Pink Moan

April 29th, 2008 by Gnat

January 11, 1906 - April 29, 2008

One of my scientific and spiritual heroes. A true dreamer!

Albert Hofmann, LSD inventor, RIP (SEEMS SO)
So Long and Thanks for All the Trips

April 25th, 2008 by Gnat

(Lately I have been carrying a small charm of the four-armed Hindu Goddess Kali in my pocket. You know — she’s the one who looks especially menacing and wears the necklace of severed heads. Even though her looks are scary, Kali is a benevolent entity. Kali is both Protectress and Destructress. Along with hubby Shiva, she is the creator and destroyer of worlds.)

Long before it touched me personally, I felt inspired to write about Death after reading a post on the brilliant Rigorous Intuition blog site. The February 23, 2007, post “The Shock of Awe (Part 2)” hypothesizes that “no force in the world today - and arguably any day - is a more efficient instrument of Will to Death than the United States of America.” After reading this post, the notion of a force such as a “Will to Death” struck like a sharp and clear bell in my ear. And I can’t get the ringing to stop.

It’s because Death keeps coming up, and I’ve recently shifted my awareness to include the realm of Deathy thinking on both a personal and grand scale. On February 28, 2008, my uncle Bob passed away very suddenly. Death came quick and merciful for him, but left his living loved ones confused, shocked, and wet with tears. I now can’t help but imagine Death as a metaphysical entity with quick and sharp fingers, yet at the same time stagnant enough to shroud the globe like a thick, damp blanket.

Last year when I first wrote this, my dreams had become apocalyptic. It was all serial killers and nuclear wars in my brain when the lights went out. In dreams I could unflinchingly feel what it was like to know you are going to die. This feeling was so real I tasted it when I woke up. Now this feeling has left me, like so many fleeting dreams.

I want to be okay with Death. I want to be able to happily anticipate the dissolution of my own ego. I want to be fearless, and know that the divine spark that begat my existence (and all conscious existence) will not disappear (energy can neither be created nor destroyed), but will simply return to the void from which it came.

But this is one bitter pill to swallow, people. I’m having trouble with it, so I’ve taken to keeping a keen eye on the Death going on all around me. I’m hoping that by diving into the darkness, I’ll understand it more.

For my dose of Death on a local celebrity level, I fastidiously kept up with the Phil Spector murder trial in LA. In 2007 Spector sported a less appalling hairdo than previous years: a peroxide shag replaced the surreal, enormous, sprayed coiffure he donned at his 2006 court appearances. But it didn’t really matter what kind of hairdo he had. This is a guy who allegedly put a gun inside a woman’s mouth, pulled the trigger and still walked away free. I heard Lana Clarkson’s teeth were found scattered all over Spector’s foyer. Now this is the image I’ll hold forever in my mind when I hear that great drum kick off into “Be My Baby.”

Upon my first conception of this written meditation on Death, the war in Iraq topped my Death list. Everyday I tried to make myself think of the country that my country fucked up. I felt and still feel we are all responsible in some way, that we all need to absorb some of the global suffering because it’s only fair. But how does one do that? Pray or meditate, I guess, but that seems so docile. I understand how rage coupled with a sense of duty drove the Weather Underground to blow shit up in the ’60s and ’70s as an expression of dissent. But does it make sense to fight bombs with bombs? Rarely.

In turn, I think we should follow the suggestion of the inimitable Terrence McKenna and take action by putting the “art pedal to the metal.” Art should become our weapon – it should become something any of us can use as a means of fighting the establishment and all the Death it symbolizes and fosters. Let’s get out there and create as many poems, paintings and rock and roll songs as we can. It’s time to look at all the big ‘n’ Deathy stuff going on in the world as a metaphysical malady — one that we each have, within ourselves, the means to transform.

April 24th, 2008 by Gnat

I’ve been thinking about bluesy, deathy things lately. I torture myself with these morbid, mortal thoughts. Here’s something I’ve done a lot of thinking on lately: when you die, is there a moment when you realize your body is broken beyond repair? If so, what does it feel like? This would be a moment suspended in pain, obviously, because there is pain present when the body breaks. But in spite of overwhelming physical pain (or maybe because of it), at the moment of our death does our consciousness become aware that it must sever from and bid farewell to its fleshy home? Do we simply stop identifying with our fingers, legs, arms, torsos? It makes me so sad to think about that I almost can’t stand it.

I read that dying feels like going home. This is a nice thought. I also quite like what Woody Allen has to say about death:

“I’m not afraid of dying, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

Thanks Woody, your words are more comforting to me than most sacred scriptures.