Ceremony 9,
Something gave me the feeling during the day that this nights ceremony was going to be different and important. The past couple weeks the ayahausca journeys have been difficult, painful and at time's pure terror. I always understood though and trusted that it is part of the process. I aknowledged gratefully that ayahausca was stripping me down and searching for every last bit of fear so I can choose to stand and face them all. Its been a hard part of the process and not just in ceremony. I've been derpessed, lonely and frustrated with angry thoughts for over a week. I have felt lost in a way and wanting to leave but could feel the importance of staying and allowing the process to complete. I knew id come a long way over these past ceremony's and could feel my fears releasing their grip on me so I knew the end of this part was at least in sight and I welcomed the rebuilding process. Ayahuasca will break you down to your very elements and then re build you a new person. This is what I wish for myself. I see now this what I came here for without knowing it.

The past 3 ceremony's I have lowered my dose to one and a half cups since the experiences have been intense and difficult but now I felt ready to start pushing the envelope again having felt more confident in working through many if not most of my fear. This night instead of drinking 1 cup and then another half cup and hour or so later I decided to just drink 2 cups from the start. After i drank I looked over at Eric who was starring at me and he asked, "did you just drink 2 cups?". "ummm yea, im tired of having to get up and get more each night so I figured what the hell", he laughed and gave me a nod. A nod that said, good job but also good luck! Little did any of us know that this was to be the strongest ayahausca yet. As the effects took place I could hear the shaman's giggling and discussing how strong this brew was. It was fun, it felt like the whole room was in this one together and everyone could sense something big was about to happen to each of us.

The more times I drink the more im becoming familiar with the different stages of the come up process as it blossoms into the full expereince. The first thing for me is the visions start lightly as I coax them forth growing stronger as time passes. The begining visions are always the dmt. What I've learned is that I can now recognize that their are at least 2 layers of visions, the top level belong to dmt and are the typical geometric colorful morphings and things coming straight at my face. The second level I discovered a few trips ago is underneath the dmt visions. These visions take place in the minds eye not your actual eye's like the dmt visions. So as the come up was growing the first lesson I was being shown was how to toggle back and forth between the 2 sets of visions at will. The exercise I used came to me out of nowhere almost by accident. This is a really cool tripping exercise to try and with it you are able to feel and observer the psychedelic effects taking over. Here's what I did.

It wasnt hard for me to focus on the dmt visions I just need to look through my eye's closed though, slightly up and there they are. It was harder to focus on the minds eye visions at will so I thought of this little trick. These visions take place in the same part of your brain that you use when picturing something. If I was to ask you to picture an apple in as much detail as possible, where you see that apple is where these visions reside. The apple is what I used becuase of its simplicity for a first time attempt. I would concentrate on a red apple on a white table trying to picture it in my mind. It was difficult as I could feel the ayahuasca taking control over this part of my mind. I would get the image and try to keep it for as long as I could but the the visions would dominate the pictured apple even one time devouring it as a flat photograph. The more I did this the easier it was to be able to switch from the dmt visions to the other visions and eventulely didnt need to use the apple short cut. These other visions are where movemet and landscapes take place. Where you see other beings and animals and travel to places. They are completely different from the visions created by dmt aka chacruna. Also this field of visions is where the real work and information comes from. The dmt visions for me and others Ive talked with are awesome beautiful speactales but there really isnt anything in those. The lessons are in the minds eye visions so I wanted to learn how to stay there for this reason.

By this time the icaros had started and I layed back and watched the visions from the mind eye. I could tell that this was going to be a very strong journey possibly the strongest yet and I was ready for it. The visions started to go to work on the last reamining fear and residue. The visions would turn ugly and scary and I finaly understood how this all works. The ugly visions are not there to scare you their there to teach you how to face your fears and then liberate yourself from them. When a scary vision would show itself and some of my fear reacted to it by being afraid the vision was able to attacth itself to that fear and the experince would be negative or possibly terrifying depending on the amount of fear it was able to attach to feeding it power. When a scary vison presented itself but I did not fear it it had nothing to grab onto thus forcing it to dislove and vanish. This went on for a while and the more times I suceeded I realized that it wasnt just the visions that were dissolving the fear inside me was as well.

It finaly got to the point that I completely welcomed and enjoyed the ugly visions becuase I reached a point that there was no longer any fear inside me and they had absolutly no effect or control over me anymore. As the reamining attempts would pop up like a little leaping critter trying desprately to find something to grasp on to within me I just laughed and said, "there is nothing left, keep trying I assure its all gone. I have NO MORE FEARS! I had faced all of them in the weeks here and finaly knew that Id been absolved of any and all human and situational or develpomental fear. All of it, Gone.

