(continued from before…)
As I wrote in the earlier post about the Third Ceremony, I felt as if Mamma Aya wasn’t talking to me at all that day. She kept dodging me, confusing me, spinning me around, putting me behind stranger’s eyes. I struggled to remember who I was (Anjuri, a woman, 36 years old, divorced, unemployed, all my other stories and ideas about myself), I had to keep opening my eyes to break this loop of confusion, and when I did open my eyes, I could see in broad daylight my ceremony-mates’ happy smiling faces, or some that were deep in process, crying or purging. Whereas I just sat there receiving Nothing, getting Nowhere, Zilch!
The anger and frustration grew out of bounds. At one instance of me opening my eyes, I saw one of my ceremony-mates (let’s call him P), he was smiling at me. I smiled back, but it was just to be polite. I was seething inside. Instantly I was so jealous of him. Clearly he was having some blissful experience this day. Asshole!
The man next to where I sat, let’s call him UB, he kept sobbing endlessly. I grew jealous of him too. Then I saw P hugging the lady next to me! WTF! He didn’t come to hug me! No one cares about me! NO one loves me, NOT EVEN AYA, NOT EVEN THE PEOPLE HERE! Anger grew.
I put my blanket over my face, not wanting to look at these assholes around me, everything was making me mad. After some more frustrating and confusing visions, I raised my hand to Brother T (holding 3 fingers up), asking for a third serving. He smiled back to me like a big brother, like a parent observing their child making a mistake but not intervening so that the child can learn their own lesson.
He whispered “go ask maestro after he has finished singing this Icaro”.
I did so. Walked up to Maestro, asked him for another serving. He said, clearly, “No.” The ceremony was now closed he said.
I asked for a round of Rapécita (haa-peh, the shamanic snuff, tobacco-based, third-eye clarifying powder that’s blown up your nostrils) instead. In my perception, Maestro hesitated and then ever so grudgingly gave me some. But the way he blew it up my nose nearly knocked me off my feet. I became unstable, couldn’t walk straight. Three years on and I still recall that feeling. I was embarassed. I had asked for more than I could handle. I somehow managed to get up and walk back to my spot.
I remember having to breathe so hard through my open mouth. I was kneeling on my mattress, facing away from the group, resting on my ankles, curved forward. This was some of the harder moments of life physically, I couldn’t sit straight, I couldn’t center myself, kept gasping for breaths through my mouth, felt dizzy, began shivering (it wasn’t cold), out of whack. When I closed my eyes, a dizzying array of visions flashed before my closed eyes, making me feel further disoriented. I had made a huge mistake. I was having a medium-sized physical and mental meltdown. My vocal chords seemed to be inactive, incapable of voice. I became fixed in place, unable to move, to turn, to stand up. I became frustrated shivering furniture.
Before I could tell my face from my ass, I heard Maestro declare, “the ceremony is closed. You can all hug each other now if you wish to.” What!? Hug each other! NO wait! I can barely breathe, let alone prop myself up and walk up to and hug another person!? NOoooooooo!
I was screaming from within.
I managed to move my neck slightly and looked up to find P looking at me (the happy-hug fellow from before). I don’t know what he felt, but he kneeled down towards me, and hugged me. I could finally talk and I confessed “I can’t move P”. He said “Its Ok”. As he held me in his arms, I felt a deep sensation of relief in my bones. I was still breathless, I could only listen wordlessly to the wonderful things he was whispering to me “you are beautiful, you are lovely, beautiful spirit” etc.
After a few moments I sensed that he might leave me and move on to hugging the others. So I said to him “I’m sorry but I don’t want to let go of you right now” – I said this with a bit of shame and embarrassment because I was aware of his wife being a part of the ceremony too. She might want to hug him too. He kept holding me with all his masculine warmth and strength while assuring me, ever so gently, ‘I will stay here for as long as you may want.” I was so relieved to hear that. Felt like a true gift in that moment, so generous, so kind & loving.
The feeling is still clear to this day, he was holding me like he had been my brother, my lover, my father, my guide, my child. He was rescuing Me from the plunge my Ego and spirit had taken towards the second half of the ceremony. I held him tight, shamelessly (as I have learnt – desperation brings down inhibitions), burying my face in his neck, in his chest. I needed him. And he was there, for me. I was breathing him in. I began shaking violently. I kept thanking him because he was so tender, so gentle, so strong. Surprisingly, there was no sexuality or sexual tension involved. How wonderfully divine! I did not feel sexually charged about the touch, the hug – i just felt a deep soul-skin connection with him. I kissed his cheek and held on to him for dear life.
Honestly, as I have mentioned before, with Ayahuasca, I often don’t have a sense of the passage of non-ceremony human time but I do feel like we might have sat there, him holding me, for about 10-20 minutes. Then UB, my mattress neighbor, came to us, smiled and said “Anjuri, let’s let P go to his wife now, You hug me.”
I managed to communicate to UB “come sit down with me, I cannot move”. UB hugged me for a while. I thanked him, still shaking, shivering. Then there was some movement through the maloca, everyone was getting up, group hugs, talking, laughing all around me. I managed to get up but couldn’t move much. A few lovelies came to me one by one, checking on me, I must have looked like a woman in a daze, the walking dead. It must have been obvious that I wasn’t quite ‘back’ yet.
I was asked if I was “okay”. I answered “I don’t know”. I really didn’t.
Then came KU. He hugged me like a father. He held me sideways, with my ear to his chest, I could hear his heart beating ever go rhythmically, so confident, so powerful, so comforting. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I listened to his heart beat, his arms around me. I kept shivering.
Within moments, we were told that we should sit around in a tight circle for a sharing circle, our last of the retreat. I reluctantly, robotically walked and sat next to my favourite girl JJ. While I sat, my head drooped downwards, desperately held up by my right hand, neck bent, eyes closed, tears running down my face, shivering uncontrollably. I was still being shown a dizzying array of patterns behind closed eyes, I was feeling all of my typical low emotions in quick succession. I felt like screaming, but for some god-awful reason, my lips wouldn’t part to make a sound, my tongue was immovable, my voice box shut down.
I was maybe third or fourth in the circle and soon had to “share” at my turn – which I hadn’t calculated due to being in a complete meltdown from within. Soon my turn to speak came after JJ, who was sitting to my right, had tearfully shared her beautiful epiphanies. Brother T or someone else announced my name (all this while my eyes wouldn’t open), and all I could do was gesture with my free hand that I would pass. The person, whoever it had been to announce my name, said something to the effect of “we’ll come back to you at the end of the circle”.
I didn’t even have the bandwidth to feel relieved as I was in my own unique internal torture-chamber. Amidst the manic carousel of patterns and negative affirmations that I experienced while sitting there, frozen in place, waterfall after waterfall of tears flowing down my face, I could hear the others describe with such great gratitude their cathartic experiences that day. I wanted to hurl abuses at them all. I wanted to say “fuck you all!” “fuck ayahuasca”. I felt so angry and cheated.
When someone spoke in great detail about their visions I wanted to yell “SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” Thankfully, my lips wouldn’t part to make a sound. They were sealed shut.
I wanted to just get up and walk off from this masturbatory circle of Aya-lovers, but my body was frozen. It may not sound like much, but it was sheer torture. I felt like vomiting suddenly, but I didn’t think that my mouth would open for that either.
After some time passed, that same voice announced my name again. Everyone in the circle had shared their experiences, and now it was my turn again. I yelped with my face buried in my hands, “I need help!”. I curled forward. Only JJ heard what I had said. Maestro asked someone to hand me my bucket, thinking I need to purge. JJ told everyone I was asking for help. I sensed everyone coming closer around me, I think maybe Brother T said “HUG BOMB!!”
Everyone, instantaneously covered me in a circle with their arms around me. I was relieved a bit, in agony still. I began sobbing, uncontrollably. I remember saying through my sobs “Oh god, oh god”. You see, I had never publicly uttered these words before – “I need help”, neither had I ever cried in the midst of strangers, even friends actually.
I was surprised, shocked even, by what was transpiring. Everyone was hugging me with so much love. I still remember UB saying repeatedly, “you are loved, you are loved”. I sobbed so hard.
Maestro encouraged me to cry louder, to let it out. I felt held, supported, safe to continue crying. I howled my heart out. One thing that I remember clearly is how that group hug felt – with my eyes closed, I felt like I was securely seated within a tree trunk, near the base where the roots must bury into the earth, and their arms felt like strong sturdy roots of that tree, holding me securely in place. It was absolutely divine a feeling, unprecedented.
Then soon the circle disbanded, I opened my eyes to see Maestro’s little baby girl looking me in the eye, offering a marigold flower to me. I smiled, against my will. Everyone smiled. I crumbled again, dissolving into tears, managing to say “i feel so angry”. Maestro said “Good! Feel it!”
While I had been crying, Maestro was performing some ritualistic cleansing atop my head, the back of my neck. His wife was rubbing my back.
Everyone around me was happy, talking away, making plans to meet afterwards in their respective cities. While I sat there, having walked back to my mattress, feeling drained and lost.
For everyone else, the ceremony had come to a close. Not for me…
(to be continued in next post)
ArtPeace By Anjuri 
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