Ayahuasca Set & Setting–Shipibo patterns & Mesa
(Click on any photo for full size.)
Ayahuasca is the great spirit medicine of the Amazon. When it is taken in context in the jungle environment and with an appropriate “set and setting,” the power of the tea is enhanced greatly. This mesa incorporates elements of mestizo shamanism from the Amazon and the Andes to reinforce the spiritual/dimensional space that the participants will be working in. The fractal patterns of the Shipibo tribespeople are especially potent in this regard, as they represent the actual dimensional space that one enters when working with the Medicine.
This is from Spiritquest, near Iquitos, Peru, just off the Rio Amazonas itself. I’ve developed quite a love of Shipibo design and I have obtained some mandalas and other designed artifacts and ceremonial clothing both from on-site there in Peru and from my home in the USA, but the textiles shown here are of superb quality, not available elsewhere. I believe they were made especially for the shamans and venue there on the Rio Momón.
The mesa serves as a representational symbol of the space or dimensions that will be accessed, both positive and negative.
For much more on Ayahuasca, please read my five part series titled, “Ancient Songs and Green Magic.”
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Ritual
“A ritual is the enactment of a myth. And, by participating in the ritual, you are participating in the myth. And since myth is a projection of the depth wisdom of the psyche, by participating in a ritual, participating in the myth, you are being, as it were, put in accord with that wisdom, which is the wisdom that is inherent within you anyhow. Your consciousness is being re-minded of the wisdom of your own life.”
– Joseph Campbell
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The Overview Effect
“Humanity must rise above the earth, to the top of the atmosphere and beyond. For only then will we understand the world in which we live.”
– Socrates (469 – 399 BCE)
•Click image to go to the film (19 min) •
A short film from an interesting group [The Overview Institute] whose mission is to find a better way to leverage the incredible power of seeing the Earth from outside of it. From the time I was a little boy, watching the space shots and avidly consuming every photo or film of Earth and space, I’ve always felt the frustration these folks are talking about. I truly grasped for myself that “Spaceship Earth” idea, and the concept that we’re all in this together on a small, fragile rock in the middle of infinite and truly harsh space. It is frustrating because as incredibly important this perspective is, it is so inactionable by most of us that we say “Wow,” and then go back to our daily affairs, politics, and wars. Because so few of us humans (about 500) have seen the Earth Overview personally, the idea of it has been relegated to a curiosity or a head-nodding stereotype. Instead, we should be using this priceless insight for the potent tool it is to bring humans together to solve our problems before the fragile craft is so damaged that we cannot. Truly perceived, the overview of our home and the perspective it brings us causes a major cognitive shift. If enough of us experience it and are so shifted, it could cause a true paradigm shift for our species.
I’ve said in this blog and elsewhere that we are not Earthlings. We are not a random thing that happened upon the surface of the Earth. We are not invaders nor are we some unique creation placed here by the hands (?) of some god or gods. We are Earth itself! We are the life that this planet has brought forth and we are intimately connected in every way to this ecosphere. We have minds that are more developed than any that have come before. By taking a bubble of it with us, we can escape the ecosphere for a while and gaze back upon it. We can perceive ourselves as being the planet we gaze at.
We may gain wisdom and learn to regulate ourselves, or we may not and become a colony of spores that overwhelm our own resources until the ecosystem shuts us down dramatically. In either case, we are natural – a part of the overall description of the Earth, including a description through time.
We are Earth.
More from the Overview Institute site at: http://www.overviewinstitute.org/
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The Shape-shifter’s Tale
The Shape-shifter’s Tale
(a fragment of a myth)
He asked the Turtle, “Would you like to learn about things? Would you like to see what the world looks like for a horse?”
The Turtle replied, “A horse? That big thing? I don’t know what that would be like. It is too different from being a Turtle.”
“Yes, but you would learn what it is like!”
“I like being a Turtle. Turtle makes sense. Turtle is comfortable and safe.”
He approached the Horse. “Would you like to learn about things? Would you like to see what the world looks like for a Sparrow?”
The Horse whinnied at him and said, “Neigh – OK, that was a joke. So is that little Sparrow. I’m a Horse and I am happy to be a Horse. That’s the mane thing!” And he whinnied several more times causing the Sparrow to fly away in disgust.
He did not bother to remind the Horse that he might learn what other things are like.
