The Naked Universe
Wednesday 6th August 2008
Much has been forgotten. Last time the mushrooms told me I had taken too much, this time the universe, shy of the nakedness in which it appeared to me told me I had taken too much. After a certain level of dosage descriptions become both impossible and meaningless, you know you've been somewhere, something has been imparted but there's no means of translation. The closest I can get is that you pass through something at the same time as that which you pass through passes through you as well, it's mutually beneficial, feels that it's of great import, is beautiful but utterly incomprehensible.
---------------------------
The day after the trip, around noon while my son had his midday nap, catching one of those moments of recuperation from post tripping fatigue which roll in and roll out for me throughout a subsequent day, I lay back on our bed, closed my eyes and submerged back into the trip. Physicality was swept away and I felt as light as a train of thought. In this moment I waded through a mental landscape of hazy, snooziness to meet the artist and author behind the graphic novel that is my life. There was nothing startling about this encounter, which was fundamentally a meeting with the man behind the curtain of my mind, some deep part of me I suppose. Although building to a somewhat revelatory peak it was very casual with an "Oh it's you, you're not doing too bad a job, cool" sense to it.
On the cusp of a set of transitions in my life I found myself feeling that I was exactly where I want to be. To be raising a child is to always be in a space of evolving interactions though. I'm not searching for definition in life I'm going with the flow, just looking afresh at it and nudging it through tripping from time to time.
------------------------------
I carried out my usual ritual the day before. This time, after much deliberation I found the friendliest looking tree in the local wood, in the offering this time was a small dried mushroom, incense and my nail clippings, which I saw as symbolic of the desire to burn away the unwanted, the old useless aspects. I carried out the burning of my offering, my thanks and wishes whilst Jay slept in his pushchair. The woods truly look beautiful at this time of the year and as I silently walked home I felt energised and positive.
I reflected on how I am currently in one of the happiest periods in my life, as well as loving being a father I'm closer than ever to Amy (especially wonderful as up until March/April of this year our relationship was on very rocky ground) and creatively I've been very active, working towards 10 songs for a homemade folk album project.
In terms of packing the trip could not have been planned better. Taking place in the middle of a week off work just on the verge of discovering if I was going to get a new job (I have), with the potential of selling our flat and buying a house on the (probably distant) horizon and having a whale of a time with my wife (I'd forgotten how cool it is to be around her for longer periods of time, we felt like the old us again) and son (who as he grows and develops means more and more to me than I ever thought possible) I was in a pretty delighted mood.
However, neither Amy nor I slept well the night before and yet again I felt torn in terms of really wanting to trip and a great sense of sadness at the idea of missing my family. Despite these qualms, I am more than ever committed to tripping, more these days for how it permeates and effects my life, basically I am a better person for all of us through tripping and ultimately it only amounts to a couple of hours away from them, which does us all good..
I had no nausea during the lead up this time, but quite shuddering nerves during the morning - that shaking, but controlled fear of commitment and knowledge of the gravity of where I was headed.
If there is anything I can lay claim to doing well it is the transition from reality though the onset to the peak of a trip. Through a period of meditation (on the bed this time) lemon & ginger tea and slow calm breathing, once lying on the sofa, the trip slowly bled into my awareness. A series of profound thoughts lead though the smoothest onset, the details of which are just beyond the reach of my memory. I felt each notion swiftly pass into the hinterlands of my mind; such was the cascade of thoughts.
I dosed 5.5g at about 9.15am and another 1.5g half an hour later. I should have left it an hour, especially as this was mostly made up of powder from a strain I hadn't grown before (Elephant Dung!), and now I come to think of it bruised incredibly blue (very high psilocybin content!). Next time I'll perhaps only dose 5.5g, and if I do redose it will be much later on. I'm pretty sure I redosed so soon as I didn't want to be tripping too long, so that I would come down sooner and could fully be with Amy and Jay much earlier in the afternoon.
Adem's "Love and Other Planets" album smoothed the way through the onset and as "Something's Going to Come" started I felt and saw a white light of such joyousness emerge from my chest. I especially felt forgiveness towards my mother, the relationship I have always had with her having been very troubled, suffice to say I felt relief at letting go of all negative feelings towards her.
