Through our art and integration features, we uplift and honor our community members’ process of integration and celebrate art as a vehicle for healing. If you’d like to contribute or learn more about the project, visit our psychedelic-inspired art submissions page.
PRATI alumni Tony Rooney, Ph.D., graciously shared the song he composed after his first experience with MDMA. We’re honored to share his creativity and integration work! Tony has been in private practice in the Atlanta area since 1991, where he provides ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. His goal is to continue learning how to live in this world, as it is, with his heart as open as possible. We deeply appreciate Tony’s continued engagement with PRATI as an alumnus, and how active is he in our community! He is generous with his expertise in the field and an open-hearted, joyful person. Our mission is to reconnect to the sacred, and we love how Tony celebrates that in his art and his work.
Before (or while!) you read what Tony has to say about his work, listen to his song.
Here is what he writes about his work, as well as the song and lyrics created during integration:
The song was written many (many!) years ago, as an homage to my first experience with MDMA. Over the decades, though, I dismissed this song as “not one of my best,” and thus hadn’t listened to it for many years.
However, my deep experience of “throwing myself into love” during one of our PRATI training journeys reawakened the memory of this song, along with the freshness, power, and purity of awareness that gave rise to it. Once again, I could clearly see and feel the obvious: “Love is what we live for.”
In taking MDMA for the first time, I had hoped for some kind of magical “relief from my pain.” Instead, I found myself magically relieved of my habitual effort to AVOID my pain. Once again, I found myself dropping right into the abyss of it (only this time “diving with the fall,” if you will), and discovering that my body already knew just what to do with the powerful emotional energy that was arising within me: I instinctively leaned over a giant pillow and quite literally WAILED and slobbered into it for several hours – one of the most liberating experiences of my lifetime thus far.
I had never wailed freely like that before (at least not since infancy), and the re-discovery of this innate ability has proven to be one of the great healing blessings of my adult life.
Like so many of us, my main “take-away” from this first truly entheogenic encounter with myself was the absolute clarity that “Love is what matters” — or, said another way, “We’re here for Love.”
Finding words that were simple AND true enough to express the profundity of my first experience with MDMA was quite a challenge: I didn’t want to put anything in this song that was “filler” or “fluff.” And yet, I didn’t want the simplicity and power of my realization to sound trite or platitudinous, either.
Anyway, this is the recording that eventually birthed itself from that experience, and I am excited and honored to be able to share it today with kindred spirits who I sense actually know what I’m talking about!
Music as a Vehicle for Healing
We’re grateful for Tony’s generosity and thoughtfulness in sharing and reflecting on his song! Whenever we receive art submission from our community, we’re reminded of the unique ways that art can help us connect to each other, our communities, and the sacred — such as the love that Tony celebrates in his song. Music has a unique ability to help us inhabit our bodies and move our bodies through dance, and in that movement, we often discover insights we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise access! There are so many ways to integrate after a psychedelic experience, and Tony’s gift of his song helps show us how musical processing can be transformative, both for the musician and for the listener.
Thank you for your attention and celebration of love, Tony, and for your vulnerability and willingness to share your creative expression with the PRATI community! If you’re inspired by Tony’s work and would like to share your own, we’d love to hear from you. Learn more about the submission process or contact us with music, visual art, poems, or whatever other integration activity you use personally or in your practice!
Lyrics to For Love:
For Love
we’ve lost time
lost all the words in our minds
the clock still ticks
but that’s all it is
in your eyes
I see an endless sky
my wings have come untied
so in I fly…
it’s so clear
the reason we’re here:
we’re here for love, we’re here for love
we’re here for love, we’re here for love
for love…
go deep
past all the secrets we keep
have no fear
angels are near
our hearts quake
as love comes awake
at last we cry
for all the love we’ve denied
it’s so clear
the reason we’re here:
we’re here for love, we’re here for love
we’re here for love, we’re here for love
for love…
all things pass
but love stands still
even time will end
but love never will…
we’re here for love…
we’re here for love…
