the carnival of control

I don't tell anyone what to do, and I don't listen when people tell me what to do.

Some personality types constantly tell you what to do.

They expect compliance.

There is friction when you do nothing.

That's been the pattern where I'm perceived as passive and able to be manipulated by those that want to be in charge.

It's a power and control dynamic which plays out.

I find a way to do what I want.

Society wants to tell you what to do.

Constitutions and bills of rights recognize this need in humans to tell each other what to do and therefore put limits on it.

That seems to be the crux of those declarations.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness seem contingent on others leaving you alone or being restricted in how they can coerce you.

When you enter into a relationship with someone, you don't know if you are getting a totalitarian.

We see it at a macro political level but never stop to examine the phenomenon in our relationships.

We see it at play in work dynamics where your boss can be difficult and make your life miserable.

You can refer to your boss as a dictator as a comparison with the understanding you can quit.

You can't quit society.

You can, but it's difficult.

You probably need your job because you have locked yourself into obligations you need money for.

Same with a relationship.

You make a commitment and it's a legal burden to remove yourself from it.

Things change and you give yourself no opt outs.

Life is easier operating within society.

Having a life partner gives you insurance and a manufactured purpose.

A job unlocks rewards within society.

No one is going to submit to authority without a reward.

Society risks rebellion which ignites revolution.

A totalitarian government must turn security resources against their own people while in theory a more open society has to secure themselves against the encroachment of totalitarian regimes.

Yes, it's sold as freedom.

Wars are fought for freedom.

That's what you are taught in school.

Is that true?

There is some truth to it as you need to repel foreign invaders.

When the world was organized through monarchs the reasons for war were clearer, as in the Persians were invading Egypt for control of resources and dominance.

Populations would be enslaved and literally forced to serve the conquering force.

What would happen if the west collapsed and say China or Russia assumed control?

Well, Russia couldn't maintain control for long, perhaps China could.

What would be the result?

A loss of freedom and exploitation.

Poverty.

Constant rebellion.

Sure, but we aren't free as a population now.

We have the illusion of freedom.

The government keeps an eye on you.

Big tech does the rest of the heavy lifting to force compliance with the rules of society.

What do you mean?

You are monitored for deviance.

The banks keep an eye on you as well.

Yes, they report large transactions to the government.

Why do they do that?

It's the law; it's not a conspiracy.

You are on the grid sucking on the teats of big brother.

Got it.

So, what are wars for?

Imperialism.

Do you think the west wants to help the people of Venezuela?

Well, no, they don't care.

They want their oil.

The communist takeover in that country nationalized the oil industry controlled by western economic interests.

They had a legal framework where they could plunder the resources of the people of Venezuela.

They'd get a lot of profits, and the people would see a trickle-down effect.

Venezuelan people will see a rise in their standard of living if they allow exploitation.

Yes, but they will be robbed of their natural resources.

Do you think the USA wants Greenland for national security interests?

You could make an argument for that.

However, it falls apart when you realize whatever security concerns the USA has can easily be alleviated by the NATO alliance which allows the US to militarize whatever they need to do in Greenland.

Why do they want Greenland?

Rare earth minerals.

Trillions of dollars are at stake.

They will give each citizen a hundred grand and then rob them blind.

Isn't this conspiratorial thinking about Venezuela and Greenland?

No, it's taking in the public positions of the government and twisting it around to see the obvious truth.

Do you think the west wants to help out Iran's people to shed the theocracy that rules them?

No, they want their oil.

I don't see the west rushing to help out the people of the other totalitarian gulf states who oppress their people.

We seem quite friendly with them.

Iran has a lot of oil and the west, much like in Venezuela, had legal contracts which allowed them access to that oil.

Revolution forced them out.

Well, that's what the term "world order" refers to.

Enforcement of legal contracts.

Revolutions and collapse of order nullify legal frameworks and monetary systems.

Your money is worthless without a world order.

That's why the super-rich find tangible assets to invest their money in as a hedge against systemic world collapse.

Yes, I went through this exercise.

I concluded that you need to invest in armaments.

Guns.

Lots of guns.

What are you going to do with a pile of gold?

Attract other people who are hypnotized by a shiny yellow object.

Yes, that works, however, you can't eat it, so the immediate need is food, shelter, and security.

You need to establish a perimeter of security and then work from within that structure.

The homeland.

Yes, that's how it works.

What about investing in real estate?

Lack of enforceable legal frameworks collapse property rights, and a gun enforces claims.

Do the other people in your life know they are in a game?

I think some do.

I didn't know for over 55 years.

I knew something was fishy but couldn't figure it out.

Awakening gives you the tools to figure it out.

You intuit this strange set of games.

Yes, it's a carnival of activities.

The games are rides and games of chance you decide to play.

You don't figure out the game, but you do know it is important to win the game.

Why?

So, you get the rewards of the carnival.

You don't want to pay admission to the fair and be a loser.

Sure, but the casino is rigged.

You can't win.

Some do, but the vast majority are losers.

Yes, so enjoy the free drinks and shrimp cocktail while you can.

Take advantage of what the carnival offers.

The dancing ladies?

Yeah, remember that Ayahuasca vision?

Yes, and being offered one of them.

You declined.

I just wanted to watch the spectacle.

That Ayahuasca vision was giving you a glimpse of the carnival.

I didn't understand it at the time.

I also remember the float of all these sweets that went by, and then Ganesha appeared.

Yeah, it was wild.

Plant medicine will awaken you and then reveal the game.

The longer you keep at it, you will get more knowledge.

Eventually, the second awakening approaches where you are going to see through the game.

If you take that step, you are cooked.

How did don Howard manage?

He hid in the jungle and started up a camp for seekers.

Most came out of curiosity.

He called the place "SpiritQuest."

It's an odd name when you think of it.

Why?

The quest part.

What the hell is that?

It's a game within the game.

The highbrow game where you figure out the game.

That's the quest.

It involved awakening, tests, a jaguar, riddles, sorcerers, witches, and helpers.

Your path was an initiation into that world.

I figured out the game.

The carnival.

Getting the high score.

Becoming the most high.

Being able to navigate mind states without collapsing.

It's unteachable.

Why?

You can't survive it.

How did you do it?

I'm special.

I've always been special.

When I was younger, I realized I was different.

Special.

It makes sense that I can do this, though there is no requirement that it needs to make sense.

Why is that?

Because it's crazy.

It doesn't make sense to everyone else.

When I had my second awakening and started seeing the game in its entirety, the pressure on me to leave became enormous.

How did you manage the load?

You do nothing.

The interesting part of these tests that you face is that your demise is of your own doing.

There's an exercise you can do in your head which will allow you to navigate this rocky passage.

What is it?

You play it out to its conclusion in your head.

You see what the result is of all your actions.

If you studied Tao, then of course you will do nothing.

When you do nothing, the external pressure collapses.

Why?

It needs input from you.

It works every time.

So, you recommend doing nothing?

I recommend the flow.

If you gotta take a shit, then take a shit.

To try and prevent that is doing something.

So, the key is to flow and not fight the current.

Correct, and that sometimes is doing nothing or taking the path of least resistance.

Such as taking a big shit when warranted.

Exactly.

Our society is obsessed with control.

Yes, therefore you hear talk of A-type personalities who exhibit the need to be in control.

The underlings are betas.

We are obsessed with the notion of the alpha, especially the alpha male.

Yeah, it's aspirational.

It's built into the structure of society, and no one questions it.

It's like a koan.

If you can see past this construct, you are given insight.

The idea of the alpha is embedded into our systems of worship and who we think is in charge.

Yes, there must be someone in charge.

That idea is God and he is the alpha.

There is no one higher in our system than God.

It's baked in.

If you see past that then you can win the game.

Get the high score and become the most high.

If you do not free yourself from the mind control of culture, you will never see it.

The most high is the writer of this story.

We are living in a story.

God is a character within the Writer's story.

Is the Writer the alpha?

No, he is part of a triumvirate with the Goddess and Eros.

There is no alpha.

Alpha is reserved for God.

God is a phantom who you think is in control so the Writer can remain undetected.

What about the Goddess?

She is a woman; therefore, in our culture she is denied.

What about Eros?

They are defined as lust and sinful.

It's God or bust.

parole

You know what is funny? Medical advances which allow us to live longer. When you intuit who you are and see the imprisonment in your mortal coil, the prospect of living forever becomes absurd. You become the jailer as well as the jailed. How bizarre! Not content with your prison sentence, you tell the parole hearing, "Please, more."

The wealthy seek to live longer because they have tipped the balance in their favour. The understanding of duality and how all is reconciled shows you that the accumulation of resources and wealth leads to the haves and have nots. The economically advantaged wish to perpetuate suffering as this is the route towards getting what they desire. How noble, as suffering is the master teacher of transformation which will lead you back to the heart. A grand endeavour indeed. In their selfishness, the wealthy unwittingly are the catalyst for the seeker to understand what the game is all about.

I'm not advocating purposely seeking out death. When my time comes, I will follow the flow of the universe towards my eternal destiny. Wei wu wei, as Lao Tzu counsels.  The divine ebb and waning flow of the desire cycle will let you know when you have had your fill. It is easy to understand this through the lens of childhood. What lit me up in my youth faded away as I entered adulthood. The chasing of biological needs and accumulating wealth to fulfill my desires defined my existence when I was in peak physical form. As I have aged, I have witnessed those desires falling away. I walk hand in hand with the great Ganapati and watch his demons of desire, the Ganas, burn in the hellfire, and fall away like dross. It's quite a spectacle to witness, as I notice what once lit me up, falls away, just like the childish things which waned when I became an adult.

I have kept some memories of my childhood in boxes, slowly discarding the attachments as the years go by. I sometimes lament the passing of innocence, looking back fondly at my youth. Comic books and baseball cards. Baseball board games and a replay of a whole season of baseball. I was taught the importance of play; play being an important check upon the seriousness of adulthood.

These pursuits of my coming of age have all passed. But the lessons of my youth have not been in vain, nor have they been forgotten. Life comes full circle, and as I start the descent into the inexorable decline of my physical body, I notice with a startling clarity the desires of life fade away, just as my childhood desires mysteriously became a curiosity. I often would fret over the desires that would plague me, watching as they came and went, and demanded fulfillment. I tried the renunciate path. I wished them away. I wondered why I could not defeat my adversaries? I proved I could deny them, but they still waited at the door for me to open just a crack so they could get in again. I didn't understand that in due time they would fall away, just as my childhood experience revealed to me. Why did I think I would never change?

The blinders of the moment, and the thinking my incarnation is unchanging, led me to believe I'd never escape the hold of the Ganas. Clinging to what is works to deceive you into thinking you'll always have what you have acquired, and that you'll never transcend what it is that beguiles you.

So, I see my desires being washed away. It's getting late in the evening and the amusement park is going to have a fireworks show before closing. It will open again tomorrow morning; however, not all will return for the thrills and the rides. There's a natural rhythm to life and one is the wiser if you can quiet the mind and just observe what is happening. There's no need for renunciation. If you follow the path laid out for you, curiously the one you personally designed, the flow will never let you down. You may struggle, but all this is what you wanted. The Hindus call it Karma. The reason for this particular trip to the funhouse called earth was to fulfill desires. Once fulfilled, you become way more tolerable.

Ultimately, I don't know; however, I intuit the cycle of the waxing and waning of desire is an eternal process which ensures eternal life. With free will, you are given the opportunity to make of the flow of desire what you will.

What will you choose?

class

Desires we all have and left unchecked they will motivate and control your actions. Eventually, you will become a puppet and slave to desire; it's built into the system, system being culture. For the player of the game of life, they are a challenge beyond compare and for those with the foresight to see it, a teaching tool. Master your desires, lest they master you. They will amp up the game to what you desire and always require more. If you wish to increase the stakes and face your destruction, then it’s game on! Ultimately, the best way to learn is to face adversity and the optimal way to grow is to head into the darkness of self. Living at the top of the mountain, bathed in light, is a great experience for sure but in the end it will make you soft. Renunciation and asceticism are a cop-out. I know, I tried it and found out those desires you tried to run from were always waiting for when you fell. It’s no fun knowing deep down you are a hypocrite. There was no transcendence of my own bad self; instead I just put off the inevitable reckoning. What a difficult struggle and psychological predicament. I couldn’t shake the demons though I wanted desperately to rid myself of this curse. What to do? The frustration was beyond anything I had ever faced.

The darkness always gets its turn; the desires of life always return. They follow the timeless pulsation of life, so be ready for it, study it, and when the time comes you become the master instead of the puppet. Facing your desires is the greatest teaching tool because you realize it’s life and death. Seriously, think about it. Examine your desires and the pull they have on you and how if you fall prey to them they will drag you down into the dumpster and kill you or alternatively to realize desires of power and wealth you will have to step on others and stomp them out to reach that goal. I won’t give you an example here but just let you sit with this idea. Think of your greatest desires and play them out to where they are leading you and what it will entail. The greatest teacher has to raise the stakes. You can deny this is the case for only so long until the day comes when the last step is before you. Will you snap out of the hypnosis or double down?

Chasing desires are a form of hypnosis in that when you break free of them and become the master you look back and realize your behaviour was being influenced by a pull that was not exactly rational, not to say that actions always have to be rational. Culture leads you towards desire fulfillment but also makes you suppress natural desires. You essentially become a puppet of culture and some play the fame and fortune game it pulls us towards. Our gastronomic fantasies are waiting to be fulfilled and will entrap those with a predilection towards mouth pleasure. Alcohol is available to bewitch those easily addicted to escapism. The seedy side and outcasts of society exists to feed the suppressed sexual and pharmacological desires.

