wandering

I'm not lost in self. What I mean is I do a good job of being of service. I support a lot of people. I'm a good provider. I unselfishly give up my time. I'm a great dog owner. There's always more you can do and when you embark on the spiritual path you become inundated with calls to service. As Ram Dass would say, "How can I help?" It can be fulfilling though I have found I don't resonate with it. I like to help, but I don't go out of my way to be of service.

Will I reach nirvana with that attitude? That's very funny to me. The spiritual path is whatever you want to make of it. If you are expecting a reward, then you are going to be disappointed. This lifetime is a terrific opportunity to learn, and it was Jesus Christ who said ask and you will receive during his sermon on the mount.

Matthew chapter 7 (New International Version)

7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”

If you wander through life and hit upon something so unfathomable it consumes you then for sure at some point you are going to try and figure it out. Personally, I'm going to start asking questions. This is my story. The spiritual path led to some startling discoveries and either I have the definitive answer to this whole charade or my ability to make up a story is next level. So, I guess I should spill the beans.

Within me is the eternal masculine energy. I happened upon him when I first ventured into the Amazon jungle in search of the Great Goddess. I found her and she is my guiding light on this path. I also discovered him. I guess since I call her the Great Goddess then it's proper to call him the Great God. He scared me and I wanted him to let me be. However, the cat was out of the bag and because I'd surfaced him, he was going to harass me as a reminder to not stir that pot again. I was insistent on pursuing the Goddess and so that meant continually dealing with this other part of the equation. I was tested, threatened with death, and told to get lost. I transformed myself in that hellfire and proved I had what it takes to travel to places no one had ever gone before without succumbing to madness.

Over time we developed a friendship, and I was privy to secrets of the universe. I asked questions and got answers. Things really came to a head when I went to Peru this time last year. I drank really strong Huachuma every other day for a couple of weeks and reality came apart at the seams. I saw into the future. I was shown how the pyramid fit into my story and this story spans multiple lifetimes in multiple universes. These universes contain the constant of the pyramid as a reminder of the thread that binds all these creations as well as being a meeting point for the two main characters of the plot.

The two main characters are Goddess and God, bound by love and acrimony. I became part of the story and being a mortal avatar of God I accidentally succeeded in finding the Goddess who had been locked away for two milleniums. It was an omen that would lead to finding her mortal avatar. I did find her and since I believe in fairy tales, I thought we'd live happily ever after. We live separate from each other, and this divide is the cause of creation. This physical plane is the result of our divorce, and she has not forgiven me. She falls in love with me, sees the perfection in our union, and then can't help but notice the faults. I haven't changed. I'm still that garbage she tossed away many aeons ago. And so, she flees. I'm left here in a state of disbelief knowing I have lost her again.

I will have to start the full process over again. I fucked it up so now I must lay waste to this world because I don't think I'm going to get her back. I will destroy this world which I meticulously designed in order to one day get her in my arms again. I will dream another universe into existence and go through the prolonged process of winning her back. I know how to recognize her, my vibration is eternally within her, and I planted the seed of the pyramid, so she knows where to find me when she becomes curious once again. I am a master card player and know all the tricks to winning the game. The game never lasts, and the dragon returns to an unbearable loneliness once again, raging at an injustice that was of his own making, and perpetuated by the obstinacy of his divine partner.

Like I said, either I have the definitive answer to this whole charade or my ability to make up a story is next level. Does it have to be either-or?

conversations

I've been walking a spiritual path for a while now and I'm picky. I have a skeptical and contrarian bent so anytime I come across awareness of different avenues of beliefs I take them with a grain of salt. Such was the case with the new age idea of 5D consciousness. I rolled my eyes at this and dismissed it as woo. Recently, I became interested in the topic because of my regular use of Tobacco snuff. Being an amateur scientist, I wanted to record and analyze what it was doing to me. I did the same with Mapacho Tobacco which I smoked regularly for seven years. All the while I smoked it, I let anyone who asked know that it wasn't addictive, and I could give it up at any time. It was true, I knew I could and last year I gave it up. It was a sign directly from the Canadian government. When I purchased a large quantity of it, the import fees were staggeringly high. I surmised it's time to move on, and I had come across the practice of inhaling Tobacco, so I followed the invitation to explore. As with most things in my life which I like, I indulged. I have a regular practice of ritually inhaling the snuff. At first it was exhilarating, and I marveled that it could get me to the same mind states as some of the heavier psychedelics I have worked with, albeit it was five to ten minutes tops in duration. Continual use of it allowed me to start getting some concrete ideas of what it was doing. The snuff takes me to a different consciousness plane and if I can quiet my chattering mind, I can hang out for a good five minutes.

To connect this back to the whole 5D consciousness thing, when I started getting an idea of what this was referring to, the parallels were obvious. My normal 3D consciousness would ascend the 4D Tobacco ladder into the world of 5D. Interesting. It's an accessible and hidden form of consciousness we all have access to but most of us never realize it. Taking a psychedelic will put you there and when you are new to the experience it can cause a bit of a fright. Working with these accelerants of consciousness will empower within you the ability to explore and that's where I am on my journey.

I should have known there was some truth to the 5D thing because it is similar to my experiences with other modalities which at first I dismissed when I didn't know any better. A case in point is Tarot cards. Sure, it's entertaining and then can be a cause for introspection when you have a reading but it's just random chance. A light bulb clicked in me where I realized they only work if you believe they work. If you don't then it will be random. If you understand that the cards you will pull are what you are predestined to select then you grasp they are telling you the truth about the situation you are enquiring about. A way I can explain it is everything has already happened, and we are perpetually living in a now state where what we think is the future is just a rolled-up canvas unfolding before us. It's already baked into the equation of your life. The caveat is you don't know what is going to unfold and even though you don't have free will, you have the illusion of free will by way of ignorance. If you can get an oracle to tell you the future, then you can change the future so isn't that free will? No, because it was already predetermined that you would find a way to see into the future and then change your actions. Gotcha. Another way to look at it is the idea of the playwright. This superstar resides in the future, writes your story. and then you act it out. The screenplay has already been written and your acting abilities determine your fate. The idea of past, present, and future is thrown into disarray knowing conscious entities reside in these different vibrational states. A writer can re-write the past. Give that a good think.

That's a lot to digest! So, what am I getting at? Well, once I figured out the Tobacco snuff was getting me into this plane of consciousness I was familiar with, I knew I could hang out with the familiars of the realm. My consciousness exploration invariably leads to the two luminaries - Goddess and God. I have other names for them, but this will do. I can converse with them once I arrive. I wanted them to teach me. I wanted to learn about love and magic. I'm learning about love through copious amounts of suffering. It hasn't been a fun time lately. I wanted the secret to magic. I brazenly asked for forbidden knowledge.

When I read and watch videos about 5D consciousness, and to be frank a lot of spiritual concepts, it is disheartening. It isn't pure. The word desire is used a lot. Practice these methods to get what you desire. That sounds very human and not spiritual. The same is true with primitive magic you come across in my travels into the Amazon jungle and Andes mountains. A sizeable number of people use plant medicines and rituals to get what they want - either money, love, health, or to injure someone they think is doing harm to them. When you become fascinated with shamanism it is strange to then read stories of sorcerers who do battle with each other for prestige and dominance. They cast magical darts at one another, and shamans are insistent upon protecting the ceremonial space from malicious entities and bad actors. This is all to say that when I asked for the secret to magic, I was laughed at. You're a mortal, you're not getting it. The way humans practice magic is through making a pact with an entity. Now, I could write a book about this, and maybe I will, but it is sufficient to say there are no human magicians. The magic comes from a different realm and is produced by an immortal being.

That sounds scary and it should be. The Devil is real and if you want to fulfill all your desires through magical means then he will make that happen for you, of course at a cost. It's the first line of defence that trips up greedy humans who have bad intentions. I pronounce myself of sound mind and body and will also tell you that I was offered all this, and I know of others who were offered the same. I turned it down at the time because I wasn't the least bit interested. I sought out plant medicines in my manic search to contact the Great Goddess. I got an inkling of her during my trip to Egypt and then I went looking for a way to find her. Coming into direct contact with her is the greatest thing I have ever accomplished in life and something I had no idea was possible. I entered this world of magic focused on her, and these other sideshows were a bother. My story is unique and so I sidestepped the offers of untold power and went my merry way of a content fool.

