Love Conquers All

We sat in darkness, waiting to be called to the center, to be given the elixer of unshrouded mysteries. I was holding Love in my heart. Allowing its strength and solidity to wash over me. Sitting closest to Alberto, I was last to be called. When it was my time, I went shakily and knelt in front of Herbert, who was administering tonight. I held the little cup in my hands, closed my eyes, lifted it above me and said, "I do this for Love. Because I Love myself." I poured the salty concoction into my mouth and allowed it fall freely into my body. As soon as it was in my belly, I began the chant. "Love, Love, Love, Love. People we are made to Love. Love each other as ourselves for we are One." Over and over and over. I felt a sense of peace and rightness. Tonight would be the night. It was failproof. After about thirty minutes, I could feel Aya mama taking over and began to see many things as from a distance. I saw the monster, but not as scary this time because now I knew she was me. She was the one who was scared. She was onto me knowing. I approached her and could see my heart in my chest, filled with Light. The monster grew smaller until she was a wall of muck and mire, dripping gunk and nastiness. I reached my hand into that crap, heart beating with Love for what I was about to see and pull out. And my God. My God. My God. Goddess. I felt her hand. Small. Tiny. She couldn´t resist because I couldn´t resist. She was ready, too. Oh so ready. I had been talking to her all day. Promising her beauty and a different place. Hope. Love. Kindness. Goodness. It´s not your fault. You are not to blame. You are such a beautiful little angel. You deserve to be with me, to experience Love. I Love you. I will not let anyone ever harm you again. Darling. Sweetheart. Because really, she was just that. A six year old girl with much to bear upon her small, frail shoulders. My heart broke at how long she´s lived with this burden. And I saw her. This is an experience I will never forget. After having never been able to remember me as a child, I was now gifted with a rare opportunity to see me from the eyes of a grown-up. A guardian. A teacher. A mentor. She came out, her hand holding mine. She was small and thin. A beautiful brown color, her head bowed down, and man, I just pulled her too me. None of this shame anymore. I held her tight. I hugged her and felt how young she was. So beautiful. So, this is you? This is me? God, I love you. I never want to let you go. I could feel her the warmth of her body in my arms. I let her go and looked her in the eyes. This nightmare is over, you hear me? You no longer have to live where you´ve been living. You are free now. Taste your freedom. You´re going to live with me now, and you´re going to be just fine. At this point, I felt sick in my stomach. I knew it was her. I told her, "Go ahead, throw up all the crap you´ve been living with. Throw it all up. Let it go. Get it out of you." And I held her little body as she doubled over and heaved out black gunk. Tears were streaming down her face and I kept thinking, "How brave. How brave." The rest of my vision was of us playing together, in the river, splashing. Me hugging her. Her letting go. Releasing. And Love. A grateful heart with no bounds. No limits. No fears. No anxiety. Love. Love. Love. And then I was flying in my mind. In the universe. I could feel the vibration of every living thing in my body. No other thoughts. Loss of Ego. Loss of my own Voice. Just One with everything around me. Beautiful. I wanted to stay there forever. Ahhhhhhhhhh. sweet. release. welcome home. we are one.

