5 October 2003

Intrigued by articles hinting at the potency of the combination, I decide to try Calea Zacatechichi (“Dream Herb”) with tonight’s Salvia session. One psychonaut on the web writes:

Some places on the web describe the two (Calea and Salvia) as being the male and female counterparts of each other. The two greatly enhance the effects of the other, and can produce a very deep experience. This is only recommended for the brave. Trust me. The faint of heart will not find it entertaining.

For this purpose, I mix a half-teaspoon of homemade calea tincture with a little honey and enough water to fill a shot glass. The concoction is very bitter, but I down it in one gulp. Closed-eye “hypnagogic” imagery begins shortly.

Fifteen minutes later in the computer room: lights are dimmed, “Encounter: A Journey in the Key of Space” (Michael Stearns) plays softly on the stereo, and I’m sitting at my usual spot on the floor.

I start on a quid of six re-hydrated fermented SBC leaves enhanced with a half-teaspoon of homemade Salvia tincture. The relatively pleasant taste of the fermented leaves is new to me.

With unfermented leaves, this would have been a strong dose. But for some reason—perhaps the smaller surface area of the denser fermented leaves—I don’t get beyond the “L” level. On the plus side, however, the trip imagery is amazingly enhanced. Closed-eye visuals of a man’s head splitting into two halves, and forming the walls of a gigantic chasm remind me of the Grand Canyon. I ride in some sort of wind glider and navigate effortlessly the great divide between the worlds.

The vision is cut short by ringing from the telephone. I stagger back to the armchair and answer. It’s my mom. Unfortunately, I’m not in the mood to chat, and sometimes sound incoherent, although I guess, not bad enough for her to notice.

Anyway, an hour later, I’m back in my “laboratory”. I smoke a small fermented leaf with the water pipe. This time, I remember to close my eyes. (Almost all my previous smoking sessions have involved wide-eyed visions of “melting into” inanimate objects or inorganic processes.) “Peace of Mind” (Schonherz and Scott) on the CD player sounds like a chorus of angels.

For a moment, there’s nothing. I lie down on the sofa and begin to wonder if Calea’s effects actually antagonize Salvia’s.

Then suddenly, the breakthrough: from the top of my head, a school of fish breaks open, pushed onwards by a powerful wave that soon turns into an ocean.

I try to move my head, but it feels like solid ice. The aquatic vision fades, and I’m transported to a different setting. Now I'm frozen into the soil of an eerie taiga (semi-tundra) landscape. Pine trees, grass, and the permafrost underneath are my silent neighbors and eternal friends.

10 October

Again, a half-teaspoon of Calea tincture mixed with water in a shot glass, and swallowed. I wait for fifteen minutes before taking the Salvia. In my mind’s eye, hypnagogic visuals of a plant growing in fast motion, with human beings sprouting as its leaves. One of the leaves smiles at me.

After smoking a large fermented leaf, I recline on the sofa and shut my eyes. As “Nautical Nights” (Michael Becker and Stevan Pasero) unfolds on the stereo, I think of great expanses of ocean and last week’s marvelous vision.

My skin ruptures, and I’m turned inside out. I melt into the wings of an early-1900s airplane, like the first one built by the Wright Brothers. “We” (the airplane and I) take off....

When I’m back five minutes later, it feels like a different person has come back, that I’ve left a permanent part of me in that plane that has flown away to who knows where. Could it be that that really was my permanent self, the plane is the true reality, and what I’ve actually returned to is just some grand illusion?

Strange thoughts. What a wonderful pair, Calea and Salvia!