Chapter 15: Poor Kids
1.3 grams dry psilocybin mushroom.
It has occurred to me only recently that poor kids expect too little from the universe. No matter who you become - brilliant or otherwise, successful or otherwise - if you grew up poor, that poor kid still lives inside you. She never goes away, and in some ways, perhaps the bigger you grow, the louder she screams.
This was the highest dose I’ve taken, weighing in at 1.3 grams of dried psilocybin mushroom. Strain: Avery’s Albino. And it was nothing short of transformative.
On this day, I was a journeyman.
Though I typically like to be outside during a session, watching clouds and trees and birds and such, this dose had me craving comfort, longing for the plush mountain of pillows on my bed. We keep our bedroom fairly dark on purpose. Ambience, and all that. There is only one small tinted window, through which we can admire the swaying thicket of our neighbor’s bamboo.
I closed my eyes because I could do nothing else. And then the mushroom took me away completely.
She first showed me a fishing boat. Not a large vessel; not commercial. This boat was small. Someone’s personal craft. I was on the bow as we approached a bridge. It seemed like nighttime, but as I passed beneath the bridge and began to follow its length, I saw the road above my head was slatted, like a dock, and vibrant orange sunlight flared from between the gaps. Where the sunlight hit the dark ocean, the water turned white. It sparkled. The area felt familiar, and my mind assigned my location to the Florida Keys, where I was born and raised. Our brains naturally grasp onto the most familiar association, don’t they? It makes sense that I would make this immediate connection. But in retrospect, I think this was the mushroom’s doing all along. She had to start there. It makes sense now. She had to take me back to the beginning.
As an adult, I wanted much more than I had as a child. But there has always seemed to be a ceiling I can’t quite break through. Since my profession is that of a creative - primarily as a writer and photographer, but also a painter - I recognize that what I do for a living IS who I am. It is not separate. So when I experience professional hardship, it cuts much deeper than it might otherwise. For a creative, a professional crisis becomes a crisis of the mind as well. A crisis of the soul.
Poor kids expect too little from the universe.
Poor kids have the mindset of a beggar. We thrust our cup at the universe and ask for a dollar, because we are more likely to gather sympathy than if we had asked for twenty. More likely to hear, Yes. Twenty would surely be met with a swift snub of the nose, right? A roll of the eyes. How dare we ask for twenty when, for us poor kids, a dollar is more than enough. Who do we think we are?
On this day, the mushroom swiftly whisked me away from the bridge, and I found myself on a sprawling green lawn, and staring up at an enormous and completely pointless concrete wall anchored to the ground. It was connected to nothing, by nothing. It served no obvious purpose other than decorative. At the top were three windows, their placement very high (also pointless), and very modern art. I had the sense I was on top of a building, and the gardens that surrounded me were painstakingly manicured. I also had the sense that I was in the courtyard of a fancy art museum. I kept thinking, “this is very intense architecture.”
And then I was filled with the understanding that this was mine. Somehow, I owned this sprawling, exquisite building and the courtyard grounds. But you see, even if I had extraordinary levels of wealth, I would choose this. I’m more of a cabin in the woods kind of girl. Financial excess or not, a cabin in the woods is all I’ve ever wanted. I’ve always been able to see this cabin in my mind. I sometimes conjure it, stay a while, during meditation. I know what the room looks like, where my writing desk sits and the large window it faces, the dense forest beyond, and the deer that pass by the window in the spring. On this day, I tried to force this image of my writing cabin into my mind, as though begging the mushroom to take me there instead. But she denied me. I concentrated. Hard. But still, she would not take me to the cabin in my mind.
So I acquiesced, walking further into the courtyard. Beyond the lawns were large columns that connected to one another like arching bridges. There were figures standing beneath each arch. No one moved. No one spoke. I could not see their faces as they were all in shadow, but I recognized each one as a woman. They say that in every dream, each person we encounter is a representation of ourselves. So maybe these women were all me. Different versions. Different lives and paths. I try not to read into it, even now. I’m okay with not knowing.
From here, the mushroom took me to the Gulf Coast of Florida. An area we call the panhandle. I am not familiar with Florida’s panhandle, having spent most of my life on the southern or western coasts, but I knew instantly where I was, nonetheless. I could see the bend of the coastline snaking into a little peninsula that darted into the dark water. In my mind, I felt this to be one of the last undisturbed areas of Florida. Raw, natural, and fairly undiscovered. And again, I was filled with the understanding that this was mine. I could see the division of land, like a line draw in pen across a map. I owned this portion of beach, land, and a few houses from a nearby neighborhood that had been built over that designated line. I experienced a sense of freedom then. A sense of arrival. As though even though I’d never seen this place before, I had come home.
I lay in bed for while after emerging from this journey. I watched our neighbor’s bamboo. I listened to the birds outside. If I were gifted complete and total financial excess, I know that I would not choose to live in a sprawling rooftop homage to modern architecture. Nor am I likely to buy a neighborhood on the Gulf Coast. But maybe that’s not the point. The mushroom was trying to tell me that a cabin in the woods is easy. Low hanging fruit. I could do that now. Sell everything I’ve got and just disappear. Poof. She was trying to tell me that I’ve been aiming too small. Asking for too little. And that the universe is generous and grand to those who have not a beggar’s cup, but a vision.
I have never been short on vision. But I have always worried that if I expected too much from myself, my work, my future, that I’d be met by the universe with the snub of a nose. A roll of the eyes. Who does this little poor kid think she is, anyway?
I know who I am now.
And I’ll show you.
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