Today I will diverge from straight research mode to talk about some personal aspects of this situation. As is usual with these huge topics, it takes me a minute to figure out where to start. So I will brainstorm. Here are some questions: How do you (and should you) talk to kids about your spirituality when it involves the use of an illegal substance? What is the role of parents in raising their children according to their own spiritual beliefs? Do parents have the right to introduce their children to traditions that use entheogens? When is it/ IS it OK to invite your children to participate in an entheogenic ceremony with you? Why or why not? (At another time I also want to cover parents' legal rights - or lack thereof - in this area.) What kind of complex situations might be facing your children when they
have to keep their parents' spiritual beliefs secret from their friends/friends' parents/school/community, and is this fair to them? What are the ramifications in terms of credibility as parents if your (entheogenic) spiritual practice were to become known to the wider community of parents, school faculty, employers, etc?
It is with these questions in mind that I would like to begin with my own story, right after the healing episode with the medicine I wrote about in Blog #7. As a true and typical Aries woman, I did what you might expect when confronted by a profound and life-changing event: I jumped in whole-heartedly, with both feet, and included my children and my spouse in every way. Now, my kids, ages 13 (boy) and 9 (girl), had already been introduced to the visiting shaman from Peru: since my then-husband made musical instruments, our musician friend, his translator, had brought him over to our place to check out a churango - Peruvian guitar - the day before the ceremony. The shaman met my nine-year-old daughter, and (through the translator) told us," If she ever wants to come drink medicine, she is invited to come to a ceremony, any time." I was a bit surprised, not being familiar with the Peruvian culture or the Shipibo medicine tradition, but assumed that in his tradition, kids were welcome to drink medicine if they wanted to. (This is true, by the way.) I also knew that he could see the beautiful light of my daughter's spirit, and knew that her presence would be a blessing to any ceremony. (To be fair, my son also has a beautiful spirit, but he is just not oriented toward the spiritual/ceremonial/mystical realms, and I think that was as obvious to the shaman as it was to me!)
Anyway, a few days after my intense healing
with the medicine, I invited my kids to a picnic lunch
with me on our lawn. We ate some food, and I told them I had something important to tell them. They were curious. I told them that the shaman who they had met at our house had led an ancient ceremony that I attended, during which we drank a special plant medicine that could help a person let go of things like old hurts and anger, sore spots on the inside, from your life, when you felt like things were unfair, or wrong, or when bad things happened and you couldn't do anything about it. We generated some examples of these kinds of things (which sadly I don't remember after all these years. It was a rich discussion, though!). I told them I had been carrying some emotional things like that from when I was a kid and that as a result of the ceremonies I attended, I had been able to let go of a LOT of heavy feelings that had been keeping me down, making me feel sad and unhappy, and that I was going to be happier and be able to have more fun in life from then on.
I then talked to them about how in their teen years, it was very likely that their peers (and perhaps they as well) would become interested in experimenting with substances that change a person's normal way of looking at the world - their consciousness - such as alcohol, marijuana, and other substances called psychedelics. My son already had friends who smoked pot, so he knew what I meant. My daughter, not so much. But basically I let them know that experimentation like this is normal, and that they didn't have to hide these behaviors from me. I told them that this was not me encouraging them to use these substances, but just acknowledging that it seems to be a normal teenage thing. I don't believe in the 'abstinence' model of "Just Say No," either in the realm of sex ed. or in addressing the use of substances. I believe education and information are essential. I knew from my own past that the lies I was told in the drug section of our Health Ed. class made me want to discount everything the adults said. I discussed with my children the many reasons why people take and use substances, and encouraged them to really think, IF they were going to do something, WHY they were doing it, instead of just going along with the group. In other words, to bring conscious attention to their actions. (In retrospect, quite honestly I am not sure these talks had any positive impact on my
children, at all. I plan on asking them about this when we do the interviews.)
I also let them know that if substances called 'psychedelics' started being used by their friends, and if they wanted to try altering their consciousness within a traditional setting, with elders and within a really safe container, they would be allowed to come to a ceremony with me and take ayahuasca there. Open invitation.
My daughter took me upon this invitation right before her thirteenth birthday. She came to a night of ceremony that fall (2007) and has continued to attend on and off now for the past eight years (she will be 21 this fall). It is apparent that she both gets a lot out of the ceremonies, the medicine, and the medicine community, and also that her interest in/need for ceremony goes in cycles or phases, as her attendance over the years has not been consistent. My son has attended ceremony twice, at age 18 and age 23, both times 'doing it for his mom,' because he knows it means a lot to me. He has no personal agenda or philosophy of working on himself or trying to be a better person, or healing, or anything of the sort. He likes who he is and is content with the way things are, and so really doesn't see the need to do ceremonies to 'be better,' as my teacher likes to say (about the reason we drink the medicine).
So, now to address some of those questions from the beginning of this blog.
Obviously, in my life I have exercised my perceived right to include my children in my spiritual beliefs. I had done so way before ever using ayahuasca or yagé - I had been taking my children to sweat lodges since they were born. I do not believe that children should be 'indoctrinated' into spiritual beliefs, however. I would never make a child get into a sweat lodge or drink medicine if they didn't want to. I believe in talking things through with kids, somehow working to communicate within their level of understanding, and inviting them to decide what they want - allowing them the experience of asking their own intuition, of knowing that they possess an inner wisdom that can be accessed and understood - and trusting their own inner authority on the subject. I believe curiosity is our birthright and natural state, and that it is safe to expose children to things and let them explore as their interests guide them. This is the philosophy of Montessori schools, incidentally.
I am sure there will be people who read this who scoff and start in with the 'what if's' and 'no ways' and so forth. All I can say is that sure, there are times when a parent has to be authoritarian, and decide FOR the child (ie: when you have to grab their arm and not let them cross the street in front of oncoming traffic). But I am not talking about those instances.
I believe that it was not only OK to invite my children to participate in entheogenic ceremonies with me, but that it was essential, given the immense growth and transformation I have experienced on this path. I could not have been in authentic relationship with them if I had been forced to keep this part of my life a secret. I believe their exposure to this medicine tradition was gradual, safe, respectful, and that their own inner wisdom told them when they were ready for such an experience. I know that I never put any pressure on either of them to participate in medicine ceremonies (although admittedly I HAVE done this with sweat lodges, especially with my son - but that's a different story). I feel fortunate that neither of my children's' fathers objected (or would have objected, in the case of my son's deceased father) to this path, and so I did not have to worry about custody battles based on my use of a Schedule One controlled substance and the potential claim of 'unfit parent' such use would engender at a legal level.
I want to point out the obvious here - that I believe talking to our children with authenticity about who we are is absolutely essential. This includes talking about the things we do that don't follow 'inside the box' thinking. It helps to support our children to be their own authentic selves. It helps us to get out of worrying about what others think of us and to live within our own moral and spiritual code, true to our known and directly experienced higher truths, not on some externally imposed set of rules (laws) founded on erroneous assumption, prejudices, and even outright deceit. I am not advocating for anarchy here. I am only talking about actions I take as an individual that only affect me and my own life, such as the choice to take a substance that our country and indeed most of the modern world has declared illegal and dangerous. I am not a conspiracy theorist but I do think there is something to be said for the theory that these substances have been vilified for a reason that has to do with how we operate in the world - in blind acceptance of and within the system, or with the ability to critically examine the system and call out bullshit when we see it. It makes sense that the powers that be would frown on - and actively restrict access to - things that promote the latter perspective.
But back to parenting and being authentic... or not. I don't know how many Dead Heads (followers of the Grateful Dead) who took quantities of psychedelics as young people who, when they became parents, suddenly became quite conservative on the subject and would never even consider talking to their teens about their experiences with these drugs, or the spiritual openings they received as a result of their use. "Too risky!" they would exclaim when questioned, or "I can't tell them how wild I was!" I guess I can understand the hesitation. But I chose to be open - again to the level to which I felt my kids could relate - about my past and ongoing activities with illegal substances. I shared with them not only the good and transcendental side of the story but also how dangerous and scary the experiences could be, and how important it is to be in a good place within yourself, with people you trust, in a setting that is safe if you are going to take something that alters your consciousness. I also shared quite honestly with my kids that I would probably lose my job (at the time I was a public school teacher) if they gossiped about me to their friends or if the word somehow got out in the community that I had all this exposure to psychedelics in my past and present life. AND I shared why I thought these substances are so judged and misunderstood.
It is possible that my being open like this led to my kids' being more interested in substances than they might have been otherwise. There really is no way to tell at this point, although I plan on asking them when I get to their interviews. However I doubt it. I believe that they would have been exposed one way or the other, and that my contribution as their parent was to help them be more educated, informed, thoughtful, and aware of the potential benefits and dangers of the various substances (the ones I knew about!) with which they would come into contact as teens in today's world. If I had to do it all over again I would have these same discussions with them. I think the downfall or faults in my parenting came from 1. being a single working mother and not being able to supervise them as much as two parents would have 2. wanting them to have a place (their home) where they could be safe if they were going to get 'altered,' instead of cruising around in a car, for example, and then having that safe space be taken advantage of, and 3. being a great mom, ie being loving, creating a beautiful home with healthy meals, modeling conscious communication, etc, but being a completely shitty dad, ie not being consistent with enforcing rules, not having dire enough consequences for bad behavior, not disciplining enough, not making them do more healthy things like sports, etc). No one's perfect, and I have spent a lot of years feeling bad over my short-comings as a parent. However I feel good about what I was able to offer my children in terms of the conversations we had about consciousness, psychedelics, medicines versus drugs, ceremony etc. I think it has helped them to be more thoughtful and conscious people, and to make more conscious and informed choices.
I know from talking to my daughter over the years that there were some challenges resulting from her choice (and my offer) to participate in entheogenic ceremonies as a teenager. On the one hand, she had as an example a community of (primarily) adult seekers, all working to better themselves. For the most part, and obviously hugely generalized, these individuals practiced honesty and conscious communication, took responsibility for their emotions (having an internal responsibility for the things that happened to them), and carried a basically positive outlook on life. On the other hand, she went to public high school, with all of the assorted unconscious drama, judgment, bullying, stereotyping, shitty teen-parent relationships, dishonesty, distrust from adults, general unconsciousness, and more. She told me it was extremely difficult and confusing to be straddling two completely different worlds, with different rules, behaviors, expectations and outcomes; and at the same time, she was glad to know the ceremonial world existed, despite the strain it put on her. At the time I never considered that exposing her to the ceremonial world might make her life harder, and definitely felt more than a few moments of guilt when I realized it. I don't know that I can answer the question 'is it fair?' to put her in that position, because I already did, somewhat in ignorance. One of the reasons I am writing this section is to let other parents know that this could be an unintentional effect of bringing your child into the ceremonial world. It could make things harder on your teen. However if there is a parent or parents there to discuss what is happening, to help their teen integrate and process what they are experiencing in the two different worlds, then I think it could ultimately only be of benefit, even if painful at first to realize the normal extent of unconsciousness in our world/families/relationships. One other side benefit of my daughter's participation in ceremony: she pretty much became the "Lucy" to her circle of friends (as in Peanuts: the "Doctor is IN"). Again, we can't say this wouldn't have been so without ceremony - there is now no way to know who she might have been without it.
Well, darn, out of time again! It goes by so fast!! I plan on posting some interview questions starting next week. If you are reading this blog and you or someone you know would like to be interviewed for the book, please let me know. And thanks for reading! Your comments are welcomed!
Showing posts with label yagé. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yagé. Show all posts
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Movie Reviews and more...
