The Transfiguration of Riordan O’Regan
He was really into John Fahey, the legendary American blues guitarist whose music inspired indie-folk artist M. Ward, whose early albums echoed Fahey’s echoing, ethereal empty-room quality. Ward’s album “The Transfiguration of Vincent” was even a play on Fahey’s legendary record “The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death.”
Both are records that haunt me, conjuring the ghosts of all those who sold their souls at the crossroads, like another legendary blues guitarist, Robert Johnson, was said to have done to receive his transcendent abilities.
Because nobody thought a human, especially a Black man in America before the Civil Rights Movement, could just be talented like that—unless they were possessed. It’s a story the dominant culture has put upon all the underrepresented people since the beginning: if it feels good, it must be dirty. If you can heal yourself, without a man or the establishment, it must be witchcraft. It isn’t art unless it’s hard, and it’s only good if you’re suffering. Unless it hurts, it isn’t work, and if you aren’t working, you aren’t worthy.
It’s time we transfigured that story.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but the blues is trans music; no wonder I’ve always loved it.
In Austin, when I had another Saturnian orbit around something resembling my future masculine embodiment, I worked at a bicycle shop, like I did when I was still with him, in college and rediscovering spiritual studies; when I wanted to change my major and focus on religion and then he started sounding like all the rest of them, and told me I needed to get a job and start contributing, so I graduated just when things were getting interesting.
But you can never lose what’s meant for you. It took until I was 39, but I got back again.
They say of Fahey:
“His music has the intriguing quality of having something missing and being wholly complete and self-contained at the same time.”
that is trans-ness: the holon: the thing that is complete in itself, at the micro level, yet is but a fractal of the larger whole; the sub-particle that can exist without the larger organism, but not the other way around.
“Another quality that has helped this music to stay fresh, 60 years on, is the fruitful tension between the traditional and the modern; the use of conventional folk and country melodies and chord progressions, alongside subtly strange melodic left turns that divert into less familiar terrain. Aside from the title of ‘On The Sunny Side Of The Ocean’, which cleverly alters a well-worn phrase to make it unfamiliar, the song is remarkable for how it moves through an array of different melodies, some straightforwardly pretty, others darker and more discomfiting, with a fluidity that means you never quite get a grip on the ‘verse’ or ‘chorus’, or the prevailing mood of the track.”
it’s the essence of Hermeticism, queer alchemy and shapeshifting. I spent my whole life singing the blues, not realizing my very truths were contained within their essence.
but it’s okay. you get it when you’re ready.
I used to think I didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t exist without him.
he was the first person who saw the world that I grew up in for what it really was, who affirmed my reality, who was that empathetic witness we all need to heal from trauma:
the one to tell us: “It really happened. You’re not crazy.”
he was the first person who affirmed what was happening with my body, who acknowledged its desires as something pure that could be trusted, even the ones for other women and thruples and permeable borders.
but then he took it back, the narrative changed on me, suddenly I was a bad baby again, living in sin.
so I buried it.
I buried the truth
and I buried it down so deep that even I couldn’t find it, along with the memories of whatever happened to me in the beginning
and I spent the next 15 years sleepwalking.
but in the middle of the night, I went walking in my sleep, through the jungles of doubt to the river so deep
I drank until I lost consciousness and then my body enacted a shamanic ritual without someone to guide it, possessed by dark and archetypal forces, a zombie looking for its host
but eventually, it found me
it wouldn’t let me stay in all those dead-end lives that weren’t meant for me, where I was grasping at masculinity and creativity subconsciously
marketing and bike shops and starting my own business, beer writing and food and beverage education
paired with really challenging relationships
they all helped me learn skills I needed but in order to transcend and include them I had to burn the ships, as Don Fornes said
leave no escape plan and only smoldering wreckage so I couldn’t return to any of it
thank you Holly Regan, the one pretending to be a woman, you deserve a fucking Oscar
the wound they tried to paint you scarlet with has now become a power
the GIFT of double deception, convincing everyone you were that person and wanted the same things they did,
when really, you were a fucking shamxn
casting spells, and you’re so good that you put everyone into a trance, including yourself,
and forgot that you were charmed to begin with.
you’re not a sinner or a little brat or naughty girl or evil witch,
you’re a psychopomp, baby, a pied piper; a transdimensional messenger,
leading the souls between worlds and playing Jedi tricks on those in power
with your skills of shapeshifting and altering states of perception
going in through the side door and making them believe it was their idea to begin with.
* * *
This is the transfiguration of Riordan O’Regan,
the one who claims their name in Gaelic and their sacred lineage,
who takes their bones home to the places they remember, where the quartz crystal vibrates across dimensions,
and does the hard fucking work of healing that ripples up and down through generations,
who only makes deals at the crossroads if they will benefit everyone,
if they will set us all free and we can have some fun,
assuming our roles upon the stage and entering into the play
alone together, dissociating consciously.
I didn’t think this entry was going to be about him, but it’s what came out, so I guess some part of that masculine identity was still clinging to him, believing I couldn’t cross the threshold without him. And he did help re-enchant me; he reintroduced me to the animals and land, I had become a hardened city creature except for the times I would go to the zoo and see a cute animal and it would break my heart in two. He helped me get comfortable with the bittersweet; he sat with me in the nonduality and together we tried to hold the overwhelming nature of the thing so beautiful it rips your heart in two, and we tried to keep our relationship alive like a little bird that hit a window and was gasping to survive, bandaging its wings with Scotch tape and holding it together with safety pins.
It didn’t hold for long, and we tried vaguely to resurrect it after it was gone, but it was beautiful while it lasted.
Thank you for being my bird.
But I can fly now.
According to AI, "The Transfiguration of Jesus is a New Testament event where Jesus' appearance changed to reveal his heavenly glory:
Event
Jesus took his three closest disciples, Peter, James, and John, up a mountain where his face shone like the sun and his clothes became dazzling white.
Significance
The Transfiguration revealed Jesus' true identity and glorified his body. The appearance of Moses and Elijah confirmed that Jesus was the one spoken of in the law and prophets.
