My name is Christian Rasmussen. I’m just a Nice Minnesotan trying to show the world what MN Nice is all about. I’ve always been fascinated with plant teachers. When I was younger, 13-14, I had this strange draw to the Fly Agaric (Amanita Muscaria) mushroom. Something told me that they would play a large role in my life. As I developed through the years and began experimenting more with ethnobotanicals, this feeling only grew stronger. As I was building a CBD business in 2019, I was also going through a grueling benzodiazepine withdrawal. In 2020 I found some Amanita Muscaria var. Guessowii growing at my parents’ house.
There was an extremely strong allure, and I decided to pick them and begin researching. That’s when I found Amanita Dreamer. Nothing has been the same since then. Amanita Muscaria changed my life, and I will forever be grateful to the mushroom and Amanita Dreamer for supplying me with the necessary information to further this curiosity.
I offer other ethnobotanical plants that have been of keen interest to me, and I hope to always be expanding my product line to offer you the most intriguing and beneficial ethnobotanicals Gaia has to offer.
I hope to share with you a little MN Nice, and to help you in your journey of reconnection and self-discovery.
More about me
I went to college for physics, with the goal of becoming a quantum physicist. After a year of college, I realized the rigidity of the school system wasn't something that I was interested in, and I decided to pursue a career in business. My goal has always been to have the largest positive impact that I can on the world, and I figured that business, instead of quantum mechanics, might provide me with more of an opportunity to have the impact I wanted. I started off in Real Estate when I turned 21, flipping houses, my business partner and I doing all the work ourselves. We built up a rental portfolio over a few years at which point I decided to get my Real Estate License and begin helping investors build their Real Estate portfolios. I enjoyed it but there was something missing. In 2017 I stepped out of Real Estate and took a couple years to focus on myself and figure out what I wanted to do next, which led me to get off of benzodiazepines and to finding Amanita Muscaria.
I have a very strong spiritual practice and spend a lot of time meditating and reading. I like to spend as much time outside as I possibly can, and enjoy hiking, camping, canoeing, climbing, you name it.
I have played music my whole life. I started with guitar and started a few punk bands in the twin cities from 16-21. At 21 I joined a metal band, playing drums, who I was for 10 years. I currently play a ton of piano and continue to write music, but much calmer music ;)
When I was 19, I moved to Portland OR for a little while with my closest friend. We spent our times hiking mountains and playing music with someone we had met our 2nd day there at a punk show. This individual's Dad was a paranoid schizophrenic, with the most severe symptoms I've ever known. One day, he came up to me, with his eyes wide and his hair jetting off in all directions in an unkempt frenzy.
He had a book in his hand, The Holographic Universe: by Michael Talbot, and with an intensity I'll never forget, he told me 'They told me you need to have this.' I didn't realize how much that moment would impact me at the time, but a few weeks later, on the top of a mountain I had just climbed, staring at the sun through the clouds (which I could actually look at without it hurting my eyes), I had an epiphany that I had gotten everything I needed out of Portland and it was time to come home to Minnesota. It wasn't until a couple months later that I read the book and realized the entire reason I needed to go to Oregon was that it was the shortest, most concise path for me to take to get this book (and my cat, Spazz). That book changed the trajectory of my entire life, and I recommend anyone that is interested in spirituality, the nature of the universe, or the human potential to read it.