Ep. 11: Interview with Peter Bigfoot

SHOW DESCRIPTION

Amadon DellErba interviews Peter Bigfoot, a survivalist, naturalist, herbalist, and legendary mountain man who lives deep in the Superstition Mountains east of Phoenix, Arizona. Peter is founder and director of Reevis Mountain School of Self-Reliance where he passes on his vast body of knowledge to intrepid students from around the world.

In their conversation, Amadon & Peter discuss the spiritual nature of embracing life’s challenges and their journeys of self-discovery. Peter shares stories and insights from his 40 years living away from society in the mountains of Arizona, including his near-death experience during his 1975 solo trek through the desert wilderness.

Together,  Amadon and Peter discuss metaphysical topics such as the mind being in control of the body, meditation, the body-mind vs. the spirit-mind, and the fact of our existence as eternal spiritual beings. They talk about getting real, taking action, practicing self-mastery, and having an "attitude of gratitude." It is greater to ask, "What can I give?" rather than be a taker; being a servant of each soul you meet. 

Amadon honors Peter for his choice to continue growing and learning new things. Over the years Peter has taken steps to become less self-righteous, evolving in his own understanding of the world and his place in eternity. Episode 11 is a beautiful conversation between two souls who have embraced challenges and allowed adversity to forge their unique characters.

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TRANSCRIPT

Amadon:
When a house is on fire, you don't just say, “Oh, it's not on fire…” because it's on fire! You feel the flame, you feel the heat, you see the flames, you see it burning, and you acknowledge it. Our souls can...

Peter Bigfoot:
Now what's important is, how do you feel about that? How do you deal with the loss? And so when something tragic happens in our lives, it's an opportunity to see what we’re made out of.

Amadon:
“Nothing You Do Matters Unless What You Do Matters”
I’m Amadon DellErba and this is “Get Real or Die Trying”
Hey tribe. Amadon DellErba here. Welcome to my show: Get Real or Die Trying. “Nothing you do matters unless what you do matters.”
I'm in a very special location here in Arizona. I am in the Superstition Mountains, deep in the wilderness here, about 10 miles off-road into the mountains at the Reevis Mountain School of Self-Reliance.

What's special about this place is this is where my parents met about 34 years ago, for the first time. And from there, the journey began in their lives. So if it wasn't for this place, I may not exist. This is where my parents met and they were both here coming to a meditation retreat led by Peter Bigfoot here.

I'm very excited to be here with Peter Bigfoot. I've heard a lot about him over the years from my father, from my mother. I followed some of his work and his remedies and met people and it's taken a long time to get back in here and get here. So I'm excited to be here and sit down with the mountain man, Peter Bigfoot. How you doing, Peter?

Peter Bigfoot:
It's a lovely day.

Amadon:
So tell, tell me, a little bit, or tell our audience a little bit about your school here and how this came about. You've been here for 40 years now. You have this beautiful piece of land. You teach self-reliance. You teach health and herbal remedies and so forth. And how did this come about? And just let everybody know a little bit about yourself.

Peter Bigfoot:
Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to have a farm someplace out in the country and, did a lot of world travels and things. And I think in the back of my mind, I was always looking for that special place to make a farm. And I watched where those successful farms and places that people had out in the wild somewhere, and I’d think, “what did they see?” you know, before they had that farm there. “What does the land look like?” And all that sort of thing. And I'd be noticing.  And then when I found this place, it was like, “Wow, this is it. Everything I've been looking for.”  And people thought, you're crazy. What do you want? There's nothing there. But for me, everything was here. There was mountains, there was good soil, there was a little stream going through it, and it was remote and way back here in the wilderness. And, I think I may have even had some previous incarnations here...was one of the Indians around this place. And, so then, it just felt like home.  

