The Dandelion Effect Feathered Pipe Foundation - Andy Vantrease

Today’s podcast episode is the final episode of the Dandelion Effect Podcast as we know it. We are tying a beautiful ribbon on a project that began in the fall of 2020 as an avenue for continued positive outreach and community engagement in the heat of the pandemic. This podcast has far exceeded our expectations, and while it’s bittersweet, we are moving onto different creative adventures that we are all so excited for!
As a way to wrap this up, we’ve decided to bring it full circle and give you a compilation episode of a handful of voices from within the Feathered Pipe Ranch team, an inside-out approach, so to speak. It’s an ode to the Ranch: the changes we’ve been through over the years, the gratitude for this project, and a chance to hear from staff, board members and family members, why they believe this little retreat center in the forest of Helena, MT is, in fact, a life-changing place. 

We have six guests on today’s podcast—Howard Levin, Anne Jablonski, Matt Lambie, Amanda Ellefsen, Eric Myers and Crystal Water—all weighing in about what keeps them coming back year after year, and adding their two cents into where this ship is heading as we look toward the future.
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Effie Baldwin is a U.S. Army veteran, Positive Discipline Educator, Associate Member of the U.S. Golf Teachers Federation and the founder of Believing in a Better World LLC. After earning her Kemetic Yoga Certification in Egypt, she became an instructor for Veterans Yoga Project then later a board member for the nonprofit. She’s also an End-of-Life Doula and facilitates Emotional Emancipation Circles to promote healing caused by race-based discrimination within communities of African-descent.
Prior to becoming her own boss, Effie spent almost 30 years working in high-level positions with the state and federal government in Senior Policy, Grants Administration, and Program Management—and despite this long list of accolades, she admits that her greatest accomplishment is raising two life-embracing adult children.

In this conversation, Effie explains the similarities between Kemetic Yoga and golf as two activities that people can do “from cradle to grave,” and the virtues and ethics that are necessary for both: patience, honesty, mindfulness, focus, discipline—all with the result of self-regulation and self-responsibility. Effie came to yoga through, running, of all things. That is to say, she literally ran herself into the ground and yoga was prescribed by a nurse practitioner as a way to rebuild her immune system and ease her pattern of intensity throughout life. It changed the trajectory of her life, and for the last six years, she’s added that to her repertoire of service-oriented work.

She’s a self-proclaimed optimistic realist, a way of viewing the world through practicality and positivity, giving people and situations the benefit of the doubt. She also recalls questioning the “rules of engagement” very early and crafting a life of learning, growing and independently investigating the truth—as she calls it—to decide what made sense for her own happiness, not what was projected onto her from society.

We end by highlighting the importance of nurturing the children of our communities and pouring love and energy into youth, whether they are your own kids or not. The next generation need us to show up as positive, responsible and whole-hearted role models just as we need them to carry on the legacy of our families and improve the impact we have on this planet.

Believing in a Better World
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Alison Zak is an author, yoga teacher, environmental educator and anthropologist, and in her self-written bio, she also adds, importantly, that she is an animal. Her new book Wild Asana launches June 27th and is a delightful mix of wildlife science, Hindu mythology, Eastern philosophy, and personal stories that help us draw connections between our bodies, our minds, and the animals that inspire our practices. As if writing and teaching doesn’t keep her busy enough, Alison also founded the Human-Beaver Coexistence Fund, a nonprofit that educates the public about the benefits of coexisting with beavers and provides resources and address human-beaver conflict.

Alison has a long history connecting with animals, and when her primate studies took her across the world to Indonesia, she learned firsthand how nuanced the relationship can be between humans and non-human animals, and she began to grasp the importance of deconditioning what we’re taught through society—that humans are superior and that other animals are only worth saving if they provide value to us. Of course, if you take the time to learn about different animals, you realize that each species possesses remarkable traits and skills that are integral to the ecosystems they live in. And if you do want to look through the lens of value-to-humans, it can be argued that every animal provides value because we are all intricately connected within the cycles that create our planet, our food, water, air, and soil. This truth has been known since the beginning of time, and modern research continues to publish findings daily that remind us of our interconnectedness.

Alison’s creative outlets and offerings suggest powerful, yet incredibly simple ways that we can begin to connect with our fellow animals, not only to understand our true role in the greater interdependent ecosystem of the planet, but to also experience the often sought-after feelings of awe, wonder, and unity that we go looking for in spiritual practice, travel or relationship. In her new book, Wild Asana, she teaches people how to connect with and embody animals through the yoga poses that are named after them: scorpion, cobra, fish and downward-facing dog, to name a few. She uses the framework of the Three C’s: Curiosity, Compassion, and Connection, suggesting that the last category of connection can be taken even deeper, practicing yoga with a capital Y, meaning union, and that if we can reach that state of union with another animal, there’s no longer a question as to why this other being is important, because he or she is me. There’s no separation.

Come with us, into a wild and wonderful interview that will leave you feeling inspired to learn more about the animals you encounter in your everyday life or those you have a secret curiosity about. I guarantee that after listening, you’ll want to go out into the world and experience it for the epic, magical place it is and remember that PLAY is one the most primal animal actions, shared by almost every species, certainly other animals like us in the mammal classification.

Alison Zak Website
Human-Beaver Coexistence Fund
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Susan Reynolds has over 20 years of experience in digital wellbeing, youth leadership and mindfulness. In 2019 she co-founded LookUp to discover, empower, and mobilize youth leaders who are taking action to raise awareness and design a healthier, more inclusive, and responsible digital world. Susan leads workshops and facilitates panels to educate and empower Gen Z to find and implement their own solutions, and she’s spoken globally on the topic at conferences in Copenhagen, London, and most recently in Saudi Arabia.

