You know what’s weird is that I never bothered writing any blog about Burning Man 2010. I kind thought it would be a really amazing time that would change my life but it hasn’t really done that yet, at least not in a detectable way. Although I did find myself thinking a little differently this week, I’m not sure what it was. I was having dinner at Juans house (my dad’s long time friend) and my dad was explaining his China factory to Juans wife. Its funny because when he speaks spanish he is unable to speak eloquently or gently because he just doesn’t have the language capacity. He was talking about the factory workers there and how they are given meals of rice and vegetable every day of the week and they get some meet maybe 2 or 3 times a week. This is a service we charge them for by the way. He also said that they work 12 hours a day 4 days a week and they will work Sunday if they can as well, I remember the quote “they like to work 80 hours a week if possible”. Bullshit, nobody wants to work 80 hours a week. He went on about how we also provide some kind of education encouragement and then finished his thought by saying “we pay for some of it, hardly any though.” Ugh, I was a little annoyed.
I don’t know what’s going through my head lately, I just finished reading Rant by Chuck Palahniuk and I loved it. One of the major concepts in in was liminal time which I was reading up on earlier tonight. Turns out something this dude didn’t invent on his own. Oddly he actually mentioned burning man in his book seems strange that I picked it up just having gotten back from there eh? Anyways he cites Burning Man as one of the examples of liminal time. Essentially this is where a group of people come together and interact in a way in which their conventional social status and former lives have no bearing. I hadn’t thought of it but this is a huge part of what makes Burning Man so interesting. When you’re there there’s really no discussion about who you are outside of the Playa, just what’s going on while you’re there. Nobody will specifically bring up what they do at home too much but they would if you pried and asked. The entire concept is similar to the idea of Party Crashing in Rant, essentially a bunch of individuals come together and play a game for a few hours in which who they are in their daily life doesn’t matter at all. One requirement of liminal time though seems to be that it has to be relatively short lived. If it were longer eventually social structures would form within the event. You could definitely see this happening at Burning Man and maybe it already does, there are different camps which could be interpreted as different cliques which could probably turn into different social statuses. But I digress.
I used to only think of my dad’s business primary goal as just making money but I don’t know what would happen if I ended up in charge of it at this point in my life. I’m starting to think that it would be more important to make a positive impact on as many peoples lives as possible rather than make money. I don’t know if I could actually pull this off though. Maybe its just a dream.
But anyway my old man really likes fishing I discovered, 4 days a row in fact, 5/7 days. Its a real feat for a night timer like myself to get up at 5:30am every day to get on a boat and do almost the same action about 100 times. I’ve caught enough fish this week to last a lifetime of fish catching, but I imagine I’ll be doing quite a bit more of this in the future.
What’s really rewarding about this trip is the few windows of time that I can actually get my dad to open up and tell me a little bit about his feelings and some of the stories about his life he doesn’t like to tell as much.
I should put aside some money and try to help a stranger that could really use it instead of buying car shit. Maybe just a grand sometime, probably would make a big difference to someone somewhere rather than putting new wheels on my race car. There was a quote in that book Rant… “There are worse ways to die than dying”. New tattoo idea?
So I just got back today from Vancouver for James UFC 115 fight. Good times up there with the guys. I ended up couchsurfing with a lovely young lady named Fay. She was pretty cool, 19, worked at a tattoo shop, had a clothes pin through her arm for fun when I met her. We had a few pretty good late night conversations, she was ridiculously welcoming for some reason, hopefully one day I’ll get to return the favor. Had some fun experiences, like figuring out how to take the bus to and from Fay’s house to downtown where James and all the guys were. Apparently buses in Vancouver don’t appreciate when you try to pay them in American dollars, considering they only take Canadian money… in coin form. I think the bus drivers reaction was something like this “Really? It’s not even Canadian… I think that’s the least prepared I’ve ever seen… there’s really not much to say, just go sit down.” I’d never thought a bus driver could make me feel like such a loser before but this man accomplished it. Needless to say I made sure I had appropriate payment for every subsequent bus trips. Vancouver was pretty rad, and so is my phone for being able to navigate my drunk ass back to Fay’s place at 4 am using buses. I think I must have spent under 100 dollars the entire time I was there. It really helped that I won that bet against James on the Lidell v Franklin fight.
Saw a naked bike riding protest while walking to see the fights. More Ass Less Gas?
It’s fun spending time with the guys from the gym in a none training setting, and going out to clubs with Joker is always interesting, that guys a character. We saw a girl get hit by her fat drunk boyfriend and had to keep Mike from head kicking him. I’m glad he didn’t as I hate bailing people out from Canadian jail. Oh also Vancouver smells like marijuana everywhere, literally. I was bummed that I had to leave this morning as Fay was having “Acid Sunday” which just sounded like a fantastic way to spend Sunday morning.
Madison and I started texting a little bit one afternoon last week. It was good hearing from her. I miss her a lot sometimes. At the same time I know there’s a good reason we stopped seeing each other. I did love her a lot and probably still do a little. I think she likes messing with my head a little bit, she thinks I deserve it for breaking her heart probably. It’s kind of weird still having her entire life at my work. I think I miss being in love and having a meaningful connection with a girl, which is hard for me to have.
