So, I went for a second session of ayahuasca here in Ecuador. It was a lot different than the first time (read about it on page 4) although it did give me more insight about the first time as well.
I´m gonna give you guys a good amount of detail here, but off course take into account this is a very subjective experience. The things I see depend on my mind and on the context I was in.
In contrast to my first time, this time I was not taking it outside with indigenous people in the forest, but inside a house in the city where I live. We were 9 people in total and of those there was the main guy who facilitated the session, the shaman you could say who is a personal friend of mine, one other girl for whom it was her second time and all the others were doing it for the first time. Most of us didn´t know each other before so there were no interpersonal histories between us (which could impact your experience), except for the fact that there was one family there, father and mother of middle age and a daughter of about 18 I think.
The medicine man was making it an inclusive experience giving us a lot of context and adding some special elements to it. We were all seated in a circle and in the middle of the circle there was a small fire as well as a bunch of indigenous artifacts which had special meaning (related to energy, protection from bad spirits, attracting spirits etc.). We also had a bunch of medicinal plants to be put in the fire during various cycles. For instance, when someone would go bad, or start panicking, ´cedron´ was placed in the fire to clean the energy in the air and put us on the right path again. Besides this, we all had plastic bags for vomiting, a toilet was near, and we had some other substances which I will talk about as well.
Before we started the shaman explained us that ayahuasca is referred to as the ´abuela de la selva´, or the grandmother of the jungle, and that she will always deliver what you need and what you ask for, although you personally might not know what you need exactly. See it this way, many people lie to themselves about their position in the world and about their own character and actions. When under the influence of ayahuasca, your lies will disappear, your relationship with other people will show its true face and it depends on you how you will take that. You will face your demons. There is no hiding under ayahuasca. For the indigenous: mind, spirit and body are heavily interrelated and hence when you have a trauma in your life, or something you are suppressing for whatever reason, this can reflect itself in physical problems or disease. By showing you the truth, ayahuasca gives you the chance to process those events and to come clean with yourself, causing such a strong reaction in your mind that your body can heal itself. Furthermore ayahuasca as a brew is also a potent medicine. Anti-parasite, anti-fungal, anti-depressant etc. the list is endless and science is still trying to figure out exactly how it all works. For more scientific information on what ayahuasca does on a biochemical level, read the following article (
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4773875/), some things are fascinating. For instance permanent change in brain connections, hormonal changes etc.
Let´s get to the experience itself. We started off with smoking a big fat tobacco cigar, made from leaves straight from the Amazon. While doing so, you make known what you which to get out of the experience, either through the heart (in silence) or by speaking out loud what you want the abuela to tell you or to show you. When you speak out loud, your words take shape in the smoke and are directly communicated to the universe (as the smoke goes to the sky, where the spirits live). This concept is known also with many witches and other religions I believe throughout the world.
After this we had another round, but this time of snorting tobacco liquid. This you could classify as a drug. Once you snort it, it opens your whole respiratory trajectory and activates certain parts of your brain. According to an indigenous friend the combination of this with Ayahuasca is very powerful, a catalisator, so you will receive the messages more clearly.
We drank. The ayahuasca as always is foul tasting, but in my opinion it´s not the worst. The ayahuasca we took came from the South Amazon of Ecuador and is considered Ayahuasca rojo. Brewed by indigenous named ´los shuares´ and another indigenous guy explained me this is considered the most potent form here in the region, possibly they added escopolamina in the mix (this for sure rings a bell to our Colombian travelers). I was getting the Ayahuasca+ experience it seemed.
After about 10-15 minutes the first girl started to vomit and soon after it was my turn. I knew from my first experience that I was in for hell (vomited about 10 times) and to be honest I was scared and nervous at that time. This is no joke. I asked myself, why did I opted for this again, why did I choose to go through this again? But no, I did it in full consciousness and also I needed answers and I wanted to improve my health. My mind made a click and basically said ´bring it on´. The first two times vomiting came fairly smooth, just the liquid leaving my body a bit (I hadn´t eaten for a full day (necessary!)). This made me more optimistic as I remember the vomiting during the first time as really brutal and painful.
Then a first strange thing happened. I started to yawn a lot, but really intensely. For me it seemed my yawns lasted several seconds, but it´s possibly it was already the drug acting in my mind. I interpreted it somehow as something leaving the body, possible negative energy. For those who´ve seen the Green Mile, remember those flies leaving the black guy, I felt like that. Except there were no flies ;-). Everyone in the room was quiet, most people had started to vomit.
The drug was kicking in and it seemed I was lucky, I was feeling great, as I had wanted to know how to relate to certain people in my life (read: shitload of girls) I directly felt positive energy around me. I visualized all those people and they all appeared smiling, it seemed everyone was in a positive relation with me, there was only love and acceptance. All of them appeared in their most beautiful form, happy and unique. I saw the energy of certain people, their nature and with a few girls I saw what spirit animal they had in them.
At that point, the younger girl of the group started panicking heavily. She started shouting that she wanted to get out, she didn´t ask for this experience, she wanted to return to normality. Fear was in her eyes and voice. The guy next to me, her father, got up and wanted to help but the shaman immediately told him to sit and let it happen. This happened a few times. There is no fighting the ayahuasca. The energy turned as now some people became nervous, the girl kept shouting and pretended like the shaman was an evil force, ´why did you put stuff through my nose?´, she asked him with anger. I kept calm, I was in a happy state and knew that this would not affect me.
At that point I got in deeper. I started visualizing everything and I went from a personal phase, seeing people close to me, to a state of connection with the earth. I saw beautiful visuals of nature, spectacular land shapes, and forms of life. The spirit animals presented themselves to me. They say it can happen that you see animals in your visuals but mostly one or just a few. For instance the jaguar is good and the guardian of nature, the snake is bad and dangerous etc. I did not see a few, but perhaps between 10-15 different animals and their pure nature. Not only that. The elements of life presented themselves as well. Earth and Fire came first and came very visibly, a direct connection formed between them and me, seeing their neutrality and absolute power. Water came after in a later phase. Wind I don´t seem to remember seeing or feeling. At this point I was ecstatic, feeling extremely happy and blessed to see such amazing things. I vomited a third time mildly. I saw how nature was completely interconnected. How all shapes and beings are expressions of energy.
Meanwhile in the group a variety of things happened. Most people were vomiting and feeling strange. We had a brief moment when everyone returned to consciousness and discussed what was happening, when the shaman made the fire bigger and used some essences. One girl said she was not feeling anything and was invited to take more. Some were vomiting. The girl seemed to have calmed down again. In a very strange way, and this would happen several times during the session, everyone would become aware, some would talk a bit and for me this would be the point where I thought we got over the highest point, that from then on visuals would decrease and we would return to normality. Maybe 3-5 times this happened and every time, at a certain point it just became quiet and everyone would go back in a trance. Simultaneously, like ´the abuela´ ordered it. It seemed to fool the shaman as well.
At around what I imagined halfway the session, 2-3 hours in. The father of the girl that panicked started vomiting brutally. Really on an extreme level. Vomiting continuously, shouting in pain and anger. He managed to reach the toilet and stayed there for hours to come. We would hear very loud shouting, vomiting and this for a long time. This guy was fighting demons in himself and at times it look like there was exorcism taking place. Really absurd and frightening. Surprisingly most of us were so immersed in their own experience that there was not a strong reaction, no one panicked anymore and the shaman told everyone to just let it happen, not to worry too much.
Then came the conclusion of my experience. I thought that for me it was done, some small visuals and then slowly return to control. I was wrong. Out of nowhere I went in extremely deep. I encountered myself in a metaphysical realm, still feeling completely happy and grateful to receive whatever would come. The sky opened up for me and I saw an incredible and powerful light, which I immediately identified as the force of life. I am not a religious person, but what I saw at that moment I identified as god, the source of eternal energy. White spirits would surround it whom I could see only from a distance. The second proposition I made at the beginning was to receive help with health problems I´ve been fighting with for a long time. At a certain moment, a beam of light came down on me, going through my whole body. I think my whole body physically reacted to it, but maybe that just happened in my mind. I felt like I was blessed and cured at once, the energy was very powerful. This was a divine experience I had and even until now, I have trouble understanding it, as a skeptical, rational person. The energy activated everything in my body and mind, did its work and then left. I was exhausted after that.
After this, a new moment of clarity came for everyone. Except for the guy fighting demons. Some talked, I didn´t, I basically was just baffled over what had happened and just stayed quiet and listened, with a smile on my face. From then on, the group went into various waves of the drug with people reliving and then sleeping. For me the visuals decreased and I mostly slept. Probably about 2 hours passed like that. To my surprise people kept vomiting until the end. I just felt very happy, in peace, but also physically exhausted, my muscles were completely put to sleep. I could crack several of the bones in my body when stretching. The guy remained shouting, vomiting, being in absolute pain and the shaman ordered one of us to check up on him and invite him to the circle. After a while we succeeded, but it took effort and basically he just continued fighting but just as part of the group this time.
At the end, the shaman gave us water, a glass of water and afterwards we could smoke the tobacco once more. The water was received like the biggest gift in the universe. People would look at the glass, smell the water, take small sips taking in the taste and enjoying it to the fullest. I was one of the first to be able to get up and walk around a bit. Some people talked a bit but overall many stayed quiet.
One other strange thing happened at the end. Although in the group, we probably vomited a total of 50 times or so, the shaman had not vomited once. At the end, he asked to pass an object, I forgot what it was, maybe a blanket. The girl next to him gave it and there was brief physical contact. Out of nowhere, completely unexpected for him as he was feeling in total control, he vomited as well. It seemed like the perfect end of the session. The indigenous say the shaman takes in the negative energy in the group, as he has the power to control it.
We thanked the shaman for his guidance and left to home.
The next day I woke up home and felt both humbled and happy. I walk around, ate a glorious meal, enjoying fruit juice and talked to a few people. I wrote down some actions I wanted to undertake which the ayahuasca showed me. Mainly re initiating contact with some people. It was time for reflection and quiet moments.
Two days after, I felt bad all of a sudden after some negative contact with some people, I stayed bad for a good portion of the day, basically down, like after taking XTC or something. After that it changed again and it was again positive but not as intensely as before. I did some actions that I felt were necessary from what was shown through the experience (I made a list) and others I did not follow up on. I might still. Some people I just did not want to engage, mainly from a red pill point of view (kind of in line with the no-contact thread I guess). My health improved noticeable, but it´s not like everything was cured at once, which I thought during the experience.
Overall an incredible experience. I did not expect it in the least and the shaman after speaking with him a week or so later said that it was very unusual what I had experienced. Something only guys with a lot of experience get to see and he thought that I was ready to learn how to start being a shaman apprentice, to be able to guide the energy in ceremonies.
We´ll see but for now I have no immediate interest in taking it again.
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