tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57254932011-05-02T09:14:35.146-07:00Weed HealingA self-experiment in marijuana dosing as a mode of physical therapy and exploration of movement, perception, and consciousness.Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.comBlogger381100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1123100214945540782005-08-03T12:33:00.000-07:002005-08-03T13:32:58.296-07:00It's been a REALLY long time since I've written here, not for lack of exploration, but for excess of distraction and lack of the need to record.I usually write about the mind/body connection on weed, my physical experiences, etc., but there's something bigger going on, that started when I first started smoking, four years ago.Weed is a change agent, not only for my body, but for my entire life. Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1112475689625014522005-04-02T12:59:00.000-08:002005-08-03T12:33:03.766-07:00I rarely include external material in this blog, but this article from my alma mater seemed too pertinent not to post. There's no mention of weed, nor any reason to believe the athlete uses the substance, but I am convinced that his internal mode is not dissimilar to what I achieve through the use of weed. It really is less about muscle mass or strength, and more about coordination and Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1103224204841947482004-12-16T11:09:00.000-08:002004-12-16T11:27:48.216-08:00Ultra-Chill is the term I have for smoking and doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It's a meditative state wherein I am dancing, but on a microscopic level with extremely low muscle tone. Some evenings, especially after Juice, I love sitting or lying on my futon with the lights out and my iPod on, and disappearing.
There are two basic realms in Ultra-Chill, just as in the rest of my highs. Most of the Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1099964225638340942004-11-08T17:35:00.000-08:002004-11-08T17:39:41.503-08:00We have not one brain in our head, but two. I believe that the two hemispheres serve not only as emergency back-up to each other, but also serve to create “binocularity” of thought and personality. We all have the fluid / right-brain / creative / imaginative half, as well as the detail / left-brain / logical / literal half. How these two halves complement and balance each other out makes us Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1099706756997518512004-11-05T16:46:00.000-08:002004-12-16T17:53:10.050-08:00It's all about freaking out. That is the single least efficient, most wasteful activity; it is the source of muscle pain.
I have a broad definition of freaking out; it's not just what happens when you do too much 'shrooms and watch the surgery channel. It's what we do in everyday situations when we startle or flinch or panic or yell at another driver or have muscles go into spasm. In each Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1099012620544774982004-10-28T16:44:00.000-07:002004-10-28T18:17:00.543-07:00I haven't blogged for a great while, because that only happens at work, and I've been trying to be good. But I'm way ahead today, so...
The "weed multiplier" from the last post was both reality and fantasy. Fantasy because I didn't discover a new "method" to getting higher faster. Like everything else on weed, you don't make it happen, you allow it to.
But my standard dose for going out Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1091224335140456602004-07-30T14:21:00.000-07:002004-07-30T14:52:15.140-07:00A weed multiplier?
I've managed, twice over the last couple of days, to get very high off of one toke, literally to the point I would expect after 1-2 bowls.
I know I'm prone to superstitious reasoning when I smoke, so I'll try not to get too attached to these results, unless my subsequent experience supports my hypothesis. But it's too cool not to mention, and the result, smoking less but Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1089852423369812542004-07-14T17:45:00.000-07:002004-07-14T17:47:03.370-07:00There is only one success: to be able to spend your life in your own way, and not to give others absurd maddening claims upon it.
Christopher Darlington Morley (1890-1957)
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.
Mark Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1089748111699461292004-07-13T12:10:00.000-07:002004-07-15T17:50:57.496-07:00Dr. Lester Grinspoon, a Harvard professor and weed advocate, has a website (www.marijuana-uses.com) of anectdotes from people who enjoy pot unashamedly. The site raises the question of weed's usefulness beyond the familiar but limited medical marijuana discussion. I also enjoy seeing others' discoveries and exploration on the substance, even though none reflect the same series of experiences Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1089744569383240442004-07-12T12:11:00.000-07:002004-07-13T12:49:30.823-07:00What is it about social awareness that crashes my high?