Dissecting the Monster

The whole next morning I walked with this lingering feeling of sadness and futility. Sitting on the ground of my casita, I wallowed in misery. Alberto came to bring me my lunch, but I wasn´t hungry. I had no appetite for anything that would sustain me. He asked how I was doing and I told him about the demons. I told him I was still scared of losing myself in my own misery and never being able to feel joy again. He told me I had to not focus on the darkness, but instead dwell on the Light. My faith. Prayer. I told him I felt I had lost my faith and where do I go from there? He told me about a person who had recently done dieta for a month and a half! This person had several demons that she slept with and who were not pleased at her attempts at healing herself. I didn´t allow the fear to show on my face, but a sudden further dreading rose to the surface. Would I be like that? We talked a little bit longer before he left to deliver the rest of the meals. I sat in my hammock an just stared out. I tried to sing the song that had been helping me so much: "Love, Love, Love, Love, People we are made to Love, Love each other as ourselves, for We are one . . ." The fear gripped harder, and then I remembered a song I learned growing up . . . "God´s not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and a sound mind. Power to overcome, overcome the enemy. God´s not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of Love, and a sound mind." I was able to whisper this song a few times and then I felt my voice gettting stronger. Stronger. Bolder. I felt a crack and Light coming in and felt Love. Love is the Key. Love is the answer. This thought, this truth invaded my dark dungeon and showed me that I alone had been keeping myself there. I felt that the more I dwelled on Love, the more it manifested within me, the more free I became. Could it be this easy, I kept thinking. And it was. Love. Soaring on wings high above the pain, the darkness and being able to see clearer what it was that was scaring me. Immobilizing me. I figured if I was going to face this thing again tomorrow, I should know exactly what it was. So, I dissected it. This is what I found. The monster was me. You know the little girl I was calling for? How I could never find her? She disguised herself as this horrible monster, demons even, to keep me out. To keep everything out. She lived and existed in her own darkness and I encountered her, threatening her "secure" existence where she lived on her terms. She didn´t have that growing up. She couldn´t live on her terms. She disappeared from my life when I was six, secluding herself from having to feel shame, guilt, pain, anger. She lived with the fear that she had caused this abuse to happen to her. That she had somehow seduced her abuser, causing her pain and his downfall. She lived in the belief that sex was painful and bad and not for her own pleasure, but for the sorry pleasure of who was taking her. She thought sex was bad. She thought sex was dirty. Dirty. Dirty. She knew she didn´t deserve love or light or happiness, and so she lived in darkness in the form of this monster that I would see or feel when I did shrooms or in this case, ayahuasca. This is why I could never conjure her up in my mind. She tried to disappear. But. I felt her shame and guilt. In my life. I´d always had a hard time with sex. With relationships. With trusting. With loving. With being loved. With needing too much. With an obession with feeling secure. Why???? I had been to counseling. I had been journaling since I was 8. I had read countless books on relationships. I tried telling myself I loved myself. But how could I? I was disjointed. Fragmented. Isolated. And then I knew. Instead of going into to slay the monster, I was to go in and Love her. Love me. I knew my mission was to walk into that darkness and fear and finally take my little girl self out of that crap. Out of that shame. Out of her hell. I meditated on love all that day and the whole next. Love. Love. Love. Love transcends all. Perfect Love casts out fear. Love covers a multitude of sins. Even ones that were not my own. I was ready. Still nervous, but armed with the greatest weapon, the greatest tool, the strongest healing balm ever.

Oh Shit!

