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Welcome to Live Free Ride Free, where we talk to people who have lived self-actualized lives on their own terms, and find out how they got there, what they do, how we can get there, what we can learn from them. How to live our best lives, find our own definition of success, and most importantly, find joy.
Your Host is New York Times bestselling author Rupert Isaacson. Long time human rights activist, Rupert helped a group of Bushmen in the Kalahari fight for their ancestral lands. He's probably best known for his autism advocacy work following the publication of his bestselling book "The Horse Boy" and "The Long Ride Home" where he tells the story of finding healing for his autistic son. Subsequently he founded New Trails Learning Systems an approach for addressing neuro-psychiatric conditions through horses, movement and nature. The methods are now used around the world in therapeutic riding program, therapy offices and schools for special needs and neuro-typical children.
You can find details of all our programs and shows on www.RupertIsaacson.com
Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Live Free
Ride Free, where we talk to people who
have lived self-actualized lives on
their own terms, and find out how they
got there, what they do, how we can
get there, what we can learn from them.
How to live our best lives, find
our own definition of success,
and most importantly, find joy.
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson.
New York Times bestselling
author of the Horse Boy.
Founder of New Trails Learning
Systems and long ride home.com.
You can find details of all our programs
and shows on Rupert isaacson.com.
Welcome back to live free ride free.
Today I've got Someone who if you open
the dictionary and you look at self
actualized you're going to find a picture
of ginny jordan she really ought to be
in the oxford dictionary Ginny Jordan is
someone I've been privileged to know for
quite a few years, and those of you who
know my work with Horseboy Movement Method
and those therapeutic approaches that we
do, I can say that they wouldn't exist
without the influence of Ginny Jordan.
But I'm not the only one.
I would say that of the people I
know who have had a positive effect
upon the planet and our species and
other species associated with us.
I don't really know anyone who
has done more than Jeannie Jordan.
She's many things.
She has been and still is a film
producer, very cutting edge films that
you may know, which we'll talk about
later, all of which have served a
social purpose, but have also been just
jolly good films in their own right.
She has had it Founded and
headed an amazing initiative
for first women in Africa.
And then I think it's gone beyond
that with HIV to, to micro fund
to set up businesses, which I know
has gone bananas in the world.
She is involved with regenerative farming.
She's involved with feminism.
She's involved with healing.
She is a healer.
And.
Maybe actually it's not
so much self actualized.
I'm just looking at the dictionary
now under the word awesome.
And look, there's another
picture of Ginny Jordan.
So Ginny.
Ginny Jordan: Oh, well, in the
moment I'm completely delighted,
amused and enjoying being here.
So thanks for having me.
Who I am, I, wow, I think you said
a lot, I'm a multidimensional being
and, you know, if you tie me down in a
room, I'm an unhappy, unhappy person.
I, I need to manifest, I need to express.
Since I was little there was a deep,
just inherent call to give myself to
the world in any ways that I could find
that felt true and honest and felt would
actually, you know, Actually serve.
So, who am I?
Someone that cares, cares deeply.
I
mean, almost to the point of tears.
Most of the time it's like my heart is
just constantly full of depth of caring
for who we are as a species, where we're
headed, where we're seen to be not headed.
But it's just an impossibility
for me to turn away.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
So you have manifested
so much for so many.
We're going to go into that, all
the extraordinary things that
you've done and are still doing.
I want to ask you to take us back to
that moment when you were a little girl
and you said you felt that calling.
Do you remember that moment?
How, what, can you take us there?
Ginny Jordan: Well, I think there
were kind of two distinct moments
that come up the first, which I
haven't talked about in a long time.
I was probably 6 or 7 and I woke
up in the middle of the night.
What apparently felt like a nightmare,
but it was a shocking wasn't really
a nightmare content and dreams.
It was just I had a revelation
at night and I woke up with this.
Deep, profound heavy feeling that
there had to be more than life than
the scripts that we were given.
You're supposed to grow up.
You're supposed to get married.
You're supposed to kind of have children.
Then you're supposed to do this.
You're supposed to do that.
And then it's over, you know, well done.
Or you could.
Maybe, maybe there are three
scripts, but I, I saw through sort
of the nature of existence, if
you will, in a moment, in a flash.
And I knew there had to be more.
I knew there was some other mysterious
thing going on that was much larger
than this linear content that seemed
to be already laid out in front of me.
And I went into pretty deep depression.
I tried to talk to my mother about
it, and she just thought I was dead.
That's thoroughly crazy.
What's a seven year old thinking about
such big arcs of future, but I was, and
that was a real awakening moment and
it kind of an insistence and a contract
that I signed that there has to be
something more to this existence than
just certainly going through the motions.
But I didn't know what it was, but
I signed a contract to find out.
Rupert Isaacson: You said
there were two moments, right?
So that was one.
Ginny Jordan: The second one was I.
I would get on the school bus and I
would pretended that I had a wand.
This is sort of embarrassing,
but I had a wand.
And anytime I saw what looked like a, a
suffering or suddenly I would see a, a tow
truck carrying a car and, oh my goodness,
that probably involved an accident, you
know, and I'm like secretly blessing.
As though I have that power as a little
one that I could bless, you know,
those who might be injured or hurt
or that I could see out the window.
And I often would kind of put
the, the wand under imagined one.
I didn't have a real wand under my
pillow at night, you know, and feel felt
prepared in the morning to, to bless
and I have no idea where that came from.
It's not like, not like I had a
parent modeling that, but there
was a deep, you know, that's when
I began ever so slowly to wake up
to the, just the fact that I cared.
And not that everybody should have that
particular destiny, but it was very clear.
It's like, wow, I really cared about that
person who was on the sidewalk limping.
I really cared about what
something that might have looked
marginalized or different.
Rupert Isaacson: Where
were you on a school bus?
What part of America?
Ginny Jordan: I grew up in Ohio in
a very small town outside of Toledo,
Ohio, fairly rural existence on a river.
My parents were at this
point quite involved in
environmental conservation work.
So they modeled love of land
and care for the earth for me.
I got to sort of live and breathe that
without really knowing what was happening.
Why did they do that?
I think it was rooted, my mother was
involved in the Nature Conservancy
from almost its inception.
And for many years was on the national
board, like 30 years of her life.
And I think it came from, you know, their
love of the solitude that they found
when they were in the natural world.
They were also hunters, fisher,
fishermen, women and love land.
And I, I'm not sure where
I could tell you where that
actually, when I look to the next
Rupert Isaacson: generation in the family
that they were, they fished, they hunted,
they did duck shooting and wanted to
conserve the marshes, that sort of thing.
Ginny Jordan: Yeah, the very
beginning of Nature Conservancy was
about that just kind of course it
evolved, you know, and needed to,
Rupert Isaacson: what were they doing?
What was their, what was their profession?
Ginny Jordan: My father
was a real entrepreneur.
He bought sort of a bankrupt business
and got a loan from his father and,
you know, built it into a very, very
successful manufacturing company.
He manufactured doors, front entry
doors, and he was very intuitive.
And he anticipated sort of the energy
crisis in the 60s and he'd already
designed a, a wood door that looked,
a fiberglass door that looked like
wood, that was highly energy efficient.
So he had a kind of remarkable
talent of sort of forecasting.
Rupert Isaacson: So you're,
so he was a manifester.
Ginny Jordan: Definitely.
Rupert Isaacson: And your mother was some,
a carer of the land, also your father.
Ginny Jordan: And also a big manifester
and a leader and a leader in that.
Rupert Isaacson: And yet, when you came
to your mum as a six, seven year old with
this revelation, instead of going, well,
you're clearly, you know, following in
the footsteps of all the wise women, you
know, well done, well done for showing up.
And now we begin your priestess training.
She rolled her eyes, given that
she was a manifester and a caravan.
Why do you think she had that reaction?
Ginny Jordan: I think it, you
know, just, you know, imagine that
generation's, you know, sort of
fixation on pretty limited scripts.
What
Rupert Isaacson: year would you say?
Ginny Jordan: Well, I was born in
53, so this was probably, and I was
maybe 7, 8, something like that.
Rupert Isaacson: So about 1958,
9, 60, somewhere in there.
Ginny Jordan: Yeah.
I think, you know, it was a radical idea.
That maybe, maybe these scripts
are fundamentally limited and you
know, who said that we should sort
of fulfill it as it's laid out
sort of traditionally, culturally.
And I think that was just
a little over their heads.
I also, I also think that I was speaking
to some mystery of life that was much
larger and I don't think it certainly
was not a religious orientation
because they didn't have that.
But.
I think I, I had a sort of a deep
spiritual kind of knowing that
they didn't understand at all.
Rupert Isaacson: Did, did,
when she had that reaction to
you, what was your reaction?
Ginny Jordan: Oh, I shut down.
Rupert Isaacson: But you didn't,
it didn't shut you down from using
your magic wand on the school bus?
Ginny Jordan: No, didn't.
But you know, that's kind
of like a secret activity.
Right.
No one really knows I have a magic wand.
Rupert Isaacson: I know you have a
magic wand and I've been watching you
Ginny Jordan: for
Rupert Isaacson: 25 years.
We're going to go into that.
And it's really interesting to me.
I've often wondered where your shamanic
ability to manifest extraordinary things
on an extraordinary scale came from.
And you telling me that story
in all the years I've known
you, I haven't known that.
I think it should be on
the school curriculum.
I think that as soon as you get
on the school bus, they should
give you your What Magic Wand.
Ginny Jordan: Absolutely.
Rupert Isaacson: Here is how you use
it and here is how you do not use it.
Can you imagine?
Ginny Jordan: It'd be amazing.
Rupert Isaacson: How
different the world would
Ginny Jordan: look.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Every
kid riding the school bus.
Ginny Jordan: Yeah.
And I certainly felt, you know,
sort of secretly powerful.
Not not as, you know, dominant,
of course, you know, I'm young
but more than I, wow, I could have
an influence of my little wand.
I could help heal someone.
I couldn't help them feel better.
I could, I could make sense out
of some things that didn't make
sense, you know, bring order.
Rupert Isaacson: There's no question.
You've been doing that ever since.
Yeah, I'm going to talk
to you later about this.
I think it should be a whole curriculum.
I think this is something I'd
really like to pursue in the
work we do in schools and stuff.
This is genius.
So perhaps we could have
that conversation, I think.
We need to give all these kids magic ones.
So now you, you blow my
mind with your magic wand.
Okay.
So now, but I have to retrieve my mind.
Otherwise there will be no podcast.
Take us to the next thing.
Okay.
You, now you go from little girl.
Beginning to do her first imagining
harnessing her imagination into
manifestation in a way that is through
caring really compassion at what point
do you begin to put that into action?
Tell us about your college years
Where did you go to college?
How was that?
What year what years were those?
Ginny Jordan: Oh, I'm terrible.
Just don't even go there It's
like I don't I can't let my
Rupert Isaacson: degree so
Ginny Jordan: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Well, I, I went to boarding school,
which was utterly a disaster.
It was like putting the wrong being
in the wrong context with all girls.
I grew up with 4 brothers and that was.
It's strange and heartbreaking and
I knew back to this original story.
I just told you that somehow
that cultural layout, which I was
supposed to go to boarding school.
Then I went supposed to go
to Vassar where my mom went.
My brother's supposed to go to Yale where
he went and then I'm going to marry.
You know, some amazing, you know,
businessmen, and I'm going to be
president of the junior league someday.
And it was all sort of scripted.
And so I ended up after boarding school,
I went to a very, very radical, extreme
experimental college in California,
Rupert Isaacson: presumably by your own
design, not by your mother's design.
Ginny Jordan: Yeah.
And, and a bit of a synchronistic
happening on the shores of Crete in
Greece when When I, I was 19, I kind
of did the big walk about the big
adventure and I sat on the beach and a
little tiny part of the island that you
could only get in by donkey called Vi.
And I lived on the beach, kind of did
the sort of hippie thing and a man
came up to me and said, did you hear
about this amazing experimental school?
That's starting some professors
from Harvard or whatever,
you know, sort of big.
Mucky Mucky's coasts have had it and
they want to start this experiment
in Southern California using the
facilities, the University of Redlands,
it was called Johnston College.
And, you know, it was one of those
moments that we have in a life
where there was just a recognition.
I went, Oh, that's for me.
And I checked it out and, and I went, and
that was seminal in my, in my biography.
I experimented with so many things
and as we did as a group, we literally
were 200 students that, like, made up.
We were collective creators
of this, of this experiment.
And I, I studied extraordinary
things with extraordinary faculty
and made up my own degree and I was.
A pivot a pivot moment.
What did you
Rupert Isaacson: what did you study?
Ginny Jordan: Mostly well, many things,
but I, my degree was in psychology.
I can't even remember the
title that I, but it had to
do with the integrated child.
I did a lot of work with
children at the time.
And, I can't remember the title
of it, but it was psychology.
Rupert Isaacson: I love the fact that you
can't remember the title of your degree.
That's perfect.
But what would you say when
you said we experimented,
what did you experiment with?
Ginny Jordan: Everything, you
know, this was in the early days,
the human potential movement.
So, you know, we were pounding
pillows and saying, fuck you out
the windows to our moms and dads.
And, you know, it's like heavy
duty therapy, but it was all
about sort of self discovery.
I studied the Stolt Therapy Institute
in Los Angeles with the greats of the
greats, Fritz Perls, all his proteges.
You know, get, I got rolfed at 19
years old and you get credit for that.
