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In a world that feels increasingly chaotic, uncertain, and hard to make sense of, Realms of Curiosity with Sarah and Wendy offers a different kind of conversation.
Drawing from shamanic practice, psychology, and decades of firsthand experience with non-ordinary reality, Sarah and Wendy explore the deeper forces shaping our inner and outer worlds—from intuition and consciousness to deception, transformation, and the shifting nature of truth itself.
They don’t claim to have answers. Instead, they follow curiosity into the unknown—questioning, exploring, and inviting you to do the same.
Because in times like these, curiosity might be one of the most powerful tools we have.
Welcome to Realms of Curiosity. Listen in as two friends explore the mysteries of the universe through the lens of their otherworldly experiences.
Wendy:Hey there. Welcome to Realms of Curiosity. My name is Wendy Halley.
Sarah:And I'm Sarah Finlay.
Wendy:Yeah. And we're gonna be we're gonna be talking about the shit that interests us, which is what what what would you say how would you describe what interests us?
Sarah:It's very vast, and Wendy and I are doing this because we would have these incredible conversations about shit that interests us, and we think it's kind of interesting, realm of curiosity. I mean, maybe nobody else on earth will think it's interesting, but we think it's interesting.
Wendy:There's a good chance no one will find it interesting.
Sarah:Yeah. But we're gonna have fun doing it. And then when our when we're dead and buried, people will go, who the fuck are these two people?
Wendy:Well, do you find it interesting so far? Are we are you having fun?
Sarah:I'm having fun. Anyway, let's get on.
Wendy:Lying. Yeah. Okay. Curiosity. Yeah.
Wendy:We we we are curious creatures, you and I, and we do. We end up having these really cool conversations. And it's interesting because we don't always intend to have these long conversations.
Sarah:My dog is It's funny. Interested to speak also. This is my puppy. Anyway, you can go back to sleep. Thank you.
Wendy:Well, you shouldwhat's his name? You should tell us his name!
Sarah:This is Finnegan. He's a rescue from the Altadena fires that happened out here last January. Nobody came.
Wendy:I didn't know that. Yeah. Oh, buddy.
Sarah:Yeah. And when I got him, he was, like, batshit nuts. And we're getting there now with him not being crazy. But, anyway so here's something I think we should say. What the the realms that we are interested in, of course, are you and I have strangely similar backgrounds.
Sarah:We have an interest in art and theater. We are both
Wendy:I don't know about theater for me, but go ahead.
Sarah:Okay. We can We debate both have degrees in psychology and we've both been studying shamanism for how many years? Thirty years?
Wendy:Yeah. I think I started studying in 2001, so a little bit less than thirty.
Sarah:Close. Yeah. A long time.
Wendy:And then you when did you start?
Sarah:I don't know what year it was because my brain doesn't think that way, but it's been about thirty years. Twenty five Yeah. And we studied different shamanism, different kinds. I studied with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies and other spiritual teachers. And you
Wendy:And I studied primarily with- I did do a workshop with the foundation way way back in my early my that was actually my first workshop, just a little weekend workshop. But then I ended up studying primarily with, a man named Hank Wesselman.
Sarah:And that's Hawaiian shamanism.
Wendy:Yeah. That's from the Hawaiian/ Polynesian tradition. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, we we've been, kind of exploring these worlds.
Wendy:We both work with people doing shamanic work. We've been so we've had these active practices for a really long time. And and, again, have a shared psychology background. And the theater thing, I don't know I don't know about that, but, I mean, I'm interested in film and television. Is that what you meant?
Sarah:Well, didn't you Did you mean that? Kind of a stand up thing. You did training in in what's it called?
Wendy:You're talking about improv? Improv.
Sarah:Didn't you?
Wendy:That's just yeah. That's just been for fun just so I could try to not be so awkward with
Sarah:Did it work?
Wendy:Apparently not. No. I but I I participate in burlesque shows.
Sarah:So that's what I was Okay.
Wendy:Alright. Yeah. But I'm I'm like a vocal side prop.
Wendy:Just provide vocals as these sexy people take their clothes off.
Sarah:Oh, you know I never knew that. No? I thought you took your clothes off too.
