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 Presence is greater than words



Excerpted from "The Enlightened Heart-Chronicles of a psychedelic psychotherapist"  released in August 2025 on Kindle Direct Publishing. Copies can be bought from my website and on Amazon website.

https://www.amazon.ca/Enlightened-Heart-Chronicles-psychedelic-psychotherapist/dp/B0FLYH15KM


After years of working with people facing poverty, addictions and trauma, I concluded that Jung was right,  there cannot be any lasting personal changes without a concomitant deep spiritual experience. I wondered if psychedelics could have potential for the intense emotional releases and insights that are needed for Soul healing and opening.


I didn’t lose lost faith completely in conventional psychology and pharmacology, but I knew I needed to look for a deeper understanding. When I started working in a pain clinic, my drive to find better therapies intensified. That yearning to work with better tools lead to me towards going back to using psychedelic substances myself.

 

I started participating in Ayahuasca ceremonies The first vision I saw after ingestion was a reed boat with hundreds of symbols painted along the sides. The symbols were from ancient times and diverse wisdom traditions. The boat was tied along the shores of the Nile. I was astonished.

Why are you showing me this? I asked the medicine.


I heard a soft chuckle which I identified as Ayahuasca’s answer. Her voice was warmly familiar.

Look again, small one.

Then, with a rush of recognition that almost make me purge, I realised I was looking at the first Long Boat. The symbol of my spiritual tribe of souls which is called The River of Long Boats. This fellowship is a gathering of beings who are a subsidiary of the main River fellowship.

I am one of the souls who was channeling to you through the River all these years. I have been with you always.

Are you are my new teacher. I asked her with tears of joy.

Where is the River now? I cried out to her.

You are the River now. She answered. And then refused to answer any more questions about the River fellowship.

 

I wake up into the dense, dark jungle again.

There is a sound that accompanies Aya’s presence. The sound you might hear playing indistinctly at a carnival.

Why does she torture me with that evil, twisted music and take me into the darkest places? Its is always night here. Thick, like swimming through molasses, back lite with intense hues of fuchsia, brilliant neon purple, pink, spring green. Radiant spheres of light float through the air, like neon bees. Figures come and go in the landscape but they blend in so seamlessly that I don’t see them at first.

A guide, a shadowy man wrapped in a woven blanket, tells me he is going to take me to a great healer.

You keep asking about how to heal your patients. This being can answer your questions.

I’m taken to a rock cliff and after staring at it for moments, I realise there is a being caught in the stone. He is fashioned with great slabs of stone, black as the boulder cliff behind him. Only his eyes move. He watches me dispassionately, encased, trapped in stone.

How can he heal people? I ask the guide. He can’t move. He can’t even talk.

Remember this, little one, presence is more powerful than words or actions.

I stare at the silent stone being uncomprehending.


 I reflected on the message , recorded it in my journal and drew the Obsidian Man. When the journey was complete the next morning, I ask the shaman if she knows him.

Yes, maybe. She replied. My teacher had a stone man ally whom he met in journeys. He called him Obsidian Man and described him as a great healer.


Obsidian Man gave me wisdom which I hold  precious.


 It is a tenant that I followed for the rest of my life-with and without medicine. I call upon him when there are no words for comfort, when there is no escape or possibility to fix the problem. I remember his calm essence when silent acceptance and settling in embodied peace is the only answer.


Presence is greater than words.


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