What's happening? Part 3

[houghchrst]

Good day wonderful peeps.

hannah I am terribly sorry about your husband, I may have said that already. What kind of meditation and tapes do you use? My pain management has this new thing where they assign you a care team. They text me like once a week to see how I am doing and once in a while they ask if I have found a new pain management doctor. Next time I am going to tell them yes and that his name is Joe Dispenza LOLOL. Wonder how long it will take them to figure it out. In the six years I have been seeing my pain management doc the only thing I got from them was 14 pain pills, a refill on a muscle relaxer that my ex-pain management wrote me, and a lot of back injections, oh and let's not forget the many times they tried to send me to PT. I sure miss my old doc. Thank goodness I have a great primary care doc.

As for microdosing it is going fantastically. I am going to take a big dose here soon and see how things progress. I'm kind of afraid because I will be alone. Well, in my room. I have redone my bedroom. I realized that this room has had the same configuration for three generations. Time for a change. I moved it all myself, very carefully and somehow even though I took out a piece of furniture I had a lot more room so now it is my bedroom/office. So as they say the stage is set. My boys are here so they can keep an eye on me. I was hoping to find a sitter but Brandon says if it is going to be a therapy session he can't do it. He is too emotional and sensitive. He will be here just in case but I can't find anyone else. The one person I trust to do it cannot drive and I don't have a car. I tried to ask for some pointers from my group but got nothing. Instead, after I messaged them to tell them I may be terrified I went to FB and this was on my newsfeed,

9 Behold, I have commanded you. Be strong and of good courage; fear not, neither be dismayed; for your God is with you wherever you go.

Joshua 1:9

Lamsa Translation Peshitta Bible

I told my group and my mentor said I got my answer, to just relax, stay inside, and be me LOLOL. That's not very reassuring. He said no matter how it goes I will be a changed person. I have heard that even those who have a not-so-good experience learned and gained from it in a hugely positive way. It's funny, I noticed yesterday that I am not smoking as much. I am really wanting to quit so I believe this is a good start.

Flatcap your 50% idea is brilliant. Seems I may have heard something like that somewhere. When trying to lose weight use a sandwich plate instead of a big dinner plate and always leave some food. Most definitely will give proper cred. LOL. I have discovered that for me it is watching documentaries on food. Not talking about the feel-good new dishes type I mean the ones that show you how our government is poisoning us. I can't believe that food manufacturers make their products differently for other countries. Almost all shredded cheese has wood chips and eye medication in it. Your ground pepper is allowed so much twigs, weeds, and other trash, it is recommend buying whole peppercorns. Coffee is the same. Buy whole beans. And dear God on and on. I just saw them do a test of chickens, perdue claims they have the best with no antibiotics blah blah blah and they turned out to have the most IN STORE chicken that contained Salmonella. Do not buy bagged or containerized fresh fruit or veggies. Over-processed food is killing us. We ate fast food three times in one week. Normally it is like once every six months or so. We were all sick. Felt like crap, guts acting up. It was horrible. We are going back to once in a great while.

I actually started this post two days ago. It's Wednesday now and I have decided to do a big dose Saturday. I have been doing some research on speakers who talk about their experiences and though many say that there was a dark period they pushed through and it turned into an amazing experience. Most of the negative bits of the experience stem from the ego's pushback. If you relax, ignore it, and go with the flow as they say then things turn amazing.

So I am looking forward to it. It seems I have been making this post forever.

[flatcap]

Houghchrst, I hope your large dose went well. Please do let us know how things turned out.

[agate]

Chris, I hope you can find someone to be with you as needed. Might there be a neighbor who is willing and able?

[houghchrst]

Bright sunny morning my peeps. Michigan has not made up it's mind if it is winter or spring. It was in the 70s the other day and then we had about an inch of snow but by the next day it was disappearing despite a cooling trend. Today we're going to hit 50 again. If the sun is shining that is good enough for me.

