I Stepped out of Nothing Visible: Part I

"I stepped out of nothing visible, as if I was shedding a layer of clothing - all those little details of shoulds and should nots, discarding the invisible cloak of culture that just clings and is so heavy, so heavy. I just walked out of it and didn't care. It's such a heavy coat. The sticky, prickly burdensomeness of all the details. But the soul inside is right. I want to walk in peace."

“Lisa”, after her plant medicine experience in September of 2018.

Do you remember putting on the cloak of culture? I think that when we were kids there was a time when “good” was an innate feeling of joy moving through our bodies, a joy that originated in the soul, which now lies under the heavy cloak of culture. In putting on that cloak, the immediacy of joy got replaced by the satisfactions of being thought of as morally good, or even just of getting the right answer in a test. Feeling good in the body was supplanted by “being” – or rather acting – good in class, in church, at temple, or at the dinner table.  

There's no natural connection between these two kinds of good, so feeling good by thrilling to sensations, impressions and thoughts, had to be sacrificed at the altar of acting good. Because we are such exuberant creatures, this could only be done through fear, physical constriction and a deliberate dulling of the senses – as in having to sit at a desk all day, listening, let’s say, to somebody else’s logic or a history not our own.  

In adulthood the stakes get higher and the cloak of shoulds and should nots grows more burdensome. Our natural exuberance gets drained even more, and we find ourselves able to sit in front of a machine or a screen all day long, while we spend money on “stuff” to alleviate the stifling weight of this conforming. We even get to be in on the plot against ourselves, trust in our own instincts ebbs low, and we become co-conspirators in our own betrayal.  

And then some day we take a psychedelic. A genuine possibility exists for us to wake to our predicament and momentarily at least, step out from the coat of culture. There’s the chance that we will get to feel our way through the many layers of self, and with luck, see that core, that soul again, in all its brilliance. Nothing really went away.

Inside us is a process that wants to happen, if we can reach down deep enough. A world wants to open. The things that we think concern us don’t really concern us at all, and it turns out that the great comforts in life are the comforts of the soul, which have to be purchased in their own currency. I accept myself and I accept not accepting myself. It turns out that “thy will be done” has nothing to do with submission but with more intelligent alignment. The fun of childhood leads in adulthood to the play of the gods.