Show posts

2/07/2009 Cusco, Peru

The incessant hum and noise of Lima, a swarmy maelstrom of sprawl and velocity; our one night in the city was restless. As we landed in the earlier part of the evening, I found myself feeling a bit more relaxed and emotionally open. On the heels of my dream the night prior to leaving Albuquerque, there was something in the undulate rhythm of it all--like a current--the sensual gait of the Peruvian stewardesses, the oscillating current of the language. As I sat looking up into the open-air skylight of our hotel in Lima, listening to the pulse of the city and in spite of being desperately tired, there was something comforting: a sense of being alive and on the cusp of something wonderful. For all the ugliness of Lima, flying into Cusco over the Andes was a truly breath-taking experience. Stark mountainsides, lush and green ascending snow-capped peaks.

Our arrival into Cusco was punctuated by extreme exhaustion, and a vastly overpriced taxi-ride from the airport. From the airport we quickly proceeded to the San Blas district of the city on the far northern end of the Cuszco valley, which is more of a cradle of mountains than a valley. Cusco itself is quite charming with narrow alleyways paved with cobblestone, an open draingage system and small cultivated gardens tucked into each and every corner. Arriving quite early, and our room not yet prepared, we waited some time in the living area adjacent to the patio-coutyard at our hostel. Our host quickly offered coca tea, our first exposure to the plant which was much of my own motivation in visiting this particular region of Peru. My first cup induced a mild and expansive elevation of mood which sent us out into the city in spite of the exhaustion of 3 days of travel with little sleep.

Cusco is gorgeous and powerful in it's own right, nestled into the hills of the high Andes. Everything is built with economy and on top of everything else, with the effect of receding terraces of terra-cotta roofing. As you ascend any of the given hills of Cusco, the view across the valley is most extraordinary. Framed on either side by tightly knit brickwork in the Incan style, the valley stretches out below in a dark orange terra-cotta ocean of syncretic Incan-colonial architecture and style.

From San Blas, narrow streets descend steeply into the central municipal valley. At the center, the Plaza de Armas consists of a large church on the northern side of the square with the stone plaza situated around a central park. Further south and to the west, the bustling San Pedro market was a real education in Peruvian culture, with Erythroxylum coca, Trichocereus pachanoi, and Banisteriopsis caapi being openly sold together with the vegetables and the fruits. Our first day, I bought coca together with a hard ball of lime-llipta and quickly returned to our room, which was ready for us by this time. Much of the first day I chewed chewed coca and after several hours of chewing quickly fell into that lucid, wafting dream-state of which I am so familiar. I felt myself gently drifting down the valley on a sort of tumbling cloud of light, soaring above a receeding crevasse that was like a flowing cradle. The horizon receeds and I peer deep into this infinite and spacious chasm, and there's an unfathomable sense that 1. this journey into the heart of the New World is blessed 2. I am somehow seeing through my mother's eyes. Who knows how long it lasted, but there was something profoundly reassuring about it, soothing to the soul.

2/08/2009 Cusco, Peru

Our first night was quite restless, and gbear showed clear signs of altitude sickness of a mild variety, nothing a few cups of coca tea didn't take care of. I dreamt of my brother, and the regret of losing a close friend. In the dream, he is packing all of his things and leaving. I open his closet and find my bookshelf in it, noticing three specific books: 'Unspoken Sermons,' and 'Thomas Wingfold' by George Macdonald and a third book that is so worn in it's binding as to be unrecognizable. I am somehow compelled to open the book and sign it as a farewell gesture to my brother.

We visited Qorikancha today, a real window into the world of the Inca. Translated to mean 'Court of Gold,' Qorikancha was the very axis of the city of Cusco, itself considered the 'navel of the world.' Here at Qorikancha, more than four thousand priests are said to have lived. At it's centerpiece was said to have been an immense golden disk positioned in such a way that the morning light reflected off it's surface into the main temple. While Qorikancha is today a sort of amalgam of archaeological curiosity and Catholic presence, the court remains a startling example of Incan stonework. Stonework that, when originally encountered by the Spanish, was proclaimed to be the 'product of demons,' an assertion perhaps less fantastic than some of the speculation today: extraterrestrials, plants capable of dissolving rock.

