Context & Background:
- Jan 1990: left India for Scotland, age 17.5
- Nov 1990 - Nov 1992: went traveling and working round Europe & Near-East
I then returned to Scotland after having experienced life beyond the reach of schedules and outside the rules. I worked only as much as I needed in order to save money so that I could set off for 'unknown' lands where nobody knew me; this I followed through on and repeated - thumb, rucksack, sleeping-bag, mat and often, no map. But now in early 1993, I was preparing to go to University; it was cold and I was depressed. I hadn't found what I didn't know I was looking for; my former value systems were switching themselves off and there were no replacements, just a void.
I took a week off and hitch-hiked to Amsterdam in Feb 1993. There, by the banks of a canal, smoking some fine weed, the mental clouds parted for a few brief moments of Radiant Sunshine, and the following was expressed on a scrap of paper:
Sublimation of thought into its purest form
Snow and ice covering a complicated world, a cruel world
and eyes frozen too deep to see and understand
Awake to a vision of perspectives
transcending and quiet
No more diffused misunderstandings
just peace and simplicity.
Jumping on a few years...
The poem remained asleep, copied into each new annual diary along with the others (pretty raw stuff). BargeTheYounger went off traveling during summer holidays; then spent a pseudo-academic year away where he followed the Nile and explored the Levant, but his restlessness was never satisfied.
In the Autumn of 1996, I got a tub of magic mushrooms from the fields around St. Andrews, where I was studying. It was my first ever season of mushroom taking and I ended up consuming the majority of them alone in my room, perhaps half-a-dozen sessions over a 6-week period. I didn't really have much idea what I was doing, just went with the flow. I survived I guess!
The flow turned out to shape my one and only masterpiece, as I unashamedly and subjectively consider it to be. I gave the original away to a friend shortly after it was finished, but I did think to make a copy. A high-res scan of a photocopy taken in the mid-late 1990s is therefore all I have to present, so please excuse the poor quality and lack of detail. I've never been able to draw anyway.
I have no recall of how long, how many sessions etc. There was no 'vision', only those mystical sounding words written in Amsterdam. The magic Psilocybin space gave them shape and they drew themselves, albeit with a typo lol. Tell you what, I'd be delighted to give an SBI share to the first person that spots the typo and sez so in the comments :).
Here it is, this message from the young dude - biro or felt-tip black & white, broken into parts and then reassembled in a final composite image. It has only been lately - after turning 40, that I feel myself to have really understood whatever it was that my confused, sad and lonely younger self was channeling (from our Higher Self of course :). This message has been a steadfast ally through difficult times. I draw much hope, comfort and now, even a sense of reality from it.
It paints my inner revolution.
Thanks for reading 🔆
Sublimation
of thought into its
purest form
Snow and ice covering a complicated world, a cruel world
and eyes frozen too deep to see and understand
Awake
to a vision of perspectives
transcending and quiet
No more diffused misunderstandings
just peace and simplicity
