Transdimensional Archiving
the path is art and healing, queer ceremony and neo-mysticism, spirituality and divine devising. learning from teachers so I can hold space safely and without appropriating
The observatory - Transdimensional archiving - Liverpool
An Immersive experience of autoethnographic documentation and practice
I feel strongly about holding onto The Observatory as a TRANS WORLD —> I conjured it/connected with it, as it is an actual quantum universe that now exists because I OBSERVED IT==> as a Trans world, and I really need to protect it as a space by and for queer and trans people
>Maya viewfinder, McKenna’s quantum Meso-Greco universe but with Irish paganism and queer/trans theory and ecology added in.
>OOH - Trans* ecology as a new evolution of paganism/shamanism - talk to Dr Kashian about this
THEATRE NOT AS A VOCATION BUT CEREMONIAL PRACTICE - DIVINE DEVISING
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CEREMONY - this is the anchor of life and practice. it is how Indigenous cultures live, the cornerstone of art and healing, and the type of life I’m calling in. We call it escapism in the West - but this is LITERALLY WHAT LIFE IS FOR in other cultures.
don’t make it a job or duplicate the work — like Richard said — don’t make the rubble bounce, kid.
My autoethnographic praxis and spiritual/mystical practice is anchored on my daily ceremony, which involves sitting at the altar I’ve built, calling on the guides, meditating through various methods, channeling the other realms, and documenting what I receive.
How are other people doing this? How have other cultures done this?
Research is backup
Kim Robertson - plant medicine - TA
Engage everyone in a conversation about auto ethnographic documentation - in the paradigm of my research and language > then document this and use it in my language
Doing the same thing over and over is part of the practice - what opens up in that process? > Brady drawing the same thing as part of exploration
>it's a trance state
Notes from call with Ali on the way to the queer cacao Equinox circle of sychronicity
Presentation -
Take people through a practice of connecting to the other realm - workshop
Present specific parts of the auto ethnographic work for the exhibition - journals, drawings, transcription, etc
[3/18/25, 6:07:44 PM] Ali Transart: https://landing.vda.lt/journal/announcement/view/1
[3/18/25, 6:17:33 PM] Ali Transart: TRANSDIMENSIONAL ARCHIVING | The Observatory: An immersive experience of autoethnograhic research + documentation
[3/18/25, 6:28:26 PM] Ali Transart: bradycsmith@gmail.com
[3/18/25, 6:29:11 PM] Ali Transart: +1 (720) 387-5278
[3/18/25, 6:31:11 PM] Ali Transart: “interior investigation” (observatory)
[3/18/25, 6:37:27 PM] Ali Transart: Summation! My suggestions…to keep or discard.
Part I - Presentation: 45 minutes. A workshop of ONE of your Transdimensional Archiving practices.
A) Present/contextualize “Transdimensional Archiving” (10 mins)
Lead workshop (15 mins)
C) Post-workshop discussion/Q&A (10 mins)
**Leaves you an extra 10 mins buffer time for any/all portions!
Part II - Exhibition: An open call for autoethnographic research & documentation in the form of visual/material, textual, sonic artifacts
This could be pages of a journal, or portions of a journal torn out or blown up; scribblings, doodles, illustrations, photographs; sonic/field recordings, voice mails/messages; video documentation.
[3/18/25, 6:45:55 PM] Ali Transart: What does it mean to / How do we document and/or present autoethographic research?
[3/18/25, 6:46:50 PM] Ali Transart: This could be called “The Observatory” OR another word that reflects “observatory,” “interior investigation,” “sur-veillance” > I need to preserve The Observatory as my own name/world. No QT appropriation pleez
**Feel free to use the language/structures I have outlined here for your submission forms!
[3/18/25, 6:49:33 PM] Ali Transart: **Also, if you don’t want to put forward or manage the call for autoethnographic work, I am happy to do so, and to provide attribution to you that this concept evolved out of our dialogues - without using your terminology.
[3/18/25, 6:51:00 PM] Ali Transart: I think “an autoethnographic portion of our residency exhibition” will be something we will receive in submissions anyways - so it’s just about whether or not you want to take ownership of curation in terms of your research interests/questions.
Workshop submission:
Title: Can I get a witness? Transdimensional archiving as ceremonial practice
Description: My autoethnographic praxis and spiritual/mystical practice is anchored on my daily ceremony, which involves sitting at the altar I’ve built, calling on the guides, meditating through various methods, channeling the other realms, and documenting what I receive. This workshop will lead participants through one of my transdimensional archiving practices and document as much of the process as possible. I will lead participants in a meditation grounded in shamanic and pagan practices: orienting ourselves in time and space (calling in the directions, invoking our current position on the Wheel of the Year, in the Maya calendar, and in the Western astrological framework). From this receptive state we will engage in a journaling practice about what it means to be seen, approaching it as a channeling/mediumship/automatic writing session where we are receiving information from the other realms and parts of self (inner children, alter egos, ancestors, archetypes, animals, nature, mythological and cultural figures, the collective unconscious, etc). We will have a group discussion about what we received and our experiences of being seen and unseen, both positive and challenging. If anyone or anything needs to be witnessed in what was received, we will hold that as a group, offering support and reflection.
Goals: To test the transpersonality of my autoethnographic methods; to explore and document others’ practice and experience for the archive my research is creating. Part of my research involves tracking and archiving syncretism and I am very interested in the phenomenological experience of others who follow these practices. It will inform research questions: whether elements can be isolated from the larger ceremony and still provide the desired connections; if the same morphic fields can be opened and accessed across contexts, mediums, and vessels.
Format: is 90 mins possible?