In relation to desires, I was meditating upon purpose again. Fundamentally, there is no purpose or meaning to existence. It just is. There is nothing you need to do; nor do you need to save yourself. You are eternal and will continue on in the journey. Don’t worry about annihilation. However something still nags at me. You see, I have incarnated and I am faced by these challenges. I need to overcome these desires or perish. It’s a peculiar situation related to where life on earth currently stands. As a species, we have solved a lot of the food and shelter problems as long as you participate in culture therefore there is ample time to ponder purpose and chase desire. I still look within and wonder: I could be better; I could level up and master my humanity. A good parallel is my employment. I have mastered it. I know it and nobody has to tell me I have. There is no doubt. Imagine transferring that mastery to life? I know the scope is much larger but it is a lifelong project and really what else do I have to do? Why not?

I have taken note that we all have wants, needs, and desires, no exceptions, and I know personally I have been a slave to my desires. A lot of times, it’s all or nothing. I could drink a cup of coffee in no time flat. A bottle of beer used to disappear fast. Buy a big chocolate bar or a big bag of chips and within no time I’d eat the whole thing. I could discipline myself to make these occasions treats, however once involved there would be a head first dive into the situation. I always held back a bit from the temptation of going full on into hedonism. Was it shame, health concerns, or my own way of keeping things fresh and balanced while holding back something to look forward to?

Another thing I’ve noticed is the need for always more. One bottle of beer isn’t enough. I stopped drinking over seven years ago because I realized where that was headed and if I ever wanted to accomplish anything in my life I’d have to give up the stultifying effects of alcohol. It wasn’t hard to do and I had no desire to go back to that lifestyle. With other desires and habits, I see the same demand of more to feed the demon or fetishize the pleasure. We humans are so easily hypnotized into behaviours. We are weak.

My spiritual journey of over a decade has been pretty rewarding. Facing fear head on was huge and coming out victorious is pretty special, especially when I was faced with being a coward and being stomped out. I’m a jaguar, a warrior, I have courage, and I’m not weak. I know it deep down in my soul. I have strength and will take on all. I feel like I’ve been through the fires of incarnation in a process to forge steel. If anything, that has been the purpose of my life. Transcending limiting behaviours and growing into the ultimate jaguar warrior has been a goal. Albeit an unconscious goal at first that takes a lifetime but here I am post middle age knowing I’m on that path. 

The most challenging teacher as the catalyst for this transformation has been the darkness that lies within. The Hindus in their chakra system of Rāja yoga, call it the base Muladhara chakra and it's where you will find the great Sri Ganesha.

The power from this base chakra is what animates our existence and is in the bowels of our being, with a connection to excretions. When I went to Peru early this year and drank Ayahuasca, the first ceremony took me deep into my darkness. The vision was one of a toilet and the depths of this hell. What a direct metaphor! I’m constantly amazed at the visions and their meanings which gives me months, and years, of a challenge to unravel the symbolism, teachings, and relationship to my journey. The teacher has put me to the test and challenged me to go deeper into my addictions, taunted me, threatened me with death, and hounded me with my desires. As long as the ganas, Hindu desire demons, controlled me the spiritual beatings would continue. It took me a long time to get the upper hand on all of it. It was a relentless battle, full of constant failure but when I finally won I pretty much knew it immediately. It’s that intuitive knowledge of mastery I related earlier about work. 

Another name for the great Ganesha is Ganapati, which basically means lord of desire. Ganesha is the master. He appears with his fat and satiated belly and a bowl of sweets, reminding you of desires and our western seven deadly sins. He is the master of the ganas and they are desires placed in your path to teach you. The renunciate, sitting atop the mountain in his asceticism, has fled from them thinking he can run out the clock on desire. This school of life involves mastery and it’s a serious game. You must master your desires it you want to become the ultimate warrior.

I have had a massive realization concerning the darkness I have dealt with all my life and the darkness I have faced when I have altered my consciousness. At first, I feared this realm and the entity that inhabited it. I ran from it. I returned and I faced up to it. I was threatened, challenged, avoided it, watched it come back, and realized I could never transcend it. Most importantly, I kept at it. Once I had the courage, I became curious and inquisitive. I have been relentless, though a little guarded. Anyways, I am at the point where I finally realized something amazing. It’s a huge test of strength and courage. Fear will constantly challenge you and get you if you are weak. It will run you into the ground and turn you into a cowering mess and even try to kill you. It’s definitely not something for the timid. I get it now. On this path, most come to a fork in the road: Stop and take the path back to safety and give up the seeking or head right to the light, climb the spiritual mountain, and become holy and righteous, though somewhat intolerable. Nobody sees the hidden path on the left or they pay no mind to it. It’s dark, uninspired, unpaved, and full of obstacles. Keep going where the path heads into the dark and carve out the path no one dares to tread, or if they do they get lost or seduced by power. I’ve been there, survived, and I know the darkness within respects me because I have courage, resolve, and I see it for what it is. It’s the ultimate challenge and it’s where you will find the greatest source of available inner fortitude and strength. It’s unassailable. I stand at the ready to claim my inheritance. The last hurdle in my way, bent on destroying me, I have defeated. I’m ready now.

If there can be ascertained a purpose to life then this has to be it; well in the case of my coming forth in this incarnation as a member of the masculine polarity. I finally mastered my desires before they decimated me. It was a helluva battle. I feel so strong right now. I can’t rest on my laurels or accomplishments. I’m heading into that darkness and exploring. You see no one has ever done this. Those who touch and engage in a dalliance with the darkness are the insane and depraved. I’ve declined the offers of power and defeated the onslaught of the army of my own making. I’m unencumbered, free, and taking notes.

Suicide, insanity, depravity, and paranoia. Going into the darkness of one’s self is pretty much up there with having a cage match with a shark in an underwater arena. And you have no scuba gear. You are going to get knocked around, bloody and beaten. Sometimes we foolishly venture into the ring and other times life beats us down into the depths of despair from which we can’t escape. The all-encasing suffocating despair is deadly. What I’m trying to say is the darkness either kills or psychologically alters you forever. I fall into the fool category and I saw it and I ran. It profoundly affected me psychologically to the point where I had to fight back and then muster the courage to face it once again. Something though happened along the path and I discarded the fear. I was still gun shy though about the whole return. Eventually after levelling up to embrace the jaguar and become a warrior, I traced this stunning evolution of self back to the darkness. I understood it was the master teacher. This readies the student to now go further.

Our western concept of a demon involves thinking it is evil. It represents those behaviours and desires that haunt you. The devil made me do it. Desire led me to this behaviour. It’s an antagonist and adversary bent upon your destruction. Look at it another way and find the truth. These evil spirits are your greatest teachers. So great they will kill you if you ultimately fail the course. Best to drop out than continue on this path.

Go into the darkness, embrace the riddle, as here the mystery lies. You can't bypass the darkness. Running from fear, owns you.

In the battle with the adversary within, at one point he offers the shortcut to power. Most will take it; it’s the easy way. Power acquired this way has consequence. Giving into desires and accepting unearned power reveals instantly you aren’t worthy. It’s a device used by the master teacher to discover your true intentions. Power will only not corrupt when wielded by someone who has attained self-mastery and will not give in to the temptation to use the power to fulfill desire.

It’s warrior training school to transform you from being weak into a forged block of strong steel. The darkness within can become your ultimate ally and source of unmatched inner strength and fortitude. The only catch is it doesn’t suffer weaklings. You will be put to the test and want to run and hide. He will keep coming for you, especially once challenged. It’s the fight of your life. You can back down and go cower in the corner and hope he doesn’t come for you and end it. If you can muster the courage and stand up for yourself, take the punches, and fight back you’ll earn respect. It’s not over. Forging steel is tough work. The jaguar comes to check out its prey and see if you are willing to fight. You’ll still think of ways to transcend the darkness, give it up, and become pure and holy. Fair enough but that was your chance. Hardly anyone makes it this far as something sidetracks or gets you. If you keep going eventually you’ll realize it. You can never transcend the darkness but you can harmonize it with the light. Only then do you get let in on the secret. A vast reservoir of strength and power lies in the darkness.

The fight of my life is over; I’m through to the other side. My weaknesses I have moved passed. I can navigate my inner word now with impunity and am free to explore this gift.

I’m not sure I can teach this to others. It’s hard to recommend, embrace, or explore something that can kill you. That’s better left to individual choice. Counsel can be offered and hints provided of what lies within however everyone has to make their own choice whether they want to pursue it. The pitfalls are too serious to take responsibility for someone’s choice. And I think the only way through is by yourself. I’ll can lend you a flashlight. 

goddess ganesha and me

The universe is the dream of the fully realized union of the sacred feminine and sacred masculine. A dream is the reflection of one’s psyche, the reflection refracting into infinity and beyond. The child is that psyche and is the dream. The child is the universe. Our journey is to take us back home where the family reunites.

Dammit we are so philosophical as a species! How frustrating is this to the cosmic dreamer? Reflecting the psyche into their dream they created the universe. It's a giant simulation designed to come to terms with all their accumulated baggage. Instead of focusing solely on coming to terms with what troubles them, alas a great majority of the time is spent in contemplation of who we are and why are we here? How funny is that? We are so introspective we go straight for the ultimate question. I just wanted to figure out why am I such a dick with a predilection towards destruction and instead I'm left with existential questions about the fundamental underpinnings and purpose of life. I can't escape it and I have to know. Next massive dream I have to be clear to all that it is a dream, enjoy yourself, but please come to terms with hatred and strife and why can't I just love myself?

I had such an amazing dream the other night; well it was amazing in that it revealed something I had been curious about. So here is what happened: I fell asleep on the couch and woke up around 3 am. My dog wanted to go out so I let her out and left the door open enough so that when she wanted to come in she could just nudge the door open. While I waited for her, I fell back asleep on the couch and started dreaming. My dreaming led me to the climax of the dream where I stood by a door and there was a sudden announcement: “now the door is going to open.” I immediately woke up and on cue my dog came in from outside through the door. Fascinating. Utterly fascinating. I have suspected for a while that my subconscious is all knowing, transcends time, and takes over once I put the local body to sleep. This proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt as it was purposely revealed to me in this connection of the dream to reality. I have had situations in the past that hinted at this where the dream would awaken me just as my alarm was to go off by telling me that the alarm was going to go off. Similarly on multiple occasions during the waking hours I have had situations where complete strangers would know my name or comment on an internal struggle they had no knowledge of; this hinting at a connection that goes deeper than our conscious knowledge.

On June 15th I had quite the strange experience. I published a blog post where I ruminated upon my divinity and in conjunction with that I accepted the corollary where I am also the adversary. So I went to the washroom at work in the afternoon and as I entered into the location, on the speakers was playing the chorus to an INXS song called “Devil Inside.” These coincidences are more regular than to be expected. I laughed at what was going on however soon I started to wonder: The subconscious power that plans everything out, unbeknownst to us collectively, is once again showing itself to be tangible. These coincidences have to be common to all in order to pull this off. It is a hidden power that is behind all action, directing it in a way that keeps the story moving along. It’s very strange but this has happened enough over the course of my life that I can now with confidence at least suspect something is going on behind the scenes. My dreams and coincidences are suggesting that this universal subconscious knows I’m awake and on to it. I want to peg it as a masculine power because I’m also aware of the feminine Goddess power that I have been in contact with now for many years. My soul mate is love and also I describe her as Sophia  - the wisdom and understanding available if I ask or feed her knowledge. I’m currently figuring out the next steps. Do I want to use my connection to this power or is that a road fraught with too much risk? Is the power too much and I should just acknowledge it, use the clarity of knowing there is this power, and continue on my path towards what? What am I heading towards? I’ve never really defined that; instead I just sail onwards gathering up knowledge and experience which has led me to this point.

My plant medicine journeys have been at times a continual battle to peer into this darkness; the hidden subconscious that barricades the doors of perception. It works to deflect, scare you away, and sends you on a path of pure and holy righteousness to become enlightened just so you will stop seeking to peer into the darkness. I have wondered what is hidden down there? It’s omnipotence. It’s power. It’s the essence of our divinity. When I dream I become god. In life when you finally wake up and discover this is a dream, and there is a power that exerts control over the direction of the dream, then you are the Buddha. You are then awake within the dream. Life as you experience it becomes a lucid dream. I get now why we aren’t allowed access and are scared off and sent on a path towards faux ego enlightenment.

In my plant medicine journeys when I finally got past the stone blocks the darkness was inserting along my path on the road to becoming awake and embracing the jaguar of no fear and sublime courage, waiting to welcome and acknowledge me was the elephant headed one. I knew enough to realize it was Ganesha from the lore of the Indian subcontinent but I didn’t know much about him. After his appearance, the Goddess came to me in celebration as well. It was quite the night as I finally learned how to navigate the darkness. Up to that point I had been persistent yet frustrated by the constant fear and loathing of the experience. I really don’t know why I persisted and kept coming back to ceremony. I think it had to do with chasing the Goddess. There was always the chance I’d see her so inward I would return. Once I mastered the technique then I could sail on towards whatever siren song undertow pulled me towards knowing full well I could sail away and escape if need be. I have the confidence and am planning my next voyage into the darkness. I am starting to peer into and see some strange things in the dark, not in the least the power to control one's own destiny and depending upon perspective, the destiny of the world.