I sat up for the first time and looked around the room in a state of great peace and tranquility. I needed to use the bathroom and noticed a human fear trying to come through. I was so intoxicated that moving was hard so this little fear that I wouldn't have ever noticed before popped in my head, "what if I fall, or cant find the door in the darkness" not a major fear but a fear nonethe less. Well there was no place in me for fear any longer so I refused to feed it power by feeling it and it just went away. Holy shit this tool isnt just for tripping this is something i will do my whole life to not be controled by fear!!!
I sat there for a min marveling at the importance of this night and could feel myslef coming down now. I gratiously accepted what I recieved even though I wished to continue I thought i got what was needed and if im coming down a bit early it's ok. With that I got up and went to the bathroom, without fear.

In the bathroom I sat there purging out the bad and noticed the open eye visulas were starting to increase. Increase drasticly and quickly. It was if I was coming up all over again and really felt the urgency to finish up and get back to my mat while I was still able to move. This second wave was hitting me that hard and that fast!
Back at my mat I thought holy shit! Ayahsuca your so unpredictably marvelouse and layed back for round 2 which was to be the most life changing event of my entire life as well as the call to leave the states and everything i owned and come on this adventure. It was happening, it all came down to this night and part of me knew it.

Laying there on my back I began flikering in and out of reality. This has happened to me before on multiple occasion and usually I enjoy it and try to remain in the void. The place that nothing exists, non reality. Its an interesting state and one that cant be described but Ive enjoyed going there although many fear it. However this night I felt I needed to stay in this reality beacuase something big was coming I couldnt miss so I fought to remain real. It was like a wrestling match and it got very bizzare.

Now I was flikering into 3 different realitys. This world, the void and now into an HBO fantasy series I've been watching called Game of Thrones which is about dragons and knights ext. My reality was blending with the films and I would open my eys and be different characters in the movie so real that I wasnt even aware it was happening until I flikered back to this reality and realized I had just been a charater in the movie without knowing it! This was pretty fun so I didnt fight it I let it go on for a while. Finally I saw Emilio approaching me as quite as a cat while whispering his soft blowing announcing his arrival as he gently took a seat in front of me.

Here we go I thought. Emilios has the most powerful and beautiful icaro's than any other shaman of the shipibo. Its alway such a treat when he sings for me but this time I quickly felt something much, much more was abolut to happen. I fully knew that this was it! That I was going to see and complete my transformation and be a new person by the end of his singing! I just knew it and prepared myslef as the gentle blowing stopped as he inhaled deeply to begin his powerful icaro majic! I am ready, lets do this thing.

Emilio began singing and the frequency's resonated through me shifting and moving something inside my gut. Just a min into his icaro I sat up and realized I was going to purge. I quickly found my bowl and it came. Deep bellowing purge like no other. Wretch after wretch I filled the bucket alomost full and when there was nothing left in my stomach what came out of me where inhuman like sounds from the very depths of my being. Once I knew i was done purging I had to place the bowl down as it was so full it was wobbling in my hands and I certainly didnt want to spill it. I placed it to my side and shuttered a few times whiping my mouth and blowing my nose emptying the vomit from my nostrils. Taking a deep breath I sat up straighter held my head high and breathed feeling the peace fill me. I had just purged out the last bit of the fears and was now clean. As his songs continues the visions began again.

I saw a statue made of smooth dark stone standing infront of a white building. It was me. A perfect representation of myself as a statue. The sound waves from emilio fractured the statue into hundreds of pieces and they fell to the ground scattering themsleves about in randomness. All these pieces were the different part of me. The broken remains layed there on the ground and an invisible dog approaced the rubble. Although I couldnt exactly see the animal in a way I could, in my mind. The dog sniffed and snuffed through the rubble at time's nudging chunks with its nose sniffing, searching. Searching carefully and methodicaly looking for any trace of fear within the pieces of me. I mentaly said to the hound, its all gone, there is nothing left. i have surerendered all I am and all my feras to the medicine. There is nothing left.

With that the hound retreated quitely into the the ethers from where it came and I was watching the still peaces of me sitting there. A light breeze blew through me as I took a deep breath signaling I was ready. The broken pieces of the statue of me beagn to twitch and move slightly. Just a few at first but then more of them beagn to move. The pieces began to gravitate to eachother slowly at first but then picked up momentum and took to the air swirling and finding their place they came from as I was being rebuilt. Once all the pieces re-assembled my new form was not a statue but actual flesh and blood person. I was naked and hovering just a foot above the ground slightly laying back arms and legs limp like I was being held by an invisible giant hand. I closed my eye's and when I reopened them the form was no loger infront of me, it was me. I looked at my hands inspecting my body with new eye's. My clothing re-materialized on me and I transported back to my mat in the maloka with Emilio sitting before me still singing. My God! Ive been re-born! Ayahuasca over this process had broken me down, stripped me to by bare elements cleansed me of all the pain, fear, and toxins and put me back together re-birthing a new person. It was done, the tranformation was now complete and I for the first time became truly and fully self aware of exactly what it is I am.

