Blood Of Mother Earth – An Ayahuasca Diary

In November of 2014 I departed for Peru in order to experience the plant brew known to some as Yage but perhaps more commonly known today as Ayahuasca. I had a number of reasons for embarking on such a journey, I wanted to see if what I had read and heard about this fabled plant and the drink that is made from her vine really was about. I wanted to see what she (the plant is a feminine one) had to say to me, whether it would kick my ass for the way I live, and behave towards myself and others or whether she may have information for me that may help me improve myself inwardly and in general as a person. I yearned for personal development and believed this would be a good way to find out a lot about myself and perhaps about life and the nature of reality itself.
I will now try and speculate a little and draw some kind of conclusions as to what I think Ayahuasca is and was telling me. It is not easy task to summarise my experience’s in the three ceremony’s I took part in, there was so much to process, so much of which was construed in an alien way that it is impossible I think for my human brain to compute and convey in a written language exactly what I saw and the teaching I received. I still don’t understand even a fraction of it. Each day that passes since my arrival back I think on my experience and realise I am still learning from Madre Ayahuasca. I don’t think the lessons will ever cease and yet I also don’t believe I will ever truly understand or comprehend her true meaning either. The truth is ayahuasca has to be experienced to be understood in any way or to be believed for that matter, my word’s cannot do justice to the experience nor the incredible things it is capable of doing and showing us.
With that in mind please suspend your belief patterns should you choose to read on as some of what you read in the following pages may seem the stuff of fantasy and fairy tale, whilst also baring with my infantile writing skills, as I try to convey to you to the best of my abilities my time with ayahuasca – the plant teacher of the Amazon.

My first  experience of ayahuasca wasn’t an especially intense one, on a personal level at least. The night itself was incredibly tense with me playing for the most part a spectators role in proceedings. I witnessed maybe seventeen of our eighteen strong group drink ayahuasca for the first time and their experiences from the sidelines, spectating as the medicine took hold of each individual. It was to be a long night.
Our group consisted of a fabulous array of diverse people, all with distinct and differing  histories and backgrounds and cultures. People had travelled far and wide to have their own experience of Madre Ayahuasca, many of whom myself included having built up our own impressions from researching and reading up on this Shamanistic brew.
I arrived in Peru having spent much of the previous six months reading other people’s experiences and opinions on what ayahuasca had done to and for them. I knew that it was going to be a mental ordeal as well as potentially a physical one to. I was aware of the possibility of purging and soiling myself, the latter worried me far more than the vomiting part of the purge. I was also fully aware that in order for me to experience ayahuasca anywhere near to it’s full potential this was not only something I would possibly have to go through, but also something I had to accept as part of the overall experience.
I was very nervous as the clock ticked down towards ceremony time and I was worried what the night would have  in store for me. The ceremony was to be held in the retreat’s spacious maloca. I had been on a special diet in the run up to my departure to Peru in order to be able to digest the brew properly and also to make my body purer in order to take on board and let the brew work on me as effectively as possible. Ayahuasca reportedly doesn’t work or mix well with people who have bad diets, things like sugars, high salt content, red meat and alcohol are meant to be inflammatory to the plant and the ayahuasca experience. By cutting these things out all together, or at least cutting back on some the experience is heightened and the purging effects minimised. This is the theory behind the dieting at least. I look at it as you making a sacrifice for the plant’s spirit which ayahuasca and probably all other plants for that matter undoubtedly has, in order for her to give you something in return, whatever that may be. Whether or not the full dietary sacrifice is needed or if it is actually needed at all is open to debate in my opinion, although some sacrifice at least would be my own personal recommendation.
All of the group was to be in the maloca for 7.45pm for the ceremony to commence around 8pm. The ritual that was about to take place was both magical and mystifying in equal measure. I watched it all unfold both in awe and fear. Fear is perhaps to strong a word, I was intrigued more than anything but my intrigue was tinged with the nervousness and unsettling  thoughts of what was to come next. The whole ayahuasca ceremony is so alien to the average western person we are not used to seeing plants as having  ‘souls’ or ‘spirits’  or as medicines or  teachers. We in the west have lost our connection with nature our medicines get prescribed by people in white coats and come in the form of a pill.
After the ritual was complete and the ayahuasca had been blessed, darkness fell on the maloca, all light ( no electric light) had been extinguished except for a few small candles on the altar in the middle of the room ( the altar was just a small table with a selection of divers objects on top). I will discuss the ritual in a little more depth later. The brew was poured and it was now time to face what I had travelled all that way for and to experience  a psychedelic for the first time. My life for the previous six months had all been focused towards this moment.

I was the first in our group to drink. I was expecting it to be the foulest thing ever to pass my lips. However it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it may be. I found out later that one of Nimea Kaya’s claim to fame is that they produce quite a tasty brew in comparison to others at least. Looking like a thick, dark gloopy liquid, the ayahuasca there tastes a little bit like black liquorice and goes down the throat a little like your standard bottled cough syrup we all know and remember from our youth, only much thicker and with much more of an earthy taste. For the record the taste was still incredibly foul.
After drinking I sat back and waited for the show to begin, trying my best to relax and get comfortable on  what was to be my bed for the evening, a sun lounge type mattress and beach type towel along with my pillows from my room/shack. I was positioned next to the two shaman a spot I had purposefully chosen for my first experience with ayahuasca. I did this as I wanted to try and get the full force of both the ayahuasca and shamanic experience, I wanted to be brave and feel it’s full force after coming so far and investing so many hours in reading books and watching videos  and podcasts about ayahuasca and psychedelics.
I would guess that maybe half an hour passed before the first person began to purge. This then set off a chain reaction of purging among the participants as people all around the maloca then began to be sick.
The sound was monstrous. It had begun. The noise most people were making as they were throwing up was almost demonic in nature, a sound I had half expected but certainly had never encountered before. It sounded very painful for a lot of the people being sick. I had still to feel the full effects of the medicine but was fascinated and engrossed by the scenes and sounds unfolding all around me.
It’s important to add here that at this point in proceedings I wasn’t particularly scared despite what other people were going through, it was more like I was trying to remain calm, relaxed and to focus on my own self and my time with the brew. Waiting.
Then the shamans began to sing. Up until this point they had remained silent. It was as if they had waited for the first purging to begin before unleashing the power and beauty of their Icaros.
The shaman male and female ,advanced in years (perhaps their mid sixties or something close) and I believe they were husband and wife. They were both diminutive in size.  As I entered the maloca for the ceremony they were both laid on their bedding as I said hello and paid my respects to them it struck me just how small they were.
As the Icaros began the purging around me seemed to increase as more and more people were seemingly being violently sick. The increase wasn’t only in the number of people purging but also in the ferociousness  of it.
Then one woman began to laugh. Not a pleasant laugh as it sounded more like the cackling  of a witch, to me it sounded pretty awful, it turned out later that her laugh was pretty heinous even without the ayashuasca.
Noises were now coming from all directions, most of which were very unpleasant to say the least. These noises are all part of the purging process, like little pressure valves all being turned inside the body resulting in there release. It kind of reminded me of something  like a scene from the movie The Exorcist. That is in some way what was being performed  in the ceremony, the shamans and ayahuasca were working on people’s inner demons. These ceremony’s I participated in however are only used as a force for good. There are people of course who would use such powerful forces for maleficent means under similar circumstances and I have heard of a few horror story’s were people have fallen victim to shaman or people posing as shaman taking advantage of unsuspecting and naive travellers seeking the ayahuasca experience. If I had been place din that maloca at that time without any for-knowledge of ayahuasca, shamanism, purging etc I would have presumed that something sinister, dark and evil was taking place perhaps in some kind of satanic ceremony. This however could not be further from the truth.
A girl called Vanessa had a very traumatic first night and experience with ayahuasca.Very early on into the ceremony she began screaming very loudly. This continued for quite some time and ultimately led her to being taken into the “chill-out” zone at the back of the maloca pass the wash room area to be comforted by the helpers, away somewhat from the other participants. This “chill-out” area is reserved for people who freak out, suffer  to much, shriek loudly etc during ceremonies. This area would go on to see quite a few of the group members some more than once during my three ceremonies.
The next day Vanessa claimed to have been having visions of a lot of dead people, bodies everywhere and also shown something to do with her father who had passed away some years earlier. She found this very tough as her screaming and general discomfort had shown. Her ordeal wasn’t helped by the fact she also claimed to have visions of myself and another group member called Zac (two of me in fact and one of Zac). She thought that she was taking on some of mine and Zac’s issues during that ceremony. I of course wasn’t having a ‘psychedelic’ experience for the most part of the night so I could perhaps understand or at least rationalise her taking on or seeing visions of my issues whatever they may have been (as hard as this may be to fully understand or believe it’s important to reiterate that ayahuasca has so much mystery and mystical capabilities and properties that visions and experiences can be shared and witnessed by others). But Zac was also in the deep throes of ayahuasca during our first night in the maloca.
The next day during our initiation where we all returned to the maloca again sitting in a group circle and took turns to recount our stories and experiences of the previous night’s ceremony. During the recollection I found myself sat next to Vanessa with Zac the other side of her. Vanessa couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of this, and was quick to point it out, in part blaming the two of us  for her terrifying ordeal. It seems as if Madre Ayahuasca is not without a sense of humour. ( There were upwards of twenty people in the maloca for the initiation possibly a few more, all the participants and some of the helpers who hadn’t drank , but still retold there stories of the previous evening, the point being that the odds of both me and Zac being positioned either side of Vanessa the day after the ceremony are very long indeed). Coincidence? I’m not so sure.
Back to the first ceremony, and Zac himself seemed to  be having quite a difficult time. It didn’t  me that out of everyone in the maloca Zac was the only one in conversation with his experience. Zac did like to talk a lot bless him, ayahuasca drunk or sober. He kept saying “stop”, repeating it two or three times, then adding “I command you to stop”. A few seconds would pass and then his next words would be “I exercise my right as a human being and I command you stop”. This seemed to go on for quite some time, repeating those words and a few other phrases over and over again. For example he said something along the lines of “It’s all about love, you should give it a try”, and “you’ve been going on for thousands of years and quite frankly I’m getting bored”. Now Zac is gay and hard of hearing wearing an ear aid to help him hear things, which gave the whole scene an added dose of humour. It was all very amusing for me listening and spectating, and it was clear that Zac was in quite a good place unlike some of the other participants. He would go on to repeat the same phrases in the next two ceremonies.
When asked about it the next day he said that he was at some kind of party and was being offered drugs and sex etc. I get the impression it was quite a dark and seedy party and experience for Zac to find himself in. When recalling his story he wasn’t scared or  frightened he seemed at ease with it and actually quite happy. I believe that he may have had quite a debauched past involving drugs and possibly prostituting himself. Zac is HIV positive and has been since 1997 and he told me that he used to sell his body for sex. In telling his story the next day during the initiation he was positively glowing with a sparkle in his eyes, he claimed to be “reborn” after just one ceremony and had learned to love himself and others more. I was very happy for him, on meeting him I had been immediately drawn to the warmth and kindness this loving gentle man exuded. I like Zac and have a lot of time for him.
After the first ceremony Zac removed  his hearing aid. He said he could hear much clearer now and didn’t need them. This would be considered fantasy on his part by some perhaps, but ayahuasca has a reputation of being a medicinal plant with healing capabilities, and curing many differing ailments, complaints and illness’s.
As a side note upon my return to my home city of Sheffield I recall visiting the large shopping centre there called Meadowhall and having entered the centre and walked for 50 metres or so past an array of shops inside I had quite a strange experience. I all of a sudden and out of nowhere felt a heightened connection with what seemed like all the other people around me both on the top floor of the shopping centre which I was on, and also the ground floor below where I was walking. It was as if I could feel the people around me, or more specifically the buzzing like energy they gave off and the individual nature of there collective sound. Aside from the ayahuasca experience’s I had in Peru it was one of the strangest moments of my life. I think it’s possible that this was as a result of drinking the ayahuasca not long before. As if it had activated something in my brain or heightened my senses even if only for that fleeting moment. It was truly bizarre and I haven’t experienced anything like it since.
My first night was almost non-existent in comparison to Vanessa’s and Zac’s s and also  from what I could tell at the time and by the group discussion the next day all the other participant’s to. After maybe around two hours of just basically laying and  sitting watching the almost chaotic (a controlled chaos may I add) scenes unfold around me, feeling relaxed and a little stoned I decided to go outside. Here I sat on the edge of the maloca amongst all the life that buzzed in the Amazon night air. I sat here alongside a man called Casey one of the owner’s of the Nimea Kaya retreat. It was beautiful and calm besides the insect life outside the maloca but inside the hellish sounds continued. It was the maloca that was truly wild this evening and not the rainforest.
Casey oozed calmness and tranquillity. If he had been anymore relaxed he would have been horizontal. He came across as being wise beyond his years and probably knowledgeable on a great many subjects. He asked how I was doing and I replied that I was feeling a little drunk, ayahuasca drunk almost like the effects a few lager’s would have had on me, not falling over or merry drunk but I was overcome by a sense of calm, a feeling of being totally at ease and relaxed but one also of not being quite myself. I said I hadn’t had a psychedelic experience that evening, he replied that ayahuasca had other people to work on this particular  evening as the maloca could attest to. All the time we were talking people were shouting, murmuring and being sick from all around the maloca. Casey had a wry smile as he said that this had been an “intense” first ceremony as first ceremony’s go for our group. He certainly wasn’t wrong.
I then went back inside the maloca, and headed for the bathroom situated across from the entrance, gingerly standing over and side stepping the massed bodies now laid strewn across the floor and my path. i pushed the door open to the wash room and “chill out” area and inside were a few of the helpers and maybe one or two of the group members, I think Vanessa was still laid on the spacious bedding provided here being comforted, she still looked somewhat distressed  but was now calm at least and her screaming had ceased.  I recall Winter one of the beautiful spirits who guided us all during our journey’s approached me to see what I needed, ‘the bathroom’ I replied. Next to us was one of the toilets (a standard toilet with a composting pile of saw dust above a large pit – no flush or drainage) concealed by a drawn curtain. We were unsure whether or not it was occupied but a short burst of someone farting from behind the curtain left us in no doubt that not only was the toilet occupied but that the person behind said curtain was feeling the full purging effects of Madre Ayahuasca.
I’m not sure I even got to use the bathroom as the next thing a I remember is Sylvie another one of the helper’s approaching me to see if I was feeling the effects of my first glass of ayahuasca.  After telling her how my night was going and how I was feeling I asked her for a second glass of the brew. I returned to my bedding area and a few moments later she brought me the second glass with the same amount of ayahuasca in that I had drank a few hours earlier. I wasn’t looking forward to tasting the liquid again but knew that it  may give me a kick start on my psychedelic journey. I knocked the second glass back and laid down again in anticipation.
Within five minutes I sat up right and threw the dark liquid back up into my puke bowl. I say five minutes it could have been longer. Time becomes quite a different experience under the influence of ayahuasca. I’m not sure if this counts as purging as it was clear it was the liquid recently drank that I threw back up. My next two ceremonies were to suggest that it probably didn’t count.
Again I’m now as I was at the time unaware of how much time had now elapsed but it can’t have been more than an hour before I caught a glimpse of my first ever psychedelic visions. Strange and beautiful colours.
The first of my visions just kind of trickled over me slowly, almost out of nowhere and seemed to be pulled down like a veil over my minds eye. I saw tentacles swishing to and throe, opening and closing, as if it were some giant organic curtain. It was unlike anything  I had ever seen. It was clearly a creature of some kind almost like a cross between an elephant and some form of octupus, but it almost seemed plant like in nature. It certainly appeared to be a marine animal based on it’s tentacles and them apparently moving as if being carried by an invisible underwater current. Each tentacle, and there were upwards of ten of these, had at least one and likely several more watchful eyes, and they all seemed  to be intently focused in unison upon me. I don’t recall the eyes blinking, they were apparently all seeing eyes, similar if not the same as the eye’s depicted upon the pyramid capstone of an American dollar bill.The swishing tentacles were alive, a creature or part of a creature. It wasn’t at all scary, more comforting in some peculiar way. The gentle swaying to and throe of this animal/being was almost hypnotic.
My second vision was also very peculiar and hard to explain. I saw what I can only describe as a giant shrimp like creature. Again it was almost certainly a marine based animal, but  this time it also looked almost insect like, it was translucent in appearance a glowing grey colour that could have been static, like it was made of electricity. This insect/creature was also seemingly swaying underwater and staring at me intently as if it had something to convey, like it wanted to communicate with me.
Looking back some months later I can only ponder and wonder at what theses visions meant, or whether they had any meaning at all. Was it a real glimpse of something tangible, or was it just a chemical reaction in my brain that led me to hallucinate and dream up these other worldly beings? One thing I am certain of is that these beings didn’t originate or manifest from my subconscious, I have never before imagined never mind seen such creatures before. I can’t help but wonder if the tentacles may have been some kind of veil or curtain that was parting and allowing me access to another world? I wonder whether the translucent shrimp like being may have been or represented a brain or hive mind? These are the two thoughts that occur to me as I try to describe and explain what I was seeing and feeling at the time and what these entities represented. I now think that these two visions were preparatory one’s for my next ceremony, opening the door way as it were for me to walk through the next time I drank ayahuasca. It is only my speculation of course but I can’t help thinking that theses beings were intelligent ones with purpose.
The visions were brief but spectacularly colourful.  I haven’t been able to replicate the shear beauty of these two strange visions, or how vibrant they were in my mind since.
After the visions had ended (they can’t have lasted more than a few minutes each – maybe only seconds) I remained in a chilled and relaxed state laying on the bedding. At some point amongst all of this the shamans had stopped singing and were now laid presumably asleep next to me their work for the evening complete. They had sang for hours and had been to each participant’s bed area to sing directly to each individual person. It must be very exhausting work.
The helper’s work however was not yet done as they continued to assist those in need, walking the floor in all directions, blowing sage and mapacho smoke on the participants, until the early hours. Soft shamanic and tribal music was now being played from somewhere in the maloca from a laptop I believe.  It was beautiful, soft soothing music probably intended to help the transition of the journey men and women back to reality, or this reality at least.
I tried to sleep intravenously during this period of the night and perhaps finally dozed off around one or two am in the morning. After a few hours of light sleep I returned to my room looking to sleep soundly in my bed, it was around 5am when I left the maloca. I was either the first or the second of us to return to our rooms, Mark also left sometime around when I did and he to had had a quiet first experience of ayahuasca. As I left all the other helpers and participants were sleeping.
Back in my room I slept for a little while longer then headed for breakfast, everyone by this point was eager for nourishment having all fasted since the previous lunch time in preparation for the previous night’s ceremony. It was then time for each of us to have what is known as a ‘flower bath’, a new experience for me. The bath was actually a washing up bowl filled with cold water and selected flowers. The intention of this mini ceremony is to wash away any lingering dark spirits from the previous evening. This was performed by the female shaman and the bowl’s contents were poured directly over each individual’s head, leaving us soaked and covered in flower heads. I dried myself in the sun of the jungle which even at this early hour was rather intense.

Later that day we all returned to the maloca for the initiation where we all sat in a circle to take it in turns to recollect our previous night’s experiences. During the conversation Sylvie who was was seemingly the head of the helpers, said to me that the next time we drank I would be given a large dose of ayahuasca at the outset, one as large as the two I had in the first ceremony combined. To my knowledge it doesn’t matter to much how much or how little ayahuasca one person drinks, it’s not like alcohol were the more you have the more drunk you become. A large dose may work for someone and then on another occasion a smaller dose could be equally as effective or even more so for that person. Ayahuasca will teach you as she see’s fit regardless of the level’s one drinks. The first ceremony was however used as a barometer for each individual’s tolerance levels, and I  apparently would require a large glass the next time we drank, which would be the following night.
The story telling in the maloca lasted for two hours, some having more to say than others whilst some others didn’t wish to share what had happened to them preferring  to keep there experiences private and for themselves. The stories were amazing and a little frightening to knowing we were drinking again soon. It was all very positive though and a joy to see so may happy faces throughout the day. Throughout the day people kept sharing  there experiences, and I have to admit I was envious of the stories told and wished to have a stronger experience myself the next time we drank.

I was nervous in the run up to the second ceremony, but also hopeful I would get some teaching, I was open to anything she had to say to me.
I took my bedding down to the maloca a few hours before the second ceremony was due to begin which was at 8pm. All the group members were politely asked to be in position by 7.45. I choose a spot next to where I had been positioned for the first ceremony. This evening I would be second in line from the shamans.
By 6pm I was ready and eager for the show to begin. The next hour was spent walking around the retreat, talking to various people and just trying to calm my mind, something I have great difficulty with.I was in place in the maloca at around 7.20pm and resolved to try and get comfy on my thin sun lounge mattress a task easier said than done on the hard wooden surface of the maloca.
The shamans were already in place as I entered, I bowed my head as I crossed the room to convey my respects to them, little did I know then just how much respect I would have for  them come the morning. I received a cursory nod of the head back and a trade mark smile from Beemha one of the two brother’s who would be tonight’s shamans, the third and probably head shaman was their father. Beemha’s smile lit up the room even in the relative darkness of the maloca, he always seemed very happy and looked like Bruce Lee both in features and physique. Beemha’s brother was called Sheesh, both were around my age.
During the previous day the group members helped the two brothers prepare more ayahuasca in the hope that we may get to drink the brew we helped create later in our stay. The brew was still in it’s cooking pot outside awaiting more flame and attention as we convened in  the maloca for the nights ceremony. We had washed the Chacruna leaves, and stripped the ayahuasca vine of its bark. Whilst Beemha and Sheeshi stirred the frothing brew and serenaded her with music from their native instruments and blew out Mapacho  smoke onto the liquid, with the smoke went the shamans intentions for the brew, sending positive thoughts through the smoke. The mapacho smoke is also said to ward of evil spirits, a number of our group took turns to exhale this sacred tobacco smoke onto the brew all of us sending our hopes and positive thoughts along with it. The mapacho is a type of tobacco plant that is native to the Amazon and thought to be sacred by many of the rainforest tribes, the Shipibo, who were the local tribe and arguably the largest in terms of population in South America being one of them. The Shamans, helpers and participants during ceremony all use the  mapacho for this purpose if they wish.

By 8pm everyone was inside the maloca and I was sat between two young Americans, Tim a very odd (even amongst this group) but very nice and kind fellow who really did seem to undergo a transformation of mind and soul in Peru, and a lady called Emily who would prove to be (in my mind and from my perspective) very strong and quite powerful during this ceremony.
The only light now remaining in the maloca came from a few burning candles in the large circular room’s centre, resting upon a small table that housed various items like crystals, a feather and other such objects. It was said before hand that any items placed here during ceremony would become “charged” I guess from the energy inside the maloca during ceremony. I’m not entirely sure of the concept behind this or what it exactly means but we were all invited to place anything we wished upon this ‘altar’ should we wish. At the time I thought it sounded like nonsense, and I had no suitable object to place there anyway.
Casey walked into the maloca in all white clothing (all the helper’s dressed in all white karate-esque garments) carrying with him a smallish bottle of the ayahuasca to be drank that night and knelt in front of the central altar/table for a few moments, before carrying the bottle toward the three shaman, one of which took the bottle from him. It was dark so I couldn’t be sure which of the three claimed hold of the brew but I would guess it would have been the  elder of the three, in this case the father. He then began to serenade the ayahuasca within by blowing into the bottle a sort of low pitched whistle, that I guess must be a song for the ayahuasca. I guess the purpose to be to vivify the brew, to energise it maybe or perhaps to give her good intentions for the ceremony ahead. It was all very mystical and quite spell binding to watch  this performance. I guess the shamans whistling directly into the ayahuasca is an icaro just for her.
After the shaman had completed his little musical act, everyone of the group members took it in turns to stand up and be covered with smoke from burning sage. Two of the helpers went  to the central altar area to set alight the sage that had been prepared earlier in small ceramic  type dishes. The two helpers carried the dishes to each individual participant of the ceremony and blew the smoke over our heads, upper and lower torso’s , we all had to turn around so as to receive the smoke on both sides of our bodies. Again I’m unsure as to the exact meaning  of  this ritual but once more I imagine it has something to do with purifying or cleansing the body, or perhaps it’s a protective measure against bad spirits. All of these mini rituals are  very peculiar to the uninitiated but also very mystical and held in great reverence and significance to  those  in the know and the tribal communities. I personally found it all very interesting and somewhat magical.
The ceremony was now ready to commence. Casey was now pouring the ayahusasca into different sized glasses, with the assistance of one of the other helpers all dressed in white. The ayahuasca was then carried to each on of us in turn. I was the second of the group to drink.
I knocked the liquid back in one gulp, conscious of how bad it was to actually get down the throat. I then reached out to Emily on my right and gently touched her on the arm and wished her a good journey, she wished me the same. I received a warm touch from Tim on my left who also wished me well. I returned his well wishes.
It wasn’t long before in the darkness I could hear the sound of the medicine beginning to take hold in the form of the unmistakable and now familiar sound of retching. The shaman began to sing and this set off a chain reaction of vomiting in motion.
I believe the first person to vomit was the seventy three year old woman who had arrived at Nime Kaya three days  earlier wearing some kind of device that was helping to control and ease the pain of her sciatica. I forget her name now but the machine she was wearing had twenty settings to help ease her suffering, twenty being the highest. I know that at the beginning of her time at  the retreat she had had the contraption set at the highest she could, it was clear she was in a lot of discomfort.
After the first ceremony she was able to remove the device and manoeuvre with the aid  of her walking stick, this ceremony and at a later point the third only helped increase her manoeuvrability and ease her discomfort still further. It was a remarkable change in such a short space of time,  there was significant improvement in her demeanour, stature and overall appearance. Ayahuasca is a natural healer and it was amazing to see her work just a little of her magic on this lady. I will speak a little more of her later.
The purging was heavy and loud tonight, in some cases very loud. Of all the participants  Kyle, a heavily tattooed American guy maybe in his early to mid thirties seemed  to be having  the worst of this purging. He seemed to retch constantly for what must have been an hour maybe two. It sounded so painful, I felt so bad for him as the sound seemed to be coming from the very  pit of his stomach. He would retch incredibly loudly and then let out a whimper or groaning sound. After around an hour of the ceremony people Kyle included were beginning to, after initially being worried  for  him, to find his virtuoso performance funny and were now laughing with him, at him.  After what seemed an age my worry for him dissipated somewhat and it actually became rather amusing listening to him with a  number of other people, Kyle included, laughing out loud at the array of noises not only emitted from Kyle but from the people within the maloca in general.
