Shapeshifting

My boyfriend Nick and I dried, pulverized, and mixed the mushrooms with honey. I had about 2.8 grams around 7:20PM, timed to coincide with the sunset. After about 20 minutes, we headed out to a wooded area a couple blocks away. I was already feeling a little "off" on the way there...unsteady, distracted.

We sat down in the woods and at first things just seemed moodier somehow...there was this far-off mechanical sound, a "boom" that kept repeating, almost like a drum. The sound traveled through the area...it was a strange accompaniment. I started to look at my skin and I saw these white, veiny patterns pulsing on my arm. Then it seemed like the top layer of my skin had become transparent and there was this complex, breathing surface underneath. When I looked up into the woods again, the area I focused on appeared to sink, and wave side to side like the branches were tentacles.
Nick and I held for a while, and that felt great, very close.

We came back to the apartment and started up some Ravi Shankar (Indian sitar player) and turned off the lights. This is about 8:45, when things started getting really intense. The bed felt so huge and soft, I kept losing track of my position on it and exactly where my boyfriend was. The music was amazing and totally shaped the experience. I felt completely engulfed by the sounds. I alternated between laughing and crying uncontrollably. When Nick and I held, I felt a loss of self and a melting into his body. To you "Trekkies" out there, I could imagine what it felt like to be a shapeshifter, to become another object. I was really taken with a painting of mine that I could just see in the low light. It seemed very liquid and flowing. Beautiful. When I got up and saw myself in a mirror, parts of my body faded away to invisibility and came back again.

After the peak, maybe around 11, I became more contemplative. I thought about what it means to be a woman and about my daughter Nerice. I don't actually have a daughter yet, but I felt like I already knew her, as a child and a woman all at once. We lied in bed and I think I fell asleep around 12:30, about 5 hours after ingesting the mushrooms.

This was a beautiful, positive experience.