Sacred Mushroom of Visions

by Ralph Metzner

  On the Friday afternoon in early August, eleven of us gathered at the trailhead. The trek into the wilderness took about two hours, during which time civilization melted away. Finally, a fairly steep descent down a rocky trail brought us into a womblike space bordered by trees, a high rock wall, and rushing water of a large creek. It was an ideal location in terms of its privacy and access to the creek, large rocks, and stretches of vegetation.

  After our hot and sweaty hike in, everyone stripped to refresh themselves in the clear cool stream and nearby mountain pools. I added to my intentions the desire to commune with the nature spirits.

  After an evening circle of stating our intentions, we slept. The next morning, we all fasted in preparation for the evening session. We spent the day swimming, hiking, and exploring the surrounding area. As the afternoon wore on, we gathered wood for a fire and then moved into more restful activities, such as napping, yoga, journaling, and healing massage.

  The guide would be taking medicine along with us, while his wife would be abstaining as our sitter. She would ground our connection to the physical world and tend the fire in the fire pit against the massive vertical rock wall.

  We all laid our pads and sleeping bags in a semicircle around the fire. At dusk, we each ingested about three grams of dried psilocybin mushrooms.

  When I first started coming on to the medicine, I wondered if perhaps I had taken too much, as I felt it very strongly. I got cold and fearful, even paranoid, and my legs were shaking. I knew that the depth and strength of the session often corresponded to this coming-on period. It would be a profound session.

  To ride out this uncomfortable part of the journey, I burrowed into my sleeping bag and stayed nestled for perhaps forty-five minutes. I saw colored lights and geometric forms and became aware of tension in my body. I used my meditation training to release. I knew this to be clearing and centering for the visions that would come.

  When my discomfort subsided, I poked my head out and oriented myself. I rose and moved away from the circle to an area I had spotted before the session. There I knelt on a soft sandy bed, bordered by tall lush plants. Next to me, the creek narrowed into a strong flow of water that descended to a gentle waterfall. The plants were luminescent, glowing with an inner light that spilled out into the ether around them. I sensed the presence of faeries in this natural garden. I could hear them speak in sweet singsong tones.

  Two plants to my right were vividly communicating with me. I asked them if I could stay and play, and they welcomed me without hesitation. As I relaxed into my new situation, I became aware of many presences. In a tree that hung over the pond dwelt a grandfather spirit, very old and wise. In the running water, I sensed water elementals and knew them to be undines. A white presence was hovering over a nearby pond. This I took to be the deva of this area.

  I opened to simply observe the existence of these beings and to receive whatever communication they offered. They were transmitting qualities rather than thoughts: a blissfulness and ease from the faeries, a contagious there-ness from the undines, a quiet dignity from the tree spirit, and buoyancy from the pond deva.

  I began to hear animal noises, wild cries, coming from the high rocks. I made out the form of our guide hanging from a rock. The sounds were coming from him. He came over to me, and I greeted him. I could feel the energy in the embrace go all the way to our core, and I knew in that instant how profound healing work could be. The experience was so powerful that I had to sit down.

  He returned to the rocks, and I returned to my place by the pond. I became aware of a bright, pulsating star overhead. It sent down a corridor of light to me, and I could see a webbed network of light going out from the star into the rest of the sky. The star seemed to come closer to me and transmit its energy directly.

  Eventually the star withdrew and my vision dissolved, so that I perceived no more than a star in the night sky. I turned back to the faeries, but they too had withdrawn. Feeling alone, I lay sobbing over my condition, the human condition, of aloneness. I cried for myself, separated from my family of origin, recently estranged from my lady and her little boy, whom I had come to love as my own. I cried for all the people who are alone. My thought was, “Every loved one goes away. All the loved ones go away.”

