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"If we're not renewing, if we're not renovating, if we're not checking how we're relating, all of a sudden there's going to be a shift in something- because nature always renews. Nature always renovates. So if we're not doing our inner work, there's going to come a point where something needs to be cleaned out. And that's an important language for me right now. What is the dialogue we're having, first of all with ourself? In our practise- how do we dialogue with our organs? How do we dialogue with someone that we're in intimate relationship with? How do we dialogue with the Elements? What is the dialogue that we're having with the water"? 

- Velan Cadden

 

Velan Cadden is a movement devotee and has taught in the field of human transformation for nearly two decades. Through his work, he explores the limits, edges, and boundaries of the human experience. The opportunity to listen to Velan speak about quality and presence in practice and the ever-evolving dialogue between the feminine, masculine, and the cycles of nature is an opportunity to expand the soul.

In dialogue with Mason, Velan joins us on the podcast delivering potent truths that encourage us to observe our relationships with ourselves, those we walk this life with and above all, Mother Nature, the elements and indigenous wisdom.

Velan speaks to the themes of regenerative culture, the reciprocity of energy, honouring natural cycles, and the renewing effects on all of society when women step outside the patriarchal system and have space to stop and be in ceremony when they bleed.

This is an inspiring conversation encouraging those who listen to ponder- How do we as individuals and a collective turn towards that which feels uncomfortable? In a society that offers us every reason not to, how do we turn towards ourselves, observe and sit with our actions?

 

"When a woman's at that point of her cycle when she's going to bleed, it's a very important moment. Because if I acknowledge that understanding that the blood is the gold if she rests in the time of her bleed, that creative centre. Then that centre of the family is going to be revitalised. That centre of our love and respect is going to be revitalised. There's a renovation that happens every single month when she goes into bleed. When I understand that as a man. When I understand that, and I can see the regenerative vital force that activates when she rests, then all of a sudden it changes culture".

- Velan Cadden

 

Velan and Mason discuss:

• Sincere dialogue.
• How to shift culture.
• Regenerative culture.
• The essence of the altar.
• The seasons of a woman's cycle.
• What a woman's cycle activates in men.
• Transformation through consistent practice.
• Healthy systems need reciprocal dialogue.
• Our relationship with nature and the elements.
• Turning towards ourselves; transforming the uncomfortable.
• How men can engage with the rhythms of a woman's cycle.
• Business system structures that don't align with a woman's cycle.
• How do we renovate and renew cycles within our relationships?
• Going beyond the habitual movement of practice into the quality of presence.

 

Who is Velan Cadden?

Velan is a movement devotee, and has been teaching in the field of human transformation for nearly 2 decades.

Velan is passionate about cultivating energy and exploring the limits, edges, and boundaries of the human experience. He has a broad spectrum of experience with diverse clientele such as elite sporting teams and coaching staff, multinational management teams, incarcerated people, climate activists and more.
He is a powerful activator and shares a unique balance between dynamism and stillness.

Velan is deeply influenced by Master Zhen Hua Yang and has been working with energetic cultivation for the past decade.
He is also influenced by Carmita Vicente (Chief, Medicine Woman of Ecuador) which has activated a deep inquiry about male energetic cycles and man's relationship with the cycles and mysteries of woman.

Resource guide

Guest 

Velan's Instagram

Art Of Relating Course with Adya and Velan 

One Movement Embodiment School 

Carmen  Vicente - School of Secrets

Mentioned in the episode

Carmen  Vicente - School of Secrets 

Tonics for Spring: 

MSM

Schisandra

I AM GAIA

BEAUTY BLEND

Deer Antler Velvet  

Check Out The Transcript Below:

 

Mason:

I think it was 10 years ago I was at Frenchs Forest Market and I was hanging around, probably had fisherman pants on, and I'm pretty sure I had a reishi around my neck, and I looked down all the stalls and I saw this very interesting young man bejangling. Looked like he'd just come out of Costa Rican jungle, and I was like, "Whoa, that's an interesting guy." And then I saw him starting to look for something and I was like, "Oh, I think he's looking for... I reckon he's looking for me." And I saw him. He was tuning in, I was like, "He's feeling something. What is that feeling?" And then he came out front of the stall and you looked in, he didn't look at me, your beeline had a reishi on the table and you honed into the reishi and then you looked up and you and our eyes locked, and nice little... Been bros ever since.

