Pure Empathy.

The ritual begins at 2:45 AM. I have been waiting 5 years for this moment right now. I
first became interested in mushrooms when I read about their use by the Aztec Indians in
Mexico. I'm in my friend's garage that has been changed into a hang out room. It has
chairs, a CD player, couch, and a pool table. I have two dried grams weighed out. I love
the taste of mushrooms. To me they taste something like raw potatoes. I'm with three
friends, R, C, and D. D is drunk on 14 beers, C, R's girlfriend is sober, and R has taken
1.5 dried grams. We are taking Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms. I can tell because they
are bruised blue where the person that had harvested them handled them. The Doors are
on. R recalls the time in 11th grade English class when I did a presentation on Jim
Morrison’s poem “Celebration Of The Lizard King”.

I have loads of trip toys: A glowstick, gum, tic-tacs, a handmirror, bouncy balls, whistles,
a hackey sack, a balloon, candy, a koosh ball, Silly Putty, a blue light on my keychain, an
empty film canister, a deck of cards, and Magic Eye Books. I'm not the Moderator of the
Shroomery's Trip Tips forum for nothing! I keep checking my eyes with the mirror to see
if they're dilated. I am laughing like hell at D who is wearing my Raccoon hat. There's a
metallic taste in my mouth. I wonder what time it is. It's too bad I took off my watch.
We're talking about the differences in the Mario Brothers Nintendo games. My purple
Kool Aid looks pretty good. When I was sober it tasted like Dimeatap cough syrup. I
wonder what it will taste like when I'm shrooming. D is singing "Touch Me". R's bro
comes in for a beer and gets made fun of. I tell everyone that I like beer, but I'm afraid of
getting a beer gut. D says to sacrifice food for beer. Coincidentally D works at a beer
wholesale store.

My lower back and legs feel kind of numb. I smell Oldspice very distinctly almost as
though someone sprayed it in the room we are in. We are listening to Phish's
"Farmhouse". I'm not seeing any CEV's or OEV's. We’re talking about the use of
cocaine at Ivy League schools.

I feel like I'm really stoned or almost a drunken feeling. Reminds
me of the time I ate schwag on some Leary Biscuits. The plywood in front of me looks
rather orange. Also the dark brown hair on my arms and legs appears to be black. Then I
say "Reality Check. I have eaten mushrooms". R thinks that I am about to freak out. I
keep having abstract thoughts such as about close friends and family of mine. D says to
just go with the trip. R, C, and I are talking about highschool, tattoos, and people we
know. C talks about how she was homeschooled for a few years. We all talk about
school and how it should be changed. I pay attention because after all I want to be a
teacher someday. I tell R and C that intelligence is nothing without the drive and
motivation to work. I notice several patterns. A Polynesian pattern in the rug that looks
like one of the tattoos that the men wear on their faces. In the Magic Eye books R and I
see faces. I see Spanish faces, R tells me he sees African faces. The faces I see are very
Picasoesque. I think this is because of my immense travels in Spain and seeing paintings
by Picasso. In the foreground of one of the pages there is a tiger. It currently has red
eyes. When I am sober its eyes are black as midnight. R looks in the back at the answers.
One of them is Beethoven. We talk about how incredible both he and his music are. I
wish I had brought one of my dad's classical CD's. I see the face of an old Native
American in the brown couch. I put on some Jazz, Miles Davis' "Kind Of Blue", but
nobody except me seems to enjoy it. D puts on some rap which I don't like. D and R go
outside to the yard to talk. C and I stay inside. I draw a bit in my book and talk to C
about shrooming. In my book I have drawn myself, the face of an eagle, a cube, and a
pinecone. I take out the Silly Putty and C and I play with
it. I change the CD to Phish's "Story Of The Ghost". I'm glad that D, C, and R have all
taken shrooms before. They know what I'm going through. For me mushrooms are much
more introspective than LSD. I like the body high, visuals, and general feeling of the way
they make one trip. I even like them more than pot which makes me paranoid. However
the only thing I don't like is that there are times at which I feel as though I've just shit my
pants. I also don't like the fact that I can't really tell when my bladder is full or empty.
One minute I will be sweating and the next minute I am cold. I pick up an oil candle. It’s
made out of handblown glass. Right now it’s blue and irridesent like mother of pearl.
There is a clear one that looks like mother of pearl. On the fabric of my pants there is a
grid that is woven on them. I see it float up and move around. D and R come inside. D
wants to go to the local graveyard. This thought scares me for a couple of reasons. D is
drunk and I never ride with drunks. I don’t want to ruin my first trip. I’m guessing that
it’s sometime around 4AM and we would have to break into the graveyard. Plus R told
me that there are usually lots of cops around his neighborhood at night. D decides not to
go and I breathe a sigh of relief. D asks me what I keep writing in my book. I show
everyone what I have written in my book so far. They all like what I have written. D says
"You've got a glowstick? Bust it out". I take it our and I am about to break it when R
says to wait until we are in his room. It goes into the freezer.

