Today I walked into Glastonbury town with many missions, amongst them getting a PDF from a memory stick printed out. I’ve been here a week and hadn’t seen anywhere. One likely spot, the tourist info center, had changed its hours and was closed. I tried the post office and a friendly fellow directed me to an internet cafe he wasn’t sure existed and I was pretty sure it wasn’t there either. I was heading that way when a wee little alley I hadn’t seen before caught my eye. I walked past it then decided to see what was down that way just for laughs. It turned into a residential street, but there was one shop whose sign I couldn’t really read in the distance. I walked a bit and when I could see the sign it read, to my surprise, Print Services.
Now, this may not seem like a big deal to you upon reading it, but my experience of this was one of shockingly blatant manifestation. The game has indeed been afoot for me here in Glastonbury and my workshop has not even started yet…
It’s my first day in the UK and as to be expected I’m a bit fried. Maybe not the best time to write a blog post but a few have built up and I am bound to have some interesting adventures here that will call for more, so let’s get some of these out of the way quick and dirty like!
FLOURIDE:
I’m pretty open to alternative views of things and perhaps sometimes even overly keen to try different ways of doing things, especially if they are counter the status quo view. I stopped using flouridated toothpaste quite a few years ago, before I moved to New Zealand. Maybe 10 years ago?
And honestly, the state of actual research in the dental field is shocking. While it is clear that periodic tooth scraping is good for dental health, that’s not rocket science. There are all sorts of different theories about what is good for teeth but not a lot of research, as far as I can tell. Try asking your dental professional next time you see them whether it is better to floss before or after brushing. I expect they won’t know. Surely something so basic would have been researched and then taught in dental school? But no, they already have you on the hook for big bucks, why bother researching anything except cosmetics, the only part of the field where new product development is profitable.
And the number of different formulations of toothpaste out there is shocking. All these different ingredients and no clear idea what is good and what isn’t. And don’t swallow. Do you know why children’s or pet toothpaste costs so much more than regular toothpaste? It’s because they have to formulate them so that they are safe to swallow according to regulatory guidelines. Yes that’s right, adult toothpaste contains enough nasty stuff that it is not allowed for human consumption. As if rubbing stuff all over your gums is not getting it into your system. One experience with a sublingual B12 will demonstrate that things in your mouth that are not swallowed get into your body quite nicely.
Anyway enough rants and time for some experiential data! The last couple of years I suddenly have some pretty epic tooth decay. I thnk also I had my first filling in maybe 30 years a year or two after I stopped using flouridated toothpaste. But the recent bout of major tooth decay spurred me to try flouride toothpaste again. As I have mentioned before with all the chi gung and meditation I do I have a fairly high degree of sensitivity to my physical state. Of course I am not an objective observer, so you can take this data or leave it.
So when I started using flouridated toothpaste again it felt good, somehow. But get this: on the same day I started with the flouridated toothpaste my desire for tea (regular tea, camelia sinesis, green or black) just vanished, which is quite a change from the 2-3 cups of tea that I drank on a daily basis. Tea has quite a lot of flouride in it. So my guess from this is that my body doesn’t want the total flouride impact from both flouridated toothpaste and tea.
It’s a few months after my switch and I recently had my regular dental hygenist appointment. I had some pretty good gum pocket depth reduction since the last visit. There are a couple of other possible causative factors I could consider, but I think I am on the right track.
MEDITATION
A while back I wrote a short and concise summary of my meditation technique, and a map of the progress of insight:
http://brucescanlon.tumblr.com/post/28087339113/these-are-my-current-understandings-and-tips
I recently had a session with my meditation instructor that turned everything upside down. That’s what a good meditation instructor is supposed to do, as far as I can tell, but it’s disconcerting nonetheless. What he said was as he gains more and more exposure to people that his original thought, which was that the 4 stage model (see previous post) applied for a majority of people, no longer reflects his experience. What he says now is that the 4 stage model applies to a majority of people who are attracted to that model (like me). He gave me a number of examples of people that seem to just have one major peak experience event, some that have just 3, etc. I also recall an example in Kornfield’s After the Exstacy the Laundry where some major luminary was just all smooth and gradual the whole way.
