Actions from the Occupy movement at the beginning of this year, 2012, initiated the call to reclaim a number of abandoned, foreclosed, and unused buildings in their respective cities. Events like these have taken the movement to yet another level of vital engagement over the continual negotiation of space in urban environments. Two particular events, which occurred on the same date, Saturday, January 28, 2012, show the extent to which the Occupy movement has gone towards calling for solutions to America’s current housing crisis. The larger of these demonstrations took place in Oakland, and received a fair amount of media attention. The event, dubbed, “Occupy Oakland: Move-In Day,” made news for both it’s proposal,–the attempt to occupy an abandoned downtown building and convert it into a headquarters of the city’s Occupy movement, and its result–a massive clamp down from the Oakland police department, arresting over four hundred of the 2,000 Occupiers who came out that night.
The effort to take over a large city building was a audacious move on the part of Occupy Oakland. A tactic which hadn’t yet been attempted by any Occupy movement, nation-wide. Not surprisingly, the OPD’s reaction was extremely heavy-handed, and at some point during the night the plan to seize the building on that night fell apart. 400 of the 2,000 protestors were arrested, leaving the building unattained by Occupy Oakland.
The smaller of the two actions of January 28th took place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. When a group of roughly thirty Occupiers converged upon a vacant “Luxury” condo located on 208 North 8th street, according to New York Daily News, in the late night hours. The collection of Occupiers sought to throw a party in one of the many completed, yet totally vacant buildings. The night was billed as a “Challenge to property relations party” on the group’s Facebook page. The challenge may very well have been to the oppressive nature these “Luxury” condos have brought to Williamsburg since being constructed. Not to mention that large numbers of these buildings remain empty for months at a time, while many people in and around the area struggle to keep up with rising rent prices. Not long into the festivities, the NYPD showed up and quickly dispersed the Occupiers after arresting a handful of them.
The January 28th, Williamsburg, Brooklyn gathering specifically piqued my interest, because in early 2011, I released an album called, “Squat the Condos,” and here now, are a group of people who were seeking to do just that. Well, to a degree at least.
I am an emcee within the culture of Hip-Hop. For the last number of years, I have polished my skills on the mic, rocked stages, and moved crowds with the power of the word. In 2007, I began writing the lyrics to a number of instrumentals my friend and producer, UFAM had given me. These beats possessed a sense of urgency and aggravation that I identified with. After listening to them for a few days I began to feel the currents of New York City residing inside them. A city that will find a way to get under your skin, in your blood, and in your face throughout the course of a day. Here in this small strip of earth, exist two polarities on the spectrum human society. There is the “progress” and there is the poverty.
This polarity creates a generalized tension throughout the atmosphere of the city. This tension circulates in the air like radio waves, under the sidewalk into the sewer system like that evil ectoplasm from Ghostbusters 2(hyperlink this); out of people’s mouths with exasperated emphasis, and weigh’s on the mind throughout quiet moments to oneself. It’s easy to forget that others around you are feeling this pressure. The narrowing of one’s field of awareness is a result of relentless stress. People become forgetful of others daily burden, which further compounds the original tension, leading to whole new dimension uneasiness. I wrote most lyrics to UFAM beats while running around the city during work, moving within this field of tension.
Hustling through the heart of the city on an average work day, I felt the immense agitation and near delirium so many other New Yorkers can feel while simply seeking to fulfill some of life’s necessities. I was surrounded by people in a very similar situation as I was. Working just to pay rent. This is an underlying force that drives many New Yorkers through the city streets everyday. And it makes sense, in 2007, it was recorded that ¼ of New Yorkers, that’s 500,000 families, paid more than half their income in Rent. This is a stressful thing to carry around with you every day. This feeling of living paycheck to paycheck. The situation has become even more intense since the 2008 housing crash.As I moved through the city in differing states of consciousness, I was able to “see” the stress in the air like swamp gas. I also felt the strange silence around this fact as well. Many are united in that worry about paying rent, however there weren’t people speaking about it openly in public spaces.
Though I was pretty much broke at the time, being a musician, I was able to travel throughout the U.S. performing. Nothing that would blow you away, just small clubs and bars, sometimes to less than ten people in the place. But I got to tour nonetheless. I lived in Bushwick, Brooklyn for a portion of that year, and later moved down to Atlanta, GA for three months. On tour I was able to spend time in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, moving through for a few days a clip. I caught snap shots of these places, seeing some beautiful sights. During that period of 2007, I also caught the gestation and later growth of the “Luxury Condo” phenomenon.
I watched the early cresting of the “Luxury” condo wave increase it’s turbulent energy as I toured. It started with the huge banners promising “luxury” in the condo coming soon. On the next tour, the banner would be gone, and a whole block would posses large glass living quarters claiming “Luxury.” Most of these buildings looked so much a like, I wondered if there was not some well timed conference call between city mayors, real estate developers, and local urban planners in each city, that I missed. I found it strange that so many forms of identical development occurred at the same time, and all with no apparent news reportage. At least, I couldn’t find any.
