An account of my third ayahuasca journey: March 7 & 8, 2008. Location ~ Bergen op Zoom, Holland
Writing this tonight feels like the completion of some sort of contract; I have no literal thoughts in my mind as to what this ‘feeling’ means, only that it is both difficult and an absolute necessity that I record this event and place it in front of my eyes, like a portrait, a reflection of something that nothing in this world thus far has been able to show my soul and conscience flowing through it. A kind of distant, multi-layered desperation flows through me tonight: it has been now almost six days since the event and I am still feeling its transformations. My sleeping patterns are very odd and I awoke this morning with that same sense of Death-cosmic-stillness and a feeling of entrapment or an unavoidable consequence due to some anonymous ill that’s within me or ‘about me’.
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The Beginning
After my last two sessions, (thinking that soon I will be going back to California and may not have other chances to attend such ceremonies for a long time), I wished to be at this next one which was scheduled two or three weeks after my last one: I was advised by two of my friends that this seemed a bit too soon to drink the ayahuasca again, particularly since I had such a strong experience on my second ceremony drinking night…
I thought about this allot and even wrote the shaman in charge of the ceremony asking him whether he felt it was too soon for me to be drinking (?). I hadn’t received a reply from him by the time that something else occurred which served as an absolute answer… Several days after the question initially entered my mind as to whether I should wait for the next one (or not attend another ayahuasca ceremony at all), I wrote a prose/poem and posted it to a blog-site I contribute to on the Internet… Someone was inspired by a line where I mention the subject of ‘wishes’; they then wrote a reply to me in relation to the prose that expressed they’d liked it and that the part about ‘wish’ reminded them of this, which they copied, quoted and posted underneath their letter to me: the quote to me read ~
“When you know your wish,
If you want your wish,
You can have your wish,
But you cant’ just wish -
No, to get your wish….
You go into the woods,
Where nothing’s clear,
Where witches, ghosts
And wolves appear.
Into the woods
And through the fear,
You have to take the journey.
Into the woods
And down the dell,
In vain perhaps,
But who can tell.
Into the woods,
Into the woods,
Then out of the woods,
And happy ever after.
Into the woods, you have to grope,
But that’s the way you learn to cope.
Into the woods to find there’s hope
Of getting through the journey.
Into the woods, each time you go,
There’s more to learn of what you know.
Into the woods,
Into the woods,
Then out of the woods,
And happy ever after.”
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I took this person’s reply very deeply, especially since they didn’t even know my true identity (this is because I use an anonymous name in this forum); also, they didn’t know where I was, what was happening in my personal life or what questions had been recently on my mind concerning the ceremonies, etc. I took this message and the quote to me as a very strong omen in relation to my going to the ceremony; it was as if the whole ‘quote’ was describing the beginnings of an ayahuasca ceremony, a third one.
I somewhat forced myself to overcome certain feelings and nervousness; feeling that if I couldn’t obey such a clear, beyond any shadow of a doubt ‘sign’, then, my shamanistic journeying would be limited to my personal nature and not connected to a larger picture, to listening and going up against certain ‘willfulnesses and other people’s influences’ verses a higher will and place of context coming from conscience, coincidences, dreams, visions and deeply emotional omens.
I recall that the shaman thought that the omen was a positive or strong point and it seemed that he did support me in the taking of the ayahuasca a third time.
This isn’t to say that I didn’t value what my friends were telling me, only that the shaman in charge of the ceremony hadn’t responded to my inquiry yet and the poem-omen did (and then I sent a copy of it to him prior to the ceremony)... So, my friends first asked the question about the ‘sooner or later aspect’ and I joined in that curiosity and awaited the answer… I recall thinking prior to going to get on the train and travel, to write down some close friends contact numbers in case something ‘big’ was to occur…
I suppose I did have a slight feeling that something unusual may happen since I was going up against one side of the coin belonging to multiple human advisors (including my own) not to do it and following the absolute-omen to partake and the shaman’s support of the ‘omen’ instead.
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The Third Ceremony Begins ~
It started off very much like the last ayahuasca ceremony: the trail to finally board the train, arriving, the retrieval by car by the host of the house (Hank) and on whose property the yurt was situated, talking, arranging my resting place in the yurt, gathering a bottle of water and paper towels, etc. I also was there with a friend named Tian; he had told me that he’d always wished to experience an ayahuasca ceremony and had never been able to do so; so I helped him arrange it and we met at the end of the train line and placed ourselves next to one another in the yurt.
This ceremony had nearly all new people than the previous two before; there were about twenty five people and nearly eight or nine who were with me in the last two ceremonial events.
People began entering into the yurt and take their places, while the shaman in charge of the ceremony started off by saying that tonight was a special time, because in India it was the Day of Ganesha: a man gave a short history of how this deity came about and began to tell the newcomers and those who had never drank ayahuasca (about five people) what the rules of the evening were…
The purification ceremony of treating each participant with a scented tree gum-smoke and the waving of a large feather (Smudging) to push the smoke onto their entire front and backsides, began: shortly afterwards the first ayahuasca drink was poured for the first person and administered clockwise to the next and so on, till the last person finished the round.
It was about eleven o’clock at night when everything began: prior to the first ayahuasca drink being poured people had taken (sniffed up) the usual tobacco juice into the nostrils and sinuses to clear the head and passageways: people then began to lay out their plastic vomit bags, water bottles, clothes, etc. The tent was heavy with woodstove smoke and incense: people simply sat, others lay down and waited, while some began to go outside immediately after drinking and a few simply reclined their bodies in a sitting up position against the yurt wall or in short chairs they’d brought.
I sat up for awhile, then went outside to pee, came in again and reclined against the yurt a bit. The shaman said that the mixture this night was a strong one, very fresh and that he felt that we might (due to the Ganesha significance and the potency of the mixture) have a “very strong night”… The campfire, about twenty yards from the yurt, was feebly burning and the electrical lights inside had been switched off and candles lit…
I began to feel the effects after about ten or fifteen minutes and lay down and closed my eyes: I recall opening them once and having a quick fleeting feeling or connection with the tigress consciousness I had experienced during the second ceremony… This went surprisingly quick and then I returned to my human identity, a very strange switch back and forth to occur in less than thirty seconds.
Suddenly I felt cold, insecure, somewhat sticky (like saliva and some metallic substance) or pinned in by my own spider web and that something dangerous was approaching me, which was similar to the last time I drank ayahuasca and before the tiger consciousness had exploded on/within me, opening as my total consciousness-form-identity…
I also heard for a brief time the sounds of the dogs barking, which, like last time, were very clear indications that they felt the presence of the tiger or something other worldly stalking the grounds: to this day, though I cannot say whether the ‘dogs’ were those of the ayahuasca dimension or that of the ‘ordinary human one’, I have to say, that I do remember on both occasions hearing the shaman or his assistant, telling the dogs to settle down or “to hush.”
The sounds of dogs barking will forever remind me of the existence of this spirit dimension, its heightened onslaught, its being magnetized to a central area where so many human beings had partaken of ayahuasca that night and were opening into their journeys. It never actually seemed to be violent dog barks, only the sort of barking that sends out a communication that they (the dogs) know, see and are acknowledging the presences, not necessarily defending or complaining...
I was lying down and ‘in’ this sense of oncoming death or destruction, I began to call out the names of the shaman and his assistant, though no one came; I raised my head and saw that they were helping someone else get to their station from having been outside… I fell back into some blank state and awoke to a buzzing and shimmering environment. I have experienced this before, mostly on my first ayahuasca night, after throwing up and re-entering the tent; though ‘it’, this yage-environment, was equally strong and alive outside as well.
In this dimension-state you are one with your body and walking around, the air and objects around are imbued with a sort of electrical humming and patterns, like a field of vision completely made up of transparent symbols all knitted together, shapes of light, etc. The music, light, visions, breath, emotions, movement, etc., all seem to be one ‘element’, one energetic fabric...
It wasn’t an obtrusive element; it (the sounds in the air, the symbols and other dimensional qualities of seeing and sensing into people and the connectiveness of life/existence as a cosmic family) seemed to be simply a part of the ‘Being-looking-being’ (my being), i.e., a normal aspect of this dimension’s ‘air’ and ‘reach’, though, if I remember correctly, this ‘air’ didn’t always look and feel the same consistently, it changed back and forth, slowly, from being that of a human-body-participant and that of one’s deeper connections and soul-self.
Also, during this dimension-state people seem to be relatively cognitive as to their personal identities yet there’s an added weight in the air; people drink water, some play music, others dance or sit up: then an abrupt plunge occurs… (Especially if you have not vomited or purged in other ways...)
