Episode Eighty-Nine: The Interview-Patrick McDade

In this longer episode, you get to hear what happens when a powerful magic spell meant to attract love, goes a bit haywire. Have you heard the adage "be careful what you wish for?" Well, Patrick's story is all about wishes made, and their unintended consequences.

Transcript

Hello again and welcome to this week's episode.

I'm not sure how many of you have heard of the concept of a love mandala.

A love mandala is a mandala that you get.

It's black lines,

It's in the shape of a mandala,

There's no color in it.

And while you color it in using the colors that you like,

You kind of imprint and wish and magic your thoughts around what kind of love you want to attract into your life.

What kind of person you'd like to bring into your life.

And this week's episode deals with what happens when a love mandala goes slightly awry.

Now my friend this week that I interviewed,

Patrick,

Recently he and his partner Yancina,

Who I previously interviewed on this podcast,

She's the founder of World Pulse,

They celebrated their 10-year anniversary together.

And during the Zoom meeting they had for everyone attending the celebration,

They described how they found each other.

And it's really an interesting story.

Basically a very,

Very good friend of Yancina's gave her a love mandala,

Put a spell out there into the universe,

And said,

If you color this in,

What you wish for,

Who you wish for will come true.

And so that's a little bit of what this week's magic or this week's miracle is about.

It's actually really sweet,

But also a little bit funny at the same time.

And I think it also lives up to that adage,

The course of true love never did run smooth.

So now my guest this week,

Patrick,

He is a fascinating human being.

We talk a little bit about his social justice work on this show,

But essentially one of the things that he's known for and that we talk about in this podcast,

He is the founder of People Places Things.

And you can find a link to his website underneath the episodes show notes.

And about People Places Things,

The website says,

People Places Things began in 2008 with a vision of community building through language and culture.

It goes on to say,

The US has so much ethnic and language diversity,

But we're still a very segregated society on the whole.

And that means there's a space for culture bridging specialists,

Great meaningful and lasting connections in our schools,

Workplaces and neighborhoods.

To make the world a better place,

We have to invent new techniques for bringing people together and fostering understanding.

And if you want to learn more about this organization,

Please do check out the website.

Again,

It'll be under the episode show notes.

But as Patrick says,

He's an entrepreneur and he's involved in a lot of other things,

Constantly traveling the world.

He's quite an adventurer,

But I think one of his biggest adventures was surviving that love mandala.

But you can hear more because now there's episode 89 of Bite-sized Blessings.

A year before she started online dating,

She had connected with one of her beloved sisters,

Marta and Columbia,

And they had talked about her desire to meet somebody that would be a partner.

And so Marta gave her a spell,

A mandala to work with and Yancina put her energy into it.

And actually,

The internet dating was a feature,

A part of that work.

And it was about,

I don't know,

Eight months afterwards that she had just put her photo up and I responded to her and just thought she was really interesting.

If you were to go to a party or maybe introduce yourself in a class or at a convention,

If you had to describe yourself and introduce yourself,

How do you do that?

How would you do that to a group?

How would you do that to a single person?

Because I do talk to a lot of different people and I have a lot of different roles,

I really don't have one way.

In fact,

Somewhere during the development of my project,

My business,

My company,

My thing,

People,

Places,

Things,

I had a bunch of folks around and they were like,

We just want like one elevator pitch.

They had started reading some entrepreneurial books and somebody said about an elevator pitch and it needs to be 30 seconds and no more.

And so they were like armed with this knowledge.

They came in and said,

Patrick,

We need an elevator pitch,

Give us an elevator pitch.

And I was like,

Well,

You can make an elevator pitch for you.

And if we want to pick something specific,

We can make an elevator pitch about that.

But the reality is,

Is that the nature of what we do has many different facets to it.

Really,

It's not that we don't have a short,

Concise way of saying what we do.

It's that we have 20 short,

Concise ways of saying what we do.

And so which one do you want?

Who are we talking to?

Tell me who your audience is and I'll tell you what I say.

