“The resurrection of the body need not be postponed until death. It can happen at any moment.” — Robert Anton Wilson
Nearly a year to date after my first 5-MeO-DMT experience, I decided to journey back to the realm of the toad. In the twelve months that had passed, a lot had shifted for me. Many long standing patterns had begun to change and life had started to develop a clarity that I had never experienced before. Sure there were struggles and collapses along the way, but the progress I had made emotionally wasn’t just significant in it’s depth, it was also accelerating.
It was hard not to proselytize the toad to everyone in the months after my first experience. The feeling of being awakened and alive for the first time was too great not to share. Thankfully there were several experiences along the way that helped temper and refine this excitement into a deeper understanding. One of those experiences was when I felt the state of the toad while using a different psychedelic. Another time I was having a conversation with a friend and he recalled feeling the same state without using 5-MeO-DMT. It made me realize that what I was actually proselytizing and wanted others to feel went far beyond the toad. This was a state that some people could tap into from meditation; something I was deeply skeptical of because of my own failed attempts. It was also the state that many religious followers described in different gospels of faith. After making the connection across all these disparate activities, I realized that there were many paths to achieving this internal state. It was universal. What exactly was this state? For me it was a place beyond the little “s” self. It was a state of love. It was freedom from the illusion. It was peace.
Do I Need To Do It Again?
This was a question I went back and forth with in my head in the year that passed since my first experience. In the initial few weeks afterward, it felt like my journey was a solid demarcation point in my life. How could doing it again possibly enhance or improve what I had felt? Perhaps it would even dishonor the feeling if I tried to replicate it. But as the months went on, I noticed that there were times when I would lose the centeredness that the toad had bestowed upon me. There were flights that I felt anxious on as the old feeling that the plane was going to crash resurfaced. The death anxiety that had dissipated had begun to creep back. Why was this happening? Was the toad only temporary? Ultimately what took me from this state was when I resisted changing aspects of my life that weren’t in alignment with the divine internal state I had discovered. The toad helped me to reconnect my mind with my body and soul, and now that my body was communicating to me in ways I could understand, it became harder to ignore. As a dear friend reminded me, “The body is ALWAYS right.” That phrase has stuck with me. I spent most of my life disconnected from the feelings in my body. Every time my mind was making a decision that my body knew to be wrong, harmful, or not in alignment, was just another opportunity to suppress those feelings and ignore them. Except that they can’t ever truly be ignored, for they always manifest in other ways. And make no mistake, they do manifest, even with one’s best effort to the contrary.
So even though significant progress had been made on my healing journey, I knew that there were some larger patterns that were still present. My experience with the toad and subsequent emotional work had shaken them loose, but some were still clinging to the recesses of my mind. And that’s what led me to the decision to revisit the toad. I wanted a reminder of the divine source and feeling that had brought about so much change in my life.
Consciousness Beyond The Veil
So what was different in my second experience compared to my first? For one, there wasn’t any fear of trying something new going into it. Fear of the unknown had always been a part of trying new substances for me. For a few of those substances, this didn’t lead to positive experiences. With that fear removed, I was eager to be transported back. As I breathed in on my first dose, I felt the familiar wave wash over me. What I did not expect was my body’s resistance. Despite surrendering my mind, my body was shaking. It didn’t want to let go. “I’m so close to breaking through,” I thought to myself. When I inhaled my second dose, that’s exactly what happened. Within seconds my mind and body had completely let go. I had returned! I felt the light beyond my eyes and the knowing beyond my mind. Everything was as it should be; divine and at peace.
As I sat with the freshness of that experience, I simultaneously felt a renewed sense of life and also new connections in my mind that I hadn’t made before. Familiar afterglow effects had returned. When I flew the next day there wasn’t a hint of anxiety in my body, even during turbulence. My mind had also found it much easier to stay present and enjoy a slower pace. Even now I’m still having multiple dreams a night that I remember. In contrast to the first experience, however, some of the dream themes I’ve been having that once manifested as nightmares no longer trigger fear or negative emotions. It makes me think that my subconscious is really processing something and has let go even further.
Carrying It Forward
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who we are.” — Joseph Campbell
There is a paradox with the toad that I felt I was able to resolve more of this time around regarding the consciousness beyond the form of our body and mind. While this experience can be incredibly liberating, it also brings up interesting implications. Why continue to live? Is one of these conscious experiences an illusion? You get the idea. There are many questions that spawn from having such an earth-defying experience. But as fate would have it, I came across a quote that day that helped square aware this rabbit hole:
“The final place that the game leads to is where you live consciously in all of it. Which is in nothing. You are eternal. You have finished perishing. There is no fear of death because there is no death. It’s just a transformation. An illusion. And yet, seeing all that, you still chop wood and carry water. You still do your thing. You flow in harmony with the universe.”
That hit me at just the right time. It’s not to say that nothing matters, but rather that every intentional action in our life matters that much more. The distinction is critical. It’s not about retreating from the material world and occupying another dimension. It’s about unifying those moments of divinity with the everyday actions of one’s life; from the mundane to the extraordinary.
Fresh with the gentle reminder from my experience, the question I ask myself is how do I continue to live with this reminder and carry it forward? If I really feel that experiencing the toad has been so life changing to me and that it is something I want to share with the world, then I must start with honoring how I can continue breathing that experience into every aspect of my life. By starting here I will in turn be sharing it with others, but it must start with me. For all the clichéd talk about psychedelic integration, it really cannot be overstated. Without it, these beautiful experiences can be far more fleeting than we anticipate. The profundity of a stolen moment can last an eternity or blink out of existence. The choice falls on us.
And so I see my journey with the toad continuing to unfold throughout my life. I liken it to a religious experience. Some people go on a pilgrimage once in their life, some go to church every day, and others occupy some level of commitment in between. It’s not important where you fall on the continuum, but rather that you are intentional with why you fall where you do. My intention is to carry forward this reminder from the toad for as long as I can, while knowing that when I am not in alignment with the love and divinity that I channel that I may lose some of this reminder. And that’s okay too. The reminders help me to remember that there is more to life than this mortal coil, and that time can make this feeling elusive if not properly cultivated and brought forward. Perhaps a day will come in the future when I feel the toad calling me back, and in that moment, I will feel the knowing for the first time once again.
