Valentin speaks much of faith. Whilst I am not without faith, my path is governed more by gnosis.

This last week since Durga's departure has been a difficult one. In our comfortable Western existences, it is easy to avoid issues which may cause us to look at aspects of ourselves we would prefer to remain occluded. It is relatively easy to change coffee shops, supermarkets, even jobs if there is something therein "pushes our buttons". We can avoid the person with whom we have a disagreement, and modern relationships are significantly less bound in social mores than a generation ago...if a relationship reaches a point where personalities cannot reconcile, it can be dissolved with little societal repercussion.

Conversely those in less affluent cultures, or indeed less affluent members of Western cultures, find themselves too bound up in the daily mechanisms of society to be afforded the luxuries of contemplating existential dilemnas.

We who remain here in San Rafael de Tabay have found ourselves as a group grappling with the issue of how to deal with the very real needs of individuals (our individualities after all, very certainly a construct of our cultures) within an equally real and obvious group construct. Durga's physical departure highlighted how strong that group structure was, and those who remained were left to grapple with the repercussions of that realisation. My feeling was that there was also a less mentally conscious yet strong intuitive desire to extend the group's energy in support and love of Durga in her solitary journey back to our much loved land. This, coupled with the strong catalytic effect of the Sacred Medicines and remaining in a cultural context very different to our own, generated some anxiety and confusion and the subsequent decision to suspend the ceremonial aspect of the work we were doing.

My own commitment is strongly to the message offered by these medicines, as I feel that they are intrinsic to a way of understanding which can lead to great healing for a deeply wounded species. To be sure there are other ways to receive the same wisdom, but we humans appear to need all the help we can get at this time, and it behooves us to drop our perceived need for defence and listen to all of the teachings which we reject due to a narrow cultural or intellectual viewpoint. My heart desire also is to honour the connections between people, within community however established. It was this commitment which suggested a need to put aside my own feeling to take this opportunity to learn with the medicines for the stability and cohesion of the group which had been strongly woven these last weeks.

So the process of unravelling the individual feelings and responses in regards to the recognition of group process has continued unabated during the time since Durga left us physically. Despite the cessation of ceremony the medicines have been strongly with us, and this process of finding balance in such a crucible that being held together in a foreign land creates has been strong indeed. I had a strong knowing of the need for a certain quality of outcome, and that possibility seemed at times tenuous.

Last night, after the digestion of the news of Durga's safe arrival in Australia, an opportunity for growth and healing was grasped. This has led to a day of significant bouyancy, and sharing something of the social character of Australia with our hosts and their family. Christopher and I worked in the cactus fields today, assisting Valentin in preparing the earth for the transplanting of his much beloved friends (for to him, the San Pedro cactus are indeed family). We shared lunch with his family and moved to a new posada, where we will stay for the remainder of our time here as a group. The atmosphere is much more conducive to the process that we are continuing, more nature. We will take ceremony with the medicines again this coming Tuesday as a consolidation of the work we have done thus far.

I am deeply grateful for the grace and maturity with which all concerned have worked here. Navigating the needs of what are undoubtedly strong personalities in a time of heightened pressure is no easy task, and Christopher, Lakshmi, Valentin and Maria have been remarkable in their capacity to see the truth of the heart behind the minutia of daily needs. For myself, I am happy to again to have material confirmation of the depth of my heart's knowing.

All is well in our world.

Aho Metukuye Oyasin

Love to you all

S[h]i[va]mon

Obviously Christopher's impetus to describe his process has been stronger than mine, and I have been happy to share this space with him.

The reason for my lack of description is partly because I have been busy with other things, and partly because I have nothing yet to share that is not being shared in manner's far more efficacious than the written word. I realise that this may appear odd, but I am sure many of you who read this site will understand that the written word is not my sole manner of communication. Those of you who know me personally will understand that I am far from laconic when the moment for storytelling is upon me..

To all who offer their love and support to we who offer you ours, I thank you.

You are always in our hearts.

