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entrapment. its what's done. welcome. follow the flashlight beam scurrying down the stairs. into the basement. its where talk happens. talk about entrapment. the most efficient traps are the ones where those caught in them remain unaware they are trapped. now a new turn begins. it is well known that there is a war going on. what is not agreed on, is exactly who the key players waging it are. regardless of the answer, the one thing commonly possessed, whether agreed upon or not, is every individual caught up in this war - whether enthusiastic about it or not, and for better or worse - commands a great many pathways to happiness. denial seems a quick easy route. is hot tea favourable? there is always tea brewing in the basement.

And here we are dipping into the rapid streams of time with an inkwell for the river and a sliver for an oar, ivory capped typing keys and a blackened pie roller, dust, and a quill for the paddle, a plastic keyboard electronic matrix as the nib to dip in the icy current of a clear drinking creek seeking one direction from infinity into a moving stream of pixels that trick us into forgetting that from here on out we'll be mixing a tape of our lives up so to speak, that is, about what we want everyone to know about our lives. In the interest of taking honesty to its furthest shattering point I've construed an elaborate method by which our seperate life story threads might intertwine. I've devised many different angles from which you might piece together our story. Really I'll be giving you the important stuff and the remaining parts can be plugged in with your own private details, considering that the rest will come naturally, I mean we're all human despite living together in the same place, right? Same place, haha -- good one, huh -- yah right. Earth is the same place last time I checked. That river was the same place last time we checked. That tectonic plate was in the exact same location since the dinosaurs. And the shop across the street was full of whores. I know. But listen. Somehow they got rid of us. That's why we're standing here. Now. Abandoned. Don't you get it? Look, we're the only ones left. That much should be obvious to you. The fact I'm even having this conversation -that you're reading it, your eyes scanning the print- and leaving no comment reflecting indifference to the various injections we've suffered together, I mean it's all the same transfusion right -cuz you know they're using you and you're used to it- and they know it and it's part of a network and *phone rings*

unnecessary tribulations such as a door creaking open behind you when you know you're alone in the house, these things which keep you turning your head to watch the shadow on the floor creep up on you, they are whispers of the blind. A pack of blind forces is bundled up behind you. Stacked up on top of one another to form a rough man shape. You can't tell its there even when you look. Might've mistaken it for the bookcase. How do you know its not your shoelace. This is how everyone learns to wear the how to pretend you don't know face.

