Tena, Day 139: Friday the 13th!
Friday the 13th started even before midnight the day before. We had gone way early to bed apparently after playing werewolf (great game btw, so much fun!) but I hadn’t seen the time when I went to bed. I woke up not so long after by a someone outside calling for Bhaga, which I thought was weird because Bhaga never sleeps at the volunteerhouse, so it must be a stranger I thought. The whole house besides that was dark still and everyone was asleep. The stranger made me alert and awake and I sat up as he kept walking around the house, yelling. Someone speaking Spanish went outside to talk to him though after a while and I feel asleep again. In the middle of the night I woke up again, by two people being in the house, yelling “buenos noches!” several times to find someone to talk to I guess – again strangers. Then someone talked to them, I heard, and I got up and went to the bathroom in the dark. When I got out, I got first of all blinded by the light from the open door into the hallway at the other side of our room, trying to cover my eyes AND myself as I was almost naked; seeing a man coming ind with his big backpack fumbling for the light switch, with a woman behind him. I said a rusty hello in Spanish, telling them to wait one moment. They tried to ask if there wasn’t space in this room for them, but my sleepy just-got-awakened-from-deep-sleep-twice brain didn’t function well in Spanish at that moment so I just kept telling them to wait. They went out and waited and closed the door, while I took a sheet around me saying, “What the fuck is going on, it’s in the middle of the night!” out loud, as Sarah and Alex had awoken as well. I went out confused, tired and sleepy-eyed, wrapped in a sheet and messy hair, to try to politely ask them what they wanted. They seemed like Krishna devotees and I wondered why on earth they came in the middle of the night, not even knowing where Bhaga lived. They asked if there was space for two people in our room or in other rooms and I told them, in very bad Spanish with my porridge-zombie brain, that there were female and male domitories upstairs. They thanked me and I went to bed again. I got up a bit later than Sarah next morning, around 6-7, and felt tired and weird all day. The devotees that had arrived ended up leaving before breakfast, as we were doing the Spoon Revolution awareness today. A Krishna devotee started the Spoon Revolution, and I’m pretty sure I met him in Santo Domingo; his name is Rama. Great guy, very patient with speaking Spanish with foreigners, but my Spanish was not that great at the time I met him, so I’m not sure he was the guy who started it. Anyway, it’s about eating vegetarian, or vegan – saving the planet and the animals. The fork and knife are used to eat meat with and can be potential violent tools, where the spoon on the other hand can be seen as peaceful and used for all vegetarian and vegan foods. Therefore we only eat with spoons at the Krishna farms. This day we collected banana leafs (big, green flat palm leaves that we use instead of baking sheets and sometimes also instead of serving plates) and cooked a massive amount of vegan food and went with Bhaga as a leader and speaker for our activist group of the day, to serve vegan food in folded banana leafs to the people on the streets of Tena. We had a soundtrack made for the Spoon Revolution playing while Bhaga spoke about the cause. The food was free and it was fun to give it away to curious kids, their parents, and run after the busses in traffic to give people food through the windows. I felt energized after that and happy. I was not so tired anymore. Sometime in the evening Alex told me with a grin on her face that she had looked at the time when the first man the night before had woken us up – then when the couple had, and it had all been before eleven at night! Hah. And I thought it had been in the middle of the night, being all pissed off and annoyed and felt righteously tired half the day. Hah. Apparently we had gone to bed before nine the night before! 
Cooking for the Spoon Revolution
The Spoon Revolution in all it’s happiness!
Tena, Day 132: High on LIFE!
Ugh! Were to start… So I am soo so happy and vibrant and SPARKLING with energy these days! The concentration of beautiful, bright souls here at W.F. is just incredible and unbelievable, and new friendships are evolving rapidly; Simultaneous evolving and ascending is happening when people are opening up to their inner feelings and selves and the vibration is rising excitedly within intense conversations. I realize that I do rarely get much higher levels of energy from almost any other situation than having these amazing conversations with people – it’s CRAZY how I can almost feel the magnetic field around me and the other person vibrating when we look into each others eyes and keep the intense connection while sharing our very inner feelings and perceptions. It’s like I can feel our souls ascending in wisdom and evolution. That feeling is priceless and a wonder to me.
