Emerald

I'm sure that's true. I have a really good friend who grew up in a small Mormon town in Canada where everyone was Mormon. And his family has been Mormon since the 1800s. He never indicated anything like that specifically that he personally knew of. But he knows someone who struggles with a pretty debilitating sex addiction and cheats on his wife with a bunch of prostitutes very frequently. And he goes through this cycle of feeling holier than thou and finally in control of his sexual urges and he judges people for their normal sexual urges... only to fall into a sex binge shame cycle. And the shame is that he doesn't recognize that the purity-focused holier than thou phase of the cycle just sets up the bowling pins to be knocked down during the sex binge phase of the cycle.

There's no in between... It's either watching soft-core missionary with a guilty conscience through the slats in their fingers. OR Hardcore sex dungeon with donkey decapitation play.

I once saw that the place in the US with the highest porn consumption rate is Utah... with double the rate of porn consumption compared to the rest of the country. And Utah is full of hyper-traditional Mormons that believe as a part of their scripture that premarital sex is the second worst sin there is... only coming in second to murder. So, my guess would be that traditionally conservative areas with strongly held and deeply socially enforced religious values that prohibit sex and lust would have the highest rates of porn consumption.

Well, that just sounds like a recipe for the worst yeast infection EVER.

You're welcome. There's a lot in the Feminine spiritual path, and God has specifically reflected to me in my journeys that the reason I'm female in the first place is because I preferred this path... which is quite similar to what Ken Wilbur was saying in the quote you had up previously. The way I would characterize the more Masculine path (which I've also had some experience with, but I don't prefer it) is the realization of nothingness as a result of ego death. While the Feminine path is the Earthly path... and is about finding meaning and beauty through embracing limitations and dualities. In my Ayahuasca experience back in 2020 right at the beginning of the pandemic, I came in with the question "Should I continue to seek enlightenment or should I double down into my human perspective as Emerald?" And this had been something nagging at me at the time. And so, when I took the Ayahuasca, I began to die. And there was this wave of death coming in to annihilate me. And there was nothing I could do. So, I surrendered to it... and I kept working to surrender and surrender and surrender. And I even had to surrender to the fact that there were parts of me that couldn't surrender. And then, there was pure nothingness and pure consciousness. And the consciousness recognized the enlightened state, but there was no Emerald to experience it. Emerald and the entire world had blown away like dust in the wind... and obvious illusion. Then, from that nothingness the everythingness began to arise. And the consciousness that typically sits behind my eyes experienced itself as the infinite God mind and infinite God heart. And my consciousness was in the perspective of the Divine Masculine... love and knowing all forever and ever and eternity all in one instant. And my consciousness was grieving all griefs and suffering all sufferings in this infinite nothingness where everythingness arises. But then, the point of consciousness that typically sits behind my eyes couldn't tolerate the infinite suffering. And the point of consciousnesss that sits behind my eyes went from an infinite oneness and split into to a twoness. And there was God consciousness and a slightly split off fractured God consciousness. And the whole God consciousness would wrap itself around everything and this fractured God consciousness and alleviate all the sufferings. And the point of consciousness that typically sits behind my eyes would feel relieved... only to have infinite suffering re-arise and to be back to grieving all griefs and suffering all sufferings. And this cycle of suffering as semi-fractured God consciousness went on and on and on for an eternity, until the point of consciousness that sits behind my eyes surrendered and conceded that it could not be with the infinite suffering any longer. So, God... out of mercy towards itself... split this part of itself off completely to give it mercy from the infinite by embodying it in a finite form. And then, after an eternity of death, the Emerald illusion was re-spun. And I was born again in the same moment of death from an eternity before when the medicine journey first began. And I now understood why I decided to come into this life in the first place... as God's vacation from the infinite. But I was like Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings when he forgot his name after an eternity outside of space/time. And it was difficult to get re-grounded as Emerald. And then, after I came back into form I had to struggle to keep my consciousness grounded to my body as the Ayahuasca was still in effect. And I fought and fought and fought in a process that felt a little like death, a little like sex, and a little like childbirth. And then after this struggle, I gave birth to the new world. (Note: This was the first week the pandemic lockdowns began and that was evidently related to this new world.) And God consciousness (now separate) was sharing with me that my life's purpose is mercy... and that my reason for being incarnate is mercy through limitation of suffering. And that I can also, act as an intermediary in my life to help other human beings experience mercy. And it had gifted me with capacities and experiences of trauma and suffering for doing that... just because I wanted to be able to play that role. The thing is... hen you're incarnate, you have one lifetime of suffering and joy. And you can have meaning and there's beauty to it. And you have the choice to choose joy in your life. And it answered my question, and it was clear to me that I much prefer the Feminine embodiment path and not the Masculine transcendent path. And in this path, you get to be like the precious gem of God... living separately from it and acting as its beloved as it gives you gifts and you receive them. And because of past traumas, I had grown up with a lot of resistance to the Feminine and had held a lot of esoterically patriarchal values. But it showed me that it had made me female for a reason, and affirmed to me that my path is a more Feminine path. And I looked down at my nails (I had gotten fake nails with French tips earlier that week, so they looked more Feminine than usual), and as I looked down at my arms and hands... I recognized myself being cradled by the arms of the goddess. And I was both the goddess and the child of the goddess. But the entire universe was the arms and hands of the goddess... which were also my own arms and hands. Then, after a while, I was just the ordinary human Emerald again and I grieved intensely and was crying. But the whole next day I was very alone. There were only 8 people at the ceremony (there's usually 80 at these ceremonies), and everyone was sequestered away from each other because it was the first week of the pandemic. And I was all by myself and there was this small subtle translucent white contoured sacred geometry shape (like a circle inside a triangle inside a square) that hung around all day in my upper vision. And it felt like the barrier between myself and the infinite was ripped, and all the infinite was coming through this small rip in my consciousness. And I was afraid of getting sick from Covid, so I tried not to connect with others and stay alone. And I kept taking a bunch of showers to try to ground myself. But it was like my consciousness was running away from my body. And all of my trauma wounds had been opened. And everything felt WAY too holy and pure. And it was clear to me why there are folktales about demons not being able to exist on hallowed ground. Experiencing too much purity and holiness is like an intense heat that starts to melt away all barriers. And because of this feeling of dissolution, I finally caved and decided to go connect with other people at the retreat because I felt like I was going to go crazy if I didn't. And I did feel quite a bit more grounded once I did. But the BEST feeling, when my husband picked me up from the retreat on the final day, was that we got out to the highway. And there was the mercy of honking horns, traffic Jams, and my husband's road rage. And I was immersed back into the world of profanity and imperfection. And it was such a relief from the intensity of the holiness and purity. But when I was at the Ayahuasca church, for the couple days after my ceremony it was like the whole place felt like it was existing on some holier plane that I couldn't exist comfortably on as it was driving all of my traumas and separations to the surface and breaking them down... and pulling me away from my state of separation from God and drawing me in closer to disintegration and death... like Icarus flying too close to the sun. And once I was back in the world of forms, it was like the moon came out again and gave me some mercy from the sun. And connecting with other people is a great way to get you back grounded into the world of form.

