Thank you for reading.
The Start
It was our first time shrooming – Amanda, Rameen and me. We had been wanting to do this for months. When we finally got our hands on some, we were extremely intentional about creating a safe space beforehand for us to trip in (because a trip while feeling unsafe could potentially make the whole experience hellish) – Amanda and Rameen set up a big, comfy floor bed in their living room with their mattresses and stuffed animals (because apparently they – or animals in general – bring good vibes), we journaled our intentions (I wrote my thanks to the Universe and asked that I experience unconditional love for myself and others, and that I may be open to receiving more abundances. I was not lost in life or anything like that; but I figured I would still appreciate some new guidance and a new experience), Rameen lit candles and got a scented diffuser going, Amanda prepared snacks (chocolate, digestives, and Dorritos), I asked that we sit in a meditation circle, so we could go into the trip with the calmest state of mind possible. We acknowledged we were thankful to be doing this with beautiful people, with whom we shared mutual trust. As recommended, Rameen and Amanda had fasted hours before the trip, but I had quite a lunch just an hour before we started, so for me the shrooms kicked in slower than for them – later on I was only peaking during their comedown (‘peak’ period typically being the first two hours of the trip and ‘comedown’ being the rest of the slow 4 or 5 hours until the end).
When we had eaten the shrooms (which to me did not taste good, but my friends liked it), Rameen put on a 7-hour long Spotify playlist specifically made for shroom trips by this psychologist; it was mostly classical music and opera, and I really believe it played a big part driving the whole experience. The first hour was mostly us chilling and waiting for any effects to kick in. Rameen began to feel it first – she was paying online for Spotify Premium and, looking at her credit card, slowly proclaimed with a big smile: “Expiry date”. Then she started exclaiming about the big wooden cabinets in front of us, about how they were alive and breathing. Amanda started to see it too. It took me a while, but then I saw it – the wooden patterns on the cabinet were slowly undulating in waves, they really were breathing, their lines dissolving into one another. I felt their vibration ‘dance’ was driven by the music – my first thought was remembering: of course, music produces frequency waves, all things and molecules and vacuums have energy and respond to them through vibration and movement, what more these large pieces of wood that once used to be live trees themselves! We watch the wood in fascination for a bit. Then we notice the (also wooden) floor moving in waves too; up and down slowly it ‘breathed’, and there seemed to be fog over it too. This warped our perspective, making us feel like our big floor bed was a boat on water, which we could feel was rocking gently. My friends tell me I’m talking differently. Indeed my speech is very slow (I’m normally a fast talker), and it is extremely hard for me now not to slur, so I slur, a LOT (with alcohol I would slur but only a little).
The Peak
My friends start to journal their observations and feelings. At some point I exclaim “I LOVE THAT WE’RE ON A BOAT!” to which they burst out laughing and Amanda records that in her journal. She begins to peak here, I think. She laughs hard and a lot. We all do, and are extremely high on happiness. She laughs til she cries and does both at the same time, while snacking on Dorritos. She bounces off the bed noisily towards the kitchen counter and grabs paper towels to wipe her tears/blow her nose(?), and keeps talking about paper towels. Holding them to her face, she’s still laughing and crying, so hard until her body slumps to the ground in a seated position and her tears and laughter and sobs are uncontrollable. I was not as hyper yet, but I sense she’s alright and not suffering (Amanda later tells us that was the biggest feeling of happiness she could ever have possibly felt), so Rameen and I sit on the bed just watching her. I feel very, very happy for her. “Now she’s having a good time”, I remember thinking to myself.
We start to see the white cabinets dancing as well. Lord, EVERYTHING was dancing, the microwave, the words in our journals – going back and forth, tilting here and there, breathing and breathing. We squeal and laugh in glee. “Everything is so beautiful”, Rameen keeps saying. She grabs one of her plushies, the first she’s ever owned as a child, a bear named NightyBear, and stares deeply at it. “There are so many emotions that NightyBear brings up”, she says, very feelingly. I coo my ‘awww’s at her and tell her that that makes me happy.
