7.31.23 Morning Pages

How do I track 3 pages here? Maybe I should start in Word first? Google suggests it should be in the bottom left but that doesn’t seem to be true. Quercus is starting to chew on the bench again. And I really need to change the cat litter here ASAP. I’m going to make a real effort to get it done tonight when I get home from work. As I get older I understand the hate for tech more and more. Nothing just works straight through. There’s always an interruption to fix something that didn’t work the way it went.

This is frustrating. I still don’t see the count. I could guess by screen size or scroll bar I guess. But I’m also using a large monitor so that seems a little unfair. It isn’t a clear measurement. I tried distraction free mode as one search suggested…still nothing.

Ok finally found it. Apparently, I needed to click on the triple bar thing, then click on Outline. So how many words is 3 pages on average? A quick google search on using standard times new roman 12 pt with double spacing suggests 1000 words is equal to 4 pages…roughly. So my goal here will be 750 words. I think that is a reasonable start.

Anyway, for those random internet strangers that are wondering what the F is going on, here’s the thing. After my little journey into the infinite underneath, I decided to take another shot as reading “The Artist’s Way”. Part of my reasoning was the understanding that after the experience, brains are supposed to be a little more neuroplastic again. It seems to me it would be a great time to focus on the hobbies/personal projects I had intended to. I had the book from H for a while. I started on it, but once it started talking about having to commit to 12 weeks, with at minimum of an hour a day…I backed off as I knew I didn’t have that time. I still don’t know, which is why I’m typing this instead of writing it by hand. I tried writing by hand yesterday, and not only did it hurt my hand…it took quite a bit longer than an hour. I need to remember to check the original publish date of that much. I’m not sure there is a good reason to write that much by hand. It might have just been a product of the time. Nothing about the book so far suggests it is particularly modern. It does make mention of movies/shows in general, so it can’t be that old.

I want to make myself some food. I was thinking about doing IF today…but I’m not sure if I really want to do that. If I do IF and only eat 3 times in the day…then if I’m going to meet 180g of protein that’s like 60g per meal. While for lunch and dinner that’s fine, but I don’t want to do 60g of protein in protein whey format. Especially when I use the blend with creatine in it. That much creatine makes my stomach feel bad. So yes, right after I hit 750 words I’ll make a relatively quick breakfast.

Anyhow, back to the reason behind the madness. The Morning Pages is the idea that in order to continue working on my writing, I should write 3 pages *everyday*, first thing in the morning. I can’t exactly do the first thing in the morning since I’m doing my bootcamp/boxing sessions. So I am opting for after shower after getting home. The idea is to get over “The Censor” telling me my stuff sucks and to focus on the logical. I mean, if I were all work then I probably could focus on coding stuff (he says on WordPress, which has options for that). I might sound like a child saying this…but I don’t wanna. I spend enough time at work that I don’t like the idea of taking my personal time for it. That work/life balance is extremely important for me.

I just remembered I need to check for those Heilung tickets. I believe they are doing a north american tour again. I was thinking about getting 3 tickets. 2 for myself and my wife. The 3rd will be a floater for someone. Not sure who yet. If H were still a thing I’d invite them. I’m not sure where that’ll go. I still care about them. I just don’t understand where they are at. I know the work they do now is eating at their body and soul. I think that fellowship is a 2 year process. I’m still sad that they aren’t a presence in my life anymore. That presence kept the depression away. I know I shouldn’t put any dependencies on anyone…but it sure was nice. Okay, time to make some quick food and figure out the lunch situation. I thought about a salad, but that is a more complicated storage setup. I’ll just do some protein and frozen veggies. I can do the salad tonight when it is easier to put together. And now this doc has a greyed out “Saving” and greyed out Publish. Maybe I should stick to word.

Good thing I copied this into my clipboard. Nearly lost all of this.

7.29.23 The Trip

I tried out psilocybin this morning. I had a partner’s support and did it in the safety of my own bedroom and under close supervision. This is my attempt to capture what I saw and some of the meaning I was able to get from it.