He came up to the Boy and said, “Would you like to learn about things?” The Boy smiled at him, so he continued, “Would you like to see what the world looks like for a Lion?”
The Boy said, “I AM a Lion!!” and, still smiling, he ran around the meadow making a roaring sound.
[Click on any photo for a larger image.]
The petroglyph panels above are from the remarkable (and remarkably accessible) Newspaper Rock State Park site, right along the roadway to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park in southeastern Utah.
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Huitoto Tribe and Ayahuasca
The Murui Huitoto tribe lives in the northern part of the Upper Amazon in Peru and northward into Columbia. The name Huitoto refers to their use of the Huito plant (Genipa americana), which provides a permanent dark black-blue stain for the skin. This is used ceremonially and will naturally exfoliate after about two weeks.
As with most Upper Amazon tribes, the Huitoto use and honor the Ayahuasca vine and psychoactive tea made from it. Wisely, they also cultivate the vine in order to replenish it and make it continually available. This is done in a synchronistic manner in the jungle environment, not in planted rows. Ayahuasca likes to grow on or around trees, so they will plant vines at the base of certain trees in their tribal areas.
[Click on images for larger photos.]
In 2006, I was privileged to meet one group of this tribe on the Amazon, just downriver from Iquitos. We hiked in a couple of miles from the great river and brought in some medical supplies. They honored us with dance and friendship, and we also swam in the small river there.
It is always intriguing to see the Ayahuasca vine growing in its natural setting, surrounded by all the wondrous plant life and animal life (including us) that stretches for thousands of miles. Ayahuasca is a great Spirit that lives in the heart of the life of the Earth.
See my five part series on Ayahuasca starting here.
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The Shamanic Path: Profile of David Crews
I was recently profiled on a travel and camping blog by Daniel Lawton. He interviewed me about my shamanic experiences with Ayahuasca and my world travels.
Here’s the link:
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Tikal – Mayan Axis Mundi
The name “Tikal” has always held an air of exotic adventure for me, and rightly so. It is the name of one of the most famous and best understood of the ancient Mayan lowland cities, featuring some of the most iconic pyramidal structures in the world. When visiting Belize a few years ago, I took a rather adventurous day trip across the border into Guatemala to see this World Heritage Site.
The city’s original name is Yax Mutul. The modern name, Tikal, is from the 1800’s. The city is no small place. It stretches over more than six square miles and features over 3,000 individual structures from small rooms to the numerous massive pyramids, some taller than 200 feet. Six such pyramids form the main complex, rising sharply out of the Petén jungle like broken stone teeth. Tikal boasts six of the famous Mayan ball courts.
Tikal was home to as many as 90,000 people during its prime. It was established around 2,400 years ago and was abandoned about 1,100 years ago.
[Click on photos for a larger image.]
“We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson – Over-soul, from Essays: First Series, 1841.
The idea of the “axis mundi” or world axis, represented by a “world tree” was important to ancient Mesoamericans. In Mayan lands, it was called Yaaxché and was believed to be a ceiba tree like the one in this photo. This amazing tree is only found in the tropics. No temperate zone tree looks like this! It has such a fantastic form and color, it almost seems like it must come from an alien planet – plus, it is simply huge. Whitish gray bark is topped with lines of dark red brush-like leaves and blooms. It is believed that the Maya planted four ceremonial ceiba trees at important sites like this: one at each cardinal direction. They are still highly regarded and respected by modern Mayans and other tribal people throughout the tropics.
The world tree reaches from the underworld realm through the human dimension and up into the spirit dimensions, connecting mankind with these esoteric realms in a directly shamanic manner. Some also understand the tree to represent the band of the Milky Way.
“All things share the same breath – the beast, the tree, the man… the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.”
– Chief Seattle
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Sacred Datura
Sacred Datura – beautiful, powerful, and dangerous.
I was driving along the Potash Road near Moab, Utah, last month and was delighted to see not just a scattered few, but thousands of beautiful white Sacred Datura blooms all along the edge of the great Colorado River and the red sandstone cliff walls that contain that potent waterway. This species of Datura (datura wrightii) can be found from here down into Mexico and has been a ritual, shamanic plant in use for thousands of years by native peoples.
This species contains scopolomine and other alkaloids that are very dangerous when ingested. All parts of the plant are potent. The main issue is dosage, because the amounts of the tropanes are not consistent across individual plants or parts. The visionary experience can be useful and powerful, but it also can cause serious or fatal medical conditions.
Personally, I wouldn’t touch it on its own, although I might like to try what some have said is useful and safe – having a single bloom in my room while sleeping. Even the sweet fragrance is potent.
My only actual experience with this plant teacher was in the Amazon. The chemically identical plant in South America is the brugmansia or “Angel’s Trumpet,” which is the origin species. The bloom or leaf there is used as an admixture plant by many shamans or medicine people in their Ayahuasca brews. It is usually known there by the Quechua term, “toé.” See my previous post on this plant here.
Toé or Brugmansia – Peru – ©2012 David P. Crews
“Datura may be the single most dangerous visionary plant in North America.
Well, maybe after tobacco.”
Dale Pendell – “Pharmako Gnosis – Plant Teachers and the Poison Path”, San Francisco, Mercury House, 2005; p. 250
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Burning Zozobra – a Modern Shamanic Ritual
Zozobra is “Old Man Gloom.” (Zozobra is “anxiety” in Spanish.)
Here is a link to a short (4 minute) film I made showing the ritual burning of the Zozobra in Santa Fe. It includes video, effected still photos, and some of my own original deep ambient music tracks. Run full size if you can, and please enjoy it!
Zozobra represents or symbolizes troubles, worries, and the problems of life. Once each year in September, the city of Santa Fe hosts a very unusual ritual: the burning of the Zozobra. This 51 foot tall statue is made mostly of paper and is actually a marionette – the world’s largest – which is ritually burned in front of tens of thousands of yelling participants, thus releasing all their collected sorrows and problems into the ether and bringing peace and happiness to all who engage with the rite. This ritual has been conducted every year since 1924 – for 88 years as of this year’s event.
[Click on any photo for a larger, higher quality view.]
I was lucky enough to be in Santa Fe on just the right day to attend, and I was truly fascinated to see this essentially pagan, shamanistic ritual played out in front of, for, with, and to a mostly typical American audience. Unlike some of the neighboring pueblo religious events, dances, and rituals that can be attended by non-Indians if they remain quiet and do not disturb the proceedings, this event, invented by a white man, is participatory by everyone and anyone. It is made to be palatable and acceptable to this presumably mostly non-pagan audience by one overriding fact: it is conducted as a very broad, humorous, tongue-in-cheek event. No one really appears to take it seriously and everyone has a party good time.
It struck me, however, that this is actually a very powerful ritual taking place here. Even through the fun and games, the essential and actual power of the symbol comes through for everyone who participates. It might be at a sub-conscious level, or buried under a layer of smirks, but there is no way such a grand metaphor, played out in live action, movie-climax style, cannot be effective as advertised. I have conducted similar rituals at home with friends and a backyard fire pit, casting our slips of paper all inscribed with our regrets and sorrows into the flames, and that was powerful even at that level. This ceremony is public, gargantuan, and potent.
Zozobra is an older manifestation of the modern “Burning Man” event in Nevada each year, but the shamanic ideas and the ceremony of the fire go much farther back in time than even Zozobra, of course. Shamanism is the oldest of the “religions” of mankind and one would think it to be fully buried and fossilized, but that is not the case. Shamanistic societies, tribes, and individuals thrive all across the world. Once in a while, a manifestation of it shows up like a lava intrusion into the solid granite of the orthodox religious cultures of our modern world. Zozobra is one of those, even if it is, perhaps, not intended to be by those who conduct the rite.
In my little film, I tried to show this multi-level contrast between the broad humor and the serious symbolic work by juxtaposing the circus aspects of the gathering and the undercurrent of true meaning by incorporating the intense, austere soundtrack of my deep ambient music. I hope you enjoy it, and I’m always interested in and open to your comments.
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Shaman Path
“As I walk, as I walk, the Universe is walking with me.”
(from the Navajo rain dance ceremony)
Digital artwork by David P. Crews
The shamanic path gives us direct, personal experience of non-ordinary as well as everyday reality. These shamanic experiences underlie all our religious ideas. I believe it represents the source experiences that establish our core humanity. It is our birthright, available to all who wish to experience the universe rather than just read about it.
Heartbeat of Mother Earth
Heartbeat of Mother Earth __ photo ©2012 David P. Crews
“The crude product of nature, the object fashioned by the industry of man, acquire their reality, their identity, only to the extent of their participation in a transcendent reality.”
Mircea Eliade: The Myth of the Eternal Return (1954)
“The Experience of Sacred Space makes possible the “founding of the world”: where the sacred Manifests itself in space, the real unveils itself, the world comes into existence.”
Mircea Eliade: The Sacred and the Profane : The Nature of Religion: The Significance of Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture (1961), translated from the French by William R. Trask
My elk-hide shaman’s drum, from a spirit circle in Southern Utah. We drummed and danced as visionary artists Alex and Allyson Grey created a mural on the cliff behind us.
Virtual Everything and Speaking to Aliens
DataFerns ___ Digital Artwork by David P. Crews
I want to pass along a couple of links, first to a fine essay speculating on the true nature of Ayahuasca and other psychedelic visions. It’s from Teafaerie, titled “Virtuality,” posted on Erowid’s site HERE. Teafaerie talks about visions and even our own everyday reality as composed of sets of information and data, but no matter what form or format one postulates for the emergence of sophisticated and unexpected, complex imagery in visions and dreams, the data must reside somewhere! Very interesting rabbit chase along some intriguing paths.
Found a link to this essay from another interesting article titled “Can Psychedelic Drugs Help us Speak to Aliens?” by David Jay Brown on the SantaClaraPatch site, HERE.
My main zone of interest regarding Ayahuasca visions centers around ontology: the consideration of what is real vs. what is imagined (and all the possible crossovers of that). You can read about my own experiences with Ayahuasca in the Amazon in my five part series, Ancient Songs and Green Magic, starting HERE. In it, I explore my own psyche-newbie intellectual’s approach to the ontological question after experiencing a set of strong and truly amazing visionary encounters.
Light, Visions, and the Pineal Gland
Lucia No. 3 Is A Mind-Melting, Psychedelic Art Experience
[Article on the Creators Project by Kevin Holmes]
The pineal gland, located deep inside the brain, has been the subject of interest and speculation by many cultures over centuries because it is the physical link to mystical experiences. Presumed to be vestigial, it is the physical Third Eye, actually sensitive to light. Dr. Rick Strassman has postulated in his landmark book, DMT – The Spirit Molecule, that the pineal is the link, gateway, and/or trigger to the spirit dimension and plays a role in what happens to us at death. Many mystic traditions have used light and light effects to stimulate the pineal gland and obtain visionary experiences without the help of add-on entheogenic substances like DMT or Ayahuasca, but now a couple of men, Dr. Dirk Proeckl and Dr. Engelbert Winkler, have created a programmed light projection system combined with software that produces a strong vision experience to users. It is being presented as an art display in London and elsewhere, called Lucia No. 3. Users sit with eyes closed and listen to masking music while the light is projected onto their face.
The article is here, with more images.
I’m always fascinated by the scientific ties to spirit or mystic experience. This is the frontier of the Unknown in science and there are many false trails and misleading data, but it is clear that there is a true connection between the pineal gland, the endogenous (naturally occurring within us) presence of DMT, and mystical or spiritual visionary experiences. Traditions worldwide going back thousands of years have trained and used it to achieve certain states. From the article:
“The pineal gland is strange part of our brain and has been linked with the esoteric third eye, which has been written about in every mystical tradition—Gnostic, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and many more. Advanced yogis are able to use it, and it’s supposed to suspend our linear notion of space-time and take you on a trip into the cosmic mind hole. If this all sounds a bit hippyish, that’s because it hasn’t been explored by many others outside of the mystical traditions and the sub/countercultures they inspired.”
I would love to experience this and I hope they will exhibit in my part of the world. The entire idea of bringing modern scientific technology to this ancient insight and practice bears much more research and experiment.
Spider Rock
Spider Rock – Canyon de Chelly, Arizona __ ©2012 David P. Crews
Spider Grandmother
Sitting in the center
Sitting up high
Sing your song
Make the sky.
Spider Grandmother
Sitting in the center
Weaving a web
Spinning our song
Make it spread.
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Canyon de Chelly in 1873 _ (Library of Congress)
Canyon de Chelly (pronounced “deh Shay”) is in the heartland of the Navajo Nation in NE Arizona. It is a very worthwhile destination for its scenic beauty, but take some time to learn about the trying history of this place as well. I have very mixed feelings about Kit Carson. He was more in-tune with the native peoples than almost any white man at that time, but then he did the Army’s bidding in Canyon de Chelly and the results still echo hauntingly off the canyon’s red-brown cliffs today.