After first meeting Ganesha and returning home I noticed in my life how things were being moved out of my path both figuratively and literally. The funniest example was the walking path where I walk the dog. It had become overrun with fallen trees and debris. Curiously town workers showed up with wheelbarrows and chain saws and cleared the path. Maybe you don’t think that is out of the ordinary? Well the path is in the woods and no one else uses it. The following summer I had to evict a tenant from my basement and had a court date which was stressing me out. Ganesha came to me in a dream the night before the date and assured me it was all going to work out. Sure enough it did. I have been called even-steven because everything always works out for me. On my recent trip to the Amazon I had another peculiar meet up with Ganesha. There is this tribe that sells their artwork called the Shipibo that visits us at the sanctuary. There is a lot of Ayahuasca themed tapestries depicted with flowing energy in a style that is iconic to their tribe. I was perusing the collection they brought with them, not intending to purchase anything and low and behold I came across one of Ganesha! What the? I mean they are two oceans and the other side of the world away from India and the promulgation of Ganesha. Obviously it was a sign meant exclusively for me, so of course I had to have it.

I’m four months into my latest integration and all that I have mentioned about power and the subconscious is what I have been coming to terms with. I hung my tapestry at work and I often wear a pullover that has an image of Ganesha on the front. I finally added it up and realized the subconscious force that stirs the pot, that removes obstacles from the path and sometimes places them on it that I have discovered has as one of their names Ganesha. I’m sometimes slow on the uptake of seeing what has been staring me in the face. The masculine power I intuit is Ganesha. I’m adding it all up now. The Goddess, Ganesha, and me. I’m god, my co-actress is the goddess, and Ganesha is the reflection of the psyche into the universe who is directing this play. I'm the actor who now has the ear of the director.

So the unfathomable darkness of self, the area that is off-limits is where the director of the play hangs out, who is always creating obstacles or removing them in order to keep the play moving along and remaining interesting. I am the actor in this play and having fooled myself into thinking it is real also denied myself access to the underpinnings of the drama. The director controls the urges that makes us irrational and seek power or to collect items to own because of jealousy others may get them. We seek to win this game either through the pastime of collecting power and wealth, acquiring intellectual mastery and achieving recognition, and when all that is unfulfilling we turn to the spiritual climb. We never think to look at what drives all this behaviour? There must be a certain satisfaction on your deathbed that yes I played the game and beat it somehow! Does that give you currency to play again and give it another go? Put me in another ridiculous situation where I have to eat other beings to survive and see if I can win? Do you ever tire of winning? Is that our fatal conceit that instead of winning we have to elevate all through love but we are not predisposed to do that and we have to cast off the shackles of success and spread our common humanity and decency around the world. This is kind of funny in a way. I know of this power and the temptation is to rig the game, become successful, and live out my life of ease and then I’ll do it again because I know deep down whatever situation I get put in I will eventually figure it out and beat the game. Obviously I’ll increase the challenge in order to make it worthwhile but I know now I’ll always figure it out. I’m good at the puzzles. I stand on the precipice of laying my cards on the table. Sure it is going to be grand to bask in the knowledge of beating the game but what to do with the power? The maestro taught service and reciprocity; I of course never thought I’d get to a place where I could really make a difference but instead live a meagre life of influence, pissing words into the wind, and affecting the lives of maybe a handful. 

Was I finally ready to get the confirmation? It had become clear that nothing is working concerning throwing me off this path. I keep coming back and looking behind the curtain. When I first peered in about seven years ago with Ayahuasca, it was the most disturbing, creepy, and weird experience. I tried to run from it and was threatened with death if I ever looked again. I heard voices for days and worried about my sanity. Back home from this nightmare I had fits of unease, panic attacks, and then occurred over the duration of five consecutive nights a situation where I’d awake at the exact same time every night and have this feeling of fear and an encompassing darkness overwhelm me before I reached out to the Goddess to help me. I eventually returned to Peru and the plants and kept at it all the while wondering why I always would be greeted by this darkness? It’s because what I really wanted to find out was this mystery and plant medicines are both very good at revealing the inner self and the darkness we hide. The holy and righteous climb up the mountain was just a sideshow. We develop strategies to bypass the darkness so we can enter into the state of bliss. Deep down we know the darkness is still there. The subsequent use of Vilca was a good reminder of both polarities as I faced a struggle to reconcile the darkness in order to attain the light.

I had asked the question when I got back from Peru this year: Why do I keep looking? Just this week I wondered what am I hiding? It didn’t take long to get the answer. That seems to be part of the equation where I have to get to the point where I can formulate and ask the question. Then the answer is provided.

Of course the dream is the modality used to divulge the information I was seeking. I sit here now with confirmation of the divinity within, the accessible power, and the ability to know all and transcend our conception of time. Cool. I’m going to need a few days to sit with this one. 

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. 

holy grail

As the peculiarities, vagaries, and precariousness of life present challenges to us in our life journey what is that one thing humanity seeks? It's the fountain of youth, the holy grail, the quest for immortality. Do you want to know what the secret is to eternal life? Here, I will give you the answer. The secret to eternal life is quite simply Love. Love is the fount and if you have access to this source then immortality is within your grasp. You then surf the Love wave. Without this access, you remain on the cycle of coming and going; living and dying. My Vilca vision last November at SpiritQuest revealed some of these immortals who ride the Love wave. They were made of Love and shone exquisite light. Here is my written recollection of this experience:

The initial and intensive phase of the coming on of Vilca was pretty much a summation of all the difficulties, hardships, and in your face challenges presented by the plant medicines over the course of the last four and a half years to see if I - the knave, to wit the fool, could summon the courage to stay the course and remain invested in the path available by entering into the heart space. It took trust, a hell of a lot of courage, and much resolve, which admittedly did waver a few times, but though I definitely was wary and had much trepidation at no time did fear overwhelm me. I was able to steer my vessel on through and past the tempest. To my surprise the seas became calm and I was lifted up into a realm I can describe as populated by beings made of Love; they exuded Love; and they gave me the opportunity to demonstrate my Love.

The ascension into this realm of Love and Light was gradual and felt mechanical like the movement of an elevator. I could hear mechanical sounds that were congruent with the operation of this celestial lift. When I reached my destination it was dark and and I could visually make out what appeared to be pipes and shafts in the room I now found myself in. Soon after, beings of light started to appear and they would present themselves to me and express Love through this incredibly beautiful and colourful lighting up of their whole being. The shape of these beings was geometrical, maybe diamond like, though I do not want to box them into a defined shape. They moved with an effortless grace as one would dance with expertise once mastering movement without the constraints of gravity. This Vilca vision of exquisite and luminous beings made of Love and shining an ineffable iridescence, well a decent and simple description of them comes from the title of a Pink Floyd song "Shine On You Crazy Diamond." There is a verse in that song that makes me wonder about Roger Waters' mystical experience:

"Remember when you were young and you shone like the sun?"

To describe the way the generated light came forth from these diamond-like shapes so far the best analogy I have come up with is an audible term which is trill. From dictionary.com I grabbed these two definitions of trill that fit the behaviour I witnessed, with the difference being instead of sound it was the light they exuded expressing this behaviour:

• to resound vibrantly, or with a rapid succession of sounds, as the voice, song, or laughter.
• to utter or make a sound or succession of sounds resembling such singing, as a bird, frog, grasshopper, or person laughing.

They were playing the musical scale but visually, and they expressed themselves through this behaviour. It would also be analogous to Tantric descriptions of Kundalini energy that rises through the Chakras within the energetic body that changes colour upon ascension and descension. My attempts to convert this experience into language is clumsy but hopefully this gives some sort of idea into what it is I saw in this most awesome place.

I am Light and to Love I will return.

I understood them to be made of Love and to be projecting Love. I realized that it is mine and everyone’s inheritance to become one of these eternal beings of Love. Within all is this Love and all that matters is to cultivate this Love. Grow it as much as you can and shine! The room went dark and they encouraged me to do this so I lit up the room with Love. The whole scene seemed brief as compared to the torture I went through to get here but even so I was overwhelmed with gratefulness and felt so blessed. I resolved to Love as much as possible so I too will shine my Love everywhere as Love without a doubt is the answer I was seeking. It is the power that animates creation and it is how we will return home. Soon after I felt the experience fall away and I was back to a baseline of consciousness.

Well, well, well, that's it. That's the challenge now that I know this; no more excuses. The coming and going of cyclical consciousness zaps memory so if I fail this challenge then I get to start over and spend another lifetime trying to remember why am I back again and what am I looking for? I'd have to petition Sri Ganesha for help again and rely on finding the next don Howard, and it goes without saying I'd need to be born into another good family, in another peaceful country, with access to education, and a source of well above average income. Long odds those. In other words, the time is now. It's pretty imperative and urgent I'd say.

Birth and death are at similar points on the cycle of vibration in that they are at the bottom of the cycle where energy coalesces in order to burst forth once again in the continual cycle of coming and going. There is no annihilation as you are energy that pulses. The concept of eternal life becomes whether your energy can fluctuate at a vibration where you don't blow it all out in the one pass but instead taper the cycle and maintain appearances. What is the secret of drawing on the power that would allow for this? The eternal fount of energy is Love so in order to get off the merry go round all we have to do is access the power of Love. Seems simple enough.

This amalgamation of energy that forms us individually remains intact upon physical death and I think we retain a sense of self at our expiration; in other words, our individuated points of consciousness do not dissolve away. I take this position because of what I have experienced in altered states of consciousness. The energy which constitutes what we describe as an autonomous self is from the eternal fount of Love. We are made of Love. Eventually, I think we return to that Love and do dissolve back into the whole. Rather than this being the annihilation of self, instead it is returning to omnipotence now imbued with the experience of many lives lived. Suffering, triumph, and learning all about Love.

We are the ever changing transformation of energy. We are children of the eternal song.

call to adventure

The call to adventure beckons once again. I have gone into Egypt to recover the knowledge of the Great Goddesses of the past and then came multiple trips descending into the Lower Water World of the Amazon to snatch the pearl from the dragon at the behest of the aforementioned Goddess. My friend Ganesha closed the path back down into the Water World and has steered me in the direction of the Upper World to ascend into the mountains.

Sri Ganesha

I was well aware the Middle World of the earth where I spend the majority of my time is for all intents and purposes ego world. It's all about the individual self and constructing identity. Adventure called to a place I could go to find the higher self. I would find this elusive character and bring him back to the ego world and the quest would be satiated for I am jaguar and I traverse the three worlds. I knew the next step after the Upper World is ultimately death and a physical release from this world into the next, though using past experience as a guide high adventures awaits. Anyway that's the plan.

I'd heard a particular Alan Watts lecture a few times that describes the elusiveness of the ego. It's a well told comparative story where the police respond to a robbery at a residence and the ego as the perp simply escapes up to the higher floor. The gist is the higher self you seek is of the same essence as your ego. You think you can transcend the ego but in actuality you can't because it is a generated feedback attachment of your own making and it fluidly morphs into the higher self and hangs out at the higher level subtly infecting that aspect of your psyche which eventually manifests in your presentation to the world as being an 'enlightened' being; the pioneering psychologist Carl Jung coined this process inflation. This recent listening to the metaphor somehow triggered within the understanding of the interconnectedness of the ego and the higher self. The catalyst was I thought the opposite must be true then - the higher self must be able to descend down to the main floor where the ego makes its home and hang out there. This moment of clarity hit me while I was in the kitchen preparing the evening meal and it stopped me in my tracks. Aha that's it, the higher self I seek I already know very well, he has just been playing along in a game of hide and seek in this great drama all the while. I had a chuckle over that. I've known for a while the seeking I have been obsessed with, which has taken me afar, will lead back to the self but this time it felt really ridiculous. I get on airplanes and fly around the world just so I can find what was me all along! It's preposterous but it's the only way. Practically what a real waste of effort and money but in the end this part of the journey is priceless. I must continue to persist in my folly in order to complete the quest.

The Roman god Mercury and his element's elusive liquid nature with mysterious alchemical properties became illuminated as an apt symbol describing the fluidity that occurs between these two natures of self.

Mercurius

I meditated on this later in the evening to discern the relationship between the ego and the higher self and the role wisdom plays in mediating between the two. The brain is a physical model of universal consciousness to a proportional scale in order to localize it and in the human brain nature achieved the greatest expression of this project. This mechanical model of consciousness generates self centeredness because consciousness innately projects the idea it is the all so naturally when consciousness is generated via the workings of the brain and you become aware of other entities you truly believe in your uniqueness and separate self. This perception leads to self awareness as you compare yourself to other conscious beings and also self reflection from individuated consciousness existing within universal consciousness and the byproduct of these processes is the formation of ego; the ego being the psychic centre of the generated consciousness we access and experience. Lost within this structure is the ability to reconnect with universal consciousness. We are utterly lost within the universe of our own making and it is suggesting we did this on purpose in order to peer in a detached manner into the all. Universal consciousness tricks sentient aspects of itself into believing they are outside of the all in order to look in upon itself; this relationship is illusory but is essential for universal self knowledge. It would have to be understood by the originators of this construct that there would always be shards of consciousness that would eventually see through this ruse. Whether awakening from the dream or snapping out of the hypnosis is the goal of this game is debatable. At what point would the all be satisfied in an inquiry into its fundamental nature? I tend to believe it is a win win situation where the realization of the separate self of their true origin despite heavy odds of it happening, elevates all forms of consciousness to greater heights and reveals an insight into the nature of consciousness that yes it will seek and aspire to greatness despite the traps and detours encountered along the way.

