Ayahuasca Visions
Friday, the new shaman arrived. D1 and his beautiful partner D2 – these radiant, tiny-framed beings just bursting with love, light, and an incredibly divine power. They almost didn’t make it – stopped at the airport with the medicine by officials who didn’t know what the brew was, but didn’t want it going anywhere near the skies. They regrouped, repacked, moved the flight, and made it happen. With only minutes to spare. Ayahuasca always makes us work for it, but when so much is at stake, it’s more than worth the hoop-hopping. The pot of gold always makes her way to my outstretched hands.
I found myself mired in anxieties in the before. Worried about the comfort of all my guests, worried about the noises the neighbors might hear (purging, drums pounding, 2 AM energetic eruptions), worried about the lessons I didn’t want to learn. But that was just my ego. She knows Ayahuasca is there to move her aside, and the more awareness she has of this, the stronger she fights. I was about to learn just how strong that sense of identity can really be.
What an unspeakable gift to share this with a group of true-blue friends. 10 of us in all buckled up for the unknown cliff jump. We smoked a little sacred mapacho tobacco to get in the proper space, and grinned our naive yet knowing smiles to each other, sending love and strength and support for whatever must be. Then we headed over to my house to get the party started.
D1 gave us the rundown – he runs the show in a vastly different way than the shaman I studied with for the past 3 years. His gift of healing comes through his musical nature – he and D2 sing, play multiple instruments, and use already recorded tracks to transform the energies of the space. I so looked forward to the drumming, the harmonica, the strings and pipes and electronic melee. I knew this would be incredibly familiar and yet all kinds of new. I was shocked to hear that we would have multiple opportunities to drink as well – three in all, if we so chose. Even more chances to go deep and face the divine.
We each took our turn to drink. This Ayahuasca was just as vile as ever, but highly concentrated, and thus I had to drink far less. A huge gift, as the process of getting the liquids down is often the toughest part for me. This time, the medicine sailed into my system, and I felt electric. Alive. Protected And ready to fly.
It took about 30 minutes for me to start confronting the strength of the brew. It was as if my previous 16 ceremonies were just a build-up to what I fell into in those moments – an enormously potent, mind-shattering experience. I heard the primal buzzing kick in – the low, tribal groaning that I hear so often in this space – and felt the very energy of creation start to fill up my being. I lost myself. Completely. Time and space and identity dissolved into a nothingness – a beautiful void where I could just be, without stories or expectations. Even the chatter in my brain shut off – there was no need to describe the experience, to name it or give it any tangible description. Instead, I fell as deep as I could go. I let myself – or the image thereof – dissolve into the ethers. And in those moments, I would have been content to never, ever return.
The music kicked in shortly thereafter, and I thought I might explode from the power and awe. The drums rattled our insides, bringing up the purge for many. When the shaman started in with the drums, that’s when I once again became aware of my body. It started shaking like a full-speed locomotive – so much energy soaring through me this one little vessel just simply could not process it fast enough. I shook for hours and hours and hours. Violent shaking at times – forcing me into quiet fits of giggles, because it was so over the top and so intense and so completely unfathomable.
I didn’t now then that the shaking was a foreshadowed glimpse into my resistance. But I would know soon enough.
For much of the ceremony, I sat suffering – ice cold, and yearning for a blanket, but too spent to try and find one in the dark abyss. I also became keenly aware of my intense dehydration, but did nothing to soothe myself. There was water sitting RIGHT next to me, but I worried about disturbing my friends’ trances, and didn’t want to disrupt the space by knocking something over in my dazed-out stupor. And so I let myself suffer. Just like in the default world. More akin to take on abuse from myself, rather than inconvenience someone else.
As with all my ceremonies, this was fast becoming a microcosm for who I am in the default world. I couldn’t see it just yet, but the latest issues my soul asked to heal were surfacing at light speed.
D2 came to me then, about halfway through the ceremony, and asked if I would like more Ayahuasca. I was still so incredibly altered, but felt a very strong, compelling urge to say yes. I stood up and slowly made my way to the alter, expecting a small dosage to just keep me where I was. D1 poured a small amount, and I reached for the tiny drops. But he halted, stared directly into my energies, and grinned a radiant smile. Then he pulled back the cup and filled it to the brim. “Oh. Shit.” I thought to myself. Now I’ve really done it.
I took the full amount and staggered back to my makeshift chair. A double dose. My first. And at a time when I already felt the loss of myself, the emergence into the unknown. I had given up the illusion of control. I was going deeper than I had ever been.
To be continued. . . 
