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Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us.

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Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free.

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I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New
York Times bestselling author of

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The Horseboy and The Long Ride Home.

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Before I jump in with today's guest, I
want to say a huge thank you to you, our

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audience, for helping to make this happen.

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I have a request.

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If you like what we do here,
please give it a thumbs up,

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like, subscribe, tell a friend.

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It really, really helps
us to make the pro.

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To find out about our certification
courses, online video libraries,

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books, and other courses,
please go to rupertisaacson.com.

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So now let's jump in.

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Okay.

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I realize that I have not really
given a good recounting of why this

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live free, ride free idea came about
and what my own journey was here.

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So, I'm just gonna take an opportunity
in between my fascinating guests

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to give you guys an bit of an
update on what brought me here.

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What's my own trajectory
of self-actualization.

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So the idea came for this web this
website, this this podcast from

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a trip to Yellowstone National
Park in 2015, no, 14 when my.

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Son Ian was still inside Iliana's abdomen,
but we were taking Rowan, my oldest son,

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who many of you know from the horse boy on
this trip to see wolves in Yellowstone as

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part of a project that he had going at the
time called End Dangerous, about animals

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that are both endangered and dangerous.

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And we wanted to look at the
reintroduction of wolves in

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Yellowstone, amazing trip.

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And we went in March and
it was all snowed up.

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So you can imagine how iconic it was
to see the wolves against the snow and

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to share this with one child born and
really coming into the light because

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Rowan was, you know, coming out of
those years of, severe autism and

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really into this total engagement with
the world and another child unborn and

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all of that adventure going through
his mother, Hmm, excuse me, into him.

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And it was in the course of walking
a trail, I think we were actually

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snowshoeing Eliana being very pregnant
at the time where we came up with

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this idea of talking to people who
had lived self-actualize lives.

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Because we had just run into a
guy called Rick McIntyre, who

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many of you may know, wrote.

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Books about bestselling books, about
the Wolfly introductions in Yellowstone.

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And we had just met him and interviewed
him sort of there on the side of the road.

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And I was thinking, gosh, this
is a guy who's really lived a

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self-actualize life, and by the way,
he's gonna be a guest on this show.

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And I thought, yeah, but there's so many
people out there doing this, and also

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so many people out there just wondering
how to live through their dreams and

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manifest the reality that they want.

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So that's where the idea
for this podcast came.

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And it took a few years for it to
come to fruition, but now here it is.

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And of course we're talking to all
these incredible people who do all these

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incredible things, some of whom are
well known and some of whom are not.

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But my story.

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Alright, so that's where
the idea came, but.

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My own story is this.

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I'll just sort of go through
the biography really.

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I was born in London in 1967 to
two parents from Southern Africa.

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My father's from Zimbabwe
was then Rhodesia.

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My mother is South African.

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And it was an interesting family
because it was one that sat really

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at the crossroads of many cultures.

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On my dad's side, we were Ashkenazi
Jews originally from Lithuania,

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who had immigrated to Africa.

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On one side almost by, by mistake.

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It goes the legend.

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And on the other side by design.

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On my, I'll return to that story
in a minute 'cause it's funny.

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On my mother's side, they'd been
out there since I think the late

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18th, very early 19th century.

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Part English part,
Scottish part Dutch ants.

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And in the course of the few hundred
years of living there, the family of

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course spread out through society.

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And we were kind of represented out
there in southern Africa at kind of every

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level from really, really poor there was
a sort of poor white class right up to

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sort of almost a blue blood class there.

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And we also had a whole side of the
family that, well still today is not

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white, is, is of mixed race, which
in South Africa they call colored.

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And that's still an official designation.

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That's not necessarily a racist term.

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People refer to themselves that way.

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And so we had family that were kind of.

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The evil architects of apartheid.

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We had family who were in jail because
they were fighting against apartheid.

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We had family who were not white,
we had family who were Jewish, we

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had family that were afri speaking.

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We had family that were
only English speaking.

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And I grew up in this household in
North London where my parents had

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moved in the sixties with this kind
of constant procession of all these

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different characters coming through the
house and afri cans often being spoken

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in the house and everything on the
walls, all the furniture and all the,

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the artifacts and objects around those
all being kind of Southern African.

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So it's a weird bubble of this kind
of culture within North London.

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And there was a certain amount of
back and forth to Africa as well.

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So.

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I grew up very much seeing these,
as I said, crossroads of cultures.

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And I was connected to them all.

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I was part of them all, but I wasn't
fully any one of those things.

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And at a very young
age that didn't matter.

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When I hit my teens, I felt a
great sense of needing to belong

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and wishing that I could belong
and not belonging really anywhere.

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And it was, took me a while to see
that that actually was a place of

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power that, that crossroads of cultures
allows you to take from each one what

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is good, leave alone, what is not good.

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And it means that while it's true,
you don't quite belong anywhere,

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you also sort of belong everywhere.

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And if you think of yourself as
a, as a, you know, citizen of the

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planet, that's actually a very real
position to be in rather than to

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feel what I'm rooted in one culture.

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But I was lucky enough to be
connected to many different cultures.

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Okay, so that was the
Southern African side.

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Then I also had this
great love for horses.

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It was kind of born into me and
there'd been lots of cavalry officers

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in the past, in the family, and
sometimes it skips a generation.

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A lot of you who are horsey
listeners will know this, so my

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parents are not horsey at all.

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But I had a great aunt who, my mother's
aunt, south African, again, who had

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married into an English horsey family up
in a place called Leicestershire, which is

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about an hour and a half north of London.

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And, she had re old retired horses.

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And we used to go up and spend
weekends frequently at that farm.

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And I was just always to be found from
the age of about three, just sitting

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in the field talking to the horses.

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And my parents were very, very urban, so
they were not sympathetic to the idea that

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maybe I would want to ride, but my great
aunt said that, boy, he's gonna ride.

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And my parents are like, no,
no, no, no, no, we're not gonna.

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And they're like, no, he will.

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You'll see.

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So in the event she was right.

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But before we get to that there was
another aspect of my childhood, which

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I think has helped to fuel this whole
adventure, which is that I had this deep,

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deep, deep craving and longing for nature.

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My parents lived and still live in
an area of London that is incredibly.

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Urban, it's right in the middle.

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It's called Islington.

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It's quite a handsome area, but it's
by no means, you know, connected to

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nature as we would like to think of it.

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Ideally, you know, open fields forest, no.

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There's actually, oddly enough,
quite a lot of wildlife in it,

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urban foxes, that sort of thing.

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But it's very built up and where I was
sent to school was right in the middle

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of the financial district of London.

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So concrete, concrete, and more concrete.

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So I had this burning desire
to get out, to get into nature,

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to get on horseback and.

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At the same time I was drafted
into a choir, a singing choir.

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And the school that I went to,
which is called, still exists

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today, the City of London School.

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It's an ancient school that was
founded 600 years ago or so.

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It provides the boys for both the Chapel
Royal, which is the King's Chapel,

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and the Temple, which is where the
Knight's Temple were based in London.

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It's the second oldest building in London.

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And it's steeped in law.

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The Magna Carter sits there, the tombs
of the old Knights Temple, the Marshall

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family that were there, you know, with the
effigies of the Knights on top of them.

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You think it sounds kind of
Hogwarts ish, but it wasn't.

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It was just.

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All rather unpleasant and nasty
and actually quite violent.

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If you've read the Lord of the Flies
where the boys in that story that from

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a choir and they get stranded on a
desert island and, you know, revert

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to a not very nice way of treating
each other, it was a bit like that.

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And the reason was there wasn't a
lot of really good adult supervision.

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So between the school itself, which was in
the heart of the sort of brutal financial

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district in terms of the aesthetics, and
then the school itself was quite brutal

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because we were the last generation of
boys to be regularly beaten at school.

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And then the choir, which although
on the face of it was all very,

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very clean cut and lovely, there was
lots of nasty violence behind the,

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the scenes and this great longing
to get out and get into nature.

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I had a nervous breakdown.

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And in this nervous breakdown, I
was about, I was guess I was 11.

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I couldn't get outta bed for about, ooh,
three months or more, six months maybe.

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And I was deeply upset and sort of unable
to overwhelmed, unable to, to function.

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And what got me out of bed was horses.

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At that point my parents really
listened to me and I said, look,

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I think this would help me.

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So that's how I ended up
getting riding lessons.

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And it was true.

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It brought me out of bed and into
the light and out into nature.

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And it was literally as if
a switch had been flicked.

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I'd had all sorts of, you know, medical
examinations and so on, and no one

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could find the cause of, you know, why
I had no energy and so on and so on.

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But as soon as horses were
brought into the picture, boom,

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there I was writer's reign.

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So that began my equestrian life, life

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now I wanted a horse.

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And that of course presented its
own set of issues and challenges.

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So the deal I made with my folks was
that if I could raise the money, we could

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get one and keep it at my aunt's farm,
even though that was a couple of hours

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north of London and I would just go up
there every weekend and all holidays.

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Just live that life and be
there and be useful on the farm.

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Because by then I was getting a
bit bigger, a bit stronger, you

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know, useful for shoveling poo
and doing all the myriad, endless

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chores that I needed around a farm.

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So, I got a gig self, a
sort of self-created gig.

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So my sort of be beginning
of entrepreneurship really.

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I used to go it occurred to me that
if I were to empty all the crap that

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was in our neighbor's garages that
they always wanted to get rid of, but

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never could, and took it up to a local
flea market in North London at a place

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called Swiss Cottage, which doesn't
exist anymore than a flea market there.

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It's all become too gentrified now.

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But back then in the late seventies,
early eighties, it did, and

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I could sell at the weekends.

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All this old

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kind of rubbish really at very, very
cheap prices that eventually I could

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make enough money to buy a horse.

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So for two years, every weekend
I sat in my own market stall aged

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between 12 and 14, and I flogged as
much gear as I could get out of all

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the garages in the neighborhood.

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And I did actually make enough
money from this to buy a horse.

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And the horse that I bought
was a horse off the racetrack.

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That's how you get cheap horses.

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He was cheap and there
was a reason he was cheap.

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He was, he was, oh God,
not very manageable.

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And he scared the bejesus out of me, and
I had to learn to ride well quite quickly.

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I had been taking lessons of course,
for a couple of years at this point,

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but this was a whole other level.

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And luckily for me, there was someone
who could mentor me who was living on

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the farm and she was a radiographer.

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Who was also horsey who exchanged the, she
was called Trudy and she exchanged living

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in the farm cottage and doing the horses
and other work through the week before

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and after work in return for free rent.

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And then I, at the weekend, the
deal was, would take over the

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chores when I came up, which I did.

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And she was quite knowledgeable and
she showed me how to retrain and

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make manageable this extremely hot,
unmanageable horse who actually taught me

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so much that that was what set me on my
professional track with horses because if

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you can learn to manage a horse like this.

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We do all kinds of crazy stuff but was
also brilliantly talented in many ways.

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If you could learn to handle a horse
like this in the competition arena and

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in, out in the hunt field, it's a big
fox hunting area then you could kind

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of train any horse, any other horse
after this would be kind of easy.

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So he really set me on my
professional path, even though

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I didn't know it at the time.

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So that was sort of my boyhood of having
these dreams and thinking how do I

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possibly manifest my way out of being
in the middle of the city, not having

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access to nature, wishing that I could
ride and be with horses wishing myself

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into a, a more sensory, not just sensory
friendly, but let's say sensory possible

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environment and by hook and by crook.

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Quite early in my life I manifested this.

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And when I'm thinking back, remember
where we started with my African

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family constantly coming through.

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I would hear all these different
perspectives on life and I would see

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how the people who were fighting against
apartheid and who were the sort of

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freedom fighters within the family
were consistently gaining ground.

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They were always further ahead each time
one met them and the people who were

00:17:06.827 --> 00:17:10.847
within the family who were more resistant
to that were always losing ground.

00:17:11.267 --> 00:17:15.047
And I realized quite
early, oh, I see nature.

00:17:15.632 --> 00:17:19.962
The world, the universe
wants harmony injustice.

00:17:20.242 --> 00:17:21.202
It doesn't last.

00:17:21.202 --> 00:17:25.192
It can go on for quite a long
time, but always the world is

00:17:25.192 --> 00:17:28.822
gonna return to harmony if it
can harmony as the natural state.

00:17:28.822 --> 00:17:35.482
And somehow this really came into me,
I think, through the constant arguments

00:17:35.512 --> 00:17:39.962
and s that all these different sides
of the family constantly brought.

00:17:40.232 --> 00:17:42.872
'cause a lot of my non-white family
too, by the way, they couldn't go to

00:17:42.872 --> 00:17:46.922
university in and the good universities
in South Africa 'cause of apartheid.

00:17:47.102 --> 00:17:49.892
So they would come to the UK and do
that, and of course they would stay with

00:17:49.892 --> 00:17:51.902
us in our house in London and so on.

00:17:51.902 --> 00:17:54.332
So I really did get all
these different perspectives.

00:17:54.392 --> 00:17:54.812
Okay.

00:17:55.202 --> 00:17:58.622
And, and so that people could
create their own realities if

00:17:58.622 --> 00:18:01.472
they wanted to into the bargain.

00:18:01.472 --> 00:18:05.402
There was also always this spiritual
side where the earliest memories that

00:18:05.402 --> 00:18:09.182
I've got are of walking in the garden.

00:18:09.212 --> 00:18:10.382
I think I must have been.

00:18:12.497 --> 00:18:16.997
Between three and five, somewhere
there, maybe even younger, maybe.

00:18:17.207 --> 00:18:18.587
No, it's hard.

00:18:18.737 --> 00:18:19.877
It's hard to to tell.

00:18:19.877 --> 00:18:24.167
But I'm very, very young and it's a
sunlit garden and I'm up early on a summer

00:18:24.167 --> 00:18:28.037
morning and none of the adults are awake.

00:18:28.037 --> 00:18:33.517
So I'm walking in the garden and
there are bees buzzing, there's

00:18:33.517 --> 00:18:35.467
flowers growing outta the brick wall.

00:18:35.617 --> 00:18:37.057
There's sun on the brick wall.

00:18:37.237 --> 00:18:42.187
And somehow I can hear God talking
through those bees and those flowers.

00:18:42.697 --> 00:18:45.577
And the message is very reassuring.

00:18:45.577 --> 00:18:47.527
The message is you are loved.

00:18:48.577 --> 00:18:49.927
Every, everyone is love.

00:18:49.957 --> 00:18:50.917
Everything is love.

00:18:51.727 --> 00:18:55.267
And I had little reminders of this
all the way through my boyhood.

00:18:56.227 --> 00:18:57.757
I remember being in the school chapel.

00:18:59.227 --> 00:19:04.107
Even though school was not nice, as I
had talked about, there was this sign on

00:19:04.107 --> 00:19:07.437
the on, on the wall of, of the chapel,
as there often is in these things,

00:19:07.647 --> 00:19:09.417
said, God is love and love is God.

00:19:10.257 --> 00:19:15.477
And I remember having this deep
resonant relationship with just that

00:19:15.477 --> 00:19:17.127
little text on the wall of that chapel.

00:19:17.517 --> 00:19:19.077
This is absolute truth.

00:19:20.097 --> 00:19:21.387
Yes, this is truth.

00:19:21.477 --> 00:19:22.977
God is love, and love is God.

00:19:23.787 --> 00:19:30.807
And somehow even in the, the darkest time
of that breakdown period, I never felt

00:19:30.807 --> 00:19:33.627
abandoned by God or by the universal love.

00:19:33.627 --> 00:19:38.517
It felt more like a descent into the
underworld, like a journey into the

00:19:38.517 --> 00:19:43.287
underworld that needed to be made in
order to come out, into the light,

00:19:43.287 --> 00:19:44.877
into another place, a better place.

00:19:45.297 --> 00:19:48.087
And then I also frequently
would have this recurring dream.

00:19:49.017 --> 00:19:56.457
Of being in a place where there was
threat and danger, even a sense of being

00:19:56.457 --> 00:20:05.337
hunted and being able to manifest a
doorway, a portal that took me immediate

00:20:05.337 --> 00:20:11.577
and sometimes me and people I loved
immediately out and away and into

00:20:11.577 --> 00:20:18.657
this other dimension in which was pure
safety, pure love, and this feeling

00:20:18.657 --> 00:20:24.267
of great relief and joy and surprise,
but also not surprise, this feeling

00:20:24.267 --> 00:20:26.037
of, of, well, like a return home.

00:20:26.502 --> 00:20:29.517
And, and this, this dream
came up constantly through

00:20:29.517 --> 00:20:30.837
my, through my childhood.

00:20:31.357 --> 00:20:34.027
So all of these elements
sort of came parallel.

00:20:34.417 --> 00:20:40.357
And I remember too when I was about
seven on a trip back to Africa, seeing

00:20:40.357 --> 00:20:44.497
on my grandfather's farm, my grandfather
was not particularly nice, man.

00:20:44.557 --> 00:20:45.457
He was one of the.

00:20:46.267 --> 00:20:48.577
People on the reactionary
end of the family.

00:20:50.077 --> 00:20:56.167
But there were lots and lots of people
working on his farm and big cattle farm in

00:20:56.167 --> 00:20:57.787
the compound where all the workers lived.

00:20:57.787 --> 00:21:01.837
There was a witch doctor at work,
what they called an in ganga.

