Episode 23 – Michael Peterson on Dave Matthews and Susan Tedeschi

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Below is a transcription of the episode:

There is so much music out there, and so many people with different preferences.

But have you ever wondered why it is that you like some music and not others?

Have you ever pondered the possibility that your unique energetic blueprint might have some influence over that big why?

And how are these artists creating their music and lyrics?

Is there some secret formula that anyone can follow?

Or is there more of a soul-led endeavor at play?

On the Music By Design Podcast, we are doing the research and finding out through deep interviews with both lovers and creators of music, to find out exactly why it is that we love the music that we do, and how the way it’s created can impact who’s going to like their music.

So come dive in with us, start cleaning your house, go on that long road trip because these are long episodes.

Hello, hello, my friends out there in podcast land.

Welcome to episode 23 of Music By Design.

I am your host, Anna Kinney, from Anna with Intention.

And yeah, welcome.

Thanks for being here.

And this is a long episode, so I’m going to try to be as quick as possible with this intro, because I wanted to cut some things out to try and make it shorter, but it’s just so good.

But before we get to the episode, a couple of things.

Today is Friday, November the 15th.

If you’re listening to this before 1 p.m.

on Friday the 15th and you want to come to Story Lab tomorrow, Saturday the 16th, you need to register before 1 p.m.

to secure your spot.

This is your final and last notice.

Story Lab, claim your main character energy, immersive workshop at the Center for Sound and Ceremony is happening this weekend, and I am so stoked.

I have an awesome workbook I’ve put together.

I have just awesome activities and all kinds of fun things that we’re going to do to really pull this all together.

If you did not make it to my free masterclass that I held on Wednesday evening, the 13th this week, you missed out, it was really great, really informative.

It gives you like a really good idea of what the heck this story lab process is all about and some of the neuroscience behind why it’s so magical and transformational.

I will probably be offering that as a, like a free offering in the future, but for right now, you could only got, you could have only gotten it if you had registered.

So more to come on that.

But if you want to sign up for story lab, get the link in the show notes and hop in with us.

We have an awesome group already formed.

And if this is calling to you, listen to your sacral.

If you’ve been riding your emotional wave, now is the time to decide.

Do you have clarity?

If you need to talk it out, you got self projected or ego projected or any of the other kind of projected authorities, talk it out with somebody, record yourself in a voice note talking about it.

Is it for you?

Super low investment of only forty four dollars.

That’s all I’m going to say about that.

If you come, it’s going to be great.

If you don’t come, well, I’m sure you had a good reason why not to.

So, OK, real quick, just a reminder, Mercury retrograde is upon us.

It’s coming.

November 26th, Mercury is going to go retrograde.

So we are we are officially in the pre shadow period right now.

We are cruising through.

Oh, we’re about to move into gate eight.

We’ve been in gate gates 43 and 23 with the sun and earth recently.

And man, stuff has been flowing.

That’s a great channel.

I want to harness this energy more more consciously in the future because I have felt lots of epiphanies and breakthroughs and all kinds of good things, for sure.

But Mercury is in gate five right now.

Gate, we’ve talked about a lot here in the podcast.

It’s about rhythm, consistency, repetition, you know, slow and steady wins the race kind of energy a little bit.

Routines.

So Mercury’s got us talking about routines right now, giving us an idea of what might be needing to be looked at when we go through the actual retrograde period.

So pay attention, folks.

OK, so that’s that’s really all I’m going to talk about.

I’ve seen a lot of people talking about the, you know, Pluto moving back into Aquarius.

This has already happened a couple of times, and it’s moving back into Aquarius for good now.

It will not be retrograding back into Capricorn anymore for another 250 years.

But in Human Design Land, it’s in Gate 60.

It’s been in Gate 60.

It’s going to be in Gate 60 for a while.

Gate 60, we briefly touched on at the beginning of this interview.

But Gate 60 is all about, it’s called the Gate of Limitation.

It’s about being able to sift through what is limited and basically coming to terms with it, and figuring out how to work with it.

It’s the idea of necessity is the mother of invention.

That’s kind of where that expression comes from, is this energy of Gate 60.

It’s in the root center.

Anyways, Pluto, it’s been here for a hot minute.

I don’t think it’s anything really that big of a deal, to be honest.

It’s still here.

It’ll move into Aquarius, and it’s still in Gate 60.

So I don’t know.

All the astrology people are going bonkers over it, but I’m like, meh.

That’s just me.

So yeah, so I’m just going to dive into telling you about what this episode is about.

So we kick right in.

We’re already like mid-conversation when the episode starts, and eventually I intro us in.

But, you know, man-gen style.

We do start talking, we start off the conversation talking about grief.

There is, once or twice there’s a brief mention of suicide and quite a bit of talk about plant medicine journeying.

So just FYI, we touch on some of those topics.

Not touch on, I mean, we actually talk quite a bit about them.

My guest, his name is Michael Peterson, and he is kind of local to the upstate New York area.

He’s in Ithaca, and he does plant medicine, shamanic journeying and things like that.

He also works with human design and the Gene Keys.

So he has quite a, it’s a very elevated conversation as far as human design and Gene Keys goes.

And he has offered listeners of the podcast the opportunity to book in a Discovery call with him for free.

The link for that will be in the show notes and will be available on the Patreon page.

And yeah, this is just a really awesome, really awesome conversation.

We talk in depth about a lot of things.

Oh, and a really cool thing.

And I do say this in the episode.

He’s a reflector and he’s the first and only reflector I’ve ever had on the podcast.

And now I can say I’ve had every type I’ve had, um, probably every profile.

If not, I have to go back and check on that.

But definitely we have had every type on this podcast.

And I am just so proud and happy to say we did it.

We did it in the first year.

OK, well, again, as always, thank you for being here.

I love you.

If you think of it, please rate and review.

Spotify, super easy.

Hit that five star, rate the show.

Apple, you can hit five stars.

You can leave a review.

It’s every little bit helps and it’s amazing.

I just would appreciate it so much if you could take a few moments just to do that and share it with a friend, share it with somebody who you think would really enjoy this conversation and enjoy.

I’m sure that all of my music tastes have changed since I filled out my intake.

Probably, maybe, probably.

It’s fascinating though, because every time I talk to someone, you know, usually they fill out the form and then we book the call and it might be days or weeks or months later that we actually record.

And most of the time people don’t even remember what they put.

And then the other half of the time, people are like, wait, I need to change it, though.

It’s actually not that it’s different.

And I’m like, well, there’s the whole kind of thing that all this little research project has gotten me to is that whatever you put in that form at the time is 100 percent what we needed to talk about, because there are always things, you know, your musical preferences are a form of your own intuition and trusting what intuitively came through for you in that moment.

It’s kind of like if I were to suddenly be like, name 10 things that are red, and your mind kind of goes blank, right?

Like a blue, a blue day, you know, like you can only think you can’t, you just like what?

Nothing’s red.

It’s like the same thing.

It’s like, what’s your favorite artist?

And everybody’s like, you know, or like, I like to ask my grocery cashier, is like, what was the last song you listened to before you came into work?

Normally, they can like grasp onto that a little bit easier because I find putting the time container around it, like rather than just what’s your favorite song?

Oh, you know, but what what was the last song you had playing before you came or did you have a song stuck in your head today?

You know, like that putting them a little bit more fine time.

So anyway, I mean, structures and containers are calling in the 60 to spring that guy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was like a big thing I learned talking to a friend of mine who’s who does like work with grief and death.

And she’s written books and does Ted talks and stuff.

And the biggest this was years ago, her and I were talking and I was just asking her about her work.

And she gave this one thing.

She’s like, no matter what, when you’re when you’re working with someone or talking to someone who is in some deep grief, don’t just ask them, hey, how are you?

Because that’s like a big question, right?

Like, how am I like since for all time?

Like, since the tragedy happened, since I was born, like what?

But if you say, how are you doing today or how are you doing this morning?

How are you doing right now in this moment?

And like putting a specific smaller time container around that question is a much easier question for a person who’s grieving to answer, as well as just anybody about anything.

You know, but and I also go, I also like to just assume we’re all grieving something on some level, you know, whether it’s cultural grief or ancestral grief or personal, you know, lot that, you know, we’ve all lost something right along the way, what connection to our deeper selves and all that sort of stuff.

So I feel like even human design work is actually grief work, because we’re helping people reconnect to this part of themselves that they’ve lost through a lifetime of conditioning.

I have a very interesting relationship with grief work as a whole, because I fully agree with everything that you just said.

And one of the challenges, and it’s nuanced, but I have found that certain people get caught in the grief portion.

So we can avoid the grief portion and the grief portal, which is in my experience, like this massive opening of the heart center and of the energetic body towards unconditional love.

