MY MIND ON PLANTS

A few months back, when we were still getting ready for the June edition of Camp Wildling, Kelly sent out a request for tapestries and decorative blankets. She said “You know, the kinds of blankets you used to hang in your parents’ basement while smoking pot.” She was so surprised when she found out that I had never had such a teenage experience. First of all, no one in Oklahoma has a basement. You might have a basement, but it’s the kind of basement that is barely tall enough to stand up in. [Side rant: Yes, I understand that it makes zero sense for an area known as “Tornado Alley” to have homes without basements. There’s some sort of geological reasoning behind not digging a basement into the foundation. I just don’t really know the details of it.]

Secondly, I was raised by very devout Southern Baptists. There was zero alcohol in that house. I will still hesitate to order any kind of alcoholic beverage in front of my mother and have been known to decline just to avoid her judgmental stare. There was only one time my Dad ever brought home alcohol. I was a teenager and the last one left in the house with my parents. Dad came home with a six pack of beer and I was shocked. He told me that he found it in the parking lot at the grocery store and that he was going to make beer biscuits. I was forty five years old (yeah, this year) before it occurred to me that Dad had not ‘found’ that beer. He had purchased that beer. He had purchased that beer because he had wanted a cold brewsky, not a goddamn biscuit.

It’s not that I am completely naive when it comes to alcohol and marijuana. It’s just that I never really had that young ‘adult’ time of experimentation that many people got to have. My vision was tunneled in to school and a future career. I’m not upset by this. Not even remotely. It’s just that I am pretty much middlish aged and there are a few things that I realize that I would like to experience at least just once. I’m not talking about anything hard core. I’m not going to take up heroin or crack (are those the same thing? I don’t even know). I’m just a little interested in psilocybin and a few months ago I was gifted some in mushroom form. I did not take them the minute they were gifted to me because I wasn’t ready. I had research to do first and planning. It was all very scientific. I interviewed experienced people about how much to take and what to expect. Everyone I asked told me to be in nature for this experience. Really…that is all anyone could really say. “Take it on an empty stomach, maybe with orange juice and be in nature.” As for what to expect, I could not get a straight answer from anyone. This is probably because everyone’s experiences are different and when I did finally take my first dose, I took notes like I would for my scientific notebook.

The effects that I experienced where very subtle. It turns out that my first dose would be considered a microdose. I did sit for what felt like hours just writing down a story that is building inside my brain. That night when I went to bed, I slept so soundly that I did not hear the boisterous group of young men playing some sort of game in the their tent in the campsite next to us. I slept until after eight the next morning and only got up when I did because Josephine was standing on me, looking down into my face as if to say “it is time to get up now.” In the week that followed though, I felt a noticeable difference. It was is if a switch in my brain had been flipped from negative to positive. There was a day last week when I was interrupted while in the middle of my yoga practice. Not only was I okay with pulling my shoes on and fixing the problem, but I went back to my mat and finished my practice.

Michael Pollan, in This is Your Mind on Plants, has this to say about psilocybin:

Human consciousness is always at risk of getting stuck, sending the mind around and around in loops of rumination; mushroom chemicals like psilocybin can nudge us out of those grooves, loosening stuck brains and making possible fresh patterns of thought.

It is no secret that I have been feeling creatively stuck for some time. I just keep cranking out photos and words out of habit, while hoping that at least one photo or written thing will be something I am proud to have created. I have been in a loop of rumination. Maybe I was hoping that taking mushrooms would get me out of that loop. Maybe I was hoping that I would have some profound vision or experience that would nudge me out of a lot of different grooves. I was talking to a friend about all of this recently and our conversation turned to ayahuasca. Ayahuasca is an intense hallucinogenic experience. It involves a Shaman to guide you through your visions and it is very popular among celebrities. People who have experienced it rave about the life changing visions they experienced, only barely mentioning the intense vomiting that comes with taking ayahuasca. There is a part of me that kind of wants to have this experience, but there is a bigger part of me that knows that I don’t need this kind of experience. I can only imagine having visions of letting go of things I am unwilling to release. Also, I avoid anything that involves mild vomiting. Forget intense vomiting. No thank you.

I have more scientific experiments to do, but for now this is my mind on plant.

THINGS I'VE LEARNED AS AN ADULT

Curtsy

Fancy cheese is not as expensive as you think it is.

Seriously. If I could pass on any words of wisdom these are some of those words. It took me years to conquer being intimidated by the cheese monger and it wasn’t until I was in my mid thirties before I made my first timid inquiry about cheese. I wanted something nice to go in my potato soup but I didn’t want to break the bank. This is when I learned that I could choose the amount of cheese I was buying, thus controlling the amount of money I was spending. I realize that many of you probably knew this all along. I didn’t because I have always been pinching pennies, which means my grocery lists are streamlined. When you look over at the fancy cheese area, you see all kinds of price tags sticking up like flags. These prices always seem too exorbitant for my budget. Those little flaggy price tags are prices per pound. You do not need a pound of fancy cheese to make whatever it is you want to make. This means you will be paying less than whatever the price flag says. Do not be sticker shocked by cheese.

Another bit of wisdom that I could pass along is that mushrooms do not weigh anything.

This one is a recent discovery. We were in Whole Foods on Saturday to pick out some fish to go with our risotto that was planned for our dinner and to rummage through the cheese under five dollar bin (see? cheap fancy cheese). Along the way to the seafood section, I noticed a small crate of morrel mushrooms. They were thirty dollars a pound. I gasped at the price tag, but then I picked up one of the mushrooms. Michael noticed me holding the morrel with an inquisitive look on my face and I said to him “How much do you think this mushroom weighs?” Michael grabbed a handful of mushrooms and headed to the scale. Those six or so mushrooms weighed about 0.06 lbs. We picked out a dozen or so mushrooms that turned out to be about four dollars and was plenty of mushrooms to add to our risotto. Neither one of us had eaten morrels before because they were too expensive and about the only place you could get them was at a farmers market; if you were lucky to find that one vender who had them.

That’s it. That is about all of the wisdom I can pass on to a young person. Do not be intimidated by the prices on fancy cheeses and mushrooms do not weigh anything. Okay. I might have a few more tidbits like know how to pay your bills and manage your finances. It is not necessarily a bad idea to have an end of life plan because life is unpredictable. The unpredictability of life makes every day kind of important. College isn’t for everyone, but you should still have a career plan. Do not be afraid to spend money on good shoes that are good for your feet. Always pack at least one sweater because the weather is just as unpredictable as life.

But I really think you’re going to get the most value from the cheese and mushroom advice.

THEY COME TO LIFE

Mi amor

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She glanced over her shoulder as she stepped around the corner, making sure that she was not being watched or followed by her chaperone. She found herself in an obscure section of the museum that held Egyptian antiquities. Rumors of curses and illnesses kept this section generally free of visitors, making it the perfect location for a clandestine meeting. At the moment, though, she appeared to be alone. So she wandered the display cases of Egyptian pottery and jewelry ordained with bright, colorful scarab beetles. She settled in front of a case filled with cat statues and checked her watch. He was late. Maybe he wouldn't even show at all, she thought. Her chaperone had probably already started looking for her by now. She felt her cheeks flush with heat at the thought of being discovered, at the thought of being discovered with him, at the thought of him not showing up at all. Then she felt his presence; knew that he was standing just behind her. A coy smile came to her lips. He leaned in and whispered into her ear. She sighed and leaned back, into him. He kissed the side of her neck, just under her ear. Her eyelashes fluttered and she shivered slightly at the sensation of his lips on her neck.