Crazy Life Stories

"I am sorry, I didn't have enough time to be brief." I remember Jean-Charles making a speech for his brother in law's birthday. This was his leitmotiv: "I am sorry, I didn't have enough time to be brief." Marcel Proust wrote these words at the end of a letter to a friend. Jean-Charles kept repeating them as he conspicuously enjoyed speaking at length about the art of being brief.  Jean-Charles' and Marcel Proust's star sign was Cancer (as is my rising sign) I don't know why the sign "Cancer" is not straightforwardly called "crab" given that it is symbolized by a crab, which is a creature that walks sideways. A crab is a typical rambler, as Jean-Charles and Marcel Proust were, with great talent. (Jean-Charles, by the way, was the husband of my ex-partner's aunt, on her mother's side, and he was making this speech for his wife's sister's husband, but this husband of my ex partner's mother, even tho...

Dear unknown friend, Where were you? I was a little boy, maybe 8 years old. I had a great admiration for my uncle Raymond. He always arrived late for Sunday lunches when the family was gathering at my grandparents. Instead of wearing dull and stiff Sunday clothing, he turned up in sportswear, sweating and went for a shower. From the point of view of a little boy who would be sternly told off for being two minutes late this meant great freedom. Raymond was a fisherman. I was fascinated looking at the big fish he brought and left to die a slow and distressing death on the kitchen sink. They were barbels and so full of bones that my grandmother never prepared them. It takes hours for a fish to die. Paying close attention I could feel the exhaustion that squashed them and kept them quiet whilst the agony of being out of the water slowly built up enough strength for just another hopeless spasm… Flap! Flap flap! …. And they were quiet again, though I knew they weren’t dead and I somehow...

Italy, not far from the Swiss border. Zonka, a little village in the mountains. Huge stone houses with wooden balconies running around them, facing the steep slopes covered with trees. Most were empty. The rooves were thick slates, as grey as the walls. Magnificient. One of these houses belonged to K, the guy with the grey hair and beard who was leaning over me when I was shouting to God and the ceiling, the first time I took Ayahuasca. I found myself entrusted with the noble task of picking up flowers to ornate the room where the ceremony would take place in the evening. Ayahuasca. We called it Daime. Santo Daime. The room was big and wide. We were thirty or forty people feeling at ease, forming the circle. There were no wallpaper, no plaster, just stone and wood. To go to the toilets, we had to get onto the wooden balcony, walk up to its extreme end, and sit facing the mountains. When your poo was done, it dropped 20 meters below, between the trees. Better not to feel dizzy. It is no...

The first time I took Ayahuasca was in France, with members of the Church of Santo Daime. (At that time, there was no legislation on this plant). The Church of Santo Daime originated in the Amazon in the 19th century, when Portuguese missionaries were converted to the shamanic practice of drinking Ayuhuasca (the vine of the dead) They made up their own ritual.  I met people belonging to this "church" and decided to experiment.  I didn't really know what to expect. Ayahuasca is a very, very, very bitter beverage. I found myself dancing - two steps to the right, two steps to the left over and over again and again - among a group of French and Italian people. Imagine the sound of maracas, guitars, lyrics in Portuguese... I felt very ridiculous and then I started to feel sick. It was the feeling you get after overindulging in food and drink, then your liver isn't happy at all, but you still hope you won't have to throw up. The room was a merry- go -round, the walls w...

This is the narration of one of the most powerful Ayahuasca session of my life… The group officially called “Association for the protection of the Rainforest” was settling for a prolonged weekend of Ayahuasca rituals in an isolated farm in the middle of the countryside. It belonged to the family of one of our members, nobody else was around, we were between ourselves, in the middle of vineyards in the South of France… Emma smiled when I arrived. Emma was the kind of girl many men fall in love at first sight with. She seemed to enjoy being endowed with Aphrodite’s powers. She had a Yorkshire Terrier, Renoir would have loved painting her. She was also a kind and sensitive soul. She had a disease, which I don’t remember the name of. She needed a crutch to walk. This was a kind of incurable slow evolving thing that has the power to get even an Aphrodite’s daughters to focus on non erotic issues such as the meaning of life. Emma offered me to draw a card from a new deck ...

Scientists doing research about intelligence conducted the following experimentation:    I haven't got a wire mesh so you'll get a wooden barrier instead    They put a dog behind a wire mesh barrier and a juicy attractive piece of meat on the other side. This barrier was straight and not very long. The scientists noticed that it did not take long for the dog to get around the barrier and take hold of the meat.   Elsa, five years old, daughter of the leader of the scientific team, thinks that her father should play with her rather than with a dog.   Then, the scientists renew the protocol with a chicken and juicy attractive grain of corn. They notice with great interest that the chicken, instead of running around the mesh barrier, collides with it again and again in a vain attempt to reach the object of its desire. The poor bird nearly strangles itself by pushing its head through a hole in the mesh but it’s not going to eat. The scientifi...

 A seagull coated with oil tries to take off. It shakes its wings, with great difficulty. It throws two or three drops of dark mud onto two other seagulls. They are more or less white. They were passing by...   “Oh! That’s disgusting! You, dirty thing, watch what you’re doing!”    “I am sorry” answers the black seagull sheepishly.     The white ones move away. They hold their heads high. They do not look at their feet. They never look at their feet, never ever. As they say, seagulls have no f... When they fly, spreading their white wings in the blue sky, they are so proud!   And when they land... Everybody gets by. Seagulls do not speak about that sort of things, that’s so embarrassing!   But look... One of them stumbles over something. It gets hurt....”Ouch!”   It does not look at its feet. It looks around... “Your fault Dirty!” It throws an oyster at the black seagull. “Ouch!” That does hurt too...   From within the o...