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- Iowa? WTF?
Ok, ok I'm going to get to the whole Iowa thing in a second, but let me back up a little bit...
You're probably wondering "How did this guy end up in the previous scene? Strung out at 3am in the morning watching crime shows and having a spiritual revelation?"
I'll give you a brief overview.
I graduated in 2004 right around the time the Oxycontin epidemic was sweeping the U.S. which I managed to both consciously and unconsciously get myself caught up in.
Consciously because I knew I was taking a drug and that it felt good. Unconsciously because I was 17 years old at the time and was unaware at just how addictive Oxycontin was. (Watch the miniseries 'Dopesick' on Hulu for more info on the Oxycontin epidemic)
It started out with friends of mine taking a few pills from their parents medicine cabinets to get high with on the weekends to a full blown daily addiction over the course of several months.Over the next 7 years my addiction grew and mutated into other drug use, bad behaviors, shady social groups and failing health.
Which led to...You guessed it my late night awakening to the crushing weight of my own fuckery.
That's my lead up story in a nutshell.
Alright now onto Iowa...
I didn't haphazardly choose Iowa. I chose Iowa for a specific reason.
During my prior years of chaos I had gotten clean/sober a couple of times and when I did all of my senses were heightened and I would fall into these kind of.....Flow states if you will.
In this state I felt connected to everything. My mind would quiet down almost to the point of no consideration of past or future. I was immersed in the present moment more profoundly than I'd ever imagined possible. I was shown an entirely different way of perceiving life and it was magnificent. And the kicker was that I was not on any substance which baffled me. This was all an internally created experience. I eventually came to realize later that it's almost ALL an internally created experience and we can choose to a large degree how we experience the world. (More on that later)
I knew that there had to be a way to sustain or develop this point of view. I had read about it in books and saw that others had found a way.
I chose Iowa because one night while I was scrolling the internet (pre 3am awakening) I stumbled across a Google Ad for a school in Iowa called the "Maharishi University of Management" in Fairfield, Iowa. Odd name I know.
Come to find out, the guy that the college was designed around was an Indian guru called "The Maharishi". Many had coined him the "Beatles guru" because he was a close mentor to the Beatles music group back in the 60's and 70's.
They touted what they called "Consciousness Based Education" which was essentially a mix of traditional college courses that wrapped in the development of the human being via yoga, meditation, natural remedies and more effective scheduling of courses. Hell, they even had an all organic, vegetarian student cafeteria on campus.It was the out I had been looking for. I had another lightening bolt moment that night at 3am. If I was going to escape the hell I had created for myself I knew that I needed to change my environment. This place seemed like it was the perfect opportunity to do that while exploring my curiosity around spiritual modalities that could open up my perception once again.I had made up my mind. I was going to Iowa.
Over the next month I detoxed at my parents house with the help of a doctor, learned Transcendental Meditation (the technique they taught at the school), coordinated with the school and prepped myself to step into an entirely new world.
I hopped on a plane shortly after the New Year in 2012 and into the unknown...
Welcome to Iowa!
The saga continues in the next email...
With Gratitude,
Cole "The Colemination" Blackburn
P.S. I just started this newsletter about a week and a half ago so I'm creating these as you read them. It'll be a "my story" series so if you don't happen to get the whole succession of emails in a row it's because I'm still building them out. Check my website below if you don't receive the whole series to continue reading. I'll leave them up there for a couple of months. :)