The perfect combination of place and people (two key components of a successful psychedelic experience) provided a space to sort through the issues I was grappling with at that time, all through the lens of psilocybin.
Photo Courtesy of Steven Cordes
The mushrooms allowed me access to an ancient understanding of the way the universe works and my place in it. They showed me how that knowledge lived in me at all times, like a collection of books I’d forgotten about that had been stuffed in the back of a closet in my mind - I had just been unaware of it.
Most importantly, I was given the epiphany that my life was mine to live and no one else’s. Not my parents, not my friends...it was all my responsibility, and I was the only one putting limits on what I was capable of accomplishing. I realized that contentment in living your life starts and ends with being truthful with your words, your actions, and above all, with yourself.
When I left Shelby, Montana, and headed out to New Orleans at the end of that summer, I may not have made the most graceful exit, but it was an intentional one. I let that intention guide me and I ended up in a place where the isolation and loneliness I’d always lived with gradually gave way to a new life; a life filled with acceptance and the support of a community.
It took a few more years to officially come out to all my friends and family. Regardless, the catalyst for that outcome was a direct result of that weekend spent with my childhood friends at the magical cabin on the outskirts of Glacier National Park; a weekend during which the universe whispered sacred knowledge to me in a dialect of absolute truths, and I had enough sense to shut up and listen. Rian is a beach leisure enthusiast with a penchant for hyperbole.
He creates with words and with music compulsively. His pappy was
a pistol, and he’s a son of a gun.
Find Rian on IG: @biffpowbang.
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