Episode 236: How Contemplation and Activism Work Together | Carroll Dunham | Anthropologist, Explorer, Author
I am so excited for you to meet one of the coolest, wisest, most interesting, and compassionate people I have had the chance to speak with. Carroll Dunham is a badass. She has followed her curiosity and passions from Princeton, NJ, to Nepal, where she lived, studying traditional medicines as an anthropologist and Buddhism, fostered local children, impacted economic development for women, and so much more. She’s an author, a producer, a speaker, a teacher, a National Geographic explorer, wife, mother, and compassionate activist. When I grow up, I hope to be like Carroll! Enjoy this episode packed with stories, wisdom, and insights into how to live an extraordinary life.
“I’ve had a life where I’ve been able to see many ways… to see possibilities of what it means to be human and how to live a purposeful life and there is not one script.”
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Follow along using the Transcript
Chapters:
(00:00:00) Growing up curious in New Jersey
(00:05:40) Life in Nepal: prisons, herbs, and entrepreneurship
(00:10:55) Polyandry and making documentaries with National Geographic
(00:15:10) Choosing Nepal over Sri Lanka: how a war rerouted her life
(00:18:40) Inner vs outer expeditions and Buddhist mind science
(00:23:15) Creating beautiful inner worlds: contemplative practice explained
(00:27:00) Losing it all and rebuilding in Mongolia
(00:31:30) Mongolia’s power, horses, and windhorse energy
(00:36:20) Powerful women across cultures, from Mongolia to Nepal
(00:40:20) Shakti, patriarchy, and reclaiming feminine power
(00:45:00) What we wear: a post-petroleum textile revolution
(00:50:10) What Carroll is manifesting next
I grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. I was a Jersey girl and I always wondered what was out beyond the gate and so I think my curiosity led me in very dangerous ways Sometimes I'm very grateful.
That I didn't get into more trouble. That's Carol Dunham. I'm Kara Duffy and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast.
As John Lewis would say, we're up to good trouble.
Yeah. The best and the best kind of trouble to be in. For sure.
And I don't know for you, but it's like post COVID and now suddenly there's lots of crazy expeditions and Oh yeah. Just trying to, yeah, holding on surfing
the weights.
Everybody is for sure ready to be going at Lightspeed right now. Yeah. I am so honored to have you here today. When Kendra from my team and I went to Mountain Film this year, we were so excited to be sponsoring and we go to hear. Incredible stories and to find new potential podcast guests. And when we got to attend the three part Women's special showing with you and to other amazing powerhouses, it, we just kept looking at each other and smiling like this is exactly what we came for.
So thank you so much for being a yes to us and to our audience. But let's dive right in and tell everyone who you are, where you are in the world, and. A few of the things that you're up to. 'cause we could have a whole hour just listing the things that you do.
Oh Tara, it's, it was a real honor to be on that stage with other powerhouse women because honestly I believe as an old anthropologist, Margaret Mead said that it's only a small group of committed women that can never make any real and meaningful change on this world, or committed citizens, shall we say, but especially women.
I. Grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. I was a Jersey girl and I always wondered what was out beyond the gate and so I think my curiosity led me in very dangerous ways. Sometimes I'm very grateful that I didn't get into more trouble. I ended up in Nepal and ended up for 30 years in Nepal and in Mongolia, and I was working with women and income generation and working up in rural areas.
And really, I, I. I was just really looking at how can women have a little bit of a better life and a voice and say, and I was trying to gather voices. I remember spending time gathering manure one, one Christmas and taking manure to the prison in Nepal because it, at that time period, Namal Nepal had one of the most draconian abortion rights rules in, in the world next to Sudan at that time period.
And so women had to take care of themselves. In the prisons and often it would be incest. Often they were attacked by even members that they'd married in young into families, and then their husband was down in India working. And the best gift I could give them was manure. So I took 'em a. A whole tractor full of compost and they wept because that was what they most needed just to be able to survive at that time.
But I, as an anthropologist, I've gone from looking at women and wondering, in, I became very fascinated by traditional medicinal, her and plants, and how women not only were. Was their abortion herbs that they were using, but others that they were using for female healthcare, et cetera.
And that led me then to help using herbs in for income generation. So we would make soaps and oils and things like that. My mentor was a woman named Anita Roddick. She started a company called The Body Shop. She really was quite a fire brand. She really was the forefront of creating fair trade. So we would travel around the world and looking at what women were using traditionally on their skin and how we could have trade that could you know, impact rural communities.
Right at source in remote parts of the world. So that was a large part of my life. I also I lived in Nepal and I studied Buddhism and I had a teacher. And I think in terms of resilience, Nepal has been through 30 really, very rough. Years not been a smooth romantic sailing. We've been through a Maoist insurgency, we've had earthquakes, and so I, I feel very grateful for what I have learned from very, tough, strong, resilient mountain women. As well as I've spent 20 summers up in Mongolia with Mongolian yak herders, and these women who survive in minus 40 and very different ways of being. So I feel very grateful that I've had a life where I've been able to see many ways of the possibilities of what it means to be human, how to make a meaningful and purposeful life.
