“The sound of his purging next to me, long and deep and often was like a backbeat throughout the night. He's been wrestling with visions of the spirit world, alien landscapes like inverted Photoshop...”

“Are you seeing Jesus yet? Eric the ayahuasca virgin asks me this morning over a late brunch at the Yellow Rose... We're trading visions like trading card stats, comparing our different curanderos a...”

“The poor are so common they're invisible, just part of the ambience of this place. I tuck a few soles under them as they sleep and walk off, feeling like a guilty tourist here for thrillseeking in ...”

“...what science cannot explain is the psychic effect of this 'mother of all plants,' the sense of the numinous and the spiritual world it reportedly opens up. Those who drink say that each ayahuasc...”

“Outside, milling under the ubiquitous gaze of security cameras, are bright splashes of colorful souls wearing crystals, beads, and Native American Indian paraphernalia; middle-aged academics with "...”

“I mightn't be a shaman in the indigenous sense, but as a world-bridger between Western culture and the indigenous world, I knew I was playing a shamanistic role. Language was my medicine and with i...”

“Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance”

“My biggest fear, even now, is that I will hear Jesus' words and walk away, content to settle for less than radical obedience to Him.”

“Through the present moment, you have access to the power of life itself, that which has traditionally been called "God." As soon as you turn away from it, God ceases to be a reality in your life, a...”

“Scared and sacred are spelled with the same letters. Awful proceeds from the same root word as awesome. Terrify and terrific. Every negative experience holds the seed of transformation.”

“Writing is one of the ways I participate in transformation.”

“If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, the point of life is character transformation. If I got any comfort as I set out on my first story, it was that in nearly every story, the ...”