The Golden Thread
Dispatches from Bohemia
The back alley bamboo stalks sway like one of Mucha’s art nouveau ladies, drunk on Bohemian absinthe and post-war splendor.
I am sipping my favorite Chinese tea, an oolong from the Wuyi mountains known as Mi Lan Dan Cong, or Honey Orchid Phoenix, at the original Dobra Čajovna. One of Prague’s countercultural institutions, the roots of this humble tea house reach back into the Communist era, when tea, along with foreign books, films, and ideas, were banned by the Soviet regime. The hippies and wild folk who started this tea house began smuggling in little canisters of earl grey and Chinese green from beyond the iron curtain that the Czech people suddenly found themselves shrouded in one sad day in 1948.
Tea, along with hand-printed zines and copies of banned books, known as samizdat, became the small, handmade acts of resistance that kept the spirit of the people alive. In fact, Lumir Kolibal, the founder of DharmaGaia Books and the man who published the Czech translation of Psychedelics and the Soul, was one of these very people.
Dear friends and readers,
I have a request. I am seeking your guidance and insight, which is invaluable to me. I am in the beginning stages of putting together a new book project, and looking for reflections around what themes and topics my writing is actually about.
I honestly have no idea. But you might.
If you are willing to offer 2 minutes of your time to fill out this simple survey, you will have my thanks.
A few more announcements:
On June 10th, I’ll be speaking at the C.G. Jung Institute of New York, via the esteemed Kristine Mann Library, 6-8pm. What an honor!
On June 12th, I am offering a 2 hour workshop for psychedelic therapists, guides, and facilitators at InnerMost, from 7-9pm. All are welcome.
Always a joy to return to that ancestral dragon of a city. If you’re there, please come to both, or either. I’d love to see you!
Humble efforts that keep hope alive. Community solidarity through clandestine pleasures. Relentlessly holding on to culture in the face of empire. Passionate conversations in domed, brick cellars, three stories underground.
These were the things that kept the people of Prague vigilant as yet another conquering power rolled their tanks across their ancient cobblestone streets. But the stones of this city have seen powers come and go for over a thousand years.
Eventually, the Soviets packed up and left town in 1989 after an 11-day non-violent revolution. Tens of thousands of people, jingling their keys in Prague’s Wenceslaus square–mere steps from where I write this–managed to topple one of the most repressive regimes in modern history without firing a shot. The “Velvet Revolution,” it’s been called. In some parts of this city, the party never stopped.
The story of Bohemia is a true rabbit hole. The deeper you go, the more interesting it gets. I’m not the first to name the subtle magic here, flowing like some mercurial current beneath the winding Vltava river that carves its path through this alchemical city. (For a deeper look into the alchemical history of Prague, check out my article, The Alchemical Dream.)
The wicker chairs, tables, and beautiful pictures of tea fields on the walls here bring me right back to my introduction to the tea world, also in a Dobra teahouse, in their first US location in Burlington, Vermont. For three years, I would write all of my college anthropology papers tucked away in a dim corner of the teahouse, drinking supercharged pu’ers and oolongs on frighteningly cold winter nights.
The golden light of that teahouse became like a portal, linking together lives and stories that would have otherwise never had a reason to meet. I met a variety of friends there, one of whom I’ve reconnected with all the way out here to explore the alchemical city of Česky Krumlov, the town he insisted I visit 15 years ago on some dark Vermont evening.
I’ve been reflecting on what a strange blessing it is to be welcomed across continents and oceans, in a foreign land where I don’t speak a shred of the language, as a friend. It’s something I’ve experienced throughout my life in a variety of far flung places, always to my own amazement. I’ve been in dire straits on Tanzanian highways, not a shilling in my pocket, and have met angels on the road who offered me their beds, along with their grandmother’s cooking. True story.
But something feels different now. Instead of the dreadlocked hippie with only a few coins to speak of, I’m now being invited to share my work to attentive crowds of strangers, being hosted at transcendent locations by truly amazing humans, and meeting inspiring colleagues in an expanding field of psychedelic therapy and advocacy.
I don’t mean to brag. I’m just reporting the news. And for once, it’s good.
Here’s the truth: for about a year, in the wake of my book coming out, I couldn’t let in any feeling of accomplishment. I couldn’t allow myself to feel the success (whatever that means,) or praise that I found flowing my way. I didn’t want it to go to my head. I didn’t want to get high on external validation. Or so I told myself.
The reality is that I was frozen, contracted, and blocked. Yes, somehow I continued to write, show up for my clients, hold retreats, and do good work. But deep down, I felt unable to feel any real excitement, gratitude, or peace. The very flow of life felt stifled in my heart, in an eddy of confusion and paralysis. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
The big medicine for me right now, which has come in the form of travel, new experience, and connection, has been to slowly thaw out of that frozen state, giving myself permission to create, to celebrate, and to trust myself once again. A large part of that is stopping to see the external reflections all around me, seeing the people I’m with, the places I am being welcomed to, and the experiences I am having.
After a long, long winter, I can finally feel myself start to bloom.
Through all this, I can sense some inner continuity, some unseen thread. From this familiar wicker chair I sit upon, to this fragrant golden tea I sip, to old and new friends I know and have known–I can trace some pattern, some songline that my life has followed, and somehow know myself even more deeply.
I am reminded of William Stafford’s poem, The Way It Is:
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
Whatever thread you are following, don’t let go.
You don’t need to explain it. You don’t need to understand it. You just need to trust it, and see where it leads.
I think your future has an excellent Prague-nosis!
Hi Simon, I'm interested in attending (online, I'm in NZ) your workshop at Innermost. I've had a reasonable look through their website and I can't seem to find the event (your link took me to their homepage).
Please can you help?
Kat