God thinking about creation

So where to start, you know, when there's no time or sequence … no syncopation ? That didn't take much thought, I simply created time for them within their own minds to give some cadence to their expressions. It's an artificial construct depending upon ones point of view but really what is artificial in this game? Time just makes it easier for them to play along. One concept often bantered about is, “Reality” with serious, even grave, inquiry and debate given to whether or not this or that is “real” or not. It amuses me to no end and I get caught up in it myself sometimes makes me laugh and laugh as if anything that IS could be not real!?

So I put into play as many independent operators as I can with numbers approaching let's just say the infinite here, for sake of discussion. Then I sit back, as it were, and watch the show. Sentient beings with free will put on one hell of a good show. Believe it! The things they come up with I tell you it's mind boggling. There is earth, a small planet with only seven billion of them, as a prime example. I heard one say the other day that, “if you put a million monkeys in a million rooms with a million separate typewriters after a million years one of them will write out an entire Shakespearean play by pure, random chance” and I thought yes there you go! That's the spirit of it right there!

And to the point, language is one of the things they came up with that really wows me. Reading and writing. There's nothing more touching than a great poem. And music this is quite a gift O my goodness yes absolutely worth the whole experiment itself just for this music alone. While some of the things they come up with are fascinating in the macabre like Satanic, live sacrifice - I mean seriously who would have ever thought of such a thing!? - to hear them sing love songs accompanied by this music they created expressing their heart felt love for each other now there is something that brings a smile to my face and puts a bounce in my step every single time! It would be most insincere of me if I said that I were not a bit proud of my grand experiment in creation. I literally never know what they are going to come up with next – it makes me giggle like a little child happily surprised! It's wonderful!

CALL JOHN ABOUT DOG”

Short-Short Story by David Sky

Just got in from mothers, put my purse down on the kitchen isle and I cry a little for the first time, just a little? I guess this is that Elisabeth Kubler-Ross stuff? I keep hearing in my head that he's dead and each time it is impossible to believe. A goddamn cliché. I had never heard this house to be so utterly silent before and suddenly I miss that, old energy inefficient and noisy refrigerator we had. I look back at the door and I can see myself looking back at me standing here … if that makes any sense … somehow seeing myself here looking so … lost .. my eyes with this desperation. I want to flee, you know, but I don't flee because I understand that what I really want to do is run so goddamn fast that I run clear out of my own skin.
But I am not crazy, I think. Not really. I know that I cannot actually run completely out of my own skin like that.

Can I? 

Ever since I found out I wanted to go into our bedroom and I don't know why maybe somehow I think that he will be there, after all. Like all this is a dream or something. Now I want to go into the bedroom and yet I don't really want to go into the bedroom because the bedroom is frightening me more than I have ever been frightened in my life like out of my own skin frightened and I realize that the truth of it is that I MUST go into that bedroom, after all. I must and I will. I make a few steps in that direction then turn back around thinking that I have forgotten something? I pick up my purse which I usually leave on the table by the door and I take it with me now, clutching it tight against my stomach.

Maybe, I wonder, oddly, I wonder, is this purse Elizabeth and I am holding her hand because she is coming now – thank god – and I feel like I should wait for Lizzie so she can actually take my hand and walk with me into the bedroom … but I cannot wait. No not at all. 

It would only be a couple more hours by the time Lizzie lands and gets here.

But instead of waiting to hold Lizzie's hand, I go on upstairs because I cannot help myself now alone with my purse and finally standing at the threshold looking into the bedroom thinking that this is far enough perhaps and feeling frozen and unable to cross through the threshold. of he door from the hallway into our bedroom. Some part of me says, “okay so just looking and this is as far as I go until Lizzie gets in.

She is probably close to landing, I think. She won't be much longer. 

Then I see one of his notes on David's side of the bed on the top of his pillow where he always puts his notes that he always is leaving for himself because the better part of his mind is off helping someone else, helping those others – 'all the broken ones”, he calls them. For the first time I think about his office, his patients. It's too much ...

I do not cry but I see myself inside my own mind collapsed on the floor, my purse fallen and everything is scattered across the bedroom floor, some things under the bed, some under the dresser and it is very real to me and I am crying now not really but in this vision of myself, having fallen through the threshold and onto the bedroom floor in this vision, sobbing and lost and out of my own skin with this … this irrevocable horror.

Then I tell myself that I must see what is on that note that he probably wrote only this morning – O my God only this morning! I choke a single sob off knowing that it is something that will take me down if I let it so I just choke it back now with everything I have because I must see what he wrote to himself this morning before leaving . It was only really a few hours ago, I wonder? In pen? His handwriting?

I focus on the note and shut out the rest of this bedroom O my god because it is too much but only I want to see what David has written as a reminder – what does he remind himself about here? Suddenly it is like this one little note laying neatly on his pillow expands to occupy all the space in this world and it reads:

“CALL JOHN ABOUT DOG”

Call John About Dog!?

I am looking at the note feeling maybe if I look at it hard enough by some ridiculous magic David will look back at me but he doesn't and I look at it trembling now so badly that I cannot hold it and let it drop my mind racing, “A dog, but David doesn't even LIKE dogs!?” racing around inside my own skull like some wild banshee, “And who the hell is JOHN!?”

The banshee my mind has become works itself up into a frenzy but I still cannot find this “John” among our cadre of friends … so who? … so some acquaintance? … wracking my mind and sitting on his side of the bed not even crying but when I try to pick up the note again I cannot because my hand is trembling too badly and just as the banshee tears off on her own out of the room, I am left in mystery and all that matters in life is WHAT dog and WHO the hell is John!?”

