SACRED MEDICINES, SACRED CEREMONIES, SACRED SITES
REVIEW OF JUNE 2006 TOUR TO PERU
Full Information: www.greatmystery.org/events/amazon.html

Don Julio preparing for ceremony

Dear Robin,

I wanted to let you much sooner how much I enjoyed my trip to Peru. However, summer with its activities and with the grandchildren and the kids took up a lot of my time. I'm finally able to catch up with my correspondance...

I went on the trip with three expectations : to experience a new culture, go on an adventure (as oppose to a guided bus tour visiting churches and museums) and do some healing. As it turned out, it was all of that and much more. It was a pilgrimmage, rich in life experiences. We were fortunate to have a guide that was very knowledgeable about Peru, the jungle and the Andean mountains. Peter proved to be a very good leader and had a superb team working for him. They were friendly, warm and compassionate. I would like to share with you what I have written Peter, since it best expresses what I felt...

"As far as a dream went, it was more than I could ever dreamt! The Iquitos and the jungle experience was by far the most memorable. It was a rich human and personal experience. And thanks to your leadership and to all your team, it has been an unforgettable experience. To organize and pull something off like this takes a lot of work, a lot of trust and a lot of patience. Having seen what it takes to put this together, I have a real appreciation for everything you have done. Apart from the nature of the pilgrimmage, one of the things that I really appreciated was the flow of the journey and having to go with the flow, accepting whatever was happening, trusting, accepting and discovering the beauty in the moment wherever we were, whatever was happening... the motorcade, the "cruise" on the Amazon, Genaro Herrara, the canoe trip at night, the walk in the jungle and especially the walk in the jungle swamps, the conversations around the table, the food and the ayahuasca ceremonies! All about another rich experience of life teaching us about life itself.

But more than all that, it was the people that were there for us... their gentle and friendly nature, their kindness and thoughtful attention. I will forever think about you and your team and the "pilgrimers", being grateful for the opportunity to experience this adventure and meet such wonderful people and allow them to touch me in ways I cannot explain. There is a place in my heart where I will carry everyone that was part of this trip... They say our thoughts have no boundaries and touch the ones we think about... the thought of everyone will continue to nourish me as I continue to remember them fondly and nourish each one from afar!

The Andean experience had its own magic. It was a nice way to finish the trip. The beauty and sacred energy of the Andean mountains, the gentle experience of the San Pedro medicine was like a sunset on a beautiful evening... the completion of a journey."

I am also very indebted to Peter for his compassionate support during my experiences with ayahuasca. His compassionate presence and his loving strength were a healing force. He was there when I most needed somebody to help me through a very painful time. There is no doubt in my mind that without his support, the trip could have been devastating. I think Peter is to be commended to offer to take complete strangers on a healing trip... It is risky business, not knowing the pilgrimers and how they will react. However Peter did an excellent job of organizing the trip and seeing to it that we had a great experience. I thank you and the Great Mystery organization for the opportunity of being a part of this wonderful adventure.

Best regards,
L.J.

.................................

Dear Robin:

Sorry I haven’t written to you sooner about the wonderful trip to Peru with Peter Gorman. I have been processing the information, events, and insights I experienced and thinking that I should somehow integrate it all before I wrote about it. Now I realize that might take the rest of my life and talking about it would probably help the process.

I made the decision to go on the trip after my mother passed away earlier this year. A phase of my life had ended and I was ready to begin a new one. Experiencing ayahuasca and the healers of Peru seemed like the right thing at the right time. It was! Under Peter’s guidance, and with the outstanding curanderos and crew he assembled, I walked into the world of spirit and came out a different person. The insights and connections I made would have taken years of classes, books, and psychoanalysis to achieve here at home. In my meditations the spirits of the plants and the processes triggered during the trip come back to guide and inspire me.

Peter has experienced so much that he was able to support each person on the trip with whatever they needed to make the most of their journey. I am not in the best physical condition, but he had me taking long walks, paddling canoes, climbing muddy banks, going over walls and actually enjoying it. I experienced ayahuasca, flower and perfume healing, San Pedro, and psychic surgery. I always felt safe and protected with Peter and his hand picked crew at my side.