And there's not one script.
There certainly is not. And I would love to go back to even 8-year-old. You like would 8-year-old, you have imagined this is your life.
I, when I was eight years old, I really loved, I would, I used to run away. I was very rebellious and I remember I'd sneak out of my and down and I'd in the old days, we'd have a bandana.
I remember putting scrambled eggs once in my bandana. And I would go and I found this amazing tree down near the river in a creek in, I say I grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, and I had great solace in nature. When times were difficult or tough, I always felt most at home in, in nature.
And it was a really profound solace for me. So I always knew nature would be a big part of my life and I was really blessed. 'cause in Nepal we have those Himalayas and I created a life where. I could spend, I knew I would start to be almost like an animal, or I'd shake or, need mental health. If I didn't have enough time outside, I needed to be, I needed to feel the sunshine, I needed to smell the earth.
That was the greatest mental health for me. Like I as a young kid already, I was like why does it have to be this way? You get up and then you have to go to a job and you spend most of your life at a job. And I was like. I think I, I think there has to be something more. That was, I think, a very big and I, and that there has to be something beyond. I remember as a little kid reading National Geographic and seeing all these, I remember seeing Yurts and they had something and that really. Was very powerful impact on me. And so yeah, I've worked with National Geographic now for about 20 years and national Geographic yeah, I think had very strong impact off on me when as a little girl.
Yeah, me too. Between national Geographic and Indiana Jones, I was like, that's the life I want. I want adventure, I want showing up in random new places. And it's been interesting to take. All the things that have inspired me and me carving out my ridiculous journey.
When you got to partner with National Geographic, did, were you like, oh my gosh, like this has been, I've been manifesting this since I was like, a kid were you so excited to become an official part of. The magazine that you had been reading?
I was, it was definitely like a dream come true.
So how it happened was, so we're up. My husband, my partner and I, we were up in a fair in far northwest Nepal in an area called MLA with a people called the yba, the people of the Sunny Valley. And they traditionally, one woman marries all the brothers in a family. So it's called polyandry. So most people have heard of polygamy where there's one man and many women but not the opposite.
And so I was very fascinated. How could that work? Yeah. We think it's hard enough to take care of one husband. You take care of many. And having spent long periods of time there, and then we did films and the National Geographic said, wow, could we do a film with you? And so it, that's how it became.
But I was always very interested in telling women's stories, particularly, and voices that aren't always heard and that are rare and unusual. And yeah. I, we were able to tell the stories of many of our dear friends in Huma and what it was like at that time period to be married with many husbands.
Since that time with the Maoist Revolution. Many of the women ran off to join the Maoist Revolution and with new and other economic opportunities. 'cause this was a system where they all the brothers would contribute to the household. So they would become much wealthier than their monogamous Hindu neighbors.
Nearby villages. So it was a way of survival, but when there were other economic opportunities came for them to survive polyandry is, there's very little of it existing.
So interesting. And how did you go from. Princeton, New Jersey. I'm also born in New Jersey from Princeton, New Jersey to Nepal.
Like how did that leap happen? Were you just like one day, like I just bought a one way ticket? Like how did that happen?
Actually it was a, I was at, so my story was, so I was studying anthropology of Princeton and I'd sit there and I'd get lost in these old. Dusty books and the open stacks down there at Firestone Library.
And I would dream, I used to love to read all the great explorers and and there's great, I don't know if any of you have ever heard of Alexander David Neil. She was this amazing French woman and she went and she traveled all throughout Tibet. She was very strong, independent woman and there's a lot of great.
Gertrude Bell, there's a lot of great female explorers and many of them had also gone to the Himalayas. So I was supposed to go to Sri Lanka, actually, and I was supposed to study something called Vodi. I convinced Princeton that they really needed, I wanted, I didn't wanna study from books.
I needed to learn from people. I needed to learn from experience. And I wanted to go to study Voia, which was an area, a place where, it, they were actually, it was a Buddhist organization, but it was involved in activism. So I was very interested in how contemplation and activism. How did they, how did that work together?
Yeah. How could you contemplate and then be active in the world to change the world? And because I was experiencing a lot of activists as being very angry people, a lot of them. I said they, they were coming from their anger I felt. And I was like, wow, I'm not sure if the best source of change should come from there.
So I was supposed to go to Sri Lanka. Unfortunately a war broke out and I couldn't go. And I had one week I had to decide and I had a good friend across this the way, and he had been in Sri Lanka, he'd also been in Nepal, and he said, you're gonna gotta go to Nepal. You're gonna fall in love with this great guy named Tom Kelly study.
So I went, because it was the year of the woman women, and I was, I thought, and I explained I was interested in women. But they threw me into a Buddhist nunnery. And so I had to learn the language at the nunnery. And so then I was like, these women are doing development too. They're just doing inner development and they're not doing outer development.
