Ceremony #2: Soul Retrieval
Before breakfast we headed to the cook house to prepare the next batch of Ayahuasca. First cleaning the vine and then breaking it open and shredding it with hammers and mallets. For the next eight hours we would boil it together with the Chacruna leaves. After the fire was lit I went to breakfast and some of us were starting to form close bonds. We laughed about how long the walkway had become, commented about how the Ayahuasca did not taste as bad as we had heard, and shared our experience from last night. Some had no visions, some fell asleep, and four were packing their bags having had enough of the Ayahuasca. Those of us that stayed started to open to each other, sharing what we were looking for in Ayahuasca and what brought us here. Malcolm held a group discussion for those who wanted to ask questions or just get more information on what was next. Malcolm is by far one of the most amazing and beautiful individuals I have ever met. He has an amazing talent to connect with everyone and was the perfect guide for our journey.
After our discussion those who wanted headed out on the Amazon in search of the pink river dolphins. We first came across this very big boat.
We then found the dolphins and while I had my camera with me I mostly caught nothing more than ripples on the water. Here are three exceptions.
Apparently Peru has become the cocaine capital of the world and on the way back we were stopped by their version of the coast guard.
We got back in time for lunch, our last meal of the day. We were on a strict Ayahuasca diet with no sugar. I thought everything was going to be bland and boring but boy was I wrong. The food here was amazing, everything came fresh from the jungle and it tasted great. I could easily eat like this the rest of my life. I think we have forgotten what food really is. Afterwards I went to check on the Ayahuasca, uhh, yeah, looks good to me…
That afternoon we went for a jungle hike and had a great guide. While there was a nice breeze on the river it was quite hot and humid under the canopy of the jungle.
Our guide was from a neighboring village where they would tie a board to the back of their head when they sleep until the age of eight. This is because they slept in hammocks and this helps teach them not to roll out of them during the night. It does have one side effect and that is that they all end up having flat heads. When he took off his hat I could not believe my eyes. His head was really flat and I mean really flat.
He told us how to identify poisonous leaves from non-poisonous ones. We tried some non-poisonous ones and they had a great taste, if I had a bowl I could have easily built a nice salad. We then found a termite mound that he scratched open to reveal the termites inside.
We had special boots on and I was glad as this hike would have ruined my shoes.
When you are walking through stuff like this it is quite unstable and many of us slipped, grabbing on to the only thing we could to prevent from falling in to the mud, the closest tree branch. “Russian guy #2” was in front of me and when he grabbed for the branch it was full of ants. I asked “Do they bite?” He paused and then shouted out “Ouch, yeah they bite”. I stepped in to the mud, slipped, grabbed on to the branch, and then received 6 to 8 bites and boy did they hurt. Turns out these were fire ants and their bite is nasty. Fortunately it only lasts 10 minutes and then you feel fine again, but those 10 minutes can seem as long as walking back to your room after an Ayahuasca ceremony. Again when I say “Russian guy #2” it’s for privacy reasons, I’m not trying to make a joke or anything.
We saw some cool mushrooms, but this journey was not about mushrooms, it was about Ayahuasca. That part was meant as a joke.
We then got to meet the Ayahuasca vine growing in her natural environment.
Our guide then asked who knew how to get back to the lodge, we were all screwed. However he was kind enough to explain how to use the trees and where things grow as a navigation guide in the jungle, kind of their version of Google maps. We were all still screwed, but he was still kind enough to take us back. Back at the lodge I showered and rested in the hammock (without a board attached to my head) until ceremony. 5pm came and I made my way to the ceremony room.
Tonight we would begin our actual work with the medicine. Malcolm explained that when we have a traumatic event in our past we fracture our soul and leave a part of it behind. Tonight we would go back and recover those lost fragments to become whole again. These events could be as small or as large as needed. The medicine was going to show you what you needed to see whether you agreed with it or not. Just like the previous night we went up one by one and got our dose as dictated by the spirits. The shaman whistled an icaros in it and then I went back to my space and waited for everyone else. I did not have any major tragic events in my life and figured tonight would be similar to last night, so we toasted and I threw back the Ayahuasca. Things were different right away and tonight the Ayahuasca was the foulest tasting thing I have ever tasted. It was a nasty bitter sludge that I gaged on right away. I quickly grabbed my water and began to rinse out my mouth, spitting in to my bucket. I remained sitting up, sick to my stomach and wanting to puke but I knew it was too early. If I threw up now I would not get the medicine in to my bloodstream so I held it in, fighting my urge and reflex with all my might. Within 20 minutes the songs started, again at first up front and then shortly after inside of me.
Tonight was going to be very different and I would soon be gone. Instead of getting frustrated that I was unable to control things I decided to let the medicine in and work with it. I gave myself over to Ayahuasca. My consciousness left this illusion that we call reality. The ceremony room was gone but Malcolm and Alberto were still there holding and guiding the space, master artists at work. I was met by a lizard-like figure walking upright and he escorted me in to a boat on an inside river. The landscape was beautifully carved archways in red, blue, and green as we traveled along the inside river. I say inside because there was no outside, I don’t know how else to describe the concept. Along the banks of the river in various archways were thousands of eyes all looking upon me with great curiosity. At first I thought they were thousands of individual beings but it turned out they are all just one universal identity as they all blinked at the same time.
The river ended and all of a sudden I found myself trapped in a large bird cage. All around me there were thousands of creatures that looked like Gonzo from the Muppets dressed in yellow capes with purple triangles on them. They were shouting and screaming at me in a language that I could not understand. The ones up close to my cage were reaching in trying to grab me. A few had what I can best describe as cattle prods and they were shocking me with them. I desperately tried to shoo them away as they shocked me. Back in the ceremony room I was trying to shake the pain out of my arms still sitting up but my mind was trapped in the cage with no place to go.
