Good evening. Welcome to College Street Congregational Church. More importantly, welcome to Vermont Interfaiths. Action on this for this evening. We're so grateful that you are here. I'm Ken White. I'm the pastor of College Street Congregational Church, and I've been part of this initiative around racial justice and public safety, and it is a gift to be here tonight with all of you. And with all of you on Zoom, we're so grateful that you have joined in. Thank you for bearing with us through some of the technical difficulties of this exciting new era of getting together in multiple places. It is amazing when it works. In 1966, Mayor John Lindsay in New York sought to create a police oversight board made up of civilians. Local leaders who supported school segregation were also against this measure, and they were able to create a ballot movement to overturn this initiative, disallowing citizen engagement with police oversight. Their leader, John Casice, said he was sick and tired of giving in to minority groups. Baird Rustin, one of the most important figures in the nonviolent civil rights movement of the late 20th century, tried to explain to John Casice exactly what was at stake. He wrote, the maintenance of law and order are, first of all, not the result of police action, but the by-product of a just and equitable social and economic order, where there is justice order obtains, where there is widespread injustice, disorder is inevitable. We at Vermont Interfaith Action have differing faith traditions. We use different names for the reality beyond our understanding. We have different sacred texts and different understandings of those texts. This is part of the gift of being an interfaith relationship. But we have a common faith in the human endeavor, one that you share by your presence here tonight. We have a common faith like Baird Rustin, that life in community is not a zero-sum game, where some people must necessarily be diminished in order for others to be uplifted. We have a common faith that when justice prevails, all are uplifted, and that which is not love becomes an aberration instead of an expectation. This evening, we testify that justice matters, and that unfortunately injustice exists in many of our concepts of public safety in the state that we love, and much of that injustice is centered around our country's larger problem of racial injustice. This evening, we testify that injustice damages all of us, the inevitable disorder of physical and spiritual well-being from injustice, damages those who depend on order as well as those tasked with maintaining order. But in this evening, we also testify to the power that God has given each of us, power that we use, to privilege some among us with the sacred duty of maintaining civil order, and power that we can use to make sure that this duty is carried out justly in a way that honors the dignity of all and that reconciles us to each other. That we have been given that power of oversight and that duty of oversight by God is not in question. What is in question this evening is whether we have the courage, the perseverance, and the optimism to exercise that power. It's a blessing to be here together tonight and to share this very hopeful moment with you. Good night and welcome. My name is Eric Picard, and I'm a member of the College Street Congregational Church United Church of Christ, and also a leader in the VIA and a member of the racial justice organizing committee. I'm your moderator tonight, and it is my hope and intention to be able to deliver and facilitate this meeting in a way that does the issue justice. We are very glad that you could join us tonight to demonstrate your interest in this important issue. We hope that we will learn more about, we will learn more about the guide as we go on. I'd like to thank College Street Community for hosting the event and the technology team for making it available on Zoom. At this point, I would like to introduce our three special guests. They are Chief Rick Ebert, Chief of the Winooski Police Department, Rebecca Turner, a supervising attorney for the Office of Defender General and a member of a statewide racial disparities advisory council and Anne Naumann, co-founder of the Richmond Equity and Diversity Task Force. We appreciate their assistance in this work of our organizing committee, and we look forward to hearing their remarks about the community interaction with police later in this evening. So why are we here tonight? Primarily to support the release of the Vermont Guide to Community Engagement with local police departments. But our gathering tonight is much more significant. Racism has been and continues to be a destructive and deadly legacy in our country. As a nation, we have made progress, but our being here tonight bears witness to the tremendous work which still needs to be done. Since early 2021, our Public Safety Committee has been researching and meeting with local law enforcements and related professions to better understand systemic racism with the aim of affecting change. The Community Engagement Guide came to be as our research evolved and revealed a wide range of experiences and beliefs regarding systemic racism. The guide is a tool designed to support communication between the community and the police. Its aim is to facilitate productive change and strengthen accountability between the police and the community they serve. The guide is a call to action. We are here tonight to renew our resolve to end systemic racism. Now a little more about our process and the norms for this evening. Our VIA process is highly relational and involves listening to each other and others outside the organization at every step. To begin, we conduct one-on-one listening campaigns with members of our congregations to understand this issues effect in our communities. We then held various research meetings with public officials and community leaders to learn more about the systems in our Vermont towns and cities. From this research, the information for this evening was collected. As you can see from your program, we have a lot to cover in a short period of time. For this reason, we are only inviting those on the program to speak tonight. Our VIA group would be very happy to hear from anyone who is concerned with this issue at a later time. We will make sure you have contact information to reach us. Tonight, we will present a report and a guide based on research. But as we all know, behind every fact and figure, there are the human faces of those who long for justice for themselves and their families. Many across our country have lost their lives through their encounters with police or have paid other physical as well as mental, emotional and spiritual tolls. We dedicate this evening to those who have sacrificed so much to truly make national, state and local systems provide fairness and equity for all. And so now VIA credentials will be read by Lucy. Good evening. It's an honor to present Vermont Interfaith Actions credentials to you. The mission of Vermont Interfaith Action is to create solutions to systemic issues that prevent our most vulnerable citizens from enjoying the quality of life God intends for us all. Vermont Interfaith Action is a faith-based grassroots coalition of congregations that strives to transform people and communities. Our goal is to make social justice and compassion a reality for all in Vermont. VIA is affiliated with a national organization, Faith in Action. Along with Faith in Action, VIA believes that organizing is the best way to address the spiritual and material crises facing our society. Organizing is the best tool we have for standing up to corporations' interests, profiting from racial and economic oppression and environmental destruction. To create a new society based on equity and sustainability and love, we need to build strong multiracial, people-led organizations that relentlessly press for social change. Vermont Interfaith Action and Faith in Action have a unique role to play in building a larger movement for change. This contribution flows from our capacity to engage large numbers of people through trusted community institutions, to speak prophetically about the moral dimensions of political choices, and to bring people together across race, class, religion, urban, suburban, rural, and region to make progress on racial and economic justice. Thank you very much. Thank you, Lucy. And now we'll have a roll call. Good evening. My name is Lucia White, and I'm a member of College Street Congregational and a leader in Vermont Interfaith Action. This evening, we'd like to welcome and recognize those who have come from all of our member congregations. When I call out your faith community, please stand and remain standing. And whether on Zoom or in person, feel free to make some noise. From the Burlington area, College Street Congregational Church. All souls interfaith gathering. First Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington. First Congregational Church of Burlington. Ohavi's Edict Synagogue. Vermont Zen Center. Christ Church Presbyterian. Cathedral Church of St. Paul. From Central Vermont, Unitarian Church of Montpelier. Christ Episcopal Church Montpelier. Good Shepherd Episcopal Montpelier. From Southern Vermont, Guilford Community Church. Hey! Good to see you. From the Upper Valley, St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Norwich. Those from other congregations in the Burlington area and Central Vermont. Those from other congregations in Southern Vermont and the Upper Valley. And all our friends and allies who are interested in racial equity. We are glad you're here tonight. Which is the College Street. Yeah. Now we will hear from a few individuals who have experienced with different aspects of this issue. We'd like to introduce, and I'm sorry, we'd like to hear the experience of establishing a community group on equity and diversity from Anne Nauman, a resident of Richmond, Vermont. No? So, let's swallow all those words and start again. Before we get to our guests, we have, there was a report written on the process by which we put the guy together. And that report will be shared now. Good evening. I'm Nina Regan. And I'm going to deliver the results of our research. Vermont Interfaith Action has three broad efforts under way to promote racial justice. Our public safety organizing ministry started in early 2021 and is pleased to share the results of this work. Public safety group is composed of 8 to 10 people who represent diverse communities of faith. We approach this project with humility and a spirit of genuine learning, both about the experiences of people of color in Vermont and the difficult work performed by police officers. To better understand the issues surrounding policing and people of color in our state, we conducted over a dozen interviews with Vermonters positioned to speak authoritatively on the subject, including the executive director of the Wyndham County and double ACP, the executive director of the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, a member of the Vermont Racial Equity Panel who is a UVM professor, an expert on policing data and a member of the Burlington Police Commission, the team lead of the Burlington Outreach Program from Howard Center, a Burlington based nonprofit that offers mental health, substance use and developmental disability services. Vermont state police officers, including those responsible for fair and impartial policing, training and recruitment, the police chiefs of Burlington, South Burlington, Winooski and Williston, the commissioner of Vermont's