It's this part for me, Gabe: "One of the sweetest messages I’ve gotten from psychedelics has been: put us down. We’re through with you, for now." A few years of twice yearly journeys and this last one was firm: thank you and you can [choose to be] done now.
In the process, I have also been studying nature medicine - as in, sitting quietly present in the forest with the trees and other more-than-human-beings. This is my real work and I'm glad for it. My greatest joy is inviting other to join me there in the leaves and dirt and sunshine and fresh air, away from all the technology and talking.
Psychedelics are a necessary part of human transformation, but they are not sufficient. (Say that again until it sinks in.)
We are so addicted, so damaged, so many and so dangerous, that most of us need to be chemically shocked to begin the incredibly hard and long shot task of transforming our behaviours and motivations from the ground up. The alternative is that nature's experiment with human intelligence fails, and we go extinct after doing the insane amounts of damage to world ecologies usually reserved for 5 mile wide asteroid strikes and super-volcanos.
So what am I to do? (Another question to repeat a few times.)
Not giving into despair is the first thing. (We don't have time for that kind of self-indulgence.) Find your inner Frodo or Sam and whatever other heroic archetypes that you need to imagine as your better self, and start acting from that frame. Go for walks in nature, and listen and watch the web of life. Love the f-ing hell out of it, and start the hard work of changing you. Check the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and see how we are at 90 seconds until midnight. (Let that motivate you.)
Shakespeare said in Julius Caesar: "A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once."
Given that each of us has an inescapable appointment with our death, accept that truth and decide to be valiant. It reframes how to live the better life in such a way that you are not powerless. It empowers you to do the very hard work ... the essential and rewarding work of transformation. It is both the most difficult and most rewarding thing you will ever do, but you have to get on with it ... as do I.
The real question — did they turn the volume down (as someone with training in music I get soooo … triggered by loud, bad, or holiday-themed music in public)? I never understand why restaurants, for instance, feel it’s good business to blast noise so loud people can’t talk? To get customers in & out as fast as possible? Need more sound consultants.
"Ignore that nightmare in the bathroom. Just another ugly refugee from the Love Generation, some doom-struck gimp who couldn’t handle the pressure. My attorney has never been able to accept the notion—often espoused by reformed drug abusers and especially popular among those on probation—that you can get a lot higher without drugs than with them."
"Integration" is what my friend - a shaman, I kid you not - calls it.
"Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water."
The same things, but very different before and after (and also not). The difference is us... but that's all the difference. There isn't enough Love in the world and to the extent we can bring more forth, we've done something.
Interesting, I came to a similar conclusion after four sessions with psilocybin in the last 12 months. It was invaluable but it was over. Time to go it alone. Loved the article.
I enjoyed this piece…I wonder if the algorithm sent it to me because it resonates with my own work…although my revelations about the natural state came via yoga, ayahuasca and U.G. Krishnamurti.
I really enjoyed reading this, thank you, Gabe. It reminds me of Ralph Metzner's quote "psychedelics are the medium and not the message."
I work in the psychedelic space, I always say that I am not an advocate. I believe that these plants, drugs, medicines, whatever you choose to call them, can be tools and allies that support us in seeing more clearly, relating more deeply and authentically when used with intention by certain people (personal choice and personality/mental health determining). They are not for everyone, nor will they change or revolutionise the world. We forget about the long, slow path of initiation and apprenticeship, reaching for the highest knowing, without having the wisdom to truly embody it. In the end, that is what it is all about: how your values determine your actions, how your body mediates with and relates to other bodies.
Yet "quitting one's email job, divorcing one's bf/gf, and becoming a traveling circus stripper or whatever" may be just the embodying thing to do after placing too much stock in mind, not for the sake of the drugs, or even, necessarily, because of them.
The earth has always come before. The earth will always come after.
Or, in the words of Goethe, "I praise what is truly alive. What longs to be burned to death."
“Men come and go, but Earth abides”
Earth Abides, George R Stewart
It's this part for me, Gabe: "One of the sweetest messages I’ve gotten from psychedelics has been: put us down. We’re through with you, for now." A few years of twice yearly journeys and this last one was firm: thank you and you can [choose to be] done now.
