🌍 What does it really mean to live in harmony with the Earth—and with each other?
In this heart-centered episode of Tangelic Talks, co-hosts Victoria Cornelio and Andres Tamez sit down with Lesley Joy Quilty—depth coach, storyteller, clown, meditation teacher, and long-time resident of Scotland’s Findhorn Ecovillage.
Through nearly four decades of community living and spiritual practice, Lesley has woven together Buddhist meditation, Indigenous traditions, and playful clowning to help people reconnect with joy, resilience, and ecological balance—even in uncertain times.
🎙️ Episode Highlights:
🤡 Clowning as truth-telling, play, and healing in difficult spaces
🌱 Lessons from eco-village life about sustainability and community
🧘 Meditation, breathwork & ancestral wisdom as tools for resilience
💔 Disconnection as the “disease” of our age
✨ How mistakes & imperfection can spark hope and transformation
🌍 Honoring Indigenous knowledge with humility and reciprocity
🔹 About Our Guest: Lesley Joy Quilty is a depth coach, ancestral healing facilitator, clown doctor, and leadership guide. Her work blends play, spiritual practice, and ecological wisdom to help people cultivate joy, resilience, and connection. She has delivered TEDx talks on embracing life fully, even in the face of grief and uncertainty.
💬 Join the Conversation: How do you stay joyful and grounded while facing climate grief and uncertainty? Share your reflections and practices below 👇
✨ Exclusive Content:
📽️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tangeliclife/podcasts
🌐 Website: https://tangeliclife.org/tangelic-talks-podcast/
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1Tp4UAU4FmUmKS4md9orvi
🎧 Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tangelic-talks/id1789613381
✅ Don’t forget to like, share & subscribe — your support helps us amplify voices at the intersection of energy, equity, and empowerment. 🌍✨
🌱 Love what we do? Support our mission and help us keep creating: TangelicLife.org
🔖 #TangelicTalks #EcologicalHarmony #PlayfulActivism #ClowningForHealing #EcoVillageLiving #CommunitySustainability #MindfulResilience #MeditationForChange #IndigenousWisdom #ClimateSpirituality #AncestralHealing #JoyInActivism #ResilientCommunities #TEDx #ClimateGrief
In this heart-centered episode of Tangelic Talks, co-hosts Victoria Cornelio and Andres Tamez sit down with Lesley Joy Quilty—depth coach, storyteller, clown, meditation teacher, and long-time resident of Scotland’s Findhorn Ecovillage.
Through nearly four decades of community living and spiritual practice, Lesley has woven together Buddhist meditation, Indigenous traditions, and playful clowning to help people reconnect with joy, resilience, and ecological balance—even in uncertain times.
🎙️ Episode Highlights:
🤡 Clowning as truth-telling, play, and healing in difficult spaces
🌱 Lessons from eco-village life about sustainability and community
🧘 Meditation, breathwork & ancestral wisdom as tools for resilience
💔 Disconnection as the “disease” of our age
✨ How mistakes & imperfection can spark hope and transformation
🌍 Honoring Indigenous knowledge with humility and reciprocity
🔹 About Our Guest: Lesley Joy Quilty is a depth coach, ancestral healing facilitator, clown doctor, and leadership guide. Her work blends play, spiritual practice, and ecological wisdom to help people cultivate joy, resilience, and connection. She has delivered TEDx talks on embracing life fully, even in the face of grief and uncertainty.
💬 Join the Conversation: How do you stay joyful and grounded while facing climate grief and uncertainty? Share your reflections and practices below 👇
✨ Exclusive Content:
📽️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tangeliclife/podcasts
🌐 Website: https://tangeliclife.org/tangelic-talks-podcast/
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1Tp4UAU4FmUmKS4md9orvi
🎧 Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tangelic-talks/id1789613381
✅ Don’t forget to like, share & subscribe — your support helps us amplify voices at the intersection of energy, equity, and empowerment. 🌍✨
🌱 Love what we do? Support our mission and help us keep creating: TangelicLife.org
🔖 #TangelicTalks #EcologicalHarmony #PlayfulActivism #ClowningForHealing #EcoVillageLiving #CommunitySustainability #MindfulResilience #MeditationForChange #IndigenousWisdom #ClimateSpirituality #AncestralHealing #JoyInActivism #ResilientCommunities #TEDx #ClimateGrief
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00Having a moment to take a breath, that's a profound counter-cultural moment in the life, the world we're living in, with the amount of complexity, the increasing speed, the overload of information we're taking in from every direction.