Department of Public Safety, the office of the defender general representative to the Racial Disparities Advisory Council, the executive director of the Vermont Criminal Justice Council, and finally, Vermont state legislators. Not surprisingly, there are differing views on the issue. One of our chief conclusions is that there is no consensus on the nature or extent of racism in policing in Vermont. Some interviewees, citing traffic stop data and anecdotal reports, believe there is evidence of over-policing of people of color in many jurisdictions. Others pointed to policies and training programs in place to minimize bias. One interviewee noted that violence, arrests and incarcerations are disproportionately focused on people of color and that community safety must be viewed as much broader than just policing. Several of the people we interviewed expressed concern about the wide range of policing disparities among Vermont police departments. Some were frustrated by Vermont's limited ability to enforce standards across Vermont's law enforcement organizations, emphasizing that local police departments think that they can police as they see fit and often rebuff attempts by the state to help them improve their performance in this regard. One law enforcement official stressed that there is explicit bias in policing everywhere, but that it is only occasional, not pervasive in Vermont. That official took issue with some of the analysis of police stops, arguing that the relatively low number of people of color living in and visiting Vermont means that one incident will dramatically spew the perception of disparity. Another official asserted that there is not much evidence of racism in the daily behavior of police officers, but conceded that racism occurs upstream of police interactions such as in education, housing and employment. Now I'm going to go over some ideas to move forward. Despite the lack of consensus on racism in policing, interviewees did have useful thoughts and suggestions for Vermonters working to improve policing. A key theme is that trust between the community and the police force is critical for everyone to feel respected and safe. Strong engagement between the police and the community is a starting point to effect change. As for the approach, many people believe that reforming public safety is a complex problem that requires careful fact-finding and analysis as well as a collaborative approach between police and the communities they serve. Others noted that quality reform-minded leadership can make a difference in setting standards, enforcing expectations and shifting the work culture. The Vermont State Police and South Burlington Police Departments were cited as being ahead of the curve on fair and impartial policing. Both have taken data analysis seriously and made progress in creating a culture that values fair and impartial policing. As for community oversight, some argue that police commissions and community oversight are important tools that can be ineffective without appropriate training, mechanisms for promoting communications and trust, and adherence to national best practices. The Burlington Police Commission has taken advantage of the National Association of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement, or NACOL, training in this regard. According to NACOL, effective civilian oversight is an essential practice to develop trust with the community. One senior law enforcement officer, however, pointedly said they do not support community oversight because of concerns about people inexperienced with policing, second guessing the actions of individual officers. As for community engagement, many noted the need to strengthen communication and trust between citizens and police departments. Some police officers noted that they received little feedback from the community even when they asked. As a result, they are interested in learning more about what Vermonters want and need in terms of policing. Another person noted the importance of transparency, accountability, trust and cooperation. As for culture, one police chief mentioned the importance of cultural brokers to help convey community views to law enforcement and to help the community understand police views. These brokers can help promote open conversations, educate audiences and bridge cultural differences. This police chief observed that some communities feel they have an open channel to the police, while others, especially marginalized communities, most likely do not feel that way. Many interviewees noted the need for deep cultural change in police departments. One noted that police deserve respect as do each one of the people with whom they interact. We need to get past the mindset as the enforcer. Many also emphasized the critical role that leadership plays in changing culture in police departments. A leader in the racial justice community noted that faith communities can offer programs to encourage humanizing the other. As for data collection analysis and use, many interviewees emphasize that data is important for promoting police transparency and accountability and for keeping the focus on fair and impartial policing. Many assess that most departments are not using data effectively, in part because of inadequate resources to analyze the data. Some advocated for standardized statewide data collection and analysis around characteristics such as race, ethnicity and other demographics. Some believe using data as a police force management tool would be effective shedding light on officers who are over stopping and over searching people. For policy considerations, one senior official in the criminal justice system thinks that banning pretextual traffic stops would be effective. They perceive the police as having a wide latitude to stop people based on suspicion, which can be skewed as a result of explicit or implicit bias. That official noted Vermont has a very low standard of reasonable suspicion, which could be corrected by the following. Eliminating prosecution of non-criminal offenses, such as jaywalking and vehicle taillight violations. Strongly emphasizing deescalation whenever possible during police encounters. And having the flexibility to use declination when appropriate in the justice system to reduce the chance of racial bias. Declination is a practice of declining to pursue criminal charges, declining to place persons in custody, and declining to impose harsh or impossible conditions. As for education and training, there was broad support for increased training on implicit and explicit biases, data analysis, deescalation and safety. Some of our interviewees argue that officers do not generally understand the breadth and depth of racial oppression in the US, while one police chief made this topic central to his officers training. Many mention that funding for such training is inadequate and that time constraints further work against adequate attention to racial issues during training. As for staffing and resource challenges, police departments are experiencing serious staffing challenges, but are committed to hiring qualified applicants from diverse backgrounds. As for social service gaps, some interviewees noted that policing would be impossible without the support of community groups that help address mental health and substance abuse problems. One law enforcement leader would like to see a study that identifies gaps in social services that led to subsequent crisis calls, shining a light on the upstream circumstances that led to 9-1-1 emergencies. Eugene Oregon's CAHOOTS program was cited as a national model for embedding experts in mental health, substance abuse and homelessness with local police. And finally, about organization, many government officials argued that elevating the Department of Public Safety into an agency would increase the efficiency and effectiveness of law enforcement in Vermont. Such a change would also provide a mechanism for consolidating police resources regionally and for the state to have greater influence over the policing practices of town and county police officers. So with all that said, BIA's new contribution is a Vermont guide to community engagement with local police departments. BIA's research on improving racial equity in policing in Vermont generated a wealth of information and ideas for change. As a next step in this work, we are releasing today a new guide to help communities engage constructively with their local police forces with the goal of reducing racism in policing. The guide, which has been vetted by one of the police chiefs that we interviewed, is designed to give concerned citizens the benefit of BIA's experience in this space and a concrete tool to help them work in concert with law enforcement to produce better outcomes for all. BIA drafted a series of questions in different categories such as training, accountability and grievance processes that community members can use to start a dialogue with their law enforcement officials. We believe that police departments will also benefit from the guide as they seek more constructive interaction with the communities they serve on the question of racism in law enforcement. The guide will be available on BIA's website and hard copies are available for those of you present in person this evening. The guide begins with the case for civilian oversight of law enforcement and an overview of policing in Vermont, followed by the series of questions that are intended to be a first step in opening up a dialogue between the police and concerned members of the community they serve. The questions also provide a chance for police officers to talk about policing as a vocation and their motivations for serving. There is also an opportunity for them to talk about the challenges and trauma they have experienced performing the job and how they handle it. The guide concludes with a section on additional resources, including links to websites. We encourage all communities in Vermont to initiate such a dialogue with their police departments in the spirit of building trust and coming together to help address a serious and persistent concern that affects the lives of all Vermonters regardless of race. Vermont Interfaith Action is willing and eager to assist, coach, support, mentor, any community group anywhere in the state that would like to use the guide. If the community group uncovers information that is disturbing or at least needs follow-up, BIA leaders are happy to guide them in ways they might do that and resources they could use. Thank you. Thank you, Nina. Now, we will hear from our guests. So we'll start with hearing from Anne Naumann, who was involved in establishing a community group on equity and diversity in Richmond, Vermont. Hi everybody. My name is Anne Green-Naumann, and I've been asked to talk about how it is that Richmond racial equity got started. So originally the work in Richmond started when President Trump was still in office, and I became quite distressed about some of the things happening in the southern border. And then in researching it more and in talking to some people through my work with the Open Door Clinic out of Middlebury, which serves the migrant farm population, I became aware of the jeopardy that some of the farm workers were in from interactions with police that often got them entangled with ICE or immigration and customs enforcement. And so out of that came some work with a few other people here in Richmond to try to get our police department in Richmond to make changes about how much they communicated with ICE and how much help they gave to them. And originally we didn't