Toltec Shamanism: The Spiritual Realism | Documentary

[Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] I don't define myself as a shaman instead I would rather define myself as a Light Bearer the Light Bearer in theory is the one who goes ahead of the others to discover and to set landmarks into the unknown so that the rest of the herd the rest of the tribe can progress and move forward with these new points of reference in order to integrate the unknown the unknown for me is the future of humanity if we ever want to have one Oshin Alltech shamanism in my opinion has this very peculiar aspect that for the first time in human history the metaphysics of shamanism had been wrote down into books as the form of nine books wrote by Carlos Castaneda while being initiated by Don John the yucca shaman which did find him in a train station at the border between Mexico and USA and this gave birth to something very particular in the sense that shamans are usually known as healers but they don't explain the way they heal neither do they explain the underlying metaphysics between their vision of reality to any discipline philosophy or religion any kind of lifestyle proposal has to include some form of metaphysics which a lot of shaman are actually unaware of because shamans of Siberia Mongolia or Amazonia are usually initiated at a very young age by a shaman who's perceived them as potential student because of their natural abilities but this knowledge is not transmitted a lot verbally and consists more of experiences and probations to surpass the limits of the self depend ease phases these sequences of experiences leads the young shaman to progress and overtake the limits of the ordinary consciousness in order to heal or bring back valuable knowledge for the tribe to thrive and to be able to survive in the nature Toltec shamanism is thus a myth a physical construct before becoming a way of life but it is solid and structural as well as innovative for Humanity nowadays because we did forgot this knowledge which to me stands as a hope for Humanity as an alternative form of spirituality miss Cooper ample teaching I feel like humanity currently stands in some kind of cultural dead-end which is terrible for all of us after thousands of years of religions I got the feeling that religions have more or less disappointed people especially in the so-called civilized world we then had materialism and we are now aware of its flaws and drawbacks and which overall isn't something really fulfilling for the human being not only from a spiritual perspective obviously because there is no spirituality in materialism it is anti spiritual but also from a daily life point of view of happiness well-being and personal fulfillment so in a nutshell we did reject religions and we are slowly rejecting materialism so what we will be left with and what can we do to me we have to keep what's good in religions because there's something good in religions it is the human natural spiritual urge and also keep what is good in materialism like scientific curiosity and discovery of the laws of matter but not to impress on human into consumerism mindless technology taking over our health in our lives but instead we have to take what science has best to offer in a creative and inspiring way in order to be able to conciliate a free form of spirituality allowing the human being to evolve consciously and with freedom and on the other hand selfless discoveries of a new science one respectful of life so according to me in spite of being a vision of reality which is at least ten thousand years old toltec shamanism could be able to give the tools for such a planetary project which is the theme of my seventh book entitled the unlimited art of rebirth into oneself this is at least half of the topic of this book when I got interested in shamanism thirty years ago after a terrible crisis in my life a pretty hard family in relationship issues I was already 45 at that time and I was somewhat sickened of the life I had until then even though I had been pretty creative but I would say quite selfish at the same time so I went through this crisis I was living in Spain at the time a terrible crisis feeling depressed and wanting to die no more desire which is really unusual to me and I did find help in an unexpected way encountering a Chinese guy in a park in Barcelona which was the first person who made me become conscious of the importance of the breath the next day I was back in this park I was hanging upside down doing gestures trying to heal my back so that's how we met again and this guy became my first instructor teaching me how to become aware of my body's consciousness with the use of abdominal breathing named Chi cung and Tai Chi Chuan so that after one year following him I was so much curious about everything that he told me you'd rather go to see my master in China he lives in Taiwan and will teach you more than me so as I was free and I had nothing to lose I just took a flight to Taiwan where I stayed for a whole year to study with this Chinese shaman which is now passed away but who initiated me to mix of Chinese energy and shamanism it's very clear to me that Chinese medicine is shamanism even though it's not considered as such by Western people Chinese people themselves the wise and cultured which no definition of the world just admit that their medicine their energy techniques is nothing but shamanism and so is Taoism as the philosophical part of it and so I went back to France a bit disorientated by a whole year working on myself but it was such a renewal such a total rebirth of myself I then discovered Castaneda's work which I studied at Great Lengths and just definitely find my way through it there are nine books that I read one after the other and then read again over the years so that after 15 years of reading and personal studies I felt like I had working on myself to begin teaching that was 15 years ago hence is now 30 years that I