#actually Ayahuasca is what made me want to try drugs

[headlamprey]

This is SUCH a wild time to be someone who enjoys recreational drugs

[child-of-the-new-contagion]

The Banality of End Times

There's these dueling pay-pig recipients. I'm their client. I pay them and they perform for me. Among other things, they perform the function of being better than me, so much better and more talented. They produce content that I consume. I pretend to worship them. Sometimes I actually do worship them. Most importantly, I give them money.

One of them is on instagram. I found her bikini pics. She alluded to their existence in a reply on a different social network that I happened across. Cristina. From a perfect threads burn where she delivered the retort: "yeah it’s called restraint, something the IDF & u hate-masturbating over my bikini pics lack." It's ideology I like on a hottie. OMG. So it's not exactly pay-pig, a slightly more dignified form of pay piggery, it's hog-shill.

The other recipient is Ian Welsh. Well, theoretical recipient, I haven't sent him money, but I'm really thinking about it, he made a good pitch. But I'm struggling in this economy, right? That's my counter-pitch, to myself, because no one else is aware.

He posted a list of catastrophes and paradigm shifts he predicted in point form. One of them had an ominous sentence after: "It has begun." How do I feel about that? Should I craft it into something to post on that facebook thread? First I've got to do some appreciation theatre and prove myself willing to perform perfunctory attention and admiration upon colleagues in the college of dubious artforms. Level up on points. To where I can post. 

Ian, quoting chapter and verse, me, licking it up like gospel ladeled down my gullet. Gross.

Is that how ppl become fans of ppl on instagram? That's sad. I don't want to play a sad role in a sad little play that is horrifying and beautiful at times, like pixies singing songs to you at the peak/trough diamond drill interval of an ayahuasca trip. We know those "entheogens" don't necessarily do any good, people can go in and out with their asshole egos intact no problem, look at burning man for an example, look at all those zaphod beeblebroxes going into their total perspective vortexes and coming out with the idea that the universe is endorsing their dream to go on mismanaging silicon valley parasite farms. Oh, that rant felt righteous and full of holes.

It can get to be too much some times. Luckily I don't fall into panic much any more. I just let it flow, as it's all disposed to, around me, around me. Don't know what they do, but the things they all get up to just astound me, astound me, Nursery Rhymes for arrested developments. Ok, I got one mantra ready, at least. I cobbled together one of them. That's as heroic as I can get. Until something forces me to get moreso.

Just between you and me, that was too much of that oil. Might have to edit inconvenient vestiges of the present that try to out-compete and eliminate ways of coping, being here now, in the moment. Does make me aware of how cold my hands are, in a more immediate way, like it's weighty, means something, feels something extra. Does make me aware I'm doing something, writing, and lending the weight of weightier sensation to the fact that writing is a struggle, lends more weight to the activity, makes meaning even, in and of itself, if meaning could be derived later, by whatever standard reigns then. See, that's the big question. The goddamn state boundary. You see? Ah, nevermind. I'll try again later.

Nursery mantras I sing to myself when I get desperate, or even drowsy. When I don't want to get out of bed, and it's a morning lullaby, an elegy to waking life and exhortation to stay in bed, and don't worry about it, and don't despair but get back to that pleasant drowsiness, treat the drowsy like I drug, not like anyone else drugs but like I do it, how I treat it like a laudanum-coated lollipop. Some people do dream in a druggy kind of way, ppl do know what I'm talking about, even if the idea of addiction to sleep is seen as not credible, not worth exploring or even discussing... and what is even out there that hasn't got a reddit devoted to it?

What's my reddit saying about me? Did they turn on me? Did some one edit my wikipedia page to claim I was a paypig? Who posted these scurrilous lies? Actually no body, there's nothing, I can relax, as I've always relaxed in that area. I've kept a low profile, because of low points in my ego, in my story, which is I guess what passes for trauma with me, so I guess that's lucky, a first world problem. It's a first world luxury to worry about potential panic in the near future. I could freak out about that luxury, or luxuriate in it. I guess it would be far more pleasurable to do the latter.

There was cyber-bullying, I guess, before the term existed, but my dreams are fucked up enough, with enough over-the-top symbology, but not enough sex, although sometimes. Christ, had the first one of those dreams of my life, so there's weird stuff going on. Maybe there's a lack of outlet, maybe there needs to therapy for me, poor me, or pour me a drink.

There were multiple times of being smacked down so hard online that it kept me shy, even online, guarded. And still, I got multiple relationships out of being online, one of it enduring, ongoing, despite how life conspires to break our wills to be there for each other, that bare minimum thing that can mean so much, even in good times, all the more so in times that seem like "the bad timeline" in a sci-fi movie, like where climate change wasn't fixed easily, even within capitalism, with market-based solutions, like the ozone hole was, and instead, all the "worst-case" models turned out to be overly-sunny projections, and the prognosis became increasingly malignant for human survival, and we got to see the clown fascist pre-shock before the century-long banality of end-times.

I can't think of what to say in the threads replies. I'm tongue-tied. I guess that's why I'm a pay pig. I'm not paying much though. I guess I could splurge and buy some real top-tier temporary loyalty. For a weekend. And then, I dunno, go on a mass shooting spree? Nah, not extraverted enough. That's very late-90s anyway. Old old paradigm. Now I'm an adult, more civic-minded, more inclined to do terrorism towards a doomed revolution, if anything. I'm a cynic civic. Can the word civic be used like that? I'm not sure. What is this, a podcast monologue now?

[pooopopop]

I’m actually a part of the polyamorous scene in Washington and both Vicky and Misha were frequent party guests, from what I heard. I saw them once and I asked the host if that was Misha Collins (this was back in 2012 or 13), she said, “oh yeah, they use to come here often, but now not so much. Guess he doesn’t want as much attention as before.” So yeah, they were wild, apparently they both once joined a sex cult and had to take part in group sex. This was for a documentary that Vicky was filming/investigating.

I’m not inclined to believe you but sure it sounds about right because in that Larry king interview in 2013 he said that she’s been for it sometimes and not so much other times and at that point they were focused on changing diapers. Sex cult was rajneeshpuram, I never heard that it was for a documentary but I remember misha talked about trying to join as if they didn’t actually want too, but I think they probably wanted to join fr. Rajneesh was this new age sex-based mystic Hindu who was practically chased out of India because other Hindus rejected his teachings. New age white people were taken by his ~oriental mystique~, as people still are, New Agers are total cultural appropriators and there’s a huge market for spiritual tourism like those ayahuasca retreats. Lot of them promote psychedelic drug use as the only way to have a real connection to God/The Universe, like Ram Dass. But Misha and Vicki definitely aren’t Buddhist because not consuming animals is a huge sacred dietary restriction and neither of them are vegetarian. That was quite a bit of a tangent but I’d just advise anybody to be highly skeptical of a white person who really loudly indulges in Eastern spirituality because the majority of the time it’s all aesthetics, funneled through this game of telephone between spiritual leaders who are largely looking to be exploitive. Its a gross misrepresentation of Hinduism.

To get back to why I made the post and why I was frustrated for my friend’s sake, Misha (and Vicki) just don’t seem to give any weight to the potential damages or have any concern for some of the exploitive/creepy behavior they promote. Like, they think it’s cute. There was one story Misha told about them and their friends going to a strip club that wouldn’t let Vicki in, so she dropped skirt pissed on the steps and started calling out to the people walking in saying she was showing her good for free. It’s not cute, guys, that’s enough to become a registered sex offender.

I don’t want to write out the specific things that that have felt like red flags to me, I don’t want to single people out who haven’t done it themselves like the girl in the original post, so all I’ll say is that I don’t think his flippant nature regarding sex, his predisposition to always bring it up at cons (on stage and 1-on-1), and the perceived intimacy he promotes as part of his image to his fandom: all that is purposeful engineering on his part , regardless of his intentions behind it. And it’s fertile grounds for something Not Great happening.

Girls (/gn) we need to be ok with judging rich cis white male celebrities. Even the ones you like.

[thetravellingvagrant]

Day 14: Cusco - In Which I Ride Through A Desert (National Park) On a Horse With No Name (It Was Called Treacle)

We were up earlyish again, today, for the second of our booked excursions in Cusco. This day, however, we had eschewed the ATVs  to instead ride around a lovely big national park on horseback, like the rough and ready cowboys that we (I) definitely are (am).

We hauled ourselves out of lovely warm bed and into horrible cold flat and, after a frankly joyless breakfast of children's cereal, which, by this point, I am utterly sick to my back teeth of, bade a temporary goodbye to our apartment and all its resident ants and headed to our horsey pickup point: San Blas temple.

After a few (twenty) minutes wait, our driver, Marciel appeared from nowhere, like a little Peruvian goblin and ushered us into his car. He spoke no English, though insisted on speaking to us at length, anyway, so lots of smiling, nodding and saying “si” and just hoping ensued.

Marciel drove us up through the outskirts of town and, annoyingly, alongside the Saqsaywaman ruins, where he stopped, insisted we get out and take pictures from an infuriatingly better angle than we had enjoyed a couple of days ago, thereby making the incredibly gruelling uphill walk now entirely pointless on every conceivable level. Don't tell Sam, though, even though she knows and was also there.

After around twenty five minutes total drive time, we pulled up alongside the actual, for real ranch, with horses and men in hats and everything, and were quickly greeted by our incredibly lovely guide, whose name, unforgivably, I have totally forgotten- I'll call him Ruben, because I think it was probably something like that – and Robert, another punter, also from Britain, whom you could tell just by looking at, was definitely in Peru to do Ayahuasca, but was fairly nice, regardless.

After a brief bit of small-talk, which I hated, we were assigned our horses. I had, from nearly the exact moment of booking this particular tour, some month and a half prior, been insisting that my horse would be called Treacle, because for some reason, it seemed to annoy Sam and I found that incredibly funny. In actuality, my horse's name was Caramel, which I'm sure you'll agree is startlingly close to my original guess and indeed definitely close enough for me to continue referring to it as Treacle, throughout this post, which I will.

After only a single incredibly ungainly failed attempt to get on top of Treacle, before finally cracking it (meaning I managed to get into the saddle- I didn't punch the horse) I was up and on horseback and officially a cowboy. Yee haw. Neat. Wowzer.

I had never ridden a horse before this point, never really having had the cause, interest or availability to, but despite feeling constantly for the first half hour or so like I was definitely going to slip off my saddle to the side and be trampled under Treacle's magnificent, pounding hooves, it wasn't all that bad, at all. It was a bit like driving a living car, I suppose - one which could arbitrarily decide to go mental and kill you at any point. I concede that does actually sound quite bad, now I read it back, but it really wasn't.

After a while, I found my bearings and settled into clopping around like I was in a very, very slow version of Red Dead Redemption. No sooner had I begun imagining myself as a cowboy, clad in a poncho, shooting all the natives to bits with a very big gun, however, than we stopped, demounted and went for a bit of a wander around the nearby Temple of The Moon.

Neat.

The temple, despite not getting to go inside it – site of delicate historical significance my arse – was incredibly neat. It was created by the Incas, as a sort of partner to the nearby Temple of the Sun, only this one was used to worship...yeah, the Moon. Exactly. You're really good at this. Apparently, though, due to the Spaniards being undeniable bastards and smashing up, murdering or building over everything Incan they could find, some savvy natives decided to cover the entire temple in soil to hide it. I have no idea how they might have accomplished this, or if indeed it is even true, but Not-Rubem says it was, and honestly? I trust him more than you. What this meant, however, was that for many years, up until even the last six or so, a lot of the temple had remained undiscovered by modern eyes and indeed, was still, in part, in the process of being excavated. It also had a hole in its ceiling, where the moonlight would shine through during clear nights, illuminating an alter, where they performed ritual sacrifices and if that ain't the most HP Lovecraft shit, I ever heard.

Our brief, though interesting interlude now completed, I hopped back onto Treacle (first try) and we continued our sojourn. Now quite enjoying myself, even when Treacle arbitrarily broke out into a gallop for a while, terrifying me ever so slightly, we climbed up through the valley along winding paths and eventually reached a genuinely very impressive viewpoint. I'd describe it as breathtaking, but at that altitude, everything is, so it would be pointless to do so.

Still pretty alright, though...

Afterwards, we sidled back down the path, Ruben talking about all the different wildlife we had seen (including apparently an Andean Condor, which I didn't realise at the time are actually quite a rare find, but also, still just birds so basically a bit shit) and plant life we were passing, making me feel every inch the outdoorsman, despite how much this sentence implies the opposite.

Despite a couple of interludes, wherein Treacle unexpectedly galloped, or launched himself over tiny puddles in the most overly dramatic way possible, crushing my hands and genitals against the saddle in the process, I was now decidedly enjoying my time on horseback and had begun to feel so comfortable that when Ruben suggested that we gallop back to the ranch on the final strait of road, I eagerly(ish) agreed. Sam's horse, however, whose name neither of us can remember, but whom she dubbed “Li'l Asshole” was not so gallop-inclined and so, once back at the ranch, we did have to wait for some time, while Sam and Li'l Asshole trotted along at entirely its own pace, which was close to that of molasses. I befriended that ranch's cat in the meantime, however, so didn't mind in the slightest. In fact, I only wish they could have taken longer.

We lunched at the ranch, “enjoying” a little packet of salted crackers, a melted chocolate cake bar and a bottle of water (and also, the ranch's cat, Arthur, now sitting on my knee, purring loudly like a big idiot) and the smalltalk began, once more.

Robert told us that his plans for the rest of his time in Peru were to attend a three week ayahuasca retreat (I fucking knew it). I mean, again, he was a nice guy, but for fucks sake, Robert. Grow up.

Conversation then turned to Machu Piccu. Robert asked us if we had been; we told him we had not. He asked when we planned to go and we told him that we had no plans to do so. We had been wavering on going, since initially booking the trip. Wonders of the world are neat and all, but when viewing them with with literally thousands of other people at the same time, for about an hour and at a cost of several hundreds of pounds, it just didn't seem that worth it and by the time we had reached the point of saying “fuck it, lets just spend the money and do it”, all of the limited entrance tickets had sold out.

Ruben, however, chipped in to tell us that the travel agency for which he and his ranch worked would have some available tickets and he may be able to hook us up for tomorrow, should we still want to go. We told him we were definitely interested and he made a quick phone-call to check availability and prices. Four hundred and fifty dollars. We weren't that interested, fuck. We sadly declined Ruben's proposal and vowed to come back at some point in the future instead, perhaps to walk the Inca trail for like eleven days to get there, which apparently, even that you have to pay for. Walking. You have to pay to walk there. Get your shit together, Peru. Absurd.

A little dejected to not be going Piccu-side, we said our goodbyes to Ruben, Treacle and Li'l Asshole and clambered back into the taxi to be briskly driven back to San Blas temple. Once there, we also said goodbye to Robert, who at the point of writing this, is probably off his little tits on drug-soup, and headed to a cafe we had had our eye on since arriving, for a bit of lunch.

Once inside, I opted for half a basil, mozzarella and tomato panini (which turned out to be absolutely gigantic; I could not even fathom eating a full one) and a frankly monstrous slab of tres leches cake. The food was incredible and honestly, definitely the best thing I had eaten on this trip. All other food I had eaten thus far (including the chicken roulade, from the previous night, which at the time, was lovely, though in comparison was like chewing through a bag of soot) can eff off into the bin, where it clearly belongs.

Now feeling a little sleepy - we had been up since like 6am, had a fairly physically demanding day and now, as I say, were full to the brim with bread and cheese – we decided to head back to the flat, despite it only being around 2pm, to nap and otherwise relax for the rest of the day and indeed, to figure out what to do with our last remaining day in Cusco, tomorrow. Tentatively, our plans were to go and see some of the other, less amazing ruins that the city and surrounding are had to offer. Did we actually do that? Who knows! You'll have to read the next entry to find out! (We didn't. We're lazy and have spent all our money.)

[jasecomplex]

Death By Astonishment

The following is a real story about psychedelic drug use, if the subject matter bothers you please refrain from continuing. It’s important that the reader be at least somewhat familiar with what DMT is in order for any of this to make any kind of sense, I realize that in order to have found this report you're likely well acquainted with the subject, but I want for everyone to be able to appreciate this. Dimethyltryptamine, (DMT) is the most powerful class of psychadelics we are currently aware of. It also happens to be endogenously produced, meaning our bodies actually produce the compound, so from the moment you’re born to the moment you die you have the most powerful psychedelic drug in your brain, so do all mammals as far as I know. It is thought to be the cause of dreams, near death experiences and some alien abduction stories. The typical "smoked" freebase DMT trip is very fast in onset and very short lasting, usually around 15 minutes in total. The molecule is destroyed by the monoamine oxidase in your stomach before it's able to pass your blood brain barrier and have the desired effect. Combining DMT with an MAOI (monoamine oxidase inhibitor) allows it to be ingested orally, this is known as ayahuasca, which I'm led to believe has become quite popular among the yuppie class who like to travel to South America to exploit the last remaining vestages of an ancient land, ritual and people before they're all bulldozed over for that sweet sweet palm oil. (I kid, I kid.) My only experience is with DMT freebase. The MAOI in ayahuasca typically leads to severe gastrointestinal distress, pain, diarrhea, and vomiting are typical of the experience, and I'm not all that interested in shitting and puking my brains out as they are simultaneously sucked into the interstellar vacuum. There are multiple “levels” of the DMT trip, the most intense being what’s known as a “breakthough” dose, which is said to be the most powerful experience a person can have, after having been through it, I’m inclined to agree.