00:19So to actually have a moment to pause and take a breath and come home to ourselves, that's a radical act, right?
00:27So clowning has existed in all cultures across time, it shows up in different ways, Shakespeare plays, in indigenous practices, it's medieval times, that role of the jester, the fool who has permission to speak truth to power and to do it in a playful way.
00:49I feel like people have this sense of, I can't be joyous right now because I'm trying to get somewhere, but then in my opinion it feels like, well how are you going to be joyful then?
00:59You can't be joyful now, when it's really necessary, like once you get there it's also just going to be doom and gloom, even if you've finished your objective, I feel.
01:09Certainly, creating a warm and engaging recognition for your podcast, consider great, tell me as a suggestion that combines an upbeat and abiding spirit with energy and grow music.
01:20Welcome to Tangelic Talks, your go-to podcast from Tangelic, where we dive into the vibrant world of clean energy, development, sustainability, and climate change in Africa.
01:31We bring you inspiring stories, insightful discussions, and groundbreaking innovations from the continent-making waves in the global community.
01:39Tune in and join the conversation toward a brighter, greener future.
01:43Let's get started.
01:44All right, welcome to Tangelic Talks.
01:49I'm here with my host, Victoria, and I'm Andres, the co-host.
01:54And today our guest has spent nearly four decades living in Scotland's Fyndhorn eco-village, exploring what it truly means to live in harmony with the earth and each other.
02:07Leslie is a depth coach, ancestral healer, leadership guide, breathwork and meditation teacher, clown, and storyteller.
02:14Weaving wisdom from Buddhist insight, meditation, and indigenous ceremonial traditions into everything she does.
02:20Her work is all about presence, joy, and deep connectedness, even in the darkest moments.
02:25You might know her from her TEDx talks, saying yes to life.
02:30And today she's here to help us say yes to the planet, to each other, and to the unpredictable beauty of being alive.
02:36I think that really capsules.
02:40Thank you so much for being here.
02:42I'm really excited about this conversation.
02:45And nervous.
02:48Great.
02:48Yeah, thank you so much.
02:51And okay, there's a lot there.
02:52Nervousness is excitement, right?
02:53Nervousness and excitement, they're on the same continuum.
02:56We're just moving up and down, right?
02:58I like that.
02:59Yes, yes.
02:59Okay.
03:00Well, I want to start with the obvious from your bio, and that's clown.
03:07I was reading that on your website, and I was like, what is this clowning thing?
03:12Please.
03:13I think that's one of the things most of us are completely unaware of.
03:16What is clowning?
03:18How do you use it in your work?
03:19So clowning has existed in all cultures across time.
03:24It shows up in different ways.
03:26Shakespeare plays, in indigenous practices.
03:31It's medieval times, that role of the jester, the fool who has permission to speak truth to power and to do it in a playful way.
03:41The entire archetype of playfulness, right?
03:43Yeah, yeah.
03:45So how can we be playful in the times that we're living in?
03:51You know, there's so much suffering and feels like what we call industrial growth society is unraveling before our eyes, and we're feeling the impact of it.
04:02And it would be easy to get really hopeless and scared and angry.
04:08So how can we continue to engage the parts of us that are playful and joyous and are able to orient towards joy?
04:18So clowning is a great way to do it.
04:20That's so interesting.
04:21So what does it look like?
04:23Like, what do you do?
04:24So I've worked in lots of different settings as a clown.
04:28One of the key practice areas, I would say, has been working as a clown doctor.
04:33So I work in hospitals and hospices with children that have life-limiting illnesses, working with specifically referred children and their families, usually at the bedside.
04:46It's not like putting on a show or entertainment, but therapeutic clowning.
04:51And so we meet families in the most vulnerable circumstances you can imagine.
05:01And the task is to connect with the playful part of that child that's still in there and to support the families to connect with that.
05:12Sometimes clown doctor visits are wild and loud and break the usual rules of what hospital life usually is like.
05:24Sometimes they can be very tender.
05:27We're led by the child.
05:30And we always work in pairs, two clowns together, entering a context in which there's a lot of feeling, there's pressure, there's grief, there's fear, and bringing a little thread of playfulness in to see what kind of connections we can make together.
