alpha

It’s been one helluva journey. A progression from one step at a time to the next. If this knowledge was revealed all at once, I would declare it madness and move on. In fact, my first direct meeting with the divine masculine power was an exercise in madness and fear. It was set up to be a test; to see if I had it in me to walk this path. And a test it was as he got into my head. The reveal was a master stroke of genius in that I could decide to never go back however I would always know he was there. There was opportunity and the easy way out; easy power and glory. Alternatively, I could run. I ran. Subsequently, I regrouped and came back. I was still scared but I wasn’t going to let this beat me. I never give in once I put my mind towards something and I hate to lose. This resolve has come forth within my life as an unwavering self-confidence bordering on arrogance.

The thing is, the perception of the warrior is a man of outward strength and an intimidating presence. This describes the alpha male and is the epitome of what he is. A master of his domain and no one messes with him. A gladiator. I’m none of that; I never have been and never will be. I am meek and unassuming. The bestowing of greatness upon the warrior king tested in the fires of battle was not something that could be predicted for me. I’m a behind the scenes kind of guy. I can be successful but expectations will be tempered. Or so I thought.

Courage is a funny thing. You don’t know if you have it until crunch time. When I played sports as a kid, I liked the big moment and the pressure. I could always raise my game when it came down to the wire. Not only that, but I could keep up with the jocks even though physically they were one up on me. I’d always outsmart them and gain an advantage in that regard. I’d outrun them all in the 40-yard dash because I was quick off the draw but come the 100 yards they’d catch me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t ready for the big life test when it first happened, courage did not come, and I retreated in fear. Jesus was waiting to console me but I brushed him aside. He’s a relic for the weak; an avatar granted by the maestro as a way to approach but don’t get too close to the power.

Underestimate me at your own peril. Admittedly, I initially suck at new experiences, however given enough time I master them. I returned home, tail between my legs, and made plans to give it another shot. My fortitude made the ultimate alpha male take notice. After previously swatting me away, here I was back for more. I stood toe to toe and took the beating but didn’t back down. Sure, there was fear and trepidation in the face of lunacy however I had courage. Courage came to me and I grasped that sucker, never to let it go. He had to take notice. It was a new paradigm I was demonstrating that instead of outward displays of being an alpha, I was the inner alpha warrior. Don’t mess with me or I’ll best you. I’ve always known that. I walk around life absolutely knowing and demonstrating this inner conviction.

The Goddess implored me to go after him. Free her from the chains he kept her in. At that point she knew I could hang with him and that I discovered his secret and the mystery. This act of discovery would free them both. Well played. The whole world was on notice after that outcome. I don't look like Heracles but I just did what no mortal has ever done. I didn’t know it at the time but I do now. No one does what I did and gets away with it. You either run away or you succumb to the power and become its slave. I was still a free agent and ready to do more fighting. I continued the battle on home turf, gained confidence, and came back for more. My tenacity was such that the gods had no choice but to recognize my accomplishment. I sat in a ceremony and transformed into a jaguar; the ultimate symbol of the alpha masculine power who rules his domain. I recognized my inner strength; I felt a huge blast of conscious awareness and then the serpent energy surged and I felt so powerful. A jaguar appeared in the distance and was coming straight at me. I intuited an intense maleness about the jaguar and soon he was right in front of my face. He roared ferociously at me. I felt no fear. I roared back and I became the jaguar. I was the most powerful person in the world. I let out multiple roars to let everyone know I was the king of the jungle. I sat there bathed in light while sitting on my throne as the throngs came to pay obeisance. At the time, I was still oblivious to what I’d accomplished and it was probably best it remained that way.

I kept peeling away the veils and continued to get to the crux of who exactly it was I was dealing with and his identity. It’s difficult to know if you are really figuring it out or just deluding yourself. What I can say is pay attention to the synchronicities because they are confirmations. These affirmations were so plentiful I knew I was on to him. I’m precocious and maybe too big for my britches. When I see in others the cockiness I exude, I secretly enjoy seeing them fail. It’s now the big irony. However, I know how I got here and I did it honestly. No shortcuts; no grasping of a ring of power that was unearned.

