AetherTrance: Sacred Movement for Pineal Activation

In 2003, I was living at a downtown apartment in Montreal, a spot where we were experimenting as a green kitchen, and where I was also sharing Qi Kung practices with people coming through. Having just shared a session with my roomate and a passing friend from Maine, we were speaking of our experiences and also of other practices we had encountered.

"Have you ever done the movement called 'Carrying the Moon'?", asked our friend.

Neither of us had.

"Have you ever smoked DMT?".

Neither of us had.

"Well, that's the only thing I can compare it to. It goes like this."

We proceeded to learn the movement and try it out. Here's a link that describes and illustrates the exercise:

http://www.crystallotus.com/TaiChi/05.htm

After going through the movment a couple of times, our friend stressed the importance of making a very large breath on the upward phase, then holding this breath at the top.

"I showed this to a Martial Arts friend of mine. He had the same trippy experience as I had, and just said it was a big head rush... I know these realms though, and this is much more than just a head rush".

My first experience with Carrying the Moon was a most profound array of sensations and perceptions. A warm, fluid electrical wave flowed out from my core in to my arms and hands, my vision fogged over with a puddle of colours as all of my sensations seemed to blow out their respective earwax and pick up on a multi-dimensional scape of information.

I had a new passion: The Endogenous Hallucinogenic Experience * * *

I had read Dr.Strassman's book "DMT: The Spirit Molecule" sometime in the previous year, and was currently reading Mantak Chia's "Dark Room Technology Manual", a scientific and Taoist metaphysical account of DMT activation in the pineal gland. My experiences practicing 'Carrying the Moon', along with my friend's association to his own experiences smoking DMT, made pretty clear to me what was going on here.

My memory of the practice from then on remains about the same, until about 6 months later when I was living back at home in Nova Scotia, and practicing in my bedroom and down in the park. Sometime there I began accessing a new experience, the consistent appearance of a hexagonal, honeycomb curtain being draped in front of me, seemingly composed of an energy that was oily and rainbow-like, sometimes with icons appearing in each of the hexagrams, like a spiral, a flower, or a labyrinth.

The internal state of being was beginning to shift as well, with perceptions arising of ancestral energies and mystical realms. I began to consider that I was having an experience of "The Veil", perceiving the supernatural forces that lay beyond the hexagonal curtain.

Along with later experiences of this aetheric honeycomb, I realized the affinity of this curtain with 'The Matrix' as described in the writings of Stuart Wilde, the difference being his perception of the hexagonal energy-fabric as a dome, surrounding the observers on all sides and curving up to the top.

My enthusiasm for the Sacred Darkness eventually found me taking the bus from Vancouver down to Mount Shasta, to participate in a Darkness Meditation in a cave there, an event I found out about through the Tribe.net 'Light on Darkness' tribe. Prior to our journey in the cave the experienced Darkness meditator who initiated this gathering was walking with me high up on Mount Shasta, and asking if I had any experience with smoking DMT or taking DMT-containing plant medicines. I hadn't at that time, though spoke of my experiences with 'Carrying the Moon', and I showed him the practice before we journeyed in to the cave (actually, it is an amazing lava tube coming down from the Mountain).

5 days of complete darkness, with group and personal meditations, breath work, movement, music, singing, and superfoods, I suppose is another story. My experiences of practicing Carrying the Moon there in the Darkness certainly took the endogenous tripping to another level. The most stunning part of it is that, there you are, in the complete darkness, you haven't seen anything for days, and then... a moment of Carrying the Moon has the whole place illuminated, like someone turned on a TV, the place glimmering and shimmering with all different colours, shapes, and communications.

