Worms, Doubts and My Dark Night of the Soul

Worms, Doubts and My Dark Night of the Soul

Thursday, July 14, 2011

The beautiful full moon rises over Yarina Cocha and the land of Tierra Vida tonight with a promise to bring exciting energy for the next retreat coming in two days.  As is par for the coarse before all of the retreats that I’ve worked with I began to feel some really deep emotions of doubt creeping in about why I’m here and what my future holds for me after this adventure.  The emotions ran very deep but for some reason the energy of these emotions didn’t feel like mine.  Once again, I began to feel the emotions of the guests that would be staying with us for seven, nine or fourteen days working on their issues and desiring growth.  The last retreat I experienced physical manifestations or the energy of the guest coming and this time I seem to be processing emotional manifestations.  The doubts actually came while I was staying at the hotel Antonio, the place we always stay at the end of a retreat for a night or two in order to accomplish Internet Everything.  This includes Skyping with friends, email and Facebook but most of the work is about catching up with loved ones.  After the hotel stay I  always have a feeling of wanting to be back in the states so I can catch up with everyone,  or going to a movie or a restaurant and having a big steak and baked potato, chilling with friends and family, or taking a hike in the Columbia Gorge or Mt. Hood or St. Helens.  I found myself dreaming of being back in the Northwest visiting all of my favorite spots in nature and getting my dose of the amazing Pacific Northwest’s nature energy.

Perhaps some of the doubting energy is coming from missing family and friends, though some of my friends are scattered in other states like California, Arizona, New Mexico and a few on the East Coast.  If I had more money I would visit them all including family in California and Oregon.  I still feel that the doubting energy was coming from the new group that is about to join us on Saturday, however.  If I’m not mistaken 99% of the guests are first timers to Ayahuasca and even coming to Peru, so it would make sense that several of them are wondering if they are making the right decision.  This takes me back to the days when I would attend vision quests with the shamanic school that I was attending in Portland, OR.  For a week, we would camp out in a remote location near the Oregon coast.  You were either a member of the support camp for the questors or you were one of the people that actually partakes in the vision quest.  Preparation for the vision quests would begin months before the actual event.  Our teacher would gently remind us through the preparation period that we needed to be careful of our thoughts and emotions and to make sure that we didn’t put ourselves in energetically taxing situations.  Doing this would easily affect the questors and the supports energetically.  I remember my first quest about two weeks before the event, I began to feel high anxiety and worry.  Even though I was not feeling worried about attending the event I was still feeling this energy and knew that I was picking up on others who were feeling this anxiety, as well.  The same seems to be true for the retreats down here in Peru and I seem to be getting even more sensitive to the collective consciousness connected to the retreats.  So, with it being the full moon tonight, I will be releasing that energy.

The last few days have been really hard on me.  The diarrhea has returned and this time it has come back in full force.  One of the reasons why, I believe, this has come back so ferociously was due to the fact that I contracted worms, which is the first time this has ever happened to me.  I discovered them the other night when we decided to due a small Ayahuasca ceremony.  I immediately began to take more doses of MMS and fossil flour, or better known as diatomaceous earth.  DE is actually ancient fossils from plankton from the ocean and is excellent at getting rid of parasites and worms.  I’ve also been getting some local help from the Shipibos in the village making me anti-diarrhea medicine made from ginger, limes and some plant that looks like an onion.  And just to be sure that I get over this bout of diarrhea I actually bought some medicine from the pharmacy in Pulcallpa today.  This is definitely a problem that needs to be resolved as quickly possible because of the nutritional issue that I face with it.  My body can’t absorb nutrients, vitamins and minerals with this as an ongoing issue.

So, the worms actually brought up some interesting emotions in me as well.  One of those emotions is YUCK!  Since I’ve been down here I have not had any fear of getting sick with any of the more major viruses such as  yellow fever, dengue and malaria.  I suppose some of that fear has been released due to the fact that I know we have MMS to cure anything that pops up.  Nonetheless, I never thought about getting worms.  I believe I got them from eating small bits of pork with my breakfast a few days ago, which I’ve been warned about many times.  I won’t be making that mistake again.  When I first discovered them, my first reaction was, “Oh, well that explains the diarrhea.”  I may have had the worms for a few weeks but it’s hard to tell with not having dealt with them before.  Also, after the retreat, the four of us went into town to eat dinner and celebrate and I had taken a rather sizable dose of MMS.  About an hour later, and right at the beginning of the meal, I began to feel very nauseous and very tired to the point that I couldn’t eat my meal.

After our staff meeting, I excused myself before everyone else and went to the hotel so I could lie down and rest.  Within a few hours the nausea was completely gone and I didn’t feel tired anymore.  That is a classic example of MMS working on something in my body that doesn’t belong there.  It may very well have been the worms that it was killing.  Unfortunately, I got so freaked out by the nausea that I decided not to take more doses after that.  Bad idea!  I was afraid that I would get really sick and tired again and not be able to get all my Internet stuff done.  I think some of my family and friends can attest to the fact that I didn’t exactly look or act like I was feeling good during my phone calls and Skype conversations.   I felt like I was invaded like a robber coming into my home and stealing my personal belongings.  This time it was a robber that was robbing me of being in my comfort zone and my ability to absorb important nutrients.  My next emotion was a little bit of fear that if I didn’t do something right away about this that I was not going to be in good shape for the start of the next retreat.  This time I really needed to be on my game with more responsibility being given to me.  So, here I am with several methods for dispelling the diarrhea and I’m waiting to feel normal again.  What a way to start of this next segment of my journey, huh?

Actually, it’s been hell.  Between the first reaction of the MMS on the day we went to the hotel, the amount of Internet I ended up doing, working in the heat, working on several projects to prepare for the next group, going into town in between these times, working in the heat some more, the diarrhea, and just plain not feeling good, it’s has been really difficult to get caught up.  My body has been feeling weak in these last three or four days but I’m hoping that I can begin to feel normal again before the stress of the next retreat begins on Saturday.  I’m SO SO looking forward to taking some time off to go to Cusco and Machu Picchu in late August.

The projects around the property are now going at a break-neck speed.  We are adding a new addition onto the Malóka, which includes two more composting toilets and two closets to house all the mats, and buckets that are used for ceremony.  This is a big project and we hope to be done in time for the first ceremony on Sunday night.  The other project that is currently in full swing, but we have pulled those resources from that project to finish the Malóka extension, is the new volunteer hut.  This is actually a remodel of a house that was built three or four years ago when the Tierra Vida was first getting started.  This hut should house three or four volunteers.  We will have separate rooms and our own space.  I’m looking forward to this because then we won’t have to move around like we are doing right now.  Since, I’ve been here, I’ve had to move twice.  This last move is because we have so many guests, twelve to be exact, that Gary and I had to move to hut number five all the way in the back of the property.  This lends for a long walk if you forget anything.  Also, this is the only hut that does not have electricity on the property, so like tonight I am blogging in the kitchen.  I will also have to be more aware of what needs to be charged during the first nine days.   Yup, we’re shacked up way in the back for the first nine days of the retreat.  This should be interesting.

Today, I built another bench.  This one is for the front of the Malóka about 30 yards away from the ceremony space.  We decided to do this so the guests who are still on the medicine or are coming down from the medicine and desire to have a conversation outside of the ceremony space.  This will help keep people from disturbing those who are still on their journeys and very much under the influence of the medicine.  I’m planning to build at least one more so that we’ll have room for larger groups to visit outside of the ceremony space.  It was hard working in the heat and humidity today but I was able to get the bench done in about two hours.  Remember, every piece of wood has to be cut by hand and every nail has to have a pre-drilled hole before you pound it in because the Kinesha, which is a very hard Peruvian wood, will bend the nails if you don’t.  I probably could have had this project done in at least half the time if I had a chop saw.  But again, we don’t have the power available to us in order to use tools like this.  It’s very primitive.  On the other side of that, however, there is this amazing sense of satisfaction and accomplishment because you did everything the archaic way.  No modern tools, except for the power drill, are used.  I don’t know how the workers build what they ild with the speed at which they build it.  It’s quite amazing actually.

Well, I’m exhausted and we have yet another busy day of finishing up projects.  We actually get to go into town and take some time to do Internet tomorrow so I’m stoked about that.  For now, it’s time to get some much-needed rest!

Friday, July 15, 2011

8:04 PM

Looks like this is going to be my CRANKY, CRANKY blog so I apologize up front if I am coming across negative or whatever you want to call it.  The Law of Attraction says that it has to return the exact same vibration that you are putting out there, so I guess I’ve been putting out some lower vibes lately.

Today was a weird day energetically for all of us.  We all seemed to be cranky.  Is it the full moon or is it the Law of Attraction or both?  This is one question I’m not sure I can answer.

My morning began with a bang!  I woke up to a large infestation of these biting ants going to town on my food that was all wrapped in plastic zip lock bags.  However, these little buggers can tear right through plastic.  They will find the smallest opening and make it as big as they need to in order to claim their prize!  As I said before, I’m not sure if they are stinging ants that use some form of acid to spray on their pray or if they have really sharp teeth and jaws and just tear through things.  I suppose they could just have stingers like a bee, too.  Either way, these tiny gifts from nature have no issues with plastic covers or bags.  They got into my chocolates, my granola and even my newly bought bag of unroasted peanuts.  I must have spent a good 45 minutes clearing them out of every shelf in the bookshelf where I store all of my clothing, books, electronics and food.  All the while getting bit or stung during my cleansing of my space.  I thought I had done a good job of getting rid of them, however, they came back while we were in town and even made their way into a fully wrapped package of coconut cookies.  It was so frustrating but lessons learned.  While other huts don’t deal with their veracious little super ants, one cannot have any food of any kind in this last hut unless they are stored in plastic storage containers.  I keep everything in plastic containers now that even remotely resembles something that these lovely creations of nature would love to invade.

Today, one of our staff decided they were going to go off on me for no good reason.  Allowing myself to be pulled into this dramatic scene all I could think was, “Are you kidding?”  The ensuing argument left me with some lingering doubts about being at the property, which was a completely egoic reaction.  And it was strong, too.  I hadn’t felt my ego slip like that for awhile.  Just having the knowledge and awareness of this trigger helped me move through it that much quicker.

In addition to the buttons that were pushed in the motorcar, there was another major nerve that was triggered that I had to take a look at.  One of my ex-boyfriends from several years ago exuded the same exact energy.  He was very dramatic on all levels.  In fact, he seemed to cause most of the drama around him and unwittingly tried to pull everyone else around into his drama.  He dealt with terrible insecurities and thought that the world revolved around him.  He also could not stand to be wrong or to be corrected.  These are all reasons why I discontinued the relationship so that I could get away from that energy.  Now, I find that this energy has followed me all the way to Peru.  BRILLIANT, Universe!  I get it!  The mirror has gone up once again and I’m being forced to look at my own insecurities; the very reason why I came down here in order to deal with and heal.

As Abraham says in many of their messages through Ester Hicks, being in the contrast of life is what helps us to shoot our rockets of desire into our vortex for what we truly want, need and desire in our lives.  I came to Peru to get away from drama and to find that unmovable center that has been difficult to find in the U.S. with my life the way it was.  I totally believe that I’m not far from that goal but it appears I still have some things to work on.  I’m starting to clearly define what I will tolerate in my relationships with people and what I will not tolerate.  If you want to be my friend, lover, partner or whatever I will not tolerate being unnecessarily verbally or emotionally blasted.  I will also not tolerate you dumping your garbage all over my front yard because my front yard is now a very sacred place.  I don’t mind if you want to use me as a sounding board because I can have a great and compassionate ear but if you intending to use me as a punching bag I’ll just have to bow out avoid the punch.  That’s not the energy I want to draw to me.  But I do have work to do as we all do.  I’m not mad at anyone.  I’m only wiser for knowing this wisdom in this great push towards Unity Consciousness that mankind is currently embarking on.

Just as the Shaolin monks did not allow anything that was not monastic into their monasteries (Thank you, Ron!),  I am no longer willing to allow certain energies into the sacred space of my heart.  It’s that simple.  I don’t consider it to be shallow, rude or insensitive but we are now in an age of transformation.  We are now in the age of getting rid of and dumping all of the stuff that no longer serves us or humanity as whole.  Unnecessary dramatic episodes are for those who want to stay in their anger, resentment and insecurities but I want no part of being the target.  If you want to vent with me without attacking me then I’ll be there for you whenever you need me.  But if you really feel the need to treat me like a punching bag the  I’m not the guy for you.  I will love you to death but I will not punch you, hurt you with words or with a fist, and slice you up one side and down another just because you are being a mirror for my issues.  I will only have compassion for you and help you find a more balanced solution to your issues rather than allowing you to go into hurtful attack mode!

Next issue!  I’ve lost my iPhone and iPod charger.  Why is that so important?  Because I have a really good Spanish dictionary that I use all the time to help me when I get stuck in conversation, which pretty much happens all the time right now…hehe!  As much as I have learned about speaking and understanding the language I still have a lot to learn.  I also use my iPhone to Skype with friends and family.  The charger cord also charges my iPod, which I use for several things including playing music for guests during meals or while just chilling out.  Of course, I also use it for personal use when I’m working or meditating or just chilling out.  The obvious need is that I have to be able to charge my stuff wherever I go.  SO, for now, thankfully, Jill and Casey have a charger that I can use.  It’s just going to be a little extra inconvenience not having in my hut so I don’t have to bother them and walk the distance to charge my stuff.  I will have to order a new charger from Apple but that’s a whole other can of worms when it comes to shipping things down here.  First, there are no PO Boxes I can get.  You simply have something shipped to the only post office in Pulcallpa and then check from time to time to see if you’ve received anything.  And it could take up to a month for me to get the item shipped to me.  Even then I’m not guaranteed that it will arrive.  I guess I’ll be having a talk with the faerie realm to see if by change they might have heisted my charger and be willing to return it for a small donation, of which I’m not sure what I would donate yet but I’ll figure something out.

Speaking of huts and electricity, or lack thereof, Gary and I had to move all the way to the back of the property.  I think I’ve already mentioned this before, however, I haven’t spoken of this will make things a week bit more difficult  for the next nine days before we can move back up to the front of the property where all of the running water, electricity, showers and kitchen are located.  I’m not complaining…. well actually I am complaining but that’s because I decided I needed a blog spot that I could vent and complain.  Because we are all the way in the back of the property, and remember we are on fifty acres of land, you have to be on your toes about remembering to bring the stuff you need when you head to the front part of the property, otherwise, you will end up getting a lot more exercise than you wanted and./or have time for.  It takes at least 3-4 minutes (and probably more like two and half at a brisk walk) to go from the front of the property where the kitchen and most of the other huts are, to the back of the property where the Malóka and our temporary hut are.  You can also ride the bike if it’s around that cuts down the time to about 20-30 seconds.  One slip of the brain cells and you’ll end up having to eat a few more calories to cover for your mistake.  It’s a little frustrating and I can’t wait until the nine days are over so we can move back into hut number two after seven of our guests finish out their perspective retreats but this will be another patience and appreciation building exercise.

Here’s a good example of what I’m talking about.  I decided I wanted to some more blogging tonight.  I also needed to charge my toothbrush and my phone.  So, I gathered up my things and decided to head to Jill and Casey’s hut not far from the kitchen to see if they had seen my charger.  If they had not then I was going to ask them if I could use theirs to charge my iPhone since it hadn’t been charged in about two days.  No problem.  I brought my computer and iPod, in case I ended up finding my charger.  I also brought my iPhone.  I got to their casita and they said they had not seen my charger.  So, I put my iPhone on their charger and was ready to head to the kitchen when I could plug my computer in and blog.  WELP!  DANG IT!  I completely forgot to bring my toothbrush charger with me.  I had to walk all the way back to the hut to get it.  I circled back to get my computer and walked right past their hut as I was so fixated on where my iPhone/iPod charger could be and the few spots in my brain where I was hopeful to find it.  Uggghhh!  Back to Jill and Casey’s to get my computer and finally back to the kitchen.  Unfortunately, I didn’t find my charger, so I guess the next time I get on the Internet I will have to look into seeing what I can do for ordering a new charger.  This could be expensive with shipping so I’m praying that the little faerie kingdom people will help me find it.   (UPDATE:  I found the charger in the pocket of a pair of short I had not worn in a few days.  Go figure!  Thank you, faeiries!)

MERCY!  That was exhausting but venting can be really good for the soul.  I don’t know if you’ve notice this or not but if you vent in a non-hurtful way, you actually release pent up energy that collects in the very cells of your body on the atomic and subatomic levels.  You end up feeling lighter and not so overwhelmed by all of the drama that you became a part of whether you intended to or not.

Funny, but I just realized that tonight is actually the official full moon.  I think it’s in Cancer if I’m not mistaken but I could be wrong, so don’t get on me for that because I’m not in the mood tonight…LOL!  Being that it is the full moon this is the night to release all that no longer serves you or unbalanced energies that are clogging up your communication like to Source energy.  Well, consider this venting blog to be my full moon ritual releasing all of these unbalanced energies that seem to be plaguing me around every corner today.

One of my bright spots of the day was when I was sitting at the C’est Si Bon while I was waiting for Gary to finish the vegetable shopping.  I was already done with the fruits and other sundry staples that we needed.  I was sipping on a blended glass of Camu Camu when a tall, thin, sort of Point Dexter looking man walked up from behind me.  I could tell he was definitely not a national with his fair skin and light eyes.  Although, I’ve seen plenty of Peruvians with some really beautiful blue eyes that stick out like a full moon on a dark night because of the back drop of their dark skin.  Anyway, I nodded and said hello fully believing that he spoke English.  He looked at me intently and quietly said hello back wondering if I was fluent in English.  I do have a very Mediterranean look about me being that I’m one quarter Portuguese and one quarter Italian.  But to the Peruvians I’m still a gringo.  We got to talking about where he was from and what he was doing in Pulcallpa.  He is a Chiropractor from Houston, Texas and had been living in Uruguay for the last two years.  Chuck proceeded to tell me how he didn’t like how things were going in the United States and decided he didn’t want to live in the U.S. anymore.  He’s not the first person who I’ve met here in Peru that decided they didn’t like how things were going back in the States and decided to make their homes in South America.  They call these people Ex-pats.  That is short for Ex-patriots.  There are Ex-pats in many parts of the world.  We even had a few of them attending our retreats that were teachers in Saudi Arabia and some of the Asian countries.  One of them isn’t officially an Ex-pat but he has been living and teaching English in Mexico for about two years now.  Seems to be a bigger and bigger trend for people wanting to escape the degrading life conditions in the United States.  It’s been interesting to get so many points of view of what is happening with current world events but the most common theme that I hear is that there is an upper class of elitist rich people that are determined to create nothing but chaos for all of the hard working people that are becoming poorer and poorer because of soaring food prices, mounting government debt, devaluing U.S. dollar and many more signs that economic and world chaos may not be far away.

But I’m digressing.  I will follow up that last statement with the fact that I also believe that we are teetering on the edge of one of the most amazing leaps in human consciousness and shifts into a higher dimension and vibration where all of this poverty, suffering, ill-will, persecution, selfish mongering and complete disconnect from our higher knowledge and selves will be gone forever for humanity.  I can feel it and so can many of my friends who are doing their spiritual bodybuilding and paying attention to the collective consciousness and how it is changing.  Change is coming and it’s going to be BIG CHANGE!

One more thing that I need to write about quickly is this amazingly weird dream that I had last night.  This felt like one of my flying dreams but it was different.  In the dream I was expertly skating on water with my bare feet.  I remember my initial intention in the dream was to walk on water and I knew I could do it.  But I took it one step further.  I skated my way across the water as everyone who was enjoying playing in the water was watching with awe.  For any of you who feel you’d like to take a stab at interpreting this dream, go for it.  I’d love to hear it.

Also, I’ve been noticing people from my past that have been coming into my dreams.  One dream I had last night, in addition to the previously mentioned one, was a guy that I had dated over twenty years ago.  In this dream, we reconnected and began to date again.  I hadn’t thought about Marty for years and so it was a bit strange to see him come back into my space.

I think that’s enough for tonight and of course the power is turning off so I need to get my body to bed.  My venting session has gone well and now I feel much better.  I’m ready for a good night sleep and to wake up refreshed with a new pair of eyes and ears to greet our new arrivals early in the morning.

Monday, July 18, 2011

8:37 PM

 

I was going to blog about my Dark Night of the Soul period that I’ve mentioned in previous blogs but what has happened with this new group is nothing short of amazing in my book and has caused me to change the order of the information I’m sharing.  Sorry, I know a few of you have been wanting me to share this and I will because I think it’s vital to my story here in Peru.  It shows where I’ve come from since the year 2000.  I will try to convey to you as best I can why this latest event supercedes my Dark Night of the Soul story.

Yesterday, we picked up the members of the fifth retreat of the year and the biggest of the year and of all time so far.  We began early preparations for a group of twelve people that was coming from all over the world to experience the healing powers of Ayahuasca in the rawness of the jungle.  The connection with each person I made, as we shuttled them from the airport and hotels, made the boat ride across the lake watching as some had their cameras out while others crossed the smooth waters of Yarina Cocha lake in anticipation for what is going to be a life changing experience for all of these people.  I knew this was going to be a great retreat.

We settled the guests in and then Casey and I had to head out into the darkness of sunset to pick up one last guest at the airport.  Then we would have to make the dark ride home and easily guide our way into the dock in front of Tierra Vida Retreats.  We picked our guest up and headed across the lake with a successful docking.  The trek back to dry land was a little tricky.  The dock is about a foot and a half, maybe, wide and is composed of thick tree trucks and branches acting as the pylons for the dock, or better yet,  like a bridge.  The cross slats have fairly large gaps in them in some spots and so you need to be careful when you’re traversing this makeshift yet solidly made bridge.  It’s not to bad during the day but it’s much more difficult when you can’t use your peripheral vision to see ahead of yourself.  You can only see as far as the flashlight is able to shine.  So, we had to be extra careful making our way back to shore.  Finally, with everyone together we had our first orientation meeting in the kitchen outlining the weeks events and schedule, as well as, tidbits that the guests would need to know about locations of buildings, meal times, ceremony schedules, shaman information and much more.

Already there has been a lot of bonding from this Cosmic group of light beings.  The first day was a get to know each other day.  It’s always the most awkward day in a lot of cases because your suddenly faced with 12-15 different personalities that you have to tune yourself into on some level.  I find that in a more intimate environment like this you either open up your head and mind or you might miss out on making some great connections.  So far no one has really gone into that space.  The blend soon began to occur at the first gathering of meals and the anticipation would only grow from there.  Much conversation seemed to revolve around how people were feeling about coming down here and taking more personal charge of their own growth.  That’s been a beautiful thing to here and feel.  You could also just feel the energy of this group.  You knew there was something different about them in their collective form.  It was like they all knew they had to gather in this larger group to resonate a more powerful force for their own transformations.  I know I’m sounding dramatic but these words truly describe how I feel inside about what I’m experiencing since they arrived here.

One of the reasons why I call them the Cosmic group is because we have one German couple that lives in Uruguay, a Brazilian woman who lives in Sweden, a couple that lives in St. Thomas in the Caribbean, an Indian from Canada an Aussie woman and the rest from the United States including Florida and North Carolina.  There are more foreigners than there are nationals from the U.S.  The diversity is beautiful and stunning and it made me a little nervous at first but I quickly just tightened the bolts of my mind and pressed forward with my own anticipation at how I was going to do in my semi-new role.

The next day was fairly smooth.  I worked on a few projects in the morning after breakfast.  I also spent quite of bit of time speaking with several different people about their anticipations and expectations.  We talked about get-to-know you stuff and I really enjoyed mixing that energy in with the work. The later part of the day I decided to set up the Malóka.  The new addition of two new bathrooms and two storage closets for the pads, blankets, buckets and cleaning items was completed.  It was going to clear out the necessary room we would need to accommodate at least fifteen people during ceremony now.  I’ve never set up for fifteen people before and I new it would be a challenge dealing with the doors to the bathrooms and the entrance of the Malóka.  It turned out fine for the most part.  We are pretty much at our limit right now and it seems to be working well.  So, with the Malóka set up I headed for the kitchen for what I knew was going to be my last meal before ceremony.  I was only sitting but I would still be drinking a small dose of the medicine, so I ate a decent portion of rice and beans about two hours before ceremony commencement to take off the edge.

Everyone gathers in the Malóka and stakes their claim to their journey spot for the evening.  We begin the ceremony with an introduction and welcome.  Many of these infant Ayahuasceros are about to be initiated into the young adulthood of learning to work with the Madre and seeing for themselves why they were so drawn to travel thousands of miles from the comforts of their homes to experience a closely authentic experience with the Shipibo shamans and Ayahuasca.  The welcome and information session finishes and we begin the ceremony.  Mapacho is handed out and each one of us smudges each other in succession dancing and connecting with each other’s energy as if we were sending each other off on a bon voyage.  Olga blesses the medicine and each person is poured his or her dosage of Mamacita.  Each person consumes their portion after a personal blessing and prayer and a reminder of the intentions they spoke to each other earlier in the evening.  Fifteen minutes after taking my small dose I began to feel the energy of the Mother come on and I began to ready myself to sing the opening Icaro.  This Icaro calls in the wisdom of the shamans and the four directions.  I love beginning the ceremony with this intention.  After whistling under my breath the tune of the Icaros I was going to sing for about five minutes, I began to paint the air with the vibrations of this beautiful Icaro.  More and more I am learning how to get out of my head, empty myself of everything that is me and allow the vibration of the Icaro take me over.  I feel different when I can achieve this with the Icaros.  I almost don’t feel like myself and yet it is me brushing the vibrations of these songs on every living organism in its path.  As the Icaro leaves my mouth, my body sways and my hands and arms begin their own dance as I feel the energy of the Icaro that is being sung.  I feel for the energy and what it is doing as it interacts with each person and energy in the room.  It feels dynamic and fluid as if it could form to any surface, shape or size.  By the end of the Icaro I know they have arrived to bring for their healing and wisdom for each one of us.

Casey, Jill and I were each responsible for four people in the group.  I had the group on the left side near Olga, our shaman and Casey and Jill had the rest of them in the middle and on their right side.  I sat in quiet meditation as I waited for Olga to begin signing with and on the medicine.  The left side of the room seemed to be going into the medicine sooner than the middle and right side of the room and soon we would have our first purge of the night in progress.  Then another followed it and then the energy shifted to the right side of the room where one of our guests was well into her journey on the medicine.  She began to laugh uncontrollably and soon it spread like wildfire throughout the Malóka.  This lasted for about fifteen or twenty minutes and then the energy shifted and people began to go deeper into the medicine.  We had two people that asked for a second dose because their first dose didn’t seem to be taking them very deep.   Their wish was granted and it wasn’t long before they were deeper into the Mariacion or medicine’s energy as we mostly say.