You know, it was like a lot
of it was just experimenting.
We worked with Jean Houston, studied
myth extensively and actually
went through a course with her.
And.
Ramdass and Castaneda of all people.
So some of the, some of the greats
in those days were very interested.
We were, there were 12 of us that
were graduating in the person in the
transpersonal psych part of the, of the,
of the college, and they were our faculty.
Rupert Isaacson: So I need to
just, just, just take a pause
because a lot of our listeners.
Don't know who these people were
and what some of these things are.
And I think we need to talk about this
because listeners, those of you who
came through the counterculture I take
off my hat because those of us like
me, who as dinosaur ancient, as I am
now, I am still a generation that came.
from the loins of the people of
the counterculture and I have
benefited massively from it.
Basically the hippies paved the way
because they knew that there was a better
quality of life than a militaristic,
um, military industrial complex.
And they, we, we take for granted.
the freedoms that we have socially
now, but they were not always there.
And the people that forged
that were the counterculture
people of the 60s and early 70s.
And obviously, Ginny, you
were very much part of this.
And so were these people
you're talking about.
So we owe a debt of gratitude
for our the freedoms.
Not just that the the political
freedoms, but the the social and and
thought freedoms that we have these
days which we take for granted Stuff
that you could see on media today.
It was not there before Okay, so
Gestalt therapy people will not
know necessarily what that is.
Even though it's a legendary thing.
Please tell us What is Gestalt therapy?
Ginny Jordan: Well, Fritz Perls
was the founder of very well known
psychologist who really explored sort
of the human psyche in terms of parts.
So, you know, we have a tyrant in us,
we have a you know, a rescuer in us,
we have a victim, we have a, and in his
passion was getting into a room and just
laying out all the parts and having them
all dialogue and act out and it's very,
Very sort of active dynamic, almost
on the edge of theatrical expression.
So it was a lot of, a lot about
kind of moving places of tension
and certainly not being afraid
of those places, inviting them.
So that was very much what
Gestalt is about is liberating
yourself from different parts
that don't know the other parts.
It's like where we're unconscious
and kind of raising to the surface.
Rupert Isaacson: Gestalt is, I live
in Germany, Gestalt is a German word,
it means patent or complete, right?
So, greater than the sum
of its parts, I guess.
So, are you saying it's an
integration of all of those?
Right.
Size of oneself and sort of recognition
of all of those sides of oneself
to kind of get self knowledge.
Ginny Jordan: Yep.
Exactly.
Well said.
Yep.
And not done through kind of just
talk therapy sitting, you know, one on
one often it was done in group work.
And so that when you witnessed somebody
else's, you know, extremely violent father
and the suffering that, that, that person.
Went through, you know, the idea is also
that it, it mirrored something for you.
It's like the work was for everybody was
just sitting in a little cubicle and that,
that was part of its power at the time.
And it's still, it's still alive and
live and well, it's nothing like it
was in our day to your point, right?
It was the human potential
movement was just, just on fire.
And we were passionate about
discovering who we really were.
And determined to remove any blocks
that particularly that were scripted
things that, you know, back to this
feeling that we were pushing off a
generation of a lot of authority.
Rupert Isaacson: You mentioned
someone called Jean Houston.
Who is she?
Ginny Jordan: She's sort of queen of,
you know, Mythic reality and explored
it in in, in so many dimensions she's
a storyteller kind of a mythic wonder
could, could really look at what
we, what we would call an archetype.
And unpack it in the most
creative and deliberate way.
She, we went through a
year long course with her.
That was called mind games where she was
really fascinated in exploring what can
happen in a group process again, kind
of a group focus and a lot of it had
to do with developing certain kinds of.
Psychic capacity, certain capacities for
attunement for group mind literally some
people would be in the middle middle
of the room and they would facilitate
a process where they go into a trance.
And I mean, it was pretty wild stuff
we were playing with, but she's really
an extraordinary mythic scholar and
anybody who hasn't heard of her should
definitely look into she's written many,
many, many books and is quite a force.
Rupert Isaacson: You mentioned
Ram Dass, who's Ram Dass?
Ginny Jordan: Very well known
spiritual teacher of the time.
I have think he passed about, I
don't know, 5, 5 or so years ago.
A Harvard dropout psychedelic guy.
That was absolutely.
I mean, he has real
awakening happening in India.
And with it, with his, with a guru,
very, very funny, very inspiring
wickedly bright and had a wonderful
way of charismatic leader, a wonderful
way of sort of people helping people
re remember who they really kind of
are, which essentially beans of beans
of light is how he would talk about it.
And so it was a very
devotional path with him.
Rupert Isaacson: What
was he teaching you guys?
Yeah, specifically.
Ginny Jordan: I think he was teaching
us really about you know, again, through
a lot of his works, he, I mean, he was
most known for a book called be here now.
You know, at the time that was
kind of a revelatory concept.
It's like, it's called being present,
you know, now it's sort of old hat.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, this
present moment mindfulness
shit that we hear all the time.
It actually did begin somewhere.
Yes.
Ginny Jordan: Absolutely.
Absolutely.
It was radical
Rupert Isaacson: at the time.
Yeah.
Ginny Jordan: Be here now.
And that was what he's
kind of most known for.
And But I think he added the heart
piece, you know, so, you know, we were
pushing off a lot of that generation.
We're certainly pushing off the
Vietnam war, you know, there's a
lot of pushing and kind of fire and
insistence on expressing ourselves and
Rupert Isaacson: yeah,
Ginny Jordan: you can get all
those images of, you know, sort of
anti war protests and blah, blah.
But he added the heart
and, you know, he was,
Rupert Isaacson: he's saying, you've got
to be compassionate towards those who
you are causing the suffering that is.
Ginny Jordan: I think he definitely,
but, you know, he was a, he was a
devotional devotee to his, his version
of, of, of God, so to speak, which
was a deep spiritual calling for him
that, you know, mother India is most
known for, and that's where he had his
1st awakening and then determination
to translate that into Western terms.
And as I said, humor,
humor was 1 of his best.
Rupert Isaacson: Speaking of humour,
can I tell you my, my Ram Dass story?
Ginny Jordan: Yes, please do.
I have a Ram Dass
Rupert Isaacson: story.
I never met Ram Dass, but I did go
once to a reading of things by Ram
Dass between from Be Here Now, and
I went to the toilet and someone had
taped on the urinal, pee here now.
Ginny Jordan: Perfect.
Be present when you're peeing.
Make sure you get it in the toilet.
That's perfect.
Rupert Isaacson: No doubt
men need a reminding of that.
Ginny Jordan: Always.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
You mentioned another name.
And by the way, listeners, it's
important that you know this because
these people are all legends.
Yeah.
We're talking about mentorship here.
To be mentored by some of these
people, Somewhat extraordinary.
I didn't know you were
mentored by these people.
You mentioned Castaneda, Carlos Castaneda.
For those of you who do not
know who Carlos Castaneda
was, Ginny, please tell us.
Ginny Jordan: Well, I, you know who he is.
Rupert Isaacson: Certainly,
but not every listener will.
Ginny Jordan: No, but I'd love
to hear how you would frame him.
Rupert Isaacson: Oh,
well, that's a bit unfair.
I'm the one, I ask the questions here.
Ginny Jordan: But I'm interested in
how your generation would, that I met.
When I was,
Rupert Isaacson: when I was a
school boy Carlos Castaneda and
my school boy, I'm in London.
I'm a a very traditional
conservative boys.
school, which is also part of
the military, blah, blah, blah.
And I was the last generation
of boys to be regularly beaten
at school, that sort of thing.
You know, it was, it was
the old Victorian model.
And so Carlos Castaneda was one of the
influencers that came in for rebellion.
And Carlos Castaneda was a an American
who went down to Mexico and wrote a
series of books about interactions
with a Huishol Indian shaman.
Or was he?
No, he wasn't Huishol.
He was, um, what's the tribe next to them?
Or was he Huishol?
Anyway, from, from that.
Ginny Jordan: He went Don Juan.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, Don Juan.
And for those of you, the Huishols are the
ones who do these amazing color patterns.
And they're known for their
relationship with the Huishol.
Peyote, which is a hallucinogenic
substance and peeling medicine in
use for thousands of years and still
in use in Native America today.
But it grows in their area and it grows
in a very small area on the Mexican
Texas border and Arizona, Texas border.
And so he wrote a series of books
about being in apprenticeship to this
one and being taken on an ever more.
sort of ego destroying series of
terrifying hallucinogenic journeys.
that were extremely influential
both as anthropology and as just
flat out entertaining writing
and the spiritual writing.
However, there is of course
a controversy around him.
Many people say he didn't actually,
he made it all up and then he ended
up with a bit of a a sort of sex cult
around him or something like that.
And then some of those people, and
then he, after he died, some of those
people disappeared and perhaps potential
foul play and blah, blah, blah, blah.
So he's one of these sort of
legendary characters who, you know,
I look at it from my generation
and say, well, I don't know.
I don't know whether he made it up.
I don't know whether he went, I
don't know this, I don't know that.
But what I do know is that the
books were extremely influential.
And for those of us who were sort of
suffering in that Victorian model,
they served as a window on the
potential of what life could look like.
And the potential of human consciousness.
That's about all I have to say on
Carlos Castaneda, but you know,
knew the man, you met the man.
What, what do you have to say about that?
Ginny Jordan: Well, yeah, I
understand the controversy.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter because
if this was an invention and just
imagination is pretty brilliant.
Imagination because the, what it set
up to your point is this power, the
power of mentorship, of letting, you
know, he, he had to go through all
of his Western white control, right.
To, to let go and to be led by
this man, not only just through,
you know, taking plant medicine,
but you know, crazy trials.
He put him through, it's like 40 days in
the desert kind of trials coyote kind of.
Operations right where suddenly
he's, you know, and he was pushed.
It's like a version of
an outward bound course.
And every time he went to see him and so
much of the books and the inspiration are,
you know, what it is to let go like that.
To someone that again, true or false made
up or not irrelevant, it's an amazing
archetype of what it is to actually break
through our kind of cultural addictions.
Two.
To be able to sense life, to open our
senses to other realities that, you
know, for many indigenous peoples in
the world are, are, are preexisting.
There's no need to convince
they're operating in an entirely
different kind of room in the
house, so to speak, than we are.
And that that's, was the
revelation of the books.
And he was kind of a mixed character.
He was actually quite shy.
And when he would come to teach, you
know, we would all just be, you know,
be kind of like rabidly trying to pull
stuff out of him, you know, it's all
such an intriguing story and he, you
know, would offer things, but he was
very within himself, quite shy actually.
And didn't have a big need, you know,
he was almost self effacing, almost
to the point of being self effacing.
He didn't have a big need to like, Blow
his horn and say, Oh, my God, I'm amazing.
It was like, I felt a
natural humility in him.
So, for whatever that's worth, as I said,
you know, I was young and maybe not the
full capacity to read character, but a
key figure for a young woman, for sure.
Rupert Isaacson: I think, yeah, what
the point is that he, he was also a
key figure in the counter, counter
culture of opening people's minds to
the power of indigenous myth as well.
What you just described to me from, you
know, that waking up to the school bus.
With the magic wand to, I love that you
put the wand under your pillow at night.
I love that.
To then this new radical
counterculture college is it's
basically sounds like Hermione
Granger from the Harry Potter series.
Realizing her magical potential, even
though she's, you know, I can't remember
she's a muggle half muggle as well.
And and then being sent off to Hogwarts
to learn the workings of magic.
And I think what, what you've talked
about, we're going to go on to the
actual things you've done in your life,
which are mind blowing in a moment.
But It seems that you
awoke to intrinsically, but then were
also, had it nurtured and mentored.
If nothing else, the power
of the human imagination.
And the more, the older I get, the
more convinced I am that this is
the most powerful tool we have.
And this is the thing that really
renders us who we are in terms of
this ridiculous power that we wield
as a species, for good or ill.
Luckily, mostly I think for good.
I think the story you've just sort
of told of the crucible in which that
imagination can be, can awake, and
then I think, I think it does actually
awaken most children spontaneously, you
know, my, my, because that's who we are.
My earliest memories of walking in
my parents garden in London with
the sun shining on a brick wall.
It's very early in the morning, because,
and it's warm, it's a summer morning.
And i'm up early than earlier than all
the adults and the adults don't want
to be woken up So i'm in the garden
and there's bees buzzing on the little
flowers that are growing out of the wall
And in the in those bees and in those
flowers I hear that I hear god and god
talks to me and god doesn't give me
any revelations god's just like this
Nurturing figure almost I can almost feel
the hand on my shoulder as i'm walking
and just reassuring And I think that
almost every child on the planet You
Has this as their birthright, and then
many, many, many children go through
something like that imaginary wand thing.
And then it's sort of slapped
out of them or, or, or even
just conditioned out of them.
And now more than ever through, you
know, social media and things like that,
the non interaction with the physical
world, the animal world, the human world.
And now with screens, which of
course themselves are a product
of the human imagination and
themselves can be wonderful things.
But obviously can also be limiting things.
So it is easy.
We can see that that power has
unleashed itself in an unlimited
way and then comes with its own
limitations and each generation has
to come to their own terms with this.
But I love that you had that
and remember that so clearly.
Alright, so now you've been
mentored by these legends.
These guys are all legends.
And then you graduate,
you go out into the world.
What do you do?
What's the first thing you do
when you get out of college?
Ginny Jordan: Well, I really
thought I knew something.