As far as the album went, by mid 2007, I had a couple of the songs finished, but still no title. One of the completed tracks was called “Nights Like This.” I wrote for it a friend, Josh Crouch, aka LEFTIST, after he was hit, run over, and killed by the driver of an 18-wheel truck on the West Side Hwy, in September, 2006. The death of LEFTIST deeply affected his family and friends. For weeks, I helped his best friend, Morgan a/k/a C.O.N.C.E.P.T. And Josh’s father, James, canvass the streets of the west village, where LEFT was last seen alive, looking for witnesses to come forward with any information about the vehicular homicide.
Josh’s father hired a private investigator, and Morgan went out nightly with fliers. The NYPD was never able to find the person responsible for Josh’s death. His transition intensified a morbid speculation I held about how many murder cases go cold in this city. When a case goes cold involving the lose of a human live, it can further pollute the bitter taste in one’s mouth. I filtered Josh’s death through a number of metaphysical belief systems. I thought about all the spirits of those crushed under the wheels of a city which rests on the invincible graves of those unjustly taken. The city could be seen as some form of vampire, sucking at the light and life of all of us struggling within it’s grips. “Nights Like This,” was then my reaction to this city of suck. The response would be to stand up, knuckle up and scream, “the city can’t tread on me.” After listening to the recorded version of this song for the first time, I knew the direction of this work would not be a party record. The album needed to go all in, working with heavy psychic material that many rather not deal with when given the choice. I reflected, then, upon how many people need to face the ugly everyday in order just to survive. With that thought, the phrase, “SQUAT THE CONDOS!” became the title of the album.
It seemed like a pretty cool idea, storming the “luxury condos” like the Lower East Side squatters of the 1980s. Reclaiming the physical space from greedy corporate developers in order to turn it into a zone of fun human interactions. Images of transforming parts of old “luxury” condos into squatter run vertical farms, with solar panels collecting enough energy to power the whole building! I also had more grounded visions of seeing families who live and work in the area where the condo was, occupying these spaces and not forced to leave because they can no longer afford the rent.
To me, these “luxury” condos were symbolic representations of a new form of gentrification. A style of gentrification that moved into cities with the grace of a diamond studded wrecking ball. A writer friend of mine commented on the economic apartheid taking place in front of our eyes, and that phrase echoed in my mind in increasingly louder volumes everyday. Economic apartheid. Economic Apartheid! ECONOMIC APARTHIED!!! I saw very little about these structures seemed cool or even “luxurious.” I am not saying that I’m adverse to enjoying the finer things in life. Nor do I suggest to possess the ultimate barometer of cool, but when identical buildings are claiming luxury constantly, you start growing suspicious of the word. The amenities offered in all seemed to strike a chord of banal similarity. Is this really the only look and feel of “luxury?” Has even the concept luxury become a complete commodity in this stage of capitalism? Where the economy is fueled more by consumption than production, and millions of people walk the streets of cities like New York everyday, we are pushed since birth with the desire to consume more. It is this environment that incubates this “luxury” virus in the first place. Developers can’t just sell some ordinary condos, these new structures need to be “luxury.” Everything needs to be luxury. And the more people lack a living wage, decent housing quarters, and a sense of community, the more they will fantasize about living the dream in a “luxury” condo.
These are just a few thoughts that swam in my mind as I worked out the lyrics for the album. The final product was a nine track composition of resistance music. For some songs, I tapped into the energy found whilst taking part in a political demonstration. I weaved in refrains that I’d like to hear in protest marches. On one hook, for my song “Calling Down the Earth,” I included a Gaelic language title of an old Irish rebel song.(Oro, Se do Bheathe Bhaile). This phrase, in song, dates back to the 1700s. It was remixed, if you will, by the Irish poet and revolutionary, Padriq Pearse, and was often sung by the IRA during the 1916 Easter Uprising. I first got hip to this song through the NYC band Black 47, who created a dub break down with these lyrics on the song “Fire of Freedom.”
One reviewer has called the album “Apocalypse Hip-Hop.” If I am to take the view that “apocalypse” refers to an uncovering or revealing, then I’m happy with the reviewer’s description. The vibe of the music is hard and jarring, like scaffolding falling from shoddily built “luxury” condos, to reveal the stories the humans grinding to hold on to their humanity. However, there is also present on the album, the motivation towards the feeling of freedom. There are a couple songs on the album which present the sound of levity. Which allows a contrast to be felt between that levity with the gravity current situation. So, a song like “Nammo Tasso” would sonically clash with the first track, “Agit-Prop.” The thesis and antithesis of sound would produces cool sonic synthesis, captured by the song “Ayahuasca Metropolis.” My hope with the album was to present a dire situation, but to do so in a way that would inspire the listener to get up and do something about it. I did not want to make a record that wallowed in the ills of which it spoke. There is so much to do, and it felt to me, we had very little time to do it. We needed to move, quickly.

