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Hello, hello, hello everybody! We are back in the podcast studio, and I, Mason Taylor, founder of SuperFeast, am resuming my role as host. Joining me today is Tahnee, who will be making occasional appearances as a guest, especially focusing on women's health and cultivation practices. Tahnee also shares about her own podcast, "Body of Wisdom."
Mason and Tahnee dive into the fascinating stage of SuperFeast's existence, discussing how the business navigates commercial demands while upholding its foundational "source essence" – the ontological storytelling that defines its purpose: "to dramatically reduce disease and degeneration, creating super humans who may enter into the realm of elderhood." They explore the "birth pain" of growing a business and draw parallels between birthing a business and birthing a child, highlighting the unique "male opportunity" in creating something tangible that lives forever.
The conversation delves into the core tenets of Daoism, particularly the concept of "from the Dao comes the one, then the two (yin yang), then the three (Jing, Qi, Shen), and from the three you get everything (the 10,000 things)." They emphasize the importance of not getting "trapped in the world of 10,000 things" – the endless details, protocols, and symptoms – and instead focusing on cultivating the "three treasures" (Jing, Qi, and Shen) for a well-rounded and meaningful life, aiming to "slide into the grave light" rather than deteriorating.
Mason expresses his desire to re-engage with the "enjoyment of the 10,000" while always linking it back to the foundational three treasures. They discuss the importance of cleansing the "heart mind" and cultivating an inner antenna to navigate life's initiations and make authentic choices. The goal is to move beyond external validation and dogma, fostering a deeply personal cultivation practice that prepares one for elderhood and a "good death."
The episode concludes with a look ahead at future topics, including interviews with practitioners and discussions about specific herbs, all framed within the context of the three treasures and the ultimate mystery of the Dao. Tahnee also shares about her "Birth Magic Course" and the upcoming "Daoist Energetics" course, inviting listeners to connect with them and stay tuned for regular episodes. It's a rich conversation about ancient wisdom applied to modern life, business, and personal well-being.
Key Insight From This Episode:
- 00:00:00 - Introduction: Mason and Tahnee return to the SuperFeast podcast, discussing their roles.
- 00:02:31 - SuperFeast's Evolution: Navigating commercial growth while maintaining the business's "source essence" and purpose.
- 00:04:35 - The "Birth Pain" of Business: Parallels between birthing a business and birthing a child, and the "male opportunity" in creation.
- 00:11:42 - Daoist Core Tenets: Exploring the Dao, Yin Yang, Jing Qi Shen, and the 10,000 things, and the importance of cultivation over symptoms.
- 00:14:52 - Cultivating the Three Treasures: Protecting essence (Jing), activating energetic flow (Qi), and expressing unique spirit (Shen).
- 00:18:36 - Sovereignty and Inner Antenna: Moving beyond external dogma to cultivate a personal practice and make authentic choices.
- 00:24:04 - Re-engaging with the 10,000 Things: Mason's desire to find enjoyment in the material world while staying grounded in the three treasures.
- 00:30:43 - The Art of Dying Well: Discussing mortality, grief, and how cultivation prepares one for elderhood and a "good death."
- 00:04:35 - Tahnee's Offerings: Information on Tahnee's "Birth Magic Course" and the "Daoist Energetics" course.
Resource guide
Mentioned In This Episode
- "Body of Wisdom" podcast (Tahnee's podcast)
- "Birth Magic Course" (Tahnee's course)
- "Daoist Energetics" course (Tahnee's course)
- Shennong Bencaojing (classical Chinese medicine text)
- Wuxing (Five Phases/Elements concept)
- The Red Hand Files (Nick Cave's email letter/blog)
Connect With Us
SuperFeast Instagram
SuperFeast Facebook
SuperFeast TikTok
Check Out The Transcript Below:
Mason:
Hello? Hello, hello, everybody. We are back! I am now sitting here in our new Fandango podcast studio, which is the exact same room that we've had the entire time. But now we've got a special little board here. It's shiny. Tahns is here with me. Everybody. We kicked off at 11:11, funnily enough.
Tahnee:
Did we? Angel numbers. Hi everyone. Thanks for having me.
Mason:
For those of you that don't know us, in case you're new to the podcast, I'm Mason Taylor. I'm the founder of SuperFeast, and back in the founder role and what everyone jokingly calls me Chairman Mase, because I've just, uh, put in someone who was with the business for a few years in a CEO, which has freed me up to come back into podcast land. And last you would've heard from Tahnee, would've been...
Tahnee:
Couple of years ago. Pre-Hugo.
Mason:
Pre-Hugo.
Tahnee:
Yeah. We did something like 200 episodes of the last podcast. Is that right?
Mason:
That's right. So Tahnee and I co-hosted the podcast. Yeah, and we did a few episodes together, we did. But mostly we would interview people on our lonesome. And so since we went on uh, hiatus, we've now tweaked the podcast. I will take the hosting mantle alone, and Tahns will just come in every so often, and I guess she'll be the guest. I know a lot of people really enjoyed Tahnee's special focus on like women's health and women's cultivation practices. That's something now that Tahns will come and bring and talk. Uh, I'll still interview a lot of, uh, women in that area. Uh, and I'll bring Tahns on to talk about it. But Tahns has gone and launched her own podcast as well last year and did a series.
Tahnee:
Yeah, I did a series. I'm doing more of a, uh, batch release and then having breaks because of my motherhood uh, requirements that keep me from doing things consistently. But yeah, we had a really beautiful first season of Body of Wisdom podcast, which you should be able to find if you Google that, uh, with lots of my friends and lots of beautiful people that I respect or am very interested and curious in their work. So yeah, you can go check that out. Uh, but I think it's really exciting to really dial in on, I kind of focus here with the SuperFeast Podcast more on, I guess, the roots of what we do, like what underpins the work we do at SuperFeast.
Mason:
Yeah, SuperFeast is in a very fascinating stage of its existence. I really find it interesting having lineage around, uh, a product that has also been commercialized. We've had really amazing partners, but as there's like more demand, holding the lineage while we're doing things like being on TVSN, which is something that I've just like, again, I wouldn't really do if it was my call, but honestly that sometimes SuperFeast just has a mind of its own. And those little old duckies that watch TVSN that are like, "Roger, come and look at this fella. He's talking about something called Jing. I reckon I might order some for your knee!" Uh, that it does fill me, I kind of gotta get outta my own... gotta get outta SuperFeast's way. In case you don't know, SuperFeast definitely has its own soul.
We've captured that in a source essence of ontological storytelling, of things that happened to me, and also things that happened to the business that if those things didn't happen objectively, then SuperFeast wouldn't be in existence. And so, god, born out of feelings and intention and musings and conclusions. And I've really captured all of those in a storytelling. Everyone that comes into SuperFeast signs that they'll do their best to honor the source essence, and source essence pops up and becomes our purpose statement. But if anyone ever comes across our purpose statement, which is very trendy, having a purpose-driven business these days, and quite often people will pluck a purpose statement out that's really relevant to the current thing and, uh, quite often of like a little bit of interrogation. I've been doing a little bit of coaching around this, just for free.
Quite often you poke a little bit of the purpose and you're like, "Well, where did it come from?" It's just like, "Ah, it just really fits." And it's like, "But where did it come from?" Mm. "Like, you need a real place that it emerges from." So for us it's, uh, "to dramatically reduce disease and degeneration, creating super humans who may enter into the realm of elderhood." That came from a series of things starting from 14, and then at 21, and then 23, and then 25. And, from all the...
Tahnee:
Way through to now, really. Yeah. To now. Yeah. And it's still emerges, a theme in your life. Yeah.
Mason:
I don't find it to be necessarily like an easy task, uh, to steward or custodian that essence emerge. Giving birth sucks when it comes to, to business pain, either when it comes to business. I need, like, Todd's got a birth magic course as well, so she's, maybe you should do it. She's teaching women how to, uh, have beautiful mother and baby, um, baby births. I'm gonna interrupt you for a sec 'cause to be really honest, I see a lot of parallels to the, and I'm gonna speak in gendered terms, which I know will annoy some people, but I feel like the male birth is birthing the thing that is outside of you that lives forever. Whether it's a business or a building or some kind of tangible thing. And for the women, it's a human, right? So you know, and obviously you're the father of the children and the birth is still a part of your story. But I really think there's no birth is so obvious.
There's a labor and an actual birth, and then you know, the raising of the child. Whereas I feel like for men, the map is less clear, or the, uh, event is less clear, but uh, the map is the same of this kind of deep process of meeting yourself, bringing something through the stargate and delivering it into form and then raising it. Uh, and I think that's why so many men do throw themselves into their work or into those projects and I think a lot of women can't understand that, but I don't know. The place I sit is that's your work. That's your, uh, initiation I suppose, or uh, the way you are growing yourself through living. And I know it's hard, and I've witnessed that. Uh, I've had businesses myself. I know that it's hard, but I think it's a uniquely, uh, male opportunity, I suppose to, you don't get to have a baby, but you get to have SuperFeast or whatever you birth in the future.
You'll learn a lot through this birth and that will give you skills for the next thing you bring forth. And, yeah. Anyway, I see that. Mm. I wonder what you think about that. Yeah. I think as you said, there's no like, oh, here's a baby. It's very objectively a baby. There's no more can do. There's no more, you know, in that birth. And that's what I find interesting to be like, "Where's the...?" There's no baby. Yeah. "Where's the baby?"
Tahnee:
Yeah. I think that's what I mean. There's no real map for your process. I guess there must at some point come a reckoning, maybe we're not there yet, where you... able to like with parenting a child, like it's 20 years, 30 years maybe, until you can be like, "Okay, I think they're independent now." Maybe there'll be a time when SuperFeast feels like that.
Mason:
Yeah. And look, uh, I'm just kind of like, uh, in a kind of wake where I'm like, oh, but like it is incredible as well. And we're doing like really amazing things. So I guess the point I was kind of making as well is like, uh, that's not my strength necessarily, nor my want to like really go and like, although I'm finding it really satisfying now, there's like real good structure and departments based off uh, uh, the organ systems in Chinese medicine. We have Jing, Qi, Shen of the business really defined, and we talk about those in our, you know, finance meetings. And it's like I can wrap my head around it. And I have learned a lot in that, uh, process. And then I guess it's more just like right now we're oscillating back to like the podcast comes back alive, and so this is like where we get to explore some of those nuances outside of like product positioning.
Yeah, the business structure. Regular, uh, there's all of these things which like we were very lucky to get away with and have a business that grew without us having to follow any type of typical model. Like we had no reps, we had no, uh, sales models. We didn't really have point of sales. We didn't record conversations. We didn't have to have sales conversations. We didn't have to do any of that. And so it's been one of those things where like people who are out there and are like, "Yeah, we get it. We understand like that we're trying to... the purpose, and we're trying to cherish these people." We're like getting to the point now where these people in pharmacies are about to choose which medicinal direction they're gonna go in, like medicinal mushrooms. And you only have this amount of time to give them a pitch and hit 'em. And, uh, that would've been very intimidating a few years ago.
And now, because we've got so many teams so hungry to go and execute on behalf of the source essence and, uh, make sure that we deliver on the evolutionary purpose, they're like just taking it really seriously. There's a lot of players in the market who are like, at the moment, allowing us all to feel like agitated by like, you know, we have used to have such a high-quality market, especially like when you're in the business, even, mm, maybe a couple of years before you went out. And now it's just the landscape's changed. We always knew like the big whales were coming in. And so, uh, I'm so comfortable in that Yin business space of just let it emerge, and then at some point, uh, pick up the sword and just go, yeah. And like grow an appropriate amount of thorns, uh, but not for the sake of competition, but for the sake of, uh, I really enjoy colleagues.
We have a few beautiful colleagues who will be like, "Yeah, we like being on the shelf with you guys." And we'll never say, you know, nobody, don't say anything bad. But, uh, just that going through that phase for me of like growing up and getting that Yang of being like, uh, "All right, here's how you arm a pharmacist to start, uh, acknowledging what type of mushroom they should ideally be having on the shelf." Like that's taken a big push, big push for me, uh, and that's taken a lot of like, uh, there's a lot of people in here that don't naturally bend that way yet at all, uh, in the SuperFeast walls. And now we've kind of landed that and just starting to push and really see how SuperFeast emerges from that.
And I'm just really happy now to then coming back to the podcast, and everyone on the team will start listening to the podcast, and we'll just start having that side of the content and that kind of real gooey essence driven. It's not all about the mushrooms. It's not all about the herbs. It's not all about Jing, Qi, Shen. Well, the...
Tahnee:
Context, right? Like, I think the beautiful thing about this podcast has always been positioning. 'Cause you and I both have such diverse interests, and tonic herbs are a part of the landscape of our reality, but they're not the only thing, uh, that we, well, I guess they sort of fit underneath the umbrella of all these things that we're really, uh, motivated by and interested in. So I think this is an opportunity to speak to those things and, I was talking to our warehouse manager when I arrived, and he's like, "God, he's got five kids. We've got three kids.
He's like, 'If I didn't have the herbs right now, I don't think I'd be functioning.'" And I'm like, "No, but they're not like the only thing that we all have, like I know you guys, you both go to the gym and do the things you need to do to stay alive, but they're such an integral part of, uh, they're so interwoven and integral to our lives and I take it for granted all the time. Uh, I forget what it's like to not have Jing in my cupboard or, you know, but there was a time when I didn't have those things to lean on, and I think that's really beautiful. But then, yeah, just fitting them within the context of, uh, the wider lens of what our, uh, philosophy is, like the, what we draw out of the Daoist, uh, kind of canon to build a framework for business, for life. Uh, I think it's a really cool opportunity to expand into that space more.
I love that new direction for the podcast as well, to be more, uh, integral.
Mason:
Uh, yeah. Refined. I actually don't think much is gonna change in terms of the tone because Tahns and I naturally have it. Uh, a lot of health podcasts continue to try and be about introducing another protocol. Introducing...
Tahnee:
I was gonna say, we've never done the, like...
Mason:
Never like something we try not to. Another rule or like biohacking or, yeah, yeah, is how you overcome a symptom. But we also have interviewed a lot of people who are like, this is the distinction I think I wanted to make in terms of what we are doing versus what we are, I guess, resisting is in. So I think most of you would've heard us talk about it, but those who don't, like in, uh, one of the basic tenets of Daoism is from the Dao, which is the mystery. Mm-hmm. We don't know what's outside of this universe, and we don't know where we came from or where that original intention that created us. So from the Dao, uh, comes the one. Then from the one we create the two, Yin-Yang. And from the two we create the three, the Jing, Qi, Shen. And from the three you get everything, which is the 10,000 things.
Tahnee:
Which was a really big number like 2,000 years ago. 2,000. Like 10,000...
Mason:
What? $10,000? Isn't that what I'm paying? That's what I pay for rent for SuperFeast. A month or something. Yeah, a month.
Tahnee:
Yeah. Well, uh, I wanted to say, uh, I don't know if this helps people to conceive of this, but it's such a beautiful. 'Cause this idea from Dao of microcosm and macrocosm, like this is the womb and the egg, oh sorry, uh, the union of the egg and sperm and then the unity that comes from that. The one and then the division from that, like, you can conceive of these ideas. I know that they don't overlap perfectly, but, I love to think of the Dao as like a womb, as like a, uh, what we might call dark matter in modern physics or this place where all potentiality exists, but it hasn't chosen manifestation yet. There's this kind of, uh, it's called the emptiness in one of the translations, but it's like empty, but full of potential, full of potency. And I think to imagine that something could seed or, uh, initiate the seed, uh, of everything.
Uh, yeah, I think it's such a beautiful concept, uh, and it's one of the only cosmologies I think that really holds up when we apply physics and we apply what we know about evolutionary biology in our bodies and all these things. I think it's really beautiful. And you were talking before we came on about how it's so easy to get trapped in the world of 10,000 things, right? And that's what every spiritual tradition, or at least all the ones I've studied, so especially yoga and Daoism, but you know, Buddhism, which came out of the kind of same roots of yoga, and this idea that we all get enmeshed in the 10,000 things. We all focus too much on, the symptom or the detail of the illusion of what's happening in this kind of moment in time.
And we forget that there's this kind of much bigger picture and the source of all of this, which we can return to and orient toward, and that can assist us in connecting to something bigger, to healing all of these things. And I think that's a beautiful part about what SuperFeast does is like, uh, acknowledges, yes, we are in the world of the 10,000 things and all of this is happening, but can we turn our attention, our gaze to, uh, the three is fundamental to what you do and we do.
Mason:
Yeah. Well, the Jing, Qi, and Shen. Three Treasure discovery is for me, one of the things that found its way into the source essence, because once I found that there was a herbal system that introduced me to the Jing, Qi, Shen, and, uh, it's not about the herbs. It's about protecting these treasures. So everything we do in life, once you get into a lifestyle of prevention and cultivation, uh, and responsible, uh, lifestyle cultivation as well. So in cultivation, yes, there's like cultivation practices. We will definitely go into more and more, mm, on the podcast. But it's like, just get to 90 and be pretty well put together. So you're not like, you know, that's like the custard...
Tahnee:
Man. I saw a man online the other day and he's like, "I just love custard. Oh yeah. And I've lived to 96, and I'm just happy 'cause I eat custard." I think so much of longevity is our mental approach, uh, our attitude, uh, and that informs, well.
Mason:
Uh, and when you, when you're stuck in the 10,000, you're stuck in idealism. Uh, "Let me find a rule. Let me find a system. Let me find, uh, a protocol. Let me find an institution that I can import my mannerisms, and, I'll just live the yoga life and then I think I'm going to end up in a good place because, uh, let me just get into modern medicine. Let me put, get into modern science." And so all of these things are incredible and, uh, they're tools. Yeah. They're part of the tapestry. The tonic herbs are a part of the 10,000. Yeah. I mean, only they kind of talk about only Reishi is the one that can actually journey bridge through, but I guess they all bridge. Uh, the thing is there are practices and, herbs, and for instance, uh, the five phases, uh, or the five elements, as everyone uh, might know them as.
And you know, uh, the heart is fire and that's red and it has all these qualities to it. I kind of see that as the one of the ultimate simplifications of the 10,000. So you can get a nice, simple comprehension of the infinite 10,000 things and start seeing them as like, "Okay, wood grows through, controls earth. Wood nourishes fire." And you can look around and that metaphor allows you to navigate life in a cultivation practice. When you are going through that phase of like, we're not trying to understand this plane of existence more. We're not trying to understand the 10,000 more and get better and get richer. And that is the Ming Gong side of Qigong, it's called Ming Gong. When you're trying to become healthier and have better mental health and, feel like I can be more successful. Uh, that's a Ming Gong perfectly fine type of practice and type of Qigong.
It's in that world of 10,000 things. Once you start bridging over to the Sheng Gong, which is in my practice is very important, uh, all of that falls away and it only becomes about comprehending, uh, the original wisdom of the universe, or original wisdom of whatever this thing is. And the intention. And so, uh, from there, it's a journey going, uh, "Right, our comprehension practice or being able to watch and sit and feel and therefore comprehend what's going on inside of us and what's going on with the intention of this universe." Uh, all without actually ever seeking answers. It's just like a comprehension is literally, you know, like Siddhartha in the book watching the river, uh, you start with cleansing practices. As always, cleansing the heart-mind is always, always important.
We'll keep on talking about the heart-mind a lot, which is the main interface with the world is you have, and this is...
Tahnee:
I just wanna... that practice, uh, I translated as fasting the heart-mind. It's the same idea, but it's this, you know, of learning to have a real discipline around, uh, preventing the world of 10,000 things encroaching on the world of the spirit. Really, it's about, uh, being able to stop the mind and stop the distractions and stop ourselves from being pulled, you know? Uh, with meditation, a lot of the time people use techniques and mantras and breathing practices, breathing awareness, all of these things, and they're useful tools to bridge us toward what, the Daoist kind of says really, uh, as far as I'm aware anyway, like the ultimate meditation practice of just learning to sit without anything clouding the heart-mind.
And, uh, that's, it's from one of the Daoist texts, and I think it's a very important practice to have in one's repertoire, irrespective of whether you're a Daoist or not, is just learning to keep the lens of the mind really clear. Uh, and it's, I know a part of the practices you do as well, uh, I think for people to start to understand that even the meditation practices a lot of us are using, they're quite, uh, distracted and still enmeshed in the world of 10,000 things. They're not really asking us to cultivate the discipline required to be very strong in the heart-mind. And, uh, you talked about things like ideology, uh, and really sovereignty. And I know that words become very popular since COVID and all of this stuff. Uh, It's a tricky word to use without a lot of definition, but, uh, for me it's really around sovereignty.
Like, who am I, and what is the unique like expression that I'm here to, uh, contribute through? Like as a part of the 10,000 things, what am I uniquely contributing to that, and how can I really tune into that and then tune through that back into the source of all things? It's kind of this interesting bridge between the individual and the collective. And I, I believe that's sovereignty. 'Cause we recognize that, uh, we're part of everything, but we're also separate. And being able to hold that duality, I think, is a part of spiritual practice. Certainly my spiritual practice.
Mason:
I think it's a very relevant spiritual practice at the moment, and we're probably in a really good position to be able to, we have so much more, we have, I mean, this is interesting to say, like we're not in like a caste system. We don't have to escape society to go and discover spirituality. Mm. We are perfectly able to go and practice, uh, meditation and practice cleansing the heart-mind. I'm free to create a business mapped around these entire, uh, the map of the five elements and the three treasures and yin and yang and so on and so forth. So we don't need to go and escape just pure worldly materialism. No. "Where are your parents?" And, "We expect you to do this, and you have to." And the economy also prevents you from doing anything. Uh, even though, gosh, the economy feels like it's preventing us from doing a lot of things at the moment.
Tahnee:
But it's a funny one, right? 'Cause, uh, we are so free and, uh, I feel like the liberatory potential, if that's the word I wanna use. But like it's such a unique time in human history in many ways, especially Western culture. Like where we have access to this incredible wisdom that a lot of this stuff wasn't like, uh, you couldn't just buy the Shennong Bencaojing at the fricking bookstore. Like a couple of thousand years ago, you had to go to a temple and maybe hope that they had a copy of it, and then maybe be able to read ancient Chinese or have someone translate it to you. And like you couldn't pick up the Classic of Difficulties or the Yellow Empress Classic. Even in the sixties and seventies, they weren't published in English. You know, you had to be able to read Chinese. And like, we're now sitting here where we can talk about classical Chinese medicine.
We can talk about, uh, Lao Tzu and Zhuangzi's books. We can talk about Wu Xing and understand that they're talking about phases of energy moving and like hold these very special and unique cultural concepts from a tradition that is not ours and we can bridge them in. And, I think the freedom in that and the responsibility in that to actually like, take it seriously. And, I mean that's where I've come to over, you know, I've always wrestled with working with, uh, I guess other cultures, spiritual traditions. 'Cause Western culture doesn't have much for me. Um, maybe have some Celtic roots that I could look into. But I feel like what I've learned is my responsibility is to understand where the creation of these concepts came from. Not to become like, uh, I don't need to be a Daoist or a yogi in that regard. It's more like, well, what were they perceiving that I too can perceive?
And that's my responsibility is to honor the perception with my own recognition of that, you know, to meet it. And maybe their language is good and I can use it with respect for where it came from, uh, and I think that's, I don't know. And I'm sure it's the same for you, like when you learn Jing, Qi, Shen, when you learn about the Wu Xing, it's like that explains something I've perceived or it explains something I'm on the bridge of perceiving. It explains phenomena or experience that I'm touching when I'm in my practice. Uh, like I remember first reading the Yoga Sutras of potentially being like, oh, like that explains the psychological map I've been unpacking in therapy and practice for the last 10 years. Yeah. Really cool.
And I think that's one of the things I love about what we get to do with SuperFeast is like, yeah, we're like operating in a Western culture, having to deal with the TGA and we're having to do all this annoying stuff that the Daoist didn't have to do, but it would've in their own way. Yeah. And I think that's the thing, like that's the price of getting to also explore this stuff with so much freedom and so much...
Mason:
And that's something I think is gonna land in terms of like just giving you all the distinction on where I'm at, and we're at with this podcast especially, and what we're delivering. And, uh, I think something you'll hear from me, you know, the 10,000 and like the five elements, uh, are, uh, uh, in a really nice way. There's like more right, wrong. There's morality there. There's like little protocols you can do and little, you know, in the health world it's like, you know, little cleansers and going on little stints of, uh, eating intentionally in this way in order to get this result. It's a very, in this world.
And if you've had those experiences where you've moved away from, uh, that material existence, or you move inwardly closer potentially, maybe sometimes it's just like a, uh, it's not a genuine spiritual experience, but I feel like a lot of, sometimes I have had those experiences coming closer towards the one, the Uji, and the original intention. And like many people that have come on the other side of like, such deep dives, especially in, uh, late twenties now, uh, the 10,000 things in that world of the five elements, just sometimes I'm really trying to find the enjoyment of that world a lot more at the moment. So on this podcast, you'll probably hear me going through that. Like, I've really gone through a stage of like, uh, "I just can't hear one more discovery in the science that leads to teeth being healthier if you do this one thing." It's like I've lost all the dopamine.
But I'm really going to try. That comes with a certain level of like disengagement. But on the other side, I do find really high quality about where I've been over the last few years and what I wanna make sure that we've got both in this podcast is we will talk about all those things, but there's only so much, uh, you're really going to achieve in that area. And so much power falls into practitioner arms and different diets and different dogmas and, uh, that's what happens within that world. All of you listening have experienced when you move beyond, uh, right, wrong, an external groupthink, and you start forming your own inner antenna, which is invisible. You feel, you make moves that, uh, maybe you'd have to, if you were looking for validation externally, there'd be a lot of explanation to justify, uh, the moves that you were making.
But there, once you get into that space, which is, as I was saying before, in cultivation, you start by collecting the five elements and the colors, and you're like, "Oh my God, this is so cool." And as soon as you can move past the colors and move past the emotions of them, get down to the rawest form and then the rawest form that collects into your lower cauldron. And then bang! As soon as you've moved past that, you don't go back and work with them again. You go straight to the point where you're working in the three. Uh, and then ideally, uh, in, uh, refining your capacity to perceive the two where everything becomes hyper simplified in just the transformation and the unification of Yin-Yang. It takes many, many, many years.
Uh, I found that Sheng Gong very distracting almost in, "Yeah, I can imagine." Almost dangerous in the fact that, you know, uh, trying to celebrate, uh, just increasing a particular marker in the body or increasing, you know, like going through a stint and, achieving a goal on a diet, achieving a financial goal. Acknowledging, uh, material success. I think that's where I'm gonna be exploring a lot, uh, in the podcast. But almost, you'll probably feel me coming back and enjoying the 10,000 a little bit more, I hope. Which is, I think what most podcasts do. It's just like, and this thing, and try this thing, and try this thing. And did you know this? Get angry at those guys because they don't. And, and it's like new distinction. It's like a distinction fest. Uh, but, uh, the major focus of this podcast, ultimately we'll hear from practitioners, and we've got an oncologist, uh, lined up.
We've got, uh, a bunch of really incredible people. So it's gonna be so much beautiful information. But we're always gonna drag it back. So how do you cross that threshold away from, uh, something just hitting that heart-mind and then, uh, keeping you interfacing purely with like, "I hope this is correct," and really crossover into the Jing, Qi, Shen of what matters? So the Jing: restoring your foundation, protecting your essence, especially from disease and degeneration, just so you've got good bones until you get to an elder. The Qi is really making sure that you are making really hyper-personalized decisions that aren't based on full external culture. Uh, if, as long as that culture isn't, uh, designed specifically for you, like a family culture, uh, so you can activate life, cultivating energetic flow to feel really alive and capable of engaging fully with your purpose.
And that's also with just making sure you've got the energy in your inner antenna, which comes alive when you're in touch with your treasures. And then even if you wanna take away the treasure's terminology, you're really just like trying to land yourself in a place where, uh, you've lived life in a very sensible, reasonable manner where you can, uh, really get to the end of your life, you know, put together. There's gonna be very particular initiations. Your antenna's gonna turn on every now and then. You don't know why. You're gonna have to shift direction. Uh, but you just need to do it. And that's so make sure you have the Qi to do that 'cause that takes a lot of energy. It takes a lot of kinetic energy to do it. And then the Shen: making sure you are expressing your unique spirit, refining your cosmic individuality, uh, sharing your wisdom and preparing to die very, uh, well.
We will always try and bring those conversations back and land them in a place and talking, whether it's with a practitioner or someone who is teaching, uh, various practices, or even if we're talking about Schisandra, uh, you might come away. Hopefully I'll be able to really reengage with that 10,000 part of myself where it's like, "So Schisandra's just awesome!" That's always should, uh, you should take Schisandra and let's get really horny for it. Uh, but, uh, at the other side of it, uh, really making sure that we're not just leaving it, uh, on the shelf where, two years later you're like, "Why was I taking that again? Why was that hyper relevant to me? When does it?" You know, there's like a... there is a relevance to your three treasures and where Schisandra will really help stack a few odds in your favor. Maybe get you an extra few years.
Maybe get you going through spring a little bit easier. That can be really, uh, significant to your three treasures. It's a very significant tool in the context of, uh, your treasures and your, uh, journey back to whatever. I don't know. Uh, just through life. You know, we talk about the Dao here. We don't know what, I don't know what's going on. I have no agenda, but I think dying well is really cool. Uh, not being a projective person, not even if you have been a projective person, or you know, even, uh, just being able to just resolve, uh, in your old age. Uh, just like be able to find the diamonds of your wisdom and share them with the world. So, they're the two sides. That's the bridge from the 10,000 to the three. And then we will move further and further into the simplification of the two, the one, and then we will talk about the ultimate mystery quite often in this podcast.
But that's what you can expect that we're gonna be. So we'll talk about herbs, but we're gonna talk about a lot of other stuff as well.
