In this episode of Spirits and Stories, Donald Dunn sits down with author and photographer Charlie Siegel for a deep conversation on meditation, spiritual awareness, creativity, and healing. Raised in a deeply spiritual environment and now helping lead the Wisdom of the Ages Center, Charlie shares how mindfulness, intuition, and inner stillness shape both his writing and photography.

The discussion explores how meditation influences creativity, how people process grief and life transitions, the idea of spiritual guidance, and why connecting with nature can profoundly affect mental and emotional well-being. Charlie also reflects on self-publishing, storytelling as a tool for healing, and the unseen patterns that often guide personal growth.

This episode is for anyone interested in meditation, spiritual development, consciousness, creative expression, personal transformation, and finding meaning through life’s challenges.

Topics include:

• Meditation and mental clarity

• Spiritual guides and intuition

• Healing through writing and photography

• Creativity and mindfulness

• Grief, growth, and perspective

• Nature, awareness, and inner peace

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Welcome to Spirits and Stories, a place where we slow things down and talk about the moments that shaped us.

The stories behind the scars, the victories, the lessons.

Every guest brings a journey, so settle in.

This one's meant to be felt.

Hey, welcome, everybody, to Spirits and Stories.

I'm your host, Donald Dunn, and today we have got Mr. Charlie Seagull.

Originally raised in a deeply spiritual environment, Charlie is a bestselling author, poet, photographer, and teacher whose work explores healing grief and the unseen connections that shape our lives.

Growing up in a family devoted to spiritual practice and now helping lead the Wisdom of Aegis center alongside his mother, Charlie brings a lifetime of intuition insight to his storytelling.

Through books like Conversations with an angel, he invites readers to see beauty and transformation and meaning in life's most difficult passages.

Today, we step into that space between the visible and the invisible as we welcome Charlie Siegel to Spirits and Stories.

Welcome to the show.

Charlie, how you doing?

Doing great.

Thanks for having me.

How you doing?

Oh, absolutely amazing, man.

Another.

Another blessed day.

We're getting to talk to you.

Unique individuals like yourself, man, it's.

It's a.

It's a blessing.

Glad to be here.

So what.

What brought you into.

I know you, you've got a deep rooted spiritual background, but what brought you into turning that into writing and photography and.

And all these other creative measures?

It's.

It's always felt like I kind of have my own path that's just sort of like calling to me, unfolding for me, growing up with.

I'm actually here in Wisdom of the Ages in Connecticut.

My mom started when I was like a shop and a class center and all about helping people nurture their spiritual side.

So, you know, growing up, even like doing my schoolwork in the back of it and like going to crystal shows as a kid and stuff, meditating all the time, it's so that that was just kind of who I am, and I kept growing with it.

And it was right around high school.

It's like, well, what am I gonna do?

They start asking you, what are you gonna go to school for?

What are you gonna do?

I'm like, well, I want to kind of do my own version of this.

And I love writing.

The photography just kind of started happening and business and.

But for me, it's like, all about helping people connect to that goodness within them and find our connection with nature and helps everybody.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, I think any type of person that does anything creative, whether it be writing books, podcasts, or, you know, photography, even any of those types of things, I think the people that do them one, do it out of passion and in the hopes to either inspire or help others.

Right.

The money is like, everybody, every author I've ever talking to, every podcast I've ever talked to said, man, if I could do this for a living, that'd be a great.

Not one person have I ever said, I'm gonna write this book to get rich.

Right.

You know, it doesn't happen that way.

It's just not the.

The norm.

Yeah.

How did some of the.

The spirituality that you grew up with, how did that influence your ability for creating?

Yeah, so I was.

I was homeschooled, but through this program, Oak Meadow School, where they, like, they send you the schoolwork to do and everything.

So it's like a whole accredited system, but, like, getting to do it in this environment where, like, I could hear my mom working with people and, like, explaining crystals that would help them, talking about meditation.

A lot of people come in, like, looking for help going through grief, and they're looking for, like, a spiritual support.

Support through it.

So, like, I'm hearing all that going on and kind of started being part of helping where I could at a young age.

And that led to.

So, like, in high school, creative writing and stuff, it was just like, this is my fun thing.

And they give me, like, three weeks to, you know, map out a story, figure out the characters.

I'd do it in a couple days and be like, that was fun.

Here you go.

So I started being like, well, I enjoy this.

It just kind of comes to me.

Me, I'll roll with it.

And my mom's been teaching spiritual classes my whole life.

My grandparents before her, they had, like.

