Shamanism, Stand-Up Comedy, and the Adventure of Being Alive

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Hi everybody. Well, hi James. I see that you’re watching. Thank you for joining me tonight. I’ve had a couple of weeks off from live streaming. I went on a trip, um, with my grandson. We went to Denver, visited my daughter and it was so much fun. He’s just turned six. He was five when I had him. I just love spending time with a, a five, six year old and seeing the world through their eyes.

We went up to Pike’s Peak. We saw dinosaur tracks and it was just a reminder of who we really are. [00:02:00] Uh, we’re like, we’re still like that five year old at the core. If we can get rid of, you know, all of these, uh, limiting beliefs and, and things that we’ve started to learn when we were, I think, going to school, I don’t know, he’s, he’s entering first grade, so it’ll be interesting to see how he changes this year.

And, um, so anyway, I’m going to bring in my guest, Hillary and Hillary, Dr. Hillary Webb is a cultural anthropologist and she’s a mixed media storyteller with a focus on theater anthropology. And cross-cultural perspectives on human consciousness. And Hillary describes her work as experience, how we make meaning of this wonderful, terrible, ecstatic startling, and often absurd world in which we live.

And, uh, that’s so true. And Hillary, I’m glad that you’re here to join us. Oh, what happened? I don’t. It was weird. It was cool. Which side would you like me on? Oh, I know. I [00:03:00] have to do that. Nice. And I’ll switch you over to this side. There we go. yeah. you can tell I’ve had a week off two weeks off. It must have felt great.

That must have felt great. Yeah, it really did. And, um, I was thinking that you probably would have something to say about what I just said about what it’s like viewing the world. from a five year old’s perspective. Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I don’t have children, so I, I can’t say, uh, except very kind of, um, actually, you know, even more than a five year old’s perspective, I’ve even been thinking a lot lately about what it was like to be a, a, an 18 year old, I think for me, because it’s easier to recall in memory.

The, the things that struck me when I was 18. I think that’s such an exciting time, cuz you’re really finding out who you are beyond what your parents have given you. Yeah. What you’ve, you know, been taught and the world becomes so magical in the sense of you are, you know, at least I certainly remember things that I’m like, ah, [00:04:00] There’s this in the world.

Oh yeah. I’m happy to be here. How cool. I can’t remember five so much, but 18. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, five is just kind of innocent and curious about everything and it, you know, a lot of times it’s, you know, seeing things for the first time that we’re already really like over, you know, like going on an airplane, you know?

Right. Oh, it’s exciting. We’re in the air one day I was on the plane. Uh, about a year or so ago. And this 40 year old man was on the plane. We were flying from Charlotte to Charlottesville and he was, or to Richmond, I think he was so excited to be on the plane. It was his first time at 40. Wow. And it was just so cool.

Like. Yeah, we’re taking off. Yeah. We’re landing. He had his recorder out and everything. how cool. Sweet. Yeah. Yeah. So you you’ve, uh, you know, I always ask my guests, well, what do you wanna title this show? And you titled it, shamanism stand up [00:05:00] comedy and the adventure of being alive. And, uh, I’m really excited to hear from you how.

Go together, how you came up with the title, you know? And so any, any way you wanna start in, go ahead, you know, describing your background or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, so I’m a cultural anthropologist and the way, and I would say, you know, starting in the middle. Uh, I became a cultural anthropologist because I’m just so interested in how people around the world make meaning of this wonderful, terrible, absurd, uh, startling world that we live in.

And I, I think part of the reason I titled it, that is that people often look at my I’ve written four books and people will often look at my book titles and say, okay, you’ve written. Essentially three books on shamanism and one book on standup comedy in Berlin. How did you get from shamanism to standup comedy?

And you’re an anthropologist. Yes, yes. Okay. And I don’t do standup [00:06:00] comedy. So my, my relationship to the standup comedy club in Berlin was completely from an. Logical and personal, uh, connection to it. And I can certainly talk about that story as well, but just looking at those two things in, in sort of, from sort of a broad view, uh, I’m always, you know, one of my passions with what I do is that I’m always looking for, uh, interesting ways that people are making meaning of the world.

So. Uh, you know, I, I grew up in Salem, Massachusetts, which, uh, some people may be familiar with as sort of the historical site of. Salem witch trials. Mm-hmm um, and as a child, you know, it’s a very exciting place to grow up for me because it was very much open to other ways of knowing, uh, you know, the bookstores were full of books on witchcraft and psychic phenomenon, that kind of thing.

And I was raised in a, in a non-religious household. So I sort of had this sort of like [00:07:00] blank slate in a way as much as any of us can have a blank slate. Mm-hmm which that’s another story, but , uh, Yeah. So I’ve just always been really interested in what human we human beings are capable of and what our potential is.

Yeah. Beyond what we’re taught and beyond what we know and beyond what our cultural lens, you know, often allows us to see. So, uh, I eventually, you know, in my mid twenties got introduced to shamanism, which, um, Is a very, very general blanket umbrella term for the spiritual practices of people around the world who are very earth centered, who are working with the land in, in a sort of indigenous way who are working with ritual and healing and spirits and going into altered states of consciousness in order to achieve, and the team, uh, healing, power and knowledge and that kind of thing.

And I was very fascinated with it because I was finding, there are ways. Uh, [00:08:00] and to, for my sort of skeptical, scientific mind, I was seeing ways in which that could be, uh, it didn’t have to be on faith. It could be proven as a thing that was actually happening, that these intentions really were actually paying off in the, in the quote unquote real world.

Um, can you give an example of that? Yeah. Uh, Well, for example, uh, one of the things that has become part of core shamanism, which is sort a distillation of shamanic practices from the ground, the world, a man named Michael Harner, um, kind of took what he saw as the main, um, practices that are typically practiced amongst shamanic traditions and distilled them kind of down into one sort of Americanized version.

