dream big

A dream is a succession of images, thoughts, or emotions passing through the mind during sleep. Check out the language spell here as this is how the opposite of dream is described:

Antonyms
actuality
certainty
existence
fact
reality
substance
truth

Our dreams, in an overarching way, are giving us a clue; a clue to our existence. I don't exactly know what but I intuit some connection between our dreams and the nature of our own reality. It is like there is a dreamcaster who has put the one consciousness to sleep and this universe is the simultaneous dream of consciousness manifesting at different points unawares of the mental aspect of this existence. These are the cascading of successive dreams. In the same way our fairy tales of sleeping beauty, princes, magic, and rescuing princesses must be alluding this situation or our motivation to seek answers.

Dreams I'd have to say are not at all frivolous though the contents at first glance can be considered as such. I had one such dream about a month before I left for South America last fall where I woke from it and it was very vivid in my memory. I went to the bathroom and I thought what a strange dream; this really is disconnected from me. It only took about a minute until I realized what it meant. Here's the dream: I was at a train station waiting for a train. There was a small lake at the back of the station and I heard rumours of a drowning. I saw a little girl walking towards me as I went to investigate at the lake. She looked lost and then I heard her mother had presumably drowned in the lake. As I approached the lake I witnessed a rescue crew saving a man and his dog from drowning. The dog, which was a golden retriever, knocked one of the rescuers into the lake in his exuberance as he got in the boat. The rescuer hung on and pulled himself back in. It was amusing. I then woke up.

So after thinking for a brief time about this dream I realized the little girl was my heart. The mother of my heart drowned with the water being a symbol for a return to the lower world. The dream took place on dry land which symbolizes the middle world which is where we are. So my heart has been left on its own. The man and his dog that were rescued from drowning is clearly me and my loyal companion. It's my attachment to the mysteries of the lower world that this was symbolizing. The mother had returned to the lower world and I went in after her which left my heart vulnerable. I've been shown in visions my attachment to this dark lower world. If I wish to do the final ascent up the mountain to the peak I must not follow the mother back into the lower world however inviting it is. My heart and I must continue up the mountain without the mother. She remains behind. I got the message a few months before planning the trip my time with Ayahuasca had run its course and I should not go back to the Amazon to partake in anymore ceremonies for the time being. I went back to be in ceremony and sit with Huachuma, which is an upper world, energy of the masculine mountains, type of plant medicine. So in a way the dream was telling me I'm on my own for this one and also that I will try to go back and cling to the lower world and the mother. There's a chance if I do that I'll drown which is a metaphor for getting stuck in that region again. The train station is connected back to an Ayahuasca ceremony where a dark masculine power told me that if I didn't follow the 'correct' path I would walk in front of a train. So there's an element of danger here as well as a symbol of the journey coming to an abrupt end.

The part of the brain which connects with consciousness and is responsible for the dreaming is really marvellous. Another dream I had recently was very vivid and real. It was so convincing. It is magic. The dreamcaster was seamlessly weaving events and memories to create an incredible storyline that I fell for and totally bought into. I was in South America and went to some Ayahuasca retreat that had been recommended as an alternative to SpiritQuest. The grounds were tranquil and the people I met were of the ilk I'd expect; there was a new age feeling to it. Even the owner or facilitator who was walking around played his part impeccably where he would be talking to himself and whistling in a non threatening and slightly off way. The guy I was talking to had this annoying tendency to take every concept or object I mentioned in conversation and correcting my terminology to fit his lingo. Finally when I said shaman he corrected it to 'roncaster' and this annoyed me to the point where the dream halted and at that point I woke up, it was about 3am, and I totally remembered all the details of the dream. I have had a few like that over the past year and they keep getting more and more impressive. Equally impressive was a dream where I drank Huachuma and felt the effects of it in my dream; that was truly masterful. It is incredible how the dreamcaster can take an element from my consciousness and weave it into the story. They keep getting better and better at it. Beforehand something in a dream would happen that didn't add up and it would give the show away.

Then in my waking state there is the curious case of the appearance of a big brown owl one night in the woods in mid February. On don Howard's Huachuma Mesa is this big brown owl and during one of the November mesada ceremonies, called the singado, you inhale this liquid which puts you in a trance state. Don Howard tells you to approach an object on the Mesa that is attracting you so I went to the big brown owl at the back.

That owl came alive, it would slowly blink its eyelids, and then its face transformed into the Goddess. Obviously I did not take this connection to heart though I have noticed a connection with seeing owls and my plant medicine journeys. So anyway I saw the owl in the woods and the next day I heard don Howard had cancelled a bunch of retreats. The owl had come to me to tell me he was very sick. This connects to a very vivid dream I had while at SpiritQuest where this woman told me he was very sick. In the dream I was like no I just saw him, he's fine. Curiously this dream had occurred the night after the singado ceremony at SpiritQuest. Sometimes I am slow on the uptake but I do get it eventually.

My life is some kind of a dream; a dream where I wipe away my knowledge and start from scratch and try to uncover the mystery. The mystery is her. Go get lost and see if I can find her and see if she can wake me up. I’ve come close a couple times and she has tried to lead me away from my delusion of believing I am the character I play and then she tried an erotic gambit so that the culmination would lead to a breaking of the spell. I subconsciously pulled out of that one. I think she is done with the game and longs to be reunited. I guess I’m stubborn and wanted to do it on my terms. I’m pretty sure this is the eternal game. It’s a really good game; the only way I have been able to see through it is because of my contrarian nature: why the denigration of the feminine? Why all these masculine spiritual pursuits? They all are subterfuge.

holy grail

As the peculiarities, vagaries, and precariousness of life present challenges to us in our life journey what is that one thing humanity seeks? It's the fountain of youth, the holy grail, the quest for immortality. Do you want to know what the secret is to eternal life? Here, I will give you the answer. The secret to eternal life is quite simply Love. Love is the fount and if you have access to this source then immortality is within your grasp. You then surf the Love wave. Without this access, you remain on the cycle of coming and going; living and dying. My Vilca vision last November at SpiritQuest revealed some of these immortals who ride the Love wave. They were made of Love and shone exquisite light. Here is my written recollection of this experience:

The initial and intensive phase of the coming on of Vilca was pretty much a summation of all the difficulties, hardships, and in your face challenges presented by the plant medicines over the course of the last four and a half years to see if I - the knave, to wit the fool, could summon the courage to stay the course and remain invested in the path available by entering into the heart space. It took trust, a hell of a lot of courage, and much resolve, which admittedly did waver a few times, but though I definitely was wary and had much trepidation at no time did fear overwhelm me. I was able to steer my vessel on through and past the tempest. To my surprise the seas became calm and I was lifted up into a realm I can describe as populated by beings made of Love; they exuded Love; and they gave me the opportunity to demonstrate my Love.

The ascension into this realm of Love and Light was gradual and felt mechanical like the movement of an elevator. I could hear mechanical sounds that were congruent with the operation of this celestial lift. When I reached my destination it was dark and and I could visually make out what appeared to be pipes and shafts in the room I now found myself in. Soon after, beings of light started to appear and they would present themselves to me and express Love through this incredibly beautiful and colourful lighting up of their whole being. The shape of these beings was geometrical, maybe diamond like, though I do not want to box them into a defined shape. They moved with an effortless grace as one would dance with expertise once mastering movement without the constraints of gravity. This Vilca vision of exquisite and luminous beings made of Love and shining an ineffable iridescence, well a decent and simple description of them comes from the title of a Pink Floyd song "Shine On You Crazy Diamond." There is a verse in that song that makes me wonder about Roger Waters' mystical experience:

"Remember when you were young and you shone like the sun?"

To describe the way the generated light came forth from these diamond-like shapes so far the best analogy I have come up with is an audible term which is trill. From dictionary.com I grabbed these two definitions of trill that fit the behaviour I witnessed, with the difference being instead of sound it was the light they exuded expressing this behaviour:

• to resound vibrantly, or with a rapid succession of sounds, as the voice, song, or laughter.
• to utter or make a sound or succession of sounds resembling such singing, as a bird, frog, grasshopper, or person laughing.

They were playing the musical scale but visually, and they expressed themselves through this behaviour. It would also be analogous to Tantric descriptions of Kundalini energy that rises through the Chakras within the energetic body that changes colour upon ascension and descension. My attempts to convert this experience into language is clumsy but hopefully this gives some sort of idea into what it is I saw in this most awesome place.

I am Light and to Love I will return.

I understood them to be made of Love and to be projecting Love. I realized that it is mine and everyone’s inheritance to become one of these eternal beings of Love. Within all is this Love and all that matters is to cultivate this Love. Grow it as much as you can and shine! The room went dark and they encouraged me to do this so I lit up the room with Love. The whole scene seemed brief as compared to the torture I went through to get here but even so I was overwhelmed with gratefulness and felt so blessed. I resolved to Love as much as possible so I too will shine my Love everywhere as Love without a doubt is the answer I was seeking. It is the power that animates creation and it is how we will return home. Soon after I felt the experience fall away and I was back to a baseline of consciousness.

Well, well, well, that's it. That's the challenge now that I know this; no more excuses. The coming and going of cyclical consciousness zaps memory so if I fail this challenge then I get to start over and spend another lifetime trying to remember why am I back again and what am I looking for? I'd have to petition Sri Ganesha for help again and rely on finding the next don Howard, and it goes without saying I'd need to be born into another good family, in another peaceful country, with access to education, and a source of well above average income. Long odds those. In other words, the time is now. It's pretty imperative and urgent I'd say.

