Gaia Community: Innish's Blog

Leaving the Amazon

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 22:35:28 -0000

Wednesday, June 25, 2008 In the peruvian Amazon, near Iquitos

Today I leave the amazon for Lima. I'll have a few days off to integrate my experiences while I wait for Julie to come on July 30.

So I thought I'd post a few of my favorite photos to give you a flavor of the trip.

I recommend Howard Lawler's Spirit Quest / Choque Chinchay lodge and the spiritual tourshe does. Your mileage may vary, of course, but my expectations were met. I had one major criteria: I wanted a shaman of strong integrity to hold me during this experience. I needed to know that I could relax and trust.

He gave me that.

But above that, I had a comfortable room, beautiful accommodations, wonderful people looking after my every need, and amazing, tasty food.

This isn't an advertisement; just my two cents. I hope to work with him on the Hauchama tour to the Chavin culture. That sounds fascinating.

Enjoy!

The Fifth Ayahuasca Ceremony - A Beautiful Death

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 22:14:35 -0000

Monday, June 23, 2008 In the Amazon, near Iquitos

SpiritQuest Lodge

During the talking stick ceremony today (the afternoon after the fourth ceremony and just prior to the fifth ceremony), Howard said something that stuck in my head. I didn't consciously try to remember it; it simply remained there:

"No matter how relaxed you think you are, you can always be more relaxed."

The fourth ceremony had taken its toll. So many people had difficult physical days--and a few pushed through some extraordinary experiences with her--that many decided not to partake of the fifth ceremony.

I never had a doubt. I knew I wasn't complete, that my experience was still in progress, that my journey led onward. I was very weak from the previous night--the diarrhea was intense, as was the purging by vomiting and sweating/excreting. I didn't know that the eye ducts could put out that type of material.

But I felt clean. Really, really clean. Detoxified. Crystalline, almost.

Three of our group joined me in my room before the ceremony to meditate together. I felt very calm and relaxed when we finished. We had half an hour to complete our individual preparations.

It came to me that I was making judgments in the previous ceremony--I was identifying with a sensation and calling it my pain. Really, all it was was heat, pressure, smell, whatever. So I determined that I would suspend judgment and see it as it was, a sensation, whether a taste, feeling, tension, smell, sight, or what have you.

So my intention that I asked it to consider was to allow me to relax into the teaching without judgments so that we could work together for my healing.

That did the trick.

My first test came immediately. Of the fourteen of us, only three drank on the fifth ceremony. So I was called up first to take my drink of the jungle kool-aid. I recalled how vile the taste was the previous night, which caused my body to shiver and for me to re-live the experience. I could feel the bile in my throat, the nauseous feeling creeping up. This was perfect to illustrate to me just how my mind created the whole scenario. I hadn't even tasted (or smelled it, for that matter)... it was simply my thoughts creating the reality my body was living.

So I went up to the mesa (altar) determined to think of the taste of Ayahuasca as merely a flavor, neither good nor bad. Not even that it was neutral; it was simply a flavor. Instantly I felt better.

The thought of the disgusting taste arose again twice, but I refocused on the idea that it was just a flavor. So when I took the cup in hand, I felt fully centered and in my power, and so I smiled at Don Rober and winked at Howard and drank it with gusto.

It settled well into my stomach and I went back to my seat.

The ceremony seemed to take a while to get started so I waited patiently. When the rattle began, I could hear the same high-pitched hum that I had experienced previously. The numbness crawled up my face.

Of course, I can no longer recall the order of events from then on. But the order doesn't matter, either.

For a while, nothing was shown or heard (except the hum) but the heat rose in my face and body and I began to sweat profusely. I'd remember and relax into it, but I suffered through it for a half hour or more before it occurred to me that every time I vocalized a grunt or let out a heavy sigh (quite often) I was holding on to the sensation with judgment (it's hot) or identification (I'm hot, I'm in pain). When I realized it, everything would go back to neutral. I would feel fine.

The skin on this body was a temperature, and it was moist here, not so much here, more-so here... that sort of thing.

What a discovery!

The entire night changes. From then on if I noticed I felt queasy or uncomfortable, I let go and relaxed into it.

Howard's comment came into my mind... so even though I felt that I relaxed into it, I knew that I could relax a little more. And more. The relaxation would travel like a wave through my body from my head to my toes. Almost like a ratchet. I would relax some... then more... then more.

It became my practice. My diligent practice.

I remember at one point feeling that I'd spill through the webbing in the chairs. I was that relaxed. I remember the thought that they'd find me in a puddle below the chair.

This enabled the visions to come, and they came about in this manner:

I caught myself in a yawn that was identical to one that my father does.... the struggle for breath and swallowing. (My father has advanced parkinson's or lewy-body dementia) And then... I was my dad.

My viewpoint was from behind his left ear... and another part of me became me and we talked. Talking is difficult or impossible with him now as he is often unavailable. But we conversed, and I was able to tell him that I loved him unconditionally, and I hoped that he knew that when he was ready to cross over, he could do so without any worry for those left behind. That he should know that we would be fine. We recapitulated our lives together, shared love and forgiveness.

It was beautiful.

I also saw his death and funeral. I couldn't tell if it was happening in real time (e.g., tonight) or later, but it was sweet. Really, really sweet.

Then I was shown how and where I make my judgments. This teaching was presented as if I was watching video flash cards.

A card would appear and a scenario acted out. I'd see--"there!"--and then it would be replaced by another card with another scene. Same thing. I'd locate the judgment and be shown another.

Then I was shown a bunch of military scenarios and war enactments. I thought: I'm done with this way of reacting and thinking--- and the entire structure of military cards simply folded up on itself and disappeared.

Then I began an intense relaxation exercise which allowed me to experience my own death.

I don't remember how I became aware of it, but I saw myself (or my soul) represented as a white downy feather floating in a blackness. Every time I relaxed, the feather floated downwards a little.

It took a great deal of effort to relax that deeply and I felt my heart stop and functions cease and was entirely without fear of it. It was like going to sleep, but conscious, and I felt and saw the feather penetrate the veil that separates life and death. Then it was dark.

The very next thought I had I was suddenly above the veil again.

And so I went through that process again, and again I drifted through the veil in the same manner. And again, with my next thought, I was up above the veil.

So I did it again.

The entire time I was without fear or disappointment or any feeling other than I knew I needed to try again. This time the veil was not a translucent plane as it had been before, but was instead a flat expanse of water. On the water was a man in a row boat, and next to him was a whirlpool.

Me the feather drifted downwards to the water and was sucked down through the whirlpool quickly and came out as me or the essence of me. I don't remember my shape, only that I was no longer a feather but was a light that I recognized as me.

Waiting for me there was Jesus.

I was shocked--I remember thinking, "what's he doing here?"--but he simply embraced me. I don't recall words, only an all-pervasive love that spread through every atom or wavelet of me. Total acceptance and peace.

And then it occurred to me: I've been asking each time to meet my internal guide and several times I saw Jesus's image but dismissed it as a figment of my collective imagination.

With this I knew that Jesus had appeared because he had appeared to me as a child and that he really was my guide. I also saw that all my life I had held him at arm's length because I was confusing the actions and beliefs of individuals and a bureaucratic organization with the Christed one. But he was not them nor they he.

I knew that I could continue forward on my journey in my own way and Jesus (the person, if you will) would be there for guidance and support. And what better master of the heart could a person ask for as a mentor?

