Our 44th Anniversary - From the Andes to the Indian Subcontinent - A Mindful Approach to Dementia & Psychedelics
Today is our 44th anniversary. We are on the plane, cutting Henry’s stay at assisted living in Mexico short by a few weeks. He has stabilized from last week’s “hallucinations.” His weight is down, his orientation not on sure footing. My heart breaks. Within hours of seeing me, he feels more tethered to this world — just why I came.
We are en route to Toronto, where our eldest daughter lives with her family. She is desperate to see her father, scared he may not be as recognizable as just a few months back. After our visit, we will return to Vermont, our home base. This shuffling around may be disorienting for Henry but is a needed reunion, possibly our last, in Toronto.
Henry and I were married in Quito, Ecuador, after meeting just a few months prior, where we were both living in Cuenca, Ecuador. We were two of about five foreigners living there at the time. Now Cuenca is lauded as one of the most popular South American destinations for North Americans to retire. It is well-deserved, but the Cuenca of almost half a century ago barely exists today.
For my second and final year of a Fulbright Fellowship, I chose Cuenca due to its connection to the Inca Empire, being the site of Atahualpa’s summer residence. Already a disciplined meditator and hatha yoga practitioner, I had recently made a commitment to myself that my life would be dedicated to an inner life of meditation and self-realization. I did not know what it would look like, but I did ask the High Powers to show me a sign that my choice of Cuenca was the right one.
As the afternoon clouds parted, I entered the small colonial city of Cuenca, population about 140,000. The car bumped slowly along cobblestone streets and passed small churches on just about every corner. It was as if a lost city were being revealed to me. The car turned onto the street where I was to work: enormous double rainbows — yes, double rainbows — smack in front of me, expanding to fill the sky and cover the entire street from left to right. Awestruck, I knew this was the confirmation, welcoming me to my new life in the Andes.
As I look back on my arrival in Ecuador in 1980 and describe a life firmly in the heart and mind and marrow of my being, I do so to illustrate a lived experience that did not involve psychedelics. Yet when people talk about psychedelics or being apprenticed by a shaman, I believe these formative years, which spanned almost twenty years, describe a way of knowing, living, and being that is fundamentally the spirit of any plant or fungi medicine.
I also want to express my gratitude to Henry for sharing 44 years (and counting) of a life that brought outdoor adventure but deep inner practice. Our vows were based on supporting the other in their own inner spiritual journey; for we are ultimately alone, and it is a singular journey. We also vowed to be companions together in the journey. Now, as Henry’s Alzheimer’s defines much of our present journey, the path of more than four decades of inner practice helps lay the foundation of acceptance, gratitude, and greater reverence for the present. Entheogens, especially microdosing magic mushrooms, have helped both of us lean into and appreciate their immeasurable help, and we have become advocates for the mindful and reverent use of psychedelics.
Henry had first come to Ecuador in 1968. In the Mennonite tradition, like his forefathers even during the American Revolutionary War, he was a conscientious objector, status A1, during the Vietnam War. For his obligatory alternate service, he was sent to Ecuador with the international non-profit organization CARE. Henry’s mother and maternal grandmother were Quakers, another peace church.
He is one of the gentlest men I have ever met. He is a quiet soul, his spirit nurtured when communing in the natural world; thriving when working with the land, looking at the miracle of a bumblebee, or listening to pre-dawn birdsong. Always one to follow his own drum, he is also deeply motivated from a heart of service in all he does, both personally and professionally, both locally and globally. So it is no surprise that while doing his alternate service installing 700+ hand pumps for potable water throughout southern Ecuador, he bought a run-down thirteen-room Spanish colonial hacienda on the outskirts of a village near Cuenca.
Fast forward to 1981, when we met through a local meditation group based on Hindu philosophy. Henry was a dedicated meditation practitioner, thinking he would live the life of an ascetic on his organic farm. The farm was about 50 acres of cascades, rivers, breathtaking views, and a magical world that he had transformed into a working farm with fruit orchards, vegetable gardens, and dozens of beehives.
