A Psychonaut’s Response To The Election
As many among us struggle to absorb the election, I find it useful to recall an old saying.
“You cannot keep the bird of adversity from flying over your head. But you can keep it from making a nest in your hair.”
We are beset by gargantuan challenges: A dangerously divided nation; climate chaos; horrifying wars.
For me, psychedelics help me approach this reality by helping me take responsibility. Meaning, they support my response-ability: my ability to respond, as opposed to react, to what’s happening in the world.
Take the election and its aftermath. I can react to the other side, and those who support the wrong person in my (not always humble) opinion, with rage, fear or condemnation. But if I and others reacting in this way did any good, our problems would be long gone by now, because we’ve certainly got a surplus of all that, don’t we?
I believe the times call for us to, instead, respond. I’d like to propose that we do so not as liberals or conservatives, as Democrats or Republicans, but as psychonauts. That is, as people informed and inspired by the psychedelic vision. Why? Because at this time, psychedelics may be our best bet for a better world.
In my lifetime, I’ve watched this country lurch from right to left and back again innumerable times. I’ve learned to take the long view. Because if I really listen to what the medicines have been teaching me the past fifty years, it’s not a lesson of mere change, but of a revolutionary transformation in consciousness. A fundamental shift in how we regard ourselves, one another, and the planet. It’s an evolutionary leap that takes some time.
For me personally, the psychedelic vision (as informed by my experiences with LSD, Ayahuasca, and MDMA) calls upon me to regard all others as sisters and brothers. It’s a vision that calls us to pull together in unity, not break apart in anger. It reveals the illusion of separation between me and you, and between “us” and “them.”
It also teaches me that my political views are one thing. But when they are infused with righteousness, along with certainty that espousing these views make me better than “they” are, that’s just my ego talking.
I also find it helpful to distinguish between the signal and the noise. The daily bombardment of media (including the media we agree with) and the constant news of a chaotic world coming undone – that’s the noise. The messages of the medicines comprise the signal.
A Higher Purpose
For me, a good trip or roll elevates me like a helicopter ride above the noise of the day-to-day, above my numerous frets and concerns, above the fog and drama of this world, to show me the bigger picture: The clear signal I want my daily actions to be guided and informed by. The prize I want to keep my eyes on. I find it better to hitch my hopes to a higher purpose.
When I think and act in these ways, my fear trance evaporates. I rise above my mental storm and glimpse the North Star of my best ideals and hopes for the world.
Allow me to share a few good medicine-inspired life hacks. For me, they are effective integration tools. And perhaps you as well can use your medicine-inspired North Star to steer your ship.
I suggest starting by asking yourself a few pointed questions:
First: Is there a way I’m about to add to the noise today? (E.g., by posting an angry rant onto my social media feed or sending it to someone on the other side.) In other words, first – refrain from noise-making.
What can I do today to be of service to those I care about the most? Thinking this way can pull you out of your head, your fear, your grief, and focus you outward, towards others. A related question is…
How can I be generous in some way, today? Thinking about what you can give converts any feelings of helplessness into empowerment. Plus, giving to someone else is a gift to yourself. Giving gives the giver. And finally…
What am I grateful for, right now? Recalling your blessings (what some call good luck) can yank you out of a cortisol-crazed woe and into a warm serotonin-induced glow. Gratitude can bestow a jolt of radical sanity.
When I ask myself these questions and act accordingly, I not only channel my frets and fears into action, I also sense that I’m responding to a higher vibration that’s calling me to a planetary effort for the greater good. It’s like I’m joining together with the energy of millions of others around the globe, a universal benevolent force for good, who are today busy making the world a better place.
This is not about change, but transformation.
Medicine-Inspired Action As An Integration Tool
It’s through a course of action that I can best integrate my medicine experiences and process feelings of fear, anger or despair. Right now, we psychonauts can get to work digging the foundation for a better world, a world based on principles of equality and justice; peace and love; and, yes, generosity and gratitude. We can, for example…
- Organize a campaign to decriminalize or, better, legalize plant medicine and MDMA. Yes it may take years, but imagine the result!
- Find The “Others” and un-Other them! Identify a few people within the community on your side of the political spectrum, along with a few who are on the other side, and together, organize a roll. (One rule: No political talk.) The purpose is not to convert them to your (no doubt wiser) point of view, but rather to re-humanize them in your own eyes and have them do the same. This would be peacemaking in action. (It would also require a few very skilled space holders.)
- Indeed, group journeys using MDMA can be life changing and community-sparking experiences. I’ve developed a set of protocols over the past 20 years building the community here in New York, and will gladly coach anyone wishing to learn them, free of charge.
In a world rife with strife, hate, fear and greed, actions like these can point us towards a more meaningful life that corresponds to our higher purpose, values, and ideals. They can imbue us with an identity that doesn’t separate, but rather unites us in a humanistic vision that inspires peace. They can spark excitement and screen out (pun intended) the noise. When I take such actions, I forget to be scared, because I’m simply too engaged in following my bliss.
Psychedelics can serve as our personal spiritual aphrodisiacs that can help us hook up with the universe. And then to return refreshed and inspired to bring heaven to earth, where it belongs.
Charles Wininger, LP, LMHC, has been a therapist in New York for the past thirty-five years, and a proud psychonaut for the past fifty years. He is the author of “Listening to Ecstasy: The Transformational Power of MDMA.” He and his wife Shelley have been instrumental in building the psychedelic community in New York for the past two decades. Learn more about his work at www.higherpurpose.community. He can be reached at Charles@higherpurpose.community