Ceremonies 1 & 2

September 20, 2009

I am currently working with Ayahuasca, Sanango and other medicinal teas in Jenaro Herrera, Peru for three months at www.infinitelightperu.com. I am posting my first three ceremonies that took place in Holland nearly a year and a half ago to begin this story...


February (late) 2008

I wish to say that prior to going to this “Serious Drinking Session” (as the shaman called it)... I had never taken shamanic substances, nor had I ever heard of ayahuasca or studied it deeply, even after my friend Fred in Belgium wrote to me and advised of its possible procurement/use: I recall going to the ceremony with absolutely no expectations or information concerning this ‘medicine’... Intellectually I was a ‘virgin’ in relation to having an opinion or stance... I remember thinking/feeling that I didn’t really wish to read anything about it so that my experience would be ‘pure’ and that no prior information would be ‘programmed’ in my subconscious, etc. I very briefly read a little about it so far as what the shaman wrote to me in regards to preparation for the ceremony, i.e., diet, time, supplies, cost, the sacredness, etc.

Prior to this intro to Yaje I had written to my friend in Belgium and told him that I was at ‘The bottom of the Barrel’, etc. and needed some really big help; a shaman, seer, ancestral work, etc. (I had first met Fred in Sacramento, California and he told me about a man he knew in Switzerland who did soul-ancestral work.) Expecting to read a person’s name and email; when he wrote me back a reply, I read a one sentence reply “Michael, I recommend to you Ayahuasca”. It was then a close Dutch friend of mine ‘Alexander’ who helped me get in touch with the shaman; thank you again Alexander...

Traveling for about 2 hours from Amsterdam, I arrived by train near the boarder between Holland and Belgium around 7PM; then was picked up by car (thank you Hank) fifteen minutes later, a few hours before sunset. We arrived at the setting: there were others also awaiting Yaje’s visit, about 20 people, both men and women... Some had arrived from as far away as Russia and Egypt. The location was in the countryside, on the outskirts of a small city called Bergen op Zoom. The house was half horse stable and living quarters (beautifully renovated by our incredible hosts): while the yurt-tent (approx. thirty feet across and eighteen feet tall at its center) was situated in the yard, about fifty yards away and partially surrounded by a forest, agricultural land and the only neighbors, a huge two-story stone farm house about 70 yards away. The shaman and his assistant were tending to the setting up for the evening: the yurt was warm and could easily fit 30 people for a ceremony if needed... A large wood stove stood in the center with its steel exhaust pipe heading straight up and out the center of the yurt’s apex, while wood was stacked in a ‘C’ shape around it. We waited, talked and prepared ourselves over the next four to five hours: the ceremony started late, around ten or eleven o’clock. At this time it’s still very cold at night, frost begins to form on the ground around 3AM; it’s mid/late February, 2008.

We settled into our sleeping bags, while some sat and others meditated: the shaman explained a few general rules concerning the evening, i.e., where not to wonder about or the off-limit areas of the forest, main house, neighbors and farm structures, the shoes-off rule inside the tent, the option to also sit by the campfire, talking, respecting others space and sacred experience, etc. They began the handing out of plastic bags (in case you could not make it outside to the vomit-hole in time) and the passing around of the All-Purpose paper for cleaning the nose and mouth after the intake through the nostrils and sinuses of a specially prepared tobacco juice. People shuffled around, prepared their sleeping areas so to be able to easily find things in the dark and during the session... I kinda laugh now about the Shoes-off-rule, because after the intake of ayahuasca these laws last for about 40 minutes (including for the law-makers); excepting the boarder rules, that was interesting, that everyone stayed within a 50 foot radius of the yurt, or less. I sense now that something ‘else’ took this limitation-ring into policing; it definitely could not have been us.

The ceremony began with a cleansing ritual that involved the lighting of a sort of resin, similar to Frankincense and Myrrh: the person doing the ritual was not the Shaman, she or he was chosen by the shaman to do this task, which took about three to four minutes per person. While using a large feather, the holder of the incense pot would flap the smoke over the person’s head, chest, arms, torso, legs, etc., doing this upon their front and back side. This was a quiet process, with a ‘thank you’ from the ‘blessed’.

After this concluded for everyone (including the shaman), the ceremony began counter clockwise: the shaman would pour out a cup (a little gourd) of ayahuasca, say a ‘prayer’ (a one phrase chant) over it and give it slowly and intently to the person kneeling or sitting down next to him: afterwards they would (and sometimes not) partake of a half glass of water so to wash down the after taste. The ayahuasca is a very bitter tasting substance... Metaphors cannot totally describe it; I’d say though, that underneath the obvious repulsion to the raw explosion that takes place across the tongue and throat, that it’s a very dense and complicated taste to ‘nail down’; the pus from one of Earth’s holy blisters.

After drinking this, the person would sit down and wait: it usually takes fifteen to twenty minutes for it to incubate its hatching. For some this starts with needing to vomit, many simply laid down, zipped up in their sleeping bags and stayed there the entire night, others wandered around close by outside, or stood by the campfire: elimination for many on the first night was heavy, vomiting mostly, though there is also strong defecation associated with its intake (Just behind the tent there was a very nice open-air ‘hut’ set up, with a toilet area inside; several candles were lit and mosquito netting surrounded the structure)... Elimination through both the in taking mouth and outgoing bowels is a natural beginning for the body’s adjustments to the workings of ayahuasca: though for my second night I did not vomit, nor did I experience any diarrhea on either of the nights, though did experience some slight ‘irregularities’ on the days after the two ceremonies, i.e., a heightened sense of smell, visions, restless sleep and awaking at night with many of the same emotions flowing through me as did during my ayahuasca journeys/teaching lessons. While the physical body is ‘tenderized’ by Yaje, the spirit or ‘my presence’ seemed to be very sober, almost ‘deceased’, though in a good way ‘un-possessed’.

My body is still readjusting; emotions, conscience and psychology; I’ve learnt that much of what Yaje teaches you is irreversible, period: so, the change that I felt was needed did ‘happen’, though the ‘nest of eggs’ hovers over my soul’s ‘tree’ for an undisclosed period of time; you look up and cannot tell how many eggs are in this ‘bowl’ and each one hatches at the will of ‘The Mother’ (IMO) and not normal time or (human) Nature... The two ceremonies and the accompanying events have forever changed me; this, I do not doubt or can change and they’re described as this ~


The First Ayahuasca Night


On that first night I drank a cup of ayahuasca (about 3-4 fluid oz.) and sit down, as the counter clockwise taking of turns continued… I sat still and simply waited; it seemed that nothing was occurring and I began to think that perhaps I needed another cup to deepen the saturation; I began wondering whether it was going to work. Slowly I noticed certain changes, particularly in that I began to yawn very deeply, a little afterwards my throat began to contract, and then I knew it was time to step outside…

Once outside, I noticed the temperature change was intense; from very warm and nest like, to dead-blood-cold, damp and netherworld-ish: I stood awhile taking it all in, then I looked down at the ground and noticed that complex geometric shapes began to form themselves, laying out a three dimensional grid over the entire surface of the ground for as far as I could see: some shapes already on the ground, such as tree limbs, etc. played a part to some extent in that they changed into components of this geometric grid-expanse; but mostly these geometric shapes simply appeared, sometimes as complete designs inter locking with one another, to fragments which seemed to move, shift and meander into position with one another. The shifting and overall aliveness of this biomorphic, yet strictly geometric grid made me dizzy (car-sick); I closed my eyes and tilted my head upwards and looked at the sky, and then around, into the forest: this familiar picture of the ‘walls and ceiling’ helped to balance the floor, who had unpredictable intelligence and mood-touches... I also felt that it was a bit overwhelming, being an intelligence that seemed so alien that my human mind could not ‘frame it’; also the fact that it was alive and changing simply tossed out all logic or relatable thoughts... No anchors allowed Here.

It’s odd though, that this geometric grid work was confined to the ground; I did not see it in the sky nor anywhere above the ground surface. This ‘web’ hovered about 1.5 inches and was not ‘pasted’ to the surface of the earth like an etching. Later I would make a direct connection with its design scheme to Mayan and Aztec art; that the aesthetic of their art (IMO) is not idiosyncratic, it belongs to another dimension/world of being.

I began to stumble a bit, trying to find an appropriate place to vomit, my logical/concerned for the footpaths-mind began to drop and I simply found the nearest place alongside the boarder of a hill to expel and did so; I got to re-taste the ayahuasca mixed with who knows what... I will say that if there was stomach acid in that throw-up, the Yaje still stood above it in taste...

I went back inside the tent to my station (sleeping bag, suit case, water, etc.) and sat down to get warm: I then looked at my hands by the candlelight near the woodstove and noticed that they had become ‘digital’, pixilated glowing green/jade made entirely of very tiny (stickpin head-sized) geometric symbols and shapes, (possessing other colors too): maybe there was a general hue/wash superimposed over the multiple colors (?)

I entered a deep state of relaxed breathing and seemed to be in another land where I was standing, being surrounded by a certain type of three dimensional plant-animal-ish substance or organisms, like high tech (part robotic and fleshy) elongated maggots (or moth-larvae): I felt as though I were being offered to be ‘operated’ on and when I understood this, I surrendered and felt as though things within me were being moved around, re-adjusting, changing ever so slightly. I felt deep peace and inner warmth not associated with the sort that my skin ‘normally’ feels. The colors of these objects were like anodized metal (in the autumn hue range); absolutely beautiful and so subtle and graceful in an innocent way... [I recall finding moth larvae while digging up my grandmother’s flower bed, how armored, though fragile inside (mushy) I knew they were; I’d always set them aside someplace safe and proceed tunneling...] These ‘pods’ were about 18 inches in length and 4-5 inches thick at their middle-point, tapering down on one side to about two inches. The ‘world’ in which they existed was somewhat jungle like, not a human place... A kind of soul retreat.

