The Free Radical

(Go to Part 1)

(Author Narration with musical accompaniment)

We were snot-nosed shamans hoping to find authenticity in some parallel universe; we wanted to discover what was really real.

It wasn’t at all that we were dissatisfied with life. No, we were really stoked. We were thrilled with the further prospects of these adventures. It was just mundane life– the presumed routine of education, career, family, and all which that entails– that left us a bit flat and disinterested at times. Jake, the youngest of our trio, explained to his parents over and over again that he was just exploring his options. That’s why, despite his obvious academic prowess, he had elected not to go to university at this time.

No, there were mind-melting, reality-bending, personality-shattering experiences to be had, and we three had made some real headway lately in this regard. Reality is a vagrant… sleeping on park benches, sleeves stuffed with crumpled newspapers… insulating against the cold unknown. We all know the sleeper– too well. Sometimes he really stinks, and his snoring gets too loud, but just so as long as he remains asleep we can cope. Ah, predictability… the basis for all civility.

But should Reality be awakened, then look out, look around, look within! Nothing is the same… or if there are a few elements of familiarity, suddenly they’ve been hurled into an alien context. Their meanings are nothing like what they once were. We return to primordial Adam, naming the strange elements in a neurotic god’s garden. We are reoriented, re-identified as a sudden spike in an otherwise flatlined life. So for most, it seems, it is best to just let Reality sleep a little bit longer.

There was an online company called JLF Catalog, purveyors of “Fine Poisonous Non-Consumables.” At the time, we thought they were about the most interesting company in the world. Before you could purchase any of their exotic items, customers were each required to read a disclaimer onto the company’s answering machine, promising that they would not “eat, drink, swallow, snuff, suck, smoke, inject, absorb transdermally, or insert anally” any of their products. Furthermore, every label stated that each of their products were of a “non-consumptive, non-ingestive, non-culinary, non-food, non-medicinal nature; therefore, no specific success or desired outcome is guaranteed.” And finally, the “other things NOT guaranteed by JLF: Everything, except correct identity of materials.”

So what exactly did JLF sell? Mostly plant bits. They carried a huge inventory of the very many “teacher plants” which had been traditionally used throughout the world in aiding shamans and seekers in their sacred quests and forays into non-ordinary reality. The number of plants that are able to alter man’s consciousness is incredibly vast, and JLF, it seemed, was exceptionally good at sourcing them out and offering them for sale to a curious world. None of the things they sold were scheduled substances; it was all perfectly legal.

I was a longtime customer of JLF. I purchased many things. They had a copy of my voice reading their disclaimer on their answering machine. I received their periodic packages always resealed with that special yellow tape which reads “Opened by customs.” Nothing was ever confiscated, though. Like I said, it was all perfectly legal.

Most of the things that shamans consume in order to disorder their common realities taste somewhat less than delicious. Alkaloids tend to be bitter, and the more interesting or discombobulating the effect of the alkaloid, the more vile its stain on the palate. At least, that was our experience. And then the procedures for boiling down the fetid teas or otherwise extracting the magic with industrial solvents would leave wannabe shamans unsure and wary of that brew, slurry, globule, resin or powder. “Is this what it’s supposed to look like? Smell like? Taste like? Yuck! And will it have the desired effect?”

Then JLF started selling pure compounds. Proper laboratories with all their fancy gear and well-honed procedures were employed to render little packets of pure crystalized thaumaturgy. The guesswork in dosages and potency were eliminated. The strange smell of half-assed alchemy was purged from my home, much to the relief of my roommates. Now we had something… something formidable!

Those tiny packets of free-base crystals refined the psychedelic arts to a haiku of preparation for a Homeric odyssey of epic tripping. The convenience was grand, but there was a downside tradeoff. The compounds were indeed pure and natural, the molecular champions of the entheogenic world, but they had been lifted from their living matrix, essentially divorcing them from the complex natural world which had spawned them. They were isolates, bodies cut from a larger spiritual tapestry… much like ourselves.

