and the injury to, to heal yourself, you know, realizing somehow it's all about something they do because of their own problems. And so they're just handing on harm that they received often, you know, something like from someone else, you know, type of thing. So you're the one to stop it. And I'm showing you really did until this, the thing about nature. So somehow the vast Northern nature, and it became your mother or something rebirth you in some weird way. It seems to be from the book. I get the feeling that you are reborn in nature and nature. I don't know if you, do you know about these, uh, what is it called? Um, I'm sorry, but because of my age, I, when I'm about to say something, sometimes it slips out of her mind, but it's called forest.
Speaker 4 00:18:51 And there's, as far as baby, who's a national treasure in Japan who was originally, he flunked out of college 10 times, is it Z only want to do is go and be in the woods. And then later he made a thing out of that. Some mentor found him through the thing and he actually does scientific studies and people who go and just sit in the woods, they're different blood pressure and all kinds of markers change about their body and they become more healthy. So then he, he developed, uh, in issues, Yoko, something like, where are you, Forrest, babe. You just go and sit in the forest. And in your case, there not much forest there. Right. It's more, it's more his vast open Tundra, right? There's Tundra doesn't include a lot of trees.
Speaker 5 00:19:43 Yeah. Yes, that's exactly correct. Bob it's. Um, so I lived on what the, in Norwegian is called the, the Vita, which is a plateau and it's, it's a completely different environment from what you would expect. What you might picture in your mind is quintessentially Norwegian, which are the big pine trees lopped over with snow. Um, they, you have low scrubby Birch trees and you can just see forever and ever. And, um, and in the winter, it's just, it's all white. It a little bit reminded me of growing up in Indiana, where it was just corn fields and you could easily run off the road and find yourself in the middle of a cornfield. But, um, but just, just a vastness and in the summertime, in the spring, it's just gorgeous because the whole, all of the ground is covered with lichen and it's very spongy. So it's, it's, um, it's like walking on clouds and it's just the most amazing, amazing feeling. Um, and it just looks very prehistoric actually, because it just looks like this
Speaker 4 00:21:06 Is how the universe,
Speaker 5 00:21:07 This was from the beginning. And I dunno, people remember land of the loss, but I grew up on that in the seventies, this TV show. And it reminds me of what that would've looked like, but yeah, it's stunning. Yes, yes. That was probably one of the most special other worldly things about living. There was the fact that you would see Aurora Borealis in, um, in abundance and they tend to appear during two hours, we would call it the Aurora hours because they tend to show up between nine and 11 o'clock at night nine, and you need to have very cold, crisp sky. So actually October is one of the most perfect times for anybody that ever has a dream of going to see them. And yeah, they're, they're gorgeous. But if you learn in the north, you must never ever point at the Aurora, a Sami people will know that you're a tourist,
Speaker 5 00:22:14 Tempt the universe. And so you don't point. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Um, there, yes, there are a cup, there are a couple of, um, a couple of different stories related to the Northern lights. And I, I won't go into them because I, there are two stories that I don't want to get wrong, but I noticed that you do not point that you can see them all the time and you need to go play her. Doesn't have light pollution. That's the other most important thing
Speaker 4 00:22:56 You
Speaker 5 00:22:56 Really have to get out there because
Speaker 4 00:22:58 The description of the whole process of calling the herd and laying aside the meat for the winter, which of course they have to do, because that's their server. They can't survive otherwise because there's no growing seeds speak up and so on. And so, and yet you and your cat got lost. You have like, you're such a Tenderfoot and you're your bird that was wounded by one of your cats. You're like trying to keep it alive in New York and the birds aside, how do you heal a bird you're such an islands oriented person, but then you somehow manage to participate to be shoulder, to shoulder with the Sammy and the hug. They butcher the lead in the animal and all these things, which like fills me with fear. And I'm sure I did first and so on. And yet you somehow, can you want to talk more about that? I know some people who are good showing vegetarians, for example, oh, Tibetans aid me doesn't that all holds terrible and they're Buddhist centers, but, you know, the nomads had to because they didn't farm, et cetera. And the Sami more extreme and much farther north, most harsher climate than Tibet. And so please tell us more about that. Fascinating.
Speaker 5 00:24:27 Yes. Okay.
Speaker 6 00:24:28 Okay.
Speaker 5 00:24:36 Well, it is difficult with the rain. First of all, only about 10% of Sami. People are reindeer herders. So you have sea semi's that have traveled on the coast that have never seen a devil don't deal with reindeers. But, um, but so I was in the heart of reindeer hurting place country. And it is, it is very cultural because so much of so much of traditional society is, is around the culture of reindeer hurting. When people gather, they call it going into the fence and that's when the ranger driven in from the Tundra, the herders bring them in. And this is very much a family. The family is, is all working together. You'll be out on the Tundra for days and days in your tent, you know, waiting because it doesn't the reindeer doubt say, I'm going to show up on five o'clock at Friday and you can heard me.
Speaker 5 00:25:29 I mean, this is just contingent on so many things. And it's, it's a hard, it's a difficult thing to see. And it's, um, to see a reindeer being killed. I, I hate it. I saw it, but also I, as somebody that grew up in Indiana that never ever asked about, you know, grew up on the, you have to have milk and meat, but never questioning that this thing in plastic came from somewhere. And this is a sentiment being, but, but it has been a reality of that culture from the beginning of time. That is how they survived. If you consider that you didn't have. And it's much the same in Greenland. I'll say having been there in traditional cultures survive, um, by that's the only way they could get food and eat. Now, things are changing very much because now you have supermarkets and things and, and things that are flown up to the area.
Speaker 4 00:26:23 So,
Speaker 5 00:26:25 But historically it was something that was necessary to do in the winter. We don't have a choice of eating
Speaker 4 00:26:30 And the other thing, and it just,
Speaker 5 00:26:33 You can't, even if you ate everything that grew in the summer, okay,
Speaker 4 00:26:36 <inaudible> thanks said and so forth. And it's the relationship, not just brutal this, not considering a tribe consciousness, right. A thing, but, and yet it is a violent thing and a terrible thing.
Speaker 5 00:26:55 Yeah,
Speaker 5 00:27:06 It is. But what I will say that I feel is different if for, for people that the rain, their herders do, of course they eat reindeer. But one thing I'll say the way that the animals are killed is very, very quick and there's no factory farming and, and it's, for two reasons, the compassionate people kill the reindeer quickly. You just, but also it's, it's an issue of adrenaline getting into the meat reindeer have almost no fat. And so, and I think, um, you know, they don't, they don't languish, they live free and then are killed very quickly. And also the people that I know this is the most precious meat anywhere. And so it's eat every part of it that can be eaten and very judiciously. And so for people that must eat meat or do, or historic, because there's still people don't have the money to fly to the, go to the grocery store. And, you know, um,
Speaker 4 00:28:08 It's probably those who live there and
Speaker 5 00:28:13 Cultural context, I would say, you know, I hope that people will think of it in that way, but I agree times are changing. Right.
Speaker 4 00:28:20 I mean, if it's not really crazy, the microbiome there's life and death, when you digest any kind of food, even a carrot
Speaker 5 00:28:47 Yeah. And I, I do think that cultural context is very important because I remember when I was working on my masters, I went to nook in Greenland and was around, you know, very people that live it, that regular people. And you want to talk about a remote
Speaker 4 00:29:05 Place where most people will
Speaker 5 00:29:08 Never be able to fly out of out. I mean, it's a little tiny village, and then you can't get anywhere except by plane. And they, you know, they eat, they eat whale because they have to, they won't be alive if they don't
Speaker 4 00:29:25 Really, really interesting. So I think there were, it seemed like to me that the people that you knew were very humane and very calm and
Speaker 4 00:29:38 They liked their reindeer. I think they, they they're friendly. They liked a range here, but then they do have to eat them. Some of them, they value them also because they know they are the source of their lives. So it's more what, so it's hard for a city of people, I think to understand that I think you're dead, but anyway, amazing. So how do you know you went there with the boyfriend, but then you stayed and then you just say, you know, you were a successful person in New York, you were doing all these things, but you somehow challenged yourself, very little money you had, and you got a job even with your son, what time are you knew? And you had the first, you were turned down, but then they hired, they begged you to come back. I love that, how they engine, you really got into the students. And so, and, and, um, and you, so you could have gone on living here, actually, you could have gone home, but why did you did some point then decided to you needed to go back or what happened? Was there some triggering and then you brought all the dogs back. I'm so amazed that you didn't bring back any reindeers. That's all.
