We woke up to some animal trying to burrow in the RV. The Man got up and said he couldn’t see anything. The noise went away, but I’m on the lookout for critters now. I have to empty the tanks later, too. The one rule I have in my RV is don’t shit in the RV. I stand by it. I’m not gonna be hauling my own shit around. I live with enough of my own shit as it is.

To job or not to job

I spent all of yesterday in the fog of what I call: to job or not to job. It truly collapses me. I just burned the boat. This was my BURN THE BOAT moment. Everyone needs one when you make big change. I contemplated why this business coach would tell me to keep a job (she went into debt to start her own business). I remembered another business/spiritual/life coach who did tell me to simply quit and go forth. I did, and at the time, it seriously destabilized me. I had just gotten out of an Iboga ceremony and was compelled to this new coach/teacher because my entire Iboga experience had worked with the void. THE VOID. And this person was publicly working with it too(few do). I needed to make sense of it. I’ve learned a lot from this.

It’s probably best practice to tell someone not to quit their job. Most people can’t handle it. Most people don’t have the safety net I built up or the DNA for entrepreneurship. Who knows! So it makes sense to be like, just keep a line to the island and the matches in your pocket.

I, on the other hand, will tell anyone to quit their job. I am not responsible for your failure or your success, and I think everyone should take a soul sabbatical. I may, one day, want to claim rights to the latter, but anything you do in life is because of YOU. I wish I had done this two years ago, in June 2023, when I first lost what I thought was my dream job in the crypto industry. I was working at a firm called Helium. They were building a decentralized wireless network. I thought that was the system’s changing application of the tech that could genuinely make change. A telecommunications system where you could both own and operate the network. That would be epic.

I can’t talk much about what happened there, but my whole life was a mess at the time. I was dating my last serious boyfriend, and when he found out I got let go, he also broke up with me the same day. When it rains, it pours. It’s also very reminiscent of what just happened again in March. I found toxic mold in my house and lost my job in the same week. I typically find the Universe gives me things twice (I’m stubborn). Sometimes it takes me being hit over the head twice not to do it a third time.

Iboga

If you’re on a spiritual path, you’ve likely been on the plant path too. In today’s spiritual and healing journeys, everyone touches plant medicines. And, they do help. I have been really grateful to have sat with medicines with some of the best facilitators, practitioners, and Shamans I can imagine. I trust these people with my life. I also no longer need plants in my healing. My path now is actually about finding a lineage to be a part of—hence my motivations to attend SunDance, study the Fourth Way, and even read the Bible.

One of the most powerful plants I’ve sat with is Iboga. Iboga is a root found in Central and South Africa. The story is that Iboga was found by a porcupine. A woman found and killed a porcupine near a tree. She ate it and began to see her ancestors. Her family went back to where she killed the porcupine and found exposed roots had been chewed. They took the root, and Iboga started its long history as a visionary shamanic medicine and sacred plant. Its lineage is with the Bwiti religion.

In the West, there is a lot more information about Ibogaine. Personally, I would never touch Ibogaine. The only cases I know of (from other people and news) where people died involved Ibogaine. I can’t emphasize enough that this is the most powerful medicine I think we have access to as humans. It is not something to take lightly, and I would never recommend it to anyone I know. Ya’ll are literally fine and simply don’t need it. Go quit your job first and find someone to cuddle more often.

THE VOID

One of the most disorienting and transformational parts of my spiritual path is how consistently I’ve come to work with the void. If you ever followed my journey through art school (shoutout to VCU), I was working with the void then, too—although unknowingly, it was part of a bigger picture of God and the cosmos. It’s always been something in my field. I can’t explain why or how. I know I’m an agent of change. I know this is what the void is. I am still processing what the void means in the realm of everything. I have met spiritual practitioners who would not work with me at all once I brought up the void and told me to find someone else, and that I should be very careful about anything to do with the void.

When I was in college, the void was this thing that always needed to be fed. It is still a huge driver for me to create. Feed the void. Give it all the weird stuff it loves. It loves everything, literally. It is the kinkiest motherfucker you could imagine. It is CNC. It wants everything. It is EROTIC. It is the black hole at the center of the universe that will consume anything and everything and eventually take your life. Some talk about it as the face of God. Ultimate creator and destroyer.

This is not a concept people often work with, so if it doesn’t make sense, don’t push it. For those that do, maybe it’s a guiding light. I was always looking to make sense of my connection to the void. I still am.

Rage,

Valerie