Rock Out! New Art & Merch, Music for MDMA Therapy, and Robot Love

It's almost April!  Subscribe to me on Patreon before this Sunday and you're on the list to get my first psychedelic coloring book PDF when it comes out next week.  You'll also get 27 other patrons-only posts, early and exclusive episodes of Future Fossils Podcast, my uncut (deeply psychedelic) interview with Visionary Art Australia, and an increasing share of the time I used to spend on Facebook, shouting into an abyss.

If, like me, you're kind of underwater with your money right now – I still hope that I can welcome you into some awesome conversations that inspire and enlighten.  If you are still using Facebook, join the Future Fossils Facebook group – there are 1100 of us in there sharing links about the future, awesome art, amazing science, deep thoughts, and hilarious asides.  It's where I share most of the cool news that I find, these days...

Thank you so much for staying with me as we grow and change.  And now on to the show!

Rock Out!  (Fighting Rooster)

18"x24" – 2018 – paint pens on canvas

order prints

printed items (iPhone cases, stickers, tapestries, etc.)

like/comment/share on Facebook

A memorial from 2018 (Year of the Earth Dog in the Chinese calendar) looking back on 2017 (Year of the Fire Rooster) and last year's massive rooster painting, this piece sums up how it feels to me like creativity and raw belligerence so often go together – passion, fire, spirit, drive – to make is to destroy what was. Sometimes you just can't tell the difference between a fight and making love...

HD downloads now on Bandcamp

Also available for streaming on:

Spotify • Apple Music • Amazon • Google Play

Last month I played a benefit for Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) at the home of Aubrey Marcus to help raise funds for the Phase 3 FDA-approved clinical trials for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.

These new clinical protocols are the most successful PTSD intervention known to science, more than four times as effective as antidepressants, and they don't require a lifetime of medication. These are CURES, not treatments.  And in our anxious age of overstimulation and emotional bombardment, this is more necessary than it's ever been.

I'm honored to have music in the therapeutic playlists for these trials, thanks to the endorsement of my friend and MAPS clinician Saj Razvi.  I'm also working on MAPS to release these playlists to the public. But for now, here is an half-hour excerpt from the instrumental set I played last month...

Enjoy, and let me know if any of this makes it into your own therapeutic playlists!

This week’s guest is independent culture critic John David Ebert – mythologist, philosopher, art historian, and author of twenty-six books.  We talk about the rich mythological references of Blade Runner 2049 in light of the larger – and very urgent – matter of mechanizing human reproduction and the (actually rather ancient) male quest to appropriate the mysteries of the goddess…

This week we chat with the philosopher and sociologist John Danaher about the book Robot Sex: Social & Ethical Implications, a fascinating collection of academic articles on our sexbot future he just co-edited with Neil McArthur. Chances are good you’ve seen the “Don’t Date Robots!” public service announcement from the cartoon Futurama, and probably Björk’s “All Is Full of Love” music video. Maybe you’ve seen Heror Ex Machina or Spielberg’s AI. And let’s not forget the Femmebots in Austin Powers. But does any of this media, for or against, paint a realistic portrait of the impact of machines on human intimacy?

That's 50% OR MORE off any of the pieces you see here.  I'm taking an indefinite hiatus from live painting, so the picking's only getting slimmer...but I'm happy to take far less than the asking price if something speaks to you.  Check out the pieces I have left here, then just send an email with an offer, and I'll let you know within a day.

And last, here are a couple things I'm doing soon that you might like to know about:

Thanks again for reading and have a most blessed couple weeks!

“I think it is misplaced to argue for doing fundamental research just because of its technological spinoffs. Our current standard of living vitally depends on the curiosity-driven research that was done a generation or two before…the most important things that we know fifty years from now will be things we have no idea about right now.” 

– Lawrence Krauss

3 New Paintings + 8 Yoga Mats + 7 Awesome Conversations

Thank you for opening this!  Art is a way for me to organize my life to best receive my deep intelligence and guidance and then share it with the world...so this dumb little newsletter that I've been keeping since 2009 is like an altar where I place my prayers for world peace and the ongoing evolution of our loving cosmos.  As Alex Grey adapted from the Mahayana Buddhists, "May the merit generated by this act benefit all sentient beings."

