Ayahuasca Calling – Part 1

Life themes that led me to Plant Medicine and other psychedelics:

The first time I came to know about Ayahuasca was without intention or seeking. I was and am still a huge comedy nerd – used to follow the American and British comedy scene ardently till a while ago. Almost obsessive. So its truly poetic that I came to know of Ayahuasca through an American comic! The Mother energy found me via a route that was natural to me! Isn’t that insane & profound?!

Ayahuasca revealed her existence to me in the same year that my life fell apart publicly (2017! – the year my then-husband and I called it quits, he suggested it, I agreed out of emotional exhaustion) – I was watching an episode in Chelsea Handler’s Documentary Series ‘Chelsea Does’ (episode on ‘Drugs’). She is known for her love and use of marijuana, but she also covered Ayahuasca. She flew with a couple of friends to a corner of the Amazon jungle and sat with a curandero (medicine man/ energetic facilitator/ shaman) for a couple of private ceremonies.

Naturally, I was intrigued by Ayahuasca, but not because of her experience, as documented by her team. I just simply felt pulled to it, but the pull didn’t last for more than a couple of hours. Life came back in and I looked away in distraction from the ‘drug’.

A flailing marriage, intense self-hatred, grand neglect of self, disillusionment with job (even in the best days, I never referred to it as a career), anger at the world at large – pulled me right back into their drama. You see, for me back then, personal drama & victimhood were hobbies.

In April 2017, my marriage finally broke down. It was truly the end (thank goddess!). We decided to separate. It was the worst phase of my life, yet. Had to face this failure of marriage, of a cherished relationship. Cruel words, harsh judgments, private death sentences were issued readily. I was suicidal for a week or so. I locked myself up in the spare room, so as to not be near knives in the kitchen. 

I was exhausted from the nonstop crying, pretending to be sane and stable at work, pretending to be ‘fine’ for the parents, pretending that my heart wasn’t shattered irrevocably (it seemed like that at the time at least). I had never felt suicidal before and needless to say, I was alarmed.

But I think this is where my new life began to take shape. Having suicidal thoughts made me understand that actually, I wanted to live. I wanted to stay alive. That this wasn’t the end of the world, like it seemed. Like maybe this heartbreak had been a gift. A deeply profound gift, this untethering.

Life keeps moving on, and so do we, somehow. Within a couple of months of separating from my ex-husband & feeling suicidal, I began to laugh again. I allowed tears to wash over me, whenever they emerged. I fought them less and less. I was broken but it felt like I was quietly collecting the scattered pieces of myself, slowly. A year passed, with many new different dramas occurring in my life, but milder in nature than ever before. I had begun feeling a new connection with my environment, nature, animals. This is the time when our family dogs sauntered into my life (my family back in my hometown adopted two beautiful dogs). I had temporarily bypassed my paralyzing fear of water and gone diving (with an instructor) in Bali. Went to the Maldives with my family. None of us know how to swim, but all of us played in the water, snorkelling by the shore. I saw many fish chilling and doing their thing. They didn’t mind me being there. I began seeing that with respect and awe.

Then came time for the divorce hearing in court. Broke me down all over again, shattering my fragile narrative of ‘I have moved on and survived and healed’. I melted into a puddle of tears while filling in the petition application, sitting at my home-desk. It felt like someone was physically squeezing my lungs and stabbing my throat.

Well, anyway, I got through it, somehow. Another year passed, I began having a pain in my chest, which I ignored out of fear of finding out something bad was happening to my body, until it couldn’t be ignored any longer. I had put on more weight than ever before during this time and the chest pain became sharper and sharper by each day. I got it checked. Found out, much to my surprise, that my heart was perfectly strong. I had a blood pressure issue related to anxiety. Anxiety. Ugh, I hated that word.

Divorce gave me anxiety. Me? Really? I couldn’t help but judge. Ego took over and berated me for being weak. ‘Can’t handle tough situations that you yourself were responsible for?’ Ha! ‘Loser! Blood pressure problems at the age of 34? WTF!’

It was hard. I hated admitting that I had anxiety. Hated admitting that I was lonely. That I felt pain. That my inner dialogue was causing me chest pain. I was ashamed. Self-hatred was flaring up again.

In November 2018 I had decided to quit my cushy job, take a year off and just work with the anxiety, sit with myself, my pain, the pain that sort of got shelved away, bookmarked amidst the mind-numbing ‘I’m always busy’ routine of an average corporate job.

By February 2019, Valentine’s Day, I was out. Or rather In. In my home, in my body, in my mind, in my ego. My agenda or resolve was to keep attracting spiritual work or practices to my life experience.

From Ayurveda treatments to psycho-therapy sessions, to hypnagogic light therapy, to Pranic-healing training, to Theta-healing training, to sensory deprivation (floatation tank), to holotropic breathwork, I kept on exploring. And yes, I did feel like I was making at least a dent in my life-story of misery.

