Speaker 1: So Friday we went on a solstice to Pilot Mountain.
Speaker 1: Did you get to see the shadow the pyramid shadow?
Speaker 2: Yes, through the crowd, I was able to see it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I was tempted to just start like pushing
Speaker 3: people aside, but then I was afraid some of them
Speaker 3: would fall off the precipice and that is, yeah, that
Speaker 3: I didn't have that. I didn't want to be responsible
Speaker 3: for that. But yeah, I was able to see parts
Speaker 3: of it through the crowd, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's as far as it goes, and then
Speaker 1: it comes back for the equinox, and that's where it's
Speaker 1: a perfect pyramid shadow, just right on an east west axis.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So what what was kind of your impression? More?
Speaker 1: Is Randall Carlson the human being to being on a
Speaker 1: sacred mountain like that?
Speaker 2: And as a human being? Okay, that's you know, not
Speaker 2: the you know? Are you? I guess maybe I did. No,
Speaker 2: that's good.
Speaker 3: I like that because yeah, most of the time I
Speaker 3: am a functional human being exactly most of the time.
Speaker 1: The year, but you're also the legendary and yeah, and okay.
Speaker 2: So let me put this. I was very impressed. I
Speaker 2: knew a Pilot Mountain.
Speaker 3: I knew of it, but I didn't know much about
Speaker 3: it until I got your book last year. And then
Speaker 3: once I got your book and started looking at it,
Speaker 3: and this is fascinating, right, I need to go see
Speaker 3: it for myself. So this was my first excursion that
Speaker 3: I actually was able to see the mountain firsthand.
Speaker 2: And I'm very imputing.
Speaker 3: I don't you know, I kind of have an explanation
Speaker 3: of its origin, but I'm not one hundred percent convinced
Speaker 3: that I really got it, you know, got the whole picture.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's things there that I have not picked
Speaker 2: up on.
Speaker 3: And we know that it was a what was it
Speaker 3: called the Cherokee They had.
Speaker 1: The jomy ok they called it, yeah, yeah, but they
Speaker 1: meant it's the rocks that the stone faces are the guides.
Speaker 1: The Europeans picked that up as it's a landmark, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure I could see a chief or a medicine
Speaker 1: man saying, oh yeah, it's a great guy, and like
Speaker 1: the Europeans just going, well, I don't even understand what.
Speaker 2: You're talking about here.
Speaker 1: It's a stone, you know, But yeah, Yona, I've been
Speaker 1: in trouble about the man made versus natural For the
Speaker 1: stone faces and Yona kind of up that and doubled
Speaker 1: down and said they're alive and they're guardians. Then then
Speaker 1: they're watching us and they want to make sure we
Speaker 1: are doing the right things the right way, and they
Speaker 1: will come out and correct people if they don't.
Speaker 2: So they will come out, Yeah, so they will.
Speaker 1: They look like other Cherokee, and they will interact with people.
Speaker 2: Interesting, and when you do.
Speaker 1: A fission quest, if you fast for five days, you
Speaker 1: can hear them, and then if you fast for seven days,
Speaker 1: they will come out and talk to you.
Speaker 2: Really. Yeah, that's that's the oral history.
Speaker 1: And I thought it was really cool the way you
Speaker 1: started yesterday with the Native America in oral history. And
Speaker 1: I kind of feel the same way about the about
Speaker 1: the Harry what was it, Carlton, George Catland, that's it?
Speaker 3: Okatland. Yeah, Yeah, very interesting, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Because Jonah says that we don't need to learn anything new,
Speaker 1: we just need to remember, and that he wants to
Speaker 1: blend the ancient past and the ancient future into the
Speaker 1: now and that's kind of his mission. When I ran
Speaker 1: into him, I was really impressed with him. Yeah he
Speaker 1: uh excuse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's pretty cool, pretty cool dude.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've got I learned after I moved to Georgia
Speaker 3: from Minnesota, I learned that my mother's mother's people were
Speaker 3: from the from North Georgia up in Gilmore County. So
Speaker 3: we did some research. One of my one of my cousins,
Speaker 3: did a bunch of research. Found out that there was
Speaker 3: two families, the Petits and the Durdans, that came down
Speaker 3: from New Jersey in the early eighteen thirties. Oh wow,
Speaker 3: and they intermarried with the Cherokee. So I don't know
Speaker 3: what percentage I would have, It's a very small amount.
Speaker 3: But so I'm descended from that intermarriage. Yeah, my father
Speaker 3: is one hundred percent Scandinavian, so that's obviously my dominant genetics.
Speaker 3: But but yeah, from my mother, I get French and Cherokee,
Speaker 3: Indian and Welch.
Speaker 2: Oh wow. So it's an interesting mix.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so I've gotten very And I meant to
Speaker 3: ask Yona about the stories about if I'm pronouncing it
Speaker 3: right the Nuna high.
