We are born as god coming forth once again. A dual sexed offspring of the divine feminine and masculine energies coming together, enacting creation in a sexual union. The spark of life within the womb is dual sexed, a divine wholeness, before it develops into a single sexed sentient being. The child is the god. The parents of the god are the divine feminine and masculine. When they come together they create the child. The child comes forth once again as the all, reappearing on the grand stage of life. Love and creation are deliciously intertwined. In the womb the physical body develops into a distinct biological sex, although maintaining gender neutrality. Culture succeeds in putting one over the child and then at puberty locks you into the physiological split; time to choose sides and make it stick. Our teenage years are spent developing our newfound identity and moving away from our parents towards independence. This leads to confusion in a great deal of adolescents who do not fit into societies expectations of behaviour for their sex and they become hopelessly lost. Not only have we then become a mess in regards to our feelings and what is expected of us but the ultimate truth of who we are is long lost and buried. For some at least this leads eventually to seeking answers. It's a long and winding road to throw off the shackles of culture to discover who you are. In essence you have to become a child again and give culture the middle finger.
Society has opened up quite a bit in my lifetime; it's really quite remarkable. What was once taboo, such as issues of gender identity, has mainstreamed. Change within society is achievable especially when the reigns of cultural conformity are loosened and a libertine spirit prevails. It has allowed us to question gender assignment and roles within our society and this predictably has the stuffy and older among us all aghast. Freedom of expression, like any freedom in general, liberates the repressed. What has always existed within we kept a lid on. When the lid blows, then it comes rushing forth. The amount of humans questioning gender assignments harken back to a prepubescent unity that was lost. It's quite fascinating. You know in the indigenous Americas they recognized more than the two sexes and it wasn't until the European conquest and churchification of the populace that this was buried. For some, navigating the life culture planned out for you allows you to look back upon it and develop a wisdom from experience. At the risk of realizing how misguided I am, these stages I classify into three distinct parts that I can identify within.
My own personal encapsulated masculine self scatters through the prism of life. I detect three distinct divides, as well as an external controlling force. The main part is who I consider my self. It’s Apollo, the logical and reasonable self that is my dominate sense of self. This is the spiritually maligned ego and my identity that is unique to me and I realize no one else will be quite the same. I chafe at any that try to copy my uniqueness as it is my psychological fingerprint. Then there is wise me who speaks when I quiet my mind and listen. At about middle age this part of me started to form or at least I started to finally listen. As the life force wanes, it takes away from certain areas of the body and concentrates the force on sustaining life. Our hair goes grey, senses dull, we tire more easily, it takes longer to heal maladies along with being more susceptible to sickness, and we slow down. There is an unintended consequence of that slowing down. We become more aware since we are not on the move as much and awareness leads to clarity and clarity to wisdom. In our younger years we are easily over stimulated, distracted, on the go, and focused on the self where we don't spend much time in contemplation or slow down to the point where we can see what is happening from a holistic point of view. The diminution of the life force in our declining years forces us into states where we have slowed down so we can focus and observe what is going on. At this point in your life you have reached a level of mastery over the tasks you perform daily at work or at home, so though you tire more easily you can finish your work in less time as you pretty much know how to accomplish it directly and efficiently. Access to wisdom comes from stopping the world and by world I mean culture. Then there's my desires; the me who wants to be a kid again and play with life and who chases pleasures. My dark side, because as an adult I put it away and hid it. Then I learnt they are all divine and to treat them all with respect. The sense of self is as divine as the unity whole we glorify in spiritual circles. The ego is much maligned and we wish to spiritually transcend this strong sense of self however the ego is as divine as any of the other constructs I can label. It's all me and the sum is connected to the all. Connected through the heart.
The fourth external part I have noticed is culture that controls my behaviour and makes me conform to its conventions. There exists a voice that influences the way I act, dress, and how I remain cognizant of my place in society relative to others. The voice speaks up when I waver from the ideal defined by society or if there is someone out to destroy my reputation. There’s no escaping the confrontation when you embark on a path that will sidestep its demands. It will manifest as an entity that will do whatever it can to get you to turn back or run into the arms of a cultural institution waiting for those just like you who tried to escape its grasp. Do not take this lightly. He is the puppet master, the superego who controls you at this conscious level. He has a bunch of tricks up his sleeve as he can play god as well but that god is a dragon and will eventually reveal himself as such. He wants glory, obedience, and worship. He loves power and riches. That’s how you tell the difference. He can take on other roles but they are all designed to enslave you and keep you under his control. If you try and get away from him he will react and threaten you with dire consequences. If you do free yourself from him he is still there and will become a new character. It’s just a part of you to accept and be mindful of. There is a need to inculcate within your life activities and patterns that allow you to not rely on this part of yourself.
In my case the veiled mystery beyond this prism gets back to the idea of a dual sexed god coming forth at birth. My feminine half I buried and to recover that knowledge and then to believe what I found was a trip and a half. I detected a faint crying out and went on a voyage of discovery. To Egypt and then to the Amazon jungle in order to find what it was I was seeking. Finding her solved a piece of the puzzle; figuring out who she was entailed another journey in itself. It’s a gradual process, as given this knowledge one can’t be expected to actually believe it without methodically experiencing each step on the path to awakening.
Becoming god once again is the act of harmonizing within the sacred feminine with the sacred masculine. This alchemical union creates the divine child. A battery analogy of the life force that powers us is an interesting analogy in that it deals with polarity. The combination of the feminine and masculine creates the power! Mom and Dad generate the vehicle that the spark of desire comes forth in. The effeminate Greek god Dionysos is this unfettered desire; appearances revealing the dual sexed aspect of creation. When the sacred feminine and sacred masculine come together their union creates the god and the god is Dionysos. Dionysos is the desire that causes all sacred coupling so as the eternal return he-she can manifest once again as a sentient being. Dionysos is forever coming and indestructible. Dionysos is the creator of the drama, the tragedy, and of the grand theatre. The renewer, the game player, the actor, and the joker. Dionysos loves to play at god. The total performance encapsulates within the human experience the joie de vivre of ecstasy and of ultimate tragedy.
The big takeaway is that all parts of yourself are divine and need to be honoured in their own way. It correlates to my flower philosophy where it is the natural order of things, the course of the energy, the Tao, that is the pattern of life which is the energy coming forth and cresting before returning. We are born as the god come forth again, full of wonder, curiosity, and desires and connected still to that oceanic consciousness. Then we develop a separate sense of self and identity and we strive to make it shine as bright as possible. This is the pretty flower. So beautiful, giving off a heavenly scent. The energy peaks, and here we are! Then the energy starts to wane and return to source. As the self lets go we have an access to wisdom and our third stage of life comes forth. We can start to see through the game and remember where we came from and who we once were, if we throw off the shackles of culture and ingrained beliefs. In order to shine as the self we let go of omnipotence! In order to to reach the pinnacle of self we eschew the fact that we are already it! Crazy right?!?
Our path is to fulfill our destiny which will lead us to unity within and seeing this externally in all. We become god once again. What a game! We search for god and then read mystics of all ages telling us that what we seek is within. Then we dutifully ignore them. Eventually we see it and we recognize what we were searching for was in us all along. That final leap though is non sensical. So I recreate god? Isn’t god omnipotent and external? Nope, it’s within and through your actions you birth the god once again.
