We drove through the desert, miles of fissured ground and small geometric shrubs, our way repeatedly blocked by barbed wire fences, which necessitated countless u-turns.

I don’t know how our friends managed to find the correct place, since the desert offers no defining markers, but find our way we did.

We parked the car and piled out. “I’m scared’, whispered Suzie, as we kicked our heels outside, waiting for the others. “Me too,” I replied.

My friend gave us nervous first-timers a few pieces of information about the cactus we would shortly ingest.

“Peyote is a natural drug – you won’t get the sweaty palms and beating heart of the artificial powder drugs. It’s not dangerous in that way, but if you do feel bad, don’t worry, just do exactly what will make you feel better.”

“Also, the flavour tastes very strong. Never in my life have I tried anything as strong as peyote – it’s like eating the heart of the earth. So, it might make you throw up, but that’s normal. Peyote is a cure, it’s a way to cleanse yourself.”

Into The Desert

We made our way into the desert. After a few steps we encountered the first peyote button.

It was hidden under the meagre shade of one of the shrubs, impressed firmly into the ground – a few inches wide, with small clumps of hair scattered at regular intervals over a dark green surface.

“We can’t cut this one. This is our guide,” said my friend. “We’re going to separate and find our own peyote, and meet up by that tree over there. Don’t cut the peyote with a knife – use a sharp rock instead.”

We split up, and left alone I stopped and felt the silence of the desert, the type of silence you can’t find in the overstimulated urban lifestyle. And suddenly, I wasn’t scared anymore.

I found two buttons fairly quickly, and carried them across to the meeting point, ready to begin.

My friend was right. The buttons tasted disgusting. Our faces stretched into grimaces as we struggled to keep down the pulpy flesh, swallowing gulps of water and huge sugary slabs of Abuelita hot chocolate in an attempt to disguise the taste.

Afterwards, we sat under the shade of the tree, waiting, waiting. We had no idea how long it would take for the effects to take hold, or what would happen when they did.

First Signs

The world begins to wobble…suddenly we’re pacing around in the desert, unable to keep still. Everything is suddenly hilarious and I become hugely enamoured with my tinted sunglasses. “The world’s so bright like this,” I say.

We accompany the boys to the car, and they start pumping atmospheric drum and bass into the silence of the desert. We dance like Egyptians. And then forget why exactly we went to the car.

It takes a long time to gather ourselves and return to our spot, complete with video camera and tent.

And as we’re walking along through the desert, Suzie and I, clumped together and giggling, the peyote really begins to hit us.

The Trip

How do I begin to describe this? At the time I tried to write, my notebook ended up in a scrumpled heap on the desert floor as I occupied myself talking to the plants.

“Write about what?” I wrote. “The world as it shifts and changes before my eyes? The colours, the shapes…the sky pulsates like spider eyes, like milk in blue coffee…the horizon encircles us like chains of eyes.”

Eyes, I think, because every plant, every stone, everything had its own clearly visible, beautifully palpitating soul. We could see the beauty in everything. The cracks of the desert floor vibrated with intensity, and we could see how everything was connected to everything else by these physical vibrations.

Strangely enough, it was only us two girls that felt this. The boys struggled to put up the tent while Suzie and I lay in a loving heap of confused limbs on the floor and watched the sky.

“I can feel the pulse in this rock” Suzie breathed. “You’re lying on top of me”, I said. “Oh.”

We could see beautiful women beckoning to us and dancing among the clouds. Behind these beautiful, feminine shapes lay a faint grid of purple and green fractals, like the strange neon cacti that were scattered round the desert.

Multi-Sensory

Dancing with the fire / Phot Dani Redd

Afterwards, Suzie told me that she felt that Peyote (who does somehow, maintain a very tangible presence) had made love to every sense in her body. It was true.

We made different sounds for hours, ‘zzzzzz’, ‘ooooo’, and felt them vibrate in our mouths and echo across the desert. We ate grapes and slid the round globes round our mouths, gasping in awe as we crunched down and the juice ran down our throats – the most sensual eating experience I’ve ever had.

Peyote is like having a full-body orgasm, but one that isn’t connected to your sexual self, but to your spirit. It gave me the most heightened sensitivity I have ever experienced.

It got dark. The sun set and huge pulsating stars appeared in a clear black sky. Even without the peyote effect they would have looked beautiful, because there was no light pollution from nearby cities, no presence of people.

But the desert, however beautiful it is at night, gets very cold, and in the intensity of the day, we’d forgotten to gather firewood.

Absent ones

Various wood gathering expeditions (initiated by the boys) ensued, of varying success, as we danced around the desert replete with music from a mobile phone and our headlamps set on ‘flash’.

Destinations

Community Connection to Mexico

Mostly, Suzie and I remained by the fire, trying to appease Calcifer, the greedy fire God with small sticks, watching this disco across the desert. We watched shooting stars and the blinking lights of airplanes, which looked like they were rolling themselves into globes of light and sneaking out of the sky towards us.

Gradually, the peyote wore off. We felt tired, and lost. And suddenly, sitting by the fire, we missed the boyfriends we’d left behind.

We both, without an indication to the other, stretched out our hands towards the fire, and watched the smoke curl round the dark silhouettes of our outstretched fingers. But there was nobody there to hold them. It was time for bed.

Post One-ness Experience

A one-ness experience is not the realization that ‘everything is connected’, but the concrete visualization of this – a true knowledge of what the “hippies” call the unified transformative energy field.

People access it through meditation, astronauts sometimes experience it in space when they see the Earth from far away, a huge curved globe in the sky. We found it through Peyote.

The trouble with one-ness experiences is that people can suffer afterwards, spending their whole lives trying to capture that fleeting glimpse of beauty, of order in the void.

Fot us, in the days following the peyote experience, the world seemed flat, washed out, cold.

Suzie said she felt that when Peyote left, her lover had left her cold in her bed – he introduced himself to us that night, flirted, and left.

And did we learn anything?

The Lesson Out Of Reach

At one point, after the sun had set in the desert, I walked off alone in the night and almost saw Peyote in the sky; cracks of brilliant light that had nothing to do with the stars.

“What are you trying to tell me? What is the answer” I screamed inside my head, almost crying in the intensity and the confusion. I didn’t find an answer that night, but I think what Peyote taught me is the strange incomprehensibility of everything.

You can’t measure quality of life by what you do every day, but by this shining brilliance beyond it, just out of reach.

And so, I am still flat broke, still carting around the same old backpack of burnt clothes (a different story), still have the same relationship worries.

But they don’t seem to matter anymore – these mad, wild, rare experiences are more important.

I know i’ll go back to the desert again. I think everyone does. But until then, I’m not going to let the memories of this experience leave me feel flat and cold, but use them constructively. Somehow.

Have you shared a similar experience searching for truth? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Don’t miss Dani’s previous article Meditating In Mexico: Close Encounters of the Guru Kind.

“Do you have any white clothes?” asked a voice, rudely awakening me from a few hours of disturbed and uncomfortable sleep. “Come on, hurry up, we need to buy fruit and flowers before we meet the guru.”

I was in Michoacan, Mexico, staying with a few local friends we had met on our travels. Friends who, it became apparent, were masters of non-information.

For the past couple of days we had been living in a small cloud of confusion, and it intensified as clothes were selected for us from a large stack of brilliant white garments.

“Why do we have to wear white?” I asked. “It’s so all our energy vibrations are in harmony,” I was informed. “If you wear colors you will create a force that is stronger than everyone else.”

Bleary eyed in the early morning light we piled into the car. The two guys ran to buy various meditative objects, while the women huddled inside and grumbled at one another.

“I want a cigarette” said the chainsmoker (me). “This is all very well and good” snapped my disgruntled friend, “this quest for spiritual enlightenment, but I know what I’d prefer right now. A big plate of huevos a la Mexicana and a strong coffee.”

It soon became apparent that our requests had been denied, as the guys informed us we were not allowed to eat or drink anything (apart from water) until we had finished the meditation session.

Meeting The Guru

The author with the guru behind / Photo Suzanne Shanklin

Like little white sheep we were driven to a small altar and terrace by the side of a busy road. As we waited the other white clad spiritualists arrived, most of them hungover from the night before.

Soon we were a very noticeable circle of twenty five spiritual seekers holding hands, under the gaze of our guru. He was a man with long, grizzled grey hair, dressed in flowing white robes and wielding a staff.

He beamed at us with an expression of serenity.

Our first task: we were all made to discuss the properties of the staff. Our guru attributed our different answers to the fact that we are all individual, and all needed different meditations, (though my nicotine deprived brain neglected to point out we were all dressed like clones).

We proceeded to shout and chant various mantras from around the world, whilst the palms of our hands grew sweaty and our stomachs growled.

An Upward Struggle

After a while, the guru broke from the group and stood in front of each of us in turn, chanting “moonie moonie, joomie joomie” and waving his hands in circles like a tranquilized trance raver. We were meant to copy him.

By the time the guru stood before me I was reveling in the absurdity of the situation. I believe he mistook my repressed laughter for a bubbling over of youthful spirituality.

My friend refused to copy the guru’s actions. He tried multiple times: “Moonie moonie? Joomy joomy?” Her face blazed thunder- a moment that captured perfectly the clash between new-age spirituality and rationality.

