Hello everyone, and welcome back, it’s great to see you again. A special welcome to all of our new listeners. Before this episode begins, I just want to say a very special thank you to those members of the Walking the Shadowlands Facebook group, who banded together and donated money to help me purchase a new Macbook pro. My iMac which was over a decade old, was dying on me. And in fact in all of the interviews in this season, with the exception of our next episode, were all recorded on my iMac. So the sound quality, apart from the intro and exit, which I record separately as I edit the episodes,  is not as great as it could be, as the machine was making noises and just not working so well. I had to keep shutting it down, like every thirty minutes to an hour for a while, because of the noises – Although I tried to edit then sounds as well as I could. I am not a sound engineer.

I create this podcast on an absolute shoestring budget and could not afford to replace my machine. I was pretty devastated because, I was unsure if I would be able to continue creating this podcast for you all, solely because of that. I was not going to ask anyone for help, a bit proud really, but one of my wonderful daughter’s started a go-fund me page and members donated on that. So thank you all so very much. My wonderful son loaned me the difference and I was able to purchase my MacBook I am using now. Oh what a difference it makes.

But I especially wanted to thank everyone who donated, anon and named. Without you all this podcast would have come to an end when my iMac finally died on me. So because of all of you and your wonderful, loving, generosity this podcast is able to continue. So from the bottom of my heart, I thank you all so much.

This episode is a conversation with a gentleman, who is a pretty well know figure in the music industry in Canada who has had UFO encounters and paranormal events in his life. He’s not shy about speaking out about them either. I’m not going to waste too much more time getting into it, so are you ready to walk with me into this part of the shadowlands and see what awaits us there? Then let’s begin.

My guest Ed Roman, is an Award-winning singer/songwriter, performer and multi-instrumentalist from Shelburne, Ontario, Canada. Blurring the lines between pop, rock, folk, and country music genres, Ed’s uniquely crafted songs have received regular rotation on more than 100 terrestrial radio stations across North America and more than 600 stations, worldwide. Ed is a 2014 Artists Music Guild Award Nominee, a 2014 and 2018 International Music and Entertainment Association Award Winner, a two-time 2015 IMEA Award nominee, a 2015 and 2016 Josie Show Awards winner, an Akademia Awards Winner, and a two-time Indie Music Channel Award winner. Ed won a 2017 Radio Music Award for Best Americana Artist. He is a December 2018 Billboard Magazine Emerging Artist.  The animated music video for the title track from his latest album, “Red Omen” has been shown at numerous film festivals around the globe and is up for a number of awards. Ed is also a gentleman farmer, gardener and paranormal enthusiast

Be Love

So thank you so much for joining us today. I’m really interested in hearing your thoughts and we’ve just listened to you, your song Be Love, which I really like. And I’ve listened to a few of your other songs as well, and I really like your beat in the end, it is very hard to put a genre to your particular style. It’s kind of across isn’t it?

You know, I call it kitchen sink. It’s a little bit of everything, I grew up in a household of like three generations of people. And in the nineteen-seventies, my grandparents were listening to everything from Eastern European music to my grandmother, who loved everything from the Beatles to Sinatra and was always singing my brothers and sisters who are eight and ten years older than I was. We’re listening to rock and roll and, and hard rock, and country, and pop music of all kinds. My mom and dad were sort of coming from the nineteen fifties, a lot of jazz. My mom saw Buddy Rich when she was very young in a small club in Toronto and that, you know, it just seemed like there was there was no boundary to it so long as people were experiencing it in some way and it made them feel something.  

And I really I started to see – to see that as something that was like I really want to approach this in a certain way that at a certain point in my life or it you’re being educated, you study certain things. But, but how do I how do I be myself without being my influences? You know, kitchen, kitchen sink is the best way to put what in that regard? Because I love jazz music. I love funk, I love rock, I love R and B, I love country. I love spoken word. I mean, classical music. I played in a concert band for a number of years. Wow. Reggae, you know, like I played in an African band, like jazz ensembles, stage bands.

You know, I always learnt something in the process and it always pushed me. To learn in a completely different way and sometimes through a mistake, which is, which is usually the best teacher of all, because you start to look at things in a different way. So I try not to put too much thought and measure or  scale on what I do. I,  I think of Keith Richards sometimes I’ve heard talk about this or Tom Waites, the American singer songwriter, were a catalyst is one idea we’re trying to force your way through. It is not always the best thing listening to what the catalyst saying is your job to try to summate what all that is in some kind of a way. So, you know, if it comes out like a country number, OK. If it comes out like an R&B number,  or a Funk Tune, I’m good with it.  Because it’s, I’m learning. I’m always learning in that process.

Right, right. And actually, that philosophy that you just mentioned, that actually applies to all facets of life really, doesn’t it?

Yeah, that’s what’s amazing, I, I, beautifully said. As we get a little older, we start to circumnavigate things about the bigger picture and our own existence and how we tactically respond to those things. And for me, as a dyslexic, I struggle immensely academically as a young person and all through high school. So tactically, three dimensionally, this is why I gravitated to this environment.

And it makes sense to me, because just like you said, I now see it in so many other facets of what I do in my life and how I overcome a problem. How I enjoy something, how I present myself.  My language, whatever it may be. So it’s, it’s kind of amazing in that regard, because, you see it everywhere all of a sudden and you start to go – I feel more connected to myself that way, because, I understand more about it. And you don’t always sitting there thinking about the process. But you –  it’s a feeling more than anything else.

And I tend to have this feeling in your case, that you’re a person goes by these feelings and their intuition, a lot.

I have to I mean, I speak with I talk with my brother quite often about this because, you know, we grew up on a farm and anybody spent any time farming, it can be a dangerous life. There’s a lot of things that can kill you. There’s, things, everything from large animals to machinery to incredible heights to all kinds of circumstances. So there’s this sort of heightened sense of perception that I notice that my family has in general, because of that feeling almost precognitively about how things are occurring. Sometimes it becomes this, wait a minute, something’s going to happen here. But we’re really starts to show itself.

And I know it’s like kind of like, well, you know, after the fact. But it may not be immediate. It may take years for it to, to settle in. Is that is that recognition for what actually occurred. But yeah, so much of what I do is emotionally driven maybe to the point of a fault. But at the same time, I’m really happy with it. I’m really happy with it.

Well, it’s your passion and your emotions that drives your work. And it’s who you are is just part and parcel of who you are. And I really get that feeling quite strongly. I really like the music of yours I’ve listened to. I really like your beat. You have a really –  I don’t know how, I’m not a musician, but I just know what I like. And I really like a really good, strong beat. And your music seems to have That. Somewhat grounding actually.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I mean, I think we’re all drummers at heart. How often have you been walking down the street, or somewhere and you find yourself in that pace?  And, and it’s almost leading you, you know, a classic to say and maybe, you know, pointing it out. But the heart-beat, it’s beating on us every day, day and night. The pulse of a day even how the flow of a day works. You know, there’s all this –  there’s a lot of rhythmical connections to life and they’re always has been. I remember when I was living in New York last year, I’d be just sitting on just off Broadway where my apartment was. And the sound of the city’s so intense. But there’s certain times where the chaos finds the synchronicity that you start to go, oh, my gosh, it’s almost like an orchestration that couldn’t – and it doesn’t last long.

But or I remember times when we had a band house and it was like six musicians all living together with this jam space in the basement and everything. And people be working on different stuff and different like little rooms in the house, somebody have the stereo on or whatever, and it’d be chaotic. But every once in a while you’d be standing in the kitchen and for some magical reason it would all just align rhythmically and melodically and harmonically through the chaos. It would just find some strange little bit of symmetry just for a little moment in time. And yeah,  rhythm is the whole deal. I think that if you don’t have rhythm – yeah! 

