Basically, I failed at being sober
For a long time there has been a lot of noise in my head. I stopped smoking weed on June 25th, 2022. I took a pull from a friend's spliff 6 weeks later and by the following weekend I was high again. It was beautiful and the experience was enough to remind me that I am better off without it. At least sometimes, anyway. There are so many reasons for me not to smoke anymore. Bad breathe, depleted system, overheated and poor clarity, no motivation, lethargy, crazy cravings and munchies, red eyes, low motivation and desire, bad reputation, irregular periods and now the threat of fentanyl laced in our favorite strands.
The message to stop smoking started coming through some years ago and though I can leave it alone for a few weeks I always find my way back…I went into low back muscle spasms and the delicious drugs in the ER helped me talk to God. This sounds crazy but I get why people love to be high, why I love being high. There's this long lasting trend around drugs and God. Have you noticed it?
Anyway, I recently learned about this sin semilla…I am sure a weed expert out there can explain this better than me but apparently if you keep the male plant away from the female plant she tries harder to attract him. Her buds and flowers give more resin, more scent and more potency as she tries to get louder in her call for him. This is done on purpose so we have “better” weed. Isn’t that a metaphor for how we deprive and profit from the feminine. To hear this fun fact made me sad actually. Disrupt the natural rhythm of nature to control the margins and make more, more, more…
This is the new God.
It makes me think of all the examples we have in nature that perpetuate this belief. 1. Mother Earth, the permission we have taken upon ourselves to dirty up the place. To be total teenagers in the hygiene of the planet. Like any mother she will just keep giving (we assume and behave as such) except I know firsthand that's just not true. Even Maria Sabina ( if I dare mention her knowing I too know nothing) didn’t understand the fascination with mushrooms and God…traditionally they were used for healing the body not for communication with the sacred and holy. Did I make that up? The ones who love God the most die with the least and they just keep going. But I get it because I know the feeling of flying high and seeing dolphins in the mind. It feels so good and sweet, it reminds me of love. God is love, drugs feel like love. I have declared revelations but they may just be chemical reactions and images from the corners of my mind. It makes me think of all the people using plant medicines and allies to heal their troubles and traumas. Big pharma now using jungle medicine in their therapies. Healers and coaching courses acting like they can help people integrate the plant journeys they weren’t even present for. Cultural appropriation if you ask me. Blasphemy in its height and peak. No faith in the one who made it all and fixation on the little things.
Ungrateful, I've been called this many times before. I feel the theme music begin to play and push through my shame. It’s the same song, I always have the same sad song and dance. I’m looking all around finding fault, within and without. I see many are justifying the scary and wild with licenses and certifications. It doesn’t even begin to heal. No alignment no power. Psychotherapy and plant medicine? Is it evolution or outright thievery, colonizing once again what belongs to the people to turn a profit? Regulate it? Why, because people like it and this can be stolen, extracted and turned to commerce? Maybe I’m wrong-maybe the world needs this and quick. Who am I to call anything right or wrong?
It’s just that I wonder…What about integration? And lived experience? Walking a path for a lifetime?
The one that really gets me is white men making and serving cacao! Where I come from only women serve and prepare cacao…only daughters inherit the land. As medicine women we say yes to being keepers not profiteers. What about African, Mesoamerican and Indigenous magic making it into the mainstream without recognizing or respecting the closed practices of our ancestors and we all have them. For good reason medicine people spend their lives working on their craft. With total trust I say no to it all. I am not missing out. I am tuning in. There is no initiation or certification, no stamp of approval for what is in our bones and our blood. I do however begin to see the boundary of respect, the dignity original people are denied when we throw together gatherings that are a diluted mixture of traditions…and if it were not for my reiki attunements, my yoga practice and my cheetah drum I may not have come to know myself as someone with a special gift to offer. I am a walking contradiction, an appropriation with lineages that have enough distance between them that they are too different to coexist. Yet this seems to be the magic calling me forward. Somehow with all this confusion and messaging came the clarity to stop smoking weed.
So I did. For a few weeks maybe 6 or 7 I did not smoke and then I wanted it and that sent me down a lustful weekend like with an old lover. For a couple of weekends. Now I am justifying my sneaking around with the plant. Only smoking if someone offers. Smoking less with the commitment to be productive, honoring the plants gift and softening everything. Soft is my thing. But high. It may not be the move and here we go.
The message has been the same from the indios from my Central American side and from my big beautiful African mother- they say clear your head child, let go of suffering so your gifts hurt less as they emerge. Marijuana has caused me suffering and total delight. At the end of all the lessons and comfort smoking weed has given me I finally feel respect for this powerful plant and in solidarity that she no longer be exploited and exhausted. I treat her like I do myself, my own inner child. But I will fail many times. I will dabble with plants and try to keep a clear mind. I foresee my failure and my success. The internal battle, you can feel it too, even in the way I write. Heres another information wave i’ve been riding…Everyone is on board with getting high at curated and hosted spiritual events, it seems like a victory that legalization is on it’s way… yet few are outraged that some are still imprisoned for selling it. Many people suffered and are suffering because of laws around the plant and we hardly talk about any of it and just keeping getting high. How is this spiritual? How is that aligned? These are the questions bouncing about in my brain and I hope to see them guide me to my growth and maturity.
Obedience to that intuitive voice that was nudging me to quit came with confirmation when I recently heard news of two young men dying from marijuana being laced with fentanyl. Be careful, be mindful, there are ugly things in this world that really are out to hurt us. You know that saying…the devil’s greatest trick is to make us think he doesn’t exist, well that’s true here. It may be time for those of us lost in sadness and heavy thoughts and unhealthy habits to get clear and sober. It’s time to regain our own mind, our own way without outside influences… the way to god is inward. We don’t need intermediaries , we need quiet. The plants are with us. They are already speaking and teaching. Don't let them be turned to poison. This is an active lesson for me to not poison myself with my sadness. Listen, I hate when people try to tell me what to do. It bothers me to the core when people get righteous about my choices. I am compelled nonetheless to share what I am hearing and feeling. This blog is a space for divination through storytelling. I won’t deny the nudge. To be clear, I smoke and I will smoke again, I dream that I will grow my own plants and sip tea and whip up butters and honor her the way she deserves. In the meantime I play and dance with sobriety like a tool not a standard for living. Wish me luck!
What’s more interesting to me is the sin semilla bit. It’s allowing me to understand deprivation, exploitation from a new perspective. It allows me to see my belief about myself and how i move. There's a story about being used that doesn’t belong to me. I can feel how suffering makes the version of the story believable. I can also see where it comes from and I send it back to be integrated as wisdom for the collective. What if I try to go slower, defy all logic and do less, pour myself into what I want and not what I don’t. Genius, I know. Thanks for indulging me. I am currently listening to a book on the LIbby app about marijuana, violence and mental health…wild and hard to hear actually. We play with forces and think nothing of it but our whole life is guided and directed by energy in thought and feeling and it regulates with thoughts and feelings with energies around us too. So all day is a balance, a response based on us and a grand shift is the same inside of us. Anyway I guess what I feel is that there is already a lot of medicine all around and going deeper isn’t always better.
We overlook what togetherness can do, what sharing the load provides in a community, how lending a hand when one is needed truly makes a difference for the good of all. Our biggest fear is also what will set us free. Happy high’s everyone. Happy Everything, everyone.
What do you think sets you free?
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