Around this time Rameen and Amanda exclaim a lot about the pink and yellow glows they see around us. It is harder for me to see them as vividly, but if I focus hard enough I do see some pink flashing playfully here and there. When I close my eyes there is a white glow lingering in the lower left corner of my dark awareness. My friends go on and on about these glows. They say with strong certainty that these pinks and yellows are the colors representing what we’re all feeling so much of at this moment – so much pure love, warmth and happiness. I don’t doubt it, because I feel it too. The strong energy bouncing off of all three of us and the room bursting with it. At this time I think I am beginning to peak more. While I’m standing and leaning on the dining table slurring at them who’re on the bed, my friends tell me I’m having an absolute pink glow, that it’s just this aura about me, like it’s pure joy. I look at them and realize I see the same about them – Amanda is very pink, and Rameen is just glowing yellow and they both look insanely beautiful and shiny. We keep exclaiming this to one another, about how beautiful one another looks. And it’s hardly flattery either – I TRULY felt it, the extreme beauty of these souls, my friends, in this room. They were so beautiful that it was hard to NOT talk about it! By now the room is completely bathed in these pinks and yellows, this absolute warmth and love, and everything felt so, so good. So amazing. I can’t believe I have been living my whole life never having felt love and happiness to this extent!! It seemed so infinite and it completely overpowered me. We and everything were bursting with it all. We were still laughing loudly and sometimes hysterically at a lot of things.
While my friends were very sensitive visually to these glows, for me it was another sense that was heightened by these shrooms – my sense of smell and taste. The diffuser scent at a lot of times was a bit much for me; it filled the room and saturated my nostrils and lungs so much that I could just taste the air. I slur-repeated this countless times during my peak, that I could taste the air. “What does it taste like?”, Rameen keeps asking and sticking her tongue out to try for herself, but I think neither of them tasted anything.
Rameen who’s been mostly sitting on the bed gets up to dance slowly on the foggy floor. “You look so elegant”, Amanda gushes. Sometimes we would take trips to the bathroom together and hang out there. Amanda notices green glows in there, and around Rameen too. We would stare in the mirror at one another and at ourselves and just feel so enamored and incredibly happy about how beautiful and happy we all looked and felt. Amanda says at one point “I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather be tripping with right now than with you guys” and the rest of us agree. The bathroom (as Amanda later describes) seemed like a place entirely separate from the rest of the apartment, as if we were in a movie scene. And making our way back to the floor bed would feel like we were all trying to get back to our ‘safety boat’.
I remember there was a point in time on the bed when everything looked the most trippy. Amanda, trying to journal, would exclaim and laugh hysterically at how hard it was to write because the letters were just dancing too much (at almost everything we would yell “WOAHHHHHHHHHHH” followed by loud, open-mouthed laughter). We looked at the fabric on the couch and at the cushion and it was insane. SO much was going on in that fabric! These were pattern-less couches and cushions by the way, but as we tripped we could see patterns form in the woven threads, suddenly so clearly visible, flowing along gracefully and just doing their own thing, as if they had been alive all this while but we were just too blind to ever notice their dances. Even as I type this now my body wants to laugh a little because just thinking about it brings back those feelings of how utterly amazed and joyful we felt seeing those patterns and how alive they were. Indeed everything around us was and is so so alive! The littlest things that we would never normally notice. We realize and feel that on a deeper level now; how everything has life and is conscious, as everything is just energy. We can never look at things the same way again. We looked at the skin on our hands and arms – holy FUCK. ALL THESE PARTICLES. A freaking PARTY was going on amongst the cells in our skin! They moved about more vigorously than the patterns on the furniture. So alive, so vibrant. Thinking about it now makes me a bit emotional too. We realized how beautiful and incredible our skin was. At least for me I know that up til that point I had always taken this skin on my body for granted. Amanda at that time had rashes on her body and bare legs. Rameen and I squealed at her in hyper-delight “Look at your skin!!!” and put our faces dramatically near her legs – our noses only a few inches away – to watch the red patches in awe. They were dancing too, and looked VERY beautiful and happy, which made ME happy, and my thumb caressed that skin giving it the love it deserved, and I could feel Amanda was very warmed and happy.
On a table next to our bed sat a box with Rameen’s pet stick insect named Leo. I wondered aloud how Leo was doing – I had never seen him before. Rameen brought the box over, and took him out slowly. “Are you okay with insects?”, she asks me. Normally I am not, but I respond “of course” immediately. At this point my love for simply everyone and everything was absolutely bursting and I felt like it knew no bounds. How could I hesitate to love an insect??? She brings Leo up gently who perches on her finger and moves gracefully. Amanda and I squeal and scream in delight “LEOOOOOOOO!” and I “AWWW” as intensely as I can. “You are SOOOOO BEAUTIFULLL!!”, I slur, melting with joy – it was like the feeling of me seeing a dog (my favorite animal) but times ten. Indeed the insect seemed like the loveliest being on the planet and he was bringing me incredible joy. All our love poured out to him. I’m sure he felt it; may he be reincarnated into a better life haha.
This probably happened before the insect, but I was trying to journal sometimes too. Hilariously and for the life of me I could NOT write properly. I was holding my pen and writing in a way I had never held a pen before – it was in a dramatic, fancy way, as if writing with a feather. It felt good to write, but anything I scrawled was absolutely illegible to anyone but me. I was also extremely, extremely high and hyper that I could not focus long enough to write any phrase beyond six words. I would write, stop, throw down my pen, and laugh crazily at whatever I just wrote (everything in that hour seemed like the funniest thing on earth), and Amanda would laugh at my psycho laughs. Amanda or Rameen mentions something about how right now it’s only the present moment that matters, and living in it. I completely feel this – it’s not a mindset we chose to take on, it was the literal reality we were experiencing throughout the trip – we would find ourselves doing or starting to talk about something, but then something else would come up and we would shift our attention to that new thing, not caring much about what we were doing or saying before. Only the present moment mattered. The lines between future and past were blurred. Personally I do believe this is the truth, that time being linear is a manmade concept. After all, not all human tribes in the world experience time with this same linearity. As I’m journaling I slowly scrawl out and say aloud: “I…..love…..everything!”. With hysterical glee I contemplate out loud: “Love is everything. That’s all that matters, that’s all that matters-“, and am cut off by a bubble of emotion rapidly inflating inside me all of a sudden til it bursts and in a very bipolar manner I break down crying passionately, as I realize the depth and truth of what I am saying and feeling. My friends move to comfort me, and I immediately force myself to stop crying, and to reassure them these are really not tears of sadness, but just, I am moved by love and its purity and how it encompasses all.
At this time Rameen starts experiencing her ‘comedown’, and all she does is sit still on the bed, taking in everything slowly and quietly, blinking slowly, turning her head slowly whenever needed. I, on the other hand, was REALLY peaking. All over the place I was, being obnoxious at times. My talking and hysteric laughter seemed to dominate everything. God, I could NOT stop talking, could not shut up. And all of this was uncontrollable. I was having a BLAST though; my happiness and sense of enjoyment was at their maximum. I whip out my phone and start vlogging ourselves, and get Amanda to join me. I talk and talk loudly, and also keep apologizing for talking so much. Rameen and Amanda immediately reassure me that it’s okay to be like that, and that it’s not a problem at all. I am very grateful for this. Rameen slowly and quietly says “Maybe these are just our natural ways of being, you know? Like, maybe my natural state is to just be quiet and still”. “That, is SO, TRUEEEEEE!”, I slur in response. I wonder if this was my Moon in Leo at its most intense – me being this loud and dramatic and talkative, me putting the spotlight on myself and also putting it onto others (because that’s a Moon in Leo trait) ; I constantly tried to film Rameen and get her to speak and was practically yelling about how divine she was being and glowing; if I felt I was hogging the camera for too long I would shove it onto Amanda. While Rameen and I are oppositely juxtaposed, Amanda at this time seems the most ‘normal’ and ‘composed’ one, and keeps snacking on digestives. We film for 26 minutes, and whenever I watch the video now it fills me with a lot of happiness because I remember how I was feeling then, like a child who knew and felt NOTHING but happiness and love. I hug Rameen listening to her drumming heartbeat, and continue to pour all my love onto my friends and onto the plushies around us. It was so much love and joy my body almost couldn’t contain it. Words can’t describe it. That’s all life is. Feelings. Emotions. Energy. Amanda says at some point, she feels the only thing that matters in life is feeling great joy and love. I agree, and wish again and again for everyone who is living that they may one day feel what we are feeling, the purity and infinity of it all. What a gift, what a true gift. In the video, she says “Everyone deserves happiness, no matter how small or big” and “No matter what emotions people have whether it’s anger or sadness etc, I just wanna respond to that with love and happiness”. In the video I also eat chocolates and say loudly “Oh my god honestly AAAnyone watching this video’s gonna think I’m SO FUCKED UP HAHAHAHA!”.
