waking to the mystery

The mystery deepens when you think you are figuring it all out. The final destination of the inveterate seeker leads to looking within after exhausting the search to find the answer in the external world. The search for god only culminates when you look into the mirror. In fact all the gods and goddesses of yore are aspects of what's inside. I like to explore the relationship within between Apollo, the god of logic and reason, with the rascal and joker Dionysos, who makes this game worth the candle sometimes to the detriment of one's well being and invites in the suffering. Suffering, as the Buddhists like to remind us, is the product and result of desire. Cut out desire they say and you will no longer suffer. It's the ultimate koan. Desire not to desire! You know what else besides suffering you can cut out by not desiring? Happiness! We live in a world of duality and everything has its corollary. Once there was good in the world there became bad and we started separating all and objectifying the differences. Light intuits darkness. Suffering entails happiness. The universe is brought into existence by desire so if you want this to all go away then stop desiring. Is happiness worth the suffering? That's an answer I will leave up to you.

I leave for the Amazon in three days to continue my relationship with the plant teachers. This journey will take me into the Andes mountains to the great meeting place of antiquity in pre-Columbian South America where all was reconciled in the temple of the jaguar at Chavín de Huántar. By chance I happened upon a talk given by Gabor Maté, who is a doctor that uses Ayahuasca as part of his treatment of patients with addictions and diseases which are the product of culture and the environment, thus understanding the relationship between mind and body and how it is the major contributor to disease. Anyways towards the end of the talk he relates a story about a woman who came to the Amazon for healing and was upset she wasted her money because all she saw in her visions was a psychedelic elephant. Poor lady had no idea! I have seen this elephant and knew enough that I realized he was Sri Ganesha, the remover of obstacles in your path.

When I conquered fear and had undeniable courage then Ganesha appeared. It was a curious reminder of his influence in my life and a highlight of my time with plant teachers. He always puts me onto the path of where I need to go. We all get lost at times but as long as you maintain your relationship to Ganesha you will find the way back home. For me now SpiritQuest is home.

Last night I had a pretty vivid dream that was pretty fresh in my mind. As the alarm clock for work went off, the story was still unfolding and I was disappointed it didn't get to play out. I dreamt about Mapacho. I was with a fellow traveller and we were in a store that sold different kinds of oddities and we were talking about Mapacho. He went to the back of the store and came back with a case of Mapacho and I was shocked that this place sold it. There was a huge blunt of it and I wondered what the result of smoking that whole cigar would entail? I envisioned a Mapacho coma of a long duration. The store we were in was from my youth; a memorable place called Playtime. I loved that store as I remember it having pretty eclectic candy and toys you wouldn't find anywhere else. You could buy two mojo toffees for a penny.

The fact that Mapacho appeared in my dream is pretty interesting. What I mean is that it is through my relationship with my ally Mapacho that I dream so vividly every night. It is the catalyst for my night time psyche creating worlds of unspeakable complexity that just appear out of nothing. I have no idea how I do it and then I insert myself into the dream. I have adventures and live out fantasies. Playtime. This giant blunt of Mapacho caused me to wonder what would be the effects of smoking the whole cigar? Obviously the answer is where I am now.