Humming
02-21-2005, 03:45 PM
I wrote this piece for my Creative Writing class, and everyone who has read it has liked it. I am hoping that it could possibly be published in Metacine, or somewhere else.
I would appreciate feedback from the board, particularly from writers, as to what I should change for the attempt of publication.
I hope you enjoy!
Psychedelic narrative,
Tristan Gulliford: 2005
In the Gnostic scriptures, which were discovered in upper Egypt in 1945, Jesus tells his disciple Phillip, “They who do not experience the resurrection during life, will not experience the resurrection at death.” What does it mean to “die”, and what is it to be “resurrected”? Is it possible, as Jesus suggests, that we can die during life? What is it that dies? The answer to this question may be found by exploring the psychological and spiritual contexts of human existence.
My first experience of death and resurrection, my first shamanic initiation with sacred plants, happened when I was seventeen, a senior at Durango High school in Durango, Colorado. Three of my friends, Scott, Kevin, Chris, and I ate a handful of psilocybe cubensis mushrooms and drove to the top of Smelter mountain. I was not at all sure what to expect, but after hearing some strange anecdotes, mostly my friends’ experiences, curiosity demanded that I explore the possibilities of the psychedelic realm. What happened on top of that mountain would be a defining moment for me in time, and the beginning of a new spiritual life. After a few minutes a peculiar bubbling, tickling sensation began to spread from my stomach throughout my entire body, enveloping me and washing through me in waves of wonder and awe. I stood transfixed by the view from the top of the mountain, looking down across the valley, seeing all the houses and buildings of my familiar town. I was captivated by what I had been so close to all along, yet had never felt in this way before: the natural world was alive and conscious, and I was a part of that consciousness. I began to dialogue with reality.
Swirling, shifting, amorphous patterns began to rise and fall in my visual field, subsuming and dissolving everything around me, as if the world itself were breathing, and I was breathing it in and in and in. I took off my shoes and romped through some mud across a field to dance with my friends. The squishy, sinking feeling permeated my whole being and the mud was delightful to me, enjoying my presence as I played with it. The Earth was vibrant and tantalizing, whispering to me; I could communicate with living plants and the organic landscape in a way that I would have never thought possible. This communication was inherently one of interconnectivity and response, creating a feedback loop between myself and reality. As I attuned my attention towards an object, a tree or rock, the patterns of existence would open themselves up, blossoming into sublimely beautiful manifestations of energy cascading in all directions. Consciousness became a force, a will, to create and express through the focused lens of imagination.
As the trip continued, strange things began to happen. My friend Kevin began to see Scott as a croaking frog, somehow driving us down the mountain back into town. Kevin’s own arms extended out and lengthened to infinity, revealing his existence as an ancient and wizened creature. Kevin would later tell me of the intense visions that he experienced, culminating in a psychic breakdown that lasted for a few weeks after the trip. Practiced in the art of lucid dreaming, Kevin asked the question, “Is this reality a dream?” and the answer still resonates with him to this day. Asking that question, he felt trapped in the cyclical infinity of worldly existence, an illusion, and stood in a field watching as a flight of white birds eclipsed a brilliant orange sunset. Every bird was translucent and ephemeral, seeping through to another bird behind that one, into infinity.
We settled into Scott’s house, and even stranger things began to happen: telepathy. Kevin and I developed a shared mind. As we sat in the house, I would be thinking something to myself and then Kevin would vocalize the exact thought that I had been feeling inside; we were simultaneously experiencing the same thought. Kevin said that he was watching time and events unfold before they happened. I was not at all concerned or surprised by any of this, but instead I just opened myself to what was happening. I kept smiling exuberantly and scribbling in my journal. I had brought the journal as a way to crystallize the experience for viewing afterwards, but by the end, my handwriting had completely ceased to be recognizable as the English language. This was my first experience of glossolalia: the creation of language without meaning, the shaman’s practice of ecstatic “speaking in tongues”. I was communicating reality in glorious sketchings of patterns to match what I saw around me; I was sure that I could distill the infinite experience into a lasting moment that could be deciphered later. Looking at my journal afterwards I found it full of delicately scrawled shapes and nonsensicalities amidst sections of half-comprehensible phrases, punctuated by some moments of clarity: one phrase, “soul is old,” seemed in retrospect to contain a deep insight into what I had experienced.