You see, the failed marriage wasn’t the only blip on my life’s graph – the story of ‘everyone hates me, and I generally mostly hate everyone and everything’ had been bedazzled with various stories, memories, events since birth.

A lonely difficult childhood, or at least an illusion & memory of one, never fitting in anywhere, feeling gloomy deep inside, episodes of molestation & harassment throughout formative years, a big loud voice hiding a million insecurities and anxiety behind it, detachment from my intuition, self-loathing, guilt, shame, blame; the forever pursuit and seeking of happiness outside of Self, the painful disconnection (emotional & physical) from family , feeling untethered, abandoned, spiritually orphaned, amputated; dishonouring and stifling the divine feminine within, hating being born a woman; appropriating the toxic masculine as defence mechanism; unhappy lonely marriage with a partner who brought as much love as pain with him, a sudden yet inevitable separation, delayed divorce, anxiety, panic attacks at the corporate desk, heart-attack like somatic symptoms, hiding in shame, boiling with rage, self-imposed label of ‘failure’, a deep loneliness and assumption of being unworthy.

All of the above led me to have a series of ‘breakdowns’ through 2017-19. Streams of tears, barrage of fears, confusion and delusion. I had tried to be ‘strong’ and ‘cry by myself only’, appear ‘put-together’, a ‘survivor’, independent and resilient. It took me some time to accept that the Ego won’t and can’t save me from the mess that life felt like.

But anyway, as I mentioned above, I think I was making headway despite my sob-story and pity-party and that I had survived and thrived even. Then came another blow to the spiritual ego (truly unexpected). The day (an average day in July 2019) I held the finalised and government-approved divorce petition in my hands, a total physical and emotional breakdown led to a series of serendipitous events (between August 2019-March 2020) that changed the paradigm for me, my understanding of my life, my pain, my Ego & story.

I basically felt like I was having a heart attack. This time, I went to the hospital again and underwent a series of medical tests – turned out to be weight-related high blood pressure and anxiety that was causing gastric issues. Heart was still as strong as it had always been. Thank goodness. I had genuinely thought I was going to die of a broken heart, literally.

So – Anxiety. The new nemesis, with a loaded name.

It made me feel helpless. Like I had no control over it. So, I continued with life as I had planned. I kept travelling. Went to New York for 40 days to stay with my school bestie, walked around kilometers upon kilometers by myself, chatting with strangers, flirting with standup comedians, watching broadway plays, petting dogs along the way. Went to Vietnam for 2 weeks, travelled a ton to my hometown to be with our pets. On the outside, it must have seemed like I had the best life and I was sorted. Nope. I was struggling, of course. I didn’t know which way I was going, but I was going from one day to another, looking for meaning, healing, and also gathering spiritual knowledge.

One fine day in October 2019, I received an invite to an Ayahuasca retreat (my first ever) to be held in March 2020, through a spiritual center I had been associated with for a year (let’s call it The Lotus). With a typical knee-jerk reaction I mentally said NO, I do not have the money to pay for it, it’s not for me, I’m not for it. A few handy excuses. I tried to forget about it. I got reminders about the retreat a couple of times again in the following months. I ignored them.

2020 came. I flew to my family home to help take care of my 93-year-old grandfather, who had seemed to be on his deathbed then (he got better soon). I flew back to Bombay mid-january.

My connection with nature was growing (had been growing over time). My morning routine, at the time, was going to a nearby beach before sunrise (around 5.30am), walking 8km along the shore, watching the sun come up, and sitting with three stray dogs that had recently become my friends. I looked at the water differently, I interacted with the dogs without fear, I held them close, spent hours with them each morning. I could feel something expanding, something changing, within me, around me. I was seeing the environment as very closely linked to me – the birds that sat at my windowsill to sing their lovely songs, fell in awe of crows, swooning at the majesty of trees in my neighborhood. Something was moving. It all seems pre-ordained now.

I attended a holotropic breathwork workshop at The Lotus which seemed to have opened me up a bit (I had never before been able to meditate or travel inward to a special place where so many others seem to). Emotions had emerged, tears were shed, I had my first public orgasm. I was open and receptive in that moment at the end of the 2-day workshop and that is when I was reminded again about the Ayahuasca retreat, this time by the founder of The Lotus himself. He said “what are you waiting for, you seem ready! Go home and sign up immediately!”. Something in the way he insisted made me do just that.

Cut to March 2020, I happened to be one of the few incredibly fortunate Indian people who got to sit in Ayahuasca ceremonies just before Covid-19 lockdowns began (March 2020). I had signed up for the ceremonies without knowing much at all about the medicine and her process.