So that really was a major pivot in my life and a major shift by looking around me and saying I had this idea and this plan, but then what I was saw around me. And I have to tell you one quick, little funny story, if you don't mind. Sure. It's a matter, please. But so I'm in the Buddhist nunnery.
I have this wonderful, sweet, wonderful my roommate. She's an older elderly auntie. She doesn't have any more teeth anymore, so she eat her sopa roast barley in her mouth. But we slept on these Tibetan carpets and they were just chocolate block full of bedbugs. And fleas. And it was just like, I was just being ravaged to death.
And so I was like, oh my gosh, I just can't do this anymore. So as in a Buddhist, noian kill things, not allowed to kill things. So I had to sneak some flea powder in and I looked. Sure. My, she wasn't around my roommate and I started dowsing my rug with the flea powder. And unfortunately she comes right in and I'm caught totally red-handed, ping this flea powder.
And she goes, what are you doing? And I go, oh I'm giving medicine to the fleas. And she says. What does it do? And I said it makes them go away. She's so great. I need some too. I said no. I'll do it. I'll do it. So I officially became the mass flea murderer at the monastery.
So I'm quite sure I'll be reborn again as a flea because I was responsible for killing all the fleas. In the carpets, the lottery. Anyway, so then I, that's where I learned my, the language and and I became very interested 'cause I, I met a lot of women, western women also, who had shaved their heads and become Tibetan Buddhist nuns.
So this was another form of adventures, I was going up, yeah. Leading expeditions up in the mountains. And also we were doing a lot of medical expeditions. I later worked with the opia Foundation. We were doing medical expeditions up the mountains. But I was like there's also inner expeditions and there's other ways you can, there's actually the great mountain.
And years later I did a film with, someone named Wade Davis. Another fellow National Geographic Explorer, and it was called, it was a series called Light at the Edge of the World, and it was called Tibetan Mind Sciences. And so I'm naughty and as a female producer and I was like I'm gonna find a female hero for this story.
So I asked my son-in-law who was a Tibetan, he was actually Bhutanese. Traditional doctor married to my foster daughter. I raised six foster kids before I had my own children. And so Pema Bhi was married to ra, but a traditional Bhutanese doctor, and they lived up in Kubu in the Everest region. So I said, ah, are there, who are there any really great Buddhist practitioners?
And so he drew me on a napkin. A map of Everest, a region. So most people look and they see all these amazing, great mountains and everything, and he instead, this was a herm, hermit and hermit. And he's there's, you know this man he's way in. Here he is, been here for 10 years. There's this woman here, she's been hiding in the mountain crevices.
So there. And for the local traditional Sherpas, those were the great heroes, those real adventurers because it's it's, okay, we may think, wow, it's so amazing you climb Everest. And I'm not saying that it's not a feat, though. That's another discussion we can talk about if you wanna go into that deeply.
But, really, they said, the real mountains to climb are the mountains in our own minds. And so we found this wan she's considered to be a realized nun. Her story was very similar to a very famous female saint in Tibet named her name was Gel, who was considered in the seventh century.
She was at age four. She had, she could read and write. Try to find in the West a great hero that can read and write. In the seventh century, that was woman, a female, and and so this, she also had been, all the men in Tibet wanted to marry her, and so she had to run into the wilderness. The king said, oh I'll solve the problem.
I'll marry her. And then the wireless greatest saint in Tibet named Padma Vos, the Buddha of transformation. He says, they have an amazing relationship. They fall madly in love. And this becomes the beginning of her great spiritual journey. And it ends up, she goes to Nepal and to Bhutan, and she writes, she's very important in Tibetan.
A Buddhist mystical history and story. So this was this woman an, she was very beautiful. She came from a very wealthy family a Sherpa family. And all the men in the region wanted to marry her, and all she wanted to do was practice Buddhism, go internally inside herself and climb the great mountains inside herself and her being.
And so it was gonna be the fam the men had all come and they'd surrounded her Hermitage, which was. Just below Tang Boche monastery, anybody who's ever gone up to Everest in the up to the Everest region. On the way towards Ding Boche, there's a little nunnery. And I was down in there and she realized, so she goes out to the crapper and she looks down the shitter hole and, excuse me, but, and she looks down and she says.
That's my path to freedom. Because in the morning they were gonna take her away, she was gonna have to marry this big wealthy man and she climbs in her 90 down the very steep mountainside that's covered with shit. But it's frozen shit at least 'cause yes. And then she crawls up the mountain up to 10 Boche.
She knocks on the door in those night 10 Boche. She's you're a woman. You're not supposed to be in the monastery tonight. And she says, help. All I wanna do is study Buddhism, please. She's I can't let you hear, but I'll let dodgy. Take you up and over the pass and you can go up into Tibet and study up there with Islam.
So she studied, she gained realization. She went back and was called sit, which means lifelong retreatment. I had, so my brother, my son-in-law had been one of her students she had then after being in lifelong treat, she would open the door just a little bit here and just poke out her little face.
So all the Sherpa, before they would go on up to Mount Everest would always go and get the blessings of Ani. So I went, we went to go do a film. I had a girlfriend who lived up there. She said, there's no way you're gonna get a, an interview with Saint Tamani because she won't, she won't, she doesn't, won't let any, she never let anyone take her picture or anything.
You must have gotten it wrong. So I run up there, she opens the door and she says, I have been waiting for you. I had a dream. And then I remembered that on my very first time I'd ever gone up to bu I had. Gotten up early at six in the morning. There'd been a woman with beautiful silver braids and she was feeding birds.
She was sitting down cross-legged in a forest feeding birds, and birds were lighting on her. They were on her and shoulders. They were in her lap because she was tossing out some bird feed all around as she was singing her mantras and it had profound impact for me, for sure. So I only knew in that moment she was right across from Ani.
Where I would find Ani, who had been there all that time, and she was also the grandmother of my foster daughter, PMA Booty. And I never knew that. It was very powerful. So there's a little bit of
magic up in the mountains and I, yeah, I have chills that story. It was amazing that. To me it's a sign that we're on the path that we're supposed to be when there's all of these magical coincidences and overlaps, and it all starts making sense as we keep going down the path.
You seem to be centered and outward looking, but from decision making from you, you don't seem to be very influenced from others. Is that how you've always been or is that a myth? Is that my illusion from the outside you seem so directive with how, where you're making life choices, but which isn't the norm for most people.
Most people it's very taking in from everyone else and being influenced in that capacity.
I would not say that I'm not influenced by people. 'cause I am very much, yeah. And my and by my environment. But I will say how do I explain this? So in Buddhist practice, there's one really beautiful practice where you, there are completion stage practices where you visualize.
Really beautiful, magical worlds inside yourself and you so you know, the many kinds of Buddhism all over the world and the Buddhism of the Himalayas Rihanna, Buddhism has a lot of visualizations. It's very you create like very or elaborate movies in your heads or whatever. And fortunately, and there are places, there are times where there's formless meditation and none.
But at this stage, and you create these. Beautiful worlds inside yourself. So I would just ask you or anyone who's listening, to imagine that world for yourself. What would it look like? What would be that ecosystem? What kind of trees would be in there? Is it, oh, is it a lake? Is it a river?
Is it an ocean? Is it a mountain? Is it a desert? Yep. What is the ecosystem? Or maybe some people are more safe. And so then, and what is the home? What is like perfect home and what is it like and what are the sounds? What are the birds? What variety is there that are there? What kind of animals are there, the sounds, the taste, the smells, and you create that and you work on that.
It's a very beautiful, it's a very powerful, it's a very healing thing or a way to do I would not say that I. I, you could say I'm just a stubborn bullheaded, Aries probably. And I like, would, barrel with my horns in and break all the China, because I've made many mistakes and I have the, my, you.
How do you say? My knee, I've, I have definitely scuffed my knees along my way with my idealism too, dangerous sometimes. And learning to listen to others is really, actually very important. And but to also go have a deep. Intimate relationship with yourself. So that's so by creating these beautiful spaces inside ourselves, but it really, you know how I think the tragedy of modern life often can be, we just try to feel our everything and we're very scared of open spaces or even internal spaces and of even. Because maybe emotions may arise in that
time
of uncomfortable feelings and difficult feelings or tension or sadness or stress and so how do we learn like in our bodies with breath?
Yeah. To actually have a very intimate relationship with ourself. And if we can have an intimate relationship with ourselves and enjoy it, like it tastes sweet, like our human being is you know, that we can actually enjoy being alone. Get out in the forest, hear the river go in silence. If we can really have comfort with that I think good decisions can arise from that.
Yeah.
But that's me. Do you, everybody's different.
When you look at your journey so far, are there moments when you have a, oh, like there was my life before Tibet and here's my life after Tibet. What are some key markers that, just shifted?
Everything that you thought the world was, let alone where you were going?
I always say for me, when I first got to Nepal, it was like Dorothy and Wizard of Oz, and my life went from black and white to color. Just the sheer chaos of catman. Do you know if anyone. It's never been there. It's total madness, but somehow it still flows.
The traffic, the sounds, the people, the chaos. Life is in the streets and dead bodies and children are laughing and playing, and women are breastfeeding and everything's out in the open. Nothing's behind closed doors that way. So I know that. Yeah, for me there was, obviously going to Nepal was a very major major lifetime.
I'll tell you a story though, i, I trust, I had friends that I had trusted and they always say never go into business with friends, but I don't listen sometimes, as I said. And so I had a time in my life where sort of all my outer constructs were completely dissolved. And I'll tell you the story.
It's a little bit okey dokey, but that. It's what I am. So I had a wonderful crazy teacher and he is yoga teacher and he, this is down in South India in near Karnataka. There's jungles, there's, it's the western goss is, it's actually was once a part of wan land. So it's very unique, ancient primeval palms.
