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.