In all likelihood, the actual explanation for the elegance of Incan stonework may be far more simple, 'to quarry the stone the masons sought natural weaknesses in the rock, small fissures that could be widened by planting a wooden wedge and soaking it in water. Once a block of stone broke free, it could be worked with harder rocks by a series of abrasive blows that in time would transform its surface. Once a block of stone broke free, it could be worked with harder rocks, by a series of abrasive blows that in time would transform its surface. Experiments have shown that, even without iron tools, a shapeless lump of andesite can be turned into a smooth cube in just two hours.' Perhaps even more miraculous than an extraterrestrial or magical explanation, the actual explanation for Incan stoneworking betrays an attitude towards stone that is almost impossible to comprehend. Mythologically, the Inca seem to have viewed matter as living, dynamic and even divine; the transformation of matter thus seems to have been viewed as a service to the gods. Naturally, time has no meaning for a task in service of the divine, and such an attitude harnessed by a system of imperial governance explains in part how the Inca were so prolific. This basic attitude seems common to many indigenous groups and is more generically expressed in the notion of the sanctity of land. At Qorikancha, forty one imaginary spokes are said to have radiated outwards and beyond the horizon as determined by the stars, the sun and the moon, connecting various communities in space within the cosmological framework of the land of the Incan empire. To this day, and in spite of the Conquest, one religious icon of the Inca remains: the earth itself. Echoed in the Pachamama concept, I somehow sense that the earth is still viewed as sacred in this place.

2/09/2009 Cusco, Peru

Last night I chewed coca all night long. Looking out westward over Cusco, just before the rising of the sun the following vision unfolded over the terra-cotta roofing of the city: outside the window (una ventana del mundo) there was the face of a masticating jaguar, chewing and chewing with a vicious look upon it's face. As it chews, I become very unsettled staring at it but could not turn away: my gaze was fixed. As I fixated on the face of the jaguar, my field of vision kind of rolled over in a gyrating fashion to the left and to the left of the jaguar I saw the face of a very old tree, brow ruffled and eyes closed in sleep. I became highly unsettled as this unfolded, dripping with sweat and heart pounding, my mind echoed 'must raise the dead; must raise the dead,' and the bleary eyed tree began to awaken. Rolling over again to the left, I then saw a bird like a toucan, but with more of a downward hook to it's bill, downward slit of an eye. Rolling over there is a face like a man, a conquistadore; and his face is merging right to left with a face like an Andean native, stern brow their faces become one that is an owl then feline and there is a shaft of light rising from it's feral brow and a crescent over the top shot through by the light and it becomes some sort of ascending thunderbird. Then rolling over to the left there's a circle of women robed in white, faces veiled and witnessing something in their midst that is hidden from my view. To the farthest left of the sequence there is an angel, wings spread outwards and behind, hands outstretched as if receiving whatever is being witnessed in the circle. Then my eyes toggle all the way to the right, and the jaguar is chewing, chewing; vicious face. Then right to left, right to left: it looks like a tube or a horn of some sort. Then left to right and the central piece of the tube with the robed women, tree/conquistadore/indian/owl/thunderbird become smooth and faceless, and there's only the winged angel on the left and the masticating jaguar on the right. Left, then all the way right and the jaguar turns and looks at me straight in the eyes with a vicious smile, then a look of recognition and friendship and dissolves into formless light. Then right to left and the angel has been transformed into a blue bird with an immense and rainbow tail, turns around and flies away just as the sun peaks over the mountains. I have no interpretation for this most peculiar of messages from the coca ally.

Coca must certainly be one of the more fascinating plants of South America. A spectrum of domesticated plant varieities almost surely derived from a common Bolivian ancestor, Erythroxylum's coca and novagranatense were considered one of the three sacred plants of the Inca--as well as yage and manioc--sent by Wairakocha at the dawn of creation. Ubiquitously known as 'mama coca' throughout the Andes, the status of coca amongst the peoples of Peru is aptly expressed in T-Shirts and signs all throughout the sacred valley, 'las hojas de la coca no es una droga, es cultura' (the leaves of coca are not a drug, they are culture). As a barometer of Incan influence, the presence of coca forms a sort of cultural dyad of the continuity and extent of the Incan empire; where the Inca were, you today find both coca and corn. Though much of the existant patterns of coca use are hybrid-forms of the ancient patterns, there are certain groups which seem to maintain their relationship with coca in an ostensibly pure form.

In the Kogi mythologem, the comos is conceived autoegocratically by the Great Mother, who anoints one of her pubic hairs with menstrual blood and then impregnates herself with a phallic lime-stick. Descendants of the ancient Tairona civilization, the chewing of coca is for the Kogi the purest activity of their lives, as well as the most profound expression of their culture. At the age of 18, and in preparation for marriage, the Kogi initiate are gifted the ritual implements for the chewing of coca: their yoburu (gourd) and lime-stick, which are gifted by the mamas/shamans. They are also gifted a mochila/coca bag by their wife-to-be, woven from thread gifted by the mamas. For the Kogi men, the first bittersweet taste of hayo (coca) brings them into manhood. At the marriage ceremony, the mama perforates the yoburu and impregnates the bulbous base of the gourd with with lime. The mamas/shamans of the culture are divined at birth by the throwing of coca leaves, which are then read. If the neophyte is selected, they are then taken deep into the mountain caves and raised the first 18 years of their life without any exposure to sunlight. At the age of 18, and on a particularly clear day, the mama is brought out into the sunlight and tastes hayo for the first time. So you see, wrapped up in symbols of re-birth and the maternal matrix, the chewing of coca is--for the Kogi--the recreation and genesis of the kosmos as they know it.

2/10/2009 Pisaq, Peru

We bussed earlier today from Cusco eastwards to the small Andean village at Pisaq. The bus ascended perhaps 1000 feet from Cuszco (at 10,000 feet), and then descended 3000 ft. more to the Urubamba river valley. On the busride, I was quickly engaged in broken Spanish conversation by an elderly artesan from the Peruvian city of Huancayo. He pointed out the various animals, introduced me to his wife and agreed that I should follow him into the Pisaq market to view his artwork. Little did I know that I would then be obligated to make a purchase, though I might have expected it and it was beautiful nonetheless: a carved gourd with images of the sacred valley engraved upon it. Images of the Inca and valley gracing the surface: sun and moon; serpent, puma and condor (some trinity of sacred totemic Andean animals); machu picchu and scenes of traditional agricultural practices of the valley. As we descended into the Urubamba valley, we saw for the first time the terraces/tarrazas of the Inca (expand on the terraces). The coca in Pisaq seems better than Cuzsco--larger, unbroken leaves--and the cholco/corn is a meal unto itself, far superior to the corn in the United States.

2/11/2009 Ollantaytambo, Peru

A soft wind blows warmly up the crevasse perpendicular to the sacred valley where Ollantaytambo is situated. I think we will spend several days here, I'm quite moved by the people and the pace of life here. An even gentler wind blows through my soul this evening as we watch the sun set over this splendour of a valley. After our arrival by collectivo from Pisaq via Urubamba, we made our way through labyrinthine chasms of stone and soil, skipping over drainage rivulets from off the mountain stream of the Montana de Santa Marta.

Gazing up the crevasse eastwards up the valley of the Santa Marta, and immense calm suffuses my body and oft weary-heart. There is a sense of sacred space here, perhaps in the heart of the people up this valley, I feel myself being drawn up the valley, drifting in a world of folk-reveries and smiling faces, dark skinned and hiking up the valley with ease ... to be here is to feel human again.

2/12/2009 Ollantaytambo, Peru

Our second day in Ollantaytambo, and we moved to the Quilla lodge. The man who runs the lodge--same age as myself--invited us up the adjacent valley from yesterdays reveries, and into the mountains for a fiesta of sorts. The event was described to us as a 'reunion' of the folk peoples of the upper-mountain area with the peoples of the lower valley. There was dancing, music and maize beer, as well as--amidst the festivities--the ocassional firing of a large canon that re-verberated with an immense boom down the valley. In the first dance, the dancers were dressed in something like ornate green pajamas, faces masked and were brandishing whips, which they would snap around the feets of the dancers in front of them; this went on in a circle to the delight of everyone watching. In the second dance, men brandishing bright orange frocks in the traditional Andean style waved a white sash back and forth at one another, a dance imitating some manner of Andean swan, perhaps the verymythological swan that by day escorted the Sun and Moon children sent from Lake Titicaca to populate the earth at the bequest of the Incan creator deity Wiracocha. We walked up the hills to one of the many small agricultural settlements along the mountainside, our guide pointing out the various cultivated plants: several varieties of potatoes with flowers of several colors, peas and several varieties of plants unfamiliar to me. Our guides spurious grip on English was only matched by my similar grip of Spanish. Somehow we managed to communicate and I learned a couple of new words in Spanish ... key=llave ; churchbell=campana ; peas=abbas trek=caminata... amongst others. We ate amidst the festivities, and then walked the long road back to Ollantaytambo, perhaps 4 miles; more than I have walked in some time.