And if we just say that grieving is like the process of the mourning and going through that, then there’s no actual transformation that occurs.

We’re just re-catharsizing something over and over and over and over and over again.

And it’s like, yes, but after you mourn, where does the transformation occur so that you can start living life in a new and different way going forwards, being informed and opened by the loss that you went through so that you can dance a little bit different, if you will.

I don’t want to say better.

A part of me wants to say better.

But it’s just you’re dancing with more awareness of wife that gets cracked open through that grief portal.

Yeah.

Well, I feel like that culturally happens because we’ve lost or, you know, late stage capitalism, toxic patriarchy, all the things has like removed the people who used to serve as the, you know, like the shaman role as, you know, this is like now kind of like being reintroduced slowly through people who do this like are like death doulas and things like that, right?

Like doing that kind of work.

But like we’ve lost the ritual of death quite a bit.

It’s just become like another like product to buy or sell, you know, and then you put it in the ground and then it’s, and then we’re left hanging, right?

And there’s not as much of that, you know, real ritualizing of it.

And integration of it.

And I think also, again, like a product of capitalism is that like we’re constantly living in this state of scarcity.

So we feel like we have to constantly be holding on to everything.

So when we do lose something and it’s completely out of our control, it’s such a shock to the system.

You know, whereas if we were able to live in a state of flow and surrender, understanding that change is the only constant and that there is no such thing really as loss or death because everything is just, we’re just conduits, we’re mediums for the flow of energy in and out all the time.

If we lived in that state, then like the, you know, we wouldn’t see death as such a loss and like grieving and mourning.

Like, yes, you still grieve the loss of the person, but it would be more understood as this more transitory, we’re always in the liminal space rather than like, you know, having that façade that things are certain, you know?

I do know.

And yeah, well said.

That dance of the liminal space versus liminoid space and whether it’s transformative.

I think a question that I have is, even if we were to live in that state constantly, which is that non-attached or alt, there’s that transitory nature, which as a reflector is arguably how I’m intended to flow with life’s energies.

I still have hanging gates, like in my chart, there’s areas where I anchor in.

And so what part of the human experience is about us still feeling that?

So like, if everything’s liminal, and it’s just going in and out, what part of me wants that to be the case that I don’t have to grieve?

Because at one side, like, I’m still human, there’s still grief.

And yes, everything’s liminal and I’m pure spirit and everything’s just formed flowing.

We have to become very well versed at holding the polarities and the duality and bridging it together into this weird, intricate human experience.

And that is the skill set that I think is being both recultivated and has been a little forgotten.

And so, it’s kind of, in maybe musical terms, right, it’s bringing resolution to a disharmonic chord.

It’s like, cool, how can we bring in resolution now?

How can we bring in resolution now?

And always kind of following that underlying pressure towards greater harmony.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, obviously, it’s not possible to live in that liminal state all the time and be in the physical realm, right?

If we were trying to, you know, if we were vibrating at that kind of frequency, we would just wouldn’t be on this plane anymore.

So, but I, but I think my point was that, like, we just have been so sunk in and off, you know, off to one side for so long.

And yeah, like starting to bring and playing that dance, we’re bringing, bringing back in the right brain and we’re doing more of this dance back and forth.

And that balance as, like, a static state is, is a fallacy.

You know, it’s not stat, it’s never static, right?

Again, like change is the only constant.

And so, like, but how far do we swing from one end to the other?

And like how, you know, doing that dance, doing that, finding that balance between where the scales are like this, rather than like this all the time, you know?

And at the same time, when they’re like this, that is often when we reach that, like big aha, or we have that rock bottom moment that becomes the flavor of the story.

So at the same time, too, it’s like, oh, well, without that extreme polarity, you know, life would just be a little bit more boring, maybe, I guess.

And like, is that that’s not really why we came here.

We came here because the universe was bored, you know, to begin with, it was like, I’m too perfect.

I need some imperfection here.

I need the perception of imperfection to deal with my perfection.

Thank you.

Exactly, yeah.

Yeah.

So, hey everybody, welcome to this episode of Music By Design.

We’re just getting deep into grief and death and liminality and laughing at it simultaneously.

Today, I have a wonderful guest with me.

His name is Michael Peterson.

He is a 5’1 reflector, and I’m so excited.

I’m going to try not to like harp on the reflector nature too much, as we all do in this space.

But, you know, you’re the first one of your kind to come on the podcast.

And now I can say I’ve had every type.

I’ve interviewed lots of manny gens, lots of generators, two projectors, one or two manifestors, and now I got a reflector.

So the statistics are still holding true.

And Michael, I got acquainted with through our mutual friend, Brian Grafstein, who also is on one of these episodes.

Not sure what order they will be in, but he is a human design and Gene Keys aficionado, business person, has a website and offerings and all those things.

And Brian, or you’re not Brian, Michael.

I would love, is it Mike or Michael?

I don’t care, but my wife would really appreciate it if you called me Michael.

Okay, got it.

All right.

So Michael, could you tell us a little bit more about you, what it’s like to be a reflector and have that kind of label through, I mean, you know, we try not to treat it as a label, but that sort of association through human design.

And also, what’s your favorite color?

And do you have any songs that are like kind of stuck in your head today or anything you were listening to before we hopped on this morning?

I’m going to try to answer all of those questions.

Yeah, take your pick.

So I’m going to start with my favorite color, which is blue and different shades of blue.

Right now, I’m feeling more of like almost like not navy, but like dark midnight blue with some floaty waves of, like cerulean going through there.

That’s what I’m feeling like at the moment.

Favorite song was not one of the questions, but right before this call, the song that’s been going through my head is One Day by Modest Yahoo.

And specifically, there’s a version of it that is sung by this like international choir of people from all different faith backgrounds.

And so you’ve got Muslims and Jews and Christians and kind of like all the Abrahamic religions mixed in with probably some agnostic people and atheists as well, if I had to guess.

But it’s like this choir of people just making this one prayer through song, regardless of background, but like, can we live in a better world one day?

So that’s what’s been going on in my head recently.

Five, one, reflector, background, who am I?

The big juicy question.

That’s a tough one.

And we talked about this.

I don’t know where this conversation started off in, and will end in terms of editing, but we talked about containers and limiting these questions.

So this massive question of who am I is a little overwhelming to me.

So I’m going to break it down a little bit.

So what I do professionally is I offer soul guidance and energy work for the human experience.

Specifically, I help people navigate those pivotal moments in life.

And pivotal moments being really any moment that life is asking us to shift either our perspective, or our energy is going back into greater alignment, or into a new state of alignment, a deeper line.

The training that I have is pretty shamanic in addition to general coaching training and mindful interviewing and all those things.

My background is in plant medicine, specifically traditional Amazonian plant medicine.

The reason that all of that feels important is because as a reflector, reflectors are the most prone to being conditioned.

Anywhere in your chart that you have an open center, you’re primed for conditioning.

As a reflector, I have all open centers, and Rao Uruhu, in his own way, which for anybody who’s listening to this podcast, if you’ve heard Rao speak, he can be kind of abrasive.

That’s the word that I’m getting.

And in his terms, the unaware reflector is the enemy.

And the reason he said that is because I think in traditional societies, people with that reflector skill set are really good at looking at the whole and working with people and feeling into the energetic field and saying that person, that person over there, they’ve got something going on.

Let’s uncover that.

Let’s bring it up.

Let’s raise that frequency so that they can really step into this next level of potential.

In the corporate world, that same skill set goes to, that’s the nail that needs to be hit down.

I grew up in a way that was full of social conditioning to achieve and drive and achieve status, really.

After going through graduate school and getting two graduate degrees, I was burnt out.

I was exhausted.

I knew that the degree itself or the job after that wasn’t going to make me happy.

And so I went on a deconditioning journey.

I didn’t call it that at the time, but I can say that’s what it has been since, from my current vantage point, I can say that’s what it’s been.

And at the moment, that five one dynamic, it’s the heretical investigator.

So like, give me somewhere where you tell me I can’t go explore and I’m going to go explore there.

And I think for the time that I was growing up, at least one of the most, I don’t want to say inhospitable, but like least encouraged places to go explore was ourselves.

And so I really liked exploring myself.

And that started expanding through reading philosophy, into working with psychedelics, into kind of just understanding some of these systems like Gene Keys, human design, and saying, great, this is cool.

The funny thing about reflectors in terms of human design is that some of the keynotes are like, literally don’t let anybody tell you how you are.

It’s like, you will not fit into any of these labels, you will not fit into a box, you’re constantly dynamic, constantly changing.

And then here’s the system human design that’s giving you a label of, you are a reflector, this is how you are, but this is how you work.

Right.

And so I was like, what the fuck?

