Plant Medicine and the Final Frontier

The medicine was supposed to clear my vision.

And I was instantly blinded.

My eyes sealed shut. The veins on my forehead bulged edging on explosion.

An acid-drenched, liquid drill bored into my eyes and seeped into my soul. Whatever life I believed to have been living was erased. My new reality in this moment was pain.

I felt the loving terror of my mother as she hopelessly watched. Tears streamed from her eyes as my body seized in its chair.

I was a patient of a cruel experiment, and resistance was impossible. The pain controlled every part of me. There was no way out.

Until I remembered the one element I could control: My breath. Let the breath do the work.

To be in a state to receive its lesson.

Because “If you get in your head, you’re dead.”

The pain subsided and I spoke to the group: “The lesson is to accept the pain. To move from the head and into the heart.”

“Yes. He is a smart man.” My guide replied.

After 15 minutes I was able to open my eyes. The pain subsided and was replaced by a centeredness one might feel after weeks of meditation.

My vision was cleared as if a pair of fogged goggles had been lifted from my eyes to reveal a renewed clarity of reality.

The teacher plant was Sananga, a gift from Amazonian Shamans, and its lesson of acceptance was as clear as its pain.

Numbing the Pain

With ease we can avoid pain with symptom-fighting and problem-avoiding painkillers. Our doctors listen for key words like an internet search box, then prescribe the requisite pill.

It seems peace is just a pill away. And then another pill. And another.

We are inoculated to the pill-pushing pharmaceutical machine that coldly prescribes its medicine to keep us from the pain of looking inward.

What if, instead of undergoing years of pill usage and unsuccessful sessions with a xanax-prescribing therapist, there was another way?

A Rocket Ship to Inner Space

via @SpaceX

Teacher plants like Psilocybin, Ayahuasca and Sananga, invite us into the shadows of our mind that we have fed with lies, deference and self-deception and degradation.

They invite us to see beyond the material world that defiantly poses as all there is, and to feel connected to so much more.

And if you attempt to ignore the lesson being presented to you, you will find that there is nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. The only way out, is in.

Teacher plants have helped me to face myself, invited me home, and encouraged me to help others.

I cried in laughter and in sadness as dammed lakes of emotion emptied.

I witnessed how my self-destructive habits were negatively impacting the people in my life, and I immediately changed course.

With psilocybin, I supported a friend to curb his incessant hunger by showing that what he craves is within him, and always available.

There are people who have suffered from depression and have spent thousands of dollars on medication and clinical therapy who have healed after one session with Ayahuasca.

But it’s not for everyone.

Contraindication

True healing begins when we invite the storm to pass through, dance in its rains, and reflect upon its change.

Teacher plants must be treated with sacred respect, rather than demonized or used as a party-drug.

Without this respect, a student of the plant becomes another jackass resident of Pleasure Island desecrating the sacred for the sake of partying. And the results can be traumatic.

In a world that seems as though everything has been explored, it is our inner space that is the final frontier.

See you on the other side.

About the Author:

Timo Way is a Seattle-based content creative and coach who helps soulful entrepreneurs turn their dreams into action.

Rooted by mindfulness and joy, he distills the ambiguity of our internal and external world with a diverse perspective shaped by travel, startups, and more. For his blog, podcast and more mind expansion, visit www.timoway.com