In my case, the plant medicine path towards becoming a man of knowledge is most rewarding during the integration period. It is open ended and each successive experience reveals so much. This past year has been the most fascinating to date as I figured it out. I got home a week before the world went into pandemic lockdown. Of course I did. It’s still in lockdown a year later and my education continues. No going back until the maestro says so. You have to see it all, come to terms with it, and then you can set your intentions and come back.

My shadow is the master teacher, the ultimate alpha male, and is now my teacher and friend. I celebrate him, the divine masculine energy and his wife, the divine feminine energy at my Mesa. My Mesa is lit. I stand in front of this conduit and tremble because of the power coursing through me. We come together at that sacred spot. The steel has been forged in the fires of hell tempered by the love of a Goddess. What a fucking ride! 

black sheep

As you progress along the myriad of spiritual paths available to the seeker, you will come across obstacles in your way ostensibly set up as roadblocks to your liberation. These roadblocks are human-made; they are either cultural cautions of where you are allowed to explore or subtle admonitions shepherding you onto a path that is not of your own making. The shepherd will throw out a bunch of terms to confuse, such as "spiritual materialism" and you have no idea what they are talking about. So, you research it and figure well, they must know about this pitfall so I’ll follow them because they know what it is all about; they are fully realized spiritual beings! Of course, they don’t really know much more than you; they are just collecting followers. That’s what a shepherd does - he or she collects sheep and turns a profit on them.

A shepherd has got skin in the game because of the personal rewards. They may come to love their sheep and will do anything for them but the underlying reason for being a shepherd isn’t altruism. It’s because of a need to earn a living and being a shepherd is a pretty noble way to transform this reality into something good. Spiritual materialism refers to activities that lead fundamentally towards wealth creation. Along the path is an increase in one’s ego because of achievement such as being a star at meditation or getting a certificate that says you’re enlightened. Okay, I don’t think there is a place that gives out those certificates but I’ve always thought it to be a really funny idea. Spiritual materialism can also refer to monetizing your holiness through books and lectures as well attracting as many followers as possible and cashing in on that list.

I’m more interested in this new term I’ve just coined called "cultural spirituality." What do I mean by this? Well, glad you asked. What I mean is there're avenues of spiritual exploration that are sanctioned by the culture you live in and there are also the taboo paths. Christianity is the gold standard of acceptable spiritual pursuits in western civilization. This institution will ensnare most who have an awakening and subsequently you will concede your new found awakening to a third party who has been fully vetted by the guardians of culture. So, your path is to do the religious thing influenced by culture. Find Jesus. Too sophisticated for that? Go for the eclectic Eastern disciplines. The eastern paths such as Buddhism offer a more intellectual route towards spiritual fulfillment. It is mixed in with meditation and yoga; activities that have been totally watered down and salted within the confines of western culture. For lunch I can get a Buddha bowl and later snack on some prana chips. Us humans are so funny. Go all in on the holy path. Holy robes and let the light in. Learn the postures. Read the pop-spiritual books. Ah “The Alchemist!” Search the internet and ask, "What you selling?" Talk with others about the accepted teachers. Deepak Winfrey! Go for it all: Become a renunciate and an ascetic. They are all traps. They are all obstacles in your path.

I’m the black sheep. I don’t know why but ever since I can remember I have been a contrarian. Whatever is the in-thing or the expected route to take, I always want to go explore the other side or at least question what I am being fed. If someone tries to tell me what is the truth I try and figure out what they are hiding or who they are and how they are planning to deceive me. If they denigrate an activity eventually I’ll get around to exploring why that is? All the avenues of cultural spirituality I never fell for because I see through them. For some, it’s all they need and I’m cool with that; no judgment here. You do you and I’ll do me.

