flood

Flooding in the woods makes you reassess your path.

We like routine and the flooding takes us out of our routine.

That makes us uncomfortable.

We tend towards routine, which is hypnosis.

It's balance.

Balancing the two into one is our natural state which is Tao.

You can see the natural state will take you towards balance.

The resistance is how you get out of your hypnosis.

It is work to see the two.

Work is the adventure spirit and wanting to try new things.

It's difference, which is separation.

Difference allows you to see the two.

Remember, everything returns to one.

When the difference becomes too much, you go with the flow.

You're saying that adventure is not Tao?

That's fundamentally correct.

Isn't Tao an adventure?

The adventure is getting back to Tao.

Whitewater rafting.

You must go away from Tao in order to get back to it.

You wouldn't know you are in Tao unless you leave it.

You find out about Tao when you aren't in the flow.

If you are in the flow, it is bliss.

Not a care in the world.

The flooding in the forest is like a hurricane that blows through and today you see the cleanup.

Everything's heading back to Tao.

The water flows back into the river.

The river is the flow.

You want to hurry the process and get back to how it was.

If you have patience, it will return.

There could be some residual damage.

To find what you were looking for, you had to create a wave.

You brought the wave into your world.

They brought the wave into their world.

You both tried to assimilate the wave.

It was a square peg into a round hole problem.

The way out would have been to create a new wave and realize that's the balance within the two new waves.

There is a balance available.

You must find it.

A good student of Tao could balance anything and not be afraid of any challenge.

You would need patience to find the balance, but it is there.

Despite my reservations this knowledge seems like what you would walk the path to get.

Why did I get access to this knowledge?

What is so special about me?

It's what you wanted.

You walked a path which will get you what you want.

Everyone else who walks this path will take easy power.

You renunciate it.

At the same time, you say you are God.

That's how you do it.

You do not run from it.

You take it on.

It would be safe to predict that someone who tries to get to God will be fucked up.

Yes, because it's an extreme, so you'd have to have extreme amounts of light and extreme amounts of darkness.

Everyone who's tried will destroy themselves.

Or try to forget.

Alan Watts explained the evil inclination on the spiritual path as rascality.

That's how you know someone's on the path.

If they are all good, it ain't them.

What can I do?

You recognize it.

You know how to expel them both.

You know how to take in knowledge and expel lust.

You write down your knowledge and get excited by lustful possibilities.

That seems like a secret formula.

You are getting there.

You take in knowledge and out will come lust.

It's a cycle.

You always know when too much is too much.

That's how you get to God when you know there's too much pleasure or there's too much pain.

There's too much light.

There's too much dark.

To get to God you must head to the extreme and at the same time be a master juggler.

That's the only way you can do it.

There had to be that pleasure because you were about to get a lot of pain.

You built up a store of pleasure.

Yeah, that was fun.

And then came the pain.

Where are you now?

It feels like I'm balanced.

I feel the boredom creeping in.

Motivates.

Boredom?

Yeah, big time.

Exercise boredom or it will kill you.

I was pretty good with the ritual today.

You are tilted towards knowledge so it would be better.

Yeah, but rituals are kind of magical.

Knowledge would get in the way if there is too much thinking.

The best ritual is based on knowledge and magic.

The best magic sees a little light and it's not all dark.

It may start in the dark and then head to the light.

With white magic, it starts in the light because you do a good deed.

The longer it goes on, the more you start to take advantage of the magic and it gets darker.

The longer black magic goes on, the more you see it out in the open.

What do I do now?

You're just going to wander around smoking.

Literally.

You're in no man's land.

No one has got here.

I'm special.

Right.

You are so special.

That is the answer.

You're going to wander around smoking.

If you're looking for meaning in life, take a walk in the woods.

You will see that reproduction is the meaning.

You can connect it to the drive to reproduce, which for most species is sexual and fuelled by lust.

Civilizations or people who want to harness that power would look towards lustful acts for that power.

That lust is the life force.

Some would try to capture it.

You can try to capture it during a sexual exchange.

Women do this when they are trying to drain you of lust.

It's also the idea behind human sacrifice where they would build an element to try and capture that force and would want to store it.

They built pyramids for energy storage and believed the pyramid could store the life force.

They were using belief to capture the life force.

They must have had some success.

The orgy of death would definitely energize you if you weren't repulsed by it.

That's why people like war.

They like slaughter until people get repulsed.

The people I live with think I'm a fool.

In my head, I think I'm wise.

Don't get mad at them, they're creating balance.

Celebrate them.

If they think you're wise, that's a double hit which would topple you.

The more knowledge you get, the more they will think you are an idiot.

It's all good.

Maybe they're right?

Nah.

If you get recognition for your genius, time's up.

Parker saw it.

However, others see darkness as well.

You see only light and you're fucked.

The word is hypnotized.

The river of deceitfulness flows down.

It's the path of least resistance.

There's power in that.

To make the river flow up you would head to the light.

Heading to the light forces things.

It takes effort.

You have the ability to put in an effort.

The flow is no effort.

The flow leads to nothing.

If you desire something, you put in an effort.

You are here because you put in an effort.

It's your story.

Stories require energy.

What should I do?

If you don't know, then nothing.

If you know, then something.

