Speaker A
[mellow acoustic guitar plays]
Explore the mysterious culture, spiritual beliefs, and off-grid lifestyle around Mount Shasta, including local history, community, and survival tips.
Key Takeaways
- Mount Shasta attracts a diverse group of people seeking spirituality, community, or alternative lifestyles.
- Economic hardship drives many to live off-grid, often relying on government assistance programs like food stamps.
- The area has a rich spiritual history tied to figures like Guy Ballard and the I AM movement.
- Community survival depends on cooperation, resource sharing, and adapting to seasonal living conditions.
- Despite the idyllic image, there are real challenges including crime, economic instability, and social tensions.
Summary
- Mount Shasta is known for its spiritual significance, off-grid living, and mysterious underground features.
- Locals and visitors include spiritual seekers, hippies, and people living alternative lifestyles.
- The area has a history involving the I AM movement and spiritual teachings from figures like St. Germain.
- Water from McBride Spring is considered pure and spiritually significant by many.
- The community relies heavily on shared resources, food stamps, and seasonal living patterns.
- Economic challenges and the 2020 pandemic lockdown affected the local lifestyle and community dynamics.
- There is a mix of genuine spiritual seekers and people living off the grid for economic reasons.
- Local spots like Twin Arrows serve as gathering places but also have issues with trash and crime.
- The video explores the balance between idealistic communal living and harsh realities of survival.
- The culture includes music, ceremonies, and a desire for a more sustainable and connected community.
Chapters
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
[Peter] Good morning, guys. We are on quite an adventure. We're going over these hills here to a place called Mount Shasta.
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Mount Shasta is just over 14,000 feet, but what exists underneath it is a very interesting world.
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I've been told people living off the grid, a lot of spiritual types, crystals, aliens, cults, a little bit of everything out there.
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Just got off the phone with the local who said, "Peter, meet me in a little bit, and I'll show you what's going on in this very interesting corner of America." Let's do this.
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[music continues]
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[Peter] Where are we going, Bryson?
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[Bryson] Going up to McBride Spring. It's some of the purest water in the whole world.
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It actually bubbles up through crystalline volcanic shafts and gets purified as it comes up through the ground.
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Some of the water is 100 years old by the time it reaches the surface.
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So some people come out here for the water. Some people come out here for the new age awakening kind of thing, and then other people like me, they come out here for the weird stuff.
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-The weird stuff?
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-For the history. 'Cause 10 years ago I came out here from Utah.
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Me and my girlfriend at the time, we literally tied all of our stuff to this longboard.
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We just lived at this campsite. And around here in the late 1800s there was this dude named Guy Ballard.
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He supposedly came out here on a mission with the military, but in this exact area he supposedly met a dude named St. Germain.
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The dude came up to him and he gave him this cup, and he said this is basically the holy grail.
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This is the stuff of immortality. And he started giving him all these like kind of secrets, spiritual wisdom.
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And he wrote these books about this dude named St. Germain. And over the years, people read these books and developed this group called the I AM to talk about the teachings of St. Germain.
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[water splashing]
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People come here 'cause they believe this water is like the stuff of immortality.
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Pure water. Really good water, tastes so good. Oh yeah, that's nice, that's nice.
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[Peter] How many people would you say are living like you out here?
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[Bryson] My age, people that live my lifestyle, not that many. I'd say like maybe 10 or 12.
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It's mostly like older hippies that made their way back in the day, got their cheap land, built their big house.
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-So you're attracted to the hippie lifestyle out here?
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I try not to call myself a hippie because hippies used to mean something different.
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It was more of a choice. Nowadays, especially with the weed economy kind of being totally gone, people kind of get, I wouldn't say forced into it, but it just kind of happens.
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Like you end up, "Oh, I kind of lost everything. I could be homeless or get this van and sustain by traveling." One of my friends said that's how you know you're really a traveler is if you have to keep moving in order to sustain yourself.
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A lot of the people that come out here spend most of their year out in Los Angeles and just barely making it so they can get here during the summer because it's not hard to live here in the summer.
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You could literally go pick a bucket of blackberries, hunt a rabbit, and you'd be all good.
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The last time I came out here, I decided I was gonna come and live out here, get a job, live in my car and stabilize.
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The second I got out here, little did I know, 2020 pandemic hit, lockdown, full on lockdown, especially out here, people got really scared.
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-Out here?
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-People got really… even the hippies. In the beginning, no one knew what the heck was going on.
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People were like, "We're in a small area, if we get hit out here we're all gonna die." There was just so much intensity.
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Nobody was hiring, couldn't get a job, just kind of got pushed into the lifestyle of being in tribe, being in community.
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That's kind of how you make it out here. Right. Everyone shares food stamps and pools their money together.
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You live as one. You travel between spots. You don't blow up the spot for too long.
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-So how does one get food stamps?
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It's pretty easy out here. I can't get them anymore because I had a job.
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I didn't know I was making too much money for a couple months and they won't give them to me ever again which is okay 'cause I work.
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Literally, all you gotta do is go on the internet, apply, say you're homeless, say you don't have an address, and they'll generally mail all your stuff to the post office, get a ride down to Eureka and they'll give you your food stamp card that day.
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-It's that simple?
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-Yep, it doesn't matter where you're from. You have to prove that you don't work or something?
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You don't really have to prove much at all. You literally sign a note that says, "I haven't made any money," and then give your John Hancock and take a picture of it, upload it to the website.
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"Oh, this guy's broke." They'll give you the food stamps.
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-How much do they give a month?
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-Not much.
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It's literally like 285 bucks. Which is why a lot of people go out to Weed, that we call it the gross out.
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The next town over, called Weed? North, called Weed, funny enough. There's the gross out out there, the grocery outlet.
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We call it the gross out 'cause it's kind of cheap food, you know? But they have good stuff because they know they gotta supply the hippies.
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You'll get some really cheap organic food with your food stamps and the second cheapest option would be the raise and I would say that the raise is almost completely subsidized by the government 'cause hippie or not, it's probably the most low income county in Northern California.
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So you go to the raise, all those employees are paid out by food stamps.
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The whole store is kept going by the food stamps. You get in line, every card you see going through that reader is gonna be an EBT SNAP card from California.
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-Wow. Okay, how do you feel about it now that you're not taking food stamps?
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It feels better to me. I like getting the food stamps but at the same time you kind of get into a pattern of like, especially when you're living in your car with a bunch of other people doing the same thing,
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you get into the pattern of like, "Oh, I don't need to work. I'll just kinda roll around with these dudes." and I don't really like that pattern.
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I'm a dreamer. I have a lot of ambitions and goals. So I kind of had to separate from a lot of the community out here and kind of do my own thing.
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And I ended up just kind of living by myself. I was working at a Wendy's as a manager.
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I don't really always fit in too well with that stuff. So I stopped working there and now I'm doing the food delivery.
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I do a little bit of caretaking for kids with autism and stuff like that.
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So every year there are more and more people coming out here saying, "I just quit my job and I live in my van now," because prices are going up.
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The wages aren't going up, but the prices are going up. And living here kind of gives me an idea of what's happening in the whole country because why would you come here?
