On this week’s episode of Be On Air we interview Nanu Berks, a nomad currently designing art experiences that explore the intersections between consciousness, expansion, and transcendental technologies. Together we explore cryptocurrency, NFTs, conscious communication, education, mental health, creativity and more. This episode has lots of amazing value and insight to the future of art in the crypto realm and how artists are utilizing new technologies to grow, earn, and share beauty with the world.
Nanu is a multidimensional artist with a background in communication, healing arts, social tech and AI and enjoys sharing information about the planet, positive technology through mind, body color maps, wearable art, fine art street, art, and art installations. Check out her online store and amazing projects in the links below!
IG @nanu_berks
Twitter @nanuberks
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[0:00:00] – Introduction [0:02:00] – What is Nanu Berks working on? [0:03:00] – Blockchain, NFT’s, Cryptocurrencies & why they are important [0:11:00] – Inspirations for Nanu in the Crypto world? [0:14:21] – Art is the soul language of evolution [0:17:02] – Work-Life balance & mental health [0:23:01] – Healing arts & inner creativity [0:28:23] – Labels & conscious communication [0:33:23] – Pings from the universe & interrupting your routine with creativity [0:37:04] – Creativity in a nomadic lifestyle [0:41:15] – Words of the day & final thoughts
K.Lee Marks: [00:00:00] Hey, welcome back to be on air. Another episode, another day, I’m here at the Draper startup house in Austin, Texas. They have an incredible coworking space, really great deals. If you are in Austin, Texas, come get some work done here. They have a beautiful outdoor patio. So today’s guest is really, really unique and amazing.
And I met her a few years ago. And she has just, I mean, she was already doing amazing things, but she’s taken off. And so Nanu Berks is originally from Argentina. She’s a nomad currently designing art experiences that explore the intersections between consciousness, expansion and transcendental technologies.
Nanu is a multidimensional artist with a background in communication, healing arts. Social tech and AI and enjoy sharing information about planet, positive technology through mind, body color maps, wearable art, fine art street, art and art installations. I’m going to read a quote that she said that I love, which is we make art to store our memories and design who we become.
Art is the soul language of evolution. On today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about crypto, about NFT, about our work-life balance and so much more. I’m excited to discover it. So stick around and in a moment, we are going to get to hear from Nanu.
Don’t compare journeys. Your journey is your specific journey and you will be guided to the best way to catch you. Where will you go? I believe that right now is a great opportunity to leverage the power of voice. David Copperfield is a billionaire, not a millionaire. He’s a billionaire. And how did he become this?
He tapped into something profound, which is the art storytelling. Be on air powered by podcast farm.
K.Lee Marks: [00:01:54] Nanu welcome to the show.
Nanu Berks: [00:01:57] Hi, thank you so much for having me what an amazing introduction. Thank you for that.
K.Lee Marks: [00:02:00] It’s so it’s so great to have you here and there there’s a lot that we could, we could get into today.
So, um, first of all, you know, I introduced you there a little bit, but what are you working on right now in the world? Would you tell my audience a little bit about what you’re up to.
Nanu Berks: [00:02:16] Sure, that sounds great. So, um, I am a traditional artist, you know, I come from a traditional painting background, making things with my hands and I’ve been kind of resistant to getting into the technology aspect of things.
Uh, but somehow I keep getting pulled back and back into the technology space. And so I’ve been learning a lot of, um, animation programs and design programs, and that’s what I’ve been doing mostly. To, um, to make my quality of art a little bit better and to go with the times of technology. So it’s been just insane learning, learning, software, learning, you know, illustrator, animation, blockchain software, just you name it every single day, just so much information. So it’s been really fun.
K.Lee Marks: [00:02:57] Yeah, that sounds amazing. I’m looking forward to dive into that a bit more. So you just mentioned blockchain, so. Cryptocurrency Bitcoin, Ethereum, all these names for those who don’t know, you know, they’ve probably heard them. Everyone’s hearing about the Bitcoin, you know, rising, like crazy people, making a lot of money, people losing a lot of money.
Would you, would you give us a primer, a crash course in, in what is the blockchain? What is crypto? And then that might segue into our next point.
Nanu Berks: [00:03:24] That sounds great. So, uh, you have to explain it in the simplest terms that I can, you know, there was the dot com boom, right. And that opened all these possibilities.
Then there was kind of like the boom of social interactive, um, internet, which is, you know, Instagrams and Twitters and all that. And then there was this boom off, um, online money, which was Bitcoin, right. Um, and now there’s this boom, all functionality of blockchain tokens. And this is what’s going to take us into VR and AR.
And so, um, You know, the blockchain in the simplest terms is basically a really secure way to store information. And it’s distributed in a lot of different blocks in a lot of different places. So if somebody wanted to hack or change a bit of information, they would have to change it in every single signature, every single block along the way.
And so it’s really difficult to tamper with information. This makes, um, secure transactions easy, and also you have the capability to make them anonymous or, and at the same time to kind of track them. So it’s, there’s a lot in there, but that’s how the simplest form. It’s just a tech, a layer of security and information.
So from there, um, there’s these things called NFTs, which are non fungible tokens. That is just fancy words, long terminology for something that’s unique and cannot be exchanged for another. So let’s say I have a dollar bill, the dollar bill. I lose it. I can get another dollar bill. So that’s very fungible.
