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Okay, it is 10:37 a.m. on Sunday, February 8th, and I have taken a handshake dose of bufo. It’s bringing up so many really painful things that I haven’t known how to talk about. It feels important to locate myself in the context.

I’m a white woman, very British, on beautiful land called Oaxaca, Oaxaca de Juárez, of the Mixtec and the Zapotec beautiful indigenous heritage here that I feel, but still wouldn’t say I have any deep understanding of. But I feel — and I’m deeply grateful for this land, because I can work with bufo here. The gift of this sacred medicine cannot be expressed.

The depth of gratitude that I have to be on this land, in the body that I’m in, carrying the karma that I carry, and the profound lack of understanding of that karma. What it is to be legal in this body, pursuing my soul’s dharma. I feel very grateful that I can legally have bufo on this land. There are many things that are core to my existence as a being, as a woman, as a Cris Beasley, that make me illegal in the country of my birth, in some senses. Perhaps — I don’t want to exaggerate — but perhaps we all have to find the place where we can exist. It is so complex, this net of the Maya, the overriding message.

The reason I recorded today was to say: I am facing — and I believe we all are facing, on some level — the existential terror of realizing we have already woken up.

We are already awake. We are already enlightened beings. We are already fully realized beings.

It’s fucking terrifying. I’m like, oh shit, not only am I awake right now, I’ve been awake for a long time, and I’ve been existing in what it is to be aware 100% of the time of where we are, feeling everything. In certain moments, I wanted to forget, but taking mushrooms makes me more aware. Smoking weed, having edibles makes me more aware. I feel more awake, and there have been some moments where I just wanted a break. I just wanted to be able to forget again for a while. I just wanted to untake the pill of the knowing. Was I red-pilled, or black-pilled, or white-pilled? No — we all watched The Matrix. We’ve been awake for a long time.

We have been awake for a long time, and we’re facing — I’m facing — the existential terror of what it is to realize that I’m not going back to sleep. It’s crushing to witness the amount of pain that’s happening right now. It’s crushing. Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this at all?

The existential terror of this — I’ve never been to the point where I didn’t want to be on the planet anymore, where I wanted to kill myself. I’ve never wanted to kill myself, but I really understand how there are people who experience this much suffering, they just don’t have a way out. They’re awake, and they can’t do anything about it, or at least they don’t remember that they can. I had never touched that place prior to my dark night of the soul.

Lord, bless how self-absorbed I was. I just had never been there. Apologies to all the people who knew me through that period and were like, “She is so shallow.” I was so shallow. Welcome to Enneagram 3 — we’re shallow, and we don’t even know it. We’re trying so hard. Bless us. We’re trying so hard. We have no idea. I had no idea who I was. I’m crying. I gotta wipe away these tears.

I’m just trying to come to grips with this. I’m grateful that I have money in the savings account that’s allowed me to not have to grapple with these questions in the midst of a full-time or even part-time job. I feel so grateful that my soul set me up to be able to do this deep exploration. Apparently, I have some things to share from it, because I’ve had the beautiful luxury of being able to sit and watch a lot of YouTube and listen to a lot of podcasts. I pretty much consume media all day every day. I try to take breaks on Sunday, but I’m not very good at that.

I need more time in nature. I need more play. I need less digital. From noon every day until I go to sleep at 9:30, I’m pretty much either producing content or consuming content. This is a voracious mind that I have. It’s great, it’s lovely, but I’m also having to learn to protect my stillness. It’s hard. It’s hard to feel all of this. It’s really, really hard to be awake during all this, and I’m searching for my way through it.

I’m searching for my connection to the collective, to my expression of superabundance, my journey with money, my journey with visibility, my journey with authenticity, my journey with making music, letting my voice come out. I nearly didn’t publish that last episode — I held back because I was like, “It’s so incoherent. Nobody’s going to be able to follow this.”

I don’t tie things up in a neat bow. I don’t finish my thoughts. I forget to say the most important thing. I forgot to say my mother’s autistic — because some of these things are just hard for me to say still. My mother’s autistic. Pretty sure I’m autistic. My aunt’s autistic. My father not, but my grandfather was — that whole matrilineal line tracing through my grandfather, my mother’s father.

I forget to make the most important points. I forget to say them clearly. I forget to articulate the headline. I bury the lede. I’m dancing the line between: am I just half-assing this? If I have the strength to do it wrong, do I have the strength to do it right? Can I just say the most important thing? A lifetime of half-assing, caught in between a lifetime of perfectionism, just trying to dance that dance. It’s so hard. It’s just so hard right now.

I was in a space not so long ago — a conference, spiritual people — and we didn’t cry together, almost nobody named how hard it is right now, because probably the dam would have burst. I get it. This conference is not slated to be a church service where everybody goes down to the altar and cries and speaks in tongues. That’s kind of what I’m missing. I’m missing that space.

I don’t want it to be a Pentecostal church by any stretch, but I’m missing that space where we can all stand up and say, “It’s really hard right now.” We’re missing that space to cry together, and sing together, and just show up consistently. Some days we cry together. Some days we laugh together. Some days we laugh and cry at the same time together. Trying to make that space — I don’t know how. I don’t see anybody else who has. There are other people who come from the same background that I have, they’re all in the same boat. We’re still missing that community. We’re still missing that space that’s safe.

All right — let’s see if I can tie this one up in a bow. I still crave to hear from you. Several people did reach out via various methods — some texted me on the Substack app, some people emailed me, some people commented — I loved every single one. So if you feel motivated to reach back and say hi, I really appreciate it. I’ve got so much more that I want to do together, but firstly, I just want us to get together and talk. I just want us to talk about it.

With that, hopefully I’ll have the courage to play out on a song. I’m going to do that — or if not, I’m going to put it up on SoundCloud so you can listen to it separately. I don’t have a team yet. I have to do all my own production, it’s driving me crazy. At some point there will be a team — so say my guides — a team helping me do this production work and get the podcasts just a little bit better. I would love to be playing you out on the song I recorded in Los Angeles last week. This is the most my voice has ever come through. I’m singing in light language, picking up the pieces of the Christian church, of the Pentecostal church, the many beautiful gifts of the music, going into altered states of consciousness, and releasing on a deep level. I don’t even fully know what’s going on. I really would like somebody to scan my brain so they can tell me, “Oh, you went into theta brainwave state.” I’ll be like, “Cool.”

I’m going somewhere, and I hope it takes you on a journey as well. So with that, I will say: be good, but not too good.

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