Showing posts with label Trip Report. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trip Report. Show all posts

MDA Christmas (ended up a rant.)




Last time I took MDA was at Wakarusa, six months ago. Today I celebrated a new annual tradition with a few of the people I consider family. We each ingested a little over an average dose of MDA and exchanged Christmas presents.

The linguistic net “family” doesn’t capture this bond as well as the word Tribe does. These people feel like my people. More than blood, or creed, or political idealization.  I’m truly grateful. I don’t know when it happened, but once I learned how to allow others close enough, this kind of bond has started weaving its way into most of my relationships.

Its interesting to play with the metaphysical idea that destiny is a real energy guiding us monkeys and that we participate in this dance. When I look back at the experience through the Destiny Goggles (TM lol), I see some interesting synchronicities. Two separate, unannounced, beautiful woman showed up at my house the day of the MDA experience. Both separately, and at different times, ended up sharing stories of their closest intimate relationships.

The music they sang were songs of miscommunication, unhappiness, and confusion. So many people I know do not have a single human they can be completely unguarded around. They don’t have one bond, even with themselves, where they know they are completely accepted. You can look these people in the eye and see the part that is begging to be accepted. And you can see that some crueler part has convinced itself to not dare expose themselves.  

We unconsciously attract to us the relationships that fit our unique dysfunction. I don’t know exactly when the shift occurred in me, but I give thanks every day, because at some point, I clicked in a way where the vampires started drifting out of my life and the angels came gliding in.

I know one of the factors that contributed to this shift was MDA. This chemical, which, like all drugs, are only a catalyst for states of consciousness our biochemistry is already capable of experiencing, healed the faulty programs Shame 2.3 and Guilt 2.3 that constantly ran in my subconscious. The angelic hug MDA gives the nervous system was enough to allow me to accept me.

“All is metaphor, even this.” And all metaphor is a lame comparison to the actual experience. These words don’t do justice, and the experience of complete self-acceptance requires a lot of ground work.  But once it is done, your self-love acts as a kind of planetary gravity that begins to draw to you the souls you are meant to be around. Or at least my drug-riddled delusional brain thinks so. And the opposite is true. If your core churns with self-hate, self-condemnation, guilt, and shame, you will attract to you negative energy, vampires, and other broken, angry souls.

But playing with the Destiny Goggles (TM lol), lends a beautiful perspective to all of this. Every challenge, every personal shitty relationship that collides with our planet, is meant to be. Each challenge is exactly the challenge we need, right now, to grow in the exact way we need to, in order to become enough to adequately answer the question the universe has asked itself in the form of our unique biochemistry. But again, only a perspective, and one that is too optimistic for the self-loathing, depression-addicted skeptic.

All knowledge are models the finite human projects onto the infinity to try to make some sense of it. All is debatable, even this. Be brave enough to choose to play with different reality tunnels. Play with different models of reality like a child plays with different crayons.

This post was intended to be about the beautiful experience I shared with some of my tribe. It turned out to be something else entirely, but still very inspired by my trip last night. I feel overwhelming lucky. I feel obligated to try to help other people reach this kind of peace. My creative tool is the written language so I type. These people I call my tribe are people who have helped me heal myself.

If you have made it to these words, firstly, thank you. I feel like I rambled and you’re sweet to have stayed with me this far. You have a creative skill. Feed it. Train it like a Pokemon. Play with it. I think connecting to this creative energy inside you is one of the ways to start shifting the gravity you give off. This is one way to shed the muck you may have stuck to you.

And if you don’t think you are creative, which is a delusion your ego has accepted likely due to disapproving authority figures in your childhood, at least play with the Destiny Goggles (TM lol), and see your struggles as challenges God has given you that will help you grow into the You you are meant to be.

***


I really missed the mark I was shooting for with this post. But I trust that this post is exactly what one of you needed and I hope it resonated. I love you and seriously, read and follow the instructions in The Artist’s Way.  Or spend a year or so studying Carl Jung and lets talk over mushrooms. Lol. Namasteezy. 

Wakarusa: Part 5 (Diverging)



Yall who read these regularly know what's coming; an apology. These Wakarusa posts have woefully underrepresented the magic experienced there. I'm not fretting though, writing them and witnessing my friends enjoy them has been a sacred experience I'm thankful for. These writings are just creative flags I plant for my memory. A useful lesson to learn early is that the past is never revivable, relivable, or frankly, reliable. At best these posts will serve as little buoys for myself and my friends, which will guide us back to our subjective, magical experiences. I love yall. Thanks for reading.

The one sober morning 

The last morning of Wakarusa was weird. I was ready to leave. Wakarusa felt like it was something we endured. The sun was relentless, sleep hid from us, and the porta-potties assaulted us. The drugs were assertive in their teachings, and our stenches were evolving. Our stenches had stenches. I hadn't felt a shower or an air conditioner in 4 days.

My imagination is pleading with me to exaggerate and compare the festival to ancient mystery religions; where neophytes were guided through psychological ordeal after psychological ordeal, each challenge symbolic and harboring a lesson. Nature as our wise guide, the psychedelics as our sacraments. Waka felt like that to me. I felt like I was dealt ordeals. I felt like I learned lessons.

Given the state we were all in, as we started packing, I began trying to put our trip in perspective. The first fact that started resonating was our lack of bickering. It took some attention to realize the absences. We had been around each other, in close and uncomfortable proximity, for almost a week and there hadn't been a single argument. I took a few moments that morning to bask in the connection we cultivated here. I've got at least a dozen consciousnesses I've found through the seven billion headed crowd who I've genuinely connected with. Thank you.

By early noon we were ready to leave. We left the mountain and headed toward the nearest gas station. Using an actual toilet, feeling the AC caress my sunburnt neck, and drinking that blue Gatorade sugar water was a near religious experiences. I fucking knew hedonic adaption was already at work and that I'd get use to this glory, but for a good 15 minutes, that gas station was better than sex.

We all agreed to postpone our farewell and go to a local sushi place for lunch. The place was a hidden gem. Six dollar Unagi roll? Sex. I miss that place.

After we ate and relaxed, we reluctantly met in the parking lot. Sheepishly, we gathered in a group hug, said some words, shared some love, and said goodbye. The group hug was my idea to avoid a long, drawn-out farewell. Well, after the group hug, my plan failed. Everyone splintered off to give their personal good-bye to everyone. And that's exactly as it should have been. We all know we'll see each other again so it wasn't too sad.

Wakarusa was memorable. Being with you all was more meaningful. I look forward to growing and dying with yall. Namasteezy. 

Wakarusa: Part 4 (Love)



Wide Lens

Our ego's eyes know only the symbolic. Our symbols are rooted in our evolutionary history. If we choose to modal consciousness as a computer program, downloading symbol-interpreting software will act as a data-compression algorithm, that is to say, if you teach yourself how to understand the symbolic life, you will understand life's sea of data more clearly, more wholly, thus making life more holy. Symbols are the stone blocks to the pyramid of Myth. Imbuing your life with myth imbues 21st century materialistic existential existence with magic. Myth is my religion; symbols the language of my Goddess, and Growth my daemon. 

We are free to choose our reality tunnel. This is our Promethean gift. You waste your godhead when you unconsciously live through someone else's reality lens. Waking up is consciously molding your own. This blog has been, and still is, my attempt at consciously molding my own. Thank you for following along. I hope at some point you'll share your reality perspective with me. I love you. 

Narrow Lens 

Today is Saturday, day three of Wakarusa. I know today is my last day taking drugs. I need a recovery day, but today anit that day, SON  * que Joe Rogan voice.*

I throw back 3 grams of mushrooms, chew ferociously, (ironically my favorite symphony of atoms makes me gag every time), and gulp it down with water. Not consciously, but likely consciously subconscious, I'm dehydrated and haven't ate since last night, so these 3 grams are going to feel like 6. And maybe this is physiologically true, or maybe its placebo, but subjectively, it's going to be as true as true gets. 

