I read a lot of Carlos Casteneda, his reports and stories of learning about healing plants used by Yaqui healers and magicians. I wondered about the drug effects, but they were not a part of my life in Kansas or Texas, Missouri or New Mexico, Oklahoma or Colorado. But in those same places his ideas and experiences were emulated by others, even by people I knew. I read—I do a lot of that—but I didn’t experience firsthand what these others knew. Oh, I did occasionally use mushrooms in salads or omelets; I ate them on steaks. I liked them but always thought of them as a luxury, a kind of decadent French sort of thing. But of course those were simple mushrooms with no powers beyond pleasing the pallet or filling the stomach.
One of my friends used the other kind of mushrooms for quite a few years. He always seemed on a quest for esoteric knowledge. Once he told me that if he wasn’t drugging, his quest went flat. High he could convince himself that the worlds of ESP, Zodiac, and other mind-bending pursuits and readings seemed wonderful: the Truth. Later, when seriously addicted and then having a cancer removed my friend was scared away from the drugs he had used and abused. Now he uses only prescribed pain killers and some un-prescribed alcohol. He’s calmed down and in his drug-lite life is saving enough money to pay off his school debts. He’s changed and seems unconcerned about special knowledge. He may feel like he’s once again living life in small-town Mid-America. I suspect, though, dancing to techno music with a light show in some cool bar could easily transport him back into the world of visions, but without the drugs he’d still be saving a lot of money. (Perhaps I’m a bit too hopeful and way too practical.) My friend’s doing well now on a path of self-preservation rather than destruction. His mind is keen. I hope he can keep it that way. Still I fear post traumatic stress reactions could become too much.
I’ve never seemed to need any kind of hallucinogen to get my mind rolling with images of the exotic, unseen, and overwhelming excitement. Always a daydreamer, I experience the unusual and incorporate those ideas and images in my teaching, writing, and artwork. I have done so not to escape, not to clutch or control power, not to become extraordinary; I have done so because the acts and perspectives seem to be what I am. Look at my life: I may seem strange.
See me…
Standing there looking at landforms I somehow love, like the relatively flat tops and steep slopes of the Kansas Flint Hills; OR
Dancing like a traditional American Indian decked out in leather and feathers, wool and beads; OR
Frightening preschoolers when I am wearing an African shaman’s mask at church; OR
Looking at a painting in the Denver Art Museum while I imagine that I am riding a horse across the high plains; OR
Dancing in rehearsal to get my middle aged and elder white choir members into the rhythm of an African American spiritual; OR
Standing alone on a hill at age twenty feeling filled with wonder at my body’s sexual relationship with nature; OR
Smoking my annual cigar at a retreat while I take in the act with a sense of exultation; OR
Sipping a beer while I prepare paints at the outset of an art project in my studio; OR
Prancing with wild abandon while I dance with a friend or alone in a techno bar on an urban Saturday night; OR
Standing on a western Colorado escarpment surrounded by hundreds of petroglyphs imagining that I can hear the horses, smell the fires of piñón and juniper, hear the chant of the singers, respond to the beating of the drum and ratcheting of bull roarers, and watching the lines of dancers greet the vernal equinox; OR
Sitting in my room as I imagine bears emerging from their winter caves to begin the seasons of warmth; OR
Seeing hunters track the deer, the sheep, and the buffalo; OR
Watching a poet friend prostrate himself before the dancing Shiva in the temple of his lonely Denver apartment made full, light, and lively by the divine presence.
I feel, see, smell, touch, taste the world, common, daily, and extraordinarily a swirl of life and love.
Guess I’ll forego the mushrooms and simply close my over-active eyes to explore some other part of my mind.
Well, something like that.
Denver, © 2013
About the Author
Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com
