Holding Space.

“You mean, like a ‘storage space’?”

I looked at the screen and laughed. The laughter echoed like loud chimes. Musical.

I was lying on the bathroom floor. It felt lovely. But I hadn’t gone in there to use the bathroom for its usual reason. I’d gone in there to hold space for myself.

While on psychedelic mushrooms.

I’d tried other plant medicines. But I held off on trying mushrooms because of the logistics around them… They weren’t legal. And I had no idea how to procure them legally.

But when a trusted friend offered them to me earlier in the evening, and also offered to do them with me, I was keen to explore the plant.

Would it be like ayahuasca? (I once had a fellow retreat attendee tell me Aya was like mushrooms.)

Would it be like cannabis? (A plant I still haven’t fully connected with on the sativa side in understanding how to use it.)

Or maybe it would be gentle like San Pedro and Peyote, and just be an energy in the back of my head operating… But so sweetly.

My friend ground half a small bag of mushrooms up with some fresh squeezed pink grapefruit juice. A storm had been hovering most of the afternoon/early evening. Some of it violent with lightening energy. But by the time we were preparing to drink the elixir, things felt fresh and clean.

The space was cleared for us.

I drank down my portion of the juice. It tasted earthy and bitter. Mostly, I think, because of the grapefruit. It took two paused gulps to get it down.

It was far more pleasant than Aya.

Far, far more.

I looked at my friend. They had put on exotic lounge music, and had a light feature of an underwater scene projecting on the walls in an otherwise large dark room.

It was pleasant. But it wasn’t the space I needed to journey.

I got up and went outside into the back yard space where a large mesquite tree on the opposite side of a neighbors wall looked down on the house. In the daytime, it provided a needed shade. In the evening, it blocked the view of the Sun setting with pretty colors in the sky.

Staring up at it in the dark night, at first, was calm.

Then it began to stare back at me.

It was a smirking face, with clusters of leaves creating the features. And a long, low branch that came over the length of the brick wall separating the yards became a arm.

It knew I had taken the plant. And it seemed to be acknowledging that plant energy in me, almost saying…

“Why hello there. What are you going to do with her?”

Laughing.

I went back inside, wanting to get out of the gaze of the tree.

The jade plant inside the kitchen door stared at me with curiosity as I came inside. It was more friendly than the tree. It also seemed to be intentionally holding space for me.

A calm space.

“Thank you,” I said to the plant.

I walked back into the large room, unsure of how long I had been outside and in the kitchen. But I was guessing it had been about an hour. My friend was stretched out in a camping chair, staring at the projection on the walls… Which appeared to be in sync with the lounge music.

“How are you feeling?” they asked.

“It’s like the lighter side of ayahuasca,” I reported. “But I’m not having any deep dialogue with myself. I’m more having it with things around me. Other plants.”

They nodded.

“The jade plant in the kitchen is kindly holding space for me,” I added.

“What’s that mean?” my friend asked.

I laughed at them.

But they didn’t seem to know at all what I meant.

“You really don’t know what it means to ‘hold space’?” I couldn’t believe it.

They shrugged their shoulders and then went back to looking at the projection.

Their relaxed energy, combined with the projection, and the music… It distracted me from the conversation I was having with the experience.

I went into the bathroom to focus on it. Since the kitchen, the large room, and the back yard were not going to options.

I could feel the chill from the tiles on my back through my maxi summer dress. I flipped my long hair out from under me, exposing my neck to the coolness too.

The space was better for me. I could still hear the lounge music. But it became helpful to the flow of conversation in my head. There wasn’t anything to distract me from it in the tiny bathroom.

But I was still annoyed by my friend not knowing about holding space.

I picked up my mobile, and opened a messenger app to check with a different friend. One who wasn’t on mushrooms.

“Do you know what it means to be ‘holding space’?” I asked them.

“You mean like a ‘storage space’?” they asked.

The laughter I pushed out was indeed musical. And colorful, in a gentle way.

I decided to text two other friends, both of whom had done mushrooms, the same question.

Neither knew. One should have known it, since they had done aya before too.

I was more annoyed. But still laughing. Mostly at myself.

“Did I make up this concept?” I wondered.

But I knew I hadn’t. It just wasn’t used in the world of these people. At least not much. And perhaps not articulated as I had called it.

I was used to holding space for myself. And for others. Keeping calm. Listening. Not being too comforting or too chaotic. Maintaining a “let’s just let whatever wants to exist in the space exist… Be present for it.”

The tree outside had been too excited to talk to the plant inside me. I wasn’t ready for that.

The plant in the kitchen also wanted to have a conversation with it. But more in a small talk kind of way. Politeness. (I think the plant was secretly Canadian.)

The space in the large room was filled too much with the energy of my friend trying to escape whatever they had going on mentally. Distracting them.

As the time flew by in the evening, I determined my experience was meant to just introduce me to the plant medicine. Not to process or purge anything, which is what happens on the other plants.

I wasn’t sure if I would try them again anytime soon. But I knew if I did, I needed to have a different space in which to do them. Maybe I would be ready to have conversations with a tree or another plant when I did.

But mushrooms, for me, are a more social plant than the others. They like distraction. They like conversation.

Even with the plants, I’m an introvert.