So if I'm talking to someone who has no interest in anything that I do professionally,

I'll say I'm an English teacher.

So what I usually do is I just ask them who they are.

And usually it's easier for people to tell me a little bit about who they are and then I can frame what I'm doing so that I can show them the side of me that might be interesting to them.

So yeah,

I'm an entrepreneur.

I'm a teacher trainer.

I'm an English teacher.

I'm a systems thinker.

I am a traveler.

I like to experience as much as I can.

I'm trying to solve problems with my work,

Even if they don't have great business models.

That's more important to me than being successful.

And I have been able to do it for a while and not completely fail.

So that's cool.

Well,

I was an altar boy.

So I grew up Roman Catholic until I was about 18 or 19.

I had very long hair.

I was kind of a stoner.

And so,

You know,

It was pretty,

Pretty fun.

I was altar boy leader because I'd been doing it for a while.

And then I'd go home and listen to Iron Maiden and,

And,

You know,

All the satanic music.

And I found no contradiction in that I found I was like,

Jesus would totally be listening to heavy metal.

That's how I felt.

So,

But I wouldn't say it wasn't a very spiritual household in any sense.

I mean,

My grandparents on my mother's side,

Were active in their Roman Catholic Church for their entirety of their lives.

But for them,

I think felt it was more like community than like a deeply spiritual or religious thing.

And then my biological father didn't go to church.

And my adoptive father,

They didn't really go to church.

We did during that time.

But,

But yeah,

It was kind of,

I wouldn't stop performative.

It was just perfunctory.

Like,

That's how that was.

I'm just intrigued and curious,

You know,

This description you've had of being an altar boy,

Which is I like picturing you with the long hair.

It's amazing.

So this experience in the Roman Catholic Church that you had,

You know,

As perfunctory as it was the experience that you had,

Do you think it had any sort of impact on the kind of,

I mean,

Would you describe the work you do as social justice or what did have any impact on how you're crafting your job right now?

What you're trying to do in the world?

That's a very interesting question.

I think the easiest answer is definitely because I can tell you where there's a sense of values that were nurtured or nursed through reflection in engagement with Roman Catholicism,

The things that I was like,

That I was that I liked the Jesus figure as man or divinity or whatever,

You know,

Is pretty radical,

Actually.

And so I think all you really have to do is,

You know,

Listen and read that and be like,

Okay,

I'm going to buy that message.

Once you do that,

It's really hard to go to church after that,

Because like,

No one's doing that,

You know.

And so just to kind of nail that down,

After many years of just being annoyed with,

You know,

Jesus save me from your followers kind of a scenario,

When I deepen my social justice work here in Portland,

I found that there were some people who were doing social justice work for,

With a religious angle to it.

And so I ended up just making distinctions that I'd never made before.

So I like Methodists,

Like Methodists are cool.

I like Unitarians,

Not super Christian,

But kind of Christian.

I think they're super ecumenical,

Small C Catholic,

You know,

Super open door kind of a thing is,

You know,

Something that resonates with me.

It's kind of like no borders religion,

With a social justice angle to it.

But also weirdly,

In the last 10 years,

I've gone from like despising evangelicals,

To like being hanging out with a lot of evangelicals because they a lot of evangelicals have found a new,

They're still kind of anti gay most of the time.

So like,

That's a problem.

But they've,

They've generally found a new passion for,

You know,

There's these concepts of purpose driven life and like,

That are moving away from a lot of just like,

Performative religiosity.

And like,

I love Jesus kind of thing.

And more towards like,

What is my belief?

What does my faith mean if it doesn't show up in the world anywhere?

And I'm like,

Oh,

Cool.

We're on the same team.

Now,

I wanted to ask you,

How would you describe the social justice work you do?

It's just it's a,

It's just a big question.

It's hard to know what direction to come at it from.

But,

Oh,

Here's a good way of doing it,

Especially with the context of this podcast.

I would sometimes say,

If I'm going to the spiritual dimension of what I'm doing,

I would say I am working to rebuild the Tower of Babel.

