“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.” - Frank Lloyd Wright

“I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in. “ -George Washington Carver

One of the many great tragedies of our so-called ‘civilised’ Western society is how most of us have lost our connection with nature. It didn’t always used to be that way, and for most of the remaining indigenous peoples on the planet, working in harmony with nature is still a way of life. But sadly for most of us Westerners nature has become almost a foreign concept, which is weird when you consider how absolutely vital it is.

For example, You should be aware that our very survival is entirely dependant on nature. If it wasn’t for all the plants and forests there would be little or no oxygen on this planet, and instead Earth would have an atmosphere of poisonous CO2 gas.

You should also aware that a healthy diet involves eating lots of fresh vegetables and fruit. Plants and fruit are where all our most important nutrition comes from.

Perhaps you can recognise and name several common plants and trees, and maybe once in awhile you feel like getting out of town for a short hike into the countryside or wilderness. Then of course it’s back home to plonk yourself back in front of the TV, where thanks to the likes of David Attenborough you’ve probably come to obtain almost all your current knowledge of plants and nature.

Perhaps you’re vaguely aware that many illnesses can be cured using plant medicines, although you most likely still visit your GP, and not your local herbalist if you have a problem. It’s interesting to note that most pharmaceutical drugs are ultimately derived from chemical compounds found in plants.

The Western mindset generally sees nature as something to control, dominate and do what the heck we like with regardless of the consequences. If that means killing millions of species then so be it. It’s only nature after all, we’re far more important aren’t we?

Indigenous peoples all around the world have a totally different view of nature. They understand that they are not separate from nature, they know that trying to control and dominate nature is pure insanity, and for hundreds of thousands of years they have peacefully co-existed with nature.

They also have another different perspective of the world which is that everything contains spirit and consciousness. Even the plants and the trees.

The idea of plants having consciousness is alien to most westerners. Isn’t consciousness generated by the brain? and plants don’t have brains, right? Wrong, consciousness is ultimately the ground of all being, but that’s a subject for a future blog post.

Indigenous shamans, often through many years of training, can obtain the knowledge and ability to tune into this consciousness, to learn and be guided by it. This is not something they believe, it’s something they do.

Different plants and trees can impart different types of knowledge, some more profoundly than others.

Some plants, when ingested, have the affect of profoundly altering your state of consciousness for several hours, or more, putting you in meditative state where you often receive profound visions and lessons that are almost always very relevant to your personal life.

These plants are always considered to be sacred plants and are often referred to as plant teachers. Some of these plant teachers include Peyote, a small cactus that grows in Mexico and parts of south western USA, various mushroom species that grow in many locations around the world. San Pedro, a cactus that grows in several South American countries including Peru, and of course Ayahuasca which is a brew made from a combination of boiling two plants that grow in the Amazon basin.

These plant medicines have been used by indigenous peoples for many thousands of years (and probably much longer than that) as a way to obtain spiritual knowledge and healing, as well as many other insights relating to their personal lives and their communities.

Ayahuasca in particularly is a master healer and there are countless stories of ‘miracle’ healings from people who have ingested this amazing brew. I will write much more about Ayahuasca in a future post because it really has had a profound affect on my life.

Now to many westerners who don’t have much knowledge about these plants and how they work, ingesting these plants is nothing more than ‘taking drugs’. However this is a very small-minded opinion which displays a complete lack of knowledge on what they’re talking about.

Certainly on a very basic level you can argue it’s a drug experience. These plants do contain certain chemicals which have psychoactive properties; In Ayahuasca these chemicals are DMT and harmaline, in most mushrooms it’s psilocybin, and in Peyote & San Pedro it’s mescaline.

However, as almost everyone who has ever experienced these plant teachers has come to realise for themselves, there is something far more amazing and profound happening than just a ‘drug experience’.

Almost all recreational drugs are taken for fun, or to get high and take your mind off any problems you might be experiencing. Taking many of these plant medicines is rarely fun (with perhaps the exception of fairly mild doses of ‘magic’ mushrooms). And you certainly don’t take these plant medicines to avoid your problems, you take them to face your problems head-on. The experiences, particularly with Ayahuasca, can often be very intense and not for the faint of heart. You have to be willing and able to face and accept all aspects of yourself, particularly the bad and the ugly. People can get away for years believing they’re good people, when really they’re quite rotten. If you have a rotten side then one of the first things Ayahuasca will do is to bring it to your attention and show you just how your rottenness is hurting other people. That can be quite a nasty shock for many people.