You know where to find me if you'd like to pass a message through the grate.

love

Michael

PS – I'm opening for Random Rab in Austin on March 30th.  Hope you can make it!

New Paintings

(I now offer discounts or free prints, as well as extensive backstories for every new painting, to Patreon supporters.  Here's the link if you'd like to learn more.)

"Dying To Know"

collaboration with Elliot Rogers & William Allan Ross

2017 • 36"x48" • acrylic paint on gallery-wrapped canvas

original painting & fine art reproductions here

"Going Home"

2018 • 24"x36" • acrylic paint on gallery-wrapped canvas

painted live at Gem & Jam Festival 2018 (Tucson, AZ)

to the music of Earthcry (onstage), Emancipator, Big Wild, & STS9 (2x)

original painting & fine art reproductions here

"Rainbow Worm"

2017 • 20"x20" • acrylic and oil paint on canvas

original painting & fine art reproductions here

New Conversations

At last week's Body Hacking Conference, I joined somatic therapist Saj Razvi for a group discussion on MDMA-assisted and psychedelic psychotherapies, drawing on his successful clinical work with MAPS and the FDA to reschedule MDMA as a legal treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  We had an awesome chat about the protocols used in this study, the miraculous successes that they've seen with this new mode of healing, and why it is time for our society to make these medicines available to all of us.  Read more and download the audio recording here.

For fellow nerds:  I've posted THREE new conversations about Blade Runner 2049 and the future of humanity with acclaimed film scholars John David Ebert, Barry Vacker, and JF Martel.  These will eventually be made available to everyone as Future Fossils Podcast episodes, but for now you can find them all on Patreon for $5.  

We go deep on ancient myths and symbolism in the films, on whether love can make an android "real," on whether this film helps or hurts our cultural imagination of the future, and a lot more.  It has been an honor to sit down with these three thinkers and I know that any sci-fi fan will dig these...

One of my favorite comedians, Shane Mauss, explains how we went so deep with psychedelics that he had to check himself into a mental ward.  We talk about time travel, God discovering humanity,  and more.  One of the funniest and weirdest episodes of Future Fossils yet!

My old friend and badass truth warrior gonzo journalist Charles Shaw maps out the trauma engine that is modern civilization – and why it's so important that we fight for the right to heal ourselves.

This is the first of THREE HOURS of the show with Charles – if you would like to hear the rest of it before it's published, it's available to Patreon supporters at all levels here.

Easily in the top five sharpest people I have ever met, my graduate advisor and meta-disciplinary wizard Sean Esbjörn-Hargens talks about how to train multiple perspectives on the natural world as well as economics and the development of human organizations.  If that sounds dry, prepare to be surprised by one of the most psychoactive knowledge paradigms you've ever met...

New Yoga Mats & More

I finally have yoga mats for eight of my paintings (one of which is not shown here), with more to come soon!  This is now the cheapest way to get high-quality, large reproductions of my work – larger and less costly than the giclée canvas prints – good enough to hang on walls but durable enough to take whatever you can throw at them while kicking ass in yoga class.

Grab yours here.  I make a rather small percentage of each sale but I'm just glad to have my art available like this.  If you get one, please send me pictures of you rocking out with your new mat and I'll respond with something small and special for you...!

This will be the new destination for all of my digital art merchandise.  More soon, but now there are already tons of items up for my most popular designs, on items you cannot get anywhere else.

I have more than 16 hours of my music available for your enjoyment up on Spotify...and nearly five times as much music, spanning more than ten years' of recordings, up on Bandcamp.  It's all available for anything you care to spare, because my music is a gift and I would like for it to stay that way.  

(You can, of course, subscribe:  Bandcamp subscribers also get all of the audio that I release in any format you desire, including many many private press releases, and some heavy discounts on my paper prints, and public cred for being part of my small crew of badass fans.)

Select Upcoming Events

Here are some of the things I'm most excited about this spring.  For my full schedule, visit my webpage – and if you want me in your neighborhood this year, give me a shout!

“True solitude is found in the wild places, where one is without human obligation. One’s inner voices become audible… In consequence, one responds more clearly to other lives.

– Wendell Berry

Spotify Playlist: Music for MDMA Therapy + "How to Live in the Future" at Boom Festival + Bless The Water + Daniel Zen & Australian Psychedelic Society on Future Fossils

“The important thing is that each man possess...a wilderness and that he consider
what marvels are to be observed there.”
– Loren Eiseley, The Incredible Journey, p.9

April...what a crazy month!  I hope you gave permission to the permanently permutating purring purpose at the transcendental core of Spring and trusted it, and it transported us across the boundary from Known to Unknown/Better...if, like me, you're still a Jacob wrestling angels as they make long-overdue improvements, here's to exercising your strategic patience, feminine compassion, sacred space, and curious delight in letting all this novelty adapt you to a better world and life.

I just got back from the MAPS Psychedelic Science Conference in Oakland, California – hanging a gallery of my art, playing music on their donors' cruise, and recording interviews for Future Fossils Podcast.  It was clear to everyone how much the counterculture has grown up...much more to say about that soon.

But for now, here's all the good new stuff I'm honored I can share with you:

Spotify Playlist: Music For MDMA Therapy

Here's a Spotify playlist of the songs I've confirmed they used in the clinical trials.  I'll continue to add songs as I learn more...and if you know anyone doing work like this, feel free to pass it on.  It is one of the greatest honors of my life to know my music's helping people heal.  Enjoy!:

Share this Playlist!

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe to my new music at Patreon or Bandcamp, where I have my entire catalog available as pay-what-you-can downloads.  Thanks for listening!

"How to Live in the Future"

(Professional Boom Festival Staff Shoot!)

Last year I gave my most well-received talk yet to the Liminal Village at Boom Festival – a small contribution to what is easily the most literate, cosmopolitan, visionary, impressive lineup of presenters I have ever seen at what is essentially a "dance party."  (In fact I'm pretty sure that some people go to Boom JUST for the talks.)

It's about psychedelics as training wheels for transhuman existence, and how we can adapt to the dizzying changes we will live through in our lifetimes.  It's a mashup of the scientific, philosophical, contemplative, poetic, and playful, and I hope it helps you feel like all this transformation's going somewhere good.

I recorded my own take in 360º video (part 1, part 2) but their edited multiple camera recording is WAY better.  If you can't sit still for an hour to watch this video, here is a link to the audio only.

This talk became the seed of a book by the same name, which I'm writing in public.  You can read all of the chapters I have finished so far on my page at Medium.

Cameo in Water Is Life by Uplift Connect

A film about one of the most important issues of our time – water access, scarcity, and health.

I give a short riff in this video (at 14:00) about embracing change, honoring our evolutionary origins as fish and moving with courage and curiosity into the flow of our transformational age (instead of clinging to the familiar like clams, and losing our wits in the process).

It's a potent 20 minutes that also features clips from some of the brightest luminaries that I know of – people like Vandana Shiva, Jamaica Stevens, Charles Eisenstein, Dan Schreiber, and Stephan Harding.  Watch the full thing here on Uplift Connect and improve your day.

New Future Fossils Episodes!

We’re switching it up this week to present my recent talk on psychedelic futurism at the first weekly meeting of the Australian Psychedelic Society (Fitzroy Beer Garden, Melbourne, Victoria).

The Chinese have a curse: “May you live in interesting times.” The Irish have a toast: “May you be alive at the end of the world” I’m more Irish than Chinese, and I know this because even though we’re living through total chaos these days, that means unprecedented opportunity for wonder, creativity, discovery, and growth.  (Episode art by Adam Scott Miller.)

Listen to it here.

This week we chat with Daniel Zen, former Google engineer, technology instructor at zen.digital, NYC Regional Coordinator for Burning Man, coordinator for the Angular NYC (spelling?) Meetup, and general high-tech wizard.  We discuss the intersections of surveillance technology, festival culture, virtual reality, class conflict, dreams of the Technological Singularity, and more...

Listen to it here.