Seizure the Day

Half a brain runs the show.  The cross-wired organ favours right-handers because the left brain hemisphere calls the shots.  This side of the skull uses language, logic and correct cutlery.  A typical school environment favours left brain thinking - facts and single answers.  What's your name?  If a neurosurgeon was to guesstimate the ego's location, they'd likely point their medical instrument within the left hemisphere.

The right half of the thinking team is rarely captain.  Its role looks after emotion, music appreciation and abstract thought, as well as sensations on the left side of the body. Messages are sent across to the control room on the left.  They are complementary halves, like yin to yang, or night to day.  This is a simplified summary of an infant science.  The cutting edge of these studies leaves big gaps filled with mystery and myth.

Split-brain patients have this bridge between hemispheres severed.  A Nobel Prize was awarded to the guy who discovered that cutting through the divide could reduce or eliminate seizures.  Experiments with these bonesaw veterans communicated with only one side at a time.  This isn't usually possible, because millisecond-speed traffic passes within. 

Varied responses from each half support the theory that we experience only the dominant stream of consciousness.  There is another stream generated in the background and its messages must cross between territories.  The re-readable "Mapping the Mind" suggests of this twin:

"...We might all be carrying around in our skulls a mute prisoner with a personality, ambition, and self-awareness quite distinct from the day-to-day entity we believe ourselves to be."

We might.

Aya strongly lights up the right hemisphere in brain scans.  Some researchers suggest this overpowers the usually in-control left.  Another concept - "hemispheric fusion" - suggests cooperation instead of revolution.  My post-puke experiences included deep analytical and intuitive parts, suggesting internal teamwork.


Right hemisphere dominance can catalyst ego death - an imposter for actual death.  The uninformed could slip into panic if left to interpret this feeling.  Our group was well-behaved in this regard.  Apparently, some people need restraint when they freak out at the temporary annihilation of their identity.


A fingertip grasp of a dream world snaps into a new day.


I woke early like sleep was a formality.  In the dining room, I wasn't the only one silently waiting.  We came for salt like weary drought victims to water.  Interpretation of "first thing in the morning" was the silent contemplation.

When Scott entered, he detoured to the kitchen for a full cup of flaky, white crystals.  For each person he first sang an icaros into the individual spoonful.  The idea was not to consume, but to absorb by swishing it around.  After spitting a mouthful of salt onto the grass I returned to the table.  On it, I had an open book face down, but instead I sat and felt energy returning to my mind and body.

Breakfast was similar foods spiced up.  While eating, a number of local ladies set up stalls outside with their handcrafted wares.  Like much of my Peru experience, the pathways to popular places were lined with similar stores.  Walking the gauntlet of colourful trinkets had held no appeal.  I saw the items laid out on the ground here in a different light.  For one thing, these stalls weren't supplemented by Coca Cola and Nestle.  But it was more than that.  It was no longer unnecessary "stuff", it was a conduit for the heart - a way to connect more with others.  I browsed, pondered, selected and purchased.  Then, thinking of other recipients, I repeated the process.  These items were later added to the "mesa" in the ceremony room.  This is a sheet laid out in the main circle with many personal items placed on it.  The shamans would grant protection via the plant-inspired ritual.

A short ride in a longboat delivered the group along a river branch.  This led to a guided jungle walk.  Darlene was the only one to go barefoot.  Scorpions, glow-in-the-dark frogs and food that grew in hiding places were all pointed out.

The boat to return us to camp had engine trouble.  A motorised canoe came to the rescue as it pulled the larger longboat side-by-side back to base.  I knew there was great symbolism here - a fitting analogy - but it didn't come to me and I didn't hunt it.  Instead of thinking of what it was like, I just let it be what it was. 

There was no regulation of the amount of quinoa, sweet potato and coconut curry I ate for lunch.  I enjoyed every mouthful.

A familiar background of dread preceded the last ceremony.  There is however, a group expectation that this one will be different.  We've ceased the main food restrictions, supposedly meaning less clearing work and therefore, an easier night.  Being off the diet also means we can use a trick where we'll eat oatmeal 30 minutes beforehand.  This seeks to negate the stomach nausea, although a purge is still likely.  The tryptophan content of oatmeal was also promoted, as these are the building blocks of serotonin and its feel-goodness.

