Getting Stoned Makes You Solid
In esoteric Judaism and Christianity, the Tree of Life represents the path to God and immortality. For Rastafarians, the Tree of Life is material: it is cannabis. Like Rastafarians, my friend and soulmate Rose Mary uses cannabis medicinally and sacramentally. Rose Mary's experience is indeed that cannabis reveals and edifies the Tree of Life.
Rose Mary's dreams inform and reflect her use of the plant. The following dream of hers is a caveat for those who may find her perspectives on cannabis disconcerting.
There's a documentary film about Africa with only visuals -- no sound. Every so often a giant version of a given species is born and its predominant color becomes strongly black. A certain giraffe is shown as an example. It is four times the size of an average giraffe. People are chasing it down a river to kill it. They don't realize that whenever these giants come the volcano lethally erupts.
Africa is frequently considered the domain of untamed, primordial spirit. In this context, the Africa of the dream is where negative gut-reactions to Rose Mary's views on cannabis originate.
Rose Mary is a "giant of the species" in terms of her appropriation of cannabis. The dream suggests her wisdom about the plant may inadvertently call forth the sort of wrath that those in the dream have for giants of the species. She urges those with such wrath to consider her dream more closely. Notice that the film in the dream is without sound. It is asking people to stop listening to their internal monologues that demonize cannabis use, for a moment, so that they may recognize that their reasons for rejecting it are not all grounded in fact.
Those who have negatively polarized reactions to cannabis use are the same who don't recognize that every time something really extraordinary comes about, the volcano erupts (as in the dream). This is to say, they don't see the connection between that which is revolutionary and their automatic, volcanic and uninformed rejection of it.
The dream continues: A person who is a combination of Gary Coleman & Rose Mary's little brother is worried she is killing herself with drugs. To show his displeasure he snatches a swivel chair from a line of young guys going to prison and shoves it at Rose Mary. She puts her hands on his shoulders and sets him straight.
The boy-man in the dream has less experience than Rose Mary -- being her younger brother -- and he is unusually short. She dwarfs him like the giant species dwarf their kind in the first part of the dream. Implied is that Rose Mary has an authority over callow, underdeveloped, polarized mentalities against cannabis.
The boy-man does not see Rose Mary's authority. Instead, in cannabis he sees a bogeyman, and assumes it leads nowhere but prison or self-destruction. He is unacquainted with medicinal and sacramental drug use. As far as he can see, Rose Mary might as well take the swivel chair he pushes at her, and "sit and spin." This is his juvenile and rather innocent way of saying, "Go screw yourself! See if I care!"
Rose Mary parentally puts her hands on the shoulders of such people. Stabilizing them -- which is the opposite of telling them to "sit and spin" -- Rose Mary begins instructing...
Rose Mary herself used cannabis off-and-on from adolescence till her late 20s. She quit because its negative effects -- paranoia and anxiety -- began to outweigh its positive effects -- euphoria, release, insight, joyfulness, love of life and increased sensitivity, creativity. During the same period, Rose Mary stopped drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes; became a vegetarian, took up meditation and running, and devoted herself to spiritual life.
Rose Mary's renewed orientation brought wide-ranging shifts in perspective -- so wide that she became psychotic. She did not see psychosis as a condition to be treated with medication. Instead, she understood it as a process by which she could heal the fundamental fissures within her, and reestablish her primordial connection to God.
During Rose Mary's psychotic process the last thing on her mind was using a mind-opening drug. Yet, one morning in the midst of it, Rose Mary had this experience, which suggested she would someday use cannabis again:
When Rose Mary looked in the bathroom mirror, Jesus Christ was looking back at her with a sailor's eyes. The eyes were wild with adolescent adventure; psychedelic, cocksure gusto, and a touch of mania. Rose Mary felt them asking, "Are you ready to have your mind blown?!"
This took Rose Mary completely by surprise, though it had not come unannounced -- Jesus never does. Rose Mary later realized the meeting in the mirror had been subtly foreshadowed a couple days prior when she had written these lines in her journal:
Mushrooms, flowers, mirrors.
My kiss wanders like a little bird to your face.
Even though you are invisible,
My ancient self,
My cave-dwelling, crotch-smelling, hair-pulling,
Dick-faced sailor Savior.
Rose Mary feels the words had been written by her higher self -- an aspect of her she sees as Jesus Christ's puppet. By the time she saw Jesus Christ in the mirror, she had been learning how to be his puppet for several months.
In the mirror, Jesus' eyes were so intense Rose Mary had to look away. She then collected herself, with her gaze fixed on the bathroom floor, and told Jesus, "Okay, if that was really you, I want to see you again."
Rose Mary slowly raised her head and looked once more at the mirror. Jesus was looking right back with the same mad expression. He even seemed to be wearing a sailor's cap. It was an overwhelming sight.
Rose Mary turned away and went to her room to sit at her table and let the experience sink in. In contemplation, she related it to the concept that Jesus is in they who are in him. It also recalled Luke 17:21: "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you."
While the miraculous craziness of Jesus' eyes was still beaming at Rose Mary from her memory, she sensed the particular manifestation of his countenance had deliberately complemented -- and validated -- her role in her lifelong-drama; the role of a pseudo-teenager orphaned to the universe, on the high seas of existence, and first mate to Christ on an ancient ship. Rose Mary's body was the hull and her mind the crow's nest. As such thoughts were sweeping over her bow, a voice told her, "Rose Mary, you are Popeye the Sailor."
"What?!" she replied.
"You are Captain of the Christian ship and your corncob pipe is loaded with ganja. That's not spinach in those cans. . . . By the way, we smoke marijuana all the time. Everybody in Heaven is a stupid, potsmoking girl."
Rose Mary's eyes opened-wide with delight at this sweet absurdity! She laughed heartfully and thankfully. She even bellowed. Then, for five minutes she sat giggling with intermittent fits of laughter. The thought of smoking pot had not crossed her mind in years.
Rose Mary loved the idea of being a "stupid, potsmoking girl." She loves being stupid. She defines stupidity as ignorance that is aware of itself, not ashamed of itself, and is ready to become informed and intelligent. She believes that the receptivity, sweetness, and femininity of stupidity need to be not only educated and appreciated, but cherished. She hates how stupidity is stigmatized. Only the ignorant stigmatize stupidity.
Rose Mary envisioned herself as a stupid, potsmoking girl, joint in hand, without a care, her face joyful and bright. She was wearing white tights and black, patent leather, ballerina flats. That was so much more her than the grungy, nutty girl who had stopped smoking pot because of episodes of paranoia and insecurity. Rose Mary had loved pot before it started augmenting her cracks. She would compare it to going to church.
As Rose Mary focused on the image of herself as a stupid, potsmoking girl, the hilarity faded away. Then she had another vision, of herself on a yacht, on a sunny, calm, open sea, smoking ganja from a packed corncob pipe.
In her journal she drew an image of herself nude, bounding, joint in hand, telling the reader through a speech bubble, "I AM POPEYE THE SAILOR MAN. I LIVE IN THE SOUL OF MAN."
Beside the bounding nude, Rose Mary drew a pot leaf and over it wrote: GETTING STONED MAKES YOU SOLID, BROTHER.
Thenceforth, Rose Mary still didn't get stoned for about three years. When she took it up again, she found she had a renewed relation to the drug. Usually, it was joyful, but sometimes it brought up challenging unconscious material -- issues like Rose Mary's relation to divinity, to her former selves, and to death. Though being stoned could be distressing, Rose Mary was thankful for the distress, recognizing it as an opportunity to learn about herself.
She observed that when the soul of cannabis -- contemplation, creation, laughter, play and dance -- becomes restrained in the stoned person, there may ensue paranoia and insecurity, signifying psychic cracks that need address. Cannabis opened Rose Mary's cracks and she filled them in with truth. It made her solid, which, as her journal mentions, is a core benefit of getting stoned. Other benefits of cannabis Rose Mary found were that it eased depression, aches and pains, and helped her body become more flexible.
Shortly before Rose Mary's initial psychosis, in 2000, she had a dream where she was having a conversation with a cannabis plant. Small buds were talking sweetly with her. Years later, after Rose Mary started smoking again, she realized the dream was foretelling the ongoing conversation she was to have with cannabis.
Rose Mary goes through phases when she does not smoke at all. Her dreams show her when to stop, and in waking-life she can tell when it's right and when it's not. She is so sensitized to her inner-needs that the plant's negative side-affects -- laziness, lack of ambition, memory problems, and reduced emotionality -- do not affect her.
Rose Mary has observed that all these side-affects can be attributed to a prime affect of cannabis: the inhibition of determination. With determination removed, people can become sedentary, especially if they ordinarily rely heavily on determination; if they tend to fight rather than dance their way through life.
The side-affects of cannabis or any other intoxicant are also dependent on the make-up of the user. As Rose Mary likes to say, "While drugs assist the evolution of the mind, they extinguish the dim mind quickly."
