Chapter One: When You Were Young, You Were the King of Carrot Flowers Yeshua ben Yosef is eighteen years-old. He is the doted-on child of Joseph, a carpenter, and his wife Mary. They are nearly 60 years old and call Yeshua—better known to us as Jesus the Christ—their “miracle baby,” because he arrived in their lives long after they’d given up hope of having a child to love. Jesus works in his father’s carpentry shop. He is developing a reputation for the beautiful designs he paints on all the tables, chairs, and oaken chests he builds. During his off-hours he likes to wander in the desert searching for minerals like hematite, limonite, and lazurite, which he uses to make his pigments and his mother her dyes. One day he came across a plant that was unknown to him. It drew his eye because it had flowers of an orange so brilliant, they seemed to glow. These flowers also smell good, and so Jesus, being the curious sort, eats a petal to see how it tasted. It has an appealing tang, and it
I'm not asking you to believe what I believe or to see the same things or talk to the same gods. I'm inviting you to have your own experience alongside me. What I'm telling you is that we can do the same practice and have our own results. Think of it like yoga. You attend a yoga class, you go through the same asanas in the same order. But with each position, the challenge is personalized. You have your own relationship, your own struggle, and so your experience will be uniquely your own. And you could do it at home, alone. But there's something really fun about sharing experiences with other people. You can support each other, cheer each other on. It's bonding. It's community. It's human. That's what I'm trying to create. The FCDB Shamanic Cabaret is my version of what a group experience could be like. It's built for me, and for people who are like me, who share a lot of my tastes, and are flexible enough to work through the t