he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
Mike Driver
Show & Tell
NASA
titsay
★
we're not kids anymore.
YOU ARE THE REASON
will byers stan first human second
roma★
Noah Kahan
EXPECTATIONS
No title available
d e v o n
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Andulka
Kiana Khansmith
cherry valley forever
if i look back, i am lost
official daine visual archive
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Malaysia
seen from Australia
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Japan
seen from United States
@thepsychedelicrecovery
I should have been blogging this whole time...
I can't believe I haven't taken the time to actually do writing in weeks. I can't believe I decided I shouldn't blogg. I need to write this down... I need to get this out... Things have been crazy... My next post will get deep.
...its’s been a while...
So it's been a while since ive posted, since I've written in fact. I think that was due to the fact that anytime I wrote I started to think about what happened around my birthday this year. And I was'nt quite ready to even look at it. Sometime you have to table issues, you have the lock them away in your brain so that you don't loose your mind untill a time when you have less on your plate and are able to approach them without laying in your bed everything waiting for the paint to peel off your walls, or your eyes to run out of tears.
But I think I'm ready to post a bit about it now, it's odd that no one may ever read this, that no one may ever care about what happened. But this simple act in its self is so cathartic. Writintg something for no one but yourself. So here we go.
So I had made plans for my birthday with a close friend of mine. I had speciffacly said, I dont really want to make plans because I would rather not do anything and just sorta let my birthday pass. And that was okay with me. She insisted, and we made plans for a girls dinner. Day of, I recieve a message from her saying that everyone and her boyfriend would rather do this and would I like to come. I having no commited to plans for my birthday and actually maybe got a little excited about it reluctuantly said sure to some fucking event with people I didn't even really know when it was my birthday. So obviously already upset with her and her just inconsiderate ways, really wanted to say nevermind ill just stay home. But no I called her after work, no answer, and got on the subway. An hour passed, no return call, two hours past, now im mad. And I think rightly so, how inconsiderate and selfish do you have to be to basicly ignore someone who you said was your friend on their birthday. And who has the fucking balls to pick up the phone and write a message with the contents, "My boyfriend and his friends are going here and I think we should go." Well I certainly knew my place in the equation, I don't fucking matter, like at all. It's more important to you to be with your boyfriend that maybe actually spend some one on one girl time with a friend who has litteraly never experienced a good birthday in her life, and just like everyother recent birthday she tried not to get her hopes up, but you couldnt even live up the the minniscule task that was going to dinner.
So finally after a couple hours I receive a text saying, "So apparently the event isn't untill next week. lol" And something to the effect of lets try to reschedule. And now im fucking furious. So lets recap, I reluctantly made dinner plans, those plans were changed by someone whos birthday it was not, turns out the event isnt untill next weekend anyway, someone whos birthday it was not cancels plans all together. Like what? Is that really what happened? I still can't even fucking believe it, that someone could really be that selfish. So presumably she sat at home, probably with her boyfriend, while I cried, on my fucking birthday.
The moral of this story is that anyone who disrespects you to a level that makes you cry, question your own sanity, or makes you question why your a friends in the first place. Isn't worth your time. The lessons about friendship on my brithday this year taught me alot, taught me to never settle for being treated like I am less than, and to not treat myself like im crazy. My gut is right, that discomfort I feel when someone is misstreating me is not a lie. And I need to learn to listen to it more.
The end of this storys is that after a little bit of fighting, and me trying to put up boundaries about our conversation, because due to my depression really intense conversations via text put me at risk for self harming behabiours and ultimatly being belittled and berated over text had me feeling like I should put my head through a wall, after I called her out to being selfish. I took a breather from the conversation to get my thoughts together and texted her back several days later saying "We are incompatable as friends, and I can't continue to be yours." And I thought it was over, but no the selfish behaviour continued, a message in my Inbox "Did you get my message about my book, I need my book back." I told her to fuck off, and messaged our mutual friend later that week so I could give him the book, I had asked him to return a shirt I had leant him for halloween and he obliged. I had stupidly assumed that because I was surrendering her book to her that she would return the items of mine that she still had. My fidget cube, the to go container of homemade soup I once brought her, just to be nice. But no, selfish. No regard for anyone but herself. Selfish.