My night became very busy as I supportively delivered tissue for the purging victims, assisted people to the bathrooms, held their hands as they encountered a rough patch on their journey’s.  One woman had me hold her hand for a good thirty minutes as she worked diligently to not resist the energy of the medicine.  In the long run she did awesome and finally let go with a healthy purge.  She was very grateful for me staying with her through this rough portion.  I was more than grateful and honored to have been able to do it since I received that kind of assistance when I went through a couple of really painful journeys.  My compassion for this woman was bigger than I have ever felt and I would have stayed for hours if she needed me.  This was her first journey and it was important that she knew she was safe.  She soon found out she was in very safe hands.  The whole night was the answer to my own intention for this ceremony.  My intention centered on being of service in the highest level to these wonderful people of which many of them were first-timers to Madre Ayahuasca.  I knew it could be challenging but I was comfortable knowing we had three of us in the room to facilitate as needed.  Soon the entire room except for three people we full on in the Mariacion purging, laughing, crying and healing on many different levels.  I was in heaven not because they were experiencing discomfort but because I knew each one of them was receiving valuable healing that would change their lives.  The three that were not feeling the medicine as much decided to take a second dose.

At the last minute one of them changed their minds and decided to experience this first dose for what it was supposed to be.  She was having a wonderful journey to begin with but it because apparent that her and her boyfriend were holding space for the others as they went through their process.  This was true for a woman on my side who consumed her second dose and quickly dove down the rabbit whole to another level of healing, bliss and purging.  I assisted her also through her purging process fanning her to keep her cool and help move the energy.  The night was exhausting but very rewarding and at one point I remember saying, “This is the reason I came down here.  Feel this energy.  See the energy move and weave throughout the room and watch the transformations happen before your very eyes.  Be proud to be a part of this important planetary work that is being done.”

The whole evening for me was full of awe and wonder at witnessing the most beautiful blending of energies of people that barely knew each other.  All of the first timers handled their journeys very well and most are anticipating the next ceremony tomorrow night.

One of the things we do at our retreat is to have an Integration Meeting.  This meeting is designed to allow each person to share his or her experiences or journeys in a Native American talking stick fashion where the person with the talking stick is the only one that can speak until the stick is passed to the next person.   I made a special talking stick out of a piece of raw Ayahuasca vine adorned with natural material from a banana tree on the hangle and lavished with special Peruvian Eagle and Parrot feathers that I had obtained from an artist in town.  Then a very special piece came to me through Tiko, our wonderful little ball of joy that keeps us entertained day and night.  Tiko hiked up the long flight of stairs to the tambo that I was staying in near the back of the property next to the Maloka.  Tiko had in his mouth this odd looking object that was pointed at the end of it and he gently set it down next to me as if he knew to give it to me.  I took one look at it and knew exactly where it was to fit on the talking stick.  It fit perfectly on the end of the Ayahuasca vine.  I was amazed!  It was as if he knew that I was making this special tool for the group and knew exactly what it needed to be finished.  What a special blessing!

Each person shared his or her experiences with honest, heart-felt, and brilliant stories.  We each felt a bond in our collective experience, as well as, experienced difficulties, magical moments, healing on many levels, adoration for life and it’s process, love for each other and a desire to see what lies around the corner for the rest of the retreat.  The Integration meeting revealed a plethora of amazing experiences of rebirth, physical healing, clarity and understanding, new thought paradigms forming and a tremendous appreciation for the group energy like we all recognize each other from another life time where we were fulfilling a similar mission.  I actually shared my experience last but by the time they were all finished and it was my turn to share I was stunned even more.  As if the ceremony itself hadn’t stunned me enough, this added to the shock and awe I was feeling at what I was witnessing with such an inexperienced group of Ayahuasceros.  It’s as if they all know what they are doing.  Maybe they all came back to remember what they’ve done in the past.  Nonetheless, I was honored to have facilitated such an amazing time of sharing from the heart.  Now, I know how my shaman in the United States feels after people share their ceremony experiences the morning after.  It left me feeling very humble!

The day continued with a nice lunch, more one-on-one chat with several guests.  I even squeezed a few smaller projects in here and there and we ended it on a broccoli soup night prepared very tastily by our chef.  Tomorrow begins day three as they prepare for two ceremonies in a row.  This is where things could get a little rough but I don’t feel that energy taking over and will do my part to keep my mind, body and spirit on center as we navigate this sizable group.  Wish me luck!

Saturday, July 23, 2011

3:06 PM

It was exactly one week ago when we welcomed the guests for this last retreat.  I’ll call it retreat number four since this is my fourth retreat that I have helped to facilitate.  It’s been a little frustrating because there hasn’t been much time to blog and yet I’ve had many realizations that come in fleeting moments when I’m taking a break or even helping to facilitate a ceremony.

When this group first arrived I felt there something special about this group.  Prior to them arriving I was picking up on heavy doubt and hesitation energy and as the retreat pressed on during the week I would soon find out why.  Many had expressed their concerns and fears about coming to do an Ayahuasca retreat in a foreign country thus giving way to the doubt and hesitation energy that I was picking up on in the previous week.  So, it all made sense.  I’m going to try to detail what has occurred that is significant to me for this period of time.  Again, this group felt special to me.  The word that I kept coming to mind after we had our initial orientation meeting and period of getting to know each other was COSMIC.  I mentioned this word before and so far the cosmic energy of this group became even more apparent after the first ceremony.

I don’t have any earth shattering details to share about this but there are some significant things to note.  The biggest one in my mind is that I began to notice that many of the guest kept describing these feelings that I had shared in my last entry about the fact that I believe that this group was reunited to assist in completing some necessary work regarding our planetary and personal ascension process.  I felt that we had all done this kind of work before especially with Ayahuasca.  I felt as if we had all worked with plant spirit medicine in previous lifetimes because many of the guests are first timers to Ayahuasca in this lifetime and yet they have handled all of their ceremonies with a special awareness.  They each have taken their journeys, no matter how difficult or easy, and are applying what they are being shown or taught through each ceremony.  Some have been dealing with resistance issues connected to what needs to be healed within them.  Some have been dealing with their egos that have been unwilling to let go of certain thought paradigms and programs that have kept them stuck in a loop of attracting the same energies to them over and over.  Many of our guests have had significant breakthroughs of how they need to continue on their path of healing through making changes to their environment or the way in which they perceive their worlds when they go back home at the end of the retreat.

Many of them have expressed the feeling that we have all come together in this moment to do a great work together and what’s interesting is how I’ve noticed the group dynamic energy changing with each day.  But it’s not so much the changing of the energy that is significant rather how the group deals with these shifts individually and collectively and the fact that many felt that we have all been experiencing much of the same things during this retreat.  I would definitely agree with that.  Many have expressed in certain ceremonies how they felt strongly that they were that particular ceremony in order to hold space for others that needed extra support in healing and expanding their souls.  I have no argument for that point either.  Then when one group is finished with their processing that group would end up holding space in ceremony for the others that had yet to do their processing.  So, the group energy and dynamic has felt very intelligent to me.  It’s like we all know what we are doing even if we are feeling lost in certain moments during ceremony or in our processing of the healing that is taking place under the care of Madre Ayahuasca.

Three of our guests have already gone home.  They were here for a one week retreat and all felt as if they got exactly what they needed to continue their lives on a path of growth and ascension when they get back home.  Four more guests will continue their journey home on Sunday after spending nine days at the retreat center with significant information and much healing to take home with them.  Many of them are talking about the shift that this planet and humanity are currently in the middle of and many are aware that big things are coming soon.  Their awareness of who they are in Spirit and their true divine essence has increased to levels that they will be processing for days, weeks even months to come.  And I’m am proud and humbled to have a part of all of their healing and growth processes no matter how difficult it has been for some of them.  They are courageous and strong for having allowed themselves to participate in difficult but definitely very rewarding spiritual bodybuilding, as I call it.  The final group of five people will remain at the retreat center after Sunday to finish out their two week stay and continue to go deeper with the medicine to continue manifesting their deep desires and intentions, whatever that may look like to them.  I, for one, look forward to what will be revealed in the next week to them and to myself.  Honestly, I’ve been very affected by this group.  It’s a feeling but it’s a strong feeling that the work we have all been doing here has dramatically shifted the energy of this retreat center and our lives profoundly forever.  We are heading into the fourth dimension and every one of us can feel it.  We can all feel that we are currently right smack in the middle of this transition and know that we need to get right with ourselves and heal our baggage so we don’t have to carry into the next dimension; besides the fact that we wouldn’t be able to carry all that crap into the higher densities anyway.  It’s just the way the laws of the Universe work.

My Dark Night of the Soul

Saturday, July 23, 2011

3:37 PM

It’s Saturday, the day after ceremony number four.  Most of them had a wonderful journey after drinking the brew that the group made at the beginning of the week.  They all reported a blissful journey full of cosmic love after having some rough ceremonies in the two previous ones.  I did not sit in ceremony last night as it was Gary’s turn to be the sitter but I did hold space in one of the hammocks outside of the Malóka (ceremony space) while everyone journeyed once again for themselves, for family and for healing on many levels.  During this quiet time, which allowed me to be with my own thoughts for awhile, I came to the realization I’ve been hesitant to blog about my Dark Night of the Soul that I’ve mentioned I would in previous blogs.  Why was I feeling this resistance?  I believe it’s for a few reasons.  One of the reasons is because there is so much to tell that I could probably write a book about the experience in and of itself.  The other reason surprised me but it’s understandable.  The experiences that I had during this dark period were very traumatic to me on many levels and it frightens me to go back into and revisit those experiences and energies on certain levels.  I’m not sure why it scares me either because I have done a lot of healing through personal work and work with Ayahuasca regarding this significant period of my life.  Nonetheless, I decided that today I would give it a shot.  I have wanted to share this experience in writing for quite some time.  I believe that it will fill in some gaps in connection with my other entries in this blog series and will assist you, and possibly myself, in tying together certain threads that will help this process be even more complete energetically and spiritually.  So, here goes!  Buckle up because it could be a bumpy ride for some of you as I feel I’m sharing this to help some of you heal your own wounds.

My journey through this Dark Night of the Soul began in Seattle where I was working with Microsoft Corporation.  I had the dream job of a lifetime.  I was working with a young company that was growing financially on such levels that the rewards for those who were motivated in their work were beyond many of the major companies that were operating at the time including Fortune 500 companies.  The benefits were amazing especially the medical benefits and the stock options that were being handed out like candy at the time because the company was growing so quickly and successfully.

I started with the company when it was only 6,000 employees.  We were still small enough that we all felt like a big family.  By the time I was hired in 1991 we already had two technical support centers, which was the division I was working for.  We had our support center in Bellevue, Wa. and Charlotte, NC.  The first couple of years were definitely growing years for me as I felt I was playing catch up with many of the employees that already had computer science or other degrees.  I did not have a degree but through a lot of hard work and dedication I made my presence known in the product support division and made my way up the ladder and into the Product Lead role for Microsoft Office.  This role was pretty much the last destination in the Product Support division that you could advance to unless you decided to go into the team or unit management side of this division.  I didn’t have any desire to be a manager but still had a desire to try something new after seven years of service.

In 1999 I decided to make a big move and accepted a new position in Dallas, Texas with the Corporate Support division servicing corporate accounts using Microsoft Office.  I knew this would be a challenging position and very much looked forward to the journey and advancement in my career.  One of the major reasons why I decided to move to Texas to take on this new role was because I felt like I was being called to that energy.  In a couple of previous business trips I felt this intense energy pulling me their but I didn’t know why.  I would soon find out after relocating my entire life to the southern part of the country.  I had just bought a new house in Seattle, my first house, eight months prior to making this decision but that didn’t stop me from acknowledging and acting on my soul’s promptings.

In February of 1999 I made the move and got settled into my new role as a corporate support engineer.  I rented an apartment for the first year.  I developed an active social life and schedule with intense workouts at the gym, dinners and movies with friends, trips to other states and countries, riding my motorcycle and experiencing many things that Dallas had to offer.  I was not a fan of the heat and humidity, however.  The following summer that I had moved their was prove to test my will and resolve in living in a very hot part of the country because we had experienced record heat that summer.  If I remember correctly we had a string of 49 days of temperatures at 100 degrees and over.  It was brutal but thank the good Lord for air conditioning.  When the heat gets to be that hot and consistent with no breaks you end up going from air conditioned buildings to air conditioned cars and back to air conditioned building as quickly as you can.  The humidity, however, is what made it very challenging.  Heat indexes would reach as high as 115-120 degrees on some days.  Those were the days you simply didn’t do anything but stay next to the air conditioner and eat ice cream or drink chilled sun tea.

My first year in corporate support was great.  I was growing and loving my life and role in my job.  I was even setting my sights on becoming the Product Lead for Microsoft Office in the Corporate Support division down the road.  I sprang forward in my education becoming certified in several Microsoft certifications that helped my career and my pocket book for that matter.  My life seemed to be going exactly where it needed to and where I wanted it to; that direction was up, up and away and I saw no end in sight for the growth both personally and financially until one morning when I woke up to find half of my face numb to the point where I was not able to hold the toothpaste in my mouth as it was dripping out of the left corner of my mouth.

I had never experience anything like this before.  Concerned, I decided to call in sick to work that day and go see my doctor, who I thought was a good doctor at the time.  I went to my appointment that day in great anticipation of the reason for the numbing on only half of my face.  It didn’t take long after a brief discussion with my doctor for him to tell me that I had Bells Palsy.  I don’t know why but for some weird reason the words Bells Palsy brought up the image of a big fat Santa Claus laughing in his jolly way that we think he does holding a big string of Christmas bells.  Every time he would laugh the bells would make a thunderous sound and it always gave me a good feeling to hear those bells.  However, once my fantasy thoughts were done processing and I came back into the present moment I had this ominous feeling that Bells Palsy was something more than a fairy tale from Christmas that would bring joy to me.  Since I had never heard of Bells Palsy, I reluctantly asked my doctor to explain what it was and what we needed to do to fix it.  I was relieved to find out that even though Bells Palsy could be serious in some cases, I did not have a severe case and that all I needed to do was get some rest and the numbing effects of the virus would subside within a week or two or possibly longer depending on the severity of the incident with this virus.

