1999 Salvia conference @ the Farfunflush Hot Springs

 

None of this is true.
 

Well, the way the flights worked out, we were to end up in Portland a full day prior to the start of the annual Salvia divinorum conference at the Farfunflush Hot Springs in Woredon, Washington.  An idea that seemed so obvious sprouted - we would stay at the hot springs for an extra day...get moved in and used to the area - some peace and quiet before the psychedelic masses arrive, some time to become comfortable with nude bathing while on extremely potent sub-hallucinogens.

My interest was at a spectacular high...what would this conference be about?  For the first Salvia conference (last year), the many speakers educated the masses as to the traditional use and the safe contemporary use, of the magic sage.  What could they cover this year?  It wasn't as though a treasure trove of Salvia info. had come out within the last 12 months.

The Shulgins would be absent this year, however, Kat Harrison and Ralph Metzner would be present.  Oh yeah, he's one of *the three*...the only one who has not had major health problems (be it Ram Dass' stroke or Leary's...well...death.)

The drive from the airport was without event.  Beauty flooding in at all times, once we arrived on the mountain roads, even the clear cut areas didn't seem as ugly as last year.  Perhaps I was already becoming accustomed to this destruction...or perhaps almost a full year in a busy metropolis had worked to partially blind me.
The excitement was building as snow was falling!  Last year we were informed that it was rare for snow to be present in the first few weeks of December...well the Salvia conference has been 2 for 2 as far as snow goes.

We spent the first day relaxing...making loose plans for our sacramental voyages...looking forward to meeting all the friends that I sorta missed last year.  For my girlfriend (Ixchel) and I first met in the flesh at the last Salvia conference...and with the power of love and waiting and desire, I did not manage to leave her side.
It was clear this year, I would willingly devote more time to meeting online companions.
Ixchel and I wake up early - or did she wake me up early? To catch the sun rise - sort of - we head out to the steam room. A spectacular item for sure! A small wooden structure is built over a natural spring that puts out extremely hot water, thus, with a building on top and partially opened to the flow, natural steam pours out. So much steam in fact that I could not see Ixchel much at all, distanced only by 2 feet or so...I could occasionally make out her breasts glistening or a leg wiggling.

Next, we re-dress and race over to the hot springs. We chose the far meadow pool, after accidentally stumbling upon one pool and shining the flashlight somewhat towards the nude occupant...woops...sorry.

We undress and slide into the potently hot hot spring...the meadow lost of humans, the immense fog throughout the sky.  Imagine all this beauty...and it was still so early we couldn't even see the enormous old trees or the sharply slanted earth going down to the river churning whitewater below. The river could be heard though.

After about 20 minutes of this spectacle, another woman joins us in the far meadow pool. The lovely thing of this pool is its location and size. For, it overlooks the vast river, is the perfect temperature and is large enough for probably eight or ten people to relax in, without accidentally rubbing against a strangers nude body. We don't talk too much with the woman...all still floored by what we are feeling from these healing waters. She leaves, and we follow shortly...to the showers.

Gong-ing a language to inform about the preparation of breakfast, the FarFunFlush chow-time bell rings out. Ooooh!  Fresh orange juice!  Oddly enough, they did not offer orange juice again during the conference (not that I saw), but as I am still a Florida boy at heart, I drank 2-3 glasses of the delicious mildly pulpy beverage and ate a couple slices of the fruit of the same color.
We spent a short while during and after breakfast speaking with a FarFunFlush employee. This employee, Ixchel recalls, was the one who went into a fit at Paul Stamet's mushroom conference less than two months earlier. For, a group of people, presenters and attendees, were in some room (yes, I said room!) smoking whatever could be gotten. The fit involved "oh my god! You can't smoke in here!" Ah well...she was genial if not loving this morning.

For she thought Ixchel and I must be presenters, as we were there early - apparently some of the organizers arrived the same early day we had.  We clarified this matter and told the tale of another misunderstanding/identifying involving me...something that occurred the previous night.
I was taking a walk, likely coming back from the smoking temple (the pariah's pit/den) when I was spotted by a woman. I had not noticed her, and I entered the cabin, briskly removed shoes and coat, and hopped into bed with Ixchel. We were snuggled up when who should come a knockin'? The same women who spotted me. She knocked maybe twice then opened the door as Ixchel and I lay in each others arms in the short bed.

