You're the common denominator of all your problems One of the most beautiful parts of this work is realizing how our beliefs limit our reality. There are some who love to intone the sacred adage, "your beliefs create your reality," but I think this perhaps misses the mark. It's only half the story. It's more likely that our beliefs limit our reality. This explains why there are scads of new agers staring into mirrors, desperately chanting "I am abundant" while noting changes. Opportunity...
12 days ago • 4 min read
Nibble the Product You may have seen the video of the McDonald's CEO pretending to eat his company's new burger. He appeared stiff, alien, and uncomfortable. I thought it was his first day on the job, maybe his first day on the planet. He referred to it as 'Product' before managing the tiniest nibble, obviously disgusted. A bunch of other burger joints made parodys, showing that they made burgers that could actually be enjoyed. I wanted to make my own, where I gobbled down some mushrooms or...
19 days ago • 3 min read
Deepak Chupacabra A long time ago, at a coffee shop far, far away, I had a friend who liked to make stickers. He would cut and paste images by hand, then take them to the copy shop to make zine style black and white stickers. They got slapped on lamp posts or carefully hidden in the corner of a store window. You’d see them on the back of street signs. The stickers were funny, subversive takes on popular culture. They were smart, absurdist critiques that left a lot open to interpretation. One...
about 1 month ago • 7 min read
The only thing that kills a demon is love - Mickey Knox This post contains spoilers of "The Illuminatus Trilogy," Which I think is fair, because it was published in 1975. Nevertheless, be forewarned. When I was an 18-year-old college freshman, I read Robert Anton Wilson's "Illuminatus Trilogy." I remember sitting on my dorm bed next to my headshop tapestry, getting my introduction to conspiracies and secret societies. In it, many factions fought for humanity's future in ways both subtle and...
about 2 months ago • 5 min read
Dust off your integration one more time, make it shine The boy jumped in bed at 630 this morning. He curled up under the covers and didn’t say anything. I rubbed his back for a moment and then sat up, taking the opportunity to meditate. I like when we get a chance to sit quietly together, it doesn’t happen much. He’s energetic. The nervous system experts love to talk about co-regulation. About how vibing together is a great practice. That’s how the morning started, just vibing and breathing....
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Integration is the Bridge Between Vision and Reality Our Psychedelic Visions rarely survive first contact with reality. Sometimes, in our journeys, we have grand visions and ideas, amazing plans for the future. However, more often than not, they melt away when the light hits them. Sometimes we expect the seas to part for us like we're Moses. Or that, like Kevin Costner, they will come if we build it. Rarely is this the case. The world doesn't owe it to us to make our sacred mission easy. Some...
2 months ago • 3 min read
When In Doubt, See if There's Something You Can Relax - Red Things on Tuesday This is one of the best pieces of advice I've gotten from a psychedelic guide, "When in doubt, relax." When I'm upset, something is tight. When I'm in conflict with someone, or myself, something is tight. When I'm ruminating, perseverating, or looping uncreatively, something is tight. There is a tension in my body that I can literally use as a barometer to determine if my thoughts are helpful. If it's tight,...
2 months ago • 3 min read
Happy Birthday Dad, So Long Bobby. My dad turns 83 today. Happy Birthday, Dad! One of my fondest childhood memories was road-tripping in the back seat, listening to my dad's oldies. He had a box of (K-Tel?) cassettes he ordered from a tv commercial, and would cycle through them on the way to go skiing, or to the shore. I grew up listening to 'Tell Laura I Love Her', 'Blue Moon', and 'Leader of the Pack.' We love music. I'm grateful he instilled that in me. Thanks, Dad. I feel grateful that my...
2 months ago • 4 min read
If you think you can fly, take off from the ground. Superman takes off from the ground This is just psychedelic safety 101. This was one of our ground rules when we were teenagers. Simple, to the point. Effective. But, as a psychedelic culture, we learned this the hard way. Jay Yarnall jumped out of a window on STP in 1966. He thought he could fly. A friend of mine knew him and told me, "That was the guy the stories were about. He thought he could fly." Jay ended up paralyzed. Even still, he...
3 months ago • 4 min read