Sensible
Potato’s
Unfunny
Display
The first and only time I did mushrooms was @ 16 with some friends in the Pasadena hills. Four of us, at Will’s house.
Will’s mom was a witch. She held coven meetings in her backyard within a sacred circle of stones. I was told not to walk through it. I walked through it.
We eventually ventured into the neighborhood, talked to some trees, watched grass grow, etc. We heard music and followed it a laser etched horizon. It took some sitting and staring to determine that there were actual lasers and Pink Floyd was playing The Rose Bowl. April of ‘94, the one night I took shrooms. I may have experienced heaven too early.
Coming down off acid, our foursome went to see Natural Born Killers in the theatre that summer. I may have become the demon. I may also be an over eager reporter. Do not listen to anything I say.
Helicopters were not deployed.
There is little data on the effects LSD has on the developing human brain. Having sat in an Archimedes listening vessel at 17, tripping, this bipolar woman at 41, advises caution with hallucinogens. The ability to hear all sound, in one wondrous focal point can altar ones perspective for a lifetime. Inducing changes in my brain chemistry, many times, at an important stage of its development, may have contributed to lifelong biochemical abnormalities.
However, if you have never known God, it is a temporary method. Cultivating loving awareness is reportedly more reliable.
Either way, I cannot recommend the San Francisco Exploratorium more highly. I don’t think it’s possible to leave there without an appreciation of humanity’s quest to understand creation.
Oral Transfer
In N.J. Dawood’s translation of Tales From The Thousand and One Nights, he introduces the stories as “spontaneous products of untutored minds, which would reach out in search of the most imaginative and extravagant fancies and then relate them to the universal constants of this life.” Also known as The Arabian Nights, the folktales were passed down orally until the 9th century and then compiled into an collection of differing written versions and translations. If you want to read the “whole thing,” you must first ask: Which one?
No one can point to the true version. The tales have been told and retold for centuries. Due to their explicit sexuality, the stories have been hidden under mattresses and kept locked in cupboards, yet they are lauded as some of the most important and complex historical origins of literature.* The Nights speak to desire. When we consider desire’s nature, we’re left with a frame story older than time.
* heavily plagiarized from Joe Fassler in The Altlantic
Which One’s Way?
Humanity’s canon is dominated by the quest for God, and/or a meaning larger than one’s self. Mental health and spiritual awareness are inextricably linked. How, is up to the individual. Providing care for human beings engulfed by mental illness without addressing the person’s spiritual health borders negligence.
When given the room to relate their experience to a universal constant, people push their boundaries. Connecting to something larger than self is the rock every 12 step group is built on. When avoiding steps, I turn my attention to a spud. Spud’s can be planted, used as a tool or begin a oil well. A S.P.U.D. story can do the same. All of our lives contain tales of spontaneous products of our untutored desires. When we examine our nature from that perspective, the gap lessens between ourselves, others and divinity.
Altar Perspective
I desire - human
I am my desire - suffering
I live aside desire - tangerines