do practice and that I teach a form of shamanism which is not full cleric and not Indian related devoid of the typical connotations around wide life nostalgia feathers and drums Indian songs and dancing to the sound of the drums I'm not really focusing in that aspect what's interesting to me is to adapt Toltecs shamanism in its universal form to the people of my kind to all of us humans which are so much in need for renewal we are so much longing for a new adventure on a cultural and civilization level so it's cannabis trips shamanism refine of what is not useful not to the extreme but avoided enough of it's folkloric connotation and nostalgia of the Indians of the plains and also including some scientific elements of scientific research about humans about psychology and how consciousness works in order to allow any modern human to practice shamanism for his greater good oh sure it's been 15 years that I'm running several types of initiation workshops which are about six days long where trainees and apprentices which some of them are more advanced than others just because it is not their first training begin with learning the metaphysical axis of shamanism which are a number of three dynamic duality the ring of power and intention they didn't have a lot of practice we work a lot to rebalance the enormous power of the memories the one which lies in ourselves as it is in the whole universe and on the other side existential creativity which is the power of change the power of evolution which within humans is kind of diminished in a way see these two forces are the first couple of dynamic duality which governs the whole universe everything in the universe is governed by this dynamic duality so to start I begin explaining to the trainees how these forces are working out everywhere in the universe including in themselves and how it actually inhibits their inner freedom their own existence and how it disrupts their search for happiness how it prevents them from being themselves it deeply disrupts the need for self confidence and fulfillment which are the foundations of human well-being I could it's like aside from the theory there is obviously a lot of practice to demonstrate the theory a lot of exercises mainly used to rebalance memory and existential creativity which is the power to evolve the power to face the unknown and to discover new things about ourselves and to become able to use the field of consciousness which is in us in each and every one of us and that their ordinary human pretty much never uses which explains the term of expanded consciousness which I like to describe in a slightly different way as the opening of human knowledge to these three fields of consciousness we have three fields of consciousness your dinner eat consciousness that I'm using right now the light body which is an expanded consciousness as an intermediate between the ordinary consciousness and the vastness of what Toltec shamans call the nagua which represents the vastness of all possibilities in the universe where the human being working on itself can bring back alternative scenarios for his life to replace detrimental scenarios in its actual life this can deal with disease or general illness any kind of discontentment it can concern memories to be raised of course deep unhappiness or dissatisfaction existence of stress or anxiety anything the human being can desire to feel better be more itself and accomplish a great mission on earth it can be discovered in this third field of consciousness but to go there we have to let go things that are hindering us in the first field of consciousness the ordinary consciousness which is called tonal in the Mexican art language so there's the tonal delight body and nagua we work a lot to diminish the power of memory to liberate the consciousness which is excessively trapped in the first field of consciousness so that using the light body we can make our way to the nagua thanks to the new abilities reached through the apprenticeship and use this power to bring back various solutions and alternative scenarios for one's life although in practical terms there's a bit of theory as I said before it's important to first integrate the metaphysics of shamanism but it's also a way to progress faster through practice when understanding why we actually carry on a certain practice I don't believe we should throw students into practice without a bit of theory neither do I like to spend too much time on theory I reckon 15% of the time is a good measure so there is certainly more theory in the first day but after is more like bits and pieces if we then dive into practice which firstly consists of finding back the two of the rational axis of Baltic shamanism which our attention and intention the tricky part is that we have to reset the way we use our attention and to do that we have to come back to the sensations we have to come back to a type of relationship the outside world the most restricted sensory as possible it's almost like rebirthing as a child which doesn't know how to speak doesn't think and has to open eyes to neutralize and uses its ears hands mouth smell and feet to discover reality for the first time so the purpose for the trainings is to do as if they didn't know how to think of speak working a lot on the body consciousness as well as sensory focus with a lot of games it's really playful and also something I call the undoing the undoing is consist of doing things in a totally opposite way than we are used to which is used to disrupt memory we are prisoners of new memories so we have to disrupt this incredible force which is preventing us from finding our fulfilment using our natural creativity and to recreate ourselves and to move forward into our lives into our maturity the Vidya Nepal sometimes wills ago for a shamanic trip to the land beyond to find out our power animal so what's the power animal in the animal run as it is into the vegetal and mineral there exist particular