Perhaps in a parallel universe there’s a version of me that’s a prolific writer who updates his blog at least every couple of days with good doses of wit and wisdom and has a huge audience hanging on to his every word. I’m kinda envious of that guy!

As it is, I’m sat here struggling, as usual, to make my brain connect with interesting words and sentences that people might enjoy reading, oh and when was the last time I updated this blog? October 2010! Jeeez, I’m living in the wrong parallel universe that’s for sure.

Well whatever, I am where I am, and that happens to still be Iquitos in the middle of the jungle, towards the end of 2011, somewhere in this apparent infinite universe! No doubt in another parallel universe there’s a version of me wishing he was having adventures in hot and interesting places. So I’m not complaining

So, it’s been over a year since I updated this blog! What’s happened since? Quite a lot actually. It’s been a crazy, fun and ultimately enjoyable year, but with several road blocks, challenges and serious frustrations thrown in for good measure. But that’s how you grow and learn right?

Anyway, here are a few highlights that stand out in my mind from 2011. I’ll start with the good stuff!

Starting an Ayahuasca Retreat Company

About a year ago I visited my good friend Alex at his lodge in Huaraz to further discuss our ideas and come up with a concrete plan for setting up an Ayahuasca retreat company. That quickly evolved into Ayahuasca Odyssey and we hosted our first retreat just 6 months later in June 2011. It was a pretty small affair, just 3 people attended which perhaps wasn’t bad considering we only launched the website about 2 months before that retreat which didn’t give us much time to promote it!

I remember being pretty nervous about that first retreat, mainly from having doubts as to whether I could be an effective facilitator or not. An Ayahuasca experience is undoubtedly one of the most powerful, life changing and paradigm shattering experiences that most people will ever have. Almost nothing else comes close and it can also bring up a whole lot of shit (such as deep fears, painful emotions and old wounds) that people then may need help to process and heal. I don’t have any formal training in counselling or psychotherapy and I think those kind of skills might turn out of essential in certain circumstances. However, I’m pleased to report that so far things have gone pretty well and I’ve received some very positive feedback on my facilitating skills, so that’s something I feel much more confident about now.

The following retreats were also pretty small affairs, and then in September Alex met an American guy called Zach who had also just started his own retreat company called La Familiar Medicina. Alex was incredibly impressed Zach and the main shaman he was working with, a relatively young guy (35 I think) called Gumercindo, and for the sake of brevity let’s just say that we’ve now joined forces with Zach and Gumercindo and now we’ve become Ayahuasca Satsangha. Our last retreat was fully booked and the next two retreats are fully booked with 12 people, so this can undoubtedly be labelled a success!

I’ll attempt to follow-up with more thoughts about my experiences with Ayahuasca Odyssey and Ayahuasca Satsangha in a future post, but for now this experience has definitely been the highlight of 2011 and has resulted in lots of conscious growth for me.

Encounters with Brujeria

Not everything related to Ayahuasca shamanism is infused with love and light. There’s a dark side too and sadly many shamans fall into its grip, after perhaps starting out with good intentions in some cases. Here in the Amazon the bad shamans are usually refered to as brujos (pronounced bru-ho’s) and what they engage in is referred to as brujeria which is what we would call black magic or witchcraft. And whether you believe in it or not, its effects are definitely very real.

Usually they do what they do for money. Someone might get really upset or pissed off with someone, and as a form of revenge they pay a brujo to cast a spell on the person they’re unhappy with. Some spells can cause misfortune, or accidents, while others can cause serious illness and even death. You certainly have to be very careful about who you piss off in the jungle, because the wrong person can do a lot more harm than simply shout at you or punch you in the face!

