Welcome to we are already free, a podcast helping down to earth

seekers and free people to live their truth and be the change,

rather than wasting too much time and giving too much energy

fighting against what they don't want.

Have you realized or noticed that the current economic systems are

harmful for you, your loved ones, and really all of life on Earth?

But maybe you're stuck in a job you don't believe in, working for

an extractive company just to make ends meet.

Maybe you feel trapped because you need to afford supporting your

children, your family, and you're trying to find a different way.

But it's really hard to know what direction to turn in, what kind of

work you can put your effort and love into that will be in service.

With this great unfolding, this great rebirthing of life that

we're all going through, thankfully, today's guest Mariah

is a mother's cofounder of four visions market and seeker on the

medicine path. She shares her experiences in

aligning herself with indigenous medicine ways, Sacred Commerce,

and creating a business that is beyond fair trade and really so

much more. In this episode, you'll discover

how you can reconnect with the abundance of nature.

And align yourself with a reciprocal way of living.

Mariah shares how 4 visions market uses sacred commerce, and why it

is beyond fair trade.

How we are birthing a new paradigm

where we can all thrive.

How motherhood is the fire under

Mariah's butt to get up and keep going in creating this new

reality. Near the end of this episode,

Mariah shares a spur of the moment blessing.

It's really a short little bit at the end.

She shares it for the listeners of this podcast and it gives me

tingles every time I hear it.

There is so much practical

inspiration in this episode.

No matter what stage you are in

your journey, there are steps you can take, little things which will

create big ripples of positive change.

I'm your host, Nathan Mangod, and as a highly sensitive person in a

profoundly sick society, I was nearly crushed by my efforts to

fit a mold that society simply calls being a good citizen.

Now I help people like me to feel, heal and grow a more beautiful

world using gentle breathwork, empowering songs, stories and

poems and one to one sessions as well as this podcast.

To support this podcast, use my affiliate link to shop at the four

visions market, the company featured in this episode.

Visit the show notes in your app or directly at already free dot me

forward slash 009 to find the link and a discount code for 10.

Percent off your first purchase.

This way, anything you purchase is

directly supporting indigenous peoples and nature conservation

while also helping me make this podcast the best place for down to

earth seekers and free people to be inspired to live their truth

and be that change.

Thank you for being a part of

birthing a new world with me.

I'm super stoked that I get to

offer you this.

And now please enjoy this

heartwarming, inspiring and empowering episode with the

delightful Mariah Ganesha.

Ah, yes, I forgot one more thing.

I wanted to apologize to Mariah.

I didn't think to ask her for the

pronunciation of her name.

So when I'm speaking with her in

this episode, you'll hear that I say Maria.

And it was only near the end when she herself said her name that I

clicked that. It's Mariah.

So thank you for understanding and please accept my apologies.

Names are important.

They help us to give structure and

form to things.

And so again, thank you, Mariah.

Enjoy the episode.

So thank you again for coming on

the podcast. It's really it's you were

recommended by kashkan and I had such a beautiful chat with him a

couple of months or so ago and really enjoyed that and.

There's so many questions I want to ask you.

I really want to keep this focused on this indigenous thread that

seems to be a sort of lifeline in our times, this reminder, these

lineages that have remembered or that have never forgotten, really,

our true nature and our the fact that we are nature, that we are

integrated with nature and how important it is to live lives

aligned with that.

And how can we see the results of

not living a line in those ways? So much disease and so much pain

in the world.

And so I guess really just to

begin this conversation, the question I'd like to ask is how do

you live your life aligned with? The indigenous ways and how does

that affect how you show up in the world?

Beautiful way to start this conversation off.

Thank you so much for having me, Nathan, and it's an honor to be

here to answer that question.

I guess I would start with saying

that for me, the journey that I've taken with the receiving of

indigenous wisdom has been one of really coming from a place of

humility, a place of recognizing that.

These indigenous wisdom cultures are thousands of years old and

hold ancient secrets that have been guarded and safeguarded by

the ancestors for millennia.

And so to even get the opportunity

to receive, to learn with indigenous wisdom keepers, to be

in partnership with them, to support them as well and to have

them as part of my life is a tremendous honor and I really see

it as such.

And so that's the approach that I

have. Take in with all the work that I

do, whether it be in the studies of the plant medicine culture,

whether it be in the sharing of the tools of the Amazonian

cultures with other people.

The approach that I take is really

based in this humility, because at the end of the day, we're living

in a very epic time.

It's a time where these plant

medicines for the first time for the first generation really are

coming out of the Amazonian rainforest and they're being

shared with the West.

And as we all know, all over the

world, humanity is hurting.

Humanity is in need of healing.

And we're at a place where what we've been doing for centuries

hasn't been working.

And more and more people are

starting to look for alternative ways to come out of the darkness,

come out of the mass confusion that we have been living under, as

though we're a cloud for many generations at this time.

And so to have the opportunity to.

Utilize the teachings and the

cultural traditions of these intact indigenous lineages and the

tribes is an honor more than anything.

And so that is really how I approach the work that I do and

it's really the basis for why I do what I do and has been the

inspiration for newing to utilize the connections that I have built

over my years of studying the plant medicines with different

communities and different tribes, the relationships that I've built.

Utilizing those relationships to be a bridge and to share with

others. Because through my own personal

life, I've received numerous blessings and abundance of

blessings through the utility, through the opportunity to work

with these tribes, to work with their healing traditions.

And they have transformed my life, transformed the lives of my loved

ones, and have brought so much healing, so much truth, so much

connection, reconnection, remembrance, all the good stuff

that we're looking for, right? And so I truly believe that within

the wisdom cultures, within the traditional ancestral traditions,

we find a balm of healing, we find the medicine that we are all

looking for. And so we're really at this

wonderfully unique and potent time in humanity's evolution where

there's this merging happening again, this sharing happening

within the within the indigenous cultures and the rest of the

world. And I feel that it is crucial,

it's crucial for all of humanity.