Another thing was that any food or water we put into our mouths tasted INSANELY good. The sweetness of the chocolates struck me so hard, in a great way. Everything tasted amazing.
Amanda asks me excitedly “Do you think this is another dimension?”. I look at her. I can’t say for sure, but I knew we DEFINITELY weren’t experiencing our world in 3D anymore. It was definitely 4D or even 5D.
Throughout my peak we kept saying to one another “Nothing matters, nothing matters”, because that really was how we felt, though we felt it in different ways. For me it was ‘nothing matters (in life) but this incredible feeling right now with you all’. But for Rameen and her more quiet, empty-sounding utterances of the phrase, she was feeling it on a whole different level. Eventually her quietness was broken by heavy tears and crying as she sobbed and sobbed for quite a long while. She said everything was just really overwhelming, and that she was not just sad nor just happy but that she was feeling all kinds of different emotions all at once and she didn’t know what it was; all she knew was that she had to let go of something inside her and purge. The tears kept coming and she had to take many deep breaths to calm down. She apologized and of course Amanda and I encouraged her to feel and do fully whatever she wanted to. Later on Rameen says she’s never cried that hard in her life before and she didn’t know her face was capable of making such expressions. As she cries Amanda is focused on holding her hand, but I admit I am still too high to be able to focus too much on her tears, but I still want to give her comfort, so I lie my head on her lap or knee, still slurring every now and then.
At one point I think of all the (non-platonic) intimacies and polyamorous fantasies I had previously been wishing for, trying to manifest during the whole month of January. I think of how SMALL all those desires for love from outside myself seemed, how that all paled in comparison to the infinite, infinite love I was channeling from within my own self now. Suddenly, my desires don’t matter that much. I feel very whole and full and complete with how I am and what I have. So grateful.
I vaguely remember Amanda saying something along the lines of “If everyone didn’t judge other people … judgement is the barrier to human connection”. I nod drunkenly in agreement.
The ‘Nightmare’
In the fourth hour, Rameen starts to feel hungry and wants a walk outdoors for fresh air, wants to walk to McDonald’s. This startles me and I sit upright. “We can’t go outside”, I say intently. “Why not?”, Rameen asks, her eyes still wet and large orbs. “People will think we’re crazy”. “Why does that matter?”, she stares right at me, quite pressingly. I’m silent for some seconds. “I don’t want to go outside..”, I mumble. Fear creeps into me. Grows. Amanda scoots closer to take my hand in an attempt to comfort me. I remember I am internally surprised that she can react to my strong and acute fear that I wasn’t even expressing (she later tells me that she could just feel how scared I was. Energy really doesn’t lie). “No, let’s talk about this”, Rameen persists. She takes my hand and Amanda’s, and we sit in a circle holding hands. I wished she would stop the questions. I really didn’t want to go to McDonald’s. (Rameen later tells me that her persistence in questions was driven by her sense that something inside me needed pulling out, uncovering, and she was determined to dig it out. I fully know she only wanted the best for me. Also, she says her questioning and helping me was somehow also a way for her to purge out whatever she needed to). The energy in the room had shifted quite a bit. Our attention was very centered on my fear now. Nevertheless the warmth and love from my friends were still there and that helped me tolerate the fear a bit. I was also abhorred that they would want to leave this safe space, this world we had created for ourselves, and to leave in this state too! “Why are you scared to go outside?”, Rameen continues, “Why do you CARE about how people see you?”. I could tell she meant her question; she truly, truly believed in that moment nothing mattered, much less how others perceived us. “What if someone catches us, and puts us into rehab or something?”, by now I was really scared. “And why would that matter?”, she asks. “My parents”, an image of my mom and dad flashed in my mind, “they would be so upset..”