Speaker 5 00:30:57 Well, I felt like,
Speaker 5 00:31:08 Why did I come back? I came back because I felt like I, I felt a knowingness that this journey that I, you know, I was connected by thinking I had this distant DNA, which I will tell you now I am not a Sammy. I write a whole chapter that says, I am not a Sammy and why, but, but I, I felt like as much as I loved being in that culture, I realized that I also probably for, for my life and finding a partner in the future life that I was going to live, that I probably needed something else. So I was still doing, I started doing consulting projects again, and I was doing a lot of them in England. And I ended up meeting my partner, Jonathan, and, you know, it was very, he was a man who lives in Sussex and said he would never date anyone more than a kilometer away from his house. And he ended up dating me in the Arctic and really stretching. So going back and forth from the Arctic to, um, to Sussex is a pretty tough thing after a couple of years. So I made the decision to come down and I drove from the Arctic in a 20 year old car with my two reindeer herding cats and my two New York city rescue cats, Rennie, and BU,
Speaker 4 00:32:27 And
Speaker 5 00:32:29 Yeah, it was an amazing journey,
Speaker 4 00:32:32 Um, sort of wants to, wants to retire from that. But, you know, the younger ones have to learn how to manage. So she does. So I, I'm much more keeping the kitchen neat and clean. And, um, it's all led to the big job actually. And I'm enjoying doing it. Sorry. I was really appreciating your tips about this cleaning and using that. So,
Speaker 5 00:32:58 Right.
Speaker 5 00:33:13 Should we get, should we give the, my greatest ever cleaning tip to your listeners? You know, people that want to be very natural with their cleaning, the greatest cleaning product you can have in your house, that's amazing for pet stains or anything is go get, um, the cheapest vodka. You can find the highest proof. Now this is, you know, this is the most amazing cleaning product. It takes, smell out of anything, because if you are, if you're, you're wearing, um, winter clothing and you are in a LABU, which is a Sammy tent, you know, smoking food and burning fires and drinking coffee, we don't, we don't have a, you know, a Martin Heizer drink, dry cleaners there. I don't even think I know what the word is, a
Speaker 4 00:34:02 Norwegian,
Speaker 5 00:34:03 But the thing that people would always do is to put in a spray bottle, very strong
Speaker 4 00:34:08 Vodka,
Speaker 5 00:34:09 And it takes the smell out of anything, but it doesn't smell like
Speaker 4 00:34:14 It's the best
Speaker 5 00:34:14 Thing for pesting.
Speaker 4 00:34:15 The turmeric is impossible to get. I've tried every way. I'm going to go for the vodka. Now I'm going to put some
Speaker 5 00:34:28 Right. Oh, right.
Speaker 4 00:34:31 That's a great tip right there. Well, now, then, so in what you're doing now, uh, you know, the book's sort of stops as you leave and as you can,
Speaker 5 00:34:44 It's mostly good for smell, but we'll see how it does on color report back. I'm curious to know
Speaker 4 00:34:50 There's a wonderful another Jonathan, Jonathan, and he's a wonderful, um, uh, person about, you know, he knows all about Blake and I dunno what all, and he's given me. He gives me a great, I learned from him all the time, literary things. And he has a thing where any book that he looks at, and he also does reviews sometimes, but not so much nowadays. But anyway, he looks at the last word in the book and that's how I was. I looked at this, I had, I had gotten, but then I had not looked at afterward, which really is in the book. And in, before the afterward, the last work is prepared. So think that's your organizing thing. You're very organized, wonderful, the different way of your discovery of the interconnection. And you're appreciating the nature. And from a Buddhist point of view, forget about worrying about the DNA.
Speaker 4 00:35:44 You clearly were a semi in a previous life. You were going to be reborn as a blonde among the Norwegians or the Scandinavians or whatever. I don't care whether it's in Indiana or what. And so the DNA is even less relevant than the previous place. And because the DNA comes from your parents, you know, but you yourself are drawn to that. And you were a complete Buddhistic enlightenment vision of the interconnectedness, which is what really gets me out without necessarily formal Buddhist studies. I don't take good for it, but you did describe it beautifully, but then prepared. But then the very last word at the end of the, at the end of the epilogue is I found the meaning of, but I do not yet know what the future hoes, but knowing I've found the meaning of anything is possible. I think that definitely gets to Jonathan cop's seal of approval.
