The Byte: Sas Carey ~ Mongolian Dreams & Shamanic Magic

Sas Carey, myguest this week, is an intrepid world traveler! From the moment she stepped off the plane and onto Mongolia's wild soil, her heart was forever captured by the people as well as the beauty of the land. Sas has made it her life's work to document the nomads as well as the reindeer herders and their way of life, carefully respecting all that she encounters. She's created multiple documentary films as well as books, and all record a way of life that is rapidly disappearing.

Transcript

Hello all my lovelies and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. This week my guest is truly formidable and she tells so many stories this week. Honestly it kind of defies description. I can't even encapsulate this human being in one little intro like this but I'm going to read a little bit from her website so you know what you're in for. And so from her website it says in 1994 Sass Carey RN traveled for the first time to Mongolia where she discovered her life's passion working with the nomadic people who inhabit the rugged landscape of that area. Drawing on her nursing background she was first led to work with them in the area of health care which was severely lacking. So she's worked with the nomads and the reindeer herders for over two decades and has a very close relationship with them. She founded Nomadic Care in 2010 as a non-profit in order to gather support and resources so she could continue her work in health care and documentation. Because she has she's created multiple documentary films about different aspects of the nomadic and reindeer herders lives but she's also written multiple books about them about their lives about their traditions and especially about their shamanic practitioners. Sass shares multiple stories about those travels and those encounters with the nomads and with the reindeer herders and this episode is so profound and so interesting and I just was sitting on the edge of my seat while having my conversation with her. So without further ado here is Sass Carey and my interview and conversation about her travels in Mongolia. I had that happen once somebody a shaman once sang my song for me. It was I didn't know it was my song. He sang it and I was just crying and he then he said I said that was the most beautiful song I ever heard and he said that's because it's your song. I was like oh. I'm so curious when you were shooting that I'm only bringing this up because are you familiar with Molly Domasome? No. Okay he wrote this gorgeous book called Of Water and the Spirit. It is just astonishing and he was I mean the short story is he was abducted when he was about six or seven from his village in Africa and raised by Jesuit priests and so he escaped when he was about 19 made his way back to the village on foot and they wouldn't accept him because he hadn't gone through the initiation and so he had to go through this initiation in which boys died because it was so rigorous and so he and he says in the in the book you know I'm going to try my he passed away last year he's like I'm gonna try my hardest to explain what this initiation looked like in the places we went because they're not here they're not in this reality but yeah like words are not sufficient so it was it was he's written several books they're all gorgeous but one of the things he talked about was before he was born the women when his mother was heavily pregnant and about to give birth to him within a few weeks they all went into the woods and they all started singing and the village the village women came up with his individual song of him and who he was and through that song kind of sang to the fetus and and let the fetus know who was going to be what the community was that was going to be receiving the baby and potentials for the baby's life who the baby could be which I thought was such a gorgeous and beautiful image and I thought oh my goodness every baby should be welcomed into the world in that way and so when you were talking about the movie you were making with the women did they engage in that same no one one thing that happened was you know the Soviets kind of were had their thumb on Mongolia from 1920 to 1990 and when I was making the movie that Gobi women song it was just 2000 so they were they were all brought up in the Soviet time and they had lost a lot of their culture especially well the people in the Gobi had lost a lot of their culture but that's why I was taking movies of up in the taiga because they they held on to their culture I don't know if they did that when when I did it they didn't do it to the baby it was in a hospital but they were all women it was a woman doctor woman assistant woman nurse and us three of us translator and camera person to me and we were the ones that were there for the whole birth so yeah but that that's amazing I had that happen once somebody a shaman once sang my song for me it was I didn't know it was my song he sang it and I was just crying and he then he said I said that was the most beautiful song I ever heard and he said that's cuz it's your song I was like oh yeah yeah and I wanted to talk about singing too and music you know I this happened in 2000 I was teaching spiritual readings and how to connect to the spirit and so every week I would just be in a place and people could come if they were interested I'm not I didn't have the same people or anything I just did whatever I just winged it because that's all there is to do anyway and so and so these three women came I had never met any of them and they all were in a very needy place in their lives and they said well can you do this for us every week and I said well I can't do it here I mean you can come to my house but I'm not coming up to Burlington so they we started this thing and we did it for three years and it turned out that at one point one of them was kind of like choking like she couldn't speak and I put my hand on her neck and it turned out that she was supposed to let music through and all three of them were beautiful singers and they started singing it was like coming from heaven and they wrote and they sang songs I was just thinking I was just thinking about this last night I was telling my friend it ended up that over the years that we went to people who were ready to go and they were maybe in a coma ready to pass over and and we would just sing but it was kind of like toning or sometimes one of them would would have a special message that was so beautiful for the person and it usually worked but here's a funny story my writing teacher who I just loved she was the age of my mom and she was really sick and so I took my students and we all went into the hospital and we sang to her like that and there was another woman in her room who was also really sick and they were both you couldn't tell who if someone was going to leave you know so we sang this whole whole thing to Marge this person and she ended up leaving the hospital and living another year but her roommate left I mean it's just amazing because you don't know I mean you're just not in control that's that's the thing I mean we're not in control here on the planet it's not our thing you know we're if we let it come through and and do what we're supposed to do that's a whole different thing I wanted to ask I mean I would assume maybe I'm assuming too much but was it a very large honor to be able to attend those ceremonies as a white Westerner you know they do it more now because they know they're gonna make a little money from it but at that point yes it was a big honor like I went to Mongolia for let me see I went up to the taiga for five years before they invited me to to come to a ceremony and so I it's sort of like I had to know them a little bit because it really wasn't for me you know they were they're shamans for their family and and they're close people so the other is almost like a show if they do it for Westerners they were usually doing it for some kind of healing purpose somebody that needed something or needed protection or their animals needed protection or they did it each season but to be allowed to go in that's a that's a big honor I remember one time a few years ago the son of one of the shamans that I used to know and and the nephew he's the he's now the shaman and he's in his 20s we got to his place and he said well there's this other family this other tourist over here in that other uh orts who wants me to do a ceremony but I said I can't do it because it's not the right time of the month and I said okay I don't think you should do it if it's not the right time and he said oh no sass you've come so far we're gonna do it so he did the ceremony and you know they couldn't get me because you know something you said in the beginning about how you feel about shamanism just that you want to kind of understand it that's how I am I don't want I don't want them to do anything for me I don't want to ask them any questions I just want to see how someone else goes across the veil you know because I do that you know I do readings spiritual readings and connect with people's higher selves and things like that I just wanted to see how how other people did that and I'm fascinated by it so every single shaman that I met I just thought that was that's what I was looking for they'd always say you don't have any questions what is your question I don't have any questions I know how to connect and answer my own questions yeah but sometimes they give me a message anyway you know yeah so yes it is an honor I think you know I just maybe one of the reasons I'm so enchanted or enamored of you know shamanic healing shamanic connection shamanic conversation with the spirits and the world is because I think I hunger for that because you know I know that to make this world a more beautiful place or to you know help another who is suffering or to reconcile someone's I don't know family or whatever whatever kind of beautiful act can be brought into the world I can't do it myself like I need I need the help of every spirit and angel that's out there I mean tree spirit and you know maybe grass spirit or the river spirit and and there's also something really nourishing to my heart to know that I can be in close communion and I can be have deep friendship with these other living beings and that they just as much of a right to exist as I do and that you know after I'm long gone or maybe even the whole human race is long gone they will still be here and they will still be you know surviving thriving and and just eternally beautiful yeah um and so I think that's uh that's kind of where I'm coming from as far as with my my kind of endless quest for you know reading every myth under the sun trying to understand culture and you know I also blame my parents because I grew up overseas so it's like I just have this hunger like um in Guyana and South America and then in Lahore in Pakistan wow um you know I mean as a child like you can imagine I didn't get to see very much in either of those places because we were kept kind of sequestered away but I would have to say I was talking on a podcast the other day that the most beautiful place I've ever been is Kashmir because we got to spend a week on a houseboat there uh when they weren't fighting and at war for a brief and I I've never experienced such beauty in my entire life as as Kashmir it's like something out of some other reality which you know I was five or six years old and the fact that I can remember it so well I think just it was just this insane experience for my senses that just was forever imprinted wow me so um you know I I'm I have this hunger I think as you were talking about for for just um finding new ways I mean I'm always looking for new friends right so why can't that friend be a river sure there's no reason it can't be a river right as long as he doesn't want to borrow any eggs I'm okay with it borrow any what eggs eggs yeah like a neighbor coming over and saying hey do you have any eggs and then you've got two eggs left and you think oh I should give these eggs to my neighbor because they need them I don't really need them then I've got to go to the store to get more eggs that's great I hope that you all enjoyed my conversation with Sass Carey and I have to say that these interviews are really feeding my soul and my heart and I hope that they're doing the very same for yours I'm so grateful to Sass for agreeing to be on the podcast and for sharing about all the work she's doing and has done in Mongolia and the documentary films and books that she's created I'm so grateful to her for preserving this way of life and for sharing that knowledge with all of us and then check out some of the films that she's done and the books that she's written the work that she's doing is so very important and it's helping not only we who choose to check it out but it's helping those who live in Mongolia those nomads and the reindeer herders she's helping to preserve a way of life and she's helping to preserve knowledge of a way of life that is rapidly disappearing in that part of the world I need to thank all of you for listening and for writing those ratings and leaving those reviews they're so very important to me and they help other people find us and find these stories these stories of magic these stories of miracles these stories of ways of life that are happening all over the world so thank you for listening and here's my one request be like Sass be open to the adventure you never know when you travel in this world where it's gonna take you what kind of encounters you're going to have what kind of fabulous stranger is just waiting to meet you so be like Sass be ready for the adventure and when you find yourself in the middle of it have faith and trust that this universe knows exactly where it's taking you see you next week for another fabulous story for another fabulous adventure for another fabulous miracle because they're happening all around us to all sorts of people and I have so many more amazing people that I can't wait for you to meet