Ceremony 18

October 16, 2009

Stop playing with the universe, put it down.



Tonight I went into this ceremony with several issues to try and connect with: The primary one was whether this path towards apprenticing in shamanism is what Yage wishes for me and to help heal my friend Lori… To begin, I drank a third of a cup, close to twice my usual dose, this took me far into the medicine’s landscape, my own and others, including the fingerprints of those long past… (This ceremony took place during a new moon phase.)

This session was a deep introspective journey; a long first two hours of sporadic dry heave-purges and energetic/emotional work with dark psychic environments… Most of this night’s purge-route would be traveled via yawning; many deep and double-yawns and an early trip to the bathroom (again).

Again, I am recording this late in the day, my energy has been up and down, though mainly at ground zero, taking several naps and busy with having found a stray kitten…

This journeying began with an incredible unfolding that took its course through dancing/gesturing to one of the early icaros. For one of the first instances I felt that ayahuasca was resting ‘softly’ in my stomach, although its work there was deep, underwater deconstruction and construction… I felt that it was working ‘in the dark’ (my dark), somewhat behind my consciousness, that anything could surface on a night like this, and would…

As I began to dance, mainly with my arms, hands and torso, since I was sitting in one of the ceremony rockers, I began to feel that distinct parts of my body were taking on specific symbolic powers/totems or ‘natural forms’.


Body of bodies


My feet were at first semi-sensed as claws/paws, since my hands ‘went’ intuitively to take on claw-like gestures above each foot, though they (my feet) quickly clarified themselves as being two great sized snake heads, possibly with their mouths open… The ankles and calves took on the nature/being of yellow corn, the thighs were alligators, my torso a great sized tortoise with its head facing down; my arms eventually identified themselves as wings (possibly of the dove-totem), while my head was a quiet, gathered together swarm of honeybees. (A later note: Maybe there were clawed hands at the end of the wings? Though these were soaring wings, great distanced flapping, i.e., more bird-like, than a bat. The wings seemed larger than a dove’s.)

For 10-15 minutes I danced while sitting down and briefly stood up as this composite creation, sending different aspects of these ‘parts/aspects’ to people on my healing list (At this time I also stretched as Luco had suggested.)

To my mother I sent wings, to my father I sent honey and to my friend I sent either the tortoise or alligators to swim throughout any confusing depths and to assist in breaking up/diffusing dark energies…

It’s vague here as to what occurred to transition to the next part: I felt that I was being worked on and working simultaneously… So, distinct (personal) action at this point was blurred a little. I recall going towards areas of collective ’bunched energies.’ Note: I remember that the totems showed/demonstrated their power stance(s) briefly; I felt hints of their natures, though could not interact deeply.

My consciousness was ‘operating’ this body of bodies with intent, love, direction, a homestead-feeling, yet the body (the collection of totems) had exchanges of its own, allowing me to discover myself in context of a no-self… The wording here is difficult to construct; there is so much ‘in’ the actual physical and spirit perception that cannot be transcribed into the conceptual or descriptive.)


Father thunder


One of the first purges of the night was a surprise, since I had been told that all of it had ‘left’ many ceremonies ago… It was a kind of residue-ball: Yage told me that I would soon purge my father’s anger and added that it would be easier if I were to lay down.

After the initial dry heaving, I apologized once again to my father for the anger I had caused him: I also felt that some of this collected-mass was given back to him, anger that had targeted me as an object of distraction or falsely blamed cause, though the energy had escaped or left him… Prematurely?

Avoiding conscience through blame and setting up comparative reasoning with the external world as the object or cause… We are often prisoners of being possessed by effects that we ‘think’ are causes.

Notes: Using getting angry at a child to self-medicate; creating a duplicate external-drama to match the unresolved shadow-echo within? Is the ultra-sensitive external anger/frustration an expression of the unconscious suffering within? When are we objects of others shortcomings? Mirrors? This was a short purge, quickly dispersed…

To know (heart-expansion) of/original intent. Healing without wanting to be seen healing.