Meanwhile Zac had chirped up with his ‘stop’, ‘you’ve been doing this for thousands  of years’,  dialogue with who knows what, but apparently he was in discussion with the same being or entity as he was in the first ceremony.
Jerry the woman who had been laughing loudly in the last ceremony was again cackling  and laughing like a witch, but was also now gasping loudly at sporadic intervals as if something were shocking her profoundly. I think at some point she was carried or assisted into the chill out area  to be comforted.
Vanessa had a peaceful evening in comparison with her first. After that eventful night she had shown true courage to go on and drink again. The next day she talked about the “evil” or “bad” things she had encountered previously trying to manifest themselves again during the second ceremony. But for the first time in her life she felt as though she could control the situation. She said she did this by forming some kind of protective bubble around herself during the ceremony. This protective bubble would have been a mental projection not a physical one i’m sure, although an incident yet to occur could put this statement under some jeopardy.
For my journey to the jungle I had taken a small wind up torch to help navigate the Amazon during the hours of darkness. For some reason I choose to hold onto this torch during the second ceremony, perhaps to keep hold onto something in this reality, to keep me grounded during any difficult times. For the first ceremony I had been handed a rather  large crystal by a young man called Lee one of the retreat’s volunteering  helpers. He came up to me in the maloca that evening and handed me the crystal just before the ceremony was to begin. It was a touching gesture, why he choose me to give it to out of all the other eighteen participants  I do not know.  I handed the crystal back to him at some point and told him to give it to someone who may need it more as the ayahuasca wasn’t really working on me at that time. I’m not sure whether he did or not. Lee is an incredible man a little younger than myself, he is arguably the kindest, most caring and loving person I have met.
Raised in a rough part of Ottawa, Canada, he had been no stranger to violence and gang  like mentality. Although not affiliated with any gang himself it was clear from our conversation he had led a colourful life. In the previous twelve months or so Lee had undergone quite an incredible transformation both physically and mentally. He showed  me a picture of himself from around a year previous where in all honesty he looked like a different person, quite a mess actually compared now to the Lee stood in front of me. He had lost considerable weight having changed and cleaned up his diet and pretty much stopped drinking alcohol. One way of putting it might be that he had gone from a loutish looking, beer slugging, bong hitting rebellious type of man seemingly without cause or direction to an empathy filled, hugely positive, poetry writing, spiritual healer who reads people’s cards. This incredible story of his came about from the use of psychedelic plants. He had two favourite sayings he seemed to repeat quite regularly with the people at the retreat. The first being “Thank you for being you”, and the other “thank you for being  strong enough to take this journey”. His warmth, kindness, enthusiasm and all round aura couldn’t help but rub off on those around him. I would like to be a lot more like Lee.
An hour or so had now passed and I was beginning to have doubts I would have any deep and meaningful experience again. The noises were still harrowing but tonight there was no screaming, just retching and the occasional screeching for want of a better word. I think it was the incessant dry retching of Kyle and the laughter it eventually brought to the people in the maloca that set the next drama on course. The laughter built up until it reverberated around the maloca.  I was laughing myself but the laughing and shouting then began to get a little out of hand. Someone from the bottom end of the maloca from where I was situated began shrieking with the intention of getting a few more laughs. This worked for a while with one or two other’s in the group imitating the shrieking although I don’t recall laughing at this point myself thinking things were becoming a little juvenile perhaps just for a moment. It became clear a little later who was making the noise. The next day Tim and one or two others were replicating the sound as we eat breakfast and through the day, a sort of meeowing sound like the one cats make. I  don’t recall this being the sound made but it may have been, anyway it was clearly becoming a little to much as the culprit was carried  from the main circle area of the maloca into the chill out space in the back to be calmed down. This culprit turned out to be Nabeel, as I could tell it was him when I watched him get carried to the back area in what was a very surreal scene. Perhaps the ayahuasca was beginning to kick in but it looked almost as if he had been lifted out on a throne of some kind in a similar vein to kings of old were sometimes carried around overhead. I can’t be sure as the room was so dark but I think he was lifted out by Lee and one more of the helpers. I can’t help but question what I was seeing in this scene looking back.
The next day Nabeel couldn’t remember being carried out into the chill out area but knew that he had been. At the time I knew it was Nabeel that was being moved, my vision and judgement seemed fine then but the throne scene left me in little doubt that I was impaired enough to feel her work on me.
The shamans were picking up the pace, they were truly amazing, so powerful and their icaro’s sensational, totally different from the previous ceremony’s shaman. The three of them were working their other worldly magic as I was about to experience for myself. My night was about to become very weird, very terrifying and beautiful in the course of a few hours. The sequence of my visions and experiences I do not specifically remember, but I shall describe them to the best of my abilities.
The ayahuasca seemed to suddenly have a grip on me from out of nowhere. I had been a chilled out spectator before the dripping waves of visions began to unfold themselves  in my minds eye. For me it really was like a drip feed of viuals with a veil like something out of the Matrix being slowly pulled down similar to that of a theatre’s curtain. It is very strange, like your being plugged into another dimension or world, or that your brain’s downloading the data needed to process a new world. That is how it was for me at least. Writing this some months after the experience I now wonder if this ‘downloading’ of data is what causes the purging, or at least one of the causes. I would also suggest the purging could be down to travel or motion sickness as we experience new worlds or levels. This is just me speculating on my own experience of course.
The visions began with a truly spectacular array of colours. Ayahuasca in particular of the psychedelic substance world is known for producing amazing colours during it’s use. The sheer brilliance of these colours are hard if not impossible to describe, and have to be experienced to be believed. I have not been able to replicate there beauty in my mind since. A drip feed or wave of magical colours was letting me know I was being transported to another place.
It is quite a frightening thing to go through. You are awaiting what comes next with a nervous anticipation. One moment your feeling normal, present in your own self without even knowing it, the next you are in a kaleidoscope world of colour seemingly spinning in a direction you cannot anticipate nor control in a world you cannot imagine. After the initial wave of mesmerising colours I became aware that I was in a bad place. How did I get here?  Did I travel here? Where the fuck is here? I’m not sure how it came to be but I was in some kind of Hell.  I was trapped now. Ayahuasca had pinned me down in a world of hopelessness.
I will describe this hellish experience to the best of my recollections and abilities but finding the words to accurately portray an accurate picture of what I was actually feeling and seeing is quite frankly impossible.
I’m not sure how I came to be in this hell of sorts, I almost seemed to fall there from out of nowhere.  I was shown or felt how meaningless everything is, how pathetic everyday life is, how we all get wrapped up in day to day life without ever looking at why we might exist and have come to be here on this cosmic spec of dust floating through space and time.  I was shown that life is a game, just a ride as the late great Bill Hicks once said. I know that these things could possibly be true but there was something ghastly about this realisation. I felt nothing but despair. It was like we are something’s or someone’s play thing. A toy perhaps of some higher power. The despair I was feeling wasn’t reserved only for myself, it was almost as if I was feeling this sorrow for humanity itself. I thought of my parents, in realisation  that  they (people I love and care for) to were part of that game.
It seemed to show me that when they die I won’t see them again, or at least in the human form they take in this existence. It showed me they would be taken away by some kind of alien force upon death, transported to another place. I can’t be certain but this alien force I was seeing seemed to resemble the revered gods of the ancient Egyptians. I would go on to see many Egyptian type images during the remainder of my ceremony.
At this point I was feeling very uncomfortable indeed both mentally during my journey and physically to wrap myself up in my blanket and sheets desperately trying to take some comfort in my bedding area. I really wanted to sleep through this ordeal however the visions would seep through whenever I closed my eyes. i developed a cold or the sniffles  at this point . I asked Sylvie for a tissue when she came round to me to see if I was ‘feeling  the medicine’ tonight. I replied that I was with a wry laugh.
Prior to being handed the tissue I had experienced what it is like to purge on ayahuasca. It was pretty awful. Arguably the worst physical feeling of my life. The constant flood of images, visions and being in that hellish place made me puke. It came from nowhere and I had no control of it or any say in the matter. I hate throwing up at the best of times so if I had been able to stop myself I would have tried to. I don’t believe I was physically sick more than one or two times but retched a further few times for sure. It felt as though I was bringing up the roots of my stomach, and the ayahuasca I had drank at the same time. The taste is horrific much worse than the initial drinking of the brew, and I could feel it rising from the pit of my stomach. I felt worse than I could imagine, sweat was escaping from every one of my pore’s I wanted all this to be over but felt as though there was truly no end in sight.
I’m not sure how long had now passed but after the purging, sweating and mini cold the hellish time came to an end. I had heard the sound of two children laughing. In my mind I built up the image of two young girls playing and dancing in some far of cosmic garden. The object of there laughter a kind of snow globe that was a toy to them. Inside this globe was planet earth and everything on it. Humanity a mere play thing for these cosmic beings in this strange universe.