Psilocybin Trip Report – physical healing attempt

Trip Report – physical healing attempt
Psilocybin Cubensis May 2007

Background: 

This one completely different than any other for me. My now ex wife had been deathly ill after a rare complication from a surgery and finally we had found the cause to be the fact that in this surgery they had cut the main trunk of the vagal nerve near her stomach and she had a very bad reaction to it. This has left her with severe nausea vomiting every ten minutes for almost two months straight and she had begun to speak of suicide. Add to this that pic line for nourishment had become infected and almost gone to her heart only stopped by first line intravenous antibiotics. This woman was the strongest human being who I had ever met so for her to speak of suicide both alarmed me and made me realize just had bad was her suffering by that point. We had finally discovered at this two month point that the sedative Lorazepam (Ativan) that relieved the nausea for up to two hours allowing her some respite and some much needed rest. In my own work with the mushrooms, it had been suggested that they could help in the healing with this reaction to the vagal nerve being severed but this would require her to take them, something she was not prepared to do even in a well state. I found some information on enema dosing but she was not game. I should say that I never suggest them to anyone only in this circumstance was the exception. Finally I determined to do them myself in a healing attempt but had little faith in it or in myself as a healer but was desperate and my thought was that it could not hurt. I really felt that if she herself would do it, it would help but it appears this would be the closest I could get to that happening. 
Dosage: 

I had been saving aborts for a while had in mind for some special occasion and I can't quite say why other than I felt they may have a certain … flare? I measured out six dried grams of mixed cubensis from five different strains and looked at the gnarly pile in the palm of my hand with satisfaction thinking well this application qualifies as a special occasion, I suppose.

Set and Setting: 

Mindset in this case kind of dovetailed with setting, I feel. My wife and two dogs are in a motel having sold our house right after she had this surgery that was suppose to be a rather simple affair, mind you. Now I am trying to get her in with a specialist at John Hopkins since the surgeon apparently hands off the 1% of the patients who have a negative outcome to lawyers so as not to slow down the assembly line work of his medical business. We were suppose to be heading out west for a summer of car camping having sold everything and then driving through Mexico to Belize where we were going to move and buy a jungle lodge to run.

Now we are staying in a motel near the hospital that is not in the best neighborhood. My routine for tripping is in the morning on an empty stomach with two of my most trusted plant allies, coffee and cannabis. For coffee I had to walk about a 150 yards to a 7-11 going through a small, urban forest strewn with a varied and disturbing array of litter including panties and condoms. I am glad to see my wife is still sleeping when I return. I sit and write up intentions reading them over emphasis upon this being a healing attempt for my wife so I am determined to not get carried off in any other directions in this trip something so far never attempted and for which I have little confidence in pulling off, really. I had always gone in with only the best intentions and the very thought of trying to direct the experience felt like something of an anathema to me so this trip now felt daunting and challenging to say the least. I should say that for me this was never about something happening within my own mind but about an interaction with a separate entity or at least with a symbiotic entity created by the Psilocybin interacting with my own nervous system. So now I speak to (this entity) prayerfully asking and asserting at once what I need from this experience. I had only recently recalled that years earlier I had been given my power animal in a dream and that it is the Great Blue Whale. Large part of my preparation is looking at pictures of Blue Whales then closing my eyes and visualizing them in my minds eye. This I continue doing even while eating from the anomalous little pile of aborts on the desk before me. Their smell and taste are especially strong. The only real faith I can muster this morning, try as I may, is not in myself but in this Blue Whale power animal. For whatever reason, I do have a lot of faith in the Blue Whale Power Animal.

My wife continues to sleep probably beyond exhaustion and I have to give thanks to the Ativan – and no cannabis didn't help at all, unfortunately. I am now not looking at the time as is my custom but at some point I feel like it is starting to come on seems like maybe a half hour or so has passed? One of my only three power items is a little brass bell it's handle shaped and imprinted with the shell of a tortoise and I close my eyes and ring it gently next to left ear to see if there are any closed eyed visuals but no so I decide to go into the bathroom and brush my teeth of the lingering funk of the aborts. The sound of the bell it's vibration is also intended to dispel any negative energy or spirits as well. 

By the time I am in the bathroom, I feel them coming on strong now so much so that I feel looking in the mirror may not be the best thing at this point since I do not want to get carried away into a heavy trip but to focus on the healing attempt and while not even sure this strategy is best, I go with it. But suddenly I find myself closing my eyes as my head tilts back still standing in front of the bathroom mirror as my head explodes with visions the likes I've which I had never known before. I am in a desert landscape and arising from the dust like a dust devil is a whirlwind vortex rotating counter clockwise as I stare at it in wonder it becomes a double helix of a DNA strand whirling formed of skull masks that look like Aztec Death Masks shaped like human skulls and there are .. millions of them? They are the grains of sand forming this rising vortex whirlwind and within the eye socket of each mask I see human eyes that are alive staring out and, as is not uncommon I had noticed even tripping on LSD, I seem to be able to see each individual mask, each set of human eyes, as well as the whole whirling DNA strand of masks rising up into the sky at once and as I actually tilt my head back, I feel myself falling and snap open my eyes holding fast onto the sink now and staring at myself there in the mirror, eyes lit up like car lights in the wet night.

Whoa. I smile, you little stinkers, I knew you would try to carry me away! I whisper to myself in the mirror.

Even eyes open just looking at myself there staring back, I feel myself again going now going away and I close my eyes and call upon the Great Blue Whale and visualize the Whale in my minds eye and to my astonishment, it works and dispels the Aztec Death Mask DNA strands obviously trying their best to take me away. Normally O my would that have worked a real attention getter! The healing I assert and open my eyes returning quickly to the bed fortunately only a few steps away in the hotel room. As I lay down next to my still unconscious bride, I feel a little better about my intention to not be carried off into this trip but rather to try to bare down on it with some control. This is such a counter intuitive thing for me to do. I lay on my side with my wife on her side behind me and she curls up next to me and puts her arm over my side and I pull it gentle over and place her hand upon my heart and hold it there with both my hands and I pray and breathe deeply and before I know it, I'm in this strange lucid dream state that I had once before on my first high dose experience. As before, it is very real and does not seem at all like a dream rather like I am in some alternative reality. My last thought I could recall was upon The Blue Whale visualizing it mainly, the vague thought of “help me”. I am aware that I am within a mushroom experience that is the strange thing and I am standing upon what seems like clouds but it is solid and standing next to me is The Blue Whale. I look over at it in wonder. It is enormous and it is as if it is standing upright next to me towering above me like a building.

A stern, demanding voice startles me away from the Blue Whale, “Why are you here!” It booms deeply.

I see then before me and just above two men who look like business men (maybe doctors?) only they are in white, flowing robes like perhaps priests might wear? The are standing behind a pure, white marble alter that comes up to about their waist and behind them is a single white column and from behind the column shines a blindingly white light but I stand with the whale just in the shadow of the column enabling me to see them but still they are cast in a halo glow. The one on my right had spoken but both of them are glaring down at me and I have the strong sense that I am not suppose to be here. They are obviously not happy about it! I cannot speak the deep, boom of his voice has rattle me to the core as my mind fumbles, “for the healing” but before I can translate it into words, the other one on my left says in the most disdainful tone speaking to the Blue Whale, “THIS is what you bring us, now?” And the way he says “THIS” is clearly referring to me and clearly implies that to these two I am evidently less welcome than dog shit on the bottom of your shoe.

The Great Blue Whale says simply, “He is with me” and just rewriting this years later now brings me to tears how it made me feel. I have never felt so comforted and validated in my whole life before or since. 
The two look at each other then and I sense that the Blue Whale clearly pulls some weight with them. A significant beat passes then the disdainful one on my left says prissily almost, “Well, alright then so it shall be!” and he then takes is right arm and winds it around in a full circle dramatically once, twice, thrice and with the third circle flings something invisible at me underhanded the way one might pitch a softball and I feel an electric shock in my heart and “wake up” there on the bed feeling my wife's hand blown off my chest just as I make a startled cry and fly out of the bed. My wife wakes and looks at me and I somehow manage to say, “it's nothing” and she rolls over to her other side and goes back to sleep while I try to catch my breath with some difficulty. I am trembling and very aware of what just happened in fact just being back in the room instead of there where I was is blowing my mind and I find myself looking around the motel room in wonder, “what the hell,” I mutter softly. Both my dogs are now at my feet and I manage to kneel and pet them and tell them everything is alright. They are obviously disturbed. I plop down in the straight back chair at the desk next to the bed and put my head in my hands, closing my eyes -

MISTAKE!

I open my eyes immediately just closing them and I'm gone again and I think about it now trying to reason with myself, grappling with what just happened – what DID just happen? I think back to it and replay it in my mind that electric jolt to my heart from that … that … what? Priest? Healer? How could a healer be such a fucking asshole? Did it actually blow her hand away or did I throw her hand away when I startled and jumped out of bed – yes, I think that must be it, I pushed her hand off me is all? I think well maybe the fact that her hand was on my heart was why he sent that charge into it? I take the joint I had rolled and step outside to burn one trying to get a handle on things. The dogs want to go out but just the thought of placing leashes on them and then holding onto the leashes – O that is far too much! It would be all I could do to light the joint. By the clock, it looks like I had been out maybe an hour, hour and a half? Very strange, I think, now outside smoking gratefully, usually so much happens and I feel like how does all that is in the trip get packed into so little real time back “here” but this time I find myself wondering what happened it seemed pretty fast “in the trip” just the Great Blue Whale and I standing before the two … asshole healers … then boom I'm out and back here and yet had to be over an hour's time passed?

I test closing my eyes and powerful closed eyed visuals explode each time and I think well OK the healing is over maybe so I can just relax and enjoy this? But somehow that feels wrong and I resist it and just want to come down. I am oddly down like I can walk and function pretty well, considering? I go back in and began writing it up and it is very hard looking at the computer screen the letters are very tiny and seem to be at the end of a long tube and as I write it up, I think that I should cut my finger and have my wife take some of the blood. No, that's crazy!

No, do it.

I get some yogurt out of the fridge and spend a long ten minutes having a surprisingly difficult time just pricking my finger but finally did so and bleed a single drop onto a small spoonful of yogurt and look at it bright red against the pale vanilla yogurt - “Inoculation” comes to mind strongly. The mushrooms are insistent, “Inoculation” they mean for me to inoculate her with some of them that is in my blood, however tiny an amount that it might be. They are adamant that I do so. I wake her as gentle as I can and to my surprise, she takes the teaspoon of yogurt smiling and then just goes right back to sleep.

I sit on the floor and cry then thinking, “OK this is over”. And it is. I considered it a failed healing attempt nothing dramatic happens in terms of my wife's healing. I spend the rest of the day it seems fully coming down.

Extremely Short Story, A Field Trip!

A drone from an alien race far, far away comes across earth and does it's job reconnoitering the third planet from this galaxy's sun finding it to be barren of any lifeforms whatsoever. In nearby galaxy where the aliens have a science station, one of their astro-archaeologists gets the transmission from the drone that includes among other information a photograph of Mount Rushmore.

She shares the photo of Mount Rushmore with her co worker and asks, “from that dead Galaxy XW42753, this the third planet from the sun, what do you think?”

After a moment, the co worker responds, “clearly wasn't always dead and if any of them were to have had life, likely would have been this one - vaguely humanoid. I say you and I go take a look, get the hell out of here," smiling broadly. "Wholly unnecessary but who doesn't love a field trip!”

“By the scale of what we have here, obviously going to be another case of a high tech self destruction pretty much the same developmental place as usual, guessing … but, I agree let's get the hell out of here!” She, also smiling broadly.

It was a true miracle that never ceased to astound her that their people had somehow made it past this extinction zone in sentient, planetary evolution. Anyway, she could only agree - who doesn't love a field trip.

Following the Mushroom Path - The Beginning

Voice Phenomenon - very interested to hear (no pun intended) other experiences with this? 

I read somewhere once that full auditory hallucination happens more with lower doses and that certainly was true for me happening three times all on fairly low dosage as I was titrating up at the beginning of my own work with psilocybin for healing. These three episodes happening on three consecutive weekends.

1) Three grams dried cubensis on a Sunday mid day alone my two bedroom rambler. It was a late fall day and fairly warm so I recall right after actually eating the three grams going all through the house and opening all the windows to let in as much fresh air as possible. (I stayed inside wasn't sure how I would be reacting and in a fairly conservative suburban neighborhood in the city - this was my first try with them) Sitting down in chair kicked back just in quiet, I felt them coming on and thought it felt like I recalled LSD trips coming on many years earlier when I had tripped a lot in my youth. It felt like a roller coasting easing up to the very top just before cascading down the big run and suddenly with eyes closed I had a vision of myself as if looking down from above watching a videotape of myself going through the house a few minutes earlier opening all the windows and as I am seeing this, a voice as if someone sitting right next to me says clearly, "you inhabit your body the way your body inhabits this house" ... and that was it and I felt myself come right down as if the roller coaster had come to the bottom and just stopped - time to get out.

