Since arranging this moment to have my soul painted I have had plenty of doubts that it was even possible. When I arrived on the day my empathic guide and intrepid artist, Pamela, made me feel welcome. In short order I was asked to stretch out, enjoy the music and connect to the Divine within me. I was comfortable with the first two requests but a little baffled by the last.
Connecting with the Divine wasn’t something that I had much experience doing in my largely temporal, unidimensional existence. I wasn’t exactly sure how to summon the Divine forth such that another person could record it for posterity. Nonetheless, I believe that we all have the Divine within us so I was willing to give it my best effort.
After all, this is what I signed up for when I started my transformative journey six months ago. During this time I have learnt to trust in the process, to let go of expectations and to suppress my ego in order to take the formidable journey to my heart. Yet despite such progress my ‘monkey mind’ was certainly not ready to acquiesce without a struggle.
I felt at peace. I felt whole as we began connecting on another dimension.
Then I was given a form-fitting sleep mask that helped to eliminate ordinary distractions, like light and shadows. Once comfortable I relaxed enough to let go. I began to meditate. I felt a tingling sensation like I often do when I meditate except the tingling flowed through my entire body like an electric current.
Comforted by Pamela’s soothing, intuitive brush strokes I went deeper into my meditative state. Although I didn’t know what was being created I felt vindicated by the vigorous activity and the knowledge that something was being created. I knew that the expressionless canvas was undergoing a metamorphosis and that somehow that suggested to me that I don’t know what I don’t know.
How is it possible that my ‘soul’ was painted, without a single word exchanged, onto the canvas? It was literally mind blowing to imagine such other dimensional communication.I have long felt that the defining nature of indoctrination and conceptual thinking didn’t prepare me for a spiritual journey. In fact, it enslaved me by trapping me into my own ego and the knee-jerk reaction to thinking and acting through preordained filters.
This portrait of my soul was another act of defiance to reclaim my connection to the Divine.
Self-esteem is linked to social conformity and survival. Our species is largely comprised of unthinking followers, like any well-intended hive insect. Our reach is often limited to what is in front of us, not what is beyond our senses and beliefs. Plant medicine has shown me that I am and we all are a part of the Divine and not defined by easily regurgitated narrow self-interests and labels.
I felt the energy in the palms of my outstretched hands and, occasionally, throughout my entire body. I felt a raised consciousness but not in the sense I saw visions but rather that I felt my wholeness as a divine person. I was passive in the sense that I didn’t raise a finger or paint a brush stroke but I was also actively connecting with my spiritual self.
I believe that being passive allows me to connect with the Divine in others. Through non-violence, non-judgement, and non-reactivity. It allows me to return to the innocence of my childhood and the curious, playful, fully alive self. It allows me to passively push aside the reflex thinking of my indoctrination and to reclaim the innocence that is my birthright.
A divine consciousness is part of each person’s birthright.
If my experiences with Ayahuasca, Breathwork and Kambo are awakenings then the escape from my ego imprisonment lies with my daily practice of meditation. For this regiment has allowed me to become more aware of my ‘monkey mind’ and to confront its entrapments.
If spirituality is my path then reaching a higher consciousness is my goal. It is my birthright and something I hope to reclaim. My end of life trajectory is set. I am not waiting for the inevitable decay of my physical life form to have such transcendent experiences as a Soul Portrait or any of the other experiences that I have had or, hopefully, will continue to have.
In the end, the painting would turn out to be an aurora borealis of energy and a splattering of forms and figures. Some see Native American, Egyptian, as well as animal and plant life. Others see a joyful abundance of energy. I see an interconnected harmony beyond myself, in accordance with nature rather than against it. It is whatever the viewer sees in it that reveal their own state of spiritual bliss.
All I truly know is that as the portrait was emerging time didn’t matter nor didn’t anything except being present without expectations or preconceptions. In this state I felt something that has become more accessible since I’ve started on my spiritual path of transcendence. I felt that I was once again experiencing my child-like self, my true self.
Earlier this week I had an accidental overdose of medically prescribed THC/CBD oil. I didn’t know that an overdose was even possible but the quantity that I consumed probably increased the likelihood. In a vile containing 30ml (net volume) comprised of 16.34 mg/ml of CBD and 9.99 mg/ml of THC I estimate that I took almost 20 ml in one gulp when I mistook the full bottle as empty and tried to drain the last few drops.
I knew what to something of what to expect after experiencing the DMT of Ayahuasca but was totally unprepared for a THC overdose and the collateral damage it might inflict.
It started as a typical night for my wife and I. We were grateful to have recently survived another storm without any damage but we were still tired from a restless sleep. This particular mid-December evening the fireplace glow, our Christmas decorations and Holiday lights brightened the long winter night. Our pets were stretched out on their beds or their favourite places. Christmas gifts were promisingly placed under a triangular metal ‘tree’, with red ribbon edging and 21 hand-painted Holiday bulbs, near the fireplace. The serene and peaceful ambience was an antidote to our long, cold and dark nights of winter.
Such weather is great for cozy evenings. By 7pm it had been dark for 2 hours and dinner dishes were already cleared and cleared. We sat in our side-by-side easy chairs enjoying a TV episode of the streaming series ‘Sneaky Pete’. My wife soon nudged her feet over my armrest in the pursuit of her nightly feet massage. On this night, however, I was not in the mood. I was preoccupied. Since swallowing the THC I had been trying to gauge the impact my overdose would have on our tranquil evening and my wife’s fragile support for my hallucinogenic transcendent journey.
I didn’t need to wait long and as the THC chemicals quickly make their way through my bloodstream, into my brain and then the rest of my body, it became increasing clear that the impact would be equivalent to a terrorist bomb exploding when least expected and where it could do the most damage. It was a well-known jihadist fear tactic that amplified the impact of their acts. I now feared that my overdose would go beyond myself. I knew what to expect after experiencing the DMT from Ayahuasca but was totally unprepared for a THC overdose and the collateral damage it might inflict.
To her, It must have felt like I was inhabited by ‘God’ in the same way someone, who was a candidate for an exorcism, was ‘inhabited’ by the ‘Devil’.
I tried to focus on ‘Sneaky Pete’ to distract myself and to focus my overdose experience. I imagined that this was the equivalent to someone heroically throwing themselves on a hand grenade or bomb for the greater good. It wasn’t long, however, before I began to verbally dissect each scene. It was not unusual for me to analyze TV shows but seldom would I do so verbally or spontaneously. I knew that I was in trouble when I declared ‘Sneaky Pete’ to be the best program by the Breaking Bad creative team since that series had its last hurrah. It was her askance look that revealed the truth.
I had initially resisted the urge to disrupt our evening as I’ve had always kept my ‘transcendent journey’ struggles largely to myself. My wife of 18 years had made it clear that she didn’t want me to travel, let alone take such unnecessary risks. I also wanted our cocoon lifestyle, surrounded by nature and nurture, but I was also driven by a need to prepare for the inevitable loneliness and despair of dying. I scrambled to repackage my situation in order to salvage the moment when, shortly after singing the praises of Bryan Cranston, I felt like I was abducted by an undeniable, yet seemingly alien, force that held me captive. Think Spielberg’s film ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’.In other words, I realized that this was not going to be another routine night.
At one point I imagined my body rhythmically moving to a pulsating drum beat. It felt like I was a Native warrior on the Plains that my people once called home. I was alone but somehow also connected to a spirit. I danced an ancient tribal dance with abandon as I felt a deep ancestral connection to the land and the Creator. I was not thinking so much as staying in the moment of this blissful celebration of movement. The reality to my wife, however, was that I was uncoordinated, almost convulsive.
My wife told me afterwards that she saw that I was drained of colour, unable to walk or talk coherently and near death. To her, It must have felt like I was inhabited by ‘God’ in the same way someone, who was a candidate for an exorcism, was ‘inhabited’ by the ‘Devil’. To me, I felt that I was a free spirit who emerged in a Native spirit dance and, despite my wife’s fears, I would have happily died in that joyful moment.
Perhaps ‘God’s’ edginess shows a bit more at this time of year? I mean, I know that I would be irritated.
Later I took on the ‘persona’ of ‘God’, or, at least, my idea of what ‘God’ would say and do. At times I was in communication without words and at times I verbalized ‘God’s’ thoughts. My internal ‘conversations’ were all one-side. It felt like ‘God’ was speaking either through me or to me. I had no control over what I did and was continually surprised by what I said or thought.
When my wife asked ‘God’ if he/she was real I sensed that ‘God’ became irritated. When ‘God’ responded, he/she lowered his/her voice to almost a whisper and started to speak through me. ‘God’ explained, through my voice and persona, that my wife was going to die. I saw my wife’s non-reaction and thought we are all going to die, although I sensed that this was more of a news headline then an obvious fact. My wife, however, might just need time to process what is happening in our living room on this once cozy evening.
At one point I got stuck in a repeating loop as I was being lowered onto what I thought was a comfortable couch. My smugness was eliminated when a mirror revealed that I was being lowered into a coffin. It wasn’t clear to me if this was imminent or the nature of a human life cycle but, in the moment, it felt like I was on a de-assembly line in that it was ‘one size fits all’ impersonal. It was clear, however, that getting affairs in order and stop wasting precious time was important for both my wife and I and probably for everyone. It was a harsh reality we would all face but this seemed to me to be more immediate somehow.
He/she next told my wife that her existence and the existence of humanity was a mere distraction, like a toy for a child. ‘God’ added that my wife lives in a tiny world but that the cosmos had an infinite number of multi-dimensional universes, which, as I observed in ‘real’ time, were laid out in a linear manner such that he/she, as well as I, could see at a glance. I felt her recoil as if to take a sober measure of everything. I had just experienced ‘God’ as all-knowing, all-powerful ‘Father figure’ who had a bit of an edge that felt very human to me.
Yet part of me also was reminded of my struggle to understand why, if Jesus was angry with merchants in a temple why he/she is not also angry with the celebration that commemorates his birth has been ‘converted’ into a pagan indulgence of consumerism. Perhaps ‘God’s’ edginess shows a bit more at this time of year? I mean, I know that I would be irritated.
In other words, my take on ‘God’ while under the influence is a projection of my own fears and insecurities that will likely underline my late stage of life.
It is difficult for me to give my take on ‘God’ by simply using quotation marks or stating he/she felt human without also providing my religious background and thoughts on religion and spirituality. So, hopefully, you will read the rest of this entry as I attempt to switch gears.
I believe that Spirituality is a birthright of each person, no matter which ‘God’ you worship and regardless of whether you are a believer or not. I also believe that many Religions are corrupted by man in their quest for worldly dominance, power and wealth and are generally not concerned with you and your betterment through self-actualization or spiritual cosmic awakening. In fact, they are not concerned with the millions of homeless and starving or those that they torture, abuse and subjugate.
Spirituality, for me, is based upon my profound gratitude for the interrelatedness of all life and a belief that there is a cosmic Father and Mother for all of us. These beliefs were heightened during my Ayahuasca experience but not in my overdose experience. In both cases, however, my experiences were partly defined by my fear of dying and my journey to mitigate the inevitable loneliness and despair of dying. In other words, my take on ‘God’ while under the influence is a projection of my own fears and insecurities that will likely underline my late stage of life.
