long past start

"I wish to confront my destructive dark side in order to get closure on that part of my life and turn it into a strength. It is the reconciliation of Horus and Set warring inside me I wish to confront and turn into a positive."

Before I drank Ayahuasca for the first time I told the shaman of this intention. It’s been a hellish kind of ride but ten years later here we are. Plant medicines will address all your intentions in a reciprocal arrangement if you do the same. The second time I drank Ayahuasca my shadow KO’ed me and the idea of turning this into a positive was long gone at that point. Here I am now marvelling at the relationship I have with my shadow. The fulfillment of this intention was not instantaneous but instead a long and winding road, full of twists and turns. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I strongly encourage recording all thoughts and feelings as much as possible as you embark upon this journey. I knew of my intention to confront my dark side, but I had forgotten the part where I said I wanted to turn it into a positive. Imagine my incredulity when I rediscovered that intention after all that has happened to me; I mean after the initial beatdown, positivity was thrown overboard, and it became a game of survival. I am sure there are many available paths to the seeker; I’ll champion the plant medicine path as supreme. At least it was from my standpoint.

As I take the course offered by the master teacher everything starts to become clear. All the visions and events that scared me silly during my initial foray onto this path have been revealed to be the truth. My shadow was just showing me the truth of the human predicament, albeit in a mysterious and ominous tone, however there was nothing deceitful about it. Why was I scared and why did I run? Well, culture told me I shouldn’t be in these realms; I shouldn’t be interacting with this guy; and even the plant medicine practitioners and guides pointed me towards seeking love and light and leaving this place alone. This place kept returning during ceremony and once I became somewhat used to it, curiosity got the better of this cat.

What became clear is Ayahuasca clearly soaks up the energy and intentions of those around her. This manifested in visions of greed concerning some operators of these experiences in the Amazon. I can remember two clear ceremonies where I was continually being told the Ayahuasca brew is contaminated by greed. It is never la pura medicina. This other recurring vision that was very mysterious is starting to come back to me now as I engage the teachings. It revolves around using people to spread your message and co-opting another’s talents to do just this. It was presented as metaphor, and I see it clearly now. I see how the temptation was always to use those who championed a place, or the medicine were used to attract more people onto the plant medicine path. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that is a bad thing. What is shady is using another’s goodwill and service for your monetary advantage and then discarding them once it’s no longer to your advantage. This was all laid out for me and what do you know? It all played out in this regard. The good part is I can separate the plant medicine from the establishment, so instead of denouncing the supposed troubling aspects of them, I can instead just shake my head once again at human beings.

Because of looking back and seeing the profundity of these early visions, I first need to re-read my notes and afterwards I want to question the axiom about psychedelics and set and setting. As I have mentioned before, I eventually get around to challenging all prejudices. My thinking is that having the “proper" set and setting will help push your experience towards love, light, and bliss. However, using this approach you miss out on the other half of the teachings and to me the compelling part of the drama. It is important to engage all the drama of darkness and the light. I’m suggesting a wide variety of different set and settings and with experience experimenting with different scenarios. For instance, if I want to plumb the depths of my shadow it would seem a quiet and dark place, illuminated by perhaps a candle would work best. Instead of a mindset of unity, love, and light, I would gravitate more towards liberation, separation, and even conflict prior to the ceremony. It’s something to further think about.

This also brings up a funny contradiction concerning this path I walk. If you stay around long enough and hear the chatter you will be witness to these terms thrown about such as unity and liberation. However, if you think about it these two ideals are fundamentally opposed. Liberation is breaking free of an attempt to homogenize you into culture. Liberation allows for reclamation of your true self however fraught with difficulty that idea may be. Culture is in essence trying to unify a group of people. The unity spoken of in plant medicine, well, essentially spiritual circles, involves all of humanity breaking free of divisive tribal groups and coming together as a species. It’s an admirable utopian goal and to me it’s a pipe dream. I think I’m far enough down this path to realize it will never happen and in fact I don’t want it to happen. Incarnation is compelling because of the drama. Utopia is devoid of drama and suffering; it’s akin to spending your reward in heaven floating on a cloud and playing a harp. Forever. Who wants that? In addition, my own growth has accelerated the most during times of crisis and suffering. A little acrimony and separation are good for the soul.

