Iquitos and the Shamanic ConferenceIquitos is one of the most unusual places I've ever visited. Probably most people visit Iquitos to go on jungle river cruises, as it's available only by air or the river, there are practically no cars. Yes, you read that right. Iquitos is constantly swarming with scooters (or motor cycles) and motorized "rickshaws." It's amazing to see so many people on these vehicles constantly, often holding babies or small children, with none of them wearing helmets. These rickshaws are taxis that take you anywhere in the city for 3 soles (about a buck) or less. Another amazing thing is that I didn't see a single chain restaurant (no starbucks, McD, KFC, etc).
In my descriptions of Iquitos, there may be a tendency to romanticize this unusual city near the mouth of the Amazon. But Iquitos is also a rather dirty city, with lots of people living in very poor conditions. Most of the businesses seem to be very tiny shops selling foodstuffs, and when you see the volume of business they do it’s difficult to understand how they get by. Most houses or shops seem to be simple concrete structures. Dogs run around in the street unclean and uncared for. A pickpocket stole the camera of yours truly (which is why I don’t have any pictures of Iquitos). And trips to the toilet in a third world country can be truly something unforgettable.
But the Shamanic conference was incredible.
The website is here: http://www.soga-del-alma.org/ConferenceSite/
There were about 180 people in all. There were all sorts, including many who looked like they would fit in at Burning Man. They had tons of speakers, many of whom were outstanding (and many who were not), and the speakers are listed in the link above.
They also had about 12 shamans, or what they called curanderos, who you could select to “do ceremony” or take ayahuasca with. The conference scheduled 3 nights for ceremony, and the other nights were for various speakers at the conference. However, some elected to find other shamans to do ceremony with. (And one of the curanderos offered San Pedro during some of the days. I elected to try this and discuss below.)
I believe all the shamans or curanderos are good, although my experiences (as well as the experiences of the others) varied. It was always interesting talking with other conference participants, sometimes at a slightly American style restaurant called the Yellow Rose of Texas, where where would hang out and talk about ceremony experiences.
Overall, I found my experiences with the shamans in Iquitos were mostly good, but not quite at the high quality I experienced in Curitibas, Brazil. This was partly because I was somewhat new at choosing the curanderos to work with, and also some lack of skill on my part in ceremony, as I’ll describe below. What follows is a description of the curanderos I selected.
Monday evening with Don Luis
My first ayahuasca experience was with a man named Don Luis. From his introduction at a panel, I could tell he took healing very seriously. He spoke eloquently of his service in the community, the law of exchange, and his work helping addicts. To get to his center, for ceremony, we took a motorcar ride to the edge of Iquitos, where we got on a motorboat that took us about 20 minutes down the river. We embarked at a small village and walked about an hour into the Amazon forest, along the way, we saw lots of nice, sweet children, often living in appalling conditions. (Perhaps appalling to me, but perhaps just fine from their point of view. I don’t know.) We eventually got to his center. It was nice, but very simple (if not downright gritty). We each had a hut, but I had to share mine with a very nice woman from Canada who was very sensitive with plants. In the afternoon, he showed us the plants, we went for a swim in the pond while the rain came down. Then we rested before a “flower bath” to cleanse us and prepare us for ceremony. I don’t exactly mean for this to sound idealic. Us guys stripped down naked and poured four containers of water soaked in various plants. But it was aromatic and refreshing. Next, we put on our clothes without drying our bodies. And then it was time for ceremony!
Our ceremonial lodge was a circular structure with screen walls, which would keep out the mosquitos, while letting us hear all the sounds around us. With all the crickets, birds, frogs chirping, it seemed like we were pretty much one with the forest, which was the idea. But the floor was pretty bare and dirty with not so much in the way of mats or blankets. (Lucky I brought my meditation cushion.)
So here I was, my first ayahuasca ceremony in Iquitos, where we had to trek for hours into the heart of the Amazon jungle to get too. I was psyched to trip my ass off. We had two cups of the sacred tea (which tasted terrible) and Don Luis turned the lights off so it was completely dark. I was nauseous. Several people got sick, but fortunately, I didn’t.
But there was really very little in the way of visions, internal or external. There was a sense that the energy was higher. I could tell my mind was working a little differently, and perhaps a sense that the plant was helping me. But nothing near as strong and powerful as what I experienced at the Santo Daime church in Curitiba Brazil.
How about that for ironies? We trekked deep into the amazon jungle to work with a shaman and got very little in the way of visions. At an academic conference, on the other hand, we had lucid, rich experiences.
Wednesday with Wendy (and San Pedro)
Today was a little unusual, as I had signed up for Wendy Lucky's San Pedro excursion. Here is a useful website: http://www.biopark.org/peru/huachuma.html
It was unusual because we were working with a different plant than ayahuasca, and we were doing it during the day. Also, as it turned out, the format was very different: instead of a fairly rigid ceremonial structure that would lead to each of us having a kind of inner journey, we took the san pedro in a much more relaxed, playful context outside in a nearby park, where we interacted with one another (and during the day).
So we went to a beautiful state park outside of Iquitos. We started with a little ceremony, where we did some facepainting of one another, and we spoke what our names would be that day. I chose 'worldtree' and it was interesting how some people really enjoyed calling me that. So I stuck with it a bit the rest of the conference (when I could remember.) I took quite a bit of San Pedro. Basically, it seemed to awaken the rich beauty all around us. At first we noticed how the sun illuminated colors all around. I noticed my mind quieting, or perhaps just awakening to the
reality that nothing going on in my head was quite as interesting as everything unfolding around me. Little details, like the way the water ticks just skim effortlessly and agilely on top of the water of the pond, far more nimble than any land insect, became a wonder. As we got
completely caught in a heavy rain, which normally might dampen one´s spirits, simply became another way of nature showing us her wonders. As the rain drops pelted into the pond, they would bounce off the surface, and seem to float or hover there for a micro second.
It seemed like san pedro was about awakening to the loving presence that holds all of nature as one. And when I felt discomfort in parts of me, I could be present with it and just see that those were little more than tangled loops of thought that I had got identified with. These dissolved by just relaxing into the presence around them. They dissolved like the rain drops falling into the pond.
Lots more could be said, but one more thing to share. Coming back to the city was a bit of an adjustment, because I think the san pedro wants you to relax in nature. But that was what we had to do. Later, I met some friends at the yellow rose of texas. Anyway, you would have to see it to believe it, but where we were was in the middle of this huge parade of colorful floats, filled with little children dressed in all kinds of costumes like cinderella, polynesian girls, little cowboys, well, you name it. And they had grown men in the costumes of barney the dinasour, winnie the pooh, tiger, something like tweetie bird I think, and some weird green goblin costume that I had never seen before and had no idea what it meant. And all these delightful children were just waving to us. It was just this unbelievable scene of color, delight, and unbelievable cuteness, while still being under the enchanting spell of san pedro.
Overall, I think this was the most fun and enjoyable of my experiences in Iquitos. But I should point out that san pedro does have some slight downsides. It lasts a long time, around 12 hours, and its effects are kind of speedy, which means if you take it and you need to go to sleep and rest before the next day, you're out of luck. Your mind will just keep going. But I also have to say that there were some nice visuals when I closed my eyes that evening.
Thursday evening with Percy
Next I asked around for what people thought about their guides. The next curandero I selected was named Percy. He had a very nice, quiet, gentle radiance about him. Most people recommended him highly. One person thought that the visions were rather modest, another got lots of good visions. He explained that he might be different from the other curanderos in that he emphasized healing rather than visions.
There were lots of similarities with Don Luis’s ceremony. We took an hour long bus ride to a side of the road, where we hiked about 30 minutes into the jungle to his center. It was cleaner than Don Luis’s, but there were no separate little huts for us to sleep in. We were to sleep (all 20 of us) in the ceremonial lodge. Before ceremony, we took a floral bath, similar to what Don Luis asked us to do.
During ceremony, I think I had some questions in my mind that I wanted to focus on (they recommend having an intent) but it seemed like I wasn’t quite getting into the flow of the ayahuasca. The visions I did have were very similar to the absract, colorful grid pattern that I saw on some of the fabrics and clothing that the locals try to sell. (I bought some examples.) And later I noticed that Percy had some paintings that showed various abstract patterns in the forms of waving lines that seemed to morph into snakes or crocodiles and this was strangely similar to my experience. But there was a point where I felt like I wasn’t getting into the flow of things the way I’d like. So I thought to myself: What would Tara Brach recommend? I remember since Percy said he emphasized healing, that Tara might recommend that I simply ask to be conscious of whatever might need healing. When I did this, there did seem to be a kind of shift, and I saw all kinds of really ugly creatures, straight out of a Hieronymus Bocsh painting. I’m not sure if they were real entities (I talked to someone who described similar such creatures in her as sucking her energy) or symbols my mind came up with to represent blocks or emotions that needed healing. I tried being present with it, and I hope there was some healing, however I felt that there was a lot more that needed to be healed than was going to happen in one night.
