Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of those writers we study in high school and then forget. When I encountered his essays as an adult, I realized he was speaking to me: "Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe?" Emerson asked. "Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?"
That was what I demanded, "an original relation to the universe." Nothing abstract, secondhand, or second-rate. No history of somebody else's transcendence. Why should not I also enjoy it? Why did it seem such an impossible goal? [Pinchbeck 16-17]
It's comforting to know I'm not the only one who wants this for myself. I want my own experiences. I don't want to be told about it; I want to see for myself.
Modernism caused a profound shift in the way we use our senses. In his book Myth and Meaning, Lévi-Strauss admitted his initial shock when he discovered that Indian tribesmen were able to see the planet Venus in daylight, with the naked eye -- "something that to me would be utterly impossible and incredible." But he learned from astronomers that it was feasible, and he found ancient accounts of Western navigators with the same ability. "Today we use less and we use more of our mental capacity than we did in the past," he realized. We have sacrificed perceptual capabilities for other mental abilities -- to concentrate on a computer screen while sitting in a cubicle for many hours at a stretch (something those Indians would find "utterly impossible and incredible"), or to shut off multiple levels of awareness as we drive a car in heavy traffic.... For the most part, we are not even aware of what we have lost. [Pinchbeck, 61]
Can you imagine living in a world where you can see Venus in the daytime? that strikes me as mind-boggling. And now I understand how the Maya could have been so taken with the movements of Venus -- they could see it MUCH more frequently than we ever could.
The visionary power of psychedelics remains a mystery, one that was abandoned by the scientific academy when psychedelics were made illegal a generation ago. Equally mysterious: Why should the private exploration of one's inner reality, by chemical or other means, be considered a serious threat to a "free society"?
In The Long Trip, a study of visionary drug use through history, Paul Devereux muses: "I sometimes wonder if our culture, acting in the manner of a single organism -- in the way a crowd of people or a classroom of students sometimes can -- somehow senses a deep threat to its own philosophical foundations residing in the psychedelic experience. This might help account for the otherwise irrational hatred and repression of the use of hallucinogens, and the smirking dismissal of the psychedelic experience as a trivial one by so many of our intellectuals."
It is the nature of repression to be invisible. Something that is repressed can't reveal itself to us, can't appear as a break in our awareness -- then we would see its workings, and the repression would be dispelled. In a world of information overload and perpetual distraction, repression manifests as a dismissive giggle, a yawn of boredom, a sin of omission.
"Repression is reflexive," notes the literary critic Frederic Jameson, "that is, it aims not only at removing a particular object from consciousness, but also and above all, at doing away with the trace of that removal as well, at repressing the very memory of the intent to repress." For over thirty years, a tremendous force of cultural repression has been exerted on the subject of psychedelics.
And yet it cannot be said that our culture frowns on the use of consciousness-changing substances. Marijuana is forbidden, but alcohol and nicotine -- far more destructive drugs -- are consumed in mass quantities. While psychedelics are outlawed, 27 million Americans currently take antidepressants such as Zoloft or Prozac. these days, most people are far more suspicious of plant compounds safely ingested by human beings for tens of thousands of years than they are of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) or other powerful, utterly synthetic, mood and mind-altering drugs created in the last decades by a pharmacological industry motivated by profit.
Antidepressants fit our society's underlying biases. Psychedelics, emphatically, do not. Is it possible that we have demonized hallucinogens because we fear the contents of our own minds?
Today feels off. Yesterday was awesome and the day before was pretty damn good, too. But today? not so great.
I am inconveniently double-booked for Saturday. Something will be figured out.
Everyone is sick. I am not yet, but I'm really run-down. I've been eating too much sugar (no crashes, though!) and have been getting very little sleep. This means, among other things, no mayan chocolate ice cream today because I've already had sugar (Spelt gingersnaps from Shasha Bread Co. -- teh YUM!).
Tomorrow night, instead of going to Wolf Moon, I hope to be experimenting further with salvia. I am interested in exploring its effects on my brain. Acid and E have definitely left their traces, some good, some Really Fucking Irritating (but not bad, per se). Makes me wonder how my brain will be altered by salvia. I had amazingly visual dreams for two-three nights after my first experience. I wonder if that's a coincidence or not. It should also go without saying that I'm coming at this from a spiritual perspective, which is really the whole point of "doing drugs" for me. And while I say that it should go without saying, I still feel a need to defend and justify. Oh well.
Also looking forward to finally going to drum circle next week. Thanks to a link found on my friends list, I finally discovered that the local drumming group had a website and everything! Complete with link to local sweet-ass drum shop. I have been promised a djembe for my birthday from a certain lynx, so I think it would be productive were I to actually GO to drum circle and learn how to play so I know what sorts of things to look for in a drum when buying time happens.
