I've just nearly come back from an Emerald-Essence-induced salvia trip. After I placed the diluted tincture in my mouth I lay on a couch, with eyes closed, listening to Vivaldi.

There were beautiful closed eye visuals: a dome composed of ribs of light forming arched groining like that of a Gothic cathedral. The colors were the iridescent rainbow in a peacock's tail. This "reality" opened into another one: a narrow red rock canyon with a fast moving river plunging over rocks.

I then felt that I was no longer a specific individual, but was an awareness that opened into every individual's consciousness everywhere, forever. I had the feeling that there was a lesson to be learned.

A thought came as a certainty. Although in a sense "I" thought it, there was no longer an "I" around to think it. It was not "my" thought, but rather an impersonal truth that something was trying to pin down with words (lest it be forgotten as the salvia wore off). And it seemed existentially important not to forget it.

This is the part of the lesson that wound up being put into words: "You will die, but while you exist follow this way: Live truly, with beauty, with kindness, with love, with friendship. Nothing else matters."

After receiving this lesson I felt the trip waning, my dogs were barking to be fed, and I got up to bring them in from their pen. As I did so I looked at the trees, woods, and rocks of the place where I live, and realized the unbelievably beautiful intricacy of every object that is. I felt an immense sense of gratitude; I was immeasurably privileged just to be alive. And I wondered: How is it that we all forget this so much of the time? That we cease to see the wonder that is everywhere?