Aya #5.  Here we go one last time before leaving this home 16 thousand kilometres away from home tomorrow.  Instead of the patient, pre-ceremony silence, the void was filled with many casual conversations.  These light exchanges had a twist of gallows humour before another ego execution.  That was the price of peering into the abyss.  It was sure to respawn - the aim was for a better reincarnation.

Again I sat in a chair, this time close to Zach and Scott.  I could overhear some of their conversation in the dimly-lit room as they were making final preparations.  Zach was asked a question and he gave an unsure answer, then rephrased the query in Spanish to a maestro.  He was corrected and relayed back the information while adding "Don't listen to me, I'm talking out my arse".

"Well, in that case your pronunciation is excellent." Scott added.

My turn to drink the brew came early in the clockwise order.  I requested two thirds of a cup and it didn't seem one third easier.

On this occasion I had only a slight hint of visuals.  I could vaguely make out an ant foetus taking form and trying to grow in front of me.

But mareado wasn't using that visual channel tonight.  Instead, this encounter turned up the volume on body sensations along the pathway to destination unknown.  When we first arrived here, several double-sided A4 pages were provided.  One part read:

"Ayahuasca removes blockages in a number of ways - The most common being vomiting and diarrhea.  You may also find your body trembling or shaking which is to do with the new energy moving through your body and working through blockages and resistance."


Spew was standard so far, but now let's introduce: "trembling or shaking".  The intensity came in waves, and there wasn't much reprieve.  In the gentler gaps I had a few goes of disgorging small amounts.  Nothing to write home about.


The involuntary tremors rocked me to an inaudible, extreme metal beat.  Could I pull myself out of it if I wanted to?  I wasn't sure and didn't care.  The medicine was doing its work and I trusted it.  No control was a freedom - a blissful seizure in the darkness.

When the electric chair turned back into a rocking chair, I was able to vacate a vomit.  This version of electro convulsive therapy was free-range, organic and dolphin-friendly.  In the lab, shocks to the system stimulate cell growth in the brain.  This may lead to better functioning and improved mood.  While rewiring the brain, electrocution didn't hinder the process - it was the process.

My attention in previous sessions had focussed on my heart.  Now a greater wisdom was telling me to give my brain a rest.  It was like a flexed muscle that I didn't realise I was clenching.  When I released the skeletal squeeze, my world became lighter.

For these moments, I had broken identification with my thinking.  Consciousness was still present, but thought was the obstacle.  Like a high form of meditation - the pinnacle was to be the observer of who's thinking about thinking.  "Nothing is good or bad.  Thinking makes it so."

A sustained, personal earthquake loosened the deep-rooted grip of something unnamed.  This was a war of attrition and I was the battleground.  In these late stages of the struggle, doubt gained a voice for its well-timed attack.  Do you I really want to be here?  If looking for a reason to quit, they'd be dangling like branches to armpits in quicksand.

My intent asked a different question.  How far can I take it?  I'm committed to riding the shockwaves until the unnamed thing within fucks off.  The only way, was all the way.  Whatever is inside need exit through energy or matter.  Rattle shakes or purging splatter.  The medicine was vacating a tenant in a taser-encouraged evacuation.

There was no prestige to my role in this battle.  Ayahuasca was fighting this like an infection.  I was a mucousy dragon.  Smoke from my nose was snot.  Fire from my mouth was chunder.  Magic in my mind was the realisation of what was happening.

Before the night was over, I felt an urge to wear the serpent wristband I'd purchased for an unknown recipient.  Tonight, an anaconda had released its crushing hold.  To avoid another death-grip, my left wrist wears my green belt in Spew Fu.

It will take daily practice to keep the gift of lessons learned.

Unspoken Understandings Unswallowed

This was the "Day of Silent Reflection".  I woke early and walked down to the river.  Along the way I received more than one, "Buenos dias!" from family members performing morning chores, to which I waved/nodded/smiled in mute reply.  I'm not sure if they knew of the group's scheduled silence, but either way it didn't stop them from pleasantries.

On my way back up the steps, an ambush of tiredness slowed my pace.  We'd been warned about this and told to expect it.  Energy levels can be significantly affected by the "no salt" factor of the dieta.  (On a side note, I shall revert to using the word "diet" instead of "dieta", as it's like how people can only really get away with saying "Frarnce" while they're in France.)

I remember the visual explanation Zach had given of our expected energy levels during this retreat.  The idea was that we have physical energy and spiritual energy.  He pressed his hands together and held them horizontally to show that both levels usually cruise along at about the same rate.  When the work of the plant medicine combines with the restricted food regime, these levels diverge with spiritual energy rising and physical energy declining (his hands split apart in a sideways "V").  When the diet ends with the reintroduction of salt, spiritual energy stays high and physical energy comes up to meet it.  I was going to say that the symbolic crocodile jaws then clamp down at this new level, but that's not quite the right analogy.  It's more like the lower jaw rises to the upper jaw.  So more correctly - the Amazonian alligator's jaws shut up to a new level.


I accept that the term "spiritual energy" in the above paragraph has a loose definition, though its nature remains hard to pin down.  If physical energy is the paint of a picture, then spiritual energy is the brush outside of the frame.  Earlier during this retreat, one of the group members described himself as a metaphysicist as I asked what that meant.  Dale defined metaphysics as (I paraphrase), "that which cannot be measured."  He then referred to language as a prime example, as words can be recorded but meaning can't be quantified.  This well-packaged idea had me thinking.

The voiceless day left plenty of time to explore around the camp.  At first I checked out the site of the fallen tree(s) from last night.

Then I had a better look at the buildings here that were still being built.  This place was still a work in progress and next year there were plans to begin construction on a new school for the village children around this area.  As a donation-based program, the helping of others remained a prime emphasis of the people here.

The lack of conversation this day was a chance to quiet the mind.  I used it as an opportunity to read from the communal library that made up part of the dining room.  Sitting with a topical text in front of me, it was the most sustained attention I've brought to a book for as long as I could remember.  I laser-beamed through the pages.

Speed reading is a topic I have delved into on several occasions via different systems. I've had limited success even though the fundamentals aren't that difficult to grasp.  The unacknowledged problem was that the mind would easily wander after a couple of pages.  I'd get big jumps in acceleration while maintaining comprehension, but only for a short time.  Going faster made it easier to slip out of the groove.  There was a missing shush of internal chatter that hindered momentum.  Not now though.  Self-generated distraction was gone and I was off to the races.


Another turn of the page presented the last concluding sentences.  Finished, I closed the book and let it sit for a moment on the table before me.  Measured against my usual pace, that was ridiculously fast.  Was it delusionarily fast?


I brought my mind to pieces of retention - parts that had sparked my interest and I wanted to remember.  Then I quickly zeroed in on these noteworthy pages for selected passages and inspired concepts.   One section of "New Brain, New World" approached ayahuasca with brain scan studies.  The book, by Eric Hoffman, then tied this in to people's subjective experiences and life changes.  DMT (the chemical vehicle of the natural medicine) is very similar to serotonin (the brain's regulator of mood, sleep, appetite and memory) and when it binds to nerve receptors in the brain, a change in consciousness takes place.  It's as if the brain reserves a parking space for this different flavoured neurotransmitter.

To quote another part directly:

"Ayahuasca allows the possibility of contemplating the Self without the interference of the analytical and critical mind.  This allows the possibility to accept and integrate the Self at a higher level of consciousness."

It's difficult to talk about higher levels of consciousness without coming across as a pretentious twat.  Reaching to a new level is one thing, but staying there is something else.  That said, it's the first peek over a fence that has no comparison.

Happy with the result of my book blitz, I walked back to the shelf to make an exchange.  With a new title in hand, I returned to my seat in the dining room.  After a chapter or so, I recognised the short-term comfort of the plastic chair as the weakest link, so I sought out an unoccupied hammock.  It was a productive day.