Wendy:Oh, no. No, I do not do that. No.
Sarah:I had this impression of what that was because we've never really talked deeply about that
Wendy:but No. So yeah. That's that's so, yeah, I guess that's theatrical because I have to wear outfits for that. Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah:Yeah. One of my degrees is in studio art, so I had a big background in painting and drawing and all that kind of stuff because I was going to become an art therapist.
Wendy:Oh, okay.
Sarah:I started my art therapy degree, and one of the features of art therapy was shamanism. My brain Really? Yeah. Yeah. It was like an intro art therapy thing, and they talked about Shamanism.
Sarah:And I thought, what is Shamanism? And I became it was very small, but it it lit a fire in my brain.
Wendy:And so that was your very first introduction to Shamanism? Yep. No kidding. Wow. Was that undergrad?
Sarah:I was doing a second bachelor's degree because my first degrees were psychology education, and then I was doing a second bachelor's degree in studio arts
Wendy:because Oh, that was your major.
Sarah:Okay. All right. Yeah, in order to go on with art therapy.
Wendy:Okay.
Sarah:I never got there. I ended up dropping out of the program and starting to study shamanism. And it I mean, it was like my reason to be on Earth was finally revealed because before that, I didn't know why I was on Earth, particularly.
Wendy:How cool is that? So, really, it was a means to an end that go taking that studio arts degree? Yes. But you didn't know that until
Sarah:Yeah.
Wendy:How cool is that?
Sarah:Years later. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It was very cool.
Sarah:And in fact, it even got more complicated than that because what happened was I started reading about Shamanism, and then a few years later, I was doing a lot of writing and I was one of my characters was a woman, middle aged woman, who was really stuck in her life, like in art, art, hating life. And I didn't know what to do with her. And one night I was having a glass of wine with a friend and I said, I know, she'll go see a shaman. But of course, I really didn't know what that would involve. So, I had to Google shamans in Vermont, which is where I was living at the time.
Sarah:And I found somebody that looked interesting. And I went to see her, and she did a soul retrieval for me. Her name was Susan Grimaldi, incredible healer, Native American shamanic healer. And my whole orientation to myself changed. And I called her up and I said, I don't know what you did to me, but this is incredible.
Sarah:I started studying with her, before the foundation, in fact.
Wendy:So that was your that was your that's your origin story?
Sarah:That's my origin story. Yep.
Wendy:How cool is that? And so you yeah. It was kinda like you're doing research and development on your story. Like, yeah, you called up the Shamanic practitioner to so I could write about this. Is that that was the whole
Sarah:Yeah. I was gonna yeah. I was gonna use it to to unstick my character, but I unstuck myself. I it was remarkable, really. I mean, I feel like I was being guided for many years into this.
Sarah:But, anyway, what about you? Let's talk about you. How did it all happen?
Wendy:My origin story, so I would say that I I could could start back with just for the record that so when I was I was my parents put me in Catholic school. And when I was 12, I came home from school, and at dinner, I guess I announced, the story goes, that there is no God. Can I please go to public school next year? Interesting. I, I became an atheist at that point.
Sarah:How old were you?
Wendy:I was 12. 12. And and my parents were cool. They they put me in public school, and so, that's kind of that's where my head was at or my and I I guess by by definition, I'm still an atheist. So atheism, it's like it's the absence of a god.
Wendy:I don't know if I buy into the concept of a god, so I'll just put that out there. But I, my I started, like, when I was in my mom died when I was 24, and that kind of cracked me open a little bit in that, she used to talk a lot about our ancestry and talked a lot about, there's some native in our background. My great grandmother was allegedly full full native and but she was adopted by a southern white family when she was, like, six or seven.
Sarah:Which people were her?
Wendy:Cherokee.
Wendy:Oh. I guess she got reinstated to reenrolled in the tribe when she before she died in the nineteen seventies.
Sarah:Wow. I didn't know that.
Wendy:Yeah. And so my mom would talk about, she planted these little seeds in my head about, the Trail of Tears and
Sarah:Oh, interesting.
Wendy:And she would get she'd have her anger about how natives had been treated and, and then my
Wendy:how the racism that my grandmother and her sister experienced being half breeds even though my grandmother looks very Norwegian because my great grandmother married a Norwegian man. I guess my grandmother had to defend her sister a lot because she looked more native.
Sarah:So were your ancestors on the Trail Of Tears? Did they
Wendy:I don't know. But they I know she was adopted in Missouri. So that's I don't know.
Sarah:It's somewhere along the line.
Wendy:Yeah. Yeah. And, so those seeds were planted in my head, and, I was finishing up my bachelor's degree, which was in media arts, which is video and print journalism, creative writing, and psychology. And then I, I went on to study clinical psych for graduate school. And when I was in graduate school, I was kind of thinking, there's gotta be something more.
Wendy:And so mom had died and this seed had planted in my head that I just was kind of curious, like, does consciousness survive death? So I was starting to ask these questions, and I had this really cool experience when we illegally, I probably shouldn't be saying this, spread her ashes. I won't say where.
Sarah:But you think they're gonna come and get you now?
Wendy:I don't know. Well, it was it was the Grand Canyon. We
Sarah:I'm sure there's a lot of ashes in the Grand Canyon.
Wendy:Yeah. Know. We didn't know it was illegal at the time we found out afterwards. So sorry. And it put other than all the chemotherapy, she was organic.
Sarah:Yes.
Wendy:But what had happened with that story is that, my brother had found this, like, perfect the sun was setting, and he'd found this perfect, little chunk of of rim that was sort of jutting out over the canyon. And and there was a there was a fence around it, and there was no one around except a bunch of German tourists.
Sarah:And
Wendy:we the three of us, my dad, my brother, and I went to this little section, and we each did our thing, of spreading mom's ashes just quietly with reverence. And then when we finished, my dad took the remaining ashes, and then he poured them over the fence, and they created this huge dust cloud. And then I saw this raptor fly through the middle of the dust cloud up into the sky. And I was like, wow. That's really freaking cool.
Wendy:And so I asked my my brother recently. I said, do you remember that that huge bird that flew through the dust cloud when dad spread mom's ashes? He's like, what are you talking about? And I was like, you didn't see that?
Sarah:Oh, that's interesting.
Wendy:So that may have been my first vision, but I just didn't know it
Sarah:Yeah. Exactly.
Wendy:At that time. So fast forward a couple of years, I finished graduate school, and then, like, a a couple years out of graduate school was '98, I had my first, what I would call, like, a spontaneous waking dream.
Wendy:And that was a a very intriguing and talking about curiosity, I was super curious about it. I I can I'll just give you the highlights of it because it's it's, I'm already going on and on and on anyway. But I was living in Denver at the time, and I had just woken up. It was a Saturday morning. And, I hear my neighbor mowing his lawn, and I hear his kids playing, and I'm pissed because I I have really bad eyesight.
Wendy:And I squinted and looked at the digital clock, and it was like 07:57. Nobody should be fucking mowing their lawn that early on a Saturday. It should be against the law. I was pissed.
Sarah:I think it is, actually.
Wendy:Maybe not in Denver.
Sarah:Maybe not in Denver.
Wendy:Yeah. But it's Los Angeles. So I was like, this is my morning. I yeah. I'm I'm off.
Wendy:I wanna sleep. So I went back to I I closed my eyes, and as soon as I closed my eyes, I'm looking out of the eyes of someone else.
Wendy:I am walking down this hallway that's very industrial looking. It's got the fluorescent lights, the the tile floor, and I'm I looked down and I this is not me. I'm just sort of like this vicarious I this person I standing. Yeah. I'm just like like looking out of her eyes.
Wendy:I look down with her eyes, and I see she's wearing sort of like, almost like a hospital garb.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Wendy:And, she's in shackles, and she's got a guard on either side of her, and they're escorting her down this hallway. And then I looked to the left, and there's, like, a a window in the hall, and there's people in there, like, waiting room in this behind that window. And I know she's being led to her execution. And then my Wendy consciousness is like, what the hell is going on? Am I am I dreaming or am I awake?
Wendy:And then I would sort of shift my focus back into my bedroom. Mhmm. And and I would hear the lawnmower and the kids playing, and I'd be like, no. I'm I'm awake. I am very much awake.
Wendy:And then I would go back and then I'd be a little bit farther in linear time. And and then I see a memory of hers and this woman is saying goodbye to somebody. And then my brain starts shifting who this person is into somebody who I know in kung fu. I studied Shaolin kung fu at the time. And, and so he must have looked similar to this guy named Lloyd.
Wendy:And then I felt like she was devoid of feelings, like she was really flat. And I I felt like, well, there's something she's mentally, not quite balanced with her. And and so I go through that experience, check back in to see, am I awake? It's because I kept doing that the whole time.
Sarah:Do you know how much time was passing in there?
Wendy:I'll get to that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Then I hear the lawnmower, the kids playing, I go back in, and now I've I'm I'm I'm seated in a very hard chair, and I feel I feel brackets, oh, like, being clamped down over my arms and my legs, and I can no longer see. There's something over my head.
Wendy:I know she's Caucasian. I know she has she had long hair, and she's really young. And and then I go through the death experience with her.
Sarah:Wow.
Wendy:And I that's a a longer piece that I could go into more detail with, but I won't. And then, right as soon as the current because it's the electric chair. The current hits her body, she pops out, and I'm, like, popping out too.
Sarah:Woah. Great.
Wendy:Like, before. And then I just looked down, and I see her body convulsing, and then this this it's not a human sound that comes out of her. Just this involuntary sound comes out of her body Right. As it's dying and being pulsed with this current. And then, and then I look around, and I'm just in, like, bright darkness.
Wendy:And I just I remember saying to myself, did I just die?
Sarah:Yeah. Good question.
Wendy:And and I said, well, isn't there supposed to be a light or a tunnel or whatever? I was being a smartass because I was like because at at that time, I believed that I I was that more materialist Yeah. Atheist where it's like when you die, you die. That's it. You're done.
Wendy:And then, I look to my left, and I see this diamond of light, really bright light. And then, like, the ends of the diamond or the edges of the diamond or the points, I should say, create this horizon. Uh-huh. And I know I can't go there.
Sarah:Because if you do, you will die.
Wendy:I guess. I don't know. I just know I can't go there, and I'm
Sarah:That was a question even though I didn't raise it as a question. Yeah.
Wendy:Yeah. And then and then I I shifted my focus back in my body because it seemed like that whole experience was winding down. And that's the only time I got a little frightened because I couldn't move my body. It was, like, frozen. And then I just sort of wiggled my fingers a little bit, my toes, and then I started to feel like I could move my arms.
Wendy:And then I looked over at the clock and it was like 08:05.
Sarah:And it had been what time in the beginning?
Wendy:07:57. It was Oh,
Sarah:07:57. That's right.
Wendy:It was it was like just Like All that happened in a very short period of time. But it felt super expansive and hyper realistic. So that was that was, like, a really interesting thing. I wrote it all down. The date, it was, like, I think it was, like, 08/21/1998 that I had that experience.
Wendy:And and then from there, I not long after that, I was just curious. I didn't tell anybody about it because I'm now a licensed clinician, mental health clinician, and I I'm delusional. I was delusional by definition, Western psychological standards. Yeah. And I I, I was embarrassed.
Wendy:So I told my now favorite husband about it. He was the only person I I told. We weren't married at that time, but and but I just kept it a secret. And then
Sarah:I just when you said that, I wondered if you had other unfavourite husbands. I thought, oh, has she been married before? The way you said that oh, you have been married?
Wendy:Yeah. I have my least favorite husband and my favorite husband.
Sarah:Oh, I didn't know you were married before. See, I'm learning to see all kinds of new things that are coming out. You've never told me you were married before.
Wendy:Yeah. Okay. It was very brief. Yeah. After a long relationship, but it was brief.
Wendy:But anyway, I
Sarah:Oh, was that the guy out here in California?
Wendy:No. Oh. Was I with somebody in California?
Sarah:I don't know. Sorry. I'm getting a
Wendy:Oh, I lived out there with him.
Sarah:Yeah. Yeah. Oh, with him. Yeah. Yeah.
Wendy:Yeah. Yeah. With the with the first one. Yeah.
