The Alliance of the Medicines

Received on August 2022 at the  Maha Templo in Sacred Valley, Peru Listen to the complete audio on SoundCloud

The Alliance of the medicines. Some of us here are walking the medicine path. Some of us are just finding out about it, but it is all around us. It is the red world of the blood of our veins. It is the red earth of the ground beneath our feet. It is honouring with wisdom, with respect, with strength, with humility the plants of this planet that open our heart and open our mind and expand our conscious awareness. There are studies that are coming back right now that what we are doing here, here and now, is changing our neuroplasticity. It is changing our neurology. Plant medicines are no joke, but they say the rabbit is out of the hat and the world has caught on. Part of my job is to humble myself so that I can humble others, because this work is not a walk in the park.

The Alliance is a gathering of understanding for us to do our job, to learn about the tribes, about the alliances that are already in place, the alliances with the medicines, the churches, the traditions, the schools that have been here before us, that have walked these paths. We're not the only ones to walk this way. And if we walk well in the ceremony space, and if we walk and work well with the medicine, it is because the path has been paved by others before us. So this alliance is to honour those who are walking the medicine path, to honour those who are carrying the great vision, who have received the messages, the transmission. 

You try to imagine the first person to drink these things inside and say, “Oh, hey, there's some wisdom here. It's talking to me, Oh, I'm getting smarter. I'm learning what I did not know before.” They did a lot of work so it could be here and stand on top of that wisdom, underneath that wisdom like an umbrella. We are children of that light, but we are just children, and we are just learning, and we can learn in such a great way because of those who walk before us. 

So this alliance is celebrating the churches from North America, the NAC, the NACC, those who work with peyote, the First Nations, the indigenous from Mexico, the Huicholes, the Marakame, the Nahuatl, all the way down to Guatemala, to Colombia, to Peru, to the maestros, to all of the different tribes that are working with these beautiful medicines, to Brazil and to the União de Vegetal, the Santo Daime, and the Barquinha. There are a lot of long standing traditions. There are a lot of beautiful, deep work, and all of these songs that we sing here are coming from that work. 

We are not here to sing pretty songs. It's not an open mic night, it's an entering into the trance where the alliance can be present and felt and blessed the medicine inside of us, because when we open these songs, they become alive. It's within the song that we work. It's like the maraca or the drum or the guitar is the heartbeat, and when it gets going, the space opens and in there I can enter into, in there I can receive, in there I can find my feet, and there I can see the medicine, I can start to find my work. It's with the pulse, as all of these songs are working songs. And when we open it up, we open up a big space. I found a big space tonight with a lot of beings, beautiful beings, and it was so nice to feel them in this place. 

And so that is also the Alliance. It's not just the human beings that work with these medicines of the earth and have created traditions and found songs and taught other people to sing along so that they can help themselves, but it's the alliance with the energies, the alliance with the medicine itself. It's alliance with the unseen, with our relations and how we are working. Because ultimately, in this work, that is what works with us, and the job, the task, the idea, is to be a conduit and a channel. It's not to get in the way of ourselves. It's not to think that I am sitting here doing something special, that I am playing my guitar and you were wooing and wowing. No, it's that I'm opening a space. And the best space that is open, the most healing and transformative space, is when I'm not there anymore. It’s when there's no one home. That's when the real magic happens. So I'm constantly trying to get out of the way of myself. That's how this work happens. And that's also a macrocosm for the microcosm of our daily life, our daily duties, getting out of the way of ourself. I'm a father, and I will need to get out of the way of myself so I can be there for my children, so I can make them food, so I can make myself food, so I can do my own work, so I can do my own job. Life is not an easy thing. There's no free tickets, there's no quick fixes, there's no shortcuts, and there's only one way out.

So let's pay attention. And I'm reminding myself to bless myself, to love myself, to walk carefully and walk sweetly. So this medicine shows us, if we don't have humility, the medicine will humble us. This sacrament, this beautiful sacrament, if you haven't been brought to your knees, then maybe you need to come a little bit closer to the ground. There's a poem that says, the dust of the earth on your forehead is the crown you've been searching for your whole life. The dust of the earth on your forehead is the crown you've been searching for your whole life. And so these medicines are the dust of the earth, and when they will be the dust of you. 

So let's get perspective. Let's breathe into our heart. Let's plant seeds in the ground and let's plant seeds in our hearts, because at the end of the day, our body and our mind is all we've got, and it only exists in this moment. 

So the medicine told me one time, to bless everything. Bless everything that enters the mind. This is how you become a safeguard. This is what the yogis are for. This is what the yogis do. The path of yoga is to create a strong hold over the mind so that it can be clean. This is what the medicine also teaches us is to work with precision, work with great awareness, because there's a lot that comes into our mind that isn't just our own. To keep safeguard is to understand that an idle mind is the devil's playground. It's not to be neurotic about watching what you watch and watch and what you watch and stepping back, and it's just about being aware. Your presence is your protection. Your presence is your power. And that presence, that same presence is the presence of God, is the one presence that exists in all moments. So practise presence, let's breathe. 

When I think of the Alianza, I want to bless all of the medicines, because the medicines bless us, these sacraments, but it's not often that we bless them. So bless this ayahuasca. Bless the ayahuasca that is in the world. May we have faith and trust that it knows what it's doing. May it go to the right places, to the right people. May it never be abused or misused. May it be worked with respect, with awareness, with precision, with heart, with knowledge and experience, with community and family. 

Bless the huachuma and the peyote. Bless the tobacco, bless the coca, bless the fungi, because they are blessing so many people right now, and so many people are looking for their blessings. So may these medicines be kept pure and clean, whole, wholesome, may they be healed so that they can do good healing work.

Viva la medicina.