(I have already posted this to the psycedelic experience forum, but I think it can go here as well, for reasons that should become clearer as you read)
So, I came home today after an enjoyable scooter ride doing errands here and there. I looked into my fruiting chamber and found, growing in a half gallon mason jar, a large and newly opened mushroom--Texas strain. I picked it and weighed it--23 grams. Not bad for an invitro grow.
Now I had to make a decision. Should I cook the thing up into some tea for immediate consumption, or should I dry it for later, say, the weekend? I was not really sorely tempted to trip today--in fact I was pretty sorely tempted to Not trip. Tripping is hard work, hard fucking work, if you know what I mean. And there is always the specter of a trip turned rogue, turned ugly, gone bad.
I can recall, when I was much younger, drinking, both with friends and alone, and suddenly finding myself walking down some railroad track without my wallet, watch, and, if I remember right, without my flipping belt. Another time I came to in a straitjacket. Another time I came to running through the steet after throwing a rock through a church window. Dear God, just thinking of all this now makes me sad.
Enough background. You get the picture. I am acquainted with losing it completely after ingesting a substance. It is not fun. It is the most not fun thing I can think of. So, today, I was ambivalent about tripping. I am not a young man. Tripping is hard on me. But...
I went for it. I would take this big mushroom of unknown potency, cook it into some lemony tea and drink it while chewing on a big piece of raw ginger that I hoped would both mask the nightmareishly bad taste of mushroom tea, and defend me from eventual nausea.And that is just what I did.(I also put 6 or so drops of lemon essential oil into the brew--another great nausea-buster)
After drinking the nasty stuff I lay down on my bed to wait. I started listening to a podcast--stored on my phone--of a Peter Brown satsang. I listened to this for an hour, and then turned it off. The usual mushroom stuff was going on--faces floating in the dark wearing a smile that would slowly degrade into a horrible leering devil's grin. Lots of colored bits of fluff and pulsing red clouds--you know, the usual.
Then I started, as I often do on mushrooms, to get ill at ease, anxious. I began to beat the shit out of myself for my admittedly legionary--if I can use the word in this context--multitude of faults and failings. In particular I remembered my aunt, who suffered years with depression, how I hurt her one day when she unexpectedly came to visit. My whole being contracted in shame. I started crying. I realized that I hadn't mourned her death at all. Passed it over almost without noticng it. This was the first time I felt into the huge sorrow of her 20 year fight. She even tried to kill herself once swallowing a whole bottle of tranquilers.
I put on the podcast again. I listened. The great grief I was feeling passed. Other thoughts came. Some amusing, some depressing, some so so. More colors--you know how it is on mushrooms, waves of intensity, troughs of near normality. Then more waves. I thought of a friend I hadn't spoken to in a year. I said to her, "Well?" meaning, well, are you still mad or what? She smiled warmly. Happy me. Then I thought of another person whom I hadn't heard from in months who had once sworn to be my friend forever. I saw her face, but it was not smiling. I knew intuitively that she had broken her oath. How sad I felt. I thought of others I knew but had not seen for quite a while. I was surprised that some smiled at me from whom I expected frowns and some frowned from whom I had thought really liked me.
I lay there feeling more and more the impermanence of all these likes and dislikes.Happy, sad, happy again, sad again. Surprised. How funny. Not a nano second did anything really stick around. I relaxed. Why should I be afraid that one of these emotions was going to drag me spiraling into a bad trip? How funny. All I had to do was wait until the nasty fuckers fell away--which, I saw clearly again and again, was absolutley the only thing they COULD do. How astonishing!
There is more but I want to cut this report to a size people will read. I think I have said enough to justify the title of this post. No?
--------------------
Edited by champinhom (09/15/15 11:02 PM)
|
Quote:
resonant111 said: small doses are underrated. sometimes i can't synthesize what's going on during a high dose trip, it just gets too fucked up. i'd take a low dose trip at a concert over a "heroic dose" in my bedroom any day, for example.
I've never done concert tripping. I like to be quiet on psycedelics, but I know the power of music to take over the mind while under the influence of substances.
You are certainly wise to stick to low doses in public. Those who do otherwise make really good targets both for cops and for robbers. Jackrollers love drunks.
-------------------- My father used to say: I don't care what else you do in life, just don't be an asshole. People, forgive me when I forget what my daddy said. Cut back the proliferating list of people whose opinions can hurt you. Unless they have done or want to do you some good, their views are just not worth tracking. Saul Bellow “People are just cannibals unless they leave each other alone.” Doris Lessing Those whom the gods would save, they dower with compassion. Mr. P. Silocybin
|
Quote:
Rev. Morton said: it's more like harrowing dose. 
Exactly. Somehow I don't much cotton to being harrowed. Of course, I know that a farmer harrows his field so it will eventually yield more in the way of whatever he is after it to yield. So, harrowing could be called a fruitful practice--at least for farmers.I don't know about how that works out for trippers.
-------------------- My father used to say: I don't care what else you do in life, just don't be an asshole. People, forgive me when I forget what my daddy said. Cut back the proliferating list of people whose opinions can hurt you. Unless they have done or want to do you some good, their views are just not worth tracking. Saul Bellow “People are just cannibals unless they leave each other alone.” Doris Lessing Those whom the gods would save, they dower with compassion. Mr. P. Silocybin
|