DOSE:	1 shot	oral	Cacti - T. pachanoi	(tea)
		buccal	Coca	(leaves)

BODY WEIGHT:

110 lb

Huachuma in Peru

I don't know what it is about huachuma (otherwise known as san pedro cactus), but it feels like a vitamin to me. You know how Pacman eats power pills and can then run faster and eat all the ghosts with ease? It's like that.

I liked huachuma so much, upon encountering it in Peru, that the shaman let me take my own doses and go hiking all day alone. I drank it five times in one week and felt amazing. I am extremely psychedelically experienced, so this may not be 'normal.' I began to suspect my skin was turning green and after a week, I definitely started identifying with the tall desert plant as a close ally and friend.

With huachuma and coca leaves, I could hike for hours with very little food, water, or fatigue. They make me feel invincible. I discovered running very quickly down mountainsides, high on huachuma. In that state, I can focus fully on safely navigating a hillside with agility AND simultaneously on the visions of my inner eye. I began asking the cactus questions while following the visions and running downhill. It was as if the constant deft movement helped produce a higher altered state.

The shaman had me hike up a mountain, climbing several giant vertical wooden ladders on rock faces. One of them was 40 meters high. Then we ate cactus on a slanted rock over a cliff. He pointed to my spot for the daylong cactus meditation. It was just big enough for my body to sit cross-legged on the edge of a cliff. The only thing dividing my body from the cliff face was a small reed-like plant. It stood perfectly straight, reaching towards the sky. With trepidation, in a ridiculously altered state, I mimicked it. When I got scared of the height and dizzy with vertigo, while my soul was flying into the vast view of blue sky and tremendous mountains, I would put my right hand to the ground. Feeling the rock beneath me was the only way to know I was still sitting on a cliff edge.

Every once in a while I felt the reed-like plant nudge me, as if to say, 'Sit up straight like me. Align with the heavens.' I would try again, not looking down, only out over the valley.

The shaman had asked me the night before if I could climb a 40 meter ladder up a rock face. 'Yes of course,'' I replied. Then I spent most of the night wondering exactly how high 40 meters was. And, 'Up a straight rock face? Then coming down? High as a kite on cactus?' I wondered. What had I agreed to? I felt a sense of commitment known to marathon runners and psychedelic warriors alike. There was no turning back.

What I found was that with cactus and coca, I can climb up giant ladders on rock faces with no harness with ease. 'Never look down. Don't think,' I told myself.

The return trip was even easier, surprisingly. Extremely high on huachuma, I was nearly outside of my body, watching it mechanically climb down the rungs of the four giant ladders. Left hand. Right foot. Left foot. Right hand. Over and over until I was quickly at the bottom, where we stopped to chew more coca.

During the journey on the cliffside, I felt pain in my lower right side. It began melting into the sacred mountaintop as the shaman sang. As the pain grew sharp, I had visions of all the leftover grief from my childhood, as a knifeblade I kept in my intestines. The cactus melted it into the mountains. I wept for five minutes, feeling the anguish of pain releasing. Then, later, I sat up, ran down a steep mountainside, climbed 200 meters of ladders down rock faces, and began chewing coca.

Huachuma teaches endurance and fearlessness, but not through hours of suffering. It is amazingly direct and compassionate as if to say, 'The desert sun is harsh and cruel but look at my gorgeous flowers and strong arms. Rise to the sun like me.'

[Reported Dose: 'one shotglass full']

Exp Year: 2014	ExpID: 102667
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 36
Published: Aug 19, 2016	Views: 2,638
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Cacti - T. pachanoi (64) : Group Ceremony (21), Nature / Outdoors (23), Glowing Experiences (4), Combinations (3)