Journal: Golden Teacher

First off, let me get this off my chest cause it is applying a lot of pressure. Why the fuck do people feel that because they ask you for a service and pay you for that service and think that they can all of a sudden control you. This never made sense to me whatsoever. When two humans agree to work with each other this becomes a collaborative effort to work towards a goal. If you notice, the word I used between work and each is “with.” This connection word allows for an understanding that with is not for and for is not with. Here is how I view the two words.

With = Collaborate

For = Cooperation

These two words are the opposite of each other much like happy and sad or nice and mean or protect and control or panic and fear, and finally, emotion or logic. They are all different words and they are not synonymous. Let’s dive into a couple of other words and how the two of them are not meant to blend till they are understood separately.

Emotion = Feeling

Logic = Truth

At times these two words tend to be confusing and a ball of entanglement. Especially for someone who does not know how to navigate the feelings of emotions which then blur the firing lines of the machine guns of logic that are all around us. Here are another two words that I’ve learned to separate as well.

Control = Power over someone to influence your will over them morally and physically.

Protect = Best interest at heart to keep safe from harm or injury morally and physically.

The last decade-plus carried a lot of experiences some that when these words were used my mind and heart never could separate and they become mixed like a bad cocktail from a new bartender at Applebee’s. Here is a quick story that hit home for me and taught me a lesson to look at life a bit differently.

A friend of mine invited me to go and sit with him and a few others out in the mountains of Utah. The spot he would take me to was outside of Heber, Utah. On this small patch of land covered in red rock with a lake to the edge of the land, and in the middle of these five acres sat a big tent, a fire ring with logs as chairs direct in front of it. He used this land with his wife for a few years now to do spiritually guided journeys for professional companies in small groups. They both would be considered healers and medicine men and women, shamans of modern times, dress like normal people and you would not even know they carried the power to heal. Both of them have been doing this work for almost twenty years together.

After breaking up the golden teachers in a plastic red solo cup, then filling it up with orange juice, I start to drink and chew, which was not like anything I’d experienced in the past sour and tough. The red solo cup growing up was used to take shots of alcohol either playing beer pong, flip cup, landmines, kings cups, or power hour. Now, here I am sitting in the middle of this land in the summer of twenty-twenty, drinking out of another red solo cup, but instead of drinking the contents inside to numb myself, I am drinking it to learn how to feel. The world works in wonderful and mysterious ways.

A few hours go by, and I’ve laid on a broken wooden dock that overlooks the lake, my supersonic awareness has turned on, and everything around me is vibrating softly, catching the ants crawling to and from their homes. I walked around looking for something for places to be alone, but my buddy would find me, who also took five grams, he floated around to everyone checking in after he settle into the five-dimensional realm of psychedelics. His wife floated around with her feathers burning sage and cedar for anyone who needed to be cleared or wanted to send prays up for those they loved, she played drums and sound bowls, and she sang and played music through a speaker in the tent for anyone, she was sober, she was our sitter, someone who doesn’t take the medicine and keeps a close eye and protects them during this experience.

The wind blows lightly giving relief from the heat that came from the ground from the sun above, sitting under a small tree for shade, my friend walks over and sits next to me. A couple of minutes go by both of us staring at the dark blue-green lake with green and brown vegetation along the banks, maybe seconds go by, who knows, time doesn’t exist. He then turns and asked, “You know the difference between a successful business and those who fail?” Caught off guard at the question, still looking at the lake do nothing but be still, something I was trying to do for myself. I turn my head left and right nodding, “No.” He picks ups some grass, and starts to play it with in between his fingers, then turns and looks at me, “One leads from the heart, and the other leads with the mind.”

He goes into his experience working with all kinds of leaders, and how he was brought in to teach this to companies, bringing everyone together, to work towards one goal, and that comes with leading from the heart, and not the mind. He knew the ones that were driven by the mind and felt the ones who lived with their heart.

Too high in the moment to understand or speak, I sit crossed legged listening as he shares his stories and his growth over the years. He changed directions and dives down the use of psychedelics, “you only need enough to get into the room and once you are in, there is no need to get any higher, sometimes you might need a little more to get in but it will always be less than you think you need.”

The golden teacher was not the mushroom I took, but the person that I spent time with and listened to was the golden teacher. It gave me a lens to acknowledge that my heart is primary and the mind is secondary. Professionals lead with their hearts and rookies are driven by the mind. Life is not about cooperating, it is about collaborating with the world around you.

A recent situation set me down this path, and I am very thankful for it, it helps me stay connected to my heart and always make choices from there not the mind. A few years later, these experiences are still growing inside of me and I am beyond grateful for these types of angels who come into my life to provide light and knowledge. A five-gram golden teacher experience sent me down a path of understanding what it means to lead from the heart and not the mind. The experience was beautiful, as you can tell my memory has not skipped a beat of this time. It’s fascinating the further away from those moments, the deeper the roots dig their way further into my heart’s garden. When it comes to working with someone who pays for your time, don’t lose sight of the fact that it is not a cooperative experience, it is a collaborative experience, meaning they don’t control you or your heart.