What came next was something I was not expecting, sort of.  Perhaps in the back of my mind I wondered if the Bells Palsy was a symptom of my HIV advancing further and possibly into the AIDS territory.  Up to that point, I had been HIV positive for nine years but I had resisted taking any medications to assist in keeping the virus under control for a few reasons.  One of the biggest reasons was because I intuitively felt that I didn’t need to take any medication.  The other reason was because I had both seen and heard about friends and people experiencing nightmarish side effects from taking the drugs as they were not very advanced at the time.  I simply didn’t want to go through any of the reported side effects that had come to my knowledge at that time.  My doctor and I discussed the possibility that I should now consider going on HIV medication and I told him that I would think about it and let him know when I made a decision.

I made the decision.  I decided to try out my first set of HIV meds and see how it would go.  My doctor prescribed to me a three drug cocktail that I only had to take once a day.  I was relieved at that because I didn’t want a complicated schedule for taking these pills since my life was very busy and complicated to begin with.  I needed something easy and when you are taking HIV meds it is very important that you do not miss any doses as the virus may mutate around those particular drugs and become resistant to them.  Then you would have to start with a whole new set of drugs and potentially a whole new set of side effects that you would have to whether as your body became acclimated to the new regime.

I got through the initial month of side effects and thought that I was in the clear until about month number four.  I began to experience things like numbing in my arms and hands and slight anxiety around June of 2000.  One day while I was at work I was feeling exceptionally tired and agitated at everything.  I just thought I was coming down with something.  I decided to eat out for lunch that day and went to one of my favorite restaurants.  In the middle of eating my meal my neck and shoulders suddenly began to convulse and spasm to the point that my shoulders were locked up into my neck and head and I was unable to relax them.  The pain was off the charts and I didn’t know what to do. I called my boss to let her know that something serious was wrong with me and that I was going home early so I could call my doctor and make an appointment with him the next day.  I was having a classic anxiety attack but because I had never had an attack of this nature or severity before I didn’t know what it was.

I went to see my doctor the next day and he could offer no explanation for what was causing the anxiety or spasming.  He simply sent me home with a prescription of home rest for the rest of the week and that was it.  I think I ended up staying home for a few days but when I went back to work I knew that nothing had been resolved.  I continued to work for the next week feeling like I was getting worse and worse and decided to speak with my boss about it.  Nina was my boss at the time.  She was wonderful and very understanding of what I was going through.  I felt this urgency to resolve the matter because nothing in my body felt right.  I knew something major was wrong and even suspected that the symptoms that I was feeling were from the HIV medications.  However, because my doctor didn’t even hint to the possibility that the medication was causing these problems I quickly dismissed the notion.  Long story short, my boss and I decided that I was going to take a thirty-day medical leave to see if I could figure out what was causing this problem.  Here’s the kicker.  I had just bought my second house and was in the process of working through the paperwork to close on the house.  Also, my Mom had decided to come down for a visit at the time that I was dropping a bid on this dream house that I had walked into one day on a whim.

The house was amazing.  It was a 1957 ranch style home with 2,400 sq ft of hardwood floors, remodeled (HUGE) kitchen, four bedrooms, two living rooms, a quarter acre lot, separate two car garage in the alley and a beautiful kidney shaped pool with a hot tub connected to the pool.  I was in heaven and decided to offer a price $5,000 over the last bid.  Needlesstosay, I got the house and would find myself being the owner of two houses at the same time.  I rented my house in Seattle to friends for a few years until I found this house.  Everything fell into place for this manifestation to take place.  I had a twenty percent down to put on the new house.  I called my realtor in Seattle to let him know I wanted to put my house there on the market and he promptly told me that we didn’t even have to put the house on the market because a gay couple was ready to make me an offer on my modest 1,600 sq ft house, with no pool in the backyard, in Seattle.  The offer was for the exact amount of the offer I made on my new house in Dallas.  I knew it was destined to be and soon began to make preparations to move into this dream house, all the while beginning to deal with this HIV medication issue which would have far reaching effects on my life and my future.

One month turned into four months as I went from doctor to doctor to help with this problem that was keeping me from working.  As a side note, and I didn’t fully understand the repercussions of this decision, but I decided to tell my new boss at the time the reason I believed I was experiencing these health issues.  I told them about my HIV and the medications that I was taking which was the biggest mistake or at least I thought it was a big mistake at the time when it was all said and done.  I finally found a psychiatrist that prescribed a drug called Neurotin that leveled me out enough to finally go back to work in the fall of 2000.  However, I was still not 100% upon my return and I had experienced much insecurity during the four months of medical leave that I was experiencing.  I went through horrible bouts of depression and doubt about my future as the HIV medication continue to attack my body and emotional state of being on levels I had never experienced before.

After getting back to work I found it very difficult to concentrate and my six-month review would reflect that in the winter months.  I re-entered my job in the middle of a review period without having a final resolution to my issue until I decided to change doctors.  The short of it is that my new doctor immediately confirmed my suspicion about the HIV meds and immediately took me off all medications.  He told me that I really didn’t even need to be on medication at the time and that he would monitor my blood counts as the month progressed to make sure that my immune system was still keeping up with the virus on it’s own.  However, that made no difference with my new boss as he gave me the lowest review score I had ever received and he proceeded to put me on probation until I could improve my work performance.

This spiral downward would only be the beginning.  The review came in February of 2001.  I had also recently met what would be my new boyfriend from Houston in the previous December of 2000.  We met at my gym while he was on a business trip to Dallas with the Exxon Corporation.  It was love at first site even though he started out by chasing me in the gym one night.  I knew he was checking me out through the entire workout and it annoyed me because I’m not one to socialize in the gym.  I want to get in, get my workout done and get out.  It was that simple.  Well, I ended up locking eyes with him in the locker room as he had gone before me to shower and change.  He was almost done by the time I headed to the showers but I would soon find out that he waited for me to leave the locker room before making an obvious second attempt to get my attention.  I was leaving the gym and heading up the stairs to the lobby where the elevator was when I was stopped by a guy that worked out at my gym that I was interested in going on a date with.  We stood on the stairs and did the surface talk routine for several minutes when I felt this presence walking up the stairs behind me.  I was prompted to look his direction to once again meet his gaze and shit-eating grin on his face.  He said hello to me and I nodded back and quickly re-engaged in my conversation with what I thought was my next romantic interest.

That conversation ended with a sense that nothing was going to happen, nor did I get an invitation for a date out of it either, so I proceeded up the stairs and down the hallway to the elevators only to find out that Stuart, the guy who met my gaze on the stairs on his way out, had still been waiting for the elevator.  I’m pretty sure he had been waiting there for me because from the time our second gaze occurred to him leaving for the elevator had been at least 10 minutes and I knew it would not take anyone that long to catch an elevator to the parking garage.  I chuckled under my breath and knew that he had done this on purpose.  Anyway, we both had huge smiles on our faces and proceeded to engage in conversation about where we lived and our work and all that surface stuff that goes along with getting to know someone.  What came out of it was contact information for both us and thus this began a two and half year dating period that would end up being a part of my Dark Night of the Soul that would change my life forever from that point forward.  Meeting Stuart was a very bright spot in the murky mess of what was going on with my job at the time.

Springing forward into the summer months again and it was getting increasingly difficult to go to my job and be in joy or any kind of purpose for that matter.  There are many details that I will have to skip for brevity sake at this point but those details will come out in the book that I will be writing in the future about my life, the challenges I went through, my perceptions of life through my life process, the joys, the triumphs, the pitfalls, the lessons and many more details that are far to intricate to communicate in a personal blog such as this.  Summer was tough for me during this period as my boyfriend at the time was laid off from his job.  Seems we were both experiencing difficult things in our lives and the way we compensated was to use drugs.  Yes, I used the “D” word and this “D” word is a very important part of this Dark Night period.

Before meeting Stuart, my boyfriend at the time, I was introduce to crystal meth by a friend of mine who was addicted to it even though I didn’t know it at the time.  The only drug that I had ever done up to that point was marijuana and mushrooms.  My friend Dan came over one day and wanted me to try this crystal thing that he had been talking to me about.  I nearly had an out of body experience on that Friday before we went out to party at the bars.  I felt like I had insight into the world that I had never had before.  I felt invincible and incredibly energetic.  These are all classic symptoms of someone who has never done meth before.  Anyway, where this all ties in with Stuart and me is that Stan liked to do meth as well.  We were both weekend users and even then it was maybe once a month, however, as Stuart and I began to see more and more of each other it became an occurrence every time we saw each other.  I would fly down to Houston often to see him since he was without a job and every time I did that I would bring meth down with me and we would be up partying and doing our thing all weekend long.  It was very difficult to back to Dallas and work the next week for at least the first day or two before my body could catch up from the after affects of doing meth all weekend.

As time passed Stuart and I would see each other virtually every weekend and every weekend we would end up partying on some level or another with meth and even other drugs that I had been introduced to including Special K, GHB and Ecstasy.  For awhile I was in high heaven and even looked forward to when I could tear my corporate face off and let loose out at the bars or at parties and be in a catatonic state of bliss for the weekend.  Unfortunately, I got the notion that it was OK to start doing meth on more occasions than just the weekend.  That began one of the most regrettable addictions I’ve ever had in my life even over chewing tobacco.  Things kept getting worse with my job and then I received a new boss who was hired to remove the chaff so to speak.  I became a target after my new boss found out that I was considering retiring from my job because I had saved up enough stock options to comfortably do so and pursue whatever dream was in my heart at the time.  I wanted to pursue some kind of work that was going to benefit people’s lives.  At the time I was considering becoming a personal trainer.  As time went on I began to notice that my bosses were no longer interested in helping me further my career as they had done with me in Seattle.  They kept putting blocks in front of me and manipulating me on such a level that I dreaded going to work everyday.  I began to use more meth as result.  And then one day in November of 2000, the day after getting back from a trip home for Thanksgiving, I was fired.  My boss lied to me and told me that we had a team meeting that I needed to attend.  I followed her to a room where an HR representative met me and I knew that something bad was up.  I had been feeling it for some months now.  Reality hit and soon I found them escorting me to my desk to get my things, like I was a criminal, and then out the door of Microsoft never to return to company that had assisted me in building a beautiful life.  I was devastated.  How was I going to tell my boyfriend, my friends and my family?  I went into a sort of isolation after that except for my relationship with my Stan.

Prior to this happening, however, I almost forgot to tell about the fact that Stuart and I had gone on a little weekend vacation for four days to New York.  I flew to New Jersey to meet in and we ended up spending an amazing weekend attending Broadway shows and seeing the sites of New York all under the influence of drugs, of course, but it was still a wonderful trip.  When I got back on that following Tuesday, I found that Microsoft stock had plummeted 15 points and I suddenly found myself in a panic about my stock options.  You see, the previous Thursday before that I had exercised all of my Microsoft stock options in preparation for my retirement from the company.  Because of the 15 point drop in the stock I ended up losing approximately $650,000 in the value of my portfolio which is solely invested in Microsoft stock because it was doing so well.  Since I had exercised my options at the higher price the previous Thursday that meant that I had to pay taxes on the higher price that I sold the options and not the lower price that occurred with the stock drop over the weekend.  The total bill for the taxes was approximately $750,000.  That didn’t leave much after the capital gains loss and the having to pay taxes.  That devastated me.

So, now jumping forward again, I lost my job after that.  Stuart was laid off from his job and I was paying his $850.00 a month rent back in Houston and loaning him several thousands of dollars to pay off credit cards and debt.  I did this all for the sake of our future relationship, which I believed would be for life.  I was completely head over heals in love with Stuart and knew that we would have a great future eventually.  In the summer of 2001 I finally convinced Stuart to move to Dallas to be with me so that we could try to find him a job and get him back on his feet.  I had enough money to last me for quite awhile so I wasn’t that concerned at the time.  I knew that I would work through being fired eventually and find another job.  However, the crystal use increased and then the bomb hit in August of 2001.

Stuart came home one day from a doctor visit and told me that he had a lump on his testical and needed to find out if there was anything to it.  He found out in September that he had testicular cancer a week before the 911 incident happened in New York.  That changed things forever.  He went through surgery in Dallas to have the testical removed.  That was the first step.  The next step was figuring out where he was going to get treatment and eventually it was decided that he was going to receive treatment back in Houston at the MD Anderson Cancer Center which meant he had to move back into his parents house while he received treatment.  Long story short, Stuart spent eight months in cancer treatment, which was brutal.  His treatment ended with a traumatic surgery to remove half of his lymph nodes.  The surgery was successful but Stan would never be the same person again.  After a six week recovery Stan returned home to Dallas and he began to look for work again but wasn’t having a lot of luck in Dallas.  He was getting some prospects in Houston but nothing was final at the time.  I began to notice that something was very different about Stuart after several weeks of being home.  Of course, my meth use had pretty much escalated to an everyday thing because I was fighting depression on a very big scale.  Here I was unemployed, fired from my dream job, my boyfriend was recovering from cancer and I didn’t know what my or our future held.  I was scared to death and didn’t know how to deal with it.

Stuart came home one day and laid another bomb on me.  Of course, he was aware of my meth use and because of all the changes he had gone through with the trauma of the cancer he told me that he could not be in relationship with me anymore if I was going to continue using meth.  I was so far gone with this drug that all I could see was red when he told me this.  All I could think was, “How could you do this to me when I supported you throughout your cancer treatment and recovery for the last eight months.  WHO ARE YOU?  You’re not the Stuart that I met two and half years ago.”  He then proceeded to tell me that he could learn to fall in love with me again if that was what I wanted.  I was dumb founded.  I didn’t know how to respond to that.  It was just eight months earlier that we had professed our undying love for each other and that we would get through this crisis together and move forward with our lives together.  Again, I was devastated.  Of course, I’m leaving out a whole other subset of things that occurred during that eight months that involved his mother who was completely evil towards me throughout the whole cancer process.