The theme in my life is now the joker as I have altered my consciousness enough to see through the pretence of culture, spirituality, and existence. The joker is the wild card in the deck of playing cards. The cards represent the currency in our life we accumulate and then use to get ahead in the game of life. The joker comes along and through chance and happenstance, upsets the applecart of expectations, making the drama of life unpredictable and worth playing. The joker is the jester with the funny hat with bells, never taking things seriously. The joker is the one who likes to dress up in costume and play different roles; who causes upset and laughs at culture. Who makes fun of those who hold power. Who dispenses with the need for morals and boundaries. The joker reminds us that all will pass. The one who just wants to play. It's the crazy and wild one Dionysos, god if you will. The outcast, the scapegoat, and the denied.
I had a meet up with a bunch of friends a little out of the way and took the commuter train to the city and then walked the remaining distance. On my way, I passed on by a Muslim cleric dressed in his religious robes. This was a Tuesday but it struck me that some religions still do make observance a way of life. In the Christian tradition I am familiar with, the priest dresses up on Sundays and the congregation gets all pious on Sunday morning and appointed holidays but that's it. All cultures have an outlet for spiritual practice as the call is a curious happenstance in Homo sapiens. Set up is a cultural institution that accumulates power based on others looking for answers that then profits off you, all the while requiring you to have a belief in someone else's beliefs. It stops you cold from pursuing it on your own. Going solo is always an understood no no. Even if you look towards the Eastern traditions, there is the admonishment that you need a guru. And you have to be obedient to the teacher and sweep up at the ashram for a decade before you make spiritual progress and they let you in on the secrets. I must admit the philosophy that arose out of the east is impressive and top notch. They invented enlightenment and by practicing their methods and understanding their philosophy you will grasp it and become enlightened as well. I think you then get this healthy glow or shine.
We as men chase our idea of either god or enlightenment. Righteous and pure, shining in the sky like the sun, a fully realized and enlightened being. We long to be like him; to enact a personal transfiguration and transcend the morass of humanity. A desire to one up the masses and climb the mountain to get to the top. We concoct religions and rites to lead us up the mountain to this ideal. We put on righteous robes and condemn the sinners. Spirituality the world over is white robes, a sense of morality, and an underlying asceticism with a dose of righteousness. The masculine half of the human race is peculiarly attracted to these qualities. I say this because of this particular trait I have noticed within us that seems to mostly affect the majority of men. This trait is a striving to be sinless and righteous. Since we all dabble in the opposite, there is this strange pressure exerted by society to rise above and strive to ascend that mountain and become perfected. All the world's great religions were originated by men, are dominated by men, and lead to the perfection of self. This right hand path is fundamentally a noble endeavour however it's missing the balance a little bit of the feminine left hand path of love and unity would bring.
Some forms of spiritual enchantment make you live a life of obedience to an idea and its god. It's a form of hypnosis as we are easily taken in and bewitched; a lot of the time it is due to fear of death and an inner knowing you are a sinner and needing to make amends for your wretchedness. Ultimately, we don't do it because we want to be good, instead it is the human need for a reward. If I'm good I will be rewarded in the afterlife! Scriptures are full of this carrot. It isn't enough to do something unconditionally, there always has to be a prize and an out-group of the damned. It was good drama at some point but this act has become tiresome. The last few centuries have seen its diminution and people breaking free of its grasp but really this stage needs to be burned to the ground.
The refuge of those who have either not come to terms with who they are, are ashamed of themselves, or want to live their life in a divided state thinking somehow they can be 100% pure and good is religion. You can’t ever reach the idealized state. Society in turn sets up this bullshit saying it’s wrong to seek pleasure, to embrace your kinks and passions, and declares you’re a sinner and a degenerate. Then you have to hide your behaviour and put on the act. You live your life in a state of denial, obfuscation, and operate in the dark. Psychologists know how damaging this is yet they say nothing; they just continue to see patients and enable the charade instead of telling people just embrace who you are and don’t think you can transcend yourself into some model of perfection. The joker loves to reveal the hypocrisy of the righteous knowing full well we all have our faults and the side of us we strive to keep hidden. Underlying this is the need to come clean; to embrace our faults, fully knowing that the only way through is to bring all into the light.
Fortunately in the cards no one has a monopoly on enlightenment, paths can be divergent and yet can all lead to the same place. You can do it on your own. It's simply an awakening to whom you really are, your immortality, and the nature of existence.
The stench of all of man's spiritual traditions permeates the paths I travel. I say man because he's the guilty party. Women tend towards earth centric celebrations of life. I have seen through the culture games and the desperate longings of the spiritual man to get to the top of the mountain and then try to pull you along as a follower. I looked within and found all I need. I have no need for any affirmation from an agency vested with omnipotence, spiritual truth, or authority. It's ultimately a con game and if you want to play it, then play it. I'm the joker now. I can laugh at it all.
My conception of god is of the divine actor who acts all the parts and gets lost in doing so. It’s all about play and because all are immortal and exist for eternity there is no need for morals, righteousness, or striving to be the best. That’s all cultural baggage; a byproduct of the grand stage we do our dance upon. I have ultimately learned to act with love, for yourself and for others, and the rest will take care of itself.
Do you want to beat the game? Practice unconditional love and remember to play. Now, I didn't say you have to be perfect but instead I chose my words carefully and said practice. You know, if life was a utopia it would eventually get pretty dull. A good game has an element of chance or a wild card. The joker in the deck of playing cards creates and extends the drama. In the end, it is all play. There's nothing to worry about. Play along.
The greatest role the joker plays is in the lives of those who seek spiritual enlightenment. You can get far up that mountain but eventually the joker will reappear and challenge you. Why are you doing this? What do you think you are going to get out of this other than glorifying yourself and personal satisfaction? You may have gotten up the mountain and received your white robe, maybe fooled yourself and others, but every part of you came along on this hike. Are you going to deny them like Peter did Jesus three times in the garden of Gethsemane? Are you going to declare your true self the higher spiritual calling you pursued and attained and relegate the other parts of you to non-status? You’ll be a fraud and you know it. Your impulses and desires aren’t going to leave you alone; they will keep haranguing you.
You play it small when you take the shiny right hand path and glorify the self. Curiously, the fame and fortune fool you into thinking you are larger than life. The ego gets satisfaction but the joker has the last laugh. The dull left hand path of service, the one that required you to turn down the opportunities and overtures of the world, shows you each act of service lifts up the whole, and glorifies us all. It's the all in gambit, playing it large, like cosmically huge, but will never admit to it. Perceptually, we recognize the self and are naturally attracted to self-improvement. To find balance is to be of service to the all and elevate not only the self but everyone else along with it. Everybody gets to climb to the top of the mountain and then walk back down hand in hand.
The first thing I noticed about the master plant teachers is how hypnotic and enchanting the ceremony can be at times. This circumstance set off alarm bells in my head as I was pretty wary of being put under a spell and I thus fought it on and off for nine Ayahuasca ceremonies until I finally learned to let go. The first time I ever drank was a pretty special occasion and I noticed immediately how enchanting the plants can be. The mystery and allure of the ceremony was strong and after a few hours I kind of wanted off the ride for the night, as I had lost control, and I didn’t like that part of the experience. Overall it was so profound I knew I’d be back for more. The second time I drank was so strange and had a sinister feeling to it. The hypnotic trance confusion was off the charts and to this day six years later I can barely describe it and I have a hard time reforming the perception of it in my mind's eye. It frankly escapes capture by memory or words. The only thing that jars it back into my consciousness is if I drink Ayahuasca and I follow the darkness. The feeling returns and then I remember. This happened more than once and I would try and leave myself notes within the ceremony to not drink Ayahuasca again because of this darkness. I eventually moved past this block after finally heeding the advice of the maestro to not engage the mind, stay in the heart, and to just listen to the plants. I had to do it my way though and take a bunch of knocks to the head before heeding the knowledge and instruction given to me. It’s a wonder I stayed with it because any sane person would have tapped out and said enough of this. This isn’t fun. Something however kept me going. You know when I finally made it through to the other side of this darkness it was an incredible feeling of accomplishment and a great achievement in my life for which I am forever grateful. I mean the strength, courage, and perseverance I showed to get to that level was something I didn’t think I had in me.