Speaker 4 00:36:46 I think it's imply anything is possible is of course, totally my watch it, you know, and at first I read the book, I didn't get it. I didn't do the Jonathan cop tape. I just did it just now. And I saw that anything is possible because you found the meaning of home. That's just so you know, my latest book is all about trying to get people, not to be afraid of reality because we are brainwashed all Eastern cultures, too, even indigenous cultures, people are kind of brain, but maybe less than indigenous cultures are actually, but because they have, they're so close to reality in the nature, you know, but, but are brainwashed by more authoritarian culture to be scared of reality so that they need the high priests and they need the boss, the king or the, whoever it is, the chief to sort of protect them from it.
Speaker 4 00:37:44 And then they're supposed to sacrifice their own direct connection, you know, to this. Do you know what I mean? And then actually expose themselves to being killed in war or like beings enslaved in a household of patriarch cleans the women, you know, and taught. So, so by discovering home, meaning that you found reality to be very harsh, that other people would consider a very difficult and harsh reality. You found it embracing you, you found it at home. So now you are open to reality and you know, that anything is possible. I think it's, it's a true, it's a real result makes you were even, you were too young otherwise to write a memoir, you're just a kid you're using, listen. You're not even, you know, well, women are of course more mature men. My wife says that men tend to leave out Alessio to get over adolescents around 60 or 79
Speaker 4 00:38:53 Trailer. I know that, but on the other hand, you were super young and useful. And one who knows anything is possible because home is what you make of it. Home is your, is your sense of being loved and embraced? Probably reality to me is the big discovery in this book. And what people will learn from your Odyssey is so beautifully, so beautifully expounded and elucidated, meaning given light in the book or your writing or your brilliant, beautiful writing. I think that's what they can learn from you really, really have it. Yeah. It's just one and, uh, anything is possible. And, uh, so, but anyway, so then in a way, so you found home with the Sammy and because they're at home on the planet, you know, remember Jesus said the meek shall inherit the earth. Wow. That's going to mean someone who's graveling. Could we hear me? We were only seeing someone who has some authoritarian personality person who grumbles to the superior and then beats up on it. But I think Jesus meant someone who is close to reality to the, the blossom in the field, to the, to the presence of the divine, in everything, you know, and saved and loved by reality, actually. And, uh, so those indigenous people are more meek in that sense of they're close to this. Yes, there are. Well aren't there polar bears there who eat, they might occasionally eat a Tommy. Did they want, I mean,
Speaker 5 00:40:29 Yes.
Speaker 4 00:40:31 Threatening.
Speaker 5 00:40:34 Yes.
Speaker 4 00:40:43 But the Sammy didn't have no history of
Speaker 5 00:40:45 <inaudible>. That is where you will find polar bears, but you are polar bear free in the north of Norway, except for that very far island.
Speaker 4 00:41:04 Oh really?
Speaker 5 00:41:10 Um, oh, well the goal, well, the apex predator, one of the really big apex predator for reindeer is the golden Eagle. They're gigantic. They're the they're astonishingly big. I mean, I drove past one once and I, you can't believe how big they are. It's like seeing a horse with wings hanging in the air and there, it was just hanging there and they're just so quick and you don't often get to see them, but they go after the small, the baby ranger. So you have, you have that. And then you, um, yes, predators.
Speaker 4 00:41:55 Um,
Speaker 5 00:41:56 But it's really, the golden Eagle is the, oh and well it's Wolverines Wolverines
Speaker 4 00:42:03 Because there are predators and that this makes humans afraid of nature. Right. You know, like right now. So we'll have back in my old main place like that and are there to report the right-wing governors. And those places are just handing out passports to go and shoot them over again, which is really bad because they are part of the chain and they keep down certain kinds of small animals that otherwise ruined the pasture. And they, you know, there is a balance, you know, that you have to leave some of them there, you know?
Speaker 5 00:42:36 Yeah. It's, You're completely right. And I think that's when, when sorts of interference become really bad, because nature is so complicated, human beings just don't understand. So don't touch it. It's, it's perfection. Everything's doing what it should. And if you know, and, um, yeah, I find that really, really upsetting.
Speaker 4 00:43:10 I, my book came out on August 3rd of this year.
