Shroomin'

I started this series back in 2018, with a question: “Why would a 65 year-old man want to go fucking around with psychedelics?”

 I just did, that’s why.

I wanted to re-visit some of the experiences I had back in the day,  and maybe add some new ones.

 The covid panic derailed those adventures, and the next couple years left me in no frame of mind to go messing with psychedelics. It is not possible to maintain a good mind set in a world steeped in lies, and gone mad with paranoia. Much in our world changed in 2020, and none of it for the better. Then, in August of '23,  I got sick with it. It beat me hard, and it took over six months to get back to something like normal. Now I’m dealing with breathing issues, but I’m OK as long as I take the meds. Not all pharmaceuticals are evil.

So now, it’s May of 2024, and we’re waiting out the cold gray So Cal weather until summer lights up in July. I’m seventy one, and my smoking days are over. I’m back to work on the stones, but it’s very difficult to stay optimistic these days. I try to disengage, and retreat from news and world events.

And I miss getting high, especially when working on the stones. Best I can do anymore is to catch an edible buzz. But the gummies don't work like smoking, and you can't do edibles more than about once, or twice a week. The tolerance builds up very fast, and goes down slowly. So getting high has become something I set aside for once every week, or so. I'll wait for a night when Mary turns in early, and I've got the house to myself. I'll get a shower, climb into my robe & slippers, chew a handful of gummies, and just spend some quiet time with all the odd thoughts that float through the mind on a nice buzz. Maybe put on the headphones for a tune...

How about doing mushrooms, J.W.? They were next in line for the OGH series.

Well…

I first read about psilocybin mushrooms in the old Time Life Science book, The Mind. This would have been back in 1965 when I was thirteen or fourteen, before my freshman year in high school. It just sounded like an amazing experience, something I knew I wanted to try. Mushrooms were supposed to be a part of the whole hippie thing, but I never ran across them until 1995.

I remember asking the guy who sold them to me, "How much should I take for a first-time?"

"Do an eighth,"(3.5 grams) he said. 

That was way too heavy. Without going into detail, I can describe that first mushroom trip in four words:

 "Please. Make. This. Stop." 

 But that was a long time ago. I did mushrooms several times after that first unpleasant encounter, but always at lower doses, usually just a single gram, but no more than a gram and a half.  At those doses you sort of feel it, and the experience is sort of interesting, but that’s about it. Taking just a little is not even a preview of coming attractions compared to the real thing.

 Over the last year or so, I finally got to thinking about going for a serious event again. I even prepared a proper, if modest (2.5 gram) dose. Stepping into a psychedelic event of any magnitude is like working up the nerve to leap out of the plane on a sky dive. And I knew firsthand what a too-heavy experience was like. So I chickened out, and nibbled off about a gram. Not much to report. Tried again with just-a-little, and got not-much.

I was irritated with myself for being so damn timid. It was time to go for it. So, once again,  I chopped up two and a half grams of some very potent mushroom, mixed it in with mashed strawberries, and froze it.

Thursday, 4/11/24

It was about half past eight when I took the little plastic container of strawberry and mushroom out of the freezer, and set it on the counter to thaw. I ate a couple of cannabis gummies,  not enough for a real buzz, but enough to take the edge off the nervousness, and put me in the right state of mind for a major event.

I took a hot shower, got comfortable, and walked into the kitchen. I could feel my adrenaline rise as soon as I popped open the cold plastic container. The mouthful of frozen strawberry mash went down in one icy gulp. It was just a couple minutes after nine.

Despite the mild cannabis buzz, my excitement swells into anticipation, and starts edging up into apprehension. Maybe I should get dressed, and put my shoes on. What if I want to go for a walk? Is it warm enough?  Should I turn on the heat? Should I turn off the computer? Yes, go do that… I’m seasoned enough to expect this little case of the jitters. Even so, I take my own advice, and shut down the desktop. Take a deep breath. Relax your shoulders. Breathe. It’s OK.

Now, we’re dialed back down to excitement. Nothing for it now but the waiting.

