New Mexico in Focus; 222; Lucas Conley and Chris Griscom

I'll try it out with my thumb! Let us know what happens in the comments. I alreadyve talked about that! the season for shopping, even in these tough economic times. I had this week, one local author looks at why our society is so caught up in product marketing and branding. Plus, she claims to be one of the world's leading spiritual advisers, and she's with us this Thanksgiving weekend to talk about her latest book called The Evolution of God. All that on a show that's informed, involved, and in depth, New Mexico and Focus. Does the human race need to change its perspectives and opinions about God?

And you Mexico author and spiritual thinker believes so. I had this week on New Mexico and Focus, why she says the time has come for the evolution of God. So we as a society suffer from obsessive branding disorder, and what exactly does that mean? That's the title of Lucas Connelly's first book, which looks at companies increasing emphasis on branding and its effect on the consumer. Our recently had the chance to sit down with Mr. Connelly at a meeting of the New Mexico Branch of the American Marketing Association for an informative and very thought-provoking question and answer session. Lucas, thank you, and welcome to Albuquerque, you're down from Santa Fe. Yes, thanks. Let's say congratulations on the book. This is really a terrific read. I learned a lot about this branding obsession we have going on, not just in the country, but also globally, since we are obviously in a global environment, and what it means. And I especially appreciated you have a very different angle on this. This is not a how-to book about how-to brand, but in fact, what are the net results of the frenzy of branding in ourselves, in our kids, in our culture, and other things.

So let me start with something, you note in the book that's pertinent to our group here. Just a couple of years ago, the AMA came out with a study, actually, and it global study, an innovation management, 2006 to 2016, the Quest for Innovation, and one of the things that came out of the AMA study that really caught my eye was there's a premise now that you touch on of that. Branding is now outstripping innovation. And there's something about that that really maybe kind of step back and take a pause. Why don't you flesh that out for a little bit, and then we'll jump into some other angles. Yeah, absolutely. Well, the theme for the book began for me working in a magazine office in New York, and I was reviewing books, as they came by my desk, the rate of five to ten a day, business books. I noticed that one or two a week, we're specifically on branding, and how to reform the identity of your company, or how to better extend your brand to the consumers, or even just business

to business branding, and increasingly preposterous, you know, cult branding, pirate branding, different brands of branding, we're kind of evolving. And what I realized is in time, over the past 15 years, executives have become more and more reliant on their image and the image of their companies, and have funneled money away from research and development, funneled money away from customer service, training for their employees, infrastructure, some of these, you know, basic ideas that companies rely on, you know, for revenue and for building customer loyalty. Innovation research and development was particularly bad, because you were seeing, you know, innovations triumph like the Crest Spinbrush, which, you know, I looked at that example as I was writing this book, and it just came out, and I thought, this is the pinnacle of American innovation. This is what we're celebrating right now, we're in a lot of trouble, you know, when you look at the advertising budgets of some of these companies, we rely on for innovation versus their research and development, sometimes it's as little as, you know, two or one percent that they're spending on R&D and innovation, you know, many times that, on just marketing

the products that they produce. You know, you mentioned in your book on a related subject that the goal is now for a lot of marketing executives to have a, quote unquote, perceived functionality of the product. Yeah. And it's more important to actually almost invent a need for these things at a certain level. Yeah. Well, it perceived functionality was one of my favorite terms, it was being thrown around a lot in the advertising and branding world, especially because branders are proud of the idea of perceived functionality, which I thought was really a distraction, you know, the example that I first heard was a bottle of motor oil. And they had redesigned the bottle, the branders, approached by the oil company and they'd said, okay, listen, you know, we lost consumer attention, the generic brands catching up with us, we're losing shelf space, what can we do to get back consumers attention? And the branders said, oh, well, it's all about perceived functionality.

What we're going to do is we're going to put some edges on this bottle and we're going to put a little bit of a strange nozzle coming out, almost looks like a gas tank or, you know, a gas station kind of funnel and give it more of an edgy look and edgy logo and relaunch it. And of course, the product and the bottle remains exactly the same, nothing's changed there, but the perceived functionality to the consumer is supposed to be better. And unfortunately what I discovered is as in many cases with these branding firms is that consumers complicit in this, you know, you throw them a new bottle and for a few months they may pay attention to that product again before they kind of revert to either buying the less expensive product or the better product. But at the same time, you've got companies anxious to get products out there and you've got some stunning numbers about how many new products show up in our lives, literally on a monthly, daily basis, it's mind-boggling. It is. I mean, and most of us can know this as consumers and, you know, certainly people in the marketing world can see this, but as consumers, we're hit with 75,000 new food and beverage products.

That's not motor oil in a given year. We use, the average consumer uses less than 200 in a given year. So you can imagine, you know, just looking when you go into a Walmart super grocery store in the amount of products that you're facing in the amount of marketing dollars spent trying to reach us for those products versus our need, our actual need is so, so minuscule compared to the implied need or the created need by marketers. And on the other side of that, you've got, as you report, branding being a $300 billion annual business, $654 billion globally annually, which begs the question, somehow, guys are in the business of this, right here in this room, are always searching and meeting to find a way to get their clients, products, services, whatever the case may be, out there. And branding, at some level, seems to be the easiest, quickest, cheapest, and I mean, that in a positive way, cheapest way to do that.

So what's the problem? Why not just brand heavily and save your money on R&D, save your money on the heavy duty stuff that may have a long life before you even get to some kind of positive result? Sure. Well, and I think that if you look at any industry, that philosophy is working for some people. But in the long term, in a given year, for instance, through four quarters, what you'll find is the companies that are focusing too much on advertising and focusing less on innovation are naturally going to fall behind in time. You can get a big marketing budget out there for Vista, or for Microsoft 7 right now. They're spending $300 million trying to change the consumer perception of Vista by calling it Microsoft Windows 7. But consumers aren't fooled. And I think that's part of the problem with that philosophy in this more and more media-driven culture, is that as consumers, you can go online. You can look up my book. You can see on Amazon the reviews, and you can decide for yourself whether or not you want to buy this book.

You don't have to rely on the Washington Post review it, or two or three sources. We now can talk to each other. If we decide that, well, Ford may be telling us it's all about better fuel efficiency, we can then look online and find out, well, they're lobbyists or in Washington DC fighting these things. So the ability to present one face to the consumer and present another to internally or with your own business initiatives is more and more, there's a thinner and thinner line between those worlds. And consumers have more access to what goes on behind the scenes of companies. And really, to whether or not their products are working before they buy them, we have this online media allows us to share our opinions on products and services and make informed decisions better than we ever have in the past. You know, just popped in my head, an interesting question I think, you know, marketing executives must be dealing with, there's a feedback loop that can work very much in your favor or very much against you when it comes to reactions from the public via the internet blogs or in the case maybe about what products folks either love, and you can take advantage of

that and really do some amazing work getting your brand out there, or you're fighting against a tremendous tide of negativity. Were you seeing that falling for executives these days? Well, I think one of the most obvious initiatives or fields you see right now that kind of deals with that is the world of astroturf or fake blogs, they call them flogs, and astroturf is a term that we've seen a lot in politics where you kind of create a fake grassroots movement. And major brands in the US have been caught for now five, ten years, we've seen this kind of rise up, a few particular examples that I can think of from Coke, from Walmart, from Sony, and kind of trying to create kind of a bottom-up movement online to kind of pose as customers or to pay customers to, in Walmart's case, travel across the country in an RV or in Sony's case to pay a couple of teenagers to talk up their new video game system.

To look as if, you know, here's customers or consumers that love our products and you can come here and add comments to the blog and you can take part and make it buy a t-shirt and this authenticity is kind of leveraged to make consumers feel like this is a real consumer driven trend or product that really is lighting up with consumers. But I think the reality, not only, of course, is that see-full, but in Europe, especially in the UK now, there are laws that have been enacted to stop this from happening. And I think you'll see probably over the next couple of years, some big cases be it of, you know, Coke or Pepsi or McDonald's, which has been caught doing this kind of a public hanging for having gone out and created these fake grassroots movements to kind of create a stealth marketing or underground marketing, real marketing initiative to kind of misdirect consumers and towards their product. That's an interesting part of the book, The Chapter, was called Poisoning the Grapevine and what Lucas pointed out was some very, I love the example of how the folks at Dr. Pepper got themselves in a real jam with that.

If you remember, is that raging cow incident from, I think it was a 2003 somewhere around there? It was perhaps the first case where it had been kind of publicly discovered that a major company was funding what looked like an authentic online grassroots movement. The raging cow milk products provided by Dr. Pepper was a flavored milk drink. They paid off a blogger and several bloggers to kind of create a kind of buzz around their products. And of course, bloggers being very, very much like PIs in some cases, figured these guys out. They sussed out where the money was coming from and publicly exposed them. And there was a big uproar about paid blogging versus blogging with advertising versus bloggers who blogged purely off their own initiative. And Dr. Pepper took a big hit for that, and for years it will be used as a probably in marketing schools for as an example of how the internet has kind of opened up these new questions about ethical marketing.

