Ayahuasca: from the Quechua words ‘aya‘ meaning ‘vine’ and ‘huasca‘ meaning ’spirit’
Located in one of the indices or glossaries of William Burrough’s Naked Lunch, I discovered the vine scientifically known as banisteria caapi for the first time. The book’s considered a classic in the small, amorphous genre of “drug literature” that somehow covers the entire spectrum between Hunter S. Thompson and Lewis Carroll, and I felt the need to academically justify my newfound interest in the Grateful Dead and its anachronistic, tie-dye wearing culture by throwing myself into additional reading beyond my monthly subscription to High Times magazine.
I still have no fucking clue what that book was about.
That Burroughs has no recollection of writing it only adds to its mythos, in certain circles at least. But there, buried at the end of the special anniversary edition I was reading, was a surprisingly lucid letter from Burroughs to a peer, describing the affect of what he called the “yage” vine on the consciousness. He described a waking dream, very much dissimilar from the popular psychedelics of the day, leading to a more deeply profound, personal and enlightening experience. I can’t remember much else as it’s been well over ten years since fighting my way through that book, but the segment was memorable enough that it almost made chewing down Naked Lunch palatable.
Since then, I’ve heard little of the vine, which goes almost exclusively by the name Ayahuasca down here, but upon researching Peru for travel ideas, books and message boards commonly referred to “ayahuasca tourism,” “shamanism” or “jungle medicine,” as reasons for journeying deep into the rough and rugged town of Iquitos. It naturally piqued my curiosity.
While drugs like cocaine and marijuana are emphatically illegal here, despite the town’s notoriety as a haven for drug traffickers (I was offered neither while in Peru — a stark contrast to their ubiquity in Quito), Ayahuasca’s either too small an offender or too sacred to the locals to warrant the ire of official agents, leading to a fairly open tourist market built around it. Online, travelers recall their experiences, ranging from the positively profound to “like being brutally sodomized by a nightmare.” But there was general agreement to the fact that this sort of tourist activity, more than any other, required an intensely reliable tourguide. Paulo, the incomprehensible, barely uni-lingual stutterer might be barely passable enough to get by when explaining the grandeur and history of Machu Picchu to you, but do you really want the guy around when your entire consciousness is laid out and put in a blender set to “puree” for upwards of four hours?
I did not.
One of the better written reviews excoriated the slew of ayahuasca tours currently available in the city, and just how unlikely a positive experience would be for nearly anyone that came down to Peru to take advantage of their services would be. “Unless of course,” he wrote, “you go on one of Peter Gorman’s trips.” I wasted no time in searching the guy out.
Three Rules
“There are three rules you need to know before we go into this, three things to keep in mind while the Ayahuasca’s working its magic,” Peter explains to an almost abnormally attentive group. We’re here for the Ayahuasca. We’re very excited about the Ayahuasca. We’re also somewhat scared shitless about the Ayahuasca. The pent-up anticipation is similar to that felt prior to skydiving, though the freefall is a bit more metaphysical.
“First off, you don’t have to worry at all about the side effects of the medicine. You’re probably going to throw up. Not always, but most of the time. That’s what my guys are there for. They’ll guide you out, hold your hair, pat you on the back and get you through it. If you lose control of your bowels, which is a possibility, they’ll take you out and clean you off, as nasty a job as you know that’s gotta be. They’ll hate it and at the time they’ll probably even hate you a little. But you won’t know it. And you’ll never hear about it again from them afterwards. These guys are professionals.”
“So the three rules are more about how you handle yourself. This is strong strong stuff and it opens up a gateway into you that a lot of look-i-loos want to get through. I call ‘em that because they’re always looking in. You’ll probably see them out there — you’ll know they’re watching. But that’s all. The shaman and I are going to make a circle around the camp that they can’t cross, so long as none of us are stupid and open it up for them.”
“So that’s the first rule: You can get up and walk around at any time. You can have us help you to the bathroom or to get a little water. But once we’ve closed the circle to the spirits, no one is to cross it. Whether you believe in the spirits or not, I’m telling you… one of the guys I had out here ignored this once and ran down to the water and the second — the second — that he crossed the line this huge whooooosh of wind pours in and that was it, man. Everyone had a bad experience that night, cuz once they get in, they ain’t getting out. And you don’t want to be the one that ruins things for everyone else! So don’t leave the circle.”
“That’s the first rule.”
“The second is that, if something gets too intense for you… if you don’t like what you’re seeing, or feel like some spirits are bothering you — bloooow them away. Whusssshhhh! Just like that. Just a quick burst of air. You’d be amazed how well that works. Alternately: get BIG. If you’ve got things surrounding you and you feel trapped, just make yourself huge. Bigger than the room. Bigger than everything. And then you’ll see how small they are and how little they can do to you. That’s the second.”
