Peyote Ceremony……In the Mall!

In Mexico one of my main hopes was to be a part of an indigenous ceremony with one of the sacred plant teachers. But even with my contacts through the yaje community I could not make it happen. It’s just not that easy. Understandably, they are not that open to allowing just anyone into their sacred ceremonies, especially westerners.
Instead I found an article online that told of a Huichol tribe that would be performing a Peyote ceremony at the local mall. At first I thought this was just too weird and how could any true shaman want a part of this but as I read on it made perfect sense.
They had come down from the mountains, where many of them had always lived and never ventured from, to big city Puerto Vallarta, to educate the public about how important the sacred plant medicine, Peyote, is to their culture. They had risked so much in leaving their home. They were unfamiliar with our ways and laws and while they were there, their head shaman got arrested for swimming in the river. They were selling their art to help pay for his release and to pay for the cost of bringing the tribe there.
The Huichols use peyote as medicine for healing and connecting with spirit. It has been used by them in a sacred way for eons and they are legally the only ones allowed to possess the plant. They are truly brilliant artisans and much of their artwork is designed from the elaborate visions they receive from working with peyote.
Ever since peyote was discovered by outsiders, as a psychotropic plant, it has been harvested in mass, from the land in Mexico for recreational use and has become much harder for the Huichols to obtain. And with so much land ownership, it is very hard for them to even get to the land that it grows on due to property lines and fences that exist today.
So I went to the mall to learn more about these beautiful people and their sacred traditions and also to see how a peyote ceremony in the mall would play out. It was very fascinating. I fell in love with the art and jewelry and bought a ton of it from them.
The whole tribe was there and they sang and danced the traditional songs around the medicine men as their head shaman prayed to the medicine and then cut up and ate the peyote. I could’nt believe I was watching this, right by a McDonald’s, but it was clear to me that this really was not a show but for our education.
I believe that even more than for our education, they were there for the healing of us. Bringing their work through the peyote medicine to give us the healing that we need to be able to respect and connect with nature, spirit, peyote and all of the sacred plant teachers again in a way that we have forgotten.
Photo description: My cousin snapped one picture of the head shaman holding a baby and from the look in his eyes the medicine was at work.

Dolphin Dream Come True!

Okay….rewind. I went to Mexico about two weeks before I visited the primate sanctuary. My cousin lives in Puerto Vallarta where she trains dolphins and I was so excited to see her at work and meet her animal friends.
The dolphins were such beautiful and aware creatures. Dolphins are not only some of the smartest creatures on earth but are also said to have telepathic abilities (this fascinates me). They are also one of the only other species, besides us, that have sex for pleasure, not just procreation, which makes it even more clear to me how truly aware they are.
I had the rare opportunity of being able to sit alone with them and my cousin as she interacted with them in their simple human/dolphin communication way. It was obvious to me that these creatures really do have a massive intelligence. The wonderful opportunity of being in such close contact with them, touching and kissing them, was one that I will never forget.
My cousin always dreamed of working with dolphins and I am proud of her for making her dream come true. However, she knows that this is not truly how she wants to work with them and wants to one day do work that will benefit the dolphins. Although, they are being well taken care of, I believe that they know that they do not belong there, even those who were born there. I again hope that our society can learn soon to stop caging animals for our own amusement and realize that taking animals from the wild is a crime.
Here are some photos and videos of these magnificent creatures. Enjoy!

How Life Might Have Been

Soooooo much has happened since I last blogged. I feel like I’ve lived so much. I guess I better give you the quick update first.
I went to visit the primate sanctuary and I knew within 6 hours that it was not going to work. As soon as I arrived I began the tedious chores. We had 20 minutes for lunch during which we were being given directions, via walkie talkie, for what to do next. Finally, at 9:30pm we were done, starving and ready for dinner. It was 11pm by the time I got into bed and all I could think about was how I had to get up again at 6am and when would I ever have a moment to myself. After a long talk with my boyfriend, I had decided that this definitely was not the place for me. I wanted so badly to work with primates but I knew that the director would drive me crazy and I’d never have time off, even for lunch. The other girls had already informed me that days off were rare and that there were no breaks to speak of. It was clear that the director cared much more about the well being of her monkeys than those that took care of them.
At 6am I got the call on the walkie talkie and I had to confess that I would be leaving that morning and that this just was’nt going to work. The director tried to convince me to stay but I just told her that I knew myself well and that even to stay the week I would not be happy there. She was pretty angry, to say the least, and when I told her that I had decided that I would rather be doing rehabilitation than sanctuary work, she blatantly told me that I could never do that. At that point it was clear to me that she would not have been a good support and I just said, “Well thank you and goodbye.” and I hung up the walkie talkie. Then I packed my stuff and got the hell away from that negativity as fast as I could.
The only good thing that came of it was that I got to be around the monkeys for a few hours and that I realized that where I really wanted to be was in animal rehabilitation, like I had already been doing with native species of the southeast U.S., and where I knew I could be truly beneficial.
But the biggest lesson in that adventure was that I realized there were so many times in my life when I felt I had to do something, even if I would not be happy and that it did not have to be that way. That there will always be other opportunities.
Here are some images of the monkeys themselves. Living in a sanctuary is their only option, having been rescued from abusive situations and labs that have given them up after years and years in captivity. Many of them are depressed and mentally ill, as you can imagine, pulling out their hair and screeming at their caregivers all day long. It’s a terribly sad state and I only hope that our society will soon learn that to catch and cage any wild animals for our own pleasure and experimentation is immoral and a crime against nature.