I started training a lot more lately, which I really like doing, I think training with Joker in the mornings can really get my wrestling better which would make fighting much easier for me, being able to control having the fight on the feet or the ground would be really useful. At the same time my father boss decided it would be a good week to have me start “helping him do his work because he wants to relax more”. So basically what I’ve been asking to do since I started there since there’s no point in working there if I’m not going to be in a position to run it when he can’t one day. So now I’ve got way too much on my plate… as usual. The Porsche I love needs a new motor, I could probably get away with it for 8k. But the motor I want will cost significantly more than that. Probably should sell the Subaru, since I don’t even particularly like it. It sucks to sell a car with 500whp though when you could almost maybe keep it… sorta.
Oh so title of this post is actually a Metric song, whose music I need to download more of. Kind of makes me feel like its written about me. I feel like the more I continue on in life it takes more and more excitement to satisfy me. Track days aren’t all that exciting anymore even though I’m faster than a lot of race cars. I want to race the M3 so probably going to get a race license this year. I’m still working on that pilots license, which is coming a long ok but slowly. It’s expensive. And the more girls I date the more I realize I’m getting bored with them faster and faster. Which is ridiculous because I’ve dated some really fantastic and “fun” girls lately who I should probably definitely fall for, but I can’t manage to. I’m sure the next girl I fall for will be someone else who is bad for me in some way and that all my friends dislike… again. I felt like such a fool for letting Stephanie back into my life earlier this year, what a retarded thing to do. I realized after my room mate and her started pulling that bullshit how she hasn’t had a positive effect on my life since a year before we broke up. I don’t know why I continually let people into my life who make things difficult for myself.
A month or so ago I really wanted to do this Lemons racing thing that me and Mario had come across and I actually brought it up to Mike and getting really excited about it. But then I realized… why would I do something like that with someone who I don’t even trust, and still resent? I guess I just get excited about things and forget about things like that. Its so weird there have been so few people in my life that I’ve actually cut out because they’ve abused my trust. I never expected that from Mike of all people, but I guess its never the people you’d expect. Sachin was right, I should have cut my losses after the first incident. Maybe I should be more careful who I trust.
It was nice seeing Clouse when she came back for a week or so, that girl is amazing, I can’t believe how well she is doing with everything that’s happened. I’d never tell her but I’m really proud of her for getting through all that shit and for dealing with me making fun of her constantly. I think she’ll always be one of my closest friends even though I rarely see her. And I’m glad she has a guy who is always there for her.
I’m thinking I need to tone it down on the girls, focus a little more on my stuff, get things in order. I’m probably going to want to have a kid some day, but I can’t imagine with whom.
Vancouver had some gorgeous women, I don’t know why, I think I should spend some more time in Brazil or Colombia or something and find someone to have a brief love affair with.
Oh why hello again Beijing airport, I felt like we just met and here I am again. Oh wait, probably because I was just here a few days ago. Is it sad that I’m getting so good at airports that I can spot a free power port that will accept an american power plug from 30 feet away?
Bryans’ mom died this weekend. The woman, although slightly crazy and not related to me directly, meant a lot to me. More importantly Bryan means a lot to me. My father was understandably unenthusiastic but understanding of my decision to catch the next flight to Denver to meet Bryan and Nick. It’ll mean 10 days alone in a hotel room, and for a man whose 74 and not in the best of health, it makes his son worry a bit. All I can say is he better not die while I’m doing this, or he’ll have me on his hands. On the plus side I’m pretty sure I’d never need to make the “god doesn’t exist” argument ever again.
So here I am, sitting on the increasingly hard granite floor at gate E30. I wonder if AT&T knows how much I appreciate their unlimited data plan that I can use to connect to the internet while in China. Porn anyone?
It’s also a great way to get around that pesky facebook ban China has. Yeah fuck you communists, you haven’t figured this out.
I’m really not looking forward to landing in Denver. I have absolutely no clue what to say to my best friend. Just a hug I guess. I’ll probably end up making some jackass comments about death or some fucked up joke. You know how I am.
I feel like some major life changes are in order. Not all of my ideas have been the best for my welfare. I’ve considered starting up an addiction. Drugs sound promising but I think it would interfere to much with my regular lifestyle. I was leaning towards sex addiction, the meetings would be more interesting. Also I’m just good looking enough to pull it off without spending too much money on hookers. I mean I’d have to drop my standards way down obviously but I definitely see some promise in sex addiction. I mean most STD’s are pretty treatable these days, atleast the ones I’d catch.
I probably already am a sex addict. You should see the conversations I have with my girlfriend, probably pretty disturbing to the average human being.
Another option that seems like a real blast is becoming a drug dealer. I don’t mean like one of those low level pushers and traders doing drug runs. I mean starting a very serious operation catering to some people with some money unlikely to get busted. It’d be a fun hobby I think, plus I’d meet some interesting people. Ok, maybe, I have a few tendencies towards self destruction, but at least I’m honest about them. That has to count for something?
