Spiritually Speaking

As hard as I've worked and searched for answers to my own questions like :-

What is the meaning of life?
Why are we here?
Who are we?

There really are some quite easy ways to start to answer these questions...

I've been to some interesting psychological landscapes within my own mind but I didn't have to.

I wanted to. I yearn to understand, perhaps a little more than most other people do.

Partly because I've always had the sneaking suspicion that I was supposed to.

What I've found is that there are a lot of conflicting opinions out there.

So many that it can become confusing and at times frustrating.

The simple answer is that two methods I have found work.

Chanting the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra and Magic Mushrooms (Psilocybin)

I chanted the mantra for the waking hours of seven days straight, went to dinner, met some new friends (whilst on the first week of a spiritual pilgrimage in Spain), drank half a bottle of red wine, went to bed.

I was then awoken at two-ish in the morning, not wanting a piss ;) but with a strange and very comforting experience unfolding. A voice said you are nothing special but you ARE unique. I wasn't hearing it in my ears but in my head. Now you might say that was a sign of madness, hearing voices woo woo. But I had asked for this, I had worked hard, although to be honest I'd just given up smoking so the chanting really took my mind off the cravings and any nervousness I would have felt about setting off to a foreign country on my own for the first time.

I can't remember the specific details but I got the feeling that I was being thanked for trying.

It was like I was being told to calm down because I was neither the most important thing in creation or the least. Almost like a levelling effect, if you think you're all that then you're not and if you think you're nothing then you're not that either... Don't be too hard on yourself. You are going to spend your life in service to others. Didn't sound too bad, and in fact everything I've ever done has revolved around sorting out problems for others or the environment. So that was pretty bizarre, in fact it coloured the rest of my journey as I kind of felt cheated that it had happened for me so soon and wanted more, only I wasn't prepared to chant from then on. I was meeting too many wonderful people and spending my days working through all sorts of shit from my past and making new friends and just being and feeling better and better, instead of constantly wondering if I was worthwhile.

The Mushroom journeys, I undertook after spending a long time researching the subject.

An enterprise and its continuing voyage to go where many women and men have gone before ;)

I didn't enter into that process lightly, or for fun. I wanted to see if they were as strong a medecine as I'd been lead to believe. Another great leveller, as someone who has always had doubts about my own worth, it really gave me more confidence and there were periods of a few minutes to a few hours where I cried and cried (which sounds a lot but in a lifetime two to four hours in total is not that much really). Not hysterically or even sobbing uncontrollably, just really crying out everything I was holding on to, tears streaming down my face and an overwhelming feeling of release and relief from angst. I have been healed to a great extent since then and have lost weight, receieved lots of wonderful experiences and also know that it's all a journey, that there is work to be done there. And lots of fun too because done in the right way it can open your eyes to things you've never seen before, make you laugh, enjoy other peoples company and lose your inhibitions. I've spent long periods of my life alone, growing up as a child, through school and being deserted by friends to the attentions of bullies, made me very untrusting and sceptical about the worth of being around other people. I don't feel that way anymore at all, although I do still value my own space...

Then I spiked myself at a festival and lost 8-9 hours ;( Of those I only have vague memories totalling somewhere between a few seconds and barely a few minutes. I had eaten some hash cake earlier that morning and then took a synthetic psychedelic. They ramped up the effects of both, basically sent me flying off into the who knows where. The last thing I remember is dancing in the middle of the day, the next was waking up in a tent at night. I'd been cared for by a good new friend and some very nice people who specialise in these sorts of things. If they hadn't been there I can imagine that I would have been sent to hospital and probably sedated.

That's what we do to people who are ranting and raving. We see them as mad and medicate them so that they can't hurt themselves or anyone else. However the truth is that if you let the process that is underway, continue to its natural conclusion, with love and tenderness, it resolves itself more often than not. The worse the situation, the longer it takes...

I say that if we let the people we call insane, talk themselves out of it, they'd all be fine.

To make our lives easier what we do is turn them into drugged up zombies who are never allowed to express any of the things that makes us consider them out of the ordinary.