I have decided to organize some of my 'offline' research that is currently filling many notebooks here in my office, starting with the reams of notes I have taken from relevant movies. This information has been baffling me in terms of how to synthesize and distill the important bits while letting the rest go, kind of like panning for gold dust in a very muddy river.. Anyway here goes! My comments are going to be kept in parentheses, to distinguish them from the information I am reporting from the films.
Neurons to Nirvana: Understanding Psychedelic Medicines, (2013): directed by Oliver Hockenhull
(Through a series of interview with leading experts in their respective fields, this film discusses five medicines of interest to psychedelic research: LSD, Cannabis, Psylocybin, MDMA, and Ayahuasca.)
" The film explores these socially taboo substances as adjuncts to psychotherapy, as crucial but neglected medicines, and as technologies of consciousness. ""...Neurons to Nirvana looks into why our society has created such a social and political bias against even allowing research to continue the exploration of any possible positive effects they can present in treating some of today's most challenging afflictions."(synopses both written by anonymous) (1)
"This film does not endorse, intentionally or otherwise, the use of any medicine of substance outside of legal, traditional and bona fide therapeutic contexts."
"In the popular press, hallucinogenics have been portrayed as a recreation, an escape, or as a dangerous invitation for abuse, but there is another side to the story... The truth is that more people die from taking simple pain relievers than from all illegal drugs combined, ...and almost none are due to psychedelics."
LSD
In the 50's, there was great hope that LSD might revolutionize psychiatric care. After it became popular among young people, the feeling in the 60's was that things were getting out of control, and there was a need to 'put the genie back in the bottle,' to restore social control which seemed to be on the verge of breaking down. "You do see out of the box with LSD," and so people started questioning the war in Vietnam (and other societal 'norms' having to do with racism, sexism, etc).
One researcher, Dr. David Healy, said, "...to ban a (medicine) you have to paint it as having extreme dangers linked to it." (This is the essence of the societal taboos we see in place against anything that alters consciousness in unpredictable ways. Alcohol, tobacco and coffee all alter our consciousness, but they are accepted because their effects are known - even though people can get hooked on these. The main danger of these substances was the (unfounded and completely unscientific) fear that people would get hooked or addicted to them. Secondly, the media hyped up fear that taking these substances would lead to people completely losing control and going insane. This campaign of fear worked, and laws and restrictions started being imposed on this entire category of substances, leading to a complete ban on all research.)
How does LSD work?
Serotonin is part of the neurotransmitter system which modulates or regulates all other systems. All senses except smell go through the thalamus, the gateway to the cortex, which is what puts your reality together. LSD resembles serotonin in its effects on this system, and psychedelics stimulate connections between the emotional and the behavioral aspects of the brain, leading to understandings, insights, epiphanies, shifts in awareness, unitive states: these are all due to the serotonic connections. In addition, the part of the brain that regulates information uptake - or the screening out of so much of what we experience - this is turned off. Psychedelics are psych-integrators. They change serotonin inhibition so that you 'get it all,' (all of the sensory data available to the brain instead of the censored version.) As Ram Dass says (about unity states), "There is no other. It is all one."
Psilocybin Mushrooms
Another researcher, Dr Steven Ross, MD, from NYU, is using mushroom therapy in the treatment of cancer. He has found that in both the short term and over time, people with cancer who have undergone therapy with psilocybin mushrooms have experienced a lessening of anxiety. People who came to the study were normal people looking to get through the suffering they were experiencing.
Rick Doblin, PhD helped create the Good Friday experiment, which aimed to answer the question "Can (using) psilocybin catalyze a religious/mystical experience?" The answer? Unequivocally yes! Here are a few quotes: "The experience that day demonstrated to me the reality of God's presence in all the world... I would say yeah, it did change my life." "When you have this unitive mystical experience, because it's unitive, you identify with people who you might normally not... there is this core element that binds us together." (It helps us to identify with "other" deeper than all the limiting/defining terms - gender, race, age, sexual orientation, nationality.) Roland Grifftihs, PhD, reported that "...the experience at it's core is more real, and more true, than everyday waking consciousness." "Most people are still endorsing that this experience is among the most personally meaningful and spiritually significant experiences of their entire lives."
This mystical/transcendent/transpersonal experience can now be studied, scientifically. (Dennis McKenna). "We are just relearning how to let it be OK to call these kinds of experiences real," says Kathleen Harrison, MA, director of Botanical Dimensions.
MDMA
(MDMA, street named Ecstacy, was a legal drug until the 80's. Today one of the main issues with it is that kids get it off the black (illegal) market - they are going to use it regardless of its legality - but black market ecstasy is often very impure, cut with heroin, speed, and other substances. And kids don't learn about using these substances in a safe way due to prohibition (and the mentality that teaching abstinence is the only proper approach to these substances. In my opinion that's about as rational as telling a bunch of horny teenagers not to have sex. A few might listen - but most of them are going to ignore you and think of you as an old prude - and then go and do what they want without any kind of supervision or instruction from their elders.)
MDMA is not an hallucinogen. It floods the brain with serotonin and decreases anxiety, making it a good catalyst for psychotherapy. Most scientists in the field insist that more and immediate clinical research is needed! One such researcher says, "There is no other drug like this one. It floods the brain with serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine, making it an immediate acting depression and anti-anxiety drug. There is no other known immediate acting, non-sedating, anxiallytic (reliever of anxiety). This substance has been helpful in the treatment of PTSD, where the normal problem is too much anxiety or too much emotional numbing. MDMA helps people revisit the trauma in a therapeutic way, and face their fears without being overwhelmed, while t the same time maintaining an emotional connection. MDMA also enhances oxytocin, which is involved in bonding and empathy."
We need to be able to do clinical research on this in order to fully understand the risks and benefits.
Marijuana
(This medicine has been known to reduce anxiety, promote sleep, and help with Parkinsons, Alzheimer's, nausea, arthritis, cancer, glaucoma, and childbirth. Marijuana IS medicine - and yet it is still regulated as a Schedule One Controlled Substance, which means there is no scientific evidence that it has medical benefits. This is FALSE. Requests to conduct studies determining its medical benefits have been denied - and then the government claims that there are no studies proving any health benefits!) "It's beyond hypocrisy..." says one researcher.
"Tobacco is the only substance that we sell in the US that when used as directed causes death. Shouldn't we be incorporating tobacco into our drug policies?"
Some people feel that the reason these medicines are villainized is that they constitute the ultimate threat: they have the ability to 'break consensus trance' (under which our culture lives). "It's not marijuana, the mildly mind-altering substance. It's marijuana, the antithesis of the state..."
"It's a tragedy that our youth can only get that type of marijuana (high THC). It can be a real problem for kids taking these substances without the proper set and setting. There's a lot of learned knowledge that can be more readily be passed on in a regulated system. On one hand we decry the scourge of drugs, then on the other hand we medicate the kids instead of dealing with their bad behavior, to control them, instead of parenting, etc, basically teaching them to turn to drugs for every problem. Then they find out that the drugs that are prohibited are much more effective than the prescription ones, so of course they use them!" (This is a paraphrase)
Kathleen Harrison, from Botanical Dimensions, says, "Not all the rules are here to protect us."
To sum it up: "We fund studies on harm - we don't fund studies on benefit." (In other words, studies showing the negative effects of these substances would probably be funded - studies showing the positive benefits are not even considered. I remember reading about a doctor in England who carelessly remarked that more people have died from tobacco and alcohol use in one year than from marijuana in the entire record of human history - and he was ridiculed and threatened with the ruin of his reputation, just for speaking his truth!)
Ayahuasca/Yage
Jeremy Narbe talks about how the knowledge of these sacred plants came from the hallucinations of their shamans. Dr Gabon Mate (accents on the a and e) talks about plants as teachers. "Plants have substituted biosynthesis for behavior. They can be used to form a symbiosis between humans and plants." (Dennis McKenna)
Ayahuasca has become popular in the Western world, but it is definitely not a party drug. It is not anything you would do lightly. No one uses this medicine frivolously (since it can make you suffer from extreme nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, and can cause you to have to look at the darkest aspects of your psyche). Many people agree that this medicine has to be used respectfully, in a safe set and setting. "But after it happens there's a kind of a clarity and lightness that's powerful, because what 's being purged are psychic contents you've been holding onto. You're purging anger; you're purging pain; you're purging some false story about the self." Dr. Mate.
SSRI's - (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) - feel good drugs.
(These were included here to show the difference between taking a medicine like ayahuasca and a drug like Prozac.)
"The idea that we can medicate ourselves into a state of happiness encourages drug dependence and also people not to examine the foundations of the problems that make them feel bad in the first place because you can simply mask the symptoms." Companies are not interested in something that can be given one or two times with huge (beneficial) effects. "All these substances (peyote, LSD, marijuana, psilocybin mushrooms, MDMA, etc) are in the public domain and so can't be patented. Prohibitive substances (like SSRI's) bring in much more money. The government stance is if we can't patent it, let's prohibit it. This creates a black market and it helps some people make a lot of money."
Gillian Maxwell, Keeping the Door Open, says these substances - medicines - are the antidote to the lack of meaning (in our culture). Medicines: let's explore what I am, and let's understand it. Drugs: let me get out of this reality.
These drugs are misclassified as being addictive. They are actually more helpful in curing addictions (one study of 2000 alcoholics were treated with LSD and 45% of them stayed off alcohol after 1 year - AA only has an average 10% sobriety rate after one year.)(2)
The research and study of these substances has been completely shut down, not based upon scientific evidence but based on a prohibitic policy, and "...despite the evidence that these substances have been used for medical purposes for tens of thousands of years, ...because of government regulations, we're denying major aspects of our population access to medicines that they dearly need."
It is possible and it would be interesting to use (psychedelics) not just for disease states but for the exploration of one's consciousness, for spiritual exploration, to enhance spiritual growth and empathy, to be better people. "We are potentially the salvation of the planet and also potentially the destruction of the planet." Terrence McKenna.
"We're talking about transformation at every level: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual."
"In order to use these medicines you have to be 'rebel' enough against the taboo to look at the taboo, and the whole nature of a taboo is that it's an area of culture where we are told 'don't look there, it's not good to even look there.'" Kathleen Harrison
(If you are still reading, you can see why I am quoting so much from this movie! Good stuff, good information. I will have to review it again to get the manes on some of the other quotes. After they introduced a person one time, they didn't put up their name again - and so I have some quotes whose authors I have missed. Will fix later.)
Ayahuasca - Vine of the Soul (2010): directed by Richard Meech
Kenneth Fupper talks about the globalization of Ayahuasca. He says users are not criminals associated with illegal drug use. Over the past 10 years thousands have tried this, and their spirituality and healing has been excised. "Our culture is empty - it doesn't give people what they really need." This medicine, "...can open up energetic barriers to help one live more optimally." Another quote, "You just know that you are connected to something larger."
Religions demand faith. But with ayahuasca you don't have to have faith - you have direct experience of the divine. "Learning through plants is a cultural tradition that goes back hundreds if not thousands of years." "It is a very powerful medicine that has to be placed and used in a proper way. If not, it can create a psychological shock that can leave a trauma. "Addiction is trying to complete yourself from the outside, to fill the void."
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the film: "Mysterium Tremendum - the feeling of being at one with the universe. Religions say that this is not for the ordinary person. But ayahuasca says no - it is!" "It was the most spiritual thing I have ever felt in my whole life." "I felt a kind of love I have never felt in my life." "That literally broke me open - annihilated me..." "It allows you to have a second chance at being yourself." "It is very much about love. Period."
