Season 1 / Episode 4
Ena Vie & Howard Lipp:
How to discover your authentic self
Show Notes
Today’s conversation with Ena Vie and Howard Lipp will take you on a path of music, meditation and medicine.
Howard and Ena are integrative guides working with psychedelics, entheogens and consciousness on the road to remembrance. For the past 20 years they have been making music and facilitating transpersonal transformational retreats and workshops, crafting medicine music and deepening presence within community and beyond. Their purpose is to support those seeking their authentic self and inherent divinity. They do this through their community, their non-profit, Keala Rafana, and beyond. Their latest album, Sono Ceremonia is available to download now.
In today’s episode, they share some of their most meaningful experiences with music, medicine and finding true joy through healing and compassion.
An extraordinary conversation with two sacred musicians, spiritual guides and teachers. No fluff, no filter - straight from The Horse’s Mouth.
WARNING: This podcast mentions drug use, alcohol, addiction, depression, religious doctrine and psychedelic therapy. If you need help with any of the above issues, find a charity / therapist / institution near you that can provide support.
In today’s episode, we cover:
[02:42] Ena and Howard share the story of their journeys; coming from religious homes, fighting their own battles and eventually coming together on the path of music, meditation and medicine.
[11:03] The story behind Howard and Ena’s latest album Sono Ceremonia and how they chose to be in service to the sound.
[17:04] Singing in the ceremony and being driven by the Source to connect and heal through sound and music; the power of sound and music in opening people up.
[22:55] Ena shares her experience about seeing acoustical structures that are revealed to her through the medicine and the story of her vision quest in New Mexico.
[31:33] Ena explains how she discovered her “acoustic laser”, an otherworldly sound that she makes when she sings in the ceremony.
[39:22] Howard shares some of his favorite transformational experiences he witnessed and experiences in ceremony and explains what he means by “natural divinity”.
[45:17] How Ena and Howard find true joy in supporting healing, awakening, and evolution through trust, compassion and empathy.
[52:37] Our guests share their experiences in working remotely with people around the world and finding new practices and methods to work online.
[1:00:40] Eva and Howard perform Djembe Ceremonies, a song from their latest album Sono Ceremonia.
Notable Quotes:
When I open to that which is within us all and all of life on this planet…That's where being open to a larger sound, a larger purpose becomes the guide and we can really check our egos at the door. Because when source is driving it, it's not limited.
Ena Vie [18:31]
My whole life has been about really learning about how music can do that, about how music can open us up. And the more we do open that up, the more it brings other people into it too.
Howard Lipp [20:40]
Music opens people up so deeply to the message that it's really important to be mindful in stewarding a message with the music.
Howard Lipp [21:39]
We cannot as a collective and as a community support healing, awakening, and evolution on this planet, unless we provide compassion, safety, empathy, listening opportunity for sharing stories, reflection.
Ena Vie [47:54]
Resources:
Ena’s Meditation and Breath Practice
Support Ena and Howard’s Fundraiser for Missing and Murdered indigenous women, girls, and two-spirts
Learn more about Lakota Vision Quests
Tune in to Sounds Like… for authentic and insightful conversations with industry leaders and creators. No fluff, no filter - straight from The Horse's Mouth.
Transcript
Mike Benson: Welcome to Sounds Like…, the podcast brought to you by the Horse's Mouth. We explore how brands connect with their audiences through audio, hosting conversations between industry leaders and creators who have consistently forged authentic relationships with their clients and communities, no fluff, no filter, straight from the Horse's Mouth.
Hi, I'm Mike Benson. And today I'm overjoyed and privileged to have a conversation with two amazing artists and spiritual teachers and who I'm happy to call friends, Ena Vie and Howard Lipp. Howard's a father minister, ceremonialist, singer-songwriter and music producer, he's invented seven patents, and he's an entrepreneur. He, he got a BSC in commuter- computer engineering, and is studying towards a PhD in spiritual psychology with a focus on ministry.
Mike Benson: Ena is a mother, minister ceremonialist, she's a musician, a singer-songwriter, and producer. These guys are busy. She received her BA from UCLA in English literature originally, and her MA in indigenous science from Naropa university. Together they run Keala Rafana Ministry of Sound and Source, which is a metaphysical ministry of consciousness. Yeah, I'm going to say that again, a metaphysical ministry of consciousness.
Mike Benson: Keala Rafana means the way of healing now. From Keala in Hawaiian meaning the way, Rafana in and Hebrew or Aramaic meaning healing now. Hawaiian, ancient Hebrew hold special meaning for them both. Welcome Ena and Howard. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Howard Lipp: It's a pleasure to see you, Mike. Thanks for having us.
Ena Vie: Thank you, Mike. It's so good to be here.
Mike Benson: Always amazing to talk to you guys and for the benefit of our audience, please let us know where you are, what time it is, and how's the weather.
Ena Vie: [laughs] It's 10:30 in the morning. We are in Ventura, California, and actually it's quite an unusual weather for us. It's cold and rainy and cloudy. [laughs]
Mike Benson: [laughs] I'm so glad to hear that it's not just in Britain that you get that kind of weather.
Ena Vie: Right.
Mike Benson: Although I've got to say we've had sunshine today, so I'm delighted to have you on as two rays of sunshine of my life. We're going to just get straight in and start talking about you, your work, your journey the incredible community that you've built. You've both been on your own journeys and have joined together on this path of music, meditation and dare I say, medicine. Maybe you could both give us a little intro to the path that you've taken to reach each other and to get to this point, maybe, Ena you can kick off.
Ena Vie: Well, thank you for that introduction, by the way.
Howard Lipp: Thank you.
Ena Vie: And it's so wonderful to speak about our journey. It's been quite a journey filled with so many twists and turns. I was raised in a fundamentalist evangelical religious home from the time I was born until the time I graduated from my undergrad degree and went to Christian schools, had Bible studies every morning. I was speaking in tongues from a very young age, probably five or six years old and didn't think anything of it really.