And that both encouraged me to dig deeper and also ended up with me resonating more with the Gene Keys, because it was more of this contemplative dynamic approach where now I can view both of those systems as maps to explore and understand that they’re maps of the terrain, but not the terrain itself, and that my job has been more about cultivating a personal compass, understanding how to navigate through life and being able to help others do the same, utilizing the language from the Gene Keys side, from the human design side, and from a variety of others as well.

So hopefully that gives you a kind of broad overview of me, the 5.1 dynamic can definitely be a little, here’s where we’re going.

So full disclosure, I am me, I am only me.

I do not speak for all reflectors.

I can only speak for my experience.

I do have quite a large projection field.

So if you need to project something onto me, you are totally, whoever’s listening to this, you are totally welcome to do so.

But please also take that back after you are done, because I’m not going to keep it for you.

That’s all.

Right, right.

Awesome.

Thank you for all of that.

I have a million questions that I want to ask that will make this a five-hour long interview.

So I’m actually going to pull in.

I’m curious on your journey along the way, how have you, with your musical tastes and preferences, how has that shifted and changed along the way on your journey from being the overachiever to burning out, to seeking self, to now?

What has that looked like?

One of the questions I always like to ask is, what were you into when you were a young teen, like 13, 14, 15, 16 years old, and just starting to individuate and trying to separate from your upbringing a little bit with your own preferences and things like that?

What were you drawn to and what was it about that music that really I don’t know if you felt, you vibed with, what was it about the music?

Yeah.

So I was into Linkin Park and a little bit of like pop punk rock, a little bit of, it definitely wasn’t metal, but like hard rock, like trapped in mud vein and kind of system of a down tool and all those things.

When I was 14 was when my dad, my dad committed suicide.

And so I had this moment of like deep teenage angst.

And so there was this like anger that needed to be expressed through that, that music was really good at helping me with.

I used to be able to fall asleep listening to a slip, slipknot like this probably is not fine.

But it resonated with my nervous system.

Then kind of going into college, I got more into like the punk side of things, a little bit more like that rebellious spirit coming out.

But also I went to school in the SEC.

I went to South Carolina.

So like there was a decent amount of like frat boy rock and started getting into like Dave Matthews and kind of jam band, Grateful Dead stuff.

And kind of stayed in that zone of like Grateful Dead, blues, jazz, more creative expression through graduate school.

And then once I kind of started on the medicine path, I mean, in medicine ceremonies, we’re just singing all the damn time.

So it’s Icaros, Icaros, Icaros all day long.

And that’s probably what it was for four to five years, learning new Icaros mixed with Trevor Hall and those sort of like, I don’t even want to call them spiritual bands, but like spiritually edged music.

And there was a decent amount of like, like I went into an EDM phase for a while somewhere in there.

So I’ve kind of hit the full gamut of things.

Like if you’re asking me, did I ever really get into like, polka music?

No.

But I would say it went from like this hard rock, angsty kind of young boy dynamic to more of this poetic dance of jazz and creative thing that was far more abstract.

Like if you’re listening to The Grateful Dead without psychedelics, you’re missing a lot of stuff, quite frankly.

And it’s not always as good, because there’s these abstract dynamics that are being bridged together and then it kind of settled into, now I can listen to really anything.

And it’s more about allowing my mood to inform what I’m listening to and also seeing what I’m listening to new music, how what I’m listening to is impacting my mood, and then navigating that skillfully.

If I need to put on something that’s going to help me rage, I’ll do it.

But if I’m calm and peaceful, I’m not going to say like, let me go put on, I don’t know.

I’m going to pick on Slipknot, like some new Slipknot song today, because I feel like mashing when that’s not the actual case for my nervous system.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I find that’s like one of the biggest things when I ask people these questions, they’re like, well, it just depends on my mood.

So that’s why I also like to ask if you were stranded on a deserted island, what one or two artists music would you want to have with you for the rest of eternity?

What did I answer that question?

You roundabout answered it.

You told me you really love the Dave Matthews album, the Big Whiskey and the Grugrux King.

And then also commented that Susan Tedeschi’s voice is like, like amazing sex.

And those were your answers.

So I’m like, okay, so Susan Tedeschi and Dave Matthews, you had also answered that your favorite song to dance to is the song You and Me by Dave.

So I was like, okay, this guy really likes Dave Matthews.

Cool.

So the reason that it’s my favorite song to dance to is because it’s my wedding song.

And I think there’s this dynamic, and I’ll, like Susan Tedeschi, right?

Who the Tedeschi Trucks band, like it’s Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi.

Like you will get Derek Trucks musical capabilities and like growing up in the Allman Brothers and like being one of the youngest musicians to come online.

And his skill as a technical guitarist, being married to Susan Tedeschi, who’s got this like lovely kind of its sweetness mixed into a rasp that can be there.

And it’s like, what I think I’ve started realizing in the music that I really enjoy, is that it takes technical precision mixed with this like complex ability.

Well, the ability is simple.

Mixed with this very potent ability to express the complexity of the human experience in both tone, frequency and lyrics.

And so, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks are able to do that.

Dave Matthews, I mean, as much as we might just want to throw him in the frat rock category, which he can totally be, his technical guitar playing skills are really good.

And his ability to touch on something and move it in a deep way and to call in this sensual dynamic of life while also touching on these moments of grief and pain and heartache, there’s something very juicy about that to my system where I’m like, oh, I don’t really care what you’re saying, but it feels good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love all of that.

That’s great.

You know, as I prepare for all of these discussions, I’m like diving into listening to some of these bands and artists that people say that they love, especially if I don’t know them very well or haven’t listened to them in a long time.

And Tedeschi Trucks, my husband and I, we’ve seen them together many times.

They come to CMAC often, and we usually see them at least once a year.

We actually just saw Warren Haynes in Syracuse this past week.

He was playing, and we love, my husband loves, loves, loves Warren Haynes.

So that whole genre that like Southern rock genre is like near and dear for us.

So I’m pretty familiar with that.

I know exactly, I can hear her voice in my head.

I know exactly what she sounds like.

Dave, I listened to Dave when I was like in college, right?

Standard.

But I think actually in high school, I received a live album with him and Tim Reynolds.

And it was like just the two of them.

And I really liked that.

I listened to that a lot when I was in high school.

It’s like a two disc set.

I put it in my Iowa CD player that had like three CDs you could put in at once.

I really loved that.

I really loved the song Satellite, the way that they played it in that version.

It was really good.

I loved it.

And then I saw him live once at Darien Lake when I was in college.

I think it was like 2004 or so.

And I don’t really remember much of that experience.

I was with a bunch of my ex-boyfriend and a bunch of his brother’s friends.

So I don’t really remember much from that show.

I know it was fun, but I don’t really remember the music.

But after the album Crash came out, and I just got really turned off by that song in particular.

The rest of the album is pretty good.

I think I just don’t like that song, and I just stopped listening to Dave Matthews after that.

So for the last few weeks, I’ve actually been listening, I’ve been going back through, and I am getting to a cool point here.

So my husband and I were driving in the car.

We went to a wedding.

It was like a three-hour drive away.

So I’m like, hey, is it cool if I put on the next Dave Matthews album in this?

I’m just listening to all the studio albums in chronological order.

He’s like, yeah, which one are you on now?

Turns out my husband was a huge fan of Dave Matthews, knows songs and album names and what years they came out and all that stuff.

But I had no idea he was this into Dave Matthews.

So I’m like, oh my God, okay, cool.

So we’re talking and I’m asking him like, well, what was your experience and what is it that you like?

And why do you like this album more than other?

Like if you could pick one, which album do you like the best and all that sort of stuff?

And he likes The Grooverex King.

He thinks that’s a cool album and he likes, there’s a lot.

It’s like hard to choose.

And so we were talking about it.

So I’m looking at Dave’s chart and I’m realizing there is this cool, very potent connection in some of the prominent planetary placements.

So I don’t know if you’ve listened to any previous episodes, but all these interviews have brought me to hone in on the first things I look at when I’m looking at charts and comparing them with this project is typically incarnation cross placements and nodal placements.

Those tend to be the ones that criss cross and match up the most as far as having energetics in common with the listener and the music creator.

And so my husband’s sun and earth are gates one and two.

And your unconscious sun and earth are one and two.

Dave Matthews nodes are two and one.

Susan Tedeschi’s conscious sun and earth are one and two.

That my husband and Tedeschi actually have the same birthdate.

And so I’m looking at all these charts and I’m like, holy shit, this gate one in particular, because you have it multiple times.

My husband has it defined multiple times.

Gate one is like, wow, okay, this is a big deal.

And then I was doing readings at an event, like the next day after this wedding, and this gal sits down and I pull up her chart, and she’s got gate one and two and her sun and earth.

And I just said to her, I was like, do you by any chance happen to like Dave Matthews?

