Five Things I Don’t Know from the High Holidaze
The comedic tale of my spiritual awakening.
Happy whatever you celebrate this time of year! Whether it’s Zombie Jesus, lambs-blood door posts, magical bike rides, or the spirit of the plant, may your spring be filled with blessings.
I had writer’s block all week and party plans all weekend, so this post is what you might call half baked. I am forcing myself to publish once a week, so sometimes these thoughts won’t be fully arisen with the yeast of the revision process. Sorry about that.
As the title of this publication implies, I don’t know anything and I don’t know why you’re reading this, but because you’re here, I figured I’d share five experiences I had over the weekend and tie them loosely together on the theme of fear. Continue reading if you dare.
1. Bicycle Day Social Anxiety
Most people are familiar with 420, the Holiest of High Holidaze, but on the eve of that celebration is a lesser known but no less important anniversary. On April 19th, 1943, Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hoffman tripped on LSD for the first time and rode his bike home from work down a hallucination superhighway.
I guess the Swiss were doing a great job of ignoring everything else that was going in in Europe at the time, and thank the Universe for it, because a couple decades later, LSD would help create some of the most influential, consciousness expanding music and imagery in recorded history.
While I was neither tripping balls nor riding bikes on Saturday and had only heard of Bicycle Day a few weeks before (thanks to the good people at the Church of Chill), I wasn’t about to miss a gathering of veteran psychonauts at Psychedelic Assembly in Midtown Manhattan.
Yes, I consciously decided to go to a drug party with a bunch of strangers while remaining intentionally sober. It seemed like a great idea until I arrived and remembered that I still had plenty of social anxiety lingering from our collective COVID-mandated isolation.
Post-pandemic, talking to strangers still doesn’t feel quite like riding a bike to me. It’s hard enough to get on the same wavelength with new people when we’re all doing the same drugs. If everyone else is flying high, sobriety doesn’t enhance my conversational abilities.
I suddenly became aware of how very sober I was. Not because anyone around me was acting weird, but because I was stuck in my own head, often gaping in silence trying to figure out something more interesting to ask than “Where you from?” Or “How many tabs are you on?”
That slack-jawed gape, however, was the key to escaping my mental prison. A few years ago in an acting class, the teacher gave a note that if you let your mouth open slightly, it shows vulnerability and allows the audience into your experience.
The same thing was happening on Saturday: though I was awkwardly silent or stammering, I kept my mouth, and therefore my spirit, slightly open, allowing me to connect with those around me.
Even if my face appeared to be a kaleidoscope to my new friends.
2. Gender Ambiguous Mushroom Sitter
If you know me, you know I’m not a big fan of staying sober at a celebratory affair, but this High Holiday Weekend was not destined to be a party for me.
The winter blues had taken a particularly tough toll on me this year, and at the suggestion of my therapist and my wife, I decided to combat my lingering depression with a different type of psychedelic experience: a guided mushroom trip.
My trip sitter was named Grey and their pronouns were they/them/he/her.
Now, I don’t really think gender is that important, and I do my best to respect people’s identities, but for better or for worse I am a cis-gendered, heteronormative straight white male. I grew up in a pretty traditional world, so even though I don’t really care about gender, there’s always a part of my brain trying to categorize people in the old familiar way.
Perhaps it’s privilege, perhaps it’s arrogance, but if you put a gun to my head and tell me I’ve gotta pick out someone’s gender-assigned-at-brith, I’m pretty confident I can call it 99 times out of a hundred.
With Grey, it was a 50/50 shot. We’d done a zoom call a few weeks before, and the traditional lizard in the back of my brain had been trying to work out Grey’s reproductive plumbing ever since. I figured a meeting in person would tip the scales one way or the other, but I was wrong.
Like I said, gender doesn’t really matter to me, so I didn’t have a problem shutting my little lizard brain the fuck up while Grey and I prepared ourselves for the mushroom’s medicine.
Over the next couple hours, Grey and I sat together in poignant silence, engaged in metaphysical conversation and genuinely became friends.
So why am I bringing up the whole gender thing now if the general take away is that gender doesn’t matter?
Because it would be dishonest of me to pretend I didn’t have that little lizard in my head puzzling everyone into a series of familiar categories. And that’s perfectly natural for a sheltered Colorado boy turned psychedelic adventurer!
At this point in human history, I feel more than a bit hesitant to explore my thoughts about certain topics publicly. I have this horrible fear that people won’t be able to look past my straight white heteronormativity and see that my questioning someone else’s experience isn’t me judging it! My privileged birth shouldn’t invalidate my opinions!
Wait a minute...am I feeling othered?
I guess we aren’t so different after all.
3. No Enemies, Not Even Cheeto Man
As you might’ve guessed, while Grey and I were chopping it up about queerness and privilege, the conversation wandered it’s way into politics. Feeling particularly safe and enlightened, I took the risk of staking what might be considered a controversial claim in certain circles: Donald Trump is not the enemy.
Because we have no enemies.
There is no war. There is simply existence stretching infinitely into time. These identities will come and go blowing on the Universe’s temporal winds, destined to change again and again and again.
This instinct to group ourselves into us vs them is as ancient as our lizard brains, so I’m not trying to sound all high and mighty while I riff on the ole “love your enemies” chestnut. I’ve got plenty of empathy and understanding for those whose fear leads to anger.
But, we’re all stuck together riding this rock around the sun and we’d better get used to it, cuz we’ve still got a few billion years before our solar system goes supernova.
The otherizing of our political opposites simply feeds the fear machine that fuels their operation. You can do whatever you want, but I’m gonna try my best to love everyone courageously.
Even when I wanna clockwork his orange.
4. Trust: the Language of Lyft
Having been to the mushroom and back, I found myself walking down Dykman Street on and at 420. I’d never been to Inwood, but it turned out to be exactly what I was expecting: Washington Heights but nicer. Don’t get me wrong, Washington Heights is nice, but... actually I haven’t been in the Heights in a decade, so I’m gonna slowly back away from this joke before I get myself into even more trouble than I already am.
Being fully committed to the High Holidaze experience but lacking the proper boon, I googled my way to the nearest dispensary. After a toke and a sit in Fort Tryon Park, the time to continue my journey back to Hudson Valley had come.
Call me old fashion, but I like to talk to my cab drivers. So, when I hopped in the back of Kazi’s hybrid, I tried to strike up a conversation. Kazi didn’t speak much English, so the conversation didn’t get far.
It’s vulnerable to let a stranger drive you somewhere. Your life is literally in their hands.
I’ve had pot-induced panic attacks before, so I knew I had to decide if I was going to trust Kazi or not.
When I’m nervous, I tend to get chatty, but the language barrier between Kazi and I didn’t facilitate that particular defense mechanism. Here I was, trapped in my head and stuck in a car with a stranger flying down the highway.
Was this just as awkward for Kazi as it was for me? Was he uncomfortable driving a visibly stoned passenger? If I rolled the window down to feel the breeze, would that draw too much attention to him? What if Kazi’s here illegally and somehow my talkative stoner ass distracts him and we get into an accident and now he’s stuck in the legal system heading for deportation?
There I go again with the otherizing. I didn’t want to be that guy, so I decided “fuck it, I’ll trust Kazi.” It’s better to live in love than in fear.
5. Sharing is Caring
I think Kazi chuckled as he snapped me out of my haze when we’d reached Grand Central. The ride had gone quickly once I’d decided Kazi was cool.
Now safe on a Poughkeepsie-bound train, it was time to do the holiday texting thing, wishing happy Easters and Passovers and Bicycle Days and 420s. My dear friend Denbigh responded almost immediately.
“Oh shit. I was momming and forgot today is my day too. Happy 420.”
Maybe it was a dumb stoner thought, but I was pretty proud of my response, so I’ll leave you with this:
Every day is your day. You just have to share it with everyone else.
Also,
Thanks.