Part I - Exposition and Rising Action
I hadn't partaken in any fully dedicated psychedelic ritual in many weeks. The hiatus began when I was told not to come back until positive change had been made in my life. Yesterday, I felt that those changes were finally underway: it was time.
I took three blotter hits, supposedly totaling ~300 micrograms LSD, at around two in the afternoon on a fairly comfortable but overcast day. I decide to begin the journey sitting indoors and chatting online with a friend.
I'd eaten plenty of this blotter before, up to four hits at once, and had many beautiful trips, but something was different this time. I'm inclined to think that the blotter was unevenly laid, and the hits I ate were more generously dosed, but perhaps the promise that positive change would bring deeper journey came from a greater wisdom than I suspected. Within twenty minutes, I was feeling starkly altered. Looking back on a past trip log, I was questioning placebo effect 20 minutes after taking three hits from the same sheet. This time, the acid was tearing through my veins with record-breaking vigor.
Sober reality is peeling its outer surface, revealing a deeper layer. The past and the future begin to dissolve, and the NOW expands to envelop me. I'm beginning to feel a familiar psychedelic connection of mind and body. I'm getting a constant stream of bodily feedback, signaling me to sit up straighter, to breathe slower, to relax my jaw, to take a sip of water, et cetera.
About thirty minutes have passed since dosage. A sensory ebb and flow is beginning to blossom. The present moment isn't a still frame. The passage of time is not the steady turning of gears. Linearity is an illusion of sobriety, and a pulsing energy ripples through the fabric of spacetime. My existence is breathing, rising, falling, organic. The human sensorium is an interface with another entity, or a conversation with some alien wisdom... the sound of my breath is the whisper of a playful joke, the contact of clothes on my skin is a sexual embrace, my field of vision is a winking smile.
Forty-five minutes in. A beacon within me is shining ever brighter. Sunlight is beaming through my soul. Through the silence, the deep and majestic bow of cello begins to rise, and in come the violins, and the shimmering cymbals... yes... reality is not of stone, water, wind, and fire... it is sound and vision! But it's not just information - it's a radiant positive energy. A grin takes my lips. I begin to squirm in my seat and twiddle my fingers. I'm growing restless, even claustrophobic. I need to be outside. Nature is calling.
I bid my online acquaintance adieu, throw on a jacket, grab my iPod, drink a tall glass of water, and off I go. I begin walking my street toward the entrance to a stretch of wooded canyon bordering my neighborhood. It feels so good to breathe fresh air, and to move my body. I pick up the pace. So limber, so strong my body feels. Faster and faster I run, until I'm tearing down the roadside as fast as my legs can take me. The wind against my face, the sight of the world flying by, and my heart beating in my chest fill me with a joy that takes me back to my early youth. The world is mine, and I am free!
Part II - Spoken In Song
By the time I find myself walking the cleared path through the thick creek-side canyon vegetation, I feel totally healed. All fear and regret have given way to the calm and the wonder of the natural beauty that abounds, and my mind is clear and focused. Pattern is everywhere. The thick of leaves and branches and vines outline endless crystalline geometry that pervades all empty 3-dimensional space. Constellation; shifting, growing, speaking. Watching. I don't even know if the clouds ever broke up. I can remember brilliant sunshine, inward or out...
Now is the time for music! I've been here before. The doorway to rhythm and sound is wide open. I take out my iPod. The decided soundtrack to the journey was Kaya Project's "...And So It Goes". An unheard work to me, but no gamble - Kaya's album "Desert Phase" had proven to be among the best psychedelic journey music in my collection. And so it begins... Of course. Fantastic. Pure joy. A vast world of dazzling color and intricate motion and wild spirit opens before me in the vibrations of the percussion and the ethnic strings and flutes and vocals... I let it completely immerse me. Rushing like a fierce wind through the forest, every tiny movement dances to the music, and my heart beats to the rhythm of the story.
I wander through the wooded valley, slipping deeper and deeper into the spell of sounds. The music seems to be approaching climax, and the cyclic force of the beat is closing its total reign over my body and mind...
And then, breath. The beats come to pause, and give way to freely, gently drifting melody. As if the wind suddenly ceased as a poignant calm took the valley, and a leaf way up high in a tree somewhere floated slowly down to the earth below. And then a female vocal enters the music, and at that moment a revelation strikes, truly like it were spoken by the voice of an angel. In a fraction of a second, the facade that once masked the true face of reality crumbles in the gaze of Knowledge, and all the gleaming light beneath moves forth from shadow and eclipse. Everything... every moment passed since the beginning of time, and every turn of the earth since the day it was born... every birth and every death of all the creatures that once lived, from man himself to the tiny ant crawling at his feet... every drop of blood shed that led to every pang of anguish that turned to hatred... everything I've ever known, and everything I'll never know... every spinning and oscillating subatomic particle of every celestial body in all the night sky above and beyond the horizons... even the duality between something and nothingness... is the creation and the masterpiece of an infinite love - and now, for a few fleeting moments, that love is mine to behold.
Ecstasy. My world is spinning. I collapse to my knees in the tall grass at my ankles, tears streaming down my cheeks... I weep in gratitude, desperately trying to quiet my sobs in respect for the music that brought me this gift. I close my eyes and all the earthly things around me vanish, the ground and the sky are one and the same, and here I remain suspended for all eternity in this glimpse of darkness, in this timeless melody, watching my own awareness turning inside out - nothing of the past remains. I open my eyes. I reach forward and pluck a golden dry shoot of grass from the earth, and fold it between my fingers. The delicate stem caving to my grasp... the sight of the flowered head of the shoot in all its splendid detail, dancing and wavering, flickering in the animated impressionism of all the world in my eyes... the cool breeze gently drying the tears from my cheeks and lips... the warmth of the blood in my veins... every thousandth of every fraction of each passing second... vibrating in unity, blaring this joyous love! Deep and cleansing laughter, and another wave of tears... I lie down on the soft bed of grass, watching the clouds paint endless pictures in the sky, basking in the mystery of the great unknown, soaring through the boundless dimension of the music, till the album comes to an end.
I lay in silent reflection... I'd give my life to share this love with just one soul... I can... I will. From now henceforth till the day I die, I shall dedicate my life solely to mastering the arts that will speak this love. No longer will laze and lethargy hold me back from unleashing my fullest potential. No longer am I slave to the pain of motion and the fear of change, for selfish comfort is not my goal. The gift of life as a member of humanity brings infinite opportunity, and so I have the power of a god!
Part III - Fireworks Will Fade Away
It's getting dark. I feel a calling to the creek. I make my way to a spot I've been many times before. As darkness falls, a parallel realm begins to emerge from the shadows of consensus reality. As my eyes adjust to the black of night, a myriad of shadow creatures reveal themselves, crawling the earth and swimming in the skies. Giant reptiles and centipedes and dragonflies, and all the spirits of the life that shared this very land millions of years ago... I feel like every step I take is fighting the pull of these snakes that have taken to coiling themselves around my legs, and wading through the thick swarm of winged creatures that command the air of the forest. But the shadow realm makes clear to me its separation from the world in which I live. It cannot hurt me, and I am not afraid.
I arrive at the creek side and stand still, looking at the bright silvery moon through the black silhouette of the leafy treetops above, and I suddenly become aware of an incredible symphony of chirping, buzzing, clicking, tweeting, and hissing sound - some amalgam of crickets, frogs, birds and running water, presumably - never before in my life have I heard such a roaring cacophony of mother nature! Or, perhaps more accurately, never has she spoken to me so intimately. Pure magic. I sit with my feet at the edge of the running water, and listen to the sounds in the air, and I watch the stars and the glowing crescent yellow rock in the sky through the vast reaches of outer space between Here and There, and wonder...
And then, a flitting thought brings a twinge of fear, and at that moment I realize that the self-delusion and egocentric desire that I thought was all but vanquished is gradually reawakening, and I see a future fraught with err and defeat. I fight the inevitable, searching my cognition for some weapon against this evil power - some phrase, some sort of mnemonic that would forever grant me access to the freedom that I tasted during this journey - to no avail. But all is not lost! I have the memory that the hours past brought me, and the knowledge of the love that I have witnessed; and with knowledge comes power, and this is where my faith shall rest. As long as I remain aware, I will find guidance. And forever after my awareness fades to nonexistence,
the circle is complete.