It's 4:46 AM, December 31st the final day of 2014. I've been awake for the past 20 minutes just staring at the Termite tunnels bored into the ceiling of our two story hut in the back of the Hobo Hideout hostel. It's Roy's daughters Quinceanera today, and although I'm curious about how it will play out, It is hardly the most pertinent thing on my mind. Now more than ever the questions I have asked myself for decades have lost or are loosing the battle for importance in my life. In only 20 minutes of a DMT flash I have succeeded in doing what I thought could not happen, and indeed for many long lonely years what I "knew" could not happen. What am I talking about? I'm talking about discovering the soul. I'm talking about God with a capital G, but not the biblical one, surrounded by fire and brimstone, judgement and eternal damnation, the one we all know or refuse to know so well, but the ego-less God of all creation that is impartial and loving to all.Ironically what brought me to Atheism in the first place was the madness of religion itself, now the utter madness of a religious experience has brought me back to faith, although hardly in denominational form, and nothing like what it once was. For years I drew further and further away from god, but ever since my first mushroom experience, I have been coming closer and closer to the soul, to the essence of God. The funny thing about life it would seem, is that from start to finish were on straight paths we think will not change, and then somewhere along the supposedly straight line, we realize it's actually a circle, and that the lessons are learned through the journey, not from a starting or ending point.Our lives are filled with circles that teach us lessons through belief, change, rejection, and belief yet again. They seem to be unrelated, but they begin and end with an idea, usually a meme of some kind passed down to us from the depths of time, Such as "Love is Forever" "Duty above all" "Wealth before Health" or "God, King and Country." The level to which we are aware of our place in these circles depends on our point of view, and that I now believe, depends on more than luck or circumstance, we are far more than the random byproducts of chance. We are, I believe, elements of the eternal, expressions of the timeless, actors in an endless waltz, living and dying with purpose, knowingly or not. It's 4:46 AM and this where my mind is..At 5:20 Am, I heard and saw Jimmy on the patio below us smoking a cigarette and cleaning the floor, as he does nearly every day at this time. By 6 AM on days that we work on the farm he usually calls up to us, "You boys awake?" to which we always answer "yeah!" even if only having woken up from the question piercing through to us in our dreams. Today was not such a day, for at 5:30 AM I descended the winding metal staircase to the 2nd story, went through the abandoned air conditioned halls and down the grand wooden staircase, exiting the inner front door to the foyer where Jimmy was sitting in his usual spot, looking out at the early morning traffic through the large swinging window, still smoking his cigarette, but now sporting his equally usual large cup of instant coffee."Morning Jimmy" I said wiping the sleep from my eyes. He didn't reply, he simply nodded his head and washed down a quick drag of his cigarette with a large swig of the cups contents. A minute later, as though continuing a conversation we had flawlessly paused from the previous day, he said, "Won't be any work at the farm. Got to get these fucking papers signed or I'll go bankrupt!" Another drag of the death stick and a sip of the dark stimulant ensued, which was followed by long aimless stair out into the street and then a question as he turned again facing me as if noticing I was there for the first time, "what are you bozo's up to today?" I smiled, enjoying his humor, even in the early morning hours, and told him we were attending a friends daughters Quinceanera as her chaperones, which he already knew, and that not much else was planned.When a reasonable hour for business activities was reached, Blake and I went to the internet cafe and bought our tickets for Lima to San Francisco. It was a little weird really. When we first began our journey to South America we had ideas of the world collapsing around us, and life becoming something very harsh and trying. We didn't know if or when we'd ever return home, somehow buying the tickets established a connection to a different reality that we had left behind and thought broken. Home for us is a place rich in history, a place with family and friends, but also a place that has destroyed many of us, pulling us down into a slum of corrupted ideals, lost hopes, and very limited opportunities. Those of us who remain are molded into things we never intended, or wanted to be. I suppose it's much more common of a thing than I realize. Pacific Grove is a beautiful place, that much is certain, but its tremendously expensive to live there and to survive you must become a corporate stooge, be incredibility hardworking (probably just to fail anyways) or already be wealthy. In any case, I'm