And she goes, I’ve seen him a hundred times.

I’m like, okay, cool, thanks.

I’m just going to add that to my data collection here.

So there is like that just like, just really just like nails it home for me that like, there are things that we are just intuitively, energetically being called to when we’re listening to music.

And it’s usually something in the really strong, powerful pieces of the energetics of what this musician is expressing, that we are like, oh, yes, this is like something I know I have within me too.

And they’re showing me like their way of doing it.

And it’s just, I feel like a lot of it is like this feeling of belonging and that we’re always seeking, right?

And like music is a huge piece to making us feel like we’re a part of something, right?

Like you can listen to music and someone across the world can listen to the same music.

And even if you never meet or ever talk to each other, you know that there’s someone else out there who also loves this music because if they didn’t, it wouldn’t exist, right?

And that the person creating the music is like also, also like loves what they’re doing and we’re just all tapping into this cool web through our ears.

A couple other cool things that I like too is that you’re the environment piece, like our PHS kind of plays into this a lot too with environment and determination.

So you have high sound determination, right?

My husband also has high sound.

And so I was asking him about like what that, like he’s not like super into human design, but he’s like, you know, he is because I am.

So he picks up pieces and I’m always just asking him like, what’s your experience with this kind of idea or concept and how does this relate for you?

I would actually love to hear a little bit from you about how you think high sound as your determination might kind of dictator or play a factor in the kind of music that you like.

Because so far, like all these things, whether it’s the metal, the hardcore, the hard rock, the jam rock, to me, that’s all music that seems to really fill all the spaces.

Right?

And almost like in a way that feels like that high sound kind of, how one way that may play through.

It’s like, you know, like Dave Matthews has like 12 people in the band, and it’s like a big, full sound, you know?

What do you think about that?

How does that feel?

Tell me more.

I will, I haven’t explored it that much.

And through, through this particular lens.

And what’s coming up for me right now is actually not the jam band side of things.

It’s more of the shamanic side of things.

There’s like, sound is frequency, period.

And so when I’m talking about like high sound environments, it’s like environments where there’s a lot of frequency going on.

And so even when I think about the jam bands in particular, like those shows aren’t small.

Like, the live shows are this cascade of sound.

And there’s so many different people who have so many different frequencies going on.

And like that full experience of like, this is humanity coming at me, and there’s different sounds, textures, everything.

At least as a reflector, and I think there’s some sound, like high sound determination in here too.

It’s like, I can digest so much more information in that environment.

And it’s like, this is great.

It helps my body learn and synthesize and come to a greater level of awareness.

Same thing for ceremony, even if we’re singing all the time, which we are, and there’s myself singing, especially when I was working in a team of facilitators, and there’s four voices going on, and bowls, and drums, and shakapas.

Like, there’s that layer of sound.

But then just like the density of being in ceremonial space where you can hear and feel everything, but you’re still in silence.

Like, music is not made by the notes itself.

Music is made by the silence between those spaces.

If there wasn’t silence, everything would just sound chaotic, and you couldn’t actually hear anything.

And so pulling that, and this might be a meandering answer, but it’s because again, I haven’t thought about it.

It’s like, yeah, those big band kind of experiences that have the ability to touch on different qualities and textures, there’s something about that creative process that I like.

And the first gate is really alive there for me.

It’s like the shadow aspect of that gate is numbness.

Numbness, you could either view as like a lack of feeling, right?

And so a lack of presence or a lack of sound, or you can say that it’s actually the presence of so many things that you cannot distinguish them.

And so it feels overwhelming, and therefore it shuts down and becomes emptiness.

I think when there’s these like lovely melodies of expression that have so many different layers woven into them, there’s something that unlocks.

And like thinking about the Grux King album in particular, like that album was written from a place of grief, right?

They had just lost, totally forgetting his name and the instrument, either the saxophonist or the-

It was the saxophonist.

Yeah.

And so like that entire album is essentially dedicated to the loss and the love and the memory of the saxophone player.

And you listen to that album and it has some funky fun, like, let’s get after it.

And then it also has these songs where it’s like, life is complex.

Like, here we are.

And how do you want to be?

And so anytime where there’s a lot of noise that’s still coming from that place of creation, which is, here’s how I am.

Here’s what I’m expressing.

Find what you like in it, sample it, taste it, digest it, and then throw the rest out.

There’s definitely something in my body that resonates with that.

Love that, that was an excellent answer.

We’re here for the roundabout.

I totally understand that nobody else thinks about these things but me, so it’s okay.

I like thinking about them.

Yeah, yeah.

Here’s, this is a side question, or maybe a little bit of a pivot here in the conversation that I’ve been curious about.

Since you have so much of this openness, you also have like a completely wide open sacral and spleen, correct?

Yeah.

Yeah, sacral and spleen are wide open.

Your root has the most activations in it, which is-

So many.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

But I’m curious.

So one of the questions that came up earlier for me was, I was wondering, when you are in aura with someone compared to like how we are now where we are connected, we are tapped into each other’s energy, but it’s at a distance over the Internet, all that sort of stuff.

How does that experience really differ for you in the way that you’re able to feel into someone’s aura or do your reflector thing that you do?

And I’m just curious how, because-

What is the reflector thing that I do?

I don’t know, just like being so sensitive and all that sort of stuff, that being so easily conditioned, as you said.

I’m just curious how that might differ, and or are you able to just tap in, no matter what, does time space not really matter for you that much?

Or is it more just, are you just observing someone, like over the, like are you looking at me and hearing my voice?

Like, I’m just curious, like how, I don’t know.

I don’t know, it’s hard for me to word the question, but how does that, how does that feel?

And the kind of what I’m leading into is I’m curious, like of all the defined pieces you felt through others and through studying, like what’s your favorite?

What’s like, what’s like the best feeling energy that you felt, not even just types, but like, is there a channel or a center when it’s defined?

You just, you enjoy it the most in another.

Yeah, it’s a good question.

Just for people’s background context, my wife is a projector.

She’s an emotional authority projector who has seven centers to find.

Oh, wow.

So I’m around definition in person a lot.

To answer the first question about the differences between being in person versus kind of virtual.

I think when I’m in person with some, but the answer is, it doesn’t matter.

And I know that that is not the traditional human design standpoint answer.

I think there’s components of it that probably matter.

Don’t get me wrong.

But I think what’s more important is like where I’m consciously tuning into.

And so because I think there’s something in human design like if you’re not close enough to smell somebody, like within six feet of the door or something like that, you’re missing certain information.

And I think that that is probably accurate.

But from a shamanic side of things, we’re working outside of time and space, and energy knows no bounds nor distance.

And so like if you, a lot of my work when I’m doing energy work and coaching is virtual.

And if I consciously call in my higher selves, my guides, my angels, archangels, ascended masters, beings, the lineages that I work with, all of those great things.

If I essentially call in my own awareness and step into my full energetic field.

And then I call in all of yours, and I can create this container around us.

We can really feel what’s going on in that container.

I think we’re always feeling it.

And when we feel with awareness and with boundaries and with like a clear, I’m gonna overuse the word container, like a clear container of this is what I’m working with, this is what I’m feeling in, these are where my boundaries are.

And this is what I’m intending to feel.

Yeah, the intention.

It becomes really clear.

If I’m in a group of people, like that experience is very different.

In one human design reading that I’ve had, the person giving me the reading called out something and asked if it was true for me.

That was also true in another reflector that he had worked with.

And that’s it.

If my eyes are open and my awareness is external, I’ve got a whole lot of stuff going on.

I can close my eyes, I can come internal.

And it’s not that the external is not there, it’s just like, cool, I can come back to center really quickly.

And I think that’s the difference in terms of a reflector aura versus maybe a projector aura, it still has a lot of openness.

I can sample and I can be very intentional about what I’m sampling.

I think we all can be, but I think it’s a skill that needs to be cultivated and curated and developed.

But if your energy is penetrative, like projectors, and it’s like, I’m going into this, then you’re in it.

You have to physically disengage from the aura by distancing yourself and clearing out.

Yeah.

And even if you do physically distance, then you still have to energetically distance and come back to yourself.

Like for me, on the other hand, just like I can go in, I can go out, I do my energetic clearing practices.

But like if you and I got into a fight right now, and I don’t want to, but like let’s say there’s like, let’s say there’s something like really big that came up in you.

I feel really confident in my ability to come back into myself.

Right?

I think the conditioning is the codependence, and you mentioned sensitivity.

And so my life’s work, my son on the personality side is the 19th hexagram.

Gene Keys wise, that’s the shadow of codependence, the gift of sensitivity, and the city of sacrifice.

And that sensitivity is a superpower, right?

Oversensitivity is a form of codependence.