The meditation finished. “Now” said the guru, “you are going to climb the mountain,” as he indicated one of the summits that encircled us. “But first, I will give you all your own individual mantras, ones that suit you perfectly. You must repeat them inside your minds as you climb the mountain.”

Due to my inability to pronounce the Spanish ‘doble-ere‘ sound (roll my rrrrr’s), I wasn’t able to accurately mouth my mantra ‘Om-Rrrim’, but my choking sound seemed to suffice.

“Leave behind food and water” the guru said. “Take only your sheets, and women, take the things you need for your children.” (I forgot mention, we’d all bought bed-sheets with us at the guru’s request. White, of course).

Dancing Butterflies

View to the top / Photo Suzanne Shanklin

The climb began, everyone helping one another and tripping over their sheets. It was rather beautiful, I imagine somewhat akin to the biblical exodus to The Promised Land.

For a moment, I savoured the silence of the view and the feeling of the fresh, nicotine-free air. I enjoyed the feeling of finally reaching the top of the mountain, that sense of accomplishment, and the vista at the top.

We were Northern Mexico, during the season when the monarch butterflies migrate south for winter, and they spiraled round us in meandering flights of fluttering wings.

I looked at the sides of the mountain, spotted with graffiti rocks and pink wild-flowers, the city of Aguascalientes laid out before us like a circuit board. I settled on a rock next to my friend and attempted sleep, with the sun burning red lines into my face.

After a while, the seekers shuffled awkwardly, then, finally, someone asked “Where is the guru?”

It was relayed to us that the guru had, for some reason (a confusion exaggerated by my shaky grasp of Spanish), gone to a city over an hours drive away, and we had to descend the mountain and wait for him in someone’s house for the meditation classes.

No food, of course, which my friend and I grumbled about on our descent. “We need something” we pleaded to our friend Carlos, “even some juice”.

“It’s better if you don’t” he replied. “You don’t need food. It isn’t good to meditate when you are full.”

Caught In The Act

When we arrived at the house, I spied a plume of smoke- the woman of the house, standing on her terrace, gazing quizzically at the white reclining figures on the lawn.

Finding food. / Photo Suzanne Shanklin

I went to ask her for a cigarette, and joined some of the others who were hiding inside like naughty schoolchildren. We all breathed a sigh of relief, and I confided to one of Carlos’s friends that they wouldn’t let us eat.

“Do you want some food?” he asked. “We have some bananas in the car,” I sighed sadly. “No, real food. GORDITAS. Our treat.”

The guru returned at a rather unfortunate moment. We were sitting on the grass stuffing our faces with dripping tortillas, the oil running down our chins and staining our clothes.

He stood above us, casting a benevolent shadow over our display of greed. “When you eat, eat only to sustain yourself. Eat slowly, calmly, and with every mouthful, thank the Gods. You have five minutes to begin, then we will start the meditations.”

We rammed the remaining food down our throats, and clumsily formed a circle, ready to begin.

Falling In Love

The first meditation, a singing meditation. We wrapped ourselves in our sheets, leaving only our heads poking out (rather like E.T. riding the flying bicycle), and began to sing along with the tape, singing and waving our hands.

“Sal y salsa, sal y salsa, sal y sal-sal-sa-al” we sang, over and over again. Despite my very English, very close minded notion of not wanting to look ridiculous, spiritually speaking it warmed us up. Ready for more classes, more breathing exercises.

One of these was two form two circles, one of men, one of women, and, moving in different directions, stare each other in the eyes and hold the gaze. When you fall in love with someone, you gaze into their eyes in a way you would never do with a stranger.

I fell in love with several people.

People have beautiful eyes. They are the window to the soul, after all, and there was no blankness or rejection, only the occasional shyness and insecurity, brief glimpses of a bright iris through lowered lashes.

Gifting The Flowers

The beauty of flowers / Photo Suzanne Shanklin

Another meditation involved lying on the grass, face-down, eyes closed, with the guru moving with roaming fingers, tickling us until we screamed and writhed like little white grubs.

Then he placed his hands firmly on each person’s back and pressed down with a force that elicited manifold cracking sounds, and afterwards, a sigh of relief.

Not many massages can compare with that sudden release of tension, which undoubtedly prepared us for the rest of the meditations.

After climbing a mountain and gazing at each other like lovers, the group felt very close. My friends and I agreed to meditate more, without the clothes, sheets and hunger. To my surprise, even my most cynical friend hugged the guru goodbye.

He thanked us, holding out a plastic cup to collect our money, if we wanted.

He instructed us to give our flowers to the lady of the house, and she looked on as twenty five large bouquets were laid on her lawn, undoubtedly wondering where, exactly she was going to find twenty five vases.

We said our goodbyes and left, driving off in a cloud of red dust, already dreaming of our next episode of unorthodox behavior.