So it was kind of total act
of arrogance that I went up to
Northern California and started.
Training psychiatrists and
psychologists and they, to you,
Rupert Isaacson: I really thought
at 12 or whatever you were that was,
Ginny Jordan: yeah, I really thought I
knew something and and that, you know,
thank goodness, you know, my version
of, you know, God speaking to me said,
you know, after a few years of this, you
know, I could really feel where it was.
I was kind of winging it from the inside.
And yes, I was bright.
I had things to offer, but it really
was not in the depth of my experience.
And I just, at some point I knew
that and that came to an end.
And I, and I knew I always wanted to work
with people that was kind of a given.
But the form of kind of coming,
emerging as this sort of.
Glorious teacher who knew a bunch of
things that that needed to sort of kind
of have its moment in Moment in time and
then it dissolved into something much more
authentic and real which was just part of
my ongoing quest anyways, and I Then well
pretty shortly after that period of time.
I got married And the whole, I have had
three children and that whole journey
at the same time, I continue to work
with people, but in a much more sort of.
Modest way very fascinated
with dream language.
That was always a big
part of my interior life.
I was an active dreamer since I was
very young, a prophetic dreamer.
I often dreamt things beforehand, which
was quite confusing as a little one.
But I was fascinated by the
language itself of, of dreams and,
you know, how it is that we're
speaking to ourselves every night.
Rupert Isaacson: You know, you're
working with people, by the way,
as a therapist, how are you working
Ginny Jordan: as a therapist?
Yeah, that's what I got my debris in and
then extra extra trainings, et cetera.
And then I really got involved
in dream work specifically.
and studied with some wonderful Jungians.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, that was the
question, the natural question to ask
was, so Carl Jung, obviously the most
prolific writer, or at least the household
name at any rate, in terms of dream
work and the interpretation of dreams.
Those of you who don't know who Jung
is, Jung was Swiss Swiss German early
psychologist, psychiatrist product,
protege of Freud, and then went away
from Freud and forged his own thing.
And an awful lot of what we take for
granted in terms of psychological
stuff and that's taught in colleges
today really comes down to Jung.
Do you think that Jung, it's a chance
for me to ask you, do you think that
Jung's interpretations of dreams are
pretty sound, or do you think they're
just Subjective and, but just sort of a
useful way into what, what do you think?
Ginny Jordan: Well, I think,
I think we've come a long way.
I think he, he, he really mapped the
unconscious and in the most profound way
that ever had been done prior to him.
And that was that, that you Rupert could
be over there in Germany right now.
And tonight you could dream
about, you know, a chalice.
Rupert Isaacson: A
Ginny Jordan: golden chalice, and
tonight I can dream about a golden
chalice and there's some kind of
collective unconscious material that is
ubiquitous throughout the whole world.
And he really excavated that
that dimension of the unconscious
that we're sharing a collective
unconscious as well as having our
own personal unconscious material.
And that was revelatory at the time.
That somehow we're linked to these
images and these symbols that have
preexisting tremendous, tremendous
meaning, meaning that are rooted
beyond just myth and story.
They live somewhere in the fertile soil
of our beings, and it doesn't matter
our upbringing culture, skin color.
Gender and none of it, and that's really
was his, his, his strongest contribution
in terms of individually working.
You know, he certainly set
up templates, but people have
gone much further than that.
It's not like everybody
who dreams about a snake.
It means, oh, you're dealing with your
sexuality or your it's the really deeper
work is, you know, Rupert, who's who's
that snake to you as you begin to have a
dialogue and he was also most known for.
What, what he called, you
know, active imagination.
So back to your, your
thoughts on imagination.
I do think it comes down to that.
And so he really encouraged
people to engage their dream
life in a living, breathing way.
It's not just something
that happens at night.
That's past tense.
You know, been there, done that.
Here's the next day.
He was really interested
in like your snake.
And what does that snake
want to say to you?
You know, why ask him why he bit you?
Don't just interpret that.
Ask him.
Rupert Isaacson: So when you were doing
your dream work and you're working
as a therapist with people, you come
out of college and you're there in,
it's the 1970s and you know, the world
is opening up and the counterculture
is now moving into the mainstream.
What, what, what we, what were you
saying to people when they were
coming to you with their dreams?
How, how were you, how
were you approaching that?
What?
What was your mission with that?
Ginny Jordan: My mission was ultimately,
which I now know better now, because
I still do some of that work.
I have actually 2 groups
that I work with today.
It's gone through lots of cycles, but
it's quite active again in my life.
But ultimately, what I'm interested
in, and the, the, the angle in which I
work with is that somehow this notion
that day and night are separate.
Rupert Isaacson: And
Ginny Jordan: that this idea which is
not just an idea, it's my felt experience
that you and I right now are in a dream.
We're having a podcast dream and
that if you experience night and
day is kind of a seamless and
many indigenous people knew this.
Right that, that the things that
happen in your outer waking life, so
to speak are a little further away
from the felt sense that arrives in
and what looks irrational in a dream.
It's all the same.
It's just that at night we
have a different opportunity.
to generate and create and to be
in a position to actually receive
tremendous help instruction guidance.
I mean, it's just powerful.
I'm just continually blown away.
I'm
Rupert Isaacson: asking people questions
that are aimed at helping them to perhaps
gain insight into what those dreams are
trying to tell them in terms of guidance.
Is, is, is, is it primarily that, or
is it helping to reassure them that if
they're having negative dreams perhaps
or nightmare dreams or despair dreams
or something that that perhaps isn't,
you know, necessarily their reality or
when someone comes to you with a dream
that they actually dreamt at night,
why are they coming to you with that?
And
what's your,
again, mission is, is, and I've
asked the question before, so it's
like I'm repeating myself, but I
guess what I'm trying to grasp at
is deep down, what are you mostly
trying to help them with in this?
Ginny Jordan: Trying to help them expand
into being more who they really are.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Do you feel that that's what dreams
are doing that they're saying to us?
Ginny Jordan: Absolutely.
It doesn't matter whether it comes
in the form of a nightmare or despair
or a snippet, you know, I can't tell
you how many people come to a dream
because I just had a little snippet
and then they start talking about
it and a world opens up with it.
Little one liner that they hear
or something they see and I take
the position that it's not like
you over milk it for meaning.
It's inherently meaningful.
It's like young used to
talk about is every night.
Your soul's writing you
a letter and our job.
is to wake up and open the letter.
Rupert Isaacson: Now, why do
we want to open the letter?
Ginny Jordan: Instead of throw it away?
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
I mean, this might sound like a self
evident question, but I think for
a lot of people, it really isn't.
For a lot of people, a dream is a dream.
You dream it, it goes away.
Why do we want to open
that letter from our soul?
Ginny Jordan: Because You have the
most beautiful way of addressing
your own being than anybody else.
It's your material.
It's not, I didn't drop
those into your psyche.
It's yours.
You have the most beautiful way of
speaking to yourself that the other,
the other night, two nights ago, I
dreamt that I went to a, some being
said to me, a wonderful human, just,
I felt like I really respected this
person said to me, go into this room.
You're finally ready.
You know, and I go into this room and it's
like filled floor to ceiling with pearls.
I couldn't even barely get the door
open and you know, okay, that's
a letter like, what the heck?
Right now, if I just throw that letter
out, I will have missed something
quite, quite beautiful for me.
And my job as a human is to bow
to that, like say, thank you.
And then engage it.
It's not just, not just random,
Rupert Isaacson: how do you
unpack that particular dream?
You can talk me through the process.
Ginny Jordan: Well, for myself,
sometimes it's really helpful to have
someone else ask you the questions,
but I can ask them for myself.
I've learned to that over
the years for myself.
I asked very obvious questions.
Like, what did that feel like?
Well, I was so, kind of intimidated.
And excited at the same
time, what intimidated you?
Jenny?
Why is that?
You know, it's like I was in a room.
My mind could say, Oh, my God,
it's pearls of wisdom or it's
treasures or that's all true.
But I needed to have a direct
relationship to feel it.
And it was something about feeling
the fullness floor to ceiling
fullness of these pearlescent pearls.
As as a felt experience of, and this
person that told me to go in, there
was basically saying, you're ready.
Now you're ready.
It's kind of arrival time.
You're ready.
And I'm like, both scared
and I'm both like, excited.
Rupert Isaacson: And what
conclusion did you draw at the
end of your analysis of the dream?
Ginny Jordan: I think it affirms
something that I've been feeling for a
number of years, having turned 70 this
year, that this is fulfillment time.
It's like to let myself be that full.
Okay.
And not, not be afraid of my own
fullness and iridescent possibility
to, you know, to fill myself in
with the truth of this being.
It's not really about an arrogance or
a, it's just like, wow, fill yourself.
Rupert Isaacson: Now this is interesting
to me because we haven't even gone
into yet in the podcast the stuff
you've actually done in your life
Which we're about to but it would
seem to me knowing you for 20 odd
years a little bit more well, Ginny,
I mean, yes blindingly obvious.
You've just done all this amazing shit
and You're gonna probably keep doing lots
of amazing shit because that seems to be
what you do but why then are you only now?
being shown You That
it's time to go into this
room of your true power, your true
pearls, your true, your true treasures.
Given that you've been at it
for an awful long time, what do
you think is going on with that?
Ginny Jordan: That's a great question.
Well, it's just really pointing
to my psychology, isn't it?
That I can say, oh, and you can say, oh,
my God, you've done this and you've done
this, but to actually let myself sink
into the depth of that and have it hook
into the part of me that always cared so
much that I have an impact in the world
that I could, my caring could translate.
That's something that hasn't fully It's
sort of like I do what I do, you know,
it's same, sometimes it feels like magic
and easy and, you know, but to really
feel, really experience the depth of
that, let's call it mission fulfilled.
At this stage in my life when
I can see, you know, the sun
is going to set here, right?
It is, you know, I've 70, like I go,
Oh my God, that's 10 years from 80.
So it's maybe resting in the back wave
of the truth of my life and what I've
been, the pearls I've been able to offer.
I just
Rupert Isaacson: go
ahead, go ahead, go ahead.
Sorry.
Well,
Ginny Jordan: you'd be my psychologist.
Go for it.
Rupert Isaacson: Well,
I just got an intuitive
picture.
And the intuitive picture I got
is that the person going in to
the room is the younger you.
And the younger you is really the next,
the younger generation and that the
pearls of wisdom, the treasure trove
that, of experience that you have to
offer that you have amassed through this
lifetime now needs to be opened up to
those younger yous that are now coming.
Ginny Jordan: Beautiful.
Beautiful.
Rupert Isaacson: But that was
just and it's funny, I got
a little physical feeling.
In my solar plexus, and then
that image popped in, but that's,
that's Rupert's subjective.
Ginny Jordan: Yeah, but it's up to
me to have that resonate or not.
And it does, I can feel that.
And this is the reason why I'm
passionate about the dream world is
that if I hadn't told you that dream,
you wouldn't have engaged me with it.
You wouldn't have had your
own revelation intuition about
it, which furthers my growth.
Should
Rupert Isaacson: we all be having
conversations about our dreams?
Ginny Jordan: Absolutely.
Rupert Isaacson: Why aren't we?
Given that we have them every night,
Ginny Jordan: we've lost that.
I mean, there are many, you
know, tribes in the world.
The Oshawa come to mind in Ecuador
that they would never, ever, ever
open up a date without having a dream
council, because if we're operating
particularly like, so you and I are
in this moment, having this wonderful
reconnection and relationship, they're
waking up every morning with their
families and extended family, their
tribe, so to speak, their village.
People.
And if I know that you dreamt about
a snake last night and we've having
counsel and you hear about my pearls,
part of our relational field, commitment,
connection, and love field is to
mirror that throughout the whole day.
So that guess what?
I mentioned a snake.
Well, this morning, actually, I
did see my bull snakes finally wake
up from their spring hiding that
hide under my bedroom, literally.
And there was the bull snake.
And I'm, I'm carrying you today
through that your dream of the
snake and you're carrying me.
And that was a way of life
for many, many tribes.
And, or you look at you know,
dream cultures in Australia you
know, landscape was the dream.
That's what I meant by the seam
of night and day start shifting.
If you really, if you really open
up the seams, we keep them separate.
You know, we often go to bed at night.
Whoa.
You just want to crash, right?
Just check out.
And don't want anymore, we're just
trying to recover because there's
been just a mass amount of content and
stimulus and we just need recovery.
But imagine it wasn't like that.
Imagine your, your day life
completely speaks to your
nightlife and all the way around.
But
Rupert Isaacson: it's interesting.
The messages we get when
we're younger, you know.
So I remember once trying to recount
a dream of mine to my great aunt,
who was a famously acerbic lady.
And she was also my way into horses.
And so I had this weird, if any of
you have ever read Great Expectations,
it was a bit like Miss Havisham.
And Pip in the Miss Havisham is the
sort of mad old, not terribly nice
lady, but very interesting lady
who lives in the grand old house.
And Pip is the boy who's sort
of sent to, to live there.
And that was me.
She, she lived in this old decaying
house, which had been very grand.
There had been money.
It had been a bit aristocratic at one
point, the money had all been drunk away.
And now she lived in the sort of ruins of
the house, but there was still old stables
with some old retired horses in it.
And I.
Found mine.