And it's the largest concentration of what we know as Shakti pees or Debbie pees. That means ancient sacred. Feminine power spots for Indians on the planet, for Indians. Those ancient early sites are all very concentrated in this area. So there is a wonderful, very powerful tempo called Moka or ma and it's 3D goddesses in one.
And so I had done practice there and they said and you really got to go up and go off alone into the forest and jungle. And obviously there's big pythons and lots of scary animals. And it's where they would actually go for di for diamonds and diamond mining. So there were these big holes. So I thought instead of finding a cave, I found this thing.
I wasn't sure if there was like big snakes or there were spiders.
And
anyway, so I go down in there and I foolishly is like thinking, I'm so much, so brave and strong and I'm like. Kali Ma. So Kali, as many of you may know, in the Hindu tradition, she's the goddess of time, but she's also the destroyer.
So she destroys. But as we all know, like winter has to be destroyed for spring to come, patriarchy has to dissolve for new systems to emerge. Petroleum, post petroleum, we have to consider new ways of how we're gonna be. So sometimes old structures that are outmoded have to die for.
New things to come and that has the nature of being. So I said, Kali Madu with whatever you will, with me. I'm yours. Be careful what you ask for, girl. Yeah. I literally, less than a week all relationships where I had deep trust. Everything suddenly just eroded and collapsed, and my livelihoods collapsed.
Anything that sort of, was solid structures, outer structures of my life all dissolve. So I had to crawl up to Mongolia and so here's Mongolia. So we often will say like India, we would go in the winters and do. Big yoga retreats and things, and it's all full of very soft and sweet energetically.
And Katmandu used to tease this sort of tantric with black and, light and dark where it's almost like putting your finger into a electric socket. Powerful energy, good, bad, and ugly. And either scream and run away or you go, wow, there's something very powerful in energetically of the land, or they call valley.
So Katmandu. Is Histor traditionally named after the goddess ou. So the, her valley is traditionally considered a womb in sacred geography. So all this has happened and a friend says come on up to Mongolia. I have a camp up here. And so I literally crawl up and I'm broken, like I'm inside.
Like my teeth and other humans is broken, broken and. It was the horse. It was getting on a horse. And there are no fences. And we were out with a bunch. It was a bunch of us and a big clouds in the far off. And I'm, I love medicinal plants, so I was like looking and gathering the medicinal plants and lost.
I was on the horse, but I was actually looking down and then this, a nomad comes running up and a Mongolian, he's very angry with me. And he's basically saying, you dumb idiot. You were supposed to have gone with the others. They're all in a van. They've gone back. I've got all their empty horses.
The storm is coming in, the lightning's coming in, and we're gonna have to book our way home. So when he, he bumps on the back of a horse and they, and we're in full Gallup with the rain and lightning. So there, and I had to hold on for dear life and I was very terrified. And when I got off that after 30 kilometers like that of in the rain at full, I got off in a delirious date.
'cause I had gone through fear to the other side. I had no fear anymore, and I was so grateful to the horse. Mongolia, they have a term, it's called hemo. Means wind horse, Tibetan. We say Luta. They say heor. And they always say Chen had a lot of heor because he's decisive. He was decisive.
So they say indecisive is when you'd have a low heor, your wind horse is low. But if you're like, I'm gonna go here direction, we go to the Balkans tomorrow, it leaves your wind horse is strong and the vitality, so the rah elements of Mongolia, Mongolia is strong. You either Mongol people are, they live through minus 45 and then in, my husband's and right now in the Gobi it can be 110 and they're strong and they're tough and resilient.
'cause they have a little really, and it's the elements. It's the elements that give you that vitality by being out there, it's pouring rain and is Western world like wait, we need shelter. And they're like, it's just water dripping down my face. What's the problem? Yeah. And you learn, you have a different relationship with the elements in that.
So I'm very grateful and feel very blessed. That was, those were some. Very strong turning points in my life.
I did a road trip with two friends through Mongolia, and it was one of the best. Adventures I've ever had and just, I didn't ex, I didn't know what to expect showing up besides a few videos of people on the step.
And that was it. And to see how diverse the landscape is in Mongolia was really surprising. Like it, it felt almost like traveling in a road trip through the, through America.
Yeah.
Places that looked like Colorado and places that looked like Ireland and Green and waterfalls and the desert that like, it was such a variety of landscape in such a more condensed space and the like, seeing wild horses and the, all the space that there is, everyone's just so nice as well, which I think we often say as Westerners to any place that is, feels magical to us.
But truly everybody was like, sure, what do you need? Not a big deal. Okay. And it was a transforming space. And I keep telling people like go see it. Go explore what's happening there. And I don't know who's taking me up on it yet, but it really was one of the most magical places I've been.
And so thankful that we randomly decided to take that trip between. Both of us having work trips in other parts of Asia.
