Refugio Altiplano’s Shamans. Scott Petersen is the Founder and Director of the Refugio Altiplano. Scott grew up in Michigan and came to South America when he was 17 to teach English in Ecuador and travel across the continent. He studied philosophy, anthropology and literature at Calvin College, UCSC, and the University of New Mexico. He studied herbal and shamanic medicine in New Mexico, Arizona and California with the Taos, Navajo and Hopi Indians in the Native American Church. He continued his shamanic and medicine studies in Brazil, Nepal and Indonesia, and lived in Bolivia and the Peruvian Andes for eight years, working and doing research on healing and belief systems. He worked with Shipibo and coastal shamans in Peru for seven years before locating the ideal location for an exceptional healing center. He established the Refugio Altiplano in 1996.

I found Scott to be an extremely enlightened shaman. His shamanic work during the ayahusaca ceremonies was an important part for me and all the other “pilgrims.” Scott came around several times to each of us, ministered healing prayers and covered us in protection and perfumes. He would inquire about our condition. All one had to do was call out Scott’s name and he was there. And people did.

Without Scott’s assistance, I would have never found my way to my cottage after ceremonies. He insisted on personally walking everyone home.

When not officiating at the ceremonies, Scott was always present for us. I never saw him give even a slight direction to his devoted staff. Everything worked seamlessly around him. I immediately bonded with Scott. He never turned down any request or need I had.

Scott is the beating heart of the Refugio and a strong-willed therapist. It is not easy running an ayahuasca retreat since most people come to ayahuasca to solve deep and complex emotional problems. No one holds back anything and you see people for exactly who they are. First-timers are rightly terrified and Scott helped many people overcome horrifying experiences while I was there. Scott is truly a gifted shaman. (Photos of Scott by candlelight, outside and inside of the malocca, and Refugio's central building by Gordon Kuhne).

Walter Martinez Guimoa. The resident shaman working with Scott is Walter Guimoa. He belongs to the Shipibo-Conibo tribe and he comes from the Nuevo Paraiso community in Pucallpa. His experience and knowledge of Amazon medicinal plants began thirty years ago. Walter made plant potions specify for certain people who he felt needed them. The plants speak through Walter’s "icaros" (shamanic chants) which carry incredible strength. His spiritual communication and concentration during ceremonies is most beneficial for participants whom he guides and heals with his songs.

A few hours before my first ceremony at Refugio, I ate some fruit – my first and last solid food. I purged immediately, but became seriously nauseous by the end of the ceremony. I couldnot move and intended to tell Scott I wanted to lay there on the wooden bench until morning – I’d be fine.

I was holding my stomach gripped in pain. Walter came over and began chanting over me. I was not in an altered state. After much chanting, the pain miraculously lifted from me. I actually felt it leave my body. It was gone. I got up. This is the first time I have had a healing!

Though Walter does not speak English, several mornings he would stop by each house to see if we needed anything. At the last ceremony, I brought him a photograph of my son so Walter’s blessing could be transferred to him. Walter is a powerful shaman and a very kind man.

Refugio Altiplano works exclusively with cielo (sky or heaven) ayahusaca which is the most commonly used variety, at least among the mestizo curanderos of contemporary Amazonia. It is considered relatively gentle and is typically the best type of ayahuasca used for initiation. (Photo of Scott harvesting chacruna leaves by Gordon Knuhe, who accompanied him.) http://www.refugioaltiplano.org

Kandahar, Afghanistan. The Gay Capital of south Asia? A reader of my film reviews sent me an article reporting on the current state of Afghan homosexuality. The Osama bin Laden-allied regime banned homosexuality along with television, razors and kites when it took over Afghanistan in 1996.

Now that the Taliban is gone, men are once again appearing in public with their ashna, or beloveds, young boys they have groomed for sex. Kandahar's Pashtuns have been notorious for their homosexuality for centuries, particularly their fondness for naïve young boys. Before the Taliban arrived, the streets were filled with teenagers and their sugar daddies, flaunting their relationships.

Kandahar is called the homosexual capital of south Asia. Such is the Pashtun obsession with sodomy that the rape of young boys by warlords was one of the key factors in Mullah Omar mobilizing the Taliban. Omar immediately suppressed homosexuality.

In the days of the Mujahedeen (the pre-Taliban victors against the Communist government), there were men with their ashna everywhere, at every corner, in shops, on the streets, in hotels: it was completely open, a part of life. Islamic norms differ profoundly from Western ones. The key distinction is not hetero vs. homosexual but active vs. passive; men are expected to seek penetration (with wives, prostitutes, other males, animals); the only real shame is attached to serving in the female role. Youths usually serve in the female role and can leave behind this shame by graduating to the male role.

Omar, "Commander of the Faithful," is believed to be hiding in Pakistan.

