Before we get to the psychedelic cactus that flooded my head with song and light, I need to first mention an iconoclastic, profound, eloquent psychonaut -- Terence McKenna. He is one of my most influential human teachers (versus plant and animal teachers). Years ago, his lectures helped me reclaim my mind from cultural conditioning. Later, anarchistic seeds were planted in fresh, cognitive soil. I still replay his videos, because he says startlingly clear and true things like this (and this was twenty years ago). Please, listen/watch. You will be REWARDED by these 10 minutes:

"I don't think that we can even pretend that we're on the edge of a civilized dialogue, until we grant that people's minds, like their bodies, must be a domain free from government control."

The same way the astronaut wants to explore outer space, or the surfer wants to explore waves, I have always wanted to explore inner space. With psychoactive substances. And until the past year or so, I was very ashamed of my attraction to this form of journeying. All the propaganda from school, church and state, can make the desire to explore your own consciousness feel dirty. Maybe it's all the years of some benign substances being banned, and referred to as illicit and illegal, but...

“Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.”

Most things I knew WERE wrong. The conditioning I received from family, religion, culture and government had all taught me to believe in OUTER AUTHORITY, and to doubt my own INNER AUTHORITY. That is the hugest disservice to sapient beings! The mainstream life I used to live felt so off. It was a lie. Built on silly silts of superficiality and materialism. Yawn. Ouch. Boo.

I wanted what couldn't be bought. My soul ached for A Meeting that would assure me there was MORE to this planetary rotation than toys, timelines and taxes. Yep, true transcendence is what I was after... but FREEof anyone else's dogma or interpretation.

It wasn't so much that I wanted to escape, per se. It was more that I wanted to LEAP INTO the possibilities that are made available to the in-tact mind. The mind that has not had its imagination circumcised. The mind that is free, feral, non-domesticated, uncolonized and ungovernable. I wanted to think like that, as a grounded and empowered person.

But I kept paying occasional respect to former mind-masters like "Give-A-Damn," "Follow-Da-Rules" and "It's-Time-To-Grow-Up." But when I was ready, San Pedro -- also known as Huachuma -- helped me tell those cowardly voices to HUSHHH!

“Part of what psychedelics do is they decondition you from cultural values. This is what makes it such a political hot potato. Since all culture is a kind of con game, the most dangerous candy you can hand out is one which causes people to start questioning the rules of the game.”

I signed up for a two-week shamanic journey in Peru. I travelled alone, met a group in Lima, and went on to see Lambayeque, Chiquitas, Salas, Chavin and many other places. I took this pic in the Andes Mountains, which is the native home of Huachuma:

We traveled quite a lot, and had 9 ceremonies with San Pedro at sacred sites throughout the country. All of the mesas, or altars, were not as elaborate as this one:

In those weeks, many incredible things happened, but there are two experiences in particular I'd like to share with you here. Both happened after drinking the brew:

• The first was PHYSICAL.

My naturally heightened senses were through the sky with the effects of mescaline. We were in a desert, with very few signs of life. But despite that, I experienced so many scents and signals in the air. I smelled green vegetation from far away (visible, but shouldn't have been perceptible to a human nose). I heard click.click.click.click. only to look down, and see a walking spider... its thread-legs hitting the ground in-synch with the clicks I heard. (Yes, really!) I felt both a connection to and understanding of my landscape. I felt like a native animal. Primal. Aware. Nose, lungs, ears, eyes, skin... all were surrendered to the stories of the desert. Plot and players. Every bit as intriguing (more!) than anything you'd see in film.

• The second was SPIRITUAL.

This was our 9th and final ceremony, and the most powerful for me. I felt that my body could not contain THE MIGHTY LOVE that was filling me. So I laid down on the bare ground (clothed, for the record... it was chilly). Flung my arms wide, and felt embraced by the blue above, and the brown below. I understood that we are each a living median between sky and earth. As we go about our business, we have so much more impact than we realize... than we see. The ripples and consequences of our thoughts, words and actions... without burden or judgment, I saw the artistry of it. Many of the things we weave are glorious. Others, downright awful. But we all weave. All the time.

When I returned to the US, I neither integrated my experience, nor was fully honest about the huge impact it had on me. (And there was hell to pay for that lesser choice, too. But that's another story I'll write more about later.) I am now making up for those years of silence, by openly advocating the (re)joining of people, and the plants that can heal them.