Someone recently mentioned a memorable acid trip in Hawaiiii., 10 hits
ingested on a beach in an attempt to experience the awakening of the
kundalini and an eruption into enfolded spheres ("here comes the...").
This same individual wrote about an elaborate preparation for this trip
which resulted in a sort of temporal flooding backwards in time from the
event of the trip:
>>>>>>"to quit school, take three months to meditate, and work at a job as
stationary store stock person, which I figured would be like sweeping the
porch in Buddhist mysticism, in preparation for this big acid trip I was
planning.>>>>>" A couple of days before the trip I began having
visions, and when I would do my meditations and breathing excercises, I heard
a giant motor-like sound. By the night before the trip this sound was a
visceral presence, looming about a hundred feet over my head. It seemed
pretty demonic. As I said, this was all before the trip, which gave me the
idea I've never since had cause to doubt, that time is a two-way street, at
least. "<<<<<<<<<
@#$%@#$%@#$%%@#$@#%@$@#%@#$ in a similar vein I recently
experienced what amounts to a spontaneous ritual that gave me more insights
before ingestion than after. Make what you will:
Recently I made a blender drink consisting of fresh lemon juice, maple
syrup, water and three small carpophores of a friendly species of fungi. I
placed this sacramental concoction in a jar in my knapsack and hit the
woods for a very long walk.
Leaving the house I felt low on energy, so I began to sing in order to
aerate my the vessels and cavities of my body with chi. My singing
gradually became more rich as I opened my abdominal cavity to resonate, my
blood became oxygenated, my voice filled with emotion. There is an emotion
that I search for as a template of higher spiritual states (higher from my
earthen perspective, back-sliding fool that I may be): the emotion might
best be described in two words as grievous joy. It results from the strong
awareness of impermanence:
"Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
The verb "to be" is only one of the many structures with which we shore up
our desire for a substantial reality. Nothing can merely "be," for all the
ten thousand things are constantly "becoming." We are not human beings,
but human becomings... Except that our distorted notion of time prevents
us from comprehending later stages in the process of becoming. I wish to
stress that nothing is ever lost from the equation of becoming; energy and
matter disperse only to reconvene at a more convenient hour in a new form.
The grievous joy which results from the apperception of impermanence is the
highest form of love that I know. When I hug my aging mother and feel the
frailty of her corporeal vehicle, I feel this grievous joy. When I plant my
garden in the spring, weed and water the plants all summer, I know they too
will fall beneath the blow of the first frost. To be filled with such
emotion involves a celebration of all that surrounds you in the knowledge
that the moment will pass never to return.
I was singing through the woods, along the path of a creek which not a
month before had risen ten feet above its banks and swept through the
valley. The muddied water carried away soil from myriad banks and deposited
it on the flood-plain downstream. The torrent flipped on its back a flat
section of silt-stone that measures at least 8' by 4' by 10". A second slab
of similar proportions appeared below Potter's falls, dragged from more
than 100 yards upstream. "I do not know much about gods, but I think that
the river/ Is a strong brown god--sullen, untamed and intractable." In
short, I was surrounded by insistent evidence of the impermanence of the
natural world.
In this place I realized once again that we have built our society on the
attempt to belie the impermanence of creation. The bright lights of town
fill the darkness with sharp angles, straight lines, boxy buildings. All of
this infra-structure constitutes an attempt to deny the curved line, the
inflected geometry, the enfolded dimension.
I mean to say: the common man thinks not of death. To speak of death is to
vaunt social taboo. Those who ponder death are thought to be morbid. When
someone dies, we say what a good person they were, plant their bodies
inside a box, and go on with life as usual. At the same time, one of the
most memorable of Montaigne's Essays is entitled "That to philosophize is
to learn how to die," in which he recounts a near-death experience that
resulted from a riding accident. In other words, he grounds "knowledge" in
the experience of the unknown Other, when impermanence holds sway and "I"
merges with the dark side of the self.
It ocurred to me, just before quaffing the brew, that mushrooms represent
the attempt to face the darkness in order to see the light. Heraclitus:
"The way down is the way up." When people speak of bad trips, good trips, I
am always amazed. Beshroomed, good and bad become the two sides
(in/out..up/down) of the wind-sock of self. When awareness floods outside
of the time-body, pleasure and pain become completely intermingled. My self
feels great fear at the thought of ingesting huge doses of shrooms, but for
some odd reason I feel compelled...
These were the emotions and thoughts that assaulted me on this fine day,
walking along the banks of 6-mile creek. I made various stops along the way
to town, to close my eyes and focus my thoughts on the act of breathing, to
read passages from the Four Quartets as a kind of catechism to shape my
thoughts, to take notes on all that was passing through my head and heart.
Standing on the ridge above the 2nd dam, I saw the sunlight playing on the
rippled surface of the pond. My vision began to sink into the morphing
shifts of negative and positive space that charaterize OEV with the aid of
fungal allies (which I had yet to ingest, mind you).
"The wind that chills,
THe sound of moving water filled the air; birds called to one another from
branch to wind-blown branch. The trees stretched and pulsed with sap,
warmed by the Spring thaw. Without foliage on the trees, the spine of the
land stood forth to the eye. Through year of passage the river has cut a
valley gorge between soil-covered siltstone ridges that descend in terraces
where slabs have fallen away to the river below.
When I came upon a pile of loose stones deposited by the receding flood, I
put down my pack in order to search for impressive slabs with which to
build a small altar. I found a 1' x 2' slab to form a base, with a large a
white stone, rippled by the water's flow and a piece of sand stone engraved
everywhere with small fossils of spiral worms and limpets. Here, the
passage of time inscribed in stable stone, past lives gone save for the
imprint of their calcareous remains.
Before this altar to time, I removed a jar from my pack and quaffed the
suspension therein. The resulting trip might at worst be described as a
dulling of the senses (perhaps the first stage of that 5-mile stare brought
on by mushroom trance), at best a mild buzz-on which was greatly enhanced
by a few pipe-hits later on. Almost in spite of the effects of the fungal
agent, I maintained mindfulness. There followed many adventures, but a
complete recounting would take many more bits.
The interesting thing about this story, from my POV, lies in the rich
experience resulting from my awareness of the impending turn towards fungal
darkness. Or was I actually tripping before I partook of the ally (a
temporally inverted parallel universe bleeding into home-base?) I often
worry that the use of entheogens might become a crutch, the spiritual
equivalent of fast food when you don't feel like spending the time to cook.
For this reason, I set aside hours or days before ingestion of sacrament
for reflection and focused awareness. Fasting is one great way to further
this aim, though I don't like tripping on a completely empty stomach.
In the end lies the beginning...
viddy me droogs:
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth."
the thorn that tears,
the thud of bone on stone,
are they not balanced by the warmth of the sun in early March?
Look: the light throws into relief
the convergence of the river's current
and the wind-driven waves that play above the dam.
All doubt, all fear must go the way
of water that curls from the dam's edge,
frothing at impact with the stones below."