in bloom

So I have written about my philosophy which I will call the flower philosophy. The flower is the coming forth of the seed and has every right to claim primacy as much as the seed does. This thinking all stems from the belief that originally if I found the fount of everything then I will have found my true self, god, and so on. Then I changed up my thinking because I was delineating and breaking up into separate processes happenings that are succinctly complete, we just don’t see it due to perspective. The perspective at work is our positioning and therefore distance away from seeing everything in its entirety. We have called this phenomenon time and we use time as another way to describe perspective. We are occluded from having a wide angle view of this concept we have called time. I get the feeling it is all in the now, the past and future just phantoms, but we lack a sense to see it all or we have a filter on our consciousness that does not allow for a broad witnessing of time but instead separates it out which in turn creates events and enables the great game. Quite the sentence; you'll have to probably read it a few times to figure out what I just wrote. I know I did! My other half comes up with these ideas and I am just the scribe. So I can’t see the flower but it is the result of everything that is coming forth. It is farther down the energy wave. I had figured my ego and superego were psychic disturbances that were the result of awareness fuelled by desire instead of realizing that this is all one process blooming in our field of energy called a human and one process that we discern leading into another can lay no claim to being ultimate truth based on an order of operations.

Okay good enough I hope. You can go back and read a few of my most recent posts where I go on about this if you wish. I have just tried to summarize it because I actually want to go into some other discovery I had this morning. When your base desires get the best of you or some other human need, problem, or family situation causes upset well when this happens now I try to remind my base id to be kind to tomorrow’s human that has to function and try to let this go. So this is problem number one. Sometimes these things are trivial or don't make sense so there is an inclination to just run away from your problems. It’s never ending. There's the responsible and serious part of me and then the part that just wants enjoy life and live in the moment. Then I realized I do need a part of myself that just doesn’t care about consequences; it just wants to have fun. Give me a thrill! I can understand that! Then there’s the opposite part of me, the superego, that judges behaviour and is like you are so stupid man. I need that part of me too so that there is a foil to the mischievous one. Then there is the poor ego stuck in the middle trying to mediate between these two extremes that make up what I call self. The two extremes are Dionysos and Apollo. I kind of gave Apollo the cold shoulder a few months ago when I discovered Dionysos is the fount and the eternal return of the energy. The indestructible life. It’s this carefree desire beholden part of me that is constantly wiping out his game. I need Apollo because though reason sits on the back of the unreasonable it also tempers the chaos and nonsense. If we then rely on Apollo too much there is no fun and no play. All business. Just the facts. Dionysos is god but Apollo is god as well. There is no one god. We humans get to be in a special place in that we have both of these gods within us and to be successful we have to mediate and balance the two. It is through having an ego that we can do this. Take a look at the animal kingdom. It runs mainly on needs and fulfillment; there is not much reasoning going on with them. Our place is so unique in that we can develop the ability to reason and from this temper the unreasonable. The extreme of either position creates disharmony. A life of pure hedonism leads to your own destruction however fleetingly the sweet pleasure of it just may be and a life of rigour and preciseness with no time for play leads to a pretty dull, unfulfilling, and sterile life as well.

So as a human I am gifted a pretty special opportunity to create the god of all gods. By taking the masculine attributes of Apollo and Dionysos I just described and balancing them and then the feminine by cultivating the attributes of love and caring versus hysteria and balancing them I prepare for union. Then there is bringing all together in the middle at the heart. I have mentioned before in previous blog posts about an Andean concept called tinkuy and that’s what some specialists were doing in pre-Columbian shamanism. These beliefs were trampled on and forgotten by the encroaches of Western man and his thinking he knows better. The people of the Americas were figuring this shit out millenniums ago. We probably need to bring this back to stave off the coming destruction.

You can only hope to accomplish this centring through ego and a healthy one at that. The two powers on the extreme end of self are ridiculously strong. Imagine being in the middle of a fight between the Hulk and Superman. That’s your ego. It’s trying to keep things in balance and running along, maybe letting each side out daily for a little exercise. Be kind to your ego; it’s the only thing that’s going to get you through this hot mess. 

chasing the goddess

Chasing the Goddess in Ayahuasca ceremonies has revealed that there is something alluring about the continual chase. The teasing and playing hard to get is very attractive to my senses and desires. My life is pretty even steven, some would say mundane, and the world of the Goddess is topsy turvy chaos. It’s the cosmic sleigh ride that I try to smooth out and I know I’ve done that to a degree because that’s what I do with everything in life. I'm so good at it, thank you very much. My next time drinking la medicina I have to let go to wild abandon and take the untravelled path to who knows where.

I think that’s part of the reason why some shamans start adding things to the brew like toé. It’s a deliriant and makes the whole ceremony quite the mind fuck, like out of control crazy, and lots of seekers are attracted to that, especially the seasoned drinkers. I don’t think that is necessarily a path you have to travel when you think you are stuck. Instead of trying to temper the experience and tame the Goddess therefore bringing you to a perceived dead end, you have to let go. Self defence is the go to in all of the psychedelics because the bad trip is always lurking in the background. When you are new to the experience you have trepidation for sure but you can’t possibly imagine the horrors of a bad trip until you actually experience it. And then when you experience this kind of trip it shakes you to the core of your foundation and for most of us western people it is the first time we experience full on terror. Psychologically we then put up defences to that fear as that is a pretty natural thing to do. It takes a hell of a lot of courage to go back and face that fear. Underlying every ceremony from then on is a defence mechanism enacted to combat the debilitating terror once experienced. Curiously for me there was something always drawing me back to the experience, I mean it’s the mother lode. All you have been searching for you found but there’s this chance when you go back that you’ll get destroyed again. However staying on this path and continuing on with la medicina reaches a point where you have to make a decision. You can always stop and say you had your meaningful experiences of a lifetime but it is now time to move on. The lessons were invaluable but I’ve reached the limit and Mother Ayahuasca is telling me there is nothing more for me. I felt that in the third ceremony last time down in March. For some there is a call to move on to a different plant medicine and their teachings or there is what I described earlier where you start adding powerful plants to the brew that modulates the effect and head off in a direction that maybe isn’t the best choice for you.

I followed a few people on social media that drank Ayahuasca quite a bit. They all eventually stopped, citing among their reasons that she had abandoned them, there were no more teachings, she turned on them, or they had a new calling. Answers to inner conflict that we project onto external actors are usually resolved by once again looking inward. I can pretty much guarantee that the reasons cited in regards to Ayahuasca and your relationship with it have to do with your own hangups and blockages. Simply put it is a test to see where you want to go with it and how dedicated you are, especially when confronted with a problem such as this.

50,000 years ago our brains were as developed as they are now however as hunter gatherers our focus was on survival. I was walking through the forest with my dog and marvelled at the fact I had the opportunity to ponder because all I need for survival is taken care of by society. For sure this has many detriments but a huge positive is the time allotted to think about existence. Who am I and why am I here? This instead of what am I going to catch to eat plus I need to make sure I have shelter and a heat source. There is a bit of a tie in here where at one point in the past human life was a constant adventure, full of adrenaline, and not much downtime. We have tamed that aspect of life and have domesticated ourselves. This has led to civilization, an allowing for philosophy, and to ponder our existence. I was thinking this parallels my experience with Ayahuasca where it was pretty wild at first until I did my best to tame the experience. What I can learn from this is that by taming the experience now the teachings can be accelerated if you stay with the program. It’s a test or a fork in the road where the relationship has evolved and though you may wish to go back and relive those crazy ceremonies it is in fact time to move on to even more advanced lessons. Well there is always more as don Howard likes to say.

When I drank the last cup of Ayahuasca in the summer of 2016 I transformed into a jaguar and it was one of those touchstone moments where I knew the chapter had come to an end and my relationship with Ayahuasca was going to change from here on in. The fear had dissipated and I sensed I could work with the medicine now. I didn’t drink again for two and a half years and when I returned the experience was markedly different. There was no fear, just a little anxiety, but I sensed I could work with Ayahuasca and be partners with her however deep down inside I realize I have to let go because I’m still holding back. If I sincerely want to continue the relationship I have to make the commitment and by commitment I mean I have to let go and dive down deep. I sense there is much more to this but I’ve reached another door that I have to open and venture on into. It is another unknown on this most awesome path and one for the brave who can let go and just venture off onto the path less travelled. It’s like another locked door and an application process that the majority of seekers just move on from instead of putting in the effort or using their senses of perception and intuition to realize that this is just a temporary roadblock on the path and that in order to continue on there is another act of surrender to take place. It is a surrender of strength without a need for fear or to think you are weak. It involves courage to give up control and let another take you into unchartered territory.

She’s inviting me in. My hand is out and I will let her be my guide.

harmonic convergence

On November 5th, 2018 just after 11pm I was standing at my Mesa and it washed over me. I felt it. I am it. I felt her within and I felt the union. I looked into the union of the serpent and the jaguar and saw it. That's me! And I'm everything.

The coming together of the feminine and masculine energies in the form of a harmonic convergence is the most divine. I had an Ayahuasca ceremony that gave me a preview of this way back over four years ago. I had no idea what was going on at the time. Material sexual pleasure did not seem to compare to this and it was just a hint. In this corporeal body I imagine I couldn't handle her.

My idea of god is a process that starts with two seemingly separate energetic fields which we can label as feminine and masculine. When we bring these two together and harmonize their relationship we enable another process of creation. What we create is an expression of unity and that expression is what I have discovered is as close to god as I can ever fathom.