Emilio finished his icaros cleansed me with mapacho and moved on. I sat there in awe and amazed at the realization of what just happended and what this means. For the first time in my life I was a free man. I was free from all my fears and pains. Free from regrets and guilt. I realized that it is impossible to be fully free until you have faced your fears and disolved them one at a time. I had done this and I was now a new person and completly un-restrained by any of lifes burdens or inner turmoil from fears and insecurity's. I was free.

My whole life came down to this journey and more specificaly although a process this moment. All the questions had been answered and I now could see that everything in my life was to get me to this point so I may be liberated from fear and be free. In the end it wasn't a golden amulate, or saving the world, or any glorious action, it was this re birth and liberation that was my lifes purpose. I had sought, follwed and found my lifes purpose on this night and the feeling then and now are indescribable. My life begins now, my new life, my new self.

Now as I sat there a cleansed vessel I could see that only now the vibrations and information from the otherside are able to flow through me into this world. The mesaages can not come through a spirit that isn't cleansed fully of their fears. I am now fit to recive the messages and lessons of ayahuasca and all the teachers loud and clear beacause I have transformed. This part of the process was done. My personal metamorphis. there are no words, at least none that need be spoken.
namaste.
Om'

Pure magic, I am amazed at how much you have brought back for us to read.

You, Oly, have a very strong mind and a strong heart. Thanks so much!

This was one of the most profound things I have ever read. I have goosebumps all over and tears in my eyes. I can feel the love from your experience overflowing in to my home.

I wish you many blessings with your re-birth, my friend.

I feel honored to have read that. Thank you.

love this whole story brother!

Well that was interesting. Thanks for sharing your amazing journey OM, you're a brave warrior!

The visions in the minds eye are something that has gotten alot stronger for me lately working with some very very powerful vine..these are the typical visionary effects from harmalas so far in my experience with both rue and caapi in sufficient doses..and after drinking smaller amounts of the medicine daily for a year with larger doses weekly I seem to be able to tune into this level of visions more and more and with smaller doses than I could at first.

Those visions really are where it all goes down..and I find that once you can tune into this level of the medicine those visions tend to merge with the DMT aspect of it, and it has been those really strong doses of vine with the admixture when this happen and that is the nights when I will have full on spirits in the room with me open eyes etc..neon birds flying around, owls, hawks, giant cats etc..and also people. The visions the vine brings out can be the most transformative for me, and I often meet very realistic convincing people who have knowledge to impart..

It is so much like spirit dreaming while fully awake..

Ayahuasca works in such interesting way's. Sometimes I have very strong vision's sometimes not. As of the last 2 weeks there the visions completely stopped which was kind of a bummer but you get what you get and its always what you need IMO.
Thank you Jaime for your insights and knowledge, you have helped me tremendously learn how to work with the medicine ayahuasca.

I also have many ceremonies without much in the way of visions..but i still get to the most ecstatic places often in those sessions..usually I can tune into the vine visions even if they are very mild but sometimes it is not my focus..weird how sometimes the DMT will be very somatic as well and energetic but not visual..like it just picks what is to be worked on at the time..

One question about the brews..the shipibo I have heard work with only chacruna and vine and no other admixtures..is that true from your experience? their brews are very pure I hear and they dont brew mapacho or toe or anything like that..

not to butt in - but from my experience in pucallpa with the shipibo, it was always chacruna & vine
except for one time when a different family relative provided the brew...

the experience was dark and ghostly, tropane vibes.

the next day, the curandero said that he tasted the bark of a tree with which he had dieted... a tree popular with brujos (regrettably i didn't get the name).

he said that his experience of this tree, was that it completely filled the space with arrows... arrows so thick that they blocked out the sky. the brujo can learn how to master these arrows to kill.

(this curandero however was learning the brujo plants in order to defend himself.)


so from my limited experience i would say that most of the time it's pure vine/chacruna, with individual variations, depending on the intent of the ceremony. i also suspect that in the context of some retreats they go extra heavy on the chacruna to meet western expectations.


and thank you for these superbly insightful and descriptive reports, olympus!

Most often yes its just chacruna and caapi, in fact they have never even heard of chaliponga when I spoke to them aboout making my ayahuasca at home which really suprised me.

I do know that a fair amount of shaman's will use datura here and in iquito's. you need to ask the shaman's when its your first time drinking with them as I know of 2 people that were not told that there was datura in the brew and they had a pretty rough ride. I would not be interested in datura in my aya, no way in hell!

