Part 1 took part throughout the day Saturday, with some unexpectedly powerful meetings with Papa Cacao and Mama Coca and other plant gifts, and ended with the Trichocereus brews going full swing, with a drop of lemon for that special touch. After a couple of hours of light boiling, I filtered out the cactus parts (and stuck them in the freezer for a future use) and was left with a BIG bowl (close to a gallon) of green Scopulicola snot (from approximately one foot of six-inch diameter Scopulicula, from a very special specimen), and a smaller pot of my medicine, approximately 1 foot of 3-4 inch diameter Trichocereus Torch x Bridgesii. A chalice was chosen, and each of the 8 of us had a cup. The T x B, surprisingly, was very tasty, almost sweet. I was surprised how nice it tasted in comparison with Scopulicola, pure Peruvian Torch and San Pedro. The drinking portion of the evening lasted for several hours; about half the people found it revolting and only had a small portion, while several others took their time with the chalice. After about two hours, we had passed the chalice around twice, and a healthy, lively buzz fell over the room. We mingled, discussed what was going on in our lives, while Princess Primrose gave several of the attendees a "Sound Healing", using sound frequencies to "tune in to" and "balance" the "patient". I don't know exactly how it works but it sure feels nice!
The drinking portion of the evening was quickly coming to an end; about half of the participants couldn't stomach the taste of the cactus snot, so they opted for the special blue/green Peruvian San Pedro powder. I was around my 4th chalice of the TxB, and there was still a few chalices left of the Scopulicola snot, so with a funky sort of mightiness that comes so naturally during meetings with Papa Cactus, I drank the remainder of my medicine and the remainder of everyone else's medicine with a puckered face, and for good measure I topped it off with a healthy tablespoon or so of the special Pedro powder, for extra insurance
. Chinese Dragon says: "Bitter medicine is Good medicine", and this very much applies with cactus! This concluded the partaking of the cactus medicine, so I headed upstairs to the Temple, where the rest of the attendees had congregated. My friends have created a stunning space with their duplex; in the downstairs area was the living room, TV, kitchen, and sound healing area, while upstairs, in the bedrooms, they've created a ceremonial space with the "focus on the details and the rest will fall into place" method. To illustrate this method, on one of the walls, Old Man Medicine designed, piece-by-piece, a collage of artworks (from an assortment of artists), and built it up, piece-by-piece, until the wall was covered, placing each piece in a place that felt appropriate or sensible with respect to the other pieces. Once he finished collaging the wall, he noticed that the 10 paintings on the wall actually represented, to the T, the Kaballic Tree of Life, starting from the root, Malkuth, to the crown, Kether. He built the collage up only examining the relationships of each piece relative to the others, and in the process he subconsciously created a representation of the Tree of Life. Old Man and Princess created a magical, intent-ful, calming space using this "detail-oriented" method, with a medicine wheel in one room, and a small altar in the second room, which I call the Alembic, the vessel for purification.
For the second part of the evening, we gathered around the candle-lit Medicine Wheel, an Amerindian representation of the Cosmos, and enjoyed conversation and community as Papa Cactus took full effect. He never disappoints! I quickly entered a fully psychedelic, Plus Three space, and was glad I stuck it out and drank as much as I did. The conversation hovered around The Little Curandero. Dr. Leary's translation/interpretation of the Tao Te Ching ("Psychedelic Prayers"
talks about how the best guide makes you feel like you're not even being guided, and in reflection, this is precisely the role The Little Curandero played. I have a good bit of experience with cactus and other psychedelic medicines, and don't need a "guide" for cactus, but The Little Curandero's subtle presence (along with the magic of everyone present) made this ceremony extra special...in fact, the best EVER. His descriptions of the wonders of South America, "a land where the eagle still flies", brought soft tears to my eyes, giving me a feeling of, strangely enough, homesickness. Curandero had spent two years in Peru, doing work of all sorts, and brought back a connection to the land there that sang through his words. The Peruvian Andes are very special, full of magic, they are like white-coated wizards from ancient times, and I could feel this through his voice. Our Cactus ceremony had turned into a family reunion of sorts, with each of us listening intently to Curandero's tales of wonder. Soon, the subject turned to ayahuasca, and The Little Curandero suggested we call ayahuasca into the room. We all became quiet, and I asked how we could call Mama Aya into the room. As if to answer my question, El Curandero began a soft, seductive whistle, almost like whistling a dog, but *not quite*. Instantly - and this was actually incredible that he could do this - I felt Mama Aya enter the room with force. I started shaking violently, recalling those frightening experiences with DMT/changa, and felt Ayahuasca pulsing throughout my entire body as Curandero continued the apparently very effective icaro, a shamanic power song. Old Man Medicine was watching me from across the room, and he said that as soon as Curandero began whistling the icaro, I "shape-shifted" into a serpent figure with a light-based diamond hovering over my forehead. As Curandero continued whistling, I sat, shaking violently in energetic response to the song, and the pet dog, previously sound asleep in his downstairs kennel, began to *howl* in tune with the icaro; I understand this rapport between dogs and ayahuasca/DMT is quite well known among both native tribes (with introduced dogs) and modern-day DMT voyagers. Naturally this was one of the most impressive "shamanic performances" I've witnessed, since this evocative whistle instantly, with incredible force, brought Mama Aya into the room. I didn't ask Curandero where he learned this icaro, but he said it wasn't passed down from others, and in fact was partly improvised; he also couldn't repeat the performance the next day, after Papa Cactus had worn off, since, as he said, most people require "medicine" in order to perform or be receptive to a particular icaro. I suspect ayahuasca taught him the tune, or at least the way to use such a whistled tune to call it into the room. I'd already known about icaros both through Steve Beyer's work and from completely unexpected experiences such as "tunings" and "harmonic calibrations" and "having the Earth sing through my body" during vaped DMT/Syrian Rue experiences, but this was over the top, since it was so powerful, so instant, and since ayahuasca wasn't even present.
