good trip bad trip

Plant medicine experiences run the gamut of human extremes. In other words, a trip can be very enlightening or paradoxically it can send you into the darkest depths of your soul. The yo-yo is hard to take and is a major reason why a lot of seekers will give up the use of mind-altering substances on the spiritual path. They will develop a narrative which obfuscates the real reason why they eschew the plant medicine modality. After your first taste of the light and the dark with the master teachers, the clock starts ticking, the hour glass is flipped over, and you have a short time to reconcile the madness. You can run but you cannot hide and to continue with the plants demands one become a warrior. Strange enough, once you pick up your sword your courage multiplies exponentially and the game of good trip, bad trip becomes something to look back at and smile upon. What an exquisite game!

The plant medicine path is a path of reconciliation. The first obstacle is presented as the polar extremes of light and dark which come at you as good trip, bad trip, and without passing this test you are done. Failed the class and now the decision to retake the test or drop out. It's an ingenious way to determine if there is a hint of courage or bravery within the epidermis of self. Without the warrior mentality, failure is assured. Advancing beyond the fear grants one the opportunity to explore and in the process of searching for the answers, which originally led you to the plants, you develop a clarity that allows you to see beyond the veil and discover who you are and why you are doing this.

Good trip/Bad trip was the primer. Clarity reveals the creation of your world is the result of this paradigm where the objectification of your polar extremes enables the mind to go into default separation mode and bring the world to life. You know light and dark, hot and cold, happiness and suffering, pleasure and pain and everything in between. Life is made possible through separation and the experiences that populate the journey from one extreme to the other. All is well and good except that it isn't. The extremes that bring the game to life lack love and compassion.

The first part of the plant medicine journey which involves fear of the unknown is akin to the archetypal hero's journey. It's an adventure that takes you around the world in exploration to find the meaning of life and eventually the signs point towards going within. Upon exploration of your inner world, soon you encounter the dragon and this astronomical fear from the beatdown demonstrates that you are no hero. You are no warrior; just a soft human being living on the periphery of life ensconced in some mental adventure buoyed by books and the tales of others. This game is for keeps and this hero certification isn't handed out like a weekend workshop demonstrating you are good to go. Oh, hell no! You have a lot of work ahead of you and you have to demonstrate you are worthy or get out of the way and let someone else give it a go.

Crunch time asks the questions: Why are you doing this? What are your intentions? You start to see the available power and most take up the offer to enrich their human life. The majority of potential heroes fall by the wayside and the remainders still on the path are a scant few by this point. Your intentions are necessarily pure and have to revolve around a creed of service or there is actually no way to make it this far. Your choices determine your status along the path in a way that no flowery turn of phrase could fool the gods. You are an open book.

What does this service entail? At the core of service is the leading of one towards the knowledge of God. The knowledge of God is discovered by going within, walking through the door of knowing that is beckoning you to enter, and finding what you are looking for by yourself. One in service will point the way and support you in your journey. The knowledge of God is designed to transform by showing you that hurting the other is to hurt yourself. The suffering in the world is the result of this otherness. Love everyone, serve everyone, and remember God.

The hero's journey is the path of awakening. Bring forth the light within. Burying the light creates the suffering in the world. Your solemn duty is to cultivate and bring forth the spark that lies within you which has been buried by concepts of identity and culture. The hero's journey is essentially the quest to find God. Once found, we get down to business and the meaning of life. The meaning, if there is one, is to take our polar extremes which manifest creation and temper them with the love of the Goddess. God awakens and then searches for her. She is the one who makes him complete and transforms the metal into gold. It's the long way around to re-discovering that love is indeed the key to life.