Are We There Yet?
“Habits are undeniably useful tools, relieving us of a need to run a complex mental operation every time we’re confronted with a new task or situation. Yet they also relieve us of the need to stay awake to the world: to attend, feel, think, and then act in a deliberate manner. If you need to be reminded how completely mental habit blinds us to experience, just take a trip to an unfamiliar country. Suddenly you wake up!”
If it’s true that therapists can be the craziest people, then perhaps meditation teachers are potentially the least mindful, the most distracted, which is what draws us to the practice. Even meditation teachers freak out.
With my quarterly blood draw approaching, I’d been feeling unmoored. Though my body feels strong, I’m bruise-free and energetic, it’s frightening every time. I know that my bone marrow could tank without warning. I called my dearest friend, an acupuncturist and my own personal Buddha. I hate the needles, but they seem to bring me some peace and tranquility. Amidst the dim lighting, Native American art, wind flutes and scent of sage, I asked my friend when we could celebrate our birthdays. We are proud Leos, just a few weeks apart. She listed the events of her schedule and upcoming travel plans, which included a journey. Not the kind where you board a flight and jet off to another continent, but when you swallow a hallucinogenic substance and your brain hovers five feet over you, providing a totally different perspective. Another kind of plane.
I’d been listening to Michael Pollan’s latest book, How to Change Your Mind, on my walks to the dog park. He talked about these mind and life altering experiences being useful for those in middle age, not for partying college students. I heard him speak of mushrooms found in the forest that produce a profound and organic effect. I couldn’t help feeling that he was talking to me.
One of the many lessons learned from my scary illness has been to “just say yes” to opportunities and experiences. Having great love and trust for my needle-wielding friend, and realizing it’s my birthday too, this kaleidoscopic journey seemed like the perfect gift to myself. I signed up.
I had done this once before with these same friends and Rocki, my dearly departed BFF and then girlfriend, over twenty years ago. I remembered having felt courageous in my ability to go for the ride, and I enjoyed the journey for its visuals and profundities. Still, I spent weeks backpedaling, questioning my decision, having fear and trepidation.
“Your journey has already begun,” my friend laughed, knowingly.
You’re supposed to come to the journey with an intention. I’d chosen “freedom from fear”, and I was already being challenged. What was I so afraid of? I had once eaten magic mushrooms just for fun as an undergrad. We walked around Ann Arbor and I watched the grass breathe. I reminded myself I’d be ingesting something natural, and I’d be OK.
I arrived at an old friend’s new house, an oasis of beautiful gardens, with trees full of colorful finches clustered together in the shade trees. We were asked to bring along objects for the collective altar. It was serene, candle-lit, with crystals, Indian artifacts, bones and feathers. I added two small hearts made of stone and a smoky glass vial filled with Rocki’s ashes.
I sat down in the circle with half a dozen women and one handsome older man, all meeting the middle-aged requirement which Pollan suggested. The rules of the journey were agreed upon, which included respect and confidentiality. When it was time to begin, we held hands, and accepted the ‘medicine’ that was offered - a variety of psychedelics tailored to each participant. I donned eye shades, making the experience pitch black, and wore the same headphones I’d used to get through my chemo treatments and transfusions. I laid back onto my mat and let the carefully curated music carry me.
I began to wonder how much time had passed, how long I’d be waiting for the show to begin. Slowly, dramatically, a Tiki face made of a tree trunk emerged out of the darkness. It looked like Groot from the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. The organic notion Michael Pollan recounted must have stuck in my mind, because all the visions in my six-hour hour trip were made of mud, wood, leaves, and grass. The depictions were earthy, less vibrant than I’d remembered of my experience from decades past. I tried to lower my expectations. The earthy choice of fungus helped me to feel safe, grounded.
The music went from big and bold to weird and electronic, from tribal to lustful, one song even had sexy French pillow talk. I listened, I went with it as the messages began to unfurl. The first one that came my way was to take responsibility, followed by continual signs to focus on finding life’s pleasures. The usual suspects and places I worry about were nowhere to be found. I asked for Rocki and she showed up right on cue - in the shape of a softball-sized glowing orb. Its light was pleasant, soothing. She brought with her the joy she so often exemplified in the form of best dance tune of the night. I lay there enraptured, stone still except for my tapping toe, missing Rocki, being reminded of her effect on me. Just say yes.
A breakfast feast was prepared the following morning by our shaman and an additional helper, those that watched over us the night before. Relying on our coffee, the rest of us took turns lazing about outdoors and cutting up fruit. Twenty years ago, this same healer taught me the scrambled egg technique I still use today - “Don’t worry the eggs!” I haven’t over-stirred them since.
“You barely moved a muscle all night long,” my acupuncturist friend chided. “Did you feel me nudge you? I wanted to be sure you weren’t dead.”
I had peeked under my eye mask a couple of times, seeing arms slithering like snakes, women twirling around, dancing to the music that was leading my brain on crazy adventures. I wasn’t moving. I was too busy enjoying the show in my head.
What lesson is most significantly learned from a brush with death, like my illness, diagnosed three years ago this week? “Life is short” may be a cliché, but there’s a reason that clichés exist. I didn’t need this journey to show me that I need to be accountable, to find my bliss, but it was a unique method as a reminder. Maybe another twenty years will fly by before I do it again, maybe never, or it could be on my next birthday. If I’ve learned anything from my illness and from my mindfulness teacher training, it’s that we can’t predict the future. Lack of control can make existing on this planet so frightening. Maybe one day I’ll stop panicking about it.
That Sunday I was hungover from lack of sleep, not having been too comfy on that mat on the floor. My jaw ached and my head throbbed. I spent the day lounging, ice pack on my forehead, taking baths, leafing through home décor magazines. I still feel like my memory is returning to normal.
My blood draw provided good news. So much fretting for nothing. My doctor reduced my meds again, and we moved onto other topics like concerts and our mutual love of 80’s punk. I confessed my trippy adventure. It dawned on me that I probably should have gotten his OK first. Turns out, this middle-aged woman with a blood disorder isn’t waiting for anyone’s permission to do anything anymore.