Psylocybin Reflections

“Is that Moran or the Tetons?” I ask myself, picking my head up from the ground and squinting out at the mountain range in front of me. “Meh, still
labeling” I respond, and reach for more medicine, grabbing a couple of choice caps from the bag next to me.

I Sit up, diligently chewing the fibrous fungi, and a cascade of thoughts rush into my mind.

I brush the side of my hand against the contours of my face and think about the generations of ancestors that these contours remember. Of how, in addition to our physical form, memory is also the fountain head from which all these thoughts and actions surface. Of how all things in this life, in their most elemental form, really are nothing more than an aggregation of memory. And then, I begin to wonder….what would it be like to live without memory? What would it be like to see each passing moment as a blank slate — uninhibited by beliefs, labels and inclination? What would absolute freedom taste like?

I continue to wonder…What if time is a bottomless well? And faith is
simply falling back with a smile? What would it feel like to truly let go?
To live without grasping on to any of these static ideas we cling on to:
about the world, about the cosmos, about ourselves. How light would we feel if we could breathe in the universe and then release everything?

Then my wonders begin to wander and I think of all those unopened doors I
could be exploring. Myself as a pipe smoking professor. As a prolific
writer. As an actor, an athlete, a farmer, a father and a partner. I ask
myself, “am I really living out my potential?” Then I smile thinking of all
these ‘potential me’s’ very well occupying some other point along the
space-time continuum in some distant dimensional plane. I pick up a leaf
from the ground and see my life as the stem branching off into a web of
infinite potentialities. I follow those trace lines of eternity in the leaf
which I feel flow into my own veins and begin to laugh uncontrollably.
“What’s the rush, really?” I ask myself, smiling, shaking my head. “we got
all the time in the world after all…”

— — — — — — — — — — — — —

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating teachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves…They struggle with all the forces of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own forms, to
represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary, than a beautiful strong tree.” — Herman Hesse

And what a beautiful strong tree this is, a tree clearly living out its
purpose: an inspiration and model for us all! With such an expansive network of roots digging deep into the crevices of earth…what if these roots represent our own self awareness? With each new facet of our self which we uncover and discover, we play the part of the alchemist — transforming the unconscious into the conscious, darkness into light. And
the deeper our roots reach down into the depths of earth, the higher our
branches can grow into the lofts of heaven.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Thinking back to my child hood, I remember how I used to love climbing trees. Then, somewhere along the way, for whatever reason, I stopped climbing. I became more studious, more concerned of what others thought of me…more serious. I grew up, grew civilized, grew educated, and over time,
gradually I started to lose that sense of carelessness and play which once dominated my life.

That child running around the neighborhood causing mischief, he’s still there though. He’s lurking in the backwoods of our repressed memories. His
voice may be drowned out by years of being told to grow-up, but we can still hear him if we stop for a moment and listen closely.

He asks us…do you remember that time? When time wasn’t money but time was just time and money was a strawberry shortcake ice cream bar or a pack of baseball cards. When our office was a playground and our report card was
measured by the dirt underneath our finger nails. When we would run just to see how fast we could go. Happiness was our default setting; even with all
the restrictions put upon us — what we could eat, when we could go to bed,
who we could play with — someone actually had to do something to make us
unhappy.

Now, despite all of our newly acquired surface freedoms, too often, it
seems someone or something has to happen to make us happy. Is there a way to rekindle the sense of awe and magic we once felt? I don’t know…but
maybe this tree might have some thoughts on the matter…