Have you tried a similar group meditation experience? Share your stories in the comments!

Photo Anna Brones

It happens surprisingly often that, when we are traveling and are confronted by paradisaical locations and amazing people, we are unable to enjoy ourselves entirely.

Despite our surroundings, there is a certain niggling feeling: the idea that something just isn’t quite right about the situation.

If our immediate physical environment is perfect, then we have to examine our inner emotional landscape to discover what these irritating stumbling blocks are. What inner journeys are we having that are preventing us from really enjoying the moment?

This is a short list of five of the most common barriers to inner travel.

1. The absent ‘other half’

Photo Ross Borden

How often is it, when confronted with a picture postcard view and lots of people busy making friends and enjoying themselves, you have distanced yourself and thought “I wish X was here to share this with me”?

We are all guilty of pining over absent partners, of running up ridiculously high mobile phone bills as we chatter incessantly to them.

In turn, of course, we have been annoyed by friends visibly pining for their partner, whilst they should be enjoying a long deserved break with us. Not fun.

Solution:

When traveling without a partner, pre-arrange how often you are going to be in contact. That way, you won’t obsess about missing calls from them, or have to worry about contacting them unnecessarily.

For motivation, recall how irritating your friends are when they are in this situation- you don’t want to end the holiday on bad terms with any of your traveling partners!

2. The ‘Jaded Long-term Traveler’ Attitude

We all know the types. They’ve wrestled sharks in the Caribbean, lived in the wilderness, and slept in more quirky cabanas than exist in all of Southeast Asia.

As a result, nothing fazes them- every waterfall you see, they’ve seen one twice as big. Every crazy character you meet, they’ve met someone twice as crazy.

It is very easy to adopt this attitude after traveling for a while. Impressed by nothing, the excitement of traveling merely becomes everyday.

Solution:

This can be difficult to shake off- especially as the ‘seen it all’ attitude can earn you awe from other travelers.

But try thinking about the company you keep; rather than gravitating towards other seasoned travel-heads, it can be really refreshing hanging out with people on their first trip abroad.

Their sense of open-eyed amazement can be very infectious. And of course, every now and then will come the moment that suddenly shakes this attitude from you.

One of mine was when I saw my first firefly in Mexico (living in England, they are little more than exotic myths). Glowing green insects like flying led lights- what can beat that!?

3. The Urge to Document

Photo Hawaiibren

All your friends are participating in the indigenous ritual that they will only get to attend once or twice in their lifetimes. And what are you doing?

You’re standing behind the ring of people, nose glued to the camera as you fiddle with the settings to correctly expose the photo. Or you’re scribbling frantically in your notebook, composing beautifully descriptive phrases.

You are so concerned with depicting the moment perfectly that you fail to enjoy it.

Solution:

I’m notoriously bad at this- occasionally I have to rely on good friends to tell me to put my notebook away and look at what is going on! Save writing for those long boring pauses in traveling; those all day bus journeys, for example.

Photographing is a little more difficult to avoid, but I think it is wise to forsake the complicated SLR for a small compact camera, set on automatic mode, which eliminates the pauses for fiddling.

4. Failure to Stay in the Present

You’re not enjoying yourself because you are worrying about the flight you have to catch tomorrow, or the hostel you’ll need to find when you arrive at 2am.

Or else, you’re busy regaling people with anecdotes from past travels, or preoccupied with repeating a past traveling mistake. Either way, your thoughts are not located in the present. But what about ‘now’?

Solution:

Remember this: the best traveling experiences are the ones you can’t anticipate. There is no point in hoping for something in the future, because reality is often better. If you are worrying, close your eyes, take a deep breath and try and let past and future worries dissolve.

When this happens to me, I always take a few minutes to myself to be alone and calm myself down, so I can authentically appreciate what is going on around me.

5. Desire for a ‘genuine’ experience

Photo Anna Brones

This is very common in long-term travelers. As a result, you become surprisingly snobbish about certain towns that are featured in the guide-books, failing to appreciate them because they don’t reflect the desired “look” of the country you’re in.

The company of other ‘tourists’, however like-minded they are, is often disparaged.

Solution:

Traveling doesn’t follow a particular path- sometimes you’ll spend weeks just talking to locals, other times, you’ll only meet tourists.

Often the best travel experiences aren’t remotely related to the culture you’re attempting to immerse yourself in – they may occur through a variety of unpredictable encounters with locals and tourist alike.

When I felt like too much of a tourist, I threw out my guidebook, and now, I rely on talking to people for information about transport and good places to go.

These are 5 of the most common inner obstacles we encounter whilst traveling. I have used my own personal experiences to help me compile this list.

What are your own barriers to inner travel? Share your thoughts in the comments!