Seven weeks ago I began exploring with cannabis to see if I could interface with it for self-development and spirit-level explorations. I’ve been sharing about these experiences in my progress log in the Conscious Growth Club member forums for several weeks now. In this post I’ll compile excerpts from several of those log entries together, so those who aren’t in CGC can potentially gain some worthwhile insights from these explorations.

Preparation and Exploring with Cannabis Gummies

I’ll share some details about my recent cannabis exploration for those who are curious. If you’re not interested in that sort of thing, I encourage you to skip this post since it’s really just about that.

Cannabis has been legal in Nevada for many years, and there are licensed dispensaries all over the city, literally dozens of them. You can even order cannabis online here and have it delivered, typically with free delivery when spending about $30 or more.

A little over a month ago, I was extremely ignorant about cannabis, having only done it about 6x in my life and always recreationally, such as when someone would pass around a joint at a party. The last time I partook of any was several years ago. It normally just made me feel a bit giddy or silly, so I didn’t really see the point of it. I had no clue about the role of intention when connecting with such energies. Now I can see that it simply matched my intentionality at the time.

With this quarter’s CGC theme of Renew, Reset, Reboot, I began sensing that it might be time to reboot my relationship with cannabis. There were a number of syncs about it popping up in my reality, plus the emergence of a very obvious social support group locally if I was interested in exploring it. It’s ridiculously accessible here in Vegas. I smell it often around the city and even the neighborhood. Sometimes when I’m working on my laptop on our backyard patio, I’ll smell it wafting over the fence. I’d sometimes even smell it right outside our gym. I began getting the hint that maybe it was reaching out to connect and not just to taunt me in some weird way.

Exploring magic mushrooms was not at all what I expected. It was way deeper, richer, and more beneficial than I imagined. It showed me way more about how this life works and what it’s all about in ways that made sense to me and meshed with other experiences I’ve had over the years. (Yes, we’re in a simulator of sorts, and it’s a purposeful one.)

I really didn’t like the idea of smoking cannabis though. I’ve never smoked a cigarette or cigar, not one puff. Very, very occasionally I was okay doing that with a joint, but I wouldn’t want to do that often. I have strong objections to filling my lungs with smoke and ash. I like breathing too much.

I was aware of other cannabis consumption methods like edibles, and when I learned that local dispensaries had vegan gummies available, that make me curious They’re relatively inexpensive too, about $10 (when on sale) for 10 gummies with 10mg THC each. For someone with a low tolerance like me, 10mg is definitely strong enough to feel. I did some basic digging into them and finally went to my first dispensary ever on March 31st, trying a Sativa half-gummy (so 5mg THC) that same day for the first time. It was fairly mild but nice to connect with. I was able to open up a pretty decent connection with the Spirit of Cannabis, dialoguing with it via journaling to learn more about it and also connecting with it through meditation. All good, nothing bad about the experience.

I was surprised that the connection with it was so solid and open given my lack of experience with it, and that being my first time trying to connect with the intention to see if I could link with its energy and dialogue with it, mainly to see if we could establish a link and if I could create a trust-based relationship with it. That came through as a loud and clear yes. It told me that the reason we were able to connect so well was because it could utilize the pathways I’d spent months building with the shroomies. I didn’t know it could do that. Its energy was different though – immensely maternal, nurturing, warm, loving, chill, and relaxed. The communication wasn’t as crisp as with the shroomies, but it was clear enough to understand it both verbally and to connect with it visually and vibrationally with my eyes closed, in a location that felt like a conscious dreamscape.

I continued to connect with it in the weeks ahead (last month), testing in the range of 1/4 gummy to 1 full gummy. The full gummy was more intense when I took a hybrid that was mostly Indica. The Sativa ones didn’t seem to affect me as strongly. I think I like the Indica ones better – they feel a bit nicer and are great for connecting through meditation.

During this time I also ramped up my education with lots of reading. I began watching videos on YouTube to learn more about cannabis too, including its effects, risks, strains, consumption methods, and more. I took tons of notes in Bear (my favorite note-taking app, especially because I love using an app called Bear). I kept encountering terms I didn’t understand like dabbing and rosin, and I’d look up their definitions to keep filling in gaps in my knowledge. As I learned more, a sense of the possibility space in this direction really began to open up. I saw multiple possible exploration paths that all felt better and safer to me than smoking joints. I especially began looking deeper into dry herb vaping. There are risks with any kind of exploration, but with a decent amount of care and caution, that pathway seemed interesting and promising.

On weekends and evenings, I poured extra time into learning. It was surprisingly fun and engaging. At some point I fell in love with a YouTube channel from a Canadian guy named Lee. He lives in a small town called Chatham, Ontario, which is about 50 miles east of Detroit. I’ve been to London, Ontario once, which is about 70 miles NW of Chatham, so I have some sense of that part of Canada, but Chatham is really tiny.

Lee runs a family business creating and selling hand-crafted bongs. His YouTube channel is TableTopBong. He has a wealth of knowledge about cannabis and especially dry herb vaping. He also explores some spirituality and self-development topics in many of his videos.

Lee clearly consumes a LOT of cannabis, mostly via dry herb vaping. He usually consumes it during his videos too, which are about 15-20 minutes on average and nice to watch on 2x speed. He’ll often go through multiple “bowls” of herb (a bowl for a dry herb vaping device typically being around 0.1g, basically referring to the amount that fits in a vaporizer, but I think Lee’s bowls are often larger). I stumbled upon his channel at some point and ended up watching dozens of his videos over time. I really like his vibe, which is friendly, kind, enthusiastic, and informative. He begins every video by saying, “Hello friends,” and his community is clearly super supportive and engaged. He currently has just a slightly larger YouTube following than I do, but his channel is growing faster, mainly because he posts often, multiple times per week. He’ll pass 10K subscribers this month with ease. I think his channel (and dry herb vaping in general) are really poised to blow up in popularity.

One other thing I learned is that dry herb vaping devices have evolved a great deal over the past few years. I have still never tried it, but I will. Thanks to Lee’s reviews and other videos and resources, I acquired a few devices to test with. For a battery-powered version, I opted for a Tinymight 2. And for analog versions, I picked up two different Dynavaps. I’m curious to test them soon.

I also researched various strains of cannabis – there are at least 800+ of them, possibly thousands. I made a shopping list and went to 3 different dispensaries on 4/20 during their 420 sales: The Dispensary, Cultivate, and Zen Leaf.

My favorite was Zen Leaf, which is one of the closest, just 10 minutes away. It was the smallest but had such a nice vibe, and the lines were a lot shorter than the ones closer to the Vegas Strip. I ended up getting matched with a friendly budtender who was helpful in fine-tuning some of my choices.

This is what I picked up that day. It’s a ridiculous amount for a cannabis newbie, but it felt just right for me because I learned a lot, and now I have a massive variety to experiment with – a couple dozen different strains, plus more gummies and some tinctures (THC only and THC/CBD). The joint (preroll) was a bonus freebie the budtender tossed in.

Even with everything in sealed containers, this stuff emits a scent, which would eventually fill up any room where I stored it. I looked for a solution for that and learned about smell-proof bags. Who knew? I ordered a couple from Amazon, and they worked perfectly. No more smell, not even when sniffing near the bags.

It’s hard to buy less than an eighth of cannabis here (1/8 oz = 3.5g). Only a few places will sell the dry herb in 1g quantities, and only with a very limited selection. But with all the 4/20 sales and plenty of nice bundle deals available, I just went for variety. I’m not worried about using it all up before it goes bad. I just want to have a bunch of different strains to try, so I can learn the effects of the different terpenes and cannabinoids. This approach appeals to me greatly.

I have no interest in going the stoner route – not a match for my intentionality. But I’ve connected enough with this energy thus far to know that it’s a very promising path of exploration for me. Definitely not for everyone, but I feel like it came into my life at the right time… and it’s not at all what I thought it would be like from the outside looking in.

Even with the roughly 8x I’ve tried cannabis so far during the past 5 weeks (only gummies and tinctures up till now), I really like some benefits it’s been layering in. It seems super complementary to what the shroomies have done, especially in terms of intuition and creativity. I feel like the cannabis has been fine-tuning and adding more nuance to the shroomies’ work thus far.

I also find it interesting that just having this cannabis stash in my space seems to have a positive effect. I don’t even have to consume it to interface with it. Even on days when I’ve taken nothing, I can still link to its energy, just in a milder way. And often when I’m working now, I can feel it linking up with me and helping me see some extra insights and perspectives. It is quite harmonious, intelligent, and supportive.

While I know some people prefer big trips for major transformations, my preference is to explore with lower doses and then meet the energy halfway, such as through journaling or meditation. I don’t usually liked being couch-locked. I prefer to take breaks and do extra reflection and integration as I go, opening up the mental and spirit-level connections while keeping the physical effects mild. I also like to invite these energies into my creative flow to see what they want to contribute. This feels like a really nice progression of my creative path, opening up fresh avenues of exploration and discovery – a nice treat after 30 years of creative work.

I can’t seem to do anything like this piecemeal. I’m too curious and enjoy the process of exploration way too much. For whatever reason, I feel really well-suited and well-equipped mentally, emotionally, and spiritually for these kinds of explorations. I find that the key is to focus on building a trusting relationship with the substances and the energies they link with. Then use that strong trust and mutual understanding as a basis for further exploration and discovery. These energies are super sensitive to intentionality, and they really seem to respond well to trust-based intentions. So does reality as a whole.

Cannabis and Self-Development

One reason I went for the Tinymight 2 was that it was recently updated, it has super positive reviews, and it’s very flexible with both a session mode and an on-demand mode. I definitely see myself as more of a sipper to begin with, but if I ever want to have a stronger experience, it ought to be plenty capable. When I don’t know exactly what my preferred range will be, I like to favor flexibility.

I love the name too – a small handheld device that can pack quite a punch. This is actually more like a version 3 because it was updated with some build-quality improvements just recently (in March I think), but they kept the model the same.

I think these kinds of devices are poised to explode in popularity in the years ahead. Many years ago these vaporizers were apparently just not very good. But the makers listened to feedback and kept iterating to improve the tech, and now we’re in the third generation of devices, which are vastly improved over the prior generations.

Another device that is getting a lot of attention is the Arizer Solo III. It just came out last month. I don’t know much about it other than it’s a major upgrade over the previous version. Another less expensive but much loved model is the POTV Lobo (POTV = Planet of the Vapes, a super popular site in this space with a stellar reputation).

The cannabis space is really interesting. There are some fraudsters out there (and a great way to check is to search on anything in this space in r/vaporents on Reddit – a very protective community), but I’ve seen a real heart-centeredness in this space on the business side – lots of caring, compassion, patience, helpfulness, etc. Many people had their lives powerfully transformed by cannabis, so there’s a lot of gratitude and appreciation flowing through this space too. Many are a bit worried about it becoming too corporate in the years ahead, which is understandable, but the intentionality I see flowing through this whole space right now has been very beautiful so far.

Dry herb vaping seems to have arisen originally to provide a safer alternative to smoking, but now I can see that it’s really poised to attract a much wider audience, including people like me who are curious to see if cannabis can be used wisely for self-development, spirit-level explorations, creativity, etc. but who are not keen on smoking anything. Even with my limited experience with it, I can see the potential ready to unleash itself and to attract many more people into it.

First Dry Herb Vaping Experience

I had been sensing that it was coming up on time to have my first cannabis dry herb vaping experience, especially since I acquired everything I need to do it last month. Yesterday was so full of syncs about it that the invitation regarding the timing was too obvious to ignore. Even before I did it, I felt like I was already being affected by it. It was even made clear which exact strain to begin with, including syncs related to the brand as well as the strain name.

I figured that if I’m already feeling the effects radiating into the past before I took it, that signals a certain inevitability about what I was about to do. Proceeding seemed as easy as rolling downhill.

I ran the battery-powered vaporizer I got (a Tinymight 2) through a burn-in cycle. I love the feel of this little device, which comes from a small company in Finland. I did tons of vaporizer research before picking this one. I especially like that the vapor path goes through only stainless steel and quartz glass. I didn’t want to get a cheap one that runs the hot vapor through plastic.

I opened the 1/8 oz bag I chose (or that chose me), and I loved the smell right away, like fresh lemony pine. The brand is Matrix, and the strain is called Sugar Tits, which is a hybrid of Sour Diesel and OG Kush Breath. Who comes up with these strain names? It was 29% THC.

I like the advice to “start low and go slow,” so I carefully measured a very small beginner-level amount that came out to 54mg (0.054g). That seemed like a really baby-ish amount to begin with, but it matched with my intentions for this first time, which was to reach out, connect, and build trust with the cannabis energy. I wanted to keep the first experience pretty light.

I had already connected with this energy plenty of times in the past 5 weeks, but I’d never vaped anything before, so I was curious to know what that was like. Different interfaces can have different effects. There’s a different intentionality to breathing in a substance versus eating it.

I sat on the back patio around 6pm, and Rachelle opted to join me (just to observe, not to partake). I set the device to 170ºC, which is on the low side, good for flavor but not necessarily for maximizing the THC extraction. This is a convection vape, meaning that it heats the air first, and then my inhalation draws the hot air through the herbs, so the herbs aren’t sitting in a heated bowl like with conduction vaporizers. It took me a few draws to see any vapor clouds when I breathed out, but that was expected with this kind of vaporizer.

It was surprisingly smooth, easy, and pleasant. I would only cough when I tried taking longer 10-second draws. If I took in less vapor, then no coughing. At first it really felt like I was just breathing mildly scented air. I didn’t notice any meaningful effects, not till a few minutes after I was done vaping, which for me took about 12 draws total. If I’d set the temp higher, it would have taken fewer draws to finish, but for this time: low and slow.

As the vapor began to diminish, I cranked the temp up to 200ºC and did one more extraction. That felt like breathing in a darker roast and made me cough a bit. This sort of temperature stepping is pretty common as a way to extract more THC from the herbs.

I knew to expect that the effects from vaping kick in faster than with edibles but don’t last as long. That turned out to be accurate.

As I finished up outside, I cleaned the vaporizer and began noticing the onset of some mild effects. I went upstairs to meditate and see if I could connect with the energy. I put on some music, and it was super easy to connect with the energy right away. The connection was mild but clear enough, and it only lasted for less than an hour, but it was lovely all the way through.

There was less of a body feeling and more of an opening of inner senses, which aligned with breathing in this energy instead of eating it. I didn’t really feel too much physically or emotionally, but with my eyes closed I could get some nice visuals and sense a few energy beings reaching out to connect. The main one was this female energy being that I’d seen before when taking gummies. It was reassuring to see her coming through since then I knew this was the same energy I’d already been communicating with, and we could pick up where we left off.

I think of her as the Spirit of Cannabis, but I’m not entirely sure yet if that’s accurate. She might be a helpful guide that cannabis brings through for me, or she might be this energy presenting itself in a more human-like but very spirited form to make it easier to communicate. I’ll need to do more sessions with her and probably some stronger ones to get more clarity about who or what she is. I do love her energy though – she’s fun, interesting, and engaging. She always shows up dancing and loves to keep dancing all the time we’re connecting. That may be because I listen to music during these sessions.

The first thing she did was reach out and touch my heart a few times. Each time she touched me, she’d say the words “happy heart.” Then she’d dance for a few more seconds, touch my heart again, and repeat this several more times. She soon explained that I’ve been picking up a lot of energy from other people, including their anxiety and fear, and one of the best ways to stay energetically centered is simply to focus on my heart and say, “happy heart.” I practiced that a little with her, but I didn’t feel any differently at the time. However, when I tried it this morning, it did have a nice effect. I really appreciate these little training sessions regarding how to manage my energy better; they’ve been a rich and meaningful part of the last several months. After working with the mushroom energy for so long, it’s nice to have a fresh spirit-level trainer to work with too, especially since she’s so accessible. I’m able to link with her while meditating without any substances now, but the connection is stronger if I take something (due to stronger intentionality symbolized by the act of consumption).

She shared some more info with me as well, but mostly we just connected energetically and vibrationally, not so much verbally. It was like dancing together in spirit space. Maybe it’s because of the music, but many spirit energies just love to dance. They rarely stand still. They’re almost constantly in motion, like rainbow light shows.

In fact, noticing how these energies move so much helped me think differently about my own patterns of sitting all day while working. I have a desk that can change heights by pushing a button, but even standing isn’t really moving. I decided to shift my base pattern there to a more movement-rich day, mainly by acquiring a walking pad / desk treadmill. I’ve lost 6 pounds in the past 6 weeks thanks to this. I love how spirit-level insights can be applied to my human life in very practical ways. It also feels much better to me mentally and emotionally to move a lot more during each day.

During the session I also asked her about my feeling the trippy sensations well before I even took anything. She said she figured that would be a fun surprise to mark my first vaping experience, with the effects running backwards and forwards in time for essentially the same duration around the time of the actual vaping. That’s exactly how it felt. The difference was that I was meditating to meet the energy after taking it, but I felt like I easily could have done that before taking it too. These explorations have been full of so many surprises like this. On multiple times I’ve said to these energies, “I had no idea you could do that.” Then they just offer up the equivalent of a vibrational smile and confirm that they can do a great deal. They are not bound to satisfy our limited human expectations of them. They have a fun, playful, and even teasing side regarding inviting me into a wider range of possibilities. What they’ve demonstrated has been such a gift in terms of helping me build more flexible models of reality. I so love testing their ideas, especially when their models predict different outcomes than my old ones.

At another point during the session, she gave me a small glimpse of her power, so as to make it clear that she’s capable of a lot more but that she isn’t going to reveal all her capabilities just yet. Basically she showed me that she could also help me purge misaligned patterns just as the shroomies had done. She did this by triggering a big wave of nausea within me, but it was very short-lived. She noted that if I want to purge that way, by feeling it through my physical body, we can do that, but it isn’t necessary. Then I let out a big burp instead, and she noted that this is another (milder) symbolic way of purging too. I had already known this (last year’s MDMA experience taught me more flexible purging options), but it was nice to see her confirm that she was more than capable of helping me make bigger shifts later but that we weren’t going to work on those today.

At one point when the strength of our link was waning, she requested that I change the music to something faster paced, specifically asking for DJ Marsh. I love his tracks for sessions like this, and he has many playlists on YouTube. The faster beat was nice, but within a few minutes the connection had pretty much faded anyway.

Those last few minutes, however, were enough to finally ask her about the video invite for another round of CGC invites. She confirmed what I was already sensing internally, that today (Monday) would be the right day to record it and start opening the door again. Earlier in the session, she also noted she was helping to lay in some extra tracks (in my mind/brain) to further enhance this kind of communication, and that these were related to the video as well. They were subtle adjustments, but I could sense some value in this extra layering.

I continued meditating (to DJ Marsh tunes) and reflecting on my own for another 30 minutes and then went downstairs, linked up with Rachelle, had a refreshing bowl of fruit, and watched an episode of Twin Peaks with her. Then I got sleepy and napped with my head on Rachelle’s lap (I often call her wifepillow) before finally heading up to bed. I didn’t feel any physical effects, but in the dreamscape while my body slept, I kept working with some other energies that the cannabis network was connecting me to, mostly for the first half of the night. Mostly.

This was a fine start but pretty mild. I definitely could have gone stronger and would have appreciated more intensity. Next time I’ll likely try about 0.1g to see where that lands. I like that the Tinymight 2 has an adjustable bowl size, so it can work with a really tiny amount like I did yesterday, or I can go for a larger amount like up to 0.3g.

The way I think about how much to take is that it’s just another pathway for communicating intentionality. If I take an amount that feels small to me, I’m intending a milder session. If I take a bigger amount, I’m asking for a deeper or more intense experience. These intentions are offers. The energy that meets me also has a will of its own, and it can make a seemingly mild amount feel much stronger or a larger amount feel mild, depending on what we’re working on together. I also know that it can even postpone the effects, even waiting till the next day if it wants. That was another surprise I discovered many months ago.

