My Mother’s First Time…

She’s dying right in front of me. I thought. Looking at my mother from across the room. She heaved, throwing up into a plastic bucket. The medicine was preparing me for what was to come. I ran to her. “Mom are you okay?” She nodded her head yes but her body was suggesting otherwise. “Once you let this go, you will feel so much better,” the facilitator reassured her. She purged.  I was scared. She’s letting go of this life, this body, this pain, this story, her cancer. I thought. I could see it all leave with each hurl. One final purge and she was sitting like a queen. Upright and filled with spritely energy. She looked at me straight in the eyes and said “Hi!”. She was overjoyed. Infantilized. Present. Free. I had never seen her so free. It was as if she were 4 years old, with a tender curiosity that could have knocked me over with a feather. She was more joyous than I had ever seen her, ever. She looked into my eyes and whispered, “I noticed you with that boy over there, can we invite him over?” I was elated, “yes, but can you ask him his name? Because I have no idea”. 

Psychedelics. I had found this ceremony through a mutual friend. “He is an incredible facilitator, he creates a beautiful container for healing.” She reassured me. This wasn’t my first rodeo. I had been initiated into the world of plant medicine a few years before. Doing Ayahuasca in the jungles of Tulum. Now, we found ourselves in a spacious home on the Westside of Los Angeles. A clean, white, boho chic home with a big backyard and comfy couches. A big fluffy dog ran through the room like Falkor from Neverending Story. He made us feel safe. 

I could tell my mom was nervous, she had never done anything like this, and had just come off of some heavy hitting rounds of chemo.Our dynamic through much of our life was that I would hold it all together, so she could safely be contained.  This was no different. She was scared, so I had it all together and did my best to make her feel like it would be okay. I did this by showing her how comfortable I was in the space. By talking to everyone. “Hi my name is Alexa and this is my mom Lori”. “You’re journeying with your mom? Oh my God, I wish my mom would come to one of these. It would be so good for us.” We heard this time and time again from fellow psychonauts. 

There were about 30 of us. A rather large group, so the facilitator had a lot of space to hold. “Okay everyone, for those of you who are new I invite you to check in with yourself. Where are you on a scale of 1-10? 1 being lousy 10 being excited. Share your name, where you’re from, how familiar you are with plant medicine, and one word that sums up your intention.” Sitting next to the facilitator was a brooding young man who was clearly handsome, but had a tinge of gray to him. A melancholy that was tangible, and energy that felt closed, and uncomfortable. 

We locked eyes and he didn’t look away. “Hi, I’m Daniel, I’m at about a 6 out of 10, It’s been a while since I’ve been to one of these. I’m from foggy London town, and my intention is to connect.” His British accent slightly muffled by the way he put his hand over his mouth as he spoke. The eye contact was penetrative. There were 29 other people there, but he only spoke to me. My mother and I looked at each other as she noticed it too. She made a face that said “ eh, I don’t know”. We giggled as the next person introduced themselves. 

The facilitator proceeded to break us up into groups of 3 to get more intentional. To create the right set, as in, mind set. And setting, as in a space that feels comfortable, with people we feel comfortable with. Set and setting are the two non-negotiables for any meaningful psychedelic experience. Hence this exercise. “I am here with my mother, and I really want to come to terms with the fact that she is dying. Actively. I want to remove the barriers I feel to love and intimacy. I want to feel into the most authentic version of myself.”

My mother and I both wore masks of inauthenticity that were seemingly impermeable. No one 

really knew us. Either of us. When she was given 6 months to live, my mask began to crumble. And my big reveal gave her the courage and confidence to begin doing the same. The diagnosis was an unraveling.  An untying of the internal knots that had locked my mother’s truth down where the sun didn't shine.  

Many people knew my mother, but they never really saw her. I did. I saw her because she needed someone to. Someone who would show up tirelessly, and devote their time and life to keeping her alive. She was scared, which made her need me, and all I had ever wanted was to be needed. And close. Our wounds aligned perfectly. I saw her in the most vicious pain. I saw her in moments of wanting to die, and I saw her cling  to life. I saw how frightened she was not just of the disease, but of most of her life. A fear of being found out. Of being less than amazing. Of being abandoned, or broke, or  ordinary, or of people not liking her.  

This fear spun a giant web around my mother to showcase her self created persona, while protecting her from the slings and arrows she most dreaded. I adopted this same webb for years because, well, it worked for her. She was successful, smart, and people loved her, or at least the version of herself that she allowed people to see. Because I saw her, I got to see myself. My patterns, and how they mirrored hers. The overdoing, overcompensating, over-complimenting spinning of wheels became intolerable. Intolerable for me because I wanted intimacy, and intolerable for her because she was too exhausted to keep it up. 

It was time to take the medicine. This medicine was new to me, the facilitator started us with a heart opener. “This is white lily, Alexa. It will get you dropped right into your heart. Out of your head. You will feel all that you need in your body. Breathe. If it gets intense, breathe deeper.” The facilitator broke it down for me as he handed me the medicine in a little sea shell. “Alexa, hey come talk to me, take a seat”. It was that brooding strapping Brit on the ground. I didn’t remember his name and was too embarrassed to ask. “Hi” , I chirped. “What brings you here? Anything specific?”. People don’t generally come to plant medicine ceremonies just for funsies. It’s a lot of heavy lifting after all. “Alexa, you know, I broke up with someone a few months ago and am just trying to heal. Get really clear. We seemed to have this really unhealthy dynamic. I just want to process it.” I was actually in a very similar place. I had been obsessing about someone who was unavailable to me. I couldn't understand why letting him go was so hard. I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t choose me. I nodded at Daniel knowingly, “I get it”. “So how long have you been in LA, Alexa?” Daniel queried. “About one year. I was a musical theater actress in New York for 12 years, became a yoga and meditation teacher, and moved out here when my mom got sick.” “Oh really? My old roommate was on Broadway in Wicked for years, do you know Ryan Wiess?” Daniel was beginning to drop in. “What? He’s a dear friend of mine, and is dating one of my students. I love Ryan. We are now both in the spiritual community, he was just at one of my talks.” I was stunned. “Small world I guess. I’m an actor as well. Mostly TV and Film. Did you go to school for it?” Asked Daniel. “ I did. I went to Interlochen Arts Academy for high school, then Syracuse for University.”. “Seriously? My best friend went to Interlochen. Charlie, he’s on the show with me. And Syracuse was my top choice. I got in too. But when I went to visit, the town was rubbish.” As Daniel spoke my mouth began to unhinge. Charlie was a dear friend of mine. I had known him since I was 15. And Syracuse was indeed rubbish. We had so many strange missed encounters. We had even met one year before through mutual friends. We even canvassed together, getting people registered to vote at the Melrose Trading Post. We even have a  photo together from that day. We just didn’t remember. 

All of the sudden I found myself deeper than deep in the center of my heart. It was euphoric. Utterly indescribable. I closed my eyes and began to drop into my usual meditation. I called back all of my energy, rooted down, cleared out my chakras. When I opened my eyes, Daniel was there reaching for me. Reaching for me to move toward him. To be close to him. All I knew was that this feeling, this feeling of love, and this sensation of being chosen was what I had longed for my entire life. 

We were in a cocoon of bliss that was so thick and so impermeable, a bomb could have gone off and I wouldn’t have noticed. We stared into each other's eyes. It was like staring into God. Becoming God. Yoking with God. And this union was much bigger. He and I were in union with everything. We weren’t listening to music, we were music. I wasn’t looking at him, I was him. He was me. It was as if separation was a myth that I had somehow believed was real for the first 32 years of my life. I had been duped, this, this feeling of oneness was the most natural thing I had ever felt, and I mistook Daniel's face as the portal to that connection. 

I was the portal all along.

I looked over to see my mother on the couch watching us. I couldn’t speak, that wasn’t my job that night. I just listened and received as Daniel and my mother shared stories of their lonings. Their loneliness. Their fear. Their upbringings. “Have you heard the story of Daniel and the Lion?” My mother asked. “Of course, about how Daniel was found innocent, and saved from being eaten by lions through prayer.” Replied Daniel. She looked at Daniel, a man with self worth issues oozing out his pores. A man who has struggled with addiction, and feelings of enoughness. She looked at him, like she really saw him, a thing he wasn’t used to, and under normal circumstances, couldn’t tolerate. He, like me, was very much in the world, yet wanted to hide from it. His career made that an impossible task. He was desired by many, which fed into his patterns brilliantly. Brilliantly and destructively. A man who attracted women who would shame him, and make him feel like the monster that he secretly believed he was. But much like Daniel in the lion's den, he is indeed not only found blameless, but found very scared, and very young, and in much need of nurturing. She gave him so much he seemed to be starving for. A healthy feminine mother figure that wanted nothing from him, but all the things for him. 

At one point my mother looked at us both and said, “Alexa this is supposed to be a very important person in your life”. I looked at Daniel, and somehow the words “no attachment”, tumbled from my lips. I was astonished that something like that would come from my lips, yet simultaneously unphased by its authenticity. Daniel gazed into my mother’s eyes and said, “full attachment”. I received that thought, and stayed present. 

She said, “Daniel, you are worthy because you breathe”. And that message wasn’t only for him, but for her. As he was a direct reflection of her own unworthiness expressed in a different form. It took her years to integrate that message, maybe it was only the moment before she passed. But I do believe she left this planet knowing she was. They both were. We all are. Worthy because we breathe. 

A few days following the journey, Daniel and I went on a hike to explore what we had started. It was like getting to know each other all over again. Only this time, we were both back to our stunted, unavailable selves. We learn through contrast. And Daniel was my guru in showing me this. He taught me about connecting to oneness, and  connecting to worthiness in journey space. In the real world, I couldn’t have felt more disintegrated, more separate, or more unworthy in his presence. He could barely look me in the eyes, and this was a marvelous gift that took me a long time to understand. 

In my mind, he was the ticket to connection. But he was merely an expression of me. I was the one, I was the union, I was where the worth needed to stem from in order for it to be real. He showed me that in his inability to connect in the real world. He showed me where I was unavailable. Not to him. To me. He showed me what oneness felt like so I could find it not in someone else, but in myself. Connecting to our worth and connecting to the divine matrix of all things is really why we are here. Most of us are walking around this place having forgotten it. Below is a meditation to help you remember. Remembering your worth. Remembering your connection to all. Remembering your divine place in the universe.