get very far, and life got busy and I kind of let it go. And then George Floyd's death happened, and there became a lot of us here in Richmond that were concerned about racial equity issues, and we started meeting in, I think it was June, around the time that, at the same time that George Floyd was killed, or the whole tribe, that whole thing. And we started meeting, and originally there were about 50 of us that were meeting on a pretty regular basis, and the first project that we tackled was No Most Polymigris, which is about not having police coordinate and help ICE. And we were basically successful in getting our select for board to agree that that was an important thing and getting our new interim police chief to agree to make those changes. So that was the first thing that happened. And then we started trying to address a few other things. We started working on some education, public education and education of our police force and education ourselves about racial justice issues. And so now two years later we have a core group of people of about anywhere between eight and 15 people that come to meetings and work on things on a regular basis. And the biggest thing that I would suggest to people considering this kind of work is that you can't do it on your own. When I started I was trying to do it mostly on my own with a few people helping and it just didn't happen. And I think in a lot of ways we were successful because of the timing when we finally were able to get No Most Polymigris passed and make some other changes here in Richmond because it all happened around George Floyd when the whole world was up in arms about things. And so that's a large part of why we were successful. But the other large part of why we were successful is that there was a whole group of us working on this and you know many hands make less work and many brains are smarter together. So I would suggest that if you're going to do this work you try to work together with a whole group of people and see if you can get other people involved so that all the work isn't on any one person. Our next guest is Rebecca Turner, the appellate attorney supervisor in the Vermont Office of Defender General and a member of the racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system advisory panel. Hello. Good evening. My name is Rebecca Turner. I'm a public defender at the Office of the Defender General and I'm sorry I couldn't be there in person to share my thoughts with you directly in person. But I appreciate the opportunity to share my congratulations to all of those who worked on this wonderful resource on how to engage directly with police chiefs on the issue of bias discrimination. I have not seen a statewide guide on this subject yet. So it is a welcome addition to our toolbox on racial justice in the state. As a public defender when I stand beside my client who may be black or brown who is always economically disadvantaged. It is the nature of these things that I am the only voice in the room to object to the biased or discriminatory treatment of law enforcement towards my client resulting in how he or she got to the courtroom. This guide provides a way for you to join my voice by directly engaging with police departments in your local communities to demand accountability, transparency, and most critically change. I certainly recognize that police officers serve a critical role in our society. They protect us the public and we need them to be great. We need them to protect all of us, not just some of us. And so thank you for coming out tonight to learn more about this resource to think about how this may be applicable to your local communities. And I certainly thank you and appreciate your voice joining mine on these issues. Good night. And finally, I'd like to introduce Chief, goodness gracious, where'd he go? Chief Rick Hebert, Chief of the Winooski Police Department. So thank you, Chief Hebert, for being with us. I really appreciate you taking the time and all your help and our research and reviewing our guide. So the first question I'd like to ask you is just to recognize that Winooski is one of the most diverse municipalities in the entire state. What are a few of the steps that you have taken to ensure that your officers respect that diversity and treat everyone that they encounter fairly and equitably? Sure. I just wanted to start today by thanking you for including me both in the conversation on the development of the guide and also the opportunity to share my thoughts on the finished product. So thank you for that. As far as your question goes, the first thing to do in my opinion really is to just prioritize basic human rights principle. And our department calls out in our strategic plan, our core principles, even our officer job descriptions to value all human life, to embrace a caretaker mentality and remember that every single person's life has worth. Our department also used the President's Task Force report on 21st century policing as the foundation for how we police on a daily basis. And it really emphasizes building and maintaining good working relationships with the community that we serve. And it's always been my mentality that residents are funding the Police Department and we should always be open to community input and provide those services that the community expects. Another crucial item in my opinion is adopting a customer service mentality. It includes trainings that not only prioritize delivering fair and impartial policing, but it's also understanding unconscious bias, customer service and cultural competency in both policy and real world applications. And then last, I believe constantly reevaluating higher delivering services, both by analyzing data and outcomes to determine if current policies and procedures are unknowingly victimizing traditionally marginalized communities is an essential part. So you have Fred, the IE's guide to engaging with Police Departments and could you just share with us what your assessment is of the goal and the contents of the guide? Absolutely. So I think the guide has been an excellent blueprint on how to start a dialogue with your Police Department. I do feel it gives people an outline on how to start these conversations between law enforcement and the residents in these communities. Also understanding the work that's being done along with things like operational expectations, oversight, budgets, staffing, data analysis and how responses to calls for services constantly evolving is vital to building and maintaining the trust between the departments and the communities that they serve. And can you envision the guide being helpful to start a dialogue? You were just coming up on this between community members and yourself or other police chiefs in the state. And what would you hope would come out of such a dialogue? Sure. I do believe the guide is going to be very helpful in starting these conversations. The documents well thought out. It prioritizes relevant current issues in policing and any questions and any relevant questions involving policing going forward. I hope that having these conversations and spending time discussing those tough issues will build trust and legitimacy between police departments and the communities that they serve. The shared goal should always be for people to feel safe, trust their Police Department and deliver services in a professional and equitable manner. Thank you so much, Chief. It was great to hear your comments and we appreciate your help. Thank you very much. It was a pleasure. Next, we're going to hear from Bill Neal. Good evening. I'm Bill Neal, member of the first congregational church here in Burlington. As you've already heard, faith-based community organizing is all about working for systemic justice throughout our communities, throughout our region, wherever we live and work. And tonight's program would not be complete without some kind of ask, some kind of challenge, some kind of invitation for follow-up action. We have prepared this marvelous guide for our local communities to engage themselves as citizens with their local policing agencies. So what we'd like to do tonight is invite you to indicate your interest or willingness to be part of such a small group working in your local community using the guide and the other resources that we have available. If you're here tonight in person, I think you have a little card on which you could place your basic contact information. Just give us enough and make it clear enough that we would be able to identify you in order to be in touch with you and indicate what town, city or regional area that you would be interested in working with a group of citizens to further this work of local community oversight. In policing, if you are with us virtually in the Zoom world, which many, many of you are and wonderful that you are able to participate, we invite you to present your basic personal contact info by way of the chat room. And again, indicate how we would be in touch with you by phone, by email, and what community, city, town, county, what area that you would be interested in providing your effort to work with others in your own area. And we will take that information and be in touch with you to help get you started in these conversations that will hopefully bring the practice of fair and impartial policing, not merely as a policy, but as a culture of policing day to day throughout the state of Vermont. Thank you very, very much. Thank you, Bill. By being here tonight. Oh, collect the cards. Careful, I might. Right. So right now we're collecting cards that Bill has encouraged folks to fill out. And please write your information in the chat and we can collect it there. You're good. By being here tonight, we've all demonstrated that our community and everyone in it matters to us. We have shown that while coming from diverse faith traditions, we come together around deeply shared values. The IA's mission is to create the hope, the power and the political will that will make compassion and social justice a reality for all Vermonters. I want to thank you all, especially our guests for being part of tonight's event. Before we adjourn, I would like to extend two invitations. First, we will have a brief evaluation session of this evening's event. If you'd like to be part of this evaluation, I invite you to join us, well, probably right up front here, or to stay on Zoom immediately after we adjourn. Please note that this evaluation is intended for those involved with VIA who have participated in planning and implementing this event. Second, if you are not already a member of Vermont Interfaith Action and would like to learn more about VIA, please go to our website and use the contact form to get in touch with us or speak to anyone here with a name tag. We will be happy to give you more information. And so in closing, we'll have a reflection by Reverend Elise Young. Good evening friends. I'm Alyssa John, I'm the lead minister at the First Congregational Church of Burlington, Vermont. And I have been very glad to be participating or watching this process unfold. Now Ken started us tonight. He started his reflection in 1966. Now, it might be a little bit more pressing for me than it is for some of you. But I know I'm not alone in desiring that we not be in the same spot 60 years from now. And as we have been reminded tonight, we are here to bear witness to the work to be done to renew our resolve to end systemic racism and to speak prophetically about the moral dimensions of systems, the moral dimensions of choices. So thank you for being here. Because as Bell Hooks once wrote, I am often struck by the dangerous narcissism that is fostered by spiritual rhetoric that pays so much attention to the individual self improvement and so little to the practice of love within the context of community. And as Anne reminded us, we can't do this alone and we shouldn't. We are here to pay attention to the context of community and the practice of love. Now, in response to this quote, the Christian theologian, Cole Arthur Riley, who goes by the online name Black Liturgist, put together a breath meditation, breath being across all the major religions, one of the ways we most connect to the spirit, however we name it.  And I want you to pay attention to that breath, close your eyes if you need to to focus in only on that and inhale the words I can look toward the collective and exhale my path is not solitary. I can look toward the collective and my path is not solitary. As you repeat this to yourself, my prayer for us all this night would be that it sink deeply into every part of your being.  By paying full attention to the practice of love within the context of community, and that we might go together from this night to make it real. In the name of love, may it be so. I declare this meeting to be adjourned. Thank you all so much for coming. Good night and blessings to you all.


