art of the Sanctuary - the stairs lead to the hammocks, with a view of the river

Of course, I now know better. It was just what I needed, like every other night. Despite the incredible pain during those hours spent with Don Mariano, I thank him with all my heart for shifting me out of the mind of a victim.

So, I was ready for his return. As much as I could be.

When it was time for the ceremony to begin, Don Mariano was nowhere in sight. Don Rober, our trusted previous guru, appeared in ceremonial garb and began his blessings. This was abnormal, but not completely shocking – we were told he would be on “spiritual security watch”, so perhaps he was getting things started. My heart wouldn’t accept that maybe, just maybe, he would be the one and only guide. It was too much to wish for.

Yet when I saw him blessing his Ayahuasca bottles, I knew that was precisely what was happening. For whatever reason, the guest had not arrived. I felt both elated and a bit disappointed. I felt so attached to Don Rober, yet I was ready to face down a few fears/demons. But of course, I could still get my wish – it was just the guide who had changed. So I allowed my heart to surge, and felt happier than seemed humanly possible.

Quite often, the first and last doses of a cycle are the most mild and fuzzy. I can’t say this was my expectation, but that fact did linger in my mind. Yet as the brew came on with a vengeance, and I saw windshield wipers appear and wipe out the voices in my mind as a hand pushed me deep inside the earth’s core – well, I knew I wasn’t getting off easy. Not that I wanted to.

I could easily call this night the most intense experience of my life. I fell back into my body from time to time, fearful that perhaps I was seriously ill. Night sweats, severe and thunderous shaking, and many feverish surges ripped through my body. I kept doing my best to ignore this response, unsure if it was real or just another mind trick. Either way, I needed to listen.

Thousands of dark images whisked around before my eyes. There were hundreds of faces; mostly tribal, and many were very young. They would look innocent and lovely, then abruptly merge into maniacs with razored teeth and dripping blood. Claws reached out for my senses, bats dove in to devour me, and other spiritual demons beckoned for me to follow.

I watched with intense curiosity, but yet felt completely emotionless. At some point, I realized I was being tested. Would I feel fearful? Enticed? Angry?
No, on all accounts. I watched them with compassion. I knew I was evolving.

My thoughts then shifted to the other people in the room. For the millionth time, I marveled at each and every person’s strength and beauty. I sent myself to where they sat, one by one, and listed the unique traits they held that made them so remarkable. And I felt their love in return. Such an amazing, dynamic, powerful group – full of light and love.

- Yet, they’re all demons too.

I nodded at the Spirit’s observation.

- Yes, of course – we are good and evil intertwined. There is no real distinction.

She showed me real-life evil-doers like Cheney and Bush, and I ran to them with love. Whomever she placed before me, I hugged with tenacity. And sincerity. I saw myself – each and every vision was a mirror.

There was no place for judgment or superiority. Only recognition and love. I felt myself swell from the profundity, but she told me not to ponder what it all meant. Only to feel. Feelings are far more trustworthy – the mind is just a bag of tricks.

It took me eons to purge, and that kept drawing me out of the experience. Not everyone purges all of the time, but I had yet to have a ceremony without at least one meager release. I held extreme pain in my belly, but I kept smiling at the acidic protests and rubbing the area with a loving smile.

- What are you resisting?

I thought about this repeatedly. I had no answer. Many times, I wanted to cry from helplessness.

Then the visions would return and take me away. This night, there were SO many sounds – eruptions I knew were just for me. Techno sounding effects resounded from all corners of the maloka, and it soothed me. The animals sang in a cacaphonous symphony, along with the crickets and snakes, and I found it heavenly. All these cosmic distractions, keeping me from feeling the pain.

Christ, that was the point, wasn’t it? I bolted up in my chair to find a little clarity.

- Yes, that’s it -
I spoke to the Spirit.

- Pain is just perception too.
I remember all of these sounds from previous ceremonies – they drove me mad. I hated the intensity. I feared every last echo.
But not anymore.
I don’t have to experience pain if I don’t want to. I can always rise above.

Two motherly hands came and cupped my cheeks in support.

- Of course, child. Pain is inevitable, but you decide it’s power.

She pulled me forward and rubbed my back. A few minutes later, I had a hard, magnificent purge. I imagined the pain as a glowing orb, pushed out through my intestines and through my open mouth. When I sat up, I felt nonexistent. My body had disappeared. I was just light, just energy – feeling only joy. I have no words to describe such weightlessness; I can only say that I know what it is to die – and to return to the place from which we all came from. Absolute and utter bliss.

I cried oceans as the ceremony drew to an end; I didn’t want to stop this process. I didn’t want to say goodbye. But I smiled through my outbursts, so absolutely joyous that I discovered this path. Oh so very … blessed.

The next morning, we received our final flower bath. As you awake after a ceremony at this lodge, the Shaman lingers near a special little structure, with a plastic chair and a massive tub of ice cold, rosey smelling water littered with flower pedals. When you’re ready, you visit him in private, and he douses every single body part with this magnificent elixir. It’s a way of shocking you back into your body, of sealing up the experience. He sings you a final healing blessing, and it feels like a real ending – in the best possible way.

That morning, I cried and heaved as Don Rober sang to me, then I clutched him and said, in rough Spanish, that I loved him always. He would forever be in my heart. He said the same to me. We hugged repeatedly, gave sweet kisses, and he cried with me. That’s the kind of angel he is. We both are.

I left knowing I was ready to face whatever awaited. I even hoped it would be insanely challenging – because I could take it. I didn’t want an easy road; I had done too much to build myself up.

The next day, we were all to leave on part 2 of the adventure – a leg called the Journey Through Time. We would retrace 2 ancient Andean civilizations, partake in 4 Huachuma ceremonies (another uber-powerful sacred plant) and visit the most sacred places in Peru – and the world.

More stories to come, loves – vastly different, and yet so much the same.

A beautiful puma, sleeping in a cage - she’s injured, hence the cage. Such a treat to be so close.

But first, Night Four.

All right, so, we’re fresh on the heels of meeting Jesus, going ape-shit in an Everything’s OK Fiesta, and finding the most incredible sense of power and peace.
I felt omnipotent. Accepting of anything that could be tossed my way, but certain I would be unaffected.
You know, sometimes I just don’t learn a damn thing.

Night Four promised to be a different animal all together even before the festivities began — we had a guest Shaman. The lodge owner, my heroic Howard, had his first Ayahuasca ceremony with this gentleman decades ago. That sounded special. The new fellow was a quiet soul, warm and smiling. I liked him. I *love worship adore revere* the one I’ve been privileged enough to work with, but that doesn’t mean I’m not open to a change of pace. Ahem.

Our new friend didn’t practice the same type of ceremonial rituals — those magnificent blessings I had become so accustomed too. No, he just dove right in. No busy work, just drinkin’ – and he brought his own brew. I know I’m sounding like a broken record by now, by holy shit, this stuff just gets more and more rank with every consumption.

I drank my medicine. I sat down with resolve, resiliency – everything that would indicate a beautiful outpouring.
The lights went out, and they came to me immediately. Immediately, you see. No warning or chance to get comfy.
They were faceless silhouettes. Slow moving, hissing, mischievous. They pranced before me, shoving their faces into my line of sight, trying to make me falter. At first, I found them humorous.
Unshakable, I was. I believe in contracts – invisible ones. I believe that nothing can hurt me unless I allow it to. That wasn’t going to happen.
Then the cloaks came. The demon bastards had layers of fabric to cover me in. It felt soft, a little suffocating, but not overly threatening. This I could handle. Bury me in see-through silk. I can hang.

I’m guessing it was about fifteen minutes before the purging started. By this time, the Shaman had kicked into his own style of Icaros – our healing, guiding songs, sung in Quecha, and there to steer the flow and tone of our energies. He also had a strange stringed instrument, rather like a bow, that emitted the softest, most soothing sound.

I didn’t like either. But I could tolerate it, for a spell.

Mind you, I had already been through six ceremonies this year. This was the fourth of this journey, but I had been here before, and I held a sense of bravado and strength. I had already gone to hell. My hell – self-inflicted and wrenching. But I was fine now – better for it – so I had no fear.
I also knew what purging sounded like. I’m not talking a gentle *blech* that results in plip-plop flow, I’m talking primal outbursts, gut wrenching screams, and hours-long retching that can pierce your ears. So when, on this night, the circle erupted into primitive sounding releases and painful, guttural explosions, I did not falter. I didn’t join them, either. I just sat there, silent, eyes plastered open, watching the faceless hell children cover me in darkness.