So me and a girl called Iolani, have been teaching an acroyoga workshop, and it’s the first time in soo so so long for me – possibly a year or more, and I’ve been so excited about it! It felt so awesome to teach people who had never done it before and see them do advanced stuff at the middle and end of the session! So awesome, I love it! Also, after doing so much yoga almost every day for a while, my hamstring is now so flexible I can actually base a flyer without rolling to the sides all the time! Yay! It’s the first time I feel like I’ve been able to base properly and actually even be able to do something else than just trying to balance the flyer.
I am now so psyched about learning so much more that it feels like it’s the first time I’ve tried it.
Me and Sarah, a Swedish girl whom I will maybe be so lucky to travel to a trance festival in Peru with (her DJ name is Ayni, check her out), have decorated our little room for the short time I’m going to be here in W.F. and have put some of my pictures up on the wall and made small alters of crystals and Palo Santo. We also have a visitor whom Sarah maybe thinks is her sister – in the shape of a big, black dragonfly. It has been siting in the windowsill, next to the open window, for 3 days now – in the same spot, next to Sara’s crystal necklace. When she comes close to it, it moves it’s wings though.
Oh and there’s so much more, but in my serotonin filled brain I can’t think of it right now 😀 I’m just so happy!
However, I can share some pictures!
Our pretty visitor how was with us for several days next to Ayni’s bed
So fragile, so beautiful
Acroyoga! Wohoo!
Her little cave on a quiet day
On the way to teach in Talag school
Tena, Day 120: Back to the family!
Today I left Marco and Puyo – promising to come back one day to get to know him, and the spirits of the plants better. He is planning to expand his own place, or find another one, in order to be able to accept guests himself where no other volunteers or people visiting Juan Pablo (who owns the farm we were at) will interfere. Where there will be nice, wild jungle and not too many tourists.
I went to Puyo, found myself a bus to Tena, bought my ticket and got seat no. 22 – exactly as when I was leaving Tena. Good decision both times indeed!
I have now arrived; randomly joining up with 3 other people in the bus who also happened to go here the same time, same day, AND 3 more arrived a few hours later. That’s 7 new people in one day and Bhaga isn’t even here! So many new faces to get used to, but it’s going really well already. It’s so good to be back; to see Julie, Berty and Jake again; to listen to happy people chatting about health foods and how to cure onerself through urine therapy; to hear different people jamming on various acoustic instruments, and hear the well-known sounds of the jungle. Oh, and eat so well again. A little too well. Need to work on not overeating…
I’m so happy and soo, so tired.
Puyo, Day 118: Paralel dimensions
Yesterday early morning (around 6.30) I took Malacagua – a certain vine kind of plant where you drink the juice squeezed out of the soft, peeled bark. I tastes way better than Ayahuascha I can tell you – more like the peels of peas, juiced and given to you fresh. The liquid is pretty and green, kind of milky, and tastes a bit bitter. The bitterness made my mouth dry up and I felt thirsty throughout the entire trip, but that was probably the most uncomfortable physical effect at all, so that’s not very bad.
Before giving it to me, Marco had made a little nest for me in the forest next to our cabin – which is basically just a little hillside with many trees and plants. He had built a little raincover and put a mat and a blanket for me on the ground. He came to check on my every half hour – I suppose, as I had no sense of time what so ever. Some hours went by and Marko took a walk with me around the hillside in circles, holding my hand, as the normal effect on the body from this is that your legs can be a bit weak and your motor skills are failing somewhat in general. Also, Your pupils dilate quite a lot, which I realized when objects started getting bigger and kind of cartoon like, and the expressions on Marco’s face were different than usual. You come to learn how much everything changes once your vision does – how the smallest wrinkle or shadow changes the appearance of things and people. So the point of taking this medicine is to enter another dimension, which is parallel to this one and co-exists all around us, where one can communicate with the spirits of plants. As I didn’t think I saw anything, after walking around with me some time, Marco apparently took me back to my cabin, not that I remember going there. I met Cedar around that time (much later, at that time it was around 16.00 in the afternoon) and tried to explain some things to him and just smalltalk, but I then realized how much I was still tripping. I kept mixing the three languages I can speak together – forgetting the point after a few seconds of trying to find the words. For the life of me I couldn’t read any text at all either or see small details – it was like the whole left side of my brain was turned off – if I COULD see a letter, it would change to other letters or turn into symbols I don’t recognize or unto numbers. I did articulate a sentence saying something like “As I took Malacagua yesterday morning” but Cedar stopped me, saying no dude, you took it this morning… You haven’t slept”… I had been absolutely sure a day and a night had gone by, because I was starting to remember this crazy dream I had had, but had to chockingly realize it had been my visions I had seen, but I had no idea when they had happened and what I had done in this reality meanwhile. Also seeing Cedar, who was happy and smiling, made me remember what I actually had seen throughout the day – because I had seen him a lot, camouflage himself as a tree so well, I almost didn’t see him. He was looking very sad or neutral and did not look like himself. Also I remembered throughout the day that I had talked to several people who, when I turned to look at them, weren’t there all of a sudden. Not only had I seen Cedar, but also Andrea AND talked with them both. I had also had conversations with people, who also responded, only to see them turning into a tree when I looked again. I also saw this random guy who kept following me/appearing through out the day in a tree, on the grass, or his face sticking out of the grass. I felt like I kept waking up from dreams where I had talked to people, only to realize I was standing there like a fool, talking to a branch or a shrub. Had someone seen me? Who was even permantly in ths reality? I was not sure. Also this one tree moved around 3 times during the day, just a few meters every time. Every thing seemed to have a rainbow aura around it. It didn’t really scare me that my memory seemed to be so shattered or bother me a lot that my language skills had seemed to gone to shit, it more bothered me that I couldn’t place where what happened and that I had no one to verify what happened when. But I’ll talk to Marco later today. I also remember that I kept thinking, and saying to him, that Cedar looked so different today. Maybe it was because he had been so sad in my vision and happy in this reality.
It was definitely an interesting experience and I still feel it a bit today – the day after. My pupils have a hard time to focus immediately and also I still see some rainbows and patterns in nature. Oh, and did I say that when I took a shower and heard the water running, all kinds of conversations, monologues, whispers and voices can be heard in the water? This also happens to me at home though – when the water is running in the bathroom if I’m washing my nands, sometimes I’m convinced I can hear laughter, cries, conversations or shouts in the apartment, but whenever I turn the water off, there is none. Interesting no? 😉
(Later)
So Cedar went today, to be in Baños for a night and then to Cuenca to meet his dad for the Galapagos. It’s more than strange to be alone again, as I actually haven’t been alone for one and a half month! Wow time flies… Or does it even exist? 😉
I feel strange being alone, like I’m waiting for something or someone to motivate me. But I guess I’ll have company soon, as I’ll be heading for Wisdom Forest, Brendan and Tena in a few days.
It’s nice to be in the jungle again and I’m down with all the vegetation and beauty, however I’m actually looking forward for heading south again – out of the humidity. My hat and toilet bag are starting to mold! I would rather not have to throw those out.
Puyo, Day 116: Oh well
So I had my second Ayahuascha trip last night. This time I managed to hold the liquid in my stomach for, what would seem to be, sufficient time for the effect to kick in properly instead of disappearing right after vomiting. Strangely enough, this time the effect was way less intense as the first time, which might have been because of me still being weak from the parasites the first time… I wonder.
It was only Marco and I this time, which was pleasant, but it became very quiet and a bit awkward for me, when nothing happened really. The tingling sensation was there in my body, but not so strong and I was lying in my hammock for the first hour I think, without much effect. With my eyes closed, I saw a bit of the central pattern of colours I aways see; I saw two big cat’s eyes in green and yellow; I saw myself as a toddler (2 or 3 years old) running over a patch of grass; I saw my mother young with short hair and big glasses, maybe when she was around 30; I saw the sunflower again and felt quite content and happy. With eyes open I saw mother earth’s face again, or just a female face – first being a bush turning into the face, turning into an old woman’s face, turning into a miniature elephant saluting in Marco’s direction. It was so cute. I also saw a dog, a German Shephard lying down looking tired or bored. After going to the bathroom, doing the obligatory diarrhea run, I vomited once and went back to my hammock to lie down. I had learned from last time to breathe slowly and deeply, not to swallow the foul tasting spit after vomiting (or I would just vomit again riiight after) and to lie down a lot. Like this I felt much better but also not much effect. After a cricket right under my hammock startled me so much, I woke up from dozing off apparently and was in a state of light shock, I was lying there breathing heavely. That cricket had been so loud and so close. Marco, who was probably freezing in the hammock next to me after so little activity (and tired after many days of taking care os us), asked how I felt and if I wanted to go back to my bed. I said yes and he helped me back. I fell afsleep after a while and woke up lazy.
