Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 355: Joe Patitucci

Episode Date: October 1, 2019

Joe Patitucci, technological druid, founder/director of Data Garden, and co-creator of PlantWave, joins the DTFH! You can learn more about Joe here and more about PlantWave here. This episode is brought to you by Burrow ($75 off and FREE 1 week shipping when you visit burrow.com/duncan and use code DUNCAN at checkout). This episode is also brought to you by Squarespace (use offer code: DUNCAN to save 10% on your first site).

Ghost Towns. Dirty Angel. Out now. You can get Dirty Angel anywhere you get your music. Ghost Towns. Dirty Angel. Out now. New album and tour date coming this summer. Hello, pals. You're listening to the Dugget Trussell Family Hour podcast, and today we have with us a technological druid. Joe Petucci has invented a device that allows you to listen to the singing of plants. But first, we're being forced by the FCC to play this disclaimer at the beginning of all future episodes of the DTFH. So here it is. The Dugget Trussell Family Hour podcast by continuing to listen to its leader allow this podcast to play hyperdimensional cookies inside another second shot.

The Pumpkin Patch by T.S. Eliot. We see the pumpkins now when we shall see the pumpkins as they will be. Pumpkins fallen from the pumpkin tree. Pumpkins melting like melting clowns would be. Melting clown. Melting clown. Do I dare to shave my brown? Will you force me to kneel down? Will you paint your face as a pumpkin clown? Will you be the one to shave my brown? And when my brown is shaved will you say I shaved your patch today? I've seen the pumpkin clowns, seen them all. Seen them shaving brown and the kiosks of the malls. I do not think that they will shave my brown. In pumpkin patches we do slumber dressed as pumpkin clowns till human voices wake us and in our brown we drown. Oh yes, at last fall is here which means it's time to cozy

up with your 14 cats and watch the entire soft franchise naked while enjoying a heated bowl of salmon chunks on your brand new couch. Yep, it's time to toss out that bed bug infested cat piss sponge and treat yourself to the best couch out there. Furrow. Now's the perfect time to upgrade that lumpy old shit couch that you've been meaning to replace forever. Your burrow sofa can handle even the most hardcore binge session with a kiln dried Baltic birch frame and durable fabric that's naturally scratch and stain resistant. Burrow, it's totally customizable. You can pick your fabric color, leg finish, armrest style and length. You can add a chase lounge or ottoman or both with built in USB chargers. You can plug in man. Burrow sofas are easy to set up and easy to move

and you can always add or remove seats as needed. And burrow offers free one week shipping so you can have your new sofa all set up by next week's episode. Don't settle for the same old couch. Settle into a comfy new burrow sofa and get $75 off a new sofa and free one week shipping at burrow.com slash Duncan. That's B U R R O W dot com slash Duncan for $75 off a new sofa. You just can't beat TS Eliot man. It's like when fall is just here and you start smelling that chimney smoke. For me, this is my most creative time. I sit around and drink big mugs of heated pureed salmon chunks and write beautiful songs and I'm just going to share one with you. This song is called Let Us Bow to the One in the Woods.

Let us suckle on your mind. Take a drink from its hundreds of nipples. Fill your goblet with its yellow wine. Yes, sure. I get it. We're all hyperdimensional rainbow creatures who are living in multiple places at once. But right now we're here on planet earth and what better way to express yourself to the entire globe than by creating a beautiful website. This episode of the DTFH has been brought to you by the good folks at Squarespace dot com. Squarespace is what I use to make Duncan trustle dot com, which has gotten 17 Grammy awards just to name a few. Go check it out over at Duncan trustle dot com and get ready to have your eyeballs come so hard. You will experience

temporary enlightenment and very possibly come up with a plan to transform our planet into a harmonized hyper complex yet hyper harmonized utopia. It's that good a website and I made it with Squarespace dot com. They've got shopping cart functionality. They size to every phone and they have incredible customer service. Best of all, you can just try it out by going to Squarespace dot com and when you're ready to launch, go to Squarespace dot com forward slash Duncan and use offer code Duncan that Squarespace dot com forward slash Duncan and use offer code Duncan to get 10% off your first order of a website or a domain. It's time for you to take that parasitic procrastination entity that has lodged itself in your heart chakra out by its

wriggling wart covered hell tail and send it plunging back into the icy pits of hell from which it came. And the best way to do that is to get going on that website you've been wanting to make. Thanks Squarespace. We're going to talk about plants today. We're going to talk about what it means to be able to communicate sentience. This podcast blew my mind. It got me back on stage. I'm doing standup again after a year. This is why a podcast. Joe is a very inspiring guy. This is not just going to be about music or technology. This thing gets deep. We're going to jump right into it. But first, some quick business. Do you hear it? The sound of the hummingbird wings, the conch shells blowing, the smacking sound of beautiful entities making love

in some silky sea. Then what you're hearing is the DTFH over at Patreon. If you want to dive into the deepest waters of the DTFH, all you have to do is go to patreon.com. You'll get early access to episodes of the DTFH along with at least one extra hour long rambling tirade. It's all there for you at patreon.com. We also have a shop located at DuncanTrussell.com. Also, if you have the slightest interest of sitting with a group of people meditating the first Sunday of every month, we are doing a sit where we just meditate. It's free and Denver. I'm going to be at the Denver Comedy Works next year in January. That's on their website. Today's guest is a multimedia healer. He's some kind of technological healing druid who is the co-creator of this incredible

technology that allows plants to sing. This conversation blew my mind. All the links you need to find Joe will be at DuncanTrussell.com. Without further ado, please welcome to the DTFH Joe Padatucci. Welcome to the DTFH. How cool to be in your presence. It's really exciting when people like you show up. You've got an incredible vibe and it's filling up the whole podcast studio. I just love that. It's the best when that happens. You have co-created, I guess you would say, one of the coolest bits of sound technology that I've ever come across. You can see I've got all the stuff here, the Moog, crazy modular synthesizers, but holy

shit. You are part of Midi PlantWave, formerly known as Midi Sprout. This is a technology that lets plants that transforms electrical activity on the surface of the plant into midi, which then turns that into music. Essentially, you figure out a way to let plants sink. I thank you for the technology. I'm sure if the plants could thank you, they would also thank you because the implications of the technology to me and where it's going to go are mind-shattering. That's where I want to start off with my first question. Do you think that people are actually a little nervous about what this technology reveals in the sense that it's easier to live on the planet and be selfish if you can narrow what you consider to be life forms or sentience to a very small scope and that

the more that scope expands, if you're a thing that eats, the more you have to deal with the fact that just by existing, you must consume things that might be a little bit more or a lot more intelligent than you think. Wow. Yeah, you went straight there. Right there. That's a great question. For me, I'm an omnivore, for instance. A lot of people, they come to me and they think that since I make plant music, you must be vegetarian. I'm kind of like, wait, how does that make sense? Because then I have vegans that come into my workshops and stuff and they're like, oh my god, this is a living sentient being. I don't know what I can eat anymore. I think people are ready to experience the fact that everything is conscious. I think that's

important for us to understand and it's important for us to see ourselves as part of this chain of consciousness and whatever we're consuming to recognize it as sentient in some way and conscious. Even rocks, I mean, rocks are conscious. They're just on a slower time scale or just different things move at different speeds. That's the way I think of it. To me, it's like a calling to honor and see that everything that you are consuming is conscious, whether it's a plant or an animal, and take that time before you ingest it into your body to acknowledge it, thank it, and acknowledge all of the things that came into the formation of that food, whatever it is, down to the systems that were put in place for the distribution of it

and the people that had the meal with their family before they went to work to build those systems and everything, and to really tune into that and honor that in your food, send love to those people too. Then when you're taking a plant into your body or when you're taking an animal into your body, it doesn't have to be about this thing. It doesn't have to be about I'm consuming this thing. It can be about we're co-creating an experience, so bacon or whatever, I don't know what trauma you experienced, but here I am, I love you, and you're here now, you're safe now. Come on in, let's do this together. What are your dreams? How do you want your energy to be expressed through this vessel that I've been living in for whatever?

