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| Elizabeth Bast and Chor Boogie speaking on Bast's book, Heart Medicine: A True Love Story San Francisco Theosophical Society, March 4, 2016 |
She is a poet, yoga teacher, yogic lifestyle coach, performance artist, fusion temple dancer, healer, musician, mother, and now an author. Yes, Bast has written a book, Heart Medicine: A True Love Story, and like all of her many other offerings, it is both powerful and beautiful.
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| Heart Medicine: A True Love Story by Elizabeth Bast Available from Amazon.com |
Drenched in Eros, fueled on Agape, Heart Medicine is a tale of mystical adventure and healing, in which danger, despair, intimacy and revelation thread through each other to weave a new reality for the Tantric priestess Elizabeth Bast and her paramour, the globally renowned spray paint artist Chor Boogie.
Heart Medicine is a compelling narrative that follows these two gifted beings in the desperate race to save his life and their marriage. As the book jacket promises, it is the story of "One Couple's Quest for the Sacred Iboga Medicine and the Cure for Addiction."
"Five days left before takeoff, Chor and I were driving the car, somewhere between the grocery store and FedEx, when quite unexpectedly, I became an oracle for a moment. My lips parted, and an ancient, beneficent being spoke to Chor through me: 'You will be crowned again as king of your Self. You will be able to speak to those who no one else can reach. You will illuminate many.' Gasp. Where did that come from? The words carried a solid confidence that I didn't possess at that moment. I had been filled with fear and cynicism, yet I was proceeding forward with our plans anyway. I couldn't take any credit for being brave. Nowhere else to go, nothing else to do. 'We'll see,' said Chor, likely harboring the same desperate, dismal attitude as I." -- Heart Medicine: A True Love Story, p. 140.
It is auspicious that Bast's book has been published in this Year of the Yang Fire Monkey.
We are all on the cusp of a great shift, all of us, collectively and individually.
Collectively, there is so much to cope with, e.g., the Climate Crisis, which is already ripping the planet's natural cycles to shreds, the related ecocide known as the Sixth Great Extinction, which threatens to annihilate as much as 30-50% of all species by mid-century, and of course, the Mondo Bizarro Trumpster Fire center-stage in the U.S. presidential election, and all of it is seemingly fusing into an echo chamber of catastrophe. Meanwhile, individually, as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, each of us is struggling, clawing, scrapping just to get by, carrying with us the heaviness of all of our wounds, all of our losses, all of our griefs. However wounded, however conflicted, however confused, here we are. We have been brought to this moment.
And a great shift is calling to us. We must rise, we must heal. Simultaneously.
At such moments, portals open. And there are portals opening all around us. Some beings are themselves portals, their very presence offers a threshold for others to cross over into a deeper experience of life. My friend Bast is such a portal. And yes, there are portals that open within portals. Thus, from within the portal of her own being, Bast has brought forth this book, and it too is a portal.
Heart Medicine is a portal that leads the reader on a wormhole journey into healing and self-discovery. Heart Medicine is an adventure story. It invites you to ride the rivers of intimacy and authenticity deeper and deeper into the realm of human relationship. Once inside of the pages of this book-portal, you will be offered a glimpse into the mysteries of plant medicine. Yes, yet another portal for you to step through if you feel called to do so. Like Ayahuasca, San Pedro, Peyote and Psilocybin, Iboga can be experienced as a vehicle for the integration, transformation and expansion of consciousness. These plant medicines have been in use since before the beginning.
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| Elizabeth Bast and Chor Boogie Photo by Ananda Ray |
Here is another sip ...
"The warmth returned. The trembling was softer this time. A deep peace washed over me. My mind was a vast tranquil ocean. I felt the sweet arms of Mother God and Father God wrapping gently around me, their adored child. For quite awhile, the medicine felt so subtle, and I felt a sense of relief. Maybe it will be light tonight. Unbeknownst to me then, the medicine was slowly gearing up to gift me with a different kind of roller coaster. It seemed intentional, even destined, that the Bwiti music was reaching me through space and time, on those particular nights, through that device, there in that little makeshift temple in Costa Rica. I felt the benevolent sound healing many layers of my being. The elaborate patterns of the percussion were continually disrupting the habitual downward spirals of my mind. I sent thanks to the musicians, wherever they were. The exuberant music communicated: Life! Life! Life! Keep dancing! Keep drumming! Keep singing! Keep on keeping on! Keep creating, exploring, hunting, feasting, giving, growing, birthing, being, loving, living! Yes! More life! I could see Moughenda in my vision, watching over us like a good shepherd. There was a translucent collective of souls with him. I knew this was his tribe in Africa. They stood behind him, all energetically bonded and supporting him, forming a single being with many hearts. They had become intimate and synergistic in ways that felt alien to my individualistic American culture. I remembered my questions. I wanted to dive deeper into them. I served as my own guide and inquired with the medicine directly. How can I master my mind in order to release my fear? The medicine responded: Imagine yourself to be a redwood tree. Hmm. Interesting answer. I suddenly felt myself to be a redwood tree being grounded, still, quiet, ancient, wise, strong yet gentle, immense yet inconspicuous. I perceived the timeless awareness of the noble tree: watching and waiting, protecting and whispering. My roots stretched deep into the fertile underground internet of Gaia. My branches and evergreen needles reached up and out toward the connected to all. I was so interwoven with heaven and earth that my individual borders blurred into oblivion. I was but a thread in the infinite divine latticework." -- Elizabeth Bast, Heart Medicine: A True Love Story, p. 247-249.
To get a copy of Heart Medicine: A True Love Story, visit Amazon.com
For more information on Bast's many offerings, visit http://www.ebast.net/
For a taste of Chor Boogie's amazing art, visit http://chorboogie.com/
-- Richard Power, Author, Speaker, Yoga Teacher
