I can't speak to the rest of South America, although I hear the environment is fairly similar elsewhere, but in Puerto Maldonado many businesses close in the middle of the day - or just whenever they damn well please. Predictability is hard to come by so you'd better not get too tied to an agenda or you're bound to be disappointed. At 2pm its quite hot and I guess El Hornito doesn't serve lunch (there were no hours listed either on line or on the building) . After walking a mile in the hot sun, I found out that I would in fact, not be having pizza. Exasperated I went to the restaurant next door that advertised air conditioning and ordered a salad and an alfredo - both sucked. Further exasperated I went back to my hostel seething against the town. I calmed down finally and just figured I would inform the volunteer facilitator that I didn't wish to come back although I didn't know how that would be received since it was starting to sound like this was a required activity. At least if I stayed in the jungle I could have water to drink and rice to eat and I wouldn't feel like a bumbling idiot.
The next morning I was ready and waiting to go pick up the laundry with the facilitator and made a point to inform her and get it out of the way, that I had no desire to come back to town. She didn't really respond and seemed stressed so I figured I would drop it for the time being. We got to the lavanderia and as had been foretold, they had fucked things up prompting a rather vigorous back and forth in Spanish. How the fuck do they expect me to deal with this I wondered beginning to stress out more. After several minutes I was asked to ride in a mototaxi down to the boat with the laundry that was done and wait there. Eventually the issue was resolved and I was relieved to hear that I wasn't going to have to deal with laundry. Dodged a bullet - or so it seemed. I didn't feel like having a confrontation with someone I barely knew who already seemed stressed out and who's blood pressure clearly had been raised by the feckless laundry personal so I decided to let my earlier comment go.
The day before my first ceremony I finished The Holographic Universe and my journal entry states "after reading...I have begun to question many things." Questioning is an important part of changing your erroneous beliefs and I was beginning to feel my mind open. Friday came and I was sitting in the maloka for the first time part anxious, part eager / curious to see what would happen. After about two hours of nothing, I got blasted with a whole bunch of really disturbing images that I had seen one other time and couldn't make heads or tails out of them any better than the last time. I was okay afterwards but felt extremely drained and had no desire to do another ceremony in the coming weeks...or maybe ever. After being asked to help one of the retreat guests make it back to his treehouse (that was an adventure all it's own), I sat in the light of the nearly full moon and hoped it might take some of the negativity away. Out loud I spoke to what, I don't know, consciousness I suppose - "I don't get any of this. I want to be the best I can but I need help because I really, really don't get it." A few minutes later, the two women who I reported to came to make sure I was okay and the guest had gotten home. They encouraged me to go to bed so I went back to the volunteers quarters and laid down under my mosquito net.
Thoughts were racing around my mind and though I wanted to ignore them and go to sleep but that was impossible. There had been a name that I kept hearing in the visions and I figured that if I couldn't fall asleep, I would gently look and try to see if any pieces would fit together. I couldn't recall anyone with that name in my entire life - till suddenly I did and a bunch of things clicked as memories came back. Many other thoughts rushed through my mind including seeing myself as a sad little child. My thoughts turned to my children and how I would never want them to feel the same way about themselves that I had which suddenly gave me much more sympathy for that child in myself that I had become indifferent to. I imagined what I wished someone would have said to me when I was a kid (not that I probably would have believed it).
Ayahuasca has a tendency to make you "purge" and that can be out of one end or the other. Best not fight it and lose control at the worst possible time but instead go when you the need presents itself. I was feeling the downtown pressure so I quietly crept out of bed to the bathroom down the path a pace. It was 3am, I wasn't going to sleep anytime soon and there was no rush so I told my body that out loud and then began to tell myself the things I had wished I had heard, to the little kid in my mind. Sounds kind of nuts I suppose but speaking these words helped me let go a lot of the sadness and realize a different truth. A while later after my posterior had started falling asleep, I figured I was done and crept back into the house. Not ten minutes after laying down I had a sudden urge to head back to the bathroom. I began debating whether I really needed to go because I was concerned about waking people up with the creaky floor. "Would you make one of your own kids suffer because of being afraid of what someone else thought?" I heard. No, I suppose not. Like a ninja I snuck back to the bathroom and decided that for a little while anyway I needed to practice some kindness with myself.