She grew up with them running, like, psychic fairs and lecturing on spiritual topics and meditation and stuff.

So, yeah, I just kind of was like, well, I like writing.

I'm going to write on those topics and bring people some of the lessons I've picked up.

And I lost my grandmother when I was 9 on my mom's side.

I was really close with her.

And then hearing all the people come in and look for help going through grief, I wanted first book to be.

You mentioned Conversations with an Angel.

My first one.

Something that would really help people going through grief.

And it's.

It's very short.

Like, it's easy to just pick up and help to work through that.

It's.

I know that.

I think that's one of the toughest things in life.

So that was my place to start.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, man, that hits home because, you know, that's that's literally.

It sounds like you're talking about me because that's what brought me to learning about spirituality.

You know, this last.

And then November, my wife lost her mom.

And.

And I'm like, somebody hates the hell out of me.

What is going on here?

You know?

Yeah.

Really made me wonder, you know, what I did or what was causing, you know, all of this, because this just didn't feel normal to me.

And you know, that's when I learned a little bit about, you know, spirituality at the very beginning.

And I instantly started feeling better about the things I was learning about how, you know, we choose our lives and we pick our paths and we, we pick the people we're going to interact with and there's a time limit on that.

And, and once those lessons are learned and, and people go on to their other lessons and you know, I think a lot of this is that me and my wife are in that transition point where we, we've spent the time learning the lessons that we needed to learn and now it's time to incorporate those lessons and, and move forward.

And, and that's just not meant to be for the people that lost.

That we lost.

Their part is done.

They helped us lessons, and now it's time to move on and move forward.

It.

It doesn't mean that they left us.

They.

They themselves are moving on to other things as well.

And so just, just hearing that and, and it really resonated with me.

So it, it helped me get through some of those, those things.

I can only imagine the people that are coming to your guys's store and the lessons that they're taking, you know, how much it's helping them as well.

Yeah, that's a beautiful way that you're looking at it, like, seeing that kind of meant to be way.

I feel that that's very healing to sort of trust in a grand plan that's bigger than us, but also that like, our lives are just temporary on purpose, like our souls are going to go on with, with more to come.

Yeah.

You know, I have changed and I laugh because, you know, I'm a ex military guy and so I've seen some pretty, some crappy situations and humor is, is really the way we, we deal with a lot of those things.

And so I, I have changed my outlook.

I. I no longer Refer to cemeteries as cemeteries, I call them.

They're just human junkyards.

And it's because, you know, the.

The vehicle that our spirits are driving.

Yeah.

The engine blew, and it's time to move on.

There you go.

Yeah.

They put us in the.

The old junkyard, and our spirit moved on.

And I'm going to use that.

I like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's.

You know, maybe it's a weird way to look at it, but.

But when you believe that life, you know, isn't over and consciousness isn't encapsulated just in our bodies.

Right.

Yeah.

What else would our.

Our meat suits be?

You know, but just transportation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Have it for a time to accomplish something.

Absolutely.

I had a cool thing happen with that first book, too, that I was writing it that.

So the.

The character in it.

It's a. I tend to write a lot of fictional stories, but, like, with a real human element.

And teaches spiritual lessons I've picked up.

But, like, you get to kind of follow the character and be entertained in a way as you're going.

But it's a character who lost his brother in the story, and I had it just as sort of a fictional park.

He's walking through a park.

He's processing his grief, and he's met by an angel that's telling him more, like, his brother's perspective from heaven and, like, how he's bringing him signs and everything.

But right towards the end of writing it, I was like, well, I could set this in a real location.

I love Central Park.

I've always liked that kind of, like, nature in the city.

Like, let's find nature more in our world.

So I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna look at a map of Central park and kind of change my angles of the trail on the story.

We'll make it fit in there.

And kind of the weird thing was I didn't have to change anything.

It freaked me out.

In a cool way, I'm.

I'm going through.

I'm looking at a map.

Like, when I wrote the path curves, it does curve.

And then I track the path and the map to where he meets the angel.

And the angel of the water statue in the park is there in the spot that I had already written it in.

Yeah.

So I just went to the park earlier last year and did my first professional shots of the angel statue, and I got it at sunset and stuff.

But, like, I didn't know at all that it was just kind of panning out that way.

I love those kind of meant to be moments that work out.

Yeah, I think it's, it's powerful because when you start looking at these things, it's, it's not the fact that, that we're, we're talking.

Woo woo.

Right where we're talking, that there is higher elements out there.

Yeah.

And you don't know how many authors that I have spoke with that said, man, you know, I sat down and was struggling and, and I went to bed, I meditated on the problem, and the next morning, man, just everything was like, just a download.