On the day that Stuart and I had the talk I told him that I needed to let him go because I didn’t even know who he was anymore.  To me, the Stuart that I met two and half years prior and wanted to marry in a ceremony was dead.  We had even exchanged rings on New Years Eve of 2000 prior to the cancer finding.  That day, he packed up his things and four hours later was driving away from my house back to Houston to his parents and I was in such shock that I fell into a very deep depression for several months.  The way that I tried to handle this devastating break up, which I initiated, was to fall completely into isolation and simply remodel my house.  For the next several months well into the summer of 2001 I made many trips to Home Depot.  I had several projects that I wanted to complete and then I was planning to sell my house.  The problem was that the meth problem became even worse.  I ended up going in circles with the remodel projects trying my best to deal with what was happening to me.  My life was falling apart.  I even came out of isolation and began dating again but my self esteem had taken such a dramatic fall that I had no confidence and it ended in a few failed attempts to date anyone.  I went further and further into isolation, so much that my family became alarmingly concerned that I wasn’t returning phone calls or emails as frequently as they were accustomed to me doing so.

Now we jump forward into August of 2002.  Another bomb hits.  One day I went out to buy some more drugs and met my dealer in his hotel room, as was the custom.  He would change hotels every week to avoid any kind of suspicion or detection.  Unfortunately, a person who was not happy with the dealer decided to report him to the police.  After purchasing my less than a gram baggy of meth I left the hotel room and headed down the hallway.  Suddenly I hear this thunderous crash behind me.  I look behind me and there are several drug enforcement officers storming the end of the building and right into the dealer’s hotel room.  One of the officers yells at me to come to him and he asks me if I had a hotel key.  I told him that I did knowing that he was checking to see if I was a resident at the hotel.  He motioned for me to quickly head for the elevator and to get off of this floor that we were on.  I ran to the elevator only to be greeted by another group of drug enforcement officers from the other side of the building.  One of them approached me at the elevator and asked me the same question.  Did I have a hotel key for the room I was staying in?  I completely lost it and admitted to him that I did not have a key for a room in this hotel.  He escorted me back to the dealers room where I was thrown to the ground and hand cuffed all the while screaming very unpleasant things in my ear.  I ended up spending the night in jail and had to call a friend of mine to front me the money for bail to the tune of $500.00.  This was one of the darkest days of my life since getting fired from my job and losing Stan in that same year.

The shit didn’t stop rolling down hill.  Now I had to deal with attorneys, legal fees, and monthly visits to the courthouse for two solid years.  Every time I would report to the courthouse I would be told that my case was being postponed to the next month.  I was in pure hell.  To add insult to injury two of my best friends died from lymphoma cancer in the year 2003.  I was being told that if I testified against the dealer that they would dismiss any charges against me.   This, of course, never happened and after two years of reporting to the Dallas County courthouse I ended up with a felony conviction, two years of probation and another $2,000 in fines along with my $2,500 in attorneys fees.

I was starting to run out of money and by the time 2004 arrived I had stopped making my house payments.  I started having my power and water turned off.  My Mom came down a few times to try to help me through this disaster.  She motivated me enough to have several garage and estate sales, which allowed me to stay above water for only a few more months.  My house went into default and was nowhere near ready to put on the market to sell.  I continue my meth use even after all of this because it was either that or suicide.  I had completely lost all desire to even take care of myself.  And where were all of my friends that were supposed to be there during times like this?  Where was my family?  My brother and father wanted nothing to do with me.  My mother was the only angel in my life at the time that even tried to understand what it was that I was going through.  The meth was the biggest problem but I tried everything to hide it from everyone, including my so-called friends.  I was very much alone in all of this and this was the world that I had created.  At one point, however, I thought that someone had placed a curse on me.  I went from having everything a man could ever want to losing everything in a short period of time.  I even stopped seeing my therapist because of the shortage of money.

During one of my mom’s visits I virtually sealed my fate in losing my house eventually.  I had already stopped making my mortgage payments.  I was still driving around my in my 1999 Land Rover Discovery, which I loved.  I still had my motorcycle but I was quickly spiraling to a doomed destination of loss on levels I had never known before in my life.  I was at the tail end of another failed relationship.  I went out to a bar one night looking for this guy that I had been dating.  Things were going sour and I knew he was pulling away from me.  I found him that night hugging and kissing on another guy and I lost it.  I was high on meth again, of course.  I waited until they left the bar and I followed the back to his house and found them having sex.  I lost it at that point.  I sped away from his house and screamed home in agony that I was losing another attachment that I had latched onto for all the wrong reasons.  As I was driving down the alley way behind my house I was driving too fast.  I pulled into my driveway and hit a wet spot in the cement and ended up skidding right through my backyard fence and dumped the Land Rover into my pool at 3:30 in the morning.  I sat in the truck for at least ten minutes in complete shock at what had just happened.  The ass end of the truck was buried in the main part of the pool while the front chasse of the vehicle was resting on the hot tub ring.  The truck was totaled.  In the process, I also managed to clip the corner of the garage doing major damage on top of damaging the truck and the pool and the large fence that prevented my neighbors and passersby from seeing into my backyard.  I woke my Mom up from a sound sleep seeking some kind of comfort in the midst of the tremendous pain that I was feeling from my life spiraling further and further into hell.  I was in hell at this point and I had no clue how I was going to get out of it.

The next day and five hours later a towing company pulled my truck out of the pool and I had to erect a large tarp where the fence once stood to high the damage.  I stayed amazing cool throughout this whole ordeal as I knew I had homeowners insurance.  They cut me a check and instead of using the money to fix the house, I used it to survive.  But this small reprieve was not going to extinguish the deep pain and worry that I was feeling about everything that was happening to me.  I felt completely helpless to help myself at this point.

Finally, I just gave up.  I sent Mom back home because I needed to try to find a way out of this mess that I had created.  But I decided that I had had enough and was trying to think of a way to exit the planet.  I closed up all of the curtains, disconnected the phones, turned on the television and began a lengthy stay on the couch.  I only got up to get water, occasionally eat something and to go to the bathroom and that was it.  The depression was so severe that life was over for me at that point.  I ended up spending almost three weeks on the couch in total darkness of my life.  I was wallowing in my failures and loneliness.  I felt like I had nothing more to live for.  My job was gone, my life partner was gone, my friends were gone, most of my family was gone and I was about to lose my house and be out on the street.  I gave up.  I spent my 40^th birthday on the couch on the very day that my house was to be repossessed.  The Sheriffs were knocking on my door and leaving legal notices and I didn’t care.  My neighbors were coming over with dinner knowing I was having a very hard time.  I was done.  I just wanted to die but I didn’t know how I could do it painlessly.  I just wanted to fall asleep and never wake up again.

But life was not done with me yet.  There was simply too much loss and destruction between 2000 and 2004 for me to cope with.  I was no longer the bright shinning star that my Mom and family had told me I was for many years.  My light was dimming like a candle burning down to it’s last ounce of fuel and was about to be snuffed out until one morning I woke up around 5am.  I had not been doing meth for this entire three weeks.  I jumped off the couch, got my running clothes and shoes on and began to fun around my neighborhood telling myself that I was better than what was happening to me.  I kept telling myself that I could find a way out of this mess and try to salvage what was left of a beautiful life that I had.  Only in those 20 minutes of running I realized that I was never really happy.  The big house that I had purchased, my dream house, the relationship with Stan, my job at Microsoft, all the money that I had acquired and lost was not making me happy.  This realization began a new journey for me.  This journey would lead me into a realm of major changes and realizations that would take years for me to investigate and find a way to rebuild myself after this devastation of epic proportions.  I didn’t know how that was going to look or what I was going to do but I was going to just have to figure it out moment-by-moment and day-by-day.

I didn’t stop using meth yet.  The pain and depression were too much for me to handle.  My house was in full foreclosure proceedings but I had no idea when the bank was actually going to kick me out of the house and take it by force.  I lived in fear everyday for the next several months.  The money was running out and I soon found myself soliciting organizations and churches to help me keep my plumbing and power on.  I’ve never felt such fear in my life even after telling myself that I was going to find a way out of this somehow.

By December of 2004 I was still having trouble with motivation and couldn’t think clearly enough except to begin the process of putting what I had left into a storage unit.  I rented a 10’ x 20’ unit and solicited the help of my “best friend” to help me get my stuff in storage for fear that the authorities were going to come to my house and take what was left of my life.  My “best friend” was the same friend that had introduced me to meth in the first place.  But he was the only one that I could call on to ask for help.  He reluctantly agreed to help me because he had a truck.  The problem was that he was now using meth as heavily as I was and his life began to spiral downward along with mine.

The next thing that happened was unbelievable.  My Mom really needed me to come home for Christmas and so I agreed that I needed a break from everything that was happening and I flew home for a week to spend a very depressing Christmas in Hermiston, Oregon where they lived.  While I was gone I asked Doug if he wouldn’t mind helping me to move more stuff into storage.  Like a fool, I completely trusted him to do this for me.  I told him I was afraid that they were going to come and repossess the house and my belongings any day.  Well, he helped me all right.  I found out after I got back that he ended up helping himself to several thousands of dollars of my stuff and placed it in the garage of the person that he was living with.  After that I decided that I needed to leave Dallas.  The only problem was that I was not allowed to leave the state without permission because of my probation.  So, I had to go through the process of requesting a transfer to Oregon, IF that was where I was going to end up.

My Mom called me one day and told me that she had taken out a loan to rent a U-haul to get me home.  She didn’t care what it took but enough was enough and she needed me to get the hell out of there and try to sort this all out in Hermiston.  I got my things back from my “best friend” and told him a few choice words for what he had done.  I communicated with the courts and managed to have them write me up a travel pass and agree to help me with a transfer to Oregon.  I was told that I would have to report to a probation officer in Hermiston until my transfer went through.  I spent almost a week getting back to Oregon with a 40 foot U-haul.  I was so emotionally exhausted from doing meth, lack of sleep, and stress beyond anyone’s imagination that I had to make several stops along the way so that I wouldn’t fall asleep at the wheel.  I’m surprised that I made it back to Oregon alive but I did.

There’s far more to this story even after I got back to Hermiston but I’m going to stop here.  Like I said before, one day I will write a book and will detail everything I remember from this experience.  For the sake of this blog I will end the story here with a few more comments.

I’m relating this story because it very much ties into the experiences of healing and self re-discovering that I have been living since returning to Oregon in January of 2005.  My Dark Night of the Soul stripped me of everything that I was taught was supposed to be important in life: money, houses, careers, friends, family, possessions, self-esteem, dignity etc.  I lost it all.  My life was one big illusion and I had to start completely over learning who I really was and what exactly was important to me in life again.  Words cannot describe the pain and agony that I put myself through for those four painful years of my life that turned the course of events around so quickly that I had no time to process one downfall after another.  Only my faith in God was going to pick me up and help me to make a new life but the journey wasn’t going to be easy.  The journey to find myself again was going to be the highest mountain I’ve climbed in this lifetime and it was going to take strength and perseverance to find my way out of the darkness that I had created.  The lessons that I would learn from all of this would be invaluable and the new destination that I would find myself at would never be like any of the dreams that I previously held.  I was going to have to find new dreams and new desires that were going to help me achieve the ultimate goal in my life at this time and that is happiness.

Now, I’m here in Peru finishing out this journey of healing on very deep levels.  Well, the journey will never be finished but my struggle to find true happiness in life is beginning to manifest itself in away that I never saw coming.  The unfolding of a new me has been anything but a painless process as I’m sure many of you can attest to in your life experiences.  I credit a lot of this healing and new self discovery to my work with Ayahuasca, the amazingly smart, precise, brutally honest and yet divinely loving plant spirit.  But in the end, of all the lessons that I have been learning, the lesson of realizing that I am the creator of my own reality, is probably the biggest one of them all.  There are several subsets of these lessons, which compliment this big lesson including learning to not be attached to anything or anyone.  I’ve also been learning how to love myself on such a level that I will never need to attach to anyone or anything ever again.  Other lessons I’ve been learning include the lesson of learning to be completely out of judgment towards anyone or any situation that crosses my path.  Judgment only draws more judgment and I’ve learned that if I stand in judgment of anyone or anything that I’m also judging myself.  I’ve been learning to stock judging myself as well.  I can look back on my Dark Night and all of the perceived failures that I allowed to happen to me but I’m choosing to not do that any longer.  The past is the past.  I chose this path for a reason.  I’ve gained tremendous compassion for everything in life.  I’ve also gained a tremendous sense of humility for finally understanding my purpose in this life time.  Even though I don’t know where my life is going to end up I now know that I’m on the right path to fulfill my life’s purpose here on this planet and that is to be happy anytime and anywhere.

What I can tell you is that my only goal at this point is to find that true happiness that I know exists within myself.  My happiness is no longer tied to having a career at a major corporation, or owning a nice house or car, or having a successful relationship with a partner for life, or owning nice things or having lots of money.  I came here to be in service to humanity and to this planet.  I came here to help people in the healing of themselves and the healing of Pacha Mama or Mother Earth.  I came here to assist in escorting mankind into a new world of love, compassion and ultimate prosperity for every living soul on this planet.  Being in Peru, I realize that I’m smack in the middle of fulfilling this dream and desire.  How that is going to look in the future doesn’t matter.  What matters is that I strive everyday to hold the highest vibration I can possibly hold to help others and myself ascend to higher levels of consciousness.  And Peru is only one stop on this amazing journey.  I can’t wait to see what I’m going to manifest around each corner.  I am abundant in all things in life.  I can find the joy in any given situation and when doubt and fear try to creep in I have now almost learned to master how purge those energies in every moment to continue this planetary work.

