Long post. Thank y'all for holding space for my integration process.

My plant medicine journey officially began in 2020. But my entire life led to this. This path. These experiences. These relationships and connections. And I am deeply grateful and in love with every single bit of it. AND, the parts of me that choose to lay certain bits to rest. Rest in peace and love.

Over the past few years, there have been many journeys, many integration calls and circles and practices, many explorations of consciousness, and many forgettings and returnings to love and creation.

There has also been much resistance and much surrender.

When I began this path, I had one desire, STOP HURTING. Stop the pain. Exploration of consciousness and any type of mystical experiences were NOT on my radar. I just wanted the pain to stop. The pain of abuse, of trauma, of depression, of addiction, to end. One way or another. Psychedelics or suicide didn’t much matter to me. I had been hospitalized for the latter in my 30’s, so I decided to give the former a try in my 50’s.

William James, Harvard professor and philosopher, characterized mystical experience by four marks: transiency, passivity, noetic quality, and ineffability. I’ve been offered such experiences with these medicines on a few occasions, and they have been brutal. Purging to the point of having a bloody throat, needing to be moved to a new mat, excruciating pain and fighting.

I refused to surrender. Refused to surrender to the idea of being the creator and LOVING all of creation. Because, I still wanted to blame something outside of myself for my pain. My grandpa, my abuse, my religion, my ex, men, society, the patriarchy, capitalism, racism, and on and on and on. THEY were the perpetrators and I was the victim. As long as I clung to that story of trauma and abuse and victimhood, I fought any experience that challenged it.

Saturday, I sat with Aya. It was a one night ceremony, my first in over a year. I went in with three intentions.

Say yes to whatever was offered.

Return to love.

Show me.

That second cup was a doozy. As I began to drop into a deep space of creation, of knowing, of ineffable love. I fought. And I purged. Completely missed the bucket. Aya will really stain y’all. My pillowcase will never be the same, and I love it.

Once I began to love the purge, love the mess, love the gears of the universe grinding and creating and destroying me and all of everything over and over, the purging stopped.

Famine and feast, war and peace, death and life, creation and destruction, light and dark. All were perfect and all were worthy of love, simply because they exist. And “I” was the creator of it all. No one to blame. Nothing to blame. Just existence and love.

I recognize this is a lot. And I feel a little cray and exposed writing it out.

So, I’m going to leave it at this. When my egoic stories of being small, of being a victim, of being abused, are in conflict with what is BEHIND the ego, creation and love for EVERY bit of existence, I will have a rough ride in the medicine and in life.

When I release those stories with love and gratitude and curiosity about infinite possibilities, my pillow case and my heart stay fresh and clean.

Aho. Aho indeed.