DOSE:

1 oz

oral

Ayahuasca

(tea)

BODY WEIGHT:

109 lb

This is the first night experience over a weekend I sat in a ceremony circle with a shaman, whom I’ve worked with before. My purpose for drinking the medicine has always been for spiritual exploration. In preparation I was on a specified diet for 7 days — no pork, no red meat, no sugar, low salt, no alcohol. In addition I also abstained from sexual activities. Before the ceremony, the shaman and I discussed how deep of an experience I want to have. The amount of ayahuasca given to me is based on that. I estimate the dosage to be about between 1 oz to 2 oz.

I started knowing. I’m at ease with the ebbs and flows. I get a little nauseous drinking the cup but it is a passing feeling without a dark imprint. I get back to my place and wipe my mouth.

It seems I already started to see visual patterns.

I lie down a little and fall to my thoughts. When I wake up in a minute, it’s a different world.

I lie with my knees bent on my back and the covers on me. I’m warm and non-differentiated. The warmth keeps growing and growing until I think it’s a fire that will burn me away. This is a familiar place I’ve experienced with the medicine before. I think fondly and with trust of the warmth. I note that the warmth is searing.

This is brought on by the shaman’s singing. The shaman sings low repetitive notes that start my body or my center vibrating. The vibrations are what heats up the limbs until they have melted away.

I straighten my legs. I flip over to a child’s pose. When I put my head on the zafu it feels vast. I melt into a puddle with the warmth again. It seems the folds of my legs and hips are shadows of feeling pool of golden warmth. I worry that my body will break if I continue to stay in this place. The heat is cooking me. And for a while I let it.

Later the world start to be become different and unknown words. The words all have a common feel, a particular way they sound. I know somehow this is the important part.

The universe is filled with the new words, the words make my throat into a particular shape. The words morph and all contain octagons. Little octagons that occupy everything, in my mouth, but the sound I don’t know how to make.

I’m disoriented when I lie down on my back. I try to get up and the room has stretched and shrunk into dimensions I can’t fathom. My head doesn’t know where it is. The universe is filling with octagon words. I’m terrified I can’t understand it. I’m terrified I don’t know how or when the purging will come on. I call for the helper and the helper tells me “you’re safe and supported”.

The helper hands me a new bucket that I asked for. It feels small, I don’t believe the size of my hands. Is it that my head is much further away now? When I’m afraid, the moment is overwhelming. The octagons in the words are telling me something.

The helper tells me “try to let go as much as possible.” I don’t know what the words mean but I try it. I back away from the dark circle enthralling me. I let my chest, my center be yielding. But the bucket is too small. I’m crying, yawning, and crying. My nose is filled and I keep reaching out to find tissues. The helper had put lots of tissues where I was reaching. I find this very joyful. I laugh.

When I purge, my body struggle for breath. The liquid was dark, I’m sure. And concentrated. When I finish, I’m spent. The exertions do not stay with me. They pass like the liquid into another vessel.

In the center of my upheaval, I can find no center. It seemed the more I reached out to grab a thing, that thing was elusive or changing. I grasp in my mind for a known experience. This is not a known experience. Positions of things are not right, not expected. The spiritual body is not to scale.

The helper says, “try to listen to the shaman’s singing.” And I do. I hear the song now, and it lifts my body upright. I feel light as a bird. All the previous darkness is still there, on the ground, in my belly, hips, legs. But my arms, shoulders are a bird, a white bird rising.

Eventually, the shaman asks me to sit opposite and sings to me. There is a part of me that wants a different experience. I let the song sooth me, caress the spiritual body where it had been pierced open to release the fluids that no longer serves this vessel. At the end of the song, the shaman puts fragrant water on my head and blows into me. I feel a light entering and the clearing away of what was blocking.

Exp Year: 2016	ExpID: 110106
Gender: Not Specified
Age at time of experience: 39
Published: Jul 2, 2017	Views: 1,491
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