As someone who has always found contemplative practice to be something that doesn’t suit me, I still have yet to really take anything beneficial away from them.  I have always been an introspective person who does my deepest thinking when listening to music, hiking, or cooking so trying to force myself to be meditate generally has the opposite effect and I end up feeling less introspective and self-aware.

Due to this it is challenging to connect course content to what I am getting from the contemplative practice since I really don’t feel there is a huge benefit for me personally.  I think this is just because I’m a generally impatient person who needs a lot of stimuli to think clearly and contemplate the deeper meaning of things.  While all live music experiences give me the room to be more introspective, there is nothing that matches when I am seeing Phish.  The way they create space and improvise for long periods makes getting into a meditative state easy for me.  Even during really intense or funky jams everything slows down and I can feel every second while freely associating and working through challenging topics.

What has been occurring to me throughout the quarter is how many of their songs are about death which is why it is so relevant.  The lyrics in their songs that deal with death are all whimsical to the point of being cheesy about something people consider to be a dark subject.  Reading the chapter in Pollan’s “How To Change Your Mind” entitled Trip Treatment explaining how they used psychedelics to assist people who were dying of cancer with managing the anxiety and stress of their impending death really drove it home for me.  The idea of escaping from the ‘prison of self’ and egolessness really makes me think of the lyrics to ‘Ruby Waves.’

While I know a lot of people have a challenging time connecting with their music it has helped me immensely and always helps me ground myself so if you keep an open mind, listen to the lyrics and have an extra 30 minutes you can try and work through different ways of dealing with the probability of civilization irreversibly changing in the near future due to climate collapse and over consumption.