DOSE:

smoked

Salvia divinorum

(extract)

I took approximately 30 dried leaves of Salvia divinorum, crushed them by hand, placed them in a mason jar, and soaked them in about 1/2 cup of denatured alcohol. I let this soak for about 2 hours, then decanted the alcohol into a small rectangular dish, added about 5 crushed leaves, and then set a small fan to speed the evaporation process. Since alcohol will absorb a small amount of water, the last bit of moisture was driven off by preheating the oven to 250 F, turning it off and placing the dish within, completely drying the extract in about 15 minutes. I scraped all material from the dish with a razor blade.

I made this extract to allow my good friend A. the chance to experience Salvia with the advent of the new year. Prior to attempting this method, I had always used acetone as the solvent, with fairly good result. The denatured alcohol (pure ethanol with a small amount of methanol added) seemed a good alternative solvent as Valdez reported using aqueous methanol as a polar solvent to extract nonpolar hexane extracts, increasing the concentrations of salvinorin-a before using chromotographic separation to obtain the purified compound.

My wife, Evenstar, and I arrived at our friends' home, being received by him and his wife, A. & B. After exchanging amenities and becoming comfortable, we proceeded to weigh whether he would like to try DMT or Salvia. He had a slight cold and thought he'd go with the milder trip, opting for the Salvia. I placed about 1/2 teaspoon of the concentrated form in a small pipe, telling him he had to take at all in, in several huge inhalations, while my wife recommended that he put a pillow on the floor so he could lay down afterwards and really get into it. He fired up the pipe, finishing it in two inhalations, and lay down on the floor, becoming very quiet.

Star, being an experienced Salvia journier, shared her observations on the state with us while A. remained very quiet on the floor. However, he soon attempted to sit up and looking at his expression, it was quite clear that he was having an overwhelming experience. About 4 minutes had passed and he was still deep into it. In his attempts to sit up I could discern disorientation, and something I had never seen in my friends face before, fear! We are all very experienced trippers, A. & I having begun over 25 years ago, and seeing his expression of fear I was both amused and a little alarmed. I went by his side and told him it would pass. He sort of crawled away from his resting spot and mumbled that he would like it to end now. His wife came nearby and comforted him. After a few more minutes had passed, I suggested that he try to articulate the experience to help himself come back and he said, 'Does crocodiles and bananas make any sense?' The three of us found ourselves laughing heartily at the intensity of my friend's experience. We were all very surprised and amused to see his bewildered reaction. As he finally began to come back he was able to provide us a very interesing account of his experience. He stated that there was also the distinct perception that this was all a big joke and that we were all in on it except for him. He was especially sure that Evenstar was the engineer of the whole thing.

He said that after taking the last hit and laying down, that was the last thing he remembered for awhile: It was just like being hit over the head with a baseball bat. As awareness resurfaced, he would perceive the room, but no sooner did he perceive it than he was rolled under again, becoming one with the totality of the cosmos. He would then roll back into the room again and see us briefly, knowing that he was about to be rolled right back under, and was fearful that this process was never going to end. He said the image that came to mind was being rolled up in straw mats, becoming one with the mat, with no differentiation between self/other. At one point, when he sat up and rested his hands on the carpet, he perceived himself as resting his hands on an ocean of fish, packed very tightly. As he rolled back into the room, he would perceive the floor as being about chest high, with only his upper torso and head emerging briefly, followed by becoming totally dissolved back into the ground. As he was comforted by his wife, he was concered that he would take her under with him when the next roll came around. Thus in the intensity of the experience it was a total body/mind trip, with no ability to distinguish this as merely an altered state of consciosuness. This was the most powerful psychedelic experience my friend had ever had, bar none! He said, 'It's right up there with birth and death!'

Star was so impressed with the intensity of my friends experience that she opted to try it before the night was out. She insists that the Salvia trip is one of the big ones of her life, right up there with the mushroom, bigger than DMT. When Star does Salvia she usually leans back on the couch and laughs and laughs until it is over, really enjoying the ride. She has a wonderful capacity to let go and flow with the experience. The first time it hit her she laughed and exclaimed, 'God Bless that little plant!' She took two small hits from the pipe and leaned back on the couch, launching into her usual laughter. However, when she would come back into the room, I noted a look of absolutely amazed astonishment on her that I had not seen before. Her reaction to the denatured alcohol extract was quite extraordinary, noting that it was very smooth and easy to smoke, and also the most powerful one to date. As she came out of the experience, Star would look at A. and exclaim, 'Pobrecito A.!' (poor little one!).

The experience was so incredible that my friend opted to postpone the DMT until another day. Having done both, Star puts DMT more on the level of the mushroom, and Salvia in a unique class of its own; the Salvia being much more powerful! So, if anyone has not had the Leaves of the Shepherdess grab ahold of them yet, I would suggest using denatured alcohol as the solvent, concentrating say 30 leaves down onto about 5, and then boldly proceeding, but also with circumspection: be sure to have a sitter watching over you!

Exp Year: 1996	ExpID: 2140
Gender: Not Specified
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jun 26, 2000	Views: 175,246
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Salvia divinorum (44) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Preparation / Recipes (30), First Times (2), General (1)