The Magic of the Mundane

Michael Ebbinghaus • July 11, 2022

It's Really Amazing, and It Also Just Kinda... Is

There is only so much awareness that is available to us. Within our own bodies are myriad events, machinations, and grumblings that could consume the entirety of our attention. If we had no capacity to tune out aspects of our existence, we would be overwhelmed by the sheer infinitude of what goes on. 

The caveat here is that we can tune things out for so long that we forget about them entirely, exclude them from our lexicon of what is. It is not always natural to feel the wind on our face or taste fully the ensemble of flavors that grace our palates. There is beauty and transcendence in mundanity so long as we can remember to feel it fully. 

The mundane has always been a source of profound interest to me. The goings-ons in laundromats and corner markets has often brought greater fascination than the glamorous glow and ornamented fabric of restaurants and bars, those establishments that carefully curate the image of the “good life.” Pictures of curbsides, people on the train, cabins settled in by weary and curious travelers, such stills hold a different beauty than serene landscapes and choreographed portraits. 

"It is not always natural to feel the wind on our face or taste fully the ensemble of flavors that grace our palates. There is beauty and transcendence in mundanity so long as we can remember to feel it fully."

The Japanese are masters of capturing the splendor of everyday life. Miyazaki is a famous and stellar example, but the magic of the mundane permeates much of their culture. The short line of a ramen shop open late on a weeknight, tiny bars accommodating small troupes of overworked men in suits, that special sanctity afforded the bare student apartment containing only the necessities to fuel study. 

Our culture places an emphasis on exuberant ecstasy and peak experience. We are fatted on extravagance. Even our healing communities place a premium on full and wild expression. It’s been a problem since the actualization therapies of the 1970s. The meek and mild-mannered are considered only in terms of their societal programming, let the fury of your wild beast be unleashed! Yet it is not always so, and with every peak comes a valley, every high a low. Is it any wonder we are given to diseases of excess? 

"Our culture places an emphasis on exuberant ecstasy and peak experience. We are fatted on extravagance."

Striving for experience is the root of all false mysticism. Experiences are important. Psychedelics, intimate connection with groups of strangers, cataclysmic events that rend our hearts open: these can help to disrupt old modes of being and open our eyes to what is possible. But altered states do not become altered traits without solidifying through practice in our habitual state. The goal of growing in awareness is to be fully present to experience no matter how we might hierarchically organize them. If we ask our experiences to be pleasant enough, intense enough to draw our attention, then we forfeit a degree of our divine power. Sex no doubt more readily draws our awareness, but the better we are able to maintain presence folding the laundry, the greater the degree we can be with our partner in these exquisite moments. 

It is natural for us to view ourselves as separate from the reality in which we live, a logical conclusion/ By separating we make way for an integration that encompasses the parts and creates a greater whole. When the illusion of our separateness evaporates with the ingestion of sacred medicine, nature immersion, or an encounter with death, we must recognize that these hint at the Truth of our condition! When we inevitably sink back into our separateness, we can attribute the union to pharmacological action, relaxing of attention, etc. “I can remember if I read this book, watch this video, eat this mushroom.” Divine union is, however, the state of things. There is nothing we have to do – we are already doing it. 

"Altered states do not become altered traits without solidifying through practice in our habitual state."

Inner guidance is not a rationality-defying, magical-mystical phenomenon. It exists at all of these levels, and the parts of us that see the world in magic and in myth, the foundations upon which we are built, can easily delight in it. This is something to be cherished! Rationality grapples with inner guidance and divinity because it is transrational, i.e. non-rational. It transcends and includes rationality. It is the ultimate Nature reaching down to unite us with It, to bring us into ever closer alignment or resonance. It is a means to bridge the default state into the grand flow. People will push this adaptogen latté or that microdosing regimen or this plant medicine retreat; it is not that these things can’t be helpful, but if we approach them with the idea that it is the experiences or the products, anything external to US that is doing the work, then we are caught in the wheel. How many times do we need to drink the brew, exactly, before we pick up the message? (I’ll caveat this by saying I will more-than-likely work with plant medicines for the entire span of my life – but I will recognize what they put me in touch with and that they are manifestations of the same thing that I AM). 