I used to spend every weekend and every
holiday with her because I kept the
horse that I bought As a teenager with
the money that I made from a junk store
Her house and so we had this strange
relationship and she she wasn't very nice
But she was definitely the the portal
into that world for me And I remember
once trying to record recount a dream
to her and she turned to me and said
and that's a withering Lee sarcastic
English way and You know, Rupert, I
have to tell you that the truth is
there's nothing more boring than having
to listen to somebody else's dreams.
And in one, the guillotine, you know, I
sort of never talked about them again.
And I wonder if, so, so, but so
behind what you say, and we haven't,
again, we haven't gone on to all
the amazing stuff that you've done,
so please listeners keep listening.
But is what you're really saying
that in order to thrive, not just
survive as a human being, we must
live in a spiritual dimension, it's.
Just the other half of who we are.
We are the rational half of us
and the irrational half of us.
And we just slowly sort of
spiritually starve to death and
disappear into, you know, misery.
If we don't live the spiritual life
and the first and most immediate key
to that spiritual life is our dreams.
Ginny Jordan: I would say, yes, I don't
know if it's the 1st and most immediate.
It's not everybody's language.
Some people work their whole lives off.
They so want to remember dreams and
it's almost impossible for them.
And there are lots of tricks.
I could share.
We're not going to do that
now that to help with that.
It's a portal for some more than
others, and that's just the way it is.
And we could, some people would
put it down to biochemistry,
you know, it doesn't matter.
So it is a, it is 1 of the many doors you
can, you can walk through the same door.
If you've got all your senses
open in the, in the forest.
You know, it's, it's that that content
can arrive, just that can be at its own
dream where suddenly you're noticing right
things because your senses are awake.
So it's whatever door that is
there to provide an opportunity
for us to wake, to really wake
Rupert Isaacson: up.
I'm playing devil's advocate for
the listeners that might say, well,
you know, I, I don't need, you
know, why do I need to do this?
Is it about thriving?
Is it about?
actually not being depressed?
Is it about
being alive on the planet in
a way that is more joyful?
What's in it for us to engage with our
dreams or engage spiritually in this way?
Ginny Jordan: I think it's simple.
If you want to have a meaningful
life, a life that really translates
to you and your, your meaning base
is going to be different than mine.
But if you really want to have a
meaningful life, if you don't want
to just go through the motions of
life, you know, sort of half awake or
sleepwalking or, you know, wondering
there's something unfulfilled,
something that's not happening.
I'm, you know, low grade
depression, however it manifests.
This is one of the more extraordinary
ways to open up that deep felt experience.
There's something
meaningful going on here.
There's something larger than just
this little being sitting over
here and that being over there that
is moving through this existence.
And there are a million
names for that thing.
You know, it's, some would call
that God, some would call that great
spirit, some would call it mother,
father, divine someone called the Dao,
some, whatever you, doesn't matter.
It's it's the, the thing that seeds
life with the richness and the texture
of this very precious existence
that is, is so brief, but so potent.
Rupert Isaacson: Beautifully put.
Okay, so, when I met you, you had
been obviously doing this type
of therapy work for a long time.
You'd also gone through
marriage and parenthood.
You had had children.
Those children, when I first
met you, were already grown.
And when I first met you, you were
already a mover and shaker in education.
In climate change before anyone
was even talking about it, and
then went on to put out some.
Extremely sort of policy changing
bits of media that have resonated,
you know, through the decades
and got things actually done.
And then I also knew you as you were
starting this thing called Bead for Life
with women in Africa doing microfinance.
How did you?
which has grown into something huge,
which I hope you'll tell us about.
How did you go from, okay,
well, I'm a therapist.
There's lots of therapists out there.
And yes, I'm doing good in the world, but
I'm, you know, a therapist and I'm a mom.
Okay, great.
I'm putting nice human
beings into the world.
And I've met your children,
at least I met two of them and
they're great human beings.
So job done.
How do you suddenly go from
that to the kind of world stage?
That you've been operating on since
I've known you, what happened?
Ginny Jordan: Well, I got very sick.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Ginny Jordan: I was 35 and I was
after my third child was born.
I just really had a hard time recovering
and I knew something was wrong.
And talk about dreams.
I had some pretty bad dreams.
Prophetic dreams that something
was not right and long story
short, I was diagnosed with breast
cancer and a very aggressive form.
So at 35 at 35 did not
look how old at that time.
They were eight, six, and two shit.
Okay.
That I really remember.
And you know, as anybody knows, you
know, when you go through a, you
know, a diagnosis or extreme health
crisis, you know, your, your, your
life flips upside down and you're
very quickly measuring everything.
And it all becomes about measurement,
you know, everything from how much time
might I have left to what really matters?
What's the priority?
How do I measure those things?
So it was a deep time, deep time of doing
inventory, taking a look at what internal
resources I had to meet this challenge.
And Long story short, you know, it was a
dramatic few years of, you know, surgeries
and chemotherapy and but I couldn't
return to this sort of classic therapy
world that I was in you know, first world
problems took on a different proportion.
I couldn't sit there in the room when
somebody was just furious at their
husband, and he didn't like the tile
she chose for the bathroom or whatever.
I just was like, I can't do this.
And I wanted to get on the ground where.
There was a different
relationship to suffering.
And people that daily lives, you know,
they're just, they're in survival
in many third world countries.
And I just had a deep call and
knowing that I needed that.
And so as serendipity would have
it, a good friend of mine who's an
AIDS doctor was going to Uganda.
And I asked if I could come, my
daughters were very interested
in the HIV issue at the time.
And I thought, let's take them
there and give them a real.
Experience and we ran, we went
going through refugee camps
after refugee camps and you know,
looking at extreme suffering.
And there was an extraordinary group
of women that were making beads out
of paper and like, they were gorgeous.
Hard to imagine, but take a piece of
paper from a magazine, you know, cut out a
triangle, make a bead and make a necklace.
And they had piles of them, necklaces
and bracelets and earrings, but
they had no, hundreds of women,
but they had no way to market them.
And suddenly it was my friend
and I that were there together.
We just, we saw it.
It's like, Oh, this, we took
the beads after being over
there for a month or six weeks.
And as Again, synchronistic moment
where a friend heard about it
and sent, sent them to Oprah.
And then suddenly we're in Oprah's
magazine and 400 words in the O magazine.
And suddenly we had a real
problem, which was a huge demand.
And we hadn't even put
together an organization.
We were just sort of
clueless how to do that part.
And that was the whole learning
curve to our commitment was
to find a, a way to sell this.
Well, product but basically our interest
was never actually, it was not micro loan.
And we were kind of opposed to that.
It was much more how how, how do you
create the pathway for a woman who makes
2 a day pounding road base in the hot sun
to 10 a day where she can afford school
fees for her children and medicine.
And for her children and food and this,
so this was an income generating project
and, you know, hundreds, thousands and
thousands of volunteers eventually around
the world participated in selling these
beads and hosting like a Tupperware
party model, where you sell the beads and
tell the story of these amazing women.
And then it morphed over time years,
this was a good 17 years of my life.
It, it morphed into what's now called
the street business school, which
is a really incredible on the ground
grassroots curriculum a teaching
curriculum of how a woman can go
from extreme poverty to Being a true
entrepreneur and having many businesses.
So that's where it's landed.
So we started in Uganda and now we're
in 40 some other countries and it's.
It's got a life of its own.
Rupert Isaacson: Why were you
opposed to micro learning and
are you still opposed to it?
Ginny Jordan: Well, those, you know,
go back to the days when, you know,
that was really kind of just beginning
and the interest payments themselves
often became a very tricky thing.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Ginny Jordan: And there were some
organizations that You know, really looked
like they were in service to Loney, but
actually would start raising interest
rates if you couldn't pay it back, you
know, within the 1st year and we've kind
of our motto was, you know, we weren't
it was like a leg up and not a handout.
Not a handout in any way, because what
these women, you know, we discovered,
I'm making big generalizations, but it
was our felt experience consistently.
I mean, they had every
desire, every desire to work.
They just needed, right?
The, the support and context,
which we could create.
Rupert Isaacson: So you, you in the early
stages, and I guess that's a collective
view, were buying these beautiful beads.
And I've seen the beads.
They are extraordinary.
You'd never know they were
made out of what they make
and let alone magazine paper.
You know, they, they look stunning.
You were initially just what, from
your own pocket, just buying them
and then thinking, Oh my gosh, how
do we, how do we sell these things?
And brainstorming with each other
and coming up with eventually the
idea of the sort of Tupperware thing.
How did you do it?
Ginny Jordan: Well, some of it was, you
know, the minute you work in another
culture, you've got to be humble because
you don't really know what you're doing.
You really don't.
And to assume that we as sort of
my partner and I, 2 white women
really had a handle on, you know,
how things worked in Africa.
I mean, within the 1st, months,
we're encountering all kinds of
corruption and things that were
so shocking, upsetting to us.
And it was like, well, wait a minute here.
This is a way of life.
How do you work with that?
What are our values?
How do we.
Inject that without asserting that
as a way to grow an organization.
So it was a huge learning curve.
You know, we made mistakes.
We did amazingly exciting things.
We partnered with all kinds of British
airlines would fly the, you know, all
their use magazines and give them to
us and, you know, Habitat for Humanity.
We had a partnership with them
and we bought a piece of land.
We made, we were very made serious profit.
In our early years, when we
were just simply a profit making
organization and you know, what
do we do with this extra money?
We can't just sort of park it.
So we bought, we bought land and then
the women built their own village.
You know, we got partnerships.
So there was sweat in the game.
So we had some core principles
that we really believed in.
But the, the, the course of that.
You know, river, so to speak, just
took us down some wild rapids of
just rapid learning and mistakes, and
we would regroup and we were smart
enough to know what we didn't know.
And that probably was
why we were successful.
Rupert Isaacson: Now you talk about
the, you know, you got on Oprah,
you got on Oprah magazine and you
partnered with British Airways, you
partnered with Habitat for Humanity.
Well, look, I run nonprofits and I
know how difficult it is to get through
Those particular types of doors.
How'd you do it?
Ginny Jordan: We were smart enough to
hire at a certain point, a full time
social media, you know, marketing person.
So we got on every major.
TV, you know, good morning, America.
You know, we were, we would go to New
York and, you know, and at the time,
Rupert, it was the story to be told now,
you know, fair trade products connected
to, you know, communities, you know, is.
Pretty much out there, you know, and I,
I don't think we would do nearly so well.
Now we were right at the beginning, 17
years ago of, wow, look at this product.
Now I'm going to, it's less about
selling you a product, but I'm
going to tell you the story of
these women and they carried story.
And then the women that would host the
parties to sell them would take that
story as though it was theirs as well.
And then that became a way in which story
could move through a product, you know,
yes, they're beautiful and lovely where
it started getting painful and difficult
when we had to keep kind of coming up
with the next cool marketing thing that
was not in our hearts, you know, to like,
Oh, now we got the mother's day products.
And that was never a product
product first organization.
That was a means to a
larger end, which was.
To tell the story and for these women
to find ways to elevate themselves with
pride and dignity and dollars in the bank.
So how we did it was you know,
really deep, deep listening
to sort of the right course.
And the one that was already kind
of in our face that we just had to
recognize that was part of the work.
It's like, oh, these women.
And when you really looked at
what they were about, there
was zero issue with motivation.
We didn't even need to go
into that door whatsoever.
Big issue around dignity and confidence.
So then we had to map what's
the landscape of confidence.
How do you build confidence when
you're told your whole life you're
poor and you need a hundred dollars to
even think about starting a business.
We had to dispel that mythos.
And say, no, how did you dispel that?
You know, the 1st, modular of
the curriculum, as we talk about
assets, you know, 1st of all,
you're the most important asset.
You, the, you, the woman, and then,
well, what do you have in your hut?
Oh, I've got a, I've got
an iron in the corner.
I haven't used in years.
Okay.
That's an asset really grassroots.
That's an asset.
Oh, you've got, you know, cassava
growing in the lot plot next door.
Here, there's your next asset.
So kind of dispelling the myth that you
suddenly have to have a hundred dollars.
You got to go out and borrow it.
No, you grow that asset.
And then, you know, we put them
in groups with each other where
they're coaches for each other.
So, you know, I'm, I'm coach
Jenny and I'm saying to coach
Evelyn, you know, you can do that.
We're, we're mapping.
Confidence and a deep sense of this
is possible because that's not that's
not rooted deeply in a very poor
culture like where we were working.
It's just simply not.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
And that, but you can't just
cheerlead people, right?
So for example, if you say, okay, you've
got this iron or you've got this cassava
that's growing, these are your assets.
How do you teach them?
Show somebody who doesn't Know how
to use that as an asset, how to,
what are the nuts and bolts of that?
Ginny Jordan: Well, we would
go with them to market.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Ginny Jordan: Sell, sell, go,
go together and sell the goods.
And then, you know, one of the, one
of the modulars of the curriculum
is they're each given, you know,
the equivalent of 20 bucks.
And then they get to observe how
they spent the money toward the
business that they finally decided.
And it's a process to look at what your
talent is and what your assets are so
that you're going to be successful.
So if you think you've got some
talent sewing, okay, how the hell are
you going to get a sewing machine?
How is that going to be doing?
We'd walk them through right?
The way the pathway to be able to do that.
And so they would certain
point get 20 dollars.
Then they come back and reflect on.
Oh, I think I made a mistake because
I gave, you know, half of it to my
uncle to build me a vegetable stall
and he just flaked off with it.
Oops.
Right, so just learning on the ground,
I mean, really just we're talking really
grassroots learning and being completely
accompanied in the learning process.
So that, you know, they're
assured that they're actually.
Going to be successful and, you
know, we've we've had, you know,
I can't remember the name of.
Wharton Business School, they did a
huge analysis of our organization.
And, you know, we have serious,
we spent a lot of time doing
really rounded data analysis.
So it's not just narratives.
I'm not just telling you lovely stories.
And we had 85 percent success rate of
women permanently getting out of poverty.
Rupert Isaacson: Here's a question.
So one would expect, let's say,
There's an entrepreneur out there and
that entrepreneur feels a sense of
mission and goes and helps poor people
become entrepreneurs You had come out
of counterculture Radical feminism
radical everything become a Therapist
become a mother now suddenly you're
an entrepreneur coaching entrepreneurs
from what background and how
Ginny Jordan: I would say little
background, very little background, but
definitely enough of the right attitude.
And as I said, illness set me
on a very particular course.
Rupert Isaacson: What made
you able as someone who hadn't
engaged as an entrepreneur?
I mean, of course, everyone who runs their
own business, you have been running a
successful therapy business at that point.
So of course you were an
entrepreneur to that degree, but
what made you able to do that?
What we think of in terms of the
cliche of an entrepreneur made
you feel that you had the tools for this
Why didn't you feel that you were the
one needing with that myth of I need
the hundred bucks, you know what I mean?
Right.
What what?
Where do you those tools from and where
did you get the practical business tools
from of showing them how to create assets?
When you had actually come
from rather a different world
Ginny Jordan: Well, we, we knew
which women tend to know is that
it's a collaboration and that it's
not a hierarchy and that, you know,
we really were smart enough to know
where our talent was and where it
wasn't and we got the right talent.
We, we had a business manager that, you
know, really taught us in many ways.
My partner was also a therapist,
so, I mean, we, we used to laugh,
say, well, we're kind of the bozos
here, you know, like, but, but what
we brought to the table was the
vision was the capacity, right?
To stay with it.
We knew we had that.
Drive we also understood what
fundamentally women need the language
of the feminine, like these women, when
you've really listened and watched,
they're constantly dancing and constantly
singing, even through their suffering,
even through their wailing to having just
lost a child you know, to dehydration.
It's like, you know, shocking,
shocking for us to like, how, how
are you managing that level of grief?
They, you know, they do it together.
And observing that and understanding
like how, you know, we, I can't
tell you how many parties we hosted,
how many dances it was like, oh,
we brought so much celebrate.
They taught us so much about that, right.
And we kind of could, we could, you
know, as women, we could feel what
it is that women are about and we
are a collective and we do have that.
I'm not saying men
don't, but we've got, um.
Different kind of wider capacity and easy
for me to say, I with no shame whatsoever.
We are bozos.
We do not know how to do this, but boy,
do we know some amazing people who do.
And then what happened, which was part
of the magic part of it was the right
people show up at the right time.
When you're clear, it's
almost like a law of gravity.
Suddenly there they are at the door and
said, I'm going to help you with this.
Thanks.
I'm going to help you with this.
Rupert Isaacson: Were you consciously
saying, like, I remember I had
this moment with my son when I
was sort of standing in a field.
Not knowing what to do when he was
at the height of his severity and I
was rousing I don't I need a mentor.
I need who can who is it
who can show me what to do?
Because I don't know and
then I was thinking okay.
Well, who who would this
mentor be and my imagination?
Well, it has to be someone
who's autistic right?
Because otherwise, whatever they've got
is an opinion not not experience and
then, you know, they had to start it
where my son started and somehow made it.
Who's that person?
I went, oh, actually that's Dr.
Temple Grandin, you know, and then I,
I went to her and asked for mentorship.
Was it kind of like that?
Were you going, okay, shit, you know,
who are going to be our mentors here and
how do we actively go out to find them?
Ginny Jordan: Absolutely.
That's exactly it.
Yep.
And, you know, it requires a
willingness to be kind of humble
enough to know, whoa, we really
don't, we don't know how to do that.
The woman that helped us develop
this, I mean, rock solid curriculum
which we finally figured out
after years that that was our real
talent is we knew the ingredients.
Right.
It wasn't about selling beads.
It was actually the ingredients.
As I said, one of the key ingredients
is building that landscape of
confidence, which seems sort of
abstract and somewhat irrelevant.
It isn't, that's the key.
And we, we knew that we saw
that over and over again.
And she had this amazing way of breaking
this whole thing down into a sequenced
curriculum that built on itself.
That embedded in it were all
these principles and then the
real practicalities involved in,
in actually creating businesses.
That are sustainable,
Rupert Isaacson: who was this mentor
Ginny Jordan: to a woman that we
found, you know, and you know, I
don't know what more to say about her.
She probably wouldn't want to be named
because she's, she's very, she's very,
Rupert Isaacson: everyone will
be, you know, contacting her.
Ginny Jordan: Maybe, but, you know,
she's, she's extraordinary and, you
know, emerges an amazing leader and
willingness to fly to country to
country to country, you know, and we
Rupert Isaacson: already knew, or was
it someone that you sought out who kind
of popped into your path once you'd
sort of thrown out to the universe?
Come on, God, where's my mentor?
Ginny Jordan: Yes.
Yeah, we didn't know, we didn't know her.
We knew people who might know
people, but again, it's just that
process that we all go through
and are ready to really reach out.
And, but you know, you gotta, you gotta
shoot that arrow with utter clarity.
I learned that years and years, years
of working, you know, different,
different forms of manifestation.
That the clarity is key.
It's not that you have to have
everything, but, you know, what
are you really shooting for
Rupert Isaacson: clarity?
And the really,
Ginny Jordan: yeah, we were really
shooting for a big goal, a big hairy goal,
which was, you know, in a 10 year period
of time, a million women permanently
out of poverty and you know, we had very
particular parameters to what that meant.
Rupert Isaacson: By the way, read I'll say
readers because I'm an author, listeners,
don't worry if you're trying to manifest
and you're feeling murky and unclear
and you're shooting unclear arrows.
You've got to do that too.
Absolutely.
That you've got to shoot.
You've got a knife
Ginny Jordan: at the target.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Ginny Jordan: They got to fail.
You know, we failed a lot.
There are some big mistakes we made
that look back, I'm just kind of
horrified, but, you know, boy, did
it get us on the right course, you
know, you just course correct if
you're determined which we were.
Rupert Isaacson: Two other things that
you did which I can speak to is right
at the time that you were doing this the
work that I was doing with the Bushmen
in the Kalahari, the Khoisan Bushmen
on their land claims rights came along.
And you.
acted as a philanthropist to us.
You, you, you helped us to get going.
And listeners, what happened was
as a result of that early support
two key hunter gatherer groups in
Southern Africa collectively won the
five largest land claims in African
history with very little money up
against seemingly impossible odds.
So that was my experience.
Also, if you're Influence.
And then also at that, shortly
after that, I, I began the
work with Horseboy Foundation.
And you supported that too.
While also going through all
the stuff with Bead for Life and
then moving into this other very
important work with climate change.
And I remember you beginning to
talk to me about climate change.
When people weren't, I mean, it's not
that it wasn't around at all, but we
all know, you know, we all know that
the conversation has really only become
properly, properly, properly mainstream.
I think since COVID, I think that
pre that was still more or less on
the margins and the times that you,
when you were talking about it and
getting really actively involved.
I think most people were still.
trying to turn a blind eye and you've
been very influential in helping them see
a glaring light of, of all the pimples
and warts et cetera, through a series
of extraordinary films that have had an
amazing, um, influence on also getting
policy changes and things like that.
Can you tell us about Chasing Ice
and Chasing Coral, how you got
involved in those movies, what those
movies were, still are, they're out
there, people should watch them.
And what, what they did.
Ginny Jordan: Yeah, well, I'll
begin with chasing ice because
that was really my my initiation.
I, you know, have the good fortune of
Jim Balogh, who the film is about is
a National Geographic, post National
Geographic photographer, who's really
spent most of his career documenting,
documenting, we'll call it change.
And then it.
Species change extinction and climate
to be kind of became more and more his
passion and particularly climate is
being observed through on glaciers.
So, being a good friend and being
pretty intrigued and I did some
supporting up of his organization
called extreme ice survey.
What he did is he, he designed
and built cameras that could
withstand high temperatures.
I mean, cold temperatures and
high winds on glaciers, and
it would operate time lapse.
So they would be basically
running themselves.
And he put these, he put these all over
the glaciers, Iceland and Greenland,
and eventually parts of America and
Switzerland all over the world and
Antarctica eventually to try to document
in real time climate change and these
time lapse images that are astounding.
And if people haven't seen the
film, it's, it's so worth watching.
It's an old story now in many
ways but it was the first.
Real, it was like eyeballs on the
glacier eyeballs on climate change.
It was not political, nothing about it.
It was political.
It's like, take a look here.
It is it's in your face now.
And what you see rapidly in a time lapse,
you'll see a whole sequence of frames
where the glacier was kind of, you know,
right in front in front and all of a
sudden it's receded, but it looks, you
know, like equivalent of a mile and a.
X number year period.
And it's like, you can't argue with that.
So it was a brilliant and very
determined mission that he had.
I loved it.
You know, I went to Greenland, I
was in those helicopters flying over
the glacier and you know, that was
whatever it was 15 some years ago.
And it, I had that privilege.
And it was a privilege it
was massively depressing.
I came home and practically
couldn't get out of bed for three
weeks because I saw the level of
glacial melt from that perspective.
And it was just very easy for me
to translate that to sea rise.
It just was just simple
equation and it was shocking.
And so that really launched my
commitment to the, to trying to
tell the story of climate change
and trying to kind of wake us up.
You know, Al Gore certainly did
that and inconvenient truth is just,
you know, those first beginning.
Let's tell the truth.
What's really happening chasing the
other films came along because I love
film, you know, I think next life.
I might I might go into movies.
Let's see.
It's like I love to edit.
I love being behind a camera and looking
at how to tell the story and how to
tell it in the best possible way.
So that was part of my just selfish.
It's like, get me in the room when
we're especially editing film to
sort of see what I could bring to it.
And again, films are huge number of people
as a whole team, but that's been a real
privilege for me to work on these films.
And then they morphed into, I've got very
close to the director of chasing eyes,
a young, amazing man, Jeff Orlowski.
And exposure labs and we worked on a film,
probably many of your, your listeners
have watched, which is called the social
dilemma, trying to tell that story of
Rupert Isaacson: before we
get to the social dilemma.
Ginny Jordan: Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: Coral.
Tell us about chasing coral.
Ginny Jordan: You know, obviously
the same story from now, now, not on
top of a mountain, but down under the
ocean and, and really looking at the,
the story of climate change and the
warming of the oceans through coral.
And that was actually not a
good film until we worked our
asses off to figure out how to.
so much.
Help everyone fall in love with
coral and understand, you know, it's
not just a concept that these, you
know, these are bleaching and dying
these reefs all over the world.
But like, why do you
want to love this coral?
How critical it is to our ecosystem?
So that was a very passionate film
and we found a wonderful young.
Kid who was kind of a geek about oceans
that since he was a kid and he kind of
ended up being the savior of that film
because we were, that was a hard story to
tell to, to engage people in a way that
had a sense of adventure, like chasing
ice has a great sense of adventure in it.
And I think we got,
we're successful with it.
You know, the films have
done really well, so
they all, they all, they
all ended up in Congress.
We found a great way to get them to
be shown with you know, they have
a film series for Congress and all
of Congress, they all got copies.
And, you know, that was a long time ago.
And, you know, that was a huge awakening.
At a political level,
Rupert Isaacson: did
Ginny Jordan: you ask me a policy?
Rupert Isaacson: Did you see some tangible
results politically from those things
from those films that things happened?
Ginny Jordan: Yes.
And no, you know, I don't think anybody
should make a film these days without
having a really developed impact strategy
because films come and go so quickly.
So, you know, what's your impact strategy?
How are you going to actually.
Move it out into the world in what
way, and with chasing ice and coral,
we decided to go to some of these
districts, Republican districts that
didn't even believe in climate change.
And we came up with a strategy that we
would just saturate those communities,
you know, from the chamber of commerce
to the kids in the high schools that
would go home and tell their parents
this movie they saw, you know, we just
soaked them and we did get some of those
districts to actually go to the Change
their position on climate, but it was
a very arduous and expensive strategy.
And so, yes, we certainly had
impact and it's very hard to
measure the impact of films.
You know, there's all these studies
on, like, how many inputs you
need to actually take an action
and it's often a minimum of 6.
So you've got to read about it.
You've got to see it.
You've got to talk to a friend about it.
You've got to have a parent, you know,
talk to the kid about, you know, that you
need inputs in order to actually get from.
That's interesting.
Okay.
Well, I'm back to my day to
actually, actually, you know,
contributing in some way.
It's, it's complicated,
Rupert Isaacson: right?
But you did get to Congress.
Yeah.
Ginny Jordan: And,
Rupert Isaacson: I do know
myself how powerful that can be.
I remember when we got in front of the
Congressional Human Rights Caucus with
the Bushmen, and suddenly you had these
guys speaking directly to congressmen,
and they could see these people who'd
been tortured and kicked off their land
for diamonds, you know, in front of them.
And then things began to
happen from that point.
So, now tell us about The Social Dilemma.
That was a really,
really interesting film.
And remains a really, really interesting
film because I think it's all these
films are still relevant today.
But I think this one is particularly
relevant to the youngest
generation that's coming up.
