Let’s talk Taylor, deepfake porn, and the queer community

Call me backward, but my true introduction to the term “deepfake porn” came in January with the unsettling news of Taylor Swift becoming a victim of it. She emerged as the focus of what’s called, “image-based abuse” in January, where sexually explicit content is created using AI to realistically superimpose people’s faces onto bodies not their own. I was curious about it and with easy browsing, it didn’t take me long to find the repulsive internet images.

The cultural shift from pills to psychedelics

Take a pill and feel better! As Westerners that’s what we’ve been conditioned to do. No muss, no fuss! Just take the pill and be done with it! Of course, as we know for these “mood managing”medications, the trade-off is side effects. The side effect reported to me most frequently is the narrowing of the whole emotional spectrum.

Are you a ghoster? 

The current trendy phrase for folks not getting back to you is “ghosting.” As in, “We went out a few times, and then they ghosted me.” But let’s not limit it to just dating – it happens in all sorts of relationships, be it professional, family, or friends. You might even be guilty of a little ghosting yourself, yes?

Do you prefer a tumor?

“I never get angry,” says a character in one of Woody Allen’s movies. “I grow a tumor instead.” This is a hilarious line but a poignant reminder how profoundly emotions can affect our human physiological functioning. Yet, as a culture, we generally place our physical well-being over our emotional well-being. We see it all the … Read more

Glimpsers, Microdosing Alchemy & High Flow

Mystical traditions teach that there’s an infinite world inside of us – and the question for our Western minds has always been, “How do I access that infinite Inner world?” Of course most of us know that meditation is the one approach recommended time and time again…

Yogi Bhajan: Toxic, Brilliant, Broken

Yogi Bhajan. I never knew the man, although I did marvel at the brilliant stuff he came up with. He died in 2004 but built a franchise from the ground up called Kundalini Yoga. He was from India and came to America in the midst of the hippie revolution.

It feels vulnerable to tell you this

I was long embarrassed over my painful and difficult upbringing. There was nothing healthy or exceptional about my childhood. My parents divorced when I was very young – about 3. They hated each other and by extension my father was none too fond of me and moved far away and started a new family.