Beyond Psychedelics
Making Lasting Change
tl;dr: I’m inviting paid subscribers to help me write a short ebook on what is Beyond Psychedelics.
The original version of this post included a link to my interview on the Webdelics podcast.
But I find that this episode of Rooted in Light, The Space Between the Peaks is more relevant to the invitation I’m making. Tuesday, who is my life and my wife, invites me into a conversation about integration. The messy and ongoing work that happens after the peak experience fades. Scroll to the end for more.
An Invitation Into My Current Project
Since we are already here, I want to tell you about my next project. I’m writing a short ebook on what is Beyond Psychedelics. I’ll be working it out here, in real time, with the support of paid subscribers.
I know that not everyone here cares about psychedelics.
My intention is to alternate my weekly writing.
One week devoted to the topics that you are used to. To this ongoing inquiry into how it is that we may become the people that we need to become in order to meet the current moment.
How do we learn to live as the ancestors that our descendants deserve?
These missives will keep going out to all of you who care to read.
On the alternative weeks, my newsletter will go out exclusively to paid subscribers. It will be focused on my effort to write a short book on what is Beyond Psychedelics. I’m relying on the support of paid subscribers to work through each of the short chapters that I’m writing.
I am not only looking for your small financial contribution. I am seeking your insight, your questions, commentary, editing notes, ideas and clarifications. I want you to help me make this a good book. To make it meaningful and helpful. Because this is a conversation that really matters.
Here is a sense of the writing:
It could just be me but it feels like the buzz has quieted. Maybe we’re past the “Peak Michael Pollan Moment.” But the floodgates are wide open, and people keep chasing the next revelation. That’s where we risk losing the thread. We risk confusing endless access to insight with the work of real transformation.
Today, it is ok for respectable people to talk about psychedelics. Therapists, lots and lots of podcasters, influencers and way too many capitalists are now free to talk about them.
It is a tectonic shift. These are no longer the days of Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, hippies, the counterculture and the Grateful Dead.
Insights flash in like lightning on demand. Unlocking so much possibility. And people start seeking one experience after another. But there is something essential that keeps slipping away.
Insight feels like transformation. There’s something essential, even pivotal, in that sense of getting it. But insight is not embodiment. Insight is not a new way of life. Your consciousness can explode a thousand times and it will not really matter if you are not engaged in the joyful but arduous process of integration. It was Carl Jung himself who said: beware of unearned wisdom.
Every insight, under any modality, comes back to the same thing:
Learning to walk the narrow path of wisdom.
The ceremony doesn’t change you.
Truth changes you.
Connection changes you.
Love changes you.
Surrender changes you.
Grace changes you.
The work begins after the vision. After the ecstasy the laundry. Or we could also say: the burning bush was just the beginning.
Integration is not glamorous, but it is the only thing that lasts. It takes humility, practice, and community. The medicine opens a door, but it is our ego that burns as we walk through. This is a path of presence and radical responsibility. It is learning to live our way into what we’ve seen and felt through revelation.
If those who love you cannot sense that you are growing, if those around you do not feel a growing sense of patience, kindness and compassion in your presence. More medicine is not going to help you.
The medicine reveals what is true.
The harder question is: how will you live it?
This is what I want to write about.
Allow me to say thank you
I am aware that any and all of this writing shows up in front of you from within a vast web. From a collective brain that produces all sorts of trash; but also an infinity pool of good content. So I am always baffled and honored that so many of you take a little bit of time out of your week to read and engage my missives.
I am especially grateful to those of you who reply with notes and emails. Those of you who share these with your friends. Your encouragement keeps me going.
Furthermore, I am deeply honored that a small subset of you chooses to support my work with a paid subscription. I hope this feels like good reciprocity. For me, it feels good to dive into this culture-shaping topic with folks who are invested in my work.
Let’s see how this experiment goes!