In our awakening process, in our

remembering process, that we utilize the blueprint of these

ancestral traditions that have been used for millennia to heal

their people and are now being shared to help all of humanity

heal. Yeah, it's certainly.

Speaks to me deeply where? I feel like for myself, my

lineages, so i don't know that well.

The word is broken and I don't use that as a sort of judgment on me

or my lineage.

But that's the reality is that i

don't know the wisdom keepers of my lineage.

I speak to my ancestors when I pray, but I don't.

I didn't get that direct passing on and if I think my mother and my

father the abuses that they suffered under where their parents

didn't even have a single tool for navigating reality in any kind of

holistic way. And then my parents have done so

much work, but they really were the first generation and there are

so many now who are first generation who are starting to,

like, try to return to some way of connected living that is, that

actually makes sense within the context of reality as it is.

And so yeah, I'm just really grateful for me having these

indigenous peoples, having these wisdom keepers, in particular the

honey Queen, who I've done some work with ayahuasca, although not

a massive amount, but like that.

Experience of sitting in circle

with indigenous peoples whose lineage is intact was like the

biggest. Like you've been saying, is this

just this healing experience of like, wow, there is a way that

makes sense. There is a way.

And actually that the healing that I need to do is only so that I can

come home to joy, to celebration, to remembrance.

And so I'm wondering how, what are some of the ways that you

incorporate some of those lessons in your life?

Maybe in rituals or in thinking or in how you show up in the world.

Well, there's a lot that I could talk about here, and I guess I

wanna start by just touching on what you're talking about, because

I think it's really important to address this absence that we in

the Western culture have with culture, with tradition, you know?

And so because of that deep absence, that's another reason why

so many of us are feeling drawn to these rich cultures.

And it brings up the question, how do we?

How do we walk and write relationship with these cultures

that are gifting and giving us so much beautiful healing

opportunities, opening so many doors for this reconnection, for

profound healing, opening the door for us to connect with our

ancestors in a ceremonial way, in a way that honors nature and all

of creation. It's such an incredible gift and

at the same time, it's not our culture.

And so that is a fine line that we have to walk.

And we have to learn how to navigate with respect and with

reverence, because at the end of the day, we're being given this

incredible opportunity, this incredible blessing of sharing of

these cultures and sharing of these ancestral traditions.

And from my perspective, if we can come from this place of deep,

profound gratitude, then we're able to utilize these tools,

utilize the ceremonies and the traditional rituals to kind of

fill this massive.

Void that we have because so many

of us are disconnected from the traditions of our ancestors, the

ones that whose blood we carry.

So I just wanted to mention that

because it's a, it's a very delicate line to walk within this

context of utilizing other traditions for our own healing.

And I think that kind of transitioning into this question

where I really find the biggest amount of.

Bringing it full circle comes for me is through spiritual payments.

And so spiritual payments are used throughout many indigenous

cultures. But they are in concept, the

concept of making an offering or making a payment to nature, to the

creator, in gratitude for everything that we have received,

in gratitude for everything that we are asking for to come forth.

To us and so one of the most important things that we could do

while we're walking this healing path and in this process of coming

home and utilizing tools from other traditions to do so is to

make these offerings.

And so spiritual payment can be

done in many different ways.

You can go out into nature, you

can make an offering of different plants, you can make an offering

of crystals or ceremonial tools.

You can make an offering of.

Any sacred object that have blessed your life and have been

really beautiful tools for you that you're ready to give back to

the earth. And the sense is that when we

give, we receive.

And so through these spiritual

payments, our relationship with nature and the force of life

becomes stronger. And more than anything, it's

through this inherent relationship and devotion to strengthening our

relationship with the force of life that I find to be a very

powerful pillar. To carry me through and to allow

me to walk this path in a good way.

Spiritual payments can also be done in the form of fasting,

giving up food or drink and spending a day or two days in a

place of silent meditation, reflection, and prayer.

With the idea that we're giving up something that we that is

convenient to us, something that we often take for granted.

And we're putting it aside for this period of time to be able to

allow ourselves to.

Come into greater communion with

God, with nature, whatever you want to call it.

Life, whatever name resonates for you.

And this can also be done with giving up, you know, social media

or technology for a certain amount of time.

Spiritual payments can be anything that we want them to be.

But it's simply through the intention and through making this

offering to the creator that we are able to open ourselves, to

receive and to connect and to have a deeper communion and connection.

And so this is one of the most powerful things that I have used

in my life to kind of guide me.

Had to give some structure to this

process of receiving so much and working with the different

cultures. So hope that kind of answered your

question. I'm happy to elaborate more, but

that's kind of the first tool that really comes to mind for me when

it when it comes to you know, rituals that I use on a regular

basis to support me in my work yeah well, so let's get into that

a little more around just your work because you have this company

that. You are a part of or you've

launched. I'm sorry if I don't know the

exact positioning, but the it's the four visions market, am I

correct? Yes, for origins market and i

started it about six years ago with the Father, my son and we

kind of, it was a dream seed that kind of developed and is now, you

know, a entity of its own.

It really is taken on, you know,

its own mission and I'm kind of just now in service to its

platform and to the work that is coming through and it's been, it's

been wonderful.

Yeah, so. Please share, because

this is one of the things you spoke to a little earlier, at

least from what I was understanding, is this idea of

being this fine line of like, say, for example, me as a Westerner

looking to reconnect.

And so I find this indigenous

tribe or these indigenous ways, and I think, oh, that's fantastic.

