I think I like this stuff: have only had the opporunity to play with it a
couple of times now, but it has given me a pretty distinct feel. I
recently had a curious dream in which...
I loaded up a 2 1/2' bong with a big old bowl of crushed leaves, grabbed a
glass of water, and put on the album "Plus from Us" (sort of a sources
for Peter Gabriel's album, I think they released a similar project for
'Passion" which I'd really like to check out.) The first song started, a
male vocal with a Kenyan harp, very pretty, and I started smoking... let
go of the first hit fairly quickly to grab some water and let my cilia
finish melting off. :) By the second hit I started to slip: One of the
things it seemed to do was that, it wasn't so much "visual" as
"visionary", in that the appearances of things did change, but so did my
interpretations as well, which I have seldom experienced... but I'll tell
you what I saw with the caveat that it was happening at the time as far
as I was concerned. My field of vision/reckoning compacted around the
bowl as I was smoking, and I lost track of the act of smoking itself,
sort of, drifted out of real time consciousness. All the things around
me, starting with my physical environment, slipped along long strings of
color into the bowl, and as my focus moved outward I noted that it was no
longer my living room, but the edge of a forest clearing, and I could
sense a tribal grouping right outside my vision but within my
awareness.-- several entities, not people because they weren't real folk,
and an entity which felt to be the plant itself was sort of hinting that
I should go join them, but I'd need to reconcile and let go of everything
else first. My focus started slipping in a circle around the bowl, and
my surroundings represented/were the facets of my life, the people I
knew, my work, my interests, all of the stuff that piles up to form my
manifest character. And some of them surprised me or made me balk
strangely, like, ah, I had forgotten about that... (interestingly enough
the VPL was included in the list of real things that presented
themselves, just so you know I care. :) ) And all of it went slipping
into the bowl, with me sliding beyond it.-- eventually I realized that
reality itself was being consumed in the flame of the bowl, and I got to
watch everything I knew go physically sliding into the bowl, sucked in
on itself, until finally I went around full circle in my field of vision
and came to the bowl itself, shwooop, and then I said, "ah!" It felt very
clever. At which point I came back a bit and realized that the bowl was
bone dry, the lighter very warm, and I really had no clue how long I had
been sucking on the bowl after it was dead, because even in forgetting the
smoking was all there was, just absorbing.
Curious, I packed another bowl immediately, and had much the same
experience, spiralling through color made of everything around me but
transformed and stretched past me, all being sucked in like strands
pulled out on their way into an event horizon... this time though at the end,
when I came around, the focus landed on my mouth and all things being sucked
into _it_, at which point I realized the very intimate connection between
my mouth and the bowl itself, that whatever enters the bowl enters me.
and I said "ah!" again, found it very clever and almost profound in an
amused way. And again a very very dry bowl.
I'm not sure if that managed to communicate the very tangible color and
reality I saw, but anyway. A couple more notes: I got a distinct sense
that there was someone else going on there (when I trip on a few other
things I get a real sense of feedback loop, like all the voices are my
own, but this stuff felt to have a distinct "other") ...which wanted to
introduce me to a new bit of stuff, but which required a bit more prep
work/smoking before secrets could be revealed. I have noted and perhaps
even remarked in the past that salvia seems to get personified an
extraordinary amount, and now I think I can see why, because it sure a
shell felt like it was communicating with me. (and even in the most
formal sense, it was, I guess). I sort of disturbed my SO on the phone
later that night describing it actually, when I said that I liked it, it
was friendly, but that I thought that it wanted to be smoked out of a
pipe... the attribution of will was a bit too much for him :).
Regardless though, I've recently bought a proto for it, which I still
haven't had the opportunity to test out... it wants to be smoked outside,
it feels as well. Go figure, but I can understand.
Another interesting thing regarding it which I'm almost reluctant to
mention: it also seemed to communicate a sense of secrecy, that one of
the reasons I was letting go my people and affiliations was that it was
a learning that people need on their own, and for me to try and explain
it might be a betrayal of it, giving it away? Almost led me to suspect
that there's some secret society of plant heads who meet in a tribe on
the other side of things, and that I might run into a few on you over
there when it leads me to the gathering I sensed... ;) That would be
rad! If I've just given away a big secret though, ignore it, maybe I'm
just ranting.
I do very much think I'll like this stuff, and suspect it likes me. :) I
have been looking at a few FAQs regarding it, and several of them present
a skepticism regarding it's potential when smoked, which surprises me in
light of my experience. Acutely hallucinogenic, very absorptive and
tangible, visionary, short lived but overwhelming to the conciousness, a
kind mistress after all. A big thumbs up, xxxx.
Cheers and blessings,
xxxxxxx
This isn't exactly a trip report per se, but in amongst my ramblings I'm
hoping to communicate my recent experiences with this plant, Salvia, so
here goes...