It seemed as if that is all that this experience was meant to "do" for me?

2) The next weekend similar as above same chair quiet Sunday mid-morning this time 3.2 grams and similar feeling going up with a sense of peaking in fact thought, "O here we go" just a strong sense that "this is it" and again I hear plain and clear as if someone were sitting right next to me, "Light is God". I should note here that I kind of interpreted this "statement" in a manner that would become common later when another type of voice phenomena kicked in. Somehow I "knew" that what (they) meant was, "the closest thing to what you humans think of as a 'God', is light". Again, a quick almost complete comedown again as if this was the "point" of the whole experience. This also while I didn't realize it at the time introduced me to the later form of voice phenomenon that lasted for months without even taking psilocybin in the manner of the voice being very succinct need me to fill out the full meaning, often. I should note that in all case the voice/s (never was clear if singular or plural) were alien to me and not something arising from my own unconscious.

3) The very next weekend, same set, now 3.6 grams and as this comes on feels considerably stronger than before and I have clear sense that this will "do it" - although, must admit that was not quite clear what "doing it" would entail? To be clear, I was not expecting to hear a voice with this at all and in this case even though I had heard this voice the past two times, still was not expecting that to happen. But I hear that same voice again clear as if someone were sitting right next to me say, "you haven't crossed over yet" and again that strange sense of starting to peak then just coming right down but this time I am smiling from ear to ear and thinking, "YES! So you CAN cross over!" and I felt ecstatic with hope. Unfortunately, due to some problems in the grow room, as it were, I was out of ammo and went on to have several more "crop failures" so that it was a couple months before I could continue my efforts.

These were the only times I heard any kind of auditory hallucination. After my breakthrough experience with five grams, I went into a state of mania lasting five days during which time I did not sleep at all. By the end of these five days, as you might imagine - working long hours the whole time this being Monday through Friday - I was getting pretty punchy. I did lay down for three hours and quiet my mind as best I could each night laying in a kind of light meditative state. This whole time I had a strange feeling in the left top side of my head with a feeling as if a beam of energy were constantly beaming into my head right there. It was a visceral feeling and at times was like I could almost hear a sizzling sound. I was sitting at my desk in despair on Friday evening having told no one about this having done it all alone for security reasons with my head in my hands thinking, "holy fuck I have broke my fucking head, man. I really did it. What the hell is going ON HERE!?"

Then a thought "spoke" to me in my head but this was like nothing that had ever happened to me before I can tell you that. I like to think that I was a reasonably intelligent and sane person if having been suffering from severe depression for most of my adult life now 47. All I can say is this "thought" was clearly not my own thought. It seemed clearly to come from the same source as the auditory voice I had heard months earlier on the lower dosages. It seemed to be responding to my heartfelt head in hands question as to what the hell was going on with me since this trip by stating, "I am the New Creature. I am here to save the biosphere".

Mother of God was something of my response to this. Then nothing else I had no idea what this meant but afterward for months a thought-voice in my mind interacted with me only one other time making what I would call a universal statement like this one but otherwise directing itself to my personal emotional and spiritual growth constantly interacting with me and my own thoughts in the most loving, compassionate, wise manner I could imagine showing me more love than I had ever experienced in my entire life and helping me over this time become my own friend within the confines of my mind instead of my worst detractor.

The Machine - short Essay

Maybe at the very core of the fantastic mind control exercised upon especially it seems the American people for at least decades is this unshakable belief that once every four years we the people get to assert ourselves by electing a savior figure who we seem to believe with blatantly unfounded certainty will then act as our champion and right the wrongs we feel are set upon us. It's metronomic , man, you can hear it coming if you put your ear down right upon the railroad tracks. The rigid form of it all and repetitive nature hint at the fact that what our collective selves have become now is not a nation but actually a machine. Perhaps it is better to say that the machine has become us but either way we are the nuts and bolts of this gargantuan metal thing that now spans the wide world with its most obvious manifestation being the military covering now the surface of the earth and under the surface of the earth, the vast oceans of the earth and under the oceans and the air above the earth even into space. But the machine is as subtle as it is rigid not subject to the human weakness of cognitive dissonance so spreads itself out through the land in every direction taking the form of roads, wires, above and underground cables and connections of all kinds while also, of course, lighting up digital networks of unfathomable complexity and most profoundly and insidiously perhaps this machine we have become reaches seamlessly across time and space via the nearly invisible pathways of our own minds humming and chirping with power some of us hear it constantly calling this phenomenon, tinnitus. I try to resist the inexorable machinations but if truth be told it is the machine itself that types these words as much as “I” do so. Like characters in a science fiction movie wherein some other worldly intelligence infects humanity like a virus this machine the manifestation of what has been called the trans-humanist agenda thought erroneously to be off somewhere in the near future moves through us now with all the cheerful alacrity of a meme.

 

Burning Bridges - short-short story

The three of them sit watching impassively through a ghostly fog the long, winding tail of some ancient, defeated army in straggling retreat tattered white flags flagging limply overhead in the still, cold air. No one says a word heads mostly bowed as light but steady drizzle falls. It is their army after all and at this point what is there left to say of this sad parade?

When the last of it has passed and crossed the bridge, the pessimistic, craggy faced commander of their most unholy trinity says, “here we go again”, spitting without much conviction into the mud. “Check the powder,” he tells the optimistic youngest of the three, getting up slowly from the old tree stump they are sitting on.

“Why bother,” says the middle one, “it's either wet, or it's dry”, still seated, “and if it's wet, nothing much to be done about it”.

“If it's wet,” the youngest says heading over to the wagon, “then we might as well just follow on and forget about this bridge”.

The commander stretching grandly yawns loudly then tells the middle one to go move the horses who are too skeletal to eat at this point over to another patch of ground with a few fronds of river grass sticking up from the desolate earth. The middle one does so without complaint for he knows the horses are at least as hungry as they are, poor bastards. Plus they are needed or else the three of them would have to pull the damn wagon themselves.

“Boss,” says the middle one, “maybe we should be eating this river grass ourselves” only half serious, laughing and then coughing.

