LSD - Paradise and the White Light (Part 2)

Reluctantly...I agreed to drive, thinking I was brave, when all I really was, was a stupid kid. After agreeing to do it, it became the simple instinct to survive that would save me now. I was the one with the car. I was supposed to be the "responsible" one. If this succeded, I wanted to be the one to get us through. Of course, the darker realization was that I knew that if we were to FAIL, *I* would likely be blamed for it.

At this point let me do the full and clear disclosure on this particular topic...

DON'T DRIVE WHEN YOU'RE FUCKED UP. Sitting here today, I can tell you that I DO NOT think that ANYONE should drive a car or operate heavy or dangerous machinery of any kind when intoxicated on any substance. Just learn how to make the best of where you are, for godsakes! Stupid humans always think there is some place else to be all the time. BE where you are. Our own minds have plenty of interesting places to see when we are intoxicated. Even driving high on Cannabis - while less dangerous than almost all other substances, even coffee - is STILL a mistake. And driving drunk on alcohol is probably one of the biggest of mistakes. The only bigger mistake would be driving while on psychedelics. We made the BIGGEST mistake. But, in a lightening strike of good fortune (or celestial protection) we never had to pay for that mistake. Most people DO pay, dearly.

Do also consider that in the 1980's the anti-drunk driving movement and the public outrage which accompanied it was just beginning to really take hold. Unfortunately, my friends and I still did it routinely. We were the worst offenders. We DID combine driving with pot, alcohol, and, in my case atleast, LSD and other psychedelics. It was so fucking stupid that I really debated whether to include these accounts here.

But I decided to do it because, my luck seemed to be TOO "supernatural" in this regard (I don't believe it was dumb luck). It is no longer that way for me. And I'm scared to drive now after only one beer. The ignorant involnerablitily that ruled my life in those years from high school through to my 30's actually still frightens me now, in some sense. I feel as though I may someday need to pay off that karmic debt...somehow. Anyway...

I foolishly trusted that JL, being only drunk, would do alright as our captain. DC would be the pilot, and I would blow on or lower the sails as we went. I was able to start the car, pull on the lights and back it out onto the street by myself. It was easier to do than I had thought. I felt more confident as we began to roll forward. However, as soon as we reach about 25 mph (which felt like 1,000 mph), I began to have the trailing images so intensely that I had to ask DC to take the wheel for a second. At first I couldn't tell if cars approached I couldn't tell if their blinding headlights were infront, passing by or passing THROUGH us. I didn't even want to step on the gas anymore. Although the three of us were scared shitless, we were still laughing and joking around. The extreme irresposibility of our actions seemed to feed our need to push on to whatever conclusion was to befall us. We knew it was wrong, this made it much more exciting, and, somehow (not sure exactly why?) we also knew we would be fine.

By the time we had to get to the first turn, a left, I had pulled myself together and was adapting to the situation, by using that instict I mentioned earlier. Somehow my clarity and confidence was coming back. I was probably also just beginning to come down from the acid. Still the visions and distractions were coming in waves, and more strangeness was yet to come.

I took hold on the wheel and took control of the situation. We weren't going to crash on my watch. It was a reversion to self-confidence in a crisis situation that had always served me well. And later on, during those stormy years just ahead, I was able to access this same "power" (if you will), whenever it was needed. For me, it truly was a "talent" that I finished grooming on that very first LSD-filled night. That was the night that trained me as a "designated driver" (ususally for my friends), even though I was loaded too. It never failed, and the many, many tragedies that could have been, never took place. Only God knows why. I DESERVED to have been killed or been thrown in prison for accidently killing someone else during that time. Having lived through it and survived, and having brought all of the people who trusted me to get them from point to point through it, vastly strengthened my faith that God had his reasons leaving that particular aspet of my life alone.

Even today, I absolutely know that something kept us safe. We were meant to experience all the other incredible things instead. When we pulled into 7-11 I was feeling like Moses having just received the 10 commandments of driving loaded. There were a whole bunch of other people kicking around the store, inside and out. I didn't want to go in, because I was so fascinated by the street light attached to the wall infront of the car. JL went in and bought his usual midnight snack: combos and whole milk. Damn! If that didn't look good? But I wasn't in the least bit hungry. On future trips I learned that forcing myself to eat just after a peak, was a wise idea, no matter how many hallucinatory insects were crawling out of it. Replacing carbohydrates and giving the body energy is key in this situation.

It was now past midnight and as JL and I sat there waiting for DC to return, he said, "So, what do things look like? I mean are they different?"

"Yeah..." I said, sensing my own spaciness, "...everything is like... in prisms..." From that night forward JL would always tease me with, "Yo... You trippin, man? Are things like... in 'prisms'?"

I don't think he ever tried LSD, not even to this day. He didn't need to. DC and I (and many, many others) took enough for him to get the idea and he observed us over a long enough time to view the darker side of acid. He had no need for any of it. But I do think it fascinated him, the way a scientist is fscinated by the behavior of rats in an experiment. It took long enough just to get him to smoke weed.

Our other friend, BW, was a rare animal indeed, he never even smoked weed! Cigarettes and beer were his thing; and, unexpectedly, one night, cough medicine. That was funny.

