Melting Home
Bufo alvarius Secretion
Citation: Trip in Gardener. "Melting Home: An Experience with Bufo alvarius Secretion (exp118188)". Erowid.org. Sep 24, 2024. erowid.org/exp/118188
DOSE: |
repeated | smoked | Toad Venom | (dried) |
BODY WEIGHT: | 175 lb |
I feel compelled to write a report as I am struggling to wrap my head around the experience. It happened on a Saturday morning and I started to put it into words in the evening. I have spent the next couple of days rewriting and adding things as the memories were bubbling up. It is the first time I ever feel the need to put extensively a psychedelic experience into words and the exercise is really helping my integration process.
So far my psychoactive experiences have included mushrooms, LSD, MDMA, Nitrous Oxide and Ketamine and are all fairly recent (less than 4 years). I firstly discovered the healing power of magic mushroom. My relation with them got me sober and put an end to a long-term alcohol drinking disorder. A year after, I quit smoking. I attribute those changes in my life – addressing addictions as coping mechanisms - to my psychedelic experiences. The increased awareness they procured gave me the courage to face my own traumas and do the work. I do have a long history of chronic depression, stress and anxiety. 3 weeks ago I did for the first time a traditional peyote ceremony that has been a very heart opening experience. I have never felt so at peace, full, right and strong in my life, kicking goals and ticking boxes day after day. I'm learning to love and be proud of myself, accepting me whole and giving out the best I can.
I'm overall in a good mental headspace.
Erika & Karl are the sweetest friends you can have. They have extensive experience in the psychedelic space and serious harm-reduction practices. They have sat a lot with the Toad and they have told me about it for a good year and a half now. I never felt a particular pull or a call for it other than pure and respectful curiosity. Until last week when I received a text message : ”What about meeting the Toad next Saturday ?” I was called.
They arrived at my place around 10am on a beautiful sunny morning. I didn't eat the night before and took some activated charcoal. I woke up before sunrise and contemplated the sun rising on the forest. I had a green tea and an apple for breakfast. They set up the space in my garden on the grass in mid-shade; blankets, pillows, incense, singing bowls, rain stick, wind chimes, diapason, water, even a bowl for purging. I have no direct neighbor and live in a beautiful little cottage surrounded by nature. The set and settings are perfect.
I'm feeling fully safe with them.
- 10:30am
The space is open, singing bowl vibrating, greeting to the land, the ancestors, us, the medicine, life. Then a quick introduction on the Toad, it's history, it's venom.
The experience starts with a 'handshake', for everyone, me being the first.
I start with 12mg of dried venom. It looks like slim translucid yellowish flakes. After a couple of good deep breaths I very slowly inhale the smoke swirling in the glass pipe. The smoke isn't hard on the throat, it's sweet, I like the taste. In a matter of seconds I feel a buzz irradiating through my body, the intensity is new but I know the space. The sensation is orgasmic and deeply soothing. Reality vibrates. In those seconds I am catapulted from a sober state to the quiet awareness I caress at the top of an acid trip in a nice setting. Everything is okay, beautiful, delightful – melts in it's place. With teary eyes my first words are “It's the most gentle thing.” I lay down. It is short acting but the glow and the physical buzz are there. I am at peace. I do not have particular visual.
Karl & Erika have their 'handshake' and I'm just enjoying this new-but-common space.
Coming back to me “Do you want to go further?”
We all laugh when I say Yes. “We thought so!'
I take a sip of water.
- 11am
The next dose is a “hug”.
30mg. Same protocol, longer burn, stronger buzz, it hits stronger, oh my god, I feel like I am melting. I'm dissolving – both mentally and physically – and I sigh of pleasure. I remember kneeling, praying hands next to my heart, bending to the ground. Visuals start to appear in slights fractals forms. It gets challenging, I lay down and let go as much and I can. E&K are playing music, vaporizing sweet fragrance water based mixtures all around me. I have no word for the experience. Rudderless and peacefully floating. I'm coming down, I am safe. Everything is perfect. I maintain silence. I am contemplative.
- 11:30am
Karl asks if I want to go again. I take a couple minutes to gather myself and say Yes, again.
Another sip of water.
The next dose is – I was told - close to a full release. I'm high, already in the space, waiting for take off. I'm not scared, I am here.
60mg. By the time I finish inhaling the smoke I am well dissolved and barely remember breathing out. Karl is in front of me holding the pipe and my vision swirls. I am now loosing my body that lays on the blanket. The most terrifying yet incredible experience of my life unfolds. It carries deep meaning beyond anything explicable. An implosion from within. The world around me turns into a complete psychedelic pandemonium of fractals & mirrors. My body moves without control, at that point there is no more 'self' and it's a liberation.
My body moves without control, at that point there is no more 'self' and it's a liberation.
There is no more 'Self' to experience the sensory input one way or another, just the raw sensory input as it is and by Itself. Therefore there is no judgement, anxiety, or fear. No subject and no object, just the Experience in it's non duality, in it's entire purity.
IT IS, just HERE, THERE and NOW.
I feel the need to spit out and do so. I'm rolling on my other side curling up in my blanket.
I'm repeating “Oh my God” several times in total wonder.
The sun is shinning and E&K are playing music. Rain falls in the rain stick, bells and chimes are tinkling. Everything is glowing and bouncing all around me. “You are loved, looked after and safe”. This place of oceanic Love is all so familiar. This is Home. I'm laying down cuddling my pillow in semi foetal position. They put another blanket onto me, I'm warm under the sun.
The come down is beautiful and peaceful. Time has stopped, all is perfect, all is good. And still, so very little words are there to make sense of the experience. Crying, screaming, laughing or talking all even feel barely needed.
After awhile Karl asks how I feel. I repeat “Good”...”Good”...”Good” a couple of times. With long pauses. Until it becomes a joke and we all laugh. “I've got nothing” I'm in shock. I have nothing to say. It even feels irrelevant trying to. They look at me with huge smiles “Welcome to the Toad”. I reach out to hold their hands.
- 12:30
I'm still asking for a last adventure. This time I'm willing to be more still and centered. I want to navigate the space more thoughtfully. I ask for a smaller dose and try to keep the smoke longer in my lungs.
I'm going for 40mg. This experience is pretty much a repeat of the last one in terms of happening and intensity. I dissolved again before I fully breathed the smoke out. I don't think I succeeded in being more centered but the intention was there and was my first stepping stone in Toad territory. Intense imagery, connection to Earth. The experience is so very true, so very strong, so very ALIVE.
- 1pm
Its time for Erika to have her journeys. I watch her enter the space with unbearable compassion. I'm moving the chimes around her with Karl. Smooth healing music is playing. Wind through the trees. Birds singing. Divine Moment of Truth on Planet Earth.
A bit later we gather ourselves and Karl closes the space, in all gratefulness.
- 2pm
We slowly pack up, prepare a meal and enjoy the rest of the day sharing it all until the sun sets on the forest.
It is really confronting trying to remember an experience where there is technically no one to recalls it. It is a miraculous event.
I'm incredibly grateful to have met Erika & Karl.
I'm incredibly grateful to have had the chance to meet the Toad in such a beautiful way.
It is a medicine of great importance, who needs immense respect.
Please do start slow and enter the space respectfully and with extreme care. I have read articles, reports and saw documentaries about The Toad but nothing prepared me for it. Contrary to most people I didn't “white out” and my peaks were full-on visuals. Retrospectively I think I was fighting the experience in a way.
My favourite journey was the hug one, it felt I could move and work with it. I'd go back to this next time. My memory of it has been obliterated by the 2 next stronger doses, that I'm very glad I did nevertheless.
Like with other psychedelic, the dose is of course important, but your relation with the compound, your intentions, sets & settings are even more so, paramount.
A couple of days later I am acknowledging that a part of me died there. A part full of noises and rowdiness. Understanding it allow me to grieve and move forward. It is unprecedented and very moving.
I know that I have more to learn. I know that I will come back.
It went to the core of my being and is laying within me since.
I don't think I met God but think that God met me. Or should I say, It showed up.
I can feel the embers in my Heart and I get to build up the fire.
We are together now, until the end of this human experience.
I'm writing those last words with tears in my eyes.
I think that is how we call it.
I think I'm in Love.
Exp Year: 2024 | ExpID: 118188 |
Gender: Male | |
Age at time of experience: 34 | |
Published: Sep 24, 2024 | Views: 15 |
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Toad Venom (46) : First Times (2), Glowing Experiences (4), Group Ceremony (21) |
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