The Big One

I am writing this entry with the intent to share a psychedelic trip. I should describe this trip as "The" trip, for me anyways. The few hours I spent in the quite of my tent, several years ago are to this day the most important and perspective altering of my life. I will try to be as objective as I can about all this.

To set the stage, I had tripped a time or two on mushrooms in my twenty's with friends, in more of a party atmosphere.  I saw visuals, it was a beautiful, mostly pleasant, experience. I saw my friend melt into a kaleidoscopic pyramid of the vowels. We danced, then after we all peaked we sat up late talking. Pretty standard stuff I guess. Although I was interested in meditation and spiritual endeavors I hadn't really integrated that with the psychedelics at that point.  I think my intention at that point was more of an innocent curiosity, which although not the highest intent was an ok place to be at the time. I didn't really learn anything, other than, "Mushrooms are weird".

Flash forward a few years, my life has had some ups and downs. I get the opportunity to be at music festivals, on a regular basis. I have developed a daily mediation routine, I am taking psychedelics semi regularly, mostly acid at music festivals. And through this situation and circumstances I develop sort of a sense of hyper vigilance. Or that was My intent. But Looking back I was very tense, and not connecting socially very well. Any ways I think that might be all the back story we need to flesh this out.

So I was taking LSD regularly, every other weekend sometimes more, some molly, and smoking weed, and I was Hyper vigilant. Trying to be supper in the moment and working on myself. Meditations were deep and profound in that state. But something was missing. I really wasn't sure what. I felt people knew more about me than myself.

Then one night around my birthday, I took some mushroom tea. I remember having about two or three small sips and one sorta large sip, but I don't think I finished my cup. It didn't take long for my stomach to start to feel funny. I was starting to get scared, sort of a fear of not being able to control it.I remember feeling so strange and seeing these bright sort of rainbows coming out of my friends eyes. I bailed.  I went for my tent and lay down to meditate. Now what I remember is probably only a fraction of that trip. And How Much of it is Internal trip and how much of it is, well, real I guess, I do not truly know. I started my deep breathing. I felt good, there was good music going on around me. That probably integrated into my trip. I don't remember to many early early thoughts or visuals. Probably it was deeply introspective. Who knows it is sorta blank in my mind. But at some point I left my body, and was sort of able to analyze my body and  it was very systematic and I consciously poured golden light into my body and I remember being very relaxed, and outside my body yet I felt so good. The only way I can describe it is this orgasmic non sexual, cellular lever feeling of elation. Warm Glowing and bright, vibration maybe to an extent. And I remember thinking, "Oh My God" This is amazing, this is it....What....oh fuck I am still doing it. Because some pretty amazing states can be reached through meditation. But as soon as you try to be conscious of it or grasp where you are its gone. This was like being awake in that state. The colors of golden light around me. I know that doesn't even come close to doing it justice, but that is the best my brain can do.

Now I don't know if something happened, musically at the festival, or I had a fearful thought, could have been both. Could have been the will of some entity's from another dimension... But I descended rapidly into another space, or it sorta came through at me or I peered at it. who knows. I was back in my body, and I remember this woman's face, a seductive frighteningly sinister look on her face. I could not look away, could not control it. Fear took me for a ride at that point. My focus floated in on her head, which sort of split into six or so more identical heads that was attached to one body of a snake. More fear. The serpent thing sorta sneered and and my focus shrunk down to one of its eyes. It snapped closed painted on its lid was another eye. I felt  sheer terror was the only way I could describe it. It transformed into a lidless eye in a pyramid. and It spoke to my in a booming voice in another language. I was in the grips of this terror. It seemed to go on forever. probably only a few moments. I was back in my body, I felt like I couldn't breath. actually it wad ,ore like a hand chocking me that was the most frightening thing. I could feel the hand on my neck. I could hear what sounded like people outside my tent chanting. All the while this god like powerful thing is like threatening me and telling I am weak I can never do it. Or that was the impression I got. I know this stuff is all super crazy, but if your still reading stick with me, we will get there.