And so I start working with hope, or I start working with Sanango, I

start working with Sage, all these beautiful medicines from the

Amazon and from North Americas and these various places, and then

that can very easily become.

An extractive experience where I'm

just taking something for myself so that I can benefit without

really giving back.

And my understanding is that your

company is really a way for people to access a reciprocal experience.

So if you could explain what how that works with your company, how

is it that by supporting your company, someone can directly

support the indigenous ways, the indigenous peoples, in a way

that's really respectful and really, yeah, reciprocal.

Yes, I would love to.

So I guess I'll start with a

little background of how 4 visions came to be and how I kind of got

into this world because i never planned to start a business.

It was really supposed to be a initiative, an arts initiative,

call it what you will.

But in my head when I first

brought back the first set of Amazonian jewelry, it came because

I was working with the Colombian Titus and i felt so deeply in love

with the culture.

With the love that they shared and

gave to me and to the other people who were working with them.

And I felt so honored to get to receive the healing from them, to

get to have this incredible experience of sharing with them

and that I wanted to support them.

And they had all this beautiful

art and they needed to sell it.

They needed to be able to, you

know, get the economic revenue from that art to be able to feed

their families and to do a lot of.

Other important things which I'll

share more about in a little while, but i brought this first

bag of jewelry back really like just thinking I would share it

with my friends that maybe I could utilize it to talk and educate

people a little bit more about the Inganno tribe, which wasn't the

first tribe that i started working with in Colombia.

It was never with the intention of launching a business or a

platform, but over time it throughout my relations I started

meeting. Other indigenous communities and

the message that I was getting over and over every time I spoke

to these incredible tribes and I was asking how can I support, how

can we support, how can we give back?

You've given us so much you're giving so much what do you need

from us? The answer or time and time again

was economic sovereignty.

Because at the end of the day

whether we like it or not, all of the world survives on a money

based economy in today's world so what does that mean?

Like, in our heads we often think, ohh, the indigenous tribes,

they're living deep in the Amazon jungle and they're, they don't

need anything from the western economy.

They don't need to go to the store.

They grow all their own food.

They don't need any sorts of

building materials. They do everything from.

They take everything, and they use everything from the resources

available to them in the Amazon Forest.

Well, yes, that's a beautiful visualization, and it probably was

true 200 years ago.

But today we're living in this

time where there's so much sharing of culture and there's been so

much movement and mobilization outside of the Amazon for these

tribes that they're very much reliant on the necessities that we

also need, you know, and so they need money to be able to purchase

those supplies again.

Additionally, you know, there are

many of the tribes are facing the backlash of decades and decades of

deforestation and ecological attack on their territories that

have left their rivers running dry, that have left their forces

depleted. That have left the fish dead in

the rivers due to the chemicals that have been you know put into

the rivers by the by the larger companies that are taking

advantage of the rainforest and her peoples.

In many ways.

And that have been doing so for

hundreds of years really now.

And so at this point, so many of

the tribes who are wanting to preserve their culture as well as

preserve their peoples because it's a element of survival at

these at this point, they need to take matters into their own hands.

They need to and they need money to be able to do that.

So when a when a river runs dry, they need to drill a well, and

drilling a well is just as expensive as the Amazon jungle as

it is at any other part of the world.

And when the fish are killed off because of the chemicals they need

to build fish ponds and they need to start to sustain themselves and

plant food forests and basically recuperate a lot of the resources

that have been devastatingly depleted through, you know, the

western civilization and colonization and, you know, the

way that big companies operate in the world.

And so when I was starting to really understand what they needed

the money for, it really became clear to me that I felt called to

get them that money.

I felt called to be a bridge to be

able to be a partner to the tribes and to be an ally for them.

You know, a lot of times they get a lot of spiritual support and

people saying, you know, we support the Amazon, but at the end

of the day what they need is money.

They need money so that their tries people.

Don't have to sell out and get paid to burn down their forests,

which is happening in the Kujawa territory in the Amazon where

unfortunately due to lack of jobs in the tribe, many of the tribes

people have been taking out the payouts from either the government

or other big companies.

Big industries that are basically

offering them money to burn down their trees.

And so this obviously directly affects the tribes, but it also

affects the Amazon rainforest.

For the lungs of the earth, which

on a scientific level is important for proper oxygen for all of the

planet and for all of the planets ecosystems to flourish we have to

protect the Amazon rainforest.

And so there's a lot of different

layers that I started uncovering that I never looked, I never, I

never went looking for but it they started coming to me through

simply when I started asking the question how can I help?

How can I support and again you know.

Through my own personal studies i have been working with plant

medicines for over a decade now and through my work with the plant

medicines that was really the catalyst for why I started looking

for ways I could help, you know.

So it was my own personal healing

journey that led me that inspired me to find a way to give back.

So that all being said, four visions market became a bridge,

became an opportunity where.

We could support the tribes where

we could source ethically medicines and plant tools and

traditional art directly from the tribes.

People are the artisans, giving them the opportunity to practice

their traditional culture.

So you know when their art is

valued, when they're medicinal tools and products are valued,

then the younger, the younger generations with teenagers, they

don't go into the cities looking for some.

Other job with the mining companies or the oil companies,

they stay in the in the communities and the territories

and they study from their fathers and their grandfathers and they

learn the botanical remedies, they learn how to make the tools and

the traditions are preserved.

So there's a lot of beautiful

things that happen when we empower and when we acknowledge that these

tools are powerful and that we are wanting to support and receive

them. So educating.

The customer was really important because I didn't want to just

start sourcing all these incredible tools and leaving the

customer kind of in the dark about what we were doing.

And that's where I start.

We started to come up with this

really unique model and that's really beyond fair trade.

And I like to think of it as sacred commerce, like the true

epitome of sacred commerce.

And this is kind of where I

started to really get interested in running a business.

Honestly, because before that I was really just turned off a

little bit by all the different elements that are required to run

a ecommerce business in 2020 You know that it was 2019 2018 when we

started going online.

So essentially, you know, it was

when I started to see, wow, there can be a different model than what

has been shown to us for the last 4050 years in capitalism that can

bring abundance to all involved and so.

Well, we developed this beyond fair trade model that not only

gives 50 % of all the purchases directly back to the indigenous

artisans, which you would obviously consider like normal

fair trade, right? But then on top of that, all of

our profits, we take 10 % and we donate it to different indigenous

tribes, different communities or initiatives that are happening

that we want to support.

We give a lot of the donations to

different nonprofits and not-for-profit Organizations that

are preserving the Amazon rainforest or that are doing

really good work with the preservation of culture and the

Amazonian peoples. And so this has allowed us to make

a really big impact and we do it as a community and that's really

the thing that sets our model apart from any other, you know,

source of these tools because we're giving the client, the

customer, the opportunity to really play a part.

In creating this reciprocity and play a part in being in

relationship with the tribes because they are making a really

big impact simply through their purchase and it's giving people

the opportunity to work with these medicines with a certain closeness

to the Amazonian peoples that's simply not available if you're

just purchasing these tools from anywhere without a greater

understanding of what projects are being supported by your purchase,

what tribes are being supported by your purchase.

And so we started to really educate, we started to really

build in this element of education into our business model and that

really was pivotal in allowing us to grow, allowing us to have the

reach that we have been able to have over the last few years.

And it's developed into this really beautiful bridge where we

are bridging the world to the Amazon and anyone who's interested

in plant medicines, here's about four visions because they are

looking for this opportunity and that's something else really

important. Most people who are wanting to

work with plant tools or wanting to receive, they want to do it in

a good way.

It's just that they're not exactly

sure how.

And so for visions we wanted to

provide people the opportunity to do this and to know that they

could receive these tools in a in a good way, in a way that was

honoring of the traditional cultures and really was forging a

bridge between their tools, the products that they receive.

Their front door and the artisans and the medicine makers, the

traditional botanists that were making them.

And so that's really kind of how 4 visions came to be.

And through it, you know, we launched a sister nonprofit

organization, Magic Fund, which stands for the movement for

Amazonian Growth and Indigenous cultures.

And that was really important for us so that we had a specific

organization that we really could back and support and is doing

really beautiful. Things and specifically the

Colombian Amazon, we have a lot of incredible projects that we're

funding this year.

And it's been, it's been so

beautiful to be able to work closely with tribal leaders, to be

working with chiefs and healers and spiritual teachers of these

different tribes and communities and really getting this feedback

pretty consistently now that thank you and when can you place the

next order, you know, and so there's nothing, there's nothing

more beautiful. To hear from tribal chiefs and

spiritual leaders that than this you know that like a confirmation

that they are truly very grateful as well.

And so this element of gratitude and abundance for all is woven

into the core principles of four visions.

So that the person receiving these medicine receive optimum blessings

and abundance to their life through the use of these healing

tools. And that everyone else involved in

the in the chain of how to get those tools to their front door.

Also benefits and also flourishes and also thrives.

You know, and I think that really kind of goes to this new paradigm

that we're entering into and that we're birthing as humanity is we

can thrive. You know, we can all be in

abundant, sacred relationship with the Earth mother and with all the

sacred wisdom that she has to offer us, it's available to us.

We just have to make it happen.

You know, we have to think outside

the box.

We have to kind of unveil the

cobwebs of the eyes.

That have kind of kept us thinking

in the ways that we've been thinking for generations that

hasn't worked and start to realize that maybe there's another way,

you know? And so for visions has really

proven that to me.

And I think that it's beginning to

do that for others too and inspire others and that's truly just an

incredible blessing. So how would you if someone is

interested in? Because I think one of the things

sort of preface before I ask the question, but is basically.

And this time, so many people's.

A fitting into society has become

a lot harder for so many westerners, especially those who

are realising that the old systems aren't effective.

They haven't been effective.

They are making people sick,

they're making the world sick and they want a different way.

And yet they're still kind of in that world of like now maybe

they've got a few kids, they're like trying to work out, OK, how

do I pay the bills and also be a part of this new world.

And so the question I have for you, as someone who clearly has a

lot of experience in this area, it's like.

Do you have any tips or ways that someone could look at getting

involved in or start thinking differently about sacred commerce

and having a purpose and really like moving in that direction in

their local area wherever they are in the world?

Like what are some of the ways you might recommend to someone to get

started? Yeah, for sure.

So there's so many different ways and little baby steps that we can

take to start to kind of pull us out of the cycle of what my

teacher title, Juanito, likes to call the cycle of no life.

And I think that so many of us are living in that cycle where it's,

you know, work.

sleep food works.

Food, you know? And it's just there's this

constant cycle of autopilot where there is no life being lived, you

know? And so how do we start to get out

of that cycle? It depends, you know, where we're

at in our spiritual path.

Like, do we have a spiritual path

or are we living like a normal nine to five?

You know, just starting to hear about some other ways right so I

guess we'll start.

We'll start there and then we can

kind of go bigger so it can start.

Really by just taking a look at

how we can bring more color into our lives, so how we can start to

bring more joy and beauty into our lives.

Whether that be starting to find practices that can connect you

with nature. Because many of us who are living

in that cycle of no life are very disconnected from our source

Mother Nature. And so especially if we're living

and working like in an office space or we're living and working

within certain situations that leave.

Us with limited time for ourselves, one of the best things

we can do is fill that little time that we have for ourselves with

things that bring joy and with things that bring connection to

nature. So whether it be a walking in a

park or walking on the beach, whether it be swimming in the

ocean or going to a Creek and connecting with water, whether it

be having a fire, you know, and connecting with friends and family

around a fire and connecting with the.

