Space Project- Heidi

May 13, 2022

Space Project- Heidi

In the Woods

I have always felt connected to nature. In a way, sometimes I feel like I belong there. The energy of the outdoors is different, like a war, untouched feeling that resides deep in your bones. For me, it is also a good destressor when I’m at school, or even when I’m at home and things are just too much. It’s actually easier for me to get outside when I’m at home anyways, since I’m desperately unemployed and many of my home friends are even more outdoorsy than me. My one friend, Ben, usually takes me on long hikes with his golden retriever. Even though I’m out of shape, I have no reason to say no to these trips. Who would complain about walking with a cute dog? [[Willa!]]

Summer is the prime time to go on these adventures. The east coast is incredibly humid, which always baffles me because Pennsylvania is technically in the northeast. Unsurprisingly, this is how I get most of my exercise. But other than that, being outside and interacting with nature is extremely grounding for me. Not to be a hippie, but it’s true. As someone that struggles with my mental health quite frequently, a walk in nature is an easy fix (but of course therapy is vital too). I don’t know why, but breathing in fresh air is sometimes more beneficial to me than talking out my problems. Even better than that, though, is talking out my problems with my friends while we’re outside. It’s like a win-win. [[Flowers]]

One thing that’s important to note about my friends, especially my guy friends, is that they’re all stoners. Like, major stoners who smoke every day, multiple times a day. So for that reason, on many of these therapeutic walks, one or multiple of my friends is absolutely blazed. Honestly, I’ve never minded. Oftentimes smoking a bit of weed can calm you down, or at least help you loosen up if you’re extremely stressed. Of course, it’s important to be mindful about how Pennsylvania’s laws are stuck in the 1850s, and weed won’t be legalized probably for a long time. My worst fear is getting in trouble. Despite that though, cannabis has had a lot of benefits for both me and my friends, especially when we’re in nature. That’s why when my other friend, Mason, invited me and Ben to hike part of the Appalachian trail while on shrooms, I didn’t question it. At first I was concerned because, unlike my stoner friends, I am not super experimental. I have a lot of anxiety around trying new things especially when I know they could be dangerous. So I did my research on shrooms, or “[[magic mushrooms]]” as some call it, but I think that sounds kind of stupid. Apparently you’re actually supposed to take shrooms while out in nature, so I thought this could be a good opportunity for me to further ground myself while outdoors and open my mind to this new thing. On top of that, I’ve never been to the Appalachian mountains, and I’ve always heard they were incredibly beautiful. [[Walking up]]

Before hiking, though, we actually had to physically consume the contraband. The good thing about shrooms is that they are notably a little less risky than other psychedelics, since they are naturally sourced and not man-made. However, they tasted absolutely disgusting. I made the mistake of mixing the dirt flavor from the drug with a gas station blueberry muffin. I’ve never been more nauseated in my life up until that moment. Finally, we began our hike on a steep incline. The beauty of our surroundings was immense. Although I was out of breath from climbing the steep hill at the beginning, it was impossible to ignore the serenity of the winding path lined by ferns combined with the stunning trees I have never seen before. It was a super humid day, though, and the amount of sweat I was accumulating was intense and gross. Keep in mind, it was also barely 9:30 and the drugs were already starting to kick in. At this point I was just curious to see how it would affect me, if at all. I remember that, when I started feeling something, I turned to [[Mason]] and said, “I can feel my eyes.” If you’re wondering what exactly that means, all I can say is that I knew my eyes were dilated and I could feel my pupils getting wider and wider by the second. As we kept walking, the colors of the nature around me were growing brighter. Everything was already exceedingly beautiful, but I must say, the illegal substance without a doubt heightened it. The greens were greener and the sky was so blue it was blinding. I am not saying that you need drugs to see the beauty of nature, but I won’t deny that I did feel more grounded in a way that I’ve never felt before. But when we stopped walking, it was a different story for me.

