The Dark Journey | because not all psychedelic experiences can be sunshine and hummingbirds.
I used to emphatically be part of the love+light brigade: rainbows, butterflies, cupcakes and sprinkles. A sprightly pink tutu'd fairy twirling my way whimsically through life. Until the dark day... the day my twins were arrived - in dark, violent and fear-drenched fashion - and I wondered for years if I (as I had once been) would ever return.
The answer was no.... who I was would never again come back. I needed to come back different.
Come to think of it.. that was always the reason for their traumatic arrival, wasn't it? To wake me the fuxk up and force me, brutally, to stand once and for all in my power. My dark power.
This post is about The Next Time (I took a psychedelic journey) - and what I found.
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“We have to create culture, don't watch TV, don't read magazines, don't even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you're worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered, you're giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told 'no', we're unimportant, we're peripheral. 'Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.' And then you're a player, you don't want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.” ― Terence McKenna
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A few weeks ago I wrote about my first, exceptionally conscious step into the mind-expansion that is psychedelics. Specifically, ethically-sourced psilocybin as a powerful portal into the faces of Self that nobody told me about along the way. I've spent my life thinking my education had made me an expert in brain things.... yet looking back now I realize I only ever knew about my brain theory - where things are, how they're shaped, the way blood flows through. Yet, in practice, it took me arriving on the Mayan coast, setting foot upon this sacred land - and it took that particular mushroom journey into the mountains of inner Mexico, to experience what consciousness is actually about.
Oof. What a powerful lesson in knowing how much I don't yet know.
I had never been drawn to plant medicine. Actually, I gravely opposed mind-altering substances of any kind. - but why? Because that's what I was taught. And, looking back now, I realize how I got off my whole life on being 'the good girl'. Until that dark day.. when all my goodness wasn't enough to save me from the path my birthing journey would take... when I was left in a lifeless heap on a sterile OR table.. and that's how 'the best thing to ever happen to me' would begin? What had I been good for? Now, when everyone's attention was turned to the tiny twins my body had made - nobody would swoop in to save me but myself. And that's what I've had to do. When psilocybin crossed my path recently, I knew it had arrived for a reason - and with a message.
The other day, I took my second conscious journey inward.
"Only the slightest hesitation this time around... more so out of unfamiliarity than fear. What will be different this time? Spurred by Mark's comment about microdosing as a way to regulate my struggles and knowing that my ball of psilocybin cacao was oxidizing as we spoke, I felt the full-bodied YES I needed to step upon the path once more."
The mushroom cacao I lovingly crafted was warm and luxurious. Silky, velvety. Comfort. Prepared this time in water instead of milk so I could familiarize myself with the difference (milk is known to neutralize 'poisonings' and these mushrooms had been ground up for a while so they were at the end of their half-lives, for sure."
Like the kambo healing I read so much about here - this was a poisoning I welcomed. The alleged "healthy" state of affairs I see around me isn't working for anyone.
You know, it's funny... we spend our lives poisoning our bodies and calling it 'life'. We toxify our bodies and minds with the shit 'they' sell and mass produce: fast food, pharma, the perfect throw pillows for every season and designer fingernails to match. - so those addictions are okay, right? - until they're not. Until fast food clogs your heart, pharma vaporizes your liver, and your throw pillows vaporize your bank account.
I see my 1/2 dranken cup of coffee on the bedside table and decide to make a mushroom mocha. Now it's even more mind-bendingly comforting to consume. Mushroom cacao anchored in the deep, delicious, groundedness and complexity of coffee.
I didn't get the grind consistency right the first time. It's still a little bit too coarse. The gritty texture isn't impossible to swallow but would be so much smoother without. Live and learn.
It's 1045 a.m.
This journey doesn't have expansive mountain vistas and hummingbirds and sunshine. This one is a true inward journey - in a dark, cool,cave-like bedroom in a silent home. Alone.
My mind feels like it usually does when I close my eyes: blank, empty, asleep. I keep thinking back to how this felt in Tepoztlan - the magic, the power, the beauty of that majestic mountain setting. That was, and will likely forever be, one of the most powerful experiences of my entire life. I'm already looking into renting that same property to host retreats and share what I felt with others.
I am absolutely enraptured in the science of psilocybin on the inner workings of our brain. I am inextricably woven into every molecular interaction, every impact on every bit of serotonin and how/why it functions so much more effectively than long-term antidepressant use. I have immersed myself in this completely from a theoretical standpoint and now my practical experience is slowly (s.. l.. o.. w.. l.. y..) catching up. I crave to be able to rattle this off readily to anyone who asks. And I do.
-- I write down ideas for workshops and seminars as they arrive to me. My body relaxes.
I begin to brainstorm the power of placebo in the exploration of consciousness. Anyone riddled with thoughts they feel they can't control is an ideal candidate for this work.
Big systems pack their coffers by distracting us from things they tell us we should avoid. We're plugged into their system from birth. I think back to a book I picked up in a used book shop in central London a few years back... Manufacturing Depression. I exchanged a few notes with the author. Man. What a beautifully controversial and unreasonably powerful read.
To me, healing is nothing more than the complete and total honouring of each one of the emotions you feel - holding nothing back, letting it all come up, and setting it all the fuxk free. Digesting every single hidden, silenced, and shamed belief, fantasy, thought and fear - and allowing it to set itself free to the world.