The Paradox of Psychedelic renaissance
Hey friends and family.
I been back in my quiet place, hermiting, time with family, and with the whales who are currently travelling up the coast to their breeding grounds.
Just wrote this little piece, that I hope sparks a deeper inquiry in you about where we are heading in all this psychedelic pizzazz…
Over here in Australia, mushrooms and MDMA are soon to be rescheduled, and pathways for psychotherapeutic use are to be opened up.
I'm in a deep inquiry process about it all. I can already feel that this one will require integrating some hefty paradox...
Meanwhile, 11,000 people have just attended the MAPs conference in the US, and my feed and inbox is abuzz with reports about the event, ranging from exhilarated exuberance... through to cautionary observance, through to critique of the "psychedelic movement" for a bunch of reasons that deserve our attention.
An email from Jamie Wheal just landed in my inbox, talking of psychedelic practitioners seeking funding to launch and "scale" integration platforms...
...to which Jamie responds: "does LOVE scale"?
To this question I would add, "does belonging scale?"... "does connection scale"?
These are essential questions. Because they strike to the core of what these plants/ compounds hold the promise of offering.
Gabor Matè says that "safety is not the absence of threat, but the presence of connection".
These plants, compounds and synthetic derivatives of plants that are about to hit the mainstream here in Australia in a big way do indeed offer the possibility of healing through connection... through opening the doorways of perception... loosening the grip of conditioned thinking, purifying the well of wellbeing....
... re-acquainting us with our eternal essence, re-kindling our innate sense of wild belonging.... re-membering our essential belonging with life...
Yes. They indeed can move a human in these directions.... and these directions be the pathway out of trauma, non-safety... and into the healing embrace of connection with self, with other, with life.
And so, on the surface of things, everything about the "Psychedelic Renaissance" seems just dandy and wonderful.
What could be wrong about introducing more people to plant wisdom and healing?
Is this not what we've visioned? (it's not quite crop-dusting aya through the halls of power, but its close! hehe)
Mainstream awareness being expanded, stretched through psychedelic experience, traumatised humans healing en masse?
Well yes, and. So much "and".
Let's pause and ponder the paradox before we all get swept away in the hype, mauled by Moloch, bent over and infiltrated by what is soon to be a multi-billion dollar "industry"...
Let's return to Jamie's beautiful retort to the psychedelic practitioner launching a "content play" to "scale" integration:
"Does LOVE scale?"
Jamie writes:
"I think it doesn't.
It can ripple.
It can grow.
It can inspire, embolden and encourage.
But I don't think it ever wants to submit to the heartless imperatives of zeros and ones, hockey stick growth curves, and impersonal impact.
No matter how great it looks on the spreadsheets or investor meets.
And think about it.
Would you ever want to "scale" the love you have for your newborn child? Or your lover? Or a dying parent? Or a sunset or favorite novel?
Impossible.
Because it's the uniqueness of those relationships that make the love special, that make the love even possible.
And we're in danger of engineering all of that unique, messy, imperfect perfection right out of existence.
Copies of copies.
Derivatives of the Thing."
-------
Boom. well said Jamie.
The paradox of the psychedelic surge that is upon us is deserving of our contemplation.
To know that these plants/ compounds have healing properties... but to also know that medicine can become poison when something as intangible as intention is mis-aligned.
To know that the plants themselves have an intelligence, that is probably to some degree steering this emergence, perhaps in the name of coherence...
....but to also know that nothing that channels through the current political/ government/ pharma complex could possibly be wholly benign, benevolent, or steering towards coherence.
To want the goodness, wisdom, and healing offered by plants to proliferate... but to know in one's bones that the method of proliferation must be pure...
... to want to play a part in the interfacing of natural wisdom and human consciousness....
but to also want no part of the industrialised, commercialised, mechanized, lobotomised methods in which this emergence is going to be largely channelled through...
Does the end justify the means?
Is this one big fat psy-op a'la "Brave New World"?
Do the plants have a plan beyond our knowing?
Are we still down with Buckminster fuller's axiom, that "To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”...
and if so, what does this new model of plants meeting mainstream through government endorsed, commercial enterprise look and smell like?
What can we do to create a new model through this bizarre new emergence?
You know that feeling when you're on mushrooms, and already gone through the phase where you've deconstructed the fabric of societal control, and laughed with glee at the silliness of money... and then you decide its a good idea to go for a walk, and you see an authority figure.. you freak out, even though he is only a parking attendant, and you scurry back to your safe zone, away from the matrix... to sit and observe the outrageous, comical, yet tragic reality of our culture, the depth of human conditioning, and how enslaved most people are by this system of thought control we are a part of....
well, it kinda feels like we are about to collectively go through a pretty weird part of our collective human trip... maybe a bit like leaving the safe zone to go for a walk.
One part of me wants to stay so far underground, sitting with the plants, with the servers I know and trust, so far away from the energy of this system.
And yet another part of me is called to front line, to observe, to explore, to create, to hold it down... to see first hand and up close the fuckery and machinations of greed and power grabs, but also the beauty of new ways, new combinations, new alchemy, new insight... and perhaps... somehow... new inspirations for new ways of being with life on earth.
How about you? Im so interested in dialogues on all this and more. Let me know your feelz.
xx