Present/contextualize “Transdimensional Archiving” (10-15 mins)
Opening ceremony (5-10 mins)
Journaling/writing (10-15 mins)
Group discussion, witnessing and contextualizing (15-20 mins)
Next steps, close ceremony (5 mins)
Post-workshop discussion/Q&A (10 mins)
The group exhibition: Surveillance, exposure - under the microscope? The Observatory is Trans, Trans is about the telescope, going out to the stars and the astral > art and research is grounding it, it’s about the microscope, the subjective that becomes objective, looking closer to see the real story (which is in itself a key concept/component of my research > new tech developments that let us see what ancient people were doing with substances and ritual). All of it is correspondence, understanding the universal through the personal
Jupiter + Capricorn / Not all who wander are lost
Cosmological metaphysics: Astrological Jupiter, the New Moon in Capricorn, and the Gregorian transition
Jupiter synchronicities
When things like this happen you can’t help but realize that everything in the universe is in perfect alignment all the time, and you just trip in and out of the flow sometimes
Every single thing that dropped into my awareness and conversation this morning turns out to be represented by astrological Jupiter
I “happened” to be talking with Brian after not doing so for months and letting him into my morning portal bubble which I almost never do with anyone - turned out to be the right kind of vulnerability - and I realized he and I have been helping each other individuate this whole time. walking each other through the COVID bubble - the womb and the tomb - THIS WAS INTUBATION - THE DREAMING CHAMBER OF THE ASCLEPION - but those who didn’t realize what they were entering into emerged more traumatized, while others of us were alchemized and forged a new beginning
this was my Jupiter returning. my Jupiter is in Capricorn, so of course this is activated this new moon
Brian brought up apropos of nothing we said but that was being vibrated by the biggest fucking particle in the cosmos the exaggeration he and I are both prone to - it’s what makes us great showmen and drawn to food and beverage education - this is basically the most Jupiterian thing, teaching people where their food comes from - holy shit!
he mentioned how people have commented on his tendency for hyperbole, how could everything be the best thing ever? and he said that it was to him in that moment, and couldn’t that be enough? I love this way of framing it, it helped shift some things for me, and I shared how Jim had said something similar and I felt shame, and then later recognized it as a positive thing, and branded me the Celebrator, which is a quality I love about myself, and Brian found comfort and honor in this, too.
The Celebrator is Jupiter and he can overwhelm people with his enthusiasm. he just gets so damn excited about everything. maybe this is where being more Saturnian or Capricornian comes in
New moon in Capricorn
The legend of Capricorn is linked to the Flood. Enki, the sea goat, helped create humanity because he wanted to create a servant class - whoa! This actually links to what Ash was sharing about the Gospel of Enoch - Enki’s brother, Elil, got annoyed by the human race because they were making too much noise - so the sea goat sent a flood to wipe them out
the goat, the cloven hooved that later became the Biblical enemy - the satyr, Pan, the Devil
Pan is also archetypal Jupiter!!! dude
the flood of sensory information that came in from the human realm was too much for the divinity so they sent the waters to wash the slate clean - but the key to awakening is not to wipe out the voices, it’s to learn to channel them
for me the work is to turn the volume UP on the ones who aren’t very loud in decibels, the plants and animals and fungi and elements and minerals, and turn DOWN all the static I’m receiving from the human systems that are deafening
Really - it’s all a metaphor for healing > and the answer is conscious dissociation
Pain as perceived by the gabatinurgic system is when the body is receiving a flood of information all at one time and it’s overwhelming > so Amanita works upon this system by mitigating the flood of information so not so much is coming in at once and you can manage it - it forces the observer because you can stand outside it, you know it’s still there but aren’t as bothered by it
discernment - is also what Annabelle was teaching to me in our Kundalini lesson - learning what to tune into and what to dissociate from, to fine-tune the nervous system through somatics, energetic science
Gregorian transition
There’s this concept in the spiritual community that the Gregorian calendar is something foisted upon us, an unnatural conformity to a made-up system, and it kind of is, and it’s come to be associated with starting a new cycle of production in winter, which makes no fucking sense
but originally it was developed, as was the Julian, to get society back in line with the seasons after the Roman calendar got it off balance.
but what is also weird is that the Roman calendar was based on the lunar cycle and so is biodynamic agriculture and this should feel natural
The Julian and Gregorian calendars are lunisolar - they actually combine both the moon and sun
Astrologer Rick Levine is fond of reminding us that our months are derived from lunations—the period between successive new moons (or other phases of the moon), wherein a total of 12 lunations amounts to 354 days or roughly a year—calling them “moonths”
Early peoples tracked the 12 lunations to determine a complete cycle (creating the Wheel?)
Solar calendars like the Gregorian don’t exactly map to that but we still use the “moonth” to honor the past
The Julian calendar was an attempted correction for the Roman calendar, which was probably based off Greek and Babylonian lunar calendars
likely established by Romulus, the founder of Rome, around 738 BC. The original calendar had 10 months and a year of 304 days, with the year beginning in March and ending in December. The remaining 61 1/4 days of the year were ignored, resulting in a gap during winter.
WHOA—so winter was literally the time outside of time—it didn’t exist! hibernation, intubation, the womb and tomb
Is this related to ancient Greek dreaming practices? to the DMT and night world model?
The calendar was later modified by Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, who added January and February to create a 12-month year. He also added 50 days to the calendar and removed one day from each of the 30-day months. January was given an extra day to avoid having an even number, which was considered superstitious.
further modified by Julius Caesar in 45 BCE, who created the Julian calendar to align the calendar with the rotation of the Earth and its orbit around the Sun. The Julian calendar eliminated leap months, which had been used to keep the calendar in sync with the seasons.
Janus was the god, which is just another word for “archetype,” of transitions and thresholds—he is actually TRANS
two faces, one looking to the future and one to the past. but what about the present?
presided over gates and doorways, rites of passage > which we have lost touch with.
beginnings were important to the achievement-oriented Romans and Janus was always invoked first, as a good omen of launching a new venture—so when this month was created the year had to begin there. which was out of sync with every seasonally based calendar
So Gregorian transition IS an instrument of empire—but the meaning behind the calendar itself isn’t empty. look closer
World calendars, Western transitions
probably the key is that you need both for a complete picture - sun and moon, all the principles
HUH - all of a sudden the Dreamspell, the fake Maya calendar, makes more sense as a system - the problem is trying to pass it off as authentic
once again, maybe the way forward IS syncretic - JUST CITE YOUR SOURCES PEOPLE PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD IT’S NOT THAT HARD. why do we have to pretend that either we made it up or it’s some ancient practice? Just be authentic!