At one point, some people went up to the shaman (Percy) and asked for a second cup, and I did this, too, thinking this would give me deeper, richer experiences. (And after all, I did have two cups in Curutiba, which was such a wonderful experience.) But the second cup didn’t really seem to add that much to the experience. Also, I eventually purged (vomited), in the pail beside me. (Everyone has little buckets for “purging” and lots of people do this, especially newbies.) After this, I settled down and relaxed a bit and probably had slightly better visuals.
Another possible complication for this session was that I was tired from doing the San Pedro the day (and night) before.
Percy did some chanting, but he also used quite a few instruments in the ceremony, such as a rattle that was made of dried leaves that made a flying sound. He also had a bell.
After the ceremony (it lasted around 4 hours) Percy ended it, and we (all 20 of us) spent the night on the mats he had given us for ceremony. So we ended up sleeping in the same lodge. I didn’t get all that much sleep, due to the thin mat, as well as people who whispered or used flashlights to go to the outside bathroom.
Friday night with Xavier da Silva
I paid a visit last night to the house of Xavier da Silva. It was an
unforgettable experience. I´ll try to explain. He lives in a very
simple (actually rather dirty) house in Iquitos. There were people
from the town (who were not part of our shamanism conference) sitting
on wooden benches placed in the front room. But some of my friends and
I were asked to sit in a room where the master himself was working on
people, one by one.
I'm not sure if I've exlained very well much how the ceremonies in Peru are different from
the ones in Brazil. But at Xavier´s, the ceremony begins with us drinking the ayuasca, then turning off all the lights, so it´s pitch black. The only source of illumination is the cigarette´s burning. The shaman´s here actually encourage smoking tobacco, which they consider a sacred plant that helps with protection. Xavier has an assisant walking around the room handing out lit cigarettes, and I did smoke some of them.
During these ayahusca ceremonies in Peru, the shamans sing icaroos (songs) and or play various instruments or noise makers. Xavier relied only on his voice, and it was a marvel, unlike anything I've heard before. It´s not exactly beautiful in the sense that a record label would be asking him to sign a contract. But I don´t think I´ve heard a voice with so much passion, soul, suffering, hope, longing, open heartedness asking for redemption before. The tonality was unique and resonant in a way I don´t think I can describe. The words were in spanish, but all I could go by was the emotions that seem to be in the words. There were even times, when I thought I heard reverberations of his words just behind my neck (maybe the tea?).
His singing was devoted to healing and helping the people, who give little or nothing in the way of donations. He does this as his service. People would be guided to come to him in the pitch black, then sit down in a chair, and he would sing and heal them.
The tea was very potent, and I was off with visions in very little time. I heard people vomiting in little pails in darkness all around me. Although I was rather nauseous, I didn´t throw up. There were other details that were rather less than comfortable. The air eventually grew thick with cigarette smoke. But the real joy was when I had to walk to the bathroom in the dark (another wonderful side effect of the tea). After the difficulty of walking to find the bathroom (and bumping into several tripping people sitting on the floor in the dark), I discovered that the bathroom had no light or and no toilet paper. (I kind of regret sharing this with you, but I wanted you to get the local flavor of the experience.)
I did make one mistake, I think. The cup was very strong, and I was having some nice visuals. And when a second cup was offered, and I refused. The reason is that the previous night with Percy and I took two cups, when I seemed to be doing find with one. The second one didn´t seem to add anything, and in fact I ended up throwing up (not a bad thing at all according to the powers that be, but unpleasant nonetheless). After having avoided ´purging´ I decided it was safer to avoid a second cup. But then the effects of the first cup wore off a bit, and I was left in something like my normal consciousness for the duration. Not bad, by any means, still a wonderful experience, but it might have been more powerful.
The visions are kind of like an enhanced imagination that seems to take on a mysterious life of their own, depending on your intention. My intention that night was to experience pure love. I can´t say I made it there, but I think that ayahuasca gave me some advice on how
to get there. I was told (from time to time) that the plant answers your questions, but with the sound of your own voice. At any rate, the answer I got that night was simply to relax and be present in the area of my heart. (Perhaps there were other answers later.) There can be disturbing, floating images (although not that I can recall this evening) but that is why holding firm to a good intention comes in. As I've said in another place, I was committed to being present and kind to all my experiences. This buddhist teaching served me well in the ayahuasca experiences.
