A Psychedelic Gumbo of Goodness
Huasca Brew (Syrian Rue, D. cabrerana & P. viridis)
Citation:   crystallinesheen. "A Psychedelic Gumbo of Goodness: An Experience with Huasca Brew (Syrian Rue, D. cabrerana & P. viridis) (exp24973)". Erowid.org. Jul 7, 2003. erowid.org/exp/24973

 
DOSE:
T+ 0:00
3.5 g oral Syrian Rue (capsule)
  T+ 0:20 5.0 g oral Diplopterys cabrerana (tea)
  T+ 0:20 45 g oral Psychotria viridis (tea)
  T+ 3:00 2.5 g oral Diplopterys cabrerana (tea)
  T+ 3:00 20 g oral Psychotria viridis (tea)
  T+ 0:00   repeated oral Yerba Mate (tea)
BODY WEIGHT: 175 lb
As of late, I have felt the need to take a good dose of the Sacred Medicine. I had taken ayahuasca three times previously, always to great effect. The first & second times were incredible experiences, oh how wonderful it is to be introduced into hyperspace! I utilized the classic blend of banisteroposis & psychotria for those voyages. On the third occasion, I felt up to using the Syrian rue/mimosa hostilis combination. After reading that this combo was much more potent than the traditional brew, I consumed it with trepidation. Three grams of rue and twenty of the mimosa actually didn't do too much to me in comparison to the previous concoctions. I purged & got a good experience, but really didn't feel 'cleansed' when I came back. Could have possibly been my mindset at the time, but I was left slightly disappointed.

So, these previous experiences paved the way for my latest expedition. I had 7 grams of Syrian rue remaining, and about 15 grams of diplopterys cabrerana in my 'shaman's box.' Also, since I grow psychotria, I had a stock of about 30 grams of dried homegrown leaf. I figured, 'Hey, I really could use a good dose of medicine,' so I decided to prepare a trip for when I had a good weekend. Ayahuasca is the kind of substance that, in my opinion, is not really something you can do at the spur of the moment. Such things as LSD & MDMA I can do pretty much spontaneously, but not the aya. Generally, I like to plan about a week in advance. Anything I can do to take a little better care of myself during that time, I do. Since I am a moderate drinker, I try to cut back on the alcohol during that week, as well as greasy food. The night before, I like to either eat something simple like a salad, or beans & rice or somesuch. I fast for the whole day while I am making the brew, as when you are purging, it is best to have as little in your digestive system as possible.

On the big day, I drank a lot of yerba mate (guaysca) while preparing the brew. Traditionally, this beverage is consumed in South America the way we drink coffee. Like coffee, it contains caffeine, but also contains a nice array of nutrients to keep your body fueled. It is consumed traditionally during ayahuasca ceremonies to give one strength to deal with the visions, & I definitely recommend it. On a daily basis, I drink the stuff, and it is wonderful! It wakes me up without the jitteriness of coffee, and is the equivalent of a 'liquid vegetable.'

Now, I feel that it is important to be in a very good state of mind while preparing the brew, no distractions at all. Take the phone off the hook. If you like to watch TV, don't. Burn some incense to sweeten the air, and your spirit. The important thing is to do things you like to do. I feel the focus for doing this whole thing is YOURSELF. Pretend your aya day is like a special day for you! Make it a memorable experience. You're about to go off into places that most people don't encounter until they die. Make sure your body is ready to handle an intense, but very natural experience.

I woke up at around ten on the morning of the appointed day, and immediately set to work cleaning my house from top to bottom. I am such a neatnick, when I trip I hate to see disorder or funkiness anywhere. Plus, since I am going to clean out my body & spirit, I wanted my surrounding environment to reflect that. While I was doing that, my sister called from home, 6000 miles away, and we had a nice little conversation. I got to hear her little son say 'duck' on the phone, really making me feel very positive and good. He is only ten months old, and is just starting to speak in a comprehendible fashion, making everything he says pure gold to all of his family.

After talking to my sis & the aforementioned housecleaning, I felt charged with positive energy, and started to brew up my magical potion. I brewed the 15 grams of diplopterys with approximately 30 grams of dry psychotria and 100 grams of fresh leaves off of my plants. This would be the first time I had used my own plants' leaves in my ayahuasca, I hoped that the alkaloid content would be high enough. I didn't have a clue to the DMT content of the plants, as they are only about a year old. But when I actually got around to snip the leaves, I just knew that they were gonna be potent. I guess the plants assured me telepathically.

This combo I brewed in filtered water three times for an hour apiece, straining each time. I added one lemon to each extraction to help the alkaloids dissolve into the water by lowering the pH. While the brew was slowly boiling, my sweetie calls from work. 'Hey baby, would you like to do some ayahuasca tonight?' I ask with a grin. She responds enthusiastically, 'Yeah!' and hurries home. For quite a while, she had wanted to try it with me, and finally I felt that the time had arrived. We have done many psychedelic substances together, but never ayahuasca. I wanted to make it a great experience for her, of course! I was kinda reserved about introducing her to aya with anything other than the classic vine/psychotria combo, but my emerging shamanic instincts told me otherwise. It assured me that the rue was a capable ally.