I find that an intriguing statement,

Because it was destroyed.

Because it was reaching,

They were afraid that it was reaching too far,

Like that it was going to reach God.

Right.

And everyone spoke the same language at the time.

And it's my understanding that then the tower was brought down and everybody was scattered and taught a different language.

Yeah.

And so how does that work with what you're telling me?

So,

Very specifically,

If we can cause people to communicate better,

We will be able to reunite and build the tower and reach Godhood where we belong.

I think that'll go a long way to creating understanding and compassion for others that we might not otherwise be exposed to or meet.

You know,

I think we need more spaces and places where people can meet each other and get to know each other.

So,

I give five stars to your work.

Well,

Thank you.

Me and Yancina met about 10 years ago.

We met online.

It was OKCupid.

Those were back in the days of OKCupid.

This was pre-Tinder days when,

You know,

Relationship technology was still,

You know,

In its teens.

And one funny thing about that was that I had actually been kind of internet dating since before there were pictures on Match.

Com.

Like,

Match.

Com was actually one of the early ones out there.

And I just remember thinking,

Oh,

This is so cool.

There are pictures.

When pictures came around,

Because I had already been doing that.

Now,

At that time,

Of course,

Internet dating or classified ads were seen as pretty sleazy.

And I felt that they were,

Too.

And I wasn't looking for a sleazy experience,

Although I did encounter a couple during that time.

But I just found that to be disappointing.

But mostly also,

I felt that it was difficult to meet somebody who shared my values.

And if they were really like me,

They'd be too busy working.

They're not going to be in a bar and trying to hook up with people in that way.

So,

Like,

How do you meet those people?

So,

I wasn't afraid of internet dating.

I went out on a lot of dates,

And most of them were first dates.

And a few of them went a little bit further.

But I don't think I ever really got a relationship out of any of the dates that I went on.

So,

I wasn't doing that with that expectation.

And as Yancina tells the story,

Too,

She was working hard on WorldPulse.

She's a young person who is dedicated to building a revolution of women online.

And so,

She was just making her first foray into internet dating.

And she felt that it would probably be a long slog,

And maybe wouldn't even be successful.

But it was part of an intention to put herself out there and kind of try that out,

See how it went.

Now,

A year before she started online dating,

She had connected with one of her beloved sisters,

Marta in Colombia.

And they had talked about her desire to meet somebody that would be a partner.

And so,

Marta gave her a spell,

A mandala to work with.

And Yancina put her energy into it.

And actually,

You know,

The internet dating was a feature,

A part of that work.

And it was about,

I don't know,

Eight months afterwards that she had just put her photo up.

And I responded to her and just thought she was really interesting,

You know.

And so,

I tended to respond to people who were interesting,

Regardless of how I felt about them.

I wasn't really out kind of trolling for whoever I thought was like the hottest,

You know.

Though she's very beautiful,

Of course.

But I was mostly looking for good connections,

Because I figured like,

Anyone that I can talk to is going to be,

That's going to be worth the hour or two that I might spend and the drink that we might have.

So,

I was very intrigued by what she had written.

And I guess she was intrigued by mine as well.

And we did go out on a date.

And actually,

Our first few dates didn't really go that well.

So,

We met at a bar,

Had a drink,

Was a little bit awkward,

Because I think partly she just didn't have like dating muscles built up.

Like she didn't know how to,

What she was supposed to do.

I remember I tended towards pretty radical honesty about as far as I could do about my flaws.

I didn't really want to be trying to be like,

Hey,

You know,

Like trying to sell myself,

Just wanted to be real with people that I met.

So,

I can't remember how it was,

But I do remember one part of the conversation.

I said,

You know,

I've hurt people before,

You know,

I've hurt women that I've dated before,

You know,

I'm not proud of that.

But I think it's part of what happens in relationships.

I didn't mean physically,

Of course,

I just meant that,

You know,

We do hurt each other.

And I can't remember what she said,

But like,

She said something that kind of took it to a more superficial level.

