Ahyasca retreat day 1: Memento

 

Ahyuasca retreat day 1 :  Memento.

 

I’m sitting in the circle, waiting for my turn to give my intentions.  Many thoughts are swirling around in my head, because I’m wondering what the proper intention to set is.  Should I be more conservative, not put my hopes up to high, and then be disappointed?  Is setting the bar too high a sign of ego and arrogance, which I will pay for during the experience?  Should I set an intention at all, considering I have no clue where this will take me, so perhaps I should just go with the flow, in total acceptance?   My turn came, and I simply said:  I want to UNDERSTAND, I want to SEE the world, life, for what it really is, I want to see the Matrix, how it all makes sense, how everything is perfect, the essence of life.  There you go, I set the grandiose intention, a little shy I actually said it out loud, a touch of self consciousness that others may have found me a little delusional or cocky.  Nevertheless, I was calm, open and looking forward to it.  I really had no fear at all, which surprised me; only a few years ago I would have NEVER considered even touching a mind altering substance, I was 1000% against drugs, and highly judgmental of people using them!  I would see it as a scar on someone’s character, just like alcohol or cigarettes.  I was always the white knight, virtuous on his path of becoming the greatest version of myself, which clearly did not include any form of “cheating”, meaning any outside-in, chemically induced transient states of consciousness.  Just like when I was in University, and witnessed so many people needing to drink, get drunk, to loosen up, open up, share, express love and joy, I swore to myself I would NEVER need a crutch to do this.  I would suffer through the shyness, the fears, the raw emotions and rise above them, naturally, consciously. 

Almost 30 years later, it is as if I have come to the realization that my rational mind and emotions will only take me so far.  I’ve done so much personal development, retreats; read books, worked on myself, that I humbly admitted that “more” of the same will not make a difference. 

And now, here I was, sitting on a yoga mat, with pillows and covers, waiting for my cup of ahyuasca.  I was surprised by the color, a dark, molasses-like color and texture, with a slight sweet smell.  Once we all had our cup, we drank it like a shooter (the irony made me smile!), and to my relief, it actually did taste like molasses, rather than some foul tasting herbal concoction. So for the next 6 hours, he would hold the space for us to live our experience, and guide us with music, sounds, a touch, whatever was needed along the way. He closed all the lights except for a dim small light near the bathroom, as the darkness sets the tone for the inner journey.  The shaman then told us that later in the evening; he would light a candle, and offer a second portion of ahyuasca, if we feel compelled for more.

My immediate concern was that I didn’t want to throw up.  Purging seems to be a very common phenomenon, and it happens to at least one person every time. So I really didn’t want to be that person!  Ego? Perhaps.  I was hoping that all the work I had done on myself would facilitate my own process, and not require this. So I lay down comfortably, closed my eyes and waited.  I would feel the occasional nausea come up, but I would simply breathe, shift my body, sometimes ever so slightly, and it would pass. It made me smile, as it became something I could almost play with, a constant measure of my unconscious resistance, and a reminder to just relax, breathe and go with the flow. I was then confident that I would be okay, even really connecting with the idea that whatever discomfort or pain I would feel is directly related to my inability to let go and be in the moment.  I was there, lying on the floor with my eyes closed, not noticing much. I even asked myself, what if I fall asleep before this takes effect?  Is that even possible?  I had no idea what time it was, or how much time had elapsed, but it was supposed to take  30-40 minutes for the effects to really kick in, and so far, nothing….  I just went with it, definitely feeling tired and sleepy, but not more. 

Then came the light, the candle, indicating it was time for the second drink. I wondered if I should. Do I authentically want another shot?  Or is this my inflated ego thinking I’m the shit, I can handle this, and I’m too good for just one dose?  I definitely didn’t want to puke my guts on after a second glass!  I sat for a moment, and felt it was aligned to get more. So I did. 

I barely had time to lay down that the very fabric of time and space almost instantly disappeared, and I was in this infinite void of nothingness. This gets tricky to describe, as the very attempt at explaining this takes us away from the actual experience.  I had no “visions”, or sensory experiences, it was truly beyond all of that, as if I was turned inwards, having a conversation with the highest version of myself, in a state of perfect overview of life itself.  It was a cascade of insights, observations, a mesmerizing experience, that had me laughing my head off.  The absolutely fascinating feeling of not knowing where I am, what I am imagining vs actually reality, sounds, words, physical sensations, ideas.  Now I totally understand how Neale Donald Walsch wrote the book: Conversations with God, I wished I had a recorder to hear everything I was saying….  Unless I wasn’t actually saying it out loud?  I had no way to know!  I could observe my ego wash over the conversation, call myself out on it, laugh out loud, and watch it recede, like a wave, in and out, for hours and hours. “WHY would I want to record this?  To get attention, significance, to look good, to feel important! HAHAHAHA!”  It was literally like going down the proverbial rabbit hole, gaining insight after insight, so many “aha!” moments that made me laugh hysterically.  It seems I was laughing pretty much the whole time, which gave me a scope of how many insights I actually got. It was extremely powerful for me to truly focus on the essence of everything, and as I was doing that, it was elusive, not there, but wait, no, not quite, oh yes!  But no….  and coming to a complete standstill, a space of absolute nothing, connecting to what it means for things to be “empty and meaningless”, and for the world of possibilities to be truly infinite.  It then hit me, how we seem to perpetually seek this absolute freedom, this total “beingness”, the perfect, perpetual present moment, and we just never seem to get there.  I saw the perfect duality, how attaining absolute freedom brings with it the burden of absolute responsibility…  The most powerful overview!  Could it TRULY be that simple, that it’s perfectly empty and meaningless?  The absolute simplicity of it was mind boggling, and so obvious, it was incredibly captivating. 