2/14/2009 Ollantaytambo, Peru

Two nights back I again chewed coca all night, a substantial quantity; the coca in Ollantaytambo is large-leafed and seems less potent than that in Pisaq. Towards the morning, I had something of a psychological-emotional breakthrough. I'm truly impressed with this plant, it is as powerful a plant as I have ever experienced. In the early hours, I began walking through emotion-states that have been particularly difficult for me in the last several years. The emotion states were like layers around a central core psychological-emotional challenge. First I was going through anxiety, a mental state that I have a tendency to become quickly identified with: I often almost seem to need something to worry about. With the coca, I was able to take a step back and recognize a certain set of behaviors as being rooted in this anxiety, and simply experienced the anxiety as such. Then I saw that the anxiety was one layer of a deeper state of suffering and the anxiety itself opened up. It became clear to me that my seeming need for anxiety and something to worry about, was part of a mechanism protecting me from being overwhelmed by despair. This despair and sadness appeared to be largely rooted in childhood imprints, and was wrapped into a gestalt of emotions that I believe are at the core of why it is that I have had so much trouble honing in on a career. In essence, I experience a sense of sadness and intense frusturation in not being able to 'earn' my mother's love.

For children, maternal love is the ultimate currency and value; and I suspect the basis for most all human values. Freud and Jung were perhaps not amiss in referring to the mother-child relationship as the basis for what they termed 'object libido,' or the central axis about which pleasure seeking behavior--as an effort-reward mechanism--revolves. We cry for our mothers, and this behavior is re-inforced by the pleasure of being fed. As we grow older, this basic reward system becomes much of how our work ethic evolves: we work for our mother's love because our mother's love is our own biological survival. This love then becomes the object of the libido by which we come to enjoy work as something pleasure bestowing and of intrinsic value. Reflecting on my upbringing, I saw that I worked very hard--according to my nature--to be an object of my parents love, and specifically my mothers. It simply never happened, so I have associated work and goal-motivated effort (the object libido) with a sense of frusturation that believes--at an unconscious level--that my best effort simply doesn't matter. So I put in my best effort with the unconscious assumption that it is ultimately valueless, with the inevitable consequence that I never really see anything all the way through. In fact, if I were to see something all the way through it would be all the more disappointing to once again realize and recognize that unlovable and frusturated child within me. As a result, over the years I've tended to view practical work with some amount of disdain. These insights seemed very 'matter of fact' at the time, and were not the product of any real 'thinking through' of what I was feeling, they seemed to proceed naturally from the simple act of feeling these very difficult emotional states in their wholeness. The focus on effort-reward is quite interesting, as I've been told that cocaine works within the 'pleasure-reward' systems of the brain, perhaps I'm wrong. It's further interesting that coca is typically anthropomorphized as feminine, 'mama' coca. In a sense, this particular plant seems to be acting as a sort of surrogate mother in an unforgiving landscape.

Beyond this basic system of imprints, I came in touch with an overwhelmingly intense sense of existential insecurity that seemed to have a cosmic dimension to it; it felt as though an immense and vibrating current was surging from my solar plexus into the heart area. This current was marked, physical and quite strong. I felt like it might shake me to pieces; it became quite clearly at this point that attachment to the physical and emotional forms was going to create alot of suffering. So I just let go, my fontanelles seemed to flare out and through the heart center coursed massive amounts of biographical suffering, years of anxiety, despair and frusturation spilling through my heart in a compressed and ultra-intense gush. This must have lasted 20 or 30 minutes, and was quite unsettling; it was like all of my pain took on an objectified form and just poured out of my body. My mind swimming, I kept breathing my way through it, trying to relax and continuously reminding myself that this was part of the healing effect of the coca medicine. Eventually, it passed and I was left with a sense of solidity and clarity in my heart. Since this opening, I truly have felt considerably more capable of dealing with uncertainty and stress; there have been several situations which previously would have caused me considerable anxiety, and they have most definitely been much easier to deal with. The plant itself seems quite therapeutic, though it almost seems like electro-shock therapy at the higher doses (this is definitely a stimulant). Certainly one of the more powerful psychological-emotional openings I have ever had.