While this ‘entrance/hanging-around-near-the-gate-environment’ usually lasts for about thirty minutes (for me), the ayahuasca then goes deeper and one looses the physical desire to move around and the need to lie down and close the eyes becomes overwhelming... One thing to note here is that on my last two occasions I didn’t vomit, which does make a difference in how you experiences the night and the journey-duration. During the first ayahuasca ceremony I vomited a little and was up and about throughout the night, assisting people, talking, looking, dancing with the fire, etc. On the second and third nights the experience was totally different and I didn’t walk for ninety-nine percent of the time.
The way in which I awoke from ‘diving off’ into the deeper levels of the ayahuasca journey was odd: I had leaned down and began licking my lips and clicking or smacking my tongue on the upper palette of my mouth, as if in expectation of throwing up, this went on for a long time and I experienced it on and off at brief intervals throughout the night (and morning)…
I was deep in some other-dimension, while my body was unconscious to my being ‘awake’ in it and eyes open, then I had a sudden very abrupt sense that something in me opened up, like a light switch being turned on, this sensation came from within me like an eyeball opening up in the area of my sternum, it was both physical, somewhat audible and emotional: too, it had a deep sensation of ‘rightness’ and ‘soft empowerment’ about it; I could feel and visualize the presence of a large eyeball being there, looking out... I immediately understood that it had a direct connection to the tiger consciousness and the ‘signal’ or ‘lever pulling to snap to the On position’ was or had occurred directly by and through the ‘tiger consciousness’ or ‘its being-influence’…
I experienced a very huge feeling of reconciliation and discovery. I stood up and walked over to a friend of mine, sat down at his feet, took his hand and said, “I found it, no, it found me.” He asked what it was about (this was during the thirty minutes I was able to walk around: where we were all experiencing the body-mind cognitive side of the ayahuasca journey-dimension and able to interact, drink water, etc.) that had found me and I replied, “Trust”. (Later this person would exclaim joyfully and while being seriously happy for me, that I had found my power-word or phrase.) I held his hand and lay my head in his lap for a few minutes while he rubbed my back and head: I remember saying over and over a couple times, “It found me”, “I found it”... I also said the word “Trust” several times, in a low tone of voice, out loud to myself while holding his hand.
This person was also with me during my first and second ayahuasca ceremonies. It is interesting how you make very strong energetic connections with people, that it is magnetic and not intellectual, that it’s very personal, yet, not in a self-interested way (and little of such a connection can be talked about, it is cosmically intuitive, a kind of universal empathy without a path or destination): each person is a project of sorts and never to be simply met for the sake of meeting or coffee-talk (At least not in the context to the time-period of having taken the ayahuasca and experiencing it together and for some time afterwards, as its lessons are penetrating and you’re coming back to life)…
Each and every meeting/ceremony is Absolute Meeting, even if it contains no words or healing ritual; the eye contact is a kind of medicine unto itself, going straight to the heart, to your conscience and real level of love: so, I guess I can say that in some respects it’s all healing and revelation, simply, that it takes on different forms of showing and sharing, while deep interpersonal situations also begin to unfold on a cosmic scale that you feel your mind is just not able to reconcile and barely hold together, though your feelings ‘get it’ and your conscience and presence sustain that vision-worth and its ‘taste’. In a nutshell, not all that you experience with another is reconcilable in the moment, oftentimes it is part of the ayahuasca lesson-walking, and meeting another can be haunting as well as healing... Oftentimes it stalls and waits, picks up later and even doesn’t and remains a mystery looking at you from a very close up, next door neighborhood-window.
I got up and felt myself empowered to heal, to help certain people who were laying, standing and sitting around. This stage-dimension of the ayahuasca’s influence is unusual in the fact and way in which it’s completely open… I could feel that some barrier had simply disappeared between the perceptual world (actual experience) and conceptual world (wishes and theories), although, those weren’t my thoughts at the time since I was experiencing it (I didn’t need to think before being)... It’s almost as if you can see at times through the physical face, into/onto the soul’s kinetic surface and emotional trauma imbedded there or that person’s essential essence and being...
I could hear the shaman chanting and some slight music was being played, though not as much as the ceremonies weeks before. I went over to the ceremony-station where the shaman and his helper were sitting: I looked at his assistant and felt a deep urge to ‘work’ on him (to heal something in him): so, I got in between the two men and knelt down, undid his shirt and began working on a few points along his chest, while swaying back and forth, I recall feeling very feminine, actually deeply emblazoned with feminine energy and worthiness; my right hand was quivering at a very fast rate as I was pressing and massaging his chest/torso with my left hand: the vibration at a high speed was as if it was either channeling down or out something, as though the energy was moving across from left to right or right to left; it’s now difficult to say, since I don’t remember noticing a distinct travel-direction sensation…
It was odd, because as I moved my left hand and touched certain points and waved over others, the right hand would respond differently, like a gauge or divining rod of sorts. I recall that the shaman got a bit irritated that I was in that space (taking up too much space?) in between himself and his assistant, and asked to give him more room... We moved a bit to the left and I continued treating him; though it wasn’t long before I got up and moved on because shaman’s helper said that it was enough and that it was best to cease treating him there... The shaman had left the station entirely towards the end of this five or six minute session.
{Now that I’m writing about this one situation, I can honestly say that I didn’t feel intrusive, that I felt I would be welcome and that his assistant’s need and my desire to perform a healing upon him was so strong that it was all that was in my consciousness at the time. The requests to move over and give space to the shaman seemed to belong to another dimension, I could barely relate to it within myself: I remember moving over, though not having a ‘conscience-connection’ to it in regards to being in someone else’s space or offending the shaman (or meaning to): I couldn’t see myself as emanating such a quality, though this is not to say that it didn’t belong to some part of myself that I may need to look at on a deeper level, because sometimes ‘ego’ can seem very real when one is possessed by its needs, though I am not sure whether this healing-dance-walk I was performing within this stage of the ayahuasca ceremony was fake or pretentious: the shaman later would indicate that in some way it was “ridiculous” and part of my “know it all” ego. (?) It is difficult to say; there’s both innocence and vanity mixed in my desires to heal and teach/share revelations at times, while the actual action itself is often an altogether different thing and is not always interpreted the same by all receivers of it... Today, (November 2, 2008), rewriting this a second or third time, I am still torn between being ecstatic about something and ‘educational’... The unfolding will tell all...}
I walked over to another friend who was leaning up against one of the main wooden yurt-support poles near the central area of the tent and where the woodstove was stationed; he was barely supporting himself while standing up and smoking from time to time a cigarette he had previously rolled… His eyes were closed for most of the time: what happened between the two of us was a bit more ‘ethereal’ in that I began to place my hands straight out and scan certain points on the vertical axis of his body. My right hand would quiver when a spot was detected; a sudden sense of knowledge and focus would come over me, though no words or information, simply a sense of concentration and healing intent, concern for his welfare and advancement or expansion in his journey.
I recall that I never touched him physically and always stayed just four to five inches away… I began to dance slowly in place, moving my hands about him in a sort of swaying rhythm and lifting my feet up and down in place. If I would give a metaphor to it, it was as if my body was a large ribbon being blown upwards by a shaft of air, it was also a bit serpentine-like, though I don’t recall any visions of a snake-image or exact qualities: though I do remember that I took on the spirit of a bird of some sort; this later seemed to be an internal-character-theme that developed into the identity of either a crow or a hawk, though the sense that I was a bird of prey consciousness was strong…
I remember that as I was dancing in front of him I stretched completely to the sky vertically with my arms entirely extended in the air and up on my tip toes, while visualizing a tall, black, slowly swirling funnel shape issuing upwards through the tent starting from myself and going straight up into the night sky where I could hear a group of crows calling at the top of the narrow funnel shaped column (This funnel grew into the size of a tornado, though was not a destructive element(al) and it spun slowly:
I had the sudden realization that I was doing something for All the crows in the World and that they needed this in some way and that I was some sort of medium between them and whatever it was that I was channeling: perhaps the funnel was an ‘elevator’ or a sort of ‘horn of plenty’ between I and them; delivering my dance and intent high up to their companies (?)
As I was dancing in front of this person I felt as if I were celebrating something too; as I write now (with the shaman’s closing-opinion of my actions in my consciousness) I have a doubting sense about these healing intentions, though, too, I did experience ‘strange ways’ and aspects of methods that I had never read about previously and of which were happening through me; so, I’m a bit confused on these points of ‘intent’... How the shaman was attributing it to my ‘ego’ while also, certain things were indeed occurring... Could it be that I was projecting the healing that I needed to do upon myself, upon them? Yes, this is possible, though I do not know enough concerning the qualities of working in this ‘dimension of perception’ and certain spontaneous desires that issue up while within the ayahuasca revelation.