And if I’m so code, if I’m so oversensitized that I need my environment to be this way, and I need you to do something else, right?

Then I’m trying to always control the external, instead of learning how to navigate the internal.

So that’s my experience as a reflector, is that if I’m listening to my body’s knowledge and working with it skillfully and intentionally, and if I didn’t know how to put containers around it, there’s not that much of a difference, whether I’m in person or virtual.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah.

I love all of that.

What came to mind to me is something I’ve read, and I don’t know if these are exact words from Ra or not, but despite the fact that you have all these centers open, there is an inherent protection in the aura where you’re not necessarily 100 percent bombarded all the time and you have no control over it.

Compared to, say, a projector who only has two centers open, everything they’re taking in is through those two centers and almost bottlenecks and can be really intense versus, like, for me, I have four centers defined, five open, and my head and my will are completely open.

Everything else is just undefined with some hanging gates.

So for me, I’ve always found it really easy to disengage from other people’s stuff for the most part, and especially as I’ve become more aware and I have this tool for navigating and being able to use language to describe, like, what I’m experiencing.

I’ve always found it really easy.

Like, it feels pretty well balanced.

But yeah, that’s just something that I’ve heard before, and I feel like what you described kind of sounds like that, like that natural built-in protection in the aura to protect you a little bit with all that openness that you have.

Yeah.

I’ve heard it described as a Teflon coating, so to speak.

Actually, interesting.

Ryan came up with an analogy that I like more than that, which is that it’s like cast iron.

Like good cast iron is resilient, it’s strong, it’s steady.

You do have to like season your cast iron to make sure that it’s not stick.

And so there’s this process and it’s a little also less toxic than Teflon, which I also really liked.

So there is this inherent strength in it.

And have you ever played the card game Hearts?

I think so.

So there’s this strategy in Hearts where it’s called shooting the moon.

And it’s like, because you’re playing on points, but if you get all of them, which like you have all of the hearts in your hand and the queen, like then you actually get all of, like, this is not the correct terminology, but like it is beneficial.

You get more points or less points, and you win the game by having them all, so to speak.

Versus if you were only to have one of them or all of them except for one, like it kind of be fucked.

And I feel like that’s the same thing with the reflector versus projector aura.

And it’s not that you’re fucked if you’re a projector and not if you’re a reflector.

It’s like by having no definition in terms of a full center defined, there’s something different, completely different that happens versus even if you have one center defined or two centers defined.

Because like if you have those two centers defined, your anchoring point, your sense of stability in those two centers is something that I am unaware of and unfamiliar with in my life.

I do not have that.

And that is both a gift and a challenge.

There’s no, this is going to be a sidebar into my little reflector rant, if you can permit me.

But people who are new or even well-versed in the human design community can be like, oh my god, it’s a reflector, the 1%.

And it’s like, it’s not that special.

In the sense that it’s not more special than a projector or more special than a generator or more special than Mani Gen or even a straight manifestor.

It’s just different.

And it’s kind of frustrating to have because the reflector rejection field, so to speak, or in terms of like what can get projected onto that much openness is a lot.

And so it’s like, oh my god, you’re this rare unicorn.

Let me project all these things onto you.

And it’s like, okay, cool.

And so there’s this projection of specialness, uniqueness, wonderfulness, and it can feel really good.

It’s also a trap.

And what I find heartbreakingly beautiful is that that projection of uniqueness, of specialness, of wonder, of curiosity, about somebody who’s different, doesn’t have centers, that’s all coming as a projection from you.

It’s like, you are unique, you are special, you are wonderful.

You have a mystery inside of you that you don’t fully understand.

Thank you for projecting me on that onto me and showing me that and allowing me to see that within myself so that I’m not walking around disappointed all the time.

But like, what is that in you?

And that’s where I think the skill of reflecting comes backwards, like, thank you.

I can feel this, I can take on what I want if I want to, as long as I can be really clear about boundaries and root into that liminal nature of things.

But then I get to hold it up as a mirror.

And it’s like, cool.

You think I’m an asshole?

I’m an asshole.

Tell me about what assholes are like.

Like, you think I’m the most wonderful, amazing surprise and like gift of humanity.

Like, tell me, what do you love about humanity and your human experience?

Like, I’ve done this so many times, where it’s like, the projections are the reflections, and it’s just there, and it’s energy in the space.

It’s like, that is where I love my reflector experience.

It’s like, I get to feel what people are feeling.

Sometimes that’s really painful.

But other times, it’s really tasty.

Yeah.

Yeah, it’s like, you know, we all have opened this somewhere.

Even if you have all nine centers defined, you’re still going to have open gates.

You’re going to still have profile lines that are not in your conscious profile.

You know, like, and we all experience all of the energies.

Like today, you’ve got definitions somewhere, right?

With the transits.

So I’m always explaining this to people too, is like, we are all super unique configurations.

Like I get, I really want to help the generators a lot because I feel like generators get down on their type the most because they’re like, oh, I’m just a generator.

But I’m like, you know what?

I have seen so much variation in generator configurations.

I have a friend I interviewed a few episodes back.

He has all three format channels to find.

Like, and I was like, yeah, and he doesn’t know anything about human design.

Like, he learned in our interview, but I was like, what is it like to deal with time for you?

Like, what is that like?

And he’s like, I don’t know.

He’s like, I just go with it.

I’m like, cool.

He’s like, I have no choice.

He’s like, I have no choice.

He’s like, I can’t fight.

I can’t force things to be when it’s not the right time.

But there, but I would be 100% willing to bet that there’s someone else out there with all three format channels to find that is struggling with burnout and adrenal fatigue because they were conditioned in a different environment.

They were brought up in a way that says, no, you have to make everything happen exactly how your mind decides.

Whereas my friend, he was brought up by a family that was very much like, do it, do whatever.

This is what you have to work with.

He’s also kitchen’s environment and we spoke a lot about kitchens.

And he’s all about, I just work with whatever ingredients I got.

I’m like, that’s a way it’s like, okay, cool.

Your environment is so coming in to support this aspect of your design that otherwise might be way more challenging.

And yeah, just yesterday I saw or two days ago, I looked at a manifestor’s chart.

She only has the 1222 defined.

And that’s her, that’s what makes her a manifestor.

And got all this other openness.

And she’s so aligned and she is leading the forefront of nonprofit health care in our community.

And I had her pull up her chart on my website and she’s reading all the super basic bare bones description.

And she’s like, this is exactly what I’m doing.

That’s so cool.

Because I love being able to look at so many different charts and go, wow, everything about this is so beautiful and unique.

And you’re not only this either.

You are also the aspect of the universe that decided to embody this vehicle that has nothing to do with the design.

You are also your whole life’s experience, which is also so unique.

You could have two people born in the same place at the same time and have still such completely unique perspectives and directions and life path and conditioning and all the different things.

So it is so much more than just the design.

But I love the design because it’s like, this is the plate that we’re putting all the food on.

It is, I’m a little hungry right now.

That’s the analogy that can be true.

Yeah.

So I want to come back to, if you were to pick a favorite energetic, whether it’s a single gate or a whole channel or a center.

Just to give a little why I’m asking this question, I had an experience recently where I was connecting with someone over an interview.

They have the same, they have the 4426, which defines the will to the spleen.

And I was brought up under totalitarian rule from the 2644 in one of my parental units.

And I had a very visceral response to this person’s energy that later I was reflecting on.

I’m like, I think it’s…

And she, they also had an undefined throat, just like my parental unit has an undefined throat, a undefined G, a defined will to the spleen.

Like, it was very similar energies that this other person was kind of exemplifying.

And I had this very like, ooh, like, I kind of like feel rubbed a little the wrong way, but I’m trying not to take it personally, because we don’t even know each other, and just sat with it for a while afterwards.

I’m like, it’s an energy that I’m not super crazy about, and I’m trying to bring more awareness to who are the people I know that do have this, that I do like, and trying to recondition myself around that energy.

But then there’s others.

I’m usually very, very, very drawn to certain profile types.

I love other five ones and two fours.

I have a lot of those in my life.

I just have them all over the map.

And what’s your least favorite profile type?

Don’t answer that for your audience.

I love six twos as well.

I have a lot of six twos in my life that I really, really, really cherish and care for.

Yeah, usually, usually it’s the…

And to ease the audience’s mind, like our least favorites, because I also have my least favorites, it’s like they bring something up in us.

And so it’s just like a harder terrain to navigate.

And so there can…

even if there’s like, oh my god, I love going on these like hard journeys, like they’re still hard.

So we all have our preferences of energy that we like interacting with, we don’t.

And that, to your point, comes from our conditioning and our experiences around them.

And I think that’s something that informs my answer to your question.

I’ll give you a little bit of my thought process, which is like, oh man, I really just like being a reflector.