Well I did my dose last Saturday. I stayed in my room and my guys kept an eye on me. I guess they aren't boys anymore LOL. I started at 11 and about 4 it started abating. For all of my preparation, watching official sittings which are usually with the patient lying down with a blankie, eye shades and headphones. I had chosen a binaural frequency to listen to. So when I could feel it coming on I put on my shades and climbed into bed under my meditation afghan. I should attach a picture. I will explain later. When I started hallucinating I got incredibly beautiful visuals behind my closed eyes but after a couple minutes I kind of became uncomfortable and the music was affecting the visuals and it got to where it just did not feel natural. It didn't feel like me. So off came everything but the blanket and I got comfortable. Warm and cozy. I remember sobbing at one point with exhaustion from carrying so much unnecessary baggage for decades. And for some reason the lady that runs a food bank that I had been to on the previous Tuesday popped in my head. She was about 4 feet tall and a Latina senior. She was so kind and generous. She has dedicated her life to helping others and the gratitude for people like her swelled in me and I sobbed some more. I have multiple sources of light in my room, not bright but pretty so I had all of those turned on. They were beautiful and while I could see out the window across the room that it was gray and gloomy the window next to me looked and felt like the sun was shining in. I would peek out once in a while and the auras, prisms of light creating rainbows around everything was overwhelmingly bright and beautiful. I smiled a lot at just happiness.

It was an incredible experience. I feel incredible. I am learning so much. If you listen to Joe Dispenza he knows what he is talking about. I am doing his Becoming Supernatural audio book. I still do my daily mantra and video. I try to make sure I journal a few days a week but I would like to get a routine going. My mantra and video are first thing. ANd also I want to get my meditation up to twice a day. My pain is still manageable.

My weight is steady but I want to lose more. I know what is blocking me so I will correct it. Went to the doc for a physical yesterday. We are working on getting me off of another med. I think that will make 9 meds I am off. This is a big one though, I have run out and the withdrawals are brutal so it will be a long slow titrate.

I have to admit that over the last week sudden feeling of contentedness will over come me, so strongly that I almost drop to my knees with relief. I just don't really have the words to describe this amazing feeling. When you learn that you are not an island and that we are all connected with each other and with everything that has matter things begin to look different.

Time to feed the herd LOL. I'll be back.

[flatcap]

Houghchrst, thanks for the update. I'm glad that your heroic dose went so well and that your program continues working for you, especially in the pain management department.

It's good you have been able to drop some of your prescriptions. The fewer, the better, if you ask me. I hope your titration for this latest one goes as smoothly as possible.

I also hope you have continuing good luck on your weight loss journey. It's not easy, but you can get there. I have faith in you.

[agate]

Chris, I don't know if this is of any interest since I believe the authors are dealing with a different dosage of psilocybin but I don't often see medical journal articles about psilocybin and thought you might want to look at this one--from JAMA (August 21, 2023), "Single-dose psilocybin treatment for major depressive disorder: A randomized clinical trial":

Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register...

[houghchrst]

Morning friends. Dealing with some pain in my bad knee today. If I am on my feet a lot the Saphorous nerve in my knee becomes impinged and walking or even using the leg is painful. Yesterday I got to go out and do a couple things. Not what I wanted because my knee started acting up but being outside is glorious. I plan to create a meditation station out in the yard. My mother's cast iron bench under our huge black walnut tree.

I stopped microdosing after my big trip. Really no longer felt the need to. But now I am dealing with withdrawals from one of my major meds so plan to microdose my way through the withdrawals and I plan to quit smoking so will use it to help with that.

I can admit that I am no longer depressed. I know too much now and have no reason to be. Despite everything that has happened or will happen being alive is great. I have let my past go. One must in order to gain new ways of thinking. I have come to the understanding that every thought is literally ego and the trick is to not let it run your life. Any I want, I need, I must, I wish, is ego. We have everything we need right here. Jesus came to teach us how to have heaven on earth, not how to get into heaven. Heaven isn't a place in the sky where God sits. God is in us. All around us. We are meant to have Heaven on Earth now. Not earn our way into heaven. the bible has been changed so many times and so much damage done due to misunderstandings and power. okay that probably all sounds a bit woo woo so enough on that.