Our neighbors in the village where we lived were all descendants of the Inca culture. Did you know that the Incas forced integration by splitting up indigenous groups and then relocating them? Divide and conquer was the strategy. Over twenty identifiable indigenous groups wore their respective and distinctive patterns of clothing. In our town of Sayausí, traditional clothing — hats, belted white pants for the men — were still donned, and for women and young girls, blouses and bolsacones (skirts) with patterns that identified Cuenca.
My neighbors and madrina/godmother taught me how to choose flowers, petals, herbs, and more. I’d walk the fields and pick which flowers or herbs to put in the water of the “tina”/clothes wash basin depending on the “humor”/mood of my infant children as I bathed them under the warm noonday Andean sun before the spirits of the cold wind might encroach. I took one of my daughters, throughout her childhood, to curanderos/shamans to get rid of “espanto,” an anxiety that was noticeable from infancy. We planted and understood that the earth and all the abundance it brings through this land of extensive mountains and valleys, lush jungles, forests, streams, and high Andean lakes deserved a pause — our reverence. We looked to the sky both day and night. According to the moon cycles, we planted seeds on a waxing moon or cut trees on a waning one; similarly, we looked to the cycle of the moon to choose when to cut hair or nails depending on whether you wanted quick growth or minimal growth.
Our village neighbors invited us to celebrate certain rituals shortly after a birth, join the intimacy of multi-generational mourning when a family member died and the spirit of the deceased might be present, participate in mingas — when groups would gather to help on big projects like building a ditch, fixing a road, or helping a neighbor with a build. Digging for treasure also had its specific rituals — only at night, women needed to be cooking something and stay in the kitchen — and we would attend the neighborhood council, sitting around in a circle, aguardiente/moonshine passed around in a shared glass, to discuss local issues and find mutual consensus.
I was engulfed in an understanding that became a lived experience. Essential were the three worlds in which all lived: above, below, and what we see in front of us. Time itself was not so measurable in a Western, more dependable sense; life revolved around elsewhere. Waking up to the day ahead was a gift, and whether we had another day to live or not was a question. The parting greeting: Sí Díos quiere… it is up to God… if we were to wake again, meet again — was the daily refrain. There was no clear line of where the feeling or spirit of a plant ended, or the power of a waxing moon, or the power of the spirits surrounding my young daughters, or, for that matter, the power of sentient beings seen and unseen that abound.
Interestingly, the understanding of being in the present, that all is of an impermanent nature, and reverence to the well-being of all sentient beings — so real in my life in the Andes and its ancient wisdom — is equally relevant and echoed in the ancient wisdom of Hindu and Buddhist philosophies. The alchemy of spirit and nature of the Andean world, or tapas/karmic burning that brings purification, another alchemy, both bring greater healing, well-being, and wholeness.
Many spaceholders, people who offer high-dose journeys, are under the tutelage of taitas (male shamans) and maimas (female shamans) from the Amazon region. In fact, GV Freeman, a guest on the podcast, had recently returned from his journey in Peru. You can listen to the podcast: Healing with Pscychedelics The medicine, be it ayahuasca or magic mushrooms, can offer a lived experience that invites you to embody more of this cosmo-vision as I described above.
Psychedelics, at a high dose, can help access this magical world, breaking the mold of a dualistic mindset. Experiencing life beyond what neuroscience defines as our DMN — the default mode network — and Eastern wisdom defines as the ego or sense of “I” found in ancient Veda texts, all point to the non-dual nature of reality. A high-dose journey can take you out of the narratives that have defined or confined a life. This lived, embodied knowing that comes from breaking free from what has previously defined thoughts (also known as samskaras in both Buddhism and Hinduism) can bring a newfound freedom to the heart. Possibilities to reimagine the future, and knowing that there are infinite possibilities, is deeply healing.
Now, as an advocate for the mindful and respectful use of psychedelics, I close today’s entry with the hope that you read some of the other blog entries and consider taking the self-paced Mindful Microdosing 101 course.
Lastly, I give great thanks for sharing this journey with Henry and that our 44 years of marriage were steeped in these living traditions — from the Andes to the Indian subcontinent — both by osmosis and daily practice. This alchemy — of a life lived thus far and shared for so many years with one companion — brings boundless gratitude to the magic of this moment. Thank you for sharing it with me.
- Lauren Alderfer, PhD.
