Ayahuasca Again (Oct’2023) Part1

An account of the second time I got to sit in Ayahuasca ceremonies (October’ 2023):

In mid 2023, it seemed like I would be getting another chance at sitting with the Ayahuasca energy, with the same shaman and team that I sat with in 2020. I was excited. This time things were vastly different from the first. Meaning, I was in my hometown, in my familial home, with my parents and sister and dogs and the rest of the joint family.

This matters on multiple levels:

Firstly, unlike the first time I prepared for Aya ceremonies more than a month in advance (when I was living by myself in my Bombay home), this time I was around so many people and their energies all damn day. The regular cacophony of a functioning household, so much chatter, TV on loud volumes, people co-existing and sharing a finite space with each other. There wasn’t much room for any natural quietness, other than the really early hours of the mornings.

I had to manage a very strict pre-and-post dieta whilst the rest of the family was on their regular meals – it is quite hard to keep negotiating the principles and allowances of this dieta with the woman of the house – My Mother was regularly shocked at how little or how bland I was eating – this is especially shocking to Indian mothers/ families – we regularly intensely savour flavoursome and seasoned meals, with masalas and spices being staple ingredients.

I had to keep defending my choices (dieta).

In much the same vein I had to keep defending my boundaries. Meaning I needed to talk lesser and lesser, engage lesser and lesser with others. I wanted to go quieter and quieter, as much as possible, before the ceremonies began. Also, with that change of diet, the giving up of salt and sugar sends a shock to the system and I tend to feel quite weak in my constitution, feeling the urge to preserve my energies.

The ‘no touching/ hugging’ part was easy to get done since my entire family is touch-averse (‘haha!’, she said wistfully). The ‘no sex’ part was easy too – I was celibate & ‘retired’ at the time. The ‘no orgasm’ part is always a tough act to pull, but as usual I managed it. I did not orgasm for over 20 days before ceremonies began.

I gave up swimming 2 weeks before the ceremonies, since we are guided to quit / phase out chemicals and non-natural substances from our bodies/ diets – chlorine water being one of them.

I found that I wasn’t focused. I wasn’t clear on my intentions as I was the first time around. I was feeling quite dramatic. I remember having a useless sort of inner dialogue – questioning the invitation I had received to do Aya a second time – “why has She called me again? It’s not like I have worked on myself much, it’s not like I have grown so much since the first ceremonies, it’s not like I am deserving of having another go at it”. In hindsight these thoughts are absolute garbage.

Spiritually speaking, this is the opposite of surrendering to the flow and inherent wisdom of Life. If something is happening, let it happen, its happening for a reason – accept it and move on from there. Do not question your timing, the reason of your existence or presence in the middle of an event. Just let it be what it wants to be.

And I know all these things so well. I have read about them, I have experienced miracles and magic, I have lived a life of Flow, I have learnt how to just let things unfold, with minimal arguing with them, with no resistance. Still, I seemed to have forgotten these basic tenets during the run-up to the ceremonies in Oct’2023. It was tough, feeling this stuff, feeling this confusion, this fogginess, this lack of self-worth, questioning my role in this upcoming event, questioning Mumma Aya’s invitation (!!!!).

I also remember that while I was trying to set my intentions for the ceremonies, I was again and again coming up with “Please heal me“, “I need to Heal“. It was as if I regressed right back into the victimhood narrative that I had left behind years ago. It was a very helpless and ‘out of control’ feeling honestly – to know the facts about my life, my growth, my spiritual strides AND YET regress into this ambiguous, desperate, needy ‘please heal me‘ vibe. And I honestly couldn’t get out of it, I was stuck. No other intention occurred to me. This was feeling quite doomed and stifling.

But in hindsight, I am not surprised. The point is to have the garbage within to be highlighted, to be brought up to the surface, to be released at the feet of Mumma Aya (hopefully). But at the time I was scared shitless. with these heavy burdensome ‘stuck’ feelings.

As expected, my third eye began to randomly tingle in the run up to the ceremonies. I dreamt of snakes a few times. It was tough for me to quit tech and screens. I wasn’t very disciplined. My mind was crowded, overloaded instead of becoming clearer, stiller. I could’ve done much better on this but I honestly didn’t/ couldn’t. Even in terms of the dieta, I was not as strict and disciplined as I had been the first time around, in 2020. All of this was adding to my existing anxieties about my worthiness. It was hell.

Four mornings before the retreat, I woke up with a clear idea in my head. A clear thought, a wordless instruction of sorts, which I am putting in words – “Gift your art to the fellow seekers gathering at the ceremonies and speak about your journey“. Without skipping a beat, I went to the Print Shop nearby that very morning during business hours and got multiple paper-prints of my digital art. I carried them as gifts for the strangers I was to meet there at the retreat.