Another thing is that almost all western recreational drugs are ultimately quite damaging to the body, particularly if used for a regular and prolonged period of time. Virtually all shamanic plant medicines have no harmful side effects, however, it’s quite common to feel a bit sick and even throw up (usually referred to as purging) during a sacred plant medicine ceremony; however, that’s just a sign that the medicine is healing you and removing many toxins and negative energies from your body. Usually by the end of the ceremony, and certainly the next day, you feel quite incredible, almost like you’ve just done a 6 month detox in one evening. I’ve heard it said that western drugs make you feel good first and bad later; shamanic medicine makes you feel bad first and good later. There’s a great deal of truth in that.

I’ve been working with plant teachers, on and off, for about 6 years now, and I never cease to be amazed by what they show me,  the lessons they give me, and the incredible healing and sense of wellbeing they bring to my life. Many times on Ayahuasca I’ve experienced the intense and profound love that I now know is ultimately behind the force that brings all things into being. When you experience that for the first time it changes your perspective on virtually everything. You can’t be quite the same person ever again.

I strongly believe that if everyone worked with these plant teachers, even if just a couple of times in their life, then the world would be an infinitely more loving and peaceful place, and much greater numbers of people would seek to live in harmony with nature and continue to learn from nature as do the indigenous tribes that still exist today.

It’s time for all Westerners (not just a minority out on the fringes of society) to wake up and realise that nature is not separate from us. There are no real boundaries between us and nature, and if we don’t stop destroying nature then our actions will surely end up destroying us. The survival of our Earth depends on the continued functioning of a great many complex eco-systems and if just one of them should breakdown it can affect all the others. That’s something that’s starting to happen and the consequences could be horrific.

The only way we can change our understanding of nature, and the way we interact with nature, is to learn from nature and I believe the best way to do that is to go straight to the source, and I believe that plant teachers are a good place to start.

“You will find something more in woods than in books.  Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters.” - St. Bernard

“As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible, but more mysterious.” - Albert Schweitzer

I’m in the process of formulating  and writing a number of articles that will follow on from my recent What is spirituality? post. One article is almost complete but before publishing it I decided there’s something else that needs to be said first, which is the subject of the great mystery.

What mystery? you might ask. The mystery of EVERYTHING! The mystery of the origins of life, God, consciousness, spirit, the universe and everything that’s ever come into being. It really is all a big mystery and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

The question of ‘why is there anything?’ has always (and I’m sure always will) troubled the greatest philosophers. There really are no answers to that question that make a great deal of sense.

It doesn’t matter if you’re religious, spiritual, philosophical, or only a believer in science, the question of how something came from nothing is probably never going to be adequately explained (not from the average humans level of consciousness anyway).

Or perhaps there never was nothing, and maybe there’s always been something. But that doesn’t make any more or less sense either does it?

Perhaps you believe in the big bang. Fine, but what banged? And how and why did it bang? Does it make any sense at all that there was once nothing, and then that nothing banged and an entire universe came into being? I don’t think so.

If you’re a religious person then you might say that God created the universe. Well how did God first come into being? “Oh, God’s always been around!” you say. Does that make the slightest bit of sense at all? Of course not.

The trick is to agree that it’s all a great mystery and be totally comfortable with that.

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” - Albert Einstein

One of the things that almost all mystics, spiritual adepts, shamans, yogis and enlightened masters etc agree on is that the source of everything is a mystery. They often call it the great mystery, or the unfathomable mystery.

So one of the things I want to make clear as I begin delving more deeply into the spiritual realms is that I don’t pretend I have the answers to everything. I accept the mystery for what it is.

Having said that, I definitely do believe that we as humans can certainly come to know and understand many things that current science tells us is not possible to know. That includes the reality of other worlds/dimensions, higher states of consciousness, communication with other beings/intelligences, the multi-dimensional nature of reality, the ability to heal, astral projection, telepathy, remote viewing, psychic powers and much much more.

If you think that sounds crazy then stick around, you might learn something

“The real mystery of life is not a problem to be solved, it is a reality to be experienced.” –J.J. Van der Leeuw

'Wonder' by Alex Grey - www.alexgrey.com

Now that I’ve posted this blog to my Facebook newsfeed I’m guessing there’s going to be a rather eclectic bunch of people from many walks of life taking a look at this blog. I think many of my Facebook friends are on a fairly similar wavelength to me, and this post is not really aimed at you. It’s more for the people who I went to school or uni with who perhaps don’t know about or understand the direction my life has taken over the last 10 to 15 years.

I want to emphasize that this is not an attempt to preach anything or convert anyone to a particular way of thinking, but if nothing else I hope to pique your curiosity so that you might look further into some of these facinating subjects.

Spirituality is so important and fundamental to my life, however most people seem to have no idea what spirituality means, so this is my attempt to explain it, or at least explain what it means to me. One of the things you soon find out is that it’s a very personal subject and it can mean many different things to different people.

First of all I want to say what it’s not. It’s nothing to do with religion. I can’t emphasize that enough. That’s not to say you can’t find authentic spirituality within religion, but you certainly don’t need any religion to find authentic spirituality.

I don’t consider myself religious, or certainly not in the way most people understand the word. I’m actually fairly anti-religion in many respects, although I try to be respectful of other peoples customs and beliefs particularly if it really is having a truly beneficial affect on their life.

Although I’m very aware that religion does do a lot of good in the world, I personally think the negative side of religion outweighs the positive side. The negative side is of course the wars, hate, violence, intolerance and suffering that religious people have inflicted on each other (and the so-called heretics) down through the ages. Which is ironic because the true teachings of practically every religion actually promote peace, harmony and understanding between people (even those that believe something different to yourself!). Anyway, I’m getting away from the point, so back to spirituality!

I tend to find that people who are not spiritually aware think they only have three options in life when it comes to matters of God and spirit. You either join a religion and become a believer in God (theist). You reject ideas of god completely (and become an atheist). Or you sit on the fence and happily admit that really you have no idea (agnostic). This is what I remember learning in RE at school and I’m sure this is what most other people think are their only options.

However, there’s a fourth option I want to tell you about. An option that sadly too few people are aware of right now. You could call this option gnosis or gnosticism. The essential meaning of those words is knowledge, but for now let’s use the more general umbrella word of spirituality. Believe it or not, you positively and definitely can acquire real knowledge of the spiritual worlds if you’re willing to open your mind (and perhaps more importantly, your heart).

The path to this kind of knowledge can be an arduous one, that usually involves leaving your comfort zone far behind you. It often means realising that everything you thought you knew about the world is in fact quite wrong, and your life will never be quite the same again. Sometimes it means you have to let go of your friends and family because you can’t relate to them any more, although it certainly doesn’t mean you will love them any less. The rewards however, are immense.

So, what is spirituality?

For me it’s about love, knowledge, sharing, connection, and understanding the deeper mysteries of life. It’s about finding  answers to the questions of who am I? Where am I? Why am I here? And what do I do now? It’s about not being afraid to question absolutely everything, and to always think for myself, and not to believe something just because someone has told me it’s true. It’s about making the most of my life each and every day, and being the best person I can be.

Perhaps more than anything it’s about remembering. Because I know that this knowledge is not exclusive, and it is in fact hidden within each and every person on this planet, but for most people it’s just been deeply locked away in a place where they fear to look - deep inside themselves.

I would also like to share a definition I got from a course I did last year with a British spiritual teacher called William Bloom -

“Spirituality is our natural experience of the pure wonder of life; and our instinct to deepen that experience and explore its meaning.”

Perhaps you think you’ve never had a spiritual experience. But have you ever had a moment, perhaps out in nature where you’re staring out at a most beautiful scene, may be the sun is setting and everything is glowing and suddenly you’re completely awestruck by the incredible beauty of your surroundings and you start to feel a deep but unexplainable connection to everything around you? Welcome to the world of spiritual experience. That’s where it all starts for many people, although it’s certainly not where it ends.

Authentic spirituality is not really about beliefs (although some beliefs may come into play), and it’s certainly not about dogma and imposing your views, although there’s certainly nothing wrong with sharing what you know. People will come when they’re ready, or not at all.

If you had to boil it down to two things I would say it’s about love and connection, although the two are practically the same thing, because when you love someone or something then you’re deeply connected with them.

Through this blog I intend to explore the subject of spirituality (inner journeys) more deeply, as well as talking about my adventures (outer travels) in Peru. I hope you will follow along, and if you haven’t been stirred already, I hope I can somehow stir that place deep inside of you that is longing to be free and awake. However, if you want to reject it all as a load of old new-age hippie bullshit then that’s ok too. I wish you nothing but a happy journey through life and I hope that all your dreams come true.

With deep love and respect

Andy

PS. For those reading that already consider yourselves spiritually aware. Perhaps you would like to share what spirituality means to you in the comments below.