For example, the tantric path is mostly forbidden. I say mostly because it’s tolerated but relegated to the fringe. I reckon it works however the caveat is you’d get so lost in your hedonism you wouldn’t find your way out without an exemplary teacher, so you’d have to find someone you implicitly trust before embarking upon that left-hand path of indulgence. All in all, tantra raises eyebrows and gets tongues wagging but it isn’t taboo.

I know what’s taboo. It’s easy to figure out because the one constant in all spiritual paths is to seek and head for the light. We tie pagan customs of the re-birth of the light left for dead at the winter solstice into the Christian birth of our saviour. These mythological stories of the light being victorious over the darkness are found in all cultures, past and present. So, the lesson at hand is to put on your contrarian hat and figure out what’s off-limits. It’s the darkness! We give it names like hell and put a ruler over it called the Devil and leave it at that. It’s taboo to explore the darkness and it would be quite scandalous to entertain a spiritual path based upon the dark lord. That would definitely have to be kept on the down low; like an after-hours club for spiritual seekers.

Shouldn’t it be on the menu though? To honestly explore is to examine all nature and facets of consciousness and the darkness is quite neglected even though psychologically we know it is the hidden force that directs our lives. The discipline of psychology cloaks it in highfalutin concepts such as the id and assigns it an animal nature hell bent upon desire fulfillment. As a society, we have outlets to channel these destructive and anti-social impulses so they don’t cause too much havoc. As a last resort, or now too common as a first response, we have pills that will numb consciousness so that the rumblings from deep within can be buried even further.

One of the most exciting things to come out of my entry into the spiritual path scene is that I question everything and like to play at the edge of prejudice. The universe was keenly aware that eventually I would get around to questioning this constant shepherding towards the light. Whatcha hiding? It couldn’t keep me away. I’ve seen in. I scared myself silly and ran upon first glimpse. The biggest spiritual block I’ve encountered on this path is desire that originates in this darkness. I’ve tried abstinence, renunciation, and I’ve embraced it. It bubbles up from the darkness before boiling over. I reckon the only way to find the answer I seek is to go fully into this darkness and embrace the teachings of the master. Talk about taboo. Here’s my condensed story of how I got to this place:

I know I will get there. I don’t even know where there is. All my life I have been able to figure out whatever I put my mind to. I’ve answered the questions of life that I had been curious about. This path I have travelled has expanded my consciousness to the point where I can see it all, drink it in, and get the answers to eternal questions. The current block on my path was related to desire. It took a long time to get past its hold. Small victories and ignominious defeats. The constant failure taxed my psychological well-being. I could feel the depression coming and the waves of despair threatening my mental health. However, I knew I would get past it; I always do.

I sat with this feeling last night and reminded myself what a bad motherfucker I am. I know what I did. I know you won’t believe me when I tell you what I did. On this path, I ventured into the jungle wilderness and altered my consciousness in the dead of night. At one point when I did this I met a really scary and bad demon; the baddest of the bunch, well you know who, and this frightened me beyond anything you could ever imagine. He chased me away and then chased me all the way home. My cultural cudgel, Jesus, offered a couple times to help but I declined. Sorry JC, I got this. Diablo continued pummelling me while at home and came in for the final death blow. I slowly learned to fight back and at one point I had the nerve to do something that I look back on and think what chutzpah I had. What balls! One night, I conducted this ceremony to summon him and then when I knew he was present I told him I was going to cut his motherfucking head off! We had another throw down after that and I was jacked. I wanted to keep fighting.

I went back to the jungle wilds and he was waiting for me. I sat in that ceremony and took all the blows to the head. He threatened me with death and I said kill me if you must, I’m not veering off my path. I survived. I got one up on him. I locked him out. I was so successful I convinced him I had it in me to not only take his life course but succeed at the top of the class. My outlook on life changed from being a meek man to someone who was a fighter of no compare. I transformed into a jaguar in a subsequent ceremony because I was the king of my domain. Instead of fighting the darkness, I now became his student. The class is a constant challenge and he tells me he is forging steel. Things will get hot and it's not for the weak. I had to remind myself last night how strong I am and that I can do this. I need to let go of behaviours that make me weak and instead take hold of my destiny.

