Emily Race-Newmark: [00:00:00] Welcome to This is How We Care, a podcast where we look at what it means to embody care, not as an individual practice, but a collective one, and to see what kind of world emerges from this place.

Thank you for being here. I am your host, Emily Race.

This grounding practice is a poem written and read to you by Max Stossel. You can check out our full conversation, which relates to this poem, over at that separate episode wherever you tune into This Is How We Care.

If you'd like to receive this as a grounding moment, I invite you to take a couple minutes to shut out any external distractions, perhaps pausing this podcast to find a place that you can comfortably sit or lie down,

giving yourself a couple of breaths to tune into your body and how you're feeling in this moment,[00:01:00] 

perhaps moving the awareness out of your head into your feet, your seat, your torso, your chest.

 And with that I'll hand it over to Max.

Max Stossel: Yeah, when you sent that email, I saw one of the things was a poem, which comes very naturally to me. So I'll go in that direction. 

And on the topic of what we're sharing I'll share a story of how I was at Disney World as an adult, which is not necessarily an experience that I recommend. 

And they have one exhibit where you put on this virtual reality headset.

And if you've never tried on a virtual reality headset, it's very visually engaging. 

You can look around inside these Disney movies that I loved as a kid growing up, and you have these headphones on that are very sound blocking, so you're fully visually immersed and fully audio immersed. And there was one [00:02:00] moment where they dive into the Little Mermaid and they dropped water from the ceiling. 

And I felt like I saw the future at Disney World and it wasn't real or not like I know real, not like we've defined real, but I dove into the virtual sea and I felt the water splash across my face. I heard the ocean in my ears. I saw a mermaid singing right in front of me and I could touch well right through her. Look at this stuff. Isn't it neat? And I can't be the only one to see the irony that she wants to be. Where the people are. She wants to see them dancing, but as a representative sample of supposed to be dancers, we're fine. Thank you. Content here in our minds. Thank you. Let's turn reality to Channel 259.

Thank you. Walking around on note. What are they called again? Who remembers? We never use them anymore. Scene changed behind Aladdin and Jasmine on their magic carpet ride. And as I marvel at this new fantastic point of view, [00:03:00] I realized love could live here too. I could build a whole new world with you, adventure with you, fly through skies of green and trees of blue.

This shining, shimmering splendid gift now available for just 1999 when Squarespace means Oculus Rush seeing changed to the African plains to where Simba and Nala are playfully playing. So close that I'm literally part of the game, but I can't quite feel the wrestling. Not yet. But give it time. We're still developing.

We'll make simulation much more like the real thing. You'll have complete control over everything cuz we just can't wait to be king. Can't wait to rule over the worlds we create rather than participate in the one we share and we will be able to build our own world soon. Let's have tea in Morocco this afternoon and this evening I'll build you a palace on the moon and we'll sip soup on silver spoons.

And for dessert we'll have gravity removed. We'll flip through the cosmos with oxygen tubes I the physics and Mars and Neptune to make them more suitable for you. [00:04:00] Our minds worlds have different rules, no longer bound by atmosphere, nature's limitations, wiped clear. You could just turn people on and off in here. So by reality 8,365, my world's only touched by those I decide. I'm completely immersed in the confines of my own mind. Opposing ideas left swiped aside, but maybe eventually we'll come to find that we needed each other this whole damn time. Maybe this world where the tiniest piece of has a system of balance, we would never dream of pushing us somewhere.

We won't consciously scheme up. Maybe we shouldn't have so much power. Maybe going forwards is backwards. Maybe we should go lie in the grass and make love without glasses, even if it only stimulates orgasm. Classic. I want to be where the people are up, where they walk up, where they run up, where they stay all day in the sun.

Wandering free. Wish I could be part of that [00:05:00] world. 

Emily Race-Newmark: Thank you so much for listening. If this poem spoke to you and you want to hear more from Max, please meet us over at that separate episode. We hope to see you there.