July 29th - 07:37

Title: July 29th - 07:37 Medium: Super-8 film Aspect Ratio: 4:3 Resolution: 2880 x 2160 File Type: H.264 Codec / MP4. Comments: It was the early morning when I drove to Brian's family barn a few towns over from where we were staying at Ethan's brother, Eli, farm house in upstate. It was a solo mission and got back home before Ethan woke up. Our plan was to take all the mushrooms we have been gifted along the journey. At this point we had a big bag of golden teachers. So, since Brian was my oldest friend from art school and one of the best roommates you can ask for in life. He was happy to make art with me again for old times sake. He knew it was a lot of weight to carry to do something every day when you are obsessed with a project like I am. Time was precious and we wanted to use it wisely, especially when entering new realms in a psychedelic state, where time does not exist anymore and is the ultimate illusion we humans count our experiences by. I figured 24 hours was a good amount of time to trip and wear off before we had to shoot the next portrait tomorrow. Just in case we set many alarms and hoped when they go off we would know what they meant... You never know! Anyway, I spent some time with Brian and he told me he was getting married next June with his beloved fiance' so we toured the property of the barn and shared the vision. I promised I would be there no matter where in the world I am, and that promised was fulfilled a year later on June 1st when I flew home from Switzerland to be with them and make portraits, then flew back to Paris the next day. Brian was the only person that was with me every day right after my mother passed away. Every day for a year we would hang out, jam out, make art and chill, Then we became roommates again for two more buildings in Bushwick. A friend like Brian comes rare in a lifetime. A grounded man, and a loyal friend. We all need a friend like Brian in our lives. I gave him a big hug goodbye packed with a heart full of, "I love you man." I drove off kicking up dust in the long gravel driveway as he waved me goodbye till I could only see a silhouette in the distance. It was time to prepare for a psychedelic trip. I am a lightweight when it comes to drugs, or shall I say, "plant medicines" and a little bit is a lot for me. But this time, we had a half ounce of golden caps and long white stems, when you bursted them open a blue cotton candy cloud released particles. I always wonder what this fabric is made of and why it was so thick with psilocybin. Perhaps, it is the mycelium that perfectly syncs with our neurons, since we've evolved with these strange beings over eons. I poured the bag into the blender, sorry Eli! and made a wonderful protein shake that wakes up the brain, and of course I threw in some Lions mane. It was a neurogenesis health smoothie for your consciousness to expand. The sound of the blender woke Ethan up in a blunder. We tapped our glasses and drank it down, and you couldn't taste the cardboard mushroom flavor masked with strong vanilla extract, the sugar of dates and the sweetness of bananas. We treated this like a ceremony so we started by laying down on the cozy game of thrones esque living room design laying on sheeps wool. I closed my eyes and started feeling everything inside for about two hours. Visions began getting dark inside my mind and then I remembered to remind myself that I have the choice to feel good or bad. In that moment I spoke of gratitude, in this present, for all the goodness in my life, for all the difficult experiences that I learned from. Everything! With my eyes closed, I saw and felt every cell in my body vibrate at a green wavelength, it felt like the resonance of healing. After a few minutes I stared up at the ceiling of this beautiful home and thought I was inside a whales belly because all I can see the sprayed concrete ceiling of the barn look like giant whale bones. We were trapped in a short story; Somewhere between Moby dick and Pinocchio. So I got up and started playing the piano and the room started to feel good again. I didn't know what time it was, or how long it has been since we started. The clouds were gray and it started raining. I remember it felt like it was getting late. I laid back down again in the reclining chair that makes you feel like you almost fall over, but you don't. The mushrooms were so strong it was paralyzing me to sit there, I can only see through the wicker chair next to me and out the window. Then, something incredible happened. A pin prick of light, a small white opening in the grey clouds appeared. It got bigger and bigger until it shot an arrow into my heart. It was a message from the spirit world from my mom! The words that come to mind, I love you, I see you, I am proud of you, and I am with you were so clear to me and I felt them dearly. It sprung me up then I was cowering in fear, the light was so powerful the clouds were gone and the sun shown through as this white force that took cleared the sky and the energy in the room. It was scary for a moment, re-runs of ads in my head were playing propaganda from the new film, Oppenheimer, it felt like an atomic bomb had gone off and this was the end of the world. I could not bare to look outside at the white light, so I pretended it was not there and I faked a smile to Ethan and as I turned around to see what he was doing in the Kitchen. He was channeling the divine with his eyes turned into his head and a box of orange juice in his hand, standing motionless. I can see he was experiencing something as profound. Perhaps the light transformed something in us? Then, I faced my fears and opened my arms to the light, looking straight out the living room window letting myself die into the light with my wing spread and screaming, I surrender!!! The light that illuminated through this window was something straight out of the movie E.T when you first see the alien meet the child and when they connect to phone home. It was beautiful and sublime. It was not a destructive atomic bomb, it was the complete opposite. It was the force of LOVE. I laughed at myself and the light started to go back into the clouds and back into the pin prick that we first saw until it was gone. The sun had set and it had stopped raining. I kept laughing with Ethen, why was I so afraid of this light? Afraid of death? This white light was sending so much love into our souls and it was so terrifying because it was mysterious and beautiful. We did not understand it until it was slowly evaporating, then poof suddenly it disappeared. Something did die in me. An old pattern that was afraid to go. It was the ego. It had attached to me like a symbiote. The stories we tell ourselves that we need to outgrow and reframe from a new state of mind. A part of me was carried into that light that was ready to leave this body. All the fear, all the pain, and all the grief, where love had taken their place.