Sitting around nearly all weekend in a narcotic daze is hard to call a serious entheogenic experiment, but then I'm really doing all this half-assedly, like a blind man throwing a handful of darts at the board, all at the same time, and figuring the odds are something will hit. Then, I'm also shaking off some culturally preconceptions of usage, in the sense that drugs like cannabis have always been considered escapist leisure activity, with no redeemable qualities per se. Then there is the fact that I actually spent a couple hours at work today wondering if I should actually say I smoked hash this weekend, as if the eyes of The Man are just waiting for a 34 year-old security guard with latent anarchist tendencies to slip up and bring me down for rebelling against the powers-that-be. Right now, I can only aspire to be that dangerous. You know, like Abbie Hoffman dangerous. This is supposed to be an honest, if humorous, chronicle of my life, so if I cadge words for some social or legal fear, then I am going against the freedoms I aspire. I smoked alot of hash this weekend. If the Man was coming for me, he would have gotten me for my plan to use the homeless to watch the nation's borders. Satire, the deadliest art.
My results are slipshod more because of my lack of linear method, than by reliance on alternative tools. Not that I should create an intricate experimental-functional model before I do anything, because that would just feed the stasis I am trying to overcome. Even if I had access, and willingness, to use the "true" entheogens, like the psychedeics, I would still probably produce scattered results. I wish there was some Jewish shamanic tradition I could follow, but beyond Kabbalistic breathing exercises, I'm shit out of luck. (Even if I enjoy the image in my head of sitting with a group of Jewish elders, dressed only in loincloths, prayershawls, and odd fuzzy hats, around two huge sabbath candles, chanting a primitive Adon Olam, and sucking on pickled herrings until I pass out and have a vision of Rabbi Akiva.) So I will continue with cannabis and its derivatives, and keep researching into herbs and other substances that can add clarity without taking me way too out of my head. Least for now. I'm still trying to achieve what I am little ready for, expecting the arrival of the truth with the immediacy and immanence of a born-again Christian, thinking some times on the knees with the arms waving in the air is enough to bring God. Much as I despise it, just treating my body better, and sitting in silence some everyday might produce more. Then I can build on that foundation. I have to reexamine my unwillingness to do yoga, and that sort of thing, too.
It's not that this weekend's dabbling with hash was unrewarding or unfruitful. First off, I found that the time-dilation effect allowed me to "turn down the volume" on my backthoughts, due to the dispersion of tension, and construct some interesting lines of inductive logic and emotional deconstruction, but since I am still trying to reach further than my language will take me, I ended up losing the threads when the next node was beyond my mind to grasp. But that I could envision how I got there was a gain in itself. Probably the most interesting observation came from a repeat of last weekend's sensory quasi-deprivation, with the earplugs, prone, in a dark room. I didn't aim this time for some state of silence, because I realized I was still using some half-cocked Occidental definition, and just tried to hear my thought process. Basically to listen to my transmission from my neural net. It wasn't until today that I found the right metaphor to describe it. It's like being outside a building's generator room, hearing all the machinery humming away beyond concrete, feeding air and water to all parts of the building, but it's not like I am trying to get inside the generator room, but that the generator room is outside, and I can't get past the concrete. I know there is a door, but I can't see the door clearly, let alone the lock on the door. I think if I can practice meditation, in whatever form seems best, and I work out the pain and discomfort that comes from physical disuse, then I might be able to better refine the entheogenic experiences. But being pragmatic, I think I'll keep trying cannabis, on the side. I have to allow for the room to be surprised. So much of my life is not so much being smacked by epiphany, as it is having the baby grand piano of revelation dropped on my head from several stories.
I'm good long as I hold onto the marvel that I've come to such a place in my life, to be able to experiment like this. In alot of cases, the hypothesis of a life like mine usually ends up in terminal expiration before any results occur.
My results are slipshod more because of my lack of linear method, than by reliance on alternative tools. Not that I should create an intricate experimental-functional model before I do anything, because that would just feed the stasis I am trying to overcome. Even if I had access, and willingness, to use the "true" entheogens, like the psychedeics, I would still probably produce scattered results. I wish there was some Jewish shamanic tradition I could follow, but beyond Kabbalistic breathing exercises, I'm shit out of luck. (Even if I enjoy the image in my head of sitting with a group of Jewish elders, dressed only in loincloths, prayershawls, and odd fuzzy hats, around two huge sabbath candles, chanting a primitive Adon Olam, and sucking on pickled herrings until I pass out and have a vision of Rabbi Akiva.) So I will continue with cannabis and its derivatives, and keep researching into herbs and other substances that can add clarity without taking me way too out of my head. Least for now. I'm still trying to achieve what I am little ready for, expecting the arrival of the truth with the immediacy and immanence of a born-again Christian, thinking some times on the knees with the arms waving in the air is enough to bring God. Much as I despise it, just treating my body better, and sitting in silence some everyday might produce more. Then I can build on that foundation. I have to reexamine my unwillingness to do yoga, and that sort of thing, too.
It's not that this weekend's dabbling with hash was unrewarding or unfruitful. First off, I found that the time-dilation effect allowed me to "turn down the volume" on my backthoughts, due to the dispersion of tension, and construct some interesting lines of inductive logic and emotional deconstruction, but since I am still trying to reach further than my language will take me, I ended up losing the threads when the next node was beyond my mind to grasp. But that I could envision how I got there was a gain in itself. Probably the most interesting observation came from a repeat of last weekend's sensory quasi-deprivation, with the earplugs, prone, in a dark room. I didn't aim this time for some state of silence, because I realized I was still using some half-cocked Occidental definition, and just tried to hear my thought process. Basically to listen to my transmission from my neural net. It wasn't until today that I found the right metaphor to describe it. It's like being outside a building's generator room, hearing all the machinery humming away beyond concrete, feeding air and water to all parts of the building, but it's not like I am trying to get inside the generator room, but that the generator room is outside, and I can't get past the concrete. I know there is a door, but I can't see the door clearly, let alone the lock on the door. I think if I can practice meditation, in whatever form seems best, and I work out the pain and discomfort that comes from physical disuse, then I might be able to better refine the entheogenic experiences. But being pragmatic, I think I'll keep trying cannabis, on the side. I have to allow for the room to be surprised. So much of my life is not so much being smacked by epiphany, as it is having the baby grand piano of revelation dropped on my head from several stories.
I'm good long as I hold onto the marvel that I've come to such a place in my life, to be able to experiment like this. In alot of cases, the hypothesis of a life like mine usually ends up in terminal expiration before any results occur.
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