The Way – The Real Truth About Ayahuasca
The road along The Way is going to be stormy and turbulent at times so buckle up…
One of the many interesting and curious understandings that has been revealed to me over the past few years I have done my work with plant medicine, is just how misunderstood it all is. I certainly didn’t understand it when this began, and through that misunderstanding all sorts of untruths manifested into the world. That is what this piece is all about, the truth about this path, the truth about the medicine, how and why it works to help people change their lives, and the truth about why it doesn’t work sometimes. My path has been beautiful and curious, filled with more love and joy than I have ever known, but it is not necessarily the easiest path, as the medicine always asks us to face truth that we may not want to see, I could no longer hide from myself. In a society that has conditioned us to want everything now, to just take a pill to feel better, it is no wonder the misunderstanding exists. Sitting with this medicine is not some quick fix, unless we are willing to face and let go of whatever brought us to this point, our life will continue on just as it has been.
The way this path has unfolded before me, seems improbable yet obvious in the moment, quite paradoxical. I have written several times about the experiences themselves, I won’t rehash those same stories again, but rather I want to focus on outcomes, the results. The experience of sitting with medicine, being in ceremony, that is what most people think it is all about, which makes sense because of the collective understanding or misunderstanding. Just a bunch of people seeking some sort of altered state experience. I promise you, it is most likely not what you think it is! What I am here to share with you in these words is not about the experience of sitting with medicine, or being in a ceremony, while that experience itself is important, magical, and beautiful, it is not the result, or it shouldn’t be at least. There are those that come only seeking the experience, they are always obvious to me by the words they use and the way the medicine works through them. But that is neither here nor there, any given ceremony will be filled with people seeking all sorts of things, whatever they are looking for is perfect for them in that moment.
Once you sit with the medicine, and really receive it, you realize the real magic happens in the days, weeks and months that follow. The real story of my own personal expansion as a human being that has resulted since the first time I sat in ceremony manifests in the moments in between, the medicine reveals what we need to see so we can shift our lives to expand into the full potential of our being, whatever that happens to be, and we are all unique, and thus will receive it differently. Somewhere along the way you begin to realize that the medicine is always working through you, more precisely, you are the medicine. The plants simply clean the metaphorical window so you can see more clearly. These plants are wise, they understand much about our existence here in this universe, if only we can stop our story for a while and listen to what they are telling us, we might actually hear what is coming through.
One of the things I am asked regularly is the following; if the experience is so profound then why do some people come back over and over? That is a complicated question, the truth is not everyone does, some people do, some don’t. Then there are those like me, who come back to be of service to other beings navigating this path. At the last retreat I attended, this role I play of being in service and what that looks like, came up repeatedly. Several participants, on several occasions, asked the question, ”How do you do this work on the medicine, I can’t even move during ceremony?”. That is the only way you can do this work, in ceremony. Everyone must be aligned energetically, together in the medicine. Those of us on this path of service to others know that we have been called to do so, but the how is a combination of things, the first of which is just what we are as beings, how the medicine works through us, our intention, that one is hard to put on a finger on but when you meet someone like this you know it. The second and most important lies within the life choices made, the choice to live a life that is in alignment with the truth, the truth about yourself, the truth the plants are revealing to you. This means making choices that can feel hard, my friends and I that do this work have decided that the work is the most important thing. There is no middle ground, you either make a choice to stay in the light and the truth, be all the way in, or the medicine will spit you right back out. So, the answer to the question, “how do you do it?”, well the work begins not when the ceremony starts, but rather in the way we walk through life, our life is our work. It means only engaging with people that are additive to our lives, being mindful of the spaces we enter, the company we keep, resisting the urge to escape with alcohol or cannabis, or the hundreds of other ways people escape their consciousness, and rather than ignoring or suppressing the thoughts and feelings that come up in the course of life, we face them head on, remembering they are for us, and just sit with them. We are always listening to what the medicine is giving us, every single day and every moment. Learning to sit with my mind and work through whatever is showing up in that moment has been some of the hardest work I have ever done, and it continues to be to this day. I’ve spent my entire life distracting this mind of mine…