Like, I don’t know what I would do if I had like hard defined energy in my system.

Like, it kind of seems cool to have a motor or some things like that.

But I sometimes wish that I didn’t have to experience any other energy going on.

And because of that, I think I’ve really cultivated a relationship with the 20, Gate 20.

And I do have the 20th gate in my chart.

It is my Mars, Mars.

Yeah, it’s my personality Mars.

And it is kind of this dynamic like I need to be present.

Like, it’s like be present to what is.

And it’s in the throat as well.

And so it’s like, don’t only be present to what is.

Express what is, or rather allow what is to be expressed.

And it doesn’t mean that it needs to be vocalized.

I think expression and vocalization are two very separate things.

And I can imagine sometimes, like we just passed through the transit of the 57, that 2057 channel can feel really good.

Because it’s like very clear presence and clarity to have it operate, navigate and create.

With all of that said, I do have a favorite channel.

And it’s the 952.

And it is one that I struggle with.

My, if we’re talking Gene Keys, it’s my Tractor Sphere is the 52.

And if we’re talking Human Design, that’s my unconscious or Design Moon is the 52.

So I’m really good at bringing in stress and exhaustion into my space.

I tend to find that people who are navigating those pinball moments are feeling some level of stress or exhaustion.

My mom has that full channel.

In my wife and I’s chart, she has the nine as her personality son.

And so that’s the way that our kind of collective, sacral gets defined.

The reason that I kind of wanted to call out the there can be pros and cons to all of these things is, man, when that channel is out of whack, it sucks.

It sucks so much.

Like, because it’s just stress and inertia and stuckness and like, like, I’m a, for me, at least as a reflector, I’m like, super disappointed in everything that’s happening around me.

My wife being a projector is super frustrated.

And so there’s this feeling of like being stressed and stuck at the same time.

And that hurts.

But on the other hand, when like it clicks in, it’s the channel of concentration.

And so the ability to sit there in stillness and for there to still be movement and be like, oh yeah, no, this is what we’re concentrating on.

This is what we’re doing.

This is how we get this root pressure to start moving and clearing things.

Like that puts so much energy into like motion that it is ridiculous.

And when it’s done in a grounded, stable way, ooh, that’s like the river actually having its banks.

It flows, it is clear, it is powerful and that current just rocks.

And again, grew up in a grounded mom who had a 952 and is very unaware of these things.

Like when that root pressure comes out sideways and it can’t move anywhere, it does not taste good to me.

And so it is my favorite channel when it’s working well, and it’s my least favorite channel when it’s not.

It’s kind of like food for me, like the best hamburger in the world.

It’s like super basic.

Like it’s amazing.

But the worst hamburger in the world, still a hamburger, I want nothing to do with it.

That’s kind of the dynamic for me.

It’s like either I love it or I hate it.

Yeah, I personally experience this channel a lot too.

I have the nine defined as my Jupiter, and my husband has the 52.

I don’t remember the exact placement.

So him and I together also create this channel.

And a lot of the time I see it as like, it’s my ability to just, I tap into that energy when I need to just stop.

Because I feel like I’m going all the time.

It’s the, my husband and I also defined the 1858 together.

Ooh, good channel.

Yeah, yeah.

So it’s like together, like when I’m around him, I am able to rest.

Like I feel like his energy often pulls me into that, because he’s got both the root ones.

So he’ll pull me into that.

We’re done.

We’re turned off.

We’re sitting down.

We’re watching a movie and eating ice cream.

That’s what we’re doing, because we have to.

If we don’t, we will both just burn out.

But it’s also the energy, too, that like, like we just threw a party yesterday and we’re good at throwing parties together.

Like, we’re just really good at just like having all the core components, not worrying about the details, that like the only things that matter is that that that we’re there, that everybody’s safe and happy.

There’s some form of food, you know, the music is there, like all the like big main components and we don’t let ourselves get overwhelmed by the details.

And that is like that super high expression of that 952, right?

And then also the 1858, like not getting so sucked in to overanalyzing all the details and just letting the joy of the experience kind of like be the point, right?

And yeah, so it’s like together, we can like accomplish really, really great things.

We’re really good at creating like just like a fun, carefree vibe.

And at the same time, we’re also really good at just being like, no, we’re done.

Yeah.

I mean, that’s my wife and I run retreats together.

And it’s like when we’re doing a retreat together, super clear, we’re dialed in, we’re focused.

She has the entire 1858 channel.

I’ve got a hanging 58.

And so, you know, very similar dynamics like when we’re creating an event together, especially.

It’s so much fun.

And we balance each other well.

Like, if my 52 was just hanging out there on its own, it would be like, cool.

There’s a lot.

There’s a big event.

There’s some pressure and stress to get it done.

Like, I’m going to make sure that I do it in the right way where it’s calm.

But it won’t necessarily have that same like behind it.

And so it’s kind of like a dorsal vagal state.

It’s a little bit of the repressed state.

Like the 52 is very much of that repressed state to me.

The nine is very much so, on the other hand, the opposite of that where it’s like, let’s go, it’s in the sacral.

It’s like, ah.

And it’s like a motor.

And it’s like, when you put them together, the anxiety that can exist in the nine becomes anchored by the stability of the 52.

And it’s like gears finally clicking into place, and it can create momentum and torque and like drive the vehicle forward.

Yeah.

And it’s just, it’s lovely.

And without that channel, it’s like, oh, either my car is stuck or my car is spinning out really quickly.

It’s like, oh.

Or the engine’s flooded.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I love, I love the analogy of the engine with the like a car with the route and explaining that the route is like the fuel injector.

The sacral is the fuel, but the route is the fuel injector.

So if the nine is the fuel, the nine is all the possible details, right?

All the teeny tiny little bits and things that are what makes things overwhelmed and like makes it make us overwhelmed and make us like stop in our tracks because there’s so many details.

How can we hold all these details?

But then the 52 as the fuel injector is like, we’re just going to worry about these four details, and they’re the most important ones or not even necessarily the most important, but they’re the ones that people are really going to notice.

These are the details.

So like yesterday, like anytime planning a party, food is like a big deal.

And in the past, whenever I would host a gathering by myself, I would make myself carry the burden of preparing and buying all the food that needed to be at the party.

But the last two parties, like we threw a big party last year, we got married.

I had it catered.

I had it catered.

That was the first thing I found was someone who was going to manage the food for me.

Because I was like, you know what?

This is a really important detail that I’m not going to be able to manage, because I’m going to be busy getting married.

But there was a part of me that really wanted to have control over all of it.

And so at this party, instead of feeling like I had to manage all of it, I made it a potluck.

I said, I made a Facebook event page for it.

I said, whatever you’re bringing, just post in the page so that we don’t have like 10 mac and cheeses.

And it was great.

And all I made was salt potatoes and a charcuterie board.

And that charcuterie board was great.

People loved it.

It was all eaten.

And my sister brought chili, and that was a big hit.

Everybody brought something and it all was perfect.

It was well-balanced.

There was veggies, there was meat, there was cheese, there was all the things, all the components that make a good party.

And I was so relaxed around the food.

It didn’t bother me or frustrate me, and my husband ran the grill, and that was it.

So it’s like that sort of thing is where it’s like, okay, you only got to really worry about these three details.

Set up the space, get some music.

We had some friends of ours played some acoustic music.

I reached out to them and was like, hey, can you guys come just jam out?

And they did, and it was great.

And that made the party so much better.

If we didn’t do that and just played some music through a speaker, it would have been okay.

But we’re live music people.

We know a million musicians.

We are musicians.

But instead of trying to be the ones to play the music ourselves, or manage a playlist, or whatever, we just had some tapped into our resource and said, Hey, you come do this thing.

And yeah, it was pouring rain and freezing cold yesterday.

Just look at this day.

And it was still great.

We put up a carport and got a rocket heater.

And it was fun.

It was a super fun party.

And everybody had a great time.

And I’m still getting messages from people like, that was so much fun last night, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So yeah, I feel like him that 952 when it comes together, it really it really knows how to shoot, how to inject what details are the most important ones to inject in and everything else.

It either really doesn’t matter or somebody else can do it.

You know, I know exactly what you’re talking about because there’s this metaphor acronym.

It’s an acronym that I like to work with.

And it’s like, I just want to feel real.

Like, and real stands for relaxed, engaged, authentic and loving.

When the 952 channel is working, it is quite relaxed and it’s engaged.

If it’s just the 9, it’s hyper engaged, but it’s not relaxed in the slightest.

And so there’s a lot of like entropy in the system, energy is being wasted.

It’s just not going to the right spaces all the time.

When it’s just the 52, it’s relaxed, but it’s not engaged.

It’s almost like it can be in the sense of collapse.

It’s like, I’m so relaxed because I have no structure or form.