I want to note that I did not undertake this experience as a rank amateur. At this point in my psychedelic journey I was smoking DMT at least once a week and had well over dozen trips under my belt, as well as several acid trips, mushroom trips, mdma, and 2cb. You could say I fancied myself a psychonaut who could handle his shit. I have since been humbled.

Like many people who have tried getting into DMT, I was having no luck actually breaking through, I would get close, but never actually to the point of a full breakthrough experience. I thought that maybe I had broken through a couple of times, but one thing I’ve since come to realize is that there is no “maybe” to a breakthrough experience, if you have to ask upon exiting a DMT trip, “Did I break through?” the answer is no. You did not.

One thing that I feel obligated to get out of the way now is that this effort of mine, to describe my experience will be a colossal failure. I will do my best, but I will fall short, language is simply insufficient to convey a breakthrough experience to someone who hasn’t had the experience. I like to think of describing a breakthrough as trying to describe a 3 dimensional object you’ve never seen by a memory of its shadow. That being said, there will be no hyperbole in the following paragraphs, everything will be described to the best of my abilities. The gravity of the situation cannot be overstated, this is an experience that changed me at my core, an experience that shattered my perceptions of the universe and scattered the powdered remnants into the cosmic wind. The report will be split into two parts, the first will entail the experience as I remember it, not necessarily in the exact chronological order in which they occurred, time is a bit strange in the DMT world, and I've pieced what I can remember into a series of events that to me makes sense. The second part will be about how I have processed this experience over the past couple of years (yes, it has taken me that long to finally feel comfortable writing up a report), and how it has changed my core beliefs involving religion, consciousness, and indeed existence itself.

Part One: The Experience

It was a hot summer Saturday, my wife was at work and I was home alone with nothing to do, so I decided dropping some acid would be a good way to spend the day. I had recently gotten some 120μg tabs and I decided 2 would be a good dose, as one never seems to do all that much to me. One thing I love doing while on acid is listening to Terence McKenna, his way of speaking, the lateral thinking he displays and the novel ideas he puts forth are always more entertaining and inspiring to me while on acid. On this fateful day I happened to come across a video in which he describes smoking DMT while peaking on acid, and it seemed to make breaking through much easier, and I happened to have a stash of DMT and was nearing the 4 hour mark of my trip. In hindsight the hubris that follows is almost comical. I nonchalantly got my bong out, spread a layer of cannabis in the bowl, measured out 50mg of DMT, and put another layer of cannabis over the DMT. For any not in the know, the purpose of the cannabis was less to add to the high and more to protect and absorb the DMT, DMT is destroyed by open flames and becomes liquid when heated, so the bottom layer absorbs the liquid and stops it from just running into the water while the top layer keeps the flame from directly contacting your expensive DMT. When you "smoke" DMT you're actually vaporizing it, combustion destroys it.

I looked at the clock on my stove, which I can see from the living room, 4:32. I flicked my bic, placed the flame to the bowl and inhaled as deeply as I could. One hit. One hit is all I was ABLE to do, as before I even remember exhaling I was gone, I don't know if I coughed, I don't know how long I was able to hold it in. Fast is an entirely insufficient adjective to describe how fast freebase DMT hits you, especially when you're already peaking on LSD. It doesn't seem physically possible how fast it hits you, it's as if your brain starts dumping it endogenously in preparation for the freebase that's about to hit it, it's the closest thing to an instantaneous effect I've ever felt. I just messed up, bad. This is something entirely different from the experiences I've known to this point, this was somehow REAL, this combination had done something to alter the very fabric of reality, and I knew immediately that I had made a huge mistake. I remember looking at the purple and orange, sun and moon tie-dye tapestry we have hanging on our wall (yes we're hippies, get over it) and having the colors and spiral shape spread across the entire room, with every piece of furniture taking on orange and purple colors, and then distorting and spiraling upwards as if I were about to receive a visit from the Cat in the Hat. The visitor I actually received was far less pedestrian than a talking cat from a Dr. Seuss story. This orange and purple spiraling was the only open eye visual I managed to see, as immediately after taking the hit I fell back on our old futon and was no longer able to hold my eyes open. Eyes closed, mind opened.

Everything was black and eerily silent at first as I felt myself begin to be pulled/pushed upwards, away from my body. Looking up I saw blackness, with a pinprick of white, this white was what I was floating towards, slowly, and inexorably. I looked down, I could see… myself, my body, the crappy futon that had long outstayed its welcome, there was a hole in my ceiling through which I could see myself getting smaller as I moved upwards towards the waiting unknown. That’s when the real terror began. I knew I was never coming back, that my wife was going to come home and find me comatose, and that old futon that I hated so much would be where I died. I was going to leave my wife alone, forcing her to find me in that condition, scarring her for life because I had thought myself capable of concomitant psychedelic use when nothing was further from the truth. I felt powerless, stupid, selfish, I hated myself in that moment. This was terrifying, because I knew it was real, there was no doubt in my mind. As I continued being pulled from above and pushed from below, getting further and further from my body the layers of myself began peeling away. Slowly, every aspect of me that I could call “me” was being discarded, the last part of myself that I desperately clung to was my wife, the memories of her, both of loving tenderness and bitter arguments, I didn’t want to lose her, she had to be forcibly torn from my grasp, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. This was ego death, this was me dying, and from this point on I didn’t really consider myself to be myself, there was no ego attached to me with which perceive the event. I will continue to use “I” and “my" but that’s only because that’s how our memory works, I wasn’t me anymore, I understand the confusing, and unintuitive nature of this perspective, of being conscious, of witnessing, participating, thinking, reacting, and feeling without an "I" to be. With the fading of my ego came the fading of my resolve to cling to myself, and with much fear and trepidation of what was to follow, I finally let go of myself completely, I allowed myself to die. Once I let go, and accepted my dying, an overwhelming calm swept across me and the pervasive blackness all around began teeming with activity, light, and voices. These voices, singular in tone and pitch and yet innumerable in repetition and seeming sources were feminine in energy, maternal, and loving. The love I felt from those voices, the care, the worry for me, I’ll forever hold onto that feeling, there was a genuine, unabashedly accepting quality that left no doubt in my mind that the amount of love they felt for me was complete. The voices kept repeating the same mantras “We just don’t know, we don’t know, we just don’t know.” And though the words were vague, the meaning was crystal clear and unambiguous to me. They didn’t know what was on the other side, and they were sending me to find out, they were worried about me, they loved me and didn’t want any harm to befall me, but they were grateful that I was going to find out, that I had volunteered. For some reason I have always attached the name "Gaia" to these voices, they seemed to belong to the earth itself somehow.

As I looked down again I could no longer see myself, instead what presented was ethereal, green, verdant energy in wafting tendrils like a kelp forest composed of light, swaying gently in calm sea. There were spots of light in all colors, photons slowed to crawl so that I could examine them, appreciate them, name them individually. I then turned my attention upwards and the pinprick of white light had grown exponentially and was now a shimmering white wall, pulling me towards it, beckoning me to enter it and behold the majesty within. There was a voice on the other side, masculine, less kind and loving than the one that had ushered me to this point, but far from malicious.

As I came to the wall the light that had surrounded me again faded to blackness and the loving voices stopped. What I could hear now from the wall was a continuous, low humming sound that didn’t grow louder as I neared it, but somehow fuller, more complete, as if it were a frequency that had begun resonating inside of my mind. As I neared the wall I began to feel a tingling sensation from being near it, as if it were composed of a static electric charge. I entered the wall, it didn't open for me, but I was able to pass through with no resistance. As I did there was a crinkling, crackling noise, reminiscent of a potato chip bag crumpling. My vision was entirely white, I passed through it.

The sight I was confronted with directly on the other side should have left me mortified, but it didn’t. There, suspended in space was my own decapitated head, but it wasn’t macabre or gruesome in any sense. My head was being used as a projector, images beaming out of my eyes showing my life playing out, the stresses, pains, and pleasures I’ve enjoyed and endured. Then the voice spoke up, there was no body to this voice, it was a calm, masculine, objective sounding voice, no love, but no malice either, it said to me “This is what it took” and a set of images played out that he seemed to control. These images were my own memories, of times I’ve displayed curiosity in the face of adversity, how I’ve shown courage, made sacrifices and refused to believe what I was told, choosing to find out for myself. Simply in getting here I had to make myself an enemy of the culture in which I live, a criminal, ostracized and having to keep who I truly am under wraps from family and coworkers. I am brave, perhaps a bit foolhardy at times, but I have shown a sense of courage that most are unwilling to match. It should be known that I have severe depression, and don’t often think positively about myself. I considered myself a coward, weak, and deserving of the ostracism I fear. Being shown all of these things that are undeniably true, and also positive, filled me with a heretofore unknown sense of satisfaction with myself, who I am, who I am becoming, how I think, and how I think about my thoughts. I’ve never had myself shown to me in such an objective light. He wasn’t trying to make me feel good, he was simply showing me who I am, who I was in life. Indeed if I were a different person, with a different set of experiences, if I were an abusive, Machiavellian, greedy, and all around shitty person, being shown my life’s actions without the filter of my ego would have been hell. Bad people aren’t bad in their minds, they have justifications for their actions that allows them to hold onto the myth that they are decent people. This entity’s purpose seemed to be to show those who come to him who they are, objectively, without emotion, without justification.

When he was finished there was a loud, echoing snap noise, someone snapping their fingers in a cave. At this sound, I dissolved. Each and every molecule and atom of my being separated and dispersed throughout the universe, I was nothing, I was everything. “I am God.” Just like that, with three tiny, prodigious words, everything I knew as a devout secular atheist vanished. How can I say there is no God when I AM God? What is God? God is existence, God is consciousness, and I am God. Before my eyes was laid infinity, the scope, the scale, the grandeur of the universe, it was too much to handle but I had no choice, it was there and so was I. This is the part of the trip that sadly has lost the most detail, I’m left with more of an absolute impression than the individual details. I recall traveling vast distances, visiting distant worlds and observing alien life. I saw the Mandelbrot of existence in its entirety all at once, viewing every individual fractal spire in intimate, individual detail while simultaneously marveling at the beauty and immensity of the image as a whole. I was pervasive throughout the Universe and could travel wherever I wanted at a whim, instantly. I knew everything, I watched stars go from disparate gas clouds to supernovae, seeing every second of their lives in an instant. This was pure happiness, knowledge on a scale impossible to contain in a human mind. I then began falling, slowly at first, accelerating constantly.

I didn’t pass through any of the “levels” I had crossed when coming, instead I fell into blackness, but I was falling from every direction, the atoms composing my being returning from their cosmic diaspora, coalescing back into myself, and as I fell I became myself again. Piece by piece I began to remember who and what I was, I looked down and I was falling towards the Earth, I could again see my body through a hole in my roof, I was falling towards it with the acceleration of gravity. I passed through my roof, then my ceiling, I landed back inside of myself and immediately opened my eyes and inhaled deeply, awake, aware. I looked around the room, everything was tinted green, the walls were covered in impossible constantly transforming opalescent geometric patterns, I looked at one of my dogs, Spicy, a short, squat bulldog/pitbull mix, someone had clearly been having fun in photoshop with her, colors and contrast altered unnaturally, her brindle pattern fuzzing into the air itself, she was a spectrum of matter fading into nothing at the edges, and I said out loud “Thank God, everything is back to normal.” Compared to where I just was this was normal, this was the reality I know, just altered somewhat. I looked at the clock, 4:37. 5 minutes. All of that happened in the course of 5 minutes, coming out it felt like literal weeks, while I was there time seemed not to exist at all, or at least not in the linear way we know it. But I was back, after knowing for sure that I wouldn’t be, and I was happy, I couldn’t wait for my wife to get home, to hug her, to know for sure that I came back and everything was the same. But nothing has been the same, how could it be after what I’ve experienced? I truly see the world differently, my core beliefs, altered irreparably by a 5 minute experience. This was by far the most terrifying event in my life, I died, that’s not hyperbole, I lost who I was and thought I would never get it back. Scary though it may have been, it was also by far and away the most powerful experience I’ve ever had, this is an experience that redefined the words “power” and “awe” for me, I didn’t know what those words meant, the true definitions aren’t to be found in a dictionary, they must be experienced to be  comprehended. Do I regret my irresponsible actions, putting myself into a situation I wasn’t ready for? Absolutely not, I can’t say this experience was one I necessarily enjoyed in the moment, but I haven’t regretted doing it for even one second. Would I have done it if I had known what I was in for? Absolutely not, I haven’t repeated this combination because every time I think about doing it I’m viciously aware of what I’m likely to go through, that kills the desire outright, it’s scary as hell now that I know. Do I recommend anyone else combine LSD and DMT? Absolutely not, I only say this because of how immensely terrifying the experience was, I’m not going to stop anyone from going down the road I went down. but I cannot in good conscience recommend someone else repeat my actions, this is a decision to be made by mature adults, for themselves, you are the master of your own destiny and will reap what you sow. Will I do it again? I’d like to think yes, but not anytime soon I’m honestly scared of DMT now, it was my favorite drug from the moment I got my first good hit (despite the taste) I’ve now done it 3 times in the past two years, despite it being right there, beckoning. Was this an overall positive experience? Absolutely, no single experience has changed my thought processes and opened my mind more than this one, I really think I learned more about this universe in that single trip than in all my years of school.

If you are thinking of trying this combination, it’s imperative that you have ample experience with both LSD and DMT separately, and remember that it’s not LSD *plus* DMT, it’s LSD *times* DMT. One piece of advice for anyone embarking on this journey, just let go, you will come back, don’t cling to yourself, your loved ones, or anything in this world that you deem important, you’re leaving all of that behind when you agree to take these molecules into your body, it’s not a decision to make lightly.

Part 2: Processing

It’s now been 2 full years since this experience, and I’m not sure if I’ve gone 8 full hours without thinking about it at least once. This was a legitimate religious experience. I didn’t think religious experiences were actually possible until I had one. The term had the same significance to me as the term “fairy tale”. Now it carries more significance than I'm sure it does to 90% of devout Christians, a truly religious experience is far more profound to the individual than anything that can be found in the Bible.

Now, on being God. This whole “I am God” thing really threw me for a loop and I had to think a long, long time about what that meant. Do I think I’m the Christian God? No, I don’t believe in the Christian God, I don’t believe I’m anymore God than anyone else, but I think everyone else is also God. God is existence, consciousness. It’s not some separate entity to be worshipped, because everything is God. I believe Our brains do not generate consciousness, rather consciousness is a dimension and our brains tune into it like radios of sorts. All matter is conscious on some level, everything that exists knows on some level that it exists, what it is, and how it should behave. That "level" is dependent on the level of complexity, a giant boulder is far less complex than the inch worm crawling across its surface, and as a result the inch worm, despite being far smaller, and containing far fewer atoms is on a higher level of consciousness. The reason we are “more” conscious than other animals is that we are more complex than other animals, specifically in our brains. Were we to create a machine or program (or more likely a combination) that is as complex as the human body, with the complexity of our neural network it would be as conscious as we are.

This experience, coupled with the knowledge that DMT is endogenously produced, and there can indeed be endogenous DMT trips, has led me to a rather left field theory concerning religion in general. All religions have their base in endogenous DMT trips. At least all religions concerning religious experiences. Essentially my charge is that religions are just perverse, high stakes versions of the telephone game we played as children. One person had an endogenous DMT trip, told people about it as best they were able, those people then relayed the experience to others, minus or plus certain details, and thus a belief is born and subsequently spread. Then some people gathered many different experiences and beliefs and wove them into a single story, a religion. This of course would require the original stories to be extensively bastardized and warped to fit a specific intent. However genuine the origin, religion seems to draw the very worst type of people to lead them, and within a few generations the true story is lost to a strict set of rules and limitations. I’m not a fan of religion. So many people killed, tortured, persecuted, immolated, exiled and all other manners of brutality and humiliation, for nothing. Since this experience I’ve done more open minded research on religion than I had in my life up to this point, and I’ve come to a pretty unsurprising conclusion; all religions are wrong. Some are less wrong than others, Buddhism, in my opinion (and at my current knowledge level) is the closest to being correct, and much can be learned from the teachings of Buddha, specifically on the psychological implications of his beliefs on happiness and suffering. Regardless of your personal religious beliefs you would benefit from studying Buddhism and incorporating many of the philosophies into your own personal grand unified theory. In fact, based on the reading I've done, I 8think that there are more truths to be found in general with religions based on philosophy moreso than religious experience, wonder why? Now I could be entirely wrong here, and I go through life knowing that at any moment a piece of information could come along that would require a complete rethinking, beliefs should be transient and subject to information. Base the beliefs you accept on the information you have, don’t base the information you accept on the beliefs you have.

One thing that I cannot shake is the similarity between my experience and some stories I’ve heard in some religions. Most notably the entity who showed me my life, if other people have met this entity before, I could very well see him being the origin of the “Peter at the gates of Heaven” story (and every other similar myth, of which there are several) judging your life, determining whether you get into Heaven or Hell. Like I said, if I had been an awful person, this experience would have been hell, and were I the most virtuous, least flawed person on the planet it would have been Heaven. As it is I’m a decent person, I’ve done things I regret, but overall I am a good, kind, just, and honest person, and while I wouldn’t exactly call it Heaven, it was closer to Heaven than Hell.

Could this have just been a drug induced hallucination with no significance beyond that? Certainly, and I never allow myself to forget that possibility. However, anyone who thinks there is no significance to these experiences beyond interesting, purely chemical alterations of brain chemistry and neural pathways is someone I can almost guarantee hasn't had an experience on this level. You can’t see what I’ve seen and felt what I’ve felt and say it’s just the drugs, you can’t have traveled distances and beheld scales which dwarf everything you thought possible and think “I was just high.” I had no idea that a person could endure an experience so powerful, but I have, I know they exist, and I’m somewhat saddened by how few ever get to see and experience an event so intense so utterly astonishing. Falling in love, marriage, the birth of a child, losing the one most cherished to you, these are are all experiences that are bound to be powerful and have profound effects on a person, none of these hold a candle to a breakthrough. I’m not trying to offend any parents or people who have lost loved ones in saying this, but I’m convinced that there is nothing that can happen in a normal human life that’s as intense, strange, and indescribable as a breakthrough. If there is an experience more powerful, I don’t think I’m interested in having it.

I no longer fear death. Before this experience, being a secular, naturalist atheist, my biggest fear was death, but now that I’ve been on the other side, seen what there is, I no longer fear it. I do think there is more to this universe than we can see before us, and I don’t think oblivion follows this life. If you’re reading this, congratulations, you’re alive, try to enjoy it, and don’t reduce the joy of others. Just try not to live in fear of the end, you’ll be amazed at what’s on the other side, it’s more than you could ever imagine.

@JaseComplex

[everythinkaloud]

Discipline: To be or not to be, that is the question

Upfront admission, I wasn’t very disciplined yesterday with my commitment to posting daily (made only three days previously).  Unfortunately, life happens!  I could come up with a whole host of excuses; I was called out on an urgent client visit which overran, I had to look after my young son etc. but the point of discipline is that you do what needs to be done regardless of circumstances right?  At least that’s what I used to think.    

For the past few years, I have lived a pretty disciplined existence.  I think this is made easier when you do what you love.  I am fortunate enough to work in the family business and have pretty much designed my own role which plays on my strengths and negates my weaknesses. Of course, designing such a role involves a frank and honest assessment of one’s strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes.  You might even consider this a kind of matrix:

Strengths

  Weaknesses 

                               Likes                                                 Dislikes

 Clearly, we want to focus our efforts on roles/responsibilities that fall within the top left quadrant and avoid/delegate any roles/responsibilities that fall within the bottom right quadrant.

Ensuring that the roles/responsibilities that comprise our daily work mainly fall within the top left quadrant is our most important job!  After all, on average, most of us spend at least 40 hours per week at work.  Like it or not, what we do and who we do it with, goes a long way to determining our overall happiness.  

Anecdotally at least, the vast majority of the people I know consider work to be something of a chore, a place they must go to pick up a pay cheque which enables them to follow their true passions outside of work.  This is such a shame.  

The word ‘work’ itself might be part of the problem (much like the classification ‘drugs’ for all mind-altering substances irrespective of the potential beneficial effects of certain substances in some cases used for thousands of years!).  I think work could and should intersect with our passions.  Imagine that, being paid to follow your passions.  In fact, I would argue that by following your passions you will maximise your economic value, which in turn will maximise the share of that value you are able to capture in the form of income.  When you align your interests and capabilities with those of our employers, everybody wins! Regrettably, this rarely happens in practice.      

To be sure, the blame partly lies with employers.  They do not always create conditions that foster people using their innate creativity and curiosity by imposing top down dictates that confine employees to a corporate straight-jacket.  At the other end, employees are thrown in the deep end with little or no help.  Sink or swim time I’m afraid!  I’m sure we’ve all experienced both ends of this spectrum.  However, a small number of employers have bucked the trend I’m delighted to say.  Many such employers have discovered lean thinking, which provides a methodology for employers to create remarkable customer centric, employee friendly businesses.  In many such businesses, the customer comes second.  Heresy you say!  But wait a minute, let me explain.  

The more I research a given topic, the more I become convinced that conventional wisdom is utterly flawed. If you follow the crowd then you are likely to achieve the average result.  I’m sure that you do not wish to be average!  This revelation has led me to break with the crowd in many aspects of my life including establishing a daily meditation practice (before meditation was cool), taking psychedelics, following a ketogenic (very high fat/low carb) diet, employing lean thinking in the family business amongst many others! To add one more such heretical view to the mix, I now firmly believe that a business must put employees before any other stakeholder.  Think about it for just a minute.  Frontline employees are the ones that provide value-adding services to the customer. If those same employees are made to feel worthless, how do you expect that they will make the customer feel?  Exactly!  Happy, committed employees = happy customers. And happy customers result in financial success for the business, ensuring its long-term survival.  Unfortunately, in the wider business world, we have this completely backwards!      

Anyway, back to discipline! I live a pretty regimented existence. A typical day goes like this:

05.30 – Wake

05.45 – Wim Hof breathing method

06.00 – Meditation

06.30 – Exercise, usually a morning jog

06.50 – Cold shower

07.20 – Travel to work

07.30 – Start work

16.00 – Finish work*

16.15 – Gym (including daily sauna)

18.00 – Tea**

19.30 – Reading

22.00 – Meditation

22.30 – Sleep

*I work right through without a break

**This is my only meal of the day.  This is made possible the fact that I follow the ketogenic diet, which will no doubt be the basis of a future post!

Following this routine, the past few years have been the most productive of my life. However, I have found that productivity does not always correlate with happiness.  Being predisposed towards to obsessive, compulsively tendencies, it is easy to find myself too focused and preoccupied on my career much to the detriment of those closest to me.  I only realised and acknowledged this thanks to Ayahuasca despite the fact that people have been telling me for years.  Think about it, whenever someone challenges you about your most deeply held values/convictions/beliefs such as work/career being the most important thing, you naturally become defensive in response.  Before you know it, the conversation has been diverted down a completely different and unwholesome path!  The truth hurts!  Ouch!  

This underlines the importance of Ayahuasca.  You see, under the influence of Ayahuasca, you identify these truths for yourself and when you do, everything becomes undeniably clear.  There is no-one to battle against!  Nothing and no-one to distract you from the truth!  A fellow participant directly to my righthand side during the ceremonies, was laughing aloud throughout as one insight after another about his life and behaviour struck him like lightning!  

The hard work begins after an Ayahuasca ceremony however.  As we can all attest, breaking long ingrained habits isn’t easy.  I have, however, heard some speakers talk about the possibility that psychedelics can completely rewire ones brain in ways previously unimagined.  Paul Stamets for one discusses in various podcasts his first experience with psychedelics which immediately precipitated him overcoming a lifelong debilitating stammer.  These are powerful medicines indeed and should be treated with respect!  

Since my recent Ayahuasca experience, I have been much less disciplined in my approach.  Shock, horror I hear you say!  I still broadly follow the daily routine outlined above, however, I now find that I am much more inclined to go with the flow.  If something happens to throw off my routine, its no big problem.  In fact, I have even found myself departing from my routine when opportunities to serve others arise.  I am far less focused on myself and my desires!  At last!  You might say that I am focusing more on being present for than the actual content of my life.  And you know what?  I am much happier as a result and I am spreading more happiness in the world.  What’s the point of optimal productivity if it doesn’t ultimately increase happiness for someone, somewhere?    

I will be continuing with my psychedelic journey over the coming months, having just booked my next retreat.  I hope to let go even further, to go even deeper within on my quest for bringing happiness and joy to myself and the world at large.  As an added bonus, I have no doubt that it will also provide additional blogging material too.

Apologies if today’s post seems somewhat disjointed.  I did have a topic in mind which was superseded when I began with the discipline piece at the beginning.  I just thought I’d follow my curiosity instead on this occasion which brought me to this point!  

I hope it wasn’t too painful and I will try to be more, ahem, disciplined in future! 

[efurujr]

Jhené Aiko Sits Down With HYPEBAE To Speak One-on-One About Freeing the Mind.

Written By Alex Lendrum

There’s a certain “Jhene” sais quoi with R&B/Soul artist Jhene Aiko that places her apart from her contemporaries. While she unequivocally has the chops for singing, her sultry and honest-sounding vocals having been fined tuned since her inception into the music game back in 2002, it’s her ability to compose refreshingly candid lyrics that resonates deeply with her listeners. Any Aiko fan will tell you just how much her music speaks to their level, and how her straight forward yet poetic messages shine a very personal light on Aiko’s own life and experiences, which in turn offers insight to help better your own self. It’s a powerful tool to have, and Jhene certainly knows how to wield it.

Following her latest trifecta effort that sees the release of a movie, album, and poetry book — which she’s dubbed MAP — all of which revolve around the same theme of self exploration, us fans are made privy to the topic of Jhene’s relationship with drugs. We’re not talking about the typical boasting of endless blunts, but rather the real-life ups and downs of exploring mind-altering substances, how that influences your approach to life, and the effects it can have with personal relationships. Aptly entitled Trip, the new album is a journey lead by Jhene’s alias Penny, with the accompanying poetry book 2fish, furthering the heartfelt expression of her anecdotal confessions. To visually represent all that, we have her short film — also entitled Trip — that offers a window into Jhene’s personality, how she gets creative, and most importantly the sole inspiration behind her music: her brother.

During an intimate event in collaboration with storied french cognac house Martell, we were lucky enough to secure some exclusive time with the singer/songwriter to ask her about her latest project, to further explain her thoughts on psychoactive substances — that takes us on a rather philosophical turn — the reasoning behind bearing herself so honestly in her work, and more. It’s safe to say that our short time with Jhene proves her beauty both in and out, which is why we can’t urge you enough to take this trip with us in discovering a little more about Jhene that you may not probably haven’t read elsewhere.

Starting things off with the new project and its theme, could you bring us back to that ‘aha’ moment when you realized that your psychedelic  journey was the right theme for it all?

Well I’ve always been going on mental and physical trips, and I’ve been writing in notebooks since I was elementary school, but as I‘ve been having more crazy experiences it’s become an even more important form of expression. I write everything down. After Souled Out I wasn’t really interested in, or needed to put out an album, but I did want to explore more of my writing ability, so I made this movie Trip. But then I was like, I want to score this with original music too, and then it kind of just became an album. It was song after song after song, and I was referring to these notebooks that i’d been writing during my solo trips. Then the poetry I’ve been writing for the past five to six years which is more than enough to have a poetry book — I just had to type up the poems — it was already all there. I wanted to release it all together as one entity and I really like acronyms. Hence MAP — Movie, Album, Poetry — it fits perfectly because I feel the whole process has been about me navigating through my suffering, my pain, even my joy in my love life. Just trying to find my way back to my true self. That’s who Penny is — who I talk a lot about in the whole journey — that’s a childhood nickname my granddad gave me when I was born. So I felt like it all came to me recently and I was like, “oh so this is what it’s all about.” It wasn’t about the movie, the poetry book or the music, it was about expressing what was in my mind because I couldn’t keep it in anymore, otherwise I’d go crazy. I was more concerned about what others thought about me so I felt like I was holding back and not being true to myself . This time around I was like I don’t care, like I’m going to share but it’s literally for me. I’ve not even been listening to other music during the time of making this. I’ve just been focused on myself.

Talking about psychedelics, a lot of people use them to explore parts of themselves that they aren’t aware of. So in Trip, you go through a moment in which you express your need to let go of the loss of your brother. Do you feel like you’ve fully found yourself? Do we even ever fully find ourselves while trying to explore what our life means? Is there an end? Should there even be an end, or can you just enjoy the journey of finding yourself?

I think the journey is the reward, I think that it’s about being on the right path, the path for you. That’s what I felt I had to get back to because I was being nudged here and there by not really listening to myself and not being in tune.  Throughout the movie, the poetry book and the album, I’m experimenting with different things — this was happening in real life. Certain methods and substances were taking me further away and things like Psilocybin actually opened my mind to the point where today I’m not even smoking weed — I just love to have a clear mind. That scene where my brother told me let go is actually a dream I had, where he came to me and was telling me these things. He was a firm believer in natural, if it’s not a plant then you know… I know a lot of the things I did he wouldn’t approve of, but it was my way of getting closer to him. I definitely think that people confuse their ego with their spirit. Your ego is always there telling you to “be better and work harder,” not telling you that you’re already enough. You need to silence your ego to hear your spirit and that’s what I had to do. I definitely feel like I went through an ego death on mushrooms, I wanted to go to Peru and do Ayahuasca but I didn’t, and now I don’t really feel like I need to. I wanted that awakening but I drove myself up to Big Sur, drank some mushroom tea and met with a shaman where we had a ceremony. Basically the ayahuasca ceremony but with mushrooms. Since then I feel like I’ve shifted my whole being. I’ve been pushed onto the path I’m supposed to be on — I now see everything more clearly. I know there’s still more work to do, I’m only 29, but at least now I’m headed in the right direction and I’m going to keep getting there.

In that same vein, do you feel your dream and the urge to open your mind is actually your self-conscious trying to telling you something?

I always say even if it’s just taking yourself out of your environment, or your mind with some sort of substance, it’s the moment when you come down — coming back to yourself — that’s when you realise all things. It’s not when you’re high. So actually it’s like “oh I already knew these things, I just had to go out and come back to myself to see it!” One thing I found with the Psilocybin was that in nature, I was so much more receptive, I’ve always been a nature girl, I love to be outside — a tree hugger and all that — and it’s something that stuck with me. I no longer have to be on something to notice the beauty and the messages that the natural world give us. I love to hike and I love to go to the beach, and I’m always inspired and feel like I��m getting this energy that is opening my mind and teaching me that’s beamed down to me. It’s all within me but certain things help trigger it. Like even the sunshine that is giving you vitamin D and that’s helping me think and feel better.

Have you heard about the Celestine prophecy?

Yes, from my father, but I haven’t read it yet.

You should! But going back to your music, a lot of your lyrics have always been relatable to people, helping them with their own issues — it’s always been honest and candid. Where does that honestly and kindness come from?

I’ve always been an over-sharer to the point where I’ll meet someone and just start talking and telling them everything about my life. Then after I’m always like “oh I talked a lot,” but whatever — I’m not ashamed about my story. So when it comes to writing, it’s my way of dealing with things. I never looked at it as kindness — it’s just second nature to me — and when a person comes up to me and says “your song really helped me get through this,” or “how did you know you’re saying all the things I wish I could say?,” it’s honestly just a coincidence. When I’m writing, I’m not trying to save the world, I’m just trying to help myself, but it’s a plus that people can relate to it. Especially with Trip, I just completely dug deep and said what I had to say, expressed all my pain, my doubts, all of it. I did it for myself though — I just naturally share because I’m from a big family.

Is Trip significantly more personal than other albums?

For sure, the first EP is pretty easy listening, then Souled Out was about me getting my foot in the door and being vulnerable, but like I said, I was being a bit more tip-toey. I’ve got a studio in my house now so when I wake up from a dream I can just go record and it remains raw. Now I’m just more excited to keep going and going. I’m getting older and have no shame in expressing my true self.

You worked with the talented writer Tracy Oliver on the movie. How was that?

We met way before I had the idea to write this movie. She’s represented by ICM, so am I, and they were aware I was interested in acting and writing, so they told me get in touch with her. We hit it off, we went to a coffee place and talked for hours and hours, and I got really personal with her. I told her all my problems off the top of my head. Then with Trip the movie, I had the story but I didn’t know how to write a script, I don’t know the whole process, and so I was like I should call Tracy. She came over for a few weeks where she looked through all my notebooks and my poetry, and we put together the storyboard. She’s like my sister, we hit it off right away and we’re still close, and I’m looking forward to working with her more on future projects.

Lastly, talking about experiences, you and Martell put together this event that promoted the theme of “home.” what do you want people to take away from it all?

I’m a homebody for sure, I love to stay at home. I’ve always said that if I could, I would just have people come over to my house. If there’s a show or a shoot I’m just like, “can we do it at my house? You guys should just come over to mine….” That’s what I appreciated about tonight, it’s at a home, and it’s in LA — which is where I’m from. So it’s super comfortable and I always want people to have an experience. That’s where “MAP” came from, it’s an offering more than a project, it’s something for you to really dive into and become a part of. I feel that people enjoy things like that when we live in a VR world. I feel like something like this is really important to connect on a real level.

© Hypebae

Photographed By Aaron Miller / Editor Tora Northman

[lati-will]

Spiritual Bypassing — We Need to Hurt in Order to Heal

Ten years ago, when I quit my job in the hospital, I had just been through a series of traumas and I was hurting so badly I didn’t know how to cope. That’s part of why I quit my job — because I was in and out of feeling suicidal and I just wanted to stop hurting. So many of the people I knew were obviously hurting too, but they were trying to cover it up with addictions, overworking, dissociating, and defense mechanisms like denial. I didn’t want to numb or otherwise avoid the painful feelings I was having, but it felt like feeling my pain was going to be a full-time job for a while. My grief was so consuming, and I had stuffed down a decade of past grief alongside it, that I was afraid I’d be flooded if I allowed myself to feel the torrent of grief I could sense was running like a current of rapids under my barely dressed up heart.

Like many do, I turned to the spiritual path to help me cope, experimenting with retreats at Esalen, walking the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral, pilgrimages to sacred sites, shamanic drumming, guided meditation, silent meditation retreats, yoga, prayer, indigenous spirituality, self-help books, spirituality conferences, cacao ceremonies, ecstatic dance, despacho ceremonies, and pretty much every other “spirituality-du-jour” experience one could have without trying drugs or plant medicines. I became a spiritual tourist, bliss-hunting for the next spiritual high…

Until I realized I had just found another way to bypass my pain.

I was using spirituality to avoid feeling not just my own personal pain, but the global pain I could feel in my own heart and body. (Fellow empaths, you know what I’m talking about here.)

That’s when I started studying the shadow of spirituality and learned about spiritual bypassing. In its essence, spiritual bypassing refers to any way in which we use our spirituality to bypass painful emotions, like despair, anger, disappointment, jealousy, or loneliness. Robert Masters, author of Spiritual Bypassing: When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters, writes:

“We tend not to have very much tolerance, both personally and collectively, for facing, entering, and working through our pain, strongly preferring pain numbing ‘solutions,’ regardless of how much suffering such ‘remedies’ may catalyze. Because this preference has so deeply and thoroughly infiltrated our culture that it has become all but normalized, spiritual bypassing fits almost seamlessly into our collective habit of turning away from what is painful, as a kind of higher analgesic with seemingly minimal side effects. It is a spiritualized strategy not only for avoiding pain but also for legitimizing such avoidance, in ways ranging from the blatantly obvious to the extremely subtle. Spiritual bypassing is a very persistent shadow of spirituality, manifesting in many ways, often without being acknowledged as such. Aspects of spiritual bypassing include exaggerated detachment, emotional numbing and repression, overemphasis on the positive, anger-phobia, blind or overly tolerant compassion, weak or too porous boundaries, lopsided development (cognitive intelligence often being far ahead of emotional and moral intelligence), debilitating judgment about one’s negativity or shadow elements, devaluation of the personal relative to the spiritual, and delusions of having arrived at a higher level of being.”

We have to remember that it hurts to be human, and pain is always here for a reason. Pain is usually our body’s or our heart’s way of saying, “Pay attention. Something is out of whack and needs to be healed.” When we use avoidance in holy drag to avoid pain, we limit the growth our souls crave.

The Hot Loneliness

In a recent Super Soul Session, Glennon Doyle Melton spoke about all the ways we try to avoid feeling what she calls “the hot loneliness,” including scrolling mindlessly through social media or popping pills. Just think of all the ways that our culture teaches us to grab for Easy buttons, the quick fixes and self-help tools and antidepressants and booze and social media obsessions and all the other things marketers target into our psyches to promise that there’s an Easy way out of pain.

In spiritual circles, the Easy buttons cloak themselves in spiritual garb. The Easy buttons come in the form of hours of meditation spent inhabiting non-dual awareness or ayahuasca ceremonies every weekend or attending one spiritual retreat after another seeking the next tool to avoid feeling the hot loneliness.

Glennon says:

“The problem is that when we transport ourselves out of our hot loneliness, we miss all of our transformation. Because everything we need to become the people we were meant to become next is actually inside the hot loneliness of now. So when we Easy button our way out we are like caterpillars who jump out of the cocoon right before we would have become butterflies. Because pain is actually not a hot potato. It’s the traveling professor and it knocks on everybody’s door, and the wisest ones say, “Come in. Sit down, and don’t leave until you’ve taught me what I need to know.” But we’ve got it all wrong. We are afraid of pain, but we were made for pain. We need to be afraid of the Easy buttons. Because the journey of the Love Warrior is to rush toward her pain and let her pain become her power.”

Newsflash: It Hurts to Be Human

Being human hurts. We try so hard to avoid this fact, doing our best to numb ourselves with various addictions, overwork, obsessive love affairs, positive psychology, and or spiritual bypassing techniques to try to “love and light” our way past the pain. But no matter how you run away from pain, pain will track you down, stalking you like a leopard until you finally dive down into it and really let it devour you. We have to go all the way into our traumas (as I described here) before it can begin to release us, open our hearts, and show us that at the pit of our pain, all we meet is (paradoxically) unconditional love. This is what we’re so afraid of? Love?

When Spiritual Bypassing Comes in Handy

Spiritual bypassing can be a healthy tool when we need it. As I described here when I was attacked by a pit bull, it was helpful to be able to use my meditation training to be able to bypass the intense pain of the acute injury. If you’re in the midst of an acute trauma, go ahead and use the spiritual bypass! But we can’t outrun the pain forever. We can delay it until we’re emotionally and physically equipped to handle it, until we have the emotional resilience to be able to be with that much pain without killing ourselves, harming someone else, or going crazy. Spiritual bypassing sure beats other numbing and bypassing techniques, such as addictions that harm the body. But ultimately, we have to find within us the strength to go down the rabbit hole of our pain — and we can’t do that alone. We need each other. We need our tribe. We need a personal connection to Divine Source. We need therapists and spiritual counselors and soul friends who can hold our hands as we venture into the scary, painful unknown. Only then can we truly, deeply, fully heal.

May we all find that inner fortitude so that we can do what we must in order to be who we must.

By: Lissa Rankin, MD

[101percentindia]

Narcos Is Streaming Live In Himachal Pradesh

Understanding the system of corruption around the valley’s drug trade.

It is easy to dismiss the reality of the drug situation in Himachal by immersing yourself in the Valley’s unimaginable beauty. But it is 2017, and I was in Himachal again, after a year. This time, without even trying, I found out things I was probably better off not knowing. I had read umpteen articles lashing out at the locals, over-simplifying the truth by saying something dismissive and ill-informed like “they had resorted to greed and fallen into the vicious cycle of meeting tourist demands.” But the reality was far from this.

I hung out with a family that had so much money stuffed in their cupboard, they did not know what to do with it. Their needs were unlike ours and while they had made a fortune selling charas, I realized that things weren’t nearly as simple.

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Spoils of a trek

Over the last few years, `Season Time’ (referred to as the period when weed is cultivated and hand-rubbed to form charas) had been extended to go on for two months instead of one, to increase output so it meets the ever increasing demand for hash. Tourists have prolonged and preponed their visits year after year, so that the confused privileged foreigner and the liberated millennial can make the most of their holidays before diving back into their cosmopolitan first world lives.

The reason for this is that the hand-made pure charas of Himachal can be found only in this corner of the universe. And it’s a fact known by everyone from the Brazilian lawyer who took ayahuasca and became a Yoga teacher, to the B.Com dropout from Hans Raj College. It was almost like the authorities had given it their blessings, because every other 16 year old psy-trance loving, pill-popping yuppie knew that this was where the drugs were. It was a racket carrying on as smoothly as a BCCI test series between Bangladesh and West Indies.

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Cultivators of a high. Image source: YouTube.com

My host Bhaiji tells me that every day during the season, the village of Rasol alone makes 1.5 quintals of hash. If we take into account the entire Parvati Valley and the fact that each village produces a near amount per day, for two straight months, that’s charas worth billions. It’s not only huge, it’s a massive industry – cultivation.

A friend who has been spending years with this family tells me, “It is crime but in an entirely different dynamic. People don’t want to shut this down because in trading and hash lies an opportunity for them to get an income. How do you think everyone from Mumbai to Hyderabad to Kolkata to Bangalore is managing to smoke this same stuff?”

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Wading through the wild

This meant that people at all levels  and in all cities were involved. I asked one of the older brothers about Himachal CM Virbhadra Singh’s statement regarding burning all weed plantations and replacing them with apple orchards in an attempt to fight hash trade. He laughs and tells me all it takes is 50 buses and some military personnel to burn a large number of plantations, so why haven’t they done it yet? Everyone is involved. I shouldn’t have been shocked. I had devoured both seasons of Narcos so finding out that something similar was happening right under our noses wasn’t surprising. It turns out that drugs seized after a raid are basically sold back to another mafia or organization. I was being acclimatized with such absurd and shocking specifics, I think I began smoking more during the two hour conversation.

As the stories unfolded I realized that at the receiving end of this marriage between growers and receivers were the locals, who were dealing and selling hash independently. These were the people who were a much smaller and almost insignificant spoke in the wheel.

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Everyday afternoons

As the sun begins to set, Bhaijis youngest brother joins us.  I was more than happy when this ruggedly handsome man joined in on this conversation. With a more practical grasp of the situation he says, “In 2010 Malana had one check point Hirang. Today there are five or more. Your friend here has been travelling and he already knows that there are a thousand ways in and out of Malana via Manali and through the Chandrakhani Pass. Everyone knows that”. The point of these check points was never to stop large scale trafficking because those aren’t even the routes used by runners.

If in a day each village churned out 1.5 quintals of charas, that adds up to 30 crores in two months alone, from one village. The numbers are staggering, the wealth unimaginable and yet there is no development in these villages. What I understood was that Himachalis weren’t selling hash for the heck of it. No other form of business was half as profitable.

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Bhaiji’s house right on top

No measures were being taken to actually educate them about the maladies of their business and nor were they being encouraged or informed about the legal utilization of marijuana plantations that can be achieved through hemp production - a more sustainable, achievable and profitable alternative to charas.

As a result of the lack of education and awareness, absence of alternate sources of livelihood and government inaction, locals had resorted to drug trade with more and more people getting actively involved with foreign mafia, selling and consuming hard drugs like MDMA, acid, ecstasy and cocaine, with no knowledge of the repercussions of their sale or consumption, steering this pure haven into speedy degeneration.

Subscribe to 101 India. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are independent views solely of the author(s) expressed in their private capacity and do not in any way represent or reflect the views of 101India.com

By Suman Quazi Photographs by Suman Quazi and Sarah Saha

[ascrack]

Ayahuasca - first cermony

My english are bad, I am not sorry for that tho. Hopefully you’ll get the story straight anyway.  ALSO. I did not have any psycadelic experiences before drinking ayahuasca. 

Before the cermony started: We had two beautiful shamans During both cermonies, - and "a half" - a man who was learning to become one. Our group consisted of nine participants. Before the cermony begun we did tarot reading. The reading would prepare us for what to keep in mind during the cermony.  Tree cards each, I got "The Rebel," "Friendliness" and "guidance". The Shaman told me that The Rebel Means that, I am simply the rebel, the one who always stood out from the crowd, went my own way and questioning everything that people took/take for granted - Which is a good thing. (This is really true, I have been the black sheep in the family, in school, and even around friends. It has been hard, no doubt haha, because I could never fit in with my own beliefs. Anyway.) The shaman told me that Friendliness means that i'll have to remember that Ayahuasca is my friend and that I should not be scared of her, she is here to help me, if i let her - And if I do, it will lead to the next card - Guidance - wich means me finding my inner guide. My higher self. I was happy with my cards and exited for the cermony to begin. 

NOTE: I could not decide what I wanted for intention. I was struggling between Healing and Guidance. Healing because I have a past with depression, self harm, eating disorder, anxiety, panic attacks, self hate, suicide attempt, social fobia and anxiety and drug addiction etc, although I have made a hell lot of healing on my own through meditation and never been as happy as I was at that point in my life i felt like i probably had things to work with, subconscious habits or such that made me stand in my own way - and Guidance because I did not know where to go in life, I felt stuck). My inention was simply “Give me what you know that I need. Bc you know more than me what I need.” And SO.. I simply trusted Ayahuasca to give me what I needed.

The cermony begins:  One at a time, we got up to recieve our first cup of ayahuasca. The taste was not really that bad. Imagine drinking tree. With a little bit of earth. Or something. Anyway, I went back to my spot and started to meditate, trying to ground myself, but my thoughts was like “OMG IT'S HAPPENING” “OMG” “IM DRINKING AYA” “IT'S ACTUALLY HAPPENING. “CERMONY STARTED”. I had been waiting to do this for a long time haha! After 30 minutes the drums and the singing started, along with people throwing up an screaming straight out from the depts of their lungs. I waited about two hours before the shaman told us that those who wanted could come up and recieve another cup. By then I was a little bit prickly because I did not feel anything at all while everyone else seemed to be on their wildest journey. I told the shaman and when she gave me my second cup she told me that “It will come, just wait”. I drank it and went back to my spot again. Excited after my other cup. After about another hour I was pretty pissed of. I was battling my ego-mind at this point, I felt dissapointed and I wondered if it did not work on me, and became irriteaded because I spended all this money for nothing, while another part of me was okay with it and felt so much love for the ones around me, understanding that whatever happens is exactly what is meant to happen. One of the shamanas, the healer, came to my seat and put her hand on my heart. “ You are love, you are light” She told me. I did not give her any response. I KNOW, I though back. “You have to let her come” She told me and moved away to the woman next to me who really needed support. My ego-mind took over and in my mind I was like; LET HER COME?!?! What the fuck are you kidding with me? I have been waiting for about 3 fucking hours. FUCK. IT. FUCK. THIS. SHIT. FUCK IT!! 

And.. Within this FUCK-IT-moment, Mother Ayahuasca came. And she was NOT gentle with me. Haha! Imagine something that flows through ALL that is - and suddenly youre aware of it. But not only aware of it, because this comes with a flowy feeling, and this feeling took over all that was me, and it was so FUCKING INTENSE that I instantly reached for my bucked and started to throw up.  / My very first thought was that I have been in these mindstate before; this is not new to me - even if it was my first time drinking ayahuasa/ The feeling took over all that was me, and it was so heavy that I could not hold my body up.  I hang over my bucket, shaking - because She filled my body with fear and horror on a level that I have never, ever, experienced in my whole life, and that never could even imagine existed. I knew that I would not die, but every cell of my body screamed in terror. I could se colorful geometrical pattern with my eyes closed but it was way to much to focus on so I opened my eyes and when I saw my arms holding the bucked- they where soo abnormal? Like is this even mine? In my head i begged for it to stop, to be over. I remember thinking that these shamans must be fucking insane because who the hell would work with this, and that I was stupid to believe that this could help me in any way, and i could never ever recommand this to anyone, and that there is no way in hell that I would ever participate the following cermony the next day. I just wanted the trip to stop. I could not sit. Could not lay down. Nothing was comfortable, my body was heavy and still filled with panic and fear and horror (and these words seems so fucking insignificant compared with what i experienced.. not even close) I just moved around while i was trying to figure out how to make it through, I moved around trying to escape what I was experience, while trying to figure out how to make it through the trip. I heard the one of the shamans preforming her healing on someone else in the room and she sounded like a demon. I prayed that she would not come to me. I thught "She can not come here, make her not to come here, I will flip the fuck out if she comes here, I have to make it on my own." Once that thought came clear - I realised that I* is the only one who can help me. I felt a safe spot in the center of my heart - and once i felt it, the fear instantly ran of me like water. So I just layed there, and felt this particular area in my heart. A spot I want o describe as home, love and security. Once i felt that spot - i realised that that’s me. My core. And I knew that there was nothing to be afraid of and that there is litterary nothing that I can not do.

**** > to be q

[howtosocializelove-blog]

Corrective Relations: Bad Trip

An interview for the etc. gallery

Could you please introduce the video displayed at your exhibition at the etc. gallery?

I perceive the video showcased at the etc. gallery as an attempt to transfer a complex emotion, which accompanies a particular formative event. The title of the video is Bad Trip and the work is very atmospheric, even though – to some extent – it can also be perceived as narrative. There are different moods and environments, symbols and signs, premonitions and dreams that alternate in the video. I work a lot with the dynamics of cut and sound. Possibly, this video is the most surreal piece I have created so far. It was preceded by a work titled Corrective Relations: First Meeting (2018), which was inspired by a first therapy session with a psychologist, when one does not really know yet what his or her problem is. In Bad Trip, his or her unconsciousness strives to reveal the problem. First Meeting was based on a type of therapy, for which psychedelic drugs are used. This therapy is currently being developed for instance at the National Institute of Mental Health, where they work with the macrodosing of psilocybin carried out by the therapist (sitter), who guides the patient through the altered state of consciousness. It has had some achievement in the field of depression. It has been discovered that a depressed person tends to think in circles, which can be interrupted by psilocybin and other psychoactive drugs, because they can create new neurone connections in the brain. Corrective Relations: First Meeting was primarily inspired by these impulses and by the 1960s psychedelic culture. My intention was to evoke the sensations at the beginning of the psychedelic trip and the related ego dissolution. Therefore, Bad Trip is a sequel of the First Meeting, another part from a series. It is about falling into a trance which was induced by deep meditation. During this trance, unpleasant revelations from our unconscious come to the fore.

You spent several months in Indonesia. Did your stay influence the work Corrective Relations: Bad Trip?

It certainly did, even though I had already thought about the concept of the 'bad trip' even before I knew where I was going to do my internship. The previous video First Meeting ends with a transition from a state of ease to unease, from day to night, from a conformist zone to non-conformist – which is something that can happen even when you are travelling or staying abroad for a longer period of time. Hence, I would have made Bad Trip regardless of the location; I did not intend to shoot it in some particular place. That is why I cannot really say that the work clearly reflects my stay in Indonesia. Rather, the stay has confronted me with many questions. The environment is certainly present in the film but I was myself curious to see in what way will the locality influence it. It is also important to mention that I understand Bad Trip as a metaphor, a challenging process with a possibly positive result. However, by doing so, I certainly do not intend to say that my stay in Indonesia was a 'bad trip'.

