About | Third Wheel !

About Alec

In 2011 I moved west across the US in order to get help from my addiction to drugs and alcohol. Drying out at rehab, I at once began searching vigilantly for the divine. I prayed. I begged the sky for help. I asked others for help. Though I managed to stay sober in the these early years of pilgrimage, I existed mostly in a perpetual state of fear. My search for peace over the last 14 years has led me to multiple modalities of healing and transformation including: Psychedelic earth medicine, 12-step work, walking, yoga, astrology, tarot, singing, reading, theology, and prayer.

I see now that my desire for alcohol was a desire for transformation. The desire to abandon myself to drugs, to obliterate myself with the help of a substance – even to die – was not in itself a wrong impulse. But the result of this feeling depends greatly on the nature of the hands in which I place myself to be obliterated. If channeled into certain directions the results of my desperation have been overwhelmingly positive.

I continue to be called to collaborate with others on spiritual and healing paths. Whether this means flipping tarot cards, astrology consultation, or sitting in the forest, I want to be available as an agent of Love. I am not a healer. I am another pilgrim, looking for the path, wanting to trust. I am a third wheel. Your relationship is with yourself, with Spirit, with drugs, with nature. I am there only to triangulate what you already know, but are now ready to see, feel, and integrate into your life. The work is a team effort. Like dancing, like sports, like conversation. The healer is within each of us. And maybe beyond us too.

A Note On The Spiritual

Spiritual transformation has been a part of the human experience for millennia. Whether working with earth medicine, tarot cards, or astrology charts, I hope to normalize spiritual experience for others.

I consider myself religious in the sense that I wish to reintegrate myself – to Earth, to Source, and to Wholeness – because doing so turns alleviates isolation and turns even suffering itself into a joyous occasion. I believe joy is the foundational energy of this dimension and can coexist alongside all other feelings: with misery, suffering, sadness, desperation, happiness, peace, and love. It is my repeated experience with the paradox of surrender that has lead me to this theological model and I continue to practice seeking The Will of Love in all things – especially suffering – in order that I might find relief from my self, walk with peace, and get increasingly high on the unfolding of collective awareness in this dimension. This practice is also known as Sacred Magic. Its purpose is to accomplish the will of God – as opposed to attempting to control the universe. Working in these frameworks I consider myself to be an aspiring participant in the mysterious trans-dimensional project of The Exploding of The Cosmic Christ. I believe that the effort of our suffering has meaning on a galactic scale.

I hope to convey my history of spiritual poverty in my work. At core I am still an addict who wishes to get high, to transcend, to be beautiful, to be seen. I resist moralizing. There is not right way to do things. There is no ideology worth the loss of your authentic self. I believe every single person is on the cross and, no matter the past, none of us is beyond redemption. I see no hierarchy of our earthly roles. All of us are impure, fallen, striving, redeemable. And every breath we take is work. All of us are on the path. We can't not be. There's no mistakes – only learning.

I am open to working with people of many beliefs, but I am particularly drawn to people who are interested in fostering a spiritual life of any sort. I believe we are spiritual beings with hearts and souls, born inside a force of Love that wishes to see us thrive. I believe we are alive for a reason. And I believe change is possible.

Biography of Psychedelic Work:

It has been six years since my first intentional earth-medicine experience. I was an anxious and depressed member of Alcoholics Anonymous for seven years before I found myself in a place to try something different. I credit Alcoholics Anonymous with saving my life. For someone with my degree of intensity and internal entanglement, the simplicity of AA was much-needed. But, after many years of fully applying myself to this ideology, I still found myself to be generally miserable. Attacks of hyper-vigilance plagued me. Panic seemed unavoidable. Fear ran my life. I could not cry. I could not heal. Therapy seemed to make things worse. I chain-smoked. I drank coffee all day. My diet consisted of ice-cream. I did not feel connected. Not to myself. Not to the earth. I knew I could survive this way. But I also knew that I was seeking something more than mere survival. In March of 2018 I asked the universe for help. I admitted total defeat and prayed for a solution. Less than a year later I found myself in my first psychedelic medicine experience.

I credit earth-medicine for the depth of emotional life that I have today. I never dreamed I would have this much peace, security, clarity, or optimism. I simply didn't know it was possible. I have gone from someone with crippling attacks of hyper-vigilance, panic, and anxiety to someone who takes joy just in walking around the block, watching trees sway, and feeling my bare feet on the grass. After not crying for a decade, I now cry all the time. I love it. It regulates my nervous system. Gratitude doesn't begin to speak to it. Aldous Huxley called psychedelics a "gratuitous grace".

I want to provide opportunity for others to heal. There is such a thing as medicine. And, in my experience, it works if I apply myself to it. Medicine is naturally occurring on this planet. It has been used by hundreds of cultures all over the planet for thousands of years. It is cheap to produce, not endangered, harmless to the body, and completely non-addictive. One of these medicines is called psilocybin mushrooms. Psilocybin is the chemical. But I call it "The Mushroom". It is a being. It is an intelligence. It seems to want to help us. It seems to be us. It seems to want to partner with us toward wholeness and toward love.

Biographical Note On The Tarot:

Upon arrival at my Los Angeles rehab those 13 years ago, I began my study of the tarot. Wanting to occupy nervous hands, the cards naturally joined my then-current habits of journaling, chain-smoking, and scattered rumination. I learned how to shuffle the deck. I read tarot books. I did spreads for similarly distraught fellow rehab attendees. The cards were a subject worthy of obsession. They were a way out of myself – into both a larger cosmos as well as the lives of others – at a time when living too deeply inside myself was a dangerous act. Tarot – a parlor game of mysterious, multi-cultural origins – has the ability to deepen one's relationship to the present by arranging images which are then narrated into a story in order that one might find clarity and acceptance of the true forces at play in any given situation – and so move forward more confident of the true nature of the experience. Moreover, Tarot Cards are a great tool for further opening the results of astrological inquiry. The modes feed off each other, creating harmonic resonances of surprising detail and comprehension. The Message of the Universe is always written right in front of us – the cards simply give the ether an opportunity to speak. Tea leaves, crystal balls and dreams work on similar principles. And tarot cards are adaptable. Specific questions can be asked, or one can simply look into the mystery and ask to be guided. Affirmations of self can be gleaned. Difficult relationships can be examined. Choices can be understood more thoroughly from a multiplicity of angles. Books have been written about the symbolic and mythological depths of a single tarot card. But, as with all forms of esoteric examination, the tarot meets us precisely where we are. We don't need to try to see beyond our sight, but only to accept whole-heartedly what it is we are seeing. Like astrology, I believe that tarot is a medium for Love. And it isn't so much predictive as it is revelatory. I pray to see clearly what is really here. And to really let that be my world. To honor that for all it is. That's where the magic is – in acceptance.