On the morning of August 18, in the presence of two others, who also took MDMA, I drank 120 mg of MDMA. Prior to taking the substance I was handed a rose, freshly cut, and I was made to feel loved, safe, and secure. Even so I was a bit anxious, because, except for a single encounter with a psilocybin mushroom, I had never ingested a psychedelic.

After a few minutes I began to feel numb from my head to my toes. I became frightened and I looked to the rose for re-assurance. The numbness gave way to a sensation of great energy. It felt as though every molecule and atom of my body had a powerful motor, and for the first time every one was turned on. The great surge of power and energy was overwhelming and I began to have second thoughts about taking the substance, but I knew that it was too late. I was at the highest peak of the roller coaster, about to descend with the speed of a failing rock. Great excitement and fear held me, and once again I looked at the rose and felt re-assured.

All of this had the feeling of me versus it, and it was winning and was very much in control. Then, at some point the struggle and fear vanished and a great feeling of peace came over me. It was not the kind that comes from not having problems or stress, but peace with great energy, super peace, tangible, expansive, a real thing, and highly prized. I sat until I was sure this state would not dissolve. I felt as though I were breathing for the fast time in my life.

All the while I had been looking at the desert sand beneath my feet. Occasionally I would raise my eyes and look at the pile of wood stacked neatly beside the garage. If the wood appeared so fascinating and wondrous, what must the mountains, which were at my back, be like? I thought perhaps if I turned to look at them, that I would surely be overcome by their great beauty. So I turned very slowly, each glance being a bit longer, taking in more of them with every turn of my head until I felt confident enough to stand and have a panoramic view of the whole range. They were spectacular and breath-taking -- literally. I was filled with joy.

I went over to my fellow travelers, with much excitement, and I exclaimed, "I knew that there must be such places as this, I knew it, I knew it." Part of this realization was from having read about such states of consciousness, but the larger part of it was that I felt at home, like the birds or fish who migrate thousands of miles because somehow they know and are called by an inner prompting to a place where they have never been, have never seen, but at last find.

Then came a flood of connections. I felt connected with some master plan. Everything seemed to have a purpose and a plan, a reason why, and I felt caught up in it and was thrilled. Life seemed to have been conspiring to get me here to this moment, to this place of love, beauty, goodness, and truth. There was no uncertainty about any of this. "Only the fool, fixed in his folly, thinks that he turns the wheel on which he turns." The greatest freedom is to have no freedom but to go where we long to be. I had been migrating for fifty-three years in order to be home at last. I knew that I had done something as great as the birds and the fish.

As the heart quickens the closer you approach your destiny, so I saw the connection between the fact that my body had uncontrollably quivered the day I had interviewed as a possible candidate for this experience, and the greatness of the experience to which I felt called and which was now part of me. I felt as though all that I was trying to accomplish in life was somehow confirmed by the experience that I was undergoing. It was a premonition, and a confirmation. I was being caught up in the mystery, and the providence, and I was able to know the feeling and the certainty of it all.

I looked at my friend and I knew that he must be an emissary for a new way of living. The feeling was one of destiny. I was enjoying my destiny for the first time. It was real and I was realizing it.

I wanted to explore, to walk out into the desert, to stand alone in that vast panorama of beauty. A few hundred yards from the house I found a huge stone, about five feet high, into which the wind had carved a seat. I climbed onto the rock ("tu es petros" -- you are the rock) and sat there in the hot morning sun, looking up into the blue sky, breathing wonderfully clean, warm air, surrounded by overpowering mountains, great rock formations, and ancient boulders that I had been told, were 25 million years old. I knew what consciousness was about. I thought of the destiny of mankind. We were going to the stars.

I walked back to the house filled with awe and wonder. I asked whether we could go swimming in the spring-filled pond, which was down a gentle slope, a few acres from the house. We nestled there amid three and four-story high rocks and boulders of great beauty. Here in this idyllic setting of monoliths and cattails, desert and lush vegetation, I decided that I wanted to be baptized, without ceremony, ritual, or words.

Coming out of the cool spring water I felt refreshed -- cleansed inside and out, totally alive and especially privileged.

The rest of the day was spent hiking and mountain climbing, eating rich, hot soup and being fully into the here and now. The intensity of the morning had drifted into a pleasant transition of fun, closeness to one another, and to the events as they unfolded.

Sitting at night under the stars and distant lightning I knew that I had come into an awareness as unique as life and into the promise of scripture, "I have come that you may have life -- and have it more abundantly."