I sat cross legged for a long time with my hands in different meditative positions, although I don’t meditate; it was as though the hands took these postures on their own based upon my emotional state or that which was happening in the experience beyond my feelings or present attention, i.e., it was as though things were occurring through me without my brain functions labeling them or ‘letting me know’.

It seemed necessary to have a static ‘something’, an anchor point to focus or dwell in, (which were the frozen positions my hands and arms would finally rest with) in relation to the inner movements taking place and visuals: too, the atmosphere in the tent and outside noises were being kinetically woven into an emotional content I’d never experienced before... (Laughter and painful yelling on its surface, with immediate emotional information from individual soul-conditions flowing through; ultra-sympathy, though I was in it: you could say that you’re the pathology, patient and the sympathizer all at once... No separation: I was not the observer, I was part of this puzzle happening in real time, feeling the pieces snapped in place and its table top disintegrating underneath)... (IMO) Nothing is dependable during an ayahuasca ceremony; anything can happen and it does...

Sitting there I could sense the deep journey people were taking, while it suddenly dawned on me that it was my ‘part’ that night to radiate pure Love outwards and into their effort’s environments, i.e., their willingness to have initiated all this ‘medicinal suffering.’ I recall being and sensing that I was Complete Love, endless, unconditional and ‘An Omnipresent Totality in-love: Loveness... No doors: space and sense’. It was as if I’d embodied the very role of Love and was not human, nor any consciousness associated with the spirit/soul in/of any particular biological creation.

I also ‘understood’ or sensed that to be Love was some kind of answer to my ‘Wonderment about my Purpose’ that I’d brought to this ayahuasca ceremony… Sounds of extreme vomiting could be heard outside and people whispering to one another: the shaman and his assistant would go around and talk to various people to try and get them to stop talking so loudly, others could simply not be communicated with and were left to themselves as before. Several would utter something aloud and then go silent: it was an eerie, yet somewhat bashful atmosphere, each to his or her own ‘Sleeping bag Island’ or outdoors ‘Soul castle Siege’…

For the most part, people were stationary and silent, wrapped up like a silk worm in a cocoon or an upside down bat… Some were half and half, meaning half themselves (a ‘human-consciousness’ present in their human incarnation-body) and half journeying… This is mainly the ‘state of mind’ I held throughout the night, for nearly seven to eight hours.

After awhile, still in the yurt, I felt that I needed more heat and desired to go outside to ‘collect it’ at the campfire site: I am not sure which ‘wish’ took me outdoors; I opened the tent door and stepped out… In the ayahuasca ‘time’ (if you’re still in your body and on Earth) allot happens unpremeditated and by thoughtless intuition; there’s weird boundaries that arise, haunting juxtapositions that I simply had to surrender and witness, since there were no human records I could grasp them with... There are moments when something is happening ‘to you’, though not ‘with you’, so far as daily-mind is concerned...

(I say, ‘I am not sure which ‘wish’’, because it may have been the first set (of several sound episodes) I heard the young Russian guy making near the fireside, that brought me out of the tent (or both gut-reactions simultaneously): it seemed that no one was tending to him, it was cold, the fire had died way down and he was not covered well, while his boots were too close to the fire’s edge (and smoking a little)... He was slouching in such a way that he could fall off his chair: plus he was periodically spitting up saliva upon himself, like that of a newborn baby.

Later, I tended to him slowly and without words, wiping his mouth, touching the top of his head and massaging his neck a bit; assisted in sitting him up and tried to keep an eye on him... (IMO, he was basically unconscious, spiritless, someplace else, while his body stayed behind as a sort of ‘radio-station’ as to what his soul was experiencing elsewhere’): soon my body’s energy would waver and my journey would continue, taking me away from the campfire.)

It’s a strange aspect to recall, though, in an ayahuasca setting, everything is right and human morals take on a childlike vitality, a kind of trust that exists prior to having to remind yourself to trust (innatenesses), where you can walk away from someone and the opposing feeling of ‘I should stay’ is simply not there: maybe it was because there was so much suffering in the air that nothing else could possibly go against my ‘virgin expectations’? The unknown had been subconsciously ‘taken for granted’ and everything was upside down in the logical world of time, my-little-island and linear thinking.

Putting on my shoes I hurried over to the campfire, I was freezing, I began building up the fire: then I again felt as though I needed to vomit, so I turned and went towards the forest... This is when my first deeply terrifying experience began... I looked out into the woods and understood immensely that ‘IT’ was not a forest, but rather a vision of my Inner-Graveyard.

The whole ground was fresh ‘fleshy’, sweaty wet and alive like skin, as in the mood and look of a borderless collection of newly dug graves: I understood profoundly that this entire forest was ‘a perpetual birth place of death and lonesome emotions and pursuits, dark celebrations and damaging habits’... It was not ancient or deserted: the ground was like a giant epidermis turned inside out, slick with moisture, glistening in the moon light, mine, utterly mine and slightly breathing with me in its ‘belong-ed-ness’. I became deeply disturbed and darkly-ecstatically moved by this realization and went back to the fire: I understood that a very strict choice was being signaled to me, the lifestyle of this Graveyard or one of Love and that a ‘crossroads’ was being constructed right here and now: it had seemingly nothing to do with ‘timing’, only, that this crossroads seemed to have always been there, hidden, waiting…

I looked around and saw people moving about near the campfire; whoever was lit up by firelight I saw them in a flattened, digital dimension, made up of both solid flat shapes and fractured, puzzle like pieces: I had to close my eyes because this made me somewhat nauseous and too, it seemed to add an extra dimension of peripheral information that I sensed I didn’t need. I’d later describe this imagery as walking flat mirror-panels, flexible and frayed at their topmost edges; a three dimensional image inside the mirror, though nothing on its outside to have created its contents: when I stepped around the person, there was nothing on the other side of their ‘one-dimensional ‘third-dimension’’...

I went to the campfire (which was also flat in one instance) and began putting wood on it again, attending a bit to the young Russian who was in the throes of some sort of very difficult, deep journey (or possibly it had the beginnings of a spirit-possession release; at least this is what ‘itself’ seemed to reveal to the shaman later). To me, he seemed to be in a deep child-like state, drooling on himself, smiling and uttering broken words, like a baby trying to talk. He was slumped over in his chair; I sat next to him for awhile, and then later went back inside the tent.

Later, I’d watch as the shaman left the yurt and crossed the yard with a young Egyptian woman’s personal belongings; he was helping her so that she could be alone, in private, resting in the house with her lessons and ceremony: another participant would later do the same; it seemed that this was an option via personal/psychological emergencies only... The tent and its surrounding ‘circle of spirits’ was definitely a very difficult place to be (on both nights actually).

Once settling again inside the tent (it was about 1 or 2 AM now: guessing...) I heard various sounds coming from people’s sleeping bags, mainly cramping noises and especially those concerning one particular person; he vomited off and on for several hours in a very deeply and miserable way. He was simply too far down into his journey, so, moving him was not an option… As I mentioned, some people relocated to the house near early morning (around 4 or 5 AM), since they were not able to rest or experience the unfolding of their journey and lessons with the sounds of sporadic, profuse vomiting inside and outside the yurt, along with the spontaneous and often unstoppable stream of conscious conversations between two particular close Russian friends: some were also painfully-ecstatically moaning and others laughing time to time, while some simply lay still... So quiet in the midst of all this: that was surprising too.

For the most part though, not to give the wrong impression of the tent’s/ceremony’s condition, it was a well kept ‘Yaje Clinic’, smelling of incense and wood smoke, being kept clean and compassionate both nights, while the shaman and his helper were assisting and watching over people: it was only that one person (at his station) who could not be moved and who needed to be cleaned up in the morning that brought the first night its unexpected (by the veteran drinkers) addition; though I felt it was ‘normal’ for them, still, in the state of this dimension, it created a strange sort of dilemma, a salad of empathy, irritation, humor, disbelief, helplessness and empowerment because you knew that he was going to be a greater soul for it... The shaman organizing the event had twelve years experience and was very calm and orderly about the ceremony and keeping things private, sacred and safe. The level and moments of immediate group-consciousness was stunning at times...

During this first night’s experience (half way through it) I stood by the campfire and recall needing to take in large amounts of heat, as though the fire was some sort of ‘meal’… So, I began holding my outstretched hands towards the ground and moving them slightly up and down, making a pressing and releasing gesture or ‘massaging the air’ like bread dough, in an arms-wide-apart and curved downward motion… I also seemed to need to make these gestures ‘towards’ the fire as well, sometimes outstretching my arms and waving them slightly back and forth horizontally; as if to fan the flames... Now that I look back on this instance, the ‘fanning’ would have been only symbolic or one-with-the fire’s gesturing, because, physically I was not actually fanning the flames with my body... I was connected to the fire as a sort of ‘totem’ or ceremonial partner: in other words we became instantaneous dance partners, no thought, no meanings; total experiential being... I also sensed it as a kind of ‘medicine’ and foster-‘friend’ of sorts as I was ‘really’ neither here nor there (two places at once?)...