I'm not so sure about that assumption. Having gone to 5 different medicine ceremonies, there are plenty of women seeking ego death and ego transcendence experiences for their own sake. But most men and women seek these experiences to heal deeper traumas. I definitely sought the medicine first out of pure curiosity (back 15 years ago) and in recent years mostly in order to heal underlying individual, generational, and collective worldly traumas and to connect with God. And each time I've ever done a psychedelic, I realize myself as God. That's true with all 7 Aya journeys I've taken, and my mushroom journey. Though, all of these God realizations are there just to enrich my experience in this lifetime. It shows me that I'm the other side of its face and the value of the Feminine worldliness from its perspective, so that I can embrace the value of the world of the forms in a world whose religious practices of the past 5000 years have been very patriarchal and in opposition to the material (maternal) world. And there's a lot of immersion into a goddess-like state where I recognize myself as Mother Nature itself, and there is this sense that my relationship with my body and humanity's relationship with Earth are one and the same. And it shows me how my individual neuroses both reflect and cause world-wide issues. And in my embodiment as the great mother, I have done work on giving birthing a new Earth in my journeys. But I wouldn't feel comfortable or safe doing a psychedelic alone as I need someone and something to anchor back into to bring myself back to my limited Earthly ordinary perspective. So, I wouldn't do something like that by myself as that would be overwhelming. But a huge theme within these journeys is recognizing and integrating Yin values like worldliness, limitation, suffering, illusion, and death.

I haven't done many psychedelics as I don't much like to be in altered states of consciousness. Ayahuasca is really the only medicine that I've developed a relationship with, which I've been doing once per year for the past 5 years. I did try psilocyben once and got a lot out of it, but preferred the Ayahuasca.

That seems to be true, in my experience.

What freedoms would you hope to take away from religious individuals?

There's literally only like 3 women who frequent this forum... and 4 whenever I pop in for a month like once a year when I feel a craving for getting into intellectual arguments with other people who like to get into intellectual arguments. That's not exactly a great sample size to come to that conclusion. It might be a medicine that more men are attracted to, but you wouldn't be able to tell that by surveying the very few women that attend this 'you-know-what' fest.

It seems to me that your issue is more akin to sexual repression and sexual shame... which actually amplifies desperation for sex. This is why the people and cultures who are the most sexually repressive have the MOST sexual dysfunctions and kinks. It's not healthy. You must come to accept that you are a sexual being and that your sexual urges are normal. Otherwise, it's the same thing that happens to people with eating disorders who get into binge and restrict cycles. When a person has eating related shame, it gets in the way of their natural primal instincts to eat to the point of satiety to the point where they restrict themselves and then end up in a huge binge. The same thing happens with the sexual instinct. The more you repress your primal sexual instincts and shame yourself for them... and starve yourself of what is normal, the more insatiable your craving will be. You will become obsessed with sex, like someone with a binge and restrict eating disorder becomes obsessed with food. So, try to get comfortable with your sexuality and stop resisting it. Then, you'll be able to make more sovereign decisions about whether you want to have sex or not.

Yes, in the betting markets. They were always close and Trump pulled ahead by a few points after a couple weeks in August with Kamala being tied or one point favored.

On your last question, we already have rules and standards that prevent pedophiles who haven't committed crimes from going to prison. We don't have thought crime on the books... nor does someone go to jail for feelings. But with regard to you asking about sources, you're not using any either... precisely because there are none about this topic. But it is evident if you really understand the Overton Window of society is because you can see that the collective paradigm isn't ripe for combining the notion of compassion and justice with regard to people that the populace associates with crimes against children (even if many of these individuals haven't committed crimes). And the Veganism thing doesn't work as a comparison because there isn't a strong taboo against Veganism. The most it gets is an eye-roll and a heated argument about why they call plant based milk, milk. That said, I do agree that demonization of pedophiles isn't ideal because then we can't identify root causes and address them. Slapping the label of evil and irredeemable on a group means that we can't solve anything. But if you look at that average person, it should be quite obvious that this topic is pretty green on the vine and isn't ready to be parsed and reckoned with in an intelligent way. And all things unfold when they're meant to unfold. And we have plenty of taboos that are not harm related in the eyes of the general populace that are in the process of being parsed and de-tabooified. We don't need to rush any of this.

Don't worry. Give it another 30 years and it will become part of the discourse.

Thank you!

Back in early August or thereabouts I saw that she was up like 1 point on him for a couple weeks. So, that's not true. But this is the first time she's pulled way ahead of him.

You're over-estimating the general populace's cognitive and moral development... and their ability to hold space for seemingly dichotomous notions like compassion and justice. All things arise for ideological reconsideration in the time they're meant to be unpacked. And taboos stick around until society develops enough to parse those topics in a more mature way and the taboo becomes obsolete. That's the nature of human societal development. A taboo is like a cast that we keep on until the bone mends. And we can't take the cast off prematurely and get good results. And that's true even if it is at the expense of people who haven't committed a crime. And innocents have always been casualties of humanity's lack of cognitive and ethical development. It sucks, but it is what it is, until we collectively transcend to higher levels of ethical development. Plus, there are SO many other taboos and former taboos that are "ripe" right now for 'anti-tabooification' that we must focus on collectively... things like having kids out of wedlock, co-habitation, divorce, the LGBTQ community, choosing to have few children, choosing to have no children, miscegenation, multi-ethnic societies, female autonomy, birth control, polyamory, swinging, immigration, drug addiction, psychedelic therapy, choosing one's own marriage partner, sex work, withholding cruel and unusual punishment for criminals, and various other breaks from traditional norms that were once considered taboo by the general populace. These things couldn't be integrated into the Stage Blue societal structure because of the level of ideological and technological development and the adaptations necessary to make those kinds of societies run. Acceptance of these things and removing these taboos in a solid blue culture is like trying to jam a cd into a cassette player. It just doesn't work. But in the current state of Stage Orange society, we do have the ability to integrate all of those things without it getting in the way of how the societal technology runs. But there are still huge swaths of the population that struggle to integrate these things because they are not morally developed enough to move past absolutist thinking... and more towards an ethics that's more around the idea "If it doesn't inflict harm on another person. We can accept it." But someone who has developed their level of moral development to "If it doesn't inflict harm on another person. We can accept it." still won't be able to parse how to orient to people who have a taboo that is associated with the harm of the vulnerable... even if they've never committed a crime. And they will still have the punishment-mindedness of the previous level of development... only geared specifically to those causing harm (or are associated with causing harm) and not towards people who engage in taboos that are "unusual/uncommon" but not harmful.

