2010

Its swealtering hot and sunny here. We have to keep the fan on all the time.

Well, we got connected to a shaman in the jungle town of Tena just east of Quito. Arriving in Quito Don Augustin and his wife Maria were there waiting to meet us at the bus depot. Really kind middle aged native couple. Tiny squarely built healhty looking people dressed in white. We made arrangements to meet the next day.

First day Don Augustin showed us shamanic landmarks around Tena. First we went to this cave complex. We dont speak much spanish so most communication happens by telepathy and hand gestures. We climbed down into this cave woth flashlights and went down and down and down for like an hour squeezing through narrow gaps and splashing through flowing water waist deep. Ive never been underground like that its a really weird feeling. Finnally we started to ascend and came out on the other side. neat. Then we went over to a waterfall and swam around there. I think it was then that I realized that I was in an environment that is the closest to paradise Ive ever been. Everything is so lush and every square inch is packed to the brim with life. There s at least 20 different sizes and kinds of ants running around everywhere building roads and carrying stuff around. The air is really thick and heavy with oxygen and goodness. Then we went to this huge rock that was covered with petroglyphs. Don Augustin explained how some were drawn for communication with extraterrestrials, some were calenders, some were about ghosts etc. There s lots of talk about extraterrestrials and spirits here.

Having some extra time visited the local zoo. This zoo is not so much a zoo but an island with animals on it. Some of the animals are in enclosures but only the naughty ones who have a history of biting people or sneaking off to town over the bridge to steal or beg food from restaurants. The monkeys were particularily nice and I spent some time picking the bugs off one monkey s back. You can even reach in and stroke the caimans although Im not sure that would be wise. Most of the animals are very freindly. Reminded me of the garden of eden. We climbed to the top of a big tower to look around and made some cell phone calls. I cant beleive I can be sitting here at the equator and Im texting my freinds at home. Is this world even real. When we went to leave the island we walked across the bridge followed by some kind of raccoon creature who probably wanted us to help him escape. Much to our dismay, the door at the end of the bridge was locked and we had to go meet Don Augustin. I broke the lock by smashing it with a peice of concrete and we made our escape.

New Years is weird here. Its kind of like halloween. There s all these people wearing masks of the bad guys of the past year like politicians and movie stars. Micheal Jackson was popular. The point is that they want to expel everything from the year before. Also people have made roadblocks and are dressed in drag and are asking you for money before you can go by. And everyone is really drunk. Strangest thing is the music style which is really fast and pretty good, almost smoky tiger style except in spanish and more catchy. Problem is they listen to the same song over and over again literally for an hour. But Ill get to that later.

Don Augustins son finnally showed up to pick us up and we made our way over to their house. Don Augustin has a big beautiful family and lives outside of town. It was dark by now and we were lead straight through the party into a concrete hovelstyl room with a bed and some benches. We cut straight to the chase and were given some cups of brownish liquid and shot them back. Tasted bad. About ten or fifteen minutes later we got tired and woozy so layed down. Don Augustin and his son started singing and making these really weird noises. My eyes were closed but visions began to appear in the static behind my eyes that went in sync with the vibrations of the music. Here s a quote from the book Im reading about ayuhaska = The Ethnic Amazonian tribes beleive that there are two worlds, our everyday materialistic world and the eternal, glorious spiritual world. Ayahuasca is considered a sacred plant. The natural chemicals in the brew will act quickly within the physical body to awaken and strengthen the Spiritual body of the person, consequently enabling one to reach the maximum level of Spiritual power with which one can truly relate to and travel to the spiritual world. I can verify that this isnt poetry or myth. Its how reality is. I didnt acheive the sort of travelling that I hoped for but I think that s because Im not pure enough. Instead I did a lot of thinking about my life and putting things into perspective. But everything I thought about became real there before me like on a screen. So if I thought about my freind Jose for example he would appear there real and lifelike. At some point in time I got up to ralf. Ralfing is common and it feels desirable. You feel like you want to expel the physical filth thats inside you. Walking around I was woozy and emediately wanted to lay down and go back to the ordering and defragging of my personal database. Things kept interupting though and and I couldnt break through into something that I could feel but not attain. So I just kept working and workign, thinking and thinking. It was actually almost like a nightmare. My life is a nightmare isnt it. All the mistakes Ive made, things Ive done wrong, people Ive hurt, time Ive wasted. All of these things appeared before me. Worst of all Don Augustin stopped singing and went to the party and they fired up the karaoke machine and ecuador music. They play the music at escrutiating volume and they keep repeating the same song over and over for hours. And then some drunk guy would come on and start raving and rambling about something with the feedback blaring in a language I couldnt understand. And because of the mental state I was extremely sensitive to all sound. And I was scrunched up intoa tiny ball in this room and all of the worst things of my life were flashing before my eyes in vivid detail and I kept having to ralf. Sometimes the music would stop and there would be this delicious silence and and I would feel this scrumptious relaxation, only for it to suddenly resume at louder volume the same song again. Certain phrases kept popping up in my mind like, The point of life is dying. I now understand that the process that I was going through is the same that happens at death. And the land of visions is what the afterlife is all about. The only point of living is to have a clear consience when you die. But that s not bad because the life after death truly is eternal and glorious. This is the truth. I thought about how strange it is how we cling so desperately to life. How we spend billions of dollars for medications and machines to keep us alive until the very last minute. How very sad life is. Why do we think its humane to put our pets to sleep when they begin to suffer in old age an yet we dont give the same courtesy to our own species. What are we so afraid of. How could our knowledge of existence have become so messed up. How did we come to deny the spirit and the world of the spirit yet we go every night when we go to sleep. It all seemed suddenly so sad and so terrible. I kept tossing and turning and the music was blaring and drunk people were yelling but at the same time somewhere inside I new that this suffering was all a part of the process and how fitting to perform such a mental and spiritual purge on New Years eve. Here is another quote from the book = The Amazonian tribes beleive that God intentionally placed this plant in the forest so that humans could benift from its devine powers. I thought a lot about God too. I wonder why most people now adays deny the existence of God. It would appear to me that God is simply a word that we use to describe the totality of all things. That concept is so useful. What a usefull word God is. Why deny it. God is everything. It seems simple. Anyways, all these things and more became clear as crystal. And I must admit that writing all this out right now is also a very usefull process whether you, my audience, think its useless drivel or not.

Anyways, I woke up the next morning feeling freaking awsome and looking forward with great anticipation to the year 2010. Two more days and nioghts followed with Don Augustin and Ill write more tommorrow but buddy at the hostel is kicking me off the computer. Peace out.