Amanitas - A. muscaria & H.B. Woodrose

DOSE:

1 cap oral Amanitas - A. muscaria (dried) 4 seeds oral H.B. Woodrose

BODY WEIGHT: 145 lb

A Sublime Journey

Amanita muscaria mushrooms have been used for centuries to alter consciousness by shamans in Siberia and other cultures. Occasionally I�ve found beautiful specimens among the pines in the back yard of my Wyoming mountain home, before they�re harvested by squirrels. This spring�s weather conditions produced an unprecedented huge crop of large ones, some the size of tea saucers. They appeared just as I had begun reading Michael Pollan�s fascinating study of psychedelics history and ongoing research, �How to Change Your Mind.� The synchronicity was my green light suggesting it was finally time to experiment again. So I gathered and dried a batch.

In the early �60s I took a couple of trips with morning glory seeds. The first time I prepared well, had a good guide, and had a transcendent perience. My second trip was awful because I wasn�t careful enough about set and setting, and took the drug out of curiosity rather than as a sacrament. The last of my six LSD trips was in the early 70s. Aside from cannabis, that was the extent of my drug experimentation. For the last several years I�d been feeling a growing urge to once again try an entheogen � �a drug that causes one to become inspired or to experience feelings of inspiration, often in a religious or spiritual manner.�

I�ve studied taiji for over 45 years and have faithfully practiced meditation (mostly Buddhist insight meditation) for over 40 years. I�d been feeling stuck in my meditation practice for a while, and hoped a mushroom journey would help me find a way through that. Although the uidity of the sense of self is familiar territory to me by now, I believed the mushroom would also make that more clear. And it did.

In order to be a better guide for me, the trusted friend who agreed to be my anchor read Pollan�s book and took a mushroom journey by himself a couple weeks before mine. He lives in a gorgeous rural setting, far from neighbors, with a river running through the back yard, a perfect retreat space. Around 9:30 AM on September 12, 2018, I carefully chewed up a medium-size mushroom (one medium cap of amanita) and four Hawaiian baby wild rose seeds (chemically similar to morning glory seeds). I included the seeds because my friend had taken them on his mushroom trip and had a powerful positive experience. The mushroom tasted earthy and unique. The seeds had little taste. I started experiencing a perceptual shift within minutes.

So much happened during my mushroom journey that the following day I thought I could write an extremely long story or a short novel about it. Instead I�ve had difficulty writing anything at all. The experience was so profound that words can barely hint at the reality. The day was sublime and magnificent, and I spent much of it in awe. Recalling it continues to inspire awe. Because of my meditation practice I encountered nothing unfamiliar. Recalling it continues to inspire awe. Because of my meditation practice I encountered nothing unfamiliar.