So I started this blog in 2016 after I’d been for my first Ayahuasca retreat (three nights on the gooey jungle juice) and the shaman bird facilitating it asked me if I had one (a blog). I’d gone to the forest in Amsterdam for three days and nights on the occasion of my 35th birthday… Read More Praise be to plant medicine, skater freaks and Skin from Skunk Anansie’s wee dog
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be… Read More Elemental self-care: You are a motherfucking village, motherfucker
We shall not cease from exploration/And the end of all our exploring/Will be to arrive where we started/And know the place for the first time TS Eliot When I attended a talk last year by a shamanic practitioner sharing his experience of mental illness symptoms sometimes being indicative of a kind of (painful) awakening to one’s true… Read More Are you mentally ill or are you waking up?
When you wake up in the mornin’, baby, look inside your mirror You know I won’t be next to you, you know I won’t be near I’d just be curious to know if you can see yourself as clear As someone who has had you on his mind A beautiful soul in my life who… Read More Music, massage and man’s best friend: my current ways to mental wellness
I thought this talk would be a load of pretentious shite as I’m dubious about guys wearing South American jewellery and calling themselves shamans. However, I was pleasantly surprised by Jez Hughes as he outlined his harrowing mental health experiences and arrival at some semblance of peace via the shamanic path, taking him to his… Read More Funzing Talks: Mental illness as shamanic initiation
One of the moments that stands out in my mind of my spell engaging with a psychiatrist in my home town in the summer of 2017 is when I was blethering on about my experience being an existential crisis before anything else and I casually mentioned that money and status weren’t important to me. The… Read More Depression and anxiety 2018: Johann Hari done a book and talked about it
‘Because we are also what we have lost’ – Amores Perros Another year, another November and as I move house and unpack my stuff I find one of the last cards my brother sent me before he died on 11.11.11. Featuring a quote from the Mexican movie Amores Perros that, when I first read it, I… Read More Spirituality, shadow monsters and suicidal thoughts
‘Did you see his man bag? You don’t get many of them in Omagh. Fabulous taste in clothes.’ – my mum on my psychiatrist I’d mainly encountered psychiatrists in a professional capacity until this Summer when I got one of my very own, after the proverbial wheels came a bit off and primary care services… Read More That boy needs therapy (Ranagazoo, let’s have a tune)
The world is but a great Bedlam, where those that are more mad, lock up those who are less – Thomas Tryon, 1689 The glorious Wellcome Collection in London is currently hosting a free mind-fuck, I mean exhibition, which kind of charts the evolution of mental health care via the story of the notorious Bedlam. AKA… Read More The world is but a great Bedlam
Relaja la Raja 