Finally DC came back and we all agreed we needed to get home. The next day was a big practice for our band. I think we were going to use some of the studio time we had just won and needed to brush up our originals. We were one of the few bands writing our own songs. Back in the 80's, clubs didn't usually allow the playing of original tunes. But we were all fascinated by songwriting and had been doing bits and pieces of it since 8th grade. We knew that eventually original songs would be what is desired, and that no group would ever make it big playing covers. Now, today, that is exactly the case. The proliferation of "singer/songwriters" (a term not known in the 80's) and so-called "indie" bands are ALL THERE IS. Today, the opposite club situation requires that bands be more and more original. Again, we were fortunate to be at the very start of this. It is something I am proud of us for.

We drove to DC's house without incident and he got out, but looked at me and said with a huge smile on his face, "...I'll talk to YOU tomorrow." JL and I drove on to his house. He kept asking me what I was seeing "Now?...OK, how about now?" He was a riot. He kept things light for us that night and I'll aways appreciate that. He could have been a real asshole, but it just is not in his nature.

As soon as I was on the road again, headed home, I began talking to JL again, as if he were still there. Then I looked and remembered he had just gotten out. As I drove on, slowly and carefully, I passed two police cars. I SWORE that they somehow knew I was tripping. But, no, they just drove on and I made it home without any worst-case scenarios presenting themselves. My relief upon making it safely home was enormous. It was like finishing a marathon, climbing off the roller coaster...or getting away with a crime that you KNOW you'll never be charged with. Perhaps this story is my way of finally charging myself. Thankfully the psychological crimes statute of limitations is well-in effect now.

I turned off the car and prepared myself, as best I could, to faced the next adventure: Mom and Dad.

The front light was on, the house was astir and voices penetrated the late night air. I had been hopping for a stealthy entrance and then going straight up to my room. Thankfully, that's pretty much how it went. Mom came up to me and hugged me as I walked in. She joked that it was only 1:30 in the morning. Usually, I strolled in at about 3. I couldn't say much, but I smiled and nodded, and told her I was tired and needed to go to bed. My Dad said "hi" from the kitchen where he seemed to be enjoying his large bowl of late-night cereal.

Before, heading upstairs I peered back at them, watching my Mom make her way down the hall toward my Dad in the kitchen. They looked like two little cartoon, gnome-type characters, just doing their little things, puttering around, making the same old small talk with each other. It was like a movie about how cliche-like life can be.

I had a strong impression that they (and everyone in the world who wasn't tripping) were beings stuck in grooves. These grooves were originally just expectations, painted on the ground by society, their parents, teachers, bosses, and friends... But, by buying into the secular, cultural, "religion" of the 8th decade of the 20th Century, they were digging those grooves deeper and deeper. Surely, people at the end of their over-worked, under-loved American lives were so deeply embedded in the grooves they dug, that not even the free symbol of the sky was left to be seen above. I made the decision then and there to never start digging my own groove in the ground. People's habits and routines anchor them to worlds that become less and less REAL, the more they dig at the outlines of everyone else's expectations for them. I didn't fully see all of this as clearly as I just wrote it, but that was the first time I ever clearly identified such a social truth in my own life.

I felt that I was the one tasting the "forbidden fruit" and that they were the good little townsfolk of Gnomeville, who just minded their own business...not wanting to ask very much about such things...or, really, ANYthing. My parents never smoked cigarettes and only drank maybe 4 drinks a year, as a couple. And they would have never taken LSD!

Eventually, I made it up to my bedroom. I remember very distictly reaching out for the door knob and seeing my arm stretch almost infinitely to grasp it. Turning on the over-head light was like a blast of unmitigated brilliance, which then faded and fell upon the typically messy confines of my room. Dirty laundry, plates with half-eaten things, a desk filled with poetry and drawings, below my mirror. I hastened over to the mirror to look at myself. I looked much better than I thought I would. I had a tan and gold hair, a cross on a chain around my neck... I was the quintessentially "cool" kind of high school kid for my generation, at least I thought this in my very-altered state. However, this helped feel more comfortable. I was bearly aware of the achievement I had made by taking LSD and having such a night filled with adventure. It could have been a dream, but yet it wasn't.

Then, there up against the window I saw my 4 track cassette, tape recorder. I had received it at Christmas the year before. It was an extremely generous thing for my parents to give me, considering it was about $400, and they were always so strapped for cash. I felt a real appreciation of their love for me. They could tell that I would use it and appreciate it. And BOY did I ever.

I turned off the big over-head light and switched on the desk lamp. That was better. My mind was racing still. I couldn't believe what was happening to me. I couldn't understand why everyone wasn't allowed to try LSD at least once in their lives. It was simply the greatest secret in history and no one was doing anything with it anymore. I say these things as a kid who was taking it 20 years after it became illegal. This legal status just wasn't acceptable to me. The world had to know the truth eventually. They had to re-discover the potential that this stuff gives us. I sat down and like the hands of a priest opening the sacred book of all his dreams and visions, I switched on the power to the 4 track. Its characteristic whine sounded and all the small LED's lit up ready for me to listen to...

