Head Hunting, Amazon-style, in the Middle East

Funny thing is, no one thought I was joking when I suggested that I would go into the Amazon head-shrinking business by selling heads of jihadis to anyone who came up with sufficient cash to satisfy me.

There is nothing new under the sun.

Ashley Collman, "Fresh agony for James Foley's family as sick ISIS militants 'try to sell them his headless body for $1million'." MailOnline. 11 December 2014

The family of beheaded American photojournalist James Foley are  facing fresh agony after sick Islamic State militants tried to sell them his headless body for $1million, according to a new report by Buzzfeed.

The website spoke to three middlemen trying to broker the deal, who
say they can prove the body is Foley's with a DNA swab and will
deliver the remains across the Turkish border once the ransom has been paid.

Foley was the first American hostage to be beheaded by an ISIS
militant in a graphic video recording this summer. Since August, the
terrorist group overtaking large swathes of Syria and Iraq, has
beheaded two more Americans and a Briton in similar displays of
barbarism.

....

Holding Western captives for ransom is one of the main ways terrorists groups like ISIS raise money. A New York Times report published this year found that Al Qaeda has made at least $125million from ransoms since 2008, with $66million raised in 2013 alone.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2869564/ISIS-militants-trying-sell-body-beheaded-American-Hostage-James-Foley-1million.html#


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War is war, regardless of the sentiments people espouse these days. It's as real as living and dying. War trophies are real.


http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2014/11/dag-walker-and-jivaro-tsantzas-masters.html

New book coming soon-ish

Remember, folks, that you read the news here first.

I'm finishing my book on Rubber Boom architecture in Iquitos, Peru and once that is complete I will turn again to writing a new Jockk Brand novel, this one with the absolutely pithiest title I have ever come up with:

Jockk Brand vs. the Man at the Top of the Stairs and Other Men Hiding in the Shadows in the Garden. 

In my new novel, the western world is in flames as jihadis rampage across the lands of former freedom, and an awe-struck leftist middle-class cheers the destruction of their nihilistic way of life. Self-annihilation is the order of the day for many, but the new president is unmoved by the mass jubilation shown on television and You Tube. He's fighting back, using one of the the most dangerous weapons in his arsenal, Jockk Brand.

But even Jockk Brand must sleep sometimes, and when he does he must then wake up and continue his one-man showdown against world-wide jihad and the grand gesture suicide of self-loathing, moralistic Left fascism. First, Brand has to get out of bed. Not so easy this getting out of bed, as Brand finds when he encounters the Man at the Top of the Stairs and Other Men Hiding in the Shadows in the Garden.

Can Brand save America from the most evil foes of our time? Only if he can first defeat the most oppressive enemy he has ever encountered in a lifetime of murder and mayhem: Jockk Brand himself.

Meanwhile, my first Jockk Brand novel is available at this link.

Dag Walker and the Jivaro Tsantzas Masters of Iquitos, Peru

I have been busy in Iquitos for this long time, writing books, of course, but also learning new and interesting things about life outside the norms of middle-class American living. Recently, I have learned that I am now fully qualified as a tsantza master. This is to say, I am a qualified "Head-shrinker" according tom my Jivaro buddies in town. I can now cut off a man's head, skin him, boil his stuff, stitch him up, and shrink his head down to the size of a clenched fist. I'm a qualified Head Hunter of the Amazon rainforest. I see on my horizon a new and lucrative career. 

I look at shrinking heads as something worthy of our reflections. Look, if you will, at the Qur’an, particularly at the "Sword Verse" Qur'an, 9:5. 