Tell us about that film
Ginny Jordan: in terms of how
it was conceived or a lot.
Well, I think, you know, again,
the same director, you know,
he talked to me about it.
He, he was working on it and what
was the right angle and, you know,
we kind of came up with this idea.
We being many again and not just.
A few of us that a good way to kind
of break through the, the resistance
would be to actually have the guy
that invented the like button on
Facebook in front of a camera saying,
whoops, I didn't have any idea of.
You know, I thought that was a cute idea.
I had no idea that that could translate
to, you know, pre teen girl suicide
rate going through the ceiling because,
you know, they got, you know, unliked
by, you know, all their friends.
And that drove them to suicide and
that trajectory was so shocking
and is shocking, remains shocking.
But, you know, that was the strategy
with that film is have the people
that were somewhat innocently.
I mean, not all participating in something
that has snowballed into something that
is really seriously out of control.
And I think the, again, that was a, I'm
not so sure that film would be as relevant
in this moment because people know a
lot more now, but it was the real expose
about how young people in particular
being manipulated financially and how
they're actually gathering your data.
And that was, you know, not
in everybody's awareness.
Like, Oh, they actually know from the way
I shop and the way I communicate on sit,
you know, they know if I'm an introvert
or if I'm an extrovert, Oh, they know
if I'll buy this, but I won't buy that.
Oh, they know, I mean, and whoa, you
know, and that sense of of exposure
and vulnerability of how much, you
know, you know, AI knows about you.
And so that was a great
way to tell that story.
And we worked hard to try
to figure out how to do it.
It's kind of a hybrid film because there's
a theatrical piece within a documentary
that would hybrid model was new.
Not all films have tried that
and it was relatively successful
because it was real time.
You see a family really struggling with
the issues and then you're listening to,
you know, the, the guy that ran Facebook
or Tristan, who was kind of amazing
leader in the field of social media
exposure and what is the harm it's causing
Rupert Isaacson: the guy who
invented the like button.
I'm
Ginny Jordan: trying to remember his name.
Rupert Isaacson: I've tried.
Yeah.
And it's so interesting is that we know
the like button, but we can't remember
the name of the guy who, you know, I
remember watching the movie and seeing
him being interviewed and saying, yeah,
look, we, we did just think that this
might be something kind of entertaining.
We had no idea.
We had no idea at all that
it would become so dark.
And initially we were just.
Obviously excited by the success, but
we didn't think it would be anything
other than entrepreneurial fad.
And, and, you know, I think also
that a lot of these guys were
just so into the technology.
They were nerds who were just so
excited that their day had come.
That it was, it was the revenge
of the nerds, Silicon Valley.
It was.
Suddenly all the kids that were getting,
who had been teased at school, who had
not been, who had been the butt end of
the social scenes in their high schools,
who would have been the ones actually
probably going off and getting depressed
and perhaps killing themselves, you know,
in, before social media, just through
straight up bullying and ostracism.
Now suddenly they were the arbiters.
And they didn't do it with this
Machiavellian plan to get even.
They just were following the
brilliance of their technology
and realizing people liked it.
And then, oops we didn't realize
we'd invented the atomic bomb.
And I think that's what really came
through from the movie when I watched it
was that, you know, like with Oppenheimer,
for example, they knew absolutely
what they were trying to develop and
why they were trying to develop it.
And they knew exactly what
its evil potential was.
And felt that, that they had to,
to stop this greater evil, not
knowing that it could lead to
greater evils, but not seeing any
alternative at the time and so on.
Whereas that wasn't in any way
where these guys were coming from.
They, they thought they were simply
providing entertainment and couldn't
have dreamt that it would lead to the,
Ginny Jordan: Yeah, well, it was more
essentially more than entertainment
because, you know, they were
as confused as we've all become
around this notion of connectivity.
And so not really having a measure
at the time we have a better
measurement now of the illusion of
connectivity and this whole notion of
hyper connectivity as a high value.
And what how that's actually, um,
deeply, deeply tearing cultural fabric.
Out from underneath us, and
that's, that's the part that,
you know, was short sighted.
They couldn't see that.
You know, we think we're getting
you more connected and actually
something else is occurring as well.
That's true at 1 level and another level.
It's actually, it's actually taking
away your capacity to connect.
Right?
So, you know, how many young people
now know how to exactly like have
build a conversation like you and I are
having, you know, how many people are
really going to listen to this whole
long podcast, you know, you, right.
We kind of want it, we
want it kind of quick.
We want in a hyper way and,
you know, they couldn't have
seen that they didn't see that.
To your point, they thought it was
kind of fun and lovely and you're
going to feel more connected because
someone's going to like you when
you do something and that's so cool.
No, it's embedded in a much deeper,
deeper, very more transparent problem
now of where our culture is headed.
Rupert Isaacson: I mean, it's interesting
because a lot of the work I do could not
have existed, could not have found its
feet without social media, but that was
before I even knew that it was active.
So, for example, when we first
put out the small trailer when we
were trying to raise funds to make
the documentary for The Horseboy.
There was this new thing called YouTube.
This was this 2006, I think
YouTube came out in 2005.
And the young filmmaker, Michael Scott,
who I teamed up with to make the horse
boy said, oh, there's this thing.
We could do a little thing and put it
out on there, and maybe, who knows,
maybe some people might come and help.
It was one of the first
things that went viral.
Back in the day when going
viral didn't mean what it means
today, but nonetheless it did.
And because of that all this work
that we now do with autism happened.
So that was a result of one aspect
of social media, or here we are,
we're talking on Zoom right now.
That is of course another one, but I
think where you're right is that we
come out of this analog generation
where we learned to communicate
before social media came along.
And then it was added as a sort
of a tool that we sometimes like
to engage with and sometimes don't
like to engage with, rather than
growing up with it as the tool.
Ginny Jordan: Well said.
And so, you know, we have to
pray for these young people
that that's all they've known.
This is what all they've known.
And, you know, how are we going to
serve them and re remembering that
discernment that you just named, which
is that it's, it's an amazing tool.
That's all it is.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Ginny Jordan: It's a tool.
It's a tool.
But is, does it replace
your actual social, right,
interactive felt experience?
No, it can't.
And we've now finally
discovered that, right?
Rupert Isaacson: Your film was
one of the first ones that,
that alerted people to it.
Yeah.
Ginny Jordan: No, it was, it was obviously
the right note in the right moment.
I think 20 million people saw
it in the first three weeks.
That was a huge thanks
Rupert Isaacson: to social media,
Ginny Jordan: social media, you got it.
And I'll never forget talking.
I had many, many conversations with
young people around the world, and
they all were saying the same things.
Like, how do we, they're not going
to throw out, you know, the ending
of it's kind of trite, you know,
it's like, well, just get off it.
Well, you know, if you grew up with it and
you love it and parts of it are wonderful,
like, how are you going to do that?
But.
Every single one, whether it was a young
person in India or where they were in
Pakistan, wherever they were in South
America, they all said the same thing.
We've got to come up
with better platforms.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
Ginny Jordan: that and I thought,
okay, good challenge for you.
Let's pass that baton to you.
See if you can figure that out.
1st of all, where they're not
getting hold of your data.
They're not, you're not being
marketed, you know, in a
completely manipulative way.
But 2nd, how do you actually generate.
A tool that actually can supply
the connection like you and I are
having right now, and we're safe.
We're saving a whole lot
of carbon to do this.
We're not getting on airplanes, you know,
all that has its rightful place, but
they're going to have to figure this out
because they're not going to throw up.
Why would you?
Rupert Isaacson: I almost wonder
if we're going to have to sort of
open, reopen the sort of old schools
of philosophy, but within schools.
Of this is how this is how a human
being talks to another human being.
Ginny Jordan: I've always wanted I
actually developed like, it's probably.
Probably I probably horrified if I
looked at it now, but many years ago,
I went on retreat in Greece and I,
I wrote a curriculum for high school
kids called the art of communication.
And I thought, like, how do you
break down conversation was the art?
Sorry.
It was the art of conversation,
not communication.
How do you actually have conversation?
What does that mean?
Rupert Isaacson: Why do you need it?
Yeah.
Ginny Jordan: Why do you need it?
And what does it feel like when, you
know, you and I get off the podcast and
we grew something bigger than we knew
we could, and that generates a feeling,
not just of exhaustion or depletion,
like we've all had those conversations,
but it should, lots of those, it
should be, it should be additive.
Right.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yeah.
It should be.
Ginny Jordan: You're growing something
bigger than these two parts could know.
And that's the glory opportunity
of real conversation.
But you know, how do you tell a young
person who just wants you to get
through it in three seconds, please.
And let's get to the bottom
data point or whatever.
It's, it's a lost, sort of a lost art.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
You can't create, you can't
manifest without conversation.
Conversation between people, conversation
between people in the divine, but I think
also there's just a straight up nurturing
of the individual human in that we are,
they call us sapiens sapiens, right?
But that's a silly name for us, Homo
sapiens, it just means the thinking
ape, all apes think, in fact, anything
with a brain thinks, you know, octopuses
have ape brains, you know, I mean, it's,
that's not specific to our species.
But this, this voice box,
this larynx that I've got.
that you've got, with a speaking
ape, with a storytelling ape.
That is, other animals vocalize,
and many of them vocalize in a very
complex way, but they don't create rap.
And they don't write Shakespeare.
That's, that's us.
That's our species.
And the sort of shamanic thing, you
know, story is medicine story is.
So, yeah, that is conversation.
Yeah, it's
Ginny Jordan: back to imagination.
I mean, that was what William
Blake meant when all of his work
was kind of in service to what
he called divine imagination is
the divine gift of this species.
Right.
Is that we can, we can vocalize,
but we can imagine with it.
And off we go insane.
Create creativity as possible.
So, and, and there's a lot of
creativity that happens on devices.
My God, you know, so yeah.
Like, but, you know, so then really
beginning to understand, analyze,
like actually what might be missing,
like, what, what are you actually
having an experience of like when
you walk away and it's like, Hmm.
Right.
So.
It's, it's not an easy answer.
It's definitely an important inquiry.
Rupert Isaacson: It's really interesting
when we're doing our work, you know,
movement method, horseboy method,
we're obviously going into nature
as much as we can, because that's
what the human nervous system needs.
People frequently, parents or
teachers will say, well, to the
child that we're taking, Oh, you're
not, you can't bring your device
because this is your nature time.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Absolutely.
They can bring their device.
Please bring your safety blanket and
please and now engage with that in nature.
And what will happen is pretty soon you'll
get a bit distracted by nature and you'll
start forgetting to use that device.
And we're not trying to
wean you from your device.
In fact, we think your use of
this device is a good thing.
However, if it.
You don't also have what
your organism needs.
Well, then no, you won't thrive.
But yes, We absolutely accept that we
live in the age of devices and they're
not all bad by any means so please
engage with it and it's funny how Extreme
and black and white I guess, you know,
that's So endemic to our culture, but
Ginny Jordan: that's brilliant.
That's a brilliant way to talk about it.
Rue.
I love that.
This is brilliant.
It's like, no, bring it with you.
And then you, you let this, you
know, there is a natural impulse,
whether nature's pulling that out
of us or whether another human
is, there is a natural impulse to
have this connection that grows.
It just, it's natural.
This is not like all mysterious.
Rupert Isaacson: It's very interesting.
By the time we say light a fire at
night, none of them are on their devices.
We don't even have to try, but
their device might be lying
next to them, but they're not
on it, but they get back on it.
Maybe they're getting back
on it and engaging in a
different type of conversation.
Ginny Jordan: Yeah.
I love it.
No, and it's spot on.
And like, you know, how often
are you and I checking our phones
while we're talking right now?
It's like
Rupert Isaacson: a zillion times.
Ginny Jordan: A zillion times.
Yeah, right.
So not, not, not needed.
But again, that's not, it's
not like there's a rule, you
know, it's just, it's just.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, and the phone
has set me free because the fact that
I can WhatsApp you in Boulder, Colorado
from here in Germany and the fact that
someone else can WhatsApp me while
I'm talking to you, that sets us free
because yes, we can live in parallel
realities, which we always have anyway,
but we can do those through our devices.
We can have our livelihoods
through our devices and we can
be creative through our devices.
But I think only if we also keep
one of our feet firmly in nature,
will it, will it help us thrive
and not just cause us pain?
Ginny Jordan: Yeah, you know, I feel
completely with you on that note.
Not everybody feels that way, but
part of it comes down to presence.
Like, how present, like back to DRAMDAS,
be here now, how present what's our
capacity to actually be present?
Rupert Isaacson: And I think it's, it's
more complex than it's often presented.
So, for example you've had this
experience, when you've been in, you know,
the company of a really senior shaman,
Ginny Jordan: like
Rupert Isaacson: I'm thinking about,
say, ghost from the reindeer people
in Mongolia who healed my son or Besa,
who was the healer in the Kalahari
that I was the closest to, they would
go in and out of trance parallel.
To being in the quote unquote real
world, whereas the younger healers, they
were either in trance or they were not.
And then they would reach this point when
they were in the 60s or 70s when they
could simultaneously walk the two paths
and literally be kind of like smoking a
cigarette and having a conversation with
someone about something very banal while
falling in and out of trance and sort of
pulling something out of somebody's spine.
And is that not what we're
doing when we're on our devices?
Yeah, well, talking to each other
if the intention is with what you
do with that device while you're
talking to somebody to bring healing
in some way or that is that not the
same process really in a funny way.