05:51That's so beautiful.
05:53Oh, wow.
05:54That is so amazing because you made the point of like, it goes sometimes opposite to what happens in these sort of environments, right?
06:03But it shouldn't be the case, right?
06:06We are playful by nature.
06:08That's what we do.
06:09That's how we connect with each other, right?
06:11We play.
06:12We interact.
06:14And I don't know.
06:15I just find it beautiful.
06:16Sorry, Victoria.
06:17No, no, no, I was just going to say, I feel like we stop playing when we're adults, right?
06:23And being able to have that.
06:25Yeah, we kind of mute it out.
06:27I would say particularly in the spaces of activism where we're facing tough realities and we can get very serious.
06:38Yeah.
06:38Because we're scared, right?
06:40Because we have a lot of feelings.
06:42So being able to stay connected with the reason for our activism, our love for the world and our love for each other, and to express that in ways that feel liberating and joyous and, yeah, help us feel what's true, what's real, what's worth standing against, what's worth standing for.
07:05Yeah, and how do you find that balance when it comes to playfulness?
07:10Because like you said, we are in spaces, you go into these hospitals, you know, we kind of put ourselves in these places that are very tense.
07:18And sometimes we risk making, you know, an insensitive comment or a bit of a mockery of the situation by trying to infuse funniness into it.
07:28So how do you strike that balance?
07:30Yeah, good question.
07:32I mean, it takes a lot of sensitivity and what we might call attunement, the way we would play an instrument.
07:39We make sure all the strings on our violin are in tune.
07:43Otherwise, it's awful, right?
07:45Yeah.
07:46So the first thing that happens in a clown doctor visit is getting permission from the child to enter their room.
07:55Right.
07:56So tuning into them and having sensitivity towards how close does the child want me to be, how far away.
08:05We work in pairs, in partners, so it's possible to keep a big distance initially and a relationship happens between the clowns.
08:16There's usually some dynamic going on between them that the child is then invited to witness and start engaging with.
08:24Sometimes one of the clowns, I mean, it's a kind of classic for one of the clowns to arrive and say, can I just hide in your room for a second?
08:33My partner, there's another clown here.
08:35He's driving me crazy.
08:37I promise I won't talk to you.
08:38I'm not going to do it.
08:39We're not going to talk.
08:40I'm just going to hide behind your curtain.
08:42Would that be okay?
08:43And the child will either say yes and the game's on or the child will say no and then the game's still on because then the other clown will appear.
08:54I hear you.
08:56So it's playfully finding a way to sensitize what's possible in this relationship.
09:04How are we meeting in the moment?
09:06What's here?
09:06And how do we invite a playful contact to come in moment by moment?
09:14And what do you think are some of the benefits of having that more light touch with how we engage with things?
09:22Because, again, it's very easy to fall into the doomsday rhetorics these days.
09:27So is there something there of trying to, like, take us out of that oblivion?
09:32Or is it just a moment for us to take a breath?
09:35I think it can be both.
09:37Like having a moment to take a breath, that's a profound countercultural moment in the life, the world we're living in with the amount of complexity, the increasing speed, the overload of information we're taking in from every direction.
09:57So to actually have a moment to pause and take a breath and come home to ourselves, that's a radical act, right?
10:05And if in that radical act something sweet or tender or lighthearted or ridiculous comes in that reminds us we are alive, we are making this up as we go along, which the clown is the master at.
10:24They don't have a plan and what's happening in the moment, that is the best thing that could possibly ever happen, mistakes or opportunities for clowns.
10:35So in that, if we manage to create a pause and we have a moment together, then we feel into, okay, what's here?
10:44What's possible beyond the plans, the strategies, the data, the statistics, what have we got?
10:53What have we got that we can call in and rely on?
10:57I really like that.
10:58I think grounding is one of those things that we take for granted because we don't really have the time to sit and meditate or we don't find the time to do it, right?
11:09I feel like people have this sense of, I can't be joyous right now because I'm trying to get somewhere.
11:15But then in my opinion, it feels like, well, how are you going to be joyful then?
11:20If you can't be joyful now when it's really necessary, like once you get there, it's also just going to be doom and gloom, even if you've finished your objective, I feel.
11:30Yeah, that's such a great comment.
11:32We spend so much time living in the future, right?
11:35When I get there, then I'll be happy, then I'll be joyous, then I'll be at peace.
11:40I mean, this is it.
11:41This is all we've got.
11:43We have no idea where we're going.
11:46Yeah.
11:47We've got to enjoy the ride.
11:48And are we going to live now?
11:51Are we going to live what we've got?
11:53Yeah.
11:54I mean, we're due for a super volcano eruption.
11:57It could all be gone tomorrow.
11:59You know, like we won't have to worry about the climate and this and that anymore.
12:05And I guess that's where it gets hard, right?
12:08Like how do we balance living in the now without, I think a lot of people also, you know, the YOLO thing of, oh, well, you have one life, do whatever.
12:17Don't worry about that.
12:18And, you know, and how do we balance that between let's be happy now, let's enjoy the now without also, you know, kind of neglecting the future?
12:27Because there's a lot of things that if we want to see change in, we have to work for that future.
12:32Yeah, yeah, exactly.
12:34But living in the now does not mean the future is not here.
12:39It means that we're connected with our resources for shaping that future.
12:45And what do we want the future to look like?
12:48Do we want to pull forward our terror?
12:52Do we want to pull forward a sense of deep connectedness, of reverence for life, of capacity to celebrate what is ridiculous and hilarious?
13:08I mean, what a predicament we're in as a species.
13:13I mean, unbelievable, right?
13:14Yeah, well, we're trying to figure that one out, aren't we?
13:18And you're also an ancestral healer.
13:21What does that mean?
13:22I wouldn't call myself an ancestral healer.
13:25But ancestral healing happens in some of the work that I do, particularly working with psychedelics, also with a form that I use in my coaching work called family or organizational constellations, where we invite the wise and well among our ancestors to be felt by us and to resource us, calling in their skills, their talents, their capacities.
13:55But also just being aware of the fact that we are alive because they lived.
14:02We are the best of them.
14:04We're the best that survived against all the odds we're here.
14:10Wow.
14:10So having that sense of a lineage or a legacy of those who've come behind us and having, you know, and most families have got situations, right?
14:23There's always dynamics in families.
14:25It's not about thinking of them as some perfected beings, but to live with gratitude for having been given life, to be here at all, with the opportunity to engage with what's happening in our time and to shape the future.
14:46That's so interesting.
14:47And does that relate to your relationship with nature as well?
14:51Definitely.
14:52Because our ancestors are not just human, right?
14:56This earth is our ancestor.
14:59In some traditions, they call the earth the mother earth.
15:02Because everything we grow, everything we eat.
15:08I mean, I remember sitting, I was on a meditation retreat.
15:13I was sitting, eating.
15:15We were, I was with a group of people.
15:17We were practicing in silence.
15:19So we were having a silent meal.
15:21I had a plate of salad before me.
15:23And I looked, I looked down at the salad and I thought, I'm alive because of you guys.
15:31Everything on this plate, you, you and all your ancestors, all the plants, for those who eat animals, they would be included as well.
15:40Like, we're alive because of them.
15:42We're not, we're not separate.
15:45So when we talk about ecological harmony or living in an ecologically sustainable way, we're not, we're not separate from this planet we're trying to save.
15:58We're it, right?
15:59We're made of earth.
16:00We're made of water.
16:01What do you think, and we brought this up a couple of podcasts ago with another guest.
16:06What do you think about the people that sort of view humans as separate from nature?
16:11Like, as, as their own entity, we are, we, we're divided and we shouldn't interfere.
16:17When I, I feel that we are untetherable from it, right?
16:21Like, or, or how, how would you, how would you explain it?
16:24We, we're so deeply tied into it.
16:26We have so many deep history, so much deep history that we can record as humans, our history with nature.
16:33I, I feel like it's doing a disservice to ourselves to, to think of ourselves as outside of it.
16:39I, I don't know what you think.
16:41It's, it's not my personal embodied experience that I am separate.
16:47Mm-hmm.
16:48Mm-hmm.
16:48Oh, okay.
16:49That's, that's.
16:49But I, but I know, I know the feeling.
16:53It was, I like, I, I know what it feels like to, to go for a walk and to have, to be so busy in my mind that I'm not really taking in the landscape I'm in, that I'm in this kind of little human centric bubble of planning and remembering.
17:13And I also know what it feels like to become aware of that and to have been lucky enough to have received some tools, some trainings, some teachings that support me to be able to, to be aware this is what's going on.
17:29And to drop the protectedness, the, the, the guard that, and, and to look out and to feel out, to, to use my senses, to feel what I'm immersed in inside, outside.
17:46Right.
17:46And I, I feel like that, that experience of being separate from nature, that, that's really common in the societies, the cultures that we have created.
17:59It's, it's not, it's not an accident.
18:02Our industrial growth society encourages us to be focused on, um, a separation that allows us to dominate and control and do horrific things.
18:14Yeah.
18:14In, in, in the service of endless growth, right?
18:18Yeah.
18:19And so-called growth.
18:20So it's very handy for the, for systems to have us think that we're separate, but, but we know we're not.
18:30Right?
18:31Yeah.
18:31Yeah, absolutely.
18:33If, if we could, if we could step out of that, if we could step out of that bubble, we would know we're not.
18:38Right.
18:39And we knew, and in many cases, we need tools.
18:43We need practices.
18:44We need to cultivate that, that sense of connectedness, that liberation from systems that'll keep us in a little box.
18:55Yeah.
18:56Is that what led you to live in an eco-village?
18:59How did that come about and what, what does it mean to live in an eco-village?
19:03What, how's that different from different communities that we might see in cities?
19:08Well, I, I mean, I was traveling around, I'm Canadian.
19:12I had left Canada at 19, running from the culture that I left.
19:16I had no idea what I was looking for.
19:19And I went to Finthorn.
19:21I met somebody who'd been there who told me a little bit about it.
19:24And, and, and I immediately felt at home and I've lived a lot of my adult life here.
19:32Uh, so Finthorn is one of many different eco-villages and communities on the planet.
19:38It's one of the, it's an older one.
19:39It's in over 60 years, it's been going, and there's been lots of different waves, the waves of development, waves of intention, different focuses.
19:50Because we have a strong focus on the, on being ecological or sustainable on a physical, practical level.
19:58So the way we build houses, how we grow food and so on, obvious things that are now obvious in lots of places.
20:07Um, but we've also developed a lot of social technologies for, for being ecological.
20:13So how do we actually, how do we make decisions?
20:17How do we relate to each other?
20:19How do we, um, have an experience of seeing the other in myself and myself in the other?
20:27And community is a brilliant place for, for getting that personal healing and planetary healing are not two different things.
20:37They are simultaneously, we inter are, even with people who annoy us, right?
20:43Or we don't have anything in common with, or so we think.
20:46That's incredible.
20:47Getting to that level of connectedness, I can imagine takes some level of not just maturity, but openness, right?
20:55For sure, openness and willingness to learn and willingness to make mistakes.
21:01Because it's, because it's not a utopia.
21:04We are in the mess with, like everyone else.
21:07I would say the thing that makes it healing, um, and distinct is that there is a shared commitment to face the mess together and apply our best thinking, our most playful approaches, tenderness, to, to holding each other in the difficult places.
21:32And exploring how can we, how can we, how can we build a collective that can move forward?
21:39So the individuals flourish and the, and the collective radiates that flourishing.
21:45And that, that commitment's really strong.
21:48And sometimes it's a pain in the butt because it takes a lot of energy.
21:51And you get faced with yourself and faced with others, right?
21:55But, but we share that intention and that commitment.
21:59Yeah.
22:00That's another one, right?
22:01Like you have this idea and, and as you've said, it's been planted in us that the prosperity of, it's either the prosperity of the individual or as a group.
22:11But like we cannot, we are individuals, we exist in a group and we're, we're intertied, right?
22:17You can be both.
22:18You can make a system where the individuals flourish in a way that helps everyone.
22:23People are very doom, doom focused when it comes to that.
22:27They don't believe that that can happen.
22:29Well, it's a constant process, right?
22:32It's a, it's like a tap dance basically of, of figuring out how to honor individual and collective needs.
22:42And in different moments you hit challenging things, hot spots where the individual needs flare up and the collective needs seem to move into the background.
22:53How do I acknowledge my own needs, my own boundaries, and also continue to open, expand what's possible in terms of our understanding and, and compassion to keep growing these hearts that can, that can feel compassion and can, and can act with compassion as the fuel.
23:18Yeah, when you talk about that, it makes me think of activists who burn out because they are so focused on the movement that they've kind of let go of their own wellbeing to be part of this movement.
23:30And then they kind of get turned off by the movement because they think the movement did this to them, but they're also really passionate about the work.
23:37So now they feel isolated and, you know, it's, it's this thing of being able to take a step back, but also recognizing that as part of the collective, you're not alone.
23:47And I think a lot of people feel alone these days.
23:49I would say that sense of disconnection is the primary dis-ease of our times.
23:57Disconnection from the living planet that we spring from and that we're going to return to.
24:03We don't know when, but we know for sure we are going back and disconnection from each other, the polarization we have between different collectives on the planet that, that is, uh, and like any disease, it, it takes, takes some kind of medicine.
24:22It takes intelligence, skill, care, sometimes more time than we want it to take to, you know, to heal together.
24:34Do you have any practical or personal practices that have supported your own sense of ecological wellbeing and healing?
24:42Are there things that you started doing that you feel, you know, could be a gateway for people to start implementing in their own lives?
24:49Yeah, well, I'm, I've been meditating, I'm 60 years old, I turned 60 this year.
24:56So I've got four decades of meditation practice, sitting underneath me as a foundation.
25:04And I would, and meditation, what is it?
25:06What is meditation?
25:07It's the practice of paying attention to what's present in the moment and bringing a curious, kind attention.
25:18To experience as it arises, as it's present and as it moves on.
25:26Right.
25:26So turning off the filters, I guess, like really focusing on, on all the senses and what you're receiving at the moment, instead of being in that hyper-focused state where you're blocking things out.
25:37Like, is that basically what, what the mechanism is and, and how do people start it?
25:43Like, should people start doing that?
25:45Is that something people should do?
25:47I mean, everybody I work with and all the different settings I work always include meditation.
25:54Yeah.
25:55Because it's been so helpful to me.
25:57That's why I include it as part of my embodied experience.
26:00It, it, it taught me how to be with experience as it is, not how I want it to be, not how I think it should be, but how it actually is.
26:12And to, and to, and to bring that kind of curious, kind attention to myself and, and it's a way of really experiencing my, my connectedness.
26:25And, and it doesn't necessarily mean the filters are out or that I'm freed from that, or that I meet the, and slow it down enough to actually see.
26:39Okay, what is actually going on here and how am I making it worse with all my reactivity to it?
26:46Is it possible to, to do what you said, to just pause?
26:50Can we, can we find micro moments of pausing in the flurry?
26:56That's what I've heard a lot of people say with meditation, where it's like, it's more of a mindfulness thing than anything of just sit there for a second, you know, recognize you're alive.
27:06Anytime you do guided meditation, a lot of the instructions are, feel your skin, feel your feet against the ground, like ground yourself, literally just feel that you are here.
27:17Because in that, it kind of feels like you're on autopilot many times and kind of coming back, like you said, coming home to yourself.
27:25To this body, this part of ourself, right?
27:30And this heart that has all these feelings coming and going, endless wave.
27:35For some of us, we don't even have many feelings because the mind is so dominating.
27:40It's so loud that we can't really hear the nuanced stuff.
27:45Yeah.
27:45Self-awareness can be terrifying.
27:47Yeah.
27:48Terrifying.
27:49Right?
27:50Like, no, not that.
27:53Put the escapism on.
27:57Truly terrifying.
27:58That's why we run around with our phones.
28:01We feel ourselves busy with input.
28:05It's a very brave thing to just sit with yourself.
28:10Yeah.
28:10And I find it really helpful to do so.
28:15It also makes me more compassionate.
28:20An understanding of all the distractions we come up with individually and also in our cultures.
28:27Just to, you know, we miss out.
28:30And we protect ourselves.
28:33Right?
28:33All those distractions are a very handy protection.
28:36Yeah.
28:37Because when we don't have the tools to sort of deal with them in the moment.
28:40And I think a lot of people fall in this trap of having to be perfect at, you know, being an environmentalist or being connected to the earth, being green, all these things.
28:52And so what would you say to that?
28:54Like, what even is perfect?
28:57This is where being a clown really comes in handy.
29:00Because a clown, the mindset of a clown, the approach is that mistakes are the biggest gift of anything.
29:10The clown knows they don't know, you know, and celebrates all the parts of them that are not perfect, celebrates the mistakes.
29:24It's sometimes called clowning the art of revealing what we try to hide.
29:29Some of my clowning work takes me into organizational settings or to conferences.
29:37And the job there is to play out the tensions that are palpable, that are felt by everyone, but aren't being named.
29:47So the clown can take them on and play them out, exaggerate them, so that we can see them together.
29:56Yeah, the power of comedy at that point.
30:00And the power of our imperfection.
30:03I mean, none of us has got it all figured out.
30:06We walk around trying to appear like we know what we're doing and we're competent.
30:12But inside, we're all vulnerable.
30:14We're all making it up moment by moment.
30:17None of us have a clue.
30:19We think we know, right?
30:21But we know we don't know.
30:22And I think being able to accept that is the challenge many times.
30:29When you think of a world that's deeply in ecological balance, what does that look like?
30:35What do you think would be the biggest change we would see in our current society if that was the case?
30:42Hmm, such a great question.
30:44Because that takes us into the visionary parts of us, right?
30:48What world can we imagine is possible?
30:52Definitely, I see a world where people feel connected.
30:57So connected to themselves, connected to others, not just the ones who are in their immediate circles of influence, the ones who are known,
31:07but can have the capacity to feel connected to folks they've never met before, who have completely different values and views from them.
31:16To feel connected to this body, to know this is me.
31:22I'm in here.
31:23I am this.
31:25Connected to our elements, to the earth.
31:28So that sense of family, familia, interbeing, as one of my dear teachers, Thit Nhat Hanh, refers to this experience as interbeing.
31:42It's like radical interdependence on each other.
31:46So, I mean, even if we just had that, I think the decisions we make, the choices we take, the actions we take, would be radically different.
31:58We've been taught that this interdependence, which is deeply ingrained in us, is a bad thing.
32:05Like, we shouldn't depend on one another.
32:07We shouldn't be connected with one another so deeply.
32:10When I feel like our natural state is actually, we're supposed to.
32:15We're supposed to, because that's what makes us care about each other and ourselves.
32:18Where do psychedelics fall into this?
32:22When I was, I created a website this year, and a few of my colleagues, my psychedelic colleagues said,
32:30you better not put clowning on there, Leslie.
32:32I mean, people are not going to see the connection.
32:36I see it, I see it, I can't visualize it.
32:40I love it.
32:44So, plant medicine, psychedelics are another way of opening the fields of possibility and facilitating that sense of being family with the world we're immersed in.
32:58They're not for everybody, that's for sure.
33:00But for some of us, they can be portals, real openings, and particularly if they're combined with meditation or other reflective practices.
33:13So, they're not like a magic pill.
33:16You take it, you go on a trip, and then it sorts you out.
33:19There's prep work to be made, right?
33:21Like, it's something that you should do responsible about.
33:24Absolutely, and to work with a practitioner who you build a relationship of trust with, who is really focused on ethics, on safety, who does proper screening, to ensure that it is a good fit, and it is a good moment to work with a psychedelic.
33:43So, it takes a lot of prep, and it also takes a lot of integration.
33:49It's another step on the path, and for some people, it's a kind of turbocharged step that can open up and reveal a lot.
33:59The word psychedelics was coined in the late 60s.
34:03It means mind revealing.
34:04So, we get to see how this mind operates.
34:10We get to see it, you know, without the usual filters of defense, and that can be incredibly beautiful, amazingly illuminating, and magical, and it can also be really challenging.
34:25Yeah.
34:25So, set and setting, the context in which you work with a psychedelic, the facilitator, the person who's holding you, those are really personal choices, and they need to be done with a really high degree of attunement, and respect, and playfulness.
34:46What do you know?
34:48Look at that.
34:49Well, we are going to get a bit more into that in the blog section.
34:53Leslie, thank you so much for joining us.
34:56As always, remember, you can check out the blogs at TangelicLife.org, and any resources that Leslie wants to share with us will be linked there as well, and you can find her page there as well.
35:07And you might want to try out a session.
35:08Go check out the ecovillage she's at, and stay tuned for the next episode of Tangelic Talks.
35:16Thanks, you guys.
35:16That was delightful.
35:17Let's talk power, let's talk change, for rural lights to brighter days, equity rising, voices strong, we're building tomorrow where we all belong.
35:38Tangelic talks, energy, equity, pride in power in the world, side by side, a spark becomes a fire, a vision that's true, together we rise.
35:50It starts with you.
35:52Oh, oh, oh, oh
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