In the meantime, I've been trying to work out how this could happen - one possibility is that ayahuasca is actually a "spirit" or "energy-form" that "lives" hyperdimensionally, and that can be called through a tune, just as a dog can be called with a quick, sharp whistle. Another, compatible, possibility is expressed by Luis Eduardo Luna: "One ayahuasca vision showed me how all levels of existence, including material and non-material levels as thoughts or feelings, have vibration, or sound underneath their surface manifestation. If one can reproduce the sound, vibration, or "song" of that which you are working with, you can enter into it and change it around! The shaman does just this using themselves as an instrument to effect the joining.". I don't know of other possibilities, but it seems to me that the vibrational quality of the icaro is at least partly responsible for its ultimate effect. Vibrations produced vocally or via controlled air flow also have deep connections/resonance in the skull/skeleton, which in turn connect the ayahuasquero to la tierra de los muertos, the land of the dead, which ties it all together since ayahuasca is the Vine of the Dead.
So here we were, the 8 of us, with me still shaking to the core, emerging from what quickly became an ayahuasca ceremony, brought into the room with the unexpectedly powerful song. The course of the night from here seemed unclear; it was clear that several of the participants didn't have enough achuma for a proper ceremony, so I felt there was a slight tension in the room. Also, the older couple, probably in their mid-40's, didn't have enough of the achuma, and simultaneously were all over each other. It seemed like they needed a place more private, to themselves. This all worked itself out, but in the meantime the psychologist introduced a question that had already entered my mind: why were we all here, out of all places, for a completely unplanned medicine session? Several of the people present live in other parts of the country and were only visiting the area, while the rest of us had connections to each other in one way or another - in fact, Old Man Medicine and Princess Primrose had already invited me to visit their temple - but the circumstances that brought us all together were very unusual. Most of the people present recognized it as the sort of uncanny, life-directing coincidence Dr. Jung designated as "synchronicity", and most of us felt it implied a sort of connection between our inner development/healing processes - which obviously were helped along by the very good medicine inside the tissue of Papa Cactus - and the larger healing processes Pachamama is so deeply in need of. With the guidance the cactus faithfully provides, we realized that we were all "Warriors of the Rainbow", to use an old motif.
After all these incredible discussions and the fascinating ayahuasca call, a silence fell over the room. Suddenly, the thought of Eris, the Greek goddess of strife, chaos, and discord, entered my mind with great force. Even though I'm a bona fide Discordian pope (and so are you...) I hadn't thought of Eris in weeks. Eris represents the principle of unplanned change - she pops up whenever things become stagnant, breaks up old structures, and allows for new structures to come into place in one's life. She is embodied by the "Tower" card in the Tarot deck, if you're familiar with that system. I wondered what was going to happen now that Eris had so forcefully entered my consciousness, but alas, before I could wonder too long, three of the eight participants quickly announced that it was time for them to go home. As quickly as Eris entered the room, they were packing up and leaving, at 3 AM in the midst of a cactus ceremony! Nevertheless I felt they would be completely safe on the way home, so in a way I was glad for this sudden disruption - Eris, as she always does, brought a moment of discord in order to bring about the possibility of greater things. Sometime around this point I also offered to share with El Curandero some of either the very nice Hofmannian potion I had brought along, or some of the Spice-enhanced leaf (combination of Pau d'Arco bark, Caapi bark, and Nepalese Blue Lotus leaf) I had been saving for a few months. He considered the offer, but realized that the night wasn't the proper night for an interface of the lysergic variety. With this in mind, we went outside for a smoke of mapacho, Peruvian jungle tobacco, and a dazzling show of stars. As I stared into the stars they began to shimmer and sway in the deep, dark sky, and some of them began to "shoot". As Dr. Sagan said, we're Star-dust, staring back into the endless origin of our planet and species.
Next week I'll type up Part III: Blasting In, including one of the most powerful DMT experiences of my life, along with a bit of introspection about where we're at and where we're going in what Dr. Leary describes as "this ocean of chaos". These are wild times, wild times...
"...I didn't know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I didn't know that cats could grin..." - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland