Remembering The Vine of the Land of Ghosts
Aug. 7th, 2024 08:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootFear is coming. It's not very far, and I must be ready.
It's not today, but today marks the moment. So to please myself, I copy and paste my Ayahuasca experience from way back when. I should have done more, but this is what I have.
***
After preparing his altar, the shaman passed around South American tobacco for all to smell; It was to be our protector in the circle he told us. It was rich, deep, very pure, oddly reminiscent of whiskey mash. He pushed it into a pipe and began whistling into it, a tune he called an Ikaro or Okaro, a song of protection.
After a while of the whistling, he blew it into each corner of the room, the centre, over each of our heads, down our backs, into our hands, and into his own arms. The room was thick with it. Then he went round each of us with a bottle full of agua diente which my miniscule Spanish translates as 'Water with Teeth'. This was made up of sugar cane rum, 'jungle onion' whatever that is, and camphor. We breathed it in and he scrubbed our foreheads, scalps and temples with it, to 'open us up'.
Then he measured out a dose of the dark brown Ayahusca brew into a sacred bowl, blew the tobacco across it and passed it to the first of us. We were told to whisper our intent, the thing we wanted to heal in ourselves, over the lip of the cup, and then take the whole brew down in one gulp. No wonder. It is utterly foul, bitter bitter wood, with a hint of toxic bovril, I've never drunk anything so disgusting in my life. Then, the candle was blown out and all was silent, except the changing ikaros singing through and through the night.
I did not see the cartoon brightness and shimmering colours that others see. No, I began with a darkness full of multicoloured stars. Around me rose high dark arches, or the undersides of giant spiders, but with no dread to that idea. The creations of cathedrals and those of spiders seemed each as great as the other, and the idea that I was seeing the architects of mind or the universe interested me. I had bumped into the heavens of the freemasons without realising it. Why did I not see the brilliant colours the others saw? I have been very depressed recently, so that might have been it. Still, these distant gems in the dark were many and all around me. And then my experience truly began.
So under the strange canopy of arches and multi coloured stars I waited. The Icaros continued and a warmth filled the air...and then I grew terribly hot and cold, one after the other, under the duvet. I moved and stirred and knew this was my body temperature changing. Soon, I thought, I will be very sick, and I was afraid of spewing up all over someone's floor, afraid of missing the bucket in the dark. A voice answered me out of that darkness, a voice that wasn't there, telling me I could afford to be slow. It was a gentle voice telling me that my body would not betray me and neither would the vine.
'We will wait for you,' said the spirit voice, 'All will wait. You can be as slow as you like, it will be all right.'
I am always fast, always in a hurry. But not this time. Slowly then, I looked for the bucket, and in a strangely calm headspace, threw up. I lay down again. After a while came the need for the toilet, and again, that fear of not being able to find the way out, not being able to reach the loo in time, of not being able to get up at all.
'If you have no time, you still have all the time,' said the voice. 'Do not fear being slow. You will get there in good time.'
Slowly I got up, groped my way to the loo and evacuated with horrifying vehemence. I had eaten nothing just to avoid this contingency, but the Aya clearly found something to turn into poo, lots of it. And yet, nothing was out of control.
Lying down again, it became clear to me that this was some kind of nursery, and suddenly I saw my mother, running towards me, smiling. The picture flashed and changed, moving between my mother and myself, I noticed the differences - I am bigger, not so pretty, squarer and grow my hair much longer - but more I noticed the similarities; jawline, eyes, smile. These would normally freak me out because I really don't want to turn into my mum. But they didn't. They were nice. Pictures of a childhood I can't remember, and the spirit voice told me that when she was well, before the illness, she had loved me and been very proud of me, and that even now she loved me. It was then I noticed that I had been crying for a while. I have often suspected that my mum was mentally ill from before my birth, that she never really knew or loved me because of that. Now I was with another kind of mothering, the cosmos holding me. Somehow I was in this baby princess state, cherished and precious, the universe's darling, but not helpless and not powerless. Able, but still a baby on some level. And I stayed in this place of perfect belovedness for a long time, until my heart seemed so full of love I could just pump it out into the night forever...and did.
The shaman came over and asked me if I was ready for more. I said 'yes', and took my second dose. Once again I tried to throw up too soon, to get it out of the way, and this time the Aya refused to come up, the voice reminding me that nothing was to be hurried. I was assured by the shaman that eventually he heard me throw up, but by then I was too far away.
Are you ready for this? Said the voice, meaning was I ready to see the negative. I agreed. The shaman had told us that if Aya threw us a fearful vision, the key was not to run away; that this was not a trip to be avoided but a working and if we could face the terror, whatever it was, we would learn and be healed. So I was ready to try.
Little black holes appeared in the starry universe. There was a moment's dismay - I didn't want the loveliness marred. Through my head went a check list; it's all right to be afraid, it's all right to be angry, it's OK to feel paranoid, these are nothing if you just - I found they weren't holes. They were bubbles, and they popped when I looked at them. So that was that.
Then, I went away to far places. The songs of protection continued all night, he puffed smoke all over us. In the morning we found it had snowed outside. He closed the circle, and told us not to break our diets too severely straight away.
It's not today, but today marks the moment. So to please myself, I copy and paste my Ayahuasca experience from way back when. I should have done more, but this is what I have.
***
After preparing his altar, the shaman passed around South American tobacco for all to smell; It was to be our protector in the circle he told us. It was rich, deep, very pure, oddly reminiscent of whiskey mash. He pushed it into a pipe and began whistling into it, a tune he called an Ikaro or Okaro, a song of protection.
After a while of the whistling, he blew it into each corner of the room, the centre, over each of our heads, down our backs, into our hands, and into his own arms. The room was thick with it. Then he went round each of us with a bottle full of agua diente which my miniscule Spanish translates as 'Water with Teeth'. This was made up of sugar cane rum, 'jungle onion' whatever that is, and camphor. We breathed it in and he scrubbed our foreheads, scalps and temples with it, to 'open us up'.
Then he measured out a dose of the dark brown Ayahusca brew into a sacred bowl, blew the tobacco across it and passed it to the first of us. We were told to whisper our intent, the thing we wanted to heal in ourselves, over the lip of the cup, and then take the whole brew down in one gulp. No wonder. It is utterly foul, bitter bitter wood, with a hint of toxic bovril, I've never drunk anything so disgusting in my life. Then, the candle was blown out and all was silent, except the changing ikaros singing through and through the night.
I did not see the cartoon brightness and shimmering colours that others see. No, I began with a darkness full of multicoloured stars. Around me rose high dark arches, or the undersides of giant spiders, but with no dread to that idea. The creations of cathedrals and those of spiders seemed each as great as the other, and the idea that I was seeing the architects of mind or the universe interested me. I had bumped into the heavens of the freemasons without realising it. Why did I not see the brilliant colours the others saw? I have been very depressed recently, so that might have been it. Still, these distant gems in the dark were many and all around me. And then my experience truly began.
So under the strange canopy of arches and multi coloured stars I waited. The Icaros continued and a warmth filled the air...and then I grew terribly hot and cold, one after the other, under the duvet. I moved and stirred and knew this was my body temperature changing. Soon, I thought, I will be very sick, and I was afraid of spewing up all over someone's floor, afraid of missing the bucket in the dark. A voice answered me out of that darkness, a voice that wasn't there, telling me I could afford to be slow. It was a gentle voice telling me that my body would not betray me and neither would the vine.
'We will wait for you,' said the spirit voice, 'All will wait. You can be as slow as you like, it will be all right.'
I am always fast, always in a hurry. But not this time. Slowly then, I looked for the bucket, and in a strangely calm headspace, threw up. I lay down again. After a while came the need for the toilet, and again, that fear of not being able to find the way out, not being able to reach the loo in time, of not being able to get up at all.
'If you have no time, you still have all the time,' said the voice. 'Do not fear being slow. You will get there in good time.'
Slowly I got up, groped my way to the loo and evacuated with horrifying vehemence. I had eaten nothing just to avoid this contingency, but the Aya clearly found something to turn into poo, lots of it. And yet, nothing was out of control.
Lying down again, it became clear to me that this was some kind of nursery, and suddenly I saw my mother, running towards me, smiling. The picture flashed and changed, moving between my mother and myself, I noticed the differences - I am bigger, not so pretty, squarer and grow my hair much longer - but more I noticed the similarities; jawline, eyes, smile. These would normally freak me out because I really don't want to turn into my mum. But they didn't. They were nice. Pictures of a childhood I can't remember, and the spirit voice told me that when she was well, before the illness, she had loved me and been very proud of me, and that even now she loved me. It was then I noticed that I had been crying for a while. I have often suspected that my mum was mentally ill from before my birth, that she never really knew or loved me because of that. Now I was with another kind of mothering, the cosmos holding me. Somehow I was in this baby princess state, cherished and precious, the universe's darling, but not helpless and not powerless. Able, but still a baby on some level. And I stayed in this place of perfect belovedness for a long time, until my heart seemed so full of love I could just pump it out into the night forever...and did.
The shaman came over and asked me if I was ready for more. I said 'yes', and took my second dose. Once again I tried to throw up too soon, to get it out of the way, and this time the Aya refused to come up, the voice reminding me that nothing was to be hurried. I was assured by the shaman that eventually he heard me throw up, but by then I was too far away.
Are you ready for this? Said the voice, meaning was I ready to see the negative. I agreed. The shaman had told us that if Aya threw us a fearful vision, the key was not to run away; that this was not a trip to be avoided but a working and if we could face the terror, whatever it was, we would learn and be healed. So I was ready to try.
Little black holes appeared in the starry universe. There was a moment's dismay - I didn't want the loveliness marred. Through my head went a check list; it's all right to be afraid, it's all right to be angry, it's OK to feel paranoid, these are nothing if you just - I found they weren't holes. They were bubbles, and they popped when I looked at them. So that was that.
Then, I went away to far places. The songs of protection continued all night, he puffed smoke all over us. In the morning we found it had snowed outside. He closed the circle, and told us not to break our diets too severely straight away.
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no subject
Date: 2024-08-07 05:06 pm (UTC)How long ago was this experience?
I must have taken LSD & mescaline at least 100 times before I was 21, and the experiences—as well as I can recall them now—were quite profound.
I sometimes think I would like to take LSD again.
Fear is coming.
I think it will be scary. But then it will be over. And my sense is you will be fine, & the changes will not seem as important to you as they seem now.
Sending you lots & lots & lots of love.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-08 06:44 am (UTC)I never took any hallucinogens for at least the first 25 years of my life, being thoroughly freaked out by my own lucid dreams/waking visions from childhood, as well as Mum's auditory hallucinations.
After relaxing a bit, I had a few experiments with magic mushrooms and LSD, but in my whole life I've taken hallucinogenics less than ten times.
This was different in so much as it was a magical working and we were all asked to fast for between 7 days and a month, not eat processed foods, not have sex, not wear red or black etc. A lot of prior preparation!
But it was worth it.
Re the fear, I think you are right, and thank you for all that love XX