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Writer's pictureRachel Maree

Part Two : Eating mushrooms Mazatec style

Updated: Oct 9, 2021

READ PART ONE first to set the scene..


So now to confront all of my ‘stuff’. You know, just all the things that keep me embodied as an I in this ego-centric matrix. Thankfully, a voice in my head was all ‘Just let it go man…’ and like that every fear and attachment I had carefully constructed was dumped. Ditched. Made irrelevant by merely saying so. Is coping with life really as simple as saying “No thanks?” Well in this space it was, what with a finely tuned fungal BS detector in my psyche. The realm of ‘my shit’ was quick and cruisy. The system was this: if it stressed me out, and couldn’t prove it was moment apropos, I just threw it into the black void that I was slowly fermenting in. See, gone. Next concern? Turns out most of what I fear has little relevance to now. Funny that future-projection anxiety trying to fuck with ma zen.

So now it seems I am surely decaying into a black wormhole, and without fears and hopes to attach to, my Ego grows squeamish with identify issues. Beyond my stuff, is something way scarier, THE UNKNOWN. I kind of want my stuff back! There was no thing to bounce off to prove I was a thing, and I got to be a thing. My brewing in this dark womb was coming close to a birthing. But into what?


Mushrooms eat wormholes, and the worms that dare to tunnel them.

“Holy fucking shit, Holy fucking shit,” said my brain.. Seems to be my I’m-tripping-really-hard plant medicine mantra that slightly dissipates an impending existential breakdown. “Por favour Abuelita, mas solar, mucho solar.” I became desperate for light. Let me bounce off something. Give my sweet duality. Felicity would listen to my concerns, she would hear my suffering, and not give me light. She refused to enable my clinging. I would ask again, every few moments. My sentences growing weaker, realising how futile it was. My hope was my suffering. Better to give up. “Por favour Abuelita, mas aqua, esta necesito agua.” Finally Felicity lit a candle and it was instant relief. Something, a thing, in a sea of nothing. She motioned to the water and blew out the candle before I could move. To my woes, Felicity would merely say “Cantar, Cantar! En ingles esta bien.” And I would reply “…Cantar…” She was asking me to sing, and I would just speak the word ‘sing’. [ Later in the night I understood things beyond language, and sung my little heart out. ] In that brief moment I was able to glance over at the Brugmansia watching me from the alter, and became convinced I was actually tripping on her. Somehow the notion that I actually ate the Brugmansia helped me to toughen up. “You knew this day was coming, when the trumpet would seduce you. Now don’t let her swindle you with her nonsensical charm.” I remembered Gabon, and surviving my initiation ceremony. But that induced a shaking fit that almost became possession trance, so I quickly forgot about that. I don’t know if Felicity would be up for holding space for that.


I need some grounding here, please send me a root herb as a plant teacher right now. Enter Eboka man. Within moments the room took on the momentum of an Iboga plant medicine journey. A disassociated intensity. As I died in my own suffering, Iboga was cracking jokes. In that moment, it saved me from going insane. And so my reality became this surreal cosmic joke, and Murphy’s law made it that everything that could go wrong, would. But what else was to be expected when you eat tropanes, even if you only dreamed of that? Insanity was kind of funny!


I believe it was at this point I was offered more mushrooms. These remained the fungi that weren't feasible.

Thus began the next phase of the plant medicine journey. The plant realm. Felicity would sometimes pass me the Ruta (Rue) to grasp & shake. In that smell, I felt the essence of the universe condensed into purification meets putrefaction. It was was dense & pungent that it was kind of offensive and yet alluring all at once. I have a strong call to dieta with Rue now as a herbal medicine. I become emotionally stirred, energetically attuned, and physically grounded. This took me down a poison path interacting with other ethereal plants like the artemisias, valerian, & yarrow.. What an interesting aspect to life they live in. “Angles, it’s all mathematical geometrical aspects of perception,” I assured myself.

Finally Felicity lit a candle for good after realising I was huddled in the corner of the room shaking cold. I felt like I’d let her down. I tried to transmit an SOS message through my gaze. “I know I’m not strong, I come from a weak people! Take pity on me, please.” She heeded my call & allured me to bed by patting the blankets. I kept asking, “Are you sure?,” but could only take a few steps before darting back to my corner, my sanctuary. I think it helped me to feel an edge over there. It also was where the Brugmansia was, strangely. I eventually laid down and Felicity tucked me in. With my new found candle friend lighting the altar, I was able to prove I hadn’t eaten the Tree Datura, it was sitting right there on the table. It was pulsating such an intense & entangled energy I couldn’t actually even look at it, merely glance from my peripheries, the only safe angle. I didn’t want to get sucked back into it’s reality. This is why we keep you at the edges GateKeeper…


That tiny light helped to place myself in the space, and allow me to travel more deeply. With my consent to soften now. I passed beyond the physical realms of the plants. Soon finding their energy was holding me back, keeping me embodied & physical. I entered this weirdly religious realm and began shouting out “Jesus! Jesus!,” as I jumped out of bed and ran to the picture of the creepy-anemic-porcelain baby, all the while looking to Felicity for confirmation. She gets it.. If I have one regret, it’s that I didn’t call for hey-soos instead.


Soon hanging out with God's sons' consciousness was a burden. “You’re holding me back Jesus!” Ditched in my growing pile of expendables. I was now traveling through the universe at light speed. Well maybe not light speed but really really fast for a monkey. Perhaps more accurately the universe was travelling through me. If I looked at any fraction of light with more bias than another, my body would grow heavy with attachment. Oh no, I soon realised I had to do the most stereotypical thing a Jippie could do and sit on the floor meditating in lotus position. It was the only way!


I left behind an old thought pattern of mine that night. No longer did I believe “Meditate or die,” more accurately, “Meditate or suffer for eternity”. Death was an false sense of security. Passing through the bardos now, I couldn’t afford to even tilt my head slightly to one side, or my shoulder would cling to energy. I had to allow life to pass through me entirely without judgment or attachment. I remained this way for many hours barely able to blink, my 3 eyes blasted open. I was both me in the first person, me as a bird’s eye view, and me as the universe passing through me as the first person all at once as I watched like a bird watching a universe pass through a person.

The only things I could take with me there that night were Trust & Presence. Eventually all else was left behind. Only trust & presence will come with you.


In the early hours of the morning I crawled to bed. Murphy’s law still ruling, I couldn’t open my door, and made the most noise I possibly could, disturbing the neighbourhood dogs and any sense of serenity in the area.


“That’s what happens when you eat Brugmansia”, I reminded myself.


I lay in bed til 5am unable to turn my eyes off, tears streaming down my face. Now that’s how you sit with plant medicine.


Reborn as..

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