During all this I had somehow felt connected to something of a higher nature. Like I had tapped into a force that I can only describe as the circle of life and death, the very force that governs all this. During this experience I had been more in touch with death and all that it encompasses than in life itself. I was getting the message that there are unseen forces and possibly entities  that govern our universe, something intelligent that manipulates and  pulls the strings of everything that has and will occur. A force that energises the known universe and everything in t from solar systems and planet’s right down to atoms and the molecular  level. I was shown that this same force is ultimately pointless, that we as human beings are merely plankton in this pointless universe created by some other beings higher up the chain in evolutionary space terms than us plankton. It really is quite impossible to put down in words what I was going through and visualising. Safe to say it was all thoroughly depressing.
During all this I was in a psychological battle with ayahuasca, not wanting to be in the world I was being shown I would at intermittent intervals pull myself out of that world somehow and find myself sat upright looking around the maloca wiping the sweat from my brow. It was like momentarily coming up for air, like  the scene where Neo pulls himself out of the matrix in the film of the same name, in some way. Each time I sat up I thought my nightmare would be over, or at least hoped it would be. Each time I fell back upon my bedding and into that other hateful place, in total despair, wondering if it would ever end.
As I have said it did eventually end. By now I had totally lost track of time. I had been tormented for what seemed like hours. In all likelihood  it had probably been no more than two earth hours that I had spent in that place. My visions then took an unexpected turn for the better in comparison to what I had thus far encountered.
At some stage the pillow my head had been resting on became a part of me, attached  to the top of my head or more accurately the top of my head was gone and had been replaced by the pillow. I didn’t panic but the question of whether to do so or not crossed my mind as it was a very freaky moment. Then things got a little weirder still as my head and neck area seemed to turn into what I can only describe as something akin to a lava lamp like object, not physically but it felt or looked like the slow oozing of the liquid that rises up inside of these lamps. It was as if something a substance of some kind inside me was rising up through my body as it made it’s way to my head/pillow area and then left my body altogether and entered a realm I can only describe as like being back home. This substance seemed to be my soul, my source of being, and it had  been transported somewhere else but somewhere somehow familiar and warm. It felt as though I had travelled back to from once where I came. It was such a warm feeling. I felt as though I was in the loving embrace of the universe, back amongst my ‘real’ family, like I was part of a universal family or at least my soul is. To get here  I travelled through a sideways spiralling waterfall of colour, a spinning vortex of some kind. It was quite spectacular as I marvelled at the beauty I was witnessing.  I remember a tear rolling down my cheek as I was somewhat overwhelmed by this point with emotion. I wanted and asked Madre Ayahuasca to allow my girlfriend of the time, a remarkable soul herself called Tammy to experience a part of what I was feeling and seeing, a glimpse of such images could be truly profound for anyone. I sighed a loving  happy sigh, it was a beautiful moment.
It felt like I was experiencing death. What it is like to die. I was shown that there was nothing to be fearful of, that death is the final journey we all make, at least in the form that we take in this life.
A lot of cultures, some of which are millennia old, and past ancient civilisations such as that of the Egyptian’s were and are largely based on and around the concept of death. Some of these cultures and religions celebrate the passing of an individual as they would do for a new born baby entering the world. They believe in there differing ways that the departing person is heading for a better place.
Ayahuascsa showed me that this type of thinking is perhaps more along the right lines  than say the monotheistic religions such as Christianity with their concepts of heaven and hell. Because of these religions we fear death, especially the society’s of the west, never really looking it in the eye and trying to understand it. A  fear of death has for the last few thousand years enabled the church to monopolise the masses and convince them that only through them and through there lessons can the average man lead a good life, get in touch with the divine and reach heaven. I believe that this is one of the ways the church has controlled the publics perception of their own life’s and there own interaction with God, the divine, or whatever you want to call it, through the fear of Hell and leading a life of sin. This in turn has led to the demonisation of any other means of getting in touch with one’s inner self or of contacting the higher powers, thing’s like psychedelics are banned in many country’s world wide as they diminish the influence establishment’s such as the church and other controlling religion’s and means have on the psyche of people. This is not a coincidence as a population living in fear is far more easily controlled and manipulated.  Basically I believe that If the use of psychedelics was more widespread I believe the general fear each person has of his or her eventual demise would be substantially diminished, as would the power the ruling religions of the world have on people’s perceptions of life and their own reality and existence itself, essentially handing the power to the people to find God or the divine for themselves.
I was left thinking like the ancient Egyptians once did that life is a preparation for death, death being our final journey. That we may well be judged upon leaving this mortal coil by some form of higher power. It’s easy to write and say out aloud but I believe it’s possible that death is something to be celebrated and embraced. Funeral’s in the west tend to be bleak, sombre affairs with a lot of black clothes, tears of sadness and mourning. This is all understandable of course knowing our culture and mind set but I do wonder whether  or not we have it right
I’m not sure what all of this meant, but I interpreted it as being shown that upon death we return to some other part of the universe. This to me was where we had originally come from, our souls the essence of who and what we are. We go home to be loved once more, to join everyone and become one again. It felt like all our souls somehow mould together into some giant mesh of souls. During this experience I felt as though I was being lovingly embraced in a way I have never felt before. This embrace seemed motherly, feminine in nature.
I looked at Emily who was next to me holding a very strong meditative pose called  the lotus position throughout the ceremony. I do not know if it was the medicine or the lighting inside the maloca or a combination of the two but seeing her sat there like that left me in awe. She looked so strong, supple and composed and seemed positively radiant. Later after my visions had all but ended I saw her return to her bed area, I guess after a bathroom visit, assisted by one of the helper’s she was then handed another glass of the brew which she promptly drank. At some point I watched her purge whilst still sat in her meditative position. I’m not sure if she was holding the unfortunately named sick bowl or if one of the helper’s held it for her but she seemed to be sick a lot. This wasn’t unpleasant to watch as you might think, in fact it was quite the opposite as liquid coming from deep within her seemed to be flowing out in quite a magical way, like a human fountain of sorts, or  a  geyser bursting with colour. Throughout all this she still maintained a calm and powerful aura not looking as though she was in any discomfort from the purging.
I moved both mine and Emily’s bowls later in the ceremony, by this point I think she may have been asleep, and I was paranoid one of us may knock them over. I looked at the contents from each bowl and neither had much vomit inside. This was quite surprising considering the amount of purging I had done and seen Emily release.
I say only quite surprising as in the build up to my trip to Peru I had read another person’s ayahuasca experience in which he spoke of purging heavily via vomiting. He talked of vomiting almost spray like in a multitude of colour similar I guess to what I had seen come from Emily, only to come round later from his journeying and see the amount of vomit he actually ejected was very little. This is pretty much what happened with Emily.
When one purges after drinking ayahuasca it is not only physical matter that is brought up from within the body, people can purge, release and let go of non-physical matter to. For example emotional baggage that  someone may carry within them can be purged during a ceremony and appear to be released from the body but take no visible physical form, but  is carried around by us non the less physically or in our psyche. The physical purging is most likely the body releasing chemicals from food and drink consumed that it does not want or need. The process ayahuasca puts the body through is much like a rapid detox in this way, that can cleanse us of both mental and physical ailments, some we are conscious of, some we are not.
I believe both myself and Emily purged some non physical matter that evening whatever  it may have been. The next day during our discussion of our collective experiences she remained tight lipped about her own. Whatever it was, wherever she travelled, whatever she learned I imagine it was a great experience for her.
The next part of my own evening is again going to be very difficult to describe in words  and maybe even reader for the reader to believe.
As I have said I began the ceremony with Emily to my right and Tim on my left. After going through both Heaven and Hell in the previous hours I glanced to my left to see how Tim was doing having been oblivious to him being there whilst lost in my own world. As I turned to look at him he began to rise from a kind of half sat, half laid position to one where he was upright but bent at the knee. It didn’t however now seem to be Tim that I was looking at, but some kind of alien being. Tim had apparently morphed into this powerful looking and sounding creature. It looked to be wearing some kind of armour or space suit, and had an incredibly powerful presence about it.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Should I be scared of this being? I wondered  to  myself. I wasn’t and couldn’t take my eyes of it. It was breathing quite loudly like I imagine a  Bear or Gorilla would should you be able to get close enough to one to hear.
It had no obvious colouring but did seem to have long hair tied back in a pony tail or some kind of hair piece extension on the back of it’s head/helmet area. A few more moments passed of me staring at this being before it dawned on me what it may be. It seemed  to be a guardian of some sorts, or maybe a watcher, some sort of alien being tasked with protecting or observing. Who or what it was protecting or observing I do not know. The  only thing I have ever seen that looked anything like what I was seeing before my eyes was the Predator alien from the movie of the same name. Was it Tim I was still looking  at? It was hard to comprehend he had turned into an alien guardian.