"Oh, hello. I thought you were my brother," she could not see my face at this point!

"'Cause he goes here too and I thought it would be wild if he were here," note: when she opened the cabin door, she immediately spoke fully knowing that I was NOT her brother. She opened the door and decided to chat anyhow.

"Well, bye." Thank you for that. That was truly odd, we thought, as the woman closed the cabin door.

The cabin, by the way, was B4. This was perfect! Ixchel and I had first met the previous year and shared cabin A1...so we were being welcomed by *something* which was commenting that we'd been here before...or maybe I'm just loony.

So...an hour or so after breakfast, Ixchel and I each took 200 mics of Hofmann's child. Nice energy...wow...we're really zooming!

I lay down on the bed and perhaps Ixchel went to smoke a cigarette, or she walk about in the cabin. I am flying high, in that plane where you are bombarded with visions but cannot remember them after the experience because of what happens directly following these spectacular sights. Existence was getting near and dear to explosion and I was no longer aware of myself..."I am everything and I am nothing at all!"

Ixchel lay down with me and we both continue our intergalactic voyages. Suddenly, I got that feeling in me tummy - that which I had last with 450 mics of the same stuff - I was going to blow! I ran to the sink and let my insides out. The highly acidic orange liquid spew out of me and worried, grossed-out calls come from Ixchel.

As opposed to the previous ego loss universal death trip, I had no fear of the death.

While blasting away, a dignified front appeared and I distortedly clean up my emesis. "Naw, don't look, Ixchel."

"Ewwwwwww!"

No cleaning would have been immediately necessary if I had made it to the toilet...but the sink called to me..."I'm your savior!"

I vomit a couple more times but continue to walk about all non-chalant, that same comfort and power felt after such an event. Water droplets dripping from my long red goatee, eyes wide, bloodshot, bright and glittering, face flush, smiles abound...a dignified, confident thought-provoking state.

In the same way that the AMT worked almost a year earlier, after I puked, I was completely free of psychedelic effects (save visual distortion - that is, the vomiting brought me back *in*)...but the effects would come back in full force - almost - within five minutes.

Some time passes as we both continue blasting (and I again lose my SELF, no nausea this time, its all clear from here on out!)

After a couple hours it is realized that some nice cold fresh mountain air would be lovely. Ixchel and I decide to take a beautiful walk. We both needed to come down a little bit before we could handle facing someone on the path, so about five or six hours after ingestion of the sacrament, we venture out.

We smile and nod at a couple people on the trail...if walking on pavement at this point, I would probably be stumbling, but now, walking on this ice and snow and rain drenched earth, I stumble not one bit.

Walk past the smoking temple (maybe stop and smoke, I forget, but it doesn't matter a lick), down a lovely trail. At the time, the trail was hardly noticeable...even though it had wood bridges and decks on it, all the ground around it was a giant stream. Wet shoes, indeed.

We both sit down at this nice quiet seat/deck and look into the trees ahead as the sun is shining through. A couple people on their way to register for the conference walk near us...most very quietly.

Ixchel felt the earth, she was one with the earth...not the universe. She felt all the pain of the trees...the animals...the heart of the planet...she tasted mother nature's tears...and then she shed them out.

An uncontrollable sadness. Not depression, but this DOWN and flowing eyes. It was more profound than an emotional MDMA session, moments later, I too was there...feeling all the pain...we were dripping as much as the trees and ground with the melted ice and snow...we were in so many ways connected to the planet. Some time went by here, but we came back up and walked back to our cabin, somber.

Sometime on the nature tear or walk thereafter, I got a simple/complex phrase, "everything is"...so simple, so true...with the 450 mic trip, I got "all is one, all is nothing"...wow...does this dose provide everyone with an intense Buddhist experience? All signs pointed to Zen, hehe.

The LSD was lasting very long. Some 12 hours later, we were both feeling it quite strong, visuals still going bonkers.

Ixchel was a bit unnerved still, she'd never felt that earth-flushing before, as neither had I.

We had promised to let each other roam, but to care for each other if needed. I waited until Ixchel was ok with the idea, and then I went into the dining hall - later that night of course.

As I walk out the door, I look at Ixchel, proclaimed my love for her, and lightly brush her amber necklace with my index finger. She jumped back as the breath is taken out of her lungs, somewhat loudly...huuuuuuuh!

"I felt that!" she states.

