Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us.
Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free.
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of
The Horseboy and The Long Ride Home.
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So now let's jump in.
Welcome back lads.
I've got an old friend here.
I've got Rajan De that might give you a little bit of a clue into her nationality.
She's French.
And I've known Rajan for about 400 years, I think now, which
is odd because she's only 21.
But I first met her when I published a book, the Healing Land and it was
published in French and Rajan came to interview me and she, I realized
was someone quite similar to me and that she was a journalist who also
crossed the line into activism.
And over the course of her career, I've been tracking her.
She's published all kinds of interesting books, tackling everything from human
rights to the struggles, even her personal struggles with conception and having
children and, all sorts of interesting stuff in the arts and all sorts of
interesting stuff in general culture, and then back to activism, and then
round the corner again to some other interesting documentary somewhere else.
And the interesting thing about Rajan is I would say she absolutely epitomizes
what we're talking about here when we, when we use the word self-actualization,
this is somebody who has lived life on her own terms, still does.
And absolutely we can learn a lot from how she does it, even
if she doesn't quite know.
I think it might be a bit of a magic thing.
But let's see.
So I'm going to turn it over to Rajan, thank you for coming on the show.
Can you please tell us who you are, what you do, and why you do it?
Rejane D'Espirac: Okay.
I've got two minutes.
Well, my occupation is a, I'm a writer.
I'm tell a storyteller.
I will say I'm real storyteller.
And so I, I started, I, I, I.
I started as a reporter as a travel reporter.
Then I met human rights and I get involved into human right activism
as a writer, as a reporter.
Then I decided to write books because it was time.
Then I decided to make films because it was time.
But then, yes someone tell me that my best talent ends to be upset by
things and to be moved by things.
So I guess my line is to be upset and moved by life and to start writing
about it and try to transmit what I feel and what I learn from things.
Rupert Isaacson: Interesting.
Talking about being upset.
You know, we living in this, when I first met you, social media was not a thing.
And obviously it's become a thing.
And the fact that we are having this conversation over
Zoom is part of social media.
So generally we are often looking at it as a negative, but the truth
is, we now to a large degree, all of us make our livings through it.
However, I do think there's this interesting fine line between how
it's used and how it's misused.
And when you use the term upset, that's what made me think about it, because the
idea of being moved, like feeling a sense of outrage about something or a sense of
injustice about something and saying or, or noticing pain and suffering really,
and saying, I would like to do something to ameliorate this pain and suffering.
That's a very good thing.
That's a very good motivator.
As you and I both know, social media sometimes does the opposite, where back
in the sort of 1960s and seventies and eighties, I guess into the nineties,
the, the cliche was sex cells.
Mm-hmm.
And since social media that has been replaced with anger cells and fear
cells and anger and fear sell much, much more than fear than sex ever did.
It's a stronger emotion.
And unfortunately, as we know this has led to what it's led to.
So when you say, you know, that feeling of being upset by things, I know that
you mean it in the traditional way.
Yeah, of course.
Yeah.
Yes.
Rather than in the modern day misinterpretation of it.
But it's very interesting that this now comes to mind, isn't it?
Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
Yes.
Because it's not the point, but you're right.
I'm upset because I feel I can see the magic of life about everywhere.
And when the magic is not seen on, when love is not seen on, when love
is not respect, that makes me upset.
So I guess my point, it's always to say, look, this is beautiful.
Look that there is something precious here.
Look, you should be, be able to see that the way I see it, and this is why
I get moved and that I want to transmit something by my writings, by my filming.
It's always to see the beautiful part of it.
I've, I have mo I am moved.
I am upset because it should be so beautiful
Rupert Isaacson: and
Rejane D'Espirac: it's not.
And so of course I'm not upset in the, in the anger way.
I'm upset in the, whoa, it takes my breath away, it takes my love.
It, it makes my earth so big.
I must do something with it.
This is part of being moved and being upset.
It's not possible that love can't be there or this is not possible.
Beauty can't be thin there, something like that.
Rupert Isaacson: I think the word that you are using here is passion.
That it, it, it, it, it, it makes you feel impassioned and, and thing
that passion is so interesting is, what does passion mean really?
At least in English it, it means to suffer, you know, we often think
passion is to love greatly or to, but actually that you talk about the passion
of the Christ, for example, that's Christ suffering on the cross, right?
So compassion is suffering with, yeah.
But one cannot suffer with until one knows one's own suffering and
recognizes the suffering in the world.
I mean, that's the story of Shar, right?
That's the story of the Buddha.
And it seems to me in your work, that's exactly what I recognize.
It's like Rajan goes out into the world.
She's like, the young Buddha goes out into the world from, from the palace
and then she notices, Hey ho, hold on.
There's people starving over there.
That's not right.
And look, there's a bloke over there having to do a poo in the middle of
the street 'cause he's got no toilet.
And there's a lady over there having to give birth on the
street 'cause she's got no bed.
And hold on a second.
What's all this malarkey?
You know, what can we do about this?
And then off you go, right.
You're right.
A beautiful
Rejane D'Espirac: story, I guess part of it.
But there is another dimension.
Go on.
It's people who do something to go against.
I mean, I'm very moved by people who do things.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
And
Rejane D'Espirac: people who get involved like you.
That's why I guess this links we have for 400 Euros, it's still there because
I'm very moved by all you created.
And it's not only says, okay, that's not fair.
Says say, oh, what's the solution?
What can we do very pragmatically to better something even a little bit.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Rejane D'Espirac: I'm very moved by people who do stuff and for example, my latest
documentary film about Bal people, it's not only about Bal situation, it's about
a free clinic in the contaminated zone that helps people through Yoga and Veda.
Where op medicine doesn't work anymore.
It's not only saying, oh, poor people, it's okay.
Even there, there are people who are able to create solutions that helps people.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Talk to us about this film.
So this film is called Boal.
Rejane D'Espirac: It's called Sam bna.
Sam BNA is the name of the free clinic and it means possibility some,
Rupert Isaacson: but nah.
Alright.
What's it about?
What is this Bow Pal thing?
Tell us the story.
Rejane D'Espirac: So you can't remember young girl 40 years ago, the city of
Bal in India, in the middle of India has been the victim of the worst
industrial disaster in the world.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay?
Rejane D'Espirac: It was what happened, a pesticide factory belonging to a
American company called Union Carbide.
At this time, it's do chemical now.
And there were a, there was a huge leak of a very, very, very, very
toxic gas during a coal night and the gas spreaded all around the city.
And it killed like 8,000 people during the night, okay?
And at the end, it killed 25,000 people, but then 600,000 people paid with
chronical disease because of the gas.
And the, and so people still live with chronical disease because what happened 40
years ago and the factory closed, but the field has not never been decontaminated.
So people living there are still victim of toxic groundwater and toxic fields.
And so children are still.
Are are still born with chronicle disease and malformations and cerebral,
pasty and all this kind of stuff.
So yes, we say now that boal is 600,000 victims and one or 200,000
people living on contaminated ground and without any justice.
And it's a neverending story till the, the, the factory ground and
around is not decontaminated.
But nobody wants to decontaminate, nor the Americans, nor the Indian government.
No one because it's poor people.
Nobody cares.
Rupert Isaacson: How did you come across this story?
Now that you've reminded me?
I do remember reading about it, but of course I didn't
ever read about the true scale.
Rejane D'Espirac: Yes.
Because we can remember some of us Yeah.
Can remember what happened 40 years ago, but we, it's the end of the story, but
it's just the beginning of the story.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Because unlike say Bel, where they just moved everybody out mm-hmm.
They couldn't move everyone outta an Indian city.
Right.
Also, India doesn't operate that way as I know.
'cause I've lived in India.
You've lived in India and Yeah, India.
India has its own, its own rules.
Rejane D'Espirac: How did you get involved in this political issues, cast issues?
You've got all of that.
Yeah, yeah.
Mix.
Rupert Isaacson: So how did you get involved?
Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
Oh, through a writer, so I know our writers can be powerful.
Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
Rejane D'Espirac: Like it was like 15 years ago an English book called Animals
People has been published in French.
And the same press rep that asked me to meet you, in fact, okay.
He asked me to meet this English writer and the guy is called
Reina and I met RA in Paris.
And so I write the book, it's about Papa and I met the guy
and we talked and you know, this kind of, okay, we are connected.
I dunno it which way, I dunno when, I dunno where, but I'm gonna
do something about this story.
And he told me about the free clinic because this was part of
it and he helped at that time.
He was creative director in a huge London agency.
And he created the, the ad in English newspapers that helped the clinic to get
the money to, for the clinic to be built.
So he was involved.
And so Indra told me about Boal.
He told me that the.
The disaster was still on.
And he told me about these people trying to help people through in traditional
medicine because it was free or cost less.
And allopathic medicine doesn't work anymore for them because of taking like
kilos and kilos of medicine for years.
So, you know, at at the time it doesn't work anymore or it
creates new kind of problems.
And so he told me about that like 15 years ago.
And at that time I knew I will go, I would go, I didn't know where, when,
when, but I knew I was part of the story.
And in 2009 it was time.
So I decided to go.
I spent a couple of weeks at the clinic and I knew I would do a film
about it because I deserve a film.
I deserve to be known and I deserve tools.
Tools to get funds because it's a free clinic.
They operate only with individual funds.
So I wanted to be part of it and create something that can be helpful for them.
Rupert Isaacson: So tell me, because
Rejane D'Espirac: meetings, you know, life, my life, it's always
about meetings and things I didn't know about, but I recognize them.
This is one of my tenants I recognized at, at what time?
I say, okay, this is part of my life too.
I need to go further.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, it's interesting what you say.
I think all.
All of my, just like you, all of my significant work or anything
in my life actually, it's all about meetings and conversations.
And it, it does show, you know, people call us homo sapien
sapiens, the the thinking ape.
But I always thought that that's actually not a very good description for us because
that anything with a brain thinks, right?
So there's lots of things out there with brains and some things have
quite a few brains like octopuses.
What makes us unique is, is this thing, is the larynx.
We talk, we speak, we are the speaking ape with a storytelling ape.
That's our thing.
And it's through stories, and stories come through meetings.
You can't get a story unless you meet you.
You can do it virtually.
You can meet a story in a book.
You can meet a story in a film.
Yes.
Yeah.
That's the first step.
Yeah.
But that usually happens because somebody else met in person and
then transmitted that story.
So I think you're absolutely right.
And if, if we.
Looking for, like what can we learn from an interview like this?
I think one of the things immediately it's worth looking at if you are
listening to this or watching this, is have conversations, have
lots and lots of conversations.
They're never wasted time because conversations lead to other conversations
that lead to other conversations, which will lead to the conversation
that makes the thing happen.