As suddenly as it began, my experience was over. I was back in the malloca, hearing Don Rober's beautiful icaros.

I hadn't purged and I felt incredible.

Complete.

The Fourth Ayahuasca Ceremony

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:43:49 -0000

Sunday, June 22, 2008, in the Amazon near Iquitos

SpiritQuest Lodge

Many times during the day, several of the group members complained that they had not felt "under the influence" during the previous three ceremonies. Don Rober assured that this next batch of ayahuasca would be more powerful. Some members decided that they would drink two cups of the brew so that they would feel it more strongly.

Howard seemed to bristle at the accusations that the initial batch of ayahuasca was not strong enough and that Don Rober would actually make a new batch to correct it. It was a discussion that I didn't want to engage.

It wouldn't matter, it turns out. The fourth ceremony was intense for everyone. Everyone.

The first ceremony's drink tasted intensely green. Each successive ceremony the taste deepened and grew nastier... it seemed to both ferment and become carbonated at the same time that it glopped together and become less viscous, like jello. So drinking it was a little like eating it, and the taste so resembled bile that it turned the stomach even before it touched the lips.

As soon as I drank this batch, I felt a numbness crawl up the right side of my face, and heard a high-pitched whine. Howard would later describe this as the voice of Ayahuasca.

Next came a incredibly loud humming feedback similar to the beginning of a Pink Floyd song, and this sound was less like noise but like a multitude of conversations going on simultaneously. The sound was coming into both ears, but inward, not passing through, a thousand conversations that I knew I would understand at one time but not now. I knew that in some time, I would be able to hear the memory of those conversations, slow them down so that I could understand each one individually... fully understand the message and import of these conversations.

The humming noise appeared concurrently with a smattering of rain on the roof of the malloca and didn't let up until the ayahuasca wore off hours later.

The icaros--the sacred songs to the plant spirits--that Don Rober sang were much faster and more intense than any previous one. Not very long after he began his songs, the first person vomited. Then it was a chorus of puking like bullfrogs in a pond. Each time, I could swear that I heard Don Rober's song lighten with a laugh--not a mean laugh, but one that said, "yes, now you can talk with Ayahuasca. She is here to help you."

I purged on all levels, through all ports. I was in pain, great physical discomfort, but I also did a good job of managing it by not identifying with it and releasing it. Or so I thought. According to those around me, I moaned and groaned a lot.

Visions came fast and furious and I can't remember many, but one stands out: A businessman, dressed in a three-piece suit, wears a robber mask and getup. He walks toward me to a stream that crosses between us. He bends down to drink and a vision of Uncle Sam appears on his back as if it was projected on a screen. Then a vision of Chief Seattle (Sealth) displaces Uncle Sam, and then another indigenous american figure, one after another until I was shown all of the ancestor tribes who walked on this continent.

And then it went further to show me the spaceship that brought the first ancestor here, as well as the alien ancestors before that. Trippy!

I ended my part of the ceremony when my stumbling, lurching trips to the bathroom were spaced only minutes apart. On one journey to the bathroom, i decided to collapse into the bed. I lay there as I heard the icaros and the closing of the ceremony.

Finally, I fell asleep.

Inbetween time...

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:51:51 -0000

Saturday, June 21, 2008, in the Amazon, near Iquitos

SpiritQuest Lodge

Another pleasant day of talking, recovering, and visiting. It seems that all we do is eat, but that's because we have such great food and lots of it, whenever we want, and because we don't do much other than sit around and prepare for ceremony.

Today we visited the Bora tribe. Their traditional clothing is made from tree bark. For the most part, everyone goes topless, though some of the older women (and a few pubescent ones who seem very shy and body-conscious) wear some sort of covering.

Many also wore head-dresses of feathers of a particular parrot--they told me, but I've already forgotten, and it wouldn't matter because it was a bora name--that were bright blue on the facing side, and red underneath. Many also had tinges of yellow.

I find this interesting because I'll later discover the importance of these three primary colors... blue being the color of masculine, the internal god; red the color of the sacred feminine, the internal goddess, and yellow being the color of my internal Christ.

I really liked the outfits and so I bought one of the bark skirts -- they seemed to be unisex -- and a head-dress. I figure that i can use the feathers in my own ceremonies.

In the Bora malloca--their ceremonial hut--we were given a pre-sales presentation of how the tribe makes their yucca bread (which was bland but had great spongy texture), a taste of a mapacho-jelly, made from tobacco and which augments the powdered coca leaves that we were fed. The coca was ground to a fine powder and spooned out of a coconut shell with a coca leaf, which was then put under our tongue. The idea was to let it sit there and mix with saliva until it made a ball and to keep it in the mouth for as long as you could.

Then we saw (and participated in) a traditional dance. This mainly consisted of running back and forth in alternate directions... one line running left, the next running right, etc., with lots of clapping, drumming, and huzzahs.

After the dance, the sales floor opened and it was a general sales frenzy, especially around two of the women who had brought a suitcase of items to give away and trade. Those of us with only a few soles to purchase an item or two were not popular.

-|-

I find that I really like the people who I'm with. I've spent many hours in pleasant conversation discovering these wonderful people. I'm learning that much of the work here is community building. And just the right people joined us here to give me the experience I needed to have.

-|-

A note on the photos:

I didn't bring my camera, and so these images are generously shared by those who did. I can't claim credit, nor can I rightly give credit, as many didn't want their names shared. But I am grateful for their excellent eyes and awareness of so many beautiful moments.

Ayahuasca Ceremony - Third one's a charm

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 05:03:44 -0000

Saturday, June 21, 2008. in the Amazon, near Iquitos

SpiritQuest Lodge

The ceremony last night could best be described as one of intense physical sensations.

When it began, I felt as if she was prying open my head -- as if a laser or chisel was splitting a seam that was already there. I felt all of my hear on end, as if someone was tugging on each.

There was also an intense heat within me... all over... then concentrated in my belly... then moving up my torso to my face. When it hit my face, I sweated profusely. Drops rained from my face and i was for a moment concerned about being too hot. It felt like an intense fever.

I also felt the sensation of traveling by several different modes and through different materials. No visuals accompanied it... just the sensation of movement.

homer with barf bucket. Note to self: don't wear a white shirt

As far as visuals go, and none of this is in order, I remember seeing faces... two distinct faces included Howard (the Shaman who owns the lodge) and Don Rober (the ayahuasquero). Jesus made an appearance. I believe the remainder of the faces were masculine rather than of women. But that's just a feeling.

I witnessed a beautiful dance ritual or ceremony that was going on. The dancers appeared dressed like Hopi Kuchina dolls. They moved around a circle slowly... one of the dancers turned to look at me and we held each other's eyes for a while.

I wonder if all of this happens in non-local, real time, so that the dancers actually saw me -- or the spiritual essence of me or my astral body or whatever terminology we have for this kind of occurrence--and wondered what it was that they saw. A ghost? A spirit? Perhaps I'm in a story told for many years at fireside.

Near the end of the ceremony, I felt myself being roughly thrown to the floor, like in the movies when a kidnap victim is tossed in the basement. Suddenly I realized that I had been taken somewhere and seen and experienced events that I couldn't remember. They're hidden from me for some reason. I have the sense that what I saw and felt will be revealed to me later, when I'm ready.

