MEDIUM
It’s a beautiful, crisp early-morning in Peru’s Sacred Valley, 2972 metres above sea level. The Willkanuta river winds alongside the brown dirt path. Steep green mountains tattooed with
andenes (Inca field terraces), and the ruins of a centuries old stone hill fort loom above. Frost still lingers in the shadows of dry-stone walls. My hands are cold, but I’m sweating from the effort of lugging my overstuffed backpack. I’m only away from home for 4 days, but I’m planning to spend the night of the ceremony on the floor of the temple; nights are cold in this part of Peru. A thick alpaca blanket, pillows, and many layers of warm clothes, plus 5 litres of water weigh me down. Rufous-collared sparrows, stony coloured except for their orange neckband, flutter in the hedgerows and trees that line my way. The smell of wood smoke from breakfast fires drifts on the breeze. There’s a slight rumble in my stomach from not having any breakfast, but I’m refreshed from a good night’s sleep, nervous but excited. I’m on my way to participate in a ceremony; to drink a brew made from
huachuma, the cactus of the four winds.
Huachuma (sometimes spelt “
wachuma”) is the Quechua name given to
Echinopsis pachanoi, a cactus native to the Andean regions of Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Argentina. The cactus is considered medicinal and is used to heal and induce intense visions that are said to help people learn more about themselves and their connection with nature. The cactus is also known as San Pedro, the Christianised name that it was given after the arrival of the conquistadors in the wake of their efforts to convert the local population through syncretism and oppression of indigenous beliefs and customs. The English translation of San Pedro is Saint Peter, and the cactus is so called because Saint Peter is said guard the gates and hold the keys to heaven.
I arrive at the shaman’s house at 7:30 a.m., and have a bit of a wait before the ceremony is due to start. This is my second time at his house; I’d visited a few weeks previously to have a chat, explain why I wanted to attend the healing ceremony, and to learn more about the medicine. I had been preparing for a long time, researching the plant teachers of Peru on and off for over two years. Until now my research had mostly focused on tryptamines, and
ayahuasca in particular, and though I had read some papers about mescaline, I had encountered little about
huachuma. I’m not really sure what to expect from the experience, but the shaman told us the night before to leave our expectations at the door; I try to follow this advice.
I go to the open-air
huachuma temple, put down my backpack, and choose my space. The circular temple has a conical reed roof supported by wooden beams. There are no walls, except for a 30cm high perimeter so that air flows freely through the structure, and a view of the garden, its flora and fauna, surrounds me. It is incredibly tranquil in the early morning stillness. Mats are laid out on the stone floor, each with a blanket and a pillow next to them. I choose a spot close to the exit with a fantastic view of a cluster of tall San Pedro cacti. Next to these are several clumps of kniphofia plants (also known as torch lilies or red-hot poker plants); their red and yellow tubular flowers are a favourite of certain species of Andean hummingbirds. A hummingbird while I’m tripping would be a sight and a half. In the background, sheer-sided summits jut into a clear cerulean sky.
Gradually, the other participants arrive and we are ready to start. A few of us met the night before; we’d gathered to discuss the logistics of the next day’s events, and how best to approach what we were about to embark upon. There are ten of us taking part in the ceremony, plus the shaman, , and his assistant; we are an eclectic mix of nationalities, but united in our goal of exploring whatever it is that the cactus has in store for us. We sit in a Socratic circle, like spokes of a wheel facing towards the hub. Opposite the temple doorway, the shaman sits cross-legged on his mat, a
mesa in front of him. His
mesa is a multi-coloured woven textile, typical in this part of Peru, laid flat on the ground. On the
mesa there are a number of items of significance to the ceremony and to the shaman: a large transparent tub containing the powdered
huachuma cactus we are to ingest, statuettes of sacred figures and deities from around the world, a marble, metal and stone jewellery, pebbles, crystals, an MP3 player with speakers, and a number of
mapachos.
At 8 a.m. the ceremony starts. From this point on, we have been informed, there is to be no talking and no interaction with anyone other than the shaman and his assistant until the ceremony closes at sunset; silent contemplation is the order of the day. On strict instructions I haven’t eaten since eight the night before, and we are told that we must have no food or water until the shaman says so; swilling the mouth out with water is fine, but no swallowing. The shaman whistles a tuneful
icaro into a handful of
mapachos, lights one, blows smoke into his hand and wafts it over the crown of his head. He stands, moves to the centre of the temple, blows smoke to the sky, squats, and blows smoke to the ground. His assistant, who is apprenticing under his instruction, now has a
mapacho on the go. She moves round the circle of participants in a clockwise direction blowing smoke on each person’s head, on their back, their chest, gets them to hold their hands in a prayer-like or
Namaste gesture, then blows smoke on their fingertips. As she makes her way around the circle, the shaman follows, puffing smoke on each person’s crown, and then holding their wrists in his hands to sense their energy; so as to ascertain how much of the medicine to give each individual. I am fourth from the
mesa. The shaman gets to me, kneels and holds my wrists, palms facing up, with his thumbs on my pulse. ‘Hmmm…Good’ he murmurs and moves on to the next person in the circle.
All the participants have received the
mapacho smoke and had their energy measured. The shaman sits back behind his
mesa, and then, clockwise from the shaman, we are individually summoned forward to drink the sacred brew. As each person is called up, they kneel or sit in front of the
mesa. The shaman spoons a number of tablespoons of dried cactus powder into a metal, handle-less cup, and offers it to the person. The participant then mentally whispers their intentions for the ceremony into the vessel, and hands it back to the shaman. Upon receiving the cup, he fills it with water from one of the transparent plastic bottles by his side, stirs the mixture until the powder has dissolved a little, then returns the medicine to the participant for them to drink. Once it has been downed, the shaman stirs in more cactus powder and water for the individual to drink until she or he has had the amount that the shaman has judged to be sufficient. Not all participants are given the same amount.
The intention is an important part of healing ceremonies.
Huachuma is used for mental, emotional and sometimes physical healing. The shaman had advised us to spend the previous evening contemplating what emotional or mental healing we were seeking. In my case it was help combatting the grief from the death of all my grandparents, my mother, an aunt, and two close friends, as well as the associated bouts of depression that had been with me for over 10 years.
It is my turn. I kneel in front of the shaman. He heaps three mountainous table-spoons of the powder and drops them in the cup. He hands it to me. I mentally place the words of my intention into the vessel, ‘Please help me to learn how to cope better with my grief and depression’ and return it. He pours the water and stirs. Now the cup is in my hands and I stare down into the swirling dark-green concoction. I’d read about the foul taste and seen the first few people gag to get theirs down. I decide to down it in one. The bitter taste hits the back of my throat, but I drink through it and return the beaker. The shaman fills it with three more gigantic spoonfuls plus the water. I drink again, the taste is much worse this time. I return the cup. Two more heaped spoonfuls are diluted into the cup. The last one. I finish it, thank him and return to my mat, crystals of the powder still swimming in the corners of my mouth. As everyone else drinks, the wind sings soft susurrations in the trees, and hummingbirds ‘tchip, tchup’ and buzz their wings as they flutter and feed.
When everyone has finished drinking, the shaman begins to sing an
icaro in a mixture of Quechua and Spanish. Now that the cactus sacrament has been consumed, we are allowed to roam, but not stray beyond the grounds. It is still cold, even under the thick alpaca-wool blanket. I sit and listen to the
icaros, but after about 10 minutes I get up to go and sit in the sun on a low wall by some bright-green metre-plus San Pedro cacti and wait for the visions to begin. The shaman told us that it would take thirty to ninety minutes for the full effects to kick in, and that after an hour or so he would approach each of us if we wished to drink more in order to ensure that we all ‘get on the buzz’ as he put it. I’d already decided I was going to say yes to another dose.
The cold, hard wall becomes uncomfortable, and I begin to feel nausea mounting in my stomach. I sit cross-legged on the grass, listening to the shaman and his assistant taking it in turns to sing
icaros. The colours in the garden begin to intensify in chroma and saturation. One of the other participants walks past me. I start to analyse them, and then a voice from inside but outside me says ‘Judgement is unnecessary’. Let the schizophrenia commence. My attention is drawn to some tiny black ants in the grass, living out their lives in a miniature forest. Each has their own role and duties to perform; some carry eggs, some are exploring, some look to be communicating information to others, their antennae touching those of their compatriot. Suddenly a fat cat runs up, looking like a puma; its sleek fur, a subtle, glistening gradient between black and brown, catches the sun’s strengthening rays. It is hunting/fighting invisible entities; jumping and pouncing, swiping and swatting. It stares at me with its light blue eyes, then runs off to continue its battles elsewhere. I can definitely feel something other, alien, humming inside me now; waves of discomfort ebb and flow in my gut. I decide to take a walk around the garden, exploring and examining the plants, the surrounding hills, the few small clouds that have started to form to the north and north-east. I sit on another wall, a large garden planter section, next to some white flowers. The whole world seems to be subtly vibrating, dancing. For a while I just gaze into the distance, hypnotised by natures dance. I want to join in. The medicine “voice” tells me that I don’t dance enough in life; life is a dance, and I shouldn’t sit it out. Well, I’m certainly not capable of dancing at this moment, the
huachuma sloshing and churning in my stomach. Visions start to kick in. Here we go.
Time passes in a way that makes it impossible to keep track of the seconds, minutes. How long have I been here? The grass seems to throb, or rather to breathe. I look at one of the small-petalled white flowers and feel a deep love for my wife. I wonder what she is doing at this moment, knowing that she is probably worried about me. My eyelids flutter. I see Buddha sitting meditating in the petals of the white flower, then a demon or devil, perhaps Mara, takes his place. I think of the William Blake quote: ‘To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour’. Are we all bodhisattvas?
I start to try to focus on my intention for the ceremony. I think of my dead relatives, my dead friends, their faces, what they meant to me, how I wasn’t always the best person that I could have been to them. After a while, from out of the now shifting layers of reality, I seem to get the message that I don’t have as much grief as I thought. This makes me feel intensely happy. I had come here expecting to cry my eyes out, but it looks like this isn’t to be the case; I feel I’m going to get off lightly. A bee pollinates the flower, its abdomen moving up and down, like it’s making love to it.
Colours are now much brighter, more intense, more deeply saturated than normal; I’m seeing whole spectrums of shades and hues where before there was just one colour. I look up at the morphing mountains and the swaying grass, the pulsating trees; all of nature is alive and grooving; moving in ways I have never seen before. Shakily standing up, I head to a patio made of broken slates. The remnants of oil in the stones shimmers with iridescence in the morning sunlight and they feel warm to the touch; comforting, I borrow some of their heat. I sit cross-legged, soaking up the sun, and taking in the beauty of the Sacred Valley. The shaman approaches and asks how I’m doing, if I’m feeling the medicine, and how I’m doing with my intention. I tell him that I seem to be getting the message that I don’t have as much grief as I thought, and that I am just “enjoying the garden” as I remember phrasing it. He smiles at me with a knowing look in his eyes, and then goes off to check on the others.
The heat of the sun increases and I decide to head back into the shade of the temple after a quick trip to the toilet. Two toilets are located outside the
ayahuasca temple that is used for night-time ceremonies. I walk past a line of white trumpet-like lilies that look as though they have been made from bleached paper by the skilled hands of an origami expert. They point upwards, symbols of death, silently heralding nature’s mystery to the sky. Going inside kicks the visual hallucinations up a notch. The floor of the bathroom is covered in insects, but when I blink, for the most part they disappear but then return. They mass and crawl all over the orange floor, close to my feet. Not a fan of that! Outside again. When I get back to the temple, I lie down on my mat, put a jacket on, and get under my blanket; I’m already wearing a thick Russian
ushanka style hat, but it is still cold out of the sun.
Music plays from the MP3 player on the
mesa; sometimes sitar music, sometimes chilled trance, always relaxing and thought inducing, conducive to aid in meditation. My mind begins to wander. Staring up at the underside of the roof, the thatched reeds breathe in and out, expanding and contracting, expanding and contracting. The effect is deeply fascinating and I lie mesmerised for an unknown period of time, but after a while it makes me feel a little queasy, so I concentrate on the torch lilies on the other side of the small wall. Suddenly, a hummingbird flits in to feed on their nectar, its wings beating so quickly they are just a blur. The colours are incredibly strong on its body, the feeling of being in the presence of such a graceful mass of bones, flesh, blood, and feathers is almost palpable. It finishes feeding, turns, flies through the temple and straight over my head, less than half a metre above me. I feel ecstatic. Like I have received a blessing. The shaman approaches, asks me if I would like to have another cup of the brew. I say that I’m fine (I’m pretty sure I’d just throw it straight up right now) but will in a little while. He says he’ll come back in an hour or so to ask me again.