 

Velan:

It was mushroom at first sight.

 

Mason:

It was, wasn't it?

 

Velan:

Yeah. I'm pretty sure we shared a turkey tail tincture at that point.

 

Mason:

Well, that's as intimate as you can get. I think as well, the next thing that came out was, you were like, "Oh you're Mason." Someone chased me down the road the other day yelling Mason, and then you pulled around go, "Oh, shit, sorry." We have got the... You've got that little... We got that little bit look from the same planet. I always tell every... Whenever someone's like, "Oh you look exactly like someone." I'm like, "No, I don't." First, I've got this Indian Sikh that I look exactly like and I get in trouble when I share it for cultural appropriation because everyone's like, "Dude, you can't dress like that." I'm like, "It's literally nothing." But you've got the brow going on and I'm like, "No, this guy Velan, he actually looks like me." It's not just a beard and long hair. There's a whole brow thing going on. There's a cheekbone thing going on. Yeah, we've got it. Welcome.

 

Velan:

Thank you, brother. It's good to see you.

 

Mason:

It's really great to see you. Really, really, really nice to see you coming in. It's been a... You hadn't seen the mushroom, the Dhow Palace here. Haven't come into the podcast then.

 

Velan:

It's come a long way since Frenchs Forest Market.

 

Mason:

It has, and it's nice to align, I'm really interested to hear where you are at. This community's been doing some deep work. The podcast is that place that we can realise the herbs are there and the herbs are beautiful and sometimes the herbs are out there competing in the capitalist market doing their adaptogen thing and their activation of immunity and being the mushrooms of immortality thing, and then layered behind it is the lineage and the path and this beautiful work that we are doing and we align with the Dallas lineage there but it's just that connection and that path towards us really scrubbing that diamond, so we're like when we get to 80, 90, 100, 110, we're powerful and rad.

 

Velan:

Yes sir.

 

Mason:

I know you dance in that realm. Where are you at the moment?

 

Velan:

What's fresh for me at the moment is around regenerative culture. As a collective up here on the Northern Rivers, we just came out of a pretty intense flood, and from what I understand about when nature reorganises like that, it's an opportunity for us to renovate, regenerate and that's present for me at the moment. What am I renovating in my own life from that call? I'd say even beyond the call, it was a scream from the water and that scream reverberated through these Northern Rivers, and what the call for action for me was what am I renovating in my own life? And that relationship to water, that relationship to the feminine aspect has been a big inquiry for me, and what's present for me right now is how in my renovating that old story and I think as a culture of men, but maybe we even say that the masculine energy.

 

Velan:

What is our relationship to that, that is fluid to that which is the history of colour. We say water like that, the history of colour, waters of all origin. It's a possibility for us to look into where are we not able to feel into the cycle of woman and where do the certain layers of her cycle activate our own insecurities, so that's really present for me at the moment.

 

Velan:

I work with an indigenous elder called Carmen Vicente. She's an incredible artist from Ecuador, and part of the body of work that she's presented to us or presented to the women within our community is something called the School of Secrets, which looks at the secret power of women's blood. There's a whole universe there, but the one thing that I think I can share about this is that through seeing my wife and the women in our community go through this process, which is essentially where women stop when they're bleeding, instead of running on that patriarchal system of just go, they actually have the space to stop and go into ceremony when they bleed.

 

Velan:

Within that concept of the cycle, looking at that time of woman's bleeding as the winter as a moment where they go in, and actually looking at my own condition tendencies and how triggered and how much narcissism, how much subtle manipulation happens when my woman turns inward to acknowledge and acknowledge that time of her cycle, it brings up a lot of my narcissism, it brings a lot of my little boy that feels insecure because all of a sudden I'm not supported, so I'm curious about that dialogue at the moment. How am I engaging with the cycle of woman with the different elements and aspects of her rhythm within the month? And then from there I look at her moving through this cycle and I question and I look at what is my cycle as a man?

