An Inspired Chat with Colin Carew of Vista, california

Colin Carew shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.

Colin, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What is a normal day like for you right now?
At this moment of life : I rise. sit in bed for 10 min listening to the birds and sounds of the planet. I pray. give thanks for what i have and what I don’t. I drink water. I pray again whiles drinking to the water for a good activation into life. I check my messages. I make coffee. I stretch. I chant for 20-40 min. Then get into the day.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am Colin Carew, a medicine man, dancer, musician, and father walking a path of service for over two decades. My work lives at the crossroads of spirit and art—where movement, music, ritual, and plant medicine open doorways for people to remember their power, release their pain, and step into light.

Through my brand Ayawake, I’ve created spaces for healing that are both ancient and new. From “Huachuma In The House”, a ritual movement workshop for full-body release, to Movement and Mantra, a practice of chanting and nature connection, my offerings invite people into deeper alignment with themselves and the universe.

I’ve walked with artists, visionaries, and healers—including serving as medicine man for Erykah Badu—and each encounter has affirmed what I know to be true: that healing is both personal and collective, intimate and infinite.

But above all, I am a father. My children remind me daily of what truly matters: to live authentically, to trust life, and to embody love. It is this devotion—to love, to truth, to freedom—that guides my music and my medicine, and has shaped me into the magical unicorn of a man I am today.

Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
I would say the part of me that has served this purpose was the energy of brightness and being attractive energetically to people places and things. When I was in Atlanta Georgia and Medicine Man of color and do you know being tall and thin and created a lot of energy but also help to open up and eventually just heal a lot of wounds that damn I never knew that I was fully carrying or thought that I had fully healed. The energy if Atlanta Georgia was not some thing that I was used to and also funny enough it was the first time that I ever lived in a city or town place where it was predominantly black so it was almost like an energetic culture clash in the beginning I felt accepted but then I realize that there’s so many parts of this place that I wasn’t used to. I believe Atlanta was the checkmate to further strengthen a bunch of growth that I was necessary but also that point where I was able to see the last reminiscences of things that needed to be released. A lot of it had to do it like sexual energy with people but also just a pull of that sexual energy and how corrupt it could be and unfortunately and then fortunately it just depends on how you look at it Atlanta is a whole freaking vibrator..lol

What did suffering teach you that success never could?

Suffering taught me what the glitter of success never could—that beneath the concrete and sirens of New York, Atlanta the same earth that cradles the trees in Central Park and Ormewood Park also holds me when I fall. I’ve walked through nights of hunger, heartbreak, and the kind of loneliness that no skyline can disguise, and in those shadows I learned to listen to the wind, to the river, to the NyC pigeons finding crumbs on cracked sidewalks. Success dressed me in applause, but suffering stripped me bare, showed me humility, taught me that resilience grows like weeds through pavement, and that the truest wealth is the quiet knowing that life, like nature, always finds a way to bloom again. When success seems to be the general gravitating goal for many people understanding what true success becomes a greater lesson when you finally get there or when you think you’re there.

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Is the public version of you the real you?
You know, living in New York teaches you quick that the public version of yourself is like armor—you put it on to make it through the subways, the crowded streets, the weight of a city and the people who move that weight. At this stage of my life I’m not necessarily trying to get the public to see me but from my actions are cruel my actions I understand that is the need that will be witnessed or felt. There definitely was a time when I was also doing that thing of creating this really powerful avatar for people to see and witness and be attracted to but again that’s gotten so old in my journey and it’s kind of boring. I guess another way I can answer that question to you is that I am I think like maybe two years ago I stopped pandering towards the public and it really helped me to just redirect back into what does that even mean the real you!!! I went through a very painful journey of like releasing some energetic connections related to women how I treated some of the women I knew there. Who is powerful and painful at the same time and at this stage of my journey I am super grateful for all of the things that released because I got to see parts of myself that I have never ever want to see again but also is so much deeper than that like I’m just not mean there’s so many of us going through this and it was a huge mirror in Atlanta watching so many of our brothers and sisters just wrapped up and lots of sexual energetic traps but it’s almost like all they have. Atlanta is a beautiful place with beautiful people and us(black) people have so much to heal. Grateful for the mirror.

Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. If immortality were real, what would you build?
First of all actually really love this question I’ve been having really powerful conversations about the reality of immortality. I guess the answer the question I would work hard to build a system where certain foods are free all around the world. Just realizing that there’s so many people around the world who are either poor or not able to just get the basics bread cheese milk even clean water the simple things like that people should not have to pay for.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Ayawake.shop

Image Credits
colin carew