On the other side of that, in, by the way, the cautionary tales in this chapter are a must-read. I really found myself thinking about a lot of different things. On the other side of that, I recall the wonderful symmetry that happened with the producers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, if you remember that show, and the fans that they had developed through their own sets of blogs through the network, and how the fans actually were in fact not just contributing to the show, but driving the storyline of the show. And that was a real eye-opener for people in the entertainment business about how to get your customer in real time to be a contributor to the end product and how that really welds people to a media product. Yeah, and I think so many companies are doing this well because this is a new media that can be used for good and for bad. In one of my favorite cases, it's a company called Lush, which is a Bath and Beauty products company, things like bath bombs and moisturizers, they will cut the bottom third of their product

line every year, and they will ask their employees or their customers to vote on that bottom third and the ones that get the best votes, the most votes, they will hold on to and produce out of their factory but won't sell in the stores anymore. So for instance, if customers really love a certain product and it's not selling well and it gets cut, ultimately they will still be able to order that product through the company and get in the mail. This is really answering niches of your consumer base and I think that is something that brands can do now with the internet, much better than they've ever been able to do before. And it's authentic, it's creating the company around the consumer demands or creating the plot of a show or in some cases even advertising asking consumers to create the ads. Dredo's has done this for a couple years, the Super Bowl ads and the results have been funny and largely people applauded those efforts but asking consumers to take part in the brand I think drives more authenticity rather than creates more contrived efforts which brands

try to do with astroturf and fake blogs. On another aspect of branding that hits pretty close to home here in New Mexico, sometimes one of the really good clients you can grab are municipalities, towns, the Holy Grail might be being an entire state, but in place branding. It's got a pretty checkered history, what's your conclusion? Sure, well I guess the Holy Grail would be a nation, now part of the book took me to Cincinnati where Procter & Gamble is based and a lot of that was consumer packaged goods, branding that was going on down there. But one of the other interesting industries down there was place branding. There are branding firms in Cincinnati that have branded Jordan, that have branded China, Korea, there's a bunch of different national campaigns going on right now and they're based out of different cities but the world has opened its eyes to branding as opposed to say tourism advertising as it might have been known before.

And place branding has gone from not just nations but also down to tiny cities. We see it here in New Mexico and we see it around the country. My favorite example being Galveston, Texas, is this a city where they invited branders in to get a sense of what consumers wanted and the branders said, let's name Galveston Galveston Island and because there's some pirate history here, let's adopt a pirate day in a big way and $70,000 later the city says this is ridiculous, we're not going to rename our city and adopt a pirate day, but this is going on across the country in Little Town, branding firms, professional and somewhat illegitimate. Come in as gurus and try and reshape the identity of a city and often times it's creating not even more boring stuff, 15-word brand mantra, a 10-word brand promise. These kind of flaky or undefined ideas of what the city is about that really don't help differentiate the city, just look at any state model, you could put them all in a list and

ultimately you wouldn't be able to tell them apart because most of them with the exception of a few that we know so well like New York and others that most of them could apply to any state. It's interesting, I appreciate it that you brought up in the book that very unfortunate moment post Katrina when Mayor Raynagan made an extremely awkward content that went around the world about basically how New Orleans as a brand is actually helped by Katrina and that it helps extend the name out there and he took a hammering for it and should of. It was very, very unfortunate, but the point you made in the book was it was indicative of how deeply embedded now this idea of place branding is to a wild extent for municipality leaders, mayors and such. Yeah, well in New Orleans case it was not just Katrina, but the comment was made following a couple murders and in a string of murders in New Orleans was the murder capital of

the country at the time and may still be this year and somebody asked him what do you feel about these murders in the crime that we're seeing in the wake of Katrina, what can we do and he said well it keeps our brand out there after Katrina so at least people are still thinking of us and I think that it's indicative of how mayors and how people who are in charge of place brands think about identity, if I can keep my identity in the public attention, in this attention economy that's a win and ultimately of course it's not. It's not just about keeping people's attention, it's about keeping it for the right reasons and places in contrast to that old rule about any publicity, good publicity, places brands stick around for a long time when you have a riot in your city or there's a major scandal people don't forget very quickly and oftentimes place branding is about trying to make people forget. Particularly we see these initiatives in the wake of natural disasters, war, Israel has a big public branding initiative going on right now, scandals to try and cover up or

trying to kind of dim the news that had come through, in the case of Cincinnati was the riots in 2001, they launched a big branding campaign out of Cincinnati right after that trying to change the news and to the degree that they were upset that Cincinnati.com was owned by a newspaper, the brand or Cincinnati got together and formed a coalition to re-brand Cincinnati after the 2001 riots and they couldn't control Cincinnati.com which caused a lot of stress because that's one of the first sources tourist went to Cincinnati.com to see what's down in the area if they lived in the three-state region that they draw most of their tourists from and they saw the news and the news wasn't good and that bothered the branders a lot. They wanted to be able to kind of block or control the image and the news that came out of Cincinnati. Sure. Another interesting and locally based branding phenomenon has been what Roswell has done and with their UFO branding, if I remember this correctly nobody had to come in and tell them you have this thing that you've built over years but what happened was clearly

