lyserge
polyfather anomalous
I previously wrote about my recent adventure to the Upper Amazon which culminated in a week-and-half stay at a very well respected curandero's lodge: First Report, Second Report, Third Report. It's been a while since I posted those, as I started to notice how "trip reports" tend to get so tangled up in personal details and other dull repetitions of what others have said. Still, I want to get this recorded in the Nexus archives, in case anyone may benefit from writings about my travels.
I ended up staying at the lodge for five sessions, finding the medicine and the surroundings the perfect antidote to the mental cyclone steadily brewing inside of me. My intent in visiting this ayahuasca was to do some initial clean-up work with the medicine, and hopefully open myself to the "Voice" of Ayahuasca I'd previously encountered and seen mentioned in so many places. I was attracted to Luis, in particular, on the basis of the recommendations, as well as on the basis of a video interview I found on Youtube in which he described how he learned the art of shamanry or curanderismo directly from the ayahuasca. In talking with him, I discovered he was not only an expert on the use of ayahuasca for medicinal purposes for many types of dis-eases, but also an expert on the plant medicines that so densely fill the Amazon rainforest (and upwards of 70% of the Western pharmacopia). He described almost all plants in terms of sexes: "Una de Gato" is female, as is the macamba tree (a relative of cacao). Macamba, he says, has a side use as a "pusanga" or "love potion": you make a tincture from the leaves, apply it to your hand, then touch the woman you desire, and she will then be attracted to you...some say. Ayahuasca and chacruna, of course, he considers "female" plants.
My third time drinking was a beautiful Christmas Eve session, in which I stayed up all night, fully "Ayahuasca drunk" and having a fantastic psychedelic trip - the only time out of five times drinking that I had a full-blown psychedelic buzz - not that there was anything lacking from the other times, as I was not drinking with the intent of having a psychedelic journey. I wanted to introduce the medicine to my body and start cleaning it out, as well as continue a longer-term working relationship with "Mama Aya". On Christmas Eve, I laid back in my bunk and got a full-body tour through the strange lens of ayahuasca. Behind closed eyelids, there flashed images of disgusting parasite-like objects being nursed by a mother cat inside my stomach; the ayahuasca suggested it could help to clean out these "parasites" it showed in my body. I interpreted this as ayahuasca's way of communicating information about things I may have picked up through life's travels, and the "mother cat" imagery suggested that my body was effectively nursing these "parasites". So the following, fourth time drinking, this cleansing process began, and for the next two days I underwent a thorough cleansing, though I ended up partially dehydrated as any water I drank quickly flushed through my body. I was very "sick" but it did not feel "bad"...the "sickness" felt fantastic, as if all sorts of toxins were being steadily washed from my system.
These 48 hours of "sickness" prepared me well for my fifth and final time drinking ayahuasca during my stay in the Upper Amazon. I was concerned about drinking, as the following day I would board the bus for nearly 40 hours of travel, and certainly didn't want to have diarrhea and vomitting on the bus, but again, Luis and Austin assured me that, "it's good medicine" and encouraged me to drink. So I partook this one last time, a very good decision. This time, Luis retired to his bed early after a long day's work in the jungle gathering Caapi and Chacruna for the huge vat of brew he would prepare the following day, in preparation for New Year's Eve. So it was me and Austin, the Turkish chap who was staying at Luis' place for an extended time in order to clean out the toxins resulting from cocaine/"pasta" use/abuse. After a long day in the nearby town, a bustling place, like the 1850's Wild West in the jungle, we both made it back to Luis'. Luis told us he would not be able to drink with us, so he gave Austin the plastic bottle with the thick, brownish-yellow, potent medicine, and advised him to blow the mapacho smoke over it. So we retreated to the ceremony house, and Austin took the seat in the center of the large room, designated for the "maestro". He poured a cup out, blew the smoke over it, then handed it to me. I braced myself; the first time I drank, it was almost sweet, but after 4 more times, I had begun to dread the incredibly bitter taste of the brew, though it still had that hint of sweetness that impressed me the first time I drank. This time it wasn't so bad: I drank it down, then washed it down with water. I laid back, and within about fifteen minutes, the triggers began to be noticed. The ayahuasca - or more accurately the synergy between the ayahuasca and my "normal" thought processes - took over, and I was distinctly told, by the strange womanly "presence" that sometimes accompanies the ayahuasca brew, to go to my quarters and bring back two bottles of water to drink. If I drank the two bottles, it would help the ayahuasca to clean out my system, and also help to produce a purge. So I complied with this "communication" or "thought", fetched the bottles, returned to the darkened ceremonial house, and proceeded to drink. After maybe two gulps, the purge I had, on previous occasions, spent hours trying to force, came very naturally and very cleanly. The vomit had the smell, taste, and consistency of the brew, but was many times the volume of the few ounces of medicine in the small cup I drank. As I purged, the ayahuasca came on strong. A DMT-like jewelled latticework appeared in the bowl, and in the visionary state, my vomit appeared to fire infinitely into this 4-dimensional latticework. All sorts of DMT-like entities danced in the latticework, and to the sides of the bowl, I saw, almost like holographs, a large number of insects and birds crowding around the bowl, watching me vomit everything out, and acting very interested and almost impressed by what was coming out of my mouth.