00:21:02.887 --> 00:21:07.807
And I remember seeing a healing
happen at about seven years old.

00:21:07.807 --> 00:21:12.877
A big ritual and the drums going all
night and the people dancing all night

00:21:12.907 --> 00:21:17.557
and the ang hands on the sick one.

00:21:18.247 --> 00:21:26.337
And again, having this feeling of, oh,
I see there are more ways to healing.

00:21:26.337 --> 00:21:31.317
There are more ways to
love than we might think.

00:21:31.917 --> 00:21:35.517
And even though all the grownups
were just like, oh, that's just

00:21:35.517 --> 00:21:37.647
sort of superstition, that's
just what these people do.

00:21:38.997 --> 00:21:41.637
I could see that people
were getting better.

00:21:42.207 --> 00:21:44.247
Getting sick and getting
better through this.

00:21:44.817 --> 00:21:53.127
And it helped me to think, yes,
you can look for alternatives

00:21:53.127 --> 00:21:54.417
within the spirit world.

00:21:54.687 --> 00:21:58.137
In fact, you should always look
for alternatives within the spirit

00:21:58.137 --> 00:22:01.377
world as much as you look for
anything within the material world.

00:22:01.707 --> 00:22:07.257
So all of these things sort of came
together very much when I was a boy.

00:22:08.247 --> 00:22:12.687
And then a lot of these family
stories too from previous generations.

00:22:12.687 --> 00:22:16.137
This idea of ancestry and ancestors.

00:22:16.377 --> 00:22:20.667
So I, I had said that there was a
funny story that on my father's side,

00:22:20.667 --> 00:22:24.667
the people going to Africa one of
them had ended up there by mistake.

00:22:24.667 --> 00:22:29.657
It, the, the family law was that my
great uncle Harry Shapiro, Herschel

00:22:29.837 --> 00:22:35.567
Shapiro had actually run away from
his wife Minnie in, lithuania and had

00:22:35.777 --> 00:22:42.067
gotten on a boat to he wanted to go
to the USA but it turned out he got

00:22:42.067 --> 00:22:47.047
on the wrong boat and he ended up on a
boat to Port Elizabeth in South Africa.

00:22:47.497 --> 00:22:50.917
So he kind of went, oh, well, and
learned English on the way down.

00:22:50.917 --> 00:22:56.017
And when he arrived there, he realized
that there was, what he'd heard, I

00:22:56.017 --> 00:22:59.497
suppose, on the voyage about all the
findings of the gold fields and the

00:22:59.497 --> 00:23:03.277
diamond mines, which were all happening
around that time in the late 19th century.

00:23:03.737 --> 00:23:06.437
So he was thinking, well, maybe I
could get up there and make my fortune.

00:23:06.707 --> 00:23:11.477
But as he arrived in Africa, the poor
war broke out and he found himself

00:23:11.477 --> 00:23:16.517
drafted into the English army in Port
Elizabeth, and he joined the Johannesburg

00:23:16.517 --> 00:23:20.477
mounted rifles, even though it was
a thousand miles from Johannesburg.

00:23:20.777 --> 00:23:22.847
And there was, you know, no horses.

00:23:23.147 --> 00:23:24.797
And he tramped up and down.

00:23:24.877 --> 00:23:27.247
South Africa for two or
three years without seeing a

00:23:27.247 --> 00:23:28.567
shot fired, luckily for him.

00:23:28.987 --> 00:23:32.097
And then ended up in Johannesburg
where the mines were.

00:23:32.397 --> 00:23:36.477
But of course, you know, they'd
already already been taken over

00:23:36.477 --> 00:23:38.277
by big, you know, corporations.

00:23:38.397 --> 00:23:43.197
So he ended up getting a job in the
kitchens as a butcher and his wife managed

00:23:43.197 --> 00:23:45.267
to track him down and find him there.

00:23:46.017 --> 00:23:50.487
So he was making a bit of money
eventually by buying and selling

00:23:50.487 --> 00:23:52.887
cattle as part of the butchery thing.

00:23:52.887 --> 00:23:59.677
And then he ran away again up to the up
to the newly formed at that point colony

00:23:59.947 --> 00:24:05.317
of Rhodesia, what is now Zimbabwe, and
began to deal in cattle up there in this

00:24:05.317 --> 00:24:07.617
sort of slightly wild west atmosphere.

00:24:07.617 --> 00:24:12.027
Then his wife mini tracked him down
again and he then capitulated and

00:24:12.027 --> 00:24:15.307
they stayed to together and he.

00:24:16.972 --> 00:24:23.092
Had a daughter, Frida, who was my
grandmother my grandfather Robbie, who

00:24:23.092 --> 00:24:28.702
married her, his parents had come out
to Africa from also from Lithuania.

00:24:29.182 --> 00:24:31.462
And their name was Schmid Ovitz.

00:24:31.822 --> 00:24:36.232
And they changed their name when they
got to German, Southwest Africa, what

00:24:36.232 --> 00:24:40.492
is now Namibia, the young colony of
German, Southwest Africa at that point.

00:24:41.332 --> 00:24:42.502
'cause they were German speaking.

00:24:42.902 --> 00:24:47.292
And they hoped to integrate more
into the German society there.

00:24:47.632 --> 00:24:49.852
So they changed their name to Isaacson.

00:24:50.962 --> 00:24:56.722
The logic there, I don't see, I mean, fa
berg or something, but Isaacson is like,

00:24:56.722 --> 00:25:00.922
he go from one Jewish thing to another
Jewish thing, and of course they found

00:25:01.022 --> 00:25:02.792
that it was a bit too antisemitic there.

00:25:03.032 --> 00:25:07.857
And so my grandfather, Robbie, in
the 1920s went across to Rhodesia

00:25:08.277 --> 00:25:13.467
and joined the company, the cattle
auctioneering company that my great

00:25:13.467 --> 00:25:20.977
uncle Harry had by then founded, sorry,
great Greatuncle and married Frida.

00:25:21.187 --> 00:25:24.477
And eventually took over that
company and that was his life.

00:25:24.477 --> 00:25:26.217
Cattle ranching and so on.

00:25:26.517 --> 00:25:31.257
My, on my mother's side the family
stories were very, very strong.

00:25:31.767 --> 00:25:35.547
So on the Scottish side,
we had cousins who had.

00:25:36.432 --> 00:25:40.302
Ancestor cousins who had fought
at the Battle of Aladdin, if any

00:25:40.302 --> 00:25:42.702
of you know your Scottish history,
we've been watching Outlander.

00:25:43.122 --> 00:25:46.272
That was the big battle in which
the British finally smashed up the

00:25:46.272 --> 00:25:50.382
Scottish clans because they just
couldn't deal with any more civil

00:25:50.382 --> 00:25:51.942
wars happening on British soil.

00:25:52.032 --> 00:25:54.882
They were trying to build the empire and
they're like, okay, we've had enough.

00:25:54.882 --> 00:25:58.122
Now, you know, there've been
plenty of these uprisings.

00:25:58.122 --> 00:26:00.222
We're gonna just really smack 'em.

00:26:00.612 --> 00:26:01.152
And they did.

00:26:01.392 --> 00:26:03.432
And they smashed the clans at Aladin.

00:26:03.942 --> 00:26:06.402
And then there was something called
the Highland Clearances where they

00:26:06.672 --> 00:26:11.412
basically put them all on boats and
sent them to either two the Americas

00:26:11.682 --> 00:26:15.892
or Australia, which is why we have,
you know, a lot of Scot's influence

00:26:15.892 --> 00:26:19.882
in the, in Appalachia and, you know,
Celtic influence in music there.

00:26:19.882 --> 00:26:23.662
Also Irish settlers and of
course out in Australia as well.

00:26:24.322 --> 00:26:29.752
And in that battle our family with a
Clark family, who were part of Clan

00:26:29.752 --> 00:26:33.112
McPherson, who of course fought on the
wrong side, fought on the Scottish side.

00:26:33.612 --> 00:26:38.182
And McPherson himself didn't
do so well after that.

00:26:38.612 --> 00:26:42.902
But we had another cousin on the
English side at the same time called

00:26:42.902 --> 00:26:47.852
Judge Jeffries, who hanged all of
our cousins on the Scottish side.

00:26:47.972 --> 00:26:53.552
So again, it's this sort of weird
dichotomy within the family ancestral

00:26:53.552 --> 00:26:57.482
line of goodies and baddies and
really knowing these stories.

00:26:57.482 --> 00:27:00.192
And then that was the Scottish
line on the English line.

00:27:00.492 --> 00:27:06.072
There were four brothers who went out from
a village called Luxton, which is, you can

00:27:06.072 --> 00:27:11.292
see it on a sign off the M five if you're
driving in southwest England in Somerset.

00:27:12.477 --> 00:27:17.607
The Luxton brothers and L-O-X-T-O-N
four brothers went out from the

00:27:17.607 --> 00:27:22.167
village of Luxton, same name,
and went to make their fortunes.

00:27:22.447 --> 00:27:25.237
And this was during this depression,
which happened in England after

00:27:25.237 --> 00:27:30.047
the Napoleonic Wars where the
old wartime economy had crashed.

00:27:30.047 --> 00:27:32.777
And, you know, things were not
looking so good for a lot of people.

00:27:33.107 --> 00:27:39.137
So out they went, three, went to South
Africa, one went to Australia, and there

00:27:39.137 --> 00:27:43.457
is to this day a town of Luxton in South
Africa and a town of Luxton in Australia.

00:27:43.487 --> 00:27:44.447
So they were busy guys.

00:27:44.447 --> 00:27:49.757
They got involved in things and, you know,
became adventurous and business people.

00:27:49.907 --> 00:27:54.257
And one of them, another great,
great uncle Henry Lockton

00:27:55.607 --> 00:27:56.717
did an interesting thing.

00:27:56.747 --> 00:28:03.947
He went north of the Orange River, which
at that time was the northern boundary

00:28:04.397 --> 00:28:07.697
between like civilized land and the great.

00:28:08.807 --> 00:28:12.707
African hinterland of, you
know, danger and mystery beyond.

00:28:13.097 --> 00:28:17.117
And at the time there was something
happening called the Umani.

00:28:17.117 --> 00:28:24.347
And the Umani, some people call it Dani,
was the explosion of the Zulu Empire in

00:28:24.347 --> 00:28:32.847
which the Zulus kind of went on a massive,
you know, killing spree across Southern

00:28:32.847 --> 00:28:34.977
Africa, subjugating all the other tribes.

00:28:34.977 --> 00:28:38.097
They could find a bit like, you know,
the Huns and the Mongols when they

00:28:38.277 --> 00:28:41.187
exploded out very, very war-like people.

00:28:41.187 --> 00:28:42.327
Very, very organized.

00:28:43.107 --> 00:28:48.947
And the British wanted to keep the
Zulus and the sort of all these tribes

00:28:48.947 --> 00:28:53.777
who are being displaced outta the
British zone, south of the Orange River.

00:28:53.777 --> 00:28:58.097
So there were a bunch of
escaped slaves of mixed race.

00:28:58.817 --> 00:29:02.477
They were called the carass, the
bastard, literally meaning bastards.

00:29:02.987 --> 00:29:09.927
The qua and some other related groups
who were of mixed race and they, they

00:29:09.927 --> 00:29:15.837
had run away from the British and Dutch
Cape Colony and created their own sort

00:29:15.837 --> 00:29:23.967
of free mount mounted on horseback, but
sort of iCal raiding cultures along the

00:29:23.967 --> 00:29:25.917
North Bank of the Orange, orange River.

00:29:26.457 --> 00:29:33.147
And the British made a deal with them
and said, look, you guys can operate

00:29:33.147 --> 00:29:37.257
up here and you can live on these
fertile islands in the Orange River

00:29:37.287 --> 00:29:38.637
'cause it's desert on either side.

00:29:38.877 --> 00:29:44.487
And we'll kind of leave you alone,
provided you kind of act as a buffer

00:29:44.487 --> 00:29:48.777
zone, like a military buffer zone
between the farming areas south

00:29:48.777 --> 00:29:50.337
of that and the great beyond.

00:29:50.847 --> 00:29:52.617
And that deal was struck.

00:29:53.607 --> 00:29:59.517
These groups, Greek was
busted, runners were organized.

00:30:01.002 --> 00:30:06.102
Militarily under the leadership
of what we call caps, literally

00:30:06.102 --> 00:30:09.432
captains AFRI speaking, but not white.

00:30:10.242 --> 00:30:18.002
And my great-great uncle Henry fell in
love with the daughter of one of these

00:30:18.002 --> 00:30:20.912
bastard captains, a woman called Anna Boy.

00:30:22.142 --> 00:30:26.402
And he stayed up there
and had children with her.

00:30:27.242 --> 00:30:29.762
And of course that meant he
was, and that side of the family

00:30:29.762 --> 00:30:31.772
was then forever cut off this.

00:30:31.802 --> 00:30:37.442
Remember this is 150 years ago from the
white side of the family further south.

00:30:38.822 --> 00:30:41.702
But what he did was quite clever.

00:30:42.002 --> 00:30:44.252
He managed to get a deal brokered.

00:30:45.197 --> 00:30:49.667
Between the Cape government, basically
directly with Queen Victoria through

00:30:49.697 --> 00:30:56.687
official channels for his family to
retain that land along those islands

00:30:56.747 --> 00:30:58.697
in the Orange River in perpetuity.

00:30:59.657 --> 00:31:05.987
And to this day, the Luxton family
still farm cattle and wine in that

00:31:05.987 --> 00:31:09.377
area and are non-white to this day.

00:31:09.407 --> 00:31:12.347
And under apartheid they resist it.

00:31:12.347 --> 00:31:18.797
Managed to resist every, every attempt
to move them because under apartheid,

00:31:19.457 --> 00:31:23.657
all the good areas were taken for
whites and all the not so good areas.

00:31:23.747 --> 00:31:25.757
That's where the non-whites
were shunted into.

00:31:26.507 --> 00:31:31.747
And, they managed to hold onto it
because of this old ratified deed.

00:31:32.677 --> 00:31:39.577
And in fact, the apartheid government
even tried to get my family there to

00:31:39.577 --> 00:31:43.927
reclassify themselves as white so that
they would, that the government wouldn't

00:31:43.927 --> 00:31:45.397
lose face by letting them stay there.

00:31:45.727 --> 00:31:48.457
But my family on that side
said, no, no, we are colored

00:31:48.457 --> 00:31:49.537
and we're gonna stay colored.

00:31:49.537 --> 00:31:50.467
We're not gonna be white.

00:31:50.647 --> 00:31:51.367
We're not white.

00:31:52.027 --> 00:31:55.597
And they managed to hold on and
survive just through like sheer grit.

00:31:57.067 --> 00:31:58.417
Why is all this important?

00:31:59.047 --> 00:32:03.277
Because all this informs
the next point in my life.

00:32:03.277 --> 00:32:06.457
So, I school, I take a year off.

00:32:06.457 --> 00:32:11.677
I travel, I work I spend a lot of time
in the states and I get into training

00:32:11.677 --> 00:32:15.337
horses in the states in my year off.

00:32:16.147 --> 00:32:20.137
I go to university in York and
England and I study history.

00:32:21.232 --> 00:32:24.142
And I started with archeology
and I then I go to history.

00:32:24.982 --> 00:32:31.362
And while I'm at university, I pay my
way by riding horses on movie sets.

00:32:31.872 --> 00:32:36.192
I, we have a, a family friend who's
a stunt man and he managed to get me

00:32:36.192 --> 00:32:43.972
a union card and I used to manage to
make enough money to pay my rent and

00:32:44.022 --> 00:32:46.992
travel by working on these movie sets.

00:32:47.412 --> 00:32:49.942
And if any of you have seen
the film, Willow that you'll

00:32:49.942 --> 00:32:51.232
see me quite a lot in that one.

00:32:51.542 --> 00:32:55.122
Hanging out in various backgrounds of
battle scenes riding horses around, but

00:32:55.332 --> 00:33:00.232
many films from the mid late eighties
and TV stuff with horseback horses.

00:33:00.622 --> 00:33:01.072
Alright.

00:33:01.642 --> 00:33:06.372
And I'm in Africa quite a
lot through each summer.

00:33:06.582 --> 00:33:09.972
Just traveling, just traveling,
hitchhiking around, experiencing

00:33:09.972 --> 00:33:11.952
it while I'm down there.

00:33:12.732 --> 00:33:14.532
Aged 19.

00:33:15.162 --> 00:33:16.452
'cause I went to university quite young.

00:33:16.452 --> 00:33:21.282
I I, I finished school at 17, went
up to university at 18, I'm 19 and

00:33:21.282 --> 00:33:24.042
I'm in one of my summer travels.

00:33:24.042 --> 00:33:29.712
I'm in Africa and I hitchhiked
from Zimbabwe across into Botswana.

00:33:29.982 --> 00:33:36.942
I got cousins in Botswana and my
cousin Frank meets me at the sort

00:33:36.942 --> 00:33:38.982
of road head where I've come in.

00:33:39.552 --> 00:33:44.562
And at that time, the, it was
before the big diamond thing

00:33:44.562 --> 00:33:46.362
really took off in Botswana.

00:33:46.362 --> 00:33:49.032
So it was still very, very,
very, very remote and poor.