Before we had even begun our immersion in complete darkness, I had my first intense experience of the coming journey. Having come in with a few extra friends to help us set-up, we initiated our experience with a friend who had brought us her latest bit of alchemical magic, an amber gemstone ointment of some kind. Stating our intentions, we were anointed with the oil upon our wrists, brought them up in prayer to our nose and while inhaling, tilted the head back to bring the potent essences up in to the Third Eye. While bringing my head back down from this, the AetherTrance rush was upon me. There is a strange sort of self-consciousness that can happen when experiencing the activation with other people around, a sort of embarrassment to be feeling your multi-dimensional reality in public, like you were all of a sudden stark naked. As the massive rush of electro-nectar-light blew out my usual neuro-muscular composure and I attempted to hold myself up on my feet, upon looking down at the floor of the cave (in the light of someone's flashlight glow), all of the cracks, traces of dirt, and contours of the ground integrated themselves, morphing with their own intelligent movement in to a sort of paleolithic mural of fractal design. As per usual, the rush only lasted for several seconds, and I was back with awareness to the conversation at hand, no one aware that I had just dived in to a massive, reality-bending hallucination.

Within the silence, stillness, and obscurity of the cave, The Veil stood out very distinctly and vividly. And in these conditions, I had my first experience of 'Beyond the Veil'. As well as the hexagons, I had also started perceiving Star patterns in my altered state, and it was through one of these Starry patches that the Being came through. It appeared as sort of a great big leach, so far as it was a large, thick, long black spot upon the colourful aethers, and moved with that sort of wormy, bunch-up-and-move-out type of movement. It didn't feel like a 'leach', however, and later considerations had me realize how much it was actually like a Bass Clef or Treble Clef, although one that was in movement. I still consider that some previous traveler in the realms saw such a thing dancing with accompanied faery-song, and developed the muscial score to write down what they had heard and seen.

My new friend who I had shown the movement to, also being a seasoned Yogi, and someone with experience smoking DMT, began to practice Carrying the Moon in the cave. The first comment I recall hearing from him was this, "Scott, that movement you showed me... I can taste DMT on the roof of my mouth and my tongue when I do it!" Likely it was the same taste I have occasioned to have, a sort of gaseous, metallic sensation upon the tongue.

The other amazing trip in the Cave was my first experience of an auditory hallucination. One pass of the Movement and I had the feeling as though the air which sound travels through wound its way deeper and deeper in to my ear, until it touched and awakened a part of the inner organs there that previously were dormant. The phenomenon was that I was experiencing so much Space in the sensation of sound. We figured the cave was a bout 700 ft. deep, and that we were about 500 ft. in. My perception was that I was able to hear from one end of the cave to the other, being acutely aware of the open air at one end, the termination at the other, with all of the drips and flapping bats in between. My next pass at the Movement again revealed through sound. This time, I was hearing a Feminine Voice resounding from the top of the cave, with the understanding that she was reading from a great Tome and was a gatekeeper of sorts, perhaps of a realm to which this cave was an entrance.

My first winter on the Big Island of Hawaii had me perceiving further in to the natural energies of aether at play in the environment. Primarily keeping myself away from light sources after nightfall, and being surrounded by a rich permaculture paradise, I began to notice the energies of the veil displaying themselves as aspects of the local environment, bending and swirling to fit the contours of my physical surroundings. I recall noticing ground patterns in particular at this time, seeing the hexagonal shapes stretch and fold in ways that had them appearing as the metaphysical foundation, or perhaps aetheric glow, of the stones, plants, and landforms where I was practicing.

My notions of the therapeutic value of endogenous DMT, particularly as I was understanding it from having read in to and being so enthused about Dark Room Meditiation, was also beginning to dawn at this time. The flush of nectar like energy from the cosmos that floods down in to the body during the movement was feeling more and more like a healing practice, reaching in to my body and consciousness with an awakening and purifying effect. In some reading I had done about melatonin ("Melatonin", by Dr.Reiter and Jo Robinson), I found out about the scientific consideration that this molecule is the most powerful antioxidant that the body is able to produce. However, with melatonin being chemically so very akin to DMT, and with the personal inclination that DMT travels more deeply or thoroughly in to the body than melatonin does (that is, comparing the lucidity and intensity of tripping to dreaming), I also still theorize that DMT could be the body and Nature's most potent antioxidant.

Soon after leaving Hawai'i, back to a friend's land in a wintery, remote part of Canada, I was first introduced to the chemical psychoactives. When the first days of Spring came along, these journeys took themselves outside in to the woods, a magical place and situation to play with the Movement. Journeying with a certain phenylethylamine again brought some experiences of Beyond the Veil while being activated by the Movement. With the forest greenery not yet unfurled, and the ground cover of a soft, dry layering of dead leafs, the first infusion of cosmic nectar had the entire landscape before me disappear, with not even the veil present, and I was viewing a Tron-like, basic coding of the landscape, the valley and hills present in a way much like Alex Grey's painting 'Meditation'. The next repetition however had even that vision torn open with a reality-ripping tear, to reveal almost total nothingness, with only feint silouhettes of some humanoid like beings, who were taking the moment to notice me before I slipped back in to the reality of the forest.

Later on in the season a high-spirited party in Quebec had me associating with a certain tryptamine, and again I was taking the moment to play with the Movement in such conditions. I only dived in the once, as the experience was nearing too heavily on the electrical type sensations that can rip and roar through the body. The visionary perception was so incredible though, where my 'sight' proceeded to the edge of my body's auric field, where I was able to perceive filaments of energy coming out from my body up to that point, and being met by filaments of energy coming from everywhere else to arrive at that point, all in a vast array of gold and silvers.

Back for a visit to the old apartment in Montreal, a night's revelry with the friendly tryptamine once again led to a quiet morning, though myself not joining the slumber of my friends. Without feeling much presence of the trip at this point, I began my Movement Practice, leading up to 'Carrying the Moon'. The Veil showed itself, and again, a starry portal brought out a visitor from the other side. This Being was a collage of squigles and triangles, all the images kaleidoscoping and folding in to the middle, then coming around again at the sides, like a faery's auric-torus dancing. I was also perceiving the movements of this Being as sensations in my body, specifically at the point where the shoulder joins the chest at the front, which I believe might be acu-points on the Heart meridian. These spots were opening up, perceiving the language of the Spirit's movement as sensations, and it was an incredible sharing of communication, healing, and play as a whole.

It was that summer that my focus began to look in to the notion that likely people throughout history have been using similar movements as means of altering their state of perception. As well as modifying 'Carrying the Moon' to fit my needs, primarily by practicing mostly in a kneeled position, or alternate standing positions, I was strength-training with Heavy Clubs and utilizing various movement therapy techniques, primarily from Russian Martial Art. Somewhere in the convergence between the practices of the Mystic and the Warrior, I came to realize that the archetypal posture of the Werewolf and the Berserker, or really any primal, animistic fighter, was very similar to that of 'Carrying the Moon'. I am referring here to a Full Moon or Battle Roar type of position, with the back arched, head tilted back, and the arms pulling down and back with the palms up and fingers curled towards the sky. Also at that time, an interest in Celtic Myth and Lore was adding to considerations of 'Fire in the Head' and other elements of heroic warriors in Celtic Myth, who on the battlefield were seemingly accessing altered states of perception. I could certainly see that in the ramped up emotions and pounding circulation of battle, likely fueled with a psychoactive mead, utilizing a sacred posture could most easily procure an intense altered state, an easy and rapid access to the pineal gland's more potent biochemistry.

