A Blessed Return
Thoughts take me out, out of my body, out of now. Molars grind. I am grinding out a problem to occupy this mind. I am this grind. It is a demanding sport, this getting lost in thought. This figuring out of a future that is a replay of a bad season in which all was … Read more
Being and Becoming: A False Dichotomy
It’s common to hear spiritual seekers berate themselves for “doing” and not “being”. What exactly does this mean though? To most people it means sitting quietly, not having to be busy, and not distracting themselves with activity. Which I get. Compulsively being on the move as a defence against feeling, or dealing with one’s life … Read more
Violence Is Love Denied
I was born into the world to love it. To love my mother, father, siblings, and the trees, the sky, the rain. When I discovered I couldn’t love my mother because her heart was closed the love transmuted into “fuck you” . It is a revelation to understand the darkness, the heaviness, as what becomes … Read more
Living Your Own Life Doesn’t Mean Being Selfish
The theme of this website and the course I teach, Live Your Own Life, can be misconstrued as a life of selfishness, the exertion of a heroic will to make things go the way mainstream culture has told us will make us happy, (which is always in the direction of increased security, status, and conformity). … Read more
The Observed Is the Observer. Huh?
I mentioned in my last blog that I’d been reading Krishnamurti. It’s tricky catching on to what he’s about — well, for me at least. Here’s my best shot, for those interested: His most repeated statement is: the observed is the observer. But what does he mean? What we observe, the world as it is, … Read more
How Committed Are You to Misery?
I recently emerged from a dark night of the soul. That’s what John of the Cross (15th – 16th century) called the suffering of the soul’s purification en route to union with God. (Personally, I think we’re already in union with “G_d”, we just don’t know it, for reasons discussed in this reflection). The dark … Read more
Psychedelic Psychotherapy
Psychedelics can be “used” for many purposes: to gain direct insight into the nature of Reality; to discover what lurks in our own subconscious; to increase creativity; to have fun at a party or in the wilderness. All valid. I’ve used them in these ways myself. But, as my mentor Andrew Feldmar teaches, in the … Read more
Virtue Signalling Is a Failure to be an Individual
Most political opinion postings on social media these days are little more than virtue signalling. Here’s a working definition that I picked up from the internet: “The public expression of opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character or social conscience or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue. It’s noticeable … Read more
1883
Taylor Sheridan is making good TV. I watched the series, The Mayor of Kingstown and loved its gritty, dystopian tone. Then I watched two of his other filmsYellowstone and the prequel 1883. I loved Yellowstone and I hate it when prequels are lame. So it took me a minute to garner the courage to watch … Read more
Who Would You Be If You Stopped Trying So Hard?
Most of the people who come to see me are expecting lots of homework between sessions. They have a problem that they want fixed. Obviously there is something wrong with them, and they think I’m in the self-improvement business. When I tell them that there’s actually nothing wrong with them, nothing to fix, and that … Read more
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Dismantled: How Love and Psychedelics Broke a Clergyman Apart and Put Him Back Together
This book describes my healing
journey with psychedelics.
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