In this conversation, we approach technology with a wide lens, exploring both the promise and the peril of the internet, as well as the ways that different age groups engage with it. Susan poses the idea that part of the teenage mental health crisis could also be viewed as somewhat of a spiritual crisis, the longing for true connection that they try to get from the interconnectedness of the internet, yet these avenues are falling short of helping people to feel deeply connected and fulfilled.

And the collective mental health status of our young people proves the power of the digital age—a conglomerate of apps that have captured and run away with their attention, self-awareness, confidence and peace.

Honestly, we don’t come to many conclusions here. We simply share perspectives, hers from the professional angle having had a long career in tech and education as well as a personal angle, with a deep spiritual sense that’s continuing to emerge and guide her more strongly in her work. She shares about the new book she’s working on, LookUp Live: The Book, a collection of stories about young advocates she partners with who are making a tangible difference in the lives of their peers and exploring what it means to be human in the 21st Century.

Bottom line: Young people are stepping up. Despite, and perhaps because of, the issues they’ve inherited, there has never been a generation with as strong an ethos of purpose and advocacy as Gen Z. They won’t stand for continuing to lose their friends to suicide and shootings. They won’t tolerate ignorance. They won’t accept policies that prioritize corporations over their own well being.

They are choosing to speak out, and that’s what Susan gets to witness every day in her role at LookUp, a perspective that allows space for the grief, anger of the situation yet an empowerment that leads to lasting change.
LookUp.Live
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Adam Schumaker is co-founder of Gray Bear Lodge, a rustic retreat center in Hohenwald, TN, 80 miles southwest of Nashville, that hosts experiential workshops to promote growth, fulfillment and the joy of learning. He’s a certified Watsu aquatic bodywork practitioner, lifelong yogi and potentially one of the kindest people on the planet.
Gray Bear opened in 1996, and the Feathered Pipe Ranch was a big influence on its beginnings, as Adam considered the Ranch one of the “grandfathers of this movement, one of the holders of the seeds.” When he and his partner Diann visited Helena in 1999, India Supera welcomed them with open arms, sharing everything she had learned about running a retreat center—kitchen and cooking details, employee structure, accounting, lodging and more. Adam recalls her saying, “We need places like Gray Bear and the Feathered Pipe. If you’re the generation bringing this up, all the wisdom and all the experience I have, I want to share it with you. Feel free to call any time.” And, he did.

It’s hard to pinpoint themes in this conversation, as we meander gently through many topics. We weave stories with conscious teachings and personal experience with the memories that touch our hearts and open our perspectives. Adam believes stories are integral to learning—he calls it “life teaching life,” the ability to connect with each other outside of the boundaries of any structured tradition or discipline. We talk about the power of nature to remind us what’s important, the necessity of digital detoxing and breaking the modern habit of immediate availability, and how building Gray Bear over the last 30 years has actually built him as the person he is today, a process that has invited in the opportunity for profound personal development, accountability and reflection.

There are many gems in this interview, but one that really sticks with me is a quote from one of his teachers: Live life as if one foot is in the presence of the almighty divine god being imaginable, and your right foot is in a fresh cow patty that you’ve accidentally stepped in. All that to say - don’t take life too seriously. Don’t forget to laugh, and find the lightness in the miracle of being alive.
Gray Bear Lodge Retreat Center
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Dr. Helen Benjamin is the president of HSV Consulting, a company that provides board and management development, strategic planning, and equity, diversity and inclusion services to community colleges. She’s had a long career in education: With a master’s degree and doctorate from Texas Woman’s University, Helen began as a teacher, and has also held positions as a professor, dean, chancellor and president during her more than 30 years in administration for community colleges in Texas and California. She retired in 2016 and is living in Dallas, TX, though retirement for her looks like sitting on the board of several organizations, serving through HSV Consulting, and writing and editing books.

Helen and I met at the Feathered Pipe Ranch in summer 2022, where she attended a retreat hosted by San Diego-based yoga teachers Lanita Varshell and Diane Ambrosini. She signed up hoping to find peace and respite, and as she shares in this conversation, she was able to access it—in the innate beauty and tranquility of the Ranch, the movement classes, and the like-minded people she met.

Born in 1950, Helen grew up in Alexandria, Louisiana, in the heart of the segregated South, when African Americans were forbidden by law to attend certain schools, restaurants, churches, shops and other public places. Of course we learn about slavery and racial segregation in history books, but how often do you have the chance to hear from someone whose early life was so directly affected by the fear that upheld these beliefs?

This history isn’t as old as we might imagine, and at age 73, Helen speaks of her upbringing, how she found inspiration, community and love despite the bigotry that surrounded her family and friends. She’s a similar age to many in the founding group at the Feathered Pipe Ranch, but her reality during the “hippie era” we speak of so mystically and magically was drastically different than that of our founders—and that’s why we want to highlight this story.

I ask her about her inner process of alchemizing the feelings that can stem from injustice, her spiritual path and ability to find peace and freedom within, and the importance of documenting the stories of her community and preserving history in order to move forward.

We talk about her recent book, How We Got Over: Growing up in the Segregated South— a memoir of 24 personal accounts from African Americans who graduated from Peabody High School in Alexandria, LA in 1968. This book captures the essence of Black life in the Deep South during Jim Crow laws and was born out of an epiphany Helen had while attending a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion workshop. She realized that where she grew up, between the railroad tracks, was systematically set up through redlining, and that her rise to where she sat now—in a leadership role for a college in New York—defied all odds. The stories of her and her classmates, who also went on to live full and accomplished lives, had to be told.
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