Learnings from Columbia
In this video, Martin reflects on the key learnings from his time in Columbia.
After returning from Columbia, I wanted to capture some of my learnings and reflections from what was an incredibly special trip.
Indigenous wisdom and spirit
So the number one thing that I've got from the trip is this immersion into Indigenous wisdom. There's this amazing wisdom that we have forgotten we ever knew, because we're so busy, caught up in our running around in our commercial capital material world.
The foundation underneath all of the trip was an immersion into the indigenous wisdom from South America. A total immersion in Indigenous wisdom. I spent two weeks with this beautiful man, a 70 year old Shaman and his family, and I got to deeply understand how they understand life, how they understand the cosmos, how they understand consciousness, how they understand nature.
And that's the key thing that I got out of this, is that they see that everything is alive and that everything is conscious.
Everything from the plant behind me is conscious to the books to the shelf to the living. So beings that are living and that are inanimate, there is life and consciousness in them.
During the two weeks they talked deeply about spirit. The spirit of the plant, the spirit of the person, the spirit of the dog, the spirit of the spider. The spoke about ‘The Great Spirit’, which is wider consciousness, and then there is the spirit of each being.
They have such a sacred understanding of that everything is conscious and everything is perceiving that they treat everything sacredly like a living being, like a living human being.
2. Respect for life
Over my two-week trip, I came to realise that with all this understanding of spirit comes a really deep respect, a deep respect for life and deep respect for everything in life. They see the earth as this living being, it's all flowing, and it's all interconnected, and it's all vital, but it's healthy. They really get that at a deep level.
3. Stopping.
Stopping entirely and not doing any work. Not doing any anything for a couple of weeks. Switching it all off, switching all of the noise off, even the thinking about my partner or the thinking about my son. It all just stopped.
And that is really powerful. To stop in life and to not be thinking about the normal life was amazing.
4. Nature and community
In stopping entirely, this two-week journey allowed me to have a huge appreciation for nature. More than that, it gave me a new appreciation for community. Living in community.
I've come back and I live in a concrete structure with four walls, with hardly any interaction with others except my closest family and friends. Most of the time I'm just in this concrete block. We work really hard to make really lots of money so we can have a big concrete block to live in all on our own. And our community, if we've got community, is minimal.
I really got the power and the beauty of living with people. Waking up with people. Having space, yes, but having lots of time for connection and knowing people and that's another thing that's really hit me.
5. Plant medicine
The ceremonies and the plant medicine. The ayahuasca and the Yopo.
I've been on a journey, taking plant medicine for a while. And what this has done is it has helped me realise the importance of it in waking us up. The importance of it in letting go of trauma or stress. Letting go of stuff, but also the incredible power of it to send me into a spiritual state, to connect me with to connect me with something way deeper than myself, with the divine. To feel spirit.
Profound. I'm just taking myself back to the Ayahuasca ceremony where we would be starting at 8pm. And finishing at 4.30am. So, eight and a half hours of just being altered state, the mind stops and slows down and there's this incredible space for timelessness, timeless being.
So my shifting around the plant medicine is it's not just something to do, it's not a recreational thing. It's a deep and powerful time and space for ceremony and for doing it in a way that's going to shift my own consciousness and have me connect to the deeper intelligence in life.
6. Looking inward
So yes, I certainly got more deeply connected to spirit, to nature, to life. But I also got the profound opportunity to look at myself.
I got the opportunity to look at my impatience. I got the opportunity to look at how I judge and how I can be intolerant. I got the opportunity to look at the stories that I carry around with myself.
The pressure to be someone or pressure to look after people or worrying about what other people think. I really got to sit and release some of the elements of Martin that are holding me back.
What next?
So what am I going to do with all this? Well, now I'm back, what's going to be the lasting impact? Well, I for sure I'm going to do more plant medicine ceremonies, I see it as a powerful part of my ongoing evolution.
I'm going to spend more time in nature. More time wild camping, more time just being out in nature, more time walking.
I'm going to explore and connect with the Druids and the pagans of my land in the UK, because I get now that really their worshipping of the land is just our version here of what Kajuyali is doing over there.
Connection. At some point I'm going to live more in nature and live more connected. I'm going to look for more community.
I'm going to spend more time each day, or some time each day having quiet, having quiet space, and I'm going to access Great Spirit. So I realised that Great Spirit, I'm just using his Kajuyali’s language, I realised Great Spirit is available to me now to seek advice from.
Finally, I'm hoping that some of my shackles have been released. I'm hoping I'm going to be more patient, more calm, have more quiet, judge less, be more loving.
In 2024, I’m planning to take a group with me back to Columbia for the full two-week programme. If you are interested in finding out more then please reach out to me.
To see more updates from the retreat and key learnings follow Unbounded on LinkedIn.