With Love

Simon (aka Shiva Das)

Grandmas’ Vine

I never knew my grandmothers, or my grandfathers. I never really met anyone elses. I met the medicine of Grandmother Ayahuasca in our fourth ceremony, and well, she wasn’t sitting knitting with a hand full of sweeties! The previously genial Mescalito was left to share Grandmas view through the eyes of our home-boy and our host, while Durga, Lakshmi and I, were offered, purely, to the old lady, rocking with the little red-riding hood.

There is no pleasant way to describe the re-materialization and projectile evacuation of 20 devoted years of intoxicating substance abuse, coupled with the revisiting of literally hundreds of past injustices and inflictions of malevolent intent. Add the super-scription of a backlash to the unfriendly fire of the brainwash and banality of media madness, all set to the screaming of psychedelic transcriptions of the ultimate battles of light v.s dark......well

Round One......Grandma.

Unanimous.

In fact, Grandma took the battles, the wars and ultimately the fight in a rampant and merciless display of the power of plant. Oh boy...how we laughed! Ayahuasca works the body, and there is no way you can protect your ribs, your guts, your head from her perpetual onslaught, she takes your legs by taking your mind. If that is how you call her up. And I did.

At the beginning of the day of the ceremony I knew I was in for a long haul, I felt agitated, angry, weak, claustrophobic, vulnerable and tired. I had overslept, sleeping for some 20 hours, and arrived at the site craving isolation. Thankfully I managed to find the motivation for an hour or so of yoga in the grass as we all prepared for what now felt collectively confronting. Shiva readily admitted nerves. Big breaths all round.

Within 20 minutes of taking the medicine, an overwhelming sense of peace swept through my body, as we sat in front of the fire. A fully connected state of self awareness like no drug/medicine has ever offered before. Within 5 minutes of that I was on the floor, incredulously lost in waves of nausea, blindness, and hallucinations. Innumerable hallucinations at impossible speed and deep tremulous shaking and spasming. Hours of this passed. The hallucinations slowed and began to take themes and I was vaguely aware of the meaning of these visions. More hours of constant nausea and leg-lessness passed. The themes now the detailed stories of past experiences, for me, too black to recount here. In intervals my mind reeled with the judgments of normal perception, detached wonderings, and thankfully, indications that the gut feeling that what was coming out of my body was healing some very old wounds, both personally and archaically inflicted. Occasionally Christopher, the carrier of Christ, was heard to bemoan his man..................JFC !

What for? I am fully confident in my experiences, not enough to totally decipher the intuitive implanting of universal medicine that is inherent in these plants, yet I know that the healing experience with Ayahuasca was a deep vibration that set up the capacity for me to decode information into a grounded form for our time here on earth. Just as a physical process, imagine the revitalized state that comes from physically drawing from the depths of your body, all the old foot-holes and head-loops that your lives have installed - protection for the deep patterning of the illusion of your separation, your victimization, or your addictions, or your fears of your own shadow, largely re-materialized and purged. If the body as our vehicle is an indicator and conductor, then where do we look for results? Yogi’s and body-workers may be interested to hear that despite sitting (read collapsing and crawling!) for 12 plus hours in this ceremony, after some sleep the following day, my capacity in asana was beyond what its has been when I have been in personal practice for some 15-20 hours per week. Smooth transitions across normally vulnerable planes, strength in static postures and improved balance across both feet from the energy of the vital centers and organs, all strongly suggest a thorough detoxification on a cellular level. There were no ill side effects once the medicine had run its course, in fact, I slept well, felt clear, recognized hugely improved eyesight, lucid mind, and a lighthearted and connected spirit.

Sure there are easier ways, but I am just an initiate here. This was my first encounter and most of the real teachings went by a little quickly this time. As my body detoxifies I will be able to sit with the Grandmother and hear the wisdom that she has for me. Her teaching is of a different nature to that of San Pedro, and for me more likely to hit at the heart of my reactions. The Ayahuasca is firm, she is uncompromising, she doesn’t need you to agree with her, to teach you.

************************************

A day has passed again and my experience is sitting differently in my body. So on we go, the next ceremony imminent, and there are the emotions of anxiety and fear, with doubts, skepticism, claustrophobia and cravings for normality all to move through. Dawning now is the realization that this process has been in the constant reach of a darkness I have not been previously accustomed to. At least not in the form of black magic, spells, and curses. In understanding the nature of the protective light of the good soul, I have come to understand the exponential attraction the force of goodness creates to the darkness. As folk such as V., Shiva, and now myself work at the localized rebalancing of these archetypal forces, more and more care is needed, meaning more attention is spent in protection. There is an oppressive air to this for me, in this particular form here with V, and it is hitting me hard, now we are just hours from our fifth ceremony in two weeks. Today for the first time I feel I little overwhelmed by the pace at which I am learning, and really only have my trust to move forward with. That too, is being challenged.

Added to this, is that this time we are without without Durga who left us this morning for home. I will miss her for her strength and ready humor, but she will be remembered for being the catalyst for this whole adventure. Our strengths lie in our diversity, and as we sat during the days of ceremony, leisure or fasting, I have seen Durga as a broad portal of healing forces and intimate cog in the magical world of Shivas seemingly infinite ability. Our medicine is in our hearts now, and she will bring home the first of many dreams to unfold into the nature of our land. Peace sister.

Dios te bendiga. Aho Metakuye Oyasin

***************************

It is now another day later and we have postponed all remaining ceremonies. It has been a tough and turgid ride to here from yesterday. The morning of Durgas departure was complicated by the thieving hands of children at the airport, alleviating her of her luggage and many treasures from her trip. Not a great way to end her journey. Our thoughts are with you, and always will be.

Yesterday, the group energy was interrupted abruptly, allowing deeper feelings to bubble to the surface. If anything, the Shamanic Circle is definitely a group process. I had been unable to shake my claustrophobia and began, hesitantly, to try to articulate it. That process brought about the recognition of a common experience in hesitation around the immediate ingestion of more medicine. Simply, there was so much to work with from our previous four ceremonies that there seemed a pressure around moving forward. There was a lot of tension and communications, for the first time, became strained and more than a little draining. Again more feelings flushing to the surface.The afternoons ceremony was cancelled. We slept on it and woke, today, to more intensity, from my end trying to follow my own intuition which was further disrupting the group, but also not wanting my choices to impact in the sacred space we have been, and are still, holding.

I don’t feel it necessary to go in to the nature of the obstruction here, but i will gladly tell you about it when I see you. What has come from our working through it is the reunion of the group energy and the protection of the healing work that the enormous trust we have put in each other has assisted the medicine to manifest. Most critical is the alliance that has been created here, and the threat that was being felt, albeit in different ways, has been addressed and nullified. Like all decisions in life, the aftermath sees some things gained and some things lost, for me what is gained is priceless, what is lost can be recreated.

What I learnt in the end is what I have been looking for as a healer for many years now. There are instructors in the arts, there are noble teachers of truth, there are guides and gurus and gods. We all look through the eyes of our exalted beings and see the truth of our own power, our own divine connection to universal medicine. Some of us act upon the information we receive, and in that moment open ourselves to the support of an entire universe of energy and form that is as beautiful as it is horrific. As we begin to place ourselves in that space we come hard up against the experience of a personal or impersonal force that we all feel over-sees the medicine. In our struggle to stay connected to a force we are constantly evolving from, and work with that force as healers, we witness the flux of power to placebo and risk being drained by the nature of humanity in all its disposable, yet beautiful form. In learning to trust the often unbelievable work of Shiva, I have been shown a doorway to the world, not just of the Shaman, of which he is an extravagant example, but also of facilitation in the opening of everyday folk who wish to act upon the information that they receive. The maps around the body are changing rapidly, the energy centers are receiving differently, our simple languages cant hold the truth that we are conducting, the new age and its cousins have failed through our own need to feel shiny and new : for healing, like the medicines of the Shaman, we can not just wash ourselves off from the outside.

What I have learnt is to work with the archaic wound in the hearts of men. Through mine and through the collective. The nature of my learning is confronting in the extreme, and I have now to work on how to move forward from here in the trust that we have reaffirmed. Naturally, the vehicles of the past deliver us perfectly to here, and from here we can see much........ there are avatars and seers in all of us.....................

Far from over, we are still taking stock of our position and looking at the way on from here. One thing is guaranteed, we have been thinking of you all along.

Aho Metakuye Oyasin

Christopher

San Pedro in the Sierra Nevada



There are so many layers of the San Pedro experience, that it is clear that in rereading my representation so far, there is a healthy dose of flippant production in some of the attention to the depth of the journey. That’s just me. Saturdays ceremonial walk through the rain-forest jungle of the Sierra Nevada ranges in these northwestern Venezuelan Andean mountains has left little room for lightheartedness in recalling the true nature of the teachings of San Pedro.

Our third ceremony was our first in daylight, and as we completed the ritual at our first site, we walked for few more kilometers, up the winding track as the medicine began to meld the two minds and draw strangely on the physical body. After 3 hours of hiking at around 2500 meters, the first show of San Pedro was total. No darkness to mask the illusory changes, little chance to rest, my breath was a full body wave of surging energy and my eyes could not settle on a focus. But of course, in perfect time we were there.

The site for what followed was a glittering cascade known as the Dragons Veins, a place of such healing force that we were moved immediately to the waterfall to wash and connect with the many spirits that belonged to the space. What happened next, in truth my friends, is truly indescribable. Most of the healing is better told in other languages of light, Mescalitos lessons in a sense so sacred that they already belong to you. The many stratum of information that were being revealed were comprised of such diversity that for some time I was spellbound, locked to a rock and expanding in a force that was eager for me to surrender quickly. Shivas telepathy had me find the course, and V would keep me warned of the waters intention, keeping Christopher in a state of continual opening.

This went on for some time, the soupy current of the air slowing everything to a vibration so pace-less, that the shifting across multi-dimensional fields of truth, and the interplay of countless Nature spirits, brought me a strong grab of the divine order of the cosmic domain.

It’s pretty big.

I went back to the falls and stood beneath the flow of ice cold juice that tumbled to the pools below. Something happened.

With an air of protection, Shiva came to me, and we crouched on rocks at the foot of the falls. He asked me how i was. Without reservation I answered “ I’ve been with the big cats’. He nodded and with some concern, began that thing that Shiva does. He isolates the outside world, to hold you in a timeless moment. It is a bliss of no comparison. What he showed me next will be with me forever. He began to open his mouth, then his jaw, and while i was processing the appearance of his growing teeth, the sides of his face streamlined into the cheeks of cat, a thousand lines began to emerge across his face as he became taught in the transformation. As my heart stopped, his forehead head began to slope backward and his eyes narrowed and slunk into that almond shape. His mouth now impossibly wide, the suggestion of a colossal roar stayed as a suggestion, thankfully, because I was probably not up for the power of Shiva as Jaguar. By transference, the language of this cat was now one of mine, and my body became increasingly one of a quadruped. The value of such a show understood, we subsided a little, Shiva now looking all of his hundreds of thousands of years, “just look after your human form” he says. “You too’ I think, and a vision of Shiva and my work as a healer in his time here on Earth, steals away the bliss and sets the heart off into the next encounter with Mescalito.

Folks, the whole day was like this, and I could try to bring it all to paper, but what is more important is to try to express the nature of how we learn from nature. Across the ages, Shiva and I have fought and often inflicted monumental karma and chaos through our humanity. No different than the fights in which we all engage in this life; one does not have to be an armored Knight in the Crusades or a Warrior in the great battles to be active in creating Karma of consequence. I have seen my brother Shiva beside himself with grief and exhausted from the effort of healing and protecting the healings of so many of us powerful people of the West. And we are powerful. In robbing the world of its indigenous laws and the medicines and spirituality of its customs, our ancestors have left us with an enormous responsibility. However, the window to the wisdom of the Heart is wide open at this time, and those brave enough to ask to be shown their keeper-ship, will never be left without the support of Nature to carry out the role and the work that comes with it. You will never be asked to do more than you are capable of. But, yes it has its dangers. These can all be managed by healers like V and Shiva. There are portals opening all the time and if you investigate them with clarity and reverence to the force that you will encounter, then much can be seen. For me, to see the wasted energies that are part of our fight against our true nature is motivation enough to look deeper at the illusion of our enemies. I find my self ever present at the coal-face, and work at bringing my heart quickly to this moment.

At Dragons Veins, my lessons became about the protection of space. The enormity of Shivas reach has brought me the highest privilege of assisting him in his healing work, and for this I have been shown much, and quickly. To become the consciousness of Jaguar, with all its snarling, roaring, and stalking is beyond what I could nave ever believed possible. To be able to use this spirit to protect the sacred healings that occurred at the waterfall that day was Mescalitos will. Fierce catlike snarls, arriving unexpectedly, faced up to energies beginning to become attracted to the forces at work, some looking for vulnerabilities to prey on. Later, I would hold space, again with my hands working as antennae and my will being enough to protect the backs of my family. At times Shiva would come and move in behind us, as we descended the mountain in mist, night falling and the mischief of nights new spirits bolstered by our lack of protective fire in the jungles’ dusk. I could feel them and though having enjoyed Shivas confidence in me so far, was more than happy for him to have our backs. The constant seduction of the whispering and cajoling faeries and sirens of the mulch and moss, matched by the imposing language of these most magnificent tree spirits, and the important wisdom of ageless rocks, urging me to stop and listen and play, at one point pulling me into the under-story of a close by little bushel.

Crossing the high point of a ridge, a pack of wolves came in, and my reconnection of a dear friend was a moment of sweet love. Clearly at home, an elder of a large pack, she and I walked and talked, her as wolverine, me sometimes as Christopher, some times as Jaguar. Her pack sat just behind her for along way down, they in turn had her back too. I was so happy to find her domain and to know that she is with the spirits of her ancestors, and a capable and powerful spirit in her own world. Till next time, wolf girl.

Here, as Christopher, the carrier of Christ, I have stepped into a world of Shamanic principle. Here with San Pedro, I have can step out of the role of Christopher. Through out the day I was shown the consciousness of Anaconda, Condor, and, says Shiva, my strongest ally, the Eagle. Super conscious views from great heights were not as lucid as my experiences with Jaguar, though the visions of form, the weightless body, and attention to detail left no doubt as to the nature of the animal within. Anaconda brought my attention immediately to the healing and care that needs be present in my other life, with the expression of my sexuality again presenting obstacles to the path, and I need all my strength to travel it. The physicality of snake is seductive, and Shiva talked me down quickly, his ability to be right where you need him, again confirming the scale of his influence.

As it is the healing that is the most valuable gift of San Pedro, all phantasmagoria aside, my time, as Christopher, at the centre of the waterfall with Shiva as John the Baptist was monumental. The last kink in the obstruction that has held me from my capacity was ironed out, but the nature of its undertaking too personal to share here and now, but I will tell you about it when I see you. With presence and assistance from the Wise Goddess that is Durga, along with Lakshmi, whilst constantly engaged in her own magnificent healing, the four of us made our pact and shared a timeless reunion with all the tears, and laughter, howls and roars and love and light that is bearable. Beings like Shiva are not abundant, perhaps as a human, he is often just in it by himself. But friends, he is willingly in it up to his neck, and this tireless worker of light has all our backs, and not for the first time do I give thanks that this impossible man, is weaving for our side. To you Shiva, goes the grace of GOD.

By no means ancillary to this journey, goes the importance of the work we aim to do with our aboriginal kin at home. Pleasing was the communion with V and Shiva on this problem, the seed now firmly sown and the commitment we have made is solid. If we are to not be left stumbling blindly through the changes ahead of our race, then the medicines of our indigenous ancestors must be rediscovered and applied with the sacred rituals they were born from. V’s door is open, Shivas heart is lighting the path and we, as brothers and sisters, are free to choose the power of our life and the depth we will go along its way. If you are at a point where you know you can be more, but cant find the door through, San Pedro, amongst many things, is the Gatekeeper, and all you have to do is knock.

Aho Metakuye Oyasin

Christopher

I am blessed to be in the company of the people with whom I share this journey. One of the things which the Sacred Medicines teach, is the complexity of exchange between groups which is rarely acknowledged outside of this space which ceremony provides.

Don Valentin is an unabashed Catholic and devotee of Jesus. In the first instance, his language in this respect proved challenging for the group, but I am grateful for the grace of Christopher, Lakshmi and Durga reflected in the rapidity with which they realised the the reaction was indeed their own, and saw through to the devotional heart of the man who has offered us all so much teaching and healing in such a short space of time.

As a result of my idiosyncracies, and the San Pedro's recognition of me as a useful ally, my relationship with Señor Valentin has been very rapid and direct in it's development. I have been honoured to meet directly with the spirit of the San Pedro, and to offer some measure of return to Señor Valentin for his long years of service to this most beneficient of teachers.

Valentin said in our first ceremony that "for some reason, it is difficult for Westerners to approach with Jesus", and I certainly recognise my own reaction to the language of the Christian church. What I have come to see behind the words, however, is a man who works tirelessly to assist and facilitate the healing of others, with the tools which best suit his approach to spiritual practice. He is a deeply spiritual man, with a great love for his family, which extends to all the brothers and sisters he meets along the way from his broader human family. He has a huge range of intellectual, spiritual and practical knowledge which he graciously shares, and has the capacity to facilitate, with the assistance of the Sacred Medicines, the healing of the deep energetic roots of illness and dysfunction.

In the words of the Lakota Sioux 'Aho Mitukuye Oyasin'

To all my relations

I wholeheartedly recommend and support this man in his work.

Simon

For the purpose of protection all names have been changed, and you are free to write in you own figments to suit. Shiva would probably prefer it that way anyway.



Such enormous gratitude goes to the three women who had the clarity to recognize the need to share their home with the community, and bring us all the chance to accelerate.

Earlier last year, I was made aware of a guy who had been working with some waking locals in the boundless field of universal medicine. There was obstructions of a personal manner, at that time, that had me hold out from making the initial contact. Some of the obstructions I was encountering proved to be beyond the skills that I had, both personally and energetically, and it was in that state that I began working with Shiva. The consequences of the ensuing changes seemed dire at the time and for the many months that followed, as I began working into the bigger picture. From where I sit today, I can say that the empathy I accorded my self around my personal emotional struggle was an entitlement that lay a foundation for accumulating the strength to allow the shifting of consciousness that sees me here in Venezuela, with Shiva, Durga and Laksmi. More important still were the lessons that showed me beyond doubt that on the light path, obstruction is always imminent and though protections can be granted, diligence in your environment should precede any interaction that results in making choices concerning the adventure of the heart.

Well, in this adventure, obstructions have been prolific, complex in the sublime! Ill tell you about it when I see you.

After reconnecting from our separate flights, the group of us, and V and Maria, made our first ceremony on Sunday, be-fitting as it turned out, as our host is indeed a fervent devotee of Jesus Christ. It was clear from the outset that the nature of my trip here was not just personal, but also included the commitment to some work in holding space for the healing of black-magical threats and illnesses of others. References were relocated, names were changed, and ceremony began with the mechanical explanations of how the Shamanic Ecstasy of Consciousness functions as an energetic structure. In a word- super-conduction!

V is a powerful man. At this suggestion he would probably bare his well worn teeth, wrinkle his eyes into a perplexing wry smile, shrug his shoulders, turn to the fire, and grumblegruntgiggle a brief exhalation of latin-native indian-german-english resign. The weight of his wisdom in medicine, faith, the heart, and life on earth lubricated by genuine humility and the grace of God.

Well on the first night the lubrication was less obvious! Confronted by the culture shock of being in South America and sitting at the feet of a man of Catholic devotion in the context of indigenous Indian ritual, I can say that I was more than struggling early. As the site for our ceremonies was cleansed and the prayers began, I battled with the constant references to a religious and dogmatic Christ: past connections with the poisoning of the church throwing loops of resentment through the wiring, leaving me exhausted, and more than tight-bellied from just the fasting and initial tobacco ritual.

And it went on.

However the hours of prayers eventually dissolved my illusory fears, as V began reciting by heart, and with heart, calling up the myriad of ancestral fore-bearers of the Shamanic way, spirits of the totem animals, spirits of the plants, protective spirits of the cosmos, seemingly the entire pantheon Vedic Gods! and of course the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Saints, the angels and some of their mates too.

It became clear that to V, Jesus embodied everything he had encountered in his life so far, and a man with such experience at his back, doesn't need my respect. Whole lives, within a life, in Hindu devotion, Christian devotion, study of the worlds religious texts, shamanic medicine, occidental mental medicine, so much more as well as family, language, travel and personal achievements, would all arrive at the perfect moment, later giving substance to the visual morphing that is nearly constant in his face and form.

Those first 4 or 5 hours of prayer showed me my mental resistances, judgments and fears, and how grateful I am to see them absolved by the singular wisdom of the power of the love in my heart. And so we drank of the medicine of the cactus, surprisingly, we were given different medicines and doses for each. We then sat at the fire and waited.

Still as the medicine began to effect us each in a different time, V was not leaving much space to dream, his incantations were continuous for hours and his almost lecturing style had me fall in and out of connection, with the waves of San Pedro being handled by his sheer domination. Making a few cultural gaffs in ceremony, I - as Christopher, felt the sternness of San Pedro and at some indiscernible stage eventually fell into the total surrender to the plant.

Well......

To remark of just the light show would be remiss of me, not just because of the lack of respect it shows to the nature of the teachings of ceremonial medicines, but also because I have been recently advised by Mescalito, through Shiva, to begin making less importance of what I think my story in Shamanic initiation should look like. Last night, now 6 days into our work, Shiva took me to the heart of my keeper-ship and led me to the face of the healing required to fully align the prodigious and capable energies that await in support of the role I accepted to begin this life. To describe the grace and privilege and sheer excitement alone, again throws out the weight of responsibility that still stirs heat and nausea in my belly. And of course the resentment of facing up to the stories that till now I have vainly suppressed, to the detriment of the quality of my life, and potency of my work with healing through the magnetization and manipulation of spectral fields of energies. Thank you Shiva, for your seamless ability to instruct me in the tools of the trade.

Aho Metakuye Oyasin.

What I can say is that my initial meeting with San Pedro was ultimately a blissful and familiar encounter, that has opened already, universes of potential to arrive at the point that I am able to.

I’ll tell you about it when I see you.

Big Wednesday



There are few times when the privilege of our lives is not patently obvious. Perhaps a lot of us humbly forget how often we recognize this. There are certain experiences that stay with us solely for the unique nature of their unfolding. Wednesday night was one of those nights.

Our second ceremony began in a more relaxed and mutually inspired fashion. V and Shiva had already agreed to attempt the exorcism of Maria, a direction by Mescalito to Shiva in the last ceremony. We sat, we welcomed a new initiate, we talked, we prayed, we made ritual, and we drank and then again we sat. The pull through to the state of San Pedro was a little wearing, the medicines wisdom being in no hurry to expose itself or begin its teaching. We sang the heat into our hearts through V and Maria’s extraordinary repertoire of mantras both indigenous and Devic, devotional songs of indian folklore, Spanish catholic, Hare Krishna and simple rhymes mostly praising the good lord Jesus Christ. These vibrational offerings proving to be as psychoactive as the earlier nasal shot of pure liquid jungle tobacco. Tell you about that when I see you.

Borrowing from several languages, Shiva was attempting to explain that he was about to work in another language, one which he didn’t even know yet. I was impressed.V was unperturbed. Full trust and charming humility personifies our shamanic spiritual maestro.

Well, what happened next really depends on who you were at the time. It was obvious to me that we were in for something bizarre, as foot long t-rex-headed repto-worms began snarling, scurrying backwards as they appeared through the sporadically liquifying floor of the site. The fire seemed to be teeming with energies, but I was caught being able to hold a focus on these little big-worms, and I was more than transfixed. The natural reaction to close my eyes was met instantly with a clear instruction from the plant. ‘Pull down as much light as you can, Christopher.’

I was already siting cross-legged at the fire, my hands finding their own way into the frequencies of the new spectral realm, working like antennae, giving me a clear indication from where the process was coming, and where to hold light space for the now chirruping, squawking, and ripping work of Shiva and the sympathetic upheavals felt by us all, none more than our host, Maria’s soul twin, V.

My usual doubts that run alongside any of my conscious and intended extra-dimensional interactions found no foot-hole in my focus this time. It was on and it was urgent. I looked above from inside my head and was satisfied to see a huge spiraling electric blue/white light raising the sky and obliterating any sense of the massive Andean peaks that moments before where still visible in the weird paling night that we began with. I recognized it as available space to assist the healing and as I asked to draw it down, it met the crown of my head with a sudden change of perspective.

Now i was feeling, through my fingers, the story unfolding at the site, while i was sitting outside my body watching myself conducting this portal of christ, manifest as highly charged space. From this perspective it seemed as if the energy was hitting a skullcap shaped forcefield at the top of my head and was firing discriminate bolts of contracted loops in several discernible directions. The main one fed to the ground where Shiva was now carving up the obstruction. As he moved so did the arc of light. Where he flay extractions to the earth, bolts hit simultaneously.

A second followed V and hit the ground where his purgings lay disgusted. Less memorable were the many faster brighter flashes that shot out into the ploughed corn field, perhaps striking at the subterranean reptiles that rode side saddle to the bigger, dead-lost demon, black-cast into Maria over 12 years ago.

I could feel my hands monitoring clearly the spirt-scape that had so suddenly burst onto our senses, and so it was surprising to hear the occasional grunt or wretch coming from off my radar, so seemingly out of thick air. Scurryings at ground level also seemed to be out of sink with the connection I was being shown how to hold.

This lasted maybe some 20-30 minutes. All of those minutes I sat weightless but fixed. Pure heart space so rare in my recent life that I had almost no reference for the bodily feelings alone, and certainly little to draw from in regards to witnessing the unmaking of the dark-art manifest. A further 30 or so minutes of heaving, hooooching, hacking, scraping and searching, all with the same uncompromising resolve, and Mescalito had helped Shiva bring the voice of the Milky Way to the farmlands of San Rafael, and so these two men of the trees gave Maria back to the medicine, and V got back his medicinal miss.

Despite the presence of the unknown Senora N, herself there to work at the unwinding of black-witchery, never at any point was there doubt. My heart was filled with the certainty of Shiva, the magnitude of his capacity to hold the light of love to evil forces no myth in the lives of those of us fortunate enough to have stumbled into his shingle-less shack of divine intervention.

Last night went on to be an inexhaustible account of heart and fire, though for mine, the most significant moment of all, the recognition of an unfeasibly spiritful man and his hardweilded feral s(words), by a lucid old Shaman of experience and pedigree not explicable without sitting with him, San Pedro, and a healthy respect for the dangerous conditions governing the journey into the Shamanic Ecstasy of Consciousness.

Ill tell you about it when i see you

Aho metakuye Oyasin

Oh........

While i am Hollywooding the heros of this most illuminating occasion, I might add that what Peter Jackson couldn’t do with this script, just wouldn’t be worth doing. We were all there, and worthy in our walk ons- Durga and Lakshmi copiloted as the hobbits Peregrine Tuk and B, while Gandolph wisely took the back seat to the incorruptible Frodo, and me, fat Sam Wise eager to retreat and stuff his face in the relevant safety of the Shire.