  Soon after, the journeyers were summoned back to the circle for the first round. The energy of the night shifted to a feeling of joy and revelry. Drums, rattles, and other musical instruments were brought out. Up to this point, I had been subjective and subdued, but now I was swept up in the spirit of celebration and tribal community. I felt power rising up within me. I could feel it in everyone. I felt we were a group of shamans coming together to share our wisdom and our lore. I perceived qualities in myself of a healer. I listened intently to others as they spoke or expressed in other ways, holding them with my energy and supporting them with love and attention.

  I had a sharp-sounding rattle that I had received from a Huichol shaman. During this first round, I felt it as an ally and an extension of my power. It was alive, keeping rhythm with the drum, punctuating the remarks of people as they talked. It seemed to be the rattle of a snake, activating and awakening reptilian energy in the Earth and kundalini energy in others and myself. When it came time for me to express in the round, I sang. I went on to pay homage to the Earth, then to the Heavens and back down again, uniting Above and Below within the human heart. My own heart felt open and present to give and receive love.

  I perceived one woman as a Lizard Lady, embodying the energy of Lizard and expressing it. I encouraged her with my rattle. She came over to crouch directly in front of me and we had a face-to-face confrontation. We were two lizards having a showdown, but it had an electric sexuality and playfulness. As we locked eyes, I saw her face as convex, with everything else becoming a faint background. She emitted a guttural growl and I responded in kind. Then she seemed to flip backwards and retreat to her spot. I lay back and chuckled.

  I saw our guide lurking in the shadows to my left. He began to play on his harmonica a lilting old-world tune. His countenance was dark and mysterious, as though he were the Pied Piper transporting us to another time and place. He maintained eye contact with me and through the music, I felt I could see into his deepest nature, that I knew his secret urges and desires and that they were mine, too. Still playing the harmonica, he picked up a log and began to dance with it on his shoulder, emulating the burdens and cares of life, but lightening the load with humor and charm.

  A chant started, calling on the Shadow to come forward into our awareness. The Shadow was everything that is ignored, denied, and suppressed in our natures, that then has power over us and can even sabotage our lives. Focusing our awareness on it allows us to observe and accept it. Integrated, it becomes part of our larger conscious self and personal power. To face the Shadow is to have it as an ally.

  As we chanted our invocation, the space around and through us changed to deep dark underworld images and the serpentine power of the kundalini. The rocks took on hues of orange and purple and a reptilian consciousness that caused them to shift and undulate. I spoke aloud: “Shadow, be my friend.”

  When Lizard Lady took the talking staff, I saw a palace chamber surrounding her as she spoke. The rocky trail leading down to our enclave became a stone staircase in England around the time of King Arthur. I saw our guide as a king, and the woman as a Druid priestess speaking before him in his chamber, bringing him a message of the sovereignty of Nature. It seemed to be a critical time when Nature was being denied and demonized by certain Christian forces.

  One other circle participant was next to Lizard Lady and seemed to have the role of a counselor to the king. He sought to bend the King’s ear and deny the sanctity of Nature.

  As this vision continued, I saw a spirit appear at the top of the stairs. It was humanlike in its presence, but in its form was a glowing orb of white light. It seemed to bridge the gap between the past of the vision and current time. It moved down the staircase and hovered midwa
y for the duration of the vision. It remained a nonintrusive presence that emanated a calm, potent truth of Beingness, observing and accepting the conflict that played out below.

  I carry a sacred pipe in the Native American tradition, using tobacco as a medium of prayer. We lit the tobacco and passed the pipe around the circle. Prayers were verbalized and sent to Great Spirit on the wings of sacred smoke. Blessings were conveyed to loved ones. The passing of the prayer smoke was a unifying device, bonding the brothers and sisters present together in sacred space.

  After the tobacco ceremony was concluded, the guide sat next to me and began to play a recorder. As he played, he gazed into my eyes as though to communicate something to me. My perception shifted and I could see him as the animal god Pan, the very spirit of Nature. He became Pan, with horns and hooves and animal sensuality. With extraordinary presence and allure, he transmitted an experience of the totality of the kingdom of Nature. I felt an excitement and a connection to the soul of Nature.