The particular compounds involved in our current narrative were those two elements comprising the Amazonian brew called ayahuasca. There are always two components to ayahuasca. Traditionally, the jungle vine Banisteriopsis caapi provides the mono amide oxidase inhibitor, while the leaves of the plant Psychotria viridis provide the main hallucinogenic ingredient, dimethyltryptamine or DMT.

Ever since the publication of Dr. Rick Strassman’s book in the nineties, DMT: Spirit Molecule, there has been a robust ongoing discussion on the internet about this most interesting of substances. Any curious reader can easily search for aspects of this discussion, so I won’t repeat much of it here. What is essential to know is that DMT is a powerful dissociative, severing mind from body… consciousness from familiar reality. Under the influence of DMT a user can experience virtually anything, and it is very unlikely to resemble the commonplace or mundane. Also, DMT is not orally active.

DMT is produced in our own brains all the time. It doesn’t affect us psychedelically because we also produce an enzyme called mono amide oxidase (MAO) that very efficiently breaks down tryptamines in our systems. Only by taking an MAO inhibitor can DMT be made orally active. Hence, the two components of the ayahuasca brew.

We had purchased the legal version of pure DMT which is the methoxyated analogue (5MEO-DMT) and the pure MAO inhibitors harmine and harmaline, isolated from Syrian rue (Peganum harmala) seeds. The DMT was pure white, and the MAOI was bright yellow. Only very tiny amounts were needed of each.

Using Jake’s milligram scale I measured out the appropriate amounts of each three times and deposited them into gelatin capsules. Then I thought to myself “What if the MAOI doesn’t kick in before all the DMT is hacked apart by the enzyme?” I measured and filled three more capsules of just 5MEO-DMT. If the combo pill didn’t work, these secondary caps would surely do the trick once the MAOI had been given ample time to activate. The amount of substance in each capsule was truly minuscule, hard to believe that it was capable of doing anything at all.

We’d all had prior experience with DMT. The pure crystalline powder can be smoked with a carrier, delivering a sudden surge of the spirit molecule past the blood-brain barrier in an instant. The effects are devastatingly immediate, hardly allowing the user time to lay the pipe aside before beginning to overwhelm all normal cognition. And then the trip lasts for only three to five minutes before our enzymes gobble up the tripping agent. An additional twenty minutes of euphoria then usually ensues as the user begins to reacclimatize to familiar life after just having visited what is most commonly described as “the other side of death.” Pretty much anything can occur on the other side of death.

The brutal transcendentalism of a smoked DMT trip cannot be accurately conveyed to those who have never tried it. It is utterly world-shattering. The fact that reality can be so thoroughly disassembled instantaneously tends to be somewhat disconcerting. Fearful and controlling persons should not even consider such a trip; it would likely devolve into a nightmarish scenario which would have to run its course. And five minutes of hell can seem an eternity in a realm where time ceases to exist altogether. We were experienced… and now we were looking for a gentler ride into that other realm.

Ayahuasca, the Amazonian teacher-healer, is the sacred and powerful tool of knowledgeable shamans. Its use is attended with much ritual and ceremony. The shamans of the Amazon claim that ayahuasca has a spirit of its own– a special spirit from the plant kingdom. This spirit is a guide, sometimes wholly benevolent, sometimes a dispenser of tough love. One of the common effects of imbibing the traditional brew is that of a purgative. Vomiting is not uncommon.

We three were keen to forego the vomiting bit. The pure compounds of our pharmahuasca was sure to spare us. What we failed to consider, however, was that the spirit of ayahuasca also would not be attending our adventure, as it had already been distilled out in some laboratory somewhere. We would not have the guidance and protection of a truly knowledgeable shaman keeping us safe either. We knew some of the dangers… but somehow we managed to convince ourselves that they couldn’t possibly apply to us. We were longtime believers in psychedelic adventuring…

And I still have difficulty believing what happened that day.
______________________________________________________________

More information about the traditional use of ayahuasca and its recent infiltration into western society is provided in the following documentary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0ommNRJeMQ&feature=player_embedded
______________________________________________________________

Proceed to Part 3

(Go to Part 2)

(Author Narration with musical accompaniment)

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature… Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” ― Helen Keller

Days of psychedelic adventuring are always rife with a great deal of nervous anticipation, but it was always the kind that brought smiles to our faces. We were excited to be heading into the unknown… again. This ground, out by Dutch Creek, I had trodden many, many times… but this day we suspected that our explorations might be novel and extreme.