Okay, I've thought about this. I'm an omnivore as well, but I'm a guilty omnivore, so I'm the worst omnivore because if someone were murdering me, and this is how I think about it, I think about it like being kidnapped, and you're in a situation where your kidnapper is going to eat you, and the kidnapper is conveying to you not just that he's going to eat you or she's going to eat you, but they feel guilty about it. They're like, I'm worried, I don't want you to suffer, but I'm going to eat you, and so I think if I had to choose between the psychology of the being consuming me, I would want that psychology to be happy at least, at least you be fucking enjoying this shit if you're eating me. The whole guilty thing just is like, well, don't eat me then,

if you feel bad about it. If you can't get over the guilt of the fact that you're a fucking cannibal who kidnapped me, I'm a dad, I have a family, and you're going to fucking eat me, then let me go. Don't do that, oh my god, what am I doing? That's the worst kind of monster, isn't it? Oh my god, oh my god. It's like, don't do it. So I've tried a variety of psychological techniques to get over the guilt that I feel in regards to the way I treat animals. I treat my dogs great, but I still feel guilty. I just think, oh my god, I should walk them more than I do or they feel bad. I just have this very guilty connection to nature in general, like a sense of I'm just hurting things in the world. And some of that comes from watching TV and the

ice caps are melting. And knowing my brother worked at PETA at one point, I've seen the videos. I've watched Morrissey's meet his murder that he plays at his concerts and seen the suffering that these animals go through. But I still love eating me. I feel better when I eat me. I have more energy when I'm eating meat. But still, this thing that you're saying, and I've been around people who have this sort of prayer. Some of my friends, once we had chicken and they were telling, saying, here's where the chicken came from. This is the farm the chicken came from. And let's thank this being for allowing us to live from its life. But I always felt queasy about like Jesus Christ. And so anyway, this is where it goes back to my first question,

which is that we, the more you widen the scope of your understanding of suffering, the more your heart breaks. And the more you realize that I have to hurt to live. I have to cause pain to live. And we've up until your invention. And you know, there's been the books. Oh, you sing to the plants. They grow better. You say positive people seem to generate different reactions in plants. Plants seem to know when other plants are being hurt. And the new research coming out about the way trees will send nutrients to trees that need it. Up until this stuff coming out and plant wave, midi sprout formally, allowing these plants to sing, there's always at least been the possibility

of retreating into a vegetarian lifestyle, vegan lifestyle. You know what I mean? And then you won't be hurting living things anymore. And now your technology, and I imagine the technology that will be inspired by your technology is widening the scope. So now people like your vegan friends are faced with this predicament. And I know what you mean. I'm consuming you. It's over now. I'm taking you into me. Who's eating us by the way? I don't know. Who's stomach are we in? Well, the microbes and everything else, you know, like we're all, there's no, there's no top of the food chain. It's a circle. So like, as long as you kind of understand that and just understand that we're all just like a part of this cycle, then I don't know yet. I'm interested though, like in, in the, in, like,

when you express this kind of guilt that you're feeling and I'm interested in hearing like, I don't think that's, that's not just like related to food for you or animals. Like I'm, I'm sure this is like, there's like, I would imagine there's like this, because what I heard was in order to be like, I have to like, like, I have to be creating suffering for other people. So what I'm hearing from you is like this relationship to suffering being something that's suffering is caused by something outside of you. So for you, do you think that suffering is coming from things outside of you or do you feel like suffering is something that you create through your own, through your own view of the world? Great question. Great question. Thanks. Yeah.

Well, pain comes from outside of you. I think the way your mind organizes why the pain can cause the suffering. And I don't know, is it like, was it because I was raised Christian? And this Christian story is, starts off with people getting kicked out of a garden because they weren't good enough to be there. You know, they weren't trustworthy. They were, they were devious and they got kicked out of paradise. And then this is the like, ancient way of sort of trying to make sense of why animals fucking run away from us. Well, you know what I mean? Like nature recoils from humanity quite often. If you see, if you walk and walk through any park and mostly if, and generally if an animal does approach you, a quote wild animal, it means it's

sick a lot of the times or it's been too domesticated to the point where it associates you as a food source or something like that. And so why, why is this that things are so terrified of humans? And also, if you look at the other side of that, when we see pictures of saints, quite often they are shown with like animal birds landing on their shoulders and they're shown with like, you know, Lord Jitanya Mahaprabhu or the Bhakti Yoga saint of the Hare Krishnas supposedly walking through the jungle. Lions were like dancing with him or tigers and animals were just coming out and dancing. And you know, Jesus riding the donkey and saying, even if you try to silence us, the rocks themselves will sing for me. And so that's the

other side. Sort of to me, it's always been like, if you get your shit together, then nature itself will begin to respond to you in a non-terrified way. And you, in your, the bio that I read about when I was reading about you, you mentioned this, that rike healers, medicine work, people who work with plant medicines, when they come into a room where you have connected this technology to a plant, it suddenly changes, it spikes. It's like it's aware of them, seemingly confirming this crazy notion that the universe embraces you the moment that you have sort of, I don't know, become less of a herder, less of a ignorant person, less of a crusher. Yeah, so I, you know, I think of it as, I think of it more as just like resonance, right? And so I, you know, I think of everything as waves,

right? So like, that's part of what plant wave is about. But it's about resonance. And there's like the universe, everything around us, all these things that are solid are, are like, you know, vibrations at a quantum level. So, and then the universe is all, it's like, all this stuff is like an expression of a vibration, right? And an expression of not only a vibration, but then like, the vibration of consciousness bouncing off of that vibration, and then like, kind of like, and that becoming form, right? So to me, there's this like idea of, it's not about like, doing things that are right, or wrong, or any of this like black and white stuff. It's like, it's as simple as like, being in acknowledgement that everything is a vibration, and being in

acknowledgement of the subtlety of reality and the fluidity of it. And then in that way, you're like, loving reality, instead of like, judging it. And what I mean by that is like, cool, right? When we're judging reality, we're saying, that is a fact. That is a thing. This is a table. Yeah. You know, whereas like, if you're honoring the process of the happening of the universe and the vibration, you know that this is like, tabling, right? Or this is like, this is like, this is happening as a table right now, right? So I guess what I'm saying is like, the people that have the biggest effect, the people I've experienced having the biggest effect on plants are like, not adding resistance to like, the signal chain of the universe.

