.6 grams of dry mushroom.
Under the dome of a storm cloud like an alien ship poised for battle, he dove. In and out. Above and below. I watched the water roll from his blue-black feathers. I felt the water roll from his blue-black feathers.
I was the water.
I was his blue-back feathers.
The rain had just started to fall.
“Where do birds go when it rains?” I asked.
I’ve seen birds take flight from a hurricane, bursting across the sky like startled deer, but it never before occurred to me where they might seek shelter. And the impending storm looked ferocious enough to rival a Category 1. So where do birds go when it rains?
“Do they tuck under tree branches?” I asked. “Huddle together onshore?”
“Birds love the rain,” he said.
A silly question. A silly girl.
Before me, only about ten feet beyond the place where the beach ends and the ocean begins, a cormorant splashed through the waves.
Even the pelicans danced through the sky. They circled above the water, delighting in the foul weather. They dove for fish, feathered missiles dropping from the sky. Some would emerge victorious. Other would dive once more.
Sandpipers and seagulls skittered across the shoreline, plucking little crabs who hadn’t yet made it to their burrows.
A ballet troupe twirling atop the sand, performing for no one, choreographed by instinct.
But the cormorant.
He had me all along. It was only him.
He slipped beneath the ocean, emerging like my own personal Nessie, the water beading across his back like sapphires. Over and over, he circled below and out of sight before springing back to the surface. He was playing, but he played with no one but himself. He was alone. And he was completely and totally free.
Freedom is a funny thing. Try to define it without attaching it to money.
I’ve tried and I have failed.
I seek the sort of freedom we all seek, defined the way we likely all define it. I want the freedom of more time (but in order to work less, I need to make more money). I want freedom from anxiety (but the only thing that causes me anxiety is money). I want the freedom of travel (need more time and money). And most of all, I want freedom from my life-long depression (which is frequently triggered by my lack of success in creative areas…because I work too much…and don’t have enough time to create…and can’t travel as much as I’d like…because first, I need to make more money).
Maybe I need to swim more. Under the dome of a storm cloud like an alien ship poised for battle, I need to close my eyes, hold my breath, and slip into the ocean.
I watched that bird for more than half an hour. It may have been more than half an hour. It may have been less. My perception of time could not be trusted that day. But it did not matter. In that moment, I was his body. And his wings. And his eyes. I was that cormorant as he launched from the waves to perch on a piling. And I was that cormorant as he spread his wings wide to welcome the storm before flying away from me forever.
As the clouds passed beneath the sun and the sand turned gray, the mushroom I consumed earlier coursed through my veins, and little surges of psilocybin locked onto my body, my mind, my heart.
It’s taken me some time to define what happened to me on that beach, watching that bird.
In a single afternoon—a single moment—I experienced a brand new emotion. One I’ve never before experienced in all my adult life. Like that elusive pursuit of freedom, this was an emotion I’d always been aware of, but had long ago stopped hoping for. It was an emotion for other people, but not for me. Never for me.
Until now.
For the first time in my entire life, I knew joy.
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Your experiences are lovely to read. This year I began microdosing for similar reasons and I hadn't truly realized what had gradually slipped away until I experienced positive feelings and emotions again. To be able to feel joy after such a long time is a wonderful gift.