Other details
A cloud appeared and a voice spoke from it, telling those present to not tell anyone about the event until Jesus rose from the dead.
In Christian art
The Transfiguration is often depicted with Christ's robes in brilliant white, a golden-yellow halo, and a bright blue sky.
In Lutheran churches
The Feast of the Transfiguration is celebrated on the last Sunday after the Epiphany.”
I’m not calling myself Jesus, except for in the sense that we’re all Christ consciousness. And we can all transfigure ourselves to become something more divine.
It’s why they call psychedelics “entheogens”: it’s an ancient Greek term meaning “that which awakens the divine within.” Because we are the medicine, and everything else is just a magic feather. If we’re all just vehicles and containers for spirit possession anyway, hollow bones ready to be inhabited, then of course the medicine dwells within us, just waiting to be activated. We ARE the mushroom, the mushroom takes US, because we are just the vehicles, the messengers, the psychopomps—if we learn to listen, to receive, to tune into the subtle energies; I feel the Tarot permeating my being like it did for Jodorowsky as I’ve studied it, sat with the images, held them on my altar and in my body, the prenda.
This is what it means that we used to be trees; that things turn into other things. The energies are inherent to the cosmos, floating around assembling and scattering, configuring and transfiguring, waving and particle-ing. Little specks of things only appearing solid when they come together and strike a pose for a moment. Forming a jeweled net constantly in motion and cast over the Kosmos, like capillaries, a neural network, a galaxy, or a root system—as we approach the trecena of K’at, of course, the net. The question is, what are you gathering versus getting tangled up in?
I wrote the line “the hollow bone needs some meat on it,” but I didn’t know it might be literal. Our bones know what we need and where to go and how to transdimensionally travel. I’m calling in bone medicine, but I hope it doesn’t have to mean eating animals. He’d never forgive me.
I receive the learnings in phrases and mantras that I now realize are titles of chapters or plays. I see a scene unfolding in my mind, the set of the Nutcracker being wheeled out; the title card displaying in the Wes Anderson movie.
‘Act V: Rehabilitation of the Feeling Function’
I just emerged from a portal of my evolving process, the alchemical cauldron I’m developing through this program:
fucking with time, which means slowing down and exploding out the thought patterns, memories and associations, to open them up and crawl around inside of them and observe what’s actually happening between when I have a thought or think I’m making a decision and taking the next action.
fuck around and find out, which means trusting my gut, trying to discern craving from calling and medicine from ego knowing I will sometimes get it wrong, fusing the Shulgin method with Shamanism and a Hunter S. Thompson-esque radical subjectivity, gonzo autoethnography and psychedelic autotheory.
music is the medicine, choosing the tracks that spark memories to dive into the feeling realm or diving into live sound immersion.
the body coming back online, taking an intention into ecstatic dance and letting body parts guide me, speaking their stories; rehabilitating the feeling function, leaning into the sense memories and following the physical sensations to climb inside the narratives and pull them back into conscious awareness.
checking my directions, following my map home and integrating at my altar, calling in the guides and consulting the oracles and cards.
and don’t forget to close the door. I kept forgetting to close the ceremony, which is a really bad idea when you’re opening yourself to the energies of the whole cosmos.
Riordan O'Regan reflects on his emotional and physical journey, emphasizing the need to explore and understand his feelings and body. He discusses his fear of anger and the body, his realization of self-forgiveness, and the importance of direct communication with his body. Riordan explores his ancestral connections, particularly between African and Irish cultures, and his desire to reconnect with his Irish heritage. He also touches on the significance of archetypes, spirit possession, and the role of plants in his healing process. Riordan concludes with a vision of integrating his past traumas and embracing his nomadic identity.
Outline
Rehabilitation of the Feeling Function
Riordan Regan discusses the need to explore feelings deeply, similar to how he explores thoughts.
He mentions an essay by Marie von Franz about rehabilitating the feeling function.
Riordan reflects on the fear associated with exploring anger and the body.
He compares the experience of exploring feelings to exploring thoughts with amanita, emphasizing the need to dissolve the illusory nature of space and time.
Realization and Direct Communication with the Body
Riordan shares a humbling realization about not fully understanding his body's messages after breaking his pelvis, admitting to not directly asking his body why it was trying to communicate with him.
During a dance session, Riordan cradles his pelvis and tailbone, realizing his fear of standing up straight and bearing his own weight.
He acknowledges his fear of putting weight on his glutes and the numbness in his toes, which he attributes to the pelvis.
Riordan recalls a hospital incident where he tried to kill himself to get attention, leading to a realization about the need to forgive himself for trying to kill his body for many years.
He emphasizes the importance of direct communication with his body to understand its messages.
Exploring Ancestral Connections and Cultural Identity
Riordan talks about his ancestral connection to Ireland and the conflict between his English and Irish heritage.
He reflects on the impact of colonialism on his identity and the need to research the connection between African and Irish cultures.
Riordan discusses the contradictory duality within himself, represented by his father (the intuitive, generative side) and his mother (the conquerors and colonists).
He mentions the importance of reclaiming his ancestral indigeneity and the significance of his Irish name.
The Role of Archetypes and Spirit Possession
Riordan explores the concept of archetypes and spirit possession, comparing it to his work with Amanita and cacao.
He discusses the demonization of death medicines and the role of corporations in stripping them of their spiritual significance.
Riordan reflects on the universal resonance of ancient cultures and the importance of working with the energies present.
He emphasizes the need to trust the flow and the messages from his bones, which are calling him home to Ireland.
Dreams and Masculinity
Riordan shares a dream about a bike shop farm in Greece, which symbolizes his masculinity and sense of belonging.
He reflects on the objectification he experienced and the importance of feeling like part of a brotherhood.
Riordan discusses the challenges of living in the US and the desire to live in Europe.
He emphasizes the importance of saying no to what doesn't serve him and living authentically.
The Journey of Transformation and Emergence
Riordan talks about his journey of transformation and the importance of integrating his rejected parts.
He reflects on the significance of the Prodigal Son and the need to welcome home all emotions and experiences.