Lubo still refuses to give credit where it’s due to the people who actually make the cacao he is building a cult of personality around and it’s maddening. All I can do is try to get the other information out there…
Over time the human measurements made the calendars that started off aligned drift out of sync with reality - how did the Maya stay on track?
The Maya calendar is divinatory—cosmological—encompassing above and below and every direction from the axis/anima mundi, the center, the divine queer. Divining = devising = subtracting, taking away the layers of consensus reality to reveal what has always been there > it’s just OBSERVATION of the natural alignment of heaven and earth, cosmos and psyche.
From Maya Daykeeping: Three Calendars from Highland Guatemala
“The three divinatory calendars presented in this volume are examples of a K’iche’an1literary tradition that includes thePopol Vuh, Annals of the Cakchiquels (Memorialde Solola), and theTitles of the Lords of Totonicapan. Two of the calendars were written in indigenous Kaqchikel or K’iche’ languages, but in European script, sometime before or during the eighteenth century. The third example was written in K’iche’and Spanish in 1854. They demonstrate that although linguistic and literary tradi-tions were still being adhered to, there was at the same time an obvious element of adaptation and acculturation, the use of European script. Calendars such as these continue to be the basis for prognostication or deter-mining the favorable or unfavorable nature of specific periods of time. According to the favor of the days, land may be purchased, sales made in the market, profit accrued, and other economic enterprises pursued. The calendar designates the timefor planting and harvest and other agricultural pursuits. The disposition of the dayscan maintain health and foretell illness or death, influence the naming of children. guide betrothal and marriage. Obligations to the dead are fulfilled on days affiliatedwith the souls of the ancestors. These little-known works appear to have escaped the notice of most scholars. Except for occasional mention of their existence, and an unpublished study of the 1722 calendar by Rudolf Schuller and Oliver La Farge (1934), no further work has been done.”
This is why my scholarship is an important contribution to the field - I am bringing in the FIELD research, the esoteric ethnography - those from the underground, the non-published academics who share in private circles and bootstrapped conferences and build their own platforms. The ethnographies of time and space, of day and night keeping - the systems of the day world, the serotonin system, the solar calendar - and the night world, the DMT model, the lunar calendar, the things that dwell in the dark. The ethnographies of darkness? New Hermetic tablets, hyperdimensional diamonds
All astrology is simply a Hermetic reflection, as above so below, of what is already present - it’s not predictive. Our calendars are the same thing, snapshots of things in the heavens that we try to use to govern our movements down here on earth. but we get separated from them
The Julian calendar was proposed in 46 BC by (and takes its name from) Julius Caesar, as a reform of the earlier Roman calendar, which was largely a lunisolar one.[2] It took effect on 1 January 45 BC, by his edict. Caesar's calendar became the predominant calendar in the Roman Empire and subsequently most of the Western world for more than 1,600 years, until 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII promulgated a revised calendar.
The Celtic New Year starts on Samhain - which is when Ash and I had our rebirthing. So we were aligned to our biological system.
But there are so many different ways to track it, it’s cyclical, a spiral, in the end it doesn’t really matter. The Celtic year is a WHEEL - so you can enter at any point and start going around. Starting at the harvest feels super aligned to me as a creature of the night realm - and honestly it makes sense for the whole human system - it maps to the cycle of gestation - the seed is planted in the dark and takes form in the womb to emerge in the spring as a human, but one that isn’t done cooking yet and needs the support of the village during its second gestation. Each harvest season a little more abundance is gathered until there’s enough abundance to come back and share it.
Heliocentric universe, Cosmos and psyche
When we discovered the Earth revolved around the sun instead of the other way around, it was a massive revelation. It should have made us recognize that we were just tiny players on a cosmic stage, that we were intimately interconnected with a whole web of living beings
but instead it made us narcissists, because psychedelic awareness can overinflate us if we’re not prepared to integrate the knowledge that we are everything—so all of a sudden we thought we were God’s chosen people, the divinity, so special to receive this revelation, but instead of believing that we were just aligning, corresponding, with an everything that is always changing, in an archetypal metaphysics of becoming, we decided that fruit of knowledge made us special, God’s chosen ones, and the language of the early astronomers reflected that. And we elevated the human intellect to Godlike status, and thus the Enlightenment was born, which ironically gave rise to materialist reductionism, where the spiritual was taken out of everything and people started believing we were just meat puppetry.
Cosmology is a big concept for my work - it’s not a framework the consensus West was trained to think within
https://beccatarnas.com/2015/06/07/whitehead-and-archetypal-cosmology/
In 1983 a conference was held at this same university, organized primarily by Catherine Keller and David Ray Griffin. The conference was called “Archetypal Process,” and sought to bring into dialogue the process philosophy of Whitehead and the archetypal psychology of Carl Gustav Jung and James Hillman. As Griffin pointed out, process philosophy and archetypal psychology are both postmodern movements, but postmodern in a different sense from the “relativistic, nihilistic, deconstructive postmodernism” that might better be called “ultramodernism, or mostmodernism.”[1]
Process philosophy and archetypal psychology, in Griffin’s words, are examples of “a constructive, reconstructive, or revisionary postmodernism, in which many of the presuppositions of modernity are challenged and revised.”[2] They are postmodern movements that “both want to return soul and divinity to the world.”[3]
In his talk at the conference, James Hillman spoke of the need for a metaphysics that could support archetypal psychology. Hillman had abandoned Jung’s metaphysics in order to save his psychology. Yet this was not enough. Metaphysics is always operative, whether one acknowledges it or not.
What Hillman sought was a metaphysics of praxis, a metaphysics that supported the practice of psychology, the practice of soul-making—an alchemical metaphysics.
