Ayahuasca Again (Oct’23) Part2

(Contd.) 3 Aya ceremonies I took part in, in Oct’2023 and the aftermath:

SHARING THE GIFT OF MY STORY & ART WITH FELLOW SEEKERS:

One evening, I managed to have all my fellow seekers at the retreat gathered in one place, after we had had a short little hike as a group. I nervously spoke about my childhood art teacher, her son (my then best friend) and her drunkard husband who had molested me when I was a small child. I spoke about how that gradually led me to give up the brush and canvas, leaving oil paints behind (barring a few occasions), my prolonged silence over what had happened and my coldness towards my blameless art teacher and her son.

I then spoke about my first Aya retreat where in the 2nd ceremony, Mumma Aya granted me a chance to heal and be free from this hazy story of molestation, misplaced guilt and sticky shame – she brought me face to face with that miserable drunkard man, spotlit on a stage, authoritatively told me that my life was my story, not His. Told me to move on. Assured me that it was safe & essential to move on. And so I had. After this epiphany/ learning in the ceremony, unbeknownst to me, some transformation took place within, which led me to re-start my relationship with art and creativity in an unprecedented way. Within a few months of having this vision, I feverishly began sketching and painting again.

I spoke about the above for about 10 minutes to my fellow seekers at the retreat, I cried a little in the middle (this was a first), I turned away from the group to re-compose myself, shared my story with courage and a frank vulnerability. There was an attentive silence in the room. People were listening (something I hardly ever receive in my family life) to me. That itself is so cathartic, such a gift, such a balm to my expressive nature.

I saw so many people, both men and women, tear up as I stood there sharing my burdensome secret. I was so moved and so touched. Their quiet attention gave me goosebumps, validation, courage, warmth, to say the least.

In my nervous excitement, I was about to forego talking about each artpeace I was gifting to this crowd, when someone from the group reminded me to do so. I then spent the next few minutes talking through the meaning behind each of the 7-8 artpeaces. And then I invited everyone to come and choose whichever artpeace spoke to them most. They all did. It was thrilling. Everyone hugged me and thanked me. And took pictures of the ‘hug bomb‘ (giant group hug). It was so lovely and fulfilling because I have always had a feeling that I belong in public speaking.

That night, at dinner, a few of us had intense & intimate conversations with each other. I felt like I had opened up the group To Me. I was immensely grateful for that.

We had all been advised to eat light (I hardly even ate), go to bed early, get up early, meditate on our intentions for the morning ceremony and show up at the circle well-rested and ready.

DAY CEREMONY:

The next morning was the third and final ceremony of the retreat – the Day ceremony. As I have written about in earlier posts (Aya retreat 2020), the day ceremony is a far more powerful event than the rest of the retreat, usually – at least in my experience. Less amount of medicine is served as compared to the night ceremonies. Being out in the sun is a part of the ceremony. The Sun is a catalyst, an accelerator of the process, makes everything seem far more potent. Intense is the word.

Having sat through the two night ceremonies, struggling through the first, then undergoing Kambo, then the second night ceremony, then talking to the group about my art backstory and the impact Aya has had on me in that context – all this had relaxed & opened me up far more than the Anjuri I was when I entered the retreat. I felt naturally more surrendered to the process and could talk myself into just sitting back and letting Her do Her thing. Finally!

As a person who has a deep desire to share very part of my Ayahuasca experience with the reader, I have and I still am really struggling with the wordless indescribability & cryptic unknowable abstractness of all the three ceremonies, of the entire retreat. I can’t recall much. I didn’t document much. Not out of lack of effort, but out of lack of vocabulary. This time the information download I may have received is way beyond my capability to comprehend and then translate into human words.

So, I am doing my best to share whatever I can here. In that spirit, I will say that I did receive a pretty resounding authoritative message from Her towards the middle of the day ceremony, which I shall mention in due course.

This day, we were handed eye masks in case we wanted to retreat into the darkness of inner space without being distracted by the super-bright sunshine outside, which was harder to ignore given the two glass walls of the hall where we convened our ceremonies this retreat.

It was good to disappear behind the dark veil of the masks. The medicine took hold faster this day. I felt like I was in a snakeskin-walled auditorium for one. Maestro began singing gently. But before that he played his flute, quietly. Oh. My. God.

The minute he began playing the flute, the sun started rising (inside my mask, behind my closed eyes), flora and fauna around me began waking up, there were deer that stood gazing at me – they didn’t see me as a threat. It was a two-way curiosity as well as acceptance. They looked at me just as I looked at them. From a distance. Co-existing. The flute soared higher and higher in its tune and melody and volume, the sun rose higher and higher in my dark vision. Streams of water were gently gurgling somewhere out of sight. It was such a unique unprecedented peace – I have no more words to convey the feeling felt in my body in those surreal moments.

As time moved on, Maestro amped up the volume and pace of his Icaros (ceremonial music). At one point he was singing such a beautiful song that a lot of us in the circle burst into song as well. We could sing along, like backup singers. Behind my closed eyes, it felt & looked like this was an ancient gathering of friends and neighbours, looked like we had been getting together like this for thousands of years and Maestro had always been at the center of this gathering, regaling the crowd with his celebratory music. We were all patrons of this music, from a thousand years ago.

It felt like I belonged there, in that group. In the Ancient Past, sacred present and destined future.

Maestro’s music shifted, ebbed and flowed and with it, the sensations in my body altered. This had happened in the second night ceremony too – but it became more pronounced in the third, so much so that it stood out and I made a mental note of it.

A grand stimulation began taking place in my pelvis & lower abdomen, making me squirm and sigh a bit. It was unmistakable sexual arousal – and that is why it took me my surprise – for I had never experienced any such thing during any Aya ceremony (with LSD, mushrooms, Marijuana yes, but never with Mumma Aya).

The vision of the Kali-face with big screaming eyes, tongue out, fangs and claws out – reappeared, a big marquee image from the previous ceremony. It felt as if the pelvic pleasure and demon-goddess face were co-related and trying to tell me something. No clear worded message emerged, yet these sensations and the moving GIF-like face of Goddess Kali stayed with me for a while.

After some time, the stage cleared and I asked Mumma Aya “Why did you call me here again?”. That is when I received a lesson/ message that defined this set of ceremonies in 2023 – I saw myself, Anjuri circa March’2020, sitting nervously and vulnerably in the maloca before my first ever ceremonies were to take place. I was asked to look at her, really look.

I did.

What I saw was a girl/ woman, a child hiding so much pain behind that big laugh. Hiding so many fears, such guilt and regret. Gargantuan shame. So afraid that she was irreparably damaged and broken. So desperate for some relief. So desperate for some love and loving attention. Some validation. So desperate for some nurturance. Some reassurance. Ooooof. My darling girl. My little baby, in that adult body.

And then I was shown Me in my avatar sitting in that day ceremony in October 2023. I was asked to observe the present me, her, with Fresh eyes.

I did.

I saw her. I saw the strength, the worry, the anxiety, the imposter syndrome, the independence, the ‘trying’, the woman-in-progress.

Then a few key words appeared in my mind – “You are not as damaged as You once were. You are not as damaged as You think You are“.

Wow. The penny dropped.

That’s it. This is what I came here to receive.

The time for cautious reflection, sitting around with the weight of my past on my entire body and mind, worrying endlessly about being “damaged”, “unhealed”, “inadequate”, “in process”, “in-progress” has been served gone, is what She implied to me. Now is the time to change the lens through which I had been viewing myself.

I was made to feel, in that one second, that it was now time to stop thinking, to stop worrying, to stop being hesitant and scared, to stop the incessant pity party and self-criticism. It was time to just BE, to simply DO.

In a way, “fuck around and find out”.

No more assumptions about myself, no more habitual limitations. The time has come to Question all of them – the fears, assumptions, patterns, feelings, reflexes, doubts, narratives, impossibilities as well as possibilities.

Time for a big change.

It was a clear happy ending. I was not as damaged as I thought I was. It was like my vision had been de-tinted instantaneously. All my desperation “please heal me”, and my hunger for “solutions” dissipated in that very moment. I relaxed. I surrendered even further. In that moment, it became clear to me that the next opportunity I received (if ever) to meet with the Aya energy, it would be simply from a standpoint of ‘creative exploration’ or ‘spiritual curiosity’ – RATHER THAN FROM A ‘I NEED HEALING’ point of view.

I am writing this more than a year after receiving this message/ insight – and I have observed this message to be applicable to most of the hurdles/ challenges/ tests/ experiences I have encountered since this ceremony/ retreat in 2023. I have found time and time again, that actually I am not as damaged/ broken / beyond repair as I assume myself to be. I am not claiming to have had a smooth life since the ceremony, far from it. I have been met with unprecedented challenges this past year, unprecedented adventures spiritually as well as materially, I have faced my own severely self-limiting beliefs often to find that when I push back a bit, a new reality emerges, which proves to me that I ain’t as damaged as I assume. There is a lot of room for manoeuvring. A lot of flexibility in my Being. (wow!)

There is hope, and only continuous hope, even in the face of despair, trials, tribulations, challenges, heartbreak, limitations, failures and fears – this I have been experiencing. And believe me when I say this – this was/ is very difficult to stomach FOR ME, because people hardly ever radically adjust/ change their life and personality narratives/ stories in their heads and hearts.

We often assume certain things about ourselves and we “know” exactly what has caused us to be this certain way and we also assume the limitations that are a part of our psyche and we assume they are true forever.

It takes a lot of courage and open-mindedness and desperation to change these stories, these tried and tested and rehearsed narratives.

I have been trying to do this, ever since Aya delivered her defining message to me in that day in Oct’2023. I try to keep this simple yet golden wisdom in mind when I am revisiting old patterns& meeting with brand-new circumstances.

I AM NOT AS DAMAGED AS I THOUGHT I WAS 🙂

This might seem very simple & banal to the reader, but it is gargantuan/ path-altering to me, in experience. It has the potential to open up the entire world to me. New worlds even. Ever since this fated message, I have become so much more courageous and carefree in intentionally discovering WHO I AM, WHAT I MADE OF, besides the things I assumed for so many years – even with all the healing that ensued ever since my breakup and divorce.

2024 has been a whole new era of mistakes, missteps, moves, leaps, risks, chances that I allowed into my experience, simply because I have deliberately (very very gradually) been relaxing my idea of who I am and how I am. Its been a painstaking yet liberating year. Every time I have hit a wall of shame, guilt, regret, something that drudges up the past and its baggage that I carry to this day, I have inevitably taken a step back, paused and reminded myself “but Anjuri, you aren’t as damaged/ limited/ incapable as you think you are”.

I am so grateful, so so grateful for this life-changing simplicity.

A lot of unprecedented beauty ensued as the day ceremony went on for a few more hours after I received my lighthouse message. Maestro and the helpers/ guides led us all outdoors to be seated in the midst of nature, surrounded by plants, trees and a small stream of water serenely gurgling past us. Once we were all seated outdoors in an oblong gathering, facing each other, with Maestro seated at one curved ending, he served us hapéh one by one. When I sat with him to receive my serving, He was giggly and jovially asked me if the tattoo on my right forearm was moving around. He said it appeared 3D to him.

We giggled together. I then headed back to my place, I couldn’t keep my eyes open for more than a few seconds. I was looking around as best as I could because I wanted to take in my natural surroundings in those moments. The flower petals smelt so good – Brother T had been going around showering each one of us with flower petals one by one. Aaaaaah, the aroma of those sacred petals. Ooooooooof. Wow.

When I closed my eyes, I kept seeing a beautiful monochrome archway, a light yellow doorway framed by light yellow coloured snakes that were moving slowly over each other. So breathtakingly beautiful this felt. It was a very inviting doorway, I wanted to walk through it and go on discovering what was within that room. The architecture and the snakes all had intricate white markings on them. White on light yellow. I opened my eyes, turned around to see my goddess-friend JJ, lying face down on the ground. Her heart touching Mother Earth’s. Later in the sharing circle, JJ spoke about how it felt – laying like that – she said it felt like she was lying on Gaia’s chest, and so deeply connected with the planet’s heart. She recounted feeling like she was immeasurably supported by the Earth. And other beautiful feelings.

I turned the other way to find MV, a dear friend that feels like a younger brother, crying into a hand towel, a waterfall, a waterfall he clearly needed.

After some time, we were all told that the ceremony had come to a close, and that we can hug and talk and gather around the water stream if we so wished. Most of us did.

And then a truly wonderful thing took place – while we were all sitting watching the water gurgle down its path, there appeared a yellow snake, calmly flowing down with the water – all of us saw it. We were mesmerized. I was smiling crazily because I had seen so many yellow snakes in my vision just minutes before.

Some of us continued sitting with each other next to the water and taking all the beauty in. I had chosen to sit next to a wonderful lady with a beautiful maternal, nurturing energy about her. I, actually all of us, had become so so so fond of her over the retreat that we had all begun calling her Mum/ Mumma over the time we spent together there. Also, we were all so proud of her to participate in a ceremonies with exclusively younger people. The amount of open-mindedness & egolessness it takes to approach something like this is pretty high to begin with, and to top that – being of a certain age and still going for it, bypassing decades of conditioning and mustering up enough courage to participate in such a spiritual experiment is astounding according to me.

Lets call her SBJ.

I noticed SBJ sitting next to the water and I was magnetised to her naturally. I was sitting next to her, quietly. After some time I noticed that she looked like She wanted to tell me something. I looked at her with a smile, and she told me with awe & wonder on her loving face, “Anjuri, I saw you in my vision”.

No one had said this to me before. No one in the six ceremonies that I have participated in, had ever seen me in a vision and told me about it. Yet.

There’s always a first time.

She told me she had seen me in the night ceremony as well. The first night ceremony, when I was struggling to breathe normally – that’s when she had seen me, writhing in pain, and she had requested Aya to go easy one me. (Awwwwwww!)

But then she had seen me in this day ceremony, as clear as day. She had seen me, dressed and appearing as a goddess of some kind. I had purple skin, purple hair. “It was very clearly You”, she said. “You were the goddess of creation, like Goddess Lakshmi, sitting poised yet calm, casually observing this universe from your seat, which is your creation.”

I laughed aloud, in disbelief.

She repeated this, “You were the goddess of creation, like Goddess Lakshmi, sitting poised yet calm, casually observing this universe from your seat, which is your creation.”

“You were looking at everything as if it was all Yours. It was yours to command, to create, to destroy, to design, to own, to let go” – is what I heard.

Wow.

That’s it. I’ll end this post here.

This was my meeting with the Aya energy in 2023 – my second set of 3 ceremonies.