Ayahuasca: shifting the assemblage point

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Drank ayahuasca tonight, for the fourth time. One thought worth reporting might be explained by way of the great fiction of Carlos Castaneda and his concept of “assemblage point”. Anyone is free to think what they like about his work, but like flies to shit the figures speak for themselves: it is popular. For me the books were instrumental, formative, eye-opening in my early 20s – great metaphors and possibilities for thought patterns, well wrapped in humourous prose in words attributed to Don Juan.

So what did he say? Well…. get off your flippin’ tits, init? Almost.

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Navigating the fractral geometry of emotions on wings of clarity.

Friday, January 12, 2007

On reading the previous entry on Ayahuasca a good friend speculated on the plant spirit’s helpfulness in the context of creativity – the big question: what to do next?

This is a kind of reply.

The big questions about taking steps, and about moving through time and space as a creative being, can indeed be reflected on, for want of a better term for the kind of clarity that the plant spirits induces, with Ayahuasca.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bd/Julia_set_%28indigo%29.png/180px-Julia_set_%28indigo%29.png

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Ayahuasca: the fire this time!

Friday, January 12, 2007

Trip report (wham bam thank you):

Third time drinking ayahuasca with the local curandero. The first two sessions were ritual and moments of acquaintance with each other and with the plant spirit. With concentration and focus we encountered ayahuasca faintly in a dream like trance. El curandero kept saying that there was only one plant in the drink – he only works with one plant at a time, although he is well versed in a wide range of plants, including San Pedro and the dangerous Angel’s Trumpet:

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A Road of Destruction: the Manta-Belém corredor

Thursday, January 11, 2007

The projected trade route from the Pacific port town Manta in Ecuador to the Atlantic port Belém in Brasil is a serious threat to the rain forest and its humble inhabitants. The main purpose of the corredor is to bring commodities from Asia to Brasil, the “justification” that this poor under-developed area needs improvement (= capitalist, economic development).

The world is already criss-crossed by roads, covered in a thick crust of asphalt, which is “sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid that is present in most crude petroleums and in some natural deposits.

But this road is not made of asphalt alone.

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Ecuador Photos

Friday, January 5, 2007

While doing some tag search for Ecuador photos I came across Paki Nuttah’s Ecuador set on Flickr, which is a nicely varied set in a collection by what appears to be a prolific, cosmopolitian photographer. I particularly liked this one:

Unfortunately one cannot download or link straight from a regular blog entry to her photos because they seem to be under a form of Digital Restrictions Management (she protects them somehow, haven’t figured out yet exactly how and why), but they’re certainly worth a look (and now I know how to “blog a photo” from Flickr, which then gave me an URI for the picture, -whatever good that’ll do me?!?!?!).


New Life.

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

Colona wrote earlier about our immediate neighbour, Maya, having children. They were born under our bed and the transformation and suppression by own caring instincts that poor Maya has been undergoing are immense. She’s gone loca, and she knows it – in clear phases she is apologetic and embarrassed. But it is all beginning to pay off, the two surviving babies are now very loving beings, so we Blip’ed them (YouTube’s for losers) playing while Maya looks on in confusion and with reluctant consent (to the filming):

Click on the pic to view the video

or go to the
Colonos – Amazonia por la Vida channel on Blip.TV
for more options


Ayahuasca: not the fire next time!

Monday, January 1, 2007

Reflections on the second encounter with the spirit of Ayahuasca and visions of much more to come. The point of departure is transgression, destination unknown.

James Baldwin wrote The Fire Next Time in a transgressive manner, one of coming to terms with the white man’s (and woman’s) oppression of themselves and of all other races, who consequently are subjected, also, to the oppressing force’s self-afflictions, thus a double terror, manifesting throughout history in atrocities that leave fiction no place to roam for novel horror. It was in a revolutionary voice that he wrote, in an oppositional and confrontational voice. It was a call for action:

-a burnt out skeleton from the closet-

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