Riordan discusses the importance of working with the energies of anger and other emotions.
He emphasizes the need to trust the flow and the messages from his bones, which are guiding him on his journey.
The Role of Bone Medicine and Synchronicity
Riordan explores the concept of bone medicine and its potential benefits for his health.
He reflects on the synchronicity of people around him talking about bone work and the importance of attuning to that frequency.
Riordan discusses the challenges of eating animals and the potential of working with marrow and bone broth.
He emphasizes the importance of researching bone medicine and deer medicine to understand their impact on his health.
The Transfiguration of Riordan O'Regan
Riordan reflects on the transfiguration of his identity and the importance of embracing his journey.
He discusses the significance of the Trecena and the day of the most ancestors, calling in bone medicine and transfiguration.
Riordan emphasizes the importance of living for cheap or free without having to move around all the time.
He reflects on the importance of trusting the flow and the messages from his bones, which are guiding him on his journey.
Listen / Transcript:
I'm being presented repeatedly with the invitation to go all the way into a feeling similar to how Amanita is helping me explode out and climb inside my thought process. I must do the same with feelings. This is act five, rehabilitation of the feeling function. There's an essay by the same name by Marie von Franz about it which isn’t that interesting, but the title sure is compelling. I have to do the same thing with feelings, to explode out and climb inside them. What's happening in my body that one's harder. There is fear present around anything related to the body. Exploring anger of course, is the invitation. It's a scary one. It's never about what you think it's about, actually, because anger is like a layer of emotion, a protector that stands in between you and the exiled scared little kid behind it, but in Amanita, the conscious dissociation, it helps, it helps to get close To the scary feelings in the body, because you can, yeah, it's like this crazy function of Amanita to explode things out, open them up, slow down time. I mean, I've that has happened with LSD as well. And just climb inside what's happening like to dissolve this illusory nature of space time, particleize things a bit more, though I’m starting to wonder about this whole quantum framework altogether.
I had the humbling realization at dance last night that even after the whole saga of breaking my pelvis, I don't think I had actually really gotten close to it. I don't think I had really ever fully asked it what it was trying to tell me. I don't know. I mean, I don't remember. I know I journeyed in California. And tried to get to the bottom of it, and got to some good places. I really should remove my doodles for that time. Honestly, I should see if Prash can bring them, but I don't know that I'd asked my body specifically what it was trying to say. I don't think I've ever just asked my tailbone why it was crooked. Asked my body why it's skewed and my left side is a kickstand. Asked my toes why they've been numb since I started walking again. Like I've come up with stories about all these things in my head, but I don't think I've asked the parts directly, and that's the point of this whole thing. Direct experience, direct conversation, direct communication, whether it's a tree or a plant or a past part of self or a part of your body or a cancer cell, what are you trying to tell me? I did some of the work, at least metaphorically, with Ralph's first course, but I don't think I asked the body specifically. So at dance, I cradled my pelvis and my tailbone and my sacrum tendrilly in my hands. I just held them like a baby last night, and I just slowly rose and fell with the beat. I did squats very slowly, and I tried to keep my body, my spinal column, straight. And I realized that I was afraid to do that. I was afraid to stand up straight. I was afraid to bear my own weight. I was afraid to put weight on my legs. I've always been afraid to put weight on my legs, specifically my glutes. Why have I been afraid to put weight on my glutes? It's so wild, like feeling in the legs is scary, and I don't quite understand why yet, but yeah, as I did this, I asked the toes why they were numb, and they said it came from the pelvis, and the pelvis told me, You never even asked me what I. Was trying to tell you, and it reminded me of my own words at the hospital after I tried to kill myself. The phrase that probably honestly kept me out of the psych ward is when I mumbled. They asked why I did it, and they said I just wanted him to listen to me, and I realized I didn't necessarily need to yo opono Ono, Lubo and Marc and dad and the UK Home Office, even though they're the ones I thought I was mad at, I needed to forgive myself for trying to kill my body for so many years. And I know I've kind of done this. I've done rounds of it, but I don't think I really addressed the body directly. Yeah, I realized I was afraid to put weight on my backside of my legs. I was afraid to stand up straight. I was afraid to carry my own weight. The feeling of my own lower body supporting me caused fear to be present, and I was still turtling over to protect my underbelly, curving at the spine, doubling over. I'm not really totally sure why, but at least we're in dialog now.
Just like the art plays and practice need a lot of space and time, so does the body. And I said this, and they had these realizations this morning but then I didn't do it. I was gonna take the time to roll out of my mat and really stretch and be with it. So I'm gonna have to try to do that this evening, maybe like a wall I'm talking to Adam, honestly, I need to do release the production mindset as much as I can, slow it all down. So explode it all out. Let this be a practice for my life, crawl inside of it. I think that's part of the LSD journey with Joe, where we tunneled through the magical forest landscape with deerhunter and East forest’s music and his explanation of the music creating an architecture. I think this is part of that message. Slow it down, explode it out. Crawl inside. space and time are not what we think they are. We can manipulate them. We can bend them. We can get inside them. Yeah, oh, no. There's more dimensions than we see present. We don't have to accept what we've been given. And there is more space, and there is more time, and there is more expansion, and I do think more DMT production. I don't care if there's data on it or not, but I do need to find out about that
night time, that's where the creation is. So I do need to make sure to get out to the forest. I need to get out to epping forest. I need to schedule a time to do that before, yeah, but I think sleeping in the day more to sleep in the morning like I did today, so I can stay up late and get up early, maximize my DMT. I'm really looking forward to the Berlin wintering. So if you are what makes you angry, if you are only triggered based on something that's within you, then I'm mad at myself for keeping myself prisoner in a woman's body, quote, unquote, in a feminine performance, in a victim story, in those horrible relationships in the house of horrors in Austin and all these prisons. So I love you. Please forgive me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for giving my body away to people who didn't deserve it. I'm sorry for not respecting my own boundaries and borders. No wonder I'm mad at the UK for imposing theirs on me. I haven't respected my own, I let so many people in that didn't deserve it, just because I didn't want to go home alone to that apartment and face myself. It's so funny now it's like, I can't get enough time alone. Mad at Lubo because I've used chocolate as a substitute for love. But like so many of us, it's so deeply human. I haven't wanted to be one. I haven't wanted to be a person. I wasn't able to listen to the pelvis because it was scary as fuck, and I still wasn't safe in California. This is a powerful archetype possessing me. It is almost the power of Saq ‘Iq, the hurricane, the Junjapu, is it Aries? Is it Pluto? The war inside me, the two sides trying to fall separately, the underworld Journey rising up to meet me. It's powerful. It threw me from my bike, and I was afraid to fully engage with it in California when I didn't have the support I needed. My body still wasn't fully safe, so I don't know. It's like I could only I couldn't quite go in all the way. Maybe it's the Calleach energy, and we are still wintering. We have all the time we need.
It won't be answered in one day. This is gonna take time. This is my intention for Ralph's course, and the wintering is to really listen to the body's messages, learn the lessons the pelvis, the message that was coming through this morning. It's like, God, I just can't stop staring at those Celtic images. Like, my bones want to go home to Ireland. My bones want to go home. That's what I was hearing. My bones want to go home, and I think it's dark. I don't know there's something powerful ancestral calling me, but England is home too, and and so I kept thinking last night of the enclosures and the connection between African and Irish cultures. And I need to research that more the two sides of myself are at war, the English and the Irish, the Protestant, the Catholics, the subjugated and the conquerors, the imperialists, the whole freaking world, two sides of my body trying to fall two separate ways. And interestingly, dad is representing the opposite of what you'd think Dad is the intuitive, generative side, the artists longing to be seen, the bones, longing to reconnect with the ancestral legacy in the druidic forest. Mom is the side of the conquerors and the colonists. They were the freaking Protestant preachers trying to force their religion on everyone, just like that Blake story. Urizen. Need to come back to that from Blake. I I gotta go back to that one. There's more stuff about transhumanism at all that. But yeah, Urizen the archetype of religious dogma and his twin, his other half, his imagination, but he's an archetype who is inserting himself as the primordial priest who created his own realm of religious dogma, and he must be appeased, his child Orc, The spirit of intuition and freedom. It's sort of a jupiterian energy that's present now with the alignments, a struggle with the divine mind. So the division between Earth and the religious dogma and org, the freedom, the rebellion, is the divine mind wrestling with itself. Just creative research kind of encapsulated.
There's a holy mushroom Trinity. The mind is lions made. Cordyceps is the body and the spirit is underneath. Tourism creates religion to control the elements. Making chains of the mind makes a lot of sense. Images take a lot of space and time that capitalism doesn't give us. PhD is my protection to let it breathe, draw draw cards and let them pile up on the altar and see what stories they are telling together. Take time with a Jodorowsky book and yeah, just feel into the body. Feel into everything. Give everything the space and time and breathing room, because the two sides of myself are okay. Back to this. The two sides of myself are at war. They tried to fall two separate ways when I fell on the ground and shattered my root. Mom was a religious dogma, and dad was the the Druids, the forest, the filid. He was always trying to go home, and he was always trying to be an artist, and it always hurt me so much, and the real pain behind this that he didn't give me an Irish name, and it felt like everyone else in the family had one, and I never felt like I belonged with them. Me and Amber were the only ones, the black sheep of the family. The rejection by the regans really fucking hurt me. Because it was a rejection of my legacy, my ancestry, the only clear tie I had. No wonder I was obsessed with the Lion King. I was the rightful heir to the throne, the eldest son of the O Regan's but I was denied three times, like Jesus, by name, my lineage and my manhood. Uncle John was the only one who ever really made me feel wanted, and then he either abused me or covered for dad. I don't know. I'm hoping the rest of that story will come out in Berlin. Maybe it'll be at the Kit Kat Club, even if I gave my body the proper attention. It is somehow this idea of reclaiming our ancestral indigeneity, there's really something here, and there's a reason it's popping up everywhere, because people aren't that different.
The Celts had sacred altars and Portal places where they created altars and made offerings, and they tracked the cycles of time and they kept fires all of this, just like the Maya. And supposedly they even had a beverage. It was kind of like cacao. So I got to do some research and figure out what that is, because the things that resonate with your bones are universal, but also we have syncretism, and I think that Berlin might be a place to start the interdimensional travel, but I don't know. No no. They took our land from us, the colonists. And we are the earth, and so to take our lands is to take our personhood, our identity, to dissolve, to dissociate us from our physical environment. They created enclosures and created private property, and they took our land from us and said we weren't even Welcome on it. They took everyone's land all over the earth. The English enslaved the whole world. Every time I go to dance, there's always some moment where I really feel that African, Irish connection coming through so strongly and resonant. And sometimes I wonder why I'm trying to live in the land of the colonizers, and I don't know all the places I'm trying to get visas, or the lands of the colonizers, the Brits, the Dutch and the Germans. So I need to look more at Ireland, and there's something really resonating and really vibrating on my body when Kaz was talking about the Irish artist visa, and Dublin's always calling, and Kaz a story about getting a Colombian visa, made me see that it was possible. So I made up a story about why it couldn't happen. But Kaz shows me that magic is possible. And I've always felt that if I could just talk to someone in person and look at a fellow Irishman in the eyes and appeal to them on a human level, that they would make an exception. Cows is proof that that can happen. But if I do want to live in the land of the Conquer, I don't know. I mean, my family is here, and I can make it Trans and Queer, but it's all abstracted for my numb toes. Can't read my own handwriting. What is my kickstand side trying to say, what is my body? Trying to tell me, we all long to belong, to be welcomed home like the prodigal son, which doesn't so much mean the one who returns, but that when he does, is told he has never been separate. And this is what I realized in the forest. The beauty is that he's been at the party the whole time. The good news said he never really left. And that's settling in my bones, that knowing that's why chocolate I want, that feeling of heart opening. Maybe I'm also kind of mineral deficient, so let's nourish ourselves more than didI did Prodigal Son is the welcoming home of our rejected parts, and I feel myself rejecting the class and vivid like I just asked for it, and I've already avoided every exercise and slept through the class. I've really so I need to face that, and I need to do that, and that is important, because bringing our parts home is important. And, yeah, already trying to get away from the culture. God, I can't read my handwriting. We need to welcome all the rejected parts home, including anger, including all the emotions and experiences the culture told us weren't appropriate. You. Need to help God. You need to safely, consciously dissociate to get close to the anger, explode it out and step inside it. Amanita, the serpent, the dark feminine, the rejected one. Everything they said wasn't appropriate for us, the death, the darkness, the death medicines. This is part of the story of Amanita rewriting these narratives.