Tonight, the scheduled main event was a tobacco tea ceremony instead of ayahuasca.  Drinking tobacco is about as a delicious as it sounds, which is to say, very much not at all.  This was going to be a strong dose with a forecast of puke and no expected "mareado" effect.  I think for these reasons, only about half the group engaged in this optional extra.  I chose to participate for its proposed cleansing and possible euphoric effects.  By this point in the retreat, I didn't quite consider myself a Vomit Jedi, but my skills had undeniably improved.  I was no longer getting in my own way - holding onto my precious, pre-digested contents with a golem's grasp.  At the same time, I couldn't claim any sick enjoyment from "the purge".  More would be required in the last few days here so I might as well hone my hurl.

The tea began being poured.  Zach was the first to wrestle this distasteful drink.  The alarmingly larger mug he held meant an increased serving size.  I counted 7 seconds from the moment he started pouring it down the hatch until he pulled the empty cup away from a face clenched into a fist.  It looked ghastly, but I figured that I could suspend any retching reaction for at least 10 seconds.  My turn came and I focussed on counting numbers as I knocked it back.


For this daylight ceremony, we all sat in a circle of chairs with the water reservoir moved to the centre.  I had over a litre in my bottle, although the recommendation was to quickly drink around 2 litres.  I gulped down what I had, hoping that would be enough and waited.  Some people burst out an early chuck.

Within the uncertain interval between input and output, I suspected more liquid was required for the flush.  I eyed the distance between my seated position and the refill container.  There was a typhoon brewing and I couldn't be sure of its explosive timing.  With my empty bottle in one hand and refund-receptacle in the other, I made a controlled dive for more water.   It was a cautious 3 steps forward, 3 steps back, before I returned to my seat and gulped down an extra litre.  Eventually, the internal tsunami surfaced.  In a high pressure torrent it came out like a flash flood making a prison break.  I spewed a kiddie pool into my wide bucket, except there was no shallow end.

Job done, a wave of euphoria quickly followed.  My barf was a proud achievement, although the elation I felt had an extra layer, thicker than pride.

The ceremony ended not long after nightfall, so dinner immediately followed.  I didn't think food would go down so easily considering the timing, but it was fine.  Satay sweet potatoes and soft fruit such as papaya and banana were ideally gentle on the esophagus.  The discussions at the meal table had a marked change this evening, especially for those who had taken part in the purge.  The mood was notably lighter and engaged conversation followed with humour. 

One by one, group members began retiring for the evening.  I took my time to get up and head to bed along the semi-moonlit walkway between the dinner hut and my room.  As I got closer, I had an inkling to use my torch.  It was a good thing that I did, as the mysterious dark shape at the base of my door turned out to be the camp's resident dog curled up outside my room.  Since I have been here, I'd only seen him a couple of times, always pre-occupied in the distance.  Now, he appeared content to rest in this chosen spot.  I smiled as this made me feel like I'd been especially selected.  I later found out that a few people had received the same vigilant welcome as they went to bed that evening, so it seemed like he'd been laying down from room to room.  Knowing how my dog at home plays a crowd, I didn't let that take away from the moment.

I had a shower with the pails of water carried from the river, said good night to the dog and went to bed.  Lying down, I felt a much stronger link with nature and my own uninhibited breathing.  Whatever I previously considered as full lung capacity, was now exposed as a fraction of these unmined depths.  All tension was gone from my body while floating on the sea of simple existence with my unhurried, purposeful breaths.  At first, I thought this was going to send me off to an awesome slumber.  Then I realised that this relaxation was a type of stimulated vitality.  I was too mentally alert to sleep so I attentively listened to the sounds of the jungle's nightshift.  I tried to separate the different tiers of creature calls between maybe-insects, maybe-frogs and other nocturnal animals of the maybe-I-haven't-got-a-clue variety.

After that project I found my torch and finished reading the book I'd brought to my room.  Then I did some more writing.  And then, deep into the darkness, without the further distractions of electricity's charms, I reluctantly slept.