Ayahuasca

WTF? Indeed!

It has been a week since I have taken the Ayahuasca and had my experience. I am astounded at the overall levity in my life but when I try to explain it blurs and moves and slips away, as though it does not want to be defined in simple words. I have placed an old Taoist poem below and replaced "the Way" with "Ayahuasca"

"The Ayahuasca experience is not true;
The world constructed is not real.
The Ayahuasca manifests all that happens and may happen;
The world represents all that exists and may exist.

Experience is to sense and know the world.

Beyond the gate of experience flows the Ayahuasca,
Which is ever greater and more subtle than the world."

Many of the passages of Tao resonate with the feeling in my experience and to perhaps get a greater understanding of the Ayahuasca philosophy - if there is such a thing - we need simply to study the Tao.

The other side or part of the experience is vomiting and diarrhea, crippling weakness and wild dizziness and if you're surrounded by bad energy the nightmarish visions you could encounter. All of these are very real possibilities when taking Ayahuasca however the bad visions can usually be avoided by making sure you are using a reputable shaman with good people around. Everything except bad visions happened to me but the whole time I KNEW it all to be for good.

What more can I say? I am still living in the moment and the experiment. I feel that things are better and I don't think it's going away. I peeked into the universes key hole and witnessed its insides. I can not ever forget that and trying to explain it is the same as standing on the shore and asking how the river feels when it flows over you...you must enter to really know.

Alexgrey.com photos

Million dollar days

A day that has no trading value because you cannot quantify things like good conversation, shared and humble meals, surf, hikes in the jungle, a variety of birds and flowers, tranquility, peace and good vibes is what I consider a million dollar day. It may well also be called a splendific, rapturous day of amazingness but Ill just call it a million dollar day for easy appeal. Like the Mona Lisa it has value but is not for auction, it is unplanned and gone as quickly as it is discovered and experienced. Things are harvested from these days but the seed is invisible under the ground, infact it has tranformed and become something other than a seed. It cannot be sold and expires after one use. It is dependent on many intellectual and philosophical ideas, your personal health and finances, your state of mind. It is dependent on other people and their own health, ideas and outlooks and in my case their friendly and funny conversation and the way they invite me to a meal without asking me but by making up a plate and assuming I have an appetite. It is experience, weather,culture, geography, time, age, people, animals, flora, air.

A million dollar day starts when you awake without alarm, obligation or appointment. You are strong and healthy and the sun shines between cotton ball clouds. Breakfast and lunch and coffee are taken an hour apart and the ocean beckons you to surf by giving perfect waves of a glassy nature. The birds are talking and their songs are like music, painless and uplifting.

A million dollar day can be spent without spending a dime. It is enjoyed of the fruits of the jungle and farm and grows out of the earth. It is the fresh water that bubbles up from the ground filtered and ready for the body. It is knowing you have food in stores or silver under your pillow. You have worked, suffered, sweat, bled, dreamed, and even died to reach this day or days of days. That history has led you to this single point and you have the clarity of mind to perceive it outside of your ego, your wanting or expectations and without entitlement allows for the saturation of the whole experience without perversions. A pure and whole picture of the world without names or identity.

Finally, a million dollar day is new experiences,new places, new memories, new friends, new thoughts, new. A rare and fleeting feeling. An unquantifiable experience generally not recorded but in the best literature by the likes of Hamsun, Emerson or Thoreau. A slow and multifaceted commingling of little moments and epic revelations. A day that doesn't happen five times a week, month or year. A space of time that for whatever reason transitions smoothly from dawn till dusk and dream until morning.

These are my past two days. Stacked on top of each other at the pinnacle of an increasing slope of good days. Profitable not in silver or dollar but in experience and realization to be added up at the end when I am laying in my death bed counting my luck.

The surf life

Being a surfer is not easy. You must get out of bed early some days and walk a little distance to the beach. If the waves are not good then all is for nothing. Your bed may be cold by this time. Or, perhaps, the tide is wrong and you must wait until noon and what are you to do until then? Work? Certainly not! No you must wander around and socialize, check your Facebook and twitter accounts and post a pic or two to instagram...I tell you, life is not easy. Finally when noon rolls around and you have had your espresso and the tide is right and you check the waves, Lo and behold they are small and the wind is onshore...oh the humanity! No being a surfer is not easy. Now you must fill the rest of the day with reading a book, typing a blog, or having a fancy cigarette and losing yourself on a walk. I mean its totally unproductive and good for nothing this society celebrates. It is tough knowing all your old friends are working diligently towards owning that new house and vehicle, furiously trying to keep a pace with fashion and technology and mainstream media, (however spun and delusional it is) whilst they lament their very lives and wish and dream for what is practically and readily available If only they didn't consume so much. If only they knew happiness without possesion, without material identification or social stature. Yes, life is not easy being a surfer. Our stature is so low some even use the adverb "bum" after our title referring to our seemingly lazy slothlessness. Skiers get the same rap but what those others don't know and what you must understand is that being a surfer is difficult because it uses up all your energy, so much infact that even when you are lying back in your hammock you are using energy just repairing the muscles you used to catch waves the day before. It is almost unfair how we are treated considering the difficulties of being a surfer. Having to fly to exotic locations with dangerous passages on our ways and never having our own gardens to fall back on but having to eat out for almost every meal. And just yesterday I went to the corner store to get a bottle of water and all they had was beer! Let me tell you; being a surfer is not easy.

Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador

morphos...i mean more photos

MOMBACHO

My little casa, moto, and attempt at getting fresh donuts in Nicaragua

Costa Again