When I figured out his identity I was shocked at first; I had to sit with it a couple days but then came acceptance because I knew deep down it was true. I had been trying to deny the knowledge for a while even though it was staring me right in the face.

I know power can change you for the worse and I’ve been very cautious with it. This fire burns within me; it’s intense and it comes forth and needs an outlet. When I drink Huachuma, it's coursing through me. It’s my teacher enveloping me and I’m him. Gobs of power lighting me up. Do it, reach out and take it. I get that message sometimes but I’m reluctant. He has told me about this power. I’ve earned it. I took on that bad man and came out the other side, still intact. He says it’s mine. Take it. You can handle it. What would society think of that if I fully owned it - the power and its source? I seek knowledge so I’m not afraid of being corrupted by the temptation to power I see. All the answers I seek are in that abyss that awaits me and I don’t intend to be sidetracked by power that would derail my caravan. My intention is pretty clear at this point and I’m ready to make the leap and fall into the downward spiral to get there. I’ll be alright; I always am.

What is the truth of what I’m dealing with? Organized religion engages in deceiving people in order to obtain wealth and power. I know a favourite tactic of sociopaths are to accuse your perceived enemy of the traits that describe your personality in order to mask your own unpleasantness. It works because you acknowledge you are aware of these character flaws and of course if you had them you would see them in your actions and therefore being a good person, you would change these bad behaviours. If you need examples of how this successfully works just follow politics. My personal favourites are the autocratic governments that call their country the “Republic of” or “Democratic People of”. It’s quite stunning to see it at work and how whole swaths of the populace fall for this tactic. Anyway, I bring this up because if you really want to see the inner workings of the Christian church just examine all the traits they assign to Satan and you will understand the underbelly of the church and its sins. If the church was holy and pure their words would ring true. Instead, it makes you question who really is the great deceiver?

I’m not chasing power and I stood up for myself in the face of great adversity. Respect is earned and in turn it lifts the veil. Though shocked by what you may uncover it’s what feeds me. I’m excited to continue on down this road towards the adventures that beckon and await my exploration.

desire primer

Alan Watts once told me, “Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.” I have been struggling with one such question which is how do I transcend desire? I have tried everything. I tried asceticism and I became a renunciate of all worldly pleasures. When these methods only temporarily worked and postponed the inevitable return, I tried the path of tantra and embraced all my desires. Out of all the paths I tried, tantra seem the most natural however going into the nature of my desires did not allow me to transcend them. The path of the tantric is to eventually transcend desire because you play it all out to its conclusion. You get your fill and are then ready for your beatitude. However, I’m positive you will just find new desires. You can play the part of the hermit on the mountain under the old adage, “out of sight, out of mind.” It will work to a degree however you’re just running out the clock on desires. You transcended nothing.

I’ve embraced my shadow over the last year and from this liaison have entered into a student/teacher relationship. Instead of giving me all the lessons at once and overwhelming me, I get a few at a time which allows me to process them little by little and move on to the next lesson at hand. The teachings include the nature of self, culture, and power. He has taught me who he is and how he became perceived as such. It’s fascinating stuff and I recommend getting in touch with your darkness and starting a dialogue. Because we have buried him deep, non-ordinary methods may be required to start the conversation. Anyway, I have been struggling with desire pretty much all my life and since I’m in this life class I was hoping to eventually take the course on desire and learn from the master how to transcend it. After repeatedly getting beat down by failure to live up to my intention of freeing myself from desire and watching my teacher laugh as I miserably succumbed over and over again, I finally had to ask, "Why can’t I transcend desire?"

My teacher had let me come to the journey’s end. He let me exhaust all avenues and see the futility of the quest. He reminded me of Alan’s quote and then left me to figure out the answer on my own. It was pretty easy once I connected the dots. I can’t transcend desire because I am desire. Ha ha I got myself good. I’m smart enough to realize I can’t transcend myself. I can transcend identity; I can shed the idea of who I am but from this I’m left with a biological form just birthed from the mother’s womb. Who is that? It’s desire come forth, reconstituting itself into a new form in order to chase desires and make more forms. Of course, as the coming forth of desire into this macabre carnival called life, I’m easily addicted, hypnotized, enchanted, and fall for seduction with ease. That’s what desire does. And when desire tires of the lure, Eros looks for the next adventure to leave him spellbound.