‘DMT: The Spirit Molecule’ Film – Free viewing
DMT: The Spirit Molecule (2012) – available for free viewing on Hulu (only in US for now). Click HERE or on title below:
This is an excellent film made by a friend of mine here in Austin, Texas, Mitch Schultz. It was inspired by the seminal book by Rick Strassman, M.D., by the same title. Strassman conducted the first DEA approved clinical research into DMT in the early 1990’s. (Book highly recommended, btw!)
The film is “An investigation into the long-obscured mystery of dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a molecule found in nearly every living organism and considered the most potent psychedelic on Earth.”
The film features interviews and commentary from some very interesting and well-known writers and explorers like Graham Hancock and Dennis McKenna.
DMT is an integral component of the Ayahuasca tea – the great spirit medicine of the Amazon. You can read my series on my own amazing Ayahuasca experiences in the Upper Amazon in this blog, beginning here: Ancient Songs and Green Magic, Part I.
Here lies the luminous and numinous edge of the continent of mankind’s knowledge. Many fear the great Unknown and recoil from it. Others venture out to explore, to learn, and to bring back untold treasures for themselves and all of humanity. We must not allow the fearful to forbid the brave, or we may lose our birthright and our heart.
Nature’s Sphinx
Nature’s Sphinx – Goblin Valley, Utah __ ©2012 David P. Crews
“To the intelligent, nature converts itself into a vast promise,
and will not be rashly explained.
Her secret is untold.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson – “Nature,” Essays, Second Series (1844).
Goblin Valley State Park is just one of the wondrous, alien landscapes in Southern Utah. This land casts a spell unlike any other place I know.
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Cracking Cryptocacti
For those interested in the entheogenic San Pedro (Huachuma) or Peyote cacti, this is an interesting article on the near-mythical Cactus of the Four Winds.
It is very possible that humans have caused some ancient, powerful psychoactive plants to go extinct. Soma is the most notable one of these. It may be that some of these plants were/are very rare, and we simply loved them to death. It will be interesting to see if this one (if truly a separate plant) can be found still living in some strange nook of the Peruvian mountains or deserts.
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Underworld
Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico __ Photo ©2012 David P. Crews
My last post about the Mayans made me think about how they revered caves and other underground spaces as sacred portals to the afterlife, so I thought I’d post this recent image of mine from Carlsbad Caverns Nat. Park.
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Earliest Known Mayan Calendar Found
Earliest Known Mayan Calendar Found in Guatemalan House – Bloomberg.
As I suspected, this discovery helps to show that the Mayan “End of the World” is not literal, but rather a change of time or a transition to a new era. This is similar to the same end-of-the-world phrases in the New Testament that actually spoke of a fundamental change of the social, political, and religious “world” of that time.
What might our new “world” look like? Will the transition seem slow or fast? The modern Mayans I’ve spoken with know no more than we do.
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Petroglyphs at Capitol Reef NP, Utah
Petroglyph-Capitol Reef NP, Utah __ Photo ©2012 David P. Crews
“Could the prehistoric artists have been hallucinating and painting their visions? And was it possible that such practices could lie at the foundation of art and religion, the most exalted achievements of mankind?”
Graham Hancock, Supernatural – Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind (Canada: Doubleday Canada, 2005) p. 158
Petroglyph-Capitol Reef NP, Utah __ Photo ©2012 David P. Crews
Petroglyph-Capitol Reef NP, Utah __ Photo ©2012 David P. Crews
Petroglyph-Capitol Reef NP, Utah __ Photo ©2012 David P. Crews
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Author with Graham Hancock in Southern Utah, 2010.
Dr. Luis Luna on Amerindian Shamanism
Amazon Green ____ Photo ©2012 David P. Crews
Towards an exploration of the mind of a conquered continent.
Sacred plants and Amerindian epistemology
By Luis Eduardo Luna, Ph.D., Dr. H.C., F.L.S.
[article here]
This excellent essay by Dr. Luna about shamanism and the use of sacred plants in the Americas, was recently posted on my friend, Graham Hancock’s, website. In it, Luna gives a useful overview of shamanism and its role in the pre-Columbian Americas and how it was repressed by the European influx (and is still repressed today).