Also, at this time, I recall that I (the formless essence of my presence) was suddenly up in the clouds and took on the form of a spot light, though in reverse, this light was not ‘light’, but instead was a grey or black spot light (like the kind produced by a lighthouse) and I was it, being moved about in the clouds, being shone downwards and making large circle formations on the planet Earth which seemed to cover thousands of miles in radius.
I could see the cone shaped black light being let loose upon the Earth, also similar to that which a flashlight would make through mist or fog… I continued to dance and sway like a bird flying in place while rooted to the Earth… I remember making flying gestures with my arms and stretching my limbs like birds who have large wing spans do; also stretching my shoulders and scapula-joints and muscles.
At one point I found myself concentrating deeply upon the face of my friend and gently making pinching gestures with my forefinger and thumb upon key spots all over his head, as if I were pulling splinters and leeches or long threads from his ears, temples, chin, cheeks, etc. I recall seeing my friend open his eyes momentarily and then close them.
At this point something odd occurred, I began to ‘move-sense’ with my hands near his abdomen, forming and feeling about, suspended in the air, a circular, large ball-shape with my hands and suddenly had the very strong sense that at his abdomen area I was connecting with an invisible embryo and in this embryo was an aspect of him, I could feel certain points and areas on this ‘circular shape’ that seemed needing attention and focused energies… I did this for about three or four minutes and then found myself standing on my right foot only and lifting up my left while dancing and holding my two hands in a sort of mantra position (middle finger touching the thumb)…
I remember having a quick reference to Ganesha appear in my mind, though very distant and quiet, blurry and then it faded away. At this point I was still deeply immersed in mixed sensations, both my own relationship to what was occurring through me as a ‘blank presence’ and bird senses of stretching, dancing, freedom, healing, flying and being connected… Throughout this stage of the ceremony, I could hear off and on, the crows calling amongst themselves from far up in the sky… I remember closing my eyes and getting a very clear picture of my bird head looking out over a rainy evening or early morning meadow, being, looking, alive, there, now… (Now that I’m re-writing this account, it occurs to me that this sense of looking out over the rainy meadow reminds me of the tigress experience as well, that the ‘sense’ of self is linked together and one in this looking out over...)
I continued to celebrate around my friend, always staying exactly in front of him… It is interesting to note here that although I was connecting with the group of crows above the funnel issuing up from me I felt that I embodied the spirit of a hawk or some larger bird of prey while envisioning myself as the participant or member within this connection.
I walked over to another person, where I knelt down and sat with momentarily: we held one anothers hands briefly and he asked me if I was having a strong experience and I remember that I only smiled and looked at him intently, then something very incredible occurred, his face turned into that of my own and I was looking at myself looking back at me… I vaguely recall that there was a golden, sparkling mood in the air while this ‘reflection-ing’ occurred...
I got up after awhile and visited an older man who was reclined near the woodstove on a chair lined with sheep skin: earlier I had seen him dancing during the same time I was doing the vertical swaying dances in front of my friend, by the left side of the stove…
He had his eyes open and was looking outwards with a kind of now-present-gazing; I recall looking him in the eyes and having an incredible sensation that he was (not necessarily my personal father) but, rather, ‘Father’, a sort of archetypal ‘All Father’ sensation of presence for me... I felt as if I suddenly connected to him deeply, profoundly, and a kind of cosmic-empathy issued up in me… Something... From a someplace within myself, I could sense the ‘All of Him-ness’, the absolute male-nature-condition and state of affairs; it was as if I could feel the whole eternal ocean of the masculine by loving this one beautiful droplet hanging in front of me, just as I was suspended too, upon the tree of this dimension...
He looked at me and I felt that I wanted to give him all the love I possibly could and within me I recall saying, “I forgive you, I understand your nature, your context to me and forgive you, I forgive you.”
My time with the older man who I identified as ‘Father’ was deeper and much more internal than the rest: I recall sensing his own vast need for acceptance, forgiveness and calmness; it was almost as if he needed someone’s permission to finally exhale deeply and relax. I placed my hand to his face and held it there and rubbed his temples as he sighed deeply… I also touched his forehead and shoulders, his chest, his solar plexus area and left knee.
I experienced a deep, profound signal to place his hand against my solar plexus; so I lifted up my shirt and placed his palm outstretched against that area, i.e., the sternums bare skin and held it there for about thirty seconds. I then looked at his lower torso area and found that the spirit of the hawk (or crow) suddenly rose up in me, almost as if I were studying a mouse hiding beneath his skin somewhere, trying to watch to see where it was going to pause so to get at it (retrieve?).
I remember that my left hand suddenly formed the gesture/shape of a bird’s head and it went close to his right side and stayed there hovering and then held itself still… I could feel my right hand quivering and that there was something there at his right side, something not right, something needing attention, drawing out (perhaps even transformation through devouring?) and healing.
I also recall performing the ‘embryo gesture/study’ healing scenario on him as well and afterward, looking at him, that his face suddenly changed; it was as though some portion of his face changed while the rest didn’t, as if something else was peering through his face like someone might through a set of curtains: though, too, my inner physical state began to drop an octave-level into a more unsteady, tired and emotionally darker place: it was as though there was This Garden we were all taking part in, though soon the bottom dropped out of this ‘idling elevator’ and Hell and Death became its contents catcher and floor. (Did something get into me at this point of having found it in him? A transference? I just had this thought tonight while typing this and connections are naturally happening:11.02.2008).
It was after I met with the older man that I found myself kneeling in front of the woodstove and taking off my shirt to show my bare back to the heat: I remember feeling very feminine, vulnerable and even a bit sluttish or like a desperate prostitute waiting for a fix and having visions of disgusting and disturbing scenes similar to those hell scenes during my second yage journey: these scenes included again, though not as crystal clear, the desperate-forced or desperate-self-mutilating-oral sex, the rape-copulation visions and the eating of feces (waste matter); in this particular ‘scene’ it felt as though I were being more ‘date raped’ than violently raped as before: while the eating of the waste matter seemed to be connected to something within my consciousness that knew or wished to throw up and was attempting to trigger it by eating its own waste, trying to do the most disgusting thing possible so to throw up: this didn’t occur (the throwing up) and later I wondered whether or not it might have some relationship to the actual death and ‘occupation’ of certain parasites in the human body *(?)
*Because, during one of the ‘next-morning-breakfasts’ via the first and second ceremonies, someone mentioned that you can also experience the death of the parasite and its consciousness too...
All of this was, again, very real and I am always surprised to find after the ayahuasca journey that these things didn’t actually happen to my physical body. I recall sensing that I was peeing in my pants, peeing on myself and just laying there ‘in it’ alone. I recall that I got up from in front of the woodstove and grabbed a sheep’s skin from my station and lay in the chair where the older man had been reclining, placed the skin over my bare chest and tried to stay connected to both the physical and ayahuasca dimension flowing with me or I it.
I recalled the distant emotions associated with touching the fur and then began to feel weaker and weaker… {I wish to mention that before drinking the ayahuasca this evening that I felt particularly paranoid of possibly finding myself ‘unconsciously’ doing something solo-sexual amongst the people, because I had recalled a story that during the last ayahuasca ceremony, a person was seen 'With Themselves' by the campfire for nearly two hours (a guy)... So, I guess this was a ‘normal’ fear to have in such ultra-spiritual, ultra-unpredictable combinations and rumors... Although I was present to that ceremony I hadn’t witnessed this scene and was most likely in the house or yurt at the time. I recall having the thought to tie my sweat pants in a knot so that I could not get them open during the ayahuasca journey, yet, too, I felt that this ‘gesture’ would only further or deepen some dark spot within my conscience or ‘superstition organ’, so I left it alone and ‘open’…
This 'feared event' didn’t happen, though I recall feeling afterwards, during the next four or five days, unworthy of a certain honesty emanating from the areas of Love and Truth within myself, that Death had shown me something and one of the messages I received was that the habit of ‘self-love’ in my life was connected to ‘Not respecting Death’ and that a large part of my test and journey was to immediately cease this habit (or transform its context to a level where the work with ayahuasca would align in a positive way(?)) and to go deeper into the intensity, fire and pressure that builds within myself, that this habit (since childhood) has tended to alleviate, medicate and possibly maim a whole ‘body of knowledge and being’ within me (?)
