How I was dismantled by the goddess on my first psilocybin journey.

Insights from my first therapeutic psilocybin experience.

The relic of the Canaanite goddess Asherah found in Syria

The first time I put on eyeshades and music and took a therapeutic dose of psilocybin, I realized I was not special. This was a fitting message for my initiation to plant medicine. "You are not special" cautions against the egotism that can arise during the process of consciousness expansion. I was informed that I was no more insightful, intelligent, or enlightened than anybody else. We all have equal access to our Creator and the Source of all creation. Inner sight is a universal gift, and everyone has the capacity to improve theirs. Since we've spent our lives crafting our identity – our triumphs, failures, and everything else – believing we're not special is a hard pill to swallow. But I am unique, am I not? There is no one else like me in the world; no one else has lived my life; doesn’t that make me special?

As the effects of the psilocybin came on, I felt desperately alone and defenseless. I had a vision of myself as a newborn field mouse, wretched, blind, and naked, lying on the icy winter soil of the forest, completely at the mercy of the elements and bigger creatures. When I returned to being me in the vision, I began to dwell on my losses. “Oh, why me?” came my self-pitying complaint. As soon as I thought “Why me? Poor me”, I saw myself as a young soldier in an infirmary with stumps for legs “Why not me?” said a voice, an answer that silenced the first question. Then, the lines between myself, the mouse and the soldier became hazy.

Under the influence of psilocybin, "Michele" appeared as a meticulously crafted, yet strangely unreal shell, reminiscent of a soundstage, complete with painted backdrops and artificial lighting. It hit me then: reality wasn't the artificial confines of the "Michele set," with its flimsy plywood walls, its cut-out windows, and plastic flowers, but the vast expanse existing outside those artificial walls. People I’ve guided on psilocybin journeys have often used the phrase "meat suit" or "meat puppet" to describe their experience of feeling detached from their physical selves. I’ve also heard people talk about seeing themselves as a fold in a massive piece of fabric or tapestry, rising for a moment, before flattening out and disappearing back into the big cloth. Some have seen themselves as a graphic wave, the kind one sees on charts and medical monitors.

As the music played, I felt completely devoid of will, as if I were a machine driven by the electrical currents in my head. At moments, every feeling and thought seemed like a direct reaction to the sounds pulsing through my headphones—or maybe it was my own brain composing the music, I couldn't distinguish. The rhythm vibrated within me, dissolving the boundary between external stimulus and internal projection. I felt like a noise-making thing, a desperate babbler, trapped inside a little black box.

I became aware of the problem of embodiment, the weight of all this matter making up “me”. Trapped in this body, this brain—a mere shell designed to hold something far bigger, something cosmic, boundless, and ubiquitous, yet frustratingly mundane and unremarkable—I felt an unbearable sense of confinement. I thought I was special because I saw the world through the unique lens of my own existence within this container called "Michele". However, I began to realize that I was just a tiny part of a much greater consciousness – a consciousness that could perceive the world through countless other lenses, perspectives spanning across countless individuals, locations, time periods, animals, plants, minerals, elements, atoms, and even quarks.

Language and boxes were a problem. In an ordinary state of consciousness, I am constantly languaging things and putting them into categories, cubby holes of order and certainty. “I am female. I am married. I am Asian. I am politically moderate. I was raised Roman Catholic. I live in America.” How much trouble these words, these boxes cause. The ego, which is the constructed self, the artificial place, the film set, will try to fool you into believing you’re one thing and not another, that you’re more than or less than, better or worse than. This is an illusion because there’s no actual hierarchy or separation except within our minds.

“You can’t contain me. Stop putting me in a box. Move beyond the stories you know,” said a voice, which sounded feminine. This message was being communicated to me by a dragon-like, African female form. A wise, powerful but sortof scary entity.

I asked, “Why? Why am I here? What am I?”

“Why, why, why. Stop asking me why. I don’t have the answers,” said the voice. “I did not you create you. You created me. I have just always been here. You’re the one who tried to make me god. I did not make you. You made me.”

“Could this be God?” I thought. “Is God really a woman?” This contradicted my recovering Catholic worldview, and it frightened me. "There's no such thing as insanity," the voice declared. “Insanity is an idea created by the pretend world. Those they call insane are really just those who already know my world. Here, there is no sight, sound, touch, or smell. The line between self and other disappear, along with the constructs of illness and health, ethnicity, belief, nationality, gender, and age; all of your boxes are meaningless. Without them, there’s nothing distinct about you. You’re not special, get it?”

Then, I found myself adrift in a dark, endless, empty expanse—a horrifying, alien nothingness. And I was absolutely alone. That voice, that feminine voice, which I had assumed was the voice of my Creator, was not nurturing. It was cold and mocking, amused by my humanness, my disorientation. It felt uncaring and showed no concern for me. There was no loving godhead or deceased family and friends. It was just me, all alone, in dark, silent, outer space, forever and ever. I remember thinking, “Oh shit! This is how we’ll exist after death. This is eternity”. It was awful.

When I became lucid, I felt despair. This first psilocybin journey led me to the conclusion that when I die, I’d be all alone in a massive void, lost in endless space. There were no other signs of consciousness out there but me and this impersonal goddess thing that felt alien, unavailable, and very far away from me as I floated in space. It was a horrible prospect for an afterlife.

I woke up the following day thinking life was unreal and pointless. Before this, I had half believed in a loving, nurturing god-figure, the god that my parents trusted, though somewhere in the back of my mind, I always felt this god wasn’t delivering. But now I was left with a sense of dread.

A few days later, while meditating, the comforting voice of the god I knew as a child, the one who cared and knew my name, cut through the silence, and a familiar warmth spread through me. Through a masculine voice, he said, “You met one of the great ancient spirits of the universe, the one who rules the earth. She’s been called Nana Buluku, Asherah, Gaia or the mother goddess. I created her a long, long time ago as my first companion. She’s so old, she’s forgotten she was created. She’s forgotten she came from me. She believes she always was. That was not me. What do you think I am? Some kind of parlor trick? You take some mushrooms and I reveal myself to you? You don’t get to see me till it’s over. But I am always here, and it is I who made all who dwell behind the veil.”

Though the goddess appeared indifferent, I now realize her message was both timely and helpful. I needed to know: I'm no more or less worthy of existence, and of receiving visions and inspiration than anyone else. I am not special. Shedding my belief about my personal uniqueness, I’ve stepped into a newfound understanding of my place within a greater divine plan, and this has fostered within me a deep connection to something larger than myself.

Having done many more journeys since this first one, I've learnt that the narratives my mind creates (no matter how realistic), and the archetypes met don't represent universal truth. They will most likely show up differently for everyone. However, they have all assisted in helping me explore the meaning and purpose of my existence, and that has been invaluable.

   By Michele Koh Morollo, NUMEN NoSC Therapies