Islam is gaining more territory and Muslim adherents as well as more power and prominence through the unifying power of a Jihad. Secularism is also on the rise as more people choose secularism or to sit on the sidelines of religious wars.
I am not religious but I was ‘raised’ as a Catholic. My parents always pushed me out the door for Sunday mass but never attended themselves. I often spent the hour walking around or checking out used car lots. My childhood was marred by the years that I spent in a grade school run by Catholic Nuns and a year in High School run by the Christian Brothers, the same Brothers who molested the young orphan boys in their care at the Mount Cashel Orphanage that they also ran. My adult life has been secular. This stage of my adult life, however, has been defined by my spiritual journey that began on the Ayahuasca part of my transcendent journey.
I have also found it revealing that so many different religions believe that they are the one true religion and are driven to convert the entire world into their Faith even if it means employing the decidedly non-religious means of mutilation, torture, killing, the suppression of women and the rape of young boys under the sole protection of supposedly non-sexual men. What is wrong with this picture?
It is a sacrilege against all that is Holy yet we continue to follow because we want to believe that Religion gives our lives meaning or that there is a better life after death or that our sins will be forgiven. The promise of an afterlife is one of the keys for religions that prey on our weaknesses. We are followers that want to believe but those that offer salvation ignore the millions starving, without homes or rights, and being treated inhumanly.
The World is under attack on many fronts today. In the West we don’t see the impact as much but we know that our planet is dying from pollution and poisons as well as increasing demands on our ecosystem from an unsustainable population and the devastations to crops and irritable land and sustainable life caused draughts, fires and floods.
The roots of the Roman Catholic Church were a pagan cult but they rose to become arguably the wealthiest tax-free corporation in history. Now Christianity is on the decline. Judaism is under attack. Islam is on the rise. Islam is gaining more territory and Muslim adherents as well as more power and prominence through the unifying power of a Jihad. Secularism is also on the rise as more people choose secularism or to sit on the sidelines of religious wars.
Trump’s mercurial rise to the most powerful position in the world, for instance, happened because he is who he is and we are who we are.
I have long been drawn to the era after the death of Jesus that marks the rise of the Roman Catholic Church and the decline of the Roman Empire. It must have been a difficult time to distinguish yourself from the next soothsayer or healer or your beliefs when there were so many pagan Religions during the rise of the Roman Empire, which allowed different pagan cults to flourish in order to control the masses within their expansive territory.
The rise of the Roman Catholic Church during this time has a lot to do with a son trying to capture his fallen Father’s role as Western Roman Emperor only to discover your military force, when faced with a powerful foe and the the likelihood of their death, fails to enthusiastically engage the enemy.
The key to his victory and reign as Emperor was tied to Christianity after his hesitant soldiers were enticed to engage the enemy when their shields were painting with a Christian symbol and the hoped-for enthusiasm not only materialized but proved victorious. Constantine’s men fought with the renewed vigour of a higher purpose.
He became the Western Roman Emperor and within a year of his reign legalized Christianity. One year after his armies defeated the Eastern Roman Emperor he became the sole Emperor. Constantine, once again, ‘blessed’ the Roman Catholic Church when he proclaimed that Jesus to be a divine entity.
The Roman Empire not only gave the Roman Catholic Church its reigns of power but also showed the world a blueprint to power. In today’s era, imagine an alliance between Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Vladimir Putin or any hugely popular voice of the people aligning with the power of a popular religion or other entity.
We are followers by nature and not well suited to change our circumstances, such as climate change and treating immigrants inhumanely, as we do not see beyond our tribe and our own immediate needs. Trump’s mercurial rise to the most powerful position in the world, for instance, happened because he is who he is and we are who we are.
My last full day in Orlando and I am having a quiet day at the hotel’s outdoor pool as I try to make sense out of my recent transcendent experiences. I know it will take a while but, while things are fresh, I will use the time I have attempting to gain so perspective. Maybe even begin to ‘humpty-dumpty’ myself back together, while basking in the restorative warmth. So much has happened in such a short time that it feels luxurious to have this day to myself before I begin another journey and return to another world order.
Better minds than mine have settled on either a creationist or an evolutionary rationale but, after Ayahuasca, I am inclined towards a cosmic consciousness creating our world
As I lounge high above the din of street noise, I beatdown on takeaways from my time here as the sun beats down on me. I knew that it wouldn’t be easy since Ayahuasca has opened up another dimension, a cosmic dimension, in my life. This has opened up my internal debate around the existence of what many people refer to as God. After experiencing the warmth of a cosmic compassion and love it is difficult, for me, to deny the existence of a higher authority
I think that I am still in shock in some ways. I almost can’t believe that a plant, Mother Ayahuasca, has the power to rip me apart in order for me to see myself more clearly. Is this plant a product of evolution or a higher authority? What is its purpose? What does it say about us when a plant provides something we need or something that is a doorway to something we need?
It probably says that we need nature more than it needs us. That truism doesn’t answer the question of what created our world. As an agnostic, it has been easy to be cynical and dismissive until now. I don’t really know how to explain that a plant has made me question the evolutionary theory as the source of creation. Better minds than mine have settled on either a creationist or an evolutionary rationale but, after Ayahuasca, I am inclined towards a cosmic consciousness creating our world.
My transformative experience with Mother Ayahuasca has shifted my perspective away from external, out-of-my-control matters in my life
The last time I remember feeling such magic-like goodness like I have this week was when I believed in Santa Claus, over six decades ago. Back then, I felt like a part of a loving, supportive world. My parents were my loving guardians. Santa spread his joy around the world every year to good children, like me. Santa was magical. He was loving and generous, although, to be honest, a little judgemental.
Mother Ayahuasca was the same, for me. Now, instead of just being good for Santa I need to stay true to true-self. Now it isn’t Santa or his ‘helpers’ keeping tabs on me as I’m on the honor system. Fortunately I’ve been rewired such that I now know exactly when I am deviating from who I truly am. It means that my childish, creative, and curious self needs more daylight, more sunshine.
Life was simpler as a child. Everything was about exploring and learning. I lived in a kid-friendly neighbourhood in a time when parents didn’t hoover over their children or need to, especially. many non-school day were spend with a neighbourhood gang á la the ‘Little Rascals’ (50’s TV show). I fondly remember firecracker mishaps, discovering girly magazines in the woods and playing stick baseball on a meridian between two busy city streets all day long. Every day was different and no day was boring.
I was jolted out of my childhood when Santa Claus was revealed to be a hoax perpetuated by my loving parents. It was a rude awaking that launched my adolescence and started of a lifetime diet of disillusionments and disappointments. As a child, I always imagined that our humanity and common sense would dictate a just world. Now, however, none of this seems important. My transformative experience with Mother Ayahuasca has shifted my perspective away from external, out-of-my-control matters in my life.
The way we think and act is not a matter of freedom of choice
We are a predictable social species and, therefore, easy to manipulate and mould into unthinking followers that live a life distorted by special interests. This doesn’t just impact and influence crazy wing-nut fanatics, zealots, and extremists. It also controls each and every one of us, whether we are aware of it or not. Why we drink, smoke, ignore climate change or take other unnecessary risks harmful to our ecosystem, our brethren or even ourselves is all a function of social and individual manipulation.
Socialization, propaganda, and indoctrination prepares us for our society and culture and everything that this represents, both good and bad, and is essential for social progress. We have fundamentally different outlooks in life depending on where we were born and the circumstances of our lives. In India, I first judged all locals as miserable and destitute people then discovered most felt sorry for my spiritual poverty and were as happier than I’ve ever known.
In the West, progress is yet another ideal that serves special interests above individual needs. It raises the question what is social progress? Is it the economy? Clean environment? Happiness? Peace? When we have debt and duties, when we fail to think or act beyond the next pay check, we join our brethren on the path paved by deceit and lies: conformity.
But taking the road more travelled didn’t serve the proverbial lemmings that unthinkingly joined a mass movement and committed mass suicide, which, ironically, was fabricated by Disney ‘documentaries’ of the 1950’s and 60’s. The ‘lesson’ was clear, no matter the source for it is clear the way we think and act is not a matter of freedom of choice.
I could see through social manipulation but never fully appreciated that I was also vulnerable
Our socialized selves are easily fashioned intocompliant consumers, workers and citizens whose desires, needs and duties allow little or no aspirations beyond survival. Happiness is just one more purchase, promotion or child away from being realized. The goal is to take away our choices and make us predisposed to buy things and ideals. It become a reinforcing cycle, fed by the self-interests of others and nourished by a lack of critical thinking.
As individuals, we think in terms of a narrow perspective of our socialized and monetized lives. We are what we see and do, not what we think. We think that our lives matter or that we are important but we act against our better knowledge to maintain the status quo. The inherit message of having being manipulated by others is that you are enslaved to someone else’s desires and happiness. It is seldom an obvious choice as such manipulation is often involuntary because it is either wrapped in a flag, fear-based, sexually suggestive or projecting a positive self image, like the cancer-free Marlboro Man.
I’ve had several mis-steps in my life. My eventual career took three wrong turns: electronics, acting and psychology and my eventual life partnership took three marriages, five children and a more conscious self to realize. No question I regret the suffering that I’ve caused but I do not regret having my children or making my difficult decisions. I wish that my needs were more apparent to me at the start of a journey.
I choose my life’s path willingly and gladly. Inevitably, I discovered what personal needs were non-negotiable when the fullness of the circumstances were revealed and my flush of enthusiasm had paled. At the root of that discovery was the fact that my choices were often for the wrong reasons, none of which had to do with my needs as an individual. Ironically I always felt that I was aware, that I could see through social manipulation but never fully appreciated that I was also vulnerable.
I was ‘converted’ by a cosmic chiropractor that aligned me to a new reality, one that has made it possible to see and experience another dimension in my everyday reality
None of the life-long societal moulding prepared mefor what I experienced this week. It was beyond the scope of the physical world that I have known. Not just the hallucinations and insights but the feelings of a higher consciousness and overwhelming love and acceptance. It was the ‘magic’ that I once whole-heartedly invested in with the higher powers, my society, parents and Santa, that I knew as a child. But now I no longer was an innocent child. I began the week as a healthy skeptic.
I was someone who struggled to believe in a higher power. I have lost my faith in the Roman Catholic Church because they have lost their way, and, perhaps never even had a way. I sought other religions that seemed either more relevant or more inspirational but nothing has really stuck. Nor have I ever completely believed in an all-powerful, all-loving super-being called God. Perhaps it was just too early for me after my all-powerful, all-loving super-being Santa bubble burst.
Or it could be my education, which featured rote-learning through memorization and didn’t teach critical-thinking until University. At that point science and logic prevailed. Creationists were mocked and evolution embraced. It was absurd for the intelligentsia to even comprehend another version of anything that didn’t exist in the physical world. To do so opened up a can of worms that circled the ephemeral and the essence of spirituality.
I didn’t have expectations so much as fears for my health and well-being this past week. Yet everything that I knew fell apart this past week. I was ‘converted’ by a cosmic chiropractor that aligned me to a new reality, one that has made it possible to see and experience another dimension in my everyday reality.
I truly believed that I have been blessed by some higher authority who was growing weary of my trail of failed marriages and my circuitous struggle for enlightenment
So, with all the forces working to shape each and everyone of us into social compliance how do I, or anyone, transform in to a more fully realized individual? There are a lot of choices but only one prerequisite that I’ve known and that is awareness. It starts with becoming aware of yourself. Your mind, body and heart will lead you into the the right zone if you take the time to reflect on why you feel and act the way that you do?
