The Sponge & The Diamond

The Peru Chronicles | Season 1 | Part 4

Last week was a machine-gun assault of visuals and survival. Today, the "grandfather" medicine takes my hand and walks me into the light.

New to the series? Catch up on the first three dispatches HERE).

Quick heads-up: I’m moving things around a bit. Check the P.S. at the bottom for a new schedule and a first look at a new project I’m launching this Tuesday.

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September 13, 2019

If ayahuasca felt like the grandmother who drags me into the dark to show me my demons, San Pedro felt like the grandfather who takes my hand and walks me into the light.

Two days later, the rhythm changed. We didn’t gather in the dark maloca. Instead, we took the medicine around 8:00 AM and were sent out into the world.

I’d heard there are a couple ways people take San Pedro. A thick liquid that gets reduced down. Or what we had.

Ours was powder mixed into water, and it didn’t dissolve so much as turn into grit. Like dipping a cup into mud.

And it wasn’t a polite little sip. It was a tall cup. Eight to twelve ounces. Empty stomach.

The next part is just as cute. You have to keep it down long enough for that wave of nausea to pass. Some people couldn’t.

San Pedro isn’t about sitting still. It’s about being out in the world. It’s about presence. It’s about the kind of connection that happens when you’re alone with the grass under your legs and the sky above your head.

I found a spot on the lawn, opened my book Whose Stuff Is This?, and let the medicine begin to work.

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I read a sentence, and then I read it again. It said something like “Just because you feel it doesn’t mean it’s yours.”

Suddenly I had a better understanding of something I’d been doing my whole life.

I’ve always been sensitive, and have always felt things deeply. I used to think it meant there was something wrong with me. Like I was thin-skinned. Like I couldn’t handle life the way other people could.

But sitting there in the grass, I started to see it differently.

Maybe I wasn’t weak. Maybe I was porous.

I didn’t have the ADHD lens yet. I just knew I’d spent decades absorbing the emotional runoff of everyone around me. Sometimes it felt like I couldn’t tell the difference between what was mine and what was theirs.

I put the book down. The medicine was humming now. I stood up to walk.

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That’s when I saw him.

Daniel was walking toward me across the lawn. I didn’t know him well yet, just a few words exchanged here and there, but something in my gut told me we were going to be friends.

As he got closer, I noticed the shift. In the heightened sunlight of the San Pedro, his skin seemed to shimmer, clear, multifaceted, and brilliant. It reminded me of that scene in Twilight where Edward steps into the sunlight and he looks as if he is covered with tiny little diamonds.

We stopped and exchanged a few friendly words.

I couldn’t stop staring.

Not in a weird way. I was mesmerized. It was ike the medicine had turned the contrast up on everything, and my brain was trying to make sense of what it was seeing.

In that light, Daniel looked like he was lit from the inside. Like something in him was catching the sun and reflecting it back.

I was envious of that shimmer. Daniel, in that moment, possessed a goodness that felt angelic. I wanted to stand near him. I wanted to hug him to see if some of that brilliance would rub off on me.

He smiled as we parted ways. I didn’t know it then, but that image would stay with me for years.

After that, I ended up alone in one of the hammocks overlooking the lake.

There was a bush or a small tree right next to me. When I turned my head, I saw the branch and the leaves were vibrating and humming.

I know how that sounds, but something in me changed just then.

I started to cry. Softly, like my body was letting something go.

And in that moment, I learned what God is.

Not some bearded guy looking down through the clouds. Not someone pulling strings like we’re marionettes.

That leaf was God. The branch, the grass.

Then I looked at my own arm. Same vibration. Same hum.

And I thought, I am God too.

I am as much God as this tree, or the grass, or a rock, or one of those turtles sunning themselves on the log.

Everyone and everything is God. Equally.

No one has more of it than anyone else. Not a person. Not a plant. Not a turtle. Not a rock. Just different forms of the same thing, vibrating.

It felt like a good thing to finally be able to believe in something again, and know it was true. Not because someone told me to. Because I could feel it.

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After the encounter, I went down to the small lake. A wooden bridge arched over the water.

I waded in. Swimming on San Pedro was dreamy. The water didn’t feel like water. It felt like cool silk sliding over my skin. I floated there, weightless, looking up at the Amazon sky. I thought about the diamond light I had seen in Daniel, and I thought about the sponge I had been for so long.

Floating in the silk, I felt like I was finally being rinsed clean.

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By the afternoon, the hunger returned with a vengeance. We hadn’t been allowed to eat all day, so my body was screaming for fuel.

When we finally broke the fast, I picked up a carrot.

I held it in my hand and I could feel it humming. The vibration was intense, a physical pulse of energy radiating into my fingers.

It wasn’t just the carrot, it was the whole exchange.

The earth becomes the carrot. The carrot becomes me. I become whatever comes next.

Even when we’re gone, we don’t disappear. We go back. Back to the ground, back to where we came from.

Same vibration. Different shape.

It wasn’t a hallucination. It was a realization that everything in this jungle, from the turtles on the log to Daniel shimmering like a diamond, to the carrot in my hand, to my own skin, was made of the same electricity.

I wrote something that day that still makes me laugh. I wrote it exactly like this: “Feeling amazing that my light is so bright. I hope the world is ready for it, LOL!”

And then, a voice drifted through my mind. It was clear and kind. Sweet, like a loving hand on my cheek. Like, you might not have believed this before, but now you will.

“Stop hurting yourself,” it said. “Be good to yourself. You are good.”

I took a bite. And for the first time since that night in Costa Rica, I didn’t feel afraid. I felt part of the pulse.

— R. Michael

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If you have thoughts or questions, I’d really love to hear from you in the comments. I read every one.

Want to keep going? The Peru Chronicles.

Quick note for context, since this topic can bring out a lot of strong opinions.

Everything I’m sharing here is just my personal experience. I’m not speaking for the medicine, for a tradition, or for anyone else’s ceremony. I also know firsthand that people can sit in the exact same setting and walk away with completely different experiences.

My goal with this series isn’t to make a claim or start a debate. It’s to tell the truth about what happened, and how it changed my life.

P.S. A quick shift in the manifest!

You’re used to seeing these dispatches on Thursday nights, but I’ve realized that’s a terrible time to ask you to go deep into the jungle.

Starting now, I’m moving these memoirs to Friday mornings, better for the stories, and better for your weekend coffee.

However, because my brain is a restless place, I’m also launching a Tuesday newsletter called THE BACKROADS.

If these Friday stories are the deep-dives, Tuesdays are the field notes on mental health, community, and the road ahead.

It’s the side of me that you don'tget to see in the stories. A bit faster, a bit sharper, and a lot more like the guy you’d actually talk to in real life.

They’re observations on life from a brain that doesn’t move in straight lines.

Keep an eye out this coming Tuesday. I’ve already dropped a few “seed” posts in the new section [HERE] if you want to see how the other half of my brain lives.

See you Tuesday.