Speaker 1: Or yeah, I don't pronounce it, none of he is
Speaker 1: the way I'm not announced it. But that's not correct,
Speaker 1: that's not correct. We both gave talks at Elon University.
Speaker 1: I got in. Somebody nominated me for this talk and
Speaker 1: it's four talks to one hundred and twenty five people.
Speaker 1: And then I said, you know, I can do the
Speaker 1: written history and Yona can do the oral history.
Speaker 2: Can we do it that way?
Speaker 1: And so I kind of snuck him in the back door,
Speaker 1: I see, and he was he had people in tears,
Speaker 1: he was so he was doing the drum and the
Speaker 1: songs and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So excuse me.
Speaker 3: So I remember in North Georgia there was a mountain
Speaker 3: called Blood Mountain and there was a trail that went
Speaker 3: up to the top of the mountain. That the trail
Speaker 3: had there was a sign and it was already worn
Speaker 3: and rickety twenty five years ago, but I can remember
Speaker 3: very distinctly what it said.
Speaker 1: I've got that. I've got a picture of that sign,
Speaker 1: do you Yeah?
Speaker 3: And the reference was to the Nuna he if that's
Speaker 3: how it's pronounced. Who the Cherokee legend about the people
Speaker 3: who could travel anywhere, the people who could travel.
Speaker 2: Anywhere and live nowhere? Was that part of it too,
Speaker 2: and lived nowhere? Yep. So you've got a picture of
Speaker 2: that sign.
Speaker 1: Yes, And it's fairly good. So I don't know when
Speaker 1: it was taken. But oh yeah, huh, it maybe was
Speaker 1: when it almost looked.
Speaker 2: New to me.
Speaker 3: Well maybe they replaced it, yeah, because it was worn.
Speaker 1: Well, no, I'm I go into the archives. I don't
Speaker 1: do the digital stuff as much as I go. I
Speaker 1: get the white gloves on to go through the folders
Speaker 1: and put the placer.
Speaker 2: And all that shit. So oh I used to do it, Yeah,
Speaker 2: but I still do.
Speaker 1: I think you have to because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that just hasn't been digitized.
Speaker 2: Haven't been digitized.
Speaker 1: And then there's the problem with the algorithms. You know,
Speaker 1: you get into this, you don't only go right instead
Speaker 1: of I want left end right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been quite a quite an ordeal. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Well I.
Speaker 3: Have a whole shelf of research, you know, photo copied
Speaker 3: research and stuff from the seventies up through the early
Speaker 3: two thousands, I guess, yeah, fourteen or fifteen foot shelf,
Speaker 3: all bound chronologically ordered in three ring binders with sheet protectors,
Speaker 3: so I can pull it off. But you know, I
Speaker 3: get so much stuff now digitally, right, because I've got
Speaker 3: some passwords that I use.
Speaker 2: In the drives. You have to have and then they degrade.
Speaker 1: You got to buy a new one and transfer it
Speaker 1: and write. Yeah, well, what are you going to do
Speaker 1: with all that stuff?
Speaker 2: You know? Are you going to give it to an archive.
Speaker 3: Or yeah, I mean I want to build a school,
Speaker 3: and yeah, that would be the core, just like Thomas
Speaker 3: Jefferson bequeathed his library and that was the core foundation
Speaker 3: of the University of Virginia.
Speaker 2: Right, Right.
Speaker 3: So I've got four thousand volumes, yeah, mostly which I
Speaker 3: haven't read, but I know what's in every book. I've
Speaker 3: probably read the forward introduction to every book I have,
Speaker 3: so I know what's in it, right. But yeah, and
Speaker 3: so I would like to endow a library that I build.
Speaker 1: Yeah, your stuff on the equinox, it's in the book.
Speaker 1: I quote you directly on the equinox from the solstice
Speaker 1: and the way it goes back and forth, and I
Speaker 1: just thought you explained it so well. And in the
Speaker 1: new book, I've got the procession of the equinoxes. If
Speaker 1: you're looking at the you know, the like the shadow
Speaker 1: for the equinox, and you then you see the background
Speaker 1: stars shifting a little bit, and that it's like, oh
Speaker 1: there's something going on here. Yeah, yeah, it's amazing, do
Speaker 1: you know very much about the eighteen point six lunar standstill.
Speaker 1: That's what my current fascination. Well, I went up to
Speaker 1: New Newark and I was just blown that.
Speaker 3: You've got the minor standstill, the major standstill, and so
Speaker 3: it oscillates kind of. I'll do it exaggerated minor major,
Speaker 3: minor major.
Speaker 1: And so it's really nine point three years and then
Speaker 1: it's doubled.
Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, you can think of it that way.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, But there's the Now what I've heard from
Speaker 1: the Wisdom keepers is there's a planting aspect to it,
Speaker 1: because the just as there's tides in the ocean, there's
Speaker 1: tides in the in the soil, and so the water
Speaker 1: coming up, you plant your seed where it'll meet and
Speaker 1: then sometimes it's further down and sometimes it's closer up.