I did notice some mild irritation feeling in my lungs and throat a couple hours after I did the vaping, but that sensation was gone by morning. I plan to test using a longer stem, a bubbler, and a bong to help cool the vapors even more, which is known to be a good way to make the experience milder on the throat and lungs. I can say that the feeling of breathing in the vapors felt very different than smoking. Instead of feeling like I’m breathing in hot ash, it was like breathing in this lovely scented air.

Not a bad experience for about 25 cents worth of cannabis.

It’s even possible to save the used herbs, referred to as ABV (already been vaped), and then use them to make edibles since they still have some THC left in them. Some people save up their ABV herbs in a jar, and then when they have enough, they’ll use it to make a batch of brownies or something along those lines.

Second Dry Herb Vaping Experience

Last night I did my second dry herb vaping experience with cannabis, this time with a different strain called Dutch Hawaiian but also double the amount I did the first time, so 0.1g. In picking a strain, I went through my stash and held each eighth (some in bags, some in jars) individually and felt its energy. Most had very potent vibes with an interesting range of sensations. I almost went with one called StarKiller, which had really smooth but powerful vibe, but for some reason I felt a little more drawn to go with Dutch Hawaiian. That one was a hybrid of about 70% Sativa / 30% Indica according to the package.

I also tried it with a bubbler this time, which is like a mini-bong that runs the vapors through a little water to help further cool and condition them.

This was definitely a smoother experience, but it still wasn’t very strong overall. Maybe next time I’ll try 0.2g. The water can slightly reduce the strength, and I do think it reduced the flavor a little, but it was still pretty nice overall. I was almost surprised by how easy it was.

I figured out that it’s best to put only a small amount of water in the bubbler since I initially added too much, and then I was sucking up some water with the vapor when trying to inhale. I just poured out the excess till it felt right.

I also tried using a dosing capsule this time, which is a tiny metal canister for holding the herbs. I do think that slightly reduces the efficiency of extraction though.

As the (very mild) effects began to kick in, I went upstairs to meditate and brought the new San Pedro cactus I got yesterday (I named him Petey), and I held it in my lap now and then while trying to link with its energy. [Note: Rachelle and I bought these cute little San Pedro cacti while attending the two-day psychedelics PsyCon conference here in Vegas on May 10 and 11.]

The energy felt really weak overall though, both from the cannabis and whatever I could sense from the San Pedro. That seemed odd to me since I was awash in these kinds of energies for the past two days, so I was expecting a stronger link.

Over the next hour, I kept reaching out to try to connect, but very little was coming through, as if these energies were away on vacation. I tried changing up the music, but still nothing, just some mild and relaxing body sensations. I’m accustomed to very active meditations with lots of communication happening. Even with cannabis I usually get some visuals for about 20 minutes (at least from the gummies). But this experience just seemed pretty quiet.

Eventually I had the thought, Maybe I’ll stop trying to reach out and just be in my own energy and let them come to me when they’re ready. At that point I felt an interesting energy-echo that seemed to be acknowledging that this was the right approach.

That night I put the San Pedro plant on my nightstand, wondering if I could connect with its energy while sleeping. I sense that something happened there, and my sleep was very restful, but I think the main message I got was still that it will reach out when it’s ready and that there’s no need to try to actively connect with it just yet.

That makes sense to me. I have plenty of other explorations to do, and adding yet another energy to actively explore with might be a bit much right now, even if it’s mild. I also got the sense that the plant showed up to help begin weaving some of these other energies in but very subtly and mostly in the background. So right now I don’t need to engage in a foreground exploration with San Pedro. I can simply trust it to connect in the background, and when it’s ready to do more, it’ll let me know.

As for going on a San Pedro retreat with other interested CGCers, I do think it could make for an interesting bucket list experience – we have 3 bucket list walkthrough experiences coming up this CGC year. But I also feel that doesn’t need to be advanced so directly right now. I think it’s just showing up as a possibility to consider. I also sense that some people may be amenable who’d need more time to warm up to the idea. Trying to advance this right now doesn’t feel quite right; I think it needs time to incubate.

A couple days ago I watched a video of a guy vaping an eighth of cannabis (3.5g) in under 15 minutes. That’s 35x the amount that I did last night. I can’t say I aspire to reach his level, but I did find it amusing when he said something like “I can’t feel my arms,” when he was about halfway through. Of course he’s Canadian. 

I feel lot more competent with mushrooms, probably since I’ve taken them close to 150x now. With cannabis I seem to be taking a very cautious and slow approach, finding that I have stronger intentionality around avoiding a bad experience than for inviting a really good experience. I think I’m still working on building trust with cannabis, not fully letting it in all the way just yet.

Dry Herb Vaping Exploration #3

I had a really nice dry herb vaping experience yesterday afternoon, my 3rd experience of this kind. This time I returned to the first strain I tried since I liked that one best so far. I went considerably stronger than before, starting with 0.1g, waiting 15 minutes to see how I was feeling, doing another 0.1g, and then doing a 3rd 0.1g about an hour later, so 0.3g total but spread out time-wise. That felt just right to me and landed me in an interesting range where I could sense and experience a lot more than in the previous sessions.

The overall flow of the session was really nice, not too spikey but enough to go into a deep meditative connection with the cannabis energies – or really with the other energies they introduced and brought through.

Even with the 3rd bowl to extend it, the total time was only about 2 hours. I’m still getting used to how short the main effects last – way shorter than with mushrooms. I definitely feel like I could go stronger still.

I opted to stay on the back patio for this experience, relaxing in a lounge chair. It was 88ºF but I was in the shade, and there was a light breeze, so I felt very comfortable.

At one point my Apple Watch buzzed me to alert me that my heart rate was over 110, and I wasn’t moving at the time. Experiences like this can often elevate heart rate, although this was higher than I’ve normally seen with mushrooms (typically peaking around 95). I felt very relaxed and calm though, so the heart rate notification was surprising since I really wasn’t feeling any related effects. With mushrooms if my heart rate gets elevated, I tend to get sweaty palms or feel other physical effects along with it.

I looked this up, and apparently it’s common with cannabis to see the heart rate go up by 20-50 beats per minute or even more in some cases.

I’m learning that a good approach with cannabis is to set my intentions before the session, and then just relax and let the energy come to me. With the mushrooms I can choose to direct the flow, or I can let them lead; usually it’s a collaborative process. But with cannabis when I try to direct it, the intensity seems to recede. When I relax, open, and just wait patiently, some really cool experiences flow through with ease. I can dialogue with it and ask questions too, but I find that’s best done near the end. Cannabis seems to prefer guiding me in its own way first, and I’m learning to trust that it does a pretty good job of that.