Do you know what to do?

No.

I'm figuring it out.

I'm wandering around the forest having a smoke.

Then you'll figure it out.

With the flow you gather energy.

You put it in reserve for the climb.

The story goes against the flow.

It's duality, so you can't have just the flow.

The flow is the default.

It takes no energy.

When you do and make a story, then go back to the flow to recharge.

I made a story all right.

I crafted the biggest story.

Drained me of energy.

Then I went back to doing nothing.

When you go with the flow, find something that will bring you up at times.

If not, you'll go straight downhill.

If you have something to bring you up, that slows it down.

The opposite works where you get single minded in wanting to get to the top.

Find something that will cause resistance.

Tao is wisdom.

The greatest magic is Tao.

It's dark and hidden, but it's the ultimate knowledge.

That is wisdom and Tao.

why not be here now

Ram Dass taught me this mantra Be Here Now. He learned it from a guru brother on his first trip to India where he would be complaining about the physical journey they were on in addition to talking about the past. Finally, his friend told him to let all that go and just "Be Here Now." It's something I've been aware of while meditating. I have a busy mind and thoughts are always running through me. It's the product of being my own best friend throughout my life. I like being alone and it is my comfort zone. I'm never bored or in need to do anything because my mind keeps me company. I've never suffered from depression or anxiety even though because of my predilection for being in my head I am predisposed to those conditions. I am grateful for this part of me as it has allowed me to surf the wave of life with relative ease in that I don't get too low or too high.

I had been going through some personal turmoil and of course this put my mind into overdrive because I was searching for answers and anything which would allow me to understand the experience. When communing with tobacco snuff, I was having trouble quieting my mind. It wanted to chatter, and it wasn't until finally I remembered Ram Dass' teachings about Be Here Now that I was able to centre and just let everything go. Just be in the moment. Of course, when out of the medicine I had to examine the profundity of the teaching. Like a lot of things I come across on the spiritual path, I get an understanding of the concept, but it always seems to go deeper and when you are ready the teaching flowers. Just Be with yourself Here where you are Now at this very moment. I realized the journey to get here to now is unique in that it's the sum of all my choices and actions. Being at this place at this time is the true result. It must be. It reminds me of a saying about the Stock Market in that it is never wrong. You may disagree with it and complain that the company you have invested in is undervalued but the market has set the price, and it is what it is. This is my life. Where I am now is what I have sown. My suffering is a direct result of the path I have taken.

A good friend of mine who passed away a year ago often comes to me when I enter this state of just being in the moment. I asked about my suffering and in his glib way he said it's in the cards. It sure is! It's what I wanted and why I made the choices I made. They had good odds of causing this outcome. Maybe this is what you want. Have you ever thought of that?

I had thought of it and realized there was a good chance it is what I desired. It's good to have confirmation of what you intuit.

I also know suffering is the catalyst for transformation. I got to re-examine my overarching mission statement and it's to walk the path of the heart fully to the end in honour of the Great Goddess. I'm a perfectionist and with a lot of things if I can't excel at them, I just won't do it. Walking this path has brought failure into my life. It's harder than I thought because my ego wants me to be perfect, especially at this stage of the journey. I should be someone people look up to and a holder of wisdom, not a fallible human being. Imagine being my age and still being a screw up?

It put into perspective something Alan Watts taught me early on in this ridiculous spiritual journey. He said when you embark on some ideal to better yourself and embrace what we call the higher self, the ego just moves up a level. It's so true. There's always this dynamic with appearances in relation to others who you must put on a show for. Oh, you are going to be enlightened now, are you? I guess you will become perfected and infallible. I will have to double down on my efforts to conceal what isn't perfect. Ha ha. There's always going to be the interplay between the superego as the judge, which is reflected in your peers or culture, and the ego - no matter how you define yourself in this human body. There's no escape. The best thing to do is just recognize it and have a laugh. We all know the ultra-spiritual are hiding something or if not, they are miserable.

What I get out of the whole dynamic between the ego and the superego is that they are the ones which keep this drama going. Your base desires as defined by the id, animate your existence and is the reason you incarnated into a body. The whole game to conceal what you want then creates the cast of characters which makes earth a good show. As I write the chapters of my life while living in the now I see everything unfold as a result of my choices.

This is my story.

advice not judgment

The awakening process involves searching externally for answers and eventually finding out what you are looking for is found within. You are everything and the answers are contained internally. The progression on the spiritual path is not over at this point. When you see this, a funny thing happens. In the external world you can then see with clarity what you are looking for.

I've started heading down this path and one of the initial lessons I received was enlightening. When you see the divine in the external then it becomes easy to love all. It's the secret sauce I was looking for because I finally had to admit I don't love the other. I find so many people fearful and greedy while holding them in contempt. I now see those traits within and realize the other, who is me, has incarnated into the flesh on this planet of the damned in order to satiate greed, work through trust issues, and become a warrior. Everyone has a path they are walking. I might not approve, get pissed off at them, or condemn them but the path they are walking will lead to a resolution of what brought them here, even if it means repeating the grade. I understand this and can now look everyone in the eye and have compassion for all. We will all get there, and I can honour that spiritual journey.