I’ll skip straight to the retreat now:

FIRST CEREMONY:

I reached the retreat venue on the evening before the first ceremony was to begin. That night was one of very little sleep, I was a bit anxious about it all with so many of those low-frequency thoughts that I had running around in my head. I also remember watching content on my phone. I was watching Superstore or some such. Fool! Seriously, I was out of control this time (palm on forehead emoji).

Amongst the crowd of seekers present, apart from a few familiar and pre-loved faces, the rest were people new to me. I kept to myself initially. Night 2 was the night the first ceremony was being held. This time we sat within four walls, two made of cement, two made of glass. We sat in total silence, waiting, while everyone gathered and found their seats. Maestro sat in his place, surrounded by his ceremonial wares, his many musical instruments which he would play one by one over the course of the ceremony. Soon, it was fully dark, barring a small candle, by the light of which we navigated our way one by one to where maestro sat, to take our first serving of the Ayahuasca brew.

My turn came and I walked up to Maestro, kneeled down, joined my hands together in reverence to the Mother energy, drank my first cup of Aya, thanked Maestro, walked back to my place/ mattress, closed my eyes and waited.

I waited and waited and waited. Soon, I began hearing the expected sounds of an Aya circle. Someone yawning, someone sniffling, someone retching, some rustling, some sighs, some tossing and turning. And then Maestro began singing, very subtly at first. Low volume. Just his flute at first, a little time spent shaking his shakapa (instrument made by stringing together dried leaves, methinks), singing very little. He was of course singing the Icaros, songs inviting the spirits of Ayahuasca and the jungle to come and grace the gathering, to protect and provide.

I waited and waited and waited for the spirits to take me over. I waited for something to happen. I waited and waited, for what seemed like hours. I opened my eyes after a decade had passed (or so it seemed). I looked around the now completely dark room, save the moonlight trickling in from the glass walls, and found that my fellow seekers all seemed to be in the midst of their respective journeys/ process. But what about me!? I wondered.

I was bored. NOTHING WAS HAPPENING!!! Literally, nothing was happening. No visions, No insights, No a-ha moments. I sat there frustrated, stewing in my ‘I don’t deserve to be here’ + ‘but I need healing, I’m so messed up’ + ‘She doesn’t love me anymore’ soup. I waited for the second serving. I took it. While I received the second cup from Maestro, I complained to him under my breath, “Nothing is happening Maestro! Where is She!?”. He said while chuckling at me, “it’s happening, everything is happening! She is Here, waiting for you to step aside“. That frustrated me even more. I walked back to my seat, sat down with my eyes closed. Nothing happened for a long time. Did it?! Its hard to say really.

Before I knew it, I was struggling to breathe properly. Meaning, I could take a full in-breath through my nose, but it seemed impossible for me to exhale through my nose quietly. It seemed that the only way to exhale that my body could manage was with a loud sigh, bordering on moans. “aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”.

It was so embarrassing to exhale in that fashion, since we are told to muffle and mange our movements and noises as much as possible, so as to not disturb others’ processes. I tried so hard to, to breathe ‘normal’, but I just simply couldn’t! So bizarre.

Each time I would try to inhale and exhale normally (quietly through my nostrils only), I would feel suffocated, like I was running out of air. I had to, absolutely had to, exhale with a sound – “aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” or “uuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”. Each time I exhaled, it sounded like a deep sigh, of a woman exhausted, a woman in pain, a woman discovering relief, a woman experiencing freedom after long, a woman feeling deep pleasure, amongst other things. After some time of feeling embarrassed by my loudness that seemed to echo through the hall (I don’t know why everyone else was quiet suddenly), I understood that’s how its going to be – I resigned to it and continued ‘existing’ (breathing loudly).

Simultaneously, the only other sound present in that room was Maestro’s out-breaths – the soundless whistles shamans make as part of ceremony. They are just rhythmic exhales, they sound melodious and mesmerising. My reluctance and embarrassment deepened further at thinking that I was interfering with Maestro’s ‘shamanic work’. I tried to hush my sighs, against god’s will. It proved impossible.

And then suddenly, I received a wordless message, down to my bones – “While Maestro’s is the masculine principle breath, Yours is the Feminine principle.” HUH!?!?!?

Then another message – “You are doing this breathwork for the group, not just for you!” HUH!??!?!