I'm unsure of how much time passed when I was "gone" but when I returned, the last of five people were on the mat with don Rober. The ceremony was just about to end. I was likely gone more than an hour.

I was exhausted, weak, and dirty after the ceremony, but I lacked the strength even to wash my face. I fell into bed.

I thought that I would sleep fast and deep, but I remained awake without thoughts or activity. Perhaps I slept some; it's hard to say.

I became aware that it was raining. It's such a beautiful sound in the jungle with the woven roofs and the crickets. Then came a tremendous thunder boom and torrential rain pounded the roofs and the trees. I got up and walked out to the veranda. I don't think I've seen that much rain come out of a sky at once.

The lightening was close... thunder immediately followed it. I watched one lightening work its way through a group of clouds; it was so close I could smell it, an ozoney smell like one used to smell when I had a train set as a kid. It snaked it's way through the clouds, hissing and crackling, and then the biggest, loudest, closest thunder clap I've ever witnessed let me know that I wasn't in Kansas anymore. Wow!

I wandered around... it must have been around 4 or 5 by then and it was dark, dark, dark. There was no way to avoid getting wet as it was raining so hard, but I decided I'd like to hang out in the hammock and listen to the rain and watch the sunrise over the river. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes were out in force -- they don't know about the dusk/dawn rule, evidently.

Since it was so close to a ceremony, I didn't want to apply chemicals and so I went back to my room. I slept immediately and deeply.

Ayahuasca Ceremony - Second

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 04:28:27 -0000

Thursday, June 19, 2008 in the Amazon, near Iquitos

SpiritQuest Lodge on the Rio Momon

Last night was our 2nd Ayahuasca session.

Although a couple times I felt nauseous, I didn't purge by vomiting. I began to sweat heavily almost as soon as I took the medicine.

Almost immediately, I saw a white stone jaguar head -- similar or exactly like the symbol for Otorongo Blanco. It felt as if he was checking me out.

Other images came fast and continuous, but were not re-memorable... many faces and a few symbols. It gets hard to remember them after a ceremony, as there is only the sensation of the present, the NOW when you're working with her. Another note about the faces I saw as that some were beautiful and some were menacing, but not one inspired fear or indicated any bad intent.

When Ian vomited, my visual screen instantly changed so that it was more like a relief map or satellite image... a black and white image in high relief, posterized. I couldn't quite make out what it was. I got a sense it was the side of an ancient stone structure, like a pyramid or fortress wall. It could have been the grid to the universe, the matrix structure revealed, for all I know. It was like I had my nose up to the wall; I couldn't get perspective of the whole.

A little later I felt myself pulled upwards, flying through space, though without visuals. The sensation of flying was clear. There was simply the sensation of flight and movement through space.

Later, I felt love blossom in my heart, and then it spread individually around the circle to each person in the ceremony. I would surround a person and i would see his or her face with its clear eyes and beaming smile and I would simply feel love and good wishes of health and happiness for him or her. It went around the circle without exception--even to two participants who were visiting and whom I had only seen in the darkness.

Only now I remembered that one of my intentions was to experience the god-connectedness within each of us. I tried to guide it so that my family and friends would appear in the circle of love, but it stayed with the ceremonial participants.

She took me around the circle again, this time showing me where my triggers were--those actions or sayings that trigger a sense of anger or resistance within me when I see someone else say or do something--and where inside I needed to look and work to change or integrate something I was repressing or blind to. Many of my triggers I knew, but a couple surprised me.

At one time I saw a symbol clearly -- it was foreign, of course. I could make it out as it vanished almost as quickly as it appeared. Actually, it appeared rather boldly and began to dissipate as time went on. It was shaped rough like a flamingo on one leg, and was three-dimensional.

At the end of the ceremony, Don Rober called me out onto the mat and had me lay down. He pulled up my shirt, looked for a spot and then blew smoke on it. He began to extract from my sternum area by sucking and spitting, gagging as he pulled out stuck energy or other hoocha, I guess. He extracted four times and then sprinkled some agua de florida -- a scented concoction of alcohol and essential oils that energetically cleanses an area--and then began to beat my belly with a chakuna--one of the leafy rattles he uses as he sings his icaros.

I was one of the first persons out and about the next morning. I waited for my cold flower bath and was impressed that Don Rober, the maestro, was up and singing, even though he had spent the previous day in consultations with the participants and conducted a ceremony that lasted till 3 AM. Here it was 7:30 and he was up and at it.

But then again, so was I.

Steps on the Path

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 22:55:17 -0000

I've been doing this dance for the past week or so.

On the one hand, I'm still feeling the current of electrical charge and the power of love coursing through my energetic body. I know I'm loved, love, and connected to all that is. I've been held with the timeless, immense love beyond death. (More on that in a later post.)

And I'm doing, in addition to being.

I just finished the first version of my Steps On The Path website and invite you to look it over and comment.

The site is designed for spiritual seekers and energy healers. Currently, the booklet that I created for documenting and journaling energy sessions is the only "product" on it and I've added the healing sessions as a paypal links, but my focus is now on the fleshing out of the site with information.

please stop by and let me know what you think.

love--

The Rest between Ayahuasca Ceremonies

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:51:50 -0000

Wednesday, June 18, 2008. In the Amazon, near Iquitos, Peru

A quiet morning. I awoke around 7 and made my way to the dining malloca for tea and quiet time.

Yesterday was pretty much a day of rest and recapitulation. Today we're having consultations with the shaman about our experiences with the first ceremony. Then we visit the Yakuna trie which lives nearby, and then we have the second ceremony late tonight.

My intention for the first ceremony was to introduce myself to the medicine and cleanse me so that the teachings could penetrate me.

My intention for the second ceremony will be to open my heart to prepare me for love and fearlessness. Perhaps to give me a glimpse beyond the doorway of our normal perception. I want to better see and understand our energy body and its relationship to creation. So whatever we can do to move forward along those lines will be welcome.

I"m beginning to realize that a fundamental part of this work is the building of community. There are 14 of us participating (two are not partaking of the ayahuasca but are attending ceremony) and we are each letting down our barriers. It's hard to keep up walls when we all barf together.

The First Ayahuasca Ceremony

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:40:14 -0000

Tuesday, June 17, 2008 in the Amazon near Iquitos, Peru

The ceremony was quite beautiful.

Ayahuasca didn't taste as vile as described in books or articles that I had read prior to coming. Intensely green is about the closest I could come to it. It was thick and everyone took a cup of it. Some cups were fuller than others; the shamen seemed to vary the amount based on the person receiving it.

I could feel it moving throughout my body and began to see visions fairly quickly, though they were faint and transient.... before forming into one shape completely, they would morph into another.

During the icaros, I felt myself singing along and dancing as if in a dream.

During one of the later icaros, I saw clearly a stream full of serpents-- not quite at eye level; I seemed to be on a road and seeing at road level with the snakes in a ditch to the side of it.

In general, I felt this twining, double-helix viney growth rip through me... the direction seemed always upward.

At one point, I opened my eyes and looked up to the ceiling of the malloca--the ceremonial hut we were in--and saw the universe with a whirl of stars inside the malloca.

Near the end of the ceremony I suddenly felt very hot--I began to sweat profusely--and filushed and as if all my hairs were being pulled out. Not long after that, I purged by barfing. I didn't have much to give, but I gave what I had.

Afterwards, I felt very light-headed and unstable.