A great friend and shaman acquired some perfectly legal salvia divinorum and offered some to me, yesterday. I was led down to the basement chill room of my home. We sat on the comfy bed. I propped up pillows behind me, in the corner, so I could lay back and rest my head. My best friend the urban shaman brought out the mudclay pipe, forged from his friend's back yard in Louisiana. He packed the fingertip formed bowl with 15x salvia. I sat cross-legged on the mattress. He set his iPod to some hemi-semi music, some kind of left/right brain wavelength inducer. After he pushed play I set fire to the bowl and inhaled the smoke. It didn't seem to have an effect--yet again, this being the 2nd time I tried it--(the 1st time, at 6x, to no avail)--so I asked for the pipe back and hit it again, being urged to "keep the flame on it, burn it good" so I kept the flame on it, burning it good and continued with a great inhalation. This one did the trick because after exhaling things started to happen to me. Please bear with me as I attempt to describe what would normally be thought of as inherently impossible. What happened was the walls of my room--the room itself, I should say--thinned away to be replaced by another, different sort of room--one made of palm shoots and leaves, and situated much further south, in the tropical jungles of the Americas somewhere which resembled being alongside the Amazon. Although I could not quite focus visually with exactness on this seperate location, I could sense it directly about me, and it was packed with an urgency for me to immediately "get with the program" as Her Majesty was passing through--it was predominant that I show my respect by getting out of the way of her passage--and the only way to do this was for me to become the walls of the hut itself, as others around me were apparantly adept at doing. In the micro-instants during the imminence of this oncoming Procession, the molecules of my body succumbed to the powerful effects of the salvia, and my body began to stretch like taffy into palm shoots and leaves which smoothed out into the rectilinear architecture of the hut's walls and stilts--with my 'urban ego' rebelling the whole way. In fact, I could not complete the transformation because my individuality rebelled successfully--but not completely. I transformed four-fifths of the way into the wall of the hut itself, just in time to allow Her passage. I got the feeling that my partial transformation was enough, as a token gesture, to show my desperate attempt at cooperation. It must've been purely my instinctive Id that rebelled against it; I don't know, exactly. Because I got the feeling that She was not offended, merely charmed by my confused panic. There was a definite sense that I was a member of a tribe, down there. And that although I fumbled the ball, so to speak--my tribal cohorts patted me on the back afterwards, with laughs and big grins. The strange thing about it was, that the experience began to decay as it was peaking. I was subject to an intermittence, wherein on the one hand, I was distinctly aware of my tribal surrounds and the Procession which demanded I get out of the way by transforming into the wall, and on the other hand, I would come back to my room in the basement with its Phobia and Hellbats posters and mundane arrangements, such as the brass lamp, and the plastered-over concrete walls, and the bed itself upon which I sat. Before my face began pulling taffy-like into palm leaves and braided bamboo shoots, my 'urban self' would become startled out of the transformation, to look around me and attempt saying something--something I was half-aware came out of my mouth resembling foreign syrup more than English words. I could see Greg sitting on the far end of the mattress, looking on with concern, while his own face would momentarily be pulled palm-shootward, and I would look away towards the posters along the wall of my room with a sad sort of longing, and then I'd shudder involuntarily as my own body pulled itself into the architecture of the hut surrounding. There was one moment in which I seemed to have--for a split-second, at least--been fully dipped into the material wall of the hut itself--but I couldn't keep my ego down and my nose, eyes, face, and head would reform themselves out of the flatness as if struggling not to be drowned in it. There was a sense of unrelenting terror which stemmed not from any potential exterior source of attack, but rather, towards the idea that I was supposed to somehow exclude myself from this transaction; I rebelled at the idea that I could "travel to another (part of the) world" only at the price of becoming that world; my sense of individuality and its search for adventure--that is, its selfish quest for further titillation of the senses--simply refused to accept that, in order for me to accomplish such a voyage, I must perforce surrender my eyes to their transubstantiation into wood, into stone--into the surrounding world which I was given the opportunity to visit. I'll never forget how, in order to make way for the Procession, it was necessary for me to become the hut itself in which I squatted. I have learned that my ego holds on extremely tight to this world--this flesh. This existance is not one which I am inclined to let go of. I remember, early on in the salvia trip, that the hemi-semi new age music was just a distraction--it confused me. I removed the headphones abstractedly--that is, barely realizing I was doing so. I could hear the new age piping from the earbuds tossed over on the mattress by the wall. I remember standing up, and yearning to walk over there--toward the light entering the basement from the laundry room--somehow, I sensed that was "the way back" to my normal life. I wanted more than anything to come back. I knew this was going to be a very short trip, but I endured moments of uncertainty as to whether or not it would continue--whether or not I'd be able to return to my normal life. I also simultaneously was quite aware that this would all pass, soon. That it was ok--just go with it. The most intense part--the peak--was when I felt myself 80% transform into a wickerwork wall. It was like I was transforming into a kite or a painting. The sense that my skeletal structure converged with the framework and my skin and flesh stretched into the canvas was very strong. That I did not want to surrender to this transformation was equally strong. That the tribal cohorts on the other end thought it was funny I couldn't handle it, came through as well. Sure enough, before too long, the intermittent sensations--that of being aware I was simultaneously occupying two different spaces--faded, and gradually I was returned to the exclusive domain of my familiar basement room. It was certainly an unexpected experience, and that I naturally rebelled against it almost every step of the way has left me with the feeling I did something wrong, but Greg has assured me there is no wrong you can do, there is just going with the flow. Speaking of flow--yes, there was a definite sense of realigned gravitational pull, or magnetic flux influence against which it was futile to struggle. Greg later told me he saw me bend over at an odd angle, as if in deference to the electromagnetic harmonics. He also said for a bit I was speaking in tongues; I suspect it was my tongue failing to convey simple English. There was a feeling of my having been the polar opposite end of a tube--at whose other end existed my "tribal double". I also got the feeling that my urban shaman Greg temporarily occupied the same psychic space that my double's Shaman occupied, in their own ceremonial location further south in the jungles of the Americas. There was the lingering sense that, my tribal double merged into the wall more easily, but my own ineptitude held him back from being able to completely transform, or something to that effect. Again, there seems to have been no hard feelings that this "westerner" fumbled the transformation sequence. It never occured to me before today, that in order to see or apprehend or know the essence of God--remember, myth has it that we cannot ever see "His face"--that it would become necessary for us to change places, God and I. She and I. Lady Salvia, and I. The forces which define this great Spirit are the elements of our world, such as wind and fire. Such as water and stone. Earth, tree, magma, and rain. The Great Spirit animates all of these--and more. It animates us. But in order for us to even begin to comprehend its stature, its dimension--we must trade places with it. For it to arrive to our town and move down its streets, would require that we each get out of the way. Yet the way is every conceivable nook and cranny--including the sky. The only way by which we can remove ourselves from the way of Its passage, is to transform into the walls and trees themselves. To allow It the room it needs to pass through, we must by definition remove our physical bodies out of the way. We must trade places with Him--Her--see? Once She passes, we may regain our temporal bodies, and we may remember her Procession, and the wake it has left behind. It is in the eddies of this wake that we may see signs of Her having passed through: the ripples in the sand and upon surfaces of water, the leaves strewn along the road. The windswept patterns in fields of wild grass. I remember when the Procession finally passed us by, it was distinctly reminescent of a giant snake passing by. An anaconda larger than the village, sliding in between the grass huts. Yet despite distinctly sensing this passing serpent, I could not get a sighting of it, just the knowing it was passing, and that everyone in the village had surrendured into the framework of the walls to allow its passage. Today I think this spirit is merely serpentine. That is to say, it is not a snake specifically, but rather, has snake-like attributes. Rather like Time, I should think. The way time passes us by in a linear fashion--is most serpent-like. I fancy She is like this, or at least, the hem of her dress must be stitched with Time. I feel as if I participated in a ritual in which we all donned Her clothes in order to allow Her naked passage through our vicinity. Now that I have returned Her garments I'll never look at the wind the same way again. Even if I always somehow knew the bare elements comprised this great Spirit men have vaguely identified as God, I never fully realized how the wind and rain were its scarves and skirt, the mountains and earth its body, and the trees unshaved stubble. I never knew we could trade places like we did. Now that this realization has dawned on me, I feel death is somehow less mysterious, and more like just another part of me. A part I am saving for last.