My girl gets home all excited, and watches me as I cap up the seven grams of rue in 00 capsules. Let me tell you, capping the stuff is so much better than swallowing it! It came out to about 15 pills, which we would split evenly. I then constructed an altar, with small banisteropsis & psychotria plants on it, illuminated by candles. It's good to have a focal point for your trip, I have found. Candles are definitely a must-they give you that soft, natural light that all dilated pupils crave! Finally, at about ten o'clock that evening, we consumed the Syrian rue.

00:00 Consumed the rue caps, after I make a prayer to the plant spirits to protect & guide us. My darling, (now known as E) throws 'em back with a swallow of water. She seemed to be slightly anxious about trying out a new substance, but don't we all? Put some Disco Biscuits on the CD player, their blend of electronica & jam music fit the experience perfectly.

00:20 Started to feel the first alert of the rue dissolving in my stomach. The harmine (harmaline?) always gives me a very subtle 'third eye opening' kind of mental stimulation. I feel sober but much more psychically receptive. E starts to feel it coming on strong as well. At about this point, I like to start smoking copious amounts of marijuana (which we most enjoyably did), as it helps immensely with the stomach discomfort associated with consuming such substances. Time to swallow the DMT brew. I warn E, 'Baby, now this is the hardest part of the experience,' and pour her a coffee cup full of the muddy-brown liquid. We toast, and take a drink. From past experience, I know to drink slowly, but quickly, as to get the maximum amount of medicine in my system before I can't drink it anymore, as it is so damn bitter. E decides to take a giant gulp, and almost immediately vomits.

00:30 E purges, and feels bad for having gone so early. I encourage her to drink the rest of her cup, and to hold it down as long as possible. This she does, to good effect. I finally drink about 2/3 of my cup before my stomach tells me to stop.

00:45 Nausea is starting to build. It is still manageable, but increasingly uncomfortable. I won't give in until my teeth are swimming. Gotta keep it in as long as possible, I told myself. Funny, I never had the urge to vomit so much so early. Attribute that to the rue.

00:55 Can't take it any longer. The ayahuasca has pulled out all of the negative energy out of me at a early point of the trip. It's time to heal. E is starting to really feel the effects of the DMT and is talking quite a bit. I can't do much but nod as the purge builds to horrible extremes. Time to go! I wander outside and eject the brew from my body. I always trip on the whole metaphor of the purge, it is so nasty & unappealing, yet so ultimately wholesome.

01:10 I wander back inside the house, feeling absolutely marvelous. Everything is moving and ALIVE! Tracers all over my vison, plus fantastic CEV's. E is also feeling very fine, and we start having very deep & intellectual conversation. It is such a great relief that the potion turned out to be rather potent, and I could definitely tell the contribution of the 5-MeO-DMT contained in the diplopterys. It gave me a feeling like aluminum foil was being scraped up and down my spinal column, which sounds weird but really wasn't, along with electric blue flashing tracers & mental flares that normal psychotria does not usually provide by itself.

01:30 We are deep into the trip. I am seeing fantastic OEV's, nothing is holding still for too long before it is obliterated into shards of tracers and body rolls slightly reminiscent of MDMA. I feel wonderful, and my mind is humming along like a finely-tuned machine. E and I are having conversations mostly centering on politics and the issues of our day. Like many of you, I have been thinking a lot about our current events, and what they will ultimately lead up to. I felt suddenly in the mood for the new Radiohead album, 'Hail to the Thief,' which we put on with great glee. When I have dosed on psychedelics since that infamous date (do I even need to say that date any more, it seems superfluous), I have endlessly thought about this new world of war that we now inhabit. I don't like it one damn bit, let me tell ya'll.

I don't want to get into politics right now, but I see my America slipping faster and faster into a fascist dictatorship, and it pisses me off. So we talk about this kinda shit for quite a while. Funny how we were relaxed enough in our trips to be able to talk about such things. If I am on acid, I don't want to discuss such sordid matters, but on aya (as on AMT) I rather enjoy dissecting politics. Anyway, we didn't get hung up in the negative bardo of politicos for very long. Our conversation morphed into (lighter?) discussions on death & reincarnation. I felt my the weight of my existences across the ages. Both the end and the beginning of our lives were totally visible to us, which is always reassuring. Death is no big deal, it is just a door. A door between incarnations, which is both enter/exit. Life is an atomic detonation of energy that eventually cools off and drifts away, but those molecules are recycled and perpetuated for all eternity. But those molecules are permanently charged with the energies of those creatures that they belonged to! Finally, at the end of existence, they come to a critical mass, then BOOM! You have another Big Bang, and the whole thing begins again.

I found myself morphing through many periods & facets of history, finally coming back to this world to share my views with my beloved. Eventually, we started talking about everything under the sun. It was so remarkable how our brains were so filled with energy; intricate philosophical discussions came out so effortlessly.

03:00 I started to feel the initial rush of DMT starting to wear down. For the past two hours, we had been conversing at a very fluid rate, much like how you chat on coke or MDMA, but much more naturally. Our stomachs seemed to be in good spirits, so we decided to drink the remaining amount of our brews. I reheated it on the stove (nothing tastes nastier than COLD aya) and we drank the rest, about three swallows apiece.