So what happened to me? Well, I’m still getting to the bottom of it all to tell you the truth. What I can say is that about a year ago (Nov 2010), after a ceremomy near Cusco, I stopped getting visions or useful insights from drinking Ayahuasca. I would usually get some kind of experience, but it was always a little weird and almost never interesting or useful. In the first half of 2011 I was regularly taking tourists out to Kapitari to one of my favourite shaman Don Lucho, and as a result I would always take part in the ceremonies, but I was never getting a good experience. Among the Ayahuasca community you regularly hear the mantra “Ayahuasca doesn’t give you what you want, but it always gives you what you need!” There’s certainly a lot of truth to that, but in my case something really weird was going on – month after month after month,  and I never felt for a moment I was getting anything I needed (or wanted) from the ceremonies.

I had 3 theories as to why I was having these problems and brujeria was one of them, but it wasn’t until early August that I got confirmation that brujeria was indeed the source of my troubles, and I’ve had several more confirmations since then. I don’t know how it works exactly, but somehow the brujeria has blocked me from connecting with the spirit of Ayahuasca. And as a sidenote, this to me is further proof that Ayahuasca is almost entirely a spiritual experience. If for some reason you can’t connect with the spirit of the plant, then almost nothing is going to happen, no matter how much you drink!

In future I will write a follow-up post with the full story – or at least when the story is finally over, because I’m still not out of the woods yet. Just last weekend I did a ceremony and drank 3 cups of super-strength ayahuasca and got almost nothing out of it.

I’m supposedly clear of the brujeria now. For the last couple of weeks I’ve been working with an amazing healer who’s staying in Iquitos for awhile. This guy uses a combination of intuition, prayer and experimental kinesiology to do what he does, and he’s been getting some remarkable results around here. All the tests say I’m now clean, but as the last weekend demonstrated, there’s still some work left to be done.

It’s been baffling as well as frustrating, but many lessons have been learned.

Dealing with more rejection (the cycle continues)

In the very early days of this blog, when I was living in Cusco, I wrote some extremely personal stuff about my lack of success in love and relationships – even though I only scratched the surface to be honest. Two and a half years later I can’t say things have got a whole lot better for me, although I’ve certainly gotten much better at dealing with it emotionally so I guess progress is always being made on many levels.

It seems that one of the recurring themes of my life so far has always been rejection (at least in terms of love and relationships). Now, I’m very aware that EVERYBODY has to deal with rejection at least sometimes in their life, it’s good, it’s normal and in some ways it’s very healthy because it’s the difficult and gutwrenching experiences that help us grow and become better and more conscious human beings. But sometimes I can’t help but want to scream at the universe “COME ON NOW, ARE YOU SERIOUS? GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK WILL YOU!?”.

It’s happened to me too many times to even remember and surely I’m now way beyond having my fair share of this type of experience. Well apparently not it seems, because they just keep on coming. Clearly I must be missing some important part of the lesson, which is odd because usually I’m a pretty fast learner!

I began 2011 being rejected by someone I really thought I connected well with, and now I’ve just ended the year being rejected by someone I know I have connected really well with over the last 12 months, so much so that many people actually thought she already was my girlfriend! But as usual I’ve gotten deeply stuck in the ‘friend zone’ and as I’ve come to realise it’s a very hard place to escape from!

Anyway, I don’t want to seem like I’m complaining about life, it is what it is, and thankfully I’m not someone who dwells on the negatives for very long. I may feel sad and perhaps even a little angry for a few days, maybe a week or so, after it happens, but if nothing else, I’ve learned to process my feelings pretty quickly and come out of the other side feeling as happy and optimistic about life as always. I seem to be incapable of feeling depression and any feelings of self-pity I may occasionally indulge in are quickly put aside. So at least I’ve got that ability to be thankful for. But I can easily understand how some people can become very bitter and angry as they get older, and if I didn’t have a strong connection with spirit sustaining me through difficult times, I think in a different parallel universe that could easily be me by now!

This seemingly continuous cycle does leave me feeling bewildered though. It surely has to end eventually (or does it?), but I’ve been saying that for over 10 years now. Finding a girlfriend has never been something I’ve obsessed over. I’ve always been happy and extremely comfortable on my own, and will continue to be, no doubt. But I do feel like I’m done with all the lessons of being single, and that I’m beginning to stagnate in this area of my life. I definitely don’t see having a relationship as being some kind of holy grail, and nor do I believe that a relationship will necessarily make me any happier, but what it undoubtedly will bring is new lessons, new experiences and hopefully a lot of conscious growth, and for those reasons more than anything, it’s something that I desire to happen in my life.

Financial Struggles

Love is not the only thing I’ve often struggled with over the course of my life, the other is money, and it seems that I’ve had more than my fair share of bad luck in this area of my life as well. But it has to be said that 2011 (or at least the first 8 months of 2011) saw me going through one of the roughest financial periods of my life. As you may know I make most of my living as a freelance web designer, and although I’ve never made a lot of money from it, I’ve almost always made enough to support myself and it seems that the universe has always sent me work when I’ve needed it. So I’ve gotten by ok, but can hardly say I’ve experienced much financial abundance.

My financial problems started about the same time as the brujeria did, and I suspect there may be a connection but it could of course just be a coincidence. I’ve always found that work has come to me when I need it, but that just didn’t happen during the first half of 2011. I’ve rarely done any self promotion and have generally relied on word of mouth or people finding me through serendipity. That failed me big time this year, and for the first time in my life I started doing  self promotion only to find that it didn’t bring me anything but more frustration (and very little money). There were a few times this year when I had to rely on my family and my business partner Alex to send me a bit of money just so that I could live and pay the rent and there’s almost nothing I hate more than having to ask for financial help from people. It makes me feel utterly powerless and useless and not in control of my life. But sometimes there are no other options, and thankfully I’m blessed with a few people who are willing (and able) to support me in tough times.

Anyway, since about August (about the same time I started working to cleanse myself of the brujeria – coincidence?), things started picking up again and I’ve finished the year doing ok for myself. And I’m also very optimistic about the year ahead (presuming major financial crashes don’t happen around the world just yet). I’m in the process of launching a new internet business venture with a couple of friends that I expect will be pretty successful next year, but more on that another time perhaps.

Let’s end this review on a slightly more positive note!

Giving up the Booze

This year I stopped drinking alcohol for almost 5 months. I realise to some, that may not seem like a great deal of time, but it’s undoubtedly the longest period of time I’ve gone without having a drink since before I started drinking when I was about 17 years old. It may even be the longest time since I was about 13 because even when I was about 14 or 15 I was allowed the occasional glass of wine or beer with my parents.

Now before I gave it up, I don’t think it would be true to say that I had a problem with drinking, but let’s just say I never needed much of an excuse to go out and drink a beer – much like most of the British population in fact! Drinking is such a huge part of our culture and for most people in Britain, the pub is like a second home. Drinking was certainly a huge part of my adult life for all the time I lived in the UK and although I’ve generally drunk a lot less while I’ve been living in Peru, it’s perhaps something I’ve still indulged in a little too often to be good for me.

I decided to stop drinking because I thought it might help with my problems I was having with Ayahuasca that I just wrote about. Initially I made a decision to quit for 3 months, but then I decided to keep on going, although I confess I did have my first beer again a couple of weeks ago (and yeah it tasted pretty good!).

The first couple of months without drinking were hard work, and I frequently found myself desiring a beer  (particularly if I was anywhere near a bar!), although I never did give in to temptation – I can be pretty strong willed when I really want to be. But then it started getting easier and easier, and after about 3 months I found, for probably the first time in my adult life, my desire to drink beer had almost vanished. Wow! What a change!!

For the first time in my adult life I now find it easy to say ‘no’ if someone suggests going out for a beer. That’s not to say I always will say no. I haven’t gone off the taste just yet, so it’s something I can, and probably will enjoy sometimes, but for the first time in my life I feel almost completely in control of it – and I’m very pleased about that.

Now I just have to remain in control. I don’t want to blow my trumpet too hard just yet because I know it probably wouldn’t take much to slip back into comfortable old habits – if I’m not careful – and these last couple of weeks have certainly been extremely testing for me. Rejection in the past has usually led me to drinking copious amount of booze for a week or two to help numb the pain, but so far I’ve avoided falling into that trap and I’m feeling pretty good about it. However, I do confess to still missing some of the all night benders I used to enjoy with some of my close friends in Iquitos. I realise they were not good for me, but boy were they sometimes crazy fun!

Looking ahead

So that was my year in a nutshell. It probably doesn’t sound like a great year overall when you consider the main ‘highlights’ were mostly pretty negative. But I’d be lying if I said I thought it was a bad year. Despite all the challenges and setbacks I enjoyed it immensely, and as they say, what doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger. I definitely feel stronger than ever and I’m really looking forward to 2012 and everything it will bring. I think I need to write a separate post about that so hopefully I can get back into the habit of blogging once again! There’s a definitely a lot of things I can write about.

So, here’s me toasting (with a glass of water) to 2012 being an awesome year! Given the current global economic/political climate, it’s likely to be a very challenging year to be sure, but I feel the conscious growth potential is going to be immense! Have a great one everybody.

I’ve been without my laptop for the last 2 weeks. It seems that my power adapter got fried by the somewhat unpredictable nature of Peruvian electricity. At least I hope that’s the problem, if it turns out to be my laptop (which still runs fine on battery power, except the battery died long ago) then I have a serious problem.

I’m sort of still able to work from internet cafes and the computer in my Spanish school, but it’s not ideal and so I’ve essentially taken a holiday away from my computer which is why I’ve been quiet of late.

Anyway, I’m starting to feel like I have quite a few things to write about again, so hopefully posting will resume next week.

Hi guys, sorry I’ve been a bit quiet of late, I just haven’t felt like writing lately, but all is well and I’ve had a pretty good couple of weeks. Anyway, I just wanted to add a few more thoughts (from others) on normality, following from my post ‘There’s nothing good about normal!‘ a few weeks back.

First of all, Carissa just added a new comment and seeing as though most people don’t often go back and read comments from old threads I thought it deserved greater prominence. She wrote:

“Was re-reading this entry and I thought of some additional things that are now seen as “normal” in our society but which aren’t.

It’s now normal to root for people to fail and fall on their butts, and to see people as competition, versus cheering for people to succeed and being happy for them.  There are several reasons for this I think – so many people’s lives are unhappy and unfulfilling (which in itself is a point that I’ll get back to) that they can’t stand to see people achieving something good and being happy when they aren’t.  They want to tear them down to their own level.  So watching somebody fail or screw up or fall on their butt (figuratively speaking) becomes fun in an evil gleeful way.  (hence, the *tabloid culture,* which specializes in that.  Tear people down for the paparazzi pics capturing them with celulite on their thighs, no makeup, wrinkles, or an outfit that’s not deemed “haute couture” enough.  Look on in giddy glee when their relationships fall apart, look for the drugs, sex and cheating scandals after they’ve died so even in death they can be raked over the coals.)  This is now considered normal.  Which leads to how celeb-obsessed entertainment is now considered normal.  Following the minutae of celebs’ lives because people’s own lives are boring and pointless.

The jealousy/competition thing is an extreme manifestation of separation.  Instead of viewing ourselves as related pieces of a greater whole, they mistakenly think we’re all cut off from each other and completely separate…and thus, competition to be jealous of.   So it’s now considered normal to be separate, competitive, jealous, gossipy and mean spirited.  Not everybody is like that, but in certain regions (urban centers in particular) that attitude is prevailant.   We have movies and TV shows that celebrate this attitude, with backbiting and cat fights and scheming and plotting and jealousies galore, trying to tell people, “This is how you should be.  This is the new normal.  Strive for this.  Emulate this.”

And as just mentioned, it’s now considered normal to have an unfulfilling, mundane and possibly unhappy life.  You mentioned how it’s considered normal to hang with one’s friends being superficial and mundane (I definitely agree!) and this extends to one’s entire life in general.  I look around at people and I can’t believe the lives and jobs that most people have locked themselves into!  o_0   Like, who would WANT to do that……for years on end?!?!?!  Is that what they imagined for themselves as a kid??!  Who grows up saying “I want to be an accounting clerk who’s always irritated and frustrated obsessing over getting the numbers to balance!”  Nobody.  Or, “I want to be a stressed out executive assistant to a boss I don’t like, being run ragged every day!”  Nobody.  Or, “I want to become a corporate guy working for donor relations and attend endless mindless meetings where it’s all about ‘How can I get more money for the university?’ !”  Nobody.   Jobs with no life to them, no variety, no real point, *working for that which is illusory,* so that one can insure that they can keep paying the bills every month.  To me it’s a life not worth having.  Work should ideally be about producing something tangible……….not working for illusory concepts.  (I once wrote in one of my articles: “Banks, loans, credit cards, debt counseling and consolidation, taxes, personal investment, mortgages, car/home/boat/personal insurance, law firms, home owners associations — what I’ve found is that the number of useless, illusory industries is skyrocketing, while jobs that create an actual tangible product and serve a useful purpose are on the decline. [...] What good is it going to do anybody to be a financial investor, lawyer, paralegal, mortgage underwriter, IRS agent, insurance salesperson, credit card telemarketer or property manager enforcing rules for the Association about mowing your lawn and power washing your driveway when/if things finally really hit the fan? These people will kind of be up the creek, to put it lightly. Their jobs and industries are completely useless in every sense of the word. So since illusion is what now dominates your job market choices, it’s all the more reason to find a way out, ASAP.”

Illusory concepts is now considered the norm, instead of making or doing something tangible and meaningful.

I work with people who’ve been doing the same lifeless, pointless job for 20, 25, 30 years.  I can’t even IMAGINE.  The worse part is when I encounter coworkers who hate their jobs and complain and gripe and moan and groan….and then what happens when I nonchalantly suggest to them that they quit.  Their faces get a wide eyed, surprised look, like, “huh?!”   You can see them running into a wall with the idea.  It never occurrred to them to leave.  They think I’m weird for suggesting such a thing.  You don’t…..quit your job!  They think it’s normal that you hate your job and complain and be miserable for years and years on end!

I can think of many more so-called normal ways of being in the modern western world that are anything but normal, but I’ll stop here!  :D  ’Cause
I could go on all day, seriously…..”

Great stuff Carissa, I agree entirely!

Also, about a week after I made the original post, I discovered Paulo Coelho also looked at the subject of normality on his blog. Given that I’m connected with him through Facebook and that he might have seen my blog post in his newsfeed I wondered if he was influenced by my post, but then I noticed he posted it in January so he was first.

You can see Paulo’s blog post here: Inventory of normality

A musician friend of mine, Cornelius, from London (well he’s Irish actually) has come up with the slogan “Do what you love, it’s your gift to the universe“. He’s a musician/songwriter who I definitely recommend you check out, and he plays a lot of the alternative UK music festivals.

Anyway, more than I want to promote Cornelius (which I’m always happy to do – check out his blog, music site and t-shirt store), I want to promote the importance of doing what you love, because I think Cornelius is so right in what he says.

Doing what you love is just so important if you want to live a happy and fulfilling life (and I’m assuming here that doing what you love won’t harm another human being in anyway).

Not only is it important for your own wellbeing, it really is important for the whole world and even the universe. Imagine a world in which every single person was doing what they truly loved. Would there still be wars, hate, disharmony, depression, unhappiness? I don’t think so.

Consider these not so good statistics:

Major depression is the No.1 psychological disorder in the western world. (source)
In the UK, 1 in 4 people will experience some kind of mental health problem in the course of a year. (source)
In 2006/7 530,000 people in the UK suffered from work-related stress, depression or anxiety (source)

Why is that? Why are so many people unhappy?

Well, on the surface, people get depressed or unhappy for a countless number of different reasons. But I think you could probably distill almost all those reasons to one single reason – which is that they’re not doing what they love.

So many people have jobs they hate, and even relationships they hate, but they feel hopelessly trapped in them. People growing up in the western world are conditioned from a young age to believe that they need to get good qualifications in order to get a good career, so they can live a nice comfortable life, probably get married, have the obligatory 2.4 kids, nice house (with a not so nice mortgage), nice car, and whatever else it takes to keep up with the Jones’ next door. Then if you’re lucky you’ll retire at 65 with a nice pension, and you can relax and take it easy….until you die! Woohoo! What a great fucking life that is! (if you’ll pardon my french!). No wonder everyone’s so bloody depressed!

I interupt this post with a short commercial break, put together by the makers of South Park featuring the voice of the late great Alan Watts.

The fact is most jobs and ‘good careers’ are boring as hell. They don’t fulfil you in any meaningful way, they don’t give you any meaningful recognition for the amazing being that you truly are, and they sure as shit don’t make you happy.

Here’s the problem. Most people are just too afraid to take risks, they’re too afraid of what other people think, and they’re too afraid of failure.

If you’re not already doing what you love (and my hat off to you if you are!) then I’m absolutely sure that you have a secret dream of what you’d much rather be doing other than your current boring, crappy job! But, you keep that dream a secret don’t you? And for whatever reason you probably believe it will always remain a dream, and nothing more!

Well here’s a friendly rocket up your ass! Please get over yourself, get over your fears, and most of all get over what you think everyone else might think about dreams. You can’t change your family, but if your friends won’t support you then they’re not authentic friends so get rid of them, and find friends you know will encourage and support you.

What’s the point of living an unhappy and unfulfilled life? What’s the point of having dreams if you can’t realise them (or at least try to realise them). There is no point.

Please wake up! Know that you really can create the life you want. Know that your dreams can come true. Know that you have nothing worthwhile to lose, and everything to gain by chasing your dreams  and doing what you love.

And also know that what you’ve been conditioned to believe by western culture (ie that you need to make lots of money, and have a good career, to be happy and fulfilled) is the biggest load of bullshit that’s ever been sold.

I’ll leave you with the story of the Mexican Fisherman….

The Mexican Fisherman

A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.

“Not very long,” answered the Mexican.

“But then, why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more?” asked the American.

The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.

The American asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

“I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs…I have a full life.”

The American interrupted, “I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you!

“You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat. With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers.

“Instead of selling your fish to a middleman, you can negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge enterprise.”

“How long would that take?” asked the Mexican.

“Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years,” replied the American.

“And after that?”

“Afterwards? That’s when it gets really interesting,” answered the American, laughing. “When your business gets really big, you can start selling stocks and make millions!”

“Millions? Really? And after that?”

“After that you’ll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta, and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends!”

A couple of people have asked me how I’m able to make a living while travelling, or do I have a huge stash of money in the bank? (I wish!!).

I actually don’t have any savings and unfortunately my bank account is depressingly low on funds a great deal of the time. So how do I do it?

Well I’m fortunate enough to be able to take my work with me, pretty much wherever I go. I just need a reasonable internet connection.

For several years nows I’ve been a freelance web designer and internet marketing consulting. I don’t usually have a huge amount of work on at any one time (which is how I like it) but it’s almost always enough for me to get buy. I live a simple life and I’m not someone who’s prone to buying ‘stuff’ all the time. Most of what I spend my money on is food, drink, rent and a few simple pleasures. No doubt here in Peru I’ll end up spending quite a bit on various travel and adventure activities in the area.

Virtually all my clients are still back in the UK and most of them have come to me through recommendations so they trust that I can still do the work even though I might be 5000 miles away on a different continent. I keep in touch with my clients through Skype and email and it’s working well for me so far.

It’s great being in Peru because everything is so cheap for someone getting paid even a basic ‘western’ income. On average I make between £150 and £250 for a days work. My rent is currently about £135 a month. So as you can see I don’t need to be busy all the time in order to afford to live and travel.

If anyone needs help with their website or internet marketing then please get in touch. You can find out about my web design services at http://www.newearthvision.biz

I’ve also just launched a search engine optimisation service which you can find out about at http://www.holisticlocalseo.co.uk