One of the most frequently quoted Quranic verses is chapter 9 verse 5. This verse is known as "The Verse of the Sword." Muslim terrorists cite it to justify their violent jihad. Correspondingly, critics of Islam claim that it commands Muslims to act with offensive aggression towards the non-Muslims of that period, and contributes to Islam’s final theological doctrine of aggression towards all non-Muslims of all times. Apologists for Islam claim that 9:5 is purely defensive. Which side is right?
As the Islamic source materials are examined it will become evident that verse 9:5 is part of the theology of jihad and is meant to be both offensive and defensive. It is directed against Pagans living both near to and far away from Muhammad.

http://www.answering-islam.org/Silas/swordverse.htm

The first premise of this blog is that dhimmitude is slavery and therefore a bad thing. The term slavery is, here, dhimmitude. Islam allows the non-Muslim to live if he pays jizya, or an extortion tax. Otherwise, the kufar, meaning us, must be killed. Here is what the Koran says:

9:5 When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. If they repent and take to prayer and render the alms levy, allow them to go their way. God is forgiving and merciful.

Convert to Islam, pay the jizya, or die. Get your head cut off, like so many people we have seen on videos. 

Well, living in the Amazon jungle I took some things to heart, like learning ancient native customs, one of which is the art of tsantzas, shrinking heads. Muslims don't do that. They just cut off our heads and forget about them. I am more akin to the locals here. They and I share some Viking traits and feelings about freedom that I particularly value in myself and them. Some of my buddies here are Jivaro. Another, more p.c. name for them is Shuar.

1599, the Shuar were one of the few groups to successfully repel and maintain freedom from colonial rule. In that year, the Shuar killed 25,000 colonists during a revolt. From then on, the tribe lived as it pleased in relative isolation from the rest of the world, warring with one another.
This isolation and the Shuar's practice of creating shrunken heads -- called tsantsas -- has given them a fearsome reputation with the rest of the world.

The culture of vengeance largely characterizes the Shuar. Not simply violent death, but death by natural causes is attributed to an unseen, remote enemy attack. The concept of revenge is deeply rooted in Shuar culture. From a very young age, boys are drilled in the standing feuds his family has with other families. He is also taught that not exacting revenge in the form of violence is to welcome retribution from his fallen ancestors [source: Jandial, et al].

http://people.howstuffworks.com/shrunken-head.htm

I can relate to much of that, especially when I'm visiting my friends and we sit in the kitchen and they show me how to skin a head and shrink it. Relax. No people shrunk.

This is what I have learned. 

Shrunken heads are an actuality. A single tribe, the Shuar, who live in a region of the Amazon basin that straddles Ecuador and Peru, are the only group known to shrink heads. They continued this practice until as recently as the 1950s.

When a family member dies -- regardless of the cause -- a tribesman consults a member of the spirit world under the influence of natema to learn the culprit. The answer comes in a vision, and the family sets about recruiting other nearby households to join them in a loose confederation with the purpose of exacting revenge. Over the course of several weeks or months, the group prepares for war, at times even alerting the intended target of its plans.

At each of the stages in preparation, the party leader -- called the curaka -- presides over the process. The members of the raiding party are attentive to each step, reinforcing the curaka's actions.

http://people.howstuffworks.com/shrunken-head.htm

I sometimes see the world in terms of 9-11. I see that many Muslims are all too happy to support the murder of almost everyone, even other Muslims, if the man with the sword deems it just. This makes me anxious. I don't need ayahuasca visions to tell me more about who is responsible for 9-11. I got that part quickly all on my own. The question is how to react. Should I return the Muslim practice of cutting off their heads? If so, then what to do with the bulky, bloody, unsightly mess? I deal often in antiques and fine art, which a bloody head is not any of. But maybe, with some effort and skill and thought, one could adapt....

Thought to harness the spirit of an enemy and compel him to serve the desires of the “shrinker,” the practice of shrinking heads is known to have originally held a spiritual significance.

From the 19th Century until very recent times, however, the practice of shrinking heads was extended to trophy hunting, exotic trade, as well as simple curiosity seekers willing to pay exorbitant prices to possess the head of another human being.

I live in the Amazon jungle. My friends are Jivaro in some cases, and I need a job. I hate Islam. All of this makes me think, and made me seek out, some resolutions to my concerns, which in turn led me to learning how to shrink heads for fun, profit, and social justice. I asked my buddies how to shrink heads.

The only known head shrinkers are a group of indigenous people from the northwestern region of the Amazon rainforest (Ecuador and Peru) collectively known as the Jivaroan peoples. Their most notorious tribe, the Shuar, live at the headwaters of the Marañón River.