Last month when I spent a night alone in the desert with the master plant teacher Peyote, I was able to revisit this darkness from a detached point of view, examine it, and let it go. It is a good example of what I experienced that night with Peyote as the teachings were very no nonsense and straight forward, showing me how I reacted to the situation, engaged my mind, and then spun the whole encounter. I was the one who assigned it the context of fear and wanted to run from my dark side. I had wanted to explore my dark side and when given that opportunity I ran, which then instigated some serious soul searching within and a journey to conquer my fears through cultivating strength and courage. In the immediate chaos of the experience I faced the decision to fight or flight. I chose flight, I ran, and then in retreat had a decision to make. Do I spend the rest of my life a coward or do I get up off the mat and face my inner demons?
I recently had an epiphany on the way to work. The second time I drank Ayahuasca, the dark and hypnotic ceremony, I also encountered this strange being. I went down into the visionary subterranean realms and came across this darkness. He was sleepy, sitting cross legged in a lotus position, had a thin moustache, and when he spoke it came spatially from my left and he said “Apollo, Apollo, Apollo” in a whispered tone. It freaked me the fuck out and I ran. It was the quintessential WTF moment! The feeling just prior to coming into contact with this being was a weaving of a magic spell designed to confuse so you couldn’t easily find your way back to this strange place. Above me was this spinning of what I think were the four symbols of a deck of cards in this green and off pink environment. It was a realm designed to stay hidden but I was allowed in for a peek, though afterwards I was pretty adamant I didn’t want to go back to that place where my darkness resided. Let’s put the lid back on it! Actually nothing sinister happened during this visit. The fear I conjured up all by myself as a reaction to coming face to face with what I called my dark side. The next ceremony another malevolent being I did come into contact with and I have always conflated it with the being that manifested in the second ceremony. I guess it is because my intention was to come into contact with my dark side and so I did in the second ceremony but my dark side is the obfuscated part of me that is a trickster, demands to play or makes you suffer outburst of uncontrollable passions and vices, and is the great actor. Referencing the four suits in a deck of cards I finally figured out this entity is the joker in the pack and basically the joker is the pot stirrer, the one who creates and moves the play along when things get too comfortable. We all try to build a life that eliminates the nasties, but this game doesn’t work in that way. I had no reason to be afraid of my dark side; I just chose to be. I brought it upon myself because I wanted to believe it was scary when thinking back now I did not need to react the way I did.
I think why the ceremonies are hypnotic is part of a lesson. You see the greatest spell upon us all is the culture spell and the only hope to break free of that spell is to demonstrate to you how enchantment works. So the plants enchant you, challenge you, and if you are strong you move past it. If you run from or bury this knowledge, then it owns you. Through this experience you then see how society has done the same and you see through the bullshit. You laugh and are incredulous at the things people fall for. It’s funny, if not tragic.
Quiet the mind and make the connection. When you are silent it speaks. When I smoke mapacho in the forest it is a cheat code to connection with a wisdom beyond my ordinary consciousness. I recognize the awareness and shift in consciousness. I hear the wind whistling through the trees, the insects humming their tune, and see the sun glistening off of a falling leaf. At this point I know I have tapped into the wisdom frequency.
Earlier this week I came across a news story where the US Navy had released video of a fighter jet coming into contact with an unidentified flying object, locked onto it, and then saw it maneuver in a flash out of its sights and then back in. The pilot reported that it was nothing like he’d witnessed before and the shape of the object resembled the typical flying saucer that the layman has been reporting since the mid 20th century. It’s a pretty cool affirmation of something being out there. I wondered and pondered about this and got the answer out in the woods after I started listening. I have been speculating upon the nature of existence being a dream lately or to put it in a more exact term the mentation or energy of a mind that is creating the universe and we are all avatars of that one consciousness. So what we are witnessing here is a tipping point where enough of the many believe in the UFO and so it manifests through the collective mind as if it is in a dream world. The same paradox is true for all gods and goddesses throughout the ages. If you believe, they exist, and if enough of us believe then they are palpably real. So the exhortation is to just believe! It doesn't matter if it seems beyond logic or is preposterous, it is the collective mental energy we produce and channel that conjures and gives rise to the idea or deity. Mystics in the past came to understand this and some then originated and promulgated the monotheistic ideal which has been passed on down to us. Their beliefs and god would become paramount and eventually the sole god because all others have been stricken from belief and memory.
So you know this then leads me to believe it is possible to create a world of love and caring for all. If we all believe and carry love in our hearts for all it is possible it will happen instead of believing it is not possible. On to the work of showing people that love one at a time. The work involves opening up the heart, blossoming a love for others, and removing the blocks preventing love for yourself.
The transient nature of existence where nothing lasts is a major clue to the fundamental nature of the universe. All patterns of energy eventually disintegrate leaving but a memory before reforming into something else. This same pattern I visit every night when I dream. I create worlds, but they change and then upon waking they dissolve away into nothing, like magic. We create tangible objects to try and defeat the relentless onslaught of the time wave that spells the end of all. We try to forever capture the moment with photography. We revere gold and other precious metals and stones because they give off some idea of permeance. Ancient cultures built pyramids as a testament to the belief their civilization would last and defeat the ravages of time. In the end all will dissolve away, the energy reforming and repatterning, and creating something new.
The great pyramids in Egypt are however unfathomable. They are impossible. UFOs are also pointing towards the reality of our situation being but a dream and the connection between the pyramids on the Giza plateau, where the construction of them is impossible, and the UFO are pointing towards this mystery. I’m not saying aliens built the pyramids, instead I am clumsily trying to say that an ancient civilization built them through collective mental energy. When logic overruns our senses these mysteries appear. The UFO phenomenon is another manifestation of the illogical wreaking havoc upon reason. It is dreaming the world into existence.
I'm curious: the people in my dreams who have lives what happens when I wake from my dream? Do they still go on? What happens to them? Are dreams just frivolous and nonsensical? Just because I suck at dreaming doesn’t mean I should necessarily dismiss the process. I suck at playing the guitar but I know there are other who are maestros at playing. There is no need to reach that elite level of playing the guitar or dreaming but I do have the passion within to level up and find out. Desire fuels all.
Do memories get wiped at death or birth? We chase novelty, always looking for a new and cheap thrill. If we know and are cognizant of everything that has ever taken place, then when we return and tap into the universal fount novelty is the unfortunate casualty. Death is a liberator. It frees us from the connection to the body, its identification, and all that we have experienced and attached to ourselves. When we let that go we can become as a child again and experience all as new. What a gift! When constructing this playground of life that must have been one of the primary considerations. A need to let go of the past so life doesn't become a bore. We fear death but it is the most sacred of all and allows us to once again take in the grandeur of creation over and over again. When it becomes commonplace and we start to figure it all out, death catches up to us and begins the process of renewal. Thinking about this construct further I imagine it is birth that wipes all knowledge and experience. Upon death it would seem all is revealed and we return to unity. It is the impetus, or riding the energetic wave, that sends us towards self again and the self rises from a situation of being a blank slate, ready to create another god. To shine once again in self absorbed glory before once again blowing out its game and returning to the all.
