(this little ditty is based on a quickly scrawled journal entry from the other night that i turned into a more readable and detailed flow. what i like about this writing is that it has the same quality for me of when i used to write travel stories, except i’m doing all the traveling sitting in one place.)

alright i have to write this down because i might not believe it in the morning.

sunday night and i’m staying with alicia and catching a ride back to the farm early in the morning. i can’t sleep so i come downstairs to make some tea. i’m sitting on the kitchen floor at kidd lane (ashley’s and alicia’s house down the road from the farm) drinking a cup of passionflower tea with my eyes closed, just breathing and visualizing my chakras cause that’s what i do these days – for maybe 10 minutes. it’s cold and i’m wearing a big warm coat, all alone sitting cross-legged on the floor. when i open my eyes i’m staring at the wood paneling underneath the sink and it’s visually distorted like my eyes have slipped out of focus. normally i’d just blink a couple times and get on with myself but because i’m so relaxed and centered i decide to just sit there and breath and see what happens. and as soon as i concentrate on them the patterns of the wood began moving with my breathing – in and out, swirling around in a rhythm. it’s intense. it reminds me of tripping on acid as a teenager and having the ability to hallucinate if i concentrated on objects. but the last time i took acid was more than 12 years ago. my mind doesn’t normally tune to the hallucination station from just sitting and breathing.

so i concentrate on being grounded and the rise and fall of my breath and i hold my space, keep my eyes a little out of focus and just watch the vision in front of me. soon the light keeps shifting and i start to see different seemingly random colors – maroon and light green and silver. i’m totally thinking in words as it’s happening. i keep hearing myself say “second attention. i’m using my second attention. what do you know? i’m actually doing it. second attention. second attention.” (‘second attention’ is a term i learned from reading that Mindell book The Shaman’s Body) after awhile i start seeing the outlines of faces in there, just for split seconds, but very detailed, very real. my eyes start getting tired. i start loosing focus, slipping off balance. i decide to visualize the roots going down to the center of the earth from my root chakra. anchor myself back to the ground.

i breath. the wood paneling is just wood paneling again. my tea is cold. it’s time to see if i can go upstairs and get some sleep. i’m stretching and yawning and suddenly i hear this little high pitched voice say “hi!” holy fuck, suddenly i’m totally spooked. i run upstairs without turning the light off and jump into alicia’s bed and pull the covers over my head, relaxing into the rhythm of her sleeping body. the “hi!” was probably just a squeaky screen door blowing in the wind but that doesn’t matter. it feels like i opened the door between realms and i’m not ready to deal with what’s inside of myself alone. not ready to deal with the prospect of other beings all up in my shit, even if they’re just inside of me. i lie there, so grateful for the presence of my sleeping friend, remembering all the countless times i would get scared of the dark as a kid and crawl into my dad’s bed in the middle of the night. i lie there, remembering the month i spent in LA county jail where i was having auditory hallucinations all the time of dead rock stars and 80’s sitcom characters speaking to me through the intercom. i lie there, drifting off to sleep and feeling like i just discovered a new gift, a new gateway to amazing worlds.

but i’m a crazy kid and i need to watch my crazy ass.
the same traits that make people like me predisposed to travel through dimensions are the ones that get us tormented by voices and ghosts and locked up and stuck on haldol.
but i think i’m up for the challenge.

scrawled in big bold letters on the middle of the page of my journal:
     THIS REALLY HAPPENED
     DON’T FORGET ABOUT IT
YOU’RE ON THE RIGHT TRACK
KEEP PRACTICING MY FRIEND