And so how do you...how do I go about...I didn't even know who owned it. Before this, even, I got...I did this trek.  I'd always wanted to be able to live off the land.  Like, I envy deer, bears, and stuff - they didn't own anything and they just take off wild and free.  And it was so attractive to me that a person could do that. And so I would, I set out and most of my life ever since I was a kid wanting to know how do you live off the land?  And, being a human being, it seems like our needs are pretty...lots of them, you know, because we're just these helpless pink things, you know...you know we don't have any fur or scales or anything, you know, to protect us. So we have to have stuff, too. And I tried to be the hard guy and everything. And eventually I finally gave in to realize, you know, that we need food and water and clothes and stuff like that to protect us from the elements. So I could go without, okay. So, but, the creatures, you know, and they had the fur and everything and they just go wandering around and everything was there that they needed.  So I tried that and I got pretty good at it. 

Amadon:
Tell me about your trek that you did in 1975. 

Peter Bigfoot:
That was an enormous, life changing experience and like a new direction in life. So I had a friend drop me off out in the desert, a long ways from any human habitation.  And the thing that made it challenging for me - cause I'd done a lot of developing skills in this area - was that it was July 11th, I think, and it was one of the hottest, driest summers we ever had here in Arizona.  And I set out to hike to the top of a mountain that was 85 miles away...85 miles away and I left without taking any food or water.  And it was...the daytime temperatures, I took a little thermometer with me just to see why I was feeling so miserable and it went up to 135.  Was as high as the thermometer would go, and it was red lined most of the time during the day.

So I ate some cactus and things, but it was, I think my first day out I had, like, I covered about 10 miles before I got to water. And then when I got to the water, there was a decomposed dead cow in the water. So it was quite a test of my resolve in a lot of ways - spiritually as well as physically - and I was...I think I probably hiked for at least two hours of that day without any moisture whatsoever in my mouth. And, so I nearly died of dehydration that first day. And then I decided that, when I found this waterhole with a dead cow and the water was kind of like black tomato soup or something. I wasn't thinking about drinking it. I was going to try to get to another place that was two miles from there and I’d have never made it. I sat down and meditated for a while, and this helped. It saved me lots of times throughout this trek.  When things were looking bad - I didn't, I was dying of dehydration or one thing or another, or I needed to know which way to go - I would just, instead of going into a panic, like, “Oh, I’m gonna die!  I’m gonna die” or anything like that. I would just sit down and meditate and I’d get in this really blissful state of… And then I would, all of a sudden just get... an idea would come into my head about what all to do next and I'd go do it and everything would work out just fine. But, um, the first lesson was about attitude. And so here I have this black gook, but it's wet. It's 135 degrees out. Water was essential. Anything that was wet was okay. So, so anyway, I meditated and then it just got this idea about attitude. Your attitude is your altitude, you know? And so I just had a bad attitude about this ugly water. 

So I got, there happened to be some horehound herb growing nearby and it's a very powerful flavor, but it also has a very purifying effect on your body. So, I started a little fire there and got my, I had a little one gallon bucket with me and I took that full of this black gook and I cooked it for a little while and put the horehound in it. I figured the horehound has such a powerful flavor that I wouldn't be able to taste how ugly this water was. And it worked. So, I probably drank about three gallons of this stuff and I survived and it really impressed upon me how important our attitude is. And we can be in control of the attitude switch. We can switch it to... so you want utopia, just imagine that you're in utopia no matter where it is and you can have it. It's only a matter of attitude.

Amadon:
You know, one thing, one thing you said that stood out to me is just how the mind is in control of the body. So your physical body is there failing, you're in the desert, you're dehydrated, your body's weak. And what got you to push through was your meditation and the mind. And I think a lot of people who've pushed their bodies and their minds to the extreme of survival or ultra athletes are doing anything that really pushes the max. They’ll all tell you that it's not the muscle. It's not the body. It's the mind. And I think in life too, people who've accomplished things on a spiritual level or have gone places and achieved their goals. They have strong minds and strong commitments.