[To think of it, this ‘deep sigh as exhale‘ is something my EFT Tapping teacher practices and asks us to do as well in all our sessions. EFT is Emotional Freedom Technique, and I have been partaking in it off and on since 2021. My teacher is this fabulous divine feminine soul Geet Taneja. She grows more and more into the goddess that she is, with each passing year.]

I also suddenly got this fabulous high-tech vision of a woman (possibly me) sighing deeply while exhaling, and through her out-breath/sigh escaped a beautiful bird, being set free from its translucent cage.

It was such a gorgeous vision – it has stayed with me since. I still haven’t been able to render it onto a canvas, digital or physical.

I felt a dark cloud and a light pressure on my stomach and my breasts. It felt like garbage/ baggage that I was carrying.

I couldn’t breathe normally for the entirety of the first ceremony – I began crying in frustration, crying for Her to ‘heal me please!”. I was in outer space, in some spaceship sort of vessel, with the entire universe in my vision. It was so slick, this vision. I began crying searching for my dead grandmother in that vast starlit darkness behind my closed eyes, apologising to her, apologising for all her pain. She DID NOT APPEAR. No echo, no vision, no response. I was so sad that She (my Ammaji) didn’t show up. I began looking for my Buaji, my father’s only sister who had passed away in 2021 due to COVID after living her 69 years as a mentally & emotionally challenged person, in my flawed family. I begged her for forgiveness. I begged Aya to heal Her. I begged Aya to heal all three of us – to heal all the women in my lineage. I wanted to apologise for all their pain, for all of mine too. I wanted to apologise for being so flawed and for adding so much of my personal pain onto the lineage. I wanted to apologise and heal all of my ancestors, especially the women.

No One Showed Up. Nothing. Zilch.

It was almost like Aya was saying “Nope! Not happening. Move on Anjuri“. As if to highlight the fact that I was being over-dramatic, unnecessarily weaving a drama or story that doesn’t hold true or doesn’t hold merit any longer – this – I am able to say in hindsight, because ceremony #3 made a valuable insight abundantly clear.

Anyway, I couldn’t move on from my internal drama of victimhood, having to apologise for ancestral pain, the assumptions I had about my foremothers waiting in the afterlife for comfort/ solace from me. There was none of that. There was a deafening silence at the other end of the line.

Hence, I suffered. I couldn’t breathe. I was writhing, sitting in my seat. It was so evident, my discomfort, that Maestro came to where I was and tried to help me with his energy work, chants, whisper-breathing, shakapa. He sprayed something on my head and back, He smoked some tobacco smoke on me as well, and he told me something is stuck – “let it go, let it go”. I didn’t even know how. I just wiggled around in my extreme frustration and discomfort. Body bent forward, arms extending to touch a tree that was a part of the this beautiful room – I was reaching out to the tree to “feel something”, “something other” than what I was feeling. Nada. Zilch. NO relief.

Soon, the ceremony came to an end. The little candlelight came on again. Maestro was joking around with some of the people sitting at the front of the gathering. I was stuck in my spot. I had requested and taken a hit of ha-peh (rapéh) earlier, with the second cup because it tends to ground the experience, ground the senses. It clarifies. It awakens the third eye. Stills it. But it did no such thing for me. It just made me rooted in my frustration further. I sat there exhaling with moans and deep sighs, while everyone else seemed to have completed their ceremonies. People were talking to each other, moving about. I was stuck.

Maestro sent Brother T to check on me. I opened my eyes when I heard Brother T’s voice near my face, and I was shocked to see his face as flat as a piece of paper in front of my face. Oooooof. Weird. I tried to make some conversation with him. I barely could. I told him I can’t move. I can’y breathe properly. Maestro came to check on me himself. He brought some hapeh along for me, and gave me a dose. Then he said “let it go” and handed me my bucket (which I had kept far away from me, as per usual, based on my experience in 2020, when I didn’t vomit even once through the retreat), confident that I might vomit soon.

I didn’t.

After some time, I walked out of the hall, so deeply frustrated with Mumma Aya. WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ABOUT!? A BUNCH OF NOTHING!?!?!

On my way out, Maestro told me “Do Kambo tomorrow darling. Something is blocking you, let it go with Kambo. Clean, clean clean!“. Now, this, I wasn’t ready/ prepared to do. Kambo is a frog poison that is burnt into one’s skin by a shaman, shoulder for men, ankle for women. Before getting the medicine, one must drink 3 litres of water. One must be prepared for a sudden rise in body temperature, and a purge from all ends – peeing, pooping, vomiting, sweating – simultaneously or one at a time.

The water serves as the wilful river that carries all the impurities out of the body – sweat or bowels. It might not sound like it upon reading, but drinking even 2 litres of water at once is quite a challenge. The more one drinks, the more one feels nauseous. Its hard to keep it down.

Anyway, I went back to my room, sulking. NOTHING HAPPENED FOR ME! WHAT THE HELL!

I tried to go to sleep. Barely got any that night. I woke up feeling like I had no choice but to go through a Kambo ceremony. I surrendered to Maestro’s wise suggestion. Since I wasn’t able to unblock my mind, my body, I would have to seek Kambo’s help. There’s a first time for everything, right Anjuri!?

I went and informed Maestro that I was sitting in for my first ever Kambo ceremony.

[A Kambo ceremony is a shamanic ritual that involves applying a waxy substance/ secretion, from the skin of the giant leaf frog (Phyllomedusa bicolor), to open wounds on the seeker’s body. A shaman uses a hot stick to create small burns on the skin, then applies the frog secretion to the wounds. It causes the body to purge through vomiting or defecation, and can also lead to increased blood pressure and heart rate. Proponents say it can rid the body of toxins, improve mental clarity, and treat various illnesses.]

I and two others assembled in the same hall as the one we had gathered in last night for the ceremony, sitting next to each other in a row in front of Maestro. I will keep this short and brutally honest. I was asked to drink 3 litres of water. The first bottle was manageable, the second one was so hard to stomach. I couldn’t even look at the third water bottle after the first 2. Maestro told me to finish the 3rd bottle right after he gave me the frog medicine.

He burnt a few dots on my ankle, then put the frog poison in those burn marks. The medicine took so little time to start working – it was astonishing. I attempted to start drinking the third bottle immediately after that. I could barely finish a quarter of it. I became nauseous. I vomited a bit ion my bucket. Only water came out with little sparkles of white (unknown white flecks, the size of snowflakes). I began crying spontaneously. Maestro asked me to drink more water. I did. I vomited again. The same contents emerged from within. Water with white snowflakes. I felt immense unrest in my body and mind throughout. I also shat my shorts slightly with the second round of vomiting. After this I excused myself since I had to urgently wash up (!!!!), haha!

I went back to my room, took a shower and washed my bottom-wear (shorts and panties). I remember how humbling it was to clean shit out of my underwear, and while I was cleaning it out of my clothes I remembered a simple yet profound lesson a fellow seeker/ friend had received during our 2020 Aya retreat – while she sat almost -immobile in a folding chair outside the maloca, the sun in her eyes, she felt an urgent need to defecate, and began to feel shame and disgust at herself and her body. But within the next few moments, she received an obvious yet uncommon understanding of this basic bodily function – “IT IS JUST SHIT. EVERYONE SHITS. ITS A VITAL SURVIVAL FUNCTION OF A HUMAN BODY. THERE IS NO NEED FOR ANY SHAME OR DISGUST. BE GRATEFUL THAT YOU SHIT. BE GRATEFUL FOR SHIT!!”

That’s it. I felt that truism deep in my bones while I cleaned my clothes. After I was done cleaning and washing up, I spotted an adorable little frog under the sink. I was reminded “Kambo! Anjuri, You did it! You did your first ever dose of Kambo! WOW GIRLLLLL!”

Once one partakes in a Kambo ceremony, one must be adhere to an even stricter dieta than Ayahuasca and return to normal diet after a month or more, and do so very gradually. Otherwise the liver can suffer the consequences. I reminded myself of this once I stood there looking into the mirror above the sink. I had the rest of the day ahead of me (it was just 10am), till the 2nd night ceremony commenced that same night. As per Maestro’s request, we were all to gather together starting 6pm, so that we could finish early too and no one lost out of the experience of the medicine simply because they were sleepy.

I was freshly bathed, fresh clothes, feeling better than the previous day, clearer in my head, feeling quite amused and chirpy after I had managed to be courageous enough to do a Kambo ceremony. I walked out to find many others seated around the eating area, chatting quietly over breakfast. I decided to only take a serving of the clear soup (whenever I go for Aya ceremonies, I do not feel like eating much anyway, unlike my regular life). I considered staying quiet and keeping my thoughts to myself, but then someone asked me how my Kambo experience went. I am generally quite frank and express myself freely, but this particular time I decided to share details that anyone would avoid sharing – I told them all about me shitting my pants. Haha. I talked about it in detail, and since this was an Aya crowd, there was no cringing, no looking away, no complaining on the lines of “hey, we are eating food!” – I shared my account of what transpired and everyone laughed and gasped and nodded their heads in acknowledgement. It felt so freeing to just openly talk about “shit”. Aaaah. I fell in love with all of them as well as myself. A couple of other people shared similar stories from their Kambo ceremonies. It was brilliant!