In both religious and spiritual circles, I've heard people talk about mystical experiences where they meet a being of love and feel much more peace - this is what my intention was, to have one of these experiences. Unsurprisingly, I didn't manifest exactly what I wanted because what I wanted was a quick fix though I didn't realize it at the time. I was being pushed to love myself before feeling it from anyone else. A quick blast of love might feel temporarily better and put some things in perspective but could also lead to a life of constantly seeking that externally. An hour or so after drinking I vomited for the first time in like 5 years. Some images from the first ceremony began appearing again and I was a bit frustrated. Hadn't I dealt with this already? Eventually I would learn that things only come up again if there is a reason.
I then encountered what I would call "the personification of the mind of the identity that was forced on me". As odd as it sounds, I had a conversation with that individual and finally told him to get out of my house for disrespecting me. I started to see through the manipulation and bullshit that has kept me powerless in my own life for years. It all came out of guilt and shame of myself. The police were called and I had the mind man escorted away. It was exhausting and I was frankly kind of annoyed.
Consensus is that it's much better to sit up through the ceremonies but no one is judging you if you lay down. Feeling a bit of self pity, I lay down to try and recoup but something in my heart told me to sit up. I complied for a minute but felt like there was no juice left in the batteries and laid down again. This second time I felt the impression stronger and sat back up. Where was I going to get the energy for this? If there is infinite energy in the universe, then it's just a matter of tapping into it right? How do I tap into it? I sat with these thoughts for a few moments and all of a sudden in a flash it came to me - will power.
Side step for a book that was important to this ceremony. Malidoma Patrice Some, was kidnapped from his tribe in Africa at five years of age and forced to go to Jesuit seminary to be a priest until he ran away at the age of 20. Incredibly he found his way back home and then was required to go through the initiation that most young men do around the age of 13. Despite being raised in completely different cultures and worlds, I found I could relate with many of the feelings he described as he felt his identity stripped away at the seminary. The tribal world he describes sounds so fanciful, reminiscent of Harry Potter, that it was almost hard to believe. As I said though, my mind was more open and I was willing to consider that there is a good chance that I do not know all that is out there. Maybe I only see what I believe in?
This is another book I highly recommend and also one that came along at the exact right moment for what I needed to continue growing and healing.
Thoughts about will power suddenly shifted to Malidoma and the will power he had to exert to get through initiation. I began thinking about initiations and what the point of them is. Most tribal rituals are difficult because they show you what you are capable of. Enduring hardships reveals strength and changes who you are as a person. A youth goes out and comes back as a young adult because they now perceive themselves differently. People in my childhood culture believed that their children were adults after crossing some arbitrary thresh hold of thirteen years. However, it doesn't really work if you keep treating them like a child while expecting adult behavior. Sure, you can learn the model of expected behavior - a dog can do that - but it leaves you without confidence and needing someone to always tell you what to do because of the intense self doubt intrinsically intertwined.
Looking for the source to tap into, I felt a little burst of energy hit me and decided that I was not going to let the whining stop me. I would battle my mind the rest of the ceremony and sit in the same position till it was all over. Not having an elder to put me through an initiation, I wondered who I could be mentored by - who was my guide? I've come to believe that god is not an external concept but something that each of us possesses. But obviously there is something greater than each of us right?...The only thing greater than each of us is all of us. If you look at everything as one giant interconnected wave form, we are each just an average of all the other parts. As we grow, we raise the average and transform our worlds. Near the end of ceremony, I felt like I needed to battle it out longer and decided that I would sit there (if I was allowed to) till the sun came up around 5-5:30. The sun was a good enough authority for me for that moment.
This was my proving ground and it wasn't about being kind anymore, it was about growing up, putting away childish things. I fought through the suffocating wave, nearly passing out as my body temperature spiked and I began pouring sweat. Not long after, it subsided and I felt a lot of peace as I waited out the sunrise.
My request to not go to town was respected which I greatly appreciated. The time to myself would be nice - or so I thought. At the last minute one of the retreat guests asked to stay a while longer which management agreed to and I was asked to cook food for both myself and the guest. The path I was on had been serving up what I needed to keep going so I figured that despite this not being what I had planned, it was probably what was most expedient to my growth.
Spending one on one time with this guest I soon learned that we had a very similar childhood in many ways and were able to share good moments of conversation about overcoming into a new life. I was grateful for the little synchronicities that the universe had been serving up.
