Codes of My Kin
As Above #4
Shimmering, exquisite geometric tower, blue-white on black behind my closed lids -- impossibly intricate jungle gym stretching far and away -- dazzling in its beauty and infinite -- my heart blooming, amazed --
This is how it is -- burgeoning structures -- fabulous, stunning -- all around, inside and throughout -- the mind ordinarily too locked out, stuck in its one paltry mind-channel when there are endless potential mind-channels; and the whole primordial, magnificent thing goes on exploring itself through infinite consciousnesses.
After the Future
I was on the floor of the den, the better part of the trip past, trying to get some sleep. I would never be the same. I knew I had just separated myself from my parents, unless they, too, would have the experience -- separated now from my teachers, my brother -- everyone.
But oh, this was such a precious new understanding, this unfurled mind and its perception of beauty and energy so supreme, so superlative to the staid view of things we've all tragically agreed upon.
Now I would sense the microscopic creatures living in my body and in the carpet. Now I would see the intense vibrations always in the air and know the emotions of fruit flies, the lure of the fruit arousing insect desire and propelling those delicate, transparent, little wings.
I wasn't going to care about television's propositions anymore. I had the colors of a million rainbows in every one of my cells -- I was alive with the self-same energy recorded in the woodgrain of our table, and every arid place would now be succulent with the aloe juices of a mind so thoroughly flooded with love for one world, one indivisible, inexhaustible fabric, this sparkling profusion, this undulant dance and display!
As Above #8
My parents were not happy with each other. And my poor brother ate mountains of Corn Pops out of a mixing bowl in front of TV and got average grades on his report cards.
I was alone in that house. Alone with my thoughts and love of art and nature -- reading Anais Nin and tending my many plants, something of an alien, a fugitive, rebellious and righteous -- lost and superior -- fearing the future of not belonging, not having a world I wanted to live in.
Where was the joy in it? Why was everyone so depressed and superficial? Why were we not dancing in the streets at the sight of just one furry bee? And why was this substance that could save us and our world, illegal? How could one drop of a chemical on a piece of blotter paper and cut in half -- how could one half of one drop in my whole body cause my mind to know the universe in a wholly different way? And what other minds might be in there to be brought to consciousness? What other universes were there to behold?
I was bearing up to two lives now, the one I knew before, the one that I would be expected to perform in, show up in, study, speak and write about, share my love in -- that sad little box of ignorance where they call my given name; and this other one -- this spectacular vibrating, kaleidoscopic, ordered, intense, heart-streaming, majesterial magnificence. No one would know what I was talking about; but, if I could speak only of this, it would be all I have to do.
None but my friends could know me now, that is, only those who'd known this too. But even we didn't talk about it, not really. We sometimes tried, but when you're in the experience, you're so overwhelmed and wowed, you might try to point things out, but how much of any of this can be shared?
As Above #2
Describe a tropical island to an Eskimo who'd never been off the polar cap. All these birds, you'd say -- oh, the sounds of the finches! -- and the colors! -- the profusion of living things all climbing up over each other in a thousand greens to the sunlight -- the rhythms and music of the insects all night -- the softness of the sand -- and the sea! buoyant, turquoise, warm and clear and the brilliant fish nibbling and luffing their fins at the coral reefs spiked with urchins. Swoon and gesticulate all you want, but are they equipped to take pleasure and joy in description with no subjective reference? They might, more likely, look at each other and shrug, then cut you a piece of blubber and duck into their ice house.
I wasn't even allowed to tell my parents about it -- that would not be good. I actually tried to get them to smoke a joint, but they said no, and again, no.
At fifteen I had already transcended their whole enterprise. Where in the world would I find space for my heart? I would have to work as an undercover agent for the truth, an agent for the majestic tower of light, drinking long from its nectar in times of inner turbulence and I would have to dwell in silence sometimes -- a defector, a turncoat, a reaper of subtext and subterfuge, listening everywhere for the codes of my kin.
Now my allegiance was to this wondrous creation!
And yet, how many times since then have I made efforts to take part in a sick and loveless scene, to speak of dull things as if I didn't know -- just to be with people -- and yet torn sometimes -- not wanting to betray the great experience, not wanting to shut down to fit in, but to maybe find some way to engage with situations so ruinous and pathetic, so in need of Reality, of health, to offer some kind of resuscitation.
And there it is again, the splendorous tower of intricacy and sacred geometries -- Oh, origin beyond origins -- mother of the dawn -- I am still giving in to you; still I owe you so much more.
©2012 Jari Chevalier
- 6-20-12
- Jari Chevalier's blog
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Comments
This is lovely. Thank you
Thank you, Faye
We can talk on Facebook as well...
