So, I have had this entry in the hold folder for 4 months, heaven knows why. I have used it to put the odd piece in as I go along. It is a bit of this, and that, errata in all of the best/worst ways. There are some tangents here that you might enjoy… Some of it I added today, The Kate Tempest video & poetry, the Nina Paley entries as well. Thanks goes out to Shaun Darius Gottlieb for the Nina Paley entries, and Fa Bi An for the Kate Tempest. I deeply appreciate your contributions!
I have been working on new publications, announcements soon.
I am also looking for stuff to do… got any projects? Publishing, Editing, Illustrating? Ping Me!
I hope this finds you well.
G
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On The Menu:
Hey, it was Semi Legal!
Nina Paley: God-Mother
Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Dance of the Soul
The Sun Blindness – trip in a painted world
On Sorcery
The Sun Blindness – It’s Only 3am
Science Theories
Kate Tempest: Brand New Ancients (Extract)
Nina Paley: You Gotta Believe
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Hey, it was Semi Legal!
So, in 1967, I went from someone exploring psychedelics to someone who sought to help others find what they wanted. I met some characters up from Austin Texas in Denver who arrived in a beater 1950 Chevrolet, with a boot/trunk full of gelatine capsules containing Peyote extract. 2 of these double 00 capsules and one would enter into the realm. I traveled around with them in Colorado, whilst they distributed their wares.
As our relationship deepened I started to fly from Colorado with suitcases of mescaline to San Francisco, to exchange for Owsley Acid to bring back so they could distribute in Texas. If we had only known, Stanley was living no more than a mile and a half away, producing LSD in Denver, whilst financing The Family Dog…
I never got paid money, I wasn’t looking for cash, but I handed out hundreds of free mescaline doses across the west. I was on a roll…
At that time, when I was in Colorado, I would host people travelling from the east coast going west, and vice versa. Along the way in mid summer I hosted a group coming from Millbrook New York, where Tim Leary, Ralph Metzner & Richard Alpert (later Baba Ram Dass) had set up the Castalia Foundation a few years earlier… Now it was Tim & Rosemary there, with people coming through. Anyway, 6 travellers showed up at my door one night, and I put them up for a couple of days. Sweet people, all of them. We spend a couple of days tripping together, and on the way out back to their car, one of them stops, and presses 4 capsules of a red crystalline substance into my hands. “This is something special” he said, “it is Yage. Take it out in the countryside”. I of course didn’t know what Yage was at that point. I thanked them, and off they went to San Francisco.
A couple of days later, I flew out to the west coast again to deliver mescaline. After I was done I flew down to L.A. on my way home. I stopped off at friends commune. Of course I had my bottle of mescaline caps, and at the top of the bottle wrapped in tin foil, the crystallized yage. I tossed the bottle over to my friend Richard when I came in, saying, “Hey! Mescaline, share it around the group!” Then thinking, I said, “Except for those capsules in the tin foil! I am saving those for something special!”…. We talked for a bit, and I headed over to Fairfax to Canter’s to meet other friends. 
I was up all night of course. After Canters it was on to Sunset Strip and hanging out until daytime.. It was normal for that time it seems.
When I came back to the commune the next day, Richard grabbed me and took me aside…. “I have to apologize, I took the capsules in the tin foil before you told us not to…. what was in it?” I asked, “Why?” He just stood there for a minute, composing himself and then speaking quietly, quickly, it just spilled out… “I took the red ones, and topped it off with 2 of the mescaline caps. in about a half hour it kicked in, and then I was in a place I had never been before with Acid, or anything!” “I was tripping, and then all of a sudden, I was in a jungle. I realized I was a jaguar following a caiman or a crocodile…. and then I transformed into an anaconda following the jaguar… and then I looked up into the sky, and I became a great eagle flying over the jungle and the mountains!” “I passed into a great light after that, and woke up this morning!”
