25 DIAMONDS LABEL

#1: I am curious to know about your beginnings. Where were you born and raised? Who raised you? What were you like as a kid/teenager? At what point/age did you get exposed, involved, whatever with.. “punk”, “underground”, whatever we call this? Who and what did those beginnings consist of (meaning spaces, people, bands, etc)?

VLF: 1: I am curious to know about your beginnings. Where were you born and raised?

I was born on a stormy night at the 23rd hour of February 7, 1976, the bicentennial. Sun in Aquarius, Libra Rising, Taurus moon. In Chinese astrology I’m a Fire Dragon. It all began in San Diego, California at a hospital that had a sculpture of a stork out front carrying a baby, it has all since burned down.

I grew up predominately in Carlsbad, California. Some amazing things, and people came from Carlsbad (like Tony Hawk lived in the house behind me) which seems kind of strange because in my opinion it’s the less cool of the beach towns on that southern coast. Carlsbad is where the people/places/things relative to your question took shape for me.

Who raised you?

The Mama & the Papa, albeit divorced they still raised me. I’m an only child so I also spent a lot of time with myself which I loved and was a huge aspect of my self rising/self raising. I was fiercely independent.

There was a very pivotal moment for me in my teens age 13 or 14, that I think pertains to your query ,where I had done something like got drunk, partied, which I had never done before and I told my mom. Her and I were super close up till then and I was very into having full disclosure with her. Of course she flipped out and put me on restriction, but I decided from that point on I would now have to lie or curate the truth in order to have the freedom I desired and honestly felt I deserved. I thereby was determined to always do what I wanted to do permission granted or not, and for the most part that was how I operated infinitely, I mean I still hold the “torch of freedom” as my anthem:)))))he he

What were you like as a kid/teenager?

I was voracious for adventure, freedom, nympho, wanderer, obsessed with clothes and the mystical realms,a bit of a thief (but only toward the “man” ha ha), and still kind of loner vibes. 

At what point/age did you get exposed, involved, whatever with.. “punk”, “underground”, whatever we call this? Who and what did those beginnings consist of (meaning spaces, people, bands, etc)?

It’s a pretty interesting actually because Mac Mann was the reason I joined a band (in time “our band” Get Hustle) but I was kinda obsessed with him since 7th grade. He was super hot and always so far ahead of style, and anything happening at that time. He wore bondage gear in junior high and was the first guy to get a tattoo, he had dread locks in highschool and this insane vintage truck. Everything Mac did was strange, brilliant, visionary, sexy, and it stood out.

We went to junior high and highschool together and it wasn’t till my junior year of highschool that I actually met the people that would in time lead me to music, the music scene, and that whole lifestyle. I remember the day clearly because I came to school and the entire facade of the gym was painted in HUGE black words “Nation of Ulysses” I had no idea what it meant. It was fucking radddd and I thought “who ever did that I want to know them”, which I did. It was Mac and this guy named Ryan Noel who was in the band Clikatat Ikatowi. Ryan and I ended up dating not long after and I also became friends with Mac separately and their collective friends. Those were the people I hung out with and went to shows with, I guess that all started around age 14.

The Che Cafe was a main go to spot and a few other places in downtown San Diego. There were houses, abandoned store fronts, super rando places people conjured shows. We would go all over though, get rides to Jabberjaw in L.A, anywhere a show was happening we would try and make it happen. I remember climbing through a window at the fairgrounds to see Fugazi. 

Seeing bands like Crash Worship ,Bikini Kill, Nation of Ulysses, Antioch Arrow, Heroin blew my mind and just fueled my inner insatiable desire to be free and break free! Being around forces of nature like those bands and people inherently changed my cosmology even if I couldn’t predict how. In all honesty though I didn’t really come into my personal expression with music or myself till later on in Get Hustle. Once I heard MC5 it was like I finally had my foundation to express myself from. Mac was the golden thread that wove through it all and still does.

#2: I happen to know that Valentine Lovecraft Falcon is not your given birth name. If this is comfortable for you, would you share when and why you adopted this moniker? What the significance was (and is)? Are you comfortable sharing your birth name? Does anyone in the world know or call you by it at this point?

VLF: I wonder how this top secret information got out:))) ha ha just kidding. I was 18 years old heading to LA to start a new life with Mac (he was my boyfriend at the time). I had just read this book called “Mutant Message Down Under” and they talked about how in the aboriginal culture (the one specific to the book) a person was named when they’re born but that name can change after the personality is more developed and positive and/or powerful characteristics could there by be made more significant amd become embodied for that person. Many indigenous tribes do this and cultures.

