Feb28 Day5 Dreamland Visit

I might have dreamt once during the trip, not sure exactly, but I woke from a dream today... People gathering around in anticipation of another, informal, Ayahuasca ceremony.
There was a dream, and then a period after where I was awake and aware, yet the
dream continued.
Three themes:
specific physical location was important to me - several times I was drawn to stay near
two or three specific spots - as if something under the ground was attracting me.

unknown/unidentified women were with/around me in those spots; two or three of them
I felt their presence

Physical sensation of the earth under me I sunk into the earth, face down, spread out
felt the pressure in my groin, readjusted, settled in further


It became clear that an informal ceremony was not going to happen, but the congregated
hanging out continued. Nothing specific happened.

I was aware of processing going on. Lying still and quiet - face down as in my dream, seemed the right thing to do. D. called around 10:00

10:30 biz op call with RIchJerk screener

Feb27 Day4 Swimming Pool

Woke up with a heavy mood - attached to my own suffering ?
Today I need to get on with tackling all the tasks that
have accumulated.

Breathe/meditate to lighten up.
First day back at the pool. In the spirit of being kind to myself, am I even going to try to swim 3 lengths underwater (LUW) ? Feels like a setup for failure.
I feel very fragile; fighting off contraction and smallness like they're my default state. I go with openness toward doing the underwater swim, I may or may not.

My sunburns don't scream as I get into the hotpool - they feel OK. My skin feels bumpy, bubbly, pre-peeling. After lying in the shallows for a while, I feel lovely and warm for the first time since coming back to the sub-arctic...
I breathe/meditate/emanate peace and love from a place of crunchiness seeking peace.
All at once, there it is; I feel myself settling into calm peacefulness.
I think about what D. said about emanations rippling their effects far beyond the
immediate surroundings. I'm not feeling quite so expansive or sure about my ripples.

Time to swim, or go home. I answer the question of LUW with a gentle YES.
More breathing and quiet stillness in the big pool, and then I'm off. I'm in such calm for #1; my mind chirps a few times during #2 and I make a klutzy turn, but I'm solid for #3 and finish strongly. I consider some kind of vocal celebration, but just give myself a quiet YES! as I hang quivering on the end.

I notice my knee while breaststroking; as I did while surfing; can't remember where it got bonked...

The quena sounds pretty cool in the raquet court. I really want to learn a few Peruvian melodies. My fiddle is a bit out of tune - this rarely happens...
I tweak it and play a few things but my fingers don't quite hit all the right
places. I settle in for Lake Isle Waltz... I think about A. fiddling in the jungle.

Feb26 Day3 Back in My HOUSE

Wonderful gentle start to the day

Feb25 Day2 Mutual Integration

Gentle wafting of consciousness borne on breezes of music from the ayahuasca ceremonies; that is how I enter the new day. Familiar sounds and melodies
transport me back to the nights in the jungle, even as the sky brightens. Unfamiliar ones lull me back to sleep. I lie on the couch wanting to hug and be hugged.
Wanting to lie in someone's arms, have my head stroked; getting some comfort from the image of my wanting...

Diego's ayahuascawasi CD has hours and hours of music. It has been running all night.
When it ends, I restart it, with considerable effort, since all those little buttons on
the remote are unintelligible to me. I physically go to the player, eject and reinsert the disk, and start the playing anew. I learn that "next" is the way to skip a track I don't recognize and prefer to jump over on the way to the familiar.

The day ambles by in conversation, discussion, listening.
I go home, talk to Leah on the phone, who is home, alone.
I feel a somewhat familiar flat, detached indifference in her voice.

Go feed the goat.
Make something to eat, thai cup-a-soup and broccoli with mayo.

Go through phone messages.

Go back to D.s to watch Jesus Christ Superstar
That is such a wonderful movie!
Afterwards, we watch the commentary track for a while, but D. gets bored of that and suggests watching The Matrix. Woah! no mellowing-out, almost-snoozing during that one!

It's late.
Time to go home.
Thanks for a lovely full day of gently coming back home.

Feb24 Day1 Rainbow & Customs in TO

Flight from Lima Air Canada 081 2240-0630

Seated in "exit-row" right behind projection screen.

Overheard left neighbour talking to his left neighbour about flying
helicopters in a remote location near the border with Bolivia... and in the arctic
Reminded me of my time in the arctic in 1979/80, and how cool I found all the
different planes and choppers I got flown around in.
Also reminded me of my goal to be flying my own personal chopper by 2011.

I remember eating, disliking the wine a lot, wrapping up in the blanket, being
disinterested in the TV, and doing the posture/breathing/emanating love and
peace practices.... ZZZZzzzzz.......
Woke up when breakfast was served? maybe?