happy to come home for my family, if only for just a while.Blake and I returned to Aries Burger, where we met Roy II, the 62 year old Englishman whom I can barely understand a word of, both because of his low volume and his accent. He's a character for sure, I just wish I could hear him better so knew how much of one he really is. We each had a Multiorgasmo shake(Filled with natural stimulants and other strange powders of questionable affect) and then returned to the Dawn of the Amazon for breakfast. Our waitress for the night of the fire approached and kindly reminded us of our unpaid bill for the night in question. We explained that we had come the next day and settled the bill, she hurried behind the counter, conversed with the others and quickly returned, thanking us and then taking our new order.After Breakfast Blake went to buy mopacho cigarettes for our tobacco cleansing diet for the new year. Did I just say Tobacco Diet? Yes, I did.. One of Ian's other "patients" I guess you'd call us, told us about a week long tobacco diet he was doing involving drinking pure tobacco water 3 times a day, without food. Well we weren't prepared to spend our final days in Iquitos drinking nothing but tobacco, which is supposed to be the most horrible thing you'll ever do, so we went with the baby step program, which was to snort the liquid twice daily. While he was doing that I returned to the internet cafe and tried and failed to buy our tickets from Iquitos to Lima, apparently they don't accept debit cards. Something's truly wrong with the world if people prefer to accept debt rather than actual assets, if you could call Dollars such a thing.I returned to the Hideout and touched up the bathroom with new paint. While I did that Jimmy repainted the Foyer. Blake returned and the three of us spent the evening on the couch watching Game of thrones and talking about some of Jimmy's more radical stories of youth. At 10pm Roy arrived at the hideout and took us in the taxi to his house about 15 minutes away. The taxi couldn't make it all the way so we had to walk for a few minutes to get there. When we did His daughter descended the stairs wearing a crazy pink gown, with ruffles, she had a reserved smile and was beautiful. What struck me most was just how out of place she looked with the wrecked buildings, mud and sewage "streets" destitute looking children half clothed and a crippled girl on a single Jerry rigged crutch zooming down the street with her cell phone in her free hand. All of this and she looked like she was about to accept the slipper that fit in a fairy tale you might remember.
Blake took her hand and escorted her back up the same disintegrating road we came by and took the taxi to the Red Plaza for pictures, with the mother, Sister and myself trailing in another taxi. After that we returned to the house and waited for the party to begin. Roy's sister offered me a drink, which I took but did not drink, for it was obviously very alcoholic. A man sitting next to me, who had clearly been enjoying the fiery substance for some time, kindly relieved me of the burden. Before the party even began fireworks lite the sky from all over the city, it was midnight, 2014 has come and gone, and now a new circle begins.It's now 30 minutes into the new year and I'm sitting in a brightly lite room with very loud trendy music blaring, Blake's standing at the very front with Roy's daughter still in hand and all her friends and classmates on one side of the room, and their parents on the other. Roy and the family stand up to give speeches and then Blake gets to have the first dance with her, then Roy, and then every guy in the room, including me. Gifts were then bestowed and by the time food was even mentioned, which we thought there would be plenty of long before now, which is why we skipped dinner, we were ready to leave. It was already 1:40 AM and there seemed to be no end in sight for the festivities, so we thanked everyone for the experience and gracefully exited the scene, but did not easily escape the temptations of darker traditions, for we were assigned two of the less than coherent members of the party by Roy to escort us to the street. They offered us every drug in the manual and more, assuring us the party would continue at full power once they got home, and that we were more than welcome to pay for the majority.... I mean, join them with our snow shoes to enjoy the miscellaneous white powders they intended to vacuum through their brains. I just kept walking and thanked them for the offer.We made it to the street, got a taxi back to the Plaza de Arma, had a Shake at Aries Burger and made it to the Hobo Hideout at 2 AM, the cut off point for being able to return before the door would be locked till 6 AM. I fell on to my cot rolled to my back and once again stared at the industrious legions of termites busily building their bunkers of decaying wood into our abode. As I stared, thinking about everything that had been in 2014, I thought about the new year to come, and everything it would bring. I thought to myself, " It is the year 2015, and all that you know changes now. Or so they say..."
