This is the account of a beautiful rite of passage a mother shared with her teenaged son, strengthening his family connection, his sense of self, and his bond with nature. Both the mother and son describe the event from their perspectives.

My introduction to psychedelics was in my early teens. In my life at that time, I would say that psychedelics were the most helpful guidance I received during those most difficult years. I was introduced to psychedelics from my older siblings. When my kids were coming of that age and I knew they would be exposed to the drug culture through the culture that we are in, I wanted to take the opportunity to share with them the values and the importance of respect and appropriate use that I felt might help them through their coming of age.

When my older son was turning thirteen, I thought it would be the perfect rite of passage, as his mother, to take him into the mountains to introduce him to plant medicines and plant teachers. When he was eleven and twelve, he was drifting away from our close bond, becoming more troubled in school, getting into fights, getting rebellious. He was ready to create a new identify of his own within the context of his peer group and the outside world. I was concerned and had fears about drug abuse and misuse and alcohol use and misuse. He was at that age, still young enough to listen to me and take me seriously, and I could still get through to him to impart positive values.

I also believe the power of the plant medicines to be a very bonding experience to do with others and I felt that within the context of a spiritual, psychedelic rite of passage that our bond would be even greater and that he wouldn't feel the need to rebel and reject me as a parent. I felt that doing something so powerful as psychedelics with him and entering into that state of mind would create more of an honest relationship and would become a point of reference between us. We would have that mother-and-son spiritual connection that would be something we could both draw strength from.

One day, I just approached him and asked him if he wanted to do a special ceremony for his thirteenth birthday. I explained to him that we would use a small amount of peyote because he was familiar with it from being involved around Native American Church ceremonies. I used to attend NAC services and though he never took any peyote at them, he did attend some meetings with me as a small child, though mostly he just slept through them. He was happy and excited to have been asked, probably more about the time alone camping in the mountains together than the peyote, on this very special day. Kids crave that time alone with their parents. I had another younger son as well so he appreciated the opportunity for time alone. I didn't know if he had tried marijuana yet when I offered him the experience with peyote. He confessed that he had tried smoking pot before.

I've always done psychedelics away from civilization so I could have a deeper relationship with nature and the earth, in an uninterrupted manner. I wanted to help him reconnect to the earth as his mother and to the incredible power and beauty of the animals, birds and plants. We'd had family camp-outs before, but this was the first time that we ever camped out alone. We took four days since it was a days drive both ways, and we camped for three nights, driving back the fourth day. I felt at the time that it was the best experience I'd ever had with another person, let alone my son. There wasn't a bit of tension.

I briefly told him about what peyote does but I mostly felt that I needed to sit with him with the medicine and explain it then. It was important to me to share the information, my experiences, what I have been taught and what I have learned, during the ritual, and not to talk too much about it before. I didn't give him anything to read about. There we no other resources like that other than my own experience, which I trusted.

We woke up in the morning after our first night of camping, and we had a light breakfast. We packed a light lunch of snack food mostly and then we began to hike. We hiked about an hour. We did a ceremony where I first called for protection and asked for blessings from the four directions and the guardians and we thanked this place on earth for being there for us. Then, we ate about an equivalent of one or two small buttons of peyote, which was a light dose. I then began to speak, the words just came freely and naturally as I expressed my views and values, about the differences between use and abuse, and about the traditional uses of psychoactive plants. I explained how they were tools and that the plants were teachers and they were medicines and that was the appropriate, respectful way to use in whatever form you get them in, whether peyote, mescaline or LSD. I also explained the importance of set and setting, of being in the right place and the right frame of mind.

I don't remember him expressing any fear or anxiety. After eating the peyote and talking and answering his questions, we began hiking again, and noticing the magic of the land that we were in. I asked him to walk in silence with me for an hour. I think he broke the silence after about 45 minutes. Then we sat and talked about how we were feeling. He shared with me his comfort with what he was feeling and his excitement about being in the mountains with me. We then started talking about shamanism and he shared with me his own techniques he practiced as a child in his imagination to protect himself when he felt unsafe. He said he surrounded himself with an egglike sphere when he felt unsafe. He also shared with me insights and his spiritual inspiration he received from the books he'd been reading, fantasy mostly.

Under the circumstances, he felt safe to open up to me about his secret side, his spiritual take on the world. Then we talked more about shamanism, and power animals and protection, and he asked me how he know what his power animal is? I told him they sometimes come in dreams or visions when doing plant medicines and sometimes you just know - you have a sense about it. I asked him what he thought his power animal might be, if he had any idea? He said he thought it was a bear. I suggested to him that he close his eyes and ask the universe what his power animal was.

What he got was better than that beyond what I suggested. We were sitting on some rocks on the ridge of a mountain. We opened our eyes and talked a little while. Ten or fifteen minutes later, there appeared a bear walking across a field of snow about one hundred yards in front of us. He asked me if that bear was real since he thought he might be hallucinating. I told him it was real. It was springtime and down where we were, there was no snow but up on the hill there was snow. After the bear was gone, we went to look at the tracks. We followed them to rocks where they disappeared and left some of our nut mix as a gift. It was so magical.

Later, we were in an old juniper forest up high and he found a tree and connected to this one tree and even felt like it was speaking to him. I think he will remember more about this than I will. A lot has happened since that journey.

These were the Steens Mountains in Southern Oregon. Then we felt it was time to walk back to camp. Then we found a perfect ravine of snow that we skied down on our feet. We were laughing and screaming at the same time. Then, when we returned to our camp.

The next morning, we ventured to the hot springs just down the road where I facilitated a symbolic rebirth of his self. I told him before he went under the water to hold in his mind, himself as he has known himself as a child and when we went under to let go of that and allow a new part of himself to emerge. He emerged from the water with great elation.

The rest of the time together was laughing and sharing like we never did before. I let him drive the truck for the first time. It was just fantastic.

Before we went on this retreat, we were experiencing a lot of conflict and rebellious behavior. Afterwards, there was very little conflict.

When conflict did occur, we were able to talk through it more easily. He was more mature and comfortable and at ease around me. He's been very open and honest around me ever since. We've expressed more love and affection, more openly.

Sometime after that, my husband took him hiking into the mountains and backpacking for several days, conducting a rite of passage in his own way. Even though he wasn't doing psychedelics at the time, my husband understood and agreed with what we were doing and valued it. When there is conflict among parents, kids just don't know what to think. It was very important that we both were in harmony about the value of my sharing peyote with my son.

Not long after, just a matter of weeks, my son became very interested in Buddhism, on his own. Acting independently, he found a local Taoist temple and started going to it every Sunday, and became a vegetarian. I had to cook his meals separately since we all ate meat. I think his self-esteem was greater after this experience. He pondered spiritual things more and just by luck got a speaking part in a Disney movie. With the money he made from the movie, he went to Bali for five weeks with another family. He started having his own experiences out in the world, to create his own sense of self. I was blown away how it just fell into place like that. The Rite of Passage really worked.

Later when he wanted to do mushrooms with his friends, he told me about it and I was able to encourage him to do it in the country. I was able to be a kind of a guide and explain to him that drugs were not all one thing and that cocaine was not as useful as psychedelics. He felt comfortable coming to me. Later when he was 15 he came to me with some blotter acid and I was able to trade him mushrooms since I was worried about the quality of the acid. I never have known him to abuse any drugs. He seemed to prefer mushrooms over synthetics. He smokes marijuana occasionally, has never used it heavily. He relationship to alcohol is the same, occasional and not frequent. He seems aware of what he is doing, of when he might be getting close to abusing. He seemed to hang with like-minded boys who also seemed respectful of their use. I didn't know of any abusers that he hung with.

My younger son and I also did a similar ritual that really bonded us. He listens to me and respects my values and views and opinions about the different substances that are available to him. He's a skateboarder, and for him, his self-esteem and perseverance became greater. He's become a semi-professional skateboarder. He appears in magazines and videos. He's hot stuff and he did it all himself. He's had many injuries, resulting in three surgeries, but he's never been discouraged. He made the most out of his talent, and has tremendous self-confidence. I think he gained much of that from a powerful affirmation from his parents.

The Rites of Passage weren't focused as much on doing the psychedelics as on giving them an affirmation of their value and place in the world - a great validation.

The time alone in the mountains provided us with the space of comfort, ease and openness. There were no distractions. Now my kids prefer to go out in nature to do psychedelics. When my youngest was 17, he wanted to go the Oregon desert to do mushrooms with his friend. He wanted me to take them, which I did, and acted as their sitter. I'm not sure if his friend's parents knew. That was a little uncomfortable but I knew they were both already doing mushrooms and smoking pot and that the friend's parents already knew that. He said his parents would be OK with what he did, so I trusted him.

This open dialogue with kids about substances is so important these days. If they want to do it, kids will do drugs regardless of whether they have their parents' approval. I don't think my kids are doing more drugs because of this open attitude. My oldest son is doing well in college and is a real serious student. He's an occasional user. I don't see him stoned much.

My younger son has a more laidback lifestyle and is a more frequent user of marijuana and occasional user of alcohol.

He's a chef, a graffiti artist and a skateboarder. He's had run-ins with the law, but my honest opinion is that the cops in my town harass the youth more than they need to, and have developed a paranoia about drugs. It's so silly to think that they can stop kids from doing drugs. It takes a lot to influence kids at that age. I think it has to begin early and with an open and honest approach. Do they really think that this big War on Drugs has ever worked? Has it ever stopped kids from using drugs, or even slowed it down? Wherever you try to forcefully control the youth culture, it gives them something to rebel against.

Kids need a validating experience at that age and if they don't have it, then they create it through rebelliousness, in order to establish their own identity. I found that rites of passage my husband and I provided not only gave our boys the validation they needed from us, but also strengthened our family bond.

NOTE: Written April 2003, when the author was a senior in college about to graduate.

Starting in about the fifth grade, there began to grow a confusing anger within me. As I entered middle school, this only grew bigger and more powerful. I was confused about so many things, and often felt torn between contradictory and diametrically opposed ideas and values. There was, on one hand, what I knew from the upbringing my parents had given me. On the other hand, there was what I was receiving from my friends and peers and the music and pop culture around me. I was becoming painfully aware of my individuality, which often manifested as a profound sense of isolation and loneliness, and was trying to find a way to feel ok with myself.

My rites of passage came at a very important time in my life. I began smoking pot about three months before my thirteenth birthday. On my birthday, I did blotter acid that my friends and I bought off the street, and not long after I began to use mushrooms. These experiences were always with my friends, with no guiding values other than curiosity and a fear of being left out. My friends had already tried pot, mushrooms, acid, and made the experiences sound exciting. I had in my mind the awareness of psychedelics as plant medicine - as a spiritual tool - but that was not reflected anywhere in my life outside of my home. Since it was through my friends and peer group, and even music, that I was being introduced to marijuana and psychedelic substances, I naturally began to associate their importance with what my friends and music told me, which had no spiritual content whatsoever

When my mother first proposed doing the rite of passage, I was actually excited about it. Even through my darkest years, I never, ever, lost my respect for spirituality. In fact, it was during the hardest times that I yearned most strongly for it - but deep down, hidden inside. I was aware of the peyote use in the Native American Church, and was always curious about it, but this all seemed so far removed from my life as a twelve year old middle school boy. The rite of passage with my mother taught me another way - the true way, I believe - to use and understand psychedelics and plant medicine.

The experience itself was powerful, but in a very subtle way. I took only a small amount of peyote, in a capsule, and did not have any sort of psychedelic experience - that is I didn't have auditory, visual, or other sensory hallucinations, or feel a drastic shift in my consciousness. What I experienced instead was a deeper connection with the natural world, almost a sort of expansion of consciousness into it. A paradigm shift. The experience with seeing the bear also had a profound impact on me, as it was the first time I had what I could consider at that time a "spiritual experience," and gave me something to hold on to (my spirit animal). At an age when everything is being questioned, it was a powerful reinforcement of the truth and existence of the spirit, and universal connection.

There was also the opening of a connection between my mother and I, which has stayed open ever since. She was very trusting with me, very non-judgmental and accepting of what I had to say and my experiences before. This allowed my to feel safe enough to share my deepest and most-closely held ideas about the world - ideas I wasn't able to share with my friends, or anyone else at the time. Just simply being able to externalize these, and feel validated by what she said to me and what I experienced those days out in the desert strengthened my self-confidence and trust in my true self. From then on, my natural experimentation with "drugs" wasn't something that came between my mother and I; it wasn't something I had to hide. I could, in fact, share these experiences with her, when I felt ready, and she always listened, accepting and honest, giving me more teachings. She would express her concerns to me about things she saw as inappropriate and explained to me why, but never got angry or punished me. I came to respect her opinion and teachings, and though I had to build my own understanding of the world, much of my personal spirituality has been based directly on her teachings.

My father also led me through a rite of passage ritual. He and his brother took me on a backpacking trip through the Stehekan Wilderness overlooking Lake Chelan in Washington state. While the trip did not involve psychedelic substances, it was a profound and spiritual experience. The sense of accomplishment I felt looking back through the raw, forested valley, standing on a ridge overlooking a glacier and two lakes - all of which I had climbed through in a matter of two days - instilled an awareness of both my own power and the truly breathtaking scale and beauty of the natural world. The hike, like my experience in the desert, was a paradigm shift, a reminder of my connection to the natural world and the truly breath-taking size and scope of it all.