Friday, March 18, 2011

Mother Jungle, Puerto Maldonado, Peru

new found friend

view from the front porch
the humble abode
nature made
From the high mountain towns you're man on the move went to the mother of them all, the Amazon! Nearly a stones throw from the Bolivian border, it was a quick 1 hour flight from the tops of the Andes. My reason for going, aside from cultivating the adventure of a lifetime? I made some solid friendships this past summer while in Portugal building for a psychedelic-trance music festival, one of which is a Shaman trained in the Peruvian Amazon. I came to his home in the jungle for a week of medicine ceremonies and deep introspective work. Let's just say I got what I was asking for...
  Upon arrival to the teeniest, tiniest airport surrounded by the largest swath of lush, green, vibrant, life I was easily noticed in the crowd deplaning and collecting my backpack. The "Guy in the Kilt" typically is easy to spot, no?
Our water chariots
leaves on a log... duh
Hair look familiar
  I was one of four travelers to come and join Fernando and his extended family for the week and the only native English speaker of ten peeps. We ranged from Spain, France, Mexico, Peru, and of course, the good ol' US of A. It certainly put my spanish to the test, beyond the test really, but when it was far too difficult to articulate myself the group was great about making translation for me. This came in handy in the evenings after our ceremonies as we would share our experience from the night before much like a support group and sharing circle.  
Little baby bats

chillin on the water

smaller than a poodle!
The pulse of life is stronger in the jungle than any city I've ever been to. The days shed little light in comparison to the orchestra of sounds played during the night! It didn't take long to truly realize just how immense mother nature really is. I came to dive deeper into this connection, with mother earth, with the cosmos and spirits, with myself. I came take part in ceremonies with some new friends from around the world and a shaman I'd met in late 2010 in Portugal. They say that what you learn in 10 days of meditation you can gather in one night with Mother Ayahuasca... now I can understand where this statement comes from, but to be perfectly honest what you learn in a ceremony is for you. No one else will have had the same experience nor faced the same inner demons or joys, and worked the same way you have... ceremony is meant for purification and transformation, and it did exactly that for me. In my own way, with Mother Ayahuasca and the Master Plant, Ajosacha, I feel like today and everyday I have an inner drive that propels me to do more. More smiling, lauging, living, creating... in trade for doing, thinking, grinding, dwelling... if that makes any sense. I faced some hard truths about myself of which I'm very thankful for. Things that I'd never had the courage to tell myself and bring into my forefront to change. Not to say that I'm on my way to enlightenment or being the best person in the world, but in this day and age I think every little bit helps... besides, the road to enlightenment is a long one, right? Here's a quote I like from my last in flight movie - Eat, Pray, Love.
     "In the end, I've come to believe in something I call "The Physics of the Quest." A force in nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity. The rule of Quest Physics goes something like this: If you're brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting, which can be anything from your house to bitter, old resentments, and set out on a truth-seeking journey, either externally or internally, and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher and if you are prepared, most of all, to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself, then the truth will not be withheld from you." True ain't it!?!?

1 comment:

  1. Hi Fezz, thanks for your words... and blessings where ever you are...

    ReplyDelete