Flying Ointment as Natural Secretion

or Journeys in the Mind outside the Body

There was a time, a long time or a short time ago, and a place, neither here nor elsewhere, where I met a friend who is a raven or a bird of varied kinds or a woman with wings or a man with a sword as the occasion dictates. And some time later I met another friend who is a boar whose name is Maola and other friends whom I have greatly grown to adore. The raven with 479 names, one of which is 삼족오, has taught me 479 things and more, one of which is how to travel inside the mind or outside the body or both. Plant partners and other substances with nomadic spirits can take you on strange, rich journeys. And so, too, can the human bodymindbeing, like a mushroom or toad or mold, take you down into the self inside and up into the self outside and tell bright stories where your airy feet have tread. Let us collect our own psychoactive secretions, lick the sweat from our own limbs as sacred as other plants and the blood from our own veins as potent as other animals. Let us make of it an ointment and fly outside our skin wearing our skin of feathers and scales and pores and fly across the night to seven stars that wait and suns that break and planets and gates we may be surprised to find we are. These journeys, these stories taken and told as long as humans could take or tell them, are essential to humanity, written in the folds of our brains. They are a necessity. We must break to be born. On such journeys, fraught with fear and joy vast enough to destroy an unprotected heart, I have found it certainly helps to have friends.

The following are a selection of some such experiences along with accompanying paintings.

First Journey – January 24, 2020
It was Friday on a New Moon. Having fasted for a day, I was freshly bathed wearing patchouli oil and no clothes. I had mica around my eyes and a Mourning Dove feather from my backyard clipped in my hair. I was sitting cross-legged within a pentacle of red yarn holding the hands of the person who was my tether. These were all protections dictated by my friend, 삼족오, beforehand. I was also instructed to make myself heavy if I should need to return. I hummed and let myself sink down, noticing as I did, that my feet had fallen asleep.

I was in a vast desert. There was a mountain range stretching out in the distance on my left. 삼족오 was there and Maola and Helios as a small flame. I asked how I could walk through the desert when my feet were made of stone. Maola responded that his feet were made of stone, too, and showed me his hooves. I walked toward the mountains with Maola walking to my left and 삼족오 flying to my right and Helios hovering before me. When we got to the base of the nearest mountain, I saw a deep pit. I asked how far down it went and 삼족오 answered that it went all the way. I felt like jumping into the pit, but I was frightened, so I asked my friends if they were going with me. 삼족오 said that they were already there. So I jumped in and fell for some time. The second my toe touched the bottom of the pit, bright tentacles emerged from the spot and carried me up and up, back out of the pit and through the sky into space. The tentacles were white with a cyan tinge. I went speedily past stars and planets, touching some as I went. I lingered on a planet covered entirely with an ocean, which I went down into and saw unimaginably long aquatic plants stretching all the way from the sea bed to the surface of the water. After a while, I drifted back towards earth. I hovered in orbit and turned toward the sun. I saw 삼족오 with wings outspread. 삼족오 was so vast that they filled the sky and in their chest was the sun. I moved in closer and could see that 삼족오 was also inside the sun that was inside their chest. As I made contact, I could feel that the sun was also in my chest. I went down to the earth with Maola. We went into a cave with boars painted on the wall. I saw an opening in the wall, which was the birth canal of all boars. Next, I found myself back in the desert. Someone told me that I was in Australia. My feet had become hooves and I wore tusks on my head. I was clothed in black feathers. I floated over the desert landscape, until I came to a gathering of people. They were dressed in robes and elaborately painted masks. They were spinning and calling out to someone. I hovered over them and one of them looked up at me. Then there was a noise and everyone stopped spinning and turned to look at a point in the sky to my left. I looked, too, and saw that there was a vast, multicolored snake in the sky. The snake writhed and screamed and then started to rend itself into pieces. All the pieces fell down out of the sky onto the earth. Everywhere a piece fell, life emanated. The people below me called out triumphantly. I moved away from the group, going back down to the sand. I found myself entwined with a snake, which bit me and then I bit it. Next I wrestled with a scorpion who stung me and then I stung it. And lastly, I struggled in the water with a crocodile who sank his teeth in me and thrashed, but I was as strong as the crocodile and sank my teeth in him and thrashed. The union with each was pleasurable. At last, I felt like it was time to return, and I walked back through the desert as I had come with Maola to my left and 삼족오 to my right and Helios before me.