. I genuinely did not want to cause them pain or worry. I know they worked hard to have me in a school overseas, and if they were to find out I was caught and detained for a perceived ‘mental disorder’ it would absolutely break their heart. This idea and possibility I held was mainly triggered by a memory of my mom once telling me about how some people who have been enlightened and who have opened their third eye and permanently act strange get put into mental wards because society sees them as having lost their minds. “Your PARENTS?”, Rameen drills into me, “Who ARE they? WHERE are they right now in this situation?”. My mind swirls and I am gripped by fear. She continues “Why can’t we just be as we are right now, in this state of being?”. I know there is truth to what she is saying. In my mind’s eyes I see the universe collapsing its walls around me. They collapse endlessly and I’m drowning in some vortex. Just some moments ago so incredible and awe-inspiring, its vastness now terrifies me. How could something be so so vast that it’s incomprehensible by the human mind, yet so EMPTY at the same time? What meaning could anything POSSIBLY have? I know nothing matters, nothing matters, and I was okay with all that, but when it came to my parents, to think that the truth would have to mean me cutting off all threads of connection and attachment to everyone, particularly to my parents; to know that this connection with them would mean nothing, that I was not my parents’ daughter, I couldn’t take it. I was so scared. In my mind’s eye I saw myself as a speck of gold dust drifting among the stars in space; an extremely long and visible thread was tied to me though; and I knew that represented my attachment to my parents. I wasn’t sure if I could live if that thread was to be cut off. Suddenly I wanted all this to end. I wanted to return to the ‘normal’, 3D experience and feel grounded and safe and fully in my body and at peace again. I was having enough of this world and it was feeling like a nightmare. I felt dread when I realized there was still 3 more hours of the trip to go.
Right at this time, the front door opened, and we anticipated Laura’s arrival. Laura is Amanda and Rameen’s housemate and good friend whom I’ve only talked with a few times. She was supposedly our ‘trip-sitter’ for the evening since she shroomed for the first time as well just the previous weekend, and so she knew we were tripping. She approached us with wariness. “Laura!”, the three of us chorused happily, like kids seeing their mother return. I felt so much better already with her presence. I thought: this person, a non-tripper, our connecting thread now to that ‘other side of the world’, the normal world, this person would keep us safe. We would not float too far off from that line we had crossed over. I felt safer. She slowly joins us on the bed, “Wow I’m REALLY feeling some really positive vibes here. This space is sacred right now.” And she starts talking and listening to us gently and soothingly, like how one would talk to a child that might be curious or scared. I look at her with her sweater (it was either white or dark blue or light blue, I forget), and her light eyes and fair curls. She really was like a goddess or angel sent to us. (Later on I acknowledged that the universe was taking care of me at all times – that when my fear was at its peak, the universe sent comfort to me in the form of Laura as a blessing. The timing could not have been more perfect for all of us). By now we are all somewhat calmed down as we talk with Laura and listen to the classical music. I lie on my stomach on the bed, feeling caressed by the calm and comfort and my fear subsiding. I mumble into the sheets still slurring a little, “I’m so glad you’re here Laura. I’m soooo gladddd”. Laura hugs me from behind and lies on me. I feel her love.
The Comedown
We spend the next half an hour lying around, soaking calmly in whatever feelings or sensations we were having. A classical piece comes on, and Laura’s eyes glaze over, she says slowly, “Rameen, did I tell you this song was playing when I first took off on a plane to leave home? It means a lot to me”. “That’s probably contributing to all this energy right now”, Rameen replies. “Yeah”, Laura lies on her back and breathes a sigh, “This is my favorite part”. My head is on Amanda’s lap and she strokes my hair. “That feels really nice”, I mumble. (She later on tells me that she strongly sensed, when I said that, that there was still something inside me that needed letting go or releasing or to be talked about, but she figured she’d give me time to do that at my own pace instead of asking me what was wrong. She says it was at this moment that she realized how powerful energy could be, that it can tell you so much about a person or what they’re feeling or about what is going on, without any need for words).
