October 18, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaYtVkDgl64
Here is a scene from the movie "Renegade" of a supposed Ayahuasca experience along with a short narrative about the Ayahuasca experience from Terence McKenna. It's triiiiippy!! But you will get a bit of a visual of the Ayahuasca experience. It is an individual experience for each person of course.
Ayahuasca (Pronounced "eye-ah-Waas-ca) which is known as "The vine of the soul" is a mixture of 2 ingredients that the shamans of thousands of years ago discovered. It is a combination of a vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) and a psychedelic leaf (Psychotria viridis leaves (DMT)). Taking the psychodelic leaf by itself doesn't do anything because there is something natural in your body that prevents its psychedelic effects and neutralizes it but the shamans 1000's of years ago discovered the vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) neutralizes that natural inhibitor in your body to allow the psychedelic leaf to have its full effect and they discovered this out of the 60,000-80,000 different plants down here in South America (Sounds like they did a lot of experimenting with that many different types of plants!).
Ayahuasca is DMT or "Dimethyltryptamine". It is thought of as a natural medicine down here in South America by the Shamans and is definitely not a recreational drug since you are not suppose to eat for 12-24 hours beforehand (there are even special ayahuasca diets) and there is a very good chance you will vomit/puke upon taking the mixture but it is therapeutic never the less as it purges your subconscious of negative emotions and thoughts and this is just the cleansing process you have to go through. To make it they basically boil 25 liters of the Vine and the psychedelic leaf for 12 hours until it dilutes down to 1 liter of Ayahuasca. Very potent!
My Ayahuasca experience:
So at 6pm on Monday night we meet Rene at the dock and he takes us to the floating restaurant that Jose owns even though it will be 4 more hours before we drink. Jose chats with us about the ayahuasca experience and tells us in 2004 he had a vision of a floating restaurant on the river and the one he has now is the exact replica of the one shown in his vision back then. He also tells us his brother and father died of tumors and in a vision he was told he had it too and to look into it immediately and get it diagnosed now which he did and they found it and removed it. He was very passionate about ayahuasca and said he could see through time and even though it was dark he had big facial expressions as he told us about his experience in spanish of course that between Eugene and I were able to decipher.
Jose also looked at me and said I looked like Bill Clinton! I looked to Eugene and asked "Is my nose really that big?". Later the shaman came out and greeted us and his name is "Alijandro" and is 70 years old and under 5 feet in height. Alijandro is a very gentle and good soul of a man. With Ayahuasca you take it at night when it is pitch dark and a full moon would upset the experience (absolutely no light) but it was cloudy and constant thunder and lightning all night long.
At 10:30 we were summoned to the back of the floating restaurant to a room that was 12 feet by 6 feet and pitch dark inside and the 5 of us took our positions around the wall of this very dark room. As we sat down it had a mystic feel to it.
Just to give you the best "visual" of the next few hours you need to imagine a room so dark you can hardly see your hands. When people pass you drinks or cigars they have to either tap you physically or call to you so you are reaching into the pitch black for something they have and sometimes they call to someone else and you think it is you and reach your hands out into the blackness for 20 seconds before realizing they weren't talking to you. Very dark room! and it is all in spanish of course.
Every 30 seconds lightning would strike and light would get through the cracks of the walls where you could barely make out the positions of everyone by the dark shadowy figures in the room. In the middle of us are about 10 bottles (some big and some small) along with 10 rolled cigarettes that are as big as cigars. The Shaman would take the big cigarettes and blow on them and make a "whistling" chant before passing it on to the selected individual. The bottles were selected by the shaman and passed around in a clockwise fashion around the room from the Shaman to Eugene to Jose to his helper to me. I liked being last because I could always tell by Eugenes "gasp" what was coming my way and to prepare for it. For each bottle passed around they would tell us how many sips "Uno" or "Dos".
I had assumed we were just going to have one drink of Ayahuasca so was shocked when the first bottle came around which had vines and sticks in it and I was told to chug a lot of it. It was bitter, vile, and disgustingly gross that shook the core of my being! It seemed every 30 seconds we were passing around a new bottle and they all tasted equally vile where your body is completely repulsed by its taste. One small bottle was passed around and Jose indicated to us that it is only to be poured into your hand and splashed across your face where even if you got a small bit in your eyes it would sting like hell!
Halfway through the bottle drinking ceremony, Jose brings in vomit buckets for everyone. He gave me a tub for a vomit bucket that was twice the size of everyone elses and I thought "Good idea!!". He also gave each of us our own roll of toilet paper (Which at certain times I felt like eating just to get rid of the horrible "after taste" that lingered in my mouth for an hour) and a bottle of water along with a giant cigarette that each of us lit and smoked.
The 10th drink was the worst for me and we were told to take two chugs of it. As this horrible liquid went down my throat and touched my stomach, my body completely revolted and I threw up instantly 5 times into my vomit tub within 5 seconds and I thought "Great, there goes those delicious pancakes I ate this morning". This drink was like a menthol (But could have easily been gasoline for all I know and I would bet it was the latter!). I could also tell I would be getting the "runs" within the next hour so kept my toilet paper very close to my side just in case I had to make a mad dash for the toilet.
These were just 10 drinks BEFORE the ayahuasca! The ayahuasca was poured into a small white cup that didn't have a handle and there was probably 3-4 ounces in it for each of us as the shaman blessed each cup and then gave it to each individual it was intended for.
When it was my turn to drink the ayahuasca I just sipped it to taste it. It tasted like "liquified" POOH!!! The horrible taste in your mouth and how your whole body feels is just indescribably HORRIBLE!! Afterwards I heard Eugene take a drink and getting tired of horrible surprises I asked him what it was and he said it was that horrible menthol drink again at which I said "No thanks I will pass on that" and he said "it is probably not necessary anyhow" and I said "I don't think 90% of these drinks are necessary". I mean, I came here for ayahuasca and not GASOLINE!!
So I decided to lay down after all the drinks were finished (Or at least I hoped) and was staring up at the sky in this dark room and was surprised to see the Big Dipper constellation but it didn't look like it was in its normal position making its normal shape (a dipper) and it seemed odd considering I was in the southern hemisphere. For me it was the only thing visible in the room and as I examined them closely I realized they were not stars but HOLES in Jose's roof with the little bit of light in the dark night coming through into the dark room!
I didn't know when the visions would begin or when my perception would become impaired so thought a quick trip to the toilet now would be best. So I make my way across the dark room trying not to step on anybody or knock over any bottles and make it to the washroom right beside the room. I sit on the toilet with my bare butt cheeks pressing against the porclain since there is no seat and instantly relieve myself. I feel like resting on this toilet because I feel my business isn't complete yet when the "toilet and myself on it" begin to tip and I catch it just in time and realize the toilet is not bolted to the floor and obviously no plumbing work and that it all goes into the river.
I go to wash my hands and there are no taps or running water but just a porcalain sink so I stumble back to my spot in the room and feel for my water and bring it back to the sink to wash my hands with it and see some hand sanitizer by the sink.
We sit there in silence in the pitch black room as the shaman continues chanting and blowing smoke in every direction (to ward off evil spirits??). Later I notice Jose's wife snuggled up behind him on the floor and notice that they have blankets and a cushion along with his helper (Apparently it was a BRING YOUR OWN BLANKET & CUSHION event (BYOB&C)). The shaman, Eugene, and I have the plank floor to lie on and I make sure my water, full roll of toilet paper, and vomit tub are by my side and touching my legs at all times so I know where they are.
After 1 1/2 hours I feel 80% sure that the ayahuasca isn't going to work (Since I didn't think I had enough ayahuasca) so I try to make the best of my limited resources and use my full roll of toilet paper as a pillow since I needed one.
