LSD CHANGED MY LIFE

My True Story of Spiritual Awakening at 19

By Maria Luna

Welcome to PART ONE of my story of spiritual awakening, when Moon Sugar Alchemy really started, and how I discovered Magic.

Once upon a time, in a magical funky dangerous land known as New Orleans, college student Maria Luna tripped on acid and remembered her true divine nature…

-LET’S REWIND A BIT-

I. FRIENDS, FUNK AND SELF LOVE

In 2014, I was attending my sophomore year of college at Loyola University New Orleans.

Me in college!

I worked SO hard on myself that year. I finally overcame the eating disorder that had plagued my teenagehood, with the help of my first time ever in therapy. (This in itself was a huge, life changing milestone that put me forever more on a healing path!)

I passionately threw myself into my studies of psychology and creative writing. I deepened my appreciation of funk and hip hop—hard not to when you live in New Orleans! I made some of the best friendships in my life. And I also discovered strange hippie parts of the internet that taught me about things like manifestation, mindfulness, and self love for the first time in my life.

My spiritual awakening didn’t come from a lightning bolt, or abstinence of any kind.

It came from having wonderful, messy, imperfect friends who got me. It came from finally feeling confident and beautiful in my own skin. It came from therapy, the internet, exploring my passions, and feeling ignited by artists such as OutKast and Mac Miller, roaming the misty, sultry streets of New Orleans night after night.

Basically—  some mysterious, funky magic got a hold of my soul, and *SPOILER ALERT*: it NEVER let me go.

Me as a teenager ecstatically merging with creation, because for the first time in my life I really loved myself// I enjoyed my work, I felt super hot, I had great friends, I went to fun parties and what more do you need in life?

Feeling confident, safe, loved and impassioned in the magical land of New Orleans, without many responsibilities except my enjoyable psychology homework and looking as cute as possible at parties, I began merging with the Love and Light of creation.

Ahh… the pleasures of being young…

Thus at the ripe age of 19 I began having ecstatic mystical experiences, without ever having known that mysticism — or any flavor of spirituality outside the limiting traditions of Christianity I witnessed in my periphery growing up— even existed.

II. NEW YORKERS, LSD, AND ME

In this pulsating, blissful, confident state, I attracted many beautiful  connections, and eventually befriended a couple New Yorkers with big hearts and even bigger penchants for psychedelics. I may never see them again, but I’ll never forget the impressions Lou and Neal left on my soul.

One gorgeous Spring day, we were basking in the sun at Audubon park, close to that famous, glittering, black Louisiana water (and possibly a few gators lurking below), when Lou pulled it out.

“It’s really good stuff”, he said to me. “We’d love to have this experience with you.”

By this point, the three of us had bonded more intensely than can easily be explained over Lou’s bong and chunky monkey ice cream, huddled together daily in his dingy, musty dorm room.

I’d had casual recreational experiences with psychedelics in the past, but none had been very positive. Lacking proper setting, intention, and internal self confidence, these experiences had mostly been jarring and VERY uncomfortable for me. Did I dare take the risk to OPEN MY MIND with my two New Yorkers I felt so fond of?

I looked at Lou. I looked at Neal (who I was rapidly falling head over heels in love with, but that torment is a whole other story.) I looked at the minuscule squares of paper in Lou’s outstretched palms. I felt the warm Louisiana sun, filtered through Spanish moss and massive oak branches, tickling my skin.

And I said Yes.

Something magical happened that day (and night, since we double dipped 8 hours after our first dose). Armed with my hard won arsenal of self love, when the psychoactive medicine kicked in I did not feel afraid. I felt calm. Receptive. Curious.

And so something that I would acutely describe as “being fucked by the Holy Spirit” proceeded to happen to my brain for the next several hours (days, weeks, months actually).

Ahh, my first life changing, profound mystical experience. There are many words for mystical experiences: gnosis, satori, illumination, enlightenment, revelation.

Well, I had one.

In that state there were so many things I remembered.

Including:

• My human identity is TEMPORARY!

• I’m actually a wickedly powerful, unfathomably loving, infinitely wise, boundlessly courageous SPIRIT

• The Holy Grail is REAL. It’s the Love I feel in my heart that is so much bigger than my human fears and limitations. Finding the Holy Grail is the act of living and becoming that Love in every possible way.

• I’ve been here before.

• I’ve lived and died before…

• All the pain and insecurity I have felt in my life is temporary, unreal, and yet an essential ingredient in the story.

• I am loved and created by something unfathomably intelligent that breathes me and holds me EVERY SINGLE MOMENT!

• EVERYTHING is meaningfully, invisibly connected.

• There is an invisible world overlapping with ours, and WE ARE NOT ALONE.

• Anything is possible, and only my own chosen self limitations can hinder that fact.

• The Amazon Rainforest calls me, needs me, knows me, loves me.

(This last one might sound strange, and gets to Official Part 2 of my never-ending-still-unfolding journey of spiritual awakening. Yes, I truly had this realization during my LSD trip at 19).

During this experience I also felt a profound, cavernous, almost frightening grief that I was human; hence inescapably headed towards more suffering and amnesia of my true divine identity. That grief felt so immense, ancient, and familiar. It was dense, hard to swallow.

I still carry this in my heart at times, but I have to say after the last decade or so of transmuting some intensely heavy stuff (is that what they call karma?), repeatedly coming to terms with the fact of being human, and getting WAYYYY better at manifesting my dreams, it feels much lighter now ;)

III. THE AFTERMATH

The aftermath of those 24 hours has so far lasted the rest of my life.

The afterglow lasted a while too. ;)

I spent months after that LSD trip suspended in a strange, ecstatic relief, deeply feeling the holiness of existence everywhere I went. In those moments I was no longer separate from God. It was like falling in love— the same insane chemistry in my brain, the same explosive opening of my heart. How could anyone ever be the same after feeling that?

Those initial moments of awakening were followed by months of recognition that I truly came from something far greater than my limited human self, and I was so much more than everything I had ever experienced in my life. With time that awareness sank deeper and deeper into my body, mind, heart, bones.

The ridiculous amount of synchronicities that stalked me every waking moment in those months was almost disturbing!

It was my precious “awakening as a light worker” era. I have been forcefully plunged into so many “dark nights of the soul” since I’ve lost count lol. But I will always cherish this beautiful time as the moment that set me on my Path…

Obviously that (no longer hidden) Intelligence I come from wanted my attention!

And well, I gave it… all.

Here I am over 10 years later on my unique spiritual healing journey, on the other side of that unfolding, tempered by the fires of countless peaks and valleys, countless deaths and rebirths, countless moments of grief, pain, joy and ecstasy.

The journey continues to unfold and I am more devoted than ever to the Mystery, and to bringing the creative inspirations in my heart to Life.

note: I first called MSA Lunar Azúcar :)

This is the true story of the moment in time that put me forever more on a path of seeking the Divine. It is only one chapter!

Stay tuned for further installations of my story, including the big breakdown that led me to the jungle.

AYAHUASCA CHANGED MY LIFE, TOO: The Excruciating Call to the Shamanic Path: Part 2 of My Awakening Story (COMING SOON)

♥︎ FIN ♥︎