Previously, while inside the tent, I recall having handed out water to those who needed it, people nearby and looking as though they wished or could make vocal contact without feeling disturbed… I tended a bit to the woodstove fire and sat next to people, keeping one another company for short periods… I remember seeing a young woman sitting in front of the stove with her head bent over and simply ‘there’, slumped and moaning a bit… Later, while I was near where she had been, people would come and sit next to me awhile and simply look at me and smile deeply; it was the single (both nights: though the first more than the second) most amazing communal and human experience I’d ever participated in (in) my entire life… There is a knowing from having journeyed and experienced the hidden constitutions of your soul... A knowing that is not writing or talking about it, a silence and an acceptance, a cosmic humiliation and courageous revelation all at once...

The We: to have endured the unstoppable lessons of ayahuasca (some call this sentient being “grandmother”) together, so personally and ‘quietly’, while suffering the body’s journey as well, being present and so fully, crystal conscious of the lessons being delivered, is beyond full description here (This seems to be a universal admission by nearly all who I nowadays read accounts from; though we try and get close...)

There was a sense of an ancient ‘soul/mankind predicament-environment’ made up of the night’s collective, human condition of each and everyone’s true conscience being shown some force (who knew everything about your soul up-to-that-point-in-time), an incredible level of participation and acceptance that each person had deeply acknowledged that he or she was indeed not in charge, that ego was being slowly burnt away for some, while others (to me it seemed) were like a book high upon a shelf that I couldn’t reach to open... (IMO) There was a condition-mood and atmosphere only had when a person surrenders some portion of their dark-self-lifestyle (those ‘secret-divinations’ of ego’s private time while alone, among other ‘titles’ in me) and attempts to open up to communication and the experience in something rumored to be far greater than one’s own ‘teaching experience’: the surrender is like flood waters meeting a cliff side, once it’s ‘On’ and over, there’s no stopping the dive...

Sometime later, (during my second or third time by the campfire) I’d witness what seemed to be an exorcism: I was inside the tent when I heard the young Russian I’d helped earlier, screaming loudly… I went out, put on my shoes and went quickly to the campfire where the shaman and his assistant were already stationed, waving/rattling a type of tobacco fan over him and administering in straight down stroking gestures, at the top and forefront of his head, a hollow crystal dagger containing a liquid of some sort, which afterwards the shaman threw its contents into the fire: all along the shaman was saying a chant and after ten or fifteen minutes the young man calmed down and resumed his slouched, baby like state. His assistant asked people not to stare, to look into the fire, to give him privacy, etc.

A few hours later, the Russian said to his close friend (who came with him to the ceremony from Russia) that he’d visited or “...was in hell”: I believe I recall him saying that he was ‘dead’ of had ‘died’… He didn’t speak of his experience with me, though we’d made a strong, intuitive connection, a deeper one than most of my first acquaintances there (once he was told that I’d helped clean him up during the night’s activities.) This seemed to ‘break the ice.’

I also recall sitting near the campfire and watching the moon travel across the sky till sunrise, while having no sense of a Passing of Time; simply, of existing there, seeing and emotionally feeling people’s journeys, their broken and challenged ideas of themselves, of humanity, the external world, perceptions, connections, etc. I felt its essence and my oneness with the fire, the heat, my connectedness to the earth and elements: no ego, no personal opinions, simply myself and my nature (in) Nature, no name, no story, no life ahead of me, or of the past.

I visited the inside of the tent often and focused on radiating a loving energy there: at times I did this by placing my hands out in front of me and directing the intent specifically towards the one bald man who was experiencing so much vomiting and dry heaving throughout the evening/morning. It seemed that he remained in a sitting up position the entire time that night; I didn’t see him the next morning: some people leave before breakfast, having stayed only for the night (departing around 7 or 8AM): I found this amazing, to drive a car and get back on the Earth in such a focused way?! A note: the shaman and his assistant also drank ayahuasca (what portion, I do not know); after the second night’s episode the shaman told me that he could see the plant spirits working on me.

The next morning (not sleeping the entire first night), the remaining participants slowly drank coffee and tea, ate breakfast and sat talking in Dutch and reading, while others slept in the tent until late morning or lunchtime: some took showers, while others went away for the day and returned in the evening for the second ceremony.

On the beginning of our second day (Saturday; a few hours after lunchtime) I noticed that something (a mass of tension-energy) had surfaced in my body/muscles; some sort of ‘knotting’ in the area of my back that has traditionally been associated with my ‘solar plexus jolts-enigma’ throughout the past fourteen years: in the first 2 or 3 years, with enough strong jolts in that area, a certain ‘raw’ area would ‘open’ up on/in my back, just a little ways down from the middle of my shoulder blades: it’s still there, though the multitudes of jolts have subsided for the most part, dwindling down, 7 or 8 years ago, to about one or two a week: they come and go: though, in my third ceremony (about two weeks after these two), I experienced a full blown revisit to the old days in relation to this phenomenon...

I also sensed, somewhat strongly, that something was ‘waiting’ there (in that mass of tension); that something ‘different’, ‘extra’ and possibly ‘big’ was going to happen on this second night… I shared my physical and emotional feelings about this with the shaman and said that I felt that he might need to attend to me in some way this coming evening (That I wanted to be reassured that I’d have an eye out for this premonition...) He put one hand on the front of this tense area (my sternum) and one on the back and replied that if I needed him to do some work in that area, that he would/could and to simply call for him.

We spent the day and evening talking, cutting firewood, reading, listening to music, eating and recovering from the previous night so to move into another. People exchanged personal stories of their experiences and lifestyles that had arrived to taking ayahuasca to guide and teach them certain ‘lessons’: one of the hosts (owners of the property where the yurt-tent was set up) said in a very soft and honest tone, “We are becoming more conscious.” People moved about in a very simple and personable way; quiet and only really spending energy where it was absolutely necessary.

That first night was/showed an eerie juxtaposition; in between the stability and warmth image of the yurt-tent and the sociability of our campfire was a space of yard about ten yards by ten yards where people simply stood, motionless in the partial darkness or stumbled about vomiting and stuttering phrases: some were clearly cold, though not moving towards the fire nor the warmth of the tent: (IMO) their spirits were somewhere else, it was as though something had them in a kind of embrace, the body was simply along for the ride (or asleep in the back seat), a kind of suspended puppet or doll, while the spirit seemed to be handled elsewhere.

An interesting coincidence ~ On the eve of this re-writing of the first ceremony so to send it to a friend who requested it, another acquaintance stopped by and inquired of ayahuasca; we talked and I gave them a book titled ‘The Ayahuasca Reader: the sacred Vine of the Amazon.’ No matter what kind of day it’s been, every day is a good day that I can share in the spirit of this holy gift Ayahuasca.
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The Second Night

(IMO) = In my opinion.


I was a more apprehensive on this second night after having recorded the physical and emotional effects of last night, the fragmented stories of others experiences and my own to some degree: the physical payment of vomiting and bodily soreness wasn’t ‘it’, nor was it even the actual experiences, instead, it was the pending-feeling ‘they’ delivered of something about ‘to happen next’, an intuitive sensation of not having enough actual ‘proof’ from the events to say ‘No’ to proceeding and possessing just enough curiosity and feeling of ‘right fate’ to proceed (‘Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.’ is a very strange emotional place to be.)

Last night was haunting the back of my mind as a kind of ‘Introduction’ of sorts (A cliffhanger ‘ending & beginning’ coming into existence all at once). I was unreconciled so far as what it was that I was looking for to help me with ‘The Bottom of the Barrel’, though also confusingly at home in ayahuasca’s clinic: it was ‘this’ that took me a bit by surprise, because I’d never experienced such a strong inner sense that something unknown, from my very core-self, had somehow been unconsciously opened, collected, compressed, tensioned and was awaiting to be unlocked, catapulted and let out, only by this ceremonial means. [Also, I cannot now leave out the very strong sense of group-journey-ism, i.e., that this brought a quiet urgency to what I sensed was a once and a lifetime event for me: it’s not that I felt obligated to them as ‘people I knew’ or identified with as a family I needed... It was that ‘thing’ on my back calling and the ayahuasca ‘mood’ as well...]

No amount of debate, story sharing, psychoanalysis or dreaming could reveal to me the slightest hint as to what it was that seemed to be pressing itself against a ‘door’ that had been unattended for, how long? I couldn’t imagine… Time simply didn’t fit into the feeling; it was a very pure and simple ‘sense’, with no thoughts or emotions associated with it or arriving from it: like a bottle of compressed air, waiting to be let out and no physical proof of anything there… Now looking at this mood I was in, I could say that I was a ‘child’ completely immersed in a very familiar jungle without a left brain (or my spirit-faculty was simply not up to trusting its daily-logic completely, particularly after what I’d seen and felt last night, emotions and a pending dark place that I had no idea was inside me being created, i.e., the ‘inner-graveyard): it seemed that many people were trying to deal with what had been brought to them as ‘unplanned and very unexpected worlds’ of being with themselves, seeing mirrors who stepped directly from an undismissible level of conscience... Everything was right and yet haunt-like.