“Damn” I thought… “Sorry to have missed that”… I assured him it was okay. It was not until reading Michael Harner’s (Bless his soul) works later on did I know what happened to my friend.
Modern Note: As I see it, someone in Millbrook or elsewhere had gotten ahold of some Caapi Vine, and reduced it down to crystalline levels, and capped it. When Richard mixed the mescaline with it, there was a great synergy produced, not unlike the traditional mix of Caapi & P. Viridis…. If I recall, some tribes on the eastern slopes of the Andes combine Caapi with San Pedro (there might be the precedent!) I don’t know how safe it is though…
Back To The Past: Well, we hung out the rest of the day before I caught the next flight out to Denver. (Richard and I had further adventures, but those are for another time.)
Flying back into Denver, I decided it was time to head up into the mountains to a cabin the Mescaline Crew had, but that is an adventure for another time.
Pax,
G
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Nina Paley. An Amazing Artist/Visionary:
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“I have loved in life and I have been loved.
I have drunk the bowl of poison from the hands of love as nectar,
and have been raised above life’s joy and sorrow.
My heart, aflame in love, set afire every heart that came in touch with it.
My heart has been rent and joined again;
My heart has been broken and again made whole;
My heart has been wounded and healed again;
A thousand deaths my heart has died, and thanks be to love, it lives yet.
I went through hell and saw there love’s raging fire,
and I entered heaven illumined with the light of love.
I wept in love and made all weep with me;
I mourned in love and pierced the hearts of men;
And when my fiery glance fell on the rocks, the rocks burst forth as volcanoes.
The whole world sank in the flood caused by my one tear;
With my deep sigh the earth trembled, and when I cried aloud the name of my beloved,
I shook the throne of God in heaven.
I bowed my head low in humility, and on my knees I begged of love,
“Disclose to me, I pray thee, O love, thy secret.”
She took me gently by my arms and lifted me above the earth, and spoke softly in my ear,
“My dear one, thou thyself art love, art lover,
and thyself art the beloved whom thou hast adored.”
― Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Dance of the Soul–
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On Sorcery:
In my life and wanderings I have encountered sorcerers…. They do not announce their presence, though if you are sensitive to them you’ll feel their presence and influence fairly quickly. They use a variety of tools, mostly those tools that are concealed, but… the tools are always used for their gain, and not necessarily on the material plane…
Some emanate danger, and sometimes, this can be perceived at a great distance. One day I will tell a story of one such being whose influence could be felt across a great distance, it is quite the story. Some emanate charm, and these are the ones to watch for.
If one ventures down the spiritual path… do so with caution, and with good intent. If you venture into the roads of magick, do it for community, and especially with love. Observe yourself, and your actions.
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Science Theories:
Scientific theory evolves as it goes along. As late as 1902 scientist were explaining that powered flight would never be possible. We constantly hear this is not possible, and that is not possible and then there is a break through of consciousness, and yes it is possible, and yes it does exist.
The more we learn the greater our ignorance as we uncover new secrets, and out of these greater questions arise. It is the natural order of things.
Because something falls outside of the explanations of current science, does not invalidate it’s possible expression or existance. We have just not applied ourselves enough in that direction…..
We may indeed come up against mysteries that have no explanation. That, is the real event horizon…
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From: Fa Bi An (thank you so much!)
Kate Tempest
I am in awe of this:
An Extract:
from Brand New Ancients
The stories are here,
the stories are you,
and your fear
and your hope
is as old
as the language of smoke,
the language of blood,
the language of
languishing love.
The Gods are all here.
Because the gods are in us.