My pap is tomorrow. I'll be happy when that's over and done with. Who looks forward to these things? I certainly don't. I do, however, look forward to having them over with.
I'm kinda irritated with someone and I don't know how to address the issue without coming off like a mega-bitch. Maybe I should just let the irritation pass...
I'm cold and tired and I want my icecream. I want to make a fire in our fireplace. Would that be bad on a September evening? I want a toasty warm apartment!
Spoke with my mom on her birthday... but not on MY birthday (they're a week apart). She says she's having problems with her phone company. When I told her to call them, she exclaimed, "I'm not going to call them! I don't want to talk to them! I don't want to have anything to do with them!" Then I guess you really don't want the problem resolved, do you? You just love having the oh-so-handy excuse of not being able to call me because the phone company is fucking you over. Great job bending over and letting them continue to take advantage of you, Mom. Fucking brilliant. And then she claims that AT&T (her phone company) has a monopoly where she lives. Um. Whatever. So I ask, "How can they have a monopoly there when it's the world headquarters for Sprint?" She didn't have much to say in response. All I can think is, "I came from THAT?" Ugh. This Sunday is my grandmother's birthday (a week after my mom's). I will thank her for the cheery "Walking On Sunshine" musical card she gave me (that I had going through my head for days afterwards. Thank you acid brain for the shiny, version 2.0 tapeloop ability I now seem to possess), and try to cheer her up because she's going through a LOT of stress dealing with her sister's affairs (they put her in a nursing home, so her house had to be sold, etc.). Wish I could give her a hug without having to fly there to do so. :-\
Life is all weird today and not at all jelling. Meh.
Friday night, N and I did salvia divinorum for the first time. It was... unlike anything else I've ever done. Imagine the intensity of a 10-hour acid trip compacted into the time frame of a lengthy nitrous trip. It was approximately a 3-minute foray into weird-land where I didn't know who I was or where I was. I knew there was someone with me, but I couldn't see him. This was freaky, since Nikos was sitting on the bed not quite directly in front of me -- about at 2o'clock. I just couldn't see him. At least, not until I tipped my body over to the left side, which brought him into my direct line of sight. WTF? And because I couldn't see him, I started to get scared. And then I told myself* that I shouldn't freak out. Freaking out would be bad (in both a "They're all going to laugh at you" sort of way and a "that's simply unproductive" sort of way). I knew while tripping that it would be a very short experience and that it would all be ok. This didn't stop me from grabbing N's hand in a contorted grip of doom once I finally caught sight of him.
I was aware that I was in a room and that there were objects in front of me, but I had no idea what room I was in or whether those objects I saw were supposed to have any significance to me. It felt like they were movie props and I was sitting on the set of some unknown tv production. Kind of like in the Labyrinth when Sarah is in her fake room in the junkyard or, better yet, the Truman Show. It all felt wrong to me and it took several minutes for me to come to terms with the fact that yes, I lived in this house and yes, these things I saw were my and N's things. This was our stuff, but it still felt like one big joke for some time.
Visually, things were... weird. Very very difficult for me to explain. I'll have to experiment further to establish an appropriate vocabulary. When my eyes were closed, I saw really pretty, geometric designs, but when I opened my eyes, it was as though the geometric designs were the templates upon which the objects before me were built. It's really hard for me to describe it any further, since it was so short an experience -- literally a matter of seconds.
I came away from the trip very moved. When I came to, I wasn't sure if I enjoyed it or not. The fear was most assuredly not enjoyable, but learning about myself and my perceptions very much is enjoyable, so it's kind of a toss-up. And since I really like pushing my own boundaries, I'll definitely be doing it again. It was one of the most intense things I've ever experienced, and all it took was ONE TOKE off my beloved, green glass water pipe.
For next time, I'd like to try it with N being closer to me, holding on to or touching me, and me keeping my eyes closed. I'd also like to try it outside in nature. I think that experiencing salvia in a natural setting where no attachment to the plants is felt in the first place might be easier for me somehow. Or with keeping my eyes closed, there are no objects to look at in the first place. I wonder what that would do for me.
optimystik and I went to the doctor on saturday because he is sick and he needs referrals for other stuff. He's got tonsillitis. I seem to be doing ok, though, but that's because I've been sleeping when I'm tired (and I've been excessively tired the past couple of days), have been staying well away from sweet things like ice cream, even when my partners are eating bowls full on either side of me (sugar depresses the immune system, esp. mine), and eating copious amounts of garlic (mmmm, garlicky bacteria-ridden morning breath! yay!). Also, I've been drinking lots of fluids. I really can't afford to be sick and I don't want to pass my germs on to people at work, since two of the 5 of us are pregnant (neither of which are me).
misslynx and I made a wunnerful celebratory dinner for N friday night because he now has a permanent position in the company he's been working for since last November. No probation, even, and benefits, etc. start immediately. How freakin' awesome! So L bought fantastic, antibiotic- and growth-hormone-free steaks that were super super lean (leanest steaks I've EVER seen), plus yummy ice cream (I had a leeetle bit on Friday, but none since), a card and a really neat bonsai tree with exposed roots/weird-looking trunk. Miko-plant-eater seems to be leaving it mostly alone. This is good. Oh, and this was the first time ever that I made steak, and I managed to make it medium-rare, which is apparently how I now like it best. N approved mightily. Yay!