Another association I eventually came across is that of Adam, known as 'The Dreamhealer', and author of numerous books. I came across a video of him doing his visionary healing modality upon a group of people. The lights are mostly out, he enters a meditative trance state, and as he opens his eyes and begins his work, he tilts his head back, arches his back, and begins to 'twiddle' with invisible energies in front of him. He often repeats the arching, tilting movement, and I can see it as a 'DMT Power-up' to fuel his ability to perceive and interact with the energies of the group:

Video of Adam, Dreamhealer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwMj6xX2Qyc

Likely the most profound experience was again at the Shasta lava tube, a year after my first Darkness Journey there. I was camping with my companion at the mouth of the cave, awaiting the arrival of two others coming to journey in the Dark with us. It was early in the morning, surrounded by manzanita and with a gorgeous view of the mountain. My enthusiasm to be in deeper communication with Nature Spirits and Cosmic Beings had me taking my morning movements mostly in the direction of a standing meditation, focusing upon the sensational pathways of subtle energies, and feeling the deep desire to share communication, joy, and creativity with other beings. At the end of this, I began to do the Movement, and the most amazing thing happened. I was not inundated with the usual flush of electrical energy and a blow-out of subtle perceptions. What did seem to happen was that all empty space just turned inside out, so that the air had a consistency more like gel, all the plants were of a sudden like cartoon plants, where I could perceive their mood, their body language, and meanwhile this heightened state of subtle awareness just... stayed. I was standing there amazed, filled with joy, and feeling so radiant, for a full minute or so being awash with this clear energy of aetheric perception. The account I've read since then that shares the most affinity to this is Tom Brown Jr.'s book "Awakening Spirits", where he speaks of being a child and doing drumming meditations, reaching a state of trance where he felt like he was walking through a big fish bowl with energy and spirits moving about all around him. I still ascribe this very different experience from my usual AetherTrances to the state of being that my Heart was in that moment, that in my desires for contact with other realms I had come in to a feeling of reverence that allowed for the visionary activation to be more grounded and sustained in my body and awareness.

During this second journey in the Cave, The Veil phenomenon had left my experience, and something else was coming forwards. Periodically in the Darkness Meditation (during the AetherTrance Movement and otherwise), there would come a blue, hazy glow all around me. While the hexagonal curtain of The Veil also had this blue glow, where it would sort of silouhette the coloured viscus of the aetheric energies, at this time there was just glow. Sometimes objects would seemingly appear as dark shapes within the glow. Sometimes it might be my hand, and other times, what I was assuming to be a rock. At one point during the Movement however, what I had been seeing as a stone showing up in the Vision was this time appearing as... a sofa. Upon another dive in to Trance, the blue glow revealed an entire room around me, styled as though a sitting room from the 30's, with the kind of furniture and decor of my Nanna's house. The wall of this room facing outside however was just one big window, and the insight coming to me in that moment was that this room was like a pod for me, that could travel to different places and times, situations that would be viewed through this wall-window. The feeling in there was very comfortable, serene, and empowering.

Eventually I started to relate the Blue Room to Drunvalo's description of the Chamber of the Heart which he speaks about in 'Living in the Sacred Heart', as well as my friend's experience in his 20-day Darkness Meditation, where he became lucid of his 'Blue Body', an Astral form of himself, and the cave he was in took on the appearance of a spaceship, within which he traveled to galactic realms. Another friend, who participated in one of Jasmuheen's Darkness Retreats in Thailand, once turned a corner in the retreat building to find the main hall illuminated and appearing like an Indian Temple.

As I've mentioned, the duration of the experience is usually quite short, a matter of seconds, though one's perceptions in the realms can sometimes have a different experience of Time. As well, there is the strong electrical nature that can cause 'flip-outs' of flailing extremities or big thwumps as the body just gives out and falls to the floor. Eventually there is some sense of how intense it is going to be during the first stages of the movement, giving one guidance as to how long to hold the top position, and how best to guide one's breath. I generally do the movement in the kneeling position these days.

Other profound experiences I have had since that time have been with more bending of Space-Time, where I have all of the sudden found myself feeling to be sitting right next to a Lover who is actually hundreds of miles away, or experiencing deja-vu like episodes of many moments in time converging on the moment of now, or a huge barrage of old commercials, TV images, and audio clips seemingly getting detoxed from my nervous system in a matter of milli-seconds.