Demons, Angels, and You.

I work in many places (some call these dimensions) with humans (some call these people) and with many types of energies (some call these frequencies|spirits|demons|angels).

A day like many other days, subtle yet different appeared yesterday.

I was in a religious-based thrift shop and was looking at a jade-green plastic Buddha statue – which was obviously out of place. I was contemplating the price, material, value, color. Could I resell it? Use it? And while taking some time to feel into the object’s usefulness I noticed a man to my left. He was dressed in black from head to toe and looking at me and the statue. He was pacing and avoiding eye contact. I suspected he might be interested in this amazing find and if I were to leave that very spot, he might just snatch it up. So, I remained tethered to the shelving while I pondered a purchase.

As I contemplated and wondered a little about the man and his pacing, an answer arrived. The man in black approached me a bit aggressively. I stepped back to give space. But he pushed forward into my bubble with an anxious, jittery energy. He raised his large, calloused blue-collar-worker finger and shaking it towards the statue, he started his pitch, “I can’t believe that is in here.” Followed by an odd guttural noise that momentarily confused me. Interesting, I thought as I watched in genuine curiosity and simply responded, “Why is that?” And with that his body began to shake and he could barely hold back his intense voice and disdain for the object. “This is devil worship! Pure devil worship! Not of God! It is Evil!!! It shouldn’t be allowed in this store.”

Whoa, not the conversation I was expecting, nor the era. I’ve met these people before who have been persuaded into a rigid belief for many reasons. I reflected on the time my mother converted to a similar belief and began trying to sell all those around her on her new learned life principles and conditioning. It was not received well.

As I reflect retrospectively, I wasn’t really sure how to respond. So, I just opened my mouth as I generally do, and responded with the first thing that came out, “I thought everything was made from God. The statue, the store, the people, the streets, the air we breathe. We are all aspects of God. Don’t you think so?” I watched him as I was speaking. His anxiety went from a 4 to an eleven. But I couldn’t stop. His whole body began to move in quick jerky steps. I simply watched in a bit of awe.  

If you know me, I am a Virgo born during Mercury retrograde with a Virgo stellium in the 12^th house (more demon stuff?). And apparently that makes me not just a bit blunt but very open and transparent with my voice. Many who have read my chart say that my mind, voice, and emotional filters are all tuned for precision, not grace. And this all comes in the 12^th house which is commonly referred to as the House of the Unconscious—the house of the unseen realm, of sorrow, of shadow, and of invisible enemies. So if you want to know your shadow truth, ask me. Anyhow, I digress.

So here I am with this man in black. He is speaking shadow talk to me. And I forget that I trigger people all the time and truthfully this all comes naturally. I do it quite unintentionally—honestly.

And so I add a question, “How is it that those who believe in all these ungodly or evil things are not so different from us? They don’t appear to be ignored by the blessings of an angry God?”

As I was speaking, I could feel the ripples of shifting energies as my words landed and pierced his armour.

He looked at me like I might be evil—the devil itself. As if I were absolutely stupid for speaking what I spoke, and yet, considering such a purchase.

I watched as he appeared to conclude that his first desire to save me wasn’t worth saving, and that I was quite surely just another dark one who supported evil.  

He held it together, his explosion avoided. He vibrated away into another part of the store never to be seen again. Maybe he quite simply disappeared in a flash?  

And just as suddenly as this man in black disappeared, another man in black magically appeared to my right.

Yes, seriously.

And yes, you guessed it, he was also dressed from head to toe in nothing but black.

My attention piqued now.

How could it not be? How could this be?

He calmly stepped up, noticed my body language, respected my bubble space, and leaned in to get my attention. As soon as my attention went his way, he started speaking and commented on the statue. His voice was jittery but continued as if he were and old friend offering some buyer’s warning and savvy knowledge. “The price is quite high.” He opened with. “It is simply a resin statue. If it were stone or even marble, then it could bear that price.”

I was in agreement! The second man in black was confusing me with his full-black attire but seemed to be wanting an actual conversation, so I responded, “Yah, totally hey. It is a simple laughing Buddha. There isn’t really anything special about it that I can see.”

I picked the Buddha up.  

He nodded and as abruptly as he showed up, he stepped a little forward and offered more information or disinformation about the Laughing Buddha statue and said, “This here is a God that that Chinese worship in China.” My facial expression must have been puzzling or off-putting because his face started to contort, like he was trying to convey an important message from this dimension and in a foreign language.

I gave him space to speak, and he went on to tell me that it is called ‘the something…holding fruit…offering….” I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say, his voice seemed incoherent and blurry as if a magical wall was momentarily put between us. But then he promptly and clearly added some random credentials, “I am from Vancouver, and this would sell better there.”  

I didn’t know what to think of his babbling statements, so I just nodded in recognition and inside my head the acronym WTF echoed. His words were so random and inaccurate I ended up feeling some resigned sorrow for the second man in black.

I looked back at the statue now in my hands to try and comprehend what he was saying. Who is this God statue to him, and why it was formed with hands reaching for the sky. Was it fruit in the hands? Why green?

At this point I had no idea what to say or even if there was a word that I could say to unlock the mysteries bestowed from this man. I wanted to be considerate, so I looked back to my right to ask this man a question – any question.

I was open to that there was something about this particular laughing Buddha I didn’t know. Something that perhaps he knew. After all – Who am I?

I looked back but he was gone. Man in Black number two vanished as had the first with such similar spontaneity and so abruptly that I had no real chance to trigger him.

I looked around the store. It wasn't busy. But my eyes could not find a man in black anywhere.

Hmm.

I set the Buddha back on the shelf. He was correct. The price could have been high.

I know from my experiences with Buddhism that they do not believe Buddha to be a God. Buddhists don’t believe in a secular God as Christians do.

I don’t know what these men in black were trying to do, but the more I contemplate this happening the more I come to believe that;

These are the teachings that segregate one’s soul.

These are the teachings that create division and disharmony.

These are the teachings that create resistance to love.

These are the teachings that bring about hate. Hate that cannot be cast without hating an aspect of self.  

I looked this specific Buddha up to understand the symbolism behind said statue, and it is a Chinese Laughing Buddha created to help with stress. Its hands are pushing up against the ills and stresses of the world....

How accurate were my findings? Who knows. But there it was. The Buddha pulling these anxious people in. Perhaps the statue had more power over these men in black than they cared to admit. Perhaps this is the true source of their angst. Could this green statue allow these men a moment to witness their own demonized soul aspects trying to return.

Demonized aspects of self looking for acceptance.

Is this going somewhere? Let’s see.

Let’s get the brash statement out of the way. In shamanism there is not a time or space where mind altering medicines are absolute and necessary. All the wisdom and content that plant spirits offer in a way of healing can already be had through other means. Much of what the medicine does is move a conscious armour blanket out of the way so we can—without choice—see the truth of who we are, the truth of what is limiting our relationship to grace and love.

Purposeful for many, but not a requirement.

Some might be refuting my claims as they read. Go ahead. I write from experience. Mine and others. I adore plant medicines. I adore the spirits within them. I adore the freedom to use them.

But one has to consider, why is it that at the end of each journey there comes a question and an observation that many forgo putting to memory or reminisced story.

Why am I still repeating the same resistant pattern?

The shamanic retreats people go to provide pathways to open to what we are already capable of opening to. I can see the attractive why – the pull that is catalyzed from the seemingly nonexistent healing options. From failed coaches and psychologists to the vast lack of facilitators who can balance and help those lost in loops and cosmic fear cycles. And yes, even so, for many the fear of opening and healing while in complete sobriety is far greater than the fear of letting a shaman and a beverage take control. The hard truth is that most who are attracted to shamanic plant medicine spend much energy in resistance to the ‘complex’ path because they would have to do the work – risky and honest work. Most who engage with the plant medicine path feel at the end of a rope or feel the pull towards a familiar conditioned pathway(sedative drugs like alcohol or street drugs – different but similar).

So, why?

Is this plant medicine journey easy?

In comparison to a sober one, yes, but in itself, if done correctly with full shamanic and aftercare support, it should be just as complex and arduous as a path without. Plant medicine work is for those who need Emergency Room type of work. A passage that includes intensive rehabilitation.

Imagine the life, size, and impact of the patterns and wounds that we spend myriad blocks of time and energy resisting and avoiding. These are energies that can be healed without massive medicine retreats. Imagine that path. Is it actually simple and complex simultaneously. This path takes tremendous courage. It is hard work – soul work – shadow work. This work is about accepting and working with truth. Getting noisy or/and quiet. Moving into the space opposite of where one is comfortable. And being ok with being not ok. And being ok with being triggered. And being ok with being torn apart until all that is left is ‘nobody’. Until you identify with nobody. And you become nobody.

These medicines simply help one move into a state of no-mind – a state where one’s rigid conscious mindset has no power or control. Where energy manifest is recognized for what it actually is – aspects of you cast away.

We cast instead of embracing and understanding the root or gift within each soul aspect that appears awkward, uneasy, weird, illogical, or unworthy.

So, if that is all the medicines do, if they simply lift an armoured blanket so that one might see, why would there be harm in taking large doses of these medicines?

These are medicine spirits that require help. Well, actually it isn’t quite that the medicine needs help, it is that they only do part of the job. They lift and open armour so that you might see and become whole. It is not the plant that shows the visions, it is you. Your soul guiding you as the plant lifts and open. It is in this time and space of lifting and opening that the plants require the helpful and careful assistance of a watcher (a shaman) who can essentially convert the energies (beings/frequencies) that want to ‘re-merge’ with one’s body. Without this keen skill, one might experience a soul merge that creates a form of cognitive dissonance. The shaman is here to help transform the wounded aspect/essence so that this person’s being might have a better chance at adjusting to one’s own parts as one attempts to attain wholeness.

This can be heavy and there will be many who vehemently reject this. And many ahs. That explains that.

So, to speak bluntly; those who go beyond the light psychedelic experience without the assistance of one who can ‘see’ and manipulate energy beyond the veil, are playing with their sanity. This is why there is so much talk about integration and reintegration. This is about incorporating one’s stranded and vehemently rejected aspect or aspects of soul into wholeness. And without proper integration, that remerged aspect can and will be resisted by one’s conditioning, and thus re-rejected causing limiting and circular relapses.

This speaks much to why many who do ayahuasca journeys do it 10 times or more. They loop. It is a slightly different loop than the one they were in before.

Why the original suffering? Why can’t we just let it all go of our wounded aspects?

The soul wants to be whole.

It wants to love unconditionally.

It wants the freedom to explore and experience life with grace.

And it cannot achieve that without wholeness.

Wholeness cannot happen if we are in resistance to a single aspect of self. This is why so many gurus talk about the absolute need to love oneself.   

We suffer until we do the work – the work of transcendence.

A Buddhist teacher and I disagreed on one thing. He believed that we always come back to suffering. That suffering is our natural way. I can’t hold that as my truth, because all the hope in me says that this suffering only happens because those things—the beings, the demons, the rejected soul aspects—all want to return. So, they continuously knock. We suffer until we can find the love for them. Not some dollar store compassion that is tainted with judgement. Not ease. Not surrender. It is love and only unconditional love that brings with it the full acceptance of all our aspects.

So here we come back to conditioning. The mind. The armour. The men in black.

To these parts of self that have been cast who want to move back into their home.

We’ve all had moments where we dislike and reject various aspects of ourselves. These rejections are caused from one’s attachment and agreement to different cultures and systems we are brought up in. I call these dreams.

What were these two men rejecting? Peace?

There are many different paths of suffering that come from heavy conditioning. No system is exempt. Even the most well-intentioned system hates and casts in fear.

And I could go on…

There are the failed attempts to ease the suffering through heavy addictive drugs including alcohol and religion that cause a mix of ease and false grace.   

 Find your point-of-resistance and love that.