On Salvia Divinorum

I blunder into the salvia dimension semi-regularly, maybe about once or twice a month, and I haven’t even come close to getting a grasp on it!

I don’t exactly endorse its usage, mainly because it’s launched me into experiences of such overwhelming intensity that I don’t want the responsibility of putting anyone else in that peculiar situation. Though I certainly don’t discourage it’s usage either! As per usual: Dao what ye wilt. (though similarly, I've known people who barely even get a tickle out of the stuff, so there ya have it!)

Usually after about 3-4 healthy pulls off the pipe the phenomenon begins, (working w/ 15x extract) It tends to hit me all at once, a flash flood of sensation. It doesn’t really intoxicate me, I feel as though my standard reasoning remains intact, (heh!) BUT I get the sense of this ‘other’, kinda like I’ve invoked something. (Salvia easily lends itself to personification, I think of a Shiva esq Lady) It doesn’t come across as an actual entity or anything, more like a transpersonal POV mixing w/ my usual egoic identity. Salvia’s POV tends to cast a powerfully critical eye on my set & setting. (The sting of ego pesticide!)

The first minute hits my body pretty hard, I feel uncomfortably hot, my skin prickles, and spatial relationships go spookily askew, and the induced POV wonders: Why have you done this? (I found this theme in Daniel Pinchbeck’s Breaking Open the Head too, where a "shamanic" plant questions the validity of ingestion) Early on I tried all sorts of justifications, now I just admit that I don’t know.

I've yet to have a Salvia Trip that didn't include this initial ordeal.

Unlike all the other psychedelic substances I’ve enjoyed, Salvia doesn’t seem to come w/ preprogrammed content. Weed, Shrooms, Ayahuasca, Morning Glories, and even Nitrous Oxide seem to come to me w/ a theme, a story, a ride. But with Salvia I have to exert myself to get the Goods, and if I fail to exert myself appropriately, I get the Bads!

After the ordeal, the POV seems to want proof that I deserve the rainbow gold, thus far I’ve only found two things that please Miss Salvia, Fresh Drawings & Dancing, jumping, or related monkey business

It seems to work quite like the idea of making offerings to the Gods. If the POV likes my drawing, I get to watch it come alive! (The colors drizzle about as if a rainbow river, the characters begin to fidget & breathe, it looks more like a window into another world than a silly doodle on paper) Though sometimes the drawing won’t do it, and my body will feel 2 clicks past critical mass, so I monkey about, dancing clumsily. If I can manage to catch a rhythm, I get to feel my body as a mass of energy within an ocean of energy, I get to toss starbursts round my metaphysiology!

Of the more ridiculous episodes I've had with Ms. Salvia came last Winter during Quantum Psychology Class. RAW had us meditating as such that we'd think of ourselves as not having a head, I figured it most goodest to do as such rather stoned, so I found my dolphin pipe already half full (ever the optimist!) and retired to the back yard to see what I'd see, Puffing down HARD on what I thought was Weed, taking to the headless meditation, and found it working extraordinarily well! TOO well! Then I twigged on that I'd just smoked WAY more Salvia than I ever had before...difficulty followed!

I eventually worked my way from sheer terror to galactic delight, first time I'd felt my body as integrated energy, I collapsed, hit the ground...and fell through to "I know not where". The Dreaming, I'd fallen asleep and went straight into dream, looked about a bit, and woke up.

Would that I could have a dull moment!