As it turned out it wasn’t Tim. It must have been Nabeel. After this guardian vision had passed (i’m not sure how it all ended now) the next thing I recall was embracing the guy to my left (where the guardian had arisen from).  This would have been around three hours into the ceremony but may have been considerably longer, time was completely lost to me now. The guy to my left turned to talk to me and ask who I was as we were both now through most of our evening’s journeying, and judging by the hug we shared the relief of it being over was palpable for the both of us. It was Nabeel sat next to me now which I found quite surprising as he had if you recall, earlier in the evening been carried out of the main circle of the maloca into the back chill out area. Now he was sat next to me in place of Tim without me even realising that Tim had moved.
The strange thing about all this is that in the day time before that night’s ceremony Nabeel had told me that during the meditation the group members held in the morning (I wasn’t a participant) he had, in some way unknown to me, tried to attract armour to him so that he could use and wear for the upcoming ceremony. He had tried this to help protect him during  the night’s journeying, I guess from the dark visions or bad spirits he encountered during  his first ceremony, where it seems he endured rather a lot.
I believe the alien like entity I saw was actually Nabeel wearing this otherwise invisible armour. It seems ludicrous to say this but I had no way of knowing Nabeel was next to me, in fact I still believed up until we shared our relieved hug that it was Tim sat at my side and that it was him that had morphed into the predator like being.
The ayahuasca I believe allowed me to see Nabeel in this way. Under normal circumstances without the elevated state of consciousness ayahuasca had put me in I would not have been able to see such a thing. It allows you to see things otherwise imperceptible  to the human eye , things usually beyond  our field of vision. It dissolves boundaries. How else would I have been able to see this armour wearing being? Maybe it was all one giant coincidence but it is hard to imagine the odds of such things occurring together.
I seem to remember I thought the ceremony was coming to an end because the music had began to play from the centre of the maloca, a sign that the first ceremony was coming to an end anyway. I told Nabeel this after our embrace as we started up a conversation, both of us totally enthralled the worst was behind us. I think we may have been a little over exuberant and loud as one of the helpers came over to politely ask us both if we would  like to go outside to continue our chat as it was clear we were now leaving the final throes of the grip ayahuasca had had on us for the previous few hours. It’s not good holding a discussion whilst others are still under the influence as it may disturb their thought  patterns and journeying.
We were gingerly led outside to sit on one of the benches, to talk and marvel as we gazed  up at the night sky. There’s something a bit special about star gazing in the Amazon while being under the influence of Madre Ayahuasca. Little bugs danced above the tree’s occasionally illuminating themselves as they danced around above the jungle canopy. Fire bugs is what I think they are known as. I did wonder whether I was still hallucinating.
Outside, myself and Nabeel sat with a young Canadian man called Alex. The three of us sat on the one bench talking excitedly about our night’s experiences. We talked of space, time, different dimensions and reality itself amongst other topics. Alex had had quite a calm experience with the brew that evening while at this point Nabeel didn’t seem to remember being carried out of the maloca although this he did recall in due course.
Jerry the loud, cackling Australian women was laid on the bench next to us being consoled during her journey by Lee the helper. He joined in with our conversation as he comforted Jerry. She would let out a moan or start talking randomly from time to time. She was  having a hard and heavy night.
To our right Mohammed who I think was the helper who escorted myself and Nabeel outside was sat on a bench on one of the pathways leading down from the main retreat area to the maloca, his face lighting up in the darkness as he performed strange hand movements with the glowing embers of his mapacho cigarette. He looked like a performing act from a circus or like something from out of a medieval film, I think this may have been a deliberate act on his part. It certainly added to the trippiness of the scene.
My bare feet seemed to be a walkway for insect life I could not see but felt crawling over my skin, it was a little of putting as we were all talking. After a while I wasn’t even sure if I was imaging  this or not. Myself, Nabeel and Alex then returned back inside the maloca.
I returned to my bedding and laid down trying to make myself comfortable. Upon re-entering the maloca with slightly fresher eyes than I had upon going outside, it was clear  to see that it had been a chaotic night again. People were sprawled all over the wooden floor, some now taking up new places in relation to where they had started the ceremony. It was like a mini obstacle course getting to my spot. I remember Tim dancing shirtless at a walking pace across the maloca clearly deep in a ayahuasca trance and seemingly in a wonderful place, he really did seem to embrace the medicine well.
The shaman were still singing their incredible icaros. The icaro’s each have their own specific purpose. The shaman say every thing has it’s own icaro, that everything can be sung. that when we are born we are brought into this world by song. They believe that animals, plants etc all have songs. Some icaros can take you to the depths of hell while others to heavenly heights. I have never heard such an amazing array of sounds and noises as those three shaman made. At times the pace at which these sounds were produced was astonishing . When asked where these icaros come from and how they know of them the shaman replied that they had to travel to the underworld to bring back these songs to help and heal people. I’m not fully aware of what this statement means (perhaps this underworld is the hellish place I had experienced that night) but it’s not so hard to imagine when you witness such raw sounds, sounds that seemingly have incredible maybe even magical powers. The sound resonates inside of you. I think the words speak to your soul or that it has something do with vibrations and frequency. The shaman’s tonight certainly seemed  to have the ability to sing you into different places, mind sets and worlds.
Towards the end of the ceremony perhaps when most people were at the end of their evening’s journeying  or approaching it the shaman’s had whipped up the maloca into a musical nirvana. People were clapping and tapping away in unison with the breath taking icaros. It was beautiful totally amazing. I was there enjoying every magical second  tapping my leg with my hand along to the mesmeric chanting. Others around me were laughing, clapping and gasping with joy. It was as if a switch had been flipped on the people  present in the maloca and we were all up lifted by this finale from the shaman, like puppets on a string we couldn’t help but move to this new but somehow familiar beat hypnotised by the sound. The speed of the sounds made was stupefying.
At some point before the shaman had completed their singing a man called Jonathan released a fart that the next day was described by one individual as the ‘perfect fart’. This sent ripples of laughter once again through the maloca, even at least one of the  shaman was laughing to. The shaman combined with the ayahuasca had taken people, myself included to the depths of despair and by the end of their part in the ceremony the scene inside the maloca was one of elation.
The last of my visions that evening had been filled with Egyptian iconography, especially  the eye of Horus or something similar to it. These eyes were all over the roof of the maloca, actually they pretty much replaced it as the roof basically became the night sky. The eyes were seemingly watching us, unblinking as I recall and almost reptilian like in nature. According to some the eye of Horus is a representation of the human pineal gland. The pineal gland is believed by some  to be the part of the brain that secretes dimethyltryptamine (DMT)  which is thought to be what causes us to dream while we sleep and is also the active compound that causes the hallucinatory effects of ayahuasca. I came away wondering whether much of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic art you can (and I subsequently have) still see in the ruins of Egypt today were in fact depictions of visions seen by these ancient people’s during hallucinatory states. The ancient Egyptians did after all experiment with and use psychedelic plants. We know this from certain hieroglyph  depicting their use. They were known to ingest the blue water  lily, the lotus flower and probably other psychoactive plants. Around five months after my trip to Peru I visited Egypt and travelled quite extensively there, and witnessed some of the hieroglyph’s depicting various flower’s and other’s that appeared to be mushrooms.
The ancient Egyptian’s were a special civilisation as seen in there advanced buildings such as the pyramids and carving of the Sphinx. Spiritual in nature, they were obsessed with life, death and our place among the stars, and what’s more they seem to have been highly knowledgeable on such thing’s when compared with modern civilisation. I’m speculating again here but perhaps they received some of their knowledge whilst in psychedelic states or altered states of consciousness. Maybe the God’s and entities depicted in their hieroglyphs were encountered during the use of these psychedelic substances and they were revered and worshipped because of the knowledge and enlightenment gained  through contact with them. A great many pioneers, scholars, artists etc have gained knowledge, insight and ideas from the use of psychedelic substances.  For example Walter Crick discovered DNA whilst using LSD, and claimed he couldn’t have done so without it’s help. There are countless examples of this through human history.
Perhaps I had received some knowledge and insight into life and death and Egyptian history. Perhaps it was all just conjured by my brain and the chemical reaction taking place within it. Maybe it was just projection’s of my subconscious, I really don’t know. It’s impossible  to  say either way with any real certainty. It felt real. It all felt the same as every day reality does to you and me, but that that reality is only one of many it would seem. It felt as though I had had a glimpse, a small tantalising taste of another or other realities. Like everything is an illusion.
To adopt the ancient Egyptian thought, the visions seemed to be telling me that life is a preparation for death. The next stage of our journey through existence. On the next stage  of this journey to the stars to our own kingdom in the sky. We are one. We are children of the universe.
I had been fighting the need to go to the bathroom for quite some time. After the ceremony had finished and the music from the centre of the room had stopped most people now seemed to be at rest, either sleeping or just laying there contemplating their previous four, five, six or however many hours. The helpers were also at rest along with the three shaman they all must have been exhausted. This was now my opportunity to visit the bathroom to do my business (perhaps this was me purging again) in relative peace. I again managed to manipulate the obstacle of bodies (I was fortunate to pick my spot near the restrooms and chill out area of the maloca) did my business and returned again to my bed area.