Alchemy & The Flame
It was our first full day off when Jimmy went out into town and came back with Ian's card. He handed it to us and said, "this is the guy, he'll take you where you want to go." We thanked him and then I called the number twice, leaving a message each time. From there we walked to the Plaza de Arma where we ran into none other than Roy, the maker of our jewelry."Hey Roy how are you?" We asked. "Good brother, good. Any plans for new years?" he asked."Well were trying to do pure DMT, you know anyone who has it?" I asked."I know Ian." he replied. Blake and I both looked at each other, I took out the card and showed it to him."You mean this Ian?""yeah thats him, you want me to take you to him?"yes" we said in unison, and off we went in a taxi to Ian's house. We got off the main road and walked down a descending dirt road for about 150 yards to a nice looking place nestled between other houses of similar refinement. Roy knocked for 10 minutes until finally the shutters opened and a long haired balding Chinese man poked his head out from the darkness."Thats him? Thats our guy?" I thought to myself. A passing confusion as Roy quickly snapped me back to the present, "Hey, is Ian here?" He said. The man blinked very slowly as though half conscious and then said rather fluidly, "yeah.." With that he disappeared and a moment later the gate opened. We went inside and were introduced to Ian, the man that we had truly come to Peru to see, but we didn't know that yet.He told us of his experiences with the different psychedelics, how after mastering a substance, by doing it a thousand times or more, he would get a tattoo of its molecular form on his body. He had the DMT molecule on the back of his neck, the LSD 25 on his arm, and Mescaline on his leg. He had other interesting tattoos as well, those combined with his mohawk, tall stature and lovely Welch accent really gave him a distinctly memorable persona. We met the other cast of characters staying with him, Olympia, his polish, Vietnamese girlfriend, very fiery and opinionated, mike the British born Chinese man I've already introduced and his girlfriend Kate, also from England. We then made a plan to smoke his DMT tomorrow and said goodbye, leaving back to the Plaza de Arma with Roy.When we returned he told us It was his daughters 15th birthday on new years eve, something of a big deal in latin America, and he invited us to join the party, but not just as guests, he wanted one of us to be the official chaperones for his daughter! The responsibilities of which included, a photo shoot, first dance at the party and to escort her wherever she went. I wasn't so keen on the idea but thankfully Blake said yes before I had to say no. I felt so good at that moment that we returned to Dawn of the Amazon and broke the six week ayahuasca fast with a Red curry. Blake had already broken it a few days before at the Karma Cafe with a falafel burger.Jimmy didn't need us at the farm the next day, so I painted the upstairs bathroom for him. Initially it was as a trade for two weeks stay at the Hideout, but Jimmy had to apologize later saying that he could only give us a week free, since he was nearly broke from funding his fish farm. I see the crazy stress he's under day to day, and he works his ass off, so I understood. The only thing that really sucked were the toxic fumes From the paint, it was so bad I nearly passed out, so I had to quit and save the rest for another day.We had lunch at the Dawn and then called Ian, shortly after arriving at his house. We talked for a few minutes, Ian asked which one of wanted to go first, for some reason I volunteered right away, then he gave me to the count of finishing his cigarette to prepare for the DMT experience.He walked me into a white walled room with psychedelic drawings, tapestries and feathers hanging from the walls. He asked me to lay down on the bed so that my head was a foot from the wall and then sit up cross legged, he did this so that when you passed you wouldn't fall back and hit your head.Ian waved the huge eagle feathers and blew mopatcho smoke over my body. Then he aligned each of my chakras with a sonic bell, basically a metal bowl, and with a wooden stick he rotated around it creating a lovely loud ringing. After I was cleansed he went through how I was to properly hit the pipe for a break through experience. You don't just hit it once and off you go, theres a procedure to it. You have to hit the pipe three times to make it all the way, each hit must be held and followed by a quick inhale to push it further down.I said I understood and we began. The first hit went well, the second too but it was very very harsh, by the time I exhaled and went to hit it the last time everything around me was melting and growing at the same time, an incredible buzzing noise was filling my head and Ian was barely recognizable to me, morphing between every person Id ever met. He put the pipe right in front of my face and repeated,"hit it hit it hit it.." And so I did...It was extremely difficult to take a solid drag from the pipe, somehow though, I managed to ash it. I inhaled one last time and felt all of reality being forced away from me in every way imaginable, instantly leaving my body, with my limp shell falling back and hitting the mattress, my soul exited the top of my head and trillions of entities swarmed around me in an impossibly large, but enclosed space in another dimension, each of them going in and out of my soul, adding things to me and taking others away.All of creation joined together with me, intertwining and combining then shooting away, coming back as another thing and joining yet again. I lost consciousness then, and came to at the end of the trip, descending a ladder of dimensions, each becoming more real and physical and each more terrifying than the last. They were both the inner and outer layers of the world we live in, and I knew then the great peril that humanity was in. I felt the presence of terrible predatory evil, swarming around me as eels in a barrel, circling and circling, just waiting for the reaping of their prey.Then I was on a farm in the viewpoint of a chicken, watching as the big birds established dominance through posturing and violence. I could hear the words of James, Blake's uncle and lifelong badass, coming from the top cock of the roost, as he ruled over the weaker and subservient birds, "this is mine, this is real, this is mine, this is real " He said. After that I went into a celestial realm and floated effortlessly back into my body.Ian was cross legged in the corner, smoking a cigarette and smiling at me. "Welcome back." He said. I walked out of the room and joined the others, Blake who was laying in the hammock, stared, giving me an inquisitive look which said,"and? Are we in business?" The look on my face said it all, and he smiled, joining Ian in the room to see for himself.In truth theres no way to describe what I experienced, it's just too big a thing to explain with such limited means as words.It was the most ground breaking and astonishing experience of my life, that much I can say for sure, the rest you just have to go and see for yourself. My trip lasted 20 minutes and Ian told me the parts I didn't remember would come to me in the coming weeks, in dreams and while awake. Blake's lasted 25 minutes, the last 15 of which he was laughing uncontrollably. He came out with a completely astonished look on his face, totally happy to have come back from the brink.We thanked Ian for everything, hugged everyone there and walked back to the main street, still stunned to be alive and well, solidly in reality. We had dinner at the dawn, and almost as though it was a dream the shops across from us next to the cafe went up in a blaze of fire, everyone was screaming and running about, some crying others laughing. Then people started kicking in the walls of the stands, I thought they were robbing the shops but they were taking everything out of them and moving them to the other side of the street, saving them from the fires destructive path.All the while Blake and I finished our pancakes, a first class view not 30 feet from the blaze. We joined another Roy, whose also friends with Ian, at Aries cafe and chatted about our experiences with DMT. Also eating there was the Victor the Belgian and his friends who watched us do the frog venom in the Jungle. Lol, what a crazy day!
