Beyond LSD, Within the Experiment

“The program I was involved was to study the active principles of medicinal plants and one of these medical plants we were studying was Ergot…At the end of the synthesis I was in a very strange psychic situation, a kind of dream world appeared, a kind, a feeling of oneness with the world, a very strange experience which reminded me to some experience I had in childhood.

Sometimes when I was in nature, with the forest and the wood, I had some kind of, I would say, mystical experiences. The feeling of oneness, to be one with nature, the feeling to see now the true aspects of nature, the beauty, and which filled me with happiness.”

- Albert Hoffman

“Could it be that this present, dream-like state was in some way connected with the crystals of LSD that Albert Hoffman was purifying that afternoon. He certainly had not eaten any but his fingers might possibly have brushed against a few traces of the compound. If so, then LSD was a remarkably potent drug. He decided to experiment on himself.”

- Narrator in "The Beyond Within"

Now, listen to Alan Watts on Drugs

________

Dim metallic bursts; silvery orbs bedeck the subdued leather warm of the café tables. Northern Greece, on the western outskirts of Ioannina, the Italian heel clicks in the vibrant waters at the center of the unruly European Earth. The Euro’s devalued to the near-extinction of another ancient peoples, drowned in the eye of the storm, at the height of neo-classical disorder. Ordering a coffee is now rife with the political amalgamation of a dungeon’s dearth. No one’s blinded, caffeinated, nicotine blink minds stutter over the oblivious stupefaction of leadership burned at the seam by the public hulk, dashing their traditional dress of human mockery for a breath of mutual truth. Together with family, we wade in the swampy lighting, in darkness as thick as the Grecian café mark on the silent, burning tongue of lingering potency.

Through a multicolored crest of followers, the warehouse screams with atmospheric delight, a musical haunt for the sacred lives whose energy dreams in smokeless fire. My Love is playing in a professional contemporary Mediterranean music ensemble. A chic audience reclines leisurely over metal chairs. Inside a graffiti’d dome of unfinished concrete, though a stylish rendition of the European artist-squatter paradise. I’m especially proud to see my Love creating wildly refreshing original music within the high standard of such daring quality. A kit drummer with a rig fitting over ten cymbals begins leading a rhythmic introduction of spatial ingenuity, moving the plush sonic stream of consciousness movie of artful belief into the realm of magic. Standing beside the audience, near the well-lit stage, small spotlights injecting funnels of visible dust in the wakeful air, I see her. Gowned in her usual flowing dress, a big explosion of black hair and her glowing skin. I am a martyr of unmade art.

______

Europe

"To dream of travelling in Europe, foretells that you will soon go on a long journey, which will avail you in the knowledge you gain of the manners and customs of foreign people. You will also be enabled to forward your financial standing." (iDream)

______

now transforming
through spiritual marriage
to my near love
whose life casts a benevolent spotlight on my being,
and path
with such wind,
a gusting splash,
refreshing the outer core
that foretells the dead body laughing at me

- excerpt from "society, charities and addictions"

Humanism, Fathered Through A Song of Love

"Laura and Petrarch" by some pre-raphaelite master (anonymous)

I saw angelic virtue on earth
and heavenly beauty on terrestrial soil,
so I am sad and joyful at the memory,
and what I see seems dream, shadows, smoke:

and I saw two lovely eyes that wept,
that made the sun a thousand times jealous:
and I heard words emerge among sighs
that made the mountains move, and halted rivers.

From Petrarch's Canzoniere (Source)

_______

The opaque black void of sky billows in from under the deep sable cloud, a rain stirs, as invisible paint on the windows, whipped off the brush of some invisible painter on an unseen canvas of glass, smoked in the storm-tossed night. Clarity emanates from the computer screen light, an email. The message: you’ve been selected, to read your poem, at this event, congratulations. 

The hotel seethes with the aftermath of meaning, a post-sex ward of incongruous freedom in the squared shell of our toxic, flown might, rubbing against the thigh and heel of the lover asleep in her violent convulsions of metaphysical dream. 

She, transported beyond the narrow night, answers to the inborn possibility, a warming light screaming from her mind with elegant force, enough to welcome me inside, forever flushed with intimate secrecy, at her waking touch. The morning, lifeless in the southern winter, breeds an inhumane scarcity. In the lobby, I meet the event organizers, poets themselves. They greet me shyly. 

Sitting in the amphitheater, encased under the waning spotlight seating, I ask an organizer, only minutes before the show if I can have musical accompaniment. She says of course, after which my wife readies to retrieve her instrument back in town. On stage, a beat boxing, spoken word all star thespian nomad streams in the conscious wisdom of the unprepared emotional night. 

With lofty trespasses, I clamber on backstage, wondering, and waiting, ever patient to hear myself, together with the delicate instrumentation of my wife and me sing in the language of spirit.

_______

Singing

"If you sing in your dream, this is a lucky omen representing happiness, harmony and joy. You are uplifting others with your positive attitude and cheerful disposition." (iDream)

_______

"in the lonely pain of the unanswered desire
to be youthful and free
and not burdened with need

...

in embracing beauty as a gift
shown open to all equally
breathtakingly always

undisguised before the rapt maw
scraping carelessly inside marrow's falling pressure
to meet thee, only mortality"

- excerpt "unspoken love's glare"

Unearned Happiness from the Dream City of the East

Beginning of Film

"Verily, the works of those gone before us have become instances and examples to men of our modern day, that folk may view what admonishing chances befel other folk and may therefrom take warning.

Introduction to the Arabian Nights"  

"A street in Baghdad, dream city of the ancient East -" 

Sheikh

“Toil – for by toil the sweets of human life are found.”

Theif

“Thou liest! What I want – I take. My reward is here. Paradise is a fool’s dream and Allah is a myth.”

End of Film
starlight forms a message as the thief and his love fly through on a magic carpet 

“Happiness must be earned”

 _________

My face brims with a Cheshire grin as I watch myself practicing lively positions from the Kama Sutra. Hovering above, and fading in and out of my view in my space of “practice” His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada appears smiling with equal grace directly into my eyes as I lay down under my “dakini consort” if you will. He says to me without speaking, “Enlightenment is in a smile.” As if never there, he fades from my vision and my “practice” vanishes with equal mystery.

Standing up in the opaque darkness of my surroundings, I open a door to a small theatre. My wife accompanies me, wrapped around my arm. We are attending a slew of Spoken Word performances. The first performance portrays a sterling might and inventive will unlike anything we have seen pass through the English language outside of song. The subsequent acts are less impressive however we enjoy the entire show.

Walking from the theatre venue, the road reflects the night sky as flood lights bedeck our footsteps along the thin, snow-laden sidewalk. We continue on without a glace forward, watching our feeble footsteps upon the icy pavement. Without heed, we enter a rundown apartment duplex in our small, industrial city.

As we walk in, we find there are a number of past friends and friends of friends sitting on couches and occupying the entirety of the now tense indoor space. The silence is masked with intensive body language, mostly through the eyes. Our compatriots are from Colombia. I ask them about their experiences in Colombia. Two popular African-American entertainers, sit comfortably upon the upholstery and creaking wooden chairs. Lauryn Hill begins an eloquent diatribe about the situation of the people in the room, connecting the struggles of each and every one present to us all.   

________

Placeless Human Society

”If there is anything

less humane

than global urban centers,

it is their suburbs,

for they render

human society

placeless…”

- Calgary Winter 09’

Dogmatic Mysteries from the French Poetics of Jules Huret

The Revolt in Cairo, detail by Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson

"To name an object is to take three-quarters from the enjoyment of the poem, which consists in the happiness of guessing little by little; to suggest, that is the dream."

This quote is taken from Chapter 10 of Leo Tolstoy's book, "What is Art?" wherein he bluntly critiques such French poetics of romantic obscurity. I highly recommend everyone read this book.

For some thoughts on art and money on related subjects read my article!