Thank you for attending. Let me also welcome those who are watching live via webcast. Today's event is being recorded and will be available at csis.org after the presentation for as long as anybody pays attention to it. My name's Scott Miller. I'm the Shoal Chair in International Business or in the International Business Program here at CSIS. Today's event is part of a series of programs on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The series has been developed by the Shoal Chair in International Business and the Sumitro Chair in Southeast Asia Studies. This is a joint project. We're in our second year of programs. Year one focused primarily on the broad economic and geostrategic matters associated with the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Year two is focusing on specific elements that are particularly interesting and dynamic in the commercial environment as it's developing. Today's subject is the digital economy and TPP. Commercial use of the internet, that is the digital economy, has experienced rapid growth since the mid-1990s. It's radically altered the array of business to business and business to consumer transactions being done. It changes daily. It is one of the most disruptive technologies that any of us have ever experienced in our lives. That disruption which we all benefit from and enjoy every day, whether it's from our mobile phone technology or the ability to access goods and services via the internet or from a business standpoint, the operation of the industrial internet and the massive efficiencies generated through supply chain improvements which are IT enabled, this rapid disruptive development has created a gap between the commercial reality of the digital economy and the international policy governing the digital economy. That's why today's program will examine that policy environment in the context of TPP. We hope to illustrate the gaps and have an open discussion on what can be done to address those gaps and fill them over the course of this negotiation into the future. Why TPP? Well, it's an important subject in the digital economy partly because it's next. If you look at the history of trade negotiation, as trade agreements have proceeded, at a pace that the digital economy has proceeded, each successive agreement includes more disciplines and more obligations. This is just next in line. At this point in time, the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement was probably the best we've done. That was a 2006 negotiation. Now, six years later, seven years later, it's time to improve it and the underlying environment has changed dramatically. Second, the transformative partnership has a high level of ambition and is one of the four in which U.S. firms are most interested in engaging with other like-minded economies in creating a template. That template is important in TPP in part because of the diversity of the economies. My own view is that if you can get an agreement on the key principles of the digital economy and the way it ought to be governed in international trade among parties as different as Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, and the United States and Japan and Australia, you probably have a robust enough agreement to be able to socialize it further and get broader adoption in other multilateral and pro-lateral fora. It's timely. It's a high standard agreement, so it's an opportunity to reach and deal with this gap in a very productive way, and it's an opportunity to set a standard and be adopted by other parties in other fora. We'll start today with a keynote speaker and then move on to a panel discussion. I'm delighted to welcome Congressman Jared Polis to CSIS as our keynote speaker. Mr. Polis represents the second district of Colorado, that's north-central Colorado, basically the cities of Boulder and Fort Collins. He was first elected in 2008 and as a member of the Committee on Rules and the Committee on Workforce and Education. Now, the Congressman has, in my view, having been a lobbyist here for a long time in the city and dealing with a lot of members of Congress from a lot of backgrounds, Congressman Polis is quite distinctive. First, he's not a lawyer, which makes him different from the majority of his court, not that there's anything wrong with being a lawyer. It's just the most common background, okay? More importantly, Congressman Polis is an entrepreneur. He's a digital entrepreneur. He founded American Information Systems while he was still an undergraduate and has successfully launched bluedmountain.com and proflowers.com, which many of you may have used last Mother's Day. In any case, he has a unique perspective and brings an orientation to the space of the digital economy that is quite rare among his colleagues and we very much look forward to hearing from him. Please join me in welcoming Congressman Jared Polis. Thank you. And as you can tell, by the way, I dress here, I'm a digital economy guy and I don't get to speak to the foreign policy establishment very often, so hopefully it won't need much translation, but you're welcome to ask any questions about what I say, but my perspective comes from somebody who's been an entrepreneur in the internet economy. I have, in the private sector before serving, been involved with some light version of trade issues in my flower company. We certainly imported flowers from Columbia and South America and we also had a Canadian operation on the retail side, so I'm not a complete stranger to being a practitioner on those trade issues and it was a trade dependent business in that perspective, but it was a very expedited area. We didn't have to do any groundbreaking trade work, obviously, flowers entering through Miami and meet most of the need for flowers in our country, so it was a relatively simple thing. On the digital side, though, I've been deeply involved with a number of different internet and e-commerce companies since the early days of the internet. I co-founded an internet access provider in 1994, so we've seen a lot of this grow up around in me and as such, I've had the opportunity to be on nearly every side of every type of issue that early stage and high-tech companies face, so, for instance, with regard to capital formation, raised capital from conventional VC, been an investor in venture capital, taken a company public, raised formal private rounds, sold companies, bought companies. So, on the capital formation side, I got to see a little all of that. And, of course, more applicable here on the intellectual property side, also got to be on most sides of intellectual property and patent issues, for instance, named in veteran. Several patents, you know, gotten frivolous notices of infringement, had to fight, etc. So, been on all sides of all those battles over the years. So, I take those experiences to my approach on TPP and trade. Part of my frustration with the TPP process that some of you might share has been the lack of transparency. So, Darrell Issa, who I work with on a number of tech-related issues, and I did a letter asking for more transparency. The truth of the matter is, if you wonder what type of congressional oversight we're able to have, I can meet with the negotiators and review all of our negotiating documents in a private room without my staff even being present. So, I'm not even allowed to bring my staff or take anything out of the room that I review current and prior drafts of TPP and discussions of our negotiating position. Now, I've done my best to make the most of that ability. I've had them in several times, and we meet, but it's challenging without being able to have the normal staff resources or being able to have the same kind of follow-up that we would with kind of a normal, more normal oversight process. And, of course, no one would argue that this should all be aired publicly, but it would be nice to have a way for a Congress to do its oversight work more effectively, but be the American public to be able to and to engage stakeholders in a more meaningful discussion of intellectual property in the digital economy and, of course, other issues that surround TPP. As a former internet entrepreneur, one of my objectives since I was elected was to bring the perspective of entrepreneurship and startups to Congress on tech issues and other issues relating to the digital economy. Our extensive digital outreach include a number of successful AMAs on Reddit and Chair of the Bipartisan House Caucus on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and I've worked on a number of issues that are important to the technology community. We are, we also have, we launched recently a startup day across America initiative on August 29th where we're trying to get members of Congress from as many districts as possible to visit startups in their district. And one of the interesting things about startups in their districts in this day and age is many of them are trade dependent and international. I mean, it could be a one-person shop, a three-person shop, but if you're providing a fundamentally digital product or service, you're just as likely to have your early customers in England or India as you are a block away. Now, that depends on the particular nature of any business, but what you have is essentially the ability to launch into a global marketplace from your garage. And that was not the case in prior pre-digital error trade negotiations, and we need to contemplate the great benefits that this brings to small businesses and entrepreneurs, not just here, but also a person operating out of their garage in other countries as well. It has unprecedented access today to the American marketplace and even more so in a better design fashion through the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I have been focused on a number of free and open internet access issues, they're ranging from issues like net neutrality to trying to prevent measures like SOPA and PIPA from moving forward, which would have been damaging to the internet ecosystem. There's also been a lot of changes since the passage of the Digital Millennial Copyrights Act, and we've been very interested in engaging in copyright reform in the 113th Congress, looking at duration and strength and the process for seizing domain names through Department of Homeland Security and patent reform as well. And patent reform, of course, within the context domestically of reducing what we call patent trolls, but also kind of looking at in the long run as we sort of reinvent our intellectual property protection system for the digital economy, finding the right way to protect people's works and at the same time disseminate the benefits of innovation. What worked for and does work still for mechanical innovation is fundamentally different than the policy framework that one should want to have for digital innovation. The two are different things, and I would argue for biological innovation as well. And by the way, we were in session until midnight last night and just saw a little horse and it says related topics to Department of Defense appropriations, although we do have a prism amendment and NSA amendment that would take away the authority of our government to do what they did through prism coming up here in a few hours. It's been one of the more hotly debated ones. But I think one of the things we need to do within our trade agreement since a fine line is we need to of course define the baseline parameters for intellectual property protection at the same time we need to give our own government, our own congress the ability to adapt and reform our own intellectual property laws for a digital economy which is a process that is started and is underway and certainly Digital Millennial Copyrights Act was a step forward but is one that is certainly not work complete and I would argue that we have a long way to go with regard to creating a framework for intellectual property law for the 21st century and I want and making sure that we don't tie ourselves into the parts of intellectual property law that don't currently work through trade agreements which would give ineffective policies a longer tail by making it more difficult to have reasonable discussion about what they should look like now there's a number of trade issues before the 113th congress and I'm a strong believer in trade as a driver for growth in our country it's very exciting I was able to be part of United States congress when we passed three trade agreements that I of course voted for South Korea Panama and Columbia I think those will be important job creation mechanisms in our country and in our allied countries as well but again the internet and digital economies are a unique opportunity a unique opportunity not only for entrepreneurs we talked about but also for U.S. multinationals and other countries as well by ensuring that we have a good set of tools to operate under and a good framework that includes things like cross-border data flows not holding intermediaries liable no localization barriers we can foster economic trade and growth on the digital side among all the signatories to the TPP just as in the physical world there has always been a short-sighted tendency of countries to engage in protectionist activities so too is there in the digital world now they look different they don't take the same form and frankly efforts in the digital world are less effective when nation states try to engage in protectionism but nevertheless to have a formal policy framework that can prevent that where possible will be an enormous step forward and provide surety to technological providers on both sides so this is an exciting opportunity through Trans-Pacific Partnership I also wrote a letter encouraging the addition of Japan to TPP the administration is aggressively negotiating TPP which is a very important agreement that promises to be set a new benchmark for trade agreements in the digital era that frankly we can use to include in other agreements as well you know as an example we were just talking in a small group before this and I've of course been a strong supporter of NAFTA over the years as well when NAFTA was written the real economy was in a very early stage and it wasn't really written in contemplation of what has become in one of our biggest economic drivers through TPP process we have the opportunity to take NAFTA as well to the next level with Mexico as a signatory really looking at and I've been part of the US-Mexico parliamentary exchange since I joined congress every year we meet with members of the deputados of the Mexican and we alternate between US and Mexico and we have pretty much the same discussion every year where we say what is the next evolution of NAFTA that's the economic part then we have the security part where we talk about drugs and cartels and so I mean we have but anyway ever since I've been part of that we have a section on taking that it's the same thing you have the majority on both sides that are interested in doing this and then you have a few people on both sides that want to roll back while we've already done but the point is we haven't made any substantial progress on this and TPP is the first opportunity to further develop the relationship with our allies and our trading block the North American trading block so it's better to compete with other trading blocks in the global economy and we've seen since NAFTA an increased interdependence between the Mexican United States and Canadian economy and that's a good thing when you look at the closer security arrangement that America has with our allied nations in North America as compared with alternative trading partners that are geopolitically more challenging in terms of the mutual reliance so it's a very good thing that through TPP we can further develop the North American trading block and NAFTA concept encapsulates the digital economy which we all expect to be one of the major growth areas in the coming decades not that by in any way shape or form the physical economy and the product-based economy is obsolete, it's not in fact a tour intertwined when you're talking about, for instance, manufacturing you're also talking about a flow of digital information regarding specifications that originate in real-time with real-time feedback digitally over something that also has a physical manifestation so the two are linked in many ways I don't want to in any way insinuate that they're mutually exclusive Our international treaties in general have not kept pace with the growth of the digital economy WTO rules were largely set between 1993 and 1997 well before the digital economy came to the prominence it has today and before, frankly, we even had domestic policy frameworks which while still lacking are further along than they were in the 90s neither the WTO nor even our most recent free trade agreements offer the right framework for the free flow of digital goods services and data in many ways in an area where we should be the strongest with regard to trade promotion and free trade considerations we have weaker rules than we have for any other sector and this is not merely a hypothetical discussion foreign governments are considering and have and are looking to enact policies that block cross-border data flow or favor their domestic interests over American interests we have seen repressive governments like China that are manipulating or blocking flows of data for political reasons or for unknown reasons and this is something that we continue to face in the digital economy as a 2010 white paper from Google talked about in a pure what looked like to be a pure tit for tat to retaliate for congressional honor for the Dalai Lama officials manipulated their so-called great firewall so that users who typed in a web address for the three major US space internet search engines Google, Microsoft and Yahoo were not taken to their site of choice but rather they were taken to the Chinese owned search engine instead so again what might have been used as a political tit for tat had real trade ramifications effectively they were converting traffic to a domestically owned search engine at the expense of traffic where the customers were desiring to use American US space search engines and this restriction that foreign governments have placed on connectivity and access and data flow has significant implications to our economy and to their economies everything from tomorrow's innovators to today's online retailers to search engines to cloud providers and it should be front and center with regard to our TPP negotiations as well. I think the administration recognizes the expanding role of digital trade as a driver of economic growth however we need to do a better job with regard to both transparency as well as with the advisory groups that surround the TPP process. I as one member of Congress are doing what I can we're encouraging my colleagues to do the same but with everything going on and frankly with the difficulties that we have namely being in a room by ourselves and having to set it up ahead of time to even review this it is difficult to get the kind of meaningful input from my colleagues that I think the process would benefit from and ultimately if the process wants to and needs to have the buy in of policymakers who will ratify and support the treaty they should do a better job in a more open manner engaging the elected officials as stakeholders today and frankly the individuals that are here in this room have a critical role to play in educating your own respective governments if you represent governments other than our own our government and businesses as well as the administration and members of Congress on many of the issues surrounding trade in the digital era that you are familiar with as well. So there are great opportunities there are also great challenges with regard to trade policy in the digital era I'm continuing to work to increase transparency expand the representation on ITAC 15 ITAC 8 to a larger group of economic interests want to make it sure that the treaty doesn't tie Congress's hands and make it difficult for us to update our own intellectual property laws for the digital era but at the same time provides a baseline to ensure that disparate treatment is not given to data that originates in different countries among the signatories to DPP in addition to this agenda I touch upon I wanted to mention how the 113th Congress and also the TPP negotiations have been impacted by recent revelations like the prism regulation and the NSA regulations which we'll be addressing here on the floor of the house this has caused psychological but very real reactions among many members of the electorate and politicians of course following that lead in Europe and in Brazil and other countries and frankly as somebody speaks myself and who I'm critical of what I consider to be an overreach violation of privacy this is an externality that should be accounted for of course you're going to offend your friends and there are those who would use that popular opinion and would demagogue that popular opinion who might have had anti-trade agendas all along in other countries but we'll use that to implement protectionist measures because of the tide of groundswell of public opinion against what they perceive to be an American security apparatus overreach into the privacy of their nationals so that should be part of the equation when we're thinking about how we balance security and privacy we should think about public perception in allied countries and we should think about how public perception impacts trade and this is not hypothetical this is playing out now in a number of countries that quite possibly will impact the TPP negotiations as well so those are some of my initial thoughts I look forward to addressing your questions and discussing how we can better leverage our trade agreements and TPP in particular for the digital