itchyfeet

I had arrived I had left a sweltering Brisbane evening behind me less than forty-eight hours ago to arrive at what felt like the top of the world; high in Andes of Peru. The Second thing you realize as you swerve through the cobble stone streets of Cusco, speeding past the mud brick houses and luscious green squares throughout the city after the bright yellow McDonald's sign standing high on the Barron hillside is what seems like poverty after a few days in the city I begun to realize it wasn't poverty it was just a simple way of life. Adults and children alike all had the same broad smiles across their sun tanned and wind burnt faces that they share with me as I walk past them or talk to them on the street, they are happy and content with their lives; they are truly free. Not westernized freedom were setting up a stall on the side walk selling raw chicken would get you sued by a sick customer but a freedom that protects them from being punished by others stupidity, free of a government that has made common sense a tool of the past. If there customer gets sick then its their own fault for eating the chicken in the first place. "This simple way of life is under threat" a local teacher told to me as she explained the local people see westerners eating McDonald and other fast foods, and they think it's a sign of wealth so they try to do the same. Some she told me would rather use a month’s pay to buy a flat screen T.V. than buy food for their family. It’s scary to think in a world that in order to survive we need to go back to the simple self sufficient life yet we are inspiring those who live that way to give it up and become just like us. It had been a long journey to arrive here, more than five years in the making battling concepts of spirituality. I was high in the Andes being offered by an acclaimed Shaman to try Ayahuasca; a sacred medicine plant containing DMT (a chemical that is released in the human brain when dying or dreaming). Sheltered from the cold mountain wind we huddled in the mud brick temple under a thatched roof and after a quick talk from the Shaman we drank the medicine deeply. As I entered its realm my vision became fractals and paisley patterns and I fell out of my body into its world. The next hour I spent violently vomiting and falling in and out of consciousness yet I felt strong and connected to everyone one in that room.
With this knowledge of medicines I know these people will survive and possibly save us all if we accept it.