Article: Flowers for the Dead
Series: Dreaming in the Dark Times
As I write this, I am steeping blue lotus (Egyptian Water Lily), Lion’s Mane mushroom (powdered extract) and honey in hot water for about 1 hr. It is my intention on this Christmas night to dream deeply as a way to gather information about my future and the destiny of my family. It’s a shamanic practice that most people have access to. This winter and holiday week, I’ve gathered in my home, powerful herbs and foods that strengthen my connection to the darkness and to life with my eyes closed. I have Afrikan Dream Roots (Silene Capensis), Moldy blue cheese, Blue and red water lilies, Afrikan Dream Seeds (Entada Rheedii), mugwort, Zacatechichi, white sage, various mushrooms, damiana, passion flower, valerian, salvia divinorum, tart cherries and pistachios nuts.
Each of these things has a function and effect on dream or sleep. However, in many humans these effects vary. The goal tonight is to take restful sleep using the water lily but also to have memories and mental clarity of the lion’s mane mushroom. One of the challenges with the water lily is related to urination. I’ve taken this as a tea for many years and as with most water-soluble ingredients in plants and fungi, if the human body senses how this thing changes our senses or perceptions away from baseline, the natural mechanisms autonomically move to remove the substances. In the same way Psilocybin can be pissed out, such is the fate of Nuciferine (the ingredient in lotus and lily flowers). So I am anticipating a visit the restroom in between sleeping and dreaming. My toltec teacher calls waking up in the middle of the night a shamanic lucid dreaming technique known to our tradition as “splitting the night” which can help a person to better remember their dreams in the second half of the sleep cycle.
Since starting this practice I have noticed more astral projection, more dreams within dreams, more thinking about life, death and consciousness in dreams and lucidity. My goals for my family and tribe remain with future sight and understanding premonitions. These are things that my son has, that my mother and her mother have.
I drink the tea and prepare for bed by reading. I am reminded that like many of the substances at the herbal apothecary where I work, water lily and lotus are active when smoked. Even earlier this week I had the most pleasant smoke of Zacatechichi after guiding friends on a mushroom medicine walk in Sedona, AZ. The effects of smoking lotus, Aztec dreaming grass (Zacatechichi) or Amanita Muscaria (Fly Agaric Mushroom) have usually been powerful hypnagogic agents for me. This means that they sedate me to a place between waking and dreaming and often times in this place I see visions or experience sounds from another dimension.
This has happened to me with Salvia divinorum too, but that’s a store for another article entirely.
Sweet dreams and lucid landings until next time.
Hugh T Alkemi
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