Hi everyone. A little about myself. I'm a middle aged fellow, a dad, a husband and a grandpa. I've lived what I think most people would call a cautious life. A little bit of excitement here and there but for the most part, pretty tame. All of my kids, but one, are out and on with their lives, so I have found that I have a lot of spare time on my hands nowadays and need to find some new interests.

I only recently heard about ayahuasca at a party my wife hosts every August. One of her friends was talking about wanting to try this concoction and have a spiritual experience. Now that is one thing I have pursued for over 30 years. My spiritual growth. I kind of thought, "What is she talking about? You can't possibly have any sort of true spiritual experience while on some drug or narcotic." I sat and listened and out of respect for my wife, I said nothing derogatory. After all, how can I judge something I haven't done myself? So I decided at that point to learn as much as I could about this stuff and boy was that a trip in itself. There is so much info out there if one knows where to look....or accidentally trips over it. I have done more reading in the last 6 weeks than since I was in school. My favorite reads are people's first experience when trying DMT. Those trips are amazing. Scary, funny, exciting and down right enlightening. This was my point of no return. I had it set in my mind that this was something I was going to experience not matter what, and soon.

Now, my wife and I have dabbled in pot and shrooms. She did acid in the 70's. But these were more "Rite of Passage" sort of experiences. Glad I did it but didn't see the pay-off if I were to continue using. But now, with my new found passion and interest, things have changed. The last couple of weeks around my house have been, as my wife puts it, like living in an episode of "Breaking Bad". Well, without all the violence and cops and bad stuff. After a couple of failed attempts at extraction, I hit the jackpot. I have also learned to brew aya (with a big thanks going to a member from this site for sharing their recipe). I can only say this, "Where have you been all my life?!" I have learned more about myself in 2 trips than I have in all the previous years of my life.

So I am grateful to have found this site and I hope to get know some of you more and share some experiences and knowledge. I can sense a lot of old souls around this site and truly appreciate the atmosphere.

Take care

It's been there the whole time. Where have you been all your life?

Great intro! I love hearing the stories like yours. Sometimes it takes jumping off a ledge to finally realize that you have wings.

Welcome Stunned. Good to have you join to community

Sound's like DMT finally found YOU haha.

I'm curious what you extracted tek you used, and what plant matter you used for Aya..?

Mimosa, Acacia? Caapi or Rue?

Yes, DMT found me. And, in a rather embarrassing position....with my head up my butt. Once I got past that, it has been all downhill.

I was able to get some Chaliponga. The Lextek method is what I used. I have over a kilo but decided to do it in 250 gram bunches. Only done 3 so far. I was able to, sort of, upgrade a couple components from the instructions. One, I have a commercial grade blender which turns almost anything to powder. I know this helped because of the yield I got. Second, I purchased a cheap slow cooker, put it in the yard with a fan on it and reduced the solvent to near nothing before the freeze. The super-saturation at this point was pretty high. It turned a milky light blue. I also have a flash freezer in the garage. This helped a ton. Got huge growth within an hour.

The aya was with the Chali as well. One of the members here, cheiron, has worked on a recipe. I tried it first with curcumin/piperine as my MAO inhibitor, though it didn't work. Should have been patient and waited for the syrian rue to arrive. That works way better.

I plan on trying some other MAOI's as I found a list of them given out by a pharmacologist at another forum. There are quite a few. PM me if you want a copy. I guess it comes down to trying to discover the amounts needed to be effective and something that doesn't break the bank. For me, the more I learn, the more I will experiment with. I plan on trying some other teks but am limited as to what kind of plant material I can get my hands on up here in the Great White North. There is not much out there about Chali extractions either, or maybe I just haven't found them yet. Regardless, I have got my hands on some seeds for several different plants and plan on growing some of these at home. Time to learn gardening.

awesome introduction!

I'm new also and already find this place to be really warm with alot of really cool beings. Its actually trip in itself finding people so smart, kind and thoughtful instead of the usual bickering and fighting over the most mundane things I find on forums of this nature normally. I'm middle aged (32) but I often still get carded for rated r movies LOL and I have a beautiful girlfriend and no children yet. Its funny I actually have the eye of horus tattoo on my right hand inside of a pyramid so your avatar resonated with meI have learnt more here in the last month than I ever imagined was possible and Im eager to learn more and meet more cool people.

Nice to meet you and thanks for sharing!

I couldn't agree more with how you speak of this place. Very informative and a lot of friendly advice. We're going to disagree on what middle aged is though . If you are in the middle then you only have another 30 years. I'm in the latter half of my 40's and I plan on staying for another 40 if I can.

I've always been pulled towards that eye. Some call it the Eye of Horus, others the Eye of Ra. When I found it, it was called the Eye of Isis. It's all the same, but some of the ancient stories are different. I got it tattooed on me back in 1990. Very cliche moment too. On a weekend pass after finishing basic training. Got drunk...got tattooed.

Anyway, some of the ancient lore goes; Horus was an ancient sky god whose eyes were said to be the sun and the moon. However, he soon became strongly associated with the sun while Thoth was associated with the moon. An ancient myth describes a battle between Horus and Set in which Horus´ right eye was torn out and Set lost his testicles!

Makes you wonder why that tat never became popular! What would you rather have? Eye of Horus or Testicles of Set?

It's nice meeting you too.