friction of the horsehair rubbing over me, and then the breeze of sound
flowing past as it crossed the lips of the instrument and went out to meet
the world, beginning its lonely transit of the universe. Then I passed
down into the resonant black well of space inside the cello, the vibrating
envelope of air formed by the curves of its spruce roof and maple walls.
The instrument’s wooden interior formed a mouth capable of
unparalleled eloquence—indeed, of articulating everything a human
could conceive. But the cello’s interior also formed a room to write in and
a skull in which to think and I was now it, with no remainder.
So I became the cello and mourned with it for the twenty or so minutes
it took for that piece to, well, change everything. Or so it seemed; now, its
vibrations subsiding, I’m less certain. But for the duration of those
exquisite moments, Bach’s cello suite had had the unmistakable effect of
reconciling me to death—to the deaths of the people now present to me,
Bob’s and Ruthellen’s and Roy’s, Judith’s father’s, and so many others,
but also to the deaths to come and to my own, no longer so far off. Losing
myself in this music was a kind of practice for that—for losing myself,
period. Having let go of the rope of self and slipped into the warm waters
of this worldly beauty—Bach’s sublime music, I mean, and Yo-Yo Ma’s
bow caressing those four strings suspended over that envelope of air—I
felt as though I’d passed beyond the reach of suffering and regret.
• • •
THAT WAS MY PSILOCYBIN JOURNEY, as faithfully as I can recount it. As I read
those words now, doubt returns in full force: “Fool, you were on drugs!”
And it’s true: you can put the experience in that handy box and throw it
away, never to dwell on it again. No doubt this has been the fate of
countless psychedelic journeys that their travelers didn’t quite know what
to do with, or failed to make sense of. Yet though it is true that a chemical
launched me on this journey, it is also true that everything I experienced I
experienced: these are events that took place in my mind, psychological
facts that were neither weightless nor evanescent. Unlike most dreams,
the traces these experiences inscribed remain indelible and accessible.
The day after my journey I was glad for the opportunity to return to
Mary’s room for a couple of hours of “integration.” I hoped to make sense