Became aware of predawn light out the window to my right.
First thing I noticed was a deep reddish purple light - memories of post-II dawn at
Yamnuska came to mind. I looked more intently and was blown away by the deep,
rich, intense colours of a horizontal rainbow resting on the horizon.
The full spectrum, in luminous half-pinkie-width bands of
subtlely blended coloured light, made the transition from blackness of earth
to blackness of sky.

I peered out the little round window in the exit door, and occasionally out the unused
window of the snoozing passengers, amazed at how long this wonderful display was
carrying on, expecting it to fade at any moment, but happy to keep experiencing and
enjoying it. I snagged my camera and took some looooong exposure photos.

For quite a while I was torn between wanting to share this with Satyen and Suzanne, and not wanting to wake them up to do so. I recognize my crunchiness around this area of possible conflict.
My inability to assess, on behalf of another, whether something is important enough, to _them_, to wake them up, leads me to err on the side of caution and safety. I recognize that I didn't explicitly
draw anyone's attention to the sky's display, although my prolonged presence at the porthole would have served as sufficient notice to the curious that something was happening.
In the end, an announcement roused Satyen, and I called him back to have a look. By this time we were over Lake Ontario, and the lights of civilization blanketed the ground. Soon after beginning the descent, the rainbow faded to muddy brown-yellow.

Long lines at customs - only 4 or 5 agents on duty.
I confessed to having cool stuff like plants, seeds, coca tea etc. and so got green-carded for a trip through door #2. I was calm throughout, they took my goodies, even let me keep the tatoo-fruit and
seeds from the jungle.

I wasn't accused of having a mental condition, as was my cab-ride-companion from the hostel. Apparently, in addition to maintaining a gruff and grouchy demeanor, that custom inspector's job description includes making unsolicited
phychological assessments. I'm happy not to have stood before him, and to not have been sent for summary electroshock therapy for my lapse in judgement in choice of tea and/or being truthful in the presence of government officials...

My 8:30 flight to Edmonton was just leaving when I finished the song and dance, so I got rescheduled for 10:10. Considered getting something to eat, but woah, was stuff ever
hyper-expensive. Soles-pricing, dollars-payment. Went up to departure area.
There's a very cool huge rectangular transparent acquarium inhabited with transparent plastic cubes which get stirred around in various ways by streams of air bubbling up from the bottom.
Took some pix and video. Found more massively overpriced food, but decided to feed my
brain by reading Discover magazine - fascinating stuff about hyperbolic space and ant taxonomy.

In the interests of not getting distracted to the point of missing my flight, I headed for the departure gate, picking up a RockyMountainChocolate double cone on the way - awesome.
I like the way the sun shines in the TO terminal.

Phoned to let P. know I was on a later flight; said I'd call when I arrived.

Woman next to me had a blackberry. I watched in fascination as she thumbed out her message. I hadn't seen a blackberry up close before. Turns out she works for ParksCanada. We had a lovely
conversation about a variety of stuff. I really enjoyed the prolonged time of free, relaxed talk and looking at each other.

She talked enthusiastically about the movie which was "Walk the Line" about Johnny Cash. It really was a great film - I was emotionally moved all over the place. Offscreen too - a couple of times during the film she fell asleep with her hair partly across her face creating such an image of sweetness and beauty. I was aching, melting and giggling inside all at the same time. I was moved to take a photo, but as I contemplated the appropriateness of it, and the logistics to get my camera out of the overhead bin, etc. the photoop disappeared.
For a while I practiced breathing/emanating/feeling into her; no direct sense of it "working".

In the spirit of "notice what I notice", three things occur to me:
The desire to capture beautiful images - what is the sense or purpose in that rather than simply experiencing the moment? I want to practice appreciating and taking in more fully whatever
visual image might prompt me to want to capture it on film - whether or not I actually click.

The emotional charge behind appreciating feminine beauty - I have long enjoyed simple, unattached appreciation of female form and movement. On the trip I have been noticing more emotional charge behind that. Is it just that my emotional body is becoming looser, freer, more responsive ? Or is it that my yearning for some form of connection is becoming more urgent ?

Get into Edmonton. Met Rozmahel's. P. is there waiting for me. I drive, comfortable in my shorts and light jacket. We go to Pagolac's for hot soup, and end up going to the Sidetrack for a farewell concert covered by CBC radio. I drop P. off at home after finding the gang already gone from DaDeo's, and hit the highway.

Get into Veg, snag some fruit and other breakfast stuff, and head over to D.s to talk about our trips.
She had already been paging me days before... Sorry, a bit out of range.

We just talked and hung out on the couches, drinking tea. It was getting late already when we talked about Diego's CD. I got bags and groceries etc. in and showed some of my loot.
The CD lent a mood of familiarity and mellowness and hang-out-more-ness to the night.