"Evolving Times"

Yesterday, while painting deck spindels white in the mid Spring Sunshine, I listened to Terence McKenna relate his personal world view to an audience of inquiring minds (self included). Below are a few transcribed excerpts from the two hour lecture he communicated (and here is a direct link to the audio of said lecture: "Evolving Times").

“…the Ego is the return to consciousness of this psychic structure related to the patterns of dominance…the ego is like a cist…or a tumor that gets going in the personality and if not treated it becomes chronic and then there is no cure. There can only be a certain amount of maintenance and medication of it.”

…the issue as was always sensed, since the ‘60’s forward, is not simply an issue of religious freedom, or an issue of an eccentric minorities social practice being tolerated by the majority…the issue is in fact what kind of people shall we be? And then, what kind of society shall we put in place?...

…our unhappy, addicted, ego-driven condition has become not simply the source of our own unhappiness, that was bad enough, but now it’s the source of great discomfort and dislocation for all life and human society on the planet. We are out of control. We are basically severely addicted to things, and cannot stop ourselves. And we know, or we should know, that there is not enough petroleum, heavy metal…in the planet to give all the thing addicts all of the things that we know they must have in order to be happy. We have spread this intellectual virus from pole to pole.”

~ Terence McKenna

10 p.m.

He lightly pulls me into the night, collar jingling happily at the end of his retractable leash. A lone streetlight throws amber waves of tungsten illumination at my ill adjusted pupils.

The old Episcopal Church sits empty, tall leaded windows flank both sides of this simple house of worship. Tall windows built before we had harnessed the night with our glass-enclosed filaments and buzzing electrical currents.

Above me a screech, then an owl floating from Oak to Cedar, Cedar to Hemlock and perhaps back to Oak again.

No wind stirs the leafless branches tonight.

A blooming tree gives off a fragrant reminder that Spring is now your companion, taking you by the hand and slowly leading you into the long haze of a Summer that will soon be upon us.

These still evenings on glowing side streets are a kind of unrelenting redemption.