I do sense my shadow has control over external events in order to guide me on the road to who knows where. I trust in him now after many years of conflict. The continuing upset of familiarity along the path causes a bit of consternation. It always takes a few days before I circle back towards knowing that my shadow is behind this fork in the road. To sum up, if I want transformation then entering a set and setting that is comfortable might need a little shake up. If anything, it will allow me to sell the pair of rose coloured glasses I own, and Mother Ayahuasca will not have to address my delusions within ceremony no more. I’m not sure what the next step involves but the plot has indeed thickened, and the apple cart has been upset. I stand back from it and smile. It’s all good. He will shine the light towards the direction to take just like he shone that light to get me to this stage of my development.

kill thyself

Hamlet said the question is: "To be or not to be." My teacher says the question is whether you will, “Kill yourself in order to live." That is the real question Horatio. The master teacher suggested this course of action to me. At this stage in my consciousness journey, I knew what he was talking about. I didn’t take it literally as I might have when I first embraced divine knowledge on this strange voyage; instead, I knew it was metaphor. In order to be free, I need to lose my identity. I cling to my identity, and it drives my behaviour, which in turn allows culture and those close to me to influence my actions because I do not want to let down or deviate from the expectations of my persona that have been created. The teacher stresses to me all the time that if it is liberation I truly seek, I have to let go of the self I have jointly created.

I think we have it wrong. Having a fixed identity is what I’m talking about as identity is the backbone of culture. During a Huachuma ceremony a few years back, I experienced a dissociation with this fixed identity of self, and I was shown a closet full of different suits I could wear. In other words, the vision was revealing I could become or play the part of several different roles available but I, as well as everyone else, always get up in the morning and put on the same damn suit! That was six years ago. My shadow has presented this scenario a number of times; I am not dense so I do get it, but the teaching can get lost in the confusion of life. By this assertion I mean I do finally understand that if I want to be totally free, as in liberated, I have to let go of my identity and in essence kill myself to live. I’ve tasted the fruits of liberation and it’s bliss but I’m hesitant to go all the way because projecting into the future a world without my fixed identity looks like hardship and more suffering. No one said being free is glamorous and it’s undeniably true. I’ve mentioned this before, but I walked past a homeless man and the voice inside me whispered, “He’s free.” Yeah, he is. I’m not sure I’d make that trade though.

What I have come to realize after seeking answers is that you don’t have to identify with identity. Identity is a noun and nouns are dead things. This universe is a verb; it is constantly transforming and defined by motion. The Tao Te Ching teaches us of the watercourse way and to be in harmony with the Tao is to just let things flow. Applying this teaching to the problem of identity and liberation is stunning. In essence, identity is not intended to be fixed but left to transform with the watercourse. When a certain behaviour or predicament no longer serves you, just let it go and have it fall away. Transform like the butterfly. Looking at it from the long game we already do this to a degree. What identified me as a child no longer interests me. My collection of hockey and baseball cards has been gathering dust for about 25 years now! Day to day we can’t see that we do naturally evolve identity, just as we grow our hair, and if we could see it this act would give us permission to just let it go. For sure, it upsets those around you who depend on you being stable in order to add stability to their lives but like a noxious weed this behaviour chokes out your growth. Your evolving identity will eventually be used against you, and you will be labelled an old person and sent to an internment camp or should I say seniors' residence to wait your turn to die.

