Did you hear about Tucker Carlson?

(Hello from the other side.)

Dearest Pancake Brains,

I am writing to make sure that you have been informed that Tucker Carlson will no longer be impersonating a rabid potato at Fox News. When a friend told me this, my whole life flashed before my eyes. More specifically, the past seven years, during which I alternately transformed into a Macy’s parade float caricature of myself and exploded like a whale stuffed with dynamite.

I’ve mostly been offline since I last wrote to you about finding God and renouncing social media. Since I quit Twitter, I have sat with ayahuasca over 100 times, which, for context, is completely insane (and so was I). I’ve been spending my free time praying and meditating in the desert of Tucson, Arizona, contemplating spiritual texts, and spelunking in my own psyche. When people ask me what I learned, I tell them I sat with ayahuasca over 100 times, and all I got was this present moment. Also, I had a lot of vomiting to do after getting internet famous in hell.

I’m still a neurotic, pothead woman-child, and I’m also at peace in my body a lot more often now. As was the purported mission of this newsletter, I have been un-fucking my brain. When I first wrote that intention, I never expected to reprogram my own demonic supercomputer through spiritual practice. It turns out I also had a rat’s nest of broken chargers where my heart should be.

I’m currently writing about my quest to save my soul with spirituality and psychedelics in a book tentatively titled Ego in Retreat: An Asshole’s Journey to “God.” By “God” I mean the infinite, interconnected source of life that quantum physics would call the zero-point field, though I long for the day we all know that we are that which cannot be named. Still, to be quite clear, when I say I found “God,” I certainly do not mean the fictional character who lets Brett Kavanaugh call him “daddy.” Since the start of the plague, I have been cultivating my connection with the source of something greater than this tiny speck hurtling through space on a rock. And, for the devout materialists still with me here, basically, I have been practicing presence as a way of learning how to accept that I am learning how to manage my particular cocktail of PTSD.

If you’re still reading this, I’m going to go ahead and thank you for your attention. Your point of concentration is your singular most valuable asset. The way you choose to focus your concentration can and will shift your experience of reality. If you feel the urge to tell me I am a dumb bitch who should shut the fuck up, please know that your beautiful mind would rather be doing at least ten thousand things.

Ding dong,

Lauren

I’ll write to you all again here when Ego in Retreat is ready to share. If you are interested in my writing, you can share this free newsletter with someone who might also enjoy my work.