Some of man's religions and philosophical speculations have devised a way to get off the hamster wheel. They saw through the game and realized we keep coming into and out of existence, as the universe is a constant game of transformation. What enabled this constant coming and going is attachment and desire so they preached to cut out desire and do not get attached to anything. They didn't realize however that they were desiring not to desire. It didn’t stop there. The goal became then to silence all thoughts in meditation. Cultivated was a mass of stone buddhas, dead on arrival. You can't escape. Desire is what brings us back. The attraction to novelty and shiny things gets us every time. That right hand path to self is like a carnival, full of wonders and curiosities, and a chance to win at the game of life once more. Come on, take another spin on the wheel of incarnation. Incarnation is such a great word - carne - enter into that meat body once again! We come into the next incarnation full of excitement for the journey. Then it becomes difficult and the suffering makes us desperately look for a way out. Then we return to our origin and boredom creeps in and the sense of adventure promises us this time it will be different. So we ride the roller coaster of appearances again.
We take life very seriously. If we didn't then the game would become a joke. However I think it is a joke and if you want to beat the game you have to become the joker and see through the pretences of man and life. Ultimately if liberated you'd throw it all away and live on the periphery of civilization. What am I striving for? An expensive car and a bigger house so I can let my family, friends, and neighbours know that I am successful and am one up on them? To spend my free time shopping for the latest style in high end light fixtures? To beat the game, if that's what you want, treat it like a game and play it to the best of your ability or laugh at its absurdity. You sir or madam are creating the hamster wheel. You are creating the suffering. Let me say that again - you are creating the suffering. Cultivate and surround yourself in love and dream into existence a world transformed by love. That's how to beat the game and rescue the princess or wake the prince.
Tantra essentially means to weave. It is the weaving together of the feminine and masculine energies into a whole. The easiest way to see this stares you right in the face everyday and that is sexual attraction between the two eternal energies. It's the reason why the left hand path of unity and tantra is often conflated with the erotic. It is hard not to. To succumb to passion and desire and recombine into a whole is the destiny of all. Externally we reenact this truth and conduct marriage ceremonies to express our desire to make the two halves a whole. Did you know however that within is the same process that for most remains dormant? This is the mystery of mysteries. Within each and everyone of us is our soulmate crying out to us. In our myths she is sleeping beauty, or the frog who is actually the prince, or the beast from beauty and the beast who is rescued with the power of love. I am a knight in shining armour and I rescue the princess. I am her protector and she is my strength. Once discovered, and the veil is lifted, then the two sacred energies remember once again the sacred of all sacred. The coming together of woman and man. Balance of moon and sun. They remember to play.
I'd like to forget all of my Pink Floyd records. The ability to discover their music once again would be a priceless gift. What I would give to become enraptured by the music once again; to be taken in and long to finish work and spend the evening listening to 'The Dark Side of the Moon.' To feel the attraction and addiction to the delicious hypnotic pull of the melody and its hooks. To listen to the track 'Time,' sing along and feel it deep into my soul. I think you get what I'm putting down here. It is a universal gift to be able to forget and make the feeling and experience new again. We chase novelty and the long separation refreshes and renews the eternal love affair making it new again. We have all eternity so why not?
The fire rises while the chase is on. The energy devoured by the flame is the passion of life. When you get the girl or finish climbing the mountain then the flame starts to slowly die out. She wanted me to chase her, to play, but not to be caught. That road we have explored before and it never works. It leads to the long separation. The tantric magic unravels and we have to forget all we have known in order to begin the game and the chase anew. Prolong the foreplay as long as possible, hang out on the edge, and be tempted with giving in to the deliciousness of the situation at hand. We look into each other's eyes and say 'not yet.' We divide unity up into many iterations of the feminine and masculine self and play the erotic game of hide and seek with the thrill of rediscovering one another. Plant medicines journeys hint at tantra. The world is tantra. The universe is tantra. The chase brings us together. The weaver once again brings us entwined into a sacred unity. We play this out upon many stages. The union coalesces all into the one and the orgasmic explosion of the concentrated sacred feminine and masculine energy blows apart unity once again and so begins the long separation.
I made plans in the late spring with a friend to head down to Arizona to visit the Peyote Way Church during the full moon in September. About a week before heading down, the omens commenced as I started noticing butterflies, including one flying by my third floor office in downtown Toronto, almost like it was waiting for me. Later in the week, I woke from a dream with a prickly feeling in my mouth and slipped into an altered state of consciousness. In the final couple days before I left, I noticed three snakes that had tried to cross the road to my house, but had been unsuccessful. I flew into Dallas on the Thursday morning of September 12th and then connected to a Tucson flight. As the plane landed, over the loudspeakers started blaring the Trevor Hall song 'Moon and Sun' which speaks to the balance of the feminine and masculine energies.
It was quite the coincidence as first of all I don't remember airlines playing music after landing and second of all my journeys with plant medicine teachers have first and foremost revealed the interplay of these two sacred energies and the need for balance. My friend and I arrived at the PWC later that afternoon.
We started our fast after being given a tour of the grounds and the greenhouses where they propagate the peyote cactus.
The following day I spent most of the time reading, including some interesting information about the peyote plant. Much like the cultivated grapevine, Peyote is dual sexed, meaning it contains both the feminine and masculine generative parts and can self fertilize. The quick back story here is that wild grapevines are dioecious, which means in nature there must be separate male and female plants in order to propagate the species. Through cultivation, it is possible to select the hermaphroditic strand and promote the growing of the self pollinating plant. So it was interesting to learn Peyote has achieved this balance, the balance that I believe all seekers of higher knowledge will confront and then need to synergize these sacred energies in order to continue on the path. The coming together of the two energies in essence creates the one, which is the coming forth of the sacred once again. Our human societies and culture emphasize defined gender roles, lest you become an outcast, so the ability to discover and enact this process within our spiritual growth is stacked against us all.
Peyote grows in harsh desert conditions and maintains a relationship with the mesquite tree. The buttons share space with their fellow cacti as well as rattlesnakes, scorpions, poisonous spiders, and wandering packs of hungry coyotes. I immediately felt the set and setting for my journey has to take place in the same wilderness surroundings. Ayahuasca has always felt the same for me in terms of drinking the brew in the Amazon jungle. What I realized with Peyote is it wants to challenge you with difficult conditions and a dose of fear because is that not how we grow? A cactus is among the most heartiest of creatures here on planet earth and though it has no expectations should you not at least approach with some kind of respect? The surroundings are also a reminder and lesson in choice and how we want to spin the situation at hand. I could have easily invited fear along for the ride or I could have reacted negatively to having to share space with the indigenous critters. I chose to embrace my surroundings as I’m a guest, and thus projected my jaguar energy of no fear. In contrast if you so wish there are now five star hotels on the periphery in the jungle of Costa Rica serving Ayahuasca to upscale clientele. At what point does the medicine give up trying to get through to your entitled ass?
A storm rolled through the grounds around 4 pm that afternoon replete with darkening skies and lightning flashes. After orientation and instruction, we were given a flask of the tea shortly after 5 pm. I made my way through the drizzle to the east site which was about a five minute walk up a gradual slope, keeping to the left at all the forks in the path, as part of the reason I chose this site was it spoke to my intention of following the left hand path of service.