Then the 2008 market crash hit. The housing market went into a tail spin. A number of the lending institutions whom were complicit in the crash in the fist place, were bailed out with $800 Billion, while millions of Americans had their homes foreclosed upon. In this environment the push to the “Squat the Condos!” meme became urgent. I knew that there were probably others seeking to spread a similar message, and one of my new aims was connect with as many of these people as possible. Up until that point, my mission was mostly a one man movement, however I was joined by Thee Semiotic Alchemyst, on many late night “bombing” sessions. Thousands of “Squat the Condos” stickers went up all over the country, with intense concentration in Williamsburg, BK. A place with an extreme amount of “Luxury” condos, as compared to any other place I’d been to in America. “Squat the Condos” was also stenciled on a number of “Luxury” condos in that area as well. This specific tactic led to being arrested by the NYPD during the guerrilla video shoot for my video “Luxury Condos.”

The sub-prime mortgage lending fiasco being a contributing factor to the 2008 housing market crash became a meditation involving the debt-based money system we find ourselves in today. Where financial institutions profited from selling debt in packaged and repackaged forms, and the march of deregulation rolled back of acts like Glass-Steagall. Passed in 1933, Glass-Steagall was a federal response to the banking speculations which brought on the Great Depression. This law mandated a separation be held between commercial banking and investment banking. In 1999, the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed. This deregulation drastically altered the face of credit and mortgage lending. Huge mergers between financial institutions began immediately after, leading eventually to the credit and housing crashes in 2008. (* 4)
Since the crash, millions of Americans have had their homes foreclosed upon, Countless numbers of Americans have consequently become homeless. In New York City on Halloween night, 2011, the amount of homeless people sleeping in a shelter was the highest ever on record for NYC.(*5) Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the 12th richest man in America, with a net worth of $22 billion, is currently the first Mayor since modern homeless began who has no housing assistance program in place to help families move on from shelters to more permanent housing.(*6)