First off, harm to pedophiles won't ever outweigh harm to children because children are in a far more powerless position. And issues that impact children are wise to give a greater weight to compared to issues that impact adults because children are in a very vulnerable state. But overall, I think you're over-estimating the level of moral/ethical development that humanity has, at present. We're still operating off of a rewards and punishments paradigm, and we haven't collectively transcended that idea. So, we haven't realized the paradigm of justice in its highest form... which is about serving everyone, including the criminal. And ultimately, stopping a criminal from committing crimes and helping them get into alignment with the law is the best way to serve them. And because humanity hasn't developed enough paradigmatically, humanity at large doesn't collectively know how to parse this subject without putting vulnerable children in harm's way. So, they can currently only hit it with a hammer and punish it. Taboos serve this very function. They are a kind of societal technology for beating back what we're not yet developed enough (technologically, ideologically, or otherwise) to parse or integrate in a nuanced way that doesn't cause harm. And we would need to develop collectively in terms of our outlook on justice, ethics, compassion, and so many other ideological frameworks before we even begin to have this conversation about exercising that kind of collective compassion towards pedophiles in a way that doesn't blur boundary lines and normalize things that shouldn't be normalized.

I don't think society is at a point where exercising compassion towards pedophiles and (in turn) addressing root causes and getting them the proper mental health treatments would lead to anything other than pedophilia apologism in a sizable minority of the general populace that is too polarized towards mercy. And the outcomes for children would likely be worse... at this juncture in time. To safely shift the collective paradigm this way in a way that doesn't enable pedophilia, you would have to first have a society that is able to discern and differentiate between compassionate root-cause problem-solving and enabling... which doesn't seem to be the case right now. We're collectively still at the "Hit evil in the head with a hammer" phase of development. And adding these nuances would just confuse a lot of people. Basically... don't try to give 2nd graders, college level mathematics. People already struggle with simpler integrations between universal compassion and justice/laws/boundaries/ethics. So, we'd have to begin there. I think if current society tried to take away the demonization and taboos from pedophilia in order to get pedophiles better mental health help, it would just erode the societal boundary lines and end up inadvertently normalizing pedophilia. The thing is that taboos serve a function. They help us push away what is bad for society before we have the ability to approach a problem or aberration from a deeper more integrated root-cause perspective. And currently, the taboo towards pedophilia is serving an important function. Keep in mind that we're a pretty barbaric species, and probably like 10% or more of people are pedophiles. And if pedophilia is approached with compassion in a way that is enabling from a large enough portion of the population, you'd probably have that 10% get more emboldened as fewer people would be on guard for it. So, I don't think this is an actionable or good idea at this juncture in time as we'd have to develop ourselves collectively a lot more to intelligently address this issue in a way beyond the overt punishment and shaming.

You should let your feelings and intuitions guide your decision making on this. I wouldn't give a guy a chance that I didn't have romantic feelings for because that's my inner compass showing me who I'm interested in and who I'm not. Why should you give a girl you feel nothing for a chance?

Thank you! I'm glad that my Ayahuasca journey report was moving to you.

I clicked on it earlier today, and I was confused at first... before it hit me and I realized that it is actually me who is the shittiest man alive.