Cacao was made into chocolate, which killed the spirit of it. Sugar was added, and then they made it into some kind of candy that wasn't good for people, and so they started rejecting it, and they started blaming the medicine. And the problem was the corporations, the corporations that took all the soul out of it and made it something poison.
So Amanita and Cacao, Datura and all these death plants, demonized and blamed for people's problems.
God I can't read this writing. To say that they made us sick or crazy is like saying somebody made us angry. No, this isn't how it works. No one can make us anything. It's about working with the energies that are already present, whether it's the archetypes or our feelings. And now I see what Jung meant by the archetypes possess us. We are just vessels for the vibrations that are already present, the vibration of anger, the vibration of war, whether it's people or planets, we're all just big fucking particles, the cultures with ancient roots do the same thing. God, what the fuck does that say? Oh, all the cultures with ancient roots do the same things for a reason, because there's universal resonance. The anger is present. Someone didn't make me angry, just like mercury didn't make me just like Mercury's placement on the day I incarnate, it didn't make me a good communicator. The energy of communication was present in the sky, Mercury Hermes was possessing the particles, possessing both my corpus and the planetary alignments at this precise moment. And this is even why astrology is sort of a mindfulness practice, really, is that it's just tuning in being present to what's happening, to what's resonating, whether in the cosmos or your own body, it's a correspondence, it's a reflection. And now this is what was so cool. This morning, I see exactly how my work is an extension, directly, of Kit’s. Now it makes sense, because it's all possession. It's all spirit possession, whether calling in an Orisha or invoking archetype, they're just languaging for the same thing as above, so below in this dimension, as in the other realm, we're just reflecting what's already present, emitting the same resonant frequency and. It's all possession. Celtic, Maya, syncretic, Shipibo, Buddhist, it's all just ways of letting myself be consumed by the energies that are showing up in that moment.
So are both just using different methods of devising. What's already here?
I had a dream. I laid down and I took my own body and my hands like Sean does, and I let the dream take me just like I let the mushroom take me, and it took me to a farm in Greece that showed me about my masculinity, and it was like a bike shop, farm, monastery. Oh, the symbology, a brotherhood, those who largely saw me as one of them. There's definitely still some objectification, but they only tried to sleep with me. I offered myself to them because I couldn't bear to face my empty apartment, and they gave me a place where I did actually feel like one of the guys. I woke up with a phrase echoing my ears, hearing a voice saying, from the flimsiness of being to the being of becoming. It's a beautiful phrase of transformation. What an integration. Way to follow the feeling. I'm so proud of you. Riordan, thanks for being my own dad. Thank you Saturn, breaking the pattern. Thank you Callie. Thank you archetype of death, the archetypes of death, the father and the crone carried me home. The images were plants, the ones that really lasted and resonated with me. I was tending to the bike, monastery, garden, planting little pots of Saguaro, sage and pine in a time of perpetual Aqua ball Twilight.
Did just came out to a temple with Ganesha and two mice. Look at that. Wow. I love these. I love these Indian temples. I haven't been in any of them since I've been here. God, I always miss the things that Sam's going to do. Okay,
Greek mystic oceans rolling behind in the background. At one point, though, Houston and Michael showed up drunk with the person brist was dancing with last night, and they all came and crashed in my little monastery house. Nobody had bored me. I had to share a person with. I had to share a bed with the person brist was dancing with, because we both had female bodies and like this young Ian life was talking about on the anger podcast, that, of course, popped up synchronistically in my feet when I was walking home last night. I acted like it was okay, but I didn't want you, because girls are trained to do that. And. The girl was ruined and vacant, didn't even speak to me, and Michael used to wear drunk and barely recognized me because I was doing my surgery. So this is in matrix version masculinity and hating Christ had masculinity, telling me I couldn't be soft in the end, they had to play the game. I told
them, Don't be fooled by four hours a day.