Through this experience in a foreign country to the one I was born in I have realized many things about who I am.  I am Steven Paul Borges.  I am Ronin Soi.  I am another YOU!  I am one with every living organism in this Universe and I have the power to create anything I desire and assist the collective consciousness in ascending to higher levels of love, feeling, thinking and manifesting.  I haven’t mastered everything yet but I’m confident that I’m well on my way.  I’ve learned that I have a tremendous capacity for loving everyone and everything no matter how bad the person may be or how bad the situation may be.  I’ve learned how to fully love myself and to understand what my boundaries in life are.  I’ve learned and am still honing these skills, of attracting only the highest vibrations into my life and into the monastery of my heart.  I’ve learned that I have a tremendous amount of patience.  I care.  I love.  I cry in joy.  I cry in compassion and sadness for others.  I sacrifice my needs to a certain level to help those who don’t know how to help themselves.  I give myself love and compassion and allow others the room to make their own mistakes and find their own way to their own true light.

My experiences at Tierra Vida are not over yet and the forthcoming blogs will show you just that though I’m not giving anything away just yet.  You’ll have to wait for the next blog to see what my next plans are.  The directions from my higher self are coming in loud and clear.  Yes, I still have some fears and hesitations that come with making these decisions.  But I’m stepping off the cliff even more as the days go on.  I’m truly learning to live my life guided by spirit or my higher self and learning to trust that the Universe is going to support me from every angle in every moment along the way.  I’ve broken out of the mold of society, as many people that I’ve met in the last three months have.  I’m not alone in this journey.  We’re all never alone.  We only fool ourselves into believing that we’re the only ones that are experiencing the things that we are experiencing until we break out of the box and find a whole new world of seekers out there doing the same thing.

Monday, July 25, 2011

6:00 PM

Today’s energy has been lovely.  It’s been very peaceful and joy filled from my point of view.  I had to run into town this morning to buy some food and pick up my laundry and I just remember having this amazing feeling of peace and calmness, which is not always the case when we have to travel into Pulcallpa and deal with the chaotic energies that swirl around the city.

Last night was a bittersweet moment as we sent off four more guests that ended their nine-day retreat.  Rashel and Nick from St. Thomas in the Caribbean were wonderful.  Rashel is a massage therapist and owns The Body Garden Spa & Salon in St. Thomas.  Nick owns his own pool cleaning business called Rock City Pools.  Both are hippies at heart to the core.  Rachel taught me some really amazing massage techniques that I got to use on several of the guests this past week.  She even told me that I was a natural at doing massage.  She told me that many of the techniques that are learned in school I was doing naturally.  That was very encouraging to me.  Rachel is a Taurus and she was definitely true to that energy.  She was very alive and full of life and loved to talk.  I miss her a lot and hope to be able to visit them both in St. Thomas sometime in the future.  Nick was very laid back and had a very peaceful energy for being an Aries.  I don’t know what his other signs are in his chart but he definitely doesn’t fit the Aries stereotype as I’ve come to know them.  I just got a sense of well-being and peacefulness hanging around the two of them.  They are a couple, btw.  We had many days and nights of wonderful discussion about their experiences and both seemed to be going home with a lot of healing and wisdom to put forth into their daily lives when they get back to St. Thomas.

Speaking of massage.  I knew there was a possibility that I would be doing massage when I got down here.  The first retreat didn’t really yield any clients for energy work or massage and I think that had to do with the fact that our main shaman, Olga, offers massage as well at a very cheap price.  She only charges 50 Soles for a one-hour treatment.  I’ve had her work on me before and she does wonderful work.  She does basic massage and a little Cranio Sacral therapy though she is not certified in either one of them, as I am not either.  Nonetheless, the second retreat I started treating people and made a little money, which was wonderful.  I gained a little more confidence in my work and received a lot of joy and healing in the process myself.  In this last group, however, I have had a session with just over half of the quests that attended.  The work that I offer to each person is massage, Cranio Sacral therapy and energy work all in the same session. Some of my sessions last about an hour and most of them ended up being about an hour and a half because I wanted to take my time and be thorough in my work.  After this retreat it hit me that I would very much like to get my certification in the United States if I ever get the chance to do it.  I’ve also learned that I really love to do this work.  I get a good work myself with the body work that I do on other people and that has actually helped in reshaping my body as it has been going through a lot of restructuring with the mainly raw foods diet that I have been doing.

Shanna was a complete jewel.  Shana works for a clothes designer in Chicago and has really wanted to work with Ayahuasca ever since she found out about it.  Shanna and I connected on a very deep level as I was there in a few ceremonies to help her through her rough spots and her blissful moments.  I will miss her as well because she brought a very special energy to me that moved me many times just talking and being with her.  I hope she comes back to visit us again.

Then there was Naresh.  Naresh is an Indian living in Toronto.  He was actually born and raised in Canada but has traveled back to his motherland a few times to connect with his heritage.  Naresh is young and had never worked with Ayahuasca before.  What was really refreshing about Naresh is that even though he was inexperienced in working with Madre he seemed to know exactly what she was all about and how to work with her.  Nick and I spent many moments talking about his experiences as he asked endless questions of me regarding his ceremonies and what he was feeling through out the retreat.  He was also one of my roommates in the hut that Gary and I had to move to before this last group arrived.  He was a pure joy to be around.  He never seemed to have a negative thing to say and I believe that his positive attitude had to do with his spiritual beliefs and practices that are native to the people of India.  I look forward to keeping in contact with him and hope to visit him in Toronto one day, as well.

I mentioned earlier that my body has been going through a lot of changes.  When I first arrived I ended up losing about 10 pounds and couldn’t stand the way I looked after two months of being here.  Now, I’m starting to notice that I’m gaining some weight back but in the form of muscle.  All of the projects that I’ve been doing and the constant walking we do on the retreat land have put me in the best shape I’ve ever been in for years since leaving Dallas.  I feel so healthy and my energy levels seem to always be excellent for the most part.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had days where I wished I could have stayed in bed and some of the days with the heat and humidity really drain your energy and some of the days after being up late with ceremony but my recovery time seems to be more robust and faster these days.  So, I’m feeling much better about what is happening to my body.  I’ve also been going off of the diet a little more and getting more protein in the form of chicken and fish.  I am a type “O” blood type and type “O” are meat eaters, so I figure that would help balance out the raw foods diet that I tried to stick to religiously.

Well, last night was interesting in the dreaming department.  After blogging about my Dark Night of the Soul experience in Dallas until 12:30am I headed to bed hoping for a restful night sleep.  Although the village restaurant, Costa Del Ucayali was having an anniversary party and they were blaring their music so loud that we had to cancel our scheduled ceremony that we were going to have for the women that were left on the retreat.  The music played until 3:00am so having earplugs was a huge blessing last night.  I’ve never heard the music playing so loud before and go for so long as it did last night.  What kept me up last night, however, were a series of dreams and having to a few trips to the baño.  One of those dreams I felt was very significant.  I dreamed about my ex-partner, Stewart, that I talked about in my blog from last night.  Stewart was a very significant part of my life and my Dark Night period in Dallas.  In this dream last night he was actually taking care of me and talking to me.  He was paying very special attention to whatever needs I had in the dream.  Also, his mother was in the background preparing some food for us and she had a smile on her face as if she was happy to be doing this for the both of us.  What is significant about this dream to me is that since our break up in 2002 Stuart has not kept contact with me except to pay back every month money that he’s owed me for several years.  Every month he would dutifully put a payment in my bank account but he would never engage me in conversation on the phone or in email since he left Dallas that fateful day in 2002.  His mother, during the time of his cancer treatment and recovery was very mean to me.  She treated me like I was some kind of diseased person and she did some pretty horrible things to me.  But when she first got to know me she was very kind and loving.  When Stuart got sick and she found out that he was HIV positive, suddenly I became the devil incarnate.  It was very much part of the trauma that I went through with Stuart during that time.  So, in this dream they were both very kind and loving to me once again, so it felt like I went through a final healing regarding that very dark period in my life.  I was head over heals in love with him and believed that he and I would be partners for life.  That’s how significant he was to me.  What’s even more interesting is that I thought I had worked through all of that and come to terms with what needed to be released and healed and yet they both came to me in this dream last night.  It was as if they were saying they were sorry for what had happened.  To me, it felt like the closure I never had, so that energy, I believe, was part of the reason why I felt so good today.

I had another dream the night before that was very interesting.  This sweet lady that always greets me with a smile whenever I come in owns the Internet place that I’m able to use my laptop at because of the WiFi connection.  She was in my dream showing some movie on the wall.  But in front of the wall was a smaller screen that was somehow having the image projected onto it at the same time.  The reason for this was for people with poor eye sight.  It was a way for them to be able to read the English subtitles that were being shown with the movie.  Then the scene changed and suddenly I found myself curled up on the floor.  I don’t know if I was watching the movie from that positive or not.   Suddenly, I felt these furry paws and arms wrapping around me. Then I felt the weight of this furry body pressing up against mine.  I looked down at the arm and paws and realized it was a black bear giving me a big hug.  At first I was frightened but then I realized that he was not going to attack or eat me and that he was just there to give me some love.  I rarely have animals visit me in my dreams, so this dream meant a lot to me.  I’m not fully sure of the significance of the dream but what I feel is that the bear’s energy was coming in to comfort me and coddle me so that I would feel safe, secure and loved.  It was an amazing way to wake up early in the morning with the dream fresh on my mind.

So, there is this plant called Piñon Colorado.  Piñon Colorado is a Master Teacher plant and is really good for enhancing lucid dreaming especially when you set an intention when working with this plant spirit.  When I have time I am going to look into the medicinal properties of this plant and it’s sister plant called Pinion Blanco.  The only thing I know about these plants are what I have mentioned above and the fact that the Piñon Colorado has masculine energy and the Piñon Blanco has more feminine energy.  There are a few of our guests who are doing a dieta with these plants along with the Ayahuasca dieta.  I’m planning on doing about a week with this plant myself after the final guests on this retreat depart on Friday.  I’m curious to see how this affects lucid dreaming in my world and what it has to offer me in terms of teaching me something.  I hope to blog about the experience later as well.

Well, there’s not much else to report.  We are in the final week of this outstanding retreat, which has also been our largest retreat to date.  The experiences with all of these people has been nothing short of stellar and insightful and I look forward to integrating the energies that each one has given to me as with the other retreats.  Tonight we have the first of the last three ceremonies for this retreat and we will be working with two shamans named Antonio and Annis.  I’ve never worked with Annis before, so I’m looking forward to this ceremony tonight.  After such a wonderful day today, I expect this to be a great ceremony for everyone involved!

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

7:30 PM

I AM TOTALLY DRUNK WITH VITAMIN D!  Oh, that’s right I had the caps lock on so I didn’t need to push the shift button to get the capital D this time….hehe!  Today was fix the Cacao day.  I got a wild hair and thought that I would tackle the task of cultivating and watering some 100 +/- Cacao seedlings sprouting from the seedpods.  Some are just poking through the ground and others are in full bloom with leaves on it; except for the ones that had the leaves eaten off of them by caterpillars and whatever else that seems to like these apparently tasty leaves.  The funny thing is that a hundred different plant types can surround the Cacao seedling and they will single this baby out every time.  It makes me wonder what it is about the Cacao leaf is so tasty to these critters.  Perhaps it has some vitamin or mineral that their bodies need to survive and reproduce.  I’m also not sure if the seedling will still grow if the leaves have been eaten off completely because the leaves are what absorb the energy from the sun that it needs to grow.

The Cacao, as most of you probably already know, is the fruit that contains the pure dark raw chocolate that is found in chocolate bars.  The ones that advertise 70%, 80% and so on, are made with Cacao chocolate.  In it’s raw form the Cacao seed is born in a thick, almost prehistoric looking skin that turns yellow when it’s ripe.  It’s also hard to pierce the skin and you have to make sure you have a sharp knife to made the seeding easier.  Surrounding the Cacao bean is a thick, sweet, mucous membrane that is very tasty when you suck on it in mouth.  You can hold this seed in your mouth for about 15-30 minutes before the taste completely disappears or depending on how earnestly you are working at sucking off the sweet membrane.  To prepare the seed for the market or for use in cooking you need to roast the seed.  We roast them in the sun on corrugated metal sheets until the membrane is completely dried and the shell of the bean turns a dark red-brown color.  If the shell doesn’t roast enough it does not allow the bean inside properly separate from the protective shell and makes it very difficult to peel the bean away from it.  You only want to extract the pure been inside the shell. You don’t want to leave any of the shell on it if you can avoid it.  If the bean’s protective shell doesn’t fully roast then you can toss the bean into a dry skillet and roast them on the stove.

Once you shell the bean from its protection you have pure, raw, dark cocoa bean that is very bitter in taste.  However, we have been able to make a few tasty things with the roasted raw bean such as a natural, no sugar added Cacao pudding that we have made for our guests.  It’s amazing for having all natural ingredients and no sugar.  The sweetness, again, comes from the protective membrane that you can extract by soaking the raw bean in water for a day or so.  Then you reduce down that mixture to come up with a natural sweetener for the dessert.  We have also made an all time American favorite; hot chocolate.  Of course, it doesn’t taste as sweet as Nestles Quick but makes for an amazing sweet delight that doesn’t break the dieta the guests are enduring while attending the retreat.  I didn’t mean that in a negative way but there are “meatasaurus” and “veggiesaurus.”  Those that are meatasaurus like myself can feel the craving building from time to time especially “O” blood types as I’ve mentioned before.  My latest experiment has been a hit with the guests.  The other day I thought about what I could naturally sweeten the raw bean with that would sharpen the sweet taste.  The sweet membrane is ok but I wanted more or my body wanted more.  So, one evening when I wasn’t doing ceremony I decided to experiment and combine, raw cacao bean, natural granola (that we serve to our guests on the dieta) and honey.  I ground up the bean and ground down the granola so it had about the same consistency.  Then I added the honey.  OH MY!  Holy sweet cacao bean, Batman!  I went one step further and added some Maca powder and a little bit of natural cocoa tea (note the different spelling.  Cacao vs. Cocoa.  Looks very similar at first glance so your brain might play tricks with you when trying to remember which one is which.).  The cocoa tea softened up the mixture just right and it was like having a warm sweet granola cacao cereal.  I’m going to introduce this new mixture Thursday morning after their final ceremony since they will no longer have to be on strict dieta after that.  I can’t wait to see their reaction.

