Evolve and Ascend: The End of The Beginning
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” - Soren Kierkegaard
I’ve told this story, my story, countless times on podcasts and in conversations with friends who have asked what led me to pursue this path, but this is the first time it actually feels meaningful to offer as context.
I had my first profound psychedelic experience in 2012, a Terence McKenna-style “Hero’s Dose” of psilocybin as a means of trying to understand whether the world was ending or not. I was working in pop culture, convinced that the Mayan Calendar was a prophecy of an apocalypse, very unhappy, naive, gullible, and, for lack of a better word, lost.
“End, begin, all the same.” - Aughra, The Dark Crystal
When the wave of that heroic dose hit, I literally thought I was going to die and wrestled with the notion of someone having to call my mother to tell her that her daughter died from doing psychedelic drugs. Still, as I struggled through my egoic neuroses, I arrived at a space of acceptance and found myself saying, “ok, well, I guess this is it.”
The irony is that as soon as I surrendered, it felt like the gates of heaven opened, and my life flashed before my eyes and revealed what my soul’s purpose was and that all of my struggles have come from attachments to worry, fear, doubt, and my relationship to death.
My life purpose, according to the drugs, was that “I was put on this planet to be love, and to show other people how to love” and that every death, trauma, and moment I’ve ever experienced was a catalyst to help me understand and fulfill that mission.
I was literally convinced that an angel touched me, tapped into cosmic consciousness and that it all happens for a reason, all of it!
Shortly after that experience, I left my job, left my relationship, spent $3k+ on a trip to Costa Rica to go do ayahuasca in the jungle with Daniel Pinchbeck, and gave Evolver Social Movement $1k to their Kickstarter campaign (I wanted to be a part of a “conscious” community so bad - big mistake), and was so incredibly sure that the universe supported my “Joan of Arc” style mission and that it is all happening for a reason, all of it!
My first experience with ayahuasca was profound, beautiful, ineffable.
I have no regrets about going on that trip, and experiencing everything i experienced.
This includes a deeper understanding of the quote, “If you meet Buddha on the side of the road, kill him.”
I returned from that trip feeling inspired and ready to be the “lightworker” that both psilocybin and ayahuasca affirmed in the astral realms.
I had about 16.68 BTC in MtGox and planned to use that as a nest egg to build a conscious media platform that could share the kind of content that I was interested in learning more about but was also driven by art, imagination, and aesthetics that didn’t fall into the beige veneer/papyrus font/crystal-loving aunt vibe.
ALL OF THESE SYNCHRONICITIES STARTED TO HAPPEN!
I reconnected with some friends that worked for a radio station in New Jersey, and they told me about this AM-tower they were building, and wanted to know if I wanted to invest, and be a part of what they were creating.
I wrote a children’s book on cosmic consciousness, that I was so certain would be like a spiritual version of Muppet Babies, and would change the planet, that I also spent $5k on, because Balboa Press (the self-publishing company I used) promised that this “investment” could put your creation in front of the team at Hay House and land you a real-life publishing deal! Wow! Hay House!
I fell in love and met all the right people that were also affirming this mission.
Then, overnight, I lost everything.
MtGox was hacked, and I had no “Plan B,” no savings, no backup plan.
Just a naive dream and delusional certainty that my plan was guided by the Hand of God.
Perhaps, in some ways, this whole path has been, but my understanding of “God” (whatever that may mean) has evolved into something that can’t be explained within the limits of language.
Despite everything crashing around me and chaos being the agent (not the angel), I didn’t give up and still continued to put my heart and soul into building out the vision for Evolve + Ascend.
I met a lot of great people, people I still work with to this day, who taught me the ins and outs of social media.
I learned a lot, but, truthfully, it was mainly through contrast, and absurdity.
I’ll never forget the first time I spoke at a festival, evolvefest, in the summer of 2014. This festival was proposed as a “dry”, “conscious” festival that offered workshops, talks, art, community, and many, many, many, many drum circles, all supporting our evolution.
This festival describes itself as “~A visionary community of bold souls, kind minds and artistic mystics~We host the East Coast’s #1 Transformational Festival~Art, Music, Spirit and Nature~! The Most HyperCreative, RadicallyResponsible, EthicallyAligned, DeeplyGrounded, HeartCentered, SacredlyAware Transformational Gathering!” Their mission is stated as “Evolvefest exists to jumpstart the MASS AWAKENING of humanity~ so that ALL BEINGS might LOVE AND BE LOVED, that all beings might BE HAPPY AND FREE and so that all beings MAY AWAKEN TO THEIR TRUE NATURE~!”
Source: musicnewsfests.com
When we arrived at the festival, my former partner and I had a good laugh, mainly because one of the first things we witnessed was the founder of the festival, David Bryson, having a mental breakdown because the kombucha machine had run out of ‘booch. Witnessing a grown man having a crisis over kombucha was poetic, to say the least.
Shortly after that memorable experience, we came to find out that David Bryson, a so-called “visionary”, is an anti-semitic, homophobic, racist, neo-nazi, filled with hatred, ignorance and megalomania.
See: PARANOIA ACTIVITY: EVOLVEFEST MELTS AT THE FRINGES
Sadly, revelations like this were the first of many to come.
In the years since I started Evolve + Ascend, I’ve had the grotesque privilege of being able to see behind the curtain (and through the looking glass, if you will) of a lot of figureheads and “thought-leaders” within the “conscious” community, and what has been revealed has been indeed been obscene.
A social media influencer with millions of views on YouTube, an admitted rapist.
Authors, thought-leaders, self-proclaimed visionaries/shamans…master manipulators, and abusers of sex, drugs, and excess.
Mystical girls in a material world that proclaim you can buy the $600 shoes and, like, totally meditate into your highest vibration and alignment with your astrological path and purpose, not wanting to pay for labor and offering “life coaching advice” and “exposure” instead.
Pseudo-shamans, goddesses, hypnotists, period-priestesses, empaths, channelers of the 7th dimension! Malignant narcissists use spiritual bypass as a form of gaslighting to manipulate you into buying their products or giving them stuff for free.
A conscious media “coalition” concept that just degraded into an online d*ck-swinging contest about who is more “enlightened” and “influential.”
Gross levels of unchecked privilege, racism, and entitlement from every angle.
The list, unfortunately, goes on and on, and a greater exploration of finding the “grey area/Goldilocks Zone” will go into a book one day.
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
My intention in sharing all this is not to point fingers and flame all the nonsense but also to take responsibility for my own part in participating, opting in, and getting lost in the rabbit hole as well.
Trauma is the gateway, right?
I got sucked into a “channeling” vortex for almost 2 years, I spent hours of my life on YouTube watching craftfully edited documentaries to spin manipulative narratives of confusion - THE CABAL! THE NEW WORLD ORDER! ANCIENT ALIENS! ZEITGEIST! PSYCHEDELICS! OH MY!
I offered Oracle card readings professionally one summer but quit after a few months because it just didn’t sit right to take money from vulnerable people looking for “the answer.”
I was also a partner in an event series that, while good memories and deep connections did emerge from parts of the experience, directly harmed many people I care deeply about because of my lack of discernment in who I chose to do business with, and, for that, I accept full responsibility for my part in how it all unfolded, and imploded (more on this another time).
”I hope this resonates.”
All major life lessons in boundaries, discernment, and grounding.
In the last 4 years since Trump was elected, we have collectively witnessed the chaos unfold in such high strangeness that it feels as though we are living in a sci-fi movie.
The documentary, Feels Good Man, offers some context and shines a light on how the innocuous can evolve into the obscene without consent.
“When you plant a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme's propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell.” - Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
A meta-narrative that expands beyond Pepe, Chaos Magick, Q-Anon and Trump, but also into spirituality, and religion. Nietzsche once stated that “God is dead”, but I can’t help but feel deeply that “Jesus is a meme.”
“Spirituality” is also its own meme.
A viral permutation of the ineffable that is trying to express the inexplicable into content, and another gross form of capitalism. Ironically, the sacred flower of life merch is just another pyramid scheme, it’s no better than the dead Jesus merchandise you can aquire as you exit through the church gift-shop.
“Apocalypse” can also be translated as “revelation of truth”, and “truth” is both nebulous, and chaotic.
If you had told me in 2012 that “The Great Awakening” would be Neo-Nazi wellness influencers and shamans in support of Trump as the savior, I would have thought I was still in the middle of that heroic dose of psilocybin, you know, the moment I thought I was dying.
2020 was a great revelation of how just how fragile, absurd, chaotic, and nebulous reality is.
It was also a great time to reflect, sober up (literally and metaphorically), recalibrate, and fall in love with the “grey area”, a strange comfort in not-knowing, and being totally ok with that.
“Embracing Tao, you become embraced.
Supple, breathing gently, you become reborn.
Clearing your vision, you become clear.
Nurturing your beloved, you become impartial.
Opening your heart, you become accepted.
Accepting the World, you embrace Tao.
Bearing and nurturing,
Creating but not owning,
Giving without demanding,
Controlling without authority,
This is love.”- Lao Tzu
So, with all of this in mind, and all of this as context, this is where I’ve arrived, and this is where Evolve + Ascend is going, and that is into a space of creativity, imagination, art, community, and inspiration.
Less “spiritual”, more “philosophical.”
Better questions, less answers.
Holding contradiction and opening space for discussion about reconciling paradox.
No toxic New Age narratives about your vibration being to blame for your misfortunes.
More resources.
No clickbait.
More community.
More dialogue.
Less bullsh*t all around.
Honest, authentic, and extremely human.
It was a tough decision to pull the plug on the former website, and all of the blogs we have created and shared over the years, but it is time to clear that mandala away and create space for a new design.
It is so easy to get lost in chasing peak experiences, psychedelic dances, “culture not being your friend” disguised as its own culture, “aware wolves” in sheep’s clothing, and “essential-snake-oil salesmen” trying to peddle their click-funnels into enlightenment.
It is so easy to get lost in the idea of being the central character in a larp-esque storyline that puts you as the hero of some cosmic battle between good and evil, and pushes you to believe that you have to call yourself a shaman, warrior, goddess, starseed, or lightworker in order to feel as though your life (as you are, without any self-congratulating identity badges/costumes) has value.
It is hard to break away from the brainwashing, and programming this toxic “deprogramming” narrative has immersed seekers on the path of trying to understand their purpose as their wallets and hearts bleed into a void of debt and confusion.
Temet Nosce: Know Thyself
And this is where the grey area comes in handy.
The Kybalion states: “All truths are but half-truths, and every truth is half-false…all paradoxes will be reconciled…” which is an intriguing “riddle” to sit with, the notion of knowing and not knowing being two things to hold with care and caution.
To know yourself wholly and entirely is to reconcile the inherent paradox that exists within being a human being, that we are this “soul” inside of a meat suit that has somehow developed a level of consciousness that can recall memory, tell stories, experience romantic love, create art, have spiritual experiences on drugs, and seek patterns in equally beautiful and recreationally paranoiac ways.
There’s nothing wrong with embracing your humanity, your frailty, and the inherent contradictions and hypocrisies that come with that while also wanting to expand your worldview and not feeling completely comfortable with the traditional narrative that you’ve been fed.
But it’s important not to get lost or too attached to any of it.
Nothing is certain except for uncertainty.
Nothing is certain; accept uncertainty.
Here’s to the end of the beginning and ascertaining a sense of uncertainty while also doing our best to be a useful place of comfort through the discomfort of the human experience, embracing the hero’s journey, the Tao of Now, and whatever dreams may come.
