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Welcome fellow travelers this is Jennifer and this is Julie and this is the

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Omnist Trail Podcast where every path leads to the same mountain. We're not here

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to tell you which path to take. We're here to walk a few of them with you. Today is

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Waypoint one of the Omnist Trail Podcast titled What is an Omnist? Before we begin

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here are a few disclaimers. We approach every belief with respect. We are not

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experts, just curious explorers of ideas and our own humanity and personal

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bias may show through it times. We do our best to say on topic. If anything we

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discuss brings up strong feelings or touches a nerve that's okay. Take what's

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useful and leave the rest. Please practice self-care and honor your own window

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of tolerance. Step away or pause if something feels like too much. So in

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beginning our Omnist Trail Podcast we are going to discuss how we found our paths.

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So Jennifer what tradition, if any ,did you grow up in? Thank you Julie. I grew up

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in a Christian church. My family attended ,my uncle was a pastor. We were in

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church on Sundays right , Bible study, followed biblical teachings. Really just

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was an infiltrated part of our our world and our lives. And you know not

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neither good or bad. I think it brought a lot of good values to my life and and what

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I learned and how to treat people and and such. But I think in terms of that

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Christian belief system was just very very traditional. How about yourself?

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Yeah I grew up similar I grew up in the Methodist Church and we went to Sunday

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school and all of that and I attended youth group. It was a little bit more for me.

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It established good values and the notion of helping out other people. We did a

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lot of mission type work like local mission work was kind of cool or go over and

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fix somebody's yard or whatever. And I got a lot out of the community of the

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church I think more so than maybe the teachers. But I learned a lot and I went

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into reading the Bible and all of those things I was very interactive with

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material always I guess. So I was curious about why people believed what they

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did and all of that from an early age. But yeah I grew up very open to lots of

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different ideas. I didn't feel my church was counter to learning about other

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religions and things like that. And we actually did visit other religious

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centers as well when I was in church as a kid. So it was it was kind of a very

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open way of learning about religion. So interesting because yeah then mine

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was a lot more I would say closed it was very much this is the way you should

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believe and follow and very based on those biblical teachings. But I know you

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have a different path now. So was there a specific moment that really opened

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things up for you? Was it a gradual process? Yeah for me it was both it's been

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both. I've had leaps and starts and there was a lot of gradual coming to

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appreciate lots of different ideas. I think I all I think I'm just I was born

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with a more open personality anyway and just gravitated toward learning about

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as much as I could because I didn't necessarily think that other people were

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wrong. I guess I didn't I wasn't taught that really. Sure. And so I was maybe

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I was maybe open to other things and then I as I grew up I had different

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experiences with you could call it mysticism whatever I've had all sorts of

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different experiences in life that kind of affected the way I perceive my

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my belief system. How about you do you think there was something one specific

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thing or I would say more gradual. I definitely got more curious after I try to

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say like in my I was close to 20s meeting my husband meeting just other friends

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and talking about more ideas and starting to research and learn especially a

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lot more about the Celtic mythology and and faith and stuff because that just

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always appealed to me and it was kind of like what does what does that mean though

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and how like do I need to keep walking this Christian path or can I change and

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explore more and over time I just kept exploring and kept exploring and kept

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exploring question yeah yeah so it just I think just that constant like what is

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and what's out there and learning and and over time just even the finding of

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new connections with others and wondering even in some of that witchcraft

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space of like oh you know you grow up hearing that's wrong that's like I'm

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really curious about this I want to learn more about it and then learning about

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the history of it all and all of that absolutely absolutely how you perceive it

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yeah yeah I think to like in your life what has been this is what in your life

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has changed as a result do you think oh I think I've just learned I've learned to

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be a lot more open-minded and I see a lot of the connections from one path to

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the next as our kind of our podcast is wanting to focus on that is not necessarily

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there's a right or wrong but it's oh you know you have this belief I have this

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belief and it's kind of the same thing so it's okay to feel the way I do and to

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embrace my path and follow it yeah but yeah what about yourself anything that

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change for you oh yeah I so for me I think the main difference for me in like

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day-to-day life is that I was raised with a lot of prayer and kind of asking God

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for anything and kind of using using prayer to navigate life and all of that and

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now and opening it up to meditation I feel like I receive a lot of information

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that way I feel like it directs my life in very different ways because I've for

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me I embraced meditation first as as a daily ritual practice many years ago and

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it was in response to the loss of one of my children so it was very effective for

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me in healing and getting into a completely different headspace so it's been

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vital I think and I don't know if I would be as healthy as I am today or as happy

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as I am today without this practice so I'm really grateful that you know I I'm

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really grateful that I was open to it and I'm really grateful that I have been

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practicing for a long time and now have kind of it informs every day of my

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life you mentioned kids because I know the way we connected was kind of through

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our kids since they go to school together and it was so exciting to find that

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connection between our our spiritual paths even though they're similarities and

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there's differences right but from that we've had a great relationship of

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building a coven with some other beautiful women which is not something I think

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growing up right from that traditional Christian household that was not I would

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say now yeah that was not part of Sunday school no not at all finding our

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home at Aumana and incorporating the yogic aspects of life right and then just

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being able to come together and chat about these variety of belief systems that I

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think even expand beyond probably what we've ever thought they could yeah it's

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fascinating it's just a beautiful world it is right and it brought us to

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going we need to create this podcast and here so here we are creation of the

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Omnist Trail podcast but with that what is what is an Omnist what is Omnism yeah

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Omnism is well an Omnist is a person who I mean they know Omnist believes in

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Omnism yeah an Omnism is it's kind of the belief either the belief in or the

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appreciation for all the different religions so it's not necessarily that you

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believe in every religion but you can take and pick and choose different

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aspects of lots of different religions and appreciate and respect all the

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religions because you don't necessarily see it as conflicting you can look at it

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and see that it's human connection to the divine in so many different ways

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and it makes it possible to then kind of have a more tailored approach to your

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belief system as opposed to a package deal that comes with religion at the time

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and I love and fellow travelers please look up our logo because our tagline of

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every path leading to the same mountain kind of gives that Omnistic viewpoint we

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have a rocky trail and a water path and a rickety potential rickety bridge right

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you just never know which path you're gonna be on but all those different trails

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with all their different switchbacks and blocks you know trees down in the road

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kind of thing they all really do end up leading to that same mountain and we

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can visualize that omnistic approach through that through that logo and through

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that view of that mountain metaphor yeah and it I don't think it matters if

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you're on what a religious path a spiritual philosophical you've got

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traditions that we you know we grew up with in our homes and such there really is

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elements of truth to all of them right and so many overlapping truths so what's

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really interesting is when you compare different belief systems crop you know

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through the world so many things repeat there are contradictions but there are

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also contradictions within each religion so you it's it's just a fascinating

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exploration when you can look at all of these ways I think people reach the

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divine and the divine reaches people on the level they want like or on the

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level that will serve them not not necessarily want but where it reaches you

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culturally where it reaches you personally I think people find their way in the

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way that makes sense no I agree and I know we've chatted about that right every

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person is on that path that they need to currently be on finding the way that

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they need to thrive and get through those challenges every day barriers all of

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that which really this is a great lead in fellow travelers to our upcoming

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episodes as our next episode will be talking about where some of those paths

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converge overlap a bit and and then later on we get into episode three we're

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gonna talk about where they diverge yes I'm fascinated by these topics so I'm

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I'm as excited I think as you are yeah to dig into them I've been like I've

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been learning about other religions I've realized for about 34 years well I

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have been fascinated by the entire the entire phenomenon I guess so it's super fun

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for me for sure and I really enjoy geeking out with you yes so fellow travelers

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we would love to hear your questions your thoughts as well as topics you may be

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interested in you can find us at Facebook The Omnist Trail podcast on Instagram

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The Omnist Trail and feel free to just send us an email at podcast@theomnisttrail.com

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so this is Jennifer and this is Julie thanking you for joining us on the path

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today subscribe please tell a fellow traveler to tune in next time and we'll see you

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again