Those for whom the plant is sacramental do not become sedentary. Instead, they contemplate, create, laugh, play and dance in the indeterminate. Doing so is what God likes to do. Doing so contributes to the cultivation of the Tree of Life.
In 1999 Rose Mary salvaged a small tree from a dumpster. She defoliated it, brought it to her room, and wrapped it in colored crepe paper from its base to the tips of its branches. Then she put it in a pot, stuffing material from her scraps bag into the pot for support. She called it the Tree of Life. In her view, such creative expression is no less the Tree of Life than cannabis.
A year after assembling the tree, on an afternoon amidst Rose Mary's psychotic process, she underwent an initiatory purging. The spirits of chipmunks emerged from an area on the right side of her chest that had been in pain for about three years due to a spinal curve. The spirits crawled on her. They were frightened and had no mommas. Rose Mary opened her heart to them, kissed them, and let them go.
Then her parents emerged from her. Each was a little infant in her hands. They were unsure about whether she loved them. She told them she did love them and looked at their lives. She kissed them and let them go.
A big strange thing came out of her. "What are you?" Rose Mary asked.
"I'm television," it said, "You may hear the echoes of me for awhile, but I will fade eventually."
Years of cigarette smoke that had settled in Rose Mary's butt sifted up through her body. This felt like warm vapors seeping through her flesh and veins. They released through her right arm.
Then a big, black mass of tarry crud came out of Rose Mary. "What are you?" she asked.
"I'm drugs. Take a look inside me."
Rose Mary slowly peeled away the layers of crud from the black mass, and inside, at the center, there was a glowing white egg. She took this and placed it at the foot of the Tree of Life sculpture.
Rose Mary saw the black crud around the egg as the misuse of drugs, and the egg as a symbol of how drugs vitalized consciousness. It was the divinity of drugs. Perhaps she would use them again someday, but she had no interest in them at the time.
Then, after Rose Mary released some more spirits from her body, the glowing white egg was still there at the base of the tree. Rose Mary got on all fours and crawled to it. She stopped before it with eyes closed and mouth open. The egg slipped into her and coursed warmly and delicately down to her stomach. Rose Mary felt peaceful and laid down to rest.
~~~
Rose Mary has no lack of ambition. One of her goals is to become Pope -- "Pope Rose." Should this happen, her plan is to cultivate cannabis in Vatican City, since, as the Tree of Life, if it belongs anywhere, it is there.
Rose Mary wrote:
When I am Pope...
There will be food [material and spiritual].
Since Marijuana will be a sacrament, there will be a Reggae chapel, with a band playing reggae accompanied by Gregorian chants.
The Vatican will have new monikers: "the temple of philosophy," for example. Dance floors will be built there on the thoughts of philosophers. Philosophers literally = Sophia-Lovers. Sophia is Christ's Anima.
The rites of all five of the great religions will be celebrated in the Vatican for awhile. Eventually the need for them will fade out, and then the purpose of the place will change again and again and again, in tandem with humanity.
Tweet- 10-16-08
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Comments
I will point to your brevity...
The Point
In Hungarian, the word for "pancake" also means "placenta." Jo etvagyot! (Bon appetit!)
The point of the essay is to present perspectives and experiences that speak to the sacredness of cannabis. I hope you found them nourishing.
Ahoy thar, Matey!
Pirates...where are the pirates?
wouldn't it be better w/ pirates? You hoist some linen on my midenmast though...arrrghh! We can live on spaghetti, rice and goat meat for now and find better sustenance when the child comes... ;-)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/world/africa/16briefs-PIRATESRETHI_BRF...
Cosmic Pirates
Rose Mary sees Jesus Christ as a cosmic pirate – his booty being souls. She allows that psychosis sometimes has organic and/or genetic causes, but in her she says it resulted from years of intensive self-observation in solitude.
In the word “psychosis,” “psych-“ means “soul,” and “-osis” means “sickness.” Rose Mary had soul sickness, which she sees as an existential sickness.
She believes that psychotic people bear humanity’s lack of self-knowledge – that the true self is trying to make itself known through “the psychotic process” - as healing through psychosis is sometimes called - but it rarely can because the afflicted usually lack an observing ego and their caregivers are underinformed about the machinations of the psyche.
Before Rose Mary became psychotic her views on the psychotic process were already informed by pioneers who see it as the psyche’s way of reclaiming its inherent wholeness – pioneers such as Jung, RD Laing and Janet Dallett. From their work and her own study, Rose Mary knew how to navigate the psychotic process.