The cultivating was a little difficult and lengthy from time to time as the jungle has grown in leaps and bounds over the last month.  Ground cover vines and lots of shoots from trees and other plants that I have no idea about quickly take over the floor of the jungle when allow to run rampant.  The cacao seeds were planted about two months ago.  They take a long time to germinate and then they grow slowly during the dry season.  So, the ground cover and other plants quickly started covering the ground where the seeds were planted.  This is good in some cases because it provides shade from the blazing sun that scorched my body today and got me drunk on vitamin D.  However, the downside is that the plants surrounding the seedling end up stealing water that it needs especially when it’s dry, so you need to clear at least 12” around to allow the seedling to root really well and get established.

The property at Tierra Vida is a long and narrow fifty-acre parcel of land so it can easily take a good five minutes to walk from one end of the property to the other.  The cacao was planted along each side of the property from about the Malóka, which is a two-minute walk from the front of the property at a normal pace.  I would say that there must be about fifty plus or minus trees planted on each side that covers about fifteen to seventeen acres.  That’s a quite a bit of walking back and forth with a wheelbarrow and a four to six gallon stainless steel pot that we use to cook the Ayahuasca in.  It certainly adds extra weight to transport the water that far out into the back of the property.  I ended up making four trips from the tool shed, which is closer to the front of the property, so I definitely got my workout in today; and I loved it!  I worked on this project for longer than I had anticipated but I felt like I have been connecting with the cacao plant spirit a lot lately.  I’ve been eating a little cacao bean everyday in one form or another.  You can also eat the unroasted raw bean, as well.  When you are done stripping away the sweet membrane you can just bite down on the raw bean and consume it that way.  Dark cacao bean is very healthy for you although I can’t remember all of the benefits.  I guess my connection with the plant spirit gave me the motivation and drive to cover as much ground as I did today.  I completed the cultivating of both the left and right side of the property today.  All I have left to do is to finish the trail leading to the jungle and graveyard, which is amazing.  I’ll be including a pic or two of this very surreal graveyard.  Every time I watered, transplanted or planted a new cacao seed I could feel the seedling thanking me for taking the time help them along on their long journey.  I really got a lot of joy out of seeing the water soaking into the ground and soaking into the roots of the seedlings. I sure did get burned in the process and will probably have a hard time sleeping tonight but it’s all worth it to me.  Although, I think I got a little heat stroke today because I’ve had a headache that won’t go away.  Doesn’t matter how much water I have and still am drinking.  I’m pretty sure I’m going to be slow getting up tomorrow morning, too, because I already feel stiff.  I probably better break out the ibuprofen to help with that.

I finished my day full of cuts, mosquito bites, a little gash from hitting my shin with the machete this morning, sun burn and rashes from running into nettles along the way and yet I was still as happy as pig in a mud pit.  But I will sleep well tonight if the burn doesn’t keep me awake.  I took a shower and decided to do a little plant walk and take some updated photos of Tierra Vida.  The land has changed so much since I’ve arrived because we have planted many new plants and ground cover.  I think it was last week we planted a whole bunch of new Jurachi.  I think I mentioned that before.  Anyway, it also has to be hand watered until it establishes it’s root system and with the dry season this could be a daily venture depending on the temperature.  The Jurachi can get very thick and if you go to http://www.tierravidahealing.com/welcome.htm you can see photos of the property before the floods hit and wiped all the vegetation out.  We’ve also planted a bunch of new annuals and flowers along the border of the fence in the front and in front of the Malóka in the open grassy area with the fence made of tree branches that are sprouting leaves.  It makes for a wonderful natural barrier fence if it’s done right and the branches root.  I’ve told you about the Pinion Colorado and Blanco already and I’m still looking forward to doing a dieta of this master teacher plant at some point.

Now, some food is actually growing and fruiting as we speak.  The cornfield is huge.  Joel’s family planted this corn about three months ago and we are now feasting on sweet corn whenever we want.  This retreat we have fixed two corn salad dishes and boiled corn for dinners.  The corn is very sweet and tastes incredible.  I’m not supposed to be eating corn, however, it’s infrequent enough that I certainly don’t worry about it.

Can you say, “Watermelon!”.  I was so excited yesterday when I found out that Joel’s family had harvested a few watermelons.  I told his son, Donata, in Castellano to make sure that they sent one over to us so that we could share it with the guests.  I was given two huge, delicious pieces of this amazing melon that has this dark green skin on it.  I was in pure cielo, which means sky or heaven in Castellano.  I have walked by these melons for the last three weeks dreaming of taking my first bite into these delicious wonders of Mother Earth.  I can honestly say that watermelon is my all time favorite fruit.  The other kind of melon is the Piña Sandia or Pineapple Watermelon.  These are smaller rounder watermelons that I have not gotten to try yet.  That’s next on my list.  Today we got to gorge on watermelon with breakfast, which was a perfect delight and a perfect way to start the day.  Maybe I should get a watermelon tattooed to my leg?  LOL!  Probably not but I do love them that much in case you haven’t noticed.

A few days ago I was looking down on the ground from way above the food crops in tambo #5, the one we had to move to for nine days.  I noticed an orange-ish looking fruit that was about a quarter of the size of the chicetas.  I headed down to the melon to investigate and noticed that it was on a vine that was dying.  Surrounding the melon were two smaller melons with the same shape but they were a light green color, which means they are not ripe yet.  I was dying to know what this fruit was.  I picked up the orange melon and plucked it off the deal vine and held it up to my nose.  I’m telling you I nearly passed out in ecstasy.  The aroma of the ripened fruit was so strong I simply wanted to bite into it right through the thick skin of the melon.  Instead I decided to take it back to the kitchen to dissect it and see what amazing surprise awaited me.  I cut into this little melon and discovered that it was a cantaloupe.  This was the smallest cantaloupe I’ve ever seen.  They are easily half the size of the ones we get in the U.S.  But it was very sweet and tasty like everything else so far.

I decided to take some close up shots of the Yucca plants that the family had planted a few months ago, as well.  Yucca is an edible tree that tastes like a potato after it’s been baked or boiled except that it is drier in taste.  You can do all kinds of things with this vegetable, I think it’s a vegetable, including dipping it into a yummy spicy yellow sauce that the Peruvians like to serve with everything having to do with fish or chicken dishes.  I never really cared for the Yucca until I discovered the dipping sauce went very well with it.  I’m not sure of the nutritional value of this plant that they harvest from the root.  But it feels like this plant provides some kind of starch.  I only say that because it takes like a cooked potato but it might be true.  I’ll try to find out more info on the Internet if I have time.

I’m pretty tired tonight.  I think I’m gonna turn in.  Next entry I’ll be talking about the decisions that I’ve made regarding my flight back to the United States on September 3^rd.  I’ve been doing a lot of processing, feeling, intuiting and I’m pretty sure I’ve come up with a decision as to what I’m going to do.  Stay tuned!

 

Thursday, July 28, 2011

8:15 PM

Today was a long hot day like the other day when I spent all day cultivating and watering the cacao seedlings.  I ended up finishing the cultivating and watering of the remainder of the seedlings, which still took me another two hours to complete because of having to haul two large loads of water out towards the very back of the property.  But I realized something today.  In working with the cacao I have been eating more of the roasted cacao beans mixing it with the granola, honey and warm tea water.  I swear I’m gong to invent a new cereal one day that will have all these natural ingredients.  What I discovered with the cacao is that it has helped me with two things: it has cleared up my diarrhea and it has given me more energy for when I’m working these longer projects that take a lot of physical energy.  I guess you could say that these have been my rewards for doing a good work with these struggling seedlings that have not seen rain in a long time.  Some people get messages from plant spirits directly, I get them through intuitive thought, feeling and action.  I instinctively started eating more cacao and noticing days later that the diarrhea situation has vastly improved.  Coincidence?  Possibly but I don’t think so.

I also started a new bench project today.  This didn’t take me much time today at all since I already had the measurements and design from the last bench that I put in front of the Malóka for guests to sit on after ceremony.  The benches are being place about 30 yards away from the Malóka so that people can talk away from the ceremony building and not disturb others that are still deep into the medicine and on their journeys.  I got halfway through the construction of this bench but ran out of two by four to complete the legs.  Hopefully, I can locate some tomorrow and finish this off.  All-in-all, today was another good workout day on the land.  Who needs the gym when you’ve got the jungle to workout your body?  Each day I look into the mirror I continue to see the changes going on in my body.  My body is building up more muscle but without all of the fat tissue to go along with it.  I feel healthier and stronger by the day and seem to be sustaining an excellent energy level.  There are times when I need to take a short nap and recharge but most of the time I simply need to quick working, drink a bunch of water and maybe eat a snack to recharge for the next round.  It feels good be in this space.  I feel like my mind and emotions are so much healthier, too.   The future looks brighter and I feel like I’m now manifesting every desire of my heart even if those desires have yet to manifest in the physical.  They will once again.  I have complete faith in this process.

I’ve done a lot of reflecting in the last couple of days of my whole journey since arriving in early May.  The growth that I have experienced has been phenomenal.  I’ve gone from being scared, insecure and unsure about many things in life to feeling like I have more possibilities than I know what to do with.  I feel like I have nearly kicked the attachment and fear energy as I was just explaining to one of the guests tonight.  But there is a question in my mind that if I went back to my life in Oregon if all of those old thought patterns would come flooding back in and I would end up right back where I started. Would I be strong enough and have removed enough of these old patterns and energy to easily resist them when they presented themselves again?  Western culture, especially, in the United States has an allure to it.  We’ve made everything easy on ourselves with all of our modern conveniences.  We hardly worry about sanitary conditions for just about everything except in our personal space.  We have elaborate transportations systems, financial systems, public assistance programs, well maintained paved roads (mostly), and modern conveniences to make just about everything easier on our lives.  People work their jobs, pay their mortgages or rent, drive their cars, raise their pets like they were their children and enjoy many other conveniences that are taken for granted daily.  Some of those conveniences are things like electricity, plumbing, television, modern medicine, assistance programs for less fortunate people and modern and even ultra-modern supermarkets to name a few.  Even though Peru has many of these things they are certainly not maintained on the same levels as we do in the United States nor are they of the same high quality either.

In my experiences down here I’ve come to learn and realize many things.  But the most important thing that I’ve come to realize is that I have changed on many levels.  My sense of happiness is unlike anything I’ve experienced under the conditions that I’m living.  I have more of a sense of freedom and endless possibilities.  One of the greatest factors that has lead me to these conclusion comes from several different sources.

Ayahuasca has been a big part of this entire journey.  I have experienced some of the deepest healing emotionally and physically with Madre Ayahuasca that I’ve ever experienced.  I’ve come to learn that Madre Ayahuasca is one of the most powerful plant spirit medicines that I’ve come to know.  Last night we had our last ceremony for this retreat and I was sitting in the ceremony doing my normal job of overseeing the Ayahuasceros that were engaging the Mother for the last night on this retreat.  I drank a stronger dose than I did in the ceremony before because I never felt the medicine come on in the last ceremony.  Well, the same thing happened in this ceremony; nothing!  I couldn’t understand why but accepted the fact that I was supposed to be in the exact state I was for a reason.  As we all drank the medicine we waited for Antonio and Annis to begin singing their Icaros.  This team of shamans can be very powerful in a ceremony like this one.  They began to sing their Icaros and sat there in waiting listening for signs of the guests going deep into the medicine.  After about fifteen or twenty minutes of singing I could tell that people were well on their way into their journeys.

Antonio and Annis began to make their way around the room to sing to each individual and I can remember one of our guests beginning to cough and purge.  Much of her purging was through coughing.  As Antonio and Annis got closer to me I began to start coughing myself.  I could feel this tickle in my throat and by the time Antonio got to me I couldn’t stop coughing.  My sinuses were beginning to drain heavily and my chest began to tighten up as if I were having an allergic reaction to something.  At one point it was hard to breathe.  I knew at that point that I was purging myself.  Thick balls of mucus began to come up from my lungs and I would purge them into the purge bucket.  I realized that I was purging for the guest across the room who had been coughing non-stop the entire time with no end in sight.  Antonio sang over me for a good ten minutes as I continued to cough and purge.  But what I couldn’t understand is that I was not feeling the medicine at all.  I was stone cold sober and the only discomfort I was feeling was the tightness in my lungs and head from all the mucus I was purging.  What’s even more interesting is that I had no lung or sinus problems prior to going into ceremony.  I was as clear as a bell and felt healthy and strong.  Once Antonio was done with me the purging subsided.  My chest began to clear up and my sinuses stopped draining.  I was amazed.  This was the first time I had ever experienced any kind of purging on a conscious level without feeling the medicine or being in full visionary mode on the medicine.  I learned a powerful lesson about the Mother last night.  Her energy and healing powers go far beyond the physicality that you feel when you drink her.  In other words, she can help you heal without you even being under her influence.  This is a big revelation to me and gives me an even deeper perspective about how she works on the etheric, vibrational level.  Good stuff!

So, here I am.  I’ve received all this healing on both the emotional and physical level.  I’ve mostly healed the attachment energy and the self-judgment energy.  I’ve healed a lot of energy surrounding fear especially and now my world has opened up in my heart, mind, body and soul to new possibilities that seem endless in my mind.  I still don’t know where this journey is taking me but I don’t care.  What I care about more now is being on the journey rather than worrying about where I’m going to end up.  I’m learning more and more how to be in the present moment and trust that the Universe and my higher self is guiding me to exactly where I need to go to gain the experiences that I need to gain to ascend to higher levels of energy and consciousness.  I feel happier and more centered than I ever have in my life and I can’t wait to take this energy back with me to the United States again and shine my light.  I have also made a very big decision regarding what I will be doing with my flight back to Oregon on September 3^rd.