I was in the living room, sitting in the green chair when the first alert showed up about twenty minutes later. Suddenly, I’m starting to feel dull, flat, lethargic, almost apathetic. I don’t want to move. It’s very easy to just sit, go blank, let my mind drift as my eyes go out of focus on whatever I’m staring at. All those questions and concerns were pointless; it doesn’t matter what I’m wearing. If I want to go for a walk I can change. Why was any of this a big deal? I get out of the chair, and walk around the room, adjust the lights, then sit back down. Soon the dull flatness warms into a kind of ebullience. I’m a little weightless in the tummy. Ebullience flows into elation, blooms into euphoria, and I’m smiling. Here we go!

The unfolding sensation is pleasantly dreamy, a little drowsy, a little lethargic. It’s easy to just sit and stare, sink into the dreaminess, and pop back to attention, only to slide in to the dreamy again, each time sinking in a little deeper, and a little deeper.

I close my eyes and there is a soft aurora; waves of color shimmer across my eyelids in the dark. Thoughts begin to tumble through my head. God and Nature, and the reason is Life, and Beauty and Truth are the Goodness of Creation… and the tumble of thoughts flows like a base note in the visual music playing across my eyelids. The intensity creeps steadily upward. Then the Voice of the Mushroom speaks to me through this tumbling flight of thought. I remember this ‘voice’ from many years back. It had upbraided me for charging into this world unprepared.

 “Well,” it spoke, “You’re back. We’re glad you finally returned. You were well prepared this time. You are welcome here; relax and enjoy…”

As if I had a choice. The mushroom voice joins the tumble of thoughts and voices, and reassures me that all is well. Colors become lights. Objects in my field of vision relax into a flowing mosaic, and then I move, and it all floats back to normal.

 It’s a little after ten as I step  out onto the back porch. The night is cold and overcast. The huge ash tree out front spreads a black web of branches like a huge lace fan against a roiling pewter sky. The  branches resolve into geometric patterns, that slowly morph into symmetrical rows, and I turn my head to look round the yard, and it all begins to float beneath my gaze.

How long have I been out here? Go back in the kitchen. Only a few minutes. How can that be? I return to the living room, and sit there for what feels like a very long time watching the visual symphony unfold. The furniture the artwork, the lights morph into pure plastic form, and glowing color. I come to attention. Go check the time. Not even ten thirty. How can this be?

That dreamy, sleepy, buzz steadily grows more intense. The drift into the hallucinatory dreamworld begins quicker, and grows longer and deeper. The return to attention comes more slowly, then before I can take a breath, I’m sinking back into the vision. My eyes relax, and my entire field of vision flows into a fluid mosaic of soft lights. I close my eyes and the aurora shimmering across my eyelids becomes a living kaleidoscope.

 The intensity rises; the event grows bigger and deeper, the hallucinating, more profound. My hold on reality is slipping, and I’m very much aware that I can’t make this stop. There’s a feeling of being pulled out to sea, and I notice, with some odd detachment, that I’m a long, long ways from shore. Even so, I know to stay calm, and just let it flow. The Voice of the Mushroom  periodically reassures me that I’m welcome, here, Enjoy the beauty; please enjoy your stay...

I go back out to the porch. The silhouette fan of the ash tree sparkles in pin lights, flows like a liquid. I sit, and watch, and the tree-fan weaves into Celtic patterns then shimmers into a Tolkienesque woodland scene which grows into a medieval village straight out of a Breughel’s painting. I pull back from the dream trance, but this morphing and moving and glowing just keeps rolling along, and I quickly start sinking again. Once again, I’m aware that I can’t make it stop, and it takes some vigilance to relax, and just let it all happen. Even if it’s overwhelming I still have to ride the wave. There is no bailing out.

Again, the reassuring Voice rises above the cascade of thoughts: “Relax, You are welcome here. You are loved. Enjoy the beauty.

As if I had a choice. It's barely ten forty five. I feel like I’ve been here for hours.

I‘m OK at this stage, but I’m wondering how much longer this is going to last. Time is flowing through gelatin. The clock hands won’t move… I make it back into the living room, and survey my artwork, my sculpture and graphics, and they all pulse, and shimmer with life, but it’s hard to focus on any one thing as my field of vision so quickly goes kaleidoscopic, and I’m so, so drowsy, and it is so easy to just sit and hallucinate on whatever random thing catches my gaze.