In the world I currently find myself in I will never completely transcend the relationship between ego and the higher self but will only get glimpses of which I have previously attained. Through the use of cactus juice (Huachuma) I fully realized how essential Love is to the process of elevating your consciousness from self centered ego awareness to cosmic oneness - experiencing the light within; a kinship with all life; the Goddess telling me your it; sitting in a boat on the Amazon river fully connected to the all which was this Love I cannot put into words; and there was the moment sitting in the Maloca in the jungle where I became disassociated with identity along with a vision of a closet full of suits, representing identities, which were available for me to try on and assume whatever personality I wished. I already know what I'm seeking on my next adventure so it feels like I seek confirmation of something metaphysical I have now grasped on an intellectual basis and in fleeting transcendental moments. I will fluidly transcend ego self and become the cosmic higher self I am sure of but it is lacking without the heart. There's a reason I had to recover the heart (I called it the pearl earlier in this post) because without the heart the journey stalls. You have to go down, down, down into the depths of darkness to save the princess and establish the relationship between the heart and the conscious self once again in an union that will propel you soaring into the clouds.

A word about wisdom to end this post. The Roman god Mercury is an expression of the Greek god of wisdom Hermes and the roots of this deity travel down into ancient Egypt to their wisdom god Thoth (Djehuty through transliteration of the hieroglyphics).

Thoth from Book of the Dead of Amen-em-hat

Thoth mediates between the warring brothers in the story of the Contendings of Horus and Set. Thoth acts as both scribe and messenger, can perform great feats of magic, and is depicted at times as a baboon as well as an ibis stork. The baboon is of the earthly Middle World but can reach the limits of the sky while swinging through the trees while the ibis is of the airy Upper World but can descend down into the earth and also spends time fishing in the watery Lower World. What I'm describing here is the fluidity that Thoth as wisdom generates to enhance his ability to seamlessly bridge the divide between the metaphysical worlds that encompass the sum total of our psyches. His mysterious and elusive nature allows us to freely move between being self conscious and an enveloping all persuasive consciousness with ease which we can recognize as distinct modes of cognition. It is through worldly experience and the trials of life that this wisdom is attained and finally allows you to profoundly see what is going on. Wisdom comes in a flash and it is very mysterious. You can't bottle it up and contain it so the element of mercury is used to try to describe it as it can easily change shape and mould itself to be present where and when required. The Greeks incorporated an element of a trickster into their conception of Hermes. This is because we tend to over think situations and then start to second guess ourselves leading to confusion. As well by this time in humankind's evolution the Greeks had become aware of the inherent ability to use abstract language, language a gift originally from the gods based on pictograms, to hypnotize and deceive. Hermes is also a very phallic masculine god which delineates him from the intuitional wisdom of the feminine that is very well described in Greek as Pistis Sophia which translated is ‘faith in wisdom’ and from the translation you can derive the intended meaning being essentially intuition from wisdom. To sum up in order to come to terms with the higher self you need the help of Thoth, who is the bridge and the ladder and he will lead you to your destination and once discovered then you will always know.

nowhere paths

In my third Ayahuasca ceremony of my recent trip to SpiritQuest in June of 2016 I experienced a major turning point. The beginning of the intoxication once again started off in a dark place and was very challenging, as it should have been as the issue being addressed was my knee jerk reaction which at first always looks towards the negative. I came to the realization the mind is a hindrance in trying to move past this unpleasantness and the failure to bypass the mental will lead to delusion and travel further down into an abyss of negativity. I turned off my mind and called out the thoughts which tried to repopulate the void. I successfully navigated the treacherous waters designed to shipwreck the Ayahuasca voyager and before me in my vision was the elephant deity of Hinduism called Ganesha. I later learned that Ganesha clears your path of obstacles - the mind, and its ego baggage being a major obstacle of mine. I now have a jacket emblazoned with an image of Ganesha that I constantly wear. This story is leading to this point in time about five months after that ceremony. I walk my dog in the woods on this makeshift path, a path largely of my own creation. There are lots of branches and logs that litter the path, a great deal from an ice storm last March. So a few weeks ago a bunch of workers showed up with chainsaws and wheelbarrows and cleared the path of all obstacles. I ran into one of the workers and asked what they were up to? He said they were cleaning up the river so the water would flow more freely - it's a floodplain where I walk the dog. The path they cleared for easier access of their wheelbarrows and they have done a ton of work; it is quite impressive how much they have cleared. It dawned on me on the weekend I should take this as a physical sign for what I have accomplished post ceremony in my mental state where I trust the heart and let her lead now. It was really quite wonderful to realize this synchronicity. I thanked Ganesha and my Heart/My Mother down at the river's edge.

The paths available to me now are a good representation of how the Ayahuasca intoxication initializes. There are now two choices for entering into the woods due to the good work of the clean up crew. The original way was not cleared and you have to navigate over some fallen branches to get to the cleared path. This path is representing entering into the visionary state still being mindful and facing a challenge to trust your instincts and turn off your mind. Once you find the path then it is clear, if you don’t then you get stuck in a maze of shrubbery, fallen trees, rotting logs, and thorn bushes. The other path detours down a trail next to the pond, the pond representing the stillness of the mind. This part is a little tricky but once negotiated the path is opened up in front of you. It represents entering into the heart space upon commencement of the intoxication. It is the wiser of the choices but both paths are valid. The clear path last for a good while and then eventually you reach a point where it is not cleared once again. This is a sign denoting that ahead in the journey are challenges but it is familiar terrain now and I'm more than capable of being successful. After weaving through this section I come upon a clearing down by the river's edge that I call witch's cove after these two young ladies who held a full moon ceremony there in May of 2015. I connect here with the Goddess, often bringing incense and smoking mapacho in this location. After this section the trail becomes adventurous and the options for exploring are presented. It is a very apt depiction of what is possible with Ayahuasca once the entrance into its world is cleared and you realize you must check your mind at the door. Thank you very much Ganesha.

Sri Ganesha

I love you brother.

i am jaguar

Every time I plan to go down to the Amazon to partake in ceremony or even at the moment just before drinking the plant medicines I always ask myself "why am I doing this again?" and then at some point during one of the ceremonies I'll say to myself "don't do this again" but now I am returning for the third time to undergo this immersion. This in essence is a good insight into the nature of how this medicine works - it so upsets your ego! The ego is working feverishly to prevent the escalation of this process. Whenever it can get a foot in the door it starts talking to you to try and turn you against this path as much as possible. After ceremonies conclude and during the lengthy integration processes you discover how truly holistic and healing the medicine plants can be. So you then decide to go back. And the cycle repeats until finally you fucking clue into what the ego (you think he's your best friend) has been up to and you tell the ego I'm going back this time to cut your fucking head off.

Surrender and Trust the plant medicines. There's no use flying down to Peru if I can't do this. A successful cycle of work will involve mastery over the ego mind.

The plant medicines that are given to you at SpiritQuest are prescriptive. In other words, the dosage is important and given in an environment that is conducive to healing and discovery. Like any medicine, not enough will be ineffective and too much can either cause delirium of some sort or be ultimately poisonous. Looking back now at these recent ceremonies with Ayahuasca, five in total and three more with Huachuma, all were really about choice. What am I here for, am I seeking power, or do I truly want to serve? There was no mistake that though you can claim the power for yourself it was not yours to give and the acquisition of it entailed consequences. There was power for sorcery which seemed to be opposite the whole idea that plant medicines are to be used for healing. Then there was the actual use of the plants to heal but the danger of the practitioner succumbing to ego and aggrandizing self as the powerful healer instead of acknowledging the plants as the true healers. Finally there was just being a servant of the plants' abilities to heal. Next was a lesson about the ego mind's ability to spin a narrative that is misdirection and used to take you away from your path. Ayahuasca tends to amplify in one session what I would describe as everyday occurrences so that you get a feel for how they affect you cumulatively and what happens when you veer off down that road. I totally flunked this lesson and subsequently learned a great deal from that failure. There's no love and no compassion in these narratives that are of a devious implant within your psychic sphere, just accusations and division. They are recognizable for what they are if you just stop for a second and gather your wits about yourself. Projecting this behaviour into the 'real world' is really eye opening in that you can see how we allow the ego mind to constantly shape our worldview and perception of different actors within this sphere of influence. It leads to the us versus them mentality that is so prevalent in the world humans have created. The socio-political world is a total creation of the ego mind that has been carefully constructed, aided and abetted by the subtle craftiness of the ego mind working as a collective. Much like how we talk of a world soul there is also a world ego at large within our collective, you may even define it to a certain extent as culture. The influence of the ego is also very much at work within the relationships that define our individual lives. It was quite emotional and caused much sadness within when I fully came to the realization that my ego had influenced all the relationships I have had in my life. It has been at work the whole time bent on disruption or sabotage in a very devious manner by subtly influencing behaviours a little at a time. Through the amplification of the craftiness of ego by the plant medicines I have been able to see at long last how manipulated we all are. Conversely by being able to step back from the machinations of ego I realized its transient nature and how we choose to let it influence our lives, with the caveat most have lost control over that choice.

So for the record here is the story of my third foray into the jungle wilderness of the Amazon and concurrently the mysterious realms of the psyche.

Sunday June 12th - Travel Day

I'm currently on the first leg of the journey down to the Amazon once again. This flight left in the morning from Toronto to Panama and then onto Lima, where I will spend this first night before flying into Iquitos tomorrow and then off into the humid jungle. By monitoring flights for a while and being flexible on departure times I was able to get a good price on this flight but the best part is I do not have to enter the USA at all on any of these flights. In the year 2016 I find the American custom officials the most restrictive and harassing guards in the Americas. Last year on the way down they wanted to confiscate my bag of carrots because I didn't cut them thin enough and then on the way back I had to transfer planes in Miami and missed my connecting flight because they took forever unloading the luggage and then I was pulled aside and had my luggage searched and was asked questions they had no reason to be asking. So if possible I try to avoid that nonsense. My flight home from Lima is direct to Toronto which is pretty great.

I remember last year coming home with mixed feelings whether I was going to continue with plant medicines. They were challenging for sure but they also presented me with the need to take inventory of myself. A great deal of my struggles last year were of a two fold nature. I used my head instead of my heart way too much and that gets me into trouble. I also after much soul searching had to come to terms with the darkness I would experience. These great plant medicine teachers in a conspiratorial relationship with my heart had to get through to me by presenting the darkness over and over, like beating me over the head with a blunt instrument, and the lessons would be learned gradually during the post integration phase when I would finally pick up on the teachings. It's not like I wasn't aware of the need to use the heart space as we are told by the maestro don Howard constantly to get out of our head. But I'm so smart that I can use my smarts to figure it all out and succeed. Well I've learned you can only get so far with that attitude. Eventually it seems clear you must surrender to the wisdom of the soul which is only accessed by turning the key off on your thoughts and the ego mind. There has to be trust and surrender. I fully admit I'm not really good at either. I'll never escape the darkness unless I can do that. I've had glimpses of what it's like to live with love in your heart. I remember the first time I drank Ayahuasca and the Goddess welcomed me and she was so intoxicating and I commented on how I could envision men spending the rest of their days trying to recapture that moment and be in her presence once again. The fifth time I drank there was the pathetic scene I witnessed of those searching men trying to get in to see the Goddess in the castle and they could not, however I was let in and she opened my heart (she is my heart). Later on in my journey at SpritQuest I felt the ineffable cosmic love, a profound feeling of connectivity and bliss. I'm coming back to my jungle home in pursuit of that love; a love I wish to be the basis of which animates my life and leads to a path of service that will lead others to that love. I know I will not be able to get to that place ever again unless I trust and surrender. First I must sincerely apologize for my last time drinking Ayahuasca when I was struggling. I let the ego mind take over and prevent so much more valuable teachings to be denied, though in a way my behaviour has led to a realization of what I must change. I will remember to love, trust, and surrender and while staying within my open heart I will be able to see the ego mind for what it is, confront it, and master it. 

In leading up to this week I've had tears of joy, good thoughts, and strong thoughts. I've felt very resolute and very clear on my intentions for doing this. Another big step is coming up but there's something that feels very different about this one.

Monday June 13th - Day 1

Well I'm here at SpiritQuest and settled in. All of us just went through the orientation and I realized don Howard is personifying the grandfather Huachuma spirit.

I become aware of my vacillation between the heart space and ego mind in this environment. The voice that is the ego mind has major trust issues and if I'm to progress on this path I have to overcome that. The trust issues present almost as non rational, like they are designed to prevent me from furthering the development of living with an open heart. The solution is to quiet the ego mind and I have to be conscious of that at all times. The jungle sounds can be quite soothing but also they can bring back memories of my past struggles due to the dominance of the ego mind. This experience is not going to be easy but my intent is clear and I know I can get through this. My ego mind is ready to play all the tricks it can muster up to derail this. It's non rational in its tricks though. I have to be at least smart enough to see through them.

The group here is about 25 people, about five or so of us have experience with Ayahuasca. I was quizzed on my experiences so I once again like last time tried not to candy coat them. I also reminded people that the experiences one has are deeply personal. Tomorrow we do a Mapacho ceremony after breakfast as a way to get everyone on the same page, meditating on their intentions for why they are here. During the afternoon before ceremony I need to meditate and review my accumulated notes on my intentions which are to Love, Trust, and Surrender to the Ayahuasca medicine. First though will be an apology to Mother Ayahuasca for some of my past behaviour. I'm not feeling angst or any kind of trepidation as tomorrow approaches. I do though in being completely honest feel a little unsure about being back here. That is a result of my trust issues and listening to the ego mind. I've spent the last year getting to the bottom of these feelings and in the last six months have gotten clarity on what is the root cause, so in a ways it feels like I'm writing an exam tomorrow. I'm not expecting a perfect grade but I feel like I have prepared well. It's time to see the results.

Tuesday June 14 - Day 2

It's about 6pm, ceremony is to begin at 9:30pm tonight. We had a beautiful Mapacho ceremony late morning where I felt connected to the jungle tobacco spirit. I once again felt deep respect towards don Howard which I think is part of the trust intention working within me already. After breakfast I had a wonderful conversation with him. He truly gives off this grandfather spirit vibe. Prior to that at breakfast I was able to open up to some people and share my success in subduing my addictions and fear through the use of Ayahuasca. It was gratifying to see people react the way they did.

We finished the Ayahuasca ceremony orientation just a short time ago. Don Howard lets people know that tonight's ceremony will be difficult for some. I picked a spot in the maloca to set up my mattress for the evening that I feel will be most advantageous to me, knowing what I know about thoughts and feelings affecting mind states and my trust issues. I had a few butterflies in the stomach related to anxiety but that's to be expected. It would be strange if I did not have that. I don't have fear and there's a strong purpose to why I am continuing on in this work; why I made plans to come here well in advance and then counted down the days while preparing myself as well as I could. I know I have things I need to work on and I plan to address them.

Don Howard has talked a great deal about reciprocity which is called 'ayni' in the indigenous Quechua language. What really sunk in was that in asking the medicine for healing there is something we can do in return. By gaining trust through surrendering to the medicine, the love that is lying in my heart ready to explode upon the world I can offer and that will be accomplished by being of service to the medicine plants for the greater good of all. By accessing the heart space, it will through the force of love, master the ego mind.

Wednesday June 15 - Day 3

The intention you set for ceremony has an uncanny way of coming to some kind of fruition. I knew I was coming back to SpiritQuest to write an exam based on the teachings I received last time concerning Love, Trust, and Surrender as well as the need to stay within the heart space, avoiding the trappings of the ego mind. The ceremony started at 9:30pm and I was the third last to drink so I took in all the newcomers to Ayahuasca taking their first drink. I felt a little apprehension, no fear, and my intuition wasn't flagging it as a rough ride. The brew didn't taste good that's for sure. I know it gets worse every time you drink in a cycle of work but usually the first draught is tolerable. I didn't get that this time as it was a tough swallow. Before drinking I gave don Howard a broad smile and then paused, saying my apologies to la Madre for my past behaviour, and then I promised to love, trust, and surrender to the medicine and the process. I didn't feel the effects of the medicine come on per se, instead this time when don Rober started singing the first icaro I closed my eyes and followed the lead of the melody which produced my visions. I saw outlines of buildings made up of luminous light and these buildings became more complete as the scene unfolded. As I looked up towards the sky I could see patches of light in the sky and I wanted to go there but I couldn't, prompting the scene to shift to a familiar darkness. I'd seen and felt this darkness before in a few ceremonies and it's funny that I always forget about this particular ominous darkness. It's very difficult to describe so I won't attempt to but it's why I have wondered at times what I'm doing back in Iquitos because it is a very malevolent energy that is devious when you allow its machinations in through the ego mind. The energy emanating from this construct was also very hypnotic. I have written a few times before about this hypnotic energy; it catches you off guard as you are ensconced in the ego mind at this point wondering why you are witnessing this darkness and it works in tandem with the ego to create a scenario of distrust of this process. It wants you to think of Ayahuasca as something to be avoided. This is when it becomes sink or swim time - the test has progressed to the difficult part. Curiously at lunch when I was talking to don Howard he had mentioned encountering hypnotic energy but then with enough experience and courage you can see through it and not accept the thoughts it is trying to implant in your psyche. It is then in ceremony decision time of what I'm going to follow here. Will it be my head or my heart? Deep down I know I will choose Love, it is the place I wish to spend my life in and through filtering my thoughts into the heart space I will be able to do this. I did not accept what this hypnotic and malevolent energy was trying to tell me; instead I insisted on following the path of love and trusting the teachings of don Howard and surrendering to the Ayahuasca medicine. The hypnotic energy in retrospect is present at forks in the road in this medicine journey. If you desire power for personal gain that was the road opening up once again to seduce you into following it. The hypnotic energy eventually subsided and I was then presented with a new scene that seemed to be presenting an arcade of sorts replete with video games and candy. It seemed to be portending distractions - distractions that at one time worked on me. I entered into this carnival of sorts and was given the opportunity to select any woman I pleased from a plethora of women, designed to delight the senses, that were offered to me. I politely declined saying that time of my life had come and gone, now my focus was on love and returning to that state and I was adamant about living with Love in my heart. At this point I realized what I had done. I had broken down this construct of ego mind, denied the power offered to me as well as other distractions known in popular culture as the seven deadly sins, and chose the path of the heart. I was pure in my intentions and my heart. You show how pure of heart you are by your actions. I was offered a great deal of power, it was an appeal to my ego mind to accept it and remain in the world of power, greed, and cynicism. I knew I had to get into my heart space. The power available does not appeal to me, I've felt that cosmic love and I want to get back to that. At that point I knew I was pure of heart. The second icaro was ending and I felt a purge coming on. It came on in short order filling two thirds of my bucket. During this purge I metaphorically expelled my ego mind from my psyche and it was an unattached floating entity in front of me. I was encouraged to reach out and grab the ego, crush it, and throw it into the vomit bucket. In doing so I felt the warrior spirit, I felt invigorated, and I was so exuberant concerning what I had just accomplished as I knew it was a major turning point. The expelling of ego was the metaphorical healing genius of the Goddess!

Why does the darkness return? It was because of the ego mind and the suffering it will cause us if we choose that path. I sat there in the moment calling the ego a fucker for causing all the shit it had stirred up over the years. At this point I was pretty much out of the intoxication as the third icaro started up. I was reflecting on this test being a way that the Great Goddess separates the true seeker from the weak. Power will seduce most, you can possibly fake your way through some of your vices but the offering of power and its intended greed will get you in the end if you are being disingenuous. What this process is doing is finding those who are pure of heart. Once I understood this I knew I had arrived at the destination I had been seeking. I felt I belonged and that I would live my life in service to the Great Goddess of Love. I recognized the sacrifices made by don Howard and don Rober in her service to try and find the true seeker among many who apply. At this point I saw the shamans become illuminated one by one. I felt then I was going to be prepared now to meet the Great Grandfather spirit of Huachuma whom I equate in ancient Egypt to Amun.

Amun

I spent the remainder of the ceremony listening to the icaros and basking in the glow of this amazing energy; feeling sleep was sporadic, I spent the night in the maloca. Love for so many things came over me, I felt such love for the shamans and much gratitude but most of all I LOVE THE GREAT GODDESS! I want to shout it from the rooftops. She is love. 

After last night I can say that chasing my dreams, seeking the unknown, and persevering through very difficult challenges has been extremely rewarding. I felt like coming back here would entail something like writing an exam and seeing if I integrated the teachings and passed this latest challenge. The ceremony was difficult, very mysterious and tricky, and the only way to get through it successfully was to use the teachings that have been hammered home into my head and stay within the heart.

LOVE

TRUST

SURRENDER

Being able to focus on the heart space and not get trapped in the ego mind allowed me to solve the mystery; the darkness was defeated. Suffice to say a big component of the test involved seeing how pure of heart you really are. 

Friday June 17 - Day 5

The intention for last night's ceremony was to remain in the love state, to trust and surrender, as well as to get clarity on my relationship with the Goddess and how I can manifest that within my everyday life. The ceremony turned out to be very challenging; in retrospect I would say I failed the challenge but as I have learned from experience, failure teaches you many lessons that are unavailable to the star student. I definitely have a better constitution and frame of mind this year to deal with the darkness that keeps manifesting for me in my Ayahuasca ceremonies. Last year I would have just shut right down. I have to trust more this time and just let this run its course. In dealing with the ego and attempting to master it, it seems the ceremonies have to be dark ones and so it was again. The brew was definitely stronger and upon the start of the first icaro and the onset of the first visions I had to go to the bathroom. While in the bathroom the tiles started seeping a reddish blood colour and demonic faces would form in the patterns. It seemed at this point that yes I'd have to go through another dark ceremony. The challenge was something I should have been able to handle. After returning to the maloca the visions were once again projecting a familiar and sinister vibe that in the past has had me saying to myself to avoid the use of Ayahuasca. Using some semblance of trust I was able to have this revelation that there are parasitic entities that attach to the opening of the energy channels that the psychedelics enable. This was some kind of progress in my cognitive narrative because before I'd blame Ayahuasca and the shamans for the darkness. I have been told before by the Goddess the darkness is very clever and it has been stressed that it will stop at nothing to steal your light. Well in essence they feed off your light and I have literally felt this as the darkness is a leech and it's looking for an opening into your energetic field. Your fields are open during times of stress, sexual stimulation, intoxication, and other energetic stimulation - this also includes the psychedelic experience. I tried to reason in my head that these entities attach to your ego, take it over, inflate your ego, and then plague you as they're a cosmic cult of misogyny and hedonism present in the galaxy looking for human hosts. They are subject to depression as well as humans and are also able to feed off of other humans that are open channels. I chided these entities saying if they are so smart why haven't they learned to make a different power source or clone humans to use as energy sources such as depicted in the movie 'The Matrix'? Anyway after rationalizing that this was a necessary evil on the way to receiving teachings from la Madre I hoped they would leave me alone in ceremony three. I was not in the heart space but remained in my head thinking I could gain insights from this dark ceremony. I then entered into a dialogue with my own ego. I told it to cut out the carnival hypnosis and games to try and get me back under its spell and return to my former addictions because they aren't working and I've left that behind. I gave the ego mind a choice: I said that I know it is depressed and lonely because it has lost its control over me and its so called other ego friends attached to other humans are self absorbed pricks so they will just use you to get what they want. I said work with me as a united front. I have offered this truce before in consensus reality but it has never worked out; the ego mind would always want to become dominant so I'd have to kick him to the curb again. If my offer was not accepted we would have this uneasy truce where I'd try and figure out a way to expel this foreigner while he continued his lame attempts to hypnotize me. I then spent the rest of the ceremony enduring candy store visions and hypnotic strobings that seemed to be directed at hypnotizing me.

This all does seems kind of crazy. I have to trust it's part of Ayahuasca's teachings to enable me to terminate this dysfunctional ego relationship I'm in so I'm treating this as a learning experience. Since this theme is reoccurring I have to accept it for the experience it is. This ceremony seemed to go back to the Huachuma teachings of the darkness being very clever and will do anything to steal your light including concocting elaborate situations such as this. ed note: It is very easy to see now as I edit this that the ego mind crafted a multi layered scenario replete with galactic parasites that got the best of me in this ceremony however read on as I figured it out in short order! 

Saturday June 18 - Day 6

I just woke up and had a bit of an epiphany regarding the events of ceremony two. I guess what in the past would take time to figure out I can shorten to a day or so in quiet contemplation. Anyway the idea I got upon reflection of ceremony two is that the narrative crafted under the intoxication was another construct of ego. The ego is under attack and the latest attempt to deflect the attack has evolved into misdirection. The thoughts that entered into my awareness that night were familiar and they were crafted into a narrative that was evolving. Instead of everything being negative, only select elements of the story became dark. The shamans retained their positive light and were doing the best they can. The darkness became parasitic and infected humankind through the ego. There is truth to that but the revelations concocted in this ceremony I have to conclude were a product of my ego mind due to how preposterous it was at points. That is usually the give away. The thing I learned was that how the ego mind deludes you was amplified in ceremony so I would see what it can do to you. I then extrapolated from that how it affects you subconsciously in a much more subtle way but it is spinning everything you take in. Then I realized how it has negatively affected all my relationships that are near and dear to me and that made me so sad.

There is definitely a huge element of trust in this work. In order to get results you have to stick it out for the cycle. Okay so another stepping stone on the path. Staying in my head for that ceremony was another direct lesson that I can't engage aspects of the mind while taking plant medicines. The conversation with the ego definitely gave me the sense of there being the distinct divide in what constitutes my wholeness. The ego is tricky and elusive and has more tricks than a clown but slowly and surely I'm making progress. It took a good sleep to process all this. In the past it would have closed me down and I would not have figured it out until I got home and then I would have subsequently beat myself up over not being able to recognize what happened at the time. It has been important this time to embrace the darkness. I have no fear of it anymore, instead I have a respect for it. It does provide for a wonderful teaching opportunity if you can sort out the trickery inherent in it. In this case it took a day, in the past it would have checkmated me and closed me down from further experience. I look forward to tonight's ceremony, another opportunity for self mastery.

Sunday June 19 - Day 7

I went into last night's ceremony with the intent to keep things simple. Of my last five ayahuasca ceremonies I have felt this darkness that comes on that I cannot get past. I liken it to video games where you reach a level that has your number and you cannot get past it and keep dying, never getting to rescue the princess. This darkness keeps getting the better of me and even though I think I do know how to get past it, when confronted with it I crumble or get involved in some sub plot unrelated to the quest! So for this ceremony back to basics - trust and still the mind.