The purge came to a finish, so I pulled out a mapacho and proceeded to smoke. Luis said that if, during a ceremony, one's visual field goes black, simply smoke a mapacho and watch in the smoke. It works too; as I blew out the smoke, a hologram-like image of an Arabic man, with pale yet slightly dark skin, immersed in deep red and black layered fiber-like strands of smoke. This is one thing I can recommend for the ayahuasca drinker, or even when not ayahuasca-intoxicated. Mapacho smoke is deep.
At this point, I felt deeply tapped into what Jeremy Narby described as the "global network of DNA-based life" that permeates the jungle (as well as the entire biosphere); I felt deeply connected with the plants of life around me, but my perception is that the connection was more than an experienced connection or feeling; instead, this feeling of "union with the plants" experienced here as well as with changa involves a deeper, perhaps electromagnetic frequency-related connection. Luis and other curanderos have said that all the plants have their own icaros, or power songs, and access a plant's powers using a particular icaro. They also say that ayahuasca helps them to gain information about the uses of various plants in the jungle. As I laid there on the ground, thinking of this incredible world of shamanry, I noticed two "Ayahuasca ladies" appear, as if holograms projected into our universe, and they simultaneously began to show me how to sing. They began to "push" (with their "hands", or what I perceived as their hands), these songs through my feet, up my legs, into my spine, and out of the roof of my head. As these two "ayahuasca ladies" (who, again, appeared as "holograms" or "spirits" in the room) pushed the songs through my body, they also showed, behind my eyelids, the images of bubbles rising up. They instructed me to sing my way through the bubbles, on up and out, through the head. I still remember the "sound" or "frequency" of the song they showed, though not necessarily the melody. It seems that with icaros, the frequency or harmonic nature of the notes produced is far more important than the actual melody.
After the session came to a close, I decided to help ease the stomachache with the help of a nice yerba+mapacho spliff. This didn't work out - I fell asleep after smoking it, and it seemed to numb the aftereffects of the ayahuasca.
So this was my introduction to the Upper Amazon, through the steaming extracts from the vine of B. caapi, the magical green light-filled leaves of chacruna, the rolled logs of dried N. rusticum (mapacho) leaves (they say mapacho is black because it absorbs all the light that passes through it), the moist air, daily rainstorms (and it STORMS), intense equatorial sun, and sparse though helpful conversations with the locals.
I also learned a bit about DMT from Austin, the seasoned traveler who was staying on a long-term basis at Luis'. He told me of having a knee injury, then using DMT to mentally/actually go inside the knee and repair it. When the DMT trance wore off, the knee was repaired. I haven't seen this firsthand, but I think it hints at the vast possibilities available with the intentful use of DMT and similar medicines...they're SO SO SO SO MUCH deeper than "trippy visuals" or other superficial characteristics. He also suggested that DMT (and mushrooms) work far more effectively if one undergoes an ayahuasca-like dieta prior to their use.
All this said, I highly recommend a visit to Central or South America for all those interested in ethnobotanicals. In the Andes, the pre-Conquest culture still lives on in the markets and livelihoods of many of the inhabitants; there is a palpable sense in the markets of what can only be described as LIFE, color, energy, and the joy of abundance provided by the Earth.