But somehow the strange, almost unworldly passion of Xavier´s voice, undeniably filled with Christian teachings (his alter had pictures of Christ and the baby Jesus) led me try to feel the essence of Christ. And when this happend, I asked Christ to come into my heart, perhaps not so unlike many years ago when I grew up in a baptist church. It somehow seemed so silly that I hadn´t done this long before now. (Now don´t be concerned, I am still into mindfulness and buddhist teachings). But it is undeniably true I have been strongly influenced by (at last some) christian teachings, and I felt it only right that I honor and invite Christ to be my teacher.
So I could say more, but you I think I¨ve given you a flavor. When the lights were turned on, we discovered it was after 4 in the morning. (The session began at 10pm.) So Xavier had sung his soul in a way I had not heard before, for healing these poor people who could barely give him anything, for 6 hours. A really incredible thing to witness. My friends (from the conference) and I were all blown away by the experience.
My first ayahuasca experience was with a man named Don Luis. From his introduction at a panel, I could tell he took healing very seriously. He spoke eloquently of his service in the community, the law of exchange, and his work helping addicts. To get to his center, for ceremony, we took a motorcar ride to the edge of Iquitos, where we got on a motorboat that took us about 20 minutes down the river. We embarked at a small village and walked about an hour into the Amazon forest, along the way, we saw lots of nice, sweet children, often living in appalling conditions. (Perhaps appalling to me, but perhaps just fine from their point of view. I don’t know.) We eventually got to his center. It was nice, but very simple (if not downright gritty). We each had a hut, but I had to share mine with a very nice woman from Canada who was very sensitive with plants. In the afternoon, he showed us the plants, we went for a swim in the pond while the rain came down. Then we rested before a “flower bath” to cleanse us and prepare us for ceremony. I don’t exactly mean for this to sound idealic. Us guys stripped down naked and poured four containers of water soaked in various plants. But it was aromatic and refreshing. Next, we put on our clothes without drying our bodies. And then it was time for ceremony!
Our ceremonial lodge was a circular structure with screen walls, which would keep out the mosquitos, while letting us hear all the sounds around us. With all the crickets, birds, frogs chirping, it seemed like we were pretty much one with the forest, which was the idea. But the floor was pretty bare and dirty with not so much in the way of mats or blankets. (Lucky I brought my meditation cushion.)
So here I was, my first ayahuasca ceremony in Iquitos, where we had to trek for hours into the heart of the Amazon jungle to get too. I was psyched to trip my ass off. We had two cups of the sacred tea (which tasted terrible) and Don Luis turned the lights off so it was completely dark. I was nauseous. Several people got sick, but fortunately, I didn’t.
But there was really very little in the way of visions, internal or external. There was a sense that the energy was higher. I could tell my mind was working a little differently, and perhaps a sense that the plant was helping me. But nothing near as strong and powerful as what I experienced at the Santo Daime church in Curitiba Brazil.
How about that for ironies? We trekked deep into the amazon jungle to work with a shaman and got very little in the way of visions. At an academic conference, on the other hand, we had lucid, rich experiences.
Wednesday with Wendy (and San Pedro)
Today was a little unusual, as I had signed up for Wendy Lucky's San Pedro excursion. Here is a useful website: http://www.biopark.org/peru/huachuma.html
It was unusual because we were working with a different plant than ayahuasca, and we were doing it during the day. Also, as it turned out, the format was very different: instead of a fairly rigid ceremonial structure that would lead to each of us having a kind of inner journey, we took the san pedro in a much more relaxed, playful context outside in a nearby park, where we interacted with one another (and during the day).
So we went to a beautiful state park outside of Iquitos. We started with a little ceremony, where we did some facepainting of one another, and we spoke what our names would be that day. I chose 'worldtree' and it was interesting how some people really enjoyed calling me that. So I stuck with it a bit the rest of the conference (when I could remember.) I took quite a bit of San Pedro. Basically, it seemed to awaken the rich beauty all around us. At first we noticed how the sun illuminated colors all around. I noticed my mind quieting, or perhaps just awakening to the
reality that nothing going on in my head was quite as interesting as everything unfolding around me. Little details, like the way the water ticks just skim effortlessly and agilely on top of the water of the pond, far more nimble than any land insect, became a wonder. As we got
completely caught in a heavy rain, which normally might dampen one´s spirits, simply became another way of nature showing us her wonders. As the rain drops pelted into the pond, they would bounce off the surface, and seem to float or hover there for a micro second.