When I signed up for the plant medicine experience, I was cautioned it wouldn't be easy. Don Howard warned of the tumult to come in your life. Ceremonies were indeed difficult as the fear and unknown aspects of them were challenging to the point of wanting to run and never return. As hard as that was, I can say the life challenges thrown your way during the interval of the integration process are far more difficult. They are made hard by a stubborn refusal to take stock of oneself and apply the lessons to the situation you have received repeatedly. Service and doing things without expectations. Unconditional love. Reciprocity. Love Serve Remember. I've tried my best to not do this. Eventually, the hard knocks to the head get through and the approach mirrors what you have been taught.

What are plant medicines teaching me? What am I here to teach you? Did I learn my lessons or even understand them? I know why I took the course. I wanted to delve into the peculiar human condition which involves love. We strive to love all which is difficult. We passionately fall in love with one which seems easy. That love is more precarious, and failure has the potential to shatter your world. Loving all doesn't contain this outcome. There is always lots of love to go around and time to wait until others get aboard the love train.

The teaching starts to become clear. To escape the cyclical nature of being is to love all. Walking the path of the heart to this fork in the road has been a ride. I wonder how the next chapter plays out as I draft this story?

It's the weight of your heart not the size. Those are great lyrics from the 90s grunge band Alice in Chains in a song called "Angry Chair", describing the condition of your heart resulting from a lifetime of living. Some people grow a big heart in terms of being generous. The weight of your heart is determined by attachment. Getting emotionally attached to others in love and then suffering heartbreak will give you a heavy heart. Loving all with no preferences will make you lighthearted. You see the good in all and love everyone for their journey and contribution to this game of life.

When I started out on this path of discovery, I invested heavily into learning about the civilization of the ancient Egyptians. I came across what was called the judgment scene.

It involves the recently deceased having their heart weighed on a scale against a feather in the Hall of Maat in front of 42 divine beings. If the heart was heavier than a feather, then it would be devoured by the hybrid demon Ammit. Our modern take on it was that you'd be destroyed and sent to the depths of hell if you couldn't pass this test. If you did pass the test, off you went to see Osiris and get access to paradise. Ammit will constantly gorge on your heart if it is not as light as a feather. Do you need to wait until death for this scene to play out? It's available now and is on repeat.

We called this scene judgment because of our Judeo-Christian influence. The elements are suggesting this with the various divine figures looking on in addition to surmising the Hall of Maat is set up for judgment. The concept of Maat in ancient Egyptian thought is referring to the natural order of things, comparable to the Hindu concept of Dharma. Our western thought processes will immediately connect this to judgment. I'm not so sure about the inference. Maat is just the way it is. To go against Maat will bring upset into your life, but that's not judgment. Instead, it is your own doing. Thus, another way to look at Maat is not as judgment but just a product of your own choosing, to wit Karma. If you spend your lifetime becoming attached to others this will weigh down your heart and you will return to this heavy plane until the lesson is learned. We all know there's no escaping the eventuality that everything we hold dear here on earth is going to perish one day, including our own life. I think within this is found a cause for continual celebration. To rejoice in what we have and to let go when the time comes. Not to be sad but to be happy someone has completed their journey. From this can be derived a light heart. To love all.

We have a preoccupation with death and not living in the moment. We look at such a scene from the ancient Egyptians and immediately think this is the afterlife and we are going to be judged. The bias is because of our upbringing and applied by default. It's easy to bypass the default way of thinking if you just do it without thinking. That seems like an oxymoron, think by not thinking! Don't filter your thoughts before the expansion. Just see them in perfect form and try to grasp what it is they are showing you. Okay, got it? Look at the hybrid crocodile goddess Ammit devouring hearts. Internally, the Goddess is your heart. A heavy heart is the result of choosing to love only a few rather than all. When the select few leave for whatever reason, your heart becomes heavy and once again the monster will devour it. The lesson becomes strikingly clear. Love all. It's not judgment - it's advice. You are being shown the way to eternal bliss is with a light heart.

My heart, who is my mother, who is the Great Goddess, asked me, "Why can't you fall in love with one and still love all? Why do you have to be selfish and exclusionary?"

Yeah, why? 

intentions

My intention: Walk the path of the heart. Whoa. It just hit me hard. That's what I'm doing. This sucks. The course puts you through the wringer. "Teach me to love." Okay, you asked for it.

The serpent as the Goddess takes her place at the top of the tapestry encircling the jaguar.

She is in her divine and exalted place. The pinnacle of the spiritual path is the path of the heart. After completing the various grades and assignments you enter into the last phase of the journey. The path of the heart. It sounds like bliss and a reward for the long climb. I was ready to open my heart and love all. Bring it on.

I went to Peru in January to drink a lot of Huachuma and let my heart shine. My beatitude awaited as I completed a ten-year plant medicine odyssey in addition to fulfilling a quest I started at middle-age. I've got the knowledge. I have understanding and a little bit of wisdom. I answered the questions about existence. The wisdom lessons said I'll never have all the answers nor will the seeking end - there's always more. The burning questions were answered, and I turned towards my heart. The Goddess was the catalyst for my plant medicine experiences and she is the one who made me come back for more, especially when times get tough, I was scared, and wanted to run far away.