DMT: The Spirit Molecule (2010):
DMT (dimethlytriptamine) has profound effects on human consciousness. it is 2 steps away from tryptophan, one of our amino acids. All organisms have this plus two enzymes that lead to the DMT molecule. Graham Hancock reports, "No one knows why it is there - why is it in our bodies/mammals/plants?"
Dennis McKenna says, "Wake up you monkeys - you are really screwing things up!" (I don't remember the reference for this quote but include it here as a bit of comic relief! I am sure he was referring to the fact that the use of DMT is said to (potentially at least) expand one's consciousness into a unitive state, where 'we' realize in a profound way that everything in existence is connected, or is ONE - and then, presumably, with this consciousness we (humanity) could stop raping, plundering, killing, and ruining everything on this planet and instead use ALL of our resources to work together to reestablish balance and (possibly) avoid the impending apocalypse. Just sayin'...)
Jeremy Narby, PhD, has this to say: "With the help of two concepts which are traditionally opposed - science and spirituality - we humbly reintroduce psychedelics back into the cultural dialogue." (What a quote!)
DMT is said to foster the entering and exiting of the soul from the body, much in the same way as fasting, chanting, meditation, and near-death experiences. It is the active ingredient in the Ayahuasca brew, made available to digest by the addition of a plant which inhibits the body's naturally occurring MAO inhibitor.
So why is it and other substance like it illegal? "In the Western world, we value alert problem-solving consciousness; a production and consumption mentality only. We allow drunkenness as a respite but stigmatize and condemn other states of consciousness that don't conform to this." (paraphrasing here).
Daniel Pinchbeck, author, says that the era of the 60's was a failed initiation attempt. People wanted to push to a new level of consciousness but there were no elders, no medicine men, etc (no one but the blind leading the blind.)
There is a part of the brain that is keyed to trigger and mediate the experiences of the transcendent - the pineal gland - which some say is the interface between Spirit and matter. In our culture, we have severed our natural connection with Spirit (and with the natural world). We need the help of these plant teachers at this time to reestablish our natural wisdom: to investigate the biological basis of moral and ethical behavior; to better understand the universe (in all its dimensions); to discover new forms of medical treatment (free from greed, bias and fear/propaganda); to have life-changing spiritual revelations; and to use these natural tools which offer us the ability to seek greater knowledge.
"What we are looking for out there... is really in here... (pointing at brain)." (We have to evolve in consciousness if we want to change the world - that old Einstein quote about how you can't correct a problem in the level of consciousness in which it was created...)
(My main take-aways from watching these three films: 1. There are a LOT of very intelligent, knowledgeable and educated people in this country and in the Western world who are devoting their lives to scientifically studying these medicines despite the prohibitive laws, fear-based propaganda, and the potentially career-damaging jeering of their peers. 2. There is a wealth of already amassed scientific evidence that in the very least supports further scientific study of these medicines and clinical trials to create viable treatment options for the diverse groups who would most benefit from their use; 3. While many people include LSD, MDMA, and marijuana in the discussion of entheogens, in my personal definition, I only include naturally occurring, psychoactive plant-based substances. So even though marijuana is naturally occurring, and while I believe it to have tremendous medicinal benefits, I am not including it in the scope of my book, mostly because in my experience with those who use it , it seems to often be (psychologically) addictive in nature, and also I do not have any traditional elders from whom to learn its proper use. LSD and MDMA are both synthetic substances, and are therefore excluded from my considerations for the book. Finally, I am debating about including psilocybin mushrooms in the book. Although they are entheogenic and completely natural, I do not know of any traditional ceremonies or elders who can teach me to use them properly (I have heard the Huichol in Mexico use them, but have not had the opportunity to participate there with that tribe). Most of the mushroom experiences I know or have heard about range from a person taking some and going into nature alone, to taking them with a group of friends, to going to see a Dead show and partying and dancing their asses off. I have experience with all of the above - and none of it compares to the intentional purposefulness of taking an entheogen for spiritual growth. AND at the same time I did grow from my mushroom experiences, unguided and seat-of-the-pants as they were. So the jury is still out on that one; 4. Things in this country are changing in respect to the legitimacy of studying and even using these medicines... (but not fast enough for me, I might add!), and the field of psychedelic research is gaining proponents, momentum, validity, and profound results. May it continue to be so!)
(1) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2195566/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl
(2) "The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous." The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/
Neurons to Nirvana: Understanding Psychedelic Medicines, (2013): directed by Oliver Hockenhull
(Through a series of interview with leading experts in their respective fields, this film discusses five medicines of interest to psychedelic research: LSD, Cannabis, Psylocybin, MDMA, and Ayahuasca.)
" The film explores these socially taboo substances as adjuncts to psychotherapy, as crucial but neglected medicines, and as technologies of consciousness. ""...Neurons to Nirvana looks into why our society has created such a social and political bias against even allowing research to continue the exploration of any possible positive effects they can present in treating some of today's most challenging afflictions."(synopses both written by anonymous) (1)
"This film does not endorse, intentionally or otherwise, the use of any medicine of substance outside of legal, traditional and bona fide therapeutic contexts."
"In the popular press, hallucinogenics have been portrayed as a recreation, an escape, or as a dangerous invitation for abuse, but there is another side to the story... The truth is that more people die from taking simple pain relievers than from all illegal drugs combined, ...and almost none are due to psychedelics."
LSD
In the 50's, there was great hope that LSD might revolutionize psychiatric care. After it became popular among young people, the feeling in the 60's was that things were getting out of control, and there was a need to 'put the genie back in the bottle,' to restore social control which seemed to be on the verge of breaking down. "You do see out of the box with LSD," and so people started questioning the war in Vietnam (and other societal 'norms' having to do with racism, sexism, etc).
One researcher, Dr. David Healy, said, "...to ban a (medicine) you have to paint it as having extreme dangers linked to it." (This is the essence of the societal taboos we see in place against anything that alters consciousness in unpredictable ways. Alcohol, tobacco and coffee all alter our consciousness, but they are accepted because their effects are known - even though people can get hooked on these. The main danger of these substances was the (unfounded and completely unscientific) fear that people would get hooked or addicted to them. Secondly, the media hyped up fear that taking these substances would lead to people completely losing control and going insane. This campaign of fear worked, and laws and restrictions started being imposed on this entire category of substances, leading to a complete ban on all research.)
How does LSD work?
Serotonin is part of the neurotransmitter system which modulates or regulates all other systems. All senses except smell go through the thalamus, the gateway to the cortex, which is what puts your reality together. LSD resembles serotonin in its effects on this system, and psychedelics stimulate connections between the emotional and the behavioral aspects of the brain, leading to understandings, insights, epiphanies, shifts in awareness, unitive states: these are all due to the serotonic connections. In addition, the part of the brain that regulates information uptake - or the screening out of so much of what we experience - this is turned off. Psychedelics are psych-integrators. They change serotonin inhibition so that you 'get it all,' (all of the sensory data available to the brain instead of the censored version.) As Ram Dass says (about unity states), "There is no other. It is all one."
Psilocybin Mushrooms
Another researcher, Dr Steven Ross, MD, from NYU, is using mushroom therapy in the treatment of cancer. He has found that in both the short term and over time, people with cancer who have undergone therapy with psilocybin mushrooms have experienced a lessening of anxiety. People who came to the study were normal people looking to get through the suffering they were experiencing.
Rick Doblin, PhD helped create the Good Friday experiment, which aimed to answer the question "Can (using) psilocybin catalyze a religious/mystical experience?" The answer? Unequivocally yes! Here are a few quotes: "The experience that day demonstrated to me the reality of God's presence in all the world... I would say yeah, it did change my life." "When you have this unitive mystical experience, because it's unitive, you identify with people who you might normally not... there is this core element that binds us together." (It helps us to identify with "other" deeper than all the limiting/defining terms - gender, race, age, sexual orientation, nationality.) Roland Grifftihs, PhD, reported that "...the experience at it's core is more real, and more true, than everyday waking consciousness." "Most people are still endorsing that this experience is among the most personally meaningful and spiritually significant experiences of their entire lives."
This mystical/transcendent/transpersonal experience can now be studied, scientifically. (Dennis McKenna). "We are just relearning how to let it be OK to call these kinds of experiences real," says Kathleen Harrison, MA, director of Botanical Dimensions.
MDMA
(MDMA, street named Ecstacy, was a legal drug until the 80's. Today one of the main issues with it is that kids get it off the black (illegal) market - they are going to use it regardless of its legality - but black market ecstasy is often very impure, cut with heroin, speed, and other substances. And kids don't learn about using these substances in a safe way due to prohibition (and the mentality that teaching abstinence is the only proper approach to these substances. In my opinion that's about as rational as telling a bunch of horny teenagers not to have sex. A few might listen - but most of them are going to ignore you and think of you as an old prude - and then go and do what they want without any kind of supervision or instruction from their elders.)
MDMA is not an hallucinogen. It floods the brain with serotonin and decreases anxiety, making it a good catalyst for psychotherapy. Most scientists in the field insist that more and immediate clinical research is needed! One such researcher says, "There is no other drug like this one. It floods the brain with serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine, making it an immediate acting depression and anti-anxiety drug. There is no other known immediate acting, non-sedating, anxiallytic (reliever of anxiety). This substance has been helpful in the treatment of PTSD, where the normal problem is too much anxiety or too much emotional numbing. MDMA helps people revisit the trauma in a therapeutic way, and face their fears without being overwhelmed, while t the same time maintaining an emotional connection. MDMA also enhances oxytocin, which is involved in bonding and empathy."
We need to be able to do clinical research on this in order to fully understand the risks and benefits.
Marijuana
(This medicine has been known to reduce anxiety, promote sleep, and help with Parkinsons, Alzheimer's, nausea, arthritis, cancer, glaucoma, and childbirth. Marijuana IS medicine - and yet it is still regulated as a Schedule One Controlled Substance, which means there is no scientific evidence that it has medical benefits. This is FALSE. Requests to conduct studies determining its medical benefits have been denied - and then the government claims that there are no studies proving any health benefits!) "It's beyond hypocrisy..." says one researcher.
"Tobacco is the only substance that we sell in the US that when used as directed causes death. Shouldn't we be incorporating tobacco into our drug policies?"
Some people feel that the reason these medicines are villainized is that they constitute the ultimate threat: they have the ability to 'break consensus trance' (under which our culture lives). "It's not marijuana, the mildly mind-altering substance. It's marijuana, the antithesis of the state..."
"It's a tragedy that our youth can only get that type of marijuana (high THC). It can be a real problem for kids taking these substances without the proper set and setting. There's a lot of learned knowledge that can be more readily be passed on in a regulated system. On one hand we decry the scourge of drugs, then on the other hand we medicate the kids instead of dealing with their bad behavior, to control them, instead of parenting, etc, basically teaching them to turn to drugs for every problem. Then they find out that the drugs that are prohibited are much more effective than the prescription ones, so of course they use them!" (This is a paraphrase)
Kathleen Harrison, from Botanical Dimensions, says, "Not all the rules are here to protect us."
To sum it up: "We fund studies on harm - we don't fund studies on benefit." (In other words, studies showing the negative effects of these substances would probably be funded - studies showing the positive benefits are not even considered. I remember reading about a doctor in England who carelessly remarked that more people have died from tobacco and alcohol use in one year than from marijuana in the entire record of human history - and he was ridiculed and threatened with the ruin of his reputation, just for speaking his truth!)
