I love Andre Duqum. I often listen to his podcast interviews more than once. Andre interviews guests who use language (and often, Science) to explain the unexplainable.

Andre is 27 y/o and desires to live a ‘big’ life (as I think I have heard him say in listening to him since he began in July 2022).

As a 53 y/o single woman, I don’t desire to live a ‘big’ life. Or rather, I desire to live a small, ‘big’ life.

What Andre’s podcast interviews give me is language, research, and story after story that exalt what I have come to know as true in my quiet, simple, day-to-day life. This truth is in the title of Andre’s podcast: Know Thyself.

I have mentioned a story in past posts, and just last week repeated it to a class of tenth grade students. The storyitell is when I was a young person growing up I experienced what I have come to describe as ‘intensities’. The most obvious one was that I was often ‘loud’. My dad (who is and was quite funny), would have a somewhat exaggerated physical response and tell me to calm down while using his hand as if he were conducting an orchestra to suggest I go from high to low. My mom would often say, ‘Sally’ (sternly to get my attention), and then say ‘just be yourself’. There was something about her advice that resonated. I felt as if it was the correct answer to whatever I considered my problem to be. What I came to later realize in reflection over the course of life to date (and I had this realization probably when I first began my journey back to self), is that I didn’t know who that was.

My only podcast share for the past week is Andre’s final episode for 2024. He shares fifteen highlights from the year. In this YouTube link he includes additional links to each episode should you want to hear in its entirety.

I describe myself as one who feels the world more than I can articulate it. The way I feel about Andre and what he is allowing access to through his podcast, is something I feel as a deep, expansive sense of appreciation and love. Any words I could use in attempt to articulate this feeling would lessen the abundance of gratitude I have for who he is and how he chooses to share his unique gifts.

Here is Andre’s link to his journal prompts – I have never faced such an exhaustive year end review. I navigated the prompts this morning after listening to the entirety of the podcast over the last two mornings – often pausing and playing back to listen again.

I didn’t answer each question. I have no doubt that Andre and his ‘brothers’ (he mentions a small group of men he calls his ‘brotherhood’) complete the exhaustive list in its entirety – which says something about their ‘big’ personalities and why they have such a huge scale of influence.

As for me, in 2025 I’d like to allow what has sprouted over the course of this past year to continue its growth.

I desire to be a patient daughter of the sacred soil of my own precious life experience.

PS. If you listen to the podcast on Spotify it includes a sweet playlist…thank you Andre!

Spotify Link