Movies This Week. I saw “Becoming Jane” (NO), “Rescue Dawn” (YES), “Underdog” (YES, but only if under 12 years old), and “The Simpsons Movie” (YES). Here are brief summaries of the two movies I recommend this week.

“Becoming Jane”. I have never read a Jane Austen novel; my like-long reading interests veer in a different direction. I’m reading “Aghora ll: Kundalini” by Robert E. Svoboda right now. I do not know why Jane Austen’s six novels are considered great literature. I was curious, but seeing “Becoming Jane” has not prompted me to rush out and buy any of her novels.

The research I did on Austen indicates that a few sentences she wrote to her sister Cassandra about “flirting” with Tom Lefroy are the basis for “Becoming Jane.” In one letter she wrote:

"Friday. At length the day is come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, and when you receive this it will be over. My tears flow as I write at the melancholy idea."

“Flirt” is a rather sexy word for what Jane actually did, according to “Becoming Jane.” A glance and a half-smile were “hooking up” back then. Reputations could be lost if a woman spoke to a man not her relative without the appropriate escort. Jane (Anne Hathaway) is the youngest daughter of Rev. Austen. Her parents are poor but in a rather good social position. Jane is outspoken and encouraged to write her little stories. Jane’s mother welcomes the advances of Mr. Wisley (Laurence Fox) towards her daughter. Mr. Wisely is the nephew and heir of a sourpuss rich landowner. But Jane is not interested in Mr. Wisley – he’s got a weak chin – and doesn’t care that her parents will be lifted out of farm work drudgery and poverty if she marries him.

It is rakish Irishman Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy, pictured), a poor nephew who is being financially supported and groomed as a gentleman lawyer by his wealthy uncle, who enchants Jane. The judge sends Lefroy to country relatives because of his brawling and, perhaps, womanizing. He’s gotten a sexy reputation that immediately captivates Jane.

They don’t get along at first. Dismissing Mr. Wisley’s marriage proposal, to the shock of her parents and his benefactress, Jane goes off to visit Lefroy with her relatives as chaperones. Lefroy’s uncle does not find Jane an appropriate wife for him. She’s too opinionated. Back home and disgraced, Jane begrudging agrees to marry wimpy, but wealthy, Mr. Wisley. Lefroy becomes engaged to someone else.

Lefroy returns to the country and they decide to run off together, leaving fortunes, careers, and families behind. Jane does not care what this will do to her family. Penniless Lefroy will surely be disowned. Jane’s mother will have to continue digging for potatoes. On the road to love, Jane finds out that if Lefroy runs off the big family he supports will suffer. She can’t do that to a group of people she doesn’t know! She cares too much for their support and tells Lefroy they cannot marry. He has a responsibility to his many siblings who rely on a share of his allowance.

Jane Austen (shown is the known drawing of Austen by her sister) never married and neither did her sister (they called them “spinsters” back then). The film drags and is slow. I found the explanation for why Jane gave up Lefroy to be an improbable fable made up by the screenwriters. Have Austenite’s ever questioned Jane’s sexuality?

“Rescue Dawn.” The other film I am recommending this week is Werner Herzog’s “Rescue Dawn.” Star Christian Bale deserves Academy Award consideration for Best Actor. Dieter Dengler (Bale), is an American Navy pilot shot down on his first secret mission into Laos in the early 1960s. Promptly caught and refusing to sign a confession, he is taken to a Laotian prison camp run by ruthless Viet Cong sympathizers. Dieter sizes up the other prisoners, American and Vietnamese, who have been held far too long. They are beaten, bound at night, and starved into submission. The Americans are resigned to their fate and waiting to be rescued “any day now.”

Immediately, Dieter announces he is going to escape. That’s it. He can’t be talked out of it. He brings American hope and the willingness to explore alternatives that make him the best candidate for escapist-entrepreneur. His sole purpose to escape lifts the film from a prison camp horror tale into a heroic tale of survival. Dieter displays everything America used to believe about itself.

“Rescue Dawn” is really uplifting. The more Dieter and the others are tortured, brutalized, and suffer, the more you cheer for him to never give up. Every difficulty is a challenge he gleefully confronts. The man cannot be defeated.

Dieter’s resourcefulness and strategy encourages the others and they do escape. Free, they all go in different directions. Dieter, with Duane, face even more hardships as Dieter decides they have to walk through the jungle to Thailand.

Bale’s performance deserves Academy Award consideration. After all, does the new Batman need to suffer in the heat, pass up movie star craft services, get filthy, and not have a sex scene with a starlet?

“Rescue Dawn’s” screenwriter-director, Werner Herzog, last directed the documentary “Grizzly Man” using 100 hours of Timothy Treadwell’s (pictured) obsessively videotaped 13 summers in the Alaskan wilderness living with bears. Treadwell never kept the cap on the video camera if there was a bear in sight. He loved himself too much – that clearly comes across. In my opinion, contrary to what everyone says, there is footage of Treadwell being mauled and killed.

