Dr. Elizabeth Lindsey is a cultural anthropologist, and the first female fellow and Polynesian explorer of the National Geographic Society. Marc and Elizabeth discuss the importance of being your authentic self, and the path and power of wayfinding. They also talk about a favorite saying of one of Elizabeth’s indigenous mentors: “we have lots of clocks but little time.” Elizabeth offers a song/prayer of healing.

 

 

ABOUT MARC’S GUEST: Elizabeth Lindsey, PhD is a cultural anthropologist and an award-winning filmmaker who travels to the world’s most remote regions to protect indigenous knowledge. She is an advocate for social, environmental, and cultural justice. She is also the first female fellow and Polynesian explorer of the National Geographic Society.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Marc Lesser: Welcome to ZenBones: Ancient Wisdom For Modern Times. This is Marc Lesser. Why ZenBones? Our world is in crisis and ever-shifting. Now more than ever, more wisdom, clarity, and courage are essential, especially in the world of work, business, and leadership.  

I’m excited to introduce my guest, Elizabeth Lindsey, anthropologist and National Geographic explorer, a terrific conversation where we discuss the practice of wayfinding. The depth, the spiritual and practical way of finding your way in the world. We talk a little bit about time, in which she describes some conversations with a indigenous teacher who says, “You Westerners have many clocks, but not much time,” and do stay till the end when she does this amazing prayer for wellbeing. Please join me as I have a conversation with Dr. Elizabeth Lindsey. 

[music] 

[00:01:18] Marc Lesser: This is Marc Lesser, and I am really thrilled to be here today with Dr. Elizabeth Lindsey. Elizabeth, great to see you. 

[00:01:27] Elizabeth Lindsey: Oh, Marc, it’s a pleasure to be with you. 

[00:01:30] Marc Lesser: Well, I want to jump right in with I’ve been really enjoying watching the TED Talk that you did in Maui, and I found myself taking notes and writing things down like, “We forgot who we are,” and, “Deep knowing,” and, “Find your way home.” I also loved your talking about a indigenous elder who said to you that we, people in our modern world have a lot of watches, but no time. I know this is- a lot of the work that you do is bringing this indigenous wisdom, ancient wisdom into your life and into the world. I’m curious about how you work with that and also how you practice and how you work with this question of having time. 

[00:02:37] Elizabeth Lindsey: It’s something that is a continual process for me, because when I met this chief on this very small island, about the size of an average American parking and shopping complex- I was racing toward an end of the island so that I could meet my crew. It was my first expedition and I wanted to make sure that everyone was safe and racing down this very small and narrow path. This man walked toward me, so serenely and nobly, as I looked like I was a bat racing out of the front gate. I was coming apart at the seams which metaphorically was very interesting to me because there was so much serenity and groundedness in this man, and I was the complete opposite. 

When he looked at me and he said, “Dr. Lindsey, why do you go so fast?” It stopped me. I started to explain that my crew was waiting for me, and I didn’t want anyone to wait on me. It was as if all of my explanation was just washing over him and none of it was really landing because none of it made sense to him. As I saw [unintelligible 00:03:52] to me either. Then he looked down at the ground and then looked at me and shook his head and said, “You all have watches, but you have no time.” Marc, since that moment, it was one of those pivotal moments in my life because I realized that so often I’m racing through getting my email done, my to-do list onto the next thing, not present in anything that I’m doing. 

That one experience brings me back to center, and so where am I now? How do I bring the best of who I am to this moment, because when I’m not present, I serve no one. That was a great teaching. It continues to be a great teaching. Though I’m not doing a lot of traveling right now because of the pandemic I found myself racing through airports, and then I’d hear his voice in my head, and I’d start to slow down, and I’d just pause long enough to take a deep breath and exhale and return to center. It’s a lesson that is continually teaching me. 

[00:05:10] Marc Lesser: That’s beautiful. I think that’s one of the enormous challenges of our life, how our relationship with time– It’s interesting. It’s also one of the– It’s funny, the things I think of as famous are famous in a very narrow world. In the world of zen practice, there’s a story that basically ends with finding the one who’s not busy, finding the one who is the punchline of a long story. I think there’s a sense of, that it’s not about not doing things. It’s not about being- I think the interesting question and challenge is how can we be engaged, active, even productive, effective, without losing ourselves? 