Further, that is was possible that an entire area of trauma and unresolved energies and information lay behind this habit, that this force field was somehow keeping me from truly living with all of myself, that it was some sort of detour device… Belonging to what, I don’t exactly know, because I do not understand how it is that I have lost my innocence and had it replaced with such Hell and role playing or projection (?)}
Part Two ~
I lay there for awhile and then got up, trying to find my station so to lie down… I achieved this after putting forth a concentrated effort to see through the often camouflaged overlay or understructure of the ayahuasca grid and soon entered into the deepest of hell journeys: I never dreamed/imagined that Hell could be deeper than the last time I visited it (the second ayahuasca journey), though, this journey proved my education absolutely wrong and naive.
As I lay there upon my sleeping bag I recall entering another dimension of being, again, I was dying, though this time I was held at least four to five times on the razor’s edge of death, which was terrifyingly agonizing: screams of the deepest and most insanely heart crushing type issued upwards from within bottomless depths of myself, my condition of pain-being from my deeper nature-levels of tortured vulnerability and hypocritical, putrid danknesses; yet, these crescendos of these galactic screams wouldn’t be let out, it was as if Death itself was holding the pressure release valve shut so to have the effect push itself deeper into my consciousness and levels of realization (?)...
I simply kept dying, continuously dying as if ‘I was’ the embodiment of one long infinity-death-rattle-echo and being seemingly rewound again and again, being killed over and over by different demonic beings and perhaps even groups of my ancestral dead or those negative, frustrated, self-loathing entities somehow connected to me. It was as if they wanted to fly me like a flag in their own battlefield of bone-grinding lonesomeness, desolation and fathomless, eternal brown, grey and smoke filled atmospheres and mood.
I recall waking up several times and raising my head, then lowering it, hearing the people around me wailing, vomiting, burping and dry heaving: people outside wandering around yelling to themselves one word exclamations like ‘Me! Me! Me! No, wait, wait, Yes… not Me, No, Me! Me! Me!...
It felt as though Death have stepped onto the planet Earth and was walking it, owning it: yes, I said it several times the next morning, that, ‘Last night, Death owned the Earth.’ I hadn’t experienced the music inside the yurt completely stop before; it seemed that no one was spared the deeply difficult effects of the ayahuasca plant-spirits during that evening’s early morning hours.
I guess the music had stopped because the shaman and his helper were needed by so many people… There were people who had set themselves up to play various instruments, though they never made it to these ‘posts’… I do recall that Tian sang and played the drum a bit while sitting by the woodstove, though this didn’t last long… There was an incredible orchestra of belching, splashing puking sounds, moans, muttering to ones self and even some laughter mixed in from time to time: each person was experiencing his and her own dimension of self within the one ayahuasca-dimension’s effect upon their spirit, in and out of the physical body…
So, with this external Hell atmosphere both inside and outside the tent and no music (Eden had disappeared); I lay down and closed my eyes trying to be with what was happening, I could feel the sensation of knowing that I couldn’t stop the process and how apprehensive I felt laying there waiting, not knowing, dark, no one coming to me, waiting, like a wounded animal on the train tracks. I remember feeling that there was no place to go, not to the house, nor to the campfire, because it was probably very cold (The size of its fire was not big to begin with from the beginning of the ceremony); I didn’t necessarily feel trapped, it was more a feeling of ‘nothing to do with myself-mood’…
The level of hell (or Bardo) that I journeyed into was outright deadly, there was no assembly-line-process to get to Death this time, like the last journey: it was pure, immediate death deliverance, a one way ticket straight into its mouth...
I only read up on the Tibetan idea of the Bardo ‘after’ this ayahuasca journey and it seems that I journeyed through all the Bardo(s) or at least the three they mention where Death is stationed at the third.
I don’t recall if I met with anything prior to my being in Space and standing in front of Death or exactly whether this ‘meeting’ took place after the first two demon encounters or before (The strongest sense is that it took place before); I do recall that I had endured something of a certain kind of intense, darkly cold-emotion and suddenly found myself standing in Black Space… (A note: that I did experience the tigress consciousness and the trapped, oncoming feeling of total self destruction prior to this meeting, where I was calling out the names of the shaman and his helper).
I found myself ‘standing’ in outer Space: I looked and saw Death in front of me. I could sense the coldness and vacuum of Space, the nothingness and my presence as an intimate, woven part of this environment, Death’s presence and an incredible, nearly beyond my soul-being’s ability of cognition, paused-for-infinity-connection with Death… As if I had been born from or was owned by Death rather than Life. I could sense something very vital in the central axis of Death, like a piece of jagged flint twirling inside Death’s chest and within this ‘flint’ a tiny spark sat, which was me.
I stood and was pure and utter beholding, no thoughts; while the idea of Pausing or Stillness was so exaggerated and hyperactive that the non-movement, the non-thought-ness of this ‘time’ was absolutely bending me towards a sort of insanity, in that it was a force that drilled deep within me, past all resistance and pulsated within me with a purity and awesomeness that seemed to be destroying and telling me something at the same time.
The vacuum stillness blew my mind away like a dandelion’s head on the edge of a perpetual, silent hurricane and the force of this silence, how it held the totality of myself, like a droplet on the tip of a thread, dangling, reflecting, reflecting, reflecting…
This vacuous-ness had drained everything from my identity, except exactly the precise parts that Death itself wished to keep me conscious of or in possession of: and upon those parts of myself Death touched and embossed itself deeply therein, so deep, that I recall it was just a couple days ago that I dropped in full prostration to the ground and wept over the deep realization of how I hadn’t seen Death as its true being-ness before, how so much of my life wasn’t really and truly a full experience because I simply didn’t know that Death was so alive and close to me, to my nature and my soul.
I witnessed Death pictured as this ~
When I found myself in front of Death, I noticed that mine was a very close proximity and that there was very little peripheral view, although I was absolutely certain we were in Space.
Death’s head was made up of all the skulls of all the animals on Earth with the skin peeled off, showing only the muscles, tendons, nerves, etc. I could see the glistening wetness of the muscles and that they were all bunched together to form a sort of large, slightly egg shaped form (though actually more round, like a light bulb), which was perched on top of a type of column(ed) torso, made of tall, black, crystal like shapes, though not pointed, sheared at an angle...
I didn’t see arms or legs and had no sense that there were any, no wings either, though, they could have been there because it possessed some sort of architectural elements sticking up from behind its head and possibly too, down in front, just beneath the head-shape and overlapping slightly a few portions and places where certain composite-heads were, almost like some sort of collar of a robe, though I am not sure. The head had no specific eyes, ears, nose, etc. It simply was: the conglomeration-shape of the collected heads implied ‘head’ and there were no one or two ‘important heads’, they all equally existed upon the three hundred sixty degree ‘face’ of Death, still too, it’s not fair to say ‘face’, only that I was ‘facing’ a particular view and not Death’s front to it’s back: I feel now that there is no such thing as the ‘front’ and ‘back’ of Death (or Life: if there’s one of these sort of images for it (?)).
It simply was, and Death stood, stood, stood and stood… And as I did the same thing, something was being driven and poured into my conscience, a deep and utter recognition of something came over me, though at that time I could not ‘think’ about it… Later I was able to formulate that Death had something to show me, a few places for me to visit and things to experience as proof or examples of its message to me, which was, ‘That I hadn’t respected and honored Death.’
Again, standing there in front of Death was the most soul exhausting silence I have ever witnessed in any state or journey; this state of silence would revisit soon enough, though in a very different context (It seems that it has been infused in my soul’s bloodstream and consciousness-mood or state of beingness): because, with Death, there was no context except what it had to impart towards me, while my further journeys deeper into Hell (after this meeting with Death) included the context and the same soul wrenching silence. I still experience this silence; it’s with me now, as I write…
This silence is something I hadn’t experienced so much before in my other ayahuasca experiences, though this time it seemed to be a theme, a sort of ‘paint’ or ‘instrument’ through which Death, the Bardo and its forces played through so to impregnate the journeyman (me) with some sort of influence, lesson and mood… I can’t yet explain it correctly, it seems; maybe it will evolve as I write...