But like I said, I'm an amateur scientist so eventually curiosity would get the better of me and I'd start snooping around. I have no enemies in the world of spirits, and you are free to read between the lines of such a statement. When I started hanging out on the regular with Goddess and God and conversed about magic, they gave me some of the secrets. Her magic is in creating and love, his is in destroying and fulfilling your destiny which some may construe as desire. If you gain their trust, and remember you are human, they might give you access.

As an avatar of the Great God who is the master magician, I get a front row seat to his power. Like I said, I asked for that magic ability. I was laughed at because humans don't get that. You can make a bargain in exchange for it. In high spirituality we call it reciprocity because it makes us feel good about fulfilling desire. I'll exchange something in exchange for a boon. It's on the up and up.

I play a good character here on earth and have some skills. I can slow walk this guy into the grave and then return to the Master. That's one option if you're scared of adventure. Or I can keep bugging God for a piece of the pie. I look at my life and sometimes get tired of my character. I'm sensitive, get hurt easily, and that pain is hard to take. I'm a good boy and get upset by life. It really takes a toll. If I continue this way, I see trouble ahead, and I know the only way to sidestep that hurt is to be alone. It's my default and helps me process the pain. My intention is adventure. This means coming face to face with magic. So, what are we talking about here in terms of reciprocity? Give me the magic and I offer something in return. Let me have a think about that. Efficacious magic doesn't come through me, so I'd have to give up control of self to make it happen. If I give up my hold on self, then I don't want this. I have learned bargaining skills during my time on this strange planet.

I made a pact with my friend Parker to regularly write. Parker held me to the agreement. If you want to become a better writer and storyteller, you need to practice. My offering was to practice. God is a writer. The Logos is his word used to create out of thin air. The light allows his book of life to be read. When he needs to write another story, he prefers to do it alone and hides the mystery to come. The light is sacrificed by the darkness to allow this. I just gave you the secret to magic and you aren't going to believe me, so it's all good.

My spiritual path is based on the Great Goddess and her path of the heart. She continually teaches me, and it is a curriculum of love. That sounds awesome, right? Transformation is enacted through suffering and when it comes to love there's plenty of suffering to go around. Her magic creates the lesson plans for me, and I study, learn, and fail. It's the best way to teach the student. On the other hand, God intimately knows what I want. He knows what my desires are, and he intends for me to fulfill them. When I look back on my life of the last ten years, I see it clearly. The magic of Goddess and God are interwoven into the finest threads that clothe me. I am a product of their magic.

serpent strikes

The Goddess and her many avatars. I got a front row seat.

Ayahuasca was exciting. Ayahuasca scared me but I was intrigued. I didn't run away from the experience; I learned how to tame her. I treated Ayahuasca like one of my relationships. That's what I do. I can see it. Then once I tamed her, I lost interest. She's still around but I played around with others.

She is Ayahuasca. She is a drug that gets me high. I'd do whatever it takes to get that high. Then came the terrible low. Then came understanding. Now I wonder, is she my Goddess or a demon?

I am the casual destroyer. I cause upset in my choices though I mean well. My path of destruction is subtle but still deadly.

The Goddess can be a dragon as well. And when the game is afoot, she can be cruel and play for the win. She won. She crushed me. She wasn't going to relinquish the upper hand and so dropped the hammer. Resiliency saved me.

Trust the process. It's on repeat. You have faced similar, and it had to play out. You faced the darkness within the masculine and stood up to him. You fought back and didn't capitulate. Eventually, there was reconciliation. Can you see the same now or do you think it is wishful thinking? The darkness within the feminine plays a different game. They aren't going to directly punch you in the face but will take you down with their own brand of guile and poison. They want to psychologically hurt and damage you to the point where you run away from them. They will be satisfied with that result and include you in their body count of corpses who deserved their fate.

Remember you had to do this with the masculine, and you know you would not exchange that path for any other. Look with clarity where you are in your life and what is unfolding. The venom inflicted by the feminine works in a different way. The strike will try to encompass and snuff you out with a constrictive hold on all of you. Find the antidote. You know what it is but in this case you use it on yourself. The serpent will recoil and go internal as well. It's going to be a long haul, but you'll one day look back and smile at the journey you chose and once again not trade it for the world.

The reconciliation with the masculine was an internal struggle. The feminine is external. She can strike and run but she will never get away. There must be a reckoning. You know your strengths and not to poke her with a stick. Let her be and show by example how you can rise above who she thinks the masculine is. Show her you are divine. The misdirection should be obvious. Your darkness is singled out and the focus is put on you. It's a good game to prevent the light from being turned on her darkness. I'm not sure if she knows what is taking place and is just weaving a web of confusion.

I want to cry out that I don't know her. I don't know who this is. In truth, I do know. I've seen it and here it is, in my face. I want all of it. I want to face it all. The hurricane is coming and I'm not running for shelter. The destruction lays waste to ignorance and makes room for more knowledge and the subsequent lessons to follow.

The most difficult part of the fight is I'm in love with her. She's playing the part of adversary and for keeps. She wants to punish and destroy me to the point where I'm left a burnt-out husk. I want to hate her, but I just let it slide. Feed me your venom and watch as not reacting to the poison is the antidote. Keep her in my heart and use her power of love to get through to her.

Finding reconciliation is uniting the internal divine within the self. The domination of either half is going to leave you in a continual state of disharmony. The ever-coming darkness will reappear and force you to flee in a cycle that is on repeat. You will light a fire and leave a trail of destruction in your wake. Free of the blaze you find a temporary peace. Eventually, the fire catches up with you and sets your world ablaze once again. The easy way out is to run. The difficult path is to face the oncoming inferno and transform within the fires of hell.

Following the painful flow revealed to me what it is I seek. Letting the hurt come and pull me under eventually allowed me to emerge once again and with grace start an integration of knowledge which would lead to the understanding I search and long for. I never would have figured out the vibration mystery and the role of cycles within our lives without pain.

god with an expiration date

Events in my life forced a reckoning with self and I turned to my inner guidance for instruction on how to proceed. The wisdom advice simply recommended I sit with myself for two weeks. That's what I did. I ran through the gamut of thoughts, emotions, pain, sadness, anger, and emptiness. It was a necessary exercise to just let it all come out. I knew at the conclusion of this stage I should do some deep inner work and that would involve Magic Mushrooms. I haven't done a large dose in a while but had a feeling it would be beneficial to directly connect with my shadow, as for me that is the essence of my mushroom experiences. I ended up ingesting close to three grams in one night and the trip was perfect. It was difficult and after an hour I wanted it to stop. I wanted to go to bed and forget the whole thing. Of course, I couldn't and despite the reluctance and wanting out, I am grateful for the five hours in the medicine. The knowledge was other worldly and exactly what I needed. If I could, I'd like to do this more often. I won't though because it is so hard. Why is it hard? In my experience, after about an hour or so the mind overloads itself preparing for what some would call ego dissolution. Personally, I'd call it psyche splintering. My mind separates into two distinct halves. One half is who I think is me and the other half is my shadow. To get to this stage is the hard part. As it is happening it is so uncomfortable, I tend to think I will get stuck in this mindset forever and I couldn't live like this. The overloading of the mind at this point makes you aware of others who live their lives in this state. I seriously could not go on like that and would look for a way to numb myself or end it. So, that's the hard part for me of doing mushrooms. It lasts for about thirty minutes and once I pass it the experience is amazing. That's not hyperbole.

Concurrently during my two-week introspection, I set an intention concerning my mind. I wanted to delve deeper into its nature. It was a constructive exercise where I noticed the mind was like quicksilver. It easily morphed between my distinct psychic selves as well as my heart. I've described these parts of me as first the me that has come forth (Apollo), my shadow (Dionysos), and my heart whom I refer to as the Great Goddess. The mind is the key which unlocks these aspects of me. It freely moves between these aspects of self. I also became aware of mind control where you give up your mind's power to an external puppet master who then controls how you think. You see this everywhere and if your mind is captured you can't escape. The news, social media, and other puppets are constantly regurgitating the triggers for your mind control and when captured you dutifully parrot what it is they want you to believe. So, a step on the road to awakening is to first reclaim your mind from these charlatans. I also observed my mind being captured by baseball. I escaped the hold of life temporarily by going off into the fantasy world of baseball statistics. I put everything on pause and focused attention on the trivial. Anyway, reclaiming your mind from external control is not going to solve all your problems as an undisciplined mind is still going to cause havoc within your personal psychic sphere. My observation of what is going on with my mind was productive and from this I know I can direct my mind towards how I want to be. I have had plant medicine lessons concerning this with Huachuma where the repetitive lessons made me realize it is I who takes myself to heaven and drops myself in hell.