When the body effects would reach a strong enough level with mushrooms, it would often trigger some kind of purging (namely vomiting). Cannabis keeps steering clear of that though. It keeps reminding me that I don’t need to purge in that way if I don’t want to and that those mild nausea sensations are echos from past experiences. I appreciate these reminders since they help me relax more and stabilize and sync my energy with it. I’m learning that I can release old patterns by breathing out, and this session involved a lot of that, including releasing old attachments and stale energy patterns.

Another significant part of this session involved being guided through a series of activations and block removals. We went through many adjustments of my human life parameters and settings, switching off what is no longer needed and activating other attractors for what I’m ready to explore and experience next. A lot of that was in the social realm, which is a direction that has already been opening up in my life during the past year, both locally and online – definitely in line with a rich and meaningful social expansion phase. I’ve been through activation and unblocking sessions like this with mushrooms and MDMA too, so this part was very familiar. However, the way the cannabis energy did the activations felt different… it was more sensual, enabling me to really feel the differences in my body and emotions.

I could sense an elusive power in the cannabis energy, glimpsing that it was clearly capable of revealing and doing a lot more but that it was also holding back a lot of its power. The connection with it is progressing gradually, but I feel like I’m ready to go faster with it and invite more energetically intense and vivid inner experiences. My intentionality is shifting from starting low, going slow, and avoiding bad experiences towards a rising desire to go deeper and see just what this energy is capable of and how we might work together. I think I’m gradually moving from a very cautious phase to a more curious one.

Eventually I was able to coax it to show me more. Based on what I had already seen it do, I presumed that it had the capability to help me feel what it was really like to experience one or more of my goals as if I was already there, and sure enough it took me into a vivid experience of a desired future reality. That really helped me immerse myself in the vibes of being there, allowing me to notice subtleties and nuances that I hadn’t previously imagined being part of the result. Instant a-ha moment. Pursuing a goal is always a vibrational journey, and it really helps to gain more clarity about the destination by feeling and sensing what it’s like to be there.

When I’m engaging with cannabis energy, I can tell it has a lot of power to show me new truths and really allow me to step inside of them and feel and experience them with full-spectrum vibrational intensity. It’s good at switching off filters and blocks, so I can gain a much purer sense of what the unfiltered vibes are actually doing. This makes it abundantly clear that human life is extremely filtered and compressed – there is SO MUCH happening behind the scenes that we’re not even aware of. I’d really like to keep developing and opening up more sensitivity to a broader spectrum of vibes, especially so I can sense them outside of these kinds of sessions. It seems obvious that there’s an immense amount of creative and attractive power within us, and I’m delighted to be on a path of discovering how to tap into more of that.

As dusk approached, I felt like maybe I should move inside to avoid being snacked on by bugs, which tend to come out around sunset. There usually aren’t many, but I have picked up some small mosquito bites when sitting outdoors at this time of day. As I had this thought, the cannabis energy showed me another option, saying that it could help me modify my personal energy field to mask any potentially harmful insects from being able to see me, almost like wearing an invisibility cloak. It told me that the cannabis plant has this ability, and with its energy inside me, it could easily take care of that. I can’t say if that worked as it suggested, but it did feel like there was some kind of extra protective aura around me afterwards, and even though I felt I was an easy target for the bugs, wearing only shorts and a T-shirt, I didn’t seem to get any fresh bites. So I can’t complain about that.

Another possibility is that maybe the lingering scent from the now-toasty dry herbs that I had used, still sitting on a tray next to me, also served as some kind of natural insect repellant. When the wind shifted a certain way, I could smell the faint scent of the herbs, which was actually very pleasant.

I got some mild dreamscape visuals while meditating with the cannabis energy but they were more intermittent and pulse-like, as opposed to more stable and intense visuals that I tend to get with mushrooms.

It’s interesting to explore cannabis after journeying with mushrooms so many times. Cannabis seems way lighter, easier, and gentler by comparison, but I haven’t done any knock-me-on-my-ass experiences with it. My main interest is in exploring the spirit-level communication and activations, so I’ll keep experimenting to see what strains, doses, and intentions yield the best connections. I imagine there’s also a cumulative neural rewiring effect like there’s been with mushrooms, which should help the clarity improve over time.

One thing this experience helped me clarify is that my goals are actually inviting me to shift towards more vibrationally intense states of being that are still sustainable. That’s a different journey than what I originally expected, but this new understanding makes a lot of sense. I feel like I’ve been avoiding the intensity because I don’t feel that I can sustain it without burning out. But that is indeed the journey – to make higher intensity experiences sustainable. I can see how my psychedelic explorations mirror that too. I really like minidosing with mushrooms, but with cannabis I think I might prefer stronger, deeper experiences because I see a way to go there with better balance now.

There are ways to invite more intensity that aren’t sustainable; they can provide peak experiences, but then I have to come back down afterwards. However, there are also ways to invite more intensity sustainably, such that the peaks become the new normal. One example was to create a life rich in affection and touch. That provides more intensity than my previous life without it, and it’s easily sustainable since that kind of energy fills me up. Once I learned how to vibe with an affection-rich reality, it became effortless to maintain.

That’s an interesting way to think about intensity. Which forms of intensity would be too draining and not sustainable to experience every day? Which forms of intensity have the right balance to be sustainable on a daily basis? I’m really vibing with this notion of balanced intensity that I can enjoy every day. I can see that I have a lot of that in my life already – being in love, feel constantly motivated, unshakable optimism, doing work that endlessly fascinates me, co-exploring with such wonderful people in CGC, always having plenty of money, enjoying a sense of time abundance, being very tuned-in to the spirit-level, feeling like I have access to infinite guidance, feeling very safe and protected, youthful health and energy, abundant growth experiences, fascinating friendships opening up, etc.

My life feels like the opposite of neediness, which I realize was the vibrational space I began locking onto when I was younger. Then it was a gradual journey with lots of lessons to keep opening that up more and more, starting with the really glaring and obvious stuff like shedding misalignments. I think if more people pulled back the curtain and saw how truly fascinating other possibilities are, they’d never be able to stomach showing up for a job or relationship that didn’t fill them with love and delight most days. Like how do their bodies sustainably hold onto such dense and heavy vibes instead of compelling them to purge such limitations and explore much lighter and flowy experiences? It’s really interesting to observe people doing this over and over till they finally realize they can simply put down the whip and walk away, and when they do so, a new relationship with life will be so delighted to meet them. I think it just goes to show that many humans are really into D/s play – they just prefer to label it differently, like making a living. These days I often feel like I’m the alien with a bowl of popcorn watching them repeatedly torture themselves… wondering how long it will take them to turn and notice the super bright EXIT sign flashing at them nonstop… except on the inside of that door where they are, the door is labeled “Verboten! Do not enter!” How much longer till they get curious enough to peak behind it? It is the simplest of courage tests.