Oh yeah, definitely.

And that's not coincidence, you know, that's not one or two people saying, I've heard that, you know, my years of podcasting over and over and over again.

And I do believe, man, that, that, you know, our spirits communicate and we just, you know, can't fully hear it in this time frame because we're here to do a job and that's, that's to learn and, and become better souls and better spirits.

And when we go back, we're going to review what we learned and then do it all over again, you know?

Yeah, you make a lot of sense that.

I've got four books now, but I'm, it's like my fun thing writing I'm working on.

My fifth one is going to really be a lot about reincarnation.

Like the character is a soul.

So you keep seeing him go through the lessons and what he's picking up on the way.

And I've always liked that kind of practice.

So it kind of comb combines like all the different views on it into one story.

Yeah, I, I do too.

You know, I just discovered meditation and, and you know, I want to talk to the people about that as well.

When, when you're meditating, it doesn't matter whether you did it right, you did it wrong, or whatever.

You're going to get something out of it.

Right.

Yeah.

And, and if, if you go into it and, and when I first started, man, I wanted to speak to, to my, my guides and, and I wanted to learn more about all these cool things that I'm hearing other people talking about.

And what I noticed is that doesn't always happen, but what does always happen is when I'm over with, I feel better, I feel relaxed and more in tune with, with myself.

Right.

Do you, do you agree that that was one of the things that can help, especially with the creative side as far as being a writer or a photographer, that, that taking that time to, to meditate and, and just kind of calm your, your senses down?

Do you help as far as people with creativity and writing.

Oh definitely.

I have this kind of way of looking at it like, like, let's say it's like a still pond.

You create through meditation.

Like you go and like, maybe it's kind of reflecting a lot or maybe it's got a lot of ripples in your daily life.

And you go and you get that stillness by meditating.

Well now you're going to be able to see what wants to be uncovered and what's really there.

And I feel like I especially to write but sort of through my photography practice as like a part of meditation, I want that real quiet because like it's not me necessarily that I want, I want like a higher inspiration.

When I'm writing like a fictional story with characters, I look at it like I gotta ask the character what would they do?

Like they have certain personality and stuff.

That's not how I would do it.

So I gotta sit and ask them what they would do.

Yeah, but especially being out in nature, I'm like, I'm looking at a scene and stuff and I want to get this sense of.

I feel like nature has perfect alignment and symmetry and everything.

So I want to be able to get that in the camera as best as I can.

I'll take like a dozen shots of a set of trees kind of thing, but one of them is going to have that framing that like when people look at it it's going to give them peace or whatever positive emotion that we want, that kind of stillness.

But yeah, all of it kind of comes from meditation for me.

Like I need that quiet to be able to have anything come out of it.

Yeah, yeah, me too.

You know, I now do it.

I'm still experimenting because I've done some, some guided.

I found a person on YouTube that I do enjoy listening to some of his guided meditations.

And I've tried it non guided and just to myself and you know, at the end of the day I feel better on those days that, that I do meditate than the days that I don't.

Yeah, it, it does help with, with getting rid of some of all this outside noise because you know the, the human part of us listens to that noise.

Right.

You know, forgetting that, that when we're, when we're in the old junkyard, you know, our souls are going to move on to things that none of this noise even is, is even relevant.

Yeah.

So yeah, and, but it does help and it, and it gives you that time to reflect and, and learn and, and it's helped Me out a lot with, with my media business, my podcasting, my writings, you know, and I like to think me as a, as a person.

So yeah, I completely get it.

Nice.

So I want to dig into a little bit with your, with your writing.

Did you self publish or did you go through a traditional publisher?

So three out of four I've self published.

My, my first book we talked about, I did my second book I wrote with my grandfather.

Like we alternated our poetry through it and we did it with a little publishing house for that one.

And then my other two.

So far I self published but I have the idea that once I finish this next one, I'd like to really like get an agent, go the traditional route and see where that takes it to like kind of get more widespread.

But yeah, there's really pluses and minuses either way.

Like this is my newest one and that's like massive and has a lot of photos in it and, and I did like a color and a black and white and I'm like, well, I can create whatever I want when it's self published.

Yeah, I like that element to it too.

Yeah.

You know, I, I, I personally, I self published my books and, and it was because I didn't really care about the, the trying to reach and, and the money and, and all that stuff.

I really wrote my books for myself.

Nice.

Call me greedy and, and selfish, but I did.

And my thought was, you know, the people that read it are meant to read it.

Be something calling them and, and I promise you I've given away more books than I've.

That's the problem with self publishing is, is that reach and the marketing side becomes extremely difficult.

Yeah.

With traditional publishing you get the other side of it.

Right.

You lose a little bit of your, your ability for creativity because they're focused on now what the people are demand is what's going to sell, how long it's going to be and, and putting that book in that niche that they're going to be able to, to sell and make money off of.

Yeah.

So they both have like you just said, they, they, there's no negatives to either one.

They just have different positives.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Great way to look at it.

Yeah.

I, I think at the end of the day a lot of the, the listeners, you know, there's kind of been a big boom since self publishing came out with, with a lot more people becoming authors because it's became more available.

Right.

Yeah, I think that's a great thing.

Yeah, I do too.

You know, anytime we get the opportunity to learn from somebody else.

And, and if you're, if you really care about that part, you don't care about the formatting and, and everything else.

You know, I.

Some odd podcasts that are just not polished, they're not shiny.

You know, Rogan would never touch them.

But man, they have such great meanings and great stories behind them that I'd still learn from them.

And so I think that's where self publishing has, has opened that door to the, the book world is, is now people that have something to say and want to put it in, in book form can.

Yeah, yeah.

They just don't understand, you know, if, if they think that they're doing self publishing and they're taking that that easy way to making tons of money, but they're definitely on the wrong path.

They need to go the other direction, go the traditional side because the reach is much larger on that side.

And yeah.

And it just takes a lot more money to do it.

But then again, it's harder.

Like you said, it's harder to find that publishing house that you're going to work with.

I had a guest come on and she put it amazing, man.

She said that the reality is as a publisher doesn't publish books.

They're a venture capitalist.

I thought about that for a second.

I said, you're right.

You know, as an author, I'm, I'm here to sell you a project that I need funding for.

Wow.

As a publisher, you're out there looking for a project that you can make money off of.

Right.

And the two things have to align.

You know, I have to have the right project for that right person who is looking to make money off of that type of project.

Yeah.

That's where it really gets difficult is finding that publishing house that is in that niche, Right?

Oh yeah.

In that book when, when you go to write your next, this next book that you're talking about and you're going to go traditional publishing is the next books plan to be fiction as well.

Yeah, it's like a very spiritual fiction and it's an interesting kind of come about process with it that I write like obviously a lot of poetry.

This is all poetry and short stories.

So.

And they kind of come to me almost like something just sort of floats in my head.

I get like a little imagery sometimes I'll, I'll sort of think here the first few lines of it and be like, oh, I gotta type this.

And then it, it just starts rolling.

So I was gonna write this little poem that was like, like what if the character was a sun kind of thing, like, like, like our sun, but like for another solar system.

Like how it views its life.

Right.

And then I'm rolling along and it turns into something else.

Turns into something else.

And then it's like 10 pages long.

I'm like, this is not a poem anymore.

And I've just kept writing and it's, you know, that the soul becomes a person eventually and you're seeing these different lives.

And I'm having fun with it and being like, well, what does he do next?

I can't wait to see.

And I was thinking the other day, like, when I'm eventually done with it, I'm going to miss like being in that world with that character.

I'm enjoying it, but I feel like it would be something that, like, I'll take my time finding the right people to work with because I want, like, I want it as it is, basically.

Unless somebody's going to help me make it even better, I want to let it be what it is.

It's kind of just kind of come to me in that sense.

So.

Yeah, no, I get it.

That's exactly right.

And that is the way authors should look at it is they shouldn't be in a hurry to just find a company that says yes.

Right, Right.

You have a project that needs the right partner and.

And you should be selective.

Just because somebody says yes as a publishing house doesn't mean they're the right publishing house for, for your book.

Yeah.

So I think it goes on both sides.

So let me ask you this.

I personally believe.

Right.

90% of my books are.

Are all non fiction.

Right.

A lot of mental health type topics.

But I wrote one fiction book and the thing that I learned from doing that is that there is lessons that you can teach somebody and that can be learned through the art of storytelling and writing fiction stories.

I didn't realize it until after I wrote that book, but we've been doing that for years.

The Hansel and Gretel stories that we tell our kids was all designed to keep your kids out of the woods.

You know, these were lessons to be learned from fiction stories.

Do you, do you feel that, that you're putting some of that in your fiction work as well?

Yeah, that's my biggest goal with it.

And I have this idea with my fictional stories that like, let's say you're.

You're reading this and I have a sense of my first book and then the next one, I'm writing it in the first person.

So I do that in A sense that it kind of just happened when I started writing it.

But I have this background thought to it that, like, if you're reading this long enough, like, on a subconscious level, you're saying, like, I did this.

I thought this, like, almost.

It's almost like a mantra, affirmation kind of thing as you're, like, you become the character as you, like, really get into reading it.

So I have the hope that as the character goes through these difficult situations and, you know, comes out of it, finds spirituality, finds connection, it's kind of like the reader can then put the book down and be like, well, maybe I don't have to go through those same difficulties in my own life.

I can, like, remember what the guy in the book did and.

And have help from it.

So I hope I'm kind of taking some difficulties off people's plate and helping them find some peace through the stories.

That's, like, my main goal with all of it.

Yeah.

And that's perfect segue into the next topic.

You know, most writers in the fiction, they think that their.

Their main focus is to entertain.

Right.

They want a reader that's going to read the whole book and enjoy the entertainment from it.

Right, right.

And your book, you could tell it, it's about healing, and that was the intention behind your writing.

So.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think that is important because some of that has to have come from.

From your background.

Right.

You know, seeing all the people that come to your mom's store and take the classes and, and.

And learn how to heal and meditate and.

And all that good stuff.

You're just carrying on that tradition in.

In the form of writing.

You know, people are reading the books and being able to heal and, and gain knowledge on how to heal.

Yeah.

Really the biggest question that most people have when they're going through hard times is, is how am I ever going to heal from this?

Yeah, yeah, you make sense.

And that's.

That is like, I appreciate you saying that.

That's my, my goal with it.

Like, I love helping out in the shop and doing that with her.

But then it was like, well, how am I going to take this and, you know, do my own version of it?

And he had it, definitely the photos and the.

And the writing.

And then I teach traditional martial arts also, and I've been doing that my whole life.

And I feel like that's kind of, you know, the physical spirituality, to me, like, it helps you work on yourself in another way.

Very like, inner work kind of thing.

Yeah.

You know, martial arts is.

Is A big deal in, in.

In my family as well.

I didn't, I didn't realize that.

You know, the picture back there, that's my granddaughter.

Oh, nice.

Wow.

That was a, a much older photo.

But my, my daughter, who is on this side right there, she's a, a black belt and has a, a world title in martial arts.

And my son, who's not in that picture, he also has.

Is a black belt and, and has a world title in, in their, their martial arts.

So yeah, it is.

It's been a family event and it's passed now down all the way down to our grandkids is.

Is.

Is doing martial arts and competing now.

And it's like.

It's like cycle just continues.

But the, the benefit, the true benefits that come from that is the discipline and, and everything else and that runs side by side with meditating.

You know, the discovery.

Sit down and say, I am going to take this time and dedicate this time and this space to myself.

And yeah, and meditate is.

Is important.

No different than I'm going to take this time to, to practice patterns or to practice sparring or, or whatever to be a better martial artist, you know?

Definitely.

Yeah.

It really is like a path of bettering yourself and working on yourself.

That's.

It's huge for all that.

Yeah, absolutely.

It builds confidence, it builds discipline.

I mean, you can just go on and on about how the things that martial arts teaches and there's spirituality in, in martial arts.

A lot of people don't realize that, you know, you go back to the ancestry days of, of the way martial arts was taught.

And you know, there wasn't.

It wasn't just about, oh, if you practice this, move this way, this is the way it is.

There was spirituality behind the process and the way they taught.

Yeah, yeah, that, that's one of my shots from Japan there on the bottom.

I've gotten to go out and actually that the COVID of my book there too is Koyasan in Japan.

I've gotten to go with my teacher a few times out there for events he did.

And actually my, my third book came before.

This is his biography, which I never expected to combine my writing and my training.

And he called me up after my second book as one was like, you want my story to be your third book?

Okay.

Fun to do together.

Yeah, absolutely.

And that is.

Is something that is extremely difficult is to be able to write about somebody else in a manner that is tough, man.

Yeah.

I had to be like, like, I write fiction, I write poetry, and I want to take on this project.

So I started being like, well, he's just a character.

The only thing is he's real, but I'm gonna write it.

Like, let's watch him grow through his life.

Like.

Like, you'd see a character progress and.

Yeah, and we really wanted to put his story out as, like, it's inspirational.

He had a really, like, come from nothing unexpected kind of story.

So it's there to help people in the same kind of way that the rest of my stuff is.

Yeah, absolutely.

And there's.

There's so many lessons to be learned from other people.

I. I fully, fully do love that about podcasting.

I can't say it enough because.

Because I've learned more about get from.

I've learned more from guests than I have taught myself.

That is for sure.

That's the best.

That's such a nice thing to do.

Yeah, I agree.

So do you personally believe I want to get into the spirituality side?

Do you personally believe that we are guided as far as our purpose here on earth and everything?

I do, I feel like.

And I actually have a couple poems on this in there, but I feel like there's a sense of, you know, like a blueprint, like a seed set within us, that that's a certain identity that hopefully we follow.

I love Rumi's ancient poetry, and he has a whole comparison where he has this idea that, like, let's say God is playing a flute and every person's path and purpose is another note in that song.

So, like, and like, the point of his poem was like, you know, be you do your purpose, and, like, you're going to play out an important role in everything.

So.

And I feel like that's something that sometimes people need a little more support on in modern times, is like, yeah, go be authentic.

And do you like that what everybody brings to the table is needed?

Yeah.

You know, I agree 100%.

And I think, you know, a lot of people forget in the chaos of trauma, you know, whether it be you lost someone or something bad has happened or just, you know, even some bad news, you know, maybe a health diagnosis or something, a lot of people, you know, sit back and they start questioning their faith and they.

They completely forget that, you know, we are here to learn lessons, but we're also given free will.

Right.

And it is our choice to whether we're going to learn these lessons or not.

And, you know, at the end of the day, you don't do your schoolwork, you fail your test, and when you go back up, if the Lessons are not learned then.

Then you're just going to have to repeat them.

And, and, you know, I had to.

I had to do third grade twice because I didn't learn my lesson, you know.

Yeah, but it is the, it is that same thought process that.

That keeps me, you know, focused because that is, it is.

It is so true.

Yeah.

That we have guides to guide us not, you know, onus and.

And move us like pawns.

We still have.

And we still get to choose whether we.

We learn.

So a lot of these people are going through the trauma events, and they say, why would God ever allow this to happen?

And, and you have to take yourself out of that situation and say, did he allow it to happen?

You know, earth is ran by free will, and that's the reason why, as spirits, we want to come here, because this is where we're going to learn all of these.

These lessons.

And, you know, lessons aren't learned without a little bit of pain and a little bit of work that goes with them.

Yeah, I totally agree.

And I actually have a poem in there.

I can read something later if you want.

But there's one called where is God?

And all of this, that's like the whole question you were just asking and looking at, like, well, there's like a piece of that universal energy, a piece of God within us.

Like we're a part of everything and everything's a part of us.

So it's.

It's like, well, they start looking at like, well, how can this happen?

Well, like, you'll find that piece of that inside.

And, you know, he's in there.

I can read that later if you want.

Yeah, absolutely.

Favorites from the set.

Yeah.

And it fits perfect.

If you don't mind, go ahead and doing it now.

That would, that would be perfect because this is the exact right time to do it.

I think, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of the listeners out there that, that listen to me, they.

They come to this show for, for listening to the stories because we've all had trials and, and we've all had some tough times that we've had to go through.

And, and, and the one thing that.

That's not there during the.

The pain part is the answer, you know, what caused it and how could it have happened and, and, and why did it happen?

And those are, Those are tough answers to get.

Yeah, it is.

So I organized the book into four sections.

So this is from the fourth one I called the Light of the World.

Each one is the light of something because it's Awakening the inner light.

Okay, but.

So the titles.

Actually, the answer lies within for this poem.

All right, I'll go ahead and read it.

Where is God in all of this?

You ask yourself, head in your hands, water washing over your body from a shower or the rain or your tears.

Where is God in all of this?

The question echoes across the whole of the gymnasium as your peers laugh and the fear sets in.

Where is God in all of this?

Is a question we all ask at some point in our lives.

And the question we all must choose how to answer.

But perhaps you're looking to answer it yourself when he's right here working to answer it with you.

Where is God in all of this?

Turn the question inward and let it reverberate through your heart, your mind, your soul, every fiber of your very being.

Where's God in all of this?

Ask yourself as you look in the mirror, there's a whispering piece of your heart that says he's shining forth from the light within.

Where's God in all of this?

Let the question run through your peers who laugh when they see you shining his light.

They'll see the way to spread it, too.

And if they do not, perhaps you can shine it a little brighter for them.

Where's God in all of this?

He's everywhere.

Can you express God through all of this?

His light lives eternal within you.

Will you be the answer to this most resilient of questions?

Let your actions speak the truth.

Where is God in all of this?

He's in your heart, in your breath.

He's in every action you take and in every life you touch.

Will you accept his presence here?

Will you be someone who acts as an agent of miracles today?

Where is God in all of this?

