On my way to guatemala, I had to stop over to that community I had heard about quite a bit. A plant garden community in Chiapas, just in front of the famous Mayan ruins of Palenque.

 Indeed, the place is pretty nice: a lushy garden is reached after a 25min walk passing hills and crossing farmer fields. The place is simple and well maintained, nothing fancy, rather hippy were we find a very special atmosphere of Rainbow people mixed with some light estearn spirituality influences but profoundly touched by medicinal plants spirits.

 You can stay in a cabana or plant you tent if you have one, its fairly cheap. Meals are included. The idea is to share as much time together, starting with yoga/meditation in the morning (low attendance!), then breakfast followed by karma Yoga (volunteer work) as cooking, collecting wood, preparing the next ceremony etc.

 The whole binding concept behind this community revolve around sharing ceremonies: cacao, Temascal (mayan sweat lodge) and medicinal plant ceremonies as Peyote, San Pedro, Ayahuesca and eventually LSD! Here we are spiritual by taking plants, it’s a fact. People talk about plant, sing about them, take them, smoke them and so on. I quickly felt how their spirits really got hold on the place and the people taking them regularly, as possessed.  It’s a bit the equivalent of physical addiction with some other plants like coffe, alcool or opiace. Well, the spiritual plants are not physically addicting but their spirit eventually seduce you, especially the ayahuesca known to be a jealous and possessive spirit. As a matter of fact, most of the songs being sung were devoted to “abuelita Ayahusca”. I dont have anything against paying tribute or being thankful, but devotion is not for me.

 The weird thing was that this place is also well travelled by people passing by for the ruins, staying just a few nights, not knowing much about spirituality or medicinal plants. There was like 3 long term people kinda holding the place. Since it’s the people that make the place, Im sure the atmosphere is always changing: please don’t take my writings as frozen truth.

 When I was there, I didn’t resonate much with it. I knew I would take some time to open but I also felt I wouldn’t open much here, not resonating with the energy in general. Even if there was a lot of generosity, sharing, family feeling etc… People kept referring to plant, implying as THE way, THE truth, where consicousness meet… Yes it’s a good way to open your eyes on other realities and have some fun in other dimensions, feel spiritual or connected and so on. I kept feeling bad for these people not realizing that its not the only way, not mentioning the fact that you really start to loose contact with other aspect of life if you don’t balance them with some more grounding activities. As my favorite author Antero Alli would say: ”if you want to fly high, first plant your feet firmly in the ground”.

 This being said and acknowledged, I just let people be and made their own experience, not feeling like imposing my personal views. So I just enjoyed what the place had to give me: good knowledge about plants and their traditions and an exotic experience about the Chiapas natural richness. Giant spiders, lots of birds with many colibris, tons of glowing worms flying everywhere at nights, so cool! I remembered an owl looking at us a whole day, showing up just before an ayahuesca ceremony! Some humid sweaty night and hot sweaty days! Not so much to do here besides relaxing, playing music or other personal hobbies. The farmer next door always had warm milk, cheese and eggs, fresh of the day. The only hassle here is that if you go out, you had to be back before 4.30pm as it is inside the park that closes its door pretty early! I almost forgot, the very popular Palenque mushrooms, growing everywhere after a good rain. Just go for a walk and look for cow shit…

 Plantwise, you imagine I had my experiences since its what we do over there. I actually had the chance to do my first ayahuesca ceremony, unexpectedly. I had already the chance to try it but resisted since I wanted to wait to be in the jungle, where it naturally grows. But this time was different. A shaman had come from Peru to hold the ceremony. But what really made me take the step is that she was a woman, and woman ayahuasqueros are not so common. Plus the fact that she made a good impression on me and I could feel that she was not involve in that tricky game of power but instead really acting from love and compassion, not always the case with shamans! I won’t go into details as you can’t really describe these experiences just with words. In a nutshell, a great journey and some powerful psychic experiences with people and nature. And as usual, I realized I have trouble to be contained with rigid structures: each ceremony has its rules, necessary to hold a group circle. The peruvian traditions is focused on inner work: everybody works on his own, not much sharing is allowed. You have to stay silent, no instruments, no singing or dancing. A safe space is well maintained under the dominion of the shaman, this is a fact and this is also very important and very appreciated. Holding my own ceremony on ayahuesca would be a bit pretentious but having some flexibility for the free spirits could fix my neverlasting hunger for personal freedom!

I stayed almost two weeks, taking it easy but getting a bit bored at the end so I left a day earlier. I did meet some interesting character but didn’t have strong connections overall. I ll remember the beautiful sunsets, the amazing waterfalls everywhere and the glowing worms racing through the night, illuminating my nocturnal experiences.

(sorry, no pictures this time )

 http://www.jardin-palenque.com/