the niki download

8/27/2021

I have been thinking a lot about temples. One of the coolest I have read about recently is Malta’a Hypogeum (underground temple) which was carved out of bedrock by hand in 3300 – 3000 BC.

The temple structure uses a careful direction of light from the surface to penetrate into the lower chambers, with intricate patterns painted on portions of the ceiling with red ocher, following motifs of spots, spirals and honeycombs.

One of the main chambers, called "The Holy of Holies", appears to be oriented such that light from the winter solstice illuminated its facade from the original opening above.

Garden Brain

Secure the temple and keep it tidy. That is what the mushroom told me.

Fold your clothes nicely.

Wake each day and sweat, so you have no trouble falling asleep.

Suffering is meant to make you peaceful.

Your heart is a spiral that bores deep into the mind.

Weed your damn garden…

I have been slacking on weeding this year—metaphorically speaking, in the garden of my mind, and literally, in my garden at Buhr Park.

Our brains generate our perception of reality by combining thousands of projected models of reality, spatial constructions, memories, emotional constellations and anticipated futures.

Like most humans, I have no idea what the hell is going on.

I also know I will never really know.

Yet, deep within me smolders the burning desire to FUCKING KNOW.

I also have a desire to grow corn.

If you know me, or have been reading these downloads for any amount of time, you know I am a gullible son of a bitch who wades in the soothing waters of numerous wild conspiracies and narratives about the way the contemporary world works.

Sometimes, I really start believing. Once I came home from work after listening to a six-hour video on Theosophy and told Cecilia that apes come from humans, not the other way around. Another time, I had to re-record a podcast with my friend Joseph because I could not stop talking about time traveling lizard people living in the core of our earth.

Lately I have been getting into long meandering conversations on spirituality with strangers/friends on the internet. There is my friend who was raised as a Seventh Day Adventist in Nigeria (an American religion, founded in Battle Creek, MI, exported to an oil rich country, sounds like madness).

Another friend told me he had secrets I could not handle and we had to unite the right and left against vaccine passports. What he could tell me was that we are currently collectively ushering in the New World Order and exist in a sprawling battle across time between sworn enemies, the Illuminati and Chabad, the devil and god, good and evil. We can save the world by praying for Moshiach.

I always wondered what would happen if every single human, across the planet, sat down and meditated on peace at the exact same time. Would it be a perfect moment?

No matter how far out I go, I always eventually come back to the truth, which is, the character “Niki” does not have the bandwidth for 8-dimensional chess.

My mind is a garden. I can nurture things that bear fruit, and I should take care to weed out the invasive species that prevent harvests.

Sometimes a thought is like the above pictured invasive grass species (Canary Reed?) that my friend Garden Master Jeannine told me I was letting get out of hand. It was introduced to the garden long before me via an under researched hay order.

It is my burden now.

It surrounds my Tomato plants and makes a great habitat for slugs.

Don’t get me wrong, not all ideas (or weeds) are necessarily bad. I mean, look at this beautiful Morning Glory, Ipomoea purpurea. New flowers bloom each morning attracting butterflies, humming birds, and horny dragonflies.

Morning Glory is not native, but it serves beauty. Some of the more crazy conspiracies/spiritual narratives/spirals of thoughts do that for me, too…

At three years old, the human brain has more synaptic connections than at any time in our lives. Over time, our experience of reality prunes these connections to the most efficient pathways. By twenty-five, our mind becomes a well oiled machine following time tested patterns.

I do not think we are ever truly stuck with whatever pattern has entrenched itself in our neural nets. You can always break down reality, whether it be through meditation, prayer, mushrooms, cannabis, Pekiti-Tirsia Kali, guitar, weight lifting, etc…

So I finally started weeding my garden, taking care to preserve what serves harmony and eliminating what does not. Practicing attachment and detachment simultaneously. To live a paradox, and to grow into what comes next.

I hope it is as good as these tomatoes.

Which I dehydrated and then ate in one sitting.

They were delicious.

See you next week…

-niki

If you want to support this newsletter
or my work here is your option:

Send me your favorite strain of tomato seeds: nikimidwest@gmail.com

This download was edited by ultimate spiral heart owner David Pratt.
Also, for the record, we just finished a 16 month long zine project together.