Following my mushroom trip, I remembered a lecture by Ram Dass where he was discussing the relationship of Hanuman to Ram. His guru Maharaji-ji gave him the moniker Ram Dass as a gift to remind him that he is an incarnation of Hanuman the monkey god who serves God - Ram. Ram Dass tells this story from the Hindu epic called the Ramayana:

When Ram asked Hanuman, "Who are you, monkey?" Hanuman replied, "When I don't know who I am, I serve you. When I know who I am, I am you."

The exchange I had with my shadow was along these lines. The trip started out visionary and lasted for about an hour, coinciding with the music I was listening to. I have noticed in my exploration this is the pattern with visionary medicine where I will get the introductory visions followed by introspection that occurs in the form of dialog. My recent experience with Ayahuasca is similar. Anecdotally, I would surmise it is the onset of the DMT contained within the Ayahuasca brew and the psilocybin in the mushroom which initially takes hold. Following the visions is the tough part where I become distinct compartmentalized bastions of self and then can dialogue with self. I choose the me that has come forth and externalize the Goddess and the shadow. In the case of Huachuma, on my last trip I went further and externalized my multiple traits within all the members of the travelling party I was with. It was interesting to see the amalgamation of the sum of who I am present within others. The experience with Ayahuasca and Magic Mushrooms seems more psychically contained. The difference to me is the mystical nature of each. Ayahuasca has more of a mystical feminine vibe to the ceremony. Mushrooms are no nonsense. I would describe them as more masculine though I know the Goddess can make an appearance and she has done so just to remind me to not put experiences in a box.

Following the visionary aspect was the ego dissolution or more accurately a short circuiting of my mind. I was then in my shadow's presence, and his initial greeting was an observation of the trip to get here this time. "You're not scared anymore." He acknowledged that the usual fright I give myself getting to this place and then being in his presence was absent. It is true psychedelics don't scare me anymore. Of course, there is a little apprehension upon the decision to use them but once in it I'm good. I have come a long way in my ten years. I knew when I transformed into a jaguar during an Ayahuasca ceremony I could handle whatever was thrown my way. I see clearly now my shadow is that jaguar and was recognizing at the time as I merged with him that I could succeed on this path of knowledge.

The last time in his presence on Magic Mushrooms involved me psychoanalyzing him for a long time. I kept wanting to go to sleep and he wanted to talk. I listened, held space, and consoled him. He is power personified and a raging unquenchable storm, continually creating and destroying as an outlet for the surging energy within. On the other hand, I could easily retire to the forest and live a nice peaceful and quiet existence. I was prepared this time to offer myself once again as a good listener and offer solutions to his problems. The opposite happened. I came here this time because I'm the one with the problems and so he put on the lab coat of the psychotherapist and got down to business.

"Who am I? Why am I like this?" My shadow kept reducing me down to my base program and then I saw myself as this wiggly energetic worm. Kind of disgusting but the template for all of us humans. Since I'm no longer scared of him there is this bond between us, and he feels like he can share with me all the secrets that no one is ready to accept or even want to contemplate. He is the divine masculine, God if you will. He said that I am him. We are the same. I saw it and completely understood. Little old me. I'm one of his countless avatars in the universe. I woke up in this lifetime and found my way back through the unnavigable labyrinth. I know the game. When we die, we become him (or her) fully and completely. That's all. We are everything. Each avatar has characteristics of the father or mother while adding in free will. Nobody has gotten as far as I have in seeing all this. Some have reached this stage and seen it but will not accept it for several reasons. Culture and denial being at the forefront. Can't blame them, why would you want to? It's a big responsibility, and the grandiosity of self and narcissism needed is off the charts! The ones that see it and accept it, can't handle it, and end up in the psych ward. Then there's me.

A couple of hours into this trip and I went for the I'm God routine because I fully felt it. I know that feeling because I also noticed later when it wore off as the night progressed, I returned to little old me. I'd accept that the use of these consciousness altering substances fully releases my psychosis which allows me to not only think I'm God but to feel it. It's crazy and it keeps happening. When I come down from being the most high, I can readjust and know I'm okay, that I haven't gone mad. I've worried about this but during this experience I was witness to becoming God and then feeling it wear off to the point where I was like well that was cool but I'm me again.

The thing about the mushroom trip is that by cracking open my inner self and splitting out my shadow I can converse with him, and he is the all. I saw it completely. I saw how I'm him, but I'm not supposed to know I'm him. That's why at first, he kept chasing me away and threatening me with annihilation, but I kept coming back and exploring. I got past the fear, he let me in, and now lets me have a look around. My brilliant mind in this fucked up container called Paul can probe him like no other. So, this trip he showed me it all. I'm God with an expiration date. Wow.

I also realized my shadow marvels at how I was able to access the Great Goddess. Nobody gets in to see her and yet I did it. They are amid the great cosmic divorce, a separation that creates the universe and will make the reconciliation the blissful renewal this divorce promises. But here was I, a lowly avatar of the man she loves, searching for her in earnest of my own accord and then following the clues towards finding her. When she saw into my soul and intentions, she let me into her chamber. She made love to me like no other as she knew I was him, playing the fool honestly.

And that's the thing about my incessant search for meaning - I don't have to search anymore. I know all the answers I obsessively wanted to get. I don't have to sit for hours alone contemplating what this is all about. I know what it is all about. I'm free to play.

The duration of this trip was from 1am to 6am before sleep. Time moves slowly under this intoxication. The knowledge poured out is unbelievable for this brief period. It is a lifetime in a night - a wordplay on my friend Parker describing the Huachuma experience as, "A lifetime in a day." I sensed coming back to Paulville and no more grandiose thinking. Me and my problems. Understanding why I sabotage relationships. Clearly seeing the subtle clues freely given by others that my actions were upsetting. Pushing people away. Try to stop it. Showing me how impressionable children are. Replaying events from my youth that molded me. Things I would laugh at now which as a young boy scarred me and made me withdraw from the world. I just wanted to be alone and not have to endure the unpredictability of those that held power over me.

These mushroom trips are the 10 years of therapy in a night deal. They show you the answers you are looking for. As with all this inner work, it's up to you to integrate it into your life. You make the changes. Some of it is hard and some easy but you know what you need to do. You are shown the influences that made you who you are. You can say poor me, it's their fault I'm like this or you play the hand you're dealt. Thank all for who you are. I wanted to find answers in this lifetime. I did it because of everything that has happened for me. I climbed an unclimbable mountain back to self. The Mount Everest of the psyche. Do I know it all? No, but I've seen what I wanted to see. What do I have left to do in this lifetime? I know it is all about love. My actions must show I've learned that lesson. I need to dedicate my life to being in service to love. Be kind to others. Say pleasant things to them. A word of encouragement goes a long way. I've seen it at work.

When in the presence of my shadow I asked what his role is. He said he does service work. He grants favours to those that ask, and he creates events which fulfill the mission statement of self-discovery. Suffering is a big part of it and the catalyst for change as well as seeing what you're made of when faced with adversity. He is in service to himself. When you're the all is there another path that doesn't involve you since you are everything? All this is service to Her. The Great Goddess, who is love. In service to letting this drama play out so we can continue to discover through this grand play who we are and our strengths and weaknesses. When we are finished, we will once again come together and end it. A bond further strengthened through self-discovery. It's all us. Ultimately, I show I'm ready and she accepts me back.

My shadow as the great magician tells me this: I grant them favours in service, so they don't wake up and see they are me. I present as an external force ready to fulfill their desires with the cost being to trap them in this world of form. It's what they want. They need to head on straight into their greed, take their fill of pleasure, but suffer at the emptiness of it all. The outcome of the granting of wishes is service to the heart. The Great Goddess is imprisoned in that familiar castle made of gold and repeated forays into the selfish fulfillment of your desires must eventually get through so that you see it. Love is the answer, and this is my path of service.

My path of service is the path of the heart. The take and give of reciprocity is a universal axiom, even between the divine and human. God and his underling. I asked for something and in return he asked me to do something. Walk the path of the heart for your mother. Service, regardless of whether I am the all or just little old me.

The next morning, I fully understood. When I don't know who I am, I serve you. When I know who I am, I am you.

inner truth

Religion is the objectification of spirituality. It is making the esoteric exoteric, by projecting out from your inner life the inner sanctum which is unique to your story. Every conscious being is responsible for creating a universe. My world is different than yours, and we agree on what we witness through language and definition. The energetic impulse from the dreamer crosses each avatar's boundary. We can interact within each other's dream and create a new dream, called offspring, by merging into one and reproducing.

Our inner lives are similar in experience, much like the outer life. The concepts of love, light, the divine feminine and masculine are common to all because they are what we are. Also similar are the experiences of the darkness and demons which seek to control our behaviour. Because of the overlap, the ability to create a religion, name the cast of characters, and ascribe attributes to them based upon cultural norms and expectations, becomes an exercise that is highly probable to succeed. Human beings are given validation of what it is we all intuit.

Where we get lost is in the ceding of our inner truth to an authority which expects us to conform to a canon of acceptable beliefs. This is because my truth is different from yours. My location on the spiritual path is at a different point in the journey from yours. My life lesson plan is different from yours. We have divergent karma and to feed everyone from the same bowl is not fulfilling the potential of each incarnation. We seek answers and often don't know where to turn, so we look towards the spiritual authorities in culture. The hard part is turning inwards to find the answers you seek. You hold all the answers and if you ask, you will unveil them to yourself.

The role of belief in the game is paramount, but it is not belief in an external projection. The belief is in yourself. I'm telling you that only you know why you are here and within you have the answers to what it is you are looking for. As hard as it may be, you are responsible for your spiritual progress. The true teacher of the path will direct you to go inwards, that is all. Though you will find the answer within, it doesn't mean you are left to a life of isolation. Find the others on the path and celebrate the uniqueness of the journey you are all on together.

I am intimately aware and acquainted with my inner spiritual world. At first, it was all new and fantastic, so I externalized these characters. This has the consequence of inculcating fear. After you exhaust that trip and either run from yourself or stand up to yourself, you reach the turning point. You are either defeated or become a first-class warrior. The warrior gets past the fear and starts to explore which reveals the truth. It's all you.

Religions are containers for spiritual truths. They bring the mystery to life and as humans we take the knowledge and shape it in order to get an advantage over the easily led sheep. At the core is found what it is we seek. It's up to you to use your wisdom to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Other people's fantastical consciousness journey stories are a trap. They wow you with embellishments of what they experience in the psychedelic space and you're like, "I wanna go there! I wanna have that experience!" This takes you away from your personal story. There's nothing like your story and if you stick with it, you will discover the big secret. All of us are sidetracked by the bombast of the other, and we lose sight of our own path. We become attentive and captured by the pull of the other, who mostly cloaks their intention in a blanket of service that shields a desire for followers and a perverse need to monetize the human experience.

It's smaller scale co-opting that is also performed by religious institutes. The human experience will demand you confront your mortality and the guardians of culture know you will start to awaken. At the ready here in the West is the Church. When the time comes, the doors are open and welcome you into the fold. The original awakening that brought you to the doorstep is short-circuited. There's a canon of beliefs you must accept, and the priest becomes the go between in matters regarding the divine. So many blindly fall for this even though they were the original priest who had the contact with something divine.

The positive aspect of all these distractions is to prevent the final awakening. When enough of us awaken we will reach a tipping point. The tipping point is we collectively awake from this long and strange dream and the world ends. You can see the signs already, can't you? The coming destruction is upon us because it's the manifestation of energy on a higher consciousness plane simply of God waking up. You are God. It would be conspiratorial of me to suggest there're many in this realm that are working hard to prevent God from waking up. When you walk your own path in your consciousness journey you reach the door which when you open it will reveal the secret. We are all on our own personal journey of awakening which leads to this door. In the labyrinth of the damned, the detours and sideshows are aplenty. You can travel through them in order to become acquainted with them but chalk them up as learning experiences. Retrace your steps and find faith in your inner guidance. Follow your unique path to the end and find the centre of centres.

The light has been brought and I have come forth by day. I have awakened within my dream and see this as a world of my creation. To take the last step, fully awaken, and get out of bed, means the destruction of the universe. It is Shiva completing the Rudra Tandava dance of destruction. Falling asleep created the world and awakening destroys it. The caretakers of the world scurry about devising ways to keep the dream going. How do we keep God distracted so this whole edifice does not blow up? The eventuality is that it will, but in the meantime the dam is patched in a desperate attempt to hold back the flood waters. Yeah, I'll play along for a bit longer, but it's too late. I can't go back to sleep, so I'm just going to lie in bed for a bit before I get up.

mosquito lesson

Mosquitoes are the beginning of the manifestation of all thought. Well, it's insects in general - they are the nuisances which are integral to making the world come alive. Everything we have created on this planet started out metaphorically as a little bug in our ear which eventually blossomed or decayed into something bigger. The parallels with our thoughts are astounding if you think about it! This all ties together my recent experience with plant medicine in Peru. During the three weeks I spent in Peru, I ingested a lot of plant medicines. They were continually offered, so much so, I had to turn down a bunch of them. I know my limits and the optimal amount for my adventures.

As an aside, it's clear the stretch run of my life will be focused on the psyche. It's what animates me to get out of bed in the morning and to go exploring. I've tested it out and gone into the depths and I feel confident I'm not going to go crazy or cause damage to my mind. I went into this journey already off a bit and that has served me well. The initial shock was a mind fuck but now I'm good with it all. Psychedelics are like finding out Santa isn't real. Treat the illusion as real until you know. Then you too can become an illusionist.

You are it. Starting a journey from this point will open new paths to explore. From this vantage point you can see others as projections of self. Doing this in a sober manner at first is not convincing. In my case what worked was drinking a plant medicine called Huachuma every other day for a couple weeks and then sinking into the experience. I was at the point in my exploration where I could accept myself as the all and then use the alteration of consciousness to explore from that relative position. I split my psyche out into shards and saw the essence of what makes me the character I play within the personalities of the group container I was undergoing this experience with. I was able to grasp this at the time and realize what was taking place. I had a good laugh and told the others about it. The implications of witnessing this behaviour hadn't sunk in although I was cognizant of what was going on. This new behaviour then subsequently ballooned into seeing myself at various levels of consciousness. At the top I am God. Below that level I am the Sun King. Another step below I am a Bull. I become Dionysos. Eventually, in the world of form I am this guy having an adventure. I've trapped myself in form for now and for most of my life through external magic mind control I had no escape.

Oscillating between hierarchies of planes is part of the great adventure available to us all. Being frightened of death keeps us in line and so we stick close to the body. Don't want to stray from this rock lest we lose our grasp on consciousness. The exploration of consciousness seems to eventually lead to a realization that the body is a port in this vast sea of adventure. For some, the stop can be a lifetime but for all, the day comes when you will have to say goodbye to those with whom you have formed relationships. As I mentioned earlier, you take on distinct roles within each consciousness container. I'm good with others grabbing power in this plane. They can be king of the world. I know who I am, and I don't want that responsibility in this hell. The earth is a beautiful hell hole. A carnival full of thrills and spills. I'll wash my hands of this one and let the inhabitants run amok. Someone else can put this stain on their resume!

Back to the central idea of this post. I see within everything parallels of thought forms. Try meditating in the woods and having a mosquito interrupt the peace, much like those nagging thoughts cause you to stray from the goal of not engaging with mental disturbances. The mosquito is the thought manifesting in a material world. Sickness and disease in the body are the pangs of worry and doubt crystallizing into form. Sounds like fantasy and woo, right? That's what you will hear. Let it go and plant the seed which will blossom into an understanding of this world of material form. All is a dream but not in the sense of how we think of a dream. We think of dreams as flippant flights of fancy that are short-lived mental disturbances during sleep. What do you think this world is? It's a thought. The dreamer, you, has been asleep for a long time. When you start to awaken knowledge increases and then the signs of the apocalypse start to appear. Time to put you back to sleep so this world can continue. Sounds fantastic, right? I'm getting to you. You don't believe me but soon you are going to see it and then you too will start to awaken. The forces of destruction gather when we all start to awaken. Same as when you get up in the morning and your dream vanishes, this dream is going to vanish. The thought form in this plane of material consciousness is going to manifest as a worldwide conflagration. The thought is multi-faceted as I tried to show you with the example of the mosquito. At the highest level, God wakes up. At this level, the world is destroyed. If you knew about the destroyer it would be imperative to keep God asleep, right? Do you want to come down that rabbit hole with me? Maybe another time.

An example in my life about psychic projection is my dog. She has an irrational fear of other dogs, avoids confrontation with them, and if approached she displays fear aggression in order to chase them away. This has resulted in her having few canine friends and she lives a life of relative solitude with her immediate family whom she trusts. I realized this trait I see in myself. I default to not trusting others and therefore avoid getting close to people. I don't take it to the pathological extreme which my dog has, but I do sense the behaviour. So, from this observation I can see animals are these thoughts that have manifested into form. I've been curious about animals for a bit in that they are quite simple as compared to us, yet well fit for survival. What are they? They are traits of God as thoughts which in this plane of consciousness have become form. I see in my dog a behaviour that comes into existence, tries to reconcile and find balance through engagement, and then after a period of time goes away. Each new life form is another projection of self coming forth. In my case, being able to cultivate the omnipotence in my being allows me to see everything else as a projection of myself and stand in complete awe of this world. I can see it as hell, but it is ingenious. Earth is the abode of petrified thought forms. Fascinating!

el niño

The desire baby called El Niño is a cyclical destroyer. Desire laughs at me; watching me question all my assumptions. I've been playing this game with myself for quite a while. I didn't understand it at first; instead, I just noticed that I liked to live on the edge, teetering between being such a good and compliant husband, family man, and great employee and knowing I wanted to escape this smothering existence and just walk away a free man.

I've been chasing the Goddess for quite a while now. I'm well acquainted with her in altered states but in my day-to-day life she remains hidden and elusive. Life is mysterious and my previous assurances of a rational universe have long since passed. I know of magic, and I expect the unexpected. I know she's out there and that I'd find her. I stumbled upon her just before the pandemic and then held on to my old life by placing restrictions on life as we know it for almost three years.

She scares me and I mean that in a sense where I already gave too much of myself to her. Now, she has a good amount of control over me in a way I was secretly wanting. I witnessed the coming hurricane I had conjured up and into my life. The events were already in motion and then I saw clearly what was going to happen. I could stop it right then and there or just walk out of the shelter and into its path.

There are two sides to her. There's a practical side to her that brings me down and puts me to sleep. I become little me again and it's no fun. I have had enough of that in my life. Thinking puts her to sleep. I move to her rhythms as she takes me to hell, and I try to say the right things so it will pass, and she wakes up again. I see the spark in her eyes and know my Goddess has returned. I become the apple of her eye as we slide back into a bottomless bliss. Don't let her go back to sleep. When she is awake and embracing who she is, I can't get enough. Everything is trivial when in her presence. Time melts away and life becomes effortless.

My good boy self is a puppet. I keep myself in line to please others and not cause too much upset. My shadow keeps putting explosives in my path, hoping one day I'll walk onto the trip wire and not be able to get out of the way. This time I saw the explosive directly to my left. My good boy self projected into the future and the supposed trap that had been set by the liberator in me. Don't do it! You will regret it. Here's a fantastic story of why you shouldn't. Too late. Destroy your reputation. Become notorious.

Thanks Rumi. You get me.

The two brothers within are always a recurring motif in my spiritual education and journey. They are the Horus and Set of the ancient Egyptians, the Cain and Abel as well as Jacob and Esau of the Old Testament. In our modern-day tales, we call it the angel over your right shoulder and the devil over your left shoulder. The battle rages on throughout our entire life. Institutions shepherd us towards the angel, the angel represents the light and the devil the darkness.

I buried the darkness early on in my life. I was always a good boy, wanting the praise of others for how well I played that game. I knew I had the darkness within me however I was able to keep a lid on him. I’d have to let him out every now and then to play and that way I could control the fire before it became an all-consuming inferno. I could breathe a sigh of relief after the storm passed through, assess the damage, and move on. I always wondered though at some point the blaze will get out of hand and I won’t be able to stop it, but so far so good. Through suppressing the shadow, I built a decent life for myself. Desires were bypassed and I constructed a comfortable life.

The last few years I have felt myself physically starting to crumble. I had slipped into a malaise with a feeling of having accomplished a good life that set me up for my retirement years. However, I saw how those years weren’t going to be happy at all.

This whole sequence of events goes back many years. I was a quiet and shy kid and I just wanted to fit in. I gave up so much of who I am in order to live a life as prescribed by the guardians of culture. It has never felt good to me, however I went along with the external charade because I thought I could make it work. This whole time I have acquiesced to the demands I have secretly longed for a way out. I didn't know why I wanted to get out; I just knew I wasn't happy. I busied myself with family and pets. I numbed myself first with alcohol but gave that up. I searched for meaning and started on the spiritual path. I became an A student and aced it. I'm enlightened as fuck. I did the whole renunciate/ascetic trip after I was witness to the darkness within. I took on that darkness and showed him who is boss.

They say the light will be your Saviour. The light will lift you out of the darkness of self and allow you to reach the highest highs. I eventually found the opposite is true. I should have known, as being a contrarian my whole life has served me extremely well. I go against culture and all the resultant bullshit. I walk alone on a path of my own making. The trap I found myself in was because of a need for perceived connection, so I shelved my inner desire and want of freedom and attached myself to life. I have a good job, good family, and I'm such a nice person. Such a wonderful provider with the patience of a saint.

I'm miserable. I'm disconnected from self.

I found my Saviour - the darkness within. We became best friends over a year ago and I just needed the catalyst to trip the wire that activates the coming of my personal El Niño who will blow it all up. It's ticking.

mycelium exploration

When I first tried magic mushrooms I got what I wanted in terms of a deep dive into the shadow and the experience was so strong I was unsure I wanted to do them again. This hesitancy was not due to fear but rather I found the whole night to be difficult and the draining of my energy was something to take into consideration as it takes a few days to recover. Within a few days, I knew I would trip again as the insights were very rewarding and now that I had some bearing on what the mushroom trip entails, I could prepare myself more for what is to come. I know I'm not going to experience the shiny and happy trips of innocent wayfarers as my introspective nature and prior experience with psychedelics will always usher me towards the fringes of the mystery.

Something I realized with the mushroom is how little an amount you have to ingest and how relatively easy they are to acquire. Because of this, there is a simple way to introduce someone who is interested in altering their consciousness into this mysterious world. It's all right there waiting for you. Just a slight alteration of consciousness will send you on a path towards waking up and once awake there's no turning back. It's all choice in how you want to use this knowledge and power. For sure, they are not for everyone and indeed I have been struck by the power and profundity of the experience from just two dried mushrooms. I feel confident in their solo use but for a novice explorer I would not recommend such a method because they are so powerful. They do have the capacity to scare you shitless, much like I experienced the second time I drank Ayahuasca. That session could have easily spiralled out of control into a bad ending had it not been for the ceremonial aides who kept an eye on me while I was having my freak out.

I tried a different strain of the mushroom, this one called "Amazon". Heck I know the Amazon jungle! It's where I first tried psychedelics. Nostalgia is calling out to me, lol! I measured out just under 2 grams, as that is my dose. Mushrooms for me are so strong and I don't need more in order to go off into unchartered territory. The visuals from 2 grams are as strong as Ayahuasca. The split in my psyche is present and I can explore. The intoxication as presented gives me the same kind of feeling as any prior psychedelic journey and the ripping of reality into energetic patterns is pretty much the same.

The first time I tripped with magic mushrooms I kept my eyes open for a lot of the initial phase and it resulted in my surroundings becoming fluid with a great sense of the hypnotic nature of the tryptamine intoxication. As I awaited the onset of the mushroom this time, I actually felt a little bit of fear and anxiety, which I couldn't shake. I kept my eyes closed for most of the journey with the result being a very intense visionary experience. The intoxication took hold as the song "Medicine Chant" by Anilah was playing. The visuals started in a familiar fractal presentation of a performance of the spectrum of light. I felt a little trepidation about how this journey was beginning, not being sure what this visual presentation would evolve into. I steadied the ship, kept my wits about me, and then this epiphany struck: I always fight these introductory visuals instead of just enjoying the show. I finally understood this light show was the Goddess putting on a divine performance. I don't know why I fear the onset; I finally realized this dance of energetic form is her giving me an otherworldly performance. I let go and realized this was the opening act to a grand adventure and then I saw the incredible beauty which was at hand. The symmetry and artistry in combination with the multi-layered brilliance of Anilah's musical composition was breath-taking. I cannot possibly describe what I witnessed so I'm not going to even try. What a show! This is something to look forward to in any subsequent trip now that I finally got it.

My first trip with the mushroom was centred on my inner masculine split and a lifting of the veil between us. I did not intuit the presence of the Goddess and thus categorized my mushroom trip as being a modality without her presence. She decided to have fun with me and school me right off the start of this second voyage. As mentioned, the night opened with a sublime performance of the grace and beauty of the Goddess. There she was in all her glory putting on a celestial show for the ages. Wow! A performance of legendary and cosmic proportions for the full 15 minutes of this stunning musical composition. I buried my face in the palms of my hands due to the emotional outpouring of love and the grandeur of the performance. I was stunned. Grateful. Head in hands emotional. I felt that if this was it for the night, it was complete and a smashing success. As the song concluded, the energetic outpouring which defined this performance tapered off and the visions became more scenic and playful in conjunction with the music of Trevor Hall which had an eastern flavour to it. I started to envision multiple dream worlds that would populate my mind's eye. With an opening of the eyes I could make the created world go away and upon closing my eyes a new world would form. I let go of my thoughts and the experience was all play. The magic mushroom trip sure was fun and blissful. I remembered the line from a Beatles' song, "turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream." I now definitely see the appeal of such a fun trip with psychedelics as it was indeed a gas to continuously create different worlds. My music playlist abruptly switched to two songs by the grunge band Alice in Chains. They are depressing songs and the first one called "Nutshell" has the singer lamenting he is not free and considering suicide. As the intro to the song played, the vibe in my visions became dark, almost like a sudden storm approached where the temperature drops and it gets dark. I felt the pull of the depression the singer was emoting try to pull me into that world with fellow travellers on a ship ahead of me beckoning and trying to seduce me into following them into the pit of despair. I know I love this song because of the heart wrenching pouring out of the guy's soul which translates into such a compelling tune. I resisted the pull and just observed how these feelings create and shape our world. How we actually perceive the world is a direct result of our inner life which is crafted by how we feel. The next song was "Would" and it was a raw live performance. From a bird's eye perspective, I saw a crowd of people cheering on the band. Again, I got a very dark feeling and a large dragon appeared in the middle of the crowd. The song is about drug abuse, specifically heroin, and the dragon is the great destroyer. I intuitively knew this and so I marvelled at this vision instead of the old me who would have been scared out of his wits at the sight of a menacing dragon. I felt empathy with the crowd who at this point were representing the addiction of the band. I saw the dragon grow in size and I intuited a connection with a world that is getting very dark. My playlist transitioned into four psychedelic Beatles songs and I relaxed and reclined in my chair and just enjoyed the show. Soon after, I tired of the visions and listening to music so I decided to turn it off and go lay down. About an hour and a half had passed which was about the same time as my first trip when I turned off the music and decided to lay down.

This strain of mushroom was decidedly more playful than the first. They were equal in their intensity though I'd say the second trip had less of a defined edge to it and I was more in tune with the visions. When I got up to go lay down on the sofa, I noticed the energetic pulse throughout the room, something which is familiar to me from drinking Ayahuasca. To describe it is as such - there is a slight discombobulation of the fabric of being where the illusion is slightly off, not all together, and I see it as this subtle pink, purple, and a green kind of presentation which is making up the world. It looks like it is revealing that this world is a vision as well but one we have convinced ourselves is real so we don't see that it is just another illusion. When I laid down the visionary activity did not want to cease and it took me into yet again another meeting with my brother, my shadow, much like my first experience where the veil between us was lifted and I had to play psychologist for almost three hours. This time I witnessed the utter domination and power which my shadow has over the world and how it manifests. He's the god of the world and has almost everyone worshipping him in some form. Power. We all want a slice of that pie. It was tough to watch. I objectified him as the other to stave off self-hatred as the suffering and depravity he caused was terrible. How is forgiveness possible for such acts? Think of the worst things that humans do to each other and that's what I saw my shadow was responsible for. The enormity of change and forgiveness required to reconcile seemed all too great. The reckoning soon came.

I'm complicit in this debacle because I do nothing about it. Indeed, I use it to my benefit. It's a zero-sum game and for myself to live in comfort someone else has to suffer. It is just easier and convenient to project this malfeasance onto my shadow and bury the knowledge of it. This way I can attribute the suffering to him, the other, and be horrified but done with it. It's not me so I'll try and make it better but I'm not the one responsible. Soon, I saw the error in my thinking knowing that I was objectifying the shadow as the other in order to escape blame for the world's suffering. He is my brother and I'm as much him as he is me. He creates and I introduce calm so there is some sort of balance and stability to the madness until the unencumbered energetic force comes pouring out again. I saw this dragon was me. I see this in my fellow game players. Wow - we are all masters of deception. Surely, I'm not the only one though I realize I'm one of the few who are awake and can clearly see it. My brother hates me because I'm the self-righteous asshole who tries to stand above the fray and take no responsibility. I'm the passive aggressive one who takes his share of the bounty and lives his life of comfort while others suffer and then points at the objectified nameless shadow and says, "Look, it's all his fault. He's the despicable one!"

Play! All we do is squabble. We created this world and instead of having a grand adventure we get under each other's skin and argue, fight, and then destroy. We create suffering as payback to being slighted in the tiniest of ways.

My shadow has always threatened to kill me when the veil drops and I enter his world. He didn't threaten me this time. It's because I know I'm him and even though I started out this experience by objectifying him as the other, as I searched for answers I had to accept he is me. Killing me is killing myself. I'm awake and trying to figure out the answers to why I need to continually fight my brother. Why am I loathe to admit I'm the scoundrel? I think that's the reason. It's easier to blame the other.

In the Old Testament, the Garden of Eden is a metaphor for the human heart. The four rivers flowing into and out of the home we long to return to are representing the four valves of our physical human heart. Upon gaining the eye-opening awareness from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil after the apple incident with the serpent, Eve and Adam are no longer pure of heart and thus thrown out of the Garden. Scripture then becomes a story of the longing to return to the heart. A careful reading of the conclusion of the Book of Revelation will reveal that Christianity considers itself the guide and answer which will lead the adherent back to this initial state of purity. Here are the first two verses from the concluding chapter 22 (New International Version).

1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb

2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

We find only mentioned the tree of life from the Garden of Eden. No longer referenced is the tree of knowledge, which will lead your heart astray.

Now, it is definitely not my intention to shepherd you towards Christianity. I just like to point out connections and common human afflictions and their offered solutions as I see them.

This world is a creation of our own making. The masculine provides the infinite amount of energy and the feminine gives the energy form. Within each gendered provider are contending forces. I am privy to my split in the masculine coming forth of the energy. I see my brother as the raging source of power who has the ability to control all. I provide the balance so that the universe isn't just one big outpouring of non-stop creation that would fill up the room until no one could breath. I'm the AC to his DC. I slow things down allowing for a little calm, peace, and an independent experience so we can marvel at what has come forth and have an adventure. This universe and the earth we inhabit are awesome. We created this masterpiece in order to have adventures and play. Instead, our world is defined by strife and conflict and this mindset has permeated all our interactions with our fellow game players. We are divided and all we do is fight. I hate my brother and in return he wants to punish me. Why? Why do we hate each other? We have lost the spirit of sharing and co-operation. We both want it all for ourselves. Haven't we reached the point yet where we take it all for our self and then realize we have no one left to play with? Is that what we want? Do we want just pure obeisance to our omnipotent power? I want a playmate. I want everyone to live out their dreams. This universe was created so we could do just this and instead we are divided, we create new ways to stay separated, and we just fight. It is so sad. The way out as I see it is the path of the heart. The solution is to take our divided polar extremes and bring them to the centre, the axis mundi, the heart space, where we learn about love for all. Love and respect for all.