What I sense is that it’s a place or area within my consciousness that has been opened or at least fed or influenced by... What it also means to me today is that within this Space of Silence is me looking out into the external world, though, when I look out I recognize that this death-quietness is all pervasive and that I have never actually owned my life from the inside out, from a part of myself that knew how to rightly take care of itself, to bring peace and true happiness to a level of recognizing that my life is my life and that I am in it as I am in it; that the outside enters me as my relationship to it and its objective aspects perceives and strides upon it; still, this area of philosophical-izing is still a bit unsteady for me because I’m experiencing a huge shift in my inner relationship to what is and how the external world is unto me and the soul-diseases that have played or pretended to be ‘my’ medicine nearly my whole life; these ‘medicines’ seem to have collected into a gigantic, quiet, ‘emergency’…
{I recall afterwards, in the morning light, knowing for an absolute certainty that Death was a living being, that it had just as much a right to be alive as Life itself, that it existed as a being, a force in the Universe and owned the Earth: this sense that it owned the Earth was odd, though this is what I sensed at the time… I was surprised that I’d never thought of Death as a living being, with qualities and aspects just as diverse and abundant as Life.}
A Deeper Journey ~ (After this meeting in Space)
The first place I found myself was in a room: I could hear a door closing from time to time and this door had all the living and profound qualities of being a closing door that I have ever experienced (As if all the implications of a closed door or abandonment could be invested and magnified infinitely through simply the sound alone):
I was frozen (could not move a muscle, not even an eyelid: no breath...), laying on the floor, perhaps a bit in the fetal position or ‘C-shaped’; this place felt like it was ‘galactic clean’ and temple-like in appearance and emotional sense; I cannot explain this, it’s just that certain places ‘feel’ formal and others ‘temple-ish or holy’ without exact external signs; I don’t recall any signs or decorations, simply walls and perhaps an open doorway behind the figure in the room with me; at the end of this polished white marble place stood a female being, she was larger than human size, I would say that she was at least nine to ten feet tall and may have had wings, if so, they were tucked behind her and not really visible…
She was dressed in black leather and had bare arms and legs: the closest ‘match’ that I can find
today is that of the descriptions of the Succubus… Though, the idea of her physical appearance was by no means the subject at hand here in this place. This feminine being stationed and in charge of ‘my lesson’ was the total embodiment of all dreaded karma or conscience consequence associated between the masculine abusing the feminine (and possibly something of the visa versa, though this feeling now is vague and not necessarily applicable to this experience…(?) Because ~ I cannot rightly say that a woman visiting the same place wouldn’t have a masculine Succubus as a host; I sense that how we feed off one another’s sexual appetites and lusts go both ways, in ourselves upon ourselves and as couples or companions and lovers… Though, this wasn’t the subject here, she was there to ‘death me’ and to do it as vastly and as eternally as possible.
I use the phrase ‘death-me’ because the killing or moment-of-death-state seemed to be stretched into infinity, so that the actual moment of death was continually looping and looping, never ending/reconciling: I recall laying there and sensing that I was in a crystal clean room, yet there was absolutely no air, no breathing, nothing except the most extreme sense of terror and psychotic doom possible for the human mind, instincts and heart to experience… It shattered every sensation of hope and unity within my beingness at the onslaught; it was as if I never even had these aspects upon entering this place: my presence in this place opened up As Is and never changed.
She was standing, looking at me; I believe her hands were on her hips and she was not moving, she was poised to keep me on the razor’s edge of dying right now and the ‘Now-forever’, being killed and viciously murdered right now and forever: I lay on this razor’s edge for what seemed to be an eternity squared to its highest power to infinity, then tossed into a Black Hole for stretching out, to add to the sensation of lasting, lasting, lasting…
Nothing else, that I remember, was happening to me in this room except for the showing of the scene’s layout, the pose (Like a living painting) ~
From how I was laying I could always see her looking at me (though not from a direct front to front looking, i.e., I was sideways seeing her...): I do not believe our gazes ever left one another’s and I too recall the sensation of a sort of drum roll, though emotionally implied, not the sounds of such; almost as if too, there were others behind or in the walls adding their deeply dark consciousnesses to the mixture of death-expectation, distilling it higher and higher and higher…
This sense (not an actual sound) of a drum roll was immense and nerve wrecking, it drove itself deep within my being’s ‘cells’ and conjured up from me such blood curdling screams of a kind I’ve never witnessed within myself: these screams were otherworldly, it was as if I was filled with a whole civilizations-full of the most violent rapes, murders and tortures possible, all the pain, all the terror and mortal hanging on to life as this went on and on and on and it was also cold; the silence also added to a sort of ‘double-coldness’ (or total abandonment of hope and choice) that also paused the mind (exactly like while in the presence of Death in Space, though with a specific context/theme and a more demonic intent to work on my personal side; though I really do not know what this ‘personal’ means anymore): there existed no thoughts forwards or backwards…
None; it was a ‘simple’, raw, truly galactic scale experience in mortal terror, spirit terror and a sort of impregnation and carrying of Terror’s child, holding or circulating Terror’s blood with my ‘streams’ or trillions of pollen-seeds in my atmosphere, like a dust storm of Terror’s song, recorded and pelting with an infinity of sand particles; it was as though an endless, whirlpool of glass shards and needles spun within me at the speed of light, ripping, tearing down all and not saying anything specific, again, absolute emotional perception, no Mind to excuse these things as this or that matter of conjecture or fact… My consciousness had embodied one emotion and perception only and it was absolute and infinite within my state of presence. It was as though ‘she’ held my soul’s very umbilical cord in a place which was lined with razor blades, wherein she could constrict her muscles at any time one molecule to the right or left and sever my existence in total.
I felt as if she embodied all the world’s perversions upon the feminine and not necessarily in relation to just human beings; the dis-ease form-causes of all pornography, all rape, all torture, all lust disguised as love, all parasitic desire by the masculine upon the feminine and the corresponding effect of it in causing the paralytic restrictions upon the feminine, all psychotic dismemberment of the feminine, all rage, all abuse and prolonged punishment, experimentation and threatening and psychological torture of the feminine, all secret and after death punishment of the feminine body-symbol, all escapegoats upon the feminine, all masculine pretence and all feminine, putrid sex and drug enslavement to the cycles of the masculine, all forced abortions and abortions by destitution and rape, etc., etc.
The cosmic cleanliness and absolute silence of this place was as though a kind of dust or powdered acid was being slowly administered, ‘blown’ through my mind: it was a sort of environment that no human mind is built to survive in, no thoughts, no debates, no arguments or “weighing of the heart”: in this room was pure fact, pure now, pure, pure, pure…
The stillness was such that I could feel and sense her very bodily surface, no movement, the simple existence of her physical form was so excruciatingly profound that I truly died several times in her presence, though didn’t loose consciousness of these/this death… A sense of the largest, most galactic-ally possible expectation of a murderous fate upon myself was poured into me from the very beginning of my being in this place and it simply sat there and gnawed on my consciousness ad infinium.
I could feel a pressure in my chest and multitudes in a series of screams rising and facing the roof of my closed mouth: it was as though she or this place wouldn’t allow me to let out the screams, it was as if I was supposed to absorb the vibrations of the screams hitting the top of my mouth like twenty thousand birds on fire, flapping, bleeding and being rained on by powdered salt and trying to find an exit…
In this place, although I could hear a door opening and closing, I couldn’t see it; it may have actually been the door to the yurt, the sound entering the journey vision space: I have experienced that sound can enter the journey-space, though not other people or animals (images of).
{Just yesterday: (eight days after this ayahuasca ceremony) someone told me that if the drinker of ayahuasca has experienced astral or out of body experiences within their life, that they could also experience the projections or internal conditions of others within close proximity: although I have experienced multitudes of OBE’s in my life ever since the age of twelve or thirteen: I cannot rightly say that my ayahuasca experiences seem unfamiliar to my particular nature, other than the often very disturbing and humiliating ‘treatment’ by others arriving upon my ‘spirit’ in the form of rape and the eating of feces, which, I have yet to understand, other than perhaps it is some ‘ingredient’ that the plant spirits use in administering to oneself ‘The Soup of the Ego-Self’… Though this is a vague assertion and I don’t really feel, that right now, I am writing truly about something that I sense I know or can be with, out of sureness.}
~ From this place was a clean and immediate transition to this, the second ‘Bardo-room’ ~
The next journey was equally the ‘same’ as the succubus temple, though this was more personal. Whereas before I could recall that I was my normal age of 39 in ‘her’ chamber, it was here, in the second place that I was a young boy, skinny and naked in a crib; I think I was about two or three years old…
This place was shown to be a small bedroom where a very strange and cosmically dangerous demon resided over me, (babysitting)… I remember again, that the air was non-existent, a complete and utter vacuum: all the same emotions and screams surfacing over and over were identical here, yet, just when ‘then with the Succubus’ seemed as far as I could go into ‘my-hell’, here in this room, this demon took it one or two steps deeper… He was standing right next to me by the crib, I could see him, (while describing his details to some friends after the ceremony, I called him ‘Tricky’ and ultra clean.)