Shuar people are Jivaros. The Marañón River is just over there a few blocks away.

Known as creating a tsantsa (or tzantza) to the people of this region, head shrinking [and] decapitating and then shrinking their enemies' heads also served as a highly dramatic way to warn enemies of the fate awaiting them should they venture into Jivaroan territory uninvited.

It is so right for me. I go totally native when we get into this kind of groove.
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zla-OcFD3O0

http://guides.wikinut.com/Head-Shrinking-and-the-Shuar-of-the-Amazon-Rainforest/2a3jw39o/

I can now kill all birds with one stone: Defeat jihadis, cut off their heads, shrink them, sell them to collectors, and have some fine satisfaction that I'm doing good things in the world.  People were dismayed when I said I was going to South America to carry on the fight against jihad. They asked what on earth I would do there. Now we know: I will return to the Middle East and go into the head-hunting business. War trophies. 

There must be a God. How else could I have ended up here learning this stuff so I can return to the world of Islam to take it to them in such a fashion and at the same time make a fine living? Yes, there is a God.

Down and Out in Iquitos and Peru, (2)

I am seriously hampered in writing my newest book book here, the life of a struggling writer having come to full bloom.

Yesterday I got some bread from my friend David's kitchen out back of the house. Kitchens in Iquitos are usually out back, away from everything, because ants come, by the millions, and devour everything, including the kitchen. Ants might not ceramic tiles and stainless steel pots, but they eat wood and food and other organic stuff. The humidity eats more solid things, and the soil eats cement. Nothing lasts here for long but the continuous renewal of life itself. The seeming slow pace is a disguise for the most rapid turn-over of life on this planet. Watch, and things will dissolve before your eyes. Life is a frantic scramble to stay ahead of death just long enough to replace life. Life has to be replaced so other things can eat. It is somehow frightening to witness this extraordinary pace of turning over.

Last day I found some bread and a dozen black and tiny bananas on the table in the sunlight. I peeled the tough and sticking skins off the bananas and wrapped two of them in bread. That was lunch. I spent the rest of my day writing about the old steamship companies who, in part, make Iquitos the city it is today.

One reason, aside from my obsession with completing this book on deadline, that I didn't make a greater effort to find money to get food is that I was supposed to pick up some ayahuasca from a fellow across town last evening. I wrote and thought and did my usual routines till 5:30, at which time I walked to my destination and waited for the next three hours. The man didn't come. He seems to like me, and I was put out that he stood me up. I borrowed $0.35 and got a bottle of no-name soda for dinner as I went home to fume.

Today, sitting at the computer to work further on the history of Iquitos, Peru, he came by and dropped off a bottle of ayahuasca with wambisa. Then he left without a word. I had some coffee this morning, thanks to my friend David. Tonight I might sit alone when the others have gone to bed, and then I might drink this ayahuasca and find out things.

Meanwhile, I continue to write this book.

If you are coming to Iquitos, or if you have been here and want to know more about it, I suggest you look at my books from here:

Iquitos, Peru: Almost Close.

If you are a curious person, you might want to know more about ayahuasca:

 Confessions of an Ayahuasca Skeptic.

If your taste in books is literary, then I hope you will read my novel set in Iquitos:

 Jockk Brand vs. the Toe Master and the Suicide Kings of Iquitos, Peru.

Next time I might write about how this ayahuasca treated me. I will also continue this report on writing for my deadline. I don't know if I will make that.

Down and out in Iquitos and Peru

My new book, Blood and Splendor: Rubber Boom Architecture in Iquitos, Peru, ca. 1863-1929, is running up to the deadline. I must finish this by Dec. 12, 2014 if I am to publish five books in one year, the first being Iquitos, Peru: Almost Close. Will I make it?

I ran out of money in Jan. last year. I carried on writing, suffering badly as I went from my happy home to a hostel where my kitten boys and I could live and work in relative peace without the landlord screaming about cat pee. No money.

I work in Iquitos as a guide to the city's historical architecture. I am the expert in this limited field. I love doing it. But I don't spend as much time as I should being a tour guide. In fact, last Feb. I spent no time at all being a tour guide: I had severe bronchitis, and I laid in bed gasping and nearly drowning for the month that my rent went unpaid. Word came that the boys and I had to find a new place to stay.

I packed up my stuff and the boys and off we went to live deep in the jungle for the next three months. I got a deal in which I could live rent-free and edit my next book, Confessions of an Ayahuasca Skeptic.

Of course, being deep in the jungle with no money meant I had to find a way to eat. Being sick and 40 minutes hike from the nearest village made that difficult. Worse was when I could no longer stand the isolation and the hunger. I got dressed, got my gear, my boys, and as soon as I reached the stairs down to the ground, I passed out and fell eight feet to the ground, landing on my side, my side landing on my machete, resulting in five broken ribs.

I left the boys behind in mid-June and returned to the city, I being by then 60 pounds lighter. I was invited to stay, without the boys, at my friend David's place, to sleep on his living-room floor so I could come in to town to make some money. I stayed with David and his family, and with Adrian and his girlfriend there as well, while Adrian had some kind of massive mental break-down and got the impression that everyone on earth is stupid. He told us the most preposterous lies he could imagine, and he has a fine imagination. He is also a serious drunk. He is also broke, which meant he was forever borrowing money to get more beer. When drunk, he and others close by got loud. I put my head down in the living room and edited my ayahuasca book, with help from Peter Gorman.

I went back and forth to the jungle till I finally could not stand it longer and returned to David's place to edit and publish my third book in Iquitos, A Genealogy of Left Dhimmi Fascism, Vol. I.

Adrian's madness intensified, along with all the other madness one would never suspect of people in a house in the Amazon. I put my head down again and for the next 20 days I wrote -- a novel. I wrote Jockk Brand vs. the Toe Master and the Suicide Kings of Iquitos, Peru.

What I had meant to do was write my book on historical architecture in Iquitos. I'm finishing that now. I am penniless, living on Dave's floor in the living room still, thank God, while Adrian has been kicked out of every place he's gone to and is now living outside. Drunk still. I work, so I manage to live. I don't make enough money from book sales as yet to survive, so people like Dave and Peter Gorman and Pedro and Doug and John and Ivonne and many others are helping me out so I don't lose even more weight.

I don't know what I'm going to do about dinner today. It's not looking good so far. I'm busy putting out copy about street names in Iquitos so I can move on to finish writing about steamship companies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

With illustrations I have 287 pages as of now. The question is not whether I make dinner, but whether I make my deadline.

Iquitos, Peru: Where the streets have old names

I'm working hard and long on my new book, Blood and Splendour: Rubber Boom Architecture in Iquitos, Peru, c. 1864-1927. It's an in-depth book about the history of the city and a close look at a selection of Rubber Boom Era buildings. Below are some old address plates, some of which were supposed to be removed and replaced with new names. Jiron J.C. Arana, for example, is something of an oversight like Austrians forgetting to replace Strasse Hitler with Adenauer.

Iquitos is not an old city. It doesn't have a lot of old buildings. It's not Athens or Rome, not even a Manhattan. But it does have its charms.

It also has its Rubber Boom history, a story worth knowing.

Iquitos is the only city in South America with a Condamine st.

For movie buffs, this is the only city that celebrates the subject of the Werner Herzog movie Fitzcarraldo.

It's not only a Rubber Boom era city, it is also a city founded by and for the Peruvian navy, some streets named after 19th century steamships.

Some steamships named after cities.

And some plaques are named after formerly famous locals, like Garcia Sanz.

Some signs are old and forgotten, replaced with shiny new plastic signs. Jiron Lima, for example, has been Jiron Prospero since 1964.

No need to rush into changing everything, though, because it's pretty hot here.

One need not move too quickly either if all one is doing is replacing a rubber baron with yet another soon to be forgotten name.

