I had smoked very small quantities of the substance on a few occasions between my first and second "dose." These were, in large, fairly unpleasant experiences. They consisted of me taking very small hits of the crystal or extracted wax just to "knock on the door" of the psychedelic realm, as I was putting it. This was fairly ineffective though, as I didn't find the effects to be particularly psychedelic, but rather, anesthetic. The onset of these small doses was an overwhelming anxiety mixed with light numbing all over my body. I could also see and feel small dimming of everything around me.

I'd described these experiences as being like going for a swim in the middle of the deepest of oceans. You're not more than maybe a foot or two below the surface, but you know that below is an entire universe of incomprehensibility. There are monsters down there--real ones, and they almost certainly aren't going to harm you while you're dilly-dallying around at the surface. But you can feel them down there and if you're anything like me, then it scares the shit out of you. It would just be a lot better to dive down and see what the monsters look like than to have to imagine them down there in waters so deep that it would crush your lungs.

This experience was special for its own reasons. I was with my little brother. We had extracted the wax from A.C. and I'd "tried" it enough to know that it was what we wanted it to be. Now we were at the time and place though.

We'd driven out to Kiniknik Lake the morning before and set up for some other people who were going to join. That had been Saturday. We'd colored rocks and the fire pit with sidewalk chalk and blasted Shpongle all day. It was wonderful, and the weather matched.

I'd wanted to trip that day, but the time window came and went, so I decided that if people came and turned out to be cool, then I'd do it, and if not, then I'd just go to bed early. The latter turned out to be the case, and when my girlfriend arrived she brought some ten or twelve others who were about as stranger to me as could be. They were all there to drink, it was pretty clear, so tripping that night became out of the question.

The next morning however, Dustin and I awoke at the sunrise, well before everyone else and enjoyed our time before the wind picked up. We messed around at camp and built a fire back up from the ashes of the night before. Everyone else had been up drinking all night around the fire, so they didn't wake up until several hours after we'd come out of the tent.

At around nine that morning Dustin and I took the buffalo drum and utensils out past Kinikinik Lake to a big open field that I'd never been to before. A dirt road lead there, and I knew that it was too early for anyone to likely be driving it. Even so, we walked some seventy-five yards off the road to a scattering of rocks. The Sanfransisco Peaks were right ahead of us and there was barely a cloud in the sky.

Dustin pointed out to me that there were animals on the horizon, and I identified them to be antelope, or as they're called around here, "long horns." I don't remember however if that happened before or after I smoked it.

Before smoking I beat my drum for about five minutes and meditated deeply. Both Dustin and I were bathed in eucalyptus oil, and I was sitting on a yoga mat.

It was hard to get the was lit with the light wind, and it ended up taking several gulps to reach a point that I thought was sufficient, and I laid back and relaxed.

My heart beat quicker. A fly flew around me and landed a few times, so I brushed it away. I bemoaningly killed an ant because he was crawling around on my chest.

When I closed my eyes the chrysanthemum was already there. It was more colorful than before, but not much brighter. It moved as rapidly and beautifully as before, but I never experienced a breaking through of this barrier. Instead, I hovered there and marveled as this thing in the middle of it transformed and became different things. It moved, and changed colors all the while. I didn't really understand what it was at the time, but it certainly wasn't entirely different than what I experienced on my first journey.

One very overpowering element of this trip was the taste. The taste was terrible, horrendous, and bad all at the same time. Dustin and I discussed it later and described it as a psychedelic taste, in that the taste itself had psychoactive properties and was a thing too. I thought long and hard how to get rid of that taste, and there has to be a way. I later tasted that taste in pretty much everything I tasted or smelled for the next two days.

The Chrysanthemum lasted only about six minutes before it all faded and I opened my eyes. I felt very euphoric. But before I did open my eyes and I was in the midst of the "peak," there was a moment where the barrier started to rip. I felt as if my eyes were opening back up, and I could see my eyelids peeling back, but all that was behind it was a bright light, and I never fully broke through that.

When I opened my eyes I was very psychedelic. There were bugs flying about and above my head and they left long tracers as far as they'd do. I laughed at them and closed my eyes and said something about being reborn and that this was where I wanted to be reborn. I felt reborn.

I talked to Dustin for awhile about whether or not he wanted to do it as a follow-up. It would be his first time. I was still heavy under its influence, but we discussed his plan to take some as a follow up. I've told him that he should write, as I've been doing, and I hope that he does. After and during his time at Kiniknik he decided that he's going to move down to Arizona--potentially in the very near future. He's also probably going to hike the PCT with me if all goes according to plan.

When we walked back to camp we both felt euphoric and alive. We bathed ourselves in eucalyptus oil again and beat the drum. We were alive and we had survived.