This is what I am creating–a transpersonal methodology for devising our deepest selves through creative expression, ancestral connection, our chosen medicine, self-inquiry and observation–facilitating awakening and trans-formation
Which is reflected on the collective level because above/below, within/without
Hillman spoke in his talk of that word, cosmology: it both “refers to the astronomical order of the heavenly bodies, and it also has a metaphysical meaning, according to Whitehead’s Process and Reality.”[4] As Whitehead says, cosmology is a scheme “of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted
HILLMAN: Let us say that the astronomical bodies (the planets) offer metaphysical bodies (the Gods [or one might say the archetypes]) by means of whom every element of experience can be interpreted. What is beyond in both meanings are the heavenly bodies. These afford some nouns and adjectives, some processes and some realities. The planetary persons fill the void of the beyond with the myths of their bodies and the bodies of their myths. This cosmology is a psychological field—a field because metaphysics is placed in imaginal locations; psychological because the planets are persons with traits, with behaviors, and in relation with one another.
The correspondence of the planets’ transits and the happenings of one’s life, the happenings of the happening that is a human form a sequence of ongoing synchronicities by definition - you just have to tune in
Gregorian + Capricorn transitions
Riordan Regan discusses transitioning from a newsletter to a more personalized approach, focusing on self-healing and integrating various projects. The first installment will explore the concept of medicine, emphasizing intention, preparation, integration, and education. Regan plans to open up his blog and possibly Substack. He reflects on the end of an era as a food and beverage journalist, using food as a metaphor for life cycles. Regan also touches on the importance of energy management, personal growth, and the significance of the Capricorn New Moon. He concludes by reflecting on the Copernican revolution and the need to redefine January's significance.
Outline
Self-Healing and Medicine Series
Riordan Regan discusses the transition from creating a newsletter to focusing on personal life and projects.
The first installment of the self-healing series will explore the concept of medicine, emphasizing intention, preparation, integration, and education.
Riordan plans to present his findings with authority and track his projects through a blog or Substack.
The self-healing series will include Amanita preparatory explorations for Breaking Convention.
This will interweave with the music and psychedelics series—and one on No Bad Substances, maybe one on transpersonal/depth psychology
Join Alcohol and Drugs Society, reconnect with Bradford
Food and Beverage Role
Riordan reflects on the end of an era as a food and beverage journalist and the significance of food as a powerful metaphor.
Food is seen as a tangible representation of life cycles and a medium for illustrating larger concepts and artistic visions.
Riordan plans to conduct gallery exhibitions in cafes, restaurants, and breweries, incorporating psilocybin carefully into personal explorations with food and drink.
The discussion includes the importance of intention and awareness when using substances like psilocybin.
Personal Reflections and Energy Management
Riordan talks about the need to hire Claire to help sort through past work and the clarity gained from conversations with Brian.
The Capricorn New Moon is about protecting energy and being more conscientious about how it is spent.
Riordan reflects on the resolution of a conflict and the need to express discomfort to avoid repeating patterns of dissatisfaction.
The conversation touches on the balance between being alone and living in community, and the importance of setting better boundaries.
Transcending Dualities and Personal Growth
Riordan discusses the concept of transcending and including dualities, using the example of nomadism versus agriculture.
The idea of trans emergence is about integrating seemingly opposing elements, emphasizing conscious association.
Riordan reflects on the influence of astrology and the importance of slowing down to see the patterns behind decisions.
The conversation includes personal anecdotes about overcoming imposter syndrome and the role of inner voices in personal growth.
Gregorian and Capricorn Transitions
Riordan talks about the significance of the Gregorian and Capricorn transitions, emphasizing the need to break down binaries.
The narrative of modern society being flawed is compared to the Puritan narrative, aiming to break free from shame.
Riordan suggests redefining January and aligning with the Celtic calendar, seeing it as a period of gestation and emergence.
The conversation includes reflections on the Copernican revolution and the importance of perceiving oneself as part of a larger cosmos.
Transcript (Listen here):
Well, holy shit. Will you look at that, as usual, letting something go allows it to actually open up. And when I let go of the newsletter and let go of creating anything at all, decided that maybe the B’atz trecena would be about just creating my life, all of a sudden, something just popped in that, I think, is another way to tie things all together, besides the Hackney baths, this modern Aesclepion idea—if the newsletter is a series of ongoing series that come and go, just as I feel they're meant to, without predictable regularity, if they're just ongoing projects I'm exploring and I pop in every once in a while with little installations, yeah, just kind of tag them. It's a way to keep track of what I'm researching and ready to share.
So the first installment on self healing will be this festival welfare thing, and because it makes sense to start with the concept of asking, What does medicine really mean? And in a system where we have to take our own healing into our own hands, and where we're coming from this syncretic lineage, and we're having to learn to navigate how to be alone together, and we're having to learn to navigate how to cite our sources and give each other credit, and we're having to learn how to be respectful.
We're having to change our perspectives. Yeah, in that context, what does medicine need? We need a little help. I Yeah, so that's what this first issue will be, is opening the question of, What does medicine really mean? And I think the pillars and the foundations are intention, preparation, integration and education. Those are the foundations, and actually, and foundation, intention, preparation, integration, education, foundation, the foundation being, yeah, and then it's like, pick your medicine and you'll have a bunch of different ones woven in. So it's time to start speaking with more authority and presenting my own findings and saying, Here's the evidence for something that I'm making a claim about. So that's what I'm going to do with this one. And now this will be the self healing series, and Amanita will be part of that, and the music and psychedelic series will be ongoing as well. And this will be a way for me to track my projects and what I want ready to share with people.