After the Adem album, during which I floated through indescribable wondrous intensity, had finished the tripped stalled somewhat. I carried out a minimal stomp-step dance to "Orphans" by Beck and tried to listen to the off cuts album "Peppermint Tree" by The Amorphous Androgynous, which tries so hard to be trippy it ends up cancelling itself out.
"Strange Overtones", Oh My! The experience of listening to this song almost escapes me: waves of joyousness and indefinable knowledge careering and surging from the realm I was in, from the mushroom energy, through each layer of instrumentation which wound round and flooded the amplified flow of thought and feeling I had become as any sense of solid physicality was a seeming distant and irrelevant memory, I didn't just listen to this song I was within this song, this song was representing existence, this song became an eternity of experience, a love affair with a short moment in time stretched to epicness. If Adem's "Something's Going to Come" opened my heart inside out, the light shining from within and upon it, "Strange Overtones" cross faded my soul to merge with the twisting, rippling under layer of reality, I felt in the utter space and state of welcomeness and contentedness.
Continuing the David Byrne mood "Glass, Concrete and Stone", the gorgeous cello part weaving and flowing through me, the lyrics resonated with me, in that state of mind they seemed to be about the difference between the physical and the spiritual, our souls transcending the confines of the body. As the song built, all around me began emptying into white, phasing back and forth until, in a crescendo, I was lost in the everything. I would merge with the infinite many times throughout this journey, something so calmly, yet deeply joyous I would equate as the tripping equivalent of multiple orgasms.
A trip mostly feels like a succession of smooth segues, in recollection however it becomes fragments of shattered pottery. The most easily recalled moments follow:
Towering above me was a giant version of Chris from "Family Guy"; he was a photo mosaic, made up of millions of different pictures, which may actually have been many many scenes from "Family Guy" itself. I had been watching one hell of a lot of episodes recently.
I saw the universe naked; it appeared as a ruby red crystalline structure made up of triangular sections, the colour shaded within each part like the swirls of colour in a bubble. It was morphing through patterns to form a landscape. I got the notion that I was seeing the universe/reality in it's utterly unadulterated, unedited, uncloaked, naked form, it further mutated into a large lolloping beast which when it saw me tried to run away, as if caught unawares and embarrassed to be seen in the nude. During this there was a sense of being in space, it felt like it was occurring along the underside, in a channel, on the exterior surface of a spaceship.
In the bedroom as something seemed to be breaking though a door in the wall (I appeared to be in a completely different location) I found myself explaining to my two children (a boy & a pigtailed girl) that I wasn't really hallucinating anymore, after a bizarre visual/emotional trippy segue I realised/remembered that Amy and Jay were at mother and baby group and we don't have a daughter!
Whilst listening to a number of tracks on Bjork's "Vespertine" album a "Raiders of the Lost Ark" sized boulder of information pummelling through my mind, flattening everything in its path. I simply relaxed, tried not to get in its way and although feeling like a metaphysical pinball, felt enriched, if battered, by the experience.
Behind closed eyes I communed with the spherical entities that are a regular occurrence in my trips as of late. Again I also saw the vibrating, banded, murky grey tinged, glycerine bubble colours shapes, which too gave the sense of something communicating with the very depths of my soul/spirit.
A panicky, unsettled sensation hit me as it passed 11am, although I still had an hour to myself I realised it was in anticipation of Amy and Jay's return. While hanging on the living room door frame I said to myself "I'm tripping hard and I don't want to be tripping at all, I want to be with Amy and Jay". Though not strictly entirely accurate a description of how I felt, I do need to focus on how to prevent this in future. I perhaps need to fill that hour before they return with a definite distraction, perhaps by watching something or going out to the garden. A while back I wrote down some rules for being a parent and tripping, I may have to revisit them and amend, especially as my son is becoming increasingly mobile and inquisitive.
Very drained I lay on our bed in silence to recoup some energy. My mind ploughed over very familiar terrain of contemplation; a brief recollection of the deeply dug in terror of when I was hooked on coke, pills and booze, and my never ending horniness and perpetual action of viewing women through a sexualised lens - I respect and adore all facets of women it's just I tend to run them through the "what would they be like to fuck" filter first. I settled on my standard that's who I was/who I am conclusion and listened to a few Devendra Banhart tracks as the time neared noon.
