Wildhearth Cottage

Every plant is an individual.

Wrong again. We are not individuals at all, we are all connected. We are individuals the way each blossom on an apple tree is an individual.

Dale Pendell, Pharmakopoeia

I could write for an eternity because last night Amanita showed me how to tap into eternity. I walked forward and backwards through time, going forward in time to present challenges for myself in the past so that myself in the present moment could realize that everything is sacred, that the food that touches my tongue is holy, that every being on this planet is constantly interchanging spirit molecules with one another, but that only those who have suffered to the point of developing deep compassion, empathy, and awareness (a form of suffering in itself, to endure the burden of breathing for the universe) are capable of doing it consciously, to take responsibility for all things. Two and five cups of mushroom tea and we awoke at 4 AM to realize that we are just vibrating molecules, bouncing in and out of space and time. We danced together through the matrix, speaking with the spirits and watchers of light and flight, recognizing our contribution to the dawn eruption over damp evergreens, knowing our part in the cosmic dance, owning that part, and walking backwards along the line of our lives to force ourselves to suffer and endure so that one day we might know that the same things exist at all of our cores, then bouncing and vibrating forwards again to connect the dots, to dance between them, to help perpetuate the turn of time from day to night, the spin of the earth and its tiptoe ballet through brighter dots round the sun.

Eating has become sacred. Food has gained new meaning, because it is me. All is.

Based on new understanding, we are all even more “one” than we realized, all connected like the two amanitas we found bound by the same subterranean mycelium forest on opposite sides of the lightly treaded path. We are bouncing atoms, hopping in and out of the edges of our skins–at least the ones that bear the scar-tissue burden brought on my scarred, maimed, or disfigured soul, aware of the needs of both themselves and the other, those who strive to satisfy both groups.

Empty dreams lull me dry, take back self-protective embryo, I am no quiet awakening, I kick in the nuts hot blonde acting ignorant who will always secretly be camouflage cunning Raven in another life. I can’t promise the atoms changed in the last life won’t cause you so much trouble this time round–I promise to swallow and satisfy both my needs and the needs of the other, I have time to negate beachside realities–or rather, the truth that transpired that will send the geese flying, that will tell bright bouncing universe soul, that all beings are, at their very core, the same interchanging thing, sharing molecules throughout time and space–and that therefore they litter on their own privileged sanctuary, those who have but don’t see (and don’t really have), they’re mutilating their own bodies–spirit bodies, anyhow, but I leave those there at the door–they blend me in when we’re all weaving through reality as spirit-molecules, soul-atoms directing the will and way of the world, altering the smallest details, altering both the past and the future in the process, like a harp string plucked. We are controlling the atoms, directing them, interring this and that. Did I go back in time, knowing this (and that only the conscious can do it willfully) and, for example, because Mountain Lion Man (my roommate the King of Swords) could read the truth: did I go back in time and give myself an eating disorder, knowing that one day I’d sit down with a bowl of lentils and realize food is sacred? It would be worth it, just for that.

There has to be a symbiotic relationship always between the atom and its bearer, its exterior holon shell. We are waiting, as humans, for the other species to catch up because we’ve outgrown their capacity for reason, comparatively. So we wait and wait at heaven’s gate for them to hurry up and come along, because we want a new enlightened being to replace that exterior shell, want to present and give flight to something grand and new.

We’re exceeding ourselves, because when did we stop valuing the molecular level of things, did we forget what it’s like to be so small, and that the smallest atom is a microcosm of the universe, and so directly and thoroughly affects the entire swirling cosmos?

Agricultural revolution to technological overdrive was devolution, driving our brains to conquer on this new turf in time and space–the landing pad of the human race–and for our hearts to be left drastically behind, forgotten. And so we have disconnected from everything on many levels, because the mind conquered while the heart was forgotten, and in so disconnecting, touching on some pretty grisly proclivities.

To live a life and walk a path of bitterness and disrespect, to tread a path of evil with this knowledge is to be a truly malicious and evil soul. To know and yet to avoid contributing to work on the spiritually molecular and physical level beautifying the world and oneself with that information, to go out with dozens of bricks of coal to give out as a professional Santa this year. To be willfully evil knowing the universe is to be a truly terrible soul.

Knowing this, now, what will I do, knowing that I am, at all times, everything? That I bear the burden of the dawn light over the wet evergreens and the atoms of quiet dreams, will it change me? Compassion is a form of suffering in itself, but one must endure and come out strong and healthy to take responsibility for the whole of the cosmos, so many needs on both sides of the veil unfulfilled.

I know now what sacred sexuality is: it’s satisfying the needs of the universe along with the needs of the self–it’s breathing for the universe.

Doing sacred work, I breathe for the universe.

Shared vision is reality.

I wish I could be in the forest drinking hot Amanita tea, listening to the sounds of all the ecosystems we are surrounded by while becoming aware of all the ecosystems we are a part of and our selves while we strive to enlighten ourselves and thereby join a new ecosystem, or elevate a new one, creating a new Holy Holon.

I had a dream that there was a group, a collective of beings who had also shared that experience, and that I reached out and touched one of the mushrooms that was a part of it but he shook off my gentle touch. He told me that to be among them, a being must be in a constant state of awareness, in a constant experience of taking responsibility for the universe, for all beings. I’m not ready for that, I thought; but it made me realize that I haven’t learned anything since ingesting mushroom juice with a gag, but that Amanita imparted a bit of its wisdom on me for a little while.

Allyship means being granted only a bit of understanding for a little while, being granted only a taste of the deeper knowledge of the universe contained inside the Mind of another being.

No anxiety, no fear, no exit strategy–this is the gift in the middle of the windy night Amanita bequeathed. I awoke to the ability to take deep breaths, the blessing of no-hesitation mind

I could no longer see buildings or other manmade structures after drinking deeply of Amanita‘s distasteful tea. Once I let it in and was unafraid of Amanita‘s brie gift, of longterm insight, I could only see the trees swaying in the wind. Now I look outside and see that the trees are islanded in “backyard” prisons, property culture’s only taste of natural freedom–one can be unencumbered in “one’s own space,” but what would the neighbors think?

Amanita will tell you, This has been going on too long. She will clean you out again so that you are nothing but a ball of energy and synapses in a sack of flesh, no meaningless filling. You have spent too long not knowing what you want, she’ll tell you. Suddenly the routine is unbearable. Suddenly you know exactly what you want and exactly what you must do–and the burden of anxiety dissolves. Whether you call it being one with the Tao or listening to the will of the gods or being in tune with the cycles of nature, Amanita will also bring you to that most important of states: knowing your True Will at any given moment.

Yesterday morning I awoke feeling heavy, feeling as if I was wading upstream through rivers of blood. It wasn’t until the evening that I realized it was the iron-scented muck and slime of my rebirthing womb. In the evening we shook off that metaphysical mire with deep-bellied honest laughter at the darkness in ourselves and our own self-destruction. It was joyful.