Where two or more are GatheredOvercoming Adversity with a focus on Human Connection and Abundant BlessingsVersion 0.5by Joshua Aaron Chaumont-Terziu

A young child wakes up from the bosom of the Mother finding itself called to Learn. A call fueled by an insatiable quest for personal bestment in order to raise up family and be the best parent, partner and person possible. Thanking God for the remembrance of the Echos of Her voice, he can feel her saying 'You can do anything you put your mind to; you are deserving of love just as you are;' Said with the confidence of an experienced overcomer, a Mother can really imprint the capacity of self discovery and turning big ideas into real life experience unto a child's physiology. The other voice that rings in this child's ear, this time from his Nanny dear Aunt Debbie, 'If you learn and master Mathematics, you can do and understand anything. You can become President of the United States if you want to!'

At age 3, my Mother needed to be in rehabilitation in order to receive some special care and help with her problems with addictions and co-occurring psychological disorders, both of which had nothing to do with me or were because of me. My Mother thoroughly explained this to me so I would know straight up what was going on with her as she was admitted; for she understood and raised me to be understanding as well. See before this point my Mother had taught me to express the spectrum of my feelings from I love you mom on down the line; but if something was off, we needed to talk about what we both could do to make it better. Not why are you mad, not who's wrong or right, not as something I deserve or am entitled to feel. It simply gives all involved an opportunity to make things better. This was coupled with a strong emphasis on creative story telling from an uninhibited imagination. So geared with this, I prepared to be with what I’d considered extended family, altruistic strangers. I remember getting a bowl of cereal. Immediately recognizing that it was not my favorite, I asked for something else. The care giver's reply was, “If you don't like what we have to eat, you don't have to eat.” Her directness gave me a jolt of realization that I should be thankful for ANYTHING I have to eat. I went from defining whatever was gifted to me in the moment in relation to an arbitrary past preference to defining whatever is gifted and available as something to first Appreciate. After a couple of nights of crying myself to sleep really missing my mother, I finally asked for an extra pillow to cuddle with. As I laid there inducing the feelings of being with my mother, I felt the FULL PRESENCE of my Mother within my

own heart, within my own being, and I instantaneously realized she always Was with me and always Will be. This redefining of my Mother from an outside entity that could be here or not, to a very real experiential Internal Presence, is Healing in the Highest Sense.

A couple of years later, as I was better able to see myself in relation to others, I grieved greatly for not having and knowing my Father. It was not often I swam the seas of tears and emotions that come with the feelings of lacking the presence of the Father, if not too much more than a handful of times in my entire early lifetime. The very first experience with this suffering brought not only intense crying, but an immediate recognition of all of the beautiful men and women in my life who had Fathered me in various ways in a manner that expressed the best of what a Father could be. I then felt as if the whole universe was my Father, and that the specific player of the role may continuously change, but my Father remained. This, too, I knew to be inside of my own being. Before the age of 6, I understood that these intense moments of suffering were very real catalysts for realizations and redefinitions that I can cherish and benefit from eternally. Naturally, my relationship and definition of suffering has been one of up-most Appreciation and Respect. Rest assured, I would still have an interesting challenge learning to pay attention to All-That-Is as an Abundant Blessing and Unconditionally telling stories that reflect what I really believe to be Truth.

At age 19, I began to heal from an accident where my best friend and I where hit by a drunk driver, resulting in the death of Aaron and the new birth inside Myself. This new Birth started as what seemed like an undertow but instead of waves and sand, it was a car at 65 miles per hour, and rocks, glass and cement that rearranged and interpenetrated my being. I come to a restful stop sitting up in a fetal position where the road meets the ditch on River Road somewhere between Downtown Baton Rouge and the LSU campus. I glance to see Aaron has flown further and is laying on his side, clearly not breathing in a pool of blood. I immediately knew I needed to stand up, but it felt like my back was broken. I stood up with an accompaniment of screams that resided somewhere between war cries that help push one forward and the gnashing of teeth and wailing from the valley below. This culminated in experiencing a blackness seeping in and overcoming my consciousness until all that was left was what seemed like a molecule, an atom of red which then brightens my awareness to visually make out my reality in shades of red. This would be my experience of putting on the Rose colored glasses of my college daze. As I stand there waving my arms, two cars pass from each direction without hesitation, leaving me to wonder if I was even there... At that moment, two vehicles stop to help. The first was a wrecker service that I