Self-discovery occurred later in life for me and this is one of the few regrets that I have in my life. I have failed relationships and marriages but, yet, I didn’t see the pattern and when I did glimpse it I still felt in control. I was happy in my life but only because I had leant to live in various compartments. Some compartments were wonderful, most were alright and some were lonely. But like many of my changes in life, once my pain was no longer tolerable than I had already surrendered my control over the situation. I needed to act.
Today I have only one compartment: contentment.It is all I needed until I experienced the Ayahuasca-illuminated path to honor my true self. Since then, I have gained the wholistic perspective that I have always felt that I needed to be have a higher consciousness. Now after nearly twenty years in my ‘last-room’ marriage I truly believed that I have been blessed by some higher authority who was growing weary of my trail of failed marriages and my circuitous struggle for enlightenment.
It is my destiny to be in a constant struggle to reach a higher level of consciousness in order to live more in concert with who I am
Now, of all times during my tumultuous life, to experience a higher version of long-time content self the moment that I have chosen, this time of contentment may appear superfluous. Yet, although I am content, I am also curiousand know that I knew to get out of my head and live in the moment. It is something I know but seldom realize. It is an epic battle for sovereignty fought between my ego and my true-self.
There is no widely accepted path from unawareness to a higher consciousness or enlightenment, especially in Western society. My well-being, your well-being is each of our own individual responsibility. Yet, I seldom acted on that knowledge for most of my life and, probably, still do. I was too busy, too distracted, too ignorant of my own individual needs.
Now, even in my current state of contentment, I know this need is still present. Maybe more than ever for contentment, like apathy, does create a certain lack of inertia, after all. Most of know something about apathy because many of us still expect the government to solve our problems or weekend religions to save our souls.
I’ve learnt that you need to be engaged in your own life. You need to more than a passenger just along for the ride. At nearly 70 I still believe in Santa Clause and that there is an all-powerful, all-loving super-being that looks after us. Now, even as an adult, I believe that much of life is largely unknowable to us. Nonetheless, I am in a constant struggle to reach a higher level of consciousness in order to live more in concert with who I am.
The freaky paintings in my room came alive for me last night. I really needed to sleep and was so looking forward to a deep, undisturbed slumber. Nonetheless, I was unnerved from the depressing portraits of the people and life in the 19th century and had one of the worst night’s sleep in the past five nights which have all been characterized by sleep deprivation. Ironically, my sleepless night occurred despite all my efforts to arrange a quiet room on a quiet floor and in a quiet hotel and nothing to do in the morning but sleep.
The instinctive act of empathizing with these still paintings was a surprisingly remarkably immersive experience
Instead of falling asleep, I fell into the despair and gloom depicted in the paintings on the walls of my room. I wasn’t interested in the details of the painting for they were real to me despite everything might suggest the opposite. For what seemed like hours, I was stuck in their real or imagined nightmarish lives.
In the first of three portraits, a young gypsy has a distant, thoughtful look as if he is struggling to overcome an insolvable problem. In another, a cultured lady inadequately disguises her despair in a puffy, dark green dress and bright red hair bows, long gloves and lips. The tone of the final portrait was much the same as the other portraits, but here the plain, unadorned woman appears even more dispirited and disheartened.
I was compelled by what I imagined the subjects of the paintings experienced at that specific moment in their lives. In the scenic painting of a lonely bent relic of a person, who, dwarfed by a lifeless house and a barren tree, shuffles into the bleak landscape with its familiar menacing shadows and foreboding sky. The instinctive act of empathizing with these still paintings was a surprisingly remarkably immersive experience.
For me, all the paintings were portals into the spirit and ‘soul’ of these individuals in history but these portraits transcended time and place and served as depictions that were prototypical for all mankind. Each of us and all of us were portrayed in these horribly sad scenes of beaten down or broken people. I could feel their anguish and despair as if they were alive and important in my life.
It helped me to connect the pain and suffering of others with my belief that our world was a shared, rather than an individual experience.
As I continued to enter the paintings, my skin suddenly came alive as if I was experiencing an icy breeze on my bare skin. Periodically, I shivered uncontrollably. My peripheral vision became distorted as my fear became one with me and we become more and more inseparable to each other. I tried but was unable to turn the paintings around.
Walking to my bathroom was frightening in the dark stillness of my room. When I turned on the bathroom light, I had goose bumps on my arms and a shiver going down my spine. My body was anticipating something waiting for me, something that I didn’t suspect or want. In the harsh light I saw nothing unusual and knew that it was all my imagination
Maybe I’m alright. Maybe I’m not. I don’t know. When I stared at myself in the mirror I saw a man who couldn’t get a handle on his own fears. I felt like I was loosing control of reality, my reality. The paintings made me feel that I was lost and, at the same time, like I had found my humanity. I felt good with this insight. It helped me to connect the pain and suffering of others with my belief that our world was a shared, rather than an individual experience.
I cannot always distinguish between what is real and what isn’t, in fact, knowing the difference is not always enough to overcome my trigger fears.
It was around 5 in the morning but I pulled back the window shades and saw the first light of day. It was enough to change my rhythm, to start my day. At the lounge I engaged with the person in charge of the breakfast food. When I told her that I was awake by 3:00am, she told me that she was awake at 2:30am every work day and needed to get her child ready for school and then travel by three buses to work in time to offer a 6am breakfast service.
I could literally feel my fears start to melt away as I thought about her struggle to survive another day. Yet she tried to comfort me. We hugged and I felt connected to her. I had turned my gaze outward, away from my fears and over-active imagination. We talked a bit about her child until other hotel guests arrived and abruptly ended our conversation. I gathered my breakfast, including some energy bars for the day, then walked barefoot in my sweat pants and t-shirt back to my room.
As I showered and shaved I thought about how whether my recent life-changing experiences have been remarkable given how little sleep I have the past week or, rather, because I was sleep-deprived. In any event I still function, even if in altered states of consciousness. I also wonder why I was so emotionally connected today when yesterday I was so cognitively connected. As I started my last full day in Orlando with the hope I could find a functioning balance between my Ayahuasca transformed life to my every day reality in the ‘real’ world.
I departed the hotel with the realization that my fears were within my power to control. It is such an obvious realization but one that I sometimes struggle to fully appreciate. I am a pawn to my irrational anxieties for they, too, are part of me. I cannot always distinguish between what is real and what isn’t, in fact, knowing the difference is not always enough to overcome my trigger fears.
I realized that my mood was different today. I was less cerebral, more driven by my heart
I decided to explore my neighbourhood. On the first street corner, a homeless person with a generous smile saluted me as I approached. Before returning his salute I weighed the fact that I wasn’t a veteran or an American but, recognizing his gesture, I honoured his greeting with a return salute. We chatted briefly. He had prime real estate and knew his market well enough to strike the right notes. I made him a few dollars happier, at which point he blessed me. I gratefully accepted his blessing and wished him well.
As I continued my walk I asked a person on the sidewalk for directions to a health food restaurant. When I commented on his agitated state he explained that he just started a new job, cold-calling businesses for advertising in a local paper. He wasn’t doing well and as I walked with him for a couple blocks as he told me his life story. He was a guy trying to do the right thing, to support his family with no skills and no job prospects. He was scared so I told him about my first and last door-to-door experience selling encyclopedias that ended in a sales person’s nightmare.
I encouraged him to dig deep and told him that it was his time to be a warrior. He opened up to me more about his struggles and when we parted ways it seemed like we both got something good from the random encounter. For my part, I not only appreciated that everyone was the center of their universe and that we all suffer from the same or similar journeys in life but also that each of us has the power to control our respective destinies.
‘You are expelling negative things that no longer serve you…stay focus on your new life and perspective on things’
As I continued my unhurried journey through Orlando, I remember how much I enjoyed exploring a city in my youth when I walked city streets all night long to see the authentic side of a place. Now I was more cautious but, even so, that didn’t mean I had to stop exploring or avoid confronting my fears.It was easy to end up in the wrong place at the wrong time but equally as easy to connect with my humanity, to remember my good fortune in life when so many others have lost their way.
I distributed energy bars to each homeless or street person that I encountered. I liked the idea better than money as then I knew that had a positive healthy impact. I was more in tune with this approach then when I offer to buy some cigarettes for the woman at Soul Quest who helped me during a long night of my first and only frightening hallucination. She was out of cigarettes and I unthinkingly offered to buy her some until I realized that this was only facilitating an unhealthy habit.
Then it struck me that I was now facilitating my own unhealthy habits. I returned to the hotel and asked them to remove the art in my room. As I waited I reached out to Carlos for his advice. He promptly replied saying ‘you are expelling negative things that no longer serve you…stay focus on your new life and perspective on things’.
As I reflected on Carlos’s wisdom, the art was being removed from my room by two hotel staff who explained that they often get similar requests. I asked why the hotel persisted to exhibit paintings that had shown to be unpleasant to hotel guests. They shrugged in off saying that they were told art was subjective and everyone sees it differently. I knew that they were not the right people to direct my complain towards so I simply asked them if the art in my room was typically a source of complaint then why continue to feature it.
With my awareness and knowledge I can begin the journey to control my ego-driven mind and emotions.
At the hotel, I packed for tomorrow’s return flight home. I have so many souvenirs from my Ayahuasca experience to arrange. My crested Soul Quest shot glass used for my first Ayahuasca ceremony, leaves that fell on me at the outdoor Ayahuasca ceremony and discarded ceremonial medicine flowers used by a Shuar traditional Medicine woman in the third and last Ayahuasca ceremony as well as my white plastic vomit bucket (that I learnt to call ‘my friend’) I used in the last and most productive Kambo ceremony.
As I lay in bed I was reminded of the haunting paintings from the wall marks that still outline their shapes. I was drawn to the two-dimensional expression of emotions through tone, light, shadow and the depiction a certain reality of an unknown time and place that still resonates today. Yet, I’m relieved that they are gone as are the feelings of anguish and fear that I experienced. They likely will return as I know it will take training and dedication to change my deeply rooted habits.
Nonetheless, I have awakened and it is a beautiful time in my life to learn what it takes to be present and to stay in the moment that puts distractions in their proper place. I now know that I can control my emotions when I stay focused on ‘my new life and perspective on things’ as Carlos has suggested. In other words, I have the tools to begin the journey to be my true-self and control my ego-driven mind and emotions.
After this intense day I couldn’t sleep despite the late hours and lack of sleep. It was the middle of the night, a few hours from first light of day. I went to a quiet outside area and laid on the damp grass while starring at the star-studded sky against a backdrop of silent darkness. Alone in the silence I was left with my thoughts. I was troubled by the question ‘am I real’, which was hurled at me after I stated that Krystal and self-titled ‘big momma’ needed to
Why did I so easily thrust myself into action despite the obvious danger?
I remember earlier in the evening when I calmly walked around the raging fire and stood with my back to ‘big momma’ and dangerously between her rage and the roaring fire. Why did my aggression take a passive aggressive form? Why wasn’t I angry when big momma attempted to push me in the fire? Why did I so easily thrust myself into action despite the obvious danger?
I knew she was surrounded by staff that had tried to physically subdue her a couple times. I knew that she was a large, physically powerful woman that was more than a match for a few staff. I also knew that her self-righteousness vitriol was gaining momentum. I agreed with her right to speak out against white privilege but not her choice of venue. I acted in the way that I thought would show big momma my indifference to what she was saying and doing.
It felt real to me. Maybe I could be more angry but I never really felt angry. I felt she was dealing with her trauma, as was Krystal, and that both women needed to do what they were doing.
Trump, as a world leader, feels a lot like putting the fox in charge of the critical long-term care of Mother Earth
Then I remembered another possible explanation for the question ‘am I real’? My five minute impromptu introduction to the group in which I stated, among others things that I didn’t like humanity. Perhaps showing empathy for the women who disrupted the final Ayahuasca ceremony seemed inconsistent with my scorn for our species. For me, however, I didn’t see any conflict on an intellectual basis.
I believe that collectively we are destroying the earth as well as causing species to disappear and allowing abject cruelty to animals. We are not rising to the challenges of our time. Trump and other morally compatible world leaders share the blame but are they responsible for having the power of their office or are we? Even totalitarian states need other actors beside the country’s figure head
Trump, as a world leader, feels a lot like putting the fox in charge of the long-term, critical, care of Mother Earth. As his financial influence and empire grows he carelessly clears the way for his rich friends to become richer from fossil fuel energy and unfettered exploration. Unfortunately Mother Earth is was already dying from abuse and neglect and while such abuse of wealth and power is rewarded, the disenfranchised are silenced by their systemic poverty and incarceration.
After a little while I noticed that I was snowing outside. This seemed a little weird since I knew it was not going below 20C tonight
At some point I decided to call it a night and I headed back to my room where I returned to bed. My thoughts kept me awake. I realized that I was not yet my real self. I felt like I am still who I’ve always been amplified by my fear of dying in misery. But the old me is now on a journey of transformation and the threads from this weekend will become new cloth.
All I know now is that I need to be more present and aware. I need to explore my every action and thought in order to nourish my true self. I need to let go of physical, emotional and mental constructs of my ego. It will take time and it will require making some changes but it felt right to imagine a time when my true self might be actualized.
After a little while I noticed that I was snowing outside. This seemed a little weird since I knew it was not going below 20C tonight. I was late and I was dead tired so I did a double take, maybe two or three. The windows definitely were ‘frosting’ over. I looked out the window and saw a large cloud tunnel that reminded me of a tornado but didn’t look like anything that I had seen on TV. The sky featured clouds spinning in a funnel shape against a backdrop of darker cumulus clouds.
The hallucination was so damn convincing that I was frightened like never before
I left my room in order to confront whatever awaited me. I touched the windows and they were not frosted or even cold. I was still a warm night. When I observed the sky, however, the funnel clouds continued spin violently but now stayed directly overhead. I had never seen a tornado or spinning funnel clouds so I didn’t know if this was a real danger or not.
I shivered as a presence washed over me and I was left with ‘goose bumps’. When I shivered again my entire body shivering and my flesh began to crawl, literally. Something coursed through the veins in my arm. I was having my first adverse hallucinogenic experience. I knew that nothing was not real and that it was better not to resist but the hallucination was so damn convincing that I was frightened like never before.
Everyone else was asleep. There was no other person that I could turn to for help. I was alone and Felt as desperate need to be with someone that knew the difference between real and not real. When I saw the retreat cat approach, which I had befriended, was that someone. After we exchanged greetings, however, he snarled at the darkness then disappeared in its cloak.
I began to feel claustrophobic as the 3D wall tapestries came alive As I went inside the large yurt tent where a few people slept, another shiver crested through my body. I tried to sleep but failed miserably. As I surveyed the room a rumpled sleeping bag transformed into a Jaguar which soon began to stalk me. I got up and walked around inside the yurt.
I began to feel claustrophobic as the 3D wall tapestries came alive. I went back outside into the darkness where a plant became a snake and another sleeping bag became a Jaguar. It felt just like I would imagine it would feel if they were rising from their graves, from their own deaths. As I approached another area and saw the movement under another rumpled sleeping bag I immediately feared the worst. Yet it wasn’t a menacing hallucinogenic experience, it was a person. A real person.
She worked as a Soul Quest as a helper and over the next hour before daylight she helped me. Big time. I stayed by her side as she did her early morning chores. She knew that I didn’t yet trust shadows and shapes. Then when I said that I could sleep, she rummaged to get me a warm, heavy blanket and a pillow. I feel asleep outdoors, on the floor beside her as the threatening clouds slowly passed and another day continued in the daylight.
It is better to admit to myself that I am not yet strong enough to face the uncertainty of my darkness.
When I awoke, she was still sleeping. I had returned to my room to freshen up for the day and pondered the events of the night. Nothing made sense to me but the synchronicity of last night’s experiences bubbled on the surface of my awareness as I showered and brushed my teeth. My quest to answer the question ‘was I real’ occurred at exactly when I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t real suggested that I didn’t really know the difference.
My fear of last night’s hallucinations, something that I knew not to be real, I now see as a fear of loneliness, of being alone. I’ve lost a lot of heart connections with people over the years and now my life story has narrowed as my witnesses have vanished. Yet my real fear is the loneliness of disease, death and dying and this greatest of fears is still one that I need to face.
The insight from last night is a hopeful start, especially as it separates the ego from my true self and allows me to place more weight on my inner journey and less on externalities. My time now seems so precious, yet I continue to delay the inevitable confrontation. This transformative journey is a last hope of redemption, one in which I hope to become more fully conscious of my self and my life’s journey.
Yet, it all seems too little too late. Even my hope to learn how I can be more present, more in the moment in order to be more in synchronized with my true self. Perhaps it is better to admit to myself that I am not yet strong enough to face the uncertainty of my darkness. Perhaps I simple need to dive deeper in the recesses of my true self to better answer the question if I am real or not. I don’t know, yet.
Tonight is my third and last Ayahuasca ceremony. I’m not sure what to expect but I now know enough to not have too many expectations. I could not have imagined the experiences that I have had during the last few days. After all, I’ve experienced my death, my birth/rebirth as well as cosmic love. I’m getting more and more accepting of the unexpected although not having expectations is still a struggle for me. The very act of consciously letting go only serves to make me more aware of my more deeply-rooted expectations.
As the group sits in a circle around the fire, the Ayahuasca is prepared and blessed. Everyone is fixated on the two indigenous healers; Taita Pedro Divila, a no-nonsense Shaman and traditional indigenous physician from Columbia, and Teresa Shiki, a gentle but powerful Shuar traditional medicine woman from Ecuador. After the blessing there are four separate ceremonies that Pedro gives each of us, while Teresa stays close to the blessed ceremonial plants.
It takes time to go around once, there is a lot of work and a lot of us. Taita takes his time while giving so fully of himself that he soon becomes drenched in his own sweat. The group is at a different place now. When we first sat around a fire, I remember how animated and engaged we all were. Now I see everyone focused on their journey, their traumas and the insights they are encountering as well as the plans they have made to depart tomorrow or, perhaps, how they will cope with the world that they left behind now that they have changed and the world has not. It is a lot to process.
Now I see my age as a state of mind. The price of admission to a more fully conscious life and more accepting embrace of my own death and dying.
For me, it was all the above but mostly about how happy I was despite the struggles and upheaval of the past few days. It is too early to know what all this will mean in my life but I am beginning to understand it less as a transitory and more as a transformative experience. I want to change. I want to incorporate the love that I have experienced into my life. I need to. If I don’t then I am dead inside and, I believe, my life will holds no beauty, no wonder. Now that I have awakened and my consciousness expanded this would be a life not worth living.
Maybe these first feelings and impressions will fade as my body processes the ceremonial plants. I hope not but that would be fine too. Everything changes so this, too, will fold into something else. I only know what I’m feeling today. I believe that my authentic self has been fully awakened and that I’ve begun experience my life differently. I’ve begun to transform from a worrier to a warrior who no longer fears death, or life, from an easily irritated person to a calmer, more reflective person and from a non-believer to a believer.
It is such a beautiful and joyful experience. I never thought that such an experience would be still possible at my age. As I approach seventy years of age, the simple fact is that I wasn’t ready for the opportunities that presented themselves earlier in my life. I was too engaged in my life and what other people thought of me. I was ego-driven and unable to understand that things and people who don’t accept the real me don’t matter. Now I see my age as a state of mind. The price of admission to a more fully conscious life and more accepting embrace of my own death and dying.
As an agnostic, who believes that nothing can be known about the existence or nature of ‘God’, the recent spiritual experiences have been especially challenging.
For now, however, I am struggling to understand my spiritual experiences. I’ve never had a spiritual experience or ‘come to god moment’ despite my years in a Catholic schools run by Nuns and Christian Brothers. I was taught some of the verses and scriptures but none of the love. I’ve learnt to fear Nuns, dread the Brothers and reject Catholicism. I understood the emotional and physical abuse and, in time, knew others who were also sexually abused. I could not shape-shift into having Faith, or belief in an unjust god. Eventually I saw people as people, not ‘god’s representatives on Earth’.
Before this weekend, I’ve judged a religion by how well it demonstrates its religiosity. For instance, no religion that I know, with perhaps the exception of Jainism, has shown a loving, compassion way forward for non-human life forms and nature. Yet, now I see that this is another distraction, a mental fabrication. An ‘us versus them’ distinction. In time, I hope to embrace the belief that there are no such barriers between any of us. Maybe I will also be able to not judge people’s choices, especially their choice regarding how they seek to express their spiritual light.
The overwhelming love and acceptance that I have felt from the Amazonian traditional medicines and breathwork has been given me an overwhelming sense of openness and oneness. I am left to wonder if this overwhelming love was god or god-like. I felt the need to show my acceptance and love before I received ‘cosmic’ love and acceptance. I waiver between the influence of the Amazonian traditional medicines and a God-like force, one that I sometimes call divine and other times I call light and love. I don’t know what it is but it is now on my ‘bucket list’.
While it is true that I’ve had a spiritual experience I don’t make the connection that many do to their preferred ‘god’. I fundamentally view religion as branded morality. The Bible, the Koran and the Torah, to me, are not much more than a means of teaching morality and controlling the uneducated and gullible. Such organizations strikes me as perfectly suited to the faithful who are willing to be lead by the axiom ‘do as I say, not as I do’.
I take these thoughts with me as I begin to experience the pull of Ayahuasca
As the first two purification circles are completed by Pedro and Teresa, they begin to prepare for the blessing. It is now dark and everyone is journeying inward with their thoughts. When the blessing was given to me, I felt the energy wave cover me as the smoke from Pedro blanketed me. The last circle wasn’t a circle. We were told to line up for the Ayahuasca and taught how to ceremonially receive it. After everyone had consumed their medicine I stayed outside, under the stars.
I have no intentions for the first time and as the medicine slowly takes hold I become outraged by the fact that plant-based Ayahuasca is illegal in most countries. Have we given up this right, this freedom? Why does the government want to stop its people from experiencing Ayahuasca? Does it impede the pharmaceutical industry or make all of us less prone to the industrial work ethic? Maybe. After all, we are living in what we consider to be a modern world, yet our primitive fear-based nature is stopping all of us from experiencing a more conscious life, one out of touch with the natural, life-sustaining world where nature and all life is part of who we are, not separated by our greed and by how others see us.
Here I feel safe and loved. I am accepted for how I act, not how I look or the trauma that I am suffering. It is also about acceptance for who I am as a person, a flawed person, who is on a path of enlightenment. It is so beautiful that I can only express its beauty in terms of finding harmony after a lifetime of feeling there was no meaning to my life as an individual. A life where universal love and light exists in each of us but that our true self is a key, perhaps the key, to unlocking receptivity and openness to that birthright. I take these thoughts with me as I begin to experience the pull of Ayahuasca.
As she stood with the intention of pushing me into the fire six men wrestled her to the ground. After some considerable effort they managed to carry her away.
I felt that I was in another blissful state at first. I was comfortable after the two previous experience. I knew what to expect and made the mistake of expecting the same type of things to happen once again. Everyone was blissful. No one was throwing up or having a psychotic event. No one spoke. It seemed like everything had been said and almost everything had been experienced. I recognized familiar faces of including Krystal and a large, powerful black women that referred to herself as ‘’big momma’’. I basked in the serenity.
Later it turned. ‘Big momma’ had transformed from a joyous person engaged by the music to a warrior. She defiantly stood by the fire and called most of us out for our ‘white privileged lives’. She was maybe 15’ from be but I didn’t react to her anger, I saw it as her trauma, her journey. At the same time I agreed with what she was saying. As she persisted and her anger grew, the staff engaged her. The white men made matters worst despite their gentle approach to calming and silencing her.
When the person on my other side began to express his anger to me. I told him my approach and her accepted this for a while. However, as ‘big momma’ threatened people, he wanted to intervene but decided to move away. I also move but just a little further around the fire. Her anger was now impacting everyone, so I carelessly went between the fire and where she was seated, then turned my back to her. As she stood with the intention of pushing me into the fire six men wrestled her to the ground. After some considerable effort they managed to carry her away,
I will need to reflect deeply on the question ‘was I real?’
I felt stupid but also grateful for the quiet. I moved closer but not close to Krystal. I hadn’t seen her since her psychotic event and wanted to know if she was in a good space, or not. After we exchanged pleasantries, I told her that I was relieved that there was quiet and that I needed to continue my journey. She, however, wanted to continue to engage me despite being told my a helper not to talk. I moved away a little but she persisted. I told her to be quiet or else I would need to move further away. At first she was quiet but when I glanced at her I saw that she was touching herself. It shook me. She called to me but I moved away.
After a little while I saw that she was still engaged so I began to try and understand what had happened tonight and if how I reacted is teaching me another lesson. In time, I felt that how I reacted to ‘big momma’ showed that I do not live my own advice, something that I found to be truly humbling. It showed me how far I had to go before I could even think about giving anyone any advice and that I had the heart of a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do sanctimonious hypocrite.
The way I reacted to Krystal, however, was different. I felt that she was turning my love into something sexual, something base not something elevated, like I had wanted. When I was her age I wondered if I was any different with the people that expressed their love for me. I had said that I loved her but also rejected her, not once but twice. In time, I saw that it wasn’t her that I rejected as it was her behaviour. I was judging her issues, her behaviour despite a lifetime of being judged by others for mine.
I wanted to treat others the way I wanted to be treated but I wasn’t able to do so when it mattered to Krystal and ‘big momma’. I wanted to not be hypocritical. Yet all I could do was imagine what I might have done and to try to be more in touch with my own behaviour. I will need to reflect deeply on the question ‘was I real?’
In the last couple days I’ve turned my regular daily routine upside down and yet, this day, will be an even more demanding test of my endurance. I’ve eaten irregularly and poorly due to the fasting required for ceremonies and my self-imposed fasting, as well as my upside-down schedule. My sleep has been cut to two or so hours for the last three out of four nights. My water intake has been uneven and definitely on the low side. I have been off my meds almost entirely for the last 5 days. I am now running on fumes.
I wondered if my disorientation was due to this intense retreat or part of my aging, or both.
Although I take no comfort from the fact that I’m still running, I do enjoy the experience for the nourishment that it provides me. For instance, there are no judgements here. I can be who I am, warts and all. No one cares how I look or who I am in life. After the first two days I already feel much less self-conscious. Here there is an atmosphere of acceptance and spiritual love by all. The freedom from the moral judgements of others has allowed me to embrace this disparate community as fellow seekers. Yet, later today my bias towards others would come into starker focus and I would learn a bit more about judging others when I was reminded of an often quoted, but rarely followed, Bible verse.
I arrived at the outdoor Yoga session late but enjoyed it thoroughly. Afterwards, I had my second Kambo ceremony, another three burn marks on my belt/pelt. It was easier in that I knew what to expect but it was harder in that there was more of a concerted effort for me to purge deeper. Afterwards I touched based with a few event acquaintances and took the time to bask in their camaraderie. Then we were told the outdoor Ayahuasca ceremony was about to begin. I hurried back to my room and grabbed my hat and water bottle before proceeding, as it was already 30C or so hot. I realized that I had yet to use sunscreen and needed to be more aware of my overall safety and well-being. I wondered if my disorientation was due to this intense retreat or part of my aging, or both, as I always quickly walked to a secluded natural area for my second Ayahuasca ’tea’.
She was using a hand-held fan as if she was sitting on a beach towel at the beach.
I arrived a bit late but was still able to select my preferred area under a canopy of tree branches. I was less exposed to the sun and felt that I was wrapped in a protective embrace. As the Ayahuasca mixture was being prepared I focused on my intention but was distracted by a few neighbouring people repositioning their mats for more comfort. The twenty-something woman immediately beside me moved her mat the most and seemed the least focus. She was using a hand-held wand fan as if she was sitting on a beach towel at the beach.
We briefly introduced ourselves and I was left with the distinct impression that she, Krystal, was a seasoned Ayahuasca user or, at least, someone who was not the least bit anxious. I even thought that she might be a helper who had simply chosen a comfortable vantage point. I told her that she reminded me of my oldest daughter. She said she loved me and I said that I loved her. I wasn’t concerned about the normal implications of such an exchange because it was said within the context of this event and it was ridiculous to think otherwise since I was nearly 50 years her senior and we had just met.
I was glad that we met because if this ceremony was anything like the one last night then I wanted to know what was real and what wasn’t before things became unclear to me. I appreciated the fact that she she seemed to be experienced and calm. I relaxed me a little. I told Krystal she was my touchstone today, a benchmark that I can use to find reality if I get lost again. I moved my mat and closed the 5 foot gap between us by a couple feet. I now felt ready for whatever Mother Ayahuasca needs to show me.
As the medicine began to take hold, I struggled to begin my inner journey
It was as intense as my first ceremony but, thankfully, without the paranoia. The day was warm and comforting especially after a wearisome winter in Canada. I felt both peaceful and content as I basked in the warmth. My hallucinations also started peacefully. At first I never felt that I was in danger. I still knew that this was a hallucination. I closed by eyes and when I reopened them the tree appeared normal again. Then, after a short while, life returned and soon the threat reappeared.
Before the threat reappeared, however, there was an overwhelming sense that I was in a unspoilt ecosystem, a sort of ‘garden of eden’. I felt a tremendous sense of connection to the natural world. I saw the tree branches above my head undulate with life, like the dark shadows of a jungle. Butterflies emerged from their cocoons, birds feed their days-old offspring, insects disappeared and reappeared into the tree trunk and jaguars sprawled out on limbs with all legs dangling. Everything seemed natural and peaceful until it wasn’t.
I became stuck in a loop. I once again observed tree leafs and branches transform into insects and birds. The same or similar jaguar once again slowly moved along a branch towards me. I looked around and realized many people used night shades and probably didn’t experience this hallucination. I also noticed that my loving neighbour had already left. I was a bit concerned but not surprised. For a brief moment I felt alone again, but such indulgent thoughts were sweep away by the next wave of my struggle to accept the invasive medicine and what it was trying to tell me. I knew better than to resist but, in the moment, I couldn’t seem to let go.
The earth is dying and we are killing it.
Then I did. I surrendered. I opened my arms and motioned the tree life to join me as I closed my eyes. As my hands felt the dry soil beside me, I was overcome by a sweeping sense of sadness. I cried as I held handfuls of desert-like soil. I felt the pain and the suffering of terrestrial life with the realization that I was not separate from such life but part of it. I, too, was dying from the polluted soil, water and air. The only difference was that I was part of the problem.
I gently massaged the soil until I felt an above-ground, ‘runner’ root that held the promise of life for a tiny leaf. I emptied my water bottle and gently held the runner for a moment before resuming my inward journey. Later, I made the association between this runner and a baby ‘Groot’, the Marvel Comics pop culture icon, with his repeated line “I am Groot” of Internet meme fame. Then, however, I simply felt a deep shame at the way the Earth has been abused in the service of mankind’s greed.
I was struck by the irony. While mankind has proved to be the scourge of the Earth and our closed ecosystem has suffered perhaps irreparable damage we, by and large, consider nature an externality. Maybe this has something to do with the fact people mostly live in cities which are disconnected from nature. Maybe it has something to do with the promise of technology to solve the problem of our survival. We are so people centric that we cannot empathize with the suffering of other life forms nor appreciate the toxic world we have blissfully created. This head-in-the-sand approach promises immunity from the consequences of a dying world but only to those who are either old or old and rich.
A hand grabbed mine. I opened my eyes as I was helped to my feet. We tearfully embraced each other.
I wanted to stand but couldn’t on my first attempt. When I did manage I needed to return to my mat almost immediately as I was too unstable to walk. Soon I felt stuck in a loop and unable to progress with my thinking or my experience. I raised my arm as I was told to do in order to summon help. None appeared so I opened my eyes. As my hallucinations returned I realized that there were no helpers to be found.
I didn’t want to have more hallucinations so I shut my eyes. I felt trapped. Then I remembered my first Kambo experience when Carlos told me if I wanted to use the bathroom I had to be a warrior. No-one was going to help so I would need to do whatever it took to be where I needed to be. It wouldn’t be easy – the entrance some 30 metres away – as my knees were tender and the surface rough.
I gingerly began to crawl on all fours. My bare knees immediately hurt from the rocky soil. I wanted to open my eyes. I wanted to give up. Instead I took my time and continued to slowly make progress. I felt compelled to persevere, to show myself what I can do when I firmly set my mind. This was especially poignant for me as I hated to walk barefoot on a dirt road and being on all fours was a new level of discomfort for me.
At the same time, however, I felt a sense of relief knowing that I was changing the venue and moving out of the endless loop. I felt that I had gotten everything that I needed to get from being in nature. I felt even more connected to the natural world. When I felt like I was near my goal – artificial turf leading away from the Ayahuasca area – I felt the ground in front of me and waved my hand in front of me for clues.
A hand grabbed mine and I opened my eyes as I was helped to my feet we warmly embraced each other. It was another participant who later told me that helping me gave him a deep joy and was the highlight of his Ayahuasca experience today. We held each other warmly and, in a brief moment, I felt that I understood why I couldn’t open my eyes. It was an act of humility and servitude. It brought this stranger and I close and it made me ever more connected to the life forces I’ve experienced today.
She recognized my voice and told me that she loved me not once but several times, not casually but purposefully.