Note: The llipta-lime in the markets here in Ollantaytambo is incredibly caustic, a small piece will burn the heck out of one's moth; the best llipta I've had was a sweet anise paste in Pisaq, quite pleasant. The llipta here es mucho fuego, it's a bit much.

Today we crossed the Urubamba river and hiked up to a relatively pristine set of Inca terraces. With the entire canyon to ourselves, the terraces were small and apparently used to grow 'los plantas medicas y aromatica por la templo' (medical and aromatic plants for the temple) Past the terraces was a temple nested within a cave complex, with two main iconic artifices. One, a doorway carved into the stone was described as a 'doorway into another dimension;' the other, a stone altar with a set of Incan crosses upon it used for prayer and reflection. We were told 'es un situo sagrado,' that this was a 'sacred place' used to reflect on and pray to 'Pachamama.'

There is a very tall grouping of Trichocereus pachanoi in flower on the western side of the central plaza, perhaps the tallest pachanoi I have ever seen. Cultivated specimens are quite common up the valley, including Cusco. Typically, in the higher elevations these specimens seem to have been grown from thick cuttings that are clearly source from some other locale; while the root cuttings are often quite thick, the pups tend to grow quite thin indicating a lack of sufficently intense sunlight. I suspect these cultivated pachanois in Cusco are brought inside during the wintertime, so don't received much sunlight. However, at the lower elevation here in Ollantaytambo, the cultivated specimens look quite healthy and are planted directly into the ground. There is a trichocereus or cereus species endemic to this area, that I've been told is not psychoactive; a shame, as it's EVERYWHERE.

2/16/2009 Aguas Caliente, Peru

We arrived by train from Ollantaytambo at the station at Aguas Caliente, the pueblo below Machu Picchu. Both gbear and I have been dealing with some stomach upset--it was bound to happen--and today we mostly seem to be resting, gbear has slept most of the day. The train ride itself--though exorbiently priced by my now lowered standards--was quite extraordinary. Leaving just before dawn, we descended from the arrid climate of the valley south of Ollantaytambo into what is essentially a cloud forest. Continuing further up the Sacred Valley, plant species began proliferating exponentially: large swaying trees hosting epiphytes tucked into niches, creeping vines, a thick mat of floor covering. Intermittently, the train would pass through fields of the most peculiar varieties of flowers, an infinite gradient of shadings from purple to blue to red to pink. The jungle is near, perhaps a day away. Brugmansia arborea seems prevalent in both the arrid southern part of the sacred valley and here in the cloud forest. In the arrid upper valley I only ever saw orange and white flowers; here in the cloud forest, there is a peachish-pink variety of Brugmansia in flower.

Machu Picchu pueblo itself is abloat with tourism, overpriced with the layout of the city--though small--contributing to a sense of crowdedness. Everything built upwards on a small embankment of the Urubamba river, the locals seem to have crammed as much marketable economy as is possible into this small space. While the one redemption of this little pueblo is the audible sound of the river from each and every point within it, it often appears as if the entire little town might just fall into the water and be carried downstream into the jungle.

The fascination with Machu Picchu is interesting in itself, the town here below the ruin: an enigma. On the one hand, the locals clearly rely on tourism. Simultaneously, I have found that the residents seem to find tourists rather annoying; somehow, I don't blame them. It's one of the defining drives of long-term travel, that we're somehow looking for something that connects us to a place. But this place is a drive-by, and I think somehow the lot of us here are in the driver's seat.

The emphasis on Machu Picchu--as a tourist destination--is unusual in the sense that while Hiram Bingham's original theory posited that Machu Picchu was the 'hidden kingdom of the Inca'--their last stronghold during the time of the Conquest--recent evidence has pointed to the overgrown jungle site at Espiritu Pampa as the probable stronghold of the fabled city of Vilcabamba. So what is it about Machu Picchu that so fascinates people? Aside from it's apparent beauty, what I can tell of Machu Picchu says something about the simple beauty of a thing revealed in it's natural state. At the ruins there are no choking creepers or tangles of trees, just raw and exposed clarity. So, in a sense: Machu Picchu represents something completely revealed in it's native state. I think there's an intrinsic and ineffable beauty to discovering something completely revealed in it's original and untouched state. Chalk it up to 'magical thinking,' but sometimes you get the sense that the world has been waiting for you to see it.

