​We don't make art for the applause. We make art because we MUST—or our soul will starve to death. You know.

And on a deeper level, my ego can't take personal credit for the art that I make. My job is to get out of the way, more than it is to "accomplish" anything.

The act of writing my book about our healing journey with the sacred iboga medicine was a practice of surrender, letting spirit weave the story that wanted to birth itself through the etched vessel that is me.

I had no idea if anyone would even "like" the book that came through me because it was so... radical. With ruthless honesty, I revealed our most intimate struggles. It wasn't a flattering work, but I knew I had to do it, even to help one person by sharing our story.

But when applause happens, it's nice. It is. This means that someone found the creation to be useful, and it is good to feel useful within the human hive. It's just a human thing.

​So thank you! I am honored and grateful that Heart Medicine recently won the National Indie Excellence Award for the Spiritual category, and it was the top finalist for the Addiction Recovery category. It was also a finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards for the New Age category, and received an honorable mention in the San Francisco Book Festival. Yay! 

And I gotta add, it was truly a tribal process to birth the book. I couldn't have done it without the blessing of Moughenda Mikala, the generous and skilled shaman we worked with, and my beloved husband, Chor Boogie aka Joaquin Lamar Hailey, for his courage to be so transparent, steady support for this project, and beautiful ART, the multifaceted maestra Anandha Ray for the book cover design, author photo, and love, Mark Weiman of Regent Press for his wonderful production skill, and all the magical ones who contributed quotes!

Dancing for people is all well & good, but don't forget to dance for the many other honored guests... the sun, moon, the sacred plants, the spirit of water, fire, earth, air... the ancestors... the many nature spirits... nagas, yakshinis...

Temple dancers, offer the these secret performances, and venture ever deeper into what it means to be a sacred vessel.

Love, e.


Photo by the maestra & women's empowerment coach Robin Clark.

Like Ayahuasca, San Pedro (Wachuma), Peyote, and Psilocybin mushrooms, iboga is considered a sacred plant teacher or “master plant” by indigenous people and has been taken in ceremonies since ancient times for spiritual and physical healing. More recently, iboga has been proven to have powerful addiction-breaking effects in medical studies.

The story begins in early 2014, when Chor Boogie experienced a drug relapse after being clean for over 13 years. Disheartened by the toxic pharmaceutical treatment options for opiate addiction and the low rates of long-term recovery offered by traditional Western treatment programs, Bast began to research iboga. Initially intimidated and skeptical, Chor Boogie finally agrees to try this radical treatment to deal with his addictions.

The couple navigates the treacherous labyrinth of addiction and searches to find the right iboga provider. Their quest leads them to a 10th generation African Bwiti shaman with a healing retreat center in Costa Rica and extensive experience treating addictions with iboga.

This story reveals that iboga is not a “magic bullet.” Rather, success with iboga requires strong intentions and full participation during the rigorous ceremony—as well as aftercare and integration.

The medicine not only helped to heal Chor Boogie’s addiction, it also purified and enriched their relationship. The book is a passionate love story as well as a chronicle of the iboga experience. The reader is privy to a veritable rollercoaster of deepening intimacy: vulnerable confessions, mystical sensual encounters, and courageous emotional breakthroughs.

This story presents a timely topic, as the Governor of Vermont is now considering an addiction treatment trial with ibogaine (the active alkaloid in iboga) for the very first time in the US. This is highly progressive, as iboga and ibogaine are currently illegal in the US, along with all other psychoactive medicines.

Heart Medicine: A True Love Story is due to be publicly released May 15th, 2016 and will be available online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and at select retail stores. The book is co-published by Medicinal Media Press and Regent Press, known for the work of Ralph Metzner, an acclaimed scholar of entheogens and a Harvard research associate of Timothy Leary and Ram Dass.


ISBN Complete:       978-0-9971213-1-5  Hardback  /  $32.95 USD
                                 978-0-9971213-0-8  Paperback  /  $19.95 USD
                                 978-0-9971213-2-2  E-Book  /  $9.99 USD
Page Count:            402


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

E. Bast serves as a writer, poet, award-winning yoga teacher, yogic lifestyle coach, visual and performance artist, fusion temple dancer, and musician. She studied at New College of San Francisco with an emphasis on Art and Social Change. Since 2007, she has co-created with notable spray paint artist, Chor Boogie, producing numerous collaborative works of visual and performance art at galleries, museums, and special events. She is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area. For more information, visit www.ebast.net.


ABOUT CHOR BOOGIE:

San Francisco-based Chor Boogie, aka Joaquin Lamar Hailey, is an internationally acclaimed spray paint artist. His visionary murals and art exhibitions have graced many countries across the globe. Societe Perrier honored him as number three among their Top Ten U.S. Street Artists of 2014. He painted several series of iboga inspired paintings after his healing ceremonies, and these pieces have since graced the cover of the popular journal for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. His artwork is serving as the official imagery for the 2016 National Harm Reduction Conference in San Diego. For more information, visit www.chorboogie.com.


*Journalists, please view the full media kit HERE.

I LOVE beings. Beautiful radiant crazy wild devoted dangerous strong weak beings.

I see the divinity in ordinary humans. They glow… with subtle halos. I am filled with awe daily. I marvel... How does it all happen? How do these beings come to exist? What a show!

...Somehow I am able to navigate my mundane tasks while existing in this dumb-struck state of awe.

Feminine beings catapult me into a special flavor of awe. Women & the Female-in-spirit. The dreamers of creation. Their feminine power effortlessly clears my mind and softens my heart. Women, rooted to the earth while synced to the sky via lunar cycles. The mothers. The Grandmothers. Women seem to float a few inches above the ground.

I am a Goddess-worshipper. Something about the feminine face of God sparks my heart. It's not about which gender is better. It's just a profound, inexplicable, destined affinity. Perhaps it's just my place in the cosmic mandala of devotees. There is balance in all things.

So, as I make my way through city streets, subway trains, errands, anywhere in the rat race really, I hold back from offering spontaneous puja rituals in wild devotion. Spontaneous puja is not really a social norm - yet. Instead, I just offer a few words, still loaded with adoration, but ones that likely won't freak them out.

Then I channel this impulse into "performance art," because people seem more likely to tolerate the breaking of social norms when there is a stage and costumes.

“Our relationships with one another are like a chance meeting of two strangers in a parking lot. They look at each other and smile. That is all there is between them. They leave and never see each other again. That is what life is – just a moment, a passing, and then it is gone.

If you understand this, there is no time to fight. There is no time to argue. There is no time to hurt one another. 

Whether you think about it in terms of humanity, nations, communities, or individuals, there is no time for anything less than truly appreciating the brief interaction we have with one another.

… Time is very precious. Do not wait until you are dying to understand your spiritual nature. If you do it now you will discover resources of kindness and compassion you didn’t know you had.”


H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche
Life in Relation to Death