Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Lead with Heart. I'm your host, Dr. Jesse Hansen. And today, Metamorfinka, the farm of transformation. Because Lead With Heart is all about amplifying transformation. So let's go check it out.
So Metamorfinga has many different accommodations. However, I'm just going to show you guys a couple of my favorites. La Cascada, if you don't know, as waterfall. One of the most amazing waterfalls in Costa Rica called San Luis Cascara that is just outside this view. Metamorphinka is also amazing. It's much more homey. You've got your own little kitchen here, nice space here, accommodations for sleeping or upstairs. The best part, of course, is that that brings nature in. San Luis waterfall right there. When you've got a space like this, transformation happens a lot easier. And if you guys aren't familiar, this is a beautiful blue jade plant that I just found on the ground. And just another one of the blessings that comes out of this beautiful, deep nature jungle that we have. And one more accommodation I want to show you guys. Mariposa. I couldn't bring this whole show about transformation without honoring the master of transformation herself, La Mariposa, the butterfly. We are in the OSA in Costa Rica, which is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, which is at the core of Leading with Heart. So what would a retreat center be without a beautiful spa section? Got an infrared sauna, a beautiful jacuzzi, little fire circle here, and a beautiful swimming pool, fully set up. Spring water, it is actually heated, believe it or not. It can get actually a little bit chilly up here on these mountaintops in Costa Rica and just a beautiful sacred space to enj yourself today. This is going to be our set where we are going to open up people's hearts and minds, including my own. So can't wait to make some magic. Stay tuned for more what's coming here on Lead with Heart.
Pura vida. Live the pure life.
Welcome to Lead with heart. I'm Dr. Jesse Hanson and today we explore the essence of leadership beyond strategy and status. You're watching now media television.
Hello and welcome to Lead with Heart, the show where strategy meets soul. We're exploring not just what leadership is beyond the obvious corporate leadership model, but how leaders show up as family members, as parents, as community members. We're also looking deeper at the power of Leading with Heart, which means not just thinking our way through everything. It means being able to feel into our body and listen. And so I'm so excited today because my Guests are such wonderful examples of living through their hearts and following their dreams. So please welcome Irishapi and Concetta, the land stewards behind this amazing place called Metamorfinga, the farm of Transformation. It's a regenerative retreat center and permaculture farm in San Luis, Costa Rica, nestled in the mountains just north of Uvita. So thank you both so much for joining. Really happy to have you here. Obviously, we are blessed to be in the space that you guys have created. Feel blessed to also the first time that I've been welcoming a couple of as a guest, so I think that's also really beautiful. So thank you guys for being here.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you, Jesse, for coming to our place and letting us share our story. I want to thank you and everything, your journey that brought you to this point. Your ancestors, your family.
So thank you for having us on your show and coming here to our farm.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: My honor. My honor. Thank you guys so much. And as I said there in the intro, the idea with this is just to give a sacred space for us to have a deeper conversation around leadership through our heart. And even though this is obviously not a mega corporate building, this is a very sacred space. And what you guys are creating here is something really special, which is why I wanted to invite you here. And yet, before we get deeper into learning all about what's going on here at the finca, I want to get to deeper know you guys just as human beings, you know, and so the first segment here is really just about who were you? Right? Where did you guys come from? And as a couple, I'm gonna allow you guys to dance with the dynamic of who speaks when. But just. Yeah, I'd love to hear who you both were before how you came together.
What are the significant elements that have make you who you are?
[00:04:27] Speaker C: Ladies first.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: Okay.
Well, I was born and raised in Maryland outside of D.C.
and I kind of grew up in the traditional modern system where, you know, you get educated, you go to college, you get a good job, and you get married and you have kids. And that was the. The framework. And, you know, my. There was some stuff, you know, in my childhood, but the challenges are really. Any. Any adversity has made me stronger.
But what really came is, you know, I did the good. I did everything like the good girl. Like, I got the. I did well in school, I got the good job. I moved to the big city, you know, and I was almost ready to marry into that life when I decide, like, when I realized, like, there has to be more than this Than just this, trying to acquire material things and get more money and climb to the corporate ladder. And, like, I'm missing something. I'm missing something profound. And I had this call that, like, you know, I worked for really big marketing companies, Anheuser Busch, like, advertising technology. I did that whole world. I was wined and dined and I went out, and then I really just. Something was putting such a pressure on me to find something more.
[00:05:44] Speaker C: You were?
[00:05:44] Speaker A: Yeah. You knew at a soul level, like, this wasn't fulfilling you. Luckily. When was that, Ar Shapi? Like in your 20s, I'm assuming.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: Yeah, that was my 20s. That was around 25, 26.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean, my childhood, you know, there's stuff there, but his childhood is way more exciting. Interesting.
[00:06:05] Speaker C: Thank you for that.
Yeah. For me, I can't really talk about myself without really thinking or talking about, you know, where my family came from or, you know, where I came from as an extension of them. So I was born and raised in New York City, and my family, they came over from somewhere deep in Eastern Europe sometime in the early 1900s, Jewish immigrants.
So they landed in New York, lived in, like, the tenement housing and the Lower east side, like, did. Did all that. So, like, really, like, I live here now, but. But New York is, like, really, really, like, part of my essence and, like, kind of part of, like, who I am, part of my spirit.
And so the family that I was born into, my. My father was in finance. My mother, you know, she. She, you know, was kind of big in, like, the New York social scene, this and that, like, helped do fundraisers and galas and different things like that raise money for charitable causes.
And then everything kind of got all Topsy Turvy On September 11, 2000, 2001, my parents were divorced, and so I was living with my mom, and she was doing the single mother thing with us, me and my two brothers. And so we lived in Tribeca, two blocks away from the World Trade Center. And before that, you know, that day, we kind of. We had our challenges as family. My mind, my father was an alcoholic and struggled with substance dependence and all of that, so we struggled with all that. But then once the towers went down, that was kind of a catalyst of.
The only really word I have for it is kind of destruction and a breaking down of the family unit.
And so we. We even had family who. Who worked there and knew lots of people who were affected. So, you know, when. When that happened, it was kind of a very challenging thing for us to kind of recover from from how old were you concentra? I was nine.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Nine.
[00:08:20] Speaker C: Eight. Going on nine or nine.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: And you lost your uncle?
[00:08:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:23] Speaker C: Family in the building. My mother's brother.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:08:26] Speaker C: Yeah, we. We never saw him again. You know, the last time I saw him was a few weeks before that.
So really, like, after that, like, the model of, like, the family that we had was already very unstable and rocky.
My parents, they. They had their own issues, their own traumas, their own challenges that they went through with their parents that like most. Lots of people who are descendants of immigrants in the US That. That they go through different things and.
But after that, like, we kind of lost our family model. So kind of from then, really, from that point onward, for the rest of my life, was kind of me searching for a model of community, of identity, of family that really, really made sense.
And growing up, you know, in New York, in the modern world, in the developed world, or what some might call westernized soc, Everywhere I looked, I couldn't find that. I couldn't find something that was sustainable, that made sense, that could. That could persist through just the. The challenges that the world and nature and being a human being, the things that we have to face with, like, traumatic exposure or no traumatic exposure.
And so that really led me to finding and seeking out different teachers from different traditional cultures.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: Roughly what age did that shift?
[00:09:58] Speaker C: That journey really started shortly after college.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:10:03] Speaker C: In college, I got very invested in, like, the. The psychedelic medicine movement and psychedelic culture and all of that, and where, like, I saw, like, okay, well, maybe this is the answer. This is something different. This is something new. And for me, it really began kind of with how I was raised, even pre 9 11, and really watching what happened to my older brother. He was, you know, back in late 80s, early 90s, no one really understood things like autism spectrum disorder. No one really understood, you know, the psychotic state. And still, like, when you go to see to a traditional place, they have a specific understanding of what that is and kind of how to help or initiate a human being to know how to work with that and be in harmony with that. But, you know, my older brother, he was extremely mentally ill. And, you know, he.
Growing up with him was very difficult. He had very violent outbursts. And so really kind of watching how he was treated and also seeing, you know, I got an ADHD diagnosis of. I kind of got all these. These things that I was told that I was. So that I could be given prescriptions. And I saw it also happening to my parents. So, you know, and then I saw the destruction that took place after that. Both my older brother, my parents, myself.
And so really, you know, kind of growing up in the system, in the modernized system, to me, there was always just kind of a deep feeling of like, something's not right here. I don't think this is how we're supposed to be living, living our lives, or I don't. I don't think this is what being a human being is. Is meant to be.
So that manifested as, you know, I was.
I didn't do well in school.
I ended up in the troubled teen industry, which maybe some people watching this are aware of and.
But, you know, so I was looking for a model that made sense for sustainability, for community, individuality, and human civilization, humanness as a whole.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Where did you end up looking as you're. As you're realizing everything around you is not.
[00:12:20] Speaker C: In my early 20s, and I ended up going the plant medicine route, kind of going from psychedelic culture to that. That was the segue that made the most sense.
You know, in the early. In like the 2010s, early 2000s, it was kind of. Plant medicine was kind of like mysterious.
Every psychonaut's dream was to, you know, drink ayahuasca, eat peyote, all these things that, you know, were kind of difficult to acquire. You had to go to the Amazon, do all these things back then. Now it's like, I remember in Brooklyn, you know, there's maybe like 12 different Ayahuasca ceremonies every weekend.
[00:13:02] Speaker A: So as that one wore out, where
[00:13:04] Speaker C: did you end up looking after the Amazon?
After the Amazon, I ended up through kind of all that work. Me and my wife, we started doing a lot of non for profit work, charitable work, with different indigenous leaders, different indigenous teachers, because we met a lot of people who were like real lineage carriers who really kind of held what they were doing in integrity and were doing their healing work. And it had been preserved, you know, for millennia, what they were doing.
So we did a lot of work helping them, like, you know, raising money.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: Where was this, though? Where.
[00:13:45] Speaker C: Where was this?
[00:13:45] Speaker A: Yeah, in the world in still in New York or.
[00:13:48] Speaker C: This was in the. I used to help run events in California, the us the uk.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:13:55] Speaker C: Like all over. Different. Different charitable, like fundraiser events, things. Things like that. Some involve rituals and ceremonies and some. Some didn't.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:04] Speaker C: And so then after that, we met our current teacher from the Dogon people in West Africa.
[00:14:09] Speaker A: The Dogon in West Africa. Awesome. That's what I want to pause on. We do have to take a quick break. Irishapi and kinsheta. Thank you so much for sharing. We're going to be right back after this break to learn more about who they're becoming.
Stay tuned. Thanks, guys.
We'll be right back with more insights, stories and practices to help you lead from your whole self. This is Lead with Hart on NOW Media Television.
Leadership isn't just about decisions. It's about presence, compassion and courage.
I'm Dr. Jesse Hanson, somatic psychologist and healer. And on Lead with Heart, we explore what happens when we lead with awareness, compassion and the body in mind.
From brain health to relational intelligence, from trauma informed leadership to embodied teams, each episode reveals a deeper way to lead.
Lead with Heart is airing now on NowMedia TV because the greatest leaders just guide people. They awaken them.
And we're back. I'm Dr. Jesse Hanson, and you're watching Lead with Heart on Now Media Television. Let's continue embracing leadership with presence and purpose.
Want more of what you're watching? Stay tuned to Lead with Heart and all your NOW media favorites. You can simply download the free app on Apple TV Roku, iOS Android. It's out there. If you prefer to listen on podcasts, you can find us on Spotify, Apple, iHeartRadio, SiriusXM, all the great ones. So please stay tuned. We've got great stories coming your way. Thank you so much. And now we're back here with Irshapi and Concheta here deep in the jungle on the mountaintop. Thank you, guys. So far I've gotten to hear the story where you guys are in your parallel lives and yet you're both having similar experiences of realizing that the mainstream eastern east coast of America, life is not feeling right. And so you were opening up and saying how you were just getting connected to the Dogon tribe. Coming back to you, Irishopi. What? Yeah. What's going on? How are you creating this big change in your life?
[00:16:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, both of us had a lot of crossover in our past in our childhood dealing with, you know, mental illness in the family and how to navigate that from a young age. Around the same time know the towers went down is when my parents split. And then we were both, you know, navigating mental illness in our family in a different way. We both partied really hard in college looking for that community.
I also was interested in, like, the psychedelic culture, but it wasn't until my experience where I went through a massive breakup and I was like, I gotta figure myself out. I don't know who I am really. You know, I know who I am from my mother and my father. But like, who am I, really? And so I went to Peru and drank ayahuasca, which blew my whole worldview open because I'm the daughter of a doctor. It was like science and reason and everything. And then, you know, I went to a Jewish day school, actually, but I wasn't religious. But then I'm in Peru with the Shipibo, and I'm talking to the trees and the moon and entities, and I'm like, oh, can I curse?
[00:17:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:25] Speaker B: Oh. Like, this is all real. Like, there's a whole immaterial reality that, like, I didn't know existed. I've been so focused on the material world, there's this whole other reality that I wasn't aware of. So that really woke me up. Really woke me up. And then I was like, I need a teacher. Like, I. This is so foreign to me. Like, I need to find someone who can teach me. So I went back to my corporate job. I'm working at Abbev. We're doing super bowl commercials. I'm doing branding for, like, women's beers. And it was just so out of alignment with where I knew I wanted to go. Luckily, my boss, like, went to Burning Man. He kind of got it once I put my two weeks in. But I didn't quit until I met this guy. I. Someone. I went to some art center upstate, and they were like, you gotta come to this peyote meeting. You're gonna meet your husband there. I'm like, okay. And I show up and I. You know, I run into him, and it was an instant attraction. And that whole story is really wonderful. But I end up, you know, I'm there looking for something. And the people running the ceremony were like, hey, we need a marketing director for this huge indigenous festival we're running. I was like, sweet. So I went and I quit my job, and we started working together as partners under this organization.
And so I had very minimal spiritual experience. And this guy already had been doing his Vietas in the Amazon and everything. So I kind of got wrapped into this organization that connected me to so many different lineages and cultures. And then he was still doing his thing in the Amazon, dieting, taking it so seriously. I was like, all right, I'm gonna be with this guy. He takes a speech. Spiritual path so seriously. I'm gonna go to the Amazon with him. I'm gonna do all this stuff. People are like, you're crazy. I'm like, no, this is it. Like, this is integrity. Like, there's teachers, there's guidance, there's culture, there's elders.
And, you know, I did that with him for some time. But through the organization, we. We met the African elder, who's our teacher, Naba Iritashin Mira. And, you know, things kind of blew open again. I thought my world view, like, exploded. Exploded once. But then us walking this together, it was around Covid where we went to Africa, and what we saw, what they were holding there, it was just like, wow. So at the same time that we were thinking of moving and everything, like our spiritual path, where we were going to be on the planet was kind of coming to alignment with our stories, kind of, you know, weaving together. But once we met, we were married within a couple weeks. Even when we went to get a divination with our teacher with Nev Irisa, the first joke he made was like, you better marry this girl or I'm gonna kill you. And I was like, I like this guy.
[00:20:02] Speaker C: That's when she was sold.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: I was like, this. This is the teacher.
[00:20:06] Speaker A: I want to highlight one beautiful thing I have heard in both your guys stories is that, you know, we all know that psychedelic renaissance is in full effect. Legalizations are happening everywhere. Psychedelic assisted therapies, Boston, New York. I lived in la. You could throw a stone and hit a ayahuasca. And so obviously that is in our face. And while I do acknowledge and admit there, There can be great healing that comes from that. Something I'm appreciating about both you guys is you're like, hey, yeah, we. We kind of got that calling, or it's that place we go when we feel lost. And yet I'm so excited to hear what's gonna happen next in the story. Because what I know with the Dogon and your work is that it's not even about that. It's about we are the medicine. Right? And that. That's from within us. And so I just. I appreciate that about both of your stories so far. So pick us up from there. So now you guys are meeting, you're sort of energetically, spiritually married. Right away, you just feel it. And conchetta, you felt that as well?
[00:20:57] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You know. Why are you laughing?
[00:21:00] Speaker A: Why are you laughing at that question?
[00:21:02] Speaker B: No, because it's nice.
[00:21:03] Speaker C: Okay, good. Very clear.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: Pleasant laughing.
[00:21:06] Speaker B: It was.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: It was like you knew too. You felt it. This is my woman.
[00:21:10] Speaker C: I felt that this was part of. It was like, you know, we were maybe like late 20s and we had both dated other people, been in other relationships, gone through different challenges, different heartbreaks. And one of the most refreshing things was like, once we met each other, and then it was kind of clear, like, I like you, you like me. Let's do this.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: We have the same goals, we want the same things.
[00:21:37] Speaker C: Like, there was. There was no, like, we. There were no games. There was no, like, like, you know, will they, won't they? It was kind of like, I like you, you like me. Let's do this. Let's.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: And we're on a similar path. That's one of the things when I hold space for couples. I always talk about the power of the triangle, is that if the couples are focused on just here, it gets enmeshed. But if you got a triangle, third point, AKA you're awakening your spiritual path, that's such a beautiful way to build the bond.
[00:22:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: And something we can't exclude from this conversation is the concept of culture. Right. Because you were saying how there was this plant medicine renaissance, and everyone's doing plant medicine, but they don't have that cultural container to really understand the language and the plants and the relationships that those cultures have with those plants, to be able to integrate that into their life.
[00:22:25] Speaker C: What they're seeing, what they're experiencing, when they're in those visionary states, there's no context or understanding.
[00:22:32] Speaker B: And so not only do we come from a cultural container, I couldn't believe I met a Jewish guy with tattoos, like, who liked chocolate, who, you know, was going to take me on this spiritual journey. I was like, wow. I really somehow, like, it was just so obvious that we'd been praying and hoping for each other for a long time once we met.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: And how many years ago was that? From today?
[00:22:53] Speaker C: That's 2019.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: January, 27 years ago. Okay. Wow. Magic number seven.
[00:23:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: Okay, so now you guys have met, you've realized who you are to each other. Tell me what happens for each. Each person. And as a couple going through this, you know, Dogon experiences.
And. And. Yeah, maybe just clarify for our viewers. Well, maybe they don't even know what this word Dogon is. Like, I know enough to know it's an African tribe, but really?
[00:23:21] Speaker C: Well, there was a whole lot of other stuff that happened before we started working with the Dogon, but really, I could touch on that later.
[00:23:30] Speaker A: You ignore now whatever you feel.
[00:23:32] Speaker C: Okay, so really, before that, is that, like, she kind of hopped on the tour bus, for lack of a better word. Like, me and the organization that I work with, we were in, like, the heat of traveling all over the country, raising, doing fundraisers and doing peyote ceremonies.
So, like, we were in ceremony twice a Weekend for six weeks, going all over the US and so she just kind of hopped on the bus for them. And then we had this whole festival to plan where 40 elders are gonna come. And so she. We were also, like, kind of getting to know each other while also, like, being co workers and trying to, like, manifest this.
This vision.
[00:24:16] Speaker B: You can't hide from each other when you're in that kind of container. So it's like, yes, we met. There was this established. Like, this is important. And then you're processing all of your trauma in these ceremonies in your childhood, and, like, it's your real face. You can't hide, you can't lie.
So there not only wasn't games, but there was just complete. Like, this is me in my worst state, in my best state. Like, this is what we're dealing with. And there was, like, the recognition within each other. Like, I'm sure, you know, like, anyone when they meet, it's like, I'm sure there's room for you to grow. But, like, the core qualities of ourselves were shining through this work because, you know, it aligned with what we wanted to do so much that we just focused on, you know, where we saw us going.
But the Dogon. So for those who don't know at home, the Dogon are an indigenous tribe of Africa. It's almost like an umbrella of tribes of Africa. And they're the descent descendants of the great ancestors of the Nile Valley region, or ancient Kemet or some might know as ancient Egypt.
Yeah. So what they were doing in the hieroglyphs and the pyramids, the ceremonies, everything, the language, that's all been preserved by the keepers of wisdom of the Dogon. And so they still read the language. The language is called Medu. They still practice the ceremonies. They still have preserved all of that, from the cosmogony to the practices, from the herbs, from the cultural roots of what a family is, that's all been preserved. They're just not doing it in fancy pyramids anymore. They're doing it in Hudson, West Africa, because of how they had to migrate during the fall and during the invasions. So that was one of the elders that was involved in this organization. And when things were kind of getting funky, someone was like, you know, you really gotta. You really gotta call this African priest. Like, if you want something done, you gotta call this guy. And we did. And that's how we ended up getting the extension to start traveling to Africa.
[00:26:04] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:26:05] Speaker A: Okay. Wow. This is so fascinating, you guys. I mean, first of all, I'm loving the love story in this, as well as the, the, you know, sort of very naked, vulnerable way that you guys got to know each other.
I'm also loving that. I know we're leading into the Dogon section, which I am so excited about bringing us here back to the finka. So we're going to take one more break. When we get back, we're going to keep diving into the story with you guys, so please stay tuned here on Lead With Heart. We'll be right back.
We'll be right back with more insights, stories and practices to help you lead from your whole self. This is Lead With Heart on NOW Media Television.
Leadership isn't just about decisions. It's about presence, compassion, and courage.
I'm Dr. Jesse Hanson, somatic psychologist and healer. And on Lead with Heart, we explore what happens when we lead with awareness, compassion, and the body in mind.
From brain health to relational intelligence, from trauma informed leadership to embodied teams, each episode reveals a deeper way to lead.
Lead With Heart is airing now on NowMEDILEV. Because the greatest lead leaders don't just guide people, they awaken them.
And we're back. I'm Dr. Jesse Hanson, and you're watching Lead with Heart on Now Media Television. Let's continue embracing leadership with presence and purpose.
Hello. Welcome back to Lead With Heart. I'm your host, Dr. Jesse Hanson. And in this section, we're going to go deeper into understanding Irishapi and Conceta's path with the Dogon, how they got there, how it brings us back here to Costa Rica.
So let's pick up right where we left off. You guys are starting to find each other and find your path, but also there's challenges.
[00:27:59] Speaker C: Yeah. So part of that was the initiation that I was really involved with in the Amazon and kind of the culture that I was being adopted into in the Amazon, it involved when we first started dating, within the first six months, she came to join me on an initiation down there. And the initiation was basically four months where we weren't allowed to touch each other. We couldn't hold hands, couldn't kiss.
And I would be drinking ayahuasca four times a day, sleeping four hours a night, sometimes less, sometimes being awake for days at a time in night, being in ceremony all day, being bathed with different plants for spiritual elevation and for healing and this and that. And then in the day, building houses and doing manual labor.
So naturally, a young couple, not the
[00:28:57] Speaker A: health, not the best way to bond.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Well, I'm thinking, like, how is this gonna work long term? Like, what are we gonna do like, how am I gonna have children into this? Like, that's. My mind is kind of thinking, like, this doesn't really seem sustainable. And so I'm thinking, well, maybe we can make an ayahuasca center. Because if he's gonna be this healer, then, like, maybe we can make a center and that can, like. I'm thinking long term about a family and how that's gonna work. And we're kind of not seeing eye to eye exactly how that's gonna work. So then once we land after the diet, we were like, if we can make it through this, we can do anything. He formally proposed. We went on a little honeymoon, and then we ended up going to Africa. And in Africa, when we're sitting, you know, kneeling before the elders and really, like, being exposed to their spiritual systems, there, we got very clear guidance on what to do with our life. And we were told in February 2020, Go home. Go somewhere in nature. Stop traveling.
And we got home, and like, a week later, the whole world shut down. It was Covid and everything.
And so that kind of segmented, like, if you're dependent on these plants in the Amazon, like, how is that going to work? And at the same time, it was like the initiation. The doors of initiation were opening for us to learn more with the Dogon.
And throughout the COVID process, we kind of just looked at each other in 2020, and we're like, do you want to have children in America? And we both was a clear no. So we started our initiation and our idea of moving here and stewarding something here. We weren't exactly sure what was going to be right in that, like, heat of that time.
[00:30:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Especially at that timing.
[00:30:38] Speaker B: And, yeah, we started our initiation. We came here. This land was, like, absolutely magnificent.
And the whole concept of the idea has just been, like, a continuous evolution.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: And there was nothing here when you guys got.
[00:30:51] Speaker B: There was nothing here.
[00:30:52] Speaker C: Just an old, old storage shed for coffee.
[00:30:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:56] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: Wow. But we had the vision. We saw the rainbow eucalyptus. We saw the waterfall. We saw everything. And I was like, this is something special. This is something where we can, like, grow a family.
Wow. And, you know, through that process, in 2021, while we were initiating, while right after we bought this land, his. His mom died suddenly. And so we know when we bought this land, we weren't married. And then we had not experienced death. We have not experienced life.
[00:31:27] Speaker C: I. I had experienced quite. Quite a bit of death.
[00:31:30] Speaker B: Yeah. But as a. As a family unit, so through.
Once we came here, and we're like, we're going to do this. We started getting initiated into grief and loss and then eventually becoming pregnant. Like, we didn't finish this place until after I birthed my first daughter. So there was so much that happened from the process of getting this land and building this land and figuring out what this was going to be.
[00:31:53] Speaker A: So much, so much faith and trust in your guys's story, both, both individually and as a couple. I'm really appreciating that, you know, just to think back, especially your life as a big time Anheuser Busch marketing gal and being like, yeah, no, actually this isn't for me to have the faith to go down there to the Amazon and be with him because you felt the love and then you didn't name this exactly. But I'm interpreting from the story that, yeah, for the variables of how, how, I want to say intense, but how much discipline and how much of you was going into the practices there is also part of what made you guys realize you were going to leave the Amazon, like realizing it wasn't going to sustain you as a family or that's part of it.
[00:32:35] Speaker C: Largely a big misconception that a lot of, you know, the Western world has about plant medicine is that, oh, I can go and I can get like a piece of paper or like something that says that I can do this, or, oh, maybe I've drank ayahuasca 500 times. I can sit up in ceremony and be good and have control of myself. I'm not ready to run ceremonies. I'm ready to do this. And when you go into a traditional culture and you, you see people who really carry that and who have really been initiated do that, you see that their initiation to kind of hold that container and work with those medicines begins when they're children.
Like my, my, my teacher, Benki Piaco of the Ashaninka people, He started being initiated to be a curandero or a page, as they would call when he was 5 years old.
And so for me to then kind of try to play catch up with that and then also try to have a family and not live in the Amazon. Because they said, like, it wasn't just you come and do this for a year and then you're good. No, they said, first you're gonna do three months, then you're gonna do six months, then you're gonna do three months on diet, one month off diet, three months on diet, one month. So then you're gonna be in this cycle until we decide you're ready. And it could take over 10 years.
With me and with how my family was and, you know, with, with her and what the life we wanted to create for each other and for the children we wanted to have. It just wouldn't have been possible for me to stay down there and then forget about. Then there's the whole, oh, something like a worldwide pandemic could happen and like air travel can get shut down. What happens if I'm over there and she's at home with the kids and the airports are closed for an indefinite amount of time. So it just kind of became clear in that period that it didn't make sense. And one of the things, one of the reasons we gravitated towards, you know, the Dogon people and to that tradition so much is because they're very, very focused on family and community and finding
[00:34:45] Speaker A: a way to let that ceremonial part of life be integrated with family.
[00:34:49] Speaker C: They say that it would almost begin with family, that that's really an integrated part of things.
If things aren't good with your family, with your mother, with your father, if you don't. If they, if things aren't good with them non materially and materially in the physical and non physical world, then that's gonna inhibit your ability to evolve and inhibit your development and inhibit your ability to become a healer.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:17] Speaker B: And nothing scared me away from like a life of discipline and like a life of service.
[00:35:23] Speaker A: Service.
[00:35:24] Speaker B: But what the Dogon held, it was like very clear models. How to be a teacher, how to be a leader, how to be a mother, how to be a father, how to be a husband, how to be
[00:35:32] Speaker A: a husband, how to speak about that. The Dogon ideas on leadership, well, we
[00:35:36] Speaker B: can't talk about even how to lead, like he said, without talking about how to be as a person and how to exist not just within your family, but within your community.
Right. So we can't lead others and we can't start to put activate our own qualities without those qualities being fostered in the family and without those initiations happening in the culture from childhood, or for those of us who have been, you know, privileged enough to come in and be initiated without those things being activated, things from our lineages, things from our bloodlines, things from our ancestors that we're holding, if it's our gifts and talents, if it's our, you know, natural charisma, all of those things. The Dogon understand that there's an immaterial part of that that has to be fostered. So not just having a role model in the physical of what a good teacher looks like, what a Good leader, looks like. But in the immaterial, those things have to be fostered.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: Immaterial meaning like ethics and emotions and
[00:36:33] Speaker B: how we carry ourselves more so of like an actual immaterial entity. Meaning like they're spiritual reality. Spiritual reality.
[00:36:41] Speaker A: Connection to ancestors.
[00:36:42] Speaker B: Yeah, because it's like if you come from a bloodline of great healers, of or of noble people or of teachers, right. And that's in your blood. We. We understand that those gifts and talents and who we are, they come through the blood. They come through our lineage. Right. And so if that's who you are, if that's where you're coming from, you know, there's so many people, maybe they come from a great line of carpenters and artists, but they grow up and they're like, I want to go, you know, computer science, be a finance.
[00:37:08] Speaker C: I want to be a pop star.
[00:37:09] Speaker B: And things may not work out for them because they're forgetting who they are. When you're focusing on your lineage and what you came with, and that's the thing. It's. When you're a Dogon initiate, you're not meant to be a Dogon. You're meant to work with what you have from your own lineage and build yourself up so you can stand tall in what you're here to do.
[00:37:29] Speaker A: I want to slow you down on that one airshot because, yeah, that's powerful. I'm getting a little quivers in my heart as I hear you, because it's so true as you guys, I was raised in North America and all the ideas of, you know. And again, I'm not trying to shoot people's dreams down, but it's an interesting point you're bringing here, is that we have this culture of, like, you can be anything or just do that. And of course you can, for the most part, you can kind of force it. But what I'm loving about, the wisdom I'm hearing you bring through your experience with Dogon, is it's actually important to honor our lineage, our ancestors. And even when we have, I'm assuming, I'm curious what the Dogon would say about this. When our lineage came, carries a lot of darkness or things like that, how they work with that. But even with that, there's always light in the dark. Right. But it's just to quickly note that cultural shift from sort of, you know, be whatever you want. And of course, I do want to support people to follow their dreams, and yet it sort of breaks that lineage. Right. In the ancestral piece, when we just say, I'm Going to forget about all this stuff that's in my blood and do this because I want to.
[00:38:31] Speaker B: I think that's, you know, you were saying, what was it that got you to wake up and realize this isn't what you're supposed to be doing or what got him to realize, like, I need to find something else. It's because when we're not doing what's kind of coded in us, we feel it. When we're doing something that's out of alignment with ourself, we'll do it. Even if you have dreams of being a basketball player, if you come from a line of healers, something's gonna make you feel like maybe you should be out there helping people.
And so it's not necessarily about not doing what you want, but it's about knowing who you are, and that's how you can lead. Because if you don't know yourself, if you don't have a teacher and someone guiding you to do that, and your teacher doesn't have a teacher and that teacher doesn't have a teacher, then you can get lost in just maybe I feel like this is right without actually having this knowingness of, like, this is who I am, you know, like, he comes from a line of healers, I come from a different line. Our initiations and how we lead is going to be different. So we have to respect that also. We have to kind of not try to think, I can be you or you can be me, but to know ourselves so deeply so that we can lead, teach, build, create, heal in the way that, you know, we. We came to this earth to do, to do.
[00:39:45] Speaker A: I love. I love everything you guys are saying. We just took a quick break here. What I'm hearing is this a theme that keeps coming up is know thyself and lead with heart naturally. So we're going to be back soon to discover more of the wisdom from Irshapi and Concheta here on Lead with Heart. Stay tuned.
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And we're back now on Lead With Heart, here in Metamorfinka with the lovely Duenos, as we would say here in Spanish, the owners and the stewards of this land.
And so where we just left off, guys, was just reminding you where we're here, learning more about how the Dogon wisdom has impacted you guys as people and as a part of what you're doing here.
So pick up right where we left off. You wanted to say something before the break?
[00:41:50] Speaker C: Yeah. So kind of piggyback off of what Irishapi was saying, what our teachers and elders, what they tell us, not just with the Dogon, but, you know, other traditional cultures that they'll say, well, yes, like, we have a European heritage. We're descendants of people lineages from Europe.
But thousands of years ago, humanity migrated all over the world.
Like, you know, some say that the general archaeological understanding is that that all began kind of, you know, Mesopotamia, Africa, and then everything kind of irradiated outward.
And so what we're told is that once upon a time, you know, our ancestors stretching back thousands of years, is that, like, everything that we've been seeking, our ancestors had it. They had a traditional culture, they had spiritual practices that revered nature, things that they had been doing for thousands and thousands of years. And then through the ambition of those in power, you know, different parties, groups of interest that had the means and the resources, they said, like, okay, well, we want control, we want wealth, we deserve this, we're better.
This is savage. This is barbaric. We're gonna go and we're going to conquer them.
And so when they do that, you know, it happened. It happened in Europe.
You know, we're all victims of that, of.
And so what happens is that the first thing that is done by those in power is that they eliminate the culture, they eliminate the spirituality, they eliminate the language.
And then once those things are gone, once the language is gone, we're taught that it's very difficult to get back.
But there are still kind of bastions of traditional culture where we can kind of go and learn from groups and societies where maybe what they're doing is a bit different than what our ancestors doing. But it was similar enough where they still have the technology, the spiritual technology, and the understanding on how to kind of venerate and harmonize us with the things in our ancestry and our lineage.
[00:44:06] Speaker A: I received massive truth tingles when you said, specifically, we have been seeking what our ancestors already had. I love to say it like the old way is the new way.
Right.
[00:44:18] Speaker B: And that's what makes this place so unique, is that not only did we want to have a place that people from the new way can come and experience a little bit of the old way, experience what it. What it feels like to really be out here, out here in nature, to live off the land, to be working with animals, to be working with plants, to, you know, have the core quiet of being in the mountains and the rivers and the waterfalls. But this whole project from before we put a shovel in the ground has been guided by our elders and our teachers and also has been in harmony with the whole ecosystem, not just the plants and animals, but also our community, our neighbors, everyone making sure that everything we did was harmonious, not just within our own family, which had, you know, through building and working together and losing family members, of course, there's challenge. But then staying in harmony with our community, with our family, with our teachers. And the Dogon is what helped guide, make sure everything was harmonious here. They gave us ceremonies and rituals to make sure that we would be received well, that people wouldn't get hurt here, that this would be a place for healing, a place for transformation, and really helped us set that here.
So it's not just, you know, two people who decided to build this. It was two people who built a center through the guidance of indigenous wisdom and through a teacher.
[00:45:41] Speaker A: After giving up a lot of other things to even get to that point of having that much faith.
[00:45:45] Speaker B: Exactly. And I was pregnant as we were building this, so I was being initiated into being a mother. I was being initiated into construction and all sorts of things. I had no. We had no background in anything that we needed to know to do this.
We just learned everything along the way. And, you know, some. Something our, you know, our teacher says is, you know, confidence doesn't come, you know, from doing. It comes from, like, trying to do right.
[00:46:14] Speaker A: Like not being afraid to maybe mess up.
[00:46:17] Speaker B: Exactly. And so we made lots of mistakes, but the most important thing for us was that we did pretty well for ourselves. Yeah. That this can be a place guided by ancestral wisdom and that we can transmute that. Because that's all I really see myself as now as a leader or a teacher, is that I can transmute the wisdom that was given to me by my teacher, who all he's doing is transmuting the wisdom he got from his teacher and his father, the makaru. Right.
[00:46:42] Speaker A: It's the old way, it's the ancient way of transfer. And one of my main slogans in my work I do is bridging ancient wisdom with modern science, which is another way of saying the, the new way is the old way. And what so many of us are seeking, including my choice to come and live here in Costa Rica, was more of the old way to just live simpler, live off the land, get out of that assiduous left brain, rat race mentality. So I just, yeah, I got to take a pause, just like reflect and just say, you guys are so beautiful as individuals and as a couple getting to, to learn more and deepen the story of how you guys came to be here. It's really inspiring.
The key elements that are touching me really deep right now is just going back before you guys even met the faith and courage and ancient wisdom that it would have taken inside of you to know this ain't it, to trust that somehow what the life you were being told to live wasn't actually what you were meant to live. And then the faith to listen to spiritual teachings and guide you to be here and build all this. And now here you are, many years later and the place is absolutely stunning and gorgeous and flourishing. And just to me, that this is a lead with heart story. Absolutely. And you know, how many. You know, my wish is that this gets fewer and fewer, but from my experience as a psychologist, so many people are afraid to choose faith over fear or to choose to lead with heart overhead. And everything we're being programmed with is we're just supposed to figure it all out. And it's so much nicer to be shown to be guided, you know?
Yeah.
[00:48:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:48:22] Speaker A: What are you thinking?
[00:48:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, everything, how it happened.
I'm someone who, I'm very type A. Okay. I'm like very organized.
[00:48:32] Speaker A: Why? You were good at the market.
[00:48:33] Speaker B: Very, very type A. I, I have everything, like organized, but everything. When it came to our initiation and when it came to this place, there was no pushing through it, there was no thinking through it. It was like I said, a knowing, like once we met the Dogon, I was like, I know this is for us. Once we came to this land, I was like, I know this is.
[00:48:53] Speaker A: This land is special here. Right. Because your body wisdom, it was.
[00:48:58] Speaker B: It was just.
I don't know how to say it. It was like how you would say flow state.
[00:49:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:03] Speaker B: You know, it would just be like, it would just flow in a way and then kind of to check, you know, you check in with your teacher, you know, is this in alignment? And as long as everything was favorable and I'm doing right by my ancestors and my family, and like all. All of those powers of nature, I'm doing right by the land, then everything just unfolded in this really natural way, like how we met our natural builders and how just everything came to be. Be. And then having our first retreat with the Dogon and then, you know, connecting with all the mothers here, and we didn't have to do any marketing, you know, for our first season or two. It just became, you know, connections that just flow. Yeah.
[00:49:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah. Now the flow states is where it's at. Nerdy language, theta brain waves, but it's. It's brain heart coherence. It was. I would argue that it did have to do with something you were feeling in your body. Well, you stepped on the land. Not, not to say your head wasn't involved in spirit energy, but your body knew something. Yeah.
[00:50:01] Speaker C: For me, when we came down here, it was right when they opened up the border.
Like, we were living in New Mexico in the middle of the desert, and everything in the US Was crazy.
We looked at each other and we're just like, do. Do we have children here? No, absolutely not. This is not the place to raise a family. So we came down here as soon as we opened up the border, and then we're on a mission. So we saw maybe 12 other properties, some that were a lot bigger than this place, some that were, you know, maybe closer to town or closer to the beach, but just. It was kind of like, no, no, this isn't the place. But then for me personally, like, coming here, it was just kind of instantaneously, like, felt it in my body and every fabric of my being, like, this is it. Yeah, we're done.
We're done.
We're making. Making an offer. Like, that's. That's it.
[00:50:53] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:50:53] Speaker C: Came over this. This is the place.
[00:50:55] Speaker A: It's beautiful.
[00:50:56] Speaker B: And that's how we kind of let everything go.
And like, if the mind was getting in the way too much or it's because everything can get in the way, the body can get in the way, because, you know, there's still, there's still trauma in the body.
[00:51:09] Speaker A: Right.
[00:51:09] Speaker B: And there's not always. You don't want to lead completely, completely with your emotions or without thinking long picture. Right. But it was kind of like if we both were like, this is a full yes, let's do it. And if there was a hesitation, we wouldn't try to push on each other too much to try, you know, so not only did we have these individual experiences of knowing how to move and then individually checking in with our elders and guides to make sure, like, all good and are we doing this in the most integrity and most alignment, but it was checking in, like, with each other. Right. Because ultimately this is going to be the place where we have our family. And so we had to have harmony through the whole process of creating this too.
[00:51:53] Speaker A: Good on you guys. It's beautiful to witness a couple that has gone through everything. You guys have gone together and coming here. And I can testify, first time I came to visit Metamorfinga, just same way, my body just felt so at peace and at home here and had that same experience in Costa Rica in general, which, you know, gave me the courage to make the leap of faith. So absolutely beautiful, you guys. I know there's still so much more to this story, and so I'm very grateful to let viewers know we're going to do something else on Lead With Heart that hasn't happened yet, which is giving a whole other episode to this amazing story.
So once we come back. Well, actually, we are going to wrap this, this show now, but on the next episode coming up, we're going to go deeper, dive into Metamorphinka, into how the Dogon influences and ancient wisdom have impacted not only Irishopi and Kinshata, but this land and what happens here. So please stay tuned. That's going to be coming to you real soon. In the meantime, if people do want to stay in touch with you guys, what's the best way they can find you in the digiverse, the best way
[00:52:49] Speaker B: is our website, www.metamorphinka.com or Instagram metamorphinka. You can find us there, there. And you can also find us through our nonprofit work with Ankasta Natural Healing and Kebta, if you want to learn more about the Dogon and our work there.
[00:53:05] Speaker A: Beautiful. And since we are a bilingual network, it's beautiful. Metamorfinca is with an F, F, I, N, C, A, the Spanish word for farm.
So find them online what you guys are doing. So amazing. Thank you both for being guests today. And we'll be back with you guys soon. So thank you so much, everyone. Stay tuned here on Lead with Heart.
Plenty more fun episodes coming your way with authentic truths, vulnerable shares, and lots of wisdom.
Take good care, Pura Vira.
