Note: This is a raw poem-rant-diary-entry-thing that I wrote during a darkly purgative & initiatory entheogenic journey at Medicine Festival in the UK this past weekend. It’s pretty intense and maybe overly harsh or imbalanced at times—yet I feel there’s a lot of gold and potency here, so I’m gonna share it. Koan: Sometimes imbalanced words are needed, to balance certain imbalances.
I am a sick man
I am an angry man
I write on this stupid fucking internet device after vomiting
I hate this device
I hate this parasitic internet technology that has such a hold on me
I hate this festival
I hate this Earth
No
That’s not really true
Maybe part of me does
Part of me that is so sick with all of it
This Earth is sick and we are sick with it
And it hurts
Oh does it hurt
What a terror
To bring a child into this sick world
What a terror it is
To bring innocence into this sick, violent world
This cold, calculating world hypnotized by dollar signs
Where the cruel machine thrums along
Crushing skulls
With total indifference
I’m sick with it
It pains me
It rots in my stomach
It seeps into every crevice of my life
It gnaws at my family
It tries to break us apart
It hurts us all
It devours
What is it?
The sickness
What is it?
Some call it Wetiko
The Great Forgetfulness
Separation
Doesn’t really matter what you call it
Though maybe naming a thing is helpful
Diagnosing it
It is
Disconnection From God
This place has drifted far from Connection With God
This humanity at least
The Earth is connected as ever
Yet we do not feel Her
We are possessed
Possessed by a great demon we claim cannot exist
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing men that he does not exist
Yet he is alive my friends
Do not fear him, if you can help it
“Fear is the mind-killer”
The fear only feeds him
See him though
Soberly acknowledge him
This world of men is in the possession of a great parasite
It gnaws on us
Disconnects us from True Love
From the Real
From Truth
And it hurts
Oh it hurts
It burns
It bubbles in my stomach now
I’m sick with it
It fucking hurts
I could just vomit it all up
And be done with it
This world of sin
So much sin
Yes, SIN
I know some of you don’t like that word
Yet there it is
SIN
We are sinning—
Missing the mark
In enormous, gaping, disgusting, blood-sucking ways
We are cannibalizing each other and this planet
Because we are so sick with sin
Call me a kook
Call me a radical
Call me an extremist
I don’t care
It is felt
In the pit of my belly
At the bottom-most exit of my intestine
It is felt
We are sick
With sin
With pride
With gluttony
With ego
With greed
With the cult of me, me, me
You, you, you
Me, me, me
You, you, you
This cult of individual greatness and individual potential
One of the greatest ruses
That keeps us trapped
Suffering under enormous pressure
Forever chasing a prize that can never be attained
Sisyphus and his motherfucking boulder
The myth of the fully healed human
The fully realized human
The fully enlightened human
The fully spiritualized human
The fully actualized human
AND YOU CAN BE HIM TOO!!!!
FOR 4 EASY PAYMENTS OF $9997!!!!
You can be him too…
But what if one day you realize…
That it’s not about you.
It’s not about fucking YOU.
Motherfucker, it is not about FUCKING *YOU*.
It is not about fucking you.
It is not about you.
It is not about me.
It is not about the individual.
There is no fully realized or fully healed man.
Show him to me and I will show you a liar.
Show him to me and I will show you an infant in terrible pain.
Show him to me and I will hug him and we will weep together at the terrible naked mystery of it all.
Show him to me and I will show you a weak twig being tossed about by the Hurricane of Nature.
Show him to me and I will show you a pitiful specimen at the Total Mercy of Forces Far Beyond His Control…
Regardless of how many times he dutifully recites the desperate affirmation, “I am the creator of my reality.”
HAH!
Lies.
Such sickening lies we feed ourselves.
They must all be retched and vomited up before we can come clean of this parasitic pride which has its tentacles so deeply embedded in the pits of our frail stomachs
So many lies
So much vomit
Our egos must be broken
So many times
The devil hooks into the ego, whispers in its ear:
“You are an infinite, miraculous, already-perfect creator of your entire reality.”
“You can have it all. You don’t have to work. Just manifest it.”
Sickness.
Lies.
Nothing comes free.
Everything has a price.
Everything costs a sacrifice.
Every choice is a trade-off.
Or have you created your new reality so perfectly that that is no longer true for you?
Well you lie, snake-mouth.
First and foremost you lie to yourself.
God made you.
God created your reality.
If you disagree, then by all means: Prove otherwise.
Bring me the New Age Guru who can fly and walk through walls and shape-shift and live without oxygen…
Bring me the Fully Realized Superman who can freeze time and resurrect the dead and change who his parents and ancestors are…
Bring me the Creator Of Reality who can turn forests into purple deserts at the snap of a finger, who can instantly conjure a mountain of gold, who can instantly teleport everyone in his vicinity to a realm made entirely of rainbows and tapioca pudding…
Show him to me.
Bring him over.
I must meet this man.
There is a problem, though:
This man does not fucking exist.
He is a fiction.
A fantasy.
You are not the Creator, you fools.
You take the Lord’s name in vain.
Just as I have done, unknowingly, so many times.
You are an infant, brother.
I am an infant as well.
And it is only by virtue of Grace that we walk and breathe.
It is by no power of our own that we move these bodies.
The sooner we admit this to ourselves, the less painful the purge will be.
Drag yourself across hot coals if you must.
If that is what it will take for you to finally learn:
You are His child, yes.
Made from His very Body, yes.
And yes, by His Love and Grace you may even partake of His Peaceful, All-Embracing Essence.
Yet you *are* *not* *Him*.
And you *do* *not* create your reality.
Cease to spew this foul lie to yourself and those around you.
Yes, your Creator has gifted unto you a measure of free will to participate and shape your path—and that is a beautiful gift.
Yet make no mistake:
You are *His*.
And He alone has the Final Power to do with you as He wills.
To do with ALL as He wills.
In this truth one can find Great Peace, as you do not need to place the Ultimate Pressure onto yourself.
Give it back to God. All fate ultimately rests in His Hands.
Immense suffering has taught me that I am not the Creator.
Maybe you are lucky and can learn it from these words, and spare yourself the pain.
Or maybe I am the lucky one—to have been graced with the strength to survive such pain, such that this pain could etch a great teaching upon my bones.
Pain too is Grace.
The strength to bear it—and learn from it—is a gift from Grace.
*Only* *By* *Grace* do you live, my friends.
*Only* *By* *Grace* do we breathe.
All is a Gift—and may we never take it for granted.
Life is Grace.
And it is not about you.
My ego is still wanting to make it about me.
As I write this, my ego tries to make it about me.
My ego dreams of being the Great Saint or the Christ-like Nietzschean who poetically diagnosed the ills of man.
My ego is sick—bless his poor child-heart.
He was poisoned by a narcissistic mythology of individual greatness.
And you know what?
Let us give credit where it’s due, balance the scales, and not toss the cubs out with the bathwater:
Individuals can be great.
Individuals are amazing.
You are beautiful and miraculous and worthy.
You do have important individual needs that must be nourished and tended to, lest you grow cold, sick, and resentful.
You are a child of God.
And in that fact there is tremendous honor and dignity.
Such tremendous honor and dignity that it is your lifelong duty to cherish it and rise toward it.
Rise toward that Sun of Love that made you.
That Sun of Love that is the innermost nature from whence you came.
You are His Rays.
His Emanations.
Rise and Be That.
Yet make no mistake:
It *is* *not* *about* *you*.
Not about your ‘full expression.’
Not about your ‘authentic self.’
Not about your happiness.
Not about your voice.
Not about your dreams.
Not about your IG story.
Not even about your ‘Self.’
Not even about your truth.
That is the bitter pill that the New Age community and the modern human world at large—myself included—cannot swallow:
It *just* *ain’t* *fuckin’* *about* *you*.
So long as we stay in this cult of individual greatness…
We stay sick.
So long as we refuse to humble ourselves and *sacrifice* *our* *bliss* for that which is worthy of the sacrifice…
We remain narcissistic teenagers.
Self-obsessed selfie-takers.
Bullshit artists.
It’s *just* *not* *fuckin’* *about* *you*.
Sorry.
And it’s not about me either.
And I don’t like to hear that message.
And I know I’ll be learning what those words really mean for the *rest* *of* *my* *fucking* *life*—and beyond.
We’re sick with it, family.
Devil’s got us right where he wants us.
Self-obsessed.
Doom-scrolling X.com while the world burns.
How about instead of desperately trying to project and defend an image of ourselves as some flawless, brilliant, fully-realized superhuman who is Doing Great Things® to Make The World A Better Place®…
How about instead of that…
We change some diapers.
And do some dishes.
And shut the fuck up.
How about instead of selfishly pretending that we’re doing Very Important Things® and Realizing Our Highest Potential®…
How ‘bout instead of that…
We clean our rooms.
And visit our grandparents.
And be with our family and friends in a way that is real.
And feed the hungry.
And clothe the naked.
And plant the trees.
And truly educate our own children to be humble stewards of Life in the name of God the Father.
(Or whatever Face of the One God resonates with you.)
And to not need to make a big rainbow-tie-dye-look-at-me show while they do it.
But just to shut the fuck up and do it.
Gladly.
Gratefully.
With song on tongue.
Dance in step.
And prayer on hearts.
Gratefully fulfilling the sacred duty of being a thread in a Vast, Eternal Tapestry.
A thread that knows it’s a thread.
A thread that knows it’s not about the thread.
It’s about the Tapestry.
And if our kids are raised to truly come from that place…
Well then let ‘em wear the tiger-striped kimonos and neo-shamanic ponchos if that’s what frosts their cookies…
Let ‘em belt out the poems and anthems and create that beautiful new culture we all long for…
Yes!
Celebrate Life!
Celebrate Us All!
Yes, The ALL Also Includes You!
Honor Your Peacock Feathers!
Go For It!
Just do so while knowing…
It’s not about you.
Not about how your feathers look in the mirror.
Not about whether your feathers look like they’ve reached their full potential.
Not about how your feathers look on the ‘gram.
This vanity is sickness.
It is devilry and it clutches our intestines with more force than we care to know or admit.
Get honest, family.
Get radically fucking honest.
The devil comes disguised as an angel of light.
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And remember: These are the words of a sick man.
A man who has seen the cancer in himself and has seen that alone he is powerless to cure it.
A man who falls to his knees and asks God to help us all.
Lest this insidious cancer devour us and our children while we bustle, bustle, bustle, scroll, scroll, scroll, post, post, post our way to doom…
Eyes open, yet fast asleep.
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God be with us.
God be with us all.
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Blessings,
J
This is profound and highly relatable. I too thought I could "be a God" or "manifest my reality" but seemed to have been smacked in the face by truth.
Reading someone going through a similar realization and experience is incredibly helpful.
Mesmerising rant. “ What if our deepest shame, was a portal to our deepest truth, what if our judgement against the night was conceived in error, what if it’s our mental perception that deceives us. For is it not true that in the night before the dawn, the light took rest in the indivisible abyss of darkness . “ Julian montague