Locals who work on the grounds were the only other people there besides us three gringos (an additional guy was in dieta during the trip to town) when a rain storm swept in. These locals only spoke Spanish and were trying to communicate to me one afternoon that we needed to hide because a tree could come crashing down. I was completely confused at first but finally understood what was going on and followed them to hide underneath the maloka. It's raised off the ground at the front about four feet so we huddled there while I wondered what I should do about the guest in the tree house and the other one in the tambo doing dieta. We weren't supposed to interact with people in dieta unless absolutely necessary and I figured this circumstance dictated contact. Drumming up whatever Spanish I could think of, I communicated that there were two guests out there and I needed to go get them. I could tell they understood me because their faces instantly changed to oh shit. Frihole and I took off running down the path as I hollered for and collected the two guests. I don't mean to be patting myself on the back at all here but after being put on the spot I realized okay, I am capable of more than I thought.
No guests were picked up by the staff (they would be coming the next day) so our food menu was thrown off slightly. In our weekly staff meeting, I posed the question of what to cook for breakfast the next morning. My roommate and I were told to "freelance it". While prep was going on at 7;30, one of the women in charge came to the kitchen seeming some what out of sorts. Eyeballing my prep work she asked why I wasn't making quinoa salad. I got the impression she wasn't thrilled with what we were making (oatmeal with raisins and cinnamon, scrambled eggs and fruit smoothie) but I decided I wasn't going to get stressed about it. We were only doing what we had been told and if she wanted something different then it should have been stated the night before - or now if it was that important.
Quit making assumptions right? I wasn't going to try and read her mind but I was more than happy to make adjustments if asked to. My response only garnered a look that was also hard to read so I continued what I was doing. A few minutes later I hear Lee being asked / lectured about "why would you make oatmeal without fruit salad? It's an empty oatmeal". Not trying to be a smart ass but just meaning to explain the logic of why we had chosen what we did I replied from the sink area below "I ate oatmeal almost every day of my childhood for breakfast and never had fruit salad in it." From what I recall (or more accurately what I thought I saw) was her head whipped around to me and snapped "I don't care. I want a fruit salad so make one." It caught me off guard and stung a little but then I realized that this was the kind of stuff I had become unwilling to tolerate - people getting upset because of things that were not verbalized or even were contradictory to what had previously been verbalized. Standing at the sink I laughed realizing that this was just another opportunity in the workshop.
After breakfast was cleaned up I asked the two heads of staff if I could talk with them which they graciously obliged. I explained as honestly and calmly as possible how I felt and that was the end of it. Might sound kind of silly and much ado about nothing, but standing up for myself was something I never had learned to do very well. Maybe you've caught it already, but it took me till my first day back at work in the States to realize that I was still taking things personally and while standing up for myself was a valuable lesson, it was merely a stepping stone. More about that later in Reintegration.
This really should be a separate post but I'll try to do it succinct justice. I, and many other people have been laboring under the delusion that there is such a thing as unambiguous perfection. American's use the expression "practice makes perfect" which I take significant issue with. German's have a similar expression but I believe it captures the reality of life much better - "practice makes the master". If you work at anything hard enough and long enough, you will develop some amount of skill and mastery. It's not like one day you suddenly never make a mistake again but instead, you step into greater areas of confidence and know how to turn the "mistakes" into something of beauty. Much like dancing, if you are not rigidly locked in a position, you can adjust to any turbulence around you and turn it into art.
A universal consensus on anything is going to be essentially impossible to find. You can't please everyone and usually when you try, you just piss off the lot. So who's opinion should be valid on what is good enough from you? Your's alone should be simply because you have to live with the consequences.
Acupuncture
Another volunteer showed up the second week to offer her training in Chinese medicine to the staff members as her service. I had only experienced acupuncture once before but was looking forward to seeing what would happen. In the intake I was asked numerous questions including if I was feeling any of the emotions listed. Sadness popped out so I mentioned it and was told that I would receive a needle to help release that. Not knowing what to expect, I just laid there quietly after all the needles were installed and the woman left the room. The next thing I knew, I felt tears welling up in my eyes and was a little embarrassed but since I was alone, I let a few slip. After about 20 minutes she returned to check on me and I mentioned about the tears trying to be nonchalant. "Oh I forgot to mention that might happen. It's totally normal and okay" she assured and then left the room again. The words felt like a permission to let it out and as soon as I was alone, I felt like sobbing but nothing came out. My chest was quivering and I was breathing short sharp breaths. I would later discover that even my breathing, a subconscious act, was being stifled and controlled by my past.