 

Mason:

Because anything I love about that is in I can return to yin-yang and just be like, "Okay cool things make sense." and that little boy I def... And I like working with that little boy and that's something of course as an excess of that little boy running the show or having his tantrums, and I've had some tantrums. I had the problem, I think I've had a tantrum definitely recently, and of course that's when that body or that woman and that blood is in rhythm with who knows what, but it's in rhythm and it's good. You're talking about that winter, we've talk about that a lot of, I'm trying to ground it into reality a lot and because I'm running a company and then watching where, yes the patriarchal system, it's a chi based system.

 

Mason:

It's a system that's been based on that particular era of life where men were at work and because we're on that 24 hour regenerative chi, there's no acknowledgement, there's nothing in workplace law or anything like that around that cycle of blood. It's huge opportunity. It could be a problem, problem's also opportunities, and you can see right now that dance between a woman really activating powerfully and being in that rhythm. Then likewise what comes up for a woman, for her little girl when a man's really in that rhythm of his chi, and that chi regenerative cycle and then, "Oh, now we're dancing. Now we're not pointing fingers. Now we're creating." I can imagine you're in that space, in that dance. Where do you see it going? Where do you see that creation cycle? What's tethering us to wisdom as we go through this?

 

Velan:

That's a beautiful question and I think it comes back to the education. There has to be the education of understanding first and foremost that in a springtime for a woman there's going to be energy, there's going to be a yes, there's going to be a movement, there's going to be a movement towards sexuality, to juiciness, to that aliveness. Also as a woman comes into her winter, when she's about to bleed that it's really important to know that the dependency that we have of her being there and present and open will shift, and if I take care of my woman, if I acknowledge and also to see just for a moment that there is a lot of societal imprint and old story in the masculine that wants to strike, put down pressure when a woman bleeds.

 

Velan:

When we understand that, that all of a sudden when she's going to bleed in that point of a cycle, your shit is going to come up as a man. I don't care who you are, your shit is going to come up, so what do we do with that? What's the somatic relationship to understanding, "Okay, my little boy is going to come up when she starts to go inward, when her emotional system shifts." It's a very important moment, because actually if I acknowledge that understanding that the blood is the gold, if she rests in the time of her bleed, that creative centre, that centre of the family is going to be revitalised. That centre of our love and respect is going to be revitalised. There's a renovation that happens every single month when she goes into bleed. When I understand that as a man, when I understand that and I can see the regenerative vital force that activates when she rests, then all of a sudden it changes culture.

 

Mason:

And I think that's what... There's feeling it. I'm feeling the tension from the phase that we've just gone through where there is that excess, and that changing and that creation of culture. That's if we want to jump into any idea and concept the way between heaven, earth and Daoist and we're creators, we're master manifestors that forging and changing of culture, and that's what really excites me and that dual understanding that we're not going into that same that excess. Whereas we see coming into these systems and infrastructure that we have, say a business infrastructure, which is cheap. It doesn't acknowledge that blah, blah, blah. Now that acknowledgement facing our own shit, as you say, always comes back to our own backyard facing that little boy that comes up meaning that and then moving forward.

 

Mason:

The practicalities in there and fall into work and just slowly acknowledging this and work and slowly acknowledging the culture in the workplace and then including mine, I'm trying to land it and figure out how exactly this works and that going in period, but it has to, if we want to thrive and we want that culture to change, but just also the practicality of everyone listening. Velan and I, we love flying as well, so when we chat, we love going into condor, black cockatoo, just having these chats, but landing in the practicality of just hormonal issues, mood imbalances, that just acknowledge. It's like that period where you just have to swing the pendulum back and go in and embrace these periods and embrace that winter especially and that ceremony, be there. Then we're going to get to the point where it'll calibrate, that yin and the yang will find that harmony.

 

Mason:

That's the... I'm just, that practical space in terms of why would we do this. Then where do we go from there in terms of relationship? Then because that's this concept of getting healing, fully activating, this is a tonic herbalism, convalescence, we've gone through... That we need to do some healing of our little boys and little girls and the fact that we have business system structures that don't align with the seasonality of bleeds and so on and so forth. There's a convalescence healing, and when you go through that healing and then up you get and you're on the front foot and you're activating and you go and you're pushing for the next creation cycle. I don't know exactly know where I'm going with the question, but then what next, so we don't get lost in the healing.

