Author: Alicia Wheatley

A CRISIS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

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I appreciate that these thoughts are slightly radical, philosophically confusing, and probably too weird for some to digest AT FIRST. But these are thoughts that I have entertained for as long as I can remember, and I’m finally going to attempt to put them into the strange symbolic language we call words. Please bear with me, I think it will be worth it. Let’s start by realising exactly how much you, and I, and every single person take the world for granted. Let’s also think about how we co-construct reality through language, which becomes order, which becomes truth. A topic like this is completely relative and borne out of contradictions, so yes… you’re probably going to hate it. I’m going to start by asking you: what is reality? Do you really think you know what it is? How do you know what it is? Where is it, even? I’m going to assume that, to you, reality is that thing that you sense all around you. The soft leather chair you are sitting on, the apple …

Only me.

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I am learning to sit with the darkness, And deal with the force of pain, From the inside out.   I’ll scream its name, “Show your face!” But mostly it arrives uninvited.   In the middle of the night, When I pray for sweet joys, It’s comes knocking.   Louder, Louder, Louder.   “Face me” it will taunt, As I shy away for the light, But where is the light now?   Nowhere is far enough, To hide from the cries, Of the depths of my soul.   Exhausted and broken, Fetal position, I unwrap my limbs.   “I will endure no more!” I boldly assert, But no one hears.   Because there is nothing. There is no darkness. There is only me.

Vine of the dead, and being alive.

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I feel like it’s about time that I share a very personal story. Six months ago I ventured deep into the Peruvian Amazon with a backpack and a desire to build myself into a stronger and more independent person by pushing every depth of my comfort zone. I didn’t plan to do this alone though, I sought out the help of Mother Ayahuasca. Now, there are a lot of different stories and perceptions of Ayahuasca- especially after recent reports of an Australian man dying, and of many women being taken advantage of by sham Shamans. But one thing is for sure, and that is that every day since I drank my first cup, I have been learning and growing from that experience. Ayahuasca is a brew prepared with sections of the Banisteriopis caapi vine and Chakruna leaves, which are boiled for several hours. Many Shamans add other plants to alter the medicinal properties of the brew, as well as the potency. Ultimately, this is a DMT based brew that has been used ceremoniously by the …

Human rights or political battleground?

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The displacement and consequential hosting of refugees and asylum seekers is a global hot topic right now. In Australia, as part of the lead-up to the 2016 federal election this July, Australia’s contention towards immigration policy is very much alive. With news headlines flooding in enticing questions about the strains refugees will put on Australian jobs, unemployment services such as Medicare, and the Australian culture as an entirety, activists believe that a different stance needs to be adopted by the Australian community. It’s easy to get lost in the political jargon, especially around election time, but one major distinction needs to be made between the definitions of ‘asylum seekers’ and ‘refugees’. According to the Refugee Council, these terms are not interchangeable. A refugee is a person outside of their country of origin who has been found to have valid fear of persecution due to race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, and is unable to seek protection from their country. Alternatively, an asylum seeker is a person seeking protection as …

Earth Day, am I right?

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Humanity’s endeavours for increased human rights are always within the forefront of conversation. Last year The United States joined 21 other countries in legalising same-sex marriage, Fiji became the 99th country to abolish the death penalty, and the discussion on women’s rights is becoming evermore deliberated. Yet, how can the deservingness of moral rights be distinguished between humans and non-human animals, or even other life forms? A common response would focus on human intelligence and social and emotional aptness as a contrast to non-human animals. Yet, as Peter Singer has discussed, there are humans outside of the normal paradigm of reasoning ability, normal emotional responses, and intellectual capacities. Termed ‘marginal-humans’, these humans are argued to include infants, young children, the severely mentally retarded, and those in coma. Singer proposes a dilemma: “If we do not reject the belief that it is wrong to kill severely intellectually disabled humans for food, then we must reject the belief that it is all right to kill animals at the same level of mental development for the same purpose”. …

Consuming Landscapes

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Consuming Landscapes: Images and Imagination The global world, dominated by the consumerist fever of mass tourism, has enticed a variation in the ways that landscapes are consumed. In order to sell a real and genuine experience, tourism companies commonly focus on the value of historic memorabilia, notable cultures, and archaeological sites. In the case of Machu Picchu in Peru, tourism companies have utilised the modern world’s preference for the production of image, along with the commodification of symbolic imageries of the ‘traditional’ and ‘authentic’. Throughout Peru tourists are bombarded with one predominant, constructed and framed view of Machu Picchu (see image A), together with selected narratives of the Inca culture. These tourism techniques not only create a predictable reproduction of Machu Picchu, but further inspire the tourists to continue to reproduce the carefully defined pictorial and narrative constructions of the tourist space. Thus, the construction of the space at Machu Picchu becomes a reflexive performance by both tourism consumers and operators. In that regard, the manufacturing of visual images of a tourist space in turn …

Pursuing safe risk-taking

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Pursuing safe risk-taking: Death Road   “Bolivia’s Death Road: Would You Risk It?” Although Western societies actively seek to mitigate harm to their well-being, many people continue to seek experiences advertised as ‘risky’ or ‘dangerous’. Wilks and Moore discussed that this act of risk-taking is participated in to achieve a state of exhilaration, adrenaline, or well-being that will have short and long-term benefits. While some academics argue that adventure tourism is participated in to counteract the monotony associated with the working life, others discuss role of human desire for social approval, and the relationship with Maslow’s ‘self-actualisation’ and the need to engage in new experiences. The rapidly expanding subgroup of ‘adventure tourism’ is a particularly interesting form of risk-taking. Although participants desire to partake in risk-taking behaviour, they simultaneously choose tourism companies with higher safety records, thus indicating their endeavour to minimise undesirable consequences. This is clear in Bolivia where the two major competing tourism companies for ‘Death Road’, or ‘Camino de la Muerte’, are both companies that use the newest and most regularly serviced …

Redefining consumption of space and community

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Redefining consumption of space and community: Experiences from the Peruvian Amazon The predominant values of Western societies have evolved considerably with the emergence of new technologies and a greater focus on quality of life. The increased economic and physical security of Westerners has created a stronger demand for the right to private and personal space, especially as an authoritative measure, thus gradually steering away from the connectedness of intimate community cultures. Goffman stated that privacy is one of the ways in which we resist the pull of group commitments and reinforce our selfhood. Typically, this has indicated a lesser value of communal helping and sharing, and a higher self-interested value of ‘each for their own’. Although privacy regulation is culturally universal, as Irwin Altman argued in 1975, it is culturally specific in the extent that it is regulated. This importance of regulating privacy and spatial behaviours appears to further correlate with the increased worth of beauty and appearance. Ronald Inglehart noted the worth of beauty in different societies, stating “A desire for beauty may be …

The world through a lens

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Can the creative, controlled, capture of a camera really be as exciting or inspiring as the authentic experience perceived through our complex senses?   Sight. Smell. Hearing. Taste. Touch. If perception itself is stimulated from beyond the purely physical realm, is the perceived reality any more authentic than a photograph?   I am the thinker, and the thought itself. I am, just as you are, the observer and the observed. -J. Krishnamurti All photographs taken in Huaraz, Peru, during a hike to Laguna 69.