Yeah,
Rejane D'Espirac: and more and more I want to understand what I'm working, because
I, I do this work for like 20, 25 years and now I've got enough to say, okay,
after 25 years of writing and meetings, what I'm writing about, it's not clear
for me, but I think at the end it's relationship is there a way we relate with
ourself, with the others, with nature.
So I understood the relationship is a key factor.
It was not the case at the beginning because I'm a little bit, you know,
shy and always kind of observing person, but a bit away from the scene.
And more and more I understand that I do that work and because this
is a way to get related, related to people related to the world.
And in fact everything is relationship and maybe my job now it's that,
okay, look, how can we relate.
With someone or with nature, with more on, on a sensitive way or on a more
lovely way or the quality of relationship.
Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, I agree.
Listen, I need to know more about the story, BOPA.
Rejane D'Espirac: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: So this is, as you say, a story about multiple relationships.
Mm-hmm.
And the healing power of relationship because that free clinic coming in at a
crucial time must have come about because of conversations and relationships.
It, it's the only way it could have happened.
Right.
But so, so tell me how did it happen?
And a couple of other things.
Not everybody listening to this or watching this will know what a Aveda is.
Okay?
Sure.
Okay.
Not everybody will know why it could work in some cases better than you're
using the word allopathic medicine.
If people are not familiar with that word.
It means the medicine that you get when you go to see your Dr.
Rejane D'Espirac: West, Western Medicine.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: When you go to the hospital.
Rejane D'Espirac: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: So it would be possible to look at a big disaster like that
where everyone is all messed up.
Mm-hmm.
And say, well, obviously we need, you know, medicine er in there.
We need the doctors to go in, we need this, we need that.
And then why do we need these funny blokes who are just like quacks,
who, there's not real medicine that's just like hippie stuff.
Mm-hmm.
Why would that be effective and how did it get going?
Yeah.
Why did this free clinic just came out of nowhere and I don't think so.
So we need to know that story and you need to educate us a bit.
What is Ayurveda?
Rejane D'Espirac: Oh, sure.
Okay.
Let's start from the beginning.
Yeah, of course.
Western medicine, our medicine is a beautiful medicine for
emergency and for bubble people.
It, it has been completely useful for 10 years from the, the accident was in 1984,
so for 10 years they took normal medicine.
They took a lot of antibiotics psychotropic medicine because they've got
like A-P-T-S-D, you know, this kind of
Rupert Isaacson: mm-hmm.
Rejane D'Espirac: And so they took, but they took a lot because the, the
pain they had because of the gas was.
Big, big, big.
So at the end, after 10 years the guy who created the clinic, and I need to talk
about him because he's very important.
Rupert Isaacson: Please do.
Yeah.
He,
Rejane D'Espirac: he discovered that people were taking like 30 kilos, 40
kilos of western medicine, of antibiotics, an anxiety, anti antibiotics and all.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
But
Rejane D'Espirac: per year, so 30, 40 kilos per year.
It's a lot.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
They were taking themselves 30 or 40 kilos.
I mean, so if you translate that into American English or English.
English, yeah.
That's 60 to 70 pounds of medicine
Rejane D'Espirac: Yes.
Steroids in one person per year.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: That's a lot.
Yeah.
Rejane D'Espirac: Because they've got breathing disorders, they've got any kind
of pain you can imagine they've got and
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Rejane D'Espirac: Especially with respiratory organs because it's, they have
been affected by very, very toxic gas.
So, so yes, but at the end, after 10 years of taking ki kilos and kilos of medicine
it creates I dunno how to say that in this kind of your body is is getting
used so it's not effective anymore.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Yes.
Builds up a resistance.
Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah, absolutely.
Okay.
And or it can create something else like your kinase doesn't support it anymore.
Right.
So you've got kidney disease because you've taken too more,
too much me, too many medicine.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Side effects effectively.
Yeah.
Rejane D'Espirac: The side effects.
Yeah.
So this guy, so let's talk about this guy.
His name is Sengi and the specific part, but this guy is
not from Boal and he's an Indian.
He is from the a past cast in India.
He is a Braman.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
And
Rejane D'Espirac: he was preparing a PhD in engineering when Boal happened.
But he was quite an activist already, and he was helping farmers
in the place where he was living.
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: So he
Rejane D'Espirac: decided to take a train Toal the day after the disaster.
I guess he's the only guy in the planet to take a train to a
disaster place after the disaster.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Rejane D'Espirac: So he, he came there to give an help.
He didn't know.
Oh.
But as he was very educated and very clever, he started to organize
the rights of the victims and to try to help them on this way.
And more specifically about the health rights, what can be done to save them.
And so he was, he get involved and he never left.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
He's
Rejane D'Espirac: living in Bal for 40 years and he never left.
So he was involved in 10 years.
After the disaster, he discovered people were taking so many medicine
and it was not effective anymore.
So he went to see the medical authorities and says, okay, what's next?
What can we do now?
And doctor says, we can't do anything more.
It's, it's over.
We can't do more.
And but this is a kind of guy, you know, this kind of guy.
You, you can't say such, you, you can't do anything else.
It's over.
So he starts singing and he is from a Brahman family where a plant
medicine he's quite well known.
And in his family, his father, who was a yoga practitioner and his
mother was, and grandmother, were very educated with plant medicine.
So he knew, so he decided to make a test.
So he tried with a few victims, and then he decided to send them to four
victims, two children, two adults.
They, he sent them to Kerala, which is a, a state in India, the southwest
of India, which is specialized in what is called Ayurveda.
And Ayurveda is one of Indi in Indian traditional medicine.
And it's mostly based on detoxification procedures.
So it's a detox process and detox through plans and any kind of
detox procedures like message or steaming and stuff like that.
And so they tried and he discovered when, when the, the, the four victims came back
from Carla, Carla for one month after the, their situation was quite better.
So I decided to create the clinic from scratch with this vent nutrition.
And and also because at that time he's been evolved in a manifestation and he has
been beaten by police, very badly beaten.
And he went to the hospital just to get a checkup and to be able to sue
police because of what happened.
And the doctor said, so, okay, you, you are badly injured and you're gonna,
you have to stay for one month in the hospital and you will have side effects.
But he was the cleaning at the he was building the clinic, so he said,
did not to stay at the hospital.
And the people at the clinic says, okay, we're gonna prepare something
with Curcuma and Vera and cook it for you, and you will have to pass it on
your body for 10 days and you will see.
And after 10 days, it was better.
So I said, okay, there is something I, I should go.
And for yoga, he had this little bit of knowledge from his childhood, but
he went to Beal to know more, to meet some yoga teachers, really advanced yoga
teachers, and to understand, oh, yoga can be a therapy, not on the leisure part.
More on the very specifically part of helping people from disease with yoga.
And he came back with the knowledge and he created the clinic from
scratch and from 30 years now they're documenting what they're doing.
So they've got proof and they can, they have published articles
in science magazines and all.
And so they can explain these people are full of chemicals because of
the gas, because of the, the DNA of people have been damaged, so the new
generations are are sick too and whatever.
So, these people are full of chemicals, so giving them more chemicals.
Is it, it's not the, it's pointless.
So the idea with Ayurveda, which is most of all detoxification
procedures, is to detox them,
Rupert Isaacson: okay.
For
Rejane D'Espirac: all the, the, the the chemicals they have inside.
And it works also for emotional parts because most of them, the
survivors, they are still very shocked about what happened.
And they lost a lot.
They lost their jobs.
They lost their relatives.
They have lost a lot.
A lot.
And they lost, they lost their health.
So, and without any compensation, well, what they receive from
the American company is $500
Rupert Isaacson: per person.
Rejane D'Espirac: Yes.
For, for life.
Not for your by, for.
Well, that's it.
Take 500.
I was just, while you were talking, I was just,
Rupert Isaacson: I was just doing a little Google on, on the thing and Yeah.
Seeing how little accountability, of course there was.
I've got some interesting questions here.
Yeah.
Okay.
The first thing is even though this was largely a disaster that negatively
affected mostly poor and lower middle class people, there must have been a
certain number of wealthy and upper class people affected by it too.
And if not, why not?
Okay.
Was it because the gas only settled in certain areas?
Low lying areas and all the rich people are up on the hill?
Is that why?
Exactly, yes.
That's because, you know, in America there's a lot of not dissimilar
type of things that happen.
And usually the people that get affected are low income people who are living
in low altitude, low lying areas.
And yeah, it frequently doesn't get the bosses, the company bosses, because
they live on a hill and there's wind.
Okay.
So that was one question.
The second question is I know something about detox and what in
the autism world we call collation.
Mm-hmm.
Because when my son was going through his most difficult period with autism mm-hmm.
He had a lot of heavy metals in his body that we had to get out
and he lacked a naturally produced chemical called glutathione.
And in fact, a lot of people with autism do lack or, or have an
impaired ability to make glutathione.
And glutathione is one of our natural.
Collators.
So we had to give him collating agents like zinc and so forth, to which the
heavy metals would bind within the body.
And then you ship them out.
You piss them out, you sweat them out, you get them out in
your hair, all these things.
Okay, now that's one person.
How do you do that with hundreds of thousands of people from one
clinic that's going to take several forest worths of, of plants.
Right.
You talk about the volume of the medications that these people
were taking, the volume of plants needed similarly is huge.
How do you serve that number of people with that amount of plants?
It's, you know, it's one thing to say it, it's another thing to do it.
How did that happen?
Rejane D'Espirac: Okay, so I'm gonna start, I've got a few questions.
First I finish with what I've created.
We talk about Ayurveda as you told.
It's a
Rupert Isaacson: okay.
Rejane D'Espirac: Yes.
And yoga is the second part, okay?
Because yoga boosts the immune system.
They've got very low immune system and that's why they keep being sick and sick
and sick because the gas and the effects of the gas has lower their immune system.
And so yoga helps them to boost the immune system.
So it's both part, it goes together.
All
Rupert Isaacson: yogas or certain forms of yoga.
Rejane D'Espirac: It's very simple.
Yogas, it's only a few.
They, they do like a few has and us, but very few some breathing process
because they've got some, these breathing problems and a little bit of relaxation.
But these guys they're mostly Muslim.
They have no knowledge of, you know, yoga and Ayurveda is braman things.
This is a Hindu thing, right?
Not a
Rupert Isaacson: Muslim thing.
Rejane D'Espirac: Normal Indian people, I mean, low class Indian people,
they don't dunno, nothing about that we see is a part of cultural Indian
culture, but it's not in a way.
I
Rupert Isaacson: agree.
Rejane D'Espirac: So it's, yeah, it's the upper classes,
Rupert Isaacson: it's not for the lower classes.
It's
Rejane D'Espirac: smart and low cast into people.
They, they arrive at the clinic.
They know nothing about Ayurveda.
Okay.
They know nothing about yoga.
And most of them now, and mostly women, they are, you know, with all
they covered kind of stuff and Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Workers.
Yeah.
Rejane D'Espirac: And so the, the yoga therapist has to go very slow.
So she only gives two, three SNS movements to say, to, to, to
practice at home or at the clinic.
And two weeks after people come back and she can, okay, you
manage so we can something else.
But she's very simple yoga.
It just to create an habit to take care of yourself so we can go back to care.
Because at the clinic it, it works because of yoga, because of a veta.
But it works mostly because of care.
These people are been completely abandoned.
Okay.
You've, you have been completely, your, your life has been completely
broken by gas, but nobody cares.
Okay.
Farewell.
And as a clinic, they care.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Rejane D'Espirac: And it's almost 50% of treatment just being listened.
And to, and to answer your question about plans, first things
they create is it's a garden.
So for me as a, as a documentary maker, you've got something very visual.
We are 500 meters from the, from the factory, which is still there.
You know, this rotten factory.
And 5500, 500 meters far from there.
You've got a garden and a garden of plant medicines and medic medical plants.
And so they've got their own garden and they created their own medicine
and they've got a little factory of creating Ayurvedic medicine there.
So this is way, the way they manage to give plants to people
because they cultivate plants.
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
But this is a lot of people.
This is not, it's one neighborhood.
This is,
Rejane D'Espirac: yes.
But you've got six, 600,000 people.
It is a, it's the number of victim at the wall for 40 years.
Now we can consider there are like.
100,000 people are concerned.
And the people you can help, you mean, and people with clinical disease, they
come to the clinic and that's the clinic.
They say they follow like 30,000 people in a way, but for, for 30 years.
So at the clinic, every day they can see like 61, 60 people, 100 people a day.
Rupert Isaacson: I'm still really impressed that, that a
garden can scale to that degree.
It shows how much can be done with small resources.
Really
Rejane D'Espirac: they do.
This is, they do with small resources, they have no choice, you know?
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Rejane D'Espirac: And they, you've got one yoga therapist, two Ayurvedic doctors.
There is, they are not against, he, you have an allopath doctor coming too.
And they used to have other stuff, but because of cost, they, they have
to reduce their but yes, they did it.
They do it even if they do it small, but they do it and they create
protocols that can be helpful for us too, because of back pain, because of
psoriasis, because of breast problems.
That boal is kind of, you know, big mirror of
Rupert Isaacson: a bit of a laboratory
Rejane D'Espirac: of our society.
But it's what, but I, I'm just try to, a book, we will be published
next year about boal today.
And in a way it's not about boal, it's about all of us, you know, living
in contaminated zone on another.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
Rejane D'Espirac: But this, this is a, just a thinking about what will help
us in the future if we have to live in this kind of contaminated zone.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
And
Rejane D'Espirac: the answer is care and be, here's a couple
Rupert Isaacson: of questions then about yourself.
You obviously have spent quite a lot of time in Bopa.
Yeah.
How do you stay healthy because you are breathing in and drink, you know?
Well, my
Rejane D'Espirac: breathing is okay.
You know, I don't live there.
So I don't drink the contaminated water.
I can
Rupert Isaacson: You are to some degree eating foods from the area.
Yeah.
Rejane D'Espirac: That's it.
It's okay.
And mm-hmm.
I don't live for your, you know, the, the problem is that people
living there day after day for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years.
Rupert Isaacson: My, my question was going to be do, have you taken
practices from being in Boal that were perhaps self-care detox to look after
yourself while being in a Bo pal, and now you use those now that you are
living in polluted old Paris, or, yeah.
Could you do stuff there to keep yourself healthy that you've
now brought home, basically?
And what tips can you give us?
Rejane D'Espirac: I, I, I, I guess what I learned, I didn't learn it from
Al because yoga and I Veda as well, well, came to my life earlier mm-hmm.
For other reasons, but I learned a lot from them.
And I would say it's a holistic approach.
The what I, well, what I, what I, it's in a way I learned that everything is
healing and most of all the quality of relationship we have to everything to what
we eat, to people we have around us, and the kindness we can put in everything.
I think my main lesson, lesson from Boal is caring for people and just the way
when you listen to people and when you try to understand who he is and
why he is like that you are gonna give him the power to heal himself.
And that's what Samba Popal do in a way, because as you say, it's a very
small clinic and they do with very red.
Means and tools, but they give people attention.
And when they give people attention and the small tools to take care of
themself, when you, when you teach someone to breathe like twice a day
or to do some very simple movements twice a day, you give him the power
to take care of himself or herself.
And that's a lot for people who have been considered like, cheat for years.
Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
Rejane D'Espirac: Because suddenly they take care of themself and they get energy
to do something better for their house maybe, or the way they, the job they do or
the way they interact with their children.
It's, it's just giving power back.
Rupert Isaacson: This is really interesting.
I was just thinking about the concept of self-healing, where if you have a part
of yourself that you feel needs healing, you give it attention in some way.
Not negative attention, like you stupid thing.
You shouldn't be like that.
Rejane D'Espirac: Not care.
Yeah.
But
Rupert Isaacson: thinking about that part of your body or that
part of your brain lovingly.
And for all of us who grow up in the west, this is an alien concept at the beginning.
Actually, as you also point out, even in places like India where such
concepts are traditional, they're only traditional for the upper classes.
They're not traditional for the lower classes.
People think, oh, everyone in yoga must be doing yoga in India, must be doing yoga.
It's like, no, no, no.
That bloke who's breaking the rocks on the road, he is not doing any yoga.
He's got no time to do yoga.
He doesn't even know what yoga is.
Yeah.
That's for other people a little bit like it is in the West.
I mean, the people that that do this are tend to be people who have
the leisure and the money to turn their attention to these things.
However, that does not mean that these things are not true.
Just like not everyone in the west is a scientist and most scientists have to come
from family backgrounds where there is the money and opportunity to have education.
You know, yes, you get some people who come up from absolutely
nothing, but not that many.
Most people come from the upper end of the middle class.
Okay.
So,
but what's lovely about this story is that that knowledge is then given back
to the people who who need it the most, for whom it is alien, but also for us.
I think for me, hearing this story, you know, one has one's own reactions
and you know, you have, you.
I remember myself at 10, myself at 20, myself at 30, myself at 40.
Yeah.
And each time my reaction to something like that would've been different because
of my conditioning in my own culture.
So in the early, my early adulthood, I would've dismissed
something like a Aveda as well.
That's just sort of hippie thing.
'cause that's what my parents would've said, right?
And then later you go traveling and you spend time in India and you
spend time with other people, go, oh, actually this shit works, right?
There's more than one technology out there.
Good to know.
Okay.
Then you go through another thing.
By the time you get to the idea that care, just simple care
could really be the game changer.
Those of you who are listening or watching might want to look
at a concept called Yoga Nira.
I use it a lot.
In the middle of the day.
One things I love about it is I'm a terrible meditator.
Like I've tried to meditate.
I just make up stories in my head.
And, you know, it's just not, you know, it's just not me.
And then you have to sit in this uncomfortable, stupid position where your
back hurts, and then you're this hurt.
And it's like, why?
What the fuck?
You know?
And this is just some asshole bloke, like another Roman Catholic priest, you
know, telling me I've got no fuck off.
You know?
But why can't I just lie down and relax and then suddenly.
There you are with yoga nidra, with the person saying, yeah, if you just lie
down and relax, oh, and by the way, if you fall asleep, that's totally okay.
That's what your body needs.
Oh, and now all we're going to do is just bring our attention
to these different parts of your body in a sort of rhythmic way.
You think about, you know, the top of your head, then you think
about the middle of your forehead.
Then you think about the muscles around the eyes, and then you think
about your tongue, and then you think about this part and that part.
You go down through the arms, through the, and by the time you are, one
minute in, you are feeling really good.
And then either after that you might be unconscious or you go into this state
of very, very deep relaxation where you come out feeling like you just had
eight hours of sleep after maybe 25 minutes, and there's been no effort.
And all one has done is bring attention care, I suppose, in another word, to first
the body as a whole lie down, relax, and then to these different parts of the body.
Of course, this has been known for thousands of years, but it's interesting
that even I think somebody like me who has spent all this time with shamans and blah,
blah, I, I still find these concepts new.
And it's like an endless discovery.
It is, and it is rather beautiful that you can bring something
like that to our attention.
To use Bo Paul as a mirror to say it's not just about these people over there.
You need this too.
You are living in a contaminated zone.
In a way.
You lead a stressful life in a a less extreme way.
Perhaps you've been abandoned or dismissed or overlooked or betrayed or attacked,
or just the stuff that happens in life.
You can't go through life without these things happening.
That's part of the human condition.
Sometimes you are the perpetrator, sometimes you are the victim.
That's how it goes.
It's, it's a, but what do you do about all this?
There's, there's suffering, passion, suffering, there's compassion.
Okay, so you bring this story back and you bring it to our attention.
And simply by bringing our attention to the fact that you can heal through
attention as a reader or even listening to this, I feel a certain sense of healing.
It's very interesting, isn't it?
That story transmits healing in this way.
Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
In a way where, at the beginning of the conversation you are talking about
social medias and this zoom being part of it, and I guess this conversation.
Yes, we are.
Can be form of healing because of that, because it's a conversation,
because well, in France in French we've got this term we call presence.
Presence, you know, this kind of care, atten attention and care,
just being present to the other, to the conversation to the moment and
presence in itself can be very healing because suddenly you are not alone.
You are with someone sharing something.
And the most important part is a sharing part.
It's not you, it's not me.
This is what is between you and me.
This is presence, and this is sharing, and it can be sharing in silence.
But this is the most important, important part.
And, and I guess the bubble story, it's part of it, it's a moment of sharing
where all this kind of possibility was not there for this kind of people.
And just to answer your question, why whilst people, rich people has
not been concerned by the disaster?
Yes.
It's because the, the factory was in the suburbs in the popular
areas, and so it was cold.
So the gas leaked Yes.
At very low level.
And so entering the houses and then, and in Bal you've got a huge lake.
Lake in the middle of the city, and the, the gas was absorbed.
By the water and the wells where the rich people were living at the, out
the other part of the lake on deals.
So yes, the, the gas never reached the, the rich the rich areas.
Rupert Isaacson: It's interesting, the geography of health, isn't it?
You live in the low lying swamp, chances are you'll get more sick than
if you live up on the hill, sure.
Where the wind blows.
And there's a reason why, if you think about it, you think of any
city with perhaps the exception of places like the favelas of Rio de
Janeiro, which sometimes are up on the hills, but in general, in general,
the rich people live high and the poor people live low.
So if you're moving to a place lads, you might want to consider
which bit of the physical geography you go for.
The story in Boal, of course in India, you spent a lot of time in India.
I've spent some time in India, but you've spent much more time than me.
And this of course.
Has impacted your personal life in massive ways.
The book that sort of, I would say launched you in a way was
this book called On Fa Bibe.
Rejane D'Espirac: Oh yeah.
Almost.
And Bibe on Fa On
Rupert Isaacson: Fa.
Right At Last Baby.
At at Last.
Yeah.
A Baby at Last.
Right.
Tell us about that story.
Rejane D'Espirac: In fact, this is the same story in a way.
Rupert Isaacson: Go on.
Rejane D'Espirac: The this is my son's story.
The book is about the fact that after seven years of trying to
have a baby it was not there.
And I didn't want to go to medicalization of infertility medicalization.
I knew it was not my pass.
Something else was waiting for me.
But I and then I happened to be in India with my husband and before going to
write a story about Indian bikers, we stopped in a, in Ayurvedic clinic in the
South of Carolina to see a friend of us.
So we were there just for a couple of days to meet our friends, but then
we were there, so we met the doctor.
The I have doctor, and I knew nothing about Aveda at that time.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
That's interesting.
Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: You weren't so meeting, you know,
Rejane D'Espirac: I, I've never looked for a solution there,
but the ion found me in a way.
Yeah.
And so we met the doctors and he asked us why are you there?
I said, okay, we just came to visit asa, but by the way, you know, we've got
this kind of western healthy conditions.
I've got headaches, my husband have back pains, and we are very stressful because
we work a lot and blah, blah, blah.
He said, okay.
And then my husband told him, and I was so angry about that, he says, okay,
and you know, we've, we've been trying to have a baby, but it doesn't work.
And Dr.
Clark says, okay.
And I was so angry because this was kind of taboo for me.
That's why, why I was saying that to this guy with a big mustache.
We don't know for 10 minutes, would
Rupert Isaacson: it have been all right if the guy didn't have a mustache?
You are only allowed to tell people you have no mustache.
Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: I know what you mean though.
Yeah.
Rejane D'Espirac: And but then we spend a couple of days and we
have this kind of sweet message and then, it was interesting.
Mm-hmm.
After two days I won, I needed to go to do my story with Indian bikers, so tour
South India by bike with these guys.
And, and I said, I guess as
Rupert Isaacson: in motorbikes or Hell's Angel, Indian Hell's Angels, or, yeah.
Kind
Rejane D'Espirac: of.
It was people from Ryan and Field, people who knows India knows Royal Enfield.
This Yes.
The Indian brand of motorbikes.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Rejane D'Espirac: So yes, it was, the idea was to, to to have a trip
in India with viol Enfield people.
Okay.
And it was fun.
I
Rupert Isaacson: bet.
Rejane D'Espirac: But then I, I told the doctor, okay, doctor, it
was very interesting to be there.
And but by the way, I still have headaches.
And the guy looked at me and say, Rajan, why are you so sad?
And I don't have the answer still, but just I started crying and
crying and crying for two hours.
I start crying.
So I decided to go back after my riding trip.
I, we going back to the clinic for 10 days and we have like very classical
treatments what they call Pan Karma.
It's a detox process.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
But
Rejane D'Espirac: nothing really focused on infertility.
But I understood the guy was interesting with the, the Christian and he,
we talked, we talked about love about couple, we talked about life.
That Ida first, it's a, it's a, it's a balance process.
The idea for them, it's when you got sick, when you've got something, you see it's
easy because your energy is unbalanced.
So the medicine, the, the goal of the medicine is first to balance your energy.
So after 10 days, I went back to France and I really feel balanced.
So I went back to my boss.
I was taking, I was the editor of a magazine at that
time, and I went to my boss.
I said, okay, I'm gonna be there three months and the fourth month I'm not there.
I'm gonna work part-time.
I need time for me.
I need to go back to the ground.
I need to maybe start something else, but I need time for me.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay?
Rejane D'Espirac: And slowly, slowly months after months I realized I, overda
has changed something very subtle.
It was not very mechanical, but it was subtle.
It was in my energy.
I was more in life, more alive in a way.
And like six months.
And then we decided to go to see a, a specialist in France.
I said, okay, we have opened this box of having a baby again, so let's be sure.
So we went to see a, a specialist in France and we had some big
analysis about fertility stuff.
And after some weeks, the guy told us.
You will have, you will never have a baby.
Don't try a medicalized process.
It will not work if you want a child adopt.
Rupert Isaacson: As you know, if you followed any of my work, I'm
an autism dad and we have a whole career before this podcast in helping
people with neurodivergence, either who are professionals in the field.
Are you a therapist?
Are you a caregiver?
Are you a parent?
Or are you somebody with neurodivergence?
When my son, Rowan, was diagnosed with autism in 2004,
I really didn't know what to do.
So I reached out for mentorship, and I found it through an amazing adult
autistic woman who's very famous, Dr.
Temple Grandin.
And she told me what to do.
And it's been working so amazingly for the last 20 years.
That not only is my son basically independent, but we've helped
countless, countless thousands of others reach the same goal.
Working in schools, working at home, working in therapy settings.
If you would like to learn this cutting edge, neuroscience backed
approach, it's called Movement Method.
You can learn it online, you can learn it very, very simply.
It's almost laughably simple.
The important thing is to begin.
Let yourself be mentored as I was by Dr.
Grandin and see what results can follow.
Go to this website, newtrailslearning.
com Sign up as a gold member.
Take the online movement method course.
It's in 40 countries.
Let us know how it goes for you.
We really want to know.
We really want to help people like me, people like you, out there
live their best life, to live free, ride free, see what happens.
Why did he say that medically?
What was his reason?
Rejane D'Espirac: Oh, because you know, the, the rates of hormonal
rates for him, hormonal rates for me and the number of staff.
The values, the
Rupert Isaacson: hormonal values,
Rejane D'Espirac: right?
Yeah.
And all this kind of very factual Okay.
Stuff.
It says, okay, now you, you can be sure don't go.
It's gonna be painful and long and useless.
So if you want a child you can adopt.
And it was okay for us.
I said, okay, at least we know and we are gonna think about it.
But it was in March and in October or November after I
discovered I was pregnant.
Completely, naturally,
Rupert Isaacson: okay.
Rejane D'Espirac: So this is the beginning of the book said, whoa, okay.
What happened?
What happened for the diagnosis of western medicine being so invalid
after a few weeks or months?
Mm-hmm.
What happened with Ayurveda?
What did they open to me?
So I started investigation about the link between emotions and body and mm-hmm.
And about what?
What we don't know, in fact about a human being.
And the, maybe we are not only a mechanical process, maybe we are not only
a machine and it's more complex than that.
And maybe this kind of traditional medicine and on, on not only
Ayurveda, but, and maybe care is opening something else and is
operating on a different level.
And maybe it's time to get it all together on a more holistic approach.
Of course, you need to go to Western doctors, of course you need to investigate
quantitative things about what is wrong in your body, but maybe there is something
more meditative you can work with.
And that's for the book.
So I wanted to, I have, so this is my story and my son's story, and this
is also my story as a professional, as a, as a writer, because I
wanted to understand what happened.
So I start writing a lot about healing and human complexity and
maybe consciousness and all this kind of stuff we are made with.
So for the book, I went back to the doctor, the French doctor, that told
me I, I would never have a child.
And I told him what happened, and he told me that, you know, I'm working with
quantity, but I don't work with quality.
Maybe if you've got only one egg, and for my point of view,
statistically it's not enough.
But if this one egg is a very good quality, it's gonna work.
But quality is not my stuff.
So maybe all this traditional approach or more holistic approach or more emotional
approach or spiritual approach, any in humanism, it's part of it, of course.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Rejane D'Espirac: They're working more on spirits or on quality of things.
Rupert Isaacson: That's a really good answer, and it was not
the answer I was expecting.
Okay.
I really like the analogy that the doctor gave there of quality versus quantity.
This is a really interesting thing to consider.
Why do certain things work against the statistics, against the odds?
Is it possible that the quality of the minority thing is so good that it
makes up for, well, I think we know that this is true, but it's, what is
true is we don't, we don't look at this scientifically at all, do we?
Scientifically we tend to only deal.
It's so true in quantity and in the work that we are doing.
With autism in the brain.
We have a lot of academics that study us.
Last year we had a PhD published into movement method, which is, you
know, our neuroplasticity approach started with kids and now it's
for everybody started with autism.
Now it's for everybody.
And our equine approaches too.
There've been so many studies done now on us, and there's more beginning.
And I always hear these academics when they want to do the studies, 'cause they
always use this term, is it a quantitative study or is it a qualitative study?
And I'm like, I don't fucking know.
I I don't know.
It's your job.
I mean, you know, I'm just doing the thing.
I mean, you tell me.
And then they tell me something in academic speech.
I'm like, yep, that makes no sense at all.
Okay, anyway, I'm gonna go do my job.
You do yours.
But I think what you just said has actually allowed me to understand the
difference in a way that I haven't before.
So thank you for that.
The, and the
Rejane D'Espirac: guy, the guy say something else about quality said, and
quality is very linked to environment, inner environment, and outer environment.
So if you want, don't, if you want, the quality can be really,
modeled maybe by inner environment.
So your emotions, your personal story.
Mm uh, your familial background.
So this part of your inner environment.
Mm-hmm.
And you can walk and what you eat and the, what you do about stress and whatever.
And outer environment, the way the, the place you live with the pollution
you are you are around and whatever.
So quality is influenced by environment.
The, in the big way of understanding what environment is.
And this is very interesting too because I, I start under understanding
that we are not isolated beings.
We are just contexts, you know?
And context can change.
And so the way context change, you are gonna change on a
good way, on a, on a bad way.
Rupert Isaacson: Back to my work with movement method, we have an equation
that we teach people for learning.
We call it the learning equation.
And it's about environment.
And we say, if you get the physical environment right, the
physical environment is both your internal physical environment, your
nutrition, this and that, but it's also your external environment.
Effectively, the more nature the better, because that's our habitat as a species.
And the right human environment.
IE hopefully an asshole free zone when you're trying to learn.
Because when you are dealing with an unsympathetic person that the brain
perceives that as a threat, then the brain will tell the body to produce cortisol
stress hormone, which blocks learning.
That's its job to get you out of trouble.
So you're not thinking, so you need to get that right too.
So no assholes and nice physical and internal environment.
But then we started to look at that and say, okay, but which of
those two is the most important?
And we realized it was the human environment because you can go into the
forest with somebody who's horrible and really scary, and all you will learn
is to try to run away from that person.
You can be in a terrible physical environment with somebody very empathetic
and learn a lot that the quality of love will always be the most important thing.
Rejane D'Espirac: Back to Bapa,
Rupert Isaacson: back to Bapa.
Yeah.
So when you are talking about at last a baby, that book,
I'm just tracing the story.
It starts, I guess, when the Ayurvedic practitioner said
to you, why are you so sad?
Mm-hmm.
Did he give a chance for your subconscious mind to begin a process of self-care?
Yes.
This is a question, right?
Yes.
And then did that process of self-care allow for an internal environment
and an external environment?
'cause you would begin therefore to make certain changes in your environment
externally, certain changes in your behaviors, perhaps that were not kinder
to yourself, perhaps that gave that egg
the chance to show its quality,
Rejane D'Espirac: I guess.
Yes, that's true.
I guess it gave me the chance of self-care.
It gave me, it is behind my mask in a way.
So he was say, he was telling me, I see you.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
Rejane D'Espirac: I see you.
You are the way, you really are.
I mean, you are fragile.
You are maybe a little bit lost.
You are a little bit bit fed up with, with what you are doing now.
And I can see it.
So it was giving me the opportunity to be weak and to be seen.
Mm-hmm.
To accept help in a way.
And the way Aveda helped me at that time was also very helpful because it's
mostly message, and it's not talking.
Rupert Isaacson: It's mostly massage.
Rejane D'Espirac: Massage, yes, yes, yes.
So it's not talking.
So in a way just being, you know, that I, I didn't have to tell my
life and to, to explain my doubts about becoming a mum and mm-hmm.
And explaining my doubts about this guy in my life.
And would you, I am ready.
Am I ready to have a child with this guy and whatever, and blah,
blah, blah and blah, blah, blah.
So it was not the point.
And he says, okay, I see you and now we are gonna touch your body
and feel you secure and feel, you, feel, make you feel warm, and make
you feel secure and make you back to this kind of very primal state.
And from that, you are gonna blow again.
Rupert Isaacson: So a couple more questions come up.
This is interesting.
So initially you have this negative reaction because your husband.
Says to this man with the mustache.
And, and the reason too, I, it's funny 'cause you know, I've spent time in
Kerala, and Kerala is southwest India, where I discovered what a verta is, and I
also ended up getting Ayurvedic massage.
And this Vedic practitioner had a great big mustache and had me naked
on the table with all his students watching while he was explaining,
you know, what he was doing.
And it felt totally okay.
And I remember lying there thinking, why does this feel totally okay?
But it does.
And the quality of the oils, this was probably true for you.
He was going into the forest and he was collecting the plants
and creating the oils himself.
So the purity of the oils, you could feel it like, just like when you
ibe really good olive oil as opposed to what you buy in the supermarket.
If some, if you have a friend who has a farm who makes olive oil, you
can tell the difference immediately.
You don't, nobody needs to explain it to you.
Or if you drink a wine from your friend's farm that has been done organically and
beautiful and blah, blah, blah, no one needs to explain to you the difference.
It's clear in the taste.
Similarly, the feeling when the.
Even the smell of the oils, you could feel the medicinal value immediately.
You could feel your own own hormones.
Your endocrine system reacting to this.
Yes, yes, yes.
However, when a stranger with a big black mustache says something
to you like, why are you so sad?
That could be a very manipulative situation.
And then you said, and then when I'm gonna touch the body.
'cause we know that human touch is so vital, but again, we are now
living in a day and age where touch is almost more taboo than ever.
Mm-hmm.
And then you say, and then he touched me in all these ways, including sexually.
How does that, how did that not trigger?
Mm-hmm.
Your defensive responses.
How did you know at a gut level that this was not creepy?
That this was actually a healing technology?
Why did the trust, 'cause you are a skeptical lady.
I know.
You, you know, your bullshit meter is very, very high.
You know, you are not, you are not going to be, you are not going to
be easily manipulated by anybody.
I've known you for a long time, Rajan, you know, I'd say you see
the world pretty accurately and.
With a sense of humor.
And so it's intriguing to me that in this process, you said,
yeah, you know, this is actually
Rejane D'Espirac: time to Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: What, what is needed here?
Yeah.
Rejane D'Espirac: Time to like
Rupert Isaacson: that.
This is medicinal, not manipulative.
What?
Rejane D'Espirac: So the, the four thing, the sad thing I guess I
just felt it it was going from him, from the good, the good part of him
not the manipulative part at all.
Rupert Isaacson: Because, you know, someone who's, who's in
charge of a cult might say that to some, oh, why are you so sad?
And Yeah.
Now just gimme all your money and
Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
Oh yeah, sure, sure.
Yeah.
And your passport, we had not decide to come back.
So he didn't knew he didn't know he will, he would see me again.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
He had nothing to gain.
Rejane D'Espirac: No, no, no.
Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: That's important.
So just
Rejane D'Espirac: giving me a clue, another clue.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Rejane D'Espirac: I was, I, I should have, like before, first time he told
me when we spent these two days during the conversation, he told me, but if you
want a child, give him a place right now.
And I said, in my, in my, I was thinking, but shut up.
It's not, it's not your business.
You know, I, I was skeptical for sure.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Rejane D'Espirac: But then when leaving, he told me that.
And I, I, I didn't, I, I've never.
Thought it as manipulative, and at that time it just, you know,
it was the, the, the arrow.
We just let Yeah, it's well, gut
Rupert Isaacson: instinct.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah.
Rejane D'Espirac: And so it was going from him, from the good part of him.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Rejane D'Espirac: And and when we decided to come back and all the
message I, I was messaging by women, the, the, the doctors in in Vedic
centers are not the therapists.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Rejane D'Espirac: They give orders, but the therapists, the one who
give message are not the doctors.
They're therapists, and it's India.
So girls are messaged by women and boys.
Ared.
That's a perfect answer.
Right.
So they were just young girls, so they were in their twenties
and they were just applying oils.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: So
Rejane D'Espirac: they were nothing, no, no threat, you know?
Yes.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
This is good to know because it's good to be clear because I think there will
be people listening and watching who are in that position right now, who
are definitely wanting to have a baby.
This is a not an unusual thing and are wondering, or, or, or maybe have other
reproductive issues, endometriosis, things like this, you know, which is
such a, you could say it's an epidemic.
I'd say you could say it's a pandemic, I'd say endometriosis at this point.
And it's interesting too, what you say to me.
So, so anyway, Ayurveda, I would agree with you, is a really
valid avenue to explore for any mental or physical dilemma.
I have a friend who we work with in our horse boy and movement method world,
who had such terrible endometriosis that she was being told at the age
of 22, I think that she must have a full hysterectomy and had had
some surgeries that had gone wrong.
And, and this part of her rebelled and said, there's just no way
that a 22-year-old, no, no, no, I need to find another way.
And she ended up finding something called Maison.
Have you heard of that?
No.
Which is a Muslim, it's a Sufi.
Okay.
Muslim tradition practiced by a small minority of Muslim women
in, well, in her case, the uk.
Okay.
And it.
Basically is a very light directed massage around the area of the
ovaries and the lower abdomen.
And
this with a few sessions created such a breakthrough for my friend that
it left her questioning her sanity.
And then what was really interesting was the lady doing it said, oh, well I think
now maybe you should go to my teacher.
And my friend expected that to mean, you know, a sort of
super duper Sufi somewhere.
You know, the, the, the, the high super duper Sufi with the super duper hat, you
know, that says I'm the super duper Sufi.
And it wasn't, it was a naturopath.
Well, really a homeopath
living on the outskirts of Edinburgh, who is still a ex
arm welshman, ex British army.
He's the sort of bloke you'd meet in the pub and who would just tell you all
kinds of stories about doing special ops in Serbia when that war was on and.
Being a bit of a naughty boy and let's have another drink.
And, and she said, yeah, no, this guy, you need to go to this guy.
So my friend goes to this guy and even more, and I wa I, I then
was so intrigued by this story.
I had to meet this guy.
So I, I went to, to Edinburgh and I watched him work and I'm like, oh my
God, you really are the real thing.
And it made me think about all the good shamans that I
know or used to know, because unfortunately they're all dying now.
You know, I'm reaching the age of, I'm almost 60, you know,
although in my head I'm only three.
And so I used to think that all those healers that I was so privileged to
meet, you think they'll last forever.
And they don't.
There's the whole generational die off now, in particularly the Kalahari.
And you wonder where the next generation is gonna come from.
Anyway, all of those good healers are totally open to every other discipline.
Yeah.
Whether it's allopathic medicine, whether it's some other type of healing,
they would never be constrained by some prejudice of their own culture.
And I realized that I was seeing within my culture.
A reflection of that from this Sufi Muslim tradition over to homeopathy,
but homeopathy through the lens of British army down the pub.
And it comes back to this universality, doesn't it?
It comes back to this and what's universality, but relationship
and what's relationship but love.
Rejane D'Espirac: Hmm.
This is why the, the book Baby At Last, at Last Baby, it's not about
Ayurveda, it's not about technique.
It's about what is Yes.
Behind and, well, what I call love in a way.
It's people give love in a, in a good way.
They give attention, they give presents.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Rejane D'Espirac: It's yes, they gave you the power to change something in a way.
And yes, of course.
So it's being bo or the book is not about saying I everything, or it's gonna
heal yourself because it's complex.
And the, but there is, there might be a way, and you have to find new way to find
the good person to meet to create moment with him or, and something would happen.
Rupert Isaacson: I think what's also true is that you have to move your ars.
You have to move your physical ass.
I'm a great believer in the power of pilgrimage and sacred journeying.
And whether or not you can do that in your own.
You don't have to get on an airplane to do that.
There are so many sacred sites on planet earth.
There will for sure be ones within a day's travel of where you are, no matter
where you are sitting on the planet.
But I do think there's something about the contract that you make with the
universe to say, I am willing to make the physical effort to try to find,
to make a quest for healing, for love.
And usually that does involve looking outside of your own
immediate culture because chances are you have not found it there.
But what is interesting is that not immediate culture could still be within
England or France or the United States.
Because if you think about France, for example, where
you're sitting, how many parallel cultures are there just in France?
And that's before you even consider immigrants from other countries
bringing their traditions just within traditional indigenous frenchness.
If you think about each region of France and its regional culture,
and then within those cultures, the subcultures of the subcultures, the
subcultures, you don't have to move geographically very far necessarily,
but you do need to move outside.
Of your immediate familiarity zone that I think is true.
Rejane D'Espirac: It's the first step is inside in a way.
Yeah.
And it's opening door and as I said, the, the, the Indian Dr.
May be held because when he said, why are you so sad?
He, he, he cracked my mask.
He opened the door and said, okay, just, and this opening door, to be
open to something else and maybe to change your system to your
frozen system, it's a first step.
Just open the door.
Rupert Isaacson: And did he expect answers from you to that question?
Or was it more of a rhetorical question?
Oh, no,
Rejane D'Espirac: no, no, no, no.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
Rejane D'Espirac: and I, I don't have the answer.
Yes.
I can't say now, like 15 years after why I was sad.
This is not the point.
Well,
Rupert Isaacson: it, you know, we talked about, I, I just said endometriosis
seems to be a bit of a pandemic.
I do feel that sadness is a pandemic.
Mm-hmm.
And I agree with you that most of us do not know actually quite why we are so sad.
But I think I do have the answer.
Hmm.
I think it's because obviously I could be wrong 'cause I'm Rupert and I'm often
wrong, but in fact I'm mostly wrong.
Some people would say always, but let's say there are some small amounts of
time where perhaps I'm not as wrong as I might be in other times, because I've
been so lucky to spend time with the Sun and the Bushman in the Kalahari.
One thing for sure that I observed is that when human beings live in their original
state, which is hunting and gathering with enough resources around and enough control
of the resources that life is okay.
The base state that one observes emotionally is a
kind of a quiet happiness.
Mm.
And that also, okay, we're living in our natural habitat.
We're eating all the stuff we should eat.
We're have relationship because we're in, we, we, we are, we are
not in competition with each other.
Because in that situation, you are the middle of the food chain.
What becomes of paramount importance is that the group stays together because if
the group fragments because of conflict, everybody will get eaten by hyenas.
That is just gonna happen.
So.
The most important thing becomes conflict resolution and a constant state of
conflict resolution so that the healers that I was working with out there, people
like besa, people like Kunta and these guys, what they spent most of their time
doing was not healing physical ailments.
They did do that, of course.
Mostly what they were doing was about every 10 days washing the psychic dirty
laundry of the group, the whole group getting together just with that intention
in order to make sure that conflict never went beyond a certain point.
And because nobody is overpopulating because hunting and gathering people
don't need to put a crop in the ground and get a crop outta the
ground, which takes a lot of people.
Agriculture takes a lot of people hunting and gathering does not, so you don't
need to overpopulate, you don't need the men to have more power than the
women because in agriculture, the men want to have control over the uterus
because they need lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of people to do, and
then actually they need slaves as well.
And you get war and you get but in hunting and gathering you, there's no economic.
Imperative for any of this.
So what you observe is that people are kind of okay most of the time and the
predator is never, this is interesting.
Your fellow human, Hmm.
There can be conflict to a certain degree.
There can be arguments, there can be this, there can be that.
But no one's going break into your heart and kill you or torture you or no.
Uh uh.
That's the hyenas job.
That's not the human's job
in our society.
The predator is only the fellow human.
We've gotten rid of all the other predators.
Instead of a society of conflict resolution, we now have a
society of conflict creation.
'cause it's good for business.
We wanna sell arms, you need wars.
Agriculture itself breeds conflict because it breeds
competition for land and resources.
So why are we so sad?
Well, for 10,000 years, more or less, since the creation of agriculture,
a large proportion of us on the planet moved away from this authentic, if
you like, state, original state.
Into this state that we now know.
So even though you are sitting there in Paris leading a really
interesting self-actualized life, you are your own boss.
You have control of your uterus, you have control of your finances, you have
control of your career, you have control of your destiny to a large degree.
You are, I would say, pretty professionally and artistically
and creatively fulfilled.
Of course, you have things you still want to do, lots of things.
Sometimes you're a bit frustrated and Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But basically you're doing, you are living life on Rajan, Raja's
terms, and yet you are sad.
And I'm living life largely on Rupert's terms, and I'm still sad because
we are not in our natural habitat, both physically and emotionally.
This, I think, sends us completely insane.
And I think we are maddened with pain so that when somebody says, I see you.
I see your pain.
Why are you so sad?
If I ask you that question?
I don't expect you to answer it.
I can see where he was coming from, that guy.
It's more like, I see your sadness perhaps, and the sadness is my
sadness, and we have no choice really in this sadness, but we can offer
each other support within that.
We can do that.
We can do,
Rejane D'Espirac: oh, oh.
I don't know about Well, you, you, you answer why you are so sad.
I have never thought about it that way, but my answer that's very personal, it's
I'm always sad when I feel is isolated.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Rejane D'Espirac: When I hit part of something, which has, which is as a
sense for me when in a way I'm less sun when I forget myself in something.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
A hundred percent.
And why,
Rejane D'Espirac: why service is probably the most important.
Or it's a huge part because it's a, if I feel like Ian controlling her life
and doing beautiful things, and it can be satisfying, but I can be sad.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
'cause
Rejane D'Espirac: it's always about me creating something for my
own glory or something like that.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
That is in its own nature, isolating.
You're right.
Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah.
Rejane D'Espirac: And in, and it's just, this is why I so much
love to be on the ground, to write a story or to film a story, to,
to feel people I really care of.
And I, people, I really find amazing because in that moments,
in these moments, I am not there.
I'm just part of it.
I'm just in.
And this, this moment, I just feel connected to everything and part
of everything and resign as not to be there as a frame human being.
And when it's more softened, more, it's more tender.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
If you made it this far into the podcast, then I'm guessing you're somebody
that, like me, loves to read books about not just how people have achieved
self actualization, but particularly about the relationship with nature.
Spirituality, life, the universe, and everything.
And I'd like to draw your attention to my books.
If you would like to read the story of how we even arrived here, perhaps
you'd like to check out the two New York Times bestsellers, The Horseboy
and The Long Ride Home, and come on an adventure with us and see what engendered,
what started Live Free Ride Free.
And before we go back to the podcast, also check out The Healing
Land, which tells the story of.
My years spent in the Kalahari with the Sun, Bushmen, hunter gatherer people
there, and all that they taught me, and mentored me in, and all that I learned.
Come on that adventure with me.
Rejane D'Espirac: I feel connected to life.
So I don't have to be sad because I'm just part of life.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
And I, I I guess from the sun or the Bushman point of view, it's the same.
Right?
It's service to the group, service to the community.
I do agree with you.
I think it's not possible to find happiness unless you have service.
You can maybe, perhaps, you know, it, early stages of motherhood, for example,
can be very, or fatherhood too can be very fulfilling because you're very
much in service to this other being.
Rejane D'Espirac: And it can be very tricky too, because you are so much in
service, so you have to forget yourself.
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
There wrote
Rejane D'Espirac: a book about that too.
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
But it's both, it's both at the same time.
Right.
And I think, I think too, that people living in hunting and
gathering groups would say that, so,
because in that life.
There are not so many opportunities as there are in our society for acting
completely from your own self desire.
Mm-hmm.
When an opportunity comes for that, you take it because it's a relatively rare
thing, like when you eat some food with a lot of fat in it, if you are living
in the forest, you're gonna eat it because don't get so many opportunities.
Or if you find something with a lot of sugar in it, you're
going to eat it because there aren't so many opportunities.
So we have a biological drive for Yeah.
Self gratification, sugar and fat.
Because normally these things are rare resources.
Now suddenly they're everywhere and we can spend our whole lives.
We're looking for something
Rejane D'Espirac: else.
Yes.
Yeah.
And maybe relationship are good.
Relationship are rare in our society, so we, we see them as magic and as so much.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
Rejane D'Espirac: Yes.
It's always moments momentums when you just strike and say, oh my
God, I'm alive, and it's so good.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
You know?
Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
And for anything, because it's, you have a fat, fat food or
because you meet someone amazing.
And, oh, because you see, this is my last latest book.
It's about flowers and just to say.
Life is amazing because flowers exists.
The book is about that.
Oh,
Rupert Isaacson: I like this.
Okay, tell us about your latest book about flowers.
Don't just say, oh, and I've got this latest book about flowers.
No, but it's say, what's the fucking book?
Come on, tell us.
Rejane D'Espirac: Because it's a book about amaze being amazed by flowers,
because flowers say never about This is
Rupert Isaacson: a beautiful idea.
Rejane D'Espirac: And so well, when suddenly you see a flower, she's,
it's on your balcony for yours.
But suddenly you see it, really
Rupert Isaacson: see,
Rejane D'Espirac: and then you've got this moment of connection and
saying, oh my God, life is so magic.
And so the book is about that.
Okay, once I was, trek in the mountains in France, and suddenly I saw flowers
because there are flowers, nothing else.
And I realized oh, creative.
Oh, adaptive, oh, everything.
Life is just because flower exists.
And so I, I wrote a book about that.
It's about present moment.
It's about beauty.
It's about diversity, it's about creativity.
To be able to be alive in a very strange.
Environments.
It's about links.
Because in our society, flowers are the symbol of links.
You offer flowers, you offer flowers for marriage, you offer flowers for funerals.
You, we offer flowers.
You also
Rupert Isaacson: offer flowers to the divine.
You offer flowers to God.
Yes.
You offer flowers to, yeah.
Rejane D'Espirac: In a symbol of links.
The link between wa and that's the symbol of everything.
That's a symbol of life.
And so flowers are everywhere.
Well, but suddenly you're gonna see a flower.
You are gonna really see it.
And this moment
put, put us away from sadness because we can't be sad.
If we are able to see a flower for what it is.
Rupert Isaacson: I think you are talking about the process of awe.
A WE.
Yes.
Ab absolutely.
Yes.
Yeah.
And we're used to thinking of awe as when you're, something's much bigger than you.
You are under the night sky.
There's a mountain, there's the ocean, whatever.
One of the interesting things about working with horses is you are in a
constant state of awe because they're dangerous, they're beautiful, they're
mysterious, they're connected to you.
They're all of these things.
Yeah.
But I love the idea 'cause it is true.
That I think yes, flowers do bring us into a state of all.
You cannot walk past a florist's shop and not breathe in the scent
and look at the flowers and go, whoa.
And be in worship a little bit.
Yeah.
But okay.
This kind of book is a departure though, for you because you,
this, what's the name of the book?
Rejane D'Espirac: In
Rupert Isaacson: in French First
Rejane D'Espirac: Discrete, the flowers, the discrete power of flowers.
Rupert Isaacson: Discrete power
Rejane D'Espirac: of flowers, of flowers.
And of course it's political because you Well, that's what I
Rupert Isaacson: was gonna ask.
Flower
Rejane D'Espirac: power.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Because you know, and flowers
Rejane D'Espirac: are also part of zen, you know, yeah.