In April, 2011 a number of events occurred around ”Squat the Condos!” First, an activist/artist decided to hold a seminar called ‘Squat the Condos,’ facilitated by the Trade School. I was, at first, a bit shocked that another artist was utilizing the exact phraseology as I did with my album, but I chose to believe that this is how good ideas manifest and circulate. Inspiration begets inspiration, and important messages grow organically. I do not know if this artist had any knowledge of what I was doing with ‘Squat the Condos’ before he called this seminar, but I knew I needed to check it out. Thee Semiotic Alchemyst and I attended the event, held in an old school house in the SOHO district of Manhattan, and there, we met a number of passionate, concerned, intelligent people who wanted to take direct action around the housing situation in NYC. I would not be surprised if a number of the people at this seminar have also been involved in OWS. In the class, we reviewed a number of different aspects to developing a squatted building. From choosing a place, to establishing rights, and finally creating community, the assembled group spoke about the possibility for squatting a “luxury” condo. Squatting was viewed as a form of direct action within the context of this three hour experience.
The second ‘Squat the Condos’ happening of April 2011, involved the financially successful street artist turned political propagandist, Shepard Fairey. Fairey had some of his works showing at a Chelsea art gallery, during this opening night premiere. Thee Semiotic Alchemyst and myself arrived looking for the man who launched his career with a simple “Andre the Giant has a posse” sticker. The scene of the gallery that night was over packed with snobbery. I registered disappointment and irritation at the ostentatious vibe of this place with Thee Semiotic Alchemyst. She, being a survivor of the Arts higher learning system, agreed about this social setting we now found ourselves in. However, these scenes exist, and who am I to stop anyone else from acting like an asshole? There was another thing about this Chelsea gallery show which caused a deeper philosophical affront. Many of these pieces in this gallery could have been re-interpretations of very famous artists, and these derivative pieces were being sold for $5,000. The painting that seemed to put me over the edge looked like an exact replica of Andy Warhol’s quadrant works. My love of earth works art and street art was re-affirmed in that moment. In my mind, much of street art is more substantial than many of the pieces that get filtered through the gallery world. Thee Semiotic Alchemyst and myself quickly conferred and came to the conclusion that we would be responsible for bringing some lively art to this scene.
While one of Fairey’s street art pieces hung for sale, I walked over to it, and placed a “Squat the Condos” sticker on the bottom right corner, next to the words “Propaganda Engineering.” So elegantly placed was this adhesive that even the gallery’s curator could not tell the difference between Fairey’s frequently used motifs and this sticker. This curator told me that the piece with this new add-on would probably be sold for anywhere between $20,000 and $40,000. I do not know how much it was sold for because it cost $150 to get into the gallery during auction night. However, I smile at the thought that this Shepard Fairey work with a limited edition “Squat the Condos” sticker may be hanging on the wall of “luxury” condo somewhere in New York City.
Finally, that April I became acquainted with an organization called, “Picture the Homeless.” PTH is housing organization that draws attention to homelessness in New York City. Their methods utilize participatory research, a research tool developed by radical educator Paulo Freire, in order to empower communities and lessen the reliance on an external “expert” authority. Participatory research directly involves the people affected by whatever may be happening in their communities. I was inspired by Picture Homelessness’ program and so I reached out to them. I got in touch with Lynn Lewis, told her I was an MC who wished to do some work with them. As the stars align in interesting and synchronized ways at times, it so happened that PTH was holding a fundraiser in April. I ended up performing at this fundraiser, which was held in a small bar in the Lower East Side.
From the multitude of the community based organizations I researched, PTH interested me the most. PTH was out in the streets and working on the ground at a number of different demonstrations. I then learned that the organization’s staff were nearly all New Yorker’s dealing with being homeless. Homelessness is a complex subject, which rarely gets a full and thorough discussion in the media. Maybe it is because most people who currently have a roof over their heads often times feel like they are only two paychecks away from losing that shelter. Maybe it is the lack of information about the phenomenon of homelessness, and how it is exactly that real people become homeless. For whatever reason, talking about homelessness makes people nervous. So I found it deeply refreshing that an organization exists in NYC that can tell you about homelessness from both the theoretical analysis and a direct, in your face, subjective experience.
For the purposes of this story of “Squat the Condos,” the climax lies in California. In August 2011, I went out to LA to open for political Hip-Hop legends, Dead Prez, for a couple of concerts. Following the shows, Thee Semiotic Alchemyst and myself decided to stick around the “left coast” for a while. In September, Occupy Wall Street had made it’s way west. Thee Semiotic Alchemyst and myself got involved. We actually walked past the group of ten protestors standing outside of the Bank of America building in SF’s financial district. It was a curious scene, and my interest grew more when I heard about all that was occurring in New York City. Soon after there was a huge protest in downtown SF, which we attended and took part. When that protest ended, I witnessed a small group or people setting up camp in the far corner of Justin Herman Plaza. This became the city’s Occupy encampment. One that provided shelter, food, and medical treatment for the Occupiers. Many of whom were homeless prior to Occupy SF.
Thee Semiotic Alchemyst and I became involved with five other Occupies across the great land of California. Besides, SF, we went to the Oakland, Berkeley L.A., San Diego, and Lancaster Occupies. We cycled through a few of these places every few days, while attending Lancaster, San Diego, and Berkeley once. Each space provided new insights into a this giant, world-wide movement, inspiring millions to get together and demand change. I conversed with many people who stood up in each of their respective communities and spoke out for what they saw as right. The Occupiers I met made a point to make some noise about economic justice, housing justice, calls for campaign finance reform, calls for no more tuition hikes in the state university system, and finally human beings gathering together in order to vocalize their visions of a better world.
Then in November the raids came. Mayor Bloomberg called for the NYPD to pillage Liberty Plaza, aka Zuccotti Park. Shortly after the rest of the national mayors followed suit. (All except Boston, where a judge ordered in favor of Occupiers maintaining their space). Thee Semiotic Alchemyst and I, arrived back to the SF encampment to go to sleep one night when the SFPD began mobilizing a raid. We helped move the medical supplies and some sickly Occupiers to a safe zone. We helped a young girl who was just brutally maneuvered by a police officer in full body armor, because she was trying to get her kitten in her arms to leave. Apparently, she didn’t do this quick enough for the cop’s liking and he assaulted her. I stood on the front line watching the SFPD stand menacingly against a line of Occupiers who were debating whether or not to retaliate if the police charged. For some reason, the SFPD did not raid that night. The tension finally broke when the police mobilized a retreat, and someone’s portable PA system began blasting out dubstep and hip-hop songs, as the Occupiers began to dance. Only a day or two later, however, the SFPD moved in full force on the Occupiers at Justin Hermen Plaza.
We were at Occupy Oakland the evening of the OPD early morning raid. Hundreds of people still congregated in the encampment, a stone’s throw away from Okland’s city hall. Oakland’s Occupy movement felt the most tense of the many we attended. The knowledge was evident that Oakland Occupy carried with it long struggles of the past. Things go down in Oaktown. It was also here where the Black Panthers were born, as a result of police brutality towards Oakland black population. As for the Occupy movement, it was here, in Oscar Grant Plaza, that the OPD shot, at point blank range, Iraqi war veteran, Scott Olsen, in the face with a tear gas canister. That night, there was a strong buzz in the air, and people were ready for whatever was to come next. The talk around the plaza was that there was to be a solidarity march over to the Occupy Berkeley. Occupiers there had just dealt with a massive police assault because they were peacefully protesting tuition hikes.
We were at the Occupy LA encampment on the night that the LAPD raided. Thee Semiotic Alchemyst, myself, and two friends arrived on the scene in downtown LA, moments after the LAPD began their mobilizations. I saw the most amount of police officers I had ever seen file through the streets like an army, gearing up for a massive invasion. The police forced those protestors not in the epicenter of the Occupy encampment, further and further away through the use of coercive persuasion. I counted six helicopters swarming above downtown like giant metallic mosquitoes. Cops were geared up in full riot gear and shot guns ready to “peacefully” disperse this Occupy.
That short span of time of two months hold too many intense memories to condense for this essay, but throughout that time, and since that time, I have felt artistically vindicated and extremely inspired by the Occupy movement. I share the belief of Marshall McLuhan, that the artist must act as an early warning system for those around them. “Squat the Condos!” was a one man manifesto. Occupy became a world wide coalition calling for social justice. On one level, I feel that my call was answered. On a deeper level, I feel that many of our collective calls were finally answered…by us. Historically, the fight for social justice is long and hard. Hence the phrase, “the struggle.” That said, the sheer velocity in which the Occupy went global is staggering to fathom. Occupy was not the beginning of “the struggle,” by any stretch. However, it presented a vessel for which the coalesce many struggles, and this seems like it’s most important virtue. Housing is now on the agenda for Occupy, with the advent of Occupy Our Homes. Occupy Our Homes fight the slew of home foreclosures perpetrated by the large banking institutions responsible for the current foreclosure crisis. These activists have much in common with those I wrote about at the top of this essay. There is an immediate cry to radically reorient the social mechanisms in how we are to relate to each other through physical space. This new outgrowth of Occupy further solidifies my belief that someday soon people will “Squat the Condos!”

footnotes:

1. Peter Marcuse, “Empty Buildings, Crowded Shelters” talk sponsored by PTH at Columbia University. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIWim4f2a1A
2.”Bombing” refers to spray painting or placing stickers up in many different places in a city or suburban environment
3.* The Glass-Steagall Act, “Agenda for a New Economy,” by David Korten. “The Crisis of Neoliberalism,” by Gerard Dumenil and Dominique Levy
4.According to a report issued by The Coalition for the Homeless, 41,204 people were in a shelter that night, 17,000 of them were children. This is only the number of people who slept in a shelter, there are many more homeless who did not. http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/
5.Bloomberg’s worth, http://www.forbes.com/profile/michael-bloomberg/
Bloomberg’s homeless policy found on this site, http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/

When going into my first experiences with ayahuasca, I was deeply absorbed in the work of Pablo Amaringo. I was spending more and more time looking over his paintings, many of which displayed images of other worldly dimensions with golden palaces in the sky. In the summer of 2004, I was set to travel to South America for a ten-day dieta involving work with ayahuasca, as well as other healing plants like bobinsana. I had been drinking ayahuasca in Mestizo shamanic ceremonies for a little over a year before this dieta, and this was going to be my first complete immersion into the rainforest for repeated exposure to its thunderous lessons.

One of the main intentions I had for my upcoming dieta was to heal the broken lines of love between my father and me. He had passed away just two months before I was scheduled to leave for the Southern Hemisphere. He suffered a tragic and sad death. His landlady had found him slumped over the island divider in the kitchen, still gripping a glass of Chivas Regal in his lifeless hands. My father’s passing had been anticipated for many years, as he struggled with the affliction of alcoholism for most of his adult life. The news of his death knocked the wind out of me when I heard of it over the phone one lonely morning. My family and friends supported me during the days leading up to his wake. Memories overwhelmed me at night — of a man who hurt me like no other, but who also gifted me with some of the greatest moments two people can share.

My dad struggled with multiple addictions since before I was born, and they wreaked havoc for most of our relationship. Addiction is like a fire, the more space you give it, the more the flames will rage. Genius, too, is like a fire, and it works in similar ways. The more you offer yourself to it, the more its brilliance will shine. My father was like a house that contained both of these fires, constantly burning.

The way Dad passed, it seemed like the fires of addiction may have won out, leaving him dying a drunkard’s death. But in the time leading up to his funeral, I also remembered him as a brilliant man, alive and struggling with a pain deeper than his waking self. His addictions seemed to run far back into the Irish gene pool. Generations of executed poets and failed revolutionaries swam within his belly as he shot back the spirits at the bar he and my mother opened and ran for more than 25 years. His tongue was a palate coated with myriad songs about love and confusion, humor and pain, with an aching for redemption.

At Pop’s wake I referred to Dylan Thomas’s poem, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” in regards to the way Dad lived his life. More likely than not, he did not go gently into the waning of the light. He did not die a good death. I imagined that he experienced fear and confusion, up until the moment, where perhaps he saw the one he always talked about seeing at his death — Jesus. The type of Jesus my father often spoke of was the same type that Johnny Cash and Woody Guthrie sung about. He sounded like a Jesus who would bring calm, and ease the pain for the sick and the hopeless, the poor and oppressed.

I suppose that to live a life of passion, one must burn. One must feel the fire in the pit of their stomach and eventually learn to direct that fire, least it consume you. There was a time in my father’s life when that fire was channeled into many joyous displays of theatrical political activism, leaving those watching and involved both shocked and amused. He and my mother were Irish immigrants to New York City at a time of tumult in Northern Ireland. It was the 1970s, the time of “the Troubles,” when suffering and resistance were at a peak in the northern six counties. There were protests and there were bombs; there were bullets, and there was blood. My father and mother held strong to their convictions that everything would be much better the sooner the British crown extricated itself from the North.

In New York City, they helped form Irish Northern Aid, an organization that brought awareness to the situation in Northern Ireland while also raising money for the families of those whom they considered to be political prisoners — people like Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes, Joe McDonnell, and the seven other men who died on a hunger strike in 1981.

I was always aware of this aspect of my father’s life. He was linked with a long line of rebel hearts, seeking a righteous resolution to some of the uglier sides of human nature. His name was known in the North, and many whom he worked with during those years held him in great esteem. I often think about what deeper motivations may have moved my parents to take the plunge into a life of high risk and coded phone conversations. They must’ve had a firm and raging longing for freedom.

Ireland is a land that has endured endless waves of struggle between a beleaguered people and a heavy-handed colonial system, which has played itself out in every generation on the world’s stage for hundreds of years. It makes sense to me that such a longing for freedom would be linked with the land, because the land has played such a major role in the story of Ireland. And my parents were people of the earth, raised on small farms in the countryside, listening to the land cry. Their movement for freedom was one that left some indelible marks on themselves and our family.

Of course, the desire for freedom manifests in many different ways. The world is well versed in stories of people fighting to get freedom from some type of oppressor. There are also tales of becoming free of what’s holding us back, and spiritual traditions that talk of a freedom found in perceiving existence in one infinite moment of understanding. There are many tales from different cultures that speak of this journey — to be free from all suffering, to finally grasp knowledge of oneself and become the lord and master of one’s own mind. It was my own search for this type of freedom that led me to ayahuasca.

A few days after the funeral, my mother and I were speaking outside her house. I told her about the dieta I was soon leaving for. I told her I respected her and Dad’s early choices to live how they had, and that I believed I was following in their footsteps by going to South America. She understood what I was saying, but didn’t really know the surrounding cultural elements. “They’re not witch doctors are they?” she asked. I could only laugh and assure her that I was not going to any witch doctors…that I knew of.

I flew into Peru International Airport and then took a short, bumpy flight to Pulcallpa, where I met the rest of the intrepid travelers headed into the Amazon for this dieta. From Pulcallpa we drove a couple of hours down some dirt roads, only stopping once to make some form of “tribute” (meaning pay-off) to the local police force lounging on that stretch before finally stopping at the Rio Ucayali. We hoped into two slim motorized boats and coasted along the serene river into the heart of the jungle.

The ride was quiet, yet upbeat. The sun shined bright, reflecting sharply off the top of the dark waters. We arrived at a nondescript piece of land, and hiked into the jungle for another hour. Finally reaching the encampment, we choose our own tambo open-air hut, which was to be our individual sleeping quarters for the next eleven days. After settling in, we all met up for a collective meal, eating, conversing, and laughing for hours, knowing that this was to be our last full meal until the dieta was over.

The day turned to night, and the darkness quickly crept its way into our congregation. One by one, we retired to our tambos, saying good night and good luck. I pulled the mosquito net over my foam “bed” situated atop a slab of wood, and then drifted off to sleep.

In the first ceremony, I set up my temporary altar in front of me. A Shipibo thread-work featuring a green glowing fish was the focal point around which I situated the rest of my concentration aids. I had a bottle of Florida water, and two pictures laid out on the Shipibo artwork. The first was of my father and myself when I was around six-years-old. In the image, Dad was leaning down, his face close to mine, looking towards the camera lens, as my eyes gaze towards something out of range. The other picture was taken roughly fifteen years later. This time I had the bigger frame, and my arm was stretched across his back. His face appeared drained, no doubt from the many years of drinking. He looked pale and frayed at the edges; deep lines of pain now engraved into his face. In the first picture, he was gripping my shoulder in a show of affection, as if to say, “Come on now, I believe in you. You can do it.” In the second picture, it was me striking this pose. Though, I felt so much pain from our relationship, I still had faith in my father. I wanted my dad man to wake up again.

I was seated next to a very large older man named Thor in the ceremonial circle. I liked Thor. I saw him as a man who had been down similar roads as my father, and I later learned that he was also the same age as Dad.

Thor was good friends with the shaman and was placed directly to his right, and I to the right of Thor. The group sat in a large circle in the maloca, the ceremonial structure in which we drank. It was situated next to one of the many rivers flowing through the heart of the Amazon. The day was clear, but the high branches of the trees in the forest blocked out much of the light from the sun.

We passed around the ceremonial cup, and then waited. When the ayahuasca started to twist and kick inside of me, I noticed that everyone in the group seemed pushed towards the brink of their own psychic thresholds. An invisible quilt of empathy gently fell upon us. We were tucked in tightly with the beautiful feeling of togetherness. It was a unity that allowed each individual the space to go through his or her own work.

The shaman started off singing a number of icaros until the ayahuasca came on full tilt. My thought patterns oscillated between notions of never feeling so alive, and powerful moments of confusion and jaw-clenching panic. What I usually referred to as my mind now resembled a vast expanse of fractalizing geometric patterns swirling through empty halls of silence. If I were able to focus on that silence (which I did like a toddler struggling to walk), my mind would become a fragile container for the many dimensions of self. This container was like a new level of awareness that was being born in me, growing a fraction at a time. In this state, I watched memories of my “waking self” swish and weave into the memories of dreams I’ve had in my life. It was becoming difficult to discern between the two.

As the icaros, sung by our guide, shimmered in visibly colorful patterns around us, these two selves seemed to move through the space of my mind’s eye like a caduceus. I felt like I was drowning in a fountain of deep life, and the deeper I sank, the more alive I felt, yet I checked in with myself repeatedly and asked, “Am I dead?”

Most of my experiences with ayahuasca up until this dieta often had me going down into an underworld. Each time I drank I learned a harsh lesson about the darker workings of my own mind. Paranoia, anger, shame and fear were usually portals I needed to walk through in order to gain some sort of ability to understand how to navigate out of my own personal prison. I was still struggling to find a balance during these experiences, many of which had been excruciating. I was repeatedly pulverized by the power of this plant. I regarded it with fear and respect. This was something I needed. Ayahuasca was strong enough to wrestle my mind to the ground and open my ears to the sound of my heart.

That first ceremony proved no different than earlier journeys back home. I was forced to plunge deep into psychic waters, an ocean helmet diver breathing in the shaman’s icaros as my single line of oxygen. His tones were tools to get the work done, and I focused my breath to take them in, to keep centered while finding my way up from this abyss. Immersed in these mercurial realms, the ayahuasca helped me process and reconcile heavy emotions that I’d never fully dealt with before. The whole time I listened intently to the shaman’s songs. Ancient lessons were being taught in those simple sounds. And even though I didn’t know what the words were, I knew exactly what they meant.

Then I had a vision of my father. I saw him in another dimension, at the mercy of the ruling force therein. But this ruling force was not benevolent. It was mean and vengeful. It was a realm where my father’s spirit had almost forgotten who he was in the life he just left, like one forgets their dream in that liminal state before waking. His spirit was in a place that burned and compressed everything around him. This ruling force (whatever it may have been) enjoyed inflicted pain upon my father, yet there was an understanding that this was necessary for him. And that was it, just as quick as the vision came, my awareness was pulled back to the ceremonial space, where the shaman shook his chacapa, healing a person nearby.

The ayahuasca worked itself through me in waves that felt like birth contractions. I endured moments of sharp pain that would eventually open into feelings of bliss. Fear or anger would rise within me, making me want to throw up. I grabbed a bucket and knelt over it, but nothing would come out. I tried again and again but all that surfaced were dry heaves and mucous. All the while, Thor was throwing up profusely. I felt a resonance with him puking his guts out sitting next to me. Somehow I understood that this man was helping me through his purging.

Then it occurred to me that Thor was puking because I couldn’t. On some energetic level, Thor was processing those things that I was having trouble with. The “energetic” self is said to expand a few feet out beyond one’s physical body. Thor was seated right next to me, so it made sense. I saluted him in my mind’s eye. My respect and reverence then expanded out to every person in the ceremony. I was in awe at the strength that every individual brought to this work. As the plant tunneled through my system with the elegant grace of a bulldozer, I mumbled words of thanks and praise to all these heroes and heroines before falling back into a lump on the ground.

I have heard many people speak about hearing a voice that they call “Grandmother,” during ceremonies. Most people say Grandmother is another reference to the spirit of ayahuasca. They say this, too, because ayahuasca has the temperament of a firm and compassionate grandmother. She will shower love and provide a voice of discipline when needed. People often speak of setting an intention or asking a question to the plant, and I have heard many say that they heard “her” voice speaking to them. That day I caught “her” gentle voice urging me to practice patience with myself, because some things take whole lifetimes to purge.

With those words, I was brought back to the last time I saw my father alive. It was a few months before he passed. I went over to visit him at the house where he was renting a room. We spoke about trivial matters. When I announced my exit he said to keep in touch. As he walked me to the door, we turned to say goodbye as we always did. We hugged, and for some reason I squeezed his barrel-chested frame harder than usual. I held onto him like I did when I was a child. He recoiled a bit, but then surrendered to the hug, while I told him that I loved him. He returned the hug, and wished me well as I exited the house. I began to cry as I walked up the pebbled driveway to my car, a voice, not unlike the voice of “Grandmother” spoke to me and said that this was going to be last time I ever saw my dad alive again.

I replayed this scene over and over in my head as Thor sat and purged. I began to cry fierce tears, tears that shot out my eyes like bullets, tears that were equal parts angry to equal parts sad. At that point, I knew I needed to separate myself from the rest of the group and unleash this furious hurt into the skies of the Amazon. “This earth will protect me. The Amazon will sooth me,” I thought, as I ran out of the malaco and moved along the thin path towards a view of the river down the lane. I sat on a plank of wood and howled and moaned like a wounded beast. My voice ripped a hole through the air my released pain.

Then I cried. I cried for my father. I cried for me. I cried for my family. I cried for the Irish. I cried for the British. I cried for the world. But mostly I just cried.

The rainforest held me in her embrace while the sorrow passed through me. This sadness was a gift and I sat there with it. It was the sadness my father had run from so violently, the one that had also dogged me my whole life. It was the sadness I imagine the earth feels when she watches so many of her children die. After all, everything buds, blooms, and then withers away. But she lives on, watching it all with love and non-invasive guidance. This sadness, I came to see, also contains great joy. But it only becomes joyful once one is able to face and embrace it. You have to sit with it, and not think about when it will lift. I sat with that sadness all afternoon, coming to terms with it, learning to love it.

Eventually, I walked back to the malaco for the closing of the ceremony. I thanked Thor for sitting next to me during the work. I looked out at the birds coasting over the river as the sun set in the distance, knowing that I’d been granted a healing, as well as my father.

Later that night, I thought back my uncle, cousins, and I carrying Dad’s casket, draped in the Irish flag, through the church doors. I felt the loss of never being able to hear the sound of his brogue and gruff voice again. All I had left were memories. Outside the church, a bagpiper played sweet and sullen tones. I stayed up for many nights afterwards thinking of all this. When the weight of these feelings finally broke on the shores of my tired mind, something revealed itself to me. Through this loss and pain, I now felt connected on a more intimate level to the world around me. I described it as “an initiation into the circle of humanity.” We may walk through the fire of existence quite differently, but it’s fire all the same. From losing my father, I discovered a profound reservoir of compassion bubble up like magma for all of us confused creatures bumping into each other at various speeds and directions in this life.