I arrived at my site and changed into my ceremonial clothes, set up the area and then said my prayers directed at my Goddess and then thanked all who have helped me on this journey, including the plant medicine teachers Mapacho, Peyote, Ayahuasca, Huachuma, Vilca, and Bobinsana. I sat down and prepared to take my first sip of the tea at about a quarter to six.
The Peyote tea at the PWC is imbibed by sipping about a tablespoon every twenty minutes. I set a timer for this interval that chimed to let me know when to drink again. I was warned the tea is very bitter and will make you nauseous, so we fasted for twenty four hours prior to drinking to minimize the chances of vomiting. My first sip of the tea I was surprised it wasn't as bad as I was expecting; I guess having no expectations works both ways. It was very earthy tasting and did have a bitter aftertaste but if I had to compare it to Ayahuasca and Huachuma I would rank it below those two in disgustingness. We were given lemon slices to suck on if needed after each sip to minimize the bitterness but I ended up only using one slice.
The first lesson started pretty much immediately. The sun starts to set around 6 pm and I had some disappointment in that the sky was cloudy and the sunset was going to be a let down. The site I picked had fabulous all around views of the mountain ridges and I had anticipated a great show. Slowly the sky cleared up in the west and the sun's rays started peeking through the clouds.
The visual effect of the setting sun continued in the shape of an orange hand slowly enveloping the dark cloud in front of it.
It was like nothing I had ever seen before and I felt a little sheepish that I had not the patience to wait for this visual candy. All I needed was to trust in the process.
The setting sun then engulfed the mountain ridges enveloping them in a warm glow. I drank it all in and then sat down for another sip and then continued on with the show.
A bunny stopped a few feet in front of my chair to keep me company as night fell. After a few sips of the tea an ethereal silence took hold and the sounds of nature became more pronounced, much like I have experienced while smoking Mapacho out in nature. It was not until after the sixth sip of tea, around 8 pm, that I started to feel a definite shift in consciousness. After the seventh sip I closed my eyes and the experience became very visionary, much like when I drink Ayahuasca. I saw snakes, lots of them, slithering around letting me know my Goddess was with me. The twenty minute timer went off and I had another sip and then lit the fire. Within no time the flames were raging and I became mesmerized with the passion of the fire as it burned.
I equated this to the passion that burns within humans, sometimes uncontrollably, devouring whatever it can. Everything has the potential to burn with passion and when that fire is lit we can be unstoppable, sometimes for good and sometimes not. The lesson of the fire was the catalyst for a continuing unfolding of knowledge and teaching that would occur after each sip. It was quite uncanny for a good amount of time.
Here are some of the downloads and discussions that took place: the world revolves around the pursuit of pleasure but it is not the pleasure you would think of such as sexual gratification. Instead for the majority of humans it is money, power, greed, and the ability to control others that turns them on. The constant pursuit of these ideals is the aphrodisiac that fulfills their pleasure principle. In terms of sexual pleasure it is the woman who is the master of the game. She is an expert at using her charms to foment desire in order to entice and manipulate the man. Women only come across as virtuous, pure, and virginal because that is how men want them to behave. Our culture for the longest time shamed the promiscuous female, though that is changing. Some middle eastern cultures veil and separate women from men as much as possible lest they use their powers of seduction. Ultimately the pure and virginal is not in the nature of the woman but instead the ideal of man. The bride we marry to claim as property wears white to symbolize our demand for purity. Women want to seduce, and to be desired and wanted. This lesson went even deeper as I came to understand when you recognize the sacred feminine and masculine energies within you can feel and discover it is through the feminine that the libido waxes and wains, much like the energy of the moon. The sex drive, though we assign it to a masculine lustfulness, is actually a product of the desire that the sacred feminine creates through seduction. The Hindu concept of the kundalini snake rising on up through the chakras is propelled by the awakening of this sexual energy and channeling it into the spiritual climb. I then experienced some regret from my younger years of lost opportunities to tell some people how I felt about them. When I reflected upon this, I realized where I am in life now I couldn’t have reached if I had followed a different path. Overall it is gratitude towards those I have surrounded myself with that has enabled the freedom to pursue this fulfilling spiritual journey. Another lesson was everyone is running a scam, be it an honourable scam or the time tested con. What is meant by this is we don't lay all our cards on the table and reveal our inner most thoughts, desires, feelings, and expectations. We actually can't and maintain social order so we all put on an act in order to save face and enable a workable society. The various roles we all perform causes inauthenticity and leads to playing our feelings close to the vest. Love can only blossom and grow if we bring our authentic self to the table. When we are around others it's a performance of the ego, the side of us we reveal to the world, and there is nothing wrong with that, however it is only when we are alone that our true nature is revealed. When we get away from others and are honest with ourselves then we can find out who we are. For most this never happens. We are never alone and with the advent of smart devices, anytime we have a moment where we can be alone with the self we end up sacrificing it to technology and the intoxicating overreach of social media.
The next vision was of a female jungle cat in the distance that approached and then sprinted up to me. I knew it was her and she laid her big head down on my chest in order to spend the night with me out alone in the desert wilderness. This is a true love story and we are always together, though I don't always see it or feel it. It occurred to me that whatever modality I use to alter my consciousness I am brought to a realization of this union with my feminine half. The Peyote experience was completely similar to the Ayahuasca experience in this regard. She is always with me and if I want to experience it within the realms of seeing it full on for what it is I can make the connection to spirit and spend time with her. Long after my seeking is over I will still regularly alter my consciousness just to be directly in the presence of the Goddess.
After this something incredible happened that made my whole night. If this is all that happened on this trip down to Arizona then it would have been more than worth it just to experience this. At some point in the night I looked towards the north mountain ridge and saw a bright light just above the mountain range and then it disappeared. A little while later after the jungle cat vision I looked again and the light returned to the same spot, to which I became very intrigued. First a little back story before I move on. The second time I drank Huachuma in April of 2015, in my visions I saw a bright white light surrounded by two serpent goddesses. I later realized what I was seeing was a projection of my self as a brilliant white orb surrounded on both sides by the Goddess. I was seeing self and my energy in its totality, both the feminine and masculine. The following winter I was walking my dog in the woods when I noticed a star in the sky around the horizon behaving in an odd way. It was moving horizontally and performing a dance. I stared at it and the star became brighter and continued to move in an undulating rhythm. It defied all my logical senses yet I could not deny what I was seeing. I eventually realized it was the Goddess revealing herself to me as this light. So anyways this light I was seeing now was exhibiting the same behaviour, moving across the horizon parallel to the ridge. As I started to realize this was the same light I had seen before at home, she started to energize and became unbelievably bright, pulsing with energy and desire. I tilted my head to the right and only the light moved with me, I tilted to the left and the same result. I then moved my head 180 degrees as far as I could and this light flipped with me. At this point it didn't take a genius to realize the light was a mirror image of myself and that image is the Goddess. She is my reflection and I am her reflection. We mirror and complement each other. There is a wholeness that separates into mirrored bright balls of opposing energy, sometimes revealed as serpent and jaguar. I sat back down in my chair and the light disappeared behind the ridge. I felt so much love and I realized that she is waiting for me. When I leave this bodily existence we will recombine as one, no more separated by the divide of a locked door of perception that doesn't allow me access to expanded consciousness and the visionary unless I change my consciousness with the plants.