My perception of the path of the heart and reality were at odds. This course is the toughest of them all, but it turns out I was predestined for a tough time because I don't know how to love. This deficiency meant starting from the bottom and re-experiencing the mistakes from my youth which had the result of locking away my heart. I had to go through the process once again and all the old feelings of despair returned. My go to was to lock her away. My heart was breaking, and I couldn't go through the pain. I soon realized that wasn't what I had been taught. My plant medicine journeys allowed me to release my heart from the castle made of gold; a castle my alter-ego the Dragon had constructed and locked her away in. My seeking and plant medicine use was a multi-year project to free her and here I was at the first sign of love trauma ready to lock her up. I got past this lesson, maybe a D+ as I wanted to imprison my heart, but I knew better.

So, I had to face a familiar heartbreak and despair. I had to project into the future a life without the one I had fallen in love with. I had to contemplate loss and how I'd never get back with her. I spent the nights longing. Why can't she remember how good we are together and come back to me? Why did her feelings change? What did I do? I hate this. This emptiness is killing me.

I forgot I was walking the path of the heart. I was walking the path of personal sorrow and seeing the collapse of my world. When I finally accepted the loss, I stood at my Mesa, and she looked at me and reminded me I'm walking the path of the heart. This is what I asked for and I was getting it. It's the toughest course. You're a good student Paul. You are going to do well, though you will fail parts of this course. Remember, this is what you asked for. The next night is when I looked at the serpent jaguar tapestry and saw her over all. She's the best and allows you to lock her away as part of the teaching. To the aspiring student she then sends you off to slay the dragon so you can make the discovery you are the dragon. You are the one who imprisons her. She sacrifices self to teach you. I've got this far and now see it. Why did you lock me away Paul?

I cried. I did it because my love is possessive. I need you and will do anything to hold on to you. You will leave me because I'm not good enough, so I must imprison you. By making myself jailer I also imprison myself. I create a mess out of everything because I don't know what love is. I think I do, yet my actions prove otherwise. One taste of you and I will spend the rest of my days trying to get back with you. You showed me this clearly during my first ever Ayahuasca experience. I didn't understand it at the time, but I see it completely now.

Teach me to love Goddess.

Love must flow freely and without conditions. If love is tied to conditions, it's not true love. Do you see it? You may think it is love but it will spoil and wither on the vine. It won't last because conditions will change. The lessons affect us all and how you get the lesson is dependent on your circumstance. You chose to be a man this time and so you get to see it from this perspective. If you chose woman, then you will see how attaching conditions to love you in exchange for security is indeed a vexing problem to overcome.

As my previous life course concluded I was told to kill myself in order to live. The rub was I didn't know how to live. The pandemic hit and I was given three years grace to ready myself for the destruction of my life. When life resumed, I dutifully followed the path that was laid out for me and saw my destruction was nearing. Events unfolded, and this external force ignited the wick upon a bomb that would go off. This time there was no way out. The story of my life arced towards freeing myself of my lifetime of self-inflicted chains. The freedom from my mediocre life was waiting for me and I walked to the edge of the cliff. Everything fell apart in my world before I jumped. Instead of liberation, I retreated to a world of hurt and then was witness to an external world that was grappling with change and destruction. I sat with my misery and felt the pain envelope me. My sentence was two months until I found the answers I was searching for after I slowly let things go. The Goddess proactively instructs in the path of the heart course, and she was waiting for me to get over myself. She looked into my eyes and asked if I was now ready.

I see it. My shadow closed the last course by telling me to kill myself in order to live. As with all divine advice, I didn't understand it at first. I thought it meant to blow it all up and walk away free. This rallying call was preparing me to walk the path of the heart. Myself is the one who builds the prison. My fear of losing others and feeling the pain of heartbreak and loss causes me to imprison my heart. As the jailer, I cage myself because someone must watch her. I had to do this one more time, see it play out, and then understand why it happens. Killing myself means letting go of possessiveness. In order to be free I must let others be free and not create dependencies.

I have received the lesson loud and clear. The Great Goddess - my heart and my mother - is the teacher of the most important class that you will need to graduate from the University of Higher Consciousness. I've enrolled and got my ass kicked first semester. I'm a good student, not a quitter, and I know I will continue on, all the better, for the lessons learned from the ultimate school of hard knocks. 

another plant medicine story

Integration from my latest plant medicine journey in Peru this past January had been a bit of a non-starter for a few months. The reason is the experience has continued into my life back home and a few months later I was still on the journey. I’ve probably stated after past experiences that the journey I just returned from was the best ever. Not every time, as I know some trips were more impactful than others. I mean the first time I went in 2013 was dreadful but it opened the doors to a ten-year odyssey. This last trip was a showstopper through the northern coast of Peru and then on up into the Andes mountains. The plant medicine of record was Huachuma, the cactus heart opener.

When you drink two full cups of strong Huachuma every other day for two weeks straight things start to come a little unglued. The maestro don Martín serves an energetic cocktail which upon continual use took me beyond expectations and knowledge of what Huachuma can facilitate. Usually by now, I will have written a detailed account of my journey from the notes I took during the experience. I don’t feel a calling to do that this time around, however I’m sure I will write about pockets of the sublime adventure in due time.

