double-edged sword

Everything is teaching me a lesson. I have realized that acceptance is liberating. Not fighting the flow brings relief. Throughout my adult life I have found the rat race to be tiring and frustrating in that you can never get ahead. No matter how much more wealth you accumulate, the demands increase to the point where more is always asked of you. Work more. Earn more. There's bills to pay. Buy more stuff you want with the extra money. Get a bigger house and stretch your pay. Need more! On and on it goes.

There has been a synthesis of understanding in conjunction with my spiritual path. The advice of the maestro rings true when he exclaims, "There's always more." The pronouncement had a double meaning. He knew it, but it's fun to throw it out there and have the student forever chase the adventure. You see, there's the accumulation of knowledge which I did through books, and then experiential exploration of physical locations on earth. Then came the exploration of the subconscious through psychedelic substances. Inner exploration is brimming with the knowledge a man like me seeks and in conjunction with the search is a fear of the unknown which makes inner exploration quite the adventure. In his books about the teachings of Don Juan, Carlos Castaneda writes about the "Man of Knowledge." Through mental challenges, peyote, and mushrooms, Don Juan imparts his knowledge to Carlos. Carlos admits to being as thick as a brick and doesn't understand the knowledge right away. The same is true with my psychedelic experiences where the information I gleaned was immediately spun by the mind to fit into my personal narrative. It was only after discovering the deceit of the ego that I was able to integrate what I was shown in vision and extract the alchemical gold.

Understanding is a way off from ceremony. What it is you seek is all revealed, and the unfolding comes through the passage of time which bequeaths the understanding to the attentive student. A good teacher does not give the show away, but instead guides the student to the tools which will allow them to solve the puzzle or understand their predicament. The maestro has been through the process themselves, knows what it takes, and is keenly aware that the student must realize the answers through their own faculties for understanding. Telling the student, "There's always more," is a double-edged sword. Failure to marinate knowledge into understanding might lead you onto a path of an accumulation of contradictory knowledge that becomes a tangled web of incoherence.

So, there's an accumulation of knowledge. There's an integration of that knowledge in order to understand it. I have left out wisdom so far. What's wisdom? Well, let me give you an analogy. When you feed a dog, a dog will keep eating until they vomit. The same is true with knowledge and understanding. I can keep accumulating knowledge and transmuting it into understanding until I vomit. There is always more! Wisdom is knowing when you are full. No one else is going to tell you when you are full. Instead, they will do the opposite. They will always tell you there is more. There is another mountain to climb! Hey, you got to try this new flavour. It goes on and on. Recognizing you have had your fill allows you to put your fork down and walk away from the table.

I intuited when I graduated from the lessons from my shadow and onto the path of the heart that this was my last stop. I found the answer I was looking for, well, I found it a while back, but I didn't understand it. I still had to accumulate knowledge and get understanding of my incarnation. I did all that. It has been over a 15-year collection of knowledge exercise and I'm past 10 years of being involved with plant medicines. Wisdom finally came to me a short while ago and told me I was full. I kept seeing more on the menu and thought maybe I should try a new dish, but Sophia sat me down and said I have all I need. Follow the path to the heart. Remember the lesson of the simpleton with the open heart is wiser than the man who knows everything and owns the world. I remember that lesson well from over five years ago. I remember being taught the knowledge of the divine outpouring of love, and being allowed access to the Garden of the Heart for a short while before being kicked out when the drug wore off.

This wisdom I have found very practical for my material life. I do have enough, and I lead a simple life. I look at my bank account every month and wonder how I am going to pay all the bills now that my children have immersed themselves in post-secondary education? There's tuition, rent, food, transportation, and entertainment. There is constant pressure to make more money and provide. This can be very draining. After fighting the flow for so long, I finally learned to let go. Personally, I don't need to accumulate more. In fact, I want less. Recently has been a purging of physical attachments. I took so much to the curb so the garbage truck could haul it away. I felt relief in letting go of the metaphorical physical attachments which felt like a lifting of life that weighed me down. Being light and free is exhilarating. I realized to let go and go with the flow. Allow the work to come to me, earn money, and then support those who need it. I don't need it. I have been blessed and discovered everything I came here for. Why do I need to accumulate more? Instead, I can be of service and help others find their path. That leads to another conundrum. I know we all have a personal reason we incarnated and it's a puzzle of life to find out the reason. I want to tell people to devote all their time to discovering the reason, but I realize it doesn't work that way. They must do what they do, and hopefully this will lead them to seek out answers. I will be like the maestro and point them in the direction if they are receptive, but I won't tell them the answer. Everyone must find that out for themselves.

Here I am, a pilgrim taking the left-hand path of the heart, one step at a time back home. I don't need anything else. I have it all.

transformation via harassment

I now realize why the master teacher, after giving me a thorough beat down upon my first meeting with him, chased me home and continued to harass me. At the time, I wanted him to go away and leave me alone, however, he kept coming for me in thoughts, dreams, and synchronicities. So much so, I suffered two panic attacks and had to develop strategies to maintain my sanity and keep him away.

When you are ready to become the hero of your journey and transform, the path appears and events start to line up for you. In this incarnation, I put it off until middle age and then started studying in earnest. I discovered the Goddess in Egypt and the ball was rolling as she guided me down into the jungle. I get the feeling I have travelled this far along the path in previous incarnations but have never vanquished the dragon. It’s always game over at this point. As an aside, video games are a sub-conscious attempt to reconcile this failure but that’s a story for another time. The Goddess knew of this outcome, cautioned me, and gave me a way out. However, I knew I had to do it.

The quick backstory is I went down into the Amazon jungle eight years ago at the behest of the Great Goddess to come into contact with her through altering my consciousness in a shamanic ritual. As a corollary to that meeting, I wanted to confront the darkness within that I couldn’t shake in my journey to become super-holy. I was the hero on a journey of knowledge and self-discovery. Little did I know, I hit the knowledge jackpot with the caveat a dragon lies in wait to thump you if you dare to tread further.

The dragon made quick work of me and being a scared novice, I left the scene of the mental massacre and retreated to the safety of home. That bastard is tough. It’s hard for me to describe in words how horrible and frightening that first match was in addition to the subsequent relentless pursuit of my sanity to make sure I did not return to his forbidden domain. I was faced with a decision of giving up this modality of discovery or continuing on. Forging ahead would mean I’d have to once again confront the dragon and reasonably I was a little gun shy at having to face up to that prospect. The pursuit of knowledge is what lights me up. I knew I had discovered something profound, but I was scared. I wasn’t going to easily let it go and so I spent a good amount of time trying to reconcile the experience and convince myself of a narrative of what happened with the goal to enable me to continue on this path. The dragon had other ideas and kept coming for me. He was forcing me to transform from a weak man into a warrior possessing the requisite courage and bravery needed to complete the hero’s journey. Cowards aren’t heroes. I can say that now but at the time I wanted to vanquish this foe so I could explore my inner world in peace. It took two years of mental repair and development before I continued on in the journey. During that time, I started to fight back against my adversary by punching back during a panic attack, calling on the Goddess for help, and even writing spells to summon him and cut off his head.

I had demonstrated a willingness to fight which in hindsight is what I needed to do. I returned to the ring and he immediately came at me. I had much trepidation but to my surprise I hung with him and the match went the distance. I wasn’t KO’ed this time. It was a draw and I became progressively emboldened. The Goddess, who had warned little naive me about the coming tribulation, returned to welcome me as I demonstrated I really could be the hero in this lifetime. She encouraged me to continue to go after the dragon. Being her brave knight, I vowed to continue the quest.

I returned once more and took the blows of whatever he could muster. I sat in ceremony and transformed into a man with a resolve of steel. A weak, unassuming, beta male took on the ultimate expression of the power of the alpha male, stood toe to toe with him, and transformed into him. The dragon came at me one last time as a ferocious jaguar. Charging full on, he stopped and stood face to face with me and roared. I roared right back, thus assuming his power and I became the king. This was the greatest upset of all time! An internal fire burned deep within me and despite all odds and the fear I returned, faced the wrath of the dragon, and won. That night was a huge celebration. The sense of accomplishment and the smile on my face at what I’d done lit up the universe. I knew I’d transformed myself and now had the keys to continue on in the hero’s journey, the path opening up to whatever I wished to explore, and the world became my oyster with the intention of finding the pearl.

So, what I realized the other night was the master teacher continued to harass me after the first beat down because it was his way of forcing me to transform from weak to strong. If I had my druthers, I would have made him go away and sanitized the whole experience. The method of continual harassment forced me to seek answers and find a way to once again confront him. There really was no escape except to end it all or transform. I repeat, I wouldn’t have transformed without this teaching method of his. Non-ordinary and possibly fatal. I honour my teacher the dragon and because of this knowledge the outpouring of love I have for him is beyond this world and I thank him so much for what he has done to transform his student and son. My love for the Goddess and God knows no bounds.

The methods of teaching by your celestial father are not kind and will prevent most from ever fulfilling the reason they came to this strange world in the first place. Not only that, but there is no way I can recommend this course due to the possibility of a really unfavourable outcome and the end of your game. The obstacles to success are immense and the odds are slim. Love and light are not the methods of God but instead it is trial and tribulation. The journey involves transformation by putting your feet to the fire and your soul to the test. Most will seek refuge and relief but I promise if you stand up and be counted you will gain for yourself a freedom and an inner-knowing that will exceed anything you can ever imagine. 

otorongocito

It’s all an act. I’m such a good actor I don’t even recognize I am acting so how would I comprehend the masterful dramatic performance of the ultimate actor? I’ve seen the master teacher and marvelled at how he transcends time. How he multiplies coincidences to the point of absurdity. How he wakes me from dreams at his whim to give me food for thought. How he laughs as I curse him and tell him I’m going to destroy him. He then whispers in my ear as I wake, “I’m going to kill you.” He continuously challenges me and watches me fall down. He speaks to me with the voice of a madman, contributing to my psychosis. As with the Goddess, he never has given up on me, though his curriculum is deadly.

He plays multiple roles and wears different costumes; therefore, the subterfuge with the help of cultural indoctrination, originally caused me to identify him as an external entity. He sometimes scares the shit out of me while subsequently appearing as a struggling actor in a vision with the sole purpose of enacting a scene change and hinting at a new lesson plan. He has a recurring role as “god" though a great deal of the new generation are tiring of that one. Sometimes, he is red and has horns.

He’s the great jaguar. I’m so dense that when I transformed into a jaguar during an Ayahuasca ceremony I thought, “shit, I’m such a bad ass and so courageous that I earned it." Instead, the big lesson was you are him. Look. Can’t you see it? You’re just coming home. You’re the son of colossal power. The indescribable, unknowable, and indestructible energy of the universe - the masculine polarity defined as the zoë, underlies all these manifestations and is you too. The master class involves remembering that you are the jaguar.

Therefore, I’m really teaching myself. Teaching myself courage, bravery, and liberation. All this suffering is for liberation and transformation. The mass suffering is done out of a love so deep that it puts us all through hell so we will rise above it. It is the impetus for the hero’s journey. The master class teaches liberation in order to be free of conditions and act of your own choice and accord. If you want to discover whom you really are and the nature of this existence that seems to be an imperative.