I was like,

If you know,

If you're going to ask me,

Like,

Why I hurt people,

You're going to need to get to know me a little bit better before I'm going to be able to answer that question.

So,

I remember her feeling,

Saying that she felt like a little taken aback by that.

But in any case,

It was interesting.

I was so intrigued to find out that she was the creative mind behind World Pulse,

Because I was like,

Oh my god,

I totally know your magazine.

I've used it in my classes,

Because I thought it was so cool that there were pictures of pictures of women around the world with microphones and headphones on.

And it just like busted,

I think,

Stereotypes and ideas that people had.

So,

I thought they were really great to use in my English classes.

So,

I was like,

Oh,

I totally know your magazine.

I love it.

I'm so excited that I get to be hanging out with you.

So,

I really wanted to connect with her,

But I didn't really exactly know where it was going to go.

We went on a couple more days and they were fun,

But eventually it led to her saying,

You know,

Like,

I'm just not,

I don't think this is like a romance situation.

But at that point,

We kind of both agreed,

Like,

I think we still want to hang out,

But everybody says that,

You know,

So like,

It doesn't necessarily mean anything that a friendship will really happen.

But I wasn't quite sure how that would work,

But I knew I thought her work was great.

So,

World Pulse Live event was coming up and I was like,

Oh,

I can go and I'm going to bring some local friends,

Some women that I know who are awesome,

Who will appreciate that.

And so,

I got some tickets.

And of course,

The weird thing that day is I flipped on my bicycle and broke both of my elbows and my clavicle.

And while they weren't serious injuries,

They definitely,

I spent that time in the emergency room with my good friend,

Orion.

And Yancina kind of tells it like she was like mildly like,

Oh,

I thought he was going to come.

But she always tells the story that like,

She didn't really think of me as much consequence at that time,

Even though I felt like it was a little bit different.

But anyway,

I don't think she knew anything until I put a picture up on Facebook with,

She always tells this part too,

Of a cup of coffee with a straw in it.

And she was just like,

Oh my God,

He's drinking coffee with a straw out of it.

Fortunate for a lot of people around who helped me out then,

But I did send her a message a little bit later saying,

I'm so sorry.

Maybe you saw that picture.

I was on my way,

I fell off my bike,

I broke my arms.

And so that's why I wasn't there.

But I'm really sad because I had some friends and I wanted to see what you do and stuff like that.

Anyway,

So I didn't hear from her for a couple months.

And then she reached out to me.

She was in New Mexico at the time and said,

Hey,

You know,

Do you want to grab some food?

And I'm like,

Yeah,

Sure.

I mean,

Yeah,

Definitely.

I kind of came out of the blue.

I wasn't really expecting it.

And she said,

How about the day after Thanksgiving,

You know,

I don't have anything going on that day.

And I was like,

Wow,

I get to hang out with you the day after Thanksgiving.

You know,

Like that's intimate thing.

You know,

It seems like that'd be a time that people would be with their family and stuff.

So we went to we went to slappy cakes and ate pancakes together.

And we both enjoyed that.

But I was in definitely in a mind space where I was still trying to figure out what this relationship was going to be.

And I felt that she was taking action to try to move that relationship forward.

She took completely denies that.

But in any case,

That's what I perceived.

And so I possibly hallucinated more interest on her part than there really was.

But But I have some pretty objective things that happened.

So anyway,

So after that,

I kind of followed up and I was trying to see if I could get more time in her on her dance card.

And we ended up going out on a couple more dates,

There were some kind of special things that that happened.

And I was writing her a lot then and and trying to show her me and trying to get more understanding of her.

At some point,

I was headed to Mexico for some trying to do some develop my business model in Cancun.

And something kind of flipped near the near the end of that year.

And I started having some kind of,

You know,

I don't you know,

I don't know,

Call it some folks have described as kind of a shamanic break,

Or maybe a psychotic break or hypo.

What's another word that people use hypomanic experience,

But I was kind of like,

I'm like,

I'm having,

You know,

Perceptions and thoughts that I totally know are not accurate,

But they seem really real to me right now.

