In this episode of the Walking With Jaguars Podcast, Matt Blanco sits down with Brandi Dow to explore what changes when you stop trying to correct people and start building a world they can actually feel safe in.

From raising her younger brother at eleven, to night shifts in residential group homes for children with autism, to inventing a piece of clothing that has now reached families all over the world, Brandi has spent her whole life creating environments where overwhelmed nervous systems can finally settle. She trained as a behavioral therapist and then walked away from it, because the whole model was built around trying to make children fin into a society that wasn't build for them.

We dig into the science she works with every day: deep pressure therapy, full body compression, cortisol, proprioception, and the sensory tools most people have never heard of, from chewy tubes and noise cancelling headphones to sensory swings and weighted input. She tells the story of the Sensory Sweater, the tool she built after a girl in crisis refused everything else.

From there we zoom out to stranger territory: the children Brandi has watched perceive things the rest of us have trained ourselves not to. We get into extra sensory perception, the research behind The Telepathy Tapes and non-speaking children naming words held across a room, savant gifts, and her sense that some of these souls are simply tuned to a realm the rest of us block out. Matt brings it home to the Lakota medicine man Black Elk and his childhood vision, and the two of them sit with a question the medical model has no room for: what if these souls are here to teach the rest of us?

The conversation deepens into plant medicine and the work that comes after it. They break down set and setting as modern dogma, spiritual bypassing, and what Matt calls new age, new cage, the trap of trying to ascend out of your own humanity. He warns about synthetic psilocybin, nasal spray DMT, big pharma moving into the space, and what the coca leaf becomes once it is stripped of spirit.

Finally, we bring it home to money and building things. Both Matt and Brandi make the case that money only amplifies who you already are, that entrepreneurship is one of the most honest spiritual practices there is, and that a business built to genuinely help people can be its own kind of ceremony.

If you want a grounded conversation about autism and sensory healing, the gifts hidden in different minds, plant medicine integration, spiritual bypassing, and why building a conscious business can be a form of prayer, this one is for you.

Get my free reading list of 50 books to awaken the spirit:

https://mattblanco.xyz/books/

Follow Brandi's Work:

⁠Sensory Sweater⁠

Follow Matt Blanco's Socials:

⁠Instagram⁠ | ⁠Twitter ⁠| ⁠Youtube

In this episode of the Walking With Jaguars Podcast, Matt Blanco sits down with Sarah Lafrenière to explore what healing actually is when you stop treating it as a private clinical transaction and start living it as something a whole community carries together.

From vivid childhood dreams and sweat lodges in Quebec to four years of sun dancing, vision quests and moon dance, Sarah walks the red road as a medicine woman, body worker and naturopath, doing healing work alongside First Nations communities on the land.

We dig into why the Western clinical model gets healing fundamentally wrong, and why isolating a sick person is anti-healing when so much sickness comes from lost connection in the first place. We get into body work as listening rather than technique, why the body cannot lie the way the mind can, and what it means to unlearn every modality so you can become a clear channel and get out of your own way.

From there we zoom out to plant medicine and the path of allies, working with water, tobacco, copal, sweetgrass, cedar and St. John's Wort, the difference between homeopathy and naturopathy, and why spirit itself is the cure regardless of the modality. Matt shares his own turn from atheist intellectual to the medicine path, the trap of new age new cage spirituality that wants to transcend the body, and the ayahuasca vision of the library that reframed his whole life.

Finally we bring it home to the sun dance itself, four days of fasting and prayer and what sacrifice and suffering really teach. We talk about earning your place in an indigenous community, reciprocity and ayni, the Andean Apus and how prayer stops being asking and becomes nothing but thank you.

If you want a grounded conversation about the sun dance, community healing, body work, plant medicine, the red road, sacred prayer and what it truly means to be human, this one is for you.

Get my free reading list of 50 books to awaken the spirit:

https://mattblanco.xyz/books/

Follow Sarah's Socials:

⁠Facebook⁠

Follow Matt Blanco's Socials:

⁠Instagram⁠ | ⁠Twitter⁠ | ⁠Youtube

In this episode of the Walking With Jaguars Podcast, Matt Blanco sits down with his wife Emily for a long-overdue life update - the story of packing up an entire life, leaving Costa Rica, and answering a seven-year call to the Peruvian Andes.

From the expat comfort of Costa Rica to a self-governed indigenous community at 3,000 meters in the Sacred Valley of Peru, this is a conversation about what it actually takes to leap into the unknown - two cats, everything they own, visa battles and all.

We dig into why Costa Rica stopped feeling aligned: the Americanized expat bubble, the highest pesticide use per capita in the world, the mold that comes with jungle humidity, and a cost of living that rivals the West. And we explore everything Peru has opened up: Quechua-speaking neighbours, offerings to the Apus on every mountain trail, markets exploding with produce, a culture where everyone is a producer instead of a consumer, and life in a place where ayahuasca and the medicine path are woven into the fabric of daily life.