economy thank you the congressman has a few minutes to take some questions I'd like to ask follow three simple rules for the questions first, if you have a question once the congressman recognizes you please wait for the microphone as a courtesy to our digital audience second, when you start please introduce yourself and identify your organization and third, what I call the Alex Turek rule please make sure your question is actually in the form of a question leave your statements for another forum my constituents need to hear your rules too because they never follow that third one yes, who has the microphone I'll be right over to you thank you thank you congressman for your if you can introduce yourself my name is Jeff Okan Koslowicki I'm a visiting fellow with third way and I have a brief question for you regarding your remarks about transparency in the negotiating process the US trade representative has created unprecedented levels of engagement with stakeholders compared to previous free trade agreements in the TPP process and I was wondering how you would say that the administration can increase public engagement and oversight over the TPP negotiations without publishing draft text or otherwise compromising the US negotiating position excellent question and so first of all I am no historical authority on past negotiations obviously I mean I was I think in college when NAFTA was being negotiated right about in the paper but we did have a small group that convened earlier and there seemed to be a couple ideas and a couple things that I don't know if this premise of somehow this being the most transparent conforms to reality here in prior trade negotiations it's my understanding that there have been daily briefings for ITAC members for longer daily detail briefings on negotiations in addition when we talk about the public side the general public side of the engagement process it should be a lot much more of a discussion rather than just a listening session so again obviously without compromising our negotiating positions there should be more of an effort even both within ITAC of course in terms of the more frequent updates and by the way broader diversity of representation on those ITAC councils which the administration has expressed willingness to do but we haven't yet seen and we continue to work with them on recommending candidates that would provide a better representation of the digital economy specifically but frankly American job creation and growth engines should be better represented on ITAC better representation on ITAC more and better use of ITAC and then more engagement with the general public in terms of a give and take so those would be the three again as a non expert those would be three that I think are inadequate and then the fourth I would add is a better way to do congressional oversight because this is not very effective for me to have to go to some room and schedule it and not be able to take it but I think there's got to be some way that we can have more meaningful congressional involvement with that process too so those would be my suggestions I think we saw one over there yeah Hi my name is Bernie Lee I'm an intern with the Department of Commerce my question about TPP with the digital regulations or negotiations they have a number of negotiations have stalled because of the problems with agriculture like New Zealand dairy or and also with textiles and fabrics for Vietnam so in the negotiations is do you think that the US Congress would be willing to ratify a trade agreement that would make compromises on agricultural textiles in the industries for these digital services and protections in IPR because you also have a competing agreement with the regional comprehensive economic partnership that's been started by the ASEAN group with the other Asian nations that's lower standards which doesn't benefit the United States but could be much more appealing to some of the weaker economies in that region that might want to ratify that to get some more open their lower level industries well I mean you know I have not nor has anybody really formally taken the temperature of Congress or done vote counts on who supports what obviously ag interests are influential however we saw that major ag will nevertheless failed so perhaps they're not as influential as they were I think that there's always a sort of give and take in these trade agreements and I think that and I hope that our focus is on the great opportunities for the digital economy that can emerge from TPP and that we can also move forward on agricultural and manufacturer goods and everything else in terms of tearing down trade barriers and removing protectionism so again I think in general the majority of Congress is certainly pro trade we saw strong votes on ratification of the last three trade agreements so I would anticipate the same type of reception for tearing down barriers and textiles and ag and with the right framework for the digital economy I would also add that this is not top of mind for most members of Congress I mean it's not to the point where I could even go or anybody could say what do you think it's not on their rate people have other things that are focused on their committees are worked on I mean I think that most members of Congress are at best only slightly aware that these negotiations are taking place other than perhaps some people in ways and means and the committee of jurisdiction that are aware of it are working on it yes we got the microphone coming thank you I'm Bruce Van Voorst former financial and economic correspondent for Time Magazine nobody would disagree that digital age is going to be a major factor in economic growth in the future however you did point out that there will be challenges how will digital development impact employment there's a big difference of opinion if it will undercut employment or it will enhance employment enhance I mean it's a longer discussion I mean you need to have that's kind of a economists and futures I mean it's the old discussion of is doing something in a new and more benefit the economy and create jobs or not and I think that artificial efforts to preserve less efficient legacy methods is always damaging to the economy and facilitating transitions to new and efficient ways to produce products is good for the economy economists would generally agree with me that doesn't mean of course that there's not a human impact that ever get as positive and helps more people that it hurts it doesn't mean that people aren't hurt of course we know that globalization has winners and losers it's great for people in general more people benefit than lose their jobs but it's not great if it's hard to find the right example but let's say it's where is our friend from what has been displaced in Mexico has maybe American corn producers are exporting to Mexico now and displaced some local farmers if that happened it was bad if you were a corn farmer in Mexico but again there's winners and losers it's great if you were one of the many Mexican growth companies that is exporting more and doing more business with America so policymakers of course are concerned with those who are on the short end of that part of the issue with the digital economy of course will be access particularly making sure that people have access to the many benefits of the new economy but yes job creation economic growth new and official ways of doing things that's what the digital economy has provided and will provide one more question Hi my name is Ashley Hess I'm an intern at the British Embassy and I was just wondering if you had any opinion on to what extent negotiations in the TPP on the digital economy could affect negotiations on TTIP for digital economy issues there we go oh it's okay I got cut off um so you know I think we have not yet had a trade agreement that encapsulates the pressing issues facing the digital economy so I think what we have we're not there by any means but what we have through TPP is the opportunity to develop a template that would be employable for as a basis for other negotiations and it's an opportunity we don't want to pass up so I'm hoping again that focusing on things like cross-border data flows and intermediate liability and preventing localization barriers these kinds of things dealing with the whole realm of fair use and DMCA if we can get the template right now there's a lot of danger in getting the template wrong because if you lock in a template that is wrong from a policy perspective there's a longer tail on it and it's not right now yet but if we can get it right this can serve as a model for other trade agreements as well and I think that's even more of a reason to put the effort into it in the context of TPP thank you Congressman and let me invite the panelists up we'll continue on dead ahead


Hey Virgo, welcome back to the channel. This is Kelly from House of Virgo. If you're new, please hit that like button and do subscribe if you enjoy these readings. We're going to take a look at Love, just felt called to look at Love. We're going to look at you and then we're going to look at your person and see what the energies are. While you are in separation, please be mindful, these are general messages. Some of the messages may or may not resonate, take what fits, leave the rest. And as always, these are messages for entertainment purposes only. And yeah, if you want to get a personal reading, like I said, there is a link in the description box below. Okay, you're starting with separation, sadness, missing you, thinking about you, yearning, unsure of the future. Self-indulgence, focusing on self-worth, taking time to heal, doing some shadow work, self-appreciation, and the butterfly relationship evolving to the next phase, healing inner child and growth. So this feels like an overall message that while you and another person are in separation, there is this taking time out to focus on what healing needs to be done within the self, right? What shadow work, learning to love the self during a breakup or during a separation, definitely an energy of sadness and missing one another or missing the relationship or thinking about all the positive aspects of the relationship, missing those, not missing the negative stuff. And I feel like there's having a desire to maybe try to repair the relationship or take it to another level too. So let's take a look a little bit deeper, dive in a little bit deeper. We're going to take a look at your person over here and then take a look at you and see what messages are coming through for both of you. Okay, let's see. While you are in separation, more specifically for the month of October. Okay, let's see what's going on with your person, their energy. Okay, so right straight off the bat, they have a dinosaur. So yeah, I feel like this person is definitely struggling right now, Virgo. And they are missing you for sure. They are having a lot of anxiety, mental conflict for sure. They're having a hard time sleeping, a lot of inner turmoil, up late, stressing at night.  Okay, yeah, they've got the 10 of 1, so they're really burdened by something that has occurred, some kind of struggle or some argument or something that's happened. Wow, you are definitely on this person's mind. You are for sure. They're really stressing about you being single. They think that you're doing all right without them and they hate that, it's killing them. I mean, it's not that they want you to be suffering, but I feel like they put a lot on you, it's not so much regret, but they feel like they put you under a lot of pressure. They put a lot on you, they put you through it. That's what I feel like. There's like this, they can't deal with themselves right now.  