After the tragic fires that burned through LA, we are joined by Azrya Bequer who lost her home in the blaze. In this episode, she opens up about the process of transmuting grief into grace and leaning into a deeper trust throughout the heartbreaking situation. She shares the importance of embracing the ever-changing nature of life, cultivating a deeper sense of trust and intuition, and making meaning out of pain. This episode is an impactful one for anyone looking to better navigate life’s challenges and strengthen their resiliency. Azrya, who has also coached countless leaders and high-performers over the years, shares her insights into walking a path of spiritual entrepreneurship - empowering us with the knowledge of how to merge the material and the metaphysical. André's Book Recommendations: https://www.knowthyself.one/books ___________ 0:00 Intro 1:44 Losing Her Home in the LA Fires 11:33 A Poem: Alchemizing Grief Into Gold 17:42 The Greater Perspective on Grief 23:29 Making Meaning From Tragedy: How LA Must Change 30:47 Embracing the Ever-Changing Nature of Life 35:28 Walking Towards the Fire of Life 44:05 Why We Fear Feeling (And How to Change that) 47:35 Operating From a Deeper Intelligence 53:18 Discerning Your Intuition from the Noise 57:15 Trusting the Cycles of Life: Leaning Into the Ups & Downs 1:03:02 Feeling the Depths of Grief 1:08:00 The Path of Spiritual Entrepreneurship 1:13:30 Merging the Material and the Metaphysical 1:19:55 Enlightened Leadership 1:25:23 Envisioning & Stewarding a Greater Future 1:38:00 Difference Between Ownership & Stewardship 1:41:12 Conclusion ___________ Azrya Bequer is the Co-Founding Steward of KAVANÂ, a 30-acre retreat center and learning institute on the South-Pacific coast of Mexico that serves as a nexus of gathering for a community committed to personal and social transformation.She is also a Co-Steward of MUSA, a 500+acre, beachfront residential development and town of the future. Bequer has dedicated her past decade to empowering purpose-driven leaders, entrepreneurs and creatives. To support this work, Azrya and her husband Benjamin co-authored the BEQOMING book and developed a unique, in-depth methodology that integrates leadership, coaching, breathwork, indigenous wisdom traditions, and other embodiment practices. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/azryabequer/?hl=en “In Life We Trust” LA Fire Initative: https://inlifewetrust.co/ Azrya's Offerings: www.kavanaretreats.com/offerings Azrya’s Telegram: https://www.kavanaretreats.com/azrya-telegram ___________ Know Thyself Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ Website: https://www.knowthyself.one Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ4wglCWTJeWQC0exBalgKg Listen to all episodes on Audio: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4FSiemtvZrWesGtO2MqTZ4?si=d389c8dee8fa4026 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-thyself/id1633725927 André Duqum Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/
Chapter 1: What happened during the LA fires?
There's so much paradox in the spiritual journey. Sometimes you have to have everything stripped away all the way to nothing before you're willing to actually make a change. Trust is a beautiful thing. The way to get there is actually to be forced into the opposite because I do choose to believe that everything has a purpose.
I can choose to be a victim of the situation where I can see that life is mirroring something to me and giving me an opportunity to come into deeper alignment with who I say I want to be. Being a steward of the current of life itself to me is the ultimate expression of being alive. And that's where I find the trust, and that's where I find the beauty, and that's where I find the richness.
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Know Thyself. Our guest today is a co-founding steward of Kavanaugh, and she focuses and has been for over a decade really supporting and coaching entrepreneurs, leaders, creatives through courses, retreats. And she's a dear friend of mine. And this has been a wild start to the year. Azria Beckert, thank you for being here.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's been a while since we've seen each other.
It was. I was just closing my eyes to listen to how you were introducing me. I was curious to hear you mirror back to me what I do, who I am in the world.
That's the thing is you do many things.
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Chapter 2: How can we alchemize grief into gold?
Yeah. How's the start to the new year been for you?
Well, my house melted. So that happened in an inferno, like truly an inferno. So yeah, the Palisades fire that took down many, many thousands of houses in LA also took our home in Malibu, which was really more than a home. It was really a space for convergence and transformation and community and a space that was being actively used to really unite people in person. And
dig deep and anchor in really important energy and frequencies into the LA grid. That's really the true intention of it. So my co-founder and husband Benjamin and I went back a couple weeks ago to just see the damage and really kind of feel like in our own nervous system what's left of this place that we spent almost three years remodeling. and had been done for less than a year before it burned.
And it was crazy to see metal beams that we had put in, like melted, like the heat of that fire must have been so incredibly hot. I can't even imagine the speed at which that whole house must have just gone up in smoke, like incredible. Sometimes I have
weird like visuals of of the house just being taken by these flames and there's something oddly beautiful about it as well you know I think that the part of me that could appreciate the destructive aspects of nature and reality and see them see the beauty in those two is almost like enamored by those visuals because it's incredible how much went into the house right like
Two years of planning, almost three years of construction, thousands of hours, millions of dollars, so many materials, like the amount of effort and energy that humans put into building something. And then in literally what might have been a few minutes. Nature was just like, no, no more. So yeah, it's humbling.
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Chapter 3: What is the greater perspective on grief?
Yeah. Before we continue to dive into a lot of the insight lessons and stuff that I know we both love to jump into, what was the actual process for you in discovering the fires were happening, being in the uncertainty phase, then eventually standing on the land where your house once was?
Well, we had gone through it a couple weeks before because we were, there was a fire actually a few weeks before, which was much, much smaller and contained very quickly. And we were right on the edge of the evacuation zone.
So we had kind of gone through the process of like getting the alert and packing our bags and being kind of annoyed because it's like, well, we know we're going to have to unpack all this stuff anyway. And like, this is just this distraction from all the things we have to do. So
Last time we lost power for, you know, a couple of days and we stayed at home and we didn't end up having to evacuate and then everything was OK. So when this time around, when I think it was Tuesday at like 11 in the morning or so, we were sitting at our dining room table having a meeting with our team on Zoom. And I looked up and I saw a huge plume of smoke in the sky.
And I was like, oh, that's that doesn't look good. And we actually stayed on the Zoom call for like another 45 minutes because, again, relentless overachievers were like, it'll be fine. We just really need to get this meeting done. But I started looking at the app and tracking kind of what was happening. And I could see that, you know, it looked like it was it was starting to become a problem.
And we were starting to see that we were in the evacuation warning zone. So at that point, we kind of like shut things down and went and started packing. And we packed very haphazardly. We were like, we're just going to come back and, you know, like, again, just unpack everything and it'll be fine. And then we got the evacuation warning. It's like, no, you need to go now.
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Chapter 4: How can we make meaning from tragedy?
So we we got in the car and we drove down the mountain and it felt everything felt very peaceful still. There was a lot of smoke in the sky, but the neighborhood kind of felt peaceful. And so we ended up actually driving down the mountain and being like, OK, I think we're OK. And then a cop came by and was like, you guys need to go.
And so we went back to the house and packed again, which was really good. I'm so grateful we went back the second time. So we packed more thoroughly. And then I just stood. Our house is kind of up on a hill. And I stood and looked over the land, which is like this big canyon land. It's like a big bowl. And the wind was whipping and there was a bunch of smoke in the sky.
And I just placed a prayer of protection on the land. And I said, like, just may the legacy of this land be preserved, because I believe that the space is meant to continue to serve the L.A. community and You know, we had actually just recommitted to the place because we were, the plan was to sell it to be able to fund our Mexico project.
And literally like a week before we had been like, you know what, I think we're going to stay. I think we're not going to sell. And so we had just gone through this deep emotional process with this land and the stewardship of this place. And what's interesting is now that I reflect on it, I placed that prayer of protection on the land, not on the house.
And yeah, we drove down the mountain and we went to Newport in Orange County just to stay with family. And we were just watching on the map, like as the fire just like, I mean, the speed at which it was spreading was unbelievable. And soon our entire neighborhood was completely engulfed in the red, like the worst red that you don't want to see on the map.
But there was no way to know what was burned and what wasn't. And the winds were so out of control that there was no, you know, nothing was flying. So there was no coverage from any of the news channels. So the uncertainty was really like the biggest thing. It was just sitting in the uncertainty of not knowing. And all of our friends getting evacuated in Topanga.
And it was incredibly intense, like emotionally. And also, I had this very interesting experience where The second night after we had evacuated, in the middle of the night, I woke up and I don't know for a fact, but it's very possible that our house was burning at that exact moment. And I woke up in the middle of the night and I was bathed in this bubble of bliss. I can't even explain it.
It was just like being wrapped in the arms of the divine. That's what it felt like. And I just remember waking up and feeling it and being like, I wonder if our house is burning right now. And then the next morning we woke up and we got confirmation that our whole neighborhood had been, I think, 80% loss of homes.
And so it was this really interesting experience of being in some of the most extreme states of bliss and then also being taken down by these like total avalanches of grief. And just like so much went into that place. And so much beauty and so much love and so much connection. And like, there's this unfathomable kind of energy of like, how is this even possible? Right?
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Chapter 5: Why do we fear feeling our emotions?
No, this unspeakable disaster that rudely ate all of our hand-spackled plaster, it has a purpose. It wants me to go faster toward being of service. There's Jedi skills it wants me to master. It wants me to walk the talk. To stand in the light when life gets real dark. To believe we can turn smoldering houses into a livable park. To ignite inspiration and become spirit's own spark.
This is the moment. Do we dare and own it? It was Rumi who said, The wound is where the light enters you. So in this darkest hour, let us blossom from the rubble like a flower. Even though the tarot card we pulled turned out to be the tower, we can choose to lead instead of cower. To lead with all of our love and all of our grief. Give permission to feel and provide relief.
Breathe deep together and unclench our teeth. Start to heal. Return the blade of sorrow to its sheath. We got this, family. This is not the time for anarchy or blame-inflamed soliloquy. No, this is the time to hone our frequency. A teacher once said, I don't know what the truth is, but I know what love feels like. You, me, we know what love feels like.
And that feeling is our God-given birthright. So even if all you want to do is scream and cry and fight, the love that you are will never burn less bright because this kind of love transcends wrong and right. So that is the invitation. Be the change you wish to see. It's okay if there's heart palpitations. Life will always be a mix of loss and celebration.
That's the nature of this ever-evolving meditation. So let's give ourselves some space. Let's practice turning grief into grace. Let's slow way down and also pick up the pace. Time isn't real, yet there's no time to waste. They say it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. We lost our home in the flames, and we choose to stand tall.
thank you for sharing beautiful and yeah it's brave it's brave to stand tall when everything's burning down literally metaphorically and uh so thank you for doing that and being a leader and uh for feeling it all and transmuting and sharing a gift yeah it's a special land a special time yeah
And the land is going to come back better than ever, brighter than ever, more full of life than ever. Yeah.
We'll see what comes of it. I know it'll be sweet.
Yeah.
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Chapter 6: How do we discern our intuition from the noise?
I probably similarly like you both really value the. full human experience and then also like the meaning and philosophy of like the existential reality of why certain things happen and how nature has its way as opposed to our own will sometimes we all have tragedy in life we all face challenges we all have things happen in a way that is outside of our ideal in some shape and form throughout
our whole lifetime. And I think how we show up in these moments is really where the spiritual rubber hits the hard road of life and where we get to put our practice into practice. And so, yeah, we'll see what insights and nuggets come from this time, but thank you for coming at such a fresh and raw time.
No, it's powerful, right? I think there's this There's so much paradox in the spiritual journey. One of the biggest ones is we remember that we are an extension of the divine and that we are connected to an incredible source of intelligence and source of power, truly like creative power to shape and mold our reality through our thoughts and our beliefs and our feelings and our actions.
And it is a recognition that we have this godlike power within us and also at the same time, I think the polarity to that, the paradox within that is that we are tiny, tiny, tiny little specks in the larger cosmic movements of reality, right? So it's the yes and. It's like, yes, we are incredibly powerful beings and also...
What we create can just be evaporated in two seconds by these forces that are so much larger than us that are also expressions of the divine. And I think the humility that needs to come in parallel with the empowerment is a big part of what the lesson is here in this moment for me personally.
Of course, when something like this happens to you, especially if you're a person who believes you create your reality, one of the first places you go is like, well, how the fuck did I create that, right? Didn't see that one coming. It was a real plot twist. And this sort of like, well, but I'm one of the good guys and I'm using my space to, you know, bring people together and transform lives.
And literally people are healing ancestral trauma on this land, like in this house. Why is it just completely annihilated? And I think unpacking sort of the why, because I do choose to believe that everything has a purpose. And I think that is a choice, ultimately, to believe that or not.
So I choose to believe that life, the universe, whatever you want to call this experience that we're a part of, has a larger plan that a lot of times we can't see with our limited perspective. And so when things happen like this that feel...
that are beyond logic or reason, there's a deeper listening that I think is being invited of like, okay, well, what we're actually, is it really true that I built this beautiful space, that we created this beautiful vision, and then it was just taken from us and like, that was this horrible thing? Is that true with a capital T? Or is there a deeper truth?
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Chapter 7: What is the path of spiritual entrepreneurship?
I think it's the natural next step for a lot of people after tragedy is asking like, why? Sure. Why does this happen? Why do bad things happen? And there's so many different ways one can look at that. Just saying maybe it's random, you know, a confluence of conditions that were just not in our favor in a certain way and it was just random how it happened.
You could say that there is a deeper intelligence of life that is, you know, orchestrating things. We could attach our own personal meaning. So many different ways in which us human beings find comfort and none is right or wrong as it pertains to our own interiors and what brings us comfort. What have you landed on as to why things like this happen?
Because the grief and the tragedy is almost at a scale where it's like, it's, it's, it can be so tough to see a bigger picture when the, you know, the reality is, is so hard for so, so many people. And so, yeah, I'm just curious on like what your thoughts are on, on that and how you make meaning.
Well, I mean, I think what I shared just now, the lessons harvested, those are all very personal, obviously. Right. I can see where, when I reflect back on because we did build the home essentially, right? We took it down to the studs. So we had the opportunity to choose. It wasn't like we just, we bought a place and then that was what it was.
We had the opportunity to consciously make decisions about how that place was going to be built. And so on a personal level, I can see where I was not in alignment with the values that I was maybe proclaiming in the world, which of course are all about coming into deeper, right relationship with the natural world and You know, a whole slew of other things.
I think if I zoom out from my personal lens and I look at the larger collective happening of this particular situation, as it relates to Los Angeles, I think that a few things. One, I think Los Angeles is the mecca of the storytelling that shapes culture and culture. consciousness, truly, like through the stories that we perpetuate out into the world.
Like that's so much of the world looks to LA and has for decades for what is trendy, what is cool, what is, what does the hero archetype look like? What does the villain look like? Right? All of these archetypal imprints come from this place largely. And I think the stories we've been telling have been largely based on a foundation or a dominance, extraction.
And I think those have been normalized, like completely normalized and proliferated essentially, right? The stories that come out of this one place on the planet impact the lives of billions of people all over the world. And so I think LA specifically going through this experience is kind of like a massive reset button is what I see.
Because I think, again, it's stepping on the spiritual path and understanding these things conceptually is one thing. But embodying them, living them truly, and actually aligning your actions with what you know all the way through, that's really the hard part, right? That's the spiritual rubber meets the road. And it's a lot easier said than done. It's easy to come on a podcast and talk about it.
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Chapter 8: How can we envision a greater future?
we're given an opportunity personally for like a take two. Like, okay, you did it that way and your house blew up. Now, what would you like to do? You know, I get that vision of like an Etch-A-Sketch from life. Yeah.
Shaking it.
Just shook it up and now it's a clean slate. And so... And then for L.A., like, how is this particular community, which is largely quite privileged and affluent as well, right? Like, the areas that burned are neighborhoods where people who have a lot of influence and wealth and power, like, reside.
Yeah, outside of some, you know, a lot of neighborhoods in Altadena.
In Altadena, for sure, yeah.
Those fires, but yeah, Palisades for sure.
Yeah. So there's a huge opportunity there to say, okay, well, how is this community, how are the human beings that are affected by this going to potentially do things differently? And how could this also, I'm really seeing the gift in this as an opportunity to share. the rewriting of a narrative, you know?
And sometimes you have to have everything stripped away all the way to nothing before you're willing to actually make a change. So I think while destruction is horribly painful and can be, of course, devastating, there's also a huge opportunity for a new way of operating to emerge from this that can hopefully be shared worldwide.
Yeah, it really does feel like the life is the other side of the coin of death and the veil thins as the fire purifies and you get to see the potential and the beauty and all the things that exist on the other side of what we have clung to, been attached to, have known.
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