My understanding of Huachuma consisted of at its best an unparalleled heart opener. If you turn off the mind and sink into bliss, your heart will become on the verge of exploding with love. I knew if I couldn’t bypass the machinations of the mind, Huachuma would dutifully take you to hell. I played this out many times intra-ceremony, and ping-ponged between heaven and hell. On my last trip, just prior to the pandemic I started to uncover another layer of this medicine. I titled my blog post, “Fairy Tales and Magic” based on events and the intuition that was unfolding before me. I realized I had this energy coursing through me that was subconsciously at work, making my desires come to fruition. I peeled away the veil that separates who I think I am from the sum total of my being.

In the intervening three years between trips to Peru due to the global pandemic, this force within me would manifest what I wanted. Uncomfortable situations were brought to the fore and if I made the correct choice, all would work out. It involved what felt like tests which were presented to me so I could figure out if I did have principles and whether I would capitulate when the going got tough. I saw the easy way out and I closed that door. I took the path based on my principles and what I knew was the correct decision. I trusted my intuition and the knowledge that everything would work out if I didn’t waver.

The sum of my life has been a battle between being a good boy and a bad boy. Being a good boy is alluring because it grants you the approval of others and in turn the game of life becomes a breeze. In addition, I learned how to balance out my good and bad. My ego persona comes from the good and I please others with my talent and charm in order to skate through life. I didn’t realize what I have been doing all my life until recently as sometimes it takes a while for the realizations to come. This took a lifetime, but I see it so clearly now, and I laugh. It’s an exquisite game I have crafted. If I don’t disappoint others, my life becomes a breeze. I develop trust and then can fuck off and do what I want. This sums up my work life and to an extent my personal life. The driving force behind my game is to achieve a precarious balance. I can earn capital which allows me to give it to the subconscious force within me, so he won’t totally fuck up my game. Balance is achieved and the hurricane blows on through. I clean up the damage, become a good boy again, and continue with the charade. I've always sided with being a good boy. Even now when I try to discard that shell, the good boy voice is so strong it takes over. My good boy self is judgmental and steers me back to complacency and routine. I now need to put a knife in him if I genuinely want to live. I realize this incarnation was not meant to fall into routine and wind up unfulfilled upon death.

So, what is Huachuma?

I have drunk the decoction called Huachuma a couple dozen times. I have had some light trips, some relentless energetic days that went on for 15 hours, and I have had introspective days with Grandfather. I had learned that Huachuma will take you to heaven if you disengage the mind. Huachuma means no head and it is the clue you need where you go into the heart space and experience bliss. Alternatively, if you engage the mind, it may take you into a hell of your own making. It mimics your everyday life with the difference Huachuma potentiates everything so that it is all in your face. I thought I knew what Huachuma was. I get mental clarity on my life path; I physically experience a clarity of what just is. I get a good case of the "feels." I see the grandeur and beauty of all that is around me.

This time the lessons picked up on an experience from 2017. Back then I was in the Andes mountains of Ecuador and a day I spent with Grandfather just after my 50th birthday involved a grand teaching concerning the vibratory nature of existence. As a novice explorer of consciousness in 2013, the Great Goddess came to me at the conclusion of my first ever plant medicine experience and told me, “All is vibration.” I didn’t know what she meant, wrote a poem about it, and then unpacked it over the following years. I got the next phase of the lessons in 2017. I was instructed about the dominant frequency of power which rules the world. We get up in the morning and exchange our talent so we can drink from the trough of this power and carve out our piece of the pie. The spirit of Huachuma laughingly called this, “Sucking Satan’s cock,” and though crude, it fit the teaching. I was also taught about harmony and resonance. The undertones of the knowledge was that through gathering like-minded souls into a group you create harmony and a pocket of heaven in this hell world. Establishing resonance with one another allows two to move in a synchronistic pattern with the other. This is not limited to other human beings but to anything imbued with the life force, which is the power which sustains all living things. Fantastic feats of accomplishment can be achieved with this magic, basically explaining the achievements of past civilizations we have wondered about. How did they build the pyramids?

The day was an introductory course into the inner workings of the universe and I was assigned homework in regard to understanding what this all meant. The lessons were preparing me for my continued use of Huachuma. It would be another two and a half years before I drank Huachuma again in 2020 and though it was a while I had known I was not finished with his teachings. When I resumed drinking, the experience had changed, and I was starting to be witness to the different mind states I would be pulled into and how to raise my vibration to get out of hell when I fell in that hole. I then started to experience the magic available with Huachuma when I went up into the mountains for a week. I was connecting with others in a sub-level way, and I took notice. The feeling of connection was intoxicating and allowed one to communicate beyond verbal cues. It was a novel experience and one to investigate, however the pandemic put a halt to further investigation.

The pinnacle of my spiritual path is the heart. I walked the path of the heart to the end. I learned the lesson of loving all and not focusing on just one love. Ram Dass taught me that everyone is your crush and I understood. Assigning love to just one at a time and getting attached is not the route to my beatitude. Love all. That's the way into the chamber of the heart.