At first, I felt tired. More so than just the relative short night would indicate. My memories are already starting to get a little hazy, like trying to capture a dream. Only this was some type of waking dream. A day dream, but only something more. The covers I was under turned into a sort of translucent space ship…space vessel? I wasn’t exactly going through space, not as pop-culture/media defines it anyway. I had the sensation I was on a journey. A guest (maybe the shrooms? Maybe something else entirely) would speak to me now and then. Short words.

Must move. Must fix. Explore. Pioneer. We fix.

But before we could truly leave, there was one hitch. My feelings around the loss of Steph came into focus. I was told I needed to let go. She was okay. She is somewhere in the place between places…where we will be going and someday you’ll cross paths again. Not in this life…or really this leg of life. I got the sensation that this reality…this timeline…is all moving in one direction. Like we’re all in our own space ships within a greater whole. Then some of us have to get off the current ride, for a bit. We float off to this side tunnel and get out. Only to get back on the great ride. We all see each other again in some form. I felt myself crying. Not that sobbing weeping crying. I don’t think anyway. I was able to move on.

I’m not sure why my trip took on this space travel trip, or relied heavily on related metaphors, but it did. I myself floating in this ship through a type of space. It wasn’t outer space, though it reminded me of it. I could see what looked like those great big nebulas and gasses in space. Only that wasn’t what they were. The entire reality was composed of sinewy like threads. It wasn’t bloody or gross. I was looking at an infrastructure. My own infrastructure. The guests in my mind were guiding me in this type of tour. I had the impression I was looking from the inside out through my own brain. The processes I was seeing was the same thing that happened every night during REM sleep. Only now, everything slowed down and I could see it all. My mind was going through a type of maintenace. All the fiberrous threads I saw were part of my reality…my memories. And they spread out infinitely. After a while of floating around this type of mother ship, I got the idea that this was the infrastructure for all of reality. The space in between, or just underneath. As my physical body moved and I felt the presence of my partner nearby (though I was blind folded, I could still “see” them as an outline in my periphreal). The process had my physical body stretch and jerk every so often. Each of those movements changed the reality around me. The music that was played in the background…soft music with choruses, also changed and directed the scene. Expansive voices would grab my reality, like hands, and spread it open more. Showing me all the infinites within the minor details of it all. This is what my brain was constantly working on. It was a miracle it worked in the first place. When the music got quiet, I could feel the space condense. I found myself in the smallest sections of whatever ship I was on. Wait here, I could feel the presence communicate with me.

All throughout this scene, I could see many colors. I could understand the joke about people “seeing colors”. My senses of touch, movement, and sound all changed what I saw. Every so often I had to go to the bathroom, which my partner helped me find. Moving around because I was blind folded wasn’t the challenge. The challenge was trying to navigate both the physical space and this mind space at the same time. There were times I could see myself from the outside. But it wasn’t me as a person. I was in this type of space suit, only the head part resembled that of a random insect. It wasn’t scary or grosteque. It just was.

My partner made mention of having epiphanies during the episode. I certainly had some. In this mindspace, I could see what felt like different dimensions. I could mainly see from one dimension, but I was aware there were more. I became aware of multiple timelines. I could not directly interact with them…but I could tap on the glass between the spaces. That tap on the glass in this reality was that 2nd guess, or gut feeling, someone else would feel in another reality. Maybe it was me reaching out to the other mes? I wasn’t sure.

My big take away was the polarity between the individual and the collective. This whole inner space I traveled in was a type of mother ship that contained all of us. Not just people mind you. All being, alive or not. A ship of our reality. It was moving somewhere as a collective. I couldn’t tell where it was going to but it seemed important. Reality as a whole was moving as a collective somewhere.  But there were always dangers on the route.  The collective could not correct by itself.  It would not.  It was in its’ nature to stay together.  Enter the individual.  The one who separates from the group.  They were the ones that would pull the collective onto the better path.  The collective fought with every ounce of its’ being.  But it was a necessary conflict.

Story tellers are those individuals. They present the other realities. The other ways. Many in our reality find that change highly threatening. But it is necessary. Not all conflict is bad. Once the individual has pulled the collective over, they again became part of the collective as it assimilated their view. The cycle would continue again and again like this.

And now this storm in the real threatens to cut off this exploration. So I’m going to take a break. I think I’ve hit the end of the trip recollection in any case.

The guest found something…fixed something within me. A connection made strong again. There are stories to tell.