So, as it came to pass, 2024 was a year of learning and open-hearted seeking of the Great Mystery with many going into the northern darkness to help guide me with their light. Taking a moment to take it all in...and breathe, deeply breathe.
I completed the Inner Trek program for Psilocybin.
Facilitation in full including and perhaps even more significantly the practicum over 4 days at the service center at the crux of Portland: the Burnside Bridge. It was a group experience with a dozen of us, 6 tripped on the 1st day while the others facilitated and then integrated the next day; then the roles reversed and I tripped with 5 others while my partner was facilitator.
It was truly the culmination of many months of preparation and learning about psychedelic
therapy. And then it all clicks, this is how come we need this therapy and trained practitioners to help move energy. For me especially it was helpful and powerful to move grief over the death of friends I experienced this last year.
A year ago I too almost died due to a blood clot in my aorta and had some of the most wild
experiences of my entire existence. They call them transpersonal experiences because they go beyond reality. I also took note to try to live as fully as possible and to process my grief very intentionally with supportive therapy and psychedelics.
As with any psychedelic medicine experience it is difficult to track time in a linear fashion or
even cyclical really but that comes closer perhaps calling it an Arc is the best way to describe
the process with psilocybin mushrooms. There is also a great deal that is ineffable or escapes a language that can describe the experience so these are the challenges to writing things out so several modalities were taught to help with integration.
Please try to follow the arc of events over 4 days in a group of psychedelic medicine
practitioners as we execute the process we have been taught over the last 9 months. This was the most intentional trip with clear guidance and preparation, followed by multiple types of integration all with a partner facilitator.
So what happened at the intersection of mystery, magic and mental health was very much the intention specifically: to move grief around the deaths of my 3 friends this year- Don, Doug and Tristan and to lessen my death anxiety. And it was cathartic to say the least.
The day started with my partner facilitator singing an opening blessing for the group and then entering into the sacred space and to get settled into our nooks on trip beds circled around an altar. We were served the medicine on trays with a bit of tea, some lemon and ginger to help the mushroom unsavory flavor and perhaps getting sick.
The variety of fungus was Shakti grown by Satori farms in Portland and tested here to get a total psilocybin active content: as part of the practicum we can consume up to 25 mg while the maximum dose in the Measure 109 program is double at 50mg so that we are getting a taste without dissolving our ego completely. Supposedly.
These fungi were very strong and watching the first administration session and seeing the
profound effect at fairly low doses and heavy psychedelic effects.
I ended up changing from 18mg to 15mg to see how my body reacted and with a potential
booster dose if needed later on into the journey.
The packaging was nearly impossible to open but I gathered the rather blue little mushrooms, ate a lemon wedge followed by the medicine and then more lemon and a sip of tea and we were off to the races. It took about twenty minutes until the spasms rippled across my belly following my digestive tract and into my arms and hands.
Psilocybin can cause some issues with Spinal Cord injury specifically a gnarly spasm called a
clonus but I was lucky and did not have any. The mushrooms caused other like severe
abdominal spasms, loss of bladder control and challenges with balance but preparedness was a big factor and so there was a couple changes of clothes and clean up supplies and my partner had been prepped.
My bladder decided to empty the toxins it had accumulated at about hour 2 but I was too high coming into the medicine to clean up so another hour or so passed before my partner assisted me getting into the bathroom and then to a private room to clean up and change.
It was difficult to coordinate and keep balance but everything was stripped clean, wet wiped and fresh change of clothes and the purge was complete.
One of the lead facilitators Henry, had been helping with stretching and gentle movement of my legs and this had been tremendously beneficial in freeing up energy in the paralyzed parts. It brought with it grief and sorrow.
The catharsis shifted something and I returned to the group and settled down onto the bed and found myself done with the coming up into the arc and hit the peak of the experience. Time and events are very jumbled as energy and emotion started to trickle into the space and I fell in a trance and encountered visitors.
My head had to be thrust back with mouth open and my arms in the air to align and open the vagus nerve pathway as the rough hewn wood ceiling began to breathe, expanding and rippling making spots of black turn to eyes that became the faces and wings of owls. I could hear the rustling noises but couldn’t clearly see them but beckoned them to land on my outstretched arms. It reminded me of the aloofness of Tristan and how his death is still unsettled but the owls would keep silent watch.
After a while the visions began to wean and my psychic calling to the owls did also, I sat up and oriented myself in the room back into my body and mind. It was at this point that some of the most powerful occurrences happened beginning with my partner asking to hold my feet, something I had thought to be benign but was wrong about. As he touched my feet waves of sorrow, mourning and grief over the loss of my toes a year ago to amputation.
I was wearing a pendant from my facilitator that was poignant: it was a stone that had broken
and then stitched back together by the heat and pressure of the earth. It was DISMEMBERED and then REMEMBERED surrounded by swirling whirlpools of energy much like me. I let my fingers follow the coils to the center and back out again much like a Labyrinth that goes to the heart of the matter and I began to weep. I needed to remember.
The other lead facilitator, Tal came to my bedside and she was an explosion of light, color and energy that bedazzled me. I was just humbled by her brilliance and power and she encouraged my crying while also moving my energy from my base through my heart and out of my head and my tears became wails for a second. I felt Don in the spirals and felt his presence. It became very heavy and intense and I collapsed forward into a pretzel and stayed heaped up for a while.
I had felt the spirits and the grief over the loss of my friends and my body losing a couple of
toes, the sorrow began to wane and my weeping quieted. I found Henry with his guitar near my feet and he sang me a song from the Grateful Dead calked Stella Blue, a favorite of the ol hippie Don.
“All the years combine
They melt into a dream
A broken angel sings
From a guitar
In the end there’s just a song
Come crying like the night
Through all the broken dreams
And vanished years
It all rolls into one
And nothing comes for free
There’s nothing you can hold
For very long
And when you hear that song
Come crying like the wind
It seems that all this life
Was just a dream
Stella Blue”.
My facilitator partner then said “we are all just walking each other home,” which is something Don had said in a previous vision and was coming through in this session as well. All of it brought me great comfort and resolution so my grief over his passing was manageable even though I still miss him a lot.
There was a couple of hours of the students and faculty sharing songs and chants, mostly in
different languages and I could not tell who the voices came from but extremely powerful and connecting with the group. Things began to subside from the peak and the journey began to wind down and move around in the sacred space and I decided to go to the toilet again.
But my body was already peeing so another change became necessary. I did not have enough clothes though and wanted to close out the ceremony so Henry lent me a change of clothes. Overheating had started a while ago as my body wanted to get rid of the toxins but I can not sweat so it dumps everything into my bladder and fills to capacity until...
2nd clothes change completed and with some of the group coming out of the medicine with
others still deep in the journey we were able to chit chat and connect, hug and support each
other while being aware of the depth of this experience on the individual and group- it was
intimate and bonding and precious.
The arc was leveling out and the group collectively brought the ceremony to a close so some
could leave while those still in State could ride it out a couple more hours until they had
someone pick them up and take them home. There were not of words to make sense of any
kind so the ride was quiet and getting home was strange in recognition of the experience. I slept hard for half the night then a restless brain had taken over searching for integration.
The last day was just that: a group integration in several different modalities like art, poetry,
looking at symbols and myths or studying myths to make sense of an largely ineffable journey or inner trek. What became clear is that everyone in the group experienced a profound shift and wanted to use it for growth. As for my personal intention to grieve my friends and myself, it was spot on and incredibly helpful for my insight.
If I could take just one piece from this psychedelic group therapy it was the recognition that I
also needed to heal by mourning the losses I suffered from this last year. By remembering this I was able to help recognize my completeness. The power of touch on our energy fields and subtle bodies is undeniable and unexpected. It made me feel better.
How do I close out this conversation about one of the most significant events in my lifetime?
With gratitude and love for the mushroom medicine, being held by facilitators trained and
focused on safety and intention in a space curated for the transformations that unfold. It was a beautiful and powerful experience that I could never forget and hope to build upon for the future. The grief has not gone away but isn’t so overwhelming anymore and that is the magic of an Inner Trek.
Additional Reading
Special considerations for evaluating psilocybin-facilitated psychotherapy in vulnerable populations
Participant Reports of Mindfulness, Posttraumatic Growth, and Social Connectedness in Psilocybin-Assisted Group Therapy: An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis
Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy for PTSD
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