My "Hero's Dose" with Magic Truffles

 

This was actually my first time ever to work personally with such a large dose of psilocybin truffles, and the workshop was the first time to be serving it to others. So, this pathway was a step into the unknown (isn’t medicine work always?!). I was on one hand curious about the subtleties of energy flow when working with this particular medicine, yet on the other hand was fairly confident to be leading this new work after guiding over 800 ceremonies with Ayahuasca.

 

Ayahuasca is generally considered the mother, the grandmother, more mature, deep and intense in process than mushrooms and truffles, which can often have a more childlike, light, humorous energy.  There are many stories of ceremonies with mushrooms and truffles being full of giggling!

 

While there is nothing wrong with giggling, I’m not here for people simply to have fun, get high, see crazy visuals and trip balls! My intention in offering this work is for people to dive deep.. to dive deep into their patterns, traumas, stuck emotions.. and potentially even deeper into their divinity, into the existential love at the core of each one of us. And then through this deep dive, reemerge a better person, by making tangible shifts in their ways of being, thinking and showing up in the world.. ways that are more loving, harmonious, respectful and compassionate. As in this way, heart by heart, we create a better world.

 

It’s a majestic process to witness, and to hear how these courageous people return to their loved ones and lives with so much more love, patience, compassion and understanding for themselves and others around them. People literally become more loving.

 

This is the legacy I want to leave.. a legacy of love. A legacy where as many hearts as possible are open to share more love in their loves. Where as many minds as possible are open to see what connects us beyond what separates us, and hence create more peace on this wounded planet. A legacy where as many eyes as possible see beyond the mundane, material world and are opened, awe-inspired, to the mysteries of this existence.

 

So.. I took this hero’s dose to deepen my understanding of the potential of truffles. Would they go as deep as I was used to with Ayahuasca? Would they truly deliver, and invite profound process and realisations, or would it skim around on the surface, spiced with laughter?

 

4 hours later, with wide eyes and brimming with excitement, I told my friend, “This work works!”, “these truffles most definitely deliver!” “I’m so excited for the potential of what this work can offer to so many people.” 

 

and.. as I burst into tears again, “This is SO needed on this planet. With the state of the world as it is, with so many people depressed, anxious, disconnected and carrying so much pain, this work can really bring so much healing to so many. It is exactly what is needed in this world.”

 

For it meets each one precisely where they are, and offers them the lessons and insights that are needed at that time. Sometimes it’s bliss, sometimes it’s hell, and everything in between. Yet, in my experience, in a safe, sacred, well-held space, even going to hell is good.. for time and again, people come back lighter, freer.. they put down their burdens, they give back the energy still held around their traumas, they cleanse self-destructive thought patterns.

 

So, what happened in my journey?

 

The first hour or two was mind-y.  As gravity was strong and body was glued to the floor, I was contemplating a challenge in my life, thinking around a situation with someone and how to navigate it. While I knew I was “under the effect”, it didn’t seem so present.. I was thinking as normal, no strong emotions, very little in the way of visuals in the darkened room, eyes open or closed.

 

I eventually pulled myself to sitting and tried to get the fire going again.. “let’s get some life in here, it’s kinda dead in here!” I said to myself. Getting a gentle flame going in the wood burner, I put the fairy lights back on, picked up the guitar and improvised a couple of tunes.  From the dark, dead energy, I brought back light and sound.. and.. then the process truly started.

 

This often happens with me and plant medicines.. the effect can stay very much in the mind and the process feels blocked or stagnant in some way.. then I pick up the guitar and start singing, and it’s as though suddenly the energy is free to move and the process starts.

 

The process that started for me was an intense outpouring of grief. Grief and rage. And grief. And grief and rage. And more grief!

 

It must have been close to an hour that I sobbed, wailed, raged and surrendered as intense emotion flowed through me, body shaking and slamming into the ground. I could see the moon between the winter-bare trees through the glass in the yurt roof. As I wailed, sobbed, hissed and seethed at the moon, this was between me and God. 

 

I allowed myself to truly go into the deep pain and fury that apparently I was carrying inside, unaware of. Presumably pain and desolation related to the fact that the love of my life passed away nearly 5 years ago. Pain and anger that life took him, and that I was denied the chance to have a family together. Pain that I hadn’t yet met another man whom I could love so deeply and bear a family with.

 

Yet, there weren’t many thoughts.. it was pure, wild, raw, unfiltered emotion. So alive. So intense. And so beautiful.

 

For some moments it would subside and I’d question if I was choosing to stay in the grief, holding on to the experience of being in pain. I’d take a deep breath, soften and return to presence on the exhale.. And then another wave would crash over me and I’d be plummeted back into the wash, surrendered once again into pure emotion. This was no choosing to suffer and exacerbating victim-identity. This was pure, intense catharsis. 

 

And I allowed myself to feel, for once, the resentment of my inner child, perceiving herself to be let down by life. I wouldn’t normally go there, as it’s not helpful to follow or believe such trains of thought. What’s past is past.  I trust in the greater flow of life and what God/ Existence / the divine brings.. It was Existence/ God that gave my beloved Norberto to me, and Existence/ God that took him away. Yet.. it was liberating, for some moments, to give space to her in this perceived betrayal.

 

I wonder how you receive this, dear reader. I imagine many would be shocked, and never want to take a substance that brings you into deep grief and has your body slamming on the ground!* Yet, I believe that for some of you, it will resonate in your bones. It will awake some long-forgotten memory, buried in the sands of time, buried in the bones of our ancestors. I believe many generations ago, we knew what it was to enter ceremony, and surrender into the body’s wisdom of releasing trauma and stuck emotion. It’s in our instinct. Yet, our instinct got repressed, our wild got denied, and man created so-called “civilised society”. Society where we “keep it all up” and “hold it all together”, where we exterminated the witches, and made the mind king and the body vulgar.

 

Dare I say, we condemned ourselves, unawares, to a sick society. For if we don’t release emotion and energy, it gets stuck inside. And it poisons us. It costs our life force energy.  Imagine the pressure inside a shaken-up champagne bottle. Many are living like that.. repressing, depressing.. or erupting. Now and then the pressure escapes at high voltage and comes out through aggression. Or the emotion gets bottle-necked inside, and body subconsciously tenses and contracts to hold it in. No surprise we live in a society of numbness, disconnection, depression, blame and violence.

 

So, to me, it is beautiful to enter such states of wild grief, to abandon myself to emotion - in an intentional, sacred space. For I can hold myself through it, I know I’ll be ok. It is raw, real, true.. it is pure life energy coursing through me. And I know I’ll emerge the other side feeling softer, more loving, more playful, more alive, more juicy, more free, more inherently myself.

 

And so it was, around 4 hours into my hero’s dose, I did emerge in this way!! After the “this work works” comments, I erupted into hysterics, with simple, childlike awe, wonder, joy, and excitement at what is to come as I embark on leading this work with truffles. Tears of awe and immensity flowed freely as I, deeply touched, felt into what this will be able to offer to many people.. the lives that will transform. Lives not only of those that attend ceremony, but also of their family and friends.. and of wider society.. Lives of those that live presently, of those yet to come, and I believe even of those that have walked before us.

 

For the ripples of this work spread out through space and time. It’s an honour to behold.

 

As I lay cosily between the now-roaring fire and a beloved girl friend, under the gaze of the moon, I felt soft, relaxed, tender, peaceful and deeply fulfilled. My heart was open, and my spirit in awe of the preciousness of life. I was more sensitive to pleasure of the senses, and gratitude reverberated through my being.

 

Weeks later, I’ve passed through the Christmas season without the pit of grief I’ve become used to in the last years since my beloved Norberto passed. This may be simply the extra time that’s passed.. yet I believe it’s also because I cleansed so much grief during this ceremony.  And, I still feel deeply touched and blown away by the processes that I witnessed throughout the workshop that followed. Realisations that I imagine would touch you to your core if I were able to share them with you.

 

This work works.

 

 

 

 

* Re. “body slamming on the ground”.. Out of the tens of thousands of medicine journeys I’ve witnessed, this kind of intensive physical expression is rare, and in those cases the medicine was excessively strong. Shaking and body tremors happen not infrequently, generally as a trauma release, and are nothing to fear. I’ve personally worked a lot with moving energy through the body, so it is natural and perfectly fine for me to allow these kind of movements to happen. I could have inhibited it if I’d wished, but I come from the school of thought of allowing energy to move freely through the body whilst being present, as I see this as connected to health and well-being. "Body slamming" may sound intense, but is a beautiful sign of surrender, which also opens up vast realms of ecstasy and pleasure.

 

 

If exploring your own inner journey with Magic Truffles calls to you, check out our 3 day workshops in the Netherlands (see "In Person" events in the Header)