That's just you so the bike shop people were making me a gift for my coming of age. My male coming of age ritual was a mountain bike with the the latest insider in, my gosh, really the insider special, the special boy bike with the last year of good components from Shimano, it would cost $125 which was nothing, and I needed to invest something to make it worth it, Which is something Adam said the other day. But it wouldn't do me any good unless I lived in the US. I felt bad refusing a gift, but I couldn't tie myself to that country. I knew I couldn't do it, so I went to the garden and I burned sage and I asked the Saguaro for the strength to say no and live in Europe. So now I see that the only thing keeping me from the visa is me. I mean, I grasp that intellectually, but I'm I think I'm starting to feel it, some idea that I only deserve or inherit someone else's idea of what my identity or my life should look like. In the dream, I had found a way to live for free without moving around all the time. And I've thought about this monastery thing before, and I mean, it's why I want to build my own place, though, but, but it'd be right. I mean, something like the the monastery in San Diego would be really cool. So, yeah, can I call that in? Of course, I can. We can call in anything we want. We can bring down the motherfucking lightning. We are the conductors for the plants. Turn to the plans for guidance. Say yes. I say yes to my life as Royden, the nomadic artist who is also hardcore Holly, who is also trans and emergent. So this is part of the PhD. My life is the case study for trans emergence. I am the emergent archetype. Riordan is my expression of the archetype still emerging, still being defined, because the energies possess us. All we do is reflect what's already present. Our lives are correspondent to the subtle dimension, and realizing this is the event horizon,
we don't someone doesn't make us angry anymore. Then Mercury Retrograde makes us crazy. If there is anger present, if there is craziness present, it's just reflecting what's already there, Written In The Heavens, written on our bones, as above so below, reflecting what's already there. We are just conductors. We are just containers, all of us, and it all bears messages. So what are the stories written on my bones? What are they trying to tell me? My bones are speaking. The bones want to go home. The bones want to sit at the altar. The bones want to go to Ireland. I
the bones just want to talk about the universe and sit in ceremony. The bones don't want to make things anymore, unless they're drawings or whatever these things are that I'm doing, whatever this thing is, is going into the PhD blog, and I've got to trust it, and it's working with the plants, and it's working with the archetypes. And I even wonder if there is something here in being like an astrological translator, that. Yeah, the spiritual concierge has something there, but I gotta trust the flow. Everyone around me, I swear, keeps talking about bone Well, I I'm interpreting it as bone medicine, but everyone keeps talking about eating animals, to the fact that, to the degree that it's getting weird, organ meat specifically. And I've had the thought for a while that doing bone work, here goes my voice. So is this true, or is this other people's stories being foisted upon me. This is what I'm gonna have to sit with, because I don't really know. I almost bought beef bone broth at the store. I got fish instead, but the collagen was like more than double and the beef, and it just made me think, I wonder if there's something to that, and I wonder if I'm gonna work with bones if I need to be attuning to that frequency. And what's so interesting is just this morning, I had some kind of sign that, like, I felt like nuts were. It was almost like an announcement that was like, the time for nuts is over. And then when I went to Sean's, he told me that nuts take calcium out of your bones, and so do grains. And the grain part really doesn't resonate, and I feel like he's got to be wrong about that. But he also said leafy greens aren't good for you, and I just don't buy that at all. So take everything everyone says with a grain of salt, but it is interesting. I mean, now, now the meat thing has become a synchronicity, and I'm I can't abide eating animals. I just really can't even fathom that, but I have almost fantasized about like licking bones. So maybe I'm supposed to just have the broth work with marrow. I don't know. I gotta research bone medicine and deer medicine. Okay, this is a transfiguration of worried and over Regan, when one thing turns into another, something more holy, the transfiguration of Jesus, being when he became a divine being.
This is a direct extension of kids work, its spirit, possession. The archetypal work is spirit possession. We are just a vessel for what's already present, our bones, the quartz crystal. Of course, we can travel. The soul is mobile. The soul is a nomad. Any notion that we ever stay in one place is a fallacy anyways, so I embrace the continued journey, but I call on the stability and the ability to live for very cheap or free, without having to move around all the time.
Yeah, okay, the body's coming back online. The bones are coming back online, and just in time for 13 Aqua ball the end of the Tricera on the day of the most ancestors. I call in the bone medicine, Transfiguration, Transubstantiation, the trans archetype inhabiting a meat vessel supported by bones traveling through quartz crystal with the diamond needle. I.
Trecena of Kej begins / language shapes reality
I welcomed in the new trecena with Eric, my cosmic sibling and brother from the queer ayahuasca retreat, in the Trans* Emergent Archetype (T*EA) way: on video chat, straddling timelines and dimensions, me in what we have collectively decided is 16 September 2024 in England, or 1 Kej, the start of the new trecena, in the Maya calendar system, and him in what was still 13 Kame, the death of the previous 13 day-cycle, the trecena of Ix, in Florida. The day of double ancestors, the 13 number and nahual of interdimensional communication, as we talked about all the ways the old and new are constantly cycling and recycling, old informing new and vice versa; past meets presence.
It was perfect.
I even had the thought that his might be an older soul than mine, and he’s representing tradition while I’m the new paradigm, but we’re both close enough together in revolutions that we understand and parallel each other’s journeys.
All of it, welcoming and even hastening the singularity, maybe.
We discussed the possibility of T*EA as the novelty McKenna described, but remixed: potentially creating the illusion of time accelerating in the act of dissolving the things we’ve collectively decided are called time and space, the artificial boundaries we’ve placed upon this limitless, circuitous, interconnected experience. Maybe the synchronicities proliferate because we’re getting closer to the eschaton, the point when we’ll realize the universe has already known and embodied itself through every possible configuration, or else we reach the point it has never been before where everything is at last fully experienced, and we unlock the hyperdimensional Rubix cube, the hyperobject, the infinitely faceted diamond of the Kabbalah, the crystal slow-rotating in the DMT waiting room, and we advance to the next level.
I started yesterday deep in the other realm, and by the end, I embodied my intention for 13 Kame, to dance between them, and Kit popped in, cheering from the sidelines. The day was experiencing that nothing is real the way we were taught it is, and that that can be terrifying, or fun and beautiful. Michael’s wise words to me on Friday came in to help tether me, as I rapped into the voice recorder about how maybe there’s only a reality to the degree that we can describe and agree upon it, and then I played a McKenna talk where he said exactly the same thing and I literally saw the boundaries of this world start dissolving into fractals and pixels, and I had to state to the ancestors and energies and everything that I still had work to do on Earth, and affirmed my right and decision to be here.
It is a choice we make. And I wondered, as he had, as Eric had, what would happen if I simply chose to let it keep happening; would I dissolve along with it?
Can we just decide to die, and leave our bodies? If the Tibetan Buddhists can turn into rainbows, I don’t see why not.
I don’t intend to find out just yet, though. There’s WAY too much interesting stuff to do in this world.
And opening to that, making the choice, sealing the portal but leaving the door cracked out, I went into dance and picked up trash and swept the floor and greeted people as they entered, because I realized that like Jung, I needed a tether, and it almost didn’t matter what it was, as long I picked something, somewhere, some group, to be accountable to, and showed up consistently, and made a difference for the collective through it in my own little way.
From there, it all blew open. I was dismantled by the healing vibration of sound and the touch of the hand of a person I’ve slowly, silently, been building trust with since we met a year and a half ago and started dancing near each other, occasionally meeting eyes and smiling, nothing more. Now, today, as I dissolved in a different way, in tears, into this body, right now and right here, and sank with her on the floor I had so diligently swept, and faced her with eyes closed and knees touching, cross-legged, and wept, as she held her palms up for receiving, supporting mine that pressed down and our thumbs caressed each others’ palms, and we finally had a conversation at the end that started with me thanking her for holding me.
