DOSE:

5 g

oral

Mushrooms

(tea)

BODY WEIGHT:

125 lb

Background: I am male, at the time of this experience 23 years old and weighing around 125 pounds. I take no prescription or OTC medications, but use marijuana and yerba mate on a daily basis. I am well versed in a variety of psychedelics including mushrooms, ayahuasca-type brews, hawaiian woodrose seeds, LSD, DMT, 5-MeO-DMT, MDMA, 2C-I, Trichocereus cacti and some dissociatives (Salvia divinorum, N2O, ketamine). Mushrooms are the first psychedelic I ever took, and they remain my most treasured ally for the depth, intensity and awe-inspiring mystical experiences they provoke. Truly, magic mushrooms are a divine gift to humanity.

Setting: Camping with several friends at our favourite campground in dense coniferous forest in the foothills of the mountains. Our campsite is near to the edge of a ridge, and by walking down hill from the ridge one reaches a mountain stream, icy-cold and babbling over rocks and gravel. It is a comfortable and familiar setting, and I have had many good trips in the woods here in the past.

Mindset: I was really excited to be out camping with friends, and was eagerly anticipating doing mushrooms in the forest because they just fit so perfectly with the natural environment. I had been at a really chill, small electronic music festival for the summer solstice the weekend before, and was still buzzing from the beautiful things I experience there. At that festival I had explored a really wonderful connection with a girl and experienced many magical things, some of which I hadn’t even believed were possible. So my mindset going into this trip was extremely positive.

I find that doing mushrooms in the city and walking around can be an anxious experience, trying to walk a straight line down the sidewalk and crossing roads safely amidst the roar and fumes of traffic. Walking around high on mushrooms in the forest, contrarily, feels totally natural as one steps over branches and around bushes. It is very comfortable feeling in the forest, and I can take higher doses than I would otherwise and not feel overwhelmed or anxious.

I used to get anxious a lot when doing mushrooms, but over time I have become very comfortable with the effects, knowing that they are entirely a medicinal substance. Whatever uncomfortable mental and physical effects I experience, I can now re-interpret and ask myself how the mushrooms are healing me or showing me things. These fun-guys have taught me so much, about myself and the world around me, and I have a great deal of respect for them.

There were to be five of us doing mushrooms today, and two participants had never taken a psychedelic before! So I was doubly stoked, to be introducing others to such an amazing state of consciousness.

The experience: When making the mushroom tea, I’d put into the pot three grams per person. But since it was a first time psychedelic experience for two of the five trippers, I gave them a little less of the final liquid, and the rest of us a little more. Neither of the first-timers finished their cups of tea, so I drank a fair bit of their dregs as well. Whatever dose I was on, which I estimated to be about five grams, was proving to be quite enough.

And these were not just any mushrooms. No, they were without a doubt the most potent, cosmic mushrooms I have ever had. First off, they were all dark blue little pinners, stunts and aborts making me think the person who grew them might have added chacruna or other DMT-containing plant materials to their substrate. Secondly, they had been freeze dried to preserve the fragile psilocin as well as the psilocybin. This batch of mushrooms practically spoiled me for other mushrooms. Taking two grams of these guys was like taking a full eighth of any other ‘shrooms, and taking an eighth was like WHOAAAH! So my dose tonight of around five grams was a heavy dose of the best batch ‘shrooms I had ever taken.

After maybe forty-five minutes, things were getting a little freaky at base camp. One first-time tripper is giggling, babbling and scarfing down food. He’s also a germaphobe and is constantly washing his hands in bottled water (because the well water is “unclean”) and then throwing the paper towels in the fire. Another bemushroomed first-time psychedelic casualty keeps moaning and putting his hood up and down. For a moment, pulling the hood down and looking at the sky, he reels backwards as if stunned with an “Oh shit..!” It was getting too much for me to handle, while coming up on a strong dose of mushroom tea. I fled into the woods, muttering something about going for a walk.

My feet draw me towards the ridge behind our campsite. I feel as though I am taking something with me from camp… some kind of unpleasant energy is sticking with me. As soon as I think this, I purge. Okay, let it out. The woods feel very clear, and as I resonate with the forest I feel that I too am becoming cleansed. I am becoming clear like the environment around me. The ridge is a beautiful place, even without drugs. Standing atop thick moss and bearberry, with the forest of stunted, densely packed white spruce trees at my back. The thick clumps of skinny trees compete for space and light, none more than twice my height. All through this forest run little mossy paths, opening into clearings. A maze of possibilities.

I am stopped in my tracks when I see a spider sitting in the middle of its web, woven right across the path I had intended to take. The sun glints off the web spawning dancing rainbows. I am in awe as the mushrooms coursing through my system accentuate the rainbows, the delicate lace pattern of the web. Looking to my left I see more gossamer veils shifting in the breeze. A finely woven delicacy to make any loom-worker envious.

Taking another path I end up in a little mossy patch looking out, through the spruce and pine which are thick with old man’s beard lichen, looking across the river valley to a ridge on the other side. It is those long hours of perpetual dusk that grace the height of summer. Everything is warm and golden in the sun’s low light, especially the tops of the trees I am looking through down in the valley. There’s no real way to describe the beauty. This is heaven on earth. This is paradise. It’s too bad that there are so many mosquitos in paradise.

I am feeling enormously tapped in. Swaying and stretching, my sweeping hands leave visible trails as I clear my aura. It works pretty well on the mosqitos too, which buzz in a cloud around me. Swirling them away with motions of my body. Looking up at the trees and sky is almost too much. “Woooowww….” And I arch backwards, nearly falling over. Gratitude floods me. Emotional cathartic release. Touching the ground lovingly and feeling the flow of life within and around.

Finally I tear myself away from the ridge, listening to that little nagging urge to check up on my campmates. I go back and nothing has changing since when I left. Everyone is still doing exactly what they were doing when I left. Scarfing down food, sitting in chairs and moaning, and generally looking tripped out but not tapped in. I hang out with them for awhile, but eventually start to feel anxious and out of place. This isn’t where I am supposed to be right now.

At first I was just going to pee in the bushes, but as soon as I left camp I found I had a lot of psychological resistance to going back. I did not want to experience any more of the one fellow’s conspicuous consumption food-eating hand-cleaning garbage-burning-in-the-fire trip any longer. My feet started sucking me back to the ridge. Oh boy, here we go again…

All this phlegm kept filling me up. My nose was running heavily and I kept coughing up deep lung butter. The forest is so clear, so clean.... and I was dirty. Filled up with poisons and gunk and filth that was trying to come out. All those roasted hot dogs and the hard liquor from the night before were catching up to me. Get it out, get it out, get it out the mushrooms were saying. It doesn’t stop though, the purgative coughing keeps coming. I am beginning to get flustered and anxious. Enormous flatulent rumbles as the cleansing reaches my intestines.

My feet are leading me down the slope now. Down, down, through moss sinking over my ankles. Falling back on the mossy slope and looking up for awhile, until the mosquitos become too much. At the bottom of the ridge is a natural swampy area. There is this grass growing over everything, and the dead grey pieces criss-cross forming intricate living mandalas everywhere. Small carnivorous bog plants, yellow wood orchids and of course the omnipresent moss form a living carpet.

I see star tetrahedrons and other sacred geometrical patterns formed from these living plants. This is what life does, what we ourselves do. We form these patterns, these harmonic resonances, just as a natural product of living. We create beauty, and we destroy other life. There is a balance. I think about the destruction of the forests and the tragedy of this loss of biomass. So much has already been lost. Yet there is hope, too. So much life still thriving in the small corners left over. So much potential, to restore the balance. Or to push the dynamic equilibrium in a different direction.

Still coughing now and my feet pull me towards the river. When will this stop? My pace is fast as if I am fleeing from something. I come to an area that was obviously flooded and then had dried out again. Twisted cinquefoil shrubs, mostly dry and grey twigs with just a few green leafy shoots. It seems very clear to me that I should harvest some of the dry twigs, and some of this dry rotted driftwood over here, to take down the river. An idea forms in my mind to do a cleansing ritual. To burn all this snotty kleenex in my pockets and consciously ask for everything that needs to come out of me, to come out and be done with. No more purging please.

When I reach the river I am drawn to cross a shallow channel and find myself on a large gravel island, with water flowing all around me. There is one large rock looking like a crooked seat, with a hollow on the lee side filled with soft sand. On either side of the large rock lay washed up clumps of matted root and grass, perfect tinder material. Clearly this was the spot for my fire.

Turning in a circle, I invoke the spirits of the river, and of the mountains and the trees. I state my intention for cleansing, for clearing, for purification. That everything inside me that needs to come out, come out. I hear rattling rocks and branches, always to my side or behind, and when I turn there is nothing visibly there. Yet I know and feel the presence of the spirits. I thank them for their presence.

I arranged the tinder and wood and carefully lit it with my lighter, hoping the flames would catch easily the first time, knowing it would be a bad omen if they did not. The flames did catch, after an anxious moment or two, and I build the wood into a small teepee shape. The smoke coming off the fire was fragrant. In the light of this new blaze a stone called to me.

The stone seemed to speak to me, it was a spirit stone. Spirit of the bear, and spirit of the river. The river of the bear. I placed it on a round rock, just in front of the flames so it could watch and facilitate the cleansing. This kind of stone is similar to a Blackfoot Iniskim:

“Iniskim (Buffalo Calling Stones):
Although our people began to live as makoyi (wolves) had shown them, life was still very hard and the people were often hungry. One day iinii (buffalo) took pity on our people.

A lady named Weasel Woman was collecting water from a river near her camp when she heard something calling to her from the bushes. When she looked closer, she found a stone that spoke to her. The stone explained how it could be used in a ceremony that would call the buffalo towards a pisskan (buffalo jump).

Weasel Woman took the iniskim, the buffalo calling stone, back to camp. She told the spiritual leaders about the ceremony to call the buffalo. The people followed her instructions and soon they had plenty of meat and many hides for new lodge covers.

There are numerous iniskim on the prairies. Many people still keep them as sacred bundles. We call on iniskim to help us have successful lives.”

Source: http://www.glenbow.org/blackfoot/EN/html/traditional_stories.htm

The flames were crackling brilliantly and so I placed my ball of used kleenex onto it, asking for cleansing. Hawked a final phlegm ball into the flames. Let it all burn away to clean white ashes. Let it all burn away to clean with ashes. I became to chant repetitively, different mantras interlaced, the words just came to me. As I was doing this, I would rub handfuls of the sand across my palms in a clockwise direction. Feeling the earth and charging it with intention, I chant.

“The vessel is holy. The vessel is pure. The vessel is holy. The vessel is pure.

I am the vessel. I am holy, and I am pure. I am the vessel. I am holy, and I am pure.

I am the vessel. I catalyze within me… I catalyze within me… the change.

Changing the poison in my environment. Catalyzing the change. Changing the poison. Into Pure… White… Light.

I accept. I accept. I accept. I accept. I accept.

The vessel is holy. The vessel is pure. I am the vessel.

I accept the poison and catalyze the change. Burning away to clean white ashes.

Catalyze the change within me, turning the poison into pure white light.

I accept. I accept. I accept and I catalyze the change within me. Into pure white light. Pure white light. Pure white light. Pure… white… light.

I accept. I accept. Pure white light. I accept. I accept. Pure white light. I accept pure white light. I accept pure white light. Burning away to clean white ashes.

I am. I accept. I am. Pure white light. I am pure white light. Pure… white… light… pure… white… Light.

I accept. I accept. I accept. Catalyzing the change within me. The vessel is holy. The vessel is pure. I am the vessel. I accept and I catalyze the change within me into pure white light.”

The fire burned and burned as I went through these repetitions. The smoke was fragrant and I pulled it over me, cleansing myself. Pulling it also over to the spirit stone, spirit of the bear, spirit of the river. I accept. I accept. I accept. When the last flames died out and the smoke trailed off, I knew the cleansing was nearly done. Taking handfuls of the sand so frequently rubbed through my fingers, I covered the fire by spiralling inwards in a clockwise direction. More sand, until the coals were completely covered. Placing my right hand over the pile I could feel a little bit of warmth coming up through the sand.

I accept. I accept. I accept. As the trance deepens further, I see my hand sinking down into the earth, and the earth rising up around my fingers. It is all covered in faint jewel-curtain patternings. The Other Side is leaking visibly into this reality.

The spirit rock is unsure whether it wants to come with me or not. I ask it what I need to do, in order for it to wish to come with me. I am directed to place an iron-bearing stone over the centre of the covered fire. Offerings of thanks to the spirits of the river, the moutains and the trees. I cleanse my hands and the spirit stone in the fast flowing water of the main current. Now the stone will come with me, and the cleansing is done. I am no longer congested. The vessel is pure. The vessel is holy. I am the vessel. I am pure and I am holy.

It is now getting to be truly dark, no longer the perpetual dusk of the last few hours. I feel slightly anxious about finding the path back to camp, as in the dark it would be easy to miss my way. My mantra now changes to: “I will find my way through the darkness, and I will be protected.”

I accept this walk through the cold because I am heading for the warmth of home camp. “I will find my way through the darkness, and I will be protected.” I keep repeating this, feeling as though watchful eyes are all around me. Very happy to see the twinkling of fire through the final trees.

Nothing in camp seems to have changed much. The one first-timer is still consuming food and now also drinking liquor, smoking bowls of weed and cigarettes, wandering around the camp talking to himself and wearing headphones. The other is still squirming and lazing in a chair before the fire.

I sit in a chair and stay meditating for awhile, not wanting to let this perfect clarity break. Not responding to the comments and giggling and actions of those around me. Now the mantra becomes: “I will not allow the energies around me to effect me. I am the vessel. The vessel is holy, and the vessel is pure. I am the vessel. I will not allow the energies around me to effect me.”

Eventually I came to a comfortably grounded place and resumed normal interactions with those around me. My friends comment that they could feel my presence the whole time, way out there in the forest. I could not believe how strongly I still felt effected by the mushrooms. I had gotten a whole lot out of this trip. It was a powerful and wonderful experience. I felt little hunger or thirst, and no desire to smoke the usual quantities of marijuana. A couple hours later when I went to bed, there was still that tugging of tryptamine consciousness as I fell into a peaceful sleep.

Love to all, thanks for reading.

Exp Year: 2008	ExpID: 83381
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 23
Published: Jul 9, 2010	Views: 14,561
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