Come back. There'll be Ira. Yeah. There's milk. So we have worked with, no, we have Mongol Nomad partners in the Bunong Valley in Ang. And we've been leading horse pilgrimages there and we raised, so I raised my children as little, so from little kids and I'm so grateful to Mon Mongolia and Mongolians.
They gave my. Boys, we talk about women and women's rights, but I also believe as a mom, if you can raise men who know how to love women and treat women, right? I say I don't know if I can create world peace, but at least if I can, have influence to have, young men that are respectful women, that's a huge thing.
And so in Mongolia, like my boys would go, had go in the knots with the mother, with the Mongol boys, and they were tough, little boys. They'd like wanna shove 'em off with these little white boys in here and be on these half wild horses, and full Gallup, with and no saddle.
Nothing. And they'd be, at full Gallup for 15 kilometers and some of 'em went up and down and steep hills. And I could tell you a lot of stories of some wild shas and so yeah, anyone wants to come and contact me if you wanna come up and yeah, some horse riding.
'cause it's also the horse is a way of truly and genuinely finding your, it's like another way to create a deep relationship with yourself. The horse is a great. Tool or method to know, recognize their own fears and to go to some deeper places. There, there have been a great companion species for humans for at least 6,000 years.
I think that's actually a great segue into what do you think powerful and ladies mean, and does the definition change when those words are put together for you?
Oh, thank you. Wow. I've met a lot of powerful women in my life. And just to stay on the Mongol theme. Mongol only has they don't have this in Tibet, but they have a tradition of reincarnated women who are considered to be Taras that, and Tara is considered to be like a goddess savior, but they're living, embodying that element or tradition and, men really respect and honor that. And we did a film once on she is a and she had a little 12 sons and she, they treated, I was like, gosh, I think I wanna be a goddess. 'cause if I get my sons treat me like that. They were. They were. She was just amazing. And so when Communism collapsed in Mongolia, she was the very first to be brave enough to say, because they didn't know, is it gonna last maybe?
This will be a short period and then it'll go back to communism. And she was like. No, I am a, I bought a Buddhist woman leader and she went right down to see her hol his Holiness to Dalai Lama, and she had vision. She was very, visionary and she would. And her visions go ride black horses off to these other horse heavens that in traditional Mongolian shamanism.
And she had a vision of creating a forest, which she did that. So in like way, this is in far western in ton far Western Mongolia. She. Planted a forest, very crazy visionary. So powerful women. I feel so blessed to have met many powerful women. And then just to give on the other side, so in growing, spending 30 years in Nepal starting many years ago, early, early years interviewed and spent a lot of time with a lot of the ex Kumar. So Nepal has a tradition of living goddesses and it's complex. The, these are little girls that are, were identified very young prepubescent, and they're considered to be the incarnation of the Godde. Tall you, but they're considered to have so much power that like, there was a sad story.
One of the ladies told us how when she was a child, there was a man and he came very sick. Probably. It sounds like he probably had tuberculosis. He was coughing a lot, but he, so he prostrated in front of her and a little spittle. Accidentally dropped on her toe and everyone in the room went. And even him, he looked at her horrified.
His eyes wide open and. The next day he died and she was so terrified that maybe she, the goddess. No, I have this goddess in me. Maybe I killed this man. So the raw, fierce power of, that. And so when we look at patriarchy, et cetera, a lot of will say they're just trying to contain that.
Men are very terrified of that sheer wooden Hindu.
Yeah.
Terminology we call Shakti is, is such a radiant, powerful source. It's the origin of all life that women have within them, of all, even me as an old biddy, plausible. I will still have that power and that many folks will tremble at the notion of, of powerful women and women have been burned at the stake midwives, the which is the birth and that magic, but then that the fear or the terror of strong women. And yet, and then what's very painful is to see when we ourselves even buy into the patriarchy, so to speak, and then clamp ourselves down.
And deny our own power. And at the same time, like I'm not one of those people that just think, oh. I love Barbie, by the way. I don't know if anybody's seen it or not. I loved it and I love so good. I love when it's we're not really totally ready. We'll keep the Supreme Court all women at this time.
Yeah, I thought that was one of the best lines there. But is, and to be incarnate in a woman's body. Yeah, we have a lot of traditional Buddhist sayings where, you know, actually. We have more potential for enlightenment in a woman's body than a man even, because we interesting have space and we have that room, and so we have that wisdom and we have compassion.
But at the same time, I'm not sure that, personally, I don't think gender is really related to compassion because women. Can be cruel and horrible. Anyone who knows I dunno if anyone's ever read any Margaret Atwood, she's done a great job at how horrific women can be to each other in middle school, et cetera.
And now with social media, with girls, can be, can be very, we can be very, just as horrific to each other. So power with, without compassion, without, without kindness can be dangerous. That's all. Yeah.
When you look at what's coming up for you in the next year, what are you excited about?
Oh
gosh, I got a lot happening.