I slept lightly and finally left the maloca at around 5am. The three shaman left a minute or two before me, but before doing so Beema the Bruce Lee look a like did something rather peculiar. Upon reaching the centre of the maloca on his way to the door outside he adopted a sort of shot put thrower’s stance and made a fizzing kind of sound as he made motion to release the invisible put towards the sky. I never did find out what this symbolised or meant but I imagine it was done to bring the ceremony to an end. By now I was fully present in myself no longer feeling any effects from the ayahuasca.
The shaman all returned to tend to the brewing ayahuasca we had helped prepare, I went  to  the wooden shack that housed my room and walked out onto the balcony which overlooked the brewing area. One shaman was stirring the brew, another lighting fires to cook the brew while Beema was playing a flute like musical instrument native to the tribes people of the Amazon. I had an overwhelming sense to thank them for their stupendous efforts and icaros. I went back down and embraced the two brothers Beema and Sheeshi, the later was now tapping away on his old style Nokia mobile phone which was quite surreal in the circumstances. It was quite an emotional moment for me as I held back a few happy tears. Beema called me ‘fuerte’ which means strong in Spanish. I don’t know if he was referring to me being physically strong or if I had shown strength during the ceremony.
It had been an incredibly long and hard night and I was emotionally , physically and mentally drained. I went back to my mosquito net covered bed to sleep for a few hours. I awoke still tired and trying to process the previous night’s ordeal, an impossible task even to this day.

 Pictured above is Beemha one of the Shaman brother’s from my second, very powerful ceremony. His singing was truly spectacular and so alien to anything I have ever heard.

For the third ceremony we were told that our shaman for the evening would be two women called the machete sisters, why they were called this I do not know although one of the group members speculated that perhaps during ceremonies they would ward of and cut through dark spirits with their machetes. It turned out no machetes or any other weapons were present when the ceremony began.
I was very apprehensive about drinking ayahuasca again in the build up to the ceremony. Although apprehensive and quite frankly scared of what the night may bring I was also looking forward to drinking for a third time, hoping to gain knowledge about myself and life in general.
My mind set was not helped by the fact that in the run up to the ceremony I had company in the shape of a huge spider , by far the biggest I had ever seen in my room. It appeared as I was trying to calm my nerves and relax around two hours before the ceremony was to begin. I tried in vain to move this colossal spider out of my room but only managed to get it into a washing up bowl which it duly jumped out of as I attempted to carry it across my room and throw it outside from my balcony. The spider disappeared out of my sight. Now I was somewhat concerned that it had concealed itself amongst my bag and various belongings scattered across the floor, and that I  may be bitten in my sleep. I was also worried now about seeing huge spiders in my visions to come later that evening. That was a thought I didn’t much care for. When I encountered the spider the next day this time hanging on the wooden wall outside of my room I took a photo of it on my phone. It was that big it’s eyes flashed as the picture was taken.
After my arachnophobic episode I ventured down to the maloca to place my bedding on a new spot. I decided to place myself at the bottom of the maloca in comparison to where I had sat in the previous ceremonies. Now I would be situated as close to the maloca’s main entrance and about as far away from the bathroom and where the shaman would be as the room would allow. I did this to see whether my position in the room would have any bearing on my overall ayahuasca experience. It had been recommended to the group that we change up our positions.
We were also told that tonight’s shaman would walk the room at some point and sing directly to each participant. This promised to be a powerful ceremony.
Unfortunately we were told beforehand that only one of the sisters would be present for the night’s ceremony. The other having some personal affairs to attend to in one of the nearby villages. This was disappointing as we had been told that when working in unison these two machete sister’s were very powerful shaman indeed. After witnessing the power of the shamans in my previous two ceremonies  I was very much looking forward to experiencing  the two of them work their magic. It turned out that having just one of them present was enough for me to marvel at their power.
Upon entering the maloca I noticed the lone sister was already laid in her place, in exactly the same spot occupied by all the previous shaman. I approached her said hello and bowed my head, as before trying to convey the upmost respect I had for her through the universal  use of body language hoping she would understand.
There was still around an hour to go before we were all meant to be present and in position. I was nervous, anxious, worried and eager now for the ceremony to begin. I walked around the retreat with my trusty sidekick torch in hand trying to calm my mind. It was pitch black now as I walked around the Amazon trees.
I returned to the maloca at around 7.30pm leaving half an hour to spare before the ceremony was due to commence. I would be sat near Alex and next to Vanessa (the girl who had the visions of me and Zac in the first ceremony).
The mood in the camp during the day was one of anticipation with everyone eager to get the ceremony started. I was anxious as i’m sure most people were but in general everyone was looking forward to our third ceremony together.
I settled myself on my bedding area trying to make myself as comfortable as possible, trying not to think about the previous ceremony or indeed the massive spider awaiting me in my room.
Everyone was now in place. In to the maloca walked Sylvie, Winter, Kirsten and  Mohammed (the helpers) all dressed in their white robes and the ceremony was about to begin much the same as in the previous ceremonies with all participants being covered in sage smoke followed by Casey entering the scene and handing over the bottle of ayahuasca to be blessed by the shaman. She sang/whistled to the brew and after that we were ready to commence.
I had the same dosage as in the previous ceremony and threw back the drink in one gulp thinking as I did so ‘there’s no going back now’. On this occasion I was one of the last group members to drink. It was to prove to be an even harder night for me than my previous evening with Madre Ayahuasca.
After drinking I laid back in anticipation of what was to come. No more than ten minutes could have passed before Vanessa sitting next to me began to show signs of being influenced by the ayahuasca. A little moan could be heard here and there before she began to become very uncomfortable. She started to say ‘not again, not again, please no’, as it became quite clear she was revisiting her first ceremonial experience were she described seeing dead people.
I was just laid there feeling sorry for her and hoping she would get through her second nightmarish scenario. A few more minutes of this passed before she was being escorted  by the helpers to what must now have been a familiar place for her, the back chill out area of the maloca were she would be comforted by some of the helpers. The night was about to become quite chaotic.
Vanessa could be heard now really screaming loudly from the back of the maloca. There was a party or something going off in one of the villages or retreats nearby and I remember thinking that they must have been able to hear her shouts and screams. I guess the nearby people and locals must be used to such scenes and sounds what with having an ayahuasca retreat on their doorstep. In most scenarios these screams would have been interpreted as blood curdling ones from a women about to be attacked or murdered. I guess not in the jungles of certain parts of South America.
Vanessa was clearly very frightened and in a lot of distress. She also seemed very quick to feel the medicine. She was in a loud heated conversation seemingly with herself. At one point (and this could have been no more than thirty minutes into proceedings) she exclaimed something along the lines of ‘Well done Vanessa’ followed by something like ‘You really know your stuff’. I’m sure this last part is inaccurate but she said something along these lines I just can’t recall what exactly now. She was speaking in a hostile and sarcastic tone. It was quite amusing after a while and brought one or two laughs from the maloca.
It was as if something had taken hold of her and was trying to show her something or communicate with her. In a normal world this would have seemed very bizarre but considering the setting and circumstance it was all by now quite normal. She remained in the rear of the maloca for what seemed like quite some time before returning to take her place next to me, by which time I was deep into my own journey.
Vanessa’s earlier experience  had set off a chain reaction in the maloca. This seemed to be the general course of things. One person begins to feel the brew’s effects followed by someone else moments later. People were beginning to purge.
Once again very strange and unpleasant noises could now be heard coming from most directions. At some point someone, I had no idea who, made a noise whilst purging that sounded as if they had released a swirling whirlpool of vomit, it reverberated like they were inside some form of echoing chamber or such like.
The ayahuasca seemed to be taking longer to effect me than it did most of the others. Zac was once again having his conversation with the devil or some other dark entity, Anthony (a young English guy who lives in Hong Kong) was making exuberant gasping sounds seemingly at the beauty or spectacular images or messages he was receiving. He wasn’t loud or off putting, neither was Zac but Anthony was clearly in a very good place. He said as much the next day mentioning that at one point he had been brought to tears by the love and warmth the brew had shown him.
All these differing experience’s highlight the array of lessons ayahuasca is able to teach us. Whether or not it is the plant’s themselves communicating with us, or whether the ayahuasca allows or even forces us to see these things and face up to them is open to debate. Either way ayahuasca shows us what we need to see even if we don’t know it at the time, this was much the case for me. Vanessa had seemingly some inner demons to face, whilst Anthony was learning something far more blissful and going through the exact opposite Vanessa was. I believe they each had their own teachings to receive.
Jerry was starting to cackle again in  a witch like manner letting out the occasional gasp of horror. She really did seem to become possessed under ayahuasca’s influence. She would screech loudly to and in this ceremony started to cry out for her mum. She again was far and away the loudest participant and the hardest for me to block out and deal with.
