Springfield First Night Open Mic--December 31, 2018

A Vast Oceanic Planet Filled with Algae which helps you Float

I don't remember exactly how it happened, but I was in a bad place.  A very bad place.  I don't remember where it was or how long I had been there, but it was bad and we were escaping somehow.

Then we were over this huge ocean.  And we were on a train track high above the ocean.  Just a track in the middle of the air with no support. Riding in a train high above the sea.

But before I knew it the track was going to end  and there was a long gap in the air to reach the other side.  And there was no way we would  make it.  Not riding this heavy train.  But we had already made the leap.

And of course we did not reach the other side.  I could have told you that.   We descended rapidly.   We were going to hit the ocean and there was no way that we would ever survive the fall. Not from that height.   I watched us hit the ocean from a distance.  And we skidded and tumbled and skidded and tumbled and I knew that even if we were still alive that we were going to sink soon and drown because the waves were high and there was no way were could ever swim because were were on a planet that was nothing but one big ocean.

And when we didn't sink  I was surprised and grateful because we floating in what seemed like an infinite forest of algae, and the water was kind of the color of Campbell's Tomato soup.  And it was kinda warm and not all that unpleasant.  And I was glad I was there with someone else throughout this whole thing.  But I don't remember who they were.

Then I started to think that I would spend the rest of my life floating in this ocean.  And the thought scared me because I thought that maybe i had already died and this was some sort of afterlife on a strange planet and that this was all I had to look forward to for the rest of eternity.

Then we must have floated up to some building that must have been in the ocean. It seemed like a town and there were all sorts of forbidden things going on in the town.  I don't remember what they were, but I was doing the forbidden things as well.  It must not have seemed forbidden at the time, but it sure did feel that way after  I woke up.

and There were bad people in this town also.  I think we had to keep escaping them in ways that did not seem possible at the time. But each time we did, I felt like some improbable thing had happened and we kept surviving.

Now I know what you are thinking.  That this was all a dream.  And it was about my birth or some birth that someone  had somewhere else at some other time or place.  And reality is like that.  You keep expanding and contracting, expanding and contracting, changing forms and changing places.

 And none of us really know what that bad place is we are always escaping from .

 But I know at some level the infinite sea of algae is always always always always all around us.

And if we lay back, and don't look, and don't think about it, we can float in it any time we want.

Fred Flintsone's Feet

There is a place you can never reach.

But if you puke long enough and hard enough

enough to get it all out

like Fred Flintstones's feet

touching the ground

you can move the show forward

or you so think.

There is a place you can never reach

its a clammy tale

stepping twice in what you think is the same river

following instructions

to a game which ended

long before you were born.

There is a place you can never reach

if you really want to go that way

vibrating in the air

like George Jetson's maid

ready to clean up your decomposing mess

one piece at a time

You are Part of it All

You are part of it all.

I never thought of it that way.

Not separate from the universe, but part of it.

It seems so simple.

What you do think or share is not a solitary experience

For you are part of the universe, and the universe is part of you--what goes on through you is part of it all.

This is not an abdication of responsibility, but a sort of homecoming.

So stick your left palm out, and feel the energy coming in.  For it is all you and you are all of it.

and of course the dirty little secret, whispered into your ear--You don't exist:-).

Waiting for Birth

Let me put forth the proposition, that you can petition the Lord with prayer

Petition the Lord with prayer.  Petition the Lord with prayer.

Wow, that's an echo from the past.  Ironically, the only people who would get that are dead now.  Or are they?

Let me put forth a related proposition---or I should say related metaphor:

We are all in a vast womb.  You can call it Plato's cave if you want.  The details are not important.  A fish does not realize that she is in an ocean.  Or does she?

Where ever this place is--it is filled with echos originating from somewhere, someplace we do not understand.  Perhaps in some ways we cannot understand the echos in our current incarnation.

To many the echos make all sorts of connections and synchonicities that make no sense in the warm embrace of the amniotic fluid.