Jimmy's Rarity Garden
For the next few days Blake and I helped Jimmy work on his farm in Padre Cocha, which is a 10 minute taxi ride to the northern port, a 10 minute boat ride to the other side of the river, and another 10 minute ride through the jungle on Jimmy's 3 wheeler cargo transport.Its a beautiful ride through the jungle to his farm, which is at the highest point in all of Iquitos. He showed us around camp and to the ridge overlooking the city. Told us his plans for the place, and the many setbacks he faced in realizing his dreams, all the while intermixing past, present and future tales of his life's journey.We loved every minute of it, he's a great story teller and lovable guy, if you can get past his initial blast of intensity that is. He likes to be very straight forward, almost to the point of shocking you, probably to test your character and sensibilities. A trait that Im very familiar with from my own life, although mostly in my younger years.Jimmy's building a fish farm, but he's also planting a variety of exotic fruits and vegetables and has also gathered rare species of plants from all over South America to grow on his property. Many of which I had never seen or heard of before, and I doubted I would see them anywhere else anytime soon. Its a real rarity's garden and a blessing to be a part of, if only in the capacity of a casual helping hand.When Jimmy found out that Blake had worked as a stone mason he asked if we could help him build the spill overs in the dykes that he needed to complete the project. Spill overs are concrete channels that allow excess water to pass without damaging whatever is holding back the water, mud and clay walls in this case. Blake agreed to help but admitted that he was not a very experienced craftsman and mostly did the grunt work during his year long employment in the trade. Even so, Jimmy was happy to have us help.The next day we returned with Jimmy's daughter, Madelyn, an impressively intelligent and helpful four year old girl that couldn't be stopped from helping in anyway she could. We were very impressed to find that she had planted nearly half the fruit trees and exotic plants on the property from seeds. Jimmy liked to say that she did more work by herself in a few days than any of the local guys he hired ever did. An embellishment to be sure, but not one not to far off considering what we saw of the locals work ethic during our time there.We brought with us Christmas gift baskets full of expensive and locally prized goods, such as spam, chocolate and marshmallow spread, soap, high end toilet paper and marmalade, and then handed them out to the best workers. When we arrived I blew up the new raft that Madelyn had gotten for Christmas, she and her father swam in the pond, while Blake and I cooked the breakfast we had brought with us on the fire.Afterward, Jimmy took us to the dyke and explained what he needed done. It didn't seem too complicated, but the problem with everything in Peru, as Jimmy explained, was the great difficulty of getting the local people to follow instructions, be true to their word, or be in anyway dependable.Much of what we did while working with Jimmy was pulling the wood and debris from the newly dug ponds, stacking them in huge piles and setting them ablaze. For the fish to be healthy and happy the water had to be as clean as possible. We also had the pleasure of taking discarded Yucca trees and planting 70 of them on the hillside overlooking the property. Because the cement was never delivered by the supplier and the forms Jimmy had brought to create the spill overs broken by the workers, the only work we ever did on the dykes was marking out the spaces they were to be built and then digging them out in the proper dimensions.Remarkably I was often charged by Jimmy with explaining the jobs to be done to the workers, a task I did surprisingly well considering the basic level of my Spanish. I don't like giving orders and it felt very awkward doing so In a language I barely understand, and to people I've only just met. The worst was the day when it was raining too hard and Jimmy asked me to tell them that if it was raining they shouldn't come to work, and that they should now go back home, that was tough for me. Jimmy has been living in Peru for almost a decade, but you wouldn't know it from his Spanish speaking ability.Its not as though Jimmy is doing it to be mean, he takes a lot of shit from the locals. Who he takes care of more than anyone else I've seen. One time a group of 11 guys from the taxi drivers association surrounded us while sitting at a cafe and asked Jimmy to pay money to repair the road. Jimmy had just spent thousands of dollars building and fixing the road and asked these same guys to help him, they didn't, and now that they're motor taxis have fucked up the road again they want Jimmy to pay for it once more. He told them off and they walked away astonished that he would refuse them. Many such incidents happened during our time with Jimmy, I feel bad for him, I would have lost my shit ages ago in such a situation, but he's a real tough cookie, a 9th generation Bostonian, a life long fisherman and hunter of some renown. Im really glad we met him.Back in town we helped Jimmy get Madelyn her first bike with training wheels, Blake sent postcards home and got money from Western Union, and I bought my ticket to Sweden for mid May. While at the Hideout we met a girl who had been invited by some people to go have drinks, I had just looked up the best restaurants in town on trip adviser though and we chose Dawn of The Amazon, the first on the list, so we had to refuse her offer. I got the general direction in my mind from the online map and we walked straight to it.As fate would have it the girl was already there when we arrived, her friends nowhere in sight, we sat down with her and were not disappointed by our choice. The food, service and view were all very nice, and the prices reasonable as well. The only hitch was that the power went out three times during our dinner. We walked halfway home with her until the power came back on in the city. Iquitos is truly a fascinating city to experience in the dark.
