Aya Awakenings will be screening in SF on February 18 at Clay Theater, please come check it out. I'll be speaking on a panel afterward, along with Erik Davis, Jonathan Talat Phillips, Diana Slattery, and Rak. The screening itself is a ritual, with sacred space set, pauses for collective energy work, and deep discussion. I hope to see you there, and thank you to Rak Razam for creating this.

"Wake up you monkeys!"

From a video interview for the film. Dennis Mckenna gets real about plant medicine and the state of planet earth. Shot and edited by Carl Gnosis.

rites of passage walking into the business and media worlds this month
- drafted my first contracts
- consultations with lawyers
- conflict resolution (oh my goodness have i had experience with that over the past few years. it's an interesting exercise in learning how to be very careful and conscious with what one says, and knowing how to communicate appropriate boundaries.)
- interviews with amazing shamanic brothers
- partnership meetings and strategy
- budgeting
- watching media for research, not inspiration
- emerging from my subculture bubbles of avant-garde, experimental, and activism, to be more receptive to learning other vocabulary and concept structures

When I first decided to resign as a professional classical pianist and work in the visual arts, I wrote a mini-proposal for a museum of artists working with art and technology, that would feature a biannual exhibit of interior environment design, where an interior architect, a materials scientist, a psychologist, and an artist would collaborate to showcase new materials and explore the creative possibilities of innovative spaces. What I'm actually doing now is far more complex and larger scale, but shares the interdisciplinary aspect, and the day-to-day tasks of a director.

A big part of my currents projects' focus is the built environment and its impact on ecological systems' and humans' health. One big thing shifted - I did not go through formal education to learn skills. Because of that, or because of destiny, I developed an awareness of what is going on in the world, outside of formalized containers and industrialized career fields. So I'm choosing more practical and less abstract applications of my synthesizing creator mind. I never thought I would follow such an unconventional path, nor that learning could actually be brutal, terrifying, and kinds of difficult I didn't even know existed. At the end, I get self-appointed rainbow stripes ;P

I still wish I'd learned how to write like people learn to in college though. I should probably backtrack on that one.

Beginning in April, I'll be offering a weekly Imagination Healing Circle at a new healing center in Berkeley called Mystic Doorway. I'm excited to have the deadline to finish illustrating the Imagination Healer Toolkit, and to finally begin a formalized, regular offering of my healing gifts.

One session per month will be focused on shamanic journeywork with drumming, working with power animals and soul retrieval, and other trance healing journeys. For other sessions, we will be more freeform playing with each other to explore the potential of group creativity. One example is a round-robin image making game, where everyone goes around in a circle creating a picture in our minds together (this gets *really trippy*, really fast). Another example is everyone saying aloud one thing they think is possible, for themselves, or for humanity. Participants are free to bring recorded music to share as well.

What has come up in these circles in the past has run the spectrum from completely silly to bizarrely creative to profoundly liberating and empowering. I find that when I hold group space, people come into my field of psychedelic awareness (this is my default state of being, without drugs). In that, we are able to enjoy an expanded space together while still having our dexterity and communication abilities intact.

I also teach one-on-one and group workshops in psychic skills and language magic. You can find a list of my offerings on my Imagination Healer website.

"Mystic Doorway is an alternative healing center and community Temple in Berkeley, CA. We create a space for the exploration of metaphysical reality and evolution of consciousness through classes, workshops, events and healing sessions.

Our intention is to nurture a network of mystic teachers, artists and healers, create a grounded space for their offerings and and inspire a thriving evolutionary community to more easily and accessibly share this transformational work with the world."

https://www.facebook.com/MysticDoorwayBerkeley

Here's an interview I did with Sergio Magaña, “Ocelocoyotl.” Sergio is a well-known and respected healer in Mexico City, who has been initiated into the 5,000-year-old Toltec or Toltecayotl lineage of Mesoamerica. He offered  a 2-day workshop with Evolver LA on January 25th and 26th. Continue reading for an introduction to his understandings about the nature of consciousness and our interconnection with the cosmos.

Read the interview on Reality Sandwich, or listen to the audio below.
http://realitysandwich.com/216067/sergio_magana_la2014/

Here's the audio from HiveMind's "Sexual Politics in Transformational Culture" panel discussion. This took place September 28, 2013 in Berkeley. HiveMind is a community forum and celebration I produce for Evolver Bay Area. This discussion was a follow up to an Evolver Salon on the same topic earlier last year - it was clear we had touched the surface of something deep for people and it needed further exploration. Thank you to panelists Jonathan Talat Phillips, Rachel Lyra Hospodar and Jeff Bausemer. The panel was organized by Jonathan.

To learn more about HiveMind, visit http://evolverbayarea.com

I love this graphic. *Every time* I see plastic packaging I think - what would it take for global industry to make it mandatory to use biodegradable alternatives, like plant-based plastics and mycelium products. Sustainable technology exists, we're smart creatures, how to we organize properly and communicate clear boundaries in a way that doesn't inhibit people's well being, but brings awareness to behaviors that are out of balance and harm others. I feel we are in a rite of passage into planetary consciousness, unity consciousness, and the planet is going to keep guiding us into that awareness, however aggressively it needs to until we open our hearts to its glorious interconnection and infinitely detailed intelligence. My body is one with the body of a whale or fish. It's beautiful.
from http://www.upworthy.com/say-hello-to-the-ingenious-invention-thats-maybe-gonna-be-around-longer-than-all-of-us?c=ufb2