Written by Discover the profound power of connection in our world, from the microscopic to the cosmic. This insightful conversation explores why we need both those who challenge the old and those who build the new – the “freedom from” and the “freedom for” – to create a better future. Learn how embracing our unique roles and fostering conscious connections can lead to incredible synchronicities and a more interdependent world.
Vincent McMahon – Author of Custodians
- Book: https://www.amazon.com/Custodians-Solution-Science-Indigenous-Natural-ebook/dp/B078YYZHHT
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/linktovincent-mcmahon/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vincentmcmahon/
- Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/co/podcast/custodians-podcast/id1393064976
- Substack: https://vincentmcmahon.substack.com/p/the-lightness-of-change-a-pathway
Transcripts:
(00:00) Okay, welcome to SoMuno. Today we have Vincent, the author of “Custodians” and a multi-talented man, so I’m going to let him introduce himself. Thanks. Yeah, I’m Vincent McMahon, and I authored a book called “Custodians: The Solution to an Earthen Crisis,” which sounds a bit arrogant to claim the solution, but in my view, it is.
(00:29) And so that was in 2018, so my thinking has kind of evolved up to now. It would be great to have a conversation, especially since your organization is all about “it’s all one,” so I think that’s really, you know, that’s just aligned perfectly. Well, obviously, I’ve known Vincent for many years, even though we’ve never actually met in person. He feels like family, and it’s the same thing – it’s a practical viewpoint of getting on with it and doing things and not doing the same crap that we’ve always done. But I was saying to him just before we started recording,
(01:08) on one of his articles on Substack, it says, “The Likeness of Change, a Pathway to Your Role in a Better World: Why focusing on what you’re for, not against, is the game-changing mindset we need now.” And obviously, that’s why I believe we’re still stuck, because everyone is stuck in fighting.
(01:27) You know, that’s why I believe we’re still stuck, because everyone is focused on fighting. Well, I guess everyone is different, and that’s what makes the world so great – there’s freedom for and freedom from. Freedom from involves many people who fight the system and aim to take it down, and that’s fine; we absolutely need those people. But we also need people focused on freedom for – what do we build? What are we building once we dismantle the old? There’s a gap, and then we need to construct something. So, they are different teams.
(02:01) Now, I think historically, when we take down a regime, the people involved in that process tend to be promoted to leadership in the next iteration, even if that’s not their strength. They are pivotal in those moments of dismantling, but they often aren’t the creative, imaginative, new voices we need for building.
(02:31) And so, we need a team – all of this is a team effort. I guess I wanted to break it down to consciously consider who are the people involved in dismantling systems. To me, it seems the systems are kind of falling or crumbling apart on their own, so there isn’t a huge amount of work involved at this stage because they are naturally disintegrating. For me, the significant work is imagining a new way of being
(03:08) when we don’t have much to go on. Do you know what I mean? Because it’s new, it’s uncharted territory, and we can’t just repeat the same things. That’s just tiring. I’m curious, the people you work with and in your workshops, what’s the main issue they have with imagining that, doing that, or understanding that not everyone has to be against something? Because I don’t know, it seems to be a problem for a lot of people. Yeah, I think what I try and get to is where I was in “Custodians,” the book, which is
(03:53) the whole lot is interconnected. Okay, now we can say it’s one, but to me, that’s not enough for people at the moment. They need to understand what that means. Like, when you say it’s one, but to me, that’s not enough for people at the moment, they need to understand what that means. Like, when you say it’s one, but what does that mean? So, when I was researching “Custodians,” one of the first things I found was that underground, it’s pretty much all interconnected with mycelial networks, fungal networks. And I was researching that in
(04:26) the early 2000s and looking at how it’s not just interconnected there. The fungal networks are moving resources and water around underground. They’re giving water to the trees and nutrients to the trees and the plants, and the trees and the plants are giving the sugars that they get from photosynthesis to the fungi. So, it’s like this inter-inter, it’s incredible to swap. It’s kind of like a marketplace between the mushrooms and the trees, and they kind of swap out. Okay, we’ve got the
(05:01) we’ve got the water, the nutrients, and the trees go great, we’ve got the sugars that we got from the sunlight. So, that was amazing to know underground, it was interconnected. And then in researching, I saw this photograph online of the galaxies interconnected, and I was like, what? Are you saying that? Like, like, like to me, it was all this dark space that planets were like sitting around, and it was all lonely, and if you were up there, there was a huge amount of darkness that was kind of scary, but this kind of said, no, no, it’s all connected.
(05:38) So, I put the photograph in my file and said, okay, I need it in my book. And when it came to publishing the book, you have to get authorization from the person who took the photograph to go into the book. So, at the bottom of the photograph, it was the name S. Cantalupo, and the image of the galaxies interconnected was taken in Hawaii, and S.
(06:17) Cantalupo was based in Santa Cruz University in California. So, I emailed, I found his email address and I emailed him, thinking that with a name like Cantalupo, and locations like California and Hawaii, it could have been Mexican, maybe South American, something like that. So, he emails me back and says, “Hi, Vincent.” Now, I had to explain in my email to him, I had to explain, I’m an Irish guy in Southern Italy, and I’m getting my book published, which is about interconnections.
(06:44) I’m getting it published by publishers in the Cilento, in a village called Oliastro. And so he emails me back and he says, “Hi, Vincent, I’m not quite sure you know all the interconnections.” I’m like, okay, okay. I’m delighted, Jim. I’ll be back. What do you mean about these interconnections? And he says, “I’m from Italy, and I was born…” he’s an astrophysicist, “…I was born in the village that your book is being published in.” And I’m going, hold on a minute, like I’m out there in the galaxies, interconnected galaxies
(07:21) with this astrophysicist, and he’s just zoomed it right back down to like a village that’s an hour away from me where my book was published. He was born there. You see stuff like that when the concept of SoMuno is not that we all have to be one team, but it’s just that, for example, we are all interconnected, we affect each other, we should be able to work together. You know, like the people for, there’s a need for that. Uh, the people, people against, there’s a need for that. There’s a need for all of us, you know? And if we could find that energy and
(08:00) so many synchronicities like that is incredible, but it’s like the universe knows that the universe knows where it’s interdependent. It’s working out all these synchronicities; we just have to like show up. Do you know what I mean? So, he says, um, he said, “I’m now in Zurich,” he’s at the University of Zurich. In his email, he said, “Twice a year, I come back to my family,” it’s a big Italian thing to come back to your family and spend um Easter or spend uh August with them. He said, “Would you like to meet for a pizza?” And I’m like, I’m reading, I’m reading an email, I’m
(08:32) still out in the galaxies, I’m still out with this astrophysicist in the galaxies, and he’s saying… So, we organized to meet for a pizza, yeah, in Agropoli, which is just beside Oliastro, and uh, you know, talked about like how he got the photograph, you know, about the book, the whole lot. So, so, so that was the kind of galaxies part of the interconnection, which, which I guess with the earth, the underground earth and the mycelia and the galaxies, that was like, we need to tell the story of all this interconnection. That was part of
(09:02) “Custodians.” But then recently, since I got the published, what’s happened is um science has moved on, and what they found is in the sea, which was kind of a bit of a gap for me, and they found the bacteria in the sea actually are interconnected by nano bridges, and they share. Again, it’s a sharing interdependence within the interconnection. It’s not just this, you know, we’re just stuck with bridges, but we actually share. So, that’s been phenomenal to kind of push it along and go, okay, the whole lot, now we don’t have any gaps, you know?
(09:38) It’s under the ground, it’s in the seas, in the galaxies. But like, call off the search! The only, the only group that is not participating correctly is humanity, but I think we are. You see, I think, I think we’re there; we’re just not conscious. And that, and that, that’s a huge part of “Custodians” is, is we are um custodians of the connections. Okay, so if you look at here, um, like I’m blessed to live in Southern Italy where we still have the fontanas, we still have access to the water where you go to the fontanas and you get your, you get your drinking water. The vegetables, when I talk to
(10:18) my Italian is better now. I can talk to local farmers, and I’m growing things, and they’re telling me, “no non-vabente,” like you’re not growing them correctly, you’re not going… and so I can have a conversation with them. And when I ask them what they’re growing, like fagioli, like beans, and I’m trying to understand how they grow them, the locals automatically go to the recipe. They just go, okay, these beans, you plant them this way, but actually, you cook them with a bit of garlic and a bit of olive oil, and they’re going, oh yeah, this is really so
(10:51) their connections to the food and nature are, are drinking the wine, eating the food. You know what I mean? It’s a real… so that’s what I’m talking about, connections where we’re, we’re actually custodians of all these connections, and we can make it unconscious so that we go to the supermarket and we don’t connect with the local producers, or, you know what I mean? So, I think if we can make it conscious and hold onto these connections that are, that are vital, and connections, like, like we’ve known each other for years,
(11:30) that’s a connection. Do you know what I mean? So, okay, my question to you, because you, like me, we escaped the big bad metropolis. How can we help people that it’s easy for, it’s easier for us because we’re out of the city, we’ve moved away from either Ireland or England or London, so I think when it would be helpful to find a way to connect the people who are trying to do that within the cities. Well, like you’re never that far away. I’m not saying just nature, I’m saying connections. It’s like life, you’re what, what
(12:07) what the scientists are finding everywhere, galaxies know, is life is all about connection. It’s just connecting the whole lot together. So, if you take, uh, you know, the vegetable garden, when I go, let’s say, um, after work in the evenings or might go first thing in the morning. When I go first thing in the morning, the track that I’ve created the evening before, the day before, the spiders’ webs have already begun to connect the two sides.
(12:37) You know, so I’ve had a little walking track that I go down, and there’s grass that I’ve walked through. Spiders have already made webs. So, that’s what nature does. Nature just wants to connect the whole lot together. Do you know what I mean? It’s all about how do you connect this Irish guy in Southern Italy with an astrophysicist in, you know, it just wants to join.
(12:59) And so if we can consciously do that, the city is perfect for that because you’ve got, that’s where all the humans, there’s so many humans there. So for me, it’s just connections. It’s just consciously making connections. Yes, you can do it to nature. There’s people with bees on top of their buildings, bees on top of the roofs.
(13:19) People with plant boxes out on their window, window ledges or patios. People are doing loads and loads of things to just get those connections going. I think as well, it’s something I mentioned a lot. It’s just the belief that it’s possible. You know, you and I are a little bit crazy, and we think everything’s possible, which is why I think we get so many synchronicities and things like the book and the picture.
(13:45) And it’s not magic; everybody can do that. You just have to allow space for that, allow space for that magic to happen. Why not? Yeah, I mean, I mean, there’s this, there’s a number of sets of connections. The first one, I think, which can be somewhat easier, is horizontal connections where you’re connecting with people, and it’s on the ground. I think what has happened um historically is we’ve lost a vertical axis in in our connections, so the where we connect down to the earth. So, indigenous peoples
(14:20) would have rooted themselves, grounded themselves down into the earth, and they also would have connected themselves up to a cosmos, to a bigger, larger story. Now, so when I talk about connections, yeah, horizontal connections, but also to get that vertical axis, because in a world that’s uncertain, you’re uncertain because you don’t have an actual vertical axis to hold onto.
(14:48) You’re not rooted into the ground. You’re not connected up to the cosmos with the branches like the branches of a tree. So, that you can do in a city. You can visualize yourself rooted down into the earth, roots going down into the earth, and you can visualize yourself branches out into the earth, roots going down into the earth, and you can visualize yourself, you know, branches out into the cosmos. And that, that, that’s part of “Custodians,” where energetically you’re becoming like an oak tree. Um, and also, there are massive health
(15:19) benefits to that. Like, people, like people I work with are always surprised when they hear, like if I said to you, okay, somebody’s going to come into your door with a steak and some chips and, I don’t know what your favorite food is, let’s say that’s your favorite treat, and a lovely sauce and stuff, you start salivating because your cells, your cells don’t know any, your cells don’t go, “He’s only messing, he’s an Irish guy, he’s only, he’s only messing.” He’s not your, your cells don’t know any, your cells don’t go, “He’s only messing, he’s an Irish guy, he’s only
(15:46) he’s only messing.” He’s not your, your cells don’t know any difference. They kind of go, “Maybe there’s some good food coming,” and they start salivating. So, it means the minute you visualize something, people say, “Oh, that’s just woo-woo.” It’s not! You visualize the state, your cells salivate. So, if you can visualize a vertical axis and really properly visualize it, like a steak with sauce and chips (don’t forget the chips!), and you root yourself down into the ground and root, you come out with the branches out into the cosmos, your cells go, “We’re rocking it! Like we’re really,” you know what I mean?
(16:22) We’re connected up to everything here. And um, so I think there are practical things that you can do in the city. That’s your, you know, that’s your question, what can you, what can you do? You can do all that and become part of a wider, a bigger, wider story and don’t feel that kind of limited, a little, you know, micro person. You’re not that; we’re enormous beings, you know? Do you, do you do workshops? Do you go and do workshops anyway? Like, where can people get hold of you? Um, I guess Substack is probably the easiest way uh to get
(16:58) Uh, to get in contact, I’ll give you the link. They can email me. So, I do one-to-one mentoring for people because a lot of people are, they just get lost. They just go, “I’ve lost where I am,” you know? And I just go, “It’s okay, nobody’s lost.” But you can feel like a spiritual orphan sometimes, you know, where you feel the universe has just put you out to wherever, it’s just lost all sight of you. Um, so I do one-to-one mentoring. Also, then, I haven’t done a lot of physical, um,
(17:34) group sessions. Kson and I used to do workshops together, and it was incredible, you know? Um, and uh, but I guess since uh over the last few years, they’ve been more online than actual physical ones. But over the last, I’d say, six months, I’ve been looking to actually travel and do those physical workshops again because that’s when you’re getting a group together, like that’s gold, that’s real gold, you know? Yeah, it’s, it’s, you can do it online, but feeling the energy connecting with people offline, there’s no
(18:06) comparison. Yeah, you can’t. So, I miss, I missed those physical uh those physical workshops for groups, so I’m looking forward to doing them again. But like, this is phenomenal. I think for me, you know, in that freedom for, we have the ingredients of a culture that can be interdependent, that science shows us the whole lot is connected, do you know what I mean? And it’s also not just that, but it’s actually sharing, you know, it’s sharing nutrients, sharing water, sharing everything. That’s just nature, that’s nature’s default. Um, and I think people
(18:39) are done with this kind of divide, you know, isolate, divide, all of that. I think it’s just like we just need to move on. So, but for example, despite Vincent being a good friend of mine, and I don’t read any of his stuff, when I saw that concept, I thought it was great because you don’t have to be an activist, you don’t have to be spiritual, you don’t have to be in a box. You’re just, for example, part of the community that is maybe more creative, maybe finds it easier to visualize because people do struggle with it. Maybe you’re not an
(19:14) engineer type, and freedom for, like what we’re going to walk towards, as you said, is really easy for a lot of people, and I love that concept because it’s not as, there’s no negative connotation to it. You know, all of us who are on the more creative side or whatever can easily relate to that. Yeah, well, I mean, the phrase that always, and I’ve tried to track down who it’s from, and I can’t find out where the phrase is from, but it’s um, you don’t get any points, it was about the flood, you don’t get any points for
(19:51) analyzing the flood, only for building the boat, do you know what I mean? And if you look online, there’s so much analysis of the flood, do you know what I mean? You’re going like, “Guys, no points, no points for that, it’s a total freedom for thing.” You know, we need the creatives, we need that, we need to build a boat, you know, we need to get. Yeah, and that’ll, I love that, I’ve never heard that. But again, maybe that, you know, it’s just a bit of a change of perception because it is very much focusing on the details, on the practical, which is
(20:29) absolutely necessary. We just need a balance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that’s custo, like custodians is, we have to be custodians of ourselves first. How do we take ownership and, you know, be conscious within this moment? Um, like I used, I want early on, I wanted to save the rainforest, like I just wanted to save it. I had no idea I was driving a 2.
(20:54) 5 liter car, obviously I wasn’t saving it when I was driving. Um, I met a guy from the rainforest in Papua New Guinea, and uh, I, you know, I wanted to save the rainforest. He was like, “You don’t, you’ve never seen the rainforest, you don’t know what the rainforest is like, you don’t.” I was like, “No, obviously I haven’t, but I, but I want to save it.” And it’s like total lud, you know, so that custodian thing of like taking ownership of the fact that I was totally in conflict with what I was, what I wanted to do. I had no idea, you know? Um, so obviously I went to the rainforest,
(21:25) spent time, you know, with a tribe in the rainforest and went, “I really have no, I have no idea what I was doing,” you know? Um, so part of custodians is being a custodian of yourself and saying, you know, what is really my authentic part to play in this, which is exactly what you’re saying, you know, my authentic part to play is the freedom for, you know, I’m not that great, I like hurling stones at the old regime, but really, you know, really it’s, it doesn’t, they just bounce off, it doesn’t really do very much. I’m much
(21:59) better at inspiring, motivating uh people with that. Yeah, where are we going, you know, where are we going on that? So, that’s better use of my time. Yeah, I just want to uh re-say again what you just said, the important thing is what um, what did you say? What’s your authentic self, like your authentic, your authentic part in the story, you know what I mean? So, everybody will have that, and I guess we get pulled along by somebody else’s dream or somebody else’s story, and we forget that we have a little bit, maybe when we were a tiny child, that we wanted
(22:36) to do, and then we kind of, we said, “Oh, that’s a bit too big, oh Jesus, I’ll just park that one for a minute, and I’ll just go and do whatever, whatever the culture or our family wanted us to do.” But that little bit that we left behind, that little yeah, has all the energy. That little bit has all the creativity, has like, is a little mini rock star, do you know what I mean? So, we need to kind of grab that little bit forward and go, “What, what were you thinking at that time?” And that was your authentic, that was your authentic little part in the
(23:07) story, um, but probably because of surroundings or your family or whatever environment, you kind of turned it off and went, “Shit, that’s too big, that’s too big for where I, where I am, just park it.” So, a good bit of my mentoring is actually bringing that little bit forward and going, “No, he, he had a really good idea.”
(23:28) You know, can we revisit that idea and uh and make it conscious um and that’s exciting that’s exciting because that’s got that’s got energy um and you know that part it’s not like you have to go be somebody different or be somebody that somebody wants you to be it’s like you already know this guy you know this girl you know this so like let’s just remember it but I I I love that as well because that would cover so many things like our inner child wounds whatever whatever whatever so many people saying “Oh you can’t do that that’s not what you’re
(23:59) supposed to do etc.” That that causes burdens on us that I think we don’t even notice and as you said like the the wonder of that the wonder of when you’re a child without any any limitations nothing yeah yeah and and kids naturally gravitate to what what they like and what they’re good at yeah yeah but over over time I mean that’s what we do we close down our experience because we don’t want to do this because maybe we tried it and it didn’t work and then we tried something that we didn’t so in our lives from 100%
(24:30) potential like when we’re born we have a 100% potential to be anything and then over time it closes down it closes down and so our little window of of life of living tends to be here um and and so to it’s not easy to just you know because it that’s where the the magic is is out is out is out here you know um and that’s why it’s helped changing country because the culture you know the culture is different you’re forced to kind of think the signposts are different the people are talking different you’re kind of forced to to to to think just outside
(25:09) you know there’s no box let’s just let’s just get on get on with it you know and go back to and find the things that you truly connected with before yeah yeah and there and there are threads there’s there’s an amazing kind of practice that you can do of just beginning to open the little packages that were left behind and as you begin to open them things you get them in dreams you get them in you’re walking out in nature you all of a sudden remember other parts it’s like once you start unraveling you go “Oh I remember
(25:43) when I was tiny I used to do this crazy thing.” And everybody else is going “Yeah I’m sure you do i’m sure you did.” But but for you it’s like all those other little bits you’re going “Wow I remember that other thing that I did.” And and sometimes I have to ask my you know my my brother “Didn’t I do something really strange when I was Yeah you did that a lot.
(26:01) ” Yeah you’re trying to you’re trying to unpack that that strangess but that for that for you that was your unique um what you what you you’re bringing to the universe you know and that unique uh uh self yeah and that that is the key i think that is the way forward more of that more of that less conformity and and by that I don’t mean anarchy or let’s bring down the government just more more uniqueness more authenticity and appreciating to make it because when you were a child you weren’t conscious so now that’s the hard bit is how do I make that unique
(26:42) almost strangess quirkiness how do I make that conscious now in my life um because now you’ve got like you know I I would have struggled with like what’s it middle class middle class um moralities or something that oh you can’t do it because whatever or you know there’s all these things that that from a middle class point of view you’re just not allowed to do you know it’s like I I don’t know what it is but it’s it really constrains you down so there’s lots of things you just got to shake off and do what the hell like and what will people
(27:12) say what will people think yes oh all those voices all those voices come into play you know and you’re going like what could you just just allow me to be you know myself and then the more you relax and the more like and what’s what’s strange about it is you know we came here to Italy um this year it’s 10 years it’s 10 years now um but I I could have rocked in as um as anybody i I could have rocked in as um you know whoever I I I wanted to be i could have dark glasses men on a horse you know be whoever you know
(27:47) you just be you just ended up being the person who you are it it’s you have a chance to be somewhat different and and you don’t you play the same same role so it’s been an interesting journey to kind of unravel you know who is that person behind all those masks and who can you just be just yourself and and actually it allows me to take a breath to just go Becket this is it like I’ve tried being everybody else this is really you know what I mean it’s not great uh but when you when you just you’re just being yourself it’s like
(28:22) this is it this is uh and the more you’re relaxed the easier easier it gets to to to be and you get all these synchronicities like um you know the Sebastiano coming and having a pizza do you know what I mean there’s less less effort in trying that things begin to kind of come to you and I and that that’s what I really want people to take away from this that it seems like we should be doing more trying more learning more uh working harder and it’s actually the opposite yeah because I think in trying all that we’re stopping the connections from from
(29:03) coming to us you know it’s like we’re pushing we’re pushing and trying to do this um and when we relax back it’s like they they they have a chance to to to get to us you know they’re like they’re going “Jesus about time about time you gave us a window a window into your life into your life to be able to to give you these things you know i can do I can do it i don’t need all that.
(29:25) ” No no no just just relax well I think that’s a good point to finish it on so uh thank you very much Vincent i’m going to put all the details of where they can get hold of you so any last words of wisdom you want to just great great year alone they’re really great thank you for the invitations been really great to talk to you