There’s a line in the movie Fight Club that reminds us, "It’s only after we have lost everything that we are free to do anything." This speaks towards becoming liberated and being told by my teacher to "kill yourself in order to live." Everything you lay claim to, as in attachments, will weigh you down and enslave you to a life dictated by culture. Therefore, you must give it all up and face the destruction of self and the subsequent pain and suffering in order to struggle and create something new. This obviously brings up another question in as men we seem to be locked into this endless struggle to create and destroy but are we not just spinning the hamster wheel? If I destroy the self not of my own making and become liberated, why would I want to create something new that will just devolve into another edifice of control and enslavement? Is what we always return to is the need for autonomy and freedom? If I don’t try to organize my life and to a greater degree society what is the natural flow of things?

Having an identity is playing it small. You become an actor in the play on the grand stage of life but in truth you are much more. To lose your identity is to be that much closer to a realization of who you really are. With plant medicines and psychedelic drugs, the experience sometimes takes you to a mind state called ego death where you find this unity and realize we are all one and this one has many roles to play. Granted ego death isn’t fun and the subsequent paranoia might put a damper upon this realization of bliss but if you do it multiple times, you’ll get used to it. The takeaway from this experience is you are it and knowing all is one means you are that one. You made it happen. This is the road the master teacher is pointing you towards which involves discarding identity to find freedom. To stick a knife in your identity is a major leap of faith. He’s telling me if I give up my ego self, I’ll reclaim knowledge of who I truly am and will in essence become once again the writer and director of the play. I entered my drama and fulfilled my part. I also created a hidden and shady character I now call the master teacher and put him off-limits to all and then spent a lifetime seeking him out. A mythical dragon of sorts. He is an oracle used to confirm my folly and grant me the light to see the doorway out of this story. It’s been quite the ride and a pretty good novel that is reaching its climax.

seeing clearly

Feminine is form. Biological form. Bios. Form is unity. I see it clearly now! The masculine is the great separator. The force that scatters. When dominant, the feminine binds energy together. So, energy consists of these two powers. One power pulls it together to create biological form and the other separates form to create power. Both polarities need each other to do their thing and keep it all moving. Picture each power on its own. There would be the smother mother and the wild and undisciplined rebel without a cause.

This is the eternal dance of the feminine and masculine powers. The two that become the one and from that template become the many. They need each other. Without their opposite attractor they are inactive and ineffective, existing as just potential. When connected, the universe is birthed and comes alive. I have previously written about conceptions of life that were prevalent in Greek thought that we have lost in our Western vernacular and notions of life. I’m referring to biological life, known as bios, and how us westerns view life, in contrast to the Greeks' image of the eternal and indestructible life they called zoë. Further examining these concepts is revealed that bios is form; it is cyclical and therefore subject to the decay of life and death. The power of separation eventually wins out over the attractor of form. Form is the container that allows us to come forth in this universe as a conscious entity. On the other hand, zoë is what enlivens form and gives it the impetus to have the ability to propagate new forms; however, this arrangement will eventually disintegrate the form. It is the feminine that creates the forms from the energy provided by the masculine zoë and in turn the zoë can experience consciousness from the feminine's gift of birth. The feminine serpent creates the world, and the masculine jaguar roams this world. So, you can see without form, the zoë is but potential that is inactive and without the spirit of zoë, the form is inanimate. They need one another to make each other effective. The give and take between the two creates the dance of life and ultimately the universe.

The masculine force is represented by light. Ever think about light? It is just madly flying around the universe as energy until it strikes form. When it hits form, the reaction causes the light to manifest. Think about it. It’s pretty amazing. Light from stars, billions of light years away, eventually reaches us and the light they give off strikes our retinas and we cause it to change its state from potentiality to actually coming into existence. In other words, this is a grand teaching of the ineffectual nature of the masculine force without the feminine force of form to activate it. Our human bodies encapsulate this idea with our biological forms being powered by free floating cosmic energy. The higher evolved among us, the plants, can directly subsist on light. We have to ingest other biological forms and inefficiently extract nutrients in order to survive. I guess our growth was stunted at some point on the evolutionary ride.