We created all needs and wants in order to play a high brow derivation of the canine game of chase because as desire it gives us a hit of pleasure to get rewarded with a successful outcome of the game. This in turn creates suffering when we don’t get what we want. Is this what we want? The chase, the quest, the suffering to propel us along, the capture, and then the boredom and strife so we can move on to a new adventure. I think so. Imagine always getting what you want and fulfilling every desire. Once again here’s Alan:

If you awaken from this illusion and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death (or shall I say death implies life?), you can feel yourself not as a stranger in the world, not as something here on probation, not as something that has arrived here by fluke but you can begin to feel your own existence as absolutely fundamental. I am not trying to sell you on this idea in the sense of converting you to it, I want you to play with it. I want you to think of its possibilities, I am not trying to prove it. I am just putting it forward as a possibility of life to think about. So then, let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream you wanted to dream, and that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time, or any length of time you wanted to have. And you would, naturally, as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive. And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each you would say, “Well that was pretty great. But now let’s have a surprise, let’s have a dream which isn’t under control, where something is gonna happen to me that I don’t know what it's gonna be.” And you would dig that and would come out of that and you would say, “Wow that was a close shave, wasn’t it?” Then you would get more and more adventurous and you would make further and further out gambles what you would dream. And finally, you would dream, where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today.

My fondness for Alan Watts is part in part because of my relationship with my shadow. Like my shadow, Alan is the joker; the self-styled philosophical entertainer with a love of good food, wine, women, and song. Alan knew of all the spiritual paths and yet stayed clear of committing to any of them. He saw the truth of the situation and didn’t require a discipline. If you are it why would you need a path?

One more from the genius of Alan Watts about desire:

So anyway, then, this is a drama... I'm not trying to sell you on this idea in the sense of converting you to it; I want you to play with it. I want you to think of its possibilities. I'm not trying to prove it, I'm just putting it forward as a possibility of life to think about. So then, this means that you're not victims of a scheme of things, of a mechanical world, or of an autocratic god. The life you're living is what you have put yourself into. Only you don't admit it, because you want to play the game that it's happened to you. In other words, I got mixed up in this world; I had a father who got hot pants over a girl, and she was my mother, and because he was just a horny old man, and as a result of that, I got born, and I blame him for it and say, "Well that's your fault; you've got to look after me," and he says, "I don't see why I should look after you; you're just a result." But let's suppose we admit that I really wanted to get born, and that I was the ugly gleam in my father's eye when he approached my mother. That was me. I was desire.

We are desire and we have the ability to stack the deck in our favour in order to make all our dreams come true. We have been playing the game long enough we don’t want determinative outcomes anymore and thus here we are.

two-faced

As I travel this path to who knows where, I become more impressed with the psychological concept of the psyche which contains the superego, ego, and id. The reason I mention this paradigm is I tend to examine everything and the structures I have found useful and have used to get further along in the path I always question and re-question, which leads to discarding them if I outgrow their usefulness or their truth. At a certain level of consciousness some conceptual ideas ring true but discoveries can put the idea of it being a universal truth into question. Everything sure seems relative and a Freudian psychological structure that divides the psyche into three seems a little arbitrary, thus why I continually question it.