The daylight prior


At the beginning of the day I spoke to Luco about my lower back problem, i.e., specifically the sacrum area; he suggested that I stretch during ceremony (after drinking the tea). I did this at two points in the ceremony. These stretches were my usual toe touches and standing back bends, with added serpentine arm/hand gestures and large-winged flight-gestures… Intuitively I was called to direct several of these ‘gestures’ as healing conduits towards the young woman who was joining us from the household staff this night for her first drink of Yage. I recall holding a pose towards her, with both hands side by side, fingers spread apart, subtly ‘humming’ from their interiors… (I may have sent her jewels.)


Gown of bats


Near mid-ceremony, while laying on my back, a large, dark mass appeared above me; intuitively (or my picking up a message that was embedded in it, telling of its owner/from where it came) I sensed this was some part of the energies delivered to me for ‘clearing’, i.e., the ‘effect’ of my wishing to help heal my friend…

I prayed to God, Ayahuasca, Sanango and all the other plants I knew by name, and those anonymous ones I could not know immediately this night that were in the brew, to give me the strength to open my heart wider/broader so to participate in the clearing/transformation of this ‘cloud’ (I did not wish to be ‘only’ an object effected by a subject.) I believe that at this point I briefly reached up into the air and with my hands spread apart, drew pure energies down from above to invest into me for this process…

My heart opened and out of it came collections of cigarette butts, old nails, toothpicks, misc. spines or sharp needles… I sensed that these were ‘actions,’ gestures, much of which I felt had taken place in my early childhood years/actions (though not exclusive to; also teenage and early twenties, etc.), mostly subconscious-effects, i.e., by my way of ‘giving to myself’ by interpreting others actions personally ‘to me’ without having empathy-aware, checking in with my own hypocrisies, the part that makes others the problem in the mirror. (Does ‘personally relating’ to others at an early stage (childhood and teenage years) come from the ‘habit’ of that auto-symbiotic relationship to Womb-mother?)

I began to make a flying gesture with my arms while laying down; a voice came to me and said, “These are her bats.” I began to take my heart energies, joy and healing intent through this mass of darkness, dispersing it/them, clearing the space of their congestion…


The drink of human


A thought/meditation occurred in me, concerning people who are superstitious, fearful or generally do not believe in taking natural substances for psychological/spiritual work: This stigma sat with me awhile, then the epiphany came that ‘The soul has drunk ‘human’’, i.e., with its incarnation into the flesh, that it has swallowed dividing cells that would/will eventually ‘encase it’ in an effect, a human sort of sober inebriation with the left and right hemispheres, with mind-opposites, ego, ephemeral issues, selfishness, blame, competition, etc.


Travel song

Original sin is not original.


During an incredible icaros by Luco, I had an amazing visual (an inner ‘movie’) of returning to the land of the souls and the realization, while going there, that I am all things, fairies, mermaids, animals, types of people, etc.

I felt, as I was traveling through this sort of time-space avenue, the destination pulling on me like a magnet, that this ‘being’ born as a human was some part of a timeless, supra-ancient duty/ritual/obligation… I had the quick vision of a friend of my mother’s returning to this land of souls too.

The later vision lent itself to a consideration of all those people in my life who are and had been diabetics; my father, my grandmother, my mother’s husband, a long ago roomate, etc. Another realization came to me, that the ‘sugar issue’ was due to an unresolved dilemma concerning the soul and the human form/expression/condition and the sweetness of the love available from us, the human race, to offer up to God and all sentient beings; that ‘refined sugar’ and ‘artificial sweeteners’ were icons of the human inner conflict condition, i.e., metaphors…


Kaleidoscope pause


I also received a vision/travel occurrence, finding myself hovering in the mid-point of a spacious place surrounded by a cylindrical display… Shown were all the various career types (talents, bodies, etc.) of human roles and possibly other forms on Earth as well: This place had no top or bottom, the focus was on the section of the ’tube’ that showcased human characteristics…


Soul estate


At another point I experienced myself as a sort of formless light-being with gold mansions, houses and estates of all shapes and sizes being born from my torso: another thought came to me that worldly riches are a kind of subconscious quest for the soul-house within, external affirmations/images as an inner-wishing mirror-looker seeking in the image it sees and not within what’s seeing.


