The Bubble

I’m officially declaring any and all tiling projects to be weird, funky and a difficult to do in the jungle!   I just finished phase two of the shower tiling project that I began a few weeks ago.  I had finished the floor but was unable to get to the 2-foot section of wall in the shower surround.  I knew this was going to be quit the project given the tiny space I had to work and the difficulty of the cement and working with it here in Peru.  It’s very weird cement.  Let’s just put it that way.  Basically, I got the walls done 3 hours later.  I was covered from head to toe with cement and mosquito bites, dripping with sweat and making the above declaration at the end of job.  Now, it’s dry-time and grouting left to go.  Oh, I also have to stain the upper walls as we’re not tiling all the way up the wall.  This shower is for the shipibo family that care takes the land.

Things were feeling strange after arriving back at Tierra Vida.  It felt like something had shifted or was out of balance.  I realized that it was me that had shifted being in the sacred valley for three and half months.  I also realized that there has been a shift in the way that I’m connecting to and working with  Mother Ayahuasca.  I don’t seem to need to go into deep ceremony with the medicine on a full dose like I was doing over the summer when I was a volunteer.  I feel like my connection to the plant medicine has gotten very personal and that now that I will be facilitating the retreats that she will be using me in very different ways.

Already I’ve seen evidence of this shift.  Since arriving here in early December I was quickly thrust back into the chaos of a retreat.  I walked right into the middle of a 9-day retreat with 14 people.  Jill and Casey were anxious to start training me and I was having a hell of a time adjusting and shifting into this new management roll that Ayahuasca had called me into.  What was my purpose for choosing and accepting this role?  Would this role be spiritual enough for me and would I have enough personal time to do my own processing?  Well, I jumped right back into facilitating ceremonies.  It was tough at first.  The tiny dose of medicine that the facilitators take to “be in the medicine” usually has a mild effect on me.  For several ceremonies I felt nothing.  For other ceremonies I wasn’t feeling called to drink at all.  But this one last ceremony that I facilitated for the last group changed all that and I believe Madre gave me a little gift of knowledge and wisdom.

My first tiny dose didn’t have any affect on me again.  I drank a second half-dose in hopes that I would be able to connect with Madre in the other dimensional worlds that we get to go to when we journey with Ayahuasca.  This did occur, I began to feel the medicine but it was late in the evening after everyone else was coming down from their journeys.  Madre came on very quickly and strongly after the second dose.  I received a message from her telling me I had some unresolved fears about running the retreat center that needed to be dealt with.  I think I did just that because shortly after I sat with those emotions, acknowledged them and released them I looked at my feet and they began to turn this dark brown color.  At first I thought my feet were turning into Anacondas.  Then I realized that my feet and eventually my whole body was being consumed by the Ayahuasca vine, etherically.  The spirit of the plant, Madre, told me that I was being turned into the vine and that it wasn’t important for me to drink to be connected with her on a deeper level.  It was very weird.  Of all my ceremonies, I had never had this experience that I could actually see with my own eyes my body shift into something else or be consumed by the vine in this way.  I’ve seen many visions, a few past lives, lots of geometric patterns and strong energy patterns, many times in the form of rainbow patterns.  And within those swirling images is where you begin to see entities and beings working with you for your healing.  Often times the spirit of Ayahuasca will come to you in the form of a snake or a vine.  But I had never seen my body shape-shift like that before.  It was very cool!

This revelation brought a lot of confirmation about why my energy had changed.  I was about to embark on one of the toughest journeys I’ve taken in this lifetime BUT it was going to be so much for the better that the pain experienced in shifting and growing and releasing all that old programming and manipulation crap in my cells was going to be permanently shifted after this experience.  Frankly, I can feel the shifting going on right now and DAMN is it uncomfortable!!  Let there be no doubt about it.

You ask what The Bubble that I refer to in the title is all about.  Well, I hope I can describe it in a way that makes sense.  There’s a lot of chaos in the world right now.  Everything is NOT OK!  And the chaos involved with running a retreat center has added to that collective energy that is going around the planet.  I’m sorry.  I know I’m going to get a lot of disagreement on this but I think this collective energy has to go through this in order for a real, heart-felt change to occur in humanity.   I’ve chosen a path to challenge myself on different levels and to bust through and transform out of the mold that I was created with.  What I didn’t realize is that I kinda went overboard and am feeling like I may have bitten off more than I can chew.  At least that’s what it feels like.  Let me tell you what I’ve gotten myself into and what I have chosen to do.

My duties as a facilitator include:  Coordinating shopping trips each day in a boat 25 minutes across the lake, organizing and managing the workers for cultivation and cleaning projects before, during and after retreats, recording all purchases for the retreat and keeping a budget for food and non-food items, doing payroll for the workers and making sure all payments are recorded, handling large amounts of sensitive stuff, communicating (in spanish) with the Nueva Luz community as they run the generators for our electricity and water supply, paying monthly bills to the Nueva Luz community, making sure the kitchen is being kept clean and that it is properly opened and shut down each night, communing with the guests during the retreat for spiritual counseling and assistance in processing their experiences, facilitating all ceremonies during retreat (often means late nights and very early mornings), reminding and picking up the shamans for ceremony across the lake, and the list goes on.  These are the main factors of what I have to do.  This doesn’t include all the combinations of possibilities on how these duties can step on each other and pull me apart.  This also doesn’t include the “inevitable” things that will go wrong but always seem to work out somehow.

Well, I’ve had my first experience in operating in this multi-faceted role.  Yesterday, I was working on the tile for a shower room for the Shipibo family.  Right in the middle of hanging tiles, Joel comes to me telling me that the failed water pump that went out 3 days ago (That supplies all of Nueva Luz with water) cannot be repaired and they need to buy a new pump.  He didn’t know when a new one could be purchased as it depended on how much money they could get from the whole community.  Then there’s the installation cost.  So, with the retreat only 8 days away I had to make a difficult decision out of the presence of Jill and Casey who were just returning to Arizona.  I gave them the full amount to buy and install the pump.  Much of that money will be returned as they receive funds from the community.  Monday should be the first return of part of that money.

The pump failing became a timing issue.  Peru time is nothing like I’ve ever seen in the U.S.  You can wait forever to be served in a restaurant or in a hardware store or for a delivery man to show up with all the wood you ordered for a building project.  People don’t operate on strict time schedules here.  Sometimes they don’t even show up at the specified time you gave them.  Anyway, I couldn’t risk being so close to the retreat start and not having enough water to support everything we need it for.  I stand by this decision, too.  I think it was a good choice though it does have a few risks…just like everything in life. You’d think we’d all be used to it but it comes to the value of the risks and what it may affect.  Are you ready for those changes when the risks affect you if they don’t go your way?

So, I finished that conversation, gave them the money and went back to the tiling project.  I don’t think it was but 30 minutes and Joel comes back up to me to let me know that the pulling mechanism on the boat motor needed to be cleaned.  Apparently, Casey used to do this task but I was never shown how to do it.  Joel recommended one of our workers, James, (pronounced Hames).  I conversed with them and agreed to have James clean the motor, paid him then went back to the tiling job.  Thankfully, there were no further interruptions, however, the interruptions that did occur blew my opportunity to get into town, run a few errands, get some food and be back at a decent time.  I did, however, have to stand back and laugh at the realization that this is exactly what Jill and Casey have done for over two years.  They were just more experienced at this kind of chaos and it’s been the two of them together.  So, I’m finding my own way through this chaos and even though I want to leave this planet sometimes, I always end up back with my feet on the ground.  There’s work to do!  Let’s do it!

This was Management 101 live and in living color.  Coming back around to the reason for The Bubble in the title has to do with the fact that I feel this weird energy.  I feel like I’m walking in a bubble or vacuum that is keeping me from being affected by the chaos in and out of the retreat center.  3D reality feels very different for me, which is hard to describe. too.

Many times I don’t feel like I’m really here.  Often times I’ll wake up and think I’m somewhere else.  Time is going ridiculously fast.  My body feels like it’s going through a lot of energetic changes.  Many of those changes reflect directly back to a lot of my intentions I had for this journey.  And maybe even some intentions that came from my subconscious.  I feel like I have tapped into my true source strength.  That’s me, my higher self.  That’s ME.  I AM.  I AM THAT I AM.  I don’t fully understand why I chose this difficult route but more and more gets revealed to me everyday.

