Last weekend I attended my second ayahuasca weekend, and like before it wasn't anything I expected, nor anything I intended. My intentions were about surrender and control, with a little healing around lung health thrown in for good measure. The plant medicines teach us - they guide us away from ego and into the flow of the collective consciousness - the world known well by plants, and Mother Aya did not disappoint.
The week leading up to ceremony, I followed the dieta closely, abstaining from salt, sugar, spicy food, processed food, alcohol, recreational drugs, media, and sex. That said, there wasn't much else to do but meditate and be mindful of what I was putting into my body from a nutritional perspective.
Being my second ayahuasca weekend, I knew what to expect and part of that knowing is knowing to expect the unexpected. Ayahuasca illuminates the beautiful paradoxes in life and leads us to surrender - or unfortunately, in some cases drive us to resistance as our egos battle for control. As often is the case, the first night of ceremony was surface level insights. I felt I needed to go beyond the standard 1.5 ounce dose and braved a full 2-ounce dose, barely gagging down the brew of the plant spirit. I had prepared well, with a week of calm and meditation, creating a vacuum through which the medicine could work her magic.
Time and space become inconsistent concepts under the influence of DMT, the psychoactive molecule, coined The Spirit Molecule, by leading researcher and author in entheogenic exploration, Rick Strassman. That said, I'm not sure how much time had lapsed as the medicine began to pull me from our consensus reality into the world of plant spirits.
Before the shamans even began singing the entrancing icaros, the visuals began to weave their way melodically into my consciousness, a beautiful dance of light and form. As the icaros began I became enveloped by the movement of sound and found myself releasing control and surrendering to the medicine. Mother Aya prepared me for what it means to release control, and gently stripped my being of resistance. I felt every inch of my physical body release its attachment to this consensus reality as I came to know what it feels like to be a plant. A beautiful nothing and emptiness that filled with pure love and gratitude.
Mother Aya kept coming back at me, as my ego attempted to drive the narrative, while under the influence of this powerful medicine. Gently, yet firmly she resounded with the insight about us humans - we are but monkey-brained meat puppets frantically scattering through life on the whims of our overactive egos. We need to be more like plants, she says...be a plant.
Her lesson was one of surrender: Planting seeds...seeds are intentions and a successful, joyous life is analogous to planting physical seeds. One sets one's intention or plants the seed with a vague or specific end goal in mind, then you walk away, and every now and then give that intention a little loving nourishment or attention. Like a plant, our intentions and ideas manifest into reality not by human will, but through weaving your way through life with love, wisdom, and creative life force. We have faith that life will deliver perfection. Our job is to not will that perfection but to nurture it along with our love, wisdom, and creativity. Only She is perfection.
The second day, I woke early with barely 4 hours sleep and meditated on the beautiful grounds of the shaman's home and ceremonial sanctuary. I felt myself melt into the songs of birds and hums of honeybees as I vibrated at the level of the collective consciousness. The group of ceremony attendees followed up the morning integration discussion with a 90-minute yoga class, my first ever class in meditative movement - it was difficult, exhausting, and energizing all at the same time. [I'm definitely a convert!]
A final light meal before evening ceremony was followed by more meditation, a round of sananga [eye drops to foster clear visions and visuals], and an introduction to rapé, a shamanic snuff made from mapacho jungle tobacco and the ashes of certain ceremonial and medicinal plants. Both medicines burned and I felt more control release from my human shell.
Again, I was directed by the medicine to take a full 2-ounce dose and well before the icaros began I felt the ayahuasca replace my being with her spirit. As the shaman called me up to connect with his healing energy through the icaros, I fumbled in the dark, locating my flashlight and my trusty barf bucket. This was my 4th ayahuasca and I hadn't experienced the classic purge via vomiting yet, but one must always have their bucket in tow because you never know when the purge may call you.
As the shaman sang to me I felt myself completely lost in the energy of his song, my body swaying involuntarily to the sounds of healing. I coughed, I hacked, I spat, and I sweated - and despite what seemed to be a mountain of phlegm being dredged from my body, no urge to vomit came over me. The shaman finished, blew a cleansing cloud of mapacho around me, and softly told me my one-on-one was complete.
Rather than returning to my mat, I headed outside, leaving the warmth and energy of the yurt for the cool night air. As I relieved my bladder in the field adjacent to the yurt, the shaman began to sing to another ceremonial participant. I felt inclined to move to the sounds, and found myself dancing alone to the heavens and completely humbled by the expanse of the universe, of which just a sliver shone overhead in awe-inspiring majesty. After my little performance [I bet a video of that would have been plenty entertaining!] I returned to the ceremony and lay down on my mat.
As the next person was called to the shaman's mat for healing I quickly descended back deep into an alternate consciousness. I felt the medicine completely consume my being. I was no longer me, but a conduit of the energy swirling around the ceremonial space. The song brought me into the healing once again, and this time I felt deep energy within me rise in my throat and I grabbed my bucket.
I purged and puked. And I purged again. And for the rest of the night, as each ceremony participant was called to sit with the shamans, I purged to the loving songs of healing brought to our land through the ancient wisdom of the Shipibo people of Peru. And after each purge, I thanked Mother Ayahuasca for her healing, her wisdom, and for always taking care of me. As the ceremony ended, I felt exhausted, yet I knew there was much more work for me to do that evening. As the participants dispersed to their respective places of rest for the evening, I found myself wandering the grounds in the dark, still overwhelmed with gratitude and still purging through occasional retching, tears of gratitude, and trips to the outhouse, as the medicine left my earthly shell and returned to her place in eternity.
Upon finally returning to my mat to get some rest I reflected on my evening with Mother Aya. Be more like a plant, she said. Plant your roots firmly in the blessed ground of our Mother Earth - respect her and show gratitude with every sunrise and every spring flower emerging from a dormant winter. Drink in the nutrients provided, live in the sun, and sway to the winds that blow. Treat yourself and your earthly being well. Get out of the noise of our incessant egos and the continuous drone of modern day distractions. Meditate, listen, and be present - only in the present do we experience Her magic.
Mother Aya again instructed me to look at planting a seed - we don't plant a seed, water it, and then camp beside it, as if to will it into its mature-plant existence. We plant it, we water it, we leave it, we return occasionally to continue our nurturing of its life force, but the plant manifests through the miracle of science and nature - and the same is true for us and our purpose in life and for those beings around us.
We can't WILL outcomes to manifest themselves...we set intentions [plant the seed], nurture them [do the work we need to in order to manifest our reality] and leave our conscious will at the door [surrender]. Mother Aya loves each and every one of her creations. Our best interests drive her being - she is utterly selfless and is an energy of pure love and nurturing compassion.
Mother Ayahuasca is also an enigmatic paradox. She is a doorway into a world most here on Earth never see. Her true magic isn't in the swirling cosmic world of multiple dimensions and encounters with sentient beings, of which we as meat puppets, can't comprehend - but her display of universal complexity certainly is impressive and humbling. Her true majesty, love, compassion, and wisdom emerges in the days, weeks, months, and years that follow ceremony, as we follow her lead and become more like plants and more like Her.
Give Thanks. Be Humble. Live Love.
And be more like a plant.
Thanks for reading!