The music has stopped. The shaman is seated behind the
mesa. He begins to sing an
icaro. It is unspeakably beautiful, and I close my eyes. Immediately I see the song moving in front of my eyelids, the words are billowing fluid fabrics; ribbons of patterned material, embroidered with motifs similar to those I have seen on many Andean tapestries and handicrafts in the various markets of the mountains. The ribbons weave in and out of each other, creating a beautiful, ornate latticework of detailed threads, then become dancing Chinese dragons, cavorting and leaping, up and down, up and down. I am at a festival, and I seem to hear the clash of cymbals sound in time to the rhythmic dancing of the procession. This continues until the singing stops. I open my eyes, and try to make some notes about what I have seen and how I feel, but my pen scrawls black spider’s web scratchings on the bright white pages of my sketchpad. I stare at my hand and my flesh is moving in a weird, wavy motion. My limbs are shaking. I’m not sure if I am cold, or if it is the medicine.
I look up and the world has changed considerably. There are unblinking kaleidoscopic eyes in all of the plants and trees, everywhere I look; hundreds, thousands. The eyes are not in any way sinister; more like the eyes in a peacock’s tail feathers. The colours in the eyes are impossible to pin down, there are just too many; every tint and shade of blue, green and yellow imaginable and more, tinged at the edges with orange, indigo and violet. I smile in awe. I sit fascinated. The corrugated mountains are rippling more strongly now, as if they are reflections in a lake that has had its surface disturbed. It is odd, but pleasant. I’m enjoying myself, despite the shaking, and the occasional discomfort and nausea.
The shaman’s assistant is playing an instrument (which she later tells me is Indonesian) that sounds like a hang drum, but it is played with padded beaters; its sound is hauntingly, achingly melodic. I sit enchanted, listening to it for an age, soaring as the reverberating notes buoy me towards something profound but always just out of reach. The surrounding scene is so peaceful. From my mat, I take in the vista. To my left, outside of the temple, sentinel trees lean over the fence that guards the border of the garden, their lean trunks swaying, their eyes shining in the sun. Directly ahead of me, shape-shifting summits ripple and rise into the impossibly blue heavens. To my left stands a small house with sandy-brown walls and terracotta roof tiles. In the flowerbed in its shade
huachuma cacti share the soil with bright torch lilies, their red and yellow blooms like flames of holy fire; Promethean hummingbirds hover to sip and pollinate the blaze.
The shaman comes to me and asks if I would like another dose. I say ‘Sure’ and move to the
mesa. He stirs in the powder and hands me the cup. I take it and neck it in two gulps, but the taste is much, much worse this time. I immediately think that this was a bad idea. I return to my mat, but in no time at all I’m rushing for my shoes, vomit already filling my mouth. I make it to the bushes, and puke up most of what I’d tried to force down. I rinse my mouth with water, and spit into the grass. My stomach gurgles and snarls its condemnation. I head to the bathroom. The mostly imaginary insects have multiplied and they try to crawl up my legs in surging waves. It unsurprisingly freaks me out, and I quickly head out of the bathroom, back to the temple.
Back on my mat, I stare up at the reed roof again. Big fat bugs, greeny-yellow with red dots are swarming all over it. I know they are just in my mind, there could never be so many. Their scrabbling, crawling movements make me feel uneasy; I have to look away. The mountains are moving more than ever and patterns seem to be emerging from them; varicoloured fractals; octagrams, hexagrams, and pentagrams of different orientations compete for attention, their lines made up of brilliant prismatic hues. The peacock eyes are still in the plants and trees, somehow much more vivid than before. Epochs pass as I watch the patterns unfold in flowers, leaves, sky, and hillsides. One of the other participants walks past the temple and his face is reproduced perfectly in the clouds above him, even down to his sunglasses and cowboy hat. I hear crying from unseen areas of our Eden; some people are having a rough time of it. I’d heard sporadic vomiting from a few of them earlier, but now two or three are in loud fits of tears. The shaman and his assistant sing i
caros and shake a
shacapa, a rattle made from a bundle of leaves, over people who are struggling. This seems to help them. To some, the shaman gives a therapeutic massage to help them relax and to allow their energy to flow better.