It seemed like san pedro was about awakening to the loving presence that holds all of nature as one. And when I felt discomfort in parts of me, I could be present with it and just see that those were little more than tangled loops of thought that I had got identified with. These dissolved by just relaxing into the presence around them. They dissolved like the rain drops falling into the pond.
Lots more could be said, but one more thing to share. Coming back to the city was a bit of an adjustment, because I think the san pedro wants you to relax in nature. But that was what we had to do. Later, I met some friends at the yellow rose of texas. Anyway, you would have to see it to believe it, but where we were was in the middle of this huge parade of colorful floats, filled with little children dressed in all kinds of costumes like cinderella, polynesian girls, little cowboys, well, you name it. And they had grown men in the costumes of barney the dinasour, winnie the pooh, tiger, something like tweetie bird I think, and some weird green goblin costume that I had never seen before and had no idea what it meant. And all these delightful children were just waving to us. It was just this unbelievable scene of color, delight, and unbelievable cuteness, while still being under the enchanting spell of san pedro.
Overall, I think this was the most fun and enjoyable of my experiences in Iquitos. But I should point out that san pedro does have some slight downsides. It lasts a long time, around 12 hours, and its effects are kind of speedy, which means if you take it and you need to go to sleep and rest before the next day, you're out of luck. Your mind will just keep going. But I also have to say that there were some nice visuals when I closed my eyes that evening.
Thursday evening with Percy
Next I asked around for what people thought about their guides. The next curandero I selected was named Percy. He had a very nice, quiet, gentle radiance about him. Most people recommended him highly. One person thought that the visions were rather modest, another got lots of good visions. He explained that he might be different from the other curanderos in that he emphasized healing rather than visions.
There were lots of similarities with Don Luis’s ceremony. We took an hour long bus ride to a side of the road, where we hiked about 30 minutes into the jungle to his center. It was cleaner than Don Luis’s, but there were no separate little huts for us to sleep in. We were to sleep (all 20 of us) in the ceremonial lodge. Before ceremony, we took a floral bath, similar to what Don Luis asked us to do.
During ceremony, I think I had some questions in my mind that I wanted to focus on (they recommend having an intent) but it seemed like I wasn’t quite getting into the flow of the ayahuasca. The visions I did have were very similar to the absract, colorful grid pattern that I saw on some of the fabrics and clothing that the locals try to sell. (I bought some examples.) And later I noticed that Percy had some paintings that showed various abstract patterns in the forms of waving lines that seemed to morph into snakes or crocodiles and this was strangely similar to my experience. But there was a point where I felt like I wasn’t getting into the flow of things the way I’d like. So I thought to myself: What would Tara Brach recommend? I remember since Percy said he emphasized healing, that Tara might recommend that I simply ask to be conscious of whatever might need healing. When I did this, there did seem to be a kind of shift, and I saw all kinds of really ugly creatures, straight out of a Hieronymus Bocsh painting. I’m not sure if they were real entities (I talked to someone who described similar such creatures in her as sucking her energy) or symbols my mind came up with to represent blocks or emotions that needed healing. I tried being present with it, and I hope there was some healing, however I felt that there was a lot more that needed to be healed than was going to happen in one night.
At one point, some people went up to the shaman (Percy) and asked for a second cup, and I did this, too, thinking this would give me deeper, richer experiences. (And after all, I did have two cups in Curutiba, which was such a wonderful experience.) But the second cup didn’t really seem to add that much to the experience. Also, I eventually purged (vomited), in the pail beside me. (Everyone has little buckets for “purging” and lots of people do this, especially newbies.) After this, I settled down and relaxed a bit and probably had slightly better visuals.
Another possible complication for this session was that I was tired from doing the San Pedro the day (and night) before.
Percy did some chanting, but he also used quite a few instruments in the ceremony, such as a rattle that was made of dried leaves that made a flying sound. He also had a bell.
After the ceremony (it lasted around 4 hours) Percy ended it, and we (all 20 of us) spent the night on the mats he had given us for ceremony. So we ended up sleeping in the same lodge. I didn’t get all that much sleep, due to the thin mat, as well as people who whispered or used flashlights to go to the outside bathroom.