As I wait with most of my tribe, I start thinking about Katrisa. And thus, not knowing at the time, I kickstart the spiraling, fugue like, recursive loop that would be my psychedelic adventure today. 

Prologue 

I'm at the campsite with almost the entire tribe. The time is around 5 in the evening. Our base is a good 20 minute hike from where Wakarusa's main action is vulspating. The only people down in that mesh is my girlfriend Katrisa, and Hannah. They're going to be roommates soon and they have been bonding this trip. Katrisa is down there metabolizing with Lysergic acid diethylamide. It's only her second time playing with Lucy and of course I'm worrying.

I'm projecting my psychological shortcomings onto her. The chaos of Waka would send me spiraling into a bad trip, but Katrisa is on a higher level than me when it comes to navigating the psychedelics terran. She embodies Grace. Where I'd trip on some negative energy, she dances around, laughing, looking to help me up.

Earlier this day she decided she'd eat 3 grams of mushrooms in the morning then head to Wakarusa in the evening on LSD. Flowing from a place of fear, I tried talking her out of doing this. She gently brushed off my worries. Aggravated, convincing myself I was moving from a place of love and not fear (I was definitely moving from a place of fear), I accused her of being greedy in front of our entire group.

I felt the words land like a slap and I regretted it. She very honestly responded that the remark hurt her feelings and that she genuinely didn't think she was being greedy. She was right. The calmness with which she offered each word convinced me. I apologized, measured out her mushrooms, apologized again, and watched her nibble on the fungus while we all talked.

After about an hour, I asked her if she would like to go on a walk. Wide-eyed, she beamed, "Of course." Her, myself, and another friend, Marge, started walking around the forested campsite we were settled in.

I've worn the mushroom googles enough to almost place myself behind Katrisa's eyes without the fungus. I asked observational questions to her that I knew would spark her to settle into the mushroom trip. "What does that tree's leaf feel like it's function is?" "Does that plant look like its safe to touch?" "What does the ground tell you happened here last night?"

Her answers hugged my heart. With the awe of a child, I witnessed her experiencing nature in a novel way. I love her, I love that fungus. I love being a guide. We walked, talked, and observed for an hour or so. It is a beautiful memory.

This is what I thought about during my come up. 

Beginning 

We started our trek towards Waka. Like last night, we headed to the party in the evening. The beaming sun was starting to relax and Luna was beginning to take over. But where last night's hike into the festival was bursting with color and life, today's adventure, as experienced through my eyes, was very different.

About 10 minutes into our descent, I knew today was going to be harder for me. Yesterday was all positives, no lessons. Today, Mama Mushy was going to be teaching me.

I was hinted to the trip to come by the kind of visual alterations I was experiencing. Instead of a master painter's splashing paint brush, my vision was filtered through a low saturation lens. I was reminded of Mad Max. Color seemed as if it had been sucked out of the environment. I felt my mind starting to worry, "Is this a reflection of your neurons?" "Have you exhausted your neurotransmitters?" These kinds of unknowable, existential questions tend to be automatic when I'm high enough, but I've done the work, and I can guide my mind away from them. 

Rising Action

There is a little hill you walk onto that is about 5 minutes away from the festival. Once you've gotten to the top of, you can see the entire organism. This image is where my stomach dropped and the trip turned from mildly unpleasant to gut-clenching nausea.

How was I going to find Katrisa in that? No phones. No plan. My ego shook.

As I started feeling worse, my thoughts started growing in their irrationality. I thought "what if I'm sensing Katrisa's bad trip?" As soon as that spell entered my consciousness, I entered the hardest 90 minutes of my Wakarusa adventures. 

As we're walking into Wakarusa, the crowd is starting to really get to me. My nervous system is sensitive and there is so much information to process. My mind is frantically worrying. 

"I'll never find her is this crowd." 

"Why didn't we use walkie-talkies or phones?" 

"Fuck, there are like 10,000 people throughout this place." 

"What if she's freaking out? Can Hannah help her?" 

I'm shaking. I'm sweating. I'm either dehydrated or having a mild panic attack. (An interesting perspective to explore from my comfortable sobriety is whether my thoughts caused the physical symptoms (panic attack), or whether I was physiologically dehydrated and my mind was trying to think thoughts that justified the physical reality my body was experiencing. This is a one of the fundamental questions of psychology and we don't have a hard answer for the question.)

I waddled over to a vendor and did my best to not look like a bearded Jew having a psychological crisis, "Can I get a green juice please?" Once that sweet nectar met my lips my visual field splashed with color. The peak was arriving, I was hydrated, but I was still emotionally contorted. It was a very weird experience, visually my present was beautiful and vibrant and dancing, mentally, I was still constricted, worried, and weak. 

We headed to the stage where Glass Animals would be playing in about half an hour. We knew Katrisa and Hannah would be there eventually. We laid down a few blankets in the very back of the venue and sat. I remember having pleasant conversations with my friends, and admiring the shroom lenses, but internally, I was only focused on finding Katrisa. 

As a quick aside, I need to mention, A small whisper in me knew everything would be okay. I'm at a weird stage in my life. I've inherited very powerful anxiety and paranoia from both my parents. I think most of us have. Yet, my personal experience of life has only validated the perspective that all is meant to be, that I am being watched after, and that if I listen carefully and pick my wishes wisely, sometimes reality will even bend for me. I look forward to the day I heal completely the paranoid child I had to cultivated that protected me through my childhood. 

Climax

After waiting cross-legged and anxious, I saw some people walking toward us. They were a good 50-60 yards away but I knew. I stood up and started walking towards them. I was ecstatic. Those cheesy scenes in bad rom-coms flickered through my mind but fuck that. This was genuine bliss. As Katrisa got closer I could see the glow in her eyes. She hadn't had a single negative moment on LSD. It was all in my mind. Our smiles resonated off each other until our facial muscles started cramping and we hugged. 

All negativity washed away in the glow of her presence. She didn't know what I had been through so after she hugged me she went to each person in our group and had genuine greetings with all of them. 

The biggest lesson of today's trip was starting to take form. 

I returned to my spot on the blanket. After the reuniting, Katrisa, Kalyn, and Zach left our little encampment and started to the front for Glass Animals. Paige, an energy more connected to mine then most, after Kat and them had left, asked me about the moment I saw Katrisa. 

'What happened there? You looked so happy. It was really sweet to see."


She knew something significant had to have been churning in me for me to act that way when I saw Katrisa. I tried explaining my trip to Paige. Words were not surrendering themselves to me adequately, but she got it. She smiled and offered me the only sound that was need. "Aww." 

About halfway through Glass Animal's set, Katrisa and them came back. I was still processing my emotional bungee bump but Katrisa was on a higher plane. She came to me, eyes blowing, kissed me, and grabbed a friend's Poi balls, (they're these neon lights at the end of a string that dancers use at festivals.) 

She only started using this toy yesterday. Glowing orbs in hand, she walked away from us, totally in her own headspace, and started dancing. She moved in a way completely beyond her skill level. Those of us paying attention looked on in gentle disbelief. 

Culmination

This is when the vacation, the night, and my relationship with Katrisa culminated. Her dancing, dancing for only her own enjoyment, without a fucking care who saw or who judged, was the symbolic completion of our relationship as it had been up to that point. 

I think all of us in our early adulthood are wounded. Life afflicts us. I think the highest purpose of relationships, both sexual and non sexual, at our stage of development, is to heal each other. I think both sexes have it rough, but I think girls have a harder time than men. 

Our culture is weird. Life is weird. There seems to be a built in tragedy to parenting and loving. Loving someone completely, correctly, heals them in a way where they no longer need the loving. There are too many wounded people to be selfish with the good ones. Katrisa is one of the good ones. Her love is going to heal other people. 

We're going our separate ways when she leaves for college. This had been a subconscious wound in my  mind for months that had been treated by this trip. This moment. 

This day, with the mushroom hike and the LSD night, I witnessed Katrisa's healing complete itself. She didn't need me anymore. Thats what was at the core of this entire trip. Honestly, she had probably reached this new level of wholeness awhile ago, but this trip was for me to realize it. 

