Sitting with San Pedro (AKA Plant Teachers, Psychedelics, Aren't Medicine, part I).

This weekend I had the privilege of co-creating plant ceremony with a small group of magickal beings and Grandfather Huachuma. I had zero expectations of how things might unfold, and I was sitting with the simple intention of learning or experiencing whatever I am meant to learn, so that I may be of greater service to every being and the whole my community. Our group's collective goal was to connect as a leadership team in preparation for a community plant ceremony we will be anchoring at the end of May (May 25-27; open to all; feel free to reach out to me directly if you're interested in learning more).  

We gathered early in the day, caravanning from a friend's place in Millcreek to a huge tract of private land south of town – a 50-acre off-the-grid ranching enclave surrounded in barbed wire. The desert landscape was breath-taking, and the cave system embedded in the massive sandstone cliffs even more so. It was quiet and private, and the sunshine and blue skies above set the stage for what was to be one of the most pivotal and mundane experiences of my adult life.

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We set intentions in front of our altar arrayed with sacred woods and plants, stones, oils, and musical instruments. 

The concoction tasted gross, like a green juice or smoothie gone wrong. 

But the moment San Pedro kissed my lips, I felt The It – I felt Grandmother Ayahuasca, I felt the Mushroom Children, I felt the asexual orgasm of complete and utter interconnectedness within and among All that I experience regularly in my sober, waking state... I felt myself as my Self – I felt Love. The psychoactive compound active in San Pedro cactus, mescaline, hadn't even entered my bloodstream and I was highly aware of myself as Pure Awareness, I physically felt the whole of my embodied being as Love.

After the second generous cup of sufficiently strong medicine, I felt much as I did after I drank three generous cups of yagé two weeks ago – that is, I felt no different than I do in most moments of completely sober, waking reality: I was open-hearted, loving, generous, attuned and completely present to my fellows. I was completely free from all thought forms – of judgements toward myself or others, of analyzing, commentary, chatter, and senseless mentalizing. The Ego's narratives about this thing or that thing were simply not present. I was simply clear. I was simply myself as my most authentic self – I was my Self. 

In our co-created space, I shared my voice in song, I shared my dance, I shared my heart, my smiles, and my laughter; I shared my presence. The lesson was digested and assimilated into every fiber of my being – It is simply my Being – It is always my Being, there is nothing but my Being – there is nothing to seek, there is nothing to find.

That which I thought I needed to seek, to understand, to discern, to know, to experience is always available to me in every contiguous waking moment of "now." 

Many, many ancient traditions teach this very same universal lesson. I just fully digested and actualized this teaching with the plants as my guides. 

It's all here and it's always been right here. 

It is me: I AM.

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It's easy to feel "crazy" when my experience with all the plant teachers seem to differ so much from other's plant seekers' experiences. I don't see hallucinations. I don't feel emotionally or psychologically very different. I don't go anywhere outside of myself to experience anything outside of myself. I just seem to meet me: me, my self, and I.  

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I remember feeling like there was something wrong with me the first time I had the experience of "tripping" but not "tripping." It was back at UPENN, maybe 2003 or 2004, when I took a copious amount of beautiful mushrooms and sat in the botanical gardens next to the Biopond, adjacent to the Medical School. I sat... and, nothing. I simply experienced unity consciousness. It was easy, it was blissful, but it certainly wasn't psychedelic – I simply met myself, truly, for the first time.

After a small handful of identical experiences with mushrooms, I stopped exploring the psychedelics altogether. I knew that if my experiences with the mushrooms were always essentially the same, nothing would shift until I, myself, shifted. 

So I took a fifteen year break to pursue other means of awakening and healing, mainly through meditation and yoga, but also through nutrition, study, and traditional therapy. When I re-visited the mushrooms over a decade later, two years ago, I was a different person. I generally felt whole, happy, and at ease. I didn't have a "reason" to seek anything; indeed, I had stopped seeking anything at all. And so when I revisited the mushrooms, the "answer" they gave me was no different than what I had always been taught: "here you are, complete and whole unto yourself; be here, now; you are Love, just be the Love that you are."

I get it. I get it. I get IT.

I just didn't trust IT until I spoke with Etheric.

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Etheric and I spoke at length after ecstatic dance (a weekly practice that feels qualitatively no different for me than communing in plant ceremony) about the San Pedro and other plant teacher ceremonies. 

I told him I felt vulnerable and somewhat heretical to be saying this:

"Is there something wrong with me here? That I keep getting the same answer from all the different plant teachers? Why do I feel like I've gotten The Answer, and that there's nothing else for me to learn? Is it possible that I've learned everything I'll ever learn from the plants? Is this hubris (it doesn't feel like it)? Am I delusional or is this real? Am I doing something wrong; am I wrong?" 

The doubting module of the small ego mind wanted some kind of external validation of its conclusions (even though I was familiar with this story of Ram Dass and his guru, Maharaji). The programming that "there's something wrong with me; my beingness is 'wrong'," or that "my logic is wrong" (even though my IQ sits at the top 1% of the bell curve as tested by the WAIS-IV) runs DEEP!

Without quoting him directly, I can say that Etheric affirmed the validity of this, my most mundane and magical reality. We also talked about how these plants aren't medicines... they're teachers... teachers that show us the reality of the work we need to do in sober, waking reality, in every waking moment of conscious awareness. 

We all can, and perhaps should, outgrow our teachers. I know that the plants want us to.

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I felt – and feel – so grateful to be seen and heard and held and appreciated by another human being.

I feel so grateful to be reflected wholly and whole-heartedly.

I feel so grateful for those who have done the work themselves, who can reflect to me the reality of who I Am, and reflect the hard work I've done for myself, the effect of all the self-healing practices.

I am so grateful that this person and those I most admire respect and value me for my open-heartedness, my trust and confidence, my willingness to discard old ideas and elements which no longer serve me, my capacity to love fully, whole-heartedly, and unconditionally.

Fuck, I'm just so grateful for all of this. All of The IT.

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I am the medicine. I am magic. I am Love. 

We are the medicine. We are the magic. We are Love. 

All is medicine. All is magic. All is Love. 

Embodied, sober life is The Work of realizing this!

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Next: 

I'm going to talk about missing the The Message by seeking, via plant medicines or any other means of learning – about realizing that the thing that is seeking (the mind) is that which blocks us from the Truth. That by calling plant teachers, "medicines," we're perpetuating a falsehood – the idea that we are somehow sick or need something outside of ourselves to heal. That by seeking Truth via external substances we're missing The Truth that we already all whole, complete, and that which we seek.

Note: 

I'm not saying plant teachers don't have their place; they can be wonderful for addressing trauma, can help us get "unstuck," etc. I just see people falling into the trap of consistently reaching for this "medicine" or that "medicine" to change how they think or feel, under the guise of "studying," or “healing,” instead of doing the hard work of actually sitting in their sober, waking embodied experience and learning to shift from within.