25 Reasons Why I Love Magic Mushrooms

1. They overpower our egos and show us alternative routes to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

2. They remove our blinders and biases and tell the truth.

3. They don't tell us we're fine if we aren't.

4. They re-calibrate your body and leave it ringing like a rotary phone in a Wichita kitchen in 1984. 

5. They lust for waterfalls and hate spreadsheets.  

6. They force us to do hard things (look inward, loosen our grip on our own identity) and hard things are the only things.

7.. They know we're stronger than we think.

8. They light up different parts of our brains that would have otherwise remained dormant.

9. They throw our phones out the window.

10. They live in the woods among fairies and elves.

11. They help folks with treatment-resistant depression, OCD, PTSD, anxiety and a bajillion other unnamed afflictions.

12. They trumpet love and ooze gratitude.

13. There is no known malignant dose.

14. They believe in our innate capacity to heal our wounds.

15. They always tell you about that booger in your nose.

16. They let us commune with the dead. 

17. They connect us to the communal fabric of the universe.

18. They presume innocence.

19. They pair well with hand drums and Japanese Cypress incense.

20. They scrawl beauty on the back of our eyelids.

21. They drown out the fax machine buzz of the analytical mind with a chorus of coyotes and rainbow-throated misfits. 

22. They remind us of the glory of our senses. 

23. They get tattoos and adopt cats.

24. They are the opposite of AI.

25. They illuminate the dark ages of adulthood and insist that all of us, no matter how scarred, no matter how broken, can manifest gratitude and wield magic; yes, despite the bold print of massacres, the black shadow of unthinkable trauma, in the face of grief, despair and surrender, within a world where no one thing will live forever, they demand we hear the bugle call of the universe, report for duty and declare, "I'm here" and actually fucking mean it.