smart town fathers realized they were underutilizing a brand that was laying right in their laps for God's sake. Well, I think the public reaction to that was particularly a controversial because it knew Mexico in terms kind of adopted this idea too, we're out of this world, this kind of alien flavor when there's so much more to New Mexico as there is in any state, but particularly this was an onerous, obnoxious case because this was one tiny part of and one tiny kind of dramatic part of New Mexico's history in contrast to what else it has to offer. Aliens is not what people think of when they think of Santa Fe for instance or Tows or Albuquerque or the Southwest, so when you see cities that kind of run with those campaigns it's fun, if it works for a certain particular tourism dollar but for when you get the larger you get, a city is already large in it itself to adopt one identity but a state

or a country to try and get behind one identity, it either has to be very vague in that sense not distinguishing or very useful or it's going to piss off a lot of people. Sure, sure. I have a question for the audience, this controversy that Lucas just brought up still rages about New Mexico branding itself in its entirety as this UFO, not UFO, but this alien kind of a thing with the float a couple years ago and all that, and show a hands. In very general terms, I'm curious how many people here actually supported that campaign and thought it was actually a good idea to use the aliens as the New Mexico brand back one. Wow. That's your room, that would be a big fat goose egg. That's interesting. Well let me ask you this, how many folks thought it was an interesting, interesting attention getting idea but flawed because it had no long term positive effect for the state. Yeah, a few on that, okay.

I know I spent a whole lot of time on that because it's one of those things that you were getting at in the book that was really interesting that these things can take on a life of their own. In common sense, walks out the door at some point when you think you've got this brilliant branding idea. Let me give you a couple more in our time left. Paula's brands, one of the things that executives at the local level work with sometimes is they have a company with a dynamic leader, a man or a woman who can embody the feeling of what that product or service is and how do I actually do that. We've had some amazing examples across the country but even politically we've had something interesting happening with our president elect. It's interesting how I recall the first time I saw him in Oprah Winfrey on the same stage I thought to myself, this thing is over. It was in such perfect symmetry with the times about how branding works and how yourself

welded to a brand meaning Oprah that is so beloved, you can't buy that kind of thing. No, in Oprah and in herself is such an interesting case, she'll hawk anything from pet clothing to butt paste and she sells fascinating things on her account so you can look this up, I'm not joking. Can we say butt paste in? Yes, it's in your grocery store. The presidential campaign specifically with the Barack Obama, this idea of one word branding change and getting behind one idea and specifically in the context of personal branding, it draws to how much we rely on branding as a society, not just in our politics but as individuals and a lot of people have asked me, what do you find to be the scariest part of the branding world right now and I can point to things like their billboards around the country right now that can read your face and tell your age and gender and ethnicity as you walk by and measure those results, there's radio sniffers that will smell basically smell the radiation on each radio signal as you drive by, they can tell what radio stations

you're listening to at what time of the day but what I think really bothers me the most about the branding world is how it's crept into our idea of identity and personal branding is a good example of this. People now either go to personal branding gurus, coaches or personal branding specialists to kind of talk about how they can kind of launch their one person company or launch their personal branding initiative or executives in large companies, I talk to a lot of people in the financial services world who have been approached by their bosses who say you know listen, you're an asset to this company, your investments are making you an identity and we want to elevate that with a personal branding coach who's going to work with you to make you a brand and in oftentimes this involves obscuring parts of who you are or keeping quiet about things that you feel or think and promoting other parts and that takes us away from a true sense of identity and it's not just financial advisors but people everywhere. Sure, you see it everywhere, amazing, the army of one so to speak, absolutely. In our two minutes left I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about probably the hottest branding challenge out there right now, I'm sure every executive here has got an email

at one point of another from a client saying how do I brand myself green and how do I make money from it? What's your take on where we stand in the green branding of stuff these days? Well, and it's difficult right now because everybody wants to be green, everybody wants to be branded as sustainable, the idea of organic for instance in years past was a similar trend where everybody wanted to be natural organic. And I think that what we'll find in time is that green in a couple years will be more of a standard issue. It will be something that consumers kind of expect to come with the package. Right now everybody is struggling to put that on the front page and make sure everybody understands that this is, we are a green sustainable company. I would say that if that's a priority at a company that you work for, it has to be real. I think a lot of people like to dress up what they already do in packaging. What do we already do that's somewhat green and how can we kind of put that into different language? And to, you know, handing in your resume with fancy language on it ultimately it's not going to help who you are as a performer.

It might get you the job, but ultimately you won't stay there long if you don't know what you're doing. With the green initiatives because green is moving so fast you better be out there in front or doing things that really are impressive because a couple of years from now people will look back and say, you know, why were you promoting yourself as green and ultimately you're at the, you know, tail end of your industry? Lucas Conley, author of Obsessive Branding Disorder. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. I also had a chance to sit down with a local author this week on a much different topic. Chris Griscombe has dedicated her life to furthering. Humankind's spiritual understanding, actress Shirley McLean even refers to her as a mentor and advisor. She recently published her 14th book titled The Evolution of God. Chris Griscombe also established the Light Institute in Galveston, Mexico back in 1985. The Institute is dedicated to facilitating spiritual growth and healing. Chris, thanks so much for joining us here to talk among other things about the new book we'll get into that in a second but thanks.

It's my pleasure to be with you all. For those who aren't familiar with your work, what would you say is a matter of introduction? Well, I would say that at this time on the planet all of us are wondering who we are, what should we do with our lives? And so our work at the Light Institute is about exploring those conversations, who we are, what makes us feel brave, what makes us feel that we can find something new that we can be creative and what blocks us from that. And how we meld our true sense of self, our spiritual energy with our daily lives. And so it's a conversation that touches all people from all walks of life and allows them to discover for themselves what is true, not what someone else says is true, but what they have experienced and how they can amplify that to make life good. And how does that fit into this newest book of yours, over a dozen books you have published? The Evolution of God, a very provocative title I would think.

Yes. How does this fit into what you just said? Well, you know, I travel the world and I've lived all over the world and so I've had the wonderful opportunity to see how people fold in their spiritual sense, what happens when you die, what happens, how should you live your life through their cultures, through their history, through their own realities. And so the Evolution of God kind of came as a natural step through all of my work, which is about the emotional body, the physical body I began in healing and the healing arts. And then it came to, we have to look at who we are on the deepest level because when it comes to death and I've been around a lot of death in my life, there's an opening. And so it's important for us to kind of begin to speak about that. That time is an illusion, that was the name of my first book. And so if there's an evolution that's occurring for us in our cultures, in our families, in our world and certainly there needs to be one in terms of our sense of God, you know,

evolution of God. And for those who may not be quite there, who view religion as something that's static, that doesn't change, that kind of brings stability to their lives, it doesn't evolve, at least to many. What's your response to them? Well, I would say that, of course it does. And what you want to do is to look carefully at how you wield God in your life now. Is it something that you do every Sunday, or Friday, or Saturday, depending on what religion you are, or is it something that really is a part of your daily life? And if so, can you feel it at all times because I think that the message of all religions is to come to a connection to your God. I think that the word God is a little squeezy for my perspective, you know. I would like for us to feel God in the trees, in the animals, and in the wind, and to recognize that divine source, which is what I call God in this evolution of God book, is present

in our lives everywhere. And so it's not the kind of conversation, am I following the dictates of the dogma of my church, but am I living what every religion says, which is to be a good human, to be a loving human. That's something that we can all come together with. And how can we do that better? And we can certainly do that better by stepping beyond the intellectual aspect of God and into the experience of God. So that is what that book is about. It's about the history, it's about today, and it's about tomorrow. Maybe one other specific question about the book. For those who do get a copy, they'll see in the very beginning, maybe we can get this up on the screen as well, a chart, it seems, from mythology, human sacrifice, these early conceptions of God, almost historically, through the Bible and New Testament onto cosmic

beings as God's into God evolving. Is this progression, this evolution? Is this, in essence, kind of what this book tries to bring a reader through? You know, I think when you look at this book, when you read this book and you see that chart, it makes it easier for you to not feel as if something's threatening your perception of your religion or God, but that you begin to understand why religion is the way it is and how it came to be this way. And the parts that need to be released, you know, in the old part of the Bible, it says, if you don't honor God in the Christian Bible, if you don't honor God on the Sabbath, you should be killed. Well, we don't do that today, you know? And so there are a lot of things that we can let go of with and yet embrace the best in a new way.

There are those, of course, who view the Bible, the book you just mentioned, as the unadulterated word of God, literal word of God, of course, Catholics, a majority of Christians in this state don't have that necessary literal view, but what do you say when people say, no, no, no, this book that I have been reading and helping with my worship all these years, this is the word of God, it doesn't change. Yes. Well, first of all, I wouldn't take that challenge directly. What I would say is, tell me, what is the teaching in your Bible that most inspires you? And whatever that teaching is, live that, because that's beautiful, but make no mistake that the Bible, and in fact, every single religious book, sacred book, has been composed over many hundreds of years. And so the best thing for you to do in your life is not to battle with someone about whether it's the word of God, but take the word that's in it and live that.

And it will surely tell you, don't fight about God. We're done with the crusades. We're done with killing each other. What's happening in the world today? We're still saying, my God against your God. So what I've said in this book is, that's enough of that. Let us find where your God and my God are not opposed to each other, but in which they both say the same thing, and let us live that, because otherwise you're not a Christian, you're not a Sikh, you're not a Jew, you're not a Muslim, you're just reading a text. So what I'm saying is, the evolution of God means step up. Don't leave it to the priests. Don't leave it to the ones who live in the caves, but bring it into your life and feel how happy you'll be and how unafraid of death you'll be and what life could be for humanity. So for me, it's not an either or, it's not the end or the beginning. It's an evolution, the spiral of evolution, as our intelligence, as our consciousness opens.

Imagine that your children will step off this planet. They will go to other planets, and they will come back and say, the way you think of God is very quaint, but the divine source is a little more than that, the cosmic energy is more loving, more expanded, not so punishment oriented. That's what that book's about. In the book, you talk about a life-changing spiritual experience that led you to found the Church of the Sanctuary of Light and the Nizoni College of Divinity, I hope I pronounced that right. Nizoni. Navajo word. Can you talk about that life-changing experience? Absolutely. I was a young girl in the Peace Corps. I was trained to talk about nutrition and health and community development, and I found my way into helping women who are going to give birth because that's the way that they were able to say, well, my grandmother says, don't eat eggs, but if you say my baby will

be healthy, then maybe I could try something new. And so I began to get involved in the health. And one day I was in a village where I'd been many times, and I was holding a baby that I had seen before. She was about nine months old, and her whole ear was full of a fungus. You couldn't see her ear. It was just a green fungus. And I was looking at her, and I was waiting for the doctor to see her. We were in a tiny village. This was in El Salvador in Central America. And I was standing there looking down at her, and she looked up at me, and she looked right through my eyes, and her soul passed through my face, through my eyes, and she died in my arms. So I lost control, because no one ever told me what to do with death. Here in America, we put it in white sheets and sent it to the hospital, you know. And I literally practically threw the baby at the doctor, and ran away, and I was hysterical. I was very young.

It was the first death I had ever seen. And so what I felt was, what God is this that could allow an innocent baby, a baby that I had seen before, who was healthy one time, to die like that. I could not understand it spiritually, religiously. And so for three days, I stayed in my little hut, and I screamed, and beat my breasts, and cried, and did all of that. At the time were you religious? Yes. At the time I was Catholic. A very devout Catholic in actuality. And because I love many things about the Catholic Church, I think it's the source of psychology, which was my field when I was young, and many other ways to forgive, to love Jesus' teachings, many things like that. And I learned a lot from these people in the village. On the third day, the spirit of that child presented itself to me. And she said something that shook my life.

She said, the choice of my death was mine, but the moment of my death was my gift to you. I couldn't push that out of my mind. I didn't invent that. How was this presented to you? Her spirit. It was a sense of her being in the room. It was a sense of her as a whole being. And I have since so often said to the world, don't think of your babies as babies. They're fully developed souls. A soul chooses its parents. It chooses to come into body for the evolution of its soul, which is the purpose of life. This is what I've learned. But so this baby said this to me, and I had to ask myself, what does that mean? What does it mean? And then I went to her funeral, and her mother grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me, really shook me hard, and kept yelling at me. She is with God. She is with God. No one there felt that it was a terrible tragedy. They all felt that she had been chosen by God.

So suddenly I had to shift around. What does that mean? You mean consciousness goes beyond the death of the body? And I have had many, many experiences, because after that I was with many babies that died, many people who died. I watched their deaths, and I saw something that I had not seen before, which was the body dies slowly, first of all, it doesn't die in a second. The cells release their attachment to this consciousness that you have. And suddenly there is an opening, and there is a light. It's the light of the Spirit, it's the light of the soul, that goes into another dimension. You ask anyone in New Mexico, and they will tell you that they have felt the flicker of lights from somebody who has died, that they have felt the presence of someone they loved, come to them after they have died. Let me ask you this, how do you go from there? And one of the issues that that story raises, and it's here in the book, in many places, is this question of reincarnation, how do you, what gives you faith?

What makes you think, believe, that reincarnation, these fully formed souls of a baby, and then when people die and come back, incarnate, what makes you think that happens? Well, you know, first of all, reincarnation was something that was believed by all Catholics. Not by a Catholic church today. Yes, no, not today, but they believed it for a very long period of time. And I would put forth that possibly the reason that they changed their ideas had nothing to do with spirituality, had to do with a different kind of practicality. But let me talk about reincarnation. What would it mean by that? A different kind of reality. Well, it was a time when there were taxes, and those taxes were levied on the poor. And so what the poor people would say was, I'll pay it in my next life. I don't have it now, I'll pay it in my next life. And so there were many perspectives that were thrown out because they did not fit what was useful.