But I do think that maybe I need to, like, open up the blog or make it not password protected. I'm not sure about what to do with the substack portion, or, I don't know, maybe I keep doing what I'm doing and I just, yeah, I don't know, something to talk to Claire about, I think, I think that's part of why that meeting got pushed out. And I don't know it's very interesting the food and beverage role. When I looked at the day that she and I are meeting now, it's 7 N’oj and it's the ending, the ending of some intellectual pursuit and the completion of an intellectual cycle. I just started crying because it is over now, that era of Holly, the food and beverage journalist, and yet I transcend and include and I bring them along with because food is a really powerful metaphor. It still is. It touches everyone, like everyone can understand it, and it encapsulates the whole life cycle of the human of the planet. It really is everything, and I really was onto something then. And as I was saying when I was talking to Prash yesterday, it's really unique in the way that it's one of the few mediums where you're just tangibly aware, you can perceive its ending as inherent in its beginning. I mean, from the moment you take your first bite, it's already over. It's disappearing before your eyes. You consume it, and it becomes something else, but it also dies, even as it gives you life. So it really is the perfect metaphor, and I want to use those to help illustrate larger concepts and artistic visions, and that's why I do want to do my gallery exhibitions in cafes and restaurants breweries. Maybe I don't know ethanol is still a tricky one, and I think, but I also was happy to hear ash talk about psilocybin as being something we can introduce to help us understand other things. So my impulse to bring psilocybin in, if I'm drinking it, was the right one, but you have to be careful and just have the right intention. So if I go in with the intention of help me learn more about this, you have to be careful too, because part of what I've learned in the past is that It's easy to lose yourself. So yeah,
just awareness.
so something's ending, but it's also not, and I think maybe there is still a role for hiring Claire to help me, like sort through some of the stuff that I've worked on up until now. either way, it will be really interesting to talk through it with her. And I find it really interesting too that I get a lot of clarity when I talk to Brian, even though he's the one who used to talk so much I couldn't get a word in, and we've really helped each other grow up. We've walked along the individuation path. We went through the fires of transformation in the caverns of COVID, and I felt so much resentment and sadness, and I actually just Yeah, so part of the Capricorn New Moon for me and 3 Aj today is about going within and protecting my energy. It's about seeing that I have limited energy to devote to things, and I need to be more conscientious about how I spend it. And that maybe part of slipping on the gravestone was, yeah, just needing to spend less time doing things that expend The energy, because it doesn't leave as much creatively.
i also have seen this is so uncomfortable, but how the quote, unquote resolution with Jess ended in it all being my fault? And part of why I expressed what I did was because I already felt a bit unwelcome before that happened. And I think I need to say that, and it's going to be uncomfortable, but I think I have to let it out, because I don't think that's fair. And I think we both are people who say that things are okay, and maybe we really believe it at the moment, but then when we're in it, we realize that we don't want it and we don't know how to get out of it. I know I deal with that, and I think we're worried pretty similarly. and I don't want to repeat the pattern of going for years and things where everyone's dissatisfied and they just need to end. So I'm glad that I'm going to Adam’s. That was a really wise decision, but I need to be brave and bring that up.
And so I see now that part of yesterday's 2 E’ was about feeling like I was caught between mom's and dad's house again, and feeling like I have to manage everyone's feelings, whether or not they're actually asking for it, and feeling like the choices between being alone and living in community, and that it's never that stark, and that I just need to have better boundaries. I always know when I need to be in my own energy, and I actually often don't follow that. And then I think I get into these periods of hermitism, of like isolationism, because I haven't been listening up until then, and the nights it's like, I gotta mainline it. And the idea is that if I can listen in the moments when it's calling and take that time, then I won't have to be so extreme about everything.
Night world versus day world, serotonin versus DMT, Sun versus moon, community versus hermiting, and then if it's in verses, it's all give and take. But also, there are seasons where we lean more into one, and that's okay. We've gotten out of sync, and that's why we keep changing our calendars, because we get out of balance and we try to realign again.
I guess that's what we've always been doing. And the idea that there was some time when we had it perfect is a mythic narrative that actually isn't true. I don't think it's always been changing. It's always been shifting. We've always been rearranging ourselves and our lives to try to align more with what's going on outside. I
nomadism versus agriculture, solar versus lunar, matrilineal versus hierarchical, patriarchal and purple. What if we could transcend and include all of it? What if trans emergence is in taking all of these seeming dualities, transcending and including them? I mean, I know that's what it is, and the key is conscious dissociation, to be able to pull back, slow things down, explode them out, and climb inside them, see where we end and others begin. See all the little patterns behind the scenes. That's been key for me. You think you see the causality. You think there is causality, but nothing's really causality. It's just influencing cosmos and psyche is teaching me, is evidencing this thing I've been feeling, astrology is documenting it. It. It's not causation, but it's reflection and influence. And so I think that I know what's leading from one thing to the next, but if I'm able to slow it down and explode it out so I can see every particle inside the wave that led up to the thing, the fall, the decision, the impulse. Then I see the association that's really behind it, making me unconscious conscious, and it's often something totally different. And I see that actually there are these whole decision trees and possibilities and little universes that begin and end within what I perceive as a split second. And so the manifestation of what's happening might be something actually totally different than what you're perceiving. So one story is that I was on top of the world with this ceremony, and then I stepped out of the ceremony, I got knocked on my face. And that's a victim interpretation, because if I'm real and I climb inside of it, what happened was what happens every time I feel like I've gotten to some new level of awakening or have some moment of expansion, it's immediately followed by not believing in myself. It's immediately followed by imposter syndrome. It's immediately followed by Who the fuck are you to say that it. Is immediately followed by you’re evil. It's immediately followed by, this is the dark sorcery of 13 Kan, it's immediately followed by, you’re Darth Vader, Tyler Durden. Luke Skywalker has been speaking, and I've been reaching him in my IFS meditations. He looks like Kermit the Frog's son who played tiny tim in the Muppet Christmas Carol and speaks with a little voice, but he's got a commanding presence, and he says that he doesn't want to play Leia anymore. He's Luke Skywalker. He wants to be the hero with a story, and he's going to keep talking until someone listens to him. He's little Brian, he's little Holly. He's little Riordan, the Bard and poet of the kings. He's the little hero longing to be seen. And he's looking for his Yoda, and he's looking for his Obi Wan Kenobi, the people to train him along the way. And so sometimes he falls for the gurus. But really, when he can get quiet and get down to his essence, he sees that he is Jesus. He sees that he is the Christ consciousness. He sees that he is the force and the magic is within him, and everything else is a feather, just for pretend.
