Messages from the Mushrooms
People keep asking how I am doing.
The natural human curiosity is exacerbated by my recent trip to facilitate a psilocybin healing retreat on the bougainvillea lined mountain streets of Tepotzlán, Mexcio.
How was it? Silence fills the anticipatory air as I inhale and prepare; “Great” I respond, as a wave of emotions pours down my throat.
I divert the attention away with a thoughtful question, a technique I mastered years ago out of self-preservation.
So how was it? I ask myself as I sit alone sipping a lilac latte in the energy of anonymity. It is a mid afternoon caffeine rush at the local cafe, and I wonder if I have the space to be witnessed by self.
It was Fucking hard.
This truth reverberates through my whole being, and I wince at the honesty.
Beautiful, yes. Transformational, absolutely. But it was incredibly painful, ripping apart the fragile fabric of identity I have carefully curated to feel a sense of stability in this insane world.
On the path of the spirit, there is constant grieving. Constant death. Constant re-evaluating, reconfiguring, and re-imagining. I am constantly being asked to question reality, and co-create with grace. This is the space of active surrender. A constant leaping into the unknown.
You see, mushrooms crack you wide open and show you the truths that have been present on this planet for thousands of years. They show you the pain, the depth, the feeling.
All of it.
And so upon returning to the coast of a land you might call New Jersey, I find myself in a place of mourning.
I am mourning the parts of myself that I have spent lifetimes building. I am mourning for the mothers and the earth. I am mourning for my unwritten love stories, and adventures that will never be. I am mourning for my family and the pain we have carried for generations. I am mourning the violence, the broken homes, the beings starved for love. I am mourning for the disconnection, the lies, and the pressure to keep it together amidst a crumbling society.
The mushrooms called me to Mexico to do this great work of feeling. They have been calling me for many years, and guiding me deeper home. Revealing layers upon layers of truth when I am ready to experience it. And now they have asked me to feel for all the beings who cannot. They have asked me to hold the great pain of the world and to transmute it with love.
The fearful child feels unworthy and alone.
Isolated I am a fragile flower, delicate, beautiful, and full with the sweet nectar of life. Yet with the support of the mycelia network, I share this loving elixir through my deep roots. Spreading life within the forest of humanity. Feeling for us all.
A friend walks in and asked the dreaded question.
“So beautiful, I loved it”. Can he feel the lie in my eyes? How honest can I really be?
“Actually, it was really intense and I would love some space to process, I am struggling a bit to integrate and need support.”
Exhale. Relief.
Historically, grief has made me isolate and turn in on myself, suffering in silence when what I really need is community.
I am okay, and also completely overwhelmed by the state of the world. I need you to help me. I need you to feel with me. I need you.
Can you meet me here? Can you hold the pain with me? Do you want to be alone together so we can both fall apart? Do you want to tenderly help me to build a new way of being? A feeling world of aliveness and honesty?
I want to witness you in all of your glorious fullness and be seen in mine.
I love you, and I am ready to begin again.
Will you join us?
