highs and lows

I know from experience that the best lessons, knowledge, and learning from a plant medicine experience come from the challenge. The direct within ceremony aspect of the extreme alteration of consciousness presents as cyclical highs and lows. This paradigm follows what you experience in daily life in a condensed manner. With Ayahuasca, the intense phase lasts for about five hours. When I sink into the depths and feel discomfort plus fear during the ceremony I react to the challenge. At first, I warn myself to stay away from these drugs as the upset is too much. I resist the darkness and the unveiling of negative influences upon me and the negativity I project upon others. This part of the experience does pass. I ascend to a blissful state of awareness and bask in the glow that has enveloped me. Because of this outcome, I participated in more plant medicine ceremonies. I can minimize the terrible lows, blocking out how bad it made me feel, and balance the alteration of consciousness. I have done this enough that I'm quite aware of the process and how I handle it. Without the lows teaching me, I'd have moved on. I always threaten to move on from these substances because of the darkness but that is the mystery that gnawed at me and made me come back for more.

Ayahuasca is more intense than Huachuma. The difference is the duration and mobility. In my experience Huachuma is about a twelve-hour trip with a strong dose. You can get out in nature and potentiate the intoxication with life. The group dynamic becomes key and the sharing and caring aspect of the plants comes into play. Ayahuasca floors you and sticks you to the ground. The mareación is a drunkenness of the body which precludes much moving around unless threatened by gastrointestinal distress.

My use of the plants has been a ten-year odyssey. Each substance comes on in a peculiar way and has predictable effects. What I have noticed however is that the commonality is the alteration of your vibration which then causes the highs and lows. The effects of Ayahuasca and Huachuma upon the body are vastly different and I have noticed along with Mushrooms, Tobacco, Peyote, Vilca, and Toé that it's the changing of consciousness which is the pinnacle of these experiences. Furthermore, I can extrapolate this out into my everyday existence. My life is a trip. It's a dream where I have locked myself into a frequency and live out a life in a common universe with others who have locked to the same frequency. A wholesale change in vibration will gain you access to obfuscated modalities of existence which I can definitely call different dreamworlds. Everything is here and now. It all exists right here and our perception and perspective determine our reality. The energy is all shared and we shape the drama according to our rate of vibration. Pretty cool huh? That means what I do here in this plane can affect the energetic signature that is reshaped in another consciousness plane or vice versa. When we tire of this play or wear out our welcome in the story, we perish. We leave this soap opera for the new cast of characters and move on in the story of our lives. We liberate our energy, break free of the hypnotic capture of our awareness, and regain a sense of our omnipotence in this multiverse. I like to think we have a purposeful purposelessness. I mean there is nothing to fear in terms of annihilation but a lot to learn in terms of love.

When taking plant medicines, it often feels like a waking dream. Silent Lucidity as the 90's band Queensrÿche would say:

It's a place where you will learn

To face your fears, retrace the years

And ride the whims of your mind

Commanding in another world

Suddenly you hear and see this magic new dimension...

Eventually, this life will start to feel the same way as a plant medicine journey and the parallels will become obvious. Life is a visionary experience full of those same highs and lows you experience in the storm of a psychedelic. They just play out over a longer period of time. The big picture is to get the high, there must be a low. There's no escape from this. The rollercoaster of life just doesn't go as fast as the one at the mindfuck carnival. The great cosmic white knuckle sleigh ride (Hi don Howard and Parker!) seems more in control. The lessons of a life lived are found in the down times - you know those depressing times that go on for what seems forever where sometimes you wonder if you will ever get out of them. You are searching for the light which will get you back to the high of life, trying to escape the pit. Deep down we know hell is going to transform us, but I always resist.

It's all what you and I wanted. It's why we came here. The challenge is what will allow the growth. Nirvana will make you fat and lazy - an eternal couch potato. The struggle and the pain are the elixir of adventure. Adventure in the divine playground awaits.

Living twice at once, you learn

You're safe from the pain in the dream domain

A soul set free to fly

A round trip journey in your head

Master of illusion, can you realize

Your dream's alive, you can be the guide...