To add to the ‘deeper hell-aspect’, his physical proximity (right next to the crib bars) was immense and seemingly assigned to this purpose, to dive into the sharpness of being on Death’s razor’s edge so to sharpen the already cosmic-sharp into some sort of ‘edge’ that not even cosmic-words or cosmic-concepts could fathom a cosmic-metaphor for without being split into for the very act of trying. Before, the Succubus was at least fifty or sixty feet away, though, here, close proximity truly stepped the level of the terror and danger to really an impossible degree, yet, only while being the blood pulsing in Death’s very veins was my presence seemingly able to hold steady without being completely annihilated.
He was tall and dressed like a pimp: he possessed a very smooth nature or charisma, wore perfectly pressed clothes and shinny, flawless shoes (Did I picture him in my inner sight as a whole picture/portrait? Because I do not recall ever moving or looking down.) Everything draped off of him as though he were an absolute evil possessing the very word ‘Smoothness’ or ‘Delicate’: yes, he was some sort of demonic possession of or upon Innocence, he was Evil pressed and cleaned, honed and shaven to a surgical instruments precision… He was wearing a sort of pimp-hat and all the clothes he wore were of a creamy colored pastel, a pinkish tan: I believe he was wearing a suit and I saw no jewelry…
One of the issues pressing upon my consciousness in this room, concerning this demon, was that he was very tricky, the very galactic essence of Tricky, not just an aspect of evil, a mood, an assignment set into motion or emotion; he was intelligent in a way that could get under the skin of even Mother-earth herself, that could cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and he was very knowledgeable of me: it was as though he were some very deep and ancient molester and absolute psychotic killer and rapist of the most high and disturbing form of evil and wickedness: he was standing over me, again, holding me on the razor’s edge of death. He, as I now recall my sense of him, was also something of a deeper relativity to me; he was that ‘certain something’ that lies in the corner of the eye and always thinks ‘Yeeeesssss, that’s right, I know best.’ (A sort of quick, all knowing, stubborn and fixed sarcasm) or ‘Me, Me, Me, Me…’
Something who even benefits by creating the most diabolical of hypocrisies when serving others so to show itself to them by showing themselves ‘after the fact’ as a Confessor of Sins, while all along knowing exactly which sins to enact to achieve the maximum amount of forgivers and ‘Misery Loves Company-empathizers’ so to enslave another Repetition of the same...
Again, in his presence, I felt as if I experienced several deaths or events, till my heart-emotions and sense of presence were simply knocked out and utterly turned to mush by the acid and death-suspended-drip-existence of this place and him and all that his being emanated.
Later I felt as though this place may have been connected to an actual event or time in my life, a ‘period in time’ rather than a theme pressed upon my consciousness, the birth-site of some hateful and most brutal act upon my innocence: it seemed that this particular demon showed up to play out (or show in slow motion, it growing to a ‘mature tree’) the root of some deep and absolutely insane trauma, perhaps even pointing to my murder and bodily dismemberment in a previous existence; I am not sure.
Meanings in this place, again, were absolutely not there, it was total emotion and a reverse bliss-perception: it was after the ayahuasca journey ‘ceased’ that I applied meanings or definitions to the visuals and emotional imprinting, (along with the ‘help’ of dreams and visions.)
I could feel as if the last drop of my soul’s blood was suspended somewhere in the room, hanging there, hanging, hanging, hanging and hanging for an eternity, not waiting to drop, because it was an infinity not to drop that IT simply embodied upon my terrified emotions and nerves, yet to be in that state of death-watching and expectation… While all along with these emotions I was simultaneously experiencing these huge bouts with that of screams roaring up through me, still, again, not able to get them out of my throat and so desiring to release, to release, though the door simply wouldn’t open…
{It is interesting to note here that since my second journey that I have had a throat infection of some sort for nearly three weeks where I cough allot every day and have to clear my throat, it has neither moved up into my sinuses or into my chest, nor has it manifested into a cold or flu. They say it’s normal to catch such things in Holland. Today I am writing more and trying to complete this record and it was on this Friday, exactly seven days since my third ayahuasca ceremony that this throat infection ‘ceased’; it was coupled with a dream where an anonymous pornography movie star was said to have died and there was pictured a group of people sitting around a table interviewing her last known girlfriend who seemed to be of an Oriental/Caucasian mix.}
I felt as if this particular demon was somehow much more dangerous than that of the Succubus; because whereas ‘she’ seemed to be of a primordial evil concerning absolute punishment and revenge or some ultimate level of balancing-payment for certain actions: this demon seemed like a sort of deeper torturer and more about prolonged and even administering extra agonizing scenarios for the sake of his own interests and not what one’s soul really deserved, a harvester of blood curdling agonies from the innocent and naive and not from the ‘adult’
(Still, this is something very confusing to me here, this idea of age and innocence; does one truly denote the other and is there really ever ‘An Adult’ in such a context as this room or type of demonic involvements?)
He seemed to be there not on the behalf of anyone or thing other than himself and what he stood for: he wasn’t a judge-demon, but rather a force of evil filled with hatred and psychotic rage, yet, his nature dealt it out very slow and was very meticulous about it… It seemed as if he’d fed off torturing innocence slowly, needling his way under the fingernails so calmly that one might think it was tickling as it bleed ones soul dead, filling up the soul-crib, as if he possessed/was filled with every known poison and used it on Innocence to first numb it, rape it and then slowly bleed it to death for an eternity, into infinity… This is what was sensed to be my babysitter for an Eternity.
Another Place ~
I visited another place; it felt as if I were deep inside the Earth or perhaps in some sort of graveyard area: here I sat with the dead…
This was a very difficult place emotionally because I felt again the screams issuing up through me, though here I felt as if there was air: nonetheless, here were what seemed to be a group of ‘dead spirits’ who were very putrid (perturbed?) over me for undisclosed reasons: it was as if they were sick and suffering because of me or what I had done in the past. I recall feeling that this was a dangerous place, a place to be very careful…
I didn’t stay here long and do not recall making eye contact with any of these spirits, there was an ancestry with these spirits that I recall vaguely was implied by our proximities. I also recall that there may have been a slight view of a sky and that there was smoke or ‘dry mist’ in the air… It was a dry and dusty place and there may have been a campfire where most of them were congregated.
I opened my eyes from this experience and lay awhile on the floor of the yurt looking up at its see-through dome; it was daylight/early morning; I believe it was about eight o’clock, many were still asleep in their sleeping bags: I felt as if my consciousness had been awake since nine o’clock the previous day…
I got up and went outside, the air was cold and damp and the sun was somewhat bright with scattered clouds in the sky: people were sitting by the campfire, a couple to be exact… I went into the house and saw no one there; I may have taken a bottle of water and then returned to the campfire and sat down on a bench in front of the couple. There was that usual silence, deep inhalations and exhalations and looking around that accompanies the morning after an ayahuasca journey-time… We seemed to be the first ones up and about.
I sat there awhile and commented on how intense the night was, how I felt “That Death owed the Earth last night”, how “Death walked the Earth”, etc. I began speaking about how I felt sitting at the campfire; many things began to automatically rise up and unfold in my consciousness, like a group of lotuses from a ‘thought-dead, mucous filled swamp’: I am not sure whether they asked me about my experience or not, though I was compelled (unlike the last ayahuasca time) to tell them about my experiences and then some extra stories (spontaneous confessions)…
{This new wish to share may have been connected to something my friend Alexander said to me the day he took me to the train station to depart for this third ceremony: he inquired of two main points he wished to know about (that he had personally observed about me/my character), one was concerning why or how it was that I had shut down or off a certain emotional connection to his wife and the other was why I was so secretive… I recall explaining much concerning my critique of his wife’s character, etc., then went on to state some long philosophical treatise on how it was justified and ‘right’ to be intentional, secure, sincere, etc., etc. All of this proved to be utter insanity in the face and hands of the ayahuasca journey and spirit-teachers and afterwards, ultimately ‘myself’.
So, out rolled at the campfire and upon the listening ears of the couple, suddenly, a long story, lasting about fifteen to twenty minutes: it was part childhood recollections and connections to the spirit world and motifs pointing in that direction and the other was a full blown and very unexpected conversation/expressing my guilty feelings about having to have my black cat of some fifteen years ago euthanized (my conscience-relation to it and specifics leading up to the event) and a sexual event that happened between my first love and I, which resulted in an abortion on her part, so far as the decision not to keep it was solely hers and not my wish...}
As I was sitting on the bench I began to describe the emotional sense of meeting with Death, the two demons and the other aspects of the previous ayahuasca journeys. I began linking events and emotional feelings up in a sort of automatic stream of consciousness fashion.