But it started, it starts on the planet we live on.  She has their own rhythm and her resonance that she lets off, that we respond to.

Absolutely. Even the seasonal rhythms and changes, I feel it, and I also feel –  feel that speed as it changes, as the cycles of life move through itself. You know, I remember being younger and hearing my grandparents or somebody or my mom or to say, you know, wow, where does the day go? You know, time is moving so fast, you know? And her perception of time in comparison to my perception of time, you know, is so different. And it may have to do with, you know, a lot of other things that are going on in your life. But you’re right. There is that rhythm, the rhythm of the tides, the rhythm of the moon. Cosmically, there’s the cycles themselves are staggering and divine in nature and sometimes even hard to see because there’s such long durations that it’s generations and generations, and generations have to go by before they even realize what’s going on.

The conjunction that’s happening on the twenty first, I mean, what that’s the last time that happened was the sixteen hundreds. So I think that with that said, think of the technology that we have today to be able to look at what’s going on. That’s another thing that we’re like, OK, Halley’s Comet is another thing that comes to mind in its cycle, right? Eventually that comet will no longer be there. It will be stripped of its source and it will it will be gone. But that’s another cycle that, that is a part of the grand scheme of things that all things come to pass.

Very interesting now, and it’s true everything is cyclic or cyclical. However you pronounce it, that our lives and the rhythm of birth and death and who we are and the changes.  It’s all energy. And it’s all  bound together. Very, very interesting. Have you ever looked into quantum physics at all?

I have. And it’s funny because through some of the astronomy, astrology and cosmo-graphic programs that I’m watching, I’ve sort of been turned on to some people through different podcasts and talks. Just comes up in the feed like, oh, what’s this? Wow. You know, and then you’re sort of stupefied for the next hour and a half this fascinating information.

I mean, I’m like, yeah, yeah, I absolutely love quantum physics. And whenever I think about rhythms and energy and stuff like that. Quantum physics always comes to my mind because it sort of ties in together in a way.

Yeah, and, you know, this is the thing about rhythm, too, is like. We understand that there’s this there’s this there’s this harmony rhythm that it has a flow, for instance, if we’re listening to a beat or something. We know when the beat is broken and if, if, the beat is broken permanently or if the beat has been fixed or altered. And there’s always a slight fluctuation in, in it that is so insignificant that the human perception doesn’t really realize it. In fact, it’s more part of the organic nature of the cycle of those things. Like if you’re in a huge drum circle somewhere, it is you know, you’re, you’re in there and everybody’s doing what they’re doing. But there’s this subtle give and take. It’s not so like a machine, like a piston, although that has its own sort of rhythm in itself.

But what’s interesting to note about that is when things sort of come way off kilter and you cannot help but not notice, like, hey, the beat is broken, something, something as proverbially falling apart here. You start looking at what that actually is and you’re talking about cycles through like numerology and a number of different things that I’ve been looking into. I’ve been fascinated by time, time, counting, where time sits today? What we evaluate that time on and where does it sit in the grand scheme of what the cosmos considers important?

Right. In our in our own cyclical sort of movement of things in the cosmos where we sit, you know, it’s fascinating to me. It’s sort of like an amateur anthropologist to sort of go, you know, there’s so much mathematical correctness to ancient people’s understanding of star movement, time, position, degree. Everything that sort of gives them an idea of where they sit and why they sit there. What? And I ask myself, like many other people, why is it that they spent so much time in those calculations trying to understand what those cycles were? Interesting to note, through a lot of my sort of classes that I’ve been taking, that the concept of the nine, you know, I’ve never felt like some a number like divinity from a number before. But this is definitely one of those numbers that I just go, oh, my gosh, it’s like it’s everywhere. I’m like, I’m staggered by its cycles and where it’s superimposed itself even into, like, astronomy. So with that said, if we look at our calendar, so ancient peoples considered our calendar to actually be a three hundred and sixty day calendar and inside of the gestation period of, of a human being, which is nine months, you know, you all of a sudden have something that comes along that says we are going to alter time.

And with the instating of standardised time, you then all of a sudden have a calendar shift that says we’re going to begin in a different place, at a different time, based on a new calculation. Pagan people actually considered those five strange days inside of the system to be non-days. They were non participatory. We shouldn’t be doing anything inside of what those five days actually represent. But it’s interesting to note that if you think about those five days, now being so prevalent as part of our three hundred sixty five day calendar –  and you start doing the math on as to when, where, why and how those things were changed, the calendar is so off set, as to what truly the higher time in terms of cosmological time, what ancient people were extremely concerned with by many, many years.

Now, now, now, whether or not that’s a good thing or not, what I’m getting at is that when you’re in that drum circle, you feel the rhythm fall apart. Right? It’s the same thing inside of the calendar. There’s times where I’m questioning certain things environmentally, certain things that are happening sociologically in a bigger umbrella to everybody on the globe and wondering if it has something more to do with the fact that there are these offset things in the calendar that we know nothing about?

So that’s why we can’t control them or understand them or overcome a lot of those kinds of things may be that our ancient ancestral people had the ability to do, especially on a on a on a on a level that’s far more subliminal. Because I also believe in the subliminal in nature. Subtle energy, I think. Comes off of everything from a forest to an animal. So how that how we interact with it is no different than the way that cycle interacts with our solar system, inside of the cosmos, inside of everything. And I’m a big believer in skills and variance. So that feeling of projection can actually go through those processes. Ravi Shankar once said that every note you play will vibrate forever. So make it last and make it right. Make it real, make it truthful. And whatever we pump out into the ether through that cycle can be good or bad. So that’s why I’m looking at it. I’m wondering what it all represents. I mean sub-atomically, how is it affecting subatomic?

That’s very interesting. I personally have had a lot to do with star people my entire life. And one of the things that they taught me is about energy and vibration and the power of the energy and the power of vibration, which is really what you were talking about. In a different terminology, but it’s the same sort of thing, is the energy that flows through everything.

Yes. In fact, it’s funny that you say that because I was thinking about what is that unit, that was created by – his name is George, what’s his last name again? Out in Utah? It’s that dome he was given, like projections from people from the stars. It’s called like the energytron or ? But, but, I was thinking about it today, and you’re bringing it up. And that actually coincides with that same feeling of flow of thinking where so often where I’m thinking about things arbitrarily, I don’t know why, but then later they start to show themselves as  oh that’s why we’re thinking about it.

Oh interesting! So serendipitous, perhaps….

But yeah, I think more connected to that flow that you’re talking about. That is that is in everything. Some people, I think, can be so connected to it that they’re how do – you how do you do that? How, how did that happen? Is that a fluke? Is it a coincidence? I don’t think so.

I agree. I agree with you.  You have a huge interest in the paranormal and in UFO. Is that correct?

Yes.

Have you had any personal experiences yourself?

Personally, I’ve seen things with people, by myself, insignificant, although questionable. But my family’s allegory has a fairly in depth and well-documented circumstance that occurred in the sixties.

In connection with star people?

Pardon me?

In connection with star people?

To do with UFO’s, yes!

Yes. I got that feeling. It’s my understanding that the star people follow certain family genealogical lines.

I would agree, and I’ve heard this before, and I’ve actually it’s funny, I’ve spoken to my mom, because I mean, a part of where I. Part of where rmy fascination lies in this is the fact that as a young person. I mean, having my grandparents living with us, plus eight of us all in this little farmhouse dinner table talk was storytelling or this happened. That happened. And the trials and tribulations of the day, obviously. But, you know, experiences that my grandmother had in Europe and grandfather had in Europe. My grandmother was a very staunch believer in the power of intent. She even was I would call her into Wicca and could cast spells. It was something she, she wholeheartedly believed in. At the same time, you know, my, my family seemed to have a lot of circumstances of strange phenomenon that occurred all and still occurring today. And, and to answer your question about yours. Yes, I think perhaps there’s something in, in I don’t know, the genetics of who we are? Are we. Am I being tracked? I don’t know. But what I do know is that I have a heightened sense of perception when it comes to things so much so that sometimes I’m aggravated by people’s lack of perceptional, and peripheral cognitive ability to the point that I get frustrated by sometimes. Right. And that’s sometimes another reason why actually, you know, I write music and play things because it’s so meditative and it sort of releases me from, from a lot of that stuff.

But, you know, the experience my family had was a big part of like when all this happened. This isn’t like, you know, we’re making this up just to pull you on the string where we’re telling you this, because it’s part of what happened to us, you and I. You know, I wasn’t here, but two of my sisters, my brother, my grandparents, my mom, they were all involved in this thing that lasted for quite a while. So I cannot help but not think what why would they lie to me, you know. And then having affirmation and confirmation from reputable newspapers and an observatory in an airport all give you validation.

Can you – are you able to see what their experience was at all ?

Yeah, I mean, I’m not ever embarrassed to talk about it or ashamed or anything like that, and people like, whoa, you know, it has nothing. You know, it’s, it’s something that was so strange that that you, you can’t help but not question it and talk keep talking about it, you know.

So it was basically November and it was nineteen sixty eight. And my mom was making dinner and everybody was kind of hanging out in the house and our farmhouse the way that it was, the big kitchen, small little living room and then the upstairs bedrooms there was like an attic with another little bedroom and then a basement. The basement was kind of finished but like TV down there, we could go hang out down there and play cards and cribbage and all sorts of stuff. So this my mom, she all of a sudden she heard pipes rattling like a nail in the sink and things like that in the kitchen, and she thought, oh, something’s wrong with the pump, the sump pump in the basement. So she goes down to the basement and slides this little door open where the pump is. The pump isn’t even running. And so she comes back up the stairs and staircase, gave way to this bay window that was in the kitchen at the kitchen table was in front of that. Everybody was sitting around waiting for my mom to put dinner on the table.

And, and my mom describes this as she came up the stairs, she heard the windows vibrating and the old windows with the jams they get, they play a little bit. And if she got up to the top of the staircase where the window was, the first thing you kind of see when you came to the top of the staircase, she thought an aircraft, the plane was going to crash into the house. So she got she fell on the floor underneath and she said, everybody, look, get down. Right? And everybody was like ducking and getting under the table. So my mom looked up and she said she said she just it was stationary and she said, look out the window. So what everybody described was as such it was a sort of like a big or oblong shape or in the lower third of this or was a sort of vacillating grouping of lights that wasn’t any particular organized colour or shape, but it seemed to be very fluid in a band around the bottom of it.

It was hard to look at because it was so bright, like almost if you were looking at a welder and they were using an arc welder or something, you know, you should be looking away because it has really intense. But so that’s the perception. And that when they looking away, because it’s so bright, they’re realizing that in the evening, in the night, because November this thing was so bright. But it’s not casting any shadows. It’s not casting any shadows of the of the trees or the little lamp post or anything that’s in the yard. It’s obviously it’s a self-contained light source of some kind that isn’t even projecting light. It’s just light. But it’s in this in a ball like Orb shape. And this is all lasting about fifteen to twenty five seconds. Then my mom said they watched this thing move up over top of the barn. Very slowly, and then she said it was almost like a bouncing ball, very slowly in slow motion, that started moving to the southeast, which towards a little town of Pickering and Oshawa, where I live here in Ontario, and, and almost like it was following the topography of the land or something like that.

But the irony was, is that we’re part of the investigation comes in is because my dad, who was a public servant, was at a council meeting and had come home. And my mom was like freaking out and everybody in the kitchen and everybody was – and he’s like, what’s going on? Right. And my mom was trying to tell him. And he’s like, oh, you’re, you’re crazy – duh….duh….duh….like he didn’t believe mom.So the very next day (inaudible) my mom have out, but the local town papers, which also have reports from the local little airport that has cessnas and things like that, tracking these unidentified flying objects. Six of them, in the area over the course of that, that evening. And as well, a report from the observatory. The David Dunlop Observatory, it was also affiliated with the University of Toronto. That wasn’t too far from where we were.

So my mom was like saying, look, I told you, I told you, right? And that’s all, all was all part of it. And to this day and my mom, she’s eighty four, you know, we keep talking about it. We’re going to go down to the Toronto Reference Library because this has come up so often over so many years to get on a filmstrip machine, to go back, to start looking through the Rolodex of newspapers, to look for those clips and articles to have as part of like, well, here it is, what we told you.

Well, it’s a good idea. That’s a good idea for family history, yeah.

Yeah. So that’s basically what it was. And, and I wasn’t even a thought then. But nonetheless, it’s still it still rings true because I mean, everybody was you know, this happened. I saw it. I saw it. Yes. And all this happened. Yeah. I no dad didn’t believe us, you know.

And, and has your family, have you had any experiences since then?

With aerial phenomenon, I would say that it’s been the things that I have seen are definitely not anything that I could classify as an aircraft, like a normal aircraft. They seem to be  – one night I was with my wife. We were watching the Big Dipper, and all of a sudden one of the stars and it just it was like it was there was another light over top of it that wasn’t moving. And then all of a sudden it started to move. And moved off to the northwest, and I was I was alarmed, I was coming home with my sister in law and my dad and mom and brother were at a hospital. So we were moving from one barn on a farm property to another. And my sister in law was bringing me basically back to my house. And when we come in the driveway, I noticed again to the north east this really it was very bright, brilliant red ball. And if you stuck your hand out and you put your thumb up or whatever, the problem, your thumb, that it was about the size of your thumbnail. But at the distance, it had to have been two kilometres.

So it was it was quite big. But the centre of this thing was white, almost like a swirly candy, but not, you know, any kind of particular swirl. It just seemed very foggy and white in the centre of it. And what was interesting about it is that it was vibrating like this and moving like laterally like this. It was moving from sort of east north-east to the sort of west south-west. And as it was vibrating, would all of a sudden just go up really quick. And it’s still vibrating and it would come down and then go back for a little bit and then move forward really fast and stop and then just be sitting there vibrating, then dropped a little bit, didn’t go up quickly and come back on it, just haphazardly moving in these strange sort of ways all the time, carrying on this vibrating red profile.

So I immediately I jump out of the car and there’s a pine tree line to the edge of this field line along the edge of our drive. And I’m in the tree line and I’m watching it. And I’m so. I’m elated, terrified, excited, so intrigued that I’m part of me wants to run out towards what this thing is, and at the same time I want to retreat back to the car. So I sort of take a step back and I’m like calling my sister in law. Let me come here. Come here. Come here. She won’t get out of the car. She refuses to get out of the car and come here. No, no, no. She shuts the door. Then I’m like, OK, so I guess I’m on my own. And I watched it for about another minute and a half and it kept sort of doing this strange ball, like up and down thing very slowly sometimes, as I said, very angular. And it just kept moving off to the West. And eventually I lost it in a tree line. I came back to the car and we drove back to the house. I told my grandmother what had happened.

She was sitting there like, you know, and my sister in law, she just didn’t want to talk about it. Yeah. To this day, she doesn’t want to talk about it. She refuses to talk about it. But I do again, I you know, this is what’s interesting about the times that I’ve had these kinds of experiences, all sort of forms of paranormal, that that I’m so amazed in the moment. And sometimes, as I mentioned before, sometimes it’s sheer fear. But on the other side of things, it’s, it’s so fascinating what has just occurred that you’re having trouble processing it.

Yeah. I just also want to say that with that inside of that part of that world of of those things that have occurred to me. That flow of what we were talking about before, through everything, I felt the same occurrences. Just in my living environment, in nature, right, I’ve I’ve been in the garden working, I grow a lot of vegetables. I hear all this buzzing out of the field comes hundreds of bees following the queen to make a new hive.

I’m humbled, staggered, elated, excited, enthralled, practically fall to your knees kind of moment because you had the privilege of witnessing something like that. Yeah, it it’s akin to the same kind of feelings and flows that are in those experiences, those sides of the paranormal. And the fear part of it is like, you know, I’ve been almost a part of the food chain dealing with the black bear that’s been like this close to my tent, and my dog going crazy in the middle of the night, trying to chase it away through the forest with my grandfather’s old bayonet from the First World War. Like, you know, it all has that same impulse. And feeling to, to the same thing. So when you’re talking about perception and understanding, that is where they married for me in being able to even feel or understand more about what it is when it’s happening to me. Because, I’m very aware of what it is even in my in my three dimensional present environment of just something as simple as bees or a bear. So so I’m always looking at what that it is, because it’s even saying something to me even that the perception of that is even saying something to me.

Yeah. Yeah, that’s pretty – It seems to me like, like you are very in tune with, ah you environment. You’re in tune with what you feel  – Well it’s not so –  and, and you recognize it. Whereas, there’s a lot of people don’t recognize. They see it and they can admire it, but they don’t recognize the energy behind that. Whereas, you do.

Well, I think a lot of people do Marianne. I’m. . .

Not consciously.

No,  maybe not consciously, but, you know, I’ve seen it in children that aren’t as coloured yet bythe,  by the box of who you need to be in all of those other things. I’ve seen it in other musicians, artists, people that are so moved by a situation that they’re brought to tears. I’m not afraid to let that part of me flow through me, because in some of those moments I have been brought to tear.  That humbling moment of the experience for me. As I said, a big part of the, the teaching aspect of it.  To almost not want to be open to it, seems like heresy to me in a way. Right. And that you say people might not recognize it even though it’s happening. They’re just not they haven’t been open to it yet, they have that potential

Correct. Correct. Or they’ve been taught not to be open to it.

Right, exactly.

So many of us are. Unless we have families like your grandmother. Now, I’m going back to your grandmother about the intent.  That’s something’s that I, that my Star People really taught me strongly.  Is that intent is everything, absolutely everything! And that’s something that I constantly say to members of my Facebook group, to – I  talk about it all the time on the podcast.  Intent is everything.

It is.  It’s passion, it’s the –  I even saw it in my family’s enthusiasm for growing food, and we had a large farm and animals. Fifteen hundred acres with immense vegetable gardens. At one point, my parents vegetable garden was two acres. But, but the people said, well, it’s a lot of work. Everything that happened on all of that, that land was passion driven. And it’s something that we might we wanted to do. And my mama always instilled into me. She always would say, look, Edward, I don’t care what it is that you do, so long as that you’re happy and you’re passionate about what it is, even though, like, you know, she sang in the choir  and stuff, but my dad was tone deaf and whatever.  She may not have completely understood still what what, what, what, what I was doing, but she knew I loved it. And that in that somehow through, you know, just being there when I needed her, especially dealing with a learning disability. And I hate even calling it a disability because I think dyslexia and a lot of those things that we call disadvantages can be actually gifts.

True. I agree, I agree.

You know, if even if you’re a shoe salesman to a brain surgeon, so long as you’re passionate about it, you’ll be happy.

And your mum’s advice is exactly what I have always said to my children. It doesn’t matter what you do as soon as you love it. As long as you’re passionate about it. It doesn’t matter if you sell shoes or if you’re  – like you said, a brain surgeon, it doesn’t matter. What matters is your energy and put into it.

That’s right. And that’s the thing I think, too, with the framework of like who, what, where and how we’re supposed to behave today. There’s so much iconography going on and an ego driven based things that people are always predicating. Well, I’ll never be as good as so-and-so because image, image, image, image, image, image, it’s so driven that way sometimes. But like, you know, I’m always trying to point to I’ve had, like I know artists that are backhoe drivers, that are kindergarten teachers, that are dentists. They all have that sense of passion and artistry in them because it drives them!

Right! Absolutely. And I can relate to it. I can absolutely relate to that. And I can see,  I can see how your experiences have moulded you and created the way your life has gone.  And I can see, I can actually see – well even if I couldn’t see, I can feel your passion, your energy just absolutely shines. But I have to say, as soon as I saw you, things I could look in your eyes. I thought, I know you. You’re a kindred soul, you know? Like a soul to soul connection with people when they’re on a certain path.

You know what, I absolutely believe that and it’s funny, I’ve been reaching out to different people that I know in in the medium world. That I really respect their abilities and things like that. And it’s funny, you know, the conversations that we’ve had. I can understand why Spirit would be really interested in wanting to connect with them.  To communicate with somebody else because they are like that and no different in the physical that those people are, you know, hard not to want to talk to. They give off a certain energy and a light.  At the same time, It’s also so it’s also important to remember that, you know, with that also comes a great amount of responsibility and not only responsibility for the moment and everything else, but even for yourself, respect for yourself to be able to say, you know, I need this, I need to shut down for a while.  That as who and what I am and what I do, it takes an incredible amount of my time and energy. Sometimes I make four hours a night doing what I’m doing between just a regular household lifestyle, what I’m doing with my own family, and at the same time being me as Roman. And not just being that personality, but being creative, going to a place where I don’t feel like there is no contravity here. I don’t want to, I don’t want to feel like I’m working, because I have to work. I’m working because I want to. And in those moments, I need to find those spaces to remember.

I need to shut off sometimes because I feel drained. I get really I get really drained. And that’s why I guess I was talking to my medium friends. But because, remember, shut the phone off, shut the Internet off, give yourself eight hours or ten hours and don’t be worried about who’s going to judge you for taking those eight or ten hours off because you’ll just you’ll fizzle out.  

Yeah, yeah.  I’m actually a medium, too. And. . .

There you go. You know what I’m getting at.

I know exactly what your saying.  And so of course you know about grounding. You know about grounding? So I always say to people,  particularly woman, but actually anybody creative, is that you need to take care of yourself. You can’t give to people from an empty cup. So you have to refill. You can take the time out for yourself. Ground yourself. Do what brings you joy, what inspires your passion, and then you have so much more to give to people.

Absolutely, and you know what, that was the hardest thing was not feeling the guilt of because I like giving. I like being there in that moment. But at the same time, I also have to go wait a minute, you know, like your leg hurts, you’ve got a sore arm. You know, you haven’t slept enough. Oh jeeze you haven’t eaten in forty eight hours! Like, that’s crazy. You know, people like well you know, I’m go go, go all the time. So it was it was even talking to other people with the guilt of it. It’s not about saying no or that you’re not going to be there or be assistive or any of those other things, it’s about saying, like you said, you can’t give an empty cup to people. So I find cooking food. Like, right now, it’s middle of winter and there’s snow on the ground, but I literally have a tent of tomatoes and an avocado plant growing and a fig tree, because I have to do it. That’s part of what I’ve realised. I need to connect with continually, every day.

Right. Right. I totally, I totally understand that. I totally get that.  That’s your grounding and it keeps you – yeah, yeah, and it keeps you connected in the here and now. And, you know, the more grounded you are, the more spiritual you can be because it’s all about balance.

Yeah, you know and what I’ve also realized, too, is because it’s crazy – Because I’m also so [makes whirring noise indicating fast movement], and thinking at alarming speed sometimes. And with that said, my activity then reflects that, that. It’s hard for them and sometimes for me in that process to connect with spirit, unless I become extremely physical. What I, what I’m starting to do now is like getting my cardio up and getting my juices going. So I’m like, oh, and I’m almost like getting all that out of me, so that when I come to a calm point, my heart rates come down again. That’s another huge moment where I feel like I’m really connecting on that spiritual level.  Because my mind is not thinking at a million miles an hour, because, I just spent it through all my physical activity.

And also actually, that’s a form of meditation.

Absolutely.

A lot of people will feel that you can only meditate by sitting going oummm, but no. No.  Meditation can be as simple as, as gardening.  As washing the dishes, as going for a walk. You don’t have to sit and clear your mind and do these things that gurus tell you have to do. We to meditate constantly during the day, but people don’t recognize that that’s what they’re doing.

That’s right. How many times have you just stared into a fire, you know, you might have like a bowl of cereal or something, and then just thoughts and thoughts and thoughts, the subconscious is coming up. It’s inter-reacting. And then all of a sudden, boom, boom, boom, all these things, that’s what it’s like.  Even in like – I love water. Water for me even as much as my, as my astrological symbols, cancer, having that water symbol as part of that. I just some found so really great information that has come out in the bathtub. You know? And I really, I just get I get super excited to get out and like start writing, writing it down. And I don’t want to lose it like I’ve even like. And here’s the thing I’ve said to myself. I take a pad or a dictation machine or something like in there?

But what I’m doing is like I’m, I’m making those feelings that are really coming to me. I’m forcing myself to think them over and over again. So they stick in a different way. Because lyrically presenting lyrics and the idea of what the idea of means, is not, it can’t be just flat delivering information for me is character driven. So how I make it stick in terms of language is really important to me as a dyslexic, using those things and those things to my ability in terms of a photographic memory. And that’s why a lot of times I won’t. So not until later when the is sort of coming through stream of consciousness down, do I start editing and looking at the sort of higher form of the piece. Right. But, man, I tell you, water is one of those recharges as well, too, for, for all of that.

Wow. Wow. That’s very cool. So you’ve had UFO experiences. You come from a family that is very grounded in these, ah, more shadowlands taught things that, that the average person maybe might glance at.  But then just doesn’t really pay too much attention to. However, that is changing these days. Fortunately, more people are acknowledging the different realities that exist around us, other than the one we are currently knowing of.

Well, you know, and that’s it. I think that., the  recognition of it, even for yourself, this is somebody, a friend of mine, so it’s like who cares sometimes what other people think about your experience? Like they’re just playing the devil’s advocate in that sense, because it means something to you. And with that said, even the experiences in my own family, they’ve all been the forger of that very energy that makes you feel that connectedness. Maybe that’s how it relates to people being drawn to us, because we have that sense of affirmation.

My, my grandmother, you know. What an amazing woman, she spoke eight different languages. She could tune a car. She could do the timing on an engine with a screwdriver. She raised three kids, moved from a different country. Emigrated during some of the worst times, and the depression learned to speak the language, you know, scrub floors for a dollar a day for Mr. Heinzman, who was a piano. From the  Heinzman piano company.

This is like a charmed woman, but charmed because of her experiences that she recognized and realized. Now, my grandmother’s brother, his name was Aashiqui, which is sort of an old Slovanic name. It’s like Arily today, almost like early, right? He was born with all of his hair teeth. And at the age of one was already speaking. And he was considered the either divine child in the village, or the child that was cursed. Because he was so brilliant, and at such a young age and could communicate with adults and young children alike. People saw it as some what? phenomenona, right? And, and he, from the time that he could speak, would say, here’s what’s going to happen.  At the age of 11. I’m going to die. I’m going to go over to that apple tree over there and there’s a little bench. I’m going to lie down there in a suit that you buy for me. You haven’t bought it yet, but I’m going to put it on. And I’m going to go down there and I’m going to die when I’m eleven. And he would even go get the kids from the village and practice his own funeral. That’s dark, dark stuff, this is what I remember my grandmother telling me.

Well, before what happened at the age of eleven is that Aashiqui went to that apple tree, laid down on that little bench and expired. So all of that has this, this gravity for me and my grandmother telling that story is one thing. Thinking that I had a person in my family that predicated their own death, you know, and it becoming this form of like, as I said, Arsenal allegory – Or, however you want to frame it, is, is the very fuel that kept my mind open about the possibility of, again, another one of those things.

So, you know, I remember as a young kid, you know, doing different things and whatever, and people would say, hey Ed, come on over here, tell your story about blah blah blah. It was almost my rite of passage in the weirdest of ways, because I had so much so many issues as a dyslexic kid. And self-esteem issues that were driven by poor teachers in the system at the time that really just didn’t understand it in the 1970s. Like the music, my, my collectiveness to my paranormal environment was another one of those things that, like I said, it was a rite of passage that allowed me to communicate in a different way and maybe in some ways without knowing. It opened up a lot of my friends to the idea that possibility could exist.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I’ve got to say, before we go any further, when you were talking about your uncle, about him – Oh your grandmother’s brother lying on the bench, I just had this déjà vu moment. It just kept me alive. Oh, my God, I’ve heard this before, I’ve seen this before. Yeah, I just had this déjà vu. I wrote it down on my pad.  And it just like shocked me because it’s not often I get déjà vu. I mean, I get a lot of other things. But, but I absolutely recall the feeling, the telling of the kid lying on the beach there you go

Oh, I saw you take off your glasses. So it must have been part of the whole you were going through it. I thought, what did I say something wrong? Because I think you’re about to

No, no, no, no. That was, that was quite profound for me, actually. It was quite profound for me

Wow, wow, wow. And maybe, you know, you were there at a different point in time or through the ether of explaining it. It all makes sense as a part of the roadmap.

Yes. Well, you know, sorry, sorry to interrupt. One of the things that I’ve been taught my entire life by my Star People is that time does not exist outside of this reality. As we know that time is not linear. Time does not exist. So, you know, it is very possible that I did see that?

You’re absolutely right, and even what you’re getting at with that whole idea of dimensional physics and this concept behind the construct that like inside of that. You know, the idea of time not existing, that it’s not something that’s you know, linear in any way, shape or form. That is a big part of probably why déjà vu or other things like even cognitive abilities to be able to understand, wait a minute, there’s danger around the corner. How does a young child tap into the energy of the system to lift a vehicle off of their wounded parent?

Exactly.

All of these things that are –  erase the idea that physics says that can’t be done. A three year old child shouldn’t be able to lift the front end of a vehicle. Right? But again, it is I’ve had those too even in writing where I’m getting even now thinking about the experiences where literally shivers are coming. You know, I get this. It feels like a blue jet of energy that’s coming out of the top of my head where I can –  everything starts to unfold in this kind of way of like – ,  Like you’re like, of course, of course. You know, you get slapped across the cosmic face in the weirdest ways and you get so excited that you’re almost bursting with ideas and energy because and then, you know, and that’s what’s so exciting about it, is that you, that you are realizing that it’s occurring and you want it to keep happening. It’s a beautiful thing.

I did, I did a podcast episode in my first season and our conversation is a part of my sixth season. And that podcast is –  still remains to this day, one of my most listen to episodes. It’s called a ‘Glitch in the Matrix: A Holographic Reality?’ And that’s when I go into quantum physics. And I did about like sixty hours research for the show. It was like writing a thesis.  Because I wanted to get the information correct for people, and then plus  it was teaching me. And I discussed déjà vu in it.  As perhaps being an alternate reality. Like a different timeline. Look, so many theories going. So interesting. There’s just so much out there. There’s  just so much to learn that sometimes, I want to know so much. You know? You feel like a sponge sometimes.

I have to  now ask you a question. So did your, did you did your paranormal experiences lead you into physics or the opposite?

My paranormal experiences lead me into physics.

Yeah. Isn’t that interesting? Same with myself included. All of those things led me more into, into those more closely you would say, you know.  Found dated in an idea that you like mathematically write down and say yes, no. And this is where I asked myself then what do you like? We’re talking about people being turned on to what that is –  or in their own experiences doesn’t have to be the same, obviously, and that would be heresy anyway. But, how is it that you that you you do then turn them on to understanding it in that way? Because it’s the ME questioning it, that has guided me through it.

And even in times where I was doing some classes, music therapy classes, and I’d be talking about different things that were going on with my students that I’d be trying to talk about, you know, different dimensional sort of comprehension.  And trying to just describe like, OK, well, if, if this is a wire, you know, and there’s an ant that’s crawling along the wire. Right. And this this wire is at a distance, like on a telephone pole. Right. To me, my perception is well, I see the wire, I see the two telephone poles and this black line through the horizon that I see moving across my visual spectrum. The ant that’s on that wire sees this great big, dark black thing, that it’s crawling on with maybe green, in my case, white, because it’s winter. Probably no answer there anyway, and maybe blue and green. And they have no perception of what that is, other than it’s maybe blue and green.  If they can even see those colours and spectrums. I’m not an entomologist, so I don’t know. But anyway. But he can’t even see me looking at him, because, he’s on the wire and I’m at a distance. I’m nothing to him, but I’m in the exact same dimensional space as that ant. We cannot perceive one another at that moment in time.

And, and, even like so dimensional physics, the same as the possibility of eleven different sort of drawers of things that can potentially even cross reference themselves, that are happening right now that you cannot interact with. In the physical.  Like, I’m going to go touch that strange orb,  gaslight shape on Venus right now. I can’t do it, because I don’t know, but I know enough to understand that the potential of it exists because of what I know about the ant and wire in me.

So how do you then turn other people on to that excitement of what it is? Because, I think there’s also something other than the physical aspect of understanding it. A bigger part of our spiritual development that is connected to the understanding of it. Also even just a relinquishment of older stuff and baggage that we need, that we need to forget about so we can move forward in a new or hyper time sort of reality of it. Because I think we get kind of stuck here mentally.

Yeah, yeah, we do. You bring up some really interesting points. One of the things that my Sta – How my Star People explained a bit of it to me is like this, like an onion skin, OK, this is what they did for me. I was sitting. I saw myself sitting on this bench talking to this Star Person. I said, why didn’t you tell me this before?  This is where my memory kicks in. Why didn’t you tell me this before? And he said, well, because before you weren’t ready for it.  Now you are.  And then at that instance, he put these pictures into my mind.  And in my mind’s eye I saw this giant hand come down out of the sky and pick up the two of us like we were a piece of dust.  Put us in his pocket and then that vision extended to another vision and another vision on top of that. And what he was showing me was that the realities that you’re talking about, the eleven realities are like an onion skin. We’re in the core and each reality is another layer of the onion skin.

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, in that in the core can’t always get to the skin and the skin always can’t get to the core, but they exist in the whole spectrum of, of the onion itself. Right?

Correct. Except sometimes….

And then the next question I ask myself is that, like, they are like, are we supposed to know?  Is there something, is there something to the to the living experience that, that feeds into the bigger part of the onion. That, that maybe, you know, if we did know too much, the onion wouldn’t even be there?

Well, it’s kind of really mind-expanding. You know, you can you can really go into these subjects so deeply and, and they make you question everything. But, going back to talking about how do you get people interested? Well, you get them to start questioning. I always say to people, you don’t have to believe a single thing I say, question it. You should always question, question, question everything I tell you. See how it feels in your soul, see how it sits with you.  How does that resonate with you? If it feels good, if it feels positive, if it raises questions that you can find answers for, then go and search them out. If it doesn’t resonate with you, if it doesn’t fit with you, then discard it. You ‘ve lost nothing but a few minutes of your time.

Right. Well, yeah, and I think in in how does it fit into the consequence of your life? Like…. I mean, you know, people like, you know, I like I like, you know, a funny film, like classic films, like good direction. Good character driven plots and things that are, you know, but I’ve never been a real fan, like, blow everything up all the time. I mean, if it has if it needs to be there. OK, the entire film is about that or just always boom, ba, ba boom, ba, ba, ba, change reality dah, dah, dah, dah. . .

What I’ve what I’ve come to understand about being a cognitive, sentient human being in the twenty first century, is that there’s an alarming amount of information that can actually defocus you’re trying to figure out what this information means to you.  And how, how does it fit in the bigger part of your life? I live a pretty simple life. I mean, and I always kind of have we have, you know, live in an old farmhouse now, I lived in an old farmhouse when I was a kid. I’ve we’ve always grown food. I still grow food today. I want to get some animals, more animals at some point in my life. It’s always something that I can do with my hands. If I can’t do it, OK, then I’ll figure out how to how to get around it.

But how the information in all of this stuff keeps wanting me to look is because, like when we started talking at the beginning of the show, I’m always finding it fitting into this part of my living environment in a way where I go, well, this is why I want to keep searching? So somebody that is continually inundated with stuff that at the end of the day maybe doesn’t mean much, you know, how do,  how do they then practically utilize? The gifts of the ether to their advantage in some way, when their tools aren’t even there?  Because I’m staggered, like I’m kind of going to go off here, but like, you know, some television that I’ve seen, and I hate even calling it vision. Is that it’s awful. It’s terrible. It’s just junk. It’s and there’s so much ego driven base stuff, just like in commercialism. And people aren’t even really being themselves.

You know, we talk about where we sit today in the 2020 people wearing masks.  Before that, that many people wore masks, just different kinds of masks.  Masks that really didn’t allow them to really be who they need to be, because I think that’s a scary thing for some people. I’ve kind of learned through my disability that making a lot of mistakes, being criticized for it.  Being in the music industry is not an easy cup of tea and a slice of cake. It’s a very difficult, very difficult environment.

Eight years ago, I had my dad going, you know, I don’t want you to struggle.  Dad, dad, dad, but it’s through that,  it’s through that struggle that I have that I’ve learned more through, that if you don’t have that personal struggle –  to be fearful enough to look at yourself and go, I’m not happy with who I am, you have to, you know? And instead of placating it with something material, I’m happy now because for a little while, you know, their used clothing stores and used places full of things that people wish that they got because, it was going to make them feel better. And now it’s just collecting dust somewhere. What I can create with my hands every day, what I can do to make that bit of change, even if it’s cleaning my toilet. I know it sounds crazy, but like I know there’s, there’s no shame in it, like the Buddhists, the temples that they keep and stuff like that other than what they go through for meditation and prayer. And they spend a good deal of that part of the moment in every day cleaning temple. And a big part of that is, is cathartic for me, too, because it’s also connecting me to thinking about all of that other stuff in a completely different way, that isn’t lodged in all this other stuff. So I feel I worried for people today because sometimes the amount of information is so intense and staggering it erases your ability to be you.

And how do you shift through it? That’s the thing. It’s recognising what information is bullshit and what information is actually relevant. And when you were talking before, it reminds me of a Conf – Confucius saying that came out in the seventies, because, I’m the child of the seventies.  Before enlightenment fetch water, chop wood. After enlightenment, fetch water, chop wood.

Yes, completely omg. I got to write this out. I’ve got to write this down. That’s so Mr. Miyagi too.

Isn’t it?

You know, it’s like wax on, wax off. Paint the fence, you’re not doing it right.  Oh that’s brilliant. That’s great. Before and after. That’s amazing. That’s going to end up in some lyrical content somewhere.

Oh, I’d love to hear it. You have to send me it when you do it.

It’ll be subliminal, but it will be there.

Oh gosh. I have to get my thoughts together. I got myself completely side tracked.

That’s great. Fetch water, chop wood before and after. Before enlightenment, fetch water, chop wood. After enlightenment, fetch water, chop wood. It’ll be there.

There are a lot of people, when they first start to awaken on a spiritual level, think that everything’s going to be light and love and positive. And they forget that they still have to live in this day to day reality. And I think that’s what that saying is. It took me – it actually took me until I was like in my (mumbles number) years ago, before I actually understood what that was about,  you know?  Like you can be as spiritual as you want to be. As you need to be. As you should be. But, you still have to do the physical day-to-day things.

Absolutely, I think it’s that, the woowoowoo enlightenment, you know? That’s the Hollywood version of what it is,

Correct.

Right. But when I’m really connected to it, I feel good. I just, I don’t, I don’t even know that the fire may be great. Or, some new hurdle is in front of us. I still somehow feel like  – it’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I just feel like I can get through this. And it’s funny, when I used to listen to my grandparents talk about, you know, stuff that happened in the old country with the war and leaving and immigrating and family members being killed. Right. You know, my grandfather was shot a couple of times, escaped prisoner of war camps. It coming to a different country, dealing like my uncle had polio. My mom had TB.  Like just crazy stuff that they did. I always remember being happy. I always remember them and my grandparents being happy, because, they were connected in that still old world way to their living environment that made them go. They’ll get through it. No problem. I make some coffee, you get the bread. We figure it out. And we would. We would have to toil. There would be issues. Things might break down, but in the end, we’re stronger.

Exactly. Exactly. And I think that part of what’s been educated out of people, deliberately, is being self-sufficient and taking responsibility for your actions. People these days –  I had an experience just a few nights ago and the spirit came to me.  And he was showing me these things and he says, you know what? I’m showing you these things. You’re showing me things from my life, experiences that I had had. And he said, you know, I’m showing you the things I said yes. Oh! He said, you know what all these experiences were about. And I said, yes. What they were showing me is that I need to take responsibility, and accountability for all my choices and decisions that I’ve made in my life.  And that I cannot pass the blame onto anybody else, for my choices. And today, we live in a culture where people don’t take responsibility for their choices so much. They blame the government. They blame the weather.  They blame the tool that broke. But they don’t look at the decisions that they made that lead up to that.

Absolutely. Even if you just hit a button there, because I’m, I’m very socially politically minded, but at the same time. The government people I mean, I’ve been the proverbial armchair politician. And I don’t like using that word, because, my dad was a public servant, right? He was a devout public servant. To the point that he was the mayor of our township for over 30 years. Police, police commissioner for fourteen years, he was the chairman of our region for six. And he was the first ever coalition candidate in the history of Canadian federal politics. And he ran as an independent for our region.

And one –  he hated the word politics, but he always would say the country will survive in spite, despite of the politicians. If you want this country to be what it is, you have to do it. You can’t sit there and complain about it. And the change has to come from the populous. And educating the populace can be sometimes the hardest thing to do, especially when it comes to the multi facets and aspects of what government represents today. It doesn’t actually have to be that complex, but we’ve made it that way.

So, so with that said, yeah, there’s you can only blame yourself for saying, well, so it’s got in this year, the Tories, such and such. Well, did you vote? No. Well then how can you complain? You know, like even my dad would say, even if you hate any of the leaders that are running for you, the party spoil your ballot, son. That’s your choice to, to be able to say, I don’t agree with this. If you don’t spoil your ballot, you’re, you’re not worth the vote. You have no right to say anything about it.

And the same thing with the consequences of our actions. Sometimes we don’t realize that, yeah, we’re, we’re, more greatly responsible for it, then we’d like to blame somebody else for.

And when you were speaking you brought a saying up to my mind that you’ve probably heard before. And that’s, be the change you want to see in the world.

Yeah, I mean, that music is giving me that, you know, I always I always call it the fantastic crime, you know, even, even in that film Red Omen you know? I refer to that people say, why do you call it crime? You know, and in the cartoon, I’m almost in a courtroom talking to the judge about it, because it has that it has that feeling to it that I have that ability to  vent to release information in a certain way. That maybe most people don’t get a chance to do and have poetic license and philosophy inside of it, that is, you know, like posting  a grouping of ninety-nine theses on the front door of the cathedral.

You know it, the people that motivated me in the past as writers had that gravity in the things that they were talking about when – Lemon, when they were coming up to the seasonal change here. You know, war is over. It’s over a few if you want the change to happen. But if you want to keep buying into the idea of what all this is, what you’re feeding into it. It’s over if you want it to be. Right? Those are incredibly huge statements in an extremely violent culture, by one person. Many people were talking about peace and love and everything like that. But, you know, what does he do? Big billboards all over the world. I mean, a song. I mean, the movement behind what that all represented was immense. In fact, they were even trying to deport him, you know, as a result of what was going on. But, you know, I’m lucky like that. I can commit that crime every day.

And actually, your music is more than just music. You share energy into it. And people –  and I’m talking and not just energy as in the beat and the tone.  Energy from your soul. I –  one of my most favourite sayings in the world is; what comes from the heart touches the heart. And so, the energy that you infuse the lead touches people on a level whether they recognize it or not, and they respond to that accordingly.

Oh thank you.

And so that makes their world a better place. And that perhaps, inspires them to do something that they might not consider doing.  Or to do something for another person, you know, it’s like a ripple effect.

Well, that’s what Ravi Shankar said, make every note count. I mean, I guess maybe that’s one of the things that being emotionally connected so much, you know, is one of the things that drove my dad crazy, football player you have all this year. You’re so emotional, boy! You know, he just didn’t get it. But I love him. He’s not here with us anymore. But I love him and he loves me. Now we know it.

He does, yeah.

He does! He truly does. I spoke to him the other day, through a medium friend of mine. You know, Carlos Santana once said that, even if you play the same notes that a child would play.  And you play them like you mean it, it’s a testament that you’re greater than the sum. And intent, whether it be planting a potato, or playing a note, is everything.

Everything. Everything. I love Carlos Santana, he is probably one of my favourite, all-time favourite musicians. He infuses the same energy into his work as you do into yours. And I feel that being a sensitive, you know, I feel that, that difference.  But that, what you said was very profound, very, very profound. So where you do you see yourself going from here Ed? What, what sort of?  Do you have any specific plans for future music?  It’s a bit hard at the moment to plan anything, isn’t it? Because, the world situation is so volatile and uncertain.

You know what? And thanks for asking.  And you’ve said some really beautiful things to me, and I can’t thank you enough.  Because I’m, that’s these –  those are my pay checks, my emotional pay checks, and my spiritual pay checks. Knowing that I’m connecting with people. The other stuff is all material. But for me, I embarked on this writing project called A Recipe for Perpetual Spring.

And I’ve become fascinated if, you know, if you’re not aware of anything that’s going on, on Oak Island here, just off the coast of Canada. Right. Like some of the things like that, are re-writing history in terms of like people coming to North America. And I’m not surprised because this isn’t the first time I’ve kind of heard this in my sort of study of history in the past. But I’m fascinated by what Bacon had written in the syllabus Salaam. What she’s talking about, taking this page on the edge of the shore. He comes from this certain spot of the I think it’s off of – no, it’s not off of Orkney. Again, it’s maybe off the cliffs of Dover, or where for many years British people were mining tin. And they were utilizing the shorelines to dig in on these sort of channels, to go into the tin deposits to extract. And it was an elaborate way of mining. But the toil and tribulation of the process really learned a lot about fluid dynamics, mathematics, so many things that made it possible for them to be able to do what they were doing.

And Bacon had written this statement in the syllabus to learn about creating perpetual spring.  And through this sort of poem about building this thing on the edge of this island. What he’s really alluding to in the poetry is that, bringing these sort of devout ideas and disciplines together. Unifying them in some sort of like, you know, we’re going to the moon kind of way, you know, everything from mathematics to rock, so many disciplines that were brought together in order to create this incredible event that occurred.

It’s, I see what’s going on for, for, me with this project is something that will never stop. I would like to say this is the complete album here. It is a recipe for perpetual spring. But I just feel like with all of this happening, I just want to keep pumping out material and let it all fall where it may. But what I’m trying to push out there is about feeling, loving, thinking, trying to understand everything seems to have that with it. So I don’t plan on stopping any time soon.

I started thinking to myself the other day going like, this is the album that never ends. It’s the longest, it’s the longest record in history, the most amount of songs ever. On one record, it’s the Guinness Book of World Records. And he’s been continually writing the same album for 30 years. So I’d be crazy about it all. But I thought, well, why the hell not? You know, you see what happens. So that’s that’s really why I play it. I just I just get to keep doing what I’m doing. I’m lucky that I can still keep functioning and be creative in my studio putting it out. I can’t play live, which I like to do. But it’s not going to stop me, you know, it’s not going to stop me.  

No, it’s not going to stop you. You do what you can do with the tools at your disposal at the time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So must be must be really hard for you –  in New Zealand we’re so geographically isolated, life’s pretty much going on as normal here. And we forget that there’s this huge storm raging around us, and particularly for people like yourself, musicians and performing arts. The performing arts are really –  it must be very, very difficult for you not to be able to?  Or you’ve had to adapt and do it in other ways.

Well, you know what? That’s right. And that’s the conundrum can sometimes lead to a solution, I find. And. I mean, you know, music is always asked of technology, can we do this? And at the same time, musicians embrace new technologies when they come out. I think that the transition to being more present online, doing things online, live streaming events, show and tell, I mean processes, everything with anything that you’re doing. So it’s almost a natural, I think already integration that was happening since like the 2000s with how do we how do we connect more?

Even the databases that are out there for platforms, for musicians to do certain things, have made it extremely easy to be able to communicate with people in the past. I’m sending out press kits with eight by tens and all of this information. And you’re calling people you’re waiting for call backs and emails.  And it’s like you are digitally present as a thing on the Internet and you can communicate with people in New Zealand to San Francisco to everywhere. It’s, it’s amazing that way. But you’re right, it is hard. It’s hard because not having the symbiotic relationship between an audience and what you do and, and practicing your craft in that regard, a studio and performing, you know, capturing a moment is one thing, but we like to play live. We like to interact with our living environment.

Exactly. And it’s the energy exchange as well as not.

Yeah, the symbiotic. It’s, and not only that. It’s, it’s you know, I like the aspect of music that has that that that influence of storytelling, because I always find that when you’re playing show or something like that after said or something like that, you know, songs and the ideas and songs and stories always are open to conversation. They always lead somewhere. And I like that part of presentation in a live scenario to – you  kind of get to be somebody different for a little while, through the process of performing the song, because sometimes I’m very character driven.

So it’s extremely cathartic as well, too. It’s almost like, you know, like Neil Pert, famous drummer, musician, lyricist that we lost more recently from the band Rush, here from Canada, living on a lighted stage approaches the unreal. It does. It, it has –  that feel to, to, to, what you’re doing right? So there’s a very wide spectrum, too much of what I do like sometimes. Many times people like, well, how do you classify it? What kind of a box do you put it in? And it moves from genre to feeling to feeling, sometimes inside of a tune, inside of a number or on each tune on the record.

So Ed, I’m like – I’ve absolutely thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with you. And I kind of feel like we could keep talking for another few hours.  But,  I’m aware of the time for you. And I I’m really grateful for the time that you can make it. I just oh, I’ve just enjoyed this so much, you’ve been a…. A soul connection really, is this what it feels like to me.

And I feel the same way, too, and you’re just a lovely host and your questions are, have a lot of gravity so that they open up – You’re the catalyst for a lot of big conversation. It’s a good thing.

It’s a good thing for us both. And I learned so much. I’ve learned so much from you.  Listening to you and not only just listening to you, but feeling your energy as you were talking. There were a few times when I had a few tears in my eyes. I’m not ashamed to say I felt….

I have it too. I get it all the time.  I get it all the time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  And you know what that is? That’s that same soul, spirit, communication. It’s when you – What comes from the heart, touches the heart. It’s that, kind of thing.

Absolutely, I mean, this is it. Get criticized for it, right? I remember my brother gave me these chairs for a birthday gift and I started crying like, why are you crying? I’m like, because they’re amazing man! Like, you know, I can’t help it. I –  it’s expression why fight it?

It is expression and yeah exactly. And it’s, it’s acknowledgement and it’s. Well, it’s love, really is its love.  That’s why your song at the beginning of this episode was so appropriate, because I knew that’s what it was.

You can be a messenger, be a radical, be love.

Yeah, exactly.

It is

And it’s a perfect way to end this episode. But before I do, would you like to share out your social media links, your website links so my listeners can go and check you out?

Absolutely. Thank you, Marianne and I can’t thank you enough for having me on the show.  I, I love just talking with people and good conversation, but it was so nice. It’s not scripted. We just jam like you’re having a good improv solo. So it’s, I love to laugh and giggle and cry with you and just talk about everything. So thank you so much for the opportunity. It means so much to me.

It was an absolute pleasure for me.

Ed Roman dot net is where you can find me. All my social networking buttons are there Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, my YouTube channel. Special Ed Roman, is where you’ll find me everywhere because I was a dyslexic. That was my nickname. So yeah. Check out the latest video. It’s out right now. You can get it on iTunes and Amazon. Latest two singles from a recipe for Perpetual Spring are out there. So check it out. And yeah, I’m on SoundCloud. A lot of material on SoundCloud for free, but thanks again. I really appreciate it, it was a lot of fun

Thank you Ed, that was so awesome.

I’d like to thank Ed Roman for his time today and for the permission to use his music. I have thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with him and I really enjoyed the energies we shared during our time together. Such a lovely chap.

Today’s bumper music is called  Be Love.  And our ending song is called Stronger, both songs have lyrics that are so appropriate to where we find ourselves today. Both written and performed by Ed and used with his explicit permission.

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