The ceremony ended after 2 AM. Almost 6 hours. Where did the time go?

I slept until 7:15 or so and then got up and had my flower bath with DR.

Reading about the flower bath that follows each ceremony, it's easy to get romantic about it. Ah, the shaman would bathe you in a specially prepared bathwater with rose petals and exotic flowers of the jungle. Right. The reality is much more like this: you sit down in your skivvies and he blows tobacco over your still-weak body and then dumps cold water with lots of leafy matter and flowers all over you. And then he beats your head with a leaf rattle as he whistles a tune three times. It's brisk and shocking to your system, and it is designed to be so. It seals your body after having been opened up so widely with the Ayahuasca.

It really did smell wonderful. We were encouraged to leave the scent on us for as long as we could. I waited until mid-day to take my shower. (The showers were solar heated, so if you wanted a hot shower, you tried to take it after lunch but before too many others took theirs. Otherwise, it was amazon-river temp.)

I was amazingly hungry and so went down to eat.

In the amazon... preparing Ayahuasca

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:24:49 -0000

Monday, June 16, 2008. In the Amazon, near Iquitos, Peru

Today we helped make the Ayahuasca brew... the psychotropic medicine that the amazonians have used for hundreds of years to heal and receive visions and information from the plant spirits.

The jungle shaman, Don Rober (DR), and his son, Carlos, beat the large vine to a pulpy mix and we questers tore up the chicaruna and borbanzoga leaves--and some others--into fine bits, and then we headed out into the jungle to watch them boil and brew the stuff.

DR sang icaros--songs to awaken the spirit of the ayahuasca and the other plant additions.

Every plant has its own song, and he knows hundreds of songs. I was able to record our last ceremony and I'll post an excerpt with his beautiful whistling and singing after I return.

I smoked my first cigarette today...actually two of the natural peruvian tobacco mapachos, as they're called. We did so to send our intentions for the ayahuasca ceremony and open sacred space to the seven directions... South, West, North, East, Earth, Heaven, and the inner dimension.

The mapachos made me a little giddy. The taste was to remain with me during the entire ceremony.

After we completed our personal ceremonies to the seven directions, Howard Lawler {Howard is the owner of SpiritQuest, the jungle lodge, and is the principal shaman. He goes by the medicine name of Otorango Banco -- the white jaguar. I'll abbreviate his name as OB} blew mapacho smoke into our head and crown chakras and DR patted our heads with a leaf rattle as he whistled an icaro. I could feel the energy blow clean through my body and into my limbs.

So far I'm very happy with the high level of integrity that I feel is given to the ceremony and the entire process.

May I be open to receive the healings of the plant spirits and accept the healing in each of my cells.

***

It's so damp here. Everything is limp.

***

It's raining now. Almost 8 PM. At 8:30 we'll have our first ceremony. I'm a little nervous. Trepidation, it's called.

It rained this hard last night, too. Buckets of rain, falling on the thached roofs. It helped me sleep. I imagine it will help with the ceremony, too.

Lima Being

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:25:41 -0000

Well, I´m in Lima, Peru... integrating the experiences from the time I spent in the Amazon. Julie flies in tomorrow (actually only a few hours away... 2 in the AM) and then we travel to Nazca, Paracas, Arequipa, and end up in Cuzco for my 50th birthday on July 5th.

I´d love to write more about the time in the amazon with mother ayahuasca. what an experience. Unfortunately, I haven´t yet mastered the latin spanish keyboards and their unique key arrangements.... and so it takes a little longer to write and lots of editing and corrections.

Briefly, I went to Iquitos and then was ferried to Howard Lawler (don Otorongo Blanco)´s SpiritQuest Shamanic Retreat some forty minutes upriver. Great place. Amazing food.

The ayuahuascero, don Rober, was amazing... he held the space strongly and with integrity. I have a lot of respect for his work (he has to smoke an amazing amount of tobacco in the course of his job) and his voice as he sang the icaros was amazing. I recorded some, and so when I get a chance to download them, I´ll post them so that you can hear a sample. Fortunately, I recorded the last of the five ceremonies and most of the purging was complete by then, so the icaros are without the symphonic accompaniment of barfing and calls for ¨baño!¨

Something that Howard said the afternoon before the 5th session stayed with me and actually became the core of my experience in the ceremony. ¨No matter how relaxed you are, you can always relax a little more.¨

I´m not sure even what it referred to, but my mind keyed in on it and even before I drank my little cup of jungle juice (as my mind recalled the body memories of how vile the stuff tasted), I began to relax into it and put forth a sincere conscious effort to avoid any sort of judgement. ANY. so the vile taste of the ayahuasca became simply a flavor, neither good or bad. just a sensation. And it went down without so much as a flinch.

So the experience went... any time I found myself breathing a heavy sigh, i knew I was making a judgement and holding on, so I released the judgement and relaxed. release and relax. release and relax. At one point, I was so relaxed I thought that I might actually pour myself through the webbing in the chair, like jello.

Anyway, the experience continued to get even better... just pure sweetness and love. I died three times... it seemed to be important that I go through the process more than once, but because I was so relaxed, the experience was one of sweetness and floating into death instead of the violent surrender that some of my compatriots had to endure the previous session.

Beautiful, beautiful. Thank you thank you thank you.

Moving [energy/location/stuff]

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:20:58 -0000

Today is the day I travel to Peru. Or so I thought.

I got all dressed and showed up at the airport only to find that my flight is scheduled for tomorrow.

hmmm.

Spirit does some funny things. If I take responsibility for all of our actions and know that everything in the universe is the result of some mad play, I have to look at what it means. This is the first time I've done this; and when I look back on all of my correspondence and voice mail changes, I said the 12th of June. When I look at the calendar (even the itinerary I did just a couple of days ago for friends and family) it says the 13th.

Over the past two weeks, we've been clearing and cleaning as we divested ourselves of a great deal of "stuff" -- hundreds of pounds of books and boxes from the basement and the attic of memories that I've been carrying around with me for ages -- as we moved out of our house and in with a lovely friend who has allowed us to stay with her and store our goods as we travel in South America. It's been wild and crazy trying to fit all of it in over the past few days.

But now, I'm on vacation. I'm moving life. Moving energy. Moving myself and my heart with each step that I take in this moment. I think Life really loves movement.

So, my travels begin today, though I don't board the plane until tomorrow.

I think I'll go for a hike in the hills with Julie and enjoy this beautiful Spring day.

Thank you thank you thank you.

movement is good

Tue, 27 May 2008 12:19:10 -0000

Well, it's official that we've given notice to move out of our cute little bungalow in Salt Lake City's Avenues neighborhood.

I'm going to Peru in mid-June for 50 days (to celebrate my 50 years), and my partner Julie is joining me on June 30th for the month of July, so it made sense to let it go.

Plus, we simply weren't willing to commit to another year in this house--Julie finds it a bit too close to the neighbor's house, which blocks out the morning light, her favorite--or this city, so we've decided to leave it open.

We're wide open as to where we'll end up. East coast, West coast, Hawaii, Europe, or--if we like it--South America. We'll worry about money later.

There's a certain levity in simply listening to your heart and letting it choose what feeds it and then challenging the mind figure out how to make it work. The mind is really good at that.

I'm leaning towards buying some acreage and starting an organic farm (small-scale) and orchard, where we will then open a weekend retreat healing center that will cater to the four bodies of each guest... the physical, mental, spiritual, and etheric. Julie is a wonderfully intuitive massage therapist, and we both are Reiki Okudens and are each trained in the Shamanic tradition. Ofuro baths--a Japanese tub where the soaker sits instead of laying down--are one of our favorites as well as an excellent way to release energy and ground oneself--would definitely be included. (I'm working on a design for one heated by wood stove.)

As would ceremony.

Believe it or not, living here in Salt Lake City was my first time living in a city neighborhood. I've always lived on the fringes or in more rural environments. While I love the ability to walk to coffee shops, grocery stores, and our favorite Ofuro bath spot (The Kura Door), I find it a bit too close for my taste. Our neighborhood is quiet and very peaceful--Thank You!--but there's something about being able to go out and pick some fresh fruit for breakfast, naked before god and man, or lie out in the back yard on a blanket with your sweetie watching the stars. I do miss that.

There's also something about being able to grow almost everything that you eat--at least seasonally--and knowing that it was planted, tended, and harvested with love and gratitude. I love that you can actually taste the sunshine stored in a fresh-picked apricot. And if love has a taste, I'm guessing it's something like a warm fig eaten on the ladder.

What's in a (new) name?

Thu, 22 May 2008 04:57:49 -0000

I have decided that on my 50th birthday I would change my name. I made this declaration when I turned 49, 10 months ago. On my vision quest, I tried out the name Ki Sugati. While I like it in concept, it sounded so hard when spoken. It wasn't exactly lilting. It had about it more of that germanic or danish glottal stop.

My initial choice, way back when I had decided that I might change my name, was Innish. I like that name. I'm celtic and danish (and italian) and somehow that name came tripping off the tongue. I thought that, well, no man is an island, and maybe it wouldn't work so well.

Trouble is, I like it. (You'll notice that the original name I signed up with Zaadz was innish, and my address here is innish.gaia.com.)

Numerologically, Inis works out best, to a 10. (At a recent class, a classmate--Forest--nicknamed me Skye. I like that, too. An island of sky. A sky island. There's a dreamlike quality to it. Skye works out to 11.)

There's the nuisance of nicknames, of course. Innie? Bound to get jokes about that one. But no more than I currently get for Homer. Oy.

And then there's the inevitable questions as to how to spell it.

I'm thinking about the last name--I want to be completely self-referencing and sourcing from the future--and so far I'm enchanted by the poem by Keats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree. An island of freedom? I'm jiggy with that. Otherwise, I may just be one of those one-namers. In fact, I might be an Innish, free of a last name.

So, please, bear with me while I try it on for a while.

Meanwhile, enjoy the poem, as I do:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Vision Quest III: The Naming

Mon, 19 May 2008 18:11:35 -0000

I grew exceptionally tired after all of that arguing and praying, and the surrender of knowing that it would end the next day removed all of the trying and wanting. There was only the doing.

I remembered that one of Bear Heart's teachings was to hug a tree for a day and listen to the wisdom of the tree. This was partly the reason I chose this spot: the grandfather juniper (an alligator juniper, I was to later find out). So I greeted it and honored it and wrapped my arms around it and asked it to meet with me.

No.

Hmmm. Maybe I mis-heard. I asked again.

Grandfather! I greet and honor you who have seen so many seasons. I ask that you share with me your wisdom, the plant wisdom, the wisdom of the one-leggeds.

Go Away! Your kind has done enough damage to me.

Oh.

I released my grip and sent Reiki, which is really love energy, to it. I apologized for my kind's actions, and felt my heart pulse love into this tree. After a while it softened. Still, i honored it's request. Plant medicine will just have to wait until I get to the Amazon.

I asked about sitting on it's stump and received a positive answer. I could sit there and meditate and observe. It really wanted me to observe.

There was a small pine growing just outside of the circle. It seemed to respond to my thoughts or sayings by waving slightly, whether the wind was blowing or still. Didn't seem to matter to it. I imagined one thing or another, but settled on the idea that it was best to simply see it as a tree and feel my connection to it, to the land around it, and to the land and space around them.

I was tired and almost fell from the stump when I dozed off.

So I lay down for a nap and I slept for a few hours. I awoke and continued my praying and walking. While the sleep was dreamless, the waking was filled with more of the same visions. While they were dark, they weren't horrific. They were simply shown as matter-of-fact; specific dates and actions, battles where the outcome was not fixed in time, energetic wars not on the same physical plane as this, and what seemed like an epic battle where technology battled organic... the best that man can do against the best that the environmental, wind, tidal, seismic, chronologic, and spiritual powers could give.

I saw the medicine people of all races and cultures banding together; warring during dreamtime and using their powers of invisibility, journeying, and time-stoppage to battle the technology.

The final outcome seemed weighted heavily against technology; and that seemed appropriate.

What survived was community. Community of like-minded souls. What had been global, was now local. A great re-learning, a great forgetting, and a new way for a new people.

I saw my new farm in the NorthEast. That was sweet.

As the sun began to go down, I thought that I could use a dose of self-discipline (not that the quest wasn't discipline enough, but I felt I needed something right then, something immediate), so I decided that I would stand still until the sun set. It was only to be an act of minor importance because I thought that the sun would set behind a stand of trees to my west in forty-five minutes or so. Not so. When it got to the trees, I realized that I could still see the sun's shape very clearly.

Almost two hours later, it was completely gone and, shivering, I hopped in my blankets and bivvy. When I made my declaration to stand until the sun set, I was wearing a t-shirt. Up there, the sun is strong and warm as long as it shines on you. When it no longer does, the air temperature kicks in. Oh, it was cold.

I figured that I'd enjoy watching the stars come out, as I had done the night before. However, I was asleep almost immediately. This sleep was dreamless and deep. I was warm the whole night through, though a wind was blowing and people in camp later said that it was 17° that night. I woke a couple of times to watch the night sky, my star cousins. But no matter what I did, I fell asleep within minutes.

I awoke once to see three orbs of light come from almost directly north (maybe 10° to the East) that went shooting off in three different directions.

Back to sleep. More shooting stars. Back to sleep. The whirl of stars continued overhead as I slept deeply. Stillness amidst the movement.

Once, I felt the presence of a large cat--this was mountain lion country--behind me, and I greeted it silently and rolled over. I felt the cat sprayed my area. Was it my own personal jaguar archetype checking things out? I don't know. I slept on.

When I awoke, the sun was up 30° or so. The next day, I would check the time and it would have been around 8:30. So for almost 12 hours--half a revolution of the earth--I had slept and recovered in a dreamless void. It felt as if I had disencorporated, evaporated, dispersed my atoms over the world and then reassembled them in the morning.

My bivvy had moisture inside; I was so warm that I had perspired and it trapped it. Maybe in a different circumstance I might have thought to drink it, but I knew I'd be drinking soon. I could wait.

I re-freshed the directions, thanking them for sitting with me and protecting my space. I cleansed my mesa stones and thanked them. I sang a song to the creator. I pledged myself to service. I looked around at this beautiful space, this beautiful tree, the surrounding area. Cloudless blue sky. In the distance, I could see the Very Large Array (VLA) of radio telescopes still searching in their narrow-spectrum way.

With the sun up that high, it was already getting warm. So I stripped and took a cloth bath with some bathing wipes that I brought along. I was impressed at how they worked and lifted my mood. I was already pretty content and feeling at-one, but to be mostly clean and feeling that way was a treat.