At 1am (2 1/4 hours later) I am 99% that the ayahuasca isn't going to work but the 70 year old shaman goes over and crouches over Jose and begins smacking him with what looks like a small wisk broom on the head and then to the body for awhile. After Jose he comes over to me while I am laying on the floor and begins smacking my head with the wisk broom while chanting and after 5 minutes I feel like saying "Excuse me, I am trying to sleep right now and you hitting me constantly with the wisk broom is not help the situation". :)
At 2am I am 100% convinced that it is not going to work this time around and being very uncomfortable on the plank floor I decide to "cut my losses" early and head out to find a comfortable hammock to lie in. As I am feeling the floor with my feet trying to make my way out of the dark room Jose taps my ankle to signal me to stop and takes a few seconds to find the flashlight and lights up the exit path for me. As I open the cloth door (a blanket) I look back and think "WOW!! You guys sure know how to show a couple gringos a REALLY GOOD TIME!!!".
I see a sofa outside and touch it and it is damp from the nights rain so I jump into a hammock. The shaman comes out 10 minutes later and lays on the damp sofa and seems asleep. 10 minutes later I notice he is gone though.
At 4am I have to take a leak and there are still people sleeping in the dark room or having visions so I don't want to disturb them to get to the washroom. 8 hours earlier I had seen Jose casually pee off the restaurant deck into the Amazon river as he was talking to us so thought that type of behaviour is accepted even though I didn't feel good about it since it seems disrespectful. I am thinking at this hour of the morning no one will notice so I go to the edge of the deck and face towards what looks like an abandoned float house 10 feet away from me in bad need of repairs and I begin to pee on a piece of wood sticking out from the float house just to muffle the sound so it doesn't hit the water directly and disturb anyone. After 10 seconds I can't reached that piece of wood and it begins falling into the water making that loud noise we all know when to my surprise I hear someone groaning from the abandoned house boat and a guy wakes up right then and is 10 feet away right in front of me in full view as I am pissing in the Amazon river with my wang hanging out and I was going to say "BUENOS DIAS MI AMIGO!!!" but he iwas looking at me and probably thinking "Why is there a big white guy pissing in my river at 4am?".
Well I was pretty embarrassed since it didn't feel right to begin with to pee into a river but since we saw Jose do it I assumed it was the norm. I felt like telling him "You are just dreaming this and I don't really exist". I went back to my hammock and thought "Geez, I don't think my night can get any worse!". I can't sleep so I just lay on my hammock and reflect on the nights activities for 30 minutes. I decided that because I have my own ayahuasca I can tailor my own ayahuasca ceremony and just "gringoIZE" it a bit (IE make it a more comfortable process) so I decided I would buy a lot of flavoured gum (cllorets/excel, etc..) to take away the bitter after taste of ayahuasca and eliminate 90% of those strange and disgusting "potions" they made us drink and just plug my nose when I drink the ayahuasca and a few other things like that.
If someone bet any of you $100US to drink all 10 of those drinks and you sipped the first drink you would probably say "No friggin way!!". After I reflected on this I realized the funniest part of all which was that Eugene and I paid $33US for this experience!!!
When I thought about everything that had happened and that I experienced (the bad stuff) I began to laugh uncontrollably and didn't want to wake anyone up so I went to the other side of the boat to laugh as I wrote some things down to remember so when I write this blog entry of my ayahuasca experience.
As I was scribbling away the shaman came up beside me and asked if I was writing down my visions and I told him that nothing happened for Eugene and I. I asked about his experience and he said he had visions and then Jose came out and said the same. When you are new to ayahuasca it is very common for you not to have an experience the first or second time. I thanked the Shaman and said good bye to Jose and Rene took us to the mainland where we got a motorcycle taxi back to the main plaza. It is 8am and I haven't slept yet but will probably get tired later on.
The ayahuasca adventure is just beginning for me and like I said I will be doing it myself with my own doses. I am not big on shamanic "rituals" where they go through physical movements with chanting and singing and blowing smoke since it is all about getting into the right "state of mind" to experience Ayahuasca.
