Post Ceremony Process (4)… The Art

Before I begin with this crucial piece of my journey with Ayahuasca, I must briefly describe/ re-iterate a pivotal event from my childhood.

The memory lacks details like my exact age, or the before and after of the event. It’s like my brain blocked it out to survive. Don’t know.

I was a little girl (definitely below 10 years of age) then. I had a lovely art teacher, who I adored very much. She was not just an art teacher. She would tutor me in most subjects. Her son was my beloved best friend. Her husband was an unemployed alcoholic, at home all the time.

She was very hard working, trying to make the best of her situation, to raise her son well, to use her god-given talents and growing as a teacher.

I would go to her terrace house every afternoon for the classes. She would also ‘teach’ me art, by which I mean that she would draw outlines for me to fill in with colours. She used to hand me long brushes, oil paints, canvases (typically not the case with children so young, certainly not back then i.e. 1990s). Typically children that young would be given watercolours, crayons, sketchpens etc to ‘do art’. Not me!

I was fortunate enough to be handed God’s tools – oil paints, beautiful brushes and large canvases (2X3 feet at the least). Kudos on her for being such a great cheerleader & believer and to my parents for allowing & financing the efforts.

I still have some paintings from those days hanging in my familial home.

I had basically learnt to love the smell of turpentine oil, the difficult-to-get-off oil paint stains on my fingers, limbs, clothes while painting with her. I simply loved oil paints. I loved canvases. I am so amazed at this woman’s foresight and judgment about my inherent talents. I mean, at that time there was no real talent showing, not through my adult eyes apart from having a neat hand at best. But she saw something in me, that even I could not.

I don’t know what day or time it was. I was in her home, doing something during my class time with her. She maybe went to the kitchen (or god knows where), for a few minutes. I was all alone. I went looking for her (?) (all details are hazy), at the edge of her solo bedroom, saw her husband standing there. Before I knew it, he picked me up (or maybe not), and shoved his beer-soaked tongue in my mouth. In my mind’s eye I am this tiny little girl. Very little. I have no way to knowing exactly. No fact-checks available.

I do not remember the details, thank god.

I don’t even think I remember properly how it ended. But it did. I don’t remember what I did afterwards, how I got out of there. How I managed to stay sane, whether I continued with the class or left. I have no recollection of that.

I just remember this much.

I don’t recall what happened in the days or weeks or months afterwards either. I just know that I soon moved away from the colony where we all lived, my giant family was moving into our own giant bungalow down the road.

This memory stayed buried within me for over 2 decades. I seldom thought about it, as I recall. Then suddenly in my 30s, it started resurfacing out of the blue. I would suddenly smell beer or whiskey on my husband’s breath and would feel violently repulsed and disgusted – essentially thrown back into the confusing incomplete trauma-memory – and wouldn’t even want to be near him let alone kiss him (poor guy!). It was torture. Sudden sneaky torture.

Anyway, so this feather of a memory, lacking in detail and closure, intensely haunted me for a few years before I met Ayahuasca in 2020.

As to the impact this buried memory had in the decades I didn’t remember it actively was that I do not remember painting much after it happened. I must have painted like maybe 3-6 paintings over the next 2 decades, despite loving paints and painting. Nothing of import came out from my hands all through my teenage years. I had no imagination. I could only copy from references – that too with pen and paper. No paints.

Then came 2013, the year I was forced by my body to take a year-long break from my insane slave-to-salary-advertising job – it was the year after I had discovered that my new husband, to marry whom I had fought my family for months – was in love with someone else. It was the year I couldn’t manage the stress of finding out about husband’s straying heart/ eyes whilst performing at top-speed-and-skill at this really crazy 3-person-job-for-one type job. 2012, the year of discovery, had been the year I felt suicidal for the first time. It was the year when I had my first private nervous breakdown. It was the year when I felt the most abandoned, the most alone, ever.

2013 was also the year I indulged in my god-given artistic talents & pleasures – took up professional photography for a year (always having been a natural at it), painted a bit too – yet nothing super original or exciting though.

For a few years afterwards, I did express myself through pen and paper – during my raging-angry-feminist-awakening phase, and drew increasingly bolder feminine-power drawings. That phase didn’t last either.

Then came Feb’2020, when I was formulating my intention-list for the upcoming Ayahuasca ceremonies. One of the intentions that had formulated themselves was “please unlock my creativity”. At the time, I think I was referring to my writing skills. Not art, I don’t think so.

Then came March 2020, when I met the Mother Energy.

During the 2nd ceremony, I suddenly see the alcoholic offender of my innocence, up on this dark stage, under a soft spotlight. Mother Aya tells me “looks at his face”. I do. Its sad. Its lost. Its so defeated.

She tells me “he is lost, he didn’t know what he was doing. It is not his story. It is yours. Time to move on.”

I confidently said, “Of course”.

Then came April 2020, when I suddenly felt the urge to express myself through art. It was because of the haunting, gorgeous visions I had seen during ceremony. I was so moved by what I had seen that the will or desire to paint it all down on canvas began taking hold.

I write in my journal on April 10th, 2020, “I wish I could draw or paint at least some of what I have seen or felt during ceremony or in my dreams before and afterwards.”

On April 12th, 2020, I drew my first ever Ayahuasca-inspired drawing. A sort of rendition of what I sense the Mother to be like, surrounded by elements of her Creation, in my life experience.

Next day, I copy a painting by Pablo Amaringo (the only painting of his I like) to make it my own

Urgent magic begins to happen. I start to draw directly from my felt experience during the ceremonies. And before I know it, my dormant Imagination just bloody explodes!

I drew many such drawings in April alone. I soon started inviting my new aya-tribe-friends to send me detailed descriptions of their ceremony-experiences so that I could try to draw theirs too. A few actually did share. And the following is what I drew for them.

Meanwhile, I continued to draw my visions and ceremony-related feelings too. All original – straight from my imagination, inspired by my intimate ceremony experiences. How thrilling it was for Me!

The pen, colored pen and paper drawings continued while I was in Bombay.

It is very interesting to me that I began Painting, with brushes, water & acrylics on canvas, ONLY ONCE I RE-LOCATED to my hometown, Kanpur in June-July’2020 – gently undoing the damage caused to my soul and expression so many years ago, in the same neighbourhood.

In retrospect, I can sense that something moved, something thawed within Me, as a result of Mama Aya making me move on from the offender, the way she did – swiftly, assertively, assuredly. Something moved enough within me to help me move forward as a person who yearns to express her barrage of thoughts and feelings through artistic expression, through painting. Now each painting I create says a lot to those who are listening/ looking. Each painting (my artpeace) is a truly heartfelt letter to the beholder, to myself and to this curious world.

I am forever grateful to Ayahuasca for this gift. This ability. This gift of Art, of my unique expression.

More on that in the next post.