The second night formally began the same as our first; with the ‘rules and considerations’, the cleansing ceremony, tobacco snorting and the drinking order: only, that night with the feather and incense ritual a man did it, whereas the first night the wife (one of the owners of the property where we were stationed) performed it. Also, another shaman from South America and his friend had come to visit and partake of the ayahuasca ceremony. That night had many different people than the first; some traveling very long distances to attend. Newcomers would share in those stories rolling over from the previous night; it seemed to be a kind of litmus test or testing of the waters... Though ultimately this kind of inquiry is futile (IMO) because ayahuasca follows no predictable pattern or atmosphere, every night was an original painting... I will say that deep healing is an utterly difficult and soul wrenching process; this part of ayahuasca is predictable... There are no corners or secrets it cannot access...
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I noticed that the group’s tension level seemed higher that night, though I may have been projecting my own out onto the group portrait: I myself was stirring a bit more than the first night, leaning forwards, cracking my back and breathing deeper. As my turn came, I walked over to the shaman and noticed that he had just stirred up the mixture, something he had not done since before the first person drank, which was perhaps ten people ago: I sat down and drank the cup full of ayahuasca, then a half-cup of water and went back to my station and sat down, taking a few deep breaths, thinking about the unknown sensation in me and waiting.

The space/time waiting/meditating on its arrival and all the questions or blockages your feelings about your life wish assistance with that occur in between drinking the ayahuasca and the onset of the effects is indeed a high vibration(al) mood: because I understood that I’ve signed an agreement to see myself for all that I am (even if I don’t even know anything about the ‘are’); I could sense the contradictions’ attitudes and ego’s wrenching around, squirming under the thumb of a level of conscience that’s normally not accessible in an everyday lifestyle or certain mental excuses and justifications for my contradictory actions and attitudes.

While waiting, the traditional deep yawning didn’t arrive; then I felt that being outside near the fire would be better than sitting inside, so, unexpectedly I had to gather up all my gear so to be outside in the cold for hours: I put on my layers of clothing and went out... At the entrance of the tent was where we all stationed our shoes (on a bookshelf)... I knelt down and put mine on and began walking to the campfire… I was hearing that some people had already began vomiting and moaning a bit around the tent; I estimate that it was about eleven o’clock when I made it from the yurt-entrance/exit to the ‘In-Between Space’, that piece of yard between the campfire and the yurt.

I looked down and immediately the ground started to take on the traditional, three dimensional geometric grid-work, spanning everywhere... I then looked up and saw the firelight, its pixilated flames: I walked near the campfire and knelt down, the visuals were a bit too much so I closed my eyes and then felt a bone chilling cold come over me, a sort of ‘catching of a chill’ (that stayed) and which the campfire couldn’t penetrate (it was as if the campfire was simply an image of a fire without its emanating elements), while a sudden sense of doom opened up on the landscape surrounding me, even the air I was breathing seemed to have a sort of dread-incense about its ‘essence’... I closed my eyes.

I opened my eyes and looked around, I could feel the environment around me breathing, pulsating: I looked at the people, they seemed deeply deathly, not able to help me (if I needed); I seemed unseen by them, fatally invisible, a complete abandoned identity rose up in me: I felt the atmosphere turn colder although I was all the while near the campfire. I looked and realized that the fire was not big enough and simply didn’t have the physical energy to make it larger, I was frozen in place; a sudden eerie-ness swept over me, I felt it coming, as though the entire natural environment was stalking me like an omnipresent predator, I could only embrace the emotion embracing me, one of extreme, psychotic-mind-raping danger, painfully-cold-abandonment and utter helplessness, while all along I sensed something deadly was about to happen and though I knew it was arriving I had no clue as to how long I had to stay in this eternally-seeming state of anticipation, it was driving me into a sort of panic-madness:

I immediately began uttering one word, this word was the first name of the shaman, I kept saying it over and over, like an auto-alarm; then I opened my eyes and felt my legs walking, my feet moving (kinda without my consciousness); a voice said, “Yes, I have you, let’s take you inside the tent, come, you can make it... here, where’s it’s warm.” This was the shaman’s helper (thank you Yon Fred).

Once inside the yurt, I recall that I was lead in front of the woodstove were I collapsed on the carpet (the entire yurt was carpeted): then began my awakening in Hell, ‘my hell’, I immediately knew this, that it was ‘my owned’ Plot of Territory in the World of Hell, perhaps this is what was ‘underneath’ the Inner-Graveyard shown the night previous.

Exactly where in the sequence of events belonging to that night’s journey that this experience took place is a bit confusing, it could have taken place next to the campfire (I recall feeling that the ‘hell experience’ took place outside), though it’s my recollection that the shaman told me that I had been in the tent the entire time of the journey (lasting about seven hours total) and that I’d spent the total experience while on the tent-floor: I did not vomit this night, nor defecate... (It is said that in some cases the plant spirits decide to keep the substance ‘in’ the person, to work deeper and more intensely on certain issues…) This, some people said, was how my experience lasted so long, so far as the intensity remaining very much at the same level with no change until the last half hour of the total seven hours.

So, I recall, that the descent or awakening into hell came first, though it is possible that it came in between the first introduction of the ‘force’ which my consciousness had awakened into and was, once I was brought into the tent.

At the point of now being in the tent, the first thing I recall was suddenly opening my eyes and noticing strange shadow-shapes and faces above me: immediately I began to growl and roar fiercely while showing my teeth in an extremely defensive and fearful way: deep, forceful rage issued out from between my clenched teeth for what seemed to be a half hour or more, yet time was not something I sensed then, only segments of actions and reactions, emotions and the actions of others. All of the seething rage and anger was taking place from the collar bones and up; my neck and facial muscles, jaws and teeth were completely possessed by this full blown emotion of extraordinary rage...

I remember intervals between the growling and roaring through the teeth sessions, where people where not moving and things sort of slowed down and became quietly tense for me: as soon as those of the male sex began stepping by my head and generally moving about, I would turn just my head and growl and hiss in a feline way at their movements and close proximity. At first, everything from my neck down seemed to be there, though invisibly pinned down in some passive way; it was as though the ‘mood’ was quartered off in my head and neck... For the moment I was sorta emotionally paralyzed from the neck down.

Additionally, during this arrival time into the tent and while on the floor, I opened my eyes and recall hearing voices and the door of the yurt abruptly opening and closing several times, (The yurt door was located directly in front of the stove where I lay, about ten feet away and still, to this day, six months later, whenever I hear a wooden door close against a hard surface, I am transported ‘right there’ again: it’s good though, because I can measure a certain place in my emotional growth to some degree by this ‘bell’.)

With this coming in and going out occurring, I could feel the cold rush of air blast across me as though my entire skin had been torn off, exposing my organs and muscles to the freezing air: the sense of mild, distant warmth from the woodstove and the tent door opening and closing three or four times, letting the coldest feeling air I can recall experiencing in my life (beyond the Russian winters), was nerve wrecking to my instincts and raging emotions, of which, I was ‘total instinct’ and had no sense that this sort of ‘treatment’ would ever end, I also felt trapped and very threatened and confused; because, as soon as I opened my eyes I knew deeply in my consciousness that ‘I’ was a tiger or more honestly ‘Tiger was I’: never, through the entire seven hour experience did I sense or ‘think’ otherwise, in other words, my entire consciousness was that of a tiger’s, while the only ‘things’ that seemed familiar was my particular ‘individual’ presence, only I-presence and I-emotion. My personal identity of both that of being a human being and having a name and life-history was utterly ripped away and simply not there for the whole seven to eight hours.

Lying on the ground, it seemed at first that I could only move my head and make extremely enraged sounds at those who were knelling or standing over me: later I was told that many people had gathered round me that night, giving supportive energy and playing music.

I recall at the introduction of awakening and knowing that my total consciousness was that of a tiger’s, four distinct things that seemed to set my rage and fear off: one was the opening and closing of the tent door which let in the cold blasts of air, compromising the small bit of warmth experienced there that I knew was about three feet away (if stillness and a shut door would allow it to travel back over to me); another were the sounds of people talking towards me, seeing their faces moving, expressing emotions and certain thoughts that I sensed were not sincere, some ‘triggers’ (buttons pushed in me) later would be by that of a small episode of laughter from a man concerning my behavior (Though this was only one very quick incident and the shaman’s assistant moved this person away from me). Another phenomenon was that of a dog barking outside, sometimes it sounded like two distinct dogs and other times as if one of the dogs was actually on the inside of the yurt growling in the background (the owners had four dogs on the property, all of who freely stayed around during the ceremony). [Four months after this ceremony I read that it’s customary for certain villagers in the Amazon to muzzle their dogs before an ayahuasca ceremony because it’s rumored that the sound of barking dogs during a session can drive a person insane.]

Some part of my consciousness knew in the moment of hearing the dogs growling and barking that they were responding to the arrival of ‘me’, the spirit or presence of the tiger… This sensation of being suspected and worrisome for the dogs heightened the experience of being surrounded, inside and outside the tent by threats and respondents of something threatening, that is, my loud roaring through the teeth, hissing, etc. I kept up this growling fiercely through my teeth, as the shaman and his assistant moved around me with the sounds of the tobacco fan, (a rattlesnake sounding device) and chanting; while the visiting shaman was singing in the background and smoke was being spread over me…


The Awakening in Hell Journey

I recall awakening in this ‘hell’ (most likely this journey took place before the tiger)… This was the most difficult part of the experience for my human consciousness because once therein, I knew that what I was experiencing was human emotions and only things that could have happened to a consciousness while incarnated as a human... (I experienced it with a human consciousness and relationship to the things being performed upon me and was not in the tiger-consciousness here; it is because of this that I mostly sense that this ‘hell experience’ came before the tiger awakening). Although, this awakening in hell may have begun before the first awakening of myself as the consciousness of a tiger or in between the first ‘incarnation’ and the rest of the tiger-journey continuation: this may clarify itself at a later date. [This still hasn’t become clearer, some 6 months later; I still do not know exactly where this fit into the evening’s unfolding. I can say though, that both were distinct segments or (lives/livings) and didn’t ‘blend’ into the ending of one and the beginning of the other.]


This was the ‘Awakening in Hell Journey’ ~ I awoke and felt as though I were frozen or being used like a doll, tossed around in a muddy, balmy-slow-motion-vicious place and handled one hundred percent by forces of the most horrendous and diabolical of evils…

The first episode was that of what seemed like an eternity of ‘handling’; I had no sense of an ending and actually it felt as if it would continue indefinitely (eternal): the feeling of this indefinite continuance was a huge magnification of the terror, for even in dreams I ‘understand’ that there is a time table or an expected ‘episode-lifeline’ (It’s part of the dream sensation.), points of reference, even at times the dream world can semi-connect with my conscious-world’s sense of ‘a next moment-time perception’ in beginnings and fading away, yet here, it was an endless stream of ‘handling’ with no ticking clock-world to rely upon (or take for granted)...

In this first episode I was constantly raped by men, defecated upon, pissed on, soaked in vomit, diarrhea, sperm and tossed about between those administering the treatment: I could hear voices saying that, ‘He’s eating it, really!’ Others were stating that, ‘I did!’, exclaiming that they had copulated with my mouth, etc., also exclaiming the fact that I was eating my own shit: I could feel in this ‘Awakening in Hell’ all the bodily sensations as though I myself were also ‘truly’ defecating and pissing throughout this first episode, that I was eating the most disgusting and vile of substances, both that of my own and others: of being constantly copulated in the mouth by the males and from the rear: though never, in this awakening, did I myself have sex, it was all being done to me… I could hear the explicit sounds of long farting, the liquid squirts of diarrhea, its splashing upon my back and being soaked in my hair, the pissing on my body, my face and in my mouth, the sounds of excretion oozing out of people, the sounds of bowel movements and digestive blurbs and pops: my whole body being riddled with raping and being humiliated beyond what I thought I could ever imagine enduring the feeling of…

In this experience, the emotional humiliation and desperation was of such a quality that I felt indeed ‘dead’; that my consciousness was trapped in this static ‘un-dead doll’, a dead body with a consciousness watching, receiving the emotional signals and feelings, though not feeling any physical pain, only ‘heat’ and ‘cold’ at times while being used and abused to the height of human depravity and rottenness.

(Experiencing the collective bardo, the darkest expression of the human incarnation: The achetypal dance of the collective traumas connected to sexual energies being used as a sort of placebo for traumatic blockages, etc.(?) Note added:9.20.2009).

I could sense my death beating, a kind of inside-outside saturation-ing of my Inner Graveyard; I couldn’t conceive where such treatment could originate from, though knew that it belonged to me, that it was all ‘my shit’… In this experience a recording of my voice in conversation was played (A conversation sample with another person from my actual life (my reply only and not their voice) prior to this journey and the taking of ayahuasca... To ‘fix’ an example in my mind of the realness-connection to this place?) In this voice recording was a sample of some debate I was partaking of: in this moment it was deeply impressed upon me that the nature of this sort of conversation, the ‘type’ or ‘kind’ of self it invested in and took from others was some ‘key’ contributor to the ‘shit’ and ‘rape’ I was being submitted to… (Aka, the doubting Mr. Know
It All.)

I later thought examples of this could be of doubting others through comparing my impression of them ‘to’ being sure of myself, and the ensuing righteous disappointments and using them as self-crutches for ‘right advice’ and ‘spiritual advocacy,’ expectations of them, so to hide my own most subtle hypocrisies, extreme judgments of them through personal desires not being met, justifications through comparison, defensiveness, paranoia of loosing, etc. All these or similar qualities showed up in my conscience as ‘blueprints’ for this hell, among other psychological investments and inner things; particularly around the subject of the sexuality I’ve been given or ‘have’ had.

Once I realized that it (the voice recording and the mood or ‘slant’ that the ayahuasca spirit was showing it as it really was, via a third party hearing/receiving it with feeling) was ‘this’ (the one or main contributing aspect to this ‘Hell’) something odd occurred: it was as if that section or place in my brain or mind where the attention rested upon this aspect was suddenly, with the white hot precision of some electrical device, singed or administered to by an electrical current to the state of disappearance, ash. I could hear it sizzling and sensed the deep white hot heat within the physicality of my brain and skull.

The Awakening in Hell continued as I was seemingly pressed through Hell’s intestines to the next ‘stomach’ or ‘digestion’…

I arrived at a room or outdoor courtyard; it was semi-dark, four to five men were standing near me and began raping me, shitting in my mouth and covering me with defecation, piss and sperm, while handling me with cold hands. This scene blended into the next ~

I found myself standing upright (since the Awakening in Hell I had been only on my hands and knees) and alone, in a room: limply I stood next to a filthy dirty bed, the room felt abandoned, like that of belonging in a deserted building or motel… I looked to my left, a faint light shone through the window and onto a bed to my right (it was contemporary times on Earth), and laying there was the dead body of (what I sensed was) my brother (The half-brother that was born four years before me and who lived to be only 15 minutes old, also given the same first name as myself.) He was grown though and looked to be twelve or thirteen years old (15?). His body was covered in blood and dirt: he seemed to be rotten, putrid and of the stillest of possible objects. There was a sense of cold, timelessness, eternal death-pause-ness: the room, again, had a sense of abandonment; the walls were dark and greasy-like, the body lay in a straight position, I stood about three feet from it, staring and standing. It was as if this room was isolated from all connections, but one, a place to visit and look and be… I had no sense of how it was that he had died, that is, what the circumstances might have been, etc. The environment was filthy, absolute death stillness, and was like a concavity in a geode, protected from time and the transformations of understanding, feeling and love. The closest comparison I can now apply is that of leaving someone who is paralyzed from the neck down to slowly die in an abandoned motel room with the doors locked, no electricity, no returning… [One of the strongest impressions for me about him was that his body was dead, though growing old, like an undead-being growing, maturing, etc., i.e., although the body was decaying and lifeless, it was aging...]

On and on, I moved through this hell: suddenly I awoke in a crib, as a baby, an infant freezing cold, laying flat upon the crib’s covers soaked in piss and wet waste matter: I felt completely covered (like frosting on a cake) in the cold, freezing paste of piss and waste mixed together, like a second layer of skin: I lay in this crib and was looking straight ahead, no eyelids blinking, no side to side peering; I felt the most horrifying sense of abandonment and filth, of a deep, vivisection-impending doom and timeless, stretching, round and round suffering, a sort of vast emotional sensation that this environment and condition would be my fate forever, for an eternity, that ‘I was it’, a sort of ‘icon’ for such conditions and way of Hell-being…

The room was semi-dark, the air was bone chilling cold: alone, fear, no one… There was a sense of my worthlessness and total relinquishment of love, care and trust. The totality of this crib experience was so overwhelming that I knew that I was being slowly killed or would ‘will it’ slowly through all these experiences (or the experience’s intelligence’s will would)… Yet I had no sense of when: it seemed that death was not a part of this place’s process. I couldn’t understand how it was that I was still alive; it was as if Life and Death were of only ‘One place I used to know’, not of Hell, not of this place: that in this place the laws of passing time, exhaustion, blacking out or dying of a cardiac arrest were simply non-applicable, non-existent…

Then, I found myself being ushered out, like through a tube of some sort: seemingly defecated out of the bowels of hell, and from a background point of view, (being now up in the air) I saw myself (my body) floating in a vast river, broad and grey, semi-polluted waterway, ‘I’ was dead...

I watched as my body floated down and bumped up against a stone wall and stopped: vaguely I recall it lying on a cobblestone street of some sort or on a flat place near the river, in the motionless grasses. [It was as though this place was either like Black and White photography or painted in sepia tones of much grayed blues, browns, etc.]

I was suddenly tossed/transported into outer Space, where I ‘stood’ (my presence was suspended in black, black Space) like a star and there I simply looked and knew that I was the beginning and ending of all that ever was ‘I’: and the phrase ‘I am behind the underneath’ came to my consciousness: I could hear incredibly beautiful music being played (this music I believe was being played by those in the yurt-tent: icaros?) and I began to glow of a golden light; I could see this golden light radiating like a mini-sun from underneath my viewing presence, as if it were rising up from underneath my ‘chin’, though in outer Space I couldn’t discern having a body: I can call it ‘from an under-my-looking view.’

I felt as though I were being born and found myself slightly lifted or quietly transported a bit… Then, simply lay in space, as if I were lying under a tree after a picnic, simply looking at a single burning star: I felt the coldness of Space and realized that this coldness was also mine, that ‘It was’… I lay staring at this starlight for a very long time while the shaman’s assistant tried to revive me to no avail…

My body on Earth was ‘dead’ (Unconscious; though half or 1% of my presence, like a mini-video camera left behind, was still ‘On’, looking out and I could see myself as the camera-lens-presence-looking-out, while registering it in outer Space): I recall knowing that he was picking up and letting fall my arms and legs, they were totally limp: I also remember him joking a bit and placing my index finger in a pointing up position, though don’t recall what it was that he said… He’d yet to understand (or connect) to the depth of what was happening, IMO...