Today I will rest my knee. I will get one of my guys to haul my bench and table out for me. Maybe later if the pain has let up in my knee I can limp out there LOL.

[flatcap]

I am happy to hear things are going so well for you, houghchrst. In particular, I am glad to hear your depression has abated. That has to be quite a victory for you. It isn't easy to beat The Monster.

I do not know if god is all around us, or even if one exists. I sometimes wish I could embrace one, but my logical mind will not let it happen. It is much like hypnosis for me. I was never able to undergo that, either. And if there is a god, I do not believe one can be found in any book written by man, no matter how many times or ways it is translated. It is illogical.

I am not what you could call an atheist and instead believe there must be something going on, but whatever it is, I do not think any god is watching what is going on here on this tiny speck in the universe that we call Earth. If there is, that god must be utterly indifferent to suffering. That just doesn't do it for me.

Similarly, the idea that there is some god from which we supposedly derive our humanity is absurd. Science proves evolution beyond any reasonable doubt. Life sprung from the slime; we are just another species of warm-blooded creatures. The fact we are bound together is a remnant survival mechanism from the time we were still competing with nature. We are not competing with other life forms anymore. We are annihilating them, and the rate at which we are doing so is at an all-time high. We are spoiling the environment, which we take to be our own at the expense of all other life. It is mass suicide, and if we do not stop, we will not survive.

I believe what we call animals have as much right to be here as we do. All life does, right down to the microscopic creatures living in our gut. Man, in particular religion, denies this. We supposedly have the one and only corner on the market of life on Earth. The fact is, we are wiping it out.

Tell me what is spiritual about that. Tell me what all-knowing god would allow that to happen.

It is happening, and for that reason alone, I do not believe in anything even remotely resembling religion. That includes Christianity. In fact, I am especially put off by it. The Bible, in particular the Old Testament is, in my opinion, a primer for precisely how we should not treat each other and our environment. It does not even allow women their rightful place in society. And what is says about our supposed dominion over the land and all other animals is the height of anthropocentrism. We are not special. We have no right to think we are.

It always cracks me up when people think theirs is The Way. It is ridiculous. No supposed god is better than any other. They are all imaginary. People, mostly men, invented them to explain the natural world, the mechanisms of which they did not understand. Men and women who still do not today are blind to science. All you have to do is pay attention. If you do, you can at last escape the delusion everything in the world boils down to what is written in just one book. There is too much happening in the world for that to be true. And I have little doubt a lot more is going on in the universe. The numbers are just too large. There are billions planets orbiting billions of stars locked up in billions of galaxies. I firmly believe life exists elsewhere, and I do not mean in heaven or hell. I seriously doubt you will find any Christians anywhere but here on Earth. And here on Earth, Christians have plenty of completion for who is on top.

Enough about that.

Good luck quitting smoking, and I mean that sincerely. That isn't easy to beat, either. I hope the microdosing helps. I hope as well it helps you withdraw from your medication.

I also hope the pain in you knee subsides today enough to let you enjoy the new setting for your meditation table. It sounds like a good place for it. You are lucky to have one. A lot of people don't even have a place in which to live, and guess what: 'god' doesn't care.

[houghchrst]

Thank you Flatcap. I appreciate the healing thoughts. knee is feeling a bit better this afternoon but I have been babying it.

