Mushrooms, the children of the universe

A deep dive into the magic and divine teachings of psilocybin mushrooms

Feb 16, 2024

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Last weekend, I had my first big mushroom journey in over two years. The mushrooms had been calling me, first quietly, then insistently.

In the process of integrating Ibogaine over the past year, I got jaded with all things healing. For the first time in my adult life, I was able to take a sabbatical from the full-time healing responsibilities to just live. It was foreign but refreshing.

Somewhere along the way, though, I lost something. My partner gently pointed out that I was increasingly bypassing the present for the future. “You used to be so in the moment”, he told me.

Now I was daydreaming daily about farm life in the countryside, only months after we’d moved into a dream beachfront home. Each week, I was spending endless hours plotting the future, which always promised to trump the present, dedicating all my free time to conceiving it. In the meantime, the beautiful, carefree life I’d worked so hard to build was passing by behind my back.

I had many questions for the mushrooms: How can I be more content with what’s here now? How can I work towards fulfilling my purpose while enjoying the present? In response to a conflict that had arisen days before my journey, I was also curious: What was in the way of staying present and connected in my relationship?

On a long beach walk, the intention to reconnect with magic emerged as an underlying thread. Magic, I knew, was a curriculum the mushrooms were supremely equipped to teach.

How to learn (and trust) the language of mushrooms

I’ve been writing about psychedelics online for three years and am astonished that only now I dedicate the page exclusively to mushrooms (they deserve an entire book!).

I’ve been working with mushrooms for several years across a range of settings: therapeutic doses in intimate groups of close friends (3.5 grams), medium doses (1-2 grams) in ceremonial and recreational settings, as well as microdoses, both in structured protocols and more intuitively (<0.5 grams).

Higher doses opened me up to the magic of psychedelic healing and consciousness medicine, midi-doses helped me gain self-awareness and process emotions, and microdosing helped me manage mood-related symptoms and reconnect, in the process of which I quit drinking.

Indigenous Mazatec healers lovingly call Psilocybin mushrooms los niños santos, the sacred children, which perfectly describes their character and origin. Mushrooms are here to teach us the divine order of the universe, and they do so in a childlike and innocent way, generously offering their teachings to anyone brave enough to listen.

The spirit of the mushrooms communicates in a unique tongue that can take some time and practice to understand. Like all psychedelics, mushrooms mirror what’s present in your mind to make you aware. They use your setting to do so, which can be hard to spot, especially at lower doses, where they often disguise their messages as your present-day experience.

Sometimes, they whisper so quietly that the novice ear will miss when they are speaking. Other times, they blend in so naturally with your consciousness that it becomes hard to distinguish what’s your consciousness and what’s theirs.

The trust that helps navigate the mushroom experience can be learned, exposure to the divine intelligence of plant medicines will help. If you struggle to let go during the journey, there are good news: you can ask the mushrooms to teach you.

As you gain more fluency and trust, you’ll learn to surrender to the two worlds the mushrooms open up — the deepest inner workings of your psyche and that of the universe. You’ll learn that they are one and the same.

A roller-coaster ride into magic, and all that’s in the way of experiencing it

As I prepare for my journey, my ego nudges me toward a heroic dose. 5 grams, eaten in the dark, in silence. After dismissing the ego’s reasoning (it’s time to take your relationship with the mushrooms to the next level! You’ll need more to get more out of it!), I conclude that 4 grams are more than enough to cater to my intention.

Then the day comes, and after a brief meditation, I start nibbling away at the four chocolate squares in front of me. Minutes after I’m done, the nausea kicks in. My consciousness begins to alter. Less than 15 minutes later, I tell my boyfriend (and guide) that I’m ready for the music. He pulls the noise-canceling headphones over my ears as I nuzzle into the couch, blindfolded, ready to dive into the playlist he’d carefully curated.

The mushrooms arrive and begin tickling my soul, greeting me excitedly. Here you are! It’s about time! We’ve been missing you. I giggle.

You want to see magic?, they ask, as they reveal the awe-inspiring, divine orchestra of universal intelligence through mesmerizing visuals and a felt sense that remains ineffable.

The first hour of my journey is a euphoric ride. Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 132 rings through my ears, a gratitude prayer to the divine composed after his miraculous recovery from a life-threatening illness. I merge with the music as the strings take me to a space previously visited but once again forgotten.

The same place that Bufo transported me to, the same place we all come from and return to in the afterlife, the eternal essence of existence, the fabric of the universe: sublime beauty. (No words will do justice, but I shall die trying.)

As the fugue in Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 110 ascends me into an endlessly looping staircase, I’m reminded of yet another truth I’d conveniently neglected: there is nowhere to go, the journey is the destination, the meaning of life is to live it, magic is only ever found in the present moment. “It’s a loop!”, I blurt out.

(Later my boyfriend tells me he’s amazed I discovered that the music loops, an insight inaccessible to the novice listener, usually only gained after prolonged study of music that, due to its complexity, is severely misunderstood. Magic mushrooms!)

The mushrooms never take anything too seriously, though. They’re little tricksters that will tease something and dangle it in front of you until you feel silly for having missed it. You guys are silly, I get it now, okay, I get it! Throughout the journey, I converse with the mushroom spirit, both mentally and aloud, repeatedly forgetting that I don’t need words for them to hear me.

At lightning speed, the mushrooms reveal the secrets of the universe in insights so profound I’m letting out audible wows and ahas and oh my gods. They begin to drive me crazy, showing me all the answers to everything everywhere all at once, only to wipe them from my consciousness in the next instant. As the mushrooms immerse me into the realities of the cosmic joke, I’m grasping to hold on to its contents, making sure I don’t forget until the message becomes clear: You are not meant to make sense of it.

They force-feed me fleetingness, a maddening sensation for someone who has struggled with memory all her life. I give in and surrender. They continue to show me all that’s in the way of me and experiencing magic, first and foremost the mind’s relentless attempt to make sense of it. Compulsively capturing moments as they arise, only to take you out of the moment you’re trying to capture.

Do you not see that magic is all around you?, the mushrooms mock me. You don’t need to eat us to experience it, just look up, they insist, as they bring up an image of the man who is holding my head in his lap, giggling alongside me.

As if I’m completing follow-up homework from Ibogaine, I morph into various facets of the felt human experience — joy, anger, disgust, sorrow. Stop trying to make sense of everything as it arises, you’re missing the magic, the mushrooms reiterate. Magic that’s not meant to be understood but experienced. My being darkens in response to the intensifying music and the mushrooms whisper, it is all the same, the beauty and the terror, it is all equally magical.

Several times throughout the journey, they trick me into thinking the journey has ended. For split seconds, I’m under the impression I’m sober and joyously report, “Wow, this is the magic I get to live in now!”, before reality folds into itself again.

“I’m ready for Chaconne”, I announce to my boyfriend as I scramble to crawl underneath the baby grand and onto the pillows laid out on the floor. He begins playing music I’ve heard many times before, but this time I’m able to perceive all of the gifts he hid in there. I grab the piano’s wooden support structure as my heart blasts open and bleeds gratitude as the music soars, and soars, and soars. There is no end in sight, no grand conclusion, it’s a loop. The journey is the destination.

The hidden parts within you that mushrooms help reveal and heal

After a quick, wobbly restroom break, in which I learn that it hasn’t been five hours but barely two, I’m overcome by thirst. I attempt to drink a sip, which doesn’t quench it, so I lay back down to return to the inner space.

What I find there is a heavy, dense sadness coupled with acute loneliness. “I feel so unloved”, I say out loud, weeping. I faintly hear my boyfriend through the headphones, “But you are so loved, we love you so much”.

I reach for my dog, he’s right by my side, as always, but it doesn’t matter. I’m with the part that doesn’t receive it. I slide my eye mask and headphones off and turn toward my boyfriend, my head still in his lap. I can feel the love radiating from him but it doesn’t reach me. An invisible wall is blocking it.

With his help, I begin a dialogue with the part that popped up unannounced but expected: the little girl inside. Why is this wall here? I ask her. The wall is no news, I’ve been painfully aware of it. It’s been getting in the way of my relationship, as I continue to recycle my old childhood pain of isolation. Dissociating from my body during conflict, growing cold, unapproachable, unloving. But she won’t budge, she feels cornered. I’m angry at the wall, I’m angry at her for building it.

With the guidance of my boyfriend, I initiate a process I’ve returned to many times and open a compassionate dialogue within. Parts work and the concepts and practices of Internal Family Systems (IFS) are powerful on their own, but in conjunction with psychedelics, they can produce groundbreaking, lasting, and sometimes instant change. Outside guidance is helpful and often needed, though, especially when working with medicines.

As I swap out judgment for curiosity, I ask again, why is the wall here? Please help me understand. This time, I get a response: To protect you from the overwhelming emotions you were exposed to growing up. They were too much to handle. You could barely handle your own. The wall is up to buy you time to be with yourself.

Tears well up and I soften. She’s been working so hard to protect me. The parts of you that you reject the most are often the ones that have been working the hardest to protect you. I’m filled with genuine gratitude.

“Now, ask her if she thinks the wall is still needed for you as the 31-year-old today”, my boyfriend prompts me. I pause. It is not, she tells me. In an instant, the wall miraculously evaporates. I feel his love flooding my system.

What is the child in you thirsty for?

“Why am I still so thirsty”, I mumble. “I am so thirsty for love.” The words, barely a whisper, come from a place within that’s been silenced for decades.

“Whose love are you thirsty for?”, my boyfriend gently asks. My mom comes to mind. But I realize it is not her love and acceptance I crave. It is my own. The little girl inside grew up feeling abandoned, and here I was, further abandoning her. You learn to withhold love from yourself when little, only to forget and grow up looking for it elsewhere.

After a mesmerizing beach sunset, I return inside, ready for the journey to be over. Over six hours in, the mushrooms let me know there’s more on the agenda as my stomach begins to ache. It’s time for the grand finale.

Soft piano melodies help me hold space for what’s arising. It’s uncomfortable and unclear at first, but then, guilt reveals its face. Guilt for how I’ve treated those I love as a result of my wounds. Guilt for further alienating the little girl that carries them.

I call my boyfriend over and he lies down next to me, gently resting his head on mine. Cheek to cheek, he asks, “Can you separate the part and its intentions from its actions and their consequences?” Yes, I can, I learn. I can be upset about the behavior and still compassionate towards the part of me that initiated it.

There I lie, like an infant who just tasted the sweet nectar of self-acceptance for the first time. I put the angelic voices of Beautiful Chorus in my ears, music that’s helped me embrace all parts of me many times before.

There I lie, arms wrapped around myself, basking in the felt sensation of unconditional acceptance, coding it into my consciousness. Until I feel a shift and understand that the journey is concluded. I rise, ready to return to the next ceremony that’s awaiting: life, with all its magic.

Have you encountered the sacred mushrooms? If so, what have they taught you? How do they speak to you? Which parts of yourself have they revealed to you?