And at the risk of sounding ‘frou frou’ or just plain dramatic, the ‘process’ began right when I signed up! And by that I mean, I started having incredibly vivid visions in my dreams, having out-of-body-like sensations, my meditations were deeper and trance-like, emotions were swelling up all the time amongst other experiences.

To prepare the body for drinking the medicine (ayahuasca), one must follow a strict diet (dieta as they call it in Peru). It is a long list of foods you cannot have for at least 20-25 days before & after ceremony. Some of the ‘Don’t have’ items are – spices, oils, grains, pulses, legumes, salt, sugar, nuts, meats, dairy, even some fruits & veggies (of course no psychedelics, no alcohol, no smoking, no sex, no orgasm, no physical contact – hugs, kisses – with others etc.).

To me, the first mountain to climb seemed to be this dieta itself! But something remarkable begins to happen when you start following the diet with all its ‘insane’ restrictions. And I’m sure you will only believe it when you experience it – the body starts to become an antenna, that feels like its getting more and more polished and prepped for ‘receiving‘ as each day goes by. So, in my case, the space between my eyebrows (Third Eye) began tingling from time to time, and in meditations, or whenever I would think about the ceremonies. I began having really crazy intense dreams, like I had never had before (I say this because I have already always been quite the dreamer, with intense crazy vivid, often lucid dreams). Snakes & frogs began appearing in my dreams (I don’t remember ever having dreamt of snakes before) – oh, yes snakes serve as a symbol for Grandmother Ayahuasca and also of the ‘kundalini’ energy that resides in our spines (at the base, and can rise and move if a person so meditates or engages in mindful practices to do so).

Another outcome of this prep dieta was – extreme vulnerability and literally wearing your emotions on your sleeves or skin. I used to go to Juhu beach for routine walks, but during the dieta days I just sobbed at the beach, working so hard to not break down while strolling along the waters. It was insane, as in it literally made me question my sanity (seriously!).

I understood the full meaning of this a bit later – after a few days of following the dieta, all the ‘extras’ start to leave the body (spices, salt, sugar, any chemicals), and as that happens, there are lesser and lesser spaces or facades for the emotions to hide behind. As in, one can no longer mask a difficult emotion behind sugar, chocolate, nicotine, salty foods, sex or even self-orgasming. So the difficult emotions (that have been needing our attention for however long) start to emerge, in unexpected ways.

Some people experience intense fears, rage, tears of sadness – whatever it is that has been hiding behind ‘taste’ and ‘temporary pleasures’. In my case, all of my sadness, grief, absolute fear of being a ‘forever and complete failure in life’ emerged with great intensity. Also, the need & desire for ‘feeling unconditional love & belonging from a mother figure’ was a BIG ONE for me! I basically felt like a sad orphan, without a mother in the run up to the ceremonies. It was very difficult, I admit.

I remember sitting, exhausted, at the end of a beach morning walk, alongside my stray dog friends on the sands of Juhu Beach, hiding my steady stream of tears and sobs behind a big pair of sunglasses. I also remember the dogs sitting very close to my body, as if to protect me, while I sat there, melting with my tears.

I didn’t know then what was happening, why it was happening, and what an ayahuasca ceremony is like, but I did feel in my bones that something important and possibly life-altering was taking place. So despite feeling scared and anxious (after reading a few articles related to Ayahuasca written mostly by Westerners), I somehow stayed the course.

The sage advice I was given (and followed it fully) by Brother T, (the one-man powerhouse singlehandedly organising these retreats) who has sat in on hundreds (if not thousands) of ceremonies by now, was this – just come to the retreat and experience this because the Mother has called you, it’s the right time.

I have to outline here very categorically, Brother T did not sugarcoat what it means to engage with Ayahuasca or any other plant medicine and I AM SO GRATEFUL for that. Taking my cue from Brother T, neither do/ will I. I do not, will not sugarcoat. Ayahuasca is serious business. Working with plant medicines is serious business. Do not treat them as party-things. They are not meant for recreation (in my experience and philosophy). They are meant to guide us into the deepest parts of Ourselves, the Earth and of the Universe. Yes, they can feel like ‘heaven on earth’ but beware – they can also create magnificent hellscapes (albeit temporary) in your minds – hellscapes that may feel as real & inescapable as the skin and hair on your body. You see, Time and the experience/ flow/ speed of Time are often warped when you work with plant medicine and other psychedelics – so the hellscapes can seem endless and looped up.

The advice I was given by Brother T was to this effect – Stay pure in your intent (curiosity, respect for the medicine), have a few ‘burning’ questions/ asks that you may have from the Mother (Ayahuasca) in your mind, just a few key questions, and be ready to go beyond the Ego – to surrender your story and your Ego’s mind games. Give up control and agenda, basically.

I tried my best, yet I sort of faltered during a couple of ceremonies.

(continued in Part 2)