So you knew you wanted to work with a certain therapeutic format but it was not tightened to any local tradition, is that right?

From the start I knew I wanted to make a 'darker' video as a counterpoint to the previous one. At the same time, I was aware that I had to be very cautious and sensitive when it comes to the use of footage shot in Indonesia. I understand it as an experiment because it was the first time I worked with imagery from a different culture. As a part of my residency at the INI Project, which precedes my exhibition at the etc. gallery, I would like to organise a tie-dye workshop during which we can discuss texts related to the topic of cultural appropriation – and not just from the field of theory but also fiction. I think that the issue of cultural appropriation is still unresolved for the local art scene – if it has ever even been discussed, which is why I find it important to discuss how or even whether it is possible to work with imagery from different cultures. It is apparent that my video was shot elsewhere, which is why I want to reflect on how this ‘otherness’ and my position might be interpreted.

Does your work comment on the phenomena, when people from the West travel to the East expecting to live through a transformative experience?

I am not sure, whether my work literally comments on this phenomenon. I perceive it as a particular symptom and am interested in its possible causes. In her essay Imaginary Orient, Linda Nochlin states that in the work of classical academic painters such as Gérôme or Delacroix (at that time it was called the ‘Near East’), the conception of the so-called Orient represented a way of juxtaposing a European rationality being yielded to corporeality, emotionality and animosity – those were the features associated with the faraway Orient. The representation of the Orient was supposed to depict a period that we, the more developed European civilisation, have already overcome. At the same, it also represented a fantasy realm of escape from that developed, structured, fully rationalised world. I was contemplating on how Indonesia nowadays functions as a land of fantasies – we have a certain preformed idea, which is then confronted with the lived reality and we either confirm our stereotypical ideas or overcome them. In this respect, I think encountering the 'other' is an important process. The problem is that such encounters are still very one-sided. It is usually white, financially secure Europeans, who need to figure out who they are. I do not really judge that, usually they do reach some kind of ‘enlightenment’. I am just more interested in what is behind all this. What causes the desire to encounter this kind of experience? The video presented at the etc. gallery balances between what is reality, a dream and my idea of the country – I am trying to critically confront my own experience.

Does your role in the video Bad Trip represent something more general? When you arrive to the country, do you represent a category with a certain history and connotations, such as the category of a white woman?

I intended to stylise myself as the ‘white European girl’, who needs to find her true self and was told by her friend that the Vipassana meditation method is great. The core of this technique is a ten-days long meditation in isolation. The third day of meditation is usually followed by a state, during which things from the unconsciousness begin to occur and one can objectively observe them. The first part of the video depicts me as that white girl, who hesitates, whether she should go through the Vipassana meditation and she is little afraid because it might not be a pleasant experience. That is why there is an interview with Dewi Filiana (Fili) at the start of the film. She and her husband Joshe are the owners of the accommodation Filistay in Yogykarta, where I lived during my stay in Java. Over the course of our conversation, Fili partly calms me down but toward the end kind of laughs at me, because all I actually want from her is an affirmation that everything turns out well. She tells me: “You made some decision and it is your issue, do not make me involved”, by which she means something like: “I wish I had your problems”. In the video, Fili might appear as an archetype of the mother-carer, but I was mostly drawing on the way she talked to me. In reality, Fili is a mother of five and she takes care of the family, household and people, who are accommodated at their place, which was also my case. The dialogue is fictional but based on our real conversations.

The moment the main protagonist of the film makes her decision and enrols in the Vipassana course, an approximately 20-minutes long lesson of Yoga Nidra begins. Yoga Nidra is a form of sleep meditation, during which one experiences an altered state of consciousness. In the last section of the film, the main protagonist attains the trance, which she no longer controls and has to go through it. In this moment, things from her personal and social unconsciousness start occurring to her, which also entails her role as a contemporary colonizer – someone, who comes to the foreign country to take something – be it mineral or spiritual resources or some kind of authenticity. I find it funny that this search for our true selves usually ends with the realisation that he or she stands for different values than those imposed by the system or surrounding environment. So maybe a mass meditation, an LSD or ayahuasca trip might help us to overcome capitalism – not as a solution but rather as a tool for realising the state of affairs. Steve Jobs also liked meditation. Being aware does not by necessity lead to change; for that to happen action or activity is required.

You mentioned you want to relay to the viewer a certain comprehensive experience through the exhibition. What is this experience based on?

I always draw on my personal experiences, but personal means social to me in the sense that my experiences are in certain respects a part of more general tendencies in society. So, I am interested in whether someone can identify with my experiences or feel close to them, whether it is only my feeling or also an experience of other people – whether it might be some form of a social pressure. I would appreciate it if a person that sees my video thought: “Yep, I know this…”.

Do you consider video to be the right means of sharing this experience?

I believe so, because I come from a generation that has a plenty of emotions related to a particular type of moving image. For instance, the subject of my video Love Manifesto (2017) was the existence of certain typical scenes that we automatically recognise as romantic. It is particular compositions, shots and gestures, such as when two people hold hands. These images are not intrinsically mine, I have seen them somewhere, I know them somehow and associate romance with them. It is actually some form of collective memory. But at the same time, I am aware that images like these constitute the reality we live in, which is why I want to work with them in a critical way. In comparison to performance, which I also pursue, video represents a more permanent and direct format that allows me to determine the focus of the viewer. For me, personally, video functions as an archive or a record of my thoughts.

When making a film, you often use your own archive of audiovisual materials, which you process based on a distinctive dramaturgy. In your last video, this dramaturgy guides viewers through individual phases of the formative experience. What should this bring them?

If the viewer withstands it – the video presented at the etc. gallery lasts one hour – I would be glad if he or she underwent some exceptional experience. My intention was that the video itself should be the formative event. Its effect might differ for every person, as well as the formative event itself. It should cause something, but what this something is, depends on the particular person. It is also likely that it doesn’t cause anything, right?

Is it important for you to consider the possible strategies of engaging viewers’ bodies to make their experience sensually complex? How does it influence the way you work with the gallery space?

I like when art exaggerates and when one always enters a different space. From my point of view, spectacular installations disrupt the habituated norms we have when thinking about spaces. If a gallery space is transformed in an inordinate way, I perceive it with a certain distance and understand it as another possible form of reality. In this respect, I was influenced by the gothic conception of a cathedral – the way they worked with space, colours and light. A visit to a gothic church was designed as a holistic experience. I like to enter a space that immediately captures me or carries me somewhere else, be it a gallery space or a Christian church with rich decoration. More generally, I am interested in the possibilities of altered or parallel reality.

Are there any artists working with immersive installations whose work you find interesting?

I conjure up for instance the Berlin Biennale in 2016, part of which was the installation of Cécile B. Evans titled What the Heart Wants, or the exhibition Welt ohne Aussen in Gropius Bau in 2018, which was devoted to immersive artistic installations since the 1960s. At this exhibition, it was the video Nightlife by Cyprien Gaillard I found the most interesting.

Do you think that the creation of an immersive and unusual environment, different from our everyday experience of utilitarian spaces, might encourage thinking about new modes of functioning?

I think it might. I remember for instance the installation of Lucio Fontana at the exhibition Welt ohne Aussen in Gropius Bau, which was composed of a pure white environment with rounded corners, where people could really feel as if they had wandered into a completely different place. The whole exhibition gave me a really lively impression and after I left it, I felt very joyful and enthusiastic about doing anything. It worked well in contrast to the Berlin Biennale happening at the time, which was rather moderate, intellectual and critical. I feel like these two approaches perfectly complement each other.

Are these two approaches not symptomatic of the difference between exhibitions, which reckon with the physical presence of visitors and their bodies, and exhibitions that force visitors to adopt an intellectual distance and a critical stance. Which approach do you usually adopt?

The presence of the visitor is important both for my videos and performances. When I am working on something, I ask myself whether I would enjoy watching it or not. I also think how I could make the visitor’s experience more pleasant and provide them with some comfort. I do not want to submit to the demand to make short videos, which is often raised because of the visitors’ attention span at group exhibitions. The solo exhibition at the etc. gallery is a good opportunity to try working with a longer format.

Why is the topic of altered states of consciousness so pertinent in your recent works? Do you consider it to be a possible way of observing with a distance the conditions of the world we live in?

The series on this topic started with Love Manifesto, which I literally intended as a kind of declaration in the spirit of the modernist manifesto. The following videos, including Corrective Relations, are a search for means based on which this manifesto could be lived up to through the dissolution of the ego or altered states of consciousness – through a transformation of the perception of reality. I think ideologies work in a similar way. Ideology to me consists of a set of schemes and codes, based on which we read the reality we live in. I understand altered states of consciousness, attained through drugs, meditation or dance (which should be the subject of my next work), as other possible forms of being. So, I do perceive them as a way of thinking the future.

😏

[theconservativebrief]

When I finally puked on the fourth night, I felt an odd sense of pride.

Inside the loud, stuffy ceremony room, people were laughing, crying, chanting, gyrating, and, yes, vomiting, around me. When my time finally comes, I think: Just aim for the bucket and keep your ass above your head like the shaman told you.

I try to wipe my face but can’t grab the tissue paper because it melts every time I reach for it. Nearby, a man starts to scream. I can’t make out what he’s saying on account of the shaman singing beautiful Colombian songs in the other room.

I finish vomiting and start crying and laughing and smiling all at once. Something has been lifted in this “purge,” something dark and deep I was carrying around for years. Relief washes over me, and I slowly make my way back to my mattress on the floor.

For four consecutive nights, a group of 78 of us here at a retreat center in Costa Rica have been drinking a foul-tasting, molasses-like tea containing ayahuasca, a plant concoction that contains the natural hallucinogen known as DMT.

We’re part of a wave of Westerners seeking out ayahuasca as a tool for psychological healing, personal growth, or expanding consciousness.

I flew to Costa Rica hoping to explode my ego. And I was not prepared for what happened. Ayahuasca turned my life upside down, dissolving the wall between my self and the world. I also stared into what I can only describe as the world’s most honest mirror. It was a Clockwork Orange-like horror show, and it was impossible to look away. But I saw what I needed to see when I was ready to see it.

Ayahuasca exposes the gap between who you think you are and who you actually are. In my case, the gap was immense, and the pain of seeing it for the first time was practically unbearable.

Ayahuasca remains a fringe psychological medicine, but it’s slowly working its way into the mainstream. Until fairly recently, you had to travel to South America if you wanted to experiment with the plant, but now ayahuasca ceremonies are popping up in the United States and Europe.

Indigenous people in countries like Colombia and Peru have been brewing the concoction for thousands of years, mostly for religious or spiritual purposes. It’s considered a medicine, a way to heal internal wounds and reconnect with nature.

It wasn’t until 1908 that Western scientists acknowledged its existence; British botanist Richard Spruce was the first to study it and write about the “purging” it invokes. He was mainly interested in classifying the vines and leaves that made up the magic brew, and in understanding its role in Amazonian culture.

Ayahuasca emerged again in the early 1960s with the counterculture movement. Beat writers like William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac all described their experiences with ayahuasca, most famously in Burroughs’s book The Yage Letters. Scientist-hippies like Terence McKenna and Timothy Leary then went to South America to research and experience the drug firsthand. All of this helped bring ayahuasca into Western culture, but it was never truly popularized.

Today, the tea is having a bit of a moment.

Celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, Sting, and Chelsea Handler have spoken about their experiences with it. “I had all these beautiful images of my childhood and me and my sister laughing on a kayak, and all these beautiful things with me and my sister,” Handler told the New York Post after her first ayahuasca trip. “It was very much about opening my mind to loving my sister, and not being so hard on her.”

Handler’s experience appears to be common. The scientific evidence on ayahuasca is limited, but it is known to activate repressed memories in ways that allow people to come to a new understanding of their past. In some cases, it helps people work through memories of traumatic events, which is why neuroscientists are beginning to study ayahuasca as a treatment for depression and PTSD. (There are physical and psychological risks to taking it as well — it can interfere with medication and exacerbate existing psychiatric conditions.)

My interest in ayahuasca was specific: I wanted to cut through the illusion of selfhood. Psychedelics have a way of tearing down our emotional barriers. You feel plugged into something bigger than yourself, and — for a moment, at least — the sensation of separation melts away.

Buddhists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers have all made persuasive arguments that there is nothing like a “fixed self,” no thinker behind our thoughts, no doer behind our deeds. There is only consciousness and immediate experience; everything else is the result of the mind projecting into the past or the future.

But this is a difficult truth to grasp in everyday life. Because you’re conscious, because it’s like something to be you, it’s very easy to believe that a wall exists between your mind and the world. If you’re experiencing something, then there must be a “you” doing the experiencing. But the “you” in this case is just an abstraction; it’s in your mind, not out there in the world.

One way to escape this trap, I hope, is to get the hell out of my head

I spent about five years as a philosophy graduate student and another few as a teacher. I understood these arguments in intellectual terms but not in experiential terms. I’ve tried meditating, and I’m terrible at it. My mind is a parade of discordant thoughts, and as a result, I’m rarely present — in conversations, during meditation, in daily life.

One way to escape this trap, I hope, is to get the hell out of my head.

There are many ways to reach the truth of non-selfhood. Think of it as a mountain peak, with meditators and certain spiritual traditions ascending different sides. Psychedelic drugs offer a kind of shortcut; you get a glimpse of this higher truth without all those years of serious, disciplined practice.

That shortcut is what I was after.

The approach at this retreat center, called Rythmia, is all-encompassing. During the day they pamper you with all the luxuries of a wellness retreat — massages, volcanic mud baths, organic food, yoga classes, colonic cleanses. Then at night, you drink ayahuasca and put yourself through emotional and physical hell.

One of the first things I was told is that I had to enter the ayahuasca ceremony with a clear goal or question in mind: What do you want to learn about yourself?

The trained facilitators who led the ceremonies recommend that you begin with a simple request: Show me who I’ve become.

The question implies that at some point you lost yourself, that when you were a child, your soul was pure, open, uncorrupted by culture. As you enter society, you lose that childlike love for the world. You start to judge yourself by external standards. You compare yourself to friends, neighbors, and peers. You develop an ego, an identity, and your well-being becomes bound up with these constructs.

Do I really want to see what I’ve become? I’m pretty sure I won’t like the answer.

There’s nothing new about these ideas, but they strike me as true all the same. So I decide to focus on self-discovery.

It’s now 5:15 pm, and the first ceremony starts in 15 minutes. I’m terrified. “Do I really want to see what I’ve become?” I keep asking. I’m pretty sure I won’t like the answer — almost no one does, it seems.

The doors open, and all 78 of us here for this week-long session pour into the ceremony room, called the “flight deck.” The room is big, divided into three sections, and there are two bathrooms on each side. It’s dimly lit, and mattresses are lined up on the floor against the walls. The beds are only a few inches apart. At the foot of each mattress is a roll of toilet paper and a blue or red bucket.

I pounce on the first mattress I see; it’s near the door and just a few feet from the bathroom. I feel safe here. To my right is Chad, a photographer from Ontario who looks as nervous as I am but somehow seems more prepared for this. To my left is a giant window that opens to a view of the courtyard.

The stuff is nasty, like a cup of motor oil diluted with a splash of water

There’s a nervous collective energy. Almost everyone here is doing ayahuasca for the first time, and we’re all scared shitless. They announce the first call to drink, and I make my way to the front of the line. One by one, we take our cups, silently reflect on the intention for the evening, and then drink.

It’s my turn to drink. The stuff is nasty, like a cup of motor oil diluted with a splash of water. I throw it back like a shot of cheap bourbon.

We’re instructed to sit up and lean against the wall after the first cup. The tea takes at least 30 minutes to work its way through the body. I sit quietly for 45 minutes, maybe an hour, and then I lie down on my mattress and wait.

Nothing happens. I feel a little dizzy but nothing overwhelming. I go outside, walk around a bit, feel my feet in the grass. Then they announce a call for the second drink. I remember the mantra here: “Drink, don’t think.” If you can hear the call, if you can move your body, you drink. So I awkwardly drag myself out of bed and head to the front for a second cup.

About 30 minutes pass, and I start to feel … strange. I can see colors, shapes, and shifting shadows on the wall. I’m nervous that something is about to happen, so I go outside and gather myself. I settle in one of the hammocks and stare at the stars.

Suddenly the stars start to spin in a clockwise direction. Then a little faster. Then, for reasons that escape me, I start yelling at the moon, saying over and over again, “Is there anyone up there? Is each other all we have?” (Don’t ask me why I did this.)

So it goes, for what feels like an hour or two. I keep hurling those two questions at the heavens but get no answers, no insights, just silence and spinning.

I walk back inside and collapse in my bed. For the rest of the night, I see sporadic visions of geometric figures, a few flashes of light, but that’s about it. Then one of the assistants starts to ring a gentle bell.

It’s 2 am, and it’s time to close the ceremony.