[00:06:17] Elizabeth Lindsey: It’s a very good question. I find that in my experience, I’m much more effective when I am truly present to this experience, for example, being with you. My prayer is to listen very deeply, not only to what you are asking or discussing in any moment, but to the spaces between your words because only then can I serve you. 

[00:06:51] Marc Lesser: That’s great. It’s interesting, what it actually means to listen. The amazing ability we have to listen on so many different levels as you say, the listening on the spaces in between, listening for connection, listening for openness, for possibility. 

[00:07:24] Elizabeth Lindsey: It’s really true because our deepest connection- I was with an elder in Sardinia some time ago. She was 114. I asked her through a translator how she remains so vital at 114 years old. Without hesitation, she said through the translator, “I belong.” It was all about connection, a deep connection. 

[00:07:54] Marc Lesser: I’m curious what your thoughts about daily practice and meditation practice, I think of that in that so many people when I bring up this question about focus and a different relationship with time, and I suggest that- I think it can be important, useful to have some way of stepping out of the stream of our busy daily lives, whether you call it meditation or reflection. I’m often quoting the writer Yuval Noah Harari, who wrote these two bestselling books. One is called Sapiens, and the other is called Homo Deus. Beautiful, really interesting history books. 

He has a perspective on history about looking through the lens of fiction and how humans, somehow something happened to the human brain that made us be able to communicate with each other globally, but having lost sight of what’s real and what’s fictional. In any case, he wrote a third book called 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. The 21st lesson is meditation. He mentions that he spends two hours a day in meditation practice and that he couldn’t have written these books without that practice. Now, I was like, “Wow, this is great.” 

I think to what you’re saying, that by having some way to cultivate more presence we can actually be more effective. This is something that I think you have to experience it. I noticed there’s a lot of skepticism about– What do you mean by that? 

[00:10:02] Elizabeth Lindsey: Right. It’s interesting because I spent so much time in very remote parts of the world. My focus, the focus of my research and much of my work is around an ancient practice of wayfinding. What wayfinding means is to gain our bearings and the way that they do it on the ocean, for example, the wayfinders in the Pacific would sail across thousands of miles of open ocean without the use of maths or instruments. The way that we physically wayfind is we synthesize all incoming data and information to gain our bearings. We’re using pattern recognition. 

When we truly become masterful at wayfinding, we go to the intersection of the longitude of the mind and the latitude of the heart, and where the two intersect is the still point. The most masterful wayfinders throughout the world that I have met and I have spent time with, they find that still point, whether they call it meditation or reflection or contemplation, doesn’t really matter what the words are that they use, but it’s a necessary part of wayfinding because they believe that that is where our internal guidance system is and our inner compass exists. The answers that we seek are there at that cross-section between the mind and the heart. 

[00:11:43] Marc Lesser: That’s beautiful. I think there’s something about even opening to the possibility that we can all be wayfinders, that we all have this deep inner intuition. I think we all realize the heart, the power of our heart. It’s interesting in a lot of the work that I think we both do, is working with organizations and with people who are actively wanting to solve real problems and make a better world or maybe even starting– It’s interesting, I was thinking of– I think it’s hard to know, does it start with the individual or does it start with our community and support? 

There’s the individual work, there’s the cultural work of our organizations and there’s how we can have even greater influence. So much of it, I think is the need for more heart, the need for more– I think we still suffer from old, old assumptions that heart gets in the way of business or getting things done, it’s all about the head and drive. I think we’re in the midst of a great turning there, I think and hope. 

[00:13:25] Elizabeth Lindsey: I think a turning and a returning, because these ancient civilizations understood the necessity to bring the two together so that we can– In our modern day world, we prize the mind over the heart, we marginalize the heart and we dismiss it so easily. Yet, science validates the fact that all of the incoming data into our system comes through the heart, then is rapidly transmitted to the brain. With that, it speaks volumes about how important the heart is. Even further, these cultures understood the intelligence of our systems and the necessity that everything is so interconnected, that you can’t separate one from the other, so our knowing becomes very holistic. 

It’s interesting because the more I work with organizations around the world, I am seeing the shift occurring in their leadership. The fact is, all of us are wayfinders, not all of us realize that we are. The question that I’m often asked is- especially right now with the complex challenges that we face at a global scale, how do we navigate these unprecedented times? How do we navigate this complexity? How are we able to find safe harbors? People are seeking stability, certainty, security and organizations as well. Within organizations, the leaders are wayfinders, they must be wayfinders, navigators for their companies. 