Peter Bigfoot:
Yeah and I'd filter that out even more. And that is, I think this is what makes meditation so important is that there's a third component and that is our spirit self. 

Amadon:
Absolutely. 

Peter Bigfoot:
And so I think that, well, I have my body-mind and I have my spirit-mind. And it's the spirit mind that made the difference. And makes the difference in all of our life.

Amadon:
Well what’s attracted me to, to your teachings, so to speak is that you've, you've combined, it's not just about the herbs that you're eating and you're finding are the survival techniques. You've combined the spiritual element. So you had the material body, but you've also brought in the spirit body and the spiritual body, and you've combined these things and the importance. Teaching people, the importance of that, the mental-, spiritual-state has to be healthy and fed, not just the physical body. Your true healing comes from the combination and basically consciousness. You can't just pop herb's and be healed. There has to be a process. And we were talking yesterday and you talked about, that you just help people to realize that they can heal themselves through plant medicine, basically. 

Peter Bigfoot:
True.

Amadon:
But it's also a spiritual process. I think for people, you don't necessarily say, or maybe you do, but like say, “Oh, you have to do this and do that,” from a spiritual perspective, but it just emanates from your philosophy of how to approach healing. And so people realize that there has to be an intentional, spiritual, consciousness process to it. And I think that's the key for healing in any, any situation. And you were talking yesterday too, with my father about cancer. What really stood out to me. One thing you said about cancer is that people get cancer, basically from being imprisoned and misery and being stuck and being, you know, unhappy basically. And my, father talks about how the disease manifests in the body from being out of, you know, your destiny-alignment, being out of God's will, being out of what you should be doing with your life and basically being miserable and being unhappy and your body systems break down. And I think what I've admired about you is you pursued something beautiful here. Like we're like 10 miles deep into this mountain range. Only 4x4 vehicles can get in here. And you wanted your farm and your garden and your, and your school. It's more than just a farm, it’s a school, a place of education and enlightenment and consciousness. And you pursued that. And I think you've been blessed because you had the courage to stick it through and pursue it. And you were telling us the story yesterday about how you attained this place, which was quite amazing (in itself) 40 years ago, and it all coming together. But I just wanted to say that I think, you know, in knowing your story the trek, knowing your journey of attaining this place and where you come to today, is that in many ways, you're kind of like my father's thing is you have a Holy man essence about you and you may not push this on people, but I think people realize that wow, they have to have a consciousness shift to truly heal or the herbs don't even work. 

Peter Bigfoot:
Yeah, absolutely. I think that what came to me over studying metaphysics for years and practicing it and just wanting to be this, is that, they come to the realization that we're eternal spiritual beings and that we have a body for our entertainment. And because we're eternal beings, you know, eternal like forever? Spirit. And then, we have a body that we treasure and experience life in the solid world with. And I think what's so important is to realize that we have a body, we're not the body. It makes all the difference in the world. And it's easy to just say stuff like this, but to actually realize it in our lives is really important. And that we can stand aside from what's going on with our body and in the spirit... from the spiritual realm, see, you know, what's going on and it, it's kind of like, well, you know, the times get tough or something they might say, “Well, it's a good movie.” You know, it isn't really what's happening. And because, we're eternal beings. And it gives us a whole different perspective about life and what's going on.
And okay, so what's the purpose in life? Well, it's to experience life and be happy and create yourself however you want to be. It’s about that in a nutshell for me. And then anything that happens along the way is just an opportunity to experience real life and not stand away from it, but just get right in there and enjoy whatever's going on and see the lesson in it. Yeah, that just made a tremendous difference for me when I came to that realization. And with one of the simplest things that you can possibly imagine is sit comfortably and intentionally not think. Hardly anybody can do it. It takes years, but it's, to me, meditation is consciously not thinking, but with the intention of developing a relationship with my forever self. It's all so simple. It’s all so incredibly simple. And so we're here for the entertainment and the enjoyment of being in a physical form, but that's not who we are. It's what we have. And to be able to come to that realization is a constant practice of meditation and just living it, to the best we can. But to just read about it or hear somebody talk about it. Well, it's kind of interesting, but it doesn't get it done. So it's an, it becomes a life practice, you know, an intention, constantly being aware of this and making it real in your life. And it's a simple and honesty and accountability are paramount in this sort of thing as well, because you can… It's absolutely senseless to lie to yourself about what's going on. It’s just, “get real,” like you say. “Get real” is being totally honest about what's happening and do something about it.