In one of the most interesting aspects of this essay, Luna talks about how the Amazon is not the primeval wilderness we all think of, but is largely the result of massive human cultivation and manipulation over long periods of time. He says:
“The people of the Amazon live in one of the areas of the largest biodiversity on the planet. It is becoming increasingly evident that the biodiversity of the Amazon is to a great extent the result of the natural resource management of the pre-Columbian people. . . . To a certain extent the Amazon is an anthropogenic forest, a gigantic garden partially created by human beings through millennia of interaction with the natural environment.”
He also includes an interesting section on Shipibo shamanism and their wonderful geometric artwork. It’s one of the best explanations of the origin and function of the fractal-like designs I’ve read.
He also talks about the powerful cognitive transformations that can occur with plant teachers like ayahuasca. He relates an ayahuasca shape-changing vision that occurred to a French anthropologist, Dr. Françoise Barbira-Freedman, who took on the form of a jaguar (a common theme and experience in ayahuasca visioning). She said:
“Nothing I ever read about shamanic animal metamorphoses could have prepared me for the total involvement of my senses, body, mind in this process. . . . This vision engaged my whole self experientially in a phenomenological approach, which was blatantly at odds with the empiricist standpoint I intellectually favoured.”
He also relates Dr. Dennis McKenna’s transformation into a sentient water droplet who then directly experiences photosynthesis within a plant. Luna states that these kinds of experiences, “point to a new alter-ego, to an alternative epistemology: the gaining of knowledge through a radical self-transformation, by taking an alternative – non human – point of view, by cognitively merging with the focus of one’s attention.”
He concludes by stating that even though our science has explored the depths of space and the tiniest realms of quantum matter, “the exploration of consciousness is still a forbidden realm, vastly explored by shamanic societies yet neglected in contemporary science due to a great extent to religious preconceptions carried throughout centuries.”
I recommend this and other articles by Dr. Luna and also highly recommend Graham Hancock’s excellent book on shamanism entitled “Supernatural”.
The Amazon River ___ ©2012 David P. Crews
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Vermilion Cliffs
Vermilion Cliffs – Northern Arizona ____ Photo by David P. Crews
The great escarpment of the Vermilion Cliffs lies just north of the Grand Canyon.
Time has a different pace in realms like this. To the ancient shamanic Taoists, vermilion was the color of eternity.
I’ve been making landscape photos mostly non-commercially for some 50 years now. This is some of my initial work in HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography.
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Illusion of Time
On the Mesa – Taos, New Mexico ______ Photo by David P. Crews
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“Perhaps time is after all merely a device to prevent everything from happening at once – or the illusion that prevents us from seeing that in fact everything is happening at once. For time really dwells within the vastness of Eternity – where all things exist simultaneously without any past or future: as that most ancient of all texts, the Rig-Veda, tells us so pointedly.”
– Paul William Roberts, In Search of the Birth of Jesus-The Real Journey of the Magi (New York: Riverhead Books, 1995) 278.
Note: recently reissued (more appropriately) as The Journey of the Magi.
By the way, this book by Paul William Roberts is one of a very few that have actually changed the course of my life and my philosophy when I encountered it by chance in the mid 90’s. He traces the history of modern religions back through Zoroastrianism to the Vedas. That logically leads the intrepid seeker on back to shamanism. I highly recommend his book for its truly important insights, plus it is also a great travelogue and one of the most outrageously funny such books I’ve read.
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Ancient Songs and Green Magic (Part V – Conclusion)
ANCIENT SONGS AND GREEN MAGIC– A Search for What Is Real in the Amazon Jungle of Peru
By David P. Crews
Don Rober prepares.
PART V
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FINAL AYAHUASCA CEREMONY
A Vision of the Spirit and Heart
Note: This longer post concludes my Ancient Songs and Green Magic series on Ayahuasca. Please read beyond the fold for the final extraordinary visions and my Five Years Later postscript.
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VISITING THE MURRAY HUITOTO TRIBE
from my trip journal:
The Amazon River
Today, we boarded the boats to travel down the Rio Momón and on to the true Rio Amazonas: the Amazon itself. We rode a short way downriver from Iquitos to take a longer jungle hike and meet the Murray Huitoto people. This tribe lives a couple of miles inland from the great river, so we landed at a rough riverfront town and hiked through the beautiful dense jungle to find them.