So in this moment you're catching me and I am about to go on a big journey with National Geographic and we'll be going to Brazil and it's very exciting 'cause the indigenous peoples, when we talk about grandma and I still don't believe I'm fighting for this.
Thing when we realize how indigenous peoples are really the stewards of the planet, how 80% of the greatest biodiversity on the planet is in places where indigenous peoples have left and held onto those pieces and they're, they have to fight all the time to keep those lands from to be protected.
And Brazil is one of those places and very good news with the current president. They've just all met all of the tribal leaders and and it's looking like even for larger than Brazil, for regionally on trying to protect the rainforest, which is like a lung of our planet. Yeah. Earth. And I'll be going from there to Borneo.
I'm very excited. And other pla and which is just so rich in biodiversity and also very rich in indigenous peoples. We'll be seeing a lots of different kinds of elephants on this trip from cool elephants to the domesticated el elephant, which in Asia, what's fascinating when we look at elephants compared to then in Africa, where we have the large African elephant.
Is what we don't think about is so with the loss of biodiversity on this planet, with the mass extinction that has gone on of animals in my lifetime, most people don't realize that over 85% of all mammals on this planet are US humans and our domesticated animals. So as someone who spent. 20 years living with nomads in Mongolia.
I'm very fascinated by our human relationship to animals, from microbes to yaks. And when we look so like with the domesticated elephant in in Asia, the challenges are like during COVI in Thailand. There was without tourists, there was nobody to even feed the elephants because we're like, look, we don't need them anymore.
We're not logging with them anymore. We don't need them. But that's a 3000 year old relationship humans have had. With those animals. So I'm very excited for that trip. Yeah. I am, I'm very excited. I'm heading off with another fabulous, powerhouse woman who I strongly recommend you interview in the future, Christine Amor.
LaVar. And we're gonna be going off into the Gobi that'll be in March. Cool. Minus 45 to go to the thousandth Camel Festival. Come along if you like. Cara, come join us. Yeah it takes a little bit of madness. I'm really love with doctrine, camels. There're like the. Mack trucks of the silk, of the Silk Road historically.
Again humans had, this, these are 3000 year old relationships, and they're not like those grumpy drama d the one humped. These are like the Cadillacs of camels because they're big and fuzzy and furry. And again, you know what happens as. Ways of living change. And our humans, these animals that we relied on to live with.
And, Mongols as I know, Cara, like the weeping camel when say a baby doesn't ca baby Camel won't milk from its mother. They have songs that they'll sing, humans sing that actually will help the mothers. The mother camel, milk will drop and so it can nurse so the baby can nurse and live.
And so the humans and the animals are very close and very intimate and I think you become a different kind of human, like the Mongols think if you don't have a herd, you're actually only half human. So beautiful. Different human. So I'm busy working on a book project and so I have a book.
I run a nonprofit foundation with a fellow National Geographic explorer. She's a marine biologist named Tierney Tee. Absolutely unbelievable, extraordinary woman. And we're, asking the question, what could we wear in a post petroleum future? And so we are, we have been, it was our COVID mental health project, and we, interviewing people all over the world, indigenous communities. Not only looking at the common like you would think, yeah. Oh, we're such a weird species. How did we even wait to wear clothes in the first place? We lost our hair and then, from after skins and we call 'em the big five.
'cause mostly for most of human history, we've been wear wearing cotton, wool, silk, hemp, and linen. Then they're the uncommon. So we've been exploring and finding, lotus fibers in Cambodia and Bart cloth in Uganda and Muskox in Alaska, and, pineapple with the in, in the Philippines, and.
These extraordinary other kinds of fibers that humans have been yuming and then talking with cutting edge scientists who are creating, using microbes. And then the feedstock is really fascinating. They're using leftover. There's a company in Mexico, they're using the fruit waste left after you've made fruit juice.
They're using agricultural waste. Sometimes they're even using. Carbon waste left actually from factories as we're trying to create. So the future of the world as we ask, is gonna be in terms of food, clothing, and shelter, because of this huge loss of biodiversity, the loss of habitat, loss of many of our animals it's going to food.
So we have decide what are we, are we going to wear, are we going to feed ourselves? A lot of people think the future will be eating bugs, so I. Such a fabulous time. Just a year ago I was up in Assam and I was chasing after two extraordinary varieties of moths. So one is the Erie silk moth, and it is also known as a himsa, or because it's true, you don't have to boil.
Larvae to make silk because it has a unique kind of cocoon and you can take the larvae out. But since the second century, when as the the tribal peoples of the assamese. Forest have been RA raising and rearing the Erie. They take them out and they eat them for protein. And so it's actually quite amazing 'cause they're, people come in and say we need more and more.
And they say I can't eat that much. I can eat this much so I'll only grow this much. So it's very much in relationship and they eat totally different kinds of tree leaves, not the mulberry we think of with the Bumex moay. And then there is. The moga silk, which is the most expensive silk found on this planet.