I can’t get out of bed.

And it’s like depression and anxiety would be the opposite ends of the spectrum.

But then when they’re together, it’s like, I’m present and concentrated.

Everything that matters, we can do everything that doesn’t matter.

To your point, somebody else is doing it, or it doesn’t matter.

And nobody needs to do it because it’s not fundamental to what needs to be done right now.

It’s super gentle in terms of how much power it creates.

It’s like, there’s no force to it.

It just works.

Yeah.

And it’s like that energy of like the analogy of the mountain for Gate 52, we call it the mountain.

Yeah.

Because it’s just, the mountain just is, it’s just there.

There’s tons of details on the mountain, but also at the end of the day, it’s just a mountain.

Yeah.

Choose your path.

That’s the nine.

The nine is like, cool, I want to go here.

What was the A again in that real acronym?

Authentic.

Authentic.

Relaxed, engaged, authentic, and loving.

It is what I call the real compass.

And in my perspective, the natural state of consciousness is real.

And it doesn’t mean that we can’t be angry, upset, sad, whatever it may be.

But there’s this concept of shooting the second arrow in Buddhism or whatever it may be.

It’s like, when I’m upset, or if I do something out of integrity, like, okay.

But then if I get mad at myself for doing that thing, that’s shooting the second arrow.

And so you’re talking about shame, the second arrow is shame.

The second arrow is essentially shame, right?

Which like guilt has a positive nature to it biochemically, like great, it causes us to literally enter a freeze state so that we can contemplate, reflect, figure out where we were out of alignment, and then respond and come back out.

Shame keeps us in that freeze state and then makes us the bad thing, and it creates a kind of frozen trauma response over time.

The, but if we know that the natural state of consciousness is real, like then we can tune in, like how did we can always go back there?

Because like if I’m angry, then it’s not authentic for me to say that I’m not angry.

But if I can be relaxed within that, and engaged in my own process, and learn how to love myself, then it moves through, it doesn’t get stuck, and I can return to that natural state of consciousness, and be more aligned to it over and over and over again.

This is what I love about systems like Gene Keys and Human Design, is that they can be maps in like a jungle gym for us to play with.

And what I love about my compass is that like, this is what I actually get to work with as I’m exploring those systems.

Like, cool, here’s what stress feels like in my system.

Here’s what that 952 channel feels like.

Here’s what the 5818 channel feels like.

Oh, wow.

If I don’t have integrity hanging out there in the 18, like, what does that feel like?

What does the craving for the 18 feel like?

And somatically, how is that expressing?

And sure, we could think about all of this, and I certainly do, but at the end of the day, we feel it.

And the same thing is true for music.

Even if you’re a musician and you’re like, oh, cool, they did this really cool chord up there, and this interesting progression.

Like, if we’re thinking about the experience and analyzing the experience of music, are we feeling?

Maybe.

And yes, we can bridge that together and expand our capacity.

Like, have you ever just wanted to listen to a song, to listen to the damn song, and then cry or laugh or whatever?

Like, that is what we’re talking about with the human experience.

All we want to do is listen to it and engage with it.

It’s like, if we can do that dance in a little bit more of a relaxed and engaged way, it goes so much smoother.

Yeah, it’s funny you asked that question, because even before I began this research podcast project, I still, I’ve always had this very keyed-in analytical mind that dissects music as I’m listening to it, just naturally.

I’m not even really, as I’m experiencing it, I’m also like, wow, that’s the violin right there.

Wow, that’s this instrument.

And I’ve always been able to just hear all each separate part as it’s in the whole, and also still feel the feeling.

I mean, I’m a 59.6 emotional wave, so there’s no turning off the feelings no matter what.

You got it all the time.

It’s huge and it’s here.

And a great example is the other night at Warren Haynes.

Yeah, I go to see music for the experience, but then when I’m there, all of a sudden I’ll experience something.

I’ll very viscerally feel something.

Like usually I get like the wave like over me.

It feels like something brushed over me and made all the hair stand up on my body.

You know, when you get that, like the truth tingle.

And I’m like, I don’t even know like what it was in if it was a lyric or if it was a way he played a tone on the guitar or the way the saxophone timed in at the right time.

But something gave me this like wave.

And it’s in that moment that I’m like, oh, and I’m like, okay, I’m looking at his chart now, you know, and like I’m not.

Going into it with the chart all like already up and expecting a certain experience.

But I am like super present and aware of what my experience is.

And then my curiosity kicks in and it’s like.

Wow, what what just got turned on in my aura unconsciously?

Like what what just totally lit up in me in this wave?

And it could have been.

And I’m also curious like how many other people felt that at the same time?

Like who else felt that activation in that moment?

I don’t think it was everybody.

Maybe maybe I’m just feeling a ripple from people six rows ahead of me.

You know, a ripple in their aura that was triggered by something else.

It’s just like this whole.

I don’t know.

I love live music.

I love it.

Love it.

Love it.

And there’s definitely times where like listening to music on my own, you know, just in my ear buds or at home, there’s times where listening to music will invoke a similar feeling.

But really, I feel like I don’t, I get it way more potent and way more often when I’m in a live scenario.

And it doesn’t matter if it’s around thousands of people or 20 people in a small venue.

Like I still, I’ll get it at an open mic.

Somebody’s somebody’s song will just hit me in, in just the way.

And that’s another through line that I thought was really beautiful between Susan Tedeschi and Dave Matthews.

They also have the 59-6.

And so like Dave in particular, his music is really fascinating to me because he also has the, the, the gate five, which is all about the rhythm.

And, and often people that have that gate defined tend to prefer, like they don’t care about lyrics as much.

They tend to prefer a song that’s just all that makes them dance.

But Dave also has this deep, deep emotionality.

And as I was listening to the progression in his albums, I found that it got to a point, I think, I think it was kind of like that fulcrum where the saxophonist had passed, where in the progression of the albums after the saxophonist had passed, I found less and less connection and meaning to the music.

In my personal listening experience, I found that the lyrics, like I’m like, I don’t know what he’s talking about.

Like they don’t mean anything to me.

I’m a very much a lyrics person.

The lyrics have to like be mean something to me, even if they don’t literally tell a story.

But there’s some phrase in there somewhere that is clever or speaks to something that really resonates for me.

As long as there’s something in the lyrics that speaks to me, I connect with it more.

And I feel like his albums before the saxophonist passed, he had more songs that told a story or described a situation that he was in or about someone or all the…

There’s so much more of that.

You’re able to interpret really more what he’s talking about from the lyrics.

Whereas on that Groograx album, there’s a bunch of songs, I’m like, he’s just saying the same three words over and over again.

It doesn’t mean anything to me.

He’s talking about angels, but cool, angels are cool, but what about them?

What was the experience you had?

Or who is an angel?

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

And so my receptive part of my brain shuts down, and I just no longer care anymore.

Totally fair.

Yeah, and I mean, that’s the dance in all of these things.

And it’s like, yeah, I’m still a little bit on the live music weight, the beautiful description that you gave, like the hairs tingling on your body and being moved.

Just like, is that wave something that everybody’s experiencing it?

Is it something that it was six people, like six rows up, and somebody felt?

And if it was something that got triggered in a lot of different people by that saxophone chord or whatever it might be, like, what is every individual’s experience of that like?

Is it all the same?

Is it all different?

And then what happens when that gets like merged together and you’re all experiencing it around each other at the same time.

And this is why I love ceremony, because in like ceremony where you have a set container and everybody’s coming in with their different things, and you’ve got the same medicine song going on, right?

Everybody’s listening to it, and it kicks something off in one person.

So all of a sudden, you’ve got some sort of major release going on.

And then you’ve got other people who are learning how to hold space and like feeling like this strengthening in their spine that happens, because that same Ikuro is teaching them about finding the inner strength to bear witness to other people’s pain.

And then that same pain triggers like this wonderful moment of grief and remembrance in somebody else.

It’s like, is it the note?

Is it the experience?

Is it the container?

Can we actually separate it out and pull it all apart?

Or is it the two coming in the second gate and saying you can create whatever you want, but it’s all being created from the same thing and you cannot actually have anything that is not unified.

Even if something is discordant, it is still part of that song.

It is still part of the whole and it’s just expression.

And I love that.

Makes me smile on the inside.

Yeah, yeah.

No, I love all these, all this questioning.

I’m not trying to nail it down to one thing, and it really, it always is.

Coming back to, I guess, what seems maybe it’s obvious at the end of the day, is that it’s just the whole thing.

It’s all of it.

It’s all of it.

And we’re just all part of that field, that medium, and it’s just all happening.

But I just like to hear, what is your experience?

Because I also know full well that mine is different.

Not everybody experiences or gets the downloads the same way that I do.