Sarah:Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Wendy:Tucked that away. And and then I I thought I was starting to kind of open up to other other things like more esoteric stuff and I was gonna I I think I'm gonna teach a workshop. And I went to this place in Denver to see if I could rent some workshop space and I asked, what do you guys do here? And they said, well, we have a shaman. And I was like, sign me up for a session. And I couldn't afford the shaman, so I went to her apprentice.
Sarah:That's so funny. Yeah.
Wendy:And so I
Sarah:got I got the real shaman in my life. You got the answer.
Wendy:And then I, that's when I had another series of visionary experiences on that woman's table that were; those ones felt more intense and more personal. Where the first the first person I connected within that first vision, the electric chair, I she felt like a stranger to me. I don't I still don't know why I had that I had that particular vision. So that that I mean, all kinds of
Sarah:That was a a past life, other timeline?
Wendy:Not mine. Nope. Because the other visions were mine.
Sarah:Oh, so you don't think that one was
Wendy:No. There was a distinct difference between Uh-huh. This woman could still be alive and on death row.
Sarah:Wow. Right. Of course. She could be.
Wendy:Yeah.
Sarah:She could have the timeline thing. Right? You don't know? Wow. That's a thought.
Sarah:Have you ever thought of doing research into?
Wendy:Yeah, I don't even know if I want to say her name. Oh. Out loud. Only because, yeah, only because.
Sarah:So you know her name?
Wendy:I think so, yeah.
Sarah:And but you haven't researched, like, where she
Wendy:Years later, I was at a staying at a friend's house, and I picked up they were out for a minute, left me in their house alone, and I picked up an o magazine, the Oprah magazine. I was just flipping through it, and I I kept coming there's a full page picture of this woman. And I was looking at it, and then I just I kept going through the magazine. I kept coming back to that picture. I'm like, why does she look so familiar?
Wendy:It seemed familiar. And then I read the article. It was about, about teenagers who committed heinous crimes. Should they be tried as adults? Wow.
Wendy:And then I was like, oh. And then then this this particular woman was on death row. And, and, yeah, she had committed the crime, like, a couple years before I had my vision, or she was incarcerated, I think. Wild story. Couple years before.
Wendy:Yeah. And so this particular woman is still alive for now. You really sir.
Sarah:Could begin the whole process with visions and truly the dream time was actually
Wendy:That's that's yeah. That's how I was and then, like, all these cool synchronicities happened that led me to shamanism, but I never knew I never I had a Hollywood view of what shamanism was at that time, but Right. I never would have connected the two. In fact, I never connected those initial visionary experiences until I met Hank. Right.
Wendy:And he talked about how some people might be introduced to this work, and that is one way that some people are introduced because they have a near death experience or some people are just curious or feel a call of some sort. Yeah.
Sarah:For for me too, my experiences were not as profound as that. There were more just small experiences. One day, sitting in Vermont out on my deck, and a hummingbird, loads of hummingbirds there, just kind of like zoomed in and looked at me and was hovering there, and then would go away and come back and come back and come back. And I reflected on this bird, like what a magical creature it was, because And I started to study hummingbirds after this experience. But what interested me about it was the fact that its wings were moving so quickly that I couldn't see them.
Sarah:And that lit a flame. Else am I not seeing in this world?
Wendy:Ah, okay.
Sarah:This was long before now everybody and their dog understands that we only see a small portion of the big reality. We only hear a small portion of sound. But at the time, I hadn't started to read things about that or anything. It was just like the light went on. Like, what am I not seeing?
Sarah:And again, I started writing a short story about a girl who has the hummingbird experience and then decides that by the end of the summer, she wants to train herself to see the wings moving. So she wants to increase her capacity for vision to the point where she can see the wings. But what happens to her is, as she's doing this, she starts to see the spirit world.
Wendy:Ah, cool. So it was was just gonna ask, do you feel like there could there have been a part of you, do you think, that was giving you some hints?
Sarah:Yeah. I think life was giving me hints from the time I was a child. You know, life was was saying, hey. Look at this. What about that?
Sarah:Because the spiritual realms were always so But it wasn't like there were long experiences. There was just like, what's that? And I went to England to visit my family, and I spent the night with my uncle, my grandfather's brother, and his family. We went there, and he was a trance medium. He was very old already at the time.
