The Pearl of the Orient

I am enjoying time off from the Internet—my periodic media fast—so this is a short blog about my trip to Penang last week.

Penang is a fusion of the most delicious Asian foods, tropical rain forests, gorgeous sunsets, Boney M and Barry Manilow, the Islamic Call to Prayer, Buddhist and Hindu temples and shrines, friendly multicultural people, large monitor lizards, monkeys, an abundance of spices and an ever-expanding concrete jungle.

I am left with a feeling of gratitude from our trip. The highlights for me were spontaneous altered states of consciousness that arose from the energy fields of my wife, Carey, and a beautiful Burmese Buddha.

Revisiting the place of her birth and very early childhood, Carey was triggered with profound, instinctive, preconscious memories that in turn evoked the sense of her roots within me. The instinctive memories that were activated as we went back to the hospital of her birth, babyhood home and a beach restaurant created a field of energy so strong that I too shared in her experience. As we walked along the beach to one such place of poignancy, we were graced with this extraordinary cloud that retained its form even though the other formations dissipated. The meteorological explanations of such clouds are one thing, but for me these types of clouds are also cloaks, veils and conduits for all sorts of other unidentifiable consciousness.

Having seen many large Buddhas in recent years in Hong Kong, Thailand and in Penang on this trip, this Burmese Buddha was a revelation. For the first time I experienced a living statue whose presence put me i nto a state of ineffability that bridged the consciousness of Buddhism and Peruvian shamanism. The Buddha emanated a single tone that was eternally constant and which consistently pulsed a singular message of unity and peace.


In Peruvian ayahuasca shamanism, the medicine shows you the cacophony of thoughts and emotions that you hold within your psyche. A relentless overwhelming reflection of your inner world manifests as spirit and energy forms, which you then attempt to purge from your being. The aftereffect of this psychotropic challenge is a clarity, an emptiness and a cleanliness of the psyche. (Interestingly, I had previously intended to go back to the Peruvian Amazon to participate in an ayahuasca camp at this time.)

Through the experience of being in Penang, I am once again reminded of energy fields and the precise nature of the frequencies they emit, as well as the precious moments when we are able to let go of our normal preoccupations to come into alignment with out-of-the-ordinary subtle electromagnetic fields. This attunement allows us to move into a different zone where our relationship with time, space, energy and consciousness is altered.

The environment we inhabit is extraordinarily rich with a multitude of realities that our electrochemical body and consciousness can align with if we are open and in the flow.