Welcome to the vortex.

Every place is sacred. All of it is sacred. Anywhere can be a vehicle of revelation.

But there are places that buzz with a certain frequency that gets all of us talking like hippies, reaching for those insufficient words like ‘cosmic’, ‘astral,’ ‘mystic’

And the only reason we roll our eyes is when those words or the kind of people who use them seem like they’re so heavenly minded they’re no earthly good – spiritually superior or unacknowledging of the grit and pain and irreducible complexity of life on earth and the real challenges we face as a species and a planet. What I kept discovering over and over in Bali is a community of futurists, deeply smart, reflective, talented, intentional drop-outs of failing systems, drawn to Bali for its ancient tradition of healing. But they’re not just here for personal restoration, and certainly not for retirement. They’re here to heal the world. Big vision. No small states. And surprisingly, for a community of visionaries, radical humility. 

I started to realize that Bali was a meeting ground for innovators re-imagining human relationships—to each other, to Spirit, to the planet, and how we can build and create structures and institutions and businesses in honor of that. It’s a hub of people from around the world who are waking up—who want to wake up—to a post-Industrial, post-Individualistic future. They’re the kind of people David Brooks describes in his new book ‘The Second Mountain,’ which envisions two types of characters—First Mountain and Second Mountain people. We climb the first mountain in that first half of life. Then if we’re lucky, we hit a valley—we lose a job, a beloved, our health, our identity. If we’re lucky, the valley is the re-making of us. Suffering expands, rather than shrivels us. We’re broken open. We stage a rebellion—we lose interest in that ego-driven, first mountain ascent toward the prestigious school, the flashy title, job, home, stuff. We start climbing a Second Mountain. It’s no longer about self. It’s about summons. We don’t want to be enriched consumers. We want to be consumed. We want our lives to feed the world, starting with our neighbors. We want to elevate consciousness. We want intimacy. We want the joy of moving together, in a rhythm beyond ourselves.

This episode is about introducing you to some of these radical Second Mountaineers I now call friends and conspirators in reimagining human connection and creativity. I have a word for the teachers that resonate with my soul and purpose—the irreverent reverents that teach me how to be sensually and attentively immersed in the everyday world, for all its pleasure and pain and contradiction, and connected, devoted to Spirit. They’re my joy gurus. And these four innovators I’m about to introduce you to have joined the ranks. These are projects worth knowing about, and stories of that dance between hustle and flow every creator, every innovator begins. Here are field notes from the future.

They say Mama Bali won’t let you go until she has taught you what your next chapter demands. So two weeks became eight. I’m just home, back in Brooklyn, still spinning. Not quite out of the vortex. Altered, rewilded, homed, in a fresh, unexpected way. I didn’t know this journey would be as upending—as unending—as it was, but I’m grateful, and I want to share with you the wisdom, energy, and the tough love I’m still absorbing from this sacred place, this meeting ground, and what I started to recognize over and over as an incubator of the future.

This is why I’m leading a retreat there next November 3-11, called Savage Devotion. I can’t wait to see what Bali has in store. The plan she might have for you.

I’d love to hear what this episodes conversations stir in you, so let’s talk on social media, or leave a comment or question on the episode show notes pages on altertogether.com. And, as usual, look out for the guided meditation episode that accompanies this conversation to drop you into your heart this week, and sit with some of the questions we raised.