beings with which it is possible to have a privileged relationship which can bring specific knowledge as an exchange which would be hard to get otherwise so within the animal Ryne everyone has a totem animal or power animal which can be accessed through extended stays of consciousness which is what we try to do during this specific practice which can allow to encounter and meet our power animal and then trying to mate it again to hear its messages animals have a language which is not verbal and if we were really able to hear them like we do in the shamanic trip to the land beyond we could learn a lot from them and it's the exact same thing with plants and minerals crystals have become very trendy these days and everybody's got a favorite crystal with which maybe you have some special relationship maybe you can feel some frequencies or vibrations or some sort of energy which can complete you and reinforce you it's the same thing with plants we do have a power tree even two sometimes three and we have a power animal even two or three maybe not 15 that would be a bit too much but we usually have at least one or two that we do not always meet on the first time because it is necessary to let go of some impediment in our consciousness which prevents us to go far into the nagua anyway apprentices are aware of this and I reckon if they do five six - a dozen shamanic trip to the land beyond I know that eventually they'll meet their power animal which is an epiphany it's a great moment it's a great time for them but it's still far from the ultimate truth it's not enough to claim to be a shaman it is one interesting exercise Noli the word shaman and healer are very close related both by meaning and endeavor the word shaman comes from Siberia it comes from Siberian Russian language and means the one who jumps all over the place in fact in Mexico we don't say shaman but sorcerer bruja or you're better to hide the fact that he is a shaman because it's not good to be a shaman in a very Christian country and it wasn't good either to be a shaman at the time of the Aztecs it's a misleading belief to think that any a snake or toltec guy was a shaman politics never liked free people so shamans were a radical intestines under the Toltecs very few know it and they were even more undercover under the Aztecs the following civilization and they were at least equally clandestine after the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish so in a few words they've always been clandestine and undercover somewhat outcasts this should end now because humanity urgently needs some kind of spiritual renewal so maybe there's no mistake if Castaneda has wrote nine books translated in 52 languages which is clearly a sign to me that there's something significant in there so traditionally the shaman is known as a healer he heals the body using the salt the light body he takes the patient's light body into the nagua and allow it to take an alternative scenario for his life for example a sick liver can be replaced by a healthy ones because in the NAG world everything is possible you can bring it back using a slight body into the physical body and its liver will be healed because the Naugle if I had to define its essence is of the same nature of the human soul which is the light body they are of the same nature the humans light body also known as the soul is an individualized and incarnated fraction of the great supernatural power of the Naga which some people call God but within the shamans it's commonly referred as the Eagle which is just a metaphor as a light bearer I am rather a teacher even in a way I always thought that healing people is not really supporting them because I've always been convinced of the fact that humans are the potential to heal themselves something that's never been encouraged for thousands of years including at the Greek era as if people become autonomous in regards to their health they become able to live without political power sociology or religions simply living as natural spiritual beings so that's probably why this self-healing knowledge has never spread out in a very significant way only a few people on earth which had ever been shamans had been keeping and using the knowledge of self-healing now what's interesting to me is to make this knowledge popular and expand the abilities for self-healing so it's not my purpose to become a healer even if sometimes I feel like I could I prefer to teach self-healing and a light bearer is someone who teaches self-healing using the power of extended consciousness of the apprentice [Music] Vasili I've already wrote six books two of them came one after the other which our shaman the path of the Immortals and Toltec shamanism and the power of the salt which follows the first one and goes a bit deeper the second one goes a bit deeper into the human Trinity which are the three fields of consciousness while the first one deals more with a broader picture of the metaphysics of shamanism with a touch of practical instructions in the power of the soul the second book there is some practice but also an important chapter which deals with the cleansing of the tonal because before filling eager and ambitious enough to dive into the NAG wall the extended consciousness it is necessary to cleanse the tone of the ordinary consciousness and the way we use it on a daily basis we do a lot of mistakes we carry a lot of negative emotions our mind is way too much overactive we think too much loss of energy we don't know how to eat breathe or walk properly we don't know how to interact with others we are full of useless judgements so we have to cleanse all of this before going into the extended consciousness because the extended consciousness in the NAG wall has got the same dynamic duality as the ordinary consciousness meaning that the good and the bad also exists in this space the relativity of the good and the bad is also a reality there and there are entities and things that