Jungle life is not without its perils, or as Werner Herzog put it, the jungle is “an unfinished country. It's still prehistorical. The only thing that is lacking is the dinosaurs here. It's like a curse weighing on an entire landscape. And whoever goes too deep into this has his share of this curse.”
Some of this curse has fallen upon me, it seems, and I am working hard to lift it.
In the Mexican jungle, deforestation unleashed Leishmania, a parasite vectored by a sandfly, and I am infected by its flesh-eating affliction Leishmaniasis. Marked by volcanic lesions on my left cheek and right hand I'm undergoing an impatient transformation (TM) while sapping insight from these unsightly sores for eye-sight. As I wait for medicine to arrive, I examine my experience (as well as this Herzogian notion of the “unfinished country”) through shamanic, ecological, and pragmatic lenses.
The horror! The Horror! The… WONDER HORROR…
Seated at the lotus feet of my dis-ease, I embrace it as my teacher. In classic SPAOP-fashion, I explore themes of inter-species diplomacy and delve into the delicate balance between a parasite and a symbiot. I also examine the intersections of psychedelic ecology and ecodelic psychology, as well as the thin line between parasitology and parapsychology, while contemplating the merits of redemption for both the parasite and myself.
The Ungoogleable Michaelangelo www.theungoogleable.com
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Ft. music by Soularflair (https://soularflair.bandcamp.com/) & me (incl. Void Denizen instrumental)