Article by Ralph Miller
The author of the book "Cosmic Serpent", Jeremy Narby, asked indigenous tribal people how they were able to first brew Ayahuasca. He was amazed that tribal people who had no information about botany or microbiology could select just two plants out of 70,000 plants in the Amazon; so he asked them, "How did you know which plants to use?" "The plants told us", they replied. The spirit of nature that is in all things is sentient. Plants and nature have a collective consciousness and intention that is beyond anything we can understand. It is beyond the scope of human mind.
One of the things that is currently happening with the sacred plant medicine called Ayahuasca, is that it is reaching out to humans, in order to heal them and make them whole. It is reaching out to help humans 'come across' to a whole new evolution. I just started reading Sting's new autobiography entitled, Broken Music and was amazed to find that chapter one contained a very detailed and beautiful account of his experience with Ayahuasca in Brazil.
In trying to reach people, nature is determined, and resolute. I see Sting's new book along with the accounts of other prominent personalities such as David Icke and Stuart Wilde as a gentle open invitation from our earth mother. She leads us to a doorway. It is a way that the healing and evolution of humans can continue in an extraordinarily beautiful way. Nature reaching out to humans. Gaia reaching out to herself.
We have included a small excerpt from Broken Music below.
© Ralph Miller 2004
"A series of descrete phone calls have secured us an invitation to a religious ceremony"..."the home of a syncretic religious group that uses as its core sacrement an ancient medicine derived from plant materials known as ayahuasca, and it is said to induce extraordinary and profound visions." Broken Music - Page 1
"I have never had a genuine religious experience. I say this with some regret. I have paid lip service to the idea, certainly, but a devastating, ego-destroying, ontological epiphany I simply have not had. More devout souls than I may have visited this realm through prayer, meditation, fasting, or from undergoing a near-death experience. Religious literature is full of such visionary claims, and while I've no reason to doubt their veracity, I would venture to say that such experiences are rare. For every St. Teresa, Ezekiel, or William Blake, there are millions like me with no direct experience of the transcendent, of the eternal, of the fathomless mystery at the root of all religious thought. But the ayahuasca has brought me close to something, something fearful and profound and deadly serious." Broken Music - Page 14
"I may be out of my gourd, but I seem to be perceiving the world on a molecular level, where the normal barriers that separate "me" from everything else have been removed, as if every leaf, every blade of grass, every nodding flower is reaching out, every insect calling to me, every star in the clear sky sending a direct beam of light to the top of my head. This sensation of connectedness is overwhelming. It's like floating in a buoyant limitless ocean of feeling that I can't really begin to describe unless I evoke the word love. Before this experience I would have used the word to separate what I love from everything I don't love - us not them, heroes from villains, friend from foe, everything in life separated and distinct like walled cities or hilltop fortresses jealously guarding their hoard of separateness. Now all is swamped in this tidal wave of energy which grounds the skies to the earth so that every particle of matter in and around me is vibrant with significance. Everything around me seems in a state of grace and eternal. And strangest of all is that such grandiose philosophizing seems perfectly appropriate in this context, as if the spectacular visions have opened a doorway to another world of frankly cosmic possibilities." Broken Music - Pages 46-47
Note: All excerpts and photo taken from Broken Music (ISBN 0385336780) and are copyright © by Sting 2003.