Now, mind you, I had been smoking Cannabis for a couple years off and on. It was easy to buy at school. We had only one "school yard dealer," TC, who always sold 1 joint for $3 or 2 for $5. And I was a 2 or 3 time per week customer. As was everyone. I mean (practically) EVERYONE. I remember very well, one day that was particularly stressful at school. I simply HAD to get stoned after, but had spent all my daily money on other things. Then I remembered that I had a bag of change in my locker and brought it all to TC. He was LIVID! He went right up one side of me and down the other... "DOLLAR BILLS!" he yelled through a very intense whisper, "Not change! NOT change!" I basically admitted defeat at his scolding, dumping all my nickles and dimes into my pocket again. As I slowly walked away, head downcast and practically whimpering, he said, "Oh FUCK! OK... but never again." Well, that certainly turned my frown upside-down, and a pleasant afternoon was enjoyed for sure.

It was the insights I gained from Cannabis that were currently being channeled into my recording experiments that year. I was dying with anticipation to hear them while under the influence of LSD. Because the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin made good use of backward recording; that had been my concentration too, of late. I put on my headphones and pressed play...

It was like opening an audio wormhole. Two figurative hands writhed up through the headphones wire and siezed my ears. With a tug and a jerk, they pulled my mind - launched it really - into a space of vision activated by sound. LSD is such an integrator of sensory information. I could taste the red lines of music like strawberry candy, smell the golden harmonies, like bannana, feel a wind that rushed through my inner mind. The music was fully animated before me. It was a recording artist's wet dream: To SEE music.

Immediately I took out my guitar and laid down some new tracks. I flipped the cassette tape over and listened (watched?) to it backwards. I taught myself how to form the chord patterns I wanted to hear backward by anticipating them in the forward realm first. To say it was amazing cheapens the memory. It was more like the most profound thing I have ever witnessed, even after a night over-filled with profundity.

For 3 hours or so I kept playing around with recoding ideas. And all the while images of places I'd never seen before passed in front of me. Intense emotions about my girlfriend at the time, KD, my work in the band, and my mounting interest in psychedelic exploration, simply flowed out of me. I thought I was actually sweating it out like some kind of hallucinogenic ectoplasm. I would wipe my hand across my brow, but it would be dry. I was psychologically melting into the music and the moment. As the morning light grew closer, I started to yawn more. This was telling me that I had to get some sleep at some point.

I shut off the recorder, took off all my clothes and climbed into bed, with my bed lamp on beside me. As I peered down my covers - a dark grey comforter, with a white grid of quarter inch squares printed on it - it appeared to be an ocean of warm, soft water. I looked down again and the grid was floating above the grey of the comforter. I pulled my hand out from beneath the covers and tried to touched the floating grid. It was like trying to touch a 3D image in a movie like Avatar. I tried to work my fingers between the grid and the blanket. But obviously, that was impossible. I was stunned by the contrasts between what the mind was producing for me and the physical world's refusal to give in to those illusions. Later in life I would realize that often the best method for exploration meant taking a break from the physical world. And in my more recent lucid dreaming experiments, the focus has been on REPLACING the physical world with the world within.

My body felt tired but my mind was still awake. I shut off the lamp by the bed and just watched the air infront of me. Paisley forms and highly geometric images twisted and unfurled as they had done when I was in the car the night before examining things that I thought were'nt supposed to move. And that is when I first became aware of the so-called "White Light." It wasn't until many years had gone by that I heard other people's description of this phenomenon.

Basically, behind the paisley, behind the "sky of mind," behind the image infront of my eyes, even behind the images inside of me, shone a brilliant white field of light. One can only think of "heaven" when one becomes aware of it. I decided to devote much of my life to finding the place where the White Light exists. And I would often find veiled like beautiful woman who seemed to always require more experience than I had, before revealing her "face." As my experiences "going within" increased, I would catch longer glimpses. It is a shifting, scintillating, rustling form of light that is dirceted everywhere at once. It is the place where that person who whispered to me using the wind through the trees at the party resides. And it was the perfect final vision for a first acid trip.

The clock said "5:00" and the birds had just begun singing. I was all worried about not getting any sleep and still having to jam later that day. Then I remembered that DC was probably still awake too. At least we'd be in the same boat at the jam. Well after sunrise, perhaps around 6:30, I finally had pockets of sleep that I found myself slipping into and out of. By about 7:30 I was sleeping lightly.

At around 10 am I heard my mom calling me. I sprung awake. "JL is on the phone," she said. "Did you hear me?"

I rubbed my eyes as if I were participating in the day that never ends. My sleep was not even restful. But, with a youthful energy that has long-since fled, I sat up and said, "Yeah...yeah...I'll get the phone." I picked it up half-knowing what to expect.

"HA!" JL said. "How ya feelin sunshine?"

We both laughed and kept saying, "Oh my God!...Oh my fucking God!!"

Finally, he just said, "Hey, I'm picking up DC, you pick up JG and we'll meet at BW's."

On the way to JG's house for some reason I saw JL drive by with DC. We both jammed on the brakes and backed up to each other's cars. In the front seat was an exhausted DC, wide-eyed and grinning from ear to ear. Then, after the "Oh my fucking God" thing started up again, mixed with his story of watching his arm melt earlier in the morning, we separated and finished the journey to jamming headquarters: BW's house.

And so ends the story of the very first acid trip I ever went on.


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I've wanted to write about it for all these years. It is like a psychic birthing process that, now-over, gives me a great relief at finally getting it out.