S. Lores, F. Lores? Who'd know?

It pays to have excellent friends. My friend Edwin points out the following from the also excellent José Barletti:

The street is named after Sargento Fernando Lores Tenazoa (Sargento = Sergeant). Lores was a Peruvian army sergeant who fought in the Peru-Colombia War, He died during the Güeppí Battle on March 26, 1933 when he was 26 years old. This war started after the "Toma de Leticia" by Peruvian civilians.

Two months after his death, the Town Hall changed the name where his family live and Fernando Lores grew from Jirón Pastaza to Calle
Sargento Lores.

An article by José Barletti:
http://avivavoziquitos.blogspot.com/2012/03/en-que-consistio-su-heroismo-fernando.html

The street was originally Jiron Pastaza, named after one of the first ships to arrive from England to establish the Port of Iquitos. Locally, The Pastaza was one of the most important names in the city's history. To replace that is to rise pretty high in the land. Where, I wondered, was Pastaza street? Now we know.

Antonio Raimondi is Raymondi. Perhaps an interested Italian can add more to the story of Raimondi.

Hurtado? Calvo Arauja? These old names refer to the city's past, and they add a dimension to the city that makes it ever more magical if one knows. The city would still be lovely even if the streets had no names.

The Toé Master is Here

My novel is out.

Jockk Brand vs. the  Toé Master and the Suicide Kings of Iquitos, Peru.

 http://www.amazon.com/Jockk-Brand-Master-Suicide-Iquitos/dp/0987761552

The Toé Master is Coming Soon

Jockk Brand vs. the  Toé Master and the Suicide Kings of Iquitos, Peru.

Available soon at amazon.com.

My schizo stalker is at it again, leaving negative reviews of everything I write. Being famous is not all it's said to be. But fame is better than nothing, I guess.

Here's one of my books that should make me more famous than ever. Of course it has a negative review. Maybe I should have been nice to my stalker. He used to leave outrageously sucky reviews. Now that he hates me, well, so it goes.

http://www.amazon.com/Genealogy-Left-Dhimmi-Fascism-Vol/dp/0987761544/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

My latest book, Jockk Brand, should be available at amazon.com by Thursday. Will leave a link here when it's available.

A Genealogy of Left Dhimmi Fascism, Vol. I, Alienation and Authenticity, Part One.

My first Genealogy is out.

D.W. Walker, A Genealogy of Left Dhimmi Fascism, Vol. I. 
Alienation and Authenticity, Part One.

 http://www.amazon.com/Genealogy-Left-Dhimmi-Fascism-Vol/dp/0987761544/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top


My other latest book, Confessions of an Ayahuasca Skeptic, is doing nicely. Thanks for your support.

http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Ayahuasca-Skeptic-Finding-Enlightenment/dp/0987761528

Now, back to typing my pulp fiction action-thriller novel,

Jock Brand Vs. the Toé Master and the Suicide Kings of Iquitos, Peru.

Note: I have a stalker who is obsessed with me to the point of frenzy. He leaves negative reviews at all my books, and he stalks me in the city. Your choice on how you take this and his reviews. 

Ayahuaca book rising in the charts

My latest book, Confessions of an Ayahuasca Skeptic, is now listed at number 12 of 230 at amazon.com's ayahuasca section. Not bad!

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=ayahuasca+books&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aayahuasca+books

Hope you enjoy it. Please leave a review at amazon to give others some idea of how it is for you.

My best from Iquitos, Peru

Dag Walker

Confessions of an Ayahuasca Skeptic Now Available at Amazon.com

Hope you like it.

http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Ayahuasca-Skeptic-Finding-Enlightenment/dp/0987761528


It's a good one.

Here's an amazon.com review from Peter Gorman:

Damned good read

By Peter T. Gorman on June 7, 2014

Format: Paperback

Full disclosure: I wrote the preface to this book. But I wrote it on condition that the man who wrote it, whom I did not like at the time, wrote honestly about a subject so easy to exploit. He did. More than that, after some early pages that were too steeped in quoting academics for my taste, he went on and wrote a rollicking good adventure story. Dag Walker is smart, witty, curmudgeonly and in the end, very human, very decent and a very, very good story-teller who is honest with his subject and honest with himself. 