In the process, I have also been studying nature medicine - as in, sitting quietly present in the forest with the trees and other more-than-human-beings. This is my real work and I'm glad for it. My greatest joy is inviting other to join me there in the leaves and dirt and sunshine and fresh air, away from all the technology and talking.
Psychedelics are a necessary part of human transformation, but they are not sufficient. (Say that again until it sinks in.)
We are so addicted, so damaged, so many and so dangerous, that most of us need to be chemically shocked to begin the incredibly hard and long shot task of transforming our behaviours and motivations from the ground up. The alternative is that nature's experiment with human intelligence fails, and we go extinct after doing the insane amounts of damage to world ecologies usually reserved for 5 mile wide asteroid strikes and super-volcanos.
So what am I to do? (Another question to repeat a few times.)
Not giving into despair is the first thing. (We don't have time for that kind of self-indulgence.) Find your inner Frodo or Sam and whatever other heroic archetypes that you need to imagine as your better self, and start acting from that frame. Go for walks in nature, and listen and watch the web of life. Love the f-ing hell out of it, and start the hard work of changing you. Check the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and see how we are at 90 seconds until midnight. (Let that motivate you.)
Shakespeare said in Julius Caesar: "A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once."
Given that each of us has an inescapable appointment with our death, accept that truth and decide to be valiant. It reframes how to live the better life in such a way that you are not powerless. It empowers you to do the very hard work ... the essential and rewarding work of transformation. It is both the most difficult and most rewarding thing you will ever do, but you have to get on with it ... as do I.
The real question — did they turn the volume down (as someone with training in music I get soooo … triggered by loud, bad, or holiday-themed music in public)? I never understand why restaurants, for instance, feel it’s good business to blast noise so loud people can’t talk? To get customers in & out as fast as possible? Need more sound consultants.
Reminds me of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
"Ignore that nightmare in the bathroom. Just another ugly refugee from the Love Generation, some doom-struck gimp who couldn’t handle the pressure. My attorney has never been able to accept the notion—often espoused by reformed drug abusers and especially popular among those on probation—that you can get a lot higher without drugs than with them."
"Integration" is what my friend - a shaman, I kid you not - calls it.
"Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water."
The same things, but very different before and after (and also not). The difference is us... but that's all the difference. There isn't enough Love in the world and to the extent we can bring more forth, we've done something.
Nice piece.
all things
are just the slightest bit
.
empty
.
but that bit
is all it takes.
Interesting, I came to a similar conclusion after four sessions with psilocybin in the last 12 months. It was invaluable but it was over. Time to go it alone. Loved the article.
A quiet revolution. I am quite excited for the future, delighted even to see the stirrings, the re-wilding. A return to unadulterated sensation.
Lovely piece, makes the mind understand what my body has already begun. It is nice to put them in step with one another.
Great opening. Good questions. Meditate more, for sure, however that unfolds for you. Peace.
I enjoyed this piece…I wonder if the algorithm sent it to me because it resonates with my own work…although my revelations about the natural state came via yoga, ayahuasca and U.G. Krishnamurti.
I really enjoyed reading this, thank you, Gabe. It reminds me of Ralph Metzner's quote "psychedelics are the medium and not the message."
I work in the psychedelic space, I always say that I am not an advocate. I believe that these plants, drugs, medicines, whatever you choose to call them, can be tools and allies that support us in seeing more clearly, relating more deeply and authentically when used with intention by certain people (personal choice and personality/mental health determining). They are not for everyone, nor will they change or revolutionise the world. We forget about the long, slow path of initiation and apprenticeship, reaching for the highest knowing, without having the wisdom to truly embody it. In the end, that is what it is all about: how your values determine your actions, how your body mediates with and relates to other bodies.
And what comes after that? Come scythe with me, let's cut some grass.
It’d be an honor mate
Beautiful writing and message.
Our natural state is a remarkable thing!
How we arrive at it is the question…
https://substack.com/@stevenberger/note/c-83244782
Yet "quitting one's email job, divorcing one's bf/gf, and becoming a traveling circus stripper or whatever" may be just the embodying thing to do after placing too much stock in mind, not for the sake of the drugs, or even, necessarily, because of them.