Ceremony #1: Meet and Greet With Ayahuasca

Even though there was only a two hour time difference between Seattle and Iquitos I was still tired from my travels and dragging a little this morning. I grabbed some breakfast and then checked out of the hotel. People started to gather in one of the meeting rooms in the hotel and the introductions began. “Hi, I’m Chris....”, “Hey guy, where are you from....”. I’ve traveled quite a bit, many times on my own, and have had to integrate with many different groups of people. However these people were different, not sure if it was just the nervousness or the fear of the unknown of what was about to happen, but everyone was warm, inviting, and non-judgmental. It was safe to say these are my kind of people. We all came here for our own personal reasons but knew we would need each other as we began our journey.

After a short briefing from the Blue Morpho folks we all piled in to a bus to head to the river to catch a boat. However the bus could only get us so far before getting stuck and we had to walk the rest of the way.


But we were almost there so the walk was short and we boarded one of three boats that would take us to the lodge.


When we arrived we were greeted by Pedro, the local parrot and freshly squeezed juice. Combining sugar with Ayahuasca can be dangerous so other than water, tea, and coffee, we were only allowed juice from non-sweet jungle fruits such as the Camu Camu. This at first seemed strange but over the coming week I got quite used to it.


We were assigned our rooms and then got some time to relax and look around. We would fast on the days we would be drinking so there was no dinner tonight. My room had a nice hammock with a view.


A shower with hot and cold water as well as a western style toilet. However the toilet emptied in to the Amazon so all non-human products had to be thrown away in a special trash bin.


I had two beds as my sister was originally going to come with me, however it was not in the stars this time and her journey will have to wait until a later date.


The main part of the lodge was right on the Amazon with the ceremony hut far back in the jungle accessible by an elevated walkway. They told us not to leave the walkways as the jungle had countless ways to end our lives. As if drinking Ayahuasca was not enough excitement, oh boy.


While they were long it took less than a minute to walk, at least right now it took less than a minute.


Tonight we would be drinking Ayahuasca brewed by the previous group and tomorrow we would be brewing our own. This is the cook house where we would be breaking open and shredding the Ayahuasca vine.


There were eight 40 gallon pots that we would fill and boil down to two 2-liter bottles.


Safety was the highest priority at Blue Morpho, not just when going on a journey with Ayahuasca but also when preparing Ayahuasca.


This is the Ayahuasca vine that contains DMT. We would clean it and then break it open.


These are the Chacruna leaves that contain a MAOI which allows the brew to be absorbed in our stomach rather than broken down.


Outside the ceremony room was where we would sit under the stars after our journey sipping tea and discussing the evenings events.


Entrance to the ceremony room. Around 5pm we would gather and Malcolm, one of the two master shamans, would discuss how the evening ceremony would proceed. You don’t just drink Ayahuasca and then lie down and wait for the pretty colors. The shaman create and hold the space, they are master artists guiding the ceremony. Tonight we were told it would be nothing more than an introduction to Ayahuasca, you might see visions, you might not, or you might even fall asleep, but the medicine is working. Tonight was about feeling the medicine inside you; you getting to know it and it getting to know you.


Inside you can lie down on a mat or if you prefer sit up in a chair. I opted for the mat.


This was my space for all five ceremonies.


And this is what I saw when I looked up.


You can see that each “station” is equipped with a bucket to puke in, toilet paper to clean up with, and a cup of water which is to be used to wash out the taste of Ayahuasca and then spit it back in to your bucket. You cannot drink the water as it can adversely affect the Ayahuasca.


At the front we had two master shaman and two shaman guiding and holding the ceremony. There were also six other Blue Morpho staff members. All would be drinking along with us, however they could move in and out of the Ayahuasca space helping us in all realities, it was really quite amazing. There were also a handful of staff members who were not drinking that could help us if needed.


Along the sides of the ceremony room were eight toliets, two clean up sinks, and four padded showers.




While the showers will not stop the Ayahuasca it can help calm it, I speak from experience on this one.


And if things really go bad they have a special board that they can tie you down to. Fortunately there were enough staff to hold down the person that needed this and it did not have to make an appearance.


And with that, it was time for the ceremony to start around 6pm. The space and Ayahuasca would first be blessed and protected by the shaman blowing the smoke from Mapacho tobacco in to them. One at a time we would come up to one of the two master shaman, either Malcolm or Alberto, who would consult the spirits and then pour the appropriate dose for us. They would then whistle an icaros in to our cup, unique to each one of us. An icaros being a spirit dialect awaking and instructing the Ayahuasca to what we needed. Once we were all served we would toast, drink, the lights would be turned off, and then we would wait.

I threw back my small cup of Ayahuasca and with that past a point of no return, not just for tonight but for the rest of my life. My first thought was yeah it’s pretty bitter and a little thick but not really as bad as I thought it would taste. I laid back on my mat in the dark and could feel the Ayahuasca start to race through my veins. I started feeling very weak. A few minutes later I could no longer move my arms or even sit up. My western mind concluded this is probably because I just drank poison and would probably throw up this poison shortly, too bad I can’t sit up for that. Then the shaman started to sing and shake a Chakapa, a leaf-like rattle. The space was opening, at first I heard them from up front, then I saw the sound vibrations coming to me, then they were part of me. I knew I had drunk Ayahuasca and knew what was going on but it started to be very confusing. The shaman's songs were so clear, so beautiful, they were in me. They were no longer coming from the front of the room, they were in me. I don’t know how else to describe this.

We didn’t have a purpose tonight other than to meet the medicine. The medicine began to rip me open and look inside of me. I felt my body scattered across the universe. Part of my head was here in this ceremony room while the other part was in a completely different dimension inaccessible by our normal five senses. My body felt twisted and pulled as it moved in crazy indescribable ways across different dimensions. I then began to see this amazing multi-dimensional fractal landscape all in various shades of blue. I wrote a paper on the Mandelbrot number set along with various deviations of the algorithm in college, but as I tried to reach in to this space nothing worked or made sense anymore. Euclidean geometry was gone. I’d reach with my arm but instead of seeing my arm reach out it would almost randomly appear out of nowhere across the space coming from a different dimension, but then I had no arm. The physical self did not exist here, it was only my consciousness. I became very frustrated, this place was beautiful but I could not understand it, I could not explore it at free will. I then felt this pink energy, a female presence, mother Ayahuasca. I was again frustrated, I had so much I wanted to ask, so much I wanted to know, but I was not in control, the medicine was. Ayahuasca was only here for a meet and greet and that was it. Her energy disappeared and I felt everyone else in the room. Then I felt myself again, hearing a few people in the room asking for help. I desperately tried to push them out of my head in order to get back in to explore more. This could not be over, all I got was a meet and greet, a small taste. I was shown a reality with endless possibilities, I know it is there, but I don’t get to explore it. The entire meaning of the universe was within my reach but I was not allowed to touch it, why? Why did I travel all this way for this?

I saw the ceremony room again but then drifted back in to the shaman's space and felt different energy patterns come in to the space. I saw this very old soul who lived many, many incarnations and now had little karmic debt. It first felt like it was my Dad, then I felt like I was my Dad, we were the same person, but then I realized it was really me and in a strange way it was a me that I had seen before. Not that it looked like me but that it felt like me, and how I felt like many of the people in my life. I don’t know how else to explain this but I saw myself through the eyes of others, but those others were really me. This part was very different then the fractal landscape, it was more like left over energy or a bonus to the actual ceremony. As I was returning I remember seeing that I had these cute little hands and kept feeling them to see if they were real. I was tickled by how cute they were. But the more I came back the bigger they got and eventually they were the normal size and I was fully back.

At first I was relieved that I did not purge tonight as I heard it could be quite violent. I was able to sit up again but could not stand yet. Then I had a terrible feeling in my body when I realized that the Ayahuasca had passed through my stomach and in to my intestines, and was now in need of immediate attention. I checked in with Matt, one of the shaman, before heading back to my room. You need to check with someone before leaving so that they can make sure you are ok. In fact throughout our stay they kept close track of everyone and did many body counts. Blue Morpho really is the safest place in the world to do Ayahuasca and it is because of their amazing staff and amazing team of shaman.

Cleared to return to my room I started the walk on the elevated walkway, however this time it was quite a bit longer. It was taking so long that I started to second guess myself, did I make a wrong turn? There were no places to turn at, where was I, this did not make sense? I mean this walkway was going on forever, it seemed like I had been walking for ten minutes and was no closer to the end. I was experiencing mareado, a type of Ayahuasca hangover where time does not yet fully exist again. Later on I would learn two things: first, many others experienced the same thing on the walkway when returning to their rooms, and second, time is nothing more than an illusion with a purpose in our perceived reality, it does not really exist.


Back in my room I sat on the throne and began my delayed purge for the next hour. After that hour I again had two thoughts on my mind: one, I’m now ready for a colonoscopy, and two, I’m going to try and stay sitting up tomorrow night so I can puke and not have to go through this again. I was pretty drained and jumped in the shower to clean up before heading to bed around 11:30pm. Ayahuasca was kind of cool but so far I’m not sure it was anything more then hallucinogenic drugs in the jungle.