My taste buds are slowly recovering!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaYtVkDgl64
Here is a scene from the movie "Renegade" of a supposed Ayahuasca experience along with a short narrative about the Ayahuasca experience from Terence McKenna. It's triiiiippy!! But you will get a bit of a visual of the Ayahuasca experience. It is an individual experience for each person of course.
Ayahuasca (Pronounced "eye-ah-Waas-ca) which is known as "The vine of the soul" is a mixture of 2 ingredients that the shamans of thousands of years ago discovered. It is a combination of a vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) and a psychedelic leaf (Psychotria viridis leaves (DMT)). Taking the psychodelic leaf by itself doesn't do anything because there is something natural in your body that prevents its psychedelic effects and neutralizes it but the shamans 1000's of years ago discovered the vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) neutralizes that natural inhibitor in your body to allow the psychedelic leaf to have its full effect and they discovered this out of the 60,000-80,000 different plants down here in South America (Sounds like they did a lot of experimenting with that many different types of plants!).
Ayahuasca is DMT or "Dimethyltryptamine". It is thought of as a natural medicine down here in South America by the Shamans and is definitely not a recreational drug since you are not suppose to eat for 12-24 hours beforehand (there are even special ayahuasca diets) and there is a very good chance you will vomit/puke upon taking the mixture but it is therapeutic never the less as it purges your subconscious of negative emotions and thoughts and this is just the cleansing process you have to go through. To make it they basically boil 25 liters of the Vine and the psychedelic leaf for 12 hours until it dilutes down to 1 liter of Ayahuasca. Very potent!
My Ayahuasca experience:
So at 6pm on Monday night we meet Rene at the dock and he takes us to the floating restaurant that Jose owns even though it will be 4 more hours before we drink. Jose chats with us about the ayahuasca experience and tells us in 2004 he had a vision of a floating restaurant on the river and the one he has now is the exact replica of the one shown in his vision back then. He also tells us his brother and father died of tumors and in a vision he was told he had it too and to look into it immediately and get it diagnosed now which he did and they found it and removed it. He was very passionate about ayahuasca and said he could see through time and even though it was dark he had big facial expressions as he told us about his experience in spanish of course that between Eugene and I were able to decipher.
Jose also looked at me and said I looked like Bill Clinton! I looked to Eugene and asked "Is my nose really that big?". Later the shaman came out and greeted us and his name is "Alijandro" and is 70 years old and under 5 feet in height. Alijandro is a very gentle and good soul of a man. With Ayahuasca you take it at night when it is pitch dark and a full moon would upset the experience (absolutely no light) but it was cloudy and constant thunder and lightning all night long.
At 10:30 we were summoned to the back of the floating restaurant to a room that was 12 feet by 6 feet and pitch dark inside and the 5 of us took our positions around the wall of this very dark room. As we sat down it had a mystic feel to it.
Just to give you the best "visual" of the next few hours you need to imagine a room so dark you can hardly see your hands. When people pass you drinks or cigars they have to either tap you physically or call to you so you are reaching into the pitch black for something they have and sometimes they call to someone else and you think it is you and reach your hands out into the blackness for 20 seconds before realizing they weren't talking to you. Very dark room! and it is all in spanish of course.
Every 30 seconds lightning would strike and light would get through the cracks of the walls where you could barely make out the positions of everyone by the dark shadowy figures in the room. In the middle of us are about 10 bottles (some big and some small) along with 10 rolled cigarettes that are as big as cigars. The Shaman would take the big cigarettes and blow on them and make a "whistling" chant before passing it on to the selected individual. The bottles were selected by the shaman and passed around in a clockwise fashion around the room from the Shaman to Eugene to Jose to his helper to me. I liked being last because I could always tell by Eugenes "gasp" what was coming my way and to prepare for it. For each bottle passed around they would tell us how many sips "Uno" or "Dos".