There will be many more adventures to come on this blog. My intention here is to both record my fairly extensive experiences with psychedelics and entheogens over the last 30 years AND to address the issues we are now facing in a more enlightening age (notice I didn't say, "enlightened age"). Our society and the sacred medicines that are its most powerful transformers has come to the tipping point here in 2010.

In Novemeber of this year it is very likely that California will pass a bill legalizing recreational use of Cannabis. This could be the coup de grâce for a national re-evaluation of drug policy. And with lots of hopes and prayers, the collapse of the unjust drug scheduling policies. The time has come to be more blunt about how our denial of the benefits of these substances is SO hypocritical as to have become CRIMINAL and even amoral.


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If you run across this blog, please feel free to send a comment for review. Please also consider registering and making a contribution. I am very poor and writing is my only means of income right now.


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Remember to wear your soul on the outside.

LSD - Paradise and the White Light (Part 1)

I took LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) for the first time during the summer of 1985 with my friend DC. It was paper blotter, called "Paradise" and was the genuine thing: LSD-25. We bought it from JN, so we trusted him. I think we bought 5 hits at $3 per hit. Reflecting back on that first time in comparison to later times, I would estimate each hit was about 200 mics. We split our purchase into 2.5 squares each. Then we each folded and ripped off 1 of those squares and placed them on the tips of our tongues. We chewed them until the paper was fairly dissolved and then swallowed it. Later I learned that you can just swallow it. Even then, sometimes it gets stuck to the side of your throat. Or, even worse, you THINK that its stuck to the side of your throat...for the next three hours. Luckily this was not to be our destiny that night.

As I mentioned, we each took 1 hit. This left us each with 1.5 hits. Another aspect to early experience with LSD is the occassionally compelling desire to finish all the acid you have on you. We didn't know how long it would take to really come on. So, after about 1 and a half hours of feeling the hint of something, but not really "seeing" much, we decided to take another 0.5 hit each. In later years this would have been a BIG mistake for me. But because it was my first time - and I was still a virgin to the full-blown psychedelic experience - the drug treated me more gently than it would after I really got to know it. Still, then, after another half hour or so of incredible things coming on, we each took our last hit. Thus, we were about to cruise on about 500 mics each! This was also the most I ever took.

I can honestly say that it had been my intention to try LSD for quite some time, even since the time I was fairly young, about 12 years old. Since 1980, after John Lennon's death and my subsequent fascination with his life, I really saw what a difference there was in him, The Beatles, to music in general, to visual art, fashion, politics...the list is endless...after being introduced to LSD. The transformation to our planet's concept of music alone brought about by the Beatles' experimentation and inner explorations with LSD along with their application of those discoveries to their music, is a well-known historical anomaly. Through their music (and that of other bands) the spread of thousands of new musical and lyrical ideas into all of society really inspired me in ways I am still discovering. And they most certainly determined my life's path. Music seems to provide such a perfect backdrop to the history of the 20th. Century. And the music of ca. 1966-1976 was perhaps more full of this than the music of any other period, because of the new dimensions that psychedelics were allowing arists to access and then transfer into their art.

DC and I were both musicians in a band. We played the music of these other bands, though we were more interested in the New Wave and Punk of our own decade. Still we were groomed by learning their music. Also our band had just won the "State Rock-Off"; becoming one of the most popular groups in the state. Even in high school we got permission from our parents to skip school and play at bars and other events all over Maine. I just had to hide my braces when we were at bars. Later that summer, one of our songs was put on a Polygram record (vinyl and cassette) album; something unheard-of for a high school band at that time.

And in the small, neighboring towns where we all went to school, we enjoyed an almost celebrity-like status. It was simply the sum of all school boy fantasies come true. I wish I could have enjoyed it more happily when I was there doing it. After this night in 1985, this unusually fortunate start would turn my own world more inward for me, leading to the desire for a less public life. I hope to make it public again, but the time isn't right yet. Still, there we were at the top of our game and about to have the most profound experience of our lives. I'm sure if asked today, DC would completely agree.

It was a gorgeous evening, late spring, and the tiny rose bushes around the edges of this guy's yard were in bloom. They gave the air a scent that was like incense. The sky was brilliant orange fading into a deep pink, by the bright, western horizon. That early nightfall was dreamy even without drugs. It was a party that would have been lost to my memory without what was about to occur though.

Thankfully, we didn't have to transport beer because it was a kegger. We walked in the house of the guy having the party and filled up our cups. Inside, were all kinds of people. Seniors in high school (we were Juniors) were running the bash, but they all greeted us kindly. As with so many other events, I saw many faces from our town and the surrounding towns that I recognized. Of course, I sucked at remembering names anyway but with the rushing feeling of being pulled up the chairlift alongside the LSD mountain beginning to form in my mind, I was forgetting everything! But I was SO euphoric that it didn't matter to me. I almost felt like I was being selfish by not explaining the wonders I was beginning to see.

My mind was so distracted by the feelings and extra-sensory information of the trip that after only about 10 minutes inside my only wish was to go outside. Besides, the beer was going through me in quick procession, in a vein attempt to calm myself down, building up to the prospect of a big piss. When you trip, the effect of alcohol is like nothing at all in comparison. So you can down beers like water. Gone, was the usual, dizzy feeling and poor coordination of beer. It did keep all its socially lubricating aspects though.