I awoke, (with more consciousness now invested on Earth in my body and brain, though no thoughts) and staring at the woodstove area, I was in my eyes only, no mind activity, though I could hear voices, no emotions, no decision making capabilities; I sensed someone was knelling over me, they were saying, ‘You’ll come back, you will, you will…’ A damp hand pressed over my face, saturated in some sort of sweet, musk smelling oil… A voice said ‘I am with you’… The person put this oil in my hair and gently on my face and possibly neck or chin.

All of a sudden the tempo of the moment picked up, I could feel a sort of frenzy in the air; vaguely I heard someone saying, “Is he breathing?”, “Will he die?”

I could feel someone opening my shirt and checking for a pulse on the side of my neck… A half-laughing voice said, ‘Michael, we didn’t mean to kill you, really.’

My solar-plexus convulsions began again… I could see someone peering over my face, looking down at me: some part of me recognized people though knew not the context, throughout this whole experience I had no recollection of having taken part in an ayahuasca ceremony and how it was that these people were all around me… I was inhuman looking at humans...

The face I saw didn’t look like a human face and in my consciousness there began a sudden terror because two pictorial reality-worlds were colliding; the first was that of thinking I knew who it was that I ‘recognized’, then, realizing that it had the face of someone I had no idea or recollection of... This face looked like a combination of a human-fleshy muscle surface (a normal face) and that of geometric shapes and grids, yet still forming the ‘symbol’ of a face’s qualities… It was a very powerful face, similar to those seen in Aztec or Mayan/Incan motifs… It terrified me and I roared with the deepest fury my human body had ever produced, this went on for some time.

I was there but another part of me was still in Space, my consciousness was all around, excepting the receiving flesh body that my presence starred out of: the person kneeling over me was the shaman’s helper, I heard and felt him blow water onto my face from having held it first in his mouth; it dripped and slid off my eyeballs (I couldn’t blink) and flowed down my neck and cheeks, no response… Deep convulsions in my solar plexus continued and went off and on for several hours…

He pulled up my shirt and blew another burst of water on my sternum/plexus area and began to make grabbing gestures and slight pulling and releasing gestures on my skin in that area and on my stomach (As if he were pulling seaweed out of a barrel or weeds from a garden)… He blew water in my face several more times trying to revive me, trying to contact me by the sound/sentences of his voice; I simply starred, with my head slightly tilted sideways to the right, the convulsions began to get very severe and quicker, I recall that they were so strong that my body flip flopped around on the yurt-tent floor ‘in total’, like that of a fish out of water…

I came back a little more from the pure consciousness-blank state of awareness in outer Space: I recall gazing at a small candle burning in the dark, placed on a wooden upright log near the woodstove, I awoke within awakening.

While I was in this Space-like state (Staring off into the expanse, I recall having the sensation of something missing or not having ever been able to do; a thought coming to me that I had never gotten to say goodbye to my mother, I cried a little, yet, something fell out of the bottom of this emotion, this examination or revelation, something else was arriving: this ‘Not being able to say goodbye feeling’ was much deeper than that of the contemporary story of my mother and myself being separated at the age of one year and a half…

I could sense that it was a flimsy association and not the core; it simply felt vague. [It arrived though, (IMO) seemingly from my logical human mind, the left brain region that had somehow tried to associate an episode or ‘likeness’ to the emotion/issue, to pin it down and label it, so to be able to be with it... There was even a slight whisper of an ‘Aha’, though this was very distant from a ‘gut feeling’ and blowing away from it self like a puzzle in an oncoming storm.]

I awoke as the tiger: people were sitting next to me, I began growling again, I could hear people exclaiming, as if in disbelief that it wasn’t over… I found myself backing up on all fours, just as a cat does from a dog or some danger larger than its confidence…

I recall being absolutely knowing ‘in my presence’ that I was a tiger (tiger was I) and that any image of the male (man) angered me intensely, though, just as I saw a female human arrive and sit down near me, something within me relaxed and I wished to be near her; a sort of kindred-ness slightly opened up in me and I understood that she could be trusted. I didn’t feel protective of her, only curious and slightly distant in regards to making physical contact or acknowledging my wish for a kindred connection.

I drug/crawled myself backwards on all fours and bumped up against cushions and people’s feet where there were those lying in their sleeping bags, I felt cornered and extremely defensive, though mainly fearful with no sense of being able to do anything, simply on the defense though not attacking, watching intently one particular man-human looking at me and beginning to laugh; he and another were sitting in front of the woodstove… (As I mentioned before, I recall seeing him being spoken to by another man and getting up to leave). I stayed in a position where my buttocks and back legs remained flat on the ground, while standing only with/on my front arms/hands, with my torso perched up: I was staring at him, while he smiled, for a very long time, peering through my own hair that had fallen down in front of my face… I was in total anticipation, distrust, confusion and anger…

I recall one woman coming over and laying down beside me and I tried shyly to touch her sweater; a little dangling ornament of cloth was there... When I slightly pulled on it, she felt it, rose and moved away: with the extreme convulsions in my solar plexus, after a session of these, I would oftentimes collapse and close my eyes or stay still, within the space of feeling, though not seeing (I may have experienced mini black-outs).

I also remember that while lying next to the woodstove and simply staring, that another woman placed her hands outstretched and in front of my face, like those of someone trying to communicate some gesture of safety or relative-ness to me, i.e., it was cat-like in gesture and placement…

It was during the seeing of the first female human that I instantly knew that I was a female tiger and that the image of the ‘male’ of their human-species made me recklessly nervous, extremely enraged, fearful and defensive.

Few people ever touched me during this incident: people played music and the visiting shaman chanted and perhaps did some sort of ritual: the story of others actions I have yet to receive, though know a little involving the others.

I recall awakening once again (still as the tiger), to another image, that of two young Russian men sitting by the woodstove; I found that my leg had gotten close to his or visa versa, I moved it away quickly and began to try and curl up a bit, watching them all the while with great distrust and anger: also I could feel within myself that I hadn’t the will to move them away with my foot, to shove away: I lay there building up in rage as they kept talking and suddenly an incredible something occurred…

There appeared in my consciousness an emotional thought that said ~ ‘How dare you pretend to be normal in the face of my danger! How dare you challenge and try and take away my void, my emptiness…etc.’

I recall that this emotion of ‘How dare you!’ built up and up and up till I began to loose my stillness again and began to growl through my teeth and fixedly stare at them: I moved around a bit and the solar plexus area began convulsing allot, while somewhere in this continued ayahuasca session someone handed me a large wolf pelt to hold... As soon as I felt it, I pressed it (keeping it turned upwards, i.e., the fur side away from my bare chest) all along my front and lay it lengthwise down over me and began stroking it profusely…

People in the yurt began playing music (I assume it was them; I heard it nonetheless) as I moved about on the floor in a snaky, dance-like sensual way, laying on my side rubbing and sensing that indeed, this was ‘I’ touching myself, enjoying myself, my own body and tactility for the first time since ‘the trauma/episode’ was born (whatever that was)… That I was accepting, loving deeply the sensation and lushness of my fur, me, mine…

The music stopped when I ceased moving serpentine-like on the floor and in the throes of more convulsions; I recall that they tried to treat these shakings on at least two occasions and with no success, so they went, jolting me about, off and on for several hours…

Sometimes, while stopping for a little, even my consciousness would sense they were over till another ‘trigger’ would arrive, like that of seeing a dark robed figure sitting near me with its back turned toward me or a shadow on the tent wall whose body I couldn’t see or locate… At one point I recalled sensing that Death ‘herself’ was sitting nearby, as though the shamans had an unexpected visitor or someone there on business not of the same kind as their healing trade… [The figure just sat and didn’t move, nor did it approach me with any communications whatsoever; it simply ‘was’, like a totem of a sort or ‘dark partner’ or ‘attachment’.]

The convulsions suddenly erupted in a series of extreme flip flopping of my body and I began breathing at a very fast pace, while making a cat-like gargling sound from deep within my throat, like that of a sort of very loud, panting purring noise… This very rapid and heavy breathing went on for a long time and suddenly I absolutely knew that I was experiencing (re-visiting) a memory (though in this realization, I was actually there, within the time-frame itself, living, being); the quick heavy breathing stopped… I took the fur-pelt upon my lap and held it in front of me and opened my eyes and found therein the fur-pelt-jacket, with my searching hands, a shape of a great sized tiger ear (that was in essence the short sleeve of the pelt) and began stroking it...

It was here that I understood, that ‘He’ was gone, my he, that I was experiencing the episode of the last time we were together, that we were being chased by hunters or something of this sort: that he’d been killed while I kept running and that I never got to see him or acknowledge ‘a goodbye’ to his open eyes, to feel his spirit departing its body, his body heat leaving, its existence against me for the last time, etc.

I stopped and realized (at some point in the last two hours of the ayahuasca experience) ‘what it was’ inside ‘this human body’ experiencing the solar plexus convulsions, what it was that was jolting the human body about the tent, seemingly banging against my solar plexus wall (cage door), was that of a trapped tiger, fiercely swiping the inside walls with its claws; trapped, angry, round and round within circles of anger, resentment, depression, lonesomeness, rage and possessed by its human-mind’s desperate occupations to fill the emptiness, the void, etc. I could envisage the paws filled with outstretched claws, tearing away at the, until soon, unmovable, impenetrable wall…

As I grasped the pelt closer to my face and neck I sensed with the totally of my consciousness that I was with his dead body, that I was giving him my love and that I was at last saying goodbye: I recall the agony of my love for him as I began to receive vivid pictures of his face in my mind’s eye, whole body images and the memory of walking next to him, playing with him, hunting in the grasslands, etc.

