This is a short piece I wrote on my first experience with bufo. It is part of a bigger thing I have been working on.

From 1-0

“Oh fuck!”, I said out loud as I fell to the mat. I knew my heart might explode. I was told to count down from 10. I can remember making it to 7 before I was gone… Somehow I am protected from the heat. Somehow I still exist. I still feel a memory or something like a memory. The thought is gone, but I believe I am still here. Somehow this white hot light that keeps my everything warm like the sun, still preserves all I used to think I was, while also preparing this vessel for all that has ever been and will be. It feels like too much to hold at once. It’s all new to me. This pain, this comfort. To be held in this way, threatens all that I know to be true. Is it really okay to let go now? Is this the beginning, or the end? Somehow I now remember what it felt like in my mother’s womb. Pure surrender. Pure hell. Pure love. This always was and always will be. I do know I am terrified. I don’t know if we are supposed to vibrate like this. I see my magical wand now, shaped like a human hand. The hand creates from a space outside of this simple slow moving plain. Its eye sees through the fabric of time and space. It bends all that may be into pleasing colorful lights, beaming from its center. This is creation. Never to be stopped, owned, twisted, distorted, or ruined. I am all and all is one. As I remember my body, my mouth begins to move. The words fly out faster than what feels humanly possible. Am I still human? Am I GOD? Is there a difference? If I only I could explain to these people what I just experienced. We could have peace. “Please listen to me!” I yell with extreme excitement. Daniel would tell me later that when I came back into my body, my ego was awfully excited. What does he know? I am the one with the vision. I talk to god. Do you talk to god? He probably doesn’t understand anything I am saying right now. I finally start to come down. I am not sure if I was out for hours or for minutes. I woke from a dream and now everything was brand new. Maybe I am not god, but did I at least meet him? I don’t really remember now. It’s all so confusing. But I feel amazing, so I guess it was a “good” experience. “Why are humans so basic?”, I think, “I sure hope I didn’t make a scene, that would be embarrassing.” The more I come down, the more I begin to feel my body. My joints feel worked, muscles strained, bruised, and broken feeling. What happen to me? My head hurts. Before we began the ceremony, Daniel told me “Sometimes, the toad can feel like being hit by a truck.” He wasn’t wrong. I want to know everything. I ask him and his partner, who helped manage empty body during my journey, every question I could come up with to try and gain some sort of insight into what I had just experienced. Both of their faces wore smiles bigger than I had ever seen. Tears streamed down her face. They did their best to explain. Words didn’t feel helpful. All I really gather is I went deep, really deep. And while I was in, my body thrashed around, outside of their control. As I ponder my new aches, I recall a roll over car accident I was in when I was about 7 or 8 years old. I haven’t thought of that in years. On the drive home I searched for a fast food joint. Some place with big juicy cheeseburgers. Daniel had told me that I should just take care of myself, even if I felt like I wanted a burger. But why did I want a burger? Recently I had been mostly a vegetarian. And today there was something in me that just needed that extra bit of protection, something heavy. Everything was so bright and loud. Something big had happened to me. What was it? I was staying in a camper parked at my friends property in Southern Tucson, AZ. It was only me. I wondered why they had this big nice house with no one living in it. That night, I felt a peace that I had never experienced before. Maybe this medicine did some serious healing. Maybe this will change everything. As I prepare to lay down, I had the first of many reactivations. It started with a smell. The toad medicine was still there with me. I knew it probably would never leave me. In fact, I now knew it had always been with me. My dreams were really something that night. When I woke, I was on fire. I felt reborn. The cuts and bruises would heal. I am a young powerful man. I can do anything, I thought. I felt inspired to drive around the beautiful desert and look for land that was for sale. The drive sounded like a treat. “This is a new beginning”, I thought. I put on some of my favorite music, hearing it through a new set of human ears. I just figured out why this one of my favorite albums, even though I had been listening to it for 21 years. My truck needed gas. Pulling into the gas station, I felt fresh. No need for breakfast. I am solar powered and I have infinite energy. I enter through the main entrance at the larger than normal fuel stop. The weight of the world seem to be trapped within the sealed box. The corpses inside seemed to embody more hurt than I had ever previously known. When I broke that seal, I shared the air, I owned the pain. I sucked it all out. I ran out immediately as tears and sobs burst from my broken down meat suit. This was it. I finally did it. This was a mistake I thought. What is this can, and what are worms? Am I going to die alone?