I'm not holding my breath for an appoligie or anything, I know i'll never get one. I truly believe she doesn't realize she did anything wrong. And I know that when I tried to tell her she did something wrong she was so unreceptive to it, it cost us our friendship. Im just trying to move on in the best way I can. And writing this down has truly helped me a lot today.
Now I release you, to the bowels of the internet, where hopefully no one will find you. but hey like I give a fuck. Annonymous account.
Keep in mind that the full moon theme of relationships also includes the relationship you have with yourself.
"We set sail for places we do not know, only hoping for a glimpse if the shore."
Can't Sleep
Awake. Mind blank, yet some how racing. Vision. In darkness, it would take hold. Fear. Of these mystic apparitions, am I ready to know? Awake. Uncertain, eyes flutter shut.
Learning lessons is one thing, living them is another.
OOPS
Thought I was going to take San Pedro today and get some writing done. I mean I might get some, as Terrence would say "funny thoughts" down but fuck if im getting any real writing done today. Oops.
i hit rock bottom like every 2 weeks
I am sometimes totally lost from the world.
(via bad-habits77)
I still stand by my claim that if every person on this planet did shrooms just once, all wars would end and we would start living in harmony with nature and each other
Like a moth to a flame.
I have recently returned from another stint with Mother Ayahuasca. For which I feel very blessed. I have spent the last week settling into life and reaffirming or planning my new life path. And I think over the next little while I will really be able to sit down and do some writing. What I experienced has taken a while to integrate, it has taken a while for me to understand, there are elements I still don't understand. But I am looking forward to putting my thoughts into writing.
The beginning of the end.
A week ago I had dinner with Ayahuasca Family, three amazing men who I spent time with in Peru at a retreat. It was such a pleasure to see them all again and talk about life, integration of the gifts and lessons given to us by Ayahuasca, and how her influence has been playing out in our lives. I had the opportunity to tell them about the recent struggles in my life with addiction, and even opened up a dialogue with them about the turmoil I feel about working a program of recovery but wanting to continue my work with entheogens. It’s hard for me to summarize three hours of conversation that took place over dinner. But if you are aware of the feeling of peace in a group, how it feels to suddenly be with people who truly understand an experience that you have been through. When you see their faces, an excitement and a deep inner calm set in. To sit with friends who get what you are trying to say, who want to probe your mind for answers to questions about life, death, and the divine realm. Some of you reading this may not understand and that’s okay. In time you will, I can only surmise that if you have stumbled upon this blog and have no former experience with entheogens that there is a higher path at work here, one that will lead you to them when the time is right. I know in my experience that it took many years of reading, researching, and planning before I took my first steps toward Ayahuasca, in particular. It is not something I walked into lightly, and it was not something that I stepped into without great respect for the medicine. Being of native decent, I understand the importance of a guide through these experiences, and I myself would never take the risk of working with such a medicine without the help and guidance of a shaman and experienced peer support workers. Let me dive into one experience I had on the medicine that reaffirmed my respect and why I would never take the risk of working with it on my own. It was nine months ago when I had my second experience in Peru with Ayahuasca (second meaning second retreat all told it was my fifth time ingesting the brew), after putting my intentions into the brew and talking with the medicine I drank it down. I had come to Peru for help with my addiction. The help I got was of course was not in the form that I had dreamed it to be but we can circle back to that later posting. After nine long year of being a drunk and intermittent drug user, I was finally done with it. I wanted to stop, I wanted to get help, I just somehow thought Ayahuasca would “fix me” and I would go home and everything would be hunky dory. Sadly I was wrong, but happily, arguably, Ayahuasca gave me something better. She showed me my own fear around my problem, she showed me how I was always trying to take the easy way out, and above all she showed me how much bigger the problem was than I had thought. Immediately after dosing I felt sick, as I always did, I was the second to purge that night, it was terrifying for me as I threw up a hallucination into the bucket it expanded to consume my entire reality and when I took my head out of the bucket it became so real, so fast. I don’t remember immediately what I witnessed, it was the strongest Ayahuasca experience I’d ever had so I feel like it took my brain a lot longer than normal