The Purge
09/23/16
Many different purges are available through natural medicines but I had the pleasure of experiencing Wancahuisacha. Google it, I doubt you'll come up with anything. Which isn't too say "ooh, look how hipster" but to point out that these people know things that most people have no clue about. My roommate and I both drank a tea cup full of liquid sitting in the Maloka and then waited for 20 minutes. After the time for metabolizing was past, we began to methodically drink cups of water giving our empty stomachs something to expel and I presume, dilute the acid. It took me forever to vomit anything up but when I did, it was a lot. Honestly, I don't know what it did for me except further reveal my resolve to heal and go forward on this path.
Third Ceremony
All that I had seen and learned from the first two ceremonies rather filled me up and while I totally didn't think I had arrived, I wasn't sure where to go from there with my intentions. I felt much more at peace and extraordinarily grateful so I asked one of the organizers if it was okay to just have an intention of "being open to whatever else I may need to learn right now?" "That's totally fine" I was assured so I went into the third ceremony simply to just be there and see what would happen.
After the last ceremony where I sat crosslegged for 6+ hours, I decided to cut myself a little slack an hour or so in and laid down since I wasn't seeing anything anyway and just rest in the moment as it was.
Maybe I had been pushing my personal work too hard and I shouldn't run myself ragged - I reasoned. The truth was this also served as a defense mechanism against being frustrated that other people seemed to have these crazy experiences during ceremony and I felt shut out somehow. Several hours in I felt prompted to sit up. Once I did a thought came -
maybe you just have to try to see. Kind of like opening your eye lids. Well it was worth a shot, so I focused my energy on mentally looking. Lots of faint images started flashing by but too dark and too fast to understand. Despite trying to avoid it, I began felling incredibly frustrated and started to question.
Was there something wrong with me? Did the universe have something against me?
Suddenly I noticed green on the other side of the filter that obscured my mental imagery. While I couldn't make out any clear details, I had a strong impression that it was the Mother Ayahuasca I'd heard people talk about. As I tried to find more definition and ask why I only hear silence, and see things dimly, I noticed that there was unfiltered light spilling in as if under a door and around the edges from gaps in the door frame. In an instant, I realized that I was living inside immense walls that I had constructed to keep parts of myself safe even from myself. She wasn't going to beat down my doors, she was waiting to be let in. I felt the respect that real love gives instead of trying to force it's own agenda. There wasn't a rush to perfection, there is no such thing - only growth. True love doesn't force itself on you because it knows you will get it eventually: love is patient, love is kind, love is not proud... finally made a lot more sense to me.
That was pretty much the entire message of the ceremony for me until I sat there for a few hours and wrote a piece called Consciousness Revoluting. Just knowing that I don't have to be afraid of being overrun, used and manipulated helped calm down my mind and heart a lot setting the groundwork to receive more in the future. I was being shown the love that was there for me but was refusing to receive for myself from myself.
You Are the Placebo
Somewhere around this time (09/29/16), I began reading You Are the Placebo and became engrossed. If I wasn't working, I was probably reading that book. Growing up in a quasi-penticostal household, I had been told that God did miracles, but the specifics were a bit fuzzy and though I heard "eye witness reports" of such miracles, I never had seen one for myself. There have been some events in my life that I couldn't explain except to dismiss it as a coincidence, but never anything like bones growing back. The book cites study after study where the power of the placebo effect is demonstrated, and then draws parallels between the technique and how believers of different faiths do "super human feats".
The crux of what I have been learning recently is that we have more power than we want to accept because it makes us responsible. If we accept authority for our lives it seems to open the door to hate ourselves more if we fail when going against the tide. At least before you could blame it on something else - other people being shitty, "it's just the way life is" etc. Taking responsibility is the first step to looking in the mirror because you have to be willing to face yourself completely. After you've quit fearing the reflection and realize the opportunity for growth and change, you can start to making different decisions with confidence because your beliefs have shifted as your source of contentment has moved back inside yourself.
Posturing
When you go to a strange environment, with people you don't know - there is a tangible atmosphere of everyone sizing up their companions right off the bad. Some kind of Lord of the Flies type shit - but on purpose - maybe we get off on it, who knows. This human propensity to analyze and categorize each other is what reality TV uses as the clay to form a story from. As soon as we got on the boat I was scanning, and I think it's a safe bet to say everyone else was as well. In fact four weeks in, my roommate read what he had written about his initial impression of me. Things like "stoic, guarded, controlled" are the impression I gave off which is more or less what I've tried to be in the past.