The place where we parked, I had walked through just the day before. There was a deer carcass just a few meters from where our hike began. As I’d walked past it the day before, it was on my right. I automatically interpret animal messages or omens as a curiosity. In my mind, the left side or movement of left-to-right signals a warning best heeded; the right side however, is more positive… so I wasn’t too concerned. Now, had we parked on the path as I normally do, the carcass would still be on our right. However, Mitch was driving, and he always likes to back into a parking spot. Uh-oh, now the dead deer was on our left… that is, until I went to look. It had been dragged from one side of the path to the other… and mostly eaten. Curiously, there were no vultures. As far as omens go… it was getting too complex for me. But one thing of which I was pretty sure was that we shouldn’t hang around a carcass which has just recently been dragged a significant distance by something likely menacingly big.

We jumped right into our adventure, swallowing each a capsule of the pharmahuasca, and then to ascend the path before us. We knew that it would take awhile for the effects to be felt… if they would be at all. At the very least we’d have a wonderful hike in the mountains… away from the tangled skein of portents, hinting at death behind us.

The first part is all uphill. The first leg of our journey scooted by epic views of the hoodoos across the river. They have watched over so much of my life; they watched closely that day, I’m sure.

We headed past the power-line which runs north-south along a bench at the base of the Purcell Mountains, swooping perpendicularly over the creek in the distance– our eventual destination. But first we ventured to the Mesa to further assess our situation, while giving time a chance to seize the day.

Among our trio I have always been a bit of a “canary in the coal mine.” Psychoactive substances always seem to affect me first. My threshold has always been calibrated fairly low. I began to feel something; it was still subtle, but definitely detectable.

We crossed the marshlands– a strange otherworldly sliver in an arid coniferous forest. We got our feet wet… a taste of immersions yet to come. I carried a homeopathic dose of swamp-water to the dry and nearly desolate Mesa in my shoes… inadequate offerings…

The Mesa is the kind of place that makes you feel high in even your soberest moments, but I could hear the knocks upon my doors of perception already before I could even let in those spectacular views… in every direction.

The Mesa is surrounded by mountains. In the distance in the east, the rugged Rockies cut the skyline in bold jagged lines, while at the base of the Purcells where the Mesa is nestled, this elder range rolls in pillowy softness to the horizon of the setting sun. Dutch Creek can be viewed down below, as can the mouth of the canyon. A swath of aspen defines the outlines of the swamp in the valley on the opposite side– where we came from. Even the hoodoos could still scrutinize us from afar… as I’m sure they did that day.

Amidst the dizzying panorama we assessed our individual situations. I reported that I was convinced that I was feeling a mild effect, but it wasn’t really building. We concluded that most of the DMT had been metabolized before the MAO inhibitor could take effect, just as we had suspected might happen. We were fairly confident that the secondary capsules of just pure 5MEO-DMT that we’d brought would do us the courtesy of dissolving our familiar selves into the unknown. We were right.

Jake purposely selected the capsule which appeared to contain the most. I selected the one appearing to have the least. Mitch took the other. We didn’t linger much on the Mesa, suspecting that we wouldn’t want to hike the steep descent when familiar reality was insisting on slipping away for a spell. We hitched up our packs and headed straight for the path down to the river… into the noise and the shadows. The wind nudged us onward as the sky smiled warmly, puffing clouds into every crack in our imaginations.

The first of the slope from the Mesa on its north side provides a steep ridge-line for a path. We rambled down it easily, feeling only sunshine inside and out. Eventually the path cuts through a tiny swath of trees to open on a ledge. We were about halfway to the river at that point. We briefly visited an old friend of mine, the Tree of the Rock, an adult conifer growing straight out of a knuckle of shale. We’d always appreciated life in awkward places, but this was truly inspiring.

We hurried along to complete the final descent. We were all beginning to feel the onward rush of… loosening… of slowly dissolving our… comfort zones. This last bit of the path was always challenging. We scrambled down.

Briefly on the way we greeted another of my old friends, the Hugging Tree. It bows low over the steep path, so that the natural way to get by is to embrace the tree and swing underneath. I formally introduced the Hugging Tree to Jake as we three swung by, and Jake said “Any friend of yours is a friend of mine.”

We completed the last of the treacherous descent into chaos and bliss, arriving at the river’s edge knowing that speech would soon become difficult… not for any lack of co-ordination or ability, but rather because the mind no longer bothers to think in words as the doors of perception fall off their hinges. The last words we spoke, we all spoke the same, one-by-one as we each arrived to view the river up close. “Wow! I sure don’t want to go in there today!”

Dutch Creek was as high as I’d ever seen it. Muddy waves of debris and runoff raced by. The roar of seasonal excess slamming into the Point just upriver from where we stood made conversing unlikely anyway. We each retreated to our chosen outposts. I believe I was the first to venture out to the Point.

I grabbed the steel cable anchored firmly above the bit of sheer rock-face leading to the ledge to the Point. I easily walked across the tiny cliff, tracing the path of a pendulum above the churning last gasps of winter’s wrath now humbled and hurt. From the ledge it was an easy jaunt to the space on top of the Point. It was… it was… overwhelming!

The unending onrush of spring’s scouring pounded with outrageous violence against the side of the Point. Whole trees were caught naked in the back-eddies along the rest of the cliff. Even the wind tussled the forest and me. I wanted to get settled into the new and temporary parameters of my perception, but this place, the Point, was not the place to let go… too dynamic… overstimulating… consumptive. I retraced my way back to the proper riverbank, plunked myself down among some rounded river stones, and began in earnest to explore some of the alterations to my sensations and conceits, while the sky and the valley danced to pixelated dissolution around me… I was invited to dissolve into a subset of forest energy… into clouds… and mounds, and especially stones… to momentarily give up my preferences to remaining human.

I could dissolve my body at will, and then quickly regain my human form as I desired. The breathtaking landscape and skyline surrounding and pervading me could be set to melt and merge, one element into another. Or I could choose to focus in the old-fashioned way and bring everything back to separation, definition… its old worn-out syntax. I felt that as far as psychedelics go I was both pleased with the effects I was experiencing as well as the degree of control I maintained through willfully abrupt shifts in perception. I liked it.

Our introspective explorations lasted a few hours. As we later began to regroup, Mitch concurred that the degree of control we could muster through our altered perceptions was very welcome, inspiring… and… seductive. Perhaps that feature of the trip engendered a reckless confidence. We both then noted that Jake seemed to still be hovering at the peak of the experience. Mitch suggested that he roll a joint for the two of us as we awaited the termination of Jake’s adventure– to which I agreed. I then went over to where my pack was, to retrieve clean drinking water.

I have already described the strange pantomime enacted by Jake for my sole mystifying benefit before he finally took his turn out at the Point. Moments later Jake was in the river, and we were all drowning in a reality suddenly way too real.

After I sprinted downriver to glimpse him one last time, hopelessly in the distance, after I lost all perception of him, after I had thoroughly freaked out from the vividness of the day and its unfathomable events, I settled back into the reality I was most familiar with. We dealt with the situation as best we could.

We journeyed homeward… three had gone out, and only two had come back. We followed the course of the river down toward the hoodoos, keeping a keen eye out for any sign of Jake. He was gone… and the river raged indifferently on.

Eventually, we were at the place on the river near the community where my parents live. The next logical step was to go to their house to phone the RCMP. Mitch and I burst into my parents’ kitchen where the two of them were quietly playing a game at the kitchen table. “Jake fell in the river,” I immediately blurted out.