Tahnee:
Uh, you know, the whole dying well piece. Read Nick Cave's, uh, letter yesterday and he was talking about his blog. Uh, yeah, well he does a email letter called The Red Hand Files where he responds to people's questions. And if you don't know him, he's a musical artist who's lost a couple of sons as well as, you know, he's now in his late sixties, I think. So he is lost many people in his life. And they were talk, the question was about grief and, "Do you ever get over losing your child?" You know, it's been 10 years since his son died. And he said like, "There's a sweetness to the grief now, uh, that wasn't there in the beginning. It was just bitter." Uh, one of the biggest things he learned was that we're all gonna die. You know, he's like, "I just had an ever hit me like how immortal we are." And I think there's this real, I'm interviewing Stephen Jenkinson.
When we were on the previous podcast, so if you are listening to this, you can check that out. So one of my fa... it was probably the interview that really stuck with me the most of all the ones we did. Yeah. Uh, I was like, uh, "Death is like birth, it's like this transition." And he's like, "Yeah, except when you die, you're dead." And I was like, "What?" Uh, I think so few of us actually look ahead to that. Uh, and my yoga teacher, Paul Grilley, that's one of the things he speaks about a lot now as he's gotten older. And, you know, I'm already thinking there's an amazing author that maybe we could get on to speak about death through the Daoist lens. But yeah, I think weaving that conversation into health and into wellness and like actually like, what is wellness? Are we terrified of mortality? Do we not wanna get crinkled and wrinkled and old and gray and like face our own demise?
Like what's really going on underneath the surface? Uh, when you talk about degeneration, it's like one of my favorite things you always said was actually, uh, kind of sliding into the grave light, not being wasted and deteriorating, uh, and being unable to be like, I think of what elderhood means. It's not a given that you're gonna be an elder. Like I know so many older people that can't fulfill that role because their bodies have given out, or they're so bitter from their lives that they aren't able to be generous. Like we've been talking in the women's groups that I'm in of like how the women in their sixties and seventies, because they weren't supported and helped as young mothers, they don't wanna lean back in and help their daughters. They're all tapping out of, uh, that kind of, uh, village support.
And I think a lot of that is, uh, these unprocessed emotions, these unexamined lives. And I think one of the things the herbs do is support us in having the Qi and the Shen, uh, and the Jing to root it, you know, but to actually like, look at ourselves, truly. I mean, I think of Reishi. Like that's been what Reishi has been for me since the beginning. Is I've been taking Reishi for more than 10 years now, and I feel like it's just this orientation back to myself every time I take that herb and work with that herb. And...
Mason:
Yeah, that side of things. Uh, I think one of the nice things about this podcast at about the Jing, Qi, Shen is Jing, Qi, Shen is reality. 10,000 things can be the real world. It's a nice thing is you can go get lost in it and get outside of the reality. And everyone has got an antenna. Everyone has the capacity to become an elder.
Tahnee:
Mm.
Mason:
It's a real funny feeling when it's like, it's not a guarantee. You don't just yeah, do ayahuasca a few times and turn 16, walk around, get a badge. You know, hang around with people who, uh, hug a really long time and, uh, go and work in charity and so on and so forth. It's like if you haven't sat in the reality of the emotional grittiness or, uh, personal little initiations you need to resolve, uh, you probably won't land there. Mm-hmm. And that's, I think, a nice thing that we get a chance to, you know, it's the, the nature of our world is we try and keep it very realistic. Uh, I really don't like idealism, which kind of means, uh, for me in this podcast, like, this is why we practice Daoism and take herbs is 'cause like, we're not know-it-alls. I personally don't really know how to have like a smooth, uh, graceful life and have lots of smooth emotions. I'm definitely not here.
Uh, I don't like that facade, uh, especially of the wellness and the entrepreneurial world. Uh, and I think that's something, I think that's interesting and I think that's why I'm gonna enjoy this version 'cause I'm so honed into idealism now. I really, you know, as I always have, I like going like, "Okay, cool, but like, can you please show me the relevance on what that's?" People adhere. "Okay, cool. What does that then, what does this really mean to them, mean, uh, to their longevity and, uh, in order for them to become, uh, more of themselves?" And for where I'm at the moment I'm looking at, uh, there isn't just some easy path when you choose Daoism.
Uh, I'm like dealing with my own, if you wanna go into the flavors, like my own bitterness and saltiness from things in life, uh, whether it's mum being sick or not being able to be Peter Pan and just going around and gallivant around and just be like, "Oh my God. There's another thing, there's another thing in business," and, uh, "That's another year of just sitting in these finance meetings that's like," uh, "and I am quite, you know, I don't wanna say great. I really don't even know what gratitude is anymore." But I'm like, I've liked in my twenties going and putting myself through harsh initiations and this is a harsh initiation. I feel like that's an interesting to talk about. You know, that's an interesting thing to try and gain tools for.