Alright so clearly I’m unable to focus on anything serious, like the death of someone I cared about. Add one more line to the list of character defects I suppose, I should ask my ex girlfriend for that complete list sometime, might be helpful when I want to knock my self esteem back down to -1000.
Anyway, book recommendation: God Hates Us All by Hank Moody
I don’t know why but for some reason I only have the desire to write here when I’m traveling.
I was reading a book Madison gave to me called “Naked” by David Sedaris. Funny book. There’s a chapter in there where he describes working on someones house and one of the former employees walks in one day after he had stopped working there and just goes through his bosses purse while he watches and takes 63 dollars out of her wallet. Unable to do anything about it he goes down to the bank and withdraws 63 dollars to put back into her purse rather than trying to explain to her what happened. Reading that I just realized my explanation for why I like training.
I remember a few weeks ago when I was having lunch with Madison’s aunt, a very intelligent woman who I gained a lot of respect for. When she asked me WHY I would want to do this fighting thing I didn’t really have a good answer but I realize something when reading today. It’s been a long time since I had to worry about something bad happen to someone I loved or myself and not being able to do anything about it. What happened to Dave in that chapter of that book will never happen to me again because of training. Yes I recognize that that sounds like I had a huge confidence issue that I had to cover up, and that’s probably because I do.
I don’t know why I’m enjoying myself so much sitting in my hotel room watching episodes of Californication and reading books. I definitely had the option to go out and get drunk tonight to. I’m odd.
So here’s just a brief summary of what it took to get from London to Shenzhen. Tube to Heathrow airport, 1 hour. Heathrow to Beijing flight, 10 hours. Going through customs in Beijing and catching the plane to Hong Kong, 1 Hour. Flight to Hong Kong, 3 hours. Finding out I can’t stay in Hong Kong and getting through customs there, 2 hours. Bus to the boat terminal in Hong Kong, 40 minutes. Boat to Shenzhen, 40 minutes. Drive from Shenzhen harbor to the hotel, 1 hour. So what’s that… about 20 hours of travel? Not bad eh?
Anyways on the flight from Beijing to Hong Kong I sat next to a girl who was actually pretty cool. She was on her way home from Europe back to her home in Australia for the first time in TWO YEARS. Apparently some wedding or something. Anyway I
Yeah so basically I haven’t written much about the trip because well, it wasn’t really that much fun? Ok so its good I came and helped James get ready for his fight and whatever, got to see some cool English countryside and hangout with James and his family. Manchester was awesome, the UFC fights were pretty good (except obviously James lost) which was a big downer.
Manchester was definitely a fun town, especially with Danny and Erik. I definitely enjoyed talking with Erik and I’m going to feel good about going back to California and training at Eriks gym during the day with the fighters. After Manchester we spent one more day at James parents house and then came to London where I spent the rest of the trip. Its true I really could go the rest of my life without coming back to London. Way too posh for me.
I basically spent most of my time here trying to kill time everyday. I went to two movies, saw 2012 and Men Who Stare At Goats, both were pretty mediocre. I also watched Food Inc. and Gamer on my computer, also mediocre. Food was mediocre although I did have some very good Indian food at some point. The hostels here are overpriced and I never really met anyone I enjoyed talking to. I kind of felt disconnected from everything during this entire trip. It obviously didn’t help that I got so sick I spent 24 straight hours in bed at Shreenas house. Her family was very nice, god I got even more movie watching in there.
Ok so not only am I sick but the weather here SUCKS. Yes I know I’m spoiled and I’m coming from California but why do people choose to live here? I don’t understand, its so god damn cold ALL THE TIME. Anyways, I am actually looking forward to going to China and meeting my Dad and getting some work done… or something. Hopefully I can just recover from this cold and get some gym time in so I can be back in shape when I get home. I know I get depressed when I don’t workout for a while and that’s probably why I’m feeling a little off right now.
Wow, so far this has been crazy for reasons I never would have expected. I mean what I expected was to see a bunch of animals and insects in the jungle. To be honest so far I haven’t really seen much at all but I’m not even disappointed about it.
My original guide Walter spoke a bit of english but on the boat ride out here he decided to announce that he was basically going to drop me off with a guide friend of his and come back in two days… At first I was pissed but then I got over it.
Turns out I like this guide he left me with way more. His name is Lucho and he lives out here in the jungle with his wife and four kids. By the way I’m pretty sure his 17 year old daughter was flirting with me, gross/hawt. Anyways, he only speaks spanish and the local dialect so sometimes I have to pretend I understand him. He’s always pointing at animals and saying the names and I never know what I’m looking for until I see it.
He’s a really nice guy though, very real and simple. His father was a shaman and taught him everything about the medicinal plants in the jungle. He said he might try the ayahuasca with me tomorrow which would be a pleasant surprise since I’m a bit scared to do it alone.
I asked him how people originally learned about the medicinal value of the different plants and his answer was interesting, “the jungle tells them”. He said the people will go on a special diet and go out to the jungle for a long time and then come back knowing about the medicines.
Cool story.
I also asked him what the scariest thing that’s ever happened to him in the jungle and his answer was so strange. I expected like jaguar attack or alligator mauling or something but instead he described these evil spirits that are in the jungle. He said he’s been out here a few times alone and these spirits will fly across the air or they will just follow him in his boat. Apparently they are lost souls who died in the jungle and continue to roam terrorizing people.
The images he conveyed to me were terrifying so I had to comfort myself by remembering I don’t believe in spirits or gods or life after death.
Its really hard though to be so negative about the spiritual world with the types of things that have been happening to me lately. The san pedro ceremony and just hearing some of these stories and how convinced people are that they’re real.
As much as I want to believe in the spirit world and gods and such… my rationality stops me.
On another note his sons are really friggin’ cute. Contrast to the devil child on that Panamanian boat I was on, these kids will come up to me while I’m reading my kindle and just stare at it in amazement. They get so much joy from it when I just let them push the next page button once I’m done reading a page. They are so patient to they will just sit and wait until I’m done with the page and won’t be annoying at all. I hope my kids are like that. I can tell they have awesome imaginations because the one kid was amusing himself by just pretending to push buttons, so funny. Oh and they’ll just stand next to me and like pet my head and put their arm around me for some reason, its hilarious.
Its so nice being inside a mosquito net hammock with NO INSECTS inside it. I only had to destroy two when I got in.
My entire body is like on fire with bites right now its amazing.
I’m excited for ayahuasca tomorrow night. I’m also excited to go home and see that girl I like.
I’m also getting more and more ideas about how to give my mom LSD in a productive way both from my experience with the shaman and from that book I’m reading which is terribly interesting.
Andrew out.
Spending the night out in the jungle camping was actually a very pleasant experience. Just being here makes me realize how disconnected I really am with a simple life. I trip walking through the jungle and my stomach is always upset, I dread having to go to the bathroom because of the uncomfortableness of it all. Although it is nice at times I feel demoralized by the fact that if I was out here alone walking for more than a minute I would probably get lost and die. Meanwhile my guide is able to take me walking for an hour in the jungle to show me things and somehow knows exactly how to get back to our campsite in the pitch black darkness.
I guess the complete emasculation is part of it all. Although it wouldn’t really be that enjoyable I think it would really grow me as a person to come out here for two weeks or a month and spend a long time in the jungle just learning how to survive with just a few things. The type of camping they do here makes camping at home look like living in a mansion. They get by with less in their daily lives than we do with our camping gear now that I think about it.
Lucho took me for a cool hike this morning showing me all of the different medicinal plants in the jungle and sampling some. He only showed me a few but I swear they must have something for every purpose. Apparently they can cure diabetes? The weird thing is that there are some that aren’t simple and you have to wonder about the story he told about the jungle instructing them how to use the plants. There was one that was like pull the plant up, in the roots there’s like a potato type bulb. Boil the bulb, and them you can wrap it against a snake bite to pull the poison out from it. I mean seriously you don’t just figure that type of thing out my trial and error.
Lucho is a really nice guy, I have trouble understanding him most of the time but maybe that’s part of why I like him. He told me about how he wants to do this type of work on his own and be his own boss so to speak. I said maybe I could help by making him a website and getting his email sorted out so people could find him and contact him. It really wouldn’t be much time or money for me to make and host a website for him and maybe it would give him more income and independence in his work.
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I’ve been trying to prepare myself both physically and psychologically for this whole evening. The book I’ve buried my head in for the last few days and am almost to the end of is incredibly interesting and is a strange companion to the weird spiritual stories I’ve been hearing this week, and, which is very unlike me, partially buying into.
I was just reading about the author tell a story of how he felt a poltergeist entered his apartment after a hard DPT (dipropyltryptamine a DMT analogue) trip. Could it be that enough experimentation with these plants and chemicals opens your mind to the spirit world on a more real level? I always thought my porn star Buddhist friend was a bit insane for thinking she had a ghost in her apartment and could physically see peoples auras but, maybe the amount of entheogenic exploration she has done has given her a permanent window into whatever other realm or dimension might exist. Or her brain is just fried.
The more I think about it the more perplexed I am by the fact that there are plants that produce incredibly complex chemicals that produce hallucinations and visions in men that are incredibly complex and eye opening.
More than that, in regards to ayahuasca, why did indians ever decide to boil these two plants together and consume them? I suppose that separately each of them might have some small effect and they tried the combination? Regardless its still mind blowing.
I still can’t believe that I’m going to be drinking this fluid with a woman from Spain and a 17 year old daughter of Lucho, perhaps Lucho as well.
I went to the bathroom and I am having serious doubts at my ability to locate it while high, much less coordinate hovering over the tiny whole in the ground. I guess ill cross that bridge when and if I come to it. For those of you that don’t know one of ayahuascas normal effects is constant vomiting and diarhea. Fun!
The sky here is so clear, there’s so many stars. I like the place we are going to do this in. Its a house with no walls but a roof. We each have our hammocks with our mosquito nets around them. I hope that if I don’t get sick I can just lay in my hammock and close my eyes and have my visions. With some luck…
Trip Repor furst ataguaca experience:
All of us were on the floor of the room that was actually the place they cook all of our food in. They closed it up as best they could because they said darkness makes the visions easier to achieve.
I first drank the fluid along with two chaser type things designed to take the taste away. It was a pretty horrible taste but sadly I’m accustomed to this kind of thing. At first I really didn’t feel much of anything at when he asked what I was feeling I exaggerated and said “nothing, can I have some more?”
After that second helping I felt like I was on the brink of overwhelming insanity… I closed my eyes and started seeing weird colorful patterns of every color.
Suddenly then my Dad was there and I was having the talk with him I want to have when I get home. He seemed slightly disappointed but understood.
About 2 hours in a threw up in the provided vomit pan. The two girls next to me were throwing up almost the entire time. My only complaint was that it made my own concentration difficult to maintain.
I went through talking to all the people I wanted to talk to when I got home. It was like a dream, They responded to my questions how I felt they might. I guess in someway it was a bit of rehearsal for when the proper time comes.
The drug was incredibly hard on my coordination. I tried to get up to go to the bathroom and fell onto my knees. Someone had to guide me right to somewhere I could use as a bathroom.. It was absurd.
Finally, after more chanting and seeing shit we all went to our hamocks to sleep. My coordination was obliterated, I fell onto the floor trying to sit on the hammock while zipping up the net. At that point everything was fading away, I never got to see the insightful visions that ayahuasca is famous for.
Ill dread trying it again considering the awful taste and constant nausea.
Quite honestly though I’ve never experienced such an intense and overwhelming feeling from taken something like this. I recall opening my eyes and looking around the room and just feeling the overwhelming a motor skill failure similar to salvia.
Still though after reading that shamanism book I can’t help but wonder the those drugs just play tricks on our brain, or… Are they really allowing us to see another dimension of existence.
Even today weird things still linger for me. Up until just about now I had totally lost the ability to read anything closer that one meter from my face. It was absurd but the Shaman said that was normal and would revert back after some time. After a painstaking journey I finally ended up back at the five dollar hostel (it felt like a five star resort at that point). I bought a couple pieces of cake from next door because they hadn’t given me lunch. As I slowly ate it while sitting on my bed I noticed the crumbs on the floor seemed to move, as if they had some kind of unstable electrical charge to them. Beyond that as I was writing my notes this morning the letters at the beginning and end of the words I typed were blue and red respectively. It was just odd to me that the effects lasted so long after, I feel as if the ayahuasca opened my mind up to a more subtle reality that I didn’t see before. Or maybe I just took too much.
For the first time under the influence I felt out of control, today I just feel humbled by the incredible power the ayahuasca had to wreck my physical body and my mind.
Definitely something you couldn’t do often but something that everyonet the stomach for a mind bending experience should try. Now its time for me to fly home and go back to my normal life… if that’s possible.
Its weird to me but I always feel the most at peace while traveling when I’m sitting in an airplane terminal waiting to board. Maybe I just love the idea of getting to go somewhere new.
I don’t know why but just the act of moving somewhere far from where I’m at brings me some sort of satisfaction. Maybe its due to my subconscious desire to escape the reality of everyday existence. Maybe it’s just the idea of a new adventure. Maybe I’m overthinking this.
I got up this morning a bit worried because it was already 45 minutes passed my alarm. As I was checking out from my very small hostel there was another guy checking out who… Was taking a cab to the same airport, for the same two flights, to the same city. Coincidences are weird sometimes. This one saved me 15 dollars in cab fare.
I managed to create and execute some sort of weird plan when getting to Leticia. I knew I wanted to get to Iquitos but I thought the first boat would be tomorrow, not today. The taxi driver took me to the place to buy the ticket. The boat leaves at 4 am. They kept saying something about a time difference which confused the hell out of me but I finally figured out there was no difference.
They said the best place to stay to make catching the boat easy was Santa Rosa. This was just a bit up the river and is considered Peru.
The town was 2km long, consisted of a few restaurants and hostels. The one I chose was 5 dollars and gave me a private room with a shared bath. I wish I’d used more bug repellant as everything I didn’t spray got chewed up pretty bad.
I walked up and down the main walk of the town during the evening, bought some sugar cane juice water stuff that was suppossed to cost 5 cents. I gave them 50 because they didn’t have any change. I watched a few different groups playing volleyball and they were really good… Even the women looked way better than me. There was pretty much nothing to do so I spent a good part of the evening reading Tolstoy at the restaurant across from my hostel.
Electricity shut off at around 10:30 there so 3:40 packing was a bit difficult in the pitch black but I had gotten used to it yesterday. It was a bit eerie walking through town at 4 am not knowing where the hell I was going. Fortunately there were a few people awake who directed me, I had to take a short canoe ride up the river to where the boat was and get my immigration stamp.
This boat is less than ideal, its pretty cramped but I hear its luxurious compared to the slow boat that takes 3 days.
Lots of time to read and think on the boat… Not exactly sure why I thought a ten hour boat ride would be fun. But at least my mind is getting its chance to wander, sometimes that’s the best part about traveling for me.
I keep thinking of how my mom recently told me about her recent religious doubts about the efficacy of prayer. That followed by my tirade of anti-christian comments seemed to have put her in a state of doubt about god.
I can’t help but wonder what a ceremony like the one I went to would do for her. What if I invited her to try something like that with me at home? Would it help her? I can’t see how it would hurt. Its a strange thought but for some reason I’m seriously considering making such an offer to my mother. I really can’t imagine her living her whole life without trying something like that.
When I got off the boat at Iquitos I was greeted by the typical mob of cab drivers. One started talking to me and he wasn’t so bad. I was in a cranky mood, I smelled bad, I hadn’t brushed my teeth in over 24 hours, and I was hungry. Needless to say I was not in the mood to be asked by 30 people whether I wanted a cab. I stood there waiting for my bag and one of the drivers started chatting me up, I started responding to his questions coldly, in Spanish.
He actually didn’t seem that bad, I told him I just wanted some food to eat. He drove me a bit down the road and ate food with me and chatted with me for a bit, he only asked for 33 cents.
I told him about some of the shamans I had contacted in Iquitos and he told me that it wasn’t a good idea to deal with gringos regarding this type of thing, they are just here to make some money and aren’t really Shamans. I told him the name of the couch surfing guy I had talked to about staying with and he knew him and said he was good.
After lunch we found a phone and called him, he told us to come by his house. We went over there and after talking for a while I decided to set up a tour with this guy even though I couldn’t stay at his house. 50 dollars a day for 4 days through the amazon and on the last night I get a private ayahuasca ceremony with a “good” shaman.
Sounded pretty good. After that was settled the cab driver took me to get an airplane ticket and change my money from pesos to soles. I just realized I got a little ripped off on that by about 33%. Shitty. At least it wasn’t as bad as the 80 bucks I got ripped off for in Cartagena.
I had a nice evening walking around the town and finding a nice chicken place to have dinner. Its quiet here, there’s really not much going on but the people seem really friendly and helpful.
Last night me and Shreena attended something quite amazing. A San Pedro Fire Ceremony deep in the mountains of Medellin Columbia. There were only about 4 total foreigners there out of the 59 attendees, we counted ourselves quite lucky and in a unique place.
I hesitatingly decided to post this for several reasons.
I know that there’s a large number of my family out there that is going to read this and probably disapprove. As I’m sure you all know by now, I have stopped seeking the approval of others, even my close family. You might see this in how I openly admit my atheism despite coming from a very religious background. The reason I decided to post this is because although some people might things its simply a recount of someone taking drugs, to me it was much more, and I went into the experience with the intention of finding something meaningful, and I feel like I did.
The real reason I post this is because I hope that by reading things, it will open your mind to possibilities you hadn’t thought of before. Maybe a world of spirituality you didn’t think existed or was even worth conceiving. There are other avenues to spirituality besides the ones you’ve grown up with. This is just a small example, there are many societies around the world doing things like this, and if you find them you can join as well.
I ask you to read this with an open mind and not to judge something that you have never experienced, but to open your mind to the idea of spirituality in what may seem like an unnatural way to our culture:
We began the evening in a large tent type of building specialty built for this type of ceremony. There are three phases.
1) Smoke a tobacco cigar wrapped in a type of corn husk and think about the issue you want to resolve. This tobacco cigar turned out to be very important throughout the ceremony. They used it to blow smoke onto people and many other things. It was smoked often.
2) Then they said a prayer thanking the spirit for their ancestors showing them the medicine and its power for healing. We then drank the san pedro tea which actually tasted a great deal better than what I’ve had in the past. It was only about half a mug of very non-viscous fluid that had a bitter and lemon infused taste.
I haven’t eaten for many hours so the onset should be quite quick. There are about thirty people in the room and only four of us are foreigners. Many people look like indigenous people. I met a cool guy from LA named John Livingston (I wrote down his full name so I wouldn’t forget to find him on facebook). He goes to UCLA and majors in physics. Really interesting guy, his mother has spent a lot of time in the Amazon and he’s tried ayahuasca in the same city I am thinking of trying it in.
It’s about 11:30 pm and we just ingested the tea. Everyone is sitting… Basically in silence staring at the fire or meditating. We are basically the only people talking.
At around 12:15 am they started playing some songs with a drum and a shaker that are supposed to encourage the spirit of the plant. I tried to record a bit with my video camera.
They pass around the thing that has the beans in it or something… a shaker for making simple music. They accompany it with a drum with a constant beat that never changes. If you want to sing a song then you just start playing. If not then you just place it on your heart and pass it onto the next person.
The third step of the process is the cleansing ceremony, I would later find out that this would last from about 1 am to late into the morning, around 9 am. There were 59 people to “cleanse”.
I meant to skip the cleansing ceremony but me and Shreena were first in line and didn’t know how to say no. First we rubbed our pretty much naked bodies down with some wet plant material. We then washed ourselves in a similar way with a smoothed cold stone. Then they ran some plant all over our bodies that caused terrible pain, it was just bad enough to tolerate without freaking out and screaming. It felt like getting stung by a poisonous plant all over your body. To make it go away they gave us alcohol and had us rub it all over our bodies. This made the stinging subside a bit.
Then they sprayed us with alcohol and lit us on fire. I distinctly remember the back of my legs burning for a long time and someone having to blow them out. It hurt. Shreenas dress caught on fire for a few seconds.
I’m pretty sure its just some kind of pain/relief/weird sensation thing. Such a strange experience but I’m glad I did it.
They also had us put out these flaming alcohol soaked leaves with both our hands and our feet.
Things are definitely beginning to get weird. At first I wasn’t feeling much but before the cleansing they came around with “san pedro pasta” an awful tasting thing and had us wash down the tablespoon they gave us with another half cup of the same tea we started with.
As soon as I put that awful spoonful in my mouth things intensified.
Its now 2 am and my skin still stings in a weird way from the “cleansing” shreena has bumps all over her arm.
3am.. Or so..
They gave everyone another round of the tea. Me and Shreena both seemed to feel as if we’d had enough as we both declined any more of it. It’s so strange seeing people constantly in their underwear next to me getting sprayed with ignited alcohol. I’m not supposed to be able to see this but my seat happens to be halfway behind the black separator between the main area of the teepee and the area in which they are doing the cleansing. Me and Shreena still feel everything on our skin, stinging, from the plant.
I’m beginning to wonder (as I usually do with this type of substance) how much longer this will last. I don’t really feel like this situation is anything that will really allow me to get answers to the questions I set out to answer at the beginning.
All I’ve been able to really contemplate is how silly all these rituals and singing seem. Are these people really trying to make religion out of the drugs they are taking?
It’s strange because talking to these people before hand I know many of them are educated. But… You’re seriously just taking drugs and letting some glorified old man spit alcohol all over your half naked body.
Is this really what you believe in?
All the songs they sing talk about the plants and their souls… These plants evolved defense mechanisms to keep people from eating them. They aren’t a gift to you from mother earth or god. If they were a gift then why are you throwing up?
Why does it taste like shit when you drink it?
Please, stop trying to pretend like all the negative side effects of this poison are somehow designed by god to help you. Throwing up is not a good thing, you aren’t cleansing your body of any toxins (besides the ones you just ingested).
I feel so strange furiously typing on my phone with a blanket over it to hide what I’m doing. I’m assuming its against their rules since one of the assistant shaman dudes told me not to drink this bottle of water I had… idiot, its never a good idea to not drink water, are you trying to dehydrate me into well being?
It seems to me like every group of humanity finds something to be in awe of, or terrified of, and they worship it. These people just happened to choose entheogenic plants as something they could sing songs about, consume, and basically worship.
Wow…
Its six in the morning and there is still a bunch of “sinners” that need to be “cleansed”. The singers voices are beginning to strain with desperation and tiredness.
You have to admire their dedication to the community to continue on although the most noticeable effects of their “medicine” has long faded.
Its funny that I still seem to have some kind of contempt for what they’ve done with this plant. I can clearly see the positive aspects of their gatherings just like I do with other religions. Here there is a sense of community, the members grow close to one another through these ceremonies (probably closer than would be seen in other religions). But still I can’t help but feel any happiness this brings them is just as meaningless as other religions because it’s still based on falsehood, the belief that some kind of supernatural being exists.
Not only that but its based on false emotions as well, the I don’t really believe the plant or drug has a spirit, it just has certain psychological effects that make you feel open to forming deep emotional attachments to the people around you.
Ok 9 am:
Despite all the criticisms I made, the leader of this group speaks beautifully about the group as his family, as a group that comes together to help each other, talk to each other, and come together to seek their purpose in life and eliminate their ignorance. Very few other religions or spiritual practicies I’ve encountered have placed such an emphasis on eliminating ignorance, Buddhism excluded. It’s obvious that all these people come from different walks of life. He’s talking about how we need to be responsible for our own decisions in life and that we are walking a path that makes us happy. We should be doing work that brings truth and happiness to our life, and if you aren’t, that’s your own fault, don’t blame anyone. He’s saying we should always think the way we think now (not exactly possible but a nice thought).
This was a good night. He is proud that he cleansed 59 people (I had no idea there were so many people in here).
He is so thankful for this medicine, for this family, and that everyone loves and respects each other.
The speakers words, translated roughly by me:
“Learn to live well, learn to live true, leave the idiocy that’s in your mind. There’s nothing good and bad, things are how they are and that’s the end of it. There is only a man and a woman, not good and bad. That is the only duality.”
He said bring the water.
They brought a bucket, started chanting and singing. “Pajaro limpiando” were two words they kept repeating, I think the bird is the San Pedro.
