It was during a recent hunting trip that I decided to have another journey. My desire and curiosity for the experience has been fading for the most part, but I was looking forward to another experience as long as the timing was good.
I have mostly forgone any real preparations or intention setting anymore. It either feels right or it doesn’t, and creating some ceremony or overstated point of it doesn’t really change anything if you yourself are not in the right mood.
This time in particular felt right. We have already spent hours up to this point scouting and glassing for animal movements. While sitting and just watching nature move around us, I felt a lot of appreciation for the solitude, the quietness, and the ability of the animals to just be part of their surroundings and communicate more through movement than by noise. I felt in that moment that it’s hard for a human, especially in modern life, to be more present than we are right now. That’s when I knew the time was right.
So, I found a comfortable position on the hillside in the grass. Spent only a minute or two emptying my mind, and started in. I didn’t count how many hits I took, four, maybe five.
As soon as reality and my vision began to distort, I took
another hit. The tree that stood in front of me became a tall, bearded man, he
looked like a wizard, and he was there to greet me, but that last hit blasted
me right past him. It felt like I was traveling across different levels of
consciousness or realities at light speed. I was
moving far to fast to stay and chat. (I've had a few interactions with trees in my
journeys. They are always nice and have a great sense of humor).
As I’m witnessing these different levels of consciousness move past me was like
looking at a flip book or a deck of cards being shuffled. And in that moment I
had this thought that maybe someone with more control or a very calculated dose
could probably target a certain level of consciousness to communicate within,
but essentially I’m just playing roulette and the dmt is like a giant slingshot
- the more hits i take, the tighter I’m pulled back before liftoff.
I blast right by these 'realities' and through the typical kaleidoscope of
spinning colors and geometric patterns. Then everything slows down. The
spinning kaleidoscope dissolved and became this infinite web of light and
colors. It was everywhere around me. But it itself was conscious, and everywhere
I looked it was looking back at me. Before I could even process a thought, this
'thing' already knew what I was going to say before I did. It explained to me
that "He" was the energy that makes up everything, he dictates the
universe. But not in a purposeful way, he just is what he is without emotion.
As I'm having this conversation, I am looking around me at the different eyes
and faces that are looking back at me. They are infinite, but as I’m told they
are still only one. One consciousness, one purpose. I started to imagine if the
faces and eyes were infinite, then I should be able to see an infinite number
or combination of different eyes for example. No sooner did I think of a
certain shape of eye, did all of the eyes around me change shape to match my
thoughts. He explained that although his energy dictates the universe, he's
only a reflection. And he allowed me to sort of play with that for a moment as I
imagined different things and watched the universe respond. Occasionally a dark
thought would enter, and the universe would take shape in response. He
explained to me that he understands the negative aspects of human life just as
he does positive. His purpose, which as I understand, is a set of rules
governing our existence, but also to be a mirror in which we can perceive our
own experience, and He/it can be manipulated through our interaction. While he can
extinguish evil or favor the good, according to him that's really just a matter
of perspective and would make the human experience incomplete. He wanted to
make sure I understood that our human pain and suffering is irrelevant to him,
just as happiness or joy. To him they are just different frequencies in which
we experience life - it's not that he doesn't like us, he just doesn't care in
the grand scheme of things. His purpose is not to care, but to simply be the
space in which our experience exists. He is conscious like you and I, but only
because we are an extension of ourselves and each other. He doesn't have
emotion, he just is. Essentially, he reflects the landscape, and we must
navigate it. There is no favoritism. The human experience is all about
perspective and contrast, and everything is defined by its opposite. Material
desires and emotions ultimately don’t matter to the universe.
At this point I could feel the trip fading. We ended our conversation with a
very simple and cliché message. One that I have received multiple times. The
world is what you make it; it's a reflection of you.
But also, nothing really matters in the end. Not in a nihilistic sense, but
just that the material world is so temporary, and there's so much to learn and
feel without getting caught up in the day-to-day distractions; and I think
ultimately that is the point, which is to gain wisdom from every experience,
embrace it, and to find what is truly the reward in life despite the
distraction that is daily survival and a universe that is impartial to your joy and suffering.
Like playing a game within a game.