So this New Moon is about being Luke Skywalker. This new moon and this Gregorian transition is about flipping the calendar and breaking down the binaries and not actually resisting the Gregorian New Year either, but seeing that that was our attempt to get back on track. Bless our hearts as a civilization, we've actually been trying. We've actually been sensing that something was wrong. We've actually been trying to get back on track. And the narrative that we're bad and wrong in modern society is flawed and we're hurtling towards some demise of our own creation is just actually perpetrating the Puritan narrative. Is actually just perpetrating that same, same shame shit that I want us to break free from. So can we transcend and include it? Bring the Gregorian calendar with us? Fuck it. It's what we're already doing. But can we learn to acknowledge that it doesn't have to mean doing. Can we redefine what January means? I'm gonna look back to Amazon. If it's Jupiter, then that's actually a pretty queer, trans archetype, and it's about gestation, and it's about what's starting to emerge, which actually is in alignment with the seasons right now. It's gestating.
This isn't the death phase. We already went through that. And actually, if we align with the Celtic calendar, then the new year started in November, and that actually feels aligned. That felt like the Death period. And then there's the stillness when something's growing below the surface, and you can sense it, but you can't really perceive it yet. And that's definitely the portal I just came through. That's definitely the Amanita journey, is like something's happening, you just don't really know what it is, and then you start to see the signs, and then it starts to emerge in your life. And little by little, you start to see that you're doing things differently. And I think that's the period we're in as humanity. And I think that's the period that we're in in January, and I think I need to share this, and it doesn't matter if it's perfect, it'll resonate with the people that it's meant to.
We can feel like we're falling behind or we're not on time, and 40 revolutions around the sun seems like a lot from one perspective, but from another, is nothing. It takes as long as it takes for us to learn the lessons in an era of so much estrangement, in alienation, where we have to figure so much out for ourselves, I think it's pretty fucking amazing if we can figure anything out at all.
So Happy New Year. I think it's okay to keep celebrating them again and again, because new things are always beginning. Why? Not have a cause for celebration. That's kind of my thing. Who am I to shut down the ceremony?
So happy, happy Gregorian transition, another revolution around something we perceive as the center of the universe. And that's really interesting, isn't it? Oh, my God, of course, of course. Right now I'm reading about the Copernican revolution. Of course. I just love the universe. I knew there was a reason I was being led to read cosmos and psyche right now, and it's talking all about the Copernican revolution is changing everything, because it was when, for the first time, we saw the sun as the center of the universe that the Earth revolved around. But ironically, paradoxically, seeing that we weren't the center of everything made us feel like we were the center of everything, because we were the ones perceiving it. And the enlightenment and the elevation of the human intellect came directly out of this Copernican revelation because we perceived ourselves as so great for observing, we were really just the vessels that happened to show up in that moment, as McKenna says, the lenses for seeing, for analyzing the whole cosmos in a unique way, that feeling special about us as our instrument is finely tuned to collect and gather all the information and experience synthesize across the cosmos and across these things we Call space and time that are really made up.
And I mean, that is a special ability, and that is something we can celebrate. But the real innovation of the Copernican Revolution was supposed to be that were not the thing the universe revolves around. And then that's what happened anyways.
And I think that's part of what feels like, at least for me, a natural resistance to the Gregorian and I guess the Julian calendar systems is orienting around the sun. I don't know. It feels kind of wrong to me, orienting around the doing and the planting. I think maybe because of this cultural shame, though, because if we're orienting around the seasons, that is oriented around the sun, but I personally feel a lot of alignment with the cycles of the moon, yeah, but yet, the Maya calendar system is a Solar one, isn't it? I mean, we need both that can't be an either or, and it's not, and I honor both and I incorporate them, but maybe part of my resistance to the sun in general is the shame that we took what should have been a discovery of interconnection and an opportunity to see ourselves as more embedded in an ecosystem, and instead, we used it to separate us. Instead, we used it to define us as superior. Somehow. So we just need to reframe it and put things in perspective and in context. Freaking cool. Okay. Gracias para la medicina and Happy New Year. You.
<isn’t that funny that today the AI picked up the transmission as ending with YOU? when last time it was WE, and before that I… FASCINATING
Resources
Laurence Hillman, The Hillman School: 10 Archetypes Course, “The Explorer: Astrological Jupiter.”
Laurence Hillman, Planets in Play, “Jupiter”
Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche, Introduction
Annabelle Stapleton-Crittendon, personal session, kundalini foundations and 10-body system, 28.12.24
Mark Elmy, Chol Q’ij daily updates
Becca Tarnas, “Whitehead and Archetypal Cosmology”
5 N’oj - PPS Ceremony #2 - Conceiving the Intellectual Path
Today is the first officially recognized ceremony of this Path of the Plumed Serpent, given that last time I didn’t even realize I was in one.
It has already been a doozy, but this is the beauty and blessing of the calendar: now there is a framework for holding, I don’t feel like I’m just going crazy, there’s a context to put it in.
But going crazy—that old chestnut—it always goes hand and hand with anything that gets heady for me. It’s both one of my greatest delights and greatest fears, diving into the intellectual sphere. Today, ceremony #2 on the path, brings my conception energy to bear, what I came into this world from: 5 N’oj, the energy of work and the intellect.
It’s also connected to Pawhuatuun, the old man, the Maya god of merchants, travelers, and the ocean, sort of like Hermes and Neptune put together. He is said to enjoy drunkenness. Because of course. The ancient beer is still very much a part of things, I have been hearing this morning. There’s a reason that the cacao synchronicities include the ancient beer crossover in the South American jungles where I awakened, the project that launched me on my nomad path and the road to a PhD; there’s a reason that Gönul, the angel sponsoring my visa and my cacao merchant, is Turkish—because this whole tradition of funeral feasting that includes cacao and beer goes back to Göbekli Tepe.
Artist, mystic, alcoholic, psychotic, and prophet: The only difference is whether or not people believe you.
The witnessing. Someone to tell you: You’re not crazy. It really happened.
Just like trauma healing.
Terence McKenna, Jesus, Judas, Richard Alpert, Tim Leary: raving channelers who received gospels that some people fervently believed in, and others vehemently rejected. Some were deemed the prophets, others the lunatics. Richard Alpert became Ram Dass and amassed a ritual following in Hawaii; Tim Leary was made Nixon’s public enemy #1, and got locked up in prison by the CIA. Jesus took over the world with his gospel; Judas became the scapegoat of humanity. McKenna is an interesting one because he was so fringe, he’s somewhere in the middle. Jung too, they found a way to translate things into languages people could understand at least parts of, but at what personal cost?
It’ll make you go mad, all this channeling, without something to ground you.
I fear the days of both intellect and creativity, the push to make something other people can see and understand overwhelms me. I always feel on the edge of exploding or going crazy. Like nobody is going to understand my ideas or believe me after all the years of gaslighting. I long to let the words go and simply feel. This is the best part of the ceremony and the practice, is just sitting and letting the sound wash over me, bathed in the primal light of only candles, breathing smoke.
Free. Home. An animal.
I fear the digital and often long for a world returned to analog. When I set pen to paper it flows until my pen runs dry. I channel and receive truth there that I later don’t know how to translate to something other people can understand. The spoken word is helpful but it’s so rambling.
I don’t know how it all comes together. But I fear my mind.
That’s where they came for me, after all, with the gaslighting.
The labyrinth is the one in my skull, and a brain kind of looks like one anyway.
My own thoughts are the enemy, the monster knocking around in there.
I love the days when the energy gives me an excuse to just be, days like yesterday where I went to the forest and sat nestled in the pelvis of a tree and translated a poem given to me by that sweet green place, and I took photos of the palaces and temples of humans and the earth in the land around the castle, and then I came home and talked to my soul brother about trying to navigate between the formless and the form, and I did a reading for our relationship that put everything in a framework and perspective that made sense.
Mark Elmy, my calendar teacher, reminded me that when things are meant to happen, they come easily. I wrote that in a marketing story recently, because everything is part of it.
It makes sense when I sit before my altar with my candles, it flows when I journal, but then I pull out my computer and it all seems to fall apart, that’s when I get lost in the labyrinth. I don’t know how to translate it, what I’m even trying to say, what people will understand. I know how to build an altar and make an ofrenda but what is my offering to the world of the mind? My play isn’t even a play, it’s a nightmare of half-formed hallucinations, and not in a good way, most of it makes no sense and there is barely a coherent through-line. It’s just another mass grave of aborted ideas, the beginnings of things that could have gone somewhere interesting, the conceptions of thoughts that feel visionary but I don’t know how to frame them.
I know that they revolve around this idea of the culture of direct experience, humanity’s oldest “religion,” the syncretic Hermetic tradition of esoteric spiritualism, of which I am a priestx, a shamxn, and so are Eric and Jade whether or not they know it. So are the playwrights of the Jeezus musical and the fringe performers at the Cockpit and Dave is an elder channeling shit around the campfire, I can see him in my mind’s eye with long dreads and a bone necklace; his eyes are portals to it. Aww, this is cool. We are around a fire together right now, interdimensionally.
He saw the play as what I conceived but was afraid to move forward: basically me just performing my ceremony in front of people.
It’s about self-gaslighting and channeling.
Everyone keeps telling me to trust the process, and I can do that. But I’m afraid of my own mind taking over and derailing me. Driving me into a corner of the labyrinth where the unstoppable death force can corner me.
Queer community, ceremony, and the stage are the exits through the side door of the labyrinth.
But I feel like my work is only in theory. I talk about the play I’m writing and my book proposal and both are labyrinthine nightmares, fragments of fever dream material. I feel like I just need an editor. Did Jung have one?
How do I bring any of this shit to fruition? It’s all stuck at conception.
What’s real is the ceremony and self-healing. What I can’t seem to get together is the documenting and sharing.
I’m so sick of writing. I just want to talk to people around a fire again.
Yesterday I alchemized it in the forest, I listened to that podcast about Jung on the way to a castle and found myself more enchanted with the palace of green that surrounded it than the thing made by humans. But I also took some amazing photos and realized this was something i was really good at, but I had gaslit myself here too and told myself I wasn’t a photographer. I am going to add these to my online art store. I sat in the crook of a tree that looked like a pelvis and hapé wrapped the forest around me like a blanket and I realized that no matter what we do, we can never be separate, and I didn’t just think it, I felt it, I gnew it, in the core of my being, and that was worth everything.
But according to the world of 3D, yesterday I wasn’t working. I’m behind on all my deadlines. I need to get this newsletter out and I keep avoiding it.
I just find it increasingly hard to do anything that’s not just being, feeling, talking, and listening.
Current research/projects: I’m reading “Psychomagic” by Alexander Jodorowsky after seeing it referenced in Kit’s thesis and it’s totally breaking shit open. This is what I’m doing. But I have skipped the public performance part and gone straight to the self-healing, adding my own flavor and experience. I still want to create stories for the audience but the praxis is this process for the queer, the seeker, the divergent, the artist to witness themselves and heal. But I do think it needs holding by another, which is maybe where my offerings come in and there is some opportunity to support myself financially, I don’t know.
I continue to dive deep into the Maya calendar, informally apprenticed by Mark Elmy, and it’s blowing shit open, and my friends can’t get enough of the readings, and i’m using it as energy exchange for things; as currency, you could say. I must tread carefully here, but it feels super life-giving.
I continue to struggle through the music series for my newsletter, feeling like an imposter, delaying publication of part two so much it’s causing me to completely freeze with anxiety. I don’t even know where to start with the podcast.
The second cacao/beer zine is burning a hole in my consciousness as well and I just don’t want to do it.
I don’t really want to write at all anymore, but I have this fucking newsletter and a thousand half-finished drafts that DO need to be shared…
I’m still finishing Kit’s thesis and have started a thousand books, from Donna Haraway to Gabor Maté’s ADD book, ironically, and Jodorowsky. I need to read Bittersweet as it keeps popping up. There is a book about shamanism from Annabelle as well I need to look up.
LISTEN:
Let's choose to be separate in the forest
The conversation explores the concept of oneness and the integration of self with the universe. It suggests that suicide is a desire to return to a pre-birth state of unity, but that true realization is understanding one is already boundless and inseparable. The speakers emphasize that death would not fundamentally change this, as we are already one with everything. They advocate for embracing life, appreciating sensory experiences, and finding comfort in nature, like sitting in a tree or feeling the environment around us. The message is to cherish being alive and the sensory separation we experience, rather than seeking to escape it.