It really inspired me. I never sat quite right with my birth name. I didn’t like saying it, I was always trying to adjust it to suit me, I didn’t like writing it out either. My whole name always felt like the wrong “goldilocks” chair.

So I just asked myself that day if I could choose my name what would it be, and “Valentine” was the first name to come into my mind. It felt like something to live up to as well, to grow into. In my mind “Valentine” was the one who delivers or gives love, love personified.

I went by Valentine for almost 9 years, trying out various last names, etc. Once I came up with the full name (first,middle,last) I changed it legally, at that point my mom revealed that “Valentine”was the name she had also chosen for me as a baby but didn’t follow through for fear I’d get made fun of. So in truth that was much birth name that I had to summon on my own accord. The “Lovecraft Falcon” was just the completion of the “name-spaceship” so it could fly:)))))

You speak your name the most in life. Its who you say “you are”. “Hello nice to meet you I’m ________”. So its important to feel aligned with your Identifier at least that’s the conclusion I’ve come to.

You can’t be a total beyatch and be a Valentine Lovecraft Falcon ha ha ,although I have been one, but I’ve thought about that a lot and check myself allllll the time. 

The name can also be a reclamation of a soul “code” or vibration, people do it with gender,culture, sexuality, you know, all the tings’. The name is our first mantra we say over, and over, and over it has a vibration and frequency, if you have a name that is empowering for you (it can be anything) it’s like you’re affirming yourself every time you speak it.

I also am curious about how people feel about their names because when I’m slacking or feeling weak sometimes my name bouys me up. The bank teller at Wells Fargo is named “Geronimo” and he looked pretty bad ass actually, but I wondered how he felt having that name to live up to.

Does anyone in the world know or call you by it at this point?

Sometimes when my parents tell a story or they get animated they say my entry level name. Otherwise people know me as Valentine because that’s who I am:)))).

#3: So was Get Hustle truly your first ever band? Had you had any background in ‘performance art’ previously? What were your intentions and inspirations in forming GH? What do you remember about the 1st show you ever played?

VLF: I was inspired to start singing after I went to a Yoko Ono live performance, she did some sound contortions and it broke open something inside me, in that moment I decided I would become a singer. I started taking lessons from this man in our building, he was old hollywood and had empty bottles of brandy all over his house and a lovely piano. I didn’t have any interest in being in a band I wanted to sing old school style, like around camp fires, at the edge of a piano (like Billy Holiday),end of the night drunken sailor, or Appalachian family band. Mac’s band at the time needed a singer and couldn’t get anyone so I decided to fill in till they found someone. So yes Get Hustle was my first band inadvertently since I thought it was temporary till they found their “real” singer.

Had you had any background in ‘performance art’ previously?

No way that thought never even crossed my mind. 

What were your intentions and inspirations in forming GH?

As I said it wasn’t my intention, Mac and Maximillion had moved to LA to do Antioch Arrow, I moved to LA to be with Mac and be an artist:))). 

In my personal opinion, and I’m curious what Mac and Maximillion would say, I don’t feel like “Get Hustle” really came into it’s own till we moved to Portland. I was a pretty weak singer and performer, I didn’t really have a vision. 

At some point though living in Portland I got super into vintage motorcycles, 70’s biker culture, black panther movement, Fela Kuti (Ginger Baker & Tony Allen drumming style), always gospel music and preachers, MC5, Betty Davis was a huge influence,New Orleans aesthetics and vibe.Those inspirations coupled with a sense that I was being fearful and staying safe on stage inspired me to keep pushing my edge. I personally became more driven and intentional with my singing and what I wanted the music to feel like. But everyone was on that page too, they were down with all of it.

Of course there was the bands we watched live too over the years that I probably took inspiration from it was a very organic cumulative expression with GH. When it became just us 3, even though I loved all of our band mates over the years, I felt it was the most essenceful of whatever the entity of Get Hustle was about. Maxamillion was able to fully showcase his mad drumming skittles and Mac with the instrument and visionary sound he created, I’ve still heard nothing like it. 

What do you remember about the 1st show you ever played?