And with that, after considering it, I have decided to provide a video of the very special curandero I stayed with, as well as a picture of a collection of huts in the nearby village:
[youtube]
I ended up staying at the lodge for five sessions, finding the medicine and the surroundings the perfect antidote to the mental cyclone steadily brewing inside of me. My intent in visiting this ayahuasca was to do some initial clean-up work with the medicine, and hopefully open myself to the "Voice" of Ayahuasca I'd previously encountered and seen mentioned in so many places. I was attracted to Luis, in particular, on the basis of the recommendations, as well as on the basis of a video interview I found on Youtube in which he described how he learned the art of shamanry or curanderismo directly from the ayahuasca. In talking with him, I discovered he was not only an expert on the use of ayahuasca for medicinal purposes for many types of dis-eases, but also an expert on the plant medicines that so densely fill the Amazon rainforest (and upwards of 70% of the Western pharmacopia). He described almost all plants in terms of sexes: "Una de Gato" is female, as is the macamba tree (a relative of cacao). Macamba, he says, has a side use as a "pusanga" or "love potion": you make a tincture from the leaves, apply it to your hand, then touch the woman you desire, and she will then be attracted to you...some say. Ayahuasca and chacruna, of course, he considers "female" plants.
My third time drinking was a beautiful Christmas Eve session, in which I stayed up all night, fully "Ayahuasca drunk" and having a fantastic psychedelic trip - the only time out of five times drinking that I had a full-blown psychedelic buzz - not that there was anything lacking from the other times, as I was not drinking with the intent of having a psychedelic journey. I wanted to introduce the medicine to my body and start cleaning it out, as well as continue a longer-term working relationship with "Mama Aya". On Christmas Eve, I laid back in my bunk and got a full-body tour through the strange lens of ayahuasca. Behind closed eyelids, there flashed images of disgusting parasite-like objects being nursed by a mother cat inside my stomach; the ayahuasca suggested it could help to clean out these "parasites" it showed in my body. I interpreted this as ayahuasca's way of communicating information about things I may have picked up through life's travels, and the "mother cat" imagery suggested that my body was effectively nursing these "parasites". So the following, fourth time drinking, this cleansing process began, and for the next two days I underwent a thorough cleansing, though I ended up partially dehydrated as any water I drank quickly flushed through my body. I was very "sick" but it did not feel "bad"...the "sickness" felt fantastic, as if all sorts of toxins were being steadily washed from my system.
These 48 hours of "sickness" prepared me well for my fifth and final time drinking ayahuasca during my stay in the Upper Amazon. I was concerned about drinking, as the following day I would board the bus for nearly 40 hours of travel, and certainly didn't want to have diarrhea and vomitting on the bus, but again, Luis and Austin assured me that, "it's good medicine" and encouraged me to drink. So I partook this one last time, a very good decision. This time, Luis retired to his bed early after a long day's work in the jungle gathering Caapi and Chacruna for the huge vat of brew he would prepare the following day, in preparation for New Year's Eve. So it was me and Austin, the Turkish chap who was staying at Luis' place for an extended time in order to clean out the toxins resulting from cocaine/"pasta" use/abuse. After a long day in the nearby town, a bustling place, like the 1850's Wild West in the jungle, we both made it back to Luis'. Luis told us he would not be able to drink with us, so he gave Austin the plastic bottle with the thick, brownish-yellow, potent medicine, and advised him to blow the mapacho smoke over it. So we retreated to the ceremony house, and Austin took the seat in the center of the large room, designated for the "maestro". He poured a cup out, blew the smoke over it, then handed it to me. I braced myself; the first time I drank, it was almost sweet, but after 4 more times, I had begun to dread the incredibly bitter taste of the brew, though it still had that hint of sweetness that impressed me the first time I drank. This time it wasn't so bad: I drank it down, then washed it down with water. I laid back, and within about fifteen minutes, the triggers began to be noticed. The ayahuasca - or more accurately the synergy between the ayahuasca and my "normal" thought processes - took over, and I was distinctly told, by the strange womanly "presence" that sometimes accompanies the ayahuasca brew, to go to my quarters and bring back two bottles of water to drink. If I drank the two bottles, it would help the ayahuasca to clean out my system, and also help to produce a purge. So I complied with this "communication" or "thought", fetched the bottles, returned to the darkened ceremonial house, and proceeded to drink. After maybe two gulps, the purge I had, on previous occasions, spent hours trying to force, came very naturally and very cleanly. The vomit had the smell, taste, and consistency of the brew, but was many times the volume of the few ounces of medicine in the small cup I drank. As I purged, the ayahuasca came on strong. A DMT-like jewelled latticework appeared in the bowl, and in the visionary state, my vomit appeared to fire infinitely into this 4-dimensional latticework. All sorts of DMT-like entities danced in the latticework, and to the sides of the bowl, I saw, almost like holographs, a large number of insects and birds crowding around the bowl, watching me vomit everything out, and acting very interested and almost impressed by what was coming out of my mouth.