00:33:49.722 --> 00:33:53.562
And just donkey carts and,
you know, people really.

00:33:54.252 --> 00:33:59.832
Living at survival level and
he was pioneering out there.

00:33:59.862 --> 00:34:04.782
My cousin, Frank Taylor, something
called Agroforestry, which is now

00:34:04.782 --> 00:34:08.382
a thing, but no one had heard of
it then Dry Land Agroforestry.

00:34:08.412 --> 00:34:12.132
And he was finding groups of
bushman hunter gatherers who'd

00:34:12.132 --> 00:34:17.022
been displaced usually by more
aggressive cattle owning tribes.

00:34:17.652 --> 00:34:21.492
And all the game had been shot out
and all the wild foods had been,

00:34:21.792 --> 00:34:23.352
you know, take eaten by cattle.

00:34:23.592 --> 00:34:30.792
And these people were destitute and he
got into put up fences and then inside

00:34:30.792 --> 00:34:35.602
those fences, plant the wild foods
that normally they would've gathered.

00:34:35.842 --> 00:34:38.932
And he started finding a market for these.

00:34:39.202 --> 00:34:44.152
If you've ever seen the product
Devil's Claw, which people use for

00:34:44.152 --> 00:34:47.842
arthritis a lot, my cousin Frank
Taylor was the first person to get

00:34:47.842 --> 00:34:49.402
that onto the international market.

00:34:49.402 --> 00:34:51.562
And so he's a very, very Christian man.

00:34:52.402 --> 00:34:59.602
And quite, quite dour, quite scary,
big tall, lean rangey, pissing

00:34:59.602 --> 00:35:01.282
blue eyes, sort of, you know, dude.

00:35:02.002 --> 00:35:08.082
And when he picked me up and he
was driving me out to his place on

00:35:08.082 --> 00:35:11.412
that trip, he said, where in your
spiritual journey are you Rupert?

00:35:12.102 --> 00:35:14.622
And it was the first time
anyone had asked me that.

00:35:16.152 --> 00:35:22.632
And what was weird is I'd had a, a
dream just not so long before that

00:35:23.292 --> 00:35:24.882
in, in the dream I'd met the devil.

00:35:25.482 --> 00:35:35.712
And the devil was this man playing a
violin, standing on a hillside and had

00:35:36.852 --> 00:35:43.392
sort of let me know that there were
choices to be made and in the world.

00:35:43.662 --> 00:35:44.382
And I'd said.

00:35:46.452 --> 00:35:49.842
Okay, well, I dunno where I am in my
spiritual journey, Frank, but if it's

00:35:49.842 --> 00:35:53.292
any use, I, I had this dream, the,
you know, not so long ago and he said,

00:35:53.412 --> 00:35:57.492
ah, yes, ah, yes you are, you're going
to be tested sort of thing, you know?

00:35:57.552 --> 00:36:01.212
And when, if you get tested and you
want to go towards the light, you can

00:36:01.212 --> 00:36:03.102
always expect resistance from the dark.

00:36:03.102 --> 00:36:06.732
And this is normal and, you know,
but just pay attention to this.

00:36:06.732 --> 00:36:08.352
And so I thought, well
that's interesting, isn't it?

00:36:08.532 --> 00:36:12.312
You know, no one I know back in
England, you know, ever talks like that.

00:36:12.882 --> 00:36:16.452
And okay, didn't think much more of it.

00:36:16.902 --> 00:36:18.492
Go back to university graduate.

00:36:19.602 --> 00:36:21.732
And then afterwards I'm like,
well, what do I want to do?

00:36:21.732 --> 00:36:23.472
I thought, well, what I
really wanna do is write.

00:36:24.042 --> 00:36:26.562
I always loved stories,
always loved storytelling.

00:36:26.742 --> 00:36:30.792
I guess that's something I left out
was I'd always been an avid reader and

00:36:30.792 --> 00:36:35.142
I'd started experimenting with writing
and storytelling in my mid-teens.

00:36:35.772 --> 00:36:36.372
And.

00:36:37.782 --> 00:36:44.142
I through university, put out a,
wrote a, a group of short stories and

00:36:44.142 --> 00:36:48.222
found, and they never got published,
but I found an agent in London who

00:36:48.222 --> 00:36:49.302
was actually interested in them.

00:36:49.302 --> 00:36:51.852
And he said, look, you know, if
you were to take a bit more of a

00:36:52.782 --> 00:36:55.782
perfectionist approach and actually
edit these things properly, you know,

00:36:55.782 --> 00:36:58.992
they're kind of publishable, so you
know, you should think about this.

00:36:59.502 --> 00:37:02.352
So I thought, well, maybe
I, I'd like to write.

00:37:03.222 --> 00:37:07.402
And all my friends at that point were
going off into corporate jobs many

00:37:07.402 --> 00:37:10.792
of them in banking and immediately
starting to make a lot of money.

00:37:11.242 --> 00:37:12.172
I didn't do that.

00:37:12.232 --> 00:37:19.792
I, I went out to North America again
to horse train and to see if I could

00:37:19.792 --> 00:37:21.832
begin to establish myself as a writer.

00:37:22.522 --> 00:37:24.072
And I was also in love.

00:37:24.732 --> 00:37:32.597
I was deeply in love with a girl from
Canada who, we'd had an idyllic time

00:37:32.837 --> 00:37:39.077
for one year, and then through various
events had broken up and she dumped

00:37:39.197 --> 00:37:42.437
and well, she dumped me once and
then we got 'em back together again.

00:37:42.437 --> 00:37:45.917
And then I went out to North
America largely to follow her,

00:37:46.667 --> 00:37:48.227
and it was all completely crazy.

00:37:48.257 --> 00:37:50.687
I had no work and work permit, no nothing.

00:37:51.317 --> 00:37:53.657
And I, but I had, you know,
connections in the horse world.

00:37:53.657 --> 00:37:57.257
So I went out, started training
horses in Virginia and then ended

00:37:57.257 --> 00:38:02.927
up going up to Toronto where she
was hoping that she would sort of

00:38:02.927 --> 00:38:06.017
take me back and that somehow I'd
sort of become a writer in this.

00:38:06.137 --> 00:38:09.227
And it was winter and she said,
no, actually I'm dumping you.

00:38:10.307 --> 00:38:11.917
And so I'm like, oh, okay.

00:38:11.917 --> 00:38:14.077
Well I guess I, I have a choice.

00:38:14.077 --> 00:38:21.007
I can either go back to England or
I can see I can take the adventure.

00:38:21.187 --> 00:38:22.447
And I had this gut feeling.

00:38:23.062 --> 00:38:24.712
Rupert take the adventure.

00:38:24.772 --> 00:38:25.972
You should take the adventure.

00:38:26.482 --> 00:38:26.662
No.

00:38:26.662 --> 00:38:27.952
No matter how difficult it is.

00:38:28.252 --> 00:38:33.352
As you know, if you followed any of
my work, I'm an autism dad and we have

00:38:33.352 --> 00:38:39.912
a whole career before this podcast in
helping people with neurodivergence,

00:38:40.592 --> 00:38:42.812
either who are professionals in the field.

00:38:42.892 --> 00:38:43.732
Are you a therapist?

00:38:44.152 --> 00:38:45.422
Are you a caregiver?

00:38:45.812 --> 00:38:46.822
Are you a parent?

00:38:47.257 --> 00:38:49.287
Or are you somebody with neurodivergence?

00:38:50.727 --> 00:38:55.667
When my son, Rowan, was
diagnosed with autism in 2004,

00:38:55.707 --> 00:38:57.337
I really didn't know what to do.

00:38:57.537 --> 00:39:02.807
So I reached out for mentorship, and
I found it through an amazing adult

00:39:02.847 --> 00:39:05.647
autistic woman who's very famous, Dr.

00:39:05.797 --> 00:39:06.687
Temple Grandin.

00:39:06.887 --> 00:39:08.527
And she told me what to do.

00:39:08.577 --> 00:39:12.817
And it's been working so
amazingly for the last 20 years.

00:39:13.167 --> 00:39:17.617
That not only is my son basically
independent, but we've helped

00:39:17.877 --> 00:39:21.627
countless, countless thousands
of others reach the same goal.

00:39:21.967 --> 00:39:25.867
Working in schools, working at
home, working in therapy settings.

00:39:26.897 --> 00:39:31.337
If you would like to learn this
cutting edge, neuroscience backed

00:39:31.557 --> 00:39:33.597
approach, it's called Movement Method.

00:39:34.257 --> 00:39:37.614
You can learn it online, you
can learn it very, very simply.

00:39:37.614 --> 00:39:39.877
It's almost laughably simple.

00:39:40.817 --> 00:39:43.517
The important thing is to begin.

00:39:44.447 --> 00:39:47.597
Let yourself be mentored as I was by Dr.

00:39:47.597 --> 00:39:50.887
Grandin and see what results can follow.

00:39:51.917 --> 00:39:54.847
Go to this website, newtrailslearning.

00:39:57.117 --> 00:39:59.622
com Sign up as a gold member.

00:40:00.062 --> 00:40:02.952
Take the online movement method course.

00:40:03.442 --> 00:40:04.812
It's in 40 countries.

00:40:05.422 --> 00:40:07.482
Let us know how it goes for you.

00:40:07.682 --> 00:40:08.452
We really want to know.

00:40:08.462 --> 00:40:12.962
We really want to help people like
me, people like you, out there

00:40:13.312 --> 00:40:16.592
live their best life, to live
free, ride free, see what happens.

00:40:17.582 --> 00:40:25.202
So I did and I survived by snow
shoveling and working on construction

00:40:25.202 --> 00:40:28.622
sites and finding whatever
under the table work I could.

00:40:28.922 --> 00:40:35.862
And I managed to find shelter to live
in an old museum, a private museum

00:40:36.252 --> 00:40:42.342
where the guy who ran it let me sleep
under a glass case full of sea turtle

00:40:42.342 --> 00:40:45.072
skulls on a bed roll for a while.

00:40:45.522 --> 00:40:51.252
And I managed to kind of survive
my way through that winter.

00:40:52.062 --> 00:40:59.022
And then at the same time I began to
write and place my first published

00:40:59.022 --> 00:41:03.312
articles in magazines, which I'd
sent, sent off to editors and.

00:41:04.287 --> 00:41:05.517
Managed to get them published.

00:41:05.967 --> 00:41:11.307
Stuff about horses, stuff about travel,
stuff, about experiences in Africa.

00:41:12.387 --> 00:41:14.907
And I thought, wow, actually,
I guess I could do this.

00:41:15.597 --> 00:41:22.307
So I then moved up to, from Toronto
up to Montreal and managed to

00:41:22.307 --> 00:41:23.657
find a gig as a window cleaner.

00:41:24.167 --> 00:41:28.247
And that actually paid not so bad
money and we were living in abandoned

00:41:28.247 --> 00:41:33.967
buildings and squatting in abandoned
warehouses so we could survive by then.

00:41:33.967 --> 00:41:34.747
Had a group of friends.

00:41:34.747 --> 00:41:37.117
We were all doing this
together since the nineties.

00:41:37.627 --> 00:41:40.627
Lots of rock and roll, lots of
partying, lots of sex, drugs,

00:41:40.627 --> 00:41:44.107
and rock and roll and getting by.

00:41:44.827 --> 00:41:51.667
I found out while I was doing this
about a story that was unfolding

00:41:51.667 --> 00:41:58.957
in Northern Quebec where the Cree
Indians were under threat of having.

00:41:59.602 --> 00:42:04.672
An area the size of France, of that
land, the size of Quebec alone is

00:42:04.672 --> 00:42:06.172
the size of Western Europe, right?

00:42:06.592 --> 00:42:11.602
An area the size of France flooded
in order to create hydropower was a

00:42:11.602 --> 00:42:17.762
government company called Hydro Quebec
was gonna do this to sell that electricity

00:42:17.762 --> 00:42:20.612
to New York and the New England states.

00:42:21.362 --> 00:42:27.272
And the threat to the people
up there was existential.

00:42:27.272 --> 00:42:30.152
It was basically that would've
been kind of the end of them.

00:42:30.632 --> 00:42:33.982
And they were still people that
lived really traditionally hunting

00:42:33.982 --> 00:42:40.572
caribou and moose trapping beaver
fur, trapping also trapping for

00:42:40.572 --> 00:42:43.242
meat and living under canvas in tps.

00:42:43.552 --> 00:42:47.152
Even in the midst of the winter and
Northern Canada, the winters, I mean,

00:42:47.182 --> 00:42:50.272
you might think, you know, winter,
but until you've been up there, it's

00:42:50.272 --> 00:42:52.132
just like, it's a whole other thing.

00:42:52.732 --> 00:42:54.612
And I got wind of the story.

00:42:55.827 --> 00:43:01.557
That the Cree Indians had actually
had a previous run in, back in

00:43:01.557 --> 00:43:03.987
the seventies with Hydro Quebec.

00:43:04.587 --> 00:43:09.987
And although they'd lost, they'd
been given a, a big government

00:43:09.987 --> 00:43:13.107
settlement and they were clever.

00:43:13.467 --> 00:43:17.787
They'd used this money partly
to send a lot of their kids away

00:43:17.787 --> 00:43:21.447
to law school so that 'cause
they knew it would happen again.

00:43:21.597 --> 00:43:23.247
And so that now it had happened again.

00:43:23.247 --> 00:43:27.897
They had a whole bunch of lawyers who
were Cree and who were busy fighting this.

00:43:27.897 --> 00:43:29.727
I said, this is a fascinating story.

00:43:29.787 --> 00:43:33.867
And it was all over all the papers
in Canada all the time 'cause it was

00:43:33.867 --> 00:43:40.077
a, a big like Native Canadian versus,
you know, the establishment story.

00:43:40.827 --> 00:43:45.437
And I realized that nobody back
in the UK or Europe at all was.

00:43:46.457 --> 00:43:47.537
Reporting on this.

00:43:47.717 --> 00:43:51.017
But it was huge because if, if the
thing went through, it was gonna

00:43:51.017 --> 00:43:55.007
cause the volume of water was gonna,
cause that was being shifted, it

00:43:55.007 --> 00:43:58.817
was gonna cause the earth's crust
to shift and that was gonna release.

00:43:59.027 --> 00:44:02.927
All these scientists were saying massive
amounts of mercury from the bedrock

00:44:03.137 --> 00:44:07.007
that would not just poison everything
up there, but poison everything, you

00:44:07.007 --> 00:44:10.697
know, downstream of there, including,
you know, water in New England

00:44:10.697 --> 00:44:11.987
and the Great Lakes and all this.

00:44:13.037 --> 00:44:23.208
So I managed to get up there to that area
and I published the story and that's an

00:44:23.213 --> 00:44:29.027
easy thing to say, but when you are a
homeless window cleaner, to publish a

00:44:29.027 --> 00:44:32.627
story in a big national paper is not easy.

00:44:32.867 --> 00:44:38.687
What happened was I called a big
national newspaper in the uk, the

00:44:38.687 --> 00:44:44.052
independent on site, the Sunday
Independent, and I said, look.

00:44:44.112 --> 00:44:49.002
If you don't know me, I'd like to get
up there and do this story for you.

00:44:49.842 --> 00:44:52.542
And they said, we do indeed not know you.

00:44:53.062 --> 00:44:58.432
But it is an interesting story if you can
bring something back that's publishable.

00:44:59.182 --> 00:44:59.962
Let's see.

00:45:00.142 --> 00:45:02.722
So I had to take a punt on it,
and it's incredibly expensive

00:45:02.992 --> 00:45:04.312
to get up into these areas.

00:45:04.622 --> 00:45:06.932
Me and a, a friend, a
photographer friend went up.

00:45:07.112 --> 00:45:12.092
It's not just once you're up there, you
have to get like planes into these areas.

00:45:12.462 --> 00:45:15.702
There's, there's no roads, you
know, and snowmobiles and stuff.

00:45:15.702 --> 00:45:18.522
Like, I don't have this money, but
I managed to contact the tribal

00:45:18.522 --> 00:45:23.202
council and say, look, you know,
I would like to try to get this,

00:45:23.502 --> 00:45:25.062
you know, into the British press.

00:45:25.402 --> 00:45:30.112
I can't guarantee that I'll publish it,
but you know, would you help me have a go?

00:45:30.112 --> 00:45:31.372
And they, they did.

00:45:31.762 --> 00:45:34.852
And when me and my friend Ryan
arrived up there and we were living,

00:45:34.912 --> 00:45:39.082
you know, in the winter in Montreal,
which is damn cold in all our

00:45:39.082 --> 00:45:41.002
winter gear, and they looked at us.

00:45:42.142 --> 00:45:43.402
They said, where's your winter gear?

00:45:43.432 --> 00:45:44.902
And we're like, well, we're wearing it.

00:45:44.902 --> 00:45:49.942
And they just laughed at us, took us
off, kitted us out with caribou, skin

00:45:49.942 --> 00:45:54.562
parkers, moose skin, mittens, you
know, halfway up the arm and moose

00:45:54.562 --> 00:45:56.722
skin boots up to the top of the thigh.

00:45:56.752 --> 00:46:01.102
And then you get on these snowmobiles
and out you go really fast.

00:46:01.372 --> 00:46:07.852
And the wind chill factor, it's like
even, even you've only got this much

00:46:07.852 --> 00:46:11.992
of your skin exposed because you've
got goggles and you've got balaclava.

00:46:12.292 --> 00:46:15.052
It's like someone takes a hot knife
and just puts it to you there.

00:46:16.132 --> 00:46:17.032
Incredibly cold.

00:46:17.062 --> 00:46:24.622
And we managed you know, we were allowed
to see, privileged to see this life,

00:46:24.622 --> 00:46:27.802
this traditional life, really unchanged.

00:46:28.552 --> 00:46:33.742
People were using snowmobiles and people
were using rifles, but people were

00:46:33.742 --> 00:46:41.082
living off the forest, under canvas
in their tribal system and holding

00:46:41.172 --> 00:46:45.882
to their culture and holding to the
ecology and looking after the ecology.

00:46:47.322 --> 00:46:50.532
Not just for themselves, but for us
because they were protecting us from

00:46:50.532 --> 00:46:51.972
all getting poisoned with Mercury.

00:46:52.932 --> 00:46:58.482
And I managed to get a story back
to the UK and I got it published

00:46:59.052 --> 00:47:00.342
and that was my breakthrough.

00:47:01.572 --> 00:47:08.682
It also, let me see something about
manifestation because although

00:47:08.682 --> 00:47:12.972
all the odds were against the
Cree winning this land claim,

00:47:15.252 --> 00:47:15.577
they won.

00:47:17.562 --> 00:47:22.632
They managed to persuade New York and all
of the states that were gonna buy this

00:47:22.662 --> 00:47:28.332
hydropower to not buy it in advance and
the government shut the project down.

00:47:29.082 --> 00:47:32.052
It was an extraordinary landmark win.

00:47:33.162 --> 00:47:38.202
And it made me realize, oh my gosh, you
really can win against the odds like that.

00:47:38.862 --> 00:47:45.442
Okay, so I end up back in England
because, you know, there's only

00:47:45.442 --> 00:47:49.972
so long you can exist as an under
the table homeless window cleaner.

00:47:50.362 --> 00:47:53.362
And by then I'd had my
first thing published.

00:47:53.362 --> 00:47:56.212
So I went back and I began to.

00:47:57.457 --> 00:47:59.437
Work on newspapers and magazines.

00:47:59.437 --> 00:48:04.617
And I ended up co-founding a
very short-lived magazine about

00:48:05.087 --> 00:48:07.967
ecology and hunting together.

00:48:08.357 --> 00:48:11.447
It's called International Field
Sports and Conservation, or IFC.

00:48:11.987 --> 00:48:15.017
And, but it was operational for a couple
of years and we managed to get national

00:48:15.017 --> 00:48:20.177
distribution and I got to see what it
was like to actually run, edit, sell the

00:48:20.177 --> 00:48:27.287
advertising, bootstrap up something that
could go like international news agents

00:48:27.287 --> 00:48:30.557
and you know, you could buy it wherever.

00:48:31.127 --> 00:48:32.087
And we had to do everything.

00:48:32.087 --> 00:48:36.317
We had to write the copy, sell the
advertising, design everything up

00:48:36.317 --> 00:48:39.707
for the printers, get it to the
printers, learn about color offset

00:48:39.707 --> 00:48:44.857
printing, blah, blah, blah, blah, bu
raise the money from issue to issue.

00:48:45.727 --> 00:48:48.877
And although in the end it did
fold after, but it only folded

00:48:48.877 --> 00:48:50.977
after about two years and it.

00:48:53.137 --> 00:48:55.957
Again, made me realize that
you can do these things.

00:48:56.857 --> 00:49:01.807
And of course, I was at the same time
still always horse training on the side.

00:49:03.547 --> 00:49:09.577
Right about the time that it
folded, I got a job to go and

00:49:09.577 --> 00:49:12.247
write a guidebook to South Africa.

00:49:12.607 --> 00:49:16.897
And at the time, that was just
when South Africa, this is 1992.

00:49:17.587 --> 00:49:21.067
This is just when South Africa
did the changeover finally

00:49:21.067 --> 00:49:25.357
from apartheid to Black rule.

00:49:26.047 --> 00:49:32.017
And everyone had been boycotting traveling
there for, you know, decades and now

00:49:32.017 --> 00:49:33.817
suddenly it was gonna open up to tourism.

00:49:34.087 --> 00:49:36.877
So get out there and
write the first guidebook.

00:49:37.597 --> 00:49:43.057
So I, so I did for a guidebook company
called Kagan who don't exist anymore, but

00:49:43.057 --> 00:49:48.037
who did really beautifully illustrated
guides and similar to the Lonely Planet.

00:49:48.427 --> 00:49:52.487
Or rough guides, but much more
beautifully produced and with

00:49:52.487 --> 00:49:53.807
more of an emphasis on culture.

00:49:54.617 --> 00:50:00.997
And I went out and basically lived
in my car in South Africa and Namibia

00:50:01.027 --> 00:50:05.047
for about a year and a half or a year.

00:50:05.647 --> 00:50:05.857
Yeah.

00:50:05.862 --> 00:50:06.757
Year, year and a half.

00:50:07.147 --> 00:50:09.127
And of course I spent a lot
of time in Africa before,

00:50:09.127 --> 00:50:09.907
so that's why I got the job.

00:50:09.907 --> 00:50:11.167
I knew the place quite well.

00:50:11.677 --> 00:50:13.747
But this was different 'cause
I had to see it in real detail.

00:50:13.747 --> 00:50:19.507
And of course the guy book job itself
didn't pay enough to fully live on.

00:50:19.507 --> 00:50:24.277
So I, because I'd published this
first big story, I managed to get

00:50:24.277 --> 00:50:28.357
journalistic assignments to go out
and cover, you know, the changeover

00:50:28.837 --> 00:50:32.557
of apartheid into, into Black Rule.

00:50:32.857 --> 00:50:36.037
And it was an incredibly
violent year in Africa.

00:50:36.187 --> 00:50:39.397
And I'd never had any bad
experiences in Africa, even when

00:50:39.397 --> 00:50:41.567
I was hitchhiking around before.

00:50:41.567 --> 00:50:43.487
And I'd run into, you know.

00:50:44.282 --> 00:50:48.542
Armed areas where there
was civil war going on.

00:50:49.092 --> 00:50:52.092
And even when I was very young at
seven, you know, we'd been out there

00:50:52.092 --> 00:50:58.632
during the, the War of Independence
but it hadn't really touched us except

00:50:58.632 --> 00:51:02.382
having to go around in, you know,
armored, armored convoys and things.

00:51:02.462 --> 00:51:05.372
But this year it did, oh my gosh, did it?

00:51:05.372 --> 00:51:12.572
I got several direct assaults on my life
in a really short period of time, in

00:51:12.572 --> 00:51:18.022
about a six week period, I had about as
many really violent episodes in which

00:51:18.022 --> 00:51:25.312
I either had to fight, plead, hide,
or run or take a massive beating, not

00:51:25.432 --> 00:51:26.962
knowing if I was gonna be killed or not.

00:51:27.652 --> 00:51:31.942
And I didn't know what post-traumatic
stress disorder was back then.

00:51:32.322 --> 00:51:40.272
But when I had completed that year
and came back to England to write the

00:51:40.272 --> 00:51:46.962
thing up and deliver it, I was just
jumpy as all hell and getting all

00:51:46.962 --> 00:51:51.702
these weird viral diseases and like
colds all the time and flus and things.

00:51:51.942 --> 00:51:52.812
And I never got that.

00:51:52.812 --> 00:51:56.672
I was always like so robust and you know,
having fights with my girlfriend and

00:51:56.672 --> 00:51:59.672
getting into fights in pubs and things
like that, stuff, I just never did.

00:52:00.242 --> 00:52:02.372
All classic symptoms of PTSD.

00:52:03.482 --> 00:52:08.552
Fortunately for me, at the time I
was riding semi-professionally for

00:52:08.642 --> 00:52:12.662
a, so I always had this parallel
track with horse training for

00:52:12.662 --> 00:52:15.332
a lady outside London eventing.

00:52:16.052 --> 00:52:20.382
And so of course what I was doing
was I was getting up from the.

00:52:20.517 --> 00:52:25.227
A place in London that I was renting,
getting on my bicycle, this is most

00:52:25.227 --> 00:52:31.127
days, cycling across London to Paddington
Station through all the traffic and

00:52:31.127 --> 00:52:33.977
then getting on a train, going out
into the countryside, cycling again

00:52:33.977 --> 00:52:38.087
out to the farm, saddling up, being
with the horses, being out in nature

00:52:38.087 --> 00:52:39.227
with the horses, then going home.

00:52:39.557 --> 00:52:42.797
What I didn't know then was what I
was doing is I was filling myself with

00:52:43.097 --> 00:52:47.357
something called BDNF, brain derived
neurotrophic factor, which you get when

00:52:47.357 --> 00:52:54.527
you move and problem solve, and it creates
new neural pathways and oxytocin, the feel

00:52:54.527 --> 00:52:58.337
good and communication healing hormone
by being with the horses all the time.

00:52:58.607 --> 00:53:04.157
So, slowly I healed from the PTSD
of all these, i, i, I really violent

00:53:04.337 --> 00:53:07.807
incidents, you know, had a guy climb
through the, my window with a kitchen

00:53:07.807 --> 00:53:11.497
knife in his hand, and you know, what
followed there was not nice and so on.

00:53:11.647 --> 00:53:13.207
So, I.

00:53:14.692 --> 00:53:15.472
Recovered.

00:53:16.132 --> 00:53:18.802
And although I didn't quite know
why, there's a little part of me that

00:53:18.802 --> 00:53:23.692
clocked it and went, just hold onto this
knowledge, but I didn't quite know why.

00:53:23.932 --> 00:53:27.532
And I'd also had a really, another really
interesting spiritual experience out in

00:53:27.532 --> 00:53:33.232
Africa that year where I'd been on Table
Mountain and I had gotten a fever and been

00:53:33.322 --> 00:53:38.122
delirious and had this revelation back
to the God is love, love is God thing.

00:53:38.482 --> 00:53:40.792
I'd remembered that up on Table Mountain.

00:53:41.182 --> 00:53:43.732
And then I realized, oh well
if that's true and that is true

00:53:44.242 --> 00:53:47.962
then, and if everything is God,
then everything must be love.

00:53:47.962 --> 00:53:52.582
So the shirt that I'm wearing, the,
the, the, the cotton fibers of it

00:53:52.582 --> 00:53:54.442
must be actually made of love matter.

00:53:54.682 --> 00:53:55.432
Must be love.

00:53:55.432 --> 00:54:00.952
And even the, even the car, the metal
of the car that I'm driving and the fuel

00:54:00.952 --> 00:54:04.522
that's running it, which is made from
fossil forests, is actually all love.

00:54:04.522 --> 00:54:05.452
So everything is love.

00:54:06.532 --> 00:54:08.442
And this base faith.

00:54:08.982 --> 00:54:14.472
Had also, I think, kept me going through
this time of great fear that I'd undergone

00:54:15.312 --> 00:54:17.922
out there that in, in that violent year.

00:54:19.722 --> 00:54:25.572
I then got another job right after
that to go and do a guidebook in India.

00:54:27.222 --> 00:54:33.942
And India, as anyone knows, who's ever
spent a long time out there, because

00:54:34.152 --> 00:54:36.432
when you go write a guidebook, you've
got to really immerse yourself in

00:54:36.432 --> 00:54:37.632
those, you're out there for a long time.

00:54:38.232 --> 00:54:40.992
India will change you because.

00:54:42.027 --> 00:54:45.357
It's incredibly spiritual and at
the same time it's really brutal.

00:54:45.787 --> 00:54:47.317
People are just horrible to each other.

00:54:48.067 --> 00:54:53.827
And at the same time it's so sublime and
the spirituality is actually very pure.

00:54:53.977 --> 00:54:55.357
It's both at the same time.

00:54:55.357 --> 00:55:00.157
It makes you really have to become
comfortable with ambiguity that things

00:55:00.157 --> 00:55:02.797
are both dark and light together.

00:55:03.517 --> 00:55:07.387
And that is useful because that
is just sort of how life is.

00:55:07.387 --> 00:55:12.307
It's just pumped through a really
amplified lens when you're out there.

00:55:12.697 --> 00:55:16.777
And I came back from India
and got another job in Africa.

00:55:19.567 --> 00:55:26.708
It was while doing this other guidebook
that I began to hear a story about the.

00:55:28.222 --> 00:55:34.912
A group of Bushmen, Kalahari, sun bushmen,
hunting and gathering peoples who had

00:55:35.242 --> 00:55:40.672
been in South Africa under apartheid and
had been kicked out of a national park.

00:55:41.032 --> 00:55:43.672
What's now the second biggest
national park in South Africa, the

00:55:43.672 --> 00:55:46.822
Halal Khari National Park on the
border of Botswana and Namibia.

00:55:47.692 --> 00:55:51.562
They'd been kicked out in the seventies
when the park had been created and been

00:55:51.562 --> 00:55:53.392
living by the side of the road ever since.

00:55:53.662 --> 00:55:57.652
And what was interesting was the
bushmen were a big part of my family

00:55:57.652 --> 00:56:03.082
mythology in that my that great,
great uncle I told you about before,

00:56:03.232 --> 00:56:04.912
who'd gone north of the Orange River.

00:56:05.032 --> 00:56:11.272
He had spent a lot of time
interacting with the Coi Sun and.

00:56:12.292 --> 00:56:16.282
My grandfather, who was a
journalist had also spent quite

00:56:16.282 --> 00:56:17.902
a lot of time up there with them.

00:56:17.902 --> 00:56:20.542
And everyone who'd gone up
there had in the family had

00:56:20.542 --> 00:56:21.712
always sort of reported back.

00:56:21.772 --> 00:56:23.512
These are just the purest people.

00:56:23.812 --> 00:56:25.822
These are the best people in the world.

00:56:25.822 --> 00:56:27.862
They, they, they don't make war.

00:56:27.862 --> 00:56:30.202
They're like a sort of, almost
like an elusive fairy folk.

00:56:30.802 --> 00:56:34.732
And there was always this sort
of mythology about these people.

00:56:34.732 --> 00:56:39.112
And part of that mythology was that there
were none of them left in South Africa.

00:56:39.322 --> 00:56:42.652
They'd all been wiped out at
the end of the 19th century.

00:56:43.312 --> 00:56:46.392
And you know, if you wanted to find
those people, you had to go up to very

00:56:46.392 --> 00:56:52.392
remote parts of Botswana or Namibia
much deeper into the Kalahari desert.

00:56:53.502 --> 00:56:58.722
Well, it turned out that no, there
were actually bushmen living in.

00:56:59.082 --> 00:57:02.862
South Africa all along, they'd
just been displaced, but a very,

00:57:02.862 --> 00:57:07.482
very small group of them had left
just literally an extended family.

00:57:08.742 --> 00:57:14.932
Around that time too, I ran into my
first group of Sun Bushmen up in Namibia.

00:57:16.192 --> 00:57:18.622
Literally, I'd, I'd found out where to go.

00:57:18.622 --> 00:57:22.462
I'd finally been able to get my hands
on a four by four, and they're very

00:57:22.462 --> 00:57:30.382
expensive and driven out to this
place called in Eastern Namibia and

00:57:31.282 --> 00:57:36.742
parked under a big bear Bab tree and
two Bushman had walked out of the

00:57:39.142 --> 00:57:43.972
thickets and one of them spoke English.

00:57:44.212 --> 00:57:50.392
A guy called Benjamin and he said, yeah,
you know, I can absolutely introduce

00:57:50.392 --> 00:57:51.697
you into the culture a little bit.

00:57:53.227 --> 00:57:54.487
You've made it all this way.

00:57:54.667 --> 00:57:59.797
And I had my first taste of that
life, of that hunting and gathering

00:57:59.797 --> 00:58:02.317
life that still exists up there.

00:58:03.187 --> 00:58:08.737
And seeing how functional those
people are with each other.

00:58:09.527 --> 00:58:14.967
No chiefs gender equality
children have a voice.

00:58:15.837 --> 00:58:20.427
They're hunters, but they have
a deep ecological sense and the

00:58:20.427 --> 00:58:22.077
entire culture based around healing.

00:58:23.637 --> 00:58:25.107
Healing and conflict resolution.

00:58:25.107 --> 00:58:28.947
Because if you're hunting and gathering
in an area where you're not the top

00:58:28.947 --> 00:58:34.887
predator, if you fragment as a group,
if, if, if conflict within the group

00:58:34.887 --> 00:58:39.327
gets beyond a certain point, then
the highness is gonna get you all.

00:58:39.477 --> 00:58:41.037
So you actually have to stick together.

00:58:41.307 --> 00:58:44.757
So you have a, a healer who
sits at a shaman, healer who

00:58:44.757 --> 00:58:45.538
sits at the middle of the.

00:58:46.302 --> 00:58:49.902
Culture whose job it is to kind
of constantly resolve conflict,

00:58:50.082 --> 00:58:51.732
not just heal physical ailments.

00:58:52.302 --> 00:58:55.392
And this is regarded as
incredibly important.

00:58:55.722 --> 00:58:59.532
And I, I remember thinking, gosh, if
this is how humans actually are, 'cause

00:58:59.532 --> 00:59:02.472
this is the oldest culture on the
planet, then that's actually a really

00:59:02.472 --> 00:59:04.212
good advertisement for our species.

00:59:04.962 --> 00:59:09.312
And it means that all of that stuff
that we think of as normal human

00:59:09.312 --> 00:59:14.352
behavior like war or organized violence
or that sort of thing, it's not

00:59:14.382 --> 00:59:18.522
actually, it's an aberration, which
is why we, why we know it's wrong.

00:59:18.942 --> 00:59:20.952
That's why we bother with
having a justice system.

00:59:21.342 --> 00:59:25.872
And it seems to have all come in quite
recently, like the last 10,000 years with

00:59:25.872 --> 00:59:31.062
the domestication of plants and, you know,
animals, agriculture and owning stuff

00:59:31.062 --> 00:59:32.922
and overpopulation and all these things.

00:59:32.922 --> 00:59:37.392
And it's driven us nuts, but
it's not who we really are.

00:59:38.832 --> 00:59:42.912
And right at that time that that happened,
and I found out that this group of

00:59:42.912 --> 00:59:45.312
bushmen in South Africa still existed.

00:59:45.702 --> 00:59:50.592
This group of bushmen in South
Africa instituted a land claim very

00:59:50.592 --> 00:59:56.752
similar to the one in Canada that
I'd followed, where they said we

00:59:56.752 --> 00:59:58.492
would like our land back, please.

00:59:59.122 --> 01:00:02.602
We were kicked out of that
national park under apartheid,

01:00:02.812 --> 01:00:04.162
and they managed to find a lawyer.

01:00:04.462 --> 01:00:07.462
And I found out about this and the
journalist in me just went, oh my

01:00:07.462 --> 01:00:08.962
gosh, you have to follow this story.

01:00:09.562 --> 01:00:16.132
And then the personal side of me said,
Yar ru, and this is where your non-white

01:00:16.132 --> 01:00:19.912
family used to operate and still do.

01:00:21.382 --> 01:00:23.992
I bet you there's a family
connection to this story.

01:00:25.102 --> 01:00:30.502
So I dug a little further and
I found out that the bushman up

01:00:30.502 --> 01:00:32.152
there were actually being opposed.

01:00:32.857 --> 01:00:36.487
Their land claim by another non-white
group who said, we were also

01:00:36.487 --> 01:00:40.417
displaced from this area and we, you
know, why should they get the land?

01:00:40.417 --> 01:00:41.347
We want the land.

01:00:41.347 --> 01:00:46.957
And you know, there was a, there's a kind
of a conflict going on between these two

01:00:46.957 --> 01:00:52.177
groups who'd been displaced and of course
the national park was having none of it.

01:00:53.437 --> 01:00:59.797
I found out of course, that the second
group were cousins of mine and then

01:00:59.797 --> 01:01:05.077
I found out that many of them had
married into the group of bushmen and

01:01:05.077 --> 01:01:10.417
that therefore I was cousins in law,
cousin-in-law to this group of bushmen.

01:01:12.217 --> 01:01:16.207
So I went to find them and

01:01:18.907 --> 01:01:24.997
found their camp by the side of the road,
sat with them, talked with them, and

01:01:26.437 --> 01:01:28.627
was immediately just taken in as family.

01:01:30.382 --> 01:01:32.302
Now this group had been displaced.

01:01:32.302 --> 01:01:39.472
So I talked about a very beautiful
life up there in Namibia with those

01:01:39.472 --> 01:01:41.992
bushmen that I'd run into up there.

01:01:42.172 --> 01:01:44.272
But down here in South
Africa, it was not like that.

01:01:45.002 --> 01:01:48.362
Because they'd been
displaced and victimized and

01:01:50.762 --> 01:01:58.082
predated upon in every way, and alcohol
and drugs and all of that had crept in.

01:01:59.222 --> 01:02:00.902
This was the antithesis.

01:02:01.082 --> 01:02:05.852
Yet there was still something
really gentle and beautiful

01:02:06.362 --> 01:02:09.422
and wounded about this group.

01:02:09.992 --> 01:02:13.892
And what they said to me is,
Ru we've lost our healers.

01:02:13.892 --> 01:02:16.712
We lost our healing tradition
when we lost the land.

01:02:17.132 --> 01:02:22.102
And we are now, we, it, it, it's
almost pointless us getting the

01:02:22.102 --> 01:02:26.352
land back if we, if we don't, you
know, recover our healing tradition

01:02:26.352 --> 01:02:28.722
because we'll just destroy ourselves.

01:02:29.712 --> 01:02:31.092
It's quite wise.

01:02:31.602 --> 01:02:38.502
And at the time I was going then
between there and deeper Kalahari

01:02:42.312 --> 01:02:48.132
to write a book about these cultures,
which eventually became a work called

01:02:48.132 --> 01:02:52.862
The Healing Land, which was published
here and in the US the healing Land.

01:02:53.642 --> 01:02:58.552
And in the course of this, I
became initiated into more and

01:02:58.552 --> 01:03:00.142
more into this healing tradition.

01:03:00.472 --> 01:03:07.522
And I got to see things that just
bogle the mind hunting magic in

01:03:07.522 --> 01:03:14.482
which the animal is brought to you
shapeshifting in which the healer

01:03:14.482 --> 01:03:16.072
turns themselves into a leopard.

01:03:17.002 --> 01:03:19.582
Cancer's being pulled
out of people's bodies.

01:03:20.542 --> 01:03:27.757
I, I, I saw all this, it's all recounted
in that book, and I'm not the only one.

01:03:27.757 --> 01:03:34.477
I mean many anyone who's spent any time,
you know, in a, in a culture like that,

01:03:34.717 --> 01:03:36.727
they've all got their stories of this.

01:03:37.537 --> 01:03:44.527
And what you realize is that these kinds
of miracles are actually the norm in

01:03:44.617 --> 01:03:48.757
human society, in, in true human society
that's living in nature, that's living

01:03:48.757 --> 01:03:52.987
the old way, that's living close to
animals and plants we're supposed to live

01:03:52.987 --> 01:03:57.937
in, you know, constant connection and
relationship with up to about 300 species.

01:04:00.337 --> 01:04:03.997
In, in really supportive groups
in which the predators are

01:04:03.997 --> 01:04:05.527
outside of the human thing.

01:04:05.527 --> 01:04:07.537
And the predator is never your fellow man.

01:04:07.657 --> 01:04:11.107
And now we've replaced that with
no relationship with any other

01:04:11.107 --> 01:04:14.467
species unless we're lucky enough
to live on farms or whatever.

01:04:15.097 --> 01:04:21.067
And the only, the predator
is always our fellow man.

01:04:21.067 --> 01:04:23.257
Now this sends us completely crazy.

01:04:24.877 --> 01:04:26.947
So I follow the land claim

01:04:28.957 --> 01:04:35.557
and I help the group in South Africa
to connect with the healers by their

01:04:35.557 --> 01:04:40.237
own request to connect with the
healers up in Botswana and Namibia.

01:04:40.987 --> 01:04:46.327
In fact, the group in South
Africa, the, they're called.

01:04:47.647 --> 01:04:49.027
Asked, said, war Ru.

01:04:49.057 --> 01:04:52.477
You know, you're a journalist,
you've gotta get us to the West

01:04:52.477 --> 01:04:53.887
so we can tell our story there.

01:04:54.037 --> 01:04:58.537
You've gotta get us to the United
Nations and you've gotta connect

01:04:58.537 --> 01:05:00.037
us with these healers up there.

01:05:00.277 --> 01:05:04.597
Oh, and you, it was your mother
and your mother's stories about

01:05:04.597 --> 01:05:09.487
Africa, which largely kept Africa
alive in your heart, even when you

01:05:09.487 --> 01:05:10.657
were a boy growing up in London.

01:05:10.657 --> 01:05:13.927
So you have to get, get your
mother and bring her out here.

01:05:14.077 --> 01:05:19.837
When we got to see the healers to
dance for the land to be returned,

01:05:21.067 --> 01:05:22.297
and you gotta get us to the un.

01:05:24.247 --> 01:05:27.397
And remember that thing I talked
about about adventure Sometimes

01:05:27.397 --> 01:05:32.437
when an adventures in front of
you and you feel this, pull in

01:05:32.437 --> 01:05:34.807
your solar plexus in your throat.

01:05:35.797 --> 01:05:39.747
I'd felt it in in Canada that time.

01:05:39.747 --> 01:05:45.267
I'd felt it many times on the back of a
horse going into a dangerous situation.

01:05:45.267 --> 01:05:46.467
I'd felt it.

01:05:47.352 --> 01:05:49.452
When you must, you must take
the adventure in front of you,

01:05:49.452 --> 01:05:50.802
even though you're scared.

01:05:52.572 --> 01:05:55.122
And so I said, okay, I'll, I'll try.

01:05:56.442 --> 01:06:00.642
And I had no idea how to do
any of these things because

01:06:00.642 --> 01:06:01.902
they all cost a lot of money.

01:06:02.622 --> 01:06:08.502
I didn't, you know, to hire, set
up expeditions to hire vehicles

01:06:08.502 --> 01:06:12.582
to get a load of people up into
Botswana or get someone to the un.

01:06:12.582 --> 01:06:15.342
How anesthesia that and what do you
even do when you're at the UN and

01:06:15.972 --> 01:06:20.712
get these people from Africa to,
you know, to, okay, okay, I'll try.

01:06:22.722 --> 01:06:33.222
So I did and I founded a nonprofit
called the Indigenous Land Rights

01:06:33.222 --> 01:06:38.952
Fund, and we raised some money to

01:06:41.142 --> 01:06:42.102
begin to.

01:06:42.822 --> 01:06:47.982
Create a fund to bring a group from
South Africa, a group from Botswana

01:06:48.432 --> 01:06:53.862
over to America and get to the un.

01:06:53.862 --> 01:07:01.572
But while that was in the very early
stages of development, my mum did come

01:07:01.632 --> 01:07:06.102
out and the bushman stripped her naked.

01:07:06.102 --> 01:07:10.872
She was such a sport on the sand
dunes in the area in South Africa.

01:07:10.872 --> 01:07:15.142
Covered her with a
sacred pollen called Mao.

01:07:16.042 --> 01:07:20.002
And then we sang songs
to her and honored her.

01:07:21.172 --> 01:07:24.532
And then we went up into Botswana.

01:07:24.532 --> 01:07:30.352
And by then I had, I had forged a
relationship with a heer called Besa.

01:07:31.282 --> 01:07:36.542
And those of you who know my book
about Rowan, my son autistic son,

01:07:36.542 --> 01:07:38.042
know that his middle name is Besa.

01:07:38.792 --> 01:07:40.502
And I'd heard stories about Bess.

01:07:41.222 --> 01:07:42.392
All over the Kalahari.

01:07:42.542 --> 01:07:50.432
And when I finally met him living under
a thorn tree in Western Botswana, near a

01:07:50.432 --> 01:07:57.272
settlement called Hansi this man saw me
got up from where he was sitting went.

01:07:57.572 --> 01:07:58.517
There are two, be

01:08:00.572 --> 01:08:00.903
two two.

01:08:01.412 --> 01:08:02.312
And he pointed himself.

01:08:02.312 --> 01:08:04.112
He went, oh, Besa, old Besa.

01:08:05.012 --> 01:08:07.382
You Klein Besa, little besa.

01:08:08.102 --> 01:08:11.732
So I was always little
Besa in the Kalahari.

01:08:12.422 --> 01:08:17.492
And those of you who know my website,
the Long Ride Home website, know that

01:08:17.492 --> 01:08:21.062
we have a program on there called
Little Besa about how to bring everyday

01:08:21.062 --> 01:08:24.152
Shamanism into and healing into your life.

01:08:24.152 --> 01:08:29.732
And that's why it's called that because
that was the name I was given and Besa

01:08:29.732 --> 01:08:31.832
was the one who showed me Shapeshifting.

01:08:32.102 --> 01:08:36.182
Besa was the one who showed me a lot
of the more extreme healing techniques

01:08:37.292 --> 01:08:38.842
and the Bushman in South Africa.

01:08:38.842 --> 01:08:43.312
When they heard that I found Besa, they
said this, man, this is the man we need.

01:08:43.362 --> 01:08:44.592
We've heard about him too.

01:08:45.102 --> 01:08:48.432
This is the man we need to dance
for us to help us restore our own

01:08:48.432 --> 01:08:51.552
healing tradition and secure the land.

01:08:51.552 --> 01:08:56.112
So up we went and we held the healing.

01:08:58.062 --> 01:08:58.752
And

01:09:01.572 --> 01:09:02.892
it was a real anticlimax.

01:09:02.892 --> 01:09:08.292
I'd been at, I'd been at healings
where there'd been high drama, you

01:09:08.292 --> 01:09:13.422
know, healers bleeding from the mouth,
from the eyes, from, you know, as they

01:09:13.452 --> 01:09:19.032
pulled sickness out of people and diving
into the fire and swallowing coals and

01:09:21.342 --> 01:09:22.422
nothing like this.

01:09:22.452 --> 01:09:28.482
In fact, Bea turned up drunk dance
for maybe it's all done through

01:09:28.482 --> 01:09:30.822
Dance the ceiling for maybe

01:09:33.717 --> 01:09:34.367
hour and a half.

01:09:37.572 --> 01:09:38.322
And then that was it.

01:09:39.102 --> 01:09:44.172
And then the next day we had to drive
out and I said to Avi Kpa, who was the,

01:09:44.712 --> 01:09:49.302
the sort of representative of the Bushman
and the land claim for South Africa.

01:09:49.422 --> 01:09:51.552
Do you think, do you
think it was worth coming?

01:09:51.552 --> 01:09:52.362
Do you, do you think it?

01:09:53.082 --> 01:09:59.082
And he, he looked at me, he said, Rupert
Besa showed up drunk because I'm a drunk.

01:09:59.802 --> 01:10:05.322
He was showing me what I need to
change in myself to make this happen.

01:10:05.322 --> 01:10:10.332
And he said, Rupert, a year from today,
I'm going to sit down with the president

01:10:10.332 --> 01:10:14.562
of South Africa and I'm going to sign
the land claim for half the National Park

01:10:16.962 --> 01:10:19.362
would've been the largest
land claim in African history

01:10:22.992 --> 01:10:23.922
a year and a day.

01:10:24.957 --> 01:10:30.177
It was off by one day a year and a day
after that conversation, he did indeed sit

01:10:30.177 --> 01:10:34.137
down with the president of South Africa,
Tavo and Becky at the time, and he signed

01:10:34.167 --> 01:10:36.297
the largest land claim in African history,

01:10:39.777 --> 01:10:43.347
manifestation, self-actualization.

01:10:46.197 --> 01:10:52.647
On the way back from that healing in
Botswana to South Africa, we camped in

01:10:52.647 --> 01:11:00.717
a canyon on the Namibian border that had
been part of the Kani land ancestrally.

01:11:01.227 --> 01:11:05.067
And at four in the morning I was
seeping in the back of a pickup truck.

01:11:06.777 --> 01:11:10.527
I woke up fault, upright and saw
what looked like a little white,

01:11:10.587 --> 01:11:13.617
whirlwind, little white wind going
like that across the canyon floor.

01:11:15.207 --> 01:11:17.567
And instinctively I
thought, oh, that's death.

01:11:17.597 --> 01:11:19.157
And I just went back to sleep again.

01:11:20.867 --> 01:11:24.557
At the morning fire making coffee.

01:11:25.127 --> 01:11:30.547
The lady who I was doing a lot
of that work with Belinda, she

01:11:30.637 --> 01:11:34.387
said, did you see that thing at
about four o'clock this morning?

01:11:34.597 --> 01:11:35.677
And I said, yeah.

01:11:35.767 --> 01:11:36.817
I said, what do you think it was?

01:11:37.237 --> 01:11:38.347
She said, well, I think it was death.

01:11:38.347 --> 01:11:38.917
What do you think?

01:11:38.917 --> 01:11:40.267
I was like, yeah, I think it's death too.

01:11:40.747 --> 01:11:45.007
And then David Ropa comes along
and says did you guys see that

01:11:45.007 --> 01:11:46.057
thing at four in the morning?

01:11:47.287 --> 01:11:49.497
And we both said, yeah,
what do you think it was?

01:11:49.497 --> 01:11:50.307
Do you, was it death?

01:11:50.307 --> 01:11:51.507
And he said, well, almost.

01:11:52.617 --> 01:11:54.477
And he said it was a departing soul.

01:11:54.507 --> 01:11:59.397
'cause this is where we used to, this
is where we used to bury our dead in

01:11:59.397 --> 01:12:01.167
the answer before we lost all this land.

01:12:01.827 --> 01:12:07.017
And that's a, that's a soul returning
from where we live now, to here.

01:12:07.797 --> 01:12:10.557
When we get back to the village, we
will find that somebody has died.

01:12:11.697 --> 01:12:14.757
And indeed, when we got
back to the village.

01:12:15.102 --> 01:12:16.932
A whole day to drive.

01:12:16.932 --> 01:12:21.252
Later we found that somebody
had drive, I had in Indeed died.

01:12:21.582 --> 01:12:32.112
So I got a real window on these parallel
worlds and fields of consciousness

01:12:32.112 --> 01:12:36.522
and realities that exist altogether.