I can just replace it if I have a piece of art and I lose it, I can’t really replace it with another piece of art because it’s unique. So, um, does that make sense? Kind of like what a blockchain, what NFTs for like,
K.Lee Marks: [00:04:55] yeah. So if I can reflect it back, let’s see. So it is a secure way in a distributed way to handle transactions and to handle handle information communication in a, in an encrypted way. Is that part correct?
Nanu Berks: [00:05:09] Exactly. And what you said is very important. So it’s decentralized. So the thing is that there is not one owner there’s, um, the information is distributed in a lot of places and also something really important that you reflected is that blockchain and, um, and,NFTS and tokens are not this one thing. It’s just a layer of technology, underlying a whole movement, like a whole upgrade of the internet.
K.Lee Marks: [00:05:33] Yeah, and this is, this is where it gets pretty psychedelic and, and, um, abstract. And there’s there. So for those listening, if, if, if they don’t understand what this might like, what role this might play in their life, how, how would this affect our, our listeners? Like how, how would this be a value to them and importance in their life?
Nanu Berks: [00:05:54] Yes. Great, great question. Why, why do we care? Why should we care about this stuff? Well, you know how everybody has an Instagram and Facebook profile these days, right? So in the near future, everybody’s going to have some version of access to a VR world, even if we don’t want to.
Even if, you know, I know we talked about stuff too in the past, you know how we don’t want to end up in a VR headset and just ignore the real world. And I, that was where I was coming from, but. Interacting with all the people building this future and building these apps. I can see how it’s just a natural progression and another layer on top of reality and how we can bring a lot of healing.
And it can be amazing. So, you know, for, for everybody listening, imagine that, you know, soon you’re going to have an application that enters you into super world or the central lands. Some of these places that are like Instagram, but full on immersion, right? Like the Sims or second life. And so you’ll be walking around and you’ll enter, uh, an art gallery and you’ll see a piece of art that is attached with a line of code.
To the blockchain. And so instead of seeing a piece of art on a gallery that, you know, you just look at the NFT, the non fungible token it’s, it’s what gives it functionality. So let’s say I walk into the art gallery, I see, I see an art piece like this and I’m like, Hey, I want to grab that. And so I can click it and it’ll take me to the NFT and I can purchase that.
What’s cool about it is that that purchase is going to track. Be tracked forever. And what’s cool about it for artists is that every time that, that art switches hands, it tracks provenance and it kicks me back a percentage. So this is why NFT’s are decentralized in the art world and like blowing everyone’s mind right now, because it takes out the middleman and it lets the artists control the percentage that they went back.
So if I sell something and I have 50% returns, no matter how many times the art piece switches hands, and no matter how much money collectors are making off of my art. I’m getting a percentage back and that is not happening in the real world right now. So I’m so excited.
K.Lee Marks: [00:07:46] Wow. And so could you, could you kind of share, um, how much of some of these NFTs gone for? As far as money.
Nanu Berks: [00:07:53] Oh God. Getting into it. Yeah. So it’s an interesting thing because. Um, okay. So I went, I was in the blockchain space since 2016 and I got really burnt out. I was working on these technologies, NFTs have been around since 2014 actually. And a lot of people think they just it overnight, but we’ve been trying to do this for awhile.
Then I got burnt out and I left from like 2018-19 at some point. And then I came back and within two weeks, I mean, I, I like came back into the NFE world and within two weeks I started publishing NFTs and stuff that I’ve been working on forever, but I just released them for the first time. And I made, um, $35,000 in like two and a half weeks. So
K.Lee Marks: [00:08:34] Wait,you made $35,000?
Nanu Berks: [00:08:36] That was my face too. I like I seriously, but there’s a story behind it. So bear with me because I don’t want to be one of these influencers than one of these coaches online that. Post shit like, Oh, Hey, you can make a 10 K, month. It’s really easy. It’s not really easy. The reason that I sold almost $40,000 in two and a half weeks is because I worked for free for six years helping build these platforms.
And it’s because for the last three weeks I have been literally, I’m not exaggerating, literally working 14 to 17 hours a day, which includes five to six hours on clubhouse talking to the collectors and other artists. It includes tweeting every freaking half an hour. And it includes creating art all through the night that I can sell in the morning.
So. Nothing is overnight, overnight success doesn’t exist. And, um, and you know, and it’s been amazing. And also. Also for the last two years, I haven’t really been monetizing at all. I was really depressed. I really care about mental health, you know, and it was really difficult. Um, when you were in a space like that, that moves so quickly when you’re in the crypto space and our reality for everyone it’s moving so fast.
It’s very difficult to keep up with that pressure, that energy, that level, and be grounded. And it does things to you, you know? So for all the people that are early adopters and for the haters that are saying, Oh, you’re just like a crypto millionaire. Dude think about what it’s like to be in this current.
You got to it’s like, I have so much respect for any person at all that even Google’s what Bitcoin is. And Mike’s trying to get into the rabbit hole because it’s a learning curve, man. There’s a lot of technology to learn. There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of things, you know, a lot of steps.
K.Lee Marks: [00:10:04] That’s so cool to hear you say that. I feel, I feel better about my. My little tiny forays into the world, you know, I, I purchased like a couple hundred bucks of Bitcoin and now it’s like 3,500 or something, you know, and that it’s, it’s interesting. It’s an interesting technology. I’m really. Super fascinated by this VR thing and the AR especially how that could affect podcasts.