We are headed full on towards destruction. In the aftermath, we will sit upon the mountain top of eternity lamenting our failure to find love. Do we repeat the experiment knowing full well the suffering we caused by our inability to love one another? The Great Mother tells me the answer is love. It's the only way out. Don't ever put the other out of your heart no matter how pissed you get at each other. The love of the Goddess is the elixir needed. To change the paradigm of the world means to embrace radical and unconditional love. Practice it until it becomes second nature. It is our way out of this mess. The path back home begins with the first step towards love.

The night sure felt like a lifetime and the dazzling opening show presented by the Great Goddess seemed to be a long time ago. The clock was past the 6 am mark and I was exhausted. The trip with the mushroom leaves me drained of energy and at my age it is a two-day recovery process. For the first time I understood fully why at Ayahuasca retreats a day off is given in-between ceremonies. The night with Ayahuasca is taxing but I find the morning after is quite exhilarating and the afterglow allows you to recover faster from the outpouring of energy and I'm ready to go despite the lack of energy. With the mushroom, I find it is a constant outpouring of non-replenished energy. While I was creating new world after new world while reclined on my chair, my foot was shaking quite intensely with the power being exerted to create new worlds. I noticed the next day the total lack of energy. Usually when I smoke tobacco I can enter into a meditative state and feel the energy rippling through my body. This time there was nothing. It was a full two days before I felt the return of a detectable level of energy.

I have now journeyed twice with magic mushrooms and I have to say I am quite amazed by their power. I see the similarities with Ayahuasca as well as the differences. They are both psychedelic experiences and I can't say whether one is better than the other or make some proclamation that either will lead you to what it is you are looking for. I want to say you don't have to travel large distances to explore consciousness if that is not in the cards for you. That being said, I wouldn't trade my journeys into the jungle and mountains of Peru for anything. They remain an essential part of the story of my life and I'm grateful I had the opportunity to embark on these very special voyages. What I'm saying is if the universe is calling out to you to wake up, you can create your own story based upon your circumstances. Don't think you need to do it in some proscribed way in order to find what it is you are looking for. Ayahuasca is indeed magical however if it is not feasible there are other ways. I can compare it to the multitude of religious avenues available to one who has a calling towards that modality of spiritual exploration. Explore and examine what resonates with your circumstance and then witness the doors opening up for you to keep going on the journey. The omnipotent you wants you to wake up and all you have to do is to take that first step. Once you walk through the doorway, the path will light up, you'll see that yellow brick road, and all you have to do is keep following it.

tempering the extremes of omnipotence

The purpose and meaning of incarnation into a world of my own making is to explore the extremes of the high and the low; to wit the duality of self. As the stone idol at Chavín de Huántar in the Andean highlands teaches, bring all back to centre at our own personal axis mundi. The purpose is to find wholeness in the heart space in the middle, called the chaupi in the Quechuan language. This is also the fourth chakra in a seven-fold energetic human existence. The answer is not found in the crown chakra and the pure white light of enlightenment; ah, it's fun to climb that mountain and experience God consciousness but in the end, you see that's not why you're here. You already are God. Instead, the reason why you are here is reconciliation. To bring all back to centre, taking the unity of form of the divine feminine and merging with the independent spirit of the divine masculine. And from this process you rediscover the heart and love. This is why you created this whole game and imbued the quest with the impetus and desire to discover the secret. The puzzle kept you going. The game was frustrating and challenging, but ultimately fun. The hero's journey kept you invested and involved. I love a challenge and I'm going to keep going through multiple lifetimes in order to complete this quest and along the way I'm going to unveil the mystery. What an adventure! Kudos to myself for designing this most interesting game-board.

And so, here I am. I did the journey and completed the quest. I unveiled the mystery. I rescued the princess. What’s left now if I keep sailing on this ship of discovery? My ship is blessed with the moniker "The Fool." I clearly see the destination as I look into this world of form and what is revealed is all pervasive duality. I see the opposites and know the task at hand is to bring the opposites to the centre in order to find love. That's why I did it - to find balance and temper the extremes of omnipotence. The sideshows I created to keep me interested and continuing on the voyage so that eventually I'd see it and discover the reason "why" I did this. I wanted to know God; I wanted to know what makes me tick along with discovering the answer to how do I reconcile the creator and the destroyer within? I now see what it is I wanted to see - the polarity and separation, and grudgingly I accept that she was correct all along. She is Love - the Great Goddess, and she shows me reconciliation of what is leads to the centre and in this centre is found life and love.

Earth is one of these centres where we have life and can practice love. It's on now; this is your classroom buddy. Reconciliation is the game! You did the whole journey, found what you seek is within, and created a world that manifests difficult situations which implore you to find solutions to the endemic problem. The various problem-solving methods at hand are diverse and most lead you away from what it is you seek. The answer to the conundrum is love and you find this answer after exhausting all avenues that take you away from the centre. The streets of separation are roads paved with fame and fortune but ultimately lead you farther down a path to nowhere and eventually we all lose the way home. Wow, we sure have travelled a great distance and now I no longer even realize within there is a castle made of gold which houses the Goddess and her gift of love. We forgot her and buried the knowledge of the feminine divine under the sands of time.

I never cease to be amazed at the writing process and how it lubricates the mind which in turn allows you to make a connection to wisdom and understanding. As I spent the day writing this post and consequently thinking about it, I had yet another epiphany on the nature of being. The root chakra and the crown chakra are connected as in they are polar opposites. One is chaos and form while the other is order and separation. They are the representation of the feminine and masculine energies who need and attract each other. I know the answer is found in the fourth chakra which is the heart. Both paths, regardless of origin, lead to the heart whether you start from the bottom or the top. It is in the middle where biological life is possible. The balance between the two eternal and divine energies create and sustains life. Life is precarious and it’s only on this gift of Pachamama where we can experience biological life which in turn allows us to find love and realize now is the time to express that love.

Furthermore, I intellectually started investigating the polar origins of the cyclical energetic system and realized that some of us are on a journey of ascension while others are in a state of deceleration of the energetic signature. Some of us are entering into life via the crown chakra and heading towards stasis while others are entering at the bottom of the mountain and beginning the long climb to the grandeur of self. Each energetic journey leads to the heart at the mid-point of the journey and it’s where we manifest into conscious form; so, here we are. This is the game we are playing. Acceleration from feminine unity, separate into form, and finish the climb. Deceleration from masculine separation, unify into form, and return to the great mother who smothers. Some of us will head towards the light at bodily death and others will descend into the darkness. But don’t you worry; it’s all cyclical and it is the constant transformation of your energetic signature that bestows upon you eternal life. The ride is the thing. Embrace it.

The cycles within this cycle are of the same nature as within our lives we traverse the energetic centres and remove the blocks in order to experience all facets of life in this body. Some head towards the crown chakra to become the king of their domain, fully enlightened, while others take the path of unity back to the base chakra. Most of us get stuck in the second chakra of carnal pleasures or the third chakra of personal power and greed. Once again, with experience and the subsequent wisdom is discovered in the fourth chakra of the heart is where we become fully realized human beings.

So, what's left is to love. Open the heart, put yourself in others' shoes, and find compassion. Realize that greed and games of power mask fear. Transmute that fear into love. Plant the seed so that others know there is another way; life doesn't have to be this way. Leave this world a better place and light up the Goddess’ heart castle so that other game players can see the beacon shining in the distance when they are ready to head towards her divine gift of love.

slowing down duality

There is something to the Freudian concept that everything we do is related to the sex drive and positioning us in a way to fulfill our sexual desires. We strive to attain power in order that we may have the ability to choose whatever partner we please and control that partner's behaviour. Equally valid is one who wants to relinquish power to another because of the sexual thrill that state enables. I think you can make an argument that this may be a little too overreaching and I think if you removed the sexual part of it then it is a little closer to the truth as in it is really desire fulfillment that makes the world go around. This is demonstrably true as in the world is the product of our desire and whole classes of religious or spiritual activity, such as Buddhism, stress how it is through non-attachment and the eschewing of desire that we can transcend our condition of suffering. One soon learns that you must give up pleasure and rewards in order not to suffer and thus the dilemma. If you desire not to desire then as a result you cease to be human and will soon lose the desire to even go on.

I was thinking about this because it had a relationship to the blog post I wrote concerning the creator and destroyer. Fundamentally there are two powers in the universe: the feminine and the masculine. One of them creates and the other destroys thus enabling all of creation and allowing it to fundamentally keep renewing itself in a never ending cycle. One power can’t exist without the other and though each tries to get the upper hand, the ability to become dominant will lead to its inevitable decline and the rise of the other power. If we create too many things, the sheer volume will eventually choke out others and the result will be destruction and when the death has played itself out then from the ashes will arise new life. It is a harmonious relationship that sometimes might seem cruel and I am finding it at work in all aspects of life, much like a Freudian would see the phallus present in every guise.

I have noticed the older I get the more conservative I become and I have recently discovered it is because I see the life force of my body dwindling and the eventual destruction of my figure getting near. My knees are aching. To counter balance this escalating condition I want to hang on to what I had and from this conservatism comes in to play. I don’t want change anymore. Change is killing me! I am channeling the preserver and trying to find balance in between the two polarities. From the standpoint of my personal philosophy, I never really wanted to upset the system but instead I was a proponent of libertarianism whereby I believed people should be free to do whatever they wish as long as it is not harming others, within reason of course. We probably should stop at red traffic lights. I still hold these views but what is interesting is despite all efforts of media and social engineering projects to steer me towards feel good socialism, my internal reaction is to move politically further away from them; this reaction despite knowing that unity of the species is our only hope. There’s a power and control dynamic within these movements I am not comfortable with; I know they are not headed towards the unity I seek but instead are power grabs cloaked in equity, and the mob and groupthink paradigms I have avoided throughout my life as they curtail free speech, breed authoritarianism, and not at all freedom. Current events are just doubling down on this and expediting my move towards the right. I think I’m not the only one who feels this way.

What is fascinating in all of this are I believe these forces we are witnessing are derivative of the concept of the creator and destroyer. Each power needs a tremendous outpouring of energy in order to come forth and then once established would necessarily become conservative in order to consolidate and preserve their position. Look at America: it was rebellious and destroyed the oppression of the monarchy of Great Britain and these revolutionaries established this amazing country; though probably not so amazing if you are one of the indigenous peoples whose way of life was being destroyed. The USA grew and became the world’s foremost power at the peak of its strength but playing up against that position now comes the eternal check on its power. The forces of destruction seek to lay claim to its many sins. The destroyers of the left see no redeeming qualities but instead seek to fundamentally change its economic system and way of life and threaten to do so by methodically destroying all of America’s institutions through violence and cultural revolution. The sins of America are systemic and the only way to cleanse it of these transgressions is to bring down the whole edifice is the claim. This is the eternal struggle between the creator and destroyer and is predestined to play out in order to keep it all moving along. Where is it written that a pocket of civilization will last forever? How does America meet this challenge? How do I meet my own challenge as I finally can see my demise in the rear-view mirror? I eat better, get more sleep, exercise, and prioritize what is important to me and what I want to accomplish in this lifetime. It should keep the forces of destruction at bay for a while longer now. Eventually they will return again stronger and come at me once more. It’s a game now where I see how long I can hold them off. Perhaps that is the future of America as well. 

rise up embrace release

My brain is a fascinating machine. I feed it knowledge; it digests it over the course of a relatively short time into understanding and from this understanding grows wisdom. This process is repeatable and it has happened enough that I can internally quantify it, though to quantify it externally would be difficult other than recording my understanding of information I have fed into it.

The knowledge we generally feed into the brain comes from our everyday experiences. We live within a tightly held frequency that spills out in all dimensions so that we get hints of obfuscated forms of consciousness but we can’t grasp them for long. It leaves us with the nagging question of whether these other dimensions are ‘real’ or not. All is energy and the energy is in motion. What is energy? It is a vibration. The vibration is motion that we perceive. When we measure the motion we discern frequencies.

Everything is here and now. We are limited by perception. The frequency I lock to creates my world. We can go to heaven or hell now; there’s no need to wait until death. The energy of dead ancestors is here and now. That plane of consciousness is available if you seek for it.

I chose a seed body to incarnate my pattern of energy, in order to come forth in a plane of existence that would allow me to attain self knowledge over buried aspects of self I ignore. Within my current life I then develop further strategies to keep these traits hidden however they are more accessible than ever. We all get lost in the incarnation and forget not only our origin but also our impetus. The journey is always there waiting for us to re-engage, get back on the ship, and sail onwards towards understanding. I don’t think there is a destination or an end to it. I realized this the other day while walking my dog through the woods. There’s no destination or goal on this walk; instead it is the journey that’s the thing. That seemed so obvious. Experience is the teacher. I know I only conquered fear through experiencing full on fear and then taking it on in a struggle for survival. The walk is about exploring, becoming aware of your surroundings, and living in the moment. Aha! The destination is to be here now. Thanks Ram Dass! Eventually we turn around and head back. The natural cycle of the day turns to night. We rest and then rise up again.

I look back now on my ceremonies in the the Amazon jungle and the Andes mountains with Huachuma, that first and foremost acknowledge and celebrate Pachamama, with awe and reverence. The final ceremony this last trip moved me to tears as I understood how she created our universe out of love in order that we could play and understand. The wisdom of the opening of the Tao Te Ching expresses this sentiment,  "Heaven and earth begin in the unnamed: name’s the mother of the ten thousand things.” (Ursula K. LeGuin translation)

It’s always been the Goddess behind creation and it is our destiny to eventually destroy it. Along the way maybe we can show some respect while we head to the inevitable decline and destruction. We can embrace love while we fall from the grace of the great mother.

My pattern of energy animates the body and I take care of it allowing for this experience. Everything is like the breath; it rises and it falls. The body grows and then it decays. The growing is a time to explore the wondrous feats that can be accomplished and the power inherent in our condition. The decay is a time of introspection and insight where if you let go of the clinging to life on this plane of existence then you can step back and start to understand it. Stop being so uptight and blow it out.

The answer seems to be motion. We are deathly afraid of death however we love and are addicted to nouns. If we persist in objectifying then will come death and suffering. We love institutions that have staying power. The rock is what we ultimately look towards to express this ideal. We want to capture and live in a frozen moment and defeat the ravages of time however time is undefeated and claims all. What a predicament! If we change the way we think then we can win this game. Isn’t that cheating though? No and here’s why: If you look around it is easy to see nothing lasts. Everything is in a constant state of growth and decay; life and death. We can deny it all we want but it is self-evident. We can create languages that accentuate nouns as part of the sentence structure but it is still a way to fool ourselves into thinking there is a way to maintain this facade of the character and institutions we have created. Changing the way we think will extricate us from the trap that causes suffering, with the bonus of being able to joyously play the game of life and build the best damn character you can imagine.

By dying we defeat death. That’s a weird statement to make as we understand death as annihilation. If you embrace motion and understand that you rise and fall endlessly then you will get it. Motion is the impetus behind our transformation and this transformation goes on without end. Clinging to non-change will lead to a painful death. Letting go and trusting what is undeniable leads to grace and to living a life that sails on over both smooth and rough waters, marvelling at what comes next.

Surf the waves of time through being in motion with it.

So what is energy? It’s motion that is in motion. Try wrapping your head around that one. Try objectifying a verb. At slower speeds it looks like solid particles and at higher speeds it is a waveform pattern. Energy rises and falls. It’s string theory without the string. Ultimately I intuit that energy is unbridled love and all that has come forth for us in this universe is derivative of that love. Yes even the pain and the suffering. It’s all love because only through love can we face up to the truth of who we are and stop denying it. We are forced to acknowledge the hate and thus we can transform it. Love embraces all regardless of prejudice or behaviour.

Love is the beating of your heart. It rises and falls. The creation of the vibration leads you back to source. The heart is your umbilical cord that connects to the Goddess. It beats out your unique pattern, your signature called your soul, that binds you to the all. She creates. I destroy. We are harmonious. We are the constituents of motion. We are everything. We are nothing. She is the rising and I am the falling.