The body is the animal. It has needs in order to function which must be met. It is the life force that has desires, and these desires are what lights it up to become effective and attracted to form. The desires are teased out of the masculine by the feminine nature of form and thus connecting with and fulfilling these desires allows the force to materialize. Energy is desire. It’s easy to get addicted to the resultant attraction because of the rush of power, pleasure, and fulfillment provided. The master teaches not to get attached to these powers. He does not teach avoidance but instead mastery. Access them when they come and let them go. The zoë is ineffectual without the feminine and so the hit of desire is the key to power. It’s nitrous oxide for the spirit! The journey is thus realized in that feminine form transforms energy into light. If we could see ourselves in a quantum mirror, we would see a big ball of energetic light.

Desire lights up the world. The pulsing attraction between the inherent duality in all is what keeps the game going. It’s not going anywhere. The answer my friend is to just let it flow. To want and possess goes against the divine and harmonic flow as stated so elegantly by the Tao Te Ching. Freedom is the natural way. We flow with the eternal current and to fight against it is trying to control what just is and will be.

Desire is why we do it. Why we seek power is to fulfill our desires. Desires light us up. My teacher is teaching me liberation which is to free yourself from the attachment to desires. I’ve realized I can’t transcend them, but I have to let them flow. They come, we act on them, and then let them go. What about the desire cycle and its relationship to freedom? In order to break the spell that desires as addiction have over you is a requirement to master the self. Once accomplished, everything falls by the wayside; you can stand back from the situation and see desires come and go. Eventually, you learn that just like needs such as hunger, the wants can be activated, fulfilled, or bypassed and then you move on. A good example that will allow you to realize this predicament is hunger pangs that we experience every day. It’s part of the desire system; however, a necessity for life so we don’t categorize eating as an addiction. It can easily become pathological and there are many non-stop eaters who were never able to integrate this need. Anyway, I eat two meals a day - usually at midday and the other in the evening. My body has become used to this behaviour and when the time is drawing near, I’ll start to feel hunger in my stomach or jittery in my body, especially if I drank a third cup of coffee. I know it’s time to eat or I’ll get a dry mouth, tiredness, and possibly a headache. If I’m at work, I’ll search out food and at home I’ll make a meal. I successfully stave off starvation and satisfy my cravings. I then let it go! I don’t dwell on my apparent addiction to food. This was a very instructive lesson from my teacher. The key to all of this is to not get stuck. Let it flow like the natural flow of energy in the universe. Becoming free doesn’t mean you become an ascetic or renunciate free of desire. Instead, desire appears and having free will and choice, you can do what you wish with desire. If you become addicted to the hit of desire, then you lose your freedom and an external influence controls your actions. See how it works?

The master teacher is relentless and if necessary, he will allow chasing these desires to destroy and kill if you are weak and get addicted to them. Imagine my surprise when I learned my teacher has never transcended desire and that his nature is one who continually seeks out fulfillment of all desire through the liberation process with the catch being none of them stick. Talk about leading by example! He’s really quite the cool guy though he has dragged me through the mud in order to teach me all these lessons. Everything keeps evolving. At one point I thought if I master the self then I can eschew all desires. He let me struggle with that for a while, so I’d learn that you never vanquish them but instead through self-mastery do not let them control you. Express them, do what you have to do, and move on. Don’t get caught. Don’t get hung up with anxiety, depression, shame, obsession, and the like. There are many hooks on the wings of desire to entrap you into its clutches.

Stay free.

pure and holy

What is the meaning of becoming pure and holy? Because of my cultural upbringing, I envision this state as being embodied by one who has transcended all worldly desires. A holy man is a renunciate and an ascetic. Basically, you self-hypnotize in order that the siren calls of the flesh are bypassed. If the adoration of the masses for your beatitude isn’t fulfilling, at least you know that you have a modicum of control over your degenerate self and can run out the clock on this human experiment. You’ll get your reward later.