And so I got the Oculus rift for awhile and I was, I was putting up all my micro content on my, my plans for my interviews in this virtual world. And I was looking at it and walking around because when you’re on this screen, this kid let’s, let’s widen this when you’re on the screen. It’s like, you just have this much, even if you have three screens, but if you’re in VR, you have 360 above and below, you can put things everywhere and it, it definitely increases productivity.
Uh, but it’s still such a new technology and there’s so much there. So I’m, you know, you’ve been a leader in the art world. Of Bitcoin. And like, I mean, I’ve been hearing you work on Bitcoin for a long, long time. I mean, you were one of the first people I asked, like, what do I do? How do I get into it? So, I mean, I can imagine that things have changed a lot. Who are some of the people in the space that inspire you the most?
Nanu Berks: [00:11:17] Yeah. There’s so many. I mean, it’s been so awesome coming back now and reconnecting with people because it feels like a family, you know, that the people that were there early on and at every conference and every meetup and traveling together and that’s stuck through all the dips and the crazy stuff.
We’re tight, man. We’re really, we’re really good. So, I mean, I couldn’t even name. Yeah, everyone, all the, all the main crypto artists like the crypto artists were there from before NFT was a thing, um, are really incredible. And, um, you know, of course there’s like the crypto graffitis and like the main kind of godfathers of the crypto art that were doing stuff really early on.
Um, but there’s so many unsung heroes and people that just building the infrastructures, uh, that are incredible. And then also just. I mean, I feel like I’m going off all the engineers, creating this movement and creating the solutions and the securities. That’s the stuff that, you know, I have friends that I’ve met over telegram and we become really tight in a short amount of time.
And they talk about the security stuff that they’re building. And it blows my mind and even little robots like there’s this, um, this is so much fun. I’m in the telegram group where I comment a lot and, and, you know, I engage a lot. And so somebody invited me to join a robot that connects. My wallet to this thing called dust, that is just, um, a new way of mining, a little bit of this currency.
So if I engage in comment and use this telegram group, I get paid. And so, um, this is what’s really important about NFTs as well. Thanks to NFTs. I’ve able to monetize my Facebook, my Instagram and my Twitter content. So for the first time in my life, I’m getting paid for things that I would post for free. That would leave me basically nowhere. And that’s incredible. Um, so yeah, I don’t know
K.Lee Marks: [00:12:51] on crypto you’re monetizing in crypto, right? So it’s all it does. It. Wow. Wow.
Nanu Berks: [00:12:56] Yeah, I monetize it on crypto, so.
K.Lee Marks: [00:12:59] So that’s huge. So, you know, this, this podcast features a ton of podcasts and one of its goals is to support people in getting their message out and in, and being on air.
Right. And one of the common challenges for us is to monetize and everyone’s, you know, we put out these episodes, we try and promote it on socials and all that stuff, but still. You know, there’s this conception. You have to have a huge following to monetize. And, you know, while I think that helps, there’s all these other avenues now that are coming out and people are exploring and developing for ways that the creators can be empowered to do what they do and get paid for it.
And so it sounds like you’ve found some really amazing ways to do that.
Nanu Berks: [00:13:37] Yeah, please get on telegram. Please get on clubhouse and please get on the NFT world. I mean, I have two podcasts episodes I did with some of my homie’s in 2017 and they’re on the blockchain and they’re selling. They’re like I went and Googled my name the other day on my end to bring up my NFTs that I created and all these other things with my face were on it.
And I was like, what, what are these things? And it’s just a full podcast episode that is on the blockchain and people can buy it. People can bid on it, people can trade it so you can put every single one of these episodes. On the blockchain.
K.Lee Marks: [00:14:06] I’ll have to consult with you afterwards, try and figure out how to do that.
Nanu Berks: [00:14:09] I would love to help, yeah.
K.Lee Marks: [00:14:10] And I would like to talk about the blockchain and what it, what it, how it might affect podcasting, but, um, you know, Kind of zooming out from all of this. I want to, I want to dive back into this quote that I, shared from you, which is that we make art to store memories and design, who we become.
Art is the soul language of evolution. I want to kind of talk about that. I want to talk about what is our for you and, and tell me more about.
Nanu Berks: [00:14:39] I love that, that quote, vibes with you because. Yeah, it just like, it makes so much sense to me, to me, you know, culture doesn’t exist without imagery and without symbology and even in the crypto space, um, the art is so powerful.
And it’s, if you think about it, art is the thing that’s driving that economy. That’s amazing. And, in a way, that’s, what’s happening in the real, in the mainstream world too Hollywoodd and all this stuff, imagery memes all that stuff drives the energy to monetize it. Right. Um, But, yeah, but to me specifically, we talk about uploading our consciousness to the internet and all these things and all the crazy stuff that is that it’s going to happen in the future.
And it’s already happening now. You know, if you, if you get an AI, robot to study my Instagram and learn it, it’ll have my memories. It’ll have my language, it’ll have my face. It. My conciousness is already pretty much on the internet. so yeah, to me, you know, encoding our emotions and processing through healing arts is an amazing diary to look back into and trace your patterns.
It is an amazing gift for the future because it also reveals things for us that we are not. That we don’t have conceptualized in language, but what we understand that a soul level and we can draw as a symbol. And so when I look back through my sketchbooks, I often learn so much about my progress, what I’ve done.
I see clarity and goals that I have towards the future. and then in general, um, It’s a way to, to just distill really crazy concepts into something really simple that you see it and you get it, like you feel it, you know, and for me with Bitcoin, that was the main inspiration I wanted people that knew like, you know, six years ago that knew nothing about Bitcoin to see a really cool graffiti mural that had a and to question, what the hell is that symbol?
