balancing act

Why are rock stars, movie stars, and athletes more famous than scientists, doctors, and intellectuals? Well because subconsciously we recognize that life is just a game and a performance, whether tragedy or comedy, and that the divine actor, the sublime stage performer that can move us to tears, is the greatest legend of all time. Dionysos is the greatest of them all. We need Apollo and his reason to push us forward in our evolutionary climb but when it comes down to it, our humanity, our triumphs and sorrow, the need for love and inclusion is from the greatest of them all. Euoi!

Dionysos is present in all of us; most of us just choose to bury him, treat him as an outcast, use him as a scapegoat, all the while occasionally letting him out when we alter our consciousness through our drug of choice or are seduced by the passions of life. Suppressing Dionysos can lead to outbreaks of madness and violence when the lid finally blows off the pot. I know Dionysos is always with me and I have struggled with that my whole life. I’ve told him to leave me alone, go away, I’ve suppressed him on my quest for enlightenment. He never left; he is always there. I say he but he should actually be qualified. He’s more like a he she, hermaphrodite, the all. Unity is darkness. The light separates and gives rise to self. Our deepest and darkest desires come from the darkness and is the impetus that gives rise to self.

I’ve been avoiding something I need to come to terms with for about six years now. When I first went down to the Amazon and drank Ayahuasca I set a couple of intentions for my first foray into the great unknown of self and its correlate no self. I wanted to meet the Goddess who was calling to me and secondly I wanted to face up to my dark side. Two ceremonies later both intentions were realized. The Goddess came to me with Love and forgiveness in the first ceremony and then in the second ceremony I scared myself beyond belief and came face to face with my dark side. It was so unsettling and I have never come to terms with it though I have many times tried to figure out what happened. It was so strange and hypnotic at times. So hypnotic that I can kind of still see it in my mind's eye yet I cannot fully reform it or capture what exactly it was. If you asked me to explain it I couldn’t. So strange. Like being trapped in this weird hell and in subsequent ceremonies this is the darkness that would reappear reminding me to not do this anymore; stay within the false comfort of ordinary consciousness. That darkness stayed with me through all my Ayahuasca ceremonies up until this past visit in March of 2019. The darkness had vacated and my ceremonies contained none of my former struggles.

I know why. First of all through experience I knew now how to navigate the experience. Secondly it is partly because I had levelled up, embraced and became the jaguar, and shunted fear aside but truthfully it’s because in the two and a half years between Ayahuasca ceremonies I came to terms with Dionysos and started reintegrating him back into my life after sending him away. Constant reminders to play such as when I went to Peru in late 2017 on a mission to complete the climb up the mountain with the plant medicine Huachuma were part of it and a deep understanding that he isn’t going anywhere. I’m at a crossroads now where I know I can’t suppress him yet I know that if I give him free reign it will lead to my destruction. Cautionary tales in the life stories of Jim Morrison and Freddie Mercury, though I’m by no means a rock star, are a good indication of where reckless hedonism leads to. I know balance is the key but what about a teacher of that balance? I have found it is either or. I can’t discipline myself without sending him away. I’ve entered into a strong cycle of self-discipline now, one where I’m absolute in my intentions, and it is going to be this way and go on for a while now. I’m afraid of banishing Dionysos away again and seek to integrate. When he comes back he’s going to fuck up my life. I will have to ask him for guidance.