  In the third round, I addressed the pain of ending my relationship. I had experienced terminations of relationships before, and I knew that in time I would get over the loss of this woman and that there would be others. What troubled me most was the loss of the child. I felt great sadness that he would feel abandoned by me. It brought up the pain of having an absent father myself for a good deal of my childhood. I had no answers. I knew only that I needed to proceed with equanimity. I knew I would honor my relationship with the boy and remain present in his life.

  As I reflect upon the lessons of this journey and how my life has been influenced by it, I see that the central theme has been to honor Nature and its in-dwelling divinity. My connection to Nature and its beings, both physical and nonphysical, grows deeper daily. Through this journey and others, the Earth-based sexuality I envisioned has become a part of my own nature. Although I may still hear inner voices of sexual shame and guilt, I no longer give them credence, because I know of something larger. I continue to delve beneath the surface for that which is hidden in my motives and behaviors, in order to realize a more perfect whole. The experiences I had during this journey have contributed to a healing method that incorporates the energies of Spirit, Earth, and the life-force, all united by the inclusive principle of love, the most effective healing tool of all. And, finally, the tribal sense of community that I felt that night is something I am always seeking, and sometimes finding.

  WHERE ANCIENT SPIRITS DWELL AND THE AIR HUMS WITH MAGIC AND MYSTERY

  CAT L.

  A woman writer in her forties takes mushrooms among the rocks and ruins of the Southwest and tunes into the spirits of the Ancient Ones who loved the land.

  My partner C and I planned to take mushrooms together outdoors in a power spot. We prepared 5 dried grams of P. cubensis in advance by chopping it finely in a blender. Once we arrived at our destination, the dried material was added to a pot of boiling water along with instant miso broth to create a palatable mushroom soup.

  The setting was the desert ruins of a vanished southwestern American Indian tribe, in a secluded wash between two cliffs. We set up a makeshift altar on a flat rock, where we placed a turquoise frog fetish, a candle, a rawhide rattle, a clay ocarina in the shape of a turtle, a carved stone pipe packed with sacramental smoking material, and a string of colored beads. We heard the distant rumble of thunder across the canyon; the air was electric and moist and the temperature a very pleasant 85 degrees. Masses of white cumulus clouds were assembling at the horizon while the sun shone brightly high above. A light wind carried the scent of sage and desert soil and the promise of an approaching storm.

  Sure enough, a gentle intermittent sprinkle began to fall. I lit a bit of dried sage and asked the spirits to join us and give us their help and protection. We each took a ceremonial puff from our pipe. Somehow these actions served to ground and comfort us, for we knew we were about to embark on a powerful, potentially awesome journey, fraught with uncertainty and mystery. We each expressed our intent for the trip: mine was to experience what it was like to be one of the Anasazi people, the extinct inhabitants of this land, and also to be shown a way to help heal my mother’s arthritic pain. C expressed a similar intention focused on healing and consciousness expansion. Both of us wished to learn whatever we could from the beautiful natural surroundings we had been drawn to for this journey.

  The soup was pleasant-tasting enough, and we sat back and waited to feel the effects. A beautiful panorama spread out below us: a slight slope dotted with low brush, rocks, and sage, a large, beneficentseeming cottonwood tree at the bottom of the wash and sheer canyon walls across from us. These multicolored layers of stone, formed eons ago, spoke eloquently of the natural forces that had shaped this land. I was keenly aware of the presence of the four elements: the electrically charged gusts of wind that heralded the approaching storm, the lightly pattering first drops of rain, the occasional flashes of lightning, our tiny candle flame, and the sandy earth and variegated rock formations all around us.