And one of the things that one does in Coors shamanism is shamonic journeying. And you go into a kind of hypnotic state, isn’t really the right word, but it’s a quasi hypnotic. Uh, [00:09:00] self-guided visualization, essentially. Mm-hmm, often to drum beats and things like that. And I remember being guided through a journey, um, in the woods and the instructor said, okay, now go down this particular path that we’d all.

Seen the beginning of, and I had not been to the end and go to the end of it in your mind and, and, you know, tell me what you see. And I was kinda like, okay, In my mind walking down the, the path and in the middle of this path was a shell, an oyster shell. And I’m like, you know, in my, my rational mind, I’m like, well, I can’t be because why would there be a big oyster shell in the middle of the woods, in New Jersey and, uh, then, you know, after we came out of the shamonic journey, he said, you know, okay, go down the path.

And, uh, sure enough, there was the shell that I had seen. So you went down the actual path and there was the shell. And in actual practice, there was the shell and. And it was one of those things. I have to always remind myself that that actually happened because it’s so [00:10:00] easy for the logical mind to go. Uh, that couldn’t possibly be.

Yeah. That’s what my mind says. Yeah. And you’d never been on the trail? No, no. So. You know, uh, that was exciting to me. It’s not like, you know, it’s something I’ve, I’ve re recreated a couple times, but it’s not something I feel like I can recreate on command mm-hmm uh, but you know, and so whatever that means, which I’m not ascribing any particular ontological viewpoint about what that, the significance of that is, but it happened.

Yeah. So, you know, it’s that kind of thing that I find very, uh, exciting and interesting. So, um, sort of skipping ahead, when it came time for me to do my doctoral work in psychology, I decided to focus on psychological anthropology. I went to Peru and spent time down there looking at the concept of Yonin or complimentary opposites as the sort of philosophical basics of the, um, Peruvian world view.

And, [00:11:00] you know, in the, in the Western world, we tend to see. Opposites as being in an antagonistic relationship in a battle mm-hmm whereas in the Andy and tradition, it’s, uh, more, it’s a dance rather than a battle mm-hmm . So I, I wrote my, one of my, my third book on you, not the concept of Yon and how these ideas that come from cultures that are quite different than the Western culture I was grow.

I was raised in, has kind of a beautiful way of navigating relat. And, you know, having sort of been taught, uh, in the, the, the battle mentality to be shown a way of engaging with the world where. Uh, antagonistic relationships can go through a four stage process to go from this battle to a dance, to a unified pro to sort of a unified relationship in a really harmonious way is really exciting for me.

And, you know, something that just [00:12:00] being an anthropologist, I feel it it’s a really exciting opportunity to travel around the world. and gather tools for our toolbox because we do get so locked into our cultural perceptions of how things are, what a problem is. What a solution is that the diversity of ideas and ways of engaging with the world is.

So important and so necessary for us to open up our minds too. Yeah, no, I agree. I’m wondering, like I have no idea if what I’m gonna say is similar to what you’re talking about, but in one of my coaching programs I’ve learned and a, a coach led us through this where you think about one thing. And then you think about its opposite and you go back and forth, you think angry, but you feel it, you feel really angry and then they ask you to feel like happy.

And I’m just picking out two things, angry, happy, angry, happy. Eventually they meld into one. They do this [00:13:00] dance, the angry and the happy. And you realize that you can choose. If you really think about being angry and, and start you really start to feel it. If you really think to be happy, you really start to feel it and you can kind of meld it into unity is that’s like what you’re talking about.

Absolutely. That’s such a wonderful example and such a wonderful, I love, I love that because it is a very, it’s a great, um, user friendly way of kind of thinking about it and applying it to our lives because you know, it is, it is this dialectic process. If you have. The angry feeling and the happy feeling, and you bring those two together.

What is the third thing that comes out of that, that reconciles them and makes the world bigger and perhaps makes us more productive as human beings within the world. Yeah, that’s just one example, but when you’re feeling something, work on feeling the opposite and then go back and forth mm-hmm and then you realize.[00:14:00]

I could feel the two of them together. And what does that feel like? Yeah, it’s exciting. And I think wonderful training. I don’t think we get a lot of huh. Training in our culture to hold to two seemingly opposite feelings at once and to even feel . Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I think that complexity of feeling can be so.

Uh, or, or not recognizing that the, that complexity of feeling is completely human, completely natural. And so we get so confused and like uptight and feel like we have to choose one feeling or the other, and yeah. Or perhaps it’s a feeling that combines both like, uh, grief. Or right. Yeah. Right. Because you can feel in grief both ways.

Yeah. Or, or we ignore it cuz we don’t know what to do with it. And we just distract ourselves while like let’s go on social media or let’s uh, watch Netflix or eat some ice cream or something and we don’t really, you. [00:15:00] Know how I’m speaking for myself, how I used to be. You don’t really know how to name our feelings and mm-hmm , um, and to process them, and then they get stuck as energy in our body.

Exactly. And come out in all kinds of strange ways that we, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Are you a shaman? No. what is the difference between, you know, studying shamanism and then maybe being a shaman? Well, uh, shaman, it’s sort of the difference between, I would say somebody who, uh, studies an interview psychologist and somebody who is a psychologist.

Okay. Yeah. I don’t see clients. I have not been trained as a shamonic shaman or shamonic practitioner. Um, my interest is, um, I love interviewing people, you know, I imagine you feel the same because it’s this opportunity to, you know, say, Hey, you know, what’s, what’s your life like, and who are you? And yeah, I learned from all my guests.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have to say I’ve never had a boring conversation or a conversation that I [00:16:00] haven’t gone away with some little, like even mini aha moment talking to people about yeah. You know, what. gets them enthusiastic about the world. So you, you have a master’s in consciousness studies, mm-hmm, like, what are the kinds of things you study and, and, you know, first off, maybe even just describe what what’s your definition of consciousness.