Every guy knows that the best bathroom of a house party is the backyard. So I worked my way back through all the familiar, but nameless, faces in the house. Opening the front door and stepping outside into that natural beauty stunned me. It seemed like a sudden immersion into some jellified, infinite plain of shifting greens, utterly surrounded by a sunset that literally took my breath away. I gingerly stepped down the front porch and walked around the corner to back yard.

I found a quite bush and commenced to water it. After pissing for about 300 years (that's "trip years" - more like 3 minutes), I was flushed out, entirely reborn, and ready to head back into the unknown.

Coming into the clearing of the back yard, I caught up with DC again. And, hell, there was KC with his VW van opened up like a campsite. He had his own pony keg, and was selling "additional" beer. We told him we had just taken some acid. He smiled, leaned forward and looked deeply at each of us, straight into our eyes... "Whoa!!" he said, "You guys are still on the way up!" DC and I looked at each other's eyes and the irises were but shining, small rims around what looked like voids in space. We just completely lost it when we actually looked at each other! We laughed so hard it was painful.

This attention to the eyes became a regular motif in the months and years to come. Every person who trips on LSD has had the experience of the standard eye examination by someone who isn't tripping. Constantly being subjected to this would eventually lead me to doing LSD in very small amounts, without telling people. Our good friend and fellow bandmate who was with us that night, JL, decided not to take the stuff but was endlessly fascinated by what DC and I were doing and acting like. In later months, only half-kidding, he would walk up to me every time we saw eachother and stick his face in mine; reaching up to open one of my eyes with his fingers. And in his formerly urban, New Hampshire accent he'd say, "Yo...man...yo...you trippin? You trippin, man?" Then he'd smile and go, "HA!" Of course most of the time I wasn't, but sometimes he did catch me.

SW, the older brother of our friend BW, showed up with his entourage. He was the ultimate in coolness (at least he seemed like it that night). He had an aggressive New York accent and was into body building, with blond hair, cut in the super-short "Top Gun" style that was just becoming popular. He told us about the time he first took LSD and the ritual that the guy who gave it to him put him through. He asked us if we would want to try it. Dumbly, we just kind-of "...uh-huh"ed an answer.

So, he sat us down beside each other on one side of the picnic table, and he sat down facing us on the other side. He said "I'm gonna show you why they call it 'tripping.'" He had us put our faces down upon our arms, on the table. Then he began to talk about building a picture on the emptiness we saw. I don't really remember much of what he brought us through, but I do remember that is was an amazing thing. Like walking through the world of a fairy tail. Later, he was kind of a critic about how often I would dose. But I was stupid in that devil-may-care age and circumstance--and he was probably right. After our picnic table trip, DC and I seemed to become linked telepathically. Even the next day at our jam session, we were finishing each other's sentences. That first night though, I found that not only did images trail on behind everything that moved, or that I passed by, but that the psychic "image" of other people's presences also lingered in the mind. We decided we wanted to hang out in the car and smoke butts for a while, just to chill out and listen to the radio.

My car was parked safely off the road and pinned in by other cars. So - theoretically - we weren't going anywhere else. There were people milling about, puking in the bushes, fucking out on blankets...all around the car. We had the best seats at the party. And no one got in fights, no one ended up falling through the china cabinet, it was just very... well... friendly. I think a lot of other people were tripping too. Trippers aren't violent unless industrial quantities of alcohol are consumed by them, with other stuff too. Infrequent tripping makes you want to paint a perfect social picture with your friends whenever you do get around to taking it again. LSD was a hint of what "Ecstasy" (3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or "MDMA") would provide for young people in the coming rave culture of the 1990's. Note the overlap in history here. I lived in the Northeast US where more progressive cultural novelties take longer to pass through the puritanical filter. Some say that even in 1985, London was pounding out all-night syncopated, musical, drug fests that will never be seen again. Regardless, I can only go by what I've experienced.

I remember the radio in the car sounded like it wasn't coming out of the speakers, but rather from all directions at once. It was not "stereo," it had become "unieo." We just kept looking at each other with our jaws dropped in amazement at how strange things were becoming. And DC and I, as band-mates, seemed to understand without discussing it, what it might be like to PLAY music, while dosed. We chain-smoked cigarettes while we pointed to different things and agreed about what they looked like.

Looking westward, into the place where the sun had gone down, the branches and leaves of the trees were now framed in millions of stained glass, tessellated hexagons. The middle of each tiny hexagon was a window to the sky behind it. And the sharply defined edges of each was a simple, thin line, changing in thickness as its associated branch/leaf system swayed in the summer breeze. And there was a marked impression of SEEING the breeze itself. It was very much as if we were able to catch another part of the electromagnetic spectrum; one that revealed the invisible actions of nature. And not only was this synesthesia of "viewing" the wind occurring, but it was also audible as a kind of speech. Somewhere behind what I was seeing, someone was whispering to me. The movement of air through the trees was like the vocal chords of this hidden person. And the trees continued these whispers as the now-visible breeze drifted off of their tips like spiralling, paisley, mist. I saw people wave, all I could do was nod back to them. Then the fact struck me in a way that was completely undeniable: This experience was the embodiment of the first two verses of my very first song (written 3 years earlier)...

As the mist rolled in the sunset
Bringing shivers up my spine
The trees were springing whispers
The world was silent for that time

My mind took off in one direction
I motioned figures to the west
Destination isn't clear yet
My mind fell in to peaceful rest

Watching those trees in the warm, dry, air, and having the first of many such self-prophecies (something slightly different from "self-fulfilling" prophecies) was truly, one of the most beautiful things I have ever experienced.

I noticed that there was also a strange tension between things that moved and things that remained relatively still. The moving things (trees, people, birds, the lights of cars out on the road, etc...) were becoming solidified somehow; as if they were slowing down to a creep. And as we began to peak (about 3 hours after dropping), relatively still images (the interior of the car, the sky itself, the ground, etc...) began to drift and then break into pieces, recombining, in ever-more intricate patterns, folding themselves inside-out; all of it occurring as if each transformation had to surpass the last in intricacy. We no longer need to speak to each other to know exactly how the other person was doing.

JL ran up and jumped in the backseat of the car. "What's up!!!" he squealed. We were at a loss to explain how fucked-up the world was for us at that point, but we still tried. Dan was better at getting the words out. JL raised his eyebrows... "OH...MY GOD! You guys are totally wacked." This freaked us out even more.

I was starting to think - as every great tripper does during the first trip - that we had taken WAY too much. In the backs of our well-indoctrinated minds were (what I would in later years realize were just) all the negative comments, lies and propaganda pumped into us by the new anti-drug campaigns in education. I believe it was that very spring before we got out for the summer that we went on a field trip to hear from "drug survivors." And there is always the urban legend about the "guy who took acid and then smoked a joint and never came down." Yep, that's a classic once used by the "just say no" people to try to scare you "straight." The unfortunate thing is that we all did LSD anyway, and all that story ever did was cause bad trips. What would the world be like without the use of fear by the establishment?

It was at that time, as the streering wheel began to recede away from my view, on its own, that JL said, "Let's go to 7-11!"

Other cars were pulling out filled with occupants on their way downtown to cruise Main Street or find other house parties, of which there were plenty in those days. Before taking LSD, I had imagined that it was only swirling colors and hypnogogic images...I didn't realize it was seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting everything as they swam between the different senses. I couldn't tell whether I was smelling smoke or shit. I couldn't tell whether I was hearing or seeing things. And all colors became flourescent.

The change that I was going through was so intensely different from how I thought it would be that I truly began to question whether I might be losing my mind (another typical trick that the ego plays on the tripper). DC seemed to be concerned in the same way, though to a lesser extent. I have always been the one over-thinker, over-worrier. This was an unfortunate trait that would bring me a lot of trouble later on. On this night though, I had a damn good reason to begin getting paranoid... JL wanted me to drive!

I said, "There's ...no way... that I can drive."

JL, said "We can do this! I'll tell you what to do, DC can steer and you push the gas or the brake, depending on what we need."




[To be continued...]


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Remember to wear your soul on the outside.

Cannabis - Ice Cream in the New Mind

When I was in 8th grade my good friend was DA. He lived across the street and we had been friends since he moved in about ten years before. We were very curious boys - as were many of our friends around the neighborhood. We did lots of strange and sometimes dangerous things when we were kids. But that was the natural state of the American boy in the 1970's.

like the early settlers of the 17th and 18th Centuries, we explored the woods all over the peninsula of our coastal neighborhood. We would steal bologna, ham or hot dogs, cheese, buns, Pepsi and chips from one of our refrigerators and then go far out in the woods where one of our many scattered meeting sites was. We'd light a small fire - bear in mind this was a different time, when kids knew things like how to light a campfire in nature responsibly - we were Cub Scouts after all. We never watched TV in the daytime (there were only 4 channels anyway - usually in black and white). There were no home computers. The Internet wasn't even anticipated yet. Back then, everyone thought the next 20 years were going to be spent in the development of space. Men were walking on the moon, the first Space Shuttle was being built. There were already space stations. As we NOW know, none of that really panned-out.

Along with the Big Foot and Bermuda Triangle crazes, UFO's and the fascination with space was inspiring some of the best science fiction: Star Trek, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A popular TV show called, Space: 1999, another called, UFO had run a short time, and eventually of course, Star Wars.

Every summer day was spent setting up small meeting sites or exploring new regions of the (then) extensive woodlands, marshes, and small tributaries of the two rivers on either side of the peninsula.

There was the site across the field, behind DA's house. There was the other site to the right of that field. There was the snowmobile trail that led down to the river there. Then behind my house was the small gully that then expanded out to the other river. Many high grounds had tall trees and we climbed every one of them. There was one in particular only a short way down the side street that abutted my yard. From that tree, one could see the water of the bay to the east and the distant mountains to the west. Someday I will go back to see if that tree still exists. It was at a small turn-off to the left of the dead end road, on a small cliff we affectionately named, "Blueberry Mountain" (for the bushes found on its side). Left to their own devices I suspect kids could very acceptably survive without adults, and even accomplish things that we more recently think of as adult-like. I know... We did it.

On rainy or winter days we found other ways to amuse ourselves. There were card and board games, drawing, fantasy games (war, space, Cowboys and Indians). We played records. I remember his favorite song (and it is a good one too) was “Rhinestone Cowboy,” by Glen Campbell. We played that damn record until it did nothing but skip. Ah, the joys of vinyl!

I think the first time my consciousness was ever altered was while DA and I were making plastic models. We were about 10 years old. They were WWII planes, as I recall. The door was closed and we had been working tirelessly on them for 2 or 3 hours. By the end of that time, we were cracking up, making jokes, laughing so hard we felt like we were going to pass out. We had NO CLUE that it was from the model glue we were using, until his mother opened the door and asked what was so funny. We just laughed at her. It didn't take long for her to connect the smell in the room with our joviality. We just thought it was strange that that could happen...We had no desire at all to “sniff” the stuff intentionally. We knew it was dangerous and frankly, we just weren't interested.

Cigarette smoking was very chic. Still, only a few parents that I knew of did it. DA's father was one. We knew cigarettes were "bad" even without being told. Still, at least for me, curiosity about WHY people smoked was a constant fascination. Our other friends, AS and DS (brothers) came from California and their mom smoked. I occasionally liked the smell of a fresh cigarette. But even then the drawback of everything in the house smelling like stale, old, dead smoke, somehow, didn't seem worth it. Strange to think that I would eventually live in that very situation as a smoker. DS and I were once caught by a Policeman trying to smoke some cigarettes that we actually bought (saying they were for his mother) under the bridge by the highway. His much older brother, AS, showed us how to smoke Pine needles - needless to say, a very disgusting and extremely short-lived habit. We were all impressed that he could actually breath the smoke into his lungs instead of just into his mouth.

Well, much later on, by my 8th grade year, DA and I had both tried unsuccessfully to smoke Cannabis. He, with another friend sometime earlier in that year, and me, at CH's house, up a little trail that led to a field we used to frequent. CH was there with EM and HG (all of us the same age). They had precariously stuck a piece of hash on a needle facing upward through a piece of cardboard. They were lighting it until smoke appeared, quickly covering it with a glass to let the smoke build up. Then they gently tipped the glass up and tried to inhale the smoke. It wasn't a very effective way to smoke anything. As I would later learn, much more efficient methods were available. Still they seemed to get off a bit. I didn't.

I realized later on that it was experiences like that that were priming me for the full-blown Cannabis high. Shortly after the hash attempt, I and my friend JG were invited by DB and his brother JB to see the Foreigner concert. That band had just released Foreigner Four, and it was a super album, filled with Top 40 hits. So we went to the show and when the band came on oceans of thick sweetish-sour smoke rose off the floor, like a mist or a fog. DB reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a joint.

He lit it nonchalantly and passed it to JG. JG didn't smoke it but passed it to me, and I refused too and passed it back. Yet, by the time the concert was over I did feel a bit “odd.” This was another “primer.”

So, subsequently, when the evening arrived that DA came over to my house to see if I wanted to walk down to the ice cream shop (something we did every couple weeks) and said he had a surprise too, I jumped out the front door and we began our journey...a sojourn to the New Mind. As we reached the official road to that same field behind CH's house, he said, “Follow me...”

Down that road was a new condominium development. We walked only a short way until we came to a small group of trees. He stopped, looked around, then darted to the right, into the shelter of the trees and I followed. We were now well out of sight from any cars that might go by, and it was pretty dark out too. He reached in his coat pocket and pulled out a joint. I was psyched to try it ever since regretting the pass-up at the Foreigner concert.

He lit it and took a hit. He said, “You're supposed to hold it in as long as you can.” Then he handed it to me. I eagerly sucked in that now-familiar sweetish-sour smoke. But MAN was it harsh and almost immediately I coughed it out. He laughed at me and then took another hit. I was determined to have success this time around, and when he passed it back to me I drew the smoke in more slowly, letting bits of outside air join it. That cooled the smoke enough for me to hold it. The joint seemed to last forever as it went back and forth. But when we finally and utterly spent it out, we looked at each other and knew we had achieved "the stone." I was blown away by how powerful the feeling was. This was DA's first time really being stoned too. We stood in the breezeway of the New Mind. The first feelings were indescribable. You had to be there...so to speak.

When we got our bearings, we headed back out of the trees and on to the field road. We walked back to the orange glow of the intersection with our street. Everything was super-clear looking. The peachy orange streetlights were like close, brown dwarf stars. We were 15 feet below these lights, but when I turned my face up to one, I could feel its heat. All we kept saying back and forth was, “Wow!...WOW!” Finally, we understood why people smoked this stuff. The feeling I had was one of unknown energy, mixed with that roller coaster impression of “safe fear.” It was – up to that point at least – the most exciting feeling I'd ever had. I felt a kind of self-confidence about knowing all the normal ways the world worked, but being somehow above everyone else who was straight. We were able to selfishly feel like we were seeing and experiencing the LARGER world...maybe even the spirit world.

Eventually we got to the ice cream shop, went in and took a booth. The regulars were all there sitting at the counter. One of my dad's friends was there. We felt so incredibly light-headed, yet still fully grounded. It was like being dizzy but happily at attention. He ordered a Tin Roof sundae (three scoops of vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, whipped cream and a cherry). I ordered a Dusty Road sundae (three scoops of coffee ice cream, hot fudge and topped with malted milk powder). We hadn't even thought about eating. We were far too interested in observing everything. But then the sundaes arrived...

And, by the good Lord in heaven, that first spoonful of ice cream was just like being transported straight to heaven. I imagined angels sitting around eating ambrosia, and that ambrosia MUST be ice cream! At this thought I laughed out loud. DA heard this and started laughing too. We made love to those sundaes orally and laughed more and more until we couldn't stop laughing. The taste was heavenly, the company was warm, the general feeling was simply...unbelievable. No matter how much stimulation our young minds were being subjected to, we wanted more.

After the sundaes were exhausted and we were able to calm down enough to pay the waitress (a very pretty, older, high school girl who was quite amused with us), we made our way out the door. Carefully, we crossed the quite highway, walking along its soft shoulder and then back through a small path on to our street. We were coming down a bit but still kept giggling at everything each of us would say. I wish I could remember our conversation, but it has faded in the last 30 or so years. It was close to 9 pm when we were approaching DA's house. I thanked him as he turned left and walked up his driveway and into the house. I kept walking on to my house, just beyond. Before going inside I sat down under a tree in the front yard for a long time and just took it all in.

Everything was still new to me. I was at the start of what I imagined would be an exciting life. I was almost through puberty and saw that the whole world was open to me. I was simply drenched in the joy of living. How could people go through their entire lives and not try things like Cannabis? There was SO much more to everything than I had been told about in school, or in church or by my parents. I was astounded by the layers there must be to everyday reality. Never, since that night have I felt the extreme joy of the first Cannabis high. As Paul McCartney expressed so openly, I had to get it “into my life.” And even though I've never reached that same level again with Cannabis, I feel so blessed to have experienced that height. And I genuinely thank DA for being the right person at the right time, with the right stuff to provide my new mind!

In subsequent years I have learned that a very acceptable high is finally leveled out for the frequent toker. And that has been good enough for me. I have even tried to re-capture that first high, by going without Cannabis for many months and then smoking it again—to no avail.

Still, the experience of getting stoned on Cannabis is always very fresh after taking a break from it. In fact, I still use that method, when I feel that I'm getting “used” to being high. This regular smoking, punctuated by periods of abstinence, IS the key to getting the most from the experience, while not becoming psychologically dependent on it. People who mindlessly waste it away watching TV or just using it all the time, even at work, are cheating themselves from the joys of MODERATION. In the end you will be a happier person if you use one thing for a little while, then move to something else, then something else, etc...than you ever could be smoking constantly. YET, in all fairness, if you were to do any kind of consciousness expanding substance ALL the time, it might as well be Cannabis. The legal drugs: sugar, caffeine, transfat, alcohol and cigarettes done ALL the time will kill you. Cannabis won't. Simple as that.

Cannabis has been such a blessing in my life. It has given me insights when I'm stuck, creatively. It has switched my mind from the anxiety and stress after work, to relaxation (by re-setting my mood) and acceptance of this current struggle as only being a small part of the bigger picture. It has helped me keep perspective on my goals and makes achieving them very satisfying indeed. Instead of being addicted to Cannabis, I am addicted to achieving goals, with or without weed.

It has been my partner in kicking the (tobacco) cigarette habit that was destined to kill me if I didn't stop; 15 years of two packs of Camel regulars per day. I HAD been a chain smoker but in 2000 was able to completely stop smoking butts. Thank you God!! And thank you, Cannabis, God's gift.

It keeps giving. It gave me something safer to use whenever I got into the habit of drinking too much each day. For a while I was in a band that toured bars and clubs all over the East Coast. There was always plenty of alcohol available. When it came to drinking I simply did not have the sense to know when enough was enough.

Cannabis was my savior in each of these cases.

Again, I consider it to be a natural gift from God. It should be completely legalized in all cases. Humanity is destroying the earth with blind ideologies; filling it with ignorance and contradiction. The human race needs to see from other perspectives; perspectives that Cannabis and the psychedelics offer in abundance for those who are interested. And for those who aren't, the ideas flowing in from their loaded brothers and sisters will give them what they've found, allowing all of culture to expand into the pursuit of truth, beauty and goodness. So far the pursuit has been one of greed and violence. Legalizing drugs is thought of as immoral and radical... But how much more immoral is the addiction to things; the acquirement of wealth for wealth's sake and the violence - whether legal or illegal - that supports it. The desire to alter one's consciousness is natural (even animals seek intoxication) and the uptight, constipated, puritanical groups who preach the hypocritical “anti-drug” propaganda will eventually be replaced by more open minds. This happened with the slavers, the male chauvinists, the racists and the homophobes. Now the final struggle is one of Cognitive Liberty.

This blog will chip away at the political habits of our culture and the unjust laws that nail innocent people to social and legal crosses, when all they want is sometimes for medical help, but, also for peace and happiness, and for their kids to grow up strong and healthy.

It is my intention to write my psychedelic memoirs, to also record the life and times of the many people I have interacted with - our adventures together, and the insights gained by taking risks, by not being satisfied with what culture tells us and most importantly, thinking for ourselves. Being unsatisfied with American culture's current value system, I have been looking for a way to speak to these things. It appears that for a while I've found it...


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Remember to wear your soul on the outside.