Peru & Car Crash Recap with Tribe: Part 2 | AMP #168

AUBREY: Part two begins. There's a few things that have happened in between part one and part two. I woke up, my car, a mangled bed of twisted steel and my face dripping with blood, and severed largely from the normal places of my body. That happened. That happened between part one and part two. Wasn't expecting that.

KYLE: I don't think anybody saw that on the forecast.

AUBREY: No, that wasn't part of the plan.

CAITLIN: It feels like a lifetime since we recorded the last one.

AUBREY: Right?

CAITLIN: It's basically been basking in the afterglow of Peru, just kidding.

AUBREY: Just basking.

CAITLIN: Yeah, I pretty much can barely remember that headspace that we were in last time. And so much has happened, and I think it speaks a lot to integration.

AUBREY: Well, there is a deepening of the lessons because I know I talked about how in that Huachuma space, I was taught to look out at nature, look out at the trees, look out at the sky, look in the mirror, look everywhere and say, "Hello, my beloved." And just see that my truest eternal lover is all of creation, that's always there with me. And I think getting in an accident like this, then denies me the usual access to creation. I can't feel my face, I can't taste right, I can't smile right, I can't get in the sun because of the scars really, I can't go swimming, I can't do the things that I normally can. So, it makes me appreciate those aspects that I was appreciating when I was on Huachuma. And then appreciate them even more with the retraction and inability to access those. So, that's been a huge part of this teaching, a teaching that, yeah, Huachuma can show me. But pretty quickly, even during part one I was already taking for granted my ability to go outside and look up at the sun, and jump in the pool and swim some laps. I mean, everything else had risen to those normal usual levels of importance that really aren't that important. And so, this is really in a lot of ways, like a continuation of this medicine journey. And also, in its own way, its own crazy ass vilca experience as well, where I'm having to reconcile with something beyond my control, something that is at an intensity level that is unparalleled by anything I've had to deal with.

CAITLIN: To speak on the continuation of the lessons, I think something that we really encountered in Peru as a group was our tribal dynamics, and everybody supporting, communicating and showing up for each other and working through challenges. And then, we think we get over a really big hurdle together. And then this happens to you, who most of us regard as like a leader, a very close beloved friend. And not only are we confronted with death and loss in that regard, sitting in the hospital, wondering what's going to happen with you. But then also the tribal dynamics of showing up in love and being like, oh, yeah, all that bullshit doesn't really matter. What really matters, and having that opportunity to kind of sit with that and go, okay, I was all concerned about this two weeks ago even in the jungle. Was I listening? And now can I really listen?

AUBREY: Yeah, as we were, I don't know, kind of like, reading these lessons with like, minor importance. Like we were reading a comic book or something. Like oh, wow, look, Thor. Thor is having trouble with the fucking infinity wars these days. But slightly out of the depths of the personal involvement in some of these lessons, because it's easy to go back to normal life and just assume normal life. But, for me, I got just fucking yanked out in normal life. So now I get a real chance to reevaluate, and try to apply some of these deeper teachings that I've learned. What a blessing.

CAITLIN: What a blessing.

KYLE: What a blessing. AUBREY: All right, so where we left off, was discussing vilca, which is also translated as the sacred. It's a combination of DMT-5-MEo DMT, and bufotenine 3 psychoactive components. Kyle had a pretty remarkable experience, and he was sharing some of the gems of that experience. But he also didn't get the chance to share some of the disgusting parts of the experience. CAITLIN: The true gems. AUBREY: And as someone dealing with the disgusting parts of his own experience, let's give people the full vilca story.

KYLE: The full vilca. I think I grazed over the fact that Natasha, my wife, thought I was choking on my own vomit, which I was until I heard whispered into my left ear, "Swallow." Oh okay, swallow, everything's fine. And of course realizing how disgusting that is, I sit up and actually begin to purge into the bucket. It's such an out-of-body experience. I literally did not feel where I was in space or my body. My abs worked to sit me up, and I could feel the palms of my hands holding the hand pan to puke into. That was it. Then I felt the ball of energy come up from my belly button as I would purge. And that first purge was as hard as anything I've ever done in the past. And I remember hearing a fart but not really feeling it. And I lay back down--

AUBREY: That's a bad sign.

KYLE: I lay back down and the entire bed was soaked. And I was like, fuck me. I pissed my pants, did I shit my pants? Like immediately, go back to AMP #104. We were both at the time with Steve Shubin. And I think I just shit my phone itself right now. I just shit myself and I can't feel it. I thought it was just--

AUBREY: That only would have happened if you sat on Tasha's nicest chair with the most nicest blankets. Something she'd crocheted with her grandmother for years, and you just sit on, and just shat it completely.

KYLE: The most sacred thing she possesses, right? Yeah. Thankfully, I didn't shit myself. But I really, I mean, I still had no feeling down there. I mean, it was full emptying of gas. If I had poop to poop, it would have come out. I mean, the gas came out, all the urine came out. The entire bed was soaked. I had to sleep above the covers with no sheets fully clothed. Just brutal. And then continued on with that. And, it gets grosser for those that want to hear it.

