Update 6: Religion, psychedelics, and cancer; death cafe; UCS bar 1; joining me?

The sections:

• Section 1: Cancer Updates
• Section 2: Have Ideas. Do Them. Updates
• Section 3: Uncharted Spirits Updates
• Section 4: Teaquila Farm Updates
• Section 5: Mavericks Training Updates
• Section 6: Your thoughts, feedback, and involvement
• Section 7 (The Post Script): Written Thoughts I’ve Posted

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(1) Cancer

• Cancer & Religion: A few weeks back, I did a purification lodge with a chief of the Lakota tribe. The more common name is a sweat lodge. Essentially, a fucking hot sauna under a blanket dome with singing and prayer. Incredible experience. Physically, it felt like all the toxins were drained from my body. Spiritually, it felt eerily similar to how I was raised in an evangelical church. I will write more about this in time, but the summary is: religions are ‘same same but different’. Just like how I grew up, it focused on community, had a congregation with a hierarchy, said prayers, sang songs, we people wanting to good, etc.. And when someone in the group had something very wrong with them, like my cancer, extra prayer and love is directed to the individual. It was a very personal experience for me. This is now leading me to more exploration on more religions and healers. More to come on religion and healing. Also, my psychedelic experience showed me more about the church I grew up in. You can read the entry in the next section...
• Cancer & Psychedelics: I’m writing this newsletter on a flight to finishing this newsletter after returning from Oregon where I did psilocybin. Research has shown that psilocybin helps cancer patients with depression. While I’m not fully depressed, I have 2-3 really rough days every 10-12 days. I’m doing this to see how I can help solidify my mind for future rough days. I'll be writing more on this soon. Here’s the scientific research on psilocybin, cancer, and depression:

​Click here to read the Psilocybin & Cancer study​

• More on Psychedelics: In October of 2021 (pre-cancer) I did ayahuasca. If you don’t know anything about it, it’s a plant medicine that produces a psychedelic experience similar to psilocybin. It was one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had. It was like 2 years of therapy in just 2 nights. I wrote a raw, mostly unedited, journal entry about the experience. If you’re curious about it, read it here (ignore typos/grammar):

​Click here to read Post-Ayahuasca Journal Entry​

• Cancer tests note 1: Completed more bloodwork this last week. Big progress, which is nice, but some small things to pay attention to that makes me nervous at times. First, the main tumor marker is called CEA. It tracks carcinogens in the body (cancerous cells). Smokers need to be below 3.5. and non-smokers below 2.5. At diagnosis, I was at 15.5, then down to 3.4, and this week 2.4. This essentially means the tumor cells mutation is pausing. Amazing feeling...but the meds (a type of chemo), are driving up liver counts. I’m trying to control that through nutrition, exercise, hydration, and tea. Not a concerning levels, yet, but if I can’t get under control, then I’ll have to come off meds. I would go back on at a lower dose, but when you feel like you’re making progress, the last thing you want is to stall progress or go backwards. And that can be hard mentally. I think I know what to do here so the next 10 days I’ll be hyper vigilant and we’ll find out more in ~2 weeks.
• Cancer tests note 2: Next brain MRI and PET scans are December 15. My friend Bob, who also had cancer, said, ‘you’ll get what I call scanxiety.’ It’s true. Every test or scan has a bit of ‘scanxiety’. Send the good vibes if you got’em.
• Ironman: I’m doing a 70.3 Ironman in June 2023 in Hawaii as a part of this cancer process. More in the Mavericks section below. Wanna join?

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(2) Has Ideas. Does Them.

• Death Cafes: A ‘Death Cafe’ is not as morbid as it sounds. In fact, it’s quite freeing. Studies have found that happiness in life can be directly tied to how you view death...and there’s no better way to improve your view on death than talking about it. On 11/26 I have 15 dudes coming to my house to do the first ‘Death Cafe’. It is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counseling session. The objective is 'to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives’. One of my best friends, Jonny P, will be making burritos for us and we’ll discuss death in, hopefully, the finished UCS bar 1. Ideally, all of us become more comfortable with the idea of death. I’ve never done this before so we shall see how it goes! If you want to understand Death Cafe a bit more, read this:

​Click here to learn more about what a Death Cafe is​

• Podcast: My list of potential podcast guests has grown nicely. Thanks to all who submitted. I hope to start recording next week with Jonny P...Jonny, if you read this, hopefully you’re down to do a podcast recording with me? Haha. I’m calling it ‘Has ideas. Does them.’ because it’s about the people who DID something or are currently DOING it...not just planning / talking about it. More to come in 2023.

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(3) Uncharted Spirits Updates

• Supply Run 1: When I got diagnosed, the first thing I said was, ‘We have to put this project at the front because if things don’t go well for me, I’ll always regret not trying.’ While my cancer outlook is showing some improvement, my urgency is still VERY high.

​Click here to learn what Supply Run actually is​

• Picked a 4th teammate: This was our first time bringing someone with us and it has been the hardest part so far. Most of the people who threw their hat in the ring had some kind of relationship with us. All of them would have been amazing to go with. In the end, our 4th teammate is JD Snyder, someone I met through work in 2011 and have kept in touch since then.
• Location finalized: We are going to the Indian Himalayas. Our contact tells us that there are a lot of remote villages there that could use some supplies. He also asked, ‘So you’ll have enough time for a 2-3 day trek up 16,000 feet, yes?’ Haha, shit. Time to get physically and mentally prepped for that...and the altitude sickness.
• Route planning, supplies, and marketing are next: Now that we have a 4th teammate, the location, and our fixer all set, it’s time to build the route on how we’re getting there. The route, though, depends on what supplies we have to gather and where they’re located. We’re just waiting on our fixer to provide the list of items. And a marketing plan it starting to develop, more on that soon.
• UCS Bar 1: Next week we’re finishing the bar we started building on our property in Ventura. You’re probably wondering, ‘wtf is this?’

​Click here to learn what Uncharted Spirits Bar actually is​

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(4) Teaquila Farm Updates

• Viral Post: Stacie put up a reel on Insta while back about what steps we’re taking to help me heal. Apparently, people were interested in that so now we’re at 9k 11.5k 16.8k followers vs 2.5k that we started with last week. The video has ~500k ~850k views. Wow. This makes me hopeful that TF & my situation, together, will help others either regenerate from a disease they have or avoid it altogether.
• Podcast: With the UCS bar build, comes a podcast studio. Yes, the bar will be a gathering space AND a studio to film and record content of many kinds. One of which is the Teaquila Farm podcast, which will focus on content that will help regenerate us and and the earth. Hoping to recording and releasing episode in 2023.

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(5) Training for Mavericks Updates

• As mentioned: in the last newsletter, I’m just focusing on getting base strength and fitness back before I start to build towards surfing Mavericks. One way I plan to do that is by doing a...
• 1/2 Ironman: A co-worker of mine is doing a 1/2 Ironman in Hawaii and wanted to dedicate the run to me, hoping to raise money for a good cause. I decided a few weeks ago I’d like to do it with him. I also might have recruited another friend. Dylan, if you’re reading this, you’ve now been mentioned here, so putting a bit of extra pressure on ;). Anyone else?
• Breath Coach: The 1/2 Ironman is in Hawaii where another work colleague lives. She knows a breath coach that works with some of the world’s best big wave surfers. The hope is to hire him to training me while there / after the Ironman. I’m putting a deadline by end of 2024 season to surf Mavericks. Fuck, my stomach just dropped haha.

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(6) Your Thoughts, Feedback, and Involvement

Two questions for you...

I’ve learned a lot about the importance of community as it pertains to my healing over the last several months and I’m committing to community participation and/or building in a variety of ways. Some of them include...

• Farming / gardening

• General nutrition & wellness

• Cancer / disease healing and/or prevention

• World travel

• Fitness (Crossfit, Ironman, surfing)

• Death Cafe

• Psychedelics

• Executing on ideas

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• Question 1: Which of these communities most interest you? Or, if not listed, what kind of community interests you most?
• Question 2: Any interest in pushing your limits and doing the half Ironman with me in Hawaii in June 2023?​

Have Ideas. Do Them.

🏄‍♂️

• My Instagram​
• My LinkedIn​
• Uncharted Spirits Instagram​
• Teaquila Farm Instagram​

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(7) P.s....

Writing from this week:

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**Did not write this week, but will be writing about forgiveness and/or my psilocybin journey**

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