Like, why is that everywhere? And then through the art to get in, you know, interested in the research versus through the technology that can feel limiting, you know,
K.Lee Marks: [00:16:31] Oh, I can tell that that we’re going to need to do like a long form episode where we talk for three hours. Cause there’s like two too many levels of depth.
So I’m going to, I’m going to try and curb my personal curiosity and keep, keep this. But so one of the things that I have been, um, Experiencing it, cause it’s hard to put it into words, but on clubhouse and with these technologies is this unity of consciousness. It’s like the neurons of humanity are all connected and we’re all talking to each other faster than ever.
And we’re able to make all these connections and it feels like we’re moving. Um, We’re moving in some ways we’re moving in really, really positive directions because we’re, we’re looking at the shadow. We’re looking at the, at the past, um, horrendous crimes that have happened. We’re trying to, you know, there’s reckoning happening in so many places.
And, and so. That’s what excites me about, for instance, clubhouse, is that the amount of conversations that are happening, however, it can be really overwhelming. There’s so much info in. So I’m wondering, so you, you are focused on kind of work-life balance too. And, uh, would you share a little bit about how you take care of yourself?
Amidst all this crazy momentum and creativity.
Nanu Berks: [00:17:45] Spot on dude, spot on. That’s the biggest challenge. I think, um, clubhouse is all up here. You know, there’s a lot of feelings and there’s a lot of gut and like passion, but it’s all intellectualized. And so we’re talking, talking, listening, listening. And when I go to sleep, I feel like it takes me four hours to silence my brain.
And honestly, you know, I, I work with healing arts and auras and energy and all this stuff. And, um, the other day I checked in with my energy body and I was so far away. I mean, I’ve been thinking so much and, and, and ideating and creating the worlds of tomorrow. You know, when you’re thinking about downloading the next layer of what it’s going to look like, you’re there, man.
You’re far. And so I brought myself back in and it took me a long time when usually that’s a quick meditation for me, I check in and I’m like, okay. You know, download into the body. It took me a really long time. Um, and it’s a fun place to live in, you know, It’s a really fun place to be, um, to be a visionary.
But right now we need a lot of like visionary creation integration, and that can only happen if we’re grounded. Um, and so, I mean, I try to, I try to walk barefoot through nature at least once a day, even just stand on the ground barefoot. It’s incredible how much that grounds me. Um, in the morning I drink a meal replacement shake that has.
All the minerals, all the, everything, so that if I eat, you know, chips throughout the day, which sometimes I do at least I have all my main, uh, sources in the morning. Um, I drink Mate. I don’t drink coffee. So my tea keeps me, it’s really nice caffeine curve versus getting like super amped and then crashing.
And, uh, I try to sleep as much as I can. Sometimes it’s less, sometimes it’s more, but, um, the days just, just listen to your body. Like if there’s a day where you want to be outside, because it’s Saturday and you want to be in the sun, but you just need to sleep. Go to sleep, let your body rest. So I’m telling this to myself and tons of water.
I try to just drink as much water as I can all day long. So totally. You know what I mean? Exactly, salud! I have a bunch of alien stickers on mine..
K.Lee Marks: [00:19:40] Oh, nice. Yeah. For those listeners, you can watch this on YouTube, but uh, we just drink some water. So, okay. This is the somatic piece. The body piece is really important and it’s something that I’ve been trying to go into more, as well as being connected to the body, being connected, to Soma, to the raw sensation and you know, with, with the after last year with.
It’s not new, but after last year with George Floyd and everything, a lot of spotlight was put on to a racial trauma stored in the body. And there’s like, Resmah mannequin who has this great book grant? My grandmother’s hands there’s, the body keeps the score by, I forget the wonderful author’s name. And so teaches us how we can’t just be up here.
It’s not, it’s not a talk therapy thing. It’s not just something we can think our way out of it’s something we have to feel and hold space for and tune into the body. And I’ll give a shout out to a wonderful podcast calledThe Body knows. And a highly recommended to a couple who talk about somatic work and true tantra, not, not the Western version of like it’s only about sexuality. It’s about the body. It’s about the innate wisdom in the body and yeah, it’s so important. And hearing you say that you’re awake at night makes me feel a lot less. I don’t know crazy. Cause I’m in the same place. I’m just like, I’m so pumped and so pumped, it’s hard to, hard to ground down and, you know, breathing and meditation.
And I was curious, what, what is the a meal replacement? Is it huel, or is it what, what’s the shake?
Nanu Berks: [00:21:13] I think it’s called garden of life. I mix a couple of different ones. I have like powder and then I have meal the meal of life. It’s like raw organic and it’s so, you know, it’s amazing. Yeah. And I need him at night.
Sometimes I take a lot of CBD just throughout my day. Like highly I’m a fan or high fan of, uh, all the supplements.
K.Lee Marks: [00:21:33] Well, and this is optimization. This is body optimization and high performers. All they’re burning the candle at both ends. And they, we all kind of max out our adrenal glands. We max out all this, all, all of our resources.
And so it’s so important. I loved how you mentioned, like you got to rest sometime like last Sunday, I literally didn’t get out of bed. I just stayed in bed all day and I just recharged. And that, that allowed me to do five interviews today, which is. You know, it’s, it’s a lot to be engaged and connected to people all day long as you know, and now everyone’s in clubhouse all the time.