Oftentimes I’m asked, “Help me get from where I currently am to where I need to be.” For me as a modern-day wayfinder, it’s essential that they’re able to understand that you cannot do it simply with the mind or with reason and logic. It requires instinct and intuition. When you bring the two together, you’re far more powerful and far more effective. To dismiss the heart is really a travesty in many respects. 

[00:15:55] Marc Lesser: Yes. In a way, it’s so obvious, the concept that you just named of being aware of where you are and where you are wanting to be. Again, that can be from solving climate change to being better at working with conflict in yourself. I think when we step into those gaps- there’s a different language, some people call them creative gaps or creative tension, that it’s uncomfortable when we realize we’re in that sea, it’s a bit unknown. Our emotions, our heart is there and I think there’s a tendency in our culture especially to either ignore it or suppress it or get all embroiled. What I see a lot in organizations is people getting very embroiled in that sea of emotions, and the culture becomes a culture of frustration. I’m often finding myself thinking that with frustration is [inaudible 00:17:35]. 

[00:17:38] Elizabeth Lindsey: [laughs] The frustration, when we really look, when we unpack it, and it is such a drain on our precious life-force. The beautiful thing about wayfinding, whether we’re doing it on the ocean, we look at life in terms of waves and particles. My mentor was able to go into a room of thousands of people and he would read them weather conditions, because he was so masterful on the ocean. What happens is, he would recognize a lot of fear that we then name as other things, frustration, resistance, challenge, whatever it is. 

What he would always say is, “You cannot become a master unless you’re willing to lean into the storm. Do not run from it because fair weather will not make you a master, lean into it.” It requires the daring to say, one, I feel lost or two, I don’t know how to get from where I am to where I want to be. There is a power in feeling that degree of feeling loss, I believe. It breaks, it dismantles these narratives and identities and allow something else to emerge when we’re willing to say, “I feel lost right now,” or, “I feel vulnerable and I don’t know how to find my way,” suddenly something is birthed that we wouldn’t have had otherwise. 

[00:19:17] Marc Lesser: Yes, that’s beautiful. It’s interesting. I think of it also as a practice, one of the things- people come to contemplative practice or meditation practice. There’s something we want, there’s some idea, something we want or we want less stress or different strategies for dealing with anxiety or we want to be better leaders. To me, the practice as you’re saying is to be willing to be lost or to be willing to not know. Right in the midst of our grief and pain and joy and possibility, that sea. I love your image of the reading people, tasting people’s flavors as a way of opening and learning and being curious. 

[00:20:35] Elizabeth Lindsey: I mean, can you imagine, because our experiences are dynamic. We’re dynamic, so we’re constantly shifting, just like waves and frequency. When you’re able to go into a room and you’re able to read and really become- one of the most important parts of wayfinding is this heightened state of awareness. Because that’s the only way a navigator can actually sail. For a very short time, I had the privilege of living with a tribe in the Andaman Sea who are seeing nomads. They’re nomads of the ocean, but they fascinated me because during the 2004 tsunami that killed- and I mean, it devastated Southeast Asia, but it killed hundreds of thousands of people that day. 

This small tribe of 2,000 people didn’t even sustain injury. As an anthropologist, I wanted to know what happened, how they were able to do this and protect themselves and their community. What I learned was that the morning of the tsunami, a few of them had gone ashore to go and gather food to bring back for the rest of the members of their community. In this group was an elder. When they went into the forest to gather food, he immediately realized the birds were not singing. He didn’t know what it meant, but he knew that this was an important sign that they needed to pay attention to. 

He yelled to everyone to get to higher ground immediately. Now, the people who were in their boats on the water, going back to pattern recognition, recognized that the dolphins go into shallow water at this point of the day to rest. They saw the dolphins racing out to deeper ocean. They knew there was a break in the pattern, and they followed, they raced out after the dolphins. The point of all of this is when we begin to see, to really hone our awareness. I believe that meditation and contemplation helps us do that. It cultivates a more subtle and refined state of awareness that we start to recognize things in our lives so that we can be aware that when something happens and when a change and shift occurs, that it means something. 

In today’s world, that could be the volatility of the financial markets. Organizations need to pay attention to this so that they can understand, and anticipate what may happen in the supply chain. For us as individuals, we recognize interest rates are rising, and we need to be cognizant of the fact that that’s going to mean higher prices for us. These are the ways that we wayfind in the modern world. 

[00:23:55] Marc Lesser: There’s so many things that have the unintended consequences of things, like greenhouse gases or guns in our country, and the need for responsiveness and wise action now. Bringing that radical, related radical, but also very simple relatedness that you’re describing. 

[00:24:30] Elizabeth Lindsey: Yes. A deep interconnectedness, this recognition that everything has consequences and that our actions, one of the most beautiful metaphors is that a canoe represents when we’re sailing, the resources on our canoes are finite, and that we are only as safe as the weakest member on the canoe, but how one person uses those resources affects the whole, and I would offer that the planet is our canoe. How one country, or one region of the world, or one community, or an individual uses these resources affects all of us. 

[00:25:18] Marc Lesser: I’m curious, Elizabeth, given, what a world we are living in right now, there’s no shortage of problems and things to be, whether it’s angry about or frustrated about or– What is it that gives you hope in this world now? 

[00:25:45] Elizabeth Lindsey: It’s a wonderful question that you ask, and I can answer it in this way. When I was a very young girl, my parents were educators, and they left my sisters and me in the care of three old Hawaiian women. This was in the very early 60s. The women predicted these times, and they said this, “There will come a time in the world that there will be many troubles. There will be troubles in the environment with storms and radical shifts.” They were very specific. They also predicted that in the halls of big business and politics, there would be great instability and conflict. 

They said, “It will take wisdom from the far edges of the earth to return the world to balance.” At seven, they predicted that I would, that we always have choice, but that my life would, or could involve going to these far away places to help keep this wisdom alive. The part of their prophecy and their prediction that I want to share in answer to your question is this. They said, “As you travel, it may feel like a lonely road, but you will look into the eyes of seeming strangers, and you will find your ohana.” In Hawaiian, that means family. It will take all of you to return the world to balance. 

Mark, I believe that that’s true. For each of us, as we see what’s going on in the world, and we want change, real change can only happen when we shift and we make those changes within ourselves. I mean, only then do we really serve. When I see that my first and primary responsibility is to address any conflict I feel internally, then I can feel greater compassion for everyone I meet, because I understand that war or the conflict is always within. It’s a beautiful, beautiful question that you ask, but this is the way that together we make a change, we bring change about, and together we will bring the world back into balance. 

[00:28:10] Marc Lesser: It’s beautiful. Thank you. I wonder if there’s something you would like to do, maybe lead a short practice of some kind, a guided meditation. I can’t ask you to sing, even though I’ve heard you sing and perform beautifully, but anything that you’d like to offer just as a way of helping to bring people present, right now. 

[00:28:45] Elizabeth Lindsey: Oh, that’s so beautiful. You know what? This is something from the elders in Hawaii, and it’s a chant. What it says is, “Grant that I may hear beyond my physical ability to hear, that I may see beyond my physical sight and that I may know the heart, the wisdom of my heart.” It was a chant that was composed by a magnificent hula master named [unintelligible 00:29:19]. This is a tribute to her, and this is an offering to your audience. 

[music] 

[00:30:00] Marc Lesser: Wow, thank you. Thank you, and what a delight to see you, spend time with you today. [unintelligible 00:30:12] 

[00:30:13] Elizabeth Lindsey: Thank you, Marc, thank you for inviting me to your show. It’s such a joy, one, to see you. I’ve always admired and loved you. I’m so thrilled to be supporting your new show and wish you great success. 

[00:30:31] Marc Lesser: Thank you. Where can people find you, who want to find out more about what you’re doing in your great work? 

[00:30:38] Elizabeth Lindsey: Oh, my goodness. Well, thank you for asking. Marc, my whole prayer is simply to serve. Well, I haven’t been active so much on social media, I’m becoming more active on LinkedIn. They could find me at Elizabeth Lindsey, or at my website. I really want to engage because we’re at a time in the world that people simply want to be acknowledged, and feel like they are part of a fabric, of a humanities fabric and I want to make sure that they’re seen and acknowledged in every way. 

[00:31:22] Marc Lesser: Thank you so much for being who you are, and all of the beautiful energy, healing energy, and presence that you bring into the world. I hope to see you again soon. 

[00:31:35] Elizabeth Lindsey: Thank you, Marc. Best wishes to you. Aloha. 

[music] 

[00:31:43] Marc Lesser: Listen in each week for interviews, teachings, and guided meditations. You’ll receive supportive tools for creating more meaningful work and mindfulness practices to develop yourself to influence your organization and to help change the world. Thank you for listening. 

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