We just finished the first season of Lost last night in a four-episode marathon. I can't WAIT for season two. Please say nothing specific about what happens in season two, thank you. I enjoy surprises. Hope to get all the way through it before season three starts, but that's probably asking too much. I totally love this series.
My job does not suck. It is certainly not for everyone because a lot of the tasks are definitely mind-numbingly boring, but for the most part, I enjoy those sorts of tasks, so it's a good fit. I knew it would be. Probation is over around the third week of November. Dress code is business casual, which I think is such a nebulous territory. I've got a good handle on it, to be sure, but I keep wanting to see what I can get away with, which is bad. Business casual is temptation for badness. Erg.
In other news, N and I bought a water pipe while we were out on Saturday because we thought we were going to be able to do salvia this weekend. But with him being sick, me being not-quite-healthy, and us not finding the right lighter (nor being able to afford a new one, since we had to scrape to get the pipe), we decided to put it off until the stars are right. But here's the thing. There's a water pipe that I saw at Jupiter on Queen W (across from Shopper's) that I ADORE, and if I don't get it for my birthday (ahem, next weekend), I'll buy it myself the week after when I get my very first paycheque. It's green glass and is literally shaped like a pipe. It looks so decidely fairy that I don't care if I ever use it for smokables, I have to have it. And if I get it before doing salvia, then I want to use this pipe for it. It resonates like a magical tool would. And were I to use it for salvia, it would, in its own way, BE a magical tool. I'm not interested in doing salvia 'to get fucked up'. I'm interested in it because I'm interested in learning what it has to offer. I'm interested in altered states of consciousness. And that sweet-ass water pipe for $46 and change at Jupiter. Please, someones buy it for me!
Maybe I want it so badly because I've been reading R. J. Stewart's Earth Light. Mmmm... Underworld Faery Stuff. And Goats! er, not really. But kinda: faeries are said to be capricious and, well, capricious kinda means 'goat-like', so yeah! Goats! ;P
Dude, a plane just flew by (or planes) as part of The Ex airshow, and it sounded like it was going to crash right outside my window, it was so low. Or break the sound barrier. I kept waiting for the BOOM. I really wonder how the veterans in the city are feeling this weekend. That sound was just not fun to listen to, and I don't even have PTSD.
I think that's it for now.
I'm going to attempt to make paneer for tomorrow night's dinner. It doesn't look that difficult... we shall see.
I am interested in examining consumption of a transformed substance (wine) versus consumption of a transformative substance (any number of drugs or specially prepared herbs) within a spiritual context. Why do shamans fly (many times with the aid of prepared substances), while modern-day witches have opted to remain grounded (using only wine, and sparingly so, more often than not)? What happened to our broomsticks? Why don't we fly anymore? Why does modern witchcraft feel like a whitewashed shadow of what it might have been in the past and could be in the future?
I have discovered that a large part of it has to do with the fact that we in the West have lost our oral tradition -- the safety net of experience. We are now left to experiment for ourselves... and only a few crackpots do that, right? It is my understanding that the shamans, those who are left anyway, undergo intense training, be it on the physical or astral plane, wherein they learn what they need to know in order to help their community. In addition to learning how to cure illnesses and retrieve souls, they learn about plants of power, be it tobacco, datura, ayahuasca, etc. We have training available to a certain extent through initiations and degrees. We learn how to commune with the gods, how to do rituals for this or that... but the plants have been abandoned as dangerous. Well, yeah, they are. But so's aspirin, if used inappropriately. Hell, over-consumption of water can intoxicate and even kill you.
We try to make everything so safe. Tame it down, dilute it for the masses. It feels like we're all wandering around thinking we're hot shit witches, when it seems like we are, in actuality, handicapped more than we realise by the absence of a huge part of our heritage: witches flying on their broomsticks to the sabbats is not as much a fantasy as we may think, if we are to believe what has been written about the use of flying ointments.
In researching flying ointments, I came across a well-written article by Chas S. Clifton, an academic pagan who tends more towards the shamanistic side of things. If Witches No Longer Fly: Today's Pagans and the Solanaceous Plants. It touches on pretty much everything I've been trying to put together in my head for a long time. ( Collapse )
weird
contemplative