So here I am being strangled, paralyzed by fear, thinking a I am bout to loose my soul or something. Just at the depths of despair i sorta become aware of my breath. I have been deep breathing the whole time though not aware of it. And there is this sort of low hum in my voice, its almost polyphonic, meaning two tones at once. If you have ever heard tuvan throat singing like that. And this deep breathing is very slow and it rises and rises in my consciousness and it seams to build and build and things start to shake and flash white light and sorta vibrating and in a flash a very loud audible sound comes out of my. I actually heard someone say. Wow. To me it sounded like a lion roar and it echoed down the canyon. Weather that was real imagined part of the music, who knows. Obviously I am not a lion so probably not real. But it all seamed hyper real. realer than anything i can think of. Weird... And at that moment I was instantly out of the trip. I even tried to go back. nope couldn't. I had just had the most amazing experience of my life. I was eventually able to assimilate this trip into my life, unfortunately the fear stuck with me longer than i would have liked. But That was the path i had to take i guess.

What I mean by that is, This trip had many positive affects and lessons for me to work on. First of it humbled me. so much. Even though my intention with psychedelics was, truth seeking , internal work on myself. and with the intention of furthering myself. It got me to realize that these substances deserve respect and are never something to take lightly. So I stopped using lsd. I do value the insights I had on it and. I did cause me to want to understand the symbols I saw. which led me to search where i thought they came from, Religion. Unfortunately fear and paranoia lingered and I didn't assimilate the positives for quite a while. I was confused about the fearful part of my trip for a long time. And That is what i focused on. But a strange thing began to happen, slowly I began to see the crap in my life, as bullshit i created. an example would be that, i would see how my reactions and actions hurt other people. After seeing this over and over I started changing the way I communicate with people. Slowly, I am a slow learner. Over the coarse of a few years I began to change. Today I am a much more likable person, I am still learning of coarse. But I credit this trip as the point when I began to shift. Like I really did die and was remade in a sense. As To actual weird things in my trip the specifics, i am not really comfortable saying one way or another what was happening was all in my head, or necessarily that i was in contact with entity's from another dimension, that's not really important. Only that being humbled and forced to analyze my habits of thought was infinitely helpful and transformed me the better.

One of the things that helped me to get clear on all this was hearing other people talk about psychedelics. To hear others describe the places they have been, was so helpful, to get passed the fear. That is one thing i wish i had done was talk about it then, it has been years and took years on my own. So I would encourage anyone going through similar things to absolutely talk about. Share the experience with receptive folks if you can.

I would do things different next time two, something I want to add in here, to cap it off. Music festivals are great, but this kind of thing should be done more in a quite place. In a relaxed setting without commotion and whatnot. I have not had any psychedelically experiences since, "the big one" But it is by no means off the table in my life, in fact  I feel the pull lately to go exploring.

Culture Realy is Your Operating System

Terence McKenna said it, and I do believe it is true. In the west this time of year we have a preoccupation, Christmas. In the hustle and it's easy to forget that at the core of Christmas is a magical figure flying the courses of the night sky spreading cheer and good will where ever he goes, but we also have the Jesus birth story coinciding with this sleigh driving, cookie gobbling, ambassador from the north pole.  We willingly perpetrate the lie while telling ourselves it's good for children. While we know it is untrue, it is easy to not think anymore about the effects on our culture and the world around us. I would not be the first to say that Christmas has become overly commercial and lost it's true meaning.

Speaking anthropologically, culture is learned behavior passed down though, story's, songs, pictures. These learned story's, and songs. create the world and give meaning to it. We all know there is no Santa living at the North Pole, who employs elves and rides magical Reindeer into town to drop down chimneys and deliver the goods to good girls and boys. I think there would be no dispute, there. Yet the retelling of the story has consequences all over the world. In China where Christmas is just another day of the week leading up to the massive celebration of Chinese New Year, it would be impossible for the average Chinese citizen to imagine what we regard as normal Christmas celebrations. And really, that works out pretty well for all of us over here, because if they did know, they might decide that making all our stuff was not worth it, that polluting their country (and it is polluted beyond what most of us can understand) is not worth it. They already know they want to live our western lifestyle. If that happens we are doomed.