I took these lessons to Peru with me in January of 2023, intent on opening my heart up wide and keeping it open throughout the journey and then when I got back home. Huachuma showed me the example of the garden and how we plant our own gardens which contribute to the total of who we are. Of course, not all are invited into the garden, and like weeds they grow and become part of our garden. We can cultivate the weed and incorporate it into the fabric of our existence, or we can pull and discard them. We create our own unique garden. The beauty of our creation invites the birds in to sing their love songs as the echoes of their warbling ring throughout the forest of our lives. I was shown the love of the family unit and how essentially humankind is one big Garden of Eden spread out among this earth. I saw how the Great Mother's heart aches at the animosity between her children and she longs to bring us all back together to the dinner table for a nourishing family meal.

As with all lessons of the plants, they showed me everything. I was shown the garden analogy first and this fit in nicely with my teachings of loving all and making everyone the object of my affection. Don't have preferences. Once I start assigning hierarchy to love, the construct falls apart. My conception of love isn't sustainable when I delineate. Love to me is an undefinable bucket. I kept going further into what love is and what it is I'm searching for.

Just the one lesson of familial love wasn't in the cards. You see, we come to earth because we are desire. We wouldn't have been incarnated on earth without the pull of desire. First, I was shown familial love. And then I was shown the catalyst which is the ignitor of that love. I was given a dose in no uncertain terms of the gas that is poured upon the attraction that brings together the two. The root of what we all cherish is a ridiculously strong attraction which compels us to act. It is so potent we sometimes call it lust and once it catches you in its current, there really is no escape. The Huachuma we were drinking was so successively strong that the potion became divinatory. I saw what was to take place because of these teachings I had asked for. I had a choice, but really, I didn't. The coming hurricane engulfed me, and I welcomed it knowing all along where it was leading me.

I thought I knew Huachuma. It gave me clarity and a dose of the feels. Huachuma gave me life lessons of love and family. It always heightened energy to the point where I could see it. I didn't know it could reveal to myself and others the parts of us we keep hidden. Huachuma was continually magical. And I didn't know it could tell you the future and then have it play out before your eyes. I did nothing to stop it. I guess I could have, but I just went with it. What Huachuma showed me, all came true.

So, here I am in the aftermath of the hurricane and knowing I was the abetter of the hurricane. It's the fruit I wanted, desired, and I got to taste it. I learned when I project into the future or defer to culture and conformity, the fruit spoils. If I live in the now, the ripe fruit was available and I tasted the deliciousness.

I was taught a difficult lesson involving the path of the heart. I was selfish and treated others as incidental players in my game. It became about me and I let down others who had every right to question who I had become. I'm so sorry for the pain I have caused those I love.

In my hands, I hold the ability to make earth heaven or to make it hell. It is daunting for sure, though at the core it's quite simple. Your choice.

everyone is your crush

Let the dark side out for a walk as it’s the only way to peer in to the workings and underpinnings of self. When I’m on the pure and righteous path, insights into my darkness are pretty piss poor. My intuition and thought cisterns are filled in the coming days after a dalliance with the dark. This is nothing to be afraid of and I’m not preaching hedonism as love comes from this buried region as well. Let love out of the cage; all forms of it. It’s very instructive. It’s pretty delicious to get a crush on someone. I love that feeling of surrender to cupid’s arrow and just enjoying the intoxicating feeling that washes over you in the presence of your muse. That is until the mind takes over and makes it a problem. The projecting into the future, the uncertainty of whether this love will go unrequited, then the eventual nesting instinct, and the need to possess. Thoughts turn to jealousy and needing to control the behaviour of others. What a shit show this whole feeling devolved into! How do we not get trapped in this nightmare? Love all, serve all, and create no sorrow. Everyone is your crush.

Can I do that? Love all and treat everyone as the beloved? What a challenge that is. I mean if you want a lifelong project bequeathed to you by inveterate seeking then here you go. Give up selfish love for the love of all. Wow! What a predicament I find myself in.

Ram Dass talks about learning to love all and transcending the paradigm of loving only one at a time. I’m a long way away from finding fulfillment that way. I know exactly what he is talking about though as I don’t think our maturity level is at the point where romantically we can handle loving unconditionally. Relationships always end up involving possessiveness and jealousy which pull you away from the original feeling of love generated from the heart. To transcend this is to love all. To taste love is to want more. The feeling is roused from being with others but comes from within. I know what he is saying.

A path of the heart is through plant medicines. With their teachings, no matter who you are, you will glimpse this love that is pervasive within the universe. You will feel it and when you do you will reach a stage where the door to your heart has been pried open. It might take a while to unlock but eventually if you keep it up and you are with a practitioner that is skilled in doing this, then that door to love will be opened and you are going to experience bliss that comes from the heart when you start to love others and yourself. It’s not new to us because in our younger years we probably did at one point experience an open heart however culture and life happens and for a lot of us we shut down the heart as part of a self-preservation mode, or you just get tired of being hurt, and so you encase your heart because you don’t want to feel that hurt anymore. There’s a level of maturity, and I’m not at that point, however I can see it now where when you love someone it is not unconditional so we introduce the mind into our feelings of love and then that’s when we get possessive and jealous. There are all these factors that go into this love we feel and it is the ultimate teacher where we just get so bogged down into the other issues like is that person going to continue to love us or do they really love us and we start questioning it. Even through love we still bring ourselves into this hell world and ultimately it’s not what love is supposed to do so there has to be another way or an answer to the question: how do I not get trapped in this?

