The Mystical Psychedelic experience – How I Answered the Call to Awaken
In 2009 one of my closest friends passed away. My life fell apart–but then everything fell together.
He and I had spent many years sitting in a circle of men and forged a bond of deep friendship–so deep that when he became ill, my wife and I cared for him during the last 18 months of his life, and then helped him transition.
The whole experience was like being plunged into ice cold water and startled awake with painful exhilaration to face my own mortality.
A fire began to rage inside of me. Out of nowhere I started to crave hot peppers, chili, and spicy food–the hotter the better—to stoke the fire in my belly. I hungered for fire.
Grief, and an ancient unfathomable longing, drove me into the woods where I made an altar of deer antlers, stones, feathers, crystals, sea shells, and built a great fire pit next to it.
In the mornings before sunrise, in the evenings at sunset, I’d make a fire, kneel quietly and listen. In my journal I would write what came to me in the silence. Sometimes I’d stay out all night and sleep on the ground next to the fire. The fire circle became a sacred place on the land, a rough hewn temple of devotion, a symbol of what was being awakened inside of me.
Then an even deeper undercurrent took hold of me.
I began to work with Psychedelic plant medicine—Magic mushrooms.
I ordered the spores online and grew them in my basement. Nothing happened at first and then all of a sudden I had mushrooms growing everywhere. I dried them in the open air on cookie sheets and stored them in zip lock bags. I had no idea if they would work.
They worked.
The mushrooms became an ally, and for more than a decade I took them with me to the woods to work alone at the fire in every kind of weather–deep snow, mud, rain, warm dry summer nights. I loved the elemental exposure, the visceral feeling of wildness, and the return to a primal state of mind. I felt very clearly guided. I became an apprentice to the fire and a devotee of plant medicine.
As strange as it may sound, a voice came to me through the fire that was clear and unmistakable—and I made a conscious choice to listen. I came to regard the mushrooms as a sacrament, an intelligence that released itself into my body and mind to work through me.
The mushrooms expanded my awareness in the most unusual ways. Like a blooming onion, my mind opened to let in the light. A door opened, and I passed right through into the Reality that underlies our everyday world. I began to explore this parallel universe and found it utterly fascinating.
My ego went offline and a deeper, more profound aspect of my being came into awareness. I discovered that I could relax and dive in, that I could explore my own mind. I became intimately acquainted with myself. I saw patterns and behaviors that needed to shift and change. My healing journey revealed a path.
I created a ceremony to help me work with mushrooms in an expanded state. Setting sacred space heightened the experience and created a container in which I could access universal wisdom directly.
There is no substitute for direct experience.
I felt a deeply rooted sense of connection to the animating intelligence of creation–and it wasn’t just an effect of the mushrooms. I actively cultivated the connection and deepened it on a daily basis.
I strengthened my relationship with that creative intelligence in a way that mattered to me.
The ritual of making ceremonial fires and working in an expanded state was a catalyst that caused something to emerge from within me–part shaman, part medicine man–but many years passed before I felt comfortable sharing that part of my journey with others.
Over years of solitary immersion I developed a personal relationship with Nature and the elements. I paid more attention to the phases of the moon, the rise and set of the sun, and followed the movement of stars in the sky. I felt a deep sense of connection to the Ancestors, Who spoke to me directly. On many occasions I experienced strong visions and was visited by beings other than human.
One experience in particular left an indelible impression on me.
It was February: the Chinese New Year. The sun had set long ago and the night was cold.
I had taken a handful of dried mushrooms. I was at the fire with my altar of bones and feathers laid out in front of me. The pungent aroma of sage burning in an abalone shell mingled with the juniper and pine smoke from the fire.
I’d been kneeling at the fire for hours. I was sleepy. I felt as though I was waiting for something, but didn’t know what. Nothing much seemed to be happening. Maybe it was time to call it a night and go home. The fire was a pile of glowing red embers, burning fitfully and low.
I took a poker stick, reached out to the burning embers, and moved a log just slightly. Suddenly a great tongue of flame whooshed out at me. It snapped me awake. In one motion I stood straight up and took a step back. The fire was raging, burning hot and fast, like it had a hidden source of oxygen feeding it. I paced back and forth at a safe distance. Ok, what’s going on here, I thought.
I felt a strong presence coming from the fire, like it had something to say.
I stammered out loud, “W-who are you?”
From the fire I heard a voice: “Do you really want to know?”
Fear rose up in me. It was pitch black in the woods all around and I felt an impulse to run, but there was nowhere to go. What was I going to do? Run home, burst through the front door, wild eyed and tell my wife what just happened?
“You want to know who I am.”
It was a statement, not a question, and it scared me. I thought I’d awakened something dark and malevolent.
“You have opened a door to another reality. We see you in your ceremony, and we respect it. You see us. We are all around you. We are ancient and we live here. We own this place.”
I noticed the pronoun had shifted from “I” to “we.”
”This is our land. There are rules here. You want to know the rules. Do not be afraid, be respectful. We will not violate you or your light. You want to know the rules and live in accord.”
Later, I looked up the phrase “live in accord,” which means to live in agreement, in peace, without conflict.
“You have been asking and we want you to know: the integrity of your being is far more powerful than you know.
“Live in accord, live in harmony with nature.
“Take care of our creations, especially each other.
“Offer sage, sweetgrass, tobacco, these we recognize. Offer your blessings, your gratitude, these are our currency.
“Offer your prayers, your prayers are our language.
“It’s not complicated, but you make it complicated and create systems that punish, stifle, and constrict. Humanity continuously finds ways to confound, ruin, and break the ways to harmonious living. Be one who lives in accord.
“We see you walk the land, take the trees, drink the water, and breathe the air. Thank You, will do. Remember where it all comes from and give thanks. We are the law of the land here. Pay your respects, pay attention, and don’t mess around.”
In that moment I understood the power of deep gratitude. The power of reconnecting with Nature. The power of remembering who I am, why I am here, and to know Who sent me.
In that moment I understood: I was being called to awaken. Called to do the deep work to transform and re-emerge as a sacred being, connected to this sacred Earth, and then to share that blessing.
Many times, working quietly, I was told that others would be sent to me. One by one they’d find their way. My job has been to tend the fire, to send up a beacon of light, and to help them find their way.
Over the years I have facilitated hundreds of ceremonial fires, with plant medicine and without, fires that heal and bless and bring people into the light of their own wisdom and authenticity.
It’s a powerful experience to be around a ceremonial fire, exposed to the elements, sitting under an open sky, the earth beneath our feet, the warmth of fire on our faces, the chill night at our backs.
It’s a viscerally moving experience to sit knee to knee, look into the eyes of those around the fire and see only love reflected there.
It’s a vulnerable moment when the light in someone’s eyes shines so bright you wonder, is that the fire playing tricks?
I am just one man who found the doorway, a doorway that anyone can find whose quest is sincere and devoted. Each of us is being called to awaken, to bring ourselves present moment by moment.
We are called to do the deep work–to find the way that resonates for each of us– and to reemerge as authentic humans, sacred beings connected to this sacred Earth, and then to share the blessing of our awakening with others.
Gratitude opens the way. It begins with saying, Thank You–for Everything.