Please find condensed notes from my 2nd Ayahuasca Journey.
In the days between my first and second Ayahuasca ceremony I was sick. A combination of Yellow fever vaccine side effects, little food, mental stress, fatigue and the amazon jungle had taken a heavy toll on my body and mind. Fever oozed from every pore of my aching body. I was nauseous but couldn’t purge and the sheer fear of my next ceremony loomed over me like a thunderous black cloud waiting to erupt. Wasted, batteries depleted, I felt like I was fading away.
The jungle was hot and steamy. Occasional relief came in the form of downpours of rain which I sat in on the steps of our moloka trying in vain to wash away the turmoil of my thoughts. I’d taken terrible news the night before after a telephone call from back home many thousands of miles away. The shear shock of my first ceremony and what was about to happen added to my dismay.
The evening of our second ceremony soon arrived. I became aware the sounds of the jungle changing as the light got dimmer. We lit candles. As I swung uneasily in my hammock I watched patterns flicker on the mahogany moloka beams above me and wished I was somewhere else.
I could hear voices in the ceremony room below me and I knew it was time. My heart started racing. The sound of muddy boots on wood came closer and our host appeared at the green mosquito net covered door.
“The shaman has arrived” he announced. My heart sank and with a dry mouthed voice muttered a response.
Our host sat beside me and I spoke of my worry. He assured me everything would be ok and that I should join them. I needed it... I was reluctant as a cat being forced into a cage to take part but I forced my body to walk down the steps to the ceremony room. Each step felt like I was descending deeper into my doom.
I could see a group of people through the netting of the ceremony room and I pushed the door open. The room felt warm and inviting but the smell of burning sandalwood brought back agonizing memories from my first experience. Through the dappled smoky light a stocky man walked forward with an outstretched hand. I extended mine and gripped his soft hand. It was the shaman. He greeted me warmly.
The shaman was accompanied by a lady and a younger man who I knew to be his apprentice. After greeting the rest of our group he took his position at the back of the room.
I settled down on a mat, my son and brother on either side of me. Next to each one of us was a plastic bucket which made me feel nauseous just looking at it.
The room was full and each of the 12 mats inhabited by an intrepid explorer.
At the back of the room our host sat beside the shaman and produced a litre size bottle of brown liquid from a plastic bag.
Our host lit a mapacho cigarette and breathed smoke in all directions across the moloka to protect us. The shaman welcomed us in a soft soothing voice. The ceremony had started.
Each one of us took turns to drink a cup of Ayahuasca. We sat on our mats waiting. The shaman started to whistle and sing.
As the shaman started to sing an icaro the words this time took on a different meaning then the agonizing, torturous barrage I’d taken on my first journey.
A soft, warm, deep loving melody emanated from his mouth and saturated the room leaving a trail of bright blue blobs of color. I felt myself drifting and melding into the words. The words became vibrations; the vibrations took form and the form took hold of my aching body. I lay back and gave myself up to it. I snuggled deeper into the warmth and was cradled and rocked with the undivided love of a mother comforting her baby. I consciously breathed out a long, slow breath of relief.
As I inhaled I was elevated upwards. I could feel my eyes pushing up behind my eyelids. I could physically feel the sensation of lift, of wind pushing over my body. As I soared relentlessly up I passed through rich geometric tapestries, twisting now and again but forever upwards. There was no ceiling. The scenery was moving fast and I was trying to take photographs in my mind’s eye of the beautiful landscape I was passing through as I knew I would never remember all this. I was flying up a snake’s body; its diamond scales an infinite depth of resolution and color.
I moved sideways for a while and then up into twisting, fractal tubes from above.
I tried to take stock of my surroundings. Each time I tried to concentrate and focus my vision a map of patterns unfolded up in front of me.
The patterns took on a crimson color embellished with black diamonds which suddenly and abruptly opened up and left me hovering in front of what looked like counter. Behind the counter, a sort of waist high desk stood a being dressed in a crimson harlequin suit. The being wore a pointed hat, like the hat a pope wears. The suit and hat was embellished with black diamonds.
The being wasn’t male or female. I can’t place a gender on it. I have thought long and hard about this.. It looked at me, straight at me with two eyes and then with its right hand, pulled open a plush, velvet looking curtain, a veil which was fixed with a rail from above. It allowed me through. I felt ecstatic.
Once through I soared sideways through a mass of patterns and up through cloud cover and up into the blue, blue like I’d never seen before. Blue so blue that I became it and dissolved and dispersed…
Time must have passed. I opened my eyes and hazily looked across the moloka. I felt myself back in my body. I was aware of my sense of smell returning and could feel hot humid air against my skin. My vision was fuzzy. I slowly sat up, crossed legged and breathed. I placed my consciousness on my breathing and felt my chest expand then my stomach push out.
I became immediately aware something different about where I was. Sure it was the same room but the atmosphere felt different. The air I was breathing felt like it had a different ratio of gases. I felt nauseous and lay back down for a moment. Everything was silent apart from clicking, pipping sounds coming from behind the mosquito netting out in the jungle in front of me.
I sat up again and had the same nauseous feeling but the sounds outside attracted my attention. I surveyed the jungle. The trees had taken on geometric shaped clusters of leaves. It was almost like they had been constructed using a child’s sort of construction set. They weren’t blocky sort of pixels but detailed in a way that was certainly different from their original form.
They jungle outside looked like an alien landscape, that’s all I can say. The trees were interesting but the noises more so. With my senses on high alert I zoomed in my vision and hearing to an area out in the jungle directly in front of me.
I was aware of small intense, led bright blue lights moving around in the bushes. The lights were the source of the sound. The sound was electric, a sort of static clicks and pips that came in patterns and then paused. The sound was directed at me. When I placed my attention on it came. When I moved my attention away the tone and pitch of the sound increased in intensity to attract me back. I tested this several times.
I played with the idea in my mind that I was looking at fireflies, insects in the jungle and they were making the noise, but as the thoughts reeled in my head the sounds answered me in a way I knew they were not. The sounds were communicating with me.
The blue lights had now moved close to the netting and I could see large shapes around them moving in the jungle. As I write this the hairs on my arms and neck are standing up.
I looked around the room and could see one of our ceremony guides observing me closely. Something was going on. There was something outside the moloka in the jungle. I was in a cross-species conversation with a being and entity that was right in front of me using thoughts and sound. I was sat in a different place, a different atmosphere, a different dimension. This is it…
I suddenly felt a huge urge to go to the toilet. The toilet was out through the door across a wooden walkway. I looked back at the thing through the netting; it was still crackling static pips. The toilet was out there… shit. What do I do, what do I do. I panicked in my mind. I needed the toilet badly but there was something outside. Maybe the feeling will go away but it wouldn’t, my stomach turned and knotted.
I felt aware that our guide was observing me and knew what was going on. Was this meant to happen? Was it a test? I either stay or crap myself on the spot or grow a pair and face whatever is out there. A surge of energy came over me and I shot up and stumbled out of through the door. I held my breath in a hot stepped dash to the toilet. Whilst in the toilet block I twisted and contorted my neck and head around the door to keep an eye on the jungle to see if the thing would appear. I raced back to the ceremony room and only felt I breathed when the door was finally closed behind me.
I took my place on my mat and lay back. The shaman started singing “Ayahuasca Curandera….” warm ripples and waves caressed me and the visions started again. I drifted off.
I could hear my name being whispered; the whispering was distant then close then distant. Was I dreaming? I felt a warm breath on my ear realized someone was next to me. It was our host.
The shaman had invited me to lie next to him to receive a healing session. I felt warm, happy and relaxed. I lay on the floor and he worked over me. With eyes closed I felt leaves and feathers being brushed over me. I could smell pine like scents and pure fresh mountain air. My head felt crystal clean. My aches, pains, sickness and tensions dissolved in pure white light. As part of the healing the shaman gave me a gift which I carry me with me to this day.
The shaman finally closed the ceremony.
My experience of Ayahuasca this second time has been truly life changing for me. It has taken me 18 months absorb what happened that night and memories and are still coming back to me.
I am eternally grateful to our host, the shaman, his helper and apprentice, to Peru, the jungle and the spirit of the plants that made all this possible.
With much love and gratitude to all, I thank you for reading.
taina naina nainí