So it’s, uh, it’s more important than ever, probably with all the tech, all the stimulation to have unpluggable time and go out and connect with nature. Like you said, get your feet on the ground. I love that. I love that.
Nanu Berks: [00:22:16] Oh, my God. Five Interviews in one day, dude,
K.Lee Marks: [00:22:20] Five interviews. I just remembered the song that you taught me in the river by the Springs here in Austin.
Do you remember that song? It comes into my head all the time. I’m wondering if you’d be willing to like share a little bit of it for the audience.
Nanu Berks: [00:22:37] Oh, I don’t know. I’m so shy right now.
K.Lee Marks: [00:22:39] You don’t have to no pressure.
Nanu Berks: [00:22:40] Yeah, it’s so fun. I like turn red immediately. Look at that. Like immediate.
K.Lee Marks: [00:22:46] I could show the video on me and no one can see you, no i’m joking.
Nanu Berks: [00:22:50] So, um, yeah, with you, I just, I have such great memories of making, uh, making music and just the most healing stuff ever. Just over pouring tea. Oh my God. I miss those days. Talk to me about that a little bit Nanu, talk to me because like, first of all, everyone, please go to nanuberks.com, N a N U B E R K s.com.
K.Lee Marks: [00:23:10] You have A: just a really Epic site and it’s like, it’s a, there’s so much content on it, but you offer a lot of different kinds of. Offer you have a lot of different offerings. Can you, can you talk a little bit about some of that?
Nanu Berks: [00:23:25] For sure. And I love, I love this question because sometimes this gets missed, you know, I make fine art, obviously.
I’m I, you know, have these big pieces of, um, Oh, these big pieces of resin art. But you can see on my website, there’s videos of them. So, you know, I do that and I do NFT and all this stuff, but I also like to do play shops that connect people to their inner creative power. To me, it’s so important that everybody has a way to self heal and to self re-energize.
And creativity is that is the key. So I teach a freestyle rap flows. I can teach anyone how to freestyle rap in 15 minutes. It’s super fun to do in groups. I paint huge murals with communities sometimes. Uh, I do the mind-body color maps, which is a healing, um, kind of like medical medium scan of your body.
And that’s been super awesome as well. Um, and I also channeled symbols for people or, you know, whatever I can do to help kind of connect them to that, that. You know, energy to want to move forward and, and create something and, and just healing the limitations around what creativity is, you know, everybody’s graded from how they talk to how they walk to their preferences.
Um, and I get that it’s different to be able to monetize creativity or to feel creative even. Um, but everybody innately has the opportunity to tap into that, you know?
K.Lee Marks: [00:24:43] Wow. Yeah. The free, so one of the. Probably it was probably that same day after that, this great song. Hey, which a child
Nanu Berks: [00:24:52] Yeah, please sing it!
K.Lee Marks: [00:24:54] No, it’s, uh, um, the, the tea and the freestyling.
So we actually have a freestyle up. Maybe I’ll put that in the show notes, if it’s still on your SoundCloud. There’s a really nice, uh, freestyle in Tea and yeah, so freestyling is really amazing. We’re talking about being not grounded and being kind of up in the ether and, and being visionaries. And I feel like freestyling is so cool.
Cause it’s very much that like pulling down from, from intuition and from. You know, consciousness and then bringing it out into words and communication. And it’s so powerful to watch people like yourself, uh, connect to that source and share that. So I I’d be really interested on, um, you know, following up with you about your freestyling workshops, but then you also mentioned symbols, you channel symbols.
So I wanted to talk to you about this idea. You see my little like podcast farm logo up there in the top left. So, um, So I help people with brand strategy and people often thinks that think that brands are logos, which they’re not brands are how your audience, or how your community perceive you and trust you and relate with you.
That’s like your brand, but every brand needs like a face. And that’s what the logo is. But I’ve been tripping out on this idea that sigils. Are brands, right? So sigils, if people don’t know it are like these symbols of power that usually you can take either words or intentions and sort of overlay them on top of each other.
So let’s say I wanted to make a sigil of, you know, my name. I could, I could take all my letters and I can overlay them and try and build a symbol out of that. And then I kind of have like a little brand sigil for my name. The interesting thing is there’s something really powerful about doing it. And I’m just curious your thoughts on it. Cause you’ve channeled symbols so.
Nanu Berks: [00:26:36] I’m looking like I’m looking for my sketchbook. I have like. I’m so unorganized and so organized at the same time, but I have like 10 million sketchbooks and I’m always drawing on different ones. So I was trying to see if I could find one. Um, but yeah, we can post them later.
So yeah, basically, um, yeah, I feel like you imprint the energy of whatever intention you have when you create a piece. Right? So even if I make three lines, but I make them with a specific energy, it’ll have that energy signature. So what you said with the sigils and with your name, that’s really powerful.
We connect. Our name and the shape of our name to so many things. And so if we can put that into a symbol, that means something to us it’s really, really powerful. And the symbols I’ve been channeling for people are very, um, across, I guess they’re like ancient alien style, you know, it’s kind of like modern, um, Modern ma I don’t know.
I don’t know what to call it, but that’s what it feels like. And so they’re very alien and it has this kind of a weird symbology. Yeah, exactly. So in this picture that you’re pulling up perfect moment. Um, there a lot of the, the letters around it, it’s kind of like this invented language I use I’m super dyslexic.
So numbers and letters. Totally the same to me. Um, and so there’s encrypted messages of positivity in there. There’s like love and light and, you know, balance yourself and make your own economy, make your own freedom. There’s all this stuff around it. Um, so often the symbol side channel for people are what looks like one or two letters of that, uh, with eyes and this all sorts of stuff.