“Goddamn miracle, powders dry” announces the optimistic one, glint in his green eyes glowing slightly in the diffused evening light of the fog. He stands next to the wagon, tall and thin anyway but as skeletal now as the two horses with his sharp high cheek bones very well chiseled by the hardships of near starvation and defeat. He grabs a net out of the wagon and follows the commander down to the river bank where the commander throws in fishing line baited with worms they had picked up earlier off of the surface of the sodden earth.

The commander baits their one hook and tosses it out into the dark, slow moving water while the middle one joins the optimistic one below where the commander has his line to have their first go with the net, a two man job. The middle ones hands are shaking a little, his short, thick fingers, and he knows not why as the optimistic one joins him and they spread the net then heave it out as far and wide as they both can manage in one, practiced grunt. He's a head shorter than the optimistic one but his squat, big boned body is perhaps more powerful than the two others put together.

“May God give us some fish tonight,” the middle one says as the net settles and they begin to pull.

“At least we have some potatoes and some of that scallion I found the other night left,” says the optimistic one pulling.

The commander quietly watches and feels his line keeping his prayers to himself. He looks over to see the first cast of the net come up empty and watches the two move a little ways down river to heave another toss.

Dusk finds the commander back at the wagon starting a small fire next to the wagon to cook some dinner of potato, scallion and four goodly sized fish gathered by net. The fire is no easy task even though the drizzle has abated with the world so thoroughly soaked from the early Winter rains now upon them for the last week.

“Why don't we have any security with us?” the middle one asks the commander, “it's a little spooky here all by ourselves”.

“The general doesn't think they're dogging us any longer,” the commander answers.

“I trust he's right,” the optimistic one says, “or if he's not right, I hope at least that no one slays us until after we eat”.

“If no one is dogging us,” the middle one asks, “then why are we bothering to burn the bridge still, I thought that was the general's point to slow down their pursuit?”

“The general's not taking any chances is why” the commander explains. After blowing a small fire to life, the commander says, “good news is this is the last bridge to burn and we'll be on home ground… bad news is, the way things are looking, we may be here a week before we get a dry enough spell to get the job done.'

They all three look over to the bridge a bit wistfully where they can see only the first third or so of it due to the combination of the fog and the quickly settling dusk falling around them.

“We're expendable,” the optimistic one says thoughtfully, “I mean … I guess that's how he looks at it. Just the three of us if worse comes to worst.”

“Three men, sure,” confirms the commander, “we're expendable”.

Failed Trip Report

Trinity Site, New Mexico
By David Sky

New Mexico? Where to even start this story? Such a weird place overall just gives off these Alien vibes, this very strange energy. If a flying saucer were to rise up over a craggy, red rock cliff, would almost seem like it belonged there ... hard to explain but you stand around alone out in that high desert for a while and you might see what I mean.

So I'll start here kind of zoom in past wilderness areas mostly in the high mountains as sublimely beautiful as any location on earth to the south central area of the state a vast high desert with nothing much standing higher than sagebrush and where to this very day there are precious few humans as you drive for hours sometimes before noticing a driveway leading to a ranch. The mountains here are treeless and barren in their beauty. Six to nine inches of rain per year is all that stands between life in death for the entire ecosystem. While for sure possessing a rugged beauty, the landscape yet wore on me in ways I never would have anticipated. Walking out anywhere meant coming into contact with a flora and fauna always to me appearing on the verge of dying from thirst and I found that this just made me uptight constantly setting off the alarm of that unfortunate childhood gift, “hyper-vigilance”. It made me look up at the sky expectantly even though I knew that it had not rained in a month or more and likely wouldn't be raining for another month or more. The constant clear blue sky such a sharp electric blue that it almost hurt my eyes to look at actually began to get on my nerves after a while.

“Dammit man, hang in here, Everybody, it's got to rain eventually” I'd often mutter aloud, a nervous tic and a kind of incantation - “Everybody” being an inclusive handle covering a lot of ground like every barely living thing out there.

But I made some peace by buying a place up at 7,000 feet on the eastern side of the 12,000 Sierra Blanca mountain on a steep mountainside surrounded by pine forest this oasis of green on the edge of the million acre Lincoln National Forest only 130 miles north of the Mexican border. The various mountain ranges rise up like little islands of green punctuating the vast sea of near-death high desert nothingness that dominates so much of this state, the 5th largest by landmass in the USA.

My ex wife now read about how the historic Trinity Site a national monument to the first test of an atomic bomb (only in America) has an open house for visitors only twice per year and it was coming up the following weekend. My first thought was, No. Hell no. But then a plan blossomed up from the desert of my unconscious rising up verdant and beautiful to me like the high mountain forests of New Mexico and I said, “O yes that sounds interesting”. It was only about a two hour drive to the northwest of where we lived in the little vacation village of Ruidoso.

The next Sunday we were off on a very interesting trip winding down out of the high mountains through the Lincoln National Forest – home of the real Smokey the Bear. Driving northwest away from the 12,000 Sierra Blanca that involved losing 3000 vertical feet in elevation over about twenty miles and when you look back up to the mountains above, it looks to me like something worthy of worship under the nearly always bright auspices of a New Mexico sun. Here in the flatland down below some hedonists maniacs with tons of cash had built a sprawling suburban infrastructure of paved streets with street lights and infrastructure of electricity, water wells and septic areas all on twenty acre plots out literally in the middle of nowhere with a green golf course in the middle of it appearing about as out of place as I feel most of the time trying to sell the lots for preposterous sums this land that the BLM can't honestly give away. There were exactly two rather large homes within the huge development all visible since there is not a solitary tree in sight.

“You get a 20 acre lot!” a sign bragged. 20 acres all practically gasping their last gasp, I thought. No thank you never was much into golf it's a bourgeois sport.

About 15 minutes out from the gate into this Trinity Site Nuclear National Monument, I take out of my shirt pocket 3 dried grams of Psilocybin Cubensis mushrooms that I had grown myself – this a strain called Amazonian – and begin chewing on them.

“Seriously?” my wife asks, shaking her head, never a fan of my mushroom experiments.

“I told you about this last week. It's a dirty job but by God it's got to be done. We'll be at the gate in fifteen minutes and I won't start tripping for 40 minutes and it's a small dose, anyway, so it's not like I'll be getting out of hand. I'm sure a lot of people marvel religiously at this wondrous monument. I anticipate this being a highly internal process. Not like I'll flip out and embarrass you,” I promise as reassuringly as I could trying to exude confidence reassuringly , never an easy thing for me.

“So what then you can through some psychic alchemy or something, you were saying transform the negative energy from the bomb into positive energy? … it's that fantasy you we're talking about, just to be clear? Jesus I thought you were joking. I should have known by now you weren't,” she says with practiced incredulity.

“That's the one.” I insisted a little indignantly, “It's an honest plan of noble intent”.

So I chew the three grams slowly allowing them to dissolve as much as I can in my mouth as Jana' drives on toward the gate. The government only opens this monument twice a year for public visitation of the site.

When the gate finally comes into view, she says, “you know you're insane, right”. It isn't a question and I ignore it.

I am now starting to feel excited about the plan and look forward to channeling the power of an atomic blast, praying silently for strength and protection. “This is not insane. This is history we are making, you should be psyched”.

Then we drive up to the gate to find it closed and locked not a soul in sight, a drab outbuilding inside the high, barb wire topped fencing a couple hundred yards away with a lone car that appeared to have government plates parked outside. Big Signs in enormous block letters have very intimidating warnings about trespassing.

“Damn,” Jana' says. “ Apparently, the open house was Saturday, not Sunday”. She looks at me laughing. “I'm kind of relieved, I have to admit. Sorry though. Can you draw your psychotic energy from out here?”

I ignore the psychotic energy remark but it is kind of funny looking around at nothing realizing that this really and truly is the middle of nowhere and back when the bomb was exploded in 1945, was no doubt even more so. I think, of course, of Oppenheimer's, “Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds” and how he got that from the Bhagavad Gita and the thought strikes me that this wasn't likely the first hydrogen bomb exploded on earth – and the mushrooms aren't even coming on yet. One thing the mushrooms had already taught me is that everything always happens for some good reason even if I can't fathom what that might be so I shrug it off.

“Let's go down to that restaurant near 25 by the Rio Grande that has the micro-brews on draft, what do you think?”

“Sure,” she says, turning around in the dry dust of nowhere, “it's only another 50 miles or so.” Distance in New Mexico is a relative thing for sure.

The three grams hits me about half way to the restaurant a lot harder than I had anticipated and I make a mental note to nail the opening day at this Trinity Site next year and give this another shot.

But I don't.

1. The mushroom voice I heard after the breakthrough experience of 2/25/07 said, "everything that ever was, ever will be or is right now is perfect" and that really blew my mind. I knew that it was true but only as a matter of faith because I believe everything that I heard in my own head. It was like finally finding someone who I could really trust. This may be the opposite of how most people who react to hearing voices in their heads? I don't know. This took the form of an alien strain of thought in my own mind not as an auditory hallucination but as a thought in my own mind that I immediately and instantly recognized as not my own - believe me, it stands out! 
2. This lead to what I call the "wolf eating the caribou alive conundrum" wherein I try to grasp how the caribou could possibly find being eaten alive by wolves to be in an way "perfect"? This makes me happy in a real way because I went ahead and believed this perfection to be true so clearly have now a "belief" since I cannot prove it. So kind of it's a religion then way I see so I have religion again in some small way - hey, didn't see that coming. 
3. A mushroom inspired religion straight up no getting around it. I don't want to call it a religion though so I'll say an individual faith because the last thing this world needs is any more religions. Can I get an AMEN?!
4. God bless you. 
5. When you've fallen down and you can't get up, it's hard to grasp how it is perfect? When your heart is shattered so badly around you that you can't take one step without slicing open your foot on the shards, it's a hard thing to take hold of, you know? When we loose a loved one to death and hell just all the world of pain that squats upon us all how am I to believe that this is somehow "perfect"?
6. Faith. It takes a busload of faith to get by 

On Following the Mushroom Path

I have become a vagabond of body, mind and soul not exactly by choice but definitely with collusion. There is always this knowing that the others would not understand even if I thought I could articulate what it is that I am “doing” with my life. It seems so very much as if I am doing nothing but the truth of the matter is entirely the opposite of its appearance for the truth of the matter is that in fact what I am doing is nothing.

See, that's the best I can do? My life's work is obscure even to me.

I now understand how this rather bizarre life course I follow could have come to be - this “mushroom path” that came only after that food of the gods turned everything forever inside out. This path actually has nothing to do with mushrooms at this point having been a spiritual catalyst and in fact it is no path at all. It is not to be found on the ground. There are no visible signs for it. This path is the following of my own heart literally over my own head. So when I assess this world I do not think about it so much as feel about it. The feeling I think is like some kind of radar sensing system and any thoughts spring from the feeling state reaction to the environment and the thoughts are verbal articulation of the feeling state, if that makes any sense? So following the mushroom path is about disconnecting myself from all human systems physical, mental, emotional, religious and so on even ever so much as I can from the intellectual. Surely, it sounds like insanity to some? But being right is way down upon my list of desires in this life. I just don't really care about this so called reality or most of it no more so than I really care about football. Phenomenology is the philosophy that comes to mind and it is a hard one for thinkers but comes naturally for feelers as each thing is taken for how it feels at the moment so that's approaching everything from about as little in the way of preconceived notions as one can, I think?

This is why when the folks wave their flags and cheer their favorite candidate it has no more meaning to me than a reality TV show, maybe less, for instance, I love Les on Survivorman. He kills me. While I have zero interest in American politics and actually do not believe in “America” because I know that it is merely a holographic image this whole Norman Rockwell “America” is merely a mask covering the face of a monstrous beast. I cannot by fooled by the crude illusions of this world. But this world is merely one detail only a blip on the radar of the universe, one passing thought in the Mind of God, not something that really matters like love or any other thing precious to my heart like the reflection of a lake in a dragonfly's eye.

So I'll follow the mushroom path and my deepest feeling in life is that everyone is feeling, thinking and doing exactly what they are suppose to be feeling, thinking and doing and literally require no input from me. I just am trying to articulate my own place in it all. Follow Jesus or Buddha, Hillary or Trump, whatever one is drawn to do is my strong suspicion exactly what is right for one to do no matter how it may effect me even. My only faith is that everything – everything! - happens for a reason known only to the Mind of God to which I am not entirely privy for whatever reason. The way the mushrooms put it is, “everything that ever was, is right now or will be, is perfect”. I think of it as "the wolves eating the caribou alive conundrum" since logically I admit that I cannot fathom how for the caribou being eaten alive is in any way "perfect" - so I guess this one constitutes a "Belief" which I do try to keep to an absolute minimum but O well no one is perfect.   

