Wednesday, August 15, 2018

I'm Good


Thank you, Kathleen!

I woke up this morning feeling unmoored, drifting. What did I need to do? What did I need to accomplish? Who needed me, who depended on me, and what in hell should I be doing? 
Slowly it came to me as I drank my coffee that really, the answers were nothing and no one and whatever I wanted. 
How odd that felt for a moment and then I became quite cheerful which I have mostly been all day long. 

When I went out to open the doors of the hen house and throw the chickens scratch, I noticed that the variegated ginger lily which Kathleen gave me had opened its bloom overnight and I was delighted. I just looked it up and I believe it is commonly called the Tahitian Flame. Isn't that lovely? My poor kitchen garden is not a kitchen garden at all. There is not enough sun there to support any sort of vegetables or herbs but the lilies seem to do well and so do the bananas which have grown to impressive heights this year with all of the rain, and I can't get rid of the 4 O'clocks no matter how hard I try. 

Hank had invited me to come along for lunch today with him and with Rachel and our friend Dr. Anna who was leaving in a few hours with all of her belongings packed up in a U-haul to move to parts far away to teach at a university. I had thought I would not be going, that I wouldn't feel like leaving Lloyd. That I might be despondent but as the morning progressed, it became apparent that no, I was not in the least despondent but was in fact, quite happy to think about going to lunch with those people whom I love. 
And so I did. 


I'm so glad. I'm so glad I got to see Anna one more time before she left and Rachel brought me a  birthday present, a pair of gorgeous dragonfly earrings from everyone's favorite shop, River Lily. I am quite certain that my Lis will want to arm wrestle me for them. They are just exquisite. They each have two parts which hang independently, which swing and move. 


The back part alone would make a beautiful earring. Look at the detail there!
And here's what they look like together. 


They delight my soul and my heart. 
As does Rachel. 

We all ate giant bowls of Pho with Thai basil and lime and jalapeno and mung bean sprouts and then we sat and talked for quite a long time. It was a sweet afternoon of noodle soup and company and that is hard to beat. When I went to hug Anna good-bye I said, "I already did the crying and I'm not going to do that again."
But I did a little. 

I went to a Goodwill just a block or so down the road after we parted and despaired for real about the prices they're asking. There was quite a beautiful leather bag which could easily serve as an overnight satchel and I lusted after it but goddam! They wanted forty dollars for it! And it had quite a bit of wear and some staining so I left it behind. 
Good luck, Goodwill! 

When I came home I did a little leisurely laundry and I am quite certain that I'll not be doing a whole lot of that in the upcoming days. And I worked a little bit on Maggie's dress. 


I love those buttons! They look like candy. 
However, I cannot find either of my seam-rippers and let me tell you that after sewing three seams I already needed one. This says a lot about my sewing abilities these days, doesn't it? 
Ah well. The truth is the truth. 

I've been listening to How To Change Your Mind almost all day and I am enjoying it so much. Pollan is not only an excellent writer, he is also a very fine and capable journalist who does his research without stinting. I honestly thought that I knew quite a bit about the history of psychedelics but it turns out that I know almost nothing. It's an incredibly interesting story and it all gives me even more respect and awe for the powerful molecules to be found in the various substances which can cause such mind-opening experiences. 
One of the things I've been thinking about today is how the Spanish priests did their very best to stop the use of the mushrooms which the people in the new world had known about and used in rituals and in healing for hundreds if not thousands of years. The experience of eating those mushrooms (and their cousins in both plant and lab-created forms) is almost universally powerful and spiritual with absolutely undeniable visions of our oneness with nature and the universe. Religion, on the other hand, seems ridiculously weak, man-created, and plain silly in comparison. 
As Pollan said, ingesting the host and wine at Communion and believing in transubstantiation and its possible powers requires quite a bit of faith whereas eating what some indigenous people called "the flesh of the gods" takes you right there TO the source. 
This would tend to make Christianity a hard sell, wouldn't it? How puny the message of the priests must have seemed when you've traversed the cosmos. 
But you know- the Catholic Spaniards did what they did best and tortured people to give them details about the mushroom ceremonies and used that information to end them wherever possible which of course they could not do entirely. 
I've thought about this all day in regard to the latest revelation about the church and what it did and did not do in Pennsylvania and how this happens in all religions where power is given to a few who are deemed holy and representative of god here on earth.
I've also been wondering how in the world it suddenly became common knowledge to the young kids in Winter Haven where I was living when I first ate psilocybin mushrooms at the age of eighteen that if we went out into cow pastures and picked mushrooms that grew out of cow shit and looked like toasted marshmallows and bled purple when you broke them, we would trip? 
Good Lord! Who was the first bearer of this information? 
I have no idea whatsoever. But we surely did trust the message and I am eternally grateful that I had the opportunity to eat some because they gave me knowledge and insight which helped me through a whole lot of horrendous stuff. 
And that's not hippie bullshit either. 

