Hoppy Quick has been chainsaw carving bears in the Catskills since 1979 — but he'll tell you he's not an artist. He's a spiritual being who found himself through the bear.

In this wide-ranging conversation, we visit Hoppy at his home in Samsonville — a converted 1951 school bus, a canvas teepee workshop, a crackling fire ring, and a horse named Ginny — and quickly discover that a conversation about whittling wood leads somewhere much deeper.

We talk about his 47-year search for the perfect bear face, carving as meditation, and what it means to live in grace. Hoppy shares the story behind the Heart Tribe, his COVID-era community of tens of thousands, and reflects on ego, fear, the divine feminine, AI, and why he believes the path forward is exactly 16 inches — from your head to your heart.

As the world seems to be straining at its seams, Hoppy emerges like a bear from the tree line — unexpected, unhurried, and offering a wise and grounding call to our higher selves.