I decided I liked being nekkid, and so I stayed that way for a while. After all, it's just me and Spirit after all. And I thought that actually removing my clothes and standing in front of Spirit with nothing to hide, nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed of would lift it from the metaphoric to the actual. It was great.

I was visited by three hummingbirds, one of which hovered right in front of my third eye for a spell. Swallows performed a three-act aerial ballet right in front of the circle. A hawk landed in a nearby tree and called out. A raven circled overhead.

I dressed, picked up my prayer stick, and began walking clockwise around my mesa. Suddenly, two or three jets flew through the valley below me at full after-burner and let loose a few bombs just over the hill. Was White Sands that close? And why would it be quiet all week and have bombing on a Saturday?

I looked for the jets but they were invisible. A Cloaking device? I know it sounds silly or paranoid, but I'm usually pretty good at tracking aircraft. All that time in the Air Force Academy, I guess. I could not track them. I tried in my shamanic seeing states. No luck.

Another round of jets and bombs came through a half hour later or so. Same deal.

Was this the confirmation I asked for? Was this Spirit telling me that the images and story that came to me were for real? I almost didn't dare ask or doubt. Spirit has a history of raising the stakes on doubters. When you can no longer ignore the slapdown, it lets up.

Later, when I asked, no-one else noticed the jets or the bombing. Hmmm.

I let it go. It was what it was. The vision didn't require action until events were in motion, as larger events already were in motion. My time to act wasn't here yet. My role not yet defined.

The remainder of the morning was sweet. I stayed in the circle for a few hours after noon. I don't think I was reluctant to leave so much as savoring the quiet and the connection that I knew would dim somewhat after rejoining the group.

When I was ready, I walked back to camp. I was met there by the Sponsor and Julie, who had moments before finished her sweatlodge. I talked about my experience and we discussed it.

Eagle Eye gave me my new medicine name: Vision Keeper.

I drank a couple of quarts of water and ate a bite or two. I greeted others and gently reintegrated myself.

The final going-out sweat was a formality for me at that stage. My quest had come to an end.

Perhaps it has but paused.

The bright day of the soul can be as harrowing as the dark night

Wed, 07 May 2008 14:20:29 -0000

In an earlier trip, I had to deal with the fears that somehow creep up on us from some deep ingrained societal urge for security and a need to overpower that which is other. Fear of the unknown. As I lay there that first night, I would occasionally get a little daydream (for I was awake) that a bear or cougar might wander by (there were droppings and prints, after all) and then I'd witness the unfortunate encounter... sometimes I'd slay, sometimes I'd be slain or maimed, sometimes we would simply watch and avoid each other.

This brought to mind one of my favorite Rilke essays:

We are set down in life as in the element to which we best correspond, and over and above this we have through thousands of years of accommodation become so like this life, that when we hold still we are, through a happy mimicry, scarcely to be distinguished from all that surrounds us. We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors, they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abysses belong to us; are dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust and find most faithful.

I dismissed each of them nearly as soon as they arrived. I figured that if they were to come, I would deal with it then, but for the moment I would remain, well, in the moment.

I took this new development as a sign of progress. Perhaps, even, that I had in my short time become so much like my new environment that I was not to be distinguishable from it.

So oddly enough, during the entire ordeal I saw no four-leggeds at all... not even a squirrel. Birds came aplenty. Ravens checked me out. I saw one eagle in the far distance. Two hawks landed in trees just outside the circle and called out. A troupe of swallows performed above me, around me, and once, just in front of me. Three hummingbirds came by; one hovered by my face for a while, but evidently didn't find me full of nectar.

I was extraordinarily tired all day. I almost fell from my stump twice. I stood in the sun to try to get warm.

I discovered one major shortcoming from my site choice. When I chose it, the afternoon was fine and hot and the wind was still. Now, it was blowing quite hard and the sun was blanketed in leaves for almost all day. It had dropped to 19 the first night; the second night was to be 17.

Since I had knocked over my altar, I decided to carry my prayerstick all day and walk clockwise around my mesa. My mesa is my medicine bundle... a woven cloth containing the stones I've worked with as I progress on my studies and which I use in healings. Only one is a crystal; most are common rocks I've found and thought interesting and connected to, and developed a relationship during the self-healing process. I have three for each direction (none yet for the East, as I'm still working on my North process), a pi stone that looks like a donut that was used to give me the Munay Ki rites and transmissions, a lineage stone from Peru's Asangate mountain with the blood of my teacher on it, and a heart-shaped stone that technically isn't in my mesa but which I plan to use for my East.

I picked this stone up up on the beach near San Simeon after Julie and I performed a ritual of gratitude for the ocean (the sea of mountains). The North work is one of ancestors... an the wisdom-keepers of the mountains (a mountain is called an "apu" in Q'echua). One of our homework assignments was to return home and give a despacho or ceremonial offering to come into right relationship with the mountains of our birthplace. I was born in Folsom, which is in the Sierra foothills, but I've always felt more at home and have lived around oceans and large bodies of water my entire life (except for short spells that seemed too long... as even this six months in Salt Lake City has pushed to the surface my deep need to feel the energy of water). So on our way to southern New Mexico, we detoured to the Pacific.

The ceremony was beautiful. It's one of those ineffable feelings that falls flat when described, so I'll simply mention that we both felt very peaceful and complete as we buried our little offering bundle in the sands below the high-tide mark underneath a cliff. Tiny flowers-- perhaps they were there before we began--bloomed on the hillside, uncomplaining of their tough life and so appreciative of the crash of the waves and the soft wind and spray. We closed directions, alternating taking the lead in addressing our thanks and gratitude for this wonderful opportunity. As soon as we stepped back, two beautiful heart-shaped rocks were by my feet. I felt immediately drawn to one; Julie to the other.

So this rock sits in my mesa. I feel it has the right, surrounded as it is by the aura and power of love.

One of the fellow questers had gifted me a deer-skin pouch that she had sewed from leather that Grandfather Bear Heart had given her and which he had tanned himself. She decorated it with his icon... a bear claw with a heart in the middle. It's really quite simply beautiful.

In this pouch I placed the lineage stone and I hung it around my neck as I walked around my circle. I decided to place all of the prayers I had into my prayer stick. So I began with the eldest in my family, my 94-year old grandfather Ed, and went down the list of each family member, their partner, children, and pets. I prayed for each of my friends, my allyu (tribe), acquaintances, those I didn't know. I prayed for Bush and Cheney, other administration members and leaders of countries. Soldiers, civilians brutalized alike. I prayed for an end to war, hunger, poverty, hatred. I prayed for all beings... may they be happy, healthy, and safe from harm.

My prayers weren't so much for any boon, but simply an expression of my deep gratitude for the pleasure of their company, for the lessons, both difficult and beautiful, for the work they do, for their happiness and liberation. Well, perhaps I did pray for a boon that our world leaders would source from their heart instead of fear.

I prayed and walked, walked and prayed, and the monotony and constancy of this praying dissolved the chill from the night, bloomed my heart, and gave me such a deep appreciation for where I was.

And then the visions began.

Some were simple, some beautiful, but many were apocalyptic. All were detailed.

I won't describe what I saw-- I'm still processing them -- and I hope you won't mind too much that I'm leaving that out. I have to honor that feeling.