Ikebana, the, the art of creating how do you say that?
B you know, yes,
Rupert Isaacson: yes, yes.
Flo flower arrangement.
Yes.
Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
Flora.
It's, it's zen art.
Yes.
It's called Buddhism.
And so the, the book goes from flower power Yes.
To the zen art.
And, but it's same thing.
It's maybe once, as you said, we can react to things by hangar and
we can react to things by beauty.
Rupert Isaacson: It's so true.
Rejane D'Espirac: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And that it's a choice, isn't it?
And of course, we can be angry because somebody is destroying the beauty.
You talk about service, obviously it's a service to produce a book about
flowers that reminds us to be in a state of awe and happiness and so forth.
Where is the service element though, in your, in, with flowers?
Are you now becoming a nature active activist as well?
Oh, way, yes.
Oh, good.
Tell me how
Rejane D'Espirac: probably the, the book is the first step.
Yeah.
By writing more about that in magazines and you know, I, I've, I've investigated
a lot about healing and about wellness and about consciousness, about who we are.
But now I've, I, I, I would never say I know because I, but now
I'm very comfortable with that and I have no question anymore
about who I am or who we are.
This is not a question.
Now, maybe I open to something else and maybe protecting nature
and taking care of environment.
It's part of it.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, if you trace your story and you look at, we started
with Bob Paul, and I know obviously your story in activism and writing
and filmmaking goes back before that.
We need a 10 part series to cover everything in Raja's life.
But what has been, theme running through the whole thing has been plants.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Plants are flowers.
Ayurveda is plants.
The free clinic.
The garden.
Yeah.
The healing power of plant medicine.
It's the, the, Hmm.
Plants.
You are, you are, you are, you are going into, you're talking
about creating environments.
That's plants and human life, as we know mm-hmm.
Cannot exist without oxygen.
And oxygen cannot happen without plants.
Mm-hmm.
So, and plants cannot happen without flowers because
flowers can make more plants.
So then we need bees, flies, bees.
We need that.
And if we need them, we need that.
And if we need them, and it, that's lovely for me because, you know, in my, in my
world, my activism was also human rights, but it was human rights for land rights.
And it was land rights for hunter gatherers who look after the
land, the plants on behalf of all of us, because they don't.
Exploit them.
They know truly how to conserve them.
And so we sort of rely on these people as the custodians because we go around
destroying the very thing that we need.
So if it's very dear to my heart, and actually I just got a phone call.
I've been out of that game for a while and I just got a phone call last week asking
me to come back in for the next stage.
And it's lovely because it means more protecting plants through people,
through the people that protect plants.
So I'm a hundred percent in agreement with you and I've
always been in love with plants.
My earliest memory that I have is of walking in the gar my
parents' house garden in London.
I think I must have been between three and five.
And I know it's a Sunday morning because the parents always used to
sleep in on a Sunday morning and we weren't allowed to disturb them.
So we'd wander around, you know, kids wake up at, you know, 5:00 AM so you're
wandering around wondering what to do.
And I remember walking, it was a sunny morning and the sun was
shining on the bricks of the wall, the old wall in the garden.
And there were flowers growing out of the wall and bees buzzing around the flowers.
And I heard God speak to me.
Directly and clearly through the flowers and the bees.
And it's, and it, I can't tell you the words of the conversation but I can
tell you that it was a conversation about being welcome and being happy
to see me there and excited for whatever part I was going to play.
And it, it felt, yeah, it was a welcome, really.
And I've, I'm in love with trees.
I've always been in love with trees.
In fact, look in my pocket right now, currently
I'm carrying acorns.
Oh, really?
So I plant, it's, it's November.
I'm in Spain.
All of the acorns are dropping.
And so what I do, and I've been doing this for about 30 years, is I go into the
city where there are oaks and chestnut trees and things like that, dropping their
acorns and their nuts on the concrete.
And I fill up bags.
Mm-hmm.
And I, you only have to push them in this deep.
Rejane D'Espirac: Okay.
And them, and
Rupert Isaacson: I did it along all the fences of my land and my friend's land.
So you don't need to own land to do this, but you need to know
someone who has a bit of land.
And I try to plant a tree for every day of my life.
Hmm.
And I've been doing that for, 'cause it, it's relatively easy.
You can, you can gather like 3000 acorns and then people
say, oh, what are you gonna do?
If they don't make it, it's like, I don't fucking care.
They're gonna go in the ground and the ones that don't make it will become soil.
And the ones that make it will make it.
And that's fine, you know, and some will live a bit and die, but they will still
photosynthesize and create some oxygen.
But anyway, when I go back now to Texas, in particular, where I began this process.
Oh, better part of 30 years ago maybe 25 years.
Those trees are now belts of forest that are about 30 feet high and go
over hundreds and hundreds of meters.
So I still do it to this day everywhere I go.
And I now gorilla it too well anywhere.
I know that it's unlikely to be cut.
I put them in and I watch them come up and they come up and I do it with
the autistic kids that I work with.
And they see their trees come up because if you put acorns in and fruit trees
as well, plums, peaches, cherries, if you put, I don't know, a hundred of
those things in, which is easy to do, in about 15 minutes you can be sure
that at least 5, 6, 7 will come up.
And the kids watch, they, they can see this direct cause and effect.
And I, I fell in love with this process a long time ago now when I'm working.
So now we work on a slightly bigger level with movement method.
And now I asked a friend of mine who's German who's also a politician
who runs a horse boy place.
I said, I want a forest.
And we got one and we got one in this county in Germany
where they planted a tree.
For every resident of the county, 325,000 trees.
I thought this is possible.
So now everywhere I go, like, I want a forest, and I've gotten a few.
It's amazing.
It's like if you don't ask, you don't get I got one in Ireland.
It's half a hillside of a place that we are developing for autism.
I said, I want a forest.
I got one.
I did another one.
I said, eat that little bit there.
I want that as a forest.
I got one, 3000 trees.
You know, it's incredible.
And I get really excited, as you can tell, I get quite excited.
Congratulations about forest.
It makes me flat, my hands like this.
I love trees.
I love them.
I, I I, I, I don't really have the words for how much I love trees.
And so flower is, it's a, it's a tree.
So I'm absolutely with you.
One thing I'm going to ask you to do mm-hmm.
I am a great lover of nature writing.
You might have noticed it's a predominantly male thing.
It's not only a male thing, but it's predominantly we have a bit of a lack,
I feel of good female nature writers.
It's not been as much of a tradition and I think it's needed.
There's another friend of mine that I'm.
Yapping at her heels, like a terrier to get her to write a book.
She works with the criminally insane in Michigan.
Okay.
With nature.
And she creates these beautiful pictures and she writes these
amazing short pieces and poems.
I'm like, dude, you've gotta publish this shit.
We, we need it.
I think we need Raja's Nature writing.
I mean, you've done it with your flower book.
Are you gonna make a film about flowers?
Rejane D'Espirac: I can.
It's not a Why you
Rupert Isaacson: want Raja's film about flowers.
Rejane D'Espirac: Okay.
I'll put that on my list.
Yeah, why not?
Rupert Isaacson: Why not?
Rejane D'Espirac: Hmm.
Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: It would be very interesting to trace in your own
story from Boal through your own body, through your other activism.
What have been the main flowers?
What have been the main plants that have been, have carried this story?
Hmm.
It would be very interesting.
I bet there's some silent heroes and heroines in the plant world that
probably show up in each of your stories.
Rejane D'Espirac: Hmm.
No, I've never thought about that.
What, what came, comes to me when you say that?
It just, the seeds of life.
I mean, there is something about seeds and seeds of life and okay.
I, I will check for the, I will, going to look for the error.
Rupert Isaacson: My friend Tim Smit, who has been on this podcast who runs two
things, the, the Eden Project in England, which is a, a rainforest under a roof.
Mm-hmm.
And it started with his project, the Lost Gardens of Halligan, which was
a, a garden that he restored and, and now he's running a national wildflower
center and a seed bank and a national repository for wildflowers in the uk.
Mm.
I think maybe you and he need to have a chat.
Okay.
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it, going from this human activism becoming
impassioned and upset, as you said at the beginning of this conversation,
by suffering, observing, suffering, when there could be healing, and
then getting involved in the story of healing personally for other people.
And now bringing it back to what is the process of that healing?
Plants and the flowers themselves.
And what are their personalities?
What's their energy?
What's their story?
I think maybe Rajan is a good person too.
Hmm.
Rejane D'Espirac: To put in your podcast.
Rupert Isaacson: Now, a lot of our listeners and viewers
are not French speakers.
Mm.
And so far you've been doing all your stuff in French.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Those of you listeners and viewers who do speak French, however, and there will
be some of you who do you might want to profit from checking out Raja's stuff.
Rajan, can you tell us how they will find your writings in your films and give them
a little list that they can write down?
'cause there will be people with their pens out right
now wanting to write it down.
What's your website and what are the books and what are the
films and how do they find them?
Rejane D'Espirac: Okay.
Everything is listed on my website, so website is my name.
Rupert Isaacson: So spell
Rejane D'Espirac: it.
We joined Reja Dera, which is R-E-J-A-N-E-D-E-S-P-I-R-A c.com.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Okay.
Reja is R-E-J-A-N-E.
Yeah.
Right.
And Deak, which should be de apostrophe, but yeah, you can't do
that when you're doing a, a web domain.
So D-E-S-S-P-I-I
Rejane D'Espirac: air RACC,
Rupert Isaacson: Deak, what a beautiful name.
Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: All French names are so depi.
It was, they always, they always sound to the English here, so poetic.
You know, it's I, I, when I'm speaking the people,
Rejane D'Espirac: Bo Country is on YouTube.
Rupert Isaacson: Say what?
Rejane D'Espirac: The, the boar documentary with English subtitles is,
Rupert Isaacson: is on YouTube.
Yeah.
Okay.
Tell us the name of the Boal documentary.
Sam
Rejane D'Espirac: Bna.
Rupert Isaacson: Spell it please.
Rejane D'Espirac: S-H-A-M-B-H-A-V-N-A.
Sam
Rupert Isaacson: Samba.
Shana?
Rejane D'Espirac: Yes.
Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: We will also be putting this in all the
show notes, by the way, guys.
So
Rejane D'Espirac: we'll send you the link.
You don't have
Rupert Isaacson: to remember this or if you haven't got it.
So Shana is the name of the free clinic, which is also the name of the boar
movie, about the recovery from this.
Rejane D'Espirac: Yes.
Because it means possibility.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
It means possibility in Hindi or in in Sans Sant, San San.
Yeah.
Okay.
And then your book?
