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!