We also go deep on marriage. Why we chose matrimony over a government contract, merging our lineages with a barefoot wedding on the summer solstice, commitment in the age of hookup culture, and why your partner is the mirror that forces your evolution.

Then there's the chaos: rejected visas, endless lawyers and paperwork, accidentally buying a farm, and the lesson that when spirit calls you onto a new adventure, it always comes with challenges you're not yet equipped for, but are absolutely capable of overcoming. The mind can always see the thousand fears. It can never see the thousand blessings.

If you're standing on the edge of your own leap into the unknown - a move, a marriage, a new chapter - this one is for you.

Get my free reading list of 50 books to awaken the spirit:

https://mattblanco.xyz/books/

Follow Emily's Socials:

Instagram | Skool

Follow Matt Blanco's Socials:

Instagram | Twitter | Youtube

In this episode of the Walking With Jaguars Podcast, Matt Blanco sits down with Riki to explore what it means to wake up inside systems that no longer make sense, and why Bitcoin often becomes the first crack in the illusion.

We begin with institutions. Government, money, education, media, and the quiet bureaucracy that seems to operate without consequence. We break down how short political cycles create short-term thinking, how unelected administrators hold real power, and why so much of modern life feels performative rather than accountable.

From there, we move into money and incentives. Inflation, debt culture, credit expansion, and the illusion of wealth. We talk about what happens when you start questioning the monetary system, how Bitcoin reframes time preference and sovereignty, and why opting out can feel like regaining clarity rather than making a financial bet.

The conversation deepens into plant medicine. Riki shares his first ayahuasca ceremony and how it confronted him with blind spots around love, fatherhood, and self-worth.

Finally we explore faith. Riki describes how ayahuasca unexpectedly brought him into Christianity, not through doctrine or performance religion, but through direct experience.

If you want a grounded conversation about institutional illusion, Bitcoin as a realignment tool, plant medicine, faith, family, sovereignty, and long-term thinking, this one is for you.

Get my free reading list of 50 books to awake the spirit: ⁠⁠⁠https://mattblanco.xyz/books/ ⁠⁠

Follow Riki's Socials:

⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

Follow Matt Blanco's Socials:

⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Youtube | Website

In this episode of the Walking With Jaguars Podcast, Matt Blanco sits down with Aga, also known as Akaiyah Fortune, to explore Kambo as both a physical medicine and a consciousness practice, and what it looks like to work with it responsibly.

We dive into physical detoxification and what people are actually carrying in their systems. Candida overgrowth, mold exposure, heavy metals, parasites, and how compromised detox pathways can impact mood, energy, clarity and resilience.

Then we dive into the wonderful world of Kambo. Aga explains how Kambo interacts with the body’s detoxification pathways through peptide signaling.

We break down preparation and integration, contraindications and unpack a controversial but important topic: tapering off SSRIs and opiates with the support of Kambo.

From there, we zoom out to ethics and access. We talk about the current free for all with psychedelics, potency culture, bad dosing advice, and why proper screening and guidance matter more than ever.

We also explore the tension between lineage and direct revelation, when tradition is essential, and when the plants can teach you directly, which is a topic I love to ponder.

Finally, we bring it home to voice and creativity. Aga shares her journey of vocal liberation, how years of inner work opened the channel, and how healing eventually becomes play. We talk about why music and medicine are inseparable, how sound moves energy in ceremony, and what it means to finally live as an artist.

Get my free reading list of 50 books to awake the spirit: ⁠⁠⁠https://mattblanco.xyz/books/ ⁠⁠

Follow Aga's Socials:

⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠Ceremonies | Music | Candida Cleanser

Follow Matt Blanco's Socials:

⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Youtube

In this episode of the Walking With Jaguars Podcast, Matt Blanco sits down with Bram to explore what sovereignty actually means when you stop treating it like a financial concept and start living it as a moment to moment practice.

We unpack why Bitcoin is not the destination, it is the anchor. Bram breaks down how Bitcoin creates a shared, verifiable truth in a world of narratives and manufactured uncertainty. We talk about why sovereignty is really the ability to make conscious choices, why outsourcing your decisions is the quiet form of slavery, and how opting into responsibility is the only way out.

We also bridge Bitcoin, plant medicine, and the importance of having children despite fiat money being one of the greatest spiritual crimes of the modern era.

If you want a grounded conversation about Bitcoin, truth, sovereignty, plant medicine and building a life with clarity and responsibility, this one is for you.

Get my free reading list of 50 books to awake the spirit: ⁠⁠⁠https://mattblanco.xyz/books/ ⁠⁠

Follow Bram's Socials:

Twitter⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠Youtube | ⁠⁠Retreats

Follow Matt Blanco's Socials:

⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Youtube

In this episode of the Walking With Jaguars Podcast, Matt Blanco sits down with Nell Hunter to unpack what it actually takes to build a real Bitcoin circular economy and live with sovereignty in a world designed to make people outsource their power.

We dig into the Bitcoin Basin in Queenstown, New Zealand and why building peer to peer community is both inspiring and brutally hard. Nell breaks down how circular economies solve the chicken and egg problem, HODL vs spend, and how 43 local businesses accepting Bitcoin becomes a living proof point that the money can work in real life, not just on Twitter.

From raw milk regulations to cash bans to broken incentives in farming and business, we explore how central planning quietly rewrites entire economies one rule at a time. The thread running through it all is simple: when you insert a third party into every transaction, you delete the free market and you delete responsibility.

Finally, we bridge Bitcoin and plant medicine as parallel initiations. Both demand proof of work. Both reveal how much you cannot explain to people who have not lived it. And both push you toward the same destination: radical responsibility, clearer perception, and a life you actually chose.

If you want a grounded conversation about Bitcoin adoption, circular economies, sovereignty, and the deeper psychology behind why people refuse to see what is right in front of them, this one is for you.

Get my free reading list of 50 books to awake the spirit: ⁠⁠⁠https://mattblanco.xyz/books/ ⁠⁠

Follow Nell's Socials:

⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Bitcoin Basin

Follow Matt Blanco's Socials:

⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Youtube

In this episode of the Walking With Jaguars Podcast, Matt Blanco sits down with Brett to break down the real state of money, markets, and sovereignty in a world drowning in fiat illusions.

We dig into why Bitcoin is the only free market left, how infinite liquidity props up dying institutions, and why most cryptocurrencies are just psychological casinos dressed as innovation. Brett explains the three functions of money — store of value, medium of exchange, unit of account — and why Bitcoin is the only asset that still meets the standard.

From generational nihilism to doomsday psyops, we explore how fear shapes time preference and keeps people dependent on failing systems. Bitcoin becomes the counter-move: hard money, honest incentives, and a way to build long-term meaning again.

We briefly touch on plant medicine as another tool for clearing the internal noise so people can take responsibility and actually build a life worth living.

If you want a grounded conversation that cuts through hype, delusion, and fiat theatre, this one is for you.

Get my free reading list of 50 books to awake the spirit: ⁠⁠⁠https://mattblanco.xyz/books/ ⁠⁠

Follow Matt Blanco's Socials:

⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Youtube

In this episode of the Walking With Jaguars Podcast, Matt Blanco sits down with Emily Becker to explore what it means to build a life completely off the script.

After travelling to Colombia in her late teens to live with a nun, Emily became obsessed with the wider world. That curiosity took her into the Peace Corps in rural Mozambique, hitchhiking across Africa, and eventually into a handmade life as a ceramic artist and doula in the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico.

They talk about what freedom really is beyond money, how travel shattered her conditioning, and what living close to the land has taught her about food, community, and responsibility. Emily shares stories of hitchhiking with goats, teaching in a colonial system, learning new languages, and navigating the tension between service and saviourism.

They also explore how plant medicines opened her to real gratitude, how facing death dissolved her fear, and why spiritual growth now looks like making art, tending relationships, and choosing pleasure without apology.

If you’ve ever felt the pull to leave the familiar behind and create a life rooted in meaning, this conversation will speak to you.

Get my free reading list of 50 books to awake the spirit: ⁠⁠⁠https://mattblanco.xyz/books/ ⁠⁠

Follow Emily's Socials:

⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

Follow Matt Blanco's Socials:

⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Youtube

In this episode of the Walking With Jaguars podcast, Matt Blanco sits down with Steven Giannopoulos.

From years on the frontlines as a firefighter to months trapped under 24-hour surveillance on Big Brother, Steven shares how these intense initiations stripped him bare - physically, emotionally, and spiritually. What followed was a decade-long mission deep diving into recovery, nervous system repair, and eventually, reconnection through plant medicine.

From the chaos of burning buildings to the stillness of ceremony, they trace the path from adrenaline to awareness - from saving lives to learning how to truly live.

We dive into the medicine path, psilocybin and ayahuasca as teachers of humility, and the journey of rebuilding the nervous system through brotherhood and truth.

If you’ve felt the call to reclaim your power and rebuild your temple from the inside out, this one is for you.

Get my free reading list of 50 books to awake the spirit: ⁠⁠⁠https://mattblanco.xyz/books/ ⁠⁠

Follow Steven's Socials:

⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

Follow Matt Blanco's Socials:

⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Youtube