Saturday afternoon I went to a "Chocolate Alchemy" workshop I found advertised at the nearby co-op, and had no clue what was waiting for me. The entire weekend was filled with coinci-dance, as a week and a half before this I had a powerful experience with three bars of top quality dark chocolate in which the "Chocolate God" gave me inspiration to start a consciousness-expanding business involving teas, raw foods, workshops, and other frequency-raising activities at festivals and other conscious gatherings. Given this incredibly powerful (and extremely HIGH) experience with the Chocolate God, I was excited to learn more about this powerful plant teacher. The journey began with meeting a new friend, "The Little Curandero", who was organizing the Cacao workshop. As I walked into Little Curandero's house, I was greeted by the overwhelming smell of Palo Santo incense, and after a brief interchange I discovered that he was a genuine curandero/wizard who had done a lot of work down in Peru with ayahuasca and other plant doctors. Oftentimes I find that people claiming to be "shamans" or "curanderos" tend to be somewhat annoying and generally less skilled than they claim to be, but with The Little Curandero I recognized this was not the case: he was no Witch Doctor...he was the real deal. The Cacao workshop was fantastic; I met a number of new friends, and ran into some old friends I didn't know would be there. If you have never tried raw cacao, I highly recommend it. The heating process used for chocolate such as Hershey's simply destroys most of the goodies inside, and cacao powder and butter are FULL of amazing stuff. After about 30 minutes of learning about cacao and other superfoods, invoking the "Cacao God", and eating all types of chocolate-related goodies, a beautiful buzz settled over all of us. Cacao gets you VERY VERY HIGH if prepared properly. Wow! By the way, a good source for raw cacao goodies is rawguru.com. Also cacao is very good mixed together with maca powder and mesquite powder, two of the greatest food sources for the natives of the Southwest. I've been living off oats and maca and cocoa and mesquite for the past five days and I can guarantee this combination is most excellent; I've been very energetic and very properly high.
Anyways, after the cacao workshop, The Little Curandero invited us on the back porch to sample a paste made from coca leaves and baking soda - coca paste. It was my first encounter with Mama Coca, who dances throughout the universe spreading her love-filled leaves. After a few minutes of having the paste tucked into my gums, my entire mouth went numb, and a subtle, warm energy began to fill the universe - the flowers, butterflies, clouds, sunshine, all the other participants. It felt like everything was more energetic, and this energy slowly began to spread into me. The entire universe was dancing, and I began to move with it. Mama Coca, wow!
Also around this time, it became clear that The Little Curandero and many others present were planning to hold an Achuma ceremony that evening, and coincidentally, they did not have a place to hold it, so my friends "Old Man Medicine" and "Princess Primrose" (sorry for the corny names!) volunteered their temple as a location for the ceremony. I saw how the evening was transpiring: a number of well-experienced psychonauts, healers, and wizards, would be gathering at the temple, so I mentioned to Curanderito that I had a supply of several types of Achuma (specifically Trichocereus Bridgesii x Peruvianus and T. scopulicola) and would be glad to share them with all who came. Naturally, I was invited along, and I quickly left to grab the materials and begin to prepare the holy cactus drink. With Mama Coca still active in my system, this was quickly and easily accomplished!
After a quick preparation (and something is always forgotten, whether packing for trips around the world or journeys back to the Big Bang!) I headed over to Big Man and Princess' temple, the site of what would be a deeply profound and transformative evening. I sliced up the cactus into two pots; a big one for the many chunks of Scopulicola, and a small one for the ~1.5 feet of Bridgesii x Torch which was soon determined to be my medicine for the evening. After a tour of the temple, the alchemical transformation of raw cactus into prepared Achuma began...and the fellow journeyers soon arrived. It was me, Big Man Medicine and Princess Primrose, El Curanderito, a psychologist friend, two journeyers visiting from the West Coast, and an older couple who were clearly interested in the alchemical pursuits but didn't seem to fully fit in with the overall ceremony. There were never any formal introductions, so it was awkward for a bit, but everyone felt that the coincidences that lead us all together in such unexpected circumstances leant some intrinsic meaning and direction to the evening's ceremonies.
The alchemical gathering thusly began...stay tuned for part 2 coming next week.
"...I didn't know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I didn't know that cats could grin..." - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland