I’ve decided to smoke salvia every day this week as part of a mental journey. Or something.
I bought my first bong today. It has pinkish red in it, which is my favorite part. When I asked about Salvia, the other customers in the store exclaimed to each other, “Salvia, whoahh. That shit can fuck you up!” I already have a shoebox full of leaf, but I decided to start off the week with 20x.
Megan took a hit first. She was about to take another when she suddenly seemed to no longer see what was in front of her and I pulled my bong out of her face. She looked dazed and seemed unable to talk. Awhile after she came back to reality she explained that she entered a different planet through its airport where everyone had my face. I wore a red brocade hat that seemed like an accordion. Then she started to touch her skin and feel like it was cardboard and uncomfortable. She didn’t particularly like her trip.
Before I got high, I painted half of a portrait (the left side) as part of a project for SF0 where I needed to make art “under the influence.” I took my hit, a big one, and held it in for longer than usual. I felt the trip coming on, put one pillow under my head and clutched the other to my chest. The world turned into layer people and I lost my orientation. Layer people. I had completely forgotten about them. I remember another trip where my surroundings connected into repeating layers – sort of how it looks like when you open the medicine cabinet so that the mirrors reflect infinitely into each other. But these layers aren’t darkened by shadow or limited by what you can sandwich between the mirrors. In my trip tonight I remember how the little rubber coated forks (that support the plastic sheet for a recessed ceiling light) had faces, as well as everything else that formed these vertical accordion layers. I rolled on the ground, side to side, which made the layers move like flipping slowly through a deck of cards.
I laughed hysterically, trying to explain the layer people to an almost sober Megan, and completely sober Peaches. At some point I found the layer where my canvas was “above my left shoulder” (not really, just in my mental orientation). I rolled around through layers some more but eventually decided to come to the one where I could paint. “Here’s the real layer!!” I didn’t even pick up my pallette knife and went straight for the paint for my fingers, smearing blue and yellow onto the canvas. I remember being manically happy, laughing and shrieking. When I did use the pallette knife, I would be convinced I was painting certain things – the red and pink vertical lines were a city, a blob was a swimmer, blue and green smears were water. Sometimes I didn’t want to paint because everything seemed perfectly beautiful just the way it was.
(Megan made a painting too, with some help from Peaches.) Back in reality (but still high) I would shift between feeling normal and spazzing out. I would randomly have tremors and laugh into my pillow. Salvia awakens a wild, manic world of hysteria, and I think my painting (on the right half) reflects that. Textures, music, sensations are transfixing. I got caught in a romantic gaze with my camera, far up on a ledge as I reached toward it.
A good first day, I think.
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