Friday, December 5, 2008

The Invisible Landscape




"My notion of what the psychedelic experience is for- is that we each must become like fisher men and go out onto the dark ocean of the mind and let your nets down into that sea, what you are after is not some behemoth that’ll tear through your net, foul you and your little boat into the abyss, nor are what we are looking for a bunch of sardines that can slip through your net and disappear; ideas like- have you ever noticed that your little finger exactly fits your nostril and stuff like that, what you are looking for are middle sized ideas, that are not so small that are trivial and not so large that are incomprehensible, but middle sized ideas that we can we can wrestle into our boat and take back to the folks on shore and have fish dinner. And every one of us when we go into the psychedelic state, this is what we should be looking for, its not for your elucidation, its not a part of your self directed psycho therapy, you are an explorer and you represent our species and the greatest good you can do is to bring back a new idea. Because our world is endangered by the absence of good ideas, our world is in crisis because of the absence of consciousness, and so to whatever degree anyone of us can bring back a small piece of the picture and contribute it to the building of the new paradigm then we participate in the redemption of the human spirit, and that after all is what its really all about!"
-Terence McKenna

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Complete and Alive






I felt as a child,
destructive yet fragile
Sadistic and agile;
I took a stick and beat at the leaves
I took a fruit and smashed it on the trees;
I saw a flower bed and cut off their heads

I would not stop till somebody told me
What this meant
Why did everything seem
So accepted, so undisputed?

Love

Love
Because of you, in gardens of blossoming flowers I ache from theperfumes of spring. I have forgotten your face, I no longer remember your hands;how did your lips feel on mine? Because of you, I love the white statues drowsing in the parks, the white statues that have neither voice nor sight. I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice; I have forgotten your eyes. Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound to my vague memory ofyou. I live with pain that is like a wound; if you touch me, you willdo me irreparable harm. Your caresses enfold me, like climbing vines on melancholy walls. I have forgotten your love, yet I seem to glimpse you in every window. Because of you, the heady perfumes of summer pain me; because of you, I again seek out the signs that precipitate desires: shootingstars, falling objects.
Pablo Neruda
























Like a smile it stays abloom
Nestled in the crest of your eyes
And shines out like a single ray
Of a candle from your lashes

Your lips cant speak
For the trembling
But how silently the visions
Stand bowed and ready to be realized


The value of PI





























Between the shadow and the soul
I awaited the eternal,
I followed the spiral
Till it revealed to me this moment,
And love became Just,
A four letter word.

Freedom

























I stared down at the valley below from my sanctuary of pine and oak. Something in the view told me I should be amazed by this, something said I should gape and continue to gape until I found a reason to go back home. The reasons for heading back were mounting, it was getting cold, the mosquitoes were killing me, but something in the view told me to stay, to stay and not to gape. Someone promised me that I would, at the end of this, be able to see clearly.

I had once read of a man in Peru who, while staring down at an expansive valley, had visions of events beyond his birth, he had been gifted a motion picture of all that had transpired in his life, and when he returned he spoke of an energy, an energy that bound all of us.

When I had read this I was sitting on my bed at home, very warm and cozy, and I began to visualize a mountain range, just like the one in his view, and I believed that very soon I would get there. The excitement of believing, that I could travel anywhere I felt like, still coursed in my veins. Rebellion was such a high while it lasted.

But here I was, reliving my greatest chemical reaction, after having arrived at the place in my dreams. All reasoning left me, and I felt like a child who was being deliberately ignored because he would commit the same mistakes over and over again. An icy breeze, much like the one felt in the wake of somebody leaving in a hurry, lapped at my beard. It felt tingly and ticklish and I reached out to scratch it, and I thought, if it is indeed discipline that I lack then I am done for. The curtain would never be raised, and I would never be able to see what I wanted to see.

From somewhere between my shoulder blades a mocking bubble had seemed to burst, it was making its way up my neck. When it reached the point where it felt as if I would drown in it, I sprung up, ran up the mountain and flew away into the twilight with my arms outstretched. I could not accept someone else’s reality, but at least I had tried.



A moment of clarity














A strand of your hair flew into my fingers. I didn’t catch it, it just flew right in, like it wanted to stay back with me. I couldn’t help but return some of the kindness it showed me, so I just stood there, lost in thought, staring at it. All the while you were walking away, with your small but brisk steps, and your hair trailing your ears like wisps of shadow creeping out from beneath a doorframe. You may not have wanted to see this, but you had left a part of you behind and now I was holding it, the moment was over and now it was mine, mine not because I claimed it, but because it came willingly. Now wherever you may go, I will always have it with me, and I will store it in the same box that I store the hope that one day you will be back to reclaim it. And maybe that day we shall talk of love.