They also said, “the only power you possess is the power to love” - meaning that all other power no matter how “real” it may seem is an illusion.This one I feel like I understand just fine doesn't require belief. Love here being used as a verb, of course. 

The Universe

An Extremely Short Story by David Sky

Once he knew that the universe is constantly whispering loving support, he started to listen very carefully. In the eyes and voices of friends The Universe whispers into his ear of its love and devotion to him. Through the body of a lover The Universe soothes the engine of his mind, the worries of his soul and the heart felt throes of his body. A night wind caresses his face and makes the summer trees sigh those millions of soft, green leaves rustling together. In the grassy fields of oblivion an undulating sea of multicolored flowers punctuated, here and there, by large granite stones ... listening very, very carefully he hears the quiet preaching of the stones there in the dusk wholly alone.

Peace On YOU

If you have blue eyes
If you have green eyes
If you have brown eyes 
If you have hazel eyes
Peace on YOU, peace on YOU
Peace on all of YOU

If you are Christian
If you are Muslim
If you are Buddhist
If you are Jewish
Peace on YOU, peace on YOU
Peace on all of you

If you are good
If you are bad
If you are right
If you are wrong
Peace on you, Peace on You
Peace on all of YOU

f you can’t dance
If you can’t sing
If you are left wing
If you are right wing
Peace on YOU, peace on YOU
Peace on all of YOU

The Force is Within Us

Esoteric Essay by David Sky

Deep astrology takes into account after decades of living that our astrology is not static but dynamic for it is only our life itself in its totality. I think that astrology manifests as our genetic structure, our hard wired genetic predispositions, how we are put together, this DNA Machine Body-Mind of ours. It is the ship that we plow these oceans of life in Captains that we are the steering wheel of “Choice” in our hands – or, not in our hands, as the case may be. Fate is the ocean itself always moving to rhythms pulled by planetary force ever impacting our journey. Our living over time moves us on the inside one way or another, for better or worse, but hopefully in some positive direction if we are lucky or diligent or both so that by the time we have been fortunate enough to weather a half a century upon this strange, challenging planet, we have gained some proficiency at the helm.

I admit to believing in a process for good as if love draws us to itself inexorably no matter how strongly or even viciously we may resist its union. What we were meant to be seeks to push through the many obstacles desiring its fulfillment with some obstacles more devastating than others in its wake particularly I feel our early childhood development is key in setting any transcendent course to our adventures here. Too often we are beset upon rather than nurtured and supported in our growth and our soul suffers from a kind of handicap not at all unlike a physical handicap which while real does not mean limiting as this deep, inner drive to grow pushes like water past any obstacle even hard, cold stone.We learn over and over that just because something is not perfect or even broken does not mean it is useless. If we look back from some place of completion, we may well see how at every point no matter how painful or devastating it may have been at the time that our course was divine in nature bringing us inexorably to this place right here and now wherein we are meant to be and for which there could have been no other course than the very one that we just so happened to take.

July 7th 2016

Many things coming clear to me and I realize this is no epiphany situation but a long time coming.I have worked the program and more over many long, often terrible decades for much of my adult life feeling profoundly suicidal and suffering whale-shit-at-the-bottom-of-the-ocean depression.Release from that came only at the age of 47 with radical self help actions. I knew at that point that it was only a matter of time before I took my own life. Ironically, I was not a believer in the death penalty yet I made exception for myself while having no real idea of what I had ever done in life to garner a death sentence from myself? I discovered that I have more than faults, that I am a good person, a loving person, a kind person, as well as intelligent, sensitive and perceptive. I picked up what I would call flaws and owned them. This is not selfishness, I said, this is me - for better or worse.

I have not done a good job of living by any stretch but then I have not done so badly, either. I feel as if I am stepping fully into myself, accepting who and what I am: What I value and love in life - understanding, perception, deep, compassionate empathy and comprehension of life, the interconnection of all things. For years it has been so hard to simply self identify what it is that I actually do love and care about in life. Nature and animals of all kinds in all fashions also I love. Very much the simple things I love drinking a beer with friend on the deck, sharing my life with the one I love. I am a big picture guy for better or worse who cannot see the trees for the forest. Details in themselves possessing little interest for me having only a passing interest in how each thing connects to all things. Relationships are everything. Connection. I love all things and seek to understand and reconcile the abomination of suffering in the world that I never could accept. This is what I want in life to understand more broadly, more deeply ... everything.

ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) for me is grounding and this I need very badly and I am most grateful for it. Otherwise, I might drift away altogether.

The 4th of July Never Sits Well with Me 
(I propose a 12 step recovery program for those who grew up in a Fear-Death cult culture to be called ALACult)

"Hi, my name is David and I grew up in a Fear-Death Cult Culture."

A chorus goes up from the group in unison, "welcome, David."

I grew up in an abusive, dysfunctional American Culture. This culture caused me continuous feelings of PTSD throughout my entire life. I can recall no time in the past when my culture did not traumatize me. Instead of a dysfunctional family, I grew up in a very sick county. My county is a violent, arbitrary, punitive, negative Fear-Death cult that makes every attempt to permeate the very beings of its people, controlling, manipulative and predatory in its essence some terrible "thing" that uses (us) for its own aggrandizement. This country (my culture for me like the waters that fish swim in) razes its people and resources at a continuously increasing and almost painfully frenetic pace like some madness of the mind.

Our people, our children and our children's children have been and continue to be transmogrified by this monstrous process that has become our world into the hard, cold metal of The Machine. Into the machine has gone our hopes and dreams, loves and passions. And The Machine will not stop until it has our souls. This military machine that spans the surface of the earth and below the earth; that operates across the great oceans and beneath them; that occupies the skies above us even up into space itself. As we here on the ground weaken and wither away in our strength, this Machine grows stronger and stronger - and that's a correlation that should speak for itself? This Machine does not exist as advertised to protect us, it feeds on us.