 Got a second review at amazon.com.

A Professional Book Deep in a Subjective Realm

By Passin' Through on June 7, 2014

Format: Paperback

Like everything else about Dag, this book hits you where you least expect it and leaves you illuminated. I could hardly believe the scholarly opening chapters and then, in stark juxtaposition – like ayahuasca itself grabbing hold – his seriously hilarious adventure into the world of jungle medicine takes off. This book will not disappoint. 

I'm back to the deep jungle for another week or so, and till I return to the city and electricity, keep in touch through the net. 

Last pages of my next book

Ayahuasca Conclusion

Last time Jane was with me visiting Bar in the Fortress we were watching a video on a computer screen, Apocalypse Now, Bar wasting badly in his wheelchair, his head shaved to rid himself of lice, his legs so swollen he wrapped his feet in black plastic garbage bags because he couldn't wear shoes, the smell of him impossible for others to cope with unless all the windows and doors in the warehouse were full open and fans were blowing. Bar must have weighed 400 pounds, all of him covered in dirt and a grey track suit. He'd been a handsome man most of his life, but time and impending death spoiled all that, at least on the outside. His voice was still commanding and mellifluous, his smile still winning, his sparkling blue eyes still shiny and happy most times. We watched the movie and ate pizza and Bar guzzled whiskey from the bottle. Jane tapped her feet in time to music from the show. “Oh, Susie Q.”

In our own private diner we could do as we pleased, and I told Bar to rerun the movie scene and got Jane on the ten foot long bench top and we watched her as Credence Clearwater Revival pounded out music while Playboy bunnies danced on stage in the jungle before hundreds of horny soldiers locked in Viet Nam. Jane got up on the table and danced a-go-go, while we looked up, clapping and cheering her on, Jane's long legs pumping and her back slipping and her hips gyrating, go-go, her long hair flying wild in the back-lights, the cardboard pizza box vibrating off the table and onto the floor, Jane's shoes joining them, Jane aflame, Bar in bliss. “Oh, Susie Q, tell me you'll be true, Susie Q.” Rock and roll your soul till you die alone in the dark while your friends are fucking. Who needs you?

Madness, pain, and hatred. The world of others provides it all. Who needs friends when one can lay in the dark alone and screw?

Jane and I went to all the finer Salvation Army Thrift Shops to dress us up real fine for Bar's memorial service at the ethnic place his kids from out of town rented. Only once did I have to slam a clerk's face into the dressingroom wall because the kid kept trying to sneak peeks through the crack. Jane looked sharp when she was dressed up, a light brown suede blazer, a cream coloured satin blouse, and black wool slacks with shiny black leather shoes. I got her a necklace for a quarter, and she stepped out looking like a movie star. I out-did her altogether cause I got a better sense of style, me in a knee-length grey cashmere coat, black wool blazer, white shirt and red tie, grey slacks, and my favourite alligator skin cowboy boots. I topped it off with a black, broad-brimmed Kosuth hat on sale. Bar was our friend, and we dressed up good to send him off.

Bar's son presided as he stood before all of Bar's old friends. The man stood before us dressed in track pants and a dirty tee shirt, his braless older sister beside him, she being stuffed into a black polyester tube, dark spots on her legs where she'd hurt herself shaving. Jane and I were aglow till Jerry walked in from work, still wearing his usual one of a dozen $5,000.00 business suits. Why even try when your friends make you look like shit without even trying?

I laid alone in the dark in a fairy castle house of concrete and woven banana leaves on jungle sticks, alone in the dark on a mat as Claire laid alone in the dark beside me singing. She sang “La La La La La,” and I told her I would rather listen to the radio and be alone in the dark by myself without her.

I didn't want any friends as I laid alone in the dark and drank. I wanted to be alone.

Alone in the dark by myself with Claire beside me quietly weeping I closed my eyes – for a moment only, nothing more – and there I saw Bar and he spoke to me. I saw him, his lips moving, his mustache soaked in drool, he spoke to me. “Who needs your friendship when you can sit alone in the dark beside a sobbing woman and drink ayahuasca?” I rose from my mat and sat alone in the jungle and smoked mapacho in the night. “And you don't even think about her.”

