Maria's Pilgrimage to the Peruvian Amazon: 2nd Blog
SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 2008
THE PURGE
Before doing the Ayahuasca medicine, we were required to cleanse ourselves from the dense energies of our daily lives. This entailed using a tea of Amazonian tobacco to induce vomiting. The vomiting creates an opening to the flow of energy within our body's core. When a person resists vomiting or isn't able to vomit, this signals the healers that they have a powerful psycho-somatic or mental block in their chakras around solar plexus, heart and throat.
The ceremony was very simple. We each sat around the edge of the Maloca inside on foam cushions. We each had tissue, a bucket and two one liter plastic bottles of water. Eda's brother, Javier, who is the Ayahuascero, brought us the tobacco tea in stainless steel cups, half full. We were told to drink down the tea in one gulp, then follow with as much water as we could drink. This sequence begins the vomiting process. The tobacco tea has an absolutely horrible flavor! After the first purge, we had to continue drinking water until we purged again, due to being overly full of water, until we'd finished both liters.
I was surprised at the strength of the tea, not just in it's horrible flavor, but in it's medicinal effects. After my first purge all my muscles relaxed to the point that I had trouble sitting up straight. I became very dizzy as well. Eda said I did very well, that I vomited easily and in large quantities. Isn't that lovely!
After purging everything out I lay down on my cushions. By this point the macaw had walked over to my area. While there he tried to climb the walls, which didn't work, so he climbed up onto my cushions and started falling asleep. I lay my head down near his little, strong black feet and slept a little. Later, when I experience my Ayahuasca journey, I am happy that one of my first visions is of the macaws eye looking at me.
By the time I had the strength to move and eat again it was 4pm and we had five hours until the main ceremony.
I felt very cleaned out!
SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 2008
THE FIRST CEREMONY
Participants at the Ayahuasca ceremony included Jeni- a young woman who is staying 24 days with Eda to do ceremony, Elizabeth, Liz, Sebastian-a young man from Chile who decided to begin his new year with an eight day Ayahuasca cleanse with special diet and solitude, Eda, Javier and myself.
The women began our ceremony by meeting in the Maloca alone to pray. Because of Liz's fear, Eda requested that we make prayers as we do at home, so we burned sage and made tobacco bundles with red fabric. It seemed to calm everyones nerves and ten minutes before the Ayahuascero arrived with the medicine, Liz decided she would participate.
Again, we each sat on cushions against the walls. We each had a blanket, a small bottle of water and tissue.
Javier began by lighting a special pipe of sacred tobacco. He blew smoke into a bottle of floral water used only in ceremony, then he walked to the center of the Malocca and sprayed floral water with his mouth to the four directions. He then sat and began singing the opening songs, inviting the power of Madre Ayahuasca. His songs were in either Spanish or Quechua (the native language of many rainforest tribes).
After many songs he invited us to come up one by one to receive a small cup of Ayahuasca medicine. He poured the amount based on what he knew about us through our questionnaires and feeling our energy in the moment.
After we'd all received the medicine, he blew out the oil lamp (there is no electricity at Hampichicuy) and we were in darkness. Javier's beautiful songs resonated throughout the Malocca, weaving between us, sounding as if he were right next to each one. And then Eda's voice would join and sometimes Sebastian's and the ceremonial house would fill with power.
This first half was very relaxing and sweet. Intuitively Javier sang faster songs just as the medicine began to kick in. But even this was gentle, with some geometric-pattern vision, enhanced lucidity and focused prayer.
We were invited to take a second drink half way through. Liz was having a positive experience and was not going to take more, but again, at the last minute she got up and sat before Javier to drink a second cup.
For me, I was having severe neck and head pain before my second drink. Eda advised that I drink my next cup of Ayahuasca with the intention to throw up. That my headache was stuck energy that I needed to move. So this was my prayer as I drank down my second cup. About half an hour later, I began to feel immense heart-ache for the planet and I couldn't control my body's loud sobbing. This led me straight into vomiting. Up until then I had been stifling my sadness, not wanting to disturb people, but this only created more of a block, which in turn blocked me from purging.
My headache was completely gone after I purged. And I lay down for the remainder of the night, thinking of my loved ones and feeling such immense gratitude for my life and my community. At one point Sebastian sang a series of songs, one of which was in Lakota! He was singing about the Canunpa! Oh how my heart opened and I cried then! And the amazing thing is, I recognized the song - not from Lakota ceremonies I've done, but from a recent very powerful dream I'd had about Liz and I traveling to Peru!
After about four hours the songs stopped and everyone eventually fell asleep or left for their sleeping quarters. For a while Eda and I sat outside whispering together, holding hands, and watching the fireflies. The nights have been sooooo warm and mildly humid. There are so many incredible sounds in the jungle at night!
The next morning I woke to the sound of pouring rain. How cleansing. And today Liz and I realized that we are doing the Ayahuasca medicine during the waning moon - Releasing.
Today, we all met with Javier in the Maloca to talk about our experiences. He said afterward that we should wait until Monday to do our next ceremony, because some of us had strong reactions. By strong reactions I don't mean lots of hallucinations or meeting God or something of that sort. I mean, meeting the most powerful part of our inner-judge and being consumed in doubt and confusion. Therefore, tomorrow we will rest, integrate, journal, and go for a hike to a waterfall.
During this review of our experiences, I was so aware of how much we Dominant culture Westerners analyze everything and need to punish ourselves for every "not good enoughness".
The American manic-mind has never been so clear and apparent, laid open for all to see. Compared to the organic world-view, daily flow of energy and approach to living of the Peruvian people we've met so far, we Americans and Europeans have a lot of slowing down to do if we're ever going to heal and be whole.
Monday we will meet in the Malocca at 9pm for our second session