Suddenly, I see faint trails and noticeable tracers off of D. The wood on the pooltable is
swirling, breathing, and bending. I see indecipherable writing on R's dad's workbench. I
hear crickets that just sound like a long buzz. R's brother comes in to say goodnight. If I
were on bud and that happened I would be paranoid as hell. I'm as cool as the Fonz
himself. I think this is the peak. I am pretty silent for awhile. When the visuals pass, I
blow up the balloon and ask C to take pictures of me. D sees her taking pictures of me,
gets mad and says "No picture time!". Wanting to appease him because he is drunk I put
on a Tom Petty CD. We sing "American Girl". When I'm sober Tom Petty sounds good,
but on shrooms he sounds awesome. I hear echoes in "The Waiting". I bust out the
glowstick and we all throw it around. Tom Petty ends and I put on Belle and Sebastian's
"The Boy With The Arab Strap". R talks about his dog and he sounds Scottish. He
sounds exactly like the guy in the song “Space Boy Dream”. I see a Native American bent
over playing a flute, or perhaps a Capricorn goat that's a scar on R's head.

D passes out and R, C, and I talk some more.
We talk about religion. Both C and R are Atheist. I tell them my theories of creation and
how I believe there is something after death. I say how Buddhism might appeal to them. I
tell them that in Buddhism there is no “god” figure, the religion is based purely on the self.
I play with the lighter and look in the mirror. It's still me. R tells me that he used to like
the taste of grass as a child. C and I tell him it was probably Onion grass he was eating. R
says he can prove us wrong. He brings in a tall piece of grass that is split with two leaves.
He shows me the white part and instructs me to bite off the end piece with the dirt and eat
the white part. I do just that, and like the taste. I tell C and R about how scientists
theorize that early man ate mostly grasses and modern man’s appendix shrank. Then we
discuss the use of drugs by primordial man. We conclude that alcohol, mushrooms, and
Cannabis were the first drugs. Alcohol because early man would have eaten rotten fruit
that would have fermented. Mushrooms and Cannabis because early man gathered for
plants. I tell both C and R how I've been to Europe and Canada. We discuss the
differences between our families. The sun has risen, D passes out on the couch, and C
goes home. R and I go into his room since his dad is about to get up in
an hour or two.

Since R loves mushrooms his room is all decked out. It's a tripper's
paradise! R shows me his setup for his legal Shitake mushrooms. He grows them so he
can hide the illegal ones from his parents and have all the growing equipment around. R is
going to college in about a week so he has stopped growing the psychedelic kind. R tells
me that he has grown Australian mushrooms, Psilocybe cubensis, and Pan Cyans. He tells
me that he tripped the hardest he ever has in his life off of 1g of Pan Cyans. R shows me
all of the artwork that he has done. One drawing is a crossword of C's name. Another is
made entirely of inkblots. The most incredible piece of work is a spiral made up of pen
dots. It took R 21 hours to finish. R's room has tons of blacklights, blacklight posters,
and objects that glow in the dark. R and I talk about how it's unfair that people in society
such as writers, poets, artists, and musicians get paid squat while entertainers such as
sports stars are millionaires. R turns off the florescent lights and puts on the blacklights
and lights some incense. We talk and I play with the glowstick while R plays with the blue
light on my keychain. We talk about school, Beethoven, and how Magic Eye is made for
trippers. I have my watch on and try not to look at it. But when R and I are talking it
seems as though at least 30 minutes have passed when in reality only two have. I have to
make a concious effort to move. R has a curtain up in his window. He wants it taken
down. Not wanting to inconvience him I tell him I will get up to take it out. It takes me
about an hour to will myself to get up and take it down.

I see the posters bleed, bend, and breathe. I close my eyes and see some orange swirl-like
closed eye visuals. I also see Mesoamerican Indian patterns in R's rug. They look like the
Mayan calendar. R shows me the tribal design tattoo that he has drawn and C wants to
get on her back. It is symmetrical and perfect on both sides. R also shows me the second
tattoo he wants to get. It is a jester with smoke coming out of both eyes. It was drawn by
an ex-tattoo artist at R's workplace. During all of this time in R's room I have been busy
touching, holding and biting the glowstick. It feels warm and playable, almost like flesh or
warm clay. We talk about Hunter S. Thompson. I tell R how "Hell's Angel's" has lots of
speed use in it. I tell him how Amphetamine was easy to obtain back in the 60's, how it
was used in OTC diet pills. This of course was before it was found out that Amphetamine
is "bad". R and I made up a theory that someday they'll find out that something simple
like Aspirin is bad for you and we'll all have to buy it on the black market. R and I talk
about our future plans. I tell R how someday I’d love to be a teacher. R says that if the
mushrooms tell you what to do then to go for it. I know the mushrooms haven’t told me,
but I have told myself. I pretty much plan out most of my future. R and I are not seeing
any visuals, so we decide to get some cereal. I get some Life cereal. It's more fun to play
with the cereal than eat it. I know that I haven't eaten for more than 6 hours so I force
myself to eat a few bites. R's dog is with us. R tells me that animals such as dogs and cats
can tell when a human is tripping. He says dogs get freaked out because they are not sure
what is going on. I wish we were at C's house or my house so I could play with a cat. R
and I talk more about our futures. R and I look at a cotton shirt underneath of the
blacklight. In regular light it is dark green and grey. However under the blacklight it
appears black and white. One more effect I notice are the patterns in the conversations I
was having with my friends that night. We were all on topic and each new topic would
branch from the old one. If this is empathy then MDMA must be pure love.

I love the fact that I can plan out my whole future in the course
of 6 hours! This was an excellent first mushroom trip. I feel as though I have bonded
immensely with R, C, and D. I say a silent prayer thanking God for the creation of these
wonderful fungi. It's no wonder why they are called "The Flesh Of The Gods". 2g was a
perfect amount. The only things I don't like about shrooms are how they can make one's
body temperature change. I also hated the fact that R could sleep after tripping, but I
couldn't. Next time I trip I want to eat 1g and smoke some weed or inhale some n2o. I
know I saw all the patterns I saw because of prior knowledge. I have studied Polynesian,
Mesoamerican, and Native American cultures. I also feel as though they have lead me in
the right direction for what to do for a job. As a moderator I love helping out people who
are new to tripping and have fears and questions.

In conclusion I feel as though everyone
should try mushrooms. Especially artists, writers, and musicians. There is so much to
gain from psychedelic drugs. That is if you go into them with the right mindset. You
should go in knowing that they are not a toy or game and that they can screw you up.
Moderation is also key. I could not imagine myself eating them more than once a month
at the very least. I do not however feel that those afflicted with depression should take a
psychedelic of any kind. Also one should be in a general good mood before taking them.
That night I learned that instead of trying to control things I should just go with them.
Kind of like what Ram Dass says in BE HERE NOW. I hope next time I trip I can watch
a movie or take a walk in the woods. Shrooms for me are a much more "down to Earth"
type of drug. In the words of C "They want to make me skip along a path on a bright
sunny day like a child". Shrooms have become my number one drug of choice! Xochipilli,
the prince of flowers must be looking upon me with great favor.

Newt from #Shroomery and Moderator of Trip Tips fourm.