So on the one hand, hmmm, here I am being “attached” to a model, and maybe it would be best if I became unattached. So that’s some serious work given this is my vehicle for getting unattached from everything else. On the other hand it’s good news— I could become enlightened tomorrow, no need to go through a couple more years of meditation.
So now I am using a new technique which interestingly enough goes back to some of the content from my Ayahuasca sessions— the key word being “devotion.” I never really had a handle on it, now I am learning.
SYNCHRONICITY
Special bonus. So here I am in Glastonbury, which is kind of a magical place. If you want to be all scientific you can say it’s the same as any other place, but wait, there are lots of magical type people here, so even if you are only talking about personality types and shopping opportunities, it’s something that differentiates Glastonbury from most other places in the world.
I’m staying in the spare room of a magical type person, and we have had some nice chats. Very affordable, very nice, highly recommended if you are in this part of the world. PM me for details.
Anyway this morning I wake up and unlock the back door to check the weather before going out. Dot, the owner, is not at home. It’s a door that locks with key from the inside, which is code-OK here in the UK despite it being some horrible life threatening nono in the USA. I can’t unlock the door. I do a bit of experimenting and it seems like there is a deadbolt wiggle when I move the key in one direction, so I apply a bit of force. Which breaks the key off in the lock. I am paying little enough for this place that the cost of lock repair might exceed my financial contribution to the household. Bummer.
Dot breaks out a toolbox when she gets home but no needle nose pliers. I give it a go with what she has but no luck. Dot cleans the house of a woman in town that has a shamanic object manufacture studio just a couple of blocks away, so we go borrow a pair of needle nose pliers. Those don’t cut the mustard either, unfortunately.
While I am working on the problem Dot gives me her magical or symbolic or archetypal interpretation of this event, which is that the energies of the workshop I will be attending in a week are already at work and the thing with the door symbolizes, or is another expression of the archetype I am dealing with, of something in me which has been locked away but the door cannot be locked anymore, whether I like it or not. It’s gonna be open. This fits well enough with some of my other experiences and what I think is going on with me right now, and what I know about the content of the workshop, so cool.
But get this. That same woman that lent us the pliers, Dot was doing some work for her in the woman’s house today by herself. Dot got a call from the woman a bit later after the woman returned home, and guess what? Dot left the door of the woman’s house unlocked when Dot left.
Dot and I talked about the common perception that when people have done some healing or self improvement or made progress on the enlightenment thing or what have you that the idea is that crummy stuff doesn’t happen to them anymore. We agreed that crummy stuff still happens. The difference is, it’s not a bother so much. It’s all lighter. Less frustration, less anger, easier to deal with stuff.
Ah yeah and her brother is named Stuart, same as mine. Not a big deal, just another brick in the synchronicity wall.
I’m stoked to be in Glastonbury for a week. Gonna have some interesting times :-)
FIRST WORLD PROBLEM
Those who have spent some time with me may recall that I have used the phrase “high quality problem” for several years now. I am both pleased and dismayed that this concept is reaching wider circulation. Pleased because it’s a good concept to be out there, dismayed that it is somehow not my personal property to share with others any more, and a wee bit jealous that my idea has been “stolen.”
And I gotta say, my formulation is better. Because first world problem is a bit nasty— it’s an accusation that the problem is trivial, and the whole first world third world thing is a bit of a guilt invoker. No more guilt needed on this planet, sorry, it’s not productive.
A high quality problem is a good thing to have. The phrase carries with it a bit of humility, which is something to be encouraged, unlike grief. And it’s also satisfying, a mark of achievement, and an easeful way of letting go some of the stress over the problem, rather than being bashed over the head with an accusation of excess priveledge. Nor does it make broad sweeping statements about entire groups of people. It can be just as offensive to a “3rd world person” in a discriminatory fashion as it is to complain about an excessively foamy latte (you know it makes me gassy). Obey my dog!
(photo Matt Bird)
At Kiwiburn during my talk about the Temple and sacred geometry (SG), someone asked, “Is it practical?”
Good question! I was caught a bit flatfooted and could only respond that I had used SG to come up with the final cabinet dimensions for our kitchen remodel, and it had turned out well. Aside from that, no, not practical. Now that I have had more time to mull this over, I want to explore the question further, and perhaps retract my former answer.
So first let me ask, what is “practical?” And let me answer by introducing you to my friend Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of needs:
Based on his research Maslow thought that people try to meet the needs at the base of this pyramid first (food and shelter) and only when those are satisfied will they be concerned with “higher” needs like creativity, or, dare I say it, “spirituality.”
I am guessing my questioner (sorry I forgot who you were, but look at the impression you made on me!) would put practical things near the bottom of the pyramid.
So will SG help me satisfy my need to feed myself? At first glance no, but a quick spin around the internet will show you that there are lots of people making money from it, or at least trying to. And I was once offered money to make a SG ancestry chart for someone. That’s pretty darn practical.
But for me SG is part of my program for satisfying my higher needs, because I have the great good fortune that my lower needs are pretty well sorted and I have time to noodle around with self actualization.
Let me tell you a little secret though. The pyramid is not the best shape to chart out the needs. Maybe something more like a mobius strip, that connects beginning to end but goes through a twist in between:
Because I am finding as I make progress on satisfying my higher needs I gain greater facility in solving my lower need problems more quickly and painlessly and with greater ease and pleasure for the other humans who are part of my life.
So, mystery questioner, is that practical enough for you?
Gone to Kiwiburn seeya on the internets next month…
Craig’s amazingly beautiful as well as incredibly robust custom made brackets for the Kiwiburn Temple. They look even better in person!
“A good traveler has no fixed plans
and is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition
lead him wherever it wants.
A good scientist has freed himself of concepts
and keeps his mind open to what is.
Thus the Master is available to all people
and doesn’t reject anyone.
He is ready to use all situations
and doesn’t waste anything.
This is called embodying the light.
What is a good man but a bad man’s teacher?
What is a bad man but a good man’s job?
If you don’t understand this, you will get lost,
however intelligent you are.
It is the great secret.”
- Translated by Stephen Mitchell, 2006, Chapter 27”
— http://www.egreenway.com/taoism/ttclz27.htm
“The handbook of the strategist has said:
‘Do not invite the fight, accept it instead,’
‘Better a foot behind than an inch too far ahead,’
Which means:
Look a man straight in the face and make no move,
Roll up your sleeve and clench no fist,
Open your hand and show no weapon,
Bare your breast and find no foe.
But as long as there be a foe, value him,
Respect him, measure him, be humble toward him;
Let him not strip from you, however strong he be,
Compassion, the one wealth which can afford him.”
- Translated by Witter Bynner, 1944, Chapter 69”
— http://www.egreenway.com/taoism/ttclz69.htm bloody brilliant umpteen translations of each verse of the Tao Te Ching in very easy to access format. Though unfortunately they lack the one I cut my teeth on, the sometimes awesome and sometimes not, but in a decipherable way, with valuable meta techniques on offer, the Ursula K Le Guin english version. http://www.amazon.com/Lao-Tzu-Ching-About-Power/dp/1570623953
School shootings?
Gun control?
Where does the culture of violence come from?
hmmmmmm…
Since at least the Spanish American war the USA has sent its soldiers to other countries, and killed the local residents.
The iconic Colt 45 automatic pistol, where did that come from?
During its campaign against the Moros, 1899 –1935, the U.S. Army adopted the Colt .45 Model 1911 semiautomatic pistol after American soldiers found that the .38 caliber New Army Long Colt and Smith and Wesson revolvers they had previously used were unable to stop the fierce Moro warriors of the Southern Philippines. http://kaligear.com/2008/03/legend-of-philippines-colt-45.html
Hey, what was the US Army doing in the Phillipines? Defending us from invasion? Did Phillipine terrorists blow something up in the USA?
==
See the lead picture up there? The USA is responsible for half the military spending in the entire world. What do you imagine is meant to be done with all of these weapons that are being produced, every year?