The purge came to a finish, so I pulled out a mapacho and proceeded to smoke. Luis said that if, during a ceremony, one's visual field goes black, simply smoke a mapacho and watch in the smoke. It works too; as I blew out the smoke, a hologram-like image of an Arabic man, with pale yet slightly dark skin, immersed in deep red and black layered fiber-like strands of smoke. This is one thing I can recommend for the ayahuasca drinker, or even when not ayahuasca-intoxicated. Mapacho smoke is deep.
At this point, I felt deeply tapped into what Jeremy Narby described as the "global network of DNA-based life" that permeates the jungle (as well as the entire biosphere); I felt deeply connected with the plants of life around me, but my perception is that the connection was more than an experienced connection or feeling; instead, this feeling of "union with the plants" experienced here as well as with changa involves a deeper, perhaps electromagnetic frequency-related connection. Luis and other curanderos have said that all the plants have their own icaros, or power songs, and access a plant's powers using a particular icaro. They also say that ayahuasca helps them to gain information about the uses of various plants in the jungle. As I laid there on the ground, thinking of this incredible world of shamanry, I noticed two "Ayahuasca ladies" appear, as if holograms projected into our universe, and they simultaneously began to show me how to sing. They began to "push" (with their "hands", or what I perceived as their hands), these songs through my feet, up my legs, into my spine, and out of the roof of my head. As these two "ayahuasca ladies" (who, again, appeared as "holograms" or "spirits" in the room) pushed the songs through my body, they also showed, behind my eyelids, the images of bubbles rising up. They instructed me to sing my way through the bubbles, on up and out, through the head. I still remember the "sound" or "frequency" of the song they showed, though not necessarily the melody. It seems that with icaros, the frequency or harmonic nature of the notes produced is far more important than the actual melody.
After the session came to a close, I decided to help ease the stomachache with the help of a nice yerba+mapacho spliff. This didn't work out - I fell asleep after smoking it, and it seemed to numb the aftereffects of the ayahuasca.
So this was my introduction to the Upper Amazon, through the steaming extracts from the vine of B. caapi, the magical green light-filled leaves of chacruna, the rolled logs of dried N. rusticum (mapacho) leaves (they say mapacho is black because it absorbs all the light that passes through it), the moist air, daily rainstorms (and it STORMS), intense equatorial sun, and sparse though helpful conversations with the locals.
I also learned a bit about DMT from Austin, the seasoned traveler who was staying on a long-term basis at Luis'. He told me of having a knee injury, then using DMT to mentally/actually go inside the knee and repair it. When the DMT trance wore off, the knee was repaired. I haven't seen this firsthand, but I think it hints at the vast possibilities available with the intentful use of DMT and similar medicines...they're SO SO SO SO MUCH deeper than "trippy visuals" or other superficial characteristics. He also suggested that DMT (and mushrooms) work far more effectively if one undergoes an ayahuasca-like dieta prior to their use.
All this said, I highly recommend a visit to Central or South America for all those interested in ethnobotanicals. In the Andes, the pre-Conquest culture still lives on in the markets and livelihoods of many of the inhabitants; there is a palpable sense in the markets of what can only be described as LIFE, color, energy, and the joy of abundance provided by the Earth.
And with that, after considering it, I have decided to provide a video of the very special curandero I stayed with, as well as a picture of a collection of huts in the nearby village:
[youtube]