The next day I realize why I had no great revelations on the first night. I couldn’t let go. I thought I was prepared for the trip, but anxiety got the better of me. As soon as I thought something — anything — was about to happen, I tried to think myself out of the experience.

Tonight will be different. I’m going to stay in the moment, stay with my breath, and see what happens.

The facilitator is Brad, a kind, aggressively tanned guy from Indianapolis who was trained in ayahuasca by a tribe in Peru. The facilitators play an important role each night, even though there isn’t much one-on-one interaction. They set the tone, guide the ceremony, explain where the medicine came from and how it works, and they assist the people who need it throughout the night.

Brad tells us to let go and give in. “Don’t fight the medicine,” he says. “Just listen.”

It’s cooler tonight, but there’s a warm breeze rolling through the room. Most of the people around me are scribbling last-minute notes in their journals; others are sitting stoically waiting for the first call.

I take my first drink around 7:30 pm, though I can’t know for sure because phones and electronics are shut down as soon as you enter the flight deck. My intention is the same as it was the first night: Show me who I’ve become.

I can tell quickly that this will be different. It’s 30 or 40 minutes after the first drink, and already my senses are overwhelmed. Every time I open my eyes, the space around me starts to fold, kind of like what Einstein describes in his theory of relativity. But it also looks like a tightly woven spider web, and when I move my hand it starts to bend.

Before I know it, they make the call for a second drink. “Don’t think, drink,” I keep telling myself. So I stumble to the front and drink another cup. Then things get weird.

All of a sudden, Andrea has 40 or 50 yellow snakes gushing out of her mouth and into mine

I roll onto my right side and see Andrea, a woman from Toronto, struggling to vomit. Brad, the facilitator, had said the Peruvian and Columbian tribes that use ayahuasca see purging — vomiting, diarrhea, crying, laughing, and yawning — as a vital part of the healing the drug brings. When you purge, you’re expelling all the nastiness — the stress, the anxieties, the fears, the regrets, the hatred, the self-loathing.

All of a sudden, Andrea has 40 or 50 yellow snakes gushing out of her mouth and into mine. And then I’m immediately racked with the worst nausea I’ve ever experienced. First I curl up in the fetal position and then I spring onto all fours and try to puke. But I can’t get it out. I stay on my knees for another five or 10 minutes waiting for something to happen. Nothing.

Then I lie back down, roll onto my left shoulder, and am flooded with a resounding message for the rest of the night: It’s not about you! Andrea’s pain and suffering — the snakes — had passed into me, and that was the whole point.

For the rest of the night, maybe another three hours or so, I lie there thinking about how selfish I often am, and about the symbolism of the snakes. The feeling was so powerful that I started to cry. (Side note: People cry a lot on ayahuasca.)

The next day, Andrea tells me that she never managed to purge but that her nausea suddenly disappeared, after which she drifted into a peaceful half-sleep. I don’t know if that occurred around the time I saw those snakes, but the thought of it kept me up that night.

I’m not bothered by the thought of taking on her pain; it’s the whole wild scene — the snakes, the nausea, the visions. I can’t explain any of it, and yet it was the most authentic experience of my life.

I’m halfway through this thing, and so far it’s not at all what I expected. I still haven’t had to confront my past in the way I anticipated I would.

The third ceremony is led by two women. The facilitator is Abby, a young, quietly authoritative woman from Cincinnati who’s assisted by Kat from Montana. Both trained in Peru.

Abby begins by telling us that tonight is about the feminine spirit. “It’s a celebration of creation,” she says, “of birth and renewal.” The idea is calming.

I strike up a conversation with the guy next to me. His name is Brad and he’s another Canadian, a publisher from Toronto. This is his second trip to Rythmia, and he tells me that he plans to sell his business after this. “My whole identity is tied up in that,” he says, and “I don’t want that anymore.”

Before I can respond, there’s the first call to drink. The brew is thicker tonight, and it tastes like wax and vinegar. It hits hard and fast. I am hallucinating within 20 or 30 minutes.

I see myself floating in my mother’s womb, suspended in fluids and flesh. And then I see her life — it’s not quite like a movie; it’s more like a series of flashing visions that are just clear enough to resonate. I see her pain, her confusion. I see how hard it was for her to have me at 20 years old, and how little I’d thought about that.

I see her and my father, in a college apartment, wondering what the hell they’re going to do next. I realize how fucking terrified I would have been in that spot at that age. A wave of compassion washes over me; whatever resentments I was holding on to drop away.

Then the call for a second drink comes. I drink, walk outside, and then go right back to bed.

The scene shifts and I’m floating in what I assume is a kind of primordial soup. I think I’m a vibrating particle now, and string theory suddenly makes sense in a way I can’t explain.

Abby starts to sing songs called icaros, which are performed in ayahuasca ceremonies throughout the Amazon. I sink deeper into a trance. My mind is speeding, and my body is frozen stiff. But a calm takes over me, and I start to smile and laugh.

I start to see every moment of our relationship in which she reached out to me and I missed it

I roll back onto my right side, and suddenly I see my wife’s face. I relive the first time we made love. We’re in college near a lake on campus. I can see our bikes behind us, the water in front of us, the blanket beneath us, and the grass all around us. I can smell the air. I relive this moment, understanding finally what made it so special.

There was no ego. I wasn’t an isolated “I,” a separate person with a separate consciousness. The feeling, I imagine, isn’t much different from what advanced meditators experience when their sense of self disappears. You simply have no awareness of anything but your body and the moment.

But then the vision turns dark.

I start to see every moment of our relationship in which she reached out to me and I missed it. I see her asking me to go to a meditation class, and I decline. I see her pause to ask me to connect at the peak of a mountain after a long hike in Boulder, Colorado, and I shrug it off. I see her ask me to go dancing at a show near our apartment, and I watch myself mindlessly decline.

I see myself stuck in my own head, my own thoughts, my own impulses. And I see the disappointment on her face. I see her see me miss an opportunity to reconnect.

Then I relive all those moments again, and this time I see myself do or say what I should have done or said. And I see the joy on her face. I see it so clearly that it hurts. I see how much time I wasted, how much love I withheld.

I’m crying again, this time even louder, and the smile on my face is so big that my jaw hurt the next day. And I think about how I’m going to look at my wife when I get back home, and how she’ll know I’m seeing her — really seeing her — for the first time all over again.

Then the bells start to ring, and it’s time to close the ceremony.

I knew the fourth night would be rough when I saw the ayahuasca brew (each night it’s a slightly different recipe from a different tribe or region or tradition). It was so thick and oily that you couldn’t drink it. Instead, you had to force it down like paste.

The shaman, an Israeli man named Mitra, tells us that it was a 5,000-year-old recipe taken from one of the oldest Amazonian tribes in Colombia, where Mitra was trained. He’s tall, with a shaved head and an assured demeanor. He looks like he could demystify the cosmos and dunk a basketball at the same time.

I see how much time I wasted, how much love I withheld

This final ceremony is longer than the rest. Normally, we gather around 5:30 pm and finish by 1 or 2 am. This time we meet around 7:30 pm and don’t finish until sunrise the next day.

Mitra hands me my first cup, and I fall back to my mattress. I think it’s maybe half an hour before I slip into what I can only describe as the most vivid lucid dream.

I watch my entire life unfold as though it were projected on a movie screen. But it wasn’t my whole life; it was every lie, every counterfeit pose, every missed opportunity to say or do something true, every false act and ingratiating gesture, every pathetic attempt to be seen in a certain light.

The highlight reel is way longer than I imagined.

I see myself as a child groveling for attention from the “popular kids.” I see my 12-year-old self throwing a tantrum in the mall because my dad wouldn’t buy me the Nautica shirt that all those popular kids were wearing. I see myself in high school pretending to be something I was not, and I see all the doubts piling up inside me. I see all the times I self-censored purely out of fear of judgment.

I see myself building my identity based on what I thought would impress other people. On it went — one trivial act after another building up an edifice of falsehood.

I should note how unpleasant it is to see yourself from outside yourself. Most of us aren’t honest with ourselves about who we are and why we do what we do. To see it so clearly for the first time is painful.

The movie rages on into college and adult life, with my self-consciousness expanding. I see myself not looking into the eyes of the person I’m talking to because I’m playing out all the ways they might be judging me. I see myself pretending like my hair wasn’t thinning years ago and all the times I tried to hide it. And every time, the reason for posing was the same: I cared too much about what other people thought.

The experience made me aware of how often we all do this. We do it at home, at work, at the grocery store, at the gym. Most interactions are either transactional or performative. No one wants to make eye contact, and most of the time people freak out if you really try. We’re too self-conscious to listen. We’re thinking about what we’ll say next or how we’re being perceived.

All the posturing destroys any chance for a genuine connection.

The movie ends, and I’m exhausted. The meaning of the previous two nights is clearer now. I needed to feel small and connected before I could appreciate the absurdity of self-involvement. I had to relive those fleeting moments of union to see what made them so transcendent. And I had to go straight through my shame and regret to get beyond it.

When the ceremony finally ended, I sat up in my bed and starting scribbling notes to myself. Before I could finish, Mitra walked up to me and asked how I was doing. I tried to explain what happened, but I couldn’t.

He just kneeled, put his hand on my head, and said, “Happy birthday.”

I leave the retreat center around 11 am on Saturday to board a shuttle to the airport. With me are three people from my group.

One of them is Alex, a garrulous guy from London. I think he’s in his mid-30s, though I don’t really recall. He’s got this dazed look on this face, like he just saw God. His eyes are on fire with excitement, and he’s already planning his next visit.

“When are you coming back?” he asks me. “I don’t know,” I say. He doesn’t quite believe me. Everyone, he assumes, is coming back, either here or to some other place like this. I’m still processing what happened; the thought of the next “trip” hasn’t even occurred to me yet.

In four nights, I feel like I let go of a lifetime’s worth of anger and bitterness

We reach the airport, say our goodbyes, and then part ways. I’m standing in line waiting to go through customs, and I’m surprised at how relaxed I am. The line is long and slow, and everyone around me is annoyed. But I’m moving along, passport in hand, smiling for no particular reason.

Typically, I am one inconvenience removed from rage. Today is different, though. When a loud man rolls his heavy suitcase over my open toe, I shrug it off. Brief encounters with strangers like that are pleasant; the awkwardness is gone.

I’m not in my head, and so things aren’t happening to me; they’re just happening. It’s probably too much to say that my ego was gone — I don’t think it works like that. But seeing myself from a different perspective offered a chance to reassert control over it.

People say that a single ayahuasca trip is like a decade of therapy packed into a night. That’s probably an overstatement, but it’s not altogether wrong. In four nights, I feel like I let go of a lifetime’s worth of anger and bitterness.

At the time of this writing, I’ve been home three weeks. The ecstasy I felt in the days immediately after the trip has worn off as I’ve slipped back into my regular life. A tension has emerged that I still don’t quite understand.

I’m happier and less irritable than I was when I left. The tedium of everyday life feels less oppressive. Part of the reason is that I’m less anxious, less solipsistic. I really do find it easier to see what’s in front of me.

But there’s something gnawing at me. I want to go back to Costa Rica, and not for the reasons you might expect. Forget about the ayahuasca, forget about the tropical vistas, forget about all that. This experience was possible because a group of people came together with a shared intention. That creates an emotional intensity that’s hard to find elsewhere. Every person looks right at you, and you look right back.

But real life isn’t like that. I ride the Metro to work every day, and lately I’ve tried talking to random people. It’s a lot harder than you think.

Do you pay a price for taking this kind of shortcut?

A man sat across from me the other day wearing a Tulane hat (from the university in New Orleans). I used to live in the area, so I looked at him until he looked back, assuming I’d strike up a conversation. But once we locked eyes, I could sense his agitation and we both turned our heads. Nothing weird or hostile — just clumsy.

I’ve spent years making an heroic effort to avoid awkward exchanges, so I get it. But I’m honestly worried that in a few weeks or months, I’ll be that guy again. And in retrospect, this whole journey will feel like a brief holiday of awareness.

I asked my wife the other day if I seem different to her after the trip. She said that she always felt like she had to force me to offer my attention, especially in those quiet, simple moments, and that now I give it freely. I do find it easier to listen since I returned, and it’s amazing what a difference that can make.

I keep thinking about this idea that a night of ayahuasca is like a decade of therapy. Do you pay a price for taking this kind of shortcut? Are the effects short-lived? Maybe.

I know it’s hard to be in the world without being of the world. And the world is a lonely place full of lonely people. You can’t change that, but you can change your orientation to it. In my case, psychedelics made that a little easier.

And what of the self and the ego? I believed these things to be illusions before I took ayahuasca, and now I’m certain that they are. But what does that actually mean in day-to-day life? Not as much as it should. The ego might be a fiction or a construct or whatever you want to call it, but the sensation of it is near impossible to shake.

Even after taking what is arguably the most powerful ego-dissolving medicine on the planet, I still live in a world that reinforces the story of me all the time. There’s no easy way around all that.

I don’t know what life will be like in six months or a year, but I think ayahuasca was the greatest thing that has happened to my marriage. It wasn’t about becoming a better person; it was about appreciating the role my wife — and other relationships — play in my life. I had to escape my head to see that.

Now that I’ve had some time to think about it, I’d say ayahuasca is the best and worst thing I’ve ever done. I spent a week staring down all my bullshit and all my insecurities, and it was totally liberating. But it was also terrifying and not something I want — or need — to see again.

A question worth asking: If you looked into the world’s most honest mirror, what would you see?

Editor: Eliza Barclay Photos: Kainaz Amaria Photo illustrations: Javier Zarracina Copy editor: Tim Ryan Williams

Original Source -> The brutal mirror: what the psychedelic drug ayahuasca showed me about my life

via The Conservative Brief

[theweeklyration]

The Weekly Ration; Issue #1

Welcome to Working Title!  This is a Rip-Off (read rip-off) of FlyDay by Sean Callahan.  After he announced he was taking a break on Friday, I did feel a little blah about it and a minuscule amount of "oh shut up Sean" about it.  To be fair, he's felt that way about me on multiple occasions and we'd never tell each other this till month's after the event because we are passive aggressive gentlemen.  Anyways here's a piece I worked on that really hurt me because I had to research the subject matter.

Investigating the Trash Heap that is the douche-fuck, steroid chugging, centrist bait for unfunny fuck bois at open mics,  piece of shit Joe Rogan with no ad-hominems (toward Joe Rogan) except the title where I get to berate his stupid fucking face.

Ad-hominem.  In philosophy and debate it is told to us that as soon as you use an Ad-hominem you lose the argument.  The theory is as soon as you get into name-calling you become too passionate with hate or distaste that your stand-points fall apart because they are based in anger.  You can have an argument solid with foundations, truths, and thought out research but as soon as you call someone a poopy head you lose.  You get nothing.  Good day sir.  I personally think this old standpoint is invalid as a passionate argument coming out of the mouth of someone who isn't a robot has more umph to it.  But this is the driving force of these kind of argument freelancers.  With the title out of the way that clearly shows I lose, I present the rest of this article that hurt me and I'll show you on the doll.

Let's begin by explaining what a Joe Rogan is.  A Joe Rogan is a 51 yr. Comedian, MMA Commentator, Actor, and Podcast Guru.  He has a high ranking podcast with a very impressive record of being no. 1 or in the top 5 on Itunes and several other podcast streaming sites continuously for years.  On his podcast he goes into depth with interviews with people of all different walks of life ranging from angry white guys to angrier white guys.  To his credit, I'm only 80% jesting.  To his credit he is a good interviewer for the type of podcast he is presenting.  He's had some interviews that made me see perceived monsters as human and golden gods as flawed specimens.  In the rare times I've checked out his podcast, his interview with fucking angry red-tinted moron and fuck face Alex Jones (see title) actually had Alex Jones out-of-character and being a fairly down-to-earth alright guy.  Until he called liberals pyschic vampires (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkMnwFZyNrw&t=23s), but I imagine doing a show like InfoWars will irreparably have long lasting side effects.

As does doing The Joe Rogan Experience.  Joe Rogan is very into hallucinogens and will appear on his show stoned numerous times, more than not.  He talks about their mental health benefits and existential properties that have helped him and recommends them to his guests, audience, and everyone in the world essentially.  I am very in favor of the good hallucinogens do and support that narrative.  He even talks about the benefits of a deprivation tank which I want to try for myself and encourage anyone to as well.  However, the goal of most "trips" is to destroy your own ego and perceived world view so as to attain a higher plateau of thought.  Joe ignores that side of the journey and with child-like wonder just says "whoa dude".  I mean, it is pretty "whoa dude", but that's not the end goal of those journeys.  You want to come out changed, your perspective advanced, and less depressed.   Joe fails to go past the "oh shiny" phase of trippy drugs, even DMT and Ayahuasca which puts most people on their ass and forever humbled to reality.  His blase approach to taking "whoa dude" drugs has even lead to him emboldening contrarian, damaging viewpoints.

Joe Rogan is essentially a libertarian,although if asked he says he is not affiliated with any political party.  This stance is held-up by many of his viewers/listeners and is basically the "well I'm not them" argument.  It's having your cake and giving it to the 1%.  That stance makes him and many with this worldview, see themselves as bullet-proof and hyperbolic Supermans who can give a platform to any sort of ideological monstrosity because "well I'm not them", "whoa dude", or "I don't know about all of that."  Interviewing Milo Yolopoopmouse (read YolilelaleeTrump) and "hearing him out" as he talks about "Daddy Trump"(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ8KSh9bd6w)without calling out Milo's fascist viewpoints only makes more Milo YugiOh!cards.  This is where Joe gains so many followers.  Joe Rogan, who "doesn't affilate with any political party" finds himself emboldening centrists.   

Centrism is the agnosticism of politics with much more dangerous, physical, and desperate real world applications.  Agnostics question, compare and contrast while Centrists, at least of late, are just stirring up ill-will and trying to come out of as the better person.  The "I don't give a shit" approach to something like an existential question of God ultimately doesn't have nearly the same impact of seeing an Anti-Fa Militant and a Proud Boy fighting with the response "both sides are bad."  Fence sitting on God, fine.  Fence sitting on the abject horror of quickly rising fascist dictatorship, not fine.  Very not fine.  One of the least fine things you can be doing in this or any other year.

This centrism has found him an allegiance of militant fans who take what he says and doesn't say to the extremes.  Because Joe is so dismissive or non-argumentative with the ideologues he brings on his show it empowers his viewers/listeners to continue their movements.  Joe may hate Trump like any other breathing person with a speck of human decency, but he has Trump fans who have more blood push into their sexual organs when Alex Jones and Milo are guests.  Joe may hate racism, but "hearing out" a radical racist gives entitlement to NRA supporters who have wet dreams of home invasions.  Joe may think you need to get laid,  but having an Incel rant about outright misogyny leads to an asexual self-made eunuch plot his revenge.  Take a fucking stand is what I'm saying.  Just because you yell a lot on your show doesn't mean you're arguing.

I avoid arguing about Joe Rogan as much as I can, however, I am a comedian as well.  I go to open mics regularly, get booked on shows, and want to basically not work so I do comedy.  I've been doing it for over 4 years now, and I love every moment of it.  No surprise, when I first got into comedy I found Joe Rogan endearing and "sticking it to the soy boy beta cucks" (that exact term is from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia.  Obviously 4 years ago it wasn't really around but I'd be sure to say that phrase if it existed back then).  But as with numerous examples in this article and more I can't type as my eye is already twitching enough, I found definite faults with Joe and didn't see him as the hilarious contrarian I once did.

Because I realized he's not even contrarian, he's opinion-lite.  He's centrist.  He's straw man argument.  If this or the rest of this article (obviously disregarding the title) feel ad-hominem now, my only excuse is I'm not very good at this and this is my first time writing one of these articles in several years.  Something that makes me chuckle to this day was a clueless, middle-aged guy trying comedy for his first time.  He came up to the deck, trying to bond, form a connection with us.  His opening remarks were "Wow, Joey Coco Diaz and Joe Rogan are here on the same night!  HOW DO I CHOOSE?" which didn't lead to the glad-handing and praise he wanted but a quick "Joey Diaz" from most of the deck.  We returned to staring at our phones and avoiding eye contact with eachother.  We're comics, we're anti-social weirdos who want to be loved by strangers but only when we have a mic in our hands.  He felt crushed while simultaneously thinking we don't like comedy, which is only true of most of us.  

If you want the anger and passion you hear from Joe Rogan but with a punch and bravado I suggest Doug Stanhope.  Doug Stanhope "doesn't give a shit" but he has real umph and vigor.  He has a contrarian viewpoint to almost anything, is hyperbolic, and hypocritical.  He's everything Joe Rogan wants to be but far more in-depth, entertaining, and outright funny.  Contrarian and definitely not a centrist trying to hide centrism with yelling and looking cool.  Now if you excuse me I have to run away from these new comics.

Hope you enjoyed the first of many of these weekly installments.  If you are interested in becoming part of TheWeeklyRation Comrades you can email me at Kyjot.bunny@gmail.com to get the weeks installment two days earlier on Friday as part of the mass-mailer.  Otherwise you can continue following this blog where it’ll be posted on Sundays.  This is a project of mine that I was directly inspired to do by Sean Callahan, my best friend and wonderful writer who did a weekly mailer called “Happy Flyday”.  Thank you for your interest!

[thetravellingvagrant]

Day 4: Lima-Iquitos - In Which I Am Accidentally Quite Racist

We were due to fly from Lima to Iquitos today. Under normal circumstances an 11am flight may just be dancing on the peripheries of being a bit of a faff, what with transportation times to the airport and Sam's absolutely rigid insistence on arriving no later than exactly two hours before flight time under any circumstances, meaning that alarms would generally need to be set for around 8am. This wasn't an issue today, however, as due to the magic of time-zones and the whimsy of sporadic insomnia, we were both wide awake, fully ready to go and honestly, even a little bored by quarter to five.

When the approximate time to leave did finally roll around, we made the short, ten minute walk to the vague location of where the airport express bus was supposed to depart from and then, as is apparently customary in lima, spent a genuinely silly amount of time looking desperately for its exact stopping point - because honestly, even after having now actually caught the bus, I'm still not exactly 100% sure of where that is. According to the website, the pick-up point was outside 'Hostal Torreblanca', a place which, for the life of us, we could not find. Google maps told us that we were standing at it, but there was absolutely no sign that we could make out that we actually were. It wasn't until the bus had arrived to drop passengers from the airport off, before making the circuit around Miraflores to eventually come back and pick us up that we noticed that Hostal Torreblanca was actually right next to us, though had apparently long since either shut down or just stopped maintaining its signage, and allowed all of its letters to erode away, leaving only the faintest outline of the name on its banner. Still though, basically found it first try, even if entirely by accident, so I guess in a way, I win twice?

Passing through airport security was...not a difficult experience. We breezed straight through the security metal detectors, despite me still having a fistful of coins, which I had forgotten to remove, still jangling around my exceptionally cool security-bum-bag, which was thoroughly reassuring and Sam even received a lovely compliment on her bottom from a charming Peruvian security guard, who made a kissy face at her and called her a pretty lady as she bent over to re-tie her shoe. They really do go all out to make you feel special at Jorge Chavez international. Take note, Gatwick.

We boarded yet another fucking flight and were soon whizzing off to the tropical paradise of Iquitos, which to be honest, I was shitting myself over. I decided to spend the lion's share of the flight time working on a blog entry, as, even then, I had fallen quite badly behind schedule – a habit which has clearly only worsened in the following days. I didn't manage to get very much vitriol down on paper, in the end, however, as I was distracted by the genuinely quite impressive view from the window as we cruised over, what I assume was the Pacaya Samiria national reserve.

...It does make writing about being served a plate of squid that you didn’t really want seem a bit silly, I suppose...

After around an hour and a half in the air, staring moon-eyed at the scenery like some giant man-sized bush baby we landed in Iquitos and walked directly into the airport and also a torrential tropical downpour. I've got to say, I enjoy the rain at the best of times - to an almost freakish degree, it has been said - but this jungle deluge really was absolutely choice rain. Premium drizzle, it was. Premiere sprinklage. I walked as slowly as I could without looking properly fucking mental into the airport, with Sam shooting me a look back at me the entire time, as if to say that I'd have to walk a little faster than that to convince her. Once inside, we looked for a stall for the company Taxi Green, which we had been informed by the never-ever-wrong-about-anything Tripadvisor forums were the safest bet in order to not get ripped off or killed and have your still twitching corpse dumped in a storm-drain. We could not, however, actually find any trace of Taxi Green in the airport and so Sam, being the patient and measured person she is, immediately asked the first vaguely trustworthy looking person (i.e. one with a badge) to take us to the city, proper, after – of course – pre-agreeing a price (Which was, as it turned out, double what we should have paid, anyway, so fuck even trying, I guess.). We were whisked away through the storm to his taxi immediately and, crucially, before I could connect to the airport's WiFi to regain my google maps signal, so we really were at his mercy, which was nice. Sometimes it's good to relinquish any control in a scary and unfamiliar place. Keeps you on your toes. Or perhaps dead in a storm drain. It can really go either way

Driving through Iquitos in the rain was pretty cool, though. It's very unlike anywhere I've ever been (because it is) and travelling during a torrential downpour really did make the place seem immediately very tropical (because... it is).

I'm sure you've figured out by now, that the taxi driver did not murder us and leave our still twitching corpses in a storm-drain; instead he delivered us right to the front door of our hostel an even unloaded our bags for us and everything. If he hadn't ripped us off, I might even have called him a gentleman. But he did, so he isn't. Prick.

We buzzed the door of The Amazon Within; the hostel in which we were due to stay a single night before venturing into the actual, for real jungle which would definitely be great and not at all scary. Around a full minute later, a shirtless, gruff man, who looked a bit like a brown Jerry Stiller answered. He said nothing. Unsure if I had buzzed the right place, I told him I had a reservation. After a brief moment- although still far too long a pause for it to have been comfortable, given that I didn't know if I was talking to the right person – he answered back

“Ah, si, reservation, come inside!”

Phew.

He unlocked the door and ushered us in to the building. As it turned out, brown, shirtless, gruff Jerry Stiller was named Julio and he was actually a treasure of a man. He was affable, helpful and welcoming beyond any expectation I would normally have had while checking into a hostel and we spoke for around thirty minutes about the twenty five years he had spent living in both London and Bournemouth (which he pronouncd Baown Mut). Not once did the conversation feel particularly forced, or awkward, or like he was putting on heirs for his guests, it was just very nice and very genuine (A bit of a rarity out here, I feel, as it does seem a little bit like everyone is either trying to get you to give them money for something, or hamming up basic Peruvian culture to a ridiculous degree in order to impress the gringo, usually.)

However lovely Julio was, though, the room he had given us more than ...whatever the opposite of made up (made down? Surely not) for it. It wasn't by a very long way the worst place I have ever stayed (that crown still goes to the Bosnian fire ant palace), but it was certainly not among the top either. It was sparse; four plain white walls and a single, half-broken fan plugged into a crackling socket was all that we had to play with in the bedroom. The bathroom sported a little more colour in the form of brown tiling and with a shower that seemingly was only ever designed to pipe out cold water. Given how absolutely maddeningly hot and humid it is in Iquitos, I suppose a cold shower wasn't the worst thing in the world but still, a little heat, purely so I didn't have to acclimatise each part of my body individually to being under the shower head, would have been nice.

Seeing no great reason for us to hang around in what was definitely starting to remind me of a Colombian prison cell, we ventured out to the hostel's patio, to soak up a little sun, before heading out to a supermarket for some toiletries and a restaurant to eat some food.

We hadn't been sat for more than a few minutes before we were approached by an American lady, whose name I instantly forgot. She spoke at us for a while about her experiences in Peru and how long she'd been travelling and how life-changing doing Ayahuasca, the hallucinogenic peruvian drug tea, had been and so on. All very friendly, yet still somehow utterly intolerable. Eventually though, she got bored of us after realising that we didn't really want to talk about drinking a mind-breaking soup with her and toddled off to sing Tom Petty songs to herself, whilst occasionally loudly affirming just how good Tom Petty is. Again, to herself.

With her out of the way, the coast was clear for us to be bothered by some of the other guests. A chap from Edinburgh and his Irish girlfriend struck up a conversation; him having overheard that we were from Glasgow. He asked what part of it I was from and I told him. He didn't know it. We briefly discussed how it was hotter in London a few days ago than it was in Iquitos and then he told us all about all the travels he had been on, continuously for the last year and a half; only ever venturing back to Scotland once every few months to get his mum to do his laundry for him or something. It was all incredibly boring and nearly exclusively an excuse for him to talk about himself; a subject about which I categorically did not care. Soon, again, the conversation fizzled out. I turned to Sam and asked if she wanted to head out, she replied in the affirmative. As I did, Edinburgh man turned to his own girlfriend and loudly exclaimed “fucking people, man...”. Now, I have no idea why he might have said such a thing, nor to be honest, if that was directed at us or not at all, but if it was, I would very much like to use this blog as a tool to reach out to that man to apologise for not single handedly, artificially keeping the deeply tedious conversation you were having at me, about all the places you've been and drugs you've done afloat. That was wrong of me. If you're reading this, please email me a list of both of those things and I will make sure I read every single entry. Namaste, brother.

Now slightly perplexed, but with a quiet confidence growing that we had accidentally booked ourselves into a proper wank-hostel, we left to go to the supermarket. Neither the heat, nor humidity of Iquitos was sitting well with me. I immediately began to feel quite woozy, though, now I think about it, inhaling the exhaust fumes of about a million tuktuks, all driving around on any bit of the road (and sometimes off it) they damn well pleased and honking their horn non-stop as if trying to appease a giant, angry goose god, probably wasn't helping me feel any better, either. Either way, I was sweaty and unhappy (which you'd imagine I'd be used to by this point in my life, but somehow it still came as a surprise)

After a quick traipse to the supermarket, via the main square (which, while lovely, I did not take any pictures of for fear of having my phone snatched off me by a crime man), we doubled back and walked along Malecon Maldonado; the very, very very touristy little riverfront boulevard, wherein we found the restaurant Dawn On The Amazon, which Sam had heard was highly recommended and was- and this is just a little flavour here-founded by an English man, who had since died in a flood. The food was delicious, though, as was the banana, coffee and chocolate smoothie I accidentally ordered and the view across the Naney river (not quite the Amazon river, but probably close enough to count)

...Acceptable...

Was a genuine delight to eat across from, even if I did end up losing eleven of my twelve pints of blood to mosquitos in the process of sitting outside to look at it.

During our meal, we were approached by (and I swear this is pertinent to the story) a brown man. He asked us if we were going into the Amazon jungle. It being Peru and both Sam and I being on edge about everyone trying to sell us something or steal our money, we told him politely, yet firmly that we had already booked our excursion, thank you very much. He looked baffled and asked

“...So you're going, right?”

We again told him we were so we didn't need to book anything with him. It was only then that I noticed that his accent was very clearly quite Indian. Sam had apparently noticed as well.

“Oh, no, I'm not trying to sell you anything. I just wondered if you had any advice about what we should take into the jungle?” he gestured to his wife, sitting at the table directly behind us.

Fuuuuck. Is that racist? Pretty sure that was at least a little racist. I'm not totally sure what a micro-aggression is, but I was pretty sure I just committed one.. regardless, he took it in good stride, laughing it off and telling us he was proud that he could pass for a local, which, if anything, only made me feel worse. Sam, as helpfully and politely as she could explained to them what they might need in the jungle and then we quietly finished our meal as quickly as humanly possible and left, to pull our own skin off in embarrassment. The only solace that either of us could find in the entire situation was that we would definitely, definitely never see either one of them ever again in all our lives. This is foreshadowing. Did you get it? It was terribly clever.

After a warm, sticky walk back to the apartment, during which my low ebb of health somehow ebbed even lower, we took a couple of lovely ice cold showers and, excited for the adventure the following day (Sam) and/or positively shitting ourselves at the thought of sleeping in the spider capital of the world (me), headed straight to bed.

...For about two hours.

I woke up, coughing. My head was spinning, my body aching, I was drenched in sweat (like, an unusual amount of sweat, even for being in the amazon) my throat glands were inflamed, swallowing was painful and my sinuses were jammed up to all buggery. There was no denying it any more; what I thought was some innocent run-downedness (Which, unlike anality is definitely not a word) was actually something far more sinister. I had the flu. The jungle flu... (Note: not malaria; just a regular flu that I happened to catch in the jungle; calm down, mum.).

The rest of my night consisted of getting around two hours of sleep at a time, followed by my getting up to refill and then completely consume the entire contents of my water bottle from the communal supply, take another freezing cold shower and empty the frankly unusual amount of effluvia that had collected in both my sinuses and bladder, over and over again, before finally my alarm went off and it was now basically fine for me to stop pretending that I was able to sleep. Good thing I had nothing strenuous planned for the next day...

[andrewdrobins]

Aubrey Marcus: Own The Day, Own Your Life #61



Onnit is true to the bone, Pursuing your passion while making enough money, Failing to Succeed, Evolving as a leader, Listen to your heart, and more.

[5:00] Onnit is true to the bone [6:30] Life before Onnit [11:00] Pursuing your passion while making enough money [14:30] Failing to succeed [18:20] Evolving as a leader [20:30] Own The Day, Own Your Life

[25:45] One baby step at a time [28:15] MAPS [38:00] Aubrey’s vision for MAPS [45:15] Why are people afraid of psychedelics? [47:45] Listen to your heart

Guest: Aubrey Marcus

Aubrey Marcus is the founder and CEO of Onnit, a lifestyle brand based on a holistic health philosophy he calls Total Human Optimization. Onnit is an Inc. 500 company and an industry leader with products touching millions of lives, including many top professional athletes around the world.

Marcus currently hosts The Aubrey Marcus Podcast, a motivational destination for conversations with the brightest minds in athletics, business, science, relationships and spirituality with over 10 million downloads on iTunes. Marcus also regularly provides commentary to outlets like Entrepreneur, Forbes, The Doctors, and The Joe Rogan Experience. He has been featured on the cover of Men’s Health, and his newest (and first!) book is Own The Day, Own Your Life.

