It’s useful to have one, but you’ll do just fine without it. I live in America where an estimated 76 percent of adults own a car. When I tell people I don’t have a car, I feel a little embarrassed. “Oh, you don’t have a car?” they say, a little surprised. I imagine (correctly or incorrectly) that they’ll think I’m less of an adult because of this. “That’s right, I don’t. I have a driver’s license but have tallied the pros and cons of car ownership and have decided I don’t lik

How feeling our fears while on psychedelics can help us navigate change. As a psilocybin facilitator, I meet many people who feel anxious before and/or during a psilocybin journey. I myself frequently feel varying levels of anxiety before taking psychedelics. Fear is a normal and important part of psychedelic journeywork. Having a big psychedelic experience can be scary because, like life and that box of chocolates, we never know what we’re gonna get. There’ve been times w

Becoming familiar with sushupti or dreamless sleep. Yesterday morning, I did a 15-minute zazen meditation while seated on my zafu on the faux Persian carpet in my living room. I kept my eyes half open (or half closed, same thing) in a soft gaze, resting them at a 45-degree angle and directed towards a point about four feet in front of me. This soft gaze blurred my vision, allowing me to see images hidden in the carpet (like a “Where’s Waldo” puzzle illustration) that I would

All efforts lead to the same end. I had a dream where I was in a sunny living room with all the elders of my family. We were in the middle of a big family gathering and there were children and grandchildren running around. I was performing a magic trick for the elders. I was pulling little child-sized hands out of my adult hands. With each glove-pulling-like motion, specters of mini hands would appear and hover in front of my fingertips. I pulled out hand after little hand ti

An ode to my sister Melissa. Courtesy of Joost Lieuwma I was born in Singapore, where growing up, my family was my whole world. My mom had to work soon after I was born, so for the first two and half years of my life I was raised by my maternal grandma and my dad’s older sister — shuffled back and forth between their respective homes. My mom and dad lived in a rented house and I only visited them on weekends. My sister Melissa was born two months after my third birthday. As a

Learning to communicate better by making it less about “everybody” and more about me. I’m overwhelmed by the amount of content I’m bombarded by daily, so I’ve made a pact with myself to be a part of the solution not the problem. I’m on a mission to say less. But the itch is back. The itch to iron out my thoughts and justify my view of reality publicly. I’ve told myself I won’t publish unless an idea creates enough pressure in my sternum that I have to spew it on a page. I’m f

Stalling and rushing — both aren’t time management issues but emotional regulation deficits. I’m the kind of person who replies to emails and text messages within 24 hours. I want my taxes done months ahead of deadline. You’ll find at least a month’s supply of toilet paper in my apartment at any given time because I’ve planned ahead so I won’t run low. “Why do what can be done today tomorrow?” is my motto. My husband’s line is “It will get done. I don’t have the bandwidth to

Make space for both doubt and possibility in your search for truth. Some days, I’m a believer. I have great faith. I believe in a lot of things that cannot be verified, that cannot be measured, seen, heard or touched – God, ghosts, Kali, Jesus, Kwan Yin, elves (sometimes), ESP, extraterrestrials, remote viewing, baptism, soul quests, clairvoyance, channeling, destiny, etcetera. I see spiritual conviction as a powerful tool that can be used to defend myself against the systemi

The problem isn't technology, it's our relentless pursuit of "harder, better, faster, stronger". Why is the human mind drawn to the Internet like fish to water? Perhaps it’s because the digital world responds so well and too quickly to the mind’s desire for novelty, its craving for constant sensory stimulation, its propensity to engage in endless questioning, its need for answers, and its hankering for perpetual motion. The human mind hates stillness; it loves busyness and be

Making sense of my place in the cosmos. Photo by Daniel Cid I’ve not written an essay since October last year. That’s almost five months — the longest I’ve gone without blogosphere communication. It’s been pretty nice. Not writing has allowed me to cultivate a quieter mind and observe the unremarkable-ness of my own thought life. Yet here I am, indulging myself again. Why? Because my personality — the jumble of signals in my brain that make me believe I am “me” — still needs

Becoming a student of death. Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash A few days before my first ayahuasca ceremony, I had a dream where a voice said, “The storm is coming. The storm is already here.” It was 2022, I’d been alive for 44 years, it was time to get ready. The ceremony turned out to be a clarion call – to begin the process of letting go of childish things; to prepare myself to hold the door open for elder loved ones, and to slowly but surely walk through

When I hurt, I don’t want clever advice, just a little handholding and reassurance that I’ll be OK. Photo by LOGAN WEAVER | @LGNWVR on...

Published in Willamette Week, Sept. 17, 2025, and WW The Daily Primer, Sept. 21, 2025 Click link for story: https://www.wweek.com/news/20...

What feeling blue at dusk can teach us. My mom tells me she sometimes feels bluesy at dusk. “When the sun starts to set and that cool...

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