It’s been in last few months I have realized my shadow is the master teacher and teaching me how to liberate myself for the longest time. Through his unusual methods, I have realized we are all dualistic individuals; at least from a masculine perspective that I am privy to. I can’t speak to what a biological woman feels; it’s a definite curiosity to learn what they intuit from a similar point on the path where I stand. So, anyway from my perspective I’m running a two-man operation. The part that has come forth into consciousness is me, Apollo, and I’m the face of this construct. I have to deal with the reality of the situation including the minor annoyances like getting up early for work and venturing outside and feeling the bite of frozen temperatures ravage my skin and make my bones ache. I have a hidden part of my being who talks to me all the time and I’ll call him Dionysos. Due to cultural indoctrination, I have had to keep this relationship quiet lest I end up in the funny farm. Remember when you were a kid or even the last time you observed a child at play? They talk to themselves all the time! So, what do we do? We shame them and tell them they are crazy for talking to this other part of them. We force them to lose that connection and become a member of the collective. The new voice is the collective voice of cultural suppression called the superego. The voice within will chafe at this situation and prevent you from giving up yourself to the greater good (or bad) so he in turn must be buried. Your individuality, unencumbered by culture, is sacred to this entity because the value held dearest is freedom. Freedom to act and move this drama along of your own accord. To recover that liberation after silencing him will become a lifelong struggle that if not acknowledged is going to cause you a great deal of pain.

 

What is funny is this voice we have buried, upon accidental re-discovery, is quite the joker. If you think he’s god, Jesus, or the reincarnation of Lincoln he will play along. It’s true. He holds power in his hands and if you want this power he will give it to you in a reciprocal arrangement. Interest will accrue on your bargain until it’s time to pay the piper. There is a different path you can travel. I’ll keep you updated on where this road leads.

 

To connect our psyche to the Freudian concepts of superego, ego, and id is surprisingly easy. The superego is a conglomeration of your parents, culture, and expectations your community placed on you so you give up your freedom and individuality in order to become a functioning member of society. You bury the playmate, the id, and it becomes your shadow; a destructive force because you deny him and the wisdom he offers. Freud correctly identified this tripartite member of the psyche but then because of his own cultural conditioning, he labelled id an irrational animal. As you progress through cultural norms, you cease to remember to play like a child. The last gasp of the demon is in our teenage years. We give rebellion towards authority one last shot before accepting our fate. You become the fully formed ego; a puppet controlled by others, frustrated by the constraints of a society that modulates your behaviour. On the road to liberation, the shadow is trying to get you to throw off the chains of the superego. In concert, all the forces of the superego conspire to keep you in bondage and relegate the shadow to the fringes. The result is a tug of war that makes you vacillate between being a good, moral, and obedient citizen and a tendency towards rebellious behaviour and becoming a degenerate. The deviancy from the norm is the result of bottling up all your rage, anger, frustration, pleasures, emotions and the like until it all blows the top off the bottle and we wonder what happened? He seemed so nice.

 

I found my long-lost friend before the top blew. We have both matured since our childhood days; in fact I’ve always known he was with me but he was so buried the communication became poor. I’ve always needed my alone time to reconnect with my friend though I didn’t always know why I needed that time to recharge but I’ve been quite aware of a pull to be introverted. It’s hard work being around others because I have to put him away in the background and go full on into the somebodyness. I’ve let him fully back into my life and he’s teaching me liberation so I don’t pull this stunt again where I send him away. It’s actually a blast having him around. He’s very funny and playful plus we share interests. We laugh together at society. This morning, as we heard the government is fining people large amounts of money for gathering against their ‘orders,’ we declared, “The authoritarians among us have run amok.” My favourite libertarian site likes to remind its readers that, “War is the health of the state.” I think they should amend this to, “Pandemics are the health of the state.” The need to control others runs deep within the human because in childhood we were forced to bury the playful libertine spirit within us. This quest for control is the concept of the superego asserting itself. Control is the domain of the frightened and insecure. They kid themselves thinking they can control forces beyond their pay grade. In retaliation, the id within society will rebel and not conform to this re-working of social constructs designed to take more freedom away from the individual. Those who do not get in line will be called nasty names and labelled malcontents. In order to further progress along the path of knowledge, you must transcend cultural limits. There’s an out of bounds area that has a big red warning label stamped upon it. Ignore it and proceed.