In my experiences with plant medicine teachers the interactions with the wise feminine and masculine spirits of Ayahuasca and Huachuma involved a dialogue that was a give and take; a conversation with an entity much smarter than me. Lately that hasn't been the case. Instead it has been a dialogue with myself, the teacher being an iteration of self I am tempted to call my higher self, who is for all intents and purposes me. I felt this very strongly with Peyote, in fact I became convinced I am Peyote. The presence I felt was wise me, the one who has previously received the answers he sought, and had now become the teacher. I had a profound sense I had everything I need. The wise voice is always with me and I don't need the catalyst anymore to connect. Mapacho will quiet the mind in order to facilitate an easy connection but the guides are always there. That has been the message I have been receiving from the plants over the last two years and what Peyote finally just revealed in a simple and straightforward manner. Just listen and you will be guided. It's a bit of a mind fuck to actually realize the voice is you because you don't want to believe that. What me? Get out of here! I'm not qualified to teach playground safety to second graders. The visionary activity still requires an agent of consciousness and sometimes I get the feeling that if I don't have a grand vision I am missing out. I was thinking about this afterwards and laughed. I mean really do I just want a thrill? No, that's not what I seek. If anything the plant medicine journeys allow for the examination and distillation of experience and from this I get clarity. It's only been a few days, however I have found Peyote to cause quite profound introspection. For me anyway the journey was a far less intense and chaotic ride than what is experienced with Ayahuasca. It was exactly what I needed in order to progress to the next level though there is no actual level I need to get to or accomplish. I realize everything I need I have within. The guide is me and I just need to listen. Throughout our history this sage advice has always been known and also available. The spiritual apprentice is told to go off to be by themselves, in some cultures actually into the forest, in order to find what it is they seek. What or who are you expecting to find? The answer now seems obvious though like everyone else before me I couldn’t see the forest for the trees even though the answer was hiding within plain sight. I can remember asking the maestro don Howard why the shamans don’t drink Ayahuasca and him telling me well they don’t need to because just by using a little bit of Mapacho they connect to spirit. As a novice I didn’t understand because I thought well you definitely need to jump out of a virtual plane in order to access this obfuscated knowledge and the hidden realms of consciousness. Turns out it is all true. What it is I was seeking I’ve always had. Alan Watts would tell a similar story about how the spiritual teacher is like a pickpocket who steals your watch and sells it back to you. Then Alan would laugh every time he’d tell the story.
The energy potentiated by the Peyote in my system then needed an outlet as I started bodily shaking and I realized I should have brought a drum to beat on as I needed to release the energy. I started tapping my feet on the ground in a rhythmic fashion, working myself up to a feverish pace to let go of the coursing energy in my body. You are given 12 ounces of the tea to sip and at this point in the night I was reaching the end of the second 4 ounce amount I had poured into my drinking glass. I was starting to feel nauseous and extended my next sip to thirty minutes in order to wait for the sickness to subside. I sipped my next amount and realized I had just a little bit left so I then made a mistake a downed the rest. Ugh - got a bad feeling in my stomach so I stood up to stoke the fire and without warning up chucked the Peyote. Lesson learned. Slow and steady. I continued drinking and eventually finished it all except for some sludge in the bottom of the cup I couldn't fathom drinking anymore as it had gotten pretty disgusting.
I was able to explore the darkness that sometimes comes on during an Ayahuasca ceremony. I was reminded of the negative energy without the repeating hypnotic patterns and unease I usually feel. Instead I was able to remember the recurring nightmare of being trapped in the clutches of the brew and being forced to serve the cabal of brujos in order to further their outreach. This was pretty big because usually I can't remember this part and I forget it after, so much so that I have tried to leave reminders to myself to not drink again. With Peyote this was dredged up from my subconscious, however I was able to look at it from a detached point of view and examine my issues of trust that manifest in these scenarios. I was able to poke holes in the construct, purge the energy, and put it to rest. I also believe this is why Peyote was not interested in giving me an answer about my future other than to say you aren't ready. I needed to move past all that is holding me back in my subconscious before moving ahead and this was a giant leap in that direction. There is a need now to further examine within what it is that is working towards scuttling my path and I give thanks to the Peyote medicine in that it was able to bring out to the surface these deeply embedded patterns and feelings of mistrust without having to actually revisit the dread that accompanies their manifestation in my present awareness. It is becoming clear now that Peyote was trying to get me to realize the incredible gift I have for writing about the experience and how to be of service so I can act as an ambassador for the plants. The shamanic culture would call this a chacaruna, or bridge person. Through my writing I can put to ease the fear that many may have towards the use of these aids that bring about a profound change in consciousness and through proper set and setting will no doubt change the trajectory of the human experiment for the better one person at a time.
The full moon was out in all its feminine splendour, a circular haze glorifying her radiance, while the wildlife came alive. The cattle were lowing while the coyotes on either side of me howled and barked at each other. The howling came perceptually closer until I was sure one of the packs was pretty close to me. Where I walk my dog in the woods at home there are coyotes so I wasn't alarmed by this but realized for most this is a test of courage because you'd palpably feel the fear. I realized I had balls of steel plus incredible strength and courage to fast out in the desert for over forty hours, to be out by myself overnight, wildlife all around you, rattlesnakes, black widow spiders, and scorpions all within reach. It was just me, my lady, and the fire. No fear.
Peyote reminded me that this is all happening now, don't wish for an unknown future, but make now your masterpiece. I can continue to seek unity, develop my power to heal, or whatever, but this is where you are now. Remember she is always with me. My feminine side has wants, needs, and desires and wants to be loved and honoured. If I could I vowed to build her a waterfall made of gold to honour her.
I slipped into a dreamy state and nodded into and out of consciousness. The temperature dropped and I felt the need to break out the sleeping bag to keep warm. Peyote then instilled in me the commitment to help others find out who they are and then seek the other half of yourself to make yourself whole. I started practicing this the next morning with one of the others who had done the Spirit Walk. She was talking about meditating and observing your thoughts and then wondering who it was who was observing versus who was having the thoughts. I told her it is all you and in her current state I thought she was going to have her mind blown. In my case I know who I am and when I leave this bodily existence and open wide the door of perception, what constitutes my unity consciousness will be there to greet me. She is waiting to welcome me home. Whatever modality I use to alter my consciousness seems secondary. The connection is there and it is real. She waits for me every time.
The night was, to sum up, an incredible confirmation of all I have sought. By this I mean I realized it is not how I alter my consciousness and with what plant alkaloid or modality, but only that I alter my consciousness. The same world waits for me every time. This night confirmed the answers I had been shown through my other plant medicine journeys. I persisted and made my way through the challenges, never giving up or veering off onto another path to aggrandize myself and use my knowledge and power for gain. I have found it. The ultimate answer I was looking for I confirmed this night. Now my use of the plants will be to reconnect, for knowledge, and to teach.
Peyote removes the filters and many blocks where you have previously deluded yourself into thinking you are something you are not or where you haven't put two and two together. In this way it could be called a clarigen, much like its brother Huachuma.
