You Can Like Psychedelics and Be Okay With It

You can like psychedelics and be okay with every bit of it. You don’t have to carry a nervousness in your shoulders when you’re engaged with something you’re okay with. You can enjoy it so much more when you let your shoulders go and be okay with totally breathing.

It’s just like how she can eat chickens and be okay with it. And so can you be okay with her individual choices too. No, really. Just like he can love someone of the same sex, and we can all be okay with it. Really. Sure, we can also be pissed off at cops and lawyers and brokers and politicians who abuse their power, because we’re not okay with it. We all have a gauge of what is okay for our soul and what isn’t. But how much do we turn it up?

So when we are okay with something, is there not always the presence, potential, opportunity to amplify that okayness? Are we breathing, loving, being, thanking the universe for the offering it has bestowed upon us? Whether acid, chicken, lover...beer?

When we accept an offering of the universe, are we accepting it with every sense? Are we seeing, feeling, knowing what we are engaging in? Do we fully feel the miracle of the earth air filling our chests and expanding our hearts?

When we take, engage, consume, connect—are we pulsing the love through our veins and roots, lifting the vibration of the energetic sphere?

Are we being one with the offering as we accept it—as we taste the metallic rainbows of the acid in our brains, or bite into the buttery leg of a chicken, or melt into the warm embrace of a soul who feels like home—are we being?

Are we thankful? Are we surging appreciation and gratitude for the fractals forming between the grooves in our fingerprints, the worthy bird that is feeding us, the warm touch of someone who is grateful, too?

 

And if we truly get to being beyond okay with what we like, what we enjoy, get highest on—wouldn't we shed the nervousness and guilt about it? Why must we assume a defensive social front to defend our identities from stereotypes like hippie, meat-eater, homosexual? Can't I say, "MY CONSTITUTION IS IPAS AND AMERICAN SPIRITS" and be more than okay with that, allowing everyone else to be more than okay with that too? Couldn't they appreciate my habits/nature for the boundless ways that I do? And be more okay with their own shit too? Why can’t we cultivate passion in the earthly offerings that enliven and empower us? Why shouldn’t we integrate everything as a sacred offering for our body and spirit? What is "mindless consumption" when we have a body AND a spirit to connect and consume? And why not respect our brothers and sisters for celebrating their ecstatic shit? Thank the crispy hoppy beer for every bubble and sip, and ooze smiles out our pores?

I’m okay with complacency. But I’m on fire for passion. Awareness. Ecstatic humility. We are here to live. Breathe. Be. Love. Thank. When we take something outside us into our bodies, our spirits, our spheres, we should celebrate it to its highest vibration. What else is there? You can accept vibrations…or you can exhilarate them.

Living The Way of the Bath Tub Monk

Believe in the bath

Meditate/self-hypnotize with the bath

Engage in bath tub yoga

Invent organic bath tub yoga

Write bath tub poetry

Record bath tub chants, ballads

Breathe the bath

Be the bath

Live the bath.

For outside the tub, we are still the bath.

You already are the tub. Be the bath.

Super Tuesday Super SCHMOOZEday for Hellary 2016

I try to stay positive about women's lib, and truly believe we are well overdue for a female President. When the right one steps up of course. Women's liberation lies with the candidate who is for EVERYONE'S rights, not one who separates us by saying, "For a lot of well-meaning, open-minded white people, the sight of a young black man in a hoodie still evokes a twinge of fear." (I don't quote without fact-checking; I heard and watched her say this in SC on film.) If that's her idea of an open mind, she's closed herself off from all who truly have one. I'm more terrified of her liar fire eyes than any of my friends who match this description.

Hillary Clinton is extremely close to home for me. Like lives around the corner from my aunt and cousins in Chappaqua, New York. And although I was behind Obama from the very beginning of my first eligible election to vote in 2008, I maintained respect for her as a solid woman who could take a lot of punches. No fucking more. I live in Maine now. And Bernie is my homie.

After watching the CBS live stream of her campaign rally speech last night in Florida, I contend that my respect for her as a political woman with integrity has completely diminished.

What I heard was basically a poorly plagiarized rendition of Bernie Sanders' Twitter feed. What I heard was a complete spew of hypocritical lies. How dare she speak like a democratic socialist to those who do not have the progressive Facebook friends to be exposed to the true, untelevised political revolution at hand. To have a complete foothold in corporate funding and pretend to speak for the 99% would be laughable if it weren't so damn manipulative and despicable. All I heard was a Monsanto Muppet forging her concern for the American people while since the '90s, she been poisoning them (see Hillary link below).

If Clinton could run a clean campaign owning up to the dynamics of how she is running it, I could see myself voting for her if she becomes the Democratic candidate. But to imitate Sanders' lifelong genuine care for the justice of humanity is inexcusable. She suddenly talks democratic socialism while for the past 50 years, Bernie has been LIVING IT. It saddens my soul to watch her masquerade his values to a population that has not witnessed his truth, as Hillary has all these reporters on her payroll, and Bernie is 100% funded by supporters like me, a working student single mom who can only afford to contribute $10 a week. That being said, he's hit record breaking individual donation amounts because he is the voice of the people.