CAITLIN: You're warned now.

KYLE: There was a part, vilca, it's a powder and it's kind of grainy. And I'm swallowing it as it's going down, and swallowing and as it's coming back down and snorting it up. And then finally, my nose is so runny and I hear the word blow. So I lean over the bucket, and then I'm just cranking snot rockets out. But they're so thick, they're not leaving. Like you blow a snot rocket on the street, you can shoot one away from you. This is just hanging.

CAITLIN: Oh, my god.

KYLE: And I go to grab it with my right hand, and kind of toss it into the pan and it won't come off my hand. And I'm just like, whatever, and just rub the snot all into my fucking face, and bald head. It's completely dissolved. And I must have been rubbing my face and head with snot for minutes. And then I decide, this feels so good. It was pure ecstasy that I blew more snot into my hand, and continue to practice. Snot into my face, eyes and forehead. And I got to say, that was probably the grossest thing I've ever done in ceremony and maybe one of the most euphoric. It was like just pure ecstasy, like just--

AUBREY: Because you're shattering that boundary of what is gross, what is inappropriate. All these things that we tell ourselves, like we ejaculate and cum, and then we're like, "Oh, semen!"

KYLE: "Don't touch it."

CAITLIN: It's true, everyone freezes. Everyone's like... As a girl, you just lay there frozen, waiting for something to save you.

AUBREY: Yeah, but it's so stupid. It just came out of our body. It's like we have all these biases.

CAITLIN: Sweat too. That's another thing that everybody recoils. "Oh, don't hug me. I'm sweaty." So weird. That gets shattered in the jungle.

AUBREY: You transcended that.

KYLE: Yeah. You know what I think now looking in hindsight, there was so many... Thankfully, I've had a decent amount of experience leading up to that where I was forced to learn the hard way. But now I can learn gently to relax and surrender to it. But every opportunity I was told to do something, I just did it. There was zero resistance. It was like, "Okay, I'm going to swallow my own puke." You said swallow, bang, I swallow it. Blow, I just blow the snot rocket. Rub it in my face, all right. There was no resistance to any of these things. And for each one that I said yes to, there was a benefit. Obviously, starting with not choking on my own puke being the biggest benefit. And then going forward from that, everything panned out appropriately with that kind of non-resistance, go with the flow, wu wei act in the vilca experience.

AUBREY: That's such a wise introspection on that because we always have the opportunity to ask our higher self, or ask our soul like, is this the right path? Should I be doing this? And typically, we'll get an answer, but most of the time, we don't bother to ask. We don't check in and say, "Hey, is what we're doing here, is this the right thing?" Before I got in the car, and I got the car wreck, did I have a moment when I was driving the car like, okay, everything good here? Let me check in with myself. We all set? Like if I did, maybe this whole situation would have been avoided, maybe that wasn't what was supposed to happen. Maybe it all happened exactly as it should, and I think it did. But regardless, in the future, remembering to ask myself these questions, like, what should we do? Is this right? What should we do next? And it's not asking the mind, because the mind will spin out a million different hypotheses, but it's asking the soul. Like Paul Chek walked us through on that first podcast we did here on the show. But that higher self, that knowing, that sense of knowing, and that's what you're talking about. You're talking about listening to your knowing, and just following, blindly following those orders that are coming from that sense of intelligence that's within us all. And if we all did that, I think we'd be significantly, we'd learn significantly faster, advance on the path significantly faster than trying to just do everything based upon our mind.

CAITLIN: And I think if you start the conversation, and you ask first, then you make less room for fear to creep in and tell you what you're supposed to be thinking and feeling. And I think it's really interesting also how the mind gets in the way of the knowing. I think for most people, and myself included, we've grown up for most of our life thinking of knowing as being related to the mind, but it's really like, it's in the heart. And it's something... It's at a different frequency.

KYLE: Yeah, it's so much deeper than that, right? But whatever we have in our minds of how it should look or how it's supposed to be, that's often what the struggle is. That's where the resistance is, because I'm not supposed to piss my pants, or I'm not supposed to rub snot all over my face. And I'm not supposed to whatever, fill in the blank. And not just in vilca, but in life in general. I mean, how much worse of a place would you be in right now if your mind was telling you, I'm not supposed to get into a car accident?

AUBREY: Yeah, totally.

CAITLIN: Mm, suffer.

KYLE: I'm not supposed to pass out while driving. All those things, that fucking shapes your perspective in the healing, right? And what do you gain from it.

AUBREY: My cortisol would be spiked, I would be restless, I would be suffering immensely if I really believed that. And I think, even watching other people around me, like those people who have a deep fear for my safety, this kind of shocked them into like a deep fear, right?

CAITLIN: Hi.

AUBREY: Their advice isn't a sense of knowing, their advice is a sense of thinking based upon fear. No, no, no, don't do that. Don't do that 'cause... But what are they saying that? Why are they saying that? Well, they're saying that because they're afraid for me, because they've seen me be mortal, and almost die. So, their natural fear-based thought instinct, is the most conservative thing. Well, the most conservative thing isn't necessarily the right thing. That's just that's one opinion, but it's their fear and their mind kind of collaborating to create that. Whereas someone who can liberate themselves from that fear, liberate themselves from that, and just ask, they will have a totally different perspective. And that's the opinion, and that's the perspective that would be immensely valuable. Well, this podcast is going to take a lot of energy, but I feel like it's going to reach a lot of people in a positive way. So, go get it, go fucking get them, tiger. Like, that type of advice is the type of knowing that not only do we have available for ourselves, but we have available for other people. To get out of our own fear-based constructs and our own thinking constructs and get into our knowing, and then advise ourselves and others along the path.

CAITLIN: Yeah, I think I'm definitely one of those people that will... Well, obviously it was very scary for me when you were injured, but I'm generally dictated by a lot of should in my life. And that idea of what I should be doing, even if it's like, oh, I should be doing more cortisol constantly. It was a journey for me. I was able to, I think get on it correctly, pretty quickly, but wanting to protect you and give advice. And I'm sure the energy is palpable, and I think people take on energy. In that way too, we all take cues from each other. If somebody's terrified for you, and they're like... That energy is coming at you. And if you don't have a good sense of personal knowing, you might adopt that and really like it might shape the way that you perceive your own experience, and your gifts, and blessings in the world around you.

AUBREY: Yeah, I mean, you have a kid. Like if Bear kicks something with his foot or stubs his toe or does something wrong, and you look at him and go, "Oh my God!" He's going to freak the fuck out. But if you do as you do and be like, "It's alright, buddy, you're fine." Then he'll take your advice for it and be like, "Well, this really fucking hurts. But dad doesn't seem worried. So maybe I am okay." And I think that's the role that we can play with ourselves and with everybody else, just like we can with a kid.

KYLE: And checking in, like you mentioned, but also recognizing Is this mine? There was so much of the fear that came up the second... I have not told this trip report many times, so I won't go down the rabbit hole on it. But the second time, my wife and I saw that we were having a child and ayahuasca, all the fears of being a dad came up. And then I asked, like, is this mine? And quickly realized, that's what everyone else tells you, you have to have all your ducks in a row. Everyone else tells you, you need to have medical and dental and a fucking 401K and a retirement plan and a job that pays better than the UFC, and to not live in your mom's garage, and all the shit that we had going on for us. But there's no perfect time to have a kid. So realizing that wasn't my own, it allows us to move forward and have our amazing son. And now we do have a house and a 401K and fucking all the things you're supposed to have.

AUBREY: It all worked out.

CAITLIN: Yeah, what do you know.

KYLE: It doesn't have to be in that order, necessarily.

AUBREY: Yeah, totally.

CAITLIN: That was a big part for me too, was, I have a lot of anxiety and personal stress that's dictated by these ideas of what I should be doing at this point in my life, what I should have actualized. And I had a beautiful moment of recognition that growing up before I had all these ideas imposed upon me about where I should be. Lifestyle wise, should I be married? Should I have children by now? I'm 35. But when I was a little girl, all I wanted to do is have adventures. That's what I fantasized about. I didn't fantasize about having a family. I didn't fantasize about any of these things. And then I adopted what society wanted for me. And then I use that as a way to punish myself constantly. I was able to kind of return to that true knowing of what I've always really wanted and appreciate it. We actually most of the time are where we want to be, I think. We're just taking on other people's expectations and making them our own. At least for me, that's been the case.

AUBREY: Yeah, that feeling that everything is as it should be right now. Doesn't mean that it's the best it will ever be. But right now, it's as good as it can be. And always knowing that, and knowing that tomorrow, it can be a little bit better. And the next day, it can be a little bit better. But right now, everything's good. Not projecting yourself into the future and judging yourself according to that, or even worse, projecting yourself into the past and imagining that. I mean, that trap is even harder. Like those people who had their glory days in the past, and then they can't live their present because their present isn't the same as what their past looked like.

KYLE: Uncle Rico.

AUBREY: Yeah, exactly. That trap is almost like a meme now. It's something that everybody kind of understands. But we can do that both with the past and the future, when just really appreciating that okay, yeah, I can't feel my fucking face right now. It's a little bit weird when I talk. My lips are swollen, my nose hurts. I'm tired when I wake up. But doesn't mean that today can't be the best fucking day that it possibly can be. Of course, it can. Everything can be perfect for right now. And believing that and knowing that actually makes it possible, makes it a reality. Denying that puts me again into deep, deep suffering.

CAITLIN: One thing you said this week that was really tremendous for me was you said nothing happens for a reason. But everything gives you an opportunity to give it a reason. And I think we get a little hung up on that when we're struck by crisis. It's kind of like, oh, what's the reason in this? Oh, I didn't respond properly. Well, everything you're doing is your choice on how you respond to that. And everything you're creating from it is your choice. And it's not like you did something wrong and now you're going to be karmically punished. No, maybe from some alternate realm after this life, we'll be able to look back and look at potential versus what we achieved. I'm not sure. But there isn't right or wrong. You're a master creator, and you can use every waking moment to create something new

AUBREY: And maybe you needed a harsher lesson. Maybe you needed to learn from something that was a little bit more stern. Maybe you needed a little bit more suffering to really understand the message that was coming through.

CAITLIN: I'm a person who keeps getting the same lessons over and over again, which feels very defeating. And maybe some people out there can relate to that, but Peru for me this time and Vilca was much of a homecoming as far as like self-love. I had a much more graceful experience than I think some people did. I felt the best I've ever felt. I felt the truest I've ever felt. I've lost that a bit in the mundane chaos that we return to inevitably. And that's okay too. I think I'm having more compassion with myself for the fact that the lessons are going to keep returning because I'm the same person, and I have the same entities in the same agreements that I came into this life with constantly. I kind of I struggle with addiction in certain ways, addictive tendencies, a lot of self-destructive behavior. And when I came back from Peru, I had this complete sense of wholeness, and I really felt like I did it. I got rid of it. I got rid of my hungry ghost energy as Gabor Maté so eloquently referred to it as. But I didn't, it came back up this weekend a little bit. And it's not going to be gone forever. It's how much can I feed myself in the ways that are going to keep it at bay, keep me in a good relationship with it. I think every time we have certain expectations for complete and radical change, we're setting ourselves up for disappointment. AUBREY: Do you remember what Mugenda told us when we did that Iboga ceremony so many years ago about those two different forces within ourselves? it's basically describing those destructive negative forces and then those positive, constructive uplifting forces. And I asked him, I was like, "Well, how do you make sure that the positive forces win? How do you destroy the negative forces that are within you?" He's like, "Oh, man, you don't destroy the negative forces. You just feed the positive forces." And you just allow them to outpace the negative ones to such a degree that it's no longer a race anymore.

CAITLIN: That's exactly what has been one of my lessons this summer. Because going into Peru, I wanted to do it right this time. And I did like full dieta beforehand. I didn't drink, I didn't even drink coffee. I really wanted to show some devotion to the medicine because I'm not very good at that normally. And sure enough, I had a beautiful, relatively sublime experience. And then I came back, spent the first weekend in a casino. Then you got in the wreck. And then I started obsessing over Burning Man and just--

KYLE: And you had to move.

CAITLIN: Had to move, super stressful. So, just started doing the coffee, other things, bringing back a variety of other things. I mean, I went full swan dive off that wagon, back into the real world. And it felt like such a defeat. It's like, "Oh, I've still got this demon in me." Like, no, you're just feeding the demon, or whatever. You're just feeding the darkness. And now the light, it's still there. It's just hanging out waiting for you to throw it a bone.

AUBREY: Yeah, waiting for you to blow wind at that sail. Just give it that little...

CAITLIN: But even in that defeat, I learned, okay, this is the way, just feed it again. It's not like... I don't have to sit around feeling like I failed.

KYLE: Yeah, there's a lesson in everything, right? Doesn't matter what it is. What are you teaching me right now? That's such a great question, right? And that's a great question to ask when you're on top of the world and you're like, "Like I did it, so I'm going to be here forever," even though you're not. Like, okay, what can I learn from this? And when you're on the bottom too, what can I learn from this?