Amadon:
Yeah, I think it's interesting how we as human beings can fool ourselves and not be real with ourselves. When a house is on fire, you don't just say, “Oh, it's not on fire,” because it's on fire! You feel the flame, you feel the heat, you see the flames, you see it burning and you acknowledge it. Our souls can...

Peter Bigfoot:
Now what's important. Is what, how do you feel about that? How do you deal with the loss? And so when something tragic happens in our lives, it's an opportunity to see what we’re made out of.

Amadon:
Yeah. Test us.

Peter Bigfoot:
How are we going to deal with it? 

Amadon:
Yeah. And so, you know, the physical house is on fire but if there's, something's happening in our soul and our psychology and our consciousness it's on fire, but we can, we can go on denying it for so long. So getting honest with ourselves is part of that healing process, and you said accountability as well, and vulnerability. And what do we do with these experiences in life that test us and bring us to the max? And we hit rock bottom or challenges, you know. So many great men and women throughout time who've been studied later on after they’ve passed on, and they've accomplished things in their lives and their souls have been recognized for what they've accomplished. They've all talked about how challenges basically shaped their decision making in their character.

Peter Bigfoot:
And so here's what the challenge offers. I feel horrible about my house just burnt down. That's my honesty. But here comes the cure. I would rather feel joyful. I would rather see the lesson in it. I would rather be okay about it and… But first, we have to admit how we feel about it, that's the real part. And then the next is, “Well, what am I going to do from here?”
I burned my barn down one day and there was a horrible feeling of shame and embarrassment and everything. I was killing spiders, poisonous spiders in there with a torch and it got dark out and I thought, well… I came in here, to make dinner and stuff and I was all tired out, so I'd watch a video or whatever and then I went to bed and all of a sudden I heard this huge explosion down there. There was a little spark in there, somewheres that I didn't see and the wind came up in the evening and sparked that thing and the barn burnt down. I stayed up all night fighting that fire.
So the next day the sun comes up and I think... because we have other owners of the property, we've formed a corporation when we have a dozen owners. And I think, “Oh my God, what am I gonna tell these guys?” and everything, you know, and then sun came up and I acknowledged, you know, how I felt and everything about it. I had all night to think about it while I was fighting the fire. And the next day I said, this is not going to spoil my day. And then I started joking around with the neighbors and stuff like, “So I hear you burned your barn down?” And I said, “No, I think I burned it up.” Stuff like that, you know? But anyway, then the owners came up here. And they were very judgmental to me about burning the thing down. Because it used to be an eyesore and now, all of the sudden, it was a historic monument that had burnt down. And so it caught me by surprise. I was so pleased with myself that I was able to come out of this feeling okay.  I went from feeling horrible to thinking, well, I'd rather feel different and I just, it was not phony or anything, I just felt okay with the whole thing.

Amadon:
You had the intention.

Peter Bigfoot:
But it's just another, you know, there's something else to do, you know, in your body. And that caught me by surprise was their judgment and stuff of me. So I had something else to work on. Don't feel bad about that. You know, these guys I thought were my friends and that they'd see it was okay, and they don't, and so that's okay. So I feel horrible about that and now I gotta feel okay about that too. So...

Amadon:
Plenty of curve balls in life that we gotta adapt and catch and change and

Peter Bigfoot:
Feel how horrible a thing feels or whatever it is, you know, be honest, totally honest about how you feel and then decide what you want to do about it.

Amadon:
Yeah. So when you... back... Let's circle back all the way to your trek back in 1975 and you're in the desert and you're dehydrated, you're hot, you're about to die. You know, where did your mind go to? I know you said you meditated, but what was the end goal? Like some people, they're committed to their vision so they're gonna, they're going to push through; an ultra marathoner, “I'm gonna run that 50 miles.” And their end goal and their end game is finishing the goal line. So they just focus on that. You know, your end goal was getting 85 miles and getting their...

 Peter Bigfoot:  
But my end goal, my real end goal was being present. 

Amadon:
Yeah, that's what...

Peter Bigfoot:
Just being out and being present with what's happening every day.

Amadon:
That's what I thought. Cause it wasn't so much about the hike.

Peter Bigfoot:
In a sense it was, almost like going for a walk with Jesus or something. 

Amadon:
Yeah.

Peter Bigfoot:
I just felt totally comforted and my spirit was running the show 

Amadon:
I love it. Yeah. Alone in the wilderness.

Peter Bigfoot:
No way I could have made it otherwise.

Amadon:
Yeah. And that's what I, you know, to me it's not the physical knowledge that you had of surviving, because you knew what to eat, you knew where to drink. It was the spiritual determination. And I think that's what people in the world, when they hear about stories like yours and others, they're attracted to the mindset actually, not so much the accomplishment, they think they're attracted to the accomplishment. “Oh, this guy,” whatever. ran a, you know, 150 miles, or this guy walked 85 miles in the desert or whatever these people do... They're attracted to the mental capacity and the determination and the spiritual drive to whatever it is they were able to, conquer their mind, conquer their weakness, to achieve that great goal. And in life it could be, you don't have to walk the 85 miles in the desert, in life there’s complications. These complications and struggles occur when you're trying to achieve great things. Just even trying to achieve your farm here in your school. It's like you have to have the determination. There were times probably where you're like, “Is this ever going to work? Am I gonna do this?” And you've, you've always pushed through because the spiritual faith, determination, resilience, you know, and I think...

Peter Bigfoot:
There’s another side to this and that is that, I have a goal. But the goal really isn't very important. It's just something to give me a direction. So I wanted to get to the top of that Four Peaks Mountain that was 85 miles away. That was just a direction, but the goal is to be fully present in the journey because I didn't really need to get to the top of that mountain, but I just wanted to fully be fully present in what I was doing at the time. Because the goal is always, can be, a disappointment. If the goal is all we want, it's the journey that matters more than anything else. How well did we do the journey? And so some... sometimes it's a physical marathon type thing, you know, where you want to push through and you get there, but once again, it's the journey, the goal isn't that important once you get there. Always the journey. And this thing here, you know, I've created a little paradise in the wilderness and that's really great, but it's the journey.

Amadon:
Yeah. I think an unfortunate thing of today's society, which you're pretty removed from out here, but in the world, people have become so impatient. They want instant gratification, materialism has taken over. It's all goal oriented. The journey doesn't mean anything. They'll do anything. They can step on anyone, cut corners, just to get to whatever they think their goal is. And there's such an impatience to our society. And, a sense of... really it's to me, it's instant gratification. We've become so used to things happening overnight. We want what we want. Technology's done that. Society has done that. We’ve created an anxiety. We've created a culture of unacceptance of, you know, basically you're not happy till you get what you want and oftentimes getting what you want; the happiness is in the process of getting it. Essentially I'm never going to get what I want in life. And so I’m happy...

Peter Bigfoot:
And so if all they do is get what they want, they missed the journey. They didn’t get what they really want.  

Amadon:
What they realized is, “Oh, I'll be happy when I get the nice house and the wife.” and then they get it...

Peter Bigfoot:
It’s the hunky dory story.