A very Ricky Christmas
In the morning, id say at 6am, Jimmy and I walked to a market Id never been to before. I told him yesterday about the market we had been going to and he went on a tirade about how filthy and disease ridden it was, how he'd seen the health report done on it by the UN, and that almost every supposedly extinct disease was alive and well there. Needless to say I had no love for that particular hell hole so I was perfectly content with the wonderful market he took me to instead. Once Blake got up I showed him where it was and we had fish soup there for 12 soles. It had more salt in it than we'd tasted in more than a month combined, so you can imagine how tasty it was to us.We returned to the hideout where Ricky awaited us, he was going to make patarashka for us and needed supplies, funnily enough he took us straight to the market Jimmy had ranted against earlier. The sights and smells of that place hadn't effected us so much the previous times we had been there, now it seemed ebola lurked under every corner. Jimmy's words either really got to us or we were hyper sensitive to smells after returning from the jungle.Ricky's house was small but much nicer than those of his neighbors, the fish he cooked was absolutely delicious! And his family was very nice. Ricky's plan for gifting chocolate, bread and toys to the kids was discussed again and we both gave 100 soles to buy the goods. We thanked him for the meal and left in a motor taxi. During which time it rained so hard I had to put my phone and wallet in a plastic bag because my pants were getting drenched.At the hostel Jimmy told us that if we helped him on his farm he would help us find all the black holes in town, but we would have to find our own way out. Referring to the purely spiritual experience we told him we wanted, and the usually shady people in equally shady surroundings they are provided by. You see, we've decided to skip the less than reliable ayahuasca for now and go straight to the source of it's power, which is DMT, the spirit molecule.The next day we went to the market, got fruits and veggies for breakfast, moved from the room inside the main house to the two story bungalow out back. Once settling in we went to an internet cafe where I skyped my mom for the first time in a month. Apparently she's turning my room into a kitchen, so when I get back i'll be sleeping with Blake in his parents friends garage. Ahh the joys of change, haha.After that Ricky and his wife came by and we went downtown to buy the toys for the kids. We picked out little plastic toy cars, dolls and bowling sets. It was hard to decide what would be best for so many kids of varying ages. We took the bus and taxi to Ricky's house and spent time with the family as he drove around trying to get more toys. He made us another amazing fish dinner, tailored to the ayahuasca diet as always, and then we prepared to serve the local kids.The second the giant cauldron of hot Chocolate was placed on the street, kids from every direction converged on Ricky's house seemingly out of nowhere. Blake and I were in charge of distributing the toys, which was the most stressful job because the same kids came back to get more over and over. Ricky's wife made sure no one got seconds of the food and drink, which she did very well, her sister handed out the fruit cake, her mother pored the chocolate and Ricky just stood and watched, smiling. It was a beautiful experience to be apart of, well and truly.Before we left Blake and I danced with all the women in the family and hugged everyone, then took a taxi home again. Blake was hungry so we got barbecued fish at the local hole in the wall restaurant. We got our laundry and made a plan to join Jimmy on his farm tomorrow, which Im pretty excited about. Never done anything like this before, so glad we did.
