Source: “Butterflies over the golden mustard fields” poem by Thich Nhat Hanh.
Several friends are considering plant medicine ceremonies which made me think of and dust off a draft post listing resources on integration. Integration in a nutshell is dealing with whatever comes up in the trip and keeps coming up, sometimes for years, post-trip. My integration has taken years, and I am not sure I am yet done.
Above is a very handy list of possible complications and challenges that may arise after a psychedelic trip. Emptiness aside, I personally can relate to “continuous confusion” and “overwhelming preoccupation with making sense.” 😊
Up to 40% of psychedelic experiences end in a bad trip or require long term psychological help. I am not talking about tiny recreational doses where one sees some beautiful patterns and feels a bit high. I believe the statistic applies to serious mind explorers, interested in going the whole way and fully navigating the depths of their minds.
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Whenever you contract, get tight about something, it’s always a reminder to unclench, relax and expand. These days, as I get to play with words and pill boxes, I present to you the most Buddhist drug name ever 😊 Do. Not. Resist. Take a chill pill of no-resist-erone 😊
Real success is the aliveness you feel when you create something new. It has nothing to do with external results. Success occurs when you inhabit a space in the universe where you connect with flow. Once you learn how to find this success universe, you will feel that the future is full of endless possibility… A life well lived is one where you find your way into the success universe and stay there.
Continue readingThe successful careerist may find that the darkness embroiled at his centre is the part that wishes to fail in order to open other neglected parts of his life; when he becomes his failure he no longer has to carry that career success as a burden. He can explore avenues that he previously might have labelled under that dreaded organizational swamp-dwelling monster, failure.
Today happens to also be my birthday so I wanted to mark the year end here. I leave you with this spiritual meme from the channel I follow on IG.
Have fun 🎪, be lazy/do nothing, eat and be merry 🎂, want what you have to have what you want ✨, and if you are unsure what to do, do you, boo 😂
Happy New Year! 🥳 🥂
A girl with a pearl earring she is not. She is a perimenopausal woman in her mid 40s who gets up at dawn to apply cold estrogel to her thighs and dry it with a hairdryer before she goes to work.
Inspired by Vermeer’s work, this illustration rendered by AI provides a contemporary perspective on the realities of life for women of middle age.
Nothing is ever straightforward. Everything is a fucking paradox. Every question has not two but a multitude of answers.
Walking to the job of my dreams feels like being led to the gallows. I am not okay with a building being mismanaged, yet I pay to go to a country where they embrace decay. I felt soul dead in a prestigious job paying three times what I earn now, but I feel alive in this job where I am an essential worker, yet get treated like not.
An elderly patient is yelling at me because his constipation medication is not in stock, indignant with fear or helplessness, lost in aimless rage against nearing mortality, blocked physically and energetically — I can’t blame him because he is my karmic mirror, a reflection of me when I burn with anonymous anger. I used to be a walking emotional contagion. But now the buck stops with me.
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Continue readingYou are enough simply by being alive.
Thank you for living.
Thank you for resisting.
Thank you for creating.
Thank you for dreaming.
Thank you for resting.
I’ve been doing this practice lately where when I catch myself contracting — getting tense emotionally (the knot in the stomach) or hang up on something mentally (someone said something or acted somehow, and that triggered a reaction), I try to immediately let it go, relax the knot in my stomach and release the whatever mental story-drama begins unfolding.
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I love art by René Magritte. His Golconda (below) made me wonder how it would look like with a Buddhist twist and if it was staged in nature. I can’t paint but AI can, better than me anyway, so the above is as close to my idea as I got. Ignoring the weird AI additions (some monks have Buddha-like head knots), overall, I thought it came out quite well ☺️
Continue readingVideo source: TikTok
I release my parents
from the feeling that they failed me…
I release my children
from the need to bring me pride,
so they may carve their own paths
according to what their hearts constantly whisper in their ears.
I release my partner
from the obligation to complete me.
I lack nothing;
I learn from all beings all the time…
“Rather than seeing this emptiness as something to be feared or immediately filled, consider it an invitation to question and reimagine. It’s your soul’s way of saying that you’re ready for something more meaningful, more aligned, and more genuinely yours than the predetermined script you’ve been following. The discomfort of emptiness often precedes the most significant periods of growth and authentic self-discovery.”
— LonerWolf
A fascinating discussion on the state of modern psyche between two people who I really admire and respect. I found their thoughts on the loneliness epidemic and its relation to uncertainty particularly insightful.
Nomad of the Universe 