That’s so many weapons that we can’t use them fast enough. So let’s support our domestic high tech manufacturing industry and sell, or give them away to the rest of the world…
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/08/charts-us-arms-sales-overseas-triples
The really cool thing about weapons is they get used. Bullets are fired, bombs are blown up, so you gotta keep buying more year after year. As long as you have somewhere, or should I say, someone? to use them on…
according to the Military Times, the US military includes children on their list of who they’re allowed to murder with impunity. http://antiwar.com/blog/2012/12/04/us-military-says-killing-afghan-children-is-fair-game/
Hmmm, yeah, that’s all pretty cool, but doesn’t the cost add up after a while? I know it’s good to kill (foreign) kids in order to protect American jobs and of course the global heroin trade which is an important source of off budget revenue for the CIA amongst other handy uses http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/afghan-heroin-the-cia
…but doesn’t all that money spent on weapons add up, in a kind of fiscal cliff sort of way?
US Military spending, it’s not that much of total government spending is it?
(just 8 times as much as spent on the sadly decaying transportation system and 8 times as much as on education)
Well, OK, even if US government debt is skyrocketing with the continuing expenditures on all those, um, skyrockets, it’s really really important that we continue to sell and give arms to other countries, keep our military deployed in Afghanistan and other places protecting legal and illegal resource extraction, and of course continue to support cutting edge high tech industry and US manufacturing jobs, right?
(look halfway down this graph, support for reducing US military expenditures is 55% against, 43% for)
…right.
So yeah, gun control. But do yourselves and the whole world a favor, and let’s not have it be about just domestic handguns. Why not make American gun control about aircraft carrier control, missile control, tank control, and drone control.
Or do you think it’s possible that a country that can spend so much on death and destruction, and spend so much effort killing people (including children) in other countries can somehow have a peaceful nonviolent culture at home?
Lonely?
A year ago Dr. Rupert Sheldrake asked me what it was like living in New Zealand, and whether I lacked for intellectual stimulation. Obviously that made an impression on me as I’m still thinking about it.
And here I am at the tail end of 6 months of Kathy being away in the USA, having spent the vast majority of my time alone with no one but the dog for company.
And here I am having, I hypothesize, having completed a major stage in my progress of insight, aka Enlightenment.
===
When I was 17 I was hanging out with a group of friends and a new girl who was visiting someone from out of town said to me, “I didn’t undestand a word you said! What the hell are you talking about?”
As the conversation developed I discovered that pretty much all of my reasonably smart friends occasionally or even mostly just nodded as I was rambling on, humoring me without ever saying they didn’t understand.
And that’s mostly what it’s been like since then. Even those I am very close to often don’t get where I am coming from. My interests are unusual enough, and my take on them strange enough, that mostly even amongst a group of people I know who share my obscure interests I am isolated.
At my weekly group meditation when I shared the major experience that I think was my fruition and achievement of 2nd path, the response was to dismiss it as phenomena which should not be paid attention to, with the a small aside that that’s how the old master teachers always did it, even if it was something important, whatever happened, pay it no mind, don’t get hung up on the experience.
I was rereading Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha and the author is quite explicit that insight meditation is a lonely path. When something good happens most people don’t have the context to understand it, and he says, while people may in the abstract really like the idea that people can become enlightened, mostly they are not so happy when it is happening to someone in front of them. And the people who do know what you have been through know that there is so much more to go through that they don’t really give you any positive feedback for what you have achieved. And the Chogram Trungpa quote, “You will never be decorated by your guru.” Anyway getting too “self cherishing” is an impediment to the process that results in the experience of there being no separate self.
I do notice that people are always happy to acknowledge advise and support you when you’re having problems, rather than successes.
===
I’ve taken Kathy’s absence as an opportunity to really dive into my practices. I spend about 45 minutes walking the dog down and back up the hill, then an hour of chi gung, then an hour of sitting meditation, then a half hour of tendon lengthening and body alignment exercises.
This is all stuff I learned somewhere, mostly in classes with other people from teachers. Now though I find that to go really deep and start to experience the benefits of this stuff I need to do it as a daily practice, and while that doesn’t really mean every day, it does mean doing it mostly by myself, on my own schedule at my own speed and rhythm, with differing focus on what feels right in the moment.