The shaman tells me I can now break my fast, but to go easy, so I have some water and a banana. The sweet, fibrous banana feels like it takes me an hour to eat. I’m really not hungry or thirsty, but hope that some food and water will help with the feeling in my stomach; no longer nausea, but still uncomfortable in an odd way. My limbs are still shaking every now and then. I lie back and get lost in a world that is far from the one I am used to; observing the sublime choreography in nature keeps me occupied for miniature infinities. Everything is wreathed in coloured auras that are not normally there/visible in everyday nature, and all things seem to be reflections of the whole, to contain inherent meaning and importance in this schizophrenic state of apophenia.
The geometric patterns that emerge from everywhere I look start to feel sinister to me, though I can’t explain how; they seem to be trying to communicate some truth about the world and the way it is made up, but it is truth that I know I am somehow not prepared for. Breathing is becoming more difficult, and I am starting to panic a little. I feel as if there is some malevolent presence at work around me. I see the shaman, and feel that he is part demon; his red trousers and yellow top make this seem even more the case; the colours ringing associations in my mind, though I can’t think what and why. I seem to perceive animal ears, like those of an antelope, poking through the top of his straw sun hat. I feel afraid.
I lie in a state of terror for a long time, watching menacing, shifting pellucid patterns in the sky. Suddenly, a translucent alien/demon head appears above the mountains. I feel like it has appeared out of another dimension; out of one of the geometric shapes; a portal. It can see me! It is focusing on me! It is coming for me! Slowly, the creature is descending towards me, but is still a few hundred metres away. I try to fight the feeling, shaking and struggling with my perceptions. I sit up and signal to the shaman. I tell him that I am having trouble breathing, strangely opting not to mention the terrifying sky monster that has me in its sights. He gets me to lie down, encourages me to breathe deeply and sings an
icaro over me while massaging the tops of my pectoral muscles. His eyes are full of kindness and concern for my well-being. My breathing is coming in gasps and I feel like something is being exorcised from me. ‘Let go of your grief, and any fear that comes with it. Just breathe,’ he whispers. I do as he says.
All of sudden, there is a change; I feel incredibly relaxed, like a weight has been lifted from my chest. Tears come to my eyes, and I feel that my grief and depression have gone. It was like the entity sucked them out of me. Had I been projecting parts of myself onto my surroundings? I feel like the alien/demon in the sky was a manifestation of the grief that I had been clinging on to, the negative feelings that I had used as a shield after the deaths of my family and friends.
The shaman tells me that the shaking in my body is the medicine doing its work, and to just lie back and let it do its job. He leaves me, and I lie there awed, quietly shedding a few tears behind my sunglasses; tears of relief and happiness. The demon inside and out is gone. I cannot move yet, but I feel so much better; lighter, enlightened, more alive than I have for a long time. I lie back and close my eyes and am transported into a nexus of refracting lights. Every now and then I open my eyes and look at my vacillating environs as I relax, arms behind my head, then dip back into the visions. Eventually, I sit up for a while, then go to eat a piece of the pineapple that I had brought to share. It is now sitting cut up in a bowl in the middle of the temple floor. It is unbelievably sweet and the fragrant juice is refreshing.
The fractal geometry is still everywhere, but it is no longer threatening. Mosaics and mandalas fill the world. I get up, put on my shoes and go for a walk in the garden, after a quick trip to the insect lair commonly known as the bathroom; the Apocalyptic plague of insects is nowhere to be seen, just a few baby grasshoppers here and there. I stroll around the perimeter of the property admiring the exotic flowers. I find a spot in the garden, in front of the shaman’s house and sit cross-legged on the warm grass. Something tells me I should try to fit my limbs into the position outlined by one of the five-pointed geometric shapes I have been seeing all day. I do so, close my eyes, and for a brief moment I have oryx horns. Am I becoming Baphomet? I am transported to a temple behind my eyelids.
I look up and the roof of the temple is covered with religious symbols, some I recognise, some I don’t; Om symbols, ankhs, stars, and crosses of different kinds. I am in the space where all religions come from, where all the symbols are encountered, all is one, an archetypal place of mystery. I can only see the ceiling, where four arches meet. Why is that? When I open my eyes, the “real” sky is polychromatic. I sit and watch the colours and their borders slide into and out of one another. Nature has never looked so beautiful. The branches of the trees in the hedgerow flow and interweave, forming swirling arabesques. I feel Gaia as art, artist, and muse combined. I’m totally uplifted, elated by what I am seeing and experiencing, but after a while, I notice that my skin is beginning to burn a little, so I get up and head to the temple to put on more sunscreen.