God is with me, and I'm with God.

Repeat it.

Feel it, live it.

Stand forth in his truth and light.

Be a beacon to all those who seek his might.

Stand in truth and usher light.

You are a guardian.

Stand forth in the right.

Then I gave it a.

One of my lotus flower pictures.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Yeah, man, that is.

That is powerful, man.

You know, I loved.

I.

Man, I love that.

That was.

I appreciate.

Thanks.

And it is so true.

It's almost like it was a transition.

You know, we went from at the beginning where everybody's questioning, you know, to getting the answer that's right there in front of us that we just didn't.

You know, God is with us and.

And he is in.

In our.

Our spirit and our breath and.

And.

And the things that we're saying and the things that we're thinking.

It's just.

Are you choosing to look at the answer that's right in front of us?

Right.

Yeah.

I think it helps us all so much.

And, you know, whatever way you see that something greater in the universe, like, if you really consider yourself a part of that and start to see that in your interactions and everything, it just makes everything better.

Yeah.

Nice way to look at things.

Yeah, I agree.

I agree 100%, man.

So let's talk a little bit about photography, right?

We've hit on some of the spirituality.

We talked a little bit about your writings.

Where does your motivation for the photography part come from?

Because you've got some amazing pictures.

Thanks.

Yeah, so we have Native American friends through my mom's side too.

And part of the cultural lesson with that is like your oneness with the universe, with nature.

The idea that we're just little pieces of nature out here doing our own thing.

So wanting to help people connect with that feeling of being part of something greater, it's.

It's kind of.

I feel like it hurts to feel that disconnect in modern time.

And like, we sell crystals in the store.

Like you're connecting with a piece of the earth that way.

But, like, if I just go out there and like, appreciate a tree, really look at, like the symmetry details in a flower, it sort of fixes me.

It's been funny sometimes my mom's been like, you need to go take pictures.

Like, you got to go reset you.

And I do, and I go spend a couple hours out there, and it makes a huge difference.

But I started, I was always taking pictures.

I had those, like one time use cameras, but when I was like, too young to have a real camera and I was out doing it.

But I started off really just with cell phone pictures with like flowers and stuff, and eventually upgraded to like a nice DSLR and.

And a printer and all the things like that.

Eventually got a website where it's like a gallery people can shop from.

But it all comes down to wanting to represent nature in a very pure kind of way where people feel like, well, when I look at that picture, I feel like that's something I've felt is in that picture.

Like a piece of me is in nature.

And then as I started traveling more and like traveling with my teacher for martial arts, getting to go to Japan, I'm like, well, now I kind of do sacred site photography also, but same idea.

It's something like founded in the seven hundreds or something that gives a good lesson for people.

Well, I'll Kind of have my work be a window for that to connect with it.

I've done like Buddhist statuary or like the angel statue.

I mentioned things like that to help people connect.

And I'll edit them.

And I like to use Lightroom software because you can just.

It'll make it as pretty as it can be for the real thing.

Like, I'll like.

That's one of my Northern light shots behind me from Iceland that I went maybe 10 years ago and did photography out there.

And we had a good showing of the aurora on my second trip there.

But that's what it looked like to the naked eye.

And I want to just represent the real raw beauty that way.

There's so many things on Earth and, and the Northern lights are, are one of those things that, that it just has so much detail and so much beauty in it that it.

If you can't get resetted by looking at something like that, then, then, then what you need is an exorcist.

You need more help than what I can offer.

That is, you know, because it is.

Nature in itself offers so much beauty and, and we all play our parts in, in this earth and, and no different than.

I had a guest just on, just yesterday that made this talk.

You know, bees have a job that they're doing and, and their, their job isn't pollination.

They don't realize that that's what they're doing.

That's just what's happening from them doing their job and, and instead they're making honey for, for them to eat.

Right.

Well, no different than, than a cell that's in your liver that's, that's doing its job to, to clear and purify and everything else.

It doesn't realize that it's so much smaller and, and there's so much more stuff out there around you and you can walk nature and, and go back down to simplicity, man.

It is, it's again, it's like you, you're, you're on Earth experiencing the spiritual world because you've eliminated all that noise that no longer matters out here.

It's just you and, and those Northern lights that you're looking at that was created by something way bigger than, than me or you.

That is for sure.

I had a really neat experience.

The night after that shot, I have a photo I call the angel of the Lights.

And like the old tradition is that the Northern lights are either like the ancestor spirits or the doorway between heaven and earth that they would talk about.

I was, I was Doing like, you know, landscape leading into Aurora.