Backwards


Midway through the ceremony Yage told me that the pain at my lower back was put there (sent there) by the man who was the last partner of my new friend I am trying to help heal; that it was sent to me out of envy/anger that she has found a sincere friend to confide and express her heart through… Ayahuasca told me that it would work on ‘removing him from me’ or ‘this from me.’ I experienced several deep dry heaves that stressed my lower spinal area via this particular discovery-purge…


Two snakes


Soon afterward, Yage would say, “There are two snakes in you that need to come out.” The light-present-clear energy dropped, I could feel the dark energies way down deep in me and even envisioned at least one of the purges as a snake being ‘rounded up’ and driven out…

She told me their names, ‘Mark’ and ‘Brian.’ At first I associated one to an acquaintance in California and the other, a now departed man who I briefly knew many years ago… (I thought I might have attracted his spirit since I had (several years past) lashed out at someone on a blog-site who I felt dishonored the circumstances surrounding his death (injustice, etc.), defending him, investing allot of severe/condensed emotional energy his way, i.e., on his behalf, though without ‘permission.’

For a moment I wondered whether we are darkly ‘invested in’ as we ‘invest outwards’ towards those we do not know and have not had their light-conscious permission to make their business ours (?) Is it that we somehow use that anonymous position to our ego’s advantage and theirs, subconsciously?

Then the purge dropped lower and I suddenly recalled two ‘friends’ I hung out with in high school: Although they teased me and even stole money one night when I hosted them at my father’s home because they were too drunk to drive, I stuck with them, compromising myself, my esteem, and inner joy for the sense of being wanted around (a very abstract sense/definition of want) or ‘in a click.’

Ayahuasca took me deep into this feeling of ‘compromise of self,’ even a sort of spirit-mutilation at the ‘hands’ of others’ ‘just kidding-sarcasm.’ [It was a difficult area to own up to and retrieve: Mark purged out quickly, Brian took nearly 30-40 minutes.]


Inside onion skins


As I was laying down, I felt as though Yage was taking my hands as her own, reaching towards me with incredible mercy and gentleness, beginning to strip/peel away thin ‘coverings’, ‘layers’ from my face/overall being-body… There were 2-4 of these very sensitive ‘skins’, like a series of nitroglycerin-coatings… Intuitively I felt that this could have been more difficult and thanked her at the end for the love and mercy clearly demonstrated/shown through these actions…

How can we all be wrong and live that rightly?


Second Chakra


Towards the middle of the ceremony I experienced a mental/intent connection to my solar-plexus; I consciously began making electrical pulses from there (a very old ability that came to me when I was in my early twenties) while pulling up energy from the sex-chakra (a Taoist perineum exercise that I learned a year or so ago.) I felt that something dramatic may occur, though this 2-3 minute event was very subtle, quiet, a sort of reminder of the ongoing transformation’s process’s nature of degrees. I experienced briefly a sensation of being a consciousness semi-surrounding or nearer the physical location of my third eye…


God message


At another stage, towards the ceremony’s end, I received a message, though strangely enough, it was as if another was speaking through me so to give the message to God (?) The message was, “Stop playing with the universe, put it down.”

After this, I remember that my consciousness stepped upwards, towards some different sort of celestial-presence/act of being: At this stage I experienced letting it all go, simply beholding beheld as I am; a vast unknown seemed accessible (If accessing the unknown even makes sense here? Nonetheless, the sensation was this.)


Love molting


A sudden, even higher seeming, more grounded shift occurred, where I found myself as pure love, the conscious embodiment in/of Love: I experienced myself as Love Sitting, I felt larger than human, though somewhat indistinct as a ‘mass’ or crafted-shape: It was as if I were a sort of ‘boulder-spirit’, smooth, stationed in Void/dark Space.