Shiva and Shakti

Then the wave cycle continues and separates. The two lovers depart once again with many tears. There was a deep longing within me to reconnect. I was so lost and I didn’t know what it was. Even when I found her I still didn’t know. Five years after directly encountering my obfuscated other half I finally figured it all out.

I wouldn't have been able to do this without venturing past my comfort level and into the superunknown. In the Amazon jungle I was blessed to come across this other worldly place, encountering an unassuming man who held the keys to the mystery. This great man, don Howard, constructed a place in the jungle called SpiritQuest so that those who are looking for the answer will find it, however it is by no means a requirement. His Mesa, along with the construct and the program you go through, is the crowning achievement of his vision. It's all there in that sublime maloca. The axis Mundi, the serpent entwined with the jaguar, plus the feminine and masculine sides of the construct. We choose a side that calls to us and then are guided to the centre with everyone getting an opportunity to partake of unity. The overall immersive program of the School of Higher Consciousness strikes a balance of the feminine qualities of Ayahuasca preparing you for the masculine energy of Huachuma, all blended together by a maestro in tune with the song of life. Wow.

stopping the world

Self is a byproduct of being aware because you are a flux of awareness and from this state you separate events into objects and recognize self. Recognizing this awareness that you take for granted is quite the experience. Sitting in silent contemplation allows you to be the observer and realize the interconnectedness of everything. Diving down further into this awareness then brings up the question well just who is this doing the observing then? It's a multi-step process to get to that point. No amount of intellectualizing will allow you to grasp this; it is a need to experience this mental state. Start with the recognition that you are putting a spin on all input, then stopping the spin. Then comes mastering the ability to just observe with a pure mind. The pure mind is like a clear lake at dawn before the wind stirs it up. Step back from this and well then just who is this observing? Did I ever tell you you're it? Everything.

I have written before that we attach priority to things we perceive as coming first or that we can dive down into and claim well this is the fount. By this I mean awareness punctuated by desire describes the newborn and gets us close to who we think we really are. However I used the metaphor of a flower to debunk that notion. This modality of thinking steers us into believing the flower is not real because it is the seed that is the true expression of the essence of the plant. The problem is revealed because instead of viewing the process as a unity we looked for an origin. Priority does not equate with some abstract notion of a true self. Continuing to view it as a separate process of different stages is the problem instead of treating it as a whole. It is where all our problems start. We add time to the mix and put everything through a prism that refracts and separates. What I am getting at it is the wholeness of a flower that involves being a seed to a beautiful expression of the energy contained within the seed. All of it is a connected happening unable to be without the total sum of its parts always being one and coming forth and then returning. We only see the stages instead of perceiving the whole. It’s the same with our psyche. Meditating and reducing it into parts will give you clarity which we can process and reduce to separate pieces of the psyche but these parts don't exist without each other and it gives away the unified truth of the matter. Awareness fuelled by desire will give rise to a flowering of the cresting energy that is so vibrant it becomes a field of self, much like the sun, before that energy wanes and returns to the cosmic ocean.

This cosmic ocean is where everything comes from as it is the energy at rest; the trough of the wave. We and everything else are whirling energy. Periodically we rest either on small scale sleep or the big scale of death. We are and we aren't. It's paradoxical. As a whole we are everything and we are an individual come forth. It took me a long time to understand that, especially the preached esoteric concept of the individual self not existing and being able to conceptualize that. It was the plant medicine teacher and great revealer Vilca, along with my great friend Parker, that dispelled me of that notion. The truth is both. It’s true we are one and you and me are conceptually everything but it is also true perceptually that we aren't. We come forth by day into the cycle of appearance and shine individually like the sun. Then we tire of that and return to the all, back to mama, and rest, and then rebirth, and here we go again! We are the ocean and the wave and it all depends on how you want to look at it. We want to define ourself as one or the other and that's where the difficulty comes from. The great wave allows you to think you are separate because you are so far from home. The Tao bequeathed the gift of perceiving individuality and being given freedom to do with it what you will. I really feel separate. Then the wave, the great Tao, takes you back home and you become whole again.

We don't really have an ego, superego, and a base id. We pinpoint when they form in a developing human and then classify and separate. But I ask you: is the flower different from the plant? We are the flower. I am a self that came forth from this process. The energy crests and here I am! Look at me! Where you find creative energy you will find expressions of that energy: flowers, selves, and lightning strikes! We intellectually are snapshots in time and assign our truth to them. This is a flower. But wait, that flower is always undergoing change and pinpointing it is an unchanging expression as such is dishonest. Same with you. So I am and I come forth as a self and then return to unity and become all once again. Always on the move, I am elusive.