Sarah:And trance mediums were a big thing in England during certain times. He would go around and do trance mediumship and whatnot. I didn't
Wendy:The spiritualism movement?
Sarah:The spiritualist movement. Exactly. And he invited me into his office, which was this incredible old room with a billion books. He sat me down and he started talking about what it was that he did, what this mediumship was all about. And I was like, Woah, this guy's a freak.
Sarah:I don't know. I was 17, and I had had some things, but nothing like that. And then he got up and he put his hand on my head and he closed his eyes and he said, You can be a medium. You have the same blood that I have. The plasma is different.
Sarah:And he opened his eyes, and that's all he said about it. And I thought, Woah. What the hell? What the hell? This guy is like a freak, and I don't know what he's talking about.
Sarah:And, yeah.
Wendy:So did you reject it at that time? Or
Sarah:I rejected it, but I was curious. You know? Like, again, the curious thing gets activated. Like, the humming like, curious, curious, always. Mhmm.
Sarah:And then weirdly, that same night, I went up to bed. I was at the top of the stairs in this ancient house, went up to bed ahead of everybody else because I was tired. We had been traveling, whatnot. And I got in bed, and I kept feeling like somebody was watching me. And I turned the light on, and I was getting kind of freaked out by the feeling, and I thought, Oh, I don't know.
Sarah:I went back downstairs, and he said, Oh, I thought you were going to sleep. And I said, No, I just have this weird feeling like somebody's watching me. And he said, Oh, that's Lucy. And I was like, Who's Lucy? Like, the classic story from the time, but it was true.
Sarah:He said Lucy had been a very wealthy woman, and she was gonna marry, and she had built this house for her and her husband. He jilted her, and she hung herself in the stairway. And he said she was around often, and that's who I had felt. And he said he never told people about that because he didn't most people would be kind of weirded out by it or whatever. But he said he found it interesting that I had And the question was in my mind at that time, because I was weirded out but curious.
Sarah:Like, when he put his hand on my head, had he brought something out
Wendy:Activated to something or
Sarah:Activated something that was there that he knew was there, but I didn't. And, you know, if he had never done that, would I have experienced Lucy? Would I have had experienced a lot of the other magical things that started happening in my life as I got older?
Wendy:That and it also, could it be that you, that seed was planted of possibility, which made you unconsciously Exactly. Open to the perception of Exactly.
Sarah:Yeah. Would I have perceived that if that seed hadn't? So when you think about all the seeds that are planted in our lives, I think isn't that why we're making this video pod thing, whatever this is, making this thing?
Wendy:That we're doing brilliantly at.
Sarah:By the way, isn't it that we want to maybe light some fires out there in the world so that people will become curious? And it's not just about you and I. It's about we're living in a time, in this world, that is pretty tricky to navigate.
Wendy:Just a little bit, yeah.
Sarah:A little bit, yeah. And there are people that are wondering, Is this all there is? But it's not all there is. I think this particular timeline that we're living in is is so restricting and so dark and so difficult that isn't it that we want people to realize that there's hummingbirds and dreams and Magic. Magic.
Sarah:There's magic.
Wendy:And possibility. I think that's my my first favorite word is lucid, then possibility Possibility. Is is my second new favorite word. So, yeah, I think I think the idea it's like that childlike
Sarah:Yeah.
Wendy:Curiosity which opens the door for possibility.
Sarah:Yeah. Yeah. Think these words for that.
Wendy:Wonderful gift to give yourself is that instead of closing doors is to open doors and Yeah. And explore. See
Sarah:Sure. For sure.
Wendy:What's possible. I think
Sarah:And it's fun. It's so much fun exploring, and you get such a kick out of it. And I don't mean a kick out of it in a in a tacky way, but like an energetic kick out of it. You know?
Wendy:I'm trying to imagine what a tacky kick is.
Sarah:Oh, you know. Maybe I don't know. I don't even know if I know what I mean.
Wendy:Yeah. Well, I it's yeah. Well, I think the conclusion I all of my years of doing this work of having a foot in two different worlds Mhmm. And I imagine you can attest to this too, is that the the only conclusion I can keep coming to is that reality is complicated.
Sarah:Yeah. It's so much bigger than we're allowed to think or we're programmed to think. Right. You know?
Wendy:And that's that's the oops. I'm just I keep banging my mic. Sorry. That's the thing that I think is exciting is that that's where all the possibilities really live is in the spaces beyond the physical reality. Exactly.
Wendy:Realms beyond physical reality.
Sarah:Exactly.
Wendy:Which can make physical reality more tolerable, I think, is when you start opening these other doors and get getting different perspectives.
Sarah:Yeah. Exactly. I mean, when I work with people, I emphasize that the programmed mind is way boring. And to get out of it as much as possible into the I call it you call it possibility. I call it the realm of infinite potential.
Sarah:It's just like, let's go there rather than staying. And I envision the programmed mind as almost like a drum that just keeps going around and around and around with the same boring stuff in it all the time. You know?
Wendy:That sounds like being human. Yeah. That's or at least in our culture. Yeah. Absolutely.
Sarah:And we're we're encouraged to be there, I think, you know, and and so I encourage people to not be there. Like, what else can we explore? Like, leave behind the ego mind and go to the higher self. Like, how does that feel? Feels better.
Wendy:Yeah. Well, the idea that you're more than just this physical person. Yeah. It's that's part of you, but there's it's there's it's pretty rich. Right?
Wendy:That there's a lot more.
Sarah:It's it's all of consciousness that we have the possibility of connecting to.
Wendy:But I think the thing we're both kind of pointing to is that this is what we're promoting is this idea that it's beyond the mental. Like, it's not about an intellectual understanding of the nature of reality. It's about having direct experience that can help you reform or reshape your view of how things work and how you fit in the world and who you are, who you really are.
Sarah:Who you really are. Which is so interesting and fun and exciting. And so that's why we're doing this. Right? That's what this is our introduction to all the topics we wanna talk about, which is pretty extensive.
Wendy:We have a long list.
Sarah:We have a long list.
Wendy:Of things we would love to talk about with each other, yeah.
Sarah:And it's not like you and I are the authority on anything. We're not. Please. No. We just want to we like exploring things.
Sarah:And that's why you and I have had so much fun in our friendship too, because when we talk, it's like, yeah. And what about this? And what about like, we go into the ideas, the infinite potential.
Wendy:Yeah. There's no boundaries around our conversations. And so it it seemed like it would be fun to record them. And then if you wanna eavesdrop on these, and maybe it'll offer a spark or some sort of inspiration to explore Yeah. On your own, have your own direct experiences, which I highly encourage.
Wendy:My wish is that everyone become their own shaman. Wouldn't that be cool if everyone became their own shaman?
Sarah:I taught a workshop with that title a few times.
Wendy:Oh, you did? Yeah. Alright. And that's the name of my online course. Oh.
Sarah:That's so funny. Yep. You and I See?
Wendy:We're See? It's like And we're on opposite coasts too.
Sarah:Should we mention that? You're in Vermont.
Wendy:I'm in Vermont, you And used to you're in, shaman to the stars.
Sarah:I'm not a shaman. Don't want to get into that fight with any.
Wendy:No. No. We yeah. We we actually you want to talk about that right now?
Sarah:Yeah. Go ahead. Do it. Yeah. It's important before we get any kind of
Wendy:I refer to myself as a practitioner.
Sarah:Me too.
Wendy:I've learned shamanic technique.
Sarah:Yep. Me too.
Wendy:But I remember Hank, and this really stayed with me. Hank Wesselman, he talked about he used to say, if someone calls themselves a shaman, you should run-in the other direction. Yes. Because in his from his perspective, that word, which we all kind of use now, I mean, not every culture because sham we can talk more about we'll talk more more about shamanism in a in another conversation.
Wendy:But but, the idea is that your community would be the one.
Sarah:That calls you a shaman.
Wendy:That calls you a shaman if you earn Yeah. Earn that that title by demonstrating skill.
Sarah:Yeah. Yeah.
Wendy:And I I like that. I like the idea. So, I mean Yeah. And, again, the word shaman is something we in the Western world are now using to refer to this practice, but not every culture has used that word.