Ginny Jordan: No, I, I, I
think that's spot on that.
And that's pretty much what I was trying
to say that ultimately what happens
in our nightlife besides just crashing
and like, just wanting to check out.
It's a, you know, it's kind of a,
another fertile realm of existence.
They can all be singing to
each other, you know, and it
all can happen simultaneously.
I mean, now we're getting
kind of out there, but I
absolutely know it's possible.
The, the Tibetans have, have
researched that for thousands of
years, you know, they call it dream
yoga where you actually can wake up
fully is beyond even lucid dreaming.
You can wake up fully in Simon's death
practice ultimately, because you're waking
up fully inside of your night experience
and you're wide awake, but you're asleep.
And like, how do you
do this simultaneously?
And like you just said, where it's.
It's not a, you know, it's not a
question of, Oh, I'm not present
or I have to be here or here.
It's this black and white thing
that we have gotten ourselves into.
It, it has a weaving.
We just don't know how to live it.
Rupert Isaacson: You've mentioned
at the beginning while we were
chatting before this began about
another project called Chasing Time.
What's that about?
Ginny Jordan: Well, that's really the,
the literal finale of taking these.
Cameras down all over the world and
the last cameras, the time lapse
that were part of chasing ice.
So chasing time is really
a much shorter version.
It's maybe a 45 minute film piece on Jim.
They log the photographer going back
to take down the last, very last
camera, which happens to be in Iceland.
And so it's full of incredible images.
I mean, gorgeous.
Portraits of glaciers that just
make you fall in love in part,
knowing that we're not going to see
those images and X number of years.
There's going to be no glacier left.
No snow left to be looking at.
And it's also the story.
So it's visually gorgeous
and kind of a love affair.
And it's also the story of
taking down the last camera.
And handing it over to in this case,
the, the government got involved in
this project and decided they wanted
to launch a more citizen science
project as the tail of this project
into the future, which would be.
People, citizens going to the
same spots where Jim took the, you
know, it's a very specific spot.
You know, you don't change your spot.
You're going to do time lapse.
It's got to be exact exact.
So the exact same spot, you know, with
these brass kind of stands where have
a little mount on them where you can
mount your iPhone and you, me, just
regular citizens can take a picture.
And that picture will go
into a database of images.
And so their child, you know, 20 years
from now can take the same picture
in the same spot and be comparing
to how much retreat there's been.
And the angle for for the Icelandic
people is they love their glaciers.
They love them.
It's a big part of
their, of their culture.
It's also a huge part of tourism,
you know, the amount of diversity
in that, if you've ever been
to Iceland, it's so diverse.
It's kind of astounding.
And so, you know, in the film you see, you
know, hundreds and hundreds of, of people
that live in Iceland engaged in this
project from their love of the glaciers
and their love of wanting to document.
Their loss, so it's kind of an active
science project, but it's also a
grieving project and a way of engaging
their grief that these things are
going and one day there's children.
Children are not going to
see any of the landscape they
have, which is so impressive.
So what a beautiful thing
to go from an individual.
It's not about Jim Balog anymore.
It's about the people participating
and documenting the change.
In the world, and that's real time,
real life engaging and these projects
are actually, as you probably know,
these citizens scientists projects are
sprouting up all over the world where
people are engaged in observing that.
Oh, my God, that species of birds
didn't come back this year and they
have a way to send that data in and
participate in telling the story.
of this changing planet.
So it's a brilliant way to end this
extraordinary effort that Jim made.
Rupert Isaacson: I want to bring the
conversation in it's, we're going to
sort of head for the home stretch now.
By the way listeners tend to break these
things up into segments to listen to.
But you've got so much that, okay.
So before I just go to the last.
A set of things I wanted to ask
you about you, you've got chasing
time, which you're working on.
What have you got another
movie up your sleeve?
Ginny Jordan: Well, yeah, there's
a wonderful book called braiding
sweetgrass, which is your, if your
listeners haven't read, I highly
recommend that's have you read it?
Rupert Isaacson: I can highly
recommend it to braiding sweetgrass.
I was given it by a Cheyenne
native American woman.
Oh, wow.
Was actually braiding in Yellowstone
National Park who braided sweetgrass
for my daughter Freya and braided it
into her hair and for my youngest son
Kirian, and she said you guys must
read this book and we didn't and so
we read it aloud to our children.
For those, last year, for those
who don't know what braiding
sweetgrass is, please Ginny, tell us.
Ginny Jordan: Well, it's the woman
who wrote is called Robin wall Kimmer.
Is she an actually, is she a botanist?
I'm trying to remember her actually.
I mean, she's, she's got, you know,
very strong, serious science background.
But indigenous And it's a really hard
book to describe how she's engaging us in,
um, the ingredients of I'm going to put
this in air quotes, an indigenous way of
living where we're in right relationship
to all species and all beings.
And she's a masterful storyteller, so
she'll tell you the whole story of sweet
grass and it's you know, before you
know it, you're smelling it and then
you really kind of want to plant it.
And I've learned how to
make sweet grass baskets
Rupert Isaacson: for those listeners who
are, say, driving a car in Berkshire in
England right now, listening to this.
What is sweet grass?
Ginny Jordan: It's just, you know,
kind of one of a gazillion thousands of
grasses but it's been used traditionally
in native cultures for, you know,
basket making also for smudging.
They often weave it into into braids
where you can, you know, Light it and
it creates an, it's an amazing scent.
It's sweetness of sweetness of grass.
If you could just imagine putting your
face in really fresh grass, it's so, so
sweet but it's not, you know, we would
not look at it and go, that's an amazingly
special grass, you know, it, it kind of
grows and kind of not so great conditions.
It sort of doesn't matter, but.
She elevates it to its rightful place.
And what she's trying to say
throughout the whole book is
all these species are beings.
They're living beings that have this
dynamic expression, you know, in this
case, in the form of plants that are
full of all kinds of medicines for us.
And we simply have not learned
how to actually have a direct
experience with these beings.
You know, we might use them.
We might.
You know, be interested, but like,
actually, you know, she really
takes us through the experience of
what it is to actually listen to
a plant and have the plant speak.
That's
Rupert Isaacson: the, I think, for
many people, the revelatory part of.
If you like modern day spirituality is
that suddenly there's an acceptance,
thanks to you guys from the
counterculture 50 years on, there is
now finally an acceptance within the
medical and the psychological field
of the use of psychotropic plants.
For the mental health pandemic that
we've got, and suddenly you're seeing
magic mushrooms being legalized in just
about every state, but whoever would have
thought you'd see that and people using
ayahuasca and using, you know, other plant
based medicines, you know, peyote, etc.
I've had some experience with that.
And as you know, listeners, maybe you
don't know what the native, what the
indigenous people of all, all those
cultures who use these things around
the world say is that, well, we didn't
discover the use of these plants.
These plants discovered us and we
have a relationship to this plant.
These plants have personalities and
speak to us through our consciousness
and our shamanic processes.
And it's, it wasn't a
system of trial and error.
Let's try this thing.
Let's try this Not at all.
It's a very different process and I think
with what you're doing with braiding
sweetgrass, you seem to be, once again,
at the zeitgeist of when this becomes
part of mainstream thought, just before
it becomes part of mainstream thought.
You did it with climate change, you did
it with ice and coral, you did it with
social media with the social dilemma.
Now you're doing it with plant based
medicines in relation to other species.
What is it, Jiddy, that allows you to
consistently and continually identify
and tap the zeitgeist of what the
human beings need before it hits the
mainstream, to help it hit the mainstream.
What, what, what, where
does this quality come from?
You hit it into the ballpark,
Every time with your films,
Ginny Jordan: I wish I could answer
that people have reflected that to me.
Like, well, how are you doing this?
Like, you're, you've got a good picker.
You know, you can I, I
think it's a bit mysterious.
I think it's as simple as I, I have good
instincts when I met you and you just
somewhat casually said to me, well, I
have this idea about this book and I
have this idea about taking Rowan out,
you know, out, you know, given some
of your, your upbringing and history
and connection to, to shamans and to
healers and it was forming for you.
And there was just no question
in my mind, no question.
And it had to do with the
quality of your heart.
It wasn't just that you're actually
happened to be brilliant and you actually
have some of the most can do motivational
you know, capacities I've ever met.
It was actually the quality of your heart.
And I think I can tell that.
It's like Robin Wall Kimmer in writing
this book, you, you feel, you know,
she's not on a rampage or a campaign
to convince anybody of anything.
She's telling the story through her
own heart, which tends to soften
us and open us and, and generate
something that makes it more acceptable
to have things be in the mystery.
And I would say my instincts.
Are, are, have been developed over
time to, you know, meeting Jim Bailong,
you know, when I first met him and
he told me about this crazy idea he
had, it was probably not going to
work to put these cameras out and
they didn't work and people who watch
the movie will know that like he, he
was determined, but they all fail.
These cameras fail because he was
first time I've ever been designed,
but you could feel I, and I feel
it to this day when I'm with him,
it's the quality of his heart.
And that he had that in combination with
tremendous sense of vision and will that
I just feel like that's those are the two
kind of like, if there's a secret sauce
or the secret ingredients, I think when
I sense those coming together, it, it,
it, you know, either in my being or in
other people's beings that really are here
doing what they meant to be doing here.
It's worth taking a risk and
saying, Oh, I support that
Rupert Isaacson: mentor a moment here.
Please, how can we, those listening,
all of us, how can we learn to develop
that muscle to develop that skill
of correctly discerning the quality
of the human heart in front of us?
As we get involved with other
people, what, what advice or
tips would you give to people?
Ginny Jordan: Well, even doing what,
even asking the question you're
asking is the first question to ask.
Right.
We tend to skip over that question.
So if I'm meeting somebody who's all
on fire about a project or they're an
entrepreneur or whatever, to stop long
enough, not just to go on the ride of
the exhilaration possibility, but what's
the quality of this human's heart.
It, I don't mean that they have to be
all kind of gushy and lovey or it, it
doesn't but you, but you have to sense
where this whole passion is rooted.
Right.
And, you know, there are a lot of
initiatives that don't make it, and
I'm pretty convinced part is that
that's the carrier that's bigger
than just even our will force
and our powers of manifestation.
It's the human heart that, that
actually loves, knows what it
loves and loves what it loves.
And that's bigger than just that person.
And if that hasn't been cultivated
or developed or not known to that
person, you know, they might get there.
Of course, trial and
error will get us there.
Because, I mean, this
is frigging hard work.
It's not a person out there listening
that doesn't know that life is hard work.
Now, anything we want to achieve
or accomplish requires an
incredible amount of effort.
So where that effort is coming
from is, you know, maybe somebody
could say psychologically, this
is the true integration of the
masculine and feminine, right?
Where there's this.
You know, this beautiful concert going on
of, of deep, deep love for this existence.
Whether we get to save
it or not, I don't know.
Right.
But if that heart isn't part of the
driver and that has a natural softness
to it and openness, willingness to
learn as we go, willingness to listen,
willingness to fail willingness to hurt.
To grieve, to be vulnerable.
I, I just see that as
just a kind of a critical.
So I think the answer to your question
is, you know, ask the question.
Rupert Isaacson: That's
a brilliant answer.
Ginny Jordan: Ask the question.
Rupert Isaacson: Ask the question.
What is the quality of
this person's heart?
Ginny Jordan: And you may not know,
or you may be, may be clueless,
but it's, it's a worthy question.
But at
Rupert Isaacson: least it brings
it into conversation, right?
Ginny Jordan: Brings it
into your consciousness.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
I'm
Ginny Jordan: just trying to see
where they're really, where they're
really living in their being.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay,
now the final thing.
You're also an author, and I
know you don't like this book
that you wrote much, or at least
you've told me that but I like it.
I like it for its humor, and it's
also just really well written,
and it's also mind blowing.
And this book is called Clear Cut.
It's by Ginny Jordan, the
person you're listening to.
And Ginny, you talked about this
revelation coming to you through
your experience with cancer.
And you very modestly talked about
it as if that was the only experience
with it you've had, let alone Meniere's
disease, let alone various other things.
And before Ginny, I want you to talk
us through all the cancers you've
been through, and all the stuff
you've been through, and all the
parts of you that have been cut.
Before we go there, though, I want you
listeners, you can't see what I'm seeing.
So I'm looking at Ginny
on the zoom screen.
Ginny is one of the radiantly
beautiful women I know, human beings,
and Yes, you're 70 years old, and
you don't look a day over 50, and
you are the sort of person who when
we see you walking down the street,
you look the picture of health.
And yet, every single time I make
contact with you, particularly when
we haven't spoken for a year or two,
which happens, there's always, you've
always just come back from death's door.
Can you, and this book Clearcut
tells some of those stories, and What
you've learned as you've lost parts
of yourself, can you just briefly
tell us what you've gone through
with sickness and loss of your body?
And then from there, I want to go
into something we can learn from this.
So can you just please
give us that rundown?
Ginny Jordan: Well, as you said,
it's been an enormous theme,
one of the braids on my braid.
So, I did not know at the time when I
was 35, as I mentioned that I had what's
called the BRAC2 gene, which is a, a
genetic propensity for breast cancer
that actually I got from my father.
Yeah.
You know, in the early days, we
didn't have the test for that.
So then I knew that.
So, I, I got breast cancer.
So I had breast cancer on the right side.
Then I, 15 years later, got
breast cancer on the other side.
And in between, I suffered
a really horrific.