And so I was able to kind of hold both of those minds together.

It seemed that at my work and in other areas of my life,

Things that people were saying were taking on another level of significance that were that was seemed more magical than your everyday life.

And it kind of led up to,

I was about to leave for Mexico and I skipped work,

I was wanting to,

I felt that it was important to connect with Yancina before I left and declare some kind of intention to have some kind of relationship with her at that time,

I thought romantic relationship was out of the question.

So I,

The only way I could think about that was,

Was like,

Let's build community together.

And so,

As you know,

I,

I walked into her office one day with some,

With some Mardi Gras beads,

And kind of said,

I'd like to build community with you.

I don't know what that means.

I know this is super weird.

I think it's not what I normally would do,

But it just,

It also feels like what I'm supposed to do.

And she said,

Well,

Thank you.

I have to go back to work now.

So I skipped,

I skipped my work that day,

Which is not something I would normally do.

And whatever it was,

It kind of fever broke a little bit.

And weirdly,

That night I was supposed to leave on the plane and I,

I fell asleep and I missed my plane.

So whatever was going on for me was just like,

It was not normal for me.

So I made the phone call and I was able to reschedule my flight.

So that turned out fine,

But I had like another day or another few hours.

And so I,

I told Yancina that,

And I went,

I remember going over to her house and I think she was,

She was,

She invited me over and,

And her roommate was there and she offered me an,

An acorn squash with some,

She's like,

I think you need some nourishment.

I remember her saying,

And I told her that I had also envisioned an air earthquake.

And so we just chatted a little bit.

And she told me about the store story about that.

She had just seen a movie that I had just seen too,

That was,

Had the same kind of quality that I was feeling.

The Lars von Trier movie where like,

Do you remember,

You know,

The one where the,

Like a planet's coming too close to earth and it's going to smash into it.

Oh yeah.

That feeling is like how I was feeling that whole time,

You know,

Just like the light is a little bit weird and you like something imminent is there and it's very meaningful,

But at the same time,

Totally meaningless,

You know,

Like that was kind of how that was.

And so that was kind of weird,

But I did get on my plane.

I went and,

And,

And when,

When I came back,

I brought her some gifts,

Which she sort of reluctantly accepted.

We did start dating and it did become romantic.

And,

And then we,

I did move in with her and that that sense of being on a kind of another dimension continued through about March or so,

So a good three to three to six months,

I was kind of in that space.

So jumping over to many years later,

You know,

We celebrated our 10 year anniversary.

The main point is that when we come to celebrate our 10 year anniversary and inviting people,

Marta,

Who helped her make the mandala wrote this email,

Which I think you saw there,

Which really helped to anchor the whole thing and,

And give some like,

You know,

I think some credibility to the wackiness that I was experiencing,

But saying she found an old email that Marta had written saying,

I know you will celebrate your 10 years together and,

And you will be with your family.

And so,

I mean,

She forgotten about that completely.

She just unearthed this email like six months ago when we were kind of preparing.

And so to see that at that time,

Kind of put a whole different spin on it.

And I'm like,

Oh my God,

We have to show this email,

Like at the end.

But honestly,

You know,

I feel like it even continues a little bit because the way I'll wrap this up.

So what some dear friends of mine who are Sherry and Steve came also,

They're both pretty smart people,

Both like intellectually,

But also spiritually or something like that.

And so when I told Stephen Sherry about that experience,

Steve added something that I think is useful.

And he said,

Well,

You,

You know,

They know me well,

And they're like,

You,

You're kind of possessed,

Like what you're describing is that you were possessed.

And so the analysis that we came out of that dinner at the spaghetti factory that night was that,

You know,

The mandala worked,

And it was quite powerful magic.

And basically,

I got caught up in it.

Personally,

The way I understand magic,

I don't think it was directed at me.

It's just that sometimes you put a strong burst of energy out there,

And you happen to be in that laser blast and receptive on the right frame,

You know,

And you get caught up in the whirlpool.

If you throw out an omni directional love blast,

You know,

Maybe you also are not sure that this is the right fish to catch.

Maybe you'd seen it was kind of like,

This is the one that I got with that,

You know,

Okay,

I,

You know,

I guess you'll kind of do but not exactly what I was thinking.

And,

But I but I do think that that's very possible that something like that,

I got caught up in that whirlpool of,

Of,

Of energy.

And it kind of caused me to do things that I haven't really done since and never did before.

And,

And I do think that those actions,

Though they were possibly a little bit sketchy at the time,

Probably did help move the ball forward,

Because I don't think that I wouldn't have normally worked that hard,

I'd be like,

You're not interested,

I don't want to be a creep.

Anyway,

So I feel like that was helpful.

And then I also feel like,

Well,

If that's true,

And that was a very,

You know,

A powerful magic spell,

It seemed to me also that even the end,

You know,

The ending with how much calamity kind of came about,

It resonates with me as sometimes the kinds of things that happen when you cast a powerful spell,

And there's a there's some unintended consequences.

And sometimes you gotta,

You gotta pay for that.

You know,

When you were initially starting to tell this story,

And you started talking about Marta and the mandala and the spell that was cast,

And then you kept talking,

In my mind,

I thought,

Oh,

My,

That was a powerful magic.

Yeah.

So I think you're right,

When you create and then bless that magic to go out into the universe into the world to do its work.

You don't know how it's going to affect everyone.

What the second and third order ramifications are going to be,

Who's going to get trampled over,

You know,

Who's going to go flying over the front of their bicycle?

Yeah,

Yeah,

Totally.

And I was really struck by your telling of feeling not like yourself.

Yeah,

No,

And how you showed up the world pulse offices,

And you had those,

I think you had necklaces and you put them around Mardi Gras beads,

And you put them around her and it was just it was surprising to you.

Because you were you were thinking,

This is not me.

This is not how I act.

And it was surprising to Yancina because she was in a meeting and didn't expect you.

And when I heard that story,

I thought that's fascinating.

It's like,

It's like you were possessed.

It's like you were in the throes of something that had sort of taken you over.

I thought that was a little less,

You know,

Intense,

We could say maybe compelled or something like that.

Well,

I appreciate that you all sent mandalas out to everybody because I need to print mine out.

Be careful with that.

I know I've got to be really careful.

Yeah.

And now I know.

Yeah.

Now I know.

Thank you for the warning.

Yeah,

I feel like we you know,

Like we thought it was a great idea from originally to send the mandala out.

But I feel like if I was going to do that over again,

I would say,

I mean,

Some people will have already picked up on that just from how we're evolving understanding of it.

But I think we should have said,

Like,

Look,

This,

This thing works.

And it can have some unintended consequences.

I think I would have said like,

If you're serious about,

You know,

Sending out that intention for love and partnership,

This might work for you.

If you're not don't don't fuck around,

You know,

Use with extreme prejudice.

Yeah.

As I keep saying over and over again,

In this podcast,

What we need is more connection,

More conversation,

And more community.

And that's exactly what Patrick's organization,

People,

Places,

Things is fostering information on this excellent organization,

Please visit my website,

Bite sized blessings.

Com.

And under the episodes show notes,

You'll find a link to Patrick's website.

I need to thank Patrick for sharing his story with me today.

And I also need to thank the creators of the music used Lilo sound,

Alexander Nakarada,

Winnie the Moog,

Kevin McLeod,

Frank Schroeder,

And Sasha and for complete attribution,

Please see the bite sized blessings website at bite sized blessings.

Com.

On the website,

You'll find links to other episodes to cool websites to changemakers who are making this world a better place to artists,

Each and every one of these I hope lightens and brightens your day.

Thank you for listening.

And here's my one request.

Be like Patrick and Yancina believe in love.

Believe that that love that you've always wanted is out there.

Find yourself a love mandala.

Put that magic out into the universe.

But be careful.

Use it with caution.

Put that magic out into the universe,

Knowing that eventually,

Love love is going to find you.