Not just suppressing that and be like, "Oh my God, why would you be angry?" Just be like, that's an irrelevant question, because that's the reality of it, you know? Mm-hmm. And there's lots of joy at the same time over here as well. But these are the types of things that, the lens that you can have, uh, uh, when listening to this podcast, uh, knowing that's in the background, there's gonna be very interesting ways that that's gonna fit into your three treasures and therefore your comprehension of the, uh, simplicity of Yin-Yang in this, uh, universe. And, yeah, hopefully untangle a little bit of that heart-mind, uh, unprogram a little bit, that heart-mind, so you can, you know, it always needs fresh software updates. So you just like disentangle yourself from what you think you are, you know, who you are.
Uh, this culture is just so amazing and so bad at the transformation metamorphosis process, which is really quite practical a lot of the time, making those little shifts in career or, like internal personal culture, habits, lifestyle that, you know, just tweak a little bit and don't just give you a moral, "I'm doing the right thing," but really put you on a trajectory where your antenna goes, "Yeah, this is good for my Jing. This is really good for my Qi. Mm-hmm. This is really good for my Shen." But it often takes you going at it from a, uh, very non... it's probably not PC kind of angle when you're facing the reality of what's going on inside yourself and how to apply the lessons and the teachings to what's actually going on. Uh, and hopefully many of you're in nice cruisy times of life as well.
And then it's preparing for the next one big time to make sure that you are like really well, yeah, you're really well prepared for the next big hump and, uh, the next big initiation. And maybe you don't even notice it that much. And you do have a really graceful life because you've been sitting actually in the driver's seat. You haven't just been living a life on some wellness trend or religion's terms and, uh, what's good, what's bad. You're really cultivating your own sense of what that is and what's right for you.
Tahnee:
I don't have anything to add to that.
Mason:
Alright. Again, uh, that's the podcast. Uh, we are back. Uh, Tahnee has lots of new cool offerings as well. Not just the podcast, which is Body of Wisdom. So go and subscribe to that now. And while you're at it, go and subscribe to the SuperFeast podcast as well. Uh, but we mentioned the Birth Magic course that Tahnee launched four months ago.
Tahnee:
Yeah, I think in April. So, yep. Uh, I think that's really a beautiful offering. If you're interested in exploring what we've learned about birth over the last eight years since our first child was born, uh, through, you know, our own experiences, also through, uh, the people we've been fortunate to meet and interview, uh, and a lot of it's just what I've learned through my own experience and embodying, uh, the process of birth, especially free birth, I think, which is a big initiation and an opportunity to really reckon with oneself. Uh, it's very much like an internal journey. Uh, and if you want to get it, it's, uh, always available to purchase. And then there's these live calls that I do every six weeks or so where I connect with the women and we can ask questions and stuff. So Mason has a piece on it, uh, for dads, which is beautiful.
And, yeah, I've had some beautiful babies born and women offering their feedback. It feels very precious, that course. So I don't really like to promote it in the, you know, using air quotes, but I think it's, uh, very rewarding to hear women having like very conscious births. I think it's very special. And...
Mason:
Daoist Energetics is another course. Is that an intake coming up?
Tahnee:
No, I am not gonna be running that until 2026. But there is a waitlist you can get on if you're interested. Uh, but some of the stuff we've talked about today, uh, fasting the heart-mind, uh, the three treasures and just the cosmology of Daoism, but also, uh, you know, it's evolving that course. I'm not sure what the next iteration of it will look like, but we'll be covering a lot of the topics that we talk about in this podcast, but more from the lens of practice and I guess it's, uh, evolving more into women's kind of work a little bit, I think, just based on the audience that I speak to. But yeah, just hit me up. You can email me or, uh, reach out to me on social media and I can give you some info when I have it. It'll be sometime next year.
Mason:
Cool. Leo?
Tahnee:
Yeah.
Mason:
Thank you. Thank you. Jump on Tahnee's newsletter as well. I know a lot of you here would, uh, probably have found her already, but maybe missing hearing from her every other week when she was on the podcast. So you can go get a little Tahnee in your newsletter, uh, uh, in your email, through her newsletter. And, thank you everybody for coming along and, uh, uh, following along with us as we've had a hiatus and now we're, we are back. And, um, yeah, just if you've made it this far into the episode, really excited. I'm really excited just to, what I'm gonna be learning over the next little bit. And, you know, the crew at SuperFeast that are here to tune into these types of, uh, episodes every single week and be drawing content and inspiration and ideas. And yeah, uh, you need a little bit of color, a color, uh, in the day-to-day business operations sometimes.
And I think this is, um, it's always what kept me going as the reminder of like, herbs are a beautiful tool and beautiful friends. Uh, they really are just supporting what the ultimate intention is, uh, to what we're, why SuperFeast started in the first place, which is why what we've covered today at length. So, thank you very much. Can't wait to be releasing an episode, uh, hopefully every week. Uh, I'm kind of also just going about it casually. If we happen to not be able to release one, I won't. If I happen to be on a roll and, uh, we've got two loaded and it's all one's time sensitive, then we're gonna be releasing twice a week. So we'll see where we land everybody. But we love you and I hope you have a beautiful day.
Tahnee:
Yeah. Thanks so much for being with us through this. I know. Uh, it means a lot to both of us for having this community and all of your ears and your hearts and supporting SuperFeast. So, yeah, very special.
Mason:
See ya.