The brew tasted really different, I actually didn't mind it, it tasted like pickle juice with a tang to it, maybe pickle juice fermenting or going bad, and it also had a spicy aftertaste. When the intoxication came on and the visionary experience started I was witnessing an artificial building block vibe that has characterized previous dark ceremonies. However it felt neutral, I couldn't get a sense either way. One way I know the session will be about the light is if I see a vision of the Goddess in some form. The ongoing moving visions that were unfolding first person perspective style panned to my right and came upon the Goddess seated in a chair. But it was kind of ridiculous as this was an effigy, a poor attempt to create a facsimile of her and it was very crude. There was like a wig on some kind of circular shape with a pillow for a body plus some makeup and lipstick on the face to try and make it believable but it was preposterous and I find when the darkness that is constructed by the ego mind attempts some things it just turns out to be so funny sometimes. So I was immediately warned the ego was up to more tricks. The scene became hypnotic and menacing like I have witnessed before and I started getting thoughts in my head about the experience that then started to expand into more ominous thoughts and threats. I realized at this point I needed to put the still the mind intention into practice. It was difficult to suppress the thoughts at first and keep my mind still however I could sense the thoughts were heading into crazy territory once again, so using that against the darkness I was able to still my mind and prevent the thoughts from expanding once implanted into my psyche and instead they eventually dissipated. Then in my vision a fully loaded gun discharged into my head, the purpose being to break my concentration but I remained steadfast against the onslaught and didn't allow any more thoughts to penetrate my mind stillness. What I would characterize these intrusions as is they are parasitic in nature. Carlos Castaneda in his books calls them "the flyers", inorganic parasites that try to enter through psychic channels and execute mind control over the subject. The Gnostic seers called these cosmic intruders "Archons" and they introduced into the host errors in thinking that would lead to falsehoods and delusion. I'd probably classify these thoughts as constructs of the ego mind and the way to defeat them in all cases is to still the mind. The emptiness will make them perish. In the previous ceremony I was characterizing them as galactic parasites that infect the ego mind but now I was starting to realize they are parasitic thoughts released into the mind by the ego; a disease propagated through humankind's ability to formulate abstract language that is used as a method of manipulation and control. As the first icaro ended I felt nauseous and I unleashed a heavy purge into my bucket and equated it to throwing up as much dark energy as I could possibly muster. When I was finished this kindly apparition of a grandmother figure in a pale blue dress helped me to clean up. I thanked her and opened up my heart towards her. I had a profound sense that this woman was the spirit of Ayahuasca, la Madre, manifested as the grandmother. Upon commencement of the next icaro the scene then shifted to what I could see as some kind of parade float, perhaps a celebration of what I had just accomplished. The float had chocolate cake, cupcakes, and other confectionaries and these were all pulsing to a beat. To my left I saw two girls offering me things. One girl was offering a bracelet much like the indigenous tribes offer to you when you visit them. I waved her away because she wanted money and I had none. I waved the other girl away too but then everyone either turned into a heart or pulsed like the beat of a heart. I realized she was offering love so I then freely accepted it. Then some dancing girls appeared with a woman who was in charge of them. I felt the eroticism of their show and as they came closer I was offered one of the women. I politely declined and was asked again being told that she can be yours. I said I will watch the show but not touch. The scene and the icaro ended. The darkness returned when the music returned, ostensibly as a test. I was able to still the mind and in my hand I held my piece of black obsidian that I had acquired last year after seeing a vision of the Goddess as purple whirling thin lines of energy within a shiny black object. I didn't know what it was at the time but upon returning home the word obsidian would pop into my head and it turns out that the shiny black object was obsidian. So I had brought it down to Peru with me as a talisman. I was looking at it in my hand when it became enveloped in a rainbow aura. I rotated it 90 degrees counter clockwise and the aura followed it and then the Goddess appeared in front of the obsidian as a luminescent fairy, she then entered into the obsidian and appeared as the classical hair of the goddess in the Hathor style.

Hathor and her hairstyle

From this icon formed her face with a huge smile on it and then back into the fairy. She reminded me how one of my intentions was to have a way of always having her present in my life so I retain a connection at all times. This is how it was going to happen and she said a part of her was now in the obsidian and so don't lose it! It's the most valuable rock in the world now. After this I looked up and there was a sort of rectangular carousel and I saw what looked to be a Hindu god forming. An elephant head appeared and I knew it was Ganesha.

Ganesha

I don't know much about Ganesha but he was very friendly and playful. I figured I'd unlocked him, the video game allusion again, and he was now part of my tribe. Then a caricature of a Hindi man, just his head, appeared and made the scene even more funny. I spent a moment marvelling that Ganesha was in my vision! Then to my right at this carnival scene a car on tracks drove up to me. I understood it to delineate a transition of scenes. The driver was very funny and playing the part well so I complimented him on his skills and asked if he was an actor. He said no, and I said he should pursue it. He thanked me and then I innately knew the scene needed to change so I said he should go. I looked away, paused, and looked back and he was still there though once again an inner knowing was clear this part of the vision was over and needed to come to an end. Finally he left, I waved, he did a jump and a click of his heels and departed. Then he stopped and tried to do more acting and be funny. I told him he had gone too far and wasn't funny anymore. He said Awwwwww and left. In the interlude between icaros, I marvelled once again at what had gone on so far in the evening. The Goddess asked if I wanted to work on anything else but I said I'm more than happy just enjoying the rest of the evening by listening to the shaman's songs. She said the medicine was strong tonight and there would be time to work on other things and that's how it was to be so off I was in visions again, this time of total whiteness. I thought oh not a hospital but it turned out to be a snow bank. The scene tilted up and I saw an apartment which made me very emotional because it meant the house had been sold as the kids had grown up and moved out and my dog Luna had probably passed away - it was the retirement years. The lesson having to do with the relentless marching on of time. The Goddess pointed out my children are 14 and 12 and time flies so to be as good a husband and father I could be. When I was ready after that we would discuss more about being of service as I had wanted to discover my path and how I can become more of service to the Goddess. Then there was this detour into the nature of a couple women I work with. They are sirens. It was an interesting foray into the psychology of the feminine half of the human race straight from the Goddess. The ultimate lesson being I should really appreciate my wife more.

The shamans then came around to perform the closing arkana. Afterwards I laid down on my side to rest and saw a large green boa coming towards me in a vision, not at all menacing, and it entered into me encircling my brain. It was a pleasant feeling and the snake then proceeded to slither down my left shoulder to my arm where it changed into a beautiful exotic indigenous woman. My left arm's now the embodiment of the Goddess. A bit later I saw a white snake with flakes of black and grey approach me. It communicated that it wanted inside me as well and I dutifully opened my mouth and swallowed it. I imagine it is now at the base of my spine, something to do with kundalini energy. The ceremony ended, I stayed for about half an hour to 2am and then went back to my room. As I lay on the bed I could feel the serpentine energy in me flowing and making ripples in the bed. What a night! I think I have gotten past this darkness block now. I don't know what's in store for the next two ceremonies but I can get past the darkness barrier now. Last year was fear and this year it is darkness. We do a Bobinzana ceremony tonight, a heart opening dream plant I have a good relationship with.

Beautiful Bobinzana

It has been interesting that in the first and third ceremonies this year I have had visions relating to women, eroticism, and their sexuality. My last time down here a year ago half of the ceremonies had these elements as well. It all goes back to the nature of reality being highly sexual and there is a tie in with the essential energy that animates creation. That energy is front and centre and highly charged in these ceremonies. It's building to some kind of a reveal.

Monday June 20 - Day 8

In the sharing circle of our experiences right now I realized how it is very difficult for my ego to get along with others who are on an ego trip. We all live within our egos to a degree and that doesn't seem to perturb mine. It's the overt ones I have a problem with. I need to develop strategies and perhaps learn from Ayahuasca on how to more effectively deal with this. It feels like a challenge has been issued to me. I also learned doing a web search that Ganesha removes obstacles and places obstacles in your way on your path. There seems to be a connection between the two here.

Tuesday June 21 - Day 9

Turns out I was to learn a lesson from Ayahuasca in ceremony on how to deal with others that I find fault with and want to judge. I learned we always have a choice and that love is a choice.

The visions when they came on were of the dark nature yet again. They got the best of me early and my thoughts gravitated towards not doing another ceremony, this should be my final one. The constant negativity was becoming tiresome and I realized it was coming from within and the failure to adopt a positive attitude I surmised was the reason for it. The visions do not frighten me but they play havoc on my mind, however I was able to right my ship as I know that by entering into the heart space is the antidote. I felt a lift in my conscious awareness as I worked to still my mind and end the darkness. I looked up and over in the direction of the shamans singing and I saw the light and the light was dancing in time to the rhythm of the icaro. It became clear that the shamans were conduits for all the energy, both light and dark, and that we have the choice in how we wish to perceive the energy. At this point I chose to see the goodness and that's now what was in my vision. Ayahuasca has this innate ability to greatly amplify this and it is then easy to see how subtly your outlook on life is altered, and how cumulatively that affects you day after day. If you allow negativity into your life continually it will work towards making you completely miserable. I felt a great love and appreciation for this lesson and to the person who was the catalyst for me learning this lesson. I was able to see all forms of energy, all the way down to our lowest form of energy, all enjoying the music. It was pretty special to see how we all love music. The rest of the night was all positive. I thought of the ancient Egyptian creatrix goddess Neith, as I was wearing a necklace with her symbol.

Neith the seamstress of creation

She appeared as a spider who was weaving a web - appropriate as she weaves creation into existence. After that I had a vision of laying down into a coffin very ancient Egyptian style, with my arms crossed and feeling like a pharaoh on his way to the afterlife. There was a tremendous amount of gold in my visions at this point. When the shamans came around to give everyone their closing arkana the erotic imagery returned in my visions. I was witnessing a woman writhing to the beat of the music in a highly sexual manner. I had this amazing revelation at this point about the light and how it enlightens the chakras. We open our hearts, our feminine side, and this lets the light get in. This spirit, the masculine white light, diffracts within our bodies creating the different colours of the chakras. The base is the lowest vibratory colour red. The energy is at this point animating life and is the male creative energy. When you cultivate this energy with love it then moves up the spinal cord enlivening all aspects of the self until the channel is fully opened and it is realized as pure white light through the crown chakra. This channel remains open and you are constantly enlightened, you are luminous with the spirit. It is the tradition of the transfiguration of Christ or in ancient Egypt the Akh which is a luminous stork, a combination of the concepts of the Ba and Ka, full of wisdom and light. This transforming light energy, kundalini, is also channeled for healing energy and sexual energy. Since most people are in the mind space of sex that's what the energy is mostly used for. You can cultivate it and transfer its power to the spiritual side. I felt it stirring within me deeply once again and that's when I saw the erotic imagery. I acknowledged the sexual side but chose to keep the power on my spiritual path. When the shaman came over and gave me a personal icaro I felt its power intensify and within this deep inner intense growl. These events combined with the serpents I saw last ceremony seems to portend some kind of kundalini power once again rising within. I also noticed, as the shamans made their way around the room, I was hearing this natural reverb in their singing voices. It was really cool because only some of the frequencies were being delayed. As well the wife of the shaman don Rober sings just a little behind him giving their harmony an extra special quality.

When the ceremony ended and the candle was lit I sought out the person who was the catalyst for the most valuable lesson I learned tonight and I gave him a big hug and let him know how much his example meant to me. It was all about choice and choosing to love. We have free will to decide if we are going to live in hell or heaven. If you go with the negative energy then it will multiply and you'll be miserable, or always chose light and love. The Ayahuasca amplifies what you feel when you make that choice and from experience you know to always choose light. This has really been a wonderful experience so far, kind of the school of hard knocks but very rewarding. We drink again tonight for the fifth and final time. I hope to combine all the lessons I have learned into one big celebration.

Wednesday June 22 - Day 10

Back in the fourth ceremony I felt nauseous for quite a while before I could purge. It's like it is a sign from the medicine that the cycle of work is ending and you should cease drinking the medicine when that starts to happens. The fifth ceremony last night was a remarkable culmination of lessons learned, the end of one journey, and a new beginning to another.

There was a Shipibo arts and crafts market that came to visit us in the day before the final ceremony Tuesday night. They have fantastic stuff. I bought a couple of paintings and a tapestry. The tapestry is of a jaguar head enveloped by two serpents which turned out to be foreshadowing the evening's events. One of the paintings has a green boa embedded in its rich colourful vision which caught my eye and the other is a painting in dragon's blood of a beautiful indigenous woman. The indigenous woman resembled the woman the boa turned into in ceremony three so I was attracted to that painting. The Shipibo woman who sold me the paintings has tremendous sex appeal. With my heightened serpent energy I could really feel it and it reinforced the notion that the way this kundalini energy seems to work is that you channel it for either spiritual work or life creating sexual energy. It's on fire in me and I had a feeling it would affect me in tonight's ceremony.

The ceremony started off with dark energy again, that's five out of five ceremonies all beginning with negative energy and it was hammering away at me. Part of what was beating me up was having felt the sexual energy towards the Shipibo woman and my negativity was feeding off that. After feeling pounded by the dark energy and retreating into a shell I all of a sudden gathered my wits about me and felt a sense of heightened consciousness envelop me and then I experienced a huge surge of serpent energy that was electrifying and I became strong once again. Outside the maloca the elemental energies were gathering in a huge thunderstorm and in my vision I saw a jaguar in the distance. It spotted me, turned towards me, and started coming towards me. As it came closer I could only see this giant jaguar head in front of me and then it let out a large roar. I was not afraid but instead I roared right back at the jaguar. I then became the jaguar. I AM JAGUAR! I then roared in all directions at all my enemies, all the dark energy, and they all scattered in fear and cowardliness. I felt very masculine and so fucking powerful. I have never felt that strong in all my life and it was such an incredible feeling. I felt an exalted feeling of accomplishment and completeness. Such a great state; I was feeling like an all powerful king. I basked in the powerful after glow and continued to roar. I thought about how I have completed this quest and became the jaguar, the ultimate king of his domain who has no fear. After the first icaro ended I was relaxing on my throne and what seemed like my spiritual family came to hug me. I had this sense I had been lost on an internal journey but now had finally returned. I hugged them all back. I felt so many have tried to steal my power but I have persevered and here I now sit having gained this power which I vowed to use for good and to be of service. I also thought of how ancient Egyptian pharaohs were granted this power and were to use it to serve the people, though their successes at not succumbing to its temptation probably are not favourable.

