Entheogen - Bringing out the God within

en·theo·gen [god within; god- or spirit-facilitating] a psychoactive sacramental; a plant or chemical substance taken to occasion primary spiritual experience. Example: peyote cactus as used in the Native American Church.

Primary spiritual experience is found at the heart of all the world's wisdom traditions. My belief is that people who have had such direct perception of spirit may develop the capacity to lead lives of greater understanding, virtue, and joy as a result. This phenomena may provide a communal hope that can be beneficial to us both as individuals and to our communities.

In attending the NAC meeting next month in Arizona, I ask, how can primary spiritual experience contribute to my growth, and what beliefs, ritual, community, and continuing practice can I carry into daily life?

Sleeplessness

"If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the loss of sleep." Dale Carnegie

As a young mother, my experience of having insufficient sleep is that I do not have enough energy to do my work in the day, and feel tired easily. There is an unbreakable relationship that becomes apparent between sleep, dreaming and health.


I feel I am vulnerable to, if not cultivating, disease caused by insufficient sleep. Sleep apnea, insomnia, nightmares and hallucinations are some of the fabric that has become part of my life.

Bird Song

City birds have begun to sing new songs. "Gone is the familiar dawn chorus, with its rich mix of enchanting melodies and calls," New Scientist writes. "In its place is a strangely depleted music – abrupt, high-pitched and sometimes ear-piercing."

Arts and Science Collaborations

On a recent trip to Stanford University, I met with composer and professor Jonathan Berger, who is collaborating with colleagues in Stanford’s School of Medicine to develop an upper limb motion instrument that will provide real-time audio feedback of upper limb activities. The Pediatric Upper Limb Motion Instrument is being developed for presentation at "Medicine and Muse" at the Stanford University School of Medicine in 2008. The instrument will augment sensory-motor feedback, producing a "melody" representing key upper limb motions to facilitate motor learning and improve upper limb function in children with neuromuscular disorders such as cerebral palsy, obstetrical palsy, congenital anomalies, and musculoskeletal injury.

This data sonification project examples the increasing integrative approaches between arts and scientific research. These convergent efforts produce enormous contributions of new data for analysis and mining, and bring together the values of both qualitative and quantitative research approaches of great complexity. Investigations into the efficacy of art and science explorations suggest that this is a vibrant and expanding interdisciplinary domain with real world applications.