Ayahuasca (pronounced something like "eye-a-what-scar") has two interpretations. It means both "vine of souls" and "vine of the dead". The growing tourism industry in the Amazon favours the first translation. Either way, this vine grows roots that reach to unfathomable depths. This is not just another flavour for the recreational trip. There's purging work to be done and bile evacuation may be the easier part. In our meat-suit realm it's not pretty, but on another level, a blissful, fractal design is revealed.
DMT is the main active ingredient of this brew. This mysterious, naturally occurring chemical is already present in our bodies and widely found in nature. Rick Strassman refers to DMT as "The Spirit Molecule" in his book and documentary of the same name. He writes:
While chemically simple, this "spirit" molecule provides our consciousness access to the most amazing and unexpected visions, thoughts and feelings. It throws open the door to worlds beyond imagination.When deep in a dream, it IS reality. There's nothing more real at the time. But when we awaken, it gets a new perspective. The waking world is revealed as THE reality and the dream is something else of less actionable consequence.
When passing through a higher consciousness, waking life is downgraded as less real. After returning to the bump-your-head-and-oww-fuck world, the hierarchy persists. Feet planted squarely back on planet Earth, there remains an insight into another tier of existence. The people who don't dismiss it as hallucination are the ones who have been there. This is part of the reason why the "visions" of holy texts have left a door-knocking legacy of annoyance.
The psychedelic experience is a strange fusion between the two worlds we frequent each day and night. With ayahuasca at least, it's the ability to go fully conscious into the dream state. The takeaway understanding is fleeting - at best we get to fill up a cup from a tidal wave - yet the importance is persistent.
These last few blog entries are my alternative to recommending the enlightening entrail eruptions of ayahuasca. I don't feel I have the authority. Besides, individuals can exercise the often atrophied muscle of free will. My written words only graze the surface because there are known unknowns I can't access to remember. That said, these sentences still hold a better foundation to the shapeless-something than the fading strength of a few conversation sound bites.
I blazed through several books in my last days at the retreat. "The Psychotropic Mind" relates this particular plant medicine to a car crash. The experience is dramatic and close to death. Your life flashes before your eyes. You feel shocked, ill and dazed. The key difference is that a car accident lasts 3 seconds, whereas ayahuasca lasts over 3 hours.
You can witness the "flash" of your existence with clarity, but it's not a passive observation. It turns you upside down, folds you inside out and leaves a mess in a bucket.
That's a good summary of the inner journey during my maiden voyage. There's also the privileged glimpse into awe where mental photography is not permitted and an abstract flavour of infinity is temporarily revealed. Professor Alan Watts described these DMT effects as:
"Load universe into cannon. Aim at brain. Fire."It was during this I encountered an entity - maybe an inter-dimensional being, maybe a construct of my own mind. Either way, it commanded my full attention and peered inside my forehead. Trying to make sense of the communication now just scrambles the transmission.
During the 2nd ceremony, I was exposed as an insect of insignificant - and that was the highlight. On this night the enchanting icaros was punctuated by many an "urraaht!" of exiting spew. Hoping for the divine, I instead received a stockpile of puny mortal.
The 3rd time left me with a vague but persistent sense of direction. If I don't know what I want, then what I want is clarity. Compelled to write, I didn't have any destination revealed, but it was revealed that didn't matter. The answers to someone else's career-planning questionnaire were a barrier that had stopped me from beginning. No more.
The 4th session revealed a step-by-step plan for the immediate terrain. "A knowledge of the path cannot be substituted for putting one foot in front of the other." This wasn't simply motivation, as motivation doesn't last and is just another hurdle if it's a requirement to get started. This was about a disciplined allocation of time and trust into the process.
The 5th and last ceremony was a bumpy ride. My molecules were put on a spin-cycle of relentless shaking to pry free the anaconda's clutch.
On the leaving day of the retreat, I was up early again. Increasingly less sleep was needed and more energy was available. My brain was blotting paper for the info in books, so I read and wrote more. As the day heated up in the final hour, I sat under a tree's protective shade with members of the group and local family. The language barrier didn't prevent light-hearted humour. It softened the small death of an impending goodbye.
During the return to Iquitos, there was a boat transfer mix-up. At our rendezvous spot on the Amazon, there weren't enough places on the speedboat for the passengers on the longboat. This caused a few hours of delay. I didn't have a chance for agitation before I saw that feeling rise in others. I took this as a warning as we returned to the world of civilization's schedules.
When a new speedboat finally arrived, the driver pulled down a flat screen tv facing the passenger seats. This was hooked up to custom stereo system. We took off and were blasted with cheese-heavy, Peruvian pop music. The skipper thought it was "the shit", but that's about half true. This unrelenting assault on the senses for the hours of boat ride felt like rendition. I could already feel the lure of previous modes of cynicism.
Out of this group of 13, I'd safely say that most of us had our orientation in matter recalibrated. Whether or not we all stay on that new course or navigate back towards the old one remains to be seen. Resistance of change is not to be underestimated.
Transformation requires vigilance.
The next day in in fast-paced Iquitos, several of us met at the Dawn of the Amazon Cafe. After a leisurely breakfast, we wandered through the city markets. This wasn't to order the fresh chicken being chopped up in the hot streets. Instead, a few of us sought physical reminders of what we'd experienced. The variety of local handicrafts seemed to cover all bases. Pumas, snakes, owls and jaguars all made their way into artwork. Shiva, Buddha and other holy references made their cameos too, with varied degrees of personal relevance.
While I did encounter a hard-to-explain intelligence, I invoke no deity as an explanation.
It's an accessible mystery, a parallel consciousness. I understand the temptation is to fill this void with the "god of the gaps", or alien putty, or cult Q&A. The thing these "answers" all have in common is a human middleman. That makes for an unacceptable filter when you've directly chanced upon the source.
A mind, once expanded by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Ayahuasca is not an acquired taste. It's a taste that eludes acquisition like a crude-oil-coated eel. The dark liquid slithers into the flesh which begrudgingly accepts it as a trick of gravity. It snakes its way into the mind, body and spirit lands within. When it exits, there is a lifting to the flesh burden.
I have temporarily cleared my infestation.
My hovercraft is no longer full of eels.
At least, that would have been a neat, final sentence if this was a happily-ever-after story. I didn't kill any demons - at best I bulldozed their internal headquarters. It's been several months since I ceased my traveller's momentum and I know they're rebuilding.
In this time I've enforced daily habits that support sketched blueprints with far horizons. I've enhanced important relationships while the pathway to others remains clouded.
Many times my actions fall short of my intentions. I'm not sure if greater awareness of this counts as progress. These missed opportunities of the moment now seem more painful.
There's not much I can say with certainty. I'm different. I don't know exactly how.