"That's because I meant for you to." Note, what she felt was not static electricity, everything was too damned wet for any static to lurch out and strike anyone.

I leave the cabin, smiling, confident in what had just happened and Ixchel looks to be a bit taken aback, retreating to her bed to write. While I was confident that such had just happened, I had no idea HOW! When I stated "I meant for you to", I was speaking sincerely even though I truly somehow had not anticipated it. I did mean it ;) Is that confusing enough?

Heading towards dinner, few people were on the path and I was still a bit jumbled up mentally. With my little flashlight lighting the way, I could more or less see any large puddles...

Out from one of the buildings I pass, comes a man...holding a small bundle. My eyes drift from the ground before me and I step right in the middle of a large pool of water.

"There's a big puddle," I say to the man behind me as I continue walking forward. SPLASH.

While the water had slowed him down, the man cut off of the path in order to meet up with me.

"Hi, I'm Bret," he introduces. I introduce myself and get a bit interested in this man.

"Blosser?" I inquire. Indeed, this was Bret Blosser, one of the organizers of the Salvia conference.

Flashlights bounce around each other's faces and seeing mine, he lets out "oh yeah, we drove to Seattle together!" Wow...he remembered me. With my new glasses and extended facial hair, he still knew me.

His demeanor was that of a man determined. He might not be able to sell freezers to the Inuit, but he could convince the DEA to start selling crack, I later think...

Now at the lodge and still under the influence, I prepared a plate and sat back. Seconds later, Pharmacogen, an online friend I had met earlier in the year, walked up. We hugged, smiled, and I asked to be introduced to another friend I'd never met but had hoped to find, Giglin. Met a couple more people, such as Gingard, welcomed all to the conference, set up where we could meet throughout the weekend, and I trudged out to the car to get another pack of American Spirits.

A long walk when you've been outside for a while that day. It was getting really damned cold, and the sun was long gone. A flashlight was luckily in tow and I found the tobacco and, later, the smoking temple. Wow. Lot of people here.

I shimmied back to the lodge to hear the first official lecture of the weekend... Bret Blosser, covering mentions of S. divinorum in papers of the Spanish Inquisition. A nice attitude permeated that room...warm. I was standing up in the back of the room for about an hour, maybe a bit more, when I finally got a seat that someone had left. Moments later the occupant came back and I moved one seat down. For this man I had met at the last rave I went to...wow!

Blosser calls a break and I head out to the smoking temple...

I got caught up at the temple, people with wild entertaining tales and various herbal smoking mixtures - a whole lotta combos I'd never even heard of (Cannapiumgindagga) - and after trying about a dozen varieties, I wobbled back to my cabin. It was too late now to visit Pharmacogen and Giglin, Blosser's speech was likely over and I thought I was about to freeze to death, so I fell back into Ixchel's arms. She was feeling better, not baseline yet, and I was more stoned than ever before.

Pain from a previous surgery was noted to have disappeared during the LSD peak, and it was still gone...but now my mouth was bone dry and my jaw was locking (or moving around oddly) no pain though.

I passed out that night, fully expecting to awaken with a seriously fucked up mouth/jaw...it mattered not to me at the moment, there was nothing I could do.

Today would be the first full day of the conference, Ixchel was feeling quite a bit better, and I was glad to be alive without any permanent damage upon my mouth from the previous night.

We both are able to attend breakfast on this day, make our plates and sit down. Soon, Giglin, Pharmacogen and Gingard join us at the table. Introductions are made, herbal supplements are taken and wild informative talks commence.

"Wow, you mean this will be comfortable just like all the other conferences we've attended?" I feel Ixchel ask...indeed...these friends were helping.

We both skip around, listening to the presenters, chatting with newfound friends at the smoking temple, and exploring the psychic abilities picked up the previous day.

After the peak explosion from the LSD, I felt a shimmering power...I felt like a young shaman, growing, as I did not freak out this last time...I was full of life, confident!

"Hmmmm, if we have some type of psychic bond...bah, surely that's just Art Bell crappola," I thought last night. "I know...I'll pick a number between one and ten and telepathically tell it to Ixchel. Of course, she won't get it right...this will prove, in a small way, that there is no psychic shit going on."

So, I do just that. The day after the lysergic blowout, I sit on the bed, staring into Ixchel's eyes, I tell her my intentions (what she is to do - not that I was doing this to expose this psychic sham), and she spouts out a couple numbers. Playing a perfect poker face, I do not flinch.

"Wait...hear the number..." and I pull up her sweater, squeezing a nipple for a closer bond - perhaps the number will flow through my hand, into her body via the nipple route, and into her mind.

We stay fixed inside each others eyes for 20 seconds or so, no one making a move, and then she says "three", confidently.

Yup...ok. At this point, I am taken aback...I inform her that was the exact number I was thinking of, she tells how she heard me saying it...

Wowseeeeeeeer!

Much like last year's report, as you can see, this one has little to say about the actual conference, and the presenters (although more than the last)...

The talks this year seemed to be more like stretching, trying to find something to talk about in order to legitimize the need for an additional Salvia conference (because the last one was so fucking fun!)

Throughout the conference, I am to miss one or two talks - of which there seem to be many fewer lectures this year (even though the conference lasts an entire day longer) - including one which from later mentions of it seemed to be ALL about the selling of Salvia. Indeed, the strong overall feel of this conference was that of a Salvia marketters gathering. I didn't feel bad at all for missing any talks.

However, every single talk I did attend was beautiful and spectacular!!!

One can only giggle at the open panel discussion (the first, I believe), where Daniel Siebert began a sentence, looked at the other presenters, and then said "I don't like the word entheogen." Perhaps he looked at the other presenters after he stated that. Following, Kat Harrison jumped in with "haha, he's looking to see if Ott is here!" A nice healthy laugh fills the room. For, Ott had, earlier, jumped on Blosser's case when it was said "entheogen is another word for hallucinogen"...we all know it isn't, but Blosser was trying to clarify matters for a foreign attendee.

Ixchel and I had made damn sure to bring along the vial of 5X we still had from months earlier (untouched)...yes, this evening we will both try the 5X for the first time...with MDMA.

Hopes are set that the MDMA can help smooth out the corners of any weirdness left from the previous day's trip. And oh, so indeed it does!

Floating with each other, we both enter l...o...v...e. The combination of GHB, MDMA, and the spirit of Salvia helped Ixchel and I break down those nasty social barriers last year...that which we triumphed and now find ourselves sticky in love.

The sun is long ago set, Ixchel and I desire Salvia. Tools: pipe, vial of extract, warm bed, no light ANYWHERE, lighter...hehe.

I go first, dumping between 1/4 and 1/3 of the vial into the bowl of the pipe. A magical flow of blessings arise from my mouth, my usual mantra "lady salvia, please fill my heart with love and my mind with knowledge" was repeated sooooooo endlessly, and then a strange impromptu call to Ska Pastora, expressing my love for all she has helped me do, and all she was to help me do in the next moments...feeling perfect peace, I take 3 deep inhalations.

I was sitting up in bed, eyes open looking at the complete darkness in front, when nine doors appeared. Three rows and three columns, all orange doors, all closed...except for the middle one.

I fall onto the bed, now laying down, but simply not aware of my body...at the end I "came to" laying down, and this is the time I guess I fell back.

Laying down, eyes still open, now looking towards the ceiling, I still see the doors, Pharmacogen is on the other side of the middle one! I see him, right there!!! As far as I can tell, he does not say anything, or necessarily acknowledge that he sees me. A minute or so passes, the spectacular image receeds and I quickly rise up to tell Ixchel!

Still feeling the Salvia (to the extent of smoking leaves) I lace up my boots, put on a coat, and head over to Giglin's cabin. For I had been there before, and while I was sitting up on the Salvia 5X experience, the middle orange door was in the exact direction of Giglin's cabin.

Wait a second...Ixchel had her wild voyage with the 5X, that helped her see certain problems in her life - or, more appropriately - see her path in helping others deal with their problems.

At Giglin's cabin now, they are all there...Pharmacogen and Gingard as well as Giglin. In an MDMA-induced talking spree, I tell the story. For, it turns out...Pharmacogen had just recently smoked some DMT (yes, orange-colored), and the approximate time that I saw him on the other side of the orange door, he was coming down from the tryptamine spectacular. Furthermore, at some point in the experience, his sitter's face began changing, switching into many other faces. He said one of them looked like me. Egads...am I ready for this strange beautiful twisting assisting obstacle?! Wow.

I rush back over to Ixchel, and we proceed to go back over to Giglin's cabin, wherein it is realized that some of these people neither of us had met before this conference, had read our tale of love in the forest at the first Salvia conference! Bit embarrassing, not enough to spoil the moment.

