Although our first Evolver Intensives video course, “Awakening the Cosmic Serpent” ended a few weeks ago, it continues to serve as a guiding light in my life, illuminating a shadowy edge where obligation and inspiration meet.  The course was a plant medicine primer hosted by Jeremy Narby, the psychedelic anthropologist. Getting it off the ground was far more difficult than we’d anticipated. I spent long days and nights flailing in a sea of tech issues, giving up my precious writing time to help build out the site and market the one of a kind content we were blessed to be able to offer. There were points when it was too much.  My mistakes were stacking up and I was getting sick of swallowing my pride and always apologizing to everyone.  A part of me wanted to say f-it and run away but I stayed not only because I’m trained by many years of school and office jobs to stick things out, but because I fundamentally believe in the magical power of connecting strangers over the internet and felt like we were on to something new and NOW.  Despite the issues, a relaxed experimental vibe permeated the sessions—it turned out that meeting on each others’ laptop screens allowed for an instant intimacy between students, guests and Jeremy himself—who asked questions and improvised in between conversational riffs like a DJ dropping a set. The plant medicine content was like a living entity, pressing forward for release while at the same time being stifled.  I consoled myself the same way I always do when things stop making sense—by telling myself that it was all a part of a bigger plan, even if I couldn’t see it. I held on to what I’d learned in the course of my spiritual journey:  the resistance was my own projection—my own doubt over the goals I’d set, my own rejection of the value of my efforts.  The key was to continue to work hard while giving up on all notions of progress and completion, especially when our slim start-up resources made the whole thing seem hopeless. It was during one of these low moments that Jeremy forwarded me an email sent to him by one of the students, John Hazard.  It turned out that John was the director of the last known video interview with Terence McKenna, shot in 1998, shortly before Terence was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  John was inspired by the “long form” conversations of Awakening and thought that Reality Sandwich and Evolver might be the right place to finally share this riveting, uncannily prescient message.  He wanted to know if we would be interested in running it. I started writing him back before the video even finished playing—yes, yes, yes.  I felt like a long-waiting soldier who had finally received her orders.  As I listened to Terence describe what he thought the future that was NOW would be like, I had the strange sensation of staring into a black mirror. Instead of my face there was ghostly glimmer—remnants of my eternal silver soul, radiating just beneath the surface.

Although our first Evolver Intensives video course, “Awakening the Cosmic Serpent” ended a few weeks ago, it continues to serve as a guiding light in my life, illuminating a shadowy edge where obligation and inspiration meet.  The course was a plant medicine primer hosted by Jeremy Narby, the psychedelic anthropologist. Getting it off the ground was far more difficult than we’d anticipated. I spent long days and nights flailing in a sea of tech issues, giving up my precious writing time to help build out the site and market the one of a kind content we were blessed to be able to offer.

There were points when it was too much.  My mistakes were stacking up and I was getting sick of swallowing my pride and always apologizing to everyone.  A part of me wanted to say f-it and run away but I stayed not only because I’m trained by many years of school and office jobs to stick things out, but because I fundamentally believe in the magical power of connecting strangers over the internet and felt like we were on to something new and NOW.  Despite the issues, a relaxed experimental vibe permeated the sessions—it turned out that meeting on each others’ laptop screens allowed for an instant intimacy between students, guests and Jeremy himself—who asked questions and improvised in between conversational riffs like a DJ dropping a set. The plant medicine content was like a living entity, pressing forward for release while at the same time being stifled.  I consoled myself the same way I always do when things stop making sense—by telling myself that it was all a part of a bigger plan, even if I couldn’t see it.

I held on to what I’d learned in the course of my spiritual journey:  the resistance was my own projection—my own doubt over the goals I’d set, my own rejection of the value of my efforts.  The key was to continue to work hard while giving up on all notions of progress and completion, especially when our slim start-up resources made the whole thing seem hopeless.

It was during one of these low moments that Jeremy forwarded me an email sent to him by one of the students, John Hazard.  It turned out that John was the director of the last known video interview with Terence McKenna, shot in 1998, shortly before Terence was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  John was inspired by the “long form” conversations of Awakening and thought that Reality Sandwich and Evolver might be the right place to finally share this riveting, uncannily prescient message.  He wanted to know if we would be interested in running it.

I started writing him back before the video even finished playing—yes, yes, yes.  I felt like a long-waiting soldier who had finally received her orders.  As I listened to Terence describe what he thought the future that was NOW would be like, I had the strange sensation of staring into a black mirror. Instead of my face there was ghostly glimmer—remnants of my eternal silver soul, radiating just beneath the surface.