And it, it creates this magnificent, golden thread. And it's absolutely extraordinary. But the challenge is that just like humans, these silk worms are very sensitive to temperature change. So we're trying to work with geneticists as well, and looking on, not only do we have to figure out how we're gonna adapt with climate change and the, and is also.
All of the different animals that we cove with and coexist with. But I'm absolutely, I have, they're very funny. Quick story, but I accidentally, so one of the farmers, he said here and he gave me a whole big pile of the of the cocoons. And I said, oh, great. 'cause it, it's absolutely. Just mystical and magical to watch them spin.
And make the cocoons, it's just amazing. But, so he gave me that and I thought, oh, this will be great. I can use them for educational. We have exhibitions all over. And so I put it in a plastic bag, didn't think of anything. Flew to Cap, Mandu, didn't think of it, flew home, didn't think of anything, and.
And I opened it up and I said to tyranny and my partner said, oh my God these smell really bad. Just pop them at the oven at three 50 and sterilize 'em and send them to me. So a few days went by, I opened the back and an enormous, beautiful, gorgeous. Moth silk fluttered out. I was, I'm every custom officer's, nightmare.
And, but I was like, and and then I didn't, and then I was like, come on. The, I wanted the other I was I had wanted the other cocoons and I was all alone. My husband wasn't around. And so I had the most profound. He, it lived, it was obviously probably a male. It lived for about six days and he must have said, where am I?
I'm not in the Indo ra ecosystem anymore. I, but I can tell you that I, the, my emotional feeling like as a, you can even bond insects. And so I was down in Oaxaca where we were try looking after wild silks there, excuse me. There're wild cottons that they've been growing since, Aztec times that they don't, doesn't need any water.
Don't need to. Whoa. It's forest. And they also though, they grow Bombak, Morai that the Spaniards brought over. And the, they, the women say, oh, we do it. We do it at home. We feed our worms before we feed our children. So they be cut. They're part of the family. So deep interconnected, multispecies interspecies relationships is something that I'm very interested in right now.
I love that. So I have three rapid questions for you to wrap up today so we can get you back to your busy life. The first is we ask everyone on the podcast where they put themselves in the Powerful Lady scale. If zero is an average everyday human and 10 is the most powerful lady you can imagine, where would you score yourself today and on an average day?
Oh, that's so interesting. So first of all, obviously there's many kinds of power. Yeah. If I was to talk about internal power, spiritual power, it's just be nice and give ourselves a five in between. Okay, perfect. That's a nice balanced place to be. So there's room to grow, but there's been a little bit of growth.
I think the only, what I would love to see for myself is the power. I really do believe that only through collaboration, through connection with other powerful women, we are stronger. That the Chenga Han, his mother said to him, now look, brothers, stop fighting. And you be like, arrows.
If you're a single arrow, I can just break you over my knee. But if you're five arrows together, I can't break you. And so I hope, I would hope to connect with other powerful women, and then I'm sure I could make it up to a 10, but together.
Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. For everybody who wants to connect, support you, go on an exhibition.
Learn about all the fabrics that you and Tierney are finding. Where can they do that? Where can they connect and follow?
Absolutely. We have a website called around the World in 80 fabrics. We also have Instagram, find us on Instagram, or they're around the world in 80 fabrics. And yeah, please.
Please come find us and join our journey. And we love makers. We love to profile women. We like to try to support other women and in their process and in their journey and and especially around textiles and the creation. We're in a material revolution right now. So we ask you to come and us.
Love that. The last question we've been asking everyone this year is, what can we create for you? What are you trying to manifest? What's on your wishlist? This is a powerful connected community. What do you need? How can we help?
Right now we are actually, we are in a fundraising process right now.
And we're trying to raise funds because we have this extraordinary collection that we've gathered of unique fabrics from all over the world and unique stories, and we're looking to try to have some exhibitions. And so if anyone wants to come along and to join us in supporting that, we'd be really grateful.
And, even. It doesn't matter. Tiny, small elements, but we also love stories and we wanna we really wanna connect the world and connect women through textiles to transform the world and understand the ecosystems and the natural history of where our fabrics come from.
It has been such a pleasure to get this hour with you.
We could definitely talk for hours more. So hopefully we'll have you back one day. But thank you so much for your time and who you are in the world and the inspiration that you are to me, to Kendra and everyone who's now, I'm sure a huge fan after listening.
Thank you, Kara. Thank you and all your listeners.
Thank you
all the links to connect with Carol, her expeditions, and around the world at IIE Fabrics or in our show notes@thepowerfulladies.com. Please subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening and leave us a rating and review. Come join us on Instagram at Powerful Ladies and connect directly with me@karaduffy.com or Kara under Duffy on Instagram.
I'll be back next week at the brand new episode. Until then, I hope we're taking on being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love.
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Episode 255: How Curiosity + Conservation Can Save the Planet | Dr. Tierney Thys | NatGeo Explorer & Filmmaker
Episode 247: She Built a Career on Generosity | Sunny Bates | Founder, Author, Master Connector & Recruiter
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Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
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