Speaker 5 00:43:15 I left way before COVID I wrote the book during COVID. It came out on October 15th in the United States. So that was actually
Speaker 4 00:43:25 From removing layers of natural balance between bats and ourselves, with engineering and some idiotic men, or as they might've done in some lab or by just the fact that intervening, layers and insects and this mass extinction that's going on. All kinds of things that would have kept that virus has away from humans are those and their forest being also depleted. Uh, this has exposed us to this zoonotic diseases in Swan. So, but then in your work now, so what are you doing now with your new enlightenment? I really think you were enlightened that you really express enlightenment. To me, it doesn't mean because enlightenment doesn't come from a religion or from a, from a bunch of theories. It comes from the experience of human beings, but Cain, countering reality is what it really is, you know, and doubt you did. And it's amazing how you challenged yourself to do that instead of therapists
Speaker 5 00:44:42 Thank you, Bob. Well, you know, one thing I want to say that I, about that I, one of the things about the, the north that I loved and I'm old enough to be able to feel really sad for younger people, because you remember when we used to be able to travel and you would go to a city and you didn't have the internet, you couldn't be taught looking on your phone. You would just go somewhere with no idea. You might've read about it in a book. What am I going to see? What's it going to be like, people don't speak the language. You're, you're completely in a totally, a completely new environment. Um, and, and this was a feeling I had not had since I was a lot younger because everything is now instant gratification. Here's the answer at the map is on my phone. Here's where we're going. I'm translating what this person's saying. And when I was in the north, I, because this is 40,000 people speak the language of the village of Northern Sami. There are different dialects, but I was in a place where everything was completely new and you just couldn't figure it out. And there was something I really loved about that. You know, it was amazing. I'm just not getting the answer here. I have to learn everything here.
Speaker 4 00:45:59 It's already nights are really long here. Then in November, February, it's really turning to drink. I think you almost have to have a job and it didn't do that, but I'm saying it was really, really hard. So I see you guys, you realize that you're bringing the gifts of the,
Speaker 5 00:46:36 You know, Bob, I tried to potatoes, potatoes and bread. Well, it's so cold outside. I, what time is it? It's 10 30. I think I'll roast some potatoes. And then, um,
Speaker 5 00:46:59 Well, I have to say when winter is find, what I find far more unsettling is, um, when you have 24 hours of sun, because yeah, because I think a lot of people that have trouble sleeping don't realize that, um, that have an essential part to my mind of falling asleep. I know this from being in 24 hours of sun now, is that it's a slow moving into a darker, darker, you know, it's the sun going down, but when you don't have that, it's really, really discombobulating, uh, two, two or three in the morning and in my village because it was safe and you're in the north and people are in all during the winter, kids are riding their bikes
Speaker 4 00:47:45 And you go back now. And then
Speaker 5 00:47:46 We have formal meals. The moms just put the food out on the, on the stuff, on the stove, on the hub. Everybody eats when they want, and you can stay up all night if you want it. So to me, it was like,
Speaker 4 00:47:57 Oh my God,
Speaker 5 00:48:05 I stay, I stay in touch with everyone. It's COVID has made it impossible because the, the rules have been quite strict about that. But I intend to go back. Um, no, but no, but the Scandinavia Norway, not Sweden. Uh, but Norway, Norway has been strict about entrance and exit rules and things like that. So the time has been right. But
Speaker 4 00:48:33 Of course,
Speaker 5 00:48:34 Such a big part of my heart. I've gotten to reindeer, herding dogs. I would love to take them back up and, you know, that's where they're born. So, you know, I've, I, I haven't done it lately, Bob I've, um, because I was focused on the book and thinking about maybe another, but, but another thing, and I'm, I'm still would probably do it, but I've become really, it also opened me in other ways, I realized things that I'm interested in are just more Fulfilling things that are closer to people. So of course, I've been in England
Speaker 4 00:49:21 Volunteering, COVID
Speaker 5 00:49:23 A food bank. And I kind of like to do palliative care work because it just kind of took away all the
Speaker 4 00:49:31 Lifeways makes you positioned well for the huge revolution that we need to see planet where we need the wisdom of the indigenous people know, not have, we can go back to being indigenous in the same way now because of our massive population, but we, but we need to learn from them how to even support a more massive population with the two technologies that we have, but with their outlook on life. And so you're in position beautifully to write and to teach and to do that in an extraordinary way, your book is our big does a big teaching like that. This is a great teacher for people out in the Bronx or in Brooklyn or in on central park west or on fifth avenue. Isn't about trying real winter hill think about it because it's real teaching like that. And of course I I'm in a similar, we, we have Tibet Tibet house, you know, nobody quite knows what we'll be doing, but we'll install it on this cultural center in America that is being genocided.