Element of fire, which is a sacred, powerful element.

These little things that we start to add in, they start to make big

ripples into our into our lives.

And by calling upon the force of

nature, we can start to open our hearts and open our minds to

greater change. Because nature then becomes an

ally that is literally accompanying us on our journey.

So you look, start to look and see where we can start to add a little

bit. More of that colorful living.

And then from there we start to look at the choices we do have,

the options we do have within our life.

Where do we go shopping? Are we shopping at a big mega

chain grocery store? Or are we supporting local

farmers? Or are we planting some of our own

food? You don't have to start with a

huge garden, but maybe you start growing your own herbs, you know?

And we start to make little baby steps towards living more in

connection with the earth and living more in connection with

ourselves and with all of.

Nation, we start to take a look at

where what businesses we support.

You know, if we're supporting

again big Mega Industries that don't practice this element of

sacred commerce that are leaching from under from under privileged

people who are without resources and are taking and demolishing

communities. Or are we choosing to uplift local

businesses and buy from local people in our community who are

trying to? Support themselves, you know, and

to and to offer something to the community.

So we start to vote with our dollars essentially.

You know, whatever money we have in our pocket at the end of each

paycheck we start to really think like how are we spending it?

Because that's a really big shift that we can start to make in our

consciousness, you know and really thinking like even it's as it's as

easy as like am I going to buy a Starbucks coffee or am I going to

go to the local coffee shop and support the local business, you

know so. It can be really small.

And then as we get going on that and we start to kind of rewire our

brains, essentially we start to see that there are opportunities

to bring more connection every moment, every second.

You know, with our breath, with connecting with plant allies in

ways that you don't even need to know a lot about plant medicines

or have access to the ancestral plant medicines to start to work

with plants. You start to take chamomile tea

before you go to bed.

And you and you start to connect

with the chamomile plant for calming, for anxiety relief, and

you start to form a relationship with that plant.

And then overtime, chamomile becomes an ally for you.

Allies are tools that we can utilize that come like spiritual

friends accompanying us on our journey.

And so allies can take the form of plant tools.

They can take the form of prayer and meditation.

They can take the form of any sort of spiritual practice, like yoga.

Or any other sort of Qigong or Tai Chi?

Any sort of bodily movement that is conscious, that's allowing you

to form that mind, body connection.

And we start to go looking for those things.

Maybe you find joy and making music.

Maybe you find joy in creating art.

Maybe you haven't drawn since you were in kindergarten because your

kindergarten teacher laughed at you and told you are a horrible

artist and you never picked up a pencil or crayon again, you know?

And so maybe you pulled that out again.

Maybe you join a local.

Art class and you start to kind of

reignite that passion for life.

That search is how we get out of

the cycle of no life.

And once we start to pull

ourselves out of that cycle, we start to see that there's a whole

world waiting for us to live, and there's a whole potential awaiting

us as soon as we open our eyes to it.

And that's kind of where that catalyst kind of comes in and one

thing leads to another.

And we slowly start to find more

and more resources that start to bring more and more joy to our

lives. And then we start to emanate that

joy. We start to live.

From that place and we inspire others, we might eventually become

someone that can help someone else who is also in that dark place or

in a place of absence, the place of like true lack within

themselves where they're so disconnected that they need help,

they need guidance and maybe we can one day be that for someone

else. And so that's kind of how I see

this process of, you know, finding connection and starting to utilize

the tools around us and there's so many tools available to us.

You know, I just named a few, but really, like, there's just an

infinite amount of resources available for us wherever we live

in the world.

You know, there's always, there's

always medicine. So we just have to open our eyes

and start looking for it and start calling it forth, and it will

start to appear and present itself in the most magical way.

Because that is what life is all about.

I love that you started with just the little steps.

I think that's good.

Medicine for me as well, because I

have this tendency to think I need to do it all at once, and I'm and

I burned myself out trying to like, be something instead of just

being here now, which is like the best, the only starting point

really. I'm curious around because I think

I read somewhere around motherhood and how that has been a part of or

is a part of your journey as someone who's a mother has become

a mother and i wanted to kind of just touch on that as well as a

bit of a segue from what we've been speaking about.

But I also think it's connected.

It's the sense of what are we

bringing into the world and how are we sort of caring for that

which we are responsible for, that which comes through us.

And I'm just curious to know how does motherhood relate to your

work and how does how has it shifted or how is it supported by

this work that you're doing? I'd love to talk about that, of

course, because it is the inspiration for me showing up

every day. My child is the constant.

Fire under my butt to get up and to keep doing the work that I'm

doing because I truly believe that this is for the ones that are to

come. You know, we are creating a new

reality, a new paradigm, a new life for our children to inherit.

And so I guess I'll start with my journey into motherhood because

it's kind of an interesting story because for me, when I became a

mother, I was deeply in my spiritual studies.

Within the Yahei tradition of Colombia, and so the yahee is the

Colombian Forum of Ayahuasca, and there are about 5 tribes in the

Colombian Amazon that are stewards of this medicine.

But like I mentioned at the beginning, about 10 years ago I

met my teacher title Juanito, and I started studying and going

through different initiations and eventually became a disciple of

this 5000 year old culture.

And tradition and so very

interesting to be a white woman within a studying an indigenous

tradition and especially like the way that my studies developed they

became very focused.

I was drinking a lot of medicine,

doing different diets and studying with the plants of the culture and

doing a lot of the spiritual payments and the spiritual tools

and practices that come with the culture of yeah, hey, so when I

became pregnant. It was, it was a little bit of a

kind of a shake up to everything that I had been doing up into that

point in the culture of yahua.

When a woman becomes pregnant, she

enters into a different ceremony.

