While I was experimenting with Salvinorin I occasionally tried smoking
Salvia divinorum leaf. On my first few attempts I felt little more than a
buzz from the dried leaf. The first time I obtained a significant
experience with the leaf occurred when I smoked some in the desert at
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Two sequential pipe hits produced a
gentle but definite "Salvinorin journey," during which I felt a connection
with the Salvia entity: Since this time I've found that I can almost
always obtain a gentle Salvinorin journey by smoking the leaf. However,
when I've smoked the dried leaf in the early stages of LSD journeys I've
had very powerful experiences, some that have lasted up to three hours.

When I was at Organ Pipe Cactus N.M. I had been planning to smoke
Salvinorin the following day while I was tripping on mescaline. However,
the following day's journey entailed much extreme physical discomfort, as
the temperature reached 120 and was over 100 throughout the day.
Something I've now noticed on a few mescaline trips is that I seem to
become a sensitive receptor for solar energy. It's as though I absorb and
concentrate the sun's energy just as a cactus  does, turning it into a higher level of energy within my body. This has felt exhilaratingly welcome when the sun peaked through the clouds on a snowy day in the high mountains of New Mexico. However, on a hot summer day in the middle of the desert it is simply too much. This sensitivity to heat and sunlight may be the cause for the saying that "one will go mad if they consume Peyote during the daytime." Because of the intense heat I did not smoke any Salvinorin during this trip. However, the Salvia entity
visited me while I was tripping on mescaline, taking me on a brief journey
and offering a cool, peaceful retreat from the brutal temperature.

I have now smoked Salvinorin outdoors several times. on some of these
occasions there is little difference from my journeys done indoors, but at
other times there is a deeper perception and feeling into the plant life
around me. On one occasion I was very tempted to hug a large cactus,
although I fortunately resisted this urge. A more startling revelation
occurred when I smoked Salvinorin in a meadow. At the edge of this meadow
were some redwood trees a couple hundred feet tall. Upon coming out of the
Salvinorin trance I found myself looking at these trees, and had a
powerful realization that I was staring at beings who were several hundred
years old, and had been here long before the first white man had been in
the area or any modem technology had been developed. With this I realized
that plant life in general must be going through quite a culture shock by
the changes that have taken place on this planet during the past two
hundred years.