Also, I figure the romance of Bingham's story of search for that which was hidden and lost appeals to our natural romantic; I suspect that most of us are somehow romantic in the original sense, however lost we may be to ourselves. So I figure I'll keep this in mind as I become part of the drove of tourism passing through this region. Perhaps I'm only here to see something naked and beautiful; something lost that is now found; something that was hidden that is now revealed.

The coca here is the most unique of any I have yet tested; it is substantially more potent, with smaller and more delicate leaves. It has a very pleasant and sweet carmel aroma to it, which gives it a rich taste. The llipta-lima is quite mild in terms of causticity. Perhaps owing to the lack roads between here and Ollantaytambo to the south, the source of this coca seems to likely be regions 'a la frontera de la selva' (on the borders of the jungle) to the north. I suspect the coca in the markets to the south of Ollantaytambo is coming from fields that are at a lower elevation to the south of Cusco towards Arequipa; the leaves are much larger and have a smell somewhere between hay and green tea.

We have decided to continue north out of the valley--instead of heading back to Cusco--and make our way to the jungle, with the hopes of finding a plane to Pucallpa or perhaps just a river boat. Tomorrow, we will visit Machu Picchu, both gbear and myself are glad this particular leg of our trip--which was sort of obligatory--will soon be over. Tomorrow, after the hike up to Machu Picchu, we will be heading to Quillabamba where we plan on acquiring supplies para la selva.

This afternoon, gbear and I became feverish with whatever stomach bug we've picked up. Coupled with the fatigue, I figured it was time to give ourselves the C-bomb: 500mg Ciprofloxacin, a staple of the travelling medical kit. Within a half hour, we were worlds better. In retrospect, I suspect some of my anxiety in the early part of the week had something to do with this stomach bug. I think I can tend to be particularly tuned in to my gut, I 'just had a gut feeling' as my father used to say. But we feel much better now, hopefully well enough to find the ruins tomorrow after a strong dose of yogurt. I REALLY need a book to read.

2/17/2009 Aguas Caliente, Peru

Today it rained all day, starting early in the morning. We decided not to visit the ruins as a result. Instead, we made our way up to the hotsprings for which this town has taken it's original name. The main street leads up through town and above to an estuary of the Urubamba river. Crossing a bridge, we ascended to the bath house, which was comprised of a bar overlooking a set of terraced bathing pools of various temperatures. I laughed when we came within hearing distance of the bar, as blaring out over the speakers was Pink Floyd's 'Wish You Were Here,' some background is perhaps in order:

While travelling in India, I briefly took residence at a hostel near the burning ghats in Varanasi--or what is now Banares--by the name of the Shiva Lodge, a place highly recommended by the Lonely Planet guide. Of course, every hostel in India is named the Shiva Lodge. After my first night in Banares--during which my underwear was stolen--I walked out of the hostel to the familiar twang of 'Wish You Were Here' being played by a young Indian boy no older than 10,

'So, so you think you can tell: heaven from hell'

I sat down grinning, he handed me the guitar and I played out the opening lead. We talked for awhile about music, he played tabla and I wanted to learn sitar. I met his parents, and to make a long story short I moved into the small room they had situated on the roof. After I had paid for a month, the father took me upstairs and handed me a club, 'this is for the monkeys when you need to use the restroom'; the restroom involved a walk across the exposed monkey-covered roof.

After a couple of days it came to my attention that the father of the household made part of his income through the selling of hashish and opium to the tourists and foreigners that frequented the Shiva Lodge. Having never tried opium, and fancying myself a connoisseur of exotic experiences, I immediately purchased several grams of hashish and a 10 gram ball of the glistening black opium. I then proceeded, over the course of the next two weeks, to ingest epic quantities of hashish via the smoked as well as oral routes; as well as ingesting the opium on a daily basis. I bought a beautiful sitar for the the equivallent of 100USD, began taking lessons and found a spot just off the ghats where I received several hours of yoga instruction per day. Once a week, our yoga teacher did what he called 'laughing yoga,' which entailed the ingestion of bhang and eruptions of laughter as we sat in a circle,

