Ouachita (solar eclipse)

A solo venture changed at the last minute into a buddy road trip.

Driving East, we chase the eclipse: tracking the evolving forecast…zeroing in on a stretch of Arkansas with its lone window of sunny weather…selecting a hilltop in the Ouachita National Forest with a 360° panorama, far from the madding crowds… Things are going smooth. Too smooth…

Eclipse day. Medicine is taken ahead of the short hike to the hilltop, timed so that our trip will peak around totality. A vast miscalulation: physical exertion and sudden midday heat have quickened my metabolism and the onset is rapid — occuring as we begin to struggle through a section of heavy underbrush. I cannot go on and we are forced to retreat. I have shot myself in the foot [Chiron] and run out of time [Saturn]. Such cruel fate [Pluto].

Back at the car, in a man-made clearing at the end of a dirt road, we have our eclipse. For me, the event is colored by feelings of failure and guilt [Saturn-Chiron] at having spoiled my friend's experience as well as my own.

Looking back, it’s hard to reconcile the all-around good time we had before and after with my personal experience of the event itself. Yet this journey must be be taken and understood as a whole — and given perspective.

At the tail-end of this current phase of life it appears evident that my connection with psychedelics has run its course. For now — we shall see about the future. Meanwhile, this last bit of teaching was bitter to swallow.

David's experience was obviously his own, distinct from mine. I will say here that his astrological chart was also triggered in significant ways — ways that i’m only beginning to understand.

From a self-centered perspective: having realized that Quetzalcoatl is involved in a key aspect of his astrological signature: did the deity send a helper to keep me from going alone — thereby altering the energies and saving me from myself? Given the personal astrology at play (heavy, intense, fated) it’s easy to imagine how a solo expedition might have had serious consequences.