  Soon, I began to feel heat rising in my blood, a pressure in the right hemisphere of my skull, a slight nausea, and rushes of energy in my body. When I closed my eyes, strange images appeared: bejeweled masks that moved and morphed, mosaic-like faces that approached and dissolved into new forms and colors as I watched. Liquid ambers, blood reds, flaming oranges and yellows, cerulean blues like molten lava bubbled and flowed across my eyelids. I opened my eyes. The world appeared normal, except that the large cottonwood tree in the wash below was undulating back and forth as if made of some gelatinous green liquid. The canyon walls were moving too, the layers shifting and rippling as if an invisible force were moving through them. I closed my eyes and again the strangely beautiful alien masks danced before me.

  Feeling increasingly restless and nauseous, I began to move about, crawling on my hands and knees like some primitive animal, climbing up on a nearby rock and wrapping my arms around it. Unable to settle down, I crawled and crouched, digging into the soil with my fingers. A low growl rose in my throat, and I roared as the contents of my stomach erupted onto the ground. Relieved, I crawled back to my tarp and lay down, while the weird energy continued to course through my body. What is this magic, I wondered, that can so alter my perception and consciousness?

  I listened to the buzzing of insects in the preternatural quiet that seemed suddenly to have descended on the place. An intense humming filled my head, an insect’s buzz magnified a hundred times. The bejeweled visions were gone and now there was only a crisp darkness behind my eyes. The mysterious hum elicited the palpable sense of a presence nearby, a presence that wished to remain hidden but was clearly as aware of me, as I was of it. In retrospect, I call this phase of the journey “the Portal,” perhaps the portal to the land of the dead or what Terence McKenna called “an ecology of souls.” I wondered if I was to pass beyond the Portal that day.

  Presently, I was drawn to the edge of our little rock-sheltered area, so I moved to the more exposed shelf at the outer boundary of the outcropping and lay on my back with my arms spread out and my knees bent. I began to writhe about, enjoying the sensation of the warm sun on my body. I undulated my hips in pleasure, feeling somehow that the sun was entering me erotically.

  After some time, I became aware of a whistling noise behind me and turned to find my bemushroomed partner standing naked on the rock above me, calling me back from my tryst with the sun. Feeling energized and positively charged, I joined him and flung off my clothes as well. We embraced and lay down on the tarp, and enjoyed cuddling together and sharing observations about the weirdness and subtle difficulty of the trip. It seemed that this period of difficulty or strangeness was a necessary part of the experience that prepared the way for the heightened awareness and intensity of the journey that followed. We were definitely feeling sensual, but coordinating our bodies sufficiently to make love was out of the question, so we lay in a dreamlike silence together for a while, until a mourning dove’s distinctive cry aroused us. We decided t
hat it was time to gather ourselves and move on.

  Summoning our attention to the task of repacking our belongings and leaving no sign of our presence at the site, we set out down the hillside toward the trail. The land seemed more alive than ever. Colors and scents were heightened by the moisture and by the changing light of the storm-dancing sky. A refreshing breeze blew across the desert. I felt safe in my bright orange poncho and exhilarated to be up and walking about. At that moment a small rabbit appeared at the side of the trail. It became aware of us at the same time and froze in its tracks and twitched its nose. I froze too, fascinated by this lovely creature just a few feet away. Her pelt was a soft creamy blonde color with rust highlights and she seemed to be imbued with a magical glow. Go ask Alice, indeed!

  We headed on up the trail toward the ruins of a small dwelling consisting of four or five rooms. I stood next to one of the ruined walls, placed my palms on the surface and immediately found myself flooded with an intense emotion of wonder and sadness. I felt the presence of the ancient people who had lived here, knew them to be people just like me, who loved the land so deeply that they created dwellings patterned after the rich and beautiful canyon walls that surrounded them. It was as if they were engaged in a deep respectful dialog with the Earth as they designed their architecture in its image. The dwellings here echoed the variegated patterns of the landscape, wholly at one with nature and sheltering their human inhabitants with simple ease. My heart was touched by the ancestral spirits, which seemed to hover in the air around us and percolate up from the ground below. I wept joyously at the beauty and mystery of this deeply-felt presence. Here, it seemed, I did pass through the Portal to the realm of the Ancestors.