The touching and placing of my face in the pelt went on for a very long time… As this realization of his death and my unresolved trauma-atmosphere connected to it, it sunk deeper within my spirit, I realized many things, particularly how it was that I was so enraged with the other human ‘men’; (that it was occurring on the symbolic level) because I had hated the sight of that which I hadn’t been able to say goodbye to and could not accept under any fragment of a dose, a ‘hello’ from them (the human men or male).

I also remember, as I lay on the floor, that the sensations of hot and cold, the depth they’d penetrate my body, changed from time to time depending my emotional state: while dancing on the floor I was warmed through to the core, other times I felt deathly cold. It was during this stage that the back of my neck and head seemed to seize; it was as though I felt something was ‘in’ my head… I started to hit my head on the ground and move my feet in a grinding gesture on the carpet, like that of ‘digging in’… I began to frantically shake my head around, over and over, finally resting down, while the plexus convulsions began again… Within this experience the shaman grabbed my head several times and clutched it with his fingers, massaging it a bit and the back of my neck, I vaguely recall that he may have put some sort of scented water in my hair and on those areas...

I lay on the floor and envisioned myself settling down next to a stream (perhaps where ‘He’ died, my tiger mate): I sensed that I had made peace with this ‘void’ within myself; I could clearly see the image of his face and body moving about within me, filling that void...

I also sensed that I’d never stood on my own since that fateful evening (On the realization of his death.) and slowly I raised myself up on two ‘paws’… I recall looking down and seeing my ‘human fingers’ bent downwards, in a claw-gesture, supporting my weight, with my head drooping… (A fellow ayahuasca-journeyman would later tell me that it looked like I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders.)

I recall at this moment of feeling an enormous weight pressing down on my head and shoulders as I raised my head, I could see with my mind’s eye an image, that of a tiger’s head raising up in the rain and looking out over a sparkling, nocturnal landscape and making the clear decision to go on, of being able to now go on without him.

Again, I could clearly feel him walking around, behind my thoughts, behind my mind. It is as though, to this very day, I can feel him living inside of me. [Today (nightly) I perform a ritual involving this totem-spirit.]

I felt that something was over (or through to the other side, a revelation, a death and a continuance from where once lay a stoppage-point) and that I had made my peace with the memory of him, with my love desire for him; that my conscious love could go no deeper than that which I was now experiencing and sending towards his existence, honoring him as only my risen, revealed, healing self could…

I remember clutching the pelt for a very long time, stroking it and staring at it, seeing it as the backside of his head, stroking his great sized ears and sensing with all my being that of saying ‘farewell’, ‘I honor remembering, I honor, I honor’…

After this, feeling slowly the state of reconciliation and connective-ness flowing through me, I began to sway and move forwards and backwards slightly with my head, shoulders, and torso: I distinctly felt as though I were flying upwards, though had no vision of any particular bird-shape, simply flying forwards, upwards and along a road of air.

As I was now sitting up, I noticed a change in my opinion of the male humans, that now I saw them as related to ‘He’: I understood (intuitively and with a kind of ‘humble omniscience’) their ‘In-Nature-predicament’ and their very special essential differences in nature to that of the female; I could now relate to them, I could forgive them, though most importantly, myself for having made them unknowingly some sort of ‘resentment symbol’ via my loss of ‘He’…

I reached out to the shaman’s helper and he took my hand; I recall placing my forehead against his and resting its total weight forwards into his: at this point someone opened the woodstove to check it: it was then that something odd happened ~

As our heads were pressed together the fire began to rage and I heard someone exclaim, ‘Look at the fire! Look, oh my god.’ I could sense that the fierce love I had and have reclaimed/reconnected to my long departed mate was being transferred to his (the shaman’s assistant’s) spirit through this ‘forehead’ gesture/connection; that I was sending my lover (Out there somewhere, yet ‘here’) my most ardent and most intense love-energy possible; the woodstove fire raged and then someone closed its hatch...

We slowly parted and I reached out and touched the shaman’s helper’s face, closed my eyes and ran my hand down his face and neck, down his collar bone and onto a spot above his right breast and began to press deeply there with my forefinger, I reached around to the other side of his back (directly behind this spot) and continued to press and massage there… This lasted about a minute; he thanked me and later the next day asked whether I ever did any energy work with my hands, I mentioned that I had, a bit, though no professional training or knowledge: he said that I had found exactly ‘his spot’ and should pursue the “using of my hands” talent in a “joyful way” when I return home to California. [I did nearly enroll in a two year Massage School, though declined due to the ayahuasca calling/pending.]

After this I stayed sitting upright and was still totally in the consciousness of being a female tiger: I recall sniffing the air and looking around, quiet, getting used to being centered, standing, reconciled as being on my own, alone, myself without the need of context…

I saw, to my right that one of the young Russian men was sitting next to me: I was still in a state of merging with the saying of goodbye and the accepting of continuing now without him (the male tiger) and the unfolding perceptions being applied towards the healing of my relationship towards the male-humans in the room:

I recall taking his hand and finally laying my head in his lap and beginning to cry deeply, feeling his male nature merging with the memory of that belonging to my male-tiger mate’s and the surrendering feeling of my own female tiger-nature outwards, to the whole world of Male, of acceptance, understanding, peace…

I lay across his lap and he rubbed my back, neck and head and held my hands; I couldn’t see his face, though did tell, by the gesture of his hands, that he was looking at them inquisitively, my hands seemed like those of a small child’s in the size of his: shortly after I began crying, another male-human brought a blanket and laid it across me…

While laying across his lap, the first thing the young Russian said to me was ~ “I will not forget” (Thank you for remembering)… Which I immediately took as being said by ‘him’, the tiger now walking behind my thoughts, I continued to cry…

I also remember him saying ~ “I know; it’s not easy being a son.” After hearing this, I knew that this wasn’t the issue or experience I was having, that he was simply associating my experience with one of his (IMO)…

I recall laying back down by myself and closing my eyes: then suddenly opening them as if my human consciousness/identity was tossed back into the ceremonial human-mix by some celestial hand: it was a very odd feeling, it was as if a switch was thrown inside my head and I returned, settling behind my eyes, nearly double-looking through my eyes, recognizing people, meanings, the subject of the day, the night, what had occurred…

The yurt was silent: I lay down and could feel some slight expectation of throwing up: this soon took on the image of an inner portrait/picture scene ~

I was in another place (not the yurt) looking at a large bed whereon there was pictured a huge ball of flesh, like that of some giant placenta (It was big enough to fit ten to fifteen people in.): there were people surrounding it, ancient looking people (their dress and demeanor), they were playing songs that seemed to be getting higher and higher in expectation and crescendo, like a drum roll before shooting something out of a cannon: I could tell that they’d congregated there to perform a special ayahuasca ceremony of throwing up, I could even sense the sacredness and semi-seriousness of it having to be done, although it never happened, I never actually threw up…

This drove a part of my instincts into a sort of desperation, because this image and ‘drum-roll-nature’ music, along with my throat and body language pointing to a huge vomiting session, went on and on, replaying itself three or four times, till it simply ceased and calmed down.

I recall going to take a shower and washing my body: looking down and touching areas and beginning to cry deeply, for my own body’s sex suddenly triggered a strong recollection of ‘his’ (the male tiger’s) and that my human body was suddenly both, while my upper part (breasts) reminded me of myself with him (the female), while the lower, of him. I stayed in the shower a very long time absorbing the heat and sensing my experiences, my lessons given by the spirit of Ayahuasca.

The rest of that morning and afternoon passed slowly; people did not speak much, I felt a little bashful; it had been a long night for everyone and I had been a definite handful; though I understood, as with the man who in the first session was wailing most of the night and getting sick, that this process, everyone understood and accepted: none made fun or seemed to be indignant or resentful about anything: the lessons transmitted by the ayahuasca journeys were the main priority, i.e., to “become more conscious” through their transmissions and those feelings and perceptions achieved.


I sense at this time those lessons were ~



Make a ruthless choice between serving the negative and the positive: and just because you are depressed and utterly abandoned and alone doesn’t give license to serve a little bit of both worlds, that of Hell and Love. And, although this occurs in everyone’s daily life as ‘normal’, it may not be the end of one’s predicament and journey out of contradictions, opposites and extremes; that perhaps the ‘agony and ecstasy’ aren’t attributes of a conscious state-goal reached, but rather, they’re indicators of an oncoming death, away from such ups and downs.

Watch more deeply what I say and write; what I transfer out into the material, Human-incarnation-sphere, that it has its own sort of ‘Hell’, that the depravities one suffers are the perversions and corrupted thoughts that have entered into one’s void as an atmosphere to ‘act’ from (mind) and not the self, the pure finding-ness of the ‘I am’. Too, that developing a certain ‘kind’ of energy towards rebellion or protest against certain ‘descriptive sins’ can possess one as unresolved shadows, shadows that oftentimes find ‘exhaust’ routes through not the discussions concerning the source of the mood’s ‘evil’, but simply the common day’s events; that protesting issues that oneself cannot actually touch and effect in a verifiable way, these subtle, soft-resentments of final-solution-helplessness can color my spirit of things-mood.

That death is wisdom and opportunity, not eternal punishment and remembrance of sins. [These collective sins of humanity can also be experienced by one individual; it seems to me that each person has his or her own 'lead' piece of the puzzle to transform into 'gold' and add it back to the collective body... 9.20.2009]

The ‘void’ often felt within me, the ‘sore spot’ which reacted to rejections, argumentative possibilities, things not going my way, abandonment, etc. were all radiating from an unresolved trauma of not being able to say goodbye to who seemed to be my first love and soul mate. That once I relived the experience, went back there emotionally and in total, spiritually, psychologically, emotionally and physically, touched him, rubbed his ears and grieved, accepted his death upon my being-ness, that the void then filled with the image of him: I can still envisage him walking there, ‘behind my thoughts’ (Also, it could be that the image is that of my own, yet, when it arrived within me, I distinctly sensed that it was ‘He’ and not simply a reflection of ‘I’.)

That I was born in space and not on Earth.

We may have several consciousnesses overlapping within us at any given point in time and definitely remembrances recorded of these lifetimes as ‘the same presence’ as an ‘I Am’ via other incarnations not human: while as a female tiger, I absolutely ‘knew’ that I was exactly that (though there was no mind ‘in it’ so to ‘be it’); there was no concept or percept of being/having been a human being, having a name, career, etc. And that towards the end of the experience, my consciousness as a human being with a history and an ongoing ‘story’ was switched on, like an electrical toggle and ‘I-With-A-Name’ appeared, began associating and filling in the blanks, so to speak.

There may also be animal and elemental spirits who assist the plant spirits in their ceremonial work and that music, heat and cold and emotional extremes played a large part in my receiving of the lessons; though, taste and the actual ‘compartmentalized sensation’ of physical pain or pleasure was never experienced... (Instead, it was a total, emotionally perceived unfolding/living alongside my Conscience and self: it was an ultra emotional reception of either torment or safety, acceptance or fear, on a level I’ve never experienced so crystal clear in its definition and eternal(istic) of the ‘causes and effects’ within me, in normal life)... This is based on the two experiences I’ve had so far; they were all perceived through the heart or pure instincts: the warm and cold were perceived as either emotionally expansive and secure-warm or emotionally terrifying and the bringer of destruction and an undisclosed time period of torture and entrapment.

There is an underlying and above-lying order and dynamic: that we walk upon a shifting geometric grid work: that there are ‘teachers’ above those on Earth in human form and of a ‘type’ that doesn’t equate or compare to those ‘souls’ described by or to be ‘conscious beings’ or ‘ascended masters’. [That all of our ‘ideas’ of awakened beings are within the limited framework of a human context (and rightly so), though this is just a snowflake on the tip of the iceberg.]

The reason I have bitten my finger nails for my whole life seems to stem from a deep resentment of no longer being able to touch ‘him’ and to be touched by him (the male tiger). Also, there is something there concerning the ‘dulling’ of a certain extra level of tactility and fingertip-sensation or intimacy. This ‘dulling’ seemed to feed a loss-identity of sorts, a victim identity; also, now that I am writing, I am also feeling that it is related to not being able to kick away with my feet those Russian men sitting next to me: one might say that it’s relative to having laid down and given up to some degree, an identity of defensive-less-ness and ‘I as an abandoned-I’ identity, i.e., having ‘lost my claws’ or emotional courage.

Watching certain kinds of movies, laughing in a ‘knowing’ way, writing with ‘Tongue in Cheek’, using certain forms of psychological argument, judging and blaming, etc., were ways to act from the atmosphere of the void (and what it was filled up with or the elements of my ‘hot air’) and not the clearer self. That I filled the void with the external world’s circumstances (It’s opinions of me and mine of its opinion) and not the primary presence of myself, totaled in the present now and reconciled.

Unresolved emotional traumas can be totally unrelated to this lifetime and hidden away in a portion of our soul/spirit that we’ve lost the way and means to access through modern day religion/lifestyle and the use of common medicine and psychological ‘treatments’: that the drugs/drinks that are most harmful and addictive are those which are used for ‘recreation’ or ‘to fill the void’ or to numb its inner atmosphere (mind) [Or ‘the soul on the ‘drug’ of its human incarnation’.] While the plant-medicines that are on the exact opposite of the ‘hell drugs’, that showed me further access to conscious love and the unknown investments in an inner graveyard within me, are the least known socially/culturally and those least prescribed to help people with all sorts of grievances/illnesses and spiritual/practical ignorance(s).

Being utterly disappointed in this life may not be at all stemming from the ‘proofs’ actually available from this current life itself; instead, it may be stemming from the glasses I’ve worn via an unresolved emotional trauma.

There are intelligences and powers the world is suffering from not having kept the acknowledgment of. (IMO; although perhaps this vacancy is ‘right’ and necessary for some purposes I cannot yet see or understand?)

That no one wants to really be the source of another person’s joy or sadness based on what they do and do not do in regards to the attached person’s relation to those actions: it is subtle and often not acknowledged, while people suffer immensely by not attempting to journey differently with one another, still, too, this is a stage and not the final ‘normal’ way of soul-participation with itself and the world... (IMO)

People working towards heaven, could just as well be working towards their inner graveyards as well, in their ‘recreational time’.

The plant spirits can use actual recordings of one’s voice from a previous life-scene lived as a ‘sampler’ to show a lesson when it’s coupled with a series of sufferings and scenes, to give conscience-‘proof’ to the terror of the context: this sort of ‘hint’ was stronger than any actual, literal telling or explaining could have been; that the ayahuasca spirit used ‘conscious implication’ as a teaching ‘tool’; there are emotions and perceptions that my daily-presence ‘in/with’ this human-mind doesn’t experience on Earth in the normal context of my life, though, nonetheless, brand new 'not human-like’ perceptions can happen and be ‘worked out’ by the ‘human’ mind and applied in a ‘right’ way in my life, so to be closer to the soul inside the human condition and not primarily the condition itself as a subject matter or ‘matter in the subject’ (or) ‘a soul’s presence in the context of its incarnation ‘suit’’ exclusively.

That the plant spirits have a direct connection with my true level of conscience; while consciousness simply is... They can do as they please with what your consciousness is relating to in order to give a lesson or ‘purge’ (If you surrender to the sense that it’s indeed ‘yours’; if you cannot, they often take you through a process of ‘shedding’ till you do/can.) They’re the master painters of both the hearts Hell and Love: there are no greater painters as they upon this Earth, because their ‘paints’ are both literal, emotional and of the sort that reveals the most subtlest of hypocrisy within or surrounding a human’s conscience and one’s true deed’s individual-definitions, their hidden meanings, intonations, ulterior motives, etc.

That the lessons don’t stop once the ceremony does; they continue in the form of emotions, re-relating with the same circumstances alongside the lessons learnt and still unfolding in dreams, coincidental life happenings, visions, etc.
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The day after the ceremonies I rested allot: I believe it will take at least four days to settle into my body in a more balanced way, though, even on the third day I cannot say this for sure; I still awake at night with the emotional sensation that a particular disturbing emotion will not end, that it will be forever… These emotions and depth of perceiving them were gathered from the processes brought into my consciousness via 'The Awakening in Hell.' There’s an inheritance that’s taken place; the sensation of Eternity.

(I am on my fourth day and experienced last night events where it seemed that people had given me ayahuasca without my knowing: again, the difficult feelings of certain dark emotional perceptions, coupled with the ‘eternal-feeling’ visited me and woke me up many times. It seems that the ayahuasca is still circulating in my system: my body is very sore, I have a sore throat and am somewhat instinctively vulnerable, my bodily energy is odd, in that muscle wise, I am weak and numb, though mentally and emotionally I am very alive and sensing a certain kind of balance I’ve not experienced before.)

On the first day after the ceremony I was laying down on my bed; a clear vision came to me ~ It was that of a great sized owl (possibly a Great Horned Owl) landing upon my stomach: it began pecking at my solar plexus and revealed a chunk of meat, looking rather like a tumor mass… I recall feeling that I had to trust the owl totally, not add, debate, ask questions or even wonder anything concerning the ‘story’ of this event unfolding: it took the mass up in its beak, clinching it, and flew away.

The night prior (Sunday night) I had many visions and woke up numerous times experiencing the same flashes of cold and emotions as where gathered in my Awakening in Hell… One such image was that of having the normal fleshy head of a human being, completely healthy looking, though from the neck down was a total skeleton, all bone.

Another was that of being an infant, seen from the point of view of vertical, yet laying down, as if the horizontal position was turned or floated into the vertical for the vision’s purpose: in this ‘portrait’ it showed ‘me’ with wide opened eyes, from the neck down being completely plastered with waste matter. The portrait-picture was shown in a frozen, mummy-like pose.

I’ve also had several dreams dealing around the issue of arguing or debating, accusations, etc. Last night I had many short dreams, with many awakenings from sleep due to intense emotions, etc. One of the dreams involved my being (in human form) with perhaps two to three lions or tigers and eventually locking or barricading myself in a room; not that they tried to attack me, only, that I sensed some sort of apprehension towards one particular tiger who was walking with me or following me.

[Two weeks later I’d attend my third and final ayahuasca ceremony in Holland before going back to the United States.]
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