I realized that a vibrational mistake I was making with some of my goals was to frame them as having spikey intensity levels that would actually feel draining if I stayed there. But the cannabis showed me that if I actually achieved and maintained that goal, I would be awash in more balanced and harmonious vibes. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to stay there for long. This was a really useful, empowering, and practical lesson. It shows me that it’s actually best to avoid the overly spikey paths to the goal and that I ought to go with a more relaxed and balanced approach that incorporates more of the full-spectrum vibes that I sensed during the goal immersion experience.

This also confirms something else I’ve been working on, which is to define my goals as a collection of vibes, usually 20-40 of them. This helps me avoid over-simplifying the goal and stripping out so many of the supporting and balancing vibes that make it sustainable.

This parallels my cannabis exploration too. By inhaling the dry herb vapors, I’m getting a full spectrum experience, including multiple cannabinoids and terpenes. This is very different from using THC distillates that strip out so much, even if they later try to add some of it back. I’m finding the sensory experience of inhaling the herb vapors to be pleasant and interesting. I used a different stem for the vaporizer this time, a longer one called a missile stem that’s full of terp pearls (tiny glass marbles). It really did enhance the flavor, and I also like how different flavors come through at different temperature settings. You can see that stem to the left of the vaporizer on the tray in this pic.

Those two tiny metal baskets in the upper right corner of the tray both said “Verboten!” initially. Now they say reconnect… or the German equivalent perhaps?

I think the reason I favor the German word verboten instead of forbidden is because the German word seems to imply more of a need to defer to authority. That aligns with how people get themselves stuck, not recognizing how much power they truly have to author and sculpt their lives. Verboten is just a word. It has no power, except the power we infuse it with. Walking down Verbotenstrasse is just the beginning.

Dry Herb Vaping Exploration #4: Starkiller

Yesterday evening at 5:50pm I began another cannabis vaping session, this time with a strain called Starkiller. So far I’ve only tried vaping with sativa-dominant strains, and Starkiller is an indica-dominant hybrid (about 27% THC). So I thought this would likely be a different kind of experience. That turned out to be very true.

About 30 minutes before I started, I was already feeling some effects once again, and they felt pretty chill and relaxing, so I took that as a good sign, and it also gave me a feeling of inevitability about what I was going to do.

I prepped two 0.1g bowls, intending to start with one, wait at least 15 minutes, and then decide if I wanted the second one. I used a new orb-shape bong this time, the first bong I’ve ever owned, so the vapors run through water for extra cooling and conditioning. I can’t say if that made a big difference, but it was interesting to at least try it, and it was easy to set up and use with the portable vaporizer (which came with a bong adapter). I bought the bong from Lee who runs the Table Top Bong YouTube channel, and I went for the Ember model since I thought that would be a nice match for fire energy. He offered a 4/20 deal that came with some extra bonuses (5 different glass stems, terp pearls, etc). I learned a lot from his channel, and it felt good to support him and his over-the-top Canandian-ness too.

After the first bowl plus 15 minutes, I was noticing enough of an effect kicking in that I opted not to go stronger, so I didn’t do the second bowl. I laid back on the patio lounge chair, and closed my eyes while listening to some trance music.

Soon I connected with the cannabis energy, but it was different this time. It presented as a more masculine energy whereas in previous sessions it always felt like a feminine presence.

Immediately the energy seemed surprised and said, “Wait a minute! You’re not here to party, are you?” I confirmed that my intention wasn’t to have a party experience. It quickly chimed in and said, “Oh, you’re here to learn,” reading the answer from my mind without my having to subvocalize it. Then it said, “Okay, we can do that,” and I detected a hint of disappointment in its tone and attitude. I don’t know what the party version would have been like, and maybe I’ll explore that intentionality another time (especially since this strain hinted that it would have preferred that kind of intention), but I’m glad it was able to adapt to my preferences, although it did so in an expected way that was different from any previous session.

The energy also confirmed that one bowl was good and that I didn’t need to do the second one. I like how these energies can help guide me on how much of the associated substance to use. Their suggestions sync well with my own feelings, and I’ve never felt like they were nudging me to take an amount that didn’t feel right to me.

After our initial handshake, I could feel some kind of communication trying to flow through, but it seemed so stunted and choppy. I felt like the music was getting in the way somehow. Then I heard the energy agreeing that I needed to change the music. I asked in my mind, “To what?” And it immediately said, “Enya!” So I switched to an Enya playlist, and that really did seem to help. The slower pacing made it easier to hear and sense what was happening communication-wise. I was surprised that this strain seemed more in the mode for a party intention but then wanted to step down the music to something slower and less party-like (at least by my musical tastes), but maybe that was to align with my intention to learn from it.

For most of the session, the communication felt very odd to me. There were dream-like visuals cutting in and out, but they seemed so random and elusive, jumping from scene to scene like I was in an episode of Quantum Leap, but leaping into a new scene every minute and not having time to build any kind of coherent story. I did my best to relax and receive, but I can’t say I was getting much out of that experience in terms of useful insights. I was only picking up some vague impressions of potential meaning but nothing that felt very crisp and clear at the time.

Physically the experience was pleasant. My body felt relaxed but not too spaced out. I started thinking that maybe I should have taken more, so the communication might be stronger and clearer then. I started having thoughts like maybe this strain isn’t for me, and I don’t see the point of whatever this is. It felt a bit hollow and thin for my preferences.

I kept trying to get it to verbalize more, but it didn’t seem to want to communicate much that way. Finally I asked it what it was doing, and it said, “Laying tracks.” I figured this was one of those foundation-laying sessions where it’s helping to build new neural pathways in the background. I’m okay with that, but I was hoping for a more direct form of communication too. I did my best to just surrender to the flow of it, even as the intensity seemed to be gradually reducing after the first 30 minutes.

Especially during the early part of the experience, I noticed some time dilation, a common sensation. I figured about 15 minutes had passed since I last checked my watch, but only 6 minutes had elapsed. That can make a session feel longer than it really is. I also checked my heart rate and noted it was at 109, definitely elevated for just relaxing but also normal for cannabis.

At one point I moved inside, cleaned up the vaping items, and decided to continue meditating upstairs in a recliner chair. I felt it was time to change the music, so I switched to some DJ Marsh trance music (his Kew Gardens playlist). That seemed to help pull through a bit more, but in a different direction. I became fixated on listening attentively to the music itself. It sounded more detailed than usual, oddly thicker and thinner at the same time.

The individual notes and chords felt thicker to me. I noticed more detail around the edges of them, like the tinny reverberations of a cymbal crash or the warbling waviness around a synth sound. I noticed more reverb and echo effects too.