“The third.”
He pauses like trying to grapple an old memory he hasn’t accessed in a while. Maybe there are only two rules? Tension in the room swells from the power of his pregnant pause.
“The third,” he repeats, “is this.” He’s got something now. “If you see someone or something in a vision, and they’re staring at you. And maybe it makes you a little uncomfortable. Ask them: ‘Are you my teacher?’ Because maybe they’ve got something to show you. And those are the ones you don’t want to send away.”
It wasn’t the most typical pre-activity primer, but I’ve seen few speakers get such undivided attention.
Being a cynic, I’m not too sure about any rules laid out to protect one against spirits and anything that would fall into the category of “mojo.” The first one’s easy enough to follow though, though my general laziness is far more of a deterrent from running off into the jungle than any spirits might be. I store the second away for safe keeping, though it’s far from thrilling to think my best defense against spiritual attackers is to “blow them.” But “Are You My Teacher?” sounds a bit too much like the title of a Dr. Seuss book for me. No matter how far out this stuff might take me, the thought that I might potentially be knelt over pleading with a tree for advice on health, wealth and happiness is too much for me.
The first two days at camp are to get acclimatized to the general weirdness that comes with being deeper in the jungle than most tourists are ever likely to get. They’re also needed to prepare the medicine itself. We’d gathered the vines our first day here, but much more is needed before we have anything digestible with all the quirky side effects we’re counting on. Ayahuasca vines are gathered together and smashed into a relatively fine pulp, then mixed with a variety of other jungle plants, each with varying effects.
Psychotria Viridis, known to the locals as chacruna leaves are layered on top of bark from a Lupuna Negra tree — “the tree of light and dark” — to add clarity and profundity to the experience. Catawa bark is caustic and can cause blindness. If there are positive reasons for its addition in the stew, Peter doesn’t tell us. Lastly, Caipirona, a bark whose powder adds a joyful element to the medicine.
Freshly mashed down, Peter boils the mix together in about ten liters of water, reducing it down to about three. The solids are gathered and the reduction is set aside, while a new 10-gallon mix boils down to three with the same solids as the first batch. Both mixes are combined and furthered reduced to around two liters for our ceremonies. It’s a fairly intricate procedure, but not one you’re likely to see any time soon on the Food Network.
Our first excursion into the wild world of Ayahuasca then is to be on our third night, followed by an encore on the fifth. Several days later, upon return to Iquitos, a third trip will be optional at the home of a shaman located just twenty minutes outside of town. Peter has more of a personal connection with the Matses Indians here, twelve hours downriver from any major towns, but he stands by the alternate shaman as well.
Three ceremonies. Three evenings likely to be fairly memorable.
Everything you need to throw your own Ayahuasca party. That big brown bottle is probably the most important part.
The First Ceremony
We sit on foam mattresses, just four inches thick, covered in a single layer of blanket. The air smells loosely of mosquito repellent. No netting protects us here and we’re warned the onslaught could be bad. One has to wonder about how a bloodsucking blitzkrieg might affect potential nirvana.
About six Matses Indians mill about the exterior of the large hut while Peter dribbles Mapacho over the damp mud outside in a very loose circle, muttering words in Spanish with a melody hard to latch onto. Sold as Agua Florida, the perfume-like tonic with a hint of orange odor was introduced to Peru around the turn of the last century and almost immediately became a part of all Shamanic ceremonies.
They just like how it smells.
Peter makes a spitting noise — or possibly he actually is spitting — while closing the circle. He takes the spiritual barrier quite seriously, spending a good twenty minutes or so preparing it while we look on nervously, talking only in small sentences with little drive for serious conversation. Puffing his large hand-rolled tobacco cigarettes — and really, at this point if they were anything but tobacco don’t you think I would’ve said so? — he blows gusts of smoke out, marking the end of the ritual. For the next three hours we may all be clinically insane, but completely free from any malicious spirits. So we’ve got that going for us.
The shaman takes a central spot in the room as we sit in a misshapen semi-circle around him, one or two to a mattress. Before him is an unlabeled three liter bottle that once held soda of some sort but now holds something far more potent than caffeine, sugar and yellow #6. Despite the room’s dim candle-lit luminescence, the thick, brown, opaqueness of the bottle’s contents is clear to every one of us. We stare with a necessary reverence; the worst thing anyone here could do would be to not take this night seriously. Peter gives a last word of advice.
“Whatever you do, don’t talk to each other. It may seem innocuous enough to you at the time, but if some guy’s in the middle of being told the secret to everlasting joy and happiness, only to have it be shattered by ‘hey — you feeling it, dude?’ he’s probably gonna be pretty upset.”
Four sit before me in receiving the ayahuasca. A separate preparation of the medicine — a separate ritual performed — for each of us. By the time my turn arrives, the first recipient might well on her way into the experience. I stare at her with a mix of curiosity, envy and a slight bit of dread.
We hear the name of the first recipient several times in the short prayer the Shaman chants out over the small cup of liquid similar in color and opaqueness to syrup, though none of us speak enough Spanish to comprehend its meaning. A likely guess is:
“Please, spirits of Ayahuasca, help [your name here] from totally losing her shit tonight. And I mean that in more ways than one, seeing as I’m likely to be the one to clean her up should any unfortunate messes occur. Thanks. PS - I want a pony.”
He blows a final gush of smoke into the cup and it rides outwards over its edges like a supernatural mist descending from a mountain, finger-like wisps still breaking apart in the air above it as he rises.
The medicine is prepared, but the ritual is far from over. The shaman hovers above each of us in turn like a force of nature whose intention can’t be immediately discerned, poised to strike or heal, bless or curse. Taking us in his hands, he surrounds us in an effluvium of tobacco smoke, coating us entirely over the course of five bursts of smoke. Our hands, our chests, our heads. Shakras and spiritual centers of our body. Or something — it isn’t really explained. Our hands are bathed in the agua florida, as are our heads. Many days and many showers later, in the safe confine of Iquitos, the invasively sweet smell of agua florida, like a grandmother’s noxiously scented bowl of hard candy would still be firmly lodged in my nasal passages.
Engulfed in an aura of tobacco smoke and coated in the choicest scents the jungle has to offer, I take the cup in hand and swallow in three short gulps. The texture of Ayahuasca is akin to heavy whipping cream, far more dense and rich in texture than water. Its flavor is a mix of bittersweet chocolate and mud, sweat and freshly mowed grass. Burnt caramel. Stale coffee. That Karo syrup in the back of the pantry that no one uses, but never seems to get tossed during Spring cleaning. It’s the essence of the jungle, oozing slowly down our throats with strange, unknown intentions.
We’ve eaten nothing since noon — fasting is a part of the ritual, though just as likely is meant to keep the grounds free from the relentless torrents of vomit that would otherwise be possible with the drug’s stomach-loosening assistance. Still, a Hall’s cough drop is passed to each of us upon completion of our allotted serving of jungle juice, with the goal of keeping our gag reflexes firmly in check; throwing up may be a standard part of this game, but too soon in the ceremony and the experiment changes from “mind-altering transcendental shamanic ritual” to “drinking weird brown stuff and puking.” And that isn’t what I came here for.
After my serving, two others get similar treatment and we’re ready. Candles are blown out and we’re encased in the thick, supernatural darkness of Peruvian jungle. The following half hour would likely have been spent in a dark hut filled with recurring queries of “Dude, you feeling it yet?” but our pre-ceremony warning keeps us all firmly and silently in check.
“cielo, cielo, Ayahuasca…” ["heaven, heaven, Ayahuasca"] begins the Shaman in a soft, hypnotic chant. He’s shaking something — leaves — with the same effect as a pair of maracas, providing rhythm and percussion to his endlessly cycling song. For the next three hours, the song would be repeated again and again, ever with the steady jungle whoosh of dried leaves like the flapping wings of a giant bird descending upon us, carrying it out through the wind and through our bodies.
In silence, I clear my head and focus on driving the experience, of seeing past the trivial minutiae of a life into the real and the meaningful. Here I am open to all things: Every mistake I’ve ever made. Every success. Every weakness. Everything I’ve loved. Everything I’ve regretted. Fully open and laid bare, I let the medicine take hold of me. I feel my heartbeat accelerate and a wave of mild, pleasant dizziness comes over me, forcing me to lay back on the mattress. It has begun.
Images, vision, hallucinations, what have you — they arrive with no mass or density, yet a vague substance formed together from the all-encompassing darkness that holds us, and character given from the deep recesses of our minds. The senses function here as they do in any dream. Do we actually hear people speak in our dreams, or do we simply know that something has been said?
Many of the others in our group refer to ayahuasca as “she,” a “female jungle spirit.” My intense cynicism rolls its eyes in ironic disbelief, yet there is something deeper here… a presense. A group of presences or a collective mind perhaps, that takes turns guiding the course of images that deluge through my mind, imparting snippets of wisdom as needed. Even were everything my own creation, it would be telling of the vast depths of our subconscious and just how much we see, process and know, if only we could somehow delve below the thin layer of our surfaces.