It's a A9 month ceremony will

really 12 months because we include the three months

postpartum as the completion of this spiritual diet and it's

actually a time where we step away from the plant medicines and we

start to connect to the medicine.

Of life and the medicine of

gestation, the medicine of creation.

And so it was a little bit of a shake up for me in that sense,

because I was loving my life, I was loving everything that I was

doing. And to have to kind of step away

from it or find a new way to relate to it challenged me in a

lot of ways and brought up a lot of strong processes that in the

end I needed to go through for my own personal healing, to become

stronger in the path, to better understand the tradition as well

that I was studying.

But then, you know, because that's

such a, it's such an interesting element of the tradition around

the around the gestation and pregnancy and really seeing it as

its own unique ceremony.

So until I went through that

process, I was really missing a huge chunk of this culture and it

gave me the opportunity to really go into this, what is called the

study of creation and the study of motherhood and the study of birth

and for me.

I went into a incredible time of

connecting with the force of life, connecting with my ancestors,

connecting with my bloodline and doing a very deep cleaning process

to purify and to clean everything that I needed to heal, everything

that I needed to resolve in order to bring forth my child.

And you know, they say that it's like a process of calling them

home from the stars and so in the birth portal and the time when he

was coming through, it really felt that.

I was journeying, I felt that I was journeying to the stars to

meet him and to bring him forth.

And it was a very celestial

experience and honestly stronger than any other plant medicine

experience that I've ever had, which really blew me out of the

water because, you know, I've drinken yeah, hey, for many years.

And it was, it was quite shocking to experience something that, you

know, quantitatively. There's no quantification.

But in that, in that experience, I felt that this was the most

powerful ceremony that I had ever had.

And so it left.

Be really humbled.

And of course, you know, I fell in love with my son and had this

really beautiful process of birthing him in my power, in my

home, on my land, and then getting to do the spiritual payments that

we do in this tradition following the birth.

Because in order to complete this cycle, in order to support the

soul in grounding them into this world, after being in the

celestial world for the last nine months, there's different rituals

that we had to do.

In order to complete that process,

and it was completing the process for me because I also went through

a rebirthing process through the gestation and the birth of my son

and then, you know, of course, completing his process so that he

could walk forward in this life.

And so it was, it was a really

magical, beautiful, transitional point in my life.

And I really did come away from that feeling anew, feeling like I

was a different person.

And I know that that's pretty

common. For women after they give birth

and for just new parents in general, because it's such a such

a reality shift, you know, to realize that there is another

being that depends on you and that looks to you for every single one

of their needs.

And it really helped me and

inspired me to recognize that every thought that I think every

word that I speak, every act that I take is a mirror for him.

That is an example for him.

And what do I want to leave as my

legacy through? Through my child.

And so that kind of spread out in a lot of things, right?

And it can be as simple as.

And this is something I didn't

mention when we were talking about those simple spiritual changes we

can make. But like, I noticed that while I

was just spending time with him, I was in spiritual work.

I was in study because I was learning about myself.

I was learning about what it means to raise the next generation, what

it means to be a steward for another soul, what it means to

honor the other souls sovereignty.

And I noticed that was one of the

most shocking things for me when I looked into my child's eyes those

first few months, like recognizing just how sovereign he really is

and was in that moment and realizing all I am here to do is

to is to walk with him and to protect him the best that I can.

But more than anything, to honor that he has his own path, he has

his own mission, he has his own purpose.

And all like all I can do is accompany him on this journey.

And so it was, it was a very spiritually awakening experience

that left me forever changed and every choice that I make now it

comes back to him, you know, and I think that that's really a

beautiful thing about parenthood there.

It's like that constant reminder every step of the journey of why

we do what we do and choosing, you know, what we fill our time with.

And so I really had to start to get really focused on, you know,

my what, how I was using my time.

And what I was doing with my

projects and it really provided a great catalyst for me to really

smooth forward with clarity with devotion.

And my devotion to my child ended up being like the reason that I've

been able to pour my heart and soul into the different projects

that I'm doing for the Amazon and for the Amazonian peoples.

Because I really do feel that the these wisdom teachings are the

answer for all of humanity.

And that.

Over the next few generations we're going to see a continued

sharing of these tools, of these cultures and of these traditions.

And so setting the platform or setting the pillars down for like

how that is going to look over the next 20 or 30 years as these

medicines and these cultures continue to come out of the

jungle, more and more is imperative to ensure that we can

really rise and we can we can receive the most from this time.

That we're living in and that as humanity that are, that are

children, that are, that are growing, that are coming into this

world that they can receive a different world than we inherited.

And so that's really my reason for what I do and I love to share

about it, have there's a lot of passion for me there and that

subject because he is my life, he's my world and he's also, you

know, my biggest teacher in so many ways.

So yeah, that's a little bit about my journey into motherhood.

Thank you so much for sharing out my partner.

Kylie and I are not yet parents, but we talk about it a lot and

it's definitely something that's calling us and there's obviously

those, like you said, there's no quantifying or no, it's like the

thing that I know that's so big that there's no way to know how

big it is, but I know that it's too big for me to know, which in

itself is scary enough.

But yeah, it's just beautiful to

hear. Thank you so much for sharing.

And I and I and I really see that a lot in the medicine path, people

I see who are, who have children, who are on the medicine path

working with plant medicines.

I see such a difference in the way

that those children are navigating the world and I see a difference

in the relational dynamics between the parents and the children.

So yeah, I really appreciate your sharing.

Thank you very much.

I the next question is kind of a

little segue. Again, we're just kind of moving

around a bit, but I'm curious to know.

I mean, I definitely believe that your company obviously is a really

great option for this, but just wondering if you have any other

recommendations for people.

So I'll give you some context.