By now Rameen has stopped crying, and the trip is nearing its end for her and Amanda who are very calm. But by my slurring, occasional ‘tee-hee’s, and inability to keep my whole body still, it was obvious I was still tripping a little. At some point, Laura goes to shower and Rameen goes to her room or the washroom for a bit. There is something in me that still weighs heavy on my heart. As I lie on the bed I tell Amanda how I feel about the trip, that overall it was a good one for me. But that when Rameen was asking those questions I just felt really scared. “What was scaring you?”, she asks gently. “I don’t know. I think I was just imagining us getting caught and put into rehab and my parents would find out and that would make them upset- “, I’m cut off by a faucet in me suddenly turning on and tears rushing down as I heave and sob, my body shaking uncontrollably. I’m overtaken by emotion. Amanda hugs me, or holds my hand – I don’t really remember because I was too busy crying but I just know she was there to comfort me. I try to stop the crying, breathe, and shift my position so I’m curled up all childlike. I continue: “Yeah and when Rameen asked who my parents were, and where they were right now, and that made me think about how everything meant nothing, including my attachment to my parents, the fact that I couldn’t be my parents’ daughter anymore, to know that all that might mean nothing..that really scared me” – I start crying again and (even as I type this I’m tearing up a bit haha) say between tears, “Even just thinking about them now makes me cry. And just about how much I love them. And just, they’ve done so much for me.” And I sob and sob and sob. By now Rameen is next to me comforting me too. When I said those last two sentences I realized clearly that I was crying out of pure love. This gave me peace, and so I cried til there were no tears left and the trip started to end for me and I was left with a slightly purged soul and body, all calmed down, no more slurring, just a body needing to take many, many deep and long breaths (this need persisted all of the following day too) after the intense hyperactivity I had exerted during my peak. The saturation of diffuser scent in my nostrils and lungs subsided, and my body was savoring oxygen more than ever before.
The Aftermath
After the trip ended (it was 10-something p.m.), the three of us walked to McDonald’s for food, mostly in silence, treading the residual feelings of our new awareness that had just been expanded. Walking on the ground, feeling back into just the 3-dimensional sensation of our bodies again, felt strange. It was like we had just woken up from a dream, only that it had happened for real. For me, the fear I had experienced was an immense part of my trip, so I had that feeling you’d normally get when you first awake from a nightmare. This feeling lasted for the rest of my night.
At McDonald’s we were quiet too, and rather sensitive to our surroundings, only talking when it was to reflect about the trip and how we were feeling now. A girl bumps into and talks to us. It was my first time meeting her, but when she mentions her name I immediately remember Laura talking about her just a few hours before - she was the friend Laura had tripped with for their first time the previous weekend. When she leaves we mull over what a synchronicity it is that she out of all people would bump into us right after our trip - definitely a reassuring sign and blessing from the Universe.
We are all in a state of extreme calmness. Before I head back to my home I give my friends a final hug. Since before the trip even began we had already been repeatedly expressing our gratitude for how it was one another that we were doing our first trip with. Indeed my friends were extremely important keys to how profound this whole experience had been - the safe space they had helped to create, the extreme love and support and warmth we were all sharing, how they had helped me face and reach towards my fear to dig it out only to discover that it was simply more love buried underneath that; we had been through something phenomenal together and I felt a very deep bond with them. We all head to bed exhausted that night.
The Days That Follow, And Now
- The next morning is sunny. Oxygen and air never felt so amazing to breathe in. I feel so grateful to just be alive, and for all my five senses. I look at the skin of my hand and remember how it brimmed last night with so much life, and still brims now, only I had lived my whole life never being able to notice. I try to hum or sing like I normally do when I’m in a good mood, but stop myself because my normal volume is suddenly too loud for me. I hear my housemate sing beautifully from outside my room; it’s a moderate volume too and would normally sound pleasant but today (and for some days after) it scratches at my ears. I eat my breakfast - rice pudding with peanut butter I think - and any food I put into my mouth tastes AMAZING. I’ve never appreciated and savored the taste of food like this before. (Amanda and Rameen report back through text about how they too are now really sensitive to almost everything around them).
- I have an appointment to go thrifting, so I walk to the bus stop under the blue sky and it is just an amazing walk - healing, almost. A man stands on the sidewalk with a puppy on leash and I can’t help but smile and talk to them. Everything around and inside me, everything about life, seemed okay. Everything was okay. That awareness of that truth was just ingrained into my subconscious now. And I felt perfect. Utterly content. Didn’t think to check if the person I had been talking to recently on some dating app had texted me back or not. Zero thought. I think I had been purged of many subconscious expectations. I felt I desired nothing, and was at peace.
