For the past 8 or 9 years, soon after beginning to explore psychedelics, I’ve dreamed of living at, working on, and being part of a holistic healing psychedelic retreat centre.
Now, I’m living at, working on and being a part of Holos. What was once a dream has become a reality. Am I happy? Sure. Am I now seeking something else? Of course.
Although I’m enjoying my time working at Holos, it was immediately clear to me that this is not my resting place. I can imagine myself coming back to Holos intermittently, but I do not imagine myself living at, working on and being a part of Holos (or another psychedelic-healing centre) as a kind of ultimate destination, as I once imagined it.
What I once thought of as a finish line has turned into a pit stop.
As I settle into the present moment, I feel a tension between staying and moving along. I want to remain here because I am where I’ve been wanting to be, I don’t want to remain here because I am where I’ve been wanting to be. I have what I wanted so I no longer want it. Buddha was right, I now want something else. What do I want? I don’t know, but I feel anxious about not knowing what I want, not knowing where to go.
I wonder, can I be content with where I am without knowing where I’m going? John says: wherever you go, there you are. I’ve been training for this on my way here.
I guess it’s time to put it all into practice, it’s time to start being here now, again.
Ram Dass would be proud.
I began taking LSD and mushrooms when I was 17 as I was looking for something more. Life felt half-assed. I wasn’t happy, I abused drugs, and I felt that there was more to life than what I was being told and sold. I sought Spirit in a materialist world.
I found what I was looking for in LSD and mushrooms, and I bit off more than I could chew. Over the past decade, and on my way to Holos, I learned to chew what was already in my mouth. I’ve integrated what I bit off — a lot of material that was received through many deep and heavy dose LSD and mushroom journeys. I’ve digested a lot of stuff. I’ve learned, healed and evolved from what was once a traumatic and destabilizing psychedelic experience.
Last week, at Holos, I participated in an intimate and relaxed Huachuma ceremony amongst a small group of new friends. This was my second time taking Huachuma, a gentle and playful medicine. During the ceremony, we wandered to waterfalls where we explored, climbed, dived, swam and played. I felt completely present. To my surprise, I didn’t receive any significant spiritual, philosophical, personal or creative insights as I have with most my previous experiences. Instead, I just was. It felt very simple, and compared to all my previous psychedelic experiences, underwhelming.
At the end of the ceremony, I shared the significance of my presence at Holos with the group. As per the tradition of the ceremonialist, I began by expressing gratitude. I gave thanks to the people that helped me get to where I was. I then shared a struggle. I expressed confusion to the fact that I feel I have come full circle and completed a chapter in my process of transfiguration. I feel that I am entering a state of completion from a state of processing, a state of completion which will be followed by a new and higher state of processing. The journey is recursive. In this state of completion, I am unsure of how to be, as I haven’t been here before (maybe as a young child). As I write, I realize it is now time to put what I've learned from the journey into practice.
As I realize, I begin to feel deeply whole, complete, joyful and at peace.
Maybe the Huachuma was showing me how to feel into that.
The journey has no end. I now seek something other than where I am. What I once sought is no longer propelling me, as it is found. I seek something else, something new, something more. I more clearly understand the teachings of Buddha as I recognize my never-ending desires. The finish line was just a pit stop.
As my prayer during the ceremony came to a close, I could feel everyone intently listening to and looking at me as I kneeled in the middle of the circle sharing my story of making my way to Holos and healing from a traumatic acid trip. Lastly, I shared my wish for clarity, discernment, patience and compassion as I moved into the next chapter of my life. Although this feels like an end, I know this is a new beginning.
Although this feels like a death, I know this is a rebirth. My journey hasn’t ended.
At the age of 17, I dove into the unknown and experienced tremendous suffering. Throughout the past decade, I have processed that anguish and have returned to a state of relative wholeness. The Dark Night of the Soul I experienced on LSD when I was a teenager guided my life for the past 10 years. It was a source of meaning and direction. Now that this experience feels sufficiently integrated, I can make peace with it, I can let it go. As I let go of what has given my life so much meaning and direction, I feel lost, and am unsure of how to proceed. As I feel the closing of a life’s chapter, I wonder, what’s next? If the journey never ends, does it ever begin?
Is there a final destination? Maybe that's what enlightenment or awakening is.
On my path, so far, I’ve realized that awakening is in every moment, the goal is in every moment, the destination is in every journey. As a spiritual being in a material incarnation, I create material goals for a spiritual journey. The material goals give the spiritual journey direction and meaning that my spiritual being can relate to in its material incarnation. The material goals are important parts of the spiritual path.
As I settle the “destination” of my last decade’s journey, I see my inability to appreciate where I am now. Without appreciating, being present, or feeling joy, I immediately search for what’s next. As I write these words, I recognize the value in appreciating where I am now and everything I’ve done to get here.
What was once my dream is now my reality, so my dream is no longer a dream.
I don’t have a dream, goal or destination anymore, and I feel lost because I’m so accustomed to having a dream to move towards. As I reflect on where I’ve been and where I am, I realize that along the way here, I have deepened my relationship to the one true destination: the present. However, the relationship can deepen further.
I could get better at being here now. I’ve been a little distracted lately.
The goal was never the point, the process was the point. Now that I’ve completed the process, I seek a new goal. But what if I take my time to enjoy the goal I’ve reached?
That’s what I’m going to do. As I settle at Holos, I feel a renewed commitment to the practices that keep me tuned into my spiritual being. I’m thus going to enjoy being present with the reality that was once a dream. I’m going to dive back into Vipassana meditation, yoga, and conscious connected breathing, none of which I have been practicing consistently since I began travelling in Costa Rica. I’m going to stop using all substances (psychedelic and not), again. I’ve been wanting to be sober this entire decade, on my way to Holos, but I didn’t do it. It was too intimidating since I loved using substances. However, I now feel a growing sense of personal power and a gradual loss of interest in my own use of psychoactive substance.
I am returning to the basics. I am beginning again.
Continually, I am beginning again.
Thanks for reading. I wrote this essay in an hour and haven’t read over it many times. I’m trying to write and publish more, and hold onto my writing less while telling myself that I’m “editing” even though I’m not doing anything with it. Find me at lou.fyi.
Goenka voice: “START AGAINNNNNN”