I had assumed we were just going to have one drink of Ayahuasca so was shocked when the first bottle came around which had vines and sticks in it and I was told to chug a lot of it. It was bitter, vile, and disgustingly gross that shook the core of my being! It seemed every 30 seconds we were passing around a new bottle and they all tasted equally vile where your body is completely repulsed by its taste. One small bottle was passed around and Jose indicated to us that it is only to be poured into your hand and splashed across your face where even if you got a small bit in your eyes it would sting like hell!
Halfway through the bottle drinking ceremony, Jose brings in vomit buckets for everyone. He gave me a tub for a vomit bucket that was twice the size of everyone elses and I thought "Good idea!!". He also gave each of us our own roll of toilet paper (Which at certain times I felt like eating just to get rid of the horrible "after taste" that lingered in my mouth for an hour) and a bottle of water along with a giant cigarette that each of us lit and smoked.
The 10th drink was the worst for me and we were told to take two chugs of it. As this horrible liquid went down my throat and touched my stomach, my body completely revolted and I threw up instantly 5 times into my vomit tub within 5 seconds and I thought "Great, there goes those delicious pancakes I ate this morning". This drink was like a menthol (But could have easily been gasoline for all I know and I would bet it was the latter!). I could also tell I would be getting the "runs" within the next hour so kept my toilet paper very close to my side just in case I had to make a mad dash for the toilet.
These were just 10 drinks BEFORE the ayahuasca! The ayahuasca was poured into a small white cup that didn't have a handle and there was probably 3-4 ounces in it for each of us as the shaman blessed each cup and then gave it to each individual it was intended for.
When it was my turn to drink the ayahuasca I just sipped it to taste it. It tasted like "liquified" POOH!!! The horrible taste in your mouth and how your whole body feels is just indescribably HORRIBLE!! Afterwards I heard Eugene take a drink and getting tired of horrible surprises I asked him what it was and he said it was that horrible menthol drink again at which I said "No thanks I will pass on that" and he said "it is probably not necessary anyhow" and I said "I don't think 90% of these drinks are necessary". I mean, I came here for ayahuasca and not GASOLINE!!
So I decided to lay down after all the drinks were finished (Or at least I hoped) and was staring up at the sky in this dark room and was surprised to see the Big Dipper constellation but it didn't look like it was in its normal position making its normal shape (a dipper) and it seemed odd considering I was in the southern hemisphere. For me it was the only thing visible in the room and as I examined them closely I realized they were not stars but HOLES in Jose's roof with the little bit of light in the dark night coming through into the dark room!
I didn't know when the visions would begin or when my perception would become impaired so thought a quick trip to the toilet now would be best. So I make my way across the dark room trying not to step on anybody or knock over any bottles and make it to the washroom right beside the room. I sit on the toilet with my bare butt cheeks pressing against the porclain since there is no seat and instantly relieve myself. I feel like resting on this toilet because I feel my business isn't complete yet when the "toilet and myself on it" begin to tip and I catch it just in time and realize the toilet is not bolted to the floor and obviously no plumbing work and that it all goes into the river.
I go to wash my hands and there are no taps or running water but just a porcalain sink so I stumble back to my spot in the room and feel for my water and bring it back to the sink to wash my hands with it and see some hand sanitizer by the sink.
We sit there in silence in the pitch black room as the shaman continues chanting and blowing smoke in every direction (to ward off evil spirits??). Later I notice Jose's wife snuggled up behind him on the floor and notice that they have blankets and a cushion along with his helper (Apparently it was a BRING YOUR OWN BLANKET & CUSHION event (BYOB&C)). The shaman, Eugene, and I have the plank floor to lie on and I make sure my water, full roll of toilet paper, and vomit tub are by my side and touching my legs at all times so I know where they are.
After 1 1/2 hours I feel 80% sure that the ayahuasca isn't going to work (Since I didn't think I had enough ayahuasca) so I try to make the best of my limited resources and use my full roll of toilet paper as a pillow since I needed one.
