The way I’ve come to understand my experience with 5-MEO is that it was like being present at the ‘Big Bang’. Suddenly there was beautiful bright light and everything began expanding. I realized some of those sparkling bits were me. I was an indistinguishable part of this amazing beauty. It was all love. It was all God. It was the Ultimate Reality. These precious moments were some of the most significant of my life. That’s saying a lot when spoken by a mother and grandmother in her 75th year.

Part of me just wants to return to that ecstatic experience again and again, but that would be to miss the opportunity for fully awakening. The challenge is to live from this place of ultimate reality in my everyday life. It’s a challenge worthy of being the primary focus of the rest of my life. I wholeheartedly embrace it. A gift of having this experience late in life is I that have the time and spaciousness to fully devote myself to the work of integration.

Angela, age 74