Antrocles just emailed me the following field report and asked that I throw it up here for the edification of all. He was invited a couple of months ago by Daniel Pinchbeck (who he had recently met through mutual friends) to a 10 day Ayahuasca retreat in Costa Rica, run by the Ecuadorian Secoya elders that Pinchbeck wrote about in Breaking Open the Head and 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl. Anyway, he left on Monday morning. Here is his first communique. I will try and update it promptly as I receive new ones:
OH MY GOD!! there is a computer here but it is ancient, runs on solar power and uses a dial-up connection that works only just...
anyways, it's pretty insane here. i have no phone connection so even bbm is out. i'll report in as often as i can. this being cut-off from the industrialized world is a double edged sword at the moment. i'll do my best!
so- the boat ride through the amazon style mangrove swamps,rivers and even oceans was nuts. crocodiles, snakes and all kinds of crazy life. the place that i'm at is truly jungle living. septic system (wipe your butt and put it in a can in front the toilet cuz you can't put it down the toilet, no electricity once the sun goes down, truly hot and muggy...etc.) there's not much to do yet, just been reading doing tai chi on the beach in the morning, meditating and jumping in and out of the ocean which is 80 degrees...gonna take a day or two to shift from 'human doing' to 'human being'...
tonite/tomorrow at 3AM we come together in a clearing on an 'island' surrounded by a sacred river. under a full moon we will begin the first of three days of a preparation that will make us purge heavily. it also contains a strong amount of yage and many claim that it can be stronger than the actual ceremony brew! after three days of this we will fast on the fourth day and that evening will be the first actual 'ceremonio'. we will do this entire process three times during my stay here.
the 'dieta' is beans, rice, salad and veggies. we are allowed to eat fish and eggs as well but i'm going full-tilt on this one so i'm a vegan til i come home. between being so pure and the high vibration of this pristine place, i am already halfway out of my body. it is primitive, crude, uneventful and hot here.
i am in heaven....
the shamans are the most astounding revelation for me so far. don tintin and don regalio are both about 3'8" tall (serious). they dress in the ceremonial mumu of their secoya tribe. don regalio in bright yellow, don tintin in bright red. they are jungle smurfs, laughing little gnomes who are sincerely magical to be around. don tintin's laugh could bring the grim reaper to tears....they really and truly are children.
another amazing shaman from chile, don rodrigo is their overseer here. only he can prepare their food. only he can assist with the preparation of the yage and at times he is called upon to play the flute during ceremony. he is not allowed to apportion the brew to those in the ceremony and is not allowed to touch or interact with the shamans once all has started.
during the ceremony, the two spritely shamans sit at the head of the space. the men are in the front half of the space and the women are in the rear. if a woman is on her period, she may not attend and must actually stay far away from the ceremony. the shamans say this is because her emotions are less steady and they can affect the direct current being held by them during the work.
the first day here, i was a day early. it was only myself and a couple others. i met the shamans with a friend who is doing her second ceremony here at guaria. i gifted them a couple packs of cigarettes i had brought for them (these dudes smoke like a couple of chimneys!!). a little later in the day while i was reading alone in a common area, they both came in and sat with me. i was later told this doesn't happen often like this. we talked for awhile. my spanish isn't great and there's is only slightly better. their native tongue is a clicking, hissing, snapping amalgam of oral dexterity that i couldn't even begin to understand. i reminds me of what it would sound like if you mixed every known language together and added a bottle of tequila to it. yeah. if you heard it you'd agree.
these two guys are truly on a higher level. 'they are as children of 3 years', don rodrigo tells me. i naively offered them some cannibis i had brought and don tintin eagerly accepted. i can now officially cross 'smoking weed with a jungle shaman' off my list of things to do in my life. i was later told by don rodrigo to be careful offering things to the shamans since, as they are children in their purity and loving nature, they will try/do anything offered them. he said that they have used cannibis before but that they are too sensitive to use it often. i will say that i haven't had a fit of stoned laughter in many many years. with don tintin sitting opposite me losing his shit laughing like an insane hobbit, i think i put out a rib laughing for an hour straight!