We all decided that we needed a bit of a rest and found some semi-comfortable rocks and patches of grass to sit on. Mason was playing music that vaguely sounded like something you would hear at the burning man festival, but I didn’t mind. Ben wasn’t even trying to hide that he was tripping out, and started petting a tree and saying, “this feels [[so cool]], you guys have got to try this right now.” I was comfortable at the moment so I didn’t listen to him, but instead observed the craziness going on around me. It was then that a massive wave of nausea hit me like a ton of bricks. I tried to ignore it since I knew that nausea was par for the course when you take shrooms, but whenever I get nauseous, I start to cry. Seeing that I was distressed, my friends helped me sit down on a damp log (since there aren’t many places to sit in the mountains). Right about now, obviously, I was definitely on a trip. What happened next is difficult to describe. Between bouts of crying, I thought I was controlling the weather with my emotions since it would get cloudy and windy when I was crying, and sunny and still when I was calm. Don’t take my word for it though. My friends were also having, for lack of a better word, an interesting time. Ben was hyper. He was running around and saying how he wanted to hike all the way to Maine. Mason was trying to comfort me which I greatly appreciated. It wasn’t all bad either. Within the several hours that I was crying for no reason (I never even threw up), we were making each other laugh, too. There were several times that a hiker, as in a big-time, serious hiker, would walk by and give us [[strange looks]]. We thought about how they perceived us, and instead of stressing about it, we were able to laugh it off. [[Friends being Silly]]

Finally I was feeling pretty much sober and we kept hiking. It was such a strange feeling. I was relieved that the trees weren’t swirling in front of my eyes anymore, but the experience was also, I thought, important for me to have. Yes, maybe I hallucinated my ex-boyfriend, but I also, for the first time, felt like nature was moving with me. Every time I breathed, the ground breathed with me. When I walked, the brightness of the colors followed and surrounded me. I cried a lot but I also learned even more. The drugs weren’t the only new thing to us that day. We met a man who was a “[[through hiker]],” meaning he started the hike in Georgia and would complete it in Maine. He talked to us about the hardships, but also the beauty of the hike and how happy he was that he did it. After meeting him, me and Ben decided that one day we would do the same. I would need to get in shape first, though.

I’m not trying to convince people to do drugs in order to feel connected to nature. You could easily achieve that just by being open and exploring while sober. However, I do think that, for me personally, psychedelics were something that I needed to explore. They didn’t make me understand myself or learn the secrets of the universe or anything, but they did help me connect to nature in a new and unique way. I was thinking things and asking questions about nature that I have never considered before. Even when I was panicking my friends were there to ground me or crack jokes to make me feel better. The overall experience for me taught me how to ground myself when I lose my head. It wasn’t just the drugs that helped me do that, and I do think I could have done this without them, but my mind was so much more open to so many more things, that nature and I felt like one entity. <iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/13Qs1K60ONxHQxu6KMdVxPiXgAPJu9LxQ/preview" width="640" height="480" allow="autoplay"></iframe> Source: shroomery.org

By Heidi Krull A "trip" in [[The Outdoors]]

[[Into The Woods]]

"Yeah, that usually happens," Mason said to me. At this point of the trip, the colors of the trail were intense to the point where it was almost painful, but that wasn't even the most bizzare part. The tree bark was quite literally swirling and slithering in front of my eyes, which was just one of the [[Strange Moments]] [[Me and Ben]] were new to this, so we had no idea what was in store.

Ben took more than Mason and I, and this became quite evident in this moment. "Guys. It's like I can connect with nature through the trees." It made sense at the time, but looking back on it, it sounds god damn ridiculous. the [[strange looks]] felt more intense as I kept tripping. it was almost like they were laughing at us. Despite that though, I tried to enjoy the swirling nature beneath my feet. The outdoors and I felt more like siblings than anything else in this moment.

"What if tomorrow, there's a news article about us?" Mason said through bouts of giggling "I mean, there are so many people walking by someone had to have reported us," Ben laughed I hadn't even thought about that. At first it freaked me out, but my high brain decided that it was the most hilarious thing it's ever heard. This conversation helped bring me out of the trip. [[Friends being Silly]]

Shrooms are... interesting, for lack of a better word. They're mainly used for the exact reason we took them: to connect with nature. Psychedelics are misunderstood in the realm of drugs so a lot of people don't actually know what they do, what the side effects are, or what the benefits are. The most important thing to know, for sure, is that you will think you're communicating with nature. If you have ever seen the movie Midsommar, that's actually a pretty good example of the visual effects: grass growing through hands, sitting and staring, paranoia, it's all there. I was most concerned about experiencing ego death or acid flashbacks, but those are both rare. Nevertheless, PLEASE do your research! <iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b-tZI6K6PVKdPc9ZDwGyYCjmZkCo2Udn/preview" width="640" height="480" allow="autoplay"></iframe> Source: Buzzfeed [[Walking up]]

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