Also yes one time Mateo did mix in mapacho juice but they didnt brew the mapacho with the aya just added it before the ceremony. It was a very sedating and dreamy light experience since they didn't really have enough aya for the group and added the mapacho to spread it out which to be honest a few of us were pretty upset about since he didnt tell us beforehand. we saw him pour something in the bottle and all had a very different experience. we felt he was unethical to not inform the group of adding another plant medicine to the aya.
it just crossed a line. This is the Mateo head shaman myself and Christian have some issues with. The other shaman's IMO are amazing but i didnt much care for Mateo and felt he was quite lazy the last couple weeks. Not to slam the guy but its how I and other's feel.

One other thing I wanted to add was that here was the first time ive drank or heard of fermented ayahuasca. I like it and they claim it adds potency and peaks at 1 month and then diminishes from there if not refrigerated.
We drank one brew that was so fermented it actually had carbonation like beer!

Ive never had ayahuasca ferment, but I have had rue and mimosa brews ferment..actaully they always ferment becasue I brew up big batches of rue, with some caapi a bit of chali and then mimosa..I brew like 10-15 doses or more of this brew at a time and within 5 weeks or so it always ferments. I have drunk it 3 months after brewing before and by that time is is really fermented and does taste like alcohol for sure..not enough to feel the alcohol but enough for it to taste damn horrible..but still very potent and it has never made me sicker than fresh brews or anything..

Brews without rue though have never fermented for me even after months in the fridge..something in the rue ferments faster..maybe its more acidic I dunno. In the amazon aya must ferment much faster due to heat and no fridges.

exactly, they ferment in just a week or 2 out here in this death heat. I agree I doubt aya will ferment in the fridge.

OH. MY. GAWD.

my soul twin. my beautiful, doppleganger...i read your words and i am having your experience with you. i do not understand your story....i AM your story! i simply can NOT wait for you to come by when you get back stateside... we have both been through complete transformations and i am eager to see how you use your gifts to help others. it is in your nature.....i can only imagine what kind of profound art is going to fly through you into the skin of those lucky enough to sit for you...

think i might have to be one of the first...


i am so moved, touch, and inspired by your journey through transformation brother. i am beyond proud of you. you are a part of me always.

LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE!!!!

...and GRATITUDE!!

Ahhh my cosmic twinn brother, thank you so much for your support before during and im sure after this journey concludes next week. Our many conversations and shared experinces helped guide me on my path here and you transformation gave me the courage and stamina to continue when I wanted to give up as the process was far from an easy one. I too am anxious to see how I may serve other's now as well. I know that this has been my lifes purpose, to be truly free.

I cant wait to see you this summer brother and it means the world to me to introduce you to the love of my life, my beautiful queen, my everything my all, Claire. The univerese has bestowed upon me gifts and fortune beyond measure. I never dreamt this level of peace and joy were possible but now I know that anything and everything is possible.

I would be honoured if you would share your healing gifts of sound with Claire. Ive told her so much about you and your sound healing's. And of coarse Id love to recieve some as well. I haven't forgotten to write my experience report of the work you did on me im sorry its taken this long but it will be posted before I leave Peru! Promise!

I love you, I love you all so much. Everyone has helped me get to this point and the support and love I have received over my years on the nexus are a large part of who I am.

Love and light
OM'

Your stories inspire me, and I'm sure many others as well. I "should" be working and yet here I am hooked to your narrative.

You seem to have gone through something very profound, I am happy for you even as I can't fully understand what you went through at this moment.


Also, I can relate to the "mind-eye visions" you speak of. In my one experience so far, Ayahuasca showed things to me using this mechanism. It is so subtle though, easy to miss. I'm left wondering if a majority of people sense this as well.

It's interesting to see the trip as a dissolution followed by recrystallization. Maybe our being has several stable states, and in order to switch between these, we have to dissolve, flip some switches inside to re-arrange the energy matrix into a new configuration and then let the upgraded (or in unfortunate cases, downgraded) matrix recrystallize into our new reality during the comedown.

Just yesterday while reorganizing the kitchen I thought the same. Like it needs to be brought into a lower level of order (more chaos) before transcending that level and reappearing as something more organized than before (less chaos).

It is essentially the same thing, I think. In kitchens as in life changing trips, and elsewhere as well, like when hitting the bottom with depression and spiralling down to new lows, only to reemerge more organized and triumphant some time later.


EDIT: Writing this reminded me of http://en.wikipedia.org/.../Positive_Disintegration

Beautiful experience OM! I too had a rebirth experience last year which was indeed profound. I do not feel that it is the last I will experience how ever, particularly once I start proper work with Aya.

Blessings on your new future, I'm positive you will thrive now that you have been properly de-fragged

Wonderful! Amazing!

Thank you for sharing oly, Wow!incredible experience.


Love and Light


IH