I have decided to stay here in Peru for a while longer.  This week, after the guests leave, I will be changing my return flight to a date in January.  Yes, you read that correctly.  I’ve decided that I want to ring in the special year of 2012 down here on the retreat land.  The owners are planning to have a “2012” retreat with Ayahuasca ceremony and everything as we ring in this very important year in humanities history.  I’m excited about it.  Instead of flying home and then paying for another ticket to fly back here in the near future, I decided that it would be more economical to simply change my flight and stay here through the end of the year.  Then I would fly back home for a few months to connect with family and friends all over the US and then possibly fly back to Pulcallpa to take on my new role as a retreat manager if Casey and Jill’s plan swing in that direction.  If this plan doesn’t go through then I will definitely stay in Oregon and make plans to attend massage therapy school and move forward with plan “B”.   Either way, I feel like I’m moving forward with my future once again with confidence and joy.

In spite of the fact that I miss all of my friends and family terribly, I feel like I need to take advantage of this opportunity that I have been given to experience what my soul has been thirsting for this entire lifetime.  Though I have no regrets, I do wish that I had broken out of the mold of limiting thoughts and belief systems.  The media has influenced me in many ways.  I’m an adventurer but because of many of the negative things that I’ve seen on television and especially the news, I realized after being down here that I feared leaving the United States for any length of time because of various programs that were planted in my head.  I thought it would be undesirable to visit any country that didn’t have the same modern conveniences that we had in the United States and anything longer than a week or two would be to uncomfortable to consider stays longer than that.  I also fell pray to the limiting belief system that I wasn’t rich enough to travel the world and that I need millions of dollars to successfully journey to different places.  While it can get expensive with plane flights and stuff like that I’m finding that you can travel to many places in the world and live on very money through staying at hostels, working on organic farms in trade for food and shelter, volunteer with various organizations in exchange for food and shelter.  There is even a website called Couch Surfacing.com where you can find people that are willing to house you for an agreed upon amount of time as you make your way on your journey.  This website includes locations all over the world.  I’m telling you that what I have gained in knowledge along from all of the guests that have passed through here is worth it’s weight in gold alone!

I am making some additional plans right now to include taking a trip to Cusco, Pisaq, Machu Picchu and Ollantaytambo or the Sacred Valley of Peru.  The Sacred Valley is where all of the sacred temples are located.  The temple of Ollantaytambo is especially of interest to me because prior to coming down here I was told that I needed to visit one of these temples to do some of my own energy work with the energy grid in this area.  I don’t know exactly what that means yet but I’m trusting the Universe to make this very clear to me as I make my journey to this place I’ve never been too.  I’ve been dialoging with a woman who is attending this latest retreat who lived in Cusco for three years and has been giving me some good tips on how to organize my trip and what to watch out for.  Cusco is 11,000 feet in the air and this wintertime down here so the weather is going to be colder than what I’ve been living with for the last three months.  The weather down here has been mostly in the 80’s and 90’s with high humidity and I will be going to a much cooler climate with temperatures in the 70’s during the day and even colder at night time.  I will probably have to buy some extra clothing when I get to Cusco to deal with the colder temperatures.

I plan to take the bus for the whole trip.  The bus ride to Lima from Pulcallpa will take me about 20 hours, which is a long bus ride, however, the buses they use are luxury buses that serve meals during the trip and are very comfortable for long journeys.  The other advantages to taking the bus are the cost is much cheaper.  I will only have to pay 80 Soles ($30.00).  The same will be true for my trip from Lima to Cusco, so I will be saving a lot of money by taking the bus instead of flying.  Round trip fare will amount to around $120.00.  If I was flying I would be paying around $300 or more and I would not get to see any of the countryside, which is the other advantage.  I also get to get caught up on reading.

I decided that I’m not making too many detailed plans ahead of time including for my lodging.  I will probably stay about a week in the Sacred Valley after spending a few Days in Lima to connect with contacts that I have been making online and through my shaman, Olga.  I’ve decided that this journey is going to be purely Spirit lead and that I needed to trust my instincts and the Universe to place me exactly where I need to be in every moment even if that means something as simple as getting breakfast and coffee in Cusco or Ollantatambo.  I will be taking the bus up to Machu Picchu for one of those days.  Machu Picchu and Whina Picchu are not huge priorities on my list because I’m not really into doing the touristy things so I’ve decided that one day with Machu Picchu will be enough for me.  My main focus is spend more time at the temple of Ollantaytambo and finding a guide that can take me to other sacred places that your average tourist is not willing to go out of their way to find.  I’ve set the intention and I can’t wait to see what is going to unfold.  I will be traveling with only backpack, my clothes, my toiletries, my computer, phone, iPod, camera and a book and that is it.  The lighter I travel the easier I will make it on my myself.  What a journey this is going to be.

I also plan on spending some time in Pisaq as there is a shaman that lives in Pisaq called Diego who is connected with a website called Ayahuasca Wasi.  In Pisaq, a shaman named Diego facilitates Ayahuasca ceremonies every Friday night and I’ve heard that he is a good shaman to sit with.  I haven’t fully made the decision to do this but I’m keeping it on the radar for when I get there.  Aside from that I will see how the rest of the journey to Machu Picchu and The Sacred Valley unfolds and hopefully have some amazing things to report back.

Once I’m done with Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley I will make my way back to Lima when I will continue to explore what Lima has to offer and may even have a tour guide or two set up.  Lima is actually on the coast and so they are supposed to have some beautiful beaches, however, this is wintertime for them, too, so it probably will not be an opportunity for me to lie out at the beach as I would in warmer locations.  I have been making some contacts online with a few people that live in Lima, so it will be interesting to see if I end up making some new friends in that city.  Lima is supposed to have some of the best cuisine in the world, so I’m hoping to get to sample some of the great food that I’ve heard about.  Peruvian food can be quite delicious.  It can also be a total fiasco especially when they attempt to recreate western cuisines like pizza and hamburgers.  Even their ketchup and mustard leaves much to be desired.  Peru’s idea of ketchup is some kind of corn syrup with red dye in it and a few ingredients that make a poor attempt at tasting like the real thing in the United States.  I’m pretty sure that Peru’s ketchup isn’t even made with real tomatoes.  It’s pretty gross.  On the other hand, they do this amazing onion type salsa that is made with onions, vinegar, some kind of hot pepper and a yellow vegetable that I’m not sure what it is.  It makes for a great topping on a dish called Patacones, which are fried plantains.  They make a great snack when you’re not hungry enough to eat a full meal.

So, there you have it.  These next few weeks are going to be a bit stressful as I have many details to take care of including re-booking my flight home in January, sending a package to a few friends that requested to have me buy some of the art and clothing, planning my departure and arrivals dates for my roundtrip to and from Cusco.  Once I get back to Tierra Vida we will have another retreat starting up for this month but I don’t know yet how many people have signed up for this retreat.  All I know is that I feel very strongly that I need to stay down here until the end of the year.  What are my plans from September through January?  Well, I guess we’ll all have to find out.  Aside from helping to manage the retreats that we will be having in the months of September through January, I may also be looking into doing some isolation retreat work or one-on-one work with my shaman Olga.  I leaving this completely up to the Universe to organize for me and show me a clear direction.  That’s all I know for now and I can’t wait to take two days in town again to connect with all of my loved ones, get my blog and pictures posted and shore up all the details I need to in order to continue my stay here in Peru.

Sunday, August 1, 2011

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There’s a saying that goes something like this:  ”The best laid plans of mice and men…!”  Just when you think it’s safe to make a decision the Universe, or your higher self, decides to throw you a little curve ball for one of many possible reasons.  One of those reasons could be that you weren’t tuning into your intuitive guidance or inner voice closely enough to realize that the decision you were making wasn’t exactly for the highest good for yourself.  Another possibility could be that the path to which you’ve chosen suddenly changed because another energy connected to it changed also.  I guess another possibility could be that you’re being tested to see how you handle and adapt to the abrupt change and to see how well you use the wisdom and knowledge that you’ve recently gained.  I really have no clue which of these, or if there are any reasons I need to care about, that have brought on this sudden change in direction for me.

This morning, before coming into town to take my two days off from the last retreat that just ended, Casey and Jill asked to speak to me and proceeded to share with me that the sign ups for the retreats have not reached a sufficient enough count for the remainder of the year at this point to warrant having me on as a volunteer through the end of the year.  Jill was very upset to have to tell me this news and I could tell she was struggling with my potential reaction.  The two weeks prior to this conversation we had talked a few times about how I was making the decision to change my flight on September 3rd and extend my stay to the end of the year and ring in 2012 in ceremony on the retreat land.  We also had discussed how her and Casey were interested in possibly having us manage the property for the next season starting in April.  That would have meant I would have returned home for a few months for a break and returned back to Tierra Vida in April to begin managing the retreats and be paid for it.  It sounded like an exciting opportunity.  However, the reality of it is, and there are more complicated details that I don’t need to discuss, that unless they receive more sign ups for the retreats between now and then they will both have to come back in April and manage the property themselves again.

Am I surprised?  Not really.  I’m not upset.  In fact, I actually felt a sense of relief when they told me.  I guess I saw this coming a few weeks ago but I didn’t let that stop me from setting the intention to remain on the retreat site through the end of the year and see where that was going to lead.  As one door closes another door opens.  Jill and Casey expressed how much they appreciated all of the hard work that I’ve put into the retreat center especially with the attention I’ve given to the guests for each retreat.  They appreciated my ability to interact with them on a personal and professional level in helping and supporting them through their journey and process with Ayahuasca.  Interesting how quickly things change.  This does not mean that managing Tierra Vida in the future is not a possibility and if that opportunity comes up in the future then we will see where I’m at with my own journey.  I’ve learned that even though a door may shut it can also very easily open right back up again as long as I don’t burn it down or destroy the pathway to that door.  There’s no need to burn this bridge because it could still be a bright future in the future.

This really does open the door for the many other possibilities that are out there but it does make me wonder very much what is in store for me now?  At this point there are a few options presenting themselves.  Option #1 is the obvious one; fly home on September third, replant myself in Portland and make plans to attend massage therapy school.  Option #2 is to continue traveling around Peru to see the sites and expose myself to more contacts and see what the Universe brings my way.  Option #3 would be to attend the Ayahuasca Foundation initiation program for three months.  This initiation program trains interested and serious parties who desire to become a curandero with Ayahuasca.  This program costs about $2,000 to attend but is touted as being a very solid and operating on energy filled with integrity.  The found is a white man that studied under a famous shaman for four years and then received the calling to become a curandero or a healer with Ayahuasca.  I have not been able to get to the website yet to find out more details but I will before I leave to Tierra Vida again.  Depending on the energy and how much it will take to change my ticket this could be another strong possibility for me.  Again, even though there are infinite possibilities, these are the three concrete ones that my conscious mind is connecting to and they all feel good.  I believe my trip to Cusco and the Sacred Valley will reveal more for me.

I did receive some information about what I will be doing at the Temple of Ollantaytambo and it has to do with my two Lemurian Seed crystals that I brought from Portland.  They were the only two crystals that took with me from all the ones I had on my altar.  I even received another sign today as Mandy (one of our last retreat guests in Pulcallpa for a few more days) and I ran errands in town.

Mandy took me to the post office and the grocery store and then another little convenience store.  Just as we were heading back to the plaza in Pulcallpa I looked down on the sidewalk and there I saw a giant dead butterfly.  The wings were closed but the design on the inside was amazing.  I opened the wings to see what color they were and here they are.  This big butterfly was fresh with no decay or damage to it.  We both wondered if the little transformer had just dropped to the ground right before we got there.  I decided to bring this guy with me as I felt like it was some kind of sign or Talisman.  Not far down the street Mandy points to a spot on the sidewalk and draws my attention to it.  There lay another dead butterfly fully in tacked and not decayed or damaged.  We both looked at each other and began analyzing the significance of seeing two preserved and dead butterflies within minutes of each other.  So, we started going through the symbolism of the butterfly.  Butterfly is about rebirth and transformation.  Ayahuasca visions often have butterfly images in them and many Ayahuasca artist paint the butterfly as one of the symbols that they have seen in their own visions.  However, the butterflies were dead, so that confused us for just a minute and then I threw out there what I felt it meant.  I felt that the end of the transformation was either here or close meaning that both Mandy and my journey in Pulcallpa was coming to a divine end.  Our journeys were to now take a little right turn an proceed forward for the next pieces to our puzzles.  That felt right to both of us.  Other characteristics of the medicine of butterfly include:  Reincarnation, Transformation, Transmutation and Magik.    Then later in the day I almost ran into the back of a motor car because I wasn’t watching where I was going and noticed the number “222″ in the license plate number.  That is the master number for everything is going to be OK and the beginning of a new cycle.  And if that wasn’t enough confirmation, I then turned on my phone and the time read 3:33pm and if that wasn’t enough I caught the computer clock at 4:44pm.  Both numbers are connected to the Ascended Masters and the Archangels.  So, I guess I shouldn’t try to shove any doubt anywhere in there because I don’t think it’s going to fit.

Well, it’s finally time to get this thing published.  I may try to do an update as I find out more information about my return flight change and research that I plan on doing with the Ayahuasca Foundation.  Just like the new sunspots that are heating up and starting to spark again, so if my path to achieve enlightenment.  Just like one of my friends on Facebook said, “I told ya to hold on…”  Well, I’m hangin’ on baby.  I didn’t come to love roller coasters for nothing!