'Escargot" -- For Open Mic 10/20/2017 (Wm. Van's and Black Sheep)

The mind is a terrible thing to waste.

So we must preserve it.  

Every last drop.  And our cerebral spinal fluid holds it all in, like a stasis field.  Until we crack.

Case in point:  My friend David K.  

He thought he would drop in on me, unexpectedly.  Spoil the little trance I had going on.  But for some reason his chute didn't open.  

There he was, dead, sprawled out on the pavement.   Parachute still strapped on his back, unopened.  His body twisted in all sorts of contortions.  

Cerebral spinal fluid leaking everywhere.

What a waste.

Not something I want to see.

See, I'd rather not see too much.

So I went back to my little trance, my little ritual.  

The whole cell phone thing.

See I don't own a TV.

And I don't drink alcohol anymore

not since mother aya

But that doesn't mean I ain't numb.

You probably got something too?.

Some little ritual you do when things get hot.

Some little dance you do.

and I'm not calling you autistic

But we are all on our own little spectrum.

For who really wants to see what's life's about.

that silence

So before you go back to your little ritual and I go back to mine

Let me share a secret with you

the whole eparter le bourgeois

And it is this:  snails operate on gamma brain waves

There are already there.

The highest state of consciousness

and unless we are a Buddhist monk, or having some near death experience, or being born, or taking DMT we ain't going to come close with our slow little alpha and beta brain waves to seeing what those goddamn snails are experiencing 24-7.

think about it.  

We run around doing all manner of crazy 

but everything we do ain't going to amount to a hill of beans in the long term

 right Ozymandias?

and they, those crazy little gastropod molluscs are just chugging away at 40 Hertz all blissed out and not giving one rats ass at what all the frenzied hominoids are doing around them.  

or do they care?

maybe that little slime trail they leave everywhere is their way of sharing cerebral spinal fluid with us, and all creation.

For they cracked a long time ago, and have plenty to give.

The Third Book of the Harvest, "The Ascension"

And it came to be on the third day the scattered pieces

spread out on the land like so many seeds

and Emo saw that this was good and formed an assembly proclaiming:

"may his seed bring forth upon this Earth all manner of grasses and fruit in abundance."

And thus it was so.

And then she gathered me in again and when I could see, touch, taste, and hear she soothed me with comforting words:

"Do not be afraid little one, you have been through this before, countless times over the eons.  It is too much for you to remember, but know this is your lot. Your life is nothing more than this.

You will sink back into yourself and forget this until we meet again.

But remember, dear one, that all is vanity

Though you will toil under the sun, there will be no gain

A generation goes, and a generation comes

but the Earth remains forever

What has been is what will be

And what has been done is what will be done

And there is nothing new under the sun

Do not be afraid little one, relax into your life

until we meet again.






(sleeping well in my new spiritual retreat, surprisingly adapting to life's "change" up :-))

"Batdorf and Rodney", Poetry Fight Club, 20 minute Project October 6,2017

The Prompt:  Go into Dumb records, pick out an album, write a poem in twenty minutes.

This is what followed.  Of course, this is not a poem.  I suppose there still is a point in having directions even if you are not going to follow them.

The album I selected was Batdorf and Rodney's album titled "Life is You."

"Life is You"?, Really Batdorf and Rodney?  Whose idea was that?  How would you know?

So I look for clues.  I carefully examine the album cover and discover on close inspection my first clue:  a phone number, 443-8486.

So I call the number.  No answer.  But an answering machine:

"Hi you have reached the number of Corey Witt of the News Gazette, I'm not here right now, please leave a message after the tone."

I leave no message.  But this must be another clue.  I look around Dumb records.  Ok, who do I know around here that knows more about media than anyone else in Central Illinois?

Bingo:  Rachel Otwell.  The source for all things news.

My investigation reaches a new level.

I interview Rachel and learn the following:

1.  There is a newspaper in Champaign, Illinois called the News Gazette
2.  This album likely came from the old "Error" records in Champaign which closed.  Rachel confirmed that Dumb records acquired many LP's from this former business during its inception.

The plot thickens.

So I dust for fingerprints.

And do a DNA test

And I can now conclusively tell you that the DNA test proves within an acceptable margin of error

that life is indeed you.

You were right all along Batdorf and Rodney.

I close my case.

The Second Book of Harvest: "The Summoning" (Black Sheep OpenMic.October 6, 2017)

What we experience now is not what we are

deep inside us is the facility to recall everything

like wayward children

wandering aimlessly through the woods

we can't always lay hands on them

but they are there

water flowing through the sluice

"Speak!", Emo yelled, yanking me along

"Before we were many pieces," I stammered

(an age old stuttering problem)

"there was one  
straining up to the light 
leaves unfurled
all paths lead to one
casting no shadow
the gateless gate"

"Faster, harder," she yelled 

I can see the light now
through the canal 
life into death
death into life
Enkidu into Shamhat
Shamhat into Enkidu

Emo then handed me the passion fruit (footnote which was infused with Banisteriopsis Caapi)
and said:

"Take this fruit, this is of my body, which you may eat from.  Do this in remembrance of me."

I ate the fruit greedily.

And I was back at Sabin Elementary School

Bear Valley Colorado

Kindergarten class

It was a film after nap time

Adam and Eve

But not the way it really happened

I should know

And a plaster skull on the table

We were forbidden to touch the skull

Emo touched my shoulder.   You can do this, you have already done this.  A thousand times.  I am there for you when you need me.