Despite some plants having anti-nutrients, there doesn't seem to be evidence suggesting the those who eat plant based diets are deficient in nutrients. Though I'm open to any reputable sources and studies that suggest nutrient deficiencies. But if that were the case, I don't know if the WHO would give plant-based diets their seal of approval as they have if Vegan diets were frequently nutrient deficient. But the meta-analysis (with over 11,000 studies considered and cross-referenced) shows that consuming meat is correlated with a higher risk of all-cause mortality compared to those who eat a plant-based diet. And that same result keeps being repeated in newer studies as well. And even diets that minimize animal product consumption, like the Mediterranean diet, tend to be associated with more longevity. So, given that there's 11,000+ studies considered in this meta-analysis, I don't see how you can discount ALL of the findings of these studies out of hand. I suppose the main thing that we disagree on is that you tend to look at more anecdotal personal evidence like how you feel to determine the health of a diet. And you trust that if meat makes you feel good now, that it is good for you. And you don't trust the current scientific research, despite how much of it there is. But I tend to look at the studies and meta-analyses (which are conglomerations of a variety of studies) as a better litmus test for health outcomes longevity. And if we disagree on the underlying principle that the scientific consensus is more accurate than personal anecdotes, then we simply aren't going to agree. Also the reality is that, even if you did hypothetically find that Vegans were generally deficient in some nutrients (which there isn't evidence of to my knowledge), the plant diet is associated with fewer instances of high ldl cholesterol, heart disease, stroke, atherosclerosis, etc. And heart disease is the number one cause of death in America. But nutrient deficiency isn't a common cause of death at all as long as you're getting enough calories. So, if you're looking for a long life... a whole food plant-based diet seems to be your best best based off of the current scientific literature. But there's a possibility that eating lots of red meat could make you stronger in the short term (which I don't know if that's been studied or not), but might shave some years or decades off your life. So, if that's the case... and you're here for a good time, rather than a long time... that's a decision someone could make to sacrifice the length of their life for how they feel in the short term eating red meat. But I want to make it to 100! So, I'll stay away from the meat. Now, in terms of your question about fat sources... when I actually focus on health and eat a Whole Food Plant Based diet, I tend to have Walnuts as my go-to for Omega-3s and Omega-6s because I only have to eat a handful to give me enough to meet my needs for both of these nutrients. But I also do flax seeds, hemp seeds, or chia seeds sometimes though those don't have a ton of Omega-6.

It's not that most of the people here are condoning an assassination attempt. Obviously, it's important to condemn political violence of all sorts because it sets a bad precedent to normalize it. It's just that it isn't surprising that Donald Trump would be the target of one (or more) assassination attempts because he is a politician the sews chaos and engages in telling lots of Fascistic falsehoods that put vulnerable people in harm's way... and he is a genuine threat to democracy. And there's a lot of fear around him getting back into power because of his indications of a desire to become a dictator. So, of course some crazies might try to be vigilantes and take the law into their own hands. But it's quite silly for people on the right to point fingers at the left and accuse the left of being responsible for the assignation attempts against him by pointing out his dictatorial behavior. Really... the answer is that crazies will be crazies. But there are reasons why this is happening multiple times to Trump in particular when it doesn't happen that often to other politicians... and that is a direct reflection of the way he has shown up on the world stage over the past 9 years.

Do you have peer-reviewed sources that back up any of these claims around lack of bio-availability of nutrients in plants to the point where you must supplement all these nutrients on a Vegan diet? Or are these just things you've heard from people advocating for a keto or carnivore diet? And do you have any reputable sources that reflect the bias in ALL the nutrition tracking apps? Or is that just a way that keto and carnivore influencers tend to explain away the nutritional gaps on these diets? I'm asking because it sounds like these are pieces of information deliberately crafted and selected as counter-points to nullify and explain away all the scientific studies that show positive results for plant-based diets health-wise. Also, it isn't difficult to get all the nutrients you need (except b-12) on a whole food plant-based diet... and the WHO even states that people at any phase of life can meet all of their nutrient needs on a plant-based diets as long as they supplement b-12. And (even though you don't believe in these) I do sometimes track my nutrient intake on apps, and I can meet all my requirements in terms of macro and micro nutrients in 1500 calories if I make sure to incorporate nutrient dense foods like potatoes, beans, walnuts, broccoli, etc.. And it's super easy to do if I eat 2000 calories which is about average for a woman of my height and size. Also, the fact that Bryan Johnson has chosen a plant based diet should indicate something about plant-based diets given his goals to extend his life-span using the most scientifically substantiated means. I don't resonate with his goal. But there's a reason why he's not eating an omnivorous diet, and that's because it's associated with shorter life-expectancy and higher risk of all-cause mortality than plant-based diets in a variety of studies that have been cross-referenced in meta-analyses. But I haven't been Vegan for the past 8 years. I haven't eaten meat in 8 years. But there have been a few times that I got lazy and eroded my ethical boundaries and started eating dairy again for a couple months here and there. But I am Vegan and have been Vegan for most of the 8 years.