Birth and death are at similar points on the cycle of vibration in that they are at the bottom of the cycle where energy coalesces in order to burst forth once again in the continual cycle of coming and going. There is no annihilation as you are energy that pulses. The concept of eternal life becomes whether your energy can fluctuate at a vibration where you don't blow it all out in the one pass but instead taper the cycle and maintain appearances. What is the secret of drawing on the power that would allow for this? The eternal fount of energy is Love so in order to get off the merry go round all we have to do is access the power of Love. Seems simple enough.

This amalgamation of energy that forms us individually remains intact upon physical death and I think we retain a sense of self at our expiration; in other words, our individuated points of consciousness do not dissolve away. I take this position because of what I have experienced in altered states of consciousness. The energy which constitutes what we describe as an autonomous self is from the eternal fount of Love. We are made of Love. Eventually, I think we return to that Love and do dissolve back into the whole. Rather than this being the annihilation of self, instead it is returning to omnipotence now imbued with the experience of many lives lived. Suffering, triumph, and learning all about Love.

We are the ever changing transformation of energy. We are children of the eternal song.

peace

As humans we identify with the sun because its daily cycle mimics our own patterns of coming and going, awake and rest. The moon moves around in the sky, doesn't rise and set per se, and takes its time in coming to full power before expelling that power in a gradual cycle. The sun is in a hurry everyday to get to the top and shine like no other but then it experiences a more rapid decline. The lesson is you can't hold onto it, but have to let it go, and when you do it comes back. It is the Tao and to the Now we will return.

the sun setting over the Nile in a blaze of glory!

To climb the mountain entails engaging the carnival. But then again why am I here? In probability because of a desire to climb that mountain. It is done; the mountain has been climbed. I figure now is a return to the valley to rest in peace and in the meantime, on the journey down the mountain, I can be of service.

climbed that mountain

I'm on the precipice of some kind of inner peace. I had thought if I want peace then I have to stop searching for the answer. I'd have to become a child again like I did in the second Huachuma mesada last November and play like a child of the earth mother. However in the mountains of Ecuador I was given the reminder to play and not to go all in to the left hand path but find the centre.

The pull of the right hand path in conjunction with the chill left hand path are becoming balanced. Maybe this is where I was heading all along? The right hand path drives me to find answers to the mysteries of life while the left hand path teaches me Love and unity. To find peace I thought it would be necessary to let go of the seeking. It is balance. Do not sacrifice the right hand path but instead use it to an advantage to give you the drive to keep up the quest for knowledge and to probe deeper into the mysteries.

What is it that I want? Knowledge, forbidden knowledge, knowledge of this game we are all playing, destiny.

Why? It is a puzzle I want to solve. It's near impossible but I like the challenge.

It has become clear over the last few weeks that the path of shamanism that leads to higher consciousness through the channel of the heart is the first thing in my 50 years of life that feels deep down inside a path that resonates with my essence. I say this because so many paths in my life do not. You know that awful feeling in your gut five days a week when the alarm goes off and you have to go to work? I don't mind my job, I'm good at it, but it still doesn't harmonize with my soul. I read this story about a football player who turned pro as a baseball pitcher and then couldn't throw strikes anymore because deep down his soul was telling him this is not my path. Once he went back to football he became a different person, happy again. I want to be of service and bring people to the plant medicines to heal and sit at the fount of wisdom.

My Vilca vision from the summer of 2016 at SpiritQuest of healing people through the use of Mapacho is referring to bringing people to plant medicines so they can see existence for what it is. My gift is my ability to describe the ineffable by bringing back core concepts from my journeys into altered states of consciousness and laying them out in an understandable writing style. That’s a good way to be of service.

mind candy

Plant medicine ceremonies are very hypnotic and it is what my conscious awareness flags at the onset of the intoxication. With experience, and proper set and setting, you may learn to let go and trust, if not the plants and the ego mind will continually knock you hard in the head. I struggled with this aspect of the journey constantly as I was very wary of how hypnotic the whole experience can be. What I eventually learned is this mistrust is unavoidable if you engage the mind and I have flagged it in those situations because my mind has been front and centre to the experience. This "in your face" part of the ceremony is a good demonstration of scale. What I mean is that in contrast culture is a slow and methodical way of hypnotizing you and then to break free of this hold, which around mid-life we all get the urge to do, is very difficult because you have ensconced yourself so deep in it in every aspect of the life you have created for yourself. It is a major part of the whole character drama you are playing as Mr. or Mrs. Smith and all the expectations that are required of you to fulfill, lest the whispers begin about how you are surely not acting in character anymore. To break this spell is what I sense plant medicines, Ayahuasca and her shaman being the queen/master of this, are doing and they do it by reverse hypnosis. A heavy induction is required to break the spell. So I think part of the human experience is recognizing this and how easily your mind is manipulated. And once learning this caution at some point you disengage the mind but it is difficult because the human mind is fascinating and it likes candy. The only way out is to to disengage and sit there in awareness. As soon as you engage the mind you start to separate things and create feedback loops of thinking about thoughts. It is by observation that you remember you are everything and that the world we live in is the biggest stage for the grandest drama of all.