Repair crew
I opened my eyes to the sound of running water coming from the bathroom and Blake cursing, he was the first to wake up and had twisted off the sink knob while trying to wash his hands. We got Dennis, the camp janitor to repair the thing, while we went fishing with Hiener. I caught the largest sardine I've ever seem, which isn't that big but still a nice catch. I also got a tiny piranha and Blake got a bigger one than that.We returned to camp, played cards and then asked the workers if we could get nails and a hammer with newspaper, because at this point we were thoroughly tired of the uselessness of our huts defences against mosquitos. We got what we asked for and spent several hours patching the seemingly endless gaps and tears in the screens and between the wooden posts that made up the walls of our abode.Blake was also in no mood to use our dribble "shower" to clean up, so when the rain came down hard he walked out into the downpour and had a proper wash. I wasnt going to join him, but after a moment of standing and watching him soak up the Amazonian rain, I did anyway. After it let up a little we walked into camp and jumped into the river for our first swim in the Amazon. My foot slipped into the mud bank and I jammed my toe into a stick lodged there right off the bat. It didn't bother me much then, but it would later. The water was a medium dark chocolate-brown and it felt cool and refreshing.We got out and instead of going back to our hut for a pointless shower we went into camp and used showers of the vacant rooms, which to our surprise had a wealth of water coming from them, and dare I say, compared to ours, even water pressure!When we got back to camp Blake put the hammer and nails to work on yet another task, a pull up bar.. He took a sturdy branch from the forest and nailed it under the floor boards that hung out over the edge of the house. Then he took my swiss army knife and carved hand holds in the wood for a better grip.When that was done it was dinner time. It turned out to be our tastiest dinner yet as well, which we were both very happy about. The fish was hot and had a good deal of flavor, as much as could be expected with our diet restrictions. Also included in the meal was garlic mashed potatoes with a side of steamed beets and carrots. When that was done we remained at the table playing 13 for nearly 3 hours straight until the generator kicked off yet again.There are no other guests in camp now, we spent the day here alone, besides the workers that is. Wilder comes back tomorrow, with the books he promised us and some other things, we hope...
A Deadly Snake
Supposedly we were going to make Ayahuasca today, but I guess we didnt have the materials to make it so after breakfast Blake and I went on an hour long canoe ride on our own down river. We turned back early because neither ofus brought a hat or water and it was quite hot.lunch was ready when we got back and just as we finished eating 10 new people arrived. We waled passed them saying hello as walked off into the jungle with the rain starting to pore down. We stayed in the hut and I finished reading Psychology of the Transference and then starting listening to Steve Martins self narrated autobiographical audio tape, Born Standing Up. Blake then started reading the transference.At 6:30 just when the rain stopped we strolled back into camp and joined the new people for dinner. There was an American family of 3, a German, belgian, Brazilian, Brit and 3 Peruvians. We told them why we were there and the conversation turned over to the ayahuasca, the psychedelic realms and then all of our travels before arriving and our plans for the near future.When dinner was finished Blake went outside to return to our hut and Wilder warned him to be careful of snakes, Blake turned to him and said, "you mean like this snake right here?" Pointing to the ground right next to the steps he was about to go down where there was a black snake with yellow and red stripes. Wilder looked over the side and then at Blake, "yeah.., this snake can kill you in 2 hours." He said. With that, Wilder assigned a guide to take us back to our hut through the woods. No Ayahuasca was drank today.
Visions of Shadow and Light
I had many dreams in the night and in the morning the first thing I did was copy them down as best I could recall in my dream journal. It´s a great practice to have. You can surprise yourself almost every time when looking back on dreams you´ve had in the past. You´ll go back into your old journals and read one you can´t remember at all and wonder, ¨wow, I can´t remember this at all, but it happened to me!¨ The words spell out a fantastic experience that you swore was realer than anything you´ve ever experienced, yet now it´s as though it never happened at all. Sure it was just a dream, but dreams can be just as real as when your awake, and how many dreams have you had and forgotten? How many memories have we all lost in the course of our lives, either real or within our subconscious? It makes me wonder about reincarnation and such, having entire lives before our current ones, then forgetting them completely as we begin the next. Ponder it for a minute...Because we didn´t sleep well the night of our first ceremony, Blake and I decided to sleep in and catch up on our rest. Eventually we got up and walked out of the hut to get breakfast though, which was just a little fish. It doesn´t ever take that long for Blake´s stomach to overcome any other bodily need he may have, I could have just laid there and starved a little, but oh no, not Blake. He´d tear the head off of a mother bear to get the last piece of salmon on the table, only if there was nothing else left to eat that is.When Breakfast was finished Blake was getting antsy to get out and look around. We told Wilder we were going for a walk and he warned us to be careful and not go to far. With that we strolled off alone into the woods, and as we walked into the jungle, I thought of how best to heed his advice, keeping in mind how little I really knew of this environment, and it´s many strange and truly dangerous inhabitants. We took several pictures right away and moved further on down the trail. As soon as we left camp an army of mosquitoes coordinated a massive attack on us from all sides. Blake kept moving down the path taking pictures while I fought of as many as I could. Soon we were a good distance from camp, still within screaming distance but far enough to lose track of our bearings. ¨These mosquitoes are killing me here Blake¨ I said. ¨Yeah me too, but lets keep going a little further.