***

They sit alone in a group and listen as he talks, his voice like violets and roses and leather and blood. He speaks and the room fills with golden sunlight and they are filled with memories made real of love and passion and power and someone who loved them once. He talks and they gaze at him in wonder for he is wise and gentle and kind and his words fill the air like dancing rainbows. Every little gesture, his smile, his eyes, he leaves them in awe and desire to be with him forever, the way he smooths his pant leg with his palm, the sheen of his hair, his clear and lovely eyes. He knows, and they love him.

Though he has been on of life's perpetual losers, each failure astounds him, and thus he carries on in faith, knowing his destiny is grand and he must suffer till he rises to the heights.

He walks past the fortress in the night, huddled against the freezing rain, and he stops momentarily to look in at Jane and Bar and me as we live our little lives alone. I see him clearly and I know he is the man. He is coming, Son of Mother Ayahuasca. He will come to offer healing of my psychic fucking pains.

Jane dances a-go-go on the table like sex on a roll, and he turns away grinning and disappears into the night.

***

Jane and I exit the hall hand in hand and step into the cold air of a Spring day, the hemlock trees solid and leafless rooted in hard ground, the grass a'greening again, brown for now but turning. At home we get into bed in the dark and four cold hands reach out to strangers, touching.

Should I wash away my psychic pains in jungle drugs and feel whole and healed? Should I go harmonious into the cosmos attuned? Should I lay aside my hates and rage for horrors done? Men in the world hurt. We are small. I look deep into the endless empty skies and see the gods that hate us. Wounded? I laugh. Healing ayahuasca? The man is grand who sits so still alone in his own pain, his rotting body, his hand grasping in the dormant gap. We don't need others to heal or hurt; we harm ourselves just fine. Who needs healing when we can die alone in the dark?

Confessions of an Ayahuasca Skeptic



Here is a link to my other book on Iquitos.


http://www.amazon.com/Iquitos-Peru-D-W-Walker/dp/098776151X

Iquitos, Peru: Almost Close. IT'S A HIT!

A shipment of my latest book, Iquitos, Peru, Almost Close, arrived at Dawn on the Amazon yesterday, and it is a big hit in the city.

http://www.amazon.com/Iquitos-Peru-D-W-Walker/dp/098776151X

You can order it now if you aren't living in paradise where you can get a copy from Bill Grimes at Dawn on the Amazon.

Wow, is it ever cool to be a medium famous writer at last!

Dag Walker's Further Adventures in Taking Jungle Drugs in the Amazon

My latest piece about my running adventures as a jungle-drug using tourist in the Amazon is available at Bill Grimes' highly trafficked blog at the link below.

As well, keep in mind that my latest book Iquitos, Peru: Almost Close is available here at amazon.com.My book is now on sale at a reduced price to you.

http://dawnontheamazon.com/blog/2014/01/15/ayahuasca-with-javier-de-silva/#comments

Iquitos, Peru: Chuck's Surprise Cremation Party (Part One)

About ten years ago I realised that I was close to death – nearing 50 – which is pretty much the end-- and that I had to get busy researching it all if I were to do it right. There's no second chance. I had to read a lot of books about death so I wouldn't blow this last thing in this life I would ever do. Now it must be something like urgent, me closing in on 60. I've read enough about death by now to bore most people to the grave no matter how old they are. So, my next step is to hang out with Chuck who is older than dinosaurs. Chuck is in his 70s, and he's looking into cremation in Iquitos, Peru. He's going to Chicago soon to go skydiving again, around his 30th jump or so, but when he returns he has to be ready for the eternal dirt nap-- Death. He's a tidy kind of guy and doesn't want to leave himself lying around when he's gone. He's looking into a prepaid cremation plan in Iquitos now since he cancelled the one he had in Miami. No point in a cremation plan in Miami if he's dead in the Amazon. It would cost a lot to fly his corpse all the way up there to Fla., and since Chuck would be dead there's no real point in pissing away the cash on the trip. We're looking into him getting cremated in town.