As I appeared as Love something incredible began to occur simultaneous to this love-being-manifestation, I began to shed ‘Human’, the world epidermis, incarnation-material, human qualities, attributes, etc. These began falling off of me like rust flakes, peeling and falling bark, layers of indistinct objects, etc. This went on for what felt like a timeless period (?) I have no estimation…


Water


At some point I settled back into ‘my name’ and felt that the distant music from the Friday night town celebrations were seeping into my experience of the medicine’s teachings and unnecessarily stressing something. This brought a distinct phrase from Yage for me to go and take a shower and stay in the Main House…

While washing, the same relation to my ‘new/regenerating body’ occurred, i.e., seeing it as a child a new creation, undefiled, wondering, as a conscious entity, ‘How? This story? This magic-carpet-skin? Soiled, once stained?’

Notes: Very few Shipibo designs were experienced tonight: Because of the new moon phase darkness (?) Hot and cold body temperatures throughout the ceremony: Feeling Sanango’s distinct, mid-ground presence; bodily shaking and a subtle taste of it from time to time. Being able to now go to bed and rest after ceremony (For the last two or three ceremonies.)


Skeleton needs


Towards the end of the ceremony a vision of many skeletons sitting in chairs came to me: I prayed again to God, thanked the plant spirits and looked inside for what was being called for (A slight ominous energy arrived here.) The skeletons seemed somewhat urgent, though quiet, with no specific ‘issues’ of personal message via Yage to teach… Soon I found myself adding to them organs, muscles, nervous systems, flesh, etc. They dissolved once I did this.

Note: My heart area physically hurt from time to time in ceremony. I traveled to the river alone this morning for the traditional submerging cleanse, beautiful solitary!


Red seeds and vertebrae on a string


Notes: (At the end of the ceremony.) Coming back into the Ceremony House to be with the girl experiencing Yage for the first time. After sitting near her for 5-10 minutes, a voice telling me to get the necklaces from the Mesa, that it was time for me to go. I was told by Luco that I could put these necklaces (I had originally bought for gifts; they consist of vertebrae of alligators or small anaconda and red, black spotted seeds) in the ceremony Mesa (his collection of crystals, stones, talismans, etc. that are stationed at his feet during each ceremony) and that afterward could use them for protection.

Once putting them on I did sense a presence, though feel not entirely ‘genuine’ right now to describe the visuals as objective, etc., since it could have been my mind fulfilling expectations outside the Yage zone’s functioning… I will wear them during ceremonies and see if they ‘Speak for themselves.’

Physical, pressure point massaging of my chest, eyes, neck/throat and head. (Not entirely my knowing-consciousness doing this.) Especially a delicate pressing and adjustments around the eyes; sensed as another Yage-medium through my hands…

My hand going over chakra areas and checking their ‘emotions’ and ‘health’. Vaguely I recall experiencing the white radiance of Yage’s inner temple and a further ratcheting down of the message, ‘Keep my temple holy and pure.’ A sense of a celibacy path arriving; further plans to return to continue this work here in Peru… The faint message concerning my question about the shaman apprenticeship, i.e., a voice answering/saying, “You’ve always been one.”

A deepening of the dance and healing hand/body gestures… More intent and being with the medicine/deeper integration… Experiencing from time to time the dimming of joy, like a lighthouse in forest fire smoke.

Going back into the Ceremony House and experiencing at the doorway entrance, the diamond-hands aspect (visually and information-ally). Being more careful (after my Yage lessons this night) of my space with her (the first-time drinker of Yage) in the C.H. From the ‘two snake lessons’ (how psychic/spirit ‘substances’ get transferred.) Making a lotus shape in the air (small and large). Stretching prior to the ceremony. An eternal prayer-thanks goes out to God, my parents, Yage, Luco and my friends…