'did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts'

During my time in India I had a special fondness for the Cat Stevens album 'Tea for the Tillerman,' and listened to it almost constantly. So one afternoon I'm sitting in my room on the roof, having smoked hashish and a good amount of opium, listening to ol' Cat, and the album comes to the second to last track 'Father and Son.' Quite suddenly, I become overwhelmed with a powerful sensation from my gut that's telling me 'you need to get rid of all the hash, opium and paraphenalia right now,' so I cross the roof and flush it all and head downstairs for dinner. The wife brings me my simple dinner of chapati, dhal and rice; we eat, and they turn on the television for what became a daily ritual for us: watching the Indian equivallent of 'who wants to be a millionaire,'

'we're just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year'

Partway into the show, a young Indian man ducks through the hole of a door into the livingroom and him and the father walk into the back kitchen area for business. So I'm sitting against the wall watching TV, the young man comes out and makes towards the door. As soon as his head peaks out the frontdoor, he's slammed back from the doorway in an explosive gust of uniforms, clanging guns and screaming police. Both the young man and father are pinned to the floor, and they're being asked questions and smacked in tandem. I'm pegged up against the door as they're asking questions,

'how I wish you were here'

They then take me upstairs and search all of my bags, finding nothing they leave as quickly as they arrived, and it's just me and the wife. I'm on a train to Bodhgaya that night, where the Buddha was said to have attained enlightenment, I arrive in Bodhgaya on New Years day (seeing the Bodhi tree is a story for another time).

Over the years I think alot of people have viewed this intuitive dimension of my personality as pathological, schizotypal, 'magical thinking'; I've been diagnonsensed a fair amount over the years by various people, but ultimately have a deep and abiding faith in my basic sanity, intelligence and fundamental vision. Personally, I think alot of people simply tend to lack imagination, an appreciation for the intuitive; ultimately lacking the sort of common sense that lives from the heart.

So the most of today we spent languoring in the hotsprings as the clouds drizzeled from above over the semi-tropical environment of the cloud forest. Tomorrow, we'll find the ruins

2/18/2009 Machu Picchu, Peru

'in a world full of people only some want to fly, isn't that crazy?'

I must say, that while I had some reservations about all the tourism and hype surrounding the ruins at Machu Picchu, it really is 'all that,' an unbelievable place. We awoke at 5am, and were ready for the bus at 5:30am, having been told you cannot miss the sunrise. I awoke with some residual stomach illness and after several days of poor sleep and illness my mood was fairly depressed. Crossing the river and winding our way up to the ruins we enterred the park shortly before sunrise to a spectacular and clear view from the guard house above the central ruin. As the sun rose, an immense cloud of fog lifted from the lush and wet valley below, shrouding the entire ruin in a veil of mist. We walked along a trail leading up and away from the central ruin, photographing both specimens of Brugmansia candida, and a most unique wild orchid (the first wild orchid I have ever seen).

As the mist baked off and the view cleared once again, we made our way to the central ruin. Still a bit depressed and more than a little turned off by all the tourists, we made our way down to an inaccessible section of the ruin. Descending steep stairways and climbing across rocks, we found a bluff overlooking the valley in front of a sort of cave and sat for several hours well out of the sight of any tourists. I began to pray for guidance, for happiness and healing for friends and family, and asked for some sign: a symbol of orientation.

Suddenly, in a hurricane of feathers from the empty space of the valley, swoops in a quite large bird--perhaps 2 feet tall--and no more than six feet away from where we're sitting. We sit motionless, a bit shocked; I take a close look at this bird. Black with a white breast, orange billed with a downward hook-shape to it. Suddenly, I recognize this bird as the very bird that was described as 'toucan-like' in my coca vision in Cusco. He hops even closer, and we simply stare at one another for perhaps 20 minutes; he seemed very interested in us and was perhaps only hungry, but it was a striking experience having never personally been so close to such a large bird. As we sat there looking into one another's eyes, I felt a wind of energy rising from my heart: an ineffable sense of connectedness and meaning. Life, naked and beautiful; that very life which endures beyond our little lives, the great life which we are part of. I grab my camera to take a picture, press the shutter button and the camera dies right then and there!!