Yeah. Um, I, you know, I have a definition of consciousness that I, uh, have not memorized, so I won’t try to, because it’s fairly, um, you know, I mean, for me, And again, you know, if you ask me this on a different day, I might even have a totally different answer. I, I tend to think of consciousness as the filter, through which we.

Acquire information mm-hmm and our consciousness can expand so that we get are able to bring in more information or it contract so that we can really get stuck in one way of looking at [00:17:00] things. Um, you know, a part of my Y work for the, the book included, going into ceremony with, uh, some Peruvian shamans and using the Mescalin cactus, San Pedro, to have an experience of.

This concept of complimentary opposites. So that’s sort of one way in which your filter can be slightly disrupted to expand so that new information is able to come. It’s not for everyone and it’s not the right tact for everyone, but I was in good hands. So I, I went for that option. Yeah. Well, what do you mean using the cactus?

Like what did you do with the cactus? Uh, well, I’ll start the story by saying, uh, you know, when I got to Peru for my first field work trip, I met with, um, the shaman Amato, who I talk about in the book. And, uh, I sit down with them in the Plaza and I pull out my notebook, like a good Western PhD student.

Yeah. And go, okay, can you please define Yon? And he smiled and he said, well, out of respect for it, I don’t define yonta, but may I suggest that you [00:18:00] download it from the cosmos instead? Um, and of course I’m going yes, but how do I cite that?

Um, and what he meant by that was rather than, and he did define it and he did talk, you know, in an intellectual sort of way with me about it. But he said, you know, in order for you to really understand it, you need to have an experience of it. And one of the tools that they use for the acquisition of knowledge and new understanding is, uh, San Pedro, which is a masculine cactus.

And it gets boiled down to a very goy. Uh, drink. And then we would go into ceremony and have two to three to four cups of it and sit back and, and let the world expand. And wow, let the world have its way with us. And why can’t the world have its way? Can the world have its way with us without relying on a cactus or, you know, whatever else that people use.

How do you get in touch with [00:19:00] that? because we do have access to it. Right. Even without that, or I think, yeah. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. You know, it’s, uh, psychedelics tend to be a bit of a rocket ship for good. And for, for ill mm-hmm I think they absolutely have their place, but certainly not the only way that people can get there, you know, and everybody has their own kind of key doorway through to that.

And some people meditation is where it’s at. Mm-hmm music. Mm. Um, yeah, I mean, I, I think that people have all kinds of create playing music, listening to music. There’s just kind of all kinds of ways in there. It really comes down to, I think, in the end, just, uh, getting out of routine and being quiet and being open and trying to be aware and doing your best, not to get distracted by.

Everyday life by what’s in the refrigerator [00:20:00] by your to-do list. Yeah. Um, which is why it is so nice to go away. Um, and have, you know, on any kinds of retreats or, or even if you’re on vacation, sitting on the beach and just not even reading a book, just listening to the ocean waves. Yeah. Just being, and, um, so I used to have a really hard time doing that, that cuz my, it was just impossible.

So I had to do a lot of work on myself and I realized, you know, that I tend to achieve or feeling good enough about myself, you know, or to avoid my feelings. I stay busy and you know, all these things I’ve kind of learned. And I, and I used to think that I couldn’t slow down like that and to just be, and now I can, and it feels really good.

So I just encourage anybody who thinks, well, I can’t do that. It, you can, it takes some practice. You may not. Right away. Um, and you may not be able to do it for five minutes, but maybe for a minute, uh, 30 seconds. And, um, and then you just kind of work [00:21:00] up to it, but it takes an intention, intentional decision, you know, being intentional about it too, cuz it’s so easy to get wrapped up in the world and not, and be busy and not set aside time to be.

Yeah, so true to our, to our disadvantage. Yeah. And is that just in the United States for the most part? Oh, you know, uh, I think it’s probably, I think it’s everywhere in, in different ways. Yeah. You know, there, I don’t think there’s any culture that doesn’t have their own distractions. Um, but some cultures are maybe have, uh, more, more.

Have made more of a habit of being still and quiet mm-hmm , you know, I, I can’t think of exactly what culture this is, but I, I know, uh, there are certain cultures at dinnertime. You don’t talk, you should not talk while you’re eating. Yeah. And what would that be like to just have a very quiet meal where you’re eating and being with other people, but not saying a word.

I’d like to thank everybody. Who’s Chi [00:22:00] chiming in here. If you have any questions for Hillary, please post on Shannon. Thanks for joining James. And we’ve got likes my ink. Thank you. Yeah, James likes your ink. We’ve got Gina here. Uh, we’ve got. Asar sari, David. I’m not sure if I know you and then, uh, Alexandria, Rosa.

So thank you all for joining us. And if you have any questions, uh, for, for Hillary just, uh, post ’em in the comments, I’ll see ’em and I’ll pull ’em up and we can address them. Cool. So what’s this standup comedy doing in the title of this episode? Yeah. Yeah. Well, um, so. I had sort of moved away from shamanism, uh, simply because I felt like, you know, the work, my work in Peru was done.

I’d gotten my PhD, the book was out. Um, and I just sort of felt like, okay, I’m, I’m sort of ready to work in the mundane world. Quote unquote, I’m ready to see how we in ordinary life. And I’ll just [00:23:00] say, you know, that’s for my biased per ordinary life, my kind of ordinary life. Right. Um, And I, you know, I was sort of looking around for a pro for a writing project for a research project.

Couldn’t really find one. It had been a few years since I had had worked, uh, you know, I was doing various jobs, this and that. And in the fall of 2017, I was feeling frustrated by the state of the world. Felt like I really needed to get outta the United States, just tired of the screaming headlines and the culture wars and the, um, you.

Right. All that we’ve been dealing with. And I, you know, I was like, okay, you know, I haven’t taken a vacation in a really long time. And somebody had just mentioned, had mentioned that they had just gotten back from Berlin and I’m like, Berlin. Yeah. I’ve always wanted to go to Berlin because Berlin I’m a big fan of experimental theater.

And, um, which also for me is a way of expanding. My consciousness is theater. And so I said, okay, I’m gonna take a week. And I’m just going to get tickets to see [00:24:00] experimental theater. I’m going to. Do tours of the city. And I’m just gonna clear my head and have a little time out of my habits and out of my stressed out, very discouraged, rather sad mind that I’ve been feeling mm-hmm lately.

Uh, so I went to Berlin and I saw a bunch of experimental theater. and I had tickets to Everett to shows for every night, except for one. And on that one night, I thought, okay, what am I gonna do with my evening? And so I got on my phone and said, you know, what’s going on in Berlin tonight? And the first thing I found was a comedy, a standup comedy club called cosmic comedy.

That build itself is the friendliest comedy club in Europe. Okay. And, uh, I was like, okay. You know, honestly, I, I don’t really like standup comedy cuz it can be pretty. Aggressive. And it can be a little mean, and it’s not really my vibe and gee, uh, okay. Well, sure. Why not free pizza and shots? I mean, so, [00:25:00] so I went with very low expectations and ended up having that be my favorite part of my trip because they’re in this basement, dark basement.

Dark beer smelling basement in Berlin, in the former east Berlin. There were people from, and it’s an all ish speaking comedy club, but there were people from all over the world, in the audience and on stage, I think that night, uh, of the comedians, there were somebody from Iceland, somebody from Croatia, somebody from Sri Lanka, somebody from Germany, somebody from Canada, somebody from India.

Wow. So people from all over the world. Yeah. Talking making, you know, making humor out of what it is to be a person at this particular political stage in our existence. In our, this point in history, what it was like to be, um, I don’t know somebody from Sri Lanka living in Berlin and what that was like for [00:26:00] him and doing it in a humorous way.

And, you know, I think a couple things struck me one as, as an anthropologist, I was, you know, just really blown away by the fact that no matter where we were from in the audience, everybody seemed to get the same jokes, because I think because of our highly networked world and the social media, we’ve all seen the same memes.

So we. For maybe the first time in history, we’re all on the same page when it comes to humor, which I thought that’s kind of interesting. Um, doesn’t mean we enjoy the same humor all the time. Right. But at least we tend to, you know, because we’re, yeah, we get it. Uh, and just, you know, was very exciting to see how are people making meaning of themselves as cultural beings, you know, in a comedic.

and just personally, what I was really struck with the beautiful community toss, which is collective joy that was being created or liberated during this, [00:27:00] uh, expression of joy and humor and laughter amongst a bunch of strangers. And because they want it to be the friendliest comedy club in Europe and wanna make it very safe and friendly space, the producers and the.

The host, very, you know, setting up a series of very specific ways of, you know, this is how we’re gonna make it friendly. And these are the rules of engagement mm-hmm and succeeding in a really beautiful way. And, uh, at the end of my trip, I emailed them and said, Hey, I wanna come back to Berlin in a month or two.

I’m gonna spend a month there. And I wanna just hang out with you guys in your club, interview people and find out what your secret recipe is. The creation of collective joy amongst a group of international strangers. So I ended up doing that for two, three years, writing a book, and then recently had that published this year.

So that decision to do something on a night you had off in, in Berlin led you to write a book. [00:28:00] Yeah. The friendliest place in the universe. Love laughter and stand up comedy in Berlin. Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. So much. Yeah. Yeah. And there, again, getting the chance to talk to the comedians who have such different life stories and finding out what it is about humor and, uh, their experiences of, um, you know, what is it to be an American living in Berlin?

Was it to be a Croatian living in Berlin and also diving into some of the darker stuff? Like what is the shadow side of collective. That all comes up in my book as well. Okay. Yeah, because you, you went over there because you were like really frustrated with the political climate, the climate, the, the way everyone was yelling at each other and stuff in the us.

And you found a place where despite all the differences and differences and backgrounds and things like that, everybody was friendly and laughing. Yeah. Yeah. [00:29:00] Yeah. And, uh, it was, it was very sweet. And then, you know, of course, like, so the, I call the book an anthropological memoir because on the one hand, it is a study of what is community tasks, collective joy.

And, and how does it become liberated in a group of, amongst a group of people. And it’s also a personal journey. Having to sort of deal with my own, you know, desire for the perfect world or at least a little tiny corner of the world. That’s perfect and wonderful and joyous and communal and realizing that was true for me, but it’s not necessarily gonna be true for everyone and kind of having to come to grips with that.

So, yeah, it’s both a, it’s both a study and a personal kind of revelation book. That’s awesome. So, wow. I. What kinds of comedy were they, they were just talking about the world in the comedy was just about like things going on in the world at that time. [00:30:00] Yeah. I mean, it was, it was a combination of a lot of things.

Um, you know, some, some of it was fairly standard comedy that could be presented at any time in history probably, which was just, you know, and that was, that did that kind of comedy didn’t necessarily make it into the book just simply because it felt like I was really looking for. Um, how are people relating to this particular stage in our yeah.

Evolution as humans? Yeah. So, uh, Yeah, it’s, it’s hard to that’s the, the one thing about writing about a comedy book is it’s so hard to repeat the comedy Uhhuh in a way that it makes sense because I I’ve tried. And honestly, it sort of falls flat when I try to recreate it. Like, Nope. , um, . Yeah, but you know, people talking about Brexit and laughing, although, you know, laughing about how well I may not be here in a year because of Brexit mm-hmm mm-hmm and it’s, and that’s one of the interesting things.

It’s, it’s not funny on one level, they make it funny. And, you know, [00:31:00] talking about that, uh, complimentary opposites in that kind of dialect. Yeah. In the, in, in the funny, not in between the funny, not funny or when funny and not funny combined for me. What was born out of? That was a great sense of empathy that I couldn’t have experienced watching CNN and hearing the statistics about Brexit.

I could have a sort of intellectual understanding of how that might or would affect somebody, but hearing the comedians, uh, for example, you know, commenting on, um, what it’s going to mean for them in a humorous way. maybe go, oh, okay. This is, this is how it, you know, I came to care about them. So then I really came to care about what this meant for them as, as people.

Yeah.

Goes to show that I think it’s really important for us to get out and talk to people that might not have our same [00:32:00] point of view or that might have that have a different background from a different country, instead of assuming what they’re thinking or what they stand for and why without even really talking to them.

Yeah. Let’s really start conversations. And I think when we do that, we find that we’re more alike than we are different. and that our differences also are great and interesting. And, uh, some might be a little maybe scary possibly, but if you kind of, but there, but the differences are new tools. And that’s what, what I tend to find is that it’s, uh, you know, we get in so many ways and especially with social media, we get caught in a loop of very similar perspectives.

Yeah. And to step outside of that loop can be a scary thing. To not even necessarily integrate it into your life. If there’s a perspective that doesn’t work for you, you don’t have to [00:33:00] integrate it in your life. But just to know it’s out there and go, okay, there’s multiple ways of viewing our reality of engaging with the world and making meaning it’s kind of helping you understand consciousness better, but more because it’s like con you said consciousness is kind of the filters the way we look at the world.

So it’s expanding the way you might look at the world because you’re opening. You’re not closing off the way other people think or whatever, and judging them, you’re opening it up and, you know, having a bigger, under a bigger understanding. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And you know, one of the things I, I feel like I got from the work I did in Peru.

This, this sort of idea of, of bringing, you know, that tension is necessary to a relationship because it’s the working out of boundaries. Mm-hmm and what I, where what I took away from that was it. I take things much less personally. Now I can’t say I’m perfect at it, but I take them much less personally, because I know that when the friction happens, it’s a way of working out boundaries.[00:34:00]

And, you know, similarly going into, okay. So, you know, one of the jokes that the, um, the host of cosmic comedy does a lot is talking about the time that he did a show for English speaking, Germans, but the entire. The entire audience was Germans and he was talking about, yeah. And I’m doing my best stuff and they’re just standing there.

They’re just sitting there looking at me. He’s like, yeah. And at the end of the, the end of the night, I said to the, the promoter man, I’m so sorry. You don’t have to pay for me. I, you don’t have to pay me. I, I clearly I bombed and they’re like, no, what are you talking about? You know, they loved you. And, and he’s like, look at anybody, tell their faces that because nobody was laughing.

he’s like, oh, that’s because we didn’t wanna disturb you. We didn’t wanna like throw you off. And, and. Wow there, you know, there’s a, a cultural difference, you know, I mean, I’m not saying that’s true of all Germans, but certainly the audiences that he came across this was true is their cultural norm is to listen politely not laugh.

And you know, of course he couldn’t help, but [00:35:00] take it personally and think I’m, you know, I’m bombing here. But to have that, understanding that in another culture, a very, um, you know, straight face. Oh, I’m paying attention. I’m respecting exactly. You know, I’m listening. Yeah. My eyes are on you. Yeah. That’s interesting.

And so maybe at a, a bigger level, all of this, um, these disagreements politically and whatever else going on in our country, in the world on a bigger level is we’re working things out. yeah, the trick is how do we work things out in a way that’s productive rather than there may be. There may possibly, I don’t know.

This is me speculating cuz who knows how the world works. Maybe certain things need to be destructive to, for new things to be born, kinda like fires. Yeah. How do we as elegantly and. [00:36:00] Respectfully as possible birth, new ideas into the future. Mm-hmm , uh, out of this, what feels like such incredible chaos.

Yeah. Yeah. So your Instagram is, uh, I’m putting it up here, tales from the throne world. Can you tell us how you came up with that? Yeah. Um, so my doctoral work is in existential psychology and one of the main, uh, one of. Main thinkers and existential psychology is Rao may. And he had a really beautiful way of looking at how we engage with the world.

And, uh, he says, you know, we engage with, with three intersecting worlds all at the same time, there is the Egen belt, which is the world of the self, our sort of inter processes, our way of, you know, personal lens through which we see the world, the Miel, which is the world with other people. Um, and then there’s the, um, Uh, VE which is the throne [00:37:00] world.

And so that’s the world of physics and nature. And you know, all these things, we can’t control that we have to learn how to deal with together and in our own selves and stuff like that. So the umbrella term for my work is tales from the throne world, because I’m interested in people’s stories of yeah.

How they make meaning of this world that we’re thrown into, that we really can’t control. Except through trying to find meaning systems that give us, you know, some kind of ease and I don’t know sense of, um, understanding with ourselves and other people. Wow. So you’ve written four books. Yes. You wanna go through there?

You know, people can get them on your website, get to them and read about them, but you wanna just kind of highlight, we talked about one. Sure. Yeah. So the first book that came out was called exploring shamanism. And that’s one that I was asked to write by a publishing company that was doing a whole exploring series.

[00:38:00] Awesome. Not many people are asked to write by a publishing company. I was, yes. Well, I, I was, yes, I was lucky. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, I don’t think it was luck, but go ahead. Well, I, I knew some people and they knew what I liked to do. Mm-hmm I do love to write. Yeah. So that is a, you know, um, you know, very short overview of just some of the basic concepts of shamanism as a whole.

And again, I’m using shamanism a very broad. Kind of way, the next book is called traveling between the worlds conversations with contemporary shamans. And that was an exploration I did early in the early two thousands. I had been studying shamanism and, and taking workshops and I’d gotten to a place where I was like, okay, I’m spent all this money and time studying shamanism, but why, again, what’s the point.

And so I spent a couple years interviewing, uh, teachers and writers of shamanism. And shamans themselves saying, okay, [00:39:00] what is, what can shamanism do for us, the world, the planet that we couldn’t get to on our own. So that’s a series of conversations that I had with, I think 24. Individuals. Can you like summarize a takeaway from that?

And like, what do you mean by traveling between worlds? What worlds? Yeah. Well, CHAM one of the ideas again, speaking generally is that there’s the middle world, the upper L world and the lower world. And there are different spirits and forms of consciousness that inhabit each. and so part of shamanic journeying is that you might travel to the upper middle or lower world.

Okay. And so that’s where that came from. Okay. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, as for a large takeaway, um, you know, we talked about, I talked with so many different people about so many different aspects of shamanism. Uh, one, one phrase I love comes from, uh, Don O Oscar who said. Part of [00:40:00] shamonic mastery is learning how to swim in this liquid universe.

And I just kind of love that. Uh, yeah, it’s learning how to swim with the currents, learning how to swim in such a way that you are, um, yeah. Able to go with the world instead of drown. Yeah. I thought was really lovely. And you know, one of the main, one of the similarities I saw between traditions again, was this idea of it is the polarities are seen in such a softer light than in our Western perspective.

It really is a, there is so much room for gray area and each season, um, is respected for its. And I saying that like literally and metaphorically. Each season is respected for what it brings to the planet. So, you know, winter and summer might be opposites, but each one brings something important. Yeah. Wow.[00:41:00]

Yeah. And then, yeah. And then, uh, then the third one was, and I’ve got actually a copy of that here, which Yanine and Massine and the, and Indian world. And then the friendliest place in the universe. Wow. And they’re all pretty thick books. Yeah. Somewhat. But, uh, I, I like to think that they’re, you know, I always tell people with theanine and missin in the Indian world, I swear it is more interesting to read than the title implies.

I mean, how, how do you, did you always like to write yeah. To come easily to you? Like some people, like, do you have to like really discipline yourself to write or is it just. Flow out when you sit down, it doesn’t always flow out. That there’s really nothing. I love more. It gets me outta bed in the morning because wow.

Yeah, I, yeah. I mean, you know, it’s not like I sit down and wonderful stuff comes, you know, out of me, not in the least, but. Yeah, it is, it is the way I express myself the best. I would [00:42:00] say for sure. It’s the way I’m being an introvert. That’s certainly the way I feel most comfortable expressing my ideas. And I would say the thing I love about writing books is that I’ve never written a book because I knew something about a topic.

I write books because I wanna learn something about a topic. Yeah. And so. Hopefully it comes across, certainly, you know, for the reader, we’re, we’re learning it together and I’m kind of, uh, walking along with the reader. It’s usually, so I have some background in, but yeah. Yeah. But you interviewed the shaman, you were learning from them.

You’re like, kinda like me with my podcast. I’m doing it, but verbally I’m learning with you by talking with you and then. With a, with a comedy club, you went back and interviewed them and actually learned it and, and wrote it. Yeah. You didn’t know everything. I love that. Yeah. So you’re a professor though at Goddard college in Vermont, right?

Yes, that’s right. But you live in Maine, like how far is Vermont from where you. Uh, [00:43:00] to get to Godard takes about two and a half hours for me now, Godard is a low residency program. Okay. And I teach in the master’s program. That’s actually, where I got my master’s degree was I was a consciousness studies student at ma at Godard college.

And now I’m the consciousness studies coordinator at Godard college. And it, I love, I, I just, Godder going to Goddard was one of the best decisions of my life because in the graduate program at. You come in with whatever you’re passionate about and all, you know, all bets are off. You can more or less study, whatever you want.

And rather than coming in with, like, we don’t teach classes at Goddard. So my role as a faculty member is advising students and mentoring them one on one and helping them move through their four semesters. Zero to master’s degree and our really only requirement per [00:44:00] se, but it’s a big one. It’s a big requirement in its own way is that we ask students to come at their topic from knowing being, and doing so the knowing is the intellectual stuff.

So you need to know what are the conversations going on about your topic out there? What are the main thinkers saying? What are the arguments? What are the pros and the cons and the disagreements and the, this and that. So you have to know the knowing. Then there’s the being, which is okay, why this, why this subject, what does this mean to you?

How are you emotionally engaged in this? And what, what biases do you bring because of that emotional engagement and what power do you bring and what new insights do you bring because of, of your, you know, love of this topic. And then the doing is. Okay. So in what ways are you going to take your knowing your being knowledge and take it out into the world and influence the people around you and make the world a better place let’s say, or at least you’re part of the world.

And that is a really, really powerful combination. And I’ve seen some [00:45:00] extraordinary creative work come out that I don’t think could ever be done in a traditional university because traditional universities have a certain. Not all. I don’t wanna paint all of them with a Bo broad brush, but Gotter sure does allow for such, uh, holistic, creative thinking.

Yeah. It’s a lot of introspection in that. Yeah. Instead of just kind of, I mean, not just, but instead of documenting what you’ve learned by interviews or things, it’s also looking at yourself and mm-hmm and ch it it’s like different filters of looking through the topic. . Yeah. Yeah. And you’re requiring people to look at the topic from their thinking brain, their, their left brain and their creative side, their right.

Yeah. Both using all of their brain to do. Yeah. Which is so much fun because I, I don’t know. I can’t speak for anyone, someone else, but I have to say, I hated up through college. It’s amazing that I want on to get my master’s in my PhD because I, I hate dissociate. [00:46:00] Information like, you know, I’ve always been very stubborn in the sense of if I don’t know how this is gonna apply to my life.

Yeah. Or make my world better or make other people’s world better. Why am I learning this? Right. And so I can be very kind of stubborn about that. So. Godard going, there was a, just a tremendous, wonderful affirmation of knowledge that is holistic and does expand beyond just, you know, regurgitating facts and figures.

And somehow, yeah. When my son would, he went to a boarding school for a few years, um, in high school and one of the things that they started doing, and, and it seems to me like more educational institutions need to do this and maybe they are, I don’t know, but. It’s like, if you’re learning geometry, they also built a canoe.

You, you kind of learn how geometry might play into that or, or maybe when you’re going out in nature, you’re looking for geometric shapes out in nature. Yeah. And maybe journaling about it, or when you’re studying history, [00:47:00] English. Is there, the English topics is also like people who wrote during that time, it’s kind of like holistic and cuz they said, you know, you’re never walking down the street and a, and a math problem pops up at you you know, but it’s, you know, they, they learned how to, um, study data from the river and they were taking, uh, like measurements of temperatures and stuff.

They would study the data, but the test. Interpreting stock market data or something, you know, another kind of data mm-hmm . So it’s like, because remembering things, isn’t the way of learning anymore. It’s, it’s learning how to apply things. I’m, I’m really happy to hear that. I, you know, I’m sure education’s probably come a long way since, you know, I was in college in the nineties, so I hope that I think that’s great because shouldn’t, we know why we’re, we’re learning things and how to apply them in real.

Really nice. Yeah. I always wondered that too. yeah. Yeah. Especially when it came to, I still don’t understand [00:48:00] like calculus physics. Why do I need to learn that? I didn’t have to, but, uh, Yeah, my son does in his job and he learned it. So anyway. Yeah. Um, so you, you say you value pulling back the blinders cuz you wanna understand, engage and engage in the world in the purest way possible.

And so you aim to expand your perspective by seeing the world for what it really is. Not just a limited view that we have as an individual. And that’s what you did when you went to Germany. And when you go and interview these, these people, you’re learning like. you’re not come. You may come with some preconceived notions, but then you’re being open to expanding your view.

Yeah. I mean, that’s always, my goal is to just, you know, what am I not seeing? What am I, where am I stuck? Where am I getting in my own way? Where am I getting? Where is my. You know, family culture, personal, whatever bias is getting in the way of, you know, having a pure [00:49:00] relationship with the, you know, the person that I’m sitting across from.

Um, you know, and as I, as I get older, I also recognize there will never be any perfect lens through which I can see the world. And that’s, that’s very humbling. Yeah. Because, you know, I’ve certainly, I certainly strive to do my best, but I don’t expect at this point that I will reach the end of my life and have a perfect.

Unless it’s with my last breath, I’m sort of hoping that’s, you know, always, yeah. Maybe that’s it all, but yeah, your last breath you’re like, wow. That’s what it was all about. Yeah, exactly. That would be awesome. Yeah. But, um, I think that more of us need to do that because we tend to, like we talked about earlier, just get caught up in the day to day stuff and never really take time or don’t take enough time to reflect and to really.

um, we, we, we are taught to watch what we put in our mouth when we eat, but are we really protecting what we let come in our ears and our eyes, right. And into our brain. Yeah. And boy, that feels like there’s more and more of that [00:50:00] stuff that maybe we need to exercise out and, uh, you know, learn how to be gentle around each other and more understanding.

you know, we’re, we all have our biases and  our blind spot. And I think, you know, many of us, most of us, I don’t know how many of us, you know, we’re trying to do our best. And I think we, one of the things that I certainly learned, you know, in my Berlin work and my Peru work is just the power of empathy and being able to, like I had said before and not take things quite so personally and allow.

Another person to have their experience. I don’t know. I could say that better, but I think there’s, there’s something there’s something about and the need for gentleness that I’m really feeling lately. Yeah. Yeah. So you wrote here that, um, you know, you, you studied existential psychology and that has helped you live with less frustration and [00:51:00] anxiety.

And how is that? Is it tied to what you just said about accepting, um, Probably in some ways, uh, you know, I will say I, I came to existential psychology after having been somewhat, um, immersed is maybe not quite the right word, but having spent quite a bit of time in the sort of spiritual let’s call it, say new age circles and things like that.

And, uh, I had found myself frustrated often. because I think, and this is not always, but in certain spiritual new age circles, there’s this idea that you could, even if it’s not completely conscious, that you can control every part of existence, that if you will, it to be you’ll have it. And if you don’t have it, you’re doing something wrong.

You’re clearly not drinking enough carrot juice or, or saying you’re mantras. And, you know, I don’t mean to make light of it, but there was, I know there was an element of that, that I found, um, Blame the victim kind of [00:52:00] mentality that I found. Let’s just say when a friend of mine came crying to me because, um, she had cancer and people were telling her she wasn’t, she didn’t have a positive enough attitude.

And that’s why her cancer had come back. Uh, I started looking for new ways of being. Yeah. And, uh, you know, as I said before, I, I really found myself very taken with those three worlds that Rao may talks about, you know, We have the, the MVE that throne world that is very largely out of our control. We can’t control the hurricanes.

We can’t control, um, what the, you know, my phone will break if I drop it on a rock, you know, that kind of thing. So there are things about the world that just will happen. And it’s our, the option we have. We can, you know, shake our fists about it, but we need to dance with that and see how. You know, work with that.

Uh, the MI MI [00:53:00] belts, the with world, you know, I can’t control what other people do say think react. I can do my best to maybe have conversations with people and, and see if we can come to some sort of understanding or decide, Hey, do you want to go left or right. You wanna go left? I wanna go, right? Or can we make a compromise?