Those of us who serve in this capacity are energy workers, as in we create the space that allows others to move the stored and blocked energy in their body and being. I have written these words many times, “everything is energy”, and that is a scientific fact. As we go about our daily lives, depending on our awareness, clarity, and choices, we accumulate these energies in our bodies. It blocks our clarity, blocks our consciousness. It comes in many names and forms, such as guilt, fear, shame, anger, judgement, self-hatred, etc., and along with the actions we take in life, creates a poison of sorts which lives within us. That poison manifests itself out into toxic relationships, alcohol and drug abuse, sexual addiction, or overeating, to name just a few. Helping others unblock that stuck energy, purging that poison from their being is always the first step, because to truly move forward in your life, you must first leave your shit behind. Once a person becomes unstuck and makes the shifts in their life, then they can move into a real expansion phase, which is another reason someone might come back to sit with medicine, to do further work to step into becoming what they have always been and keep peeling back new layers. For many though, the re-accumulation is why they come back to sit with medicine over and over, because they forget that the real work begins when the ceremony ends. They must find the way, begin walking a new path, the path the medicine showed them, otherwise they end up right back where they began, sitting in ceremony so we can clean them again.
The way for me, is not the way for everyone, but what I want to share here are the lessons the plants have taught me about my life. We all come here as pure consciousness; the moment we are born into this world the imprinting and conditioning begins. Just think how pure and innocent a baby is, before life and society creeps into their understanding. That is a pure energy being! Deep down this is what we all are, that thing is still inside of us. The way for me has been all about looking at myself in the mirror, taking radical responsibility for my life, for my relationships, for my own expansion. With full awareness and understanding that if I wanted something to be different, I had to choose to make it different, because this experience isn’t happening to you, it is happening through you. I made the choice to face myself, not hide within the distractions of life, to look at my own shit, and own that shit. I chose to own and expand my consciousness rather than hiding from it. It is an ongoing and forever process, the work never ever ends…
So what does that mean? Each of us is a vessel, a container if you will, and we either make conscious choices on how we will fill that vessel or we let it fill up through our unconscious actions. It’s a choice! It means that I make the choice every day to show up and let my light shine, to recognize when I am carrying judgement, to always find forgiveness, to give and receive love freely without condition, to look at every thought and feel it completely, to resist the urges to engage in unintentional actions to hide from my feelings. It is all about energy, the energy we carry in our being, what we allow in our life, everything is energy. This means that I can’t let just anyone into my life, I have lost good friends and loved ones along the way, usually a distance grows between us and then they simply fall out of my life. Not because there is anything wrong with them, simply because we are not aligned energetically. There is no judgement on my part, everyone has free will and is entitled to live their life as they see fit, I love and accept each one as they are, but that doesn’t mean I can allow them into my energy field, especially not while I am doing this sort of work. I must work to remain a vessel of clean energy and intention. This is most especially true with romantic and sexual relationships, the choice of who we share our energy with is one of the most important decisions we can make, it is better to be in no relationship than the wrong relationship, in fact the wrong relationships can suck the energy that is the essence of your being. The right balance of masculine and feminine energy together might be the most powerful force of creation in the universe, but the wrong balance is equally as powerful in destruction.