She said the next day that she had been transported back to her childhood, and became her younger self again hence her saying ‘I want my mummy’, actually saying she had experienced travelling through her mothers birthing canal as she went back to being in her mother’s womb. Again this is something that a number of people have reported experienced whilst drinking ayahuasca, actually having the feeling and experience of being reborn or born again. She talked a lot the next day during our group discussion, in fact she would keep interrupting people  during their own stories to add more about her own. To be fair to her she had been through the mill during each ceremony. She obviously had a lot of personal stuff to deal with and get of her chest so to speak. She talked of Robin Williams the movie star who had recently passed away, reportedly hanging himself in a cupboard, and viewing herself as a small child. I struggled to focus on her story telling so don’t recall what else she had gone through.
The lone machete sister shaman was taking turns to visit and sing specifically to each participant, working on each person individually. Her icaros were very different when compared to the three shaman of the previous ceremony. They had a different vibe and sound. Each shaman has their own songs and each icaro is different in one way or another. While beautiful in their own right I didn’t find her singing as majestic or captivating as Beema’s, Sheeshi’s and their fathers. However by the time she eventually reached me to sing directly for me I could feel just how powerful she was.
It took around an hour for me to feel the medicine. I was sat listening as the maloca became more and more alive, watching the constant motion of people walking around. Everyone had been asked to tap the floor with their hands should they need assistance. This evening there seemed to be a near constant sound of tapping in the air. A lot of people were in need of comforting or a warm gentle touch to ease their journeys, to feel  they still belonged in this reality. The helpers would whisper words of encouragement and comfort, phrases like ‘keep going’ were heard quite frequently by myself, people just needed assurance they would be ok and would eventually return to this world.
Nothing much was happening for me until the shaman having sang to pretty much all the other participants finally reached me. Before she made her way to me I was feeling a little ayahuasca drunk perhaps, like I was a little stoned or drunk, a nice chilled feeling, nothing particularly good or bad. But then I pulled myself toward her as she sat crossed legged before me.
I watched her head toward me. She seemed to begin her approach from across the room to  my right, much further away than either Vanessa or Alex were situated from me. Looking back now this must have been because the machete sister would have missed going  to   sing to them due to Vanessa perhaps still being in the back area recovering from her earlier ordeal and the fact that Alex to was clearly struggling at this point. As she moved  toward me she  appeared to transform into a black slug or snake like creature made of seemingly millions of tiny vibrating black dots. These dark dots were broken up by flecks of light or illuminated dots. It looked like she had been draped in some kind of material that cocooned her tightly. It was like something out of a horror movie and looking back her appearance  now  and perhaps even the way she seemed to move in a slithering like way resembled the girl from the Japanese film The Ring.  I wasn’t at all frightened as she came towards me, slithering along the wooden floor, I was more gobsmacked at what I was seeing.
We were now both sat upright as we faced each other in a lotus like meditation pose. I was still present in the here and now, aware of my surroundings and everything that was taking place in and around me. I pulled myself toward her and softly aloud said ‘hello’ to her, and inwardly toward myself, ‘I know you are very powerful, but I am powerful to, being here has shown me that, but I know that I am no where near as powerful as you are’. I guess I was trying to communicate with her telepathically hoping she would perhaps even be able to read my mind, to let her know I had deep respect for her, that I bow before her, that I would let her work on me and do as she must.
Then most unexpectedly she reached into my head. It was such a bizarre feeling.  I realise this will sound extraordinary or more fantasy on my part to those unfamiliar with shamanism, but I could literally feel her hand and top of her wrist inside my skull. The boundaries of physical matter had been swept away by the power this woman possessed, the law of physics and science seemingly forgotten in this moment. Such sorcery would have been fantasy in my mind to some time ago, but I am now a witness to the abilities that human beings can posses and to the fact that not all things are as they apparently seem.
I closed my eyes and desperately tried to let her do work on and in me. It felt as though she was trying to find something, perhaps to remove something ill favoured or to perhaps re set something inside me. I will probably never know. This is  because I couldn’t fully let myself go in this moment, and resisted her efforts somehow and pushed her away. I don’t really know how to describe it but I rejected her in some way that wasn’t physical, almost as if I mentally pushed her out and away as she retracted her hand from within my head, all the while both mine and her physical body’s remained sat in a stationary upright position, as if this had been telepathic.
I should have found the inner strength to let her complete whatever she was doing. The feeling of her rummaging inside my head was so alien, so strange and I guess uncomfortable that I just couldn’t relax and fully let go. I regret not being able to.
The ayahuasca must have kicked in around the time she reached into my head. The Matrix like visions began to drip down in my mind’s eye once more and I was involved in a two way battle to some degree not wanting to fall totally into ayahuasca’s world and with the shaman who I wouldn’t completely relinquish to. It was a tough battle and I felt somewhat drained after she had finished singing her icaro to me. She then ran her hands over my head with agua de florida  (florida water), a nice smelling liquid substance commonly used during ayahuasca ceremony’s, although it was the first time it was used during my time in Peru.
I’m not sure why it is used in this way but it’s likely to be to cleanse the body/spirit and possibly once more to ward of bad energy’s or spirits. The shaman spat the agua de florida over me before running her hands over my head with more of the liquid. The act of spitting the water on to me wasn’t  a derogatory or unpleasant act as one would might think and the act itself would have held some significance, unfortunately it was somewhat lost on me. After she left to go to the next person and sing I was to feel the full force of ayahuasca once more, and once more it would prove to be an incredibly hard night for me. I laid back down wondering what she had been doing to me, within moments I purged. It came out of nowhere, but I couldn’t resist the urge to vomit. As I purged I could feel myself falling into the hellish world or somewhere equally as hellish as I had encountered only a few nights before. Maybe the purging is a side effect of the travelling  to other worlds after all, and the drip like feed of the visions I was seeing was me being transported there.
I vomited three times in total. Each time was as bad as the other, a really awful feeling and taste as it really does feel like you are bringing up the core roots of your stomach. For me it was far more unpleasant than throwing up when one is unwell or hungover for example which is bad enough.
I couldn’t believe I was here again and was now worried that I would be in this hellish world all night. I think I pretty much decided then and there that I wasn’t going to drink ayahuasca  again. It had  taken  me to a place I just couldn’t bare to be for long, and I knew I was going to be stuck here without any possible escape for  longer than I could or wanted to deal with. It was all just to  much. I again felt as though I had been pinned down, able to physically move (but probably not stand and walk in any degree of comfort) but not able mentally to come back to this reality for any length of time, for every time I did get a glimpse of the ‘real’ world inside the maloca , I was whisked back off into this terribly depressing place.
The experience was much the same as before one of total despair and pointlessness. I felt as though I was in a cosmic garden, stranded there seemingly alone in this new world. I kept sniffling, pulling myself up from my laid position to sit up and look around the maloca and briefly return to this world before falling back into the hellish world ayahuasca had transported me to. There was no escape or return to reality for more than a few seconds, before falling once more.
Every time I fell back into this hell I was surrounded in my mind with reverberating objects, and the world itself seemed to be vibrating. I could feel the vibrations. There was a humming sound in this world. A sound that seemed to vibrate through me. All of this added together contributed to the unbelievable feeling I was now experiencing.
I started to see an array of Egyptian style figures again. They were apparently guardians or alien beings who cross dimensions and space time, and seem to be able to do this at will, all the while watching and analysing us. It seemed that this part of my journey dealt a lot with death. I think I may have been shown that upon death we are transported with or by these Egyptian-esque beings (they seemed to be guardians or watchers to me), to the stars to another world. This is not far off being what many claim to be the fundamental beliefs of the Egyptians in ancient times.
The visions were echoing through my mind, in waves, like the tides of the sea, for what  felt like an eternity. It was so hard. It felt like I was carrying a huge weight, a mental burden far to heavy for the human mind to comprehend.
At one point I blew my nose and Vanessa said rather loudly ‘Jesus could you blow your nose any louder mate’, (I do blow my nose loudly compared to most) but this kind of shocked me a little as I was in another world at that point, and I think the realisation that I had been loud temporarily brought me around a little. Her comment brought laughs from some of the other guys, but I was still in a really bad place only fleetingly coming back to this reality, and I couldn’t bring myself to laugh at this point. I apologised to her.
All through this I had been conscious of Vanessa now having returned  from her long spell in the chill out area of the maloca being next to me once again, stirring occasionally, she now seemed to be through the worst of her third ceremony.
I had also been conscious of Alex who was also positioned close to me. He had been letting out continuous moans and groans for most of evening and saying ‘oww’ at regular intervals. He was having a torturous time, and seemed to be in physical discomfort. I recall one moment very vividly when he tapped on the floor looking for assistance from the helpers.  At least two of these helpers were comforting him during his ordeal. I thought at the time the two were Sylvie and Winter although the next day Alex was very thankful towards Kirsten  for holding his hand and helping him through the night with words of comfort and encouragement, so  I guess one of them I saw must have been her. Alex was having an experