Our Planet needs our help...

Following the agricultural, industrial and information ages, our planet is seeing an ever increasing level of destruction and depletion of its natural resources. The speed of growth of this destruction has now reached a level so concerning that we are on the brink of irreversibly destroying the environment and the air we breathe. Our planet as we know it is being altered dramatically.

The Amazon rainforest acts as the veritable lungs of our planet providing natural processing of the carbon dioxide in the air. We are currently destroying approximately 20,000 km2 of rainforest every year (an area equivalent to the size of Wales / almost the size of the state of Maryland) - that's 54 km2 a day / 2.3 km2 per hour!

Nature and our plants keep us alive. Indirectly, we live and feed on light - chlorophyll is the only substance known in Nature that possesses the power to act as a 'sun-light" trap. It catches the energy of sunlight and stores it in the plant. Without this, life would not exist. We obtain the energy we need for living from the solar energy stored in the plant food we eat or in the flesh of animals that eat the plants. The energy we obtain from coal or oil is solar energy trapped by chlorophyll in plant life millions of years ago. We live by the Sun, we live on Light...

We are now experiencing increasingly severe climate change; from the melting of polar ice floating on the Arctic Ocean, Greenland's vanishing glaciers, global heating in the tropics, vanishing of the great tropical and boreal forests and ocean life disappearing as the surface waters warm. The problem, as is seemingly consistent across “science” is that scientists have a tendency to present the whole Earth system as if it was no more than the simple addition of its parts, each taken separately, not as a whole system, as Mother Earth. Something that is not correct when looking at a true, whole, dynamic system. This has resulted in the slow recognition of the threat of adverse climate change due to the division of Science into almost unconnected specialties.

We are on the brink of an irreversible global shift with ever diminishing supplies of food and water in an increasingly intolerable climate. We have seen a harmful and irrational division of science which is fortunately slowly fading although still persists and has led to the deplorable separation of the assessment of global change between two different international bodies: one based on physical science, the IPCC, and the other on biology, the Millennium Ecology Assessment Commission. The Earth is not so divided and so long as we treat it as two separate entities, the geosphere for the material Earth and the biosphere for life, we will fail to understand our planet.

We live on a living Earth, Gaia - Mother Earth. We are part of her and our contract with Gaia is not about human rights alone, but includes human obligations. We must recognise the true nature of the Earth. Life, Nature and our environment are closely coupled. Evolution involves not just organisms but the whole planetary surface. The Earth itself is alive and sentient and we simply can not just pollute the air or damage her skin (the forests and oceans), deplete her blood (oil) on the current huge scale without causing damage.

We have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise just how little time is left to act. Each community and nation must find the best use of its resources to sustain themselves. Our current civilisation is energy-intensive and it is not possible to simply turn it off without crashing. Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that the United States or the emerging economic giants like Russia, China and India will have cut back in time and they are / will be the main source of the problem. The inevitable is highly likely to happen and survivors will be forced to adapt to a hellish climate. We must cease thinking solely of human needs and rights alone, and see that we have harmed the living Earth. We need to make peace with Mother Earth and each other.

In addition to the destruction of our planet, we also now live within a global tyranny where our societies are ultimately controlled by psychological manipulation of consciousness through which reality is defined by those in power (through the media, governments, large corporations, educational establishments and dogmatic religious systems). We have been controlled like sheep in a pen by people who think they "own" and have dominance over society and we have been deprived of true knowledge. It is a very clever tyranny without walls and the majority of people are simply not aware of what they are missing.

Our planet has seen widespread war and destruction for far too long; poverty and inequalities in societies throughout the World both in developed and less developed countries. Great steps have been made forwards in science and technology although often not for the benefit of all mankind. Most of us oppose violence and warfare and we are now beginning to seriously open their eyes and hearts, looking for lasting answers to the issues that we all face. Times are changing and we are soon to see a considerable shift in consciousness towards a higher level...

Amazonian shamanism is intimately connected to our Mother Earth and the Spirit World inside / outside us ALL. It holds an ancient wisdom that has been passed down over millennia by benevolent, peaceful people ultimately connected to Nature. They have lived in harmony for many thousands of years, both between themselves and their surroundings. True curanderos have not lost the critical link with Nature so necessary in order to understand how Nature functions; the divine information it holds and ultimately, how nature connects us all together, both to each other and to spirit.

The answer many of our more dogmatic religious institutions have been searching for over thousands of years can be found in Nature. The Plant Kingdom holds an "akashic record" of knowledge about Mankind; our true past, present and future and the universes surrounding us. We also hold this knowledge deep within ourselves. Working with ayahuasca can guide us to remember the truth; that we are actually spiritual beings living a human existence. Ayahuasca helps to break open the doors to higher consciousness and helps us tune into different "radio stations" aiding us to perceive new worlds that exist simultaneously around us. Humankind has been stuck to the same "radio station" for thousands of years; in a lower level of consciousness in a society riddled with fear, manipulation, anger and greed.

Science is now clearly beginning to point back towards the wisdom of the ancients and mystics. Quantum physics, string field theories, advanced molecular biology, psychology and many more elements of science are opening up to a new way of thinking. Ayahuasca opens new pathways of consciousness, new realities and new options. New ways of living and being that are considerably more peaceful, understanding, mutually beneficial and wholesome. Amazonian shamanism and working with ayahuasca / the plant medicines offers an answer to many of our planets problems providing doorways to our true selves resulting in profound personal and spiritual development, reawakening the spirit within us all.

At the Temple of the Way of Light, in our own small way, we are determined to halt the destruction of this planet and to break the psychological manipulation of our societies. By working with our patients and participants, we hope to spread the wisdom of the curanderas and knowledge of the medicinal plants back to the West and shine a light on the true reasons behind illness and suffering.