A man I call The Receiver, seated three people down, caught my attention with his noises. Receiver is someone I know very well; he and I shared the last journey together as well. Every ceremony I’ve known, he has been there – and man can he purge. He’s also a highly sensitive (in a spiritual sense) soul who has experienced loads of contact with the unseen world. He has shared some harrowing stories, as well as many magical healing moments too. I heard his purges kick in good and hard and thought “Yeah. I remember that.”
But this was . . .different.
He, and some of the other men in the room, started going full throttle. Roaring, throwing up, belching, crying, screaming – everything everything.
Receiver – he was losing control. I could hear it. It’s all I was aware of.

About an hour or so into this cacophonous symphony, Receiver. . .received. I heard a strange, wildly reckless sound from him, and then came his voice – loud and desperate. He was screaming – at the TOP of his lungs – for help. From us. From his deceased mother. ANYone.
Then he would snap into a different voice and speak in tongues – a language none of us understood.
Attendants rushed around him in comfort, and the rest of us toiled on with our journeys. But Receiver was too far in. He kept talking and yelling, intermittently, looking for assistance. I thought maybe he was possessed. And as I thought this. . .
He bolted out of us chair and emitted the most horrifying, down-deep eruption imaginable. The demons had got to him. This was my greatest fear.

Howard rose to attend to Receiver, and they escorted him out of the temple. Yet I could still hear. They were yelling at something – Leave our friend alone.
I started to cry.
I started to really see the bastards in the room now – dark as it was. The purging just kept going. In a way that made me think it may never end. But still – still, I was OK. I could do this. I could handle shouldering this horrendous energy for a spell, if that’s what I had to do. If that’s what would help Receiver come back to us.

About three hours in, I felt like perhaps we were nearing the end. The medicine had lessened her hold on me, and I was glad for it. I kept waiting for the Shaman to announce the ending. I thought at one point he was ready to do so.
And then, Jesus, it snapped me farther in. Like a light switch, I was flipped. Pushed back into hell.
It felt like the beginning again. I was a part of a demonic Groundhog Day joke. I had to go through the
whole
bloody
nightmare
yet. . .again.

I lost my sense of safety in those moments, too. I knew I wouldn’t be physically harmed, but I thought perhaps I would break in half too. My head, that is. Sanity was at stake. in the most sincere of ways, I thought I might lose myself.

I refused to let the tears flow – that would be a sign of caving. I wanted to run out of that room as fast as my legs could take me, but I was Remembering. Jesus came to me the night before not in honor of my past suffering, but as a symbol of the future. This was suddenly blindingly clear. I knew this was my role – to channel the negative forces, take them into my core, and spit it all back out with love.
My voice told me this – if just one person in this room is finding their bliss, it’s my job to sit here and take this nightmarish shit. I’m always so afraid of being self-absorbed, selfish beyond recognition. This was my chance to Give.

Every minute was a lifetime. I can’t emphasize that enough. I hurt from head to toe – physically, mentally, and especially in my heart. I couldn’t get warm yet I knew I was burning up. The evilness kept dancing in front of me – eyes opened, eyes closed – it didn’t matter.
Seven hours and then some, I took this. Amidst the screams and the purging and the buzzing and the hissing. I took it all in. Mine to process. Mine to carry.

And then it was over.
Quietly, they dismissed us.
I bolted for the room. Receiver followed, to talk to me. He had broken his foot. He had gone to hell. He was sorry for hurting us.

But none of this was his doing. What I understood in those moments – what is crystal clear now – is that I sat in a room with a showdown. Good versus evil, in the truest sense. A microcosm for what happens in the world, every single day.
Well, the good guys won. We always do. But where the night before gave me the clearest sense of light and beauty I’ve ever known, this night shattered my naiveté. The darkness is just as prevalent.
But it’s not nearly as powerful. That’s the beautiful thing. And, well, it can’t fucking touch me.

There were a handful of us that had the kind of experience I am describing. But there were a few who had the best nights of their lives.
When I heard their stories the next day, I cried my eyes out in gratefulness. I knew I helped create that. There can be no greater gift – to me, that is. I would take a million more nights like that if it meant heaven to the masses. And I was immediately ready for my next and final cup.