I am not a doom and gloom type person. But I must talk about these things, I know others are, as well, And I can't, not I would be doing myself a great disservice by shutting up, because I want to scream.  I live in a place that is death to the soul. Suburbia, not just any suburbia, a smallish, farming town in the central valley of California. Once boasting the great title of most churches per capita, this town is a monoculture of the mind.
Not that Christianity doesn't do great things for people, It also makes a non questioning populous of blind allegiance. Allegiance is safe, doesn't hurt anyone around you. But It's all there is here, Who ever decided that suburban living was the right way to go was a sadistic fuck. It's painfully apparent to my that it sucks peoples creative energy. Maybe it's true every where you go there you are, or maybe if your not living in a place close to nature, super progressive art and thinking, with common space and a forum, your more likely to get pulled down into a negative pattern. Maybe.

I think Christmas is an interesting tradition, we do it for our kids. But I am finding it hard to believe that I am going to be able to give my kids the kind of life I had. And I grew up poor. What if there was another way. I like to make things spend time with family, eat, drink, and be marry, what if that was enough. Our culture would make that appear a little sad. What if I wanted to eat psychedelic mushrooms on the solstice and dance around a fire. By all accounts that was a large part of century's of celebrations on the winter solstice. Before Catholics came along and adopted pagan deities and celebrations, solstices were celebrated and why not. We still do we just have "safe" deities and magical beings to go along with it. Only it is still a MAGICAL belief that we lost 2000 years ago. What are we to believe that back then all the dudes who could get in touch with this magic god, died and that's it.... NO Bull shit. Riligion and Western Culture need some revision folks. there is no doubt in my mind. And not Scientology and Not Mormonism, You stupid..... Sorry No. Grass roots, spiritual revival.

Hoping For Light and Love.

Thought Police

             One of the easiest ways to see the blatant discrepancy between the two forces  (as I see it) in the world. Is our so called War on Drugs. This war costs many billions of dollars of tax payer dollars to fund multiple agency's with huge logistical webs of men and machinery. And lets face it, it  is so impossibly infective at the goal of keeping drugs off the streets, If that is the real intention of and reason behind this constantly expanding seemingly constant  growth, of agency's involved.  We will touch in that later. With Colorado and Washington recently passing bills legalizing recreational use of marijuana it's pretty clear, more than half of people today ether smoke weed or don't mind if their neighbor does. And half still somehow believe the hype from the 60s  refer madness and all that. I can only imagine how big pharmaceuticals squirm when they see their profits on pain medication and anti depressants drop as they should. I have a feeling there will be a back lash, and that charge will be lead by big pharma. This clear illustration is but a tip of the ice burg when it comes to the voice of a nation. The culture of elite in this country is so blatant and in your face. How can someone say we live in a free country when they are saying I can't do what I want to my body to my own consciousness. A wrench has been thrown in the cog, and the machine is faltering. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next couple months regarding this Colorado and Washington.

Once a teacher asked the class weather we believed in our government or not.  He was a little shocked to see how many did not. That was back when Clinton was president, and how did it go from there? It would be interesting if you asked to day, I bet it would more evenly divided. Half or so would say yes and half would say no. Weather or not you see our system working well or not I think everyone sees how divided it is these days. This division actually works very well for some people, where each side has a few core issues and talking points and those are repeated over and over. Today every issue that does not serve to divide people is marginalized by the mane stream media. This works great for people who want things to stay the way they are, and keep people asleep, and consuming. Which might be one reason these visionary substances are defied. Both as catalysts for personal change and alternatives for pharmacological painkillers and antidepressants that are habit forming and do kill people.

                                                            Real Eyes, Realize, Real Lies.

Intention, Basing reality off of Culture.

             Greetings to all curious open harts and searchers for truth that find this. It is my intention to put down in words experiences, thoughts, understandings flights of fancy and entertain ideas that have come to me the last few years. Because in the last few years I find that I have undergone a sort of metamorphosis. In which my life has completely changed. Recently I have stumbled upon pod cast's and blogs discussing topics that interest me. I love consuming information in that format, in a totally informal way insights and knowledge seems to come across much more naturally from one person to other. I feel like my journey over the last few years has been fuel for my world view and led to interesting insights and change. These experiences run the gamut from, instinctual, to academic, metaphysical, spiritual, observational and many others. I would like this to be a organic and free flowing thought, if there is at all a way of reaching other journeyers I hope for that too.

                                              For The Highest Good of All Concerned

JTron