And when I do this for a while it is truly transformative.
===
So, intellectual stimulation. I find the natural environment with its nonhuman problems to be a much better teacher and sparring partner than other people. Sure, when I was age 20, overseas for the first time in Spain and only made one very expensive phone call to the USA during the two months I was there, I was very isolated. Nowadays with the internet I have all the intellectual stimulation I can tolerate at my fingertips, and with the space and time in my life I have time to think about it.
It’s enough for me anyway, and for me I find short bouts of high quality interaction with small numbers of people to be really nourishing on all levels. Otherwise, I’d rather be alone :-)
“
>Chlorophyll can employ quantum computing to search multiple paths
(said Dennis)
>In classical physics, the energy can only work its way across the molecules randomly.
(said the article.)
I say what this points to is the “Physics of Information” that Jacques Vallee calls for at TedX http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9pR0gfil_0
This same sort of thing, the idea that stuff in nature according to classical physics (ie Newton and Galileo, ie world views hundreds of years old which have already been overturned for at least a hundred years with Einstein’s special relativity) must follow random behaviour is behind the protein folding problem that Rupert Sheldrake has been talking about for over 30 years.
So as it becomes tentatively allowed to talk in mainstream science about this upcoming new world view, this physics of information, I strongly suggest we avoid trying to structure the understanding too restrictively with outmoded models, like for instance the world view underlying “quantum computation” that massively difficult calculations and then of course some kind of implemented intentionality on the part of the calculator to make the non random behaviour occur must happen each time a non random event occurs.
Sheldrake suggests instead that patterns of behaviour, like the way the article discusses that photons move in chlorophyl, form some kind of information pattern which can direct future behaviour of physical/energy objects in similar situations. He calls these morphic or morphogenic fields.
I’m not saying one is right and not the other. I am saying, this area is wide open and let’s not try to get too restrictive about what we think the “mechanism of action” behind apparently non-random events is, because at this stage of the game when a new paradigm is being born it’s much more important just to observe with as few prejudgements as possible what is actually going on.
Given that this field is conceptually wide open
” — Nature’s hot green quantum computers revealed
Peru 2: San Pedro, Archetypes, Alchemy
“Planets Venus (the brightest) and Mars (closely above Venus) meet with Pleiades, the Seven Sister star cluster”
Thanks for your positive feedback about my previous Ayahuasca post. This one covers the other medicine ceremony we did, with the San Pedro cactus. (mescaline, for you reductionist materialists out there)
Our Healer: Ruben Orellana. In his 50’s, been studying the traditional healing arts since he was 9. Former chief archaeologist of Machu Picchu. Builder-owner of a really beautiful 20 room hostel in Peru’s Sacred Valley http://www.illarimuy.com/ from a well established Peruvian family (he has an idle sugar cane plantation in the jungle and there is a statue of his ancestor in a Cusco square). What motivates someone like this? Zest for life as far as I can tell. Haven’t listened to this yet… http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thedifference/2011/10/14/the-difference-connections-make—ruben-orellana-neira-rpt
Anyway Ruben is our healer, aided by the lovely-hearted and also very experienced Pepe. There is a hardwood tree from which San Pedro healers traditionally have a staff made. Whole exposed trunks of that tree are used at Illarimuy as structural posts for the construction of the beautifully laid out buildings and walkways.
Enough with the context… The San Pedro experience is much milder than the Ayahuasca. I was again full of anxiety as I kneeled on my matress in the room with 10 or so others, waiting my turn, but as soon as I drank the less bitter than Ayahuasca liquid I felt calm. Soon I lay down and let the visions come. Much less intense and colorful than the Aya. But we were travelling again the next day and word was we were being guided into a more gentle session.
The big takeaway moment for me was when I realized as I had been passively allowing the geometric visions to come during these ceremonies that while I had been seeing lots of 5 and 6 sided stars and polygons, as well as occasional 8’s, I had been waiting for, looking for 7 sided figures.
