Third Eye Opens

Initiation of consciousness expansion

It entered the room with a whisper
before it ripped through my body with a quiver.

It felt like a ghost, a ghost I felt I was becoming.

I can walk through walls, but there are no walls,
only beautiful open space filled with mysterious songs and words.
No fingers, mouths, or closed mind could ever compose such a tune.

New levels of love for life and interesting thought
flow through me as if a fresh, chilling, glacial river’s cascading waterfall
were pouring through an inner wound.
Healing without pain.

I have moved into another world.
It’s a new world that I love.
And I share this mystical experience with one true companion.

In a brief moment we meet at the gates of this eternal place.
It exists outside the realm of normal human concept or understanding.
So open and so expanded in mind that it can only be real to the unreal.

No worries, but all of the emotions and concerns of this youth
are condensed into a single vast moment of time.

Material things mean nothing to me now.
My best friend, the only being I can relate to in this world, is my only care.

It is impossible to remember what my so called “real life” is like.
A boring after taste of everything familiar dissipates,
and I am forever changed.

Reality of the everyday now seems a long slow death.

To live or to die is the question,
but the correct response is not even provided.
The answer lay deep and from the perspective of your own soul.
But can be seen as vivid and obvious as your true self in a mirror.

If that is so desired,
as the fear of seeing one’s own soul
can make even the most courageous bury their head in the sand.

Winter 1992

This poem was written after my best friend Jeremy and I finally, after a number of attempts, achieved an intense response to the euphoric psychoactive properties of marijuana.

I feel very fortunate to have captured the essence of that initiation into consciousness shifting experiences. It is the first piece I wrote where I felt that writing, and art in general had the power to clarify and deepen my inner understanding of spiritual dimensions. It set the tone for much of my creative journey for the many years to follow. I was 15.

Jeremy is still one of my best friends, and one of the greatest guitar players to ever grace the planet earth.