Ayahuasca/Yage
Jeremy Narbe talks about how the knowledge of these sacred plants came from the hallucinations of their shamans. Dr Gabon Mate (accents on the a and e) talks about plants as teachers. "Plants have substituted biosynthesis for behavior. They can be used to form a symbiosis between humans and plants." (Dennis McKenna)
Ayahuasca has become popular in the Western world, but it is definitely not a party drug. It is not anything you would do lightly. No one uses this medicine frivolously (since it can make you suffer from extreme nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, and can cause you to have to look at the darkest aspects of your psyche). Many people agree that this medicine has to be used respectfully, in a safe set and setting. "But after it happens there's a kind of a clarity and lightness that's powerful, because what 's being purged are psychic contents you've been holding onto. You're purging anger; you're purging pain; you're purging some false story about the self." Dr. Mate.
SSRI's - (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) - feel good drugs.
(These were included here to show the difference between taking a medicine like ayahuasca and a drug like Prozac.)
"The idea that we can medicate ourselves into a state of happiness encourages drug dependence and also people not to examine the foundations of the problems that make them feel bad in the first place because you can simply mask the symptoms." Companies are not interested in something that can be given one or two times with huge (beneficial) effects. "All these substances (peyote, LSD, marijuana, psilocybin mushrooms, MDMA, etc) are in the public domain and so can't be patented. Prohibitive substances (like SSRI's) bring in much more money. The government stance is if we can't patent it, let's prohibit it. This creates a black market and it helps some people make a lot of money."
Gillian Maxwell, Keeping the Door Open, says these substances - medicines - are the antidote to the lack of meaning (in our culture). Medicines: let's explore what I am, and let's understand it. Drugs: let me get out of this reality.
These drugs are misclassified as being addictive. They are actually more helpful in curing addictions (one study of 2000 alcoholics were treated with LSD and 45% of them stayed off alcohol after 1 year - AA only has an average 10% sobriety rate after one year.)(2)
The research and study of these substances has been completely shut down, not based upon scientific evidence but based on a prohibitic policy, and "...despite the evidence that these substances have been used for medical purposes for tens of thousands of years, ...because of government regulations, we're denying major aspects of our population access to medicines that they dearly need."
It is possible and it would be interesting to use (psychedelics) not just for disease states but for the exploration of one's consciousness, for spiritual exploration, to enhance spiritual growth and empathy, to be better people. "We are potentially the salvation of the planet and also potentially the destruction of the planet." Terrence McKenna.
"We're talking about transformation at every level: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual."
"In order to use these medicines you have to be 'rebel' enough against the taboo to look at the taboo, and the whole nature of a taboo is that it's an area of culture where we are told 'don't look there, it's not good to even look there.'" Kathleen Harrison
(If you are still reading, you can see why I am quoting so much from this movie! Good stuff, good information. I will have to review it again to get the manes on some of the other quotes. After they introduced a person one time, they didn't put up their name again - and so I have some quotes whose authors I have missed. Will fix later.)
Ayahuasca - Vine of the Soul (2010): directed by Richard Meech
Kenneth Fupper talks about the globalization of Ayahuasca. He says users are not criminals associated with illegal drug use. Over the past 10 years thousands have tried this, and their spirituality and healing has been excised. "Our culture is empty - it doesn't give people what they really need." This medicine, "...can open up energetic barriers to help one live more optimally." Another quote, "You just know that you are connected to something larger."
Religions demand faith. But with ayahuasca you don't have to have faith - you have direct experience of the divine. "Learning through plants is a cultural tradition that goes back hundreds if not thousands of years." "It is a very powerful medicine that has to be placed and used in a proper way. If not, it can create a psychological shock that can leave a trauma. "Addiction is trying to complete yourself from the outside, to fill the void."
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the film: "Mysterium Tremendum - the feeling of being at one with the universe. Religions say that this is not for the ordinary person. But ayahuasca says no - it is!" "It was the most spiritual thing I have ever felt in my whole life." "I felt a kind of love I have never felt in my life." "That literally broke me open - annihilated me..." "It allows you to have a second chance at being yourself." "It is very much about love. Period."
DMT: The Spirit Molecule (2010):
DMT (dimethlytriptamine) has profound effects on human consciousness. it is 2 steps away from tryptophan, one of our amino acids. All organisms have this plus two enzymes that lead to the DMT molecule. Graham Hancock reports, "No one knows why it is there - why is it in our bodies/mammals/plants?"
Dennis McKenna says, "Wake up you monkeys - you are really screwing things up!" (I don't remember the reference for this quote but include it here as a bit of comic relief! I am sure he was referring to the fact that the use of DMT is said to (potentially at least) expand one's consciousness into a unitive state, where 'we' realize in a profound way that everything in existence is connected, or is ONE - and then, presumably, with this consciousness we (humanity) could stop raping, plundering, killing, and ruining everything on this planet and instead use ALL of our resources to work together to reestablish balance and (possibly) avoid the impending apocalypse. Just sayin'...)
Jeremy Narby, PhD, has this to say: "With the help of two concepts which are traditionally opposed - science and spirituality - we humbly reintroduce psychedelics back into the cultural dialogue." (What a quote!)
DMT is said to foster the entering and exiting of the soul from the body, much in the same way as fasting, chanting, meditation, and near-death experiences. It is the active ingredient in the Ayahuasca brew, made available to digest by the addition of a plant which inhibits the body's naturally occurring MAO inhibitor.
So why is it and other substance like it illegal? "In the Western world, we value alert problem-solving consciousness; a production and consumption mentality only. We allow drunkenness as a respite but stigmatize and condemn other states of consciousness that don't conform to this." (paraphrasing here).
Daniel Pinchbeck, author, says that the era of the 60's was a failed initiation attempt. People wanted to push to a new level of consciousness but there were no elders, no medicine men, etc (no one but the blind leading the blind.)
There is a part of the brain that is keyed to trigger and mediate the experiences of the transcendent - the pineal gland - which some say is the interface between Spirit and matter. In our culture, we have severed our natural connection with Spirit (and with the natural world). We need the help of these plant teachers at this time to reestablish our natural wisdom: to investigate the biological basis of moral and ethical behavior; to better understand the universe (in all its dimensions); to discover new forms of medical treatment (free from greed, bias and fear/propaganda); to have life-changing spiritual revelations; and to use these natural tools which offer us the ability to seek greater knowledge.
"What we are looking for out there... is really in here... (pointing at brain)." (We have to evolve in consciousness if we want to change the world - that old Einstein quote about how you can't correct a problem in the level of consciousness in which it was created...)
(My main take-aways from watching these three films: 1. There are a LOT of very intelligent, knowledgeable and educated people in this country and in the Western world who are devoting their lives to scientifically studying these medicines despite the prohibitive laws, fear-based propaganda, and the potentially career-damaging jeering of their peers. 2. There is a wealth of already amassed scientific evidence that in the very least supports further scientific study of these medicines and clinical trials to create viable treatment options for the diverse groups who would most benefit from their use; 3. While many people include LSD, MDMA, and marijuana in the discussion of entheogens, in my personal definition, I only include naturally occurring, psychoactive plant-based substances. So even though marijuana is naturally occurring, and while I believe it to have tremendous medicinal benefits, I am not including it in the scope of my book, mostly because in my experience with those who use it , it seems to often be (psychologically) addictive in nature, and also I do not have any traditional elders from whom to learn its proper use. LSD and MDMA are both synthetic substances, and are therefore excluded from my considerations for the book. Finally, I am debating about including psilocybin mushrooms in the book. Although they are entheogenic and completely natural, I do not know of any traditional ceremonies or elders who can teach me to use them properly (I have heard the Huichol in Mexico use them, but have not had the opportunity to participate there with that tribe). Most of the mushroom experiences I know or have heard about range from a person taking some and going into nature alone, to taking them with a group of friends, to going to see a Dead show and partying and dancing their asses off. I have experience with all of the above - and none of it compares to the intentional purposefulness of taking an entheogen for spiritual growth. AND at the same time I did grow from my mushroom experiences, unguided and seat-of-the-pants as they were. So the jury is still out on that one; 4. Things in this country are changing in respect to the legitimacy of studying and even using these medicines... (but not fast enough for me, I might add!), and the field of psychedelic research is gaining proponents, momentum, validity, and profound results. May it continue to be so!)
(1) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2195566/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl
(2) "The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous." The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
"But You Can't Give Them Drugs..." - Part Two
Media Mania
To continue the theme from the last post, talking about the ways in which the mainstream western culture escapes from reality.... The last point I was making had to do with alcohol portrayals in the media. Before I continue on this track, though, I want to talk about our National Obsession with television and screen time. We watch a LOT of TV and movies in this country. On any given evening, walking down a residential street, in almost every home all you will see is the eerie blue glow of the 'boob tube.' According to a recent survey, adults watch an average of 5 hours of television a day (this includes online streaming). Adults watch TV for about 20% of their waking hours, only surpassed by percentage of time working.(1)
All of this starts in childhood. Take a look at some of the alarming statistics on children and the media, complements of Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood. (2)
To continue the theme from the last post, talking about the ways in which the mainstream western culture escapes from reality.... The last point I was making had to do with alcohol portrayals in the media. Before I continue on this track, though, I want to talk about our National Obsession with television and screen time. We watch a LOT of TV and movies in this country. On any given evening, walking down a residential street, in almost every home all you will see is the eerie blue glow of the 'boob tube.' According to a recent survey, adults watch an average of 5 hours of television a day (this includes online streaming). Adults watch TV for about 20% of their waking hours, only surpassed by percentage of time working.(1)
All of this starts in childhood. Take a look at some of the alarming statistics on children and the media, complements of Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood. (2)
- "Screen time can be habit-forming: the more time children engage with screens, the harder time they have turning them off as they become older children.
- "Data vary on the amount of time preschool children spend with screen media, but even the most conservative findings show that children between the ages of two and five average 2.2 hours per day. Other studies show that preschoolers spend as much as 4.1 and 4.6 hours per day using screen media.
- "Including when they’re multitasking, 8- to 18-year-olds consume an average of 7 hours and 11 minutes of screen media per day—an increase of 2.5 hours in just 10 years. For older children and adolescents, excessive screen time is linked to increased psychological difficulties that include hyperactivity, emotional and conduct problems, difficulties with peers and poor school performance."
To put this into very simplistic terms: we allow our children to watch TV, starting when they are babies (some parents encourage it, or claim that they just 'need a break' and so use TV as a baby-sitter.).
We continue letting them have more and more screen time, with TV's and
computers, at meal times and in their bedrooms, and soon enough, i-phones and i-pads and constant texting and more. This level of exposure to electronic media has not happened before, ever. No one knows the long-term effects of constant and prolonged screen time exposure on brain development. Somewhere along the road,
we notice that these media-rich kids can't pay attention in school, or that they are having
trouble sitting still, or that their grades are slipping. The rise of kids getting diagnosed with ADHD has directly paralleled the rise in childhood exposure to screen time. But what do we do about it? We give them drugs to make their bodies
and minds behave. Did I miss anything?(4)
So why do we watch so much TV? One study, from the University of Maryland, set out to find an answer, to see if there is a correlation between happiness and television viewing. There is. According to an article on Phys.Org, unhappy people tend to watch more TV than happy people. Researcher John P. Robinson sums it up by saying, "TV... may provide escape - especially when the news is as depressing as the economy itself. The data suggest to us that the TV habit may offer short-run pleasure at the expense of long-term malaise." (5) Steven Martin, Robinson's co-researcher, says that the TV habit can be likened to an addiction, where, "...tuning in can be a way of tuning out." (6) So TV is just like a drug!
Media, Alcohol and Society
I want to turn to the point I was starting to make in the last post, about the relationship between western media and alcohol use. According to researcher Joel Grube, "...an analysis of prime-time
television from the 1998-1999 season... indicate(d) that 71
percent of all programming depicted alcohol use and 77 percent contained
some reference to alcohol." In addition, when looking at the most popular movies in 1996-97, alcohol use was shown in 93% of them and "...was presented in an overwhelmingly positive light," including having positive outcomes such as camaraderie and relief of stress. (7)
Unfortunately, there have been far too few studies looking at the relationship between alcohol portrayals in the media and underage drinking. But it is clear from the information available that alcohol use is normal, expected behavior in our society. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has this to say:
"The media’s glamorous portrayal of alcohol encourages many teens to believe
that drinking will make them “cool,” popular, attractive, and happy. Research shows that
teens who expect such positive effects are more likely to drink at early ages. (8)
In short, we may tell our kids not to drink, but the everyday world of media to which they are exposed tells them a different story. We are teaching them through our social stereotypes that normal adults drink alcohol, and that it is cool. Every day, through the media - which is a BIG influence on them in terms of hours a day spent watching - they see that drinking is normal and fun and sexy. This is hypocrisy.
So What?
So how does all of this relate to the conversation about the use of entheogens in an indigenous wisdom tradition in this country, and our children?
Mainly, my contention is that the system that regulates 'substances' is blind and deaf, and more than likely has some kind of hidden agenda. Alcohol is probably the most widely used mind-altering substances known to humans. And it is by FAR the most dangerous, in terms of the numbers of deaths, violent acts, accidents, and serious health problems it causes each year. YET IT IS COMPLETELY LEGAL, and expected, normal behavior for adults.
Television watching and excessive screen time for children may cause hyperactivity, poor school performance, difficulty concentrating, obesity and health problems, an increase in violent and bullying behavior, and a higher likelihood of teenage drinking which can lead to increased risk of death, serious injury, impaired judgment, and brain development problems (9). YET IT IS COMPLETELY LEGAL, and expected, normal behavior.
Meanwhile, the plant medicine of my elders, a substance that has been ingested for thousands of years (which, by the way, is the expected, normal behavior in the societies from which it originates) with many reported benefits to its users, is, for the most part, illegal to ingest here in the United States. It is a Schedule One controlled substance (remember, ..."drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse; (the) most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence." (10) To me it sounds like alcohol should be in this category! No medical use - check (well, maybe as a disinfectant if you run out of iodine!); high potential for abuse - check; potentially severe psychological or physical dependence - not sure, as I am not sure of the DEA's definition of 'severe.' Regardless, one blogger summed it up very well:
"Drugs that help people work, fight wars, buy stuff, ignore the pointlessness of their
consumerist lives, or numb the pain of oppression are all fine. Alcohol fits this category,
along with caffeine, and antidepressants. (And cocaine, which let's face it is tolerated
for the business class).
"Drugs that make people generous, cause them to abhor violence, or expose the lies
behind power and ideology are the dangerous ones. This is why psychedelics and
marijuana are illegal." (11)
I want to change this. I want to expose these misconceptions and break down the myths and taboos. I want to illuminate the shadows, disperse fear and take back the sovereign choice to alter my consciousness however I choose, to use plant medicines as part of traditional ceremonies in sacred connection with the Spirit of God as I understand that. I do not accept the government's authority to regulate what I put into my body, or the bodies of my children and (someday) grandchildren, any more than I would accept someone telling me how to think or what to believe. No one has the right. That is what freedom is all about!
Unfortunately, there have been far too few studies looking at the relationship between alcohol portrayals in the media and underage drinking. But it is clear from the information available that alcohol use is normal, expected behavior in our society. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has this to say:
"The media’s glamorous portrayal of alcohol encourages many teens to believe
that drinking will make them “cool,” popular, attractive, and happy. Research shows that
teens who expect such positive effects are more likely to drink at early ages. (8)
In short, we may tell our kids not to drink, but the everyday world of media to which they are exposed tells them a different story. We are teaching them through our social stereotypes that normal adults drink alcohol, and that it is cool. Every day, through the media - which is a BIG influence on them in terms of hours a day spent watching - they see that drinking is normal and fun and sexy. This is hypocrisy.
So What?
So how does all of this relate to the conversation about the use of entheogens in an indigenous wisdom tradition in this country, and our children?
Mainly, my contention is that the system that regulates 'substances' is blind and deaf, and more than likely has some kind of hidden agenda. Alcohol is probably the most widely used mind-altering substances known to humans. And it is by FAR the most dangerous, in terms of the numbers of deaths, violent acts, accidents, and serious health problems it causes each year. YET IT IS COMPLETELY LEGAL, and expected, normal behavior for adults.
Television watching and excessive screen time for children may cause hyperactivity, poor school performance, difficulty concentrating, obesity and health problems, an increase in violent and bullying behavior, and a higher likelihood of teenage drinking which can lead to increased risk of death, serious injury, impaired judgment, and brain development problems (9). YET IT IS COMPLETELY LEGAL, and expected, normal behavior.
Meanwhile, the plant medicine of my elders, a substance that has been ingested for thousands of years (which, by the way, is the expected, normal behavior in the societies from which it originates) with many reported benefits to its users, is, for the most part, illegal to ingest here in the United States. It is a Schedule One controlled substance (remember, ..."drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse; (the) most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence." (10) To me it sounds like alcohol should be in this category! No medical use - check (well, maybe as a disinfectant if you run out of iodine!); high potential for abuse - check; potentially severe psychological or physical dependence - not sure, as I am not sure of the DEA's definition of 'severe.' Regardless, one blogger summed it up very well:
"Drugs that help people work, fight wars, buy stuff, ignore the pointlessness of their
consumerist lives, or numb the pain of oppression are all fine. Alcohol fits this category,
along with caffeine, and antidepressants. (And cocaine, which let's face it is tolerated
for the business class).
"Drugs that make people generous, cause them to abhor violence, or expose the lies
behind power and ideology are the dangerous ones. This is why psychedelics and
marijuana are illegal." (11)
I want to change this. I want to expose these misconceptions and break down the myths and taboos. I want to illuminate the shadows, disperse fear and take back the sovereign choice to alter my consciousness however I choose, to use plant medicines as part of traditional ceremonies in sacred connection with the Spirit of God as I understand that. I do not accept the government's authority to regulate what I put into my body, or the bodies of my children and (someday) grandchildren, any more than I would accept someone telling me how to think or what to believe. No one has the right. That is what freedom is all about!
(1) "The Average American Watches This Much TV Every Day: How do You Compare?" The Motley Fool, http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/15/the-average-american-watches-this-much-tv-every-da.aspx. See also Daily News article,http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/average-american-watches-5-hours-tv-day-article-1.1711954
(2) http://www.screenfree.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/screentimefs.pdf
(3) "Screen Time Matters," p. 15; power-point presentation from Partners in Action, http://depts.washington.edu/waaction/tools/featured_resources/screentime_schoolage.html
(4) Sorry, not very like me to be so sarcastic. For a list of recommendations of what TO do, please see "Screen
Time Matters," p. 6; power-point presentation from Partners in Action,
http://depts.washington.edu/waaction/tools/featured_resources/screentime_schoolage.html.
Note: This reference also provides documentation of the correlation between television viewing, exposure to violence, and increased bullying, aggressive, and anti-social behavior, which is somewhat out of the scope of the conversation here but which is also a very important topic. The very serious health issue of childhood obesity has also been directly linked to screen time. See http://www.truceteachers.org/index.htm and http://depts.washington.edu/waaction/tools/featured_resources/screentime_schoolage.html for some good resource material.
Note: This reference also provides documentation of the correlation between television viewing, exposure to violence, and increased bullying, aggressive, and anti-social behavior, which is somewhat out of the scope of the conversation here but which is also a very important topic. The very serious health issue of childhood obesity has also been directly linked to screen time. See http://www.truceteachers.org/index.htm and http://depts.washington.edu/waaction/tools/featured_resources/screentime_schoolage.html for some good resource material.
(5) "'Unhappy People Watch TV, Happy People Read/Socialize,'Says Study.'" Nov 4, 2008. http://phys.org/news/2008-11-unhappy-people-tv-happy-readsocialize.html
(6) ibid.
(7) Grube, Joel W. "Alcohol in the Media: Drinking Portrayals, Alcohol Advertising, and Alcohol Consumption Among Youth." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK37586/
(8) "Make A Difference: Talk to Your Child About Alcohol." National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/MakeADiff_HTML/makediff.htm. In addition, this article says, "However, you can help to combat these dangerous myths by watching TV shows and movies with your child and discussing how alcohol is portrayed in them. For example, television advertisements for beer often show young people having an uproariously good time, as though drinking always puts people in a terrific mood. Watching such a commercial with your child can be an opportunity to discuss the many ways that alcohol can affect people—in some cases bringing on feelings of sadness or anger rather than carefree high spirits."
(9) "Underage Drinking." http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/special-populations-co-occurring-disorders/underage-drinking
(10) http://www.dea.gov/druginfo/ds.shtml
(11) "Would Alcohol Be a Controlled Substance if it Were Invented Today?" Quora, http://www.quora.com/Would-alcohol-be-a-controlled-substance-if-it-were-invented-today
(7) Grube, Joel W. "Alcohol in the Media: Drinking Portrayals, Alcohol Advertising, and Alcohol Consumption Among Youth." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK37586/
(8) "Make A Difference: Talk to Your Child About Alcohol." National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/MakeADiff_HTML/makediff.htm. In addition, this article says, "However, you can help to combat these dangerous myths by watching TV shows and movies with your child and discussing how alcohol is portrayed in them. For example, television advertisements for beer often show young people having an uproariously good time, as though drinking always puts people in a terrific mood. Watching such a commercial with your child can be an opportunity to discuss the many ways that alcohol can affect people—in some cases bringing on feelings of sadness or anger rather than carefree high spirits."
(9) "Underage Drinking." http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/special-populations-co-occurring-disorders/underage-drinking
(10) http://www.dea.gov/druginfo/ds.shtml
(11) "Would Alcohol Be a Controlled Substance if it Were Invented Today?" Quora, http://www.quora.com/Would-alcohol-be-a-controlled-substance-if-it-were-invented-today
Thursday, June 25, 2015
My story - my culture
So now I want to connect the dots between my history, my healing, my experience of the medicine, and my reasons for writing this book.
I have been drinking this plant medicine, first ayahuasca with the Peruvian shaman and then yagé with my current teacher, for ten years. As lovely songwriter Kirtana puts it,
"How can I express, the changes taking place
The only words I guess, would be amazing grace..." (1)
My experience with the medicine is nothing short of a miracle, in my opinion. I have changed SO deeply in these past ten years. Granted, I am still the person I was in some ways. The difference is that I can SEE and accept my strengths without being egotistical about them or having to try to prove to anyone that they exist and that I am worth something; and I can SEE and accept my faults, without feeling guilty about them (to be honest, still working on this aspect of things - but making progress!). I have been shown - and have let go of - a significant amount of darkness, and yet I trust and have have faith in the light. I have very strong opinions but don't feel the need to prove anything to anyone. I have ideas about how I wish the world was but know better than to take myself or anyone else too seriously, and I have a much better sense of humor than ever before. I have no idea where it (the future of the world, life, etc) is all going but spend a much higher proportion of my time content with being in the present moment. I am more relaxed. I have let go of my addictions, one by one, until now caffeine is the last one I have left. My priorities are to be in alignment with the will of the Spirit, to always work on being a better person, to be kind and compassionate, to be of service, to tell the truth, to appreciate beauty, and to be grateful.
