Tales of Travel (Pillar #12)
Travel is transcendental. Travel delivers an alternative path through everyday existence. 24 hour periods that we call days, tend to get filled with the exact same activities being performed at the exact same hours. Wake up time, breakfast time, work time, home time, bed time. It is our routine and routines tend to get drab. Travel rips you out of your mindless routine, which generally forces you to open your eyes. You are filled with excitement and anticipation to see new sites, to taste new flavors, and to create new memories. With the technique of breaking up the routine, travel opens all your senses allowing you to recognize the wonderful beauties and marvels that make up this planet. And connecting with beauty is a guaranteed way to elevate your vibrations.
The Stone Forest
Travel can be defined as going from one place to another. For the purpose of this article, we will focus on the travel that involves suitcases, hotels or campsites, and or psychedelic plant medicine. I remember traveling with a friend to the southern Chinese province of Yunnan. We flew into Kunming with plans of visiting the Stone Forest. We arrived, got to the hotel, strolled around, ate some street food, and went to sleep early. We woke up and my friend insisted on going to the train station to get our tickets sorted before getting breakfast. I reluctantly agreed, thinking that there will be places to eat right near the train station. We arrived at the station and got in line. When it was our turn to purchase tickets, the ticket seller couldn’t seem to understand what we were saying or where we were going. We began to speak louder, and so she spoke louder. And surprisingly, even speaking extremely loudly, we couldn’t seem to understand each other. Now people behind us in line began “speaking loudly” at us and gesturing at us. So we get out of line without tickets but with a rumbling stomach. We found a bench and sat to weigh our options. We watched the split flat display for English characters, but there were none.
Feeling embarrassed and dejected, I voted for food, but my friend’s tenacity ultimately won and so we got back into a different line hoping that this person would speak English. While waiting in line, we asked the person in front of us and the person behind us if they spoke English. Neither of them did. We finally got up to the ticket seller, who politely spoke flawless Mandarin. So we asked again (again raising our voices a bit) if she spoke English or had tickets to the Stone Forest. She matched our voice and it was the same scene with the first teller. As soon as I noticed people getting frustrated in line behind us, I pulled my friend away. We walked to one of the big entrances and started saying the words, “English?” and “Stone Forest.” 10 minutes of this and nothing. As we were about to give up and find some food, a man dressed in a white tee shirt and blue pants approached us and said, “Stone Forest?” We said yes yes yes and then blabbered on in English and he responded, “Stone Forest?” He then pointed in the direction away from the train station. “Yes, we want to eat first and then go to the Stone Forest. Can you help us buy a train ticket?” To which he responded, “Stone Forest” pointing across the street and then walking across the street. We sheepishly followed. We arrived to a windowless white van and he pointed to it and said, “Stone Forest.” So we did whatever any rational human would do when faced with uncertainty…and hunger. We jumped into the van, where there was a woman sitting in the front seat. We shared pleasantries in languages that couldn’t be understood and then sat in the seat wondering if these people were going to kidnap and/or rob us. Throwing caution to the wind, we decided to go with it. The man got into the car and drove. We kept asking to stop so we could eat, gesturing eating and rubbing our bellies. He seemed to not understand, which increased the paranoia we were feeling. We sat nervously in the seat until after almost 30 minutes of silence, he pulled over into a parking lot of what looked like an abandoned building. He ushered us inside, our hearts were beating fast, and to our surprise, there was a 7 course meal waiting inside for us. We dined like royalty, returned to the windowless white van completely satiated with one of the best meals of my life. This incident expanded my comfort zone and taught me countless valuable lessons that are impossible to learn with withdrawing from routine.
Travel is a More than a Placebo
Travel can offer a myriad of transformative benefits, like inspiration, creativity, gratitude for nature, and deeper self understanding. Travel helps with all types of communication, mental calmness, and an increase in self reliance and trust. Through experiencing other cultures and meeting other humans, you arrive at a greater recognition of the self and the interconnectedness of all humans. While traveling, there is a tendency to attract people to us that remind us of people we know at home. For those doing shadow work, travel can be an incredible canvas to advance your work. Essentially travel enhances every part of your being.
Psychedelic Travel
Physical travel is magical and psychedelic travel is mystical. The use of plant medicines to activate the psychedelic mind state dives deep into the depths of self and source. As with physical traveling to a place that stretches your comfort zone, psychedelic travel similarly acts as a mirror of your persona, thoughts, emotions, and ego. Psychedelics expose certain parts of our individual and collective selves that have been repressed or simply ignored. They greatly amplify and expand our conscious understanding of self and source, and offer suggestions on how to live more wholly. However, psychedelics are not a shortcut to doing the work, they are just the teacher pointed inward at an angle often difficult to see without them. I remember once traveling with psilocybin, I asked the vision I was provided, “Can you show me Spirit?” The vision looked back at me and laughed saying, “This can be obtained through meditation.” So while psychedelic travel works similarly to physical travel in the sense that it can teach, we are still responsible for integrating these teachings into our lives. And when we do, our vibrations will certainly elevate.
