In any large project or life event that takes a lot of your internal resources to achieve or complete, your spirit gets wrapped up in the details, nuances, and dramas involved. I like to make a point of calling my spirit back to my body after these events. It is hard to do the next thing or even live your daily life without your full spirit in your body. If your creative work is going to evolve, you need to call your spirit back to reflect, integrate, and refocus before your next project.
I know I probably just lost some of you there, so let me explain through a story.
A few weeks ago, I was preparing to load into the California Academy of Sciences for the premiere of my new work ‘Cross-Pollination’. Preparing for a premiere is really nerve-wracking. You have never done most of what you are attempting to do. I always tend to be understaffed and overworked, and involved in a 24/7 mental meditation about what could go wrong and how to fix it before it does. I wake up in the middle of the night worried and come up with solutions that are actually crucial. This painful, exhausting period is truly necessary.
It takes me years to develop the ideas that result in a premiere. I designed this particular sculpture during Shelter-in-Place in 2020. Then I had to refine the design, get the 3D drawings done, write the grants to fund the fabrication, find the fabricator, negotiate the terms and the compromises with the fabricator, then line up the venue, raise the grant money to pay the performers, hold auditions, line up collaborators, organize a composer/musician, figure out agreements and travel plans, and contract everyone and everybody. Documentation, costumes, transport, sculpture repairs, etc. And this is all besides the art part - the choreography and direction of the work. And then you add in my educational program and the other choreographer creating a dance on the sculpture and you have something quite insane happening in my brain.
When all is done and the shows have all been performed, the sculpture, costumes, flooring, and random items have been loaded out - it takes time for me to recover. It can take weeks. I still have to finish paying everyone and organizing the documentation, but I spend some time on home projects as well. This is all part of calling my spirit back. I became present in my home again. I organize drawers - rearrange furniture - get rid of things we don’t use - clean. I get more present with my kids again. I may even begin to work out again.
Regardless of how successful the project was, I need to call my spirit back to my body or else I feel empty and depressed. Because, guess what? Until I call my spirit back - I am empty.
Sometimes we need to reach, extend, and push beyond our known boundaries. It is not only okay to do this at times - it is good. But then afterward, you will have many hard days if you don’t call your spirit back to yourself.
In the psychedelic journey, the most crucial period is after the psychedelic experience. Initially, there is the coming back to oneself on the day of the journey after your spirit becomes untethered. And then there is the long integration for the weeks following when you can call your spirit back to you and see how it sits in your new perspective, your fresh consciousness with new boundaries and awareness, where the edges are possibly in a different place. The right guide can help you call your spirit back to your body, to your life.