"The Machine is upon you now," I hear a voice say once at 7:12PM Winter of 2010 while I am reading peacefully one snowy evening in New Mexico - maybe it is just the wind, I think? "May God help you all," The voice finishes. This mild mannered male voice terrible for the implications of its deep, heart felt tone of compassion for ... us all?

But hey, I am my own person not subject to the whims of this toxic Death-Cult - right? I can remove myself from this sociopathic "family" and stop the madness now. It's time to bring out those Facebook memes of hard won victories and suck-it-up-buttercup pick me ups and, of course, the ubiquitous puppies and kittens, man, puppies and kittens! 

Ode to Caye Caulker, Belize May 2015

On the outside O THE LIGHT it's surrounding more light !
Guarded by angels on the outside, blessed by God on the outside,
on the inside quiet and still and troubled on the inside all brooding,
A Roiling of metamorphic dreaming eyes tightly closed for
                                                                           the light its blinding

Paradise And the Ship of Fools
Prose poem by David Sky

In paradise exotic beauty gleams off of every single living and non living surface alike. In paradise the skies dance with hyper color so electric blue in its intensity that if you listen carefully, you can hear it sizzle; there are thousands of graduated shades of orange, yellow, red and green all washing across the sizzling blues above and the multitudes of greens all around and at sunset each night a warm, benevolent sun slips down into the oceans horizon with to that sensitive ear the softest of sighs. Even if the skies were on fire with the roiling, burnt and horrid colors of the apocalypse - in paradise it would be a spectacle of perfect awe and splendor to witness!

So come friends, one and all, join us upon the ample deck of this Ship of Fools! It is only paradise, after all, and in paradise what better way to greet the cataclysmic abyss than a party with all hands on the deck!. Let there be music and dancing. Let us share what we may have freely on this eve of our doom. Let there be joy and beauty and strength and love. Not out of some Bacchic abandon rather invoking a unity and abiding respect for all creatures and all people in this life so that here at the end of it our many lives, alas, meld seamlessly into one, joyous, dancing thing.

Grandma's Flag, Short Autobiography

Grandma's Flag - autobiographical short story by David Sky

Granddad I recall mostly sitting in a straight back chair in the living room of the old, WWII era apartment he and grandma share only a short drive from the nation's capital. They were built originally to hold an influx of military personnel and their families with The Pentagon only a few miles away. Granddad never says a word to me throughout my whole childhood and sits chain smoking Camel cigarettes and drinking whiskey surreptitiously from small, metal flask. I understand that grandma is not to know of this flask and I do not ever speak of it. I learn the ways of secrecy in what must be that same unspoken manner that evidently is a family tradition.

Occasionally, when grandma's back is turned, Granddad salutes me with the flash before taking a sip, a cruel light in his eyes. It is not a friendly gesture but the closest he ever comes to communicating with me. Mostly I recall him scratching his head as he stares out at the street with long, thick, gnarly yellow fingernails terrifying me when very little, that scratching sound steady and constant, as much as the sight, then finally as a teen and young adult only disgusting me.

I am twenty five when he dies finally of lung cancer and they had lived there since before I was two when my mom would drop me off with grandma for visits lasting from a few months to a year in length as mom transitioned from one abusive alcoholic suitor to another. Soon as mom would find one who she felt might be able to provide us a home, she would come get me and try her best to make a home for us. She tried, you know. She loved me. I would try to tell her at first that it wasn't going to work but I learned that she could not listen and so remained silent waiting for the next shoe to drop and my inevitable return to grandma's apartment. It was some years later after much therapy on my own that it occurs to me that granddad had sexually molested my mom all throughout her childhood even though mom never spoke of this and my guess is that she never spoke of it to anyone at all. She just carried it with her silently in every cell of her body until the moment of her death decades later never having said a word about it so far as I know.

Now granddad is dead and his death for me is about grandma, not him. He called her “Hazel” after the TV character and treated her always as a slave and with great disrespect but now that he is dead, she is utterly and completely lost. She remains lost for the rest of her days and it is not long before she succumbs to severe Alzheimer's and my mother and I take her to a nursing home far out in the countryside where we seldom see her. When I do visit, she has no idea who I am. A few times, she seems to think I am her eldest son, Lenny. I will never forget leaving her there sitting on the bed next to her holding her hand and she is crying and I am thinking Goddammit David if you had any decency at all, you would strangle her to death right now, you coward. But I do not strangle her to death only leave her sitting on that single bed in that bare room alone, crying. It is better visiting later because she is always happy and laughing and has no idea who I am or even who she is.

But now – now granddad is dead and grandma is lost. Now mom lives with a horrible little man I think of as her last alcoholic. He is a passive man at least he does not physically abuse her or even verbally, so far as I know. Grandma moves into their two bedroom apartment for a few years afterwards until the Alzheimers gets bad. I am the first to notice it visiting having lunch with grandma watching some old movie on the TV eating on the couch on TV trays. Grandma makes a comment on the movie and I realize that she has no idea what the movie is about. I eat and watch a while and then I ask her what she thinks of the movie and she tells me and what she says while a moving story in itself bares no resemblance to the movie we have been watching. I tell my mom then to take grandma to the doctor and have them check for dementia.

That is later and now we have to attend to burying granddad, the arrangements, paying for it. We find out that since he is a WWI vet, he can get a military funeral. That helps with the costs. We have to have him taken to a cemetery that is a long drive out in the Virginia Piedmont. My mom drives grandma and I and I do not recall much about the actual funeral. I recall on the way looking out the back window of the car at horses romping through a field in the Virginia horse country: how the horses are so obviously playing and happy.

At the service itself, grandma looks more lost than ever and I wonder if in her mind she is even there at all? The seven soldiers fire their 21 gun salute and each volley makes grandma cringe and the taps rips my heart out even though I feel absolutely nothing for this man, not even hatred. Grandma watches the soldiers fold the flag in front of her as if she has no idea what they are doing but I can tell that when they hand that folded flag to her and she accepts it as if she doesn't really know why they are giving it to her that somehow it sinks in for her right there and I see that she knows what is happening, alright. The way she holds that flag breaks my heart as if she knows that she has something in her hands of great import but not exactly what? This is mostly what I recall grandma holding that flag looking utterly and completely lost at the soldier standing before her saluting her crisply.

I wonder whatever happened to that flag? I have no earthly idea.