Speaker 4 00:50:40 They're not like nice Norwegians. They, Chinese actually are not like nice. So regions and the Chinese people, they love to bet llamas and they love Buddhism and they love the magic of Tibet. But the Chinese, the CCP, the Chinese communist party, they don't love what their people love because they don't need to be elected by their people. They have a choke hold on their own people. So naturally they're crushing Tibetan culture group. So I'm very concerned with this dialogue, which you, the learning of the wisdom of the Lifeways of the indigenous and this called urbanize and the technological industrialize, and how do we back off or how do we read indigenize into industrialization in a way? Yeah, it's all of it. You are the one who solved it instantly. I'm, I'm an ivory tower person living in the Catskills and I'm not, but I drive a Tesla, Solve it, but you are doing great. And I really
Speaker 5 00:52:13 Well, I think bigger, bigger societies have to, you know, um, bigger societies have to have
Speaker 4 00:52:21 Maybe therefore we're blessed by this huge, enormous inequality. Stubbornly insisting on plumbers have become so few down in the mud of nature. The masses just simply can't admit even the suppose in democracy with, with all the kind of ways of suppressing votes and, and I'm doing it like Hungary and things like that. I'm doing the democracy by a small oligarchy, you know, a few of them and there's, and they are really the really big ones are all trying to lead a March with escape tomorrows. Remember the movie with Matt Damon, what was he doing? I don't want to keep you too long. I think our people, everyone thought I don't want our people to waste time. <inaudible>
Speaker 4 00:53:26 really should be here. We'd be terrified if we were up in Northern Canada with the Nunavut, you know, when we go with those people, you know, the first, at least the Canadians formed the first Americans, you know, and the Samia probably like the first Scandinavian. I don't know if they've managed that the Norwegians, but, you know, thank you so much. You know, a, because you know, there's three genes. Every human being has three genes, every animal, actually, they have moms dads and they have their own super subtle spiritual gene that they bring from their previous experience. And therefore, some people are really driven to love the Tibetans. Some people love the Sammy, someone Tibetan guy loves the Sammy lay down Lama is totally seriously.
Speaker 4 00:54:34 Yes. And he wants to go here. He meets the problem and they have their own problem and sort of encourages them because actually I think he <inaudible> theory. I personally see, I know you have a political science degree. I personally see that the only way that any will be able to deal with this climate crisis that we're in, you know, in grad tell we'll be happy. Finally, with our steer Gretta, you know, is, is that we have to more regionalize that these big, huge complex countries where, you know, decisions are made in some far off capital about some place of lakes and another desert and another mountain and another Northern, another Southern, and the people in the Capitol don't know what is going on. And that's really destructive. You know, those huge, you know, decisions like, like bridge now destroying the owl sea completely destroyed entire sea for cotton planting decisions, you know, grinding the river.
Speaker 4 00:55:38 And so I need to have there's no, there's no water comes from the yellow river into the yellow sea because they drain it for cantaloupes, you know, in the, in the desert areas north of, of the flow of that river. So they drain or hall of war. So, so the regionalization and therefore different people having their own different say, you know, about how they, where they are living in front of them and how it should be treated. This is really, really important. You know, Scottish, if they decide, they'd like to go back to the European union, I'm all for them.
Speaker 4 00:56:16 No one seriously. And the Irish and the Sammy, they are freedom. And, you know, I think subliminally his realizes, this is the way. And then you don't even bother so much with national boundaries because you reconnect in the flow of trade and things like that. You know, when your own nature is not being harmed by some decisions made for commerce by some far away person who wants to strip off your trees so they can dig something underground. So that's really anyways, I shouldn't do on. So I'm so happy to talk to you. You're so young and beautiful. It's just no horrible old man. I just turned 80, which I'm really happy about a hundred percent. And you are only whatever you are very young. Bob love to you. This has been so much, well, that's only, that's hard. That's not even half way with someone who can take energy from the, the Northern lights sets that everyday humdrum event and the one with Delta, all of that, you know, that's, that's hardly halfway there speed for mother earth. You do for mother earth. So please everyone read it all the best. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:58:07 The Bob Thurman podcast is brought to you in part through the generous support of the Tibet house, us Menlo membership, community, and listeners like you, and he's distributed through your creative commons, no derivatives license, please feel free to share like, and post on your favorite social media platform.
Speaker 2 00:58:37 Tashi. And thanks for tuning in.