I created a page to make this discussion easier:
https://www.facebook.com/Entheogenism
Thanks for the inspiration, Jari. :-)
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Patrick Keith O'Brien
A Poetic Expression of the Transcendent
Old paradigm is staying stuck in the manufactured reality of mass media mind control which the majority are sadly tuned into and hypnotized by. We need more cultural trance breakers like you and other offered on this great site.
Taking a liberating journey, as many of us have, means we share something sacred, something rich, and multidimensional and mostly, as you describe, liberating and informing of the many other worlds we inhabit, opening our sensing to the multi-hued layers we can easily overlook in a world so focused on the outer.
When we become inner world explorers we bring a gift back to the world in a true hero's journey. We discover the Holy Grail that makes our lives so much richer and therefore the world's. We add balance, albeit a balance that can be painful in one way, as so few others see and live it. But thankfully there are writers like you and communities like Reality Sandwich that reflect our values and where we can feel totally at home. I think this was the perfect place to publish and will resonate with most RS readers.With your permission, I would like to reprint your essay in my blog, New Paradigm Digest, and you might also consider distributing it to other related sites that might resonate with its message.
You never know who might be at the edge of desiring a transcendent experience and your poetic message might be just the catalyst that persuades them to jump into the field of infinite possibility and return far more alive and able to contribute in new ways or even discover hidden passions held prisoner in their self-constructed jail cells.
Thanks again for your great contribution and please let us have more!How rare are these transcendent experiences?
Thanks, Jeff. I look forward to seeing if any of your NPD readers get into a dialogue about how early psychedelic experience can open the heart-mind and influence worldview, commitments, work, one's whole life path. I am pretty surprised at just how silent it has been since the essay appeared earlier this week. Not sure why. I wish to engage with people about this essay! I wonder, for instance, if others have also had these tremendous, life-altering spiritual openings on entheogens and what thoughts and decisions have come from those experiences. How rare is it to have these transcendent, visionary experiences? I hope a dialogue will begin somewhere about this, because I think we all need to "come out" more about what these experiences have meant to us. Reality Sandwich and New Paradigm Digest attract people who are, perhaps, more likely to be among the lucky ones who have had these treasured openings. But where are the voices speaking about the heart of the matter, what entheogens can really do; and engaging with each other about the political dimensions of all of this.
The Beauty
The Beauty
Rainbow Jaguar, thank you. I think you're right that one must be careful about speaking of psychedelic experiences. I’m not so fond of using the term psychedelic, by the way, but prefer the newer term entheogen.
Anyway, the questions and grappling expressed in the essay expressed the mind of a 15-year-old gifted with transcendent vision, confronting the prospects around her.
I, as author of this and many other pieces, am a good deal older than that now and have a long-term meditation and yoga practice that has tempered that which you heard as torment. I have strong inner resources that help me cope.
I am still surprised at how guarded people are about discussing what it is like to live with expanded consciousness. You see it expressed through the veils of art and music, but direct conversation about it is exceedingly rare. I want to know why this is the case. I want to know, for instance, if reading Codes of My Kin gives people mixed reactions, because it treats the opening of consciousness directly. Some people may actually find that a form of vulgarity, feeling that what is sacred cannot be spoken of.
This may be so; at the same time, the escalation of destruction through human short-sightedness and small-mindedness on Earth right now calls for missives that point directly to the roots of our dilemmas, roots that are in the heart-minds of human beings.
I thought Tom Petty said that the waiting is the hardest part. But I say why wait? What are we waiting for?
Why is this substance illegal?
Why Are Entheogens - Psychedelics - Hallucinogens Illegal?
First, especially when purchased as illicit substances, often by youth, the doses may not be pure or correct for the person's body weight (for instance, I took 1/2 tab; it would have been too much for me to take a full tab).
Not everyone has transcendent experiences on entheogens; some people have frightening or dissociative experiences.
That said, on the important points you brought up, I think some hint is found in the essay itself: "I wasn't going to care about television's propositions anymore." . . . "transcended their whole enterprise". . . "Now my allegiance was to this wondrous creation!"
Direct experience of the sacred undermines religious doctrine and authority. The experience of Oneness satisfies in a way no product or promise ever could, so one sees through all the lies of advertisers and politicians.
It closes the self-other gap, which is at the root of so much suffering and conflict, and once that has taken place, even once, even for a minute, war cannot be justified to us.
These are just a few thoughts on why the prospect of these experiences becoming more mainstream is threatening, not only to those in power, but also to those mainstream folks who think they like a nice contained little life, who fear the vast and the deep, who do not welcome change, shifting priorities or value structures.
I can understand it, you know. The equality and liberality that is born in moments of radical insight, the realization of universal Love, just puts the kibosh on a whole lot of confusion and obfuscation that is the very basis of our world. That is why terms like “paradigm shift” are used by those who have already transcended, kibosh complete. We’re currently watching not television, but sentient life stuck in a tragedy of tremendous proportions.