The music had a more electric quality to it, like each note wasn’t just sound but was also emitting some kind of electricity. That made me ponder that this was technically true since I was listening with AirPod Pros, so the music did indeed have an electrical aspect to it at the time. Electricity was being used to generate the sound waves. I felt like I was picking up on some of that electrical energy, like it was infused into the sound.

At the same time, I could feel more spaciousness between the notes and tracks, like I was also hearing the silence and observing the frequency ranges that were mostly empty. The music felt like it was running on thin rails distributed throughout a much vaster space of frequency possibilities. I don’t think I’ve ever perceived music that way before, like thin lines tracing through an enormous 3D field. I realize that most of each song was actually a giant void of emptiness, but the sounds focused my attention on their specific locations within that void.

That felt captivating but also mildly disturbing at the same time. The music seemed more fragile but also precious. How were these notes swimming through this gigantic void of nothingness? What was propelling them forward? I could feel a sense of loneliness in the notes but also the importance of togetherness. They all needed each other’s company. To be just a single note alone in this massive void would be dreadful otherwise.

This continued for a while, and I noted I was already at the 2-hour mark and still feeling like I was in the session, at least with my perceptions of the music. I could get up and move just fine – no couch-lock – but these unfolding realizations made me feel there might still be more to explore here. I texted Rachelle to let her know I wanted to keep going a while longer, and she was fine with that.

What happened next was surprising and strange. I kept listening to the same music, but my mind began wandering through certain perspectives and realizations, layering on top of what I sensed about the music.

I began thinking about how the earth isn’t solid at all. It’s mostly a void of emptiness. Wherever there are no conscious observers looking at it, it’s just an unresolved waveform, but it isn’t in the form of solid matter. Taken as a whole, the earth is like a giant void of quantum soup with only a tiny fraction of its total volume resolved to appear solid, and those resolutions are temporary and constantly in flux. It’s like there are people with lanterns wandering around this enormous black maze, usually unaware that the rest of the maze is in complete darkness nearly all the time.

Same goes for the whole universe. It’s one giant void of emptiness, and it only appears to reveal something visible or detectable when we look at it, and then only while we’re observing. As soon as we remove our gaze, it dissolves back into wavy probabilities.

I realized most of my house was the same, only resolving into matter in the areas where Rachelle and I (or some outside observer) are present and looking at it. I also considered that if there’s only one consciousness, then there’s only one window into the entirety of this universe, like in a dream world. But even if we allow for multiple conscious observers, we’re still only resolving a small fraction of this void. It’s weird thinking about how much of this apparent reality switches off when we’re not there to see it, like an energy-saving simulator.

The song lyrics played, “Open your eyes,” so I began playing around with opening and closing my eyes, imagining how I was causing the room around me to become matter and then to revert back to an unresolved waveform. Just by opening and closing my eyes, I was turning some aspects of physical reality on and off. My eyelids not only function as light switches. They also serve as switches between physicality and potentiality.

I played around with imagining the room infused with the vibe of love each time I closed my eyes because I realized that I have the power to influence how those probabilities resolve themselves. With intentionally I can create a magnetic pull that nudges them to resolve a little differently each time. After doing this 10-12 times back and forth, I noted that the room itself felt more loving, like the physical atoms of the space were gradually becoming infused with my intentionality through the process of repeatedly resolving and unresolving them with consistent intentionality. It was like pushing someone on a swing and building up a bit more momentum with each push. Each cycle nudged the room atoms a little more in my desired direction. The room didn’t look different, but it felt different to be inside it, like it started radiating the vibrational signature of love.

I realized that imagination is most powerful when we close our eyes. Then we’re in a world of greater potential, versus when we’re staring at resolved matter that holds prior intentionality in a solidified form.

I floated effortlessly through more visualizations along these lines. I wasn’t trying to do that deliberately. My mind just wandered this way. I realized how people serve as vibrational resolvers as we move through this giant void that we’re in. We pre-declare how we’re going to influence each space we step into, consciously or unconsciously, based on what we’re doing with our vibes. Walk into a space happy, and you’ll shift it it resolve with a little more happiness resonance. Do that repeatedly, and there’s a cumulative effect.

This made me think about how certain spaces have certain vibes. People leave traces of their residual vibes behind, like particle trails, wherever they go. When I’ve visited spaces where people regularly meditate, those space feel relaxed, coherent, and even sacred. When I’ve visited certain corporate office buildings, well, yuck! Think of all the vibes those spaces get infused with, year after year – stress, boredom, submission, obedience, and lots of hurried rushing about.

Some spaces have more random and chaotic vibes. Other spaces have more focused and coherent vibes. I recall the vibrational space around Stonehenge, which I visited last year, to have a very spiritual and ethereal quality. I like that my home feels loving, relaxed, and inspiring inside, perhaps because Rachelle and I have infused it with that kind of energy for so many years.

It was especially interesting to flow through some visualizations of how people and spaces share vibes with each other. The more vibrationally aware and powerful we become, the more we’re able to influence the vibrational spaces we engage with, including locations and people. We can also seek to become more sensitive receivers, able to sense the vibrational residues of places and the vibes that other people are transmitting. This can be done at a distance too.

I imagined people walking around this world, leaving light trails behind them wherever they go, all throughout their entire lifetimes. Every place we’ve ever been to has some of our energy embedded within it, influencing it still. And we’ve also picked up some energy transmissions from all of these spaces. Every person and every space is vibrationally infectious.

These types of visualizations comprised the third hour of my session, and I finally wrapped it up at 9pm to have a late dinner, even though I felt I could have kept going longer. I was surprised by how long the experience lasted, especially with just 0.1g.

I began reflecting on the name Starkiller and realized how much that name made sense. First, it’s a Star Wars reference. Seeing everything as energy in a void felt like the description of the Force.

Funny side note: I have another strain called Jawa Pie that I haven’t tried yet. I got all of these strains on April 20, so that was before we picked the pie tracer on May 1st for this month’s Intention Infusion experiment. 

Starkiller also helped me see that the stars don’t exist as “real” when they aren’t being observed. It made the stars vanish, at least in terms of their being permanently present in the form of matter.

I also think there’s another meaning there with “star” referring to human-level ego identities, like a movie star or superstar.

I’m reminded of how during the seemingly incoherent earlier part of the experience, I had this sensation that the cannabis energy was showing me just how thin, hollow, and empty many of our human-level experiences really are. Our identities, careers, possessions, and so on are like those thin strands of music weaving their way through a massive void of emptiness. Even within the song itself, it’s mostly emptiness. Our human lives are similar. We move around within this massive void, and even in the spaces that we think we’ve filled up and defined, there’s so much empty space as well. Everything we think we know is immersed in a massive empty void, and this void occupies most of the gaps within our field of knowing too. Those gaps of emptiness are so much larger than what we think is resolved.