03:20 A light nausea starts to build in my stomach. Cursing, I realized that even my body was already exposed to the DMT, I was going to have to go through the whole cycle of purging again. Oh, what the hell. I drank a few gulps of water and puked the rest up outside. Not very fun, but cleansing...my trip didn't come back on, though. I don't guess that it had much time to absorb into my system. E gets sick a little while after, but really seems to have a boosted trip. We fall right back into nebulous conversation, really enjoying ourselves. E really seemed to feel comfortable with ayahuasca, and of that I was glad. The brew certainly turned out to be a success, and that knowledge gave us a good warm feeling as we spent the hours talking about everything under the moon! We both agreed that we both highly enjoyed the experience, and that it totally gave us heaps of good energy. But we were still tripping and I was still making connections.

Ayahuasca always makes me think of myself as a Universal citizen. No longer am I just a American living in Hawaii, I am a member of the UNIVERSE. What is the world wide web, the internet? A great way to find out information, for sure, but it is much more than that. It is symbolic of all of the intelligence in this dimension, and of everyone and everything capable of perception. It's one giant web of interconnectedness & consciousness. Soon, we will have to acknowledge that we are members of a galactic community that can communicate with one another across the invisible webworks that span the galaxy. I have experienced this on aya, it is a startling and interesting observation. Entering telepathic communication with extra-dimensional entities is an amazing thing to experience, let me tell ya'll! They are just waiting until enough of us are able to fully interact with them until they introduce themselves to everyone. Until then, they just like to watch us watch them in the DMT flash. Elves, demons, fairies, what have you, they are all different entities on different planes of existence watching us. I mean, we can watch them too in that state of consciousness, if we wish. Ahh, communication, don't ya just love it?

05:00 Eventually, we came back to baseline from a strong +3 at the peak. We were both totally overwhelmed with very fluid thoughts even at this late point in the trip. E passes out, while I get on the internet, writing friends about my wonderful experience. It is always amazing to me how great I always feel after doing aya, especially as I usually hadn't eaten in a entire day. As the dawn crept on, I watched the rising sun light up the jungle, and I reflected on the awesome enormity of the message that had imparted to me. Every time I go out in ayahuasca-reality, I come back with a new message, or just a simple satisfaction. Not long after dawn, I passed out with a grin on my face, feeling like a load had been lifted off of my shoulders.

The Week After

Never since I have been introduced to ayahuasca have I felt such long after affects after taking a dose. These effects are very desirable, and involve a generally expanded perception, along with a very relaxed attitude. Lately, until this experience, I have felt a lot of tension & anxiety, with my personal situation and the general state of the world. It's all gone now. Not like I took a Xanax and just numbed the pain, it's like I got to the root of the damned thing. I refuse to take any kind of anti-depressant or anti-anxiety drug, as I feel like that shit just takes away what is innately you. What if Kurt Cobain would have gone on Prozac? Edgar Allan Poe? I mean, sometimes angst is healthy but this is all from my perspective. If these drugs help ya'll to live healthy lives, so be it, that's good. Do what you have to do. But I feel in this world, we just live unnatural & unhealthy existences for the most part, which really tweaks out our chemical balances. All of those dyes & preservatives just throws us all out of wack!

But ayahuasca, to me at least, seems to balance me out in a very wholesome & healthy way. For the past 5 days since taking the brew, both E and I have been having many deeply intellectual conversations. Our minds are still operating in the DMT space, we feel very mentally clear & positive. Ayahuasca is such an enabler; it's so good to clean house. A large part of our conversations on aya usually center on discussing things from the past that still influence our behavior today. This is part of the mechanism of healing, of bringing up bad gunk from the depths of your soul and exorcising it from your being. We were shown much wisdom on our trip from the plant oversouls. Someday soon, we will all be adopted into the community of intergalactic individuals, but it will take time.

As a result of my ayahuasca experiences, I try to live a more enlightened lifestyle. I love eating meat, but have totally eschewed beef in protest of the massive rain forest destruction waged in its perpetuation. Now, it sounds all trendy for us neo-hippie/raver types to do such things, but for me, it was a matter of actually feeling the destruction of the forests that caused me to change my eating habits. After my first aya experience, I swore to the plant that I would help to perpetuate it and spread the message to those who could use the healing. I urge all of you who have experienced this magic to do the same. If we let it, these plants can save our world. All our lives we have been enthralled of tales of wizards & their potions that did such miraculous things. Well, here we have a potion that can totally detoxify us, and expand our minds to boot. The plants are precious, and they can help us, if we are open to their message & healing powers. Aloha!

Exp Year: 2003ExpID: 24973
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jul 7, 2003Views: 51,558
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Psychotria viridis (170), Diplopterys cabrerana (157), Syrian Rue (45), Huasca Brew (268) : Personal Preparation (45), Health Benefits (32), Glowing Experiences (4), Preparation / Recipes (30), Combinations (3), General (1), Small Group (2-9) (17)

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