They laid a lot on you, they put all these heavy expectations on you, they burden you, they stress you out. That's really what I just feel like that message is, that they just loaded you up with all the work, expected you to carry so much of the relationship or the burden, expected you to do everything and it looks like they're just having a hard time dealing with that, but I also feel like they are not, they want to be with you. That's what I feel like. I don't like while you guys are in separation that you are not with them, right? They're having a hard time. So I don't know if you ended something with them or they ended something with you. If they ended it with you or you were forced to end it with them, it looks like they're kind of like, oh man, if they regret card or remorse, like the five of cups shows up because I'm feeling that energy, but it's not here to confirm it just yet. But I do see like, they don't want to be single. They don't want to be, this person does not want to be, look, gosh, man, this person is really, wow, they ate a sword, it's like they're definitely like stuck. They're definitely stuck, okay? And trying to find their way out of this mess for sure. Oh my gosh, I feel like this person, they definitely want to try to fix something here with you. Make an apology. They're planning on doing that in October to try to come towards you, reach out to you. You know, universe is kind of pushing them as forgiveness or to try to have a new beginning with you here with the Ace of Cups. Maybe even propose. Yeah. Okay. There might have been another involvement with another person or yeah. There's another person in the picture who might be kind of pushing them to fix the relationship as well. There's somebody else, ooh, two other people also kind of pushing them to fix the relationship and also telling them that they should commit to you. It looks like another, maybe a married couple. I feel like they're getting some kind of advice that they need to heal this relationship with you. Feels like another couple, like another couple who's committed, like they have experience with relationships.  And I also feel like this person sees you as an equal to them. Like, I don't know, Virgo, it kind of feels like they're very unsure of the future right now with you, but I do feel like they want to heal this thing for sure. And I feel like they're getting some assistance or some help, you know. And even with that two of ones, this gives me an energy of this person is like definitely at a crossroad as far as like I see them really stressing to start like, oh, like kicking themselves. This feels like kicking themselves for either letting you go, letting you walk away or pushing you away. And they come to this crossroad here in October where like they get kind of pushed towards you, you know, like, okay, that's what this self indulgence, that's what this focusing on self, that's what like taking this time to heal. That's what this person is like, oh, geez, you know, that doing the shadow work, like I I feel like they have that talk like they come to their side of the street and start sweeping for their their actions. They're not trying to clean up your actions. They start cleaning up their own and that's what that healing is all about. Right. So it looks to me like this person is coming in asking for some kind of forgiveness, asking I mean, I feel like this person is like if they're stressing so bad, it feels like they they've like they pushed the best pushed away the best thing they ever had. You know, that's yeah, that's really what I feel like you were it looks like you you while you're in separation, this is what they're coming to terms with like they I just feel like this kicking themselves energy is kicking themselves energy. Let me take a look at you for a go. See what your energy is here. Oh, alright, so you're starting off with so you're kind of curious wondering if this person is going to reach out if they're talking to somebody else or if they've moved on. So I do see that you're still kind of looking back. You're trying to maybe seek in some signs, you're very curious. You're looking for signs to see if they've got like a new fling or if they freed themselves or if they're off with somebody else or if they are you're kind of looking you're peeking a little bit looks like in October to see if they've like if they're still acting a fool or if they are talking to somebody new or if they have a new crush or a new interest in someone else. Okay, so I see you kind of doing that and I see this person being like completely single you know they do look like they're stable I mean they're working they're going to work they're doing their thing but I see them with a maybe you have a connection with a fire sign or or a Virgo or it could be a Taurus but if you see this person being you know just solo on their own but you're looking to see if maybe they have somebody else I see that in October or pick it up Aquarius energy as well okay see you're you're pretty slow to reach out to this person you're trying to heal yourself as well you're kind of hmm not really sure if you want to you're if you if you're planning to reach out to this person I feel like you're or to start up conversation with them I feel like you're waiting it's a timing thing for you I feel like you're waiting until you're kind of like you're waiting for the right time until you either know for sure that they're free and you don't want to reach out it looks like you don't want to reach out to this person if they are engaging with somebody else because either you don't want to find that out you don't want to know because you don't want to it might hurt you because you might still feel triggered or or you're not ready because you have the stars so this for you Virgo I feel like there's still this you're not in a rush to try to initiate anything with this person just yeah you're still it looks like you're still weighing whether or not it's worth it or it could even work out okay you're kind of on the fence a little bit it looks like in October picking up some strong Aquarius vibes here so you're kind of on the fence you know I mean you do want I do see that like you you're not in a rush you're not rushing but you're not rushing into anything new either but you're not rushing back either so I do see like you are still trying to heal too you still have this you know energy going on too and you might be missing this person as well you might be still thinking about them not be you're not sure of your future with this person or anybody else going forward you definitely want a relationship to evolve to the next phase and you are having growth and so is this person but it's kind of it feels like a very stagnant energy you know because right here in the center you both have the two the two of pentacles and the two of ones so that's kind of a stalemate like nobody's related a crossroad nobody's really doing anything we're just kind of like hmm can't move forward can't move back not really sure what to do yeah so it looks like oh well you're the one with the five of cups well so you have a little bit of remorse and maybe a little bit of regret for something maybe you said Virgo okay what Virgo what did you say you might have initiated something pretty harsh or you reacted in something pretty harsh said something pretty harsh or you know you laid down some law or you said something yeah okay so it looks like you might not be sure that this person would even want to talk to you anymore right I don't know Virgo you might be having some self-worth stuff going on deep inside yourself maybe you're trying to forgive yourself you might be and that's okay you're human Virgo everybody everybody says things you know sticks and stones we break my bones but words one can never hurt me we have to remember that we really do we have to remember that we don't have to own the words right so or maybe they said something to you and you're still trying to heal from that it could be reverse as well but I feel like right now you might be trying to reconcile yourself to some truths I feel like you could be trying to like let something go as well or at least trying to get into a more forgiving kind of mode here forgiving yourself or forgiving another person so you can kind of open up and have more love in your life looks like a little bit of a struggle between the two of you let me see the overall outcome for Virgo and their person for your person overall outcome for Virgo and their person will this relationship work out for them looks like yes you've got judgment so there's definitely reconciliation for you and this person and this is really just about opening up and coming to a final decision being open and honest with each other having that heart to feel like this like you see how they are like completely nude the nudies this is like complete transparency being open and honest I feel like this is like coming out of the dark answering the call I feel like if there's phone calls or commerce you know text messages I think you guys are going to talk there will be some conversations that you guys both have clarity give clarity to each other kind of kiss and makeup energy this is some understanding talking about what you both want in this relationship where you see it going this is like really beautiful to have as an outcome the judgment I like it so but I feel like this is just kind of going to happen naturally you might actually be the one who initiates eventually a conversation with some kind of an apology not just to not really anything specific maybe just to say sorry that things went the way they went you know and maybe just to try to call a truce so there's no bad blood so to speak so there's like just a give closure but I feel like to give closure to get closure either way but I feel like that actually instigates it makes this person happy and makes you happy you guys actually start to talk and kind of like stuff starts coming out okay that chemistry between you the strong and magnetic attraction that chemistry actually doesn't go away the question is are you compatible and that's what you guys talk about right because I feel like the chemistry between you and this person is definitely there very strong magnetic attraction between you and this person yeah and there's a past life connection between you and them I don't feel like there's something here about this relationship where it's like something you've never felt before and it's the same for them it's just a very similar thing between the two of you you've known each other before even if you've never known each other before there's just this recognition of souls you see yourselves in each other it's just something that's like difficult to let go and this is the one you've already met the romantic partner that you seek so I feel like you know we have free will everybody does just because two people are meant to be together doesn't mean they will be I feel like it's a choice that has to be made not everybody makes that choice sometimes people just don't want to put in the work or put in the effort you know and it's really just a matter of like is it worth it some people do think it's worth it and sometimes some people just can't do it I feel like there will be some type of conversation that gets started that there will be a there will be a talk and I don't feel like it's the talk isn't is intended to reopen anything I feel like the talk is intended to let bygones be bygones but it actually starts off some dialogue and things actually become clearer there's clarity there's an honest conversation that happens and I feel like it it actually brings reconciliation now does that mean you guys will be back together again we'll have to see later videos and later readings but I do feel like you guys are gonna talk in a much more mature open and honest way and reveal your truths to each other you know like why this was said why that was said what happened here why so-and-so did this why so-and-so did that what the reasoning was you know what one person was thinking or feeling and vice versa and for some it may bring closure for others it may bring you closer so we'll have to see let me see what other messages are here for you okay so you do have haste speed and travel so this is Cupid's arrows so there will be a lot of communication coming in for sure also talk about a lifestyle change there will be some conversation coming up about changing a lifestyle something to do about the way somebody lives or has lived their life will be part of this conversation endure and be patient okay this feels like Piscian energy as well so this is about having a different perspective seeing things differently a different point of view part of this conversation is going to open up a lot of different angles of understanding and why somebody needs to be a bit more patient about something and also material wishes being granted wow this feels like a new opportunity will present itself to invest in this relationship the opportunity is going to come about to reinvest in this relationship again doesn't mean it will be taken but if somebody is wishing for this I'm also getting this energy of there's good news regarding money as well okay coming up for you Virgo material wish now for some of you this could be a proposal of some sort where there's something like a ring being offered or a promise ring but it's something material and it has a monetary value connected to it so not sure what that means for you but that's they're just giving me this ring thing or a piece of something symbolic that represents a promise of a wish something tangible okay mature dynamic fiery male it's a very fiery energy showing up here so that would be Aries Sagittarius or Leo okay so you could have that in your chart somewhere or this could be the person who is showing up okay shocking energy from this person coming in I feel like there's definitely this is I do feel like this is a kiss and makeup scenario I have to say that Virgo now you know whether you want it or not that's up to you I know some of you do want to just try to have the situation where it's let by guns might be by guns and that's fine that's good for your health never leave bad blood with anybody and but if you don't care then you know you don't care what can I say it's not for everyone but I do feel like there there will be an opportunity to fix this situation and if you want to be able to repair it yes that's on the table okay let's take a look and see the Chinese sign of you and your person so got your monkey your of the pig your of the rabbits double rabbits year of the dog year of the rooster year of the goat year of the tiger double tiger and year of the ox okay now that may be you it may be your person it may be just one of you it may not be either of you and if it's none of you doesn't mean it's not your message I'm gonna go right into the initials and other energies yeah you guys I can't believe it okay so we've got Taurus and Gemini showing up here okay so we've got someone who's 48 years of age someone born in 1989 someone who is 52 years of age someone is 26 and also they're telling me August 26 we have the year 1982 someone is 40 okay September 2nd okay I just they're giving me the name Ian they're giving me Sean they're also telling me oh something to do with the sister okay I just heard Lisa cyan cyan somebody's running a business okay so we have the initial s as in Sam initial B for boy letter a we have an I we have a Z and we have E try to get a couple more looks like this one's gonna be a little short tonight sorry about that I don't know why but I don't have my decks I think I must have moved them put them somewhere earlier today my apologies I just saw the initial T okay so we have initial s as I said we have a D we already have a we have a U we have initial J and we've got a again okay 1985 18 someone's 47 we have August 29th 1980 someone's 43 someone is 52 we have the initial E I said that September 2nd is here again and double Gemini here what all right let's get a few more all right Aquarius Pisces and Taurus again someone's birthday is in July 1990 1967 1983 someone's 54 43 46 we have the initial L and we have September 1st okay also September 15th significant all right let's get your charms you guys okay wow cool spider we like spiders it's getting into spooky season maybe somebody like Spider-Man there's something to do with spiders caught in a web some of you are trying not to get caught in the spiders web somebody here might be a widow and is just trying to forgive let go and forgive to move on and fun and be available for a healthy relationship and you might have tattoo of a spider or you have a tarantula also pet tarantula or someone does just hearing pet tarantula um yeah we're getting into spooky season so maybe you have like a big oh those big gigantic spiders that make those huge massive webs somewhere you might see one or run into one somewhere okay we also have a green yellow flower very pretty so this feels like these are very fall kind of energies I feel like mums you might have green or yellow mums coming up somewhere maybe you will buy one I know that in the northern hemisphere we're going into the fall some of you are going into the spring as well so you might have some greenish yellow flowers as well coming up somewhere you're seeing them somewhere they're taking some pictures of them you also have it looks like a sparrow let me see yeah it looks like a sparrow so I've seen a few sparrows laying around or chirping away so if you're in the spring you might have some sparrows that are starting to birth some little baby sparrow babies little sparrow birdie babies yeah so if you see any sparrows around that's definitely a strong message sparrows are very friendly and social and for some of you that might be a message of trying to be a bit more social in your life if you can if you can especially in October and look here's another horned owl I don't know what's going on with these owls lately but yep an owl with a key so this definitely is a message that you have the wisdom you know what you need to do pay attention to your intuition and trust yourself okay trust your intuition Virgo I think let me just I'm gonna give you a couple extra messages I wanted to keep with the love thing but like I said my cards are missing so I'm just gonna throw in some extra just so it's not so super short let's see I don't think I can use all right let me see if I can use this deck all right let me take a look see what the message is Virgo needs to know this week going forward what are the most important messages extra messages Virgo needs to know going forward this week okay you've got the Emperor so this is a strong message for you to take a lead take the lead in your life this week everything you do do it on purpose do it with purpose be the CEO of your life and all the decisions that you make going forward go with confidence and strength be strategic in every decision that you make positioning yourself planning for the best possible outcome not second rate not second best not mediocre okay you also have the death card so this is also a message here for you Virgo big changes are coming big changes for some of you it's time to move on and for some of you there's like a rebirth that's happening so pay attention because these are major arcana so these aren't things that you can really avoid when major arcana happens this means that you have to go with the flow with these changes whether they're good or negative changes death means it's time to transform and transition into a new phase and let go and take charge of your life okay you also have ace of swords this is about overcoming your obstacles Virgo so any obstacles that you face this week go in with truth and a victory mindset this week for sure if you sign any documents sign them with intention make sure that what you're doing you intend to do what you're doing don't do anything haphazardly you might be signing some documents this week or doing something that's going to require your signature make sure you read the fine print and that what you're signing is because you mean to do it because you mean to sign it cut through any of the BS you're definitely going to have some new ideas you might also be getting surgery or scheduling surgery this week I feel like make sure that you find a surgeon who has hold on they're saying they're giving me a message here about this surgeon don't find a surgeon who has practiced find a surgeon who has done a particular surgery more than a thousand times so that they are so good at it not someone who has I don't know what that message means find a surgeon who has done this one particular surgery a thousand times that's what they just gave me thousand times more or more than a thousand times that's a lot of surgeries yes someone who's prominent what else this we're gonna need to know that's interesting they good look them up research them okay so you've got the six of cups here I always left that card so there's definitely nostalgia some gifts you might be thinking of buying or you could be receiving there is a reunion as well showing up here this week for you and children being very significant this year I'm sorry this week for you there might be a blast from the past showing up this week also reunion with a blast with someone from your past okay you also have the six of wands which is awesome you'll definitely be receiving some good news this week and you you will be recognized for something you could receive someone some kind of an award or a reward and be successful at something this week you'll be finding out about it and you also have justice awesome so there is some kind of truth that's also coming out this week for you which will be in your favor okay and you've got the nine of wands and this is also a message here maintaining your boundaries and being persistent protecting what's yours and not letting anybody in unless they have the passcode to your heart unless they have the pass code to your heart don't give your passcode away for free alright Virgo that was kind of a melancholy reading tonight I just wanted to put that out there I was just feeling really called to just do this he versus she or she versus she or he versus he or they versus they reading love you and them just to try to see what's like a little check the pulse of the relationship between you and another person thanks everybody for coming up with names for our our mascot here I guess I love the calator that's really cute I'm probably not going to go with that but that was I really thought that was funny I really thought that was funny thank you yeah I'll be looking at the rest of the names so go to my community tab because I did post his picture so we can kind of come up with a name for him and I'll let you guys know when we finally figure it out so yeah if you want to get a personal reading there's a link in the description box below and there will be an October special coming up very soon and I will see you all back here tomorrow okay have a great night love you