Those among us who are smart and have come up with all sorts of creative ideas about what the echos are.  Some say they are spirits, some say Gods, some say aliens.

When we burst out, what will we see?

Everything we had known, seen or felt will be transformed in ways that we could never comprehend until we experienced it.  Vast kingdoms of politics, despair and suffering will disappear like so many sandcastles in the tide.

Are you ready for it my dear---can you be ready for it my dear?

The Gateless Gate

There is magic in ordinary life.  The supposed dichotomy between the physical and spiritual realms is false.  Magic is all around us.  We don't see it, because we see it everyday and our habit blinds us.  Effort is required.  Psychedelics make it easier to see the magic, but they are unnecessary.

In zen there is the concept of the gate-less gate.  We have to pass through the gate even though it is in some sense not there.  Effort is required.

The effort can be an act of surrender, or an act of intention.  Where we put on attention is where our energy goes. Where our energy goes shapes our intention, and our reality.

We are a constant work in progress.  We play a role in finding the current of the present.  We can abdicate that role.  Or we can participate.

We can't always get what we want.

How to Sit with Someone Having a Difficult Psychedelic Experience

Here is what I feel after the MAPS training and my own thoughts in getting ready for the podcast today:

First I imagine creating a space for just listening to the person having the difficult experience.  Don't say anything.  I imagine doing gassho (bowing) just to let them know you are there.  I think back on my experience and believe that anything they were trying to give me would be misinterpreted.  For example, don't offer them water.  It may be misinterpreted as offering them alcohol to keep them asleep and in an eternal hell realm.  Yes, some people think like that in extremis.   I don't necessarily know who, but....

I guess the key would be to listen.  That's basically the best thing to do in any situation I suppose.  Anything you say or do may provoke a negative reaction.   I remember being told that I was having a bad trip.  I did not understand what that meant and it only added to the confusion.

On an intentional level, creating an intention of support and openness would make sense.  Create a space for them for the experience to play themselves out.

The MAPS training also offered other interesting insights:

(1) Be completely honest.  In the heightened state, the person can cut though the bullshit.  I remember in my own experience I could sense that the shaman were afraid for me.  They probably didn't want any shenanigans on their watch.  The shaman from Columbia was not phased.  But the american shaman's were.  Keep that in mind.  If you are afraid for them, tell them, you are right I am afraid, but I'm always afraid and we can get through this....

(2)Match their energy levels.  If they are rolling on the ground join them.  Don't occupy any position designating authority.  Don't stand over them. 

If they are jumping up and down, do the same.  I remember jumping up and down during my adventure.

Abundance is All There Is

The title says it all.   The eternal surrender into the divine presence.

And Sam Harris, what a wonderful manifestation.  I listen to you and your dissection of your life and I just smile.   You learned this from this person at this time, and then learned that from that guru later on and now in a linear manner  you are this realized person.  Wow.  That is so not my experience.  See, things are changing around here.   So much in flux.  Not so much that people who forget history are condemned to repeat it, but the humility that its all just a process of letting go, rather than acquiring knowledge.  Its more about listening.  What is the universe telling me.  Nothing is forgotten.  When I need to hear something I learned in the past, it is manifested for me again as if by divine memory.

But at the same time, the whisperings of the occult voices and you realize that you can choose your trajectory.

None of this makes any sense.  Its just the laughter.  The play.  The hear and now.   The abundance.

Inner Dialogues

The notion of inner dialogues has been cropping up for me in all kinds of contexts.  Here is one:

"Dear Dr. xxxxx, mid-November sounds great.  Let
me know what dates/times you would be available to do this.  Do you have
zoom/skype? 

In narrowing the topics, do you have any
specific interests that are resonating with you currently? I would be
happy to read whatever your would suggest since we have a bit of time to
hopefully prompt me to ask better questions.  We could discuss
"Hush" or any of your other works, its up to you.  What really
struck me about you recent interview is your description of entering into a
dialogue with the dream material.  I'm fascinated by this idea not only in
the dream context, but the context of meditation, the context of a plant
medicine journey, and the context of our "default" mode life.
When thoughts or images arise--adopting the mindset of "what are you
showing me/teaching me" seems to be a very interesting way of
relating  to just about anything that arises in mind.  Its
not a passive process--which is what I sense my relationship has been with
my prior meditation practice, but active.  

Have a great week.... Mike"

This kind of relationship with phenomena suggests all kinds of things:  (1) that there is an opaque distinction between the inner world and the outer world.  What arises in each, be it a thought, or a "real" person can be a "spirit"..lol  to learn from; (2) it is not a passive process--you must institute the dialog--and you have a choice.  I think it makes some degree of sense that the visitors who remain with you longer have more to teach than the fleeting ones; (3) you are not your thoughts.  What you are is something that can interact and to some degree chose; (4) This strikes a balance between your own intentions, and what the universe is actually trying to tell you; (5) the practice is to ascertain what the message is -- or what your course of action should be.   Be safe out there.  Or should I say, in here?  

Walking Along Losantiridge

First look at the things as keenly and intently as you possibly can:  then only let the feelings which expands to life and the thought which arises  in your soul to take possession of you...Indeed, the more often the attention  can be fixed alternatively upon something growing, blossoming, and flowering and upon something else that is fading and decaying--the more vivid these feelings will become.  So will the organs of clairvoyance build themselves out of the feeling and thoughts of the evoked. 

Steiner.

You are exactly where you are supposed to be.  The energy you feel is exactly what you need at this time.

Embrace it.

It is fear that keeps you from being where the universe wants you to be. 

Go into the stream like a warrior and turn it into love.

Tom Petty is Dead. He Just Doesn't Know it Yet.

I was looking outside at a pool party and Tom Petty was playing there.  He had a band with him, but it was not the Heartbreakers.  He was kind of hunched over playing guitar.  I did not think anything about it.  For I was at a pool party last weekend, and there was a band playing, and I was not comfortable there.  Of course, earlier in the summer, I was at a festival on the Wyoming/Idaho border and Keller Williams was playing Tom Petty covers with a bluegrass band.  And I felt that life made sense.  But that is another story and not related to the current narrative.  Or is it?

Then later I was on an airport concourse next to the pool party.  At that time, and not before, I remembered that Tom Petty was dead.  I had this strange non-rational experience, to which I've been having more lately to the point where I knew that Tom Petty was dead, and yet that knowledge was not inconsistent with the fact that he was playing guitar next to me at the pool party.  The universe ultimately is not about cause and effect.  Please don't ask me to explain this.  It might have something to do with quantum physics where what we see is not based on mass, or time, but rather on probability and consciousness.  Or it might have something to do with theta brain waves.  But that is saying too much.  He was in the other room despite the fact that he was dead.  And I was privileged to be aware on some level of what was going on.
Then the thought crept in my mind that this was some sort of VR simulation where I could go back in time and tell him that he should go to a hospital right away to avoid his death.  It did not seem like too far of a leap to take at that time.
Then much later, I was still at the airport but I woke up.  I was very groggy.  I felt my face looked old, but it might have been the young people who were waking up next to me.    I remember thinking what a strange dream I had had with Tom Petty and VR.
Then there was something on the news about some sort of Republican victory in an election.  It was an upset.  I was watching the scene unfold as an observer.    But the thought crept in my mind that somehow this was related to the graphic novel called the Invisibles and that the Invisibles were behind the victory somehow.  It had something to do with taking the difficult path in life, where the path of handouts was related to some sort of occult dependence.   Like I said before, for some reason the universe is ultimately not about our feeble attempts at rationality or cause and effect.
Then I was on some sort of conveyor belt at the airport presumably for luggage.  I went though what seemed like an endless series of box shaped rooms.  Each room I entered, the far wall would open up to expose another room.  I became anxious that the air would run out of the what seemed like endless series of rooms.  But the air did not run out.  I exited the conveyor belt, and eventually I must have woke up.

Top Ten Things Overheard at an Ayahuasca Ceremony

10.  The aliens appeared and performed surgery on me and gave me a new heart.
9.  I am called to let go of the things that no longer serve me.
8.  The "upper" me came down and started telling the "lower" me, "I love you, you are so beautiful."
7.  The plants told me to do it.
6.  Set your intentions to work with the medicine.
5.  "I'm ok, I'm here with you, its going to be ok, I love you."
4.  The music touched off an outpouring of love pouring in from everywhere and filling up the gaping hole in my heart.
3.  It was like 40 years of psychotherapy in one night.
2.  I made an agreement with Mother Ayahuasca to do the work.
1.  The answer is "You", especially if that goddamn snake stops biting you.

The Dark Side of the Sun, Ch. 2. (One Year Anniversary)

1.  We are all going to die.

2.  When we do, something incredible will happen that is beyond our wildest imagination.  We will return to what we always were, and always have been.

3.  At the moment of our death, our life will feel like a wonderfully strange dream.

4.  I'm not telling you something that at some level you don't already know.

5.  This is our shared destiny:  Black, White, Christian, Muslim, Jew--every combination or permutation between and beyond.

6.  Enjoy the journey.

7.  Everything you read or experience that tends to bring people together is probably worth a look.

8.  The best pop song in the last 50 years might be the Beatles' "All You Need is Love."

9.  If you disagree with any of the above, in the words of Bill Murray's character in the 1979 Movie, Meatballs, "It Just Doesn't Matter."

A Vast Oceanic Planet Filled with Algae that Helps you to Float

I don't remember exactly how it happened, but I was in a bad place.  A very bad place.  I don't remember where it was or how long I had been there, but it was bad and we were escaping somehow.

Then we were over this huge ocean.  And we were on a train track high above the ocean.  Just a track in the middle of the air with no support. Riding in some kind of train high above the sea.

But before I knew it the track was going to end  and there was a long gap in the air to reach the other side.  And there was no way we would  make it.  Not riding this heavy train.  But we had already made the leap. 

And of course we did not reach the other side.  I could have told you that.   We descended rapidly.   We were going to hit the ocean and there was no way that we would ever survive the fall. Not from that height.   I watched us hit the ocean from a distance.  And we skidded and tumbled and skidded and tumbled and I knew that even if we were still alive that we were going to sink soon and drown because the waves were high and there was no way were could ever swim because were were on a planet that was nothing but one big ocean.

And when we didn't sink  I was surprised and grateful because we floating in what seemed like an infinite forest of algae, and the water was kind of the color of Campbell's Tomato soup.  And it was kinda warm and not all that unpleasant.  And I was glad I was there with someone else throughout this whole thing.  I don't remember who they were though

Then I started to think that I would spend the rest of my life floating in this ocean.  And the thought scared me because I thought that maybe i had already died and this was some sort of afterlife on a strange planet and that this was all I had to look forward to for the rest of eternity.

Then we must have floated up to some structure that must have been in the ocean. It seemed like a town and there were all sorts of forbidden things going on in the town.  I don't remember what they were, but I was doing the forbidden things as well.  It must not have seemed forbidden at the time, but it sure did feel that way  after  I woke up.

There were bad people in this town also.  I think we had to keep escaping them in ways that did not seem possible at the time. But each time I did, I felt like some improbable thing had happened and I kept surviving.

Now I know what you are thinking.  That this was all a dream.  And it was about my birth or some birth I had somewhere else at some other time or place.  And reality is like that.  You keep pushing boundaries, keep changing forms and places.  And you may be right.   For none of us really know what that bad place is we are always escaping.  But I know at some level the infinite sea of algae is always all around us.  and We can access it every now and then when we are not looking.