It is decided that we shall go to the hot springs. Pharmacogen and Gingard (as well as Giglin and Trecin) had taken some 2C-B. After a shot of some sweet ginseng extract, Ixchel, Pharmacogen, Gingard and I all head out to the far meadow pool, very cold out, very dark. Clothes off, we melt into the healing waters.

Ixchel and I find ourselves exhausted and we are the first to leave - eventually flying off into sleep in our warm cabin.

Later find out that Pharmacogen and Gingard, in a beez fancy, found themselves at one of the public warm out-buildings, smoking opium with a couple not-so-wide-eyed presenting fools.

More goodness simply flowing through that melting snow. I finally meet up with another SneePLe (a friend from an exclusive homing pidgeon message network), and learn the complete story of the t-shirts.

Here it is, unchanged by time or my sick mind:

Grandton, a wonderful graphic artist, sent Rob Montgomery a sample of some t-shirts he wanted to sell at the conference. Rob never responded and his sons said, "hey, let us do that!" So, they went on to put their money into printing up (less than 100) official BPC/Salvia shirts...three different colors, with the Salvinorin-A structure on the back...basic, but lovely shirts indeed.

However, on the first day, Grandton began setting up his shirts for sale at the little Marakesh market inside the lodge. It was eventually decided that Rob would allow him to sell his shirts only after all of the "official" shirts were sold (I don't think this time ever came)...but word got around the conference, and I have no doubt that Grandton ended up selling more shirts (probably mostly his intricately designed salvia-pentagram or San Pedro shirts...absolutely beautiful!)

Well there it is...the little political crap for this year.

More about the presenters...Kat Harrison was a little pistol! or is that pistil? Small in stature, she was very professional (although seemed as though she doesn't give many lectures), with a shitload of experience to back up her ideas...but man oh man did she swipe at some of the attendees! As did Ralph Metzner! Wow. These two were partially filled with piss and vinegar, as my dad would say. Kat, not so much, but Ralph...wow! His British accent just barely shining through...he let loose a couple snide slaps at the attendees. All becames apparent when he mentioned the ayahuasca conference that he has set up for the year 2000, in San Francisco. Basically saying the conference won't have a party atmosphere...as it shouldn't...ayahuasca isn't a thing for mass consumption in a big city - not yet at least. Lingering disappointments about how his former partner, Timothy Leary, had mishandled LSD way back when, for sure. The only one-on-one talks we share are about the snow-elephant that someone built prior to the conference starting...for now, its trunk had melted/fallen off, and it looked like a little sacred calf.

Ott's presentation, probably occurring earlier in the conference than I am giving it credit, was an elongated rant about how the USA owns Bolivia. How it is a modern-day Vietnam. How Coca-Cola has coca-processing plants down there, how the entire world economy is based on cocaine. Hmmm...interesting for sure, but it didn't touch on Salvia. He threw everyone for a loop! The whole time looking like death warmed over. It sure appeared that Ott's health benefited from the time in these sacred woods.

"Time flies when you're having fun, or at least run real fast to get things done, the proper way, the way of the world"...how did I finish that so many years ago..."...the way to go, to get the girl..." hmmm, well, time was flying, and Ixchel and I soon found ourselves at the smoking temple, with a couple doses of 2C-B at our disposal, but it was getting late in the day!!!

Hell, around 11 or 12 that night, she takes 10mg. up the nose and a little more in the tummy, I swallow 25. Its the last night here, might as well have fun, eh? Who needs sleep...we can do that later.

A night at the hot springs and steam cabin, entire grounds incredibly vacant from other people...no one is walking around! Wow. Neither one of us feel much of anything from the 2C-B, that was quite startling as we have had much success from the exact same batch. Ah well.

Hugs are passed around everywhere the following day, some e-mail addresses exchanged, meet a couple new friends, escape back to this world.

I have had one more 5X experience since the conference, not nearly as startling as the first...causes me to wonder about one thing Siebert spoke of during a panel discussion...he talked of how using a strong extract (or perhaps pure Salvinorin) would consistently take him back to his childhood...right back to rooms he knew as a child. Talks of working on navigating this...and that is what we are left with...how to navigate ourselves.

 

Hyperspatial Taxicab Direct, Xenopharmacophilic Experimentals