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• Some Diseases are Best Left in the Past

  

  If you read my last blog you are up to date on my current health issue regarding my liver not functioning properly.  Come to think of it, are you really living your best life if you aren’t acutely aware of what’s going on with Toni’s liver. I think knowing what’s up with Toni’s liver is probably the best barometer of success on the market. You’re welcome. 

  As I was waiting for the results of my blood work, I decided that trying breath work would be a good modality to get to know my liver better. After partaking in the San Pedro ceremony (and potentially contracting a tick STD) my heart was pretty open to what my lungs had to tell me about my liver. As such, a woman who specializes in breath work came to my house to guide me through the experience. She and I discussed how the liver is where humans store anger, so our loose goal for the session was to inspire me to connect to my internalized and repressed rage.

  Even though I was very open to this concept theoretically, I was having my fair share of difficulty connecting to my angry liver. I guess the most obvious reason for this barrier is that the anger is REPRESSED. Duh. But there were also some other factors that were contributing. After doing the San Pedro I’ve been feeling relatively serene, like there is more air in my brain. It’s as if my synapsis have stretched to create more emptiness so the breeze of nothingness can blow freely across my consciousness. It’s not that I am not thinking, but more that I am not thinking as much. There is more time between my thoughts while wind flies across the innards of my skull and out my ear cavities.

  I will be in the middle of something, like teaching my dance class, and suddenly have no idea what is going on, who I am, or what we are doing. Did I already do a lunge to this side? Have I pumped my pelvis 8 times… or 16? I am usually so on top of life, like a woman prepared to ride her way to orgasm, yet at the moment my spacey head is more like a swirling galaxy. If this is the price I have to pay for escaping the relentless pestering of my ego – then so be it! 

  The other issue that was preventing me from feeling my feelings of hidden fury was the soundtrack playing in the background. As a dancer I am so influenced by music and the sounds that were filling the air were really upbeat. I kept picture fun choreography. “Ooooo this would be a great moment to undulate!” At one point the breath work lady was suggesting I make sounds to externalize the voice of my anger. She also suggested I punch the mat to release the wrath my liver was holding onto – but the song from Austin Power’s was playing!!! How could I be angry in that context? 

  I then starting spinning into a co-dependent swirl. My internal monologue was scolding me for not allowing my anger to manifest. “Aw man, I don’t have any sounds that want to come out! I’m actually in a great mood! Fuck. Am I letting her down because I’m not making guttural sounds of resentment? GODDAMMIT TONI! Why can’t I make a sound of anger? Oh dear, now she wants me to punch that mat! Fuck hole… I can’t punch the mat! I feel totally at peace! I am flooded with feelings of forgiveness. I am absolutely failing her!”

  But then I realized that maybe the anger I am holding in my liver isn’t actually mine? What if I am a sponge for the anger I am exposed to? Perhaps I’ve just sucked too much in and haven’t taken the time to squeeze myself out, cleanse my aura, bathe the emotions and feelings of others off me. Maybe my purpose on the planet is to be an anger loofah, but in order to do that I have make sure I spiritually exfoliate myself more often?

  All I really want to do with my time is bring people joy. To make them think. To be a part of their self-evolution in order to continue to evolve myself. Isn’t that what my artistic and creative projects are ultimately? Maybe I don’t have to be so tormented? Maybe I can just realize that even though I am not accomplishing things on the scale that I want to, I am still doing what I am meant to do. Perhaps I won’t ever get my Netflix comedy special, but maybe a few people smiling at my videos is enough? I’m already living my dreams. I’m already living my purpose. I’m already doing what I want to be doing even if only a few people give a shit. And with that, I melted into another dimension and lost all awareness of my body. Naturally.  

  Later that week I went back to the doctor to get the results of my bloodwork. 

  Doctor: Well Toni, your tick panel looks good!

  Toni: Oh phew. But what about the tick that just bit me? The one I got tested and that came positive with a tick STD?

  Doctor: Yeah, the bartonella… hmmmm, well… we will get back to that. 

  Toni: Isn’t it crazy that I went to do San Pedro with Shamans in the woods to heal from a tick disease I didn’t have, and maybe I just contracted a whole new tick disease?    

  Doctor: It is. 

  Toni: Does the healing ever end?   

  Doctor: Good question. You also don’t seem to have the genetic disease that I feared.

  Toni: That’s a surprise. My mom did smoke and drink when she was pregnant with me.   

  Doctor: But it turns out you have antibodies for Hepatitis. 

  Toni: OH NO!   

  Doctor: But you don’t have it any more. What you have is the immunity for Hepatitis A. 

  Toni: Is that the sexy Hepatitis that Pamela Anderson has?   

  Doctor: It’s not.

  Toni:  So, you’re telling me I didn’t sleep with Tommy Lee. 

  Doctor: What I am saying is that you don’t have Hepatitis C. You HAD Hepatitis A.

  Toni: So, what’s Hepatitis A?  

  Doctor: Umm, it’s fecal oral…

  Toni:  Shit in mouth!? Am I hearing that correctly? I had shit in mouth Hepatitis?

  Doctor: Correct.

  Toni: HOLY SHIT!

  Doctor: It’s more common than you think. You could have had it years ago. Someone who had that disease prepared food that you ate… 

  Toni: Wait, so someone with shit in mouth Hepatitis had Hepatitis shit on their hands and they then made my food. So, I ate the shit from someone with shit in mouth Hepatitis!?   