The tribe was happy to dance for us and invite us in to see their world. We also delivered some needed medical supplies.
Huitoto Dances
The chief was very welcoming, and although he spoke only Spanish to me, and I spoke none, we still had a very friendly conversation.
Author with Huitoto Chief
We swam in the small river here, enjoying the cool water and also the soothing mud from the banks – an exclusive facial and body treatment that would be costly in any big city salon! Rufus, don Howard’s red uakari monkey, joined us for some fresh jungle fruit and kept us laughing with his constant antics.
Rufus!
Back at the tribe’s camp, the matron of the group showed us their ayahuasca vines, planted at the base of certain trees and growing strong. As the vine is used, it is important to keep it cultivated.
Huitoto woman-cultivated Aya vine.
Huitoto Chief
Back at our lodge once more, it was time for our third and last ceremony.
THIRD AYAHUASCA CEREMONY
There is an ancient practice or technique in shamanism called “soul retrieval.” It is a healing for someone who has lost part of their spirit – their spiritual body. Perhaps they simply wandered away into a spiritual place and part of them did not return to our everyday reality. Perhaps someone stole that part of the person, or borrowed it and never returned it. Now the person is ill with a kind of emptiness or depression that cannot be cured by normal means. The shaman goes into trance state and travels off into the past or alternate realities, finds the part that is missing and invites it back. He or she recovers that spirit essence and reunites it with the ill person, making them whole and happy once more. This kind of healing is something a human shaman does, but it may not always be a human who heals.
“Anything will give up its secrets, if you only love it enough.”
– George Washington Carver
As my final opportunity to experience the tea approached, I re-evaluated my set of Intentions for it. After thinking about it, I realized I had been unconsciously self-centered in my original intentions. Instead of being completely open in my heart, I had been trying to get what I wanted while couching the request in careful language. I had been requesting, as if off a menu, to be shown the visions I desired. I wanted to see and learn what I wanted.
Magic Tea
This time, I let go. I decided to simply open myself up and let Ayahuasca take control and lead me where, perhaps, I did not know I needed to go. She certainly did that in the first session! Having confronted Fear itself and then allowed to get my bearings in session two, I felt like I was oriented enough now to trust her and not be anxious or fearful this time. My new intention was: “Open me up. Show me Love. Let me be love.”
The Ayahuasca tea seemed slightly more viscous tonight. Once again, I felt fortunate that the drink went down rather easily and I had no problem with it. Since this was our final ceremony, don Howard and his wife Reyna placed wonderful little bead necklaces around our necks, each with a small pendant of Ayahuasca vine. Now, we waited in the darkness once again – waited for our next inexorable leap into the true unknown.
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“For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so,
because it serenely disdains to destroy us.
Every angel is terrifying.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies
As we waited for the onset of Ayahuasca space, don Rober began his icaros. Several of the other participants were inclined to join in, and then many of the tribespeople in and outside the molloca also began to sing along, with a group energy that I found myself caught up in as well. It was a wonderful antiphonal surround-sound beginning to tonight’s ceremony and it boded well for the nature of this journey.
Once more, and to my relief, I entered Ayahuasca’s dimensions easily. As my head and extremities began to hum and vibrate with the powerful electric energy of the medicine, it grew in strength, then leveled off and remained a neon body buzz throughout the session. I saw some geometric patterns and some colors, but they were muted. Visual effects are easier to describe than other more internal effects, but now I noticed a different internal feel to this space from the previous ceremonies. The vine felt strong and it was deepening into me moment to moment. After some time, I was very deep, indeed, and I drifted on into another dimension.
Without warning or sign, I realized that something was coming towards me. There was no sound. As it drew near, it looked like a train or subway vehicle, which now pulled up at my left side and came to a stop. This seemed like an obvious invitation to board, but the train was too small to enter it. I thought, though, that I could probably get on top of it and ride it the way they do rail cars in India, so I climbed up and onto the top of the second car from the front. In a twinkling, as I did so, the train changed its form – morphing into a gigantic snake. I knew it was common in Ayahuasca visions to encounter these huge Ayahuasca snakes or jaguars or other elemental animal forms. It is sometimes a challenging test, but this seemed straightforward enough. I was going to ride the Snake!
This is a blog about the Big Questions, Life, Travel, and Creativity.
DavidCrews 
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