Before I went down on this latest trip, I started listening to a bunch of Ram Dass’ lectures and the content of them I found compelling but obviously some of them you hear what he is talking about but you don’t relate it to your own experiences until you re-experience those feelings. I am so appreciative of Huachumita for giving me the opportunity to experience what had been lost and pretty much forgotten. To feel and be enchanted once again by life and to taste the deliciousness of connection. In Peru all those feelings came up and then when I returned home and listened to Ram Dass again, it was like holy shit he is talking about what I’m going through and the big lesson I got from one of his lectures was that you are love and love comes from within and is not something externally that you find. You may use a catalyst; whether it is a person, nature, or animals and they are the key that unlocks the love that is already in you. Once understood, you realize I can be this walking conduit for love and I don’t have to rely on someone else to constantly give me that juice or look for something that is going to activate this within me; I just need to cultivate it within myself. Instead of just loving one at a time and becoming trapped by that and needing them to activate the love within, the mature destination on the path of the heart is to realize that you are that love and to love everybody instead of just the one and trying to possess that one. I can’t say I’m there yet but at least I understand what he was saying and I see that is the way forward, no matter how much I want to experience that possessive love again. I know from my life history that possessive love never works out. It’s almost like the lesson the Goddess has been trying to teach me all along where our separation is because I wanted to possess her and I can get close but I never can fully have her for my own and she knows that if she gives in and I give in to the desire to possess then the flame dies out and the long separation begins once again.

You don’t find love externally; it’s in your heart. You are looking for those who can help you activate what you already have. We get addicted to others because we haven’t learned this lesson and think we can only find love through external means. Affirm to yourself that you are love.

humpty dumpty

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;

All the king's horses and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Are you doing the seeking dance and then you trap and limit yourself in someone else's conception of life, religion, or the universe and then you frustrate yourself trying to find the carrot they are talking about? Welcome to the fun world of spirituality with so many paths to choose from. I’m going on a trip to find unity by striving to transcend the self and dissolve into the ocean of consciousness thus feeling within the inseparability of all. I picked up the pieces of self, my own personal Humpty Dumpty, and tried to put the pieces back together but was unsuccessful. My search for unity was like trying to put the egg man back together again! It's true you came from unity and to unity you will return but to try and recapture unity before its time is asking for chronic frustration. I went on that trip. I first discovered the route to unity went through the heart and then I realized unity through a shiny black piece of obsidian that reflected myself and my surroundings back at me. I had this startling realization that I cannot separate myself from my environment, which is totality, and through this I sensed the unity for which I longed. Even while the egg man was shattered, I discovered that in pieces I still go with everything else in a giant universal ecological system. Trying to realize complete unity in this lifetime is the myth of Humpty Dumpty. You can't put the pieces back together but if you let it be it will dissolve into the all and through death and renewal is how you will experience unity and then cyclically once again the self.

A path of seeking can branch off in all directions. All cultures set up an accepted path for those who get this call or have the inclination to take up the spiritual path. The seeker is a wild card, with the potential to cause havoc and upset within society. When psychedelics were rediscovered last century it was an unfettered gong show! All these hippies running around talking peace and love and not working for a living. Sticking it to the man! That lasted a decade and then the agents of consciousness were criminalized by the establishment as the serfs were running amok! The use of these catalysts for change went underground and were resigned to the fringe. It's been in the last fifteen years or so that the next wave has returned, in part driven by the awareness of shamanism practiced in third world countries which use time tested plant remedies as a way to heal the ill. It's a holistic approach treating the mental state of the patient as the underlying cause of the manifestation of the physical disease and it's quite an enlightened way of thinking as compared to our western approach where we react to the physical manifestation. Within this healing modality is the key to change consciousness and discover a spiritual world which had been hidden from view. There are the world's great religious traditions and then there is shamanism. The great religious traditions have beliefs and if you want to identify with them you need to accept those beliefs. Shamans aren’t priests. Shamans don’t tell you what you should believe. Shamanism points you to the door of knowledge and you decide what to do from that point. Through an experiential modality you "see" and how you then want to spin that knowledge is up to you. There’s no requirement to believe anything or anyone nor do you need to get or attain anything.

Love is the light which will illuminate the left hand path in order to get back to unity. We will all eventually get there but those with love in their hearts will find the way quicker in this lifetime. They will help the shattered pieces find happiness, love, sharing, and caring. The right hand path will further separate the shattered self from unity and eventually the forgetfulness will reach a point where you no longer recognize that you once were the complete egg man. Lost on the path, eventually you reach the end of the road and there's nothing there. You are just whistling in the wind. At that point all roads turn left and it's Nascar all the way home. LoL!

The right hand path leads to the pinnacle of self which is realized by competing with others to get to the top of the mountain and becoming self-actualized. There is a misconception that taking a spiritual path automatically means you are doing it for the greater good and some altruistic purpose. It sure seems that way though as your enlightenment will help humankind achieve greatness. Actually, the spiritual path has the tendency to devolve into every other human pursuit which is self glorification through power, fame, wealth, and worship because we are all tempted with that and it’s a pretty good sales pitch. At least with the greed impulse within us it rings true and we aren’t fooling anyone; those in search of wealth are brutally honest in that regard. The spiritual game played by those on the right hand path used for gain is the worst because of the dishonesty within it and the taking advantage of people who do have a sense of altruism at heart.