Today, I woke up with this, I don’t wanna be on this planet anymore energy.  It felt very isolating and like it was trying to press down on me, to squash me and send me deeper into an illusion that I’m separated from everything.  I’m not.  None of us are separated from anything or anyone.  I even felt a mild depression this morning, which I haven’t felt in awhile.  I haven’t really been feeling much lately.  The schedule has been rigorous, demanding and then add Jill and Casey leaving for the States and me being out here on my own should be sending me into a graveyard of grief.  But it hasn’t.  It has actually forced me deeper into myself creating the connection to this gentle, invisible strength that is carrying me through this experience.  And I asked for this strength to be given to me.  I asked for my fear to be turned into and energy that works with me instead of against me.  My focus has changed.  It’s sharpened even though I still forget things.  I’m doing the job of two people on some levels.  I’m being ask to really take that Fool’s Child leap off the cliff and watch the magic happen.  It’s already happening.  It’s not easy and is challenging me on many levels.  I’m looking forward to seeing what comes of all of this.

Some other feelings that really seem to be highlighted are feelings of losing more and more of a connection to the 3D existence.  I feel like I’m walking between two worlds a lot of the time right now.  Though I’ll admit I haven’t quite figure out how this 4th Dimensional shift is going to occur but I can say that I feel like I’m feeling it happening right now.  Of course, that’s a good thing, but what will my experience be like in the final stages of shifting over?  Well, whatever the experience becomes is exactly what I will need…hard as it may be but then again it might also be the most amazing feeling in the Universe.

The first retreat without Jill and Casey happens in 8 days.  There’s a lot of work to be done to prepare the tambos, the kitchen, the land, and the Maloka.  It’s challenging work but the rewards are very worth the experiences I’m having.  You get to see people work on their own healing.  In some cases, you get to see amazing transformations and people opening up like a an egg being cracked on the side of a bowl.  You see hearts healing, bodies healing, thought processes shifting, perceptions changing and so many more things.  In 4 days we begin preparing the land with a lot of cultivation, cleaning of the tambos, stocking the tambos with necessary items like candles, mosquito coils and 5 gallons of purified water.  The water tanks have to be filled to accommodate large groups, laundry, dish washing, showers and various other things that water is used for.  Consumption can go quickly and we even advise our guests to be mindful of water use.  The water tanks have to be checked often to monitor water usage versus supply.  We don’t get fresh water from the village every night even though we should.  Additionally, we prepare a feast for the welcoming brunch and the welcoming dinner.  This means a lot of food shopping the day before the guests arrive and a lot of food prep to make this all happen.

Once the guests have settled into their tambos and enjoyed the welcome brunch we all gather in the Maloka for the welcoming meeting.  This meetings gives all of the important stuff they need to know about the property, the kitchen, accommodations, ceremonies, shamans, etc.  There’s a lot of information to go over.  Then dinner is served and everyone gets a good nights rest because the next night will be their first ceremony of the retreat.  I’ve seen a lot of anticipation going into the first ceremony.  It’s refreshing to see the excitement and wonderment of a first timer.  It reminds me of my first Ayahuasca days.  Then it’s simply a matter and making sure that all of the wheels of the retreat operations are greased nicely throughout the rest of the retreat.  I will be running my ass off everyday for two weeks.

There’s a lot coordination in this job. There’s a lot of planning everyday.   There’s a lot of having to think on the run and being flexible 24/7.  If you are not an adaptable person you would have a hard time in this environment.  But if you are someone who is up for a good stiff transformation or two then you’d fit right in.

The coming months are going to test many of my perceived limits.  Hell, it’s already happening.  I’m grateful for this opportunity to see some real magic happen in my life because I feel some big changes coming up.  I don’t know what it is exactly but something is happening and it feels good!  So, in spite of all my  complaining and belly aching and griping, I did choose this journey after all.  I take full responsibility for everything that I’m going to learn and go through until it’s done!