The pain-free, discovery-rich area I refer to as fluid begins when I am able to escape temporarily from my social awareness, or any sense of what I "ought" to be doing, and instead follow what my body wants. If somebody laughs or claps loudly or bumps into me, there is a very real sense of that zen mode shattering, and the task at hand Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1088732130654365742004-07-01T17:52:00.000-07:002004-07-13T12:00:27.286-07:00Addiction: what the hell is it? The American Psychological Assn. has actually removed the term "addiction" from its DSM-IV Diagnostic Manual, and replaced it with "abuse" and "dependence."
My ex-girlfriend kept calling me an addict, and I began calling myself that, as well, 1. because I (partially) believed it, 2. to satisfy her, and 3. because I know that addicts deny the addiction, so that Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1088212246225881322004-06-25T16:59:00.000-07:002004-06-25T18:10:46.226-07:00At 35 years old, I've begun break-dancing, more or less. Every Thursday, a Unitarian church in Koreatown holds "Juice," where taggers practice their art and b-boys break.
I must admit I feel a trifle odd there, being one of two people there in our 30s, one of very few Anglos, and my wardrobe is all wrong (altho' I'm slowly trying to adapt). Plus, I'd show up in bare feet for the next few Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1088040056744755822004-06-23T18:17:00.000-07:002004-06-23T18:20:56.743-07:00I mentioned earlier weed being a "deal with the devil." I meant that somewhat out of respect for the substance; how can it give me such unalloyed good results without extracting some price?
Most of the costs I've mentioned: hangovers at work, energy crashes, dependence on the substance for play, especially for dance or other physical activity, a habit that few women will put up with for long,Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1085010272225586462004-05-21T15:09:00.000-07:002004-06-25T16:38:37.786-07:00I wanted to pick up the issue of identity on drugs from the salvia post, because I had a pretty profound experience about that last week.
I've already mentioned having a "U.N." inside of me, and feeling like there is a separate "body mind," that makes choices distinct (and far prior) to my conscious awareness. Especially when I dance, I try not to try, to allow the body to make the decisions Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1085004558154462262004-05-20T14:40:00.000-07:002004-05-24T09:37:52.960-07:00Despite my fondness for weed, and my desire to try out other psychedelics, I've done very little real "tripping," in the hallucination sense of the word. But the other week I felt drawn to pull out the Salvia Divinorum that I bought the year before and try it again. I poured too much into the bowl, by the standards I thought I understood, but it really was the right amount for the trip I was Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1084997670442929192004-05-19T12:30:00.000-07:002004-05-19T14:34:21.693-07:00Energy is an odd issue for me. This topic is especially timely, as I'm doing a rare blog from work (don't tell), because I'm so damn faded I can't focus on my real job.
My energy on weed is similar (as is much of my behavior) to that of a child: go, go, go, and then dead stop, crash for a little, and then go go again. This is especially true when I'm physically very active, although sometimesOtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1083720612114086702004-05-04T18:06:00.000-07:002004-05-04T18:36:08.936-07:00My latest playthings are two bamboo Japanese practice swords. I've had the yearning for swords for some time now, although I'm not sure I can explain it. There are stunt men who practice at the beach (this IS L.A.), plus I saw The Last Samurai, and I was one of those kids who loved knights and ninjas and all that.
But the true motive for many of my high desires seems to spring from somewhere Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1079071629707944312004-03-11T21:53:00.000-08:002004-03-11T22:09:27.483-08:00All of the lessons on weed seem to boil down to a few that repeat themselves again and again. It helps me recognize the next "same lesson" sooner than I might, but it's still hard to avoid making the mistakes. I think this is true too in sobriety.
One is, don't fear pain. Pain is an ally only. In general, fear of injury is more dangerous than healthy respect for the laws of the body. Fear Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1078378479531729842004-03-03T21:06:00.000-08:002004-05-04T18:47:43.246-07:00Later, after smoking:
I had to revisit the UN metaphor. because it is so relevant to not only what happens during my highs, but to what is right and what is wrong with my life, and with my approach to it.
I too often see a night without dance as a night half-wasted [pardon the pun, but truth is, I always smoke more at home because I don't get nearly as high when I'm not dancing (or playing atOtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1078375471328913902004-03-03T20:35:00.000-08:002004-03-03T20:46:40.700-08:00Looking back at my blog of Jan. 12, my only entry while high, when I mentioned having a UN inside of me, and mentioned the "lie detector" quality on weed. I can make a statement, and immediately feel within me the emotional accuracy of it. It doesn't mean the statement is true; it just feels right (or not). There are several myths I thought I believed, but when discussing them with myself Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1077861832857146012004-02-26T21:47:00.000-08:002004-02-26T22:05:56.670-08:00Ever since writing my last post, I have thought of all the things I didn't mention, how weed helps me physically, mentally and emotionally. Most of the details I wrote about really do concern the "detail" realm, the area wherein I am aware of pain.
The other realm, however, fluid, is every bit as rich and amazing. I tend to remember less about my fluid phases, because my "observer" or "Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1075833545215207072004-02-03T09:24:00.000-08:002004-05-04T18:53:42.746-07:00My brother, who is pretty vehemently anti-substance, applauded my dramatic physical change the other day, but insisted that I could have arrived where I am without weed.
I don't know. Certainly weed is not a magical substance that makes you fit. Clearly, the fact that I have been extremely physically active this year doesn't hurt. But it's not that simple. The traveling rings at the beach Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1075514283497258132004-01-30T17:04:00.000-08:002004-01-30T18:14:05.436-08:00Last year for a while I got to experiment with mushrooms (in addition to weed + dancing), with increasingly interesting results. This year I've discovered herbal ecstasy for the first time, which has the combined benefits of being much cheaper than 'shrooms or E, as well as being legal.
Herbal E has given me a response closer to mushrooms than ecstasy, primarily because with 'shrooms and herbalOtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1074879619603715802004-01-23T09:26:00.000-08:002004-01-23T09:41:48.483-08:00Glanced at my last blog, which mentions healing bruises. I was doing a barefoot hike in the Hills yesterday, including some downhill sprinting (actually, when it's downhill, it's less sprinting, and more catching yourself all the way down). Inevitably people ask me "doesn't it hurt?" and of course there's pain here and there, but I go on these walks FOR my feet, and they are most appreciative.Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1073966551746529612004-01-12T19:38:00.000-08:002004-01-12T20:14:03.140-08:00(while high)
Feelings of being lost; I have to damn weed as well, and not pretend it isn't a deal with the devil.
I had to add the paranthetical above because the part of me that needs to seem so articulate, needs not to have typos, etc., that part would allow me to just write unless I had added the caveat.
I break down with smoke into all my component members. It is like a committee, an UNOtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1071077217172936822003-12-10T09:02:00.000-08:002003-12-10T09:27:42.546-08:00Dualism is an easy shortcut, since that's how the human brain is wired: male/female, left/right. Then there is the gamut of faux dualisms, that describe no particular true phenomenon, but rather different elements of a spectrum or relativistic field: good/bad, up/down.
My brain has also followed a dualistic model for describing my highs, although I suspect the picture is more complex than Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1070467775187333722003-12-03T07:46:00.000-08:002003-12-03T08:10:13.856-08:00My car was in the shop for 6 weeks and, although it was nice to spend some time on my bike again, I wasn't able to get to dance, nor to the beach for gymnastics, and was going a little crazy.
My mood and life feel so much lighter now that I'm dancing again, and something enormous is opening up. It's as if the time away was marinating and soaking the tissue of my middle and upper back, so that aOtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1067115766184561842003-10-25T13:52:00.000-07:002003-10-25T14:07:10.573-07:00When my back went out this month, on a surface level it seemed like refutation of the process I've been going through, akin perhaps to a religious person suffering, and thus wondering about the nature of a good God. And like the new convert, I do have my rationales.
However, first, why it happened: the initial injury is over 20 years old. My back literally started going out when I was 10. Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1066939425265986122003-10-23T12:38:00.000-07:002003-10-23T13:05:11.880-07:00I have to mention my big toe.