It came up in conversation because I was putting into practice not being aloof and guarded as much and had initiated a dialogue in the kitchen during a rain storm. Your posture signals a lot about you as a person but most people seem to over look that. On the boat that first day, and then every day since then, I had noticed his exceptional posture as part of my daily tickertape personality analysis of everyone - but it was also inspiring. Growing up with former military parents, I was ragged on a lot about my posture but when I tried, it physically hurt to stand up straight. Recently I've come to see how my body and mind / heart are a reflection of each other and sometimes the change needs to be fought for on the outside before the inside accepts it. My outside was just reflecting my mental perception of me and now that my perspective has changed, my body needs to be brought into alignment with that.
How would someone who had nothing to hide or be ashamed of - who accepts themselves and is kind, how would they cary themselves? I have a picture in my mind and it's one that I have to practice everyday till it becomes natural.
Changing how you stand, changes how you see the world. Think about this, why do photographers go to extreme angles, or vary the height period? It's to say something different, "put it in a different light". I was told a while back by someone who loves me very much and I couldn't get offended by - that I looked like a velociraptor with my big head hung out on my long neck. Not painting a very attractive picture. As I found what it felt like to change how I carried myself, I realized that it made me look at life more straight on instead of with my head hung down peering up at it. The pain in my neck was from the stress of being afraid to look life in the eye - fear and avoidance of mental pain manifested a physical pain. Pain is simply a signal that gets your attention to further your growth as you leave attachments to things that never remain behind.
My buddy had stated at one point that he felt like he didn't have much to offer as far as talents - to which I could relate. Hell, in the first week when they asked if we had any skills that we would want to teach a class on, my mind was a gaping blank spot.
What could I teach anyone? Ironically after not being able to remember how to tie a knot the first days in camp, I eventually taught a class on five different knots. It went quite well and was fun! While the rain poured down that afternoon, sitting in the kitchen, I shared that I had been inspired by his example of good posture and that some times it's the simple things that can have a profound impact. There really is a lot that can be said for leading by example. You don't have to force anything on anyone, in fact that's never going to work, the best thing is get your own house in order and let that cast whatever influence it may.
I don't mean to wax long about posture but it really struck me how profound something so simple as someones persistent posture can say and potentially inspire. I used to be so spun up on having to "change the world" because religion doesn't accept it's own self. Now I've seen how just being me, constantly refining and growing is the best thing I can do for myself and my world. I am way more conscious of my own posture and in turn my body which I felt completely uncomfortable in for years.
Fourth Ceremony
My intention for this ceremony was to step out of the walls I had seen the green light on the other side of. I wanted to experience this presence I had heard others describe as pure love. Sounds nice right? Instead what I got hit once again with was a barrage of visions where the programmed subconscious past was fighting to remain alive. To have a lasting help beyond a fish for a day, I needed to learn how to fish for myself. It's really not so much like fishing but more like target practice.
The bible teaches that "the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked..." and I was taught to doubt my own heart / intuition leading to a shut down of the ability to trust myself and make a decision. For the past few years as I've read about unattachment and discovered that if you focus on growth it negates the fear of doing evil because it's counter productive. Part of the lesson in growing is that what you need should come from inside of you. Looking for fulfillment from others creates imbalance because it creates a giving / taking relationship that can flip flop back and forth instead of a giving / giving relationship where there is no neediness. My intention to have an experience even wanting to heal was a bit of a weak desire because I still wasn't willing to give to myself what I wanted from another. I don't get any easy road - that was the message. Instead of being annoyed, I'm grateful because I know that the harder the lesson, the more valuable the experience.
Fifth Ceremony - Facilitating
Having done a ceremony only a couple of days before, I was surprised by the opportunity coming available for me to participate in that evening's ceremony. I elected to maintain space and drink symbolically as an effort to facilitate the experience for others. The secondary intention was to send love and forgiveness to my mother. She had been on my mind a bit that day and it just felt like what I should do. Only drinking a tiny amount, I wasn't sure if there were going to be any effects so I just sat there meditating on my intention, attempting to visualize it. I saw my mother as a vehicle for my consciousness to have another go around at this life. She is another portion of consciousness who is just growing as best they know how. Suddenly I had compassion and felt like chains were melting off with the realization of the break in her power over me. It's like being an elephant restrained by a very small rope through programming but eventually realizing that rope is like wax.
Facilitating provided some unique opportunities to learn more about not taking things personally (getting shot as a messenger), but also how better to handle interpersonal conflicts. When you realize that life wants to build you up, it changes your perspective on conflicts or "difficult" experiences.