immediately direct to help Aaron as I sit back down in my fetal position and rock gently back and forth. The other vehicle was a nursing student, who I immediately direct to my camel pak that I must have gracefully taken off in mid-flight. I let her know that the phone ringing in it is my fiancé and to please explain to her what has just happened. The ambulances arrived faster than normal because there had been a rodeo downtown. This contributed to my not bleeding to death. As I am loaded up, I hear the paramedics saying that they have one of us dead on site and expecting me to be dead on arrival. Keep in mind, instead of the word dead he used number codes, but I clearly got the gist. My immediate reaction to riding with this pain was to be with it. Really feel it, all the while giving thanks to those to have suffered and sacrificed for the betterment of others, having as a strong focus the story of Christ and those in my life who had put aside immediate gratification so that my life could be better... When I arrive at the hospital, as my clothes are being cut off I ask the nurse if I’d make it, thinking that if I was conscious and well enough to have calm discourse I’d clearly be fine. He tells me in a most sincere and concerned manner that he had seen worse make it. They could not administer anything to alleviate pain until they were sure of all of the internal damage. This resulted in 2 to 3 hours of just being with it all, panting like a dying dog on the side of a slow country road. During this time I had to move around in order to take x-rays and scans all cut up from head to toe with a fractured pelvis. This was made easier with the support of the nurses. At one point, they told me that a doctor was coming in to put his hand inside of my gaping wound to feel around and see if my internal organs are ruptured. Remember, I’m feeling EVERYTHING. He comes in and tells me to turn on my side so he can gain access to my insides. I say ok just give me a second. And I mean, not one-Mississippi had gone by, this doctor lets out a tiff like I’m just ruining his day and didn't just get hit by a car... I immediately respond with one of those war wailing cries as I turn over, and thankfully, no internal ruptures or bleeding. My fiancé arrived two hours after receiving the call from three hours away. Before she comes in the room, some of her friends who were already there made it a point to ask the nurses if they could wipe up some of the blood before she came into the room. They started wiping the floor, walls, and machines that had been blessed with my life blood. During the process, I remained light. I remember a nurse trying to find, unsuccessfully, a place to inject a local anesthetic in order to put a stitch in my eyelid. I began to laugh and said, “Considering what I’d been through, I can handle it. We'll call it my Superman stitch.” About a month later, I started to become angry at the person who hit us. I channeled this into a work out regime which at the time was optimal and even healthy, but would not remain so. After being mad and bulking up, I began to channel my anger in visions of revenge. I went so far as to finding the address of the man involved in the hit-and-run. It then got to a point to

where I was seeing myself kicking open his door with a sawed-off shotgun wanting to impose my will and cast my judgment in ways that I can leave to your own poetic imaginings. This immediately stimulated me to stop and consider how I really felt, and feel, about this person... A wave of Unconditional Love came to the surface from the depths of my own being, revealing my love not only for this person, but for any and all people... After this, I understood that being honest and experiencing Hate is a Catalyst for a deeper, more profound Love. An intense redefinition occurred. Hate is not bad, nor does it oppose love; it can be used to stimulate a spectrum of action, but more than anything else, it is always a Catalyst for the realization and experience of a deeper Personal Expanded Love. I then began to redefine any challenging experience as a Catalyst for more Love.

Around three years later, I got a call early in the morning from my family back home letting me know that my mother in a hit-and-run accident, was on life support and not expected to last much longer. I hauled ass from Baton Rouge to Lake Charles. My mother held on until I got there, allowing me to talk and sing to her for a few hours before she died. At this point, I was learning to define everything as an Abundant Blessing and then process the particulars. I chose the perspective that my mom had been released from what was on one hand a life long struggle with multiple personality disorder and co-occurring addictions and on the other, a woman who changed peoples' lives for the better. Two-hundred and seventy people showed up to her funeral and almost all of them made it a point to tell me, “Madeline is the reason I’m clean today.” “Mimi is the reason I passed this class, or even went to school.” All this from what society may consider nobodies on up to doctors. I felt that if I’d helped one person in the way she helped plenty, I’d be more than happy to die. Now, I could have been devastated over the fact that I was just now starting to open up and empathize with my mother after having been away from her on a permanent basis since age seven, or beat myself up cause I'd wasted time being cold and callous toward her in my late teens. I would dive deeply into these feelings and ones far more intense, and really enjoyed the experience of loss and grief. Because I chose to focus on the blessings of the situation and honestly dived into the full spectrum of emotions while continually expressing my appreciation for it all as well, I was able to see the tangible benefit of the situation, even in the midst of the storm. Just as wonderful, the minute thoughts and realizations of potential negativity, although sometimes accompanied with intense emotion, began to continuously become more and more resolved. As my main focus was on the Growth and Healing, the tiny waves of negativity began to bring with it more and more tangible resolve with each recurrence. The negativity had no fertile ground to expand, so as it kept popping up, the only thing that could

