Intro:Pounding bass note and a stirring fanfare of horns. Welcome to another edition
of Things to Think about. Here's Stacy. The horns continue with a keyboard note
held.
Stacy Casson 0:03 Welcome to the things to think about podcast, where we use fables and fairy tales to come to deeper truths about our subconscious world. I'm Stacy Casson, and today we have a special treat. My guest today is the wonderful multidisciplinary artist Carli Garcia. Carli is a truth seeker and recovering educator, she uses many forms of art to tell powerful stories; many of which center on equity and social justice. Today's story will explore finding our peace in a world that can't wait. And now get comfortable. And relax. Hey, Carli, welcome to the show!
Carli Garcia 0:47 Hey, how are you?
Stacy Casson 0:49 I'm pretty good. I'm really excited to have you on board. This started kind of as a lark, you and I were trying to figure out how to solve world peace.
Carli Garcia 0:58 Yup
Stacy Casson 0:59 And yeah. podcast this is we're having such a great discussion together. And you said yes. So that's, that's how we got here today.
Carli Garcia 1:10 Well, thank you so much for the invitation. Happy to be here.
Stacy Casson 1:14 Thank you. So the question you specifically asked was, how can I be in the world and not of it and keep my peace? Being a human being in this world? So our first card we we have a character, it's very organic. And there's the earth. So this this character is pregnant with possibility. So how do you want to start the story?
Carli Garcia 1:43 Well, when you started shuffling, these cards presented themselves almost immediately. And I think that there's something to be said about, like, every seven years, your cells kind of change, or you're looking at physically a new person or something to that effect. And that popped into my mind when I saw this card. Because I do think that there is a, I would say, a renewal process to the earth. And this card also looks like there's some blue, like, I want to say it's water. It looks like there's water on the lady's, the woman's shoulders, but I can't really tell
Stacy Casson 2:34 Yeah, it looks like water. And yeah,
Carli Garcia 2:37 so I think so like water is, is renewing. It goes wherever it wants. It's, it brings life, I think I see some fish there. And yeah. And I think that it's a hopeful image. And that the Earth, like one of the things that we've talked about, is that the earth is pretty much kind of set to auto-pilot, and it is going to survive, uhm, humans being here. And I think that that is you know, I might, I might read this on a on a not so great day, I might read this as Earth is preparing itself to be like in better homeostasis or like better like, symbiosis with the life that it wants to be in some in symbiosis with versus having to deal with earthlings that are just kind of attacking it all the time.
Stacy Casson 3:55 Right.
Carli Garcia 3:56 But there is definitely a sense of renewal and life giving, and it makes me feel more positive than I did even an hour ago. And that's just because of the nature of our, our world. Like every time you pick up your phone and you check the news. There's some tragedy somewhere. And it's constant. So the image, the light behind her the yellow, you know, the light makes me feel a little bit more optimistic about what's around the bend.
Stacy Casson 4:33 Okay. Yeah, when when, when this card came up for me, I kind of too had a sense of, of a pregnancy of, I like this idea of rebirth. Right? Because but it's also that this, this thing that we're trying to hold on to, we carry it with us because you'd mentioned earlier this sense that the external things, we don't have time to wait for external things to settle down. And I love that our figure, Mother Earth, here is she looks very calm. And she's also kind of detached. Like normally you see pictures of people like cradling their stomach, and, you know, holding it close, but she's very chill and just looking down on it. And you'd mentioned kind of being a scientist. So I think perhaps our current situation is where do we draw detachment, while I love your idea of being in symbiosis with something else, and I loved the water imagery, because water takes up the shape of what it's in, it's very adaptable. And her hair is twigs and leaves. So I think there's some sense of groundedness. And then she's contrasted by this kind of fiery background. So I imagine that to kind of be all of these external things that you're talking about. I mean places, they're literally there, the Earth is on fire. But she just has this calmness about her. And there's a connection, there's a connection to the moon in here. So these are, and this moon is by her head. So I also think of kind of a symbiosis of the head and heart a moon is usually dealing with those deeper feelings. So currently, there is this fiery assault against our Earth figure, right? And she's chill, she's looking down at it. She's she's taking care of herself, right? It looks like she's been styling her hair, or she's taking care of herself. So I like your idea of this symbiosis, and renewal, and a cautionary thing that came up to me as well is it's tenuous. Yeah, you never know if things will come to term. There are [Carli - right] miscarriages of justice and other things, to use that language and vernacular. Okay, cool. So then she encounters our next our next vision. And, yeah, and this one, in in Tarot. This is the judgment card, but it's really about self judgment, or judging other things. So when we're tying this in together, what comes to mind for me, and then I'd love to see what comes to mind for you, is releasing that judgment. And I think maybe she's able to be so calm, because she's just like, 'this is what is', and it's really hard to 'this is what is' when things can be objectively bad. I mean, there's been a lot of things in the news that aren't great. Maybe if you're 3000 feet up in the air, and you're a God and you look down on this, all you see is the water but like if you're one of the people involved in this, it, it's very present. And it's hard to release judgment about things. We learned, we have this thing at my work about reframing. And it's kind of I don't want to get into toxic positivity. But I do think it's where we focus our attention. Like if you were somebody that's neuro-divergent, you could say, well, because of my will just throw, because of my attention deficit disorder, I can't focus on anything and everything's horrible. Or you could say, because of my attention deficit disorder, I have the privilege of being very strategic in what I want to focus on. And that has allowed me to do X, Y, Z. Does that make sense?
