Calling On All Teachers

With all this rain, the tremellas have taken on an extra plumpness. I don't just cut them from fallen pecan limbs because they possess top cancer-inhibiting compounds. I happen to think they're delicious. When I offer them to squeamish friends, I ask if they've had sweet and sour soup.

One of the “wood ears” I see in this part of Georgia has the nickname Brown Witches' Butter (Dacrymyces palmatus). When I think about that name, my brain does some exploring. It wonders about the difference between witch and shaman. It plants a red flag somewhere in the territory of oppressive proselytizing and the spread of empire. It then circles back to contemporary personalities reclaiming the title, “Witch,” and wearing it proudly in, say, a gem shop. The gem shop in the town of Stone Mountain. Not many people are familiar with the so-called “Witch of Stone Mountain,” or the tremendous significance indigenous communities held for the quartz monadnock landmark. Maybe it's no coincidence.

The erasure of lifeways inextricably tied to the land gave way to this modern disconnection from “self” or the “I am” state; tethers to purpose, wisdom, and vitality. I get the feeling certain crucial connections or pieces of information are lost to time only so they can be found once again. The plant medicine renaissance may be here to reconnect us to source, so that we may live more harmoniously, to reset the scales and find balance.

That’s what I’m doing when I let fungi go to work on me. When I set an intention, say a prayer, and eat dried cubensis, I am almost always outside. I want my body to be informed by the currents coming through the ground, the light of the Sun or Moon, and the direction of the wind. The first time these teachers informed me, the set and setting were quite different. I was much younger, but the veil had already lifted. So, although it was new and awe-inspiring, the overwhelming sense was of homecoming. I had once known the world brought on by the fungi, but needed an input to access these sensory amplifications. A world lost so it could be found once again.

To sit with the Sun driving rays into my closed lids, head unwinding old narratives so that it may expand for new ones, nervous system tuning into a cosmos of vibration, is to return to health on the balance beam of being human. Healing and evolution meet at the intersection of epiphany and reciprocity. With the right orientation, these “little people” (as Maria Sabina called them) provide just that. From this space, prayers and intentions might lead me closer to a target. Exploration in surrender might also be the flavor. It depends. Is the central focus processing or discovery?

Since my first meeting with these teachers, I've picked up a wide variety of tools to increase the bandwidth of my receiver. Most recently, I stack my cubensis with other fungi friends and herbs, and enjoy a six-hour meditation, writing and illustrating the trajectory afterwards as a kind of integration primer. If you were to open my notepad, you might see a vision of ancestral faces in strata with annotations riffing on the mythopoetics of extraction.

The synergistic effect of the tailored stack recalls a more intricate system of plant aids utilized by the Shipibo community with whom I had the immense honor of learning from this past autumn. In the Peruvian Amazon, a voice told me, these are the lifeways that can save us from self-annihilation.

Calling on a medicine for its healing properties is one of the many distinguishing factors between indigenous and western practice. If you are prescribed something by a white coat, they very rarely have a relationship with that substance. With the Shipibo, there is an actual relationship to a being, as opposed to projections from stats in a sample pool. Whereas I might use Lion's Mane to target memory (science), the Maestra would use Chiric Sanango (Brunfelsia grandiflora) for a heart that itches from rage or jealousy (spirit). Before familiarizing myself with the Shipibo ways, I might have just added a powder to an experimental tea. Now, I find myself calling on Doctor Lion's Mane in my meditations prior to imbuing a concoction with intention and prayer. I look forward to the continued merging of ancestral and contemporary technologies, lead by wise stewards.

To know these teachers as ancestors and to know these beings as messengers is to know your identity. To have found pathways into relationship with fungi and plants fills me with a great sense of respect and responsibility. When I testified with Decriminalize Nature at Atlanta’s City Hall, I knew I wanted what nature wanted and said as much. I have always been baffled by the systems driven by fear and power-seeking to cut the connection between man and entheogens/consciousness. The more I respect these ancestors, the more I become a hollow bone. The more I become a conduit, the more my reason for being here flows without effort.

Be it through the wood ear you pluck from a fallen pecan limb, or the San Pedro stalk you harvest and dry, I am confident those of us tuning into a particular, ecological niche will in turn heal into our own unique “I am,” creating wide and beautiful ripples.