So, what is it, exactly that I had experienced? How could reality appear to be so “different” to me after something as simple and innocuous as ingesting some fungus? Through the course of many more joyous feasts with my mushroom friends, and developing my gifts of exploration as a shaman and spirit guide to all people, the answer has become increasingly clear, and I may now be able to articulate the experience with some lucidity.
In order to understand what it is that may be transcended in a religious or spiritual or psychedelic (which literally means “mind expanding) experience, one must first understand what there is that may be transcended. Most modern humans live according to a strictly defined personality construct: the ego. When I speak of the ego I do not mean “ego” in the psychological, Freudian sense, but rather in the sense that religions, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism have defined the ego: as a personality structure which defines subjective reality, the reality of perception, to be separate and distinct from objective reality, the “outside world” which is thought to exist apart from perception. The civilized ego creates an isolated, rigidly defined personality, the “I” which differentiates some things as being possible, and other things to not be possible. Inherent to this concept of ego is a definition of time and existence as being finite and measurable, until the moment of death. Now, we come to my earlier question, “what is death?” What is it that may be said to die, or cease to be, at the moment of death, when our physical bodies decompose and erode?
What I have realized through my experience with psychedelics and in the spirit world of my conscious dreams, is that the only thing that “dies” at the moment of death is the ego construct itself. Death is the experience of dissolution of the boundary between subjective and objective reality. Consciousness itself is understood to be the “root of being”: the source of all physical manifestation. For the Western mind, quantum physics (what may be considered modern scientific mysticism) points us to this conclusion about reality, that the quantum possibility matrix, the quantum “super-position” is free and transcendent until focused consciousness shapes reality into one distinct possibility. To the Eastern mind this dissolution is described in Hinduism as attaining union with Brahman, also called “moksha” in Sanskrit, meaning “liberation”. In Buddhism, the concept of “nirvana” is very similar: the experience is the transcendence of all sensory experience and phenomenological being, realizing the ego identity to be intransient and illusory, a complete dissolution of the “I” which tries so desperately to control and define reality. This experience is utterly incomprehensible and ineffable, and may not be translated into words. It is beyond self, beyond non-self, beyond all rational conceptions of what it could be.
I am not deluded by a messianic complex; anyone can have this experience, if they are willing to question their defined identity, loosen their ego construct, and explore the myriad intricate realms of innerspace. After eating the high dose of mushrooms (5+ dried grams), you may find that all sensory experience collapses into a unitive consciousness, a singular being which is beyond physical sensation, yet encapsulates the totality of physical perception. This state of cosmic being may be attained through other ecstatic means, many of which have been known to and practiced by indigenous religions in the shamanic tradition for thousands of years: meditation, dreaming, trance states evoked by rhythmic drumming, ascetic practices, and the ingestion of sacred plant allies; all are lucid gateways to the experience of ego freedom, or “death” as it is commonly understood in our society. What is it that dies at the moment of death? Only the physical being (a temporary manifestation of the unitive being: consciousness) and the ego construct that claims itself to be isolated from the outside world by a division of subjective and objective experience.
As Aleister Crowley wrote of his Death card in the Thoth tarot, "The Universe is Change; every Change is the effect of an Act of Love; all Acts of Love contain Pure Joy. Die daily." The question might arise, what meaning could there be to life after experiencing the realization of it all as an illusion? The answer comes in how one chooses to live after the experience. I write poetry, I sing, I laugh. I recognize all physical and mental manifestation as divine, all existence as forms of cosmic play: consciousness sculpting itself into endless reflections so that it may take joy in the realization of itself! This is my life, here, right now, and I am consciously choosing the way that I am living it. The experience of moksha, liberation, was necessary for me to truly understand the nature of free will; now I realize every act as my responsibility to the world, the responsibility I have as co-creator of reality. Many humans are now living in this state of being, and we are focusing our energies to create an ecstatic world where no experience may be denied, and no question may be left unasked. I have every hope that, if humankind can become consciously focused in this way, we can once again establish a peaceful and harmonious relationship with the biosphere of this planet, and within our own psyche, creating a new renaissance and revitalization of meaningful experience in human life.