In sacred geometry 5 is the number of plants and life, 6 is “structure, function, order.” 8 is the higher octave of 4, which is groundedness, and to me is something like the just manifestation of divine law on earth.
7? A seven sided figure cannot be made with the traditional tools of the straight edge and compass, though one can approximate it. It thus symbolizes unattainable perfection, and is the number of virgin-birth goddesses like Athena, who sprang from Zeus’s head full-grown. 7 is a mystical number, the colors of the rainbow and the number of the chakras and musical notes(in some systems).
So sometime around the peak of the experience while I was hearing in the background the guttural sounds of the spiritual extraction being performed on someone else in the room, I mentally reached out to the 5 pointed star I was seeing and wrenched the angles to a sharper point and made the spike of a 7 pointed star by will. Which action had a particular mental flavor. I felt like I was learning to do magic. I spent a lot of the remainder of the session practicing and pondering this and other 7 pointed imagery (like the crown of the Statue of Liberty).
So one of the things about these medicine ceremonies (as opposed to my experience of most drug trips) is they continue to teach and offer insight well after the chemical part of it is done…
The next day, as Kathy and I are sharing our experiences of the night before I have an apparently unrelated realization about the travel I am planning for 2013.
Background: My dad is keen on WW2 History and just had a cancer scare (all OK for now) and so was motivated to offer to fly me to Europe on his dime to go on a 2 week DDay history tour with him. Mostly with the idea that I could get to Europe for free and do some more Jill Purce workshops ( http://www.healingvoice.com/ ) I said yes.
So what I realized the morning after my night with St Peter is that this trip is going to be a challenge. Obviously because I will be sharing a room with my Dad and we are sort of rebuidling and rediscovering our relationship after a long period of distance and well, a distant childhood too. But more significantly, it seems suddenly, because while when young I was into war history and stuff, since my teens I have been a total peacenik, and in fact I have recently listened to an amazing and erudite total takedown of the whole war thing by Chris Hedges (hat tip Billy). So I am going to be on a 2 week tour that is going to be all about the glorification of the soldier, the “just war,” how awesome it was, the nobility of the cause, the fetishization of the hardware, yadda yadda. So yeah, lots of opportunities for my buttons to be pushed.
And I begin realizing that this whole thing is really addressing this major archetypal challenge written deep into my nature. My personality history, as a war loving young boy turned draft-registration dodger who still loves to play war games. My astrology chart, as a sun moon and Venus conjunct in Aries (ruled by Mars). My upbringing with total disconnection to family and ancestors vs. my descent (Scanlon-Scane land- Scandinavian land in Ireland) from a marauder people. The big shadow my father’s time in the military had over his personality. My unknown maternal grandfather Navy man who knocked up the daughter of a Presbyterian Minister, the daughter of whom, my mother, was put up for adoption. (Just spotted that one— the union and conflict of the soldier-sailor with the minister). The work I did last year with Jill Purce that started scratching the surface of this thing with solidiers as I did family constellation stuff with all these Europeans who are of course all about war history and the effects on their family (another story…)
Anyway, I think you get the point. Major challenge coming up, or opportunity if you like. The work that needs to be done is to alchemically combine within myself these two opposing archetypes into a functioning whole. The Greeks did marry Ares and Aphrodite, so at least the task seems doable.
And then the next day.
I had admired and asked about that necklace http://www.ka-gold-jewelry.com/p-categories/astrology-jewelry.php of our travelling companion Victoria earlier in the trip. We’re on a long bus ride to Lake Titicaca and she hands me the box it came in, which has a little tiny tube with an explanatory scroll rolled up in it.
The necklace depicts the pattern of the orbit of Mars as seen from the Earth, and is an imperfect 7-pointed figure. So here we have some alchemy happening already, tying the major facets of my San Pedro experience together. The 7 sided figure of the ceremony itself, the pattern of mars, the god of war.
So I see a path where I can work productively at a more archetypal level with these energies which in the earthly manifestation of a bunch of war-loving old men might wind me up quite a bit. I can do sacred geometry work starting now, drawing 7 pointed figures becoming familiar and comfortable with this mystical energy, which in the form of Mars means astrologically ambition, motivation, vitality, (Which I had been asking for at the start of my first Ayahuasca session, another story there) and is fundamental to my birth chart.