My new phase of wow epiphanies includes an extension of my "before I go dance, chill while smoking in my car and listening to jazz" mode. In that mode, I will at times forget where I am, etc., and instead feel the weight and relaxation of my body at a level that I only get during deep chill.
Of particular interest during that period, is the sensation in my feet. Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1066937302808287762003-10-23T12:08:00.000-07:002003-10-23T12:28:22.633-07:00Something may have changed over the last couple of weeks, where I'm smoking less, but getting more. I'll go in to dance after one or two bowls, instead of three. Part of it is the general desire to smoke less, conserve money and reduce hangovers. But there is the real sense now that I can get there on less, and sometimes do without my usual recharge, midway through the night.
At first I Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1065298712956570692003-10-04T13:01:00.000-07:002003-10-04T13:25:51.800-07:00I've contemplated pulling this thing off the web, in a rare Ashcroft / ganja-inspired moment of paranoia (are we truly anonymous? will I regret this in twenty years?). I guess if Saddam couldn't get Salaam Pax, than what am I worrying about? It's not like anyone is reading this anyway.
Which brings me to the motive for creating such a blog. It was a message in a bottle, tossed for the Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1064559221301511912003-09-27T23:53:00.000-07:002003-09-25T23:53:40.706-07:00Know thyself? How could we not know ourselves? And yet, it often seems that the self is just a wild animal that we attempt to corral and steer in the directions we think it should go.
My hypothesis in brief: the human "self" shares a body with the human animal. What we see as the self is a portrait made up by the language part of the brain, that stands back from ourselves and tries to Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1064559072623830812003-09-26T23:50:00.000-07:002003-09-25T23:51:12.050-07:00I remember, just after starting to smoke, my amazement that I could fill up a glass of water without breaking anything. "I don't get this at all!" I'd think, but nothing would go wrong.
Of course that's ancient history, and now I'm doing high handstands on the high parallel bars, and I learned to friction (rock) climb high (my climbing partner said he watched the "evolution of a friction Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1064555966529942992003-09-25T22:45:00.000-07:002003-09-25T22:59:25.856-07:00When I began smoking, I thought I was being revealed my body's native posture, but since then, I have begun to think of posture as a myth. As Moshe Feldenkrais said, there is no such thing as "proper" posture. I've had the pleasure of watching pregnant dancer friends comfortably adjust (and continue to perform) well into their third trimesters, and of seeing dances by disabled people who have Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1064457623525188312003-09-24T19:31:00.000-07:002003-09-24T19:41:03.466-07:00I'm not alone, I know. There is a guy I met at the beach, who throws down a hundred very fast push-ups without even thinking about it, while on weed. My smoking buddy, J., used to break-dance on the substance. There was a rugby player from Dr. Grinspoon's "The Uses of Marijuana" website who wrote about the healing powers of pot. The idea is clear: get out of your head and into your body.
Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1064249644479507542003-09-22T09:33:00.000-07:002003-09-22T09:56:37.493-07:00Pain is not a parasite.
We treat pain as an enemy force, defeating us from within, like a virus. When we feel pain in a joint, we either stretch it, or we avoid it. I think avoidance of pain is one of the quickest, surest ways of getting old early.
Pain is such a blunt instrument, that we assume the "don't do it again" Skinnerian hot-stove function of pain means the same when we feel a sharp Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1063654748569842812003-09-15T12:04:00.000-07:002003-09-15T12:39:08.596-07:00I had a blood/injury phobia growing up, and saw my body as something that was "gross." I was scared of injury, and rarely took chances. I was also the youngest of active brothers, and I found my niche through academics, etc. instead of sport. That blood phobia was one of the early blocks to present itself, and one of the first walls to become permeable.
I was in my body/mind centering Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725493.post-1061836211797225292003-08-25T11:30:00.000-07:002003-08-25T11:30:11.750-07:00Two years ago, at the age of 32, my back went out. The injury, which kept me out of work for months, ended up being the best thing that has happened to me. Through a body/mind centering class and the eventual addition of marijuana into the healing process, I have not only rescued my back, but entirely turned around my body. I look and feel years younger, am in the best shape of my life, and Otishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16160778616959723632noreply@blogger.com0