a different way exists. if you feel it in your heart, it's waiting for you.
*i want to acknowledge, in this video and always, that traveling and living in foreign countries is a privilege. this place is not mine. i have no right to it. to the best of my ability, i support and engage with local people and economies and try to keep my footprint as small as possible, while reveling in the beauty and magic of a people and a place. travel with the awareness that you are always a guest. live with the awareness that you are owed nothing; that nothing belongs to you. and, most importantly, live with an open heart.
i wrote on the links between mysticism and schizophrenia, psychiatry, psychedelic substances, mental illness, altered states of consciousness, saints, a bit on my own experiences, a soul’s union with a higher power, and the abyss of God’s love! 🤍 https://open.substack.com/pub/eroticvalentine/p/a-connection-to-god-schizophrenia?r=1a45tt&utm_medium=ios
Connecting to God and the abyss of love takes many forms and paths, no matter which you take love and the Divine will intertwine and never l
okay but the THING IS that after cas comes back from the empty totally human, and before he and dean (read: dean) pull their heads out of their respective asses, cas is... depressed. jack is still MIA, dean hasn’t acknowledged his confession but is still awkward around him, and he has to witness eileen and sam being stupidly in love with each other on a daily basis (he’s so very happy for him, but being human is Hard).
so, he spends a lot of his days watching documentaries. mostly he watches them to laugh at what they get wrong (though he’s rapidly forgetting—was allosaurus plumage red or green?), but then he watches one on fungi and it’s so obvious. determined not to be a burden, he spends hours scrolling through mushroom forager forums until he bites the bullet and makes himself an account. fast forward three days and he’s sailing out of the library with a backpack and a vague “going out” to dean's questioning frown. dean, who follows him into the garage.
“cas, seriously, where’re you—”
“groceries.”
“dude, we have everything here. hang on a sec, i’ll get my jacket and come with—”
“no—”
“it ain’t no trouble. whaddya need—”
“i’m going to meet a friend, okay?!”
and cas throws himself into the car and peels out of the garage as fast as possible. he meets the other forager, user funguy21 (whose real name is darla, she’s a mycologist at U of W, home for a couple weeks), and the two of them spend a nice if a little awkward hour looking for mushrooms. by the time cas makes it back, he’s got a new contact in his phone and a small paper bag in the front seat.
dean’s in the shower when cas gets home, but he nods a greeting to sam and eileen before cleaning his spoils and heading back out to the wooded area behind the bunker. he goes just past the little clearing they’ve set up with lawn chairs, sitting himself down next to an old, gnarled tree and carefully selecting the mushroom darla advised he start with. And another. And another.
he eats them.
the sun is setting and it’s beautiful, and slowly, cas can hear every blade of grass in the quickening wind. he can see the air moving in currents around him. the more he stares at the light being reflected off the clouds in long, sweet notes of pinks and purples, the more that light turns to its geometric base properties at the corners of his vision. colours have sound, sound has texture, and castiel is small in the bigness of it all. one tiny piece of a larger system of air and earth and water. he closes his eyes and he’s rooted to the ground. he’s breathing with it, he knows it. he puts his palms down and the brown of the dirt is warm and tingly with the energy of what lives beneath it. of who lives beneath it.
the first land-bound organism.
he touches his forehead to the ground, hands on either side as if in prayer, and feels the memories of a billion years touch him back. thank you, he thinks fiercely.
welcome home, mycelium says. we missed you.
tears spring to cas’s eyes. he can feel the sharpness of their geometry against the softness of his cheeks, the cool blue of his breath puffing against the earth, the minute shifting of tectonic plates here and a thousand miles from here.
he stays there long enough for his knees to ache and his back to turn stiff. it’s dark by the time he lifts his head, but the stars are swirling in the sky and microscopic, bioluminescent spores litter the air around him. he is in the middle of the forest and the milky way, and out of the corner of his eye there is a midnight sun.
“cas?!” dean says. he comes closer and the earth shakes with every step, and his soul shines through his skin. he’s radiant. cas feels himself start to cry all over again. so beautiful so beautiful so beautiful.
the creature kneels beside him and takes him into his arms and his warm is a song and his voice is dark green and he’s safe and lovely and castiel clutches to the tinkling sensation of his flannel. he smells the way curling up on a chair with a mug of tea feels.
“christ, you’re freezing. what the hell’d you do yourself, huh?”
cas doesn’t know how to tell his home he’s homesick.
by the time dean has managed to get him into his pjs and tucked into bed, cas can no longer see his light. he squeezes his eyes shut against his dulling senses, taking deep, even breaths. he must eventually fall asleep, because when he wakes, the clock reads twelve hours later, and he’s wrapped around dean’s back like an octopus. the second he tenses, dean shifts, looking over his shoulder. he’s alert.
he’s been up for a while.
he’s also cautious, if the way he moves is any indication. castiel braces himself for imminent rejection and does a panicked run-through of all his worldly possessions. he has more than last time but still not enough money to house himself—
“please don’t do that again.”
cas freezes.
“the uh, the shrooms. don’t... do that again.”
cas looks at him. doesn’t dare move.
dean chews his lip. “there was, ah, in the end times zachariah threw us in—you were stoned all the time, man. you—” he shakes his head. “this is a fuckin’ mess.”
cas watches him breathe. watches him set his shoulders. "i’m sorry about your grace,” he says, voice cracking in the middle. “and m’sorry about how i been treating you, and i’m sorry i’m a selfish dick for bringin’ you back, but cas... what you did—” he rolls his lips over his teeth.
cas narrows his eyes. “i’d do it again.”
“i know,” dean laughs, humourlessly. “don’t i know it. but you don’t just—i mean, i didn’t even get to—” he looks up. his eyes are red-rimmed. “and then i find you outside after god knows how long, freezing and high off your ass and bent like you’re fuckin’ prayin’ and i can’t—”
“i was homesick.”
“i know, but—”
“being human is hard. this helped.”
“i get that, but—”
“it’s nice to know i can still be—connected. to, ah, everything. even without my grace.”
dean stares. bites his lip.
“i can’t promise i won’t do it again, but i feel better, now.”
“yeah?”
after a moment of consideration, cas nods.
“good. that’s... good.” a beat. “hey, listen, um—”
and then he leans forward and gives cas a kiss. his mouth is soft and plush and when he pulls away his cheeks are pink. “i can’t promise i won’t fuck up and get you pissed or annoyed or hurt you because that—that’s my MO. but that thing you wanted? if you still... you can have it,” he says. “’cause i—” he swallows thickly. “fuck, i want it so bad, cas.” a shaky exhale. “cards on the table: i love you.”
the smile that overtakes cas’s face feels like flying. he leans in for a quick peck, smiling even wider when dean chases him as he pulls back. “cards on the table,” he mumbles. “i love you, too.”
outside, the ground is practically covered in mushrooms.
