Piercing the Veil

The transitions we have in life are fertile ground for perspective shifts. As I am only a few days from beginning a new career and entering a new world full of challenges and opportunities, I made the decision with my spiritual teacher and integration coach to participate in a sacred psilocybin ceremony. While I valued my ceremony in October, it was clear I still had more work. Doing the work in a private space was going to be the setting I would need if I was to make more room in my heart. I share the details of my experience here knowing that it might not fully be understandable by those who read them. However, I truly believe healing is a communal and am grateful if even a small part of this experience brings you any measure of peace.

As such, I am sharing my journaling of this sacred experience which I will carry with me for the rest of my life:

Mushroom Ceremony - 1/3/24

The day of Earth's Perihelion (Closest day to the Sun)

Medicine

5 grams of Penis Envy Mushrooms (Ground and drank with lemon juice)

1 gram of Syrian Rue (Ground and encapsulated)

Intention: To learn what I need to learn to embody the best person I can for myself, my family, and humanity.

Pre-Ceremony

30 minutes of mind clearing meditation

Candle lighting

Reading and burning of intention

Consumption of the medicine

Ceremony

Hour 1 - Blindfolded

Pastels; orange, purple, pink.

Light is coming from somewhere but I can't find it.

I find it. It's coming from me.

I'm in a womb. Playful. Stretching. Feeling my body.

In a crib. Yawning. Just waking up.

Hour 2 - Blindfolded

Music intensifies. I am a note. A humming.

Everything is music. Music is creation. Creation is vibration.

Everything is a story. Nothing is real. Scared.

Reality is dissolving. Entering another dimension.

I am nothing. Terrified.

Leaning in. "Okay, well, I guess I'm nothing then"

Laughing.

Force. Pressure. Expansion. I am Source.

I breathe into this body, the breath of life.

The breath of life!

I reanimate my body. The breathe is me. It powers all of me and all of creation.

I am an instrument.

Lightly singing. Humming.

I am a note.

My breath sings my note.

I sing with the music.

I remove my mask and tell my guide "This instrument needs to pee."

Hour 3 - Blindfold off

I return from the bathroom. Everything is moving. Changing.

The cells of my body usher me. My father lives in my body.

I am scared. I console myself. "It's going to be okay. You can do this."

Inner me cries. I cry with him.

I return to my father. He is a child.

He is being beaten and abused by his stepmother.

He is bruised and bleeding.

I hold him. I cry with him. I ache in every part of my body for him.

I tell him I know it's unbearable and to give me some of his pain.

I release it.

I return to my body.

My DNA changes. They are healing. Every cell radiates healing.

Hour 4?

I am so small. Just a piece of bark on a massive tree.

Feeling sad I am just a piece of bark.

The tree sings to me.

The tree is my ancestors past and future.

They are cheering for me. Praising my healing.

It gives me courage.

I'll be the best piece of bark I can be.

I step into my place within the tree.

Filled. Overwhelmed with love.

I am not just the bark. I am the tree.

They are me and I am them.

My tree sings with the other trees in the forest.

I am the forest.

Hours 5-6?

Chanting. Singing with my ancestors.

I find my wife.

She is so beautiful. Cutting an apple for our children in our home.

Warmth. Protection.

She is surrounded by other spirits.

One is very very large. At least 40 feet tall.

Like a bodyguard watching over her. I am with them.

She is safe. Our children are safe.

Hour 7

Chanting slows down. I cry tears of gratitude.

My heart is open.

I am awake.

I am in my body.

I am happy to be back.

To love.

To hold.

To be.