 

Velan:

Sure. I think taking it back to my own experience and my own daily expression, which is what is my practise? What am I practising every day? From my own experience working with a daoist form, an internal energetic martial art, there's that continual showing up, and what I'm really focusing on the moment is containment, but also that quality. How am I... So many people have a practise, but what's the quality? Can I actually drop underneath the habitual movement of a practise and drop into the quality of presence that I'm calling for in my own life? And what I'm unpacking here is actually the refinement of the sensitivity that I cultivate in my practise, then activates that possibility to meet reality in a different way. I don't take the surface for everything, I look underneath.

 

Velan:

When someone activates or someone becomes angry at me or someone dumps their own shit because they haven't been able to integrate it in their own nervous system. I don't take it for the surface because I've done my own practise, I look at what is vibrating underneath there. There's a vulnerability there that they can't hold that they want to try and integrate through you, so through my own practise, I'm looking at that capacity to refine my sensitivity, to look under the surface of what's actually going on, and through looking under the surface, I'm able to relate on a different level. I don't get caught in the surface, leila of reality, I have a connection to the source of my centre, and through that practise of cultivating my centre again and again and again, looking at where I squeeze or where I hold my dan t'ian, my endless source of energy. When I begin to unpack that, and I take my practise off the mat and into life, then the dojo of my life becomes the foundation of my exploration in my life.

 

Mason:

I remember when you really got into the off the mat, that was the yoga, I remember that yoga world was such, you had such a deep dive and I was like, "That must mean so much to you." Getting off the mat. There's something there around the topography of the body, because for the next step when people come for tonic herbs in this community, the journey has generally been, there's a real beautiful intention around getting onto some symptomology or I've got an intention for long term health that I can't muck around on so I'm going to meet the herbs here. Then behind the veil of what happens when you start activating on this practise and the tonic herbs fall into the practise, then the people listening understand where the next place people go are is the emotional journey and how to get into that state of whatever perception is probably the way in terms of showing up in the practise consistently.

 

Mason:

You bring up where that anger comes from, because quite often this has often confused me and been most likely the reason I don't show up for my practise, and also the most curious about, "Do I have to talk about emotions in my business?" Because it's such a weird hard world. There's so much to take responsibility for and it's obviously not mine, it's everyone's, but how can we'd be of greatest service? And from just, you really took me into that inner world, especially with the say, just the Daoist map or lens at the moment. As I'm feeling that anger and I... Okay that is my service, am I willing to go and actually track the journey of that wood as it goes from sapling to frustration of breaking the surface to getting that ease of what I could possibly become then going on the adventure of not having to showboat so I become a tree that everyone wants to chop down, but I give myself the potential to grow into a mighty oak with deep root.

 

Mason:

That shows the map internally of all the sensations and emotions that I'm having along that journey from anger, frustration to hopelessness to vision to planning to being a leader, so on and so forth. I don't know, because I know ever since I've known you, you've lived there, you lived in your topography, you know your waters, you know your fire. That soil, externally and internally you watch that journey, I'm just getting the extent of which how beautiful following that elemental map is to be show up and get that practise. This is what's going to come up. You do the herbs, you go in and do some ceremony, you do some fasting, you go deep, you're going to start moving chi and that chi needs to go on an adventure. Then there's that consistent practise of you watching what that adventure is and actually perceiving it and then getting masterful at it.

 

Velan:

Yes, and that ties back into what we were sharing is it's through showing up in a practise where you cultivate sensitivity, then you become more refined at being able to track what is underneath the external reaction, and for me, let's bring it back to base foundation is my practises with my wife. How immediate my feedback is through tracking sensation and tracking emotional roller coaster of being in relationship. Actually what is my process of returning? How do I catch the beast before it explodes in my relationship? For me, this is one of the most potent ways that will come back to activate this regenerative culture. To change culture, first let's change what happens at home with my wife that I live with every day, and then the reflection of my children that they're receiving, so let's come back to the practise and see how this ties in.

 

Velan:

When I refine my sensitivity, my somatic vocabulary, I have that capacity in that moment when I'm feeling vulnerable, and actually what happens is I want to explode out because I'm not able to deal with the shifting of my nervous system. Essentially the beast erupts, so what is the territory? What is the geography in between that feeling of vulnerability and that eruption of the beast where I can infiltrate, shift my breathing, shift my body position and actually transform that habituated pattern and actually work with a different way of relating? And for me, that's where the practise hits life. How do I refine the sensitivity of what I'm moving with every single day so that I can infiltrate the fabric of life? And for me, this is in its simplicity, the shifting of the culture. As a man, I can begin to infiltrate my condition tendencies through the somatic landscape and through the expansion of my capacity to feel. That's where I can infiltrate.

 

Mason:

That consistency piece, because I've, that's the other thing I've enjoyed the fact that I've been in this world probably deep for 12 years now. Watching people's trajectories, watching gurus trajectories, watching people start out hard and then get spat out on the path and then come back in. It's one thing I know, watching your practise and the other brothers I can see who have stayed real consistent in the practise, likewise sisters. It's probably the thing that doesn't get really the... The flag gets waved but it's not cathartic and exciting enough around that consistency and just don't go to your capacity but just hover in that uncomfortable place where you are like, "Yeah, you're not really in it. Mastering that shift in the nervous system." And that's maybe going to take about two years for you to sit there and hover there, and it's going to be boring and you're not going to have see God moments. You're not going to become one with everything for a while. It's just going to be uncomfortable.

 

Mason:

Very beautiful, very powerful, and that infiltration it's nice. It's nice to see external infiltration of system, but is it infiltration or is it growing from the deep roots that we have ourselves? And it does just grow into where it's most needed so we don't have to be against the thing that we're infiltrating, but really just being on top of ourselves so that we can truly grow and impact that culture. There were a few other, I got lost in that journey. There was a few things in and around practise that I've really, that I wanted to talk to you about. I don't know, maybe you are picking up on something that's the next tether to go, because I think I've lost it if it's there. Absolutely go for it.

 

Velan:

I think what's coming for me right now is that as a culture we've been trained to turn away from and what the essence of this Daoist practise that I'm showing up to every day is all about turning towards. How do we as a culture, instead of when something feels uncomfortable we turn away from, what is that process to turn towards? So a lot of the form in a Taoist practise in a Qigong practise is a location where we hold and contain uncomfortable postures. Instead of that knee jerk reaction where we turn away from, we shift, we go to a next posture, we actually turn towards, we sit in, we turn towards the feeling that's uncomfortable and then we see the essence of the alchemy that occurs when we stay with, because everything is always moving.

 

Velan:

If we stay with something, no matter how uncomfortable it is, there's always a key. There's always a moment which shifts and transforms something, so what we're really working with is when we slow down, when we refine presence, when we anchor in the centre of who we're actually not, then we have a capacity to transform all the stories that we dwell in, because all of a sudden we see that the story is not us. We drop underneath the story, we're not attached to an outcome, but we're curious about the path unfolding. We're curious about what awakens when we stay with, when we turn towards.

 

Mason:

And I think that's the real... There's some words and vibes you bring in there that bring for me a distinction around when I use the word our destiny, and we're going to fall towards it one way or another. I feel all determined along the way and it's around weaving ourselves into a song and dance, moving towards that destiny in a way that is curious. It's not predetermined, but it's graceful. That really clarifies it for me, and I did remember what I was talking about before, because you were talking about relationship. Probably one of the first things you ever said, because you cut through shit a lot and I really like it, and appropriate times as well. Not like, "I'm going to be edgy and throw a bomb into this conversation right now." But when I was at the markets back then, there was a particular health educator, guru-ish that I was really in, I was cool. I was getting a little bit of, "I liked that wood energy. I liked that anything's possible." And so I was just hitching the start of that waggon a little bit.