Friday night with Xavier da Silva
I paid a visit last night to the house of Xavier da Silva. It was an
unforgettable experience. I´ll try to explain. He lives in a very
simple (actually rather dirty) house in Iquitos. There were people
from the town (who were not part of our shamanism conference) sitting
on wooden benches placed in the front room. But some of my friends and
I were asked to sit in a room where the master himself was working on
people, one by one.
I'm not sure if I've exlained very well much how the ceremonies in Peru are different from
the ones in Brazil. But at Xavier´s, the ceremony begins with us drinking the ayuasca, then turning off all the lights, so it´s pitch black. The only source of illumination is the cigarette´s burning. The shaman´s here actually encourage smoking tobacco, which they consider a sacred plant that helps with protection. Xavier has an assisant walking around the room handing out lit cigarettes, and I did smoke some of them.
During these ayahusca ceremonies in Peru, the shamans sing icaroos (songs) and or play various instruments or noise makers. Xavier relied only on his voice, and it was a marvel, unlike anything I've heard before. It´s not exactly beautiful in the sense that a record label would be asking him to sign a contract. But I don´t think I´ve heard a voice with so much passion, soul, suffering, hope, longing, open heartedness asking for redemption before. The tonality was unique and resonant in a way I don´t think I can describe. The words were in spanish, but all I could go by was the emotions that seem to be in the words. There were even times, when I thought I heard reverberations of his words just behind my neck (maybe the tea?).
His singing was devoted to healing and helping the people, who give little or nothing in the way of donations. He does this as his service. People would be guided to come to him in the pitch black, then sit down in a chair, and he would sing and heal them.
The tea was very potent, and I was off with visions in very little time. I heard people vomiting in little pails in darkness all around me. Although I was rather nauseous, I didn´t throw up. There were other details that were rather less than comfortable. The air eventually grew thick with cigarette smoke. But the real joy was when I had to walk to the bathroom in the dark (another wonderful side effect of the tea). After the difficulty of walking to find the bathroom (and bumping into several tripping people sitting on the floor in the dark), I discovered that the bathroom had no light or and no toilet paper. (I kind of regret sharing this with you, but I wanted you to get the local flavor of the experience.)
I did make one mistake, I think. The cup was very strong, and I was having some nice visuals. And when a second cup was offered, and I refused. The reason is that the previous night with Percy and I took two cups, when I seemed to be doing find with one. The second one didn´t seem to add anything, and in fact I ended up throwing up (not a bad thing at all according to the powers that be, but unpleasant nonetheless). After having avoided ´purging´ I decided it was safer to avoid a second cup. But then the effects of the first cup wore off a bit, and I was left in something like my normal consciousness for the duration. Not bad, by any means, still a wonderful experience, but it might have been more powerful.
The visions are kind of like an enhanced imagination that seems to take on a mysterious life of their own, depending on your intention. My intention that night was to experience pure love. I can´t say I made it there, but I think that ayahuasca gave me some advice on how
to get there. I was told (from time to time) that the plant answers your questions, but with the sound of your own voice. At any rate, the answer I got that night was simply to relax and be present in the area of my heart. (Perhaps there were other answers later.) There can be disturbing, floating images (although not that I can recall this evening) but that is why holding firm to a good intention comes in. As I've said in another place, I was committed to being present and kind to all my experiences. This buddhist teaching served me well in the ayahuasca experiences.
But somehow the strange, almost unworldly passion of Xavier´s voice, undeniably filled with Christian teachings (his alter had pictures of Christ and the baby Jesus) led me try to feel the essence of Christ. And when this happend, I asked Christ to come into my heart, perhaps not so unlike many years ago when I grew up in a baptist church. It somehow seemed so silly that I hadn´t done this long before now. (Now don´t be concerned, I am still into mindfulness and buddhist teachings). But it is undeniably true I have been strongly influenced by (at last some) christian teachings, and I felt it only right that I honor and invite Christ to be my teacher.
So I could say more, but you I think I¨ve given you a flavor. When the lights were turned on, we discovered it was after 4 in the morning. (The session began at 10pm.) So Xavier had sung his soul in a way I had not heard before, for healing these poor people who could barely give him anything, for 6 hours. A really incredible thing to witness. My friends (from the conference) and I were all blown away by the experience.