  Doctor: You did.  I have no idea when. It could have been years ago?

  Toni: But don’t have it anymore?

  Doctor: You don’t.    

  Toni: This is much better as a story that happened in my past rather than my present reality.     

  Doctor: I agree.

  This is me about 5 years ago… is this when I had shit in mouth disease??

  

  May 9, 2019 • Consciousness, Creativity, Emotions, Health, Problems • Views: 4393

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• Mushroom’s Mental Meanderings

  

  A schedule is a helpful asset to adult survival. It allows structure to existence so as to better enslave my spirit to the constrictions of the matrix. Yet every so often I can feel oppressed by the mundane predictability of life. Go figure! I know I’m not alone in this feeling of psychic enslavement. We all have our methods of mental escape. Right at this very moment there is a guy on the Internet buying a pair of panties from a lady who has worn them for 6 days without showering. For whatever reason smelling these sullied undies will bring this man joy he can’t otherwise access. I must be kind of a square when it comes to rearranging my headspace because even the thought of strange man’s underwear penetrating my nasal cavity makes me dry heave. As such, I instead turn to other sources of inspiration to mix up my mind…

  Mushrooms!

  Mushrooms have become very “in vogue” recently thanks to Microsoft engineers partaking in micro-dosing morning rituals. Many of the human androids belonging to Silicon Valley wake up, have a bit of coffee, and then ingest tiny licks of psychedelics with their Wheaties. The true breakfast of champions!

  Psychotropic drugs are ever so slowly becoming normalized in mainstream culture as a means of healing and self-betterment. “Micro-dosing” is a developing phenomenon and method for partaking in this mind-magnifying ritual of psychedelic ingestion, and I am a big advocate of this happening! I’m pretty sure if the Republican party woke up every morning to a Grateful Dead smoothie instead of their usual breakfast of goat’s blood and virgin flesh, the world would be a much different place! Yet personally I’m not sure I can keep up with the micro-dosing schedule. I barely remember to brush me teeth in the mornings (read as never) so adding slightly tripping to the docket seems like an unreasonable expectation of myself. As such, I prefer my mushrooms the old-fashioned way. Eating a bunch on top of a mountain and hoping I eventually find my way down in the dark.

  Considering not everyone can get their hands on some cow shit foraged mushrooms or a fresh sheet of acid, I figured I would share my top 3 most recent mental meanderings while on mushrooms with you. Who knows, maybe reading this will save you the trip?

  1) Nature is excessively beautiful. It’s painful how gorgeous a sunset can be. Even when inside the moment of experiencing natural glory, there is always a part of me that can’t appreciate it fully. That can’t suppress this underlying sense of nostalgic mourning for what I’m observing. I look at how amazing it all is and simultaneously feel the loss that the moment is fleeting. This tragic knowledge makes me miss the moment even when it’s right in front of me. Everything ends and will be lost in a memory I can only vaguely access. That tragedy makes me never want to leave the beauty of nature and instead focus purely on how gorgeous it all is. Yet with nature, the beauty is endless. As day turns to night, which turn to day again, there is nothing but beauty to witness if your eyes are open enough to see it. How perfect a blade of grass is, or a butterfly wing. How remarkable it is the way ants move, or when clouds morph. Human beings had to develop an indifference to this beauty. It was crucial to not always see it in order to prioritize other things like eating, mating, and staying alert for the dangers of predators. It was an evolutionary necessity to build up an indifference in order to function, yet this muscle has been over-developed. It’s become grossly exaggerated, pulsing, throbbing, and taking up too much space with its excessive force. Now in order to relax that muscle we often turn to drugs to bring us back to that state of being. Drugs are how we access the ability to acknowledge fully just how magical it all is. We crave reprieve from this feeling of indifference yet it’s this same feeling of indifference that also paved the path for “progress.”

  2) In a capitalist society class is so deeply ingrained in your psyche that it will forever stain your understanding of self regardless of what’s in your bank account. If you were born rich, you will always see yourself as a rich person. Even if you lose all your money, you will just feel like a rich person who happens to not have money. Yet if you’re born poor, that mindset will stalk you as well. Even if you make a billion dollars, you will still feel like a poor person who just happens to have money.

  3) After I made it down from the mountain (SURPRISE) I of course sat under the stars. Looking up at the sky, I could see the energetic connections between the stars – this hazy blaze of luminescence that tied the stars together in a cosmic web of connection. It looked like the synapses that attach neurons in our brains. This made me realize that not only are the stars communicating with each other, but the structure vastly resembles the neural network of the human mind. So… check it. What if planet earth is just one neuron inside the head of giant conscious being, and every star in our universe (or multiverse) are actually neurons inside this giant conscious skull? And what if that giant being is part of a community of other giant beings and whatever planet they are on is just one neuron inside the scull of ANOTHER giant conscious being? Which means subsequently that every neuron in each of our brains are actually the stars of a smaller universes and in one of our neurons is a little planet like earth?

  RIGHT????

  Aren’t feathers and clouds UNBELIEVABLE!! Isn’t it crazy not to spend your days staring at them and never doing anything else ever again?

  

  

  July 18, 2018 • Adventures, Consciousness, Creativity, Emotions, Imagination, Musings, Political Banter • Views: 2366

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