oh brother where art thou

IMG_0543.JPG, originally uploaded by saralaimon.

What I think about it?
I don't know. Don't be defensive. Don't tell me, that I don't know what I am talking about just because I haven't gone there. I doubt you know profoundly more than I do.
I don't judge you, I got past that. I am not the one who runs around at a party telling people how much fun I have without drinking or getting high. I got high, I drank, and I feel like Joni Mitchell's "Blue" when she sings 'everybody is saying that hell's the hippest way to go, well I don't think so, but I'm gonna take a look around..."
It's just that... it's not mine. It really isn't.
What I think about it?
I think if we face it (and yes that does imply some slight unintended judgement just by having a different opinion which does include not only my life but life in general) it has to do with an inconvenient truth.
I hear so many explanations that sound somewhat defensive and also, almost like excuses, ranging from 'spiritual cleansing' to 'medicine' to 'i take it only in a ritualistic setting' to 'you have to break down those walls'.
Why, I love walls. I love climbing over walls and I love hiding behind walls, I love building walls, I love taking them apart. I do not like bombs.

I have the feeling that in the end of the day it has to do with following analogy:
Taking drugs is like pouring spirit into a vessel that is not big enough to contain all of it. It overspills. It feels abundant and good and all these things just bubble around you, give you an overdose of whatever matter that spirit contains, gives you extra power because it is so abundant.
But in the end of the day your vessel is NOT able to contain all that. And I feel that it erodes under the pressure over time. It wears out. It doesn't get what it needs to organically grow to contain more spiritmatter. Yes, in tribal ritualistic settings maybe that is different but you don't live in a god damn tribe, my friend. You didn't do the homework of a shaman who's life WORK is to deal with these things. You didn't live the life that is tied into that particular rite which uses that particular drug to help you. In fact, I think, this drug doesn't help you at all but it uses you. I mean, really, what do we know about these things? About eventualities of realities that do include spirit, demons, powers that be, consequences, truths?
I met all these healers and shamans from cultural healing traditions in Minneapolis at the Symposium of 'Ways of Knowing'.
The shopping mentality of the western people is just disgusting. IT doesn't go anywhere. People are not willing and too lazy to do their homework. They want the best of everything and leave. And usually they leave a trail of destruction, unintentional but yet very tangible. Like children with no elders.
The craze for eastern or generally indigenous ways of life is understandable considering the void and emptiness that the dead ended road of one sided intellectualism and materialism has brought us to. However, I feel strongly that the ruthless and uprooted fast food mentality which by no means is mean spirited but moreover, filled with great intentions, leads into yet another void.
In our cultural traditions are just as many ways of healing, knowing and life, that do open pathways to wholeness, to ecstasy, to elevation, esprit, spiritual growth.
The way we came opened up a new, very dangerous freedom, that we didn't have before in indigenous tribal settings. It does transcend in some ways the confinements of the very protective ways of life in a tribe and opens up a horrific abyss of possibilities that not many people can deal with, apparently. I understand the need for exploration, for anything that will take us over or under or away from there.
But I do also painfully see how great chances and opportunities are shunned away from.
To walk a spiritual path with the assets of a fully engaged left brain, marrying it with the right brain, exercising, taking it step by step, has enormous potential.
How do we learn? How do we find new ways? I do understand which role drugs can play within that scheme. I do also understand that I don't have to burn to know that fire is hot, I can touch it, I can watch it burn by itself.
I am searching myself. I'm just saying. Either way, if you have all these elaborate explanations already, you might as well have the balls to face other inconvenient thoughts every now and then. Maybe.
This, of course needs to be revisited. This was just a brainstorm.
This is for all the people I have lost in the battle. This is for all the tears I have shed. I cry not only for those who exploded and imploded during their search for something, I also cry for those who got stuck, in general, anywhere. In soberness, in conservatism, in liberalism, in any ism. I guess that in the end it's about the way we deal with things. I don't mind broken glass, there is always mosaics to be made. I guess I mind, most of all, getting stuck and the value of even that, I know, is beyond my comprehension.
It's just that, I still get overwhelmed and cry.