Well then, I thought I'd throw up an experience I had last night with the Lady, I wouldn't call it a bad trip by any means but it definitely was a stern lesson in observing my mental state and contents seriously before diving too deep with the Green Lady...

"I felt a calling to delve into her waters last night. This time I decided to go in without my pre-dose of harmalas, whether this contributed to my having a harsher time, I'm not sure, but my experiences tend to indicate that the harmalas act like a cushion to land on once in the besaged state, like a lubrication of the mind that makes the entry into her lands less rough (sorry for the slightly blue metaphor )...

Anyway, I first set up my ritual space and attempted to clear my mind and state intention (harder to do with out being in a harmala'd state). I started off with a small dose of the plain leaf and had a beautiful interaction between plant mind and human mind, a little knock at the door and friendly greeting if you will. Against my gut instinct I loaded up a bigger dose 10 minutes later when I probably should've heeded my intuition.

After inhalation of the second round it kicked in stronger, definitely not my strongest trip by any means, and previously at a level I have always handled. But... this time it kicked in and I at first felt joy at the deeper immersion but then she decided to give me a bit of stern teaching and threw my current fears and contents of the unconscious at me, creating a repeating tunnel that stretched off in my minds eye. This caused me to sit upright and open my eyes in a bit of a panic to which I quickly reassured myself that I can handle this and promptly started breathing into the contents of my mind with deep breaths and prana, instantly calming my mind somewhat, and try to regain the eternal observer that is in each of us and not too give into the emotional content of my thoughts and mind that had been thrown at me. basically try and receive the teaching that I deserved.

As is the case with the bridge of smoke, this all subsided fairly quickly, and though I still felt a need to vacate my current lotus position in my sacred space, I knew better and sat out the remaining besagement state to work myself through the issues brought up in her teaching. Once feeling mostly back to normal, I got up and did a few tai chi-esque moves to try and work out the excess anxious energy and this seemed to help. Session and teaching concluded, I packed up my space and retreated back to the main house to have a hot shower."

Soooooo, I guess this was my first serious teaching from her, though she has been giving me more subtle lessons since I started in on her path. I have been rather selfish with my personal time lately, seeking solitude to work on the things I hold dear to me but.... there is a balance to these things and I must be careful it is not to the detriment of my close relationships too. There are also some pretty big life issues I have at the moment, nothing negative, just some big changes that will be coming, and I guess I have to be careful when I come into her space that I have the house in order so to speak, that was the second teaching I gathered from her, don't approach deeper into her besagement without 100% commitment. I had a gut feeling on that second dose to still stay low and I ignored it, and still being slightly besaged from my first dose, also ignored her. So like any good teacher she gave me a stern lesson to teach me patience, balance and being more mindful.

This was by no means a bad trip or a breakthrough trip either but there is still hard lessons to be learned in the lower levels sometimes. I need to pay attention to what she taught me and integrate this before I venture deeper next time. I feel I can go into the subtle levels still for meditation and general mental upkeep but the deeper levels require a pure and clean mind free of too much worries and self doubts lest she'll give me an even bigger teaching next time!

Thank you to the sage goddess for the necessary teaching.

P.S. And thanks for reading nexians, much gratitude. Give me your thoughts if you have any, Regards, Inner Paths

Good read. What dosages did you smoke, and how did you smoke it? Also, what do you typically take for harmalas before the experience? I recently started working with Salvia and am still getting some of the basics down...

One thing I noticed from my first Salvia experience (yesterday) is that she is an honest lady and nothing gets by her. I've had "Alright, you need to cut the crap right now" moments on high doses of mushrooms and DMT, but even a subtle Salvia experience (50mg, 15x) was enough to make me seriously reconsider a lot.

Heya Akasha224!

50mg plain leaf salvia was the dose. Though I had done a 25mg plain leaf dose 10 minutes before and I find I definitely get cumulative effects when dosing within 10-15 minutes of each other. I should also mention I am ridiculously soft headed when it comes to salvia, I almost had a breakthrough on a mere 75mg of plain leaf last year, I reckon 100mg would get me across but I'm happy to work in her shallower waters for the time being... as you said, and as I experienced, she can still be a stern teacher at the more subtle levels if you haven't been keeping the house in order so to speak

I haven't yet ventured back since my last experience mentioned in the original post, I still feel like I have inner work to sort out before I approach her with the respect she deserves, and that is part of the teaching I received off her in that last experience. I have been trying to at least get a semi-regular meditation practice going recently to get my mind primed for my next meeting as she really seems to appreciate and reward an attentive, focused and meditative mind state going in plus I can get further with less leaf if my mind is well trained with meditation. I'm also trying to cultivate a deeper relationship by growing her too.

As for harmalas, I have always used a crude rue extract infused on mullein for my pre dose harmala smoke. Though I have just gotten into my possession some caapi leaf that I will make a 10X out of soon to compare.

If you tread with respect and intention then the shepherdess should treat you likewise with respect and only ever give you back what you can handle, at least IME so far.

Safe travels in your journeys Akasha224.