 Close my eyes, and I completely disappear, I become Emerson’s transparent eyeball, my thoughts weave into a fugue with God, Love, Goodness, Sin, Redemption, Truth, Beauty, and a thousand, intertwined voices past and present while my field of vision is a cascade of rotating colored fractals spinning into infinite depth. How long have I been here? When does this stop?

And then, there came one moment when the trance, and the visions became almost imperceptibly less intense than the moment before. With some effort I rise from the chair and check the time. Just after eleven. By eleven thirty, the descent becomes perceptible. The peak experience has passed, and now I know for sure that I’ve made it.

I breathe a sleepy sigh of relief. That was all the fun I could stand, and then some. The experience was gradually fading. By midnight, the sense of intensity was gone, but I was still hallucinating a little, and still very stoned. And so drowsy, so very, very drowsy, so dreamy, so sleepy, so glad I’d made it through. A good, good trip, but, so, so drowsy...

I got to bed about one in the morning. It didn’t take long before I drifted off with that voice still murmuring in my head, saying something about probably not coming back here, and I understood. I had a wonderful event, but the mushroom sets the terms, and there is no negotiating with the shroom. Not that I wasn’t welcome back. I can return if I want to. It’s just that I got what I came for, and, well, you know…that’s all.

 It’s been almost six weeks since I did the shrooms. Despite the sleepy, drowsy nature of the buzz, I didn’t sleep well that night, and I was a little burned out the next day. In the aftermath I find it much easier to disengage from the World, and current events. Things I don’t care for have become things I don’t care about. The madness of this age and time rolls on, but now it’s easier to step aside, and just get out of the way. This is a great benefit, and I hope it lasts.

So that winds up the “On Getting High” series of essays. I originally wanted to include a serious LSD trip in the mix, but I don’t really feel inclined to do it.  I don’t cast anything in concrete, but I rather doubt I’ll go for another event. At least not here and now, in the midst of a cold gray spring. We’ll see how I feel when the sun returns in July.

 New Stone for May

Well, here we go again. I'm pleased with the results on that last big rock. I sent photos to Ahmad at the gallery in Claremont, and he'll post them on the web site. Who knows? Someone might even buy the thing.

It's Friday. I predicted a long, very gray So Cal spring to follow our second wet winter in a row, and I predicted right. Usually I like this time of year, but as of late the overcast has been unusually thick, and heavy. It feels like the day never quite wakes up. I could use some clear sky and sun about now.

So here is the raw material for the new project. 

This tall, skinny splinter of rock stands exactly twenty four inches high, and weighs in at eighty pounds even. It's been a couple of years since I bought the last load of rocks from Art City. Counting this one, I have four pieces left. They've been sitting out in the rain and sun, and the surface has weathered considerably. 

Some cracks have opened up that weren't there before. Some time later today, or tomorrow, I'll break out the angle grinder, and dress down the faces. Once the surfaces are ground smooth, I'll be able to see how, and where the rock is cracked. I'll probably have to break out a few good sized chunks. We'll see. 

In other news, I'm finally going to finish up the "On Getting High" series with one last adventure to conclude the project. I had the event a few weeks back, but I'm still working on the essay.

And that's about it from Suburban Hermitage here in dreary So Cal.

Thanks for stopping by

JWM

 Done...

I'll have a note or two posted later

On the Home Stretch

 On the Home Stretch

It has been a while. And I won't try to beg off by writing about how busy I am. Somehow I find plenty of time to sit around getting angry about stuff I see on the internet. Almost all of the stuff out there is pretty depressing. That's why I don't write about it here.

Here. Home. My daily life with Mary here at the Suburban Hermitage. Within this small sphere I have much to be grateful for. Got more blessings than fingers and toes to count them on. I've managed to get back to my old routine, and the days are taken up with working on the stone, riding the bike, and keeping up with the the small details of domestic life.

But it doesn't take much to interrupt the illusion of peace and serenity. An afternoon trip to the store can do the job just fine. The grocery stores are all within a couple of miles of the house, but day to day traffic on the surface streets is so bad that if I need to pick something up at the market, I spend more time waiting at stop lights than driving to the store. When I get there I'm horrified at how little my money is worth anymore.

A trip through the bookmarks? Do I have to say anything? Thousands of writers are out there writing away to remind us all that the world is in a bad way, and getting worse.  

So, as always, the challenge is to keep focused on those things that feed the spirit: My art, my cats, my wife, my friends. And those things are all close to home. Next week I'll have work going into the Santa Fe Springs Artfest. Being sick last summer cut into my productivity (among other things) so I have only  two smaller pieces to display. The week following, I'll be submitting work for the May show at La Habra.

There has been no progress on The Lost Era showings. I'll be talking to Luz, at La Habra Arts in the near future. We'll see what comes of it.

I'm getting close to finishing the big stone. The work will be challenging. As per always, I've created a bunch of tight little spaces that will be difficult to sand and polish. There is no easy way to work the inside of that bowl.  The narrow crevass in the spiral will be difficult, also.

So, it'll be nothing but sand, sand, sand, for the next few days. Should be fun.

 

Is Anybody Home?

Is Anybody Home?

(above: a chunk of rock. below: Rat Fink)

(Rat Fink has nothing to do with this post. Just found the pic, and got a kick out of it.)

Well, it looks like a month has gone by without a post. Good thing nobody depends on this blog for an update on current events. Odd. When I do the daily tour through the various sites I have bookmarked, I don't have a problem coming up with a comment. When I drop by The Meow, I enjoy trading notes on the small events of daily life, but when I sit down to write here, I go blank. I don't want to get into politics, religion, or current events, and I haven't felt much like writing about the stone carving, or The Lost Canyon Project either. It's easy enough to come up with stuff that gets me angry, or keeps me angry, but that's back to politics and current events.
And, truth to tell, I've been in a state of out-of- sortedness lately. I can place much of it on the sad and sorry state of affairs in the nation, and the world at large. I will not, and do not need to go into particulars. We're all living the same age and time. We're all staring down the barrels of the same uncertain future. It's easy enough to blame a bad frame of mind on things external; you can always find something to get depressed about if you look for it. Even if you don't have to look far.

 And close to home, here in my own small world, stuff has been quite good. This Monday, the 18th, I'll be showing The Lost Era film at the Whittier Central Library. Luz, over at La Habra Art Association wants to arrange a showing in La Habra, and one in Fullerton also. 

My own work is being featured at the Ahmad Shariff Gallery in Claremont. Sunday, Mary and I are attending an opening at the Sasse Museum in Pomona. I'm getting a lot of good feedback on the stones. All to the good. And my domestic life is as good as it could be. Mary and I have a very easy relationship. There is peace and love here at home. Tranquility, and all that. Much to be grateful for.

I'm finally getting my strength back after being ill this last summer, and I'm putting in ten to fifteen a day on the red cruiser. 

Not bad for an old bastard. But despite being accutely aware of how richly I've been blessed, the blues remain.

 So anyhow, let's take a look at the stone project. I started this back on December 23rd. Of course, I lost a lot of days to bad weather, and sheer weight of this chunk of rock forced me to change up my way of working. Normally I begin by grinding the face off of the raw stone with the angle grinder, then cutting a flat base, then taking the time to plan out a form, and draw the cut lines out on the clean rock face. With this one I had to just start in with the chisels, and see what happened as it happened.

As it happens it's turning out OK.

Just as a reminder, here's what we started with. One hundred twenty five pounds of Anza Borrego Desert:

And here's where we are, now:

Challenges of Anza Borrego alabaster- the amber right side with the spiral is much harder than the silver side on the left. I was fooled by all the red on the face of the raw stone. The only red in this piece is a thin layer between the silver material, and the much harder amber stuff. That's it: the little red line on the base in the above picture. Most of the stone is silver gray.

More work to come on that opening. It's going to extend to under the heart shaped piece in the center.

The next major step will be deep drilling into that flat oval face. The pencil line marks the hollow. How deep will it go? Not sure yet. Like everything, it's a matter of keeping it up until it looks right.