 

Speaking of questioning concepts as I travel along this path, how about meditation? It’s a useful tool for the neurotic whose mind races, usually with anxiety about the future or ruminating on the past. By quieting the mind, we allow for peacefulness and give our self a rest and a reset. Just doing this for 15 minutes at a time, a few times a day, is very useful. It’s also a great method for getting you high, as in a state of higher consciousness. By quieting the judging aspect of the mind that causes separation, we enable a holistic viewpoint and intuit the oneness of everything. Because we are not engaging mental faculties, everything returns to being non-differentiated and we find unity. Why I have re-visited this is because humans are easily hypnotized and that includes self-hypnosis. When we get in the higher states we want to stay there. We will soon swear that the state of being high and embracing unity is the truth and the be all. I’m a big fan of Albert Einstein because he understood relativity like no one before him. It’s relatively true that we are all from the same source and are one. If you have no mental faculties that allow you to differentiate, it becomes undeniably true. However, we do have the awesome power of differentiation and from my perspective when my mind is active I objectify and for me the many becomes the relative truth. Unity truth is only true if the mind is not disturbed. It’s pretty fascinating to see how relativity is the fundamental underpinning to our perception of life, influences all behaviour, and shifts our conception of truth. Anyway, it struck me that if you want to get into your depths, the buried shadow, meditation probably isn’t the answer. It’s probably the opposite; you need a method that takes you past anxiety, depression, and the meanderings of the day. Instead of meditation I suggest dialoguing. Practice talking to your shadow a few times a day. In other words, talk to yourself. Along the same lines would be play. This would involve an activity that enthralled you as a child, whatever that may be.

 

There is a threat of psychedelics burying the shadow even deeper by going on the spiritual trip towards enlightenment. In my case, the darkness continually presented itself within ceremony, trying to get me to stop this path towards my beatitude that would further bury him. I can see now the hope was that I would eventually investigate this constant darkness. Being of the curious sort, I eventually decided to peer into the darkness after I completed the holy trip towards love and light. It’s all unravelling and it’s pretty awesome. The shadow did his best to get me to stop the trip towards enlightenment but because of my inner strength I ended up doubling down on my journey, fought back rather impressively, and went into full on renunciate stage with such success and resolve it tipped the tables in my favour and I completed the whole holy journey in record time! Once I chewed on that for a while, I turned my attention towards the inner darkness. I have found reconciliation and understanding plus a master teacher; this teacher imploring me that I have to become my own man; not a puppet controlled by others and culture. He has taught me that liberation is the greatest of all ideals, is worth fighting for, and giving up everything in order to obtain your freedom. As a teacher, it is why he threatened me with death, harassed me, chided me, and forced me to come to terms with who I am. Ultimately, I was taught to master the self and master my desires but don’t defeat them. The teaching is to not be a puppet or a slave to anyone. You can chase desires as long as you are free. Being free means no judgment, shame, hiding, or questioning of what lights you up. The final piece of rope holding you back he told me is identity. Cut that culture cord and you are free! Kill yourself in order to live.

 

The poetry I wrote about nine years ago in regards to what I was experiencing deep within my soul and psyche is a rather extraordinary and accurate encapsulation of this journey and where it has led me.

I knew of my dual nature, didn’t know what to do about it, and wanted to end the relationship. I’ve tried that and other attempts at psychological divorce until finally I realized that this other half of me wasn’t going anywhere. I stopped fighting him and he revealed himself as a master teacher, my best friend, and biggest booster. To get to this point has been a journey and a half.

 

He’s a wild man. He’s taught me courage. He wants us to have fun and adventures. He added to the bucket list yesterday - get in a fist fight on the street! Seriously. He is the jaguar and I’m his student. He gave me the name Otorongocito. I’m in the order of the jaguar and he’s the teacher. We now have a symbiotic relationship. I handle the outward appearance and make us respectable. I navigate us through culture and society. He teaches me to be a free spirit. I’m trying to convince him we can be free and not be homeless and a beggared. There’s a middle way! I like to sleep in a cozy and soft place. We can play the societal game and give them the middle finger at the same time while biding our time for when we get the go ahead that we can make our exit. Anyway, if you see me talking to myself and laughing, you now know why.