When Plants Dream by Daniel Pinchbeck

Author:Daniel Pinchbeck
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Watkins Media

PART THREE

THE VINE SPREADS

CHAPTER 9

MEDICINE

At The Assemblage NoMad, a luxurious members-only coworking space on 25th Street and Park Avenue in New York City, Shipibo embroidery hangs on high white walls. Above the bar and across one wall of the lobby is a giant sculpture made out of green moss surrounding sacred geometries. On the floor next to where people work and eat Ayurvedic meals sits a black geometrical pylon, a homage to the monolith that appears at the beginning and end of history in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Adding to the entheogenic glamour, sculpted mushrooms run up the walls. The Assemblage NoMad houses a sound meditation room, nine floors of private offices, a public work area, an extensive library of books related to consciousness exploration, an elixir bar and lounge, and a roof deck where DJs spin electronic beats at alcohol-free sunset gatherings. “We assemble to seek out the best of what is to help ignite the collective imagination of what might be,” reads The Assemblage’s mission statement. The Assemblage was conceived in a vision – an ayahuasca vision.

The visionary founder and CEO of The Assemblage is Rodrigo Niño, a real-estate magnate who once worked with Donald Trump selling condominiums in Trump SoHo. Niño was 41 years old and at the pinnacle of his success when he was diagnosed with cancer in May 2011 – stage 3 melanoma had entered his lymphatic system. At a Boston hospital “they removed the first lymph node from my left groin. They told me it had metastasized. The cancer was in other lymph nodes. Then they removed all of the other nodes from my left groin. This was a very invasive surgery; I couldn’t walk for a month.” Married with kids, revelling in his success in the material world, Niño had never been forced to seriously confront death – the grim prospect of nonbeing.

“In retrospect, I can tell you I was living a very isolated life within my social construct – within my limited understanding of things,” Niño recalls. Confronting a potentially imminent death sentence from cancer – “You wake up inside your worst nightmare. You wake up each morning and you think, I am going to die. How do you start your day like that?” – he went on a search for alternative treatments. He found an article on ayahuasca in the March 2006 issue of National Geographic Adventure entitled “Hell and Back”. The author, Kira Salak, had gone down to the Peruvian Amazon seeking to alleviate depression – to her great surprise, ayahuasca cured her.

Salak began her journey to the Amazon as a hardcore atheist. After a few weeks, her visions began to take on a distinctly religious caste:

I cough violently and watch as demons burst out of me, roaring, only to disintegrate in white light. And before me this enormous image of God! He takes me in his arms and coddles me like a child. I know, unequivocally, that I am loved and have always been loved. That I matter and have always mattered.

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