“Thank you for your trust,” she says. “It isn’t easy.”
And from there, my magickal friend from Burning Nest, Dane, appeared and invited me to a picnic in the park, because it was his birthday. My body was so sore and tired, but I cleaned the space and collected the cacao cups in my compost bag for giving back to the earth in myriad ways, and I spent time with my little dance family, and then I floated to the park and followed the trail of circus misfits after Dane, like the Pied Piper, leading us to a clearing in the forest of ancient trees whose roots were whispering to the good witch next to me that they have always been here.
How could I ever doubt that we are never alone, that everything is supporting me and carrying me along, if I trust and surrender to the flow? How could I ever doubt that I am worthy, when the Universe puts things like this in my lap all the time: where a group of queer weirdos and misfits who I have never met look me in the eyes and understand me with one glance, where the thought i had while getting ready in the morning that I needed to reconnect with Amanita for physical and emotional healing through someone who really knew how to work with her medicine in the homeland was answered as soon as I followed Dane’s gay parade to the forest clearing and sat down next to someone who does exactly all those things, and pulled out her leather satchel, blue eyes blazing through centuries in her tiny delicately lined face, set ablaze by her magenta sweater pulled up against the encroaching autumn’s chill, and said: “I wondered why she asked to come along today.”
How could I ever doubt that the Universe wants me to be here, when Dane gathered us all around the birthday cake as I was about to leave and lit the candles, and declared in his fabulous misfit ringleader incantation: “IF YOU’RE BREATHING, IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY. CELEBRATE. BLOW OUT THE CANDLES. AND FEAST UPON THIS ABUNDANCE.”
Every food I had spotted in a shop window earlier that week and declined for various reasons was arrayed upon the blanket, and we feasted as the synchronous connections set our whole corner of the glade ablaze, and I drifted home in a daze, dizzy with gratitude.
How could I ever want for anything when this is what is available to me?
The Universe is screaming at me that I am worthy.
I just have to trust.
That part isn’t easy. But I’m learning.
* * * *
So the rap was about how language creates reality, and everything Eric and I were discussing turns out to be a metaphor for what’s happening with this cacao zine I’ve been agonizing over for a year or more, and it all hinges on the realities shaped by the language. There is a big point of contention in the communities that work with cacao around whether or not it’s okay to call it “ceremonial cacao,” and the gatherings people host when they share the medicine “cacao ceremonies.” In ancient tradition, there was no such thing, but people are now making a lot of money hosting ceremonies that they sometimes claim are “traditional Maya practices.” Some of the people profiting off the ignorance of Western consumers are white people engaging, knowingly or not, in neocolonialism. But some of the people are themselves Indigneous—in the words of a source for a story I wrote about ayahuasca, “appropriating their own culture.”
Eric is the one who introduced me to cacao as a medicine, and to ecstatic dance. His eyes are the first thing mine caught when I stepped out of my hotel room and the rest of my life began that April afternoon in Iquitos.
I used to worry about whether someone would be there to hold my hand, witness me, midwife me, as I slipped into the afterlife. Now I realize that someone already has.
Twelve of them, in fact.
The disciples of the queer ayahuasca retreat, gathering again and again for the last Supper, the sip from the tree of knowledge, as we passed over, over and over. Alone together.
If reality is what we describe and tell each other, what enough of us collectively decide to say happened, then what we call things is everything. Indigenous people all over the world are resisting a collective gaslighting, white colonizers who tried to erase their records and write their own stories; telling them that what just happened didn’t really happen.
This is the play, the way we map history to trauma healing and individual stories. Showing scenes of me as a child being told that I didn’t just see or hear that; whole civilizations being told that all the previous millennia were some kind of hallucination, that their direct experience wasn’t valid because it couldn’t be counted and measured by their systems.
Reality in this dimension in some ways IS language, as McKenna says: it’s the stories we tell that get passed down and create memory palaces in the minds of the people, and if the only way reality manifests is through our senses, then what we hear and read and see on TV create the world we experience. And whether or not it’s what the bodies experienced, an alternate dimension has now branched off for whole generations where there are things like time and space and physics and ethnicities and classes.
Everything Eric and I talk about is reflected and refracted in the stories I’m writing and other timelines I’m experiencing. We’ve been talking about the concepts of spells and incantations, manipulations of energies and humans, narcissists and sorcerers and shamxn and magicians, wisdom and truth and illusions. Reflecting and refracting, reflexively shaping reality tunnels, discursively recursing what’s always never been done before. And all of this, I realize, maps onto the practice/praxis Kit started developing and I’m building on, xim and I enacting and actively collaborating on bringing it into various forms of being from different sides of this dimensional timeline, one that Michael seems to have been documenting in parallel, or that maps onto something he was already doing, and there’s something here I can’t quite put my finger on yet, but it revolves around the framework xe established, or noticed, because it’s really part of all sorts of magickal traditions:
Spell, charm, trance.
The spell is the story, the vessel or container constructed around the Word, the truth of vibration etched upon the bone, the quartz crystal, hummed by the diamond needle.
Describing something in language creates a reality tunnel, a show, an illusion that can be conjured by the brujos or the shamxn. The warring magicians. Trying to construct a Platonic solid out of something inherently flexible and fluid. Reality isn’t anything material, it’s a hyperdimensional infinitely faceted crystal. Or something.
There is a reality of language created by the way we tell our histories, but is it a vibrational truth, or an illusion put on by a shamxn/showman/brujx/magician?
When I first started the cacao project, I was entranced by the charm of cacao, and I called it ceremonial. I’ve done so many rotations around this issue of whether it matters what we call it, how we can be in alignment with the plant and in justice with the people; who’s putting whom in what kind of trance.
In the end, I think that words matter, but only to the point that they connect us to the truth that vibrates our matter and reminds our bones what they know. All of these things are symbols, and if we lose sight of what they stand for, we end up arguing about what color the gate is painted rather than entering the temple behind it.
Yes, we must honor the people who have always kept the medicine; yes, we should dismantle false reality tunnels and tell the real stories. But we should also remain open to the new things that can be created when we let the language go and focus on the connection. In the end, if someone is sitting in a ceremony that isn’t historically accurate, but they come away with an understanding of what it means to have a direct relationship with a plant, if they come away having met their ancestors and felt their heart awaken and sensed a connection to Spirit for maybe the first time ever… does it matter what we call it?
Even Jesus can ego trip. The elders don’t know everything, and just because the dead are speaking doesn’t mean they’re spitting truth.
They’re creating reality tunnels, too.
So what is this practice we’re documenting, praxis we’re capturing, prenda we’re offering, container we’re shaping? I don’t know exactly, but it feels really important. (Ayahuasca echoes in my memory: “It’s very important / and not very important.”) We’re building a tunnel of language between dimensions and realms of existence, a hyperdimensional bridge that transcends and includes the senses. We’re casting a spell, creating charms that are containers of experience and putting everyone in a trance so we can do a dance and enact the performance.
Whenever the ayahuasca would start to take hold in the ceremony, the first thing I would lose was always language, and it terrified me. The nonsense realm was narrated by a sing-song voice in a made-up accent babbling nonsense words. I interpreted it as me re-entering my own preverbal childhood realm where there was only sensation and light and color and confusing emotions. But maybe it was also, or instead of, this other thing we’re making, a bridge to a place where no language will be needed; a process that sets us free from the tyranny of words and allows us to directly experience the singularity where all dissolves, and there is peace.
The AI identified FOUR speakers today, including two new ones. I wonder who they are? Speakers 3 and 4, talking about language and reality tunnels and the cacao ethnography. Maybe one’s Terence. Maybe one’s the Anthropologist. I don’t know if I quite understand channeling yet, but it’s wild. Am I actually taking the soul of Terence into my body? Am I tuning into whatever archetype he was also picking up on? Is it some new thing created out of all of us, uniquely experienced through my physical vessel? To be explored…
Summary: Does it matter what we call the ceremony?
The conversation explores the significance of language and naming in shaping reality and identity. Speakers discuss how language constructs our perception of the world, emphasizing that the meaning of words and the labels we apply are not fixed but evolve with collective experience and cultural context. They highlight the impact of colonialism on indigenous peoples, noting how their reality was defined by external forces. The discussion underscores the fluidity of reality, the importance of respecting lived experiences, and the role of language in perpetuating or challenging dominant narratives.
Outline
Language and Reality Construction
Speaker 4 discusses the importance of language in constructing reality, emphasizing that the world is always changing and that no one has all the answers.
Speaker 3 humorously agrees, stating that language is central to how we perceive and create our reality.
Speaker 4 elaborates on the power of words, noting that language can be both exciting and terrifying because it shapes our collective reality.
Unknown Speaker mentions the subjective nature of language, suggesting that it is experienced in various ways and can be both liberating and constraining.
The Role of Language in Indigenous Cultures
Speaker 4 highlights the impact of language on indigenous people, explaining that their collective reality has been defined by white men with unique perspectives and privileges.
Unknown Speaker points out that reality is a construct decided by individuals, with some people filtering their experiences through certain paradigms.
Speaker 4 emphasizes that reality is fluid and constantly evolving, influenced by collective experiences and vibrations.
Unknown Speaker discusses the collective subjective experience, where people agree on a shared description of reality, even if it is not universally true.
The Importance of Naming and Describing Reality
Speaker 1 and Unknown Speaker discuss the significance of naming and describing reality, noting that people hold on to these descriptions for control and understanding.
Speaker 4 explains that false stories can perpetuate trauma, especially when they are imposed on people who have no prior experience with the described reality.
Unknown Speaker mentions the importance of respecting people's lived experiences and ensuring that descriptions do not gaslight or disrespect others.
Speaker 3 and Speaker 4 agree that symbols and direct communication are crucial for understanding and respecting different perspectives.
LISTEN:
Language is reality maybe
The conversation explores the idea that processes in nature, such as falling in love or the formation of continents, follow a universal arc. Human consciousness is described as a unique tool for observing these processes. The speakers discuss the subjective nature of reality, suggesting that language shapes our perception of the world. They also touch on the concept of time blindness, where time is seen as an artificial construct, and the idea that time blindness can be a superpower to see through these artificial constraints. The discussion emphasizes the importance of individual perspectives and the role of language in creating truth and reality.
Action Items
[ ] Reframe "time blindness" as a superpower to see through the artificiality of time into how the future has already happened.
Outline
Human Consciousness and Processes in Nature
Speaker 1 discusses a Terence McKenna lecture about the universality of processes in nature, emphasizing that whether it's falling in love or the formation of a continent, the processes follow the same arc.
The unique aspect of human consciousness is highlighted as a tool for observing these natural processes more closely, not as a special entity but as a vessel for observation.
Speaker 1 mentions the difficulty of maintaining consciousness and the need for allies to help those who walk between worlds, metaphorically representing different realms.
The idea that everything is the same process but never observed through the same lens is reiterated, emphasizing the uniqueness of individual perspectives.
Language and Reality
Speaker 1 questions whether reality is made of language or just how we describe it, suggesting that language constitutes our reality.
The concept of creating truth through collective gathering and observation is discussed, with Speaker 1 comparing it to casting a spell and shamanic practices.
Speaker 1 reflects on the idea that time and space are not real, sharing a personal experience of arriving at a destination faster than expected.
The discussion touches on the artificiality of time and the concept of time blindness, where reality is seen more clearly without the constraints of artificial measurements.
Reframing Time Blindness
Speaker 1 explores the idea that time blindness is a superpower, allowing one to see through the artificiality of time, into the present moment, and the future as already having happened.
The conversation shifts to the struggle of living in a reality constrained by artificial time measurements, with Speaker 1 expressing a desire to find side doors and use strengths and weaknesses to navigate this reality.
The discussion concludes with a reflection on the importance of finding ways to live in the present and navigate the artificial constraints of time.