memory

Please excuse my writing style as my brain is not all the way put together again. Im going to write all this out in order to further the recapitulatory process. We were stopped in Banos. A sort of banf-like resort town surrounded by volcanoes and hot springs. I bought myself a bottle of Old Times Whisky and was relaxing in the courtyard of our hostal when I was drawn to a lit room. Entering in I saw a squat indian dude with long hair and various shamanic parephenalia laying around like feathers and stones, a blow gun etc. He was talking to a buddy of mine who was knowledgable in the use of San Pedro Cactus. I asked the dude who he was and he said he was a shaman and flexed his muscles with a big grin like arnold. I said ´¨me too!¨¨ and sat down and we talked for a long time about the changing patterns of the earth and the use of plants. His name was Sebastien and he said I was welcome to join him. He was on his way to visit his father in a remote Shuar village to do ayahuasca ceremonies. He tells me that he was recently kidnapped at gunpoint by tribesmen along the boarder of Peru. Apparenlty they thought Sebastien was a ´mafioso´ who was in their village looking for human organs to sell. Im not sure how he escaped but he was on his way to see his father to be cleansed. So my lovely companion and I hopped on the bus with Sebastien the next day and were on our way. Once in the village we were introduced to the whole family. Then it was time to meet Enrique the 95 year old shaman. We went into his little house and he was waiting for us sitting in a chair with a spear and a feather head dress and ceremonial paint on his face. We translated our intentions thru Sebastien and he agreed to cure us in the jungle for 10 days. So we walked with Enrique and one of his other sons David out into the jungle to a remote cabin. Enrique is like a clown. Always laughing. Despite being 95 his hair is completely black and he is very spry. Apparently he still has an active sex life and is the father of a dozen children. He has killed many people, and describes to me cutting off heads in the war. We arrive at this sort of rundown cabin complex. It seems like this cabin had been busy in the past but now most of the buildings were falling down. Next to the cabin was a river and it was surrounded by virgen jungle. David is an ex military commando. He's squat and solidly built kind of like an indian Joe Pesci. He's got crude military tattoos all over his body. He trained as a parachute commander in the US. David has two wives. He always dressed in military gear and was always carying a shotgun and a machete. He took us out for walks to see the plants and wildlife.These people are very small and sort of square and bowlegged. Over the ten days we exchange information about lifestyle and history. They are particularily interested in the way the indiginous of Canada live and what they hunt. We ate meals of fish wrapped in leaves and roasted on the fire. Ten varieties of bananas cooked in ten ways. One night David came back late with an armidillo he had hunted. We spent ten days at the cabin. I consumed ayahuasca twice and another plant called floripundeo which I have yet to identify on the internet. I beleive it some kind of Magnolia tree. Now I have a much better understanding of how ayahuasca works. Its a meditation aid. The purpose of life is meditational states. These states can't be achieved unless the stomach is empty. The process goes like this. The day of taking ayahuasca we would fast. We d cook the stuff during the day its made of this vine boiled for about 8 hours along with these leaves of another plant. Then once the sun went down we would drink the foul tasting drink. It tastes really bad and drinking a whole glass is a real chore. About an hour later all of the sounds of the jungle would become really loud, amazingly loud like the sounds are filling your head. Its difficult to open the eyes and the whole body is buzzing. Its difficult to move and is best just to sit there. This vibration goes on and on and feels really weird un describable. Eventually Enrique starts singing these weird songs and making these weird noises like whistling and breathing funny and these sounds have a really strange effect on your mind as if the sounds are reverberating through your whole body. There's this intense sense of vibration. At some point it all gets to be too much and you get up and hurl. I hurled a lot! Once the hurling is over everything is golden. All the senses are extremely refined. You still need to move really slow like you re perpetually doing thai chi. Now is the time to lay down in the hammock and really meditate. You re in a hightened state of awareness. Perception has been slowed down. You can see tracers. You can see the aura. Closing the eyes and thinking about something or someone, brings that image crystal clear into your mind's eye. Words and poetry all of a sudden become instilled with incredible meaning. This is the meditational state. I got the feeling that this state was the purpose of living. The pool of the black star. Reaching into the spiraling pool, I pulled out a future memory. Weights are lifted and burdens released as the knots are undone and the spool is unwound. I wrote a song and will sing it for you when I get back. Next day you eat more bananas. Go for a swim. Walk through the jungle. There are medicines and uses for everything. Spiders as big as your face. Butterflies, hummingbirds. We were feeling really good. Like new. Medicine.

Then came time for the floripundeo. The floripundeo is a tree with these big wonderfull smelling white flowers that hang down. I was to drink some along with David's son who everyone called Little Man or Pequino Hombre. Enrique took us to this stream and we crouched down. Enrique scraped the bark of the plant into a bowl. Then he took the bark and squeezed the water out. He led me to one of the enormous ceiba trees that is like ten feet across like from Endor. He went up to the tree and had this minny conversation with it I think he was telling the tree to look after me. Then I drank some of the stuff, not more than a couple of table spoons. They had put some big leaves under the tree for us to sit down. Later the Little Man came and sat next to me and we waited. I can remember thinking, darnit I dont think I drank enough nothing's happening. Then the next thing that I can remember for sure was the next day! But my memory is full of visions;

a small spider bit me on the ankle three times

I saw two bright lights in the sky that spiralled around each other and then took off.

I heard many stories about ufo's in the news and then I saw a ufo on tv.

I saw two strange looking men in white outfits with big white hats. When I looked at one of the men his eyes were glowing. I think these men were inca or maybe shuar spirits based on their outfits. One of the men showed me an animal fetus.

I picked up a big beam that was on the ground and hoisted it up. Once it was up I realized it was much too heavy for me to support by myself. I had to keep moving around it using all my strength to keep it from falling. All my muscles were put to the test and were quivering with exertion. Eventually I was able to lower it to the ground avoiding all the animals that were running around. One of the animals was my old cat Smoky and one of the animals was an ocelot.(David told me that I was doing this for about 2 hours. Struggling against one of the fixed beams of the house. Enrique did an impression of me and we laughed for a long time)

David told me that for a long time I was sitting at the table counting invisible money. He took this to be an omen that I would be rich in the future.

I saw a bag and tried to pick it up but it was impossible heavy. It seems like there was a highpowerd magnet at the bottom of the bag. Later this bag was being used by someone to drain impurities from my body.

I was shown shrunken heads and the process by which heads are shrunk.

I also remember walking around and falling and bumping my head over and over but I wasnt hurt the next day. Everytime I fell I thought it was the funniest thing ever!

The next day I woke up and went fishing. Enrique told me that my vision would be obscured for the next three days. While I was fishing if I relaxed my mind I could hear conversations. They literally sounded like tv channels or radio stations. Or telephone converstions. Like my mind was a radio transiever.

Little man stayed out in the woods for two days in a tree. David said that the jungle would look after him when he came back he was covered with mosquito bites on every part of his body, He was about 13 years old. That day I was stung by something and my body broke out in a rash. David prepared a special brew and we were bothed bathed in it the next day.

We payed them in dream catchers and about 100 dollars.

I trully feel like a new man. Now we re in banos headed to the beach to get some more sun. Sorry for the boring writing style I just had to get this information down so that I dont forget it.