I’m tempted to say I almost feel disappointed but have decided not to be as this is not the time for me to take Ayahuscha apparently, or it just does not have much to show me at the moment. After all, it has been a good introduction to the plant as I am not afraid to take it again, should the possibility occur.
Cedar writing down his trips
Puyo, Day 114 and 115: A flute in the night
I get pulled out of my dream, still dark outside, by flute tunes traveling my way. As I wake up, I hear only the song of crickets and Marco playing the flute. As the sounds of the flute come closer, he wakes us up – saying it’s time for Guayusa. Today is Tuesday, and we are going to take Ayahuascha tonight at seven in the evening. In order to do so, Marco planned for us to take Guayusa – tea made of a certain leaf from the jungle by that name – at 5.30 in the morning to cleanse out our stomachs. The rest of the day we will not have anything else than water until the Ayahuascha.
The legendary yellow flower that started the trippy happiness
We follow Marco over to the fireplace, where 5 other people have gathered. Apparently they are also taking ayahuascha tonight which was kind of against our plan, as we want to do it the three of us together, but I guess we assumed that and didn’t talk to Marco about it, and Marco didn’t ask us. I guess we thought he would, but there’s not much to do about it now.
Marco pours a cup of hot Guayusa tea for each person and tells us we will want to vomit after drinking as much as we can, as fast as we can. This ritual is usually with liquid tobacco, but now got replaced with this tea, which hardly tastes like anything else than hot water. I’m grateful for that. I had to drink 7 cups within half an hour though, before Marco gave me another cup – telling me to down it – and then a leaf to tickle my throat with in order to vomit. I had to do this for every cup I had drunk I felt – only liquid for what seemed like the content of one cup came out every time. As the sun was brightening the misty sky, the morning filled with the noises of people vomiting. I stopped after provoking vomiting 5 times and went to sit down. After a while, I went to get my camera and took a walk to take some pictures of the place. A beaufiful sunrise with coloured rays through the mist would be ideal, but the grey misty ambient also makes the jungle look quite pretty – and mystical.
After taking pictures, I sat down on the porch meditating, sending a message to mother earth to be gentle to me tonight.
(Later)
The Ayahuascha experience was unlike anything I ever tried I must say. It was the strongest effect on my body I had ever experienced and yet, not so strong on my mind. There were definitely patterns, colours on layers on top of each other, shadows in the trees and bushes (but those I had already noticed during the day before we took it) and sensatory hallucinations. But there was no reason to be as nervous as I was – my mind kept coming up with positive solutions to bad/paranoid thoughts or images, if I even had any, and I kept seeing flowers. Sunflowers especially, which Cedar reminded me of a connection to, after the trip: that he had seen my energy as a sunflower on our third San Pedro trip. That was a nice reminder. It was like The Mother kept reminding me to stay happy, not to worry. I sent her lots of love and thought of some of the people I love the most and felt their presence, kisses and warm hands is mine.
So I have decided to do Ayahuascha tomorrow again, but alone this time, with Marco. I think there’s more for me to see, or at least I hope so.
I also have another rainbow song I’d like to write down 🙂
Buscando el camino, que llega a la esencia
Escucha el llamado de la Madre Tierra
Voy corriendo en las valles
Voy saltando las montanas
Voy volando por el cielo
Voy danzando con el agua
Sigo este camino de magia y mysterio
Voy sin equipaje, llevo solo mis respetos
Voy seguro y voy sin miedo
Gran espiritu mi guia
Tranquilo y sin apuros
Hoy la tierra da me el pulso
Asi voy recordando a mis abuelitas
Asi voy agradaciendo a mis abuelitos
Nos mostraron el camino
Nos dejeron sus tesoros
Sagradas ceremonias
Podorosa medicina
Asi voy apprendiendo y compartiendo este mensaje
Somos hijos de la tierra
Y debemos protegerla
Trabajando con mis hermanos
Somos guardianes y guerreros
Curamos con nuestros cantos, nuestros retos a la tierra!
Uh! And look at my bed, fits juust right to the environment ^____^
Vilcabamba (and Baños & Puyo), Day 100: Made it!
Day 100 wohoo! I made it!
Now this is just actually more of a praise and reference to Into The Wild – my day 100 was far less dramatic, but I’m going to write a bit about it anyway. I actually don’t remember what I did, but I remember that I was going to be in Peru – or so I thought. However, that didn’t happen obviously and now, many days later (day 109), I arrived to Puyo with Cedar, and Andrea – whom we met in Baños. After delaying our journey because of a horrible parasite attack I felt slighty better the next day to go, but had to brace myself on the bus when an accident happened on the road and we were delayed for a while. My stomach was still not feeling well at all after the 24 hours of explosive diarrhea, burbing nasty sulphur smelling air, having fever attacks and cold sweat, dreams about guys stabbing me, stomach pain, intense weakness, headaches and so on. Today, three days after, I feel much, much better and must admit that I could not have gone to a better place than this, as Marco, the shaman we are going to take ayahuascha with and whom we are going to stay with for a week, is a real medicine man. He advices me what to eat, gives me fresh dragon’s blood (the tree sap) – instead of the old I had, asks me out about my symptoms and also gave me some other extract of some wood and bark in cane sugar alcohol. On my almost empty and weak stomach, I got so tipsy of this tiny shot of red, strong liquid; I was swaying a bit when walking, and my pupils widened instantly. Doing this diet (The plant medicine diet: No garlic+onions, no spices, no sugar, no stimulants like coffee, no fruits), while eating consciously without any gluten, these little parasite bastards are going to be gone in no time. I also eat papaya seeds of course – they’re supposed to be one of the best remedies against parasites. Marco even called yesterday, when we were supposed to be in Puyo and asked how I was feeling. He keeps checking up on me and is not just a good shaman but also a good host.
When we arrived yesterday, we sat down and planned with him what we are going to do the week we’re here. Cedar has to leave in a week to go meet his dad in Cuenca, bus as I’m going to Tena and Andrea is going to Colombia, the two of us can stay longer if we want to. We planned to do Ayahuascha all together on Tuesday, (tomorrow) and they boys are going to do an additional Malicagua ceremony and perhaps another Ayahuascha ceremony before that. All with one day in between to recover though – and meditate on what happened. As it is my first time (I don’t really count the one in St. Domingo, as it didn’t affect me really), I decided to take Ayahuascha once on Tuesday with the boys and then decide from there what to do next.
4 other people have arrived – they are going to do a plant nursery for 3 weeks here and might take Ayahuascha as well. I’m not sure. I was hoping we would only be the 4 of us here, but I guess not – apparently Marco is just working here, it’s another guy owning the farm, and he has other plans.
Natural shower in Puyo by the stream
Natural shower in Puyo! Amazing view over the jungle marsh
Ahh. It’s nice to be in the sounds of jungle, away from the city noises; drunk people’s drama, car alarms going off every hour, police sirens, tourists blabbering, locals selling towels, sunglasses and what not on the street… Now it’s only crickets, birds, pigs, chickens, roosters and an occasional car passing on the road outside the farm. Lovely.
And here are some pictures of the cutest little puppy who Carlos, Marco’s son, had brought for some hours. It’s only a week old, got attacked by a bat and is now given to some neighbors. Poor little thing wines everytime you give it some warmth; it can’t walk without tripping over its own feet, and searches for crevaches like elbows, hands or armpits everytime you hold it – to burry its head and fall asleep. Nuuurh.
Rambo!
Hah, and by the way, his name is Rambo. X’D
Here’s a thought I had when we were traveling from Vilcabamba to Ambato + Baños by the way, around 10-12 hours or so: “Accommodation and sleep in a night bus in the mountains of Ecuador, is like being half asleep while doing painful yoga – not really knowing what position you’re in, your limbs taking turns on going numb – mostly your ass, which will hurt after a short while. Your bed is way too small and weirdly shaped and it’s situated in a fast rollercoaster ride – in the dark, so you have no idea when the next turn is. The AirCon is NOT working and the staff won’t allow you to open the windows, or they’re locked, which makes the possibility for slipping off your strangely shaped bed – just by being sweaty – even more likely. Your obese neighbour is way too close to you in the next room and besides all the previous obstacles for sleep – he is snoring like a pig was stuck in his throat. In what seems like the middle of you finally falling asleep, the staff decides to kick you out at the side of a highway, rushing and yelling at you, only turning on the light for 5 seconds in order to get your stuff. You now have no idea where you are, feel like you just awoke but not really, and stand in the side of the road at 5.20 in the morning when it’s still dark, your clothes so wet with sweat from the humid condense-water-running-down-windows-room, you are freezing your tits (or balls) off in the morning cold. Thank you, come again.”
Be chevere! Hahaha
In Baños
In and against the wind
NomadeSylfiden 
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