Which is a good place to end this episode.
The Peru trip was amazing in so many ways… but let’s cut to the chase. What you really want to know about was my drug experiences, right? (if not, stop reading now. Simple eh?)
Soooo in my history there are a variety of drug experiences. Some pleasant, some not. Very rarely the inspired string of synchronicities that felt like I was showing up to a scheduled magical initiation that I hadn’t known was on the agenda.
However, the 2 ayahuasca and 1 san pedro ceremonies in Peru, which sharing some of the physical, emotional, and visual characteristics were really in a class by themselves.
At all 3 there were 2 highly experienced shamans (prefer to be called healers) on hand in a specially constructed space (different for the different medicines {note I am using the language of the practitioners here}). The healers used a variety of apparatus and subsidiary substances (natural tobacco, agua florida an herbal infusion of alcohol blown like fire spitting at the participants when appropriate).
In my experience and those I was with the ceremonies and the aftermath, which still seem to be happening, seem highly intelligently guided, rather than the random mishmash of the typical drug trip. Profound healings and teachings were experienced, from the sort of physical-emotional-mental imprint removal one hears about in the days when LSD was used by psychotherapists before it was made illegal, to far more esoteric exercises in pattern recognition. Again, leaps and bounds beyond the usual trip to one’s local.
So I guess I am saying if this interests you then it is worth the effort to do it right, in a setting of legality and cultural appropriateness. In particular with Ayahuasca, one hears stories, and I know personally one fellow, who did it away from the jungle with a less than top notch healer and had both a frightening experience and weird skin lesions as a result.
My experience: Ayahuasca usually results in vomiting. Unique to our group of 8, I did not purge, but had an interesting experience around this. I found that as long as I stayed “resting in the natural state of the mind,” which is the main part of my meditation practice, I felt fine and could watch the pretty pictures and have a good experience. When I lost track of that, a hot ball of bile would begin to form at the top of my abdomen. A really good reminder to get back to the meditative state. And, it seemed to me, a real cross cultural and cross technique confirmation of the direction of my path, which is toward non symbolic consciousness.
Ya know, it’s kind of hard to write about all this— there is just so much. The hours of visions thoughts and emotions and actually quite a bit of time spent in the following days as things clicked and insights on things as various as kiwiburn admin things to sort that have been bothering me all year and unifying viewpoints of the archetypal challenge of the travel I am planning next year.
So anyway, now that I have been introduced to the plant spirits: according to Pepe, one of our plant healers and tour guides, I can call them without need of substance ingestion, and in fact this would be beneficial and help improve the relationship between me and them.
At this point in my life I have spent a lot of time doing slow thoughtful exercises and have hundreds of hours of mindfulness meditation under my belt. This is my resume for being a practiced observer of my physical emotional and mental state for the science minded out there. In order to relate the following:
My second night home it was late and I was experiencing cravings for the beautiful green goddess (BGG), who I would normally have habitually reacquainted myself as soon as I returned to NZ but had not thus far. My invocation/intention/prayer for my second Ayahuasca ceremony had been to gain wisdom and discipline on the usage of BGG, around which I feel I have some addictive behaviour. So I am craving, my resolve is crumbling, and then I take a look at one of the movie clips I have just uploaded from my computer. This clip is of a full blooded Yagua Indian man I had made a connection with, grandfather age, whose generation is the last that speaks the Yagua language. When he learned I was on a mystical and healing journey he asked me to record for posterity an Icaro (Ayahuasca shamanic song used during the ceremonies by the healer) in his native language.
I listened to the Icaro on my computer and the craving went away and did not return. Experiment repeated successfully a few days later.
So the science story is that I did this myself, though as I said I am a practiced experiencer of myself and I don’t remember anything like this happening before.
The magic story is that his Icaro, which he said was one meant to call the spirit of the plant, did just that, called the spirit of the plant to me and helped deal with the craving, per the invocation of my second ceremony.
No good place to end this post as the story continues. So I stop arbitrarily here.