Melissa Broder is the modern shaman/ philosopher/ poet. I’ve read her article for NY Times, and felt seen – most of what she says about love is what I’ve been recently realising/ discovering. In fact, her article triggered a reflection process that resulted in my ultimate post on love addiction – watch this space.
I bought and read Melissa’s new book Pisces (cover below) overnight. She writes about crushes, love addiction and how what we are longing for is not another person. Here are the quotes from the article that stuck with me, and my review of her book.
‘Crushes are like little treadmills of hope in the abyss.’
‘It is so easy to confuse spiritual longing with a craving for romantic love… Perhaps the longing itself is holy.’
Postman’s Park is a a well maintained small patch of green in the heart of the City in London with a church, ancient tombstones and fountain, and flowers in bloom in any season. But its most memorable feature is the Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice created by the Victorian painter and sculptor George Frederic Watts as a memorial to ordinary people who died while saving the lives of others and who might otherwise be forgotten.
It has been a while since I posted about art here. There is a reason for that. It takes me years to complete an art project 🙂 This one definitely took a while… I love H. Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights:
Continue readingOur mind is our karma. When you have a dark thought, love it.
East Forest lifted the most essential phrases from the teachings of Ram Dass and overlaid them on beautiful spiritual music. It’s a soothing listen and you can meditate to it also. I have been playing these tracks on repeat. Listen on Youtube, any other music platform or buy the tracks in your Music store. I can’t wait for chapter II!
I have been writing offline a lot lately, partially because I am working through the Loner Wolf‘s Shadow Work Journal. I highly recommend it. It’s a compilation of exercises that help you uncover your dark, repressed side. I believe that uncovering and facing your shadow, accepting and learning to love it is as important as cultivating happiness. In fact, it is perhaps an inevitable next step. You can’t be happy until you are free.
Shadow work is not easy and if you plan to start it, make sure you prepare and have support in place if you need it. A couple of quotes from the Journal:
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Usually winters are the worst. It’s too cold, too grey, too miserable, I go stir crazy stuck inside. This winter feels different. Or more precisely I am different.
I now aim to walk 10k steps every day whatever the weather. My son joins me and we have nice chats and giggles walking around the village.
I have to remind myself that it’s ego that is cold and miserable, that seeks shelter and moans about the weather. Soul has no complaints, it finds beauty, awe and joy everywhere — in the rain, darkness or cold. Getting out of the head helps, as does getting clothing right — if you wrap up well and have comfortable waterproof shoes, no weather is bad weather.
Continue reading“Right now:
There are Tibetan Buddhist monks in a temple in the Himalayas endlessly reciting mantras for the cessation of your suffering and for the flourishing of your happiness.
Someone you haven’t met yet is already dreaming of adoring you.
Someone is writing a book that you will read in the next two years that will change how you look at life.
Nuns in the Alps are in endless vigil, praying for the Holy Spirit to alight the hearts of all of God’s children.
A farmer is looking at his organic crops and whispering, “nourish them.”
Someone wants to kiss you, to hold you, to make tea for you. Someone is willing to lend you money, wants to know what your favourite food is, and treat you to a movie. Someone in your orbit has something immensely valuable to give you — for free. Continue reading
I am not a big fan of exercise. But make it spiritual exercise like Tibetan yoga or prostrations and suddenly I am all for it. I’ve recently started a Tibetan practice of 100,000 prostrations. I do it while reciting the Bodhisattva vow. I found that 12 prostrations in the morning as part of my daily practice is the number that works best for me, so it will take me around 23 years (I’ll be 63) to complete it 🙂 Hat off to Tibetans who do it in a couple of days while also doing full body prostrations.
Since every sentient being has Buddha Nature, bowing to any person can be thought of as bowing to the Buddha Nature in all of us.
In Tibetan, the word prostration is translated as chak tsal. Chak means to “sweep away” harmful actions and obscurations. Tsal means we receive the blessings of an enlightened body, speech and mind.
Recently, as part of the UK Psychedelic Society’s reading list, I discovered The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts. I highly recommend reading it. I’ve included top 3 quotes below:
Each organism is the universe experiencing itself in endless variety.
Knowing and being rather than seeking and becoming.
…the only real ‘I’ is the whole endless process.
And here it is – the culmination of my ‘magic mushroom’ retreat with the UK Psychedelic Society in September. The film made by Rebecca Coxon. In most of my appearances I am weeping and in one manage to sob while laughing. Perfect. Crying is a natural way of purging (another one is vomiting, eg like with ayahuasca) so it’s normal that I created a mini flood 🙂 Share your thoughts or your mind expansion experiences in the comments.
Update: I have added another blog post which you may find useful A Year Later: What Psilocybin Taught Me.
I continue to explore the new world that opened to me. I heard that Michael Pollan’s ‘How to change your mind’ was a sort of Bible of psychedelics so I borrowed it from the local library. I consumed 414 pages within a week and I feel like I know everything I need to know, ever. It’s a very balanced and science based historic summary and experiential account of all things psychedelics. I was pleased to see multiple mentions of British researchers in the field. Below I share 2 quotes on the theory of entropy from a British researcher Robin Carhart-Harris. Sometimes all we need is a bit more chaos, organised of course 🙂
Continue readingI grappled with this question for years. Of course the answer is as simple as it’s difficult. And it’s only recently that I actually felt it. Below is an extract from Jack Kornfield’s book titled ‘After The Ecstasy, The Laundry’ that I mentioned last week. It’s a Zen story (koan) on what the purpose of life is.
Got it? There is no purpose, just life, and you live it the best you can — doing good, helping others, nurturing your spirituality, just living. So yeah, this is it, just go do what the moment demands (and non-doing is as valid as doing), whatever your heart/ soul call you to do and do it in the most awakened, conscious way with as much love as possible. Simple-s 🙂
Yesterday was the day – I had my 15min of fame first as a (mostly sobbing :)) character in the Mind Explorers documentary aiming to challenge the stigma around psilocybin and promote its use as part of mental health treatment as well as spiritual growth. It was fun taking part in the Q&A on stage with a psychedelic guide (Stefana Bosse, the one who guided my experience!) and a neuroscientist. The documentary goes live on Youtube on December 13th, I will share the link here. Interestingly, this article came out recently and it’s about the same retreat that I went to – psychedelics on Forbes? Plant medicines are going mainstream, folks.
Nomad of the Universe 