She was living in Budapest, Hungary when it began. As luck had it, she hooked up with a therapist there who had worked in a clinic founded on Jungian paradigms where psychotics were treated with medication as a last resort. Their condition was respected as a function of healing rather than sickness.
Rose Mary saw the therapist three times a week for many months. Their sessions were recorded, too. At the time, Rose Mary called herself “We,” since “I” had become a jumble of selves. The tapes reveal Rose Mary stepping easily from one self into the next while dialoguing with her therapist. She would first announce which self wanted to talk and then let it express itself “through her.”
Knowing her as well as I do, I can say her psychotic process was self-healing and self-honoring. You wondered if the psychotic process involves “disassembly/reassembly of ego.” The terms she uses to describe the same thing are, “deconstruction/reconstruction of ego.”
www.amygeorge.net
interesting!
Stepping through Death
Hi Don.
Good question. Rose Mary’s psychosis firstly reintegrated the disparate parts of her psyche form fractures sustained in her current life – the parts being mind, body, heart, wisdom, masculine, feminine and last, and least, ego. Her primary “amnesia” was of these parts, of the primordial wholeness she had inside her mother. As she reintegrated them, hints of her previous life as a French monk were hinted at here and there, but these were not a central focus. They were more like residue to make a note of.
Maybe I will prompt her to submit her account of her life as the French monk to Reality Sandwich. It is a pretty interesting story. She has begun consciously weaving it together with her current life, creating a sense that everything she was and accomplished as the French monk is still alive, that she stepped through death and came out the other side into this life.
She thinks that before she was the French monk she was a freed, female, African-American slave, and before that a Native American for many lives – but these lives are not so clear.
Have you had experiences re-associating past lives with the current one?Stan Grof
Stan Grof. No, she hasn't heard of him, but this is an area of great interest for her. I'll suggest him to her.
Spiders on Drugs
Dessert or Eros?
Yeah, baby, Rose Mary walks on the stoned-solid foundation laid in the 60s. Though the foundation will last forever, the upper tiers are yet incomplete.
I have been wondering a long time what cartoons or animation represent (in dreams, but in waking-life as a dream, too). Though they are two-dimensional, they transcend three-dimensional boundaries, aside from the third-dimension itself.
Perhaps you have seen the Simpson’s episode (one of my faves) where there is a black hole behind some shelves that Homer falls through and gets sucked into three-dimensional reality. CGI gives him a three dimensional appearance. He looks quite discombobulated, echoing how it feels after one makes a sudden leap in awareness.
Homer then comes upon a shop called “Erotic Cakes,” the name seeming to beg the question: Which is more nourishing: dessert or eros?
Oh yeah, if you recall, Popeye usually takes the spinach through his pipe.
Maya, Maya, Maya
and the nonmaya is where?
You're right, it is all Maya
Dear Happydog:
You're right, it is all Maya. This post, your post, this site, your experience, my experience, everyone's experience, you, me, it is all Maya. Since it is ALL Maya, I question the necessity or accuracy of your negative judgment.
Besides, this is a huge universe, who is to say what is Truth? This could simply be Rose Mary and Amy's truth, while you have your own truth. No one has a lock on truth, no matter what Republicans might want you to believe. I do believe that there is a Capital T Truth, but its not for us to know. At least, not at the moment.
And if this is just a manifestation of mental illness, who cares? Someone else might be seriously grooving on the alternative realities presented here. (Right, this site is about Reality? Isn't there a lot here about hallucinogenics, shamans and other alternative realities? Does that bother you?) Please consider refraining from poopooing on another's parade. It looks cheap and while your response is absolutely valid, it could have been done with more elann and aplomb, and certainly with more respect.
And as a retired mental health practitioner, I also know that judging your clientele (see: "In fact, they are not enlightened at all") poisons the relationship, even if you do not explicitly state your disdain. Don't worry, even if they are high or psychotic, they know how you feel. Soooo.... how are your outcomes? How well is CBT working for you? Feel good about what you do? Come to work with a skip in your step and a smile on your face?
Sure it would be easy to discuss the typical recidivism rate, responsbility, pulling up from the boot straps... but to do so ignores the very basis of mental illness, and points to how the mental health system understands MH illness, and then because of such understanding, fails.
But hey, it is all Maya.
Treat everyone as if they are enlightened, it will make your work a heck of a lot easier. If its too hard, perhaps another career might be more soothing for your soul.