Magical Thoughts Part 2

When you step through the gate, it all falls away

the land of budding bibles

the religion before it becomes religion

the words before they are spoken

the immortality before birth

before our magical conjuring

takes it all away



You do control everything

but if you move to grasp it

it is gone

and what is the use of that split second

stretched to eternity?



so we prop up our sigil

the ornately decorated selfie

until the vibrations remind us

that this is not real

breathing deep

we repeat the mantra

we see the lights

and step back through the gate

Magical Thoughts, Part I

Our words create/conjure the universe.  Be careful what you think, and especially what you say.  Michael Beckwith via Duncan Trussel

Fear is the membrane between what you know and something new.  Jack Kornfield

What your mind is pre-occupied with is likely based on an overestimation of some external threat. Kornfield via Kokal

We are creating the universe at each moment.  Meditation allows us to drop down into pure awareness.  Dean Radin

The mind is the filter of the the bandwidth of the universe.  Psychedelics shut down the filter and allow more the mind to receive more of the bandwidth.  When we die, the filter dissolves.  We become what we were all along, only much more expansive and not reduced.  Huxley via Kripal via Kokal.

Praying to God is just listening.  God responds by just listening   If you do not understand this, I cannot tell you.  Mother Theresa.

Go to where you are uncomfortable as a way to dis-identify with the ego and sit with it.

We are all individualized expressions of the unity that is God.  Wayne Dwyer.

You do not get what you want, you get what you are, and what you create the space to be.

Align yourself with the highest energy/spirit state.  Be in service of it.  Create the space for the spirit to move.  That is the magic/witchcraft.   Pam Goodman

The universe wants us to grow and thrive.  It does not care about our temporary pain in getting there.  Aubrey Marcus.

You find in reality the patterns you are looking for because reality contains everything and is everything.  Jason Louv via Kokal. 

Layman Pong.  The chisel and the awl are the same.  Everything you say or experience is the true enlightened experience, even suffering. 

Even when we are not expressing it, we are expressing it.  Everything we say or do is the way. 

Give yourself away at all times, in all situations.  Plant medicine. 

The intention to enter the interconnected field. 

Collaboration #2: St. Paul/Springfield

HP:  I'm kind of mental with my eyes closed at a point

we can't renege simple conversation

when you love to hear the spiciest crown peace that only a moment can capture

her eyes sweet Hazel like honey lips drip like a lily pad smooth as baby pillow

the only Reflections prayers will pass.

Slow to approach Vibe so ecstatic  I felt emphatic Ohh, Lord!

My form to lower my gaze of Attraction this woman you can only be me imagine

Jane Kennedy Imam with Aaliyah smile no make up hairless flaw



MK: Prototypic irrationality

Merging out of elevated nature

the infinite seed

brilliantly despoiled

Spewing Sharia

Between the money shots

of the myriad Congress



HP: Without a mistake from the south I so why they deliver the smile Artistry or toes no flaw

the pain i can always remember

Halloween Candy Corn

we met early September what year glamour had my thoughts

like a swimmer voice

represented presents with that Elegance of Intelligence and relevance the question. echo.



MK:  Dramatic music

Blended past the creamy sip

Bodies beyond cage free

A fire at the old school yo

and yer shit burned down

spoiler alert

Nicotina Rustica

We are being drawn to grow and thrive
though it might not feel like it
the universe does not care about temporary pain.
Indeed, we are not in charge
I am not me
there is so much more than what we think we are.

So we can let the spirit move us.
During the day, channelling the flow as best we can
and at night letting the boundaries completely dissolve
relax into not knowing
and when discomfort arises, create space for it to move inside us
to the higher destination

We are being drawn to grow and thrive
though  it might not feel like it
and I look back and I remember what it felt to be separate from this process
and laugh
even when we think we are not expressing it, when we feel isolated and separate
we are always expressing it
Everything we say do feel or express is the way

We are not in control.
It is all about expansion
and if you have one intention
let it be that
think big
feel the immenseness of it all
for it is not about ourself
it is about our potential.