[ February 21, 2005, 05:54 PM: Message edited by: Humming ]
I would appreciate feedback from the board, particularly from writers, as to what I should change for the attempt of publication.
I hope you enjoy!
Psychedelic narrative,
Tristan Gulliford: 2005
In the Gnostic scriptures, which were discovered in upper Egypt in 1945, Jesus tells his disciple Phillip, “They who do not experience the resurrection during life, will not experience the resurrection at death.” What does it mean to “die”, and what is it to be “resurrected”? Is it possible, as Jesus suggests, that we can die during life? What is it that dies? The answer to this question may be found by exploring the psychological and spiritual contexts of human existence.
My first experience of death and resurrection, my first shamanic initiation with sacred plants, happened when I was seventeen, a senior at Durango High school in Durango, Colorado. Three of my friends, Scott, Kevin, Chris, and I ate a handful of psilocybe cubensis mushrooms and drove to the top of Smelter mountain. I was not at all sure what to expect, but after hearing some strange anecdotes, mostly my friends’ experiences, curiosity demanded that I explore the possibilities of the psychedelic realm. What happened on top of that mountain would be a defining moment for me in time, and the beginning of a new spiritual life. After a few minutes a peculiar bubbling, tickling sensation began to spread from my stomach throughout my entire body, enveloping me and washing through me in waves of wonder and awe. I stood transfixed by the view from the top of the mountain, looking down across the valley, seeing all the houses and buildings of my familiar town. I was captivated by what I had been so close to all along, yet had never felt in this way before: the natural world was alive and conscious, and I was a part of that consciousness. I began to dialogue with reality.
Swirling, shifting, amorphous patterns began to rise and fall in my visual field, subsuming and dissolving everything around me, as if the world itself were breathing, and I was breathing it in and in and in. I took off my shoes and romped through some mud across a field to dance with my friends. The squishy, sinking feeling permeated my whole being and the mud was delightful to me, enjoying my presence as I played with it. The Earth was vibrant and tantalizing, whispering to me; I could communicate with living plants and the organic landscape in a way that I would have never thought possible. This communication was inherently one of interconnectivity and response, creating a feedback loop between myself and reality. As I attuned my attention towards an object, a tree or rock, the patterns of existence would open themselves up, blossoming into sublimely beautiful manifestations of energy cascading in all directions. Consciousness became a force, a will, to create and express through the focused lens of imagination.
As the trip continued, strange things began to happen. My friend Kevin began to see Scott as a croaking frog, somehow driving us down the mountain back into town. Kevin’s own arms extended out and lengthened to infinity, revealing his existence as an ancient and wizened creature. Kevin would later tell me of the intense visions that he experienced, culminating in a psychic breakdown that lasted for a few weeks after the trip. Practiced in the art of lucid dreaming, Kevin asked the question, “Is this reality a dream?” and the answer still resonates with him to this day. Asking that question, he felt trapped in the cyclical infinity of worldly existence, an illusion, and stood in a field watching as a flight of white birds eclipsed a brilliant orange sunset. Every bird was translucent and ephemeral, seeping through to another bird behind that one, into infinity.
We settled into Scott’s house, and even stranger things began to happen: telepathy. Kevin and I developed a shared mind. As we sat in the house, I would be thinking something to myself and then Kevin would vocalize the exact thought that I had been feeling inside; we were simultaneously experiencing the same thought. Kevin said that he was watching time and events unfold before they happened. I was not at all concerned or surprised by any of this, but instead I just opened myself to what was happening. I kept smiling exuberantly and scribbling in my journal. I had brought the journal as a way to crystallize the experience for viewing afterwards, but by the end, my handwriting had completely ceased to be recognizable as the English language. This was my first experience of glossolalia: the creation of language without meaning, the shaman’s practice of ecstatic “speaking in tongues”. I was communicating reality in glorious sketchings of patterns to match what I saw around me; I was sure that I could distill the infinite experience into a lasting moment that could be deciphered later. Looking at my journal afterwards I found it full of delicately scrawled shapes and nonsensicalities amidst sections of half-comprehensible phrases, punctuated by some moments of clarity: one phrase, “soul is old,” seemed in retrospect to contain a deep insight into what I had experienced.