01:12:37.932 --> 01:12:44.052
And right about that time, as the
bushmen in South Africa became

01:12:44.052 --> 01:12:48.492
successful with their land claim,
a bigger threat to a larger group

01:12:48.492 --> 01:12:50.562
of bushmen up in Botswana happened.

01:12:50.922 --> 01:12:55.632
Whether Botswana government with
DeBeers Diamonds decided to kick

01:12:56.262 --> 01:13:00.822
another group off their land in
order to make way for diamond mines.

01:13:01.242 --> 01:13:05.172
And this was the point at which they,
they then said, could you help us too?

01:13:05.652 --> 01:13:09.852
And this was the point at which we
decided, okay, this UN thing, we

01:13:09.852 --> 01:13:10.992
need to see if we can make that.

01:13:13.992 --> 01:13:22.272
Okay, so how to get this delegation
of Sun Bushman, hunter gatherers

01:13:22.272 --> 01:13:30.852
have no power, no power at all, who
are being put in jail and tortured.

01:13:31.572 --> 01:13:32.772
This is up in Botswana.

01:13:32.892 --> 01:13:36.842
If they go up against
the government in any way

01:13:39.272 --> 01:13:46.542
and me, this freelance journalist
with no backing private funds, I

01:13:46.542 --> 01:13:51.552
have no organization behind me,
no big newspaper, no nothing.

01:13:51.552 --> 01:13:52.722
I'm just a freelancer.

01:13:54.972 --> 01:13:55.482
What to do?

01:13:55.692 --> 01:14:00.102
As you may know, if you've been following
my work, we are also horsey folk here.

01:14:00.607 --> 01:14:05.097
And we have been training horses for
many, many years in the manner of

01:14:05.147 --> 01:14:08.307
the old classical dressage masters.

01:14:08.737 --> 01:14:11.527
This is something which is
often very confusing for people.

01:14:11.917 --> 01:14:16.917
We shine a light on that murky, difficult
stuff and make it crystal clear.

01:14:17.177 --> 01:14:22.007
If you'd like to learn to train your
horse in the manner of the old masters and

01:14:22.007 --> 01:14:27.807
really have fun and joy for you and your
equine, go to our website, heliosharmony.

01:14:27.807 --> 01:14:30.137
com Sign up as a premium member.

01:14:30.457 --> 01:14:34.467
and begin to take the Helios Harmony
course, which will take you from zero

01:14:34.937 --> 01:14:40.067
to the Piaf, where the horse is dancing
on the spot in hand on the ground.

01:14:40.657 --> 01:14:44.367
And then from there, you can
develop out to anywhere you want to.

01:14:45.327 --> 01:14:46.067
Heliosharmony.

01:14:46.577 --> 01:14:50.247
com to unlock the secrets
of the old masters.

01:14:50.652 --> 01:14:53.682
Well, I published this
book, the Healing Land.

01:14:53.682 --> 01:14:57.162
So I thought by this point, so
I thought, okay, maybe I could

01:14:57.162 --> 01:14:58.422
use that as a bit of a platform.

01:14:58.812 --> 01:14:59.712
So I.

01:15:00.822 --> 01:15:11.682
Go to a big independent bookstore in
the US and I say, can I do a book talk?

01:15:12.672 --> 01:15:13.422
And they say, yeah.

01:15:13.512 --> 01:15:17.892
And I think, well, maybe, you know,
so this costs me about 500 bucks

01:15:17.892 --> 01:15:20.862
that I don't really have to put on.

01:15:20.862 --> 01:15:25.152
And by now I'm also a new parent and

01:15:28.662 --> 01:15:31.062
five people show up to my talk.

01:15:33.582 --> 01:15:34.002
Okay.

01:15:35.532 --> 01:15:39.762
Then I find that there's an actual
department in the United Nations a

01:15:39.762 --> 01:15:42.672
sort of private group attached to
the United Nations that have their,

01:15:43.272 --> 01:15:48.692
they have their office in the United
Nations Tower in New York who deal

01:15:48.692 --> 01:15:51.872
with exactly this type of issue.

01:15:52.712 --> 01:15:54.542
So I contact them and they give me a.

01:15:56.012 --> 01:16:00.542
An audience and I walk into this
boardroom and I've got RO in my, I

01:16:00.542 --> 01:16:06.572
don't know it at the time, but autistic
child in a baby Bjorn around my neck.

01:16:06.572 --> 01:16:07.712
And I make a case.

01:16:07.712 --> 01:16:10.892
I tell them what's going on and they
say, yeah, yeah, we know, we know.

01:16:10.892 --> 01:16:13.292
We know that they're all being kicked
off their land in the Kalahari.

01:16:13.502 --> 01:16:14.882
There's nothing we can do about it.

01:16:15.122 --> 01:16:17.402
You have no power, you have no clout.

01:16:17.552 --> 01:16:20.492
So you know, hippie like you, no
way is that anything gonna work.

01:16:21.182 --> 01:16:25.292
And they laugh at me and they kick me out.

01:16:26.222 --> 01:16:27.512
They kick me out of the office

01:16:30.932 --> 01:16:33.392
like, okay, what do I do now?

01:16:38.582 --> 01:16:46.262
Right about then is when autism comes into
my life, like a hurricane, like a tsunami,

01:16:49.622 --> 01:16:51.902
and I'm just beginning to.

01:16:53.447 --> 01:16:56.327
Come to grips with what
this is gonna mean for me.

01:16:58.307 --> 01:17:06.977
And I'm driving, living in Austin, Texas
by now, driving to a therapy appointment,

01:17:07.367 --> 01:17:12.557
early therapy appointment with my son,
wondering, panicking, what am I gonna do?

01:17:12.557 --> 01:17:13.367
What am I gonna do?

01:17:13.787 --> 01:17:14.267
Autism.

01:17:14.267 --> 01:17:14.957
Autism.

01:17:17.207 --> 01:17:18.557
And I get a phone call.

01:17:20.357 --> 01:17:23.447
And the phone call is from someone
who says, you don't know who I am.

01:17:23.777 --> 01:17:25.967
But a friend of mine was at that

01:17:28.127 --> 01:17:32.927
talk that you did at that bookstore,
and they've talked to me and I've

01:17:32.927 --> 01:17:35.927
researched what you were talking
about and I believe that this is

01:17:35.927 --> 01:17:37.457
indeed something worth backing.

01:17:37.817 --> 01:17:40.307
And I'm, tell me what your
budget is that you need.

01:17:40.997 --> 01:17:45.767
So I told, told her, she, she said,
I'm gonna give you a third of it.

01:17:46.367 --> 01:17:50.207
And when you go out to raise
money, tell everybody that.

01:17:50.612 --> 01:17:55.052
I and my organization are
backing this, and you'll probably

01:17:55.052 --> 01:17:56.042
get the rest of the money.

01:17:56.762 --> 01:17:59.162
I'd never met or heard, heard
of this person ever before.

01:18:03.662 --> 01:18:11.222
And I did, and we raised the money
and in, in, you know, most people's

01:18:11.222 --> 01:18:16.112
fundraising terms, it wasn't a lot, it
was about a a hundred thousand, which

01:18:16.112 --> 01:18:22.622
was to hopefully cover not just bringing
a group of bushmen to the USA, but also

01:18:23.522 --> 01:18:26.252
helping them begin a, a legal process.

01:18:26.552 --> 01:18:31.142
But the legal process in Botswana was
gonna have to be in their own high court.

01:18:32.462 --> 01:18:38.972
And because this area that they
were, had been kicked out from,

01:18:39.122 --> 01:18:43.922
had actually been given to them
under British rule in perpetuity.

01:18:45.332 --> 01:18:48.062
So, and it had been written
into the constitution of.

01:18:48.902 --> 01:18:51.392
The Botswana government, so
they Botswana government.

01:18:51.392 --> 01:18:53.312
Now were going against
their own constitution.

01:18:53.552 --> 01:18:57.542
But the judge in this case was gonna be,
of course, a cousin of the president.

01:18:57.542 --> 01:18:58.682
So what would you know?

01:18:58.682 --> 01:19:01.862
And all with the billions and
billions of Debi DARS behind them.

01:19:03.932 --> 01:19:06.152
So what to do?

01:19:07.022 --> 01:19:09.747
Well, we did everything.

01:19:11.612 --> 01:19:16.802
I managed to make contact with a group
called Journey to the Heart, who ran

01:19:16.802 --> 01:19:21.092
something called the Gathering of
the Shamans every year in California,

01:19:21.242 --> 01:19:22.922
healers from all over the world.

01:19:23.432 --> 01:19:27.662
And I managed to get that group to
formally invite the bushmen over and

01:19:27.662 --> 01:19:33.662
raise some money also to be part of their,
you know, against part of their travel.

01:19:34.592 --> 01:19:39.392
And then partly through the same
organization, we managed to make

01:19:39.392 --> 01:19:44.462
contact with an organization called
Artists for Amnesty, which was the like

01:19:44.492 --> 01:19:46.712
Hollywood Wing of Amnesty International.

01:19:46.922 --> 01:19:47.717
And they got behind it.

01:19:49.142 --> 01:19:52.772
And we managed to get
by hook and by crook.

01:19:53.912 --> 01:19:57.932
Dave Matthews, those of you who were
around during the nineties may remember

01:19:57.932 --> 01:20:03.302
that Dave Matthews was the kind of
the big singer-songwriter of that era.

01:20:04.202 --> 01:20:05.372
Don't hear about him anymore.

01:20:06.132 --> 01:20:07.422
But he was huge back then.

01:20:07.962 --> 01:20:15.402
Him and Jackson Brown to host a
party in Hollywood for the Bushman.

01:20:16.542 --> 01:20:21.702
And this went out to
news outlets and so on.

01:20:21.882 --> 01:20:27.672
And it was a, you know, big do, we got
the Bushman over, we're in California,

01:20:28.782 --> 01:20:30.492
and then we go around after this.

01:20:30.492 --> 01:20:31.662
We go and do everything we can.

01:20:31.662 --> 01:20:35.162
We, we, the Bushman, a lot of
them ride, ride really well hunt

01:20:35.252 --> 01:20:37.562
kudo off horses with spears.

01:20:37.712 --> 01:20:41.652
So I took them fox hunting with
there's, there's, there's packs

01:20:41.652 --> 01:20:45.782
of hounds in California and
on the east coast in America.

01:20:45.842 --> 01:20:48.722
And, you know, you get lots of like
high powered lawyers and people

01:20:48.722 --> 01:20:51.722
like that out with these hunts.

01:20:51.722 --> 01:20:54.302
So I thought maybe if I take
them there, they can network.

01:20:54.302 --> 01:20:54.812
And they did.

01:20:54.812 --> 01:20:56.912
And they picked, they of
course rode incredibly well.

01:20:56.912 --> 01:20:58.742
Everyone was, you know, impressed.

01:20:58.742 --> 01:21:01.892
And then next thing you know, we have
some lawyers coming forward saying,

01:21:01.892 --> 01:21:03.752
Hey, I'll represent you pro bono.

01:21:04.742 --> 01:21:14.732
And we then went from there
across to the Navajo reservation.

01:21:14.732 --> 01:21:17.942
We thought we'd go from the west coast
to the east coast, Navajo reservations

01:21:17.942 --> 01:21:21.722
on the way and the Hopi reservation
to talk to groups of Native Americans

01:21:22.652 --> 01:21:25.382
to talk about, well what do you do
with the land when you've got it back?

01:21:25.622 --> 01:21:29.762
There are, you know, gonna be
their own sets of challenges then.

01:21:32.837 --> 01:21:40.637
So, we are camping in Canyon Dee,
which is the second biggest canyon

01:21:41.327 --> 01:21:45.887
in the USA after the Grand Canyon in
Arizona on the Navajo reservation.

01:21:46.457 --> 01:21:53.077
And we're talking with the Navajo
about, you know, land stewardship and

01:21:53.587 --> 01:21:55.657
how it all works for them and so on.

01:21:56.797 --> 01:21:59.647
While we're camping, a medicine
man shows up and he says, Hey,

01:21:59.647 --> 01:22:03.127
I hear you guys are here to get
the land back for these people.

01:22:03.307 --> 01:22:08.767
Would you like me to do a
ceremony, a sweat healing for that?

01:22:09.277 --> 01:22:10.267
And we said, yeah, of course.

01:22:10.267 --> 01:22:14.377
So we do, and we do these rounds of
prayers for the return of the land.

01:22:14.377 --> 01:22:20.017
And at the end of it, the healer says, has
anyone else got anything that they wanna.

01:22:21.262 --> 01:22:23.992
Asked for healing for, and I said,
yeah, my son's just been diagnosed

01:22:23.992 --> 01:22:27.142
with autism and he's, it's really
severe and I don't know what to do.

01:22:27.952 --> 01:22:33.712
So we do a round of prayers for that, and
as we're cooling down after the sweat, the

01:22:33.712 --> 01:22:35.812
healer comes to me and says, do you hunt?

01:22:36.652 --> 01:22:40.222
I said, yeah, yeah, I do, but maybe
not in a way that you're familiar with.

01:22:40.222 --> 01:22:42.862
And he said, yeah, well, that's not
important, he said, but I'm just getting

01:22:42.862 --> 01:22:47.482
it loud and clear from the spirit world
that you have to stop and it's somehow

01:22:47.482 --> 01:22:49.012
connected with your son's autism.

01:22:50.542 --> 01:22:54.352
And I thought, of course, of course,
this thing that I love doing, fox

01:22:54.352 --> 01:22:56.272
hunting was such a huge part of my life.

01:22:56.692 --> 01:22:58.992
And it was one of the great early loves.

01:22:58.992 --> 01:23:05.442
And even though it was so morally
ambiguous it's such a madly beautiful,

01:23:05.442 --> 01:23:09.702
pagan dangerous, incredible thing to do.

01:23:10.662 --> 01:23:14.412
And I actually, you know, used to write
for the equestrian press and go round

01:23:14.412 --> 01:23:16.332
with these different hunts and hunt and.

01:23:17.967 --> 01:23:19.707
Of course this is gonna be taken from me.

01:23:19.707 --> 01:23:21.357
Of course I must give this up.

01:23:21.717 --> 01:23:22.767
Makes perfect sense.

01:23:24.777 --> 01:23:26.937
So I said, okay, okay, I'll do it.

01:23:27.747 --> 01:23:28.227
I'll do it.

01:23:29.697 --> 01:23:30.417
And

01:23:33.807 --> 01:23:38.187
I had to tell a friend of mine
who was the head of the masters of

01:23:38.187 --> 01:23:42.147
Fox Sounds Association in America
about this because he and I were

01:23:42.147 --> 01:23:43.467
working quite closely together.

01:23:43.947 --> 01:23:47.637
And when I did tell him, he said, oh,
Ruper, I knew you'd always turn on us.

01:23:47.637 --> 01:23:48.477
You're bloody hippie.

01:23:48.477 --> 01:23:52.017
You know, you, you always, you know,
I knew you'd turn into an antique.

01:23:52.047 --> 01:23:53.397
I said, look, it's got
nothing to do with that.

01:23:53.797 --> 01:23:55.027
It's just a personal decision.

01:23:55.027 --> 01:23:58.357
It's based, you know, outta
this weird shamanic thing.

01:23:58.357 --> 01:23:59.227
I dunno what to tell you.

01:23:59.737 --> 01:24:03.937
And as I'm having this conversation
with him on the phone, this

01:24:03.937 --> 01:24:05.527
is, I was briefly back home.

01:24:06.277 --> 01:24:07.117
It was at night.

01:24:07.507 --> 01:24:12.067
The sitting on my porch,
the porch light threw out a.

01:24:13.057 --> 01:24:14.617
Light into my front field.

01:24:14.617 --> 01:24:18.637
And as I'm talking to him, a fox comes
walking outta the dark into that porch

01:24:18.637 --> 01:24:23.737
light, and about 25 feet away from me
just stops and just starts barking, going,

01:24:26.112 --> 01:24:29.557
well, I'm on the phone, this
guy, I put the phone up like

01:24:29.557 --> 01:24:31.057
this and say, can you hear that?

01:24:31.597 --> 01:24:33.007
And he's like, yes.

01:24:33.127 --> 01:24:34.627
I'm like, well, that's what's going on.

01:24:34.627 --> 01:24:36.067
When I'm having this
conversation with you.

01:24:36.067 --> 01:24:39.667
He's like, okay, well maybe,
maybe something, something

01:24:39.667 --> 01:24:40.837
is going on, as you say.

01:24:41.797 --> 01:24:45.127
So, and one of, one of the things
that the Bushman had really taught

01:24:45.127 --> 01:24:51.067
me was always, always, always look
for what wildlife is showing you.

01:24:51.157 --> 01:24:55.297
When wildlife shows up in your
path, it's the ancestors talking

01:24:55.297 --> 01:24:58.717
to you that keep your ears open.

01:24:58.747 --> 01:25:00.577
Ask what are you here to tell me?

01:25:02.467 --> 01:25:03.697
And this is an important thing.

01:25:04.387 --> 01:25:04.837
Okay.

01:25:06.397 --> 01:25:07.027
All right.

01:25:07.027 --> 01:25:11.287
So we get now to the East
Coast and we get to the un.

01:25:11.407 --> 01:25:15.427
Finally, we find ourselves there in the
United Nations and we testify before

01:25:15.427 --> 01:25:17.917
Congress for the Human Rights Commissions.

01:25:17.917 --> 01:25:22.717
And uh uh, we do all these things.

01:25:23.887 --> 01:25:28.537
But what really makes a difference is
that we get to the State Department.

01:25:29.647 --> 01:25:33.187
And when we walk into the State
Department, what is weird is there's

01:25:33.547 --> 01:25:37.747
pictures on the wall blown up,
pictures of the wall indigenous

01:25:37.747 --> 01:25:45.067
peoples and among them are portraits
of my friends in South Africa, some

01:25:45.067 --> 01:25:47.767
of whom are on this delegation.

01:25:48.277 --> 01:25:51.067
'cause it's half Bushman from
Botswana, half from South Africa.

01:25:52.177 --> 01:25:53.017
What are the odds of that?

01:25:53.407 --> 01:25:56.167
And we walk into an office, we're
shown to an office, and the guy

01:25:56.167 --> 01:26:00.217
who's dealing with us in the
State Department is Apache Indian.

01:26:01.327 --> 01:26:02.737
He says, I grew up on the reservation.

01:26:02.737 --> 01:26:04.147
I know exactly what's going on with you.

01:26:04.177 --> 01:26:07.837
And right in front of us, he picks
up the telephone calls the land

01:26:07.837 --> 01:26:10.507
minister in Botswana and says,
I've got four guys sitting in here

01:26:10.507 --> 01:26:13.177
in my office saying they've been
tortured, you know, for protesting

01:26:13.357 --> 01:26:14.677
illegal evictions from their land.

01:26:14.677 --> 01:26:16.087
You're supposed to be an ally of ours.

01:26:16.267 --> 01:26:17.227
What's going on?

01:26:19.627 --> 01:26:24.577
And that was something
that began the game change.

01:26:24.997 --> 01:26:30.427
Well, it wasn't the end of the road by
any means, but it pushed us over the line.

01:26:30.637 --> 01:26:34.777
And that was through that happened
through the help of an organization

01:26:34.777 --> 01:26:38.467
called First Nations Development
Institute, run by an amazing woman

01:26:38.467 --> 01:26:42.997
called Rebecca Adamson who, whose Lumbee
Indian and who helped us massively.

01:26:44.887 --> 01:26:49.537
It was her contacts that got us there
for the next two to three years.

01:26:49.807 --> 01:26:51.067
We just kept it up.

01:26:51.067 --> 01:26:52.987
We managed to get through
artists for amnesty.

01:26:53.257 --> 01:26:59.667
The Bushman invited to back across to to
California to to be at the premier of the

01:26:59.667 --> 01:27:04.707
Blood Diamond movie with Leonardo DiCaprio
and Morgan Freeman is there and so on.

01:27:04.707 --> 01:27:12.417
And we're protesting outside the DeBeers
Diamonds Shop in Fifth Avenue in New York.

01:27:12.777 --> 01:27:17.787
And we're doing everything we can and
we are, we're protesting in London as

01:27:17.787 --> 01:27:21.477
well through an amazing organization
there called Survival International.

01:27:22.077 --> 01:27:25.827
And we're helping the lawyer
and helping to raise money.

01:27:27.387 --> 01:27:30.477
Interestingly, through the Fox hunting
world, it was the fox hunting world

01:27:30.747 --> 01:27:37.227
that really came out and donated money
for the lawyers, for the Bushman.

01:27:38.427 --> 01:27:43.107
And there are many, many little
sub stories to be told in this.

01:27:43.437 --> 01:27:50.427
But suffice to say that these
lawyers began to go out.

01:27:50.847 --> 01:27:53.397
To Botswana, which is where the
new land claim is being fought,

01:27:53.517 --> 01:27:57.207
which is an even bigger area at
stake than the South African one,

01:27:57.477 --> 01:28:00.037
rather similar to the one in Quebec.

01:28:00.067 --> 01:28:01.897
It's the size of a European country.

01:28:01.897 --> 01:28:03.577
It's about the size of
Belgium or Switzerland.

01:28:03.877 --> 01:28:05.977
This area called the Central
Kalahari Game Reserve.

01:28:05.977 --> 01:28:07.867
Only about 3,500 people living in it.

01:28:08.197 --> 01:28:10.897
And the Botswana government saying,
we've got to displace you all to

01:28:10.897 --> 01:28:12.487
make di way for diamond mines.

01:28:13.117 --> 01:28:13.777
No way.

01:28:14.077 --> 01:28:17.647
I mean, we could say, look, there's lots
of people in Belgium and Switzerland,

01:28:17.857 --> 01:28:21.517
millions of people and they have mines
and no one needs to be displaced.

01:28:21.917 --> 01:28:24.227
The Bushman Aren even asking for money.

01:28:24.227 --> 01:28:26.267
They just don't wanna be
kicked off their land.

01:28:27.167 --> 01:28:34.037
And eventually we managed to get, I
managed to get again through artists

01:28:34.037 --> 01:28:41.787
for amnesty, invited to a get together
of Nobel Peace Prize laureates in Rome.

01:28:42.567 --> 01:28:44.007
And there are.

01:28:45.192 --> 01:28:45.642
In the room.

01:28:45.642 --> 01:28:48.192
It's Mical Gorbachev, it's
Sting, it's Bob Geldoff.

01:28:48.192 --> 01:28:53.412
It's even though they're not
laureates lek, Jose Ramos Ter from

01:28:53.472 --> 01:28:55.812
East Timor, all these amazing people.

01:28:57.102 --> 01:28:59.502
Bishop Tutu, Desmond Tutu.

01:29:00.372 --> 01:29:06.522
And they hear me out and they write a
joint letter to the Botswana government

01:29:07.452 --> 01:29:09.702
saying, let these people alone.

01:29:12.342 --> 01:29:16.872
And then I also managed to get Gloria
Steinem, who's the sort of godmother

01:29:16.872 --> 01:29:22.722
of feminism in, in the USA and Abby
Disney, who's Walt Disney's granddaughter

01:29:22.722 --> 01:29:25.032
and Warren Buffet's daughter-in-law.

01:29:25.032 --> 01:29:28.092
It all came in through us amnesty
to come out on a safari to

01:29:28.092 --> 01:29:30.522
Botswana, to this disputed area.

01:29:31.572 --> 01:29:35.232
And while we are there with the Bushman,
the Botswana government come in with

01:29:35.382 --> 01:29:37.662
troops armed and, and they kick us out.

01:29:38.922 --> 01:29:41.832
It's a big international
embarrassment 'cause these are big

01:29:41.832 --> 01:29:43.212
cheeses that they've done this to.

01:29:44.952 --> 01:29:45.552
And

01:29:47.802 --> 01:29:53.412
then finally kept the court cases
going on the court cases going on court

01:29:53.412 --> 01:29:57.852
cases going on about 2005, early 2006.

01:29:58.932 --> 01:30:02.562
The prosecutor on behalf of
the government in Botswana does

01:30:02.562 --> 01:30:04.212
something monumentally stupid.

01:30:04.632 --> 01:30:09.702
He has an indiscretion
with the wife of the judge.

01:30:10.722 --> 01:30:13.692
And suddenly, just despite the fact
that they're all cousins at, in the

01:30:13.692 --> 01:30:21.702
same noble family, suddenly it becomes
personal and the judge rules in favor

01:30:21.912 --> 01:30:25.332
of the bushman against all odds.

01:30:27.882 --> 01:30:31.842
Now I realized what was happening
with these lawyers that was go

01:30:31.892 --> 01:30:34.562
going out to Botswana, was that the.

01:30:36.047 --> 01:30:40.997
Lawyers were briefing the community,
and the community were then going

01:30:40.997 --> 01:30:43.337
and relaying this to their healers.

01:30:43.337 --> 01:30:47.747
And the healers were going into the spirit
world and getting a series of instructions

01:30:47.747 --> 01:30:52.907
there and coming from the ancestors and
coming back out and briefing the community

01:30:52.907 --> 01:30:54.347
who were then briefing the lawyers.

01:30:54.767 --> 01:30:58.037
And what we kept getting from
the healers was keep hanging on,

01:30:58.037 --> 01:30:59.687
keep hanging on, keep hanging on.

01:31:00.017 --> 01:31:02.087
Something unexpected will happen.

01:31:03.527 --> 01:31:07.217
Well, something unexpected did
happen, and the Bushman won the

01:31:07.217 --> 01:31:09.257
largest land claim in African history.

01:31:09.707 --> 01:31:13.217
Again, I didn't even expect to win.

01:31:13.217 --> 01:31:16.097
When people were asking me,
Rupert, why are you devoting

01:31:16.097 --> 01:31:17.867
so much of your life to this?

01:31:19.577 --> 01:31:20.807
What happens if you don't win?

01:31:20.867 --> 01:31:22.847
Like your, your, your ego will collapse?

01:31:22.847 --> 01:31:25.997
And, you know, and I was like, you,
you've got me completely wrong.

01:31:25.997 --> 01:31:26.807
I'm in it for the crack.

01:31:26.807 --> 01:31:27.827
I'm in it for the adventure.

01:31:27.827 --> 01:31:29.327
I will give it my best shot.

01:31:31.127 --> 01:31:31.547
But.

01:31:32.522 --> 01:31:34.892
I'm in it because the
adventure has called me.

01:31:34.892 --> 01:31:36.272
The ancestors have called me.

01:31:37.502 --> 01:31:43.952
If it doesn't work out well, how lucky
and fortunate and privileged was I

01:31:44.732 --> 01:31:48.722
to be part of an adventure like this?

01:31:48.947 --> 01:31:54.152
But I have a gut feeling
that we will be successful.

01:31:54.542 --> 01:31:56.372
And indeed it happened.

01:31:56.372 --> 01:32:04.412
And I was lying on my couch in Texas,
exhausted from a series of autism

01:32:04.412 --> 01:32:09.812
tantrums, still at the early stages
of wondering what to do, but beginning

01:32:09.812 --> 01:32:11.312
to find my way with that a bit.

01:32:11.792 --> 01:32:16.052
And I got a call from the BBC in
London saying, can we have a comment?

01:32:17.822 --> 01:32:19.082
And I'm like, on what?

01:32:19.087 --> 01:32:20.072
And they said, well, you've won.

01:32:20.072 --> 01:32:20.822
I said, we've won.

01:32:20.822 --> 01:32:21.182
What?

01:32:21.422 --> 01:32:25.322
They said, you know, the
Bushman case, you're involved.

01:32:25.322 --> 01:32:27.512
You know, can we have
a statement from you?

01:32:27.512 --> 01:32:31.347
I'm like, yeah, the
statement is beep beep.

01:32:31.832 --> 01:32:33.032
You know, bleep, bleep, bleep.

01:32:33.602 --> 01:32:35.642
Just 'cause I was so surprised

01:32:39.512 --> 01:32:46.652
and that did not conclude
my journey in the Kalahari.

01:32:49.112 --> 01:32:56.642
But this, my focus at that point
then could shift completely to my

01:32:56.642 --> 01:33:02.582
son whose autism was so severe,
nonverbal, incontinent, tantruming.

01:33:03.122 --> 01:33:09.152
Now I tried all the orthodox
therapies, they didn't work.

01:33:10.562 --> 01:33:19.112
So the journalist in me said, well,
you know what you don't know, which

01:33:19.112 --> 01:33:20.282
is, you dunno what to do here.

01:33:21.602 --> 01:33:24.272
You need mentorship, someone to show you.

01:33:25.382 --> 01:33:27.752
None of these therapists that
you reaching out to seem to

01:33:27.752 --> 01:33:28.832
really know what they're doing.

01:33:30.962 --> 01:33:33.842
If there's going to be a
mentor who's that mentor, what

01:33:33.842 --> 01:33:35.402
qualities must that mentor have?

01:33:35.792 --> 01:33:40.532
And I thought, well, that mentor
needs to be autistic, adult

01:33:40.562 --> 01:33:44.357
autistic who started life in the
same place as my son, incontinent,

01:33:44.357 --> 01:33:47.552
tantrumming, that sort of thing.

01:33:48.272 --> 01:33:52.652
Self-harming, unable to make friends
nonverbal and has somehow made it.

01:33:53.192 --> 01:33:54.032
Who's that person?

01:33:55.322 --> 01:33:56.882
And I realized actually
that person exists.

01:33:56.882 --> 01:33:57.722
That's Dr.

01:33:57.722 --> 01:33:58.562
Temple Grandin.

01:33:58.562 --> 01:34:05.072
She's a well-known autistic author,
a neuroscientist and professor

01:34:05.072 --> 01:34:09.512
of animal scientists, and.

01:34:11.687 --> 01:34:12.917
Why don't I contact her?

01:34:13.217 --> 01:34:17.387
'cause she was nonverbal, wiping
her poo on the wall, age three, and

01:34:17.387 --> 01:34:20.597
they were gonna institutionalize
her, but she found her way.

01:34:20.777 --> 01:34:21.767
How did she find her way?

01:34:22.007 --> 01:34:29.777
So I asked her for an interview
and I went up and talked to her.

01:34:29.807 --> 01:34:33.587
And when I went into her office,
she was stemming and doing, you

01:34:33.587 --> 01:34:38.807
know, the repetitive movements and
behaviors and like really autistic.

01:34:38.807 --> 01:34:43.697
And I'll say, oh my gosh, you can be like
that and still be like totally successful.

01:34:45.797 --> 01:34:47.717
And so I said, how does my son become you?

01:34:49.127 --> 01:34:50.627
And she said, Rupert, do three things.

01:34:50.957 --> 01:34:55.967
Follow the child, follow
their interests, follow what

01:34:57.977 --> 01:35:01.517
upsets them, and avoid that and
follow what makes them happy.

01:35:01.517 --> 01:35:02.267
And go with that.

01:35:02.777 --> 01:35:07.877
Follow their, follow them physically
so that you can observe what they

01:35:07.877 --> 01:35:11.507
get into, follow them intellectually,
check out their obsessions and

01:35:11.507 --> 01:35:13.397
just go down those rabbit holes.

01:35:14.597 --> 01:35:16.457
Do your stuff outside as much as you can.

01:35:16.457 --> 01:35:18.437
'cause there's no bad
sensory triggers in nature.

01:35:18.677 --> 01:35:21.317
'cause that's where our
organism is supposed to be.

01:35:21.317 --> 01:35:25.367
And your sun, like most people on
the spectrum, has a oversensitive

01:35:25.367 --> 01:35:28.157
nervous system that's triggering
his amygdala all the time.

01:35:28.157 --> 01:35:31.067
His fight, flight, freeze, they
filling himself with cor, him

01:35:31.067 --> 01:35:32.837
with cortisol stress hormone.

01:35:32.837 --> 01:35:33.827
So he can't learn.

01:35:33.887 --> 01:35:37.607
He's unreachable, but in
nature, this will be less.

01:35:37.907 --> 01:35:38.717
And let him move.

01:35:38.777 --> 01:35:44.057
Don't confine him to desks,
chairs, therapy rooms.

01:35:44.267 --> 01:35:46.757
Do your stuff out in nature where
he can move because he's a pri,

01:35:46.757 --> 01:35:48.047
he's, he's a kinetic learner.

01:35:48.077 --> 01:35:48.947
Kinesthetic learner.

01:35:50.537 --> 01:35:50.777
Whew.

01:35:50.987 --> 01:35:52.307
That made sense.

01:35:52.397 --> 01:35:55.607
I said, well anyway, look, if that's
resulted in you, let me try that.

01:35:56.747 --> 01:36:00.797
So I went home and I did, and
those of you who know my story know

01:36:00.797 --> 01:36:04.907
that that resulted in me following
him to a horse called Betsy.

01:36:06.722 --> 01:36:12.242
Him becoming verbal on that horse and me
realizing that it was in certain rhythms

01:36:12.272 --> 01:36:18.932
that he was verbal and that those rhythms,
if I produced them, I got more speech.

01:36:19.802 --> 01:36:26.042
And we lived in the saddle together for
three or four years and I was so broke.

01:36:26.822 --> 01:36:27.512
And

01:36:29.822 --> 01:36:32.942
he became verbal, literate and numerate

01:36:35.882 --> 01:36:37.202
in about 18 months.

01:36:37.472 --> 01:36:41.102
And then I thought, okay, is it just
him or is it other children too?

01:36:42.152 --> 01:36:47.042
So I started throwing unofficial
play dates on the farm for other

01:36:47.042 --> 01:36:50.192
kids on the spectrum, and they
started having the same result.

01:36:50.642 --> 01:36:53.732
And then I had to homeschool him
because the local school, the special

01:36:53.732 --> 01:36:55.202
ed department was, was not good.

01:36:56.432 --> 01:36:58.322
And I thought, well, if
I can use these rhythms.

01:36:59.072 --> 01:37:00.572
Feed in information on the horse.

01:37:00.572 --> 01:37:01.412
What about off the horse?

01:37:01.412 --> 01:37:02.462
So what about on my shoulders?

01:37:02.462 --> 01:37:03.692
What about on a yoga ball?

01:37:03.692 --> 01:37:04.502
What about on a swing?

01:37:04.502 --> 01:37:05.492
What about on play equipment?

01:37:05.672 --> 01:37:11.522
And I did that and it worked, and
then I got curious and I went to

01:37:11.522 --> 01:37:14.042
neuroscientists and said, please,
can you explain why it's working?