So yeah, it’s really fun. I love doing it. And I do so for awhile, I was doing, uh, healing arts as a full-time job and I was charging like 250 an hour and. It was fun, but it was it it’s not accessible to everyone. So right now I’m offering donation-based, uh, channeled symbols for people, donation based poems that I channel for people.
Um, so I do a lot of that stuff. You can hit me up on Instagram or Twitter and I’ll, and I’ll just like, make one for you.
K.Lee Marks: [00:28:22] I love it. So, um, I’m one of the things that I’ve been meditating on his, his language in general and, uh, labels. So there’s this great book that I have in here, but I’m not going to get it. It’s called thanks for the feedback.
And one of it breaks down, like why it’s so hard to get feedback sometimes. Like, especially if it’s not positive affirmations or something, if it’s like a challenge. And one of the reasons for that is because of labels. So if let’s say Harry and Sally are there and, um, Sally says Harry you’re being mean.
Right. So what does mean means this picture? It’s a mind movie in Sally’s head and it’s also a picture in Harry’s head, but it’s a different one. It’s a different movie. It’s his understanding of mean? And so that’s a label. So then, so if he wanted to receive feedback, instead of being defensive and as men, like, I don’t know, speak for myself.
I’ve been really defensive along a lot of time because I was kind of. Conditioned to that. If I was wrong, that made me like a weak man and all this stuff. So I think guys can be really defensive sometimes. And it’s, it’s under, it’s like it triggers our amygdala women too. It triggers triggers everyone’s amygdala.
So if we break, break, open what the label means, it might mean, okay, when you did this thing, I felt this. And so we can understand more of like what the objective reality was that happened, what happened. And then it made this person feel this way. And so I say all that. Because labels are really powerful.
Somehow we’re a- I’d like to borrow from Terence McKenna, -we’re like wiggling air at each other and understanding our each other’s mind movies kind of, and it’s super, it’s super weird and strange, but when you’re building these symbols or these brands, or you’re, you’re making art and you’re creating this emotional, uh, reaction or, or.
Yeah, this effect on impact on another person you’re passing information, you know, and it’s, it’s encrypted in this symbol or this label. And I’m just, uh, you know, I believe so much in the power of speech and the power of voice and abracadabra, it is created as it is spoken, you know,
Nanu Berks: [00:30:31] it’s so true. And honestly, that bit about conscious communication is my obsession.
Like low-key but true. It’s my obsession and it seems, it seems so silly to me when I started studying it, things, statements, like it seemed extreme like, Oh, if I walk into a room and I say, it’s cold here, that’s a violent statement because I’m saying it’s cold and everybody should feel what I feel. And if I walk in and say, i’m cold, it’s not, you know, but it does.
It does, it has solved so many issues for me in communication. And I’ll give you, I’ll give you one that you might’ve heard, but I it’s one of my favorites. Tools ever, whenever you get into confrontation or an argument or disagreement with someone stop and just ask how old do you feel right now? And then ask yourself how old do I feel right now?
And you’ll be mind blown about all the patterns come up. You know, if you were three years old, you were like, Oh shit, this is triggering this thing with my dad. Or, Oh, this is triggering this like abandonment issue. It is the, in this playful too, because you can, once you stop, you’re in the middle of a heated argument and you say, Oh my God, I feel 13 years old right now.
It’s funny, you know, and, and then you see that truth. You can’t change it. And so, or you can, but you know, you see the truth, you can’t ignore it. So, yeah. And super useful.
K.Lee Marks: [00:31:36] Oh, that’s a great question. Yeah. So I went through a nine month deep psychology of intimate relationship program through the relationship school and it, uh, it taught a lot of these skills, a lot of that stuff of like going back into the trigger and.
Dealing with our physiology. And so much of conflict is a physiological reaction. It’s not a cognitive thing. It’s the amygdala hijacking our. Our behavior basically. And so we have to, we have to both work to like, have compassion, understanding that that will happen for everyone. Everyone will be triggered.
Everyone will act like a child sometimes, but then we also have to learn our, how to manage our nervous system and how to manage those who we love. You know, we cut, we co-regulate each other. We are, we are relating beings. We’re not. Isolated. And so we, if we do affect each other, but that’s such a great point.
You said about the, the coldness of the room reminds me of E prime. Have you heard of E Prime?
Nanu Berks: [00:32:30] Yeah, exactly. It’s like, it’s already, you start studying these things and it seems so extreme, but then when you use them in practice, it’s actually. Really really useful. I don’t really argue with people anymore. I mean, I have some, you know, like everyone with families usually toughest and stuff like that, but it’s, it’s amazing.
I used to be pretty confrontational and insecure and take everything personal. That was like the hardest one, take everything personal. So then he goes off the insecurity of feeling unworthy or whatever, and then. When you can start clearing some of those patterns, you feel so free. You just, people don’t take your power away anymore.
You don’t give it away anymore. It still happens obviously. Right. But when you can catch it early, it’s so satisfying, you know?
K.Lee Marks: [00:33:08] Yeah. For sure. You feel way more empowered to act the way you want to and put your, your best self forward. Right. So one of the focuses for me personally, Is youth development and, and like the future of education and ed tech.