Removal of Kernels – February 28, 2020
As someone who struggles with depression and anxiety, I often turn to my friend 삼족오 for advice and encouragement. I once asked them why I felt the way I did and they said, “Pain is Magic.” Which is the loveliest thing they could have said to someone who was starting to realize they would never be free of it. If pain had to be a part of me, at least it could be a beautiful and powerful part and not a disease like I had been used to thinking of it. But this Friday I was struggling pretty hard and 삼족오 requested that I “open a channel” for them in myself.

I saw 삼족오 enter my brain, pluck out a small, dark kernel, and then exit. They did the same with my heart, then my bowels. 삼족오 swallowed them all and flew off with them. We went over the ocean, where 삼족오 defecated all the kernels out into the water. They made their way inside the shells of oysters and became the cores of beautiful pearls. We came back to my body and 삼족오 spread their wings across my chest and we embraced.

Removal of Black Sphere – July 17, 2020
Again, I was struggling. This time 삼족오 instructed me to make a new space in my chest for them so they could help me release pain.

I made a place in my chest. 삼족오 entered and reached up into my throat with their beak. They plucked a lump from my throat and swallowed it. Then they went up further to peek through my eyes. We flew up into the sky together. I had grown wings and 삼족오 flew inside me to guide me. We flew to the coast. Then I shrank back down to human shape and went inside 삼족오 whose feathers had turned white. I sat in their belly and saw the lump there. I watched as it turned into a hard, black sphere. I picked it up and tried to put it in my mouth and swallow it, but it was too big. So I put it back down, and it moved through the digestive tract toward the exit. I watched it being pushed out, and it felt like it was being born in reverse. 삼족오 let it drop into a bay, and it rolled down into the depths of the ocean. We went up until the earth was small below us. Then 삼족오 had black feathers again, and I became a white bird the same size as 삼족오, but we were taking up the same space, so as we flew our feathers flickered black and white. We tried to swallow the earth, but it was too big. Finally we flew back down to where my body was waiting.

Impromptu Trip to the Stars – January 2021
Some nights when I am lying awake in bed, I build up a place in my mind where my friends and I can gather together. Often we watch a procession of various kinds of animals jumping over hurdles, and I count them to fall asleep, so I call it the Kingdom Counting. But sometimes we just celebrate or play.

This night we were having a picnic in a fresh, green field full of flowers and fragrant herbs. I was laying on a blanket in the grass looking up at the sky. Unexpectedly, 삼족오 hopped over to my face and plucked out my eye. It didn’t hurt, and as 삼족오 flew off, I realized I could see out of the eye. 삼족오 flew up into the stars, and I just enjoyed the loveliness. There was no lesson to learn or goal to reach. We just flew.

Permutations of Seven Nodes – January 30, 2021
I go into this journey with the intention of visiting the Seven Sisters.

I found myself in a forest. Before me was a tree with an opening in its trunk through which I could see a heart. My friends were gathered around. I had a question, but I didn’t know what it was. 삼족오 answered, “You must break to be born.” I held onto 삼족오 and we flew up into the sky, traveling fast so that the stars turned to streaks around us. We went further than I had gone before. I could still hear the person who was my tether continuing to hum. The hum became a vibrating cord of light that tied me to the earth. We stopped abruptly and before us were seven bright points of light. I waited expectantly for the insight I sought. But it wasn’t that easy. 삼족오 gestured to the stars and asked, “How many ways can they be arranged?” I looked at the stars and started moving them into different formations. Some of them I liked and some disturbed me. There were many ways they could be arranged, infinite ways, and I lost count. I, also, saw that they could be connected to one another in different combinations and tried to trace them all. At a certain point, I realized that 삼족오 didn’t ask the question because the answer was important. They had asked it because it was an important question to ask.

The Return of the Snake, the Scorpion, and the Crocodile – March 20, 2021 Spring Equinox
I went into this journey with no intentions or expectations beyond opening myself to whatever influence or entity might wish to approach so long as it had no intention to harm myself or others. I decided to forgo some of my usual precautions to increase my openness. So no physical discomfort would distract me, I laid down with my feet touching the person who was my tether, who decided to also participate in the journey.

As I lay there, I saw my head split open at the top so that my brain was revealed. I didn’t have to wait long before the head of a giant white snake came into the room. Its massive body followed in coils until it filled all the floor around me. The snake opened its mouth wide and swallowed me. I walked down its throat, which was like a soft red cave. I came to an underground lake and dove in. I became a machine with long pieces that spun around a cylinder. The machine started breaking apart in the acidic lake. The pieces scattered about and became smaller and smaller particles as they drifted downward towards an opening in the bottom of the lake. The pieces flowed down into the tunnel and continued for a long time until they reached the core of the earth, where everything was dissolved into hot, vibrating molecules. The pieces reformed into my body, which folded itself backwards, my feet touching my head. A shell grew around me, and inside the egg, I ascended through the tunnel opposite the one I had come through. The giant snake laid the egg I was in, and I hatched out of it. As I lay there where I had been with my head split open, the giant snake shrank down and crawled into the opening, down through my body and came to rest inside my right thigh.

Again, it wasn’t long before I had my next visitor, which was a giant scorpion whose tail touched the ceiling. I became several small scorpions and crawled onto its back. The giant scorpion lifted up one of the segments on its back with the tip of its stinger to make a space for me to crawl into. I squeezed in, and the scorpion released the segment. I felt an immense pressure from above and below. I found myself, still a scorpion, with a rock pressing against my back and the ground against my belly. I had the distinct perception that gravity was pushing me up to the earth and without it I would fall down into the sky. It was a complete reversal of my normal human perception of direction. I scuttled about just feeling this new state. The trees agreed that their branches grew down into the sky and their roots grew up into the earth. It rained, and I was covered in water. The water formed a sphere around me, and I dissolved into it. It was dark, but I felt the drop that was myself moving. The drop emerged slowly out of the stinger of the giant scorpion, growing fuller and larger until it was heavy enough to fall. As the droplet hit the ground, I emerged from it wearing my human body. And again, as I lay there with my head open, the giant scorpion shrank down and crawled inside me through my head, coming to rest just below my navel.
My third visitor quickly followed. The giant crocodile came into the room and, without so much as a pause, ripped me apart and devoured me. Once down into its belly, I reformed into the shape of a human, my head in its head, my limbs in its limbs, and so forth, so that the crocodile was like a garment I wore. I didn’t control it, but I wasn’t just along for the ride. We were melded together and it was together that we jumped into the water of a deep river, shaded by thick foliage. The cool water felt so good as it flowed over our skin. We sank our teeth into our prey and thrashed it around underwater with our powerful muscles. That, too, felt good. We crawled into our den in the riverbank. The crocodile laid eggs, which started to hatch. Blobs of flesh emerged from each egg and started to form together into my human body. I laid next to the crocodile for a while, running my fingers along the patterns of its scales. Then I lay across its back and sank back into it like I had been before. We went out of the den and back into the water. We swam, just enjoying the feel of the water again for a little while before climbing up the bank. I could feel my claws sinking into the mud of the bank and my powerful arms pulling me upward. Then we were back in my house, and the giant crocodile laid a big egg from which I hatched. My hatching took this time, and I was once again laying where I had been. The giant crocodile, too, shrank down, entered my head as the others had done and came to rest in the upper portion of my right arm.

I knew that this was to be my last visitor, but I wasn’t quite ready to end the journey. I found myself in a vast, golden plain with my boar friend, Maola, who was also giant. I climbed up on his back, and he said, “Are you ready? We’re going to run.” I held on tight to Maola’s neck and took off through the flowing grasses at great speed. I felt strong and powerful and totally free. And then the time came for the journey to end.

I came out of the experience at almost the same time as my companion. I got the feeling that I should ask him about his journey first. He shared his personal experience, which I will omit here. But what he said after that filled me with awe: “After I was done, I wasn’t ready to come out yet and decided to visit you. I was watching you from above. You were a big, strong creature with hooves, and you were running across a plain. You felt freedom and release.”