DOSE:

1 hit

vaporized

Heimia salicifolia

BODY WEIGHT:

165 lb

I purchased a handheld vaporizer a while back, which used small metal cartridges to hold the herbal materials. Inside the box was a sample cartridge of something called sinicuichi, the Mayan Sun Opener. I've tried some herbal smoking blends before...salvia, wild dagga, and some others I can't remember and have found them to be in a category unlike traditional psychedelics or common recreational drugs. I wasn't expecting much out of this stuff and didn't bother opening up the box it was in until months after I'd bought the vaporizer.

So, one day I had run out of the herbs I bought the vape for, and decided to give this sinicuichi stuff a shot. I was expecting it to maybe have an interesting taste, to maybe cause a slight change in vision...like smoking one of those herbal cigarettes you can get in headshops. What happened was an exercise in literality. The sun DID open for me.

I was in my backyard, with my one cartridge of sinicuichi. It was almost powdery, it was ground so fine, and had a smell that was not unpleasant. It was green, for the most part, and seemed like an interesting plant, but I was still not expecting anything like recreational or psychedelic effects from it. To be clear, I did NOT experience recreational or psychedelic effects from sinicuichi. But, as the name of the herb suggests, I did have a profoundly interesting experience, and it is one that has lingered on since then.

I turned on my vape, let it reach temperature, and slid in the cartridge, bracing myself for a cheap, lightheaded buzz. I started to inhale the vapor, and held it in like I normally would. I found it had a pleasant taste, but it may have been mixed with other herbs for flavor and aroma. I don't know. I did not immediately notice effects inside myself. I didn't feel as though I had taken a drug. Rather, the world outside of myself seemed to change. At first, it was light. I noticed light. I noticed the world around me existing with clarity. Visual clarity. THAT, I can explain as a drug effect, and probably the extent of the drug effects I had from this plant. What followed was remarkable.

The backyard, and everything around me was positively BATHED in glorious golden sunlight. Sunshine was everywhere and so much powerful and comforting light was around me that I was suddenly taken aback and was starting to wonder if this was really happening! It seemed, objectively, that the sun was shining so much more brightly and clearly than it had been before I smoked the sun opener. It seemed to be doing so completely independent of the fact that I had consumed a substance, and yet somehow I felt that it would NOT have done so if I had not consumed this 'sun opener.'

I became amazed, and wondered if this is what the use of herbs was really about in the older world. Not cheap (or, rather expensive) thrills that we use them for now, but as openers to things in the external world that we ordinarily would not know, yet fully have the capacity to grasp and understand. The sunshine I felt on that day has followed me. It is over a year later and I still feel that when I am in a certain mood, or if I'm trying to talk to God, that the sun begins to shine around me. It is as though I recollect the sunlight, after having spent a stretch of time in the fog. Even indoors, I have had beams of light find their way through curtained windows, and have even spent hours just observing my thoughts and feelings and the interplay between myself and the sunshine.

When I question the experience, or when I try to explain it, I find the sun suddenly disappears behind a cloud, and a pale greyish light comes over the area. But as soon as I can accept without cognizance what is right in front of me, the sunshine returns. This can happen with an almost regular ebb and flow of light and cloudiness, as my mind wrestles between openness and trying to understand.

The ability of the human mind to substitute reason for truth comes to mind here. The mind wants to know how it works, and it MUST have an answer, MUST have an explanation, MUST assume that there IS an explanation. But the mind can't always get what it wants, and this sunshine that has followed me is a frequent, and almost constant reminder that self-denial can bring great rewards. For me, it is a moment in sunshine. A lifetime in sunshine that can be grasped only when I don't try to put a lid on it and make it understood in my own terms and with my own understanding.

I don't know if I would ever try sinicuichi again, or if there would even be a REASON for me to do so. I already have this sunshine around me; the sun has been opened. To try it again might turn it into a recreational or psychedelic pursuit and I would worry that that pursuit would adulterate what has already occurred. This wasn't profound and life-changing like a major psychedelic trip would be. It felt so OBVIOUS, despite seeming foreign to my mind. It was an exposure to something natural that I'd never thought I'd known before, but it seemed to agree with some natural part of myself that already knew of such things.

Since I only had a small amount of vaporized material, I can't really speak to what sinicuichi is like as a drug, as the drug effects for me were minimal. But the 'Sun Opener' lived up to its name. I thank God for this plant, and appreciate that He put it on this world. I don't know what this plant is here for, but it does have an appreciable use, and that is for the ability to perceive light. To have the light interact with you, and your inner stirrings and your 'moods'. Since consuming sinicuichi I can look to the sunlight around me as a sort of spiritual barometer. I don't know if this is an effect of the sinicuichi itself, or if I only noticed it for the first time on sinicuichi. For all I know it could just be permanently lodged to some receptors in my brain somewhere. But it was a positive experience, and one full of light and I appreciate that.

Exp Year: 2008	ExpID: 80560
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: May 13, 2019	Views: 3,027
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Heimia salicifolia (150) : Unknown Context (20), Nature / Outdoors (23), First Times (2), General (1)