una

went camping last weekend. I took some shrooms that blew my mind. Seriously, I've never tripped that hard. We all lost our minds at the same time. We were around the camp fire, though it was daytime, and it started snowing. Radiohead "in rainbows" was playing and insanity was all that was left. I couldn't form thoughts and trying to talk them out just made it worse. I tried eating some grapes but they tasted like deasert dust, I handed them to a friend cus they were too much responcibility.

It was soooo cold, that was the main preoccupation - keeping warm We had gear all right, so I wasn't afraid of my body dying - as I sometimes am on mushrooms - it was the fact that I had lost my mind completely that troubled me the most. When the CD stopped the silence was welcome. Then I could hear the wind and the trees. There were three of us. We were silent for eons.

Then we gave up, one by one, and surrendered to our own qiet indanity. Nate retired to his insulated truck bed and Wesley and I retreated into the tent. I had tried to sleep in the tent earlier. The red sleeping bag made me feel like I was a squid - I didn't like that. Crawling into the blue sleeping bag I felt like a catapillar going into a caccoon, that wasn't so bad. We had a heater in the tent so I knew we wouldn't freeze, but it was still super cold. All the lines were gone. The wind would make the tarp blow around and I'd forget where my body ended and where the tarp ended. I felt so plastic, malable.

I was in that place where anything was possible and it was completely overwhelming. We waited. If I started to fall asleep I'd loose my body and have to come back. I let go of everything, I was lost, Alice without a path, wandering aimlessly through jellow that sometimes resembled thoughts or words. I thought of Yoga. I missed my mind so much. While lost I realised there were so many things that I took for granted, my mind being the main one. "I'm glad your here cus I know you're not me," I said to Wes - that's how gone I was. I felt bad that Nate was seperate from us but we were all barely able to take care of ourselves so I had to trust that since me and Wes were OK he was OK too. Eons passed, we drifted in and out, listning to the wind on the tent, the distant cracling of the fire. . .

then something shifted. "hey," I said, "are you kinda coming back?"
"yeah."
Our smiles were huge, we erupted into laughter and happy bablings. Bit by bit little pieces of myself came back to me. I watched them return and smiled - I would think that. Bitls of ego, personality, and desires returned - but not all of them. The most important ones came first then lesser ones and some never returned. We agreed that we'd shed skin, we were too big for our old ways, we were growing. I was so thankfull that I wasn't alone in the abbys anymore. I had someone to celebrate with. It was dark now but we were exuberant so we went out to the fire.

Like the night before the moon was out and bright, a diffrent kind of day was dawning. I put wood on the fire and it was beautifull. The wind was mostly gone, it wasn't cold really. It felt like I'd been as cold as I could be. I felt that with my mind back I could do anything. I had seen the realm beyond limitations and had regained the faculty to remember it and the power to act decisevly. All other obsticles are pure illusion. After loosing my ego I saw how much I was acting from it when it returned. The posturing, the second guessing - slowly came back, but I was aware of it. Change happens slowly. I took a stick and wrote my name in the snow real big. "I like to take up space, just becuse I can" I said, quoting Ani DeFranco. Some of her songs I just adore. Nate kept sleeping, Wes and I talked for hours walking/standing around the fire. There were some stars but not enough. I felt the juniper tree's energy filling me, supporting me, cradeling me. I even saw some fairies quetly observing our conversation.

I could have stayed up all night I felt, but I followed Wesley back to the tent anyway. I slept, I dreamed.