The potency of the visions seems to feed off the darkness, using the emptiness it brings as a blank canvas for so much more. As participants rise to purge themselves as necessary of their stomach’s contents, flashlights pierce the darkness, often rousing us from experiences either profound or meaningless, but the Ayahuasca is at its most powerful in complete darkness. Eyes fully closed bring me into a waking dream, simultaneously lucid and disjointed as I ride through the kaleidoscopic imagery of my subconscious.
Early mental images flow like water through my mind. Brief meaningless phantasms. Combinations of shapes and colors that should never exist. Art and geometry. Madness. Prescient animals, loosely anthropomorphized with an awareness in their eyes that could only be human. Endlessly shifting creatures of smoke and mirrors. A pyramid of spinning prisms, bathed in a light that forms a near-infinite amount of identical pyramids branching out from the central one. Without effort or strain, my mind has created this multi-hued temple of fractal geometry, for no other reason than to make sense of the jungle vine’s slowly spreading influence over every system of my body.
Despite taking this picture several months later in a hotel room in Buenos Aires, I'm almost positive I saw this guy while under the influence of the Ayahuasca...
Movement is as within a dream; there is no sense of momentum, no bodily mass to be aware of at any time. And yet I walk, run, spin, fly, expand and contract as the dream allows. The primary difference is that I retain total lucidity through every psychic twist and turn. Every image is immediately processed and questioned by the purest form of my ego. In a dream, we are only aspects of ourselves, acting out our roles as though characters in a pre-scripted play, slaves to whatever subliminal fate our psyches have put together for us on any given night. In the mornings, all but snippets and fragments are lost with our coffee as the faded dreams add to our near infinite collection of forgotten memories.
Here, nothing is lost, regardless of how nonsensical the strangely painted canvas of my mind’s eye might be under the Ayahuasca’s influence. A cramped, precarious, moving-forward sensation overtakes me like a truck tearing through a narrow hallway of playing cards; the floor, ceiling and walls crumple hastily as it passes by, unremorseful. An angular, cartoonish cat-like creature — a long-lost cousin of the sphinx — turns its head to peer towards me before looking away, disinterested. Fractal images too complex for modern computers cavort with flora and fauna that go through a million years of evolution in my mind in split seconds.
“cielo cielo ayahuasca…” the chant continues.
I open my eyes and the spell is broken, momentarily. I close them again. Each darkened view of the world around me pulls me briefly from the depths of the ceremony like the distinct ending of a mental chapter in the long, incomparable picture book of the evening, free to all participants with admission. Eyes close and a new chapter begins. Many of the images painted out onto my inner eyelids flash by with no coherent reason behind them, no story to tell. Others are far more clear.
Sunset on a massive tower stretching off above me to points unknown, as wide as it is tall, a checkerboard of windows dotting it infinitely in every horizon, each with its own story to tell. Formless, something guides me to a specific window where I see myself screaming, reaching outwards; a futile gesture. “Imagine if roles were reversed,” a voice says, and the implicit meaning is clear to me. I feel no empathy. Only pity. And with it a revulsion of sorts. “How sad,” I say. “I know, right??” says the voice in a half-joking tone. It’s not taking this nearly as seriously as I am.
In another window, I see myself in bed looking outwards, the idealized version of me, perfect in every way. And yet not significantly different from me as I am, despite my occasional fits of self-analysis and doubt. Our eyes lock and I’m filled with power and energy, surety of self, confidence. My eyes widen as I know what I have to do.
The tower fades away into the distance and I’m taken to a large outdoor courtyard looking down on a scene that doesn’t involve me, watching as it plays out. There’s happiness here — a feeling of contentedness. “It’s just the natural order of things,” I hear. “You really should let go, you know?”
“You’re totally right…” I say, but feel no presence around me to accept my response. Even in the Ayahuasca dream, I feel equal parts foolish for talking to myself and perturbed at any vision that would start up a conversation only to depart prior to my involvement in it. “Goodbye,” I say, as the scene fades around me, feeling nothing. Everything is as it should be.
Window by window I see things as they are, as they were, as they should be, as they could be. Somewhere in the distance, far outside of where I’m at, leaves stop rustling and the slow chanting of a short Peruvian man trails off into silence, breaking me away from the trance. The tower fades and I sit up in darkness, processing what I just witnessed.
It’s storming outside now. Residual images fester to be contemplated while new ones dart in and out of creation. Something with a flashlight, gray and alien, with abnormally long arms, is moving about outside by the boats in bizarre motions. Eyes snap into focus and there’s nothing special about the man at all. In darkness, I have no conception of how the ayahuasca affects actual perception. As hints of light make their way into the hut, all appears normal. It is the marginal imagery, those things dwelling withing the periphery, that are most affected when my eyes are open and actively examining the world around me. The things hinted at in the movements within shadows.
Shaman at work
Images now come haphazardly, without apparent meaning, when a perceptible shift comes over the experience. Deep in the dreamscape, I’m in a moderately sized room — a kitchen — with white tiles covering the walls and floor. The bright florescent light illuminating the kitchen dims suddenly, and a sickly green hue now stretches over everything. Dense, brown mildew clogs the empty space between tiles, and the room is now old and musty, unwelcoming. There’s a toilet in the room that wasn’t there before, stained every sickly shade between yellow and brown as though abandoned long ago after a lifetime of abuse. I already know where this is going, but to hammer the point across in the most ayahuasca-like way possible, a bird-like animal perches over the toilet, feathers matted down as though freshly from a swim in an oil spill, and cranes its long neck over to look at me with eyes that radiate pain, nausea and revulsion.
It’s time.
The sensation is strong enough that it can’t be ignored, but not so powerful I’m in any danger of uncontrollably heaving out a hearty serving of used Ayahuasca, Halls-flavored saliva and whatever else remains of my jungle lunch of eggs, rice and piranha all over the presumably sacred floor. Standing’s a bit difficult, and I attempt to gauge how much of my currently poor attempts at coordination stem from being blind and under the affect of a powerful hallucinogen and how much are simply because I always have terrible coordination. I could use a little assistance from one of the Indians, but don’t want to trample anyone else’s nirvana, so I phrase my query as economically as possible.
“Hola?”
A cylinder of light comes into existence just outside the hut and I gently make my way over, kicking only one unsuspecting leg on my way out, as I make my way to the guiding safety of the bobbing flashlight beam. The rain is oddly welcoming, refreshing, and as someone takes my arm, I follow the burning circle of light as it moves along the ground, illuminating patches of green and brown that are abnormally vivid and alive with the assistance of the jungle psychedelic. My guide stops abruptly and tightens his grip on my arm.
“Aqui?,” I ask, feeling a slight hint of pride at ability to recall even the simplest of Spanish given my current state of mind.
“Si.”
And as profoundly as it entered my system — though far more forcefully — the Ayahuasca makes its grand exit. The process is awkward, but as with any purging brought about from a hangover, a sense of tearful relief overwhelms most of the discomfort. Through the process, the Indian pats me on the back like a sympathetic parent, comforting me; it’s unexpected but appreciated. He hands me some tissue as I stand, and a cup of water to rinse my mouth upon returning to the hut. It could’ve been worse.
Many people have described the Ayahuasca experience as not truly beginning until after throwing up the murky liquid and settling back into a soft, relaxed meditation. In my case, its power and profundity drops off to almost nothing. Images on the backs of my eyelids cease to evoke actual imagery in bright, discernible colors and instead become ideas of images, mere clouds lacking body or substance. My mind wanders to the places it goes in those moments just before sleep where strange thoughts — precursors to dreams, really — come about while one is still lucid enough to snap back into consciousness and wonder why anyone should think such a thought.
A curious boredom sets in for the remaining hour or so in darkness, alternately sitting or laying on the aged, foam mat. Shamanic chanting cuts through a thick silence, its only competition being the occasional unmelodious sound of heartfelt vomiting. My mind wanders a bit more than usual, and to far more strange and surreal places. But the deep, enlightened undertones that marked the transcendental first hour seem to be gone. Really, I’d just as soon head back to my bed, but a spiritual barrier drawn in mud, smoke and pungent Peruvian perfume blocks my exit.
Instead, I use the time to meditate on the deeper elements of the experience, using equal parts of my surprising lucidity and my still rather expanded perspective on life, the universe and everything. Quite unexpectedly, the shaman’s chant ends for the last time, filling the area with an unnatural silence, likely brought about from many of us being long ready to retire to our beds, locked in paralyzed silence by the well-established rules of the ritual. It’s hard to say how long the silence lasts — time flows rather differently in these parts — but Peter’s voice, even toned down and gentler than usual, raises the hair on my arm as it fills the stale air like thunder.
“How is everyone feeling? Ok? If you’re ready to go back, you can do so now.”
Quiet mutters of acquiescence. Movement. The slow, awkward gathering of one’s belongings and self in near darkness. No one seems particularly chatty or energetic as a cluster of flashlights fire up in unison cutting just a small swath of the humid blackness that envelops us. Conversations are politely curt as we stumble through down the muddy hill towards our shared meager accommodation through rain that has trickled down to a meager drizzle.
¨How was it for you?¨
¨It was… it was pretty intense. You.¨
¨Yeah, intense. Yeah…¨
The post-Ayahuasca mindset doesn´t really lend itself to much smalltalk or elaboration.
Sleep doesn´t come easy — a combination of the medicine´s after-effects and the weight of too many new things to consider all exploded into existence in a short period of time. But eventually, it comes.
Just one element of the ritual remains, an epilogue of sorts. At dawn, we make our way down to the river, shrugging off its morning frigidity as make our way out far enough to fully submerge ourselves. Once, twice, three times, we self-baptize, covering our heads completely. The ceremony is closed.
Drink it up!
The Second Cup
I know how this thing works now. I know its rules. With total prescience and understanding, I can wield the experience like a scalpel through my subconscious, gaining whatever insight there is to be garnered there. For just a few weird hours, I´ve got a VIP laminate into the infinity that dwells within us all, into all those things we don´t know that we know. In short, I´m very cocky about taking a powerful, mind-altering drug.
¨Show me what I need to know.¨
I´ve never really been one for mantras, and I know how corny the idea of me perched meditatively in a jungle hut mumbling this to myself (really, I just said it in my head) might be. But it´s not like I´m reciting this intensely prior to downing a bag of cool ranch doritos.
Physically, nothing is different about the experience tonight. Same hypnotizing chant, same rustling leaves. The well-perfumed spiritual barrier is firmly erected once again, and cynic or not, I can certainly attest to making it through the prior evening free from spiritual assailment. The flavor is just as pungent as before, though it takes more effort to force it down this time, and the Halls cough drop begins to coat my mouth almost instantaneously upon finishing the last drop of my serving.
What I need to know.
Introductory images fly by without narrative properties or any apparent significance. Again, richly colored patterns and geometric shapes tend to dominate the mindscape, followed by a procession of faces staring towards me with various intents apparent in their eyes. There´s a slight sense of movement fowards, as though down a hall with no walls, ceiling or floor, a spiritual tunnel into my psyche. The majority of the waking dream is filled with brief flashes of profundity, pointless snippets that likely make no sense in any context.
But like before, some of the dreams are heavier. Longer. More real. They have a presence to them that makes me take note, and in some cases a sense of a consciousness beyond my own, even if simply an outward manifestation of my subconscious.
What I need to know.
A platform or stage of sorts forms in my mind unbidden, gray and chiseled entirely from a single piece of granite or marble. Black emptiness surrounds it on all sides, as though an entire small universe has sprung into existence with its borders beginning and ending at the borders of the stage. Other than a stone post rising up at each of its four corners, the structure is completely unadorned, and there is no distinct front or back — All four sides faces outwards equally, like a boxing ring.
Without being instructed to, I offer things up to the stage for judgment and the show begins. One by one, all pretexts are ripped away leaving nothing but a vague sense of truth. Mother, father, family, friends, memories of my own actions, grudges I never knew I held, situations where my feelings were uncertain and ones where I was not even aware that I had feelings in the first place. Each in turn is presented upon the dais and summarily dissected with a lack of emotion and a clarity I have never felt before.
Early on, the subjects thrown into view come up on their own, an equal mix of the usual suspects and things I never would have thought deserved noteworthy subconscious airtime. As the rules become clear, I begin to submit topics for judgment manually, and in every case a layer of insight on the matter pours forth. With perfect lucidity, I realize that for a limited time I have access to the inner recesses of my psyche and as each topic reaches a conclusion, my mind races impatiently with countless options for what to show next like a starving person at an infinitely sized buffet set to close in mere minutes.
People talk of psychotherapy and “breakthroughs” — of seeing a therapist for years, only to discover one day that an incident that occurred when they were seven drastically changed the course of their entire life, and explains a slew of previously incomprehensible behavior patterns. Imagine that experience, squared, experienced over the course of about thirty minutes, and it might accurately describe the effects of this evening´s Ayahuasca.
The vision is longer and has more staying power than any from the first evening, lasting through at least two whole iterations of the shaman´s long, droning chant. Whereas before, the cessation of the music would stir me from my waking dream allowing for something new and different to return in its place, the stage is too powerful to be shaken away by a brief foray into consciousness. I still open my eyes briefly, recalling my actual physical location here in the jungle, making out what little I can through the darkness before shifting positions and closing my eyes once more. The stage quickly reforms, as before.
True to form, what is exposed upon the dais often falls more into the category of what I probably ¨need to know¨ than what I ¨want to know.” Mistakes I clearly never meant to take note of now bubble to the surface and can´t be unseen. Sadness and regret accompany newfound understanding, in stark contrast to the uplifting sense of well-being felt during the first ceremony. I´m glad for what I´ve seen, but little of it brings me immediate hope or comfort, like most epiphanies experienced by prominent economists over the past year. At one point, the shaman stops rustling his leaves and I open my eyes and am surprised to find them wet with tears.
A grand finale, a final subject thrown onto the stage for review, dissolves the platform into murky nothingness and I’m suddenly elsewhere. The sense of outside consciousness that fizzled into and out of existence as needed suddenly grips me undeniably, steering the fever-like dream with unflappable intent. I don’t like what I’m being shown, but I’m told it’s a necessity.
“Watch,” it says without pity. I do as instructed, difficult as it is, and the scene plays itself out before eventually fading away.
A sense of downward movement and now I’m in a cave, stretched out infinitely in all directions andlit by billions of small specks like weakly burning matches. Some fizzle out almost imperceptibly while others come into being where once was only a dark patch of emptiness. The balance is kept. A speck in my immediate view shimmers differently from the others, wavering, capturing my attention. As I watch, it dims briefly than explodes like a pocket-sized supernova, sending off a ripple of wrongness through every light in its immediate vicinity.
“You understand?” the voice asks.
I can’t explain it, not here, not ever, but I do. I nod my head, as much as a incorporeal being floundering through his own subconscious is capable of nodding.
The final scene played out, there’s nothing more for me to see tonight.
The Third Cup
Just a few miles from Iquitos, the collectivo (a normal van, overfilled — much like a clown car — and available throughout South America for cheap, short distance travel) drops us off by a long muddy trail stretching off into the only slightly tamed local jungle. The shaman here is different from the Matse Indian who’s guided our travels on the past two occasions, catering more to the typical Iquitos tourist with a taste for the strange and unusual.
He greets us with a smile and a handshake, which in most settings would put guests at ease. Here and now, it feels inherently un-Shamanic after the stoic aloofness of our prior shaman. Our new host speaks in only slightly broken English and offers to show us a stuffed Puma.
“Definitely!” I say.
“Ok, later we will see Puma,” he says.
I never get to see Puma.
The buildings are decidedly more modern here, complete with walls in most cases, though still no electricity in most of the buildings. Our meet-and-greet takes place in the largest of the buildings which also houses a small Ayahuasca museum and an art gallery of colorful pieces that might’ve been done by any number of people I knew in college waiting on the next Phish tour. My room not only has walls and a door, but screened in windows as well. It’s no Holiday Inn, but it’s a nice step up from the jungle lodging of our prior ceremonies.
Waiting on the flower ceremony — a new ritual for this go-around — I make smalltalk with a visiting Frenchman there for his first Ayahuasca ceremony. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s in for a rough night.
Barefoot, wearing only shorts or swimsuits, we follow a guide down a marginally steep jungle path into a clearing, loosely encircled by a small stream. One by one, we stand before the shaman, as he reaches into a large ceremonial container filled with water — freezing water, apparently — and the petals from a variety of jungle flora. Spiritually, I feel no different from before upon the bath’s completion; physically, I an now cold and covered in flower petals that don’t smell nearly as pleasantly aromatic as I had assumed upon being told I would receive a “flower bath.”
Night falls and we’re brought to a new location, as far out into the jungle from our lodging as the flower bath had been. A white woman in her 30s with a European accent stands by the shaman, preparing the various totems and serving implement used in the ceremonies. She’s been studying here with him for a couple years now for reasons none of us thought to ask.
The ceremony room is larger, with benches around three sides for us to sit upon while under the influence of the medicine. A small hole in the roof opens to the night sky, occasionally displaying the bright Peruvian starscape when not blocked by clouds. Our group watches as the French newcomer makes his way forward for the first serving. He coughs slightly as he forces down three large sips from the brown, earthen cup, before retreating to a water bottle left by his spot on the bench.
Every batch of the stuff is a unique experience: different flavor, different texture, different ingredients, different visions. Tonight’s serving, for instance, is chunky. The taste is only slightly more bitter, but the viscous liquid pours down my through like loose mud. I make a detour on the way back to my bench and take some water from the confused Frenchman. No Halls cough drop tonight, and immediately I miss it.
After the initial two servings, I was certain that Ayahuasca was a miracle drug — the “spirit molecule” indeed — enlightenment, nirvana and revelation all rolled into one with a backdrop by Alex Grey and some only-slightly-inconvenient explosive vomiting. Tonight’s experience brings my elevated praise of the hallucinatory jungle vine drastically back down to earth.
Oh, there’s still surreal imagery aplenty, strange thoughts and new takes on old ideas. There was no negativity to the experience, no “bad trip” to bring me down.
No, I simply felt drugged.
I know what a strange sentence that is in light of everything else I’ve written here, but despite all the strange thoughts, dizziness visions and nausea, I maintained a level of calm clearheadedness through it all. Before, it was like being hyper-conscious as the mind drops into the dream state, fully able to process and guide those subconscious happenings without the confused, cloudy haze that normally marks our free flowing unconscious fantasies.
This time? Dazed and confused in every possible way. Ideas come to light and are immediately extinguished due to my inability to maintain a line of thought. My mind races as thoughts collapse on one another and epiphanies are forgotten before they’re even registered. I feel dizzy and ill at ease as I notice a cat perched up against me and start to pet it.
A hand slaps mine in the darkness. Bad cat. Not a cat. I’m petting Cidalit, one of Peter’s local helpers, and she doesn’t seem to appreciate it.
“Sorry” I tap her head. “Sorry sorry.” Pat pat. “Sorry!” My hand is flicked a final time as I withdraw it.
I’m almost positive I wasn’t this retarded the last time I drank this shit.
There’s no sensation of an outside force this time, no epiphanies, no intimate perusals of my past, present and future — just a rush of unrelated thoughts and pictures, and a general dizziness that heavily waters down whatever cognizance might still be present in my head. Thoughts come and go only to be forgotten instantaneously. And as such, I have no recollections from the evening to write about.
Except the Frenchman.
As my companions have made awkward bee lines outside to purge themselves of the Ayahuasca when nature beckoned, I rarely took note, too lost in whatever mental fireworks display might be going off at any given time to pay attention to what barely amounted to more than someone in the back row sneezing during a movie. From the Frenchman’s first visit outside of the open air jungle lodge to relieve himself, it’s clear things are going to be different.
“HUUUAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGgllglgllphhtphhhhglglungguckphhglll..”
Collapsing violently to the ground, he vomits as though he learned how to do so from a bad comedy, aimed at exaggerating all the basest and most obnoxious bodily behaviors. Opening his mouth, he bellows outwards as if to coax the hallucinatory poison from his system from sheer volume alone. Each time, his tortured baying at the moon ends in a pained, inhuman gurgle, like the victim of some nightmarish alien evisceration loudly coughing out his bloody, dying breath. And the Ayahuasca, like adrenaline for the imagination, paints a gruesomely disturbing picture with his every heave.
The first time this occurs, it is both distracting and disgusting. From that point forward — easily upwards of six separate occurrences — my reaction goes from sympathy to annoyance to disgust to perverse amusement. It’s decidedly low-brow dedicating several paragraphs to someone painfully and relentlessly throwing up, but anything less wouldn’t capture just how disturbing the noises issuing forth from deep within this man were, nor how much his prolific vomiting distracted and perverted the Ayahuasca experiences of nearly everyone in the room.
An hour later and the ceremony is at its close. Our rooms are still a long walk through the jungle by flashlight, through unfamiliar, rocky terrain, and the vague drugged feeling from tonight’s serving has impaired my coordination as well. Cidalit guides two of us stumblingly down the path using only her flashlight. Silently, we chase the single point of light she paints on the ground like mentally disabled kittens. After far longer than it took to get there, we return to our rooms and I collapse into bed and let the mild dizziness finally overtake me.
Epilogue
All shamans [I am basing this on having met two] seem to agree that the ritual officially ends the following morning when the head is covered three times with water. None of us particularly cared for the flower bath enough to repeat it, and Peter’s already OK’d our hotel room showers as shamanically acceptable, so everyone holds off on our spiritual dousing for now.
People have asked me since returning from Peru if the ayahuasca was “life changing.” It was, but that’s a loaded question. You can have an epiphany while stuck in traffic that’s life changing, if you let it be. But it’s just as likely that ten minutes later you’ll forget it and continue on doing the same stupid things you’ve always done. Ayahuasca profundity, as deep and mesmerizing as it might seem at the time, is much the same way — it can only show you so much before the ball’s in your court. And after the third experience, I’m reluctant to push the medicine on others as any sort of spiritual panacea, as clearly you can come away from an evening of ayahuasca with nothing but memories of pretty colors and a bad taste in your mouth.
But the first two servings showed me things about myself, the world and how it all fits together that I won’t ever forget. There is, in all of us, so much more than we’ll ever know.
