Five Weeks in the Amazon - #true #story

Chapter 18 - Masturbation Breakdown

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16

6:23am, 

the big tambo

Last night I had a hard time sleeping. I crawled out of bed, from under the mosquito net, as soon there was enough daylight to justify getting up. My body hurts. I don't feel like I did yesterday. I feel like shit right now. The pain is like the pain I had last week and my joints ache as well.

The pain could be from the addition of the jungle plant medicines to my body, but that feels like a false assumption. It's possible this is my body going through sugar withdrawal. Who knows, but in my regular life I consume way too much sugar. Maybe this is the price I have to pay.

Enough time's passed since I started the Ayahuasca diet for my body to feel much cleaner. It's been long enough it must be detoxifying even my deepest subcutaneous cells. The withdrawal from sugar and preservatives, could be part of why I'm so sore, but who knows.

All I know is that I'm in pain, and on top of the pain I had an awful night's sleep. I couldn't get my mind to cross the bridge from wakefulness to sleep, so most of the night I laid ruminating in my dark thoughts. I tried everything I knew to help me relax, but the more time passed, the more I felt drained.

I feel worn out, and I've never felt like this before a ceremony. I don't think I'll take part in tonight's ceremony. I'm just not up to it. Every other time I've looked forward to the ceremony because I knew it was going to be beneficial. But I don't know anymore. I don't have enough strength to do anything. I'm so tired right now, my heart and soul are so tired.

9:37am, my hammock 

 Misty steam rose from the wet grass in the warm morning sun. Over the last few hours, the density of my thoughts and emotions evaporated in a similar way. I'm still tired from not sleeping well, it wasn't long enough or deep enough sleep, but that's a technical affair. I'll survive.

One of the goals I had when I came here was to say yes to life. With that in mind, I'm thinking about changing my mind and saying yes to participate in tonight's ceremony. Anything which needs recharging won't work if the battery is dead. That logic is simple. My battery is flat but not dead; there is still some charge left in the reserves. 

 Most of my desires are vicious wants, not necessary needs, and I see this more clearly now. Thousands of years ago one of my favorite philosophers, Epicurus, described pleasures of the mind and body in this way; "Of desires, some are necessary, some natural but not necessary, and some neither necessary nor natural but the result of an empty opinion. The desire for food and drink and for clothing is necessary. The desire for sex is natural but not necessary. But the desire for a certain type of food, or a certain type of clothing, or for sex with a particular partner, that is neither necessary nor natural."

When I've desired to have more than what was necessary, or natural, I was no longer listening to my body, I was enslaved by my mind. My vices seem less intrusive now. It's easier to see my desires for what they truly are, and at the same time they don't seem as overpowering. I am still addicted to tobacco and do not use it with the respect it's meant for. Along with tobacco, I also still smoke weed. Weed is the only thing I have consumed that breaks the Ayahuasca diet.

Well, that's not true. It was the only thing...until last night. I went 11 days without an orgasm but that streak ended sometime between midnight and the early hours of the morning.

Surrounded by thunder and lightning, I was trapped in my thoughts and felt as alone as one can feel. Feverish cold-sweats came and went during the night, and I had pain in my back, knees, shoulders, and elbows. My body ached and it was at this point I gave in and let my mind drift away and fantasize.