I paused, and looked out at the forest and saw how the grass was being blown in the wind, how the trees simply ‘looked’, standing there as if for the first time, within a quiet, crystal clear fluid or plasma: I commented on how we are at times a walking collection of darts facing away from ourselves and how we focus to aim on others so as to not see the target of our self.
At the point of commenting about how I sensed we ‘used to be able’ to see the external world as brand new arrivals (via as children) without our personal opinions and ‘adult’ stories, desires to have and fears to loose, projected upon it, something incredible dawned upon me ~
It was that/this very type of seeing which was suddenly introduced upon my consciousness, in that moment, as the looking I was experiencing right then and there at the campfire, amongst this couple and had been what I was viewing (the way I was looking), I suddenly realized, ever since I had awakened or opened my eyes from the journeys ceasing in the ‘spirit’ field…
I was actually experiencing what I deeply felt was what it was like when I was a child looking at the world wide open: I began explaining certain connections, how I drew certain kinds of creatures and beings as a young man (ages ten through fourteen or maybe younger), although I’d never actually seen them in books or movies; that there was a strong disposition to draw demonic warrior-beings and animal-like blobs, things that seemed to belong to the fantastic and mysterious ‘darkness’ or ‘unknown’. {As I write this, I also recall that I used to draw cobras constantly, that somehow this snake was really fixed in my identity for years and years, starting around the grades four and five.}
I spoke of how I had experimented with magic and tried to summon Anubis and how I awoke that same night, wide awake and looking into the darkness, in utter terror, wishing so much to let out the scream I knew deeply existed in my soul, but was so terrified and scared that my throat and body muscles seized and would not let my mouth open…
I described how I knew that it (Anubis) had come to visit me, that it was there, in the darkness of my bedroom, that I had awakened by the sheer power of a type of sixth sense of knowing that a presence was crouching on the floor in front of me as I lay in the bed with eyes wide-wide open and that it had made ‘this’ growling noise…
I shared with the couple a vocal impersonation of this ‘growl’ and as soon as I let out the growl sound in the actual, physical campfire-space, a dog was heard responding to it some fifty yards (or a little less) away: the timing was so pure and absolute that I silently pointed my right index finger towards the sound of the dog’s bark-response and said, ‘Right! Well, there it is…’
I looked around and a strange sense came over me: I had just finished telling the story of the events that took place between my first love and I, that it wasn’t a negative sexual episode that lead to the abortion, (It was the ‘fact’ that we had separated and she was 1500 miles away and not wishing to be a mother...) only a deeply, spiritually disturbing and haunting overlapping of what I then, at the morning campfire termed might have been a spirit possession of her of some sort; that it was as if I were suddenly making love to a seized up dead person and how I had punished myself for her decision to have an abortion or the situation/circumstance we’d gotten into that placed her into the atmosphere of having to have the abortion, which, so deep within my soul, I didn’t wish her to do...
Just at that point of making the sample-growling noise and the hearing of the dog’s response, I heard crows to my left and right (the same sounds as the night prior, yet, this morning they had a new place within me and not just audible symbols or ‘things’): I looked over, behind the yurt, and saw them landing in a pine tree; I then looked around and felt a coldness approaching, a sudden vacuum filled the space around me and I felt very uneasy: I may have commented about it at this time, though do not recall, yet, I absolutely knew that ~
Here I was, some nine hours after my first and only drink of ayahuasca that night (where I did not vomit) and the journey was not over and had stepped into the ‘Real World’, that Death had stayed with me or that ‘that’ dimension was still open to me and I it, that something had crossed over and was with me…
I heard a door close (possibly the yurt-door to my right) which delivered my heart back into a certain state-recollection of having journeyed to the deeper rooms and temples of Hell…
I got up, stood and paused with a desire or need to go into the house, for some sort of focus or ease: still sitting at the campfire I felt a deathly presence come over me, a sickening heart wrenching utter dread of everything living in the now: I went into the house and noticed that the house was cosmically empty, it seemed so desolate, so still and dead, alone, abandoned, left to wither and die, cleanly diseased and utterly poisonous in its abandonment… I felt a chill and went to lay down by the sunny window on a large, thick cushion-mattress…
{I now sense that somehow something within me was turned inside out: though I am not altogether sure why I feel this… It is a metaphor that lacks much power with me tonight.}
I curled up a bit and lay there feeling very odd, as if something belonging to a kind of Death-reconciliation was about to come to a closure from all the deaths having not taken place in Hell in a finale-way, but, rather, was here in the physical world to finish me, to give the story an ending: I began to make that smacking of my tongue on the top of my mouth gesture and lay, waiting, feeling like Time had suddenly blew away from the Earth and that something insanely hellish was about to land hard and unrelenting upon me. I truly sensed that I was in between two large, cold hewn stones, perfectly rectangle and ‘square’, just awaiting for them to flatten me beyond even the spirit of Flat itself: too, it felt as if the scream or screamer within was on board, laying on top of me, in me and that I was soon to be mortally attacked by the most violent event possible upon a soul’s presence in a human body.
Then, suddenly it occurred: I felt it, a sense of some sort of presence, a screaming, psychotic bleeding to death specter of some sort, yet it was everywhere, it was as though I was inside a huge jelly fish of absolute suicidal rage and desperation, that I was the ‘jelly’: I began to have deep and disturbing visions of running razor blades down my wrists and jabbing knives into my veins: a sense of overwhelming cosmic-death agony and anxiety fell upon me like a second layer of skin, heavy, sweaty and dead, rotten, putrid, but alive and having a heart attack, a heart-rape-attack: it was as though not only my life was about to end, but, rather all Life with me…
It was something so desperately deep that my identity shrank to about three or five percent of what I might now call ‘my voice’ or ‘being able to have my say’ and the only thing my soul could get out was a warning, a call for those around me to call the ambulance and keep me from self destructing…
I got up and looked around: I quickly went outside and looked at the couple sitting by the campfire; I was cold, restricted, balled up inside, nothing, zero and empty and ruthlessly draining of Life or visa versa.
A few other people were up and about: I asked the couple if they’d seen the shaman or his helper, they said, “No, why?” I looked at them and said that they need to call the ambulance right away because I believe I wished to destroy myself…
I stood there, cold, gone, though concerned and very, very simply lost, having no connection with life other than the desire to ask for help and protection from this inner destructive force about to annihilate me.
Soon, a few more people gathered and I knew I needed to speak to the shaman, who was asleep in a private room located at the back of the house: one of the people there (the older man I identified the previous evening as ‘Father’) lead me there and to the door; he was taking too long in knocking softly, so I opened the door and went straight in and woke the shaman up, saying that they needed to call the ambulance because of what I was wishing to do to myself:
I felt that enormous, ancient screams were welling up inside of me and that there was a deep and very enormous emergency on its way, the biggest emergency in the world. Round and round, something inside of me moved, seeming like it was a body made completely of metal, made up of metal knives all over its whole body, bouncing off greased metal walls while trying to get out and to get at me.
The shaman took this incident in a very difficult way and began getting dressed and walked out of the room, with me slowly following behind him… I went outside and was met with many people (the word had spread) and there were two key people who started to talk to me and then to the shaman, who I believe agreed to allow me to stay long enough to try and be dealt with by these friends, particularly his helper/assistant.
The emergency flowing through me seemed as if it were never going to end and also the shaman’s impression of my previous night’s actions added to the suspicion that there was something very fatalistically wrong with me: a deep and utterly spellbinding state of split personality had fallen over me, where I was experiencing 3% of myself and 97% of something else, that I could not even ‘put’ my mind to: it was as though the desires of this other 97% simply separated from me and took my mind with it.
This ‘something else’ was there, though not literally by a name or personality, it was as if it were someone else’s emotions, yet, too, I was not ruling out that these were somehow surfacing because I had unlocked something inside myself by confessing 'secrets' to complete strangers in very explicit and humiliating details concerning my self punishments and true feelings.
I also felt that something was still with me, that something had crossed over and was still around: my ayahuasca journey was still taking place in broad, three dimensional space, whereas it seemed that most others were ok and somewhat back, a little jarred, though for the most part, ‘safe’, and completely to themselves: I had actually gone in the opposite direction upon awakening; albeit most people’s conscious state after such a night of drinking ayahuasca is a bit dismembered from ‘ordinary life perceptions’.
