Benjamin Ryan

Connect What inspired your most recent tattoo?

I was reading the old testament and a few days after the burning bush story in Exodus, there was a large bush on fire right outside my workplace. I work in the middle of a large city downtown, and in 5 years here I've never seen a bush or a tree on fire, anything of the sort, so it was a little freaky. Just got a burning bush tattoo on my abdomen with the text "Deus Ubique Est".

If your ink could speak, what would it say?

It would tell stories from the road, novels of acquaintance, life-altering brief connections with strangers in far away lands. Lessons from exploring the depths of consciousness, cultural artifacts from remote civilizations, archetypes and abstract fundamental realities. Plus a few black magic spells in Pali and Khom, though the monks who imparted them to me gave me specific rules that I haven't quite followed, so those may be inert by now :)

What would you do with the $25,000?

I would donate 20%, either to one of the volunteer organizations I hang around down here, or to psychedelic research, maybe the Heffter institute. I just had my first child so a lot of it will probably go to those expenses as my wife is recovering, and whatever is left over will go towards my long-term goal of communal homesteading; some friends and I meet every few months to continue laying the groundwork for an eventual purchase of rural land.