Sarah:Yeah. We we could do a whole thing on this topic because it's it's pretty interesting, and I'm sure we've both had experiences that were complicated around around this stuff. And, anyway.
Wendy:I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to, but
Sarah:Probably yes. But we won't get into that today. Should we say what some of the things are that we are going to be curious about in our Yeah,
Wendy:and maybe it'll spark some curiosity to the to the one person who's watching this.
Sarah:Yes. Exactly.
Wendy:Yeah. That's are we are we getting ahead of ourselves by thinking that one person's gonna be watching this or listening?
Sarah:Who knows? Who knows? Yeah. Yeah. What
Wendy:gonna talk about shamanism and a lot of our experiences exploring our curiosities around through using shamanic technique to explore
Sarah:Yeah.
Wendy:Our curiosities and what we discovered as a result of these adventures we've had in these shamanic realms.
Sarah:Yeah. And we're gonna talk about consciousness and reality and what we think happens in a variety of situations. Like, what do we think happens when you die? What do we like but nothing is set in stone. There is the realm of infinite potential.
Sarah:And I think that's the great thing about being able to discuss this. It's like, How do you think this works? And how do I think it works? And maybe, how do other people think it works? You know, there's I don't like, people who say, yes, there's, like, past life, and it's this and it's that.
Sarah:Like, I don't feel comfortable with that.
Wendy:Well, yeah, we do live in the age of the expert where there's a great a great degree of high degree of certainty about things. And
Sarah:we are not experts. So that's That's scary.
Wendy:Yeah. No. No. And yeah. I think you're bringing up a great point.
Wendy:We're talking about our experiences through our the frame of reference that we each individually have. So it's colored by our beliefs, our cultural worldview Yep. And it's just our experience.
Sarah:Our experience. And it changes, like, from week to week. It's like, oh, yes. Now I learned this little piece of how does that fit in with what I previously thought?
Wendy:Or Yeah. Read a book or you It's a great point. Yeah. And, yeah, if you think about the how you were in the early days of practicing versus how who you are now.
Sarah:Yeah. Yeah. Wow.
Wendy:Yeah. I know. Right?
Sarah:Yeah. You
Wendy:you can't have a conversation with a tree and be the same person afterwards.
Sarah:No. You really can't. And, the fact that you and I get to work with so many people, and I think it's a real gift from the universe, because through working with all those people, our understanding is always growing. It's not like this, you know, this is the way it is. This is how consciousness is.
Sarah:It's like, oh, there's that piece of it that you can pull from I don't know. I feel like I've been given the greatest gift, especially moving to Los Angeles because I do see so many people here. And it's such a rich place of You know, everybody badmouths Hollywood and Los Angeles, but it's really a place with people who are very out of the box in terms of explorations. They're
Wendy:I know. Which makes sense. It's the nature of that industry. Right? It is.
Wendy:Exactly. It's it's yeah. About expression or artistic expression.
Sarah:It is. And it's about Story. Yep. The people channel when they act. You know?
Sarah:It's a very it's not just learning the lines. They're channeling something magical. Not always. I'm sure some people learn the lines, and that's it. But, you know, when you when you get like, when you watch somebody who's a really seasoned actor, they're doing something different.
Sarah:And I I find that very fascinating too. Anyway, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Maybe we
Wendy:should So we're gonna talk about a lot of different things. And and who knows? Who knows what I don't know. Yeah. We'll we'll talk about, like, our perspectives on the nature of evil, and we'll talk about healing and what we've learned about healing Yeah.
Wendy:In the years that we've been doing this kind of work. Is it even possible? And what does that mean? And all of that. Yeah.
Sarah:Yeah.
Wendy:So I'm looking forward to learning more about you and your perspectives and your experiences.
Sarah:Yeah. We've learned things today that we didn't know.
Wendy:Yeah, how about that?
Sarah:Yeah, I thought we talked about everything
Wendy:under So the it's working. Yeah. Okay. So I guess we'll sign off for today. Yeah.
Wendy:So thanks for joining us. And thanks for hanging out with me, Sarah.
Sarah:You too, Wendy. It's been fun. Yeah. My dog is is finished too. He's like, okay.
Sarah:Time's up.
Wendy:Okay. I guess I guess we better sign off then.