Tripping is one of those words from the acid 60’s that’s more than just a word. It’s a teaching. It suggests more than it signifies. It suggests a way of organizing the experience of doing acid. It conveys the notion of traveling, of taking a trip. It prepares the individual for a journey out of mind and ego and into extraordinary realms of experience.

The domains usually traveled while doing acid are the non-ego reaches of consciousness. We can live again in the still living past. We can relive all of our life, including our birth and even experiences from before our birth, including even the experiences of our past lives. We can be another being. We can hear, in the deep woods, complete symphonies in the air, clearly. We can communicate across vast reaches of time and space and even visit far galaxies. (See LSD Psychotherapy by Stan Grof and the many other books that document such experiences.)

When I first heard the word “tripping,” and was just beginning to use acid, I rejected its use. Because of the Grateful Dead and their followers, I associated tripping with partying and not being serious. But over the years, as I have done more acid, I’ve come to see that Spirit is to be found in the strangest places, and that I do have to trip to get there.

Because of this understanding, I have become a wanderer and have incorporated this sense of tripping into every aspect of my life. I write as a tripper. I have an idea, maybe a title, but that’s usually it. I just start tripping on down the page, letting my thoughts wander and trust that they’ll come together and make a relevant point by the bottom. I live as a tripper too. I have routines, but they are minimal and flexible. When I wake, I rarely know what I’ll be doing during the day. I have no long-range plans either, except to take care of myself and my family, to always be loving and kind, and to die well when my time comes.