The most powerful moment of it all came when the crystal clear image of the movie “memento” came to me (a must watch by the way)  It’s the story of a man who lost his short term memory during a burglary, where he woke up bloodied, with his wife dead next to him.  He spends his life seeking the murderer, which proves an immense challenge when your short term memory is about 30 seconds long.  His entire focus, life purpose and drive is towards finding out what happened.  And then, he figures it out.  But the truth being so unbearable, the finality of it, he was confronted with the impossible question:  “Now what do I do?  I no longer have a purpose, a reason to live, a life impulse to move me forward, and having no memory, I am now totally useless.”  What does he do?  He CHOOSES to write down a false piece of information, that, once he forgets he intentionally lied about it, will make sure he NEVER finds the truth, thus keeping him in this perpetual loop of seeking and searching.  It was an electric, enlightening moment of truth for me, an agreement I made with myself as I began this journey into the Matrix, that I will see and experience it for What It Truly Is, on the condition that, once it is over, I will forget, it will fade away from my memory….  To allow me to once again search for it, embark on the lifelong journey of finding IT, the universal truth, the Answer to all questions, the ultimate purpose.  Because once we find it, are it, be it, there is nothing else, and the impulse of life ends. I laughed, ohhhh how I laughed at the beauty of it all, at KNOWING that its all perfect, at every moment, the duality in all things, the inextricable nature of it.  I had an intellectual understanding that suffering is the non-acceptance of “what is”, but I now felt it on a cellular level.

The evening ended for almost everyone, the sat up, shared and went to bed, but I did not, I spent the entire night on this beautiful journey, free, open, full of joy, certainty, gratitude and presence.  I woke up the next morning, admiring the impenetrable fog that blanketed the small lake. I went outside with a blanket, sat for hours, simply watching the morning sun rising, shining though and slowly, slowly dissipating the fog, until the sky was sparkling blue.

Did we truly come here as energetic beings, having a physical experience?  Are we really extensions of the universe seeking to see and understand itself?   Will I ever find these answers I have been seeking all my life?  That unsolvable paradox is what fuels life, the impulse to grow, to move forward, to evolve, and the more we seek it, the more elusive it becomes.  So we forget. And I smile.

And that was only day one J

PS: if you read this till the end, leave me a little comment, I like to know what you think, it fuels me to write more!

 

 

My family retreat experience part 2: the Word

 

In the beginning was the Word. Such a powerful yet simple phrase.  And yet, during my experience, I was incredibly present to the duality of this, as another statement kept ringing in my thoughts:  too many words…. Our only truth is touch. That was incredibly fascinating and revealing to me, I became present to the futility, the ephemeral nature of words, as if speaking in itself was a way to create separation, rather than connection. That only through physical contact, a hug, an energetic connection to the other, do we really tell the truth to each other. Hugs cannot lie, they tell all.

The scope of this washed over me like a cold current, how we now live in a world that has not only mandated us to physically disconnect with each other, but that has conditioned what could be described as a gag reflex at the mere thought of physical proximity.  The greatest tragedy of this era is also the most disregarded, ignored, dismissed. Our vitality, our energy, our life force is intimately related to our ability to physically connect with each other.  I can actually feel the pain of this lack of touch, how I actually have difficulty connecting and trusting people that are afraid to touch.  My intellect knows better, that some people just don’t like being touched, but my inner core being wants to just run away, not to associate with people that have a fight or flight reaction to even energetic proximity….

Wow this page is much harder to write than the previous one, I actually have a latent anxiety in the middle of my chest, as if I feel I have to “watch” my words somehow. What am I afraid of right now?  I think I’m present to the challenge of putting actual words to an idea that dismisses them.  Hmm, my male conditioning also feels awkward talking about my desperate need for hugs and physical contact, that’s not very manly of me, is it? How do I even explain this? Where are the double-blind studies demonstrating the effectiveness of hugs to health and well being…  uuuggghhhhh.  So tired of hearing this. Too many damn words, too many words.  I have been observing myself, how everytime I want to open my mouth, there is some underlying need, or reason, to do so. To feel important, to be right, to be validated, to gain trust, love, approval, to avoid feeling rejected, fear, pain, doubt, etc… the list is endless.

I was lying there with my eyes closed, still into the experience, and I could hear others speaking, and it felt so incredibly futile. Why are they speaking?  Why not just hug, and hold the space?  It felt so totally empty and meaningless to fill the space with words, sounds, noise.  I actually gave a powerful hug to someone yesterday, and that lady told me it was the FIRST hug she got from a non-immediate family member since the beginning of this. I was flattered, and sad for her at the same time.

Damn I just saw that I don’t have that many words in this page…  I have to make it longer….  But why?  For you to like me more, to want to keep on reading tomorrow, to not get disapproval, to get good comments….  You see?  All these thoughts,fears and insecurities want to bring on more words, more text, more “filler”.  What if 500 words was enough for today? I’m smiling now, as I get these glimpses that its all ok, whatever I choose to do.

My task for the day, hug more, listen, talk less.

PS:  I just got goose bumps, and realized how incredibly important it was for me to hold my newborn son, skin to skin...  and to listen to his first sounds....

The weekend retreat experience, part 1

 

 

How to put into words what is unspeakable? When every word ushered takes us a step away from truly grasping the experience?  What if it’s actually only through the experience that one can begin to grasp the magnitude and simplicity of it?  What I see, is that my identity, that part of me that wants to be acknowledged, recognized, and feel significant, truly wants me to start putting it all in writing, for there is a great fear I will forget, time will go by, and things will go back to normal, and it will all fade away into distant memory. The usual little questions arise:  Should I record this instead of writing it?  Perhaps on video?  Or just audio, yeah, like a podcast.  How about writing?  DO people still read, or do they prefer to listen to stuff on the go, in their car, during their walk or exercise?  And then I laugh, now present to how insignificant these considerations are on the bigger picture, and how they are purely motivated by what I can call “inauthentic” motives. I say inauthentic not from a right/wrong perspective, but more from an unconscious-hidden/aware-choice point of view.  As humans, it is simply being alive and mortal to have needs. Some needs are more physical like food, shelter, water.  Other needs are more of the mental intellectual plane, like learning, understanding, feeling useful.  Others are of a higher plane, like the need for love, to love, to connect.  So I ask myself, WHY do I delay in doing this? Why do I hesitate between one media or another?  If I’m honest with myself, its nothing more than:  what will me look good, what will have people admire me most, what will give me most visibility  or what minimizes my risk of getting rejected.  So I smile, simply being aware of this, I pause, close my eyes, and breathe.  And I then simply open my laptop, and start typing.  Just because.

I feel the tension in my neck, having fleeting thoughts about how to get rid of it.  I now actually stopped writing, wondering to myself if this is even interesting, does it make sense, will I be able to build a long term project with this, etc….  And I smile again.  I’m amused at how many considerations constantly cloud my judgement and my ability to assess and do things.

And here I go googling “how to create a blog”, a welcome distraction from actually WRITING it J And I laugh!  My what an experience this weekend was!   Oh, and yes, I will be writing this in English.  Yeah, I know, why not French?  Because 95% of the readers will speak English, and very few French, and just the thought of having to do both languages just kills the idea for me.  Unless maybe, I write a few just in French.  Or even mix both?  Hey, its my damn blog, and I can write whatever the hell I want. I might not write swear words, but that's about it.

Yes, you are probably thinking, man, he’s supposed to write about hisexperience, I’m still waiting!!  This is it though, I am writing about my experience.  Oh, you mean an actual description of the timeline of events?  Where we were, what time, the temperature, where we were sitting, and all that?  My oh my how irrelevant that is to the actual scope of the experience itself!  Don’t get me wrong, context and environment are ABSOLUTELY decisive in having a good experience.  So don’t try this at home (I mean it).

Now I have a little twinge of anxiety creeping up.  Is this long enough for a first blog post?  Too long? Too short? How do I do this now?  I SHOULD be able to do this on my own (damn male identity thing)  People wont care, I wont do this right, and bla, bla, bla.  I laugh again, at the persistence of these defense mechanisms. But you know what?  It doesn’t matter.  Really.  I will all play out perfectly anyway. That just might be a hint to what one of the big lessons I got was. On the grand scheme of things, its all masterfully perfect.

I’m now fidgeting in my chair, feeling some pain on my left T7 rib ( see how important that makes me look?  I’m a doctor and I know my anatomy!)  So perhaps, for now, this could be considered enough for day one.  Unless its not?  I just smile.

Ok I just googled “how many words should a blog post have”, and it seems mine is a bit short, so let me fill in a few more lines here just for me to feel more secure.  Now don’t worry, plenty more to come about this, as I will share more and more about this experience, and about plenty of other stuff.  Leave your comments, ask questions, and I will be glad to respond J