mirror of unvarnished truth

Huachuma in retrospect is divinatory. That's quite the statement because you can't verify the fortune telling while in the medicine. It's just a chaotic storm of happenings which you get swept up in. In the coming months to follow what was revealed plays out. There's still a choice in the matter but you see the result because chances are the choices you are going to make are all part of the lesson plan. They have been baked into the unveiling of who you are. It is truly the mirror of unvarnished truth.

On the plant medicine path, a lot of us become spiritual. It's a natural occurrence because of the profundity of the visions which connect you to your inner world. This world is full of the archetypes found in world religions. It's all there. God, Devil, suppressed Goddess, angels, and demons. We put on airs and graces because we have seen the truth. We know! These plants are relentless and reveal to you your blatant hypocrisy. Yeah, sure, you know - we are going to test you out. Not only that but we will show you the result of your actions, give you a choice in the matter, and then see what you do.

So, what makes Huachuma good at showing you the future? I believe it's because we all have the capacity ourselves and over time, we have just lost it from disuse. Time is illusory and everything is an unfolding of the now. Releasing yourself from time allows you to see the big picture. When you drink a couple full cups of cactus juice the result is a potentiation of energy. Energy is not bound by time. This potentiation magnifies everything within. For most plant medicine drinkers of Huachuma this is reflected in the environment. The earth is breathing, the air is thick, the sun creates jewelled reflections everywhere, and the trees are alive and saying hello. As nightfall descends, the stars become gemstones in the sky. We become more of an open book to others. We have laser focus on our life, where we are heading, the mistakes we have made, and where we have excelled. The next level of medicine is realizing the clarity of vision and thought applies to everything in your sphere of influence. The ability to compute the future through input and stimulus becomes a thing. I saw what was going to happen in the coming days and months plus the result of my actions. I was warned of the eventual outcome. I was shown the temporary bliss that would animate my sedentary life. I saw a hurricane to my left and chose to walk into the eye of the storm. I didn't have to - I could have easily found shelter and carried on with my life.

Along the same line of questioning regarding showing you the mirror of unvarnished truth, the darkness within contains that mirror too. You just need to shine a tiny light on it in order to see the reflection. I have been aghast at the thoughts coming from below for a long time because I always think I shouldn't be having these thoughts. We all have those questionable and depraved thoughts. Some are downright mean towards others. If I want to project an image of love towards my fellow human being, why do I have these thoughts? Can't I get rid of them?

On my journey towards completeness, I first recognized the shadow within as a rumbling from the deep which would cyclically hound me. I saw the split and at first wanted him to go. After realizing he has a 50% claim on this incarnation, I started to investigate deeper. The use of psychedelics was a sure-fire way to explore, and it was constant. After getting past the initial fear of him, I eventually befriended my darkness which led to an understanding. I still carry a little wariness of him and know sometimes he's up to a little trickery but ostensibly I know it's for the good of us. The trickery is just giving me what I desire. I don't want to own up to it, so I blame him. What I realized is the deceit I practiced for years upon him and the extent I went to bury him. Now that the genie is out of the bottle, the expectation is he isn't going back. I fully understand and support this as I don't want him to leave. He's my best friend and I understand him.

So, about those thoughts. I have accepted them, and they are funny in a way. I'll keep them to myself because they aren't polite. It's freeing that I can have them and no longer be mortified. I do see a pattern to the thoughts in that they revolve around freedom. My shadow is constantly steering me towards liberation. It's like he has a Buddha mind preaching non-attachment. My actions are always leading towards attachment, and he gives me permission to see a life without the chains. I have noticed within us is the cyclical craving for attachment and then a desire to be free. We are a basket of confusion to others. This is what I want. I get it. I'm not happy. I want what I gave up. On and on it goes! My shadow is giving me the straight goods of fulfilling desires and not getting attached. It's a dubious cultural choice but the dude stays away from the expectations of others. He is from the wrong side of the tracks.