"Finding beauty and coherence where you are now is one of the best things you can do to get to where you would like to be. "


There are those for whom 1200 micrograms of LSD (~7x the standard dose) has little effect. If one already perceives reality as it is, there is little that these agents can do! It is our divine right to acknowledge and experience this union, but it is not divorced from the reality of lived experience. All things into the present and beyond into the future, which is also the present, occur in Spirit, occur in God. There is nothing that is, nothing that happens, that is not Spirit, that is not God. God is in the shower after work, in putting the children to bed, wiping our ass, wallowing in our miseries, powerful mountaintop mushroom-assisted epiphanies, and death-defying sex. The beauty of peak experiences is to show us what is always possible and available, to feel the river course through our heart and the volcano rise in our belly, and to know that we can live a life free from compulsion, blame, and hatred. Their danger is that we can become dependent upon them. The answers we find in peak experiences are so simple they often make us laugh, particularly if you take yourself too seriously like I tend to. 


In the US in particular, there is a propensity to confuse medicine with health. There are many who are chronically medicated but remain in deleterious health, whether it be beta-blockers, caffeine, or ayahuasca. Medicine is meant to restore our alignment, not be it. Our lives will call for medicines of many different varieties; to fall back into those prisons of our own construction is something all too human. But perhaps the most powerful medicine is the acceptance of the magic of the mundane.


There is a delicate balance to be struck through acceptance and striving. However, finding beauty and coherence where you are now is one of the best things you can do to get to where you would like to be. 


All of this is counter-intuitive until you remember what intuition is.


If you find difficulty with finding peace in the present moment, get in touch with me and we'll learn to work with life in way that it becomes a never-ending dance and adventure. 

The Sentient Soul

Black and white security camera mounted on a textured wall, pointed forward.

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By Michael Ebbinghaus • September 3, 2025
Explore how propaganda, consumerism, and lost perennial wisdom shape our world—and why awakening collective consciousness is urgent today.

Ketamine-Assisted Therapy in Austin

By Michael Ebbinghaus • August 8, 2025
What is Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy? Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) is a modality that uses low dose ketamine alongside talk therapy to access non-ordinary states of consciousness, helping clients process trauma, depression, and anxiety in a new and deeper way. One of the most common complaints about traditional psychotherapy is that it can take a very long time for unconscious material to surface, even after a solid relationship has formed with your therapist. While there are techniques we utilize in our practice that do not require substances (e.g. dreamwork, sentence completion, automatic writing/drawing, etc.), the introduction of intentional medicine work can reliably shift one into an altered state of consciousness, catalyzing access to unconscious material. After a brief introductory period, you will take ketamine under supervision from your therapist either in-office or virtually in the comfort of your own home. The therapist will guide you to take your own journey as well as direct you towards areas that might benefit from exploration in an alternate perspective. Learn more What is Ketamine? Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic acting primarily on the glutamate neurotransmitter system. This differentiates it from the traditional psychedelics like LSD and psychedelic mushrooms which are much more prominent in the serotonin system. Ketamine increases neural plasticity, meaning that the brain becomes more flexible to change, open to new insights and behaviors. Ketamine has been used for over 50 years as a surgical anesthetic. It has no impact on the respiratory system, making it one of the most safe and effective medicines available. It is classified as a WHO top 10 essential medicine, and it is so safe that it is still the anesthetic of choice for children. It is a schedule III medication approved for off-label use in assisted psychotherapy, meaning a healthcare professional must be supervising in some capacity. Screening is essential, see below for more information. How KAP Works One of the things we like to stress is that the medicine is taking you to a place within yourself. It is not the ketamine "doing" anything other than relaxing your emotional defenses and allowing for exploration of consciousness. That said, you will feel a degree of relaxation in your body as well as your mind, which allows things which we keep buried to come up to the surface. By shifting into an alternate state of consciousness, we are able to sublimate many of the barriers we have in place that remain opaque to us. Oftentimes simply allowing this material to surface creates greater harmony, and you ma find yourself saying "Oh - this is what I've been afraid of for so long? It's not so big and scary after all." This is not always the case, of course. The nature of what is hidden can also be very painful, which is why the presence of the therapist as well as the therapeutic relationship is imperative when first working with alternate states of consciousness and healing trauma. What Does KAP Treat? Ketamine's claim to fame comes from its potent and immediate anti-depressive effect . While this requires lifestyle change and further exploration - greatly benefitted by depth psychotherapy - this can be incredibly helpful to those experiencing treatment resistant depression. It does this primarily through breaking up rigid neural networks (enhanced neuroplasticity), limiting one's ability to ruminate. Ketamine for depression can be powerful, indeed. In a meta-analysis of over 2,500 patients, it was found that 45% of people had significant drops in clinical depressions inventories, with 30% in remission. The benefits were often sustained at 6-month follow up. Ketamine-assisted therapy can be helpful for those who experience post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD . The clinical evidence here is quite strong, with multiple meta-analyses and an open label study showing durable and significant reductions in PTSD symptoms in as many as 69% of respondents and up to six-months' follow up. Ketamine for trauma is widely studied and efficacious. Anxiety is also significantly reduced after brief KAP treatments. In a glimpse, ketamine can treat: Treatment-resistant depression PTSD and trauma-related symptoms Anxiety and existential distress Addiction and maladaptive coping Spiritual exploration or life transitions What Does Treatment Look Like At Ebb & Flow Depth Psychotherapy, we believe in the importance of a strong therapeutic relationship to help sustain the positive effects from ketamine treatment. To this end, prior to any medicine session, there are 6-8 preparation sessions (this can be reduced to 2-4 if you are already working with another therapist). From there, we will conduct two initial dosing sessions with an integration session in between each. We would then conduct another 6-8 dosing sessions, also with an integration session in between each. Our Approach During each session, you will be gently guided into your body utilizing a simple meditation or, if preferred, ambient music. We utilize sublingual lozenges, tablets which will be dissolved and swished in the mouth for 10-12 minutes, then spit out. This offers a psycholytic approach rather than a psychedelic approach. We prefer the psycholytic approach for two main reasons: 1) This helps to make ketamine-assisted psychotherapy more affordable, as the presence of a medical professional such as an RN is not needed as they are in IM (intramuscular) or IV (intravenous) injections. 2) Psychedelic ketamine therapy can be effective, but in our hustle and bustle world, the subtle work often gets overlooked, and it is the subtle work that carries us the farthest. If you’re seeking a full psychedelic experience, I often recommend doing so on your own time and terms, ideally in nature or a supportive setting. There are few practitioners I would trust to guide me through such an experience, and they come at an extraordinary financial cost more often than not. With psycholytic ketamine therapy, we are nudging gently and entering into an altered state but not breaking open the doors of reality. Through the experience and through the journey you've taken thus far, which includes your triumphs and your traumas, we will expand not only on who you are but who you are meant to be. Your exuberant and mature presence is sorely needed in this world, and it requires reconciliation of our darker nature and highest aspirations. Who is KAP for? Ask yourself now: "Am I in a place where I am ready for deep self-exploration?" "Am I open to the idea of letting go of things which both pain and comfort me?" "Can I remain off of substances and away from process addictions (such as pornography, over-eating/bingeing and purging, sex, etc.) for at least three days?" You may not be ready for KAP if: Are experiencing active psychosis or mania Have untreated Bipolar I or II disorder Have a personal or family history of schizophrenia Are currently struggling with active substance dependence If you are in a grounded place and ready to make shifts in your life, KAP may offer the support you've been looking for. Ketamine Therapy In Austin, TX - How to Get Started Contact me today for your free consultation to see if ketamine assisted depth psychotherapy might be right for you. Myself and the fine clinicians over at Journey Clinical are ready to help you find deeper meaning in life and be the change in the world you wish to see. We conduct ketamine-assisted therapy in Austin, Texas as well as virtually all over the state. Reach out to us today!