Podcast: Dignities and Disasters of Wealth with Robert MacNaughton

The Dignities and Disasters podcast takes a multi-perspectival look at structural issues that affect our society and culture. In this episode, we take on the weighty issue of wealth, and look at if from many different perspectives, understanding the complexities and paradoxes inherent in living with wealth, and especially trying to do something good, or at least responsible, with it.

We answer a few potent questions:

• What is valid in the negative view of wealth? Why do so many people want to burn the system down?

• What are the good things that come from the accumulation of wealth?

• We compare Elon Musk, Charles Eisenstein, Jack Dorsey, and The Lorax.

• Is growth bad?

• How do we relate to wealth inequality?

• How do we value the wealth of the ecosystem?

• BONUS: What is Modern Monetary Theory, and does it get us out of this economic mess?

I was incredibly pleased to talk with Robert MacNaughton, a good friend, extraordinary leadership coach, and fellow former organizer of progressive community in Boulder. Robert and I have dreamed, created, produced and lamented many unique ways to support conscious community. Deep thanks for the opportunity to talk this through, and especially for letting me run along with a few proper rants.

Podcast: How Do We Change How We Think About Money? With Sacred Changemakers.

In September 2020, I met with Jayne Warrilow, the founder of Sacred Changemakers, a network of professionals with a commitment to doing positive impact work in the world. I really appreciate Jane’s blending of a spiritual centeredness with a mind for business. To me, it’s that balance that has a chance of saving our species from the “extinction level events” that seem to be popping up every month.

In the podcast, we talk about how to integrate spiritual experience and wealth advising, what money means to us a human beings, and how we come into a peaceful relationship with money, investments, and wealth.

Check out Jane’s great work at Sacred Changemakers.

Podcast: Align Your Money and Business With Your Values; on Awarepreneurs

In January 2020, I sat down and spoke with a good friend, Paul Zelizer, about how to align your money and your business with your values. Paul is the founder of Awarepreneurs, a national network of conscious small business owners. Paul is a kind human and an excellent interviewer, and we had a very human and probing interview about my background, how I developed a holistic perspective about wealth, and what it means — pragmatically — to do business in a way that supports your own sense of purpose. We talked about success and failure as a conscious entrepreneur, divorce and mindful dating, and what it means to be a Whole Wealth Advisor.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

As Bob Dylan wrote in Love Minus Zero / No Limit,

Some speak of the future,
My love she speaks softly,
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all.

Wolf Creek Pass

STILLNESS IN MOTION

The tree skiing on Wolf Creek Pass, in southwest Colorado, has a particular feeling. The trees are older, and more widely spaced. The snow is deeper, and more consistent. The pitch of the runs is perfect for the typically deep snow; nothing radical, but consistently pulling me down the mountain. The crowds are elsewhere, chasing the thrills promised by more popular resorts, accessed by ubiquitous multi-area ski passes.

Beyond those characteristics, there is an ineffable quality to these woods. I can feel it in a photo, and in the subtle quality of the smile on a friend’s face the following week. I can see the silence.

It’s hard enough to get there, and even harder to leave. I’m fortunate to visit, and know this place so deeply. At these times, I don’t really want to leave. However, to quote Robert Frost,

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Time In The Desert

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REALITY EXPANSION MACHINE

Burning Man is generally misunderstood by those who have only experienced it in two dimensions — via photos, videos, stories, and projections of one’s world view. What it has provided for me, and many of the hundreds of thousands of souls who have shared the unique experience, is an expansion of one’s notion of what is possible in the world.

Our camp mates, mostly pictured here atop the art we had installed, are watching the preparation for the actual Burning of the Man, a spectacle steeped in socio-cultural meaning, poignant for each participant at a different level. The artist and director of this project, Darrel Anstead, who you can see in the red shirt, pours himself into each art experience, gifting our community with an inspiring venue; an invitation to explore the depths of space and time.

These new perspectives provide us with a refreshed view on life. As we integrate back into modern culture, our hearts, minds, and souls are reconfigured, and we bend the universe, however imperceptibly, into a slightly more beautiful and connected version of itself.

Summer Solstice 2018

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WHEN THE SUN SETS IN THE NORTH

I had just complete a challenging 2-day solo journey of introspection and letting go over the Summer Solstice 2018. I was on a small island that’s part of the Bohuslan Coast, which is the northern west coast of Sweden, staring into the North Sea.

That far north, the sun doesn’t fully set in the sky on the Summer Solstice. Instead, it moves in a circular pattern overhead, sliding above and below the horizon. Time and direction are distorted, the familiar sunset pattern disrupted, and the sun sets in the north, following a diagonal line which makes no sense to minds conditioned to the default world. This process lasts two to three hours, the sun moving ever so slowing through orange and pink clouds on turquoise skies. Stars and moon appear, even with the sun bright in the sky, and clouds ablaze. The photographic evidence makes no sense.

After what had been a difficult journey, complete with upsetting images and troubling self-reflection fueled by an unrelenting overhead sun, I rejoiced for the beauty, splendor and relief of this monumental sunset. With the distortions and disruptions punctuating this rite of passage, as the sun crossed the horizon my spiritual transit was complete, and I was free to reap the wisdom and revelation of all that I had experienced.

Celebrating A Beautiful Union

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A MOMENT IN PRAYER

In this photo, my good friend Marco Lam and I sit deeply in prayer. We are together, under an enormous oak tree, at the wedding of our close mutual friend, Mathew Gerson. As our grey hair demonstrates, we are well into the middle of our lives, and Mathew is no exception.

It seems important to say that this is Mathew’s first wedding. By now, we have all graduated from the wild inebriation of celebrations past. A potent reverence for the ceremony replaces mother culture’s escapism via intoxication, and we deeply pray that Mathew and Colleen are able to navigate the joyous challenge that is marriage.

The three of us have travelled different journeys, colliding on this beautiful day within the embrace and protection of the aura of this mighty tree. The feeling of the strength of the trunk, the gravitas of the roots, and the canopy of branches and leaves envelopes the ceremony, and, if all is well, holds Mathew and Colleen in its spirit for many decades to come.

Respecting The Elders

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LOVELAND TELE POSSE

This photo, circa 2016, is of me with my three most beloved ski mentors, and some of my most common and frequent ski partners. Together, at the time, we were a combined age of approximately 225 years, with likely 200 ski seasons combined, it’s a real testament to friendship, partnership, respect, and learning.

There is a deeper layer of trust that partners develop doing dangerous things at high altitudes. I consider trust in terms of altitude… people I would ski with at Steamboat, or cross country skiing at 7,000’ might not make the cut when we’re exploring avvy-prone terrain out the backcountry gate on Loveland Pass above 11,000’. These gents, however, have been my partners up to the top of 14,000’ backcountry peaks.

We are, of course, pointing at nothing in particular, playing into a silly moment… a clustermark of telefuckers, as we would sometimes call it. Because for all the seriousness of high altitude backcountry skiing, it damn well better be fun, as well.

Left to Right: Charlie Ziskin, me, Kevin Bound, Larry Hall

When It All Comes Together

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DEEP IN THE POCKET

Experienced powder skiers call it the White Room, a region a spacetime where you’re not merely skiing on the snow, but you’re fully immersed in it. Even the most dedicated only get to visit once in a while. Others may only get there once or twice in a lifetime. Each time is a special moment, and even more rare to be captured so perfectly by a camera (in this case, by Larry Hall).

We were at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, chasing a storm. The runs were getting a little skied out, and it was still early enough in the season that you had to be careful not to get caught in a creek. As the willows show, the snowpack wasn’t that deep yet, and terrain traps lurked, hidden by the thick white blanket.

We can train, practice, and pursue our passions. Only rarely does that everything come together, when time slows down, and conditions conspire for the magic moment. The trick is to stay fully present — the space between transcendence and catastrophe can be a millimeter’s shift in balance. It happened this day. And I am truly grateful.

Apache Couloir

SUMMER SLIDE

The Indian Peaks Wilderness (IPW) looms large west of Boulder, Colorado. South of Rocky Mountain National Park, the IPW is part of the same mountain spine that defines the Continental Divide. We are fortunate to call it “the backyard,” and can arrive at one of various trailheads in roughly an hour (or so) from our homes.

In the Third Season of summer skiing, we get to explore the high peaks, which are often too risky to travel in the middle of winter. In the winter and early spring, less snowpack stability increases the chance of avalanche, and long distances, short days, and cold weather all increase the risk. Increase it to a point where we choose different ski objectives.

But in the summer, these long, steep, highly aesthetic runs above treeline beckon us. And on this particular summer day, Charlie Ziskin and I put it all together, just right.