I once again felt the prolonged nausea, a sign this Ayahuasca work has run its course. When I purged I was exposing my backside and I had this primal reaction about a contender to my throne trying to mount me in a show of dominance while I was in this state. I finished puking and growled at all my enemies. Later on in the ceremony the goddess Hathor appeared in gold with multiple instances of her face filing up the rest of the room in my vision. I hugged her and thanked her for all she has done for me. This was such a powerful final ceremony. It was a culmination of the twelve Ayahuasca ceremonies I have now participated in and it all felt like an end to this particular phase of my journey. The quest is complete. I am jaguar.

I have this strong desire to go home now and connect with my family on a deeper level. I want to impart my wisdom to my son. He is a great kid and he deserves more from me. Same with my wife, she deserves more from me.

At the end of the ceremony I went back to my room and as I lay in bed I could hear some people outside in the rain. I felt the urge to join them so out I went into the pouring rain with just my swimming trunks on, feeling so strong and powerful with my hands reaching up to the heavens while the downpour cleansed me. It was a night I will never forget.

Thank you Mary. Thank you Ayahuasca. The end of a chapter and the beginning of another. I love you all.

Thursday June 23 - Day 11

I have touched on serpent energy quite a bit in this exposition so I feel I should try to explain it in greater detail. Serpent power is the life force energy that pulses through all living things. I have discovered it at work in three different areas of my worldly existence. In other words this is experiential and not just something I have read about. Reading about it gives you the curious connection between the serpent entwined rod of the Greek god of healing Asclepius and its adoption by the medical profession as its standard and then there is the Old Testament biblical story of Moses and his healing brazen serpent in Numbers chapter 21.

The rod of Asclepius

Moses' brazen serpent

In my own experience first off I can describe this power as white light that has entered into the body and diffracted into different levels of vibration. The base vibratory power settles at the bottom of the spine and is red in colour. It is the common oscillation of this power, the lowest form of vibration, and in eastern mysticism is the root chakra that is very materialistic. Serpent power at this point is experienced sexually as well as in expressions of violent behaviour such as rage and anger. As your spiritual awareness is raised, the vibrational intensity of this power increases and this is depicted in the ascending colour scale of the chakras until once again the light returns to its pure white state and exits out of the crown chakra. This can be thought of as enlightening all the chakras and at this point you can keep your 'channel' open and be constantly enlightened by the light. The three areas primarily affected by serpent power in my experience are sexual potency, health and vigour, and spiritual ascendency. When this power is channeled into each area it necessarily takes away from the other area. With Ayahuasca it is a requirement of most traditions that the drinker abstain from sexual behaviour a few weeks before drinking and a few weeks afterwards. If you are expressing this energy out through sexual behaviour then there will be less energy accessible for healing and spiritual work. As well, I have also experienced where the body's use of this power to heal itself of sickness can be curtailed by engaging in sexual behaviour and temporarily deplete the self of this power. There is then a need to rebuild up stores of this energy. I have also found spiritually I am more in tune with my 'higher self' when I abstain from sexual behaviour. It seems this serpent energy presents with a constant choice where we can use it for sexual energy or spiritual energy if it is not needed to heal. When under the influence of Ayahuasca this has been presented to me very clearly. My body was in a heightened state of vibratory ecstasy, I was feeling the love, and I felt this energy coursing into me and rising on up out of my body. At this point my visionary activity became inundated with sexual imagery, in particular writhing, sexually charged women. I understood this at this time to be the direct result of this serpent energy and that there is always a choice to channel this energy into the sexual or the spiritual. I chose the spiritual in this instance and it solidified my belief in this power and what it is used for. It was clear 99.999999 percent of the population channels it into the sexual. That is not a condemnation or judgment but rather an observation. Obviously reproduction is very necessary to continue the species! 

Now the question that needs to be asked and answered is why do I call it serpent energy? The presentation of this power within ceremonies has been accompanied by visions of serpents or an association to the snake. The first stirring of the energy within ceremony was the final Ayahuasca ceremony a year ago where the Goddess appeared in her temple in Denderah in my vision. It was the ancient Egyptian goddess Hathor in her guise as the Goddess of Love dressed in a red corset and as she approached me and lay over top of my body I experienced the most erotic sensation that I have ever felt. Among many connections in the iconography of Hathor is a connection to the serpent Wadjet, representing the power of the rising serpent, and a subject of this book by the Egyptologist Alison Roberts.

The serpent power of Ancient Egypt

Following that ceremony, the first time I drank Huachuma a few days later it stirred within me this sexual energy once again - I commented that Huachuma was an aphrodisiac, aphrodisiac being an allusion to the Greek goddess Aphrodite who is equated with the Egyptian Hathor. That night when I laid in bed I closed my eyes and saw many writhing snakes in my vision. The next ceremony was when I saw the grand vision of the back to back green serpents surrounding a great pure white light. I understood the two serpents as goddesses that were protecting my spirit essence which was the light. I then kept seeing serpents in the pathway we were walking on and then later that evening as I showered I saw snakes forming in the water splashing on the tiles below. The presentation of the two huge serpents as green were related to the heart chakra. To top this all off was the third time I drank Huachuma when I witnessed the naked manifestation of the red (base) and green (heart) energy all around me. The presentation of the two colours were related to a shaman's ability to heal, to the pulsing sexual energy of the jungle, and then the energy manifested in the open heart being experienced by one of the women who was in the ceremony. There were no serpents in my visions at this time, instead this incredible energy was unveiling itself. This year it was in the third Ayahuasca ceremony that the serpent energy was really felt and my visions presented it as a huge green boa that turned into a beautiful indigenous woman inside me. I then had another snake enter me and rest at the bottom of my spine. This serpent energy enveloped me as I lay on my bed after this ceremony and I felt it rise up in ceremony four that enabled me to overcome the negative thoughts I was experiencing. At the conclusion of this ceremony as I mentioned I had visions of a sexually charged woman and felt a deep inner growl. This all came to a head in the final ceremony where the rising of the serpent energy exploding into the white light of pure spirit allowed for my transformation into the jaguar. The Shipibo tapestry of the jaguar head encircled by the serpent captures this awesome feeling all too well.

Malevolent entities know we can access this power, they lust after it, and want to take it from us. They have their mind tricks, their hypnosis, and their attempts to addict us to behaviours that leave us vulnerable and open to having our access to this available power stolen. Addictions, whether physical or mental, are very nefarious. They are not rational by any means and when and if you free yourself of them you see how the hold they had on you made no sense. At this point it is instructional to engage in the addictive behaviour again if possible to see how non sensical it was to engage in this behaviour in the first place. This makes you wary then of any activities that require behaviours that seem to be addictive and hypnotic.

Friday June 24 - Day 12

We said goodbye yesterday to about two thirds of the guests. On to the second part of the journey, Huachuma, my wise grandfather spirit. We just finished the ceremonial introduction - the ceremony don Howard conducts is second to none; it is so beautiful, and so powerful. The mapacho smoked immediately afterwards is heavenly. My heart is open wide. I have the jaguar spirit flowing through my body and soul.

Saturday June 25 - Day 13

We went out on the boats after drinking the Huachuma to visit the Alamas tribe. There was a sharp uptick in visual acuity and there was a oneness with nature felt. The tribe's kids were joyful to see us and we played with them for a while.

Alamas kids playing

I felt very warm but the intoxication was mild for the most part. The evening ceremony was good, the power of the mesa was felt. The second and third mesadas promise to be more revealing once the dosage and power of the medicine is increased. I did have an insight and admonishment to stop analyzing everything. I have to remain vigilant and not allow my head/mind into this process and just have an open heart ready to receive and progress with wisdom. 

Monday June 27 - Day 15

I've been here at SpiritQuest now for two weeks. You start chomping at the bit to return home and start putting into practice what you have learned and have been shown. That combined with a little homesickness makes you realize your time in the jungle is coming to a close.

Yesterday's Huachuma ceremony was all about the Mother - Mother Earth known here as Sachamama and Pachamama. And that's what it was about! The Huachuma potion was very strong this time. We went out on the boats to visit the Muruy Huitoto tribe and I felt very content on the ride over. The visual acuity granted by Huachuma once again allowed me to see the separation of the clouds in the sky in great detail. Since the water is lower at this time of year, we took a route across the Amazon river to a town which we walked through on our way to the jungle trail to connect with the indigenous tribe. The people in the town lived in abject poverty and I likened the walk to a walk of shame. It is a stark reminder of how lucky I am to have been born in Canada and into the family I grew up with. It also makes one think of reincarnation and how if you are still attached to this world and do indeed reincarnate then there's a good chance that you will re-emerge into a hell hole. It also presented me once again the idea about choice. The people here seemed happy, had smiles on their faces which was because they had chosen to accept their circumstances and just be happy. We made our way into the jungle and trekked on to see the tribe we were visiting. When we got there I sat down and felt the power of Huachuma surging through me so I closed my eyes and let it flow. Everything lit up and it felt like I could see everything as luminous patterns of energy even though my eyes were shut. The plants especially radiated a luminous neon green and in conjunction with that I felt the presence of snakes in my visions. It was now test time as my ego mind wanted to steer me towards thinking it was some kind of nature cult here controlled by the great mother. I was able to harness these thoughts and bring them to a place of love. The main thing my heart was teaching me was okay it's a cult, a cult of love and caring. My ego mind was being called out for being a trickster once again by trying to spin this oneness with nature into something forbidden. As well I realized the ego mind is misogynist by natural inclination as everything taught by the great mother and nature inherently teaches unity and love which are ideals that greatly diminish the power of the ego mind. The thought I had about the ego being the ultimate attachment really rang true. We can give up everything but not that but if you want to give up all attachments then you eventually have to come to terms with giving up the ego mind and all its judgments and selfish behaviours. At this point I joined some others for a swim in a river that was bordering this sacred space in the jungle. The river was fast flowing and very refreshing and afterwards we were treated to some songs and dancing from the tribe as well as a cultural exchange. The chief of this tribe is a woman named 'Zoila of the Selva', translated as 'I am the jungle' from the Spanish.

Zoila of the Selva

She seemed to embody Mother Nature much like don Howard embodies Grandfather Huachuma. Zoila exuded this love of plants that showed in how she was so gentle in spirit. We hiked back to the boats as the sun started going down and on this journey I felt such a connection to the Earth Mother at this point and how she had created all this for her children. I realized how selfless mothers are for their offspring and how they will put up with so much just to provide for their children. I thought of my mother and all she had done for me and our family and I felt so much love and emotion I started to cry while hiking. I promised myself to call my mom as soon as I got home and tell her I love her. Later I was walking with a woman, Maria, who had grown children and has a longing to reconnect with her family as they had drifted apart. I felt her pain as she truly just wanted a relationship with her children again, empathy not being something that is familiar to me but I felt the anguish of mothers derived from the feeling of separation with their offspring. We got back to the boats as it was getting dark and it started to rain. As we were motoring across the Amazon lightning and thunder started to illuminate the night sky. It became spectacular as the portion of the sky hit by lightning lit up through the clouds in an amazing display, infinitely more beautiful than any fireworks display I had ever witnessed. It was as if Mother Nature was the ultimate artist punctuating her creation with a bang.

We arrived back at SpiritQuest and prepared for the evening ceremony. I still felt the strength of the medicine pulsing through my veins. I went back into the maloca and felt myself become disassociated from who I was. My identity as 'Paul' was revealed as a mask that could be taken off and put aside. I could then in theory create a new identity or choose to assume another personality. Staying out of my head allowed me to lose the ability and need to define myself. I felt we are issued identity cards and the like which are attached to a picture of us in order to enforce the concept of having an identity. In truth we are capable of discarding identities easily and assuming another. Our society clearly functions on fixed identities and behaviour to the contrary is cause to be incarcerated in a mental institution. Without a sense of being this 'Paul' I no longer had any history and couldn't pin anything on my true self, all I knew was that I was a quiet person, I loved animals, especially dogs, and I had some weaknesses that when found out could be exploited, the rest is accumulated baggage. Tonight we were to do the singado, which is a mixture of macerated tobacco, huachuma, and toé mixed with an alcohol based perfume. You take this liquid in up your nose using a shell. Your membranes absorb it and you are not to swallow it. As don Howard said… this is serious, they don't mess around here. So I was one of the first to volunteer and the first group of six of us took it at the same time. As soon as the first snort hit the back of my nose the searing pain started, there was a burning sensation and I struggled to get the rest up my other nostril. The burning and pain just got worse and the mucous poured out of my nostrils and I coughed a lot more up. This feeling lasted for a long time. More went up to do it and I had to chuckle as they didn't know what they were getting into even though they saw us do it. I couldn't have described how awful it was to them, it would be much worse than words could describe. After about fifteen minutes I felt better with a moment of clarity so I stood in front of the mesa and lined up the lanzon with the stele in the background. The depiction of rising energy was very clear and then the stone idol revealed itself. The 'god' morphed into a smiling jaguar (though I'd take smiling ram as an answer as well).

Smiling Jaguar

I thought of the primordial creative spirit Amun of ancient Egypt. Then a serpent I clearly could see forming out of a protrusion on the idol. I thought of the feminine Wereret Hekau of ancient Egypt and how this stone idol was representing the masculine and feminine principles coming together forming the 'god', a combination of the serpent and the jaguar which don Howard displays on a Shipibo tapestry in this maloca.

I kept thinking of how this is also represented at the archaeological site Jebel Barkal at the fourth cataract on the Nile in the Sudan. It was all too interesting. The burning in my nostrils lasted quite a while as well as the waves of power from Huachuma continued unabated throughout the night. I eventually went to bed and had a fitful sleep but at least when I got up my nostrils felt somewhat normal.

It was a very insightful ceremony that was made possible by being able to stay in the heart space as much as possible. In the past I would have let my ego mind take over at some point and steer me wrong. I look forward to tomorrow's final ceremony. I feel it will be a culmination of all that has come before me in these ceremonies. This could be it for a while.

Tuesday June 28 - Day 16

It's the morning of the last Huachuma ceremony that will encapsulate the grand finale in this cycle of work. The grand finale I'm referring to is the inhalation of the Vilca snuff at the conclusion of the evening. Vilca means sacred and I feel ready to receive what Vilca will reveal to me. My gut feeling is that in order to get the maximum benefit out of the experience you must have achieved some kind of mastery over the ego mind. In this current cycle of work I feel like I have accomplished that though currently I don't believe you can ever shed it completely. I can always sense its intrusion and desire to be the first filter that all experience and thoughts go through. However I can recognize that now right away and I have been able to shut that part down and redirect all experience into the heart space and still the mind. All five Ayahuasca ceremonies presented to me the challenge to subdue the ego mind. Failing to do so in ceremony two really emphasized the need to turn off the ego mind. It was a test I needed to fail as a wake up call and challenge so that I could progress and advance further upon this path. The choices we make, and the negativity or positivity we carry, greatly affect who we are and how we behave. I have been able through plant medicines to put this into action and see the outcomes of using the ego mind versus using the heart space. The choice here is pretty obvious. After the closing ceremony tonight I'm ready to go home and put this into practice in my daily life. It is so obvious that the last attachment we are loathe to give up is ego. We cling to that one with every ounce of strength we have left. We have totally invested our sense of self and self worth into that sucker. True freedom cannot be experienced until that one last cord is cut.

Wednesday June 29 - Day 17

Wow. I feel writing about yesterday's ceremony will cheapen it in a way as a large part of it is ineffable. The heightened feelings I was experiencing were off the charts. The ceremony started in the late afternoon. While at the meeting place after drinking the Huachuma I was visualizing the Goddess animating the cosmos as a ballerina and then as a butterfly. A large butterfly then curiously appeared which many saw. We made our way up to the star deck as the sun was setting; it is situated upon a hill and it has become clear to me that this mound is what the indigenous people of South America call a huaca - a place of elemental power. I laid on my back and looked up at the sky and I could see the clouds were literally breathing and forming many different shapes, a kaleidoscopic wonder. I felt very content and as the night sky took hold the clouds magically disappeared and the stars came out in all their glory. Don Howard eventually started a ceremony around the stone idol in the centre called the lanzon. Things got magical when he placed a red beam from a flashlight upon the top of the lanzon and then activated it with mapacho smoke. He was the wizard at this point, manipulating this power that shot up into the heavens with his bells, feather, and mapacho smoke. I was in awe of what he was doing. I connect it back to last time I was in Peru and I saw this red energy present when we were visiting an indigenous tribe and I saw the shaman don Rober exuding it. Instead of being alarmed this time at the supernatural novelty, I connected it to the ultimate presentation of power available to those initiated in the shamanic arts. This is the awesome power that you symbolically choose how to use. It can be used for greed, self aggrandizement, destructive purposes, and sorcery or it can be harnessed for creativity, healing, and spiritual awareness. It's the magical life force the ancient Egyptians called the Ka. It was mainly through trust and surrender that I was able to grasp this at this time because without that I would have become very unnerved at what was transpiring. We were invited up to smoke mapacho and send a prayer up to the heavens. I lit up some jungle tobacco and dedicated my prayers to all the ancient Egyptian goddesses, especially Hathor, Isis, and Nephthys. They are all versed in the power of this red life force, Isis is especially great of magic, and they know its destructive side as personified by the malevolent male power Set. I became quite deft at elevating the tobacco smoke way up into the sky and then seeming to control it with my left hand, eliciting some oohs and awes from the crowd. When my mapacho expired, I staggered back to my mat feeling spent and then felt a tremendous surge of energy envelop my body and I was buzzing with elemental energy like I had never had before with Huachuma. I rolled off my mat onto the stone platform of the sky deck and tried to ground myself into Mother Earth as much as possible. My whole body was shaking and spasming with this awesome energy lighting me up. I had my lips on the ground at one point just trying to dissipate some of the power into the earth. I lay prone for quite a bit until don Howard instructed us to head back down and get ready to go back to the maloca. At the pinnacle of the Huachuma experience now I barely could get my shoes back on and I barely could make it down the hill - I was so woozy and intoxicated at this point. I got down to my room and the light was on, I didn't remember leaving it on, and I knew it was a test to see if I could trust and not be suspicious. I entered my room and felt very uncomfortable and nauseous with my ego mind at this point wanting to take over and send me into delusional thoughts. I allowed some negativity in but maintained some semblance of composure as it became a battle of my will and what I would ultimately choose. I went outside and paced around for a bit, wondering how I was to do the Vilca when my body was buzzing like mad with this feeling of sickness having taken hold of me. I drank some water and then finally purged over the railing with the effect of the purge being the surging energy subsiding a bit and I think I was also vomiting up psychic remnants of suspicion and ego delusion. I changed clothes and headed off to the maloca where I was informed I should grab some of the things I would need to do the Vilca as they would put me in a room closer to the maloca. As I headed back across the bridge to my room this silhouetted figure appeared to come out of nowhere on approach, which startled me. As the figure got closer I saw it was a familiar face who then walked backed with me to my room. He talked to me of having no fear. It was very surreal, like he was an actor playing a part in my drama. At this point I had let go of any fear I had and as we got to the end of the bridge he grabbed my head; I thought oh here we go, this is the dramatic conclusion to the evening, and then he kissed the side of my head and let out a primal scream to which I followed suit. It felt like some kind of test that I just passed, it was a wonderful feeling of release from any negative energy still bedevilling me. It was something I very much needed as a sign that I had overcome; it's hard to explain but it was something that seemed to be all part of some dramatic play unfolding before me. I then headed back to the maloca and prepared for the Vilca. Speaking to an attentive group of fellow travellers, don Howard talked of courage and no fear and I felt physically and psychically strong but the nausea was returning. I still vowed to do the Vilca but I needed to purge the sickness once again. We were sent to our rooms with the vomit bucket to get them prepared for after we take Vilca as it can cause another round of purging. While setting up I noticed a book by Paulo Coelho on the night stand that was very interesting. I'm pretty wary of his writings, I think he tapped into power and uses it for gain, and this particular book also struck a nerve with me. It also challenged me again on the issue of trust. I thought about some veiled power that knows all your secrets, all your fears you need to overcome, and how your ego mind works to deceive you. There are trials and challenges put forth that you must overcome to prove yourself worthy with no fear and be pure of heart and intention. I then thought about what was to come and dry heaved into the purge bucket to rid myself of any negative energy still holding me back. I felt extremely motivated to finish this cycle of work and headed back to the maloca. Once there I felt the power of the mesa and a feeling of courage and strength washed over me and I had to step up to the head of the mesa and do the Vilca now as I didn't want to wait to stand around and watch others do it and get second thoughts. I stood at the ready, looked behind me at don Howard, who did not move, so I picked up the inhaler and the powder and snorted some up my left nostril. Everything went black for a second. I then did the same for the right nostril and everything went black again. At that point don Howard got up and said I was supposed to wait. Too late! So he asked if I got two good inhales up both my nostrils to which I said yes so he told me I should go to my room. I went back and put on my sleeping mask and inserted my ear plugs then lay back on the bed on my side. I felt the Vilca intoxication come on almost immediately but in a very gradual manner. I started breathing heavily, my vision filled with geometric shapes, and I felt a lightness and swaying of my body on the bed. Then the visions propelled me towards an entrance way and I broke through a vesica piscis shaped portal bordered by diamonds and some gem stones. At this time I felt my heavy breathing soften and a pull to separate from my body. I was feeling a sensation of being lifted and propelled upwards and a further detachment from my body. My intention for the Vilca experience was to explore the shamanic worlds and my first stop was a place where I understood souls were awaiting re-birth, a lineup for reincarnation back into the material world. The device propelling me upwards at this point, kind of like a hot air balloon, stopped and descended a bit into this world where the souls were waiting their turn. I let it be known quickly that I did not want to be re-born into this world again. After an uncomfortable pause (pesky attachments as luggage weighing me down?), I was lifted up to the middle world - our world. I saw don Howard hanging out there on a ledge and I waved and smiled at him as I passed by. It came to my attention that he was an avatar sent to earth to help free souls. I continued ascending to the place that is the upper world or heaven as we like to call it and saw the souls that reside there. There was a knowing metaphorical feeling about all of this. Directly above heaven was the place curanderos and curanderas go at death and also the place where they obtain the power to heal. These healers are sent to our world by the Great Mother in order to help heal in service to her. Anytime they are sent down there is a chance they won't wake up or return which makes it a perilous journey to undertake. Then I was told I have within me the power to heal and to go ahead and enter this place and claim my power, so I did. It was explained that the red life force energy I had witnessed I had an abundance of and that's why the Huachuma activated in me makes me vibrate so intensely. I understood this as having an abundance of serpent energy. To heal I was told to hold ceremony and use mapacho smoke to activate my healing power. I was cautioned to be of service, to not be in it for personal aggrandizement, and to always give credit to the Great Mother. At this point I felt the intoxication wearing off so I blew my nose, which was full of mucous from the inhalation of the snuff, and I cleaned up a bit. I laid back on the bed in amazement for a bit, a cumulative wow, and then headed back into the maloca. I sat there as the energy continued coursing through me and then we went to eat and I still felt it going through me. Sleep was sporadic. 

Today is the last full day here. I look forward to leaving tomorrow and reconnecting with my family and starting the processing phase of this journey. I am truly done with plant medicines for a while now as I really need to put into practice all I have learned and the knowledge bequeathed to me. It's a time for action. More ceremonies at this point would be just doing them for the sake of doing them. I received teachings that I have to put into practice. I made a promise to the Goddess to do so before ever coming back. I feel at peace.

I have reflected somewhat on the power to heal. The power to heal in essence would mean the ability to be a healer and it is a process that takes time and hard work. I was shown I possess the power to heal but to truly develop this I'd have to devote myself to it. Part of learning this in the Amazon is to do 'dietas' with different plants to learn their power songs that heal. On average the dietas are about a month long per plant and involve isolation and abstinence - in other words to be of service on this level takes a great commitment. It was made clear by Ayahuasca that's not for me right now, I need to take care of my family. When the time comes I'll go do it. Upon further reflection it is even more clear the Amazon doesn't need another healer; it's humanity that needs a healer and not a physical healer but a healer of the heart. I expect this understanding to unfold more coherently over the coming months. The plant medicines constantly amaze me in how they conduct classes in continuing education in the months to follow after returning home from the one on one seminars with them.

The plant medicines will make you confront your demons and that is a very difficult thing to do and not run from. In terms of metaphysical speculations I always stress that it has to be experiential. I have gotten out of it certain beliefs but in no way do I want anyone to take my word for that, make up your own mind after you experience it. If you want to know then go seek out the answers yourself. The Ayahuasca ceremonies are definitely a progression and they build off of each other. That goes for the seven previous ceremonies I participated in so in a way it is continuing education. It also has this feeling of being sent home to work on things and coming back to write the exam. Same goes for Huachuma and these ceremonies connect with the Ayahuasca ceremonies. The pivotal moment of my time here was during the third Ayahuasca ceremony when the darkness was overwhelming me once again and I had this resolve and remembered all I had been taught. I quieted my mind. I became the observer and started snapping my fingers when my mind tried to latch on to a thought. I just observed the darkness and then it eventually dissipated. That's when I started feeling psychically strong and then the chocolate float appeared and a little girl offering me a heart. Then I saw Ganesha. At that point I became aware of my strength and power over all the dark forces. It all led to becoming the jaguar in the fifth ceremony. The jaguar is the symbol of the masculine wise warrior light spirit. I kept seeing it in don Howard. It's within me, supported by serpent heart based energy. When I mentioned earlier that I felt like Ayahuasca was preparing me after ceremony three to meet the masculine divine spirit it was a feeling that definitely foreshadowed the appearance of the jaguar in ceremony five. Upon reflection, the jaguar at that point symbolized the grandfather spirit I had been seeking and when I became the jaguar it confirmed what I had long intuited, that we possess within the divine, we are at essence the children of these two creative powers. When I now see the tapestry of the jaguar head surrounded by the serpent that is so iconic to my experience at SpiritQuest I knowingly think of this inner perceptive conception of the godhead, the union of the masculine and feminine. The spirit of the ancient civilization of Chavín de Huantar, the smiling jaguar surrounded by the serpents, elicits the same deep knowing within my soul.

In conclusion it is clear the time I spent at SpiritQuest this year was exactly how it was supposed to be. I'm not the same entity I was three years ago when a very naive version of me headed down to Peru for the first time. It's the end of the chapter of my life that sought out answers and wished to free myself of the darkness that plagued me. I am so strong now and am amazed in the changes within me over the course of the last three years. I am forever grateful for the knowledge and wisdom shown to me by the plant teachers with the help of the shamans. I fully realize I am not perfect and many challenges lie in wait on the road ahead. In some respects I would not be surprised if things get very difficult for me to integrate all I have learned into my everyday life. The ultimate attachment is ego and a deep respect to those who have had to overcome so much. When the ego is unmasked and called out for its behaviour, to the extent that though it may still play a part in your life you can easily step back and rectify its pernicious influence, what becomes the motivation or should I say what is my next challenge as I continue on this path? It is about Love and teaching others this path of liberation. Healing through Love.