So having worked with the Honey Queen a little bit myself, when

they come to South Africa, I've at some point one of their songs that

which the words they say escalator, kaaway, which I'm sure

you know this, but for anyone listening, it means

transformation. And one of my songs that I had

written many years ago is all about transformation and while I

was playing. On one of the weekends as someone

started singing escalated care over my song and it just it just

suddenly the song that was already 7 years old suddenly was complete.

And so I've been playing that song and I use it and so after that

experience with the Honey Queen and with now using some of their

words in my songs I just put money up some a small amount of money

aside every month that I then give to the honey Queen to some of

their projects. Like if they building a building

in the village and they need money then I have something I can

support with. So the question I want to ask is

how? Do you recommend or invite people

to support their indigenous peoples or their sort of wisdom

ways that they have access to, or that they get wisdom from,

whatever those ways might be? Yeah That's such a great question

and I'm happy you asked it because it's important to touch on that.

You know, how do we go about finding ways to give back?

And it's it goes beyond like purchasing a product, right.

So it's important to talk about different ways in which we can

support. So the first thing I want to talk

about is amplifying different projects that you resonate with.

There's so many incredible nonprofit organizations.

And so many incredible indigenous initiatives that are taking place

all over the world, not just in the Amazon.

You know, if you go into your local communities, chances are

that there are indigenous peoples or close to or where you live and

you can support them in numerous ways by going to their events, by

sharing about their work, by seeing what they need and

utilizing your contacts, your resources within your community to

support them and to give back.

And then, you know broader terms

like you need to find the projects that really speak to you because

what 4 visions really focuses on is giving a lot of different

opportunities. So for example, I mentioned that

we're in partnership with our nonprofit, but we also are in

partnership with many other nonprofit organizations that we

get behind. And the work that we do there is

to give people more opportunities to learn about the different

projects and resources that are taking place.

So for example.

You recently just partnered with

children of the rainforest, and this is a nonprofit organization

spearheaded by Chief Barassi is kakua, the Yawa Nawa tribe.

And they are doing a lot of incredible work, and they're

focused on building a language preservation school for the Yawa

Nawa tribe and their community New Hope Village.

And so if you have ever worked with the Yawa Nawa in any capacity

you know and you feel called to connect children of the rainforest

is a great organization.

And that's really working to.

Preserve the language, because that's something that a lot of the

indigenous tribes are facing, is that the younger generations are

growing up. They're not learning their

traditional languages, and so these languages are endangered.

And so a lot of the tribes are facing and the need to preserve

their traditional languages.

And you know you.

It was cool because you just mentioned, like, the power that

the Huni Kuin language had for you and in your journey.

And it's true, these indigenous languages are so ancestral, and

they're codes of profound connection with the ancestors.

Have found connection with the Celestial realms.

They carry secrets that have been stewarded and safeguarded by the

indigenous peoples for millennia.

And so it's vital that we preserve

those languages because within them holds the key to like the

pillars of these cultures and the and the foundations for many of

these cultures. So that's one project.

The Kootenai tribe have their own nonprofit called Transform and

Illuminate. Project that's focused all on

reforestation. As I mentioned, they've been

facing a lot of horrible fires in the area of their territory in the

Amazon Basin and are dealing with tremendous need to reforest and to

plant trees and to begin to rebuild and preserve their

territories and their land.

So there's many incredible

projects out there, and there's not there's not one answer.

You have to find the.

One that resonates the most with

you and it's wonderful to hear that you've been you've been

setting aside a little bit each month because it's such a great

practice you know and it's like kind of can be compared to tithing

a little bit in the sense that you know we what if there's a specific

tradition that's supporting us in our healing and evolutionary

growth that we find a way to give back and that's why I started with

like ways in which we could just amplify their projects if you have

a platform share about it become an ally to them by utilizing.

Your network to get their message out there more, you know, it

doesn't have to be just financial, but at the end of the day, most of

us in the West have a lot more money to play with than the

indigenous villages. So for us, 20$ a month really

doesn't break the bank.

But if you can make that

commitment monthly, it becomes, you know, it becomes a spiritual

payment in a lot of ways.

So it's like it's creating that

foundation of sacred reciprocity, which allows you to have a

stronger connection with the Amazon and the Amazonian.

Peoples and really just allows you to be able to catalyze forward and

grow so much more in your connection with these cultures

because you're making an effort to say like I'm with you, I stand

with you and I'm not just saying that I'm really doing something,

even if it's a small thing.

You know the point is that we're

doing something and little by little these ripple start to have

greater effect and these organizations start to get

greater. No notoriety, notoriety and they

start to become more heard about and this is really how we can

start to make a big bigger change, you know, because at the end of

the day, the Amazonian people, they do need our help.

If they were just living like they were living they had lived 500

years ago, then they probably would be fine.

They would be sustainable, they would be within the context of

their traditional ways.

But because of the raping of their

cultures that has taken place over the last 300 years, it can't be

denied that at this point.

They do need the industry, they do

need the financial support to be able to put in place the necessary

infrastructure and the necessary economic structure to support

their communities so that they can live well and so that their

missions and their work and their healing can continue to be

preserved. So I think that's kind of getting

to be a little repetitive at this point, but it's important to just

say that it really does kind of come full circle, you know and so,

yeah, I hope that answers your question.

Like really it's just about finding like the initiatives that

inspire you the most and that you wanna get behind.

And it really, it could be like a native if you living in the in the

northwestern or the southwestern United States, you know, finding

the Navajo and Navajo tribe or reservation and seeing what they

need and how you can support them or finding whatever indigenous

communities are near you and attending their workshops,

attending their classes.

Giving that support in that way.

So yeah and it's and it's really it's for us too that's another

thing. It's not like we're like giving

cause we feel like we have to or we should it's the way that we can

all rise together and this is the way that we can really create that

new way of thriving and flourishing and I think that

that's it's really important that we stand together at this time.

You know for humanity that we come together that we unite, that we

recognize that we're all in this together because there's just

been. Too much separation at this point,

you know, it's like the story is old.

We got us write a new story and we gotta write a story of unity.

We gotta write a story of coming together, of supporting one

another, of forming allies, ship and alliances.

And many of the indigenous leaders talk a lot about that.

As to why they started to come out of the jungle and start to share,

because it's very recent that most of these tribes are coming out.

We're talking in the last 10 years, some of them 20, but we're

really talking in the last decade.

That these traditions are coming

out of the rainforest we shared.

And many of them speak to that of

why, being that they feel that it's time that we put down these

barriers of blood or of race or of skin color, and we start to really

realize that we are one race, we are the race of humanity and we're

one tribe.

And that's, you know, these

cultures are available to all who want to receive them in a good

way. And I think that's important to

mention because a lot of us find us.

Ourselves and like a little bit of a story of, oh, I'm not worthy of

receiving these teachings or I don't want to be, you know, taking

more from these cultures or I, you know, just like all of the.

All the stuff that's out there regarding.

Yeah, just taking from the cultures and not respecting the

traditions. But at the end of the day these

indigenous cultures are saying come drink from our well, we have

enough water to nourish all of humanity.

We have enough to share.

We want to share, you know come

and heal with us because we want all of our brothers and sisters to

heal and we don't differentiate.

And that has been my experience.

We're of working with these different tribes and these

different communities and it's been so beautiful to see this

perspective because it really.

Has allowed me to kind of soften

into this and recognize, OK you know, i can do this.

I can walk this path with the plant medicines.

I can walk this path with these ancestral cultures that maybe

aren't mine. But if I do them with

righteousness and if I if I do it with respect and reverence, then

it can actually be something very beautiful.

And so that's something that I just wanted to mention because I

think it's important to say as well thank you so much for your

time, Maria. It's been really a pleasure to

connect and to hear.

From someone who's so closely

integrated into these cultures and really doing such beautiful work

to help us all, to rebirth in this time, to rebirth so that we can

live a different way.

Because it's in a way where I feel

like I and I, the people I witness a lot in the West.

We're like imagineering.

We're visioning a world we don't

exactly have a context for.

And I think the indigenous ways

are such a beautiful template and such a beautiful example of, hey,

this is our natural state.

This is possible.

We can be in joy, in life, in celebration.

So I have one more.

Well, I have another question

after that. But the final kind of big question

I have for you is what does we are already free mean for you?

We are already free to me speaks to the inherent sovereignty that

we carry each one of us within our hearts.

That is our divine connection to nature, our divine connection to

source, our divine connection to our own authenticity and our

existential liberation that is awaiting us.

All we have to do is open our eyes and choose it and say yes to life

and claim it and allow that reality to sink in.

And to bless our lives.

And so to me that is what we are

already free represents this internal sovereignty over our

body, mind, spirit and soul that is available to us and that is

inherent within each and every one of us.

Thank you, I'm really grateful to hear your reflections and where

can the listener find you? Where are the best places to

support what you're doing and to connect with you further?

Yeah, of course.

So you can learn more about our.

Wrote initiative for visions at four visions market dot com.

Check us out on Instagram at 4 visions market and my own personal

Instagram at Mariah Vanessa, where I share a lot more about my own

personal spiritual journey.

And those are the main places for

now. You can also check us out magic

fund amazon.org and to learn more about our

nonprofit. And those are the main ones.

So that's it really.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Maria Mariah.

I realized I didn't even think to

ask you the pronunciation, even though names are so important.

So, Mariah, thank you very much.

I really appreciate your time

today. All the way across the world in,

could you say Colombia? And it was raining and I even

heard Thunder, so thank you.

What an amazing thing.

Yeah, the rains came to bless us and he then God bless you.

God bless your project.

Thank you to everyone who tuned in

and thank you for this wonderful opportunity to get to connect and

share a little bit more and wishing you all the best and many

blessings. Thank you again to Mariah Ganesha,

and funnily enough, I know I said I said her first name wrong

throughout the episode.

I actually don't know if that's

the way to pronounce her last name.

So, Mariah, please forgive me if this is incorrect, but let me know

anyway. Thank you to Mariah of four

visions market for blessing us with your presence on this

podcast. You can find links to Mariah, 4

visions, and everything else we discussed by visiting the show

notes wherever you listen.

Or directly at already free dot me

forward slash oh nine.

As I mentioned before, I've also

become an affiliate of the four visions market, so you can buy

from them and support the podcast at no extra cost to you.

They have clothes, courses, instruments, jewelry, ceremonial

tobacco, and heaps of other lovingly crafted medicines and

sacred creations made with many blessings by indigenous peoples.

One of the things they sell is the ceremonial tobacco named Hope,

which is a huge part of my personal practice.

It has helped me massively in grounding and rooting and really

staying centered and aligned with my mission, with service, with

joy, with presence.

So I'm so grateful that they have

such a reliable source for that.

It's amazing.

This is truly spiritual medicine, what 4 visions market is offering,

and a much better way of engaging in commerce which empowers

everyone involved. Find my affiliate link and a

discount code for 10 % off your first purchase at already free dot

me. Forward Slash 009 finally, please

subscribe or follow the podcast wherever you listen and leave a

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It also helps anyone else who's thinking of listening who's making

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So thank you so much for that.

You can find all the links to platforms in the show notes with

everything else at already free me forward Slash 009 Until next week.

I'm your host, Nathan Mangad, and it's been an honor to share with

you today. Dear listener, may your every step

be a remembrance of the miracle and blessing of life.