Our roots as a species go back to a primal survival of the fittest dominated by fear, anxiety, and mistrust. Civilization is the march towards an understanding that we are all in this together and leads to a social pact between us such as the family unit, community, caring for others, sharing and so on; however, this conflicts with the economic and political basis of the society we have created. We left behind the savage survival of the fittest paradigm within the confines of an untamed world; however, now that we have tamed that aspect we have transferred our savagery onto advanced forms of the game because it seems that is our underlying nature. We now recreate our primal instincts of survival through our business and politics and try to hold off the encroachment of socialism upon our "free" enterprise. Of course, there is much to be said for this as history has shown the socialist is usually just a power monger wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing on the lookout for power or enrichment on the backs of the genuine who do seek to make the world a better place. I was reading up on survival skills needed in the event of a major catastrophe to hit the earth and the one thing that really struck me was that in the event something like this happens you are going to need a gun to protect yourself. When we revert back to survival mode, your neighbour is going to be desperate and come and take what you have and kill you. I realized that there is some truth to this though I’d like to think we have progressed beyond this behaviour; however, you see it whenever law and order breaks down and the looting commences. So, I got to thinking that maybe this earth game is an exercise in learning cooperation and from that we will evolve into a civilization who is one big family. Humanity would be the trajectory of walking a left hand path.

I do believe the advancement of civilization should and will lead to caring social structures encompassing the planet. It does seem undeniable that eventually we will get there though it may be quite painful. And I don’t know if we currently are going to get to the ideal without a major catalyst or catastrophe which would require us to come together. Disasters and global change tend not to respect political borders; so, the impetus to transcend boundaries and unify would become paramount. Perhaps Humpty Dumpty is trying to teach us that we are looking myopically at the self and trying to put that together again. Instead, the key to put the egg man back together resides in the unification of humankind. 

walking a path with heart

The naysayers all have their correct path and yours is flawed. Their method is more pure; done without the use of a catalyst. They are one up in this eternal game of my game is better than your game as they demonstrate not only are they winning their game but it is a superior and more accepted game than yours! Granted the plant medicine path just may be a shortcut to the mindfulness you seek, however it is also the most dangerous. So, there, ha! Score one for my path! Instead of a ten year meditation sojourn to bliss while sweeping up at the ashram, you experience it all within a short period of time and there is no hiding from it. You approach and you will receive the light and the dark. You will face tests of courage, strength, and resolve to which no amount of chanting or meditation compares. Having these spiritual tools available, such as a meditation practice, is a great resource however there is no reason to malign whatever path the seeker chooses to walk. As I have said many times before, there are infinite paths to what you are seeking; the only necessity to find what it is you seek is to walk a path that has heart.

There are so many differences within each and every one of us it is folly to think your method works in a superior way or that one size fits all. The plant medicine path isn’t for everyone and properly stewarded it would contain a screening process to make sure those who wish to partake of its benefits are well suited for it. It was tradition in the ancient mystery schools that you had to be accepted into the school; you couldn’t just sign up and expect to be blessed with wisdom and a glimpse of the mystery.

For those who culture has convinced you need a long arduous process and a guru in order to see the light, there is a path for them. This will work in order to satisfy the requirement that the process for awakening is gradual. For those that can handle sudden awakening there is Zen and there are also plant medicines. The integration period that follows awakening is what separates the wheat from the chaff. You can get the answer immediately, but you still must do the work afterward or it remains hollow and will come off as drivel to those who you try and explain your new found insight of the universe. There’s no way around that requirement and this integration is what does take time. You can put off this realization as long as you want and people do love seeking. I get it as it’s fun and it brings meaning to existence, especially if you have locked into a 9 to 5 routine. Eventually, you must realize you have the answer. There’s no party, no confetti, or announcement in the local paper that you are now enlightened. You just know. This is the end of the beginning. You can stop seeking and the path opens up. The old axiom about actions speaking louder than words really comes into play.

sleeping beauty

I have seasonal allergies - hay fever, and yesterday it was the worst I could remember since I was a teenager in the Niagara region. By 10pm last night I was hurting. The body aches combined with the exhaustion had left me just pining for a place to just lie down in a ball and let sleep heal me. I woke up this morning feeling much better and I took my dog out for a walk through the woods and started thinking about healing and its association to sleep. From that thought it was a short connective thought to the soul and its incarnation into matter. It is my belief that when the soul is assaulted in our youth, it enters into stasis as a means of self preservation and healing. This sleep heals, sleeping beauty comes to mind, and at some point in our lives it is ready to come forth once again or it can be roused or perturbed into action by an awakening, a trauma, or even the use of psychoactive substances.

"Sleeping Beauty", by Henry Meynell Rheam

Sometimes we rouse the soul before it's ready which leads to confusion and sometimes following paths that lead nowhere except to delusion and self-aggrandizement. However when the time is right and the soul is ready to shine once again, we can make the choice to ignore the beckoning of the soul or we can follow that path and see where it leads.