Ena Vie: And then went to Hawaii after I graduated and a dear friend from our church they ha- his family hosted me. And when I got there and after talking about my future plans and how my relationship was with the church, et cetera, he looked me straight in the eye and he said, "Ena, what if it's all a lie?" And I had these huge crocodile tears coming down my face because in that moment, as Leonard Cohen says, there's a crack in everything. There's a crack where the light gets in. That moment was the crack for me and sent me on a, an Odyssey of now 25 years of healing, leaving my religion, leaving my family, walking away from a community that is still intact.
Ena Vie: My, my family and my parents are friends with people for 60 plus years, my parents have, are going on near 60 years of being married. So it was a very entrenched community, very solid, still is. And and I began a journey of earth-based exploration, working with elders and traditional plant medicine teachers from all over the world guiding me and, and inviting me to heal, remember who I am.
Ena Vie: And then it eventually led me to meeting Howard and eventually led me to a deeper exploration of healing through plant medicine and sound and sharing that with the larger community. So it's been quite a journey, but one that I wouldn't trade for anything. [laughs]
Mike Benson: Oh my gosh. We need to talk about speaking in tongue-
Ena Vie: [laughs]
Mike Benson: ... tongues at some point.
Ena Vie: Well, I tell people, Mike, I'm still speaking in tongues. It's just a-
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Ena Vie: ... totally different, [laughs] point of view. [laughs]
Howard Lipp: Slightly different context.
Ena Vie: Yeah.
Mike Benson: Hmm. That's incredible. You know, thanks so much. Howard what's your journey been to get to this incredible place that you're at?
Howard Lipp: Well, it was an intervention that started it. I showed up for a business meeting about two hours late with my partners in the entertainment business. And they introduced me to a gentleman who walked in and asked me a question I hadn't been asked before in the way he had been asked, he had these... I mean it was a big stump of a guy and he, these clear green eyes I'd never met him before, but there was something about him, even though he had the jailhouse tats around the neck and he looked like he was chiseled from either working out at Gold's Gym or, or in the penitentiary and the tatts told me it was the pen.
Howard Lipp: But he asked me how I was doing, and for once, while I was thinking about how to lie to him and tell him how great everything was going, what came out of my mouth was, "I'm drinking about a fifth of tequila a day. I'm not doing very well. As a matter of fact, a lot of methamphetamine, I don't want to live, I don't want to die." And he said, "You want some help, 'cause your, your business partners have arranged a place for you to go."
Howard Lipp: I went to a treatment center and there I was introduced to psychedelics, underground, underground, yeah they had a practitioner that, that they worked with there who worked with plant medicine. And I had my first altered state experience and that was when my whole life went... It wasn't quite as gentle as, as the question that, that was asked of her, but it, but it did for me, turn me in a direction away from what I was doing, which was complete self destruction to actually seeking a spiritual solution for my problem of addiction.
Howard Lipp: And what I found was it wasn't the substance at all and when I found, I started to find my way with the plants, I started to find a way of living that eventually led me to seeking a kind of music and creating a kind of music in my business that was more of an uplifting and positive vibration that was led by the plants. And it eventually led me to call in the kind of projects that eventually brought Ena in. It was actually a care town project I was working on. Ena sang at that, on that record. And a few months later, she came to a recording session when we were mixing it and I was introduced to Ena and that was it. She walked through the door and I went, "Oh shit...
Ena Vie: [laughs]
Howard Lipp: ... I'm in trouble. I'm in real trouble here."
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Howard Lipp: [laughs] I knew I was in real trouble. And it wasn't because she, just because she was beautiful. She hadn't said a word. She just walked through the door and there was something about her presence that it went, "Oh my God, the one is here and I am not ready. What do I do?" Well, we're here to make a record, right? We're here to make a record. So, and then she sang her first song and the tears started to run down my face and I knew it was over. It was over.
Mike Benson: [laughs] how amazing. And also, you know, what's fascinating, you, your earlier life, before this intervention also begins in a religious context, right?
Howard Lipp: Oh, yes. I was raised in a very conservative Jewish home by parents who were raised in a very Orthodox home that goes back generation after generation being three generations back, that came from Russia, Poland England. Yeah. So, and when they fired my rabbi, I was actually wanting to follow in his footsteps because he had, he just had something about him that kept calling me back, you know, the songs, the melodies haunted my soul from the moment I heard them.
Howard Lipp: And that's what held me and the connection to this man and what he brought and how he engaged me and, and totally captivated me with his presence and just with his desire for, for teaching in a way that wasn't like teaching, it was more like Rabbi Pollack would be in a particular way, how he held his reverence for spirit. He wasn't a, a "the book kind of guy," it was, it was how he walked and how he carried it. And when he left, I went, and this is not for me because without him, there was nothing to it to me.
Mike Benson: Right. And what age are you talking about here when the rabbi got fired?
Howard Lipp: Six months before my bar mitzvah. So it was, yeah 12 and a half years old, something like that. Yeah.
Mike Benson: Had you recognizing this, what you enjoyed about the, the spirituality of the religion and the songs at that, at that stage in your life?
Howard Lipp: Yeah.
Mike Benson: Okay. Incredible.
Ena Vie: We both had, we both had that experience. M- I grew up singing a lot of... The church I went to had two record labels. It was a church, it was a mega church born out of the late sixties. You know, the Jesus freak era. And it was a huge, massive church and there was l- loads of musicians. The music was so powerful, that was really my first introduction to devotional heart opening music. So we both have a very shared, even though it's so different, there's a lot of similarities about our childhoods and upbringing, especially with sound too.
Mike Benson: Right. And know this, the work that you do intertwines music, spirituality the ceremony and the medicine. Let's talk a little bit about it. I mean, the most exciting recent stuff is that you've just created this beautiful album called Sono Ceremonia. Am I pronouncing it right? And I've had a listen to it today again, which I, you know, I've really, I've really enjoyed listening to it. You, you said earlier on today that you had a very different experience recording this one. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Ena Vie: [laughs] Well, you know, with other songs we've done in the past and other albums they've, they've each taught us something as we're, as we've been creating it. And one of the things when I first met Howard that I, that I just really resonated with in our working relationship, because that's how we started was producer-artist relationship and Howard has such an incredible way of listening, has a deep listening and, and following what the songs wanted to be, not necessarily saying, "Hey, this is the song. This is what it's going to sound like," but really allowing the song to guide.
Ena Vie: And we had an experience before with a couple of songs that were really teaching as, as we were in the process, but this experience with the album, the whole album, every song we were in service to the sound and in a way that we had not experienced before, meaning we really had to check everything at the door and, and be as open to, to listening and to even scrapping, we had about three songs we thought were scrapped.
Ena Vie: We had just put them aside. And Howard can probably talk a little bit more about those, but it was just a very beautifully humbling in the sense of just, we just were like, "Okay, we're here to be of service to this. This is not our project. This is a larger project." - for us personally larger, meaning just really putting ourselves aside at the door and being open to what wanted to come through.
Mike Benson: And was there an agreement, did you talk about this beforehand or did you just find yourselves falling into this kind of flow and understanding that from each other? Or would you step into the studio and go, "Right, this is, we're going to check ourselves at the door. This is all about the music. We're not going to-"
Howard Lipp: While creating.
Mike Benson: Yeah.
Howard Lipp: Creating this album was such a different experience. You know, in usually when an artist comes in or I'm working with an artist, you ask them to come in 15 to 20 songs, we'll pick nine or 10 and make the record, see which ones are actually saying, we want to be together. This record came from a completely different way because we looked at the arc of the ceremonial experience and tried to paint a canvas that would take us on that journey musically. So we had picked a couple of songs and started to produce them in a way, because we were... I was still thinking from this set, what do I want that song to, to be instead of going, "Okay, how does that song fit into the flow of the larger context?" Because now it's not a song, three minutes, four minutes, eight minutes, even 12 minutes.
Howard Lipp: It's now a 70 something minute record experience that has to really, and has the opportunity to be painted as a canvas. So there were two songs that we actually were just this close to finishing and went, "But they just don't fit." But musically, energetically, they needed to be there. So we literally tore them down to nothing.
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Howard Lipp: Once, two of the songs on that record were not originally scheduled to be there. They came out spontaneously and one of them was going to be the Djembe song.
Mike Benson: Okay.
Howard Lipp: Which was just going to be a Djembe, like w- like the experience, right? There's a part where we journey in with the Djembe. And we were listening to it and added a little bit of some shaker and some other things. And then we looked at each other and she said, "Do you think there should be some vocals on this? And I-
Ena Vie: Well, well first we had our friend play the didgeridoo.
Howard Lipp: Right, right.
Ena Vie: And we said, "Oh, this is so beautiful, the didge, the drum, it's perfect. It sounds so great." And then we were listening to it and I looked at Howard and I said, "Should we add vocals?" I don't know. And Howard, Howard looks at me. He said, "Well, why don't you go into the vocal booth and see what comes out? So I walked in, sat down, we did one pass. He goes, "That sounds good. Why don't you do another one?" We did a second pass. That was it. That was the song. We didn't touch it after that, you know, and I can't even sing the song right now [laughs] because I've only sang it on the recording. So magic happened in that way m- many times, but I also have to say too many of the songs on the album I have been singing going back to my days in the Sweat Lodge.
Ena Vie: So I've been singing some of those songs for over 20 years, some of the songs on the album h- have never been sung before. Some of them, you know, were created, but most of the songs we have been singing in ceremony for a long time. So these were really deeply meaningful to us and to those who sit with us in that circle, I know are meaningful to them. Because it's provides such a, such a powerful landscape and context or sorry, container for the context of the work. So yeah, it's, it, it was a very special and personal album for both of us and the first album we were on, where we sang together-
Mike Benson: Really. Wow.
Ena Vie: ... After all these years. Yeah. [laughs]
Mike Benson: Okay.
Ena Vie: Yeah.
Mike Benson: Well, having experienced you both singing in the ceremony myself and having had the journey from beginning to end of a, you know, couple of really illuminating evenings I can see that the, you know, the, the passage and the journey of music is, is a massive part of it for the receiver. And I'm interested to know if you plan that before a ceremony as well? Do you have a think in your heads, "Let's take these guys on a fruity journey this evening and-
Ena Vie: [laughs]
Mike Benson: ... get a bit lively in the middle, warm them up and then go crazy and then just chill out. No planning.
Ena Vie: No. You see, you see-
Howard Lipp: [laughs]
Ena Vie: ... our heads shaking. No, no. I mean, some- someone, a friend of ours asked us, "Do you guys rehearse?" You know so we started laughing.
Howard Lipp: [laughs]
Ena Vie: "No, we don't rehearse." Although we've been playing music together for so long, both separately and together that that certainly helps our, our listening to one another, but we don't come in with an idea, that's where the plans definitely died. And, and the, the more we listen and open to what's needed. It's really being in service to the sound. It's not like what I want to sing, that doesn't matter because what I want is...
Ena Vie: Not that what I want doesn't matter, but in terms of that's a little more driven by perhaps the personality or what I think is best when I open to the larger context presence within me and the presence within the room, the presence, meaning source, energy that, when I open to that which is within us all and all of life on this planet, then it's able to connect and reach people in a way that I could never even begin to imagine reaching someone's heart or healing and what they were needing. So that's where being open to a larger sound, a larger purpose becomes the guide and we can really check our egos at the door. [laughs] yeah, because when source is driving it, it's, it's not limited.
Mike Benson: And does that require you to, to, to take some medicine to get to that place where you're open to that source? Or is that something that happens now naturally without taking any of the medicine, either of you?
Howard Lipp: It happens naturally. It happens naturally, and it can happen naturally for all of us, because we are that, it's not that we need something to get there. You know, plants, the beauty of the plants in a good context, in a good container is that they open us up, open up the gates of perception, open us up to being present. And when we're present, we're fully connected to the essence of source, which is, that's all that's here, that's all that's here.
Howard Lipp: And when we get out of the way enough to do that, open up enough to do that, we can all bring that through. You know, for me, this was, music was my medicine as a kid with my depression and my anxiety from the time I was eight, it just started to come through besides singing from the synagogue. I started to pick up and learning to play instruments that were around because I needed it.
Howard Lipp: And so my whole life has been about really learning about how music can do that, about how music can open us up. And the more we do open that up, the more it brings other people into it too, because words don't do it as well as sound. You know, a really great lyric can do so much, but a piece of music can crack it all the way open.
Mike Benson: Oh, that's heartbreaking for a writer to hear, but thanks for sharing it anyway.
Ena Vie: [laughs]
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Howard Lipp: No I think words are an important part of it because the music, when... Have you ever watched a film without sound or without music?
Mike Benson: Yeah it's so weird.
Howard Lipp: Right. So music with words, and this is, this was an awakening that I had right before I met Ena. I was working in a lot of music areas and genres. It was really dark, really heavy, really oppressive. And there was an awakening that said, "Look, music opens people up so deeply to the message that it's really important to be mindful in stewarding a message with the music. And I had to drop most of what I was doing and switch to just uplifting, inspiring music, started working on kirtan and singer songwriter, and then... But it was the, the message that music has a powerful force to open people.
Mike Benson: I couldn't agree with you more and, you know not only in ceremony, but in, in life and the journey that we've all been here, we are in the early, well, we're in January 2021 and experienced that pretty much the whole world has gone through over the last year or so has certainly taught me that the messages that you get from your mind the thinking part of us versus the feeling part of us have to be very well balanced.
Mike Benson: And a lot of the time what your mind is telling you may not have the correct, it might not be the correct tool to be using at the time. And one of the things in your description Ena of of medicine and music, you, you've spoken about seeing acoustical structures that are revealed to you through the medicine. Could you talk a little bit about that please because it sounds so fascinating.
Ena Vie: [laughs] Yeah. Well, it is so fascinating to me too. I, I, I would like to say that in ceremonial work in the studio even I am amazed by what is happening, by what I'm seeing and what I'm hearing come out of my mouth. And I know that may sound funny on the outset, but what I mean by that is I'm just as much of a participant and a listener when it's happening as anyone else is and I'm, I'm listening to it going, "Wow, what is this?" I don't even know what I'm, what's happening to my mouth right now, or the sounds coming out of me- [laughs]
Mike Benson: Really?
Ena Vie: Yeah.
Mike Benson: So you feel separate from yourself. So you're able to-
Ena Vie: No, not separate, not necessarily separate, just I'm observing and I guess the observer is also listening. I'm not thinking when that's happening. So I think I mentioned this literally two days ago, I was reading a book with our son about bats and they use echolocation for mapping in the night and I just about fell off my chair because-
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Ena Vie: ... I was like, "Oh my God, I'm a bat." [laughs]
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Ena Vie: Because yeah, because we work in the dark or have an in the previous times than this. And and I always tease and joke with people and say, "Don't turn on the lights. I can't see." so I- I really can see in the dark and what helps me see in the dark is sound. When I sing there's all of this imagery that comes, and I can see it's, it's like a, almost like a Disney film [laughs] or something where you, you sing and sort of all this illustration comes.
Ena Vie: And it's so beautiful to me and and the sound is communicating such beauty, such wisdom, insight, healing, without, as we were speaking earlier of words, per se. And so those acoustical halls, as I call them, it's like, they're temples of sound that are as infinite as the cosmos, truly, there are just, it's this place of, within us all really of, of source creation. And it's just this place of abundance, just continual offering of there's thousands and thousands, millions, infinite songs, ready to be sung.
Ena Vie: And it's like [inaudible 00:25:37] you know, sitting on the, on the Lotus and just the petals just keep thousands of petals coming. And, and it's such a beautiful and wonderful and incredibly honoring or, or it's an honor to be kind of in that stream. And it's one of my most favorite places to be. And it's a place I feel I trust in terms of connect with the most, because it's not in the place of the mind communicating about identity, personality, cultural ideologies you know, our conditioning, our past, our fears, our future it's, it's, it's all of that is there, but there's so much more that's available to the experience of being awake. And so I- I guess that's why I love that place so much because my mind shuts up for a moment- [laughs]
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Ena Vie: ... and I can just relax and, and-
Mike Benson: And be-
Ena Vie: ... listen [laughs] be yeah.
Mike Benson: How beautiful.
Ena Vie: The beauty of weaving the sound is, is and watching her weave sound, watching it, watching her weave it, she's a, she's a master at weaving the tapestry of sound.
Howard Lipp: And the hummingbirds, where did this whole sound, crazy sound come from? Is that anything to do with the speaking in tongues?
Ena Vie: [laughs]
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Ena Vie: You know, that's, that's probably a, a, a topic for a whole nother podcast-
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Ena Vie: ... in terms of speaking in tongues, Mike-
Mike Benson: Okay yes, absolutely.
Ena Vie: ... but you know, I think, I think, you know, I've, I've, I've meditated on that often or contemplated rather on that, in terms of speaking in tongues, what was that? What was I doing? You know I, I don't know, to be honest, I really don't. I think it's, it's part of the collect being, in a collective environment, being in a mindset, being in belief systems, being in influenced, but the hummingbird you know, w- the hummingbird has so much meaning I, I had my first encounter with the medicine of a hummingbird in the songbird, the Cristo Mountains, New Mexico, 15,000 feet elevation. I was doing a vision quest for four days, four nights, no food, no water. And you sit in one place with your prayer, prayer bundles a hundred and I don't remember now, gosh, 108-
Howard Lipp: 140.
Ena Vie: ... 140 I don't want to say the number, 'cause I don't remember it. So it's a sacred number too so I don't want to botch it up. [laughs] But,
Mike Benson: Bundles of prayers is this.
Ena Vie: Prayers of tobacco, there's, there's all the, the colors of the four directions within the Lakota tradition. And you put your, you put tobacco within each prayer bundle, you tie it up and you make certain, a number of I've only done four of them. So my, this is what happens when you have a child, you lose your mind.
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Ena Vie: So [laughs] anyway, so no disrespect, but anyway, you put, you put your prioritize around you, you go into the circle and you don't leave. You don't-
Mike Benson: For four days.
Ena Vie: Yeah for four days and four nights, and you just have a blanket. I didn't have a pillow. I didn't have a sleeping bag, 15,000 feet elevation. It was quite high. And I had an encounter with a hummingbird there that was, was out, was other worldly. And when I came down, we, they call it going up the hill and coming down the hill is sort of how they re- reference doing a vision quest. And when I came down the hill on the fourth day and I spoke to muscogee medicine man, he's 80 something at the time, a really beautiful man named Marcel is Bear Heart. And one of the last of the traditional roadman and he, he gave me this name in muscogee this very long name.
Ena Vie: And it was basically in reference to what I experienced, I was in France at the time. So I condensed that whole name down to Colibri 'cause Colibri, of course in French is hummingbird. And then I just kind of tucked it away and then in the medicine, when the medicine came into my life and, and Howard the hummingbird came really strong and there's the, as part of the Peruvian cosmology, there's the anaconda snake that, that goes on belly on the earth. There's the, the the Jaguar that walks upon... The anaconda walks upon the earth above the ground.
Ena Vie: And then there's the condor that sits upon the Jaguar, the [Foreign language 00:30:22] and he, and the condor can only fly so high. And then the hummingbird sits on top of the condor and the condor r- raises the hummingbird as high as it can go and then the hummingbird shoots straight to source, straight to the heavens.
Mike Benson: Wow.
Ena Vie: And so they all work together. But the hummingbird, this, this tiny, you know-
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Ena Vie: ... very small bird, but she can fly up down, front, back, over and around. [laughs]
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Ena Vie: And and so it, it kind of became clear to me that the hummingbird was this ally and had come to drop her nectar into my life and, and be a guide, be a teacher, you know, all of nature is a teacher. And and the hummingbird has been a profound teacher for me since that, since that encounter and beyond. So among many other, many other beings. [laughs]
Mike Benson: Amazing. And the s- the singing that you do in ceremony, that's, that incredible sound that you make the sort of other worldly singing, where did that, was that a discovery in ceremony or was that I don't know how to describe it to the people who are listening. It's, it's an incredible kind of s- how would we describe it you guys might be able to say the words better than I.
Howard Lipp: An acoustic laser.
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Ena Vie: [laughs]
Howard Lipp: For lack of a better way of describing it, that cuts through the bullshit very, very well.
Ena Vie: [laughs]
Mike Benson: A high pitched kind of st- [crosstalk 00:32:02].
Howard Lipp: It's a keen, it's a keening a vibrato staccato. And it cuts through like, I- I- it's an acoustic saber, like a lightsaber, but, but with sound-
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Howard Lipp: ... it's quite, it's quite fascinating to watch, to watch her build it like a, like a reaction that's building and then cut with it. It's crazy powerful.
Mike Benson: Where did it come from, do you know? Or when did it appear to you?
Ena Vie: You know, it, it's sort of an organic process.
Mike Benson: Right.
Ena Vie: Certainly I had never sung that way before, until I'm, I was introduced to, and began to work with plant medicine and even early on and in plant medicine work both before I met Howard I wasn't imbibing plant medicine, but I was definitely working with plants as medicine, especially in the lodge and singing medicine songs. They were traditional earth-based songs from different lineages. So that was a lot of the training ground for me. And then certainly of course, my childhood upbringing of singing all these songs and, and speaking in tongues, you know, I didn't do it a lot. I don't want to say I was doing it all the time, but it was happening in, in different healing rooms in the church I grew up in.
Ena Vie: But I was really fascinated by those rooms at seven, eight, nine years old. I mean, what seven, eight, nine-year-old is in [laughs] those healing rooms putting h- hands on people, adults. [laughs]
Mike Benson: Okay. What is a healing room? I don't, I don't think I'm aware of that.
Ena Vie: [laughs]
Mike Benson: Is it separate rooms?
Ena Vie: I don't even know.
Mike Benson: Right.
Ena Vie: Well, you know, they, they do gatherings, the, they'll do church meetings or-
Mike Benson: Okay.
Ena Vie: ... or studies, and then they called it in my, in the church I was raised in, they called it the afterglow.
Mike Benson: Okay.
Ena Vie: And I loved the afterglow 'cause there were these dark, low lit rooms where people just sang these devotional songs and there was all this emotion and connection and deep prayerful singing. It was a beautiful truly. I mean, I, it was, it was my introduction to devotional music. But then in those spaces, people would say, I need help with, and then someone would come over and say, "Well, I can lay hands on you," or I'm going to speak a prophecy.
Ena Vie: I mean, it gotten kind of out there. But definitely, you know, based in some of the evangelical texts and, and, and New Testament texts, they follow some of those traditions. So that was some of the basis. And I, I really was only allowed to listen to religious music growing up Howard, and I have such a different-
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Ena Vie: ... Howard's introduced me to, you know the dark side of the moon, you know. [laughs] All these years later, it was like, where was I? But, you know, and getting back to the medicine and the sound, there was a particular ceremony that I recall, this was after I had spent a lot of time in the jungle working with different plants and doing what is called the plant dieta where you just drink one plant every day for a number of days.
Ena Vie: And I had come back to the states after being in the jungle for about a month. And and I was in a ceremony and I was in a ceremony of, of someone else at the time. It was the student of the shaman that I was sitting with in the jungle. And this shaman that I was with in the jungle, he was sort of the shaman to the shamans. He was he would, he would help train other shamans within his region and within, within the country, really.
Ena Vie: And and so when I came back, I sat with his student and during the ceremony, now as you know, you've sat in ceremonies, this was very unusual, but I was... In my process, I was in this point journey, point in my journey where there had been some challenges around how people were trained. You're supposed to do it like this. You have to sit with the medicine for this long. You have to do it like these teachers. You have to... And I, I rail against that because of my upbringing and all the healing that I've done to get out of authoritarian and dominion, dominator, oppressive [laughs] approaches.
Ena Vie: That I was, I was getting a little scratchy around that, and during the ceremony and you know, before I had taken medicine, I had never even imagined I would say something like what I'm about to say, but the plants said to me, [laughs] "Ena, open your mouth."
Mike Benson: Wow.
Ena Vie: And I, and I thought, "Well, this is not my ceremony." I, like, I don't, what, what are you saying? You know, open your mouth. How did the shamans learn the songs? How did the original shaman so to speak, learn the song, they were asking. And they said, before I could answer, "We taught them. We taught them, we're teaching you now. Open your mouth." [laughs]
Howard Lipp: So clear the cotton out of your ears, because she did say the plants spoke-
Ena Vie: Yes.
Howard Lipp: ... and they do.
Ena Vie: Yes. And so I opened my mouth and the medicine guide of that ceremony was singing. And I had never heard these songs before mind you, they weren't... He was singing in Shipibo at the time. And I opened my mouth and I started singing word for word, every inflection, every tone, every, every sound for the rest of the ceremony, like, like three hours-
Howard Lipp: Wow.
Ena Vie: ... singing. [laughs] And they were shaping my mouth and my tongue and it was, they were teaching me how to sing in this way. And then afterwards there was a kerfuffle that happened and I ended up not, we ended up... It's a long story, but anyway, we, from that point, we ended up making our own medicine and going on our own journey with the work. But I never sung those words again. I never sung that language again, but my mouth and my ears and my mind had been opened. And then from then on, it was like, what's going to come out now. And, you know, who's the p- the, the, the pianist Keith Jarrett, who sits down at the piano and says, "I don't know what's going to happen. Let's, let's see." I love that. I don't know how the Rolling Stones Sing, start me up for 17 years. [laughs]
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Ena Vie: God bless them. They do it so amazingly every time, like it's the first time. I am not that person. [laughs]
Howard Lipp: Right. The difference is now they can't always remember the words.
Mike Benson: Yeah exactly. Well they can't always get what they want that's for sure.
Howard Lipp: Exactly.
Ena Vie: [laughs]
Mike Benson: But you know, and, and that discovery and the plant speaking with you Howard, for you are there standout discoveries or experiences or transformational experience either you've had, or that you've witnessed in ceremony that, you know, that you think that changes everything for me, you know, or I, or you, or you witnessed seeing somebody else going through that kind of transformation or is that every time?
Howard Lipp: Oh my God. Every time there's something that says wow, that changes everything. Sometimes they're reminders. One of them is that there's just source, the real recognition and, and that we're all indigenous, even though we haven't practiced, we haven't grown up that connected to it being of the earth actually means that we can cultivate that connection. It's not something that you have to be raised in, but it's something that you have to connect with, to truly connect that we have that power to connect with life. Other creatures, other beings, whether it's connecting with the spirit of an animal or listening to a plant, tell you how to sing or feeling it actually guide you.
Howard Lipp: You know, there was a moment during one of the ceremonies where I'm listening to this singing and I think, it's Ena singing and I realized it's my voice, that, that the human voice has such range and versatility, and also seeing sound and its influence in creating these weaving structures that actually bend space, bend time. It's, it's, it, it goes on and on and on to open places within ourselves that are stuck, places where we're hiding how we've created the masks of our ego that kick our ass in the world. That actually [laughs] we have the power to deconstruct them.
Howard Lipp: I mean, there's so many layers to what's been learned and it just continues because there's so much disillusion, illusion, delusion that we have about what is life? What does it mean? Where do we come from? Why are we here? Most of our suffering does not come from living, but it comes from the structures we created to think we can get one up on life.
Mike Benson: Right? And you talk about divinity, divinity as a, you say we have a natural divinity. Can you, can you talk to that a little bit, explain what that means to you.
Howard Lipp: You know, as a hardcore scientist for me when I left the religion, I sought science to answer the questions of where we come from because religion wasn't answering it. It was giving me a bunch of stories that I knew weren't fact. And I also knew there was a whole oral tradition around our ancient Hebraic stories that says that none of them are fact, but, but what it, it really led me to understand is that through science, the farther we dig, the deeper we get, this is why physics becomes metaphysics, becomes theoretical physics because it's a suspicion.
Howard Lipp: But the fact is the farther we dig into matter, the less we find anything solid and the fact is the only thing that's there is energy. That's why Hawking, Einstein and Sagan were on my list of people I would love to have a conversation with mainly because these were very spiritual men. Einstein is quoted as saying, "God does not play dice with the universe," when asked about the unified field theory. 'Cause they said maybe it doesn't exist. And he said God does not play dice with the universe for one reason, because so far the farther we dig into it, the simpler we see it all is. It's magnificently elegant in how it operates, but actually there's a few things going on underneath it all.
Howard Lipp: But at the very core of it is just energy, energy being sourced, and if the origin of everything is divinity, then in the formless realm, in the timeless realm of essence, that it all came from, there's just source, which means everything you see is actually just one aspect, one little wick of a flame from a larger pool of oil that is you and me and the rocks and stones in the sky and the air. And it's all an emanation of source, that's divinity, that's, that's at the essence of you, that's at the essence of me.
Mike Benson: So the divinity is the, is the, the source-
Howard Lipp: [inaudible 00:43:40].
Mike Benson: The origin. Okay. So we're all come from the same origin and that's-
Howard Lipp: Right, there's a great quote. And I'm sorry, I don't remember the minister's name, but he said, "Look, you can look at all of existence source as this incredible well of oil and you drop one wick and light the end of the wick in that oil lamp. And that represents one little light in the fabric of it all like you, like me.
Howard Lipp: And there could be a, a bazillion wicks and each one is going to provide light, but it's going to provide light in uniquely its own way. So that's how I tend to look at the source as that oil, because the, the chi that flows through us that gives us the grace to breathe and our heart to beat originates from there. That is the essence underneath in, in the Hebraic tradition, we say Elohaynu melech ha'olam the source of our many powers. The master of the hidden - Olam means hidden, hidden in everything is the essence of that source. And that's divinity, it can't be anything else. What else could it be?
Mike Benson: Incredible. It's so interesting how you both have such a a deep connection to your, to your f- early upbringings, and yet you've progressed so far beyond it, but when you, when I think of the way that you manage your ceremony and, and, and the community and the, the level of trust respect and safety that people feel to come into that circle is I would say a circle of trust. And it seems to come from this pure intention, purpose, integrity, respect for all people and all living things. It's a very powerful and clear sense of trust.
Mike Benson: And I know that, I know that part of the work that you're interested in doing is, is helping people who've, you know, come across less trustworthy guides or guides who've not managed to reintegrate people. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Ena Vie: I think, you know, Mike, thank you so much for that reflection, by the way, I know it, it causes Howard and my heart to sing when we hear that people feel safe and, and in a place of trust and and that they can let their guard down. You know, I think I know Howard and I, our story individually and together, we have lived through a lot of trauma and abuse and, and violation as many people have and throughout our healing and exploration of awakening we, we have come to recognize that within our own healing, there needs to be safety.
Ena Vie: You cannot heal trauma in a traumatic environment, you just cannot. It's, it's impossible. So and we've experienced that trauma perpetuated in ceremonial containers before we met each other. And while we were together in other groups, not just medicine, but in other contexts as we're seeing, as Americans right now coming out of this four-year oppression, I had no idea that when one transfer of an administration to another, just the tone of a voice of a leader, the tone of intention, the tone of direction could create such an opening for an, a deep exhalation and a, and an understanding that we've all been under the rule of abuse and toxicity.
Ena Vie: So we cannot as a collective and as a community support healing, awakening, and evolution on this planet, unless we provide compassion, safety, empathy, listening opportunity for sharing stories, reflection, and that's something that's so deep within our hearts, both for our own evolution and awakening, and to share that and create an environment for others, you know, we have never introduced ourselves as healers [laughs] or shamans for that matter, you know, a lot-
Mike Benson: No. You don't-
Ena Vie: No, and, and, and part of that comes from me from so many indigenous elders that I've studied with, walked with, learned from, listened to that they were not identifying themselves as that either or attached to a name as who they are, that they lived what they taught and they've lived what they listened to and they communicated and passed on what was given to them. And so that was such a modeling for me that I was also in, encouraged to come and listen before I speak.
Ena Vie: I was encouraged when I was learning and walking with some of these elders from all over the world. And so they, they created in me a desire to want to pass on that same thing. And so both in our community, our medicine circles, when we sing live we, we, our intention is to create a container where people can come in, put down their suffering and open to presence, open to the deeper consciousness that goes beyond the personality, the mind, the ego, the ego as in the false self. And that's a burden that we all carry to some degree or another. And as far as how deep we are in that suffering.
Ena Vie: So that's a real passion for us and for many reasons, based on our own, as I said earlier, our own trauma and, and suffering as children up until now that brings us so much joy is to see, oh, lights go on and people and say, "You mean, I..." As Dorothy said, "You mean I've had the power all along, just click my heels three times."
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Ena Vie: Yes. We all have the power all along, but sometimes we have to go through, you know, meet friends along the way. And [laughs]
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Ena Vie: Yeah.
Mike Benson: Sure. And, and what's so fascinating. Obviously you've discovered this year that, you know, the medicine is, is the is, is not the destination. It is the doorway. And you're taking people on a different kind of journey with everybody being remote for the last 10 months or so.
Howard Lipp: You know, it's not been, it's not been a a secret for us or from us that the medicine is the eyes to see where the healing is needed. And that it's not the medicine that does the healing, it's actually our own work. And that we've learned new ways to work with our consciousness, with our mind, with our ego, to cultivate the observer of us, which is us, the observer, you know, the one you get to in the medicine space when the hurly burly ends and there's just the presence, I am.
Ena Vie: Stillness.
Howard Lipp: Stillness, peace, clarity. We can get there in the natural state of consciousness, in the normal state of consciousness, because we are connected to that altered state of consciousness. We are that altered state. It's really not an altered state of consciousness. That sense of being "disembodied" in the no mind place is not an abnormal state of consciousness. It's where consciousness exists. It's the incorporated, incarnated experience that is the altered state actually, this is the illusion, the illusion that we exist in a physical form, this is temporary, but the consciousness that is, and, and came from divine essence is eternal. You, me that's truth.
Mike Benson: Amazing. And, and, and know that your practice is more remote and that you're working with a growing community in different parts of the world. What are some of the methods or some of the practices or ceremonies that are, that you're finding that you're able to share with people that, that help them find this?
Ena Vie: You know, I think we are organically exploring that as we speak even now. One of the things that we before COVID came or manifested more largely to the public, we had been talking about transitioning from being on the road with our work to maybe doing half and half sort of being online half the time and being in person half the time, because we've been traveling minstrels and medicine folks for many years-
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Ena Vie: ... over a dozen years together, and almost 20 years in total. So we've been on this for many, many years and it's, it can be wearisome. And now that we have our four-year-old son, you know, I, I was traveling with 17 bags of milk on the plane, you know, [laughs] with all of our gear. It was like, "Oh my goodness, this is, I don't know if this is sustainable."
Ena Vie: So then when we, we were looking to do that, and we just couldn't get off the, the travel and work wheel, and when COVID came, it was actually such a, a blessing for us. Of course it has had such an impact around the world and people have lost loved ones and, and jobs and homes. And I don't mean to minimize that in any way, but just to say that how it was affecting us was that it was giving us a time to stop and pause and reflect and listen, and take a risk, take a, take a step. If you had asked either one of us this time last year, you're going to be on Zoom teaching [laughs] you know-
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Ena Vie: ... And offering courses. We would've laughed. We would have balked at the idea because no way. And so just last year we've been teaching some workshop courses, you know, about source about what keeps us from living in our weakened state and, and what contributes to the distractions and the suffering and the oppression and the occlusion of connecting to source.
Ena Vie: Because we couldn't do medicine, we chose not to do medicine this year for safety, for travel, and actually for many reasons. And, and what we began to discover daily, sometimes hourly was we are in, life is a ceremony. Life is the medicine.
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Ena Vie: Life is the guru if you want to use that word, life is the guide. And if you're paying attention, if you're awake to it, life can be as potent as a ceremony in any given moment. I'm not talking about altered state hallucinogenic, because truly, even in medicine, that is not the end goal. We often say this as a joke that we're not here to trip the light. Fantastic. It's lovely to do. It's beautiful...
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Ena Vie: It's incredible. But in the end what are you learning from it? What's the takeaway? What's the healing? What's the integration? And, and that's what we're applying to our work moving forward and through different modalities.
Howard Lipp: Yeah. You know, how to keep the work alive is one of the things that has been a constant theme, right? Because you know, one of the things that's different about our work is that we, we follow up with integration with people. And often we hear people say, you know, "Gosh, for the last three months, six months, a year, whatever, it's been fabulous." And then it started to fade, what was fading? What was fading? What kept fading? And then we got to see it. We got to see what it was. It's connection to being present. It's falling back into our old patterns. It's not having a practice that keeps us present with what we've learned.
Howard Lipp: It's thinking that something outside of us is going to fix us when actually what the medicine is doing is, is showing us where we're stuck. She's peeling away the blinders from our own egoic issues, from our own conditioning, from our own misguided false beliefs and ideologies. And so it's up to us to practice being present with making new decisions than just being reactive or continuing to do what we've always done. Because as a human being or any other creature, we'll do what we've always done until like I did with addiction, I had to run straight first into a wall and realize I was in enough pain to want to do something different, otherwise people just keep coming back.
Mike Benson: Right. So this is a way of helping people rather than keep coming back for a ceremony to journey into themselves. You once said to me, once you get the message, you don't need to come back for the message again.
Howard Lipp: Alan Watts said that. “Once you get the message of psychedelics, you can hang up the phone.”
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Howard Lipp: “Because even, even a scientist, doesn't sit with their eye on the microscope all day, all week, they take what they see and they take it into life and they learn from it.”
Mike Benson: Yeah.
Howard Lipp: And then they may go back, and they may go back for another exploration, they may not need to.
Mike Benson: Right. And so if people want to discover this, it's it's the, the website, we, we'll put this on the notes, but it's, kealarafana.com, right?
Ena Vie: Yes.
Howard Lipp: Or enaandhoward.com
Mike Benson: Or enaandhoward.com and, and people are welcome to come and explore the website, it's, it's open for people to find out what you do and-
Howard Lipp: Yeah absolutely.
Mike Benson: ... where it all comes from. Superb. You know, I would love to talk to you for another five hours. And I think this is the beginning of a few conversations rather than the end of one. I'm gonna wrap up now. And we talked about being able to play the listeners a part of your new album. Can you tell us what will pl- play out to which, which of the songs on the album we should play out to?
Howard Lipp: What do you want to use?
Ena Vie: Well, why don't we sing... Let's do Djembe sound.
Howard Lipp: Do that one.
Ena Vie: Okay. And I'm going to, I'm going to fast forward a little bit into the song. So this song is called Djembe ceremonies, it's the song we spoke about with the Djembe and the didgeridoo with the added vocals. So not sure where I'm going to start playing it, but I'm just going to see what happens and don't know how much time we have but I'll just play-
Howard Lipp: Mike will get a real recording in there anyway.
Ena Vie: Okay. All right.
Mike Benson: I'll do that. But all that remains is to say Howard, Ena, Ena, Howard never stop. You never stop inspiring us. I'm so grateful to have this conversation and I cannot wait to have the next one. Thanks so much for giving us your precious time today.
Ena Vie: Aww.
Howard Lipp: Thanks, Mike. It's a pleasure to be here with you. We love you.
Ena Vie: Thank you, Mike. This has been amazing. Thank you so much.
Mike Benson: The greatest love to you guys, and let's hear a wee bit of that tune.
Ena Vie: Okay.
Mike Benson: [laughs]
Mike Benson: Sounds Like is a podcast brought to you by the Horse's Mouth, sound loving, brand building conversation starting audio evangelists on a mission to help brands build deeper relationships with the people who matter most, their teams, fans, and customers. Thanks to our amazing audio producer, Alex Kenning, tech and everything in between Jez Gooden. The show's theme music was written and produced by the magnificent Will Flisk, advisers to the Horse's Mouth and all things marketing and content, Elliot Hool and Steve Keeney. And I'm Mike Benson. Thanks for listening. Find us at thehorsesmouth.co or wherever you listen to podcasts. The world's listening, start the conversation.