The sense of living within sacred space is quite pronounced at Machu Picchu, the lateral view dominated by that space which is hemmed in by the surrounding mountains. Wet and lush, the sound of rushing water down below. At the center sits a stone described as the 'sun teather,' ostensibly used to orient the peoples of Machu Picchu in their relationship with the sun. The carved stone marks the course of the sun along the horizon from summer to winter solstice; an angled cut at the base of precisely 13 degrees, which just so happens to be the declination of Macchu Pichu in degrees south of the equator (speculative, magical, schizotypal thinking anyone?)

Needless to say, my malaise has lifted, something seems to be drawing us onwards. The 'sun teather' metaphor strikes me as a most beautiful one, in the mystical sense of a natural symbol. For people who have been traditionally migratory, the activity of threadmaking and weaving seems to take on an almost religious significance. Aside from the material necessities of migratory cultures--which tend to practice animal husbandry and herding--the activity of travel and migration seems to weave a common thread across the planet, teathers one to the great and abiding icon of humankind: the earth, the 'great mountain.'

About a year and a half ago, gbear and I tested a new batch of Golden Teacher cubensis. Taking what we considered a moderate dose at 2 grams, we setted in front of the altar with the expectation of a mild experience. Lighting a candle and some incense, I picked up my drum and began to sing and pray. I'm not a particularly theistic person, but singing and sound is an extraordinary medium for directing the psilocybin trance; and while I don't tend to pray to anything particular, the simple act of deliberate and positive thought has been useful for me.

As the visions began to surge, it became clear that this wasn't going to be your average mushroom experience. With the rhythm of the drum and the descending rain of song, I quickly fell into that lucid and dreaming trance state of which I am so familiar. I remember circling in flight over an immense mountain; I remember a cave at the base of that mountain. Gbear describes another scene altogether: "I looked into your drum, there was a mountain in your drum. At the base of the mountain is a hole and there is a rope coming out of the hole. The rope is strung through your throat and as you sing there are souls that are climbing up out of the hole; as they emerge from the hole they sigh in relief. I'm watching these people climb out of the hole, and follow the rope up. I look at your face, it is completely transformed. I then notice that your body is glowing, a blue color: cyan. I then suddenly see that behind you is a pair of wings. *I'll never forget when she said this, 'azure, you had WINGS! you had WINGS!'* The blue color flares, and your wings spread. Then you look at me and say 'it's time for you to be alone,' lift up off the ground and fly out of the room." She describes a sense of feeling incredibly alone and descending into a place of no-escape.

I came to several hours later on the other side of the house, with little memory of the experience. For an hour or two more, I could not see my own body. I could viscerally feel that I was embodied, I simply could not visually see my body. I kept asking gbear to show me where my body was, and where she would touch I would see something like a ripple of water. Eventually as I was waving my arms in front of me, I could discern a vague blur; my body perception slowly came back. But the rope image, the common thread/teather, was particularly interesting in this experience, and it's a theme that I continue to encounter.

That next week we took the mushroom again at the same dose. At the peak of the effects we both discern a sound, alien and metallic. gbear becomes uncomfortable. I tune into the sound and suddenly there's a scene unfolding. I'm on the top of a temple and there's a rope extending from the top of the temple into a sort of hole up above; it's like the sun, but it's also dark. It begins to flicker rapidly like a candle and suddenly I'm in the trailer that gbear and her sister grew up in their first two or so years. You enter through the doorway. To the right is a kitchenette with a table extending outwards. There's a sitting area to the left of the kitchenette. There's a hallway to the left with a room in the back. In each room there are scenes of unhappiness, they're sort of embedded into the space that I'm seeing, which is itself empty. What was unique about how this scene unfolded, was it wasn't something that unfolded in a serial sequence it was something that was intuited in it's completeness as a single perception: like you'd generally view a painting; there was no real 'processing' of the information, it was presented in a pre-processed and holistic form, it was just all there like some sort of pre-cognitive intelligence field.

Enough drug-tales for the day, we're heading back to Cusco tomorrow as a landslide has taken out the route between Aguas Caliente and Quillabamba. We'll have to find some other route to the jungle, preferrably a flight.

Spirit Plants - Discussion of sacred plants and other entheogens

News:

Messages - azure

The Rain Forest / Re: Ayahuasca Tourism

The Library / Azure's Travelogue

The World / Re: Thoughts on President-elect Barack Obama