Life after Aya (2023-24)

An account of the rollercoaster-like life-events post my 2023 Ayahuasca retreat:

What awaited me after coming back home was a series of unimaginable life-events that were a mixed bag – some excruciating, some shocking, some delightful, surprising, catalysing, isolating, heartbreaking – some everything all at once. I will do my best to write about them succinctly here in this post.

ART, WHAT ART?

The minute I was back, I just wanted to start painting. I wanted to render what all I could not talk about, things I had seen or felt – on canvas. I started a few canvases one after another, so excitedly. But nothing emerged. I wanted to paint that ‘intricate ornate library’ scene I had seen, one where Mumma Aya, dressed in gold, was sauntering, rearranging, organizing books as her disciples/ fans followed her around – I laid down the background, I painted the walls, some columns, the shelves. But the painting just wouldn’t go forward.

I tried starting another scene, with the intention to capture the day ceremony, wherein we were all gathered near that stream of water. Nothing emerged.

Within the first few weeks of being back I was having amazing thrilling metaphor-filled dreams (as expected). I remember one particular dream where I saw that I was petting a tiger cub and soothing it, till it was sleepy. I asked Maestro about its meaning – he told me it symbolised nurturing and taming the inner child. And he said it was a good sign. Because from a psychological point of view, if one’s inner child is not soothed, it can wreak havoc for the adult.

I tried to paint the above scene. I almost did. But I couldn’t finish it as per my satisfaction. Ugh.

I had another dream – where two owls, with giant wingspans, flew gracefully and landed right in front of me on a beautiful big ledge of a balcony I was resting next to. The sky was pink-blue. And the balcony belonged to an art studio I had just opened for myself (in my dream).

I read up on the symbolism of owls – both from an Indian and western point of view. I learnt that owls generally signify new beginnings, intuition and prosperity.

Once again, I was eager to put this down on canvas ASAP. I did paint the scene, but couldn’t do much more with this image. I had to let it go.

Do you have any idea how scary and unsettling this felt to me? Me, a psychedelics artist, wasn’t able to paint any of my visions/ feelings/ dreams any longer? Wow. What!? I was deeply frustrated and confused by this.

HOSPITAL, NEAR-DEATH, HOSPITAL, ANGST, RESENTMENT, GUILT

I returned from my Aya retreat mid-october and on Nov 26th, my Naani (mother’s mother) became suddenly very ill and we decided to hospitalise her. What started as a case of extreme indigestion, turned into a 45+ day nightmare, changing 3 hospitals, 3 trips to the ICU, a carousel of organ-dysfunctions, a ferris wheel of doctors and a deeply resentful Anjuri.

This month and a half showed me my shadows like I hadn’t seen them in a while. I was shocked. I was shocked by my own thoughts. I was one of the primary caregivers for my Naani, a woman with whom I have shared a negligible emotional connection, in those 45+ days. The kind of resentment I experienced, and allowed myself to feel in those days, weeks and months – I frankly felt ashamed about. I wished her dead. She was near-death a few times anyway. She was in so much pain, and such a bad patient, doing everything in her power to not cooperate, that I wished her dead for days on end.

She felt like a burden to me. And when I tried to share my frustrations with my Aya group – I was told similar words time and again, “be grateful that you get to care for an ancestor, for an elder of the family, collect spiritual goodwill by tending to her, you are fortunate you get such a chance…” etc.

I tried to adhere to these things, but fell short. All I felt was resentment, anger, inconvenience. And when I felt these things, I imagined how it would be when I was her age (83 years of age) and I wouldn’t even have children, let alone grandchildren to resentfully care for me and get me the help I needed.

It was such a mixed bag of emotions that I felt during those two months, my god! they made my head explode on a daily basis.

I pitied her. I resented her. I scolded her. I cajoled her. I cried for her. I hated her.

I even donated my blood for her. And when I did, I resented her even more, because I had wished for her death.

Naani, in turn, cursed me endlessly, complained to me for not letting her die when she was about to croak (about 3-5 times she was about to die). She didn’t want to live on, but we had punished her by prolonging her miserable lonely life.

Fuck.

There was this one time, I was alone with her in the hospital room, she was crying softly in pain. She was saying she wants to die. There was no one there but us two. She in her patient’s bed, me sitting on my attendant’s bench-bed. I was watching her, whispering under my breath “I see your pain, I witness it. You can go now” over and over. I was crying for her. I hated her “unwell” “burdensome” existence.

Why me? (can you imagine having this thought, when you aren’t the one in that hospital bed!?) yes, I thought “Why Me!?”

I have never felt so self-absorbed in my entire life.

Each day I would endeavour to not have such thoughts, but as soon as I parked my car and began walking towards the hospital, I would begin to feel resentful. I was so ashamed. I was so ashamed.

I cursed Aya. “Mumma, what is this!? Why this? Why now? I don’t even love her. She is not even a nice person, deserving of all this care, by Me!” It was all about me.

I was shook up by my self-centeredness. I was shook up. Almost completely out-of-control upset all the damn time. Why me? Why me?

Fuck.

It was such a bizarre intense mixed bag of contradictory feelings swirling around in my being – I was lost in all that internal noise. I pressed her feet lovingly, I fed her medicine feeling pity for her desperate state, I wished for her to die impatiently. Every time she would be taken to the ICU, I would hope the end was near. And then I felt so ashamed for that thought. But I also felt justified in thinking that thought, after all she was suffering needlessly at 83. After all She herself wished to die. She cursed her Gods – saying that they had abandoned her in her hour of need.

Oooooof. What a nightmare this whole experience was.

Through it, and afterwards when I got some breathing space to reflect, I recognised how harsh I am on myself. How rigid and strict I am – watching every thought and judging myself. How quickly I looked away from all the sincerity, nurturance, dutifulness, alertness, compassion, humour, softness I showed in my behaviour towards Naani, a person I don’t even LOVE. How easily I dismissed all my goodness. And only focused on my negative thoughts.

I shared my contradictory thoughts with Brother T in the early days of her hospitalisation and all he said to me was, “which thoughts are you acting on? Are they the ones that wish her dead or are they the ones guided by duty, kindness and service towards her?” “That’s who you are. So ignore the rest.”

Now that I have some distance from this episode, I can see the whole thing for what it was – I am far more relaxed in my self-judgment. I accept all of me. The kind and the resentful. The tears of self-pity and the tears of compassion. It’s okay.

For those who wish to know, Naani came back home on Jan 6th, 2024 (hospitalised on Nov 26th, 2023), and her medical treatment continued from home for another couple of months. She is a changed woman, altered seemingly forever since the hospital stint – reduced to a shell of herself. Quite frankly, it makes me sad to see her this way.

By the way, I should convey here that I waited for Aya to punish me for having all those thoughts that I had about Naani, a woman so desperately old and sick – but that punishment never came. For, after all, we create our own punishments and rewards, don’t we?

NEW YEAR CHILLS

While Naani was still hospitalised, on Dec 31st, 2023, I returned home in the evening from my daily hospital visit, began to feel a bit under the weather with a feverish feeling. So much so that I skipped dinner, changed into comfy nightwear, lay down in bed under layered blankets. Before I knew what was happening, I was feeling intensely cold even under so many layers of warmth and I began to shiver uncontrollably. The shivers would come and go intermittently. It was so weird and unexpected. I lay there, shivering, with whole-body chills, I could hear my teeth chattering. I didn’t even have enough energy or alertness to get someone’s attention or help.

I just shivered in bed, in intervals. Crazy.

After shivering for a few hours, I began to sweat and feel hot. “Must be the paracetamol in action”, I thought.

That whole day I had felt so down on myself, I had felt trapped in this whole home-hospital-home circuit, unable to pursue any of the things that I desired to do. I had had to cancel my Dec 10th ticket to Bombay/ Mumbai due to Naani being unwell. I hadn’t painted much since I had come back from my Aya retreat, barring a super-ambitious canvas depicting Maestro and his place of origin (displayed in previous post). I was down in the dumps, feeling sorry for myself.

Cut to – shivering with my whole body, then feeling crazy heat from my head to my toes. Then whole body chills again. (All this while everyone else was in the throes of New Year’s celebration parties and fireworks all around me)

Usually, when this sort of thing happens, it doesn’t turn out to be some logical clinical/ medical cause-effect thing with me. “Anjuri” goes through spiritual processes/ purges, somatically (re: my mysterious fever – heat exuding from back of neck, synchronised with my father’s prostrate infection during 2020, which wasn’t even known to me until later).

This contrasting chill and heat effect happened for a while, till I fell into feverish sleep eventually and woke up absolutely “normal”. I couldn’t believe how “okay” I felt that New year’s morning, compared to the previous night. As usual, I went about that day by heading out to the hospital to see Naani and waited for her many doctors’ rounds.

I do not claim to know exactly what transpired spiritually that night – whether it was just for me, or for others too. But something shifted. Within 5 days, Naani’s last bit of niggling problems got addressed and solved by one of her doctors, due to which we could take her home. So it was a HAPPY NEW YEAR FOR HER.

And, for sure, a new year had begun for me too. 2024. What a tremendous year it would prove to be!

NEW DREAMSCAPES & REALITIES

Once Naani was back home, we got a dedicated in-home helper employed for her. Her treatments, doctor appointments and medical interventions continued for another month or so, of which I took charge (albeit grudgingly).

One remarkable thing began to happen as soon as 2024 began – I began having beautiful dreams of ‘new love’, ‘romance’, the kind of dreams that would leave me with a baby-pink velvety feeling. I don’t know how else to describe it better. Baby pink – soft, innocent, pure love, guileless sweetness. I would wake up with such softness in my heart. Wow. This happened a few times in the first couple of weeks of Jan’24. It was such a rush, that I felt this urgent need to paint “it out”. And I did.

I called this painting, my first about romantic love – Lo-vel-vet | The Velvet of Love
(26” by 30”, acrylics on hand-cut linen canvas)

“This minimalist artpeace is dedicated to the velvety feeling of romantic love. Velvet is a main character here. You see, never had I worn or felt the soft, warm, buttery un-creased feeling of velvet on my skin, till a few days ago. And now that I finally have (as a 39 year old adult woman/ person who has consistently deprived herself of soft warm things for some time now, or rationed them at best) I can equate it with new love, even an old seasoned love at that

The bright bold neon-pink-orange background is a main character too here. It’s celestial, all-encompassing, overwhelming, blinding hue is what I imagine / recall love feels like when you first greet it, engage with and then sink into.

I swore off romantic love when I experienced countless heartbreaks a decade ago. I swore off flirtation when I got ghosted by a near-stranger 5 years ago. I boxed up the love I have to give and began funnelling it out only to non-humans, or just platonically. I chopped off my feminine yearnings along with my hair 4 years ago. I assumed that part of me is depleted and done with. The part of me that desires a man’s touch, love, attention, embrace, conversation.

This painting signals that She’s back. The part of me that dreams and wants and expects and waits. She is still so so scared. But she is thinking about love again. Suddenly, without warning.

Thoughts of love, vivid dreams of love have begun appearing in my consciousness once again. It’s a bold new scary world. The velvet of love awaits.”

During the process of painting the above and having those dreams about sweet soft romance, I began yearning for romantic love. After so long an exile from romance (7 years since my separation from ex-husband), I began desiring a man’s voice in my ears, I longed for touch, support, attention from a man, in a romantic sense. This was all landing on me like an avalanche, sudden and overwhelming. Ayahuasca hadn’t shown me any such thing, about romance or love or men. She had just conveyed to me my “unbrokenness” and my ‘feminine powers’ deep within that I must befriend, champion & enjoy. Or at least this is what I had inferred from what She had shown me and made me feel.

Anyhow, the thing I want to stress here is that I began feeling like I was in my early teens – I wanted the feeling of new love, pure romance, I wanted to have a crush on someone, I wanted someone’s attention and friendship. I guess I would say that this feeling was all ‘butterflies and bubbles’, rather than about the ‘birds and the bees’. This felt more soft-romantic than sexual in nature. Not sexual at all actually.

Little did I know what was coming my way.

WEDDING TRIGGERS

My best girlfriend asked me to attend her little brother’s wedding in another city. I went for it. This was the first wedding I was attending since 2014. Ten whole years I had avoided, dodged having to attend weddings! 10!!

But because my friend said she needed me by her side while she orchestrated her brother’s small private wedding, almost single-handedly, I had to go. And what an experience it was.

I’ll keep this short. This wedding triggered me in a couple of ways. It turns out that I am massively triggered by the loudness, garishness, foolish spending of money that is a part-n-parcel of Indian weddings – and its not just some random take I have on weddings – its because it reminds me of my own wedding and what a song and dance it had been, and how miserably it failed and what a waste it felt like – all that money, effort and love spent on a 2-3 day affair.

I had no clue that this was still an issue in my psyche. (!!!!)

This is the thing about ‘healing’ they say – it ain’t a linear journey – it’s a spiral. Things surface again and again until you learn more and more about yourself and view these ‘things’ from different distances in memory, experience and ability to process them.

So, lo and behold, I had an entire day’s worth of breakdowns that one day of the wedding.

A few days before I travelled for this wedding, I was introduced to this guy (let’s call him JR), an Ayahuasca seeker himself, a friend of a dear friend, and I had been instrumental in getting him a place in an upcoming Aya retreat. We were strangers to each other till that day of the wedding. We began texting, he had questions about the retreat process and prep etc. and as usual I offered to be of help any time of day or night with those queries (this is what I/ we do for Aya seekers because we all know that curiosity and anxiety all too well first-hand). It was pleasant to chat with him at first, and then it felt rather lovely. Our virtual conversation had turned rather frank, open, friendly and ‘mutually ongoing’ within a few hours, when suddenly I had my first private implosion-explosion. I began sobbing so hard at the realisation that this was the first man that I was chatting with (after so many years) and I was already liking it too much. I was getting happy at the next notification, I was eager to keep the chat going. I felt so foolish and hungry and desperate in those few moments. It took my breath away.

I put the phone away and cried so much in the privacy of my hotel room. Is this what I was going to be like this year? A 39 year old, single, desperate for attention, desperate for any male attention and engagement woman!??!?!?!?!

And then came the avalanche of “I am so unloveable, I am so ugly, I am so fat, I am so not fit to be a lover or a romantic partner, I don’t deserve to flirt, I am a loser” etc etc. and all the other horrid things you could imagine a ‘heartbroken in love’ woman could say to herself to torture herself.

Also my Ego was really suffering in those few hours – How could you yearn for a man’s voice, words, gestures, conversation so desperately Anjuri!?!?!?! Get a hold of yourself!

This was so sudden, it really did feel like being sucker-punched.

Anyway, despite being able to hear my friend’s voice looking for me, shouting my name, knocking on my hotel room door, I just kept sobbing hard into my blanket. I pretended to not be present in the room. It was so heartbreaking. I cannot describe this any more.

The second triggering and breakdown came when I entered the wedding hall, and saw the decor, heard the loudspeakers on full volume, saw the bride and groom enter the room in a choreographed song and dance – oh my god! I wanted to puke.

This was not an independent thing that happened with just the wedding ceremony – I had been feeling out of place, odd one out in the small crowd of couples and families. Anyway, being a friend, I was an outsider, but I also felt alien-like, as I usually do when couples and families gather, even when it is my own family.

Not that I want to be coupled – I actually do not want the labels of husband and wife to be a part of my life (maybe ever again). So, I am not fully sure what this feeling really is – feeling like an alien, an odd one out. I don’t claim to know it fully well. But I know that this feeling is familiar. Familiar, sad and numbing.

So, the moment I had stepped foot (the previous day) in the wedding celebrations and rituals, I had begun to feel out of place, a tinge of suffocation, feeling like an alien etc. And then the wedding began, the loudness, the “look at us getting married” display of “love” and “vows” – oooooof – I had to literally run out of there! I had to shut myself in my room and take deep breaths. I sobbed hard, once again. And there it was – the feeling of regret – showing me its face – I regretted my wedding, I regretted the effort my parents made for me, I regret the song and dance and the commitments we made. It felt like such a joke. So, this was it! Anjuri regrets her wedding. This was not new news, I mean of course Anjuri regrets all of it, but she didn’t realise that it would take a wedding, seven years after she decided to part ways with her now-ex-husband, to break her down newly like this, bringing her face to face with a giant trigger she didn’t know she had.

In the midst of crying, I also felt embarrassed at leaving my friend’s side at the most crucial time of her brother’s wedding. But I felt like I had no choice in the matter. I have a very transparent demeanour, meaning that if I am struggling, you will see it on my face. I couldn’t have my friend worry about me in the midst of important events.

So, I just hid, in my hotel room, till my storms passed. I cried them out. I braced myself before heading out of my room again. When I re-entered the hall, it was just a few of us, the main family peeps, gathered around the bride and groom for the final rituals (that lasted 3-4 hours). And it all went smoothly, for me. I sat besides my friend all night, joked around, held her hand, gave my support when it was needed. I did my duty, lovingly, all cried out and nowhere else to go 🙂

I returned home the next day, having learnt a few new things about myself – I was apparently desperate for male attention and weddings trigger the hell out of me. Brilliant!

OF DESPERATE CRUSHES & LIMERENCE

As I mentioned in my previous post, I began the year with a few recurring baby-pink romance dreams. Nice, fluffy, velvety feelings. Felt like my heart was opening up, after many years of fortressing.

The doors opened and how. The first man I had a little bit of a conversation with, I fell for. Hard. Embarrassingly hard. It is seriously embarrassing how I behaved and felt. Haha!

I hadn’t even heard his voice. He was a near total stranger – but then again, isn’t it easier to project all of one’s dreams, hopes and desires onto a blank slate such as a total stranger?!?!

I had hoped to become friends with this gentleman, given our shared interests in psychedelics and our ages (around 40), and that did begin to happen, but then I got carried away like a feather in a tornado. Haha. I humiliated myself by letting him know how I was feeling and because moderation is not a part of my god-given nature, I went all out with my words and feelings. It still makes me blush with embarrassment, how I behaved.

JR, on his part, let me down, gently at first and then by cutting off all contact (absolutely good decision) with me. His side of the story is not really relevant here. He was just a mere visitor into my large life and a mere paragraph in my thick-as-a-Game of Thrones book-2024.

Even though I say He was just a paragraph, but a significant one. I would say that conversation with him and my idiotic/ misguided feelings for him set the stage for what was to come in 2024. My heart definitely got a glimpse of what it would be like to open up a bit. He taught me how to take rejection in my stride. He taught me that conversation with men could be lovely, friendly, stimulating – Its not that I wasn’t aware of these things, its simply that I hadn’t interacted with new men in years. I had had a few crushes along the way, but they lasted for a couple of weeks at best.

After JR, I had another raging crush on another near-stranger, but he was incredibly adept at deflecting my advances (I am a raging bull when it comes to flirtations it turns out, not subtle at all – very forthright, forthcoming and frank). He is a saint, a lovely human, a deeply mature man. After all these months, he feels like a brother from another mother now. We keep in touch from time to time.

The interesting thing about him also, as with JR, was a common Ayahuasca connection. He got in touch with me after seeing some of my Aya-inspired art, being a child of Aya himself. I either misread what Ayahuasca was doing for me, in regards to these men, or I read too much into nothing. Shrug emoji.

Anyway, after being rejected by two single men (one outright rejection, and another expertly subtle one), I somehow lived on to tell the tale (haha!). I somehow survived with my Ego intact (haha!).

Lesson acquired, with a new lens: Everything passes – even excruciating crushes and shimmering limerences.

What had become painfully clear to me was my sudden and desperate desire to be loved, liked, paid attention to by a man, a good man, a single man, an unattached man, a mature man, a conversational man, a kind man. Ooooooof! Fuck!

My boredom, romantic loneliness, desires for romance and flirtation and conversation were growing beyond measure deep within my body. And I was highly aware of this yearning. I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself. Feeling unloveable, undesirable, panicked. It was hell.

Whoever I shared this with, told me to join dating apps, to “put myself out there”.

I scoffed at these suggestions, as I always had. Only “desperate idiots” join those platforms, I said. “Plleeeeaaaassseee!”, I said.

But 2024 had her own plans for Me.

(More about this in another post)