You are at this site for a reason, something attracted you to this article. Who am I to know your motivation or how you experience Oneness? Suspend judgment, as that is what this site ultimately promotes, and if you cannot, please consider respectfully stating your views. If you cannot see where you were disrespectful, I respectfully suggest the work by Marshall Rosenberg. It can seriously transform your work, your relationships, and your life.
"You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul." - Swami Vivekananda
I said industry NOT practitioners
who should be more holistic from the get go rather than gradually get washed from the shore of spirit to the realm of mechanistic chemical science like a piece of unpiloted flotsam and jetsam by peer inflicted puppetry. I would for one mention the extreme arrogance of anyone assuming anything other than self-medication not to be a form of psychospiritual rape. If a substance is to be administer through agreement between a recipient and someone in whom they place faith then its ok. And if an individual happens to choose a self-prescribed treatment that works, thats ok also, however the status quo is an abuse of the prescription pad well in excess of many of the worst self-inflicted abuses of so-called addicts.
I'm not so much raining on the parade as taking a dump in an ass-hat. Cheap, heck, I'm free...I respectfully disrespect your respect for disrespect excluding my own.
Different Strokes
Thank you CJ.
I thought I had eaten something bad, but now I see it was your underinformed post, Happydog. I am very sensitive, as CJ alluded to. Whenever people leave negating comments to my work, I feel it before I read them, which I see is why my tummy was in a bad way.
Rose Mary is urging me to recommend my other Reality Sandwich writings. Evolution of the Peacock, then the Buddhas of New Zealand, then Adam Clay, Lazarus Mouse & the Kingdom of Eros, then Self Is a Circle of Friends – and then you might try my website www.amygeorge.net, as well as my dream-interpretation blog. You are welcome to submit a dream for interpretation.
Also of interest may be "Borat: On the Soul of Comedy" and "The King," a memoir of a tumultuous psychedelic experience.
These are only the tip of Rose Mary’s iceberg.
Rose Mary has never said she was a saint. No saint would say such a thing about him/herself.
Your attitudes were well portended by Rose Mary’s dream about Gary Coleman. Two of my other RS publications (Buddhas of New Zealand and Adam Clay) also had precognitive dreams of forewarning about the negative response they would receive.
If you are going to be this dismissive, it would be honorable of you to get the full story.
peace
Amy
'Maya'
Is it possible to 'lose the soul'?
Yes if by 'soul' it means that part of us that is conscience and patience and openness to wisdom: by any means. Some means painful, others less so. Some faster, others slower. Still, movement going on.
The outer sheath or 'self' of us can refuse to listen and obey or follow the advice. By 'advice': it may be for some a 'voice' or a series of experiences or even experiments.
It can be an 'experiment', can't it?
Or, was the seer who wrote in the voice of the soul lie in penning?:
'Try me, Says I AM of hosts, and see if I won't open the windows of heaven and pour out such an abundance you will not have room to receive it all'.
Malachi 3:10
Alternate:[Bring ye the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.] English Revised Version
A 'tenth' or 'tithe' of attending to the conscience, yields 'meat'. WE get the 'meat', we don't put 'meat' in there. We are fed, we are not feeding.
This theme of 'soul loss' or 'unenlightment' is represented in the 'selling the soul' to the 'devil'.
The 'devil' is in the limitations we accept in ignoring our inner resource. And if smoking pot brings us to that attending: well. If it adds to our ignoring of this: not so well.
The output is varied as our ways are varied in relation to ourselves: within and within and without.
We can enslave our habits to brute force or learn by experience through insufficiency and yet eventually meet our highest ideals or even real needs. Yet, how often have we sat down and said to ourselves: 'there must be a better way!'
A person wants something, and does something the inner self or 'soul' holds abominable, and there comes a distancing or extrusion from conscious operations that leaves the individual 'changed'.
It isn't the inner life that distanced itself, but we have from that.
Consider the actor who, to get a part, is drawn into an unseemly relation to the one with power to give them this role.
The spark of life that is the life of the individual becomes 'absent', and the individual is debased.
The 'part' may be won, but the whole 'role' of the actor is now divided. The 'inner friend' is ingored . . . at least for a time.
We can recover. By turning.
'Tis the gift to be simple,
'tis the gift to be free,
'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
It will be in the valley of love and delight.
Refrain: When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed.
To turn, turn will be our delight,
'Til by turning, turning we come round right
'Tis the gift to be loved and that love to return,
'Tis the gift to be taught and a richer gift to learn,
And when we expect of others what we try to live each day,
Then we'll all live together and we'll all learn to say,
When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed.
