Crazy Life Stories

Are you ready to die? I'm not. Of course I'm not. But I'm preparing myself, slowly, because I'm not in a hurry. Now, you never know...  I was not very brilliant at the shamanic ceremonies. Ten years after my experiences with the Church of Santo Daime in France (at a time when the lawmakers hadn't heard of Ayahuasca yet) I came across Arutam, a NGO dedicated to supporting the indigenous medicines of the Amazon and organised Shamanic immersion journeys in Peru and Ecuador.  That's how I found myself in the jungle near Iquitos. I call the shamans over there "business shamans": there are a few who know how to get rivers of dollars flowing towards their centres. Never mind, the plant is the plant, your body is your body and once the plant is in your body, the plant is the teacher - that's how you're supposed to take it.... I loved these little huts in the jungle so much!.... I remembered these adventures on Friday morning, ...

I started practising intermittent meditation in my thirties. I'd bought a book by Shunryu Suzuki, a Japanese zen master...      I expected something deep and philosophical, and I was quite disappointed: the book started with pages about how important it is to sit straight.... I am not sure why I carried on reading, but I came to appreciate a spirit quite different from anything I expected. It turned out to be deep  once I got used to it. I really liked the book and the author. I started spending some time everyday sitting straight and focusing as much as I was able to focus, which was not much, on my breath, feeling that I was wasting my time being bored. I stopped, started again, forgot about it, came back to it... It was actually once of the most precious thing I would offer to myself. One day, sitting doing nothing for nothing, I spontaneously smiled... . It was not a big feeling, there was not much intensity, there was just a smile. My own hell has always...

Leela, Leela... The word sounds like a beautiful girl, dancing, almost out of reach, almost embracing you. But Leela is not a girl. Leela is a colourful though invisible spirit moving with the music. She makes you drunk, gently. She is medicine for broken hearts. She slips into the feelings and the pain becomes almost sweet. She dissolves it; it flows like water out of a broken vase and the roses are beautiful lying down on the carpet. I vote myself the right to be as corny as my inner critic is shouting I am. Maybe I am not. Maybe I am. And then? Leela is a Hindu name. It means "divine game". Hearts can't be broken but they can feel like they are. A separation has happened and maybe it's an illusion, but as we live in this illusion, for us the separation is real, and it hurts. There were, there could have been smiles and hugs, there could have been love making in so many ways, mixed voices resounding together, peals of laughter, presence, smells...  There...

I've just read Asia's blog post about writing a bucket list. Reading her is like drinking fruit juice in summer.  And now, will I write my bucket list? There are reasons why I didn't until now... If I wrote a list of desires without censoring myself, the first words would go like: Making love with.... But then...how could I describe the dream woman (or women) I would love to make love with before I die? If I tried, my bucket list would turn into a bucket book of poetry, a probably disturbing mix of irreconcilable styles. Maybe I should write it? Maybe not... Now, there is something I am sure of: to make love with such a magical creature, I have to be her dream as well. These things must go both ways, otherwise the magic is wasted. So, my bucket list, from the first words, has already become something like an heroic and absurd challenge: I have to become as great, as amazing, as perfect as the dream of an ideal woman or two. Body and soul. I can still entertain so...

Dear unknown friend,  Imagine an angel comes to you and asks: "Can you hold this for me , I'll be back as soon as possible" Before you've got time to even think, you find yourself with the object in your hands and the angel is off.  It's a sword. It's a magical thing . You know intuitively that with such immense power in your hands, you can create wonders, heal diseases and open ways of light into the darkness, but you can also cause immense suffering if you are only awkward, or driven by anger, fear or resentment...   You know that you are often awkward. Your friends and family know that it's better not to ask you to carry a tray loaded with crystal glasses to the next room. You also know that in spite of all the love in your heart, sometimes you feel very pissed off by things other people say or do and that you have a tendency to be resentful.  Now you've this powerful magical sword in your hands. Just think of someone with anger ...

Today I don't have much to say because  I am being a tree.  I have roots. I pump water and stuff and that makes me feel alive.  There are waves waving in the mental space but nothing worth hanging on to for too long...  I am being quiet. There are a few things that feel a bit tense and knotted inside but that's  OK , I am not going to attack my inner tensions with an axe, I'm too lazy.  If we accepted the fact that this planet is a cosmic psychiatric hospital, along with the fact that we are not here as doctors, we would already feel better.  Now, even if we hallucinate that we are the doctors, that's OK, it's just a symptom. Nothing to worry about. If we want a reality check, are we able to get out? The doctors can go in and out at will, they've got the keys. Can we?   Are we able to get out of the vicious circles of anxieties, desires, fears, misunderstandings, mental blocks, worries, anger, spaghetti?...

Dear unknown friend,  Have you got an idea of why life is growing you?  Life grows many plants, and no plant has to be all plants at the same time. I'm saying this because I have been poisoned by guilt for such a long time I felt guilty, for instance, of not being a committed activist. I love the earth. Greed and ignorance wrecks it. Why am I not fighting with all my strength and heart?  In this state of mind, I went once to a meeting of a local Greenpeace group. Ironically, an environmentalist activist group didn't feel like a good environment for me at all.  It was all so action and facts oriented that I felt out of place with my bag of emotional concerns. It was all about serious battles for the Arctic, the climate, the polar bears and others great causes, but nothing about intimate ecology. I didn't go back. I felt guilty about it, but I decided to believe more firmly that life is growing me for another purpose.  Guilt is a psychic...