Entheogenic — the creation of god within
I recently participated in two all-night ceremonies conducted by the Chief of a northern Brazilian tribe, in which he shared the plant medicines of ayahuasca tea, rapé (smoke of tobacco & other plants), and sananga (as eyedrops) with our group of 30 people.
It should be noted that ayahuasca has powerful effects, and should be treated with the utmost care and respect, both in the interest of safety and to honor the deep knowledge that Central and South American tribes have gained from these medicines and protected over hundreds of years.
I now understand why DMT is known as the “spirit molecule.” My notes regarding ayahuasca in particular are below, and while they may be roughly arranged, I hope they provide some bite-size nuggets of insight about this Amazonian plant medicine.
Before the Ceremony
After you consume a plethora of YouTube videos and articles from dubious sources, remind yourself that there is a lot of hype around ayahuasca. Too much hype. The wild stories that you may hear are the exceptional stories, the craziest stories.
I find it helpful to think of drinking ayahuasca as taking “slow DMT” (in contrast to “fast DMT” which, when smoked, lasts for 10–30 minutes and blasts you off into another dimension). Drinking DMT slows down the experience, giving you more time to work with it while having (some of) your wits about you.
Setting clear and concise intentions prior to your interaction with Aya is a crucial part of finding value in it.
I suggest finding out how many doses will be offered and then planning your ceremony accordingly. For example, if the tea will be served three times, you could try one small dose, then a larger dose, and then concluding with another smaller dose. It is best to start small and build up to higher levels. While some instances of purging (vomiting, etc.) may be symbolically therapeutic, they might also be caused simply by a dose that is too large, causing your body to reject it before it can take full effect.
For me, the intensity peaked about 1 hour after ingestion. You’ll want to try to keep the medicine down at least that long for it to not be wasted.
Riding the Bike, Surfing the Wave: Learning to work with Ayahuasca
Learning how to interact with the medicine is like learning any new physical activity. At first, all the sensations are new and you are unsure how they will play out. Am I “there” yet? Am I still coming up, or am I on the way back down? Is the nausea going to hit me a like a brick wall, or will it be a gentle wave? On your first try, you may be taken along for the ride and unable to get into a groove. If you need to steady yourself, opening your eyes can pause the experience — although you might also find that the room is spinning a bit. It’s best taken in the dark, because bright light can overwhelm your visual senses.
On your second and third doses, you will begin to notice that there are distinct phases. There is an initial phase, that started after about 30 minutes for me, in which there is an upwelling sensation in the torso that feels like warmth radiating up from the stomach, into the chest. (I think this has something to do with serotonin flooding your nervous system, which impacts your stomach.) This can sometimes turn into a wave of nausea, though it seems that there could be some degree of control in what happens next.
A Technique for Catching the Wave
You could either say “ah, here is the nausea, I guess it’s time for me to throw up,” or you could say “this upwelling sensation of heat or energy in my chest is the Light — it is a signal that the spirit is now present with me, and this is my opportunity to start asking questions before it fades.”
I found that by concentrating on asking questions, I could translate that uncomfortable upwelling sensation into visions rather than vomit. I would visualize myself allowing space for and holding on to the “light” that was rising up inside me.
This is why it’s important for beginners to participate in ceremonies for three or four nights over the course of a week. Your first few trips may not reveal the full possibilities of this medicine.
Tools for Your Journey
Remember to breathe
You may be told that the medicine comes with a powerful force, and you must breathe to move the energy through you. During the experience, whenever you feel uncomfortable, overwhelmed, or stuck, if you breathe deeply into your belly, you will push the process forward. Deep breathing seems to typically make you feel either more high or less high in moment that follows — either way, you’re taking steps forward.
Intentional Visualization
You will often hear that people have visions of Mother Aya appearing before them, bringing some sort of image or message. However, this is not a passive activity, and you may not feel the impression of her presence if you do not intentionally create it and look for it. During ceremony, you can look intently (with eyes closed), searching for any new objects or patterns that may appear in your visual or auditory field. You can ask questions like “what is appearing here before me? what are you telling me? what does it mean?”
You’ve been given a brief window into another dimension to access energy and information that is not normally available to you. By actively engaging in dialogue with this energy, you will increase the amount of information you receive. Some people may report that they “did not feeling anything,” but it could be that they didn’t know how to look.
Laying versus Sitting Up
Some traditions involve laying down and others involve sitting upright on a chair or support of some kind. If you are lying down, you may find that the experience is something that’s happening to you, with limited control in your hands. If you’re sitting up, you may have an easier time actively guiding and participating in the experience, similar to lucid dreaming. This is an interview with god — it’s advisable to sit up to demonstrate your willingness to participate and respect the process.
Mantras
When you find yourself in a confusing or overwhelming moment, here are some things you may repeat to yourself to help direct your experience:
- “This is the gift”
- “I surrender”
- “There is love here”
- “Thank you, Mama, for caring for me”
- “Where is this fear coming from?” (When you attempt to inspect the source of a particular fear, it tends to dissolve)
- “What are you telling me?”
During the Ceremony
Questions
It’s important to ask direct questions to the spirit and then pay attention closely to any response. It is true that this medicine enables a dialogue. It’s up to you to decide if that dialogue is occurring between you and a spirit, your subconscious, or something else. Aya will respond in the form of images, words, or “impressions”, which could be somewhat vague combinations of multiple sensations or feelings.
“What is my future?”
I posed this question and then awaited a reply.
First, I saw myself standing before a field, looking forward and wondering what could lie ahead further down that path. But then I raised my hands and banged them against… a wall? It was revealed that I was standing with the tip of my nose against a false, constructed vista. I was then told to turn around to take in a vision of my life. My life was represented as me having run through a space that was something like a wide open field or meadow. It was kind of like being in a snow-globe or the constructed world of The Truman Show. Each time I had interacted with someone, that was me running through the meadow and brushing a blade of grass or a flower with my hand.
My life was represented as the path that I had made through this landscape, and everything I had made contact with was there. And then the message was clarified for me. “Why are you looking at this false horizon? There is nothing out there. Look behind you… everyone and every thing that you have touched is in this garden. You should tend to this garden. Some of the connections you’ve had along the way may be more meaningful, some may be less so. But they contain intricate details, as well as opportunity for more growth and connection.”
This was Mother Aya’s way of saying to me, “Hey dummy, why are you trying to find more new stuff? Look at the richness that’s already here for you.”
What’s amazing about this response is that I have no idea where it came from. It really felt like I had directed a question into the spiritual abyss, and then a very clear vision was given to me by some entity that was not “me.”
Other Impressions
It seems that ayahuasca somehow supercharges the machinery of idea generation in your brain. Many other seemingly random “impressions” were arising for me spontaneously and it was difficult to keep track of them all.
- Remote work is only making us worse as humans, for lack of in-person friction with each other. When we bump and jostle together in conflict and cooperation, our rough edges are worn smooth until we are polished gems. What’s more, remote work is another spear of the capitalist agenda of atomized hyper-individuality — to further spread out and separate people so they are more alone, distributed in their houses, and need to purchase a new range of things to support their new remote lifestyles. (Yes, this was an ‘impression’ that spontaneously appeared to me.)
- “Welcome back to the living” — I felt as though I had been living in a plane of the dead. In my particular case, I attributed this to a physical injury that left me immobile and feeling paralyzed in life. Even after recovery from the injury, I could not shake the sensation that part of me had died during that time. I felt that the medicine was an invitation and a gateway that could help move from the realm of the dead to the realm of the living.
- “Detail, So Much Detail” — In the fast-paced numbness of modern life, and perhaps Western life in particular, we overlook so many details and fail to notice the beauty and gratitude that can be derived from them. You hear this theme repeated often, but Ayahuasca helps you to inhabit the insight in caring about the details of everything. A single word uttered by a friend can mean so much if you are listening. Ayahuasca kept reminding me to carefully notice the little details of everything.
- Catholic mass is an empty husk — A feeling of the practice of going to Catholic mass, in which the participants felt zombie-like, and the sacrament was a dry papery wafer that did not produce any noticeable effects versus the practice of sitting in a small circle of people bringing deep intention, taking sacred medicine under the care of a tribal leader with deep knowledge, and the powerful and very real effects of the medicine which allows you to occupy new vantage points of our existence.
- Tend the Garden — Gardening is a great metaphor. Ayahuasca brings up imagery of nature, bugs, dirt, animals small and large, plants, trees, water, air, the Earth. Aside from literal Nature, many things in your life can be viewed as a garden that needs tending. Notice it, care for it, clean it up, remove what must go, appreciate all the details, help it flourish.
Visual Effects
With eyes closed, subtle geometric patterns appeared. They were not super clear and solid — they were sometimes only a blurry suggestion. Sometimes the pattern was like a sparse cosmic glitter in oil-slick colors. Sometimes it was more intricate, dense geometric patterns in red, yellow, green. Always bright against a dark backdrop. Sometimes single points of light appeared, and then I would open my eyes to check and find no source of light. Opening your eyes tends to pull you out of any inner conversation you’re having with Aya.
Auditory Effects
Sound took on a gentle shimmer, which could be described as applying the chorus effect. This could multiply the sound of a percussive shaker or the vocal fry of someone speaking or singing.
Creativity
As alluded to above, ayahuasca seems to create periods of supercharged creativity during which new ideas spontaneously appear in rapid succession. These ideas could be solutions to a problem, observations about life, or even jokes.
After the Ceremony
Aftereffects
- Relighting the flame — If you feel that the light inside you has gone dark, there is a sense that Aya can bring the “light” back into your belly. You can think of all beings as carrying a light inside them that animates their passions and unique spark. After the ceremony, there is a strong desire to “move energy,” which could mean many things. It could take the form of an urge to change your career, start new projects, remove things or people from your life that don’t feel good, to declutter, or make other life changes.
- There is a risk of embodying some manic energy after coming back from ceremony because you’ve unlocked so many new ideas or insights. You may feel an upwelling urgency to act on them.
- Remember to breathe — Just as breathing was a useful tool when sitting with the medicine, it’s an equally useful tool afterward if you feel energy around a particular insight and you need to breathe through it.
- You may find a general sense of lightness, optimism, or clarity
Post-Impressions
Impressions that appeared during ceremony will resurface, and new impressions may come as well. It’s worth writing down as many as you can hold on to.
You may be able to use breathwork, meditation, isolation, and a simple diet to maintain the primed mental space that was created with the medicine and revisit some aspects of your journey.
A point of guidance: In many traditions, ayahuasca was only ingested by the Shaman, who then engaged in dialogue with the spirits to help heal and protect his people. When modern Westerners discovered ayahuasca, they want to not only be present for ceremonies, but to consume the tea themselves. This may be seen as wrong and offensive by some tribes — not all tribes want to share their cultural traditions and medicines with the western world.