At 1am (2 1/4 hours later) I am 99% that the ayahuasca isn't going to work but the 70 year old shaman goes over and crouches over Jose and begins smacking him with what looks like a small wisk broom on the head and then to the body for awhile. After Jose he comes over to me while I am laying on the floor and begins smacking my head with the wisk broom while chanting and after 5 minutes I feel like saying "Excuse me, I am trying to sleep right now and you hitting me constantly with the wisk broom is not help the situation". :)
At 2am I am 100% convinced that it is not going to work this time around and being very uncomfortable on the plank floor I decide to "cut my losses" early and head out to find a comfortable hammock to lie in. As I am feeling the floor with my feet trying to make my way out of the dark room Jose taps my ankle to signal me to stop and takes a few seconds to find the flashlight and lights up the exit path for me. As I open the cloth door (a blanket) I look back and think "WOW!! You guys sure know how to show a couple gringos a REALLY GOOD TIME!!!".
I see a sofa outside and touch it and it is damp from the nights rain so I jump into a hammock. The shaman comes out 10 minutes later and lays on the damp sofa and seems asleep. 10 minutes later I notice he is gone though.
At 4am I have to take a leak and there are still people sleeping in the dark room or having visions so I don't want to disturb them to get to the washroom. 8 hours earlier I had seen Jose casually pee off the restaurant deck into the Amazon river as he was talking to us so thought that type of behaviour is accepted even though I didn't feel good about it since it seems disrespectful. I am thinking at this hour of the morning no one will notice so I go to the edge of the deck and face towards what looks like an abandoned float house 10 feet away from me in bad need of repairs and I begin to pee on a piece of wood sticking out from the float house just to muffle the sound so it doesn't hit the water directly and disturb anyone. After 10 seconds I can't reached that piece of wood and it begins falling into the water making that loud noise we all know when to my surprise I hear someone groaning from the abandoned house boat and a guy wakes up right then and is 10 feet away right in front of me in full view as I am pissing in the Amazon river with my wang hanging out and I was going to say "BUENOS DIAS MI AMIGO!!!" but he iwas looking at me and probably thinking "Why is there a big white guy pissing in my river at 4am?".
Well I was pretty embarrassed since it didn't feel right to begin with to pee into a river but since we saw Jose do it I assumed it was the norm. I felt like telling him "You are just dreaming this and I don't really exist". I went back to my hammock and thought "Geez, I don't think my night can get any worse!". I can't sleep so I just lay on my hammock and reflect on the nights activities for 30 minutes. I decided that because I have my own ayahuasca I can tailor my own ayahuasca ceremony and just "gringoIZE" it a bit (IE make it a more comfortable process) so I decided I would buy a lot of flavoured gum (cllorets/excel, etc..) to take away the bitter after taste of ayahuasca and eliminate 90% of those strange and disgusting "potions" they made us drink and just plug my nose when I drink the ayahuasca and a few other things like that.
If someone bet any of you $100US to drink all 10 of those drinks and you sipped the first drink you would probably say "No friggin way!!". After I reflected on this I realized the funniest part of all which was that Eugene and I paid $33US for this experience!!!
When I thought about everything that had happened and that I experienced (the bad stuff) I began to laugh uncontrollably and didn't want to wake anyone up so I went to the other side of the boat to laugh as I wrote some things down to remember so when I write this blog entry of my ayahuasca experience.
As I was scribbling away the shaman came up beside me and asked if I was writing down my visions and I told him that nothing happened for Eugene and I. I asked about his experience and he said he had visions and then Jose came out and said the same. When you are new to ayahuasca it is very common for you not to have an experience the first or second time. I thanked the Shaman and said good bye to Jose and Rene took us to the mainland where we got a motorcycle taxi back to the main plaza. It is 8am and I haven't slept yet but will probably get tired later on.
The ayahuasca adventure is just beginning for me and like I said I will be doing it myself with my own doses. I am not big on shamanic "rituals" where they go through physical movements with chanting and singing and blowing smoke since it is all about getting into the right "state of mind" to experience Ayahuasca.
My taste buds are slowly recovering!