Another genetic disease that my mother
and grandmother both had called Meniere's
disease, which is an inner ear disorder
where you're rendered kind of helpless
with these attacks of violent vertigo.
I mean, so bad that, you know,
I'd be bedridden for days.
And there were a number of years
where I couldn't drive a car, which
was an enormous loss in terms of.
Child rearing and being a mom
and not being reliable and let
alone it being a pretty terrifying
disease and experience to be, you
know, on the floor with the room.
Like, you just had had.
You know, 20 pints of beer kind of
experience, I mean, really violent and
I ended up having a treatment for that.
That I tried every
alternative you can imagine.
And that was unsuccessful that, you know,
really did the trick so I'm extremely
grateful, but then I lost my hearing
on that side, which was probably gonna,
you know, they predicted that would
happen, but I was making a bid for life
that I could function and have a life.
So we could chalk that up to a
loss of not being able to hear.
And of course, you know, going
through breast surgeries and losing
breasts is an enormous, enormous loss.
I mean, really unspeakable.
To a woman that's you know, you
got to go somewhere really much
deeper than our culture to feel what
makes, makes us feminine beings.
And what else hand surgery, another
genetic problem that my father had
a being a, being a true Viking.
The only people who get this are Vikings.
It's a, it's a hand is a thing called
do patrons contracture where your
fingers get scar tissue and you can't.
You can't you, you know, your fingers
start getting pulled down and I had two
very unsuccessful surgeries with that.
So I'm kind of left with really
kind of the use really of just 1
hand, so I can use my other hand.
It's, it's it's a loss.
Of course.
I'm trying to think what else?
Oh, sort of another ongoing issue
recently, you know, just I was telling
Rupert just before we started that.
I have a hard time pronouncing sometimes
because my lip is all numb because I
had suddenly a, a melanoma emerge on my
lip last summer with out of nowhere and
boom, you were having major surgery.
That was you know, pretty traumatic
as well as right on top of the
heels of a hysterectomy, which you
know, went actually brilliantly
and kind of coordinated at the
same time that I lost my mom.
But there was a.
Interesting that had an interesting
translation is not a loss,
which was kind of surprising.
So, there's been a lot and you know,
from 1 point of view, it's kind of a
dramatic story constantly, in so many
ways over the years, since I was 35 I
don't take my body for granted and sort
of this constant story of, of remaking
myself, you know, being taken down and,
you know, it's a very mythic, right?
Taken down into a kind of darkness
and then having to raise myself back
up and then being taken down again,
you know, it's a bit of a job story
and it's in a big drama sense for job.
It was really dramatic.
So it's been a powerful teacher for me
a powerful you know, path of, of sort of
dissolution and renewal and resurrection.
And also I has absolutely forced me as it
does so many people who go through things
right through the body to really show
up in the preciousness of this moment.
You know, I've almost died a few times and
it's like, I, this is not abstract to me.
At all, and there's a power in
living, you know, waking up every
morning and saying, thank you.
Oh, my God, I got another day.
Thank you.
So, less has it made me paranoid and
more insanely, insanely grateful.
Just so grateful and, you know, why
I'm still here is kind of in the
mystery, but I'm, I'm, I'm on my knees.
And in gratitude, so, you know, losses,
we all know, because we, there's so
many forms of loss, whether it's through
the body, or we lost our loved one.
You know, I lost 1 of my
best friends this summer.
I mean, this winter and you know,
they're just always an opportunity
through that pain to find a door
that expands us even further access
to reach even deeper into life.
And be inside a mystery that's really
beyond our understanding as well.
Rupert Isaacson: And through all this
listeners despite having gone on to
these large stages of film and the non
profit work, having, well, actually for
profit work, philanthropically, so with
the street business school and beat for
life and all of this stuff projecting
you onto these, these sort of celeb
level stages, you've continued to also
just run a therapy practice with people.
I've seen you go literally
through fire and flood.
So, Jenny lives in a very
beautiful river valley.
In Colorado which sometimes flash floods
and when I first met you, you had built
a stone circle and a cave in which you
were bringing people back into, you know,
doing your therapy and they're brilliant.
And then, of course, this massive
flood came in and washed it all away.
And then there's been fire.
And, but there's also been the renewal
of that canyon that you live by.
And again, for those of you who don't,
well, of course you don't know, but
bears walk past Ginny's window many
mornings and sit in trees and look at her.
And nature comes down this riparian
corridor from the Rocky Mountains
into the plains routinely.
Whenever I've stayed at your house,
Ginny's been lucky enough to do that.
The wildlife has always
been, the highlights.
You just sort of sit by.
In your front porch, you sort
of watch these things come by.
you keep this sort of humble
therapy service going.
What's next for you?
What, what intrigues you to do next?
What, what's your next offering?
What can we, I know we're going to be
looking out for Braiding Sweetgrass.
But what's Ginny up to?
Ginny Jordan: It's a great question,
and when I turned 70, I really
started to ask that, you know, it's
like, you know, is the what's next an
actual initiative project creation?
Is it something simpler, you know,
is it, you know, I, I'm always
sort of, as I said, very early
on, it's a call and response life.
So I'm listening, I'm listening
and hoping, inviting any
particular synchronicity or.
Or, you know, how it is when we suddenly
we meet something and something lights up.
I heard about something 2 days ago
that can't quite tell yet because
I'm not allowed to allowed to,
but if it were to manifest, it
would be an amazing co creation.
But I'm just, you know, really in a deep.
Moment of pause and, and quietude
tending the hearse, so to speak,
tending you know, a number of souls
that I'm deeply invested in, in their,
their emergence and their growth.
And it's, this doesn't have a
grand scale nor does it need to be.
So it more than ever at this age and
stage in life, when you're kind of
in the third act how choicefulness
and right placement becomes.
Very important.
What do you mean by
Rupert Isaacson: right placement?
Ginny Jordan: Placing myself in the
right place for the right reason.
It's like the expense of energy, you
know, when you're 20, you know, you,
you know, your bandwidth is just a
whole lot wider, but now how do I
place the right, my, you know, with
the right particular talents and gifts
that I have likely it'll join others.
Cause that's my favorite thing to do.
I'm not, you know, the tip of the
arrow usually it's more, it's more
of a co created field, which I love.
It's more stimulating for me.
But, you know, placing myself
in the right moment for the
right reason in the right place.
I don't mean that.
So, like, I have to, like, sleep
over it, but it, it's got to
feel aligned and more than ever.
I feel that it's like.
Time is being measured now.
And like, really, how do you want to
spend your time in what way I'm super,
super naturally involved, partly
because I tend to a big piece of land.
I live on 35 acres.
I grow a lot of my own food now.
I'm, I'm really fascinated with
soil and the movement of soil and
regenerative farming, and I'm very
passionate about next generation.
You know, I mean, I feel completely
in service to young people.
And their dreams and their visions and
how I can serve and support them and
elevate them and mirror, mirror them.
You know, I less have my shingle out as
like, well, I'm some wise elder, you know,
that can, it's, I learned just as much.
I mean, it's a beautiful flow and I'm
happy to offer my gifts and I love
receiving the passion and the vision
of this next generation and really want
to be in, you know, I want to live.
Multi generationally, and I do,
there are different people live on
my land that are different ages.
And that's super important to me.
Rupert Isaacson: So community
regenerative farming engagement land
engagement with the next generation.
Ginny Jordan: And some need for something
that I feel is actually going to take
me further than than my land and boulder
in those beans right in front of me.
I can feel that.
I just don't know yet.
I'll, I'll talk to you in a year room.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Ginny Jordan: Hopefully before then.
Rupert Isaacson: Hopefully, yeah,
hopefully we'll actually make it
face to face because I tried last
year and you were having in hospital
with that last thing of yours.
There we go.
But now you sit in front of
me radiant with good health,
which for which I'm grateful.
Ginny Jordan: Yes, me too.
Rupert Isaacson: What would be
your closing word of advice for
somebody who is listening to this?
And feeling overwhelmed by
the events of the time Israel,
Ukraine, climate all of it.
Ginny Jordan: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: What's
your message of hope?
Ginny Jordan: About that.
Yeah, I'm asking that of myself a lot,
too, because I'm being a sensitive being.
I'm, you know, the moment I just
heard the recent news with Iran, it's
just I didn't know what to do, but go
down and build a fire, you know, and
Rupert Isaacson: yeah,
Ginny Jordan: you know, yeah, I think
for those that feel called and feel it's
part of their path, part of the perhaps
quest of these times is how can I grow
myself to be the candle in the hurricane?
Wind of the planet these days, how
can I grow myself to be steady enough,
take care of my own nervous system, be
responsible for my own nervous system,
because by definition, just taking
a breath is stressful on the planet.
You know, if we really want to analyze
what we're breathing, right, what kind
of air we have, what we're drinking, you
know, just everywhere you, you know, all
layers of life, it's just by definition.
And so no shame about.
Being in stress, because it is
uncertainty is stressful, but I, I
feel like our job and our quest is
perhaps guides and future leaders.
And however, we want to shape our lives.
Can we grow that?
You know, determination and strength
of that light to be steady and and,
and be that not by what we do by
how we are by the emanation of our
being back to the quality of our
heart and our capacity to feel joy.
even in spite of all of this.
That's a bright light that people need.
Rupert Isaacson: It's the first
step to simply ask the question,
how can I feel joy in these times?
Ginny Jordan: Yeah.
And, and real joy and not an
unapologetically joyful, unapologetically,
because many people now are apologizing
because whoops, how can I have that
when, you know, Gazans are not, you know,
the palace there, they have no food.
It was like, how do you
put all these paradoxes?
Together, it's, it's an impossible task.
And so what is it, you know, you know,
you have to some in a somewhere assume
that the highest, the highest aspect
of all beans want us, you know, so
we can be joyful while you be joyful.
Rupert Isaacson: To be joy.
Ginny Jordan: In this moment, we're
not starving, okay, we might, you
know, we might just swing around
who knows, you know, climate
change hit me hard for three years.
I lost pretty much every tree on my land.
I mean, it was like, okay.
And then I was 1 of those people.
I mean, we're, we're going to
rotate around, but be joyful.
And, you know, what does that mean?
What brings you joy?
What really, really brings you joy
and it could be something so crazy.
Like I love, I really love
playing games, board games.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Ginny Jordan: Yeah.
Okay.
That's what I love.
You better play some board games, Jenny.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Ginny Jordan: Right.
Rupert Isaacson: I would like to play a
board game with you next time I see you.
Ginny Jordan: Hey, good.
I'll teach you some cool ones.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
I'm on.
. Yes.
Joy.
To be Joy.
Ginny Jordan: Yeah.
To be joy.
To be joy.
Yeah.
And it can take lots of shapes.
I mean, it's not all like whoopee,
you know, but it's, it's a
quality where you keep your light
on, is what I'm trying to say.
You keep, you keep yourself lit and
whatever, whatever ingredients you need to
keep that yourself lit, that that serves
you and it serves everyone around you.
'cause they can feel.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, because we
all know that if someone else is
not shining the candle and we can't
see any light, then we despair.
We're so grateful when
someone is shining the candle.
Ginny Jordan: Yeah.
Even if it's subtle it's and
again, you can't mock it up.
It's not a script.
It's an arrival It's a real arrival
Rupert Isaacson: in the mentorship
work in the therapy work you do.
I know you're a very private person so
you don't necessarily have to give out
a a Contact or anything like that, but
I'm sure people would like to benefit
from reach out, learn more, read more.
Are there any resources that
you've got that people could go to?
Ginny Jordan: Yeah, they're
welcome to email me.
They may not get a long one back because
I can't, I can't be behind a device for
too long, but I love hearing from people.
And if, if everybody's good
with just not necessarily,
you know, three page response.
I'm happy to give
Rupert Isaacson: people if people
have a question that they would
like to ask you in a bit of
Ginny Jordan: that'd be the best way, but
Rupert Isaacson: just not be attached
to you sending it back and perhaps
you perhaps you prefer them not
to send you a 10 page epistle.
As well that take, that
glues you to the screen.
You have to read
Ginny Jordan: prob probably Yep.
But to be
Rupert Isaacson: me to you.
Ginny Jordan: But I
love, I love to respond.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Ginny Jordan: Because, but how can
Rupert Isaacson: people reach you that,
Ginny Jordan: that's the cycle
of life call and response.
So it's gi, G-I-N-N-Y-G-I-Y,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Ginny Jordan: J-O-R-D-A-N.
Rupert Isaacson: Jordan.
J-O-R-D-A-N.
One word.
Ginny Jordan: 53, yep,
Rupert Isaacson: 53,
Ginny Jordan: at gmail.
com,
Rupert Isaacson: at gmail.
com, all one word
lowercase, Ginny Jordan, 53,
Ginny Jordan: at
Rupert Isaacson: gmail.
com.
Ginny Jordan: That's a dead
giveaway when I was born.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, it
must have been a good year.
It
Ginny Jordan: was.
Rupert Isaacson: Ginny, thank you.
Ginny Jordan: Thank you.
That was super fun.
Rupert Isaacson: I'm grateful.
I'm grateful to know you.
I'm grateful for the work that you do.
I'm grateful you're in the world.
I'm grateful you're my friend.
I'm grateful.
Thank you.
Ginny Jordan: Thank you.
So, so sweet to connect again.
Let's do it soon.
Rupert Isaacson: All right.
I'm going to press the red button.
Much love.
Much, much love to you.
Thank you for joining us.
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