This dieta brought me to a similar place. The ceremonies provided me with a powerful metaphor for understanding my time on this earth. It was that of a very old and giant tree with branches reaching out high into a star-filled night. Tumescent roots dug deep into the fertile ground, sinking further and further towards a warm core. Many of my early experiences with ayahuasca were like these roots. My consciousness was guided through a dark underworld, stretching itself closer and closer to an understanding of what this realm had to teach. It was not always pretty, but necessary, in order to see the horizon offered by sitting atop the large branches above.

Before my time with ayahuasca, I was mostly focused on what the sky had to offer, wanting constantly be surrounded by quick-witted spirits, jetting around like lighting bolts. I had fun, but I was also frenetic and ungrounded. While sitting through many sessions, I learned that if I really wanted to see the world from the high branches, I had to ground myself, staying with my deeper emotions. Like those roots, I had to be in contact with the movements of the earth’s sighing soul. I could not have one without the other. The higher the branches, the deeper the roots.

Ayahuasca and the death of dad were two major teachers of this lesson. I had to stop running, sit down by the fire that burns inside us all, and absorb the heat in order to transmute and transmit those heavy earth stories. I am doing this to develop my own voice for singing my unique song. And I’d like to think that every being is here for the same purpose. It takes time and work, and some may take longer than others, but one thing is clear — the longer one sings in connection with his or her heart, the clearer their message becomes.

Dove Sta Memora

Immortal Technique Performing

Immortal Technique is an artist in the lineage of Zach De LaRocha and Chuck D, and he needs to be listened to. His story is a testament to the power of the pen. Born in Peru and raised in Harlem as a child, he foundhimself in trouble with the law as a teenager and young man. After serving timein prison for a couple years and becoming free, in more ways than one, Immortal Technique worked his way up through New York City underground Hip-Hop inthe early 2000′s battle-rap scene. During this period, Tech got a name forhimself for delivering vitriolic rhyme schemes deconstructing a system that hasrepeatedly lied to many in order to benefit a few. He also ran with the well-known underground NYC Hip-Hop crew, Stronghold, and frequented thenow longest running open mic in the city, End of the Weak.

His song “Dance with the Devil” is a piece that I think will stand the test of time, much like a Johnny Cash tune. The presentation laid forth by the narrator is so gritty that it almost fits the mold of Horror-core rap, the type that Ill Bill and Necro have taken to the next level over the years. Where this song veers away from the Horror-core mold is where Tech is rhyming about things that sound like they could have happened somewhere last night. A number of my friends say that they cannot listen to that song too much, because it’s so disturbing. But again, this is not for the sole reason of shock value, a criticism that is often leveled against Horror-core rap. Rather, it’s disturbing because of what it reveals.

Immortal Technique has established a worldwide presence and a strong global following, doing so from an independent stance, from the very beginning. I’ve had conversations with other MCs (Why-G being one)speculating on the possibility of Tech going platinum without the backing of a major record label. This feat would be unheard of, a true inspiration.

Tech’s rhyme style has been one of a vicious battle rapper, coming out of a particular battle-heavy era in NYC underground Hip-Hop, seeking to eviscerate his adversary. And on his Revolutionary volumes 1 and 2, this adversary appears to be United States Government. Tech has had his detractors, those who feel that his style has been weighed down a bit by the battle rap rep, and that his flow offers nothing new. But my answer to that is that the power of what he is actually saying far outweighs his style of presentation. Also like all great artists, his style has progressed and become more nuanced through time.

Over the years Tech has matured as a writer, speaker, thinker, and perhaps most importantly an activist. He appears to have settled into his stride and has gone deeper in his analysis. His recent release The 3rd World Mixtape provides some different stylistic offerings from Tech. And one only needs to go on YouTube and watch his interviews to discover his further evolution. Very recently, he has opened an orphanage in Afghanistan. This is something no one in Hip-Hop has ever done; this is unparalleled.

I caught up with Tech while he was between tours and finishing his upcoming project, The Middle Passage.

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There is a little known fact about the role that Islam has played within the Hip-Hop community. In his essay from DJ Spooky’s recent anthologySound Unbound, Naeem Mohaiemen states that “Islam is hip-hop’s unofficial religion.” Noting this correlation, there is a definite need for properly putting Islam, Hip-Hop, and their interrelationship into some sort of historical context.

Mohaiemen writes, “According to research presented by the American Muslim Council, in 1992, between 5 to 8 million Americans followed some variation of the Islamic faith.” Interestingly, the organization found that the largest group of Muslims in the U.S. are not Arab but African American, at 42 percent. Only “12 percent of American Muslims are of Arab descent (the majority of Arab Americans being Christian),” contrary to the perception held by many in America today.

Though most Muslims tend to align with the Sunni denomination, there are many different takes on the Islamic faith. There is the Shi’ite sect, the Isma’ili tradition, the Ahmadiyya path – and let us not forget the Sufis. A predominant form of Islam that comes up when talking about African-American Muslims is the Nation of Islam. Founded by W.D. Fard in the early 1930s, the doctrines were brought to the public eye through the works of Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X. Branching off from Fard’s teachings is an Islamic group known as The Five Percenters, a belief system that grew out from Harlem New York during the 1960s.

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