Okay. I do tend to wander when Mr. Moon is out of town and I have no time constraints. 
I need to go put the chickabidees up and I guess I'll have some leftover corn chowder and foccacia that I made last night for my supper. I had soup for supper last night and soup for lunch today and I'll be happy to eat soup tonight. For my breakfast this morning I ate two of the pointy little eggs I've found in the nest and the yolks were as big as any hen could create and after they were cooked, they were as yellow as sunflowers. 

I do truly believe that another of the things that mushrooms gave to me was an unbreakable connection with what we call nature which of course we are as much a part of as anything. As Pollan keeps saying- it all sounds so cliche but it's just what happens when we trip. 
Truth. 

Much love...Ms. Moon


20 comments:

  1. Those earrings are wonderful. As is the ginger lily.

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  2. Such beautiful earrings. I have begun to think of Rachel as one of your daughters. And mushrooms. I think I shall have to experience that in this life. And perhaps I’ll read the Pollan book too.

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    1. Me too. And Rachel does call me "mama" which you know I love. I think you would like the book. And I'm sure that in your neck of this world you could find many, many guides to take you on a mushroom journey. If you ever want to. If the need arises...

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  3. I have given up on Goodwill - I am disappointed every time I go. I stick to the the little churchy ones and the salvation army. Those earrings are divine.

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    1. Yep. Goodwill is just another major corporation these days.
      You are right- those earrings ARE divine.

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  4. Love the ear rings, Goodwill is nothing GOOD any more- and mushrooms have been a friend to me, too.

    Way back in the day , first Owsley, purity from SF, righted my life, into your life, into all one, into "colors are sure pretty!" So glad for it.

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    1. Me too. Grateful beyond measure. Not sure I ever did any Owsley but I well may have. I lived with a drug dealer in Colorado for awhile.

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  5. I absolutely love visiting your blog. Not a day goes by that I don’t. I am usually stumped for words myself and seldom leave a comment. You write so descriptively and with such a richness that a visit here truly feeds my soul in ways I didn’t even realise it needed to be fed. Thank you for sharing your wonderful world and inspired insights with us out here in the great beyond.

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    1. Desiree, you have no idea how much those words touched me. Thank you so very, very much.

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  6. Oh, psilocybin! My very favorite. Opens your heart, opens your mind, shows you the connections, fills you with joy and peace. It is all one. No wonder Christianity despises it.

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    1. "It is all one." Yes. And that's a question on the "mystical experience quiz" that Pollan writes about in his book which is asked by researchers after people take psilocybin. "Did you feel that all is one?"
      Every time I ever did a psychedelic I knew I was peaking when that very knowledge became absolutely undeniable.

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  7. Look under your sewing machine for your seam ripper. I lost mine, bought another one and then found the old one under my machine.

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    1. My sewing machine gets put back up in its case so that's not where it is. Dammit.

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  8. Lovely post, Mary. I usually eat my meals much differently when the hubs is away, and it's all vegetables and wonderfulness, a lot of soup leftovers, too. You've gotten me thinking....and I'll put this out there into the Universe and see if any lightning bolts strike me. I think organized religion has it all wrong, personally, and the guy they call Jesus Christ has his head in his hands looking down at the world saying WTF in regards to religion and the church and the whole ugly mess! Religion is all about spirituality, which can be found within, and from nature, and mushrooms, and whatever makes a soul open up and feel love, not in an oppressive and forced environment of repeated prayer or rosary words or dictated dictums. Cuz it's all about the energy of love. The love of a tight-knit family, the chickens and their egg-gifts, the cool waters of the river, good friends ...these are the things that are the religion of the soul, the things that turn on the lights in our hearts. When our spirits sing cuz we look into the eyes of a friend and hug our grandchildren and marvel at the lily, that is the only religion we need. Just my opinion, for what it's worth. And I think fresh eggs are one of the best things in this world! I wish I could raise chickens, but I have to make do with reading about them here instead, and I do enjoy and appreciate your words and thoughts and goodness, all of it.

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    1. I would not and can not and do not want to argue with any of your points. I believe you are exactly right. It IS all about love and that's another hallmark of the mystical experience which people have when they do these drugs- this absolute KNOWING that it is all love. Which is incredibly hard and probably impossible to express in words.
      But once you've felt it, you know it. And you know it for the truth.
      Thank you for your very, very sweet words. Honestly. They mean so much.

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  9. That ginger lily is amazing, as are the ear rings. You have the nicest friends and one of the best families it has ever been my pleasure to read about. You are a loved woman, and thank you for sharing that.

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  10. I was never a drug user, but I did eat mushrooms twice and had the most amazing experiences. What I remember most was the laughter. So much laughter and deep thought together. I really think they enabled my deepest self to emerge -- laughing and in deep thought.

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  11. I love the dragonfly earrings and I love that you went to a pho restaurant. Dave became so enamored of pho when we were in Vietnam that he ate it 12 times, and he's figuring out how to make it here. (It's not hard but it does have some special touches.) I love that Thai basil that goes on top.

    I have never used psychedelics of any kind but I've always felt a little poorer for it. I think if I were in the right circumstances I might be tempted, but I'm also afraid I'd be all uptight and nervous and have a bad trip!

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.