I can’t even keep my whole house solid. I’m actually living in a home of vibrational Swiss cheese, where most of it is empty, unresolved void at any given time.

After the session I had some fruit, cashew yogurt, and granola for a light dinner and watched the latest Star Trek: Discovery episode with Rachelle, noting how it had some parallels with my Starkiller experience. The episode was called “Labyrinths.” It was filled with an almost ridiculous amount of fire energy, including having to fly ships through an area of space known as the Badlands, filled with giant fire tornadoes. [Our CGC Year 8 theme is Fire Infusion.]

That night as I slept, it felt like the lessons and thought exercises continued all throughout the night. My mind kept swirling through more visualizations and realizations about the relationship between the apparent solid matter we see and our vibrational states of beingness. It became abundantly clear that we have way more power to influence the world of matter than we realize. The matter isn’t nearly as firm, solid, and permanent as we make it out to be. Most of the time it’s just a void of probabilities, and we can keep influencing those probabilities to shift over time with conscious direction.

This reminds me of something I did after my MDMA experience in September, which was to print dozens of “Pure Love” labels with my label maker and affix them all around the house – on water pipes, electronics, air purifiers, lights (not on the bulbs or hot parts), etc. The intention was to infuse my home and workspaces with stronger vibes of love, including imagining that all of the water, air, light, sound (I put them on speakers too), and electricity flowing throughout the house are carrying love-based frequencies. So whenever I’m in my home, I’m being bombarded with love energy from many different directions, including from every breath of air and every sip of water.

Now several months later, it does indeed feel like my life as a whole is vibing with a lot more love energy. It’s hard not to notice those shifts.

I’m still not sure what to make of this Starkiller strain. It was physically light and gentle but rather confusing at first, and it eventually resolved itself into going really over the top in honoring my intention to “learn.” I see now that there are lots of parallel lessons woven into the experience. The whole of it feels richer than the sum of the parts, rather holographic in a way.

These were all perspectives that I’d considered mentally before, but the Starkiller guided me through a more direct experience of seeing and sensing what it felt like to be inside such a reality. I think it’s helping me integrate this perspective more deeply.

Here’s a pic of the Starkiller. I only used 1/35th of the 3.5g I have of it for this session, so there’s plenty more potential for experimenting with it. Now I’m curious what the party intention would have yielded. Images of dancing Ewoks come to mind…

This strain gave new meaning to the part of the label that says, “void if seal is broken.” I also noted that the brand name, Rythm (a misspelling of rhythm), has a musical association. Maybe that was the priming effect, or maybe it was something beyond. Either way I’m enjoying these hyper-associative explorations. This world is full of fascinating surprises.

That’s 3 cannabis strains I’ve tried vaping so far… still 20+ to go just from what I picked up during the 4/20 sales. Yes, that’s a bit much, but I love muchness! It’s not like there’s a lack of space for it in this massive void we inhabit.

Jawa Pie really has me wondering now… I can think of at least two ways that I don’t want it to go, so I’d better craft my intentions carefully when I try that one.

Closing

It’s almost ridiculous how accessible these substances became once they invited me in. I honestly had no idea where to even get certain items before, despite living in Vegas for 20 years. It just wasn’t my scene. And now it seems like more of them keep showing up. I knew cannabis was easily accessible, but I had no idea just how simple it was for mushrooms, MDMA, LSD, and more to flow through like it was nothing. I even have a flier for a free ketamine consult now too. It seems like my reality is making it abundantly clear that I’ll have no shortage of a wide variety of such substances indefinitely – no need to fly to a jungle retreat like I did with ayahuasca in 2019. This was such a rapid and strange shift, almost like I became a magnet for this sometime last year.

And this has obviously infected my social reality too. Who are these crazy people showing up to share in these kinds of explorations? My life is awash in them now.

I do love it though… it opens up so many deep and rewarding aspects of existence to delve into. I feel lucky that it hasn’t unbalanced my life but that it has actually improved the overall balance and harmony.

On December 1st, 2023, I took some magic mushrooms two hours before a Depeche Mode concert (from their Memento Mori tour).

I created a new 8-minute video to share what that experience was like – deeper, richer, and more beautiful than I’d imagined. I think it’s the best video I’ve made thus far.

My Letter to Depeche Mode

Dearest Depeche Mode,

My intention in writing this is simply to thank you for what your music has meant to me.

I first becoming aware of DM during the 80s (I was born in ’71). I have a fond memory of singing “People Are People” with my classmates to our teacher on a school bus during an 8th grade field trip in 1985. Sitting in L.A. traffic introduced me to many more DM songs, thanks to Richard Blade and KROQ.

I remember having this a-ha moment when I learned that so many cool songs I liked – Just Can’t Get Enough, Get the Balance Right, Everything Counts, Master and Servant, Blasphemous Rumors, and more – were all from the same band. One band made all those incredible tunes???

During my 20s and 30s, I could honestly say that fully half of my music listening was of DM songs. I’ve since broadened my repertoire, but for many years I listened to your songs at least as much as those of all other musicians combined. While I enjoyed many other bands during those years too – New Order, Erasure, Duran Duran, The Cure, REM, and more – nothing else pierced right through me like so many of your songs did. In my early 20s, I reveled in long walks at night under the stars listening to your music on a Walkman cassette player, often while trying to make sense of my life’s strange highs and strange lows.

Of all the music that has made my heart smile, yours has been the most impactful. Even after listening for decades, I’m still discovering new layers of truth in your songs, from the vibes as well as the words.

My favorite song of all time is “Enjoy the Silence.” It’s the most perfect song I’ve ever heard in my life. I never tire of listening to it. It feels like it’s beyond human, on another level entirely.

Listening to your music taught me how to listen with more than just my ears – to myself, to life, to spirit, to truth.

Your music helped to set my soul on fire with sustainable passion and devotion, as I sensed the kind of life that seduced me more deeply than the grabbing hands and their world full of nothing.

Your music put me to the test and invited me to pay the price, to change events, to face the consequences.

You helped me shake the disease of my old brittle life and let it crumble to dust. I had to be torn apart and stripped down to the bone, so I could dream on and discover what was kicking and screaming to be seen, felt, and lived.

You gave me permission to feel, to caress, to love, and to explore my sea of sin to find the halo within. You revealed that the darkness can be both dangerous and wondrous.

And I know this will come as no surprise, but hot damn your music is the best accompaniment for kissing and sex!

I appreciate that even with all the highs and lows of your individual lives, you kept creating music and touring. I feel immensely lucky that my #1 favorite band has had such longevity and endurance. I’ve loved your many solo works as well.

Much love and gratitude to you for your precious role in playing the angel when I most needed it… thank you!

Until we’re all ghosts again, I’ll gladly take more than another river full and keep enjoying your sounds of the universe.

Steve