We are each a thread in a vast ancestral tapestry, carrying both beauty and burden. True healing doesn’t come from unraveling the past, but from meeting the present with deep, humble presence. When we rest there, the knots begin to loosen on their own.

To know oneself is to recognise the dynamic web of existence, where everything is in relationship. We are never truly separate; connection permeates all things in varying degrees. In this network of interbeing, everyone and everything is, in some way, a relative of yours.

Ayahuasca is a mystery. It opens the doors to the mysteries. Ask anyone who has been drinking for many years, and they will tell you that when you think you have it figured out, that is when you better watch out. Ayahuasca reveals itself to us like a mirror. If you let go of the internal stances you hold, you too become like a mirror. When two mirrors meet, there is no one there.

If we start our approach with respect, reverence, sincerity, and humility, we set off on the right foot and lay a stable foundation for a meaningful meeting with the medicine. When we come with a sincere and devotional attitude, it is wise to consider how this offsets any hyper-individual notions that it is somehow all about us and the symbols we find. Instead, it opens us to a relational, dynamic, and musical world where the boundaries between inside and outside coalesce and invite us to cherish the beautiful wonder of feeling ever-so-small in the presence of it all.

It has been said that the vine is the book where all of the wisdom is contained, and the leaf is the lamp light by which to read the book. Another way of phrasing this is that the leaf is the remote control for the television, while the vine contains the movie, the story, and the meaning.

Ayahuasca, like many plants, can peel back layers and reveal a sense of belonging—to ourselves, to our environment, and to something greater. But it is not the path itself. As they say in Zen, it is the finger pointing at the moon. Seeing it is not enough; drinking medicine is not enough. It opens the door, but one must learn to step through it on their own.

True freedom is allowing all phenomena to be exactly as they are. To let everything be just as it is. Coming and going, arising and passing away.

When we look at the human tradition, we want to see spirituality as an indivisible whole and find an inherent and universal mysticism as the underlying movement of all the great religious leaders—whatever path they followed, whatever path they carved, whichever direction they led. And we want to appreciate the perennial, self-propagating wisdom that continues to sprout through pastures, forests, deserts, mountains, and cities all over the globe.

No belief is true, for truth is not a belief. This is why I say that no belief is true, because truth is what is left when all your beliefs are through.

At the end of the day, the book will close on the stories. At the end of the day, we won't take any of our belongings with us. And so, while most of the world looks outside for their happiness, for their salvation, for their peace, the right questions turn us around to say that there's only one place that we can look and that is in the direction of where the looking is coming from.

How can you “study” without “seeking”? How can you want to learn something, while also embracing the Great Mystery?

To know something is a great arrogance. To be in a relationship and say, “I know this person,” is a profound limitation. Where is the space for that person to grow? Where is their freedom to change? Everything changes. Everyone changes. To truly love someone is to be awed by their mystery and open to their evolution. Thinking you know someone is a prison.

When we think we know something, we reduce it to a little box—a theory, an idea that makes us feel comfortable. We forsake the mystery for a false sense of security. However, when we don’t know, we remove the box, the walls, and the limitations. It becomes illimitable, free from concepts and free from our tendency toward complacency—our laziness that tries to place the numinous in a knowable box.

The dark night is long when it comes for those who find themselves walking it. But for those who carry a flame within, the encroaching darkness becomes the very canvas on which their light paints its emergence.

Spiritual bypassing is like painting over rust: it may look fine on the surface, but the corrosion continues underneath. True spirituality isn't an escape route from life's challenges or a licence to neglect responsibilities. It's a deep engagement with reality, in all its messiness.

True awakening reveals that there is no "one" to awaken; rather, reality is already wide awake to itself. There is simply this plain, ordinary, and yet utterly astonishing spontaneous arising—an expression of the infinite. This is the awareness of oneness, which, if clearly seen, is the oneness of awareness itself. It is not you who is aware; oneness is aware. It is not an individual possession but an intrinsic quality of existence itself.

If you perceive the source of yourself you will perceive it in everything else. And, if you perceive the source in everything else you will perceive it in yourself.

In the end, practising non-attachment connects us to something greater than ourselves. It is freedom from the chains that we hold. It sounds terrifying because we only know what it is we hold on to. We only know the known. When we let go, however, we embrace the great unknown. 

To find the anchor in impermanence is to find the anchor of impermanence. It is to allow it completely. It is to open the palm of the hand and embrace all the wider without hesitation without grasping, without remorse, the fleeting winds of the world and stop and call them beautiful.

Awakening is just seeing what is, just as it is. And seeing that everything we need is not outside of ourselves. Awakening is waking up to this very moment, realising that all of our seeking pulls us away from what simply is. It is to wake up in this moment and see that this moment holds everything. With everything being here, there's nothing left to look for. And then we can get on with our lives, with happiness, with peace.