I was taken to the campfire and asked many questions as to what happened, why I wished to end my life, etc. I told the shaman’s friend that I was still halfway in that other world, that something had crossed over and that the door was still wide open within me between these worlds: too, that I had always had this ‘door’ since childhood, that I didn’t know how to handle it, how to be with it…
I also recall during my time, sitting at the campfire, that when people would come up and sit down next to me, that I could, once in awhile see flashes, like a slide picture (a transparent film) superimposed over them, of a person without skin… This was very disturbing; too, I had a very strong and sudden connection to one woman, that there was something within her that was connected to some very deadly issue concerning my relationship to my mother, something dreadful and haunting… My level of hypersensitivity was through the roof and the dead were rising and falling in and out of the living around me.
My friends took me into the kitchen and sat me down at the table and gave me juice, water, fruit, coffee and some cheese and bread. I listened to people tell their stories in Dutch and tried to gather myself together while still feeling this door between the worlds was wide open: I was also feeling very distant and somewhat bashful: I recall saying to a friend that ~ “Now I have to start all over again.” and he (the shaman’s assistant) responded that what had occurred to me in the last three weeks took him ten years, though, too, I understood deeply that this was not a rightful comparison, that it was an emotional investment towards me on his part and this was greatly appreciated, though in a new way of perceiving ‘appreciation’; it could be that I felt like a baby or young child, though not a good one.
Another friend knelt down next to me and reminded me that he was the one who I had laid my head on his lap, while telling him that Trust had found me. He commented that I had found my power word (Trust) and went on to state that it seemed to him that I had never been truly happy in my life, that I needed to find ways to be completely happy by myself, etc. He was very encouraging, while the shaman’s helper was extraordinary in his acceptance and very careful emotions expressed around the situation.
I simply sat there looking around: so much of me was simply dead and I felt the presence of Death, the presence of that ultra quiet Space and myself behind it, in it, my Space, the Space…
Soon I reached down and picked up one of the host’s dogs and held it in my lap: a few people exclaimed that ~ “Now, see, that’s ‘trust’, that is the power of trust!’ and that he, the dog named Buster, never let anyone but the owners pick him up…
I held him in my lap and he was doing very well: I felt very open and connected to the other dogs in the room as well… When suddenly Buster started to angrily snap at my throat and face: immediately I held him with even more love and deep acceptance and said to the people (who were yelling at him in surprise and defense of me) that ~ “It’s ok; let him do it, he too has some issues to work out.”
I kept him on my lap and he settled down and eventually hopped off and peacefully went under the table. Later I wondered if he had seen something ‘else’ with me other than myself, because I’ve heard that dog’s can sense such things as spirits, etc. (?)
After the breakfast I thought I would stay the day and night and simply recover and be around friends: though it seemed that the shaman really wished me to leave and had told me that he never wished to see me again… I had to ‘trust’ that this was some sort of intuitive ‘right’ on his part and so I packed my things and caught a ride to the train station with a friend: prior to leaving, I did manage to purchase two ceremonial music CDs and get a friend’s contact information…
I recall the shaman handing me my money I had paid in advance for the second night and that his last words were ~ “Good luck with your life.”
I went to the train station and waited there: while standing on the platform I found a very tiny section of a necklace on the pavement and a piece of odd looking root under a fence: both I took and held onto as sorts of ‘anchor-totems’ in the storm which was still blowing within me… (Ultimately I left these in Holland; the only item left in my rooftop apartment, overlooking Amsterdam).
A freight train sped by and I watched it as it rolled past for about a minute. When I later got onto the passenger train I was surprised to see that on the ceiling, going into where I was headed to sit down, was painted a great, life sized tiger picture done in black paint… I took my seat and watched out of the window the view go by the entire two hour journey back to Amsterdam…
Alexander was waiting to pick me up near the station and took me back to my apartment and then by bike to a friend’s home so that I had someone to stay with while he did several errands: I told some of my story to this friend and his girlfriend… I recall being very vulnerable and still feeling that the spirit world door was very open: something had changed within me, it still feels permanent, that there’s a sense of Death in the air, it is not altogether a negative or terrible feeling, only, it presses upon me much and one of its strong themes is that this life of mine is utterly and ruthlessly mine and it is indeed what we make it and that there are real reasons how that nearly ninety-seven percent of me felt that the world was laughing at ‘it’…
I took a taxi home later that night from Alexander’s friend’s home and went upstairs into his apartment and lay down with a few of his cats and simply lay there feeling not much different than when I had left the campfire at the ceremony location, although the suicidal sensation had left, I was still very distrustful of being alone and stayed close to my cell phone and knowledge of who it was that resided in the apartment building ‘in the moment’, in case it were that I experienced another ‘galactic emergency attack’…
Later I took a shower and went to bed in my own apartment that night; I figured that I had been consciously awake for about thirty eight hours. I lay in bed with the lights on that night prior to going to sleep and had many strong emotions, visions and dreams. Just last night I had a sort of dream-state panic and awoke sensing that infinity-pause-sensation in the air.
The first visions that came to me, similarly, like the owl landing on my chest did after arriving back from my first and second ayahuasca ceremonies, were not healing visions, they were very terrible and even sinister in nature.
One was that of an old, naked woman crouched on my chest defecating streams of diarrhea into my mouth: the next were a series of three or four infant skeletons crawling out of my pubic area, up my stomach and into my heart, devouring it: then at one point all the skeleton babies started to devour my body: I simply lay there and let it happen because I understood that surrendering was all there was, all that was left, that a defense would only add to the train of such circumstances .
A dream occurred that night that I had just come back from some sort of battlefield situation or a fight with having had the top of my skull severed: someone came up to me, squished the top portion of my brains around a bit with a stick and said something… I recall that allot of blood was streaming out and that this man then took my skull cap, plopped it down on my head and hit it a few times with his fist: I could hear the thumping sounds in my dream. I sensed that the top portion of my brain was somehow dead or rotten.
I awoke the next morning with a very definite phrase in my mind, which was ~ ‘The Blue Hand’. The closest I could come to it when looking it up on the internet was the Mayan ~
‘The Spectral Blue Hand’…
That afternoon or evening I had a dream where someone was operation on my wrist, slicing it open horizontally while I was awake on the operating table and their commenting on “discolored tissue”.
Another dream involved my taking out many extra teeth and cupping them in my hand…
The sense that Death is with me is still very strong, while my relationship to the ‘external world’ is now more internal, yet also, very different, because it (The sense of the space or quietness of Death and the ‘I’ who experienced it and it upon me) seems to have fused with a much broader relationship to the external world, it is almost as if the external world is also my inner world, that it is not an ‘I and It’ relationship any more, that it is ‘my’ intimately and seemingly ‘seamlessly’ fused to my Inner...
It is a strange time: my sleep patterns are completely confused and although it’s Friday, I still sleep with the lights on at night and feel the vacuum of Death’s territory in my room, with me and within me simultaneously.
Today a fly showed up in my room, just like that; then I went downstairs into Alexander’s apartment and there was one there as well: insects here, at this time of the year, are very rare and these two ‘fly’ manifestations are nearly miracle material...
It is Sunday, March 16th, 2008 ~ I feel that I have completed this record of the Third Journey, though still am experiencing the effects of my ‘lessons’ and too, the energetic oddities: my sleeping schedule is still very unpredictable and my body is seeming to be making adjustments and statements of tension within the context of my new lessons and exercises I have placed upon myself as to not feel as though I am disrespecting Death.
Last night I had a pizza and two beers with a friend and had not a very good reaction to it when I went to bed: it seemed that the ayahuasca spirit(s) were rejecting it in some strong way: I recall having the dream vision of a body-form made entirely of what looked to be wheat/barley… The spirit of Barley/that particular alcohol ‘spirit’? It was not shown as animate; it simply was somewhat ‘horizontal’ in nature, still and frozen as an image in my consciousness. {From that day onwards, I have not drank alcohol anymore: 7 months and counting.}[And still to this day:9.21.2009]
I have found that taking allot of showers each day helps and that my life has taken a big turn, into what, I do not know, though must ‘Trust’ (A word that was on the driver’s side-door of a friend of Alexander’s who was helping us move some wooden beams last night to Alexander’s new house boat site). This record of my Third Ayahuasca Journey: finished on March 16, 2008 , Amsterdam, Holland, 7:26 PM Re-edited on November 2, 2008; Sierra Nevada Foothills, California. Third Edition: Jenaro Herrera, Peru on September 21, 2009.