What’s the, but again, that’s largely out of my control as. there’s the EIN belt, the, my inner world, which I have a lot more control over, but even there not completely because I’m not, I have an unconscious, I have a, you know, a shadow side. Yeah. That may not always be conscious. So while I think that I’m in control control of myself, what are all the things that I’m, I unclear that I, I don’t recognize my own biases or whatever.

And. So for me, that felt like a very sane way of viewing the world of knowing that these are things that we dance with. These are things that we often try to fight against. Yes. And feel like if we’re fighting against it and we fail to [00:54:00] have that Porsche or whatever it is you want, then somehow you’re a bad person.

Somehow, you know, there’s a, uh, there’s a, there are limits to the world and it’s supposed to be like that. And you know, the fun is for me, Finding the freedom within those limitations and seeing where the limitations are in art. And that’s the dance that I enjoy most of all with my personal life and my professional life as well.

That’s the adventure of being alive. Exactly. Yeah. And so the thing is a lot of our stress comes from wishing something hadn’t happened or wishing something was different than the way it is instead of accepting what is, and you can still accept what is, and. You know, like if you, if you don’t like it, go engage like vote or, you know, write a book about something or whatever that’s different than just being stressed and fighting it.

Right. That right. You wish it would stop or not happen, but it is [00:55:00] happening. So what’s the gift or the opportunity. In what’s happening right now. And how can we move forward and not keep all that stress inside us? Yeah, exactly. When I was in Peru, uh, one of the shamans said to me, you know, if somebody, we were talking about curses and they said, well, if somebody curses you, you should say, thank you because that’s free energy and I’m like, that’s a, that’s a thinker and you know, the way I take that and I think more or less how they meant it.

That you know, you don’t have to accept that curse within you. You can find how that energy can be transmuted into something that’s yes. Able to go out in the world and make a, a difference in a positive way. Oh, I love that. That’s a great way to end it. I wanna put up here again, your Instagram, which is tales from the throne world and your website, which is basically your name hill.

Hillary [00:56:00] SWE, uh, dot com and then people can email you to Hillary Hillary swe.com. Yes. Yeah. And I, I love hearing from people, so always happy to be in touch with folks. Yeah. All right. Awesome. Thank you so much for being on the show, Hillary. I really appreciate it. I lots of fun. Thank you for it was a great way to come back from, uh, being away for two weeks.

And, uh, I’m gonna show you a picture here. Let me see. If I, if it shows, I don’t know how it’s gonna show. Yeah. That’s my dog. That’s where my dog was when I was on travel tra on, I was with my son in my grandson, in Denver, my dog’s at a bar and now they’ve used her picture to advertise bingo night. that’s Pearl.

Pearl. I know. Well, Pearl is eyeing that Beerstein I think she is, uh, she is so, you know, I, my, uh, dog watcher, you know, that takes care of Pearl. She’s always sending me pictures of Pearl in some guy’s lap or Pearl being [00:57:00] hugged by somebody I’m like Pearl knows more men in Stanton, Virginia than I do. She gets out and around.

So nice. Anyway. Yeah. Cool. I just wanted to share that. Yeah. Little bit of humor tonight. So thank you everybody who watched tonight. I really appreciate it. I know that there’s so many live streams and you know, it’s hard to catch them all. I know that I can’t catch them all. Hi Russ. Thank you for joining.

  1. I’ve missed your live stream a couple of times lately. So I appreciate everybody who joined in and everybody who listens to this later as a podcast. Thank you very much. And Hillary, I’ll just put you in the green room and we’ll wrap it up.

Onward live is sponsored by Emily Harman, coaching and consulting. Visit my website, Emily harmon.com to learn more about me and my coaching programs. I’d love to help you create a life [00:58:00] you love living. Remember every adversity is our own personal university. Sometimes the lessons are difficult. And we must learn from our experiences.

Vulnerability is your superpower. You are lovable and worthy, and we discuss these topics and more because professional is personal. Thank you for joining us and engaging with me and my guest. I.

 

Dr. Hillary S. Webb talks about shamanism, stand-up comedy, and the adventure of being alive. Whereas, she’s a cultural anthropologist and mixed-media storyteller with a focus on theater anthropology and cross-cultural perspectives on human consciousness. And, Hillary describes her work as exploring how we make meaning of this wonderful, terrible, ecstatic, startling, and often absurd world in which we live.

While growing up, Hillary found herself falling in love with the human condition. Consequently, the more she saw, the deeper she wanted to go into understanding it. And, it was this impulse that led Hillary to earn an undergraduate degree in Journalism from New York University, an MA in Consciousness Studies from Goddard College, and a PhD in Existential-Humanistic Psychology from Saybrook University.

Hillary values, “pulling back the blinders.” because she wants to understand and engage with the world in the purest possible way. And, to do that, she aims to expand her perspective to try to see the world for what it really is, not just the limited view we have as an individual.

Moreover, Hillary is interested in how people around the world address the complexities of being human.  Firstly, to what degree do we differ and in what ways are we the same in our existential concerns. Secondly, how do we seek to relieve them? Furthermore, what experiences—and the belief systems that arise out of them—help us make meaning of our lives and feel less alone in the universe?

In conclusion, These are some of the questions motivating Hillary’s life and work. She lives to write. And, writing is part of creating an adventurous life she LOVES living! And her four books recount some of what she discovered when she went looking for answers.

A professor at Goddard College in Vermont, Hillary is the author of four nonfiction books including the most recently published, The Friendliest Place in the Universe: Love, Laughter, and Stand-Up Comedy in Berlin. When not lurking around the stand-up comedy clubs of Europe, she lives in Maine with her husband.

Resources Mentioned:

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