This rough draft generated by Otter.ai contains errors. If you would like to help our team of volunteers proofread one or more of them please contact me.
Rick Archer: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer, Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of conversations with spiritually Awakening people. We’ve done around 660 of them now, if this is new to you, and you’d like to check out previous ones, go to batgap.com Bat gap, then look under the past interviews menu. I say that to YouTube viewers, because we’ve got it organized in several different ways on the BatGap website, which would be hard to organize on YouTube. I mean, you can do playlists, but this is if you go there, you’ll see check out the past interviews menu is about four different ways that the interviews are organized. This program is made possible through the support of appreciative viewers and listeners. So if you appreciate it and like to help support it, there are PayPal buttons on the site. And there’s a page which explains alternatives to PayPal. And I also encourage you to subscribe to the YouTube channel if you wish. And also check out the menus on that gap because you’ll find some things that I don’t have time to go into right now. Okay, my guest My guest today is Alia Dickinson Vallejo lives in Asheville, North Carolina. And I first became aware of her because I’m on the mailing list for something called the Asheville Sangha where they have you know, they have little local meetings and things. And I’ve been getting those mailings for years. And often I see a layup coming up. So we just decided to check her out and check out her website and everything. And she looked very interesting. And indeed, I think you’ll find her to be. So here we are. Hi, good to meet you. Rob. I’ve already met you in the last 10 minutes, but not everybody else’s meeting. So I listened to several of your other interviews that you did podcasts and things. And I’ve read your website, and I got the feeling that it might be best if we do a sort of a, you know, chronological biography kind of way of approaching this, even though you’ve done that previously elsewhere. But most of the people seeing this now will not have seen or heard that. And it seemed to go well that way. And I’ll interject questions as we go along. How’s that sound to you?
Alaya Dickinson: Sure. Sure.
Rick Archer: Okay, good. So let’s start fairly young, because as I recall, when I heard your thing, you did start fairly young in terms of something that would be relevant to the discussion we’re about to have, you know, what I’m alluding to?
Alaya Dickinson: A lot would be very young. Yeah. So, you know, my, my earliest memory that I have is at this moment, and it’s very simple. I mean, I couldn’t have been more than trying to be under four years old. I mean, three, something like that. And I was just waking up from a nap. Yeah. And there was a awareness there. That, like, all the colors are really bright. There was a fullness, there was an awareness of I mean, I just couldn’t describe it, actually. And it’s really kind of hard to describe it now. Better would be as I got older, and how it it just remained remained my strongest moment, a full moment, the moment felt, as I got older, I was able to say, that moment, those that period after waking up from that now was much later as they was awake. And I was just awake.
Rick Archer: Parents could use this as an incentive to get the kids to take naps, you know. Write a children’s book, you should take your night.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, at the age, it was what I was thinking and feeling as I got older, I reflected that it was much more possible than the age actually was, you know, it wasn’t like a knowledge kind of knowing. It was what as I got older and opening more to the depths of true nature, where I was able to see it was same same, but it was um also this really beautiful in my life as things opened that really helped the support and the relaxing the trusting the availab. You know, I would also say in that opening, I realized much later that it really left me very open. You know, and the way I describe it is, is I would have said, you know, growing up, I had a lot of common sense. It made the most sense to listen to what was here, more than out there. Not all the time, you know, I always say, you know, I didn’t like get in trouble. I do get in trouble. I did do things that weren’t great. But I tended to not be so much of a repeat offender to try things. Yeah, it seemed, it seemed there’s the connection inside. And then like, really, this very ordinary feeling that it was it was what I now my language to be like bow to, but really, like, follow or listen.
Rick Archer: So it sounds like what you’re saying was that when you had this experience waking up for a nap when you were three or four? It wasn’t just a kind of a thing that lasted that afternoon, but it was a watershed moment for you. It was a shift, after which things were never quite the same.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, and that’s a hard one to talk about when you’re that young, right, you know, to like, and even as I was, you know, growing into my teenagers and college years, I mean, it was, it was so alive with me. And, and it was it felt like a memory, but it also felt very present.
Rick Archer: And even, even as you went into teenage and college years, you kept remembering that thing that happened when you were three or four it was it was that significant?
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, it didn’t even feel like a remembering, right? It just felt alive and present almost like, like, no time, like it was. And there would be a curiosity of like, maybe trying to figure it out. When I would find like a Gooshie feeling in my brain that just would be kind to end the the desire to, like, try to make too much of it. You know, I heard a lot growing up inside the words would be not for you, or don’t pick that up, you’ll have to drop it later.
Rick Archer: I mean, no kind of terms of habits or behaviors. You mean?
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, we’re even something that might be like, Hold directions in life. You know, I, I, I kind of I would feel, you know, I could do that. But I My sense is that’s not what I’m to be doing. That’s
Rick Archer: interesting. Why I wish I had that.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, so it just felt like this really strong. Yeah, and I wouldn’t have even called it guidance then. Because, you know, it wasn’t particularly spiritual. You know, I did come from more of a traditional Christian background. But, um, that, you know, it wasn’t like a very intense kind of background, you know, where I was, I did you know, you know, where I was, like, my heart was deeply involved with it, you know, so my heart was more just with what was arising and me and that just felt like what I was to listen to, and yeah,
Rick Archer: like, sounds like, intuitive sense, woke up and intuitive knowing.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, yeah. And it felt very ordinary, very regular. I didn’t talk about it to anybody. My assumption was, maybe everybody else was the same way. Now, I didn’t have like a community. I didn’t feel drawn in communities. You know, even as I got into college, or in my 20s, I actually felt really drawn into life, and to, you know, lots of different experiences. And, you know, not really like once that had to be like, super dramatic and and dualistic sense like to be rich or powerful or those things but if I felt like I really dislike what I would hear, hear or feel was like, you know, I want to experience life. Like all the ordinariness of life. Yeah, I mean, I heard it felt it’s always felt very exciting for me. Yeah. And then and then whatever that particular life is that this is, that’s, that’s happening here, you know?
Rick Archer: Mm hmm. Interesting. It kind of reminds me of a this guy interviewed named Christian Sunberg who, a couple years ago I interviewed him but Anyway, he, when he was about 30 years old, he had this clear recollection of the time before he came into this birth. And the. And the reason he got inspired to take a human birth was that he met some being on the other side who was just glowing and amazing. And Christian said to the Bing, wow, what happened to you? Where are you? And so I’ve been on Earth. And I guess it was such a learning experience for that soul that Christian God inspired to do the same thing. And it’s a long story, people should watch the interview. But I get the feeling like just the way you phrase that, that I don’t know how many lifetimes you may have had. But that this, you know, that there’s a kind of an innocent enthusiasm about exploring the possibilities that human life have to offer, and a freshness to it as if, you know, you’re kind of excited to try this and try that. But you had some guidance that prevented you from trying to really destructive stuff.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah. And if I like to wish and again, yeah, I really, you know, and I would kind of skirt it pretty closely, sometimes, you know?
Rick Archer: Yeah. I mean, did you go through a teenage drug phase, for instance?
Alaya Dickinson: Oh, no, I never really got too involved with but I might have, like, hung out in the scene, or new people that were really struggling, but I seem to really get what, you know, it felt like, the mirror that was required for me really happened. And that where I could say, you know, kind of what I would now say is a bunch of letter a, you know, like, not this, not this. But it was, you know, not in a judgement way. Just sort of, like, in a direction I was going in life.
Rick Archer: Yeah, don’t need to do that.
Alaya Dickinson: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. But a very, but an excitement to just just be in life and experience life, like a deep joy actually. And as an eye, you know, that’s always here of just like, where what else can be experienced? You know, the sense of that, being awake in the world, you know, and, and this flick, it’s never been this flavor before, like, the snowflake. You know? Yeah,
Rick Archer: I know. You mean, some people say that, you know, joy, or the expansion of happiness is the very purpose of life and possibly even the purpose of the whole universe that we as sense organs of the infinite, you know, we’re wired the same way God is if you want to use the word God and, and we take delight and, and the expansion of happiness, however we find it. And obviously, all the spiritual traditions talk about where to find it, where not to find it, and things
Alaya Dickinson: like that. Yeah, yeah. So I don’t come with a lot of spiritual traditions. You know, I, I love that. You know, I It’s not that I haven’t picked up some things along the way, right now and found that like, sort of earlier on, not a service as as a parent time has gone on that it’s, you know, becomes of service, you know, but in a way, that’s
Rick Archer: what’s that you’re saying becomes a
Alaya Dickinson: service? Yeah, I don’t know. I’m, like unknowing everything. And then when you unknown what are your, you know, the slight the mountain, no mountain and then the mountain. Right. Right. So it’s like, right, when you, you, you I know it? And then then it appears again, right? And then it’s like, no longer separate? Hmm. Okay.
Rick Archer: So let me try to interpret that. So what you’re saying I think is that you go through stages, where you disconnect from the conventional, habitual way of understanding or perceiving a thing into a kind of a more of an unknowing state. And then you reformulate in to a more functional phase where you interact with the very same things, but from a different perspective. Is that what you’re trying to say?
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, I have some a word that says like the unmoved mover. Yeah. Right. That makes sense. So it’s like sometimes I’ll explain like it maybe not the mountain but like I say, a blade of grass. So you have the word grass in your mind. Right? And that’s you knowing something that really like it really has its own Mirage, and there, right because you’re have a condition and you’re gonna like when you look at the grass, you’re gonna, potentially you’re gonna have this separate experience from it. But if you go through this, like unknowing, right, like, I don’t really know that it’s grass. Grass is a made up thing of the human condition. Stephen Colbert. Whereas in our particular language, but not in another language, so it’s like really fishy, you know, the whole bunch of holes right away. And then when you let go of that, and there’s an energetic shift, right dissolution of the separation, and then you’re energetically, it just naturally comes online, right to have this direct experience with what’s here. And if you don’t know what’s grass anymore, right, then there’s this, this oneness that comes online and not maybe not even that I always feel like same oneness is a little too much too. Right? We have to let that one go also. Right. But then there’s so there’s this unknowing of it, and then the unknowingness, and then the word grasp can come back, and it’s not a problem.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And it would be problem if it didn’t, because, you know, you have to function in life.
Alaya Dickinson: Right? Right. So that’s the embodiment part. Right? Right, joy, but it’s like, if you don’t ever inquire into like, what’s going on there. You really don’t, you don’t get to have the direct experience of what’s actually here. Right? You don’t get to like, the destruction of it before that whatever you’ve learned can be at service. Right? Because mine really, mind we’ll be at service to separation very easily. Right? It’s just kind of natural. It’s like, the seemed like the most primary energy that it just does it but as soon as you inquire, mind, just reorients to to presence, right? And to, you know, the primal energy. That’s very, that’s direct, right? It’s direct without the middleman, right? Or without this strange, like, experience, we have psychological experience of separation.
Rick Archer: So you find yourself doing that over and over and over again, over the years, you know, with this with this with this with this, or, you know, okay, now I’m doing it with a cup now I’m doing with a cow? Or has it been more of like, just all in one fell? Swoop? I’m pushing the reset button and then coming back into life? Yeah,
Alaya Dickinson: that’s a very good question. I would say it’s, it’s all of those things. Okay. Right. So, yeah, you know, it’s like, not one thing or the other, and sometimes it was as objects, like, kind of, you know, all curiosity coming up and this feeling of separation. But, you know, and also different qualities to it at different times of my, my life, you know, you know, and how I was functioning. Right. So, as, as I’ve gotten older, you know, inquiry has, has, has, I’d say words like deepened. You know, I don’t, I don’t want to make too much about that. But you know, I would say, early on the questions like in as a child, it would be like, sort of, I would see my environment and just have this sense that this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. Yeah, right. That’s sort of like was the initial stuff that was coming on, it was just like, the insides of like, this sort of what I wasn’t seeing in the mirror, what I wasn’t seeing in the world was not, it was not reflecting what was here. So there was like this fishing us and this just kind of not writing us. And then once I got in high school, it became pretty painful. You know, there was there were specific things that were going on in my life that that were really have becoming very cute with that story. Like this is not the way it should be. And I had a few people that mirrored some things to me like a school counselor and an aunt. That’s not really your aunt, but you call Aunt, you know,
Rick Archer: like they’re doing it. Yeah, yeah. Everybody’s an auntie.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, but she was just the one that would come in and be like, You are beautiful. And, and your heart is good. And, and you and you, you know, your insides know what’s true for you, you know, and she just lived that way too. So I was very blessed to like, have that mirror and go this. This is this is what’s true. And you know, I became very tuned in to that kind of lifeforce energy. Yeah, more and more so. And I guess that’s part of the neti, not this not that to have like were going into something and just it really became that simple. I would say energetic, energetically. I didn’t experience a lot of this. It’s very complicated. It just was sort of like a feeling of openness or life force or presence or aliveness. Yeah, like closed energy, and kind of being like a, like a beat. Be to flower in that respect. Do you know what I mean? Like being drawn more and more to those, and it wasn’t necessarily going to spiritual path. If it was, you know, I loved horses and animals that had so much life and light, because it wasn’t functioning from separation animals became a very important part of my growing up, you know, because
Rick Archer: you told me that you have five dogs even now. Yeah, yeah. And
Alaya Dickinson: growing up, it was like being with animals, I spent most of my time after school, all those things. So it was where I could be in unconditional love with the uncondition. And then when I got older, it started coming in other ways. Like, when I would start having relationships and maybe do something where my actions hurt them. That’s sort of like where I said, did it. And then I wasn’t necessarily always a repeat offender, not that I wouldn’t do it in another variation. But, but it would hurt me to hurt someone. You know, I could, it would really, I wasn’t, you know, something that, you know, there was a lot of sense of like not wanting to do that again. And that way immediate feedback. Yeah. And even if it wasn’t said to me, clearly, I could feel it. Yeah. So it was a driver to kind of clean up stuff, clean up karma. As I got in my 20s it became that 20s I just really had a blast. It was a lot of fun. But there came a point in time where I was I said this story was a bartender, at this really great bar. And it had it was very diverse, like, very like these Appalachia Appalachia folks that lived in Atlanta, were came had come in to work in these mills with the Mill High closed, but the folks still live there. And it was like a double wide trailer and had little glass boots for shot glasses. And it was it was great. So but the people that lived that community tent came to that bar. And you know, but there were also all kinds of people like we had the dragon of the Ku Klux Klan come in, or like some really cool people like the Dixie Chicks. Yeah, like the Athan, you know,
Rick Archer: the Dixie Chicks and Indigo Girls was, they came in? Yeah, that’s what you said. People could they play there, they just came in to have a drink, just try and train and never played there. You know, I wondered about the Indigo Girls playing in a double wide trailer.
Alaya Dickinson: No, but there were people that ended up playing their Big Cat Power. I don’t know if you’ve know Shawn Marshall. But yeah, that was a very, very hip place. And it part of it was because it was, I thought it was very interesting, because all these different people were coming together and sitting in a bar and drinking a beer, you know, and they weren’t hitting each other or, and, you know, being rude to each other. It was it was copacetic environment. And some part of me just really, it was like a sense of, I don’t know two things, how amazing it was, but then also sort of, like, you know, this, this joy that I’m having here, like these people that I’m meeting here, you know, it’s not right now it’s not love. Right? Something was something really was coming online for me this interest, you know, and heart. And I also felt very drawn to kind of just quit that whole thing. You know, it was a phase. Yeah, just cut that whole thing. And after quitting that whole thing, not long afterwards, I had another nap.
Rick Archer: Sleeping Your Way to Enlightenment, a lion Dickinson’s.
Alaya Dickinson: Butt, but at the bar, it was sort of this really openness like, Okay, I also heard, you know, okay, you’ve done this. This has been great. It’s time to get to work. But it’s not the kind of work like I was to go get another job. It was definitely I could feel it. It was time to wake up is really what I was feeling. I didn’t know what that meant. You know, I didn’t have any kind of context for that. But the sense that it was, you know, this energy, you know, that I would now say was, like inquiry becoming really geared up. Yeah, yeah. Did I let’s see, after that, I would say Yeah, so I was dating a fella. We were just you know, he was remodeling his house. I was kind of coming over for hanging out in the afternoon, took a nap woke up. He he actually they were all gone. It was aging myself, but it was when the Olympics were happening.
Rick Archer: And I’m in a lot of every four years we have an Olympics. So Atlanta though they were they had the bomb
Alaya Dickinson: was in Atlanta, but it was I woke up in the house by myself. And it was I could the, it felt the same as when I was four. So that was really beautiful because there was no like grasping or fear happening. But immediately it was, there was no, the only I was just whatever I was looking at, like the doorknob or the, you know, I ended up on the front porch and just looking at the trees, and I was the tree and I was the wind and I was the light. And I’m that, you know, and I remember my boyfriend coming home and trying to explain it to him. And it was okay that he could didn’t understand there was just really there was nothing that was really going to arise and that you know, and we went out to dinner, I saw friends that was talking and it all was being very integrated. You know, I just remember like going looking at folks and just lifeforce everywhere. lifeforce. After a period of time, I remember being on my front porch and Cabbagetown I don’t even know, it might have been a few days, it might have been a week,
Rick Archer: that is a suburb of Atlanta or something,
Alaya Dickinson: Captain. Yeah. So I was just on the front porch on the swing, and it just started creeping in sort of this, like, holy shit, I’m not going to be able to go back, I’m not going to be able to go back. And then back
Rick Archer: to well, it the way you understand, but I think it was the way I was functioning before you had a new way
Alaya Dickinson: of now. And I had this this vision come up where it was Dorothy with her shoes, you know, the red shoes, and going, I want to go home, I want to go home. And this is the funny part. Because I was doing that I want to go home, I want to go home. And it was hurting me, it was like being stuck. I was seeing myself at the same time, like a shoe box. And like shoving myself into a shoe box. And it took it took a tremendous amount. It’s like I had to Russell to get my will to come back. And to literally get shoved back into the box. And my energy went down really quickly. All of the the intimacy around me started to fade. And I had relief in this very weird way. It was very strange. It wasn’t like a relief of the heart. It was it was you know how we play Cade ourselves and separation?
Rick Archer: Kind of a let down probably.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, I mean, but I felt that I had somehow both won something and lost something, you know, but in the same regards, I will say, if you listen to the rest of that, that interview that I did, that I was tremendously changed after that. So whatever was happening before this, like connection to my heart connection to my knowing it was on steroids after that, right. Like, my whole life changed, I sold all my shit, I just felt, excuse my language. I mean, I just my whole life changed, I left my job. Very, there was a few things that happen in between, like, I was being drawn to go get my masters and then quickly I like went to go visit Naropa. And when I got there, I beelined it to Sedona, but then when I got to Naropa all I could think about with Sedona, when I went to Sedona I had you know, I found myself at the foot of Cathedral Rock, and that another deepening there, right, it’s like going up the mountain trying to get to the top. And then by the time I was at the top, I was just like I took like four hours instead of 30 minutes. And I was like crawling around with the bugs and the warm rocks in my pocket and and so when I went to Naropa which I went ahead and did that trip, it was all just this kind of deepening of presence. This fire that was just I can no longer deny. Right. And so you know, yeah, so it just continued right? It’s continuing we can we can you let me know where you’d like for me to go?
Rick Archer: Oh, sure. Well, I guess for some reason when you told that story about getting back in the box, it reminded me of a cat we used to have who love to get in boxes which cats love to do. But one time we had this really small box that was like, you know, only half the size of the cat. And the cat must have tried for an hour to get into this box, you know, it was kind of putting its front end and back end wouldn’t fit, put its back end and front end wouldn’t fit and it was gone. It was hilarious. We should have filmed it. But that’s kind of it’s a good metaphor, I think for what people sometimes try to do when they find themselves suddenly in a much vaster orientation than they’re accustomed to they. It’s like, I had a spiritual teacher who used to tell this story about this guy who lived in a hut. And someone told him to that big castle over there, that’s your true home, you can leave this out and go to that castle. So he starts out and going toward the castle. But then there’s this fear that comes up. Oh, wait a minute. I don’t know, maybe it’s not really my castle. And I bet to get back to my hut where I where I’m used to it where I feel secure. Yes, yes. So there’s this syndrome that I think a lot of people go through, I’ve been dealing with a friend who has been going through that and, you know, the fear of the unboundedness that’s that’s dawning in her awareness, or if you want to phrase it that way, and like holding on for dear life, and I think she’s finally made the shift, and there’s just surrendered into that and finds that she can function the castle is better than the hut she can, she can function a whole lot better, you know, in this vaster state?
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, yeah, it is. It’s like an apparent transition or deepening, right? Of of like this small, narrow way of functioning, right. And that in that it releasing, right or dissolving, and then the what is that remains, right our nature, what’s what’s always been there is that’s that’s like, never doesn’t have a initiative to do anything about it. But as soon as we like, open up, right to like, what we’re returning from right, or what we’re not opening to, then it’s like a crack that grace just goes right into true nature, our direct experience goes right into AI, and then we have people’s, you know, space or our our way of function in thinking and everything reorients itself, right to our direct wisdom, right?
Rick Archer: Knowing what you know, now, how would you explain the reluctance or the fear to open up into this vaster reality? And, you know, the attempt to scurry back into our, our hut, you know, what do you think are the reasons or the mechanics of that?
Alaya Dickinson: I mean, you know, I think we could talk about it in many different levels, you know, but, you know, the, you know, they think that primal resistance, right, that create separation, you know, it has, like, all we could say, sometimes I’ll say, what’s, what’s unconscious, and Matt loved, right? And that it, like, holds it together. Right? And so like, as we open up to whatever that is, and life is always showing us that it’s always showing us what’s unconscious and loved, right? It’s like right here inside and it’s just like repeating itself. So, as we do that, it just becomes you know, the ice that I say it actually gets hotter my experiences it gets hotter,
Rick Archer: lighter, do you mean like temperature hot, what do you
Alaya Dickinson: temperature hot, energetic, hot, fear hot, you know, the whole thing you know, can be because it what it is, is going more from this experience of being able to point it outside of yourself and say that person did it or that server there, when you start feeling that it becomes very present, right? And it comes in direct experience. And then that kind of hotness is very different when when you’re not looking outside anymore and becomes very present. You know, there’s less, the psychological story is less acute, you know, you’re not like talking about a particular situation anymore. You’re really just feeling the, the energy that’s prior to anger, the energy that’s prior to jealousy, right? And so this sort of, you know, what I find when I talk to folks is like, when you really start going deeper and feeling inside to that like the follows that energetic energy to the root of the suffering, right and we don’t have to say that as in something that the mind needs to know if you just feel it there’s just like a gravity like energetic pole that really like once we start being really tender with this our heart desire, you know, it’s really feel the energy to meet that or, and to not only meet that it’s like, to really, you know, just allow to fully be here, but it also tends to get us closer to that primary You know, you really core energy of separation, which means death to ego, right? And we perceive it as death. And our body kind of perceives it as death. And we have a confusion about it and, you know, in the way we function from a separation, because we’re not really, you know, in that fear, we’re not really in connection with our energy, and like our, our, our unconditional ever been the love, right? Unconditional Love my condition. So that whole moving in is this, like what’s required to come home, but it also is full of where you start going, Oh, death, or I’m good, how this has to go? Or none? You know, what I mean? It’s like, what, what was I doing now? Now I’m seeing that it’s like, it’s, I’m, I’m having to walk them this. Right. And so, I feel like it’s a really, it’s a very natural and time and then tying is always ultimately leaving us with this, like, the, the deep bowing of, of, you know, ending everything that we had that held together, right, the the pain and suffering, and then the, the confusion developed, you know, turning into the experience of this and that, right, have a viewer over there, and I’m over here and we’re separate beings, and I’m all alone, right? Which is real. That’s the real trauma of our condition, the suffering, of, of, yeah, duality. Or you could say, in other words,
Rick Archer: no, it’s good. I mean, there’s so many myths and legends and so on about the hero, being comfortable, right where he is, like Bilbo Baggins. He didn’t want to leave the Shire, you know, go off on this big crazy adventure. But you know, then he has to go and all this stuff happens. And then he finally gets back home. And so much has been accomplished because of, of doing it. And home is never the same again. There’s a TS Eliot poem where he says something like, you know, we’ll, we’ll go come to the end of all our seeking and know the place for the first time. And start with the end up right where we started and know the place for the first time. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I love that, you know, that poem.
Alaya Dickinson: And I love it. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Somehow, also, as you’re speaking, I was reminded of the caterpillar who, you know, build its cocoon, and then get into cocoon and then turns to mush. And, and then, you know, doesn’t look like a caterpillar anymore, or a butterfly, it’s just mush. And then the imaginal cells in the mush start to form a butterfly, and that eventually comes out as a butterfly. But if a caterpillar could be experienced fear, there must be something very fearful about turning to mush.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, yeah. But as you’re describing to, like, we’re the only creatures that have the capability to, you know, resist, right? Like a kind of color is just, you know, you look at nature, and it’s showing us all the time, you know, everything is always pointing and showing us presence and the uncondition and change, right?
Rick Archer: Yeah. So I think, you know, some people argue we don’t have any free will. I think, maybe ultimately, we don’t. But I think that a certain stage of growth, we certainly feel like we do, and you have to be true to the stage you’re at. But, you know, it’s kind of like sometimes think of it as like a little child doesn’t have any free will the parents just tell it what to do. And then it becomes a teenager and goes wild and start exercising, it’s free. Well, actually, they say terrible, too, as you start doing that when you’re too, you should know. But then it but then eventually you become an adult, you sort of have your own autonomy and motivation. Just speaking very broadly. I think evolution is like that in a way where like the animals and the caterpillars and so on, they’re just totally on nature’s command and in tune with nature, and they have no choice then the human life, ordinary human life. We were like the teenagers who try things out and have all kinds of, you know, drives and experimentation. Then the sage, someone who’s really awakened in a way they don’t have free will anymore because they’re so in tune with god that it’s just God’s will. And you know that they don’t. But but there’s this sort of no man’s land you have to go through to get from the innocence of the animal to the innocence of the sage.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, And I missed a little bit of your conversation right there.
Rick Archer: Audio broke up.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, the audio broke up a little tiny bit. So I have it. But yes, that and you’re kind of saying more about like how we were talking about with the leaf with the grass, the like, yeah winging it, and then not, you know what I mean, not knowing that. And then, and you’re talking about this live wisdom that comes online? Right.
Rick Archer: Yeah, that’s, I think that’s good connection. So there’s just this disassembling phase that we have to go through before, before everything can be reassembled in a better way. And I actually think the whole society is going to go through that and is already beginning to disassemble more more rapidly now. And we’re going to see a lot more of it in the coming years. And hopefully, on the other side, there’ll be a reassemble into something much better.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, that’s the interesting word, reassembly. What do you mean by that? Well,
Rick Archer: I don’t like the caterpillar, it has to turn to mush before it can become a butterfly, it can’t just go straight from Caterpillar to butterfly. And, you know, some would argue and in fact, I did a whole interview with a guy named Dwayne Elgin a few months ago, where he felt that there was in many traditional cultures have felt that there’s going to be this breakdown or disintegration of all the tried and true and trusted systems and structures, because they just wouldn’t fit in a more enlightened age. And so they’re going to have to crumble somehow. And then hopefully, we’ll, you know, rise out of that into a very different way of doing things. And we do tend to see it here and there around us, you know, things just the old ways are not working. And the reason I bring this up is I think that patterns repeat themselves on different levels. And the the, the stages of growth that a human being goes through, in the course of their spiritual development can be possibly mirrored in the stages of growth that society goes through or will go through, as it transitions, hopefully, to a more enlightened age.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, yeah, I tend to not do too much thinking about all of that, I think too much. I tend to like, because I find that a little bit of trouble.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And maybe it’s too hypothetical for you also,
Alaya Dickinson: well, it’s just that we can’t really know right now. And it’s like, it’s like, maybe I see this, like, this, the way energy could possibly move in some apparent, you know, some future. And then, you know, maybe there’s something to that, because when I feel into it, the whole future path, like it feels more all now I’m feeling is feels like it’s all just here now. So I feel like there is this sort of way of connecting more, you know, you know, we’re here in the present moment, brings us to this availability energetically. That’s, that’s that. That is the body, you know, when we’re saying we’re all one, you know, and I say we’re all one and not even that, like, what, what does that actually mean, in direct experience? Right. So it does sort of like I can kind of feel into things but you know, as Neelam would say, that that’s, you know, or audio would say this to me, too, in a different way that it’s just, you know, it’s a lot of trouble. You know, to like do too much there, right? Because really, how what serves all of that is here, really and like how can we be truly of service and my own inquiry all I want to every time I’ve women, and that way, it’s always been my greatest services to wake up, right and then and this to wake up and then I don’t know how service here will move and be because the deeper I open to that, then you know, it really is the equalizer of like, what kind of what you name this whole thing show about Buddha at the Gas Pump, right? That is that equalizing right? So the more I become nobody, the more that nothing is here. The more and you know, those are just words. Those are words that hit the ego really rough, right? Because it’s annihilation words, but I can feel it then then the more the unconditional love is here. Right? That’s that’s that’s that’s able to like however it looks on arises how this unmoved mover moves and like my words and my what comes into my brain and thoughts. Like it is to be at service. And part of that, like becoming nobody becoming invisible feels very, very important to that. Because it’s not actually true. It’s true only in the ego sense and experience looks just like you were to it. Well, it’s not
Rick Archer: actually true.
Alaya Dickinson: That, um, well, that we’re limited in any way. And, and that, that, you know, it’s the piercing of that, so that that the returning of our true nature functions, right? And then there we can be at service, if we have anything that’s going on, you know, with, with that, that tourney know that no, right then, then it just remains right. It’s kind of like gloms on on top of our nature. And it just gets to keep being somewhere and all the things that we do and then that’s, that’s like karma or conditioning, right? And then it gets to play out. But it’s not that that’s a right or wrong thing. It’s just that like, if we’re certain if we’re searching, if we’re like, our deepest desire or deepest prayer is like to know the truth, right? And what’s real and alive in here, right? Then when we meet, what that is that suffering here this confused or wants power or wants, wants something out here to you know, what is audio love his his words of the Hungry Ghost, right? Just never ending, right, we transform all of that energy and to no longer, you know, trying to derive our energy from the other, which is this like, illusionary dynamic, right? And then we find that all the energy is already here, full and complete, you know, where the unconditioned lives, you know, is where we’re out of. Right? Yeah,
Rick Archer: I was having a conversation with a friend last night, and he was telling me that and undermine, I used to say that, the best thing you can do for the world is just to, you know, wake up yourself. And she didn’t put a lot of emphasis on doing anything more than that. Then we are contrasting that with somebody like Alma, if you know, who, you know, just inaugurated the biggest private hospital in India 2600 beds, and has all these orphanages, schools, and all the stuff that she has been doing all these years. So and, you know, my conclusion was that different people have different roles to play, and you can’t say one is better than the other. Everybody’s wired differently, including saints, you know, and hardly enlightened beings, they, some of them may live in a cave, and you never heard of them. Others are like world famous and but they’re each doing exactly what they’re supposed to do. And I don’t know if that pertains directly to your point. But it’s Yeah, I
Alaya Dickinson: think what you’re talking about is like, maybe if we say the results, right, or it’s always happening anyway, right? Like, it’s, but um, yeah, yeah.
Rick Archer: Good. Well, I’m glad you mentioned the Illumina audio, because they’re probably they probably have been your two biggest teachers. And we haven’t really talked too much about him yet. So perhaps you’d like to talk about your relationship with them, how you met them, what effect they had on you and stuff like that. And I’ve interviewed them both multiple times. So anyway, go ahead.
Alaya Dickinson: Ah, well, maybe a pointer where to start? That’s a really that’s a big kind
Rick Archer: of broad question. Well, like Nealon was first. And so where were you? You know, before you met Neil, I mean, what kind of what stage were you at? And then how did you come to meet her? And how did she serve as a catalyst? For whatever happened to you after that?
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah. So I guess we were going back to early part of the interview, the Sedona part, you know, there was that initial time that I went to Sedona and then I actually came back home after Europa and decided not to get my masters and I packed up all of my stuff, and sold a bunch of things and got a truck and just move went back to Sedona and I really, it was not much of a thought it was just that I really could not not do it, it was there was so much fire inside of me them so much direction, you know, and that direction was to get to Sedona and pretty much as soon as I got there, it you know, within a week or two, it was not very long time. I ended up being introduced to some folks that that were living in Sedona and I did not know who Robert Adams was, but he He was a Papaji devote a student. He had recently passed, but there was a community that had lived to be live there to be with him. And it was very recent, but they were still living there. And so I ended up renting a room and their house. And I mean, within a few days, they were going to see a teacher. And then it was just hey, come along, see this teacher? And I said, Yeah. And then I was at the feet of Neelam. So the draw being pulled there. I mean, everything was just, you know, it’s like braces, they just felt like the grace was rolling the red carpet out. And, and just Yes, yes, yes. And at this meeting, I mean, there were at least 100 or more people there. I was in the very back. She just was gazing around. And just in her gazing. Initially, her eyes laid on me just in her moving by, and it was a trance. I didn’t know what a transmission was. But it hit me so completely, that I knew immediately that I experienced unconditional love. And what came through my mind was, after the meeting was this woman loves me completely. But she doesn’t have to know my name. It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t have to know who I am, or what I do what I do, or any of those things, I recognize that it was, it was already there, it was complete, and there was nothing that I could do about it. And that just became, like I was talking about the aunt, that wasn’t really the aunt, she was mirroring that to me too. You know, so it was just like this, this like collapsing. of, of, of the searching I was doing without even realizing I was searching. It was more of the honey beat the flower type searching. And, and in that, it right after that, of course, everything she said really upset me. Because, well, what I was hearing was I was nobody, right. And at that time, saying, you know, I felt the unconditional love but but ego or separate your house functioning there really just wanted to give her a middle finger. You know, it was just really, I was really angry. And it was a whole bunch of hot energy of anger that was coming up. But by grace, I knew that I had to come back to her because I could see her was penetrated so deeply, that I couldn’t put it on her. I could not point in and make her wrong. I couldn’t make it I it was so clear that nothing could stick. And that I knew that it was just me experiencing that, that it had nothing to do with her. And that I was I didn’t know what a teacher was, or a true teacher or Satsang or anything. But it was all very clear that this person was not was was was the way I was experiencing when I said very young. This world is not the way it’s supposed to be. She was the way it was supposed to be. And it was very clear to me. So
Rick Archer: interesting. I interviewed a woman last night we named Jessica Nathanson, who has a website called the glorious both and and the whole discussion was about how Neo Advaita has been extremely harmful for many people in her how Neo Advaita has been extremely harmful for many people. And she has she she puts together support groups now where, you know, all these people with horror stories come in about, you know, having gotten extremely depersonalized and disassociated. And to the point of, you know, feeling suicidal and all. So I you know, there’s a truth to the two statements such as that you are nobody. But there’s also a misapplication of many such statements, which if they hit a person at the wrong stage of their development can cause spiritual bypassing and, you know, a breakdown of personality. As someone put it, you have to be somebody before you can be nobody.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so at that point, it was somehow seen through,
Rick Archer: you know, yeah, it was probably the right thing for you at the right time.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, yeah, it was. It was And I think also, you know, with what happened to me as a very young child, and then again in my 20s, that, like, there was the sort of fertile ground there. That was that was that was really devouring of what was appearing. Right. And so I can certainly see what you’re talking about, you know, but it’s, it seemed it felt to me like I was being carried by grace. Yeah. Like I felt very, you know, I didn’t have a lot of knowledge. I didn’t, I didn’t have, you know, an environment around me to lean on. But inside and then what was showing up in my life felt like, a mother’s loving arms.
Rick Archer: Yeah, no, I’m not in any way discounting your experience, it just seems like you, you know, you are a target that was ready to hit but that particular
Alaya Dickinson: right. And then so, and I have noticed that too, within my own the way teaching has appeared here, you know, like, teaching wasn’t something I chose to do. It just ended up kept being asked of me, you know, later down the road, I kind of actually moved away from it for a very long time. And it wasn’t until I met ADIA, right that that I actually said yes to that. And and, you know, we can talk more about?
Rick Archer: We’ll get to that. We’ll get the audio.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, yeah. So go ahead.
Rick Archer: Now you go ahead. So you had that meeting? And then I guess you sort of took a while before you really reconnected with Neelam as I understand it.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah. I mean, we weren’t ever living in the same place, really. So she came to Sedona. And then it really went, I ended up in Boulder, which took a couple of years that she was traveling up there fairly often. So we get to see her, you know, maybe, maybe a handful of times while I was there, but it was sitting with her. And just really cooking is what I say, you know, I sat in the back, I didn’t ask her questions. But I, I always was feeling the same energy. There was jealousy. Why? Because there was this, there was some story going on that she was higher, and I was lower,
Rick Archer: too jealous of her, like, envious of her state or something.
Alaya Dickinson: Some that was that was it was just there. Yeah, like, and, and I didn’t, I just, it wasn’t like, I was spending too much time thinking about it, it was just like, energetically feeling it. And it was feeling very, very hot. And, and I would just sit there almost sweat. Right? Or, and there were other things. But you know, a lot of what she was saying, right? It was it was pointing to the egos destruction. And just her transmission was pointing egos destruction. And so there was just like, this wrestling was happening with that. And I came to understand and feel it every person that spoke with her Eve, and I had a lot of anxiety around talking in front of people, you know, I, I always struggled with that there was always the person in the back very quiet. And the regard it was not like a super, you know, as people would say, a confident person to like Express. But you know, I what the gift of that was, as I found everybody that was talking was even if their story wasn’t exactly the same as my story that I was able to see their suffering was the same as my suffering. And so there was this deepening that started happening of like, experiencing the other as my very self. You know, in her even though I was an A, I was having so much energy that I wasn’t able to get up there and speak with her. And then eventually, I did have some, like, private meetings with her. And I like to say this because if you are into my style of teaching, I don’t really teach like that at all. Like, I mean, people I’m very interactive, you know, people come up into what they call the hot seat. You know, there’s a lot of go back and forth. You know, I really break out of the role of somebody sitting down and listening to the teacher talk to them, you know, I’m very interested in very quickly teacher within speaking right and then and then really bowing to that and leaning into like what’s arising and I can shut up, right like I’m happy to do that. That’s like that’s, that’s you know, and then to no longer be required is like, as quickly as possible that It’s kind of So
Rick Archer: did you ever meet my old friend Phil Hirshhorn when you were with Nealon? No. He’s a big Neelam fan. We’ve known each other for a long time.
Alaya Dickinson: No, I have my friend life. I met through Neelam. We are so good friends. Pamela Wilson. Oh, Pamela. We are, we’re connected. And I met Nirmala briefly once, but I don’t I we didn’t really get to spend much time together. Just curious.
Rick Archer: Yeah. It’s like this big, loosely knit family, you know?
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Okay, so, um, let’s see, I want to make sure
Alaya Dickinson: I take the end of that part of this. Like, there was one woman in a particular set song that was asking her, or why are you up there teaching, you know, what, what gives you the right to teach, and she proceeded to talk about Papa chi. And, and in her story about Papaji, or that she was responding about it. You know, I don’t even remember the words so much. But when she spoke about Papaji, that this love that just appeared, so the transmission, and then she had a tear that came out of her eye, and that tear, I just fell into the tear. And then as the tear went down her face, and I was the tear, then all of me started bowing to me alone. It was a fruit Phoom Phoom. And it was just a way down. And not only down it was a down to her is it down to Papaji is it down to Ramana, and the Buddha, Jesus and all it was just boom. And at the end of that meeting, it was all I could do, I just basically crawled to her feet, literally, literally, and put my hand down and she just started patting my head. And I, I was just, I was like, I’m never leaving her feet again. It was like, my whole beam was like this. It was like lifetimes, it felt like I was devotional. And that this was my, this that was back I was where I was to be, you know. And it was very intense. Because it came online really quickly. We already were, you know, I had had my first child, which was a very powerful opening for me there, you know, with labor and stuff of presence. But that really got me fertile for this. And, but we were already like, had tickets bought, we were already moving somewhere else. And it was like happening within a week or two. And I was sitting there going, I I could see my whole family going away. I could see like it all ending and being at her feet. And it all came back to me in like a big rush. And it wasn’t like there was anything wrong with that. What happened was and what I heard was, this is not your lifetime. This is not what happens this lifetime. You’re in this lifetime, you’re in the world. And you’re you’re you’re gonna go you know, and and I can feel excitement of being in the world and being in life. And and so it was it was both this deep relief in a way that I cannot describe. And then without remorse or regret getting up and moving. Leaving. Right. Yeah, that’s good.
Rick Archer: And I would say that if you had although it’s a moot point because you wouldn’t have done this but if you had somehow lost your family and to stay with Neelam it would have been a big mistake.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, it was just it was the we felt it was so clear that I knew what I felt was that I needed to not be around her because it’s too hard is too strong for me. Yeah, like it’s it’s almost it’s all it’s almost felt like it’s okay, you know, she’s right here. I can feel her I can feel that transmission, you know, of the unique flavor or and of Ramona and of you know, all of it here,
Rick Archer: right. Have you gotten the main thing you needed to get from being around her?
Alaya Dickinson: Well, when I moved to Asheville, you know, it really affected people that were around A as they, you know, there, there was a lot of transmission happening. And so some of my dear friends began inviting her to Asheville. So she came and she had some health issues, and wasn’t able to travel after a period of time, but she,
Rick Archer: she has a sensitivity to electrical fields and stuff.
Alaya Dickinson: And so, but prior to that, she, she came and, and it was, you know, beautiful. And then when we couldn’t meet anymore, we, you know, there were letters, you know, were someone calling me, you know, or, you know, on her behalf, those kinds of things before, like, all the technology and stuff. But, um, you know, at that time, you know, it wasn’t really clear what had happened here. Right. And, you know, that, you know, there was just such, it was very apparent, because it seemed like I when I would meet people, there would just be such heart opening and presence here and with the apparent other, but I also had a brand new baby, and I had just gotten married, I was really feeling drawn to become like a real estate agent. And, like, all you know, we’re buying a house and getting a mortgage and all these things. And that felt so, right. And then in all of that life, I was able to see in a way that if I wasn’t on a mountaintop, or for me, in particular, like in an ashram or sitting in meditation, I, what I was able to find was that my teacher was in everything in my life, showing me what was left, because I could feel there was, there was there was stuff that was left, right, and it was like this big openness, but my brain was sort of foggy. And I couldn’t quite speak about what I was experiencing. And what I could translate that with, was actually like, some things that were showing up in my life around, you know, that I would have never experienced, and I’m not saying that everybody else has to experience the way I experienced it. But for me, it was like the fear I had when my child had double pneumonia. Right? It took me to some place that it happening, if that had happened to me, I would have would have just, it would have been fine. Right? I wasn’t struggling there. But tapping into my child that brought me you know, there was tremendous energy showing up, right, there was tremendous things to open up to, and for my husband and, and our relationship and this sort of like this way of moving in the unknown in the world, right was brought up things that were still unmet and touched on love. So through that, that’s sort of where most of my teaching comes from, you know, I didn’t have time to meditate, I was breastfeeding or I was showing a house or whatever. But I found that like, the desire to end the suffering, it just appeared spontaneously, right, that, you know, in the car driving or in the shower with a cold, the water, like it would just arise. And I would be tending to energy or thoughts or, or whatever, so that I could see that there’s, there’s nothing that can stop us from waking up. We don’t need to go anywhere, and we don’t need to his fine if we do. But if we are not, you know that it’s not something that there’s nothing that I found could stop my deepening. Right. Yeah.
Rick Archer: I mean, that seems to be more evidently true for some people than for others. You it seemed like, from an early age, we’re on the fast track, you know, and you had this intuitive sense of not this, this moving along and okay, and after that on to the next thing. So there’s always been this kind of momentum in your life, it seems. Other people, you know, might need a little bit more something, you know, some call of
Alaya Dickinson: duty, I do feel like, it’s not so different. That when people are on fire to search is just a different kind of flavor, right? Like, if somebody is really learning Buddhism, and they’re drawn to that, if they’re really wanting, they’re really feeling drawn to TM, that’s those are very intense draws, and like intense movements to take in the slowing down. They’re tuning in and all these things that didn’t necessarily happen for me that way. But that is also a flavor of the same thing. It is what it is saying impulse? Yeah. And it’s, and it can just look in a whole bunch of different ways. Yeah. You know, my, and that is a rising insight. Right. And it’s like this, it’s, it’s a rising again and again and again. Right to, to, you know, I think what it is, is that is the falling off the cliff, right without, without grabbing onto a branch, or the coldest sack that you can get in right, as audio likes to say, I like that image of the cul de sac, I like to say the hamster in the Habitrail kind of thing. But, you know, anywhere I could have said no. Right. And it could have would have not, it would have changed like, right, I could have you know, and so it was the the opening and the the bowing like anything that we do, we have to let go of it, no matter what structure it is what religion it is, ultimately, or it’s like, not that the greatest gift can’t be found in those, but we have to like there’s this, this moving out of the functioning of the the ego and the observer are observing it. So whatever the appearance system is, or like how over the looks, that that is that is kind of dissolving, right? And then that the deeper the deeper, the deepest gift becomes available to us. Right. This this direct lifeforce of our being. Right that ends separation. And, and I think, you know, that is, you know, what I usually say to folks, or, or, and this is how I would show for up for me is like, what is your deepest prayer? Right? Not your egos prayer, what is your deepest prayer? And that, that really that lining up with this alive energy? Right, that is really full of gravity and yearning, like of the truest energy, right?
Rick Archer: Yeah, the force of evolution is a powerful thing. I think it’s a motivating force for the whole universe. And in people, it’s sometimes shows up as a little faint, flicker and other times as like this roaring force that can’t be denied. And in your case, I think if you had you said, You could have said no, at any time, I don’t know how long you would have been able to stick to that. No, yeah,
Alaya Dickinson: I don’t think I’m very long. But but you know, it’s very mysterious, right. And if we’re looking, it’s like, there’s no way for us to actually know how all this is, is going down. Like everything gets really fishy when we start making things higher, or lower or better than or, you know, if I feel into it, you know, everything starts to get very infinite and spacious. And, and then it feels like a lot of, you know, anywhere we want to try to say but, or, like having this like energy where we’re managing or choosing, you know, it just like, it’s gonna start putting us in a separate place. Do you know what I’m saying?
Rick Archer: Yeah, there’s some Rumi poem where he talks about how, you know, you’re playing chess or cards or something with God. And, you know, you think you’ve got all these great moves, and I forget how the poem goes exactly. But you know, you’re basically toast you know, God’s always gonna play chess better than you can.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah. Oh, I love that. I
Rick Archer: know that poem. I’m talking about it.
Alaya Dickinson: No, but it’s beautiful. I’d like to I’d like for you to send me that poem. I’ll
Rick Archer: try to find it. Yeah, so. Okay, so how did you find odd? Yeah, how did he find you? Or something like that? Or is there more to talk about the Neelum saga?
Alaya Dickinson: Um, no. I think I think that just feels good. So I’m with ADIA, I’d say, you know, as this the householder life happening, dear friends, and in this life, they would just come up spaced out just a little bit. Their friends. My friend, Roger, yeah, they brought audio in for like a weekend retreat, right? Like a short retreat. That first time then I didn’t even know who he was. And I didn’t even go see him. But then my friends brought him a second time between that first and second time. I was introduced to some video, video group Satsang that was happening, the people we’re going to because you know, they have those across the cities where people gather and watch his videos, and then that his transmission was like I really could. I really became very Turiya bottom and my my friends I I said, you know, man, I would love to meet him I want to go next time He comes. But these are the same friends that brought Neelam and they just arranged for him to stay with me. My
Rick Archer: that’s great. Mohammed comes to the mountain. Yeah.
Alaya Dickinson: Mr. McCamey stated my home I live in right now. And it was beautiful because a lot of people came over and cleaned my house. That’s great. Like really scrubbed everything and stuff like that. And so I like to talk about this, I went to the airport to pick them up. And me and my friends. And my friend also said, Well, you pick up, you just take them home, you know, instead of all of us. So I just went it was him and very great person. Yeah, yeah. Oh, you know, her,
Rick Archer: she came, they came here to, oh,
Alaya Dickinson: I love her so much. So, anyway, I thought I saw him walked out, it was the back of his head. He was at the, you know, picking out his luggage carousel on that thing. And I just saw the back with that. And energy just hit me. Like, it was basically I was, I felt like it wasn’t gonna fall over. And it seemed like I fell over, but I didn’t, you know, and then the next feeling that I had was like, Oh, I’m done for like I’m done for. And so, you know, that proceeded to kind of untie over the next pure, I don’t know, a period of time, but But leaving from the airport and just, you know, driving home, I mean, just the energy was, it was all I could do to just, you know, drive the car, you know, and, and then I could just feel everything just dissolve, all taken care of this, untying, you know, whatever it was that was that was remaining here. And then him staying with us. We we ended up having some great conversations really sick a lot, mostly all silliness. Or silly together. But at the end of the day of the trip, we went out to dinner after one of the meetings, he and I ended up getting out of the car and going to the restaurant and we were on our own. I think Terry’s with us, too. And I told him, I was like, you know, folks keep asking me to teach Spanish been going on, like, almost for 10 years. And it was happening more like folks were really, like, wanting to come to my house. And people had been coming to my house for quite a while. And most of these were these really close friends, right? That were bringing ADIA and, um, and he said, you know, if people are asking you to talk talk, I said, Well, you know, I feel like there’s still a veil. It feels, it feels like I can see through it, but I can still feel it on my face. I said, I feel like there’s just something. So here. They said, just people ask you to talk talk. And so that just opening and me just saying yes to that, you know, my intention of saying no, was really I didn’t want to I didn’t want to do anything that could hurt anyone. Right. And a lot of it, it was just, you know, it just said that, you know that integrity was really important. Right? And then it also later down the road in our conversations that, that he had a similar style as me, you know, it’s like, if his teachings went away tomorrow, that would be fine. Right? And so for me, it’s never might be my greatest desire to be a teacher. And for me, being a teacher only appears as it appears. And then it’s not appearing. And for most of this, I’m been a householder and a mother and a volleyball mom and a ballet, whatever, and I’m just those things. So I’m just, it appears as teacher just when it appears. And so but he he said that that’s a very, it’s, um, that that can be a very good recipe, right? Because there’s not an you know, that extra having to I don’t know,
Rick Archer: that’s a good point. It’s, I respect you for that the fact that you took, I mean, it’s actually formally part of some traditions that even after profound awakening, you’re supposed to wait 10 years before you teach, and perhaps more people should do that. And, I mean, I’ve heard stories of people being in an audio retreat or something at some such place and saying, you know, to their friend, I can’t wait to wake up so I can quit my day job and become a teacher.
Alaya Dickinson: Oh, you know, there’s the need to say there’s something going on right? Yeah, like a nation. Right. Right. Is is the invisibility there, right is the note is the fool nobody there, right? So, you know, if it doesn’t then it’s gonna like come out in the teachings, right. It’s gonna like it’s gonna karmically show up there because there hasn’t been the whole neti, neti, right? And so
Rick Archer: just in case people don’t know this, this phrase neti neti is means not that not that it’s a it’s a traditional teaching phrase. And Vedanta anyway, just in case, nobody knows what that phrase, somebody doesn’t know.
Alaya Dickinson: I’m not even you know that transmission is alive in me, but I don’t necessarily really even know a lot of the words I’ve never really even studied it, you know, it has, you know, I have whatever how this functions and then you know that transmission of Nealon that transmission of audio definitely a feel that, but I also feel like when I’m drawn to, just like with I see ADIA this passion of like being drawn to a teaching and reading about someone, you know, or I love her feeds, especially the Sufi poet, and, you know, it becomes the teacher, the poet, there’s a collapse, right? And then all of a sudden, it feels like, I wrote the poetry and it’s not the small knee, right? It’s this is this, that’s the time collapses and the transmission is, is this alive gift, right? That’s our, that’s our very nature. Right? And so when we get really uncomplicated with it and out of how our mind wants to, like move into separation, that really this alive direct transmission, that is really permeate, always ready to permeate, you know, through the illusion of separation, that, that it’s that it’s, it’s, it’s working in everything, right? And that, you know, a tree, a tree, you can feel a tree and a tree is inside and then outside, that’s so easy, right? You know, or a baby in his eyes, right? Or a dog and that smile, right? It’s like, that just ends, the separation is so automatic, right? It’s just when there’s trouble, right? When you get the mirror and then something happens here. And then that’s something that happened to them. That’s the gift. That’s, that’s grace. That’s like where we get right into that. This is the separation and the way we function and the turning and saying no, that’s perpetuating that. Right, not letting not allowing the healing to happen, the returning in case
Rick Archer: anybody wonders about this transmission thing, there really is something to it in a simple metaphor would be like candles where you like somebody else’s candle, and then they can light somebody else’s candle and, and the flame doesn’t necessarily diminish as it goes from candle to candle, in fact, could get even brighter if it’s a bigger candle. So there’s definitely a phenomenon that’s been going on in many traditions for a long, long time. And there’s no reason why it can’t be going on now, you know, with mothers in North Carolina. Yeah.
Alaya Dickinson: And transmission, like two people laughing really hard. It’s transmission. Yeah. Yeah,
Rick Archer: it’s It’s infectious.
Alaya Dickinson: It’s alive, right? Yeah. It’s full, it’s complete. I remember saying, you can’t hold on to your name. You can’t hold on to your, your job or your position or right. And you’re laughing really hard. It all goes away.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Nice. So when you’re actually teaching, and I mean, you teach fairly often, I often get these emails from the Asheville Sangha. What happens, actually, I mean, what do you do in there in the room? And what kind of experiences to people have? And do you feel that, that the people who are coming to your site songs that, you know, pretty good percentage of them actually undergo significant shifts? And do they have kind of those shifts abide in some way? Or did they just kind of get high off the meeting and go home, and nothing much has changed? And you know, what kind of feedback you’re getting from people and so on?
Alaya Dickinson: Well, I, initially I’ll just respond to what similar to what I said and Congress as part of our conversation earlier. So I think there’s probably a little bit of all of that, right. Because as people are searching, they’re sort of, you know, in all but all over the map. Right? They’re like, some of them are right, some of them are just becoming like interested in and being drawn to, to something that’s mirroring that clearly. Right. So, you know, I have this feeling of like, it’s all welcome. Right? So I have like retreats. And very often there’s quite a lot of people who’ve never been to, to retreat or know anything about inquiry, right. And along with people who have who have had been a am Songa quite a long time? And I think the beauty I see is it all, there’s, it’s all over the place like people that have been never had experience that they’re having these, these deep awakenings right. And then you know, there’s also this, like, you know that this sort of like gradual awakening, I love the thought Gandhiji wants and I heard her and maybe you’ve heard her with his stories, she said, some people are like sticks. Now, some people are like paper, they catch fire really quick. Some people are like sticks, they catch fire pretty quick. And then some people are like rocks, and you put them on the fire, and they’ll burn up too. And so what I have found in teaching, and then and in retreats, and one on ones with people, small groups, and then over either either in that one particular meeting or over time, you know, depending on the person is that we are all those things. Sometimes I have been a rock. Sometimes I’ve been paper, right? And so sometimes you’ve been scissors, sometimes I’ve been Scissors, Rock, paper, scissors, and in my more often I’m done in my
Rick Archer: this reminds Yeah,
Alaya Dickinson: chop the head off stuff, right?
Rick Archer: Yeah, well, for one thing, it reminds you of Christ’s Parable of the Sower, you know, where the man you were Christian, you you remember this where he throws the man throws a bunch of seeds out. And some of that falls on rocky soil. nothing much happens with it, some of it falls on fertile soil, and it sprouts up really quick. But the fertile soil is shallow, so it doesn’t flourish and other others fall on fertile soil that’s deep. And so it continues to grow. And so there’s there’s all kinds of degrees of receptivity, in any audience.
Alaya Dickinson: Oh, I love that word, different degrees of receptivity, that’s really beautiful. That has the transmission of that is really beautiful, different degree if you were to fill the energy prior because your brain is deciding to use those words describing an energy prior. And that energy that I feel it’s much it’s broader than what our words can describe. But it that’s where your awakening is my awakening, right, like your way of saying, and I could never say it quite like that. So I just got like this, this awakening from that transmission,
Rick Archer: there’s words, you’re saying things? Well, I have a couple of Nisargadatta quotes that have been on my mind lately. And I want to read them to you and see what you think about them. And the first one relates to what we were just saying I think, which is is this he said, You seem to want instant insight for getting that instant is always preceded by a long preparation, the fruit falls suddenly, but the ripening takes time.
Alaya Dickinson: Well, so this is this is how I interpret that this may just be one flavor of it is like when you have an awakening, right there, there tends to be an immediately a grasping afterwards. Right? And so then if there’s not a grasping, right, and you know, what I found an inquiry with that is like, Oh, I, I use this imagery of like a room that’s dark. And you don’t know what you’re looking at inside the room. But the awakening is the light that goes on, and that you see what’s inside the room. And saying that Biden nondividing state that light goes off again. But you all you now you know, even though it’s dark, you know what’s inside the room? To see what I’m saying? Yeah, you can’t forget it. It’s and not only can you can’t forget it, it’s it’s not even a can’t forget it is alive inside you. Yeah, this sounds like whatever that is, it will show up as it when it’s when when it’s required, it will show up. And then not only that, I feel like a lot of times what happens after that. And this kind of describes sort of a deepening or fuller embodiment of what you awaken to, is that you may find a situation or something that is making whatever you’ve woken up to turn into words and action. Right. And so then it’s it’s kind of fully experienced in the mind, or or used through voice or through movement in the body. There’s ends up being this kind of deeper grokking or this deeper embodiment of the and that, you know, apparent time. Right, and that that may happen immediately. It may happen incrementally, you know, it’s very mysterious, but that we’re always guide, read, protected, supported and loved right. And that at all is just everything is just untying and in a way because our nature has no interest. If there isn’t resistance to it. There’s no end interest in maintaining it right takes a whole lot of energy to maintain separation. Yeah,
Rick Archer: one idea that came to mind as you were saying that I think this is maybe what you actually intended to say, which is that something can happen like your meeting with Neelam or something, that experience you had when you were three or four, you know, the waking up from a nap or various things that people have. And even though we move on and get involved in other things, it’s like, kind of a ticking time bomb or something, there’s something has been planted, which is fruit defying, which is, you know, working away within us, and eventually will kind of come out on the surface or blossom into some, some effect or some realization. So, like, if a person thinks, for instance, that Oh, I remember had this great spiritual experience five years ago, and I kind of missed that. That’s still in, in you. I mean, it’s still there. And it’s doing it’s doing its thing, you know, it’s, and it’s cooking along.
Alaya Dickinson: I love it, the word cooking along, I guess, kind of words a lot. The word Semmering. But cooking along is, is is feels really good, too, but has a I like the word along in there. Because simmering just as they’ve been cooking along kind of has this feeling of it’s pointing to regular life. And this kind of gradual, apparent process. Do you know what I mean? And a softness and availability to that? You see what I’m saying? Yeah, so you, you really describe that? Well, like, because cooking like has like just this nice, soft, open, normal energy.
Rick Archer: Now I’m trying to think of positive examples of this to use as a metaphor, because there’s all kinds of negative examples like dry rot, or termite or cancer or something that that sort of has this insidious, you know, effect that that you don’t see, but that’s growing within you, but I’m trying to think of a positive example of something because that that really happens. I think with, with spirituality, there’s, there’s something percolating,
Alaya Dickinson: yes, I like percolating, but I also like to invite in all of those images that you just said, you know, if you felt into them, and then felt into the negative aspects, you know, of the negative energy, which would be some form of, of turning or closing or saying no, then what you might be left with, is more of the cycle of life. Right? And then the beauty turning into the beauty of it, because, you know, really, it is, you know, all of this opening is a death to a lot of things, right? And that we use in separation. And it turns in what becomes scary inside of it becomes beautiful, right? So it’s like the rose isn’t just beautiful. When it’s Ubud and blooming, right, it becomes more all the sudden able to see the beauty when it starts, you know, changing colors and, and having this other way that it looks, and we become awake to it and available to it and not having it be, you know, a less than a less than thing that’s happening in the moment because it’s, that’s what’s happening all around us, right? That’s life is in this constant, energetic movement of change. Right. And it is, it’s, it’s, um, so just kind of going back to what you were saying with those words that I think an inquiry they can, they can naturally transform to a welcome and home. Okay, good.
Rick Archer: Here’s another quote. You know, a lot of times people have this static notion of Enlightenment or awakening, they sort of see it as this, you know, shining city on the hill that they’re going to reach and then just live in the city. But my feeling about it, or understanding of it, is that there’s no end to growth. And there’s a nice quote, another nice quote from Nisargadatta that he said, towards the end of his life, he said, you know, his book was called I Am that he said, Forget I am that I realized so much more since then. It’s so much deeper.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah. So I think like, what, what you’re that you’re talking about as a perspective, right? And it’s a belief system. It’s not right. And so when we have direct experience with true nature, that our wisdom really dissolves that perspective, and and dissolves that way of, you know, we can only really hold that experience when we’re, we’re holding our nature away and looking at it
Rick Archer: right women Mr. Nisargadatta had direct experience of true nature. Are you saying that he’s in his that that perspective that I just read was somehow erroneous?
Alaya Dickinson: No, no, no, I think I’m speaking to it. Well, you, you say it one more time. In other words, he’s basically saying
Rick Archer: he’s grown a lot since that I am that was written but he said, Forget I am that I realized so much more since then. It’s so much deeper. No, he’s basically saying I’m continuing to grow.
Alaya Dickinson: Yes, I think that’s that’s what it is exactly what I’m saying is like, if you’re whatever you were saying earlier, like, I’m, I’m trying to, you’re talking about the the, the perspective of acquiring bliss and keeping bliss. Is that what you were talking about? Or that it’s maybe
Rick Archer: forget a lot earlier? Or just?
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah, no, it was just the what was the prior things you were saying before? What his response was,
Rick Archer: you were raised the previous quote, I read. Yeah. Well, the first previous quote was about fruit falls suddenly, but it takes a while to ripen. No, no, no, it’s
Alaya Dickinson: after that you said about bliss. What did you say about bliss?
Rick Archer: I don’t know. Maybe I was talking about how things can be growing within you that you’re not even aware and that they fruit defy after a while, after quietly growing, when you might not think you’re making any progress. I mean, a good example of that is you go through a tunnel, right? And you don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere because it’s dark, and you can’t see the progress. And then you come on the other end, oh, whole new VISTA here. I’ve that now that I’ve gone through this tunnel.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah. So I guess what I would just say to that last thing that we’re talking about it is the my own direct experience is that it’s ever there doesn’t seem to be any ending. And that doesn’t seem to be any bottom. Right? There’s no, there’s no place that we land. And that I’m constantly being humbled, you know, by or it’s really not even humbleness anymore, toss the humbleness out. But there was a lot of humbleness of like, feeling like, oh, you know, I had this where I could kind of have this phantom limb feeling you know, of like how I experienced it or saw it, and then all of a sudden, I’m having this whole new type of experiencing something or energetic experiencing, and then the words may be deepening will be applicable to that. But as I’ve felt into it over and over again, that, and I say that I do not see there’s any ending to that. I cannot wake up to everything. Right. I cannot wake up to all of life, you know, I have this particular life, you know, I will see things on TV, it’ll rise up here and waking up to it. But you know, I’m not going to have every experience in life. So your awakening is my awakening. Right? And that’s this deepening here. And then also, you know, like, my father passing away, you know, this was way after meeting ADIA, but there was there was things that arose there, that couldn’t happen prior. And I find that that still is happening. The main thing is, is not that waking up is being separate from life. It’s really, it’s just that there’s nobody there to, to say no, you know what I mean? So there’s, there’s still things, you know, unraveling here, and who knows? Who knows how that goes? And that’s perfectly that’s, that’s life. Right? And so, you know, we’re just, there’s just this, there’s an opening to what is, you know, and then the heart without the hardest, like, Oh, would you say, my heart can open in this woman? Check it out? See, see if that’s really true. Yeah, right. And then that is the deepening right? Of like,
Rick Archer: that’s good. I guess the reason I bring it up is that, you know, I think it’s important to have a fairly clear understanding of the nature of the path and for various reasons. I mean, it can be a danger to oneself to feel that one has reached some kind of endpoint and is impeccable and capable of making mistakes. I’ve actually heard people say that and then they make huge mistakes.
Alaya Dickinson: We have to bring the sword out for that, right. Yeah. So
Rick Archer: that’s a danger. And it’s also kind of a pitfall for students. Sometimes if they emulate a teacher to the point where they consider them infallible. And then all kinds of,
Alaya Dickinson: well, I’ve talked to audio about that. I was asking him and he’s like, and you can’t really stop people from doing that. Right? This like, you can’t stop, you know, if you were to ask him and also I feel the same way. It’s like the word teacher doesn’t really resonate for me. You know, it’s maybe close. serve a friend. And I feel like but I could I could show up that way if it’s if it’s helpful, right? But then, you know, my deepest desire is for you to find, to teach her alive and well and complete within you. Right? So I generally, like we’ve done a lot of talking today, and I haven’t really like, you know, I, I usually start engaging the other person and talking a lot less. And then I sit back and listen to teacher talk, right? So that’s my preference for for, for us to engage in a way where you can have your own, you know, dot, you know, whatever it is this going on that then that can be supporting, right, or it can be, you know, to this tenderness this here to where there’s, there’s, there’s this, like, you know, what’s arising to open to, and then we and then you get to stead of just hearing about it, you can you can have your own direct experience. And we can ask the questions, I feel like that is because the, like the greatest service that I can give,
Rick Archer: right? Sure. Well, if I can do one of your songs, but this is an interview of you. And I talked too much. I’m I’m constantly being told I talk too much.
Alaya Dickinson: My thoughts onto like, Oh, yes. Right.
Rick Archer: That’s, that’s what they’re like. Okay.
Alaya Dickinson: So I want to like, kind of try to give a flavor of that. Yeah.
Rick Archer: That’s good. So, so you mean, you have just given us a flavor of that by describing it? Right. Is that what you’re saying? Well, I mean,
Alaya Dickinson: how could you do it by describing it? It’s very weird. Yeah. You know what I mean? It’s not quite, it’s sort of, it’s still a bit intellectual, right? And not in direct experience. So it’s like I I’m, you know, I’m not. So there we are that.
Rick Archer: Well, people have seen satsangs like that they’ve seen Gangaji videotapes of Gangaji doing her thing, or Byron, Katie, you know, one of these people where there’s two of them sitting up on stage, and the other person is doing most of the talking and then going into your Byron, Katie, or something, you know, interjects and says key things at certain times, right? So your, your speaking of doing something in that style?
Alaya Dickinson: Well, I think what, you know, my deepest prayer is to be available to whatever serves, right. So it’s going back to not one thing, it’s kind of like the paper to the rock kind of thing, but in a different context, that sometimes it seems to, for someone, it seems like what they’re really, their deepest desire is to have a deep drink, you know, to really open up to the ground of their being, and that, that there’s something that’s really at service for them, right, and that way, and then sometimes there’s something that’s really tight, and it’s, you know, it’s a story, or it’s, it’s just energy, or, you know, and there’s just enough just to be tender with it. Right. And so that could be just moving out of circling the energy, right? And, and that kind of like, to like softening and, and disappearing that this and that, and it just being this kind of softness of the energy can move, right. So there’s just this wide range of, of whatever, I’m open to whatever it occurs, and when it appears, it becomes really natural, and like by what someone says, and then their energy inside of what they’re saying. And then you know, this is I’m your very self, you’re my very self you’re suffering is my suffering, your awakening is my awakening. So in that, in that bowing to the Beloved, there’s, there’s only like, however, this body, this voice, this, however I can be of service, then I’m, I’m at your feet, right? Because your awakening as my awakening is the same as my own inquiry to waking up. It’s like opening up here, it’s like is a natural movement to bow to what appears is the other because there’s this direct experience is the same. So it feels very common sense. It feels very ordinary and regular, to to move and be at service to the suffering of the apparent other. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Do you do any online stuff? Or is it all in person? Yes,
Alaya Dickinson: because COVID I didn’t know right online stuff before COVID. I was just, you know, for a decade, just our little song guy here in Asheville. And then, so, we could still continue meeting, we started doing that. I also started doing small groups, which are, have turned into this really amazing new format because people were willing to get together outside and a group of like four or five people so Sangha has still been able to connect with each other. And we found an I found in this, this this new type of environment Um, that there was it’s a little it was less formal and easier for like this tip for, like this connection community. This flowing of energy, you know, not necessarily like the teacher person sitting there and people sitting there looking like surfer. Yeah, or like on the ground like Kevin, you know, just it more formal, but I’m finding it a deep deep service and a lot of deep, you know, work I guess if that I don’t know if that’s the best word for it. But that’s this occurred because of that. So I have brought those into retreats. Also, I, the well being center in Townsville, Tennessee, you know, that is home for me, Don and Patty. Don is the you know, he’s a, he’s a, not the director, but he’s on the audience board. And Patti had Terry’s job. Prior to Terry right hand person for audition. That’s
Rick Archer: right, I remember moved to going to Tennessee to do some retreats.
Alaya Dickinson: Up until COVID, yearly retreats there. So for me 10 years ago, meeting them it was home, and everything that they build, there is every nail, every plant, everything is all bowing to, to truth is bowing to this is this very direct pointing the land and everything. So, you know, as the kids are growing up, I did like one retreat a year, that’s all I could do. And a retreat. Yeah, that’s all I was doing. But when COVID hit, and they had such a great structure set up for COVID, that I started doing many retreats there, maybe three or four. And so I those retreats have brought in people from other places in the world. So the Zoom meetings now are very diverse. We have we’re in California, Florida, Canada, and so there’s been a broader range of people coming in with Zoom. And I have found that, that whatever, I’m not very computer savvy person, but that I found that transmission or, or service or, or Sangha is alive and well, like whatever format, I’ve just really gotten that it’s this this whole time, space, energy, whatever it’s like, it’s all, you know, all can just dissolve and just bow down and be at service. So now we have returned to in person meetings here in town that we do twice a month, you can find that on our website. And then we also are continuing the two zoom meetings a month, those are on the first and third Wednesdays in person is second and fourth Tuesdays for in person. And we have a three night solid tree coming up the wellbeing center in September, that’s believes the eighth begins on the eighth. It’s really, it seems quite delicious. I have started, we started doing de Long’s. So there’s a day long retreat happening in October. And that should be on the calendar. If people sign up on the email list. They’ll get invitations. And as I can, as my schedule allows, I still have a kid at home. You know, I still very much a household your life. But as the kids get older and other things are changing seems to be changing where I’m having more time to put in these events. And so yeah, good, just new and creative ways happening all
Rick Archer: the time. And it’s 2022. Now as we speak August and somebody might be watching this four or five years from now. And so these references to September and all Yeah, irrelevant. But if they come to your website, and if you’re still doing this stuff, they can see what’s going
Alaya Dickinson: on. Yeah, yeah. Good.
Rick Archer: Well, I’m sure there are other things we could have covered. But is there anything? Have there been
Alaya Dickinson: any questions? Oh, I would love questions. See if there’s any questions. I don’t know if there had been, there was one.
Rick Archer: Oh, there’s one that I mean, so it didn’t make any sense. You can notice now what they’re asking. Okay, so no questions. But um, in any case, is there anything more that you feel like you’d like to say before we wrap it up?
Alaya Dickinson: Um, I think I already touched on it earlier, but just that you know, that that awakening, you know, is can is found in regular ordinary life, that’s what I have found. And that every moment is an opportunity like to meet sweats, unmet untouched on loved. Yeah. And that anything that were these ordinary air or all the ordinary moments in life are pointing us home, you know, and then just However that is showing up here this the invitation.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I mean, one way of putting it is that awakening is not or at least should not be extraordinary. It should be normal and ordinary and everyone’s birthright and something that everyone grows into in the normal course of a human lifetime. Yeah, what a different world we would have if that were the norm.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah. And it’s, it’s the strangest thing on the other side of the coin is just really that all there is, right? All there is is, is what’s here and awake and alive and free. And really, it’s more just this psychological trauma of separation that we’re experiencing. Right? This really the, the, what’s appearing, right, and that, that really, we don’t have to go anywhere, right, we have to do anything. Right. This in the doing that we’re actually like, turning from so it’s and, and the tenderness and the and they allow him in the resting and the okayness and the relaxing returning. Right. That that that we we you know what is always here. comes online. So alive. Right. Everything is alive here. President. Yeah, sounds good.
Rick Archer: Yeah. All righty. Well, thanks so much a lot. I had a good
Alaya Dickinson: laugh or a layup, layup. Both of them work. But in my name is very, has been like a bread crumb, all the way through. And both of those,
Rick Archer: I keep reverting to a lie, because I think that’s the way it would be pronounced in Sanskrit, which, but I’m from the south, I know you’re from the south, so Wow.
Alaya Dickinson: Um, so uh, layup but also saying that a layup also, I connect with that to the whole, the whole gamut of where that name lands and different cultures, you know, so it has an invitation for me, you know, and all the different ways that it shows up. Good.
Rick Archer: Okay, well, anyway, thanks to you. And thanks to those who have been listening or watching. And if you want to see who we have scheduled coming up, go to batgap.com and look at the upcoming interviews page. And if you want to find more out more about Laya she’ll have a page on batgap.com where I’ll have links to anything she wants me to put probably just mainly through her website. And from you know, you can go go there and then sign up for an email list and see what she’s got planned and tuned into your zoom sessions and, and everything else.
Alaya Dickinson: Yeah. Yes, my boy loves. I’m at your feet.
Rick Archer: Great. So thanks a lot. I’ll talk to you later.
Alaya Dickinson: Yes. Bye.