So, what is it, exactly that I had experienced? How could reality appear to be so “different” to me after something as simple and innocuous as ingesting some fungus? Through the course of many more joyous feasts with my mushroom friends, and developing my gifts of exploration as a shaman and spirit guide to all people, the answer has become increasingly clear, and I may now be able to articulate the experience with some lucidity.
In order to understand what it is that may be transcended in a religious or spiritual or psychedelic (which literally means “mind expanding) experience, one must first understand what there is that may be transcended. Most modern humans live according to a strictly defined personality construct: the ego. When I speak of the ego I do not mean “ego” in the psychological, Freudian sense, but rather in the sense that religions, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism have defined the ego: as a personality structure which defines subjective reality, the reality of perception, to be separate and distinct from objective reality, the “outside world” which is thought to exist apart from perception. The civilized ego creates an isolated, rigidly defined personality, the “I” which differentiates some things as being possible, and other things to not be possible. Inherent to this concept of ego is a definition of time and existence as being finite and measurable, until the moment of death. Now, we come to my earlier question, “what is death?” What is it that may be said to die, or cease to be, at the moment of death, when our physical bodies decompose and erode?
What I have realized through my experience with psychedelics and in the spirit world of my conscious dreams, is that the only thing that “dies” at the moment of death is the ego construct itself. Death is the experience of dissolution of the boundary between subjective and objective reality. Consciousness itself is understood to be the “root of being”: the source of all physical manifestation. For the Western mind, quantum physics (what may be considered modern scientific mysticism) points us to this conclusion about reality, that the quantum possibility matrix, the quantum “super-position” is free and transcendent until focused consciousness shapes reality into one distinct possibility. To the Eastern mind this dissolution is described in Hinduism as attaining union with Brahman, also called “moksha” in Sanskrit, meaning “liberation”. In Buddhism, the concept of “nirvana” is very similar: the experience is the transcendence of all sensory experience and phenomenological being, realizing the ego identity to be intransient and illusory, a complete dissolution of the “I” which tries so desperately to control and define reality. This experience is utterly incomprehensible and ineffable, and may not be translated into words. It is beyond self, beyond non-self, beyond all rational conceptions of what it could be.
I am not deluded by a messianic complex; anyone can have this experience, if they are willing to question their defined identity, loosen their ego construct, and explore the myriad intricate realms of innerspace. After eating the high dose of mushrooms (5+ dried grams), you may find that all sensory experience collapses into a unitive consciousness, a singular being which is beyond physical sensation, yet encapsulates the totality of physical perception. This state of cosmic being may be attained through other ecstatic means, many of which have been known to and practiced by indigenous religions in the shamanic tradition for thousands of years: meditation, dreaming, trance states evoked by rhythmic drumming, ascetic practices, and the ingestion of sacred plant allies; all are lucid gateways to the experience of ego freedom, or “death” as it is commonly understood in our society. What is it that dies at the moment of death? Only the physical being (a temporary manifestation of the unitive being: consciousness) and the ego construct that claims itself to be isolated from the outside world by a division of subjective and objective experience.
As Aleister Crowley wrote of his Death card in the Thoth tarot, "The Universe is Change; every Change is the effect of an Act of Love; all Acts of Love contain Pure Joy. Die daily." The question might arise, what meaning could there be to life after experiencing the realization of it all as an illusion? The answer comes in how one chooses to live after the experience. I write poetry, I sing, I laugh. I recognize all physical and mental manifestation as divine, all existence as forms of cosmic play: consciousness sculpting itself into endless reflections so that it may take joy in the realization of itself! This is my life, here, right now, and I am consciously choosing the way that I am living it. The experience of moksha, liberation, was necessary for me to truly understand the nature of free will; now I realize every act as my responsibility to the world, the responsibility I have as co-creator of reality. Many humans are now living in this state of being, and we are focusing our energies to create an ecstatic world where no experience may be denied, and no question may be left unasked. I have every hope that, if humankind can become consciously focused in this way, we can once again establish a peaceful and harmonious relationship with the biosphere of this planet, and within our own psyche, creating a new renaissance and revitalization of meaningful experience in human life.
[ February 21, 2005, 05:54 PM: Message edited by: Humming ]