Was the thought I had thirty minutes into my second Ayahuasca session on Thursday night. Don´t get me wrong-after my first light filled session last Wednesday, I was going into this thinking it would not be strong enough to take me deep enough to find that bastard of a monster and slay him. Oh, the cockiness of ignorance. As soon as I drank the salty elixer of mama aya, I began to look for the little girl inside of me. I´ve always had a hard time finding her, actually, have never been able to--she hides really well. But, I´m looking and I´m saying, "Don´t worry, we´re gonna get that monster and end this tonight." I didn´t trust the ayahuasca to do her thing, so I took matters in my own hands. And suddenly, WHAM, I am tunneled through this hazy darkness and am standing before a giant, I´m talking size of a mountain, black octopus with yellow, evil eyes. Right about then is when I´m think, what the fuck? Crap, I´m not ready! I panicked and allowed myself to be enveloped in a blanket of fear so thick that all signs of joy and any young shoots of life were instantly smothered. I was immobilized. I started to pant heavily, causing Alberto to come smudge me off. He tried sucking the negative energy through my crown, but nothing. I was in my worst nightmare, and let me tell you, it was the same experience as the mushroom experience. The only saving grace was that I knew I wasn´t alone like I was last time, and I knew I wouldn´t die. This is ego dying, I tried to tell myself but I was in my own personal hell and there was no reasoning with my ego. Damn. Damn. Damn. Scary ass shit. And that was just the beginning. I saw demons that I felt had been with me since childhood. I saw one demon who was laughing and playing on my guilt of leaving chrisianity. He said that it was too late, I was his and there was nothing anyone could do about it. He said I´d better not continue with the ayahuasca dieta. Man, oh man. I quit then. I just quit. I stopped fighting. I believed him. For the rest of the time I just sat there and cried. Big fat tears of sorrow of being imprisoned. I knew I was imprisoned and rather than trying to fight for my freedom, because I had no strength, I chose to accept my fate. The session ended and I could feel the others come to, talking quietly, but not me. I didn´t want to talk to anyone. See anyone. I was once again, a little girl, trapped in her own world. Rebecca started to sing sweetly, and that created a diversion for me for a short while, but still the tears came. The abysss. I had fallen into it and there was no one who could help me. Except myself. Herbert came over to talk to me after everyone had shared was they´d seen. I was too horrified to even try to recount what I was still living in, and he was concerned. He sat in front of me and said that I was a warrior. I had the strength to fight this and to not give up. I had to remember the light. I nodded, but still didn´t believe. We went to empty our vomit buckets in the river, watching the bile and crap that was expelled from us being taken down the river. I looked up and for the first time, saw the stars. It had been cloudy the first two nights, and seeing the stars is what saved me. I laughed with pleasure at their brightness and counted more than ten falling stars. All kinds. I was stuck in a little girl mentality and knew it. Yet, I couldn´t get out of it. Rebecca tried talking to me, but I wasn´t ready. I just sat and stared at the sky. A constant. My constant.

Getting Aquainted

We left Tarapoto around nine am on Tuesday morning and headed toward Champato, which is further in the jungle. I found this small village to be quaint and what I pictured a small yet modern jungle village to be. My drive there was amazing as I had never seen jungle before. I couldn´t take my eyes off how green everything was! I was in love! I also knew, deep in my heart, that this was a perfect place to heal my heart, self, and body. We loaded all of our stuff in a long canoe looking boat with a motor. The river was WIDE and very brown, but still so perfect. Our ride took about fifteen minutes and then we were there. No electricity, no running water, expect the river and a small creek, of course. We met in the main hut for a short while before Herbert taking us to our huts. He had given us hammocks and mosquito nets before and I looked forward to hanging mine up. When we got the first hut, which was only about 400 feet away from the big hut, but not visible, I saw him pondering who to assign to this hut. He looked at all of our faces, before settling on me. I was disappointed, at first, but then realized I´d feel safer being that close to Herbert and Alberto. The huts were really primitive, just a shelter, but no walls. No floors, just dirt. But that´s okay. I had him help me hang my hammock and net, and then walked around to visit the others´homes. Fear is something that has been shadowing me a lot since my mushroom experience. I saw things so scary, I felt such hopelessness and felt so alone, that I couldn´t quite shake this monster Fear off my back. I was on my moon cycle when we first got there and I kept fearing that a jaguar would smell my blood and come rip me to shreds for his-her dinner. I was afraid of spiders. I was afraid of snakes. Mind you, I hadn´t even seen any of these thigns, but I was sure they were coming to get me. Herbert sensed this and wisely put me close to him. That first night, I didn´t sleep for except maybe an hour. I kept hearing sounds that, though beautiful, were so foreign and scary to me. I could literally feel my fear radiating around me and began to fear my fear. I seriously thought if animals hadn´t sensed me before, they surely were now, my fear being like a sonar radar alerting them to a vulnerable soul. Ay. Ay. Ay. The next day I spent time walking around our area, becoming familiar with our surroundings. I also spent a lot of time in my hut, trying to gather feelings of love and security. I was tired, but didn´t let myself sleep because I wanted to sleep that night. And sleep I did. I slept wonderfully. I think the ajo sacha helped. Ah, sweet, garlicy ajo satcha. A root. A garlic of the jungle. I drank it two times that day, it´s burning liquid essence taking residence in my belly, burning, chafing. It reminds me of Kali. Our meals consisted of white rice, boiled plantains and an egg. I found that I wasn´t interested in eating all of my food, so I just listened to my body. We weren´t talking to each other, but instead were living quietly, getting ready for Thursday night´s Aya session. In the jungle, I felt myself missing Jimmy a lot. My sweet man who had the heart and wisdom to release me and let me go. I tried wrapping myself in his love that first night when I was so scared. I imagined we were just camping, because when I´m with him, I´m literally not afraid of the things that normally scare me. Except that I won´t be good enough for him. Or that he´s getting bored with me. Or that I can´t please him sexually. See? The insecurity I needed to get rid of? Ultimately, my goal with this dieta was to face the monster I saw during my bad mushroom trip and to come out alive, exultant. Free.