- I feel gentler with things after becoming so aware of how there is incredible life in every single thing around me, not just in living beings. They still hold their own abundance of energy that responds to all kinds of frequencies, including the ones I radiate to them.
- The day after, Amanda, Rameen and I all finish our homework early. I am stunned at my suddenly sharpened focus; normally I am easily distracted and take forever to do my homework. Even when my body physically had to recover for some days after and I felt sleepy a lot, in whatever I did it was now easy to hone my full focus on it, and to truly be present. If anything, I am glad that experience is certainly helping my academic life! I find it easier to get through classes and school work in general.
- Just as I see things differently, I see people differently too. Everyone, just EVERYONE, seems so beautiful to me, they all deserve such love. I can see them respond to me differently too, in a good way. I and everyone and everything feels soft and tender, if I can put it into words accurately enough.
About three days after, Aaron Doughty, one of the ‘spiritual guru’ YouTubers I follow uploads a video (it’s called “Why Love/Relationships Fail” or something like that, if you’re interested) and I get a notification about it. I only watch his videos sometimes (some have helped me a LOT), and when I do I only watch a few minutes of it. I play this video casually, just to see what new things he might have to say or share, and for no apparent reason fast-forward to the 11:30 timestamp. Here he says something like “You need to learn to channel that love all from within yourself and realize it is all within you, instead of looking for it from others. To do this, just start by looking at your relationship with your parents”. This stuns me, and I take it right away as a direct message from the Universe to me (this isn’t the first time the Universe communicates straightforwardly with me through THE most random YouTube videos hahaha), because my parents were such a huge part of that wild journey of me discovering love during my trip! Aaron goes on to say “The fabric of reality is love” (I don’t remember what else he says). Something clicks for me. I get it now. I remember an Ayahuasca documentary I watched ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZrDhuF22B0 really fun to watch!) a month ago and someone describing the lesson he learned from his experience: “It’s hard to explain, but you’ll see every single thing is embedded in love. Even anger is a shade of love”. That was it for me, it was ALL I felt during my trip. Before we ate the shrooms I had journaled my intentions, asking the Universe to show me what it’s like to feel whole, complete, perfect, to love myself and others unconditionally. And during my peak I was feeling that on a state of such high, knowing NOTHING but happiness and love, feeling ecstasy about it, feeling so PERFECT just simply by existing as I was , feeling like nothing else mattered, feeling like that’s what the world and life all really are. I was bursting with all these feelings and realizations of something so unconditional, and it was all channeled from within me, bursting so that my body almost couldn’t contain it all. The fabric of reality IS love. I remember my ‘nightmare’, and realize with awe that that too was all part of the process of me discovering unconditional love – how I had (with the help of my friends) faced and reached for my fear, dug it out, only to realize that it was the love for and from my parents lying underneath. (I remember Rameen telling me “It’s interesting how at the core and root of how you were afraid of how others viewed you, you found your parents”). Me feeling that unconditional love that they gave me, so profound that it made me cry. It was all rooted in love, everything is. My fear DEFINITELY was but a shade of love itself. I realize now what these ‘spiritual guru’ YouTubers mean whenever they would say ‘All is love. Everything else is an illusion”. Indeed. I marvel at this gift I have been given. I had asked the Universe for something specific, and it gave me ALL the answers embodied in my entire trip from start to end. The purge, the ‘nightmare’, was an absolutely necessary process for that. In fact it was my dark hour before dawn. I am so grateful.
I find it so much easier to love myself now, really and truly, and not just by saying it with words. Maybe I also speak slower now because of that – I realize that, before, I talked fast and erratically because subconsciously I was always anxious to get to my next justification of the point I was trying to articulate, just so that I could get validation from my listener as quickly as possible.
One thing that fascinates me is how incredibly strong these mushrooms were in unpacking so much of what I unknowingly needed to let go of (frankly speaking it kind of ripped me open), in showing me so much of what was necessary for me to know, and how as a plant medicine it really has cured and healed me so much and so deeply, even though I have been regularly meditating for the whole past year.
I wish for everyone living to tap into and feel the infiniteness and purity of this love that we all share, that knows no bounds, that is all within ourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment