Hello members of the Nexus!
First of all I wanted to say this forum has been – and still is - immensely helpful for me in learning about Ayahuasca, DMT and harmalas. Well, and many other plants too. But Aya has definitely been my main interest, and I had my first full experience very recently.
My first taste of caapi (by itself) I had about two years ago, which was a frightening but beautiful experience. Lying on the floor of my bathroom almost unable to move, I knew I was in quite deep. Deeper than I'd ever gone before. Until then I had only smoked weed (many, many times), which of course can get pretty intense sometimes, but rarely goes “deep”.
But the experience soon became manageable, I moved back in to the living room to meditate, and was immersed in the most beautiful insights …
I did caapi a few more times after that. I remember one experience where I was moved to tears by the window blinds in my living room subtly stirring in the wind from the open window. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. (When I think about it now, I am reminded of that scene in American Beauty with the plastic bag dancing in the wind.)
I didn't feel quite ready for drinking a brew with DMT in it at the time, so I decided to wait. Then a couple of months ago, when I came to think about Ayahuasca again, I just felt ready.
So a friend and I ordered the plants, picked a day, fasted for 24 hours beforehand, then drank the brew of caapi and mimosa, put on some shamanic chanting music we'd picked out, smudged some white sage … I will not ever forget that smell, those sounds. I sometimes pull out the bag of caapi I have left just to smell it; so powerful.
You all know that the experience cannot really be expressed in words. Actually, a big part of the experience for me was exactly that: language. Just trying to explain … it all. I knew that my language was so unbearably inadequate, yet I couldn't stop playing with it, with every word, just trying to capture the essence of what I was experiencing.
Infinity.
My thought was so pure … I comprehended everything. But every word and concept were like slippery fish to my mind. I remembered that ancient conception, that life is like an onion: layer upon layer upon layer; peel off the last layer, and you are left with … nothing. I didn't – and don't - think you could get any closer to the truth than that. I was very amused by this, because to me the aftertaste of the brew (which lingered all the way through the experience) was like that of “the strangest kind of onion.”
Later, still trying to encapsulate the truth in words, I came up with the idea that all phenomena in the world was like a snake trying to eat itself. (A week after the experience I am reading Nietzsche, I hit up his idea of “the eternal recurrence” on wikipedia, and there you have it: in the article there is a picture of the Ouroboros, “an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail.” This symbol represents cyclicality, the eternal recurrence, and “the idea of primordial unity related to something existing in or persisting from the beginning with such force or qualities it cannot be extinguished.”)
I know that many of you guys have been there and know what I am talking about. Me and my friend, while tripping, simply understood each other, no words were needed. He told me afterwards that he even had open eye visuals of spider webs everywhere. I myself had only very slight visual disturbances; it all happened when I closed my eyes.
Well, and that's it. Now some time has passed, and I am forever grateful for having had this experience. It has helped me accept that I am alive, and that I have to die. And in a way, though nothing has changed, everything has changed. I felt all life flowing through me – I imagined it as a great, black river – for three hours it flowed through me. It was the highest ecstasy, full of happiness for me, but I understand why some people just cannot bear it. It is so heavy.
* * *
I'm looking forward to a full membership. Got some good questions.
Hope you enjoyed the reading!
First of all I wanted to say this forum has been – and still is - immensely helpful for me in learning about Ayahuasca, DMT and harmalas. Well, and many other plants too. But Aya has definitely been my main interest, and I had my first full experience very recently.
My first taste of caapi (by itself) I had about two years ago, which was a frightening but beautiful experience. Lying on the floor of my bathroom almost unable to move, I knew I was in quite deep. Deeper than I'd ever gone before. Until then I had only smoked weed (many, many times), which of course can get pretty intense sometimes, but rarely goes “deep”.
But the experience soon became manageable, I moved back in to the living room to meditate, and was immersed in the most beautiful insights …
I did caapi a few more times after that. I remember one experience where I was moved to tears by the window blinds in my living room subtly stirring in the wind from the open window. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. (When I think about it now, I am reminded of that scene in American Beauty with the plastic bag dancing in the wind.)
I didn't feel quite ready for drinking a brew with DMT in it at the time, so I decided to wait. Then a couple of months ago, when I came to think about Ayahuasca again, I just felt ready.
So a friend and I ordered the plants, picked a day, fasted for 24 hours beforehand, then drank the brew of caapi and mimosa, put on some shamanic chanting music we'd picked out, smudged some white sage … I will not ever forget that smell, those sounds. I sometimes pull out the bag of caapi I have left just to smell it; so powerful.
You all know that the experience cannot really be expressed in words. Actually, a big part of the experience for me was exactly that: language. Just trying to explain … it all. I knew that my language was so unbearably inadequate, yet I couldn't stop playing with it, with every word, just trying to capture the essence of what I was experiencing.
Infinity.
My thought was so pure … I comprehended everything. But every word and concept were like slippery fish to my mind. I remembered that ancient conception, that life is like an onion: layer upon layer upon layer; peel off the last layer, and you are left with … nothing. I didn't – and don't - think you could get any closer to the truth than that. I was very amused by this, because to me the aftertaste of the brew (which lingered all the way through the experience) was like that of “the strangest kind of onion.”
Later, still trying to encapsulate the truth in words, I came up with the idea that all phenomena in the world was like a snake trying to eat itself. (A week after the experience I am reading Nietzsche, I hit up his idea of “the eternal recurrence” on wikipedia, and there you have it: in the article there is a picture of the Ouroboros, “an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail.” This symbol represents cyclicality, the eternal recurrence, and “the idea of primordial unity related to something existing in or persisting from the beginning with such force or qualities it cannot be extinguished.”)
I know that many of you guys have been there and know what I am talking about. Me and my friend, while tripping, simply understood each other, no words were needed. He told me afterwards that he even had open eye visuals of spider webs everywhere. I myself had only very slight visual disturbances; it all happened when I closed my eyes.
Well, and that's it. Now some time has passed, and I am forever grateful for having had this experience. It has helped me accept that I am alive, and that I have to die. And in a way, though nothing has changed, everything has changed. I felt all life flowing through me – I imagined it as a great, black river – for three hours it flowed through me. It was the highest ecstasy, full of happiness for me, but I understand why some people just cannot bear it. It is so heavy.
* * *
I'm looking forward to a full membership. Got some good questions.
Hope you enjoyed the reading!