to understand what was going on, every other time I had taken the medicine it was a slow onset to a mild hallucination. This was so far beyond that, all I can remember from probably the first hour is the feeling of being extremely overwhelmed and violently ill. As I write this I am taken back to my first time in Peru, where I was ashamed to ask for help from the staff there, I had to get past that fear one evening during a ceremony where everything I was seeing was giant spiders, it took me about half an hour of raising and lowering my flashlight to the back wall before I actually admitted to myself and to everyone else there that I needed help and flashed the light three times on the back wall. That small act in its self was a huge step for me. Admitting that I needed help had always been a struggle for me since childhood. A second admission came in the second retreat a year later, as I take you back into the story I was just starting mere sentences ago. After being violently ill in the Maloca the hallucinations grew stronger and stronger, I tried to get up and leave to visit the toilet, but the visions were so strong I could barely see through them. I stumbled around trying to walk in a straight line to the door which I realized several steps in was a lost cause. I walked out of the Maloca, and I remember the hallway to the bathrooms seemed to go on forever, It was like I could see how long the path was but my feet could never move at a speed that correlated with what I was seeing or what I knew to be true. Eventually I made it to the end of the hall, I had several large purges upon reaching the bathrooms. At this point I believe the medicine kicked again, and I remember little else until I got up once again from my mat in the Maloca. It’s a little horrifying, and it’s quite astounding to me as I sit here recalling my version of the evenings events almost a year later, the gaps in my story, the lack of information at some points. I find myself as much the reader as the story teller for as the story pours from my brain, to my fingers, to this page I find myself saying things like “Oh good, I made it back to the Maloca. But wait, how did I get back there?” But I digress. It is at this point I remember getting back up and trying to leave again, feeling extremely over whelmed and honestly quite scared. Instead of trying with everything I had left of my own will to get out the door again, I turned to the Staff mat beside the door, on which I couldn’t even tell if there was a person. I said in a low voice to the darkness “I need help.” The rest of the evening is a series of trips to the bathroom, having my head in buckets, and getting in and out of the shower repeatedly. One of the staff trying to get me back into the Maloca later on was the most difficult part of the evening, they had given me a drink to bring the medicine down after my first shower and make my world a little more navigable, it is purely a mix of sugar, salt, water, lime and lemon juice. It works, but just like every time before in the face of adversity I took the easy way out again that night. It seemed after every hug, every whisper of “I believe that you can get back in there” I would return to the bathroom or need to get back in the shower. Only to return to the same place, the end of the path from the Maloca to the bathrooms only to hear more “You need to get back in there, that’s where the healing is.” I would always reply “I can’t.” Another staff member came to sit with me, the other feeling that maybe someone else would have more success getting me to go back in, and they did. After about a half hour of sitting by the bathrooms I finally went back in. I didn’t get much else done the rest of the ceremony, the battle I had had with myself was long and hard, and very much a battle I needed to have. I had let the other half of myself win so many times, I had let it control me at every turn, the half that says “You can’t do this, you’re not worth it, give up.” This was the first step I had taken to try to kill that half of myself. It was a small but very powerful first step. I woke up at the end of the ceremony soaking wet, my bed soaking wet, everything just soaking and it was almost as if I couldn’t figure out why then I literally said out loud “Oh yeah I took like 8 showers in my clothes!” This was the first evening of my 21 day retreat. And is truly a perfect example of how intense the work and experiences can be, if there had not been anyone there to help me that night who knows what could have happened. Opening yourself up to the spiritual world with no protection and no one to help you especially when you are dealing with some major issues can be really dangerous. I thank god for the experiences I had down there, and I thank Ayahuasca for setting them up and doing her best to keep it manageable for me. I am truly a better person for the lessons and the things that have become present in my life by the path that was laid out for me. And I could not be more excited or more nervous to see what is awaiting me when I return in 59 days. This was the beginning of the end of my active addicion, but we will leave that for a seperate entry. There is much more to tell. Untill next time.