Speaker 2: That's fascinated, But that's lunar farming.
Speaker 3: Yeah, regard me whatever you want to call it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'd like to play.
Speaker 2: Around with that at some point. Yeah, yeah, well that
Speaker 2: would be one of the things that we would do.
Speaker 3: So if you're interested, I put together a pitch deck,
Speaker 3: which is all the ideas of as we were talking about.
Speaker 3: I mean, American education is desperately in need some kind
Speaker 3: of a reboot and.
Speaker 1: Where you're thinking instead of just memorizing. Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1: Joseph Campbell said that when specialists do things, they're so
Speaker 1: far into the specialist thing it's very narrow and then
Speaker 1: like you Cherokee thing, Well what about the Iroquois thing
Speaker 1: over here? Oh no, I'm just cherokee. And so he
Speaker 1: always said, I'm a generalist and they hate me because
Speaker 1: you can tie them up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the way I'll say.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I know quite a bit about paleohydrology,
Speaker 3: but I don't know as much as a full time hydrologistness.
Speaker 3: I know quite a bit about astronomy and movement to
Speaker 3: the planets, but probably not as much as an astronomer
Speaker 3: who just does nothing on that. But I know a
Speaker 3: whole lot more about paleo hydrology than the astronomer, and
Speaker 3: I know a whole lot more about astronomy than the hydrologists.
Speaker 2: Isn't that interesting? Yeah, So there is an important role
Speaker 2: for generalists.
Speaker 3: Although some of the areas I've really focused in on,
Speaker 3: and I maybe you know, if I'm doing my own
Speaker 3: Orn'm getting close to being an authority on some of
Speaker 3: these ancient deluvial catastrophes.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I read Donnelly when I was eighteen. Yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 1: Black Matte Lair. I've thought about that my whole life.
Speaker 2: Jo Donnelly was a congressman from Minnesota.
Speaker 1: And he went into the Library of Congress. Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: My book is down the road from Lewis and Clark's Journal.
Speaker 2: I can't believe that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was my first book and it got accepted
Speaker 1: in the Library of Congress. Really yeah, just last Wednesday.
Speaker 2: Oh oh yeah, recent New York. I heard you talking
Speaker 2: about that. Yeah, yeah, just amazing.
Speaker 3: What were some of the first and early books you
Speaker 3: read on these kind of if.
Speaker 2: We want to Moravian journals? Moravian journals.
Speaker 1: They were the Germans that probably like your ancestors, came
Speaker 1: down the Great Wagon Road from Philadelphia and they that
Speaker 1: went all the way to Atlanta, and then there's branches
Speaker 1: that go off from that, and they came in seventeen
Speaker 1: fifty two, there were eight of them, and they started
Speaker 1: writing a daily journal and they have not stopped, no kidding.
Speaker 1: And so they they had the French Indian War every
Speaker 1: day and then the Revolutionary War every day that had
Speaker 1: affected them and then eighteen twelve Civil War, no kidding,
Speaker 1: and they were pacivists, so they were they got charged
Speaker 1: quadruple taxes because they weren't participating, and then each side
Speaker 1: thought they were spies. Nobody trusted them. But yeah, like
Speaker 1: they would come through and you know, just take everything
Speaker 1: they had. Yeah, well, is there anything else do you
Speaker 1: remember about the Friday that kind of impressed you?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: I was impressed enough that I wanted to follow up
Speaker 3: and learn more about it, right and come back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it'd be really cool if we got Yona up
Speaker 1: there with you. He's in Ashville, but in that guy,
Speaker 1: he drives everywhere. Just I bet he puts one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand miles on his car every six months.
Speaker 2: So you know, there's a Mount Yona in Georgia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably named after his great great grandfather, Chief Fiona Augusta. Oh,
Speaker 1: and he was considered, he was the prophet and he's
Speaker 1: the one who went to the caves in western North Carolina.
Speaker 2: So all right, we'll let you go.
Speaker 1: You're whipped and you had a big day.
Speaker 3: So yeah, well, you know I didn't get to sleep
Speaker 3: till three am.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, man, I got woke up at seven am.
Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh, and I don't make it on four
Speaker 1: hours so much.
Speaker 2: No, I don't either. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I did six last night and that wasn't enough.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and at my age, you know, it's this that
Speaker 1: Betty Davis thing and getting old isn't for sissies.
Speaker 2: No, definitely not.
Speaker 1: But did you see Ken from Purple Power, the C
Speaker 1: sixty guy?
Speaker 2: Have you ever gotten into C sixty? I don't think so.
Speaker 1: It's really tiny bucket balls. It goes into your mitochondria
Speaker 1: and cleans them out.
Speaker 2: You should talk to him. His name's Ken.
Speaker 1: He's in there right now, and he's he's got a
Speaker 1: business of it, and uh, he's friends with Jay Widner,
Speaker 1: the film guy. So yeah, actually, let me introduce you
Speaker 1: to him. You you would benefit from him.