Politics are inextricably linked with history. Check Bernie's. Check Hillary's. Check in with yourself and VOTE, not for the privileged, not for special interests, but for all of US. People say Hillary has "evolved," but she's merely morphed to imitate Sanders' stances without backing them up. Hillary pretends to be for the "few" to manipulate the Democrats who haven't experienced the full breadth that Bernie's campaign has to offer. If Hillary is indeed the candidate, you are welcome to sail away with me. Because there is no way my 2 year old daughter nor I can be a part of a county that's called "United" with a figurehead  based on deceit and division. 

THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.

Sometimes You Listen to Phish Because You Know What's Best For The Soul. Other Times, You Support the Candidate Who Is, Too

http://liveforlivemusic.com/news/bernie-sanders-just-called-phish-one-of-the-great-bands-in-this-country/

How To Be a Responsible Smoker

Easy. First of all of anything, smoke American Spirits. If you’ve been smoking the past decade as I have, you’ve tried the rainbow spectral Camels and Marlboros, the 99s and the 72s and of course the 27s. Kamel with a ‘K,’ Camel Crush with a poppable listerine ball in the filter. Reds, Blues, Turkish Silvers, Golds, Lights and Super Lights. It’s all highly toxic commercial shit that raises the nicotine content within each cigarette a year. So American Spirits. No fancy names, just colors. And the colors coordinate to the quality and feel of each blend. Mellow Yellow. Light Blue, Cool You. Organic Teal, Fullness Feel. Dark Blue, Rich With It. And MMM Black, Perique Magnifique…the Fruity Shadow Cigarette (obviously my choice blend).

American Spirits. No brainer. American grown, organic option, no additives, they last so long you don’t need to smoke tarry paper back to back to back for the illusion of reduced stress. In that case, it’s simply misplaced.

Next, never drop your butts. Always trash them, stub them into an ash tray, put them out and in your pocket, in your shoe, whatever will keep you from flushing them into the gutters and the ocean. Definitely, you’d be a philistine-ass smoker to mark your cigarette spots.

Also, don’t be afraid to clean up dirty butts. In one of my hometowns Red Bank, New Jersey, I did lots of cocaine with a lovely smoker vegan, who would make a note to pick up ALLL the butts and throw them away, wherever we were. Chances were, being in the most densely populated state, there would be lots of butts, and lots of trash cans. Watching her as an emerging smoking 16 year-old was a great inspiration through my long-winded journey to Maine, where I can be seen cleaning up the contents of rednecks’ ashtrays at the beach. If you don’t take responsibility, who will?

Scooping up butts at Pemaquid Point, ME. Because we're outside in 10 degree weather anyway, and these ones haven't made it to the ocean yet. And though prepared with fingerless mits, I had no trash bag, and instead, dug an empty pack of baby-wipes out of my co-daddy's car. Aww.

 This takes a responsible smoker and elevates he or she into a vibrant smoker, as that good energy of not leeching plastic filters to stunt the small fish population per three gallons of water will infatuate that whole area with your loving care. People care in an area, it shows, it vibes, it loves, and people can only pick up on that communal love. We take care of our own butts, and we’ll take care of yours too. Sure we know smoking isn’t all that ethical, but we can generate our own ethics and engage in a more dignified generation of smokers. Which obviously correlates to not smoking indoors.

Cars, roll down the windows. And don’t flick a fucking one of them.

Otherwise, don’t be a fucking idiot. Know that you are exposing yourself to a carcinogenic addiction. You should probably live in a medical state where Rick Simpson Oil is offered  by way of free medicine (Canada, California, Colorado, Maine). Just in case you do get a tumor, you can rest assured there are healers on hand who can stop its growth.

Engage in cardio. You find me one muscley marathon motherfucker who smokes and has gotten lung cancer. I haven’t met any. Seems like swimmers and runners and bikers who smoke have it pretty well made. Exercising makes my heart feel a lot less tight when I want to have a cigarette with my morning coffee. So from experience, I can viscerally tell you, if you’re going to be hedonistic, you’ll do a lot damn better if you’re also an athlete.

In all due respect to nonsmokers, such as my seriously anti-cigarette boss, carry around essential oils so you don't stink like a half-charred ashtray. To avoid offending her with the smell of smoke, I spray my hands, neck and hair with rose hydrosol to deionize the smoke, and have a couple drops of tea tree oil to really kill anything dirty. It's considerate for those who choose not to poison their lungs. Bonus points for peppermint or spearmint oils for your tongue (I tend to dab on the back of my band and lick.) 

This blog post is not meant to encourage or discourage smoking. I am merely encouraging in those of us who do smoke, let’s be as peaceful as possible for our indulgences. And really, I’m a lot more peaceful when my nicotine cravings are not stressful. Noninvasive, responsible smoking allows that. 

Like I said, I’ve been doing this a decade. So now, I don’t put on a coat or grab a purse that doesn’t have a Black pack of Spirits in it, even if there are only three left. Just happened ten minutes ago when I put on my bathrobe, and I smiled and gave Past Me a hell of a hug for remembering Now Me. Cus you never know when you might be hitchhiking for two hours, or what you might be wearing. And if you’re stuck somewhere, at least you have that one cigarette. And so long as it’s an American Spirit and you don’t stain the planet with its filter, you’re gonna enjoy the fuck out of every drag.

How do you like your Dead?

These days, you can get Grateful with the Dead any way you like it. Phishified with Trey. Slow and bass-heavy with Phil and his friends. Fucked up and falling over on Ratdog. Nostalgic recreations of entire shows by Dark Star. Even pop-bluesy with Mr. John Mayer. Not to mention the rap mixes for the bling-custy niche that only listens to rap and Jerry. And, even if you missed the Furthur runs in which they incorporated new old man songs about the rain and other elder hippie business, you can still catch the funkity blue mastery of Joe Russo's Almost Dead. And in all likelihood, you will dance harder.

Like I can't stop dancing and have to pee everywhere but will drink everyone in the vicinity's water to keep fucking dancing hard. You don't want to miss a riff.

JRAD has brought the fire back to my mountain since I saw them this summer at the Great North festival. Now the Dead has been alive in me for nearly half my life, but I had never danced so hard at any orientation of the GD as I have at JRAD. Holy jamtastic. It's like Medeski, Martin, & Wood began blaring the jam classics in that creep-along jazz, funksplosive phenomena fantastica. Oh that Terrapin in Portland. The weebly warps of spookily space. The searing splooge of hyper-stimulated folk. The songs that have been a sacred auditory landscape for generations of jammers come to such an energized pinnacle and high point with every note. If you haven't seen Almost Dead, go forth Gratefully and catch them live....the music has still never stopped.

Pisces Band Fulfills Scorpion Desires, Blows All Else Out of All Water

If you missed the 2015’s most kickass orchestration of the year, that’s cus it happened at the very end if you weren’t one of the 10,000 jamsters at MSG, you were probably skankin’ elsewhere. Thing is, I know you felt it. Phish’s first jam first night of the New Years run, I knew EVERYONE felt it. There is truly nothing in life like getting real down on that gushy smile level with someone, that diggity dirty, funk flingin groove, all that Phishy absurdity oozing out every communal pore, like AHHHHHHH, really! REALly!!!!!...yep, this is still Mike's Song right now.

Like really, we danced as hard as those narrow cement tiers allowed us, funxtreme-tastica in every spoodley lick. And really, if you had showed me what the set-list would be for the first night of the MSG run, I would have nodded like I had heard all those songs a million times, because I have. But not like that. Each jam opened up into vibrating jams that opened and flowed and flounced so deeply and friskily in the moment and then the next. I haven’t missed an MSG run yet, and the hype’s true about this one. Every jam exemplified an ecstatic propulsion of art. And everyone felt it.

Phish reallh reaches all those under-water layers. Breaking through the Piscean chaos into the ️Neptunian love spell it has to offer, and bleeding, rippling, raging through the Scorpion/Plutonian core of if all. I swear. I felt it.

I always feel it.

Every head got so down on the whimsy, flitting “Bathtub” splanks, so thrilled thrashy wild as it built up and up and out for 15 minutes The whole show was riddled with the incessant sparks and tickle of the Phish crowd culminating again. So like wowwww, Phish totally is The band of the Scorpion Pluto generation, keeping us vibing, crawling, chasing their spirals under the rug, til they sting us with zaps of funk and splizzam lasers into zings and zongs we feel, love, rage and radiate. Yup. Phish has lured and played, pampered and swayed us all under the same covers. Where it’s dark, mysterious, and helplessly rainbow, so every cell in the midst of it is smiling so can’t-help-it-groovy.

I posted forever ago about my skepticism travelling to the city during such a chaotic time, but caught a ride with my daugther’s sister and her mom on their way back to Phili; thank the beauty of blended families. My excitement completely blinded me from initial hesitance, even through the metal detector and flashlights digging through my bag as one patted down my freckled friend in denim cut-off shorts and a “PURE SEX” button gleaming on her Mexican blanket coat, I was still unconcerened and completely shut off to the possibility of risk. But the cab driver on the way to my dad’s from the train reminded me.

“I hope security was tight,” he said, “ya never know what those nuts will do after that shit in Paris.”

At first I was like, “Come on, really…”, inclined to say something like, “Then we can blame all nuts for fear of the unknown, not an allocated few.” But before speaking, I let the intention behind his sentiment linger, and I remembered my gratitude. I prayed protection barriers for everyone dancing and celebrating music and art in beauty and love.

And to me at that point still, it was all very Phishy and drippy and teeth-clenching exciting to get home and drink so much water I wouldn't have to slip someone a dollar then duck away for it not being two...and have a cigarette and pass out with my toddler, replaying replaying replaying that bass-slapping energy, that build, that force of everyone singing “Character Zero,” knowing it was the last song; knowing in a breath, the boys would leave the stage and be gone. Until tomorrow, for most of them. Until Mexico, for the fortunate ones. The lesson here is urging everyone I know to get ready for summer tour, because Phish is gonna blast all our hats off. And also, all are welcome and encouraged to continue beaming love and protection for the jammin’ masses. We couldn’t have momentum without all of us making moves.