Click to listen or read the transcription below to learn more about Ceiba Sebastian.
Ceiba: Hello?
Marji: Hi, Ceiba, it's Marji, how are you?
Ceiba: Well, I'm fine, how are you?
Marji: I'm great. How is your day so far?
Ceiba: Great. I'm loving the sunshine. I'm soaking in it.
Marji: Oh, gosh, yeah. So, so grateful.
Ceiba: Yeah.
Marji: I was like staying outside earlier, definitely needed.
Ceiba: Oh, yeah; Vitamin D.
Marji: I know, and just, like, I love the birds are chirping outside and I was – I was with a six-year-old yesterday and he's like, "Look at this stuff on the grass, I just love that," and it was dew, he said, "It looks like silver glittering." I was like, in my little heart I was like, "Oh, gosh, so sweet," and to notice something so tiny, right, in this, like, world, it was perfect. It was perfect.
Ceiba: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Marji: Anyway, I'm so, so happy to talk to you.
Ceiba: Yeah, likewise.
Marji: So, I know that we have you on the Basmati site listed, and we've answered a few questions, but tell me just a little bit about, like, you, like who you are, not what you do but who you are.
Ceiba: Yeah. Keep questioning me, I'm like, "Yeah." Well, let's see. I can tell you that I live very physically. I am – I am generally a person of intellect and also a person of physicality. I am – I feel like expressing myself through my embodied state is pretty much the joyful things happening at any time. So, I find that – it creates quite a unique perspective in life. And I'm very grateful that for whatever reason, I came oriented this way. So, that then seemed to be a primary expression for me as a human is that I love all things physical and really feel the sensual realm has and is an intelligence that few of us have really tapped into, simply because of our conditioning and lifestyles and I feel like that's coming for all of us, this very physical, sensual experience, and I'm really excited about it.
Marji: Yeah, me too, it's really beautiful to watch people transform, actually, throughout – right? Isn't it like a great gift that we give ourselves and humanity as a whole, and the Earth?
Ceiba: Yeah.
Marji: So, how did you get – how did – how did you get here? I know you and I have talked, so – but, like, to the point, I know you went on a walkabout, so do you want to tell me a little bit about that, and how you started on that journey?
Ceiba: Yeah. Yeah. So, I started off many, many years ago, being very physical, a very physical human. I knew that I wanted to work with other people physically. I just knew that – I wasn't sure how that was going to happen in what type of modality or what type of expression, but anyway, I ended up pursuing structural bodywork and had really great practice going in Austin, Texas for over a decade, beautiful community, beautiful human beings.
Marji: So, revived, awesome.
Ceiba: Yeah.
Marji: Yeah. It's so great.
Ceiba: I know, it was – it's so – it was a really special time in my life, actually, it really was just this tremendous growth and experience. I worked with a bunch of manual therapists, PTs and learned just so much from them. It was just – yeah, beautiful, beautiful time, and that being said, I was beginning to – I progress, of course, as we will in our modalities and began to really expand my perspective and wanted to expand that into my practice, of course, and really started to feel that, you know how it is when you've got a group of people living with you for a while and the expectations destroyed that you're going to just stay doing that because that's what they like and that's what they want. So, it's great, it's wonderful, and they were just – they were not only clients but dear friends. I mean, really, really – I just got so lucky, I feel like, and that being said, I was just ready to – I needed to move on. It was within my practice and personally as well, and loved Austin, but it just felt – I'm just a gypsy at heart anyway. I'm a traveler. So, I packed up my bags and headed out to California, to San Francisco.
Marji: Oh, fun?
Ceiba: And – yeah. It was. It was really kind of like, I thought it was really –
Marji: Big change; big change?
Ceiba: Yeah; huge change. Down-to-earth ranch folk, and then here I am in the super urban technologically oriented culture and it was great, I loved it. And I was – I was really excited to be able to put forth, like with a clean slate, tabula rasa, like nobody knows anything about me and they have no preconceived notions or expectations, it was beautiful opportunity. And I hit the ground running and opened up this whole new paradigm, the next level of my expression as I now call it, because it just – it had happened, it was just calling me from the inside out. I couldn't stop it really even if I wanted to, I feel it wouldn't stop. If I had a –
Marji: It wouldn't have let you? Yeah.
Ceiba: It wouldn't – it still doesn't by the way, it still has – like, it's really funny. Yeah. It's all part of it, but – yeah. It's very interesting. But – so, I got to San Francisco and it's turned out that it was a real culture class for me, actually, it just – it just really cracked me open in ways I barely understand to this day but it – I hit so many walls with it. It felt at the time very deeply painful and I felt, in a strange way, betrayed by humanity. Because here I am offering what I thought was this really wonderful well-fought out, very different, very new paradigm, and I thought people in San Francisco would just gobble it up. And I think I just – I became disappointed to understand that really it just ended up being quite the same. People want just like kind of what they want and what they expect, and aren't necessarily looking for as new of a paradigm as they might think they are.
Marji: Well, yeah. And in that, did you think that maybe you had an expectation also on your end…
Ceiba: Oh, totally.
Marji: …like sharing all of this great experience you have?
Ceiba: Yeah.
Marji: And so, that was part of the betrayal as our own?
Ceiba: Yes.
Marji: Right?
