A Walk with Maria Pastora

Behind a snow-capped stone fence I suddenly found myself, in an entirely unfamiliar landscape, wanting to wave hello to my lover as he exited the strange yet familiar place produced by my mind. It was a perception that I can only vaguely allude to the experience of waking up from a dream you seem to have dreamt before, but somehow can't remember when you dreamt it or if you ever really dreamt or woke from it in the first place. The landscape was rural, unadultered and ancient, wintry but sunny and temperate. I feel that I could have remained in that surreal, quiet place forever and felt as if I belonged then and there, as if, in another lifetime or plane of existence, perhaps, this landscape was or is my home. What must have been less than five minutes seemed like an entire lifetime. Realizing the sensation of my tongue lightly tap the back of my teeth, as if attempting to form a word, I seemed to return to my body, accompanied too briefly by quickly disappearing, phantasmagoric remnants of that surreal-familiar landscape that were gone the instant I tried to make physical contact with one snow-capped stone fence. As this impossible place became no longer salient to my conscious mind, gravity returned to its natural state within my living room, and I no longer seemed to be compelled towards or influenced by the energy of any otherworldly home. Recalling it now brings to mind the phrase, "Wherever you go, there you are." I hesitate at the thought of ever returning, in both fear of and profound respect for this sacred place.

(salvia divinorum: 15x extract, smoked from bong, 2-3 hits.)