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Read Sober Psychonaut disclaimer for people in sobriety exploring psychedelic medicine  That's me at the Grand Canyon for the first time, a magnificent moment and special time with friends. Having fun with friends is part of the ketamine for depression prescription. I had my first ketamine consult and I am approved for ketamine therapy for depression! Katherine, a psych nurse located in Pennsylvania, shared a bit about herself as we got started. She works with the Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania and has also worked with the indigenous tribes of South Dakota. I make the assumption she's had some pretty authentic experiences with shamanistic medicine and psychedelic journeying. After asking a series of health and medical questions, she determined I was a good candidate. I didn't have some of the disqualifiers such as high blood pressure or high cholesterol, diabetes and so forth. On a quest bigger than myselfSome of the most profound parts of our first consultation happened in the last seven minutes or so, when Katherine helped me identify the larger significance of what I'd shared with her from my personal journey. The stuff about rolling over in my relationship with my husband, becoming codependent and suppressing my voice, and losing alignment with my true self in my marriage. "That's exactly what’s happened in the world, and that is where the positive masculine and positive feminine need to re-emerge on the planet," said Katherine. Where was the positive masculine and positive feminine all these years on this planet? she posed. With the "I"-ness of patriarchy and everything being about taking and so little about giving, compassion and empathy. "What you are seeking for yourself with the medicine, the ketamine therapy," Katherine pointed out, "this desire for connection with Self, and between Self and Universe and Earth and Everyone on it, is a microcosm and reflection of everything that’s happening on the planet." I could feel my heart and mind expanding as she was speaking. What you are seeking for yourself with the medicine, the ketamine therapy," Katherine pointed out, "this desire for connection with Self, and between Self and Universe and Earth and Everyone on it, is a microcosm and reflection of everything that’s happening on the planet." "This joie d’vivre that you seek to re-establish," she continued, "is an expression of all four matriarchal lineages of your mother and father. So the four female ancestors on your mother’s side and the four female ancestors on your father’s side. You represent them with this persistence in recovering your joie d’vivre⏤your desire to express that in the world⏤it's your gift from them, to go on." (God, how did she know I was so into ancestry and this very conversation on a spiritual as well as epigenetic and genetic level.) My first consult was a little bit clinical, a little bit metaphysical, and I dug it. I suddenly felt like there was so much more I was bringing to the table for my ketamine journey⏤and so much more I could potentially get.
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Read Sober Psychonaut disclaimer for people in sobriety exploring psychedelic medicine  Erik Fenderson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Last weekend in New York tripping my way to Phoenix, I bought mushrooms of the magic variety from a menu via text and sidewalk delivery out of what looked like a pizza delivery bag. God, the guy was so sweet and courteous, describing my options, the different strains as it were, like weed, depending on the type of experience I wanted to have. “And oh by the way, this is my new runner Sam, he’s gonna take good care of you. I just wanted you to get to know him.” “Hey,” I said, looking furtively up and down the street, still grappling with whether it was okay to order psychedelic products off a menu and have them delivered to your doorstep within 30 minutes. Mushroom magic becoming realPsilocybin, the active ingredient in mushrooms that causes the “trip” is gaining popularity on the fringes within certain mental health circles and has been legalized in states like Massachusetts, California, Oregon and Washington State, and remarkably, Washington, DC, with the Entheogenic Plant and Fungus Policy Act. (Here's the lowdown on mushroom legality state-by-state.) And although I was breaking the law, clearly no law enforcement in New York City had an interest in my purchase of psilocybin strains of Amazonian or Penis Envy on a Sunday night in midtown Manhattan outside my friend’s house. This whole legalization and coming to terms with psychedelic medicine as legitimate, nonaddictive, beneficial for all sorts of neuroses and maladies and ultimately, profoundly spiritually enlightening, is something I’ve known all along. It’s just that getting sober, putting down alcohol, usually goes along with putting down drugs. You can’t exactly walk into an AA room and say, “Hey, I’ve been sober 30+ years but I’m working through some shit with magic mushrooms.” Yet—that’s exactly what’s happening. It works for addiction issues and beyond. It’s what’s possible and now it’s looking to be what’s probable. You can’t exactly walk into an AA room and say, “Hey, I’ve been sober 30+ years but I’m working through some shit with magic mushrooms."  Psilocybin therapy session at Johns Hopkins - Matthew W. Johnson, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Psychedelics aren't addictive: Here's whyIt comes back to the experience produced by the drug vs. the drug itself. Psychedelic drugs are unlike cocaine, for example, which produces desirable effects like euphoria, energy, clarity, excitement, but also disrupts seratonin, a nerve transmitter that affects mood, among other things, thus producing an experience the brain wants to replicate because it’s so good. Therefore, it’s addictive. The brain, the body wants more. And you can use it to some extent while still functioning normally in your life. With psilocybin, or LSD (acid) or MDMA (ecstasy) for that matter, a journey or experience begins and ends within a certain time period. It is not sustainable, nor have they found in lab experiments do animals go back for more psilocybin. There is no addictive quality to the drug itself. Essentially, you could have one such psychedelic experience and have a profound transformative experience and never desire to have another.  Malenacd, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons On the other hand, you could have that experience and find it so seductive you desire to delve further into the realms of human consciousness and spirituality to see where it takes you. Plus, it’s just fun, and well—magical. I’m particularly intrigued by this idea that psychedelics—and let’s just throw ketamine in there, too—give us access to an alternate universe, a world, a reality, a being-ness that exists in parallel with us at all times but we have filtered it out, diluted it to the point where we only see what we need to see to get through life. But there’s this brilliant-ness that is there all around us—maybe akin to the magic and wonder a child experiences or like a baby seeing things for the first time. What an amazing opportunity to experience joy, wonder, fascination and profound love for self, others, the world—through psychedelic experience. I am increasingly drawn to all aspects of it. I don’t know where it’s taking me but I’m ready for the ride. I know there’s something very right about it. My ketamine therapy:
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