Definitely not a fan of religion. it was not meant to be, churches? Nope. Not what it was about. God is actually a German word for good lol. There is no heaven, no hell. Hell was originally a place called the Valley of Gehenna where they took their trash or sick bodies and burned them. It was named hell by someone else. I do not affiliate with any religion. I stick to myself and what I feel to be true for me. I have watched enough documentaries about our planet, that yes we are systematically destroying, and amazing animals and the emotions they show, and some incredibly amazing humans to know and feel we all have a connection. It can be scientifically proven. I have not read the bible. I do not base what I believe to be true on bastardized writings from centuries ago. As for the suffering that goes on in the world, I don't have the answers. There are many, many different beliefs as to why. Some believe that we are spirit and chose this form, this life, because there is something that we want to learn or experience and that when someone dies young it is because they learned what they came here to learn. Some believe we are on our sixth extinction event. Some believe that we are here to learn something important and if we have not learned that knowledge we come back until we do. Some of those people believe it is self realization and control of the ego in order to have peace in life.

I have done a lot of research over the decades and I am finally reaching a place of peace. There is a tornado of chaos and doom around me. I can do nothing about it no matter how angry and bitter and stressed out I get. In the meantime my mental state when I was in that tornado was killing me, mentally and physically. I cried every day. I would be crying fifteen minutes after I woke in the morning. On and off all day. I still cry, not as often, usually pain, but mostly if I do now it is with gratitude for the things I know, feel, and receive.

Tomorrow is supposed to be beautiful here in my part of Michigan. Gonna definitely get that bench out there. I would like to find some kind of box to keep a couple things in. Maybe a few cushions and an afghan. Morning coffee out there would be glorious.

[agate]

That bench under a black walnut tree sounds just perfect! I've "known" some black walnut trees and they are great. I've even tried unsuccessfully to open black walnuts.

There has been considerable harm as a result of various organized religions, hasn't there? Maybe religious belief is best regarded as a personal, private matter, without the need to band together with others and assemble. That always seems to lead to the building of elaborate structures, the creation of rituals and secret "passwords" whereby the members of a sect can identify one another easily--and gang up on those who don't belong to their tribe.

It's one thing to have a religious belief, a hope for an afterlife, etc. But when groups of people form for the sake of a belief, they so often get the idea that they should be exclusive and shut out anyone who has some different belief.

[flatcap]

Agate, you are so right about the harm religion has caused throughout history. It is gravely causing it right now all over the world.

Just look at what is going on in the Middle East. If it were not for the never-ending war between Muslims and Jews, October 7 would never have happened. Counting the war now going on there, something like 30,000 people would still be alive. That's a lot of damage in my book.

Those are two lowly groups, as far as I am concerned: Muslims who kill Jews as if it were a sport, and Jews who reciprocate in kind. All of them are terrorists. Neither sect can rightfully claim moral superiority over the other.

Which is not to leave the Hindus and Christians out, particularly not the former. Both India and Pakistan have nukes, and they are at each other's throats, and for what? Religion.

When everyone back in the '80s was predicting World War III would start along the Fulda Gap, I thought, "No, it will start in the Middle East." I feel the same way today. It has nothing to do with oil. It has everything to do with religious strife in the area, and if we aren't careful, they will take us all down with them.

[houghchrst]

Almost every current war in the Middle East has the US's dirty fingers in it. Their leaders use religion as an excuse and the population, entrenched in their belief systems goes along, at least many do. Power/greed is what causes war, many times religion is the excuse and you can track that in almost every single war, the US is involved in some nefarious way.

I believe if you are a good kind person you dont' need to have religious beliefs. You already are who you are supposed to be.

The wars are a continuing tragedy, usually caused or facilitated by our own country. For my own piece of mind I have had to step back from the chaos and misery. I can only control and be kind and caring in my own little part of the world. World War III has already started.

It's all sickening. Depressing and makes a person angry.

[houghchrst]

Okay friends, no more religion or we may get moderated LOLOL.

[agate]

Changing the subject--did anyone get to witness the eclipse in the zone of totality?

[houghchrst]

I am in MIchigan so we got a pretty good chunk of it. It's funny how a little blocking of the sun can cover the earth with such a surreal light. Like I imagine being in the twilight zone might be LOL. I can't wait to see what the aftermath with the crowds is like today.

No good pictures but I posted an absolutely beautiful picture from NASA on my FB feed. I will see if I can get it here. image_5418.jpg