 

Mason:

I think I was in a relationship at the time, it was a little bit on the rocks, and I know you were really starting your work around relationships and around man and woman, and that was just that being that practise that does come from our personal practise so that we can... Then we've got that arena to really be like, "All right, are we just mucking around here? Are we fart arsing around here mate in my personal practise or am I actually applied to the..." So that you can, all the things you said you can really weave in and out, and you were talking about the guy that I liked, the educator I liked. I think you know who I'm talking about, and you were like, "You know what?"

 

Velan:

Educator X.

 

Mason:

Ex. Yeah. It's interesting. It's always nice to see people go on their own little path as well and lay the tracks for us to stand on their shoulders and learn from their mistakes and wins and everything as well, but you said, "You know what? I'm at a point where the people who I'm really... I'll listen to some cool information, but it doesn't get into my inner sanctum and it's not going to shape my life at all." Just you're at that point, maybe you can add the words, so I'm not fabricating what you said, but you are like, for you, the people that you are going to be working with right now, they need to be in a strong or powerful relationship, because then you know that they're checked. You know that person wasn't, and you're like, "I just feel like that yang energy at this time is just too unchecked."

 

Mason:

And not that you couldn't trust it. I can't remember the wording, but it really gave me a smack on the side of the head, and I remember going like, "No, I think it's okay." But it never... And I always thought about it with him and with other people as well when I watch. Not as a bad judgement thing, it was just like, "Oh." It's a real good variable to be like, "Okay, cool, I know that person's in. I know that they're committed on that certain level, therefore they're aligned to some extent." It's like, "Thank you for that." But why? What's up? Because this is, now we've talked about practise and then that relationship and that as a practise. Why was that there for you?

 

Velan:

Which part?

 

Mason:

I think if you going and you stating that, "I'm right now, I'm not going to listen to someone who's an untethered young buck essentially." Or the potential, maybe a little boy running around. I guess we've answered it ourselves in terms of pretty obvious of why that was the case. Maybe I just wanted to acknowledge it. Do you remember that?

 

Velan:

Yes, I do remember clearly, but I think to go deeper into what you're sharing is that you are right when you are in relationship, woman, man, man, man, woman, woman. There is that constant mirror to reflect where you are not in right relation or when there's even the subtle lift of the eyebrow hair, how much we begin to pick up as we go deeper? And I think there's also something to say after a decade of being together with someone, let's return back to how do we renew? Because we're both different people and a lot of what I see as the old paradigm is that we stay the same, and just like nature, we speak so much about the cycles of nature. We also move through cycles and how do we renovate, how do we renew?

 

Velan:

Because if we're not renewing, if we're not renovating, if we're not checking how we're relating, then all of a sudden we're going to get, all of a sudden there's going to be a shift in something because nature always renews, it always renovates, so if we're not doing our inner work, there's going to come a point where we get a place that needs to be cleaned out, so that becomes the beauty of walking with someone because we're constantly in a dialogue, and I think that's a really important language that is important for me right now. What is the dialogue that we're having, first of all with ourself? In our practise how do we dialogue with our organs? How do we dialogue with ourselves? How do we dialogue with someone that we're in intimate relationship with? How do we dialogue with the elements? Not a one way, not one way dialogue, because we know to have a healthy system, there has to be a reciprocity, but what is the dialogue that we're having with the water?

 

Velan:

Let's return back, I love to return, to what we shared within the beginning of this podcast around the message of the water and the flooding. How do I dialogue with that? How do I inquire about something that happens in nature? What is my direct relationship with that element? It's about having a dialogue. If I have a relationship with someone, there has to be a reciprocity of energy. If I'm having a relationship with a woman, if I spend a lot of time or a man, if I spend a lot of time on my phone, that reciprocity's going to have an energetic block. If I'm not dialoging with the water, that element that I consume that makes me up, that creates life on this planet, then how do I sustain vitality when there's not that reciprocity?

 

Velan:

So that's a question, for a moment to bring a condor, to bring a bigger topic in here just for a moment. Why is Shamanism coming into the cities? Why is the importance of us dialoging with nature all of a sudden exploding through every city on the planet? Because it's time for us to learn that everything is living and the reciprocity, the respect, the engagement of human beings, but also the elements that we dwell with becomes at the forefront of our conversation of how do we continue to live on this planet as a species? The return back to the indigenous remembering.

 

Mason:

I think that indigenous remembering, because you've spent so long in the remembering, but in the dialogue, because I think that's something I've had to learn. What is that language of the dialogue? And it's something that Shamanism is coming in sometimes in full integrity and nice and slow and landing, and sometimes very awkwardly as when anything is new to a culture, it's not tethered really. It's an awkward integration phase when it's between, it's like a new human. They've got little toddlers, have little stupid chi. They're not quite landed fully on earth and their shen's not fully landed, but can you just talk about that dialogue as a realm, as an actual language, as a real place and a real dialogue?

 

Velan:

Yes sir. Let's dispel the myth for a moment that Shamanism has anything or only to do with plant medicine. Let's take that off the table for a moment and say that Shamanism originates from an education of how to dialogue with the living energies of this planet. The education is number one. It has nothing to do with some magical power that you receive from consuming something that's not, that's short term. It is all about the work, the practise of learning how to dialogue, of learning how to engage with energetic systems, and that, let's call it back to where is your sincerity? The dialogue expands. Just like if I'm communicating with my brother here, Mason, there's a frequency, there's a vibration of sincerity that opens a possibility for reciprocity, for an exchange of energy. That's the same with the waters, that's the same with the fire, that's the same with the air, that's the same with the earth.

 

Velan:

When we open our heart, when we realise that element also is a being. Just for a moment let's say in Bolivia and in Ecuador, through the parliament system, now that water is no longer a thing, it's a being, and when we understand that as a species, then all of a sudden we also open ourself to receiving a new level of force, a new level of vitality, because energy it works in reciprocity. When we give, it gives back, so as we open to that dialogue, as we open to that sincere dialogue, we open a whole nother level of expansion in how we relate to the earth.

 

Mason:

Been around you has probably exposed me to earth altars. Sincerity, I think that word, that sincerity, I think everyone is sincere, but it's always funny and the inner comic in me really likes taking the piss out of the two minute noodle Shamanism that comes, because it is funny and we have to make it funny when it's in those awkward stages. I don't know why with the earth altars in this, it's because it goes in that when it gets to the point of actual landing and actual sincerity, and I was just reading through a book around earth altars and your cousin, following your cousin's journey and following your journey around that as well.

 

Mason:

You are doing so much real shit in life, and I know sometimes people think that this stuff we're creating altars. We've got altars here in super fees, we're doing this inner work, we're doing this practise, that this isn't like landing. We're in this incredible integration phase right now of this huge society that has enabled us to live these incredible lives, has these incredible atrocities and has left for dead a lot of the indigenous wisdom, but then is somehow held onto a scrap of maybe there's a chance for us to integrate this and have integrity, and it's slow and awkward. Of course, and to, I don't know, reclaim that language before it's lost on the earth, which it won't be lost. It can't be lost while they're on this earth. Then the level of practicality in terms of landing between the state of an earth altar or a business or a current institution, and just what's your experience of being in between those two such polar opposites and extremes, what's going on?

 

Velan:

Well, I think it's beautiful that the essence of this work, we even look at the word of the Lakotas that many people will know, many people will not know, but we say that aho Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ. We say that we're all related, that everything is connected, so there's no polarising. We talk about an altar. An altar is a foundational energetic imprint, and when we really commune and when we really infuse our energy and use the forces of nature, then we can transform an energy anywhere. We can work with it in our business, we can work with it as a prayer, but not as a prayer to save all the children of the planet. It's like, "Let's save the children that we know." That person, that household next door where that child cries out and you hear it every day, maybe you put a little cup of water on your altar for that child that you hear that lives next door, and through that respect to what is in your own energy field, that's again how we transform the culture.

 

Velan:

It's not this big expansive praying for the peace of the earth. It's like, "No, let's start with the peace in our families. Let's start in the way that we speak to our wife when our kids are listening. Let's start with our next door neighbour who has some sort of challenge at school, and how do we become a part of that solution?" Because that's the essence of the prayer. It's for all of our relations, it's for all of our family and it expands out into our community, but first, let's get clear with our inner circle. Let's get healthy, let's get the vital chi force flowing in that which is close to us, and like you said, just that sincerity.

 

Velan:

An altar for me is just the secrets. Let's talk about secrets for a moment, is the secrets is what holds power. I don't mean a secret that you don't tell. I mean a secret that you keep well for the health of maybe your own wife, for the health of your children, for the health of that child next door. That's where the power is. When we hold something with care and with sincerity, we generate a force. When we spill it out and we tell everyone, we fragment, we disperse, and that is the illness of society right now. The fragmentation, the spilling of our energy, the telling everyone about what we're going to do, but then next week we tell them something different because we've dispersed all of our chi. How do we use that containment to cultivate the force, to keep the secret so that we can affect those that are in our sphere? This is the essence of the altar.

 

Mason:

Last time we were having a cacau, mushy cacau tonic I think was probably Costa Rica, and I remember talking about social media with you, and I remember going... That conversation, I remember sharing with you my tendency to overshare before I'd marinated something or cultivated fully the little germinated, and talking about my relationship to sharing things out on social media because I'd just retracted and decided I was going to start funnelling into SuperFeast and talking to you about social media, and you were on the edge of going, "I'm undecided about whether I'm going to blow up and really blow up."

 

Mason:

And now I was like, remember going like, "You would. If you decided it, you would own it." Or just staying in that process with the secret and with what's ready to pour out, and I remember you being curious. I did go in that social media direction with SuperFeast and it's been a fine line for me to go. What stays behind and what stays internal and what's actually ready to share, which just always an awkward discovery phase, but I always get excited when you do jump onto social media and you start sharing things, and recently I was like, "Oh, there he is." You popped out, you popped your head up and you got some offerings, you got some things happening. What's the universe there? Because people will want to tune in and know you.

 

Velan:

The next offering we have is something called art of relating, so it's my wife Adya and I, it's life work. It's the decade of being together, but definitely not from the fluffy side, from that rawness of what it means to be in relationship, from that rawness of seeing my own narcissism and my own manipulation of my wife sometimes, and looking at the grounded practises to revitalise and renovate how to stay in love, and how to then see that the centre, that the altar of the relationship becomes the foundation of manifestation in your life, becomes the foundation of the vitality of the force of the family. We've shifted a lot, we were doing a lot of yoga teacher trainings for about a decade, but we're shifting. We're in a shift and this is something that's birthed out of our walk.

 

Mason:

Put the link below of when Adya was on the podcast, my podcast six years ago or something, wild. I still remember it. It was still such a potent conversation, and the thing I know it's going to be fully aligned still. Sam, I don't have to be like, "Is that still the same thing that you're going to be sharing in these course?" I'm like, "I know what's been shared." I've been there with you, I think in a yoga studio doing a workshop on this topic seven years ago with you guys in the CBD and Bondi Junction. I don't know if you remember that one.

 

Velan:

Old school.

 

Mason:

Yeah, that was old school. Good old days. In terms of working with you in that realm of practise and those physical practise within that Daoist tradition, is there any pathways at the moment?

 

Velan:

No. I mean at the moment there's a private mentoring spaces, but we're in a phase of renewing.

 

Mason:

That's pathway. Private mentoring's probably, I think... No, I got the sense anyone listening could be, feel the call and be ready. You got any openings or are you too in demand?

 

Velan:

At the moment there's not a lot of openings, but I'm sure there will be.

 

Mason:

Yeah. Oh, it's nice. You guys have, we will pop your Instagram below and have you got a newsletter?

 

Velan:

Yes.

 

Mason:

Yeah. Cool.

 

Velan:

Yeah.

 

Mason:

We'll just make sure you jump on the website guys, because it's always nice to be there and catch it when the openings and the offerings happen as you go along, Velan. Awesome. Feels like a nice little full stop, doesn't it?

 

Velan:

Hey bro, thank you so much. It's a pleasure to meet your eyes again and feel your inspiration and your walk and it's been beautiful to share this space with you. Thank you.

 

Mason:

Thank you so much. Big love.