AUBREY: And to know that you will never not be the hungry ghost because humankind has the hungry ghost. You're never going to be separate from what all of humanity brings. That morphic resonance field, is what Rupert Sheldrake calls it, the collective consciousness, the identification of self as all. Meaning that you share all of the burden of all of consciousness and all of humanity and all of the triumphs and all of the failures and all that. We all have that to certain degrees. They're all little tiny embers that we can blow into raging fires. Some have more tinder and we have more practice, and we're more inclined to do it. But whether that's anger or violence, or love, or compassion, or empathy or altruism, whatever, we got all that shit, all of it. All of the stuff. And it's just recognizing that all that stuff itself, and then it's our choices where we put our air, where we put our intention, where we put our energy. And overwhelmingly, that choice is enough to determine who we are. That's what matters. Sure. So for me, just to finish this off, so vilca. We were doing vilca together as part of our ritual leading up to our bead exchange ceremony. And I had a really rough ride with the vilca. I pretty much lost my mind. Which is crazy, because that's never happened to me before on DMT. I've smoked DMT 50, 60 times. I don't know how many times. Ayahuasca, close to 20 times. Vilca, this was my third. 5-MEo, I mean, I've done the full gamut, right? I'm not a stranger to this. Never had an experience where I felt like my own thought processes were in jeopardy. But recognizing that my father had lost his mind five, six years ago, and seeing him alienate everyone around him, and kind of be such a detriment to his own legacy, the struggles that he's been going through, I think I internalized some of that fear. And I hadn't really processed it because I'd gotten past my fear of death. If this car wreck took me out, okay, well, I don't get to write my books, I don't get to enjoy physical love anymore, I get denied the opportunity to be Aubrey. But still as what did happen, all the love is there, my legacy is there. I pass off to a pure consciousness being and I look back and I say, "Man, that was a shame. That was really whack. I fell asleep, and then I didn't wake up again. That sucked. But all good. I did my best during the time I was there." But what's way worse than that is, let's say I did lose my mind and lost my thought faculties, and lost my sense of direction and balance. And then I started just being a total dick to everybody, and then lost my way. That would be a tragedy far worse than death. And I think vilca was walking me through that outcome as ayahuasca walked me through the physical death outcome, the not existing at all outcome. All these fears that I've had. And the medicines walked me through. This time it was walking me through, your brain is going to be scrambled, and you may not ever get out. But through that process, even though like I was telling you, I only had two words available. Nintendo and pajamas. Those are the only things that I could say. I kept saying them over and over again in my head. I had this faith like, alright, right now I got Nintendo pajamas. Eventually, I'm going to have the rest of my words, and I'm going to be okay. Like, I didn't indulge the fear. I didn't choose that fear path that would have said, this is it, you're fucked. You've gone crazy in the jungle, and you'll never make it back. And I think just like with this accident, I haven't indulged the, how could this have happened? Why did this happen? I can't believe this happened. This is such an inconvenience. I haven't chosen that path. And in the vilca I didn't choose the other path. And so I was able to move through it. And after a good hour 15, hour 20 minutes, I kind of tapped you and said something like, "Hey, I'm having a really hard time."

CAITLIN: It was such a relief because I actually, I am really good at just surrendering and being completely still. In medicine ceremony, it's hard for me to throw up. I don't move around much. And I needed to be really bad. I thought I couldn't feel my body at all. But I felt just like this blinking signal right in my bladder area kind of. And I would look to my right, and it was just the abyss. I was like, the bathroom's gone. So I'm going to close my eyes again. And then when I finally felt your presence return to the room, it was like, oh my god, I can start trying to navigate this space again. The only thing I did notice was the sound, constant sound that sounded a bit like a lawnmower but it was Kyle. That's the way. I was like, "Who's mowing the lawn? No, that doesn't make sense. Where's that coming from? Can't tell, must be an animal." But yeah, turning over and I saw your hand, and it was like, it was almost like pulling me back into the world. And then hearing your... I mean, I think that that super resonated. I think we all kind of have a terror of losing our sense of self, and being able to hold space with you in that was really, it was medicine for me as well. I think who we go on our journeys with is a big part of the medicine too. There's so many layers to these experiences. And that was something that proceeded to develop in the rest of our time there as we worked through tribal dynamics, and how we all work together kind of cosmically and energetically to deliver messages and lessons and healing to each other. And, I'd actually done two trips down to Peru. One on my own and one with the group. But the first one was pretty harrowing for me because I had all that shit and terror of like, I shouldn't be here, maybe this is bad medicine, maybe I made the wrong choice, what if I never come back? My first time with aya, I felt like, I'm never going to be the same again. And I couldn't imagine returning to any sense of self. It wasn't the same kind of like, exactly the same kind of feeling. But this sort of terror that I would never really feel like myself again. And then coming back this time, it was like, I felt like a warrior queen. I walked back to that room with you on the bridge, and it's like we're walking into the cosmos, and I'm just like, about to lose it. I'm just like, one foot in front of the other. Then I just landed on the bed, and it was like, poof, everything's gone. Everything I know is gone.

AUBREY: I mean, that's the beauty of the medicine path, is just this constant ability to push yourself beyond anything that you normally would in waking life, and just cross over the abyss, and come back and then cross over the abyss again, and come back. And every time you come back, you have a little bit more faith in yourself, and you're a little bit stronger and wiser. As long as you're mindful not to do it so many times that you lose your ground, and you get stuck somewhere in purgatory in the middle where your feet are halfway in the astral playing twinkle toes, and the other feet are in the ground. Make sure you're firmly planted.

CAITLIN: Yeah, we're supposed to be here.

AUBREY: Yeah, but when done right, these rites of passage help us define who we are. And then set us up like people have been very complimentary and sweet about my attitude surrounding this accident. Well, I've never gotten in an accident before. I've never had a car wreck like this. I broke my arm playing basketball, but nothing like this. What prepared me for this? I don't know, the absolute destruction and dissolution of my ego and sense of self, countless times over again in the psychedelic experience. I've had this practice.

KYLE: Having every bug eat your flesh and bone--

CAITLIN: It's a training ground.

AUBREY: Exactly. Spiders crawling in my eyes and exploding out my face. I've done some shit.

CAITLIN: And that's my fear. I think we want immediate results. So for me, the first time I went to Peru, I was scared as shit. I thought, I felt the truth of it. But I was by myself getting on the boat on the Amazon River at nighttime with people that don't speak English. And I was all alone. And it's good to be afraid. How do you grow? How do I measure my growth as a person here four years later if it was just always a cakewalk for me and I didn't care? The ways we project and then assimilate our projections, and measure them and weigh them are how we determine where we're at from where we've come and where we want to go. And I think that it's good to be afraid, it's good to piss yourself, and it's good to think, oh my god, I'm losing my mind, and show yourself that you can hold on to Nintendo pajamas, and get back to it.

AUBREY: Like Jordan Peterson said, to know yourself, you have to test yourself. How do you know? How do you know what you're made of? Like, how do you know? Well, you can do it in the physical. You can physically test the body, and you can physically ram your face into a guardrail like I did. And it's a good way to understand, but that way is a lot more challenging and takes a lot longer. I'm going to be healing for the next few months, and it's a massive sacrifice, and a very valuable one. But nonetheless, you can do so much of this work just with your mind, just with projecting your mind to these different fears, and these different issues that you have, if you are willing to go on that psychedelic medicine path. Of course with the right person at the right time, when you're called, all the caveats. Don't go willy nilly into it, but that's really the beauty of this. The beauty is you get to practice life at full 100 levels. But then the next morning you wake up and you're good. You don't have to learn... As soon as you learn the lesson, the thing is over. That was a frustrating thing for me a little bit. I was expressing last night when I was at dinner. I was like, fuck, I feel like I really learned most of the lessons that I needed to learn for this accident. My fucking face still hurts. I guess there's more lessons, I'll keep looking for more lessons. But in psychedelic space, when you get all the lessons, you move out of the level. You're fucking out of that level, you're in to the new level. Maybe you're in a really dark level and you needed to learn the lesson to that dark level. You learn that lesson, you go to fucking Butterfly World like immediately. Like, "Uh-huh, Butterfly World! I fucking made it." I mean, how sweet is that? And that's the advantage of doing it in the psychedelic space.

KYLE: Yeah, and the continued lessons too. One of the common themes they say in ayahuasca is, continue to be on dieta after you finish, don't have sex for the first three days after the ceremony to continue to allow Ayahuasca to work, the medicine is still in you. And that's something that I take with any medicine journey now, just knowing like for sure that whatever that plant consciousness is, it’s still with me. It's still in my body for days after. I had to go back home to California to pick up Bear and got to visit with my family who's all there. And we went to the beach, we went for a beautiful hike at Rancho San Antonio, one of my favorite places to hike, and where I was born and raised, to reconnect to that space and my family. And in doing so, the medicine was still working incredibly strong. And, I think I told you guys this, I was hanging out with my father, who I have a great relationship with. And we've done ceremonies together and healed a lot of things. And my nephews are running around on this trampoline, and they're both 18 months, twins. And, they're running around and they kept playing this game where... I mean, it's netted, you can't really get hurt inside it. But you can come out to get up and down, and then go back through this other little spot. So, they thought it was really funny to come out and then shoot back in. And every time they did that, they could potentially fall flat on their face on the concrete four feet down, right? So, my dad was getting really nervous, the kids are going to get hurt. And he's yelling at them, "Knock it off! You guys stay in there." And he's yelling at them. And I'm just kind of giggling, watching him get worked up. And he kept getting worked up. And then he was like, "I'm going to warm your ass up," and I just burst out laughing because I remember hearing that so many times as a kid. That's such an old fart saying. "I'm going to warm your ass up." And I was like, dude, they're fucking 18 months old. They don't understand a word you're saying. They're just learning how to say no right now, and it sounds like, "Neh, neh." They can't communicate that. And my knee jerk reaction as an adult now not fearing my own ass whipping was laughter, because it was absurd to me. Like, come on, take it easy. They're little kids. If they get hurt, big deal. We don't need to hurt them in fear of them getting hurt themselves, right? And I went to bed that night. I had a dream where I beat the fuck out of my dad. I was driving a car with him in the passenger seat, and we were arguing about something. And I was like, "I'm going to fucking pull the car over." And he's like, "If you do, we're going." And I fucking yanked the wheel, pulled over, and I mean, fucking just blood all over my body. Never have had a dream that violent. And I woke up, it was 6am and my heart was racing. And I was like, "Oh, fuck, that's still there." So much of my own personal trauma was still there, and that was a trigger for me to see his interaction with those kids. But beautiful, because like, obviously, you'll hear it here and I'll talk to him about it before this podcast released. But, the next day we went to the beach, and all the kids are playing. And I just gave him the longest hug, like embarrassingly long. Like, just, oh, okay. And didn't tell him why, just fucking held him. And, what it came to me in that hug was the presence of my grandfather, his dad, in my ceremony. It's the first time I've had a family member there. And I had kind of thought to myself in the ceremony like, "How the fuck is granddad here? He was a dick." And then realizing like, oh, his higher self doesn't participate in that level of thinking. His highest self doesn't beat his son, his highest self doesn't yell at his grandkids to stop horse playing and roughhousing. That's his high self. And his high self gives a fuck that I'm doing this, his high self wants to be there and encourage me to go through this and walk this path. And that was really cool. Because so much of my fear had been, I don't want my dad to be granddad. I don't want him to yell at the kids. He doesn't have to do that. He can just fucking have fun and play and love them, and not parent them or try to teach them shit. Just enjoy the time with them. So there was so many lessons in coming back stateside, because the medicine was still working.

