Thanks for the Blog.

That the good god help us.
Thank you for singing to plants

Now, please excuse me being so long winded, this is what happened: David was the guy’s name, and right from the gitgo he was having an awful time, squirming, gasping, writhing, cursing, slapping, groaning, scratching and continually deep sighing his way through ceremony. Sitting next to him, at first I felt sorry for him. But long about 3 hours into it, I started to get pissed, at the disturbance he was. And once that got ahold on me, it was very difficult to think of anything else. Basically, by the time it came to a head, I wanted to just jump up and stand over him and cuff him, right to left and left to right… , and scream, “You’re bringing this on yourself you idiot, you’re creating the whole thing, if it wasn’t for you and your fucking bug phobia, there wouldn’t be any bug problem anywhere near here… !”

Well, can’t do that. But there I am getting myself all worked up, thinking I’m going to have to do something, to say something, to the point where I’m about to get up. But precisely and exactly at that very instant, my body is suddenly alarmed at the approach of, of, of… bugs. I feel them first, behind me, and I turn and then I see them, a gray blur of a ball, moving with good speed, and intent I might add, along outside the malloca. The malloca is open air, by the way, no screens or windows or anything, just a floor below and a peaked roof above, and posts and beams all around. Which is funny because the blur/ball of bugs goes halfway around the building for no reason whatsoever to get to the entrance, turns and comes in, and just as I knew it would, (just as I fuckin knew they would!), comes straight over to me. They are gnarly little black flies with strong exoskeletons and absolutely no fear. They fly up my nose in an instant, a bunch of them into each nostril like teams, buzzing and bumbling and bustleing and driving upwards like mad, with more muscle to their wingbeats than you could ever ever believe. Another ten or so went on into my mouth. When I pursed my lips to sputter the last two out that had not quite made it in, that had been caught between my lips, they beat their wings so hard they drove my lips apart. The other ones inside threw themselves hard against the sides of my mouth and teeth, and thumped their little bodies one against one another and buzzed with such a intensity, I could hear it loud inside my brain.

I was freaked, as you can imagine.

There’s a part of me wanted to jump up and cry out for help and slap at these little buggers and stagger around the room I suppose. But something in me knew. “No wait wait wait. Wait!” Relax, surrender, be calm. Calmate. From the moment I’d been about to jump up and start bitch slapping David, to sensing the flies, to having them swarm and invade me, I don’t believe I had moved an iota. And with an act of will I am immensely proud of to this day, I calmed myself entirely before I ever moved, and as soon as I did that, the flies quit their aggressive incessant buzzing, exited my body, and drifted off. Like, no big deal, or like they’d never been, it had never happened. But they were/had! And without a doubt I got my lesson about getting all irked by David’s problem loud and clear. And that’s it. What we bring with us to this work has a great deal to do with what the medicine has to work with.

That was a great blog on a subject very close to home!

All of these issues you articulate about sorcery in Amazonia are, mutatis mutandis, relevent to all magical cultures in one form or another. Where you say,

“once you begin la dieta, once you drink ayahuasca, once you begin to form relations of confianza with the healing plants, the world becomes a more dangerous place”

Can be applied to all bona fide initiatic paths the world over. It is interesting I came across this blog today because I just got finished saying the identically same thing to someone else in a different context, which I posted here:
http://forums.ayahuasca.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=176673#176673

That said, the question is where and what is the fine line between righteous indignation and anger? Every great initiatic Tradition speaks of elminating anger for precisely the reasons you outlined yet we have innumerable examples of Masters and adepts engaging in situations of righteous indignation that end up in some way rectifying situations that could’ve gone bad or had in fact gone bad. Think of Buddhist monks protesting in Tibet against Chinese rule or the ones setting themselves alight during Vietnam. There is also a great metaphoric story in the Qur’an’s surah of the Cave about the Prophet Khidr and Moses in that vein. Kabbalistic lore in Judaism is also chock full of these sorts of stories.

It’s an interesting question, all the same, and an even more interesting Reality we all live in as a result. My teacher once said to me, “Non-initiates are lucky in many ways. We initiates hold much bigger responsibilities to the world, nay to the whole of existence, on all levels than those who aren’t. Always remember that and you’ll be ok!”

Ya NUR
Wahid

“Now, was there any connection between my spider and his wife’s illness? Of course not.” I get the feeling that the positive was implied through the use of the negative here (for the benefit of those unaccustomed to this form of thinking…)

How fortunate it makes me feel to have found your website. I shall visit again.

<=0

‘Of course there was no connection.’ Did you ask ‘maestro ayahuasquero don Roberto Acho’ about this incident? I would be interested to hear his reasction directy?