After I returned from class in Peru in 2016, I had this very strange dream. I was in the maloca at SpiritQuest during a Huachuma ceremony. I was naked and don Howard poured Huachuma, the consistency of green slime, all over me. I smoked a Mapacho and put it out on the ceremonial floor to which I was chastised by don Howard for my lack of respect. It got even stranger but I’ll leave out those details because they’ll take away from the gist of this tale. Anyway, I have sporadically tried over the ensuing four plus years to figure out the meaning of this dream. It was one of those dreams that I had no trouble recalling the next day as opposed to the majority that just fade away, even while you are in the midst of recalling them. I think I finally figured it out.

In that cycle of work at SpiritQuest, I had succeeded in blowing past my fears and limitations and indeed within an Ayahuasca ceremony I raised my consciousness and transformed into a jaguar. It was a recognition of unlocking that power within and subsequently I have realized that jaguar was freed from deep within my shadow and he was accepting me into his training school. Jaguar training school, the order of the jaguar; I was enrolled!

It’s been a challenge for sure; I’ve skipped class numerous times however at some point I have also studied and learned so much knowledge which I have converted into understanding and wisdom. I get the feeling it’s hard to get kicked out of this school once you are accepted; instead, the heat is just turned up to see what you are made of and to force you to transform or perish. The course will probably last the remainder of my biological life. I’m an attentive student, though at times led away by distractions.

The last phase of the work in 2016 involved a ceremony with the sacred Vilca and my intensive phase of 2016 ended with communing with the curanderos and curanderas of renown. I was told that within I had the ability to heal and my primary method of healing involved the sacred tobacco Mapacho. In retrospect, apparently a magic wand isn't waved and you don’t automatically become an agent of healing. Instead, there is training through the adventure of life. I’ve incorporated Mapacho into my daily ritual and maintained a somewhat respectful attitude towards him while always treating him with reverence. I have repeatedly observed his effects and have definitely noticed that respect negates addiction. That lesson is alone worth the price of tuition. Mapacho can contain up to 20x the nicotine levels of a regular cigarette. I smoke regularly and have no cravings or withdrawal symptoms. I can go days or even months without smoking if it’s unavailable, like during this current pandemic. In other words, addiction to tobacco, the nicotine within the plant, is a result of behaviour that does not respect the plant. Tell that to a scientist or even someone you know. Watch them raise their eyebrow.

The effects of Mapacho involve heightening the senses and an energetic connection to your surroundings. The dosage level is admittedly tough as I enter into this new phase of my teachings. I have to sit down and find a quiet space, he is that intense. However, I can see the energy, I can feel the energetic connection, and I can hear sounds far off into the distance as the clarity envelops me. I have a feeling what this is leading to: Mapacho calls out to the Jaguar to come forth. The forging of consciousness and energy is the new lesson plan.

Anyway, back to the dream - the ceremony was obviously a consecration into the order of the Jaguar which involved taking an oath binding both of us. Don Howard presided over the ceremony and welcomed me into the order. The great Jaguar is the ultimate warrior, the alpha of all alphas, and the cosmic grandfather teaching me the ways of the wise. To Otorongo I earned my place as Otorongocito. 

alpha

It’s been one helluva journey. A progression from one step at a time to the next. If this knowledge was revealed all at once, I would declare it madness and move on. In fact, my first direct meeting with the divine masculine power was an exercise in madness and fear. It was set up to be a test; to see if I had it in me to walk this path. And a test it was as he got into my head. The reveal was a master stroke of genius in that I could decide to never go back however I would always know he was there. There was opportunity and the easy way out; easy power and glory. Alternatively, I could run. I ran. Subsequently, I regrouped and came back. I was still scared but I wasn’t going to let this beat me. I never give in once I put my mind towards something and I hate to lose. This resolve has come forth within my life as an unwavering self-confidence bordering on arrogance.

The thing is, the perception of the warrior is a man of outward strength and an intimidating presence. This describes the alpha male and is the epitome of what he is. A master of his domain and no one messes with him. A gladiator. I’m none of that; I never have been and never will be. I am meek and unassuming. The bestowing of greatness upon the warrior king tested in the fires of battle was not something that could be predicted for me. I’m a behind the scenes kind of guy. I can be successful but expectations will be tempered. Or so I thought.

Courage is a funny thing. You don’t know if you have it until crunch time. When I played sports as a kid, I liked the big moment and the pressure. I could always raise my game when it came down to the wire. Not only that, but I could keep up with the jocks even though physically they were one up on me. I’d always outsmart them and gain an advantage in that regard. I’d outrun them all in the 40-yard dash because I was quick off the draw but come the 100 yards they’d catch me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t ready for the big life test when it first happened, courage did not come, and I retreated in fear. Jesus was waiting to console me but I brushed him aside. He’s a relic for the weak; an avatar granted by the maestro as a way to approach but don’t get too close to the power.

Underestimate me at your own peril. Admittedly, I initially suck at new experiences, however given enough time I master them. I returned home, tail between my legs, and made plans to give it another shot. My fortitude made the ultimate alpha male take notice. After previously swatting me away, here I was back for more. I stood toe to toe and took the beating but didn’t back down. Sure, there was fear and trepidation in the face of lunacy however I had courage. Courage came to me and I grasped that sucker, never to let it go. He had to take notice. It was a new paradigm I was demonstrating that instead of outward displays of being an alpha, I was the inner alpha warrior. Don’t mess with me or I’ll best you. I’ve always known that. I walk around life absolutely knowing and demonstrating this inner conviction.

The Goddess implored me to go after him. Free her from the chains he kept her in. At that point she knew I could hang with him and that I discovered his secret and the mystery. This act of discovery would free them both. Well played. The whole world was on notice after that outcome. I don't look like Heracles but I just did what no mortal has ever done. I didn’t know it at the time but I do now. No one does what I did and gets away with it. You either run away or you succumb to the power and become its slave. I was still a free agent and ready to do more fighting. I continued the battle on home turf, gained confidence, and came back for more. My tenacity was such that the gods had no choice but to recognize my accomplishment. I sat in a ceremony and transformed into a jaguar; the ultimate symbol of the alpha masculine power who rules his domain. I recognized my inner strength; I felt a huge blast of conscious awareness and then the serpent energy surged and I felt so powerful. A jaguar appeared in the distance and was coming straight at me. I intuited an intense maleness about the jaguar and soon he was right in front of my face. He roared ferociously at me. I felt no fear. I roared back and I became the jaguar. I was the most powerful person in the world. I let out multiple roars to let everyone know I was the king of the jungle. I sat there bathed in light while sitting on my throne as the throngs came to pay obeisance. At the time, I was still oblivious to what I’d accomplished and it was probably best it remained that way.

I kept peeling away the veils and continued to get to the crux of who exactly it was I was dealing with and his identity. It’s difficult to know if you are really figuring it out or just deluding yourself. What I can say is pay attention to the synchronicities because they are confirmations. These affirmations were so plentiful I knew I was on to him. I’m precocious and maybe too big for my britches. When I see in others the cockiness I exude, I secretly enjoy seeing them fail. It’s now the big irony. However, I know how I got here and I did it honestly. No shortcuts; no grasping of a ring of power that was unearned.

In my case, the plant medicine path towards becoming a man of knowledge is most rewarding during the integration period. It is open ended and each successive experience reveals so much. This past year has been the most fascinating to date as I figured it out. I got home a week before the world went into pandemic lockdown. Of course I did. It’s still in lockdown a year later and my education continues. No going back until the maestro says so. You have to see it all, come to terms with it, and then you can set your intentions and come back.

My shadow is the master teacher, the ultimate alpha male, and is now my teacher and friend. I celebrate him, the divine masculine energy and his wife, the divine feminine energy at my Mesa. My Mesa is lit. I stand in front of this conduit and tremble because of the power coursing through me. We come together at that sacred spot. The steel has been forged in the fires of hell tempered by the love of a Goddess. What a fucking ride!