One Lucky Soul: The Healing Powers of Storytelling: A Personal Experience

The Healing Powers of Storytelling: A Personal Experience by Omar Cherif, One Lucky Soul

Everyone has a story if we are willing to listen; never judge the book by its look.

Throughout the ages, the art of storytelling has been humanity’s most trusted and inspiring endeavour to express themselves and to communicate their ideas out there into the world. From sharing experiences, passing down ancestral knowledge and traditions, to connecting with people across generations, storytelling evolved from pre-historic cave paintings all the way to modern digital media. The stories themselves serve to educate, preserve cultures, entertain, also help explain natural phenomena and human experiences. They can convey complex ideas in a digestible form, foster empathy and compassion, all the while helping us know we are not alone.

Before modern civilisation and the invention of writing, stories were passed down orally. The narratives were often accompanied by rituals and art forms like gestures, music, dancing. As I often say regarding Full Lunacy Drum Circle, for thousands of years our ancestors sat in nature around fires like these to tell stories and to share knowledge and wisdom with their peers and younger generations. Bonfire sittings were the glue that bonded tribe members to each other, to their ancestors, and to their environment, and often to their gods as well. Myths, cultures, communities, even religions were born out of them. Add music, a youniversal language, or more specifically drumming and you truly can transcend. 

To me, the setting seems so familiar that it can also be therapeutic. For you somehow know in your heart of hearts that you’ve experienced it before in some other life or even life form. Now scientific studies back up what I had intuitively felt ever since founding and hosting Full Lunacy Drum Circle on the full moon starting over 10 years ago: Engaging with Earth’s elements and communing with Nature reveals old imprints in bodily memory. When you gaze into fire you witness a doorway to past and future in the very present Here and Now. How poetic.

That is where stories — our own and others’ — become a path to healing as I found in my own journey.

Now, before we proceed further I did not specify healing from what in the title; my experience was chiefly with drug addiction coupled with a lack of passion for the jobs, and then doing something about it, with no maps or blueprints. This article however can be looked at through different lenses.

I am not covering a paper here, I am uncovering a soul, transcribing its content for future generations of nefelibatas.

🦋

We all love a good story, right. Stories help us make sense of things and relate to each other, providing coherence to life and existence. They also teach us how to think in metaphors. Narratives have the ability to warm our hearts, shatter our brains, or a certain degree of both. All the while tickling our imagination, widening our horizons, educating and entertains us. As a species, we are wired to think in terms of stories. We may even live or become them.

For someone who has lived through the ups, downs, all-arounds, owning your truth means owning your story. You become the director of your own movie and the hero of your own saga.
For it truly is empowering to be in charge of the narrative by reclaiming one’s voice. Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey — The Monomyth. That’s the move. Indeed, once you start thinking for yourself and stop blaming anything or anyone for whatever happens in your life you become forever free.

Still, most people don’t want to think for themselves because it requires responsibility. Joining the herd and following their rules is easier and more convenient than to be guided by one’s own internal codes — one’s own compass — which some are able to weave into a torch to help illuminate humanity — à la Plato. But I wasn’t born to follow as it has been shown to me again and again

Post addiction, I knew I had to own my past. Writing became a daily constant, while telling my story was therapeutic. For a narrator, you get better at telling your life story. And that becomes an act of profound healing powers — for the speaker but possibly for the listener as well. Self-expression is known to significantly help the transfiguration process. A reason why art therapy is a legit successful thing. For art is the most essential and elemental human expression.

The Departure from the familiarity of the comfort zone along with all the “known”.

In my case I left Egypt to Canada where three years were spent. It started with talking to strangers online — cathartic. On Bluelight, a harm-reduction forum, I opened up my to members, as they did. From users and ex-users, to psychologists, physicians, chemists, pharmacists, all sorts of people enjoying the anonymous digital camaraderie and unfiltered knowledge-sharing one rarely gets to hear from their common doctor, dealer, and those in between.

One moderator, Captain Heroin, became virtually close during these days. I can still log in to read my rambling — a sobering gaze into an earlier version of myself during its metamorphosis. Eye-opening stuff.

Being alone, there was no playbook or blueprint to follow. I had to forge my own way. It was rewarding to find out that people battling addiction have such an outlet to communicate and share experiences, knowledge, and support. Like NA or AA meetings without the formalities and steps, or basic therapy.

Since I recovered alone, bypassing the sterile walls of programs or hospitalisations, expressing that self was not just a hobby; it was the cure, an addition which proved essential. Writing in particular was the rescue that taught me how to explore my wandering thoughts and fleeting emotions; how to cognise, ponder, reflect, in hope to comprehend my mind and inner being a little bit better. Writing was the cure, the rescue — the emotional cleansing release I seemed to oh-so crave — mostly on the unrealised subconscious level.

Not just due to becoming a passion and vocation, but because it taught me how to work with my hands and head and heart like a true artist, as Saint Francis of Assisi would agree. And in the words of another visionary that is Carl Jung: “Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.”

The Alchemical Rebirth Up North

What felt equally essential during that period of Coming Back To Life was connecting with those who have had similar pasts.

After three years of Canada, a relationship that wasn’t going anywhere, and the death of my Cocker Spaniel Caramella I coddiwompled aimlessly across the U.S of A à la Kerouac for six months. Having already dealt with the reawakened sensitivity of the emotional sobriety stage of the recovery, along with the shame and guilt, being On The Road was then the new adventure my soul was seeking — possibly craving. Until I found myself in Venice Beach in L.A and deciding to stay. While yes it was my choice to remain there, but it seems I had no real say in how the culmination of events led to that point.

There, drumming followed writing as an additional artistic self-expression. And weekly Venice Beach Drum Circles replaced online forums as actual social gatherings where also no one knew me and I knew no one. But that didn’t last long.

You see, I had always been somewhat reserved and selective when it comes to friends. Following recovery from the toxic years when taking art as a vocation, creativity did truly come to the rescue. While writing, however, was how I first began expressing myself, I was still using a laptop in the comfort of my home.

Drum circles were how I really learned to socialise on a whole different level. Apart from actual drumming, I would also use the breaks to take photos and videos of the magical happening with its many colourful characters. It is a fun, meditative, cathartic, creative, therapeutic experience all at once; the same goes for drumming in general. Another thing is that frequently meeting new cool people over drumming and dancing on the beach keeps you rejuvenated and young at heart — inspiring too.

But it was organising and hosting my own Full Lunacy that was an even more substantial step to get me out my comfort zone by inviting mere strangers to a free musical gathering every month... and simply flow through whatever happens. Mind you, I was alone, had no car or much money, only passion and a healthy dose of enthusiasm. Some Lunacy too of course — with capital L out of respect.

Life is very much like a drum circle; those who drum,
those who dance to the beat of the drum, and the audience who watches them both.

Expressing oneself — whether through a drum skin or a pen — is how we own the narrative. It begins with the shock of recognition: Realising your solitary struggle was felt a century ago by Dostoevsky. I, too, have stared into the void — not before a literal firing squad, but at the hands of addiction. Like him, I was granted a reprieve, a stay of execution that allowed for the birth or a dancing star.

This is the “Rilke Love” — finding an Unknown Ally across time who has already mapped the trenches of your soul. As Baldwin noted, these connections are a “great liberation”. When you realise your secret pain is actually a shared human frequency, the biochemical weight lifts. You stop being a victim of your history and become the director of your saga. You learn to “let go or be dragged”, exhaling the past that does pass to make room for novelty.

Shake the snowglobe operating system to rewire your neuroplasticity.

The Initiation:

Over the following years I wrote hundreds of articles and exposés about all sorts of topics, ranging from insects, philosophy, language and linguistics, to occasionally lighthearted with some intimate stuff that were almost like secrets. Poetry too. Honestly, I didn’t care much who was reading, I was mainly exploring for myself while also exploring myself. For again, it was profoundly therapeutic to open up and let it all out into the Ether — call it confessional therapy. Having One Lucky Soul here as my own publication, as a life canvas of a sort, became essential to my well-being as well as mental health. To heal the mind and body, you nourish the soul.

Writing and drumming, you see, are certainly fun activities but they are also meditative and therapeutic. This “Zone” often mentioned — Flow Sate — is that Time/Space when absolutely nothing else matters. Time seems to even freeze while you just gracefully flow through the moment. The suppressed becomes expressed, moment after the next. It’s where you stop seeking affirmation and start delightfully and unapologetically dancing in your blood. The Zone, my friends, is the ultimate timeout for the soul.

There is too much going on inside to keep it suppressed. I think everyone needs their own emotional-release outlets... whatever they may be.

Why I Share Stuff from a full decade ago was one of the earliest articles about the subject. The more specific Connecting the Dots — a Storyteller Way of Seeing the Big Picture followed in 2019. But essentially, I live by and for writing; and it would be fair to say that all my writings have some storytelling essence in them — whether it’s a one-liner, a 7000-word exposé, or an entire book.

One essential key to a full and fulfilling life is to never lose the wondrous curiosity or childlike enthusiasm. To be a creative adult requires just the same.

As for the live storytelling during this 10-year trip to North America, listeners differed. Sometimes housemates, Uber drivers, women on first dates, Venice Beach Drum Circle folks, even few homeless people. I learned to assess the time and conjure the story accordingly. If I told my whole story, from birth to that moment, it would take too long — too overwhelming.   

Longer rides like from Venice to the Valley (35-40 minutes) and to Dockweiler Beach (15-20 minutes) where perfect. The latter is was where Full Lunacy Drum Circle first came to being with the encouragement of few new friends-turned allies. It seems connecting through music and dancing felt so efficient, I was compelled to conjure my own circle. Ten years later today Full Lunacy Dockweiler is still going on every full moon despite me leaving the U.S. And in 2022, Full Lunacy Dahab joined the One Lucky Soul bandwagon after relocating.

So wherever the locations, such brief encounters became a opportunity to hone my storytelling skills. I don’t force listening though. They start, I reply. When they seem captivated enough and seemingly willing to listen then carrying on it is. But of course some rides remained silent, especially the rarely taken shorter ones.

Here are the bullet points so you get the gist. My biographical narrative or life resumé — so to speak. Naturally each point could be expanded depending on the situation.

Alright, deep breath.

• Born in Egypt with paternal Turkish blood and maternal Kazakhstani, but also as father’s DNA showed: Italian, Greek, even some Balkan, Eastern Europe and Russia blood [to justify the non-typical appearance].

• Strict all-boys French Catholic school with 1980s summers spent in the South of France with the family.

• Living in a 5-star hotels for 20 years till 2001, the perks of such unusual life, the girls/women.

• Visiting Europe again during the teenage years as well as the U.S, and to a lesser extent during the 20s due to employment.

• American University in Cairo — Journalism & Mass Communication major and double minors in Psychology and Philosophy. Including a semester in UCLA, 1997. Graduating 2000.

• Working in other 5-star hotels for seven years then real estate at multinational organisations, often dropping a couple of names to add some contrast. Possibly also mentioning the fact that I spent 10 years wearing suits and ties and shaving everyday! O’ the madness. That bit is usually found amusing as it is contrasted with my more recent wilder appearance.

• Getting hooked on heroin for seven years while working. I was a “Junctional Funkie,” using the substance as a ‘medicine’ to navigate the disconnect of that high-pressure life. While others around me faded, that Jesuit-bred discipline and a stubborn shred of self-preservation kept me from the needle — a hard line that kept the ‘Observer’ alive even in the belly of the beast.

• The Presentation that changed everything. Only five days into the last job in the Matrix, I gave a true-story presentation in both French and English to clients from Canada. The topic? Climbing to the top of The Great Pyramid one night back in 1996 and finding six Japanese researchers up there.

Years later in 2012 then again in 2020, I would finally write the full account of that night in The Great Pyramid’s Blessed Curse: Climbing to the Top and Beyond, recounting the climb, the sharing a special smoke right on the summit with six Japanese researchers who happened to be there, and the research that followed later: How storytelling became the crux of my liberation.

• The Cosmic Wink: Toronto was randomly chosen out of 70-something cities where the company has offices. It happened to be where an ex was living. The story was ‘sold’ and myself along with it, the ticket was booked, and the wild odds turned into an opportunity to leave the Matrix behind. To do what exactly? I still had no idea.

Before knowing who you authentically are at the core you get to know who you aren’t. For knowing what we don’t want is a significant step towards what we do want.

• The Metamorphosis: I moved to Canada and began the transformation amid dogs, nature, and inner voyages. I joined the University of Toronto for Creative Writing and Logic classes — tools that fuelled the emotional alchemy and the transfiguration of my identity.

• June 2011: One Lucky Soul comes into being as a simple outlet to finally speak my truth.

• Beginning of the Rediscovery Period: Starting to write, take photos, jog in the snow — that which I actually enjoy doing and naturally can be good at. Rekindling the sense of wonder and curiosity following the long slumber. I also learned to cook and feed myself healthily — a skill essential to every human.

• Don Jail Experience 2011. Ka-Boom. Ka-Chink. Ka-Paaawww. Ka-Hoot?

• The Vocation: Almost instantaneously the decision to become a writer and owning it all was taken. To use a unique set of life circumstances to forge something enthusiastically magnificent. In reality, it felt like a fateful event; I was not the sole decider. More like a humble volunteer of the Youniverse.

• Anastasis: A radical revolution in the psyche. It felt like the chemistry of the brain had been rewritten; a new format or mode of existence downloaded to my system, retraining the brain to perceive and process reality as it truly is.  New neural connections. Clarity.

• The Dreaming Mind: Starting to get pre-cognitive dreams. Back to noting them down, eventually planning to write an article about dreams.

• Coming Back to Life: Three years in cold Canada were enough — also with visa renewal since I never married or formally immigrated.

• Followed by an impromptu six-month trip across America — since I still had a valid U.S visa for another two years. The article about dreams has grown to become a research exposé.

• Full-on Discovery Mode: Planes, trains, Facebook friends, cousins, AirBnb: Small toeing Illinois, Chicago, Michigan, Detroit, Denver, Colorado Mountains, and finally L.A — where an aunt and cousin had been living for decades.

• The Bohemian Hood: Moving to Venice Beach. The VBDC Love Story followed — finding my people, or them finding me. The dream article officially became a book according to trusted friends. Topics like Neuroplasticity and Epigenetics were added.

• Expanding the Circle: Building relationships with those from different backgrounds, cultures, ages, socio-economic and education levels. That included knowing homeless people and ones living in their cars — and those are many in L.A. Homelessness there is rather scary. The stark, bipolar contrast between Hollywood and the reality of the streets was an education in the entirety of life, which I had never had the opportunity to mingle with and explore.

• The Convergence: More precognitive dreams as synchronicity reached freaky levels. Dreaming of the Accident Before it Happened here on One Lucky Soul came to be as I couldn’t leave it all to the book.

• Full Lunacy: Founding Full Lunacy Drum Circle [by One Lucky Soul] after attending a small gathering or two at Dockweiler Beach — more love, passion, connection my life work to the blog while unbeknownst to us creating a community in real life that transcends virtuality.

• The Jolly Rogers: Five years in gentrified Venice, mainly thanks to the weekly VBDC. Two years in shared homes, then back to Hotel-Living on [the coolest street in America] Abbot Kinney Boulevard as a long-stayer. Privacy, a small pool, and constant self-transformation.

The article Countering Gentrification — Eating Cheap and Healthy in Venice Beach [With a List of Places & Their Menus] came to being:

“It is widely believed that one of the factors which had stirred up the topic of gentrification followed GQ magazine naming Abbott Kinney the coolest block in America in 2013. Venice residents were not particularly happy by this media attention. They later responded by protesting and even mocking the magazine, calling it Gentrification Quarterly.”

• The Full Circle: Symbolic yet not-so-cryptic dreams about hosting drum circles by The Pyramids — odd, given that I had no intention of returning to Egypt at t. he time

Your vibe attracts your tribe: Lit Full Lunacy
Dockweiler Beach, May 2018

The Return:

• Back to Egypt as a 40: confused about the next move, while also facing the older addiction demons I had run away from. You see, they do not disappear when you merely change locations; they they must be faced.

• The Sokhna Hermitage: 2.5 years totally alone on the beach — before and during the pandemic. That was when The Work took place, integrating a decade of novel perspectives into the ‘I’ while trying to make sense of all that transpired. My extensive psycho-philosophical Dance With Your Demons was birthed in this willfull isolation.

• Dahab 2022: Because no man is an island, I took the cats and the drum to Sinai to further the Metanoia. It was my first time back since 1999, when the land was still nomadic and empty. Certainly there was no Sushi around, ha.

• Reintegration: Bringing back what I had learned to the world. Starting Full Lunacy Drum Circle — Dahab to complement its sibling at Dockweiler Beach, which still beats every month thanks to trusted friends. The difference? It was my home country this time where I’m naturally more established and where the perception of the “stranger outsider” dissipated over time.

• Some repetitive dreams finally began making some sense: Not something they often do. Despite the unknown and despite moving yet again, somehow the clarity remained.

• The Dot-Connecting: Repetitive dreams began making sense while revealing more pieces of the puzzle in the Big Picture.

My past self would have called it ‘Fate’; a younger version would have said ‘God’. Today, I see that while the Youniverse is the navigator, the subconscious mind is the pilot. What you seek is seeking you.

Funny enough, it was that one moment of storytelling in a corporate boardroom that catalysed this entire metamorphosis. It was the glitch that allowed me to exit the Matrix and author my own reality.

Patterns Are The Real Guru

A strange moment from 2022 when the No Box philosophy — originally conjured in 2014 — found its way to millions through the platform of the late Dolores Canon, now curated by her followers. While I eventually found the “All-Knowing Guru” energy of this world a bit too certain for my liking — lacking that vital, human “I don’t know” — the behind-the-grave resonance was a Silent Witness to a larger map.

More often than not, instinct and intuition will actually contradict what the rational mind is telling us. A reason why a large portion of Zen teachings are encapsulated in koans and paradoxes; to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and to teach how to go beyond it.

Embracing the Unknown and Uncertainty is essential to a peaceful life. While the “All-Knowing” — from religious fables to modern gurus — are often terrified of the void and invent stories to console the masses, there is massive liberation in simply saying: I don’t know.

It is the humblest, most honest frequency of the soul.

Let your Soul be your pilot. Enjoy the ride by sticking your hands,
heads, and tongue out the window 🤪.

A healthy dose of the “I Don’t Know” is exactly what allows the wind to hit your face while listening to the rhythm of your own djembe.

🦋

While almost all has been shared in my writings, condensing the events in a list like this remains different. It’s lot to take in… and to recount. My entire being and nervous system seem to become re-engaged with the memories.   Echoing with Anaïs Nin’s, “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”

I could often see the faces of drivers in the rearview mirror looking indeed overwhelmed, yet empathetically captivated nevertheless. Some would turn their heads to better follow what was coming out of my mouth. It was like a heavy intoxicating energy permeating that Uber car or wherever we were like a misty fog. The twist though, is the raw story still has a happy ending, echoing hope — of change, health, rejuvenation, maybe of courage and inspiration as well; a wee bit of Lunacy of course, with capital L out of respect. And health and appearance wise, I seemed to have looked the part of the Hero’s Journey.

I likely did look it, because another time at an art gallery in fancy Rodeo Drive I was asked what I do and said “writer”, the first response was: Oh, what movies did you write? Hm.

In few instances, I could rather confidently tell the person listening has been through some hard times themselves. You can see it in how they would nod in agreement to certain parts, utter agreement even, before saying something related. The kind someone who has not been in these shoes — or at least have closely known someone who does — wouldn’t [care or dare] uttering. It is like the very act of listening is validating a feeling or point of view they held, all the while relating to my life story, a Stranger in a Strange land.

You see the difference here from writing behind a screen is that when you stare someone in the face you open up part of your being that cannot be ignored. You both recognise the humanity in each other. Seeing the aliveness, the mortality, the vulnerability in actual flesh and blood, you cannot help but relate to one another as fellow human beings — as consanguineous brothers and sisters.

And once again towards the metamorphosis part I could eventually see their faces lighten up with empathy and compassion, for me — someone they had never seen before and likely never meet again. You could visibly tell those Unknown Allies are moved by what they had heard and not just playing nice for ratings or for the sake of decency.

By the end of these contagious interactions with mere strangers, some would then ask for my work, so I would give them One Lucky Soul.

I would actually invite Uber drivers to our gathering at Dockweiler, which had come to grow to a cool unscripted monthly Movement of Energies and Creative Spirits around L.A. — an Acid Test of a sort. Before we knew it, the enigmatic gatherings became like a mini Burning Man with the best drummers, fire dancers and flow artists. They boomed differently among those who actually wanted to play music without the glitz and glam of commercialised festivals. Unlike most other legit musical gatherings, Full Lunacy is free, so there is also that.

A couple actually drove for two hours every months to and back. This is how serious the monthly circle had become and it was humbling to see how more and more are joining in. O’ My Dear Child.

Another time in a smoke shop in neighbouring Santa Monica the dude saw my debit card and asked: Are you the guy behind the rad full moon drum circles at Dockweiler? You know how odd that kind of recognition is among the millions of the City of Angels — again with nothing but unquenched passion and words of mouth.

The occasional little signs like these were the fuel that kept me going. It was like the universe was showing me that it got my back. They would actually made my heart drum, dance, and sing through my being.

On the human level this was endearing. And looking back, the interactions did unburden me and the signs uplifted me.

All that storytelling was not to inform or to merely chit-chat, but it was an act of self-reflecting; of trying to make sense of the change and of my Renaissance. And one could say the raw nakedness and vulnerability tend to seduce minds. As a provocateur, then, I enjoy penetrating psyches as much as I enjoy seeking like-minded soul tribe across time and space through writing. It was the natural transition from rambling on online forums to real-world storytelling where you can actually see and feel the effects it has on others.

From the side of the listener, stories offer novel perspectives — refreshing, motivational, inspirational. When they happen to mirror one’s own struggles, they provide a sense of shared humanity. This is what healing through resonance is: The alchemical attunement between nervous systems when both the speaker and listener connect over shared struggles or triumphs.

Every time I share my story I am yet again empowered. By reclaiming my voice, I have control over the narrative. Doing so fosters a sense of interconnection with others, reducing feelings of isolation while building a sense of community.

Channelling the Trinity, captured by fun soul and iconic
photographer David Healey

If drumming is a communal trance and writing is a solo muse, dating then is a private duetto. And while the creative spirits were easy to manage, the spirit of the lover required a different kind of rhythm.

Drivers aside, when it comes to dates I am mindful of the fact that my biographical bullet points is a long list and can take up a good chunk of the energy of that first meeting. You don’t want to shut them up, you want to listen to their own stories. The tricky thing is that oftentimes their stories are not as full or dense as mine. Naturally. So again, I edit it to add some balance to the dynamics. it’s a delicate and sensitive matter, because oversharing would overwhelm. One is not on a date to just talk about themselves. But in general, it is best that the full list is not all covered in one sitting. It is one reason why I thought of sharing it herein for the first time — as it is.

The American tour ended up with five years in Venice Beach where I was doing what I love, writing and drumming and experiencing the artist life in general. All the while enjoying my newly found health; after regaining it it was time to build upon it. Magical times.

 As such, depending on the listener, the time and location, I could list it all as seen above. Though I usually choose to omit certain stages to fit the narrative according to the situation and the allotted time. Choose your audience, huh.

But also omit or change the wording when talking about something that had already been dealt with and hence look at it different. Through time, I noticed that I choose different wording then previously, polishing the outcome. Because again, I came to perceive that part under a different light. That is, if it doesn’t become inconsequential and is dropped altogether from the story.

You see, refining the narrative isn’t just about editing words; it’s about editing the self. From the chemical chaos to the quiet of the page, the story remains the only medicine that actually works. To grow as a writer one must also grow as a human being. The expansion before the expression helps you Become. One essential key to a full and fulfilling life is to never lose the wondrous curiosity or childlike enthusiasm. To be a creative adult requires just the same.

Because I was alone in America, I used to cherish these occasional opportunities to connect with humans and possibly tell my story… to a mere one-time stranger. So there was that. No judgement, no gossiping, no formal healing circles other than drum circles. Not that I cared too much about people, but you do realise there is a difference in what you share and how you do it. Think anonymous online activity.

Looking back today, it was certainly liberating to be able to do that with such freedom. It was like the psychological therapy I never went through.  Likewise, it reduced the sense of isolation or alienation in this rather wacky part of the world — to a noticeably significant level; by relating to others and likely offering the possibility of them relating to me just as well.

At the very end of it, my friends, the trick is that we cannot really heal, save, redeem, or awaken anyone. We can help only by loving them. Perhaps also by unknowingly inspiring them to find the love and the light within them; to become their own healer and saviour, independently of a healer, guru, program.

This is not established through any associations nor formal teaching, advice, instruction, doctrine, ritual or ceremony. But instead, by sharing our bliss, grace, peace, passion, sensibility, awareness, groundedness — our energy. It remains up to them to integrate what they experience in such presence into their lives. It is their journey after all, during which their own truth is to be unveiled and revealed.

We are our own victim as well as out own saviour: The rest are mere excuse. And we are all worth saving.

It is often said that leaving institutions means leaving the conversation. To “make it” you need to be affiliated to an established institution or company — a “respectable” name — because we alone are not enough. That is the sentiment you inherit from the older generations. But I tell you this, without the ivory tower, the academic words are just echoes in the wind. Given my own education and conditioning, I believed them — for a while at least. I felt like a ghost haunting my own narrative in the wilds of America.

But you see, the universe has a wicked sense of humour.

A random Google search in 2022 — while I was alone in Sohkna recovering for that decade-long trip while learning how to Dance With Demons — brought me face-to-face with a ghost of a different breed. My 2015 exposé The LSD Experiments of the 1950s and 60s [Videos & Documentaries] had been quoted and cited in the 2017 academic book Drugs and Society — 13th Edition by Annette E. Fleckenstein, Glen R. Hanson, and Peter J. Venturelli. Youppy!

There, in the cold, peer-reviewed light of academia, was my exposé. Not as a cautionary tale of some raving psychonaut, but as a blueprint that the researched work has become. When you dare exploring uncharted territories cartographers of the soul will seek you out. It is worth noting that the piece is being continuously updated to this very day.

To find yourself quoted and cited by the very institutions you walked away from, you, someone whose English is technically a third language, well, that’s the kind of surprise that brings a grown man to tears. It turns out, when you tell your naked truth all the while baltering along The Razor’s Edge, the world doesn’t just listen — it takes notes. It was the ultimate validation of my philosophy, especially because I never went looking for it. It was then when I realised then that my whole life had been a practice in sharpening the Razor’s Edge between institutional brilliance and the liberating "insanity" of the seeker.

It was the kicker for the sceptics and the suit-and-tie crowd who must have thought I’d lost the plot: While I was busy 'losing myself' in the rhythm and the wreckage, the scholars were busy indexing my soul.

Finding my work cited in the Academic Archives wasn’t just a win; it was a cosmic “I told you so.” whispered from the universe. The celestial pat on the back I never sought yet was truly grateful for.

It turns out, you can give your back to the established institutions, but if you speak your naked truth with passion and perseverance, the institution’s cartographers will eventually come knocking on your door to ask how you walked through the fire of your own hell and survived it. You see, everyone, I was never just a Full Lunatic. There is a method to the madness. It is possible that few have known it before I myself did.

To speak truth, you must first see it, live it. And sometimes, the naked truth requires a different kind of lens — offering novel perceptions that strip away the ego like layers of an onion until all that remains is the raw architecture of the soul. Writing then is not a mere craft, but a channel that helps translate the Fire of the Soul into a frequency that others can tune into.

Before the words found their rhythm, however, the vision had to find its roots. These inner voyages — the intentional, psychedelic navigations — were the surgical tools that stripped away the ego’s cataracts. They allowed me to see the kaleidoscopic expansion of the soul not as a theory, but as a lived architecture. Without those colourful tools, I wouldn't have been able to map the Heaven and Hell of the Human Condition.

But a map is just scribbled lines on a page until you give it a pulse, you breathe into it. If the vision gave me the coordinates, the drum gave me the heartbeat to walk the Path of the Razor’s Edge.

Drumming is certainly not much different than writing: For after all a djembefola, which literal translation is “he who makes the djembe speak”, is a storyteller.

See, according to West African culture and mythology a single djembe consists of three Spirits: the Spirit of the tree from which it was made, the Spirit of the animal whose skin covers the head, and the Spirit of the artist who carved and made the drum.

As such, the djembefola can be regarded as a mere conduit of this otherworldly trinity; a storyteller who uses frequencies and vibrations to alchemically channel other mysteriously magickal realms in order to create music, move emotions, alter consciousness. It may be why I never feel truly alone while playing... even when I am. How poetic. Add other drummers and dancers, a fire on the beach, a full moon, and you’re set for one transformative transcendental experience — as our ancestors have done for thousands of years.

Storytelling is thereby not solely limited to words or even language. Music playing offers us the chance to express ourselves just as well — perhaps more freely since grammar rules and the intellect as a whole can be transcended. For the djembefola more specifically it’s in the very translation of the word.

To me, writing and drumming feel somewhat the same, they are intertwined and complement each other like two sides of the same coin: both are expressions of the vital cosmic Life Force that refuses to be quiet as long as its mortal conduit is alive and kicking. And another Zen piercing reminder: “Those who flow as life flows know they need no other force.”

This very 8000-words piece, for example, took dozens of hours of work, including a 24-hour Flow State marathon. Bearing in mind Mark Twain when he said: “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

I am the last piece of the puzzle
Unfiltered spirits need no muzzle
The Solution and the Key
Dervishing on The Razor's Edge
For I am you and what I see is me
Billie Jean says “Hee-Hee”
No box means no hedge

Do Re Me, ABC, One Two Three-hee

The highest pat on the back from Unknown Allies.
High, Mom and Dad.

“The reason for evil in the world is that people are not able to tell their stories.”
― Carl Jung

From the reactions received throughout the years, you keep getting better at telling the story. Using certain words instead of others, certain order or sequence of events and again, perhaps disregard certain parts. You may elaborate on other parts or add something related for context. Time after time you thereby hone your storytelling skills and techniques.

For example, as an act of coming clean sometimes I would tell a younger person I may not know well: I was hooked on bad drugs; downplaying it maybe while sounding a wee cute. Someone else, “addicted to drugs”. To yet another I may share the heroin part. Each depending on the person, the situation, and the capacity to absorb. The message is the same but the expressions differ.

The thing however, is that when it comes to one’s life, you’re not creating a fictional fantasy or selling yourself in some interview, but you are telling your own naked truth. It just comes out without rehearsing or masked intentions. What then better story to learn how to tell than your own life story. And you tend to get better at it, is what I’ve noticed... until you embody it. You overcome the past, or whatever had happened, by owning your truth.

They say write what you know, but I say write what you’ve survived. I went into the belly of the beast, tore the pages out of my own shadow, only to realise that my 'addiction' was just a story I hadn’t learned how to narrate yet.

Essentially, addictive behaviour is a passionate yet toxic response to certain degree of pain and disconnection, through which the person seeks to establish a connection with a substance rather than with the world, its Earthlings and its “Rat Parks”. Addiction is, according to Gabor Maté, the most human thing there is. Indeed. It was Stella Adler who succinctly put it, “An addict is someone who uses their body to tell society that something is wrong.”

Beside the storytelling itself, another more substantial benefits of sharing it is the occasional responses received, which shifts your perspective or makes you look at something differently. The ripple effect that possibly reaches Unknown Allies.

For example, a guy I met in Dahab through a musical jam. On our next encounter he began telling that his wife and family caused him troubles because he smoked up, pushing him to go to rehab. A bit too drastic for a medicinal herb, if you ask me. Once he was done, I shared my story until reaching the regaining my health in Canada part. “I began to eat better, to exercise, to do what I enjoy like writing, photography, connecting with nature.”

He then looked at me as if recognising something familiar and said: “You went back to loving yourself.”

Aha: A simple, piercing frequency, which I didn’t just hear but felt within my inner being.
An insightful addition like this comes from nowhere other than personal experience. The phrase resonated with me so much, I integrated it into the life story. That’s the psychonaut secret that isn’t much of a secret: Whether the medicine comes in a ceremony, a conversation, or a drum circle, without anchoring it into your bone, it may just be another escape or a way to enhance creativity. And that is also fine, one might add. Different uses for different people.

Now “I went back to loving myself” has its own distinct place in the narrative ― about the recovery phase in Toronto. You see here, that stranger was not just an active listener, but a collaborator in my healing journey who offered me a piece of my own puzzle I hadn’t yet verbalised.

And the message is oh-so true. Loving oneself is a major key to healing. Without it, there is no capacity or strength or courage to love others. Thank you, Frequency Brother, for unknowingly being a collaborator in the alchemy.

So these little nuggets you receive from those you open your heart to —oftentimes Messengers in Disguise —become integral parts of the story. For throughout the Hero’s Journey, these Kin of the Road become the mirrors that show you who you’ve become and how far you’ve come.

Like any work in progress, we are constantly changing and metamorphosing. And if we choose to keep learning throughout life we will keep growing and maturing into wholeness.

In the end, we are all just travellers coddiwompling around toward a home we cannot see, trying to maintain our balance. To share your naked truth is to offer others a hand as they walk their own Path of the Razor’s Edge.

Through this direct experience, self-knowledge becomes the journey where our inner truth is finally owned. It is an everlasting endeavour — a sacred spiral guiding the soul closer and deeper toward its inner core. We are the mirrors, the allies, and the blade itself, meeting ourselves time and again in a thousand disguises on the path back home.

Follow Thy Bliss

 
“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed
self was another.”
― Toni Morrison

Those mere naked moments of originality and vulnerability are where your strength lies. From victim to survivor to fierce warrior, your metamorphosis is basically a state of mind. How we look at our lives, our perspective, is what eventually forges our reality. That is basically it. And let me tell you my friends:

In the advanced stages of the healing journey, a creative spirit may find themselves getting crafty and playful. They may add a self-deprecating joke or develop a punchline to the “performance”. Yep. And all of that self-expression gives confidence and self-esteem, allowing one to own your truth even more. away from any lingering shame or guilt. This helps you carry on past whatever had happened, by reminding you time and again that the past is gone and that you are nowhere other than the Here and Now — what there is and all there is. Following self-love comes Dancing With Your Demons. Now not just a survivor but as a warrior. Time to shine.

As the OLS Reflection goes: Whenever someone shares with you a sad personal story or tragic event while still keeping up their smile and sense of humour, be certain they have died inside many times over. Yet, they have somehow come to find a way, the will, as well as the strength to transcend the numbness caused by the tragic sadness and reach a certain reconciliation with the self — along with the reality of things. When it comes to matters we have no control over in life, changing perspective can indeed do wonders. And nothing like humour [and creativity] to help us rewrite our story and own our truth; thereby integrate the experience into our lives and get past it.

To be good storyteller requires wit, timing, and humour. To have content, the Path of The Razor’s Edge is where the Magick happens. Use your experiences to sharpen your knowledge and use the razor to shave off all that conditioning you must unlearn... to be able to relearn on your own terms.

To truly heal, the darkness, whatever darkness, has to come out towards the light. Facing your fear head-on is learning how to dance with your demons, in order to reclaim your humanity. If you want to ride life with all its ups and downs and all-arounds you must reclaim your beingness by owning your experiences. This is when you become whole and integrated, when you own your truth. Otherwise life will ride you while you find yourself settling for a background role in other people’s movies, a typical character you never signed up for who’s expected to think and act in certain restrictive ways according to preconceived notions about what can be done and what must not and should not. What a waste of potential.

But it was trying to fit in in these limiting moulds — stories, roles, identities, labels — is precisely what had lead you further away from the expansiveness of your truest nature. Remember: There is no box; there never was and never will be. Be a pattern-breaker. You were born to stand out, not to fit into a script written by someone who has never walked through the fire.

Those who survive the flames don’t need crowns; the scars are the jewellery. And if I can turn my dependences and “Don Jail” wreckage into an academic citation and a full-moon djembe heartbeat, so can you.

Looking back, the Great Pyramid climb wasn’t just a reckless youth adventure; it was a dormant seed. It took thirteen years to sprout in that Cairo boardroom, but when it did, it broke the concrete of my passionless corporate life. It was a simple drawing of a triangle on a whiteboard that turned into a Great Pyramid, which then turned into a plane ticket to the rest of my life.

It’s a poetic irony to smile at, really: I spent a decade trying to fit into the multinational machine, only to be set free by the one part of me that never seemed to belong there — despite trying. My liberation from the Matrix didn’t come from a resume, a promotion, or being trilingual; it came from finally owning, and telling, my own story.

You, yes you, are the protagonist. The Hero of your own saga. Campbell’s famed Hero with a Thousand Faces. And there is no one to live it for you. It is your enigmatic journey to embark on, fully embrace, and figure out, to hopefully embody your truth and start anew as the King of Your Jungle. Storytelling is the Antidote. And your story matters.

Never let them tame you, my Child
No matter how hard they tried
Or how lost, alone, or down you may sometimes feel
Stay wild — true to your nature: That zeal
Do not allow anyone or anything to dim that bright light in your eyes
Keep shining from the moment you arise
Spread those wings fearlessly and trust that life will lift you up to undreamed of heights
For you, Dear One, these are my insights
Now shine On and On... always and forever.