Introduction

Welcome to Super states. I am here today with Rin Zatopek. Thank you for being on the show.

Absolutely. I’m stoked to be here hang out talk about one of my favorite things.

We love talking about trance so, let’s start just by telling us you know what it is you do, how that things that you do can help people make transformations in their lives?

Sure, I was like, I always love these like moments where you’re like, condense who you are and what’s your summary statement. Of course, you go on podcast. You’re, you know you’re going to be asked. But it’s funny, because I think a lot of times folks come to my work with that same question, Who am I like? What is my path? How do I help people transform in the world right now, I teach headwriting and trance. I teach online. I teach in person. I have groups that I work with in all kinds of spaces and places. And the one thing that I kind of bring to the table that maybe is less common, or that folks might be less familiar with, is that when I say trance, I’m not just talking about like relaxed, guided journeying. I am talking about all kinds of trance that really serve in ritual.

I work with a lot of folks interested in witchcraft, since that’s my background. So what is the kind of trance that you need if you’re standing up, presenting ritual? What is the kind of trance you need if you’re doing spell crafting or making magic, or working with something with your hands, you can’t necessarily accomplish all of those things while just in a sedated, super relaxed state. What is the trance for presenters? Or if you’re a healer, you know you’re working with somebody on the table. What is the trance that allows you to stand there, be conscious, completely aware of the person you’re working with? Verbal, able to speak. So I teach a lot about kinds of trance that serve all these things that people want to be doing that goes beyond the relax.

We’re not just bypassing the ego to get to the unconscious. We’re working with all kinds of other states, other contexts that people want to experience trance and and have some sense of skill with. And the other piece is that once we start looking at trance and all these other contexts, people usually start to realize, oh, a trance is also something that’s happening in my everyday life. It’s happening when I open the fridge. Wait, why did I come into the kitchen? Wait, why did I just automatically open the fridge? What is the great idea that comes to you when you’re driving and you have nowhere to write it down? What is that trance so it ends up kind of rippling out into just becoming more conscious, more consensual and more skillful with trance, both in the spiritual context and just in life.

I really, I appreciate that, and that’s what’s really interesting about that, is this is the same type of thing that happens with with my clients, too, right? People? What they what they don’t realize is they are already in a trance, and much of what I’m doing is helping them, you know, find a resourceful trance, instead of non resourceful trance.

Where’s the generative trance? Where’s the creative trance? And especially when I use the word consent a lot, where’s the consensual trance? Did I decide to be in this trance? Am I choosing this trance, or am I just not even aware? And then helping folks, you know, get familiar with what are the kind of side effects of being in trance? Because when we’re using trance intentionally, we’re like, Oh, these are the side effects I was looking for when we’re not even aware that we’re in it, we might be having effects and just thinking like, Oh, this is just how I am. I’m just somebody who’s disoriented or confused or can’t remember things. We’re thinking, this is all just our personality. And when we start figuring out how to break down some of those layers, we’re like, oh, that was just kind of the effect of being in that narrowed state of awareness. So helping folks move through that recognition and not go it’s tough. I think about like medical students when they first read a pathology book and they’re like, Oh, God, do I have every disease? Is this me right now that intensity you got to kind of survive the recognition phase without falling into all of it.

Journey to Trance and Witchcraft

Yes, well, I have, I have some questions around what you just brought up, but before I go to those, I’d like to hear your story, like how you got to this point. So share with us your journey through trance.

Absolutely, I think there’s kind of a twin storyline here. Like I said, I’m a witchcraft teacher, so my trance perspective comes from this place of hedge riding, which is a witchcrafty term when we’re talking about trance. So I often like to say, like, well, how. You get started in witchcraft? Then I was like, Well, you know, the good old fashioned way, by being called a witch by my neighbors, like growing up in Texas because I was a weird fucking kid, you know, that’s the old fashioned way being accused of it by religious zealots. That’s how, oh, what does that mean? And that weird kid thing interlinks with how I started learning trance boy as a kid, like daydreaming, you know, staring off into the woods, this sense of I spent a lot of time in the forest and a lot of time wandering around in my horrific joke, apologies to my mother, I started realizing, like some breath control stuff was fun for trance, and that, like holding my breath in the bathtub with the lights out was like a fun weekend activity for me. Like, you could just get all kinds of insights, communion with spirits this way, you know. So her walking in and just being like, Oh, good, she’s face down as still as possible in the tub again. Like, that’s fun as a parent, I’m sure that’s delightful.

So by the time I hit my 20s, I had done some research and reading on witchcraft a little bit, but I’d also done a lot of just experience and just building a sense of it for myself. And trance was something I was very natural at. I was in and out of the state, and I started moving towards, like, pagan community and witchcraft community, and people were like, Oh, wow, you’re you’re so good at connecting with spirits. And it wasn’t until maybe my late 20s, when I first met my teachers in KED tradition, my elders now in witchcraft, the family that I’m an initiate of, they were kind of like, you’re also terrible at getting out of trance they were the first ones that really kind of stopped me were like, that, that thing that everyone’s like, Oh, that’s so cool. Like, you can go so far, you can get so deep. No one was like, how’s that working for you? Like, how’s your ability to hold a job right now? How’s your ability to like be places on time? How’s your ability to like settle your nervous system? And I was like, it’s a nervous system. It’s supposed to be nervous and otherworldly, right? I’m straddling the head. That’s good, right? My teacher was like, You’re the hedge is like, scratch. You’re just like, No, that’s not, I do. You got to step back and forth. And I was like, Oh, I’m not supposed to have a foot in both worlds. It’s like, yeah, do you want to be like half in your life? Is that what you want? And I was like, Hmm, yes, that is what I want, actually, because life is hard and I hadn’t really come to that sense of as a highly sensitive person, as a person prone to existential dread, that was the key. Was like, Oh yeah, I actually do kind of want to be half here. It’s comforting. It’s really hard to be here. There’s things about being here that were difficult, that were hard to hold on to, that was painful, and being half in trance, oh, that was great. Loved the relaxation, the soothing, the sense of oneness that that brought living in a half of a daydream. Oh, that’s very comforting.

And so then finding out that it wasn’t just that, you know, oh, I didn’t realize I was supposed to ground. It was then finding out, well, now that I know, why is this so hard? Oh, because, on some level, I didn’t want to come back, yeah, at that point in my life. So I like to joke that, you know, I ended up teaching trance and head writing because I was a natural at it, and I was terrible at it. I was really good at the first half of it, through practice and focus and experience and reading. And I was, Oh, God, I was one of the worst at coming back. I had a reputation for being terrible at coming back, which, for folks who know me now, my teachings are like, how can that be? You’re the you’re the expert at trance breaking. And it’s like, Why did I become the expert? Because I had to, for my own survival. I had to become the expert. No, I was like, I had plenty of clients. They were struggling, and I could see, oh, does that work for them? Oh, that works for them. Good. Why doesn’t this work for me? So I needed, needed, yeah, to understand it.

I think that’s really interesting, that we tend to be the best at kind of helping the the US from the past, right?

Yes, and that’s a hard lesson that you learned there, that to be in the world is actually important. And so how can you, how can you be in the world? And okay, how can you also be in this trance state, accessing these other places when you want to?

Defining Hedge Riding

Yes, you’ve used the term head writing a couple of times here, and I’m going to guess that there are some people listening to this podcast. I have no idea what that means. Can you please describe to us what you mean by hedge riding and what it is so that people have a better understanding?

Yeah, I love. Crafting, kind of like, that’s like a word play person. So crafting little definitions and bringing that clarity to folks, that’s part of what I do. Love, finding the ways to kind of describe things and transmit so the first piece I’d say is, let’s talk a little bit about trance. I’m even using that word, and there’s a sense that, oh, you know what, I’m talking about, trance, but in a big sense. So I’ll start there with the definition I often use of trance is as a really big umbrella term. So when I say trance, I’m talking about any kind of state, meditative states, flow states, hypnotic states, ecstatic states, any kind of state that deviates from like a normal, grounded, pragmatic awareness.

And a lot of folks use the word normal a little too much, because then people are like, Well, is it normal if I’m spending 18 hours a day in the trance state, and, you know, wait, the other part’s sleep is that, is that also trance? So I kind of leave out normal, and I tend to say pragmatic, and the way I describe that to folks is you’re driving in a car. The most pragmatic, the most practical thing you could do is focus on your survival. That tends to be the objective. So you should be watching the cars around you. You should be aware of the road signs. You should be not focused on the music or the person talking to you, just to relax. It doesn’t have to be hyper vigilant, but just a relaxed awareness of your surroundings. That’s pragmatic as human beings, that’s practical. And of course, I use the example of driving because it’s one of the number one places that as everything gets familiar, not now, not when you’re 16 and you’re first trying to do it. But you know, as it gets familiar, I’m absolutely not paying attention to every little thing, you know. I’m like, oh, there’s a great especially on a road trip, and the road gets long and you’re out on some country road, and there’s no need to keep surveying the surroundings. Is there, and you shift away from the most practical thing you could be doing, which is sustaining that gentle, open awareness of your surroundings.

So thinking about that. In that case, what are the effects? You know, I’m getting a narrower sense of vision. I’m getting a sense of my awareness, maybe being able to go internal. I’m starting to write that book that I’m working on, or I’m just, you know, when you’re focused on the conversation, or like, Oh, now I got to look for the address I need, my practical awareness of my surroundings, turn the music down. So thinking about trance is any kind of shift in awareness, any kind of shift away from just that pragmatic. If I was a deer in the woods, what would I be aware of? Kind of state of being when you talk about hedge riding, the first piece is, what is the hedge? It’s not about straddling shrubbery. That’s given these are some mythical terminology. We talk about the hedge. Most people think about the hedge between like the human consciousness and like the other world or the spiritual realm. So a lot of people, when they say hedge riding, they’re talking about crossing that barrier between my pragmatic awareness and my awareness of spiritual realms, of other worlds, of subtle or hidden beings.

In my work, the hedge is a little bit something more than just the line between me and spiritual awareness. We think of a hedge as any kind of boundary or border or limit on my behavior and my senses and my state of being. And so we think about what is the hedge between me and communicating with spirits? Well, it’s not just like, literally, I’m gonna cut a little tear in the universe. It’s not just that boundary. There’s a boundary between, well, the part of me that doesn’t really think spirits are real, that could be a hedge I have to cross in order to contact spirits. It could be the hedge between me and, well, when I talk to spirits, I think I start to look a little weird. My eyes roll back, and this person’s looking at me, so I feel a little uncomfortable with how I’m going to look. So can I cross that hedge? This is the way I normally kind of talk, ooh, I’m getting into my I’m talking to spirit’s voice. Can I cross that hedge? My regular states of being, versus getting into a altered or shifted state of being, state of behaving.

The riding part of hedge riding is trance, because we think of trance the witch on her broomstick. The broomstick’s name is trance on the horse. We often say trance is a horse. We’re riding the horse. How do we get on the horse? How do we get into trance? How do we ride? How do we modulate the speed, and how do we decide where we’re going? Versus young Ren, who is just like, I don’t care where I’m going. I’m just holding my breath in the bathtub. Let’s see where I end up. Go horse as a adult trying to have this conscious, consensual relationship, how do I decide where the horse is going and which hedges do I need to get over to get there? And this. Also extends into even a sense of, like, what are my typical manners? Like, what do I think is normal behavior? I sometimes will ask folks, you know, can you put your feet on the table? And some people are like, oh, there’s a hedge. Like, that’s uncomfortable. I’d have to, like, I’d have to take drugs to put my feet on the table. That is such a thing. And other people are like, Oh, no, I could put my feet on the table. I’m like, Cool. Could you put your boots on the table? On the table? Like, could you put them on your dinner plate and then eat it? You know, are you sure there’s no line? And so then people are like, oh, I want to shape shift into a bear. And it’s not just, oh, there’s a line between me and bear that I have to get over. It’s like, think about all the interesting lines, you know, Bear. I’ve got to kind of release the normal state of being aware of clothing. Bears. Don’t worry about clothing. I’ve got to get out of my state. I was like, certainly does a bear shit in the woods. Like you have to be across all of these hedges of what you consider normal human behavior, your societal expectations, your sense of this is my personality. I don’t do this. I don’t do that.

So that’s a head writing the ability to notice, certainly for hypnosis, to notice what it is that you’re crossing for hypnosis. You’re thinking, someone’s got to relax. And you’ve got people that are like, Oh yeah, just relax now. We’ll do the hypnosis. And other people who are like, relax, how in the that is not within my realm of normal behavior, how much trance are we going to need to be able to hop over the hedge of I’m not someone who relaxes, for sure,

Well, what comes to me too is the the hedges. We place them there, then like we like your example of hypnosis, we have a somebody comes in with this expectation of what this what they’re going to have to cross over. How am I going to cross over to that relaxed state where the actual truth is a hypnotic trance doesn’t need to be relaxed. It’s just about accessing that trance. So there are, I like this idea of of the hedge as as these kind of boundaries that we that might be there, but we’re also placing them there ourselves. And a hedge writer is someone who’s learning to cross those boundaries, which is, sounds like personal development 101, like, that’s what.

And there’s a level of a lot of folks, you know, they show up, especially in my world, because, you know, I got some witchy branding. I got a big black website. Everyone’s like, whoo, spooky. Either they’re into it, or they’re not a little filter there, but the folks that are into it, sometimes the number one thing that, oh, I really want to learn how to get out. I want to get over the head so I can talk to the ancestors, so I can, you know, talk to my own soul, so I can figure out, like I said at the start, who am I? What’s my story? Why am I here? Answer these big questions. But in that process, as we’re learning about trance, and we start realizing, oh, it’s actually hard to ground. Oh, actually, I have some hedges between me and being in a relaxed, aware of my environment, you know, pragmatic kind of state of being. I have resistance to that. We kind of end up looking at like a donut instead of the like, here’s me inside my normal behaviors were really like, Oh, and here’s that deep sense of being at home in my body, of being with aware of, you know, the feeling of the wind on my skin as I’m moving through the woods like all of that actually is on the side of a hedge that’s keeping me from reaching that place where I feel centered, where I feel like I am myself, and that through these practices of riding out and riding back people every it’s like every time they ride back, they end up riding a little bit closer to home. They end up almost unintentionally crossing hedges that bring them closer to that feeling of being able to be centered, feeling like they can be in their body, if you’re in a practice where writing out and writing back have this relationship where we don’t make one more important the other, like, Oh, we’re trying to get out. We’re trying to get out. And then, you know, ground and have a snack by if we put just as much emphasis on writing back, then you get this intentional, maybe unspoken consequence of folks over time, yeah, getting a little bit further back each time.

Quest for Self-Discovery

So you say that a lot of people are kind of coming with these questions like these. Who am I kind of seeking? Kind of questions? I think what I just heard from you is that they’re getting these answers just by the process of of of going out there, is that, am I right in that? Like that? What I’m hearing is just this process of learning how to cross the hedge, riding the hedge back and forth is, is one of the biggest benefits that. Your clients have,

I would say yes, and that to that also part of being skillful, like we said, in determining, you know, where do I want the horse to go? That doesn’t just have to be, you know, like I want to go to visit my ancestors, or I want to go to the realm of creativity, because I’m working on a project, this can also be a quest. So having a sense of, what is this, if I’m doing a ritual, what is this ritual for? And a lot of times I say to folks, you know, like, maybe it starts with a question, what is the question that you’re asking? What is your motivation? What is that state of desire? Can you turn that state of desire into a state of being, and then add the trance ingredient, and now you were kind of headed in the direction of your question.

So if someone’s deep question is like, what is my purpose, then I’d be like, that sounds like a great ritual. Let’s do it. Let’s set that up. What is the state of being for us to get into as the starting point for asking this question of, What is my purpose, and what happens when we sprinkle little trance on that, and what encounter are we trying to have? Do I want to talk to my kind of deeper self about it? Or am I the wholeness of myself somehow? Do I want to talk to my inner child? Do I want to ask the ancestors, what is this conversation that I’m wanting to have? Some I want to ask the universe, okay, how do we get into what’s the hedge between you and the universe? Seems a little bit like more hedges, maybe, than just you and the ancestors, they were human, at least, you know, they spoke human language. Universe is a little big,

Defining Witchcraft

yeah, yeah, that’s so that basically answers, kind of how you do that. Then I like that when you’re one of the other things that comes to me is, and you kind of mentioned this, that you you’ve got the spooky black website and and you talk like you have a background of coming into this from witchcraft, which is almost intentionally, has this charge to it, right? That’s it just is, because it’s witchcraft.

Absolutely, for somebody who doesn’t really know anything about what witchcraft really is, would you explain a little bit about that? Because I think there’s a lot of misunderstandings, really, when you bring it at it, come to it, at its core, you know,

I think for a lot of folks, sometimes it starts with just acknowledging, like, you know, if you’re confused about that word, and like, there’s no shame in asking me, you know, like, Well, what do you mean by that? Because folks aren’t wrong. Historically, that witchcraft specifically meant someone who harms others with magic. That’s what that meant. And so we’re talking about a change in that definition that’s happened primarily since the 1950s when the anti witchcraft laws in the UK were repealed and people started being able to more publicly kind of form groups with the rise of Wicca and then some of the other groups.

Now I’m not Wiccan. I’m in a traditional craft group that is practicing from a different stream and kind of a different way of working. But there is this sense of, like, If all you’ve ever heard is that, which just means somebody who hurts other people with magic, it’s like, well, yeah, that’s that’s what that meant. Because in most cultures, there was another word that would have been used for someone who did the healing. This is a cunning folk. This is the pellar. This is the healer that they had other words for the people who were using good, good healing and doing the herb stuff and doing the midwifery, but with a little folk magic sprinkled. And they had other words for that, and the words witchcraft and all the different languages really talking about somebody doing harms, then you’d think, why would people start using that now, in this sense of, we talk about KED tradition symptoms being heretical witchcraft, and that word heresy is really at the root of why we’re using the word witch instead of saying, you know, good people just on a path of spiritual evolution through ecstatic trance states. You know, we use the word which because it has that bite of heresy, because it has that bite of like, that’s what you called us when you started to outlaw trance itself, when you started to outlaw having a spiritual relationship with the plants, with the land, when you painted it all with one brush, as the trials happened in the 15th, 16th century, you started To say, like everybody who was doing this work, everybody who was just a suspicious looking, you know, older person, everybody who we wanted to say was a witch, was a witch. And as that dogma rose, and certainly is present. And I live in the United States, live in North Carolina, that dogmatic sense of what is the, you know, right religion and the right way to interact with God, preferably through somebody else, like a priest, who is the one who can tell you what God was trying to say, who interprets the book for you, for someone to say, I feel like the book is inside of me. I want to learn the trance techniques that are going to allow me to open that up and read from it. My sense of. Ethic does not come from somebody telling me what is right and wrong based on the book, based on their interpretation of God. It’s me going directly to God and wrestling with questions in context in my life, and because all of that was called heresy, you know, the middleman doesn’t like being cut out the priest, the church middleman, doesn’t like being cut out.

And so for as long as there remains this question of, you know, what does it mean to be a witch? You know, is that bad? Then it’s useful to say that, because it allows me to see who asks and who prefers the dogma of that’s funny, because you look you look nice, and you seem interesting, but you said that word. I’m walking away, and who’s going to be like? I’m noticing that what you’re saying and what I know about that, and how you this, your your energy, your state of being. I’m confused. Can I ask you a question? So it’s sort of an invitation to the people who ask and to the people who don’t ask. It’s like, it’s fine. This probably isn’t for you. You probably won’t like it here, because if you just bring that dogmatic tell me what to do. I’m just looking for a priest, but not from the church I grew up in. Tell me what to do. If that’s what you’re looking for, then the way we work, the mysteries in witchcraft, they could not only maybe, like, not be the right fit for you, like they could be damaging some of this stuff where you’re really, I’m sure you see this like in other conversations with people in trance, like you can do things where it’s sort of like the amount of uncertainty, the loss of control, the kind of melting of, oh no, where’d that hedge go? I was using that one to survive. I wasn’t ready to let go of that. People, you know, with psychedelics, this can happen where it’s sort of like it took me too far, too fast, and witchcraft is rocket fuel too. So someone who’s looking for something dogmatic, something really comforting that provides them a lot of certainty from the outside, they’re not going to like it here anyway. So it serves well to start with something that begs a question,

Mitigating Risks in Hedge Riding

Yeah, that makes it makes a lot of sense, and I can see how, you know, leading with that is really going to bring you in the best people that are going to actually want to work with you just exactly the way you described it.

And if that ever changes, and you know, you can now get a witchcraft kit on Amazon. And if that gets so watered down that anyone who walks up to me as I’m out, you know, in backwoods North Carolina, if everyone’s like, Oh, you’re a witch, I know what that means. You like scented candles and this and there’s no fear anymore, then I’m like, I better. I need a new word. We’re done.

If someone was interested, how could they? But they were a little worried about those risks that you mentioned. What are some ways that they could mitigate those?

The risks, as far as, like, getting in too deep, too fast,

Though, like you just talked about,

I think that I’m a proponent of psychedelics. But one thing I’ll say is that once you take something, you know, that horse is fueled to do what it’s going to do. And then a lot of folks go to psychedelics first, because they’re thinking, Well, I’m having a hard time getting over the hedge. I tried meditation, you know, I stared at a candle and nothing happened. So I’m going to ingest something and let it carry me out on the ride. Now, one of the things that gets tricky in here, one of the kind of, like ego traps, one of the holdovers from being in a culture that’s really rooted in faith as the ultimate virtue. And this comes from Christianity, the sense of, like, the most virtuous thing you could do is faith, even blind faith. Well, we start feeling like the most valid experience I could have, in trance, even if I’m not looking at Christian, if I’m looking in some other direction, is going to be the one that’s most going to solidify my faith. That’s going to give me a sense of like, wow, it’s real. I want to have an experience that makes me go, wow, it is real. And now I can have that faith, and now I’ll know that I’m in it and my experience was real and was meaningful. So there’s this desire to have the most vivid, most intense experience possible, so that we can know it was real and not have to sit in the uncertainty of, well, I kind of got something, but was it good enough? You know, was it because it wasn’t very intense, it wasn’t very Technicolor, it just, they just told me that, you know, maybe I had a deep purpose of, like, healing people, but like, it wasn’t, it wasn’t bright, it didn’t melt my face, like I didn’t cry hysterically. So maybe it didn’t mean any. Thing, this sense that if it’s more vivid, it’s more valid, gets people in a lot of trouble, because they start looking immediately to have the most intense experience which can help they hope it’s going to help them not feel uncertainty about what they experienced.

I would suggest to folks that if you can practice some hypnosis, if you can practice some trance, some head writing, whatever you want to call it even meditation, and learn to sit with the uncertainty and learn to like, lower the bar. Lower the bar. Don’t focus so much on was it vivid. Don’t focus so much on how intense it was. And instead just sit in I don’t get to know, you know, was that a real spirit talking to me? What does real mean? Was it meaningful when I plugged it into my life? Did it have a positive effect? Of course, you know, if you’re younger me and you’re like my life, I don’t want to think about that, starting to notice whether something was valid based on how did it impact you? Did it feel wise? Did it feel true? Did it work for you, rather than how intense the experience was, and to recognize that in this kind of heresy of witchcraft, there is a lot of faith is not the first thing. It starts in this place of, Am I willing to walk in uncertainty? Am I willing to ask the question, Who am I? What am I here for? What happens when you die? You know? What is timed? What a what is my soul? What is we ask these questions, and in questions we’re invoking uncertainty, and when we’re too fast to try and be like, I want to nail down the answers. I’m going to do the Buzzfeed quiz. What kind of witch are you? I’m a sea witch. You know, I’m an astro witch. It’s like, okay, does that? How do you How you doing? You’re feeling certain and clear now you you got something to hang on to, once we start kind of releasing that need to hang on. And we just learned to kind of swim, and they’re like, oh, it’s all poetry. The meaning is something I’m making from it. This is a fluid reality, which is what makes the magic possible. Anyways, we learned to find that as normal. Then a lot of practices that we felt weren’t working for us, and so I had to go do something more intense. Sooner it was like, Oh, well, it was working, but I was discounting the experiences I was having because I was feeling uncertain after them, that I wasn’t sure it worked.

That’s that’s super important and valid, valid. I really appreciate that. It reminds me of something that happens in hypnosis a lot, where people have expectations of what it’s supposed to feel like, where the truth is, as you just mentioned, trance states can feel a lot of different ways, and there’s not a right way or a wrong way for it to feel. There’s just what you’re experiencing right now, right and so and then letting go and just letting that be the experience, letting

it be subtle if it’s subtle, and not having that expectation or judgment that subtle is going to be less meaningful, or it’s going to matter less than if it’s not subtle. Because when we start chasing the intensity, then we can end up in situations where, oh, that one was too intense. I didn’t just hop over the hedge and ride back. We blew that hedge away. That hedge is gone. Now I think I might have needed that one to function in society. Time isn’t real. Uh oh. How would I have showed up for this conversation? Right now, if time wasn’t real, right? We made an appointment. Am I just gonna give that up? Yes, in some sense, time isn’t real, and in another sense, I gotta go to the dentist on Thursday.

you said, We’re There’s no meaning. When we’re making up the meaning, we get to decide what the meaning is. So we can decide that there is a construct called time that we’re going to follow, that consensus reality is also following. So we can all be in alignment with each other.

We do this sometimes. When we’re like, we’ve gone out on a ride, we’re writing back, writing back. And folks love the part of writing back, you know, once they get over some of the initial like, I’m getting used to writing back, it’s like, oh, I’m I’m back in my body. Oh, it feels so good. I’m in my skin. And I’m like, if you’re still, like, rubbing your face, it feels so good to be home, like you’re not back yet. This is, like, a super deep awareness.

That’s good. And then after that, being maybe a little less aware of my own skin. Okay, what is the pragmatic amount of awareness of my own skin? Well, that’s the amount where I’m not stubbing my toe. I have some proprioception. It’s a little extended out from just awareness of my skin. And then that last layer we put back on. Is my social, pragmatic stuff. What is my name? If somebody walked in the room and called my name, would I be like, well, names are they’re not real. They’re not part a deer doesn’t respond to their name. Be like, Yeah, but I’m doing human society, and until I’m not what’s your phone number? Do you know, after we just journeyed all the way up, do you know your address anymore? Do you know what day of the week it is that one always gets people. They’re like, yeah. Oh, we one time did a working out at the Green Man in LA during an ancestral journey. Oh, we went really far. And so I had people put on name tags first, because I was like, if we get back and I can’t check your answer when I’m like, What’s your name? And you’re like, my name is, you know, silver leaf Fern forest. I’m gonna be like, Okay, that is what you wrote down beforehand. Like, that’s fine. But if I come back and like, what’s your name? Like, oh, that’s, you know, Fern forest. And then, like, Mmm, can we check your driver’s license? What’s the one on your driver’s license? And you’re like, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter anymore. Uh oh, we’re gonna keep having some salty snacks. We’re gonna, we’re gonna keep settling down before we give you the keys and let you drive home. No operating heavy machinery for you.

Mentors and Influences

What are some of the biggest influences on on your work, mentors or or currents, or however you want to think about that?

I mean, I’ve said it a couple times now, just with Ken tradition, my elders in the KED tradition, my we say, because we think of it as family. So it’s my witch father, Griffin, KED, the first witch mother of KED, Rita Morgan in Salt Lake, she’s passed now, and our new witch mother, Carrie Wolf. These are the people that in those moments when you’re sort of like you’re discovering and they’re helping you kind of integrate that into a compass and to a sense of having a language that you can speak and a worldview that you can navigate, having something that you hold, rather than just everything, kind of coming in, like inspiration in every direction. And I’ve got my, you know, here’s my collection of, like, my spiritual things that I do, and there’s no sense of cohesive order and a deeper sense of what is at the heart. Why are we doing all of this? Well? Because I want to grow as a person well, why they’re the folks that’ll, you know, show up in your life and ask you why, 40 times until you’re in the deepest trance of your life and be like, Oh, my God, it all comes down to this.

I think of I often quote my witch mother, Rita, was the first person who said to me, and we’re talking about trance and ritual. And there was something where I kept sort of being like, I’m getting, you know, a sense of what it’s going to be before we even go into it. And she’s like, well, you know, why are you doing that? And I was like, Well, you’re not going to say, like, Oh, that’s so cool. You foresight. Like, that’s neat. And she was like, why are you doing that? Like, why would you spoil the surprise for yourself? What if you let yourself be surprised? And I was immediately like, because I hate Oh, no. So the people that those are my people that brought those, those moments where you’re like, oh, that’s enraging. I better go process that for the next 10 years.

What if you let yourself be surprised? How dare you?

There’s a hedge for you. So that’s certainly one of my biggest influences. I’ve also, you know, I’m one of those folks that I don’t claim to be an academic. I’m more of a book collector. I have shelves of books, and I like to run my fingers over them and smell them. I’d read most of them, not end to end. I kind of thumb through and I’m like, oh, that’s the page. And I sort of get it like, Oh, I like this book. And be like, did you read it? And I’m like, Well, no, but, but I think you’ll like it. I’m a distributor of books sometimes, but I do think that when I smelled and thumbed through could be wrong in the pronunciation Dennis Weir’s way of trance was a fantastic book that I would suggest folks smell and thumb through for themselves if they haven’t been there. There was a lot in that text where I found myself nodding in moments where he was like, you know, if you’ve tried glassy eyed staring at a candle and that wasn’t working for you, that’s because glassy eyed staring is an effect of trance, not necessarily a way to get into trance. And I was like, which is we do a lot of candle staring. So I was like, Oh yeah, the people that are sitting there like, how come it’s not working for me? And it’s like, well, because there’s something else that’s happening with everybody else, and it’s not just about the staring. Staring being maybe can be a trance ingredient for some, but for most people, that glassy eyed look means they’re in trance. It’s not how they got there, sure. Sure, so that was a good text for digging into some of the mechanics. At the point that I think my teacher, Griffin had said to me, sort of like, wow, you’re still really struggling with some grounding and learning the mechanics of trance. It seems like maybe there’s nothing more we can do from you, and you’ll just have to, like, kind of figure it out for yourself and let us know how it goes at the point where he still knew fully exactly what I was struggling with, and was just like, nothing more than the betrayal of finding out, you know, like, Oh no, I had to do it for myself.

His desire to know all the answers underneath my desire for me to actually hold what he’s trying to give. And we say this a lot, sometimes in kid tradition and witchcraft, that people are like, Oh, you guys share a lot of stuff very publicly. He teaches all the time. I teach you share. You know, you’re putting the secrets out there. And it’s sort of like, yeah, you can say a lot of stuff, and the only ability to grasp it and hold it is with experience and with coming to the point where they’re ready for certain things. And saying it doesn’t necessarily mean that people are grasping it. They kind of receive it bit by bit as they’re ready. So we think of the not to say that there’s not aspects of our tradition that aren’t held just within the family, but the idea that, you know, an occult group, kind of means that we have lots of secrets that we don’t talk about, and it’s sort of like, no. It means that there’s things and occultism, things that are hidden, that even if you say them out loud, it’s a secret, because you have to be ready to hear it. You have to kind of be rooted in the mythology to even understand it. It’s secret because even when you’re trying to define it and explain it, or, you know, shake somebody and be like, come on, it’s a secret.

Practical Ways to Use Hedge Riding

What would you say is a practical way that someone can use this, this idea of hedge riding, to improve their life?

I think that rather than maybe starting in the place of, you know, in your day to day life, noticing you’re in trance all the time, that can be intense, sometimes without a little bit of experience and guidance, so I would start with setting aside a time to intentionally enter trance and exit and work on that before trying to, like, notice it everywhere, and with that intentional entering and exiting, it really just depends a little bit on what somebody wants to focus on. But I would say that, you know, if someone’s maybe, like, they’re a writer, and they’re sort of like, oh, I tend to get writer’s block, what am I saying? I’m saying it’s hard to kind of get into that creative flow state. Well, that’s a trance. Okay, have I actually tried good trance ingredients to get me into that place, or am I just sitting there in that kind of dogmatic state, you know, the childhood, you know, I’m a piece of shit, like I can’t do it, you know, I have to procrastinate to the last possible second, all the things, can I start to notice all those hedges on my behavior? You know, this is how I normally do it. I normally stare at the blank page until I hate myself, and then eventually get the first word, and then once I’m crying, you know, get a few more down, and then leave and, you know, and eventually the book gets written, or it doesn’t. Can I start to notice the behavior and say, Okay, well, I’m going to do something intentional with this, and then through study with someone, okay, what are some of the most effective trance ingredients? I would say one of the most accessible ones for people is music, something, you know, add to that, maybe something repetitive, something that’s not going to have you singing along and focused on the music, but something that kind of gets you in the zone. That’s it same way with driving right? What’s that’s another ingredient on that road trip is the music. So add ins. Have you tried doing a little bit of music? Have you tried setting the space intentionally to sit down and write? Can you even cross the hedge of being that intentional about approaching the blank page? Or have you actually found that as you try to make time for it? Oh, actually, the first ritual is that I have a resistance to making time for writing. Okay, the next ritual is that I have a resistance to sitting at my desk. What are all these hedges that I’m trying to just blow across with a cup of coffee and my phone in my hand, and then by the time I get to my desk, I’m stressed out and intense and stretched and not ready to be in the state.

So I think thinking about what some of the effective ingredients are, repetition, music, we do a lot of rocking and swaying, creating that rocking in the body, because I like ingredients that are. Obvious when you’re doing them and when you stop them. There’s lots of other subtle internal things that create trance, but the ones that we can make external, like music, turn it on, turn it off, rocking back and forth. Start doing it, stop doing it. That tends to be a good place to start. If I start layering that in, going on my quest to put a word on the page and then lowering the bar. Lower the bar. You’re thinking, I’m going to do the ritual, I’m going to turn on the music, and then I’m going to finish this chapter. It’s like, Well, how was it yesterday? Maybe if yesterday was just crying and staring at the blank page, maybe today, the ritual is I’m going to go all the way to the blank page and put down like three words without kicking myself, and then I’m going to call it done for the day. And you can build on that.

Future of hedge riding and Altered States

Sounds like, you know, atomic habits uses very similar kind of processes that I like that a lot. What do you think? How do you see the future of hedge riding, or, you know, altered states in general? What’s What’s making you excited about the future these days?

One thing that I’m excited about, and there’s a part of me, it’s like, I don’t know if I’ll see this in my lifetime, but I get you got a podcast about it. It’s great. There’s a lot of folks talking about it. Is, when I think about this becoming something that people are just more naturally aware of, and all of the different places in our life, where especially dogmatic trance or authoritative trance, plays a role for folks who work in professions or careers where they’re like, well, trance is a big part of what I do. I’m a teacher. You know, I stand up in front of people. I’ve got some charisma. Maybe I’m, you know, I’m doing a slideshow. If the people are getting focused and they’re in the Zone, I’m doing a great job. It probably means that I am inducing trance in the students. And do I know what all the effects of that are like, increased suggestibility? And am I taking responsibility for what those effects are. I’ll say that, you know, a lot of times I worked in an occult shop. I worked in a metaphysical shop, and you have psychic readers, and a lot of folks that do that work, you know, they don’t realize when they’re saying, like, oh, this client was great. They were so into it. And what they mean is this client immediately, you know, smelled the incense and saw my weird room, and I started kind of doing my thing, and they went with it. And then it was very easy, and they were just nodding along with what I was saying, because they’re in a suggestible trance, and they’re there to ask their questions. And we had a great time. And the person who came in and crossed their arms and looked at my decor with disdain. Well, that was a terrible client. And it’s like, Well, did you, you know, have a discussion with the person who sat and crossed their arms, you know, like, well, the work that I’m doing works best when we agree to be in this trance state together, and that’s how the flow happens. Can I help you kind of go there with me if you’re willing. And if the answer is like, No, I’m not willing, then it’s like, well, then maybe this isn’t the session that I do, because that’s how I work. Or, okay, I’ll do the reading, but just be aware you’re gonna it’s gonna hit you like this. And equally, for the person who sat there and was like, wow, I was Cleopatra, you know, whatever, especially for people getting into that kind of shit, are you willing to then help the person at the end drop that suggestibility and be like, Okay, now write down so that it doesn’t all just become the subconscious thing that I whispered to you while you’re like, write down what I said. Break trance and then go think about it. See if that works for you. Because I’m a human being, like, I’m mortal, I’m fallible. Go see what works for you, rather than just getting swept up and wow, that felt kind of intense. So it must be true, it must be real, and it’s so maybe it’s kind of sweet to think about it in the context of psychic readings. But honestly, without trying to make anybody barf who’s listening, as I think about this with like Donald Trump, people are like, how is it possible, like he’s that’s not charisma, is it? When I sometimes watch those recordings, I was like, there’s a lot of things in his speech pattern, specifically the jumbling of words, some of the disorganization and the way that he would structure a thought, that’s actually very trance inducing, sure. And you add that to being in a crowded room, if you’re like, at a rally, the energy of a crowd is trance inducing. It’s like, wow, with enough trance and with enough practice being in that kind of trance, if you’re somebody who goes to church on Sunday and you’re used to that trance with the person standing in front of you, it is amazing how effective that can be on folks that are looking for that sense of certainty and for the person who’s standing there watching it with their arms crossed, being like, The decor is terrible, and I don’t like this person’s hair or face. And sometimes people even being like, well, we need to criticize the person, not, you know, their appearance, but that move where we just start like, tearing, you know, their hair’s so fucking weird that’s a trance resistant that. Helps us resist trance, yeah? And so it’s like, I can’t understand how someone could feel that way. And it’s like, oh, yeah, trance. Trance makes lots of things possible, yeah? So a world where that’s conscious, where it’s consensual,

yeah?

Doctors like this, I would love that. You know,

I like that idea of consensual trance, too.

Yeah, I’m in the white coat. I’m a doctor. And see the, see the thing on the wall, doesn’t that make you notice my authority? Authority isn’t a trance ingredient, you know? It’s sort of like, and some people will sit there and be like, Yeah, I see that white coat, and I just, and other people are like, Oh, he’s got the white coat on, you know, you must know, it’s weird. And this environment kind of makes me nervous, and I feel small and cross the hedge because they’ve got me in a little robe. You know, whatever the doctor says must be true, if they were kind of like, oh, you might be, you know, in a really intense altered state. But, you know, go home ground like, think about what I said. All these, all these places, a world where folks know. And of course, I love the idea of the professionals leading that facilitation of awareness and consent. But since it’s probably not happening soon, then for individuals to know for themselves, yeah, oh, I noticed there’s a trance in the room. Am I willing to go here, even if you’re like, Oh, I showed up for a ritual. This ritual is getting weird. Am I willing to go with this right now, or do I need to do a few things to step back. Oh, now that I’m stepping back, I really feel like I’d like to leave. Oh, okay, just that level of awareness would be amazing. So I’m excited about that.

Learn More

I love it. And how can people learn more about you?

They can go to Ren spiritwork.com or Ren Spirit work on Instagram or Facebook. Renspirework.com and I have a couple of blogs there. Got my big spooky website with my green cat eye, and then I have a training program called hedge writers. It’s $9.79 a month meant to be very accessible, and it was very welcoming to folks that are like, I’ve never heard of trance before today, and folks that are like, you know, I’ve been teaching, you know, tantric meditation for 40 years, but I feel like I’d like either a community to share that with and discuss the trance aspect of that, or maybe there’s even a little something that I am still curious about or something. I want to ask somebody who’s been asked a lot of questions, like, is this normal? I’m like, well, cupcakes to whoever asks the weirdest thing, if someone ever finds it like that is the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard, you know? And someone comes back from a journey and they’re like, I saw this, if you really get it, if you’re the one who gets the weirdest thing, I will buy you cupcakes, but it rarely is.

I’ll put all those links in the show notes so people can easily, because easily, get in touch with you

Final Insight

Ren, what is the one insight that you would like the audience to leave with today?

Oh, I would love just this sense of, if you’re interested in trance, and maybe you’ve tried a few things, and there was a sense of frustration, like, oh, you know, I tried to relax, and I couldn’t get there. Or, you know, I was trying some technique. Oh, gosh. I hear a lot about, you know, counting people are like, I’m supposed to count to 100 without having another thought in my head. It’s not working for me. Just to know that trance and the ingredients that we can put in that cauldron to get it bubbling, it’s very diverse. There’s so many different ways. And there’s likely some that are going to be simple and natural to somebody, and there’s going to be some that are challenging. And it doesn’t mean the challenging ones aren’t worth working with, but that if you just feel like you can’t even seem to kind of get your foot in the door, then consider the possibility of maybe there’s another way, maybe there’s another entrance for me, another door, something that’s going to feel more natural, be more accessible to me, and how my mind works, and what my spirit’s craving to not let yourself feel like I’m not good at trance or I can’t do this, or or I was too good at trance and I couldn’t ground. But all they told me about grounding was to put your hands on the ground and imagine roots going down into the earth and down into the center of then you’re like, Oh, I’m encountering the planet. Am I grounded yet? I’m in the ground? Am I doing it right? Just we’re all in this process, and you and I, we’re all in this process of seeking and learning deeper skills and recovering some of this art that we feel like our ancestors knew and that was suppressed, and finding our way. And so if you feel like you run up against a brick wall, you don’t have to just give up the quest. There’s, there’s a winding path, a series of switchbacks, you know, if you that book didn’t work, you know, try this book. If that book didn’t work, just touch one. Just touch one and listen to it.

Yeah. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciated this conversation. It’s really fascinating. Thank you for being here on the show.

Awesome. Thanks for having us, and thanks for being part of creating, you know, not a bookshelf, but a all these different interviews and touch points and resonances and folks that are digging into this transformation. That’s awesome.