To read the rest of this story, please turn to the following link;
http://www.amazon.com/Iquitos-Peru-D-W-Walker/dp/098776151X

A gentle reminder that my book, An Occasional Walker, is available at the link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Occasional-Walker-D-W/dp/0987761501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331063095&sr=1-1

And here are some reviews and comments on said book:

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2012/04/dagness-at-noon.html

Iquitos, Peru: An Ayahuasca Evening with Javier de Silva

I return to Casa de Silva this evening to drink ayahuasca with a man who has a dubious reputation locally, a scary reputation internationally. Those who have negative feelings toward, de Silva are extremely negative; and those who are positive are middling about him. I have to find out for myself, and then I will set down my own account as well as I am able.

There could be a problem in writing about ayahuasca with de Silva, and that is the man's use of toe (to-ay,) and additive that seemingly prevents memories from forming. I don't know how I can write about what I can't recall, but I am sure there will be some solution to all this.

My report next day might well be limited to the basics. I am leaving for some time to the jungle to work on my ayahuasca book and my other book on Iquitos' architectural wonders. This could well be it for a month or so.

In the meantime, please look at my other book, Iquitos, Peru: Almost Close.

http://www.amazon.com/Iquitos-Peru-D-W-Walker/dp/098776151X

Iquitos, Peru: Going Fishing

I am off to the jungle for a few weeks where I hope to do some fishing. I will also be finishing the second of three books about Iquitos, this second one on ayahuasca, a terrible tasting jungle drug much liked by Western hippies and New Age dilettantes. I've done this drug myself a number of times and it's worth looking into for a number of reasons, all of which I detail in my book. But I have to finish the editing before I can move on to the next steps of getting the book published.

Until then, please look at my latest book, Iquitos, Peru: Almost Close.

Unless I totally lose my mind tomorrow evening during my last ayahuasca session before I go to the jungle, I should be back in a few weeks.

Check this out:

http://www.amazon.com/Iquitos-Peru-D-W-Walker/dp/098776151X

D.W. Walker, newer book out soon

Folks, I am off to take ayahuasca yet again, Friday evening at 9:00, and on Saturday afternoon I am leaving for some time in the jungle where I will begin revising and editing the next Iquitos book, Confessions of an Ayahuasca Skeptic.

Meanwhile, please order my new book, Iquitos, Peru: Almost Close.

Here's the amazon.com link.

http://www.amazon.com/Iquitos-Peru-D-W-Walker/dp/098776151X


Will be back as soon as I can.

Coming up next: Puke with Javier de Silva

I have a special invitation to vomit with a fellow in Iquitos two nights from now, and I am terribly excited. It's rare in my life to be invited to sit with a locally famous fellow and spew vile stuff on his floor, so when this invitation came through to drink ayahuasca with a man well-know in the jungle drugs enlightenment business, I nearly choked from joy. To puke with Javier de Silva.... Why, it's almost like smoking pot in the dressing room at Filmore West with Mick Jagger in San Fran back in '68. This guy is a big deal.

When I wipe the stuff off my chin and get back my grin, I'll have no time at all to do more than-- I hope-- leave word that I survived intact an ayahuasca ceremony with one of the most notorious brujos in South America. Yes, the man has a seriously evil reputation, and I am out of my mind in anticipation of getting cuckoo with him.

Javier de Silva is the sworn enemy of another of the big stars of International ayahuasca, Ron Wheelock. It's the Battle of the Ayahuasca Titans, and I am the man in the middle of it all, reporting as I am able from the floor of the arena.

I will leave what word I am able, however brief, and then, dear reader, I will be off to the jungle, assuming all is well, for a few weeks to type up my account of this adventure, and to organise the text for what will be my second book from Iquitos, Confessions of an Ayahuasca Skeptic. 

Meanwhile, please order my latest from Iquitos to keep you warm this winter.


http://www.amazon.com/Iquitos-Peru-D-W-Walker/dp/098776151X

Happy New Year.