“For the man who wears shoes, the whole world is covered with leather.
” - Traditional
"No man was ever wise by chance." Lucius Seneca
"You have to practice for a long time before you can learn to sound like yourself." Miles Davis
“We camouflage our true being before others to protect ourselves against criticism or rejection. This protection comes at a steep price. When we are not truly known by the other people in our lives, we are misunderstood. When we are misunderstood, especially by family and friends, we join the "lonely crowd." Worse, when we succeed in hiding our being from others, we tend to lose touch with our real selves. This loss of self contributes to illness in its myriad forms.
” - Sidney Jourard
"I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance." Pablo Casals
"Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new." U Le Guin
“ Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men. ” - Confucius
"Who will prefer the jingle of jade pendants if he once has heard stone growing in a cliff?" Lao Tzu
I'm just off to the Netherlands with a dear friend. They're planning to take psychedelic truffles and have asked me to 'trip-sit' for them. Thinking about the different things I can do to support them, I came up with the somewhat 'clunky' acronym IDSPM. It stands for Information, Discussion, Safety, Practicalities & Measurement.
“ The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. ” - Mahatma Gandhi
"Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit." Aristotle
The previous posts in this sequence are 'Psychedelics: a group retreat - initial thoughts' and 'Psychedelics: a group retreat - meeting up, orientation & the ceremony'.
“ When you were born, everyone was smiling but you were crying. Live such a life that when you depart, everyone is weeping but you are smiling. ” - Sa'di of Shiraz
“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.” Albert Einstein
“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” Aldous Huxley
“ To stand and stare, to watch the rising sun, fills me with such calm happiness, I am sure I have dwindled away too much time on inessentials. ” - Diana Gault (when dying of cancer)
"There isn't any formula or method. You learn to love by loving - by paying attention and doing what one thereby discovers has to be done." Aldous Huxley
Sam Harris is ... Roland Griffiths is ...
Conversation link tweeted on 21st November ... 122.39 ...
35 min in ... MDMA/ecstasy ... yes does have a dopaminergic effect and can produce dependence?
Around 70 minutes indiscuss low dose psilocybin and meditation practice.
“ Any unexplained phenomenon passes through three stages before the reality of it is accepted. During the first stage it is considered laughable. During the second stage, it is adamantly opposed. Finally, during the third stage, it is accepted as self-evident. ” - Arthur Schopenhauer
"And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been." Rainer Maria Rilke
“ Today we can walk around together, talk, eat, and be silent together. Later I believe we'll have the opportunity to act and suffer together. All that is necessary to 'make someone's acquaintance' as they say. ” - Rene Daumal
"Today we can walk around together, talk, eat, and be silent together. Later I believe we'll have the opportunity to act and suffer together. All that is necessary to 'make someone's acquaintance' as they say." Pierre Sogol, professor of mountaineering, speaking in Rene Daumal's book "Mount Analogue".
'Breaking Convention' - the fifth biennial international conference on psychedelics - took place at Greenwich University in London from 16th-18th August. There were apparently 1,200 or so attendees for the 6 concurrent programmes - academic, workshop, performance, cinema, entertainment & installations - as well as an art exhibition. I went primarily because it allowed me to hear pretty much all the relevant research groups in the UK present on their current findings. As you can see from the other quite extensive writing about psychedelics on this website, I'm very interested in the encouraging emerging research highlighting potential therapeutic value of psychedelics. Although I focussed on the academic programme, there was much too much even here to manage an ove
“ Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake. ” - Henry Thoreau
" ... the current system for bringing promising biomedical research to the bedside is operating at an obsolete level of efficiency, causing great delay, and consequently resulting in the loss of many lives." Roger Rosenberg (JAMA 2003;289:1305-6)
"Any unexplained phenomenon passes through three stages before the reality of it is accepted. During the first stage it is considered laughable. During the second stage, it is adamantly opposed. Finally, during the third stage, it is accepted as self-evident." Arthur Schopenhauer
