[60 minutes into the sunlight dose]
Definitely feel “the glow”. I’ve done this enough to know varying shades of potency, due to variables such as: time of day, empty stomach, mushroom batch, etc. The glow [in this moment] is completely obvious.
Feeling the familiar characteristics – the undeniable wordless feeling that everything is fine (always has been). Zero concern about what’s next, what’s to come, what happened yesterday, etc…
The world outside looks absolutely beautiful. Of course, it is always beautiful, I don’t need a microdose to see and fully recognize this, but, the microdose makes it nearly impossible to be preoccupied with anything other than this – the present immediate marvel of it all.
I think, in life, there is always some kind of mental forecast humming in the background… whether it’s about the upcoming week, or month, or years. We toggle between these timespans imperceptibly, trying to angle ourselves for an outcome we feel to be ideal. You can hear Alan Watts laughing at this. THIS is the joke… this angling process, while obviously essential to some small extent, reaches a fast point of diminishing return. We tend to linger in this forecasting mode, worrying about where we are going and how we are going to feel when we get there (or don’t get there). The punchline: every moment doing this is a failure to appreciate how things already are. How OK everything is – and recognizing that “OK” is it’s own special brand of bliss. The sort of bliss that never seems to fade. The sort of bliss that will stay with you, so long as there is a you.
Stepping away for a moment… to absorb this experience, both the inward and outward sensations. (Which I suppose are all projections on the unified screen of consciousness- where the distinction between inward and outward melts).
[went outside to take in the world]
[90 min]
[wrote a short note to a good friend]
[100 min]
Microdosing, meditation, reflection, expression, curiosity… all serve to blow-away the tunnel vision of perception. Available experience is so vast and wide, and we tend to contract around specific things, and miss-out as a consequence. Of course we must contract in order to accomplish anything, whether feeding ourselves or pursuing an aspiration over many decades. Even so, getting out of the tunnel-du-jour is a matter of (psychological) life and death.
Everything in life seems to be a supporting act to get here, reside here.
This glow, is not an escape from life – rather, life can sometimes inadvertently be an escape from this glow. This glow and life can become one in the same. Through time, patience, persistence, and careful observation. They merge.
[120 minutes]
This is the place where worries go to die.
Working on essay, “We Are All Artists” – the idea has been on my mind a lot lately – seeing life as a work of art that is always changing but always complete.
[130 minutes]
Re-reading essay, “Home“. We’re always there.
[165 minutes]
Essaying, reflecting…
[180 minutes]
Mind starting to wander as usual again. (not a bad thing, just distinctly different from being enveloped in wide-angle immediacy, earlier). These occasional glances outside the tunnel-du-jour are invaluable. Makes the name “golden teacher” self-explanatory.
(Thanks for reading)
The Next Day
I have not posted about microdosing in over a year, since the notes would not be interesting or valuable to anyone but me.
But since it HAS been a while, this is a great opportunity to reflect on how I feel over a longer timespan.
In short, microdosing is a wonderful tool in the pocket, but not so prominent that overtakes my life or routine. It’s an occasional glance through a helpful window, 2-3 times per month. A flick of the high-beams that illuminates the road I’m already on. Not essential, but always clarifying. It’s been approximately 1.5 years, since starting.