Tobacco Water

Last Monday night (gosh, it seems much longer than that) I met Alberto for the first time. He is the second shaman I was going to be working with besides Herbert. I had heard much about him from Rebecca, so I was ready to meet his smiling face. He has a sweet, quiet spirit, one that I came to count on and trust over the course of la dieta. He and Herbert sat us down (there were four of us at the time, but our number grew to five participants before the end of the night) and told us that they were going to talk to us individually about what we wanted to work on during la dieta. Herbert told him something about me in quick Spanish, which I didn´t catch, and they asked everyone to leave the room. Sitting in front of them, my heart knowing it was going to begin healing, I trembled silently with the weight of pain and fear. I explained to them that I had been sexually abused for two years when I was little and that I carried much guilt and shame about that. I want to have a normal sex life, a normal relationship, I told them. I don´t want this anxiety, this insecurity, awkardness hanging over me. I want to let go. Tears were streaming down my face but they felt good. A foreshadowing of what was to come. A dam being broken. A release. They told me they were going to give me Ajo Sacha as my plant ally, that it would help ground me and root me. They also said it would be a battle, one that I would have to be strong for, but I could do it. I knew I could. After talking to everyone individually, they decided we were all going to have a vomit fest that night. Alberto would make tobacco water, we´d drink a small amount and then down three huge bottles of water. We were doing to this to get us ready for la dieta and also I think because all of us were complaining of some sort of diahrrea or upset stomach. I hadn´t been able to eat for two days and had no desire to eat food. Later that evening, we all sat around outside, three 2.5 liter bottles of water, a roll of toilet paper, and a vomit bucket. I have always hated throwing up and have had an aversion to it. But this night, the liberation began. It took a while, maybe 25 minutes or so, for me to start feeling the need to expel the contents of my stomach. Others around me began throwing up, Joakim especially, and finally my first came. It was emotionally hard for me to throw up because I was not only throwing up tobacco water, but I was throwing up negativity and fear. I could almost see these things leaving my body and I began to resist. These things I´ve been saying I wanted to get rid of for so long, I had formed an attachment to them. They were, no matter how ugly, a part of me. So, I sat, and drank, and sat, and drank and peed, and finally, after almost everyone else was done, a flood came pouring out of me and I knew I was done. I was empty. I was ready. I don´t recommend that any try this at home as it is not a pleasurable experience and I think it very beneficial to have a guide with you. I´ve lost my fear of vomiting. It is just another way I´ve learned to let go. Gracias a Dios y Diosa!

Return to Civilization

Hello my sweet friends! I´ve made it out alive and whole, which is more than I can say for how I entered. We have just returned from our week long dieta in the jungle near Tarapoto and man, have I got a lot to write! Thing is, I don´t have the time right now, but will later this afternoon. Blew my mind. Opened my second and fourth chakras. Expelled so much crap. Reunited with my little gal self. And invited a vixen, who I´ve been unknowingly keeping hostage for years, to join the family of myself. Purrrrr. She´s happy. I´m happy. Can´t wait to get it all down on "pen and paper", hehehe. Lots of love and light!