This is very hard to explain but Ayahuasca is not like a dream, it’s not like a memory. It’s very real and very intense, in fact it is more real then what you are experiencing right now. You know you are in this situation because you drank Ayahuasca but there is nothing you can do about it now. You can’t just wait it out because time does not exist and Ayahuasca is not going to release you until it is done with you. That means you are going to have to deal with whatever the medicine wants you to deal with before you are allowed back to what we perceive as reality. My conscious mind was about to experience hundreds of years of thoughts while my physical body only aged a few hours.
Sitting in my cage I was very weak, holding on to and hunched over my puke bucket. The Gonzos wheeled in a merry-go-round with a lot of disturbing images on it and it played some very creepy music that I can best describe as the music from the movie 12 Monkeys. No pretty unicorns or jumping dolphins to ride on, this had figures that were so disgusting, so foul, so wrong, that I cannot even find words to describe them. But they were not evil, they did not wish ill will, they were just very sick, and I mean very sick. On one side of the merry-go-round it would pick up some energy signature and then deliver it to me on the other side. I would have to deal with that energy signature before the merry-go-round went around and picked up a new energy signature for me to deal with. I did not see actual past events from my life but rather a type of signature that referred to the energy that made up that past event. Some I recognized, others I did not. It brought up events that I had long ago forgotten and written off but were very much a part of my current life. The ones I did not recognize I still felt a strong connection with and knew in a way they were a part of me, a past or future life that was affecting me in my current life.
I would receive these energy signatures and then begin to throw up, and I’m not talking about your common flu or food poisoning vomits, this was violent beyond imagination. Sitting in my cage helplessly holding my bucket I was digging deep down in my stomach trying to get things up while all the Gonzos mocked, tormented, and laughed at me. While I could see my bucket I was not producing anything physical in it, instead I was throwing up energetic outlines of a sheep’s head, horns included. Other times I was producing nothing more than black smoke. All while letting out these primal reptilian screeches as I tried to purge the negative energy I’ve been holding on to all these years and all these lifetimes.
The merry-go-round was never ending and at times I was expecting to see my gallbladder in the bucket as the wrenching inside my body was so violent. I was so weak I just wanted this hell to end and I was not sure how much more of this I could handle. I knew this was because I drank Ayahuasca but I could not stop it, I did not sign up for this and I wanted out. I thought help me, please, anyone. But there was no one to help, I was in this alone. If it took 100 years or 500 years my conscious mind was going to have to work though it on its own. If I were to try and write down the details of all of the events I had to deal with tonight it would it would fill an entire bookshelf. Many of these events were very personal and were from past and future lives. But a single Ayahuasca ceremony is easily worth more than 150 years of constant therapy. Western medicine has its limitations and is confused, only treating the physical symptoms without understanding the underlying causes.
I saw myself sitting helpless in the cage, weak and near the point of death. I wanted so badly to help him or even just end his suffering. Then from deep within my stomach I felt this huge softball size thing work its way up my throat and in to my mouth. It stretched my lips wide open and made a popping sound as it exited my mouth. It landed in my bucket and I felt the weight of it rip the bucket out of my hands. I looked down and saw this huge black tumor covered in slime, snot, hair, and feathers sitting in my bucket. I physically felt lighter.
I let go of my bucket and laid back on my mat. Ayahuasca was done with me tonight and I was coming back. I had the most amazing feeling and this wonderful euphoric relief encompassed me. The tears poured out and I started laughing, I was feeling free, I was feeling new, I was beginning metamorphosis. I let go of so much shit, so much garbage that was no longer serving me, that I was now leaving who I was, who I thought I wanted to be, far behind. I was back in the ceremony room with the greatest tears of joy that could be imagined rolling down my cheaks. The ceremony had another hour or so to go and I thought what a wonderful medicine Ayahuasca was. Thanks so much for this amazing gift. We have forgotten who we really are, but deep in the jungle of the Amazon there are a handful of people who do remember, and if you are willing and open they will help you find who you really are.
Ayahuasca is not a recreational drug and you would not do this for fun. This is hard and very foreign work. Keep an open mind and suck in the experience, if it hurts it’s probably worth it. Ayahuasca is not a hallucinogenic drug. I’ve never done LSD, mushrooms, or any “hallucinogenic” drug but I’ve been told you are still in the same space as you are now. You don’t see visions with Ayahuasca, your consciousness travels to other dimensions. You experience that “reality” just as you experience this “reality”, just with different inputs. When I looked in my puke bucket, it was empty with the exception of a roughly four inch long black shoelace-like or thin gelatin string. There was no huge tumor to be found, that was all purely energetic. We travel through life backwards, always holding on to the past instead of embracing the future. Ayahuasca was now fixing that in me.
My throat was raw but I’ve never felt better. Take the best day on Whistler, 12 inches of fresh powder, blue bird skies, and no one on the mountain, cutting fresh lines all day long and never getting tired. Times that by a million and you are about half way to 10% of how I feel now. You might think I’ve lost my mind, this is nothing more than a drug experience, it can’t be real. But then I ask you how do you know the pacific ocean is real. Some of you might say it’s on a map that I saw, others might say I have friends or family who have been in it, while still others will answer with I’ve been in it myself so I know it is real. Well, I’ve been in Ayahuasca and I know it is real. When you were a young kid your mom or dad probably said don’t touch fire because it is hot. You had two choices; take their word and never really know for yourself, having nothing more than the knowledge that fire is hot. Or touch the flame and now have the wisdom that fire is hot. So before you write me off as crazy touch the fire for yourself.