The Celestine Prophecy
You Are the Placebo finished, I had time left to read one more book before heading home. Two recommendations for The Celestine Prophecy from different people made me take notice. Being fiction it won out as something fun to read instead of lots of scientific or spiritual mumbo jumbo like what I had been reading. The trip was winding down and despite feeling like we had been there forever and longing for home, it also felt like it had somehow flown by. I wanted to maximize the last week and reading something light helped in many ways.
The book was apparently all the rage in the 90s but I'd never heard of it. You go on an adventure with the protagonist who is introduced "by chance" to the first part of a nine part Mayan prophecy, heads to Peru to try and find out more. Each section of the prophecy that is found and discussed throughout the book is summarized for the readers. The more I read, the more surprised I became at how amazingly well this whole trip and life, really, had gone - this book was putting lots of pieces together for me.
With each successive book, I was introduced to ideas in new ways, ways I was able to finally accept. They all laid a foundation for a framing crew to spring forward on. The Celestine Prophecy was speaking loudly and clearly to my process right up till the end of my time...as in forever. I'm not going to discuss what is in the book because if you are interested, you can read it for yourself. I've had books come my way at just the right moment so I trust that the universe can do the same for you.
Sixth Ceremony
During the staff meeting at the beginning of the last week, the opportunity for ceremony participation was discussed because space was somewhat limited. I had already decided that I was willing to do one more (preferably the last one before heading out) but was okay if there weren't any more opportunities - I had received a lot already. Without having to say anything it all fell together where I was assigned to the last ceremony of the season. Several books had impressed on me the importance of meditation and I felt like I needed to meditate on what I had learned for the week before my last ceremony. Each day felt special as I now watched for the reflections and lessons, seeing perfection in the natural unfolding.
The afternoon of that last day, we had a group acupuncture session with ear needles. If you think acupuncture is weird, you should check it out - super fascinating. Essentially the ear is viewed as an inverted fetus and there are points in your ear that correspond to what they are on the small scale version. The Holographic Universe talks about it some as part of the fractal nature of holographs. Once the needles were installed, we sat in silence meditating for about twenty-five minutes. I'll spare you the sequence of thoughts that led me to the realization, but as I sat there with needles in my ears, it dawned on me how much I have to accept myself. This might sound like a broken record but it's more like it's a message that keeps playing and is gradually becoming much more clear. Until I get it, I'm not moving on to the next thing. What I focus on and how I view myself is how my reality operates and I have the ability to change that by changing my mind and finding the energy and love I need inside of myself. Any time you start looking for it from outside of you, that's when "evil" starts happening. This message was being drilled into me.
In the very first ceremony I ever participated in I had a vision where all the evil that humanity does comes from not feeling whole as you are and that need for external filling creates a vacuum pulling in the knowledge of good and evil. If you believe in reincarnation, you know that the concept is that we experiences all positions on the wheel of life. But why do we do this to ourselves? Seems like torture. Christians talk about a "god shaped hole" in your heart which is why you "feel empty inside". The problem is that this god usually takes on someone else's voice and opinion through wholehearted assertion on what the proper interpretation of "the scripture" is. How would you know if you met the "one, true god"? Would you just accept the words of something, even if it "magically" appeared to you without any kind of proof? I mean I would sit up and take notice but just because something spectacular and "inexplicable" occurs, that doesn't mean it's correct. Many native people took whites for gods when they arrived on their shores only to find out that god was a lust filled, insecure man lacking in empathy. Gods rise and fall based on your knowledge and experience. Who is god in my life? I am but with the understanding that so are you, and so are we all. The only thing bigger than each of us is all of us. Externalizing god makes it something distant and subjectively attainable. It's easy to tell someone god doesn't approve of them when god is a figment of their imagination. If we are part of the whole then anything we do has an effect on everything else and what we do to others we do to ourselves. That's why I keep mentioning reflections. You may choose to not believe it but the Universe serves up what your mind wholeheartedly believes. Eventually though I think everyone sees things differently and grows never leaving things without hope. It's not a one shot deal like Christianity would have you believe.
As I focused my intention on completely accepting myself in ceremony, I was once again confronted with segments of my past trying to sit there feeling sorry for themselves. A couple of times I started to get dragged into it but remembered the opportune words spoken to me just before ceremony - "don't dig in the past. That can be an addiction". I realized that the whining and poor me bullshit was actually just a control drama to avoid having to take responsibility. Battling these visions, I realized how much of a disservice it was to be stuck in the past and that there was no time to be sorry for myself any more. I have accepted that I may have chosen this life to learn something. It's like taking a really tough college class and then having your memory totally wiped. I don't think that everything is planned out but is based on what we believe moment to moment and no matter what the circumstances, there is always room to grow and evolve.
This last ceremony was like a perfecting garnish on the time in the jungle, tying up many questions and revealing new paths. It was bitter sweet to pack up and go hike that 5k to the river but to everything there is a season, and growth cannot happen being stuck in the same place forever so leaving to go home was also part of the journey.
What am I doing for three days???
For some reason when I booked my return tickets, I allowed a few days in Puerto Maldonado before heading to Lima. In the last week and a half, before returning to town I had been kicking myself for not "getting the heck out of there" ASAFP! Instead of getting in a rush I began putting to practice what I had been learning and focused on just being in the moment and seeing what happened. What happened were some wonderful experiences that I would have missed out on otherwise.
I got to hang out with folks I had made friends with while they were visiting the retreat. They own a piece of land for a conservation project on the Tambopata River and I was able to rent a scooter and ride out to see their place. Now before you start thinking "oh god, a scooter..." it had both a foot pedal for shifting and braking and went faster than was safe to go on any of the roads. Google maps fortuitously took me on the back way in (18km vs 4.5km). I got to see so much jungle that I would have never experienced going to "proper" way. When I pulled up to the land, they were rather surprised that I found the place lending a bit more credence to my semi-wild adventure ideas.
After spending more time in the Puerto Maldonado, I found or was introduced to some spots that helped keep me alive. Three that really deserve a shout out are Gustitos, Copasu and El Hornito.
Lomo Saltado: Gustitos
Copasu
Hamburgesa y Wasai milkshake!
One of the other volunteers was in Lima getting a tattoo the same time that I was going to be there there so we agreed to meet up, grab dinner and I might possibly get a tattoo as well. After getting to the hostel around 7:30, we met up at the tattoo shop and then went and grabbed some of the most amazing sushi I've ever had. Next we hit up the cat park - a city park with lots of cats, and vendors. This one vendor had hand made clothing (I believe all from the Shipibo tribe). A pull over called to me, partially because I was shivering in my shorts and t-shirt but also because it was just fucking awesome. Reveling in the night, we stopped by La Lucha so I could get a sandwich for the flight the next day (super amazing choice), and then headed to the beach. Or more accurately, we went to the cliffs over looking the beach.
Some photos were snapped, a few comments exchanged, mostly human silence enjoying the crashing waves with the faint addition of light guitar and steel drum from some buskers across the park. We were about to go when I spotted something and thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. "Did you see that?" I asked excitedly. "Look there" I pointed seeing it again. The waves were lighting up in some spots as plankton luminesced. It was quite spectacular and magical in it's own way. We stayed just looking for more to show up saying "just one more" and then staying for another one, two, four...
Sleeping in a shared dorm with four beds, I didn't want to be loud coming in at 12:30 am so I just took my shoes off and crashed out fully clothed on top of my bed waking up six hours later to get my tattoo. The art work wasn't complicated but I was a bit concerned about somehow missing my taxi or what have you. All unwarranted though as everything clicked perfectly and the next thing I knew I was in Fort Lauderdale with a five hour layover where interesting coincidences continued to abound.
Reintegrating
Sure was looking forward to getting home and seeing my partner and our puppy again. Due to her work schedule and the fact that I got in a 2:30 am on a Monday, it was no surprise that no one was super jazzed to see me. Part of me, an old part, was a little disappointed but then I remembered - don't take anything personally. In fact that has been ringing in my ears all week. Tuesday I hopped right back into work doing a job I've dreaded in the past. Part of the dread has been because I feel condescended to many times by the other people that job makes me work with. The new part of me looked forward to what I would learn from the day. There's no sense in worrying about life when you realize it's a perpetual growth plan and trust that as you work at it, you will improve. The only way to not improve is to not try.
I had been learning to stand up for myself to my own self and others so maybe I would be tested on that again.
Day one back to work, it happened. This guy seems to be copping a bit of attitude about something his department did. I'm not sure specifically what he wants so I ask a question ready to help but in need of clarification. His response answered the question not directly but in what seemed like the form of a put down. I've never liked it when people ask a question when they have an answer in mind but it's almost like they want you to guess what they are thinking. It's always come across to me as passive aggressive and so I reacted slightly in my head. "Ok," I responded reaching to make the change "it's not like I put it there" I said in the next breath. As he put the camera down, he said "I wasn't trying to lay blame just making a statement about what we were doing. Catholic guilt huh?" My next thought was
fuck this guy. Then he asked me "were you raised catholic?" I said no, because I was a little irritated and it wasn't a lie though what he had poked at was spot on.