And that was a big frustration most of my life as a young person was like, how do you not see that detail?

Or how do you not see that this is what needs to happen next?

I would get really frustrated with other people, but as I’ve been on my own journey for a long time and tapped into a lot of different philosophies and modalities before human design, and then even with human design, it’s like, oh yeah, no.

I’m here to be the one that sees those details, and it’s my responsibility to just share the details that I see and not get frustrated because I’m thinking everybody else sees the same thing, and so they should do it just like I do.

You know, that’s just like shitty.

Five-one natures.

It’s like the stereotypical five-one nature.

I’m going to investigate everything.

It’s like, I’m here to be the leader, but also, if you saw what I saw, then I wouldn’t have to lead.

Right.

And it’s like the self-guilt and the shame that can come from it, or like, guilting others.

It’s like, man, five-one journey is that journey of like, investigating what leadership really is.

And I don’t know, sometimes I’m like, oh, a six-two profile could be really cool to be.

And then I look at my wife and I’m like, that six-line requires so much patience.

Like, I like the five-one.

It’s like, I’m here, I can investigate.

Let’s go into it and like, get to work.

What’s your experience of the five-one?

Well, I was just going to ask you for a story about your experience of the five, maybe before you understood or if you, I don’t know.

I feel like every five-one has a fifth-line classic story that is like, that like burned at the stake or the ran out of town on a rail and you didn’t do, actually do anything wrong sort of a story.

Especially in your youth, most likely.

But I found I was having these experiences over and over and over again, and then got my first reading.

And it was like, I had just gone through another one of those experiences and just put it into perspective for me, where I was just like, oh damn.

But then it was still, and it still happens now and then, but I find they happen less and less because I’m more aware of like what I need to do to not fall into those and be more in the higher expression where I’m being asked to save the day and I actually can.

And I’ve had three or four of those pop up recently where somebody just reached out to me, asked me what they should do.

And I was like, oh, have you looked into this or this or this?

And they’re like, oh, those are great ideas.

I’ll check it out.

And then it saves the day for them.

And I still get a little bit of bitterness though, because they don’t ever say, thanks to Anna.

I changed the location to this, and it’s going to worry.

Nobody ever gives me credit.

And I’m still working through that little bit of feeling like, I feel like I should get credit.

But then I don’t want the credit because if it doesn’t work out, I don’t want to be blamed for it either.

But, yeah.

Well, the coach in me is wanting to come on home so hard to do that.

And the coach in me is dictated by my 5’1 side.

So, I mean, even with what you just shared, and I’m gonna talk as I try to think of the story in the background.

It’s like, yeah, they get the credit.

They get the credit for doing their own investigation and coming to a new perspective on their own, as they should have.

The 5’1 being the leader isn’t here to be this old leader that tells people exactly what to do.

It’s like, you help them lead and empower themselves.

And the part of me that’s like, this is maybe my business-sided 5’1 side.

It’s like, well, have you asked them for testimonials?

Like, asking for testimonials has been one of my best ways of getting validation, quite frankly.

Because it’s like, if you have gotten something out of this experience coaching or whatever it may be, please write a testimonial saying like, here’s where I was before and here’s where I was after.

Because I think for the fifth line that getting that, I don’t want to say the word is validation, but I don’t think it needs to be.

Getting the acknowledgement that there was a role played can be soul rejuvenating for the five one.

It’s like, you’re leading all the time, and yeah, there’s that sacrifice of not needing to be recognized, but it can be exhausting.

I don’t know if growing up, I would say that I had like a stereotypical five one experience that I can think of where I was burned at the stake, but I definitely think that it got woven into my conditioning.

So my conditioning was very much so, or rather it involved this dynamic of, we need you to be this way.

Right, like nobody asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up.

Nobody, at least, and if it was asked, it was within a very specific bandwidth of what was an acceptable answer to that question.

And so I had a lot of pressure on me to be something so that other people didn’t have to deal with their own feelings of failure or self-worth.

And I think we all deal with this, maybe not all, but I think it was very common for kids to deal with this around parents, right?

Like a parent’s sense of worth can become wrapped up in what their children do or their children’s status.

And as a five one, I think that that is a massive invitation to be projected on.

And so I remember when I went to Peru to really start my plant medicine studies.

I had two graduate degrees.

I had just quit the PSCOR and like gone back to my mom’s house for two weeks, and she’d asked me what I was going to do.

It’s like, I’m moving to the jungle, to study plant medicine full time.

And I was there like doing my best to clear out my conditioning and study and be in alignment with myself.

And I remember I had just done this shamanic dieta that was all about boundaries.

And I cleared out a bunch of incorrect boundaries during that.

And I got out of the dieta and I had like one bar of cell phone service that I kind of used sometimes because I was doing a long-term stay in the jungle.

And I just started getting flooded with messages on WhatsApp being like, Michael, come home.

What you’re doing isn’t safe.

Like we’re worried about you.

Like, don’t you love us?

Like we love you, come home.

It was essentially what the message was.

But it’s not what the energy behind the message was.

Right.

The energy behind the message was, we are scared.

Please come home so that we don’t have to be scared.

What you’re doing is wrong.

Was the other end of that.

And at the time, I handled that as skillfully as I could, which was telling everybody that they were wrong, and I was going to hold this boundary very firmly.

Since then, I think I’ve cultivated a little bit more skill in holding that resiliency and that centeredness.

And I’ve also talked with my mom since then, multiple times, but she’s still not a fan of ayahuasca or plant medicine or anything around those lines.

But she will say, I’m very glad that you’ve worked with it, because who you are now is in a much better place than where you were at.

And I think it’s navigating through those projections of what you’re doing is wrong, who you are is wrong.

Here’s this limited container that you’re supposed to be in.

That a five one, in some way, shape or form in their life, they’re going to say, and I’ve already cursed on this podcast, so I’m sorry if I wasn’t supposed to.

That’s fine.

But they’re going to say like a major, I’m getting the fuck out of here.

Like they’re going to rebel against something.

Life is going to rebel in them, and it’s not bad.

Five Ones are here to break the mold and then offer a new perspective and guide people to what they found through their investigations.

So like, I learned a lot by investigating myself and going into these other crazy, fun, esoteric worlds of wisdom that have been around for literally millennia.

And at the same time, where I came from is where my leadership is needed.

So how do I go explore, come back, take on the projection, not be conditioned by it, understand more clearly what is happening on the energetic realm, and navigate skillfully?

That is wisdoms that I think all five ones learn at some point in time.

Do you have any plans for any in-person stuff coming up in the future?

I know you have your website, and people can do sessions and readings and Gene Keys things, and all the cool work you were saying, soul guidance and all that stuff.

And of course, I will have links for all of that in the show notes.

I’m curious, you said you and your wife do retreats sometime.

I’m curious if you have anything in-person coming up.

We do retreats.

We do not have anything that is officially on the calendar coming up, that is not already full and sold out.

So we’ve got our next retreat coming up in November, but after that, we are not sure where this ball is going.

So for now, the website is the place to go.

Cool.

Cool.

Sounds good.

What’s your Instagram?

My Instagram is at Sol…

Nope, that’s not it.

Susan, I’m at Alchemy Shift with a underscore between Alchemy Shift.

I, from a brand standpoint, for anybody who wants to come follow along on this journey, am going through a brand realignment process right now to really dive into my own personal myths and the guidance that I want to share.

And even that has changed my verbiage.

And so I’ve been building in my own practices and applying my own techniques to my own business journey.

So that will be coming soon to alchemyshift.com, where you will be able to see those changes.

Cool.

Awesome.

Thank you so much for this incredibly just deep, insightful, beautiful winding conversation.

And that’s why I love doing these, because I just never know where they’re going to go.

I’m curious if you have, what have you kind of taken from this and the connection to this music aspect?

How might this shift or change anything or add to your experience when you listen?

I loved two things, at least.

I loved how you were able to weave together the creative frequency that musicians put forth within their projects and how that can land with certain people.

Like that Dave and Susan Tedeschi both have that one, two dynamic going on, and that it resonates with me, who also has a one and a two at my turn.

I think the thing that sinks most into my body is like music as a liberation tool and process to help us unlock what is trapped and give voice to it.

That is something that came a little bit more alive in me during this, where it’s like, yeah, can start playing around with music in some fun new ways.

Cool.

Well, thank you so much for having this wonderful conversation and thank you to everyone for listening and yeah.

Hey, you made it to the end of the episode.

What did you think?

Are you fascinated by this all?

Do you have loads of questions now?

Are you going to go look up some charts of all your favorite musicians?

Well, come on over to my Patreon page at the link of the show notes and let me know all about it.

I would also really love it if you could leave a rating and review and share the podcast with a friend who you think might enjoy it.

Until next time, keep on rocking my friends.