01:37:15.152 --> 01:37:18.902
And I got a similar explanation
from quite a few saying, yeah,

01:37:18.902 --> 01:37:22.922
what's happening is you're creating
oxytocin through hip rocking rhythmic.

01:37:22.922 --> 01:37:26.582
Hip rocking oxytocin is a feel-good
hormone that's calming down this

01:37:26.582 --> 01:37:29.972
oversensitive nervous system,
but it's also a communication

01:37:29.972 --> 01:37:32.312
hormone makes us communicate.

01:37:33.152 --> 01:37:36.452
Oh, and it's switching off the
amygdala, telling it to stop

01:37:36.452 --> 01:37:39.692
producing cortisol, which is
giving you access to the intellect.

01:37:40.532 --> 01:37:43.772
And then because the kid is moving
and problem solving all the time,

01:37:44.102 --> 01:37:45.602
that creates neuroplasticity.

01:37:45.602 --> 01:37:51.022
That creates a, a, a protein in
the brain called brain derived

01:37:51.382 --> 01:37:54.142
neurotrophic factor BDNF.

01:37:54.442 --> 01:37:57.502
That's basically like
miracle growth for the brain.

01:37:58.447 --> 01:38:03.757
And in these billions of brain
cells that are being produced are

01:38:03.757 --> 01:38:10.537
these ones of particular interest
called perkin cells that among many

01:38:10.537 --> 01:38:12.937
other things, govern social skills.

01:38:12.937 --> 01:38:16.807
So you're taking a kid with autom
auto, Greek word for the self

01:38:16.807 --> 01:38:18.457
selfism, filling him with a,

01:38:20.947 --> 01:38:24.247
a soothing to the nervous
system communication hormone

01:38:26.467 --> 01:38:28.297
for someone who doesn't
want to communicate.

01:38:28.627 --> 01:38:34.447
They're now fooled with a communication
hormone and social skills brain cells.

01:38:34.507 --> 01:38:35.467
You're gonna see change.

01:38:36.067 --> 01:38:39.457
And we went, oh my gosh, yes you can.

01:38:39.457 --> 01:38:41.167
That means we can replicate this.

01:38:41.167 --> 01:38:45.697
So we began teaching people how
to do this with horses and that

01:38:45.697 --> 01:38:50.077
became something called a horse Boy
method and do this without horses.

01:38:50.077 --> 01:38:51.427
And that became movement method.

01:38:52.747 --> 01:38:55.537
And then how to train the
horse, how to do this as its own

01:38:55.537 --> 01:38:57.427
therapy for adults with trauma.

01:38:57.787 --> 01:39:02.347
Remember back to when I'd had all that
PTSD and I'd been out in Africa and I'd

01:39:02.347 --> 01:39:05.797
been out with those horses and it had all
sort of gone away that had never left me.

01:39:06.067 --> 01:39:09.997
Now I understood the neuroscience and
I realized, yeah, we could pair up

01:39:10.597 --> 01:39:15.427
veterans, first responders, adult artists,
people who've suffered abuse and help

01:39:15.427 --> 01:39:17.287
them to train the horses like this.

01:39:17.287 --> 01:39:19.957
And sure enough, it turned out
to be its own therapy, and that's

01:39:19.957 --> 01:39:26.017
called Tachin, T-A-K-H-I-N, equine
integration, these three programs.

01:39:26.467 --> 01:39:34.147
And in the course of this, I had to
learn a lot of dressage, so we ended up

01:39:34.147 --> 01:39:37.867
teaching a lot of dressage as well, and
running this from this ranch in Texas.

01:39:40.747 --> 01:39:45.997
Meanwhile, that word tahin, T-A-K-H-I-N,
it's actually a Mongolian word.

01:39:46.762 --> 01:39:51.892
It means the wild horse, the PKIs
horse who was never domesticated.

01:39:51.892 --> 01:39:53.602
It means honored one or revered one.

01:39:54.772 --> 01:39:59.512
I always liked that word 'cause I
felt that as a rider, as someone who

01:39:59.512 --> 01:40:03.652
works with horses, I like the idea
of honoring the horse's wild nature.

01:40:06.262 --> 01:40:13.822
And those of you know my story know that
I also did something rather crazy having

01:40:13.822 --> 01:40:19.342
seen that my son had this amazing response
to the horse and having this background

01:40:19.342 --> 01:40:23.212
in this shamanic healing with the bushman,
I wondered if there was a place that

01:40:23.212 --> 01:40:24.772
combined these two things on earth.

01:40:24.772 --> 01:40:28.162
And so, yeah, that's
Mongolia gut feeling again.

01:40:28.162 --> 01:40:31.732
That sent that, that
pull at the solar plexus.

01:40:31.732 --> 01:40:32.482
Gotta go there.

01:40:33.202 --> 01:40:33.952
So I did

01:40:37.282 --> 01:40:39.592
and I wrote a book about
it called the Horse Boy,

01:40:42.142 --> 01:40:44.347
and made a documentary about
it called The Horse Boy.

01:40:46.387 --> 01:40:50.287
And this is back in we,
we put out the first

01:40:53.047 --> 01:40:58.477
little proposal about maybe doing it
when YouTube was very young in 2005.

01:40:58.477 --> 01:41:00.157
We made the journey in 2007

01:41:02.377 --> 01:41:03.097
and it went viral.

01:41:03.097 --> 01:41:04.687
It's one of the first
things that ever went viral.

01:41:05.032 --> 01:41:08.977
I think the ancestors were at work and

01:41:11.617 --> 01:41:16.057
a book deal resulted that was big
enough to not just fund the expedition

01:41:16.057 --> 01:41:22.057
and make the movie, but also to, for
us to open up a therapy center doing

01:41:22.087 --> 01:41:23.557
horse boy method and movement method.

01:41:25.357 --> 01:41:32.767
And that book, the Horse Boy, if you've
read it or if you've seen the film,

01:41:33.787 --> 01:41:39.187
you'll know that we ended up at the
end of it with the reindeer people

01:41:39.217 --> 01:41:42.607
in Southern Siberia where it borders.

01:41:43.402 --> 01:41:48.832
On the steps in Northern Mongolia and
the healer of the reindeer people ghost.

01:41:50.272 --> 01:41:54.682
Two days after doing the healings on
Rowan Rome did his first intentional

01:41:54.682 --> 01:41:58.642
poop and cleaned himself, which was
like watching England win the World Cup.

01:41:59.392 --> 01:42:04.642
And he said to me, you have to do
three more journeys to confirm it.

01:42:05.992 --> 01:42:10.762
So in 2008, I went back
out to the Bushman and Besa

01:42:13.102 --> 01:42:15.292
came and healed my son.

01:42:15.292 --> 01:42:19.372
But we had to do it in Namibia because
after we had helped the Bushman win

01:42:19.372 --> 01:42:24.862
the land claim in 2006, I and a group
of 16 journalists and human rights

01:42:24.952 --> 01:42:28.522
workers had been banned from Botswana.

01:42:28.552 --> 01:42:29.332
Can't go back.

01:42:29.812 --> 01:42:30.802
It's like winning an award.

01:42:31.312 --> 01:42:34.282
So we had to get, we had to do
it in the neighboring country,

01:42:34.282 --> 01:42:40.132
Namibia, and get a passport organized
for Besa who lived under a tree.

01:42:40.702 --> 01:42:41.482
Can imagine how.

01:42:42.667 --> 01:42:48.517
That was not a straightforward process so
that he could come across into Botswana.

01:42:49.057 --> 01:42:55.567
Into Namibia, sorry, and heal his
namesake, my son, Rowan Besa Isaacson.

01:42:55.867 --> 01:43:01.927
And he did, along with another
legendary healer called from the Quai

01:43:01.927 --> 01:43:08.587
Bushman in Namibia, a beautiful man
and his friend, we, his three healers

01:43:11.017 --> 01:43:13.327
collaborated on, on my
son over three days.

01:43:13.327 --> 01:43:20.577
And then the year after that, we were
in the Daintree rainforest in Queensland

01:43:20.937 --> 01:43:25.617
with a cuckoo langi shaman from the
Aboriginal Kuku Langi people there.

01:43:25.947 --> 01:43:29.457
And the year after that on the
Navajo Reservation, remember we'd

01:43:29.457 --> 01:43:32.277
been there before, that's where
I'd with the Bushman, where I'd

01:43:32.277 --> 01:43:33.477
been made to give up hunting the.

01:43:35.232 --> 01:43:38.742
At the end of each of these healings,
there was a massive leap forward.

01:43:38.832 --> 01:43:42.732
And I tell that story in a
book called The Long Ride Home.

01:43:46.602 --> 01:43:50.622
And now here I sit talking to you.

01:43:50.862 --> 01:43:52.302
My son is now 23.

01:43:53.832 --> 01:43:56.052
He is independent.

01:43:56.082 --> 01:43:59.142
He just came out of the bath
in the other room there.

01:43:59.562 --> 01:44:01.602
He travels all over by himself.

01:44:01.602 --> 01:44:05.742
He has his own house, his
own car, couple of jobs.

01:44:06.882 --> 01:44:07.872
He's doing very well.

01:44:08.772 --> 01:44:14.112
He's got two younger siblings
now, Ian and Freya, who

01:44:16.362 --> 01:44:20.352
are both a source of great annoyance
and a source of great joy to him

01:44:20.832 --> 01:44:22.182
just as all siblings should be.

01:44:23.562 --> 01:44:27.272
And we continue to do this
work now in about 40 countries.

01:44:27.977 --> 01:44:34.427
Serving, I can't count how many families
through these methods and also the

01:44:34.427 --> 01:44:39.977
parallel horse training, and I still
write books and make films and so on.

01:44:42.437 --> 01:44:50.357
So that's a sort of potted version
of my story of self-actualization.

01:44:52.127 --> 01:44:57.107
I think what really comes out for
me with it is that what really

01:44:57.107 --> 01:45:00.827
makes self-actualization happen
is when it's about service.

01:45:00.827 --> 01:45:01.547
Somehow

01:45:05.657 --> 01:45:10.937
the horses brought me out of my depression
as a child and brought me into nature,

01:45:13.547 --> 01:45:15.317
and I had to earn my way to them

01:45:17.507 --> 01:45:19.817
running that market stall and stuff.

01:45:20.537 --> 01:45:25.007
They really also served, served me so
generously and, and have ever since.

01:45:25.007 --> 01:45:33.257
And then I got involved in service with
the first Dec Cree and then with the

01:45:33.257 --> 01:45:36.497
Bushman, and then of course with autism.

01:45:38.657 --> 01:45:45.612
And I think many of you can probably
trace parallels in your own lives.

01:45:46.212 --> 01:45:49.812
That service seems to be at the key here.

01:45:52.152 --> 01:45:56.382
So I want to leave you with this, and
some of you have heard me say this before.

01:46:01.662 --> 01:46:04.632
There can be no real happiness, I
think, unless one is in service to

01:46:04.632 --> 01:46:05.952
a community, to one's community.

01:46:05.952 --> 01:46:09.822
And that is how we're wired
because we're hunter gatherers.

01:46:10.032 --> 01:46:12.012
We're supposed to be constantly
looking out for each other.

01:46:18.282 --> 01:46:21.822
In our current society, we've been
told we need to be in competition with

01:46:21.822 --> 01:46:24.132
each other, and it brings us misery.

01:46:26.202 --> 01:46:30.462
However, if you are in
service, it is exhausting.

01:46:32.322 --> 01:46:33.762
There's no question it's exhausting.

01:46:34.602 --> 01:46:35.712
So how do you not burn out?

01:46:37.302 --> 01:46:42.942
Well, the people that you serve, or
the planet, if you're serving the

01:46:42.942 --> 01:46:52.572
planet, acts as a shamanic prism for
your dreams, because if your dreams are

01:46:52.572 --> 01:46:58.542
put into the service of the dreams of
people more vulnerable than yourself,

01:47:00.672 --> 01:47:02.892
then your own dreams start to come true.

01:47:04.662 --> 01:47:07.482
And this is done because this
will stop you from burning out.

01:47:07.482 --> 01:47:11.742
This is what will allow you to
keep getting up day after day.

01:47:13.527 --> 01:47:15.717
Year after year to do the work.

01:47:16.017 --> 01:47:20.637
And in my position as an autism
dad, I can never, never stop.

01:47:21.027 --> 01:47:27.567
In fact, even beyond the grave, I
have to set up structures for Roman.

01:47:29.577 --> 01:47:32.517
And so I, I can't burn out.

01:47:32.547 --> 01:47:33.267
I can't fail.

01:47:35.667 --> 01:47:45.357
But my dreams of horses and riding
and living free and riding free

01:47:48.537 --> 01:47:53.547
are tied up in service to
him and people like him.

01:47:56.997 --> 01:48:01.617
And also to some degree with human
rights and the ecological offshoots of

01:48:01.617 --> 01:48:03.267
human rights, indigenous rights, it.

01:48:06.207 --> 01:48:08.337
So here's the deal, guys.

01:48:09.267 --> 01:48:10.887
If you put your dreams.

01:48:11.847 --> 01:48:17.427
Into the service of the dreams of people
more vulnerable than yourself, then

01:48:17.427 --> 01:48:18.957
your dreams will start to come true.

01:48:21.417 --> 01:48:23.547
You may have forgotten what your
dreams are, and you may have pushed

01:48:23.547 --> 01:48:27.357
them away because a lot of us
have this experience is a dream.

01:48:27.537 --> 01:48:32.397
Life comes along, goes, takes a big
pool over it, and then stomps on it and

01:48:32.397 --> 01:48:34.377
buries it, and it breaks our hearts.

01:48:34.977 --> 01:48:36.687
But actually, the dream
didn't go anywhere.

01:48:36.717 --> 01:48:42.417
It just got fertilized and and
planted, and now it requires moisture,

01:48:42.837 --> 01:48:45.897
blood, sweat, tears, and up it comes.

01:48:47.637 --> 01:48:52.137
So what I want to leave you with
my friends is what are your dreams?

01:48:52.167 --> 01:48:53.667
Just this question, what are your dreams?

01:48:53.997 --> 01:48:56.037
And if you have forgotten,
you've pushed them away.

01:48:57.537 --> 01:49:03.627
Just asking yourself the question
is enough, because then you'll push

01:49:03.627 --> 01:49:09.717
your subconscious and in an unguarded
moment, 36 hours or so after you ask

01:49:09.717 --> 01:49:13.707
yourself that question, you'll be
sitting in traffic with your mind

01:49:13.707 --> 01:49:17.697
wandering or on the loo, and it will
go bubble bubble ping, and you'll

01:49:17.697 --> 01:49:20.997
go, oh, yes, that was it, that dream.

01:49:21.267 --> 01:49:24.177
And then almost immediately you'll push
it away again, you, but I can't have it.

01:49:24.802 --> 01:49:27.627
But actually this time you can.

01:49:28.197 --> 01:49:30.717
The rules are different if
you've, in fact, you must.

01:49:30.717 --> 01:49:31.587
In fact, you will.

01:49:31.587 --> 01:49:32.787
That's the contract with God.

01:49:32.787 --> 01:49:34.167
That's the contract with the universe.

01:49:34.887 --> 01:49:39.117
If you put that dream out there and
you say very clearly that you want

01:49:39.117 --> 01:49:43.317
to put that dream, you will put that
dream into the service of the dreams of

01:49:43.317 --> 01:49:44.997
people more vulnerable than yourself,

01:49:47.247 --> 01:49:54.357
then I look forward to hearing your
feedback, particularly a year maybe

01:49:54.357 --> 01:50:01.617
after watching this or listening
to this and telling me how those

01:50:01.617 --> 01:50:03.927
dreams are starting to come true.

01:50:04.887 --> 01:50:06.297
So what are your dreams?

01:50:07.242 --> 01:50:08.472
You listening right now.

01:50:08.622 --> 01:50:10.602
You watching right now,
what are your dreams?

01:50:12.492 --> 01:50:13.332
What are your dreams?

01:50:15.762 --> 01:50:19.992
And that my friends, is all
I've got till next time.

01:50:20.390 --> 01:50:23.770
I hope you enjoyed today's
conversation as much as I did.

01:50:24.600 --> 01:50:28.350
If you did, please help us to make more.

01:50:28.350 --> 01:50:32.230
Please like, subscribe, tell
a friend, give us a thumbs up.

01:50:32.680 --> 01:50:37.930
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01:50:38.250 --> 01:50:38.600
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01:50:38.800 --> 01:50:41.980
And if you'd like to find out about
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01:50:42.370 --> 01:50:46.320
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01:50:46.380 --> 01:50:48.720
There's a whole range of cool stuff.

01:50:49.140 --> 01:50:52.170
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01:50:53.420 --> 01:50:58.350
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01:51:00.730 --> 01:51:06.180
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01:51:12.285 --> 01:51:14.195
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01:51:20.775 --> 01:51:22.575
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01:51:23.095 --> 01:51:24.165
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01:51:24.205 --> 01:51:25.065
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01:51:25.125 --> 01:51:28.675
I can't wait for our next guest
and also to meet you there.

01:51:29.475 --> 01:51:33.265
In the meantime, remember, live free.

01:51:34.195 --> 01:51:34.745
Ride free.