Pretty stuff.

But at one point it was just so bright.

I was like I'm gonna just point the camera at the sky and see what I get in that spot.

And the picture I looked at later, there's like a full on face and like torso figure in the aurora.

Like you can see like eyebrows and nose detail and everything in there that I did a black and white of it that made even more contrast and the hair is even braided coming off the back of the head.

And there's really cool how it came out that that's on my, on my site and stuff.

It's in, I kind of put it in every book too like, and it just has been one of my favorite pictures.

But yeah, I think that thankfully I can't, I got to represent something beyond us in a bigger way that way like that that doesn't look like it could have just happened without something orchestrating it.

Yeah.

You know, there's so many things out there and I think, I think we, we as humans, we look at things in the wrong way.

Right.

Whenever somebody shows a picture of something that can't be explained, we instantly want to look for the reason why it isn't what we think it is.

Right.

And, and I think in the other, the thing way is we should be looking at these images like you said of what you captured, that that looks to be like an angel.

We should be looking at reasons to, to prove why it is not.

Yeah, it isn't.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think, I think that's the, the real goal is, is not to question whether it exists.

But let's, let's find the proof that it does exist because I like the way you think.

Yeah.

I, I, I, I don't, I think the other way is just too negative and, and I personally would never want to prove that angels don't exist.

Right.

Yeah.

We all missing out.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

You know, so I, I know we're getting into the, the time here.

Can you, can you tell everybody where they can pick up your books and, and photographs and, and if they ever would like to hire you for an event.

Thanks.

Yeah, yeah.

So you know, first off, you can check out Wisdom of the Ages here in Simisbury, Connecticut.

WisdomOfTheAges Biz is our kind of informational website, but we're on like Facebook and Instagram and all that.

Yeah, he got, got some sage from us.

I sure did.

I got some stage and, and yeah, absolutely.

Thanks.

It will do virtual shopping with people that are out of state and stuff.

So you can, like, take a look around the store, see what we got, and then place an order.

And I have my books here if you want autographed copies and stuff.

But I've got all four of my books on Amazon.

If you look up Charlie Siegel or this is Awakening the Inner Light is my newest one on there.

And then I have a website just dedicated to my photos, and I like it that I've heard some people have scrolled through, like a form of meditation, that there's hundreds of photos on there.

So I just take your time enjoying.

And that's my little business card.

Is it Nature photo by SC.com is my website.

And that's like.

It's a long story.

I try to summarize that.

I look at it like the things I photograph, I didn't create.

So I don't really want to put my name on my photos.

It's like, I want to be a window to something bigger.

And SC was like, a fun thing as a kid.

So I'm like, I'll go buy that and just let.

Let the photos speak for themselves.

It's kind of fun when people are, like, enjoying them here in the shop and don't know that I took them.

I'm like, it's cool just to see what.

What photo speaks to you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because now.

Now you're talking about something that's looking into your soul and you don't even realize it.

Yeah.

Nice.

That's absolutely.

Well, Charlie, I appreciate you guys coming on and sharing this.

This moment.

It's been an awesome time.

Yeah, absolutely, man.

And.

And everybody that.

That's listening, you know, we'll make sure that the links for the.

The photos and, and for his books and, and for their.

Their store, all that stuff will be down there in.

In the bottom again.

You know, you guys know me.

I don't.

I don't have any sponsors.

I don't have anybody.

But if there's something out there I like, and, And I use their.

Their.

Their Sage, and.

And I've bought crystals through them, and I will be doing it again.

So you can take it from me that, that the.

The products are quality and they're.

They're genuine people.

So I ask all of y', all, man, make sure that you go through.

If you do purchase a book for.

From Charlie, man, don't.

Don't be lazy.

When you're done, leave a review.

It helps all of the authors out there.

The.

The algorithms.

It can be brutal.

If.

If nobody's leaving reviews, then nobody.

Then the.

The stores assume nobody's reading them.

So the purchase is.

Is a.

Is a great gesture.

It helps, but your words and.

And your review of the product speaks volumes.

So don't.

Don't sell it short.

Read the book.

I strongly suggest you guys purchase your books and.

And check out Charlie's stuff.

But.

But when you're done, leave a review as well.

So I. I hope all of you guys out there enjoy the show.

I look forward to seeing all of y' all soon.

And, man, if you ever lose contact or you want contact with him, I guess reach out.

I will definitely get you guys contacted so that you can.

Can get the stuff that you need.

So y' all take care, man.

Be safe.

Don't forget.

Don't let the day kick your ass.

Kick the day's ass.

I like that.