I must admit I really respect the message they try to convey here, they focus so much on respecting their origins, respecting the love between a man and a woman. They pray that those brothers and sisters that haven’t found their match will find it soon, because they see that as the most valuable thing in life.
The leaders words:
“In the night you see clearly. In the daytime you see nothing. At night you see everyone is different. During the daylight everyone looks the same. People in his home town have said to him: ‘Be careful getting too much spirituality into your head, because you still have to live in the real world.’
Live isn’t just finding clarity and happiness, what this experience can give you is peace, not absolute happiness. When you have peace you can live with the good and bad and life and continue on with your life regardless of the positive and negative things that happen to you. Fiding peace will give you the clarity you are looking for, and sometimes… The darkness.
My family comes here to see well, to see with love.
This water closes everything we have opened. Finishes everything we have been looking for by coming here. This water is all we need at this moment and in this form we are just fine. We won’t hold anything or anyone responsible besides ourselves.”
Finally… After dragging it out ceremoniously…
They gave us water from a bucket to drink. It was supposed to be the first water we drank all night.
I can see on my legs the singed hair from the “cleansing” ceremony, AKA lighting me on fire.
Almost 10 am…
I think it’s remarkable that I never found any answers to my questions when I thought I was supposed to. But the talk the man gave this morning was beautiful and I feel like it gave me exactly what I needed right now. Funny how things do work themselves out when you’re looking for an answer.
Its funny for me to read this and see how drastically my view of the ceremony changed during the actual process. At first I had so much contempt for what they were doing, their methods, and their practice. Finally it ended up that I really respect what they do because, unlike what many people do with the same substances in our society, these people use drugs with a purpose. They unite a community and seem answers to their problems. Just the fact that they get together in this way as a community and discuss their problems to me is a positive thing.
I also have to admit that ever since I first tried these chemicals I had an idea that something like this would be a positive thing, and I always wanted to experience it and I’m glad I had. To me I feel like its one of the most real “spiritual” experiences someone could have. Some people might frown on the fact that they are basically accelerating their spirituality by artificial means but to them, this is part of their spirituality, and I can see why.
There are very few religious or spiritual practices that I have come to respect, but this is definitely one of them. In the end I’m very glad I participated, and I would do it again.
Besides the few photos I got I’m also putting up a video that is really more of an audio clip. I probably was not supposed to take any photos or these sounds clips but I wanted to so I could give people a better idea of what this was like. The sound clips blend together in a sharp way, sorry. There is one point towards the end where I was bold enough to video the ceremony once the sun came up, its short but can give you a small idea of what I saw for many hours. That’s Shreena coughing occasionally due to the insanely smoke filled room.
Thanks to Mike for the spare Blackberry battery, without which only half of this would have been possible.
Its 7 am and I’m here in Medellin Colombia with Shreena. I expedited my travel here because of a simple thing she told me. She had the contact info for someone who had done ayahuasca with the tribes people here in this city and would be able to give me that information.
For those of you that may not know Ayahuasca is a traditional drug created by the tribes people in the Amazon for their religious ceremonies. The chemistry behind it is actually quite ingenious. It requires two plants one contains an MAOI and the other contains DMT. The combination of the two drugs produces a hallucinogenic result while either of them separate would result in nothing. The MAOI stops the human body from breaking down the DMT molecule at the speed it normally would. This allows it to be active in the brain for the 6-8 hour duration and have some truly mind blowing results supposedly.
It’s been a dream of mine to try DMT for a while now, and to have the opportunity to do it in the traditional spiritual way with the local people would be a dream come true for me.
On a lighter note, I read at the hostel that they have Pablo Escobar tours of Medellin, sooo stoked on that.
Me and Shreena are going to go grab breakfast right now while the rest of the people we haven’t met yet in our dorm are still sleeping.
I’m always scared about leaving my stuff in a room with people I haven’t met before… ugh.
Ok but so change in plans. Disregard all that other stuff I just said about Ayahuasca because we found out that TONIGHT there is going to be a San Pedro ceremony up in the mountains of Medellin. San Pedro is a mescaline containing cacti that the indiginous people of the Americas have used for centuries in their shamanistic rituals. There is apparently an all night fire ceremony tonight and we are going. I’m pretty sure there will be a pretty long followup to this.
I’m going to go take a nap and rest up.
Here are photos all the way from Panama City… then on the boat through the San Blas Islands… then in the old town of Cartagena. I can’t be bothered to explain which is which, lets say that I know where they are from and that’s all that matters.
It was fun walking around the city taking photos and just experiencing the old town, it was gorgeous there. I also had some close encounters with some friendly hookers and drug dealers. I had fun negotiating for some cocaine and then not buying it despite how low I got the price. The drug dealers in this country are super friendly.
Getting ripped off for 80 bucks or so wasn’t too fun but you live and learn I guess. I should have listened to the damn tourist book about not exchanging money with the people on the street because their very good at magic tricks and will give you a wad of 1000 peso bills instead of the 20000 bills they showed you.
Yeah got fucked on that one. Oh well, all I need is my blackberry and my Mac in life anyway.