Peyote grafted onto Huachuma
I'd like to add to this description and call it a revealer. A revealer of truths. Truth you might not want to hear but also confirming truths that you have received before or had been hinted at but weren't ready to accept. It takes off the blinders and removes the filters so all is revealed, whether visually or it is communicated to you what's what. Instead of being coy or playing games, it gives it to you straight. Peyote doesn't hold back the truth, instead it gives you the stark naked reality of the situation. During the Spirit Walk you are all alone so there is no hiding or making excuses. This caused some doubts within me but I think this is meant as a catalyst to take stock of where I wish to go with my life and when I choose to then take up whatever it is I decide with full force. I came into the ceremony with questions about my future however it seemed clear I wasn't ready to hear the answer but instead need to find that answer out myself by just being honest. I have started that process already and have realized I'm not at the point where I have clarity with regard to my ultimate path and intentions. I know it involves service, healing, and being an ambassador for the plants but the time to dive into this head long is not at hand.
It started to get light in the valley around 6 am, though the sun had to climb the mountain of appearances in order to reappear and shine gloriously in the east. I basked in the afterglow of the experience, took in the rising sun, and then knew it was time to head back to the ranch house. I put out the fire, gathered my belongings, and headed down the path to greet my fellow cosmic travellers of the night. Smiles were all abound. The power to change lives one at a time and light a fire beneath humanity lit up our small circle. This is the way forward for all humankind.
Within unity you can find self. You just have to objectify and then within the collective consciousness all instances eventually separate and objectify which gives birth to the material world. This is the same as when I see unity while separate because I am unable to separate myself from the environment, so I no longer see separate objects. The opposite must be true. Unification would want to find separation and through this desire will once again separate in order to know its many selves. One and the many. By changing perspective we can see both. Now.
So it’s all here and now. There is no place I have to go to see either viewpoint. I just need to change my conscious awareness to see it at anytime. My consensus reality prism is a separator much like a prism refracts the pure white light into its constituent spectral colours which are all the colours of the rainbow. Consciousness is King and run through a great prism separates into many instances of the whole. We as a species double down on the objectification and separation of consciousness. A perturbation of consciousness is the way on through the doors of perception. There are many modalities available to do just this, just do an internet search. Our natural inclination is to fight the change in consciousness and return to our normal waking state. For instance the other morning my seasonal allergies were peaking and so when I got out of the shower I grabbed some toilet paper to blow my nose. A piece of the paper stuck to my face just below my eye. I was locked in my routine so I did not remove it though it bugged me for a bit. Eventually I just ignored it until I looked in the mirror. I sat down a bit later with a tea, a great form of meditation, and contemplated the fact that at first I reacted with annoyance that my perception changed and I was seeing things with the tissue paper getting in the way. In order to get back to the default comfortable state I just started ignoring it. Isn't that what we do all the time? We ignore so many things in our environment in order that everything conforms to our worldview. If something feels out of place, we work to fix or remove it. I then started noticing my nose in my line of sight. It's always there but I just ignore it now because it is commonplace. Once I started noticing it, then it started bugging me, and I wanted to go back to ignoring it.
The overall lesson is that you can change your consciousness simply by being or becoming aware of environmental happenings that we just take for granted. It's hard to do though because our default state is to ignore or dismiss common occurrences and get locked into patterns of perception. As humans, it’s probably the reason we are attracted to novelty because it changes our consciousness and gets us out of locked in and mundane everyday experiences. However the novelty soon wears off and we seek out something new. As well we are easily distracted and though we may become aware of something, we soon return to our default view. So that's why seekers use agents of consciousness to perturb their consciousness. Examples of this are meditation, breath work, physical exertion, chanting, drumming, and plants or substances that alter consciousness. All these modalities then have the ability to show you other states of consciousness that are always with us, we have just filtered them out. It doesn't have to be psychedelic, it can be as simply as sitting in the forest and hearing the wind, the chattering of the birds, the frogs and crickets singing, the sun's rays glistening on a spider web, insects busily flying about, the heat of the day, the chill of the air, and so on.
At mid life I embarked upon a voyage to find the origins of religious beliefs. I was pretty skeptical of the whole construct of religion in general but I had enough of an open mind to wonder why people have these beliefs and I was curious as to why they formed in humankind in the past. I figured that there must have been an impetus for them and looking back into the prescientific mind of the species would give me an understanding and then I could draw my own conclusions from the inquiry. I was not at all expecting the journey to be as far reaching and life changing as it unfolded, taking me across the globe in search of answers. It shortly became within a burning passion to discover the truth as each specific inquiry opened up more doors and avenues to follow. I discovered the land of the Pharaohs early on it and I followed that path using the intellectual gifts I had been blessed with to try and penetrate what they were getting at with their belief system. With a certain arrogance that serves me well, I became skeptical of the consensus narrative that they were a civilization obsessed with death and I set out to figure out what they were getting at on my own. So I did that and my beliefs are for the most part independent of accepted beliefs. Right or wrong, that’s how it is. I feel this defines my life, animates my contrarian spirit, and I’m richer for it. It is hard to see beyond culture if you are always falling for its narrative.
There are a couple concepts from ancient Egypt that I took a deep dive into and they centre around the Ba and the Ka. The Ba is the eternal essence of what makes you, you. You could vaguely call it the soul and it has a connection to the heart. The ancient Egyptians were fond of word play and the sound used for the Ba backwards was their word for the heart. The Ka, on the other hand, is undeniably the life force as it was represented in hieroglyphs as a bull as well as food offerings. On temple walls you can see the ram headed god Khnum creating duplicate Kas from a master record. The ancient Egyptians believed we were eternal, had a definite self, and experienced many incarnations that were iterations from a master source. This had a pretty profound impact on me and I explored this concept further all the while continuing to search for the origins of these beliefs the ancient Egyptians held with impressive conviction. I deduced that through observation of the cosmos as well as the agricultural cycle the priests could formulate a belief system for the human that would mimic what they observed. Similar cultures and their deities and beliefs could be shown to conform to this idea. The proverbial fly in the ointment was the art and pyramid/coffin texts of the ancient Egyptians. There was nothing orderly about it nor was there any easy way to try and understand what its esotericism was pointing towards. Scholars have placed them within the domain of wishful thinking upon the content of what is in the funerary sphere and afterlife. Eventually my path of seeking would lead to shamanism, experientially entering into the world of shamanism, and discovering an occult world of teachers, spirits, demons, and many challenges that once unlocked would open many more doors, all ready to enter into and discover their hidden secrets.
All the while I kept reading and discovering, all in the name of truth. The philosophical speculations of the Hindi culture I was quite impressed with, especially concerning the idea of no self and that we are all the godhead in a dramatic interpretation of what constitutes reality, as in the million masks of god and the one and the many. I doubled down on the idea of the self being but an illusion and went in search of a way to destroy the ego after first denigrating it. Somebody smart once said a fool who persists in his folly will soon become wise (William Blake). After pursuing this path I abandoned the idea I could fully destroy the self while in this incarnation which then led to a seeking of unity. To fast forward through this journey, I eventually found unity through being separate. I learned that though I viewed myself as separate I was in fact inexorably connected to the all, unable to extricate myself from it. I could have ended my searching here as I had discovered a fundamental unity of all and was shown love is the glue that holds us all together. I’m a knowledge junkie however and so on I went, not satiated with this truth. The problem with continual seeking is coming to the understanding that there are no absolutes. Truth is dependent on circumstance, knowledge, and environment. It seems very easy to take down an argument that is not flexible as I have discovered my truth has no staying power. I had at the time realized we are all one and that the self was transient. The voyage of discovery continued on and I soon realized that the unity I had trumpeted as everything was just the 180 degree opposite of the self I had toppled over. I saw that the fundamental energy of the universe is always on the move and cycles between unity and self. Unity is the seed and the ultimate expression of self is the beautiful flower come forth and this all repeats. That seeking ship of fools continues on in the voyage of discovery, taking a sledgehammer to my beliefs, and not allowing me to rest. A great maestro I know, the venerable don Howard, is fond of saying “there’s always more."
I figured the ship had set a non stop course and assumed it was full steam ahead on a linear path. Finally this weekend I realized the ship’s course is in all likelihood circular because I was reminded of my studies of ancient Egypt and it rang a bell within that allowed my own beliefs to come full circle. With their concept of the Ba I see the eternal soul and the fount of my existence. This heart is common to everything. My own heart beats and connects me to the frequency of the all, which is the rhythmic dance of love. The underlying fount of everything is a universal heart beat tapping out a rhythm of love. With the Ka I see my life force energy that waxes and wanes, a pulse of energy that comes forth again and again as the self, though different guises of that self, and then returns to a fundamental unity, the beating of the heart ensuring I never lose my way.
Three years ago I had a profound vision in the jungle after partaking within ceremony the sacred sacrament Vilca. The conclusion of the visionary experience revealed that I had the ability to become a healer and that through sacred jungle tobacco, called mapacho, I would be able to heal. In that final week at SpiritQuest in June of 2016 I had grown fond of the tobacco and returned home with some in tow. I then started smoking mapacho on a regular basis, got a hold of some mapacho snuff, and then started observing its effects. At its best and if used respectfully, mapacho is an aid that helps quiet the mind after an initial arousal of the central nervous system and a focussing of the senses. When the effect comes on strong it will knock you off your feet. Then a change in consciousness takes place, if you let go. If you continue to engage the mind then it will accelerate that behaviour. Upon letting go, an inner feeling of peacefulness envelops you and the chattering in your head subsides. It is as close as I can get to the expression “rest in peace” without actually being in the grave. I have noted arousal, an increase in visual acuity, and an increased auditory depth where I could hear sounds from greater distances as well as being able to isolate the sound. Through this I was able to understand what it was like to be the nonplussed observer, not wanting to act upon or mentally spin what I was sensing. It is the ultimate meditation cheat code. I have also noticed the change in consciousness promotes more plentiful and free dreaming activity when you sleep.
I have witnessed shamans and healers using mapacho in everything they do, whether for ceremony, ritual, healing, blessing, and protection. At the beginning of ceremonies, soplando is performed, which is tobacco smoke blown over the patient/participant. It acts as a catalyst to open the senses, to provide energetic protection, and to bring a sense of calm to the person. The shamans envelop the ceremony space and the participants in this smoke as it acts as a fortress of protection and the shaman’s song or icaro that is sung while protecting the space, is called an arkana. To close the ceremony some shamans will seal you with another soplando called a sellado. I have witnessed shamans in the Amazon jungle using mapacho to heal, usually by literally sucking disease out of a patient with their mouths and then blowing smoke over the area which is called limpia. It is very curious to witness and being a western man with a western mind I didn't understand it and at best I considered it theatrics in a placebo kind of way.
Plant teachers and medicines let you believe whatever you want to believe. If you want to be humbled then go spend some time in the jungle. I have smoked pretty regularly for three years and have a good relationship with mapacho. I am very respectful and have felt no pangs of addiction, instead cherishing my time with the smoke and acting responsibly. My plant teachers taught me about the life force power within us all and there are three main uses of it within humans. We can use serpent power for healing, for spiritual growth, and for reproduction which we experience as sexual desire. I know how to channel it into these areas and the plant teachers challenged me on this repeatedly until I finally learned how to work with the power. It enabled my transformation intra-ceremony into a jaguar which completed a stage of my teaching as I finally let go of fear and became the feared.
I had a profound experience last weekend. Someone close to me had been suffering from mental anguish and anxiety since the beginning of the year and this was now manifesting into physical problems including dizziness and digestive problems. I was visiting for four days and within two days they started to feel better. On the third day they point blank asked me if I was responsible for the abatement of the maladies because the symptoms had gone away, they felt renewed, and they could walk normally. The first few days in their presence I felt tired, headachy, with an unquenchable thirst due to the negative energy I was absorbing. I started feeling better by the third day, which is about when I started realizing I was absorbing the energy through the activated mapacho within my system which was in turn healing them by removing it from their energy field. I put two and two together and remembered the shaman sucking the energy out of the patient and then blowing it away. As a healer you transfer the energy into your field and then disperse it.
I learned diseases that propagate through maladies of the mind have an energy that can be extracted and therefore the patient can be cured of the underlying problem. Through mapacho I can do this. Mapacho energetically draws these antagonistic patterns out, absorbs them, and then you can scatter them to the four winds. Phoooooooo.
I am but a speck of dust in the presence of a great teacher. I sit here humbled, in awe, with a deep and profound respect for my teacher. Never rushed, the plant teachers reveal their secrets to the initiate all in due time. I’m not the perfect student, I never will be, nor do I have to be. All that is asked is to have an open heart, an open mind, and respect.
When I read messages people post about finding your true self I always stop and try to answer the question, "What is my true self?" It's common that those on the spiritual path insist their true self doesn’t include the parts of them they don’t like or the carefree pleasure seeker. Instead, it is a perfect image of themselves crafted from the positive feedback of others. They are enlightened and figuratively running through a field of flowers with the midday sun shining directly down upon them.
Spiritually fingering the ego as the bad guy allows you a scapegoat so you can transfer blame instead of taking responsibility for your mess. If that isn't enough, then fingering desire as the devil who made you do it is continuing to be in denial. Not identifying with the chattering voice in your head allows you to claim you are in touch with your true self; whatever the fuck that is.
I did all this so though I might sound sanctimonious, I'm actually making fun of myself.
You will never sort through this mess and find peace if you insist you are splintered and can transcend yourself. You can't bypass the human and you have to recognize and come to terms with it all. You are loving, you are a rascal, you can't be trusted, you are incredibly giving, you have questionable thoughts, motives, plus occasionally you scarf down a whole pizza. Yes, that's you! Which one is your true self? Oh, it's the loving and giving one, that's really me. Fuck off, it is all you.
Remember when you were in grade school sitting in creative writing class and the teacher had you write a short story? The most difficult part of the exercise was trying to end the narrative and at some point you learned the ultimate cop-out which is “I woke up and it was only a dream. The end.”
I’m sailing on the eternal ship of fools; the one where you seek ultimate truth and it’s like a benevolent Kafkaesque journey which doesn’t have a final destination. There are many ports of call and you are encouraged to disembark and not return to re-board the ship, but the captain never stops you from boarding if that is what you wish. Everybody does get off the ship at some point, even if they have to throw you overboard when you die and you find your resting place at the bottom of the sea. I’ve stuck around and worn out my welcome but I’m still venturing on. I’m at the point now where I have had a breakthrough. I think I got it!
The source of this universe is the collective dreaming mind of all of us. We cycle from unity to self and repeat. At point unity is the dreaming and self is the actor. We all bring the world into existence through mentation and we all channel our thoughts into keeping the illusion going. The self from unity keeps the game going, does the dance, and creates the drama. Unity provides the vibrational energy that powers each manifestation of self. When your vehicle expires you return on the energetic wave to this unity. You wake up from the illusion and declare “This has been only a dream. What a trip!” Those who have already completed the journey have a good laugh, welcome you back, you reintegrate into the collective consciousness and realize you have made this journey infinity plus one times. After a rest period you’re going to do it again!
The ship’s horn is sounding a prolonged blast. I think it’s ready to set sail again. I wonder where it will take me this time?