This trip challenged everything I thought I was about. Sometimes I was scared, sometimes I was ecstatic, sometimes I was tired, and it was worth every penny and more. I am grateful the Great Mystery made it possible for me to meet legends like Peter Gorman, Don Julio, Don Francisco, and Don Victor. I also had the opportunity to meet another very important person – myself.

Love and light,
J.G.

.................................

Hi Robin,

I just wanted to drop a note and let you all know at Great Mystery that the Peter Gorman tour was fabulous. It certainly exceeded my expectations and then some. I typically travel outside of a group setting and more often than not, alone and with much spontaneity. I chose to do the group and guided tour this time because of the plant medicine involved. I found Peter’s guidance and masterful arrangements, to be beyond compare. His was the perfect balance, wherein there was enough structure to make one feel safe, yet enough flexibility and spontaneity to have the sense that you were participating in an unprecedented voyage. And I do not express this lightly, because there were many times, when we all felt like we were embarking upon a Lewis and Clark expedition, yet there was always the comfort of Peter’s confidence, cupped with his kindness and caring, particularly for those in the group that might have been more physically compromised, than others. The trip was speckled with colorful and exciting events, and in many cases I felt as if I was a character in a dramatic literary work. I would recommend a Peter Gorman trip to person of all ages, all socio-backgrounds and even those that feel that they might be physically handicapped.

D.C.W.

.................................

Dear Robin,

My Peru trip with Peter Gorman and greatmystery.org is now several weeks behind me and I'm beginning to finally re-integrate and assimilate into my life at home. With that, I wanted to correspond with you while my perspective on the trip was still fresh, but possibly a little less influenced by having just gotten back from it. I feel I can now more objectively assess every component of this (to me) fantastic journey.

In total, I had an incredible and life altering trip including shifts, openings of doors, and understandings internally, as well as beauty, wonder, adventure, magic, and excitement "externally". I can't tell you how grateful I am to all the forces that were, to have crossed paths with this particular trip, its guide and with greatmystery. And I refer to Peter as a guide, because to me that is the ultimate and best definition for someone of his caliber. Let me explain.

Peter Gorman is a phenomenal guide in general, and specifically for the kinds of people and the type of a trip this ultimately calls for and caters to. From my perspective, Peter comes with a very right and very rich mix of traits, intelligence, knowledge, life skills, and life experiences that would be extremely difficult to match - much less to surpass by someone different. In his complete and utter humanness, he is the absolute and optimal person to guide a group of people seeking the kind of experiences that we all did. A leader to follow and learn from, yet feel completely looked after by and taken care of. Someone to show the plethora of possibilities, yet let nature take its course as to what each person will ultimately need and require.

Peter possesses an optimal balance of work ethic and fun loving, intelligence and intuition, firmness and gentleness, structure and non conformity, restraint and spontaneity, knowledge and wisdom, realism and idealism, caring and aloofness, experience and curiosity, sensitivity and abandon, clarity and obscurity, approachability and reservation. He shares pretty much everything with and of himself. This is definitely not your watered down, scripted and pretentious average "trip leader".

Peter is an extremely generous person. He shared with us himself, his friends, and everything of value to him. He did things for us and with us that he didn't necessarily have to do, always going the extra mile, listened to our complaints and desires, and not once did I feel slighted or shorted or mistreated…. Peter knows what people need. He perceptiveness as well as his humanness is not only comforting but also quite reassuring, although I can see how this can be unpleasant to some at times. But everything Peter does is 100% and when you pay $4,000 why would you expect anything less than 100%? Personally I got 150% from him and from the trip. It will be just about impossible to find someone as giving and hard working as Peter on a future journey.

In closing, I feel incredibly fortunate to have spent three of the most important weeks of my life so far with Peter Gorman and all I can wish for is that I will cross paths with him soon again. Thank you Peter, thank you Robin.

Sincerely,
S.J.