2014 Learning Journey Journal - Commentary

In this section I will describe the key shifts in my life at the end of 2013, which would lead to the next year's journey of adventurous unfolding.

The year 2013 was coming to a close as I played my last show with 'Ecstatic Union' during a beautiful sunset performance at the Cosmic Convergence festival in Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. The year was marked by fantastic musical celebrations, new relationships, inspiration, sonic brotherhood, and disillusionment. My motivation to manage, lead, and sustain our band (Ecstatic union) had faded to a faint whisper and I was ready to begin a new adventure which would grant me greater independence and new experiences for personal growth, deeper learning, and evolution. With this intention in heart, I embarked on a journey through central and south America with my sweetheart, Hannah, with whom I would share lessons, new experiences, and fruitful growth.

In February 2014, I attended a 'Shamanic Training' workshop at 'tantric permaculture intentional community' called Inanitah, on the Volcanic Island of Omatepe, Nicaragua. The workshop was 5 days long and mostly an introductory course to basic shamanic techniques and tools such as meditative journeying, chanting, archetypal symbology, basic reflexology and massage practices. I was grateful for the information and practices but felt that it was a pretty surface level course and I didn't resonate with the teachers' overly lackadaisical and sometimes cynical attitude.

Community Reflections:

I was impressed by the community's infrastructure as they utilized natural building methods to create beautiful earthen structures such as the kitchen, dinning area, community space, sleeping huts, compost toilets workshop spaces, and even a swimming pool. There was onsite purified volcanic water for drinking and fresh organic food with every meal. Their teaching methods and group meditation practices are largely based on Osho techniques and philosophy. There are workshops which run throughout the year ranging from tantric permaculture, shamanic training, yoga programs. From my experience, the interpersonal as well as emotional dynamic of Inanitah felt to be in an early stage of development. 

After Inanitah, Hannah and I headed southward for Costa Rica where we would stay at the Pachamama Intentional community to attend an 8 day 'Clarity Breathwork' teacher training. The week was filled with deep meditations, ecstatic dance, devotional singing, psychosomatic exercises, and 'rebirthing breath-work'. Clarity breathwork can be a powerful tool for uncovering deep emotions and releasing trauma. This workshop was a refreshing shift from our last in Nicaragua but was still not as integrative as I had envisioned. I felt connected to the instructors' intentions and attitudes as well as their delivery of the material but did not feel that I could reach the level of depth which I wanted to through the work. Though the first breathing session was powerfully activating for me, I felt a strong sense that we would not be staying the extra week to do part two of the training program, as we had originally intended. After Pachamama we hitched southward to attend a transformational festival near the ocean called 'Envision, where we danced, met with friends, played, and celebrated before integrating for a week while I caught up on Gaia U work and we planned our next adventure.

Community Reflections:

Pachamama is another Osho based Spiritual community similar to Inanitah but is on a much larger scale of business and development. The best way I can describe it is as a kind of spiritual resort. The community is made up primarily of Israeli families and volunteers from the US and Canada. There is a steady stream of yoga trainings, spiritual workshops, and occasional festivals throughout the year. There is a spiritual leader of the community named Tyohar, which makes the vibe there a tad cultish. Though the spiritual aspects are well integrated within the community, it is still underdeveloped on the sustainability front. Most of the food is not organic and non-local, most of the buildings were not constructed with eco-conscious materials, and the electricity is supplied through the grid. Overall it is a nice place to visit, get a chocolate treat from their onsite healthy snack bar 'Jungle Treats', and possibly take part in a shamanic psi-trance gathering or yoga retreat.

In early March, after a week of relaxation and Gaia U catch-up work near the beach in Costa Rica, we journeyed to the Peruvian Amazon, where we would participate in a month-long transformation retreat at the Paititi Institute, This turned out to be one of the most challenging, powerful, intense, beautiful, terrifying, and personally enriching experiences of my life. The retreat was lead by Roman Hanis, whom had been training as a shaman for the past 12 years under various teachers and lineages of medicine men in the Pervian Amazon. Though most of his experience is in Amazonian medicine traditions, he is also educated in Chinese medicine, massage, jungian psychology, Qi Gong, Yoga, and transpersonal dreamwork. His teaching style and analysis primarily reflects a union of Andean/Amazonian cosmo-vision and Tibetan Buddhism. The collective focus of our retreat was on personal transformation and the embodiment of our true nature for the benefit of all beings. We participated in traditional plant medicine ceremonies of Ayahuasca, San Pedro, Coca, and Cacao which were helpful aids and allies throughout our process of transformation. We spend a lot of time in our individual huts where we could meditate, journal, and integrate our experiences and reflections from living in community our work with the medicine. We also participated in group exercise, transpersonal dreamwork, amazonian/tibetan breathwork modalities, and interfaced members of local indigenous tribes to deepen our experience and understanding of life and culture in the Amazon. I intend to dedicate an entire OP to the process and experience of this retreat as it has impacted me tremendously on my path of empowerment and personal evolution. 

Community Reflections:

Paititi was by far the most integrated community I have experienced thus far. They are highly focused on permaculture sustainability, health, indigenous preservation, personal growth, education, and planetary evolution. Their earth-based practicality, coinsided with their spiritual values, indigenous preservation, and commitment to personal growth and service, makes them a wonderful model and example for intentional communities everywhere. Their retreat space in the Amazon is now in transition as they have recently acquired new land in the Manu reserve, near Macchu Picchu, where they are beginning to build they're new center

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