Outline:
Realization of Oneness and Integration
Unknown Speaker discusses the urge to return to the womb and the oceanic boundlessness, describing it as a form of suicide.
Speaker 1 emphasizes that one is already boundless and one, highlighting that death would only mean realizing this while alive.
The integration is understood as recognizing that one can never be anything but one, and there is no need to go anywhere or do anything.
Speaker 1 explains that we are the trees and every species, with Papa Hapé helping to see this connection while sitting in the forest.
Cure for Derealization and Depersonalization
Unknown Speaker reiterates that we used to be free but are already everything, which is the integration and the cure for derealization and depersonalization.
Speaker 1 elaborates that one couldn't be separate if one tried, and death would only mean missing out on sensory experiences and the support of the environment.
The conversation touches on the sensory experiences of being alive, such as feeling the tree beneath you, hearing bird song, and feeling the moss and cold air.
Unknown Speaker adds that we are always one and can't be separate, emphasizing the continuous presence of the womb-like feeling in the forest.
Choosing to Be Alive
Speaker 1 suggests that it is better to choose to be alive while one has the chance, describing this life as winning the lottery.
The separation in this dimension can be brutal and painful, but finding comfort in the forest, friends, or the city can alleviate loneliness.
Unknown Speaker advises sitting in a tree to feel the womb's presence, acknowledging the responsibilities of this dimension.
Speaker 1 emphasizes that the ability to be separate is a blessing and a gift, urging to choose to stay alive and help each other survive.
Embracing Separation and Survival
Speaker 1 reiterates the importance of choosing to be separate while alive, highlighting the gift of experiencing life's sensory aspects.
The conversation emphasizes the need to help each other survive to enjoy these moments and feel the holding of the environment.
Unknown Speaker concludes by stating that everything will go back to the beginning, reinforcing the cycle of life and death.
The overall message is to appreciate the present and the sensory experiences while acknowledging the interconnectedness of all beings.
Transcript:
Suicide is also the urge to go back to the womb, to drift back into that oceanic boundlessness. But that way, it's kind of beautiful. The integration is realizing that you don't have to go anywhere.
You're already boundless. You're already one. You've never been separate. You can't be, you couldn't be if you tried,
fundamentally nothing all that different would happen if you died, you'd just be realizing what's already here while you're alive.
That's the integration, the realization that you can never be anything but one. You don't have to go anywhere, you don't have to do anything. You're already there. It's already happening. It can't not be happening. Now, I understand what these forest means. We are the trees. We used to be trees. We are the trees still. We are still every species, Papa jape is helping me see as I sit nestled in the arms of this tree held by the mother, floating in the amniotic fluid of The Forest, looking out at the water, softly moving i
Oh, I spit on myself. Shit. Did not aim that. Well, gross.
i keep saying that we used to be trees, and maybe we used to be more literally, but we already are everything. That's the integration, the cure for derealization and depersonalization is to realize that you can't not be one, that we're already everything.
You couldn't be separate if you tried nothing, all that different would happen if you died, except that other people couldn't enjoy you, except then you couldn't feel the support of this tree underneath you. Except then you couldn't feel the holding and the beauty of the forest. Then you couldn't hear with your material this bird song. You couldn't feel the softness of this moss under your thumb. Couldn't feel the cold of the fall air in Scotland
on your skin, taste the bitter earth of happe on your tongue, smell the rainforest as you sit in the temperate one. We're always one. You couldn't be separate if you tried.
So really, it's better to choose to be alive while you've still got the chance this dimension is winning. Winning the lottery, you get to experience the separation through the sensory and the separation can be brutal and painful, and it can feel lonely, but then you come to the forest, or you sit with a friend, or you go to the city even, and you feel the holding of everything around you, but really go Sit in the tree,
and then you'll feel that the womb is always around you. Sure, in this dimension, we have to do things and breathe for ourself and eat
and move our legs. That can feel like a curse, but it's a blessing. It's a gift. We get to be. Separate. So let's choose to be separate while we have the chance. Let's choose to stay alive a little bit longer. Let's choose to help each other survive so we can have these moments and feel this holding. It'll always go back to the beginning.
Transmission transcript: I don’t want to write anymore
Most people avoid meditation and hate it, but there's nothing I'd rather do than sit here in the candle light, Listening to the rain just being
I say suicide is actually the urge to return to the womb, where there's no more thinking or doing. You don't even have to digest for yourself or eat or breathe it's all done for you, the place where you can just let it all go.
But there is the beauty in being separate and having to do these things on your own. And yeah, it's the depth of experience.
But it feels so overwhelming. I think this is what all the artists experience, artist, Mystic, alcoholic, all the same archetype. There's a reason I'm putting them all in the same play. I think, I mean, there is a through line that's this gaslighting. What's the difference between all these things? They're all the same archetype. The difference in their expression is the witnessing is whether someone is telling you it really happened. You're not crazy. When there's no one to see it, or when you don't know how to share it, you go fucking mad. You but the same things expressed to the right crowd will get you the biggest following in the history of the world. Jesus, but then someone else tries to come along and have a vision. Judas, then they get sidelined and scapegoated.
The Trans is the hermetic messenger that brings back direct experience that tears down the gate keeping that says all of this is available to anyone you just have to learn to listen. That's the three line, self healing, direct communication with the plants, the ancestors, the energies. There's nothing special about any of these people. They just learned. They just remembered how to listen. It's something we all have the capability for which so it's about undoing the gaslighting by validating your experience, by witnessing the happenings and the knowings affirming.
This is the practice, and you can do it for yourself, but sometimes you also need someone to hold it and
I guess it's coming together, but the problem is the execution. Something's getting lost there. Something's getting stuck there. Something really important is happening around the calendar.
I'd say it's possessing me, but it feels more joyful than a lot of the other things I'm doing, but theater is so important to you. I mean, after that experience the other night, yeah, I just don't want to write anymore.
One of. Be free of the tyranny of language, and this is something McKenna talks about too. Words create a reality,
but they also entrap us in the net of duality, drawing lines around what things are and aren't supposedly