The Mountain Summer Moon
Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Dragging the bins. Psilocybin. Decameron. Enthusiasm. Leaning into leaning in. Reading. Poems from friends. Torah. Fantasy. Mystery. Trees. Quercus. Absent from my biome. Lodgepoles. Aspen. Willows and Dogwood along Maxwell Creek. White Pine and Blue Spruce along Kate’s Creek. The Olympics. Paris. Hotel D’Anglais Terre. Our honeymoon.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: The mind on hallucinogens
One brief shining: Opened the baggie, snack sized, and pulled out a dried up mushroom stem which I held for a moment, not quite believing its power, then I began to chew on its dessicated flesh, like eating straw, washed it down with some seltzer water and waited for the show to begin.
Synergy. A wowzer. Lots of colors, twisting trees, hallucinations on my cabinet doors. Lasted almost five hours. Whee. Kept thinking, geez I should do something profound with this. I tried. Thought about death for a bit. That was ok. Same as usual. Not an issue. Couldn’t distract myself from the marching trees, the Wild Bill’s Western Show that set up in the back with a tilting of its perspective whenever I changed my point of view.
Aside from the fun there was a sweet moment when a Mule Deer Doe and her spotted fawn wandered into the back yard. Reality (I think) as wonderful as the psilocybin. The fawn wobbled a bit, not familiar yet with holding herself up on those short legs. Her mother ate gently as the Mule Deer do.
What I wanted to do was watch nightfall. I’ve become entranced by the changing light through the Lodgepoles in my back yard. It reminds me each evening of the Nordic painters who watched Great Sol’s light dim through the forests of Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The Trees frame the changing light in small panes created by Branches and the distance between Tree Trunks. The light itself goes through changes in both color and intensity, fading slowly, so slowly as Mother Earth turns the Rocky Mountains away from Great Sol for the rest and cool of nighttime.
My fascination with this transition predated my psilocybin journey. By many years. The Celts see dawn and dusk as times of magic, liminal times when boundaries open a bit, allow us to work with them. Jews begin their day at dusk. We light our shabbat candles 18 minutes before sundown. I remember many evenings in Hawai’i watching the vast Ocean light up, waiting for the green flash.
As the day grew fainter and the panes of light among the Trees changed colors, I watched. Quiet. Accepting the beauty and majesty. Feeling it reach me, let me become part of the transformation. Near the end of the Synergy’s energy, I felt a distinct sense of oneness with nightfall and the wavelengths of light that came with it.
Just a moment: Taking off in a moment for the Smiling Pig in Bailey. Barbecued chicken wings. A taking it easy and slow day.
Plan to read my current book and enjoy the mountains on the drive over there.