I have now done enough psychedelic trips to describe what happens when I let my mind free flow under the influence of a consciousness changing substance. The advice is always to turn off your mind and enjoy the ride. I can do that, and the experience is different than if I don't shut down the thinking mind. With Ayahuasca, the session is more visual when you let go and observe. With Huachuma, you see and sense the grandeur of everything around you when out in nature or visiting ancient sites. When I engaged my mind with Ayahuasca I would produce dark and fantastical stories that would give me second thoughts about doing work with these substances. I conflated it with my shadow. Huachuma would be similar in that I would concoct unsettling stories. I would ping-pong between what I termed heaven and hell. The mind would take me to hell.

It was on this recent trip that I discovered a secret. The Huachuma was so strong I would cycle between my mind and what Huachuma was trying to show me. The intoxication overwhelmed my thinking mind, so I was going in and out of it. My mind was me and not my shadow. My mind revealed it was the saboteur of the experience and I had always blamed this aspect on my darkness. The thoughts going through my head were always negative, so I thought, no, that can't be normal, that must be coming from my depths. At Chavín de Huantar in the Andes mountains, I sat on a rock at the Mosna river and witnessed this other worldly knowledge come into my sphere of knowing and then observed my mind grabbing onto and spinning it into a narrative to be used to sabotage what was to come. The experience that day was divinatory and revealing to me how others affect me. I saw into the future and when my mind cycled to dominance it turned the experience negative. The story that was crafted made me wary of others and looking back on the trip I saw how this was a constant.

When I've engaged my shadow in altered consciousness, he has never cast aspersions or blame. He's been brutally honest. When I have invented stories in these realms it has been the product of the ego mind. Those thoughts are mine, coming from my mind. I blamed them on my shadow because I wanted to disassociate myself from them.

Why does my mind do this? I know from my initial experiences a lot is about fright. I scared myself tremendously in my first foray into the depths of self. I saw within me this demon who is my shadow. I ran from this. In retrospect I know there was nothing to be frightened about, it was just revealing another facet of me, but the expected reaction is to fear the unknown. My shadow holds the key to my awakening, so at first, he must put you through the tests. He pushes you away, threatens you, and reveals that you are a coward. He makes you want it. You must fight back or run away, never to return. I was curious enough to return and put up a fight. I impressed the hell out of him, and I earned my way into the inner circle of awakening. All along I have tried to prevent this from happening by conjuring stories intended to scare myself away from psychedelics. When I was no longer scared of them, the narratives crafted concerned others and a mistrust of the scene. Psychedelics are careening me headlong into freedom and the destruction of my comfortable life. The fright turned to self-preservation. The me I had built over a lifetime had to end but wasn't going down without a fight. Deep within I knew it had to happen lest I slow walk myself into a shallow grave of non-fulfillment. My shadow readied the knife and whispered the end was near. When events were set in motion, he showed me what was to come and then I went back into that self-preservation mode to try and get myself out of it.

I catch myself all the time in everyday life creating stories to fit into how I want things to be. It's an external vigilance to be on the lookout for the devious crafts of the mind. I thought I couldn't trust my shadow - he's the trickster. Instead, I found out he's the stand-up guy and fulfills my deepest desires through this magic he holds in his hands. It is I who can't be trusted, who is not resolute, repeatedly changes his mind, and is frustrating to be sure. My saving grace is I'm the perfect face for this construct. I can get away with the deceit and make everyone believe I'm a great person. I'm not. I'm a good person but I have many faults. I'm an all-star at hiding them. I've said it before - I'm a master people pleaser. I excel in giving people what they want. They think they can use me to their advantage. They don't know I'm scheming. I gain their trust and then use it to my advantage. It's a two-fold con. I'm a nice guy and then I take advantage. I'm forever one up.

What have I learned?

The darkness is what will bring the light. You can't push away the shadow in a bid to become ultra-holy. The reveal of your hypocrisy is troubling. In my case, a flip occurred where I saw truth in what the darkness reveals. It is I who creates the spin. I didn't want the truth as I wanted to really believe I'm the good guy. The time comes when you must look into the mirror of unvarnished truth and see the deception. Acknowledgement gets you in the door. Then the work comes.