Connect on social: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter

Resources: Onnit, The Aubrey Marcus Podcast, Onnit Podcast, MAPS, The Cure is Near Campaign (Done to MAPS)

Aubrey’s new book: Own The Day, Own Your Life

5:00

Onnit is true to the bone

Onnit was Mike’s first stop on The Bledsoe’s 2018 nomadic travels. Mike and and his wife, Ashley, stayed with Sam Pogue (episode 57), Director of Strategic Partnerships and Senior Coach for the Onnit Academy Education Team. Mike was super impressed with the leadership and culture at Onnit, where everyone is driving in the same direction and everything feels good.

Aubrey Marcus built an impressive team of leaders at Onnit and he attributes their success to staying true to their hearts. He recognizes mistakes and things that could have been done better along the road, but those are sunk costs, and he keeps a relentless drive to keep improving, which carries throughout the organization.

“It’s true to the bone with me. It’s true to the bone with the other people that are here. It isn’t a business we’re just trying to grab as much cash and run as we can. We don’t focus on purely what is the serial entrepreneur move… This is who we are and it’s a reflection of that. And sure, we are entrepreneurs, and we running a business, and I do want to keep growing the business, I’m not shy about that at all, but really what this things is about is something a lot greater than that, and that’s a lifestyle that whether Onnit exists or not, the people who are involved here will carry forward.” — Aubrey Marcus

6:30

Life before Onnit

Before founding Onnit, Aubrey Marcus was depressed and upset with himself. Between ages 24–29, he had some really dark years and failed over and over again. He knew he had a message to deliver, a voice that could shift people for the better, but he couldn’t deliver it in his work product, and he didn’t have the right platform to have people listen to him.

Back then, Marcus was fired up to get his message out, but he didn’t know he wasn’t ready. He did a lot of internal work his 20’s and around 29–30 years old, he made a big shift and stopped being upset and frustrated with himself. Instead of ruminating about lack of external success, he decided to the best human being he can possibly be.

Marcus realized he just needed enough time, resources, and personal skill to accomplish what he wanted to do. He had an idea that he had to make money and deliver his message at once, but the ability to unify everything under one banner only came after help from plant medicine. That’s how Onnit was created.

Onnit is a friend of the show! Get up to 10% OFF at checkout!

11:00

Pursuing your passion while making enough money

You can pursue your passion and make enough money to live, you just need to make sure your passion isn’t too narrow. Aubrey Marcus’ passion was generalized enough to create legitimate business ventures, he set his intentions on improve the self.

Onnit could have been focused on one area of products, such as supplements, food, gym, or workout equipment, but in Marcus’ mind it should’ve been one complete system, which is why he decided to pursue it all.

He worked on making the right connections to help him execute the big vision. Particularly, his relationship with Joe Rogan made it possible to accelerate the business with relatively low capital. Before meeting Rogan, Marcus knew he was in a position to become friends with Rogan. He had value for him in terms of his knowledge in psychedelics, aliens, and super volcanoes — things that Rogan is really interested in.

14:30

Failing to succeed

Aubrey Marcus failed at pretty much everything except Onnit. He tried many things and never made a return on any investment. He even tried to create a male nail polish company based on some badass UFC fighters. The accumulation of getting his ass kicked is what got him to success.

Today, Marcus gets a lot of people pitching ideas to collaborate with Onnit, but usually they don’t come prepared with the right offer. He suggests that if you want to partner with someone, first come with a valuable proposition. It could be as simple as some laughs, a good conversation, or a fun workout. Once you form a relationship, then you come with a balanced, valuable business offer.

18:20

Evolving as a leader

Aubrey Marcus was featured on Barbell Shrugged in June 2014 for the first time to talk about Onnit. Since then, he evolved as a person and Onnit evolved as a company. Marcus was a leader from day one, but his leadership has changed. He used to work really hard, doing a lot of the work himself, but today he’s leading leaders.

Marcus attracted and empowered other leaders to expand Onnit. Today, he manages most of the business by talking to a small group of people, who responsible for rallying and managing their own teams.

“I was a fraction of what I am now 5 years ago. I’ve leveled my game up in a lot of different ways from the skills that I have, to emotional control that I have, to the purview I have from the information that I gathered. and I think a lot of the people in here can say the same and that’s a beautiful process to watch.” — Aubrey Marcus

20:30

Own The Day, Own Your Life

Marcu’s new book, Own The Day, Own Your Life, is about how does the best day you could possibly live look like. It’s about creating a day that you can sustainably reproduce, which will allow you to put out your very best effort, create your very best products, and enjoy yourself.

Marcus believes that a lot of times we get too myopic by focus on one KPI/goal. Instead of creating another 30 day program to get jacked, increase productivity, or cleanse your body, he designed one day that is the best day. His daily routine starts with getting sunlight, drinking a glass of water with lemon and sea salt, and doing some movement, which help set the circadian rhythm.

“The best miracles drugs in the world are free as fuck. It’s air, temperature, sleep, sex, and exercise.” — Aubrey Marcus

In the book, he also outlines what the perfect training session looks like, the perfect timing to have a glass of wine, perfect timing to smoke a joint, best sex process to get into flow state, best best journaling practice, best way to approach sleep, and much more.

To get started, Marcus suggests you pick a day and start small. He himself isn’t at 100% with everything he outlined for the best day, but he’s getting close to it. Try picking up a couple of things each time, whether it’d be a cold shower, carb loading at night, or doing intermittent fasting. You can also start by doing these things 3 times a week, rather than everyday. After a while, making good choices will become easier, but it takes years of practice.

25:45

One baby step at a time

Life is all about starting small and taking baby steps. Aubrey Marcus loves the story of Marcus Luttrell, a real life hero who authored the book Lone Survivor, and who the Lone Survivor movie is based on. Luttrell watched all of his best friends get shot and killed by the taliban, was shot a few times himself, got blown up, fell of multiple cliffs to avoid getting more bullets, and survived it by crawling a long distance on his elbows with a completely broken body.

99.999999% of people wouldn’t even attempt to survive what Luttrell went through, but we should all learn from him. Luttrell is alive thanks to taking it one small step at a time, which is what we all need to do. Start making small changes in your life. For example: Listen to an audiobook instead of music on your morning commute.

“Don’t worry about changing your life, your will life will change. Just take the baby steps to get there.” — Aubrey Marcus

28:15

MAPS

Aubrey Marcus is a big supporter of an organization called MAPS — Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. MAPS is particularly focused on the use of MDMA to treat PTSD, coupled with guided psychotherapy sessions.

Current options on the market for PTSD treatment are pretty rugged. Pharmaceuticals are failing by not addressing the root cause, else focusing on mitigating symptoms, and in some cases making it worse for people, which can lead to suicidal thoughts. On the contrary, MAPS succeeded to cure PTSD with just three sessions, treating people that had varying types of trauma from sexual abuse to military tragedies.

Corey Capella (episode 41) is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, who had seen terrible things in Afghanistan, suffered from PTSD, and cured it with the help of ayahuasca. What’s interesting is that Capella realized his deeper trauma was actually from childhood, not from the military. Our culture created a type of trauma for him, Mike, and a lot of other men. When boys get raised with extreme masculinity, they develop a desire to be tested as a man, and that can lead to unwanted spiritual and emotional results.

When you treat the root cause of something, both your mind and body change perspective, and you start a process of unwinding. Even multiple years later without MDMA or psychotherapy help from MAPS, people still get better.

38:00

Aubrey’s vision for MAPS

Imagine a future where you’re going through a really hard time, feeling anxious, not sleeping, depressed, or about to have a panic attack, and you can go see a trained psychiatrist that is fully trained, which means they can give you any pharmaceutical, but also psychedelics.

Imagine you could get guided MDMA sessions, psilocybin, catamin, or even get flow tank sessions prescribed. Side effects from pills can get you suicidal, but side effects from psychedelics can get you to love your pet or girlfriend more, see hallucinations, “talk to God”, talk to your higher self, etc.

45:15

Why are people afraid of psychedelics?

Aubrey Marcus likes to make a comparison between our higher self and small self. Our small self is our attachment to our identity and to physical things, such as our status, likes on social media, etc. It’s like an entity that thrives on delusion and fear.

The small self is what makes people fear they’d have to recognize they’re not the creation they created. If you elevate the perspective and identify with another part of yourself, such as the higher self, you will weaken your small self, giving it less control. But the small self will never die, it’s always trying to survive. The more psychedelics you do and the more you open your heart, the less you will associate yourself with the small self.

47:45

Listen to your heart

Our survival mechanisms are overworked. We constantly worry about not being liked, not having enough money, not being healthy, etc. which puts us under a lot of types of stress. In order to navigate life better and avoid getting stressed, we need to have a wisdom that goes deeper than our minds, which is our heart.

“When I’m moved by love, I make the choices that I’ll never regret.” — Aubrey Marcus

UPCOMING SEMINAR

Flow Stated — May 26, 2018

The post Aubrey Marcus: Own The Day, Own Your Life #61 appeared first on Shrugged Collective.

[thetinfoilhatlady]

The call towards wholeness did not reside in the teaching of the plants: It resided in the deepest parts of my own being.

In September of 2017 I took the trip of a spiritual lifetime. I am curious about human consciousness, a researcher into alternative history, an outspoken performer, a speaker and writer in the arts world. My life has taken me on many adventures, especially since I started traveling internationally in 2013. As a Medical Laboratory Technologist I also have a biological curiosity.

This trip was the cherry on top of my travels so far. The reward for all the hard work I had done and the understanding I had gained regarding who we are and why we are all here.

I follow a teacher named  Tobias Lars. He shares his wisdom online with videos as well as in workshops, travel retreats and courses. I have his book ‘Listening to the Sun‘ kindle version available. I also use his Inner Body Awakening Meditation. The company Spiritual Travelers is another one of his exciting endeavors. Through his Ayahuasca retreats I found the perfect place to experience Ayahuasca, the Mother of all ancient plant medicine, at The Source.

Hidden within the mysterious and ancient Sacred Valley in Peru and quite close to famous Machu Picchu, is the fabulous retreat called The Source.  They call it the edge of Luxury and indeed it is. Created and constructed by the unnamed ‘owner’ this is a majestic and magical location. Perfect for escaping from the outside world of negativity and stress. Not only beautiful but consciously constructed by the promptings of Ayahuasca herself.

See the beautiful ladies washroom here ! See my room here.

I arrived with 10 others from around the world for 6 days of soul exploration. A couple from Australia, a man from Denmark, two ladies from Sweden, a mother and son from Romania, 3 women from America and myself, the lone Canadian. As these things usually reveal them selves to be, each of us was called to do ceremony at this site, and each of us were perfect for each others learning.

Hear the local music from my balcony wrapped in jasmine here. See my Facebook album here for images.

The one month to two week preparation in diet and lifestyle, was essential for a most enjoyable experience. Though ‘Aya’ is known as The Purge, if one prepares well enough that aspect of the experience is less bothersome. In this regard I had quit coffee, dairy, meat, dried fruit, fermented foods and was very conscious of not taking any medication unless needed. Also using less chemicals in my personal hygiene as well as keeping off the computer and using less media all round. I started to do some yoga, meditate daily, write in my journal and avoid any recreational drugs or alcohol.

It is very important to avoid pork and dried or bruised fruit, as these food create a chemical compound that does not mix well with Aya and can cause serious health problems. Needless to say once one commits to the diet and lifestyle changes, the ceremony has begun.

Because I am a Celiac Sprue my ability to restrict myself was not as hard as it was for others. One person who chose not to quit meat for example was always quite sick during ceremony and could not stop throwing up for hours.

So why even put one’s self through all this ? To me the answer was curiosity. Again my need to research, my need to know, my desire to understand my consciousness set me on this journey. I had known about DMT or dimethyltryptamine for many years. Those who study hallucinogens or partake in their use will be familiar with the substance. This is also known as The Spirit Molecule and is actually produced naturally in our bodies by our pineal gland when we dream and when we die.

Is it safe ?

“The exact toxic profile of DMT is unknown, but studies in rodents suggest that a lethal dose in humans would be extremely high; more than 20 times the typical dose given during an ayahuasca ceremony.”

“A group of experienced DMT users were asked to rate its safety, with 55% reporting it to be “very safe” and 38% “quite safe”.[4] The main risks they reported were a “bad trip” (51%), which is considerably higher than the risk of bad experiences with the other classic psychedelics, LSD and psilocybin.”

The week consisted of four Aya ceremonies one day off and one day of Wachuma or San Pedro Cactus drink and the Andean Sweat Lodge.  This drink, which we helped prepare the day prior, was taken in the afternoon. It made us quite chatty and it was wonderful to wander the gardens and sense the natural beauty all around us. The active ingredient in San Pedro cactus is mescaline.

Of course the first night of Ayahuasca, I had no idea what to expect. I knew I would throw up, I knew I would have a bowel purge, but that was about it. Little did I know the wisdom and insights that would be revealed to me by weeks end.

Each morning we had the option of a movement class and an afternoon mandatory debriefing session with our Shaman Aminta. She was the spiritual conductor of the ceremony who guided the music being created and the timing of the night. She also took care to make certain we were all breathing and safe and cared for along with Beth and Ritchie and another local Healer who sang wonderful traditional songs that I seemed to know.

We were told to use our breath to flow, use the music as an anchor and use our gratitude as a rope to guide us through the adventure. We also were asked to remember no matter how weird it got, it would eventually end. All great advice.

The Temple where the Aya ceremonies occur is a beautiful round building. Since electronics were not allowed inside I respectfully did not take any pictures myself. These are shots I found on the website .

The ceiling is glass and it was most wonderful to look up at the southern hemisphere stars towards the end of the ceremonies. Being able to see the milky way while walking back to our rooms afterwards was also quite amazing.

Ceremonies last anywhere from 6 to 8 hours and started at 6:30pm. We each had a nice bed to lay in and a beautiful washroom to visit when needed. There were personal purge buckets that were emptied by staff as soon as we used them.

Everything is well coordinated and thought out to ensure you have a most pleasant, beautiful and safe experience. The staff is top notch and well experienced. The food is high frequency, grown onsite and prepared with your health at heart. If YOU are called, The Source is where you want to go to experience Ayahuasca.

What happens ?

Anecdotal reports suggest that greater self-awareness and spiritual connection to the world can be gained from properly using DMT. Just as ayahuasca ceremonies can provide new perspective on inner emotional realities to people with mental and addictive disorders, DMT can be used to achieve new perspective in one’s spiritual life.

Many report that DMT gives them a connection to unconscious parts of their mind, allowing them to see any issues and mental blocks they’ve been experiencing from a new vantage point. People often report a sense of detachment from their emotions and how they identify with them as well.

So what did I experience ?

After a few Hail Mary’s and an ongoing mantra I use “I love and Approve of Myself, I am Safe.” it was my turn to down the brew. It is made from boiling the Vine containing the active DMT and leaves which allow your body to access the medicine. My impression was that it tasted like black licorice. Others thought it was bad tasting. It is very individual.

The effects start with many colours and I noticed as I lay with my eyes shut that these were the textile patterns seen in South America. Then I was drawn into what I can only call ‘scenes’. They were from my life and they drew me into intellectual dilemmas. Scenes of conversations, arguments or just trying to get ones point across.

I noticed Aya “tagging” words in these scenes and then I was able to stop them and using my breath blow them away. I walked down the middle of these scenes for some time. The words she tagged were words like FAULT, BAD, WRONG, ERROR, MISTAKE. I understood they were not real, not valid. Things just ARE. There can be no judgement on them.

Now it is very hard to explain my experiences to you in words. The profound meaning is very personal and individual. Your ‘trip’ would not be the same as mine. Each time you do it and each person who does it has different experiences.

During the first and second ceremony there were many entities who came to stand beside me with their hands up as if to give me an energy treatments, as well as those who ‘ate’ impurities from my subtle bodies. I was aware of my C-section scar and had help doing more healing needed from that traumatic event 23 years ago, in which I almost bled out.

I was also shown my maternal bloodline and how each member saw each other. The things handed down so to speak could be healed and sent back through time or not. I had the option. I got a strict warning about WI FI and how it hurts me.

Aya also showed me a type of butterfly. It seemed odd, like it had sort of bat wings. Maybe it was from another planet ? Anyway it only lived for 5 beats of its own wings. Once it died I saw the consciousness leave it and turn into a sort of angel. A voice said “Look! Even for this life I am curious to experience”.

Later in ceremony 3 and 4, I became a giant cobra and also a long fanged dragon. I found this very fun.

Mother Aya also showed me the word KNOWING. Then it morphed in to NO  ING, then to NOW. My understanding at this point is that we can never truly know anything, but we can always be in the NOW. For someone like me whose first words were ‘I’m Curious!’, it was confirmation of my spiritual research. There is only NOW. Time is an artifact of consciousness and does not really exist.

The call towards wholeness did not reside in the teaching of the plants: It resided in the deepest parts of my own being.

There is much more however it is not to be put into words. My understanding is that I am actually doing very well in my life. I have come through some challenges and have done so with grace. Needless to say it was well worth it. I am planning to go back in a few years and do it again. The Source is a true safe space where those who have experience and ability can guide you to dance with this ancient special medicine.

If you are called please consider going. At this time of planetary healing we can all contribute to the general raising of human consciousness.

Ayahuasca and Me The call towards wholeness did not reside in the teaching of the plants: It resided in the deepest parts of my own being.