OK – so here we go. 

I don’t have a lot prepared to say up top here.  I just want to welcome Aidan Delgado and give a brief intro. He will be posting here as TheObjector. 

Aidan Delgado joined the Army Reserve in 2001 and was sent to Iraq in March 2003. He was assigned to the 320th Military Police Company where he worked as a mechanic and also as a radio operator.  He spent 1 year in Iraq – 6 months at Tallil Airbase outside Nasiriyah and 6 months at Abu Ghraib.  As a Buddhist he soon found that being in the Army and witnessing the inhumanity of war and its effects on his fellow soldiers, and of course the Iraqis, violated all his beliefs and principles.  He decided he could not be a willing participant any longer so he turned in his weapon and filed for Conscientious Objector status.  His book tells about everything he saw and felt and how difficult it was to go on living and working with most of the soldiers in his unit once he made the decision to become an Objector.  It is a really amazing story of courage and compassion.  Highly recommended.

You can read more about the book here: Review

Click the book cover to purchase from the publisher, Beacon Press.

Here is Aidan’s website with a lot more information and links. 

Without further ado, I’ll open the floor, I mean blog, to questions.  Post your comments at any time and Aidan can work his way down the page to reply. 

The Sutras of Abu Ghraib: Notes from a Conscientious Objector in Iraq Special Note:  Aidan Delgado will be online here at Docudharma to talk about the book and his experiences in Iraq. Please join in the conversation – Sunday, October 28th at 9 PM Eastern / 6 PM Pacific

A few weeks ago Aidan Delgado sent us an email asking if we would help promote his new book about the Iraq War and how he came to be a Conscientious Objector.  We were more than happy to do so.  A few days later I received a copy of the book from the publisher, Beacon Press.  The story is well written and captivating –  highly recommended.  Here are a few more thoughts I will share with you… 

It takes courage to become a soldier and go to war.  It takes more courage to stand up for your principles and do the right thing.  This book is more than just a war story. As Delgado puts it: 

This book is not about who I am and what happened to me, even though you will read about who I am and what happened to me.  It is a story about a struggle that we all face, a story about deciding what you believe is right and upholding that belief to the bitter end, come what may.

Artist: Dadara

These are my favorite trippy flicks.  Either because they are about altered states of consciousness, or because I enjoyed them while tripping, or both.  For me an LSD or shroom session usually lasts 8-12 hours between ingestion and returning to ‘normal’ baseline.  After about 6 or 7 hours I get to a point where even though I’m mentally tired, there is no chance of going to sleep.  This comedown time is also when I tend to start churning through uncomfortable psychic stuff and it helps to have a distraction.  A nice way to get through this transition is to watch a movie.  For the most part these should be colorful, upbeat and not too deep. Animation, documentaries and SciFi/fantasy are usually my favorite.  In my heightened emotional state I get lost in the story and have an abundance of empathy for the characters so anything too weird or heavy can be a bummer.

2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick)
It was December 31, 2000.  We stayed home that New Year’s Eve and celebrated with some L.  The local Public TV station was showing Kubrick’s 2001.  I don’t even know how many times I’ve seen this movie, but it was completely new and different in my altered state.  The special effects were amazing given that it was released in 1968.  I imagined that Kubrick made this movie with tripping people in mind.  The final scene, where the guy ages and dies blew me away.  I started having my own ‘god realizations’ at that point and felt like I was dying too.  It was very intense but I wasn’t scared at all. That was probably one of my top experiences ever and for my husband also.  It wasn’t just the movie that triggered it.  It took about three or four months to come down – that was my Kundalini phase. 

Of all the freedoms you have to lose, none is more fundamental than the freedom of thought. 

Artist: Nisvan

Since Buddhism has been a topic of discussion here lately (On Religion and Buddhism at Docudharma), I thought I would weigh in from another perspective and talk a little about my experiences with Buddhism and the spiritual realm. 

The title of this essay comes from a book of the same name¹ which discusses the role that mind-altering drugs play in spiritual practice.  The book is a collection of essays written by western Buddhist teachers and religious scholars such as Jack Kornfield, Allan Hunt Badiner, Lama Surya Das, Huston Smith and Stephen Batchelor.  They all relate personal anecdotes of how psychedelics opened the doors to higher consciousness. 

From the Foreword:

It is undeniable that a significant proportion of those drawn to Buddhism and other Eastern traditions in the 1960s (including the present writer) were influenced in their choice of religious orientation by experiences induced by psychoactive substances such as marijuana and LSD.  Despite the fact that experimentation with such drugs was illegal, potentially dangerous, and unmonitored, the startling shift in consciousness it occasionally provoked was considered to be worth the risks involved.  Now, thirty years later, many of these Buddhists are priests, meditation teachers, therapists, college professors, and writers: respected members of the very society against which they rebelled in their youth.  Yet although they often eschew the use of psychedelics themselves and warn others of the dangers of abuse, few would deny the role of these substances in opening their eyes to a life of spiritual and religious meaning.

Posted for the Iraq Moratorium  (and Alma)

(Photos by A. Chandler Moisen, except where indicated.  Click the pics to enlarge)

Impressions of the Burning Man The Burning Man was eighty feet high Atop a temple of Moorish lace Confections of stars and midnight suns All on a lake bed flat and sere, already Old when primates first appeared. Fire dancers whirled as the stars chirped Hosannas to the primal rite. Nothing is lost, but all is gained, Extravagance is the law of the land. Open now, as the clouds pass by, Fire is water, and water itself Soars into the stratosphere. High art falls into the dust, No one complains, and all rejoice. Surreal it is, and yet romantic, Bacchus himself rides on the wind, And here it is that once a year Artists bring about the birth Of Shiva’s endless pillar of fire. ~ Gawaine Caldwater Ross

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