expand from it was tangible resolve and integration into All-That-Is being an Abundant Blessing. All I did, do, or can do to create Growth and to allow the Healing is to Define EVERYTHING as an ABUNDANT BLESSING, Pay close attention to everything being as such, and express sincere tangible appreciation for All-That-Is in any Given Moment.

I had been having a bit of a hard time before I started to practice reverence for cannabis. I had recently watched my best friend die from a hit-and-run accident that almost killed both of us while we were riding our bikes just outside LSU campus. On top of that I was working 20 to 30 hours a week while taking a full time schedule at Louisianan State University, which I promise ain't no joke. On top of all this I was extremely ornery with God and the world at large. Needless to say I needed some relief. I then encountered the medical reality behind cannabis and that many people throughout history have used it as an entheogen in order to strengthen their relationship to God. See in high school I was still riding high on the childhood imagination that my mother helped me cultivate so well. Didn't hardly drink or smoke, especially compared to my peers at Sulphur High, nor did I trip at all when I was younger. I was too busy laughing at the world, making good grades without doing homework and becoming a 1st team all-district defensive end.

On top of all this I was not at all ready for the coldness of 'secular' social life in the academic and business worlds. I come from a Cajun, Kréyol, Coonass background born and raised in Brownsville Lake Charles, Louisiana till I was 7. We were not only taught to care for all people, to us it was the normal thing to do, because the example was set in the way of life around us. Back then, before the hood was glamorized notoriously, it was a place where people supported one another with a cup of sugar, mutual respect and care.

When people gather under the banner to seek relief and share space with respect and care, a brilliant synchronistic psychoneuroimmunological reaction occurs in the bodies of those open to love in this micro-moment of biological positivity. Sharing joyous space with other people is the strongest medicine known to man, the driving force behind the placebo effect, and healing and enhancement in general. The Cannabis culture was my first encounter with another modern culture similar to my own. The cannabis plant was my first encounter with God in (outside) matter, an entheogenic experience that has helped me seed God in all things.

The practice of our roots will lead us to find similar people out in the world and expand upon the ways in which you practice praising and glorifying Creation. One

other culture I became familiar with was the Way of Infinite Harmony, a Taoist spiritual practice that sees Cannabis as holding the Spirit of Princess Ma Gu. These are the same characteristics I see in my wife. Cannabis helped my wife and I greatly during our first pregnancy. We where praised by all who helped and were involved in our pregnancy as being magnificent in the ways in which Laura cared for her body and mind. Keep in mind we spent literally all of our waking time together, had money saved and cheep rent. This coupled with a daily practice of reverence helps us have wonderful births, healthy children and have a perfect life. Keep in mind this includes the integration of all ranges of all kinds of intensities. For our second birth, we had integrated another similar culture into our practice. This time it was Tai Chi Chih, a non-martial set of 19 movements and one pose, and literally means knowledge of the supreme ultimate. Our second birth was an all-natural, no pain, amazing gift from God for our good Work. We showed up at the hospital at three in the afternoon, had him in our arms at 6PM.

My wife and I then came across another culture similar to our own, that not only gathered under the banner of mutual respect and care and used cannabis as a spiritual supplement that we call Santa Maria, but also used one of the strongest entheogens known to man, Ayahuasca. In Brazil where it comes from, it is usually practiced as a living faith community almost identical to the way Cajuns had lived since they established one of the very first settlements in North America, other than our native bothers and sisters. They did it as a faith community with no false governmental authority, carrying mutual respect and care for all people, especially women and children. Santo Daime and Cajun also share the worship of the Divine Feminine, our Divine Holy Mother, who cares and loves for all things.

The spiritual Works held by the Santo Daime are not to be taken lightly and should be seen as a great joy if you ever get the pleasure to interact with this most holy doctrine of shared internal exploration. My wife and I spent almost a year and a half with the local church. We started saying Hail Marys before we consecrated Santa Maria. And more importantly, we took paying attention to our lives as meaningful, all important and completely up to us in which direction it can go. Our relationship with each other was healed and strengthened during and forever after our time with Daime.

In looking back on my experience with Santo Daime, I must focus on the results and the developing Philosophie. I now have a clearer understanding of my inner world and a greater degree of direction over my unique way of processing. Our expression and experience of life is a direct result of our awareness of the internal processes that are specific to us and our ability to work with and metabolize what we find inside ourselves. The sacrament of the Daime Work provides an individual with the sacred

space, place and intention to open all doors up for integration and betterment. The sacrament of Cajun Communion provides an individual with the sacred space, place and intention to open all interpersonal interactions up for integration and betterment. Combining these two has been to the Up Most benefit. In traveling through passages within one's Self, it becomes clear that a focus on there being a Greater Good is a necessity in keeping the very fabric of your personal consciousness intact. Your very ability to experience relies on your capacity to identify this Greater Good within you. God goes from being a notion to your Gumption. The understanding resulting from my wife and I's experience with Mestre Irineu is ineffable and tangible. In His own words passed down, “Within an individual lies a set of Superior and inferior Attractions. This knowledge put into practice brings about the Perfection of one's Personality.” The validity of this realization, as brought to light the preceding short stories, is that our every day personal interactions are launch pads for Divinity measured undeniably in optimal physiological and psychological functioning and have a Neurogenic Epigenetic Epiphenomenonal Influence on the Societal Organism's Optimal Functioning. From one's place, one can heal the world. From one's place, one can experience the Mysteries and full Force of Creation's Firmament. This practiced on a day-to-day basis is in Line with Mestre and the king of Science. The result of any good Divine Experiment, spiritual Work, and Present Day should be, at the very least can be, a permanent increase in Internal recognition of one's Place. From this we can choose to generate Superior Attraction with all that one encounters, taking it in the direction of a Greater Good by reaching for better and better thoughts about our current moment experience, no matter how intense, while attributing all Force to an even Higher Power and a Greater Good. It becomes evident that salvation rests in the individual's ability to relate and express the Superior Set of Attractions within. This is Set in Stone in the Firmament. It is not, however, static or a destination. This is Eternal Life, Infinity moving forward in All Directions. A beautiful man of the Doctrine shared with me his way of understanding this, saying, “The Challenge is always greater, but it's never as bad as it was.” For me, the Challenge is mustering up ways of expressing Unconditional Love and Appreciation through all terrains of Energetic and Emotional Beingness. Having Experienced and Now Knowing the Force within and the Eternal Movement Forward, it can Never be as bad as it was when my day-to-day behavior was less in line with my insides. While under the Guidance and Protection of the strongest Entheogen know to man, Imagine every cell of your body being surrounded by all of the nastiest personalities that ever existed, turning everything you've ever done into gross and gruesome beyond any possible imagining or experience. The awareness is clear that Any attachment to Any thing other than a focus that all is well and God is Good, could send one's very Being into the Mouth of Marachimbe. To not

only Psychically survive, and to not be Emotionally affected, but also to be strengthened by such an experience, is to be tangibly released from interpersonal fears at the very least, and at most sends one into a greater level of Altruistic Self-Mastery. Forever Praised Be to one of my Best Friends Santo Daime.

Eu Sou Filho de Deus

Through connecting to our roots and studying what is actually good for the body, we where able to find cultures and practices that created genuine interpersonal connectedness with others in a way that elicits optimal human function. The major tool that is a common denominator in all of our practices is actively working to see all things as a blessing and as having a certain kind of value, regardless of initial evaluation while communing with other people. Right there in a close second is the Guidance of the Divine Feminine that Santa Maria and Princess Ma Gu provide and the psychoneuroimmunological benefits created by the relationships sustained through shared Cannabis, along with the physiological effects of the plant itself.

Since all this has taken place I have revved up my studies, developing the field of Creative Conscious Mathematics and consider myself a Cognitive Engineer. More importantly, I have merged my identity with my wife and Love itself dedicating myself to providing an optimal environment of proper growth for my children.

What I've learned is that the main practice is a micro-moment of shared positivity with as many people who show up in your day and are open to a mutually beneficial exchange.

If you enjoyed my short story, you may enjoy our short film....

The Jah Tzu Youtube Channel Short Film Mix Tape https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAHLAVo_OHg