Oh man it was terrible, it was in some awful club in LA, I think Buzz from the Melvins was there (because his wife Mackie was in GH at the time) and maybe 2 other people. I don’t even remember anything else to be honest. I do remember Buzz giving me the best advice ever, which is you have to play 50 shows before you can even begin to feel comfortable or know yourself as a performer and musician. SO true, I thought about that forever.

#4: Can you detail some of the rotating line ups that GH had? Are there any stories you would like to share that relate to GH? What can you tell me about the last time GH played? Is the band done? Will it ever be?

VLF: When I first joined GH David Scott Stone was the guitar player and Mackie Osborne played bass. Later we (Mac, Maxamillion and I) moved from LA to Portland to play with Mark Evan Burden (Currently goes by Evan Burden) he played a Hammond B3 organ and brought that beast on tour which I still think is an epic mythological feat (they would literally haul it up flights of stairs!).

I don’t have a ton of stories relative to GH,for me it’s a series of cool things or appreciations. I got to live in a 3 story haunted house with Mac and Maxamillion, a place where so much personal creativity happened for me, it was a magic house called “The Little Fawn”. Because of GH I got to stay in a anarchist squat house (in Germany I believe) that was fully functional, many people lived there but it was clean and organized and cool as fuck. GH played on an old train car in Stuttgart, this wonder woman style dominatrix woman was kind of my body guard the whole night, that was rad…Once we played on an island in Canada and these people had built huge mushroom dwellings (multiple stories high) in their backyard, you could walk through them, it was like a psychedelic Disneyland. There’s so many rando things like that-better told in person me thinks:)))).

Touring in Europe was a huge eye opener, how much people took care of the bands, we would always have coffee and food awaiting us in the morning. No matter how small a place was they would make sure you had a place to sleep, cities even provided sleeping quarters (!), food, etc. I had never experienced that level of care or budget provided for the arts, especially a form of “outsider art”. With that said over 13 years of touring the states we only HAD to get a hotel, there was always one or more people offering us a place to stay. I think that speaks a lot to how regardless of government or funding (like europe) the support for artists and musicians can always be there. 

The last show we played was a reunion show for the venue in LA called The Smell (which Mac helped build). It was a pretty powerful show aside from a chronic “mysterious” most likely psychosomatic illness I would get that always impacted my voice and ability to sing. We all rose above it and brought the power. 

As far as being “done” I don’t know honestly, we never talked about it. I don’t feel done, and Maxamillion has GH listed as a band he is currently in,I always think of it as dormant. Life is so damn mysterious who knows what will beckon next!

#5: Do you miss being in a band/performing music? If so, what elements? Are there elements you don’t miss at all? Have you maintained relationships with Mac and Max?

VLF: Do you miss being in a band/performing music? If so, what elements? Are there elements you don’t miss at all? Have you maintained relationships with Mac and Max?

A:I definitely miss elements of both, in fact I longed for them for years (still do in a way:))). To roll deep with Maxamillion and Mac especially our last us tour, and of course preforming is such a heightened state of expression and connecting to the powers of the universe, ha ha. In truth though I was never really great after I got off stage, I would want to be alone but you’re immersed with people usually till the end of the night. It was challenging for me and if I wasn’t on the yogi path for most of my touring years I probably would have become an alcoholic to escape. I’m more in the hermetic clan:)))) I think because my life has always revolved more around spirtual pursuits I didn’t feel totally connected to the whole band life. There was a million rad things about touring, traveling, creating music, preforming music but I also was always wanting something else that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I felt “it” on stage mostly or in the creation aspect of making music with Mac and Maxamillion. It’s weird to have a very wild-erness kind of inner nature, and yet a feeling that it needs to be channled in a direction but not sure how (I’m not great at band/tour life but yogi life can bore the shit out of me sometimes), I’m still figuring it out. 

Mac and Maxamillion feel like brothers to me and although we don’t talk often they are always family when ever those moments present themselves. So yes we are still very much in contact. I think they are both seriously amazing humans.

#6: This lends well with where I hoped to travel to next. You spoke in your last answer of spiritual pursuits and yogi paths — can you expand on this? After Get Hustle, where did life take you? Physically, as well as following what other forms of creative/artistic/other worldly endeavors? Can you speak on some of the ways in which you practice Healing Arts?