Amadon:
They're not happy. Yeah. “Okay. I'll be happy when I get two more cars... or the boat,” and they get all that. Okay. They have to keep changing their benchmark to be happy when really the whole time, you know, and that's... In this constant pursuit of this false reality, you know? One of the catch lines in my podcast is ‘the pursuit to self-mastery’ because I think to me the spiritual process of being a conscious citizen on this planet, in this universe, is that our goal is to master ourselves and to master how we exist in this world. But not just this world... how we exist in the universe at large. The intelligent, created universe, the magical universe, and how we are conscious beings. And you know, self-mastery... I can't control you. I can't control anybody, but I can control myself. Well, that's debatable, but…

[laughter]

That's the goal; control myself and self mastery.

Peter Bigfoot:
Controlling one's self is really an awful lot about attitude.

Amadon:
Yeah. Shift your attitude. There was a great man who was a... Who was like my father's right hand, man, helping to start our community years ago. His name was Santeen and he said, have an attitude of gratitude, an attitude of gratitude.

Peter Bigfoot:
Absolutely.

Amadon:
And that was the mantra.

Peter Bigfoot:
So important.

Amadon:
And it just changes your mindset so much when you tap into that attitude of gratitude. It's the opposite of what I was just talking about, where you're always pursuing and you need more, you need more, and you're always ungrateful and you're never happy. You can be grateful with anything anywhere in your attitude. An attitude shift is so... The mind is so powerful and people don't realize it. You know, they can be sitting with the fire burning all around them and not get up and do anything about it. Cause, “Oh my God, it's the end of the world”  in their mind and all you have to do is just change your mind, change your mindset, and do something and your reality changes. You know? the perception of reality is all filtered through our own mind. So you and I could be in the exact same situation and experience two different things because of how we choose to perceive the reality around us.

Peter Bigfoot:
You know an interesting little mystery is that, you said about changing our mindset. Who is it that makes the change? 

Amadon:
Yeah. 

[laughter]

Peter Bigfoot:
There’s somebody in there besides the mind.

Amadon:
Yeah. Yeah, there's a different... you know, The URANTIA Book that I read and study and have been my whole life talks about the Thought Adjuster. It’s a pretty complex thing to get into now, but there's a, if you're interested, check it out, the thought adjuster in The URANTIA Book. And, of course we're all in dwelt with the spirit of, of the Creator within us, you know, and that's the Spirit of Truth. And the Fragment of the Father is what The URANTIA Book teaches, called the Fragment of the Father, the Universal Father of All, the Creator of All. And we have that within us to tap into it, tap into any time. Now some people don't know that. Some people have different names for it, but it's all the same thing. It's spirit. You're talking about being immortal spiritual beings, Is-Be’s, and we are immortal spiritual beings that were created, in that sense. And we can tap into that, but we also have responsibility to conduct ourselves in each incarnation of our lives in a manner that's going to be conducive for our own spiritual growth, but be servants of all, of humanity. Like, I think that when people don't live their life, like we don't realize that, “Wow, we're all on this planet. We all have something to give. What am I going to give to the planet, to the world, the people around me?” Cause we say, “Wow, what am I going to take? What am I going to get? What am I going to attain? How am I going to mine this mountain here and take some gold out?”

Peter Bigfoot:
That is so huge. It is so huge.

Amadon:
So the mindset.

Peter Bigfoot:
Go through life asking, “What do I have to give?” is a whole lot more powerful than... because you have to have something to give something. So it's an affirmation almost... if you have something to give, you already have it or you couldn't give it. And “What can I give?” That is so important.