Mm-hmm.
A baby at last or at last Baby.
And now your book about Flowers.
De
Rejane D'Espirac: Indeed.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
The Discreet Power of Flowers, discreet Flower Power.
Go on her website guys, if you've got some French, check it out.
Now here's the good news.
I'm also going to try to bully my agent into taking Raja's books
and jolly well, selling them to English speaking publishers so
that we can benefit from them.
Rajan, what's next?
What, what are the next projects for you?
Rejane D'Espirac: I'm finishing the writing of a book,
my first novel about Bob.
Ooh, about Boal today?
Well, it's not really a novel.
Rupert Isaacson: What's the story?
Rejane D'Espirac: Very inspired by real facts.
Yes.
But yes, it's kind of, what's
Rupert Isaacson: the story?
Tell us the story quickly.
Rejane D'Espirac: The story is is a, well, it's very basic story of a young
American journalist who happened to arrive in Boal now Oh, in 2024, because
she received a, a small black notebook, which is in fact the memory of Whan
Anderson, who were, who were the CEO of Union Carbide at the time of the accident.
So first part of the book is her, her discovering Bopa now, and the story
of the disaster told by the eyes of the CEO of the chemical company.
And second part is, is the, the erroring discovering the case of boal children.
Now all the disabled children in Boal, thanks to a free clinic that exists in
Bal a Day Hospital for disabled children.
And so she, the second parties meeting with his children and the, the
journal she creates with the children where they tell their daily life,
Rupert Isaacson: the CEO of Union Carbide.
The, the Indian CEO, not the American?
Rejane D'Espirac: No.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: The American.
The
Rejane D'Espirac: American.
CEO.
Rupert Isaacson: Is that dude still alive?
Rejane D'Espirac: No, no, no.
He he died in 2014.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Rejane D'Espirac: And he has never been judged nor condemned.
Rupert Isaacson: What, what are the legalistics of writing a
fictional journal about that bloke?
Like are you, are, do you skate on thin ice there with his
Rejane D'Espirac: No, I'm, I it's mostly based off what I know.
It was a way to tell the story.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
But
Rejane D'Espirac: I wanted to have the guy inside.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Rejane D'Espirac: And what it is to be responsible for such a, a disaster,
but having the impression right.
Or false that you are not responsible.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Yes.
'cause that would be my feeling.
I bet you he did not feel responsible.
Rejane D'Espirac: No, it was bigger than Im, it was in India.
It was far away.
It was because of Indian processes.
Right.
Which is totally true.
But it was also because the factory was badly designed to save cost.
And this is very American in a way when it's not based on their own country.
And the, all the legal part and trials have been in India because they didn't
want American law to be involved.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
Rejane D'Espirac: So they paid 500.
Dollars per people.
And that's it.
Rupert Isaacson: And also he, I, I presume that this CEO did not quietly with all the
money that you get when you are retired as A CEO, which we know is a lot of money.
He did not go and create a foundation for Of course.
No, no, no.
Of the No
Rejane D'Espirac: bought, he bought, he bought a house.
Yes.
He bought a beautiful house in Florida just to have peace from journalists.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes, yes.
Like you
Rejane D'Espirac: I see
Rupert Isaacson: they pe excited
Rejane D'Espirac: to give him a voice.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, how very nice of you.
Okay.
So there's that, that's,
Rejane D'Espirac: that's, it's gonna be published in September,
in France next September.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
And then
Rejane D'Espirac: for next year everything is opened.
So I still have my little project above movement method, but we need to,
Rupert Isaacson: okay.
Okay.
Yes.
We might be.
Those of you who are interested in movement method, Anne and I have
been talking for about 30 years about possibly doing some sort of
documentary around movement method.
I sort have time, Anne, you'll probably do it.
Yeah,
Rejane D'Espirac: yeah, yeah.
I've got slow processes.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes, yes, indeed.
When the time is right.
Always for these things.
What's the name of the, of the novel that
Rejane D'Espirac: in French, it's,
they will be our children.
Rupert Isaacson: They will be our children.
Okay.
I think we definitely need you being published in English.
Let me see if I can get to work on this a little bit.
Alright, my friend.
Well, listen, always a delight to talk to you.
Always.
Rejane D'Espirac: Same.
Thank you very much.
Rupert Isaacson: Thank you for this.
And then listeners and viewers, if you've got any questions
for Rajan, send it to us.
We'll send it to her.
I'll ask if she'll reply.
We'll,
Rejane D'Espirac: I will.
Rupert Isaacson: Meanwhile go check out her website and the amazing work she does.
We haven't touched on everything she does.
There's plenty of other things too.
So, there's one question I didn't ask you.
Yeah.
How do you
make it work economically to live this type of self-actualized life?
Rejane D'Espirac: That, that's a question.
Rupert Isaacson: It's possibly, it's possibly the most, or one of the most
financially unstable ways to make a life.
And yet you have and you do.
How'd you do it?
Rejane D'Espirac: Well, I start everywhere wondering, oh, I'm gonna
make a living for the, your coming.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
Rejane D'Espirac: And then I involved in a project and the life has always
been wonderful with me in a way.
Mm-hmm.
So well the, the, when I got a project, like a film a book I dedicate
weeks or months in a year for them.
But, but I make a living with journalism, with writing pieces for magazines.
This is my way to stabilize my income is to work for magazines
Rupert Isaacson: and in today's online world where so much
content is created artificially.
Rejane D'Espirac: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: This is still a viable way to make a living.
Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
Some of, I work for a couple of magazines mostly how do you say that?
Well, nature magazines or, so which kind of society do we want to, to
create magazines or stuff like that.
And it's beautiful paper magazines and I mostly reporter, so I mostly write
stories about initiatives on the ground.
So there is, this is a very tiny place where being there.
There is an added value of a human being being there on the ground
because it's not only information, it's about feeling and meeting people.
And well, more and more I assume that my job is subjective.
That it's only my point of view and it's only my feelings about it.
So I just transmit my views and my feelings.
And this IA can do that.
Not, not on the same way for the moment.
So this is my chance.
I'm highly subjective and people read me because it's subjective.
Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
Rejane D'Espirac: And so yes, but it's more and more tricky and it's more and
more tricky because I'm getting older too.
And it's and it's a real issue to be a woman over 50 in a world that
doesn't need meet so much anymore on a more professional or business way.
Mm.
So it's less and less easy to have a place on the very mainstream magazines because
you've got young people and that's normal.
There are sorties, they've got ideas, they've got energy, they
don't have kids, and they don't take a lot of money and they do the job.
Hmm.
So, more and more I accept to go on my personal projects and to.
To have faced enough to work with them and to hope they are gonna make a living
for me, because I have no choice, in fact.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
How much of a, how much of a role does optimism play?
Rejane D'Espirac: I wouldn't have say optimism, confidence
more, but not self-confidence.
Rupert Isaacson: But you must have an optimi, you must have an expectation of a
good outcome based upon your experience.
Rejane D'Espirac: I know that if I am
authentic enough, if I don't want to do good, and if I don't
want to answer to standards,
Rupert Isaacson: yes.
Rejane D'Espirac: If I do my stuff from my heart, it's gonna work.
Rupert Isaacson: I think you just defined optimism actually.
It's a very good Yes, because it's, it's confidence from a, it's
based on, you know, experience.
Well, but there was a point where you had to start without that experience.
Yeah.
Yes.
Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
But it was easier.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
I, I didn't start 25 years ago being so much involved in my
topics, and I started as a travel writer, and it was more like taking
Rupert Isaacson: observation
Rejane D'Espirac: advantage of my experience and talking about
people, but not being so involved.
But then I met people and it was impossible for me not to be involved.
And years after years, we find found ways to have our views and voices
heard, but it's always very unstable and it's always very, it's difficult,
but you, I can remember having a di a conversation with you about margins.
And I guess my work is a lot about margins and in a way I have to
accept to be part of it, margin.
Rupert Isaacson: But the margins interestingly, is where the most
food is usually because Yes.
Rejane D'Espirac: And it's, oh, it's where creativity is and it's, so,
it's of course, it start from that,
Rupert Isaacson: the, the meeting of one world to another world.
That's where the richness is, whether it's ecologically or whether it's
Rejane D'Espirac: yes, fertilization.
Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
But I think I guess, go ahead.
I'll
Rejane D'Espirac: not say no.
To big bestseller and be, you know, indeed and able to do more in a way.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, it sounds, it sounds like the Bo Pal thing, you're
sort of on that, on that journey.
I think I, I could see a book like that being very successful.
It's also cinematic, obviously or television.
You may not yet be doing this, but I suspect that's something else you
probably should be doing is mentoring.
Hmm.
I would imagine there's a lot of young people wanting to start off, you know,
I get this too, when people say, Rupert, how do you, how do you make it work?
And you know, like, oh, go on.
Yeah.
And you know, you, I remember when I, when I was first sort of going out in
the world and establishing myself, you know, with writing and journalism, but I
was feeding myself through manual labor.
I just worked on building sites, farms, trained horses.
Sometimes I didn't eat, you know, that sort of thing.
And then you just sort of keep a momentum, but you do have
to have a kind of optimism.
You do have, you know, and I'm very interested in the psychology
of optimism because I think we're an optimistic species.
People say, oh no, I'm not.
I'm a pessimist.
But actually.
There's now so many studies coming out saying optimism tends to actually look
what result in good outcomes, whether it's health, whether it's economic,
because it just means you are actively looking for solutions rather than
assuming that there are no solutions.
But it does mean that yes, you have to become comfortable with a certain
degree of instability, but that instability is of course what allows
you to be able to follow the story.
But I, I do think that someone, you talked about being over 50, a woman and so on,
you're now able to give some wisdom.
And quite a few of my friends are now starting to do this.
I should imagine, you know, there'll be people listening to this and watching
this who are thinking, I would quite like to do something like Raja's done.
You know, could I, could I pay her some money to mentor me?
Rejane D'Espirac: I, in fact, people came to me to, to help them writing.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
And you know, it's very relative, unstability, when I spend time in
Bal, my unstability is quite, whoa.
Well,
Rupert Isaacson: that is so true.
You wanna talk
Rejane D'Espirac: about the same business?
Mm, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
There's nothing like a bit of perspective.
Rejane D'Espirac: I'm healthy, my son is healthy.
We've got a roof.
Well, everything's, yeah.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Okay.
Rejane D'Espirac: Thanks a lot.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, thank you.
It's a pleasure.
Rejane D'Espirac: Such a pleasure.
Rupert Isaacson: Such a pleasure.
Always.
I can't wait for the next conversation.
Rejane D'Espirac: Oh, let's plan it.
Rupert Isaacson: Do that.
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