I’m on my favorite podcast!

In a Perfect World

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My newest column is up on Erowid! https://www.erowid.org/columns/teafaerie/2013/04/25/high_holy_days/

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To All Concerned,

I am writing this letter in an attempt to inspire right action. As many of you may already know, Ann and Sasha Shulgin are currently suffering from financial distress largely due to Sasha’s increased medical expenses. This lamentable state of affairs is well within our collective powers to redress, and I feel that it is high time for the the psychedelic community to shower our heroic pioneers with a tangible demonstration of our everlasting gratitude. Continue reading →

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I’m going to the MAPS Conference and you can, too!

http://www.maps.org/conference/

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I find that I want to pray, but not to the deadbeat God of my childhood; that reckless progenitor forever tossing down rules and promises but never apologies, and never explanations.

What use has Immortal perfection for offspring? Amusement? A balm to loneliness? The child of a sheep grows up to be a sheep. The child of a human being grows up to be a human being…

Life moves directionally through time. It must renew and replace itself. It bootstraps itself from lower order singularity to higher order singularity through multiplicity. It’s what this machine does. It evolves.

I cannot be made to worship a higher power whose engendering and birthing is but a pale mockery of our own; a god who cannot create something greater than itself, or who fears to, and must content itself with mud golems endlessly enacting a tragic farce scripted in the inexorable fall of matter.

To whom then am I to address my prayers? To the deaf Logos? Should I broadcast my dreams and my soul’s unrest wideband hoping to chance upon the frequency of some benevolent intelligence?

My great-great-grandmother was the last of her line taught to pray to her ancestors; the last born free before the change and not indoctrinated by the victor’s violent, fearful and self-hating memes. While I cannot bring myself to expect succor from the dead, I find that I do resonate with the impulse to call back to that life of which I am the natural fruit. Therefore, Grandmother, I address my prayer to you. Perhaps it will come as sudden thunder after four generations of silence. In truth I expect to be heard by no one but myself, but there may yet be some link of identity between you and I unbroken by time’s transforming illusion.

I am your daughter. Continue reading →

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I want  you now. See, I think the world needs saving, or rather birthing – pushing forward into the next level – and I want you to help me make it happen with everything you’ve got. Cause this is it, you know? This next 50 years is going to be make it or break it time for everybody.I don’t have a particular plan for you. You alone know what powers and gifts and insights you can bring to the effort. I just want you to take a good look around at the time you got lucky enough to live in and to think about how awesome and how tenuous it all is, and to do what you think is the best and the most righteous thing to do under the circumstances.

Oh, but Teafaerie, I hear some of you say – I would love to move and shake and all, but I’m just not the kind of bright and shiny one that can really make a difference in this world right now. I seem strong and able to you, but in fact I’m not. I’m not good enough. I’m selfish, lazy, apathetic and cowardly. I’m barely holding myself together. How can I save the world? If only you knew the truth about me; that my mind is all over the place, I have secret vices, I hate myself sometimes. I hate a lot of stuff. I need to figure my life out first. I need to stop drinking or smoking, I need to get a better job and lose 20 pounds. I need to find a good partner and straighten my head out a little. THEN I’ll be good enough for the revolution.

Well, fuck that!

I want you now. No one is so corrupt that they cannot shine a light on the world. You can never lose touch with the source. You’re good enough to be a hero, just as you are. Somebody has to be. Everybody has to be. No apologies, no excuses.

The time is here. Let’s do it.

 

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When people ask me what I do, I tell them that I teach Flow Arts. That’s much is easy.  The hard part comes about three seconds later, when my well intentioned interlocutor inevitably insist that I define my terms.

What is Flow Arts? It’s a question that has been posed to me countless times.  As one of the co-founders of Flow Temple (along with Burning dan), I’m often asked to explain why so many fully grown adults suddenly seem to be rediscovering the magic of playing with a certain class of toys. The answer turns out to be complex and involved, but it’s ultimately intuitive at the core. Which is actually a fairly decent description of Flow Arts itself, now that I come to think about it.

According to the propaganda on our website Flow Arts is a meditation and self transformation practice that improves patience, balance, confidence, dexterity, focus, coordination and self-esteem. It’s also a fun and sexy performance art. All of this is true, and more. Or not. It’s one of those things where what you get out of it is largely dependent upon what you bring to it in the first place. Some people spin for years and only have an increasingly sophisticated bag of tricks to show for it. Which is a noble and worthy accomplishment, don’t get me wrong! On the other hand, some practitioners experience it as a sort of an integrated physio-energetic practice like yoga or like martial arts, (but with less martial and more art). I’ve seen several of my beginning poi students turn their whole world around in just six weeks, simply by getting in touch with their minds and bodies, and by applying the profound insights gleaned from their practice to surprisingly diverse aspects of their daily lives. Continue reading →

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