I’ll be updating this post periodically with news on the progress of the ideas and activities associated with my book, Returning to Sacred World: A Spiritual Toolkit for the Emerging Reality. It was published in November 2010 by O Books. It’s available at Amazon. Clicking on this link at amazon.com should take you directly to [...]
Archive for the ‘Sacred Plant Wisdom,’ category
The book: Returning to Sacred World
Posted August 23rd, 2010 by admin. Comment (0).
Interview with an Ayahuasca Curandero
Posted June 23rd, 2010 by admin. Comments (4).
Interview with an Ayahuasca Curandero
Ronin, or Ronin Niwe, is one of what might be described as the new breed of ayahuasca curanderos. These are mainly people who are not native to the Amazonian region of South America and who have undertaken apprenticeships, often under the tutelage of ayahuasca shamans trained in the traditional way. This [...]
Interview with an Ayahuasca Curandero – text version
Posted June 23rd, 2010 by admin. Comments (2).
This post contains the text version of Interview with an Ayahuasca Curandero. It’s almost identical to the audio version, as is the fairly brief introduction below.
Ronin, or Ronin Niwe, is one of what might be described as the new breed of ayahuasca curanderos. These are mainly people who are not native to the Amazonian region [...]
Signs of Awakening – Part A: Personal
Posted May 10th, 2010 by admin. Comment (0).
I’m going out on a limb with this topic and perhaps risking accusations—including from myself—of hubris. A long history of practice and study, however dubious at times in its effectiveness, has brought me to a place where I believe I know a little about whether one’s spiritual work is having the effects one would hope [...]
An Interview With God
Posted February 8th, 2010 by admin. Comment (0).
Don’t worry, I’m not turning into a megalomaniac or a fire-and-brimstone preacher claiming to have a direct line to a personal God. What follows is a somewhat playful but nonetheless sincere attempt to imagine what such a conversation might entail on issues of planetary and personal consciousness transformation. It contains direct and indirect references to [...]
The Benefits of Low-Dose Psilocybin Mushrooms [updated]
Posted November 1st, 2009 by admin. Comments (12).
Not everyone knows how to ask for medicine or how to receive it, they [the indigenous healers] tell me, but there is no one in the world who does not need medicine in their lives.1 Kathleen Harrison
Note: The essay below was added to the site over two years ago as I sit here tonight in [...]
Shamanism Conference in Peru
Posted October 26th, 2009 by admin. Comment (0).
Across the Andes from Lima and now flying low into Iquitos, my view out the airplane window fell upon vast expanses of the Amazon jungle and the legendary Rio Amazona winding its serpentine pathway through the dense forest— la selva. Iquitos, a rambling, noisy ‘town’ of about 300,000, appeared suddenly out of the surrounding jungle.
I [...]
When Prayer Meets Medicine
Posted October 25th, 2009 by admin. Comment (0).
Like many of us in the western world, I grew up in a family that went to church on Sunday mornings. In my particular family it was the Anglican Church in central Canada. Prayer was a core principle of the teachings that came down to me as a child and a significant part of [...]
Grandfather Peyote and the Native American Church
Posted October 22nd, 2009 by admin. Comments (2).
We know whereof we speak. We have tasted of God and our eyes have opened.1 Albert Hensley, Winnebago
My first encounter with the peyote medicine spirit, ten years before I met it again in the Native American Church (NAC) ceremonies, demonstrated and presaged in a gentle and humbling manner what it’s capable of accomplishing. I [...]
Deep Versus High
Posted October 4th, 2009 by admin. Comment (0).
In my forthcoming book Returning to Sacred World: A Spiritual Toolkit for the Emerging Reality (publication fall 2010 by O Books) an important aspect of the thesis—and the total focus of the last several chapters—is an attempt to enter the spiritual benefits of a few key spirit/teacher/medicine plants more openly into the discussion about valid, [...]