To my stranger-friends in the Nexus, a wee report on a very lovely recent trip into the friendlier side of the Salvia seas.
I've put extract on the shelf for some time and have been exclusively dosing with tincture. But in recent weeks I've felt a compunction to push a little further and re-calibrate the old rocket boosters, as it were.
Salvia is a sea. Don't think of being out on the surface of the ocean - think of being in the MIDDLE of it, deep deep within it, no up or down - Just space.
Extract will rocket you from the shoreline into the abyss. Not too useful if you want to pay any attention to where you're going or what you're doing.
Tincture/quids will allow you to journey by ferry, wading first into the shoals and setting sail to deeper realms in a safer vessel. What I wanted to do was take the slow ride - and then if it feels right, if I come upon an entrance or a thinning membrane, smoke the extract and take the plunge.
I must say, this boosting method is a wonderful way to go - I don't think I'll ever smoke extract again without taking the time with tincture to acclimate to the new space.
I wanted to offer a brief trip report of my last experiment with this method.
5 droppers of tincture to start. Evening, indoors, wonderful home and a quiet, respectful friend to sit.
Slow waves move across me. I can feel them as I always do. They get stronger, sometimes exerting a pressure that seems to flatten my bodily sense without pain - like my body is the rind of an orange which has been peeled and flattened. My body is no longer the globe but rather the map. And somewhere is a center - the ego's window out. The source of my experience. With eyes closed I can feel myself as an entire landscape being generated below me. The waves continue - and I am occasionally aware of a strong force emanating these waves, a sun, a star, a being, pushing and pulling and interacting with me. I wonder: Am I to it what it is to me?
I smoke a pinch of 10x.
The waves speed up now. My self is being printed upon an energy landscape, I am radiating my experience into a kind of time-putty. But I am not just the landscape below, I am in a way distancing - no longer "only it" but more just aware of it, connected to it - There is a clearer space now, mountain-air clear, and this is a space where direction operates differently. Aspects of it which I might label as "walls" or "boundaries" are able to arc into each other and themselves, folding through each other with ease. The truth is, there doesn't seem to be any real boundaries here, and applying labels to anything is frustrating because it results in confusion, a place that makes little sense.
And still these sources - sources of radiation, of energy, they affect me and in which direction I am being "printed" into the folding landscape. I am clearing, I am entering a floating realm where the 'other' orbs or vortexes of energy are clearer. I am frustrated sometimes with my attempts to turn my attention to them - I feel one off to my right and above me, but turning my head in that direction does nothing - it remains to the right and up. There is a voice to this landscape - I feel as though I am being paid some attention, and if I could just learn how to talk I would be heard. I can't help it - I mumble my communication out loud. "Is this... How... How do I..."
I immediately realize and remember that this doesn't do. It is another kind of language.
I focus instead on the feeling of this distant radiation. I focus my attention on its direction, on the sensation as it blows against me. It enters my field - it aligns with me - All of this sideways motion, this "printing," it calms - instead there is a feeling of a flower opening, but there's no end to it - the petals overlap with themselves and the center ceaselessly radiates outward INTO me. The vortex, the orb, the doorway; I'm staring right into the damn thing, and I'm not separate from it, but rather I'm HERE - I have some agency in this place! But I'm still here, on this side too!
I open my eyes.
This is amazing. This is wild. I am clear-minded. I am not scattered or confused. I am in my room, and it is a bit of a ridiculous situation. I am aware of the whole of the room and little beyond its walls - I feel myself not as my familiar body, but I merely understand that I am just a part of the room, just like the bed, the lamp, the floor, the pictures on the wall. I can just about feel them as part of my body. The air in the room - the window - I'm filled with joy that my friend is here on the couch, and while I understand he cannot share this experience with me, I am profoundly proud to have him here in this room that I am, and it fills me with joy that he is, while immediately unaware of it, also the whole of the room and myself as well. Hahaha! Sweet Jesus, It's absurd, being in this room. I get up and test out this space.
This is wild. This is so wild. My body is basic, it's a paltry part of the world, my entire awareness of my self in this room is a minor part of my experience. Looking back and remembering it, it's strange that I don't recall seeing through my eyes, but rather I recall the entirety of the space, as if I were viewing the whole thing from outside. A doll in a diorama.
The whole time I am also keenly aware of being in ANOTHER space - the floating space, somehow hovering, embedded in the currents and waves of the Salviaic ether. I can stand still in the room while moving in the other space. I am in low orbit drifting over a kind of mountainous landscape that keeps shifting, totally free of the familiar physical rules of the "room" side.
The strangest aspect is the sense of embodiment - as if my tiny mechanical body cannot possibly contain what I really am in full, and yet here I am perfectly embodied and aware. It was as if I was glowing far brighter and shining farther than the boundary of my skin. I felt clear - Like I could see, and feel, for forever. Like I could reach out a tiny distance and warm my hands in a distant sun.
Salvia is rarely "fun" - but I have to admit. This was undeniably a fun and incredibly positive experience. This ability, this agency to move my body was of particular curiosity to me - I found myself moving merely to play - a kind of Salvia-dance, testing how my body movements affect my salvia-space awareness (the conclusion: Not at all!).
I had my friend over to sit for me during all of this, and for the most part he quietly read his book, but this slow-balance-float-dance so amused him that we got to talking and I attempted to explain what I was going through. I sat down on the couch and couldn't wipe the smile from my face. The awareness of this other space gradually faded, the crystal-keen "altered" embodiment softly dissolved over a half hour or so, but the glow remained for days. It flipped a switch for me and for days on end I felt a remarkable and automatic positivity, a lingering joy for being alive (no matter what came up) and having the gifts of life and personal freedom. Oh God! It's one hell of a world! I will definitely be doing this again, and I hope to go further yet.
Hope you guys enjoyed the report! I highly recommend boosting in this way. The juice will tune you and invite you; the smoke will let you in.