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It's in the middle of nowhere. People will kind of like, "Hey, we're going to go up to Twin Arrows, out here." Twin Arrows is the big spot where everybody comes.
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-This is a--
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-Oh, they're blocking that one.
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[Bryson] Yeah, I'll tell you why. So this is Twin Arrows.
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You come out here and there would be like sometimes 30 or 40 cars all the way back out there.
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And they just post up and this is where you'd be all summer. And I've actually done that.
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[Peter] You can see they left some trash around too.
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[Bryson] Yeah, the echoes remain of the crazy, crazy stuff that happened here.
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And I wouldn't say they blocked it off just because there's hippies living in the woods.
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They blocked it off because there is history here. You'd think a bunch of hippies in the woods are all living in peace but it's like I said, a lot of these people aren't really true hippies that are just trying to commune with nature.
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A lot of people that come here are living in a van and wearing the clothes of a hippie, but I'm just gonna say it, like, there's crime.
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There's people have died out here. A lot of peop
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Like the places that you go, the things you're gonna see, you're gonna run into people who know you're vulnerable and some of those people are some of your fellow travelers, you know, so… -I lived a van life for a little bit,
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but this is 1995 out of my buddy's dad's empty cargo van. Just metal, right?
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And we'd sleep on the floor of it and we toured all around the US and that opened up my eyes to the world or the country at first, right?
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And that experience I credit a lot of my life for, is that experience. 'Cause we never traveled growing up.
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I grew up in the Northeast in Vermont. We never went anywhere other than New York City and Montreal.
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So getting in a van and cruising all out West, we had our lawnmowing money.
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It was three and a half months, just me and my buddy, 18 years old, open road.
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And we didn't have… But I don't remember these environments. I'm sure they existed in some form but we just stayed, I guess, to ourselves.
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And I think it's the way you do the traveling and the situation you're in financially too that determines what you get around.
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-The lifestyle. Yep, yep. [Bryson] It's kind of in my blood to travel. I've got-- -I suggest… I mean, some people aren't designed for it and that's totally cool.
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I respect everyone, but I strongly suggest… I admire guys like you. How old are you?
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I'm 29 now. 29, okay, but you're a young guy. -I'm looking pretty fresh, right? -You are.
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But getting out in the world and seeing things or just in the country, that builds depth, and balance, and understanding, but there's the dark side like you're saying.
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It's increasingly harder is what I'm trying to say. Mostly like just with the climate of things like, California used to be the traveler's dream because you get out to the final frontier of California, Northern California, back in the day, everybody was growing weed,
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and nobody had to get permission to do it 'cause the police didn't really know how to fully enforce it.
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So the weed legalization actually destroyed the weed economy 'cause now you got to spend like 50 grand or something to get a big enough license to actually supply a dispensary and you got to pay for packaging.
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And by the time it reaches the store it's just dried out industrialized. -So that opportunity is gone, for sure.
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Yeah, 'cause like I used to come out here and be able to run into someone at the park and be like, "Hey man, you wanna trim?" and then you'd end up at some nice house getting fed up with steaks and mashed potatoes,
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trimming pounds of weed for 200 bucks an hour. Like that's a dream, you know?
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And that was before 2016, before it was legalized? And so it's like… How I'd like to explain this to many people 'cause they don't interface with the weed industry or what it was here.
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It's like any crop, right? Like you're in Nebraska and growing corn, right? Yep. And that's all done by the big ag these days but it's a comparison, like that's your crop.
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When the crop goes, the money goes. -The opportunities go. -Yep. Whole businesses fell apart because who's gonna buy the food?
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Who's gonna come into your little shop? Like if there's no money, you know? And that's where we get raised getting completely subsidized by food stamps and things like that.
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-[Peter] What age did you leave home? -[Bryson] 16. [Bryson] At that age I didn't even realize I was homeless.
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I just kind of saw myself as flowing with the river. I grew up in Southern Utah.
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When I was 16 because I wasn't believing in the church my parents kind of said you either go to church… -The Mormon church? -Yeah.
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-Cedar City, Utah. -Oh, wow. -Shouts out to Cedar City, Utah. -Yeah, I've been there.
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Small town, my parents were really poor Mormon so we didn't fit in really well with the rest of the community.
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We were kind of like the misfit Mormons, you know? But I didn't believe in it pretty much from the time I could remember.
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Couldn't stand having to sit there and listen to some old dude talk, you know?
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Over the years that kind of developed into me… I became a musician, I joined bands, and I was… From the time I was 15, I was traveling around the whole state of Utah, setting up my own shows.
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Eventually I started, you know, hanging out with older dudes, smoking weed, and parents found out, and they said, "You either go to church and stop smoking weed or you move out.
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You're already doing your own thing, bud." And I said, "Yes, you're right." Packed my bags and started touring with my band and living this traveling life.
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-Do you talk with your parents now? -We're on much better terms. Back then they were very devout and it's funny because they no longer believe in it either.
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They've left the church and they support my path and what I do. And it's really cool we were able to make that shift.
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-That's cool. [rap music on the radio] -[Peter] This is your music? -[Bryson] Yeah. -Call myself El Khemit because I'm a master builder of sound.
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-Khemit was what they called-- -Pretty good. It's pretty good. -I got that old school stuff. -I can't say like much new rap these days.
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-We keep it conscious. Like, my music is a culmination of the knowledge that I gained living in the woods and being on the road.
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So it's like, my goal has been to create a commentary on this life and bring consciousness to the… This lower, lower vibes stuff we hear nowadays.
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[Peter] What do you mean by lower vibes stuff we hear nowadays? -Well, I feel like the subject matter is really dumbing down our youth and filling people with bad desires like desires to do drugs and be violent and like
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hip hop originally was a way to alchemize your way through these things. Like, it was a way to like use words.
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Words are made by spellings. You spell words and you cast spells. Words are magic.
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The words that you speak are gonna be what takes you where you're gonna go, you know?
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The way that you talk about reality is the way that reality is. So I really think that it's in the best interest of some of these bigger corporations to have these guys painting a picture of a life of excess, of consumption.
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You think you're hearing this guy's story but it's really the best interest of a corporation to have you consume more, you know?
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So even in this area, the past four years, I've been the Masta Blasta of Mount Shasta.
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I go from, you know, open mic to open mic, to different places performing my words, giving a commentary on this life and it inspires people.
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Like people come up to me like, "Dude, you made me feel charged up just now with what you were talking about, like, giving me riddles, sending me down this trail of bread crumbs, taking me to a higher truth."
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-Like that's what art is supposed to do. -Right. [Peter] Act does an escape or inspiration.
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A removal from the mundane. [Bryson] It's like I was telling you, it's all love and light out here but it's also kind of the hood and the woods.
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Like anything goes. That's kind of been my way of getting through these things. I like to put kind of like mysteries, riddles, esoteric wisdom in the song.
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A goal is to make it cool enough and have a dope enough beat that you hear this terminology and you're like, "What is an aberou? What is Marduk?" Like, what is he talking about?
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You look it up and you may end up on a whole spiritual rabbit hole just from one sentence 'cause that's kind of how I got into conscious hip hop.
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I think it was Illuminati Congo. He said something about triple black and I instantly, I was like that sounds like triple black.
