Don't sleep.

  


Peyote dreams, how esoteric. I can't help but to remember past experiences this summer when this song plays in my head. The strange journeys and alternate worlds that danced over my conscious state during times of psychonautical transcendence. 
       My mother was very much in-tuned to inter-dimensional theory. It was her who first introduced me to the new age literature and the shamanic tradition, magical ideas that would rampantly flourish in my limitless childhood imagination. Every dream I had was a symbolic reflection of the cosmic universe, varying in degrees of depth an meaning. Our library was filled with books on Astrology and numerology; cosmology and consciousness.  
    What interest I had in the supernatural faded as I entered my teenage years, my mind had given way to the constructs of western thought and I had lost my chi, becoming one of the many ego-centric "I"s of consumer culture. In all honesty, I can't really remember how my conscious self evolved from that point to where I am now. Was there some great ontological shift that made me start reading Alan Watts and sparked my academic interest in altered states of consciousness? 


I'm not sure, I can't be sure. 


My memories of myself after my mother's death are blurred, if existent. In retrospect, I struggle to place exactly how I was feeling and where my head was. If I could talk to her now, I suppose I'd ask her more about her spiritual beliefs, what she felt about Zen philosophy and altered states of consciousness. When someone important to you dies, it's very easy to mythologize them, morphing your relationship with them into a powerful idea structure that often dwarfs or obscures their true Being. I need to remember my mother didn't read Aldous Huxley or actively advocate for the regulation of entheogens for therapeutic uses. I cling to the image of my mother as a revolutionary because I'm hesitant of treading that water alone. Now, however, I've discovered a constellations of like-minded communities who advocate for a redefinition of self and nature. There lies in this web support and structure upon which to build new ideologies & new social movements that will one day greatly influence the ascent of humanity and fall of civilization. Turn on, tune in....