I picked it up again.

I started writing again… I really haven’t written anything in the last few months. I’ve been working on a book, the book about champagne and drowning that I sent you a while ago. Here is a bit of another chapter.  I’ve been working on it….. what do you think?

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When you get high on ecstasy for the first time it is unlike anything you have ever experienced.  It is the best, greatest, most colorful, most heart opening and awe inspiring event ever.  Then, every time after that first time, you are always chasing that moment.  Begging for that peak that was as good as the first, but it is never enough.  Never far enough, just not quite there.

That is what it is like to kiss the Mistress of Death.  The first taste is ecstatic.  The first taste commands respect. But not just the attitude of respect, it commands respect at a cellular level, calling attention to the very core and essence of self.  You see, this Mistress of Death speaks to a part of you that nothing else touches. The part that is hidden and soft and vulnerable.  The mistress seduces herself past your walls and blocks and sarcasm and snark and speaks to your soul. And guess what….. Your soul responds.  It responds in a way that is almost unworldly.  Your soul desires this Mistress, like ecstasy, knows the darkness of death intimately and desires to dance and dance and dance again.

They say, and for the record, I have no idea who ‘they’ are, but will continue to refer to ‘them’ like some faceless-nameless-know-it-all-collection-of-people like God, but different.  Anyway, THEY say, one of the ways in which to reach enlightenment is to be aware of every single breath you take in.

Breath.

Air.

God.

Ecstasy.

God is a long way away from the Mistress of Death. God is a long way away when you are high on ecstasy.  God is a long way away when years upon endless years are riddled with night-terrors, insomnia, anxiety and panic attacks.  God is really not the first person you think of when you are standing behind a counter and a customer comes up to ask a simple question you are hit with a panic attack, instantly covered in sweat, shaking and looking for the nearest garbage can to puke into.   God doesn’t feel any closer when you are all alone in a small one bedroom apartment for days and days on end because of the downright fear of opening the door and being around other people.

And they say, in those moments, the moments you are panicky and desperate and  losing focus, THEY say, it is because you aren’t breathing. THEY say it is because you aren’t connected to God or the Universe

They say; The more you focus on your breath, the more you let go of everything else. Everything else which clutters up your mind and makes it race and race and race around in circles like an OCD Nascar race.

So, I gave up ecstasy. Gave up booze and men and drugs and sought ecstasy through enlightenment.

Ecstasy through Enlightenment.

Chased some ecstatic celebration and merging with God and the Universe in a natural, meditative, unassisted way.

Enlightenment.

So they say.

With Breath.