I return to the garden and sit on a chair on the patio. I notice a line of ants moving across its surface. Instantly, I am Anubis, Egyptian jackal-headed god of the afterlife, but in statue form. I am hundreds of metres high, sculpted out of jet-black onyx. I am a monument to death. I watch the ants become tiny people as they toil away beneath me.
The sun is sinking and the visions are less intense now, but the geometry stays with me, still multi-coloured, still everywhere I look. Most of the other participants seem to be coming down a little too, not much, but the tears and vomiting of the morning and early afternoon have abated; some walk past me and it feels odd not to be able to communicate with them. This afternoon we are the principle actors in our own dramas; characters in a novel; Virginia Woolf’s
To the Lighthouse; part of a whole and yet always separate, each alone in an introspective stream-of-consciousness, grappling with the complexities of our own experiences, our relationship to others, and to the whole. For a moment I feel isolated, but then that isolation becomes strength. I notice a raised cactus bed to my left. The edge is walled with stones, and from the front protrudes a stone snake’s head. I gaze into the serpent’s eye, trapped in its stony gaze.
The snake is a common motif in Peruvian shamanism, especially in
ayahuasca visions. In Inca cosmology it is part of a trinity; condor (or sometimes hummingbird), puma, and snake. The condor/hummingbird represents the upper world (
Hanan Pacha in Quechua), our highest values, spiritual energy and the soul. The puma is symbolic of the middle world (Kay Pacha), power and the body. The snake is representative of the underworld (Uku Pacha), the mind, wisdom and healing. Like a snake I feel I have shed part of my previous self, my mind feels renewed, refreshed, the old skin that no longer serves me has been laid aside. I sit and watch the sun gradually descend towards the motionless mountains. All day, time has been speeding up and slowing down, making it hard to know what hour it is. Is it really nearly sunset? I watch the rays bend around the terraced slopes. As the sun begins to dip behind the far mountains in the west, the shaman approaches and asks me to return to the San Pedro temple. It’s time to close the ceremony.
Everyone gathers in the temple. We are given some lemon-scented
agua florida; a Peruvian perfume used to cleanse, purify, and heal. I rub the strong-smelling liquid on my hands and face; it seems to bring me back down to earth a little. The shaman lights a
mapacho, walks to the centre of the floor and blows smoke to the sky and the earth. He sings an
icaro as the sun disappears behind the mountains. The shaman says that we honour past traditions but also create our own. A tradition for his ceremonies is to end with a specific track. He presses play on the MP3 player, and we sit and listen. It is suddenly much colder. He reminds us that we can now interact with each other, but not with anyone else who hasn’t participated in the ceremony until the morning. He says that though we can now talk, we are still very much on the medicine (a reminder that most of us didn’t need), and that we were under no pressure to chat; that we can find a quiet space for contemplation if we need it. The sacred ceremonial space is now closed. ‘Dinner will be served in an hour’. We pack up the mats and pillows. Standing up, the medicine loops back in, and I’m buzzing again. I get my stuff together, put everything into my backpack, and lay out my bed space in the indoor
ayahuasca temple. Rooms are available in a nearby hotel, but it seems everyone is planning to sleep on the temple floor. I go outside and sit in the garden, watching pastel bands of light fade behind the silhouettes of still peaks.
Dinner time. We gather and sit around the wooden dining table in the shaman’s house. Light vegetable soup and bread is placed in front of eyes still orbiting the spaceport. Some people tuck straight in after the fasting and puking, but for others, myself included, this is too much too soon to stomach. At one end of the table conversation and giggles flow like undammed rivers. At the other people seem to be still strongly under the effects of the brew, and garrulousness comes less easily. I pick up my spoon, my limbs shaking slightly from the cactus metaphorically prickling inside my system. I raise a spoonful of liquid to my mouth. As I do so, I notice that it is filled with the same psychedelic shapes I have been seeing all day. I stare, and then think how odd I must look to the people around the table. Now I’m chuckling into my soup. It’s like sacred geometry Alphabetti Spaghetti. I eat some stars and octagrams, but I’m not really that hungry. Chatting with the two women next to me, both tell me they had a hard time today; much purging and crying; they say they are drained. One tells me she has a 12 day
ayahuasca retreat coming up, and after the events of today’s ceremony, has no idea how she will cope with the intensity. The shaman smiles, laughs, and tells her she’ll be fine. I find making conversation difficult; I’m still way too high, so opt for listening, grinning, and nodding, though I’m not really following everything that is being said; I’m still getting stimuli from everywhere and there’s just too much data to process. After a while I find I’m able to chat better, the medicine changing its, as well as my, gears again. We spend an hour or so conversing about our lives, reasons for attending the ceremony, and the day’s experiences. Carrot cake apparates from a shadowed corner, but I take the smallest of slices, and find even that heavy going.
I feel sleep tugging at my edges. Inside the temple, some people are already in bed, huddled against the cold. I put on all of my warm clothes, get under my poncho and blanket, but am still chilly. Moron! I’ve forgotten my gloves and extra jumper back in the flat in Cusco. After a while I get warm-ish and maintain that temperature if I leave only my eyes and nose-bridge exposed to the night air. The rest of the group shortly follow us in, and the lights and torches are turned off.
The roof of the
ayahuasca temple is glass. The moon and stars shine down. The polygons are still wherever I look, eyes closed or open, but are less pronounced. From time to time, shooting stars burn across the clear black sky. I’m tired, no I’m exhausted, but sleep won’t come; my mind is still on longwave and won’t tune out. Other participants start to snore. Blankets rustle as the sleepers toss and turn, trying to bury deeper into the covers. Cold. Cold. Cold. One of the older guys is an insanely heavy breather. He sounds like a horse; snorting and snuffling, wheezing and grunting. My stomach churns throughout the night. My mind may like cactus, but my gut sure doesn’t. I lie and watch the stars, awake for most of the night; my mind, the geometry, and the noises from the others keeping me awake until the early hours. Eventually, I get a couple of hours sleep. All too soon it is time to get up. Amazingly, I’m not tired at all.
At 9 a.m. we meet in the shaman’s house in order to discuss the previous day and to share our experiences. We sit in the lounge area. Around the room in a clockwise direction, we take turns in relating what we learned from our encounter with the medicine. Most people feel a heightened/deepened connection with nature. Others feel they have undergone an emotional catharsis or release. Some have a greater connection with and understanding of their emotions. But it has not been the case for everyone; one guy says the experience has raised more questions than it has answered for him. Not all have had such intense visuals as I experienced. Before I leave, the shaman tells me to look at the geometry with my heart rather than my mind. I’m not sure what this means; perhaps I’ll try painting what I saw. I should ask him more about the geometry, but I need to leave; I’m meeting my wife soon and have to walk the fifteen to twenty-minute walk to town first.
I know I have discovered more about my relationship with grief and depression; I feel that I have a deeper understanding of both; they are parts of me that were once vital to my coping with life but are no longer needed. In this sense my intention has been met. I feel more at one with myself; there is less conflict in me. The walls that protected me in the past, built up after the deaths of my family members and friends, also kept me isolated and divided; I clung to them for too long and after a while they no longer truly served me. Brick by brick they have begun to come down, and I can see over the wall into a garden filled with potential and possibility. I intend to work on being less critical and more accepting of my feelings. I also feel more of a connection with the natural world, and the patterns in nature; a reaffirmation of the interconnectedness of all things. True,
huachuma blessed me with some playtime, but it also took me to school as well. I leave the shaman’s house feeling refreshed, lighter, happier. As I walk back along the dirt track, hummingbirds and sparrows feed and sing in the trees that line my way.
I sit next to an old church overlooking the
choclo (maize) and quinoa fields and eat
choclo con queso (maize on the cob with a chunk of local cheese). The sides of the valley slope down to my left and right. Below, farmers harvest their crops, their cattle lowing in the middle-distance. The wind is still, the atmosphere agrarian, calm and peaceful. As I sit, I think about the day before and make notes. Expressing these things in words is not an easy task; there is not a perfect relationship between the signs and symbols I use and what I would like them to signify. I try to draw some of the geometric shapes that featured so prominently in the visions. As I finish sketching, my wife calls and tells me she’s just arrived. I shoulder my bag and head along a cobbled street into town.
An account of plant medicine healing in the Peruvian Andes.
medium.com