And so I’m kind of curious what you, what do you make of this whole situation? You know, since the lockdown, so many students are either bored out of their mind, not showing up at all, or, you know, missing that social part. I’m curious, like, Like, maybe you could give some advice because I do think there’s going to be more younger audience listening to this and you know, what would you advise to the next generation who’s in middle school and high school, and then like, what do you see the future of, of education becoming.
Nanu Berks: [00:33:54] For sure. I love this question. I’m actually working with three or four projects right now that include bringing art back into the classroom. That’s always been like a huge passion of mine and it’s, there’s so many cool people in the crypto space. that get this and that understand it. And that we’re taking this riding this wave of NFTs as being empowered, mostly through art.
To also bring that back into the community. So everything from murals that were painting that were making them collect money, and I can go into that another podcast, but anyway, murals in the community that collect money to fund school projects,to selling NFTs, that fund school projects, all that, all those things.
And then as far as, advice, honestly, it’s like anything, you know, you wake up and you want to get to the gym and you don’t, but then when you it’s hard, but when you do. You never regret it. Like tell me one time that you go to the gym and you were like, Oh, I wish I stayed in bed instead. Never, never. And so with drawing and with artistic creation it’s the same.
And I have to push myself with this even all the time, even though I love it. Just grab a pencil and open a book, whatever you have near and just scribble, literally make one line. And if that one line is everything you did that day, that’s awesome. Just get into the muscle memory and you’ll just realize that you ended up doodling.
You end up same with music, grabbing instrument. Put this, you know, play the strings once, grab a drum, hit it a couple of times When you feel these, these calls, these pings from the universe that you just want to sing, or you want to scream, and then we just ignore it. Cause it’s weird. You know, sometimes you’re around people, whatever.
Just do it act within it. You probably know these better than me. You know, the exact Mark, what is it like a half of a second or something that it takes the brain to then to override? Something. So, yeah, just whenever that instinct comes up, just take action. However it is where weird stuff that you wouldn’t wear before.
Just any way that you can interrupt, like the, the routine in your life do that. and it’s going to bring up so much creativity, like all the things, even like brushing your teeth with, uh, the other hand, you know, just however you can intercept your routine. it’s going to amplify your creativity. And so, and there’s also a balance between intake, like looking, you know, looking at new cartoons or new animation or new movies, and then times where you’re not consuming, but you’re creating, I think that’s an important distinction as well.
K.Lee Marks: [00:36:03] Woah there’s so much value there. Okay. Let me, let me, first of all, pings from the universe is a great way to describe that. And then the interrupting routine will amplify your creativity. So, and whether that’s okay. Writing with your other hand drawing with your other hand or brushing your teeth with the other hand or wearing something different, hanging out with different people, it’s going a different way on your walk. Like anything that, that changes your routine will spark creativity. Am I understanding right?
Nanu Berks: [00:36:31] A hundred percent and you feel those moments all the time, the more you notice them, you know, you’ll be walking by and you’ll see a flower and you want to stop and smell it, but you just keep walking. Even if you keep walking and you notice that take three steps back and go smell that flower. I swear it, things like that are so important.
K.Lee Marks: [00:36:45] It’s like,it creates a relationship with the cosmos and synchronicity and, and the inner inner guidance of, if you listen to the call, then you kind of, it kind of turns it up. Almost it turns up the volume.
Nanu Berks: [00:36:57] Exactly. And you never know, it’s weird stuff you get into that’s how synchronicity works, that people you end up meeting craziest things that happen.
K.Lee Marks: [00:37:04] Yeah. So I know you were traveling internationally, especially before lockdown you’re in Bali. Um, you know, you’re, you’re a nomad. Can you talk a little bit about how you manage to do everything you’re doing while still traveling?
Nanu Berks: [00:37:16] Oh, God. Yeah. Thank you. Um, it’s been really challenging and really beautiful.
Um, I’ve been, you know, traveling by myself since I was really young and I was painting murals, travel backpacking through South America and like exchanging them for food and housing. And I’ve always, always been nomadic. I’ve always made art on the road. Um, And I had these mind limitations as limiting beliefs that are actually not true at all.
And I’ve been dismantling these through the workflow. So for example, I always had this idea that until I had a studio like this one with skylights and a lot of space, I would never produce, um, The, the work, the best work I could make. But actually since I’ve had this studio, it’s mostly been an office and I’m mostly been doing podcasts.
I have a couple of paintings I’m working on commissioning and stuff, but I’m mostly been on my phone editing videos and best pieces I’ve ever made have been like these pieces behind me, the resident pieces. I made those in three different cities, one time, part of it in LA, in a garage, part of it, like in some random Airbnb and that stuff.
It takes a lot of materials, have to carry around all these crazy stuff. And so, um, when I finally finally, you know, we finally achieve the things we want and everything’s going to be okay. When I finally got the studio, I felt guilty because I wasn’t using it at all. I have all my mixed media materials and that’s not, what’s showing up for me right now and I can’t force it.
So, um, it’s been, it’s been retrospectively looking back. I realized how. All the limitations. There’s always going to be limitations and uncomfortable things, but the, the uncomfortable moments that may push us to grow and that make us be more creative and then make us be versatile. Those are where the best things are born, you know, usually.
And so sure. It’s nice. And sometimes it’s really nice. When I do work on my commissions, now it is really nice to have the space. Um, but, but I’ve learned like the biggest takeaway is whatever you want to create. You can create it wherever you are. Um, and one of the biggest examples is probably I was in a castle in Italy, like in Tuscany, somewhere for, uh, an AI, uh, convention, like a consciousness expansion.