are greedy of energy so if we don't cleanse our tunnel at the very least it is not very careful to go into the nagua going on the other side requires a bit of strength and that's why my second book is more focused on this aspect with I created vices to cleanse your tunnel properly before diving into serious extended consciousness experiences I wrote another book dedicated to working on the body consciousness the body is one of the most interesting tool to access extended consciousness so the closer we get to our body using conscious work the easier we can facilitate states of expanded consciousness to go into the nagua and finally I wrote a small book about paradoxes and metaphors which I called shaman gossip he gathers a few hundreds metaphors paradoxes and proverbs including some shamanic wisdom with a touch of humor like riddles but in a more easier way to understand much more easier to decipher and currently I'm working on my seventh book planned to be released over the winter 2015 maybe in October with a bit of luck and this book is entitled the unlimited art of rebirthing to oneself this book really deals about discovering the possibilities of human consciousness so in a few words I described the fact that in the current situation that humanity is stuck between the rejection of religions in the rejection of materialism we have to find a way out if we want to survive here on earth it's not certain that humanity wants to survive when you see everything it's doing to die I'm always blown away when I look at cigarette packets where it's written smoking kills and yet I feel like more and more people are smoking to me it is significant of the fact that in a way some people just want to die humanity doesn't have a common ideal anymore because materialism isn't an ideal it's just about consuming material goods like eating or buying new clothes new shoes cars houses and spend your money is this an ideal no it's a lifestyle but it's not an ideal an ideal stands a bit higher from this and religions deceived us because they took over our natural spiritual needs and did not bring us liberation at least the monotheistic ones so in this book I elaborate on the third proposal suggesting something that I've called spiritual reales 'm which consists of taking what's best in materialism a selfless science and research yet enriching for the human consciousness and a free spiritual urge including work on yourself which i call the active spirituality in opposition to religion passive spirituality which only consists of believing what you've been told enter carrion rituals cross signs knees bending and prostrations and to falsely fill content saying I'm a believer and religious to me this is nothing but spirituality this is just a form of pseudo spiritual ritualism true spirituality I would even dare to say religion should allow the individual to evolve by working on itself a religion which does not include personal self work allowing the individual to become fully responsible of itself is not a good religion the individuals should become responsible over its own self work the work on the body on the mind and on the heart a true self work which becomes a lifestyle that's what I'm suggesting in this book to try to consider this all together and everyone individually hello you three metaphysical axis of shamanism are the ring of power dynamic duality and the three fields of consciousness the ring of power is the process by which our consciousness creates our reality constantly without even being aware of it we select information in our surrounding environment and the sum of this selected information becomes our perceived reality the problem lies in the fact that the selection of information is not performed by a sustained conscious focus to the moment but instead by our subconscious memory hence for we are more looking at a past reality than the reality of the moment which also means interestingly that if we're not aware enough we are constantly living in the past rather than living the present which is a lot more harder than it seems because it implies to stop selecting information through the filter of what we know what we know is engraved in memory which is then used as a filter to the information that feed our consciousness as we progress from moment to moment in our lives it should become aware of this phenomenon is of prime importance with shamanism because these filters also contain everything we would like to get rid of in our lives like all the negative beliefs detrimental emotional processes emotional attachments and the excessive intellect with which we select information through the information that the passing moment was made of which allows a therapeutical renewal becoming aware of it allows us change our filters we totally function with filters which by definition does not take in account the totality of the information the second major process which is the second axis of the metaphysics of shamanism is dynamic jewelry as I said before the principle of dynamic duality is the fact that the entire universe is ruled by thousands if not millions of opposite polarities as the form of energy also known as complementary opposites everything seems to stem from a binary principle be binary hence bipolar as an example of polarity we can talk about matter and spirit we are made of matter but we're also made of spirit and both polarities come together into a living being less obvious polarity is memory verses exist an shal creativity which refers to the ring of power in truth we keep on being trapped in the circular ring of power and what keeps us trapped in is actually memory memory is excessively powerful in the human being we are literally trapped in our memory the shamanism consists of breaking free from this prison diminishing the power of memory which automatically balances back in the power of renewal the power of evolution the power of transformation and so rebalancing these two forces which rules us