First Trip in 40 Years

First Trip in 40 Years

I started this series with the Salvia event even though it happened over ten years ago. The sage experience is what planted the seed that would grow into this collection of post middle-age psychedelic adventures. My first acid trip was in August of 1968, and the last time I tripped out would have been sometime in the summer of 1976 or ‘77. Forty years is a long time to be away. But I was determined to get reacquainted.

The first problem I encountered when I decided to begin this adventure was getting my hands on some LSD. It’s kind of hard to come by. But synchronicity always seems to come into play when you start poking around metaphysical realms of any sort, psychedelics included.   I (finally) encountered an ethical and trustworthy source, and got hold of some blotters and a gel tab. I didn't want to risk getting in over my head (been there. No fun.) so I started out with a modest dose. I did a crappy job of quartering one of the blotters, so I went for the biggest one of the four, somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of a hit. 

The event was our monthly bike club ride. There’s about a dozen of us in the bicycle gang including my wife and me, and we all ride on fat tire cruisers, antique Schwinns, stretch bikes and custom choppers. We gather once a month to cruise the riverbed bike path to the beach, and then up the coast for food, beer, and buzz. It’s an all-day party. We had a parking lot potluck at our meet-up spot that morning. Everyone was bringing food, coffee, beer, and of course, tons of weed. 

 I stopped to get cash and a soda on the drive down. I came out of the 7/11, took the green plastic can out of my pocket and popped it open. Such a tiny chip of blotter. My heart was pounding as I put it on my tongue. Crunch. Swallow. Committed. Deep breath.  I looked at the clock in the truck. 8:43. Twenty minutes later we joined our friends.

 After greeting everyone, and shooting the shit a little I grabbed a sandwich and coffee, and sat in a folding chair, waiting. I was a little nervous, and the food made me feel grounded. The coffee was hot and strong, and the morning was cool and sweet. I checked the time. Almost 10:00. More coffee. 

Suddenly I’m very concerned about our bikes being all clean and shiny.  I know I have a rag, but I can’t find it. I borrow a rag, and start cleaning the wheels on my wife’s bicycle. Then I spot the rag that I couldn’t find a minute ago. Get to work on those wheels! Oh, wait. They’re not so bad. Oh. So then what? Oh. I recognize this! Here we go. I could feel it coming on in waves of excitement, and energy. Suddenly I’m all smiles walking around the parking lot drinking coffee, and talking with my friends. I have the distinct feeling that today is an event of some importance. The sense of apprehension has faded, and the monthly ride has the quality of a holiday like your birthday, or Christmas.

 But I hadn’t taken a wake n’ bake yet. I got some stupid expensive private reserve sativa for just this occasion, and I was waiting for just the right moment. Which arrived like- now. Before I knew it we were locking up the cars, smearing on sunscreen, checking that we got everything OK, and forming up a group to roll out. I knocked back three or four fat tokes, and saddled up my trusty Dyno stretch cruiser. The bicycle felt comfortable as an old shoe. The sativa settled in over the coffee, awakened the mild acid buzz, and turned the morning into a dream.

 All my senses cranked up to 11. All the colors were art, all the sounds, music. Puddles in the low-tide riverbed were clear and incredibly beautiful. We had a small turnout; it was just our club and a handful of close friends. The morning was sweet and clear: perfect for a cruise down the river, and out along the coast. 

As I said, I took a modest dose, and didn't get deep enough to have "visuals". The exception was when we got to the beach, and stopped at the park restrooms to pee. You know how that is when you walk out of bright sunlight into the dark. Add some acid, and it like you're stepping into a closet full of fireworks. This is fun! Rainbow pigeons shuffled and cooed up on the roof. The gods were with me on the dosage; it was *exactly* enough- just what I had hoped to experience.

We headed up the coast. This stretch of beach holds deep, deep memories for me. This is where I first saw the ocean on summer vacation, 1963. I couldn’t wait to really taste the salt water. I was on my first acid trip here in ’68. I learned to surf here in the 70’s. Saw people die in these waters. I scattered my father’s ashes here. And my mother’s, and my grandmother’s.  Last summer when I was here on mushrooms, I could feel their spirits tearing though me in the wind. It made me cry out… All this floated through the morning like a deep incense of memory on the sea breeze. The winter sunlight is honey gold on my face. And I recalled something about acid from years back-

My youngest brother and I often didn’t get along. The dinner table turned into a battleground a couple times a week, easy. Unless I came home high on LSD. Then all the antics my brother would pull to get me pissed would make me laugh instead. Odd how I hadn’t thought of that in so long. But it was of a piece with everything in the world this day. No need for anger. I had also forgotten what a good social lubricant acid can be. All day it just felt as though I were in the right place, saying all the right things at the right time, part of my bicycling family, high as a kite, and just thoroughly enjoying it all. The day was framed and painted with everything that makes life good. The small dose made it all glow and shine.

The important part, though, was the deep perspective that came after the peak had passed, and the excitement had settled. Riding back down the coast and up the river to the cars, the tide was up, the river was full, and the still water reflected the mountains and the sky. The afternoon sun bathed it all in deep golden light. The sheer beauty of it all nearly brought me to tears. And I *realized*. I was so very acutely aware that in another age and time I wouldn't be taking 20 mile bike rides. I'd now be dead, or an invalid from heart disease. Nor could I be drinking in this beauty through plastic eyes because I'd be blinded from cataracts. I wouldn't be out partying and loving life at 65 years of age, because I'd have worked myself to death.

 I can give you the phrases, and they will sound like lots of stuff you’ve heard before:

 "There is *so* much beauty”.

” The Creation is steeped in glory."

 "Your very existence is miraculous."

 "We are so richly blessed."

Life is a gift.

Sometimes this stuff sounds tired and trite until we get those flashes of insight into cosmic/ metaphysical Truth, and those phrases light up like fireworks. The LSD turns that flash into a sustained glow; lets us savor those truths. Of course, that glow fades. But the realization stays. Lucy had one more gift for me that day.

I have a bad problem with road rage. So Cal traffic is awful, and usually by the time I get home from the drive to the beach and back I’m an infuriated screaming wreck. Saturday, after the ride, I glided through that traffic like I was cruising a country road. No hint of frustration or anger. And the anger wasn’t anesthetized as if I’d taken a Xanax or something. Today, I was just not the kind of person who lets a little thing like traffic get him frustrated.  I got home cool, calm, and happy.

 Seven months later although I still dislike driving, I still keep my temper in traffic. No small thing.  Lesson: It is not the external situation that is the problem, but my response to it. I CAN drive mellow. I just had to see it. What else is possible? Like I said- it's all stuff we know all along. The magic is right here when we choose to see it.

 

NEXT: Into the Great Wide Empty>

 

Folded Into the Psycloptimogiven. A Salvia Event

Synchronicity crossed my path some years ago, and led me to a most amazing encounter with Salvia Divinorum. I never read the newspaper, but one morning  I just happened to glance at a headline in the Times about the Diviner’s Sage. I knew by the time I’d finished the article that I was going to try the stuff. I flipped on the computer, and a week or so later I had 25 grams of dried Oaxacan leaf.  

     Now, I’ve been getting buzzed for a very long time, and I’ve seen (and tried) more than a few “New Organic Highs”. Mostly I’m skeptical. I figure the good plants are already well known, and those that aren’t well known are obscure for a reason. Usually they either don’t work very well, or the effects are more like being poisoned than getting high. So I was half prepared for disappointment when I took the bag of leaf out into the garage. 

I packed a fat wad of leaf into the shotgun pipe, torched the bowl, let go of the tube, and took down a big hit. The smoke tasted and smelled just like white sage; it was thin and gaseous, and it went down easy. I let out a big white cloud…

It felt like I’d stuck my finger in a light socket. I never had anything hit so hard or so fast. Every skin cell on my body was twisting in a different direction. I just remembered the punch line to the corniest joke in the world. I was euphoric, weightless, floating, drifting in impossible motions. I closed my eyes, and there were no visuals, but I had the sense of looking into infinite depth. Overall, I had the sensation that I was remembering all this rather than experiencing it. Moments later the event faded out and left me standing a little unsteady on my feet and bowled over in utter amazement. I had done magic. I’d discovered gold. I wanted to jump up and down- run out and tell someone! Oddly enough, though, it did not occur to me to sit down and take another hit. Didn’t even enter my mind. But I was excited all day, because I knew this stuff was the real thing.

      As I said before, I’ve been getting high for a long time. Almost everyone I know gave it up decades ago. A few of my old buddies will still take a drink, or a toke, but none of them is interested in hallucinogens. Anyway, my wife’s nephew, Dave and his pals were all in their early twenties, and they loved to party. So I invited them up to Possum Flats, our garage apartment. They showed up some days later with this ridiculous air bong made from a sawed off aluminum baseball bat with a spark plug socket for a bowl. Like I said, they loved to party. Dave left the air bong with me, and went around front to wait for his friends. I was sitting with my wife on the sofa. The bag of dried leaf was open on the coffee table. I was seized by impulse. “I’m going right now,” I said.

   I stuffed a wad of leaf into the sparkplug socket bowl, fired the torch, and drew deep on the mouthpiece to fill the chamber. I exhaled a little smoke, torched again, let go of the carburetor and took down a massive hit. This one smacked me hard. It was exactly the same as the first time, but much bigger. The weightlessness, the twisting skin, the odd sense of remembering some kind of corn-ball humor, and everything- everything is in motion, everything begins lifting, twisting, folding. Somehow, in this symphony of movement I manage to tap out the pipe, stuff a second wad of leaf into the bowl, cover the carburetor, light the torch, fire the bowl, draw deep to fill the chamber, exhale (so many things to remember!) fire again, release the carburetor, and draw down a second huge hit of the pungent gaseous smoke. It knocks me back.

 Darkness. 

 How long have I been holding this hit? 

 Exhale.

 Freefall.  

 It's 1954.

 I’m two years old and I'm standing in the kitchen of my grandmother's apartment, basking in the love of her smile. Sunshine through the window above the sink. Soft light on the table. It is so warm, so loving. I cannot read the logo of the box up on the shelf, but it sings in pure and perfect notes of color. Orange and yellow concentric rings radiate throughout the room bathing everything...
My eyes open. The vision and all memory of it vanish.

 Did something happen? Is everything OK? This place seems familiar. Everything's OK, isn't it? The room is folding up, and folding up, and folding up... Is a room supposed to do that? Folding up, and folding up?

I see my wife’s face, angelic, floating in the center of this folding, churning vortex. I reach up from a great depth. "Not yet", I whisper.

 My eyes close. The vision resumes. It had never been interrupted. It's 1954. I’m two years old and I'm standing in the kitchen of my grandmother's apartment basking in the love of her smile. Sunshine through the window above the sink. Soft light on the table. It is so warm, so loving. It has always been so and always will be. I was here before time. I cannot read the logo of the box up on the shelf, but it is sings in pure and perfect notes of color. Orange and yellow concentric rings radiate throughout the room bathing everything in warm harmonic light, dissolving the room, dissolving time, dissolving me. I am disembodied awareness. I am pure observation. 

THE POLES! Two poles of light, rods of infinite length and perfect straightness orbit one another- turning, twisting, tumbling- always changing, yet always maintaining the same everchanging relation to one another. This is the Engine of Creation generating Existence into Being. This is Psycloptimogiven. 

It began washing out. My eyes open. HOLY COW! The room was still doing this weird folding thing, but now I had a vague idea of where I was, but not what was happening to me. The word! What was the word? I closed my eyes, and dove back into the rapidly fading vortex. Reaching with my mind like a swimmer in murky water I seize the word, and hold onto it like a treasure. Psycloptimogiven, psycloptimogiven, psy-clop-ti-mo-given…there will be more given… I open my eyes. "HOLY COW!" I shouted out, "IT WAS THE PSYCLOPTIMOGIVEN!"

 It was washing out very fast now. Only now was I aware of where I was and what had just happened to me. It was the sage! Tidal waves of astonishment broke over me- as if I’d fallen from an airplane and landed on my feet unhurt.  "Holy Cow!" I shouteded again, and burst out in deep convulsive laughter. Suddenly I was bathed in sweat. I stood up, wobbly, and unsteady on my feet. I had been cleansed, purged, healed. Every negative thought and feeling that I ever had was purged, I was healed of every wound, newly born, cleansed from within by the sacred smoke, and ready to begin my life anew. I walked around the room in circles laughing and saying, “Holy Cow!” over and over again, even though it was an expression I hadn't used in years. The whole thing, from packing the first bowl to re-entry was over and done within fifteen minutes. I was elated- even a little giddy for days after the event. 

The session with my wife’s nephew and friends took much less time than I expected, and was not all that successful. (more on this later) I got tired pretty early, went to bed, and slept well. The afterglow lingered for weeks. I was unusually clear headed, at peace, optimistic. The ultimate anti-depressant.

My thoughts on the matter:
 
1) If the sage likes you, it is a fantastic experience. No matter how you rate a high, Salvia gets 11 out of 10 on the scale. And the afterglow is even better than the event. I had been in a funk- bordering on a depression when I hit the sage, and the event snapped me out of that in a flash. I was in a great, very positive frame of mind for weeks after the event. Paradoxically, however, after I had the experience I felt a powerful reluctance to repeat it. In fact, the next time I tried it I was actually shaking in fear as I went to light up.
 
2) It's hard to describe this, but what happens to you when you go into a salvia event is real. You’ll remember it all, but when it happens you won’t know where you are, or what is happening to you. It's not like mushrooms, or acid where you’re aware that you’re high, and experiencing the effects of a substance.
 
3) Unfortunately, not everyone responds to the sage. The trip I described resulted from two big hits (maybe a couple of grams worth) of untreated leaf. That same night I saw two people smoke it till they were blue in the face, and not get a reaction at all. One guy got a mild to moderate event- (wasn’t impressed), and one of the others took down five or more big tokes before getting a reaction which he found distinctly unpleasant. One other guy went deep like I did. He was blown away, but I spoke to him only once after that night.

 I’ve read many unpleasant stories as well. Most of the bad trips I’ve read about come from the use of concentrates. My opinion (and it is just that- an opinion) is that the sage is not for everyone. For those who are receptive, it is wonderful. Start with untreated leaf. If you don’t respond to the untreated leaf, it’s probably a good bet that you won’t enjoy forcing the experience with a concentrate. If you are receptive enough that the untreated leaf works for you, then a concentrate could be much too intense.

Thoughts on the matter some years down the pike:

I still have a good stash of salvia. After the night I described above I bought another 100 grams. This was over ten years ago. I’ve kept it in an airtight container with some desiccants. It’s still just as good as the day I got it. I’ve done it only a handful of times after that one night. In subsequent trips I’ve reached the dream vision, but not broken through into that deeper realm. As I said, there is a powerful reluctance to repeat the experience.

What I’ve found recently is that a sort of micro-dosing with salvia has some very positive benefits. I am given to funks and depressions and I have, several times, used the sage as a treatment. I took a few small (~.2 gram) tokes, smoked just enough to feel the tingle, and stopped right there. Each time, for many days after, the anti-depressant effect was profound, and I did not rebound into a funk afterwards. It leaves me unusually clear-headed, optimistic, and generally in that ‘psychedelic’ mindset wherein I’m acutely aware of the beauty that surrounds me, the good things, and many blessings I have in this life. 

 

NEXT: First Acid Trip in Forty Years>

On Getting High

On Getting High.

So why does a 65 year old man want to start fuckin' around with psychedelics?

Good question. Maybe it’s a case of post-middle age crazy. Maybe I’m trying to prove something. Maybe I’m just lookin’ for kicks. Perhaps a search for cozmic truth? Maybe before we’re done here I’ll have an answer.

I first read about LSD, mushrooms, and mescaline in the Time Life Science Book, The Mind, when I was a 14 year old kid. The vivid descriptions of the hallucinogenic experience were as fascinating as anything I had ever read. I really wanted to see those visions myself. It just sounded like the most wonderful thing in the world. But actually getting a chance to try it? That seemed pretty much impossible. I was kind of a nerdy kid. My way of fitting in my first couple years of high school was to join the track and cross country teams, even though I was a late mature and a terrible athlete. I had no idea that there was anything like a black market.

 Then 1967, and the Summer of Love happened. Spring of ’68 put weed, hash, reds, whites, and acid within reach of the cool kids at my high school. The rest of us quickly found our way.

I got wired on Dexedrine, and soon after smoked dirt weed reefer.  Then I tried Bali Hai wine and did my first acid trip that summer on my 16^th birthday. I went on to do more than my share of acid, some (what passed for) mescaline, and even some peyote until some unpleasant experiences (and the real world) intruded, and I fell away from doing it sometime in the late 70’s.

I had a chance encounter with psilocybin mushrooms in the spring of ’96. In 2003 another odd encounter introduced me to Salvia Divinorum. We’ll talk about that later.

It is summer of 2018 as I sit here at the keyboard, a little over fifty years since that first buzz. I had my last taste of alcohol twenty eight years ago, and my last pipe of weed about twenty minutes ago. Sometime last Fall, just before I retired in December, I got it into my head to revisit the psychedelic experience.

It isn’t easy finding acid, or shrooms when you’re 65 years old.  I managed. I even found the elusive mescaline. 

So I’m starting up the old WFB with a recount of some of my experiences with these strange and wonderful substances. Maybe I’ll throw in a few “days of yore” tales as well. After all, I did some crazy ass stuff back then, too.  So here's the list of adventures as of 2018. (Spoilers- the mescaline trip in the "Vein of Fire" story is best one) I wanted to finish the series with an account from a serious to heavy experience with psyolicybin mushrooms. I did a fairly good dose back in the spring of 2020, but much of the trip didn't go well, and I didn't  feel like writing about it. Current events since then have been horribly dispiriting. A psychedelic adventure has no appeal when your mindset is polluted with depression, anger, fear, and worry. It's like thinking about taking a midnight bike ride naked in a December downpour.  Maybe when the weather improves we'll all ride again.

Stories:

Shroomin' (Psylocibin mushroom)

 

 Folded into the Psycloptimogiven (salvia divinorum)

 

First Trip in Forty Years (LSD)

 

Into the Great Wide Empty (LSD & cannabis) 

A Vein of Fire (Mescaline)

 

JWM