All of this is mental atmosphere at work, what we are on the inside, mental atmosphere is simply the projection of our thought vibrations, the way we choose to live our life, what you are speaks so much louder than your words. It is a powerful truth that the plants reveal overtime, slowly at first, then more rapidly as we expand. When you sit in ceremony with people, doing this energy work, you see and feel their mental atmosphere, it resonates and vibrates through the room, and in some moments, the medicine moves it through my body to help them clear it. The medicine cleanses, freeing the person from all things that are holding them hostage from becoming what they have always been. There is this term we use sometimes after a person walks out of a retreat, “they have that ayahuasca glow”, what is being perceived is their mental atmosphere, their thought vibration, the frequency of energy they are emitting into the world, who they truly are under all the shit they left behind in ceremony… In order to maintain and hold onto that glow, the way of walking in life matters, living in truth, living in alignment, being mindful of your energy, and each person must find the way for one’s self.
I really want to be careful here to not make this sound like judgement, because it is not. I have made choices that are best for me and those I love, but I am in no way standing in judgement of anyone else’s choices in life. In fact quite the opposite is true, I accept you as you are. This is why this piece is titled The Way, it is a way of walking in life, a way of being completely and radically responsible for your shit, facing it, cleaning it up, and even loving it… Since I made this choice and agreement with myself, my life has completely shifted, I love more, all my relationships have fundamentally transformed, I have found deep gratitude for the beautiful people who are in my life, abundance is my natural state of being, everything just flows to me effortlessly, and I have found complete devotion and purpose in being of service to others through this work. Beyond the illusion of the physical world, these are the things that really matter in our experience here on Earth.
Nothing happens in isolation or in and of itself, except for the One Law of the Universe, what we allow into our life, who we choose to be, vibrates out through our body, and ripples through the world. My life forever changed for the better when all this found me. I will continue to step into it, and see where this way takes me, I know with certainty it is important work that I am doing, but I am not here now or ever to convince anyone to sit in a plant medicine ceremony, in fact I rarely if ever tell people they should do it, it is simply not my place. Here is the reason, you must start showing up for yourself, not because I or someone else said so, but because you are ready to expand your experience of life, stop hiding from yourself, clean up your shit, and face yourself. It is that choice that is fundamental to having a beautiful and meaningful ayahuasca experience, because when the medicine makes you face yourself, there is no hiding, you can’t run away, you will have to look at it and sit with it, until you clear it.
Make no mistake, ayahuasca and any psychedelic medicine for that matter, are tools, a tool to kill the ego for a short period of time, allowing us to see past the stuff in our way. It allows us to experience a state of consciousness without the ego, opening us up to the understanding that everything is energy, you are not a being living a linear existence in time and space, but rather a being of dimensional existence in one eternal present moment. As we discussed before about why people might come back over and over, the danger is when you don’t realize the real work happens in between, not while sitting with medicine The desire for a quick fix to all that ails us, overpowers making the tough choices on how we live, it simply feels easier to come back again, regain that clarity for a few hours, days or weeks, only to be met again by life once back home. We can’t run from life, these medicines are not an escape, but rather tools, a tool that should be respected and listened to when it speaks to you.
While I am not one to typically suggest or encourage people to choose this path, I do wish more people would. What the world could be… But… People must find their own way. That said, when you see people and know that their life could be so much more, more joy, more love, more gratitude, more abundance, more, more, more, if they could just face themselves and find the way, one can’t help but wonder what could be... I also wish more people that feel they don’t need this path would find it, because those people who are doing ok or well in life, generally happy and healthy, are the ones the medicine can help the most. It is like putting jet fuel on an already established fire, exponential expansion and capacity, especially young people, who are still open and mostly pure, without all the shit piled up on them yet, life has not yet fully “happened to them”. I recognize all of this as my wishful thinking, my own desires, my own dreams, my own vision for the world and I accept that what I want is quite irrelevant here, my role is one of observer, working to bring understanding and supporting those who made the choice to take ownership of their life for themselves and begin finding The Way.
Joshua
“Hard it is to be born,
Hard it is to live,
Harder still to hear of the way,
And hard to rise, follow, awake.Yet the teaching is simple.
Do what is right.
Be Pure.
At the end of the way freedom.
Till then, patience.”The Man Who is Awake, Dhammapada-The Sayings of the Buddha