It seems to me that entheogens could really help in this and that is the reason I decided to publish this piece. I also have some concern that people need to be educated at an early age about these substances and how important context is to their having a good and safe experience. Making entheogens legal, at least under certain circumstances, would protect people better than their remaining classified as Schedule I substances.
What do you think?
I agree that entheogens
Realms of Darkness, Realms of Light
Well, I think people are hip to a lot, but consider it all too big, scary, overwhelming and far away to really do anything about.
Did any of you readers happen to see the long cover story “Cocaine: How the world’s most powerful drug traffickers run their business” in the Sunday NY Times Mag of June 17th, 2012?
When we speak, as you have, Elena, about weapons and prisons, “the war on drugs,” we enter criminal darkness and the realm of political evil, underworld business, black markets, laundering of vast sums of money, bribery, blackmail, killings, crippled hearts and minds, incarceration, domination, punishment, destruction, and all the rest of it.
“Codes of My Kin” is on the other side, the side of light, revelation, healing, caring, sensitivity, liberation, opening, creative possibilities, love.
I treated the dark side in an audio program The Unreal World of Narcissists and Sociopaths. You can listen to that here: http://www.prx.org/pieces/61861-the-unreal-world-of-narcissists-and-sociopaths
It’s really interesting to me that these extremes of dark and light have had to be raised up for examination together so quickly in this dialogue, as they are certainly part of the same picture -- the picture of the human psyche and its range.
Codes of my Kin
To Be Awake and at Ease
You are speaking about the difficulties, the material-world troubles that may arise along with expanded awareness; outgrowing one's former sense of self, one's family, one's culture can be a form of exile.
All the same, just as adults don't generally long to go back to being juveniles, any wishing for an easier time in life by being part of the mainstream comes just from momentary laziness and feeling daunted: the transcendent mind cannot go backwards and wouldn't really choose to.
The challenge is to find ease within the so-called adversity and to be willing to stay awake, witnessing with awareness, even when it's unpleasant or even dire. It's a constant inner vigilance that requires energy. Right?
This inner work requires attention and continuous cultivation. A high-strung, busy-busy life has never been the place for the contemplative mind. And so we may never hear of those people who are farthest along in this work of insight and clarity, because they are not involved in worldly concerns, dedicated as they are to simplicity, modesty and harmlessness.
from the inside out
Changing the Legal and Social Status of LSD
Thanks so much for your compliments and for sharing your thoughts. Current paradigm minds generally value what can be demonstrated through the scientific method, as well as what celebrities endorse.
That’s why the university research studies being conducted (see maps.org for the full scope of what’s going on in entheogens research today) and the spread of the information through well-crafted journalism are so very important now to raising the status of entheogens.
That said, the poetic and artful glimpse into why they are called entheogens can also be an effectve, proactive factor in tandem; call it the feminine side of the presentation.
“Codes of My Kin” does not exist to convince anyone of anything; it’s a from-my-heart reminder to all those kindred spirits who have already been graced by such openings to cherish them and be willing to talk about them. It’s meant to call together the lucky ones to rekindle our comradeship in the great experience.
As for LSD in the water supply, well, we wouldn't want to be on the road with drivers who just had a glass of LSD water now would we? I know you were being facetious. Our deep wish is that stuck minds, ignorant of the origins of a more enlightened worldview might open up and change radically if they would only have entheogen experiences -- and couldn't that possibly reorient the entire basis of contemporary global society within the short time we seem to have to make a turn-around?
We must always remember that some people have had bad times on LSD. Some minds have found the compounds they took very destabilizing and could not handle the experience well. Set and setting and the purity of the compound taken are all extremely important. As a mature adult, I favor changing the legal status of these compounds so that pure compounds can be given in safe settings, for healing purposes.
One creates one's own hyperboles
Grace
"Now my allegiance was to this wondrous creation!"
Jari: Beautiful piece and beautiful art. Thank you. That line above really speaks to me. I feel like it has been Grace that since my teenage years has not only kept me alive but has GIFTED me with numerous experiences ( both with and without entheogens) similar to the one you described. And like you, the first mind blow was at 15 with LSD... and I would never be the same. If THAT was possible, my God, what else could be in store in this wondrous creation. And then as I matured a deep love welled up for this Creation. What else to do but align myself with Her and do what I can to protect her biological aspect?! As I said to Terence Mckenna the one time I met him, " Yours is a message of Love". Keep it up!
Choices and work in integrity with the gift
Thank you, Bill. Glad to know of your similar early experience at 15. Yes, grace, gift, love; the basis of the kinship. Having experienced oneness to that powerful degree, one never forgets it.
This is evident in all your choices and your work. Of course – staying in integrity, aligned and allied with that holistic reality that we've known, is the most important thing in our lives.