and so now i leave you with the first in what i hope can be several installments of my experience here. a brother from the nexus is going to be showing up today with everyone else. i'm excited beyond words to meet this amazing dude in the flesh. well, the beans and rice have hit the table so i'm off.
love and gratitude,
Antrocles
OH MY GOD!! there is a computer here but it is ancient, runs on solar power and uses a dial-up connection that works only just...
anyways, it's pretty insane here. i have no phone connection so even bbm is out. i'll report in as often as i can. this being cut-off from the industrialized world is a double edged sword at the moment. i'll do my best!
so- the boat ride through the amazon style mangrove swamps,rivers and even oceans was nuts. crocodiles, snakes and all kinds of crazy life. the place that i'm at is truly jungle living. septic system (wipe your butt and put it in a can in front the toilet cuz you can't put it down the toilet, no electricity once the sun goes down, truly hot and muggy...etc.) there's not much to do yet, just been reading doing tai chi on the beach in the morning, meditating and jumping in and out of the ocean which is 80 degrees...gonna take a day or two to shift from 'human doing' to 'human being'...
tonite/tomorrow at 3AM we come together in a clearing on an 'island' surrounded by a sacred river. under a full moon we will begin the first of three days of a preparation that will make us purge heavily. it also contains a strong amount of yage and many claim that it can be stronger than the actual ceremony brew! after three days of this we will fast on the fourth day and that evening will be the first actual 'ceremonio'. we will do this entire process three times during my stay here.
the 'dieta' is beans, rice, salad and veggies. we are allowed to eat fish and eggs as well but i'm going full-tilt on this one so i'm a vegan til i come home. between being so pure and the high vibration of this pristine place, i am already halfway out of my body. it is primitive, crude, uneventful and hot here.
i am in heaven....
the shamans are the most astounding revelation for me so far. don tintin and don regalio are both about 3'8" tall (serious). they dress in the ceremonial mumu of their secoya tribe. don regalio in bright yellow, don tintin in bright red. they are jungle smurfs, laughing little gnomes who are sincerely magical to be around. don tintin's laugh could bring the grim reaper to tears....they really and truly are children.
another amazing shaman from chile, don rodrigo is their overseer here. only he can prepare their food. only he can assist with the preparation of the yage and at times he is called upon to play the flute during ceremony. he is not allowed to apportion the brew to those in the ceremony and is not allowed to touch or interact with the shamans once all has started.
during the ceremony, the two spritely shamans sit at the head of the space. the men are in the front half of the space and the women are in the rear. if a woman is on her period, she may not attend and must actually stay far away from the ceremony. the shamans say this is because her emotions are less steady and they can affect the direct current being held by them during the work.
the first day here, i was a day early. it was only myself and a couple others. i met the shamans with a friend who is doing her second ceremony here at guaria. i gifted them a couple packs of cigarettes i had brought for them (these dudes smoke like a couple of chimneys!!). a little later in the day while i was reading alone in a common area, they both came in and sat with me. i was later told this doesn't happen often like this. we talked for awhile. my spanish isn't great and there's is only slightly better. their native tongue is a clicking, hissing, snapping amalgam of oral dexterity that i couldn't even begin to understand. i reminds me of what it would sound like if you mixed every known language together and added a bottle of tequila to it. yeah. if you heard it you'd agree.
these two guys are truly on a higher level. 'they are as children of 3 years', don rodrigo tells me. i naively offered them some cannibis i had brought and don tintin eagerly accepted. i can now officially cross 'smoking weed with a jungle shaman' off my list of things to do in my life. i was later told by don rodrigo to be careful offering things to the shamans since, as they are children in their purity and loving nature, they will try/do anything offered them. he said that they have used cannibis before but that they are too sensitive to use it often. i will say that i haven't had a fit of stoned laughter in many many years. with don tintin sitting opposite me losing his shit laughing like an insane hobbit, i think i put out a rib laughing for an hour straight!
and so now i leave you with the first in what i hope can be several installments of my experience here. a brother from the nexus is going to be showing up today with everyone else. i'm excited beyond words to meet this amazing dude in the flesh. well, the beans and rice have hit the table so i'm off.
love and gratitude,
Antrocles