I had the opportunity to make an art installation and I’ve always wanted to do something in that technology space. And I had nothing. I was super broke at the time. I had no money. And I was in a tiny town. So I drove to, um, to, uh, to a ferreteria what is it called? It’s like a,
K.Lee Marks: [00:39:33] hardware store
Nanu Berks: [00:39:34] yeah, I think, Oh my God, thank you so much.
I heard about one store and I collected as many things as I could with like 200 bucks and I made an artist solution out of that. That was that an intention portal and people loved it and it was so much fun. So there’s no excuses, you know, creativity is the answer always.
K.Lee Marks: [00:39:49] Yes. Yes. Yes. Snaps to that. Snaps people.
It’s snap snap at home snap in the car. Keep one hand on the wheel. That’s awesome. Wow. This has been such an inspiring conversation. And as we, as we start to wind down, um, where, how, okay, so the listener listening, who is totally inspired , they’re like, I need to know Nanu I need to see your work. I need to interact.
I need to connect. What, how do you want them to go about doing that?
Nanu Berks: [00:40:14] Thank you so much. And thank you for everyone listening and putting the time to just hang out with us. It’s so cool. I’m so honored and just, yeah, just I’m amazed by, by all of the connections. So you can reach out to me on Twitter. I mostly live on Twitter now.
Um, I used to mostly live on Instagram, but I mostly live on Twitter, which, and all of my handles are @NanuBerks. If you type type that anywhere, mostly I’m on telegram as well. Um, and then of course, if you, you know, Instagram, that, that works. Um, and I just say, don’t get discouraged if I don’t answer right away and feel free to message me a couple of times.
Cause I do want to get to everyone. Um, but yeah, just Twitter is great. Instagram is great. Um, and I’m doing a lot of podcasts lately. So if you have questions that you want me to, to keep in mind for podcasts, send me those too. And uh, where can they buy your art? Especially if they wanted to buy NFT art.
Yeah. So I have the link tree that’s that’s floating below, um, that has all of them. And then, um, they’re not on my website. My website is being upgraded, but Linktree is the best place. And if you go to Twitter, I post every single day, all the new things I’m doing. So Instagram too. Yeah, that.
K.Lee Marks: [00:41:15] Wonderful, wonderful, well, any, any final thoughts or messages or, you know, ideas that you want to blast out onto the airwaves?
Nanu Berks: [00:41:24] Yes. I want to ask you what your word of the day is, and I want to close with mine as well.
K.Lee Marks: [00:41:29] Ooh, Ooh, it’s good. Okay. I have it actually. I might have it pulled up cause I I’ve been posting these words of the day, uh, graphics on my Instagram because I needed, I needed, uh, I needed.
Something easy and consistent that I could do, uh, every day and post. And the words of the day are just super, uh, easy and beautiful. So, uh, my word of the day is Aurora, which is the Dawn. You know, it’s obviously a natural, or obviously it’s the natural electrical phenomenon characterized by the appearance of streamers or reddish greenish light in the sky, kind of like at the North pole, but the it’s also just the Dawn. So Aurora, that’s the wordof the day?
Nanu Berks: [00:42:11] Oh, I love that. And it sounds so nice too. And it’s good for graffiti also. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn’t even know you were doing that with the words of the day how fun.
K.Lee Marks: [00:42:22] What about yours?
Nanu Berks: [00:42:23] Um, mine. Mine is, um, I think as grounding, I’ve just been grounding so much and we need it. We all need it. I’m a double air sign, but I have a lot of fires.
So I use that to ground. Um, and, and yeah, and I wanted to say to the online store shop.nanuberks.com that you can access through through my website has a wearable art clothes. So all the paintings that I make, I turn into leggings and clothing. So if you want to be wrapped in graffiti art, there’s like a crypto specific line.
And also. Just art and there’s prints. So it’s super fun way to just be like embraced in art all the time,
K.Lee Marks: [00:43:02] embraced in these sacred love filled symbols that Nanu is, is, is bringing through with so much, um, so much good intention. And that, that is so wonderful. And for you audio listeners, I’ll make sure that the links are all in the show notes and yeah, so.
Please everyone go check out Nanu’s work. It’s really amazing. She’s a leader in the crypto art space in the crypto space and just a wonderful soul. And yeah, I, I really hope to have you back on for a much longer conversation and maybe even like an interesting panel would be cool. I have, I have a couple other folks who they could probably ask even better questions than I could about certain things.
So let’s definitely do a round two.
Nanu Berks: [00:43:42] I would love that I love panels are so much fun and they bring so much creativity too. So, yeah, you’re amazing. I’m so grateful to have this opportunity to reconnect with you, just your creativity and your leadership as well in this space and all the people you’re bringing all the different walks of life.
It’s awesome. So thank you so much.
I’m so inspired so inspired
K.Lee Marks: [00:43:59] to be part of this, this global global revolution of consciousness and communication and love and collaboration. So till next time Nanu thank you again for being on air and I’ll see you. See you soon. Bye.
Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of be on air. I hope you enjoyed it and are now one step closer to turning on your mic and broadcasting your message to the world. Are you ready to start your own podcast and amplify your brand? Or are you struggling to get your show in front of engaged audiences?
I can help you on your broadcasting journey. Get in touch with me and apply for a strategy session. If you want to discuss your podcast idea, you can reach me at www.Podcast-farm.com and then all the social media until next time, my friends I’m K.Lee marks. Thanks for tuning in to be on air.