The plaster skull broke into a thousand pieces.

Life is But a Dream

Sometimes I feel like I am going to wake up or have an experience that I am back on the mat at Rhythmia in Costa Rica, still in the throes of plant medicine and this last month or so has all been a dream.  Merrily merrily merrily merrily life is but a dream.

And this realization scared me.   Like I am losing my mind.  Like this is another psychotic break.  And I suppose I could look at it that way.   Or I could look upon this as an invitation to something else.  As if I really have a choice.

I don't really remember what the red pill and the blue pill meant in the Matrix, which also had something to do with dreams and reality,  but I do remember the alleged first level of the plant medicine experience.  It simply shows you what your life is.  This is what I asked of it when I started the journey.   I wanted to look into that peripheral vision that is always with me and see what was always making me a little unsettled, a little not at home with what is going on around me. But of course, who am I kidding?  I may have started off with that intention, but as soon as I had even an inkling of what was in my peripheral vision, I avoided it, tensed against it, and ran from it.  Just like I have always done.   No big surprise there.

And to be honest with you, I'm not entirely sure what is in my peripheral vision that I am running from.   Of course, when a lawyer starts a sentence with "to be honest with you," your best course may be to run for the hills because what follows and the truth may be two very separate things.  But all joking aside, let me take a swing at it.   I think what is the biggest confusion I have in my life is how to react to the fear that I will sink into some dark abyss that I will never get out of unless I resist or do something now.  Like I must start swimming now or I will drown.    Like I'm being sucked down into a downward spiral of depression and craziness and fear I can never get out of unless I start thinking positive thoughts now.   That I am about to lose my mind, and I must find somebody anybody to talk to because if I keep listening to myself and my own mind I will go crazy.  This doesn't happen all the time, thank God.  But this is exactly what I was doing during my forth night of plant medicine at Rhythmia:  I was running either from some sort of mind state which I equated as an unending death or a pack of men with dubious intentions if I did not resist.  And its not like these practices of resistance haven't worked to some degree for me over the years in a variety of situations.  For example, the same impetus got me out of my apartment on a Friday night in a strange city when I didn't know anyone.  But I know half the people now in this stinking town and I still am unsettled.  And this feeling seems a different animal that what I have felt before and strikes an entirely different if not discordant chord.   

Over the years the universe has been giving me all sorts of messages probably starting from my early days of zen that struggling against this fear may not be the best therapeutic approach to it.  Now almost almost every book I read and every podcast I listen to has the same message:  Acceptance is the path to liberation.   Ok, I get it.  I mean sure, if there were really jungle tigers running after me, fighting or running from them might be the best option.  But there are no physical tigers here.    And maybe, just maybe, little by little, I am settling into the fear.   Just a bit.   But make no mistake, the training wheels are still very much attached to my bicycle and I'm still afraid of wrecking it.  So when you call up that shrink in Beverly Hills, and ask about me, you know the one, Dr. Everything be alright, instead of asking him how much of your time is left, she might tell you that I have unilaterally decided that I'm not going to let the elevator bring me down, bruce.

But wait, there is more, the after-world.   You can always see the sun, day or night.  And in the after-world,  I have had two people recently tell me that crows are their spirit animals or "familiars."  They are both drummers--go figure.   I'm not sure whether this is a good omen or a bad omen for them.  Maybe I'm getting a crow confused with a raven, which has more nefarious connotations.  In any event,  I think I told them both that I don't have a familiar, but I wanted one. But the more I think about it, I am wrong.  There is a story about me running in the background.  A small little snarly animal perched on my shoulder.  And its not something I necessarily want.   Probably most people have a similar story going on to some degree.  It is the story of what  D.W. Winnicott's called the "false self."  The false self is created when the authentic self of a child goes into hiding for whatever reason during some portion of the child's development.   The false self grows up prematurely and becomes a rigid adaptive self, complying with outer requirements as best it can,  all the while protecting the authentic self from something.   What I'm getting at with this psychobabble is that I feel my gnawing feeling of being disconnected from reality, or lack of grounding in relationships is related to growing tension between my authentic self and this false self.   I have an intuition that my current life is an illusion because in some sense it might be as it is transformed by the false self.   And unlike my friends who have some sort of spirit animal or guardian angel, I feel more and more that I have nothing to fall back on without effort on my part.  That is the unsettling feeling.

They preach this kind of stuff almost every day at Rhythmia.  The whole purpose of plant medicine is for the false inauthentic self to be reunited with authentic self.   And I suppose that's why I want to go back there, to take another run at it.  That's what I do.  I keep trying.  But as trying may be another form of resisting, may I be more nuanced.  May I see what I am doing, and when that uncomfortable feeling occurs again, when that little snarly animal on my shoulder infects me with the venom that I feel I must get rid of, may I remember not to try or resist, but let it run its course.  After all, the venom is not really death, but a more authentic self trying to break though in the only way it can. 

But in the meantime, there are new adventures awaiting me, even though they are not of my choosing.    The winds of fate have blown my ship away from its port that I seem to have gone in an out of for the past seven years.  There is an entire sea open to me now.  There is a reason behind this.  Maybe someday it will all be in more focus.