The moment this lesson landed, bittersweet tears filled my eyes. I had done a good job. This has been the type of relationship I dreamed of, but I hadn't adequately prepared for what success would feel like. Success is us walking away, healed, ready to heal others. I'm confident our paths will intersect again. Until then, this quote will hold me over; 

(Aldous Huxley and his about-to-be-wedded wife talking moments before the wedding)

"You know, darling, I love others, too." 

To which Aldous quickly responded;

"It would be awful if you didn't." 

And that succinctly sums up how I feel. 

I love you Katrisa. Thank you for healing me. 

Conclusion

After the drugs wore off, we stayed late and caught Major Lazer. We danced in Luna's light late into the night. Together, in a crowd of thousands. We left after hearing my favorite song. We shared other favorites and laughs. Cuddled on a cramped air mattress, still whispering love. Lazer's bassnotes lulled us to sleep. 


Wakarusa: Part 3 The Peak




Nietzsche's Echo


Wakarusa was my first music festival, but I've been thinking about going to one for years. I occasionally walk and read. One of my favorite symbol-warping primates to resurrect by reading their work is Nietzsche. The man was a genius if the word has any meaning. I highly recommend. Something he said connected with me and my urge to go to a music festival.

Nietzsche's first major work, which he published in his early 20's, after already being hired as a professor at the top University in the most respected intellectual country in Europe, focused on Ancient Greece. Particularly, he focused on the two major zeitgeists he observed in their culture; the Apollonian and Dionysian spirits.

The Apollonian spirit was represented by the Greek God of the sun; Apollo. He symbolized light, sobriety, and reason. This was the part of the Greek culture that fueled the creation of Democracy, philosophy, reason, and literature. This was the zeitgeist of the aristocracy, the politicians, and society's enforcers.

The Dionysian spirit was represented by the Greek God of wine; Dionysus. He symbolized night, intoxication, and emotion. This was the part of the Greek culture that fueled the Oracles, the mystery religions, and the arts. This was the zeitgeist of the slaves, the poor, and the creatives.

These forces are still in play in our time. The Apollonian spirit is coursing through our stock market, the sober families following the "normal" life, and your friend who thinks smoking weed is bad but drinks coffee and smokes cigarettes.

Dionysus is here too. He pulsates through every subwoofing bass note, and he spills through every music festival and vibrates along every rave. He is the reducing valve. Our generation was close to a full scale revolution a couple of years ago. Music festivals are one of a few ways our generation lets off our frustration. We tolerate the economic perversion we're slaves to so that once every few moons we can ingest a chemical and dance through the night.

Most of us don't have the symbolic tool kit to realize this is what we're doing. And this is only one perspective, but its the lens through which I experienced my 2nd full day of Wakarusa.


Waka's Reflection

Waka reflected Nietzsche's insight. Waka at light was a very different place then Waka at night. Friday we explored Waka's grounds a little more, a little sober. He checked out each stage and just got more familiar with the area. The sun, Apollo, loomed heavy the entire day. After a few hours of walking, and liters of fluids lost and restored, half of us went back to camp around dusk to plan out our evening's activities. The other half headed to the Main Stage. Those who stayed at the main staged ingested LSD. Those of us at the campsite, we ate mushrooms. I ate 1.5 grams of dried mushrooms.

Myself, and a few friends walked back down from our campsite to the party. The walk was a good 20 minute hike down hill. It was dusk and the mushrooms were metabolizing quickly because I hadn't ate that day. This evening was the most beautiful so far. The setting sun was splashing the sky with dozens of hues of orange, purples, and blues. Rain clouds make for the best sunsets. I seem to always take mushrooms on these kinds of days. I'm lucky in a lot of ways.

This was the night I got to see Chance The Rapper. With a good couple thousand people around me, I bobbed and buzzed with Chance's set. A few times I got distracted by the super massive nuclear sphere that was setting, but Chance was good too.

An interesting aside, artists with Chance's level of success, they seem to talk to the crowd as if the collective crowd was a lover they're trying to woo. Chance was a little aggressive but sweet too, the lady before him was flirty but relaxed. Maybe it was the mushies, maybe it's a real technique they knowingly use, maybe it's a natural subconscious act. Maybe I'm wrong. Life is weird. I enjoyed playing with the idea.

I watched Chance away from my tribe while I peaked. When his set was ending, I headed back to were my group was chilling. Dusk had passed. Night was here. Shit was going to get weird.



Friday Night, Waka's Night 


Paige feels like my Anima. Words fall short expressing our bond. She feels almost like a feminine extension of myself. LSD is her child. Paige was exposed to LSD at an age where her brain's physical structure was molded by her heavy use. She literally has an LSD brain. Dionysus Bless her. This night, she got to reunite her neurochemical LSD pathways with the serotonin simulacrum again. And she got to do it with her lover, Kalyn.

It was her Cheshire-esque smile I noticed first when I reunited with my group. I'm sure my smile was just as broad. We were both connecting will with our favorite chemicals. We were tuned-in.

Seeing these two beautiful female energies buzz and vibe with each other through the chaos of Waka at night was one of my favorite Wakarusa moments. The love crackling between every whispered joke, random animal sound, and the constant laughter electrified me. Their bliss brought me another level higher. Thank you both. I love you.

They were the exceptions. All of our other friends who ingested LSD this night were being taught different lessons, difficult lessons. LSD is very different then the way its portrayed in almost all media. It is not an automatic enlightenment device. It is an amplifer. It is a jumbler. It is not predictable.

We had one friend who insisted on taking two doses. He was given the toughest lesson. We had another who expected answer's from Lucy. He was taught a milder lesson. We had a third who was the youngest, and honestly, I don't know what her lesson was. They all endured though. They're strong.

One of my favorite moments from that night was guiding the two love foxes, Paige and Kalyn, to a bathroom. They were both still very into their LSD adventure and I was sliding down my mushroom high. I lead them through the night. We walked through fire dancers, 8 foot tall custom created creature costumes, buzzing hula-hoop dancers, neon kite flyers, and some of the most drugged out lost souls I've ever seen.

I felt strong and purposeful guiding them through the chaos. They mentioned the next morning that I was walking differently and that they enjoyed seeing me in such a positive state. Its hard to articulate, but I could feel their admiration for me that night and it boosted my ego. I love them. There is something powerful about being with a group of people you really love and you know they really love you.



We all made it back to our tents. We enjoyed the little sleep we got. Waka waka waka.

You don't get to choose your family, but you get to choose your Tribe. I'm thankful the universe has provided me with such awesome choices. Namasteezy.  

Wakarusa: Part 2 (MDA)



I want to start with an apology. My words will never come close to the actual experiences I'm hoping to capture. This is simply the way it will always be, but writing is my net and with it I continue to earnestly flail in the darkness, hoping to capture a cloud.

The first night at Wakarusa was the first night all of us had gathered in the same place. It's fitting. The love chemically bound in MDA is the force that manifested our group, this trip, and whatever our future entails. I'm glad we chose to do it. I love yall.

It had been a foreign feeling to me before this year; sitting in a decent size group, truly feeling like each person was a brother or sister; an Other I'd die for. I had never known this kind of love. MDA opened that door for me. The beautiful part, and the part that really highlights the evil of drug laws, is that the door stays open afterwards. You get to bring a little shard of the experience into your sober life. It sits in a pocket in your mind like a little smiling ruby. You learn how to love people in a way that heals you, and them.

When I look around me, I see too many people who don't know how to love. They don't know how to truly give love, which is one thing, but most of them also don't know how to receive love. That is tragic. How to give and receive love are lessons our parents are suppose to teach us. But they didn't know, and their parents didn't know.

Our parents weren't evil. They were the chained ones in Plato's cave. They were molded by Mass Media, Corporate Marketing, and Political Propaganda. In my more raw moments, I cry thinking about how badly our parents were psychologically thrashed. But we don't have their excuse. We have the internet. We're the generation that gets to glimpse Plato's sun. We're responsible to go back in that cave and bring our people into the light.

