Drink Of Life

Drink of life- like my mother did once.
Not alone in the bedroom, she opened and took and the pungent seeds of time spilled into the darkness of space alight with imagination and moans and shrieks and luminous suns.
Let the blackness talk and whisper the secrets of life eternal, but do not mistake the body as its only source.  The sky is full and traveling is not done only in carbon and flesh.
Drink of life like my mother did once.
Then drink again.
Water like my father did once.
Again drink.
Like my father.
Forever is not the end.
End. 
There is only eternal
Return. Again.
Eternal return.
Again.
Eternal return.
Again.

An endless loop of purple and black, we sit in this circle and live out the revolution.
Time shifts as this carpet accepts our weight. As the walls hold us in and the black curtains postpone the sunlight from our eyes. 
We go back into the dream state and journey through darkness and quiet spaces while the walls melt like jelly. We walk through them, licking the paint until our tongues taste like ocean water. 
We circle back and flow in and out of the speckled windows, hearing the squeaks and moans of cars rounding the corner and delivery trucks halting by the door. The walls hold us in, ever intent on their quiet role, their shelter against the demanding brightness of day.  
Grinding and sliding through the maze of our consciousness- like a serpent, the circle comes back once again. It is my turn to speak. 
Cycle.
The ends are woven perfectly together and for once the ends of our fingertips flow out and back in like wisteria branches. Perfectly pungent and delicate- we glow imperceptibly in the darkness behind the curtains. Eventually the walls take in our vibration and the light between you and I starts to move like heat off a desert floor. Though my eyes are closed, I dance and dance, hoping over sand and the scent of old gun smoke and greased leather.
What is this space? I hear my mind ask. Never content to let the eyes talk for us, to let time shift and strain and begin to rewind and then leap forward in a spiraling dance around the circle of our words. And back again, receding into the darkness between the black curtains.
Endless circles as our fingers and toes merge back into roots and trees.

Eternal return.
Again.
Eternal return.
Again.

The Time Has Come

The mind is the most underused tool, the thing lost in the bottom of a cluttered drawer. We might hold hammers and pencils and drive small cars on smooth streets, but the organ guiding the movements, instructing the nervous system, sending the signals, is just another bit of trash on an already crumpled body. Locked in a skull is the open receptacle, filled since birth with words, concepts, mores, judgement, experience, desire and complete identification. Thoughts are not our own. They come from carefully constructed wants that have been created in skyscrapers, pushed by clever campaigns. We carry the thoughts of parents, grandparents, teachers, priests, friends, TV characters, imaginary situations and claim them as our own. The mind believes that it is real… the mind believes this body is its own…complete and right and unique. This mind has twisted and crumbled into itself, believing that it acts on its own thoughts and impulses, but the mind is a slave. A slave to thoughtfully programmed desires, a servant to the machine self, a slave to the belief of “me” and “them.” The coils are passed from one generation to another. Chains pass through rivers, through centuries and cultures. We are slaves with the illusion of power. Empty vessels with the illusion of individuality and choice. These thoughts transcend all matter, they seep into everything until at last, it is time. For very few, it might be time, for the masters control the locks and keys. They have manipulated the politics of society and corrupted the laws and legislated against colored vision. But if it is time, you may shed the brain you know. The bars of skin and heavy gifts of the ancestors may drop just for a little while. The fear of the Other may evaporate like warm rain and you may feel a tug that pulls you closer to the earth. An indescribable sensation may hold you deeper and firmer than you have ever experienced. The candle may flicker long enough for the purest light to burn itself in the dark center of your chest. Step out of reality, step beyond the thick black lines and into the realm of the Real.
It is time.
It is time to understand that there is much more than you have ever seen, much more than you have ever understood, much more than you have ever been taught.
It is time.
The mirror stands waiting.

Salvia

Safe, protected, secure, assurance, risklessness, invulnerability…
these words have cloaked us in artificial meaning and false reality.
The powers of the world have tried to establish some semblance of order and control, mostly through laws establishing separating all actions into two main categories- legal and illegal.
Where we were once connected with tribes and leaders, healers and wise elders, we are now, for the most part, small nuclear units in a larger world, held together by national borders, language, government.
The universe is still wild, uncontrollable, and unpredictable. Stars are created and burst, earthquakes open the earth, humans continue to die despite modern technology.
There is so much out of our hands.
Instead of accepting this fact, embracing beauty in an existence of chaos and moving artfully with the flow of energy- we struggle, we crave safety. Our wise leaders have no place in this society- there are simply too many people, like sheep we move and exist- the government, like punitive, cautious parents, holding tight to their rigid ideologies and morals, makes the decisions.
They decide what is good and bad for us. Laws are crafted- determining what is legal and illegal, moral and immoral.
The US government has clear definitions of what is safe. Non-safe things, whether they are substances, food, plants, etc. are illegal, supposedly to protect us.
The government has declared marijuana, LSD, opium and many other plants/drugs dangerous. Dangerous for our bodies, minds, society, children…most of these substances have been known to alter-reality, to change the user, to offer a new experience or frame of mind.
Salvia. Also known as diviner's sage, "magic mint" or "Sally D", Salvia divinorum is a white-and-blue-flowered sage plant that grows in the Oaxaca mountains in Mexico.
It has been used for centuries by the Mazatec people in shamanistic rituals and in healing.
Salvia is legal in the US, but with the increasing popularity and out-of-body experience it can offer, the government will no doubt be banning it soon- these experiences are deemed dangerous.
And perhaps they are.
Shamanistic rituals have never had a safety seal. To truly live- to be alive, to awaken is uncomfortable, scary, and dangerous.
There is danger as the machine perceives a threat, there is danger while moving against the current.
Wise leaders do not necessarily discourage danger.
Within a ritual, there are elders, knowledgeable about the plant, the effects, etc. and they can offer guidance within a specific ritual and experience.
Most of us now are alone, without this essential element, and when experiences have gone beyond our own control, when they begin to be scary, we become terrified and desire safety. The saftey of routine, the risklessness of normal life.
Salvia is touted as a legal "high."
But these plants were not traditionally used as recreation, for a "high." They were sacred, and still are, to be used with respect and fear, with clear intention.
They are powerful, and thus, in the eyes of this government, this society based on fear and image- very dangerous.
When used, perhaps one will never be the same.
But that is the purpose.