By the way, were were all led (one by one) to be given personal healings by this master. When it was my turn, I stumbled in the dark to a chair in front of me, and i was asked (through a translator) whether I wanted protection or some information about my body. I answered that I wanted to know about my body. He gave me some really excellent readings about my overall health and energy that seemed very accurate. He also said something disturbing, that I was involved with an organization (I think he means where I work) where there were some people who I trusted that might try to use some negativity against me. I need to be careful, there I think.
The next morning, there my body (particularly the region of my chest) felt lighter, freer than I usually did, even though I perhaps only slept 5 hours or so.
Sunday night with Ron Wheelock
Ron Wheelock is one of the gringo Shamans. He has a real wild look about him, kind of rough, and lots of people I talked with liked him (especially a few I hung out with when I took San Pedro). Also, he speaks English (which I thought was a plus) and he lives closer to town, so getting there and back would be easier.
He didn’t do the flower bath ritual. And we got to it around 7pm. His brew tasted the worst, I think. I didn’t quite get so much in the way of visuals, but I sat patiently, thinking of waiting of getting another cup. The stuff didn’t exactly sit well with me. Eventually I did get another cup (tasted nasty), but I thought I could probably handle it. So I sat for awhile, got some imagery that seemed to be on an archetypal level, where I was seeing lots of tree imagery. One very interesting image was the bottom of this tree, with a lot of roots, that had one eye in the center of it. (Later, I learned that Ron was using “black” ayahuasca. Turns out there are about 15 different kinds of ayahuasca, including “red,” “lightning,” “sky,” and “dolphin” (which Ron said was ‘no good.”) I don’t know anything about the other types, or what types the other were using.
When the ceremony was over, I lied down in the bed (that was in the same room), then immediately felt a strong urge to go outside and “purge.” I felt much better (naturally) and talked to some of the people in my group who happened to be relaxing outside. It was nice looking up at the bright stars, talking to these people who I had never met before, and who I would never probably meet again, about ecology, the nature of love, this paradoxical country that was both blessed with these riches and yet cursed with poverty, and other things. Our hearts seemed to be so open to this land that had given us these incredible experiences. Later, when I went to bed, I actually started having stronger visuals, black and orange patterns of animals, carousels, and insects. I realized afterwards that I was unconsciously keeping myself from purging (maybe trying to be ‘strong’ I guess), but this kept me from relaxing with the process, so I wasn’t getting quite the strong visusals that others were getting. This kind of thing might have been working against me with Percy on Thursday night, too, come to think about it. I think my mistake was that because I had very strong, clear experiences in Curitiba, where I didn’t purge, and a friend of mine on that journey did purge and didn’t have strong experiences, I drew the wrong conclusion that “not purging” or keeping the medicine inside me, even if I was slightly uncomfortable, would lead to better experiences. When I talked to other people about this, they told me they believed usually good experiences happen after your purge, if you need to, and as long as the medicine has been inside about an hour or so.
Wrapping Up
One a scale of 1 to 10 (where 1 would be virtually no visuals or experiences and 10 would be seeing hallucinations in the external world), I would rank my experiences something like:
Curutiba 8.5 or 9
Don Luis 1
Percy 6
Xavier 7. (would probably have been higher if I had had another cup)
Ron 5 (might have been stronger if I had purged sooner?)
The San Pedro with Wendy was also a 9, but not on the basis of visuals (although I did have some cool visuals that evening) but on the fun, feeling of interconnection with nature and each other. Really cool stuff.
Overall, I consider that I had one exceptional experience, one not that good experience, and the others are average or decent but not exceptional. Others had experiences that compared the tea with “rocket fuel” so it was kind of a luck of the draw with me and also a bit of learning such things as how many cups to drink and when to purge. Something that you kind of have to learn. But really, that’s probably the way it is with most, rather variable experiences as you learn. But one of the great things about this conference is that you can talk to many people and learn which shamans are the better ones.
(Of course Percy told us that it was a mistake to treat visuals as a priority, that healing was more important. Hard to argue. So it might be that my rankings above are not quite right.)
Sunday night with Ron Wheelock
Ron Wheelock is one of the gringo Shamans. He has a real wild look about him, kind of rough, and lots of people I talked with liked him (especially a few I hung out with when I took San Pedro). Also, he speaks English (which I thought was a plus) and he lives closer to town, so getting there and back would be easier.
He didn’t do the flower bath ritual. And we got to it around 7pm. His brew tasted the worst, I think. I didn’t quite get so much in the way of visuals, but I sat patiently, thinking of waiting of getting another cup. The stuff didn’t exactly sit well with me. Eventually I did get another cup (tasted nasty), but I thought I could probably handle it. So I sat for awhile, got some imagery that seemed to be on an archetypal level, where I was seeing lots of tree imagery. One very interesting image was the bottom of this tree, with a lot of roots, that had one eye in the center of it. (Later, I learned that Ron was using “black” ayahuasca. Turns out there are about 15 different kinds of ayahuasca, including “red,” “lightning,” “sky,” and “dolphin” (which Ron said was ‘no good.”) I don’t know anything about the other types, or what types the other were using.
When the ceremony was over, I lied down in the bed (that was in the same room), then immediately felt a strong urge to go outside and “purge.” I felt much better (naturally) and talked to some of the people in my group who happened to be relaxing outside. It was nice looking up at the bright stars, talking to these people who I had never met before, and who I would never probably meet again, about ecology, the nature of love, this paradoxical country that was both blessed with these riches and yet cursed with poverty, and other things. Our hearts seemed to be so open to this land that had given us these incredible experiences. Later, when I went to bed, I actually started having stronger visuals, black and orange patterns of animals, carousels, and insects. I realized afterwards that I was unconsciously keeping myself from purging (maybe trying to be ‘strong’ I guess), but this kept me from relaxing with the process, so I wasn’t getting quite the strong visusals that others were getting. This kind of thing might have been working against me with Percy on Thursday night, too, come to think about it. I think my mistake was that because I had very strong, clear experiences in Curitiba, where I didn’t purge, and a friend of mine on that journey did purge and didn’t have strong experiences, I drew the wrong conclusion that “not purging” or keeping the medicine inside me, even if I was slightly uncomfortable, would lead to better experiences. When I talked to other people about this, they told me they believed usually good experiences happen after your purge, if you need to, and as long as the medicine has been inside about an hour or so.
Wrapping Up
One a scale of 1 to 10 (where 1 would be virtually no visuals or experiences and 10 would be seeing hallucinations in the external world), I would rank my experiences something like:
Curutiba 8.5 or 9
Don Luis 1
Percy 6
Xavier 7. (would probably have been higher if I had had another cup)
Ron 5 (might have been stronger if I had purged sooner?)
The San Pedro with Wendy was also a 9, but not on the basis of visuals (although I did have some cool visuals that evening) but on the fun, feeling of interconnection with nature and each other. Really cool stuff.
Overall, I consider that I had one exceptional experience, one not that good experience, and the others are average or decent but not exceptional. Others had experiences that compared the tea with “rocket fuel” so it was kind of a luck of the draw with me and also a bit of learning such things as how many cups to drink and when to purge. Something that you kind of have to learn. But really, that’s probably the way it is with most, rather variable experiences as you learn. But one of the great things about this conference is that you can talk to many people and learn which shamans are the better ones.
(Of course Percy told us that it was a mistake to treat visuals as a priority, that healing was more important. Hard to argue. So it might be that my rankings above are not quite right.)
I think, however, the more important question is whether, overall, I have felt greater healing (or put another way, is my heart more open). Tara actually speculated that this might help open my heart some. And I think it has a little. I did feel many moments of greater love, wonder, and inner cleansing, and I feel some of this has lingered within me. But one of the women I met who has taken ayahuasca over 70 times told me that the way to pursue this is to find a shaman that you want to work with, then stick with him (or her) and go deep. So, all in all, I've probably only scratched the surface.
Overall, it’s been a really incredible experience, but one where I still am learning. I felt my heart open quite a bit. I believe I learned an incredible wealth of insights into important questions I had. I met incredible people who were also on a journey to explore this path and this kind of knowledge. It was a real adventure exploring this in a city like Iquitos, and I think I would recommend this conference to just about anyone interested in this sort of thing. I hope I’ve given you a sense of the experience.
Overall, it’s been a really incredible experience, but one where I still am learning. I felt my heart open quite a bit. I believe I learned an incredible wealth of insights into important questions I had. I met incredible people who were also on a journey to explore this path and this kind of knowledge. It was a real adventure exploring this in a city like Iquitos, and I think I would recommend this conference to just about anyone interested in this sort of thing. I hope I’ve given you a sense of the experience.