That's not my perspective. Look in history, you will find it everywhere. But again, I wouldn't challenge that because that's not what's interesting. What's really interesting is what does this mean? And it means something very important to me that I discovered through all these deaths, which is if scientifically you are half your mother's genes and half your father's genes. Why would you only come once? Why would you be sent once to learn everything that you could learn about the third-dimensional reality about your body and about heaven? So it makes more sense to me that you would come again and again to learn different themes that are about the evolution of your soul, that you would learn about God, that you would learn about your body, that you would learn about love, that you would learn about forgiveness, that you would learn about life and death through many incarnations of your soul. But I must tell you that people come to the Light Institute, I have many, I have heads of churches, I have many scientists who come there. Often they say, well, I don't believe in reincarnation.

And I say, it's not necessary. Let's discover what your inner voice wants to tell you about your life. The reason I use the incarnation is that it's an expanded format for discovering yourself. So maybe you look at a life when you were a Roman soldier or perhaps someone who was burning people at the stake. And you see from that experience, because it's an experience, it's not an intellectual conversation, it comes to you through you, I don't say anything. The outcome of these stories, what we learn from those stories is that we have evolved, that what was true a thousand years ago, two thousand years ago and beyond, isn't true in the same way. And so you learn about yourself, you learn that you've been the killer and the healer and the great spiritual being and the terrible, terrible victimizer and that through it all, you have touched a court of humanity that is changing.

And it shows you why your life is the way it is today. The same people come in that are there today, fascinating, from maybe the more ethereal to the very practical, why did you start the Light Institute, found the Light Institute in Galvestea, New Mexico? Well, I was pulled to Galvestea, I was pulled to New Mexico, partly because I wanted to keep the small village environment to raise on my children. By the way, I'm the mother of six, I'm a very pragmatic person. If you can't do something with it, if it doesn't prove true to you, then I'm not interested in my intellectual mind. And so it was a great place to live and it is literally a window to the sky. It's an opening that allows us to walk the aroyals and to feel the wind and to feel a connection so that life slows down and you have a point of centeredness. Even if the next minute you're rushing to Santa Fe or for me around the world in a very fast pace.

Galvestea, of course, has an ancient history. That's right. Does, and you mentioned the Navajo word from the College of Divinity, are there any influences that you can point to specific things from Native American spirituality here in New Mexico to your work? Absolutely, absolutely. So we were talking about the Pueblos or we're talking about the Apaches who came through Galvestea and destroyed the priest and destroyed the Spaniards three times until they brought blankets that had smallpox. And then those Théwa Indians from Galvestea moved to Santo Domingo to survive, those of them that survived. But the Native American approach, which I think is beautiful and that all of us need today, is that the wind is sacred and that all things are alive and that the great spirit, instead of punishing, embraces us. And so we can find peace and we can find a sense of, I feel the purpose of my life and I'm not afraid through those energies. And that's why I named the Divinity School and the School Nijoni, which means beautyway,

everything in balance. And one thing I can't help but think about is, of course, you're a woman, you've very accomplished in terms of book sales and translated into many languages. What do you make of the contemporary struggles going on these days with the Episcopal Church, let's say, or the Catholic Church, over women as priests, married priests, even gay folks as priests? Well, first of all, let me say that if you look back in history and I spent two years writing this book, reading all the sacred text, one of the things that I loved was that the founder of the Catholic Church, St. Peter, his wife Ann, performed baptisms that Jesus himself embraced all women and they became priests. It was only later that they decided that the problem with women was sexuality, the problem with women was birth. And so they, in their consciousness at that time, not to be blamed, but from their perspective, if you are going to be a priest of God in order to not go to hell but to go to heaven,

you had to be very careful what you did. And so they decided that, let's eliminate sexuality, let's eliminate women because they're too dangerous. And let's just focus on the men. What I would say is that it's time, it's time to acknowledge and honor Jesus' choices if you're Catholic and if you're a Muslim or you're a Sikh or whoever you are, it's time to realize again that we are both male and female, each one of us and that women can bring a kind of loving generosity to all dogma that is necessary at this time. And we need to let go of the battle. What's happening now, and then this is true of gaze, it's true of all of those labels. Let us become human and let us become divine through our experiences, not through our dogmas.

Our time is running short, as it always does, but I wanted to fit in at least one or two more questions on your Wikipedia page, I couldn't help but notice that you've worked with Shirley McLean. Yes. What was that like? Sometimes it can be the butt of jokes as you might imagine, Shirley McLean. But what was that like for you? It was like working with every other person. I see each and all of us as divine beings and that's what I learned from people dying in Salvador that you could be the poorest of poor and feel the dignity of being the wealthiest because you lived well, because you gave another Native American tradition, you know, the great giveaway. And so with Shirley, it was like any other person looking at her divine energy and she has used it well in this life. But for me, when you get on the table, who knows who's going to appear? I am not there to judgment that, but to see how it helps you to converse with your life today. You mentioned when we sat down before the cameras got started that you don't have a TV, one of the few people, not probably more than a few actually in New Mexico.

Why is that? What do you spend your days doing aside from writing, obviously, is one big thing? A traveling a lot. I think the TV is a great responsibility, so let me say that I honor you because you reach thousands and millions of people and the questions that you ask echo people's own questions. And so I certainly think that the TV and movies, I'm working on some movies right now, part of it is the evolution of God, is a way that helps us because we're more visual than we used to be, but for me, the TV is, I simply don't have time for it. I like to watch movies, so I like the visual aspect, but when I came to Galistale 40 years ago, I didn't have a radio, I didn't have a TV because we didn't have the technology in Galistia. It was a very tiny village of 150 people and it taught me to listen with my ears. I can hear for a mile and a half. I can hear the coyote, I can hear the wind. And those things allow me not to think that everything is so important.

I have had six near-death experiences and let me say to you all that at the moment of your death, most of the things that you're afraid of, that you are angry about in this life will mean nothing to you. And so give yourself space. That's why we've come to New Mexico because it's beautiful, because it allows us all to touch something inside us that has no name, perhaps. The book came out earlier this year. What's next for you? Well right now I'm doing a children's book. It's called Phone Home, Chelsea, one of my grandchildren, Chelsea and the Star People. And I'm again talking about evolution, talking about not being afraid. I want to do more books for children that have to do with not growing up afraid, but growing up with an expanded kind of consciousness. What can I learn from anything and everything? That makes life rich for us all. Whatever our situations. Well on that note, we're going to have to end this conversation, but thanks so much for sharing your inside and perspective with our viewers.

The book, of course, is the evolution of God, best of luck with this. Maybe we can have you back to talk about the children's book. I would love to. And great love to you all. You can find out more about Chris Griscombe and the Light Institute on our website at newmexicoinfocus.org. And before we go this week, we want to focus on another of our online video stories. This time producer Kelly Kowalski takes a stroll down the center of Santa Fe's Art District Canyon Road. Here I go again, there's a car outside, there's a road, there's a time to stay, there's a time to rock the road, you'll be on the rear of the street, still at home on my way, and

I'm going to go look at a couple of galleries that you chose, why do you choose these galleries? Look kind of a cross section of the galleries in Santa Fe, Canyon Road is just one of many gallery districts in the city, and the four that I've chosen out of the 200 galleries in town. One is an artist known gallery, one's sort of craft gallery, one's a western art gallery, and one is opening tonight a major exhibition of international realism. So it's a cross section that we'll see today. And there's Kim.

What's great about this gallery is that there is representational art here, which is one since some other people, but then they show really wonderful abstract work too. So you can see a lot of different things. In the back we'll see some works by one Kelly, who is Kim Kelly's husband, and their co-owners are the gallery, and it's unusual for a gallery to be owned by an artist. Some artists own galleries just show their artists work, but Kim and one show a variety of work, and I think a very healthy variety of work. We were talking before we came in to artists buy things to go over their sofa to look with in their living room. My experience is that collectors don't do that, collectors buy something that fits some sort of aesthetic that they have. Usually I can tell when people connect with the piece, you know, they'll be walking, and then all of a sudden they'll stop and linger at a particular piece, and then you know

that something they're on a subconscious level and a deep level is connecting with it. And then you'll see their mind come in and try to rationalize why they like the piece and what it is about it. Usually people's connection to artwork I think is a very visceral reaction, something that maybe their mind can explain. We're in Jane Sauer's gallery, we're talking just a few minutes ago about what it is that she looks for when she brings artists into her gallery, and Jane's another one of us who likes to respond from her gut, but maybe she can talk to that. I don't bring anything in that doesn't touch me emotionally, psychologically or intellectually. Almost everything here has a strong tactile quality to it.

Jane, one of the things you said was that people just commend a look. And I would like to encourage people just to commend a look and not be intimidated and ask questions. That is one of the main things that I hope will be imparted to everybody that walks in. You are welcome to walk in and no questions are stupid questions. They do think most people walking into a gallery do feel that they feel intimidated and they feel that their questions may appear to be really stupid because they're on a very unknown ground. If someone explains what it is to you or what the artist's intention is or how it was made, it just opens up in a way that if you just are looking at it, you just don't see it. You need some instruction. You need to be led into the painting, into the artwork, to understand it better, and then it opens towards you.

And if I don't see a real soon, I hope I see it all the most tired of waiting here. That's all the time we have for this week's show. If you missed any of it or want to watch it all over again, just head to our website at NewMexicoWhenFocus.org and while you're there, be sure to leave us your suggestions for future show topics. We'll be back next Friday night with a New Mexico Infocus Special, Social Entrepreneurship in the Land of Enchantment. Until then, thanks for watching.