To turn, turn will be our delight,
'Til by turning, turning we come round right
'Tis the gift to have friends and a true friend to be,
'Tis the gift to think of others not to only think of "me",
And when we hear what others really think and really feel,
Then we'll all live together with a love that is real.
When true simplicity is gained,
Shaker Elder Joseph Brackett, Jr. in 1848To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed.
To turn, turn will be our delight,
'Til by turning, turning we come round right
We can succeed by being self-consistant and refraining from debasing or soul-absenting actions, but we might find that that is a slower way. Slower but, maybe, happier.
"The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellencies, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations; and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it."
Rene Descartes, Discourse on the method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking the Truth in the Sciences
We can be too extreme in judging the life-paths of others. We only judge rightly, I think, when as we look at that other's life and just conclude: not for me.
We cannot be the 'conscience' of another, nor conclude much from even just looking at the cover of that book of a life.
Art, indeed, can be most strange. It is individual as a finger-print. We cannot really judge the 'goodness' or 'evil' of a finger-print. It is judging our own paths informed by our own inner resources that we 'measure' the ways of another, it seems to me. And we can look at our own 'finger-print' and know ourselves from another.
It also seems likely that the intrusion of 'mores' we hold into the lives of others might represent a symptom of when we, at that moment, are not listening to our own 'soul'.
Some things just don't need to be said. Just a sympathetic feeling maybe.
It don't hurt my toes if another likes dropping anvils on theirs. Painful though that might be to watch. How, though, do I know that that too isn't a 'way'?
--------
[Obligatory cutsey quotation here.]
Zzzz (thanks cj for the 'n'.)
QED
Frenemies, Matriarchs & Attendance to the Soul
Thank you, Roger, for your post. It is gently commanding, intricately thoughtful – and the Shaker lyrics so beautiful. I am very touched – not in the head, but the heart.
To all of our frenemies, the song of the heart is your destruction and even you will call it sweet.
1) Just to be clear, it is certain that neither the soul nor God holds anything “abominable.” It’s us who see abomination. What we might discern as clearly an abomination, the soul does not. What we call “abomination” only turns the soul away. Turning back to the soul, it bears no grudge and returns to us as loyally as a family dog.
If we never attend to the soul, it disappears. Since we have already smitten ourselves by alienating our souls, God does not then smite us for our abomination. Instead, God grieves, and gives us every chance to turn back.
2) There is a pattern to the negative responses my work has received on RS. The negative responses were to 3 of the 5 pieces I have had published here:
a) A responder to “The Buddhas of New Zealand” told me I have no flow along my chakras.
b) Several responders to “Adam Clay” mistook the piece’s Tantric images as emasculating.
c) In the current piece, another responder refers to another aspect of Indian spirituality: maya.
In September I had this dream:
I am naked, riding in a little boat, and make a loving gesture to an Indian matriarch.
No conclusions drawn from this, just something to think about.
Yes, and . . .
This goes back to the accepted dogma that the "Mother" has no part in the word "GOD".
In the ancient language, "El Shaddai", interpreted as "Almighty God", really means - - - I believe - - - something quite feminine: the breasted one.
All kinds of apologetics have been wound out to explain that one.
References to 'mountains' or 'nodes' or 'bumps' or 'heighths'. The root word is used for breasts. Period.
They lie about the silliest things. As long as it doesn't refer back to some 'pagan' idol like Ashtaroth or Chandi or Krishnah (the female pronunciation of the appropriated 'male god' or 'incarnation of 'Vishnuh').
The greatest lie being that it is merely a round-about way of talking about the 'compassion' of some all-male Deity.
Methinks the translators protesteth too much.
And man? Male and female, made in the image and likeness of 'God'? is made by a 'man-god'? Only?
So, what? then? Where's the female part come from?
Some might say, based on the poetic imagery of the scripture, that 'mere mortal humanity' is the 'wife' of 'God'. And God is divine and immortal, and 'his' wife is a mere mortal, male and female both?
Then is this 'god' partly bi-sexual? Or is all 'man-ness' really only 'feminine' because only one is 'male'? This draws one into some veritable quandaries.
So the 'Song of Solomon' is usually politely set aside as a kind of vacuum of discussion by the 'thumpers' and 'jumpers' who promote Jesus as the very 'God' under the term 'I AM' or 'Jehovah'. It can't be categorized so easily. They can't explain it, nor dismiss it, since it is 'accepted scripture'. It is the 'fly in the ointment' to their paradigm.
Can we derive from this some rediculousness to the position of the 'mighty male god' worshippers?
A primal fact must be a principle. And all the variegatedness of express life must derive from that.
We object to the possibility that that 'GOD' means simply 'good'. And we all know, according to our state, some good. Some are male, some female; some humans, some animals, some plants, some rarely recognised bothness and some even third and fourth sexes. And yet all these varieties live on and progress through time and are, evidently, 'permitted' by the as-of-yet un limned Cause or Principle.
And we go about saying we 'know GOD' as we abominate certain segments of age-old cultures or simply 'exceptions' to the 'rule'.
We are told 'exceptions prove the rule'.
This isn't what most think, it seems to me. This is a phraseology that is archaic today, but 'prove' means 'tests' or 'tries' as in 'putting it to the test' and thus can mean we 'disprove' the assumption and must correct the assumption or modify the perception of just what the 'rule' is.
Honest appraisal of our concept of 'rule' or principle must tell us we don't really understand the principle if it cannot account for all this variety of ever ongoing life that doesn't fit our preconceived ideation.
Evidently, again, the actual principle is much kinder and more open-minded that we, who claim we know principle.
It makes sense that the 'cause' or 'principle' can at least be deemed 'mother-father' than just 'father'.
======================
Cannabis and Alchemy
These blear'd eyes
Have wak'd to read your several colours, sir,
Of the pale citron, the green lion, the crow,
The peacock's tail, the plumed swan.
Thou hast descry’d the flower, the sanguis agni?
Ben Jonson
The Alchemist
Three things suffice for the work: a white smoke, which is water; a green Lion, which is the ore of Hermes, and a fetid water… the stone, known from the chapters of books, is white smoke and water.
Michael Maier
Atalanta Fugiens
Of this self-same body, which is the matter of the Stone, three things are chiefly said; that it is a green Lion, a stinking Gum, and a white Fume. Having twelve pounds of Green Lion thus brought into gum, thou mayst believe…
St. Dunstan (pseudo)
Philosophia Maturata
A green Gum called our green Lyon, which Gum dry well, yet beware thou not burn his Flowers nor destroy his greenness.
Sir George Ripley
The Bosome-Book of Sir George Ripley
You will see marvelous signs of this Green Lion, such as could be bought by no treasures of the Roman Leo.
Paracelsus The Treasure of Treasures
Beware therefore of many, and hold thee to one thing. This one thing is naught else but the lyon greene..
Bloomfield’s Blossoms
I know well this Lyon Greene…
Hunting of the Greene Lyon
Upon the delicate leaves thereof it retaineth for our use that sweet heavenly honey which is called the manna, and, although it be of a gummy, oily, fat, and greasy substance, it is, notwithstanding, unconsumable by any fire.
Rabelais Gargantua and Pantagruel
This is called the blessed stone; this earth is white and foliated, wherein the Philosophers do sow their gold… The fourth color is Ruddy and Sanguine, which is extracted from the white fire only.
Jean d’Espagnet The Hermetic Arcanum
O how many are the seekers after this gum, and how few there are who find it! Know ye that our gum is stronger than gold, and all those who know it do hold it more honorable than gold… Our gum, therefore, is for Philosophers more precious and more sublime than pearls…
Turba Philosophorum
Therefore I affirm that the Universal Medicine for bodies is the philosophic gold, after it has been separated and drawn to the highest state of perfection. Our common gold has absolutely nothing in common with the philosophic gold we use to begin our task. In that respect common gold is dead and clearly useless.
Philip a Gabella Consideratio Brevis
By gold I mean our green gold- not the adored lump, which is dead and ineffectual.
Thomas Vaughan Aula Lucis
Take the fire, or quicklime, of which the philosophers speak, which grows on trees, for in that God himself burns with divine love.
Gloria Mundi
It appears then that this Stone is a Vegetable, as it were, the sweet Spirit that proceeds from the Bud of the Vine…
Count Bernard Trevisan Verbum Dismissum
Trust my word, seek the grass that is trefiol. Thou knowest the name, and art wise and cunning if thou findest it.
The Sophic Hydrolith
You ought to know concerning the Quintessence, that it is a matter little and small, lodged and harbored in some Tree, Herb, Stone, or the like…
The Tomb of Semiramis
It contains the fire of Nature, or the Universal Spirit; with Air as its vehicle it contains Water, which must be separated in the beginning of the work, and also earth which remains behind in the form of caput mortuum, where the fire has left it, and is the true Red Earth wherein the fire dwelt for a while. The subject, duly collected, should not be less than eight nor more than sixteen ounces: place it in a china or glazed basin and cover it loosely to keep the dust out.
Sigismond Bacstrom Rosicrucian Aphorisms and Process
Long have I had in my nostrils the scent of the herb moly which became so celebrated thanks to the poets of old… this herb is entirely chemical. It is said that Odysseus used it to protect himself against the poisons of Circe and the perilous singing of the Sirens. It is also related that Mercury himself found it and that it is an effective antidote to all poisons. It grows plentifully on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia…
Michael Maier Septimana Philosophica
Our secret fire, that is, our fiery and sulfurous water, which is called Balneum Mariae… this water is a white vapor.
The Secret Book of Artephius
Know the secret fire of the wise, which is the one and sole agent efficient for the opening, subliming, purifying, and disposing of the material.
Letter to the True Disciples of Hermes
Study, then, this fire, for had I myself found it at the first, I should not have erred two hundred times upon the veritable material.
John Pontanus The Secret Fire
No philosopher has ever openly Revealed this secret fire, and this powerful Agent, which works all the Wonders of the Art.
The Hermetic Triumph
Mercury, i.e. the white flower, can be used and applied to the tinctures of all planets.
The Little Peasant
Our true and real Matter is only a vapor… This Green Dragon is the natural Gold of the Philosophers, exceedingly different from the vulgar, which is corporeal and dead… but ours is spiritual, and living… Our Gold is called Natural, because it is not to be made by Art, and since it is known to none, but the true Disciples of Hermes, who understand how to separate it from its original Lump, ‘tis also called Philosophical; and if God had not been so gracious, as to create this first Chaos to our hand, all our Skill and Art in the Construction of the great Elixir would be in vain.
Baron Urbigerus Aphorismi Urbigerani
“This stone is of delicate touch, and there is more mildness in its touch than in its substance…. Of sweet taste, and its proper nature is aerial.” Khalid said: “Tell me of its odor, before and after its confection.” Morienus answered: “Before confectioning, its odor is very heavy and foul. “I know of no other stone like it nor having its powers. While the four elements are contained in this stone, it being thus like the world in composition, yet no other stone like it in power or nature is to be found in the world, nor has any of the authorities ever performed the operation other than by means of it. And the compositions attempted by those using anything else in this composition will fail utterly and come to nothing. “The thing in which the entire accomplishment of this operation consists of the red vapor, the yellow vapor, the white vapor, the green lion, ocher, the impurities of the dead and of the stones, blood, eudica, and foul earth. “Begin in the Creator’s name, and with his vapor take the whiteness from the white vapor. “The whole key to accomplishment of this operation is in the fire, with which the minerals are prepared and the bad spirits held back, and with which the spirit and body are joined. “In answer to you question about the white vapor, or virgin’s milk, you may know that it is a tincture and spirit of those bodies already dissolved and dead, from which the spirits have been withdrawn. It is the white vapor that flows in the body and removes its darkness, or earthiness, and impurity, uniting the bodies into one and augmenting their waters. “Without the white vapor, there could have been no pure gold nor any profit in it.”
The Book of Morienus
Let it be sublimed in an high body and head…
Geber Search of Perfection
Our Subject cannot be called the fiery Serpent of the Philosophers, nor have the power of overcoming any created thing, before it has received such Virtue and Quality from our Green-Dragon…
Baron Urbigerus
amazing erudition
marihuana normally makes
marihuana normally makes many folk somewhat mecurious doesn't it
however, there were two things I had to add here neither being particularly mecurious, (despite a thermometer accident as a young child)
There is no need to sustain such length in the dichotomy of whether substances are sacrament or substance abused. Our inner attitude to use when it was happening, AND THEREAFTER, always sustains the relevance of any sacremental nature in imbibing any substance.
Those still using are often not yet walking within the worldly worth that they once knew was their own, and also perhaps afraid of what lies between then in knowledge, and when it will be fully realised. That need not diminish their reality, yet we whom need no further use to sustain a like mind, ought to be very gentle in our reminders of the road yet to travel.
However this is my real statement of the moment, (and without imbibing anything today except for watermelon/spanishonion/limejuice/lakesalt/oliveoil salad, with scrambled eggs make on soya, then a scone with jam and cream and a coffee on soya, that neither might or might not have influenced today's outcome)
a new spell of these last few hours truly made
"I live this way
Arisen from beneath the Earth
Much is changed
Yet essence the same
Be thus a magic
In my name
Whether you know it's fame
You will forever know my game
no majic tame"
Mercurial
Maybe do drink and partake so as to improve
your verse, or be open to comments much worse.
Epicureus would not delight,
but I had drunk almost half the night.