SECOND NIGHT CEREMONY:

Maestro had been right in suggesting I undergo a Kambo ceremony before sitting for another Aya ceremony. Kambo did clean me up, my mind and body, it seems, because the second ceremony went differently than the first one for sure.

I took 2 servings of both Aya and rapéh that night and I saw some magnificent visions. But even this night, Mumma Aya kept me guessing, kept me waiting, kept it cryptic. She didn’t communicate with me in a straightforward manner. Over one year has passed since that night, and I am still decoding her messages and the visions she granted me. It has been quite hard to jot down the experience in a literal way this time around. Its not communicable. Words cannot capture most of what I felt/ saw/ heard. The music, as usual, felt absolutely divine, as if originating from within my own body. At one point, I opened my eyes to see Maestro bursting with colour energies, dim neon colours sprouting & sparking outwards from his body and his traditional clothes, his head-dress – while he went around our circle to bless us one by one, playing his various instruments & chanting for us. Wow! It was otherworldly, yet at the same time it felt natural – like this is how it is/ must be all the time – people’s auras sparking with energy and colours as they exist and ‘be’ themselves.

I was shown my body as a multi-storeyed building, with so many people using the elevators to go from one floor to another. Such a busy building, so much activity.

There was a vast library, studded with jewels and gold, filled choc-a-block with stunning red-gold bound books. Mumma Aya was walking around dressed ultra-regally, from one corner to another, with an array of followers in toe. The feeling I got was that She was like a very self-important god-ordained princess or queen of sorts, and She knew it, and She had no qualms about it. There wasn’t any ego nor any shame. She was royal, regal, a goddess. Everyone around her knew it, so did She. She was merely existing.

That library seemed to me to be the Akashic records. Those are the two words that occurred to me while I was watching that vision. (Upon returning home, I tried painting this scene on a physical canvas, I just simply couldn’t!)

Again. I do not know what any of the above means and what I should really takeaway from it. Shrug emoji.

But on this second night ceremony, I finally did feel that I had come home, I had been invited home, a home where I belonged – the DMT home – which typically looks like its made of dark snake-skin walls, alleyways, corridors, flummoxing geometry. A vast outer space. I was home. Finally.

The feeling of ‘belonging’, the feeling of ‘home’. I long to render it onto a canvas, physical or digital.

At one point I was effortlessly gliding underwater, deep in the ocean, with neon lit sea-creatures – whales, dolphins and others. They knew me. I belonged there. I had a mermaid’s body, sort of. I was breathing underwater. It was so divine. It was so freeing. I believed it. I was swimming in the deep dark waters of the sea, where no light reaches. I was neon, bejewelled, dim, shimmering. All this was set to Maestro’s gorgeous singing of the Icaros. Goosebumps, even when I recall it now. I was ‘home’. This was my ‘home’.

At one point, I began swimming belly-up and looking out into the open sky through the surface of the water, looking at the dimly starlit sky, the full moon. I had a smile on my face. Anjuri smiled too, sitting there in her seat in the maloca.

I haven’t been able to paint this scene or feeling (yet) either. Sigh.

I don’t recall much more from the ceremony itself that I can express in words here, sadly. When the ceremony ended, I walked back to my room, without talking to anyone. I knew I had to just lie down on my bed, as the ceremony was still in process, for Me.

As I entered my room, I passed a mirror hanging on the wall to my right. While taking my slippers off, I happened to look into that mirror. It was a familiar sensation of ‘Oh my god ! how intense are these eyes, Oh my god! how fractured is my skin, how scaly, how complex” But there was this other thought that crossed my mind for the first time ever, under the influence of Ayahusaca and it shocked me and I still do not know what to make of it – “Wow, so ugly!”

Yes, I looked at my face and remarked, out loud, yet under my breath, “wow, how ugly!”

I don’t know what to say about this. Sigh.

I looked away from the mirror, quite flummoxed yet resigned and walked towards the bed and crawled under the covers, after undressing completely.

I closed my eyes and received myriad visions. One stand-out vision was of a Kali-like figure (Goddess kali, from Indian mythology) with her tongue out, eyes made big, and fangs showing. I was wordlessly instructed to emulate her power-pose along with claws out in an animalistic way. I did do. It did something to Me. I don’t know how to describe it, but something happened.

I kept seeing a carousel of visions. Some of them were related to feminine power, goddesses, witches, tigresses. I was even visited by a dragon. So beautiful, so fierce, so powerful.

After a few hours of receiving indescribable visions, I fell into a brief period of sleep. I woke up to a new day, feeling comforted, reassured, validated – She hasn’t shunned me, I am here for a reason, I am home.