Amadon:
Yep. Be a giver. Be a servant of all.
Well, my friend we’re running out of time here, but just to a circle the story for our audience here, Peter Bigfoot, we're here at Reevis Mountain School of Self-Reliance. The school has been here for about 40 years and in those 40 years, he's probably taught thousands of people, different workshops, educating people on health and wellness and whole being, gardening, off-grid living, different things... Am I missing anything? Touch healing. And so he's a man of much knowledge and wisdom and experience. And one thing I wanted to touch on before we end, actually I really liked is that you've evolved. And we were talking yesterday yourself, “You know, 30 years ago I thought you had to be a vegetarian. If you weren't, you were this and that.” And you had self-righteousness you said, you know? And you've evolved and whatever those things are, it's so important that we evolve as human beings. I loved reading in your little book yesterday, you said, “I was a vegetarian for 30 years, about 28 years too long!”

[laughter]

But you know, that takes…

Peter Bigfoot:
Absolutely right.

Amadon:  
It takes humility to admit that. I'm not, this isn't about being a vegetarian, not being a vegetarian. It's about the concept of the realization and the evolving out of something and having the humility to recognize that and say, “Wow, you know?” And it doesn't matter what it is that you're recognizing, you had the humility to change and adapt and I think as we grow as human beings we can get so stuck on: “This is the way to live.” “This is the way to think.” “This is the book to read.” “This is the food to eat.” “This is the shirt to wear.” And we can impose that upon other people. And in your wisdom now, years and years of living, you've kind of gotten more like... you have gotten more wise.

Peter Bigfoot:
I feel like I’ve gone through about 20 lifetimes in this one lifetime. 

Amadon:
Yeah. It’s incredible.

Peter Bigfoot:
Because I keep looking for the next higher truth and next... I'm willing to let go of old ideas and go get onto what seems to be the next best thing.

Amadon:
And that's key, cause... I honor you for that because I know people who... they don't do that because it's a power trip and they have what they think works for them and that's it and they don't evolve from that and they're stuck and they're in this box and it's a little controlled mindset and that's how they live. They don't evolve from that. I think it's very cool because you could have stayed stuck in your philosophy, your theology, your consciousness, your way of living, and that works for you and this is it and people come here... But you've constantly changed and evolved and maybe in 10 years we'll have another conversation and you'll be on a whole other plane and so I respect that and it's a good example to people. I know that a lot of people come here seeking knowledge and wisdom and to learn from you. And that's a good thing to teach is the... to evolve. There's always new revelation. Truth is an expanding thing. Truth is a... is expanding upon the times that we live in.
Thanks for talking. I'm really glad to be here. Like I said, it's a special moment. I wouldn't, you know... my parents met here 34 years ago and this is, that was the start of their journey together and they were here on a spiritual journey, so to speak. They were both... times in their life where they're looking for what to do next in their life and they both had a calling and they had a supernatural and incredible experience here at Peter Bigfoot's meditation retreat that he was leading at the time and it was the start and the journey of their life and consequently my life because I was born as a result.

[laughter]

So I thank you. And I think if all you've done here and the education, the wisdom and the love you’ve imparted upon people and the land. You're a good steward of the land. You've held the land with integrity and honor. So I respect that about you and you’ve stayed true to your commitment and your vision, because you could have given up and done anything with your life and you... People are so fickle and you stayed through 40 years. You're still here and you're still committed. So I commend you for that, sir. 

Peter Bigfoot:
It was emotionally challenging the whole way through. Real tough sometimes, but I stuck with it same like your dad, you know, we stuck with it until we got good at it. So now it's a lot easier, but all the challenges and the difficult times is what, shaped us, shaped our lives. If it was easy, I wouldn't be the person I am now. It was hard and we stuck with it. And the same with your dad, he stuck with his vision and has done great things. So..

Amadon:
You too, you too. Thanks Peter. Enjoy talking to you, sir.
My name is Amadon DellErba and this is “Get Real or Die Trying.”
You just heard an interview with Peter Bigfoot here at the Reevis Mountain School of Self-Reliance.

Check out my website at http://getrealordietrying.com
Leave me a voicemail on Anchor at Anchor.fm/getrealordietrying
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"Get Real or Die Trying with Amadon DellErba" is a production of Global Change Media.
And remember: "Pain is Temporary. Victory is Eternal."