I struggle with my perception of my addiction.<\/p>\n
Generally speaking, I do not struggle with my addiction. I welcome it, embrace it, depend upon it. I have smoked marijuana every week for most of my adult life, and every day for the past year.<\/p>\n
The Puritan in me thinks I should go through periods of abstinence whenever I notice side effects creeping above a certain level. If I notice my short term memory slipping, or my mornings sluggish, or my irritation levels high, my immediate response is to go into a period of abstinence to correct the effects.<\/p>\n
For a time, this worked well. I would smoke casually, and take a week or a month off when it seemed right, and this kept me in a constant state of recalibration around my balanced center.<\/p>\n
With the seizures, things changed.<\/p>\n
I had an early Kundalini awakening in my mid-twenties. My investigations into meditation and energy exercises opened a door which I was not ready to enter, metaphysically speaking. The seizures would take me at irregular intervals, and I identified stimulants such as coffee, eroticism, and flashing lights as contributors to a state where seizures could enter.<\/p>\n
Marijuana moderated the effects, to such a great deal that I began medicating myself more regularly.<\/p>\n
Three hits from a joint every day; that\u2019s been my dose. I haven\u2019t had a seizure in a long time.<\/p>\n
Marijuana affects me differently than most people. I use it as an appetite suppressant; if I am hungry, and unable to eat, I can smoke and the hunger cravings go away. This is because of my late teenage years, when I lived rather poor and homeless. Even if I didn\u2019t have money for food, I usually had a bit of pot that I could scrape together to make the hunger go away.<\/p>\n
This peculiarity in my own bodily chemistry has led me to consider if marijuana affects me differently in other areas, as well. I still get foggy-headed, happy, and mellow. But I prefer to do things while I am high, whether it is the dishes, or writing, or playing guitar, or, often, exercising. I love to exercise when I am high, and when I was in elite athletic shape, I was a regular smoker.<\/p>\n
Yoga, in particular, stands out as one of my favorite intoxicated activities.<\/p>\n
So, what of magic?<\/p>\n
Every magical text and authority I read is unanimous regarding the perils of mixing drugs or alcohol with ritual work. They all condemn it.<\/p>\n
For a time, when I was in apprenticeship with another mage, I entered a period of sobriety that was longer than I cared to keep.<\/p>\n
My personal life suffered drastically as a result of the inability to properly manage my moods. With three children in a small house, my life is a constant exercise in accommodation, as I drop whatever I have been focusing on to attend to the loudest and most urgent siren calls in the moment they arise.<\/p>\n
Marijuana allows me to allow for this improvisational redirection of my attention. Without it, I get frustrated incrementally every time my focus is taken forcefully away from the object of my attention, and the cumulative effect makes me a bad father.<\/p>\n
So I smoke, to be a better parent.<\/p>\n
And I daresay it makes me a better mage.<\/p>\n
By smoking before a period of ritual work, I enhance my inner perceptions and subtle energy currents. I withdraw from the outside world. I allow.<\/p>\n
This state is not easily come by for one of my temperament, yet with one dose of this drug I can attain this state instantaneously.<\/p>\n
I am calm. I am present. I am whole.<\/p>\n
My investigations into the perils of mixing this drug and magic have borne no fruit. I stay open to the possibility during my inner examinations that there is some unforeseen roadblock in my usage that I have not noticed, but I am unable to find any.<\/p>\n
The Puritan in me thinks I should be heeding this ubiquitous advice, and on any day when I find myself exceptionally tired from a binge, I want to throw myself into abstinence to correct the effects.<\/p>\n
But the symptoms of withdrawal soon creep in, making me an irritable and unlikable father. I take one dose and all is aright again.<\/p>\n
As much as I examine this question (which I will continue to examine throughout my whole life as an addict, to maintain an open and honest relationship with my drug) I continually come to the conclusion that it is better for me to remain an addict, for medicinal, personal, and spiritual reasons.<\/p>\n
I cannot ignore what I am, or pretend I am anything different.<\/p>\n
I am a Marijuana Mage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I struggle with my perception of my addiction. Generally speaking, I do not struggle with my addiction. I welcome it, embrace it, depend upon it. I have smoked marijuana every week for most of my adult life, and every day for the past year. The Puritan in me thinks I should go through periods of … Continue reading “Marijuana Mage”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[15,17],"class_list":["post-194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journaling","category-marijuana","tag-magic","tag-marijuana-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalspellbook.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalspellbook.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalspellbook.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalspellbook.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalspellbook.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitalspellbook.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalspellbook.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalspellbook.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalspellbook.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}