I was handed over to an official helper who slowly guided me along the artificial turf pathway. At the end of the path I was asked to chose between two opposite directions, one which led to the outdoor retreat epicentre and the other, which was removed from the post Ayahuasca gatherings and somewhat private. As we walked into open gift shop/kitchen/office/lounge area I was immediately struck by the air-conditioned cold air and the presence of someone lying on the floor yelling ‘what’s happening to my body?’
It was Krystal. Not the confident, in-control Krystal that I had met a few hours earlier. Now she was frightened. She had a night shade pulled over her eyes and while rotating her left leg in the air repeatedly cried out ‘what’s happening to my body?’ to no one in particular. Various people came and went but no-one except a helper, who sat near her in order to monitored her, paid any attention. I sat on a nearby couch and became increasingly irritated by her unanswered cries.
My helper, Lance, sat in the background observing me and the situation. I didn’t realize at the time I was still under the influence of Ayahuasca despite not experiencing any hallucinations or obvious effects. I approached Krystal cautiously. I tried to touch her shoulder but was silently warned against doing so by her helper. I leaned closer and softly said that she was having a hallucination but was in a safe space. She recognized my voice and told me that she loved me not once but several times. I became uncomfortable with her affection so returned to my seat as she continued to cry out for me.
Krystal was removed and I became the new concern in the room.
When I couldn’t stand it any longer I told her to keep her thoughts to herself. I tried not to show any emotion but I knew that I was becoming increasingly irratated by her actions. I had never seen someone in this condition before and in my own condition I wasn’t tuning into what would otherwise seem obvious. I should have left the room but I couldn’t imagine leaving this space at this time.
She continued to cry out but stopped professing her love for me. I became aware that my helper was sitting behind me closely watching the events unfold. He was somewhat stoic but clearly capable of intervening at any suggestion of danger. I was so grateful for the care and protection offered here, something that is difficult to put into words except, perhaps, to say I felt safe, protected and loved as I know others must as well.
Soon another participant sat near me and we began a pleasant conversation. I was unusually opinionated and self-righteous. Our conversation became more and more engaging. I barely noticed when the change happened. Krystal was removed and I became the new concern in the room that I had blithely walked into, unaware that it served as the triage area for still-at-risk Ayahuasca users.
An overweigh and heavily tattooed couple entered the space. She sat beside me on the couch and he sat across from us on a chair. I noticed them when they first arrived but dismissed them as people who made poor life choices. As they settled into their seats I began to feel a bit like a lab specimen, one being observed intently.
I didn’t yet realize that I was under their care. Up until now I had seen them strictly as participants, not helpers. We talked about our respective backgrounds. They were happily married and enjoying the intimacy that sharing this lifestyle with each other provides them as a couple. I slowly became a little envious as I know my life partner would never want to travel, let alone spend time in this environment.
We quickly launched an animated conversation once we found common ground – love of food. They kept referring back to me and I kept opening up to their interest. I explained that I enjoy healthy food and when prompted explained my preparation of my go-to typical meal, which is the endlessly variable ‘buddha bowl’.
It was all simple stuff: pre-cooked servings such as 7-grain rice; some pre-packaged servings like unadulterated avocado and raw beets; some frozen organic veggies and other items that were raw like organic celery and carrots and either garlic infused tofu or plain salmon. They peppered me with questions as I tried to explain how healthy food didn’t necessarily mean expensive or time consuming. I even explained how colour and lawyering were important to the presentation and that I always added a hidden surprise item in the bowl to keep things fresh.
I was surprised by my own admission because the thought had not occurred to me until then.
She engaged me with her honesty and openness. I became interested in their lives and their life choices. She was curious about my life and my life choices. As her partner returned with the food I pushed mine aside after a few kibbles. It was healthy food but I was not comfortable with the sauces used on the food. I hadn’t eaten much for several days but, strangely, wasn’t especially hungry. I explained that between my 17 hour a day fasting, the lack of on-site food and the ceremonial food restrictions that I might be starving.
I didn’t actually mean that I was starving but, in hindsight, I realize now that I was calling out for help. I admitted that after several days here I still had no idea how to secure a proper healthy meal. As I vocalized my plight I began to realize the personal costs. I was consumed by the life-changing nature of the event. I was disoriented by my hunger and lack of sleep. I couldn’t simply turn off after experiencing the events of the day. I had no time to process anything during the day and was not in an objective mental frame during the night.
Time was always at a premium for me. I struggled to have a shower, change clothes and brush my teeth before each day’s ceremonies. I didn’t want to miss any events or attempt to unravel the meaning of my experiences but in doing so I had largely ignored my own personal needs. I had not learned how to pace myself and didn’t yet realize that I was beginning to run on fumes.
The bible verse ‘treat others as you want to be treated’ has become a lesson that I now need to truly live.
Shortly, I was approached by the resident nutritionist/partner and in a few minutes I was smiling in front of a plate of raw food. As the conversation proceeded, I confessed my biases against overweigh people and how I first judged them as interesting but obese and unhealthy. Their selflessness, however, made me deeply regret my prejudice and bias. I sincerely told them that I was wrong to judge them or anyone on the basis of how they looked. I said that I was sorry and they dismissed my quick to judge first thoughts as the way our culture teaches us to judge others superficially. Nonetheless, the bible verse ‘treat others as you want to be treated’ has become a lesson that I now need to truly live.
I gradually stabilized. I felt blessed by the love that they showed me. I wanted to invite them into my life but after this encounter she had a difficult experience and we lost contact with each other. It is something that I’ve known would likely happen as the euphoria of the shared event wears off in the real world as daily life resumes its demands. Nonetheless, They will always be in my warm thoughts for the terrific people they are.
We parted after I regained my stability and independence. Outside I realized that I had a few minutes before attending the next event so I briefly returned to my cabin. I realized that I had forgotten my water bottle, t-shirt and prized red sun/glasses. This was the second time I left stuff behind, including my glasses. I rationalized my memory failure and reframed in my unintentional gaffe in positive terms of my singular focus when on Ayahuasca. Maybe this was also part of aging.
I didn’t know that I was so prejudiced against overweight people but this encountered taught be that I have an issue that needs further exploration. I have always felt that I was above prejudice, stereotyping or discrimination but now I know differently. I used to consider this a bias, a personal preference but now I understand it as and outright prejudice that I need to confront.
Yesterday’s Rapè and Kambo medicines helped calm and focus my intentions today. Yet, nothing could truly prepare me for my first Ayahuasca experience today. I had seen You tube videos and read everything I could but when I talked with those who had experience it then I realized how individual an experience it was. I made my peace with the fact that I might have a medical issue of some sort. Now it was time to put the past behind me and to embrace the enormity of the moment.
The Ayahuasca ceremony started with all 50 something participants in a large Yurt tent siting in two circles, one encompassing the other. I was in the inner circle. As the medicine preparation was being finalized we were told that under no circumstances should a ’newbie’ receive more than one tablespoon of Ayahuasca. More can be given later but the first experience must not be beyond a person’s ability to manage.
As I held my one tablespoon of Ayahuasca, however, I felt that in might not be a full tablespoon. I compared this with those sitting closest to me and every one agreed that I should ask for a top-up. I caught the attention of a busy server and clumsily said ‘I need a bit more’ and ended up with a full serving of two tablespoons. I hesitated as others stoically gulped down their servings.
I decided to fully embraced this unfathomable, transformative journey and gulped down my medicine with trepidation.
As I surveyed the tent, I saw people settle back into their respective mats. Many seemed to know what to do. I had long imaged what thoughts I would entertain before walking off the edge of the known world and, now, I had none. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, evenly. I soon saw elaborate designs not too dissimilar to the surrounding trippy wall tapestries. When I opened my eyes I felt that I needed to vomit and as I did, the hallucinations stopped.I focused on my body which seemed to be under siege by the rapidly advancing Ayahuasca.
I felt enclosed. I was irritated by the sounds and movements of others. Some were vomiting while others moaned a deep cathartic-sounding, almost primal moan. It was too much for me. I was unable to claim my own space. I decided it was better not to suffer this situation and attempted to leave. I started to get up but stumbled. A SQ helper steadied me and, together, we began to walk away with no destination in mind.
I feel connected to the essence of the fire and the night sky.
The helper asked if I wanted to sit by the fire. I knew immediately that this is where I needed to be. When I saw the night sky and felt grass and dirt between the paths of artificial turf then didn’t want anything except to stay where I was. As I felt the warmth I wanted to get closer. It was a cooler now that the sun had set. I regretted the fact I was in still in short sleeves and shorts after today’s 32C blast of full-on summer heat.
I was cautioned not to get too close but during this evening I continued to feel a strong urge to be in the fire or at least be closer than I was allowed to be. For now, however, I settled into my experience with Ayahuasca as my first shift in consciousness was elegantly unsettling. All of the SQ staff that I had met yesterday looked like me when I was younger. I became to refer to someone by their real name but affixed my name to theirs, i.e., Peter Craig. I didn’t know at the time but, in retrospect, I had started my journey.
As I looked at the night sky I became mesmerized. It was oddly comforting to imagine early man sitting in front of a fire and starred into the night sky. It was more that a means to eat cooked food and share stories of the day or of the past, it was the time to ponder the forces that shaped his/her world and to seek clarity to the meaning of life or death. My journey has some of the same unfathomable questions and today, despite everything we now know, we still do not know what we do not know so, in many ways, the mysteries run just as deep.
My default explanation for the mystery of the cosmos and man’s destructive nature was an elaborate deceit.
I soon saw fellow participants as collaborators in the ‘masquerade’. I felt that they were not newbies and knew exactly what I was experiencing and what I would inevitably experience. I wasn’t upset or unsettled by all this and in some ways felt that they were there for me. When things got crazy I would physically touch a person to see if they were real or not. Occasionally I would speak a few words of encouagement to a fellow participant.
It felt like I was the only one not in on the joke. An elaborate deceit in which staff and fellow participates conspired to manipulate the newbies by their shifting presence and a range of activities from throwing up, moaning or resting peacefully. All part of the soundtrack that needed to ignore in order to heard the music speak to me. The soundtrack felt like a guide to how I should feel and act. Sometime the words told me directly and other times it was the overall feeling of the music itself.
I had always imagined life an elaborate deceit. My version of life being a game in which humans and nature need to try to co-exist with the resources and limitations provided. As we evolve, I feel that humanity, as well as individuals face choices which are often subverted by special interests and our own conditioning as tribal animals. Yet balance is also within each of us, even the greedy who want more that their share.
The consequences that I imagine is a reset for humanity and another chance to get it right. I know that nature is resilient and that the real environmental burden today is not only our pollution but also our population. Less people equals less pollution and the opportunity for nature to have a reprieve from today’s onslaught. When we fail and mankind restarts to ‘play’ at the very beginning, or perhaps before of our evolutionary start.
Now I began to experience the multi-level Ayahuasca game
This game that I imagine is a game of life and death. Not my life or death or yours but the life or death of humanity. There are choices and there are consequences. Our failure to find balance with other life forms and our ecosystem has real consequences that acting against our better nature will not absorb indefinitely.
I’ve described my Ayahuasca experience to others as a video game. At the time I imagined being inside a multi-level progress game that required passing one level before proceeding to the next. Every misstep, however, erased my memory so I needed to bring fresh understanding to the problem in order to advance. It was extremely frustrating to realized that on successive ‘turns’ I returned to the same spot, same point that I was unable to overcome.