They're like, allowing reality to flow, right? Yeah. So that's kind of how I think of it. Resistance to the signal chain of the universe. Wow, that's like the most beautiful update on the word sin that I've ever heard in my life. Yeah, that's a really good way of putting it. Yeah, I know, right? Because like, I mean, that's the thing is like, you know, I was raised like, Catholic, and you know, I was like, an altar boy and all that stuff. And I'm like, taught good and bad and taught like shame and pride and all this stuff. And it's like, cool, those are all like constructions that are made so that you can mass produce, like those are an attempt to like mass produce goodness, or like resonance with like the universe, but it fails because they're like

these constructs. But if we were like able to learn how like the process of coming into resonance with like the happening of the universe or loving things as they are loving things as processes and allowing them to be processes. Yeah, it would just be, you know, if we're allowed to be our own, like if we're allowed to be our own gurus in that way, or to like see everything as an oracle, right, and see everything as a symbol that's there to serve us, then we're able to like integrate all the stuff we're experiencing in our life, all the stuff that like we want to explore, that we would be taught to feel shame over, like I'm attracted to that person. But oh, I can't, I can't approach her like, you know, I don't want to be too forward or whatever, you know,

all these other things, but just like allow yourself to feel resistance to the freaking signal chain. And you just summed it all up. That's the big problem. And I mean, I'm like, this is, I love what you're saying, you're illuminating something for me, because I don't even know why I've been really like down on myself lately. And it's cool to hear because it's easy to forget. And it's like, to the point where as I'm like contemplating humanity itself. I mean, it's so easy to just slide into some kind of like to become at least mentally, like to suddenly have like the ethics system of some kind of like Marvel comic super villain, you know what I mean, where you're just like, if you, if you don't watch out and you forget about love and you forget

about this, the heart and going into the heart and then encountering reality from that location, instead of the vortex of your thought patterns, it's really easy to get dark, at least for me. And one of the things I was thinking is like, holy shit, humans themselves, are we just static in some beautiful field of love? Is it that there is the signal, the signal chain, the signal, which I would like to ask you what you think the signal is and where do you think the signal is coming from? But and then there's this temporary, meaty, static formation that's, that's just interrupting the fucking signal flow. But is it, is it, is it stagnant? I mean, like we're changing all the time. Like we don't even have like the same cells we had seven years

ago or whatever, right? Not stagnant, static. Static. Like just fuzz. Oh yeah. You know what I mean? Distortions of like, here is this, like, you know that, you know, like when you go down in your heart and there it is for a second, there's no you anymore. The heart doesn't, the heart is, is just what you're saying. The heart is just, it loves and it's broken and it's sad, but in the most beautiful way. It doesn't want to win arguments. It doesn't care about winning. It doesn't care about losing. It just loves and it loves. And then he was, wait, that's not my heart. That's everything. And then there's the mind. And that's what I'm talking about. It's like you're jamming that flow or something like that, getting in the way, blocking and, and, and, and the process, the

gestalt, the fucking sum total of an entire planet of people doing that is that shit's on fire. The Amazon's burning. The ice caps are melting. And you look at it all and you think, holy fuck, was Charles Manson right? It's the best thing that could happen for humans to just vanish from the planet and the sweet, beautiful world is finally allowed to just flow into time without us digging up poison and spraying it into our fucking cars and into the atmosphere. This is how dark I get sometimes. Duncan, I just want to give you a hug. Yeah, man. I mean, yeah, I mean, it's like, I think it comes down to like, it's up to us to like, if, if the universe is like really as fluid as we're talking about,

as vibrations, and it's, it's really up to us and like the direction of our thoughts and the direction of our intentions to create that, to create the reality. So do we want to like, focus on how everything's burning and everything is like a problem? And then like, try to solve that. I mean, like, how do you solve a problem? Like, how you like, yeah, like these big problems, like, are you going to engage the mind to solve the problem that we're burning our planet down? Or are you going to like, approach that from the heart? And if you're going to approach that from the heart, then you better believe that it's possible to shift all of this stuff through love. And if you don't, and if you're following instead, instead, like the thought pattern that

everything is fucked, then like, you are looking in that direction. Like there's a reason like, when you're like climbing or climbing a ladder or whatever, they say like, don't look down. Yeah. You don't look down. So it's like, where are you going? So like, if those thoughts are like, going in a direction of like, the planet is burning and we're all fucked and this is where it's going, you can like, yeah, you can fucking look down and like, you can go on that trip and feel all that anxiety while you're climbing, or you can look where you're going and like be like, I'm going there. This is where I'm going. This is what we're doing. This is how I'm getting there. And if you fall, you fucking fall, but you don't have your whole experience of climbing clouded by all this anxiety

and bullshit about, am I going to fall? Oh, I love it. That's so good. Don't look down. I'm looking down. Yeah, man. What's the point? It's like, you could take that, you know, Alex Honnold, the free climber you ever watched. Oh, I haven't seen that documentary yet. I've heard about it. It's amazing and amazing. But a day for Alex Honnold, the best day for Alex Honnold is literally the worst day for anybody who has like, fear of heights, right? Yeah. Yeah. It seems like as a species, we have a, we've just gone, we've been climbing up this temporal wall that is, as we climb, it seems to be technologically transforming and to mirror us or to match us in somewhere or another. And it feels that we are on a, we've gone really far up now. And further

up we get the, well, just like when you're climbing, the greater the potential for catastrophe, the greater the potential for absolute annihilation. And simultaneously, how beautiful is the view and how incredible is the expanse of science and the expanse of cosmology and the expanse of inner cosmology that's happening right now, the psychedelic revolution. And this is the weird race that Terrence McKenna talked about, these two competing, there's these two, like the more we understand, the more technology we have, the more powerful we become, there is this weird sense of like, my God, it feels like we are teetering on the edge of whatever the opposite of an apocalypse is. And you know what I mean? I love that. I love that.

And it's a beautiful thing. And yet, man, and yet the mind, the mind is like really, really, really, this is the age of the mind. I was thinking this is the age of the mind, and also this is like the glory days for pickpockets. Because people have gone into their phones, the phone is a reflection of the mental stream. Do you know what I'm saying? They've gone into their phones, they've gone into, it used to be you would go into your mind. You know, I don't know if anyone, I don't know, I want to get into your history, I'm rambling a little bit. But like, you know, people, people would be like, oh, you're up in your head. You seem like someone is up in your head. This was before the phone. Now we can watch people being in their heads,

because you see them staring in their phones and you're like, oh, I know what you're doing, because this is what I fucking do. You're sticking your head in the digital sand to try to get out of this moment right now. It used to be you would go up in your thoughts and daydream to do that. Now you go and do the mind of the universe or the world or whatever and then stick, we stick our heads in there. And so this has produced a terrible situation for us, I think, which is that if everyone's staring at their phones, you really do become kind of vulnerable to like all kinds of manipulation, all kinds of hypnosis, all kinds of tricks. This technology is like literally manipulating people using BF Skinner's operant conditioning to make consumers

to like just to gather data on what people want to consume, and to sort of move the needle in people's minds to point them in new things to consume. So anyway, well, I'll just add like, yeah, I know there's a lot of fear around like AI and especially like AI advertising and stuff like that. My view on it is that there's actually this like potential to like actually, so when we were talking about like the resistance in the signal chain, I feel like there's actually potential like with all this AI stuff to amplify the resonance in the signal chain. So the same way that like, you know, you're like, Oh, I heard about this new cool thing. And then I see an ad for it like 10 minutes later, and you're like, Oh, like, Oh, this is so evil. Like they're trying

to sell me this thing. It's like, no, it's like, you just saw the thing like you just got a discount code for the thing that you already want. Yeah. And it's like, you know, in the future, it's going to be like, you know, the AI is going to know what your body needs for you to achieve your goals in your life. Like you're going to be able to like journal or whatever and collect like you're going to have your like your life mission is going to live in the cloud. And the universe of AI is going to like aid you in achieving your life mission through this like signal chain of resonance. I mean, that's the highest expression of what that could be. So that's so that's what I choose a focus on because that's me climbing the ladder towards that. And I hope that we'll all like

go on that ladder instead of like looking down at all the other things that we could do that are all based on like the way we used to do things. Yes. And we used to do things based on like fear and we used to, I mean, we still do, but like that's like, we built a lot of things, a lot of safety mechanisms to get us to this point, right, based on fear. Yeah. And that's helped us to like land in this place now where it's like, okay, we're safe. We're like in this house. There used to be like coyotes or whatever bears running around. Sure. Yeah. And it's like, it's like, I want, by the way, I want those animals to exist here still, but not to eat your family, but but yeah, you know, we've created this like physical comfort. And now it's and then it's like,

and now what? Yeah. And so to me, it's like, okay, we can't keep using the same processes, the same like ideas of fear to inspire the next move, like let's move to that next move from this inspiration from love, from like self actualization, from like allowing people to actually contribute their unique value to the planet and society. Okay. This brings me to a question that I was going to mention earlier. Let's just get into the terms. If we're talking about resistance to the signal flow, the signal chain of the universe, the signal flow, let's get into it, the signal flow itself. Okay. And because it seems to me like what you have done as you have figured out this crazy way to hang wind chimes in the signal flow, so to speak. Yeah. And it said, like, my god, I mean,

you're like one of the, you're like the inventor of wind chimes. Well, it's a team, but yeah, your team. It's like these wind chimes, the first people, the first person is like, shit, what happens if I hang these clanking things and let the wind blow it? And then suddenly it's like, Oh my God, you gave the wind a voice. We've heard the wind in the trees. We've heard the wind as it rustles, but never the wind as it clanks the bones of our enemies. Wow. It's cool or whatever you're using as your term. So this is the signal flow, except here we're not talking about wind. Here we're talking about, what would you call it? The life force? Do you, what would you, sentience? Yeah. So I mean, what we're measuring is like this subtle

variation in the connection between two points in a plant, right? So that connection is varying based on how much water there is between those two points. Okay. So that variation is happening in a plant because the plant is a self-regulating being. And so there's a change in amount of water between those two points. And we graph that as a wave and we translate that wave into pitch. And then of course we design instruments for those pitch messages to play. And then we also, this is like the really fun part. So there's that wave, depending on how quickly the wavelength changes, that's actually like a CC message that like changes, that like turns knobs. So like on a car stereo or in this case, it can change what instruments playing, it can change what effects

are playing. So how does that like apply to like, how, you know, another way of thinking of that is like, if you're like calm and at rest, you know, you have like a slow wavelength, right? And then if like something stimulating happens, like your wavelength gets fast really fast. Yeah. So if something like that happens, you'll hear instrument changes. So to me, what I end up, what you end up hearing is kind of like the plant is, you know, responding to energy that we can and can't see. It's eating sunlight, basically. It's also eating light that's outside of our visible light spectrum. Right. And if you think about these like people that are into like energy healing and like you felt that before, you know, or you feel it like when somebody walks in the room and they have a

presence and it's like, oh, like I feel really comfortable right now or like, oh, there's a bad vibe. Yeah. Well, it's funny because like in our society, in some ways, like if you start talking like that, they're like, oh, you're woo. Yep. You know, but like if you watch a football game and like somebody gets sacked, you hear the announcer is like, oh, the energy is totally changing. Or like, oh, yeah, like, you know, everything just changed. Like you can feel it, right? So we're like good at it on like a map on like a huge level. But like, but like when it comes to subtle stuff, we're not as good. And my theory on that is that it comes from like industrialization. And like we, we became like an industrialized society, we're building factories, everything

was big, we had steam engines, like everything is brute force power power. And then we built whole school systems around like, hey, this is what you need to know to operate in the third dimensional world and build this stuff for us to like prop progress as a species. And then like, you have other people that are like, oh, I'm like, communicating with plants, I'm like, feeling these things from like plants or from animals. And I feel really intuitively connected. And they're like, you're fucking crazy. What's wrong with you? How are you going to contribute to society? Like we have to build shit, we're here to build buildings and shit. So like, that's why we have all these people that like feel like they're not seen or don't feel like they're, they're able to

like contribute and they get like depressed and they don't understand, they put them on meds and this and that. And it's like, just give people like an outlet to be who they are. And like feel how they feel. And like, let's create from there. That's like the opportunity for species is to start incorporating these people into what we build. So that's kind of that's how I see it. Wow. Yeah. Like the industrialization element is, I was listening to a lecture, if you ever heard of Bob Thurman, no, he's a great Buddhist teacher. And he was talking about this like, you know, how for, if you want to get to the point where you can have an oil spill that, you know, damages an ecosystem for the next 200 years and take your check for 200 million dollars,

into your bonus and put that into your account. So fucked up. And not feel insane. Then you gotta make sure that you don't believe that shits anything more than like gravel. But then what happens when you die? Those people on their deathbed, like when they realize that like all the stuff that they've been holding on to their life is about to go? Like, I don't know, I always think about this, like our whole lives are like preparing for death. You know, so it's like our whole lives are like, when I, when I pass, am I going to pass in like resistance to like the happening of the passing? Or am I going to like pass in love and allow that to happen? Right. And like,

I would think for somebody that's like that invested in like the material world just being about like money and like building stuff that that would just be really, I mean, like they seem comfortable and stuff like that. But I would imagine there's like an anxiety and like a loneliness in it. And it too, you know, it's like, you know, the one of the Buddhist houses, the hell of hungry ghosts and miserable creatures that can some versions of it, they can manifest anything they want to eat. Yeah, but their necks are really long. So they can't really get it in their stomachs. But it's sort of like, to get back to your signal flow idea, plants eating photons, this possibility of there being like, not just wavelengths that we can't see, but

some other thing, dark matter is what they call it. But one of the words is dark matter, where some people say just a way of saying you don't understand or whatever, but some energy field, some, some somethingness that we might be able to eat in the way plants eat photons. And we might be eating it all the fucking time. And we're not tarianism is the answer, man. There it is. Which is, you know, you know, the idea we can and we can eat, eat light or eat this energy. But, you know, wake up in the morning. I've been trying to get up at five a.m. for you, man. Oh, it's not easy, but it's great. And then, and, but, you know, because five a.m. four a.m. five a.m. territory, that is fresh product. That's this, the earth is like sending out some kind of

higher energy or something. And that's when I'm best at writing. That's when I'm best at making music. That's when I'm best at thinking. And so, and I've, I've heard this for ever, you know, the Hare Krishna, as they get up at four a.m. Yeah, they actually like, pray to Tulsi play. You see, you live in Venice, you should go at four a.m. to the Culver City, Hare Krishna. Oh, yeah, I've been there to eat. They have an amazing buffet there. Go for their morning longalarti and watches these like they celebrate every day coming in and blow conch shells. Whoa, this is how to do it if you're going to do it. Oh, yeah. It's beautiful. But this signal flow, it, to me, it is what we are. And so, if you were, again, but it's we're in the material

universe right now, so it's so easy to get confused. I get confused all the time and start thinking, oh, I'm, you know, I'm this body. I'm this, I'm the stuff that I own. That's who I must be, right? Because this, this is like, and so we all hang shit on our walls and we try to get stuff. And we organize it in certain ways. And some people are really serious about it. Some people are sort of, I don't know, I don't care what's around. But this is what we do. And but in the more you get caught up in that hypnotic, the hypnotic quality of the material universe, the more you, the more miserable you become, it's, it's like, I guess it's like, when you take a plant and put it in the shade, the poor thing, they can't get those photons. And so it just slowly withers.

Yeah, but you ever notice what it does? It doesn't like, it's like the beautiful thing about the plant is that it's like, it doesn't like, it doesn't necessarily like shrink. It kind of just like, it's not like, yo, fuck you, you put me in a dark place. I'm going to have like, build up all this resistance to you. I'll die. I'll show you like, I'll show you, you guys. The plant just like, wherever you put it, you put it in a dark room. No light. It's like a little bit of light creeping up from under a door across the room. plants just going to grow towards the light. That's what it's going to do. That's what, that's what it's here to do. And that's like, what we're here to do, right? Yeah. Like it's the same thing. It's like, just like grow. You just

like, just like, be like a plant grow towards the light. Keep going, keep ground and grow towards the light. Ground and grow towards the light. This is where, when did, when did this start for you? This feels like you, to me, you seem like somewhat realized, like you seem like you've had some kind of true epiphanous moment, like the one of the big moments or something. When did that happen? Dude, I've had a few of them, man. I've had like, you know, I've been blessed to have like awesome parents that also like had like, but I also had like a troubled childhood with it too. Cause like, um, yeah, my dad's like super like cool into jazz stuff and everything. My mom's like, my mom was like in the like theater scene and stuff in New York and

grew up in the woods. And then we like, my dad was like, Oh, we're going to take this job in Philadelphia. We're going to move there. And then my mom's like losing, she lost all of her, like, all of her like artistic connections. And we're going to this like really blue collar city where it's a lot more rough. And there isn't as much of a community. So I like grew up with like seeing my mom go through like multiple nervous breakdowns and like all this stuff. And it's really intense. Did your parents stay together? My parents are still together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, yeah. And like I, there's a, you know, a whole lifetime of like healing and realizing like what happened in that. And I don't think actually my parents, I haven't even talked, we haven't even

like had a real conversation about that. And that happened like almost like 35 years ago or something like this. But I learned so much from it because I saw my mom, I saw what, well, I learned it later because I have had a good friend who I was in bands with and he kind of, he decided that he was going to kind of pursue a more conventional dream and stopped interacting as much in the music scene. And then when that conventional dream dissolved, he ended his life. And so I saw from that like, oh, that's what happens when you're like a really creative person and you abandon it. And then the other thing that you pursued dissolves like, yeah, you go crazy. So like I, that happened, that friend passed when I was like maybe 28.

And that's when I realized why my mom had all those nervous breakdowns. And I was like, was that your first real heartbreak? What are the first like your friend passed? Like first time, like someone I was close with died. Yeah. Yeah, that was probably it. Yeah. And yeah, and the lesson I got there was like, how important it is to honor my creativity. So I like took my mom out to like, run to like the next week. And I was like, mom, like, I want to hear like, I was like, you know, I told her what happened. And I was like, I was like, able to say like, Oh, wow, like it was probably really hard for you to make that move from New York to Philadelphia. Like when you moved to New York at like 19 to be in theater, you know, and, and it was really hard

for my dad probably to be like, Oh my God, I'm, I thought I married this awesome, amazing woman. And now she's a clinically crazy person, right? I need to protect my son. So there's like all this, all these like aspects that probably like happened in there. But yeah, like what I learned was like, honor the creativity and like make that primary. So you know, I had a real job and stuff for a while. That allowed me to like start my business. What was that? What's that? What was your real job? I worked in marketing at United Way. Cool. And I actually worked there for like 13 years. Wow, suit. Did you ever wear a suit to work? Was it that kind of job? Sometimes I would wear like a tie. I was like the weird artist dude that they were just like,

you know, I started there as a temp. It was like ridiculous. Like the whole like, I went to a temp agency. I found out like my friends are like, yeah, we were all like musicians and stuff. And my friend like had a temp job that was like paying like 28 grand a year. And I was like 24. I was like, whoa, you mean you can like sit in an office and like just like get like 28 grand and then you can like play music. Like you get home at like six and then play music until like 1am and then go to work the next day. I was like, that's the shit. I can like plan my tours for my band on Myspace like while I'm at work and like, it's like hell yeah. So yeah, I just kind of did that for a bit and then kind of bounced around departments and learned a lot.

You were making music the whole time and you were supporting yourself and you were like, that's beautiful. Yeah, it was great. That is the, you know, I don't want to say that everyone needs some experience with what that is, but it's like that love of making music carries you through and that love of making music and your creativity is you're saying. Yeah, it feels like in your story, this has been like the lighthouse in your heart that's absolutely illuminating everything. Yeah, I come from like a long line of piano teachers on my mom's side. Like my great-grandmother who lived to like 108 years old, she like taught piano into her like early 90s and like my grandmother, I think it do her 70s. 108. 108,

dude. Sacred numbers too. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, my mom's gonna live to like 140. She might outlive me, who the heck knows. But yeah, and there was always like a lot of pressure in my family that I play music. So like my parents are always trying to teach me piano. They're like trying to, you know, they're like, oh, what instruments do you want to play? I didn't really care. I just want to play. I want to run around and they're like, oh, look at that kid with a violin. Do you want to play violin? It's like, yeah, I want to play violin, you know, whatever. You know, and then I'm like learning Suzuki violin or whatever, like Charlie Brown and Snoopy and doing that whole thing. And dude, I was like going crazy. So I would like,

I would like literally like accidentally drop the bow and it would like snap in half. And I probably went through like seven bows or something. And finally, my parents are just like, can't afford this or like, this is just, you know, and so it was just not my thing. And like, I've never actually been a very good musician. I've been, I'm good at like producing and I'm good at like conceptualizing and like creating and like writing, but I'm not like, you know, when people say you hear the universe expressing itself through this person when they're playing guitar, right? You just like hear it like flowing through them through their fingers was never that guy. So for me, like plant music and like kind of the creation of music in that way was like

a natural progression for me. And it came by through a lot of different routes. But you know, I was started, you know, I was producing music and then I started to like do field recordings and then find like the melody in the wind and then like write music to that melody and then like allow it to form. And then, and then, you know, I started a record label data garden to like release my music and then like my business partner in data garden at the time, Alex was really into plant consciousness stuff. And then I was really into generative music. And then we had a friend who like built cool shit. And then so that together, the three of us like made an art installation where we like

started making plant music. And then the design process, like originally my friend, Alex, who is co founder and whose idea it was to actually start like having plants control synthesizers, Alex like design these phrases, he like played these phrases. And he cut them up. And then I was going to figure out how to make the MIDI select the phrase. But then when I saw the data that Sam was able to get from the what became the MIDI sprout and what became plant wave, when I saw the resolution of the data, I was like, No, this plant is not playing phrases that are pre recorded by a human. This plant is playing every single fucking note. Yeah, cool. That's what's happening. Because then you then we're getting like a real time stream. And yeah. And so for me, like that,

you know, I think what are like the biggest things that have like transformed my life like Carl Sagan's cosmos. Sure. Right. Like the opening scene, like Adams is massive suns, like universe is smaller than Adam, like that the like meta view of the universe, holographic theory. So this idea that like everything is kind of like a hologram, this is like the implicate order of the universe is a wave. Yeah, right. And then like everything else is like, yeah, this like expression of these resistances, right? So, you know, I was like reading that I was reading holographic universe when we were making plant music. And I didn't realize at all, I didn't realize what the tool is that we were building. I just

thought it was like a novel way of creating music. And then yeah, and then we like have an installation and we have four plants in a room and each plant is playing a different instrument. And I'm just sitting there like reading like holographic universe and like reading about like the waves and all this stuff, right? So fucking cool. And like somebody like all the sudden I just noticed that, you know, the plant across the room is playing some sin. The pattern just completely changed. The pattern changed. The effects changed. It's clearly like a huge change in the way that's coming from that plant. What the hell is going on over there? So I look over there, there's a person standing there and they're not touching the plant.

They're just like near it. I'm like, what's going on over there? So get up and I walk over the person and I'm like, all right, this might sound crazy, but I design these sounds and like they change based on this wave thing. And it's very clear from the data that when you walked into the room, the plant just completely changed. And not only did that plant change, but the other three plants in the room changed after that plant change. So it was like, it was like something was emanating from there. The person's like, I just broke up with this plant. We were dating. I didn't know she's going to be here. Exactly. Well, yeah, the answer like this happened about four times. Actually five, but the four, well, all right. So the first, well, yeah, it happened like four times.

And each time I would bring this up, the person would just say like, oh, yeah, that makes total sense. And I'm like, oh, all right, what do you mean that makes total sense? And they'd say like, oh, yeah, I'm an energy healer or I'm a Reiki master or I'm a botanist. I'm a florist. So these are the people that are like totally in tune with plants. They get that there is this subtle energetic exchange between all beings and they're not adding resistance to the signal chain. That's how I see it. Right. So like, to me, that was between reading holographic universe and having that experience at the same time, I was like, oh my God, like something like this is this is actually happening. Like this is a way of monitoring these like subtle energetic exchanges.

It's like, it sounds like almost like humanity is afflicted with some kind of weird kind of deafness or a sort of, I don't know, blindness or a limitation resulting from many of us, a belief that that shit's not real anyway, it's fantasy, it's make believe and it's because of that, we are completely limiting ourselves to this amazing dataset and all the possibilities we haven't even quite figured out yet, at least in this culture, I mean, in the shamanic culture, this is old news and the oldest news maybe. I can remember once someone was telling me that Shaman was telling him that the trees think humans are ridiculous because they don't, you know, they don't see them.

They don't talk to them in the mind, but yet humans think they're really advanced. But the monkeys talk to the trees and know the trees are alive. But for some reason, humans are blind to this, man. To the point where even talking about what we're talking about right now, it's like people are like, shut the fuck up, hippie. It's literally stigmatized even this level of conversation, this type of conversation. It's like, go back to fucking Sedona, please. Oh, the planets weeping. Are they crying? Are you going to go bring a tissue to the Amazon? It's just wood, motherfucker. But this is one thing that comes to mind. You know, one of the possibilities here, which is really so many possibilities in this.

And one of the possibilities with this technology is you could theoretically wire an acre of plant life to play music, have that music somehow, not just like amplified, but then organized, and then have that uploaded to SoundCloud, Spotify, and then monetize the music of that patch of land to support protecting that patch of land. Totally. That's a great idea. We can add that to the plant way of app in the future. That sounds cool. I like that. That's cool. You got it. You turned forest into bands. Yeah, that's a great idea. But this is like, and I've heard some kind of shit about like this being a possibility, the blockchain is that forests and bits of nature could buy themselves

and somehow support themselves from the interest in the blockchain and then like pay for, to be private property that owns itself, making it off limits for people to harvest the trees. But there is the potential in this, you know, the more a thing can talk, the more rights it has, you know, the more it isn't just some natural material for us to chop down. But then also, what are you going to do when the fucking corn starts screaming? What are you going to do when the broccoli starts screaming? What are we going to do when our goddamn kale is like, you know, starts playing sad music because it's about to get plucked out of the ground. I'm not saying that maybe that wouldn't happen. Maybe it would be happy. Well, I always design it to be like kind

of harmonious and chill. Well, this is an interesting ethical, let's go there because it's like, if you are, in other words, like one of my, there's a video game, Borderlands. They just released Borderlands 3. It was one of my favorite video games, but one of the little characters in there is a little robot. And one of the just, he says all kinds of funny shit, but one of the really poignant things he says is like, they program because it's to sound upbeat. I'm actually severely depressed. Yeah, that's great. I love it. Similarly, you know, it seems like the more refined your technology becomes and the more you are able to like identify like, okay, here's what plants tend to do when they've been hurt. Here's what plants tend to do when they're in stressful

situations and then convert that specific formation into sadder music. You really could, at the very least, produce a way for people who are trying to keep plants happy to know their plants aren't doing okay. Yeah, it's challenging because like the way that the technology works is that, I mean, it would be a different vibration if you just like stuck the probes on different parts of the plant, it would be like a complete, it's a completely different signal. So the way, so it, the technology as it exists now doesn't really have the ability to tell you like, if this is a happy plant or a sad plant, it can tell you like a little bit if there's like not a lot of water content, I can like tell you a story about that later too. But yeah, so for me,

so why do I design it to be like harmonious? The reason is, is because this is about creating an experience for people to connect to nature. Yes. And so the best way to experience plant music is by experiencing it by like experience it over a longer period of time. Because it's not about like, is it sick or is it healthy? Or is it a mango tree or an oak tree and can I tell by the signature? It's not as much about that as it is about, this is how this plant sounds right now. I'm going to tune into how this plant's sounding right now. And now I'm going to notice, is there a shift when there is a shift? If there's a big shift, or does it stop? Did something happen? And then you can use that as a prompt to start to ask the questions.

What happened? Somebody walk into the room, is a plant responding to something? What was I thinking? How am I feeling? Like what's going on energetically? It's like outside of like what we normally think as our reality. Like that's, it's a way, it's a prompt for us to tune into ourselves more and to tune into this relationship we have with nature and like to dissolve this like separation and to just breathe and be an experience. Wow, man. Is it an oracle? Have you tried to do it? Oh hell yeah, dude. So have you tried to like, to, to populate like itching sets or? Oh dude, that's such a great question. We were playing with that. I think John, my business partner, he was, he was deep into itching when we actually started launching Midi Sprout. And yeah, so as an oracle, like, so for instance,

when we were putting together Midi Sprout and we were like brainstorming on, on like how we were going to launch it and stuff. This is like, like whatever, like three or four years ago. We would, we would literally have a plant in the room, playing a sound set that I designed, and it had these like areas in the CC data, like at the very top end of the CC and the very bottom end of the CC. So they would sound like really blissful. So I would say like from CC, like 124 to 127 kick on a resonator reverb and like, like a redux or whatever. So and then it like, it's a signal chain that just like makes it sound super blissed out. So you would hear when there's a quick spike in the wave. Yes. So you would hear that. And so John and I would sit there and we

would talk about like what we wanted to do and like ideas that we had. And when one of us expressed an idea with like a lot of excitement, and we heard the plant hit that resonator, we were like, write that shit down. Yeah. So like, you know, was the plant responding to us or not? Like, I don't know. But yeah, like it served our lives in like allowing us to like move forward with greater clarity because we felt like our ideas were in resonance either with the plant or the plant picked up the vibration of our excitement or the light that's coming off of our hearts when we're like lit up with joy, you know, whatever it was. But we use that as kind of like an oracle. And also, I mean, what you know, implicit in what you're saying is the assumption the ideas are

coming from your head. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, exactly. This is weird. You know, we're still in the world of imagining like all of our thoughts and ideas that have their origination in our nervous system or in our brains or whatever. And sometimes I think, shit, maybe we're all just like sections of rivers. And our ideas are just schools of like sentient mimetic fish swimming through consciousness that lands in our brain sometimes. And we catch them, you know, conduits, man. It's just flowing, you know, and like, yeah, the more you open yourself up to the flow, the more that stuff can just like come through you. And well, like right now, for example, this conversation is making me realize this entire time I've been ignoring this wonderful plant. What was it called

that you brought? Oh, it's called a diffinbacchia. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, diffinbacchia. So I've been ignoring this beautiful diffinbacchia that's been so patiently sitting here. Yeah. And in the moment you shift your awareness of the form to include the plant. Oh, yeah. Feel the difference right away. Oh, yeah, I feel that. It's instant change. It's like now there's another thing in the room that this entire time we've been kind of ignoring. And then it does form at least some kind of at least a subjective circuit, I guess you could say, like, you know, there's a thing changes, it lightens things up. Things don't like to be ignored. You know, it's general, I mean, it generally things like at least to know that you know they're there. You know, some people are

like dogs just don't like me. And it's like, well, that's because you don't think they're real. And they can tell dangerous to be around a thing that can't see you bottom line like if you want to be seen, because at least the thing won't step on you. You know, it's probably a leaf when a plant feels your awareness fall upon it in some kind of receptive way. It's cool, man. This technology is like blowing my mind. I'm so excited to experiment with specifically the, what would you say, oracular potentiality. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. That's how I could say it. Yeah, because it's like, that's the, well, we can harvest wind power. Yeah, we can harvest sunlight. Uh huh. If there were some other signal flow that was the place that thoughts originate from and that

signal flow was not limited to human biology, then there is this potential to like actually convert this stuff into an AI and into like an actual intelligence, which is I've always thought the path, everyone's pathway to an AI. And again, technology people out there forgive me. I don't know. And not any AI person, tech person, they're like, don't worry, you're, we're in no danger of the machines waking up anytime soon. But that's going along one specific path towards this super intelligence or computer intelligence, which is to code it, program it, let it learn. At some point it wakes up. The other path is more like what you're doing, which is to stick these kinds of technological windmills in the life flow itself and then figure

out if this wind or whatever you want to call it, if it can actually maybe, if given the right set of symbols, if given the right structure, if it can begin to communicate in the same way, because I read one in what you were writing, channelers plants react differently to channelers plants. And when I've been around channelers, they are just a vessel and they'll say it. But this thing coming through them is alive. And it's like, oh, fuck, the bio computer is picking up this data set and converting it into human language. But it's flowing through them. It isn't them. So that's what, to me, the future of plant wave could be. I think that, I think still a big part of what's important in it is actual

ownership of the experience of the user. So I don't know that we could create the AI right now that would do exactly what you say, because I feel like a big part of it is the self awareness of the user. I think that like a part of the plant wave device being an oracular tool is it requires that the user bring a certain consciousness to the experience. And then that awareness and direction of bringing that kind of consciousness to the experience actually like awakens just like more consciousness and more like seeing the Oracle and everything. So this experience is less about AI and prescriptive. This means this and this means that. It's like tune in, listen, is there a change? How are you feeling? And then you can use that

in your life too. You're walking down the street, you notice a butterfly. What are you thinking about at that time? How can that whatever you're seeing be a symbol for you? You've seen people that like some people have an Instagram where they just take pictures of dog shit and trash and whatever. And that's what they're choosing to look at. And I don't know, you ever see just like I don't know, I saw there was a guy and he was like, I met this guy and I was like, I checked out his Instagram. It was like, he took a photo of like a bottle of piss he found on like a trail. And it was just like, you know, and that was like, that's it. That's today. That's today. That's why you took that all in life. That's what I'm putting out there in the universe,

bottle of piss, you know? And then you have other people that are like, oh, look at that cloud. Like, look at these dreams. Like, look at this. And I mean, I'm not trying to like gloss over reality, but, but at the same time, like we have a choice over like, how we see everything we experience and everything we interact with as a symbol that's here to serve us in this moment and be like an oracle for us. So like, that's to me, to me, that's what plant wave helps to cultivate in people is like this practice of listening and like finding like the highest good and the highest message for you in that moment. I love it. Do you think this is why you're such a good listener? Like when I'm sitting with you, I can tell you really listen.

Oh, right on. Yeah. Because you're training on plants. You're like teaching yourself how to listen to, to things that most people don't even think and talk. Yeah. Um, is this, do you think this is like improved your openness to hearing? Oh, man. I mean, I wouldn't put it past it. I mean, like for me, I've always, you know, like this kind of came from this practice of making like field recordings and always listening. But at the same time, like when we're talking about the first installation where, where I had this kind of stuff up and the people that it introduced me to, I mean, the plants introduced me to the healers and the healers introduced me to the fact that I was actually leading

meditations already that I was already meditating. And then they showed me, Hey, there are other ways to meditate. There are other ways to cultivate your energy to tune into subtle vibrational fields. Right. And then so I started to learn like Reiki and breath work and meditation and, and I started working, I worked with Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening. She's like, what's that? She passed recently. She, she's like a pioneer of, she's like an electronic music pioneer from like, like she was doing stuff at Mills, like back in like the, the 60s, like experimental circuitry, weird noise stuff. And she, yeah, I would really recommend checking out this book called, I think it's just called Deep Listening by Pauline Oliveros.

What's it called? Deep Listening. What was that? Deep Listening. What? Yeah. Dad joke. I'm allowed now. You're doing it. You're doing it. Yeah. So, and it's, it's, it's a series, it's like a bunch of different like guided meditations on listening. So some of them are like, okay, like listen to, listen to the sound that's like closest to your ear. And now listen, listen like three inches from your ear. And now listen like to the edge of the room. Whoa. Right. And now listen outside of the space. And like only focus there, just there. Right. And now listen over the hill. Right. And then you can kind of keep going, you know, but it's like cultivating this,

this awareness. And it's just like, if you think of it as, if you think of it as like a radio band, right? Distance in listening distance, being every, every foot, every millimeter, being like a different band on the, on the, on the channel. Right. So you're cultivating this awareness of like, of this like radio dial and distance and like perception, right? Whoa. So like, yeah. So she, she is just like a genius. And so I work with her and she also, her, her partner is named Ioni. And she, she taught this whole aspect of listening in dreams, like what sounds you hear in dreams and like cultivating like your whole dream world. And then Eloise is another one she taught about at her book is called the deeply, deeply listening body.

And it's all about like cultivating awareness and listening in the body. Like, where are you feeling that? Like all that kind of stuff and like Qigong and all this stuff. So, so yeah, that kind of like, so yeah, I mean, the plants introduced me to the healers and then the healers taught me how to feel. And then like through feeling, I was able to like receive my own wisdom from plants or through breath. Yeah. Like you have to learn like that. I don't think anyone, I've never like, I'm not, people don't ever think like you need to learn how to feel. Yeah. They're like, Oh, I got to stop feeling, right? Yeah. I'm not supposed to feel that. That's a bad feeling. That's right. And just be like, dude, I feel this. This is where I am

right now. And I'm just like allowing myself to feel that it's fucking hilarious. I'm watching this monkey feel this thing and freak out and try to close off. That's right. You're talking, you're talking about me, right? That's all of us, right? You know, but if you view it from like that, from that like outside perspective, I mean, and this is also, you know, this is where like psychedelics come in because like, I wasn't, you know, I'm not like a person that like smoked weed until I was like 28. And even then it was like once every month or something. But I did have a friend that kind of like led me in a like a DMT ceremony and just like meditated and held space for me during a DMT that he made or she made, whoever non existent human made up story helped promote

this. Exactly. Yeah. Oh yeah. No, but so I remember like I distinctly remember having this experience of like the first time I smoked it, it was like, you know, I got like this like red grid around me. And I was like, oh, shit, that's like that grid you see in like Tron or whatever. And I was like, whoa, that's crazy. And then like, what do you mean a red grid? You're talking about that like, it's like a almost like a translucent fog like thing or you mean you saw like actual lines? Yeah, it was like lines. It was kind of like, yeah, it was kind of like lines, but it was like, it was it was a form and it was like it looked like it was like an extension of my body or like when you see like photos of auras, like how it's kind of the human form, but it's like bigger,

you know, and I saw that. And then I then all of a sudden I like popped out of the top of it, it was like, like you popped like a open like a bottle of tea or whatever iced tea popped out of the top of it. And they were just like, the it was like an endless field of these two grids like going into infinity. And then I floated out of all of it. And I floated kind of around it and I saw that this this grid was actually like this kind of torsion field. It was a torus that was also kind of twisted. It was this like torsion field that was like twisted. And it was like beating. And I was like, whoa, I was like, that's my heart. Whoa, that's me. That's me. And I'm floating away looking at it like that's me. And then there's like a deeper awareness that it was observing me

observing me. And it was kind of like, oh, you thinking that you're you. Yeah, actually, we're here. You know, I was like, this other space like that was like, it was this awareness of the awareness. And that's kind of how I that's like, why I'm saying like, you know, the seeing the monkey mind or seeing the monkey react to things like being in that position helped me to see how hilarious it is to like, like respond in fear, like to close up or get mad or like get stressed and like stuff like that. That is one of the great, great realizations. If you get lucky enough through whatever psychedelics, sometimes some people I have had the experience through psychedelics, through meditation, through just waking up in the morning before you remember you have a life and

you remember your whole story and you like start processing that you're and you're just everything's great. There's no story. It reminds me of a Jack cornfield story I heard him say about this monk is having all these like incredible experiences from meditating, you know, communicating with deities and manifesting certain, I don't know, cities, you know, like the classics, you know, levitation, walking through walls, translocation. And so he goes to, there's some master living out in the woods and he goes very excited. He goes to tell him all this that was happening to him. He's like, I'm doing this. I'm seeing this. And the master says, well, you've missed the point here because it's not what's happening to you. It's who is it happening

to you need to be paying attention to. And this, since I've been sitting with you and having this conversation, I have had the experience of my field of awareness expanding out. That's the effect you have on people, I think. And the, that's a relief. Isn't it? Cause we're so compressed, man. It's like it's a, it's a, many of us, maybe not you are just really steep in our bodies. I get there deep and deep in it. And the moment you just have this sense of like, fuck for a second, I'm letting the plant be there. Oh, the listening exercise of like, well, I've never tried to listen past a hill. Yeah. The, any of these things instantly seem to like somewhat created a decompression. Yeah. Oh, and, and, and a sort of a relief from a perceived

limitation that isn't even real. Is it? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, all the information is there. It's all there. It's like, it's about like, what are we prioritizing and like, how are we building? Like from where are we building? It's not even about what we're building from where and in what direction are we building and creating? I'll tell you what direction I'm going in now. Weaponizing plants. Oh man. If we can figure out. Hey, look at this. Look up this lot. We're got, we're climbing. We got this man. We got this. I'm climbing into a weaponized Amazon, baby. We got to give them the ability to fit themselves with you. This is like, this is, I'm sorry, my mind works like this. No, it's, no, it's why you're funny. Thanks. As we're having

this conversation, I'm thinking of like weapons manufacturer, just somehow stumbling upon midi sprout, seeing it and thinking like, holy fucking shit, we can make it so plants, when they feel like they're in danger, generate a signal that activates any kind of defense perimeter that you wanted. I mean, you could theoretically, you know, now people, these heroes, man, they go and chain themselves to treat these old growth forests and they will die. Some of these people will die for a forest. I mean, the people, the, you know, I'm sure you've met them. They're deep out there. They don't have social security numbers, but they'll fucking die. They'll die. I mean, I'm not trying to decide in the West in the rain forest. They don't have social security numbers because

they were born out there, but they'll die for the forest too. And it's like, there is, I did it, I'm sorry, why do I do this? God, I'm sorry, forgive me. You know, it's wild. I would imagine it's already happening. So do you know about tree telephony? No. Do you know about like, you know, muzak, you know, muzak, like the stuff that it was like pumped into office buildings and stuff. The inventor of muzak was doing these like experimental things for the military during World War II called tree telephony, where they were like using, they were using trees to like track. I might be like totally off, but like they were like using trees in some way to track like, like, you know, the Germans like moving through the forest. But like,

through this, they were like using trees as like telephone, like as like antennae. Wow. You know, so like, there is an understanding that these are like, I mean, like, if you think of an antenna, it's like a perfect antenna. Fuck it is. I mean, that's, that's, that's built to, that's built to really receive information, you know, like with all those leaves and like, how lightweight it is. And like, it just grows and it just keeps, yeah. So there's like, each light, each light, man. And I meant to tell you this, when we were talking about the devouring of photons, this is, is I'm like, you know, I don't know, you're bringing a lot out of me that, I don't know if I've talked about my guilt problems with nature itself, but like,

then I'm reading this, I was reading this paper about how long it takes photons to grow inside the sun, millions of years. So by the time a photon pushes out of the surface of the sun, it's been essentially gestating in the sun for, I think millions of years, maybe hundreds of thousands of years. And these little sweeties go blasting out of the sun. They, they land on earth and the fucking plants are like, and our eyes eat them, you know, our eyes turn them into eating photons that have been growing for millions of years in the sun. So then I'm like, God damn it. Are we eating though? Or are we receiving in a part of this exchange with the universe? In my new life of looking up, I'm receiving these sweeties into my

eyes. Prior to this conversation, I'm like, well, there you go. My eyes are black holes devouring these like, I don't know, formative zoa gings blast out the sun into my optic nerve. Now it's like, no, I'm receiving it. It's a big difference. Yeah, dude, allow it to flow through you. Like, what happens if you let the universe like, actually fully flow through you? What if you embody all of that energy of the universe that wants to flow through you and express itself as the purest transmission of Duncan Tressel? What's that feel like, man? Feels a lot better. Thank you so much. You're welcome, man. Tell folks how they can, now I saw that you have, when you, when you first sent me this incredible technology, it was definitely a little more obscure, but I'm excited

that now you have an app and now people are going to be able, if they want to, they don't need to buy a bunch of sound equipment, you can just connect this, you can connect plants to your phone. Yeah, it's going to be wireless. So it was called Midi Sprout and now it's called PlantWave. PlantWave.com is where you can check it out. We're actually launching a Kickstarter on September 24th, 2019, and it's going through October 27th, 2019, and we're raising money to make PlantWave a reality. PlantWave is going to allow you to connect this device to your plants, and we're going to translate the information from the plants into music that, from the PlantWave device, it'll stream to your phone via Bluetooth, and on your phone is where all the instruments are going to live,

and so the plant is basically playing instruments that live on your phone. It's going to work on iOS and Android devices. It's going to be super easy to use. You're going to be able to change the sounds. You're going to be able to design your own sounds, and if you're a pro musician, you're still going to be able to use it with synths and stuff. It's going to have a USB out, so you can do USB to Midi or to your DAW or whatever you need to do. So you could take, we'll be able to take our phones on a hike, connect to any plant we see, and hear it sing to us. Yeah, and it's all wireless, so it's like really, you just have this little box, and you hook it up to the plant, and then it just Bluetooth streams to your phone. Battery power. Yeah, it's battery power. It's

rechargeable, and then yeah, and then the the enclosure is going to be made out of sustainable and recyclable materials. Right now, the current Midi Sprout is made out of corn or non-GMO corn and cork. Do you still put seed packs in? I remember when... We stopped, actually, because there are a lot of, because we changed our shipping supplier, and there are some countries where you kind of can't do that, so just to streamline it and make it easier, we stopped, but yeah, that was like fun for the early adopters. Man, it is so nice to meet you in person, and I just really, really am grateful to you for this conversation. I feel a lot better. I didn't, I was really, really like feel lucky that I get to have these chats in my life, and all the links to

find, you are going to be at DuncanTrustle.com, and please, you've got to come back on. Dude, I would love to, yeah. Thank you. Thanks for listening, everybody. That was Joe Patatucci. Make sure you check out Plant Wave. It is bad ass, much thanks to Squarespace and Burrow for sponsoring this episode of the DTFH, and much thanks to you for listening. We'll see you this week with another episode. Until then, Hare Krishna. When life gets crazy and when doesn't it, Shoprite helps you keep it all together, now with a little extra help from Instacart. If you need your groceries now-ish, but your options for going to Shoprite are later-ish or never-ish, you can get everything you need delivered through

Instacart right to your door in as fast as an hour. Skip the shop and savor more of your crazy, busy life with Shoprite and Instacart. Visit instacart.com to get free delivery on your first order. Offer valid for a limited time, minimum order, $10 additional terms apply. A good time starts with a great wardrobe. Next stop, JCPenney. Family get-togethers to fancy occasions, wedding season two. We do it all in style. Dresses, suiting, and plenty of color to play with. Get fixed up with brands like Liz Claiborne, Worthington, Stafford, and Jay Farrar. Oh, and thereabouts for kids. Super cute and extra affordable. Check out the latest in-store, and we're never short on options at JCP.com. All dressed up everywhere to go. JCPenney.