Of course none of this proves that the medicine saved my life, although I feel that it did - or that at least it gave me a second chance at life. People who knew me ten years ago may have thought I was a happy person, because as far as I know, my 'stuff' was not carried around on the surface. This way of being was trained into me. I come from a family that for the most part is much more comfortable not talking about or processing their feelings or dealing with their pain (older sis, you are the one exception to that statement - and, in case I forgot to mention, NO JUDGMENT about that! We all do it the best way we can!). I come from a culture that for the most part takes a pill to cure every ill; and this cultures' main pursuit, besides making and spending money, involves escaping from reality, or 'normal' consciousness, through alcohol and recreational drug use, through watching TV and the products of the entertainment industry, and through the consumption of sugary and processed foods.
In my previous blog about drug use in America, I did not mention these last three things - alcohol/ recreational drugs, television, and sugar - as I was focusing on prescription drug use in our children. I think it is now time to explore this territory.
Alcohol use and abuse
Many of us are familiar with the alarming statistics surrounding alcohol use and abuse in this country. Most teens in Driver's Ed classes have to read endless statistics on this topic, such as that nearly 88,000 people die every year due to alcohol-related causes, "...making it the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States."(2) I don't feel I need to relate a longer laundry list of statistics here. We know people in this country drink - a lot. We know it causes accidents and death. We know it causes health problems and violence and broken families and heartbreak. For more information on this subject and for great fact sheets, go to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, sited in the references.
But why do SO many people drink alcohol if it causes so many problems? There are many reasons: to lower stress, to ease physical or emotional pain, to fit in or be a part of the crowd, because of peer pressure, as a social lubricant or for more social confidence, to reduce social inhibitions so as to have more fun, for a sense of relief, and to get away from or escape from reality. (3) Is it any wonder people want to escape today's world? We have wars, endlessly; social problems from unemployment, poverty, hunger and homelessness to human trafficking and mass shootings; environmental devastation and ever-increasing numbers of epic natural disasters; the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer... the list of major problems in this world is staggering. The insanity is beyond comprehension. With all this going on, it's no wonder that some reports claim that as many as 18.6% of the population suffer from some sort of mental illness (4). Depression is the most common of these, with almost 7 % of the population suffering from it. (5) One out of every five children has "a seriously debilitating mental disorder," according to the National Institute of Mental Health.(6) This is a serious national health crisis!
And people are so stressed in their lives today! According to the Statistic Brain Research Institute, 77% of all people surveyed were regularly experiencing physical symptoms of stress; the causes of this stress, in order of frequency, were job pressure and money, followed by health, relationships, poor nutrition, media overload, and sleep deprivation.(7) Something is not right, folks, and denial ain't just a river in Egypt...
Obviously, I am neither for nor against the use of alcohol in a person's life. I myself had to quit drinking alcohol due to an addictive personality and my tendency to escalate when using any addictive substance. It is difficult because I can no longer 'fit in' in social situations where everyone is drinking: for example, I do not enjoy going to parties where drinking is a main activity, or going to concerts at wineries. I can't partake in the ceremonial honey whiskey shot before my choir performs at our bi-annual performances. But this is the choice I am making, brought on by my working with the medicine, and my other spiritual work. I no longer choose to escape and avoid - anything. I definitely still want to at times. It would be so much easier! But one of the lessons I have learned from the medicine is that 'the only way out is through." We humans think we can drink or medicate away our pain and suffering, but what many of us are not understanding is that this does not make it go away. This reminds me of the environmentally-minded statement made about throwing garbage 'away" - which is that, in reality, there IS no away. It all has to go somewhere! Often whatever it is we do not want to deal with gets stuffed down, or medicated away from our conscious mind; meanwhile it is just settling deeper and deeper inside, under the surface, getting stored in our physical bodies. Sometimes this can resurface years later as serious disease.
One time I had a healer work on my chronic hip misalignment and back pain. In his opinion, there were serious energetic issues going on with me, in that area of my body, the kind of issues which he said could eventually lead to major illness and even an early death. He recommended, as part of my therapy, that I sit in the sun and journal about my childhood and try to remember everything I could about that time of my life. I did so - and that is a tale for another day. However the experience with this healer was like foreshadowing, the literary device which hints at what is to come later in the story. I don't know what this man saw in me, but I now definitely believe it is important to clear our bodies of stored trauma. Of course, I will never be able to prove that this man was correct - thank goodness - because in order to do so I would have had to do nothing about my state of affairs and then come down with a serious illness! Thankfully, that has not happened. I was led to the medicine path, and much of my 'stuff' has been addressed.
I have now been writing this entry on and off all day, am now noticing the time, and realizing I am not going to be able to finish all that I wanted to write about today. So, the most interesting thing I discovered today is the link between alcohol consumption in children and teens and exposure to positive images of alcohol use in the media. We are basically showing our children through mainstream images that drinking is expected behavior among adults. I am going to get more into the facts about this when I return, but according to the summary written by Joel Grube, "Alcohol portrayals are relatively common on television, in film, and in music and music videos. These portrayals are largely positive or neutral, often associating drinking with positive consequences or desirable attributes. Negative consequences of drinking are rarely portrayed."(8)
More later!
(1) Blessed Life by Kirtana, from her album This Embrace. See http://www.kirtana.com/content/blessed-life
(2) "Alcohol Facts and Statistics." National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Misuse. http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics
(3) "Why People Drink." School of Public Health/Alcohol Awareness at West Virginia University. http://publichealth.hsc.wvu.edu/alcohol/effects-on-society/why-people-drink/
(4) "Any Mental Illness (AMI) Among Adults." http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/any-mental-illness-ami-among-adults.shtml
(5) "Major Depression Among Adults." http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/major-depression-among-adults.shtml
(6) "Any Disorder Among Children." http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/any-disorder-among-children.shtml
(7)"Stress Statistics." The Statistic Brain Research Institute. http://www.statisticbrain.com/stress-statistics/
(8) Grube, Joel W. "Alcohol in the Media: Drinking Portrayals, Alcohol Advertising, and Alcohol Consumption Among Youth." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK37586/
I have been drinking this plant medicine, first ayahuasca with the Peruvian shaman and then yagé with my current teacher, for ten years. As lovely songwriter Kirtana puts it,
"How can I express, the changes taking place
The only words I guess, would be amazing grace..." (1)
My experience with the medicine is nothing short of a miracle, in my opinion. I have changed SO deeply in these past ten years. Granted, I am still the person I was in some ways. The difference is that I can SEE and accept my strengths without being egotistical about them or having to try to prove to anyone that they exist and that I am worth something; and I can SEE and accept my faults, without feeling guilty about them (to be honest, still working on this aspect of things - but making progress!). I have been shown - and have let go of - a significant amount of darkness, and yet I trust and have have faith in the light. I have very strong opinions but don't feel the need to prove anything to anyone. I have ideas about how I wish the world was but know better than to take myself or anyone else too seriously, and I have a much better sense of humor than ever before. I have no idea where it (the future of the world, life, etc) is all going but spend a much higher proportion of my time content with being in the present moment. I am more relaxed. I have let go of my addictions, one by one, until now caffeine is the last one I have left. My priorities are to be in alignment with the will of the Spirit, to always work on being a better person, to be kind and compassionate, to be of service, to tell the truth, to appreciate beauty, and to be grateful.
Of course none of this proves that the medicine saved my life, although I feel that it did - or that at least it gave me a second chance at life. People who knew me ten years ago may have thought I was a happy person, because as far as I know, my 'stuff' was not carried around on the surface. This way of being was trained into me. I come from a family that for the most part is much more comfortable not talking about or processing their feelings or dealing with their pain (older sis, you are the one exception to that statement - and, in case I forgot to mention, NO JUDGMENT about that! We all do it the best way we can!). I come from a culture that for the most part takes a pill to cure every ill; and this cultures' main pursuit, besides making and spending money, involves escaping from reality, or 'normal' consciousness, through alcohol and recreational drug use, through watching TV and the products of the entertainment industry, and through the consumption of sugary and processed foods.
In my previous blog about drug use in America, I did not mention these last three things - alcohol/ recreational drugs, television, and sugar - as I was focusing on prescription drug use in our children. I think it is now time to explore this territory.
Alcohol use and abuse
Many of us are familiar with the alarming statistics surrounding alcohol use and abuse in this country. Most teens in Driver's Ed classes have to read endless statistics on this topic, such as that nearly 88,000 people die every year due to alcohol-related causes, "...making it the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States."(2) I don't feel I need to relate a longer laundry list of statistics here. We know people in this country drink - a lot. We know it causes accidents and death. We know it causes health problems and violence and broken families and heartbreak. For more information on this subject and for great fact sheets, go to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, sited in the references.
But why do SO many people drink alcohol if it causes so many problems? There are many reasons: to lower stress, to ease physical or emotional pain, to fit in or be a part of the crowd, because of peer pressure, as a social lubricant or for more social confidence, to reduce social inhibitions so as to have more fun, for a sense of relief, and to get away from or escape from reality. (3) Is it any wonder people want to escape today's world? We have wars, endlessly; social problems from unemployment, poverty, hunger and homelessness to human trafficking and mass shootings; environmental devastation and ever-increasing numbers of epic natural disasters; the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer... the list of major problems in this world is staggering. The insanity is beyond comprehension. With all this going on, it's no wonder that some reports claim that as many as 18.6% of the population suffer from some sort of mental illness (4). Depression is the most common of these, with almost 7 % of the population suffering from it. (5) One out of every five children has "a seriously debilitating mental disorder," according to the National Institute of Mental Health.(6) This is a serious national health crisis!
And people are so stressed in their lives today! According to the Statistic Brain Research Institute, 77% of all people surveyed were regularly experiencing physical symptoms of stress; the causes of this stress, in order of frequency, were job pressure and money, followed by health, relationships, poor nutrition, media overload, and sleep deprivation.(7) Something is not right, folks, and denial ain't just a river in Egypt...
Obviously, I am neither for nor against the use of alcohol in a person's life. I myself had to quit drinking alcohol due to an addictive personality and my tendency to escalate when using any addictive substance. It is difficult because I can no longer 'fit in' in social situations where everyone is drinking: for example, I do not enjoy going to parties where drinking is a main activity, or going to concerts at wineries. I can't partake in the ceremonial honey whiskey shot before my choir performs at our bi-annual performances. But this is the choice I am making, brought on by my working with the medicine, and my other spiritual work. I no longer choose to escape and avoid - anything. I definitely still want to at times. It would be so much easier! But one of the lessons I have learned from the medicine is that 'the only way out is through." We humans think we can drink or medicate away our pain and suffering, but what many of us are not understanding is that this does not make it go away. This reminds me of the environmentally-minded statement made about throwing garbage 'away" - which is that, in reality, there IS no away. It all has to go somewhere! Often whatever it is we do not want to deal with gets stuffed down, or medicated away from our conscious mind; meanwhile it is just settling deeper and deeper inside, under the surface, getting stored in our physical bodies. Sometimes this can resurface years later as serious disease.
One time I had a healer work on my chronic hip misalignment and back pain. In his opinion, there were serious energetic issues going on with me, in that area of my body, the kind of issues which he said could eventually lead to major illness and even an early death. He recommended, as part of my therapy, that I sit in the sun and journal about my childhood and try to remember everything I could about that time of my life. I did so - and that is a tale for another day. However the experience with this healer was like foreshadowing, the literary device which hints at what is to come later in the story. I don't know what this man saw in me, but I now definitely believe it is important to clear our bodies of stored trauma. Of course, I will never be able to prove that this man was correct - thank goodness - because in order to do so I would have had to do nothing about my state of affairs and then come down with a serious illness! Thankfully, that has not happened. I was led to the medicine path, and much of my 'stuff' has been addressed.
I have now been writing this entry on and off all day, am now noticing the time, and realizing I am not going to be able to finish all that I wanted to write about today. So, the most interesting thing I discovered today is the link between alcohol consumption in children and teens and exposure to positive images of alcohol use in the media. We are basically showing our children through mainstream images that drinking is expected behavior among adults. I am going to get more into the facts about this when I return, but according to the summary written by Joel Grube, "Alcohol portrayals are relatively common on television, in film, and in music and music videos. These portrayals are largely positive or neutral, often associating drinking with positive consequences or desirable attributes. Negative consequences of drinking are rarely portrayed."(8)
More later!
(1) Blessed Life by Kirtana, from her album This Embrace. See http://www.kirtana.com/content/blessed-life
(2) "Alcohol Facts and Statistics." National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Misuse. http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics
(3) "Why People Drink." School of Public Health/Alcohol Awareness at West Virginia University. http://publichealth.hsc.wvu.edu/alcohol/effects-on-society/why-people-drink/
(4) "Any Mental Illness (AMI) Among Adults." http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/any-mental-illness-ami-among-adults.shtml
(5) "Major Depression Among Adults." http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/major-depression-among-adults.shtml
(6) "Any Disorder Among Children." http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/any-disorder-among-children.shtml
(7)"Stress Statistics." The Statistic Brain Research Institute. http://www.statisticbrain.com/stress-statistics/
(8) Grube, Joel W. "Alcohol in the Media: Drinking Portrayals, Alcohol Advertising, and Alcohol Consumption Among Youth." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK37586/
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
My story - part two
This is, apparently, the harder part of the story to write...
I want to go into the details of the incredible healing I had from drinking ayahuasca that first time in 2005. It is what motivated me to step into this work in the world. It is the reason I am sitting here writing this blog! And, at the same time, I have a certain amount of fear coming up, questions concerning how much I should reveal, and a LOT of concern for the possibility of my relatives reading this blog and finding out things about me that I would rather keep private. So, I will just post a little warning here, for them:
To my relatives:
Please, if you are one of my relatives and you have found your way to this blog, strongly consider NOT reading this particular entry. You may find here components of my story that push your buttons to the core; while that is not my intention, I feel the need to be honest about my experience as it informs everything else that has come to pass. Reading this blog may cause you distress; you may also doubt the self-reporting of my experience to the point of extreme anger and rejection. I am not willing to argue about my experience, either, so please don't contact me in the hopes of convincing me otherwise. If you do decide to keep reading, consider yourself warned.
(On that note, I will also not be mentioning names of any of the participants or teachers in this blog, to protect their privacy.)
June, 2005. I signed up to attend one night of ceremony with the shaman from Peru with whom my musician friend (whom I had known for many years and whom I trusted implicitly) was traveling, and as I mentioned in my last blog, I prepared for over three months with a raw-foods diet and many, many prayers. My then-husband also decided to attend. The circle was small and intimate, with only 22 people, including the staff. Each of us had a small, comfortable seat on the floor supplemented by sheepskins, pillows, and whatever else we brought. We were instructed to sit up straight and to use our breath to get through any difficult energy we might be experiencing. After an introduction by the shaman, we each got to drink a very small amount of the sweet tasting ayahuasca which was nearly the consistency of molasses. There was an option to drink a second time if we didn't feel anything after an hour, which was the case with me. During the experience, the shaman played many different musical instruments and sang sacred songs, and the translator, my friend, also sang and played his music. At one time the shaman played something like a juice harp, and I felt the sound go deep into my belly and pull out a very small 'purge' (translation: I vomited into the bucket given to each of the participants at the start of the ceremony). Mostly I felt calm, supported and safe, and I enjoyed the music, but it didn't seem like anything really noteworthy happened. The official ceremony ended about 1 am, and most of the participants went to sleep on site by about 2 am.
The next morning, I awoke with a very powerful imperative: I knew I had to come back and attend a second ceremony that evening. Of course my mind stepped right in with all the reasons why that wouldn't be possible - the ceremony was full, they had a wait list, etc etc. None of it made any difference to this intense knowing I had. I spoke to my friend, who spoke to the shaman, who spoke to the organizer - I think one or more of them may have come to talk with me about it - and eventually, it was arranged that I could attend the ceremony that evening and sit in front of the door to the outside, which opened in to the room and which no one used during the ceremony. My husband agreed to come be a helper for the evening.
It would be impossible to relate all that transpired at this second ceremony. When the medicine first started working on me I was taken into the depths of the purest grief I have ever felt. I felt the presence of Mother Mary standing behind me, and just an absolute GRIEF that felt as if my heart would burst apart. I cried for awhile, devastated. Then I 'saw' in my mind's eye a scenario involving incest between a young girl and her older brother, shown to me metaphorically, maybe, as happening between my own two children, right at that moment; and I experienced the purest RAGE I have ever felt, whose archetype is and who I saw as the Hindu Goddess Kali. Then "I" dropped away completely, and "I" became an emotional process of breath and movement and sound and purging, graphic images and sensory and body sensations pouring through the space wherever "I" normally resided. The shaman prayed over me many times with tobacco and floral waters during the next few hours. The things I purged that night were unspeakably horrendous and I experienced many hideous images and somatic (body) memories, especially having to do with one main trauma. I may have been in that state for up to three hours when finally one of the helpers called my name... "Harmony..." and I came back to the awareness of myself. She suggested I try silence and I was able to do that, finally. (Side note: It was at this ceremony that the helpers decided to create another space for people involved in 'processes' with the medicine in the future. I am sure I was very disruptive to the other participants there that night!)
In the morning, after a little time, I felt and saw that many of my previous attempts to heal and clear this trauma had failed due to the incredible and powerful repression that had been in place. All conscious memory of this traumatic experience had been blocked from my awareness as a way of self-preservation. Each of the healing moments previously described in this blog, and many more that I have not related, were like pressure release valves, letting out small, mostly manageable amounts of the trauma, as my psyche became ready to deal with it. The experience with ayahuasca removed the blocks, and even more. After this experience, I felt as though a part of my soul had come back to me. From that day forward I felt like some huge part of me that had been missing had been returned. I suddenly had more vitality, more energy, more life force. I decided to include a little bit about soul loss and soul retrieval here, because believe me, talking about 'soul-retrieval' is normally enough to get what I call my 'whoo-wometer' in the red zone (meaning, the topic is way to whoo whoo or New Agey for my taste).
What is soul loss?
"Soul loss is first and foremost an adaptive mechanism that usually serves by allowing us to cope, and in some situations survive a terrible experience, in which the dissociated soul parts depart, carrying the pain, the shock, the extreme emotion, or the memory of the trauma which may be simply unbearable to the sufferer at the time it occurs. Soul loss may occur in response to physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; a molestation experience during childhood or being ruthlessly teased and bullied; a bitter divorce, a shocking betrayal, a sexual assault, a serious surgery, or a terrible car accident, to name just a few. The post-traumatic stress syndrome experienced by military veterans is a classic example of soul loss." (1)
*******************
What is soul retrieval?
"Anyone who's had a trauma, from a shamanic point of view, may have had some loss of their soul. By soul we mean the spiritual essence essential throughout one's life as we describe life in our culture, which is from conception or birth to the time of death. The techniques for healing soul loss are soul-retrieval techniques, and one of the classic shamanic methods is to go searching for that lost portion of the soul and restore it.
"Until about 8 years ago, most people in the Western world felt that soul retrieval was a superstitious practice that had no validity, but things have turned. I must say that a major reason is the work of my colleague, Sandra Ingerman, the author of Soul Retrieval and Coming Home. During her shamanic practice in Santa Fe, NM, years ago, women who had had significant childhood abuse would mention in the course of the sessions that they had removed themselves psychically from the situation at the time of abuse. Sandra immediately recognized, as a practicing shaman, that the person's soul to some degree had left the body (if it had left completely, the person would have been dead), and therefore the logical thing was to retrieve the lost portion of the soul and bring it back. So she then started doing soul retrieval for these people who had had significant childhood traumas, and the results were astounding. Today, this work is an important part of shamanic healing practice in the West."(2)
********************
So, I experienced a part of my soul that literally came back to me that second night of drinking ayahuasca. Along with it came the knowledge, which I had intimations of but which I could still not quite accept, that I was the survivor of major childhood trauma: I was a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. The particular incident I revisited during this first weekend with ayahuasca was a gang attack by a group of local boys down at the creek where we would go and catch bullfrogs. I was abused, tortured and actually left for dead, sometime around the age of 4 years old. The closest neighbor, husband of my piano teacher, found me (one of the boys must have let him know to come looking for me) and rescued me. He also became my secret keeper - but that is a story for another time.
After this experience, I felt more whole than I had ever felt. EVER. I felt like there was some justification for my having felt fucked up literally for my whole life; for having felt lost, isolated, somehow wrong, unloved and unlovable, and ugly; for my self-hatred, my addictions, my depression, my health problems; it ALL made more sense. And yet a huge part of me wanted to deny this new truth, especially as it continued unraveling into even darker and more convoluted places. "But...!" my mind stammered, "I had a normal childhood! I had parents who loved me! I was born white upper-middle class, for goodness sake! This could NOT have happened. Maybe I am just processing this pain for someone else. Maybe it happened in a past life (uh oh, there goes that whoo-wometer!)..."
Not knowing what to do next, I did some research (I know, I AM an academic geek, after all) on the constellation of symptoms in adult survivors of sexual abuse. Here is a summary:
(1) "Soul Loss," by Jill Kuykendall, on the Shared Wisdom website, http://www.sharedwisdom.com/page/soul-loss
(2)"Shamanic Healing: We Are Not Alone," page 2 An Interview of Michael Harner by Bonnie Horrigan © Shamanism, Spring/Summer 1997, Vol. 10, No.1, retrieved at http://www.shamanism.org/articles/article01page2.html
(3) "The
Spectrum of Dissociative Disorders: An Overview of Diagnosis and Treatment,"
by Joan A. Turkus, M.D. Retrieved at http://www.fortea.us/english/psiquiatria/spectrum.htm
I want to go into the details of the incredible healing I had from drinking ayahuasca that first time in 2005. It is what motivated me to step into this work in the world. It is the reason I am sitting here writing this blog! And, at the same time, I have a certain amount of fear coming up, questions concerning how much I should reveal, and a LOT of concern for the possibility of my relatives reading this blog and finding out things about me that I would rather keep private. So, I will just post a little warning here, for them:
To my relatives:
Please, if you are one of my relatives and you have found your way to this blog, strongly consider NOT reading this particular entry. You may find here components of my story that push your buttons to the core; while that is not my intention, I feel the need to be honest about my experience as it informs everything else that has come to pass. Reading this blog may cause you distress; you may also doubt the self-reporting of my experience to the point of extreme anger and rejection. I am not willing to argue about my experience, either, so please don't contact me in the hopes of convincing me otherwise. If you do decide to keep reading, consider yourself warned.
(On that note, I will also not be mentioning names of any of the participants or teachers in this blog, to protect their privacy.)