My Gift

I knew we'd be taking MDA, and I've felt her embrace enough to know that I could do some genuine self-exploring. So I wrote down and meditated on receiving some kind of motivation that would propel me into writing my first book. I know I've got the basic skills down, but I don't know what I want to say or who I want to say it too. Well, Sassy heard this poor boys call and looked at me like a knowing mother looks at her son. She knew I knew, but she knew I needed to be reminded.

I was sitting next to my dredhead friend, Rob. He's about my height (6'3), shredded, with wolf-esque features and, endearingly ironic, a completely puppy-like energy about him. He could break you but he'd rather hug you. Well, he was kinda just talking out loud (when the sassy hit all of us, we all fragmented into energetic personal conversations with those next to us), that he wished he could record these kinds of evenings for our children but he didn't feel he was was good enough with language to do so well.

And like a Zues damn lightening bolt, I realized who my audience was and what needed to be said. I'm going to write about our experiences together. I'm going to write for our children. And I'm not going to write to them like they are pure, innocent creatures to be protected. I'm going to write to them as they are; flawed, dirty, raw humans who will experience the love and woe of life. I'm going to talk to them as equals. I want to clean every piece of precious stone we bring back from our psychedelic excavations and hand them each jeweled crowns.

That was my peak MDA moment. I regret I can't articulate my friend's MDA gifts. Sadley, as much of my own experiences are lost when I try snaring them in words, even more is lost when trying to capture another's experience. So I have an idea. ( I know all you beautiful people will read this, so, I think we should all write our personal experiences after a trip, and I'll proofread them. Your kid would want to hear how his ancestral genes experienced LSD, not how the jewy looking one sat silently for 4 hours.)

Cleansings

There were two similar and pretty dramatic experiences. Two girls, in our group of 13, had some psychological blockage during their trips. Without revealing any sensitive information, I want to share the experience with anyone who might use psychedelic substances. It was definitely a learning experience.

In my experience, its powerfully apparent that our minds, both conscious and subconscious, work symbolically. Water heals, fire cleanses, winds change, rotting flesh is bad, etc. Symbolical thinking is rooted in our evolutionary history. Throwing up is symbolic.

Most people, when they are having a bad trip, feel like they need to vomit. Some psychedelics actually demand this, such as mescaline and ayahuasca. It is after the purging that the bliss sets in. I think MDA, for these two women, demanded this same sacrifice. It was both of their first time taking MDA. This chemical really cleans out the emotional gunk in our mind and body. I think both of theirs were gunked up too such an extent that they needed to vomit. Both, afterwards, while sober, separately admitted that the vomiting felt symbolic, felt cleansing, like they were ridding themselves of negative thoughts, emotions, etc. So to all my friends who explore the psychedelic landscape, if you feel you need to purge, grab a trashcan and let the negativity go. Bring listerine.

Anti-Addiction Apparatus 

MDA has a built in safety valve. The come down. Sassy lifts you up to such an intense blissful realm of consciousness that once you are set back down to baseline, baseline feels like a slight depression. You learn a lot about yourself and about others when you watch how you and they handle the climb, the peak, and the slide down. I learned a valuable lesson from one of our friends tripping down their come down.

I talk a lot. When carried away, I can give advice when it isn't asked for, I critique when it isn't necessary, and I can smudge facts to keep the flow of a monologue going. Talking too much is a kind of gluttony. You're eating up the attention of those listening. I saw a hyperbolic version of these qualities in my friend. We had passed our peak and I could see him frantically trying to claw back up the hill with language. He was denying his come down. He tried sharing stories, dreams, even tried predicting the future. I just wanted to hug him. But, in the moment, I was too distracted by my come down to help. I'm sorry Todd.

Resonating Ripples 

We don't get to pick our family, but we get to pick our tribe. I sincerely think the most important part of young adulthood is finding your tribe. These are the people you'll grow with, suffer with, succeed with, and raise your kids with. I wish a genuine good luck to all the wounded ones who think they can thrive through life alone, (all you alphas out there, I doubt any read this, but being an alpha is lonely. Climb off your throne and live with your people.)

Words can be trite. I just want to say thank you. To the people who receive my love, give love back, and those of you who read my creations. I love you. I love nurturing the creative in my friends and family. I think every time I share MDA with a friend, I'm adding to a ripple. Everyone is welcome in my pond. I love yall. Thank you for reading and namasteezy. 

The Forgetting Gods



Yesterday I swallowed .2 grams of MDMA and ate 4.3 grams of psychedelic mushrooms. Before this, I had never mixed the two. The experience was something beyond what my word-net here will be able to capture, but there were some fishies I can bring back in my linguistic trap. I love you and if I haven't already, I'd like to share these beautiful chemicals with you. And as this trip report may show, that is exactly what I'm suppose to do.

My girlfriend and her friends planned a day at the lake. Seizing the opportunity to both hang out with attractive females in nature, and not having to be responsible for anything, I felt it was a perfect opportunity to try a psychedelic recipe a mentor had suggested; mixing the mycelial plant intelligence of psilocybin with the love deluge of MDMA. Around 1 pm, I took the first half dose of MDMA while the females got ready and I watched the first half of the Cavs vs. Celtics game. An hour later I grounded up the heap of mushrooms and choked it down with some water. After that, I took the next half of the MDMA. I waited in the back until everyone was ready to go. I could already feel the MDMA angel hugging me while I watched the leaves of a Willow playfully wave at me. Their energy seemed so young and energetic and genuinely happy.

My beautiful love healer came and told me they were ready to go and as we packed into the car, I had to take a few deep breaths as I gazed into the sky. There was no way the mushrooms had metabolized yet but I was already seeing the sky in a kind of wide-scope fish-eyed lens that I seem to only unlock when the mushies are coursing through my veins. I could perceive the subtle curvature of the earth and the sky in a way that reveals the spherical nature of Gaia. Sober, the earth can feel flat and normal. The sky was almost stealing my breath with its awe. My diaphragm responded and the two, my respiratory system and the heaven's majesty, danced for a few beautiful, slow breaths. Namaste Apollo.

The drive to the lake was raw experience. There was no recording Erick to remember and document. As was the case when I took true, kit-tested LSD, the recording self seems to go offline for packets of moments, then resurfaces for a few moments, hilariously unaware of its impending dissolution, it attempts to record, only to float away again.

From my sober present state, I can remember the supreme bliss I felt during the car ride. The MDMA feels like it effects the light that is consciousness, while psilocybin feels like it is a kind of lens the light shines through. Like, the MDMA is a new kind of bulb my consciousness ordered from Amazon, and the psilocybin was a filter I put over the bulb which I discovered in a magical dungeon while on a hero's quest. And my consciousness just had a fucking party for a couple of hours. This paragraph likely makes little sense to any who haven’t experienced these chemicals, but hopefully, and likely, it connects with those of you who have.

The next moment my recording self came on line, we were walking through semi-tall grass on our way to the shore. I felt my only moment of anxiety. The way the girls were talking to each other, the rhythm and cadence, it felt so frantic, and disharmonious with the rhythm nature was pulsating too. A part of me knew this is the way they always spoke, but another part of me could feeel the energy behind the words, and the energy was not in coherence with mine. The moment passed and once we sat down to make our little camp, I booped my stoned-ass down between some beautiful rocks and there I stayed, sizzling in the Sun's hungs. (In my altered state, I chose to not put on sunscreen because I wanted to have a physical reminder of my trip. As I type to you with lobster-red claws, I don't regret this decision.)

Between these two rocks, a lot was experienced. This is where the sacraments peaked, so my recording self has no sense of chronology. There were quite a few landmarks I remember as I phased into another consciousness state. My friends were 5 feet from me but consciously, experientially, they felt miles away.

At the beginning of this peak, I decided I wanted to warp-drive instead of rocket into the experience so I asked for and inhaled two puffs of some hydro setiva. I rarely smoke because my exploration into psychdelia has WD-40'd the hinges of my Doors of Perception and they will fling open when Mary J comes a'knocking. Flung open they did, and for quite some time, maybe an hour, my experiential self was gone. There was no egoic Erick to record events. I was naked awareness. 

When I finally become a little aware I started looking at the sky again. The clouds, the night sky and her stars, these were the original canvases humans had to project their imaginations on. From this celestial canvas we received the Mythologies. I think we have destinies. We have callings, and we can say no. I think looking at your childhood, and what your pure energy gravitated toward provides you hints. As a boy, maybe 8 or 9, I became interested in mythology. I read everything my school's library had on Greek mythology. Once I finished that, my Dad started giving me his Norse mythology books. Then, I went on to read the Arthurian myths. This is a hint, I enjoyably assume. And this hint, turned into a glaring, gigantic message.

As a quick aside, I've had a handful of experiences, most while on the mycelial mesh I'll admit, where I feel like I'm receiving some kind of divine, transcendent message. I know this sounds like a slippery road to insanity, and I tread carefully. My favorite reality tunnel to filter these events is Depth Psychology, where this kind of event is basically explained as your Self, the deep, wise part of you, communicating with the little egoic you. Everyone has a Self, but most people are too distracted to listen, and too confused to understand. That filter seems like it will keep me from Thorazine injections.

Well, I had one of these experiences while staring at the clouds. The largest cloud in my field of vision began to morph. I have had enough to these kinds of experiences to know just relax and allow it to happen and not to resist. The cloud transformed into a huge raccoon with an owl or eagle headdress on. The raccoon with the bird cape/headpiece is a Native American symbol for the shaman. The cloud symbol appeared as if it was moving toward me. Into me. I remember saying “Yes, I accept,” in response to it's asking “Do you accept.” At my accepting, the cloud returned to its original shape and I was left with the question, “What are the responsibilities of a shaman.”

I know I'm not adequately conveying the immensity of this experience. I saw a 60 foot tall, probably 160 foot long animal cloud in the sky and it was coming at me.. I felt the gravity of the situation but there was no fear. I suppose the energy of the experience is something I can only experience, and cannot convey. I tried, love. 

It is important to note that I knew this was a hallucination. A part of the process of understanding yourself is learning your Self's symbolic language. This can be done by starting a dream journal and recording your dreams. Patterns emerge. Hints suggested. I knew what this symbolic event meant for me. Learning yours is important, especially if you enjoy the psychedelic waters. 

As another aside, sober Erick fancies himself a soon-to-be psychotherapist, or Cognitive/Behavioral therapist, but the current academic rigamarole is not appealing. Something I ask everyone I share these sacraments with is, “If you knew you would be successful, and if money did not matter, what would you do with your life, because you will die, and everything you create and collect, will waste away?” I know its heavy, but I think its the most important question, and the chemicals help the Self answer, not the ego. My answer, in short, is to be a shaman or therapist or healer, depending on your reality tunnel. I think ol'raccoon spirit is a manifestation of that psychic energy. He's a symbolic manifestation of that archetype. 

Once I had accepted the shamanic call, the cloud dissipated and in its wake was the moon. Luna, half exposed, sat vividly in the sky. I fixed my gaze on her while my mind began to process what had just happened. I remember thinking how watching celestial bodies drift through the sky offers a more accurate representation of natures rhythm. She is long, methodical, powerful, and slow.

As I stared, I began grasping my surroundings more, although I never broke my gaze with Luna. Near our camp was a group of teenage girls playing with a jet-ski. I thought of them as lake nymphs. In Greek mythology, every river and lake had guardian Nymphs. They are playful and young energies. I knew they wanted us to ask about the jet-ski. I thought about telling my friends about the subtle offering but I didn't want to speak.

Thinking about these lake guardians and their energies, I had what is likely the most practical revelation of this trip, and in hindsight, I choose to believe it is my gift for accepting the shamanic calling. I began thinking of all living organisms as energy bundles. Before, most of my life, I unconsciously separated things by the classifications science had given us: gender, age, species, etc. But now, with this new kind of analytic tool, I began thinking about the people I know and love, and myself as these psychic energy clouds. Sadly, I lack the right words to explain this. It is more like a room I unlocked but needs cleaning than an ability I have at my fingertips at all times. Practice is to be implemented. 

Woah. I just realized this now. The two energies I felt most prominently in myself were Growth and Protector. I didn't see it then, but these are the two energies I inherited from my mother and father. As I was thinking about the protecting energy in me, because I want to protect me tribe, my friends, and my family, I found myself drawing in the sand. My two fore fingers were pressing the sand away from an untouched circle in the center. The pressed sand around the center created a square around the circle. In my minds eye I felt like I was putting up a wall to keep out the world. This felt like resistance and I wiped away the drawing. As I did, I thought about the Tibetan monks and their sand mandalas; how after they finish, they wipe it away. Everything material is impermanent.

This brought my gaze back to Luna. I started thinking about our conscious life on earth. We've created such a complex, interwoven cultural mesh that billions never see beyond. We have created beautiful distractions to encapsulate us from the raw, sheer magnitude that is naked existence. Staring at Luna provided me a symbolic anchoring point which could pull me out of this manic mesh, where I could sit quietly. I sat with her for an hour or two. 

There is a deep tragedy to our lives. We are monkeys with crowns of consciousness. We have the divine light, but its attached to this animalistic meat suit. We are the forgetting gods. So many, myself included, forfeit our light to the whimsical ebb and flow of our primal emotions as they carry us through the day. I need to polish my crown.

Staying true to my personal psychedelic motif, I cried. I had moved away from my group to a shelter because I could feel Apollo's arrows beginning to pierce. I cried for everyone. And another revelation occurred, these tears are what save me. These tears were love. Before falling in love, I thought in a kind of purely logical way. I could almost see this kind of thought in my minds eye. Blue and symmetrical. But there was a little crack in the upper right part of this thought structure, and a red fume spilled out. The fume was love and it connected me to the material world. I choose to live in this tragic culture because my loved ones live here and most, most of the time, don't see how trapped they are. I felt myself curling into the fetal position, feeling like an infant in the womb. Safe. Protected. Loved.

I could feel the end of the experience. I sat on a stone bench, watching the wind dance with the grass and skip across the lake. I sat there for a couple of hours without thought. Naked existence. I thanked Her and Him and It for the adventure. I spent the rest of the day exhausted and sunburnt, in love and peaceful.

There is practice to be had. Thank you for reading. I love you. I hope Fate and your daemon bring you to me so we can dance on these chemicals. Namasteezy Gods.  

My first LSD experience



I finally found LSD.

I've changed a lot since getting turned on to psychedelics. Four years ago I was a rigid atheists starting his first year of college. I watched Hitchens debates as I fell asleep. That will give the right kind of person a clear image of the kind of ego I insisted on cultivating. A chance mushroom experience with some close friends sent me down a trail where the voices of Duncan Trussell and Joe Rogan boomed through the foliage, statues of Terrence McKenna and Robert Anton Wilson stood among the trees winking at me, dozens of books laid along the way, notably PIHKAL and Prometheus Rising, and the Ghost of Jung served as my Virgil with his scepter of synchronicity.

I've spent years in this allegorical forest. Always with my cellphone, half connected to the world I feel myself detached from but not abandoning. I don't think we're suppose to leave our brothers and sisters so we can go to the top of a mountain and sit raptured by our meetings with Godhead. Its harder to stay and try to help. I want to stay and help.

Over the course of a couple of years, I've put a total of nine or ten tabs on my tongue. Some giving a twinge of rainbowic visions, some offering trailing images, and others only giving a sense of mild anxiety and artificial hyperness. All of them feeling like visual play things but nothing more.

Wednesday night at 3:03 am, I put the 11th tab on my tongue and the moment it touched it, I felt a barely perceivable electric shock. I will always have the skeptic is my head, and he is asking, “Did you imagine that or did it really happen?” My skeptic got his ass beat that night. I don't know whether or not it was “real.” And as I learned that night, it doesn't matter. What matters is what is experienced. The experiential is real. 

A quick side note for other explorers. Erowid is invaluable. Thank you Erowid. Most “acid” is not acid. If it is bitter, it is not acid. If it does not glow under ultraviolet light, it is not acid. Most tabs we are putting in our mouths are nBOMEs. Do your research. Be careful. Good luck.

As I start to try to explain the following eight hours, know that my words are worlds from the experience, but such is the case for all writing. Writing being one of the skills my meat suit has acquired, it will be the spear and net I use to go hunting with in that dimension. Although, trying to capture this experience isn't so much a hunt as it is an offering only Atlas could shoulder. What was given was a world, what I have brought back is only a handful of sand. Some try conveying the mystical with paint, others with dance, with love, spoken, and some remain silent out of respect. We all have an artistic function.

The events aren't necessarily in chronological order. They are landmarks.

Okay, so, I've taken the tab. I'm with four friends. Two took a tab with me who also first timers. The other two had already taken these same tabs a couple nights ago. They were our guides tonight.

I sat and talked with one of the sober ones the first thirty minutes after ingesting the tab. We talked about psychiatry. Her and I are both interested in the profession. I was talking at length about transference and how she should be careful about it in the future. Bless her and most of my friends for indulging me. I talk a lot. She she is attractive, paired with the inherent power imbalance of therapist and client, I thought it an important idea worth discussing.

At some point, I remember looking at the carpet, and I had the audacity to think that the tab wasn't the real deal. On cue, I began seeing a spinning translucent kaleidoscopic image. It was like a kaleidoscope was superimposed on my visual field. There it calmly spun. I must have gazed into this vision silently for at least thirty minutes. 

*Now a note needs to be added, I've taken a lot of psychedelics at various amounts, and hallucinations are something that don't happen to me. I've taken 5 grams of mushrooms and the most I've seen, really seen, were vague symbols on the ground and in the carpet. The rest have been color enhancements, distortions and the like. This was my first true hallucination.

Safe to say the tab was the real deal. From this moment, time wasn't experienced the same. The best I can describe it, was that during that time, I had about six to seven mental breaths. The inhales were the chemical effects and the exhales were these brief moments of resurfacing, mental facilities totally intact, every time thinking, “is it over?” Nope. It was like I was being forced to scuba dive. Whenever I'm under the water, recording Erick is offline. Whenever I'm back at the surface, Ego Erick would come back online and I'd have a moment to marvel at the beautiful chaos. Then submerged again. 

So my first dive into this experience began with the kaleidoscope. The next landmark in the whirl of experiences was when the girl I was talking to took a photo with a vintage Polaroid camera. I thought I could see electrons. Yeah.

Anyways, when she took the picture, I felt like I saw the photons in the room absorbed by the camera. Like, everything had this electric cloud buzzing around it and the camera absorbed, sucked in, the excess photons into it. The event had me thinking about the native people who believed this camera sucked out their souls. The Scientist in me found this very interesting. No fear though.

The most vivid and disturbing landmark happened at the peak on the trip. I'll have to use metaphors. Imagine that your field of vision, the entirety of what you see right now, imagine it is a quilt. The stitching is so fine you only see a single whole image. I could see the stitching. It looked like buzzing, multi-colored electrons. There was an energetic thing breathing behind the quilt. With each breath the Unknown took, the quilt would swell and some stitches would rip apart. In these openings, I could see the thing behind it. I felt like I should have been fucking terrified but I wasn't. The "thing" was more an environment or dimension rather then a person or animal or monster. This dimension behind reality seemed technological, alive in a deeply primal way, immensely energetic, and AWE-full. No words I know can wrangle it. It was unlike anything I've ever even imagined. It felt alive. 

There was a color I saw inside these gaps that I think, out of everything learned that night, stays with me most vividly. It is a kind of purple, but its not really purple. It was like an abundance of red and blue ferociously smashing together with an energy that makes me tense and when thinking about it gives me an urge to yell. It seemed like the hues blood looks like as it appears through veins and arteries. The drowning skeptic in me gurgled, “is this what it looks like inside your brain, the blood and tissue metabolizing the chemical?” Another part of me that I don't think I've ever heard speak before said something along the lines of, “Stop. You can't. There is no description, there are no judgments. It is.” The skeptic was silent.

There were multiple times I felt like I should have fallen into bad thinking patterns due to a bad initial thought, but each time, that other part of me saw the “trap,” and walked over it. A common trigger to bad thoughts while I am on psychedelics is when I have to use the bathroom. My bathroom walls are a gross yellow color and shit and piss is shit and piss. This time was different. I went to sit on the toilet and, while the patterns on my walls danced and flashed and winked, I thought about a book I read a little while ago. “We are shitting Gods.” The thought sat there in my mind like a golden tablet. I got it. Our creative minds are godly. Look at the world we've created. To create is to reflect the image of God. But while we are godly, we have this flesh sack that reminds us that we are destined to feed worms and bacteria. Its heavy. I'm glad I have the chances to glimpse the godly.

The most beautiful part of the entire night was the bond I felt with the other four humans around me. We've talked about it before. We feel like a tribe. Most of them feel closer to the people within the group then they do with there own family. Blood is not chosen. Some of my friends come from broken homes. We have to accept the hand fate gave us. But tribes are discovered. We found each other through the billion-armed crowd. We've cultivated honesty, genuineness, and a sincere air of acceptance. I trust these people in a way that heals. It takes courageous to trust this much. I admire them.

*A quick side note, when I had these thoughts while on LSD, I thought about corporations. These things try to fulfill this sacred urge. Most seem to fail. I don't know though.

Those were the major landmarks of the trip. I began to feel functional around 8 or 9 am. I had only taken 2/3rds a tab. I was done. It is four days later and I still feel a slight sense of being wounded. For 24 years my vision has been a reliable ally. These hallucinations showed me how vulnerable a foundation of my perceptual life is. Now my brain knows. Its strange. I also feel as if a great deal of the experience was for my subconscious, and that the parts of my mental faculties that I don't have conscious access too, I feel that they learned many more lessons then my consciousness did.

One last thing I'd like to get out. Synchronicity. I have three ideas about synchronicity that I got from Carl Jung, Robert Anton Wilson, and Terence McKenna. Jung gave us the actually concept, Wilson believed it happens when one is living the life their soul is meant to live, and McKenna thought synchronicities clustered around significant moments in one's life, particularly around strong psychedelic experiences. I've had about five or six notable synchronicities in my life before taking LSD. The day of and the day after the LSD, I had five.

These type of events are easy to write off with some psychological terms like false-positive blindness, cognitive dissonances, and the bulls-eye fallacy. To each their own. It enhances the joy and awe in my life so I keep it. Fundamentally, all thoughts are symbol systems that help us understand. Doing the work to find and test multiple reality tunnels is one of the fruits of existence.

If anyone reading this needs a place to safely explore alternate reality tunnels with the aid of chemicals, my house is open to you. Don't ask me to be your connect because laws, but if you need a safe setting and a guide, I'm happy and would be honored to help.

Namaste. Good luck. Pay attention when God winks. 



You have control over doing your respective duty only, but no control or claim over the results. The fruits of work should not be your motive, and you should never be inactive. 

-Bhagavad Gita

Eros


I discovered MDA.

Over the course of the last month, I've ingested this interesting amber crystal on 3 occasions. With most experiences of these kinds, things are forgotten and words are poor substitutes. Nothing will compare to you experiencing the experience. As is frequently the case, Terrence McKenna articulates it well. 

I'd like to plant a flag before we go on this dance. The word “drug” is bloated. You do drugs. You ingest drugs. You are drugs. Drugs are chemical structures your body knows how to metabolize, and the metabolizing causes changes in consciousness. Sugar, alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine are drugs. They are drugs that are more poisonous than many schedule 1 drugs, like LSD, Psilocybin, Mescaline, and that herb we all hear about. The bedrock I'm trying to dig into is that drugs alter your perspective, and your perspective, that is to say your nervous system, is all you have, and you are doing your life a monumental disservice waving off entire families of chemicals because a reactionary government passed a law almost half a century ago.

Do your research. You have the world's knowledge in your pocket. Tinder will still be there.

Okay, drug stories.

October 10th

A beautiful friend gave me a gram of a crystal called MDA or Sassyafrass. (I'll try not to use the word beautiful too much. It'll be hard.) Enduring the teasing of my girlfriend, I did hours of research before agreeing to put these little geometric structures inside me. Erowid, PIKHAL and Reddit, when used with care, are amazing places to find quality information.

This chemical has an effective dose at 100mgs. It takes about 60-90 minutes for your sensations to start altering. Taking another does of 100mgs every hour or two is a common way to amplify the effects. Taking more than 100mgs at a time or taking more then 2 or 3 additional doses can lead to a feeling of nausea. Don't over do it. The neurochemical flood will come.

Krishna and I were playing Smash Bros while we waited for Sassy to start talking to us, which takes about an hour. After taking our second dose of 100mgs, we found ourselves unable to attack each other in the game. Now it needs to be clear, when sober, Smash bros is a vicious battle where my lady and I share no love. We are immortal enemies destined to battle throughout the aeons. It was hilarious. We couldn't attack each other. We weren't laughing though. We noticed our consciousness changing. It was time to turn off the game.

We each sat on one of two couches and just were. The lowering sun and beautiful Texas evening sky poured into your little home. The sun was setting and the light coming through my window was the stimulus for little visual hallucinations. It was about 7 pm. We were two hours into the trip. The sunlight beaming in looked like sparks, but the visual effects are the least important angle of this drug.

As we were enjoying the fireworks the sun was casting on my wall, I became acutely aware of the drug. I believe drugs have personalities. MDA felt like fluffy, warm Aunt hugging you at a holiday gathering. She was wholly accepting, energetic, and actively seeking to comfort.

The feeling I experienced on this first peak with MDA is a feeling I genuinely understand I will never experience again. You can't experience novelty twice. Words are trite representations of the emotions I felt but I felt real, almost palpable, bliss. I kept repeating “This is beautiful,” “Wow,” and “Oh my God.” For hours. I've never been in that kind of state for so long. I'll reminisce about it the rest of my life.

I felt content. A supreme, total acceptance of the moment. I have a really hard time being content. I feel like I always need to be consuming information, processing information, creating information, or helping others. Content is foreign to me.

There was also an energy in my body that felt gooooood. Like it made you want to say “oooooooooh.” I felt like I was grounded in myself. My body felt whole. It is a difficult feeling to describe. When I'm sober, my legs feel separate from my arms, my arms separate from my neck, and so on. While on Sassy, my body felt integrated. I really enjoyed this.

Of the three trips on Sassy, this was the most emotional. The chemical opens communication up. This is the greatest aspect of this and MDMA. You will be able to say and express things you have never thought were even there to express.

Krishna and I talked for hours about ourselves, our families, how they effect us, and we extracted quite a few gems that I hold to me still. I remember saying a few times how I needed to give this to my family. Now sober, the idea still interests me.

The day after, you will cry. Something will cause you to cry. Enjoy it.

October 17th

We wanted to share. Krishna brought a close, curious friend with us for our next experiment. Lets call her Daisy. I don't know Daisy well but there is a lot one can infer from a very attractive, but very quite girl. There is a sadness there. She had never done a psychedelic before. This would be a good chemical to begin with. She was going to have a special time.

We dosed ourselves the same as last week, same room, and same time of day; two doses of 100mgs, my living room, and around 5 pm. We did tweak the setting with some music, Bon iver and Phantogram.
Krishna, Daisy and I positioned ourselves around my living room on various couches and relaxed while our bodies did the alchemy.

I love being with people who take powerful substances for the first time. I'm fascinated by how they attempt to articulate the experience, how they react to the emotions, and I like helping if it is needed.

Daisy was reacting as anyone would. The magnitude of the love and warmth you feel would shake tears from anyone. We all have so much we hide, censor, and judge about ourselves. Even a moment of true relief is enough to bring anyone to tears. She told us she didn't know why she was crying. I can never begin to guess what happened to her over the course of the next 6 hours, but there was crying.

We talked about her ego, her family, her relationships, and her life. We complimented. We cried. We all fell in love with each other. We were, for a couple of hours, what the word family aspires to mean. We all did some healing that day.

The day after, we all had our moments where we cried. It happens. Enjoy it.

Oh, and the transference from the drug to the music we listened too now makes Bon Iver and Phantogram some of the best artists I can enjoy at the moment.

October 30th


There was a third gathering. 5 of us. That story I'll share another time. 

Soma with Krishna


The more I write about these experiences, the more I understand word’s limits in trying to capture the feelings that fill the eight or so hours the fungus metabolizes. Clichés will be hard to avoid. They will appear. Every adventure feels as if it is the most significant one yet. This one is no different. Lets see how I fair trying to capture the memories, locking them in words, and chaining them to the page.

Paige had made cookies. Dac had started his journey a few hours ago with his love, Ashley, followed an hour or so behind. Paige had just ingested her sacred plant. About forty-five minutes later Krishna and myself chomped down on our fungal sprinkled chocolate chip treats. All cosmonauts where accounted for. 

Setting the setting as the mantra mandates; Carl Sagan was the narrator. Youtube provided The Pale Blue Dot, The Sagan Series Part 1, The Most Fascinating Fact and It is Always Now for the hour it took for the mushrooms to start taking effect. 

Krishna and I ended up on the driveway looking at the night sky. There weren’t many stars visible but there was a bright half moon with enough clouds between our just recently dilated eyes and that reflecting rock to allow for visual tricks to start. 

The first alteration to my visual perception I noticed was the view of the sky. It looked larger. It seemed panoramic. I was like seeing through a kind of wide fish lens. It was so beautiful. Also, everything appeared as if it was in 1080 pixels as oppose to the 720 of sobriety.

Still sprawled on the driveway I looked at the goddess to my right and saw a faint image behind her appearing to hide itself in the concrete. I knew this was the drug. I was excited. Other psychonauts talk about seeing hieroglyphics or Incan or Egyptian symbols on surfaces. This wasn’t what I saw. At first the pattern was faint but after a little concentration on the driveway the images developed in sharpness. It was an intricate and complex pattern. It didn’t appear to be any language. It reminded me of patterns I saw on my first DMT trip. It reminded me of Alex Grey.

It reminded me how much I love this plant.

Krishna and I then felt compelled to do yoga. After failed poses, laughs, successful poses, laughs, and tear inducing laughter, we were dancing in the kitchen. I had never taken a psychedelic with a romantic partner. I was enjoying it.

We eventually found ourselves in the garage. Paige, Ashley, Dacorey, Krishna, and myself. I had never mixed the mushrooms with any other drug. Tonight would be different. As the herb made itself around our tribe a few times…

Shit. Got. Real.

I couldn’t speak. My consciousness had left the room. My eyes were fixed on the ceiling. As the consciousnesses around me made noises with the part of their flesh sacs we call mouths, the ceiling would morph and change into subtle symbols. A deeper part of me was communicating with the shallower me that operated my flesh sac on a daily basis. This game, where the deeper part of me created symbols on the ceiling for my shallower part to decipher went on for maybe twenty minutes. The truths I can recall from this experience are

 1) We still construct our social lives as our ancestors did, as tribes. Many people have vast tribes due to social media but they lack real connections. The idea that 2 parents raise 3 children and all of them spend the majority of their time in a little box with air conditioning and television isn’t ideal for your social circuitry.  

I was happy with my current tribe. 

2) The subconscious is real. I’ve learned about this concept for years. I believed it. This night, I felt it. It felt like God. It may have been God. I felt, for maybe three minutes, what I would call a religious experience only because I feel that will best convey the feeling to other readers. I felt like I was being given a universal truth. The truth was that the subconscious is real: that there is a universal, collective, subconscious. I felt the experience tell me that that was all I was going to be given at that moment so return to the physical bodies around you. Return to your tribe. 

I did return. Me and Krishna retired to my room. Once we got into the boarders of my room and it was only our two consciousnesses interacting, the experience ascended to a level of psychedelictry I had never been before. 

A common negative loop I go to when particularly high on weed is my body feeling misaligned. I’ve had surgery on my right rotator cuff and multiple back injuries. I believe that I can feel the muscular and connective tissue issues and I try to fix them. I started dancing in a way I felt would help my body. Without having to speak, Krishna began moving with me. Whenever I’d lose my balance she’d be in the exact place she’d need to be to help me back to balance. 

I kept calling life a dance.

An interesting note about this part of the night is when I’d start faltering in my movements; Krishna--because she needed to be—became a strong, stern teacher. She’s much younger than I, but in these moments she felt, and for all purposes was, much older, wiser, and more positive than I. 

We were so fucking connected at some points. The most connected my consciousness has ever been to another. All I care to write about this part of the trip is she saw me at my most vulnerable and met it without judgment and returned my negativity and paranoia with love, compassion, and patience.

Just as I had my moments of weakness, she did too. She had met my insecurity and suffering with love, and so I attempted to do the same for her. This culminated in us laying in bed, holding a gaze for what felt like at least two hours, exchanging raw thoughts. I could see The Void in her eyes, the place that is the context for all creation, and it was. We cried for each other’s suffering. Smiled at our ‘us.’ And eventually became sober enough to consume the processed garbage that is Subway. 

Once fueled. We made love. 

Best trip yet. 

My weekend with 8 grams of Mushrooms.

(I will probably revise this tomorrow, I'm just glad to have gotten it out.)

Its been 11 hours since I grounded up 5 grams of fungus and soaked them in orange juice. I still feel out-of-focus but I really want to get this experience out of my mind.

Saturday

My trip started saturday evening. I was trying to do homework but the allure of tripping on the mushrooms I had just come into possession of sapped my motivation. I took about 1/3 of what I was told was 8 grams of mushrooms. I ate them raw and washed it down with water. I read that setting is a major factor on the direction a trip will go, so I put a Carl Sagan playlist on my 46 inch television and let it buzz in the background while I futilely attempted some homework while the mushrooms metabolized.

45 minutes in I felt a hollowness forming in my core while my extremities began to numb. It was nice. A phrase I would use to describe it was that I felt "stoned." I set my homework aside, closed my eyes, and just allowed the experience to unfold. The hollowness gave way to a warm buzzing feeling. I felt alive. The music that accompanied Sagan's voice was richer than I was use to. I loved it.

I found myself laying sprawled across the floor, staring at my ceiling. I could see movement. No hallucinations, but a flow, like currents mingling with one another, dancing across the ceiling. How long I laid this way, entranced by the dance, I don't know. The clock said 8:43, but I didn't know what that meant.

I started doing yoga. I had energy that needed an outlet. The yoga gave way to various exercises that ended in dancing. I was fucking dancing. For hours. I was so happy. The dance was waltz like. In my mind, I danced with every girl I had ever made love to and every girl that I wished I had. My mind was so clear. I could feel where their curves would be, how their weight would shift, how dancing is a kind of fourplay. I entertained how almost everything we do before sex is fourplay, but the illusion of romantic love was nicer.

As I danced, my mind churned. I wish I could recall more clearly the thoughts I had, but tragically I can't. I remember laughing, laughing often. Life is full of paradoxes  I understood Alan Watts's idea of "The Cosmic Joker." I like the idea of sitting outside the system we call life and mocking it, but that is a luxury I don't want for myself. Its a kind of enlightened snobbery.  I want to understand the rules that govern the system, exploit them to get the power to change them. But this is a digression I'd like to keep to myself for the time being.

This night cumulated with me crying tears of joy caused by the glory that is The Office. I sat, pupils the size of quarters, mouth full of processed awfulness, laughing from the deepest part of my belly, tears spilling out, so god damn happy. As I tried falling asleep, I watched the first part of a documentary called "A Radient Child." I didn't know it, but I was sowing a setting I would be reaping the next day.

Sunday

I woke up 5 hours later, and robotically put on a documentary about fractals. I slipped in and out of consciousness while the hour long video hummed along. As it ended, I made my way to HEB for food. I knew I would not be driving the rest of the day, and that food would be precious. I had also downloaded all of Bach's work, along with some other instrumentals. I wanted to experience them in the altered state.

I grounded up the rest of my mushrooms. As I churned them out, the pile grew to an intimidating size. I was a little anxious. This would be the most mushrooms I hand ever taken. I soaked them in orange juice. After setting the setting with some Joe Rogan, I gulped down the tonic.

I started watching "Anima" as my body assimilated the fungus. My memory here starts to falter. I can't help but think its defense mechanism. I glimpsed madness, but more on that later.

About 45 minutes after drinking, I was feeling disappointed. I wasn't hallucinating, I felt a little stoned but nothing mystical or transcendent. I have a little concoction of 'smart drugs' I take every morning, which I hadn't taken this morning, and so I went to the kitchen and consumed that as well. Shortly after my body broke that down was when my mind just...I don't know.

This will be hard to explain.

I found myself, again, in an X, facing the ceiling.  With Anima providing context, I cried like I cried the first time I took mushrooms. Its a different kind fo crying. I didn't feel sad. I didn't have any of the physiological queues that prelude crying, I just laid their stoic, water flowing from my eyes. It felt good. I found I could control it, and so I made it continue. How long this lasted; long enough.

I don't know when it started. The best I can describe it, is that my mind began offering counter points to all the systems we as humans give meaning to in order to function. Fuck, its hard to articulate. I read a lot of philosophy and the tome I'm shoveling through now, "Godel, Escher, Bach," was weighing on me. I got down to the crux of it all, why is being alive meaningful. This question is almost comical when associated with a college student doing drugs, but I wasn't laughing. I wouldn't call it a "dark place" but my mind lost its filter. I felt I was "losing my mind" because my mind was recalling so much information that it was paralyzing.


I can't remember the details, but I came to a point where I thought I was going to die. No panic, no pain, nothing physical.  Just that the inability to filter out all these ideas would cause my mind to just shut off. I was sitting on my back porch, enraptured by the visual acuity mushrooms give you, when I glanced down at some fungus growing into a dying piece of wood we'd call a pillar. The image and clarity of the mushroom summoned thoughts of Terrence Mckenna,  mushroom connoisseur and someone I admire, and his mushroom shaped brain tumor...my thoughts were getting out of control.

So I went for a run. And the god damn world became so fucking beautiful I could barely process it. The weekend rain had rejuvenated the organic life in my neighborhood. Every house was exploding with color. I could see individual blades of grass. I could run in almost a musical way. I was in love with the moment.

The sky was stupefying.  It made me want to be a god damn painter. I lack the vocabulary to describe the magnificent colors that splattered the Texas skyline. The rain clouds melded with fluffy white masses, with the setting sun radiating behind them. It was sexual how beautiful it was.

This lasted for hours. I don't know how long I ran, maybe 5 miles. The energy mushrooms gives me is something I'd like to study and utilize.  I had never run that long without stopping before. I never got short of breath either. I may have been more in sync with my body. I'm not sure.

Again, as if I were caught in a strange loop, I ended up on my back, laying in my driveway, peering up at space. It was night now, and the soft orange glow each porch light gave just made my happy. I laid there for maybe 30 minutes, just laying there, my mind at peace. It had been a good trip.

Now

Its almost 1, 13 hours since I took the 5 grams and my pupils are still dilated. I'm not tired. I'm not sore. I'm still a like shaken by what I experienced midway through the trip today. I'm not sure what happened  My mind doesn't seem to allow me to revisit those thoughts. I'm not worried. I don't think it was a bad trip. I want to go further. I think I enjoyed the madness in retrospect. I love you. Thank you for reading.