unconsciously can allow ourselves to be a lot more free to do what we really want and to achieve fulfillment and this obviously comes along with an ability to move into extended consciousness finally the third foundation of the metaphysics of shamanism is the intention which is clearly underestimated intention is a phenomenal force which consists of I would say aligning all the abilities of our consciousness for example sometimes we desire to accomplish something but we can't manage to do it and yet we desire it so what does it mean it means that there are two forces within us one which desires something to happen and another one which opposes it so we're basically splitted in two and we can't move forward so thanks to the intention intento in Spanish which is the original language of Toltec shamanism the power of intention allows us to gather the yes and the no into a totality and a unique force allowing us to achieve whatever we want to do without having any inner conflicts what a precious thing to have and how could any human not be willing to benefit from this huge power the body also has its word to say and so does the mind the heart and the emotions so that most of the time people are splitted even in three which is even worse the body wants something but the mind is saying no or the mind wants to do something but the body doesn't do it all the emotions are desiring something but the mine opposes it so we're splitted in two and sometimes even in three toltec shamanism allows to gather all these parts into the form of some supernatural will which in truth is described by shamans as the energy that built the entire universe the energy that creates the universe so that according to the shamans the universe is actually a byproduct of a very powerful will to exist which religions called God but for us it's not a god it's an energy an energy that exists within the human being as a state of potential and thanks to the shamanic work the human being can retrieve appropriate itself and feel the inner rebirth of this will higher than the normal will in which does not have any opposing force inside of us which is tempting isn't it so that's the three fundamentals we could add an additional one as the Trinity to three fills of consciousness the tonal which denry consciousness that we're using right now the light body and the nagua the light body is like a reduced blueprint of the spirit of the universe the universe in its totality in its vastness has got a spirit in our light body which is also our soul is like a scale-model it's a hologram of this amazing energy that the religions over the world personified calling it God in a nutshell religions personify the spirit of the universe humans need to personify and to have metaphors to have representations to handle shamans don't always need representations even if they do use metaphors like the Eagle for them the Eagle represents the spirit of the universe it is possible to get close to this spirit using the intention to pick the intention and use it it's a bit summarized it's a bit condensed I know c'mon so how in a practical way are we gonna be able to rebalance this equilibrium which almost no one experiences between memory which wants to keep things as they are which is a tremendous power in our consciousness and it's complementary opposite the force of change which is another way to refer to the force of existential creativity which can be defined as seeing the ability to have at your disposal the potential to go into the NAG wall the third field of consciousness to find potential solutions to our problems and bring them back as the form of alternative life scenarios so to restore this balance we have to challenge the power of memory and the way shamans find to be able to do it and to crack this power is what they call in doings in doings are a specific way to do things absolutely unusual and destabilizing which we can train to in order to send a very powerful message to the memory within us the memory of our body the memory of our mind to our emotional and affective memory a message sending the signal you don't have the power we are sending this signal not doing things like before and even doing them in a completely reversed way for example walking backwards one of the most famous and doings of Toltec shamanism by walking backwards 45 minutes to an hour the memory of the body is deeply destabilizing which results in diminishing its power interestingly the more the power of memory is diminished just like a seesaw as a totally autonomous mechanism the existential creativity increases at any moment only one of the two can have the power over the other in a very similar way to putting weight on one side of the scale the other side has to go up just because the weight we put in the first side automatically move the other one up actually the possibilities of in doings are pretty much endless because we're already doing so many things all along the day it only takes a playful mind to imagine to reconsider everything we do every single day as a challenge yet in a playful way and to train ourselves as far as possible to do this thing's backwards to do these things in an opposite way it's very powerful instead of putting your shirt every day beginning by the right sleeve you can suddenly decide and commit that you're now gonna do it left side first some things might be very destabilizing at first but as soon as the undoing has become familiar change to something else at the same time we just learnt a new skill but it's not the purpose the purpose is to destabilize memory possibilities are endless at mealtime you can change the way you eat you can decide to move your mealtimes you can decide to put two different shoes in every day one shoe of a color and the other one of another color you can change the place of your bed in your bedroom one day facing west the next day to the east they stabilize every habit everything you do automatically all the programs we follow which make up the immense majority of our day-to-day life no.you nutria soon another way to facilitate states of expanded consciousness is to come back to the body every Eastern discipline is working on the body which consists of diving deeply into the consciousness of the body I've been transmitted a type of body discipline called the Toltec conscious gestures transmitted by a master I had in Mexico these gestures are meant to be practiced on a daily basis they consist of stretching exercises as well as coded gestures the purpose of this exercises is to trap the attention into the body the attention by nature is very wild and tend to be guided by the memory so that in a general way we're constantly in our minds which is not the best thing to experience extended state of consciousness actually it's even the opposite the purpose of this practice is to get close to the body with the use of habits consisting of a very conscious regular physical activity very conscious of the body in and of itself this new activity this new way of living into your body brings you closer to the light body the light body created the physical body the physical body doesn't emanate light and consciousness it is the silent consciousness of the light body that created the physical body giving birth to the human being so getting close to the physical body thanks to the thought that conscious gestures we facilitate getting closer to our soul and when we're close to our soul we are very close to extended consciousness and there's not much to it since the soul takes us away because of its natural affinity with the nagua the NAG wall is the soul of the universe the light body is the individuated soul so between your soul and the universe soul there's a great closeness but you have to provoke it in to find it back total gestures are low to find back this intimacy between the light body and the spirit of the year which is the nagua in order to live extended states of consciousness and maybe to become a shaman I know lesbian wedding is an essential element of personal transformation let's not forget that in the mahabharata-- which gathers sacred indian scriptures scriptures of a thousand years before jesus christ there's a verse that says something like one who can change its breathing could then change his thoughts and feelings which sets the breath on the foreground of any change you desire in your life change is so hard the memory is very powerful but if you change the way you breathe automatically you can change way more easily the way you think your beliefs as well as your emotional and effective behaviors one interesting thing about breathing is it's an unconscious move which can also become conscious it's one of the only automatic functions we can also perform consciously bit moreover the oxygen which is conveyed by the blood to reach and make each and every one of our cells alive is part of the great circulatory system which has been measured 280 thousand kilometers we have 80 thousand kilometers blood vessels in our bodies which means that there is an attempt or a hundred square millimeter even a thousandth of our body which isn't linked in a way or another to a capillary which means that anytime we're breathing we're connected in a very intimate way to the totality of our body so if we breath differently everything changes abdominal conscious respiration wakes up our brain and wakes up our light consciousness so that's a very precious tool to get close to extended state of consciousness and to access them in an moon in the end how to describe shamanism in a few words come as a practice of personal fulfillment it's obviously what I think about shamanism is that there's no such better thing to become truly yourself being ourselves is not easy there's an energy around the earth which is called a human egregore or thought form which November eyes every people's consciousness which has the effect that the most part of human beings behave a bit like a flock of sheep which is a shame as well as a serious issue in a time where there's a threat of standardization uniform thinking but this could go even further now thanks to modern communication technologies like the internet and social networks can you imagine that within minutes the entire earth can share the same idea which is already a reality nowadays shamanism is the return to individual consciousness the human being has ever dreamt of becoming itself and has ever felt intuitively that he is a prisoner of something is a prisoner of the memory that this memory is like a partner to the human egregore it is included in the human egregore it nourishes the human egregore so if you want to become full-time individuals because we have a potential to think by ourselves to create ourselves and to fly to become flying shamans shamanism give us the opportunity to become ourselves while remaining open to others which is not contradictory being with others doesn't mean to follow the herd it just means that I can communicate with the great tolerance to those of my kind while remaining fully myself and never causing any counsel just accepting all the differences around us the specificity of human being is precisely its ability to belong to a kind in at the same time to remain unique be unique and at the same time be human I believe shamanism is perfect solution [Laughter] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Inspiration & Conscience

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Keywords: toltec shamanism, paul claude degryse, interview documentary, carlos castaneda, don juan, yaki shaman, ariège france, metaphysical metaphysics, shaman shamanic healing, ayahuasca, don miguel ruiz, create reality, land beyond, empowerment, totem animal, free spirituality, dynamic duality, power of intention, nagual tonal, spirit matter, philosophy, field consciousness

Id: 6Au_jJVvK48

Length: 47min 59sec (2879 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 25 2018