And honestly, I'm not sure what was inspired and what was a product of my over-active fiction writer's mind. I'm always coming up with book ideas and plot lines.

I began to argue with the Creator, asked him to clear them out of my head. I want sweetness and beauty... to see my path clearly. I don't want to be a warrior this life. I've done that many lifetimes before.

I asked for a sign. I begged for confirmation. I negotiated. I screamed, "I'm cooked! I'm cooked!" And as soon as I said it, I knew that I was not cooked enough, that I still needed my time in the spiritual fire to truly learn deep surrender. It isn't that I doubted Spirit; I doubted myself.

I sang a sweet song that came to me, offering my service and love.

And then a decision formed in my throat and I spoke it aloud with more conviction that I had ever in my life.

I will end my quest tomorrow when the sun reaches directly overhead.

Was I threatening or challenging Spirit? I'd look at that more closely as the day went on.

And then this phrase came into my mind:

Power over others is slavery

power over self is mastery

Oh, this was to be a long day.

Vision Keeper

Tue, 06 May 2008 12:58:45 -0000

Just returned from the mountain and am currently enjoying the hot springs of Ojo Caliente, NM.

The vision quest was an interesting experience... I'm not sure that I'll want to do it again, at least in this form, and I'll need some time to process the information that I received.

The quest site was moved from Cloudcroft, NM due to fire concerns (the area has received only 1.2 inches of precipitation this year) to a remote site in the Cibolla Natiional Forest outside of Magdelena. We arrived late at night two nights before the quest was to begin. We took my 84 Westfalia campervan. On the way, a deer jumped from the side of the road directly in front of the Westy. Julie gasped and I hit the breaks and the Westy responded beautifully. I think less than a few inches separated us at one point. Everything inside was packed tightly, so only small items went flying.

Within a few hundred feet, we also surprised a beautiful bull and cow elk couple, and an antelope. We drove much more slowly after that. The only animals we saw from then on were jack rabbits, most of which simply stepped off the road, but some of which decided it would be fun to run in front of the Westy back and forth along the road. For one persistent rabbit, I stopped completely so that he could get off to the side. He did, but as soon as I started again, he ran back onto the road and zig-zagged in front of me again. Oy! (No animals were hurt during our drive, but some were a bit frightened or surprised, including us huminals.)

We passed the Very Large Array (VLA) of radio telescopes--featured in the movie "Contact"--and finally made our way into camp. It was remote, wild camping, so we simply found a somewhat level spot between the piñon trees, popped the top, said our hellos, and fell asleep into deep, exhausted dreamland.

The next day we built the inipi (sweat lodge) and set up camp. Jules and I hiked around until I found my spot in the wild... a lovely shaded spot with a grandfather juniper tree that must have been 5 or 6 centuries old. One part of its trunk was cut and so I knew that stump to be my primary resting spot.

If you recall, prior to this journey I had an underworld extraction done by Staci Tye, and in that session she saw a strong vine take hold within me. I felt that the connection to the grandfather tree would assist me in integrating the plant medicine. (Especially since I have a June trip planned to Peru's Amazon where I'll be studying and working with the plant medicines there.)

The next morning we held a pipe ceremony and held a four-door, 28-stone sweat lodge. The winds had come up so we weren't able to build a fire, and so the stones were heated on propane burners. The host and the seven female questers went in first, then the three male questers, and then the female and male supporters. All in all, it was crowded and I think I began to sweat even before the first stone was placed in the pit.

I'm not a "native" and don't claim to know or understand the Lakota traditions, so I watched closely and followed along with what the host and others were doing. A "door" in the four-door description, indicates a session where afterwards the door is opened and additional rocks are added. Each door added seven stones, so the second door had a total of 14, the third, 21, and the fourth, 28. The heat builds with each door, though the opening of the door lets in some welcome light and fresh air.

Each door had a focus: the first was on prayers of gratitude, where we each said aloud what we were grateful for. The second was for those not present, the third was for ourselves, and the forth was for something else. (Note: I'll have to verify this, as I'm a little fuzzy on the details.)

During the third round, we passed around water and were able to drink or offer the drink to someone or something else (the earth, a fellow quester, the drought-stricken areas of Africa, etc.). This was to be our last drink until after we returned from our quest.

After the sweat, we changed clothes and our supporter brought us to our spot. Julie walked me there in silence and we kissed and she left and from then on it was me and the wind and the sun and the stars.

I called in the four directions with deep gratitude, opened my mesa and set up a small altar for my prayer stick. (We were instructed to bring a pipe or prayer stick and so I improvised, not finding specific directions either from the internet or from native americans I asked.)

I sat on the stump and felt so immediately and deeply connected with everything. I felt the energy pulsing up and down my spine, deep into the earth, through me, and up into the heavens, and then back through me and into the earth, and again and again. The sky was a brilliant, cloudless blue, the land was dry gold, and the trees were that deep evergreen. Connecting the evergreen to the gold were strong lines of black trunks. It was beautiful.

As I sat there, I saw a procession of elders come towards my circle. Alongside them was another procession, this time of animals. Elephants led, followed by lions, water buffalo, and others. It was magical. They split as they reached my circle and the elders went clockwise and the animals counter until I was fully surrounded. I felt so protected.

I sat and waited and observed. It was so still and yet the wind was blowing constantly. I could just see the VLA and I watched them all turn in synchrony from one direction to the other. Seeking, like many of us, in this corner or the next.

I kept knocking over the altar rebuilding it. (The altar example I saw had two Y-shaped sticks holding a cross-stick on which the prayer stick was laid.

When night came, I realized that I was woefully unprepared. Being the unabashed romantic that I am (after all I AM on a vision quest), I decided against a sleeping bag and decided to instead use a wool blanket. Yeah, well it dropped down to 17 degrees that night and the wind was blowing at about 20 MPH. I'm not sure what the wind-chill calculates to, but it hovered somewhere around "fricking cold" and "ca-ca-ca-ca-cold." I couldn't stop shivering. I stayed up all night. Fortunately, I remembered that on our last stop in Flagstaff, we happened to see and buy an emergency space bag for the van, and I had it with me in my little duffle. I crawled into it and I think it saved my toes. They were numb and honestly I believe I was courting frostbite. Not very romantic, if you ask me, and certainly not the partner I'd seek.

So I stayed up all night, knocking about in my emergency bivvy wrapped in a wool blanket and watching a sky filled with the most amazing collection of stars. I counted shooting stars (11), and the most amazing colored lights splashed across the milky way in slow pulses. More magic. I was facing North, and the time went so slowly, I watched the whole pantheon of stars pirouette around the north star. I was struck by the grandeur of a strong, gnarled arm of juniper silhouetted against the uncountable spray of night suns.

There I was, spoiled son of creation witnessing the void from which all comes and into which all goes. The unmanifested made manifest. And like those stars, my head and perceptions spun on the pole on which society and my culture had affixed them.

An insight: I looked around and could see the landscape clearly. One could easily hike on this moonless night and only stumble or bump against the darkest branches in the star shadows. Yet back home, the nights seem so pitch black. I felt that our artificial lights over-trumped the natural glow of stars, in the same way our intellectualism blocks the natural light of wisdom that is available to each of us as our natural inheritance.

During the night, my shivering knocked over the altar twice (I repositioned it each time) and, when I kicked it yet again in the morning, I asked, "What's up with this? Why do I keep knocking down the altar?"

You are the Destroyer of Forms. Of Structure.

Oh. "Well, what shall I replace it with?"

Nothing.

Oh.

Spirit talks in such deep tones.

I'll write more later. Right now, I'm thinking of breakfast. :-)

Shamanic Session with Staci Tye: Underworld Extraction

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 05:17:59 -0000

Wow! I just had the most amazing shamanic energy healing session with Staci Tye. Staci is a graduate from Alberto Villoldo's Four Winds Society school (Healing the Light Body), but she's really made it her own, becoming a clear channel for Spirit to come through. And boy did it!

So here's what happened in my session:

I met with Staci and we talked a bit about what was going on. Basically, I felt great. I had just returned from a weeklong class / retreat and felt recharged and awesome. But one day in the class I felt really tired and I skipped the exercise that day. It felt like something was up, but I couldn't place my finger on it.

So I chose a stone from her mesa (her medicine bundle) and blew into it my intention for healing and releasing what I needed to get free of. I lay down on her massage table and focused on my breathing as she called in the directions and opened sacred space.

She found that the root chakra was spinning counterclockwise and so was affected by this issue. While she was checking things out, the energetic head of a serpent poked his head up from within me and looked at her, as if only the eyes were above water and they were sizing her up.

When she began the healing, a guide told her that she needed to do an underworld extraction. It said that this would be very good for me... a way to open space within my energy field for the experience that I was approaching. She asked the guide if it would accompany her and it handed her a larger crystal and said that yes it would, but she'd need to use this.

So she and the guide went to the underworld. They called on the gatekeeper, who showed up strangely as a preppy college guy with blond hair and an oxford shirt. When she asked if it would be a good day for her to enter his domain, he said primly, "Yes. Please come in. I think you'll find that everything here is exactly fine." This struck her as odd (the gatekeeper had never appeared that way before, nor talked with such stilted phrasing) and false. But she decided to go in.

She asked the guide where she should start. He said to go to the chamber. (Chamber of wounds?)

In the chamber was a person resembling me bound by the coils of a huge serpent. The snake was not choking or strangling me; it just bound me tightly. My doppleganger said to her: I'm okay. It's been like this for a while. I'm used to it." She didn't think it was okay. The serpent was very powerful and unwilling to budge.

So Staci called on help and a line of elders walked in on each side of the serpent. The snake couldn't resist their presence, and so began to uncoil.

Staci asked Mother Earth (Pachamama) if it would be okay for her to release the snake into the earth. The mother said that yes, in fact, she needed the energy of that snake to create a crystal that she required.

So the elders escorted the serpent out of the chamber and it dissolved into the earth.

After it dissolved, she connected to source and brought light into my root chakra to eliminate any affinity I might have that might cause that binding energy to return. She watched the light enter my body and said that usually it comes in as a golden light and spirals around the chakra as it sinks into the body, but this time it came in as golden light and changed into a plant, a vine. It was definitely a medicine plant, not simply a vine.

Then she went down to check in again on the chambers to make sure that the underworld chambers were clean, and saw golden bubbles, shimmering and moving across all surfaces.

Finally, she was instructed to hold her finger to my 3rd eye to represent the physical shift that I would now source directly from the 3rd eye rather than from a lower chakra.

When she took her hand off me and released the energy of the serpent to the earth, I physically felt a weight lift off my chest. It was very cool. When she told me later what happened, it made perfect sense.

Staci does in-person sessions as well as distant healing sessions. I've had several sessions from her and highly recommend her to anyone. If you don't live near Salt Lake City, try a distance session. Contact me for more info, if you'd like.

Atlas ProFILAX a few months later

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:29:05 -0000

I've been asked to update my experience in the three months since I had the treatment.

Short Answer:

definitely worth it;

definitely notice a difference.

How much of a difference is unknown, as there's been so much growth and change in the past few months.

Of course, the growth may have been facilitated by the treatment. It wouldn't surprise me at all.

Longer Explanation:

Some of the things I've noticed include:

I continue to more noticeably feel the flow of energy up and down my spine. Anytime I place my awareness there, I feel the spiral of energy up and down without stop. Perhaps circular might be the better word, but in one meditation the image that was shown to me was the energy from my head flowing downward in a spiral forming a double-helix with the energy from my root. Just like DNA.
No misalignment of the back. Prior to the treatment, and especially just prior to it, my lower back was getting all out of whack and I had to keep going to the chiro. I haven't been back once; it was that immediate.
My journey has been especially rich the past few months and I have had plenty of energy and no illness to contend with, internal and spiritual changes and shifts happen with less time between. I've been focusing and surrendering a lot during this time, too, so who knows if the Atlas adjustment made a difference. My sense is that it allowed for the changes to happen and be integrated more easily.
I am more centered and balanced when I walk. There is definitely a presence that I didn't have before, a sense of alignment. This I attribute directly to the Atlas adjustment.
My visualizations have been remarkably improved. Again, I've been doing more of it more often, but prior to the treatment, my visualizations were mainly darkness and I was often frustrated. Since then, they have become much more vivid and I can see and follow the images and sounds that I hear. I think the surrender and trusting plays a big role here, too.
I still am surprised by the piercing quality of my eyes that I don't think was there before. They simply look clear and bright. My actual eyesight hasn't improved noticeably, though I often read without my glasses, so perhaps it is somewhat better.

Would I do it again? Absolutely (but of course, theoretically I won't need to).

Would I recommend it? Absolutely. The cost is not too high and the benefits could be amazing or not... I think each person's experience is different.

Vision Quest 2008

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 03:57:19 -0000

I just signed up for a 3-day vision quest with Bear Heart's medicine clan. The quest is held in lower New Mexico, at 9000 ft elevation in the national forest. I'm a little nervous, but I know when I feel that that it is simply mistrusting Spirit to hold me and present me with what I need. So I'm letting that go.

As part of the application, I had to clarify my intentions for the quest in a de facto contract with the Creator. Here's my intention, put out there to the world:

My intention during this vision quest is to discover a deeper connection with Spirit and with my purpose that I may best serve the Creator to help all beings and walk softly on the Earth.

I hope to learn more about myself, let go of the attachments that still cling to me even after years of releasing and relinquishing whatever I could.

I hope to answer the question of Who Am I? I want to discover my identity distinct from those I love or am related to, so that I can better love each of them. I want to feel the holy love for my own soul, the infinite, flowing love that the creator pours over each of us and which we seem to find so difficult to give unstintingly.

I want to examine who I have become without judgement and with loving intention so that I can honor the goodness and love which is a reflection of Spirit, as well as own up to the behaviors that are not aligned with my integrity or harmful to my physical body or mental condition. What causes my suffering? Why do I continue when I know another way is more aligned with Spirit? These, too, are questions I hope to relinquish rather than answer. For I do not wish to have them occur again.

I hope to discover my highest destiny and envision the fully realized person that I am becoming, so that I can source from that future and be pulled forward by it. I want to leave a wide open space in my life and heart for Spirit’s spontaneity, keeping my humor and enjoying the journey with great belly laughs.

And I want to live fully and without the need for an apology. I want to recognize the timelessness of each moment of the day and night, to fully appreciate the gift of the song of life, to dance with it, and to recognize my star cousins and stand unashamed in their company, exposed and in awe of them as I am as in awe of the miracle of my physical existence.

I want to love more perfectly and completely.