June, 2005. I signed up to attend one night of ceremony with the shaman from Peru with whom my musician friend (whom I had known for many years and whom I trusted implicitly) was traveling, and as I mentioned in my last blog, I prepared for over three months with a raw-foods diet and many, many prayers. My then-husband also decided to attend. The circle was small and intimate, with only 22 people, including the staff. Each of us had a small, comfortable seat on the floor supplemented by sheepskins, pillows, and whatever else we brought. We were instructed to sit up straight and to use our breath to get through any difficult energy we might be experiencing. After an introduction by the shaman, we each got to drink a very small amount of the sweet tasting ayahuasca which was nearly the consistency of molasses. There was an option to drink a second time if we didn't feel anything after an hour, which was the case with me. During the experience, the shaman played many different musical instruments and sang sacred songs, and the translator, my friend, also sang and played his music. At one time the shaman played something like a juice harp, and I felt the sound go deep into my belly and pull out a very small 'purge' (translation: I vomited into the bucket given to each of the participants at the start of the ceremony). Mostly I felt calm, supported and safe, and I enjoyed the music, but it didn't seem like anything really noteworthy happened. The official ceremony ended about 1 am, and most of the participants went to sleep on site by about 2 am.
The next morning, I awoke with a very powerful imperative: I knew I had to come back and attend a second ceremony that evening. Of course my mind stepped right in with all the reasons why that wouldn't be possible - the ceremony was full, they had a wait list, etc etc. None of it made any difference to this intense knowing I had. I spoke to my friend, who spoke to the shaman, who spoke to the organizer - I think one or more of them may have come to talk with me about it - and eventually, it was arranged that I could attend the ceremony that evening and sit in front of the door to the outside, which opened in to the room and which no one used during the ceremony. My husband agreed to come be a helper for the evening.
It would be impossible to relate all that transpired at this second ceremony. When the medicine first started working on me I was taken into the depths of the purest grief I have ever felt. I felt the presence of Mother Mary standing behind me, and just an absolute GRIEF that felt as if my heart would burst apart. I cried for awhile, devastated. Then I 'saw' in my mind's eye a scenario involving incest between a young girl and her older brother, shown to me metaphorically, maybe, as happening between my own two children, right at that moment; and I experienced the purest RAGE I have ever felt, whose archetype is and who I saw as the Hindu Goddess Kali. Then "I" dropped away completely, and "I" became an emotional process of breath and movement and sound and purging, graphic images and sensory and body sensations pouring through the space wherever "I" normally resided. The shaman prayed over me many times with tobacco and floral waters during the next few hours. The things I purged that night were unspeakably horrendous and I experienced many hideous images and somatic (body) memories, especially having to do with one main trauma. I may have been in that state for up to three hours when finally one of the helpers called my name... "Harmony..." and I came back to the awareness of myself. She suggested I try silence and I was able to do that, finally. (Side note: It was at this ceremony that the helpers decided to create another space for people involved in 'processes' with the medicine in the future. I am sure I was very disruptive to the other participants there that night!)
In the morning, after a little time, I felt and saw that many of my previous attempts to heal and clear this trauma had failed due to the incredible and powerful repression that had been in place. All conscious memory of this traumatic experience had been blocked from my awareness as a way of self-preservation. Each of the healing moments previously described in this blog, and many more that I have not related, were like pressure release valves, letting out small, mostly manageable amounts of the trauma, as my psyche became ready to deal with it. The experience with ayahuasca removed the blocks, and even more. After this experience, I felt as though a part of my soul had come back to me. From that day forward I felt like some huge part of me that had been missing had been returned. I suddenly had more vitality, more energy, more life force. I decided to include a little bit about soul loss and soul retrieval here, because believe me, talking about 'soul-retrieval' is normally enough to get what I call my 'whoo-wometer' in the red zone (meaning, the topic is way to whoo whoo or New Agey for my taste).
What is soul loss?
"Soul loss is first and foremost an adaptive mechanism that usually serves by allowing us to cope, and in some situations survive a terrible experience, in which the dissociated soul parts depart, carrying the pain, the shock, the extreme emotion, or the memory of the trauma which may be simply unbearable to the sufferer at the time it occurs. Soul loss may occur in response to physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; a molestation experience during childhood or being ruthlessly teased and bullied; a bitter divorce, a shocking betrayal, a sexual assault, a serious surgery, or a terrible car accident, to name just a few. The post-traumatic stress syndrome experienced by military veterans is a classic example of soul loss." (1)
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What is soul retrieval?
"Anyone who's had a trauma, from a shamanic point of view, may have had some loss of their soul. By soul we mean the spiritual essence essential throughout one's life as we describe life in our culture, which is from conception or birth to the time of death. The techniques for healing soul loss are soul-retrieval techniques, and one of the classic shamanic methods is to go searching for that lost portion of the soul and restore it.
"Until about 8 years ago, most people in the Western world felt that soul retrieval was a superstitious practice that had no validity, but things have turned. I must say that a major reason is the work of my colleague, Sandra Ingerman, the author of Soul Retrieval and Coming Home. During her shamanic practice in Santa Fe, NM, years ago, women who had had significant childhood abuse would mention in the course of the sessions that they had removed themselves psychically from the situation at the time of abuse. Sandra immediately recognized, as a practicing shaman, that the person's soul to some degree had left the body (if it had left completely, the person would have been dead), and therefore the logical thing was to retrieve the lost portion of the soul and bring it back. So she then started doing soul retrieval for these people who had had significant childhood traumas, and the results were astounding. Today, this work is an important part of shamanic healing practice in the West."(2)
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So, I experienced a part of my soul that literally came back to me that second night of drinking ayahuasca. Along with it came the knowledge, which I had intimations of but which I could still not quite accept, that I was the survivor of major childhood trauma: I was a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. The particular incident I revisited during this first weekend with ayahuasca was a gang attack by a group of local boys down at the creek where we would go and catch bullfrogs. I was abused, tortured and actually left for dead, sometime around the age of 4 years old. The closest neighbor, husband of my piano teacher, found me (one of the boys must have let him know to come looking for me) and rescued me. He also became my secret keeper - but that is a story for another time.
After this experience, I felt more whole than I had ever felt. EVER. I felt like there was some justification for my having felt fucked up literally for my whole life; for having felt lost, isolated, somehow wrong, unloved and unlovable, and ugly; for my self-hatred, my addictions, my depression, my health problems; it ALL made more sense. And yet a huge part of me wanted to deny this new truth, especially as it continued unraveling into even darker and more convoluted places. "But...!" my mind stammered, "I had a normal childhood! I had parents who loved me! I was born white upper-middle class, for goodness sake! This could NOT have happened. Maybe I am just processing this pain for someone else. Maybe it happened in a past life (uh oh, there goes that whoo-wometer!)..."
Not knowing what to do next, I did some research (I know, I AM an academic geek, after all) on the constellation of symptoms in adult survivors of sexual abuse. Here is a summary:
"The symptom profile of adults who were abused as children
includes post-traumatic and dissociative disorders combined with depression,
anxiety syndromes, and addictions. These symptoms include (1) recurrent
depression; (2) anxiety, panic, and phobias; (3) anger and rage; (4) low
self-esteem, and feeling damaged and/or worthless; (5) shame; (6) somatic pain
syndromes (7) self-destructive thoughts and/or behavior; (8) substance abuse;
(9) eating disorders: bulimia, anorexia, and compulsive overeating; (10)
relationship and intimacy difficulties; (11) sexual dysfunction, including
addictions and avoidance; (12) time loss, memory gaps, and a sense of
unreality; (13) flashbacks, intrusive thoughts and images of trauma; (14)
hypervigilance; (15) sleep disturbances: nightmares, insomnia, and
sleepwalking; and (16) alternative states of consciousness or personalities." (3)
Here are my own symptoms, collected over the years: spastic colon, depression, despair, suicidal thoughts, self-destructive behaviors, OCD behaviors, including dermatillomania, or compulsive skin-picking, many addictions (cigarettes, alcohol, diet pills, speed, crystal meth, sex, just to name a few), escapism using drugs, body dysmorphia/eating disorder, extreme lack of self-esteem, self-hatred and feelings of worthlessness, extreme sexualization of childhood play, sexual promiscuity, abusive boyfriends, lack of sexual boundaries, and revictimization (meaning I became a victim of sexual abuse again, later in life).
(I also have a very hard time with memory, and have very few memories of being a child; and in childhood I often sleep-walked and ended up at the foot of my parents' bed, or in the other bunk bed in my room. Just adding these because while I did not see them as indicators of anything before, they do apply in the context of the first list.)
I looked up this research (and MUCH more - Ms. Turkus' article was #13 on my reference list) because there is STILL a part of me that did not want to believe that anything bad could have ever happened to me. My mom claimed as much - she said I used to run to her for a band-aid with even the smallest little boo boo , and she was sure I would have told her if something had happened to me. But I know I didn't tell her about my problems in the bathroom. I think, looking at the two lists, even a skeptic like my mom would have a hard time dismissing the correlations.
It is not my intention to prove anything to anyone here, anyway. I know because of the prevalent attitudes towards psychoactive substances there are people who theoretically would (and probably will) categorically dismiss this accounting as drug-induced blathering. I would love it if this blog could open the doors of perception to just one person in that category! Unfortunately the skeptics are missing out on one of the most profound opportunities for healing in this day and age, with a sacred plant teacher that is definitely the medicine I needed and that has helped thousands (probably at this point hundreds of thousands) of people in their lives. I know what the medicine allowed me to let go of, and what it brought back to me. I know that after that night I experienced a greater sense of my own life force. I felt stronger and more positive. I felt more present, with my children, husband, relations, in my job, and in my community. I felt more compassionate. Having relived some of my own suffering, I definitely felt energetically 'lighter,' a feeling that has never faded. And I think just knowing that my suffering somehow made sense - this was the biggest relief of all.
This initial experience with ayahuasca prompted me to proclaim to God: "Great Spirit, if there is ever any way I could express my gratitude for what you have given me - if there is any way I could be of service to help others receive help from this plant teacher - please sign me up! I am willing to dedicate my life in service to this path of healing, according to Your will." Almost exactly one year later, my musician friend asked me if my husband and I would be willing to host medicine ceremonies with a new teacher from Colombia at our healing center. I helped organize these ceremonies in the fall of 2006, and have been helping this same teacher ever since, until this spring, when I resigned to begin this book project. So you see, God took me up on my offer!
I have been privileged to watch hundreds of people every year come to ceremony and ask the medicine - which comes from God - for help, and watch them receive that help, even more than they could have imagined. Personally I have found more clearing, more releasing of the past, more lessons in humility, more presence, and more "harmony" than I would ever have believed possible. Of course, to be clear, this medicine is not a cure-all. I mean, I still get depressed. I still go through shitty times. I still doubt myself and feel lost. I think drinking medicine needs to be accompanied by other methods of self-development in order to be the most beneficial (some would disagree). One thing I can say with absolute certainty: beginning with this experience in 2005, I actually perceived the birth of my ability to experience joy, and watched it starting to grow. It was - and still is - a true miracle.
(1) "Soul Loss," by Jill Kuykendall, on the Shared Wisdom website, http://www.sharedwisdom.com/page/soul-loss
(2)"Shamanic Healing: We Are Not Alone," page 2 An Interview of Michael Harner by Bonnie Horrigan © Shamanism, Spring/Summer 1997, Vol. 10, No.1, retrieved at http://www.shamanism.org/articles/article01page2.html
by Joan A. Turkus, M.D. Retrieved at http://www.fortea.us/english/psiquiatria/spectrum.htm
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