Odd.

Looking at someone else's interest list, I saw that their entry "marijuana" was not in bold. That's when I realized that somehow, I overlooked putting that on my own interest list. For those who know me... well, they may be as surprised as I was. I've since remedied the situation.

Also, someone else, one other person in the whole LJ microverse, has listed "roche limit" as an interest. This makes me feel less lonely. :)

So... this week I was able to get my hands on a bottle of 5-HTP. I'd done some reading about it (of course, I know much more about its derivative, serotonin--there's a lot more information about that), and I felt comfortable enough to try it. I got mine at Wal-Mart, in the Vitamin/Herbal Supplements aisle, near the dieting aids. (5-HTP is primarily marketed as a diet aid, and only secondarily as a mood enhancer.) It came in a trapezoidal gold box, and cost $8.88.

The pills themselves would be suspicious to, say, a cop: they are simple gelcaps, no inscriptions, with a white substance inside. 5-HTP supplements are made from Griffonia simplicifolia seed extract. These are 50 mgs each, 30 in a bottle, and suggestions are to take one or two daily. (Each also contains 10 mgs of vitamin B6, which helps the body absorb the 5-HTP. However, as I read later, it's better to have just 5-HTP and supplement vitamins on one's own. As it is, these pills supply 500% of one's daily intake of vitamin B6. [The OD level of vitamin B6 is 100 mgs, by the way.])

Okay, so I took one about three days ago, because I've been very depressed, as F could attest. I freely admitted to him that I was interested in self-medicating myself, and he didn't think it was a bad idea. I didn't really notice any specific effects, though I thought it was funny that I ended up staying awake for hours--the bottle says it promotes healthy sleep. (This is because serotonin is the precursor to melatonin, which causes the body to become drowsy.)

But the next day, I woke up without feeling so overwhelmingly depressed, and that was a start. It generally takes a week for the full effects to make themselves known. Also, I'm starting with a basic dose, 50 mgs daily. Many people take twice as much, or more, every day.

Adverse effects? I'm a little more jittery than usual, but that could be from drinking more caffeine lately. (F's mom broke out the coffee machine while I was away in NV, so now there's a quick way to get a lovely cup of joe each day.)

As far as beneficial effects go, I realized that when I've smoked pot recently, it's had a dreamy quality I have not experienced since my earliest days of becoming acquainted with MJ. That, I have to say, is a pleasant unexpected something extra. :)

Spiritual Journal, 1/23/02

6:46 a.m.

The thought occurs to me to change the name of my movement to Children of the New Light, which does not sound so pagan and would more accurately reflect the countless myriad religions and spiritualities that the spirituality affirms, supports, and encourages. [It would also point more definitively toward the gnostic, "inner light", almost neo-Quaker meditative aspects of the practical spiritual work I propose.] My question is: Is such a change "selling out" in a way, a form of packaging my spirituality ideas in a more palatable fashion? (My inner critic says yes. Initially, anyway. The rational part of my brain will need to produce some valuable results if I am to change my mind.)

Because changing the name would be bastardizing the source of the phrase itself. I chose that name [Children of the New Sun] because, when I heard it in Dave's monologue in 2010, I knew it was one of tremendous import.

Tonight, I very briefly used marijuana to contact the true Breath of Life, true prana. Blade was right: I was naive to believe, when I first started smoking, that marijuana smoke itself was the Breath of Life. I was no metaphysician then. I was a young, enthusiastic marijuana smoker. Now, however, I see pot more as a bridge to that true prana, while having healing qualities in and of itself (that is, in the plant material).

I used it to more easily sense--feel--breath moving in and out of my body. It enabled me to more readily concentrate on my breathing, physically. By doing so, I felt myself almost instantly go into a trance. (My experience was not a "falling into" a trance; it was more aligning myself to a higher vibration.)

To be utterly fair, I may have enjoyed a synergistic combination of 5-HTP and marijuana. I've not come across any written accounts of experiences combining the two.

Oh, my breath rate naturally dropped as well. I was able to achieve low breathing with little to no conscious attention and subtle manipulation.

So, I was also tonight thinking of life energy as gyroscopic. The most energy efficient configuration is the gyroscope. Isn't the atom gyroscopic (with its electrons encircling)? Isn't our solar system as well? Everything in our solar system bends to the will of the Sun. We think we are free beings, but even in a politically free society, all people would still be in the thrall of the force of the sun. We are subject to celestial events and influences [for example, sunspots]. We cannot escape them. We are at this moment migrating in space, following the sun, as well as spinning slowly along our own planetary axis. Yet we sense none of this; we are oblivious to the forces that truly govern our lives. We swim within and among these forces, yet usually are completely unconscous of them.

Anyway. Gyroscopes. I think of the spirit force inside a person as a gyroscopic field of sorts, one that experientially produces a center of gravity.

(I want to develop this idea further.)

I am humbled by the thought that none of my material self is the same as it was seven years ago (again, that sacred number makes itself known), as well as by the thought that there are particles in the universe that pervade all things, including my material body. (Hadrons, I believe?) Those two truths are enough to make the mind boggle. They also make one very reverent and humble before the vastness and ubiquitousness of the universe.