VLF: At around the age of 22/23 I began a meditation practice that was also part of an ideology and way of living. It completely changed my life and I dove head first into all aspects of this practice. It is called Raj Yoga meditation and I learned it through the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual Organization. Whilst doing this I was also totally immersed in Get Hustle. It was a pretty intense juxtaposition only because the Brahma Kumaris yogi lifestyle was quite austere (monk style). I left that practice at the end of 2011 after finally realizing that lifestyle and it’s “ways” were actually just not for me. I was then led into what is refered to as “Personal Growth” worlds aka “Self Help”.

From there I began a 9 year self directed deep dive into all aspects of personal growth and “self healing” which included a million different “processes”, plant medicine (ayahuasca, psilocybin mushrooms, microdosing, DMT, Kambo, and cannabis), sound healing, hypnotherapy, a 7 month Mystery School training and mentorship in 2020, and present day continued work with esoteric modalities like the merkabah, mediation, Whim Hoff breathwork (yes, and cold treatment), plant spirit medicine, herbal studies and so on. 

During that time, which I now perceive as my “training” I was able to overcome the addictions I sought to heal and the underlying trauma that caused them. From that mythological “hero’s” journey a healing ART was birthed. I call it Imaginal Realm Oracle Medicine, it’s both my healing practice and my ART.

I am an ARTIST-HEALER which is where I landed from Get Hustle to now. I think ARTIST-HEALER (Artist aka Creators) is the new human, being created by plants, Nature and the Higher Powers. My feeling is that the more  people touched by spiritual awakenings either  spontaneously or via plant medicine are seeking a more transpersonal impact in conjunction with their soul’s calling. For example in the past I would have said “I’m a singer, I’m a business owner, I’m an artist” now I feel that I am truly both Artist-Healer as one modality, one self, one expression.

Imaginal Realms Oracle Medicine was created in the same way I would make a piece of art, specifically a collage. In heeding the “healer’s call” aka becoming a healer I needed to feel the personal freedom and artistic expression I experienced at the pinnacle of Get Hustle. I wanted to do something that simultaneously FELT like I was making art yet honored my values and desire to contribute healing and liberation to myself, Mother Earth and my fellow humans.

“I.R.O.M” has it’s origins in shamanic journeying, seership, tarot, mediumship, auger-ing, sound healing, quantum healing yet it doesn’t come from one specific training, school, or teacher. I “collaged” it together and  IT became its own modality. I am hoping more fellow creators (everyone) give themselves permission to utilize NON-ORDINARY REALITY aka Quantum Field/Imaginal Realms/IMAGINATION as a relevant source akin to a school, teacher, training, certification, etc. ((Walt Disney did:)).

To treat our Imagination and these other Realms as one would a prestigious college is to step into a new level of sovereignty and authority-YES! Imagine having your very own crew of teachers, business coaches, healers, plant guides there to assist and guide your personal divine path, that is what accessing this Quantum/Imaginal field offers. It’s truly our birthright. It also transforms us from “extractor, coloniser, consumer, cultural appropriator” to one who is receiving, sharing and living from the very place of all Creation. We become part of the solution, offering life-affirming, life sustaining, “7-generation” stylez consciousness and living to truly be and model “the change we want to see in the world”. We secede from this muther fuckin cult -wink and re-create the original culture of interconnectedness.

I give all sentient beings permission to trust their imagination as a literal nation (imagi-nation), and to go there as one would as an astronaut in space. Be an AWE-IST access and utilize this incredible, infinite, unlimited, un-dogmatized REALITY to become the most holy-and whole-ly human on this earth, now, WOW.

#7: 2 parter, dude:

A, to the level of comfort you feel capable, will you expand a bit on what brought you to meditative/healing practices at such a young age? you speak of essentially living a monk-like lifestyle at a time when many people are only starting to just cut loose, proverbially – at least on paper, it sounds like you were ready to stop hurting and avoiding at a place where many are only beginning. in 1 quick sentence you mention addictions and trauma — are you able to speak a little more specifically of what this meant, what it may have looked like?

VLF: I think I’ve always been inclined to the supernatural, spiritual and metaphysical dimensions. Some of my earliest memories recall paranormal tv shows I was obsessed with watching. I had many moments in my youth of feeling totally expanded and at one with the Universe before I even knew what that meant. 

When you are touched by an ineffable depth of knowing or being that lays the course for becoming a Mystic & Seeker me thinks ha ha.

Around age 13/14 I became deeply aware of the impact we were making on the Earth it was a constant source of sadness for me and from that time on I really wanted to find a way to contribute and be in service on some level.

This being my set tone of consciousness I’ve ALWAYS been wanting to fill myself on a spiritual level whilst push my personal boundaries, be fearless and contribute. 

Living in LA I became an artist; painting and drawing everyday, I was very much in love (with Mac), and felt pretty cool with life yet there was a lack of spiritual depth. In my early 20’s I read Black Elk Speaks and I embarked again on the seeker’s quest. I worked with the I-Ching relgiously, hit a wall and then my friend suggested this Raj Yoga mediation practice.

The meditation practice was about changing your consciousness and thereby being the change you want to see and contribute to the world.

Im not sure those around me would say I was “monk like” ha ha. There was some hypocrisy on my part for sure! Yet in my heart and in my daily life I was dedicated to this shift in consciousness.

When I moved to be with Billy in 2012 I became aware that I was developing a habit with drinking. I could see all the signs of addiction and self medicating. I’m pretty radically honest with myself so I knew I had a problem. Yet I also felt  intensely that there was a reason WHY I was using said substance to medicate (not that I see alcohol as medicine).

I became driven to access and heal this root (see above for the years of processes etc).

it wasn’t till 2019 June 1st when a disembodied voice woke me up and said “are you ready to commit to your sobriety”, I wasn’t and yet as an act of “subtle activism” on June 12, 2020 when I signed up for the Know The Self mystery school I went sober (synchronistically you had to be sober to join the school).

A week into the school the “trauma” in question surfaced. It was a molestation that occurred to me when I was a baby. I had multiple sexual abuses in my youth and later in my teens. It’s a lengthy conversation as to how these transgressions impacted my(people’s) life yet the relief I had in discovering the big “WHY” was a serious miracle. Not too many months later my “seership” gifts came on line and well you know the deal:))).

B, to speak of tools for healing and growth as if a “prestigious college” sounds not just amazing, but outright revolutionary. and so i ask: is this possible? is this realistic? will our modern society/world stick around long enough to see this level of potential?

VLF: The answer is YES I mean where the hell does information come from? That question alone will take you on a wild rabbit hole expedition to convince you of this answer. Also Is it realistic? What does that even mean? Everything “real” was once a thought that became manifest, literally everything besides nature’s creations was first a thought.

Teachings didn’t originate from a humans. It comes from thoughts, imagination, quantum field the intangible made tangible. Humans are conduits that harness, magnetize, or access information and then make it manifest we’re little creators:))).

 I think at this time people are changing their human form to-again- be the antenna receivers of information that is fully formed in the “I cloud” of the Universe. Our brains have crystals in it, our heart has a magnetized field that transmits and receives data, our gut (when not damaged) literally is extrasensory also know as the first brain. Our entire body has incredible supernatural capabilities if not suppressed or forgotten by the modern ways. The implications for receiving knowledge are truly endless.

Is there a process to un-indocrinating how we learn, yes! If you ask “who taught the teacher” and follow that inquiry back to it’s source, usually it came from nature, angels in the sky:))), plants, psychedelics, in between waking states, meditation on a mountain, visions, dreams, spring water (Viktor Schauberger), shamanic journey, etc. Whole concepts can land fully formed in the computer mysclieum network of our minds.

will our modern society/world stick around long enough to see this level of potential?

VLF: I question how modern our society is, there is mass emotional and environmental suffering. If you believe in “as within so without, as above so below” then it’s imperative to begin questioning the source and intentions of “fed” and followed information, an obvious statement in this context (da punks).

Receiving knowledge, education from a life-affirming source will synergistically affirm life. Nature mirrors this when in an unadulterated state. 

It goes back to the quote “we can’t solve our problems with the same thinking that we used to create them” it’s time to go off roading and see what happens. I’m hearing the question “what about medical education” the belief I offer includes it all.

In my opinion “invisible non ordinary reality” direct SOURCES are doing a lot to get our attention.  I see myself as a little bridge between those worlds via the Imaginal Realms Sessions I offer. Helping people get access and receive these messages & teachings.  Many people are becoming bridges between worlds, in other times they were called shamans. Of course the shaman is making a come back yet artists (creators) have always been bridges.

The invisible realm and it’s inhabitants see the meta picture, the solutions and the problems. That is why this way of learning is crewsh, it is outside of our culture it’s outside of time and space! Plus it’s fucking cool and it’s free, ta da!