Carli Garcia 9:15 Yeah, absolutely. Um, I've had a lot of ADHD specific conversations lately. So it tracks, and also the mindset shift. The judgment, the self judgement. It reminds me of, or it makes me it makes me think about words and etymology and how we conflate a lot of words. And so when I think of judgment, I think of a very human behavior to judge others and judge the self and it's very much tied to religious beliefs. And the idea that there can only be one Supreme Being that can judge anyone and anyone else that is not Supreme, therefore, like earthly is not, doesn't have a right to judge. And so there's like, that's one bucket, then there's use your judgment wisely, which is not a negative, doesn't doesn't have a negative connotation. So like, not, you know, not crossing the street without watching the traffic, right is an exercise in like you and your judgment. But we tend to live inside of so much judgment because of our lack of symbiosis. Symbiosis, like our lack of, of connection to earth, right, like, Mother Earth is very calm and cool and collected, because Earth is just on autopilot, like Earth is going to Earth. And humans are very much not connected to Earth. Like right now we're talking about climate and global warming and pollution and trying to make a dent in fixing the only home that we have in outer space. And there's a lot of judgment, even in the conversation, right? "Do you recycle? Do you recycle well enough? Do you eat clean? Are you eating cow? If you're eating this, then you're not really concerned about the Earth." There's so much judgment wrapped up into our everyday decision making. And this card, this, you know, if we can free ourselves of the external causes of why we spend so much time drawing lines, you know, in this, ultimately, what is sand, right, the Sands of Time, like, we can spend a lot of time and energy drawing these lines, like, "I'm better, you're worse, you're not doing it right. You're doing it wrong", right? And so if we could experience what not being judged is or what it feels like to not worry about being judged. And for me, what's coming up for me is I've really liked my, my privacy and my anon and my anonymity. But I also know, if I wanted to, if I had something to share that was really, you know, valuable to many people, then that means I might have to trade my anonymity. And then that means I might have been, then that means I will open myself up to judgment, right? So if I have a YouTube channel, saying, "Hey, guys, this is how you can pack your luggage so that you're not holding up the line, because you don't need 30 outfits for a weekend trip." If I start opening up myself, and saying like, here's all this stuff I want to give that it's a then it becomes a two way street. And it's now it now I'm open up to like lots of judgment, which is different than constructive criticism. Right? It's just like, judgment is like, "you're black. You're a woman I hate you." Like that's, like, like judgment is like has nothing to do with like, "Oh, I think you should buy this different lighting system or something" So, um, we I think we yearn for. It's ironic I think we yearn for this. We yearn for being free of judgment. And I think a lot of the times, the judgment of ourselves, like we judge ourselves, and we judge people from afar, as a as a way of like, well, if I'm, if I just like, get it over with, they won't feel so bad because it's coming anyway.
And if we could release, it has to start here, like it has to start in your own body. But it's a lot of work. Because, like, we're trained to think that time is money. We're trained to think that all of our individual actually first we're trained to think that like we are individuals, that's a whole 'nother conversation, right?
Stacy Casson 14:50 Yeah.
Carli Garcia 14:50 So like being like being a person an entity unto your own self means that like, as long as you you have 24 hours in the day, and so does Warren Buffett. So like, if you're not doing what Warren Buffet's doing, then like, you must be doing something wrong. Like, I mean, like, and some of us can, some of us can go "Hmm. That's not really, that's not how it works." But there's just so much narrative around and so much overvaluation of purdue like of production, right? We live in a country, we live in a country that was basically founded to be an off-site for production, like go find, go make money in the colonies, like, find a way to make it like, you know, produce more, more money. More profit, right? So like, I think we need to interrogate like, Where does this feeling of judgment come? Like? What's the root like if the, if the bulb up top is this like putrid flower of like, everyone being at each other's throats, it's like, what is the root and the root is that we live in a country that was founded on the purpose of being a factory of like, produce stuff, and then send the revenue, the profits back to other countries, where people are freely not think like, they're just like concerned, like how much profit like the colonies are making. And it's very much it's very much like we're haunted by that. But we don't necessarily talk about that all the time. And the connection to the rest of the world is that now like, the the Western world has become this kind of barometer of like, this is aspirational for everyone. And so now, people and cultures that, that had figured out how to live in some in symbiosis, like cultures that were living in, in ways that did not produce diabetes, hypertension, heart attacks, depression, anxiety, like all of those things, are now being forced down this, this, you know, in the funnel, it's like, well, you need to adapt and behave like everyone else is behaving. And that's causing a lot of tension and disrupt in disruption and getting us further away from being connected to the planet.
Stacy Casson 17:41 Yeah, we're not we're not living in a society that looks at us as stewards. It's more of a, an ownership society versus Yeah, stewardship society, yes.
Carli Garcia 17:52 I love that
Stacy Casson 17:53 Sorry. And even the societies that are stewardship societies, they're still impacted because of the actions of the others. Our our environment has been changing, the oceans are getting warmer. So even if you're this remote, people on an island somewhere, the water coming up to your island has changed, the landscape is changing, maybe more Typhoons are hitting because of these other people. And it's funny when you brought up judgment, I think that the the countries that have been very actively participating in productivity elsewhere in exporting their productivity, they then sit back and judge the places that don't have it, because they've been able to have this life of leisure or clean living because of what they have extracted. Yes, other locations. So I think this conflict in this tension is, how do we stay grounded? What do we need to release? Because at this I see is a fight between we have, you know, the earth figure that's very grounded, more of the things that are physically on Earth, water, land, and there is this conflict with the more fiery elements or the things in the mind because we do rationalize away a lot of things as well.
Carli Garcia 19:26 Yeah, very true.
Stacy Casson 19:28 We kind of dig our head in the sand by telling ourselves another story that "oh, it's not that bad", or "we're going to course correct" or "nature is very adaptable", but we don't have real answers sometimes. So it's it's almost course correcting too much too. "Will do de la dee da all is well." I think in our question, how to be in it and not of it. We still have to stay connected. I I'm seeing this theme of like connection coming throughout the story. So as the Mother Earth character's is renewing, whether it be sloughing off the skin, or preparing for this next rebirth of what it is that we have, I love your idea of seven year cycles. What are we going to release? What are we going to hold on to? So the next one we have is the seven of Pentacles. And more dirt.
Carli Garcia 20:31 Yeah,
Stacy Casson 20:32 Something growing here, this is usually tied into material resources, home life, jobs, that kind of thing. So in the context of what advice can we give ourselves? Or what have we learned from the past? What comes up for you,
Carli Garcia 20:51 um, wouldn't have made the connection between. Like, cur, like, I wouldn't look at this and say, career, but I would say, planting seeds. And sometimes we plant seeds, especially educators, you know, we plant a lot of seeds. And we're not really around because you get new kids, right? Like, you're not really around to see the fruits of what you planted. And during times, like now, you know, times of uncertainty. It's sometimes hard to think about planning, right, like planning, planting seeds, growing things taking time. Because it is hard to be patient. But I do think that I do think that there has been some work that's that people are doing. And I'll try to keep this short and sweet. But I do think that there are people who are intentionally trying to become enlightened about why we are, why we are where we are. I think that they're doing it in a way that is not about trying to prove or disprove something about their identity. It's more about it's a it's a real question of like, how did we get here so that we understand how to like how to move forward, like how to, you know, how to plan. And I think a lot of seeds have been planted, that will bear some considerable fruit in the future. Which is, which is hard to, to sit and think about, considering the news of the last two weeks, right? The news, the news, the last two week news cycle, is very antithetical to this idea of like, progress is, is is going to come or or positive. You know, things will come from this particular moment, because there's a lot of doom and gloom in the news, but like itself, like its clickbait. But I do think that there are people who have decided that they are going to just move in silence, and they're going to go out into the world and attempt on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, whatever works for them, they're going to go out into the world and try to leave things better than they found it without the need for likes without the need for hashtags, or posting or talking about it or building a brand around it.
Stacy Casson 23:43 Yeah.
Carli Garcia 23:45 I do think that, that that is happening. And honestly, that's, that's the way that it has to happen. Because sometimes attention is great for galvanizing people. But again, going back to the judgment, going back to the judge, like releasing the judgment, sometimes. Sometimes in order to get something done, like you have to forego the like, "Come on everyone", like you have to for you have to forego the publicity.
Stacy Casson 24:23 Yeah.
Carli Garcia 24:24 Because you're because you're going to open it up to not just judgment, but like people trying to come and shut it down. (chuckles)
Stacy Casson 24:33 Yeah. No, I mean to interrupt you.
Carli Garcia 24:38 No, that's fine.
Stacy Casson 24:39 I was a couple. I think it was last year, I got to attend. Something called it was called Crip Camp and it was a bunch of disability activists. And I don't remember the exact quote, but what they said was, the people that are really making a difference are the ones who don't you don't hear about them. Yeah. Yeah. And I and then there was another quote in a LinkedIn post that like the the people that are liked or admired if the oppress it was something like if the oppressor is comfortable with them we're not really making progress.
Carli Garcia 25:20 Oooooh, so that's really creepy because I an example popped into my mind as you were talking. And I mean, it's relatively controversial. Like also it's not it's just people like speaking facts and speaking truth. But a lot of people jumped on the Brené Brown like bandwagon like the, like, what's the word? Like, being comfortable with like being vulnerable, she did a TED talk on like vulnerability, and then her kind of brand kind of like skyrocketed. And then post George Floyd. The DEI space was, like a, like, the bear was poked, and everyone was like, "Hey, so has anyone noticed that all the people who are like rising to prominence in the DEI space are also like melanin deficient people? And so like holding, holding that, right, like, to your point, like, the poster children for, like change, and movement could could sometimes not really be what it looks like. And I'm not saying that specifically about Brené Brown, because I do I have seen her talk. And I have like, like, listened to a lot of like, what she said, what she has said about a lot of different things. And I don't have like any like, you know, it's there's a lot of value there. But she also can represent like, but look who is being allowed to succeed in this space is also what's happening. And so to your point, the character in this card is quiet, alone, pensive, right?
Stacy Casson 27:17 Yes.
Carli Garcia 27:18 Probably not living for likes, no phone, no digital, anything, right? Just the quiet, the quiet person who is deciding I am going to plant these seeds. And I know that doing this without fanfare, right is going to be the reason why it's why it succeeds.
Stacy Casson 27:44 Right.
Carli Garcia 27:44 Right. It's going to it's going to prosper because there is no fanfare.
Stacy Casson 27:49 Yeah. And in the picture, the plant is just the tip of the metaphorical iceberg. There's some deep roots down. So back, back to our question of how can I be in it, but not have it and find my peace? You also mentioned having a plan. When I am upset by something, and I don't know what to do with it. And then I think it was Katrina Strohl post posted a thing on questions, but she's like, okay, being I think it was being reactive versus reflective. And one of the questions she asked was, okay, I'm feeling this way, what I want to do with this? And that is a different thing than "Aaaargh!! I'm feeling this way feelings," It's I'm gonna go pout, or I'm gonna go get attention, versus this person, like you said, is solitary. They're sitting with this, they're reflecting, all these things are taking root. And I mean, in some ways, we've seen the power of planning, because some of the news that's happened now, is the results of years of planning. Diligently.
Carli Garcia 27:49 Yes, yes. Yeah.
Stacy Casson 28:13 Meaning..
Carli Garcia 28:33 Absolutely
Stacy Casson 28:39 That word - disciplined execution. So if we go back to how can we be in it, but not of it and find peace? I think you have to maybe have a plan for peace. Have Yes, yes. A plan for planting your seeds of peace to help this grow. And it sounds like it's also literally maybe just turning off your screens, shutting down your phone, as you said, you really highlighted this person doesn't have a lot of technology around them, and they're deeply grounded. I mean, I would always I never feel bad after coming back from a walk going into nature. I am I definitely will hug a tree. And I just love the sensation of that strength until the ants come, but this sensation of the strength of the tree and it's been here for longer than I have. And it's, we're not separate. It's it's energy, I'm energy and we are connected. And that goes back to this idea that if we're thinking about stewardship versus ownership, what do we really own? These things were here before us, right? Animals have territories, but it's still within harmony. And with sync, I say, like a tree, a tree can grow, have ridiculous amount of height or width, but the tree sticks with the environment and with the resources that are available, like you never hear a tree going, "Hey, we had leaf production of X amount. So next year, we need 50% more leaf production", or we need we is it a tree we need to produce 10% more fruit than we did last year. The tree has grows. Nature just does its thing. And I think what I'm coming up to me is like, what can we learn from nature? Right To help us with this idea of peace? Right? Yeah. And then the last one is kind of like, what do we need to focus on? Or What are potential outcome? So I was doing and this one was reversed. So this also that it can be a challenge, like, here's where to focus, and it can be a challenge, as well. What does pop up for you. I don't want to lead you.
Carli Garcia 31:47 Yeah, um, so I'm coming from the, the, the planting man, the Pentacles card. So the roots are very tangled. And the challenge, like part of like, the challenge of some things are how things are intertwined. So there's a lot of twists and turns and knots and in the way that aspects of our world have to do with like other aspects of our world that we might not actually be clear on. And that brings up, like competing priorities. And I've been listening to another podcast about like school and education and tests and getting into you know, and especially in New York City, and what came up for me was that there's a problem that people recognize, but they don't really have a plan for how to solve it, or they don't want to solve it. Because when you have competing priorities, right, like if you have someone who says, "I own a construction company, so I want all of these trees to be cut down," and then you have someone who says, "but the trees make oxygen and they shouldn't be cut down", then it's that's a competing, competing priority. And so the education podcast that at will the podcast about education in New York City. And the selection process really brought up for me that people don't either don't really understand the whole picture like a lot of animosity and like hitting a wall and like trying to problem-solve comes from really a huge and this is like it sounds like a it's like almost like an understatement in my head because it's like it's not just a lack of understanding. It's sometimes also not wanting to understand and I say that to say that it should be common knowledge that New York City public schools are the most segregated public school, you know, system in the country. It should be common knowledge it might not be for list for for some listeners. But the conversation around how do we make it more equitable? Really turned into parents from communities that didn't have problems with access, really being angry about giving more people access. And I typically when that happens, that's when I know that I have to like do a do like a like a circle back. Like that means when I, when I figure out like, okay, this group of people, they're all fighting Tower of Babel, no one really understands what what's what's at stake if the fighting continues, right? Because it's parents and administrators and DOE (Department of Education) and whoever else, you never hear from the children. You never hear from the kids. You never hear how they're impacted. You never hear how they are, how they feel about their parents trying to prevent their friends from going to the same school. You never hear about the like, how they talk amongst themselves about how segregated the schools are. You never like, you know what I mean? Like they weren't even interviewed. You can go you can walk right into Stuyvesant High School, and just and and ask the kids like, how do you feel about the fact that your school is constantly in the news for being a poster child for inequity? Right, and like, what are you going to do about that? You're just gonna, like, take the money and run? You're gonna go to college, right? And get to college? And then do what with your education? What are you gonna what are you gonna do with education? Right? If education is supposed to be this whole, like, liberatory thing, then then then what gives? Because essentially, what we've done to ourselves is we've made education, like going like the act of going to school, we've made that part of the part of a cog in perpetuating inequity, because everyone's like, it's like crabs in a barrel.
Stacy Casson 34:45 Yeah
Carli Garcia 35:13 Right? It's crabs in a barrel. It's like, oh, I need to get straight A's. Why? So that I can get into this school? Why? So that I can get it to the next school. Why? So that I can go to this grad school, graduate school, so I can get this degree. Why? so that I could make money. If that's the end game, if going to school, if the, if the result of going to school, is to get a job so that you can get money, then how do we have any how do we insert any conversation about how the more we keep doing that, the further away from solving problems that we get? We keep putting value. And, and, and this is a teacher tangent, but grades are not uniform, you can go to school in every state, and do the same work and have different teachers and get different grades. Which is what fuels the want for standardization and makes it makes it like a hamster wheel. You know, we're on this hamster wheel because there's all these statistics. And you know, we already know that. 0 to 3, extremely important, most important years. So we already know that two-income college educated household is going to produce children that can do good at school, like can do school well. You know, you know, but my my thing is, like, as an educator, I'm just like, What is the difference between school and being educated? Like, I'm starting to kind of separate those things. Because you can go to school and get, you know, you can go to school get good grades. But what is the point if like, everyone is just trying to get good grades just so that they can say they went to Harvard? And then start a company that destroys the rest of the planet?
Stacy Casson 39:08 Yeah, no, you are absolutely preaching to the choir. Even my 12 year old he's he's a funny guy. He's like, "Mom, you need to watch this video". And it's called grades are a myth and motivation is a myth (Both chuckle). It is he's a good student. So it's not his plea that I shouldn't be hard on his grades or something like that. Yeah. Look, he's a kid that looks at he thinks that even the student Honor roll is I can't think of is oppressive. Because he says it's just a bunch of kids going "look at us, we're amazing." And for what. And he's like value children being amazing at different many different other things. I think if children designed schools it would be completely different system. Yeah. So that you you are preaching to the choir on this. You can boil down the essence of somebody to what their transcript says.
Carli Garcia 40:14 Right? Exactly.
Stacy Casson 40:16 Plenty of people with with a wonderful transcript, but they're horrible human beings. But I'm being judmental.
Carli Garcia 40:22 Yes, right.
Stacy Casson 40:23 We're not.
Carli Garcia 40:23 No, no. And that's no, I agree with you. And that's the it's a very, like, very low hanging fruit for me to do this. But sometimes I get into these conversations about the stratification of higher education. And the, like, the ivy League's are basically like brand, like they have this brand. And people associate their brand, with many things. But it's, it's really never about like, what did you learn? And like, how are you becoming a better person than you were before? It's really not about becoming a better person, it's about getting more access to more to more resources. And then for some people, it's literally about the fact that they think that they are inherently better than someone else. That's another podcast. You know, but I think that students are the experts at what needs to change in terms of the education system. And I think that a lot of our problems are either exacerbated by, created, cultivated, right, like, school is the place if you want to really like get the pulse of what's going on in society. Look at all of the arguments that are happening, look at all of the skirmishes, right, that are happening in school districts.
Stacy Casson 42:06 Yeah
Carli Garcia 42:07 About about certain thing. It's right. There's a lot of I know, there's probably a some kind of war quote about, you know, it's the the, it's for battles, right. It's like the little battles that you're winning, and for all the progress that we've made the quote, unquote, progress, and I hate sounding trite, but there are a ton of people trying to do a lot of let's let's walk this back. And they're doing it on campus. Why? Because the minds, right, and like, you don't change a 45 year old, you just you just incept the younger people who don't know any better, right? Like, that's why all these things are happening, like in the school on the school battleground, because they know that it's not worth trying to change an adult mind. And adult is a term I use very loosely.
Stacy Casson 43:09 Right? It's kind of like school is ground zero for indoctrination.
Carli Garcia 43:15 Absolutely.
Stacy Casson 43:16 My uncle was an educator. And he'd always say, "and education comes from the root word educare which is to draw out." So we're supposed to be drawing out from the students. It's, it should be in an ideal world discovery. They learn by discover. I think I'm one of the last generations I went to school, to expand my mind and broaden my horizons. And I think there's some privilege in that. But that's, I went to school to learn how to think. And,
Carli Garcia 43:50 Yes
Stacy Casson 43:50 I didn't go to school to get a career. Yes, I wanted to be a doctor. I realized I don't like sick people. And the reason I wanted to be a doctor was I played a video game and I was really good at it. So of course, this means, you know, it got me thinking you're supposed to be a neurosurgeon. And I didn't throw up when we were dissecting the frog and my cousin who's a doctor did so obviously, I'm all set to be a doctor. And my grandmother got cancer. And I'm like, this is horrible. I don't like sick people. I have no business being around sick people.
A doctor, it's a technical career. Yes, there's missions, there's clinicians, but these are people that you're dealing with. These are human beings. And I didn't think I was suited to be in that career. So I changed to Liberal Studies. And everybody calls it the "do you want fries with that?" major, but it was really let's learn how to learn. Right? Let's expand those horizons. And I'm kind of sad that like you said, education is the cog In this wheel and bringing it back to this card, it has this kind of flow. It traditionally this is as above, so below what
Carli Garcia 45:12 yeah.
Stacy Casson 45:13 What you think, you manifest or what you manifest is what you think. And the two are kind of combined here. This one is reversed. So again, there's that, that challenge of what are we making the connections? And it just, I'm trying to bring it back to the question of how do we be in it, and not of it and keep our peace?
Carli Garcia 45:36 Right
Stacy Casson 45:37 .And what I'm hearing is looking at the systems as a whole. I didn't mean to cut you off.
Carli Garcia 45:42 Yeah, there's a macro, and there's a micro, and it's, you know, it's imperative for us to and that's maybe not the best word, but we need to take more time to really reflect, because there's just so many things, there are so many seeds, again, that we have planted that will bear positive fruit. Same time, there are many negative seeds, right, that have been planted that, right, like
Stacy Casson 46:27 the weeds
Carli Garcia 46:28 like, right, like, it's just like, it's a const it's just constant, right? There's this constant. And it's not and I'm very intentional about saying like things like good or bad, like I try not to infuse a lot of like morality rhetoric, in what I'm in what I say. But I think that there is something to be said, right. You know, there were seeds that were planted, you know, 10 years ago, that led to an 18 year old opening fire in a grocery store. Right. There were also seeds that were planted, like, many moons ago, to allow for, you know, people of all identities or, you know, of identities that did not feel comfortable leaving the house 50 years ago, feel more comfortable leaving the house today. Right. So like, there's always seeds being planted. And I do think that the children not that they're like, our future, like, I don't really believe in that song any more. Not that I really did, because I was a kid when it came out. But like, this whole idea of like, the children are our future and like, they're going to save us like, no, like, the children are just going to learn from our either messed up behavior or are like, trying to not be messed up behavior.
Stacy Casson 46:51 Right
Carli Garcia 46:58 You know, like, everything is learned behavior. So like, how can you expect the next generation to come in behind and solve the problems that you couldn't solve? By teaching them the the ways that you like, you taught them your ways, and then thought that that was gonna solve the problem? What is it like the definition of insanity is like thinking you're gonna get different results from doing the same thing?
Stacy Casson 48:28 Yes, yes. Yes. And I love that you bring it back to the children, right? Because in our first picture, we have like I said, this,
Carli Garcia 48:39 Yeah
Stacy Casson 48:40 Something is being birthed.
Carli Garcia 48:42 Mm hm. Mm hm.
Stacy Casson 48:44 But it's, we, I think we almost want to like release it to the next generation, instead of sitting there and tending to the seeds that we have planted, nurturing those seeds. Take out the weeds. And a weed is something that's growing in the wrong place. It's not a weed in some some other context. And it's knowing that we kind of have this, this sense of harmony and balance. And we have to do this work. We do the work. And by setting that example, that's how we create change, we do have to do something differently. So going back to being in it and not of it, I think about we have been indoctrinated to act and think a certain way to have a certain mindset. And when you take a break from that and look at things a little more objectively, and see the distinction between it and sit with yourself. As Future Cain would say, sit with yourself. What is is our plan?
Carli Garcia 50:02 Right
Stacy Casson 50:02 And if you make that plan, and do something different, looking at things more holistically, not as I got mine, or this is what I need to do, but thinking more from a stewardship mindset of, here's what I would like, now, how does it impact everyone around me, because we aren't alone, nothing happens in a vacuum. If I come home in a bad mood, my, it's going to impact my family. If I come with a good mood, it's going to impact my family. Granted, sometimes we decide to RSVP to the pity parties, instead of like, you know, I'm going to decline. Again, I gotta throw a different party, or I'm gonna let you have your pity party all by yourself.
Carli Garcia 50:53 Right
Stacy Casson 50:54 I think those things put together could be a plan of how to be in something, because we've been in the systems. But if we look and step aside from those systems, we can look at them objectively, and we don't have to be a part of them. And maybe by doing that, you can keep your peace.
Carli Garcia 51:15 Right? What I think, yeah, peace, for me has a lot to do with education, right? Because as my father would say, what you don't know can kill you, which is a little dramatic. But I would say that, once you are more informed, then it's being informed is a way to, like emotionally regulate yourself, right? So if you are deciding, like, "I don't need to know that I don't need I'm good. I'm, I'm an adult, I know everything I need to know," if you have decided that you have nothing to learn, "Good luck." Because the majority of my adulthood peace is directly related to knowledge gained. Right, gaining knowledge, understanding how things are connected, understanding the brain and fight or flight, freeze, right, understanding how the brain works, understanding culture, right. Understanding that, you know, to go back to like, a very specific New York City example. Right? I understand that, like, immigrant families come here, and they go, "Oh, specialized high schools? Yes." And they don't and what they don't know, is the history of, of racial segregation, here and how the impact, right, like those two things side by side, right, are at are at odds, and they're looking at it like, well, this is my chance for social mobility, which is like all tied into like, what's our what is what is motivating us to do what we're doing, right? Social mobility is tied is is crabs in a barrel? It's, I need to get mine. Right, that's what school has become, for us school has become a ladder out of the barrel and like to hell with all the other crabs at the bottom. And so we need to understand in order to find peace, and sometimes peace not might not be what you think it is, like, for me a lot of the times just knowing, just knowing things (chuckles) is is my peace, because there's just so many people talking like, like, they're experts, they're just they're just talking with their whole chest, like so confident with their whole chest and I'm like, have you when's the last time you cracked open a book? Like, do you even, like no, like, you have no idea what you're talking about, like people on LinkedIn. Every single day, I see people telling people like, well, "you need to" righte or "maybe you should", like, just projecting and like, full of bias full of vitriol, full of like, trying to tear people down with like, really no, with like, nothing, you know, just to do it. And I'm like, okay. So as long as I know, like, I'll read something. Like, okay, I know where this person is coming from, and I can take it or leave it.
Stacy Casson 54:46 Yeah
Carli Garcia 54:46 Right. And so a lot of my peace comes from constantly trying to understand.
Stacy Casson 54:54 Yes, that makes perfect sense to me. Not as deep as you but my little microcosm is when I watch movies that disturbed me. I watched Ringu years ago and I had to cover the television. I couldnt even no you you I put a sheet over it because that yeah, creepy little girl's coming out.
Carli Garcia 55:23 Same
Stacy Casson 55:24 I did not get any rest until I just researched. Okay, what is this thing about? What is the legend of this person or thing and understanding that this is kind of like a folk tale,
Carli Garcia 55:40 Okay
Stacy Casson 55:41 Times. There's many different kinds of things like that and other cultures as well. And almost like almost like for us would be Candyman. Like, the more you talk about Candyman, the more likely he is to manifest. Our own personal demon. And just understanding the context and
Carli Garcia 56:07 Right
Stacy Casson 56:07 how this worked, where, where this, whatever she is place in that societies that it really I could be at peace. I'm not going to watch Ringu again, but I by getting that understanding, like you're talking about, I wasn't terrified anymore.
Carli Garcia 56:27 Yeah. Right.
Stacy Casson 56:28 Knowing if if that little girl came out of the TV, let's say this just happened. 'Least I'd no okay this is what you are. And I would just probably submit, you know, because I know what was happening. I don't want to submit I'd like to think I'd fight but understanding what you're coming up against. Yeah, I think just puts you in a like you said "Peace is not necessarily peaceful."
Carli Garcia 56:54 Yeah, right. That's a good way to Yeah. Agreed.
Stacy Casson 56:59 Cool.
Carli Garcia 57:00 No, absolutely.
Stacy Casson 57:01 What, Carli any parting thoughts as as we take a look at our story?
Carli Garcia 57:06 Yeah, um, I think that my you know, my career in education is like, evolving. You know, it's like I'm planting seeds for career transition. And it can be a little bit scary. And there's a lot of like, judgment and impostor syndrome, and like, trying to figure out the plan, and the next move and all that stuff. But I do think that, you know, once an educator, always an educator. And I do think that like part of my peace, as an educator has come from, like, the recovery, the recovery aspect, it has come from learning more in the last four years than I ever learned in grad school, about why things are the way they are, thanks to some NPR podcasts, but also just my own, but my own curiosity has got me really, from a place of just like, very, like sad and dark. And like, Why did I get into this profession, if I'm just going to be constantly dealing with like, all of these, you know, antagonists? And finally getting to this place now where I'm like, okay, cool. Like, the more of a bird's eye view that I have of this thing, the more the better, I can manage my peace.
Stacy Casson 58:56 Yeah. I like that, Carli, my parting words is when I take a final look, there's all these little white dots. And as you can see, they they kind of are connected, and it takes you on this journey, and then it comes full circle. And it's like a loop. So when we see the loop, you're probably going to have the same challenges and encounters. But if you gain that understanding that you're talking about, you level up, and we hit that that spiral, again, with more tools and more resources, more wisdom about the situation, and we level up again, on this on this journey. So I think that what I heard and understood is understanding the thing that we're in will help us to step apart from it and give us that peace which is not necessarily peaceful.
Carli Garcia 1:00:06 Right? Absolutely couldn't agree more
Stacy Casson 1:00:09 awesome. And people can find you on New York Carli.com. (nycarli.com)I'm gonna put all this in the show notes so people can reach out and see some of your amazing illustration, writing.
Carli Garcia 1:00:22 Yeah. (chuckles)
Stacy Casson 1:00:23 And I want to thank you so much for being a part of our show. I really enjoyed this conversation. I came here I learned so much from sparking with you and getting somebody else's perspective on things. So I thank you so much for your time. And my audience out there. If you enjoy this blog [I meant podcast] , please subscribe. See you next week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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