Jonah by James Neilson | Tumblr
Weather the Storm. Sarah Zucker for The Current Sea, 2016.
Surrender, the fork in the road.
There is a fork in the road of my mind. At this fork stands a well-dressed gentleman. As I walk up to the fork in my mind’s eye, I notice him. He stands there dressed far too well for the middle of the woods, a dark three piece suit, with a red handkerchief in the lapel pocket. His face is kind, he smiles, time and the elements seemingly not shown on his face. He waves to me and I wave back.
"Evening!" He rejoices.
I exhaustedly reply "Is the road closed?" Wiping the sweat from my brow, I slow to a stop before him.
"Apologies, Yes the road is indeed closed, it needs a new pave and the bridge six miles down is unsafe."
"Shame.” I reply. “ I’m in such a hurry and had not anticipated such a delay on my journey, are you sure I can’t take the road?”
“I cannot advice you to make that choice Miss, but I also can’t stop you. Do as you will” He humorously retorts.
I laugh loudly and saunter past him and his sign stating Road Closed.
The road I walk now to my destination is about a two hour trip, six miles to the so called unsafe bridge. Walking down the worn road avoiding pot hole after pot hole, trying desperately not to turn my ankle in one. Panting at my misfortune, the road is indeed in worse condition than I had imagined, I approach the now clearly broken bridge, rolling my eyes. As I slow to a stop again I bellow out to know one. “Oh Joy! The bridge is barley a bridge anymore.” But I must press on, as now with only six miles left on this road, traveling the six miles in reverse is out of the question. I scratch my head, trying to determine the best course of action for crossing this dilapidated bridge. There seems to be a somewhat safe looking path across, it requires some bobbing and weaving but nothing I can’t handle. Trotting along I approach the bridge, hope and courage in my heart, taking my first steps with certainty, but hearing the wood moan and groan under my feet, that certainty begins to melt away. I begin to count my steps, as if somehow reciting the steps I take will make my journey across this bridge safer. 10 Steps in, I hear wood begin to splinter, my heart now in my throat I take another long but quick stride, followed by another, followed by two more. I take that fifth step, and suddenly the remainder of the bridge is giving way underneath my feet. The sound of wood breaking and splintering is all around, it is the only sound I can hear above my pounding heart. As I fall, into the icy waters below, my only thought is of how I made this decision on my own. How a 20 minute detour seems like no problem at all right now, but alas this is the choice I made, and that thought sadly does little to comfort me. I fall into the icy waters below, hitting the surface like a rock through a pane of glass, I lose consciousness as I hit the water. And all goes black.
You see, giving up control, admitting that you have no power over the situation has become one of my greatest tools this time around in recovery. As per this story of the fork in the road of my mind, giving up control, admitting that I am powerless over the closed road and taking that detour. If I want to remain safe I have to give up control. If I want to keep my life together and not face the perils of a life of self will run riot, I must condition myself to always take the safer path. Yes it may take me out of my way, yes it may seemingly take longer than I anticipated but if it is safer for me, it is part of god's plan. God’s plan isn’t for me to run willy nilly down a road of known danger. Yes the safer road may have perils of its own but if they should present themselves they are unknowns and are in no way directly my doing. Taking the dangerous path in life will always bring about known unknowns, where in I know danger is everywhere, I know something could happen to me at any point, I know I walk closer to death than life but I am willing to accept these unknowns, thus putting my life in constant danger. Which is a high of its own, but we can get to that at some other point.
