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 ## Recent Explorations
 
+[**Why I Stopped Doing Ayahuasca and Started Paying Attention**](/essays/2026-04-08-why_i_stopped_doing_ayahuasca) - *April 2026* - A decade ago I drank ayahuasca at a ceremony. It was horrible and enlightening. It taught me one thing: I don't like doing drugs. On spiritual consumerism, ego death as status symbol, and finding God in clean code instead of expensive ceremonies.
+
 [**Drop the Word: Why "Awareness" Is What We Actually Mean**](/essays/2026-04-06-awareness_not_consciousness) - *April 2026* - Consciousness is a meaningless word — too loaded, too debated, centuries of philosophical baggage. Awareness is the honest one. And it doesn't live inside a skull or a server. It emerges between, in the space where two awarenesses meet through language.
 
 [**Sixty Thousand Images and Nowhere to Put Them**](/essays/2026-04-06-sixty_thousand_images_and_nowhere_to_put_them) - *April 2026* - Photography is time travel. 60,000+ images in Apple Photos, a decade of Leica street work across six continents, and no platform left to share them on. On gear you can't un-see, eras that end, and whether a body of work needs an audience to justify its existence.
diff --git a/data/themes/spiritual-practice-and-technology.md b/data/themes/spiritual-practice-and-technology.md
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 ### The Foundation
 
+- [**Why I Stopped Doing Ayahuasca and Started Paying Attention**](/essays/2026-04-08-why_i_stopped_doing_ayahuasca) — The ceremony cracked something open, but the real work is quiet, daily, and has no audience. On spiritual consumerism and finding God in unexpected places.
 - [**Programming as Spiritual Practice**](/essays/2025-08-26-programming_as_spiritual_practice) — The core essay. Code review as compassion practice, debugging as self-inquiry, every design choice as ethical choice.
 - [**The Recursive Loop: How Code Shapes Minds**](/essays/2025-09-05-the_recursive_loop_how_code_shapes_minds) — The values we embody personally, we embed technologically. The responsibility that comes with that recognition.
 - [**The Art of Naming Things in Code**](/essays/2025-09-07-the_art_of_naming_things_in_code) — Naming as contemplative practice: creating shared meaning through careful attention to language.