Irritated because I don't want to be an asshole fighting everything but also don't want to be weak again and let people run over me. The doubt was assailing again. As the night progressed, I realized maybe he hadn't meant things the way I had interpreted them. The next morning I watched a video about quantum entanglement. In it I learned that when the particles are entangled and spinning, until measured they are theoretically spinning in not only in every possible axis direction simultaneously but also opposite from each other. As soon as you make a measurement of one particle, you automatically set it's spin axis angle because it matches your angle of measurement. This also effect the axis angle for the other linked particle who also, though previously unobserved, maintains the measurement axis angle. I realized that this growing has many layers and you can't hold onto things too tightly. Lessons learned aren't necessarily meant to be taken out and used every day.
Standing up for myself is an important thing but shouldn't need to be in the daily repertoire unless I'm still taking things personally. When you stop thinking things are about you, you have way less to fight because you have way less to be upset about. With self acceptance, you find that it is proportional to how much you are tied to other people's opinions. What I've viewed as speaking up for myself made sense and was probably necessary in the reality I was living in then. Now I seek to remove the prejudices, axis of measurement if you will, and let things be more natural and authentic. I don't know where I will go from here but I have realized that it doesn't really matter. Success is a hard thing to define unless you turn it upside down and say that "failure is when you don't learn anything or give up". There is no perfection in a living piece of art save for the experience of the ongoing evolution.
The big question many people seem to have about the present and future is "will I be able to handle it?" As a species, we doubt ourselves immensely and then some people don't doubt themselves at all and run for president as illustrated by Donald Trump. People like him because Donald doesn't give a fuck and more people wish they could do that as well. Do they agree with much of what the man thinks? Who knows, does anyone really know what Trump thinks? We are so sick of doubting ourselves and being confined that we want to raise our middle finger to what we feel is holding us back. That's the first step of getting free is finding your power. The problem is that unless the personal judgements and filters don't get out of the way, your power doesn't come from within and things will only get worse. We all need a change of perspective to begin to heal ourselves and in turn, the world.
As I waited in the small Puerto Maldonado airport, I was fully present and aware standing in line trying to take in every moment. There was only one counter with a couple attendants. The line was barely moving and the temperature was rising. Very few places have AC in that region so ceiling fans were the best you could hope for to relieve the oppressive jungle heat. After 45 minutes, I had finally made it to the start of the squiggly section that subconsciously lies "your getting close". There I could feel the slight breeze from the ceiling fans and none too soon as a bead of sweat rolled suddenly down my back. Despite the horrific squeaking of the imbalanced fans, I was thankful for their service. My thoughts were interrupted by another thought -
I wish I could hold onto this experience and revisit it. Maybe I'll take a video? I almost pulled out my phone but then realized that so much would have been left out unless I narrated everything. That's why writing is so powerful. You can capture and relay almost anything with the right words transporting your experience to someone else. That's exactly what life is, really, a way of having these experiences ourselves instead of just reading about them. We are the camera to our own life story experiencing this character as we actively select the plot choices.
Back to the question - "do I have what it takes?" Yeah, you do, it just matters how narrowly you want to define happiness, success, perfection etc. If you start walking in a direction, you're bound to get somewhere and if that direction is towards honesty and wholeness, you don't have to worry anymore because what is there to judge? I'm not what I was and I'm not what I will be - In this moment I simply am and will always be.
Conclusion
It's been really odd to have a set of keys again which made me think back to one of my first posts on this site when I moved into my car several years ago. Back then you probably will find posts from a different perspective because this site is a journal of my attempt to understand myself and life better. One of the things that was impressed upon me during the trip was that there is no one perfect way, there is only being and growing. Despite the "darkness" of the jungle, I found tremendous light and it was coming from inside of myself but also the jungle. Neither height, nor depth...can separate you from love - if you have it inside of you. I certainly don't claim to have my shit together but I also know that that concept is a bit over rated. There were glimpses of the me who I've felt was in there become manifested right in front of my eyes. It's not a race and there is nothing to fear so while I don't know where the future will lead, I'm finally excited to be living in the moment right before the future.