Ceiba: Yeah.
Marji: Okay. Yeah.
Ceiba: There were some immaturity – there were some immaturity in me that needed to just be seen. And I think San Francisco really was a maturing time. It was, again, quite painful but quite liberating in that sense. It just – I had to grow up and understand, "Yeah. Not everybody is just going to do backflips over this. This is – it's a new, it's either weird, and it's different." And – yeah. I just – it was pretty – not very childish, but it had some aspect to the maturity to it that needed to be cleaned up, and that did happen.
Marji: Yes. Yeah.
Ceiba: And going strange ways.
Marji: So, a good – that's a great lesson for us, right? That sometimes even when we see that these blocks are coming up, it's mirroring to us our – where our potential growth can be, right?
Ceiba: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's – it is – if we can stay clear, and trust me, I was – I was murky quite a bit.
Marji: Yeah.
Ceiba: But understood – yeah. I knew – I've always understood that something bigger is moving. I just – for whatever reason, I had just always known that, just very deeply been clear about that. I think its part of being very physical and being tuned to the real slow of our – of our natural reality. And I've also traveled a bit, and I've also started from scratch many times. And so, it was – it was just this real combination of what I already brought with me in terms of – I started traveling when I was 22. I went overseas and didn't look back for 10 years. So, I understand when I'm learning. I did have enough sense to know that this was something big happening. And I stayed for about two and a half years, really tried to work it out. Really tried to sort it out, did my best. And then, became burned out, just physically, spiritually, mentally that I just – I was so deeply confused and conflicted, I literally did not know what to do. And I thought, "Well, Ceiba, this is the time. This is what everyone in the, sort of, spiritual world is talking about, everybody is saying it," but I really haven't seen anyone do it just stepping to the void. I just – I understand that I resonate with the void and I needed to put myself in the position in order to – I knew conceptually that I had to do it physically or it would never be real for me. So, I quite literally, I had already sold a lot. I moved from Austin with a lot of stuff, I just really pair it down coming. So, I was already close to being ready for this. I have a feeling it knew all of it was happening anyway. I think it really started back in Austin, when I left, but San Francisco was perhaps just the interim. And so, I whittled down to just a backpack. Sold literally everything and junk. I contacted an ashram, I found this, for lack of a better term, spiritual teacher, that I really resonated with, and I felt like she had something really wonderful and connected with me. And she was teaching it ashram – oh, excuse me, I'm sorry that's not – yeah. I will not bother with that.
Marji: Okay.
Ceiba: And I thought, "Okay. I'm going to go and just sit with her, and just see what arises. I'm just going to see what happens. So, I don't even know what's happening right now. So, I'm just going to do this." And I organized a work trade with the ashram; I was going to exchange my bodywork for – to be able to sit with this guru.
Marji: To bring up – yeah. Yeah.
Ceiba: So, she can tell me what I'm going to with my life. Yeah. She's going to be the one that's going to tell me where to go and what to do. And – so, anyway, long story short, I get there, I arrived at this ashram, it's me and a couple of other women, one woman was from France, the other was from Costa Rica, and the owner who's another American. So, she showed us where we're going to stay and its like, "Oh, this is going to be so great. I can't wait. This guru is going to just tell me all the things I need to know." And so much for dinner, and the owner sits down with us and she's like, "I need to tell guys something." And we're like, "Okay." Because it didn't sound good.
Marji: Yeah. Yeah. Oh-oh, oh-oh.
Ceiba: She goes – yeah. We're like, "Uh-huh?" She like, "The guru is not –" she didn't say guru, I'm just joking like [inaudible 00:12:12]
Marji: Yeah.
Ceiba: "The guru has left." And we're like, "Do you – by left, do you mean like [inaudible 00:12:21]?" I mean, we're on a mountain top, Marji, like, we're isolated, we're on a mountain top in Costa Rica, there is no one around, we have no – the owner has [inaudible 00:12:33] we that like – those of us who flown in are just there. And this was supposed to be five or six weeks, I can't remember. I'm just sitting up here, and so it's like – she's like, "No, she's gone. I just went up to get her to come meet you all and she is gone. She's packed her bags and left." And the owner at the shop as we know –
Marji: Every day.
Ceiba: Yeah. Yeah. We just all just –
Marji: Yeah. Like –
Ceiba: We just – we're like, "Is this for real?" Because this ashram had been functional for a year. So, like it just the last, like, the lock of time before they were going to break for the summer. And are literally just looking at her like, "No. No. No." And I'm thinking to myself, "No. Please, what, no." Just –
Marji: All of my answers were supposed to be given to me right here right now.
Ceiba: Yes. "Oh, my God, this is not happening." I thought it was like, so, so very ironic. So, anyway, it was obvious – crystal clear what the message was there.
Marji: Yes.
Ceiba: Crystal clear. So, it was – it was pretty obvious to all of us. And the Costa Rican girl with us, she was from nearby. So, she was just like, "Okay. Well, I'm out."
Marji: I'm going home. Yeah.
Ceiba: Yeah. "I'm – okay. See you guys later." And the girl from France however was – she was in the same boat as me, although she did have a home to go back to. But I have nothing to go back to. I have nowhere to turn.
Marji: You have your backpack. Yeah.
Ceiba: Literally – yeah. And just no plan, like, this was my plan and it's gone. So, I asked the owner if I could just stay, I said, "Look I hate to tell you, I have nowhere to go, I don't know what I'm doing. I've just fled my life and I need to sit. I just need to sit." And she was so lovely. She's like, "Absolutely," because she was there too in the same boat. So, we all, the three of us, the owner, this French girl, and me, we sort of just wandered this property. We all just kind of went our separate ways, we decided we all were going to sort of in place of silence to each other, our space, to just go deep. So, each one of us just really took the opportunity to just dive in, and I mean, we just sat. We sat. I sat for hours. I – it became the rainy season while I was there and it was just – it was amazing, Marji, like I would just sit on her deck. She had this beautiful yoga deck. It's a beautiful place, very magical. And just – the rain would just be torrential and I would just be sitting there, just quiet and still, and then – it was – it was – I can't describe it. It was – it was really incredible. The opportunity, how many of us really get that, ever, in our lifetime.
Marji: Yeah.
Ceiba: I did – I was – I didn't sign for it. And there was –
Marji: No. And you could have – you could have left out of fear and disappointment, but instead it sounds as if you helped find yourself find yourself, right?
Ceiba: The guru was me. Yeah.
Marji: Yes.
Ceiba: Yeah. Yeah. It was like that. It was like that and it was – the message was not lost on me fortunately. I've done enough introspecting by then to get it. So, there was the fear, there was all of it, and all came swirling, ebbing, and flowing, some days I'd be like, "I've got this." Other days I'd be like, "What am I doing?" It was just like that. Like anybody would expect. And then, the rain, it got to me after about five weeks and I was just like, "Okay. Now, it's time to go. I have to move along now." And I open to my little travel book, and I am not going the deep path, I love wherever it says, "This is so hard to get to. It takes three days, that's it. And you'll," I'm like, "Sign me up." So, I –
Marji: Great idea. Yeah.
Ceiba: Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, "How hard is this to get to, impossible? I'm there." And I found this little tiny fishing village. It has a like paragraph of mention in this travel book I had, because no one ever goes there. It's at – literally at the end of the road. Literally the concrete stops, comes gravel, always the trails right, always?
Marji: Yes.
Ceiba: And they just kind of let you [inaudible 00:16:58] it's I think mid-80s, I just wonderful, it's true remaining at the – fishing villages in the Caribbean, in Central America.
Marji: Okay, outstanding.
Ceiba: They'll live like that. And now [inaudible 00:17:11] back, and it's an amazing place, I could go on forever just about that place. But – so, I just went there. I was like, "Where's the bus to there?" And I've gone on the bus and headed down there. And ended up staying there, where a couple of little cabins that people have for rent, and this really amazing girl from Germany, and just really bonded. And she had married a local guy from Manzanillo, from that little town, that little village. And they had the cutest most adorable little girl, oh, my God, and so just – she and I really hit it off. And I end up renting this, for lack of a better word, it was a cute little apartment. It was in this big, abandoned building that some guy had wanted to do this project a while back and it had to abandon it for lack of money, which not uncommon in these parts. Because they don't go in debt, which I really honor, actually.
Marji: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Ceiba: They do things very slowly. And so, that's why it's – I [inaudible 00:18:12] sort of everything looks dilapidated and broken but they're in debt either. So, there's that, but I rented this little, tiny little apartment. And just hung out, I surfed everyday around the beach. I am really got into my work. I really began to develop my work. And I just – I sat. And I got to watch – something really incredible happened to me there. I was able to really understand the duality structure, you're going to laugh, but through chickens and roosters.
Marji: Oh, that's outstanding. Now I have to hear it like –
Ceiba: You're like, "I got to know about it."
Marji: I'm picturing my brother's chicken coop in the back with his chickens, and roosters, and his quails. And I'm thinking, "Oh, my gosh, I just," like –
Ceiba: I can be – yeah. I was going to – yes, I'm going to go check this out. Yeah. It was so – okay, so, believe it or not, this was so funny. So, in this little village, of course people have tons of animals. I mean, they – I had a pig wonder and went in my little apartment because I keep the opened. I know, of course – of course it will go through, I would just look out in my little yard and there would just be, who knows what, all kinds of animals. Monkeys everywhere, it was so fun. So, anyway, there were lots of chickens and roosters if you can imagine. And would just sit and watch their behavior, and I started to see very clearly that their behavior pretty much is us, like our culture. It was – I'm like, I'm looking at the human condition right here. What really struck me –
Marji: It is?
Ceiba: Yeah. Seriously, it was – it was quite eye-opening. What got me one day as I was watching them, so, of course, one rooster would always have about two or three hens walking around with them and little babies running around. And this hen, I had a big hedge inside. I had a little yard and then big hedge separating me from the other property where I was moving, and there is a hole in the hedge, and this hen put – got herself through this hole, in other words, out of sight of rooster. He bolted after her and she's like, pecked her back through. And I thought to myself, "Aha, I now understand all of the male-female relationship or probably –"
Marji: Relationship. That's how they work.
Ceiba: Seriously, I was like, "I get the structure. There's really – it's just set up like this. This is just where this reality is right now." And I know it sounds very strange, but it really kind of broke a lot of a duality code for me.
Marji: It doesn't sound strange actually, because it – right?
Ceiba: Yeah.
Marji: Because if you actually watched nature, I grew up with horses and pigs, and everything you can actually see how that struct – yes. Yes.
Ceiba: Right? Isn't it? So, the animals really explained right out in front of us. Yeah. It's amazing. And so, that led me into looking at my duality patterns because they were torturing me, and I didn't know quite how to break them. I knew about – I've studied non-duality and understood some of the – lot of the principles quite deeply, but it's the application, right? It's always where you – where we find the app – the theories about, it's the application I find that's really needed and in fact, it's where I began to make my math of bridging the gap from our duality structure into our multidimensional structure, physically and mentally. And so, I really started to dive in and it just – it just sent me into a whole new paradigm of clarity about our – who we really are and the true nature of our reality, etc. And so, and then, at the same time, I'm on this walkabout and I really don't know what happening, and money is just dwindling and I'm thinking, "Okay. I really am just letting go. And I'm just going to be guided. It was just this true application of stepping into the void." And it just –
Marji: Yeah. And trust, right? Just an old…
Ceiba: That's right.
Marji: …like the – and not even like the mental trust that we think about, but there's something that happened in our heart and this expansiveness when we're there that is – that allows us to do the practical application of that, right?
Ceiba: Yeah.
Marji: But that's – it's a –
Ceiba: Yeah. You just totally nailed it. Yeah.
Marji: It's a feeling that is – yeah. So, you kept on with your little walkabout?
Ceiba: Yes. So, and so did my time. I was in Manzanillo for a year, actually, and it was just – it was incredible. I just could go on about it forever, but I won't here right now, but it came time for the – for the change and actually, a giant tree fell on my – on the house I was staying in. So, that to me was like, "It's time to go."
Marji: Yeah. Okay. I'm listening, sorry, I'm listening.
Ceiba: I see you, Namaste. Yeah. So, I was like, "All righty, let me get my backpack out and set." Did not have a clue where I was going to go. And then, a friend of mine, it just turned out, all of these things would happen. It was so interesting, Marji, it was like right every time, I swear I would think I was at a dead end, like, "Okay. Now, let's hit the end. This is it. Like, the walkabout is most likely coming to a close." And then, as right – and this is how I learned about the midnight hour. Which is really now. Which is the, "Now."
Marji: Which is the, "Now."? Yes.
Ceiba: Yes. This is where I figured this out. It's like, "Human, as we are conditioned now, we keep thinking – we keep going to plan, and it does work to a degree or we wouldn't have this culture in this society, etc." So, I don't want to do bunk planning, and methodology, and structure, whatsoever. Just – it's really just more about being integrative. And so, in order to integrate the counterbalance of that which is just completely letting go, and going with the flow, etc. and so, yeah. So, every time it would feel like things were coming to a close, like, I've got not options now. I've had – I have no money. And so, I was trying – I was doing a little bit of my work, that's how I've [inaudible 00:24:39] wherever I could, yoga studios here and there, etc. And I would get clients, just literally enough, never too much…
Marji: Just enough, yeah.
Ceiba: …never too little. Yeah. It's just always the perfect amount, although it was very challenging to say out of fear about it. I mean, there were times when it felt like I end up – there were a couple days I didn't eat, etc. So, I did experience so much of all that. And it was my choice and I was – I was being okay with it. That was the meditation.
Marji: Yes.
Ceiba: So friend of mine called me and she’s like, I’d really want to come and see what you’re doing and check this out for a little bit of time, like just a couple of weeks. And if you want, you can help me with like travel and figuring out, getting logistics because she didn’t want to travel by herself. So we’re southbound and she’s like buy your bus tickets down in Panama if you meet me at the airport. And I was like, well, all right. Looks like Panama is where I’m going.
Marji: Looks like Panama is the next tour that’s open for me.
Ceiba: I know. Yes. So it’s just has going like that. It was fascinating. Fascinating and so I learned that if we can relax enough and I understand why we can't, it’s not attachment. I get it. Just knowing that if we can convince ourselves, like you said, to trust because it really – it end expectations are big like we were talking about San Francisco. It’s put it all, that’s part of the process and meditation is huge, right?
Marji: That’s part of the process. That balance is such an interesting, when you can actually feel those energies inside of you and you understand that it’s not one or the other, right? Because I can have trust and not expectations and still drive my car, right? I can still – I can still go to the market and go pick something up if I need to. It doesn’t mean I have to lose my mind, right? Completely.
Ceiba: You’re going to do – so I’m like, oh, a person walking around and a – and a sheep around the mountain like – this can happen – this can happen in your everyday lives.
Marji: It can happen while you’re driving your kids to school or you can have that piece in your heart, right? And that trust and go – I mean, it’s really cool too is if when you feel that and understand it, it’s – you’re driving your car and you get this feeling, oh, I shouldn’t go left even though that that’s the direction I’m supposed to go. I’m going to go the back way. And then later you hear from someone or in the news or something that there was a big accident or a tree fell in the way. And you’re like, oh, that’s why I was listening to that, right?
Ceiba: Yes.
Marji: So, how did your family and friends feel about this whole adventure?
Ceiba: I’m glad you brought that up. I will say that I lost pretty much everyone over it. Unfortunately.
Marji: Yes.
Ceiba: Yes, I did. And it’s interesting because I already knew that I would. I knew that I would. Not speaking badly to anyone. I have friends that I cried rivers over loosing. But I knew that it was going to happen. I just did. It was just too much of a break for them. It’s just too – it’s just too much for them. And I love them. I will never stop loving them. They can’t make me stop loving them.
Marji: No.
Ceiba: They – I mean, they were friends for 25 years. I never dreamt that since we break that I was told that they would. I was. That’s why I left San Francisco, actually. And I had to pull over when I heard it. When I heard the message comes. Because I’m crying so hard because I knew it was true. I knew what I just heard was going to happen. I knew I was being prepared for it. But it was hard when it really happened. It was very hard. So I think that’s another part of maturity for us. Is loving them anyway and understanding them that they can't understand. It’s our work those – if I choose to do this. So projecting out really just isn’t functional. We all do it, I should do it.
Marji: I wish – I wish we could get that message out in the current climate that’s going on right now, because it would settle things so much, right? If there was a deep understanding of just letting people be and stepping back and appreciating everyone’s path and journey and not – and always. It doesn’t mean – a teacher once tell me that the spiritual path is a very lonely one. So when she decided to step on it, right? But what I see now is that there are more people coming together in small communities and it’s still an individual. It is definitely still an individual journey.
Ceiba: Yes.
Marji: I find that more people are walking, right? But it’s ultimately don’t you find that it’s – even with your partner or your husband, it’s – you still each have your own individual journeys. Now you can just combine that and be just bigger expensive, right? Energetic since. That’s how I view it, so.
Ceiba: Yes, it’s a synergy. It’s part of – yes. This is what comes to you in Tau (Equipoise). It’s why I don’t use the word structural integration anymore because that felt so heavy and static. Because this is really so fluid and like I just stick to this amazing fluid lane inside us that’s just – and always flickering and flaring and sometimes low and sometimes it’s bright and blazing.
Marji: Yes. And sometimes there’s red and yellow and all these colors in it, right? Like so – gold and – yes, like.
Ceiba: Yes, but it’s synergistic. It’s a synthesis. It’s a coming together. It’s a cohesive. But it’s also a thoroughness, so it’s not stuck, it doesn’t just sit in the center and moves through constancy and just interweaves and interplays and – yes, so it’s like that. So now – it’s why I call it structural achievement because it’s floating, moving fluid, always changing thing. So, yes. And so I come to understand just so much and just talk about it. I just probably could write a book along about that.
Marji: Yes, you should.
Ceiba: I know.
Marji: You should.
Ceiba: Yes, it would be fun and probably – yes, the process of that. And so – yes, it’s just all like that. It was just meditation. And down in Panama, for example, when my friends left and so here I am again. We’re going to Cuba and back. It was amazing.
Marji: So, how long did she end up staying?
Ceiba: She ended up – she came to Panama for a couple of weeks then we went to Cuba for a month and then came back and she flew out.
Marji: Oh, nice.
Ceiba: Yes. It was really amazing. And yet here I am again no money. I’m down to nothing. I’m sitting at the end of the road of Panama at the Darien Gap. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that place.
Marji: I have not.
Ceiba: The Darien Gap. It’s once in between Panama and Colombia. And the FARCs lives in there. It’s that – the rebel army, the Colombian government army.
Marji: Okay. Yes.
Ceiba: It’s a pretty - it’s a hairy scary weird place. And here I was sitting down there. I found myself in the most interesting places. And I’m thinking, all right.
Marji: Here I am.
Ceiba: Yes, this is happening. And I was like, okay. I need a shift. This place is – I just need to not be here. And I’m thinking, how the heck am I getting out of here? I’m going to have to start getting my polished for some hitchhiking because I have no cash, nothing, no reverses. And although a lot of people do hitchhike down there, so it’s not that unusual, strange of a thought.
Marji: Yes.
Ceiba: And I was actually kind of looking forward to it. So I – somebody was headed from this little hostile road saying into this other little town. There wasn’t even internet where I was staying, that tiny of a village. So I checked my email and lo and behold, I’ve been contacted by this amazing woman in Costa Rica, on the other coast where I was living. And it was an amazing spot in Manuel Antonio which is quite a busy place. A lot of Americans go there. It’s just like, I love what you’re doing. I’m really drawn to it. Would you come and teach? And my sponsor a month then I’m like, “I’ll be there in three days.”
Marji: Get there.
Ceiba: Yes, I will. I mean, it was like that, Marji. It was like out – I never knew – I never knew how she found me. It was so interesting.
Marji: Yes, I love those. I loved it.
Ceiba: Yes, it was incredible. I literally had no idea what I was going to do next, quite literally. And then boom, there’s this one. And so I get on this amazing bus all the way – I did Panama back and forth, probably three times [inaudible 0:34:13.7] if you need to know anything about Panama, let me know.
Marji: Panama? Okay.
Ceiba: I can tell you. Yes, I get back up to Costa Rica. The opposite closest time which was so different and yet amazing, incredible. Then I – that came so then all things due. And again, same scenario, I had, I think 50 bucks, I traded for a surfboard. Traded for surfboards. I’ve got surfboard, this beat-up computer that barely works. I called it the beast. But it helped me email people when I could and a backpack. And I was like, okay, what am I going to do now? Nicaragua. Nicaragua is cheap. Okay. Nicaragua it is. So off I go. With my – I think I have 50 bucks to that point. Which is – I’m rich, according to me. And I arrived at this tiny little place in Nicaragua. I’m not going to say the name because I don’t want anyone to know about it. It’s a magic jewel and it’s becoming discovered so I’m not even going to say it, because already too many people know about it. But when I was there, fortunately, hardly anyone knew about it. And I stayed into the place. This is just you might give it away, but it was called Camping Matilda. It was like something as a 1950 cat skills. The people who are in Nicaragua – they were Nicaraguan as they say, but they were running this little – I don’t even know how to describe it. It was like – there was three little rooms and a bathroom, little porch, private and then had couple little dorms and then I stayed – they had this little – for lack of a better term, I called it the dog house. It was about three feet high. It has top in it. I had to literally get on my hands and knees to enter. And then – yes. I had to like duck and dive to get in this thing and then like angle myself and like kind of jump onto my cot.
Ceiba: It was incredible. But it was right on the beach and it was the sweetest little family and they had kitchen, it’s like they prepare my own food. It was just, again, like this magic words cannot describe this place. And I did what I called the goddess boot camp there. I just – I went deep in and I pulled out the feminine – I pulled it through the feminine, I should say. It’s just – it felt like I needed feminine. All this rough travel and all this like, a single chick in Latin America is like – you have to be on your game. You have to really be – like you were mentioning earlier really stingy. Like you have to get really be tapped into the natural environment. Because the people are incredibly sentient there. They’re so very much a part of the natural world. And if you’re running around, sort of in this mental state, it doesn’t feel good to them and they don’t react well to it, which you can understand why.
Marji: Yes.
Ceiba: And so you have to really learn their way. You have to slow your body down. I had to adapt even to their [inaudible 0:37:24.6]
Marji: I was just going to say the date is a very – you can tell a lot about the staff and how loud and how fast. People walk and what that says in their expression. If you’re paying attention, yes.
Ceiba: And so westerners, I call us westerners to them even though I never technically western hemisphere because their parents is not western at all and slowly becoming unfortunately. So I don’t really – especially as a single female or woman, match that with them or knew it would not work. And so I began to become very clear about how accessibly for – lack of a better term, young I have become. And this – especially San Francisco and I notice this is going to seem strange but I always love having really long hair. I love long hair. I always have. Regardless of the style, even in the 80’s and everybody just going crop short. I had long hair.
Marji: Yes. Or if there’s so much power and I use that word loose, but there’s so much that happens with our main, as I call it, right? There’s so much like – yes. So anyway, yes.
Ceiba: Yes, right. Yes. So I noticed – I was noticing at this point in my life, after all these experiences, and particularly San Francisco which had hurt me so badly that I become so excessively young, running – I had this business for 10 plus years and then trying at launching a new business in San Francisco and just became more and more aggressive, feeling like I had to compete and it was hurting me so badly. It is so against my personal nature. But I feel like – especially as a female here, on this planet, that’s just not our design. And I don’t want to say that women can't be competitive or – I think it’s all beautiful, it’s just – if it’s harmonic and it feels rhythmic that I think associated. This felt harsh and not part of who I naturally am.
Marji: And enlightenment with who you are, yes.
Ceiba: Yes.
Marji: I understand that.
Ceiba: Feel attuned. And I noticed that my hair have gotten short and short over the years. Finally, in San Francisco, it was literally up at like a buck underneath my ears. Seriously, oh, my God, I didn’t even realized it. I feel like as I got more out -- for me, personally out of balance in that arena. The laws of my femininity because I felt like compete in this combative. How did in the world? I noticed it was like I have become really out of balance with my feminine self. Really I’ve got – and so I did gotten this boot camp and I didn’t speak to anyone really. Usually, I’ll make friends and sit by a bonfire and [inaudible 0:40:19.1] travel.
Marji: Yes.
Ceiba: But this time, I decided at Camping Matilda. That I was going to really just go deep into the feminine, not just deep in but pull out the feminine. I would want the beach in this gate and I climbed tree, I became a cat, a panther, a jaguar. I can't even tell you. I pulled on every feminine animal energy. I would climb the rocks in this really cat-like way really and really certainty. I just – I really brought way back in to my.
Marji: What I feel you saying is that actually you allowed that to be express in you and it was a way of being. Like you’re not frustrated being. It was not like, I’m just going to touch this for second. You became that. And that – what a beautiful integration, right? What a beautiful gift.
Ceiba: It was a crash. It was a balance. I don’t know, maybe a month, I think, a period of time. It was incredible. It was like the work of 10 years. Because like you were saying earlier, I have the space to allow it with that particular lifestyle. And so I knew that these opportunities – that’s why I was willing to start.
Marji: Yes.
Ceiba: If I was going to start in separate mark because I knew that we are [inaudible 0:41:46.1] so incredibly. You know what I mean? It’s kind of – I mean, I won’t say I didn’t have a few nights where my heart pounded out of my chest thinking like, you are crazy, Ceiba. What are you doing? Like, why are you doing this to yourself? Just to scare sometimes would get like immense. Anyway, so there was that. But I always knew there was a bigger picture of function of this.
Marji: And we don’t need that much food anyway, right?
Ceiba: Right. I know.
Marji: You can have a couple berries again.
Ceiba: No. You’re so true. You’re so right about that. It’s like get the conditioning. The western marbles. All these expectations of how it looks on this spectrum. So, yes. Like the camp is zero cash again and there’s like – I sold my surfboard for 50 bucks and that got me to this little island called Ometepe where I knew that there was this farm there that you – where you can work for [inaudible 0:42:47.3] and that was my destination, I’m like, okay. Well, it’s come to this. I now need to work for [inaudible 0:42:53.9] which I thought was a fantastic opportunity. When I get to this island which is the most incredible, oh, my God, it’s an incredible place in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. And found this farm and got myself aligned with the volunteering and stayed there for a few months and that’s where I met my husband. And he – yes. Turns out he was giving the exact same thing. Yes.
Marji: And where is he from – is he from – where is he from originally?
Ceiba: From Arizona.
Marji: Oh, he is – of so here too. Oh, so interesting. Super cool.
Ceiba: I never expected to – I mean, not in one million years would I have expected to meet somebody that I was – that would have the same time, lifestyle as me. And also he jumped what I called jumped ship. He stepped into the boat as well. Although he did it in a quite elegant way in with a truck and this amazing camper which we’ve been and broke off into the sunset together.
Marji: Interesting.
Ceiba: Yes. And he’s just a few months more – he’d been there about nine already. So he was almost there a year. And a few months, I was like, we got that truck fired up. He’s like, yes, I think I do. I think you’re – going through the engine. So he’s like, yes, let’s go. So he fired that thing up and had the most amazing time could possibly imagine. We went everywhere. He’s bilingual. So – and I wasn’t. I didn’t know any Spanish, by the way, when I.
Marji: Oh, so void?
Ceiba: Yes. So it gradually came. But it was really interesting traveling with someone. But the thing is I noticed because he was bilingual he was in his head so much about translations and things. It was really fascinating. If I had to.
Marji: Oh, that’s interesting. Yes. That actually I would have no thought of that. But you’re right.
Ceiba: It was an incredible observation and we had a lot of conflicts over it. Because I couldn’t pull him into this – he was so locked into the academic. He had this degree, Spanish degree and et cetera, and he’s like, this is how I am. This is – and I mean, we – it was really interesting, the discussions we’ve had about it because again, I didn’t quite get that. That wasn’t my interpretation or whatever. And anyway, yes, it became clear how harsh we come across to other people and other part of the world. This western mind. It’s harsh. It’s a belief. I feel badly for them that they have to interact with us.
Marji: Well, it feels that way to them, for sure, right? Because of – yes. So then you came back to California.
Ceiba: Yes. So we travel, travel, travel and we each hit the very tip end of our monies and [inaudible 0:46:08.5] back here. But we did it four years. Well, two separately each of us and then two together. And it was – it was – yes. Irreplaceable part of my life. And, yes, so now we’re here and I’m coming out of hibernation and.
Marji: Coming out of hibernation.
Ceiba: Yes. This [inaudible 0:46:31.0] won’t let me go, apparently. So here I am.
Marji: So here it is and now you get to share that with all of us. Yes. So if you were going to share a statement of finding joy and contentment in this – it can be brief. But in the current world we live in right now. Or it’s just a few things you’d say to someone.
Ceiba: Joy and contentment?
Marji: Yes. Or even trust. Like whatever – just finding a piece of themselves that have been lost, because we all have that in it. And I feel like we get caught up in day to day stress and – this is going to sounds silly, but I practice finding joy cleaning the toilet, right? Because when I can do that – when I can do that, I can do that when someone cuts me off. So in this day to day hectic life when we can – we can understand trust and love and joy and our tasks that we have to do, I think that shines out. And that has to start from knowing that we have that inside of us. And is there – just a couple little things that you might share. And if someone wants to get a hold of you, then they can give a little more details about that.
Ceiba: Yes, absolutely. Yes, ended up actually literally designing an application toward that end, believe it or not. Just from of everything.
Marji: I actually going to know that guy. Just so you know.
Ceiba: Yes.
Marji: Yes, that’s cool.
Ceiba: I call it a map and what it does is quite literally highlights the structures that where conditions with. And when I mean structures, I mean the thinking patterns, the thinking mechanics. Just like we have physical gate mechanics or movement mechanics. We also have thought mechanics that have a particular design, particular structure. And so I would say, number one, definition. Definitions are big deal. We have definitions in our heads that I don’t even – we probably didn’t even know where they came from. We’ve never questioned them. They’re highly assumptive because we just grown up condition with that reason, no we don’t question them a lot of times. And the more we start questioning our definitions of things, the lighter we become about what’s really happening. It’s pretty incredible. Definitions can really change down and keep our perspectives limited. We really start to question and inquire into how we’re defining, interpreting a reality and what’s happening. That can be quite liberating. It’s like – it can really open the picture up quite a bit when we start questioning our own definitions. Because what really does make us sad? What does make you angry? It’s like what really – what is my definition of that? You’re really – you’re getting tired of reacting the same way. I know this happened to me many times. Ceiba, why do you keep – like I know I don’t want to be reacting this way and I know better and I know all the concepts about why I shouldn’t be but yet, here I am reacting like – yes, it’s like, okay, what is your definition about this then? It’s kind of be something you’re holding tight to. You might not even know you’re holding tight to. And so once I try to really cracking into that, get started to loosen up a little bit my context. And since you allow the person’s difference in to opposition to be completely okay. It’s like trust that even when something really terrible happens that, A, why are we just finding it as terrible and I mean, I know some things can be easily define as terrible. But don’t mean to say that we have to challenge all of these definitions to ourselves. Besides it’s really beginning an inquiry, I said, how do you really see the world? And when you’re in pain, what do you – what are some of definitions around that and that it could be that it’s time for a maturing. I think that’s part of it happening to our culture right now. We’re in a time of maturation and we can see it’s radical and painful and it requires a lot of self-challenge and self-inquiry and we just have to be okay with that pain. And rather than defining it’s negative or bad, it can just have a neutrality.
Marji: It’s just having a neutrality. Yes.
Ceiba: Finding a new.
Marji: So once that – once that doesn’t trigger you, it’s amazing what can flow in, right? It’s amazing what it can flow in.
Ceiba: It brings you up. It’s brings you up. It’s like – you don’t have to be worried about everybody else now. It’s like you can just go on your own beautiful journey and, yes, it’s always going to have – it’s going to have some blast and some knockdowns. That is always going to be there. No one is getting out of that. Not one human on this planet gets to escape that.
Marji: When we take the definition out of those things, it allows it to be an experience. I don’t think that this life would meant to be this horrible struggle that people – that some people would think, right? Just a progression from one thing to another. And they’re just different experiences. And so when we can view it that way, it doesn’t mean that there’s not a lack of compassion or empathy or love. I feel like there’s more when we do that, right? Because there’s a bigger understanding of the whole, right? So it’s super cool.
Ceiba: Yes, it’s picture thinking and part of the duality construct is severing us from the big picture. That’s the whole – that’s the mechanism of that construct. It’s decisive. It’s not inclusive to binary. It forces us to choose between. So I got this match out because I feel like when we can physically see it, within a literal mass, it’s like, oh, I can even roll that picture and it was operating and my thought is right. And then we figure out how to bridge the binary structure into – what I call multidimensional but just even three dimensional which is really the nature of this reality. We’re not pretty dimensional with three. And so three dimensional structure is inclusive and constructive. So that is my life passion is to make these maps that are bringing us from the painful separated, destructive, confusing duality that we don’t even know is operating from this conditioning in our thought and logic into this inclusive, constructive, thoroughness of experience. It’s a relief like when you can – when you can start feeling the more open structure of spot mechanic, it’s like a thousand pounds drops off your shoulders when you don’t have to constantly choose between this or that, this or that.
Marji: Yes.
Ceiba: It’s horrible. It’s so emotionally and spiritually draining, which I believe could possibly be intentional to that as part of that structure, where the inclusive model is so relaxing and just brings just such a calm and into the body mind. It’s incredible. It’s really powerful.
Marji: Well, that so, on that note, how can people find you and reach you to find their maps and your maps?
Ceiba: Yes.
Marji: Well, it’s a good way.
Ceiba: I’ve got a few. I’ve got an email which I think should be – maybe it’s not posted on Basmati actually. But my expression is called the Tau, which is T-A-U. It can sometimes mistaken for Tai, as in T-A-O. The Taoist principle or the Daoist principle. T-A-U is actually a Greek letter and it’s the – it’s a symbol for the circle constant which is why I’ve chosen that the Tau (Equipoise). So it’s T-A-U Equipoise. And you can pretty much find everything there. Yes. And Equipoise meaning.
Marji: And they say but they can – I’m sorry. Go ahead.
Ceiba: Oh, no.
Marji: I was going to say they can find you on the Basmati site as well. And go ahead explain.
Ceiba: Yes. And then on Basmati, I have kind of – and my writings are going to appear because I do use the three dimensional structure in my writings. They appear [inaudible 0:55:43.6] they will appear one of the folks who they dive in. It’s not going to be your sort of a + b = c experience when you read what I write and that’s very intentional. A lot of what I write involves the structure of paradox. Paradoxical thinking is actually a three dimensional soft construct. But you will know about that. I know. Yes. We have been hard about it. So when the binary or duality structure meet the paradox structure meet the paradox structure, it can – people even can get angry about it. And this is confusing like what do you saying? And so I stick with it though because I’m very committed. I will just have to put up with the flock to hold the ground of the three dimensional structure. I’m just – I’m holding it down, girls.
Marji: What a great gift you’re sharing with us. Yes, what a great gift you’re sharing with us. It’s beautiful.
Ceiba: It’s interesting.
Marji: So we’ll have – save for interesting and super fun that we get to share that, right? I think it’s just great. I think it’s fabulous.
Ceiba: I love it. It makes my heart sing beyond measure. Yes.
Marji: So we have to do this again. We’ll have to plan it and maybe chitchat a little bit more about the map and giving people tools. I love that.
Ceiba: I’d like to. Yes. It’d be great.
Marji: Okay. It was great talking to you. And I I’ll talk to you soon.
Ceiba: Thank you so much. All right. Take care.
Marji: Oh, of course. Okay. Bye-bye.
Ceiba: All right. You too. Bye.