I even doubt the audio tape was destroyed.

Last week I had lunch at Fitzcarraldo’s Restaurant and Bar in Iquitos, Peru. The restaurant boasts memorabilia from Herzog’s film, “Fitzcarraldo”. I had just spent 8 days in the Peruvian rainforest and returned to Iquitos for my flight to Lima. I’m fascinated with harrowing man-against-nature adventure stories like Herzog’s “Fitzcarraldo” and “Aguirre: Wrath of God.” As far as heroic stories go, I still think “Into the Void” is just as terrifying as Dieter’s escape in “Rescue Dawn.”

“Aghora ll: Kundalini” by Robert E. Svoboda. This is the second book in a series by Svoboda, the first was “Aghora: At The Left Hand of God” and the third is “Aghora lll: The Law of Karma.

In “Aghora ll,” Svoboda once again reveals the teachings of his mentor Aghori Vimalananda. The Aghori are a Hindu sect, dating from 1000 CE, that worship Lord Shiva. This extremely secretive community lives in graveyards, wear ash from the pyre, and use human bones for rituals. Aghoris prove their faith by challenging pre-conceived notions of the grotesque and find the perfection and beauty in such conventionally taboo notions such as cannibalism.

The eating of corpse flesh may be a once in a lifetime ritual act and mediating while seated upon a corpse, thereby gaining control over the corpse’s spirit. The Aghoris represent a tradition that is thousands of years old, and there have been times that the sect was quite numerous. An Indian documentary, “Feeding on the Dead,” a 10-minute documentary, delves into the sect, who ingest dead flesh in the belief it will make them ageless and give them supernatural powers. (Photo by Ron Lobo from the National Geographic Channel’s series “Taboo: After Death.”)

Las Vegas World Market Center. I’ve spent several days at the World Market Center visiting the showrooms and enjoying the evening parties. This colossus, when completed in 2012 (clearly, the developers haven’t heard that the world will end December 21, 2012), will have more than 12 million square feet of state-of-the-art exhibit space in 8 buildings on 57 contiguous acres in downtown Las Vegas. All segments of the industry will be together on one mega-campus, making it the largest, most comprehensive, most accessible showroom and convention complex in the industry.

They had better work on more on-site parking! Right now, if you go by private car, you have to park a mile away from the main pavilion in the Las Vegas desert heat!

Photo of one of my favorite World Market showrooms, the Scandinavian Collection. President Lena Walther is a friend and also an Honorary Consulate of Sweden in Nevada. Email: Lena@scandinaviancollection.com. www.scandinaviancollection.se

The Las Vegas World Market takes place twice a year in January and July and is open only to members of the retail furniture and design trades. The next event, the Winter 2008 Las Vegas Market, will be held from January 28 - February 1, 2008 at World Market Center Buildings A & B and the Pavilions at WMC as well as the MGM Grand.

UFOs Over Iquitos? Scott Petersen told us he was in contract to buy land that the people living on say is home to UFO ships. Since the land is only 3 miles away from the main building at the Refugio, future guests will be able to stay at a tree house situated above a UFO landing site.

This report comes from a recent article in the Iquitos Times: “For more than 20 years a group of UFO enthusiasts living in Iquitos have been observing the activities of Unidentified Flying Objects. They have never had any contact with these visitors from other galaxies until now.

During the first week of March 2006 Fabian del Cuadro, a local businessman, was watching the skies, almost in a trance and deep in concentration, when he claims he received a telepathic message and he rushed to call a group together. “They are coming tonight” he told them.

Later, Fabian, Aura Guzman and Jamie Guzman set off at sunset to the location given in the message. The location was only some 4 miles out of Iquitos atop a small hill. They waited in anticipation, deeply concentrating awaiting the visitors from outer space. At 1:00 a.m. in the morning in the clear star-filled sky they saw a bright white light. After a second or two they saw the outlines of a flying saucer only 2000 feet above them. Suddenly another ray of light shone down from the craft to the ground followed by the appearance of 4 “beings” who seemed to float just above the ground.

Aura Guzman said: “Our visitors did not have bodies like ours but shapes that seemed transparent like a kind of gas, we could distinguish their faces with eyes and mouths”. The visitors did not speak but sent their words telepathically to the 3 amazed onlookers. Their message was quite clear said Fabian, "They were on earth for just a short time to help humanity and to advise us to live in peace and harmony or a terrible consequence will befall planet earth".

Then in a flash the visitors rose up and disappeared into the bright light above them.

The group was interviewed by a reporter the following day. The reporter said that they did not seem to be crazy but were well respected businesspeople in Iquitos. His only unanswered question was one I would have asked: “Why, for such an important meeting, didn't you bring a camera to record this important event?” http://www.iquitostimes.com/ufo.htm