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What? And I found out it was talking about in the Qur’an you're born in triple blackness of womb and the womb actually has three layers which keep you in darkness.
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So I was like, whoa, born in the triple blackness. So I called this song Triple Black.
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[hip hop music continues] [Bryson] So this lake is one of the older lakes in the country.
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It's glacial water. It actually comes down through here and up under these lava tubes.
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The lava tubes are super interesting. If you notice that over here there's a little shack, I think it's like the University of Nevada or something is studying the lake.
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They're studying it because nobody knows how deep this thing is. -Come on. -Nobody knows.
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We have no idea of knowing because there's these huge tunnels in this lake. Lava tubes.
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It's hard to get down there to actually see. And the tunnels go out from the mountain all the way out to Mount Lawson.
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All the way out to Pluto's cave. So the reason why people started to believe that there are Lemurians here is because of a dude named-- -Explain Lemurian please.
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-So James Churchward in the early 1900s, late 1800s, he theorized that there was a lost continent between Hawaii and Mount Shasta that got completely destroyed in a cataclysmic disaster.
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And supposedly these people were highly advanced, they could build pyramids, they could control the elements.
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People say they were the original human or something like that. Mount Shasta and Hawaii, according to James Churchward, this old kind of archeologist dude, are the last pieces of Lemuria.
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They called it Lemuria because in Madagascar, there's lemurs, right? They don't know where the lemur came from.
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So they said, "Oh, off the coast of Madagascar there must have been a lost continent." Other scientists kind of agreed on that.
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So James Churchward was like, "Oh, all these cultures all over the planet have these similarities between them.", right?
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Weird similarities, like you read the books, it's actually very interesting. Like ziggurats in Mexico and the pyramids and Egypt type stuff?
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Mm-hmm. So he was like, dang, these dudes must have all at one time come from this place, like Atlantis or something.
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So Lemuria would've come I guess after Atlantis. So they say that when the continent fell all the people from Lemuria ended up, you know, off the coast of the Euphrates in Guatemala and they did exactly what they did in Lemuria,
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built these temples, built pyramids. People say that Mount Shasta is actually a giant purple pyramid and if you look at it, kind of looks like a pyramid.
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-It does, driving in today it's got a very powerful feel. -You felt it, right? -I felt it. It's been a while.
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I was here like 15 years ago, but you come in and you're just like, Whew, like the proportions are perfect for whatever it's doing.
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[Bryson giggles] Yeah. [Peter] What Natives controlled this back in the day? -The Yurok, they say they call it White Devil Lake because there's a "White devil" up here and the Natives kind of banded up here together and they say it was one of the last bow and arrow battles
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where they didn't… they hadn't bought ammunition or found a way to work with guns yet.
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-This was 1849 gold rush time? -Yep. -Like 1850? -Mm-hmm. -50s? Okay. -Yep. [Bryson] The indigenous people actually believed that this was one of the birth places of the human race itself, the little people, you know?
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-Oh, wow. -The inner earth, the little people, so… -Yeah, that's a theme with a lot of Native tribes, the little people.
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-Yep, so they didn't live here. They knew there was weird stuff that went on here.
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They would come out here to hunt food, to pray, and have ceremony, and then they would leave.
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But when it came to the resources being taken over they stepped in to protect the land and this is original Indigenous land and they fought to protect it, and it's beautiful.
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Like, this water is so pure, ancient water. To this day, people come here from all over the world to take their spiritual pilgrimage and from the beginning it's been a pilgrimage site.
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[Peter] And this is a buddy of yours? [Bryson] Yeah, this is my old friend, Ora.
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We met each other like ten years ago at this old coffee shop that's closed down now.
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It was called the Chai Shop. Anyone who has really been around will tell you that the Chai Shop was where everybody hung out and connected and I met a lot of my traveling friends.
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-This is Ora's place? -This is their bus. They just got the Tesla. -Ora's doing it in style with a Tesla? -Yep.
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That's kind of how they sustain. They've got their bus that can move around to wherever they want to go and then do food delivery and stuff in the Tesla.
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-Oh, really? [Bryson to dog] Hi! -That's what he's doing, food delivery? -Yep. [Peter] Hey boy.
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That's what a lot of people I know kind of started doing. [Peter] A quick break here, guys.
Speaker A
If you're enjoying these videos, I have another platform where I share my behind the scenes experiences and dive deeper into these topics.
Speaker A
Recently, I posted an hour-plus video with my wife, Natalia, who edits these videos and is pretty much impossible to get on camera.
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-Are you rolling? -We're rolling. Hi, everyone! This is how I normally see people on your videos.
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Natalia is going to answer your questions. What was it? Nine FBI agents came to our place, barged in.
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This video is available for all tiers but there are other perks you can check out.
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The top tier even gives you a postcard from me from every one of these big trips.
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It's a really cool group of people who share interest in these meaningful topics and I'd love to see you there.
Speaker A
This is a great way to get extra content and support the channel. Link down below in the description.
Speaker A
Now, back to the video. [Bryson] How's it going? [Peter] This is a sweet bus. It's huge.
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-This is my friend, Ora. -How you doing, Ora? -Hi, how are you? -Good, Peter.
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-Nice to meet you. -We're making a video. Is that cool? Yeah, absolutely. -Where are you from? -I'm from Germany.
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Can you live this type of lifestyle in Germany? -Is it possible like this? -No.
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There's not a lot of nature. Not a lot of open nature where you can just be.
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You can camp and you can go to a campground or to or an RV park, but you can't just be free like this.
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-Right. I love it here because there's so much more nature. -Is that your girlfriend, wife? -Yes, Morgan.
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Morgan, okay. -Hi, Morgan. -Hi, nice to meet you. -You from Germany too? -No, I'm from Maryland.
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Oh, wow. How'd you two meet? -We met in Sedona, yeah. -Sedona. [Ora] You could also walk inside if you want.
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-Oh, yeah. [Morgan] I'm just making some coffee. All right. [Ora] Question… Is this you guys?
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[Peter] Okay, you have this thing all built out pretty well. [Morgan] Yeah. [Peter] Nice wooden table. Oh, that's cool.
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-You guys have the generator? -Generator. [Morgan] There's propane. There's a sink with dirty dish in it.
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[Peter] But that's a good size sink. We have an instant pot and water heater.
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-I'll show you the battery set up. -The instant pot works great. Yeah. This is the battery set up in here.
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All lithium. There is light switches. -Then on the roof-- -[Bryson] You have solar panels, right?
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[Morgan] There's solar and a little… some plants growing. We have some poblano peppers. Little things growing.
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[Morgan] Although it's really free and liberating, there still is some kind of conflict going on I think in the, I guess, the politics of town or whatever.
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A lot of the biggest camping areas that were not on the mountain, that were down here in the valley and on the river, where you could stay like year round.
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Those have been closed off now. -So that is a… -[Bryson] It's less free. Yeah.
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And a lot of the spiritual people here, like the older people, they're a part of the I AM thing.
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And the I AM thing has been around since the 1800s. It's the Saint Germain Foundation, basically.
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Like, they all believe in the teachings of the I AM and the Saint Germain.
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So it's people who used to be hippies in the '60s and '70s that came here on a spiritual pilgrimage and ended up with this kind of getting into this secret inner circle of the I AM.
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They became friends with the Masons along the way and the Masons got members of the I AM to join them.
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So then a lot of the occult practices from the I AM got crossed with the Freemasonry and the money of the Freemasonry.
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So they ended up owning a lot of the land and the businesses. And some of the businesses they own are like the tree cutting people.
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People who come and cut trees for timber to make paper. -Well, a lot of the old hippies became great capitalists.
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Yes. Very great capitalists. So the people who you think would be standing up to defend the woods are actually the ones cutting it down.
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Well, are you going to stop the cycle? Well, I mean, you even see it with the hippie communities.
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They come out in their huge groups to live out there for a month and next thing you know, half the trees in the area are cut down so people can be warm.
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So, [laughs] it's a double edged sword. [giggles] [Morgan] Learning to be like resourceful so you're not taking more than you're giving or vice versa.
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That's like such a big thing in this world and this environment. This space offers a lot of practice with that because there's so much abundance.
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like there's trees to stay warm, and fresh spring water, and berries, and you can really live off of the land here a good amount.
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Like you really can if you choose to. Some people might see it as extreme, but it's possible.
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[Bryson] Hmm. [Morgan] Having that cornerstone of like everything being reciprocal and… Yeah, symbiotic relationship with the environment is important.
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[Peter] Okay, so you're saying after you're going to New Mexico soon and the East Coast?
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Yes, Morgan is from Maryland and I want to explore the East Coast and see Maryland, get to know that but I would like to travel back to India soon.
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-Okay, so you guys are sort of always on the move? You find a place, you stay a few weeks, a few months, and then move on?
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-Yeah. -We have been. We were in the bay for a while with the bus.
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That was a fun time because we were in the Berkeley area like cruising around, moving a lot.
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And Ora was working really hard and making some some moola. -So that's how it works with the economics?
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You go in, you make your money, you figure out whatever job works like like DoorDash in the Bay and then you can move on?
Speaker A
Recently, but in the past I've just traveled barely without money. I've done hitchhiking and wild camping and stuff like that.
Speaker A
-But to drive this across country that's a lot of gas, right? -Yeah, that's true.
Speaker A
[Bryson] The way that I live out here doing service and helping out people with the house that I have, the stability I have.
Speaker A
I let people kind of come through as they please and take showers and stuff.
Speaker A
And it's like kind of the inner Mormon in me because I left the church but over the years I actually started missing the service projects.
Speaker A
We would go over to like Mrs. Johnson's house and clean her whole house and help her move and things like that.
Speaker A
You miss things like that, it really gives you a sense of purpose to actually have that place and community.
Speaker A
[Peter] So now you were saying off-camera you rent a studio for 700 bucks. -Which is pretty good here price wise. -Oh, yeah.
Speaker A
[Bryson] There's actually never people here. They must be having some kind of a ceremony right now.
Speaker A
This is the temple of the I AM. These are the people that believe that St. Germain still walks these lands and they have their own little rights of ceremonies and things like that and they own most of the town.
Speaker A
-As you can see, it's a nice temple. -It's got a Mormon feel to it actually.
Speaker A
-Yep. -It's all in white. The way that the I AM people kind of interact and exist is very similar to Mormons.
Speaker A
They keep to themselves a lot more than Mormons though. Like they have their own housing.
Speaker A
There's a huge apartment complex around here that's owned by the I AM and a lot of the people stay there so you don't see them in town because they all live together and they only talk to each other.
Speaker A
-Is this lady part of the church you think? She's not wearing all purple. If she was wearing all purple, you'd know.
Speaker A
-They wear all purple? That's how you know, they wear all purple 'cause they believe in the violet flame.
Speaker A
-Do you think any of them would want to go on camera or that's a tough one?
Speaker A
That would never happen. I got in with the Mormons, with the Amish, the Hasidic Jews.
Speaker A
That's not easy. You might independently talk to one, but I don't think you'd ever get in with the inner-inner-circle 'cause like… Maybe I could be wrong but… Because I'd love to get their point of view.
Speaker A
You're saying one thing from the outside and like any group, you know, I got in with many Mormons.
Speaker A
Get their perspective too, you know what I mean? I don't want to put anyone under the bus.
Speaker A
I'm not from here and I don't know what they're doing. -I have a lot of respect for the I AM people because I've read a lot of their books, I read all the time.
Speaker A
I'm super into reading spiritual teachings and a lot of this stuff is super good.
Speaker A
Really like wholesome stuff. Just, you know, basically affirmations that take you to a higher state of mind.
Speaker A
But a lot of the people here think that they might do sketchy stuff or maybe they're too involved with the police or too involved with the masons and the masons are too involved with the I AM people and it kind of sketches people out.
Speaker A
Personally, I very deeply study esoteric wisdom and a lot of the masons like me because I'll speak some code words or certain things about history that connect deeply with Egypt and Khemit .
Speaker A
Like my hip hop name is literally El Khemit and a lot of the Masonic knowledge came from Egypt and the master builders which is why… Masons, you know?
Speaker A
Master builders, Freemasons. [Peter] Look at that now. Is that normal? It looks like that?
Speaker A
[Bryson] It happens pretty regularly. [Peter] So that's the spaceship look? On top of the mountain.
Speaker A
[Bryson] They call them lenticular clouds. They form all the time around here and people say it's because there's aliens coming to visit the city of light in the mountain.
Speaker A
Something called the Ashtar Command or something. Like this galactic federation that people believe exists and is connected into this place.
Speaker A
[Peter] Interesting. The town looks nice. A lot of small businesses. [Bryson] Yeah, people are scared of this area changing.
Speaker A
People are scared of more businesses coming in. Like the Theory Coffee Shop that came in.
Speaker A
I like it. It's good coffee. It gave people jobs. It set up a whole area for a different type of human to actually get what they need.
Speaker A
So I don't mind the idea of this place growing. There's more jobs, there's more ability for people to get stable.
Speaker A
I think a lot of the reason why people live the way they do out here is because it's the only way to live.
Speaker A
Like even for an average person that just wants to come-- I see it happen all the time.
Speaker A
Someone wants to come out here and move out here. "I'm just going to live in my car until I find a place." They never find a place because there's not many places to live.
Speaker A
Because it's all kind of bought up by Airbnb and things like that. It's a vacation spot.
Speaker A
It'd be cool for it to evolve into more like a real town with more businesses and have it not be so hard to get a job and sustain yourself.
Speaker A
Like people here talk about how bad money is and it's like, man, I don't hate money, money buys me food.
Speaker A
Money buys me clothes. Money buys me shelter. -Who hates money though? If you want to live in the modern world, you need money.
Speaker A
The hippies and I think-- Yeah, but they're driving around using gas. Yep, they just kind of say that to feel better about their situation.
Speaker A
"Oh, I don't live in the system." It's like you can't escape the system. You can't escape the matrix.
Speaker A
But you use a phone, right? You're using the phone. You're in the world. So why not live in the world and bring the energy that we have into the world?
Speaker A
That's kind of how I feel about it. If someone really believes that, like the modern world's terrible, everything we do, all the plastic we're using and oil, fair.
Speaker A
Mm-hmm. You just have to live like that. Quite often it's coming from people that actually drive really inefficient vehicles that complain about oil and I'm like, you're participating by driving.
Speaker A
I get it, you have to. But you're not even trying to get like the really good fuel efficient vehicle.
Speaker A
Yep. I won't even name the brand because my mom drives it. -Like the type of car. -[Bryson laughs] But it's like, why are you driving that thing? It gets terrible fuel economy.
Speaker A
-Yep. -And you care about the environment. There's a weird disconnect that goes on. I don't really get that.
Speaker A
Nobody wants to go back to 1850. -Yeah, nobody. -Nobody. You lose so much, you know?
Speaker A
But I can respect someone's opinions and like if they're very conscious about the resources they use, I can respect that but it's like if you want a trainer in the gym, you want the guy that looks ripped and like,
Speaker A
you can tell he's working out and the same with anything, right? -You gotta lead by example. -Mm-hmm.
Speaker A
Talk is cheap. Mm-hmm. Doing actually takes some pain and action. And it's interesting 'cause like, all the people that I used to hang out with, like I kind of lost my whole community of friends because I wanted to get stable.
Speaker A
I wanted to be able to feed myself with my own money and do what I love simultaneously and I knew that it was possible and because of it I lost a lot of people along the way.
Speaker A
They're like, "Oh, you're living in this system, man. You're just, you're in the matrix, bro. You're lost." or whatever.
Speaker A
-Yeah, but what if they're living off food stamps? -That's the thing. -So you and I have to pay for that.
Speaker A
My counterargument is this, oh, you don't think you have to work. You don't think you have a job.
Speaker A
What do you do? You spend eight hours a day on the sidewalk maybe with a sign for gas.
Speaker A
You spend eight hours a day making your wire wrap so you can sell it so you can eat.
Speaker A
It's like, we're both living in the system. We're both working equally as hard. The difference is I might have a few more conveniences to actually take care of myself and that's worth it to me.
Speaker A
[Bryson] If you see someone here walking around with a purple bag you know they're tourists coming here on some spiritual pilgrimage 'cause they've been through soul connections, bought their crystals, and they're ready to go charge them at the headwaters.
Speaker A
That's what people do, get their crystals and then they go to the sacred water, cleanse it, go have their ceremony on the mountain.
Speaker A
They have a community center up there where they let people teach yoga classes and things like that.
Speaker A
Yeah, this is like Shasta culture. Where people come and get their clothes. -Okay. -Thank you. -Thank you, thank you.
Speaker A
The main reason why I've always came in here in the past was for these Lemurian crystals.
Speaker A
People say there's like information from the lost continent in these and if you activate it you're going to have like memories of the ancient people.
Speaker A
-Do you believe? -I kind of do. I mean I've had some weird experiences with those crystals.
Speaker A
They're definitely higher quality than other quartz too. Like they have different properties physically that set them apart from other crystals.
Speaker A
I think you can definitely program crystals to help you advance. -There's a Shanti Shanti vibe in here for sure.
Speaker A
-Mm-hmm. They do a lot of Kirtan and stuff up in the community center. Here's Saint Germain, this is Saint Germain, the man himself.
Speaker A
Here you have all the books. So here's the power of I AM. Here's the Saint Germain books.
Speaker A
They got the whole Violet Flame. [Peter] "Secret name of God in you." -Yeah. We don't have a normal bookshop in Shasta.
Speaker A
This is the bookshop in Shasta. So if you want to read some books, you're going to get some spiritual wisdom.
Speaker A
-It's a bit of a library. -This place is interesting. [Peter] "Happiness is an inside job." that's a good one.
Speaker A
[Bryson] Here you've got the gongs, sound healing. I really like the gongs. "Please do not play, ask for demo." They used to let people play them, I used to come and play the gongs.
Speaker A
Sometimes you just come in here and walk around. It's good vibes, you know? They got representation of like a hundred different ideologies and beliefs in here.
Speaker A
Which is kind of the Shasta thing. Like you don't meet people who just have one practice.
Speaker A
Like the whole energy here is like the spiritual masters. Like people come here to learn things from each other and like get wisdom from all over the world because people from all over the world come here to worship the mountain.
Speaker A
I meet a lot of people from India and they believe that Mount Shasta somehow-- -Shiva. -Yeah.
Speaker A
They believe that Mount Shasta is somehow a cousin of Mount Meru where Shiva resides.
Speaker A
So they believe that Shiva may have a stronghold here because the waters are connected, and, yeah.
Speaker A
[Bryson] And out here, here's Nathan. He's kind of a mentor of mine. -How you guys doing? -Good.
Speaker A
-How's it going'? -Good. "Vote for San Pedro." [Bryson giggles] [Peter] San Pedro cacti? -Mm-hmm.
Speaker A
-Is that a quite interesting trip? It's a very grounded embodied journey into self. Where other journeys take you all over the realms.
Speaker A
This one brings you into your body. How is it compared to ayahuasca? So ayahuasca is like, she's a trickster.
Speaker A
So she takes you in and out of past present future dreamland. Okay, yeah. Where they call Wachuma journey of the straight arrow, brings you right, woosh, here.
Speaker A
I hate to get practical on you, but for practical uses, it's really good for post-traumatic stress disorder, troops coming back from fighting, people that have been through harsh experiences.
Speaker A
Absolutely. Psychedelics, some of them, they're being researched for that. It's not legal in a federal setting yet, but I'm sure it will be eventually, right?
Speaker A
Yeah, I think pharmaceuticals are in control of what's good for us. The natural medicines and remedies that are here, easy to grow.
Speaker A
[Peter] And I got to say this 'cause I'm on YouTube. Not promoting for anyone to do any substance.
Speaker A
Do your own research deep and hard, know what you're getting into. I've had an experience that transformed my life in a fantastic way, as in I haven't drank alcohol in nine years from my aya experience.
Speaker A
But I did it at 38, and if I was to do it at 28, that would have been a bad call.
Speaker A
Exactly. So, these things need to be treated with respect and honor and know what you're doing, don't disrupt it.
Speaker A
In a good setting, in Peru, or where it's legal. In a good setting. My setting was not so good actually.
Speaker A
It was a bit chaotic. But anyways, I'm not saying to do any substances, check it out on your own.
Speaker A
-All right, back to the video. -[laughter] I don't know. You have to… There's some lines you have to balance.
Speaker A
They say it's better to talk about it as a sacrament rather than a medicine is a better thing to do.
Speaker A
But also I only drink this in Peru. Luckily in Oregon it's legal. He goes with me traveling shotgun everywhere.
Speaker A
This is who I study with and meditate with. And we actually went to a Buddhist retreat last fall and I meditated with him for three days.
Speaker A
I put him as a little tiny cutting. His head fell off and another name for San Pedro is Wachuma.
Speaker A
Which means headless, getting out of your head and into your body So his head fell off and I just put dirt in him, put a little cutting on there and it rooted and grew.
Speaker A
And he's become his own personality. He's even got a brain. Which is a crested form, a mutated form of the San Pedro.
Speaker A
-So, do you communicate with your cactus? -I listen. -What does it tell you? Absolutely nothing.
Speaker A
Every time I ask him a question. But he really has that rhetoric of silence, learning to listen, how to be present, and for me the cactus speak to me through vision and metaphor, not through language.
Speaker A
[tribal drums] [drumming intensifies and men sing] [Bryson laughs] [man] It gets busy around here.
Speaker A
So what happens here at the Headwaters Park in Mount Shasta every Sunday, rain or shine, at this little gazebo for decades, maybe 40 years plus here with people like Rex here, where we'll come even through the snow or what have you,
Speaker A
we get together and we celebrate through playing music and getting together here. Doing dance at Mount Shasta every Sunday.
Speaker A
Come and join us. We have a grouping of really competent drummers with me. Oh, and we have the kids out running in the park and I have to concentrate on what's going on and the kids are out running chasing around
Speaker A
and the dogs are chasing around and the people are out there with their hula hoops.
Speaker A
It's hilarious. But it's the energy and it's the charming people that it attracts to our place here.
Speaker A
It's really interesting that way. This is about the Buckminster Fuller meditation. He coined the expression Spaceship Earth.
Speaker A
He built the geodesic dome I had an opportunity to be his assistant at weekend workshops three times.
Speaker A
And what he taught me there was that his personal meditation, one of the most brilliant people ever, was to root in, stand still, root into the earth like a tree, and you hold your roots into place and get real still, and you can feel the earth spinning.
Speaker A
Buckminster Fuller noticed that the sun does not go down. Sundown doesn't happen. The earth spins.
Speaker A
He suggested calling it sunclipse. The sun is being eclipsed by the spinning of the planet.
Speaker A
And during that time, during those three minutes, just when it first touches down… See I still say, when the sun touches down.
Speaker A
When the earth spins up and starts occluding the bottom of the sun until it gets to the top of the sun, it's about three minutes, and we go about 75 miles toward the east during that time, and it's easier to feel that earth moving at that time.
Speaker A
[Peter] What an amazing experience getting to meet him. Oh, well, that was fun. Oh, and in the morning, the morning is sunsight.
Speaker A
So you have sunsight, sunclipse. He gives a thing to be looking forward to every day.
Speaker A
-How are you doing? -Good, I just wanted to say hi. -I love your videos. -Thank you so much.
Speaker A
-I learn so much about people. -Cool. -This is my daughter, Bethel. -Bethel? -Yeah, this is my son, Ezra. -Ezra.
Speaker A
I wonder if we could get a quick selfie with you. -Oh, yeah, yeah. -Oh, my gosh, so cool.
Speaker A
-I know you're recording. -No, no, are you okay? I was recording? Yeah, I didn't want to interrupt.
Speaker A
-No, let's do it. -Let's do it. -You want to get up here, buddy? -You want me to get low?
Speaker A
I'm getting down with your height. You're taller than me. [drumming continues] -Got it. Thank you so much. -Thank you, I really appreciate it.
Speaker A
[drumming continues] Kind of the moment when the energy is totally at its maximum here is called Lionsgate, it's August 8th, and it's literally this moment when almost like the smurfs hang out with the aliens and they go looking for Sasquatch, you know, type of moment.
Speaker A
And there's just so much magic happening around here. All these different people from all over the world come and do their prayers and their things.
Speaker A
It'll be… it's an event. It's worth coming for. -We're going to go to your place though, right?
Speaker A
Oh, yeah. We're going to go out to a place that I've had the permission to steward.
Speaker A
I'm a raw land developer on the other side of the mountain here and I have a place I call the Sacred Fire of Mount Shasta where I host too small to fail local things that I believe should come to pass.
Speaker A
So I grew up in Southern Arizona and since I left my home place when I connected to Shasta, she's always been almost like the center of a compass.
Speaker A
And I know wherever I'm at anywhere on this planet with it being the center of Shasta here.
Speaker A
I discovered this. This place was actually through the opportunity of wandering, kind of chasing the mystery being young enough to get out into life and… -Take risk? -Take some risk, you know?
Speaker A
Go along with something and see what's out there, you know? Make your bag small.
Speaker A
'Cause you might find what you need along the way. A lot of us arrive here with just our side sling bag, craft box, and our instruments.
Speaker A
I've heard a lot of people say that how you end up in Mount Shasta is by burning all your bridges, you know, type of thing.
Speaker A
[Bryson laughs] And that doesn't mean that you've got a trail of like nonsense behind you but there's a lot of trails and gaps that we've been crossing in our life that aren't leading in the right direction and you may need to actually cross some aspects and never go back.
Speaker A
[tribal drumming] [Peter] Wow, this is cool. We're way out there. [Bryson] We're in the boonies now.
Speaker A
[Peter] Oh, that's cool. He's got the frame around the container. -I never noticed that. -That's pretty cool.
Speaker A
So he made everything like on a small footprint so that he didn't have to do the coding?
Speaker A
-What do you mean the coding, like you can't build a big house? Code… if they're not up to code because they're small enough.
Speaker A
-You have to have the permits and stuff. -Oh, okay. [Bryson] I don't know if Sparrow can confirm this but if you look at these oak trees, this is kind of how the Indigenous people would plant forests.
Speaker A
They would actually burn down all of the pines and the cedars and plant oaks.
Speaker A
So to me this is what a healthy forest looks like. The spread out trees because if fires happen, it's just going to burn through the undergrowth and the trees are going to remain.
Speaker A
Right. -And you know, there's hundreds of species that associate with oak trees and only like 20 or 30 that associate with conifers.
Speaker A
[Peter] Sparrow, nice zone. -Welcome. -This is awesome. Yeah, this is the bird nest right here.
Speaker A
That's my little cabin here. Handmilled from the dead standing local trees around here. It's nice to have a little bit of a human habitat in this ocean of wilderness area on this side of the mountain.
Speaker A
-This is out there, man. -Yeah, we're a little bit out there. -Not total road warriors though. -30 minutes.
Speaker A
You can get to a natural food store and some good people in about a half hour or so.
Speaker A
Right. -Yeah, what you got over here is I'm working on the sauna and so these boards that are under here, these are from a vintage barrel from the Stewart mineral spring.
Speaker A
So this is first growth redwood from a barrel that was made in the 1800s.
Speaker A
Where I'm refinishing these to make the benches for the sauna. -That's hard to get, first growth. -Oh, impossible.
Speaker A
-It really is… recycled. -Expensive. And because it was a barrel, Peter, not a single knot is like the trick to it.
Speaker A
Like that's how you can really tell this old growth type of stuff. So yeah, like the whole building philosophy here is like the 80/20.
Speaker A
So like I got to use 80% local, renewable, reusable materials, and at the most, 20% of stuff that you go buy at Home Depot.
Speaker A
-These are Sparrow principles? -These are Sparrow principles. -[Peter] Cute dogs. -[Sparrow] Kinda off the chart here.
Speaker A
Right after 2008, this is a landowner carries deed type of thing. So I didn't win the lottery.
Speaker A
I put less than $1,000 down and paid $370 a month for seven years to own two and a half acres over here.
Speaker A
The water table's right below the surface. So my well was super shallow. And there is national forest all around you.
Speaker A
And so yeah, I ended up out here and I don't think any humans since the Native people had lived out here.
Speaker A
And there's a flowing year-round headwater spring that's about 100 yards from here. So it's one of those places.
Speaker A
But as the project evolves things have gone on but this spot right here, this is the very first thing that we made here where we brought up and did a land blessing and brought up a little sand circle and walked all this stuff in originally
Speaker A
and, you know, started the first all night prayer service around here with some elders from Northern Arizona that came out here and kind of helped us out with setting the container.
Speaker A
Kind of talking to the mountain and our relations like that and do our best to come up in here in a way, you know, to be a part of what already is here, you know?
Speaker A
-And Shasta's right there, right? -We're going to walk right here. And Shasta's gonna just jump right out at you.
Speaker A
-Oh, whoa! What's going on here? You building a teepee? [Sparrow] Yeah, so this is the ceremonial site.
Speaker A
I've been up here for 15 years and over that time period there's been over 50 all night prayer services.
Speaker A
The Native American Church predominantly. All sorts of different tribes have brought their fire places to Mount Shasta.
Speaker A
[Peter] How you guys doing? What's up? Look at that. That's pretty sweet. [Sparrow] It's pretty spectacular, huh?
Speaker A
-How's it going? -Good. -Happy to see you. -You too. -Your name? -Seraphin. -Seraphin? -Yes.
Speaker A
-He's getting people to put skin in the game. Meaning that he encourages people to fast for seven days.
Speaker A
One of the gathers I was up here recently this summer was a predominantly grandmothers.
Speaker A
like around 20 of them over 60, true grandmothers that predominantly speak Spanish from all over the world that came to Mount Shasta to fast for seven days.
Speaker A
And my good ally right here, him and his crew, he actually has some of his apprentice here learning how he's doing this thing right now.
Speaker A
They're on day five of fasting right now. -Oh, wow. Yeah, today it's my fifth day.
Speaker A
How long could you fast for? -Oh, I did a 40 day fast back in 2022. -Forty?
Speaker A
-Wow. -Yeah. -Those are some motley boots. -[laughter] -Yeah. -Where does one find those? -You got some fancy shoes.
Speaker A
-Are they motorcycle? What are they? What's going on there? You know, I was in New York a few weeks ago expanding the network and one of the people gave it to me.
Speaker A
-Yeah, have you guys ever seen anything like that? -I spend a lot of time in Mt. Shasta.
Speaker A
-It's like moon boots, meets vans, meets motorcycle boots. [laughing and chattering] [Peter] Yeah, they're like… You know, I have a network of people that we fast around the world.
Speaker A
And I mainly connect myself from Mt. Shasta and I have people in Germany, Italy, Spain, Colombia, Mexico, even Africa.
Speaker A
Okay, what's this place mean to you, Mt. Shasta? It means a connection. Heaven and earth.
Speaker A
It's when we're… Heaven, the brothers from the stars, meet with earth. -That's why I-- -You feel that here?
Speaker A
Yeah, that's why I'm here for the fasting. Because I have all these people fasting with me every month.
Speaker A
And by me holding the frequency from this place, and other people holding the frequency from other places, we just create a powerful network to elevate the frequency of the planet.
Speaker A
So by me being right in front of the mountain, it means that I'm being guided with the brothers from the stars.
Speaker A
Shasta is an amazing community of multi-age group, diverse people, that depending on what gown you've put over your connection to creator, we all seem to have a spiritual center with each other and a familiar thread that seems to be going on.
Speaker A
It doesn't matter where you grew up in the world, it doesn't matter your finances, your age, what it is, it seems like people in the witness of Mount Shasta have the opportunity to remember their spiritual connection to the mother of nature.
Speaker A
That there's something real special going on with this mountain, and it calls people. -That's how we know each other.
Speaker A
How did you connect with me? You saw my Utah license plate. -Absolutely. We both came from the same Liberty Park Circle and made our pilgrimage here to feel that freedom, you know?
Speaker A
And we've been able to build that and build that connection between us. This guy came through Utah.
Speaker A
We all came through Utah together across the street from each other. I'm an unemployed federal employee.
Speaker A
The last thing I did on the payroll was I did wilderness therapy for adjudicated youth in southern Utah for years.
Speaker A
-Wow. When all of a sudden we kind of wiggled the priorities when the two tower thing got hit because we were providing mental health for these kids that a big part of our funding was through Medicare.
Speaker A
And when we readjusted this company that had 365 days a year, 7 companies every day off-trail.
Speaker A
This is a 60 day off-trail experiential learning thing that was going on. A catalyst of positive change for every person that came in contact with it.
Speaker A
The parents, the students, the people that worked, the towns that we worked out of type of thing.
Speaker A
And me and Nathan know each other from all the way back then. It was one of the most amazing opportunities I've ever had to live that way.
Speaker A
Thank our federal government for valuing this at that time. What happened is they moved the budget enough when we kind of ran off to the Middle East and this company called AYA that worked out of Utah went under
Speaker A
after around 30 years of doing that and ever since then I've demanded to actually stay at the people's level and figure out how to… You know, people ask me as a homesteader, like, what do you do, Sparrow?
Speaker A
You need something done? I do whatever it takes. I'm a jack of all skills.
Speaker A
I'm at the people's level. Like, what can I do to help, type of thing?
Speaker A
Entrepreneur, but more like just a helpful hand that believes that the world is a great place to be in and we, you know, have no idea the different ways in which we can plug into it.
Speaker A
-So hopefully that money comes back because that sounds like a great cause. We need so much of that, right?
Speaker A
We need so much of this. I live in an ocean of national forest. It is so neglected right now.
Speaker A
We've got weird interests. There's nobody in this forest unless they're paid to be in it.
Speaker A
Whether it's national forest people or timber industry. Like, people come back to the forest.
Speaker A
We need to actually have a tangible connection to our land. [Nathan] It's four baths going during the retreats.
Speaker A
So this heats the water for the bath tubs. It's a full-on retreat. Yeah, we did that on our third day of fasting during the night.
Speaker A
-This is your zone? -This is where the guests stay. [Bryson] Oh, I've never been in this one.
Speaker A
[Peter] It's nice and warm in here. [Nathan] There's beds for people and it's extremely cozy here.
Speaker A
Really good use of space and he just got all this done this past year.
Speaker A
So he just, like, finished it super nice. Mary Magdalene, Jesus, Saint Germain, and-- [Peter] I didn't think you would have Jesus in here, to be honest.
Speaker A
-Why? -I don't know. I just don't get the Christian vibes up here. Yeah, well, I don't see it as a Christian.
Speaker A
I see everything as an energy. -To me, his life represents pure energy. -Yep. [Bryson] Purity. The energy.
Speaker A
Not necessarily, you know, Christianity. It means energy. Well, what's interesting to me is that if you talk to not everybody, but a few different tribes in America specifically, they'll tell you that when the conquestors or the settlers came,
Speaker A
they said, "We want to introduce you to Jesus." Like maybe you've heard this in Mexico.
Speaker A
They said, "We already know Jesus." They already had their own word for that energy and for that person and some people, including the Mormons, believe that Jesus went all over the whole planet and shone his light into the four corners of the earth
Speaker A
which is what it says in the Bible. So that's why people still feel that connection because they feel that they've always had that connection and it's like you were saying, it's like it's not the church.
Speaker A
-It's that energy that people connect to. -It's energy. [fire crackling] -Hopefully you worked up an appetite. -Oh, yeah, smells good. Nice.
Speaker A
Hopefully you're hungry there. [Sparrow] Got some wild mushrooms. That's Morel mushrooms. Garden herbs are local, free-range cows.
Speaker A
The only ingredient that doesn't come from the mountain is the real salt from Utah.
Speaker A
That's what I call your 100-mile pot latch that has garden wild food and consciously animal husbandry.
Speaker A
[Peter] 80/20 principle at work. [Sparrow] 80/20 principle and full swing. We're omnivores, but some of us just like the plants, so I made… Right now we have a, this here is, this has got a bunch of local vegetables,
Speaker A
all those herbs and then it also has the Matsutake that grows out in the volcanic soil.
Speaker A
It's actually coming up right now. This is like my, I would say my ceremonial family.
Speaker A
My brother Tim here, he's an artist. He makes a ceremonial art. -Want to take a look at a couple things? -Yeah, sure.
Speaker A
[Bryson] Taught me a lot. [Peter] Everyone's got an Oregon plate around here, you notice that?
Speaker A
[Bryson giggles] Let's see… So, the magical box is there. This is a lot of my personal powow regalia.
Speaker A
I finished just a few months back. I started dancing it but I started it some years ago.
Speaker A
But that was the first piece of 'em with the moccasins. I started doing bead work and stuff like that when I was like nine.
Speaker A
-Okay. And just kind of took off with it. And porcupine quill work. My grandma on my mom's side by blood is Choctaw and Creek.
Speaker A
My dad's side was Irish. [laughs] But I never really met the guy. And so it's kind of funny, I look Irish but I was raised Native.
Speaker A
-Interesting. -And yeah. And so though my grandma was Choctaw and Creek by blood, my upbringing linear was [Native] out of Rosewood.
Speaker A
And so a lot of what I learned growing up, my beadwork, all of that, you know, was inspired more by plains Native stuff rather than, you know… -Oh, nice. -A spreader to my robes.
Speaker A
[Peter] So is that hard to explain yourself growing up when you're half Native? You look White, so it's like do people question or what's that like?
Speaker A
They do a lot. Natives, in my experience, and Tribal, are the only like people, I guess culturally speaking in the world that are asked to prove a pedigree, like dogs.
Speaker A
-Sure. -Like what percentage of their blood? -Exactly. And so it's like, then you get into the ego of it and the, "I'm more Indianer than you." argument.
Speaker A
-Right. I've seen some of your videos and you've been to different rezzes and stuff like that and so you've seen all sides of it.
Speaker A
-Yes. -And that's awesome. I love seeing the raw side of the rez 'cause it's not something that many people get to see.
Speaker A
-Yeah. I mean, you can clearly see I don't claim to be a full blood Native.
Speaker A
I'm not, I'm not that I never will be. But a lot of these elders that I grew up around and some of them that I knew, they're gone and you can't get that back, you know?
Speaker A
And so while they're here, I respectfully try to learn as much as I can from them when I was their age, my own kid's age, I fell in love with this.
Speaker A
[chattering] -[woman] Well, that's hear what you say. -[man] It's an angel. [Sparrow] So we got a bounty from Mount Shasta here of local food.
Speaker A
-[Peter] You're going for both? [Sparrow] That's kind of the deal is they actually go so well together.
Speaker A
-You are all over it. -[Peter] Oh, yeah. That's good. -[Bryson] That's the next level there. -[Peter] Mmm.
Speaker A
Mmm. [Bryson] That's the essence of Shasta. These morels. Oh, yeah. That is so good.
Speaker A
[Sparrow] So one of the goals that I have is to actually not take any pills.
Speaker A
I'm trying to do as natural as possible, live natural, die natural, and at some point I started having muscle spasms.
Speaker A
I had been vegetarian most of my life and I just was like having this thing going on so I had to start really taking vitamins otherwise I was dealing with cramps and all this other stuff.
Speaker A
And at some point around that same time period of few years into this is when I ran into my first super flush of morels.
Speaker A
Where it was like boom, I ended up with hundreds of pounds of it and I was able to stop just having a few a season but actually have it as a staple.
Speaker A
And what I learned about these morels is they are one of the most bioavailable diverse nutrient-dense of all foods and especially mushrooms that you can eat.
Speaker A
And so now that I've been able to introduce these wild foods into my diet on a regular basis it's cured me of so many different aspects.
Speaker A
Which one of them is that I'm absolutely nutritionally dense. I don't have food anxieties and I no longer have muscle spasms.
Speaker A
Sleep like a baby. -Awesome, but you eat beef now too? -Oh yeah, definitely. So that helps too, right?
Speaker A
A lot of people ask me what I think is a superfood. -Yeah. -I would say nose to tail, cow.
Speaker A
Not just eat its muscles but actually make a bone broth working with the Achilles tendon, the neck and the tail, along with the cut bones and the knuckles where you get that full spectrum and heat digest it aligning with the intelligence
Speaker A
of what food is providing in your region in the moment. [Peter] The labels get all mixed up. What did you say?
Speaker A
You call me a hippie, that's fighting words. -Nobody likes to be called hippies? -Hippies don't kill and eat their own meat, that's for sure.
Speaker A
-Alright, so you guys are green necks maybe? -I'm just become aware of this because of you.
Speaker A
I think that's probably a good label. But my husband who's got 16 different accents and you can't try to type-cast him.
Speaker A
There's no label on this guy. -I've been around all the people. [laughter] [Peter] Bryson, thank you buddy.
Speaker A
-Appreciate it. -Thank you, man. Thank you so much. Thanks for bringing me into your world.
Speaker A
-Thanks for coming out here, man. -Really interesting perspective on life. Bryson's music is down below in a link you're going to send me.
Speaker A
I'm going to send you the link and whether you like my music or not.
Speaker A
If you want to support me as a human, my music is up to be donated for whatever amount I've got on Bandcamp.
Speaker A
You can give me a dollar and have the album. -Cool, dollar for the album. -Yeah. Dollar, you know.
Speaker A
-Nice. -And I got this stone here. This is a Mount Shasta and Andara Crystal that I've had for a while.
Speaker A
It's really dear to me and I wanted to pass it on to you to give you a little piece of the mountain.
Speaker A
Thank you, Bryson. I just wanted to, you know, give my people a chance here to be seen.
Speaker A
And I feel like that prayer has been answered in a lot of ways. -I'm really glad you came out here. -Yeah, me too.
Speaker A
-This has been interesting. -It's been fun, right? -It's been fun. Yeah, no. -Quite a rabbit hole, huh?
Speaker A
I love getting into different worlds than my own. This is how I learned. This is how the audience learns.
Speaker A
And this was awesome. Beautiful day. Alright guys. Until the next one. -Thanks, Bryson. -We did it.
Speaker A
[mellow acoustic guitar plays]
Topics:Mount Shastaoff-grid livingspiritual communityI AM movementMcBride Springfood stampsvan lifealternative lifestylepandemic impactNorthern California