I began to see the game as a series of steps that I needed to take in order to have my ‘intention’ that I used to inform this ceremony. I asked ‘Please Mother Ayahuasca, gentle show me how to embrace my inevitable death’. I had heard that the medicine was powerful so I wanted to be respectful and polite, as well as cautious. The fact that I was sincere and my intention was real helped me to let go of expectations and embrace the uncertainty of the game that I found myself trapped within.
Eventually I resumed the game in a more constructive manner
On one level I began to understand the connectivity embraced by the similar looking people around me. I felt connected to all life including the earth below me and the stars above me. When I embraced my oneness with all life I also saw that I was no longer surrounded by nature but a part of nature, no different than other animals except for my relationship to a collective force that was out of balance with all other life.
When I felt centered I went to another level, in my mind. Although, it was my body that often dictated or, at least, prompted my progress. On another level I felt that I needed to stand up and look skyward despite my instability. The North star demanded my attention, my loyalty. Sometimes I didn’t make it. Sometimes I only made it long enough to resume my previous earth-bound position.
Eventually, I stood up with my head back and my arms outstretched like a converted atheist who has found the spiritual force in life, at least, in his life. For, much to my surprise, this is exactly what happened to me as I felt electrified by an all encompassing love. Yet, I wanted more. I couldn’t see any image of a deity or a presence in the sky. I logically didn’t believe that it even existed but nor would I have believed that I would feel such an overwhelming love from the North Star.
My desire to see a divine presence took another turn
As I lay on the ground I again felt the dirt and grass beneath me. I placed a few blades of grass and a couple pinches of dirt on me. I had lost all semblance of social-consciousness. I didn’t care what others thought about my behaviour. I only cared to stay in the moment for as long as possible. I felt that the game was over. That I had finished the journey which Mother Ayahuasca felt that I needed to undertake.
Theresa, a traditional plant medicine woman, is part of the SQ team for the summer. We had a one-on-one session together where she scrubbed by skin with ceremonial plants and told me that I was fit. I wanted more, at first, then realized that there might not have been more and I should be grateful. Now, she appeared suddenly and smiled down at me. I felt her energy as she warmly told me that I was a campeón (champion). I wanted to know more but she just smiled and then moved on.
Throughout the whole experience I struggled to understand what was real and what was not real. I still didn’t know what to believe and what I had to do. I had lost my compass. Then, the server who had already given me twice my suggested Ayahuasca allowance bent a knee and said that I should seek out someone whose name was Jeanette, or possibly Ginette. He said that all my questions would be answered by this person and somehow planted the idea that this person was God, or at least God-like.
As I lay back I again glanced skyward and saw a sign of a divine intelligence.
Across from me in the human circle around the fire were only a few others and people would typically come a go except for one or two others. One was a lean, long-haired mid-thirties man who sit almost motionless, who, later, would describe himself as a seeker. Another was a large, joyful woman that exuded confidence and power, who, while seated ramrod upright used her hands and arms to dance with the music. Both were beautiful. Both were real.
I no longer felt the compulsion to stand. I was content to feel connected to both the earth and the cosmos. i felt their respected life forces of nurture and nature as originating from the same source of love. I lay back and closed my eyes as the music fell over me like a warm blanket on this cool night. Yet, I still wanted to see more.
I still wanted to see a deity or, at least some visual sign of superior life force or intelligence. When I opened my eyes and next glanced at the sky I saw none of the ever-present airplanes traveling to and fro over this well travelled city. it took a moment before I saw what appeared to me as an alignment of the stars. I took another moment before I noticed all the stars were shaped like a necklace. I thought this was another illusion but one that I felt that I could embrace as a sign of a divine intelligence.
I also realized that this world is not real, at least in the physical sense of reality.
Quantum mechanics says that reality is what we choose it to be. A photon, the smallest discrete amount or quantum of electromagnetic radiation, can act like a bullet-like particle or a rippling wave and that it’s configuration isn’t predetermined. Even time is not how we were raised to think of it. So who is to say what is real and what isn’t?
Today turned my sense of reality upside down. It made me realize that there is so much to learn from this precious world. I don’t know what I don’t know except it is likely more that I know now. So it isn’t a leap for me to see myself as an insignificant part of the natural world or to appreciate that I’ve experienced infinite love today.
My last post was all about knowing my ‘intention’ and the virtue of being more trusting and accepting. I now see these traits, however, not as ‘intentions’ but rather doors I need to open to have a richer, more meaningful experience with the psychoactive Amazonian sacrament, Ayahuasca. My ‘intention’ is to feel connected to all life forms, to cut through my ego and the illusion of self-hood. I want to believe in something greater than myself. I want to experience oneness or at least a lack of separation with the cosmos.
Although this intention is consistent with my beliefs, I do not have faith in this belief. I need to experience oneness to truly believe in oneness. I believe that there must be a greater meaning to life. Yet I do not know that there is any meaning to life. These beliefs are fragile yet I am trying to build upon them in order to adopt a healthy outlook for this stage of my life, something that will serve me as my body and mind slowly fail. I’m hoping that my Ayahuasca experience will guide during my dying as well as my death.
I need to reframe my view towards the cultural taboos of death and dying in order to find my own path to a full life, no matter its form or function. Otherwise my options will inevitable become a simple choice between a vegetative state and an assisted suicide. In either case these choices are a retreat from life and, at this early point, I would rather find a way to embrace my death and the modification of my life form. I believe that I can accept, perhaps even embrace, the requisite pain and suffering if I felt, truly felt, part of something greater.
Psychological preparation, to me, means to reframe my reality by emphasizing the positive and thereby minimizing the negative.
It is easy for me to get absorbed by a negative perspective since I tend to worry about even subtleties in a conversation or a smile. In a post mortem of an exchange, I can become consumed by something I should have said or done. It becomes a destructive habit when I cannot alter its course. A positive perspective is not as reflexive, for me, and requires an effort to continually reinstate but once I do then it feels relatively natural to wholeheartedly embrace.
So as I prepare for my upcoming Ayahuasca experience I will attempt to reframe my medical concerns with a more positive outlook. For my first stop on my psychedelic journey I don’t want my medical condition to be a source of anxiety. I believe that any undo stress would undermine the efficacy of the Ayahuasca ceremony. I believe that the staff of Soul Quest will provide me with all the care I need to feel at ease. They are prepared to handle medical emergencies and their location is not far from emergency care. I believe that the confidence that I now have will allow me to let go of my fears and trust in the process.
This doesn’t mean that I will diminish the importance of my medical concerns but, rather, place their value on a lower shelf in my mind’s eye. This is one way for me to let go. Another way is to appreciate the positive advantages that I already have that will allow me to trust by embracing such assets. The first blessing is the comfort and safety I feel from the Soul Quest Ayahuasca Church of Mother Earth, which offers a morality beyond Catholicism, perhaps beyond Religion.
It also might be also be easier for me to let go because I am now retired and live a solitary life in a remote area.
As a child I was never aware of a world outside of cities. Now, life in a remote area surrounded my nature is my home. I am treated by the wonder of each day, each season as life struggles to survive and proliferate. I morn the lost of a tree and the death of a bird. I celebrate the arrival of bees and hornets and remain hopeful that bats will also return one day. I immerse myself in the forest to gain not only an appreciation of nature but also more compassion to all life and all forms of life.
I have already been detached from the centripetal forces that harness the collective prowess of modern society. I have moved away from family and friends and the community that once nurtured me. Although this is a double edged sword, I relish the benefit of no longer needing to bear the weigh of the expectations of others. I have been liberated by qualifying as unimportant to those that once superficially cultivated my interest and involvement. It was almost emancipating to discover how few true friends I had.
In preparation for the Ayahuasca ceremony I have disengaged from the internet and the news cycle. This simple choice has allowed me to focus more on myself and my life. I know that news organizations increase viewership and therefore profits from bad news, especially breaking news that is live. I still believe that mankind can no longer reverse climate change or the forces of the fossil fuel industries but, now, I am reframing my perspective by choosing to look at the problem from another perspective. I now realize that besides changing myself there is nothing I can do to alter the destructive course of mankind.
My personal transcendence is important to me but societal transcendence should also be I’m portent to everyone.
The use of Ayahuasca by westerners and by western drug companies raises concerns of cultural appropriation and corporate gold digging. Western medicine and practitioners rarely acknowledge native rights after centuries of native sacramental use. This traditional medicine is now being exploited in a similar way that early explorers exploited advanced native civilizations that they plundered for the pursuit of wealth. A western sense of entitlement has dogged native people ever since wooden ships allowed Europeans unfettered access.
Ayahuasca is known for the treatment of chronic low grade inflammation and oxidative stress, which is believed to be involved in the development of ADHD, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, heart failure, autism and many more debilitative diseases and conditions. Is it any wonder why Soul Quest and the the indigenous people of the Amazon Basin have embraced this traditional spiritual medicine?
I have worked with native communities in Canada and know the power of native plant knowledge from the seemingly miraculous healing treatment of a Rastafarian who lived off the land, deep in the tropical rainforest. I know that my upcoming ceremony will not be given in a traditional manner by an authentic Shaman but I also know that many Shamans are just trying to capitalize on the Western surge in demand.I will support the work of Soul Quest as I believe that they, at least, have embraced the native spirit and adopted the right path for true enlightenment. I am grateful for the Ayahuasca plant and believe each user should give it the respect it deserves.
Even the notable Dennis McKenna, an ethnopharmacologist, doesn’t believe native peoples “own” the exploitation rights to Ayahuasca. While this could be technically true it doesn’t feel right to me since the Western concept of owning nature is more about the legality of exploration than morality. When McKenna adds that “ayahuasca knowledge is a piece of human patrimony that has been stewarded for a very long time by native peoples’ it suggests that native people will likely continue to be pushed aside from their heritage and share of commercial profits.
The discovery of Ayahuasca required the combining and preparing of two separate plants: Banisteriopsis caapi vine, a MAO inhibitor, and the leaves of either Psychotria viridis (chacruna) or Diplopterys cabrerana (chagropanga or chaliponga). I’m not sure how long it would take an ethnopharmacologist to make tea from combining these plants and to create the understanding of their potency that we have today. It has taken native people centuries. The Amazon basin and all its life forms is well know to the native tribes but likely will appear much like a jungle to most Westerners. Having Ayahuasca commercially exploited seems wrong unless natives also benefit from an acceptable share of the profits.
The Church where I will soon take Ayahuasca offers a master class in Ethics for our shared World by acknowledging our failure as a people to demonstrate openness and connection to all life.
I joined this American Church not simply because they offer an Ayahuasca ceremony but also because their Doctrine speaks to me. I believe that it is transformative. It talks about Mother Earth in a loving and compassionate manner, the rights of all life forms and the responsibility we all have to live in harmony. This, for me, is more than a breath of fresh air in an already polluted world. It is a beacon of light at a time of darkness when the rampant environmental destruction is poisoning all of us.
It is also a different way to think about all life on Earth. The Ayahuasca plant is part of nature. Despite differences between human and non-human life, if all life is connected then we both are part of the cosmos and are nurtured by the same sun, rain, and soil. My empathy for plants and other life forms increases the more I step down from the self-proclaimed human perch of superiority.
Our species has been socialized to consider ourselves a higher life form despite the fact that we are in awe of the power and properties of this plant. Yet many will still judge harshly any suggestion that the Ayahuasca plant could possible consider itself a higher life form given our species increasing demands and dependence after centuries of ceremonial use.
Soul Quest’s manifesto is central to fostering of a healthy, respectful world where all life has its own rights, like we do. Where other life forms have importance onto themselves and are valued, not tortured and destroyed in the service of mankind. We might be able to stop the environmental disaster our species has created but then, if we hope to maintain the balance, we need to transcend our animal instincts and embrace our higher consciousness.
It feels like I am making progress
Reframing my reality helps me to stay positive. This is something I have always done but with mixed success. When I also add tuning out of the news, which allows me to see a bigger picture, and letting go of my medical concerns I believe that I will be more than ready to accept the energy and guidance of Ayahuasca.
Whenever I fail to let go or trust I am reminded that I am far from perfect and still have a long way to go. Nonetheless, it feels like I am making progress. Soon I will know for sure. Soon I will need to trust in others and the guidance of the plant medicine. My well-being is out of my control and I will need to go with the flow or else the experience will be especially difficult for me. I have no choice but to surrender.
I believe that I am in a good place. Now I am more consciously aware of my actions and my inactions. I immediately sense when I do something happens or I fail to do something which changes the balance that I seek for nature. Respecting all life forms give me a different way to think about native rights and life on Earth. Respecting myself gives me a way to transcend into whatever I need to become when Ayahuasca takes me higher.
Apparently plant medicine works best when a participant brings a focus or intention in order for their Ayahuasca ceremony to have greater ‘flow’ and presumably to be more purposeful. I don’t believe that I have any pressing psychological or emotional issues, so I was unsure how to proceed. Such focus or ‘intention’ could be anything that has to do with the human experience but I decided that I needed to take a deep dive into my past behaviour to unearth foundational issues. It seemed like the right idea but I soon learnt that I bite off more that I could manage.
I struggled with the task at hand but also with the fact that I realized that I didn’t know much about myself. I was taken back by the inaccessibility of my self-awareness, something, apparently that I have deeply buried below my everyday consciousness. Although I have reflected about my life in the past, mostly this has resulted in finding more fault with others than myself. Now I wondered if I was going to make a fool of myself at the ceremony. The group will include hard-core military and first-responders struggling to find a viable alternative to suicide, in a country where Veterans die by their own hand every 65 minutes.
I have been told that ‘Mother Aya’ will ‘drag’ me to where I need to go even if I don’t have my ‘intention’ prepared. While it is comforting to know that I will go where I need to go it is also alarming, as it would almost guarantee a more traumatizing experience. Given the concern of my health condition this seems like an unwise course.
I could simply ask what the plant medicine wants me to know, as some do, but, for me, this is the same as saying nothing. In fact, it is worst than saying nothing. It takes away the opportunity for my post-Ayahuasca life to integrate the lessons from the ceremony and to more readily enrich my life through on-going self-examination.
The upcoming Ayahuasca experience is more than a high, for me, especially as now I am taking first concrete step in my journey of transformation
The urgency of choosing an intention had the immediate effect of acquainting me with the roots of not only my own personal ignorance but, also, cultural ignorance. In the past, I have never considered reflection important enough to demand my attention, except occasionally when I was stopped in my tracks by a traumatic event. Even then, I resisted learning from the painful lessons. Being in touch with myself, understanding why I do what I do doesn’t come naturally for me. I am easily distracted by the surface issues in my life and struggle with the increasing difficulty maintaining the illusion that I am in control of my life.
Growing up I had no supportive role-models. My American influenced culture elevated the strong, silent male role so keeping my personal issues suppressed in order to cope with day-to-day difficulties was normal for me. Now as I began to explore my past missteps I start to more clearly see my personal faults or, at least, things that I could have done differently. When I repeat the same mistake that a pattern emerges which I picture as personal fault lines, like geological fault lines.
This helps me imagine of all the people living near or on fault lines and the fact that I am no different than any of them. The eighteenth-century expression “what you don’t know cannot hurt you” came to mind as I thought about how so many of us live near or on fault lines while blissfully ignore the likelihood of the next earthquake, climate change disaster or personal meltdown.
I started my self-examination with my most pressing concerns, my recent experiences of trying to have a psychedelic experience. I examined effort to day. I have explored various ceremonies in South America, the United States and Europe for a range of experiences including Grof-style breathing, Ayahuasca, Psilocybin and 5 MeO DMT. Throughout this process I have engaged a number of people, some of whom were event organizers and others were enthusiasts.
This burgeoning community was very welcoming and generous. Over the past six months I’ve had some of my best, as well as some of my worst, online experiences of my life. The more difficult encounters struck me as a possible window to explore in order to examine my own actions when encountering such trying situations.
A little while ago I applied for a week-long psychedelic retreat which cost $5000 US.
It was ultra expensive but I rationalized it as my 70th birthday gift to myself. Everything checked out. Good people. Great accommodation. Inviting location. It struck me as a wonderful event run by talented and experienced hip, new-age Californians. I exchanged emails and spoke on the phone with organizers a couple times and, after completing the application, was accepted for one of their events.
I was so delighted about the prospect of this clamorous adventure that my critical brain functions were disengaged. After my acceptance the conversation quickly turned to their demand for payment. I was obligated to pay 50% upfront and the next 50% within 30 days of the event. I was told that they didn’t except credit cards or paypal (because paypal didn’t want their business) and that they only accepted a bank wire transfer that provided me with zero consumer protection or recourse. I agreed to pay any service charges and exchanges rates associated with paypal or a credit card but that was still unacceptable.
Then, when I asked about their worst-case medical preparedness nothing was forthcoming. The same when I asked on a couple of occasions for the full name of their contact person.I was alarmed by these developments so I agreed to a bank transfer once they provided me with a photocopy of the event owner’s driver’s license and passport. Shortly afterwards they rejected my application. Apparently I was not a good fit. They would consider another time but felt that now I wasn’t ready to participate in their ceremony.
I was totally shaken by this sequence of events and struggled to understand what had happened. It struck a nerve in me as it brought to mind the last time that I wired a US bank with an advance payment and the money and my contact disappeared without a trace. The NYC police said this is a common scam which offers the perpetrator complete anonymity. They scammers were counting on my enthusiasm outweighing my skepticism and I fell hard. Now I used these similar events to reflect upon the commonalities that resulted in unsatisfactory conclusions for me.
For my Psychedelic Journey my expectations are high while my trust is low. I need to invert this equation.
The rejection forced me to realize that I have deeply rooted trust issues which permeate my life, like tree roots searching for sustenance. My world view, like all world views, has been forged by personal experience. I have lost money in business and on-line because of trusting those that have asked me to trust them. I have been burglarized. My home emptied of prized stuff but left with the lingering stench of an invasion that a counsellor felt was personally traumatic for me. All this and more has made me become less willing to give anyone the benefit of the doubt.
I can see for the first time that my distrustis changing who I am in the same way that aging has changed me. Slowly, almost imperceptibly. While I still feel that I am the same person I know that these changes have had a gradual and cumulative effect. For me, both aging and distrust occur in such an insidious way that both my old age and my distrustfulness surprised me when I saw myself as a stranger in the mirror.
When I was rejected by the psychedelic retreat I reacted instinctively. I felt threatened so I sought to share the risk. It probably didn’t help that I believed the world and especially the virtual world is a playground for predators. I was relieved to have avoided the possibility of fraud but also the added stress and anxiety that would have attached to what promised to be a life-affirming event. I was comfortable with my world view and how I respond to what I consider to be disproportionate trust risks.
That said, I understand that trust is a repetitive issue for me. I know that I can’t completely trust someone until we have some history but once we do I can be more trusting of relationships. I once felt that I would trust someone until they gave me reason but now I know that it will be difficult for me to let go of control without also feeling that trust is a two-way road.
It is only a question of time before my body surrenders to medical healthcare and I will be faced with questions concerning quality of life.
On this journey I have rationalized my reliance on medication by perhaps underestimating its importance to my health. I am not a medical expert but I sometimes believe that since I know how I feel that I also know my own health better than my medical experts. The medical reliance on the pharmaceutical industry makes me distrustful of their treatment and care.
It’s difficult for me to admit that I need medication when I’m not impacted by my health issues on a daily basis. High Blood Pressure and occasional episodes of Atrial Fibrillation are growing in importance for me as I age. Yet, I believe that I am still healthy.
I also believe that I will, at some point relatively soon, need to trust the medical community and rely even more on medication. In this window that I now enjoy, however, I will embrace a more wholistic approach for as long as it makes sense to so so. Exercise, food choices, a relatively stress-free lifestyle, quality sleep and the love of my partner and family are my first line of defence against being subsumed by the major health issues facing an increasingly obese and unhealthy population. When it is time to let go of this lifestyle I will still want to do so to the best of my abilities.
When I told organizers of psychedelic retreats that my some of my medication is preventative and necessary in case of a stroke or high blood pressure it was true but not the whole story. I was undercutting the fact that I need my medication. Even with my exemplary lifestyle I can clearly see that it will only delay the inevitable. I am struggling to accept my medical condition. It was wrapped up in my fear of dying inside my head as my body continues going through the motions of life.
I have always believed that people can’t change.Yet, I also know that many people change the closer they get to their deaths. They make amends for past misdeeds and harmful behaviours or begin to embrace the comfort of a forgiving god. We all seek life’s meaning, especially after our biological and social purposes have been fulfilled or the flavour of life is gone. For me, I believe that we exist in a closed ecosystem and that when my human form is gone that whatever remains will continue to exist. This will be enough for me when and if I let go of my own ego and sense of self-importance. But it won’t be enough for me now, as now I intent to live fully until my last breathe.
I need to reframe my deep-seated belief about old age and death and make this profound change in order to accept my body’s transformation and the next stage in my life cycle. I can understand these needs on a cerebral level but this insight is not enough to counter the influence of my life-long conditioning. It might be possible, however, if I have a life-altering visceral experience, like an Ayahuasca ceremony, that drags me to where I need to go. Maybe that will help me accept my transition from one organic form to another.
Perhaps this will be my intention and Mother Ayahuasca will show be what I need to see and know and that will be enough for me.
I know that I am not content when I try to orchestrate my life. I want to remain open to whatever I encounter despite the fact that I have difficulty letting go of control. On one level I can’t let go until I feel safe enough to trust. I cannot trust until I feel safe enough to let go. On another level the idea of letting go, for me, is also tied to a belief in a higher power. Often this means man-made religion which I also don’t trust.
I do, however, accept the life forces of nature and I remain open to spirituality based on the fact that the grand design of nature suggests that the forces that ultimately shape our world are beyond our comprehension. Maybe that is only because we can only see what we can see and therefore our understanding limited. After all we live on the periphery of a vast world.
Maybe it comes down to allowing the Universe or whatever makes each us feel safe to control our fate because if we choose to let go and trust a greater power we don’t have many good choices. Something more that the biological imperatives living, breeding and dying. I feel connected to nature and drawn to spirituality so within this spectrum I hope to find solace but do not expect to find any answers.
For now, I will continue to explore my trust issues and try be open more. I want to let go and still feel safe. The next step, however, will be up to Mother Ayahuasca and learning what she has to tell me. Now, at least, I believe that I have a focus and that I need help from this powerful pant medicine in order to continue my journey.
My Transformative Journey 
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