Feb 25 20
We went to the desert again to get far from the madding crowd and all that. We smoked quite a bit (as was our plan) and hoofed out at a fairly intense clip — hoping to go farther than we ever had before. But when we finally made it over the distant, distant ridge line, instead of beholding the unseen, we encountered the road we drove in on. We went farther east than expected. The road was still at a distance, but seeing it ruined the illusion of our intended isolation. As well, the realization of this misjudgment coalesced perfectly with the onset of the cannabis — we were now not feeling very comfortable psychologically.
Last week we talked about how often our miscalculations ended us in recursive traps but we were going to make an effort to avoid the trap of seeing traps as traps. We also said that we’d let you know how this new effort turned out… Well at first everything was pretty awful. All manner of mental and emotional negativity was visited upon us under that razor-blue sky. At one point it got so intense that we had to start humming and marching in place. But as is so often the case, it was our white-knuckle hold on our expectations that was bringing on the bad atmosphere. Of course our best option was to relinquish ourselves to the difficulty and the disappointment. We turned the plane and drove into the storm — that is letting ALL thoughts flow (dark or otherwise).
With this surrender, transformation and participation finally became possible. In a short amount of time we were in a 1:1 relation with the desert — all the desert’s previous occurrences, the vestiges of water, the animal prints were now the past paths and evidence of our own mind. All the reptiles, birds and plants became identical to the active parts of our moment to moment activity. The interiority and exteriority of memory and survival of both the landscape and the individual were now experienced as a great accord.
Last week we talked about how often our miscalculations ended us in recursive traps but we were going to make an effort to avoid the trap of seeing traps as traps. We also said that we’d let you know how this new effort turned out… Well at first everything was pretty awful. All manner of mental and emotional negativity was visited upon us under that razor-blue sky. At one point it got so intense that we had to start humming and marching in place. But as is so often the case, it was our white-knuckle hold on our expectations that was bringing on the bad atmosphere. Of course our best option was to relinquish ourselves to the difficulty and the disappointment. We turned the plane and drove into the storm — that is letting ALL thoughts flow (dark or otherwise).
With this surrender, transformation and participation finally became possible. In a short amount of time we were in a 1:1 relation with the desert — all the desert’s previous occurrences, the vestiges of water, the animal prints were now the past paths and evidence of our own mind. All the reptiles, birds and plants became identical to the active parts of our moment to moment activity. The interiority and exteriority of memory and survival of both the landscape and the individual were now experienced as a great accord.