Or as we like to say about a fart round these parts... "Better out than in"
my old boss used to say, "Better an empty house than a bad tenant".

Those days are long gone. I haven't and I don't intend to get into that state again. Although to be fair I was silly enough recently to think that I could go from being pretty down at the time and somehow improve that situation by taking LSD. I wanted to 'get out of it'. Get out of my own bloody way, lose myself which is why we tend to want to get off our faces in the first place. It would have made much more sense for me to just deal with my own shit, rather than expect a strong medecine like that to improve my mood. Mood, setup and setting are very important. Outside influences even without meaning to can make things a lot worse. I made another mistake that I paid for that night and for the next few weeks of recrimination. It was psychologically stressful then and afterwards and put a whole different slant on what I was going through, in fact I'm fairly sure it made the last few weeks worse than necessary. However, having come out the other side, I've learnt much more than I would have done, just stupidly and a harder way than I needed to. I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment, learning lessons as soon as possible rather than letting things drag on. It's a balancing act, it takes practise to know and trust yourself in those situations. I fucked up a little bit and it didn't help that I was experiencing a period of losing faith in myself over the course of the last few months anyway.

It had been my honour to spend two hours plus at a previous summer festival, talking down another psychonaut with my friends help. He was under the impression that the DJ was telling him to do things and was frankly very annoying. The first few times he came over to where we were sitting down on the grass, I just wanted him to go away in fact. Then the instinct came into my mind that I needed to intervene, this was a test. My friend supported him and cradled and stroked his head, while I held his hand and spoke to him about normal things, asked him his name, where he was from, until he gradually calmed to the point of wanting to go back to his friends. That occasion it was an LSD trip he was on (the stuff around these days is really very strong) and I would describe his demeanor and state as a psychotic break. Transpired that he had quit his office job and was retraining as a psychiactric nurse, what an irony.

I will continue to prescribe myself mushrooms as medecine. The positive effects on mood last for up to 8 months or so according to clinical trials happening around the world. I have to wait until the autumn growing season comes round again anyway as I failed to secure enough last year for the winter, spring and summer of this year.

What I discovered overall after my accidental rocket up the arse at a festival, as I slowly came down from what I later described as "the best thing that has ever happened to me" is that it doesn't take drugs to get where we want to go but it can help. However I never want to lose control like that again, to put someone else in the position of having to look after me. On a smaller scale I'd say I've got to the same conclusion where every intoxicant is concerned. I don't like getting drunk, mainly because for me it was always a dangerous tight rope walk between pissed enough to lose my inhibitions and have fun and a blackout leaving me unable to remember wtf went on the night before. Often leading to all sorts of lesser and greater embarrasment, possible injury or death of myself and others or just a bad feeling that lingers because you have no clue what you've been up to. I like to remember what I've been doing. I like to make my own choices, not those of the drug that is influencing me.

Some experiences do require that you put your trust in someone else. For those times you need to find a person/persons that you can rely on, who has had experiences like the one you are about to attempt, in a safe environment, where the outside influences are only going to be good, where no-one will be tempted to take advantage of your state of mind and where you know beforehand that you will be looked after with love and care. That is what I provide.

I've written about all this stuff before but it's been very clear in my mind lately as I worked my way down from an experience that lead me to believe that we are all part of something greater back to feeling like a regular Joe Bloggs, if admittedly with some of those latent talents I'd always assumed everyone has, remaining switched on and the undoubted sense that it is necessary for everyone to come to the understanding that these experiences are our heritage our responsibility, our goal. One way or the other we're all headed to the same destination, whatever route we choose to take.

I am as normal as any of you are, that is what you need to realise.
If there's something wrong with me then it's wrong with you too.
Holding on to the idea that this is all there is, is a very bad joke.

We're more than meets the eye or we've been lead to believe.

If you wanna have a good time drug responsibly ;)

If you want to know more do it the right way.

Luckily for me I'm a hard head with
a soft loving heart to cope...

Find peace of Mind
Body, Spirit & Soul
Love &
Light
Jon
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