¨ he replied. So we did.When he was done taking pictures with his GoPro, we turned around and realized the path we had taken led us into a three-way intersection, neither of us knew which path was the original, so we took the one furthest to the left, which would keep us closest to the river and logically the best way to return to camp. It was quickly apparent that we were on the wrong path and were going into thicker and thicker jungle, so we turned around and chose the middle path, which thankfully was the correct one and we were soon free of the woods strolling into camp with the mosquito legions trailing fiercely behind us.It was lunch time at this point and we sat down with Rachel, Lisa and the Spaniards. All of which were going back to Iquitos after they finished eating. I told Rachel id email her about the shamans she told me about as soon as we returned to the city. Midway through the meal a new couple arrived on the boat that would take everyone away. I thought at first they were from Spain, based on their rugged looks and dark hair, but they were actually German. We struck up a conversation and it turns out the guy is from Baden-Baden, the same area of Germany that my mom is from. He works as a tour guide in Hamburg now and suggested I visit there when I go back to Europe, Hamburg along with Berlin, Munich and the German Alps.When lunch was concluded and all but us and the Germans remained I decided to get some reading done in the only book I brought along with me, which is The Psychology of The Transference, by CG Jung. It´s a crazy book, I got it because Terrence McKenna suggested reading it to learn more about the Archetypes of mankind. You can find it here on Google: http://books.google.com.pe/books/about/ThePsychologyoftheTransference.html?id=7G2UPwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y
After a few chapters we went back to the lodge and at Wilder's suggestion went out fishing with Caesar and a boatman. At first I was the only one getting any bites, but I caught zipo, nothing, nada. Blake caught a silver dollar sized piranha that fell off the hook as soon as we lifted it out of the water to show everyone, that was worth the laugh. Caesar caught seven 6¨ or so piranhas, Wilder got 3, not sure how many the boatman got more than either of us that's for sure. When nobody caught anything for a good 5 minutes we pulled our lines and went bird watching. We saw two Tucans, lots Raptors* brown falcon/Hawk like birds, King fishers, crains, monkeys and all sorts of other things. We tried to get into a beautiful lake surrounded by tall exotic trees that had thousands of birds chirping and screeching from within, but the way was still blocked by the low water, jungle water lilies and other water plants.We came back to the lodge and prepared ourselves for the second ceremony in the jungle. When it came time to drink I asked the spirits to give me visions, repeating the request over and over in my mind, concentrating only on that. We drank and after 2 hours the visions came. I saw a deep water pool, with the shadows of palm leaves and water lilies lining the edges. A humming-bird with spectral color wings glowing brightly swooped back and forth over the water and disappeared into the shadows. As this happened my thoughts darkened and I again felt the pain of my family and friends at home, with this my heart wept for them, and as it did my thoughts turned darker still, to the police state that the United States has become. What will become of us under their control? I thought. And then I saw a massive tower, with an unbelievable blinding light shining from its top. The thing was so huge it would probably reach space. With this the visions ended and so did the ceremony. Caesar gave us a final blessing and we returned to our beds. Both Blake and I laid awake for several more hours still racing with thoughts and feelings, but unlike the previous ceremony, this time we were able to sleep.Friends In Need
You know that feeling when you get up in the morning tired, not from a state of sleep, but a state of frustration, the kind that leaves you somewhat dreading the day ahead? And all of it manifested from the course of a sleepless and otherwise uncomfortable night? Well this was such a morning. It was worse for Blake then it was for me, I actually slept a little, he did not. You see, Ayahuasca keeps you awake, because it, like many other drugs, keeps your mind, or your body, fully engaged. Making sleep a very difficult proposition, even for someone like Blake, who finds sleep easier than I could find water falling out of a boat.At 8 in the morning Wilder came to our hut with two plates of food, each with a portion of Patarashka, vegetables and boiled potatoes. After finishing our meal, which actually took us some time because we weren't really hungry and still in slow mo from our long night, Wilder asked us about our ceremony. Did we have visions? what did we feel? were we ok? that kind of thing. Caesar ate nothing, he just watched and listened while smoking a jungle cigarette (pure tobacco, no chemicals, but strong as all hell)I told him I had no visions, but to clarify for the readers, I had no hallucinations, I did see many things in my mind, but not through my eyes, a distinction I make because in my own opinion, for it to be a true vision, it should be seen, not only thought about. Semantics perhaps, yes, but the most powerful psychedelic trips I have ever experienced, those I truly felt to of had visions with, were those I could not outrun by the simple closure of the eyes.I went on to say that after the ceremony was done I felt a great sadness come over me as I went through all the friends and family I have suffering back home, and all over the world, from a multitude of things really, things like drug abuse, post traumatic stress, anger issues, identity problems, broken homes, debt slavery, cultural occultism, obesity, anxiety, bipolar-ism, materialism and the list goes on..I felt their pain and their struggles to survive against the monsters that haunt them all. How lost each of them are in their own world of sadness they cannot escape. Each of these people has a history with me, moments we shared, both good and bad. They are important to me as companions in the long and unknown journey that is life. I travel the world in search of the things that will change me for the better, forge me into who I will one day become, and in so doing leaving them behind on their own.It is a new idea I've come to recently, one that has shown great promise for the dreams I have for the future. That is, to help them, I must first help myself. For no broken man should hope to successfully lead another before mending himself. This means we must walk the paths we choose, and look not back upon the choice as an abandonment of the other, but a path chosen to lead oneself into the light of your brightest future.We may not stand on the same ground or face the same trials, but they remain inside me, deep in my memories, locked away tightly but free to roam within me as well, surrounding me always, riding my shoulders when I need them to give me strength, when I use them as examples of how to be or not to be, and how to succeed when my base personality requires a certain trait to best suit the moment. It is through them that my adaptation to the ever-changing world I explore is accomplished.Due to a psychedelics ability to emulate any reality, while using them you can actually feel the physical and emotion feelings of others, not just people, but animals, insects, anything. It doesn't end there though, your mind in this state of awareness, depending on dose, setting and the type of substance, can be truly limitless. While emulating their pain, feeling their frustration, I too suffered and I thought about how much I cared for them all and want to help heal their wounds somehow. When you care, you cry, not always because your sad or angry, often because your happy, amazed at your luck, your circumstance, your role in this cosmic play you were born to fulfill. I did cry and all these reasons flooded through me readily.I related this as best I could to the Shaman through Wilder, without getting too detailed, for it would take to long and was not necessary for the Shaman to know at any rate. When I was done Caesar told us he saw the spirit of a large swamp tree surrounding us during the ceremony and that we needed to visit such a tree and pray for our friends there. So after lunch at around 3, Wilder, Moisess, Caesar, a guide, Blake and I all got into a jungle boat, a roofless canoe carved from a single tree, and hauled beside us another boat that belonged to another village at the mouth of the river.At the other side of the river we slid the boat on to the shore, dug an oar into the mud and tied the boat to it. We all got out and started walking into the jungle. There was a path there, cut through the brush, by my uneducated guess, Id say it was traversed a few times monthly at best. It was not very wide or well-defined, it was swampland so for most of the walk we trudged through murky water or mud, always minding our steps as our gum boots got stuck from time to time. We came to the tree only 15 minutes into the walk, but before we were to engage in the ceremony we walked another 15 minutes to get to a small pond with large water lilies floating around the edges.On our way back we stopped at the tree, which was a big black old growth, with large fanning roots that suspended the entire tree above the ground and into the air. An evolutionary trait many trees in the Amazon developed to survive the extreme rise and fall of water that happens every year with the coming and going rains. All around us were vines hanging from its upper branches that also dug into the swamp around it. Some vines in the Amazon are known to strangle the trees they attach themselves to and use the energy they produce to survive because they themselves cannot perform photosynthesis.Caesar, who had been smoking the entire day, blew cigarette smoke all around us, in our clothes and into our faces, making us lower our heads so he could blow smoke into the crowns of our skulls, using his hands as a tube as he blew while chanting with each exhale. He asked us to gather all the positive energy we could and then place our hands on the tree and pray, and so we did. For 10 minutes my mind raced through all that I had thought of and felt in the night, and I asked the spirits of Ayahuasca and of the tree to send all our energy of love and compassion, hope and strength to all our friends and family, but mostly for those friends of ours who are truly lost, truly in need of change. We finished our prayer and left the swamp returning to camp.For dinner we had a plain noodle soup and plain rice, which is much different without being cooked with salt, a truly bland starch is hard to swallow, so we got a lime and squeezed it over it, when that wasn't enough we used a jungle orange, which is actually green and tastes much less fruity than the orange ones were used to, it was a process we would come to repeat almost every meal while at the retreat. When dinner was finished we retreated to our hut in the woods and waited for the Spaniards to come, who can made a deal with Wilder and Caesar to have a one night ayahuasca ceremony. I stayed awake just long enough to hear Caesar begin chanting and then dozed off, my mind lost in the heavy air of sleeplessness and strained emotional faculties...