Aya Mama

I drank ayahuasca for the first time this past Wednesday night. I must admit I was nervous and scared, especially after the crazy mushroom experience. I only at a mango and a few sunflower seeds that morning and then nothing for the rest of the day. I wanted to have a clean system for the Vine. Before leaving the hostel, I started to feel sick to my stomach and started burping and thinking I had to go to the bathroom. Rebecca said it was the aya, already working on me. I had so much energy and felt a little scattered. When we got to Rodrigo's house, which is where Herbert was doing the ceremonia, I walked up to the roof because I wanted to feel the cool air on my face. I could see the ocean from the top of his house and this calmed me in a sweet way. Something about the immensity and seeminly infininity of the ocean makes me look at things from the bigger picture. I said a prayer to the Spirit of the Vine and asked her to please be gentle, at least this first time because that's what I felt I needed. I felt Her saying that as long as my heart is pure and my intentions are in the right place, I would be fine. I went back down and into the ceremony room with a lighter heart. I still had a lot of restless energy and knew I needed to ground myself. So I placed my hands on Pachamamma and allowed excess energy to flow back into the earth. Rebecca asked if I'd like to sing some Goddess chants and I said yes, so we sang three and the beauty and light of the Goddess warmed my heart. Not long after, Herbert came in and we started the ceremony. One by one, we came in front of him and were cleansed and were given a small cup of ayahuasca. It had a salty bitter taste. I downed it in one gulp and went to my seat, burping. I wasn't sure if I was going to vomit, but I had a bucket just in case. I felt the energy of the Vine working in me immediately, settling, finding areas in which I needed healing. Herbert began his Icaros and the music was soothing to my soul. Not an ounce of fear entered me, for which I was glad. I was both aware, but not aware, if that makes sense. Like an objective viewer of what was going on. My thoughts were scattered, flying about madly, images coming and going. At one point, I saw a set of dingy looking stairs descending into the darkness, almost like a cellar. I wanted to walk there, but the image was immediately gone. I saw images of doors and doorknobs, which I know represent what I have hidde and repressed. I respect that this night was not the night to open that door. Maybe during la dieta. I saw images of snakes, which I later found out everyone saw. Manuel says that the snake is the symbol of the Vine and this is how she shows herself to us. I also saw a beautiful BIG brown woman with braids, coming down her back. I only saw her from behind, but she was radiating love and warmth. Pachamamma, I believe. She is the Peruvian earth mamma, warm and brown. Maybe next time, she will show her face to me. Maybe her face will be mine. Besides the images I saw, I also felt a lot. Love. Enveloping. I don't truly love myself. I can say I do, but in the end, the false belief I've been carrying around with me forever is that I am dirty. Not good enough to be loved. Second rate. Second hand. And that I only deserve second hand love, not the real thing. I judge myself. Daily. I felt the Love of this Beautiful Sacred Mother filling me. Showing me how truly beautiful I am. And that I am love. I just have to awaken to it. Accept it. And then She told me She was going to make me vomit. Hate. Loathe. Disgust. Repression. Fear. Anxiety. Denial. Toxins toxins coming out of me in every burp, tear, and finally in the wretched wreching of my gut. All spewed out, ejected from my body, my belly, the core of where I hold my stuff. And when that happened, Herbert was there, praying over me, blowing the tobacco over me, around me. And I felt the sweet release and the Mother holding my hand. After the ceremony, Herbert told me my Spirits gave him a hard time and made him work really hard. They were flying all over the place and all around him. When he sent them back to me, that's when I vomited. He said he knows that he has to help me work with rooting myself, my root chakra, and that my plant allyw was ajo sacha and tobacco. More to come . . .