They returned. I brought the pushchair up. Jay was still awake. I simply could not lie on bed while, Amy in the kitchen, Jay stood at the safety gate on the living room doorframe. I sat and chatted with him through the gate initially, swiftly deciding "To hell with it!" I took my headphones off and joined him in the living room, rolling a ball to him, passing his toys back and forth.
I was still tripping really hard! All in front of me appeared composed of flipping tiles which rotated in a domino flow. Despite the occasional slumping tiredness, from the point they arrived home and especially when I joined them I felt utterly at ease and happy, everything clicked into place, I felt right again, in tune, focussed. Going to the loo I had a strong sense of the togetherness of our little family, the word "Tribal" came to mind and I felt like the protector/leader of my tribe. Just as I settled into this Jay became tired and needed to feed to sleep.
I returned to lying on the bed. I spent some time laughing about the Britney Spears episode of South Park I watched the night before (I also listened to a McKenna lecture but strangely none of his ideas came to mind). Mostly I tuned into the quiet and found the trip to be comfortably drifting away.
There were rippling waves on ceiling as, Jay now asleep, Amy sat chatting to me, it was like being at the edge of an ocean at the end of the day, a calm sadness of the trip's passing and ordinary reality bleeding back in. I held back talking about the trip, I let Amy talk, we both agreed on feeling much closer to each other recently.
As the afternoon wore on I had a slight house buying anxiety after a viewing was booked for that evening, I questioned why we even need to move, which upset Amy, but ultimately realised it was just me panicking. We settle this quickly though, as past experience has taught us to avoid having arguments on days that I trip.
As the last vestiges of the mushrooms left my system, Jay was playing/looking at the "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" boxset on my belly as I lay on the floor in the hallway. As he garbled his way through his babble I remarked to him that we'd reminisce about this in years to come, "Jay, remember the days that you spent looking at a Pink Floyd album on my belly as I lay tripping in the hallway" - I couldn't be happier. Looking up at the many layered and levelled ceiling I got Amy to give me our digital camera. I took what looks like an abstract modern art picture and I knew I had the cover to the album I am working on.
I found that I returned to a somewhat comfortable baseline sooner than normal. It did however take three days till the empty/bright headedness became less overpowering. I still had a tinge when writing up the notes for this report several days later on the train journey into work.
There was a persistent vibe to the trip, one of simplicity that keeps returning whenever I think of it. The overriding message I received was that everything is going to be all right. On the precipice of changes in my life that is more than reassuring.
Appendix
Playlist:
Adem - Warning Call
Adem - Something's Going to Come
Adem - X Is For Kisses
Adem - Launch Yourself
Adem - Love and Other Planets
Adem - Crashlander
Adem - Sea of Tranquility
Adem - You and Moon
Adem - Last Transmission From the Lost Mission
Adem - These Lights Are Meaningful
Adem - Spirals
Adem - Human Beings Gather 'Round
Beck - Orphans
Amorphous Androgynous - Peppermint Tree
David Byrne - Glass & Concrete & Sand
David Byrne & Brian Eno - Strange Overtones
Bjork - Hidden Places
Bjork - It's Not Up To You
Pink Floyd - Speak to Me
Pink Floyd - Breathe
Pink Floyd - Time
Pink Floyd - Great Gig in the Sky
Pink Floyd - Us and Them
Pink Floyd - Any Colour You Like
Paul Simon - Can't Run But
Paul Simon - The Coast
Devendra Banhart - Cristobel
Devendra Banhart - So Long Old Bean
Devendra Banhart - Seahorse
--------------------
"You've got to get hold of the thread of marching time, pull the fuck thing down, get on the end of it and pang yourself to the infinitude of absolute mind"
Ken Campbell - Furtive Nudist
"The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced" - Aart van der Leeuw
|
login or 
register to post messages and view our members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, encrypted messages, file attachments, board customizations, and much more!
Previous
Index
Next
Threaded
Edit 
Reply 
Quote 
