It was early March of 2005. A long-time friend of mine, whom I had first met when I was just 12 years old, shared his experiences with Salvia divinorum with me. I had been quite interested in herbal entheogens for a good while by then, but my only true experiences in any altered state were limited to cannabis, kratom, and alcohol. Although I was reading everything I could about herbal entheogens, I had not even considered something like Salvia, let alone any other classic psychedelics. I was 23 years old at the time, immersed in my collegiate studies.

After speaking at length with my friend, listening enthusiastically to him as he recalled his experiences with Salvia, and having asking many questions of him, I decided to obtain some Salvia extract. After a bit of waiting, the post man delivered my 5x Salvia extract, deposited on ground leaves of the mystical mint. I opened the container and inhaled deeply the pungeant fragrance, closed my eyes, exhaled, and thought to myself how intriguing it was to have this magical mint cradled in the palm of my hand. I am quite fond of mint: peppermint and spearmint. I’ve had it growing in my garden for a number of years now so that I always have a fresh supply. I had taken some cuttings of my peppermint and transplanted them into a small pot so that I had free access to fresh, delicious peppermint during the winter months.

To think that a member of the mint family could transport me to another world… I admit that I was incredulous, suspended in palpable disbelief.

I had the entire house to myself. I had read as much as I could about this divine plant teacher. I felt prepared, but at the same time humbly acknowledged that I could not truly know what would await me until I was deep into the experience, up front and personal with the great unknown. It was a truly exciting time.

It was a cold evening in march, with blustering winds whipping around me, kissing the warmth from the exposed skin of my bare neck and face. I had measured out a sensible dose, based upon the information in Erowid’s vault’s, put it into my wooden tobacco pipe, dressed according to the weather, and marched on toward what I had hoped would be an eye-opening experience. I wanted to see the unknown. I wanted to confront it, face on, and gaze into its yawning maw. I hoped to find answers.

I took my butane torch lighter and ignited the dried herb, inhaling deeply. The harsh, scathing smoke entered my mouth, trickled down my throat, and set my lungs on fire. I held the smoke in for a count of 30 and exhaled. Perhaps I was impatient. Nothing changed. I repeated this again. Still, disappoinment. Again, I made a third and last attempt.

As my lungs expelled the held breath that left my mouth as smoke, whipped away by the cruel wind, I gazed at the pipe. I thought to myself, oh, such tragedy: I had wasted a good bit of money on an undelivered, unattainable, and over-promised miracle. I was about ready to venture back inside to a warm, safe enclosure, but then something began to occur.

I felt a rythmic, strong sensation pulling me from the left side. It became greater, stronger, more furious as the seconds ticked by. It was as though the world was ripping me in two, split right down the middle. I looked up to the sky. Though the wind was fierce, and the cold was bitter, the night was clear and the stars were vibrant. I observed Orion’s belt, quite recognizable, immaculate, rising above the horizon, unmistakable.

Suddenly, a deep, dark violet vortex appeared in the heavens. I could not believe my eyes. It was as though a black hole had pierced the sky with an insatiable hunger. Its eyes were fixated on me. I was its chosen quarry. Weak. Ignorant. Naive.

Imagine my surprise as that rhythmic pulling began to tear me apart. I observed the left half of my body dissolving into a pixelated mess of orbs and cubes, my arm and leg slowly dematerializing as it was funneled up into the sky to be consumed by that swirling whirlpool of twilight. The old wooden fence surrounding my property began to bend and sway. Everything was alive. I heard chanting. I felt the presence of many little beings and I heard them singing, timed to the beat of that ripping, that foreboding pulling, in harmony with the spinning of that great, deep black eye that had appeared over me in the evening sky. It was a beautiful song, yet I cannot recall it, and the words spoken to me seemed so nonsensical.

I nearly burst into laughter at the absurdity of it all. To think: I had opened a portal to the very unknown realms that I had wished to storm the gates of, and these little entities had arrived to greet me, only to sing to me such ridiculous things that were not a part of the world that I knew. I wondered: Is this some sort of joke?

My limbs transmogrified, became waves of light and electricity. My house started to dance with the chanting, with the music. This is the point when a little voice within me began to say: You need to go inside. Go inside. Get away from that hole in the sky or you will forever be lost.

Fumbling a bit, I managed to rediscover how the solid, fragile doorways of man, with their silly knobs and locks and keys functioned, and entered the garage. At last: I was safe, but only for a moment. Stepping into the house I was greeted with the most comforting, relaxing sight:

BRIGHT LIGHTS. LOUD MUSIC. My younger sister and her then-boyfriend sitting on the couch, gazing at me as though I were some traveling vagabond, wide-eyed and bewildered, entered their domain. She knew what I had planned to do. She had promised not to visit me that night. Still, she did have a key to my house and she knew she would have far more privacy here to canoodle with her latest boy toy. Oh, the timing!

Trying to play it cool, I walked, steadfast, toward the staircase leading to the upper levels of this human-constructed abode. Everything seemed somewhat familiar, but all was tinged with dark violet, covered in a veil of mystery and strangeness. As I approached the door to my basement, I could feel that swelling whirlpool in the sky dragging me away, sucking me into the darkness. I again witnessed the entire left side of my body being sucked, spiraling out, as a thin noodle of flesh being supped up into the jaws of some fierce, omnipotent force not of this world.

With all of my strength, I gripped the door knob to the basement door and held on for life.

Perhaps you’ve seen cartoons. Maybe you’ve seen cartoons in which the characters hold onto some flimsy and precarious bit of earth, or a door knob, or some other fasthold, as their bodies are sucked away, horizontal to the door and the floor. I swear to you, even on this day, so many years into the future, that this is precisely what occurred on this fateful night. So far as I could perceive, only my hand held onto that door knob. The rest of my body was parallel to the ground. I was helpless.

My baby sister approached me and simply stated, "Holy shit. IT WORKED!"

As I have previously stated: She knew damned well that I had told her not to visit me that evening and she knew that I had intended to dance with Lady Salvia.

She attempted to calm me down. Then, I beheld a rather large praying mantis flying right toward my face. I jumped back.

"Niemand! It’s OK! I’m here! You’re safe!"

"It’s a praying mantis!" I exclaimed, completely bewildered, fascinated, transfixed.

"No, Niemand. It’s just a leaf."

Precariously, timidly, I bent down and slowly extended my arm. My finger met the mantis’ face.

SNAP.

It bit me, dug its claws into my flesh. It burned. I bled.

I gazed at her, incredulously, unable to believe her ignorance. Then, after a short time, the mantis morphed into a dead leaf.

"It IS A LEAF!"

Those were the only words that I could muster. As the breath left my lips, and the words were formed, it was as though I had beheld, witnessed, and came to realize the most magnificent, the most important and enthralling truth that mankind could ever hope to become privy to.  I looked again at my finger. No wound. My baby sister led me up the stairs into my room. I began to come down and readjust to the limited reality that I had been born into, laying in my bed. I listened to some music and, eventually, drifted into slumber.

Things were never quite the same again, and to be honest, I prefer it that way.

The next morning, as dawn’s gentle rays of white and red gently tickled the horizon and slowly padded over the material world, I awoke. I knew that I had only been reading, all of my life, one brief chapter in a greater tome. The evening prior, I KNEW that I had managed to peel back the bottom of the page and glimpse, momentarily, the truth that lay ahead.

From that day on I endeavored to peel back the pages, one after another, to discover the knowledge kept hidden from us; to break open my head and witness impossibilities become reality; to read those words and to learn from them.

I would not have it any other way.