That’s a pretty crass take on the spiritual path and its propensity for creating hypocrites. Perhaps this is my way of dealing with my own multiple failures? I’m guilty; hell, I still have desires that rise from my depths. What to make of them? That’s a tough one to sit with because I do tend to think they are not rational however they sure do make me feel alive. Suppressing them because of cultural constraints or because of the expectations directed towards one walking a spiritual path seems to go against what I preach. What do I preach? Liberation. Break free of others and their hang-ups they are putting upon you. They are in the same boat but through projection and transference they escape and create an aura around themselves that is impenetrable. You pay the price for the guilt trip they lay upon you. Bad vibes, man.

Being brutally honest is a great exercise. I say give it a try. I walk this path and the signs keep reminding me to be of service. It’s for the good of all and I made a promise to this effect. How much is enough? Really, I’m asking. I can generate wealth and I share it among family members. I’m the rock that keeps that construct rolling. Without me it falls apart. I give without much complaint though I reserve the right to occasionally grumble. I house a pet dog who really has no monetary value and instead I perpetuate her good life through unselfishly giving up my time and wealth to give her comfort. I once thought I was selfish because I’m not 100% of service. There are many paths of service. I think a good rule of thumb is to try and not be an asshole. Our natural tendency to help then blossoms. It’s true - people love to help. Even the stranger stuck on the highway with a broken-down vehicle will have a Good Samaritan stop to help. It’s funny when you look at your life and realize the great sacrifices you have already made for many others. Perhaps a kind word here or there now that you’re an elder will suffice. Sometimes, that is all someone needs for their flower to blossom.

Anyway, what the hell am I getting at in this observational piece? It has to do with becoming pure and holy. I think I have some kind of answer. The answer is to chase and fulfill your desires. Fill your plate full of shrimp at the buffet and gorge on them until you puke. This a method that works because desires come and go like the addiction to the song that is playing in your head. Eventually you tire of it. For sure, you then move on to the next addiction. I understand that’s what we do. Can you see why now that we repeatedly incarnate? The desire is too strong, and we haven’t fulfilled all that tempts us to return. That’s why I’m wary of walking the holy man route. They are going to come back, and the pulse of desire will be even stronger. I say becoming holy and pure is achieved through desire fulfillment. The path I walk is a path of power; well, the paths all lead to power, however one direction results in you using it for gain and fulfilling all your worldly desires. It’s quite the siren call when you see it. A deal with the devil and a surrendering of autonomy will result in your shadow putting you on the path towards self-glorification and acquiring great gobs of power. Imagine given that opportunity! The other path leads toward you becoming power. It’s a longer climb and the road is sometimes foggy. But you are free, and this freedom becomes power. There’s no need to use this power to fulfill desires. Power is no longer a commodity to be used; instead, you are power; you are it.

Knowing you are it leads to another important concept to grasp on the meandering trail. It involves stopping the consuming of self-help and step into your power. There are many kiosks and road-stands set up for you as you walk the spiritual path. For the most part, they contribute to the knowledge base which is very valuable; however, they don’t have the answer and ultimately, they are biased towards their path. The problem is you aren’t walking their path. You’re walking yours. Having a belief in someone else’s beliefs isn’t going to do you a lick of good. What it is you seek is your truth. Your truth is as unique as each falling snowflake. The only way to get to it is to look within yourself and from your perspective you will get the answer. You may not like it, but the destination reveals the truth. The obstacles placed in your path, sometimes in the form of religion, force you to liberate yourself through whatever means necessary. Without this freedom, you never arrive at your truth.

Being pure refers to power lit up by desire; desire being a raging fire that has burned off the dross in the furnace of hell. Power becomes the calm lake at dawn before the events of the day stir up the waves. So peaceful and pure. Being holy is the gift of love from the Goddess. Love tempers power and thus why I walk the pure and holy path to that power.