Sobriety and Sacred Brews: Messages from the Grapevine About Consumption, Plant Wisdom, and the Body

I was recently called to lead a Wine meditation during a Harvest ceremony. Ironically, I’m not much of a drinker. In fact, I’ve never even been drunk. Except for one experience in my early thirties with cannabis (and a brief foray with my own mullein blends), I don’t smoke, either. I’ve never ingested Tobacco or Peyote or Psylicibin or Ayahuasca or Opium or LSD or (despite my pseudonym) Ecstasy. I don’t drink Coffee or Cacao. And when given the choice between a sacred brew or meditative dance, I would choose dance every time. But I had some interesting experiences before, during, and after the Wine meditation that had me revisiting my choices.

A drunk Seilenos (Σειληνος), the elder god of wine-making, being supported by two men

In high school, while most of my peers were getting drunk or high at parties, I was doing Tarot with my small circle of friends or at home alone reading a book. When I did attend parties, I was the one in the corner with a glass of water. At dance clubs in my twenties, I was the only sober one, always first on the dance floor, and losing my mind faster than those who were waiting for their liquid courage to kick in.

For thirty years, I was rather staunchly against social drinking and “drug” use, which I think baffled most people who knew me. My parents were agnostic and rather liberal, so there wasn’t a religious or conservative ideology to back up my choice. In college, I was an earth-loving hippie (vegetarian and hairy, with dreadlocks and all); my sobriety just didn’t match up with my image.

There was a history of alcohol abuse in my family, but that’s not why I abstained. Or at least, I wasn’t afraid of becoming addicted. The few times I’d had alcohol, I found the experience kind of dull. Literally; I didn’t like the way it numbed my senses. I wanted to feel everything, even the “bad” stuff, and it somehow felt like cheating to drink away my problems or escape into a joint.

I also wondered: was I even missing anything? At thirteen, I’d started practicing witchcraft and ritualized meditation, so I’d already been experimenting with trance states and pushing past the boundaries of my “self” for a few years before my peers started turning to alcohol and drugs to experience the same thing. Ingestibles (the word I sometimes use for any mind-altering food or drink) seemed like a poor substitute for something I could already reach at will. I had also discovered music, dance, and orgasm very early in life; my body was a portal for me to access joy and abandon without substances. So why would I want drugs or alcohol, when I had movement, ritual, and sexual release?

Sometimes I envied the bonding others had over their shared stories of drunken escapades and psychedelic trips. I missed out on a lot of parties in college, and I turned down a lot of social events in my twenties because I knew there would be cannabis there. (To be fair, I think a large part of that was also my fear of getting arrested…)

But to be honest, I was just really judgmental toward people who “used drugs and drinking to escape their problems.” I remember thinking at the time, “If I can stay sober and suffer through these awkward, self-conscious, intense feelings of being a human, why can’t other people?” Despite my own mental health issues (depression and anxiety), I suffered with a self-righteousness that to this day heats my cheeks and makes my stomach dip with embarrassment. Addiction is complex and I believe now that everyone deals with suffering differently; who the hell am I to judge the tools they use? But back then, I was always wearing my judgy pants.

I dated someone with a drinking problem for many years in my late twenties, and I wonder sometimes if I stayed so staunchly sober during those years in an attempt to dissuade her from drinking. After we broke up, I started drinking a glass of wine or a mixed drink every now and then (margaritas were my favorite) and I tried cannabis for the first time (an experience I did not enjoy; I laughed a lot at the beginning, but then the dizziness and paranoia set in.) Every time I’d wonder, why do people want to give up their agency to a substance that they couldn’t “turn off” when they were ready for the experience to be over? (I suppose you could say I liked having control…)

Through all these judgments and experiences, though, I had maintained a personal, academic fascination with entheogens (psychedelic plants, mushrooms, and animal secretions that are taken in a ritual or religious context in order to reach mystical states, such as inducing visions, communion with a deity, or entering healing trances). I’d read The Cosmic Serpent by Jeremy Narby in high school and was fascinated that the Peruvian shamans (who mixed ayahuasca) said the plants spoke to them directly, giving them instructions on how to harvest and make the sacred brew. As part of my BA in religious studies, I used that book as a jumping off point for personal research into mystical experience and plant communication. (I remember doing an academic presentation for a room full of theologians, doctors, and nurses about the power of plant intelligence. They didn’t appreciate it. But I digress…)

After moving to Greece in my early thirties, and starting to dive deeper into the mythic landscapes of my ancestors, it became clearer that the people of the ancient Mediterranean had their own entheogens. Wine, in particular, seemed to be one of the most ancient pathways to connect with the life-death mysteries, not to mention the sacred barley brew of the Eleusinian Mysteries. There was no need to look toward indigenous cultures on other continents; my ancestors had their own shamanic practices (however obscured by centuries of Christian and atheist agendas to “rationalize” the Greeks).

My own study of herbalism was also becoming more nuanced. I finally began to truly internalize that not all psychedelic plant medicines are the same. To lump everything into one category (“drugs”) is naive and robs the plants of their context and unique actions in and with the body.

At the time, there was also a big shift happening socially as cannabis was being decriminalized in the USA, research into the healing power of psilocybin was picking up again, and the mainstream discourse around entheogens was changing. More people began using plants in a healing and ritualized context (rather than recreationally). In some circles, drinking alcohol became almost taboo and definitely secondary to the preferred brews of the central and south American continent. I watched all of this unfold with mixed feelings. One on hand, I loved that the plants and fungi were being honored in a new way in mainstream culture, but was also bothered by the way (American) consumerist culture hijacked that wisdom and turned “plant journeys” into just another commodity.

As an herbalist, I wondered what my relationship to these plants could and should be. Most of my path with the plants has been through non-consumable methods: inviting the plants into my consciousness through meditation, ritual, and proximity, rather than via touching or ingesting. I’ve often wondered, Am I a “real herbalist” if I’m not eating or making medicine with the plants? Am I a “real herbalist” if I’m not going on plant journeys or espousing the virtues of mushroom trips?

And what about all the other plants that have more subtle effects in the body? Is the wisdom from psychedelic plants really more special, important, or “true” than the experiences had from more “common” plants like Rosemary or Potatoes or Zuccini?

But more importantly, how do I relate to the plant world, in general? Is literal consumption the best way?

So back to the Wine meditation last weekend. The experience was beautiful; I engaged with Grape in a way that was new for me. In the weeks leading up to the ceremony, I drank more Grape alcohol than I think I’ve drunk in the past thirty-nine years. Some friends were visiting from out of town, and I decided to consciously experience the social aspect of Grape’s wisdom. (One of the Grape’s teachings is merriment, celebration, and joyful communion with others and the divine. So drinking in social contexts is part of its wisdom; it brings people together, can be drunk in toasts to commemorate important life events, and is used as a drink of blessing and initiation for various rites of passage in many cultures.) By the time I was to lead the meditation, I had been communing with Grape on a daily basis for several weeks, literally steeped in the sacred brew.

But during the ceremony, the majority of imagery that came to me was around Home, the Ivy, the Pomegranate, and the Serpent dancing around a cosmic pillar. As a pole dancer, and also someone who feels really connected to the Underworld, this imagery made sense to me. It seemed that the Grape was saying to me: ingesting is not your primary medicine; your medicine is in dance. Don’t look to me. Look to the Ivy, the Pomegranate, the Serpent, instead.

I have not had any wine since the meditation, and while I’m not saying I will never imbibe a sacred brew or ingest mushrooms or some other entheogen ever again, I think the whole experience made it clear to me that entheogens just don’t call to me in that specific way. Ironically, you could say imbibing the Grape showed me that imbibing is not my path.

I’m not sure how I feel about that. On one hand, it makes sense; my work has always been about the abilities of my body to experience altered states through music, movement, and sex. On the other hand, I feel some fear of missing out. Everyone around me seems to be having really deep, healing, and meaningful experiences with entheogens; several of my friends are microdosing or going on frequent journeys that result in transformative insights for them. I love to talk with them about their experiences, to hear the plant and fungi wisdom they are inheriting, to encourage them on their journeys. And yet, it’s not something I feel a call or urge to do, even though some part of me thinks I “should” in order to be a more holistic voice for the plants.

I’m still fascinated by the process of consumption: of taking into the body, metabolizing, and assimilating; the way ingestion changes both that which is consumed and that which is doing the consuming. I’ve written about this before in an artistic context, and I’m still deeply moved by imagery and story that includes these themes (like the Dionysian myths or the maenadic sparagmos and omophagia). I’m also curious how this relates to my history with disordered eating, and my learning to consume food in a way that is healthful and nourishing. But ultimately, what role does the literal act of ingesting play in my own life when it comes to plant relationships?

If I’m to trust the Grape – and the other plants I’ve met in my life, not to mention the wisdom of my own body – then my path is with the Ivy, the Pomegranate, and the Serpent, all of whom have been with me since I opened myself to listening. But I’ve gotten a bit off track the last few years, especially when it comes to dance. This whole experience has me wondering, where has my movement gone? When and why did I stop vining the axis?

I suppose the point of my sharing this is that if you, like me, don’t feel called to ingest plant wisdom, you’re not alone. Consuming sacred brews or entheogens may not be your path, and that’s OK. I can say from experience that there are powerful experiences to be had through other methods (dance, music, meditation, sex, sensory deprivation, dreaming), and if you’re interested in joining me in learning some of those other ways, I hope you’ll stick around as I journey back to vining the axis.