Their faces fell. “What do you mean, Jake fell in the river?”

“We think he’s dead.”

My parents sprang into action, rousing the neighbours to begin the search. I got on the phone to the police. Our private and personal tragedy was now a community event.

It was my mother who quickly located Jake’s body, guided by intuition. He had washed up on an island in the river only meters from where Mitch and I had turned away. With a safety rope and heroic determination some of the neighbours set about bringing his body back to the shoreline where we stood. Once accomplished, they mercifully prevented Mitch and me from getting too close. “That’s not your friend anymore,” they said. They were right, of course.

The police arrived, asking questions. Mitch and I were separated to give our personal accountings of exactly what happened that day…
_________________________________________

What Happened That Day Part 3 from Niels Kunze on Vimeo.

A video re-creation of the journey taken that day…
_________________________________________

Proceed to Part 4

(Go to Part 3)

(Author Narration with musical accompaniment)

“I killed Jake.”

I said it aloud at least once to Mitch, and perhaps a few times more to select individuals. Fortunately, the police and the coroner didn’t see it that way. The cause of death was determined to be severe head trauma, and clearly I had played no part in any such physical violence. The river had done that.

But I had purchased the ayahuasca. I had measured and mixed the components. I had handed the gelcap to Jake. That, already, was enough to make me feel responsible. But additionally, I had been 35 years old, whereas Jake was only 19. I was supposed to know better. We had been in my territory, my backyard. I had led us into danger… I was culpable.

Guilt is an ingrained habit of our culture. For every mishap there is someone or something to blame. For a time, I assumed the mantel of condemnation– if not outwardly, then assuredly on the inside. After all, this was a big event; such an occasion couldn’t possibly manifest without blame, could it?

As much as I inwardly insisted that I was at fault, there was another part of me which persisted in communicating that I was not. That other part of me is reluctant to use words, for they can be so easily misconstrued… in their subtle ambiguities. That other part of me is that part which is responsible for crafting my dreams as I sleep at night. But my nightly dreams were not haunted. Instead, I was provided with a daytime vision.

As I’ve said before, I’m not usually one prone to visions, but this one was clamorously obstinate in its persistence. I can’t even begin to guess how many times that brief clip played continuously upon the inner screen of my mind.

What I saw over and over again was Jake standing on the Point with his back to the river’s main current. Suddenly his spirit simply flew out through the top of his head, and his vacated body just fell back into the torrent. What do I mean by “his spirit simply flew out through the top of his head”? Visually I saw a diaphanous and malleable Jake emerge from his crown, much like a genie escaping his lamp. His spirit flew up; more than that I cannot say, for I was focused on the body falling in the river… That was the reality I would have to deal with– his vacated body; his spirit was beyond my ken.

And that’s where I finally found solace. Jake’s spirit was always beyond my ken, outside of my responsibility, equally so when animating the body known as Jake as when not. It would be presumptuous and inappropriate for me to assume responsibility for the choices Jake made on that day… or on any other.

We are all, each of us, on a journey of consciousness… through the landscape of our choices. My current understanding is that the journey is never-ending.

We may never know exactly what happened that day, but now I have told all that I know.

Epilogue

Just as I laid this story to rest, an unexpected thing happened. For the past twelve years there has been a memorial site maintained out by Dutch Creek at the very spot where Jake’s life was claimed by the river.

Myself, Mitch and another friend had discovered a very unique rock that was in the exact shape of a chair. It was a big rock which took all of our strength and skill with a lever and fulcrum to maneuver into position beside the river. Once in place, we dubbed it the Rockalounger 2000.

We placed it there for Jake’s spirit. It wasn’t all that close to the river’s edge, and I don’t think any of us ever imagined that it could one day be swept away. Today, July 1, 2013, it is gone. The river has reclaimed it.

The river itself has placed the final punctuation at the end of this tale. Apparently, this matter is now closed.
_________________________________________________

Addendum (The end; I swear!)