9/3/2023
I was lying on the couch inside the house. I realized the mushrooms were beginning to take effect when I looked out the window at the clouds and saw a bright white cloud peaking up over a mass of gray clouds. For a second I was certain I was looking at the top of a mountain peak.
As I continued looking at the clouds, I began seeing shapes form in the clouds. I saw dinosaurs move past, and then three kids playing together, and then a giraffe head. My guide suggested I move outside to which I agreed.
I continued gazing at the clouds and seeing various shapes, or interesting patterns and relationships between clouds I was confident I never would have noticed before. As the sun began going down I knew I wanted more from my experience than entertaining cloudgazing.
My guide asked me what my intention was. It was then that I closed my eyes and began pondering my purpose and place in life. thought about how lately I’ve been stuck in a feeling of pointlessness and almost nihilism about life. If we’re all going to die and all that we accomplish is going to burn up with the sun, then what’s the point?
For some reason my mind moved to think about what we can know for certain, and the fact that the only thing we can be certain about is that we don’t know everything. In a quest for truth, that’s the first truth we can - and should - embrace. All other truths acquired thereafter are added to the outside of this core truth which unfolded in my mind as a nucleus in the form of a brown ball. I could see bright strips of color being added to the outside in layers. I saw these as additional truths acquired in life. The additional knowledge can only be properly added with the humility provided by an understanding of the core truth.
I could see that without this core and grounding truth - that we know nearly nothing - we are aimless dandelion puffs floating in the wind.
I now began to envision the nucleus, the orb, emanating with light that grew outward as more knowledge was obtained. The light was powered by the core. It now became clear to me that this knowledge is counterintuitively very comforting.
I saw surrounding the light-covered orb a covering of beautiful and awe-inducing purple clouds.
If there are unlimited possibilities, and there’s no way to know what the future holds, there’s always hope for a good outcome, but perhaps more importantly there’s no need to focus on knowing the future. Just let the beautiful purple cloud of possibilities be. When in need of comfort, pull back to the nucleus of not knowing anything and enjoy the purple clouds of possibility.
I thought about how going towards “this is the answer “ seems to be the way to unhappiness. I could see in my mind’s eye those who have attached themselves to answers are blocked from view of the awesome beautiful purple clouds. I think perhaps some people prefer not to see the view, and maybe they’re happier without the view even if to me it seems like a dark, ungrounded, or even just boring place to be.
My guide asks me about my garden, referencing the vision I had on my last mushroom trip. I saw dark skies over my garden. It wasn’t because my view was being blocked from the possibility cloud, it was because to me possibilities haunt me and cause me unhappiness. It was then that I had a split screen in my head. On the right side was the orb with a purple cloud, and on the left was a garden with dark clouds overhead. Why were the possibilities I viewed black instead of purple? All could say was that somehow it was my fault, there was something about my attitude that made it so the possibilities were not a positive force in my life.
In my mind, I began to see another type of orb. This was a similar type of nucleus in that it was a foundational and grounding attitude to pull back to and to add layers to. This was the attitude of “what’s the point, why try?” which sounds negative but somehow I knew that it was not. I saw that light could be added to this orb and that the light is powered by the nucleus.
I pondered the meaning of this, and I came to the conclusion that adding experiences to “why try?” is doing so in the attitude that experiences aren’t owed to you. Every experience is a surprise to be treasured. Every experience is a shard of light to be added to your nucleus. Starting with “why try?”, means letting go of control over trying to have a certain experience and just collecting and appreciating whatever experiences happen.
This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t set goals and intentionally add experiences, but not get too attached to a particular outcome. If it goes differently than expected, your light will still grow.
As the visions faded I found myself back on the couch with my guide having written my insights. We continued talking about the deep things of life for another hour or two and went to bed.