The Mythic Story of Andrew

A few weeks ago, Andrew, an Argonaut of the Mythic Voyage, wrote the most touching open letter on Facebook. We are all so moved by his courage, his strength and perseverance and his open heart, and so we asked him if we could put his story on our website and he gave us permission to share it with the world. We love you Andrew, and are so proud of you, you have truly chosen to be mythic!

Dear Family,

If you value our connection, I hope you will take the time to read this. I have wanted to share for a long time, mainly for myself - but have been living in fear of not being good enough. 
Now I know with certainty and clarity, I am.

After a long break from posting any of my own writing on here, I'm now ready to share with you my story, and own it! 
It has been a challenge to stay alive this long, and I have chosen to step up to the plate and actually LIVE. I am proud of who I am today, and I choose!

Here it goes ~

When I was a little child all I wanted to do was play. I wanted to be my own superhero, I wanted to be like Mowgli from The Jungle Book, to be an adventurer, an explorer, a child of the forest. I wanted to live my wildest dreams and be a truly mythical creature. I believed that I could be anything and I was determined to discover the deepest heart of the world, I was excited to learn new things, to laugh and sing and dance and create. I wanted to spread joy and enthusiasm everywhere I went. Though like many of us - at a young age, that all changed.

I grew up quickly and I began to lose the awe that once was the essence of my entire life. The sunset wasn't so magical, the sounds of the forest weren't so enthralling, my joy and happiness were no longer so welcome - my songs hushed and my dancing shunned. I began to believe that there was something inherently wrong with me, that there was something wrong with everything. I needed a savior and I wasn't it, and there was none to be found. At around 8 years old I started to learn about sex, about rape, pornography, humiliation, shame and guilt. I no longer lived in love with life, but in fear and anxiety. I was watching my mother be abused and abusing herself through her choices, and I learned to relate to women this way. I watched her choose men that treated her like garbage and I learned how to be a man in this way. I was taught unconscious beliefs and programming that eventually almost killed me, that wounded me so deeply that I made terrible and disgusting choices in my life - choices that hurt myself, that hurt women and the people I care about the most. I became disrespectful and completely inconsiderate. A total asshole and a brat. I became numb. 
I lost my connection to Little Andrew, locked him away to keep him safe, gave him a disguise and forced him to hide. There was no room in this world for innocence.

I was always a really little guy, a real shorty - and because our society and much of humanity has held such twisted perspectives and collective beliefs on where strength and beauty come from, I was ridiculed and tormented, made fun of and left behind. Tortured, away from feeling beautiful and proud, to feeling scared and insecure. I quickly learned to defend myself, to instill fear in others so I could make it through my days, to get angry and violent, to conquer, dominate and overshadow. This was the only way I knew how to get respect. Being vulnerable did not seem like an option, it was not socially accepted - and that is what I learned was most important - to fit in, to be liked, to seek approval. It became my ultimate priority - being liked, at least on the surface.

At 10 years old I started smoking tobacco, and at 12 I was drinking, doing drugs, smoking heavily and hanging out with kids much older than me - getting into some pretty crazy shit. At 14 I began having sex often, doing ecstasy, and became a total addict to sex, drugs and doing nothing. At 15 I was selling cocaine and pills, fighting with everyone I knew, involved in gangs and carrying weapons around. At 16 I began cooking crack and selling it on the streets downtown, involved with very real and very dangerous gang life, having angry, empty sex and killing myself slowly.

I dropped out of school. I was selling a lot at this point and began doing cocaine heavily - I locked myself away in an apartment away from home, to suffer in solitude and silence. I was dying, one way or another, and I was completely fucked. My mother married a good man at this point, and wanted to move to the mountains. She said I could stay there and die or end up in jail, or I could come with her and change my life.

Something inside of me screamed out, and I knew what I had to do, so I packed my bags and left the next day - into the mountains, to find a life of peace and happiness. This moment, this choice - changed my life forever. I got a dog and called him Sugar Bear, started chopping wood and spending time in the forest again, singing, laughing, finding specs of joy wherever I could. I began working for my money, snowboarding, building things, playing, creating, learning about plants and spirit, learning about love and life. I started to yearn to travel and explore the world again. I was living a new life and I wanted to see who I could become, who I really was.

I was always musical, but never fully took anything on, especially as I grew up - other than some freestyle rap battles at parties and that kind of thing. I decided to go to Victoria and begin to learn about the world. I bought a guitar and got a Greyhound and hit the road. On the bus I found out I could play the guitar pretty well, and started to sing too. I kind of sounded like Bob Dylan for a while and really embraced it, it was cool to be somebody else. I then started playing blues and all different styles and discovered I could sound like many different types of artists. I played a lot of blues and country, a variety of music and people liked it.. but something was wrong. I still didn't feel like myself, I still didn't actually like myself. I was still insecure, afraid, guilty and ashamed and lost. I grew more and more as time went on, into this new life, that was better than the one I had known but I still wasn't happy, I didn't even think that was what I wanted. I developed a new relationship to drugs and women, that was again different than before but really no better than my previous relationship to them. Slowly but surely, with the use of psychedelic tools like LSD and Psylocibine, I began to wake up from my life long slumber. I began to see that I was not truly happy, but I wanted to be. I didn't know what I wanted, but I sure wanted to find out.

At this point I was in a relationship with a beautiful woman who I mistreated and lied to, I was becoming addicted to these heart and mind opening substances, and feeling lost and without direction. I needed a big change again, or I would not live.

That was 3 years ago, and after having lived such a completely shitty, depressing and confusing life, I decided to make that change. I could no longer go on living in such disgust with who I was, I wanted to be somebody with meaning to my life.

I heard from a close friend about a magical place in Peru called Tierra Mitica, where I could go to sit with the spirit of The Grandmother Ayahuasca with the Shipibo-Conibo elders of the Amazon, and learn how to live a truly beautiful life. It was no joke and it was expensive, and priceless. I would have to do what it took to make it my reality. Little did I know, it was much more than a few ceremonies, but an entire deep-sea exploration of my beliefs and programming - a Mythic Voyage - an opportunity to take full responsibility for who I was and who I wanted to be - to step fully into my power as a being of choice. I uncovered truths and lies, pains and pleasures, and relived some of my worst childhood memories - with the awareness of how to love them and see them with clarity and compasssion. I reconnected with the little boy inside of me and I saved him from the dark dungeon of depression, to bring him with me and hold his hand - to lead the most mythic life that I had always dreamed of but never previously imagined possible. I received the most beautiful gifts, and I am forever grateful beyond explanation. Tierra Mitica is thriving and glowing brighter than ever these days - they are no longer continuing to implement the Ayahuasca into the Mythic Voyages as the work has shown us how to do this without the need for the plant brew, and the new workshops and retreats are now called Choice OS - workshops to discover the power of choice in our human operating systems, to live truly happy lives of peace, joy and passion, with clarity and purpose. After I returned from the Mythic Voyage, my mom could feel me buzzing with feeling, she could see me radiating and feel my heart's cry for her to love herself. She too chose to go to Tierra Mitica, as did several other close friends over time, all of whos lives are changed forever, for now everything is in reach and all dreams are possible. It is obvious now, they always were and we just didn't know it. There are so many paths to loving ourselves.

So, since then - I have been working VERY hard to create the life I dream of - a life that makes me truly proud. A life of purpose, love and respect, honesty and integrity, responsibility and power, compassion and understanding, trust and peace, vision and direction, joy and inspiration, and ultimately and no matter what - a life of HAPPINESS!!!

This is where its at for me now - where the jamz is - the most delicious majestic mythicly epic life I could have ever asked for, and I am learning more and more every moment of every day that I receive the gift of this life.

There is much more to this story, but I feel that it is irrelevant and can be omitted without taking away from the juicy-jist of this offering.

Today, I am studying with many elders and great teachers, to be able to see how to fully share my deepest gifts with this world, with our human family. I am mending my relationships to women, to my sexuality, to my friends and peers, and most of all my relationship to myself. I am loving every second of it and I don't regret a thing, for the life I live now and my story of how I got here, is truly the most beautiful and fantastic . I trust in the divine, and I know that EVERYTHING is EXACTLY as it should be, and I want to share this delight with all you beautiful beings, for you too, are EXACTLY, divinely, deliciously as you should be, and I love you.

I am presently working diligently to sharpen my tools and cultivate my offerings - to better communicate with skill, authenticity and humbleness, to embody the greatest human virtues such as patience and persistence, and I am loving being wrong, and loving every step of the way. I am learning and growing at an incredible speed, and unbecoming all the bullshit that doesn't serve my happiness so I can become myself, and I am.. ME! 
I've made lots of mistakes and failed heaps, and I'm having a blast the whole way through!

I apologize if I have been an inconsiderate, condescending, preachy, know-it-all, asshole. I am learning - to be more in love with my process and therefor yours as well. I am discovering how to be a good friend, an attentive student and a gentle teacher.

One thing is for sure, I am willing and sincere.
..and I actually CARE. My strength is in my heart - and this is what being a great man (and human) is all about.

I do want people to like me, I really really like people! 
I just don't give a flying fuck if you like me or not if it means I am giving up my truth - what serves my happiness, or making choices based on others liking me. 
My heart is my compass, and I follow it precisely.

I love you all with the whole of my heart and I look forward to sharing myself with you fully - through art, music, dance, workshops, medicine, ceremony, teachings, conversation, gathering, practice, and simply having a really good time kickin' it together!

So today, I - Andrew Johnson - am a very very VERY proud man.

Thank you for being in my life and loving me so, thank you for teaching me how to feel deeper and listen closer, thank you for walking beside me and shining brightly when I did not know how. Thank you for taking the time to read this and seeing into my world.

THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING!
I'M SO STOKED TO BE HERE!

LOVE & GRATITUDE,
your brother ~ Andrew