The gods are in the betting shops
the gods are in the caff
the gods are smoking fags out the back
the gods are in the office blocks
the gods are at their desks
the gods are sick of always giving more and getting less
the gods are at the rave –
two pills deep into dancing –
the gods are in the alleyway laughing
the gods are at the doctor’s
they need a little something for the stress
the gods are in the toilets having unprotected sex
the gods are in the supermarket
the gods are walking home,
the gods can’t stop checking Facebook on their phones
the gods are in a traffic jam
the gods are on the train
the gods are watching adverts
the gods are not to blame –
they are working for the council
now they’re on the dole
now they’re getting drunk pissing their wages down a hole
the gods are in their gardens
with their decking and their plants
the gods are in the classrooms
the poor things don’t stand a chance
they are trying to tell the truth
but the truth is hard to say
the gods are born, they live a while
and then they pass away.
They lose themselves in crowds, their guts are full of rot.
They hope there’s something more to life but can’t imagine
what.
These gods have got no oracles to translate their requests,
these gods have got a headache and a payment plan and
stress about
when next they’ll see their kids,
they are not fighting over favourites –
they’re just getting on with it.
We are the Brand New Ancients.
from Brand New Ancients
Her name’s Gloria,
she works behind the bar
pulling pints for the locals
down the Albert and Victoria.
She’s happy in her way, she don’t expect too much from life.
She believes that everybody deserves to be treated right.
She used to be a troubled type with a look in her eyes
that invited looks from the guys
that she’d meet every night in the bars
that she went to with her best mate Jemma;
they swore they were gonna be best mates forever –
they loved each other, did everything together,
they used to run riot, a couple proper little terrors.
But then Jemma stopped calling her quite so much
‘cos Jemma got into going protests and stuff.
Jemma wanted the world to change,
she was 16 and smarter than most girls her age,
so while she was reading books and hanging out on picket
lines,
Gloria was sniffing lines
hooking up with different guys.
Jemma wanted to go uni; she started studying hard
and the two of them just drifted apart.
Glory ran away from home when she was 17,
he was supposed to be the man of her dreams:
he had a smile like a jewel in a sewer,
knuckles like an open tool box,
eyes like Kahlúa –
he made her feel like he was the only one who ever knew her
and when he told a lie nothing ever seemed truer.
Then one day she was in a state in a heap on the floor,
wiping the blood off her jaw,
thinking I deserve more.
At the time she might have been convinced it was love
but these days, she barely even thinks of him much.
She’s the kind of girl whose scars run deep
but if she smiles at you for a second it’ll last you all week.
She don’t compare herself to others,
she believes everybody has their own strengths;
if she was a statue she’d be less marble, more cement.
She’s straightforward, no-nonsense, she just wants people
to be honest,
she don’t have no time for pretenders and she’s never broke
a promise.
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from Brand New Ancients
Polish the silverware, dust off the telly screen,
it’s holy hour on Saturday evening,
the new Dionysus is in his dressing room preening,
the make-up girls hold their breath as they dream him
into a perfect bronze and then leave him
to his pre-show routine of stretching and breathing.
He winks in the mirror as he flosses his teeth,
pulls his trousers up to his nipples and strides out to the stage.
The permatanned God of our age.
We kneel down before him, we beg him for pardon,
mothers feast on the raw flesh of their children struck by
the madness
that floods the whole country, this provocation to savagery.
Let’s all get famous. I need to be more than just this.
Give me my glory. A double page spread.
Let people weep when they hear that I’m dead.
Let people sleep in the street for a glimpse of my head
as I walk the red carpet into the den of the blessed.
Why celebrate this? Why not denigrate this?
I don’t know the names of my neighbours,
but I know the names of the rich and the famous.
And the names of their ex-girlfriends
and their ex-girlfriends’ new boyfriends.
Now, watch him shaking his head, he is furious:
how dare this contestant have thought for a second
that this godhead, this champion of unnatural selection,
should be subjected to another version
of a bridge over fucking troubled water.
I stare at the screen and I hear the troubadours sing
the Deeds of Simon. He took the eyes from our heads
and blamed us for our blindness.
Why is this interesting? Why are we watching?
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Thanks To Shaun Darius Gottlieb
(Nina Paley, Again…)
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