Carl Greer: The Necktie and the Jaguar
Sandra Sedgbeer: You’ve said that the unseen world can exact a price on those who neglect their spiritual nature. From my perspective, when we feel that yearning, I think that’s coming from our spiritual nature—that deeper part of ourselves, the soul. For people who feel that yearning that they need to make some change to find greater fulfillment, what suggestions do you have about how they could start?
Carl Greer: First, honor those yearnings and take time to listen to them. Then, discuss why you can’t follow some of those yearnings, see what the impediments are, and try to process whether they really exist. And that leads us to the point that I feel is true for many of us. There’s a part of us that really wants to change, but part of us doesn’t, and the part that doesn’t want to change, to move us toward our spiritual journey, needs to be dealt with. That part is usually an unconscious part, and that’s where the practices I write about in all of my books are useful. How do you access the unconscious and get a glimpse into those things? That involves working with dreams, which we can all learn to do. A big thing that I’ve found very helpful is spending time in nature and just letting nature inform us. Develop the viewpoint that nature has the answers. We’re observing her, and She has information out there for us and for some of life’s questions. We may wonder questions, how in the world can sitting by a brook help me understand things like a decision I’m trying to make? All I’m saying is that often it does … and in ways, we can’t even verbalize and understand. Trust that if you take time for yourself and spend time in nature, there is a benevolent spirit out there that will work with you.
Sandra Sedgbeer: How can we learn to recognize the stories we don’t even know we’re telling ourselves?
Carl Greer: That’s a simple process. I believe a place exists and has existed before creation, which I call the quiet. I’ve traveled there.
It’s the place before the form or the energization of an idea—it’s all pure potential. I think that place surrounds us now, and it is possible to attune to it with our consciousnesses. We can interact with it to cause things in this reality that otherwise wouldn’t occur, and if that’s so, you can journey to it and communicate with it and as your question.
You can ask, ‘what are the things that keep me from leading the life I feel spiritually I need to live?’ And wait for that energy to answer you, and amazingly it often does.
The process requires setting an intent and breathing and changing your consciousness a little bit, But you can have that conversation, and when you interact with these realms, there’s information there that you can’t believe that comes right from you to you.
Sandra Sedgbeer: Do you think that people can do this and make these kinds of changes and open themselves up to the spiritual part of themselves and spiritual realms without taking drugs like Ayahuasca or Peyote or something?
Carl Greer: Absolutely. The plant can be helpful and not beneficial if not done in the right setting or right circumstances. Dreamwork can be done without plants, Shamanic journeys can be made without plants. Spending meditative time in nature can be done without the plant. So, there are ways to slow your brainwaves down from fight or flight. The sympathetic nervous system responds to parasympathetic nervous system responses, so the physiology, the neurotransmitters, can be changed just through meditation, rattling, or drumming. And there are lots of other ways to get to those states, in my opinion.
Sandra Sedgbeer: Of all the experiences you’ve had, is there one pinnacle experience as far as you’re concerned?
Carl Greer: I can’t say that, really. Maybe an experience when I was about five years old. We lived in a suburb of Pittsburgh called Mt. Lebanon, and I used to wander around on my own a lot. One day I wandered through a farm near the top of a hill not far from our house, and I came upon an apple tree. Suddenly, I saw something like a glow around that tree, and I can clearly remember that I and the tree and the field became one at that moment. It was a oneness experience that I didn’t get to repeat until many years later after I did some of the Shamanic work. Maybe that would be a very early reminder that we are part of a larger set of energies. We came from someplace; we’ll go to someplace. So, in some ways, maybe that was my pinnacle experience.
Sandra Sedgbeer: What do you most want readers to take away from your book?
Carl Greer: It’s never too late to make changes in your life. They don’t have to be significant changes, and to be of service doesn’t mean you have to have a lot of money or resources – you could just do the little acts of kindness which are of great service.
Listen to people whom you otherwise might not listen to. Just have a consciousness of need and what you can do without taking too much from your own energy to help other people. Try to be available to others but also start off by spending time with yourself.
What can you do for yourself that might be more pleasing to your soul than what you’re doing?
One place you can maybe get answers to that question would be to spend more time in nature. Be under a tree, be with the flowers, be by some water. Those would be things that I would suggest that people might do.
Sandra Sedgbeer: I also think that the way you’ve constructed the questions at the end of each chapter is like having a great course in transformation right there because you’re giving us the questions that we need to ask ourselves to actually create change.
Carl Greer: Yes, I hope that people who read the book use them in that way. They will just be [mind] joggers for them to think about and choose or not choose to make changes in those areas of their life. At least they’ve thought about them and are posing the possibility of change to themselves.
Sandra Sedgbeer: So what’s next?
Carl Greer: Well, I’ve got some health challenges in the last couple of years. I had open-heart surgery a year ago that was successful. I just had a course of radiation treatment for prostate cancer, but I’m feeling terrific for a guy soon to be 81. I want to continue to spend a lot of time with the charities I’m working with, and I’ve got some more writing that I want to do. I have lots of kids and grandkids that I want to spend time with, and Pat and I want to do a little traveling, so my agenda is full right now, Sandie.
Sandra Sedgbeer: Carl Greer, thank you. The Necktie and the Jaguar: A Memoir to Help You Change Your Story and Find fulfillment, I think that’s like a two-for-one there–a memoir and a course in transformation. For more information about Carl Greer, visit his website at carlgreer.com.
You will also enjoy Carl Greer: Change Your Story, Change Your Life and Carl Greer – Change the Story of Your Health
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