AUBREY: Yeah, and I think recognizing that we draw these hard lines between ceremony and then not ceremony, and those lines are bullshit. The minute you're on the path, there are lessons available to you at all different points, at all different times, whether you're on a psychedelic or not on a psychedelic. We've got to collapse this idea that there's certain times where things are meaningful because we're in ceremony, and certain times where things aren't. Life is ceremony, and it's going to certainly increase the pace when you have a psychedelic in your system, and you're kind of on the way out. That dream was probably more vivid than your dream normally would have been. It was so much more vivid that you actually took it and paid attention to those forces of anger that were inside. But we have these dreams all the time. We have these things that we can pay attention to all the time. But if we discard it as, oh, this is just waking life, this is just dreams, this is just... We won't learn. We won't get as much out of it as we potentially can.

CAITLIN: We won't be conscious to the tests. You're talking about these tests and ceremony, and as you guys have mentioned, they're continuing always. And I think that we see the benefit of showing up for ourselves in the best way possible in those, and we feel the repercussions, self-imposed, of what happens when we decline them because we refuse to see the divinity in it, and we say, "I'm stressed. This is just another challenge in my day to day." Well, this is just as much of a spiritual test as anything. I think other people have an idea that they want to seek a spiritual path, and we forget that we're always, always on one. And every moment is an opportunity to treat it as an opportunity to give it meaning, give it reason, give it purpose, and feel the benefit of that as we go forward, instead of the opposite feeling.

AUBREY: Look at every single thing, this is a spiritual test. What if you literally looked at everything that happened? Like you order some food and it comes back all fucked up. And you go, instead of being like, "What the fuck!" "Hmm, this is a spiritual test. I ordered medium rare, it came back medium well. This is a spiritual test. How am I going to respond to this?" Like, if you respond to everything that way, you're going to level up so fucking fast, and you're going to enjoy life so much more.

CAITLIN: And resistance, even just a workout, I don't want to do that. I can't do that. How much do we say that to ourselves all the time? I can't do that, I don't want to, that sucks. And just kind of leaning in always. And just as an experiment to see what life has to offer if you respond as much as you possibly can in the most courageous and conscious way. I think it'd be cool to try out for sure. I also like to pretend--

AUBREY: If it's a workout, then the spiritual test goes both ways. Is my ego so active and desiring to be fed that I need to work out because I think that I'm fat, or I think that I'm skinny, and I got to do this even though my body's telling me not to. So, maybe the spiritual test is to go, no, actually, I don't need to work out today. Or maybe you're just a little fatigued, and you got some inflammation, and you really actually do need to get the body moving to start the healing cascade, to get your system back right and actually start to feel good about yourself again. So the spiritual test is getting up off your fucking ass, and getting in there and working out. But you don't know. You have to just look at this like, okay, this is the spiritual test, what's the right choice? And that's that sense of knowing again we talk about.

CAITLIN: And you know how that translates back to the plant medicine space I think is, a lot of times not only do we get super challenged but sometimes we're underwhelmed and people get frustrated because they have, maybe they don't throw up on ayahuasca, or they didn't see anything, or they didn't have some profound epiphany. Like when I went to do the medicine in Costa Rica, I had these hours of just comfortable laying. And I was like this isn't working, but you know, maybe my... And then finally, it took me all night long to realize that oh, this was your medicine, you get some grace now, you get some gentleness, you get some time with yourself to confront those expectations. So, in the same ways that we can offer ourselves knowing in grace, gentleness, take a day off, don't be obsessed with fixing yourself, and doing the most all the time. It's how can I listen more to myself, and accept the peacefulness and not always be wind in my face to prove myself.

KYLE: Yeah, so I think that is heightened when it comes to medicine ceremonies. And certainly I've shot myself in the foot many times with ayahuasca where I'm like, I want all the downloads. Come on, I'm all purged, I'll shit, I'll do whatever you want me to do, let's go. And, oftentimes, it's more about relaxing into it, and you get what you need, not what you want every single time, right? But so much of that is true in life in general. And there is beauty in peace, there is beauty in just, ah, everything's okay, I don't have to chase that thing. I don't have to desire and want and need and long for this thing. And in doing that, keeping it out in front of me, rather than embodying whatever I have right now and appreciating whatever I'm embodying right now.

CAITLIN: One of the tools that's given me a ton of peace in my life is transitioning to believing, as they say in the alchemist, that the universe is conspiring for you. So when you're confronted with the challenging, or just like a frustrating, little mundane thing, like missing the green light, or just everything's just going the wrong way. Having faith that your divine timing, it may be all contingent on whether you don't make that light, or you don't get that parking space, you don't get that job. Maybe l lose a job, or don't get one that you really want and just going okay, universe, you have something else for me.

AUBREY: Or here's your spiritual test. Are you going to get frustrated? Or are you going to take these extra 60 seconds of peace to be at peace? Being bored and wanting, kind of craving something more, is projecting yourself out of the present moment into a future, into a reality where you're comparing your current reality to another reality that you hypothesize is better, and which is ruining your current reality. That's not passing the spiritual test of the moment. That's like turning in your fucking pop quiz on that test with all the fucking bubbles marked wrong. And that's going to get returned back to you with an F for that current spiritual test that you have. And that's cool, because we're going to have a lot of F's that come back. But recognizing that and going like, huh, all right, well, my spiritual task now is to be at peace and be simple, and not have to go through anything and just integrate and be present.

KYLE: I have one piece of homework that's along this topic, because this reminded me of a little exercise I tried. So, I think Ram Dass once said, If you think you're enlightened, or you think you're awakening, spend a week with your family, right? Because that's who you've had the most long term history and trauma with. And I think most people would understand that, just from the fucking statement, right? But maybe something that's a little less obvious when it comes to boredom, because what you're saying is exactly true. Then that's that longing for something, a state of being that's different than what is. The next time you go to the DMV, enjoy your experience. However, the fuck that may be. I've been at the DMV, and you get that letter and the three numbers after and you're like, "Motherfucker! This is going to be an hour and a half." And a lot of people leave. But just for me to sit there, there's been times, many times I'll listen to podcasts, and I'll be laughing to myself and enjoying it. And, the last time I went, I didn't have my headphones, they were in my other fanny pack. One of the issues of having multiple fanny packs.

CAITLIN: A test.

KYLE: And I was like, right when I open the fanny pack. Oh, man, this is going to stink. And I thought that and it made me laugh. And in that I was like, alright, well, I can just fucking close my eyes here. The chair's uncomfortable, there's people that stink and children in there going... Just fucking losing their goddamn mind as they should. And to find peace in that moment, that was the big test. And I think that's a really excellent place equal to spending time with family. The DMV is an excellent place. If you can find happiness there, you can do it fucking anywhere.

CAITLIN: Damn!

AUBREY: You got that pop quiz and you filled out the bubbles your way, and the universe smiles and turns it back, with a big fucking red 100 and a smiley face on that shit.

CAITLIN: I was getting my nails done recently, and I didn't have headphones or anything. And she's just doing my nails. And it's just the sounds of the salon, and like a Michael Jackson video on the corner. And I'm like, "What am I supposed to be doing? I guess I could think about stuff". And there's this sort of compulsion to always be in like a space that you find pleasant or be doing something productive. And you can when it's available to you, great. And when it's not, there's your opportunity to sit with yourself and just be and be content with that. And I think that's something I accessed in Peru that was so juicy was like, there's nothing but time there. You're just sitting there on a hammock or in the nature, whatever, if you're outside of ceremony, and being okay with that. And it was like very accessible there, and for some reason it's harder in the natural world, this is not the natural world. Whatever this is, this reality to do that.

AUBREY: You practice, you practice there and then you learn what you practice there, and then you try to apply it back here. I mean, that's the reason for this. That's the reason for psychedelics, that's the reason for all this. Go somewhere to practice. Reason for fucking sports. And the reason for sports isn't just score the most points so that you have the most point total at the end of your life. That's not why. The reason for sports is you practice these hard things, practice training yourself to become better, practice competing, practice knowing yourself in success and knowing yourself in failure, and knowing when you did your best, knowing when you didn't do your best, knowing when you prepare the most. It's about knowing yourself. It's a little practice world and same with ceremony, same with everything, so that you can live life. And I think the Buddhist sadhana, like spiritual practice, like live life as sadhana. And if you can do that, then you're playing the game right and then you pass on to the next level of this thing, and go like, "Oh yeah, Earth. I learned some shit." And if you can say that, think you got it made. We did it, fam.

CAITLIN: We did it.

AUBREY: We still have more to talk about tribes but let's make people wait for that. Let's not rush it.

CAITLIN: We're not going anywhere.

AUBREY: We're not going anywhere, so we'll talk more about that some other time.

CAITLIN: Yeah, we're going into the desert next week potentially.

AUBREY: Potentially, if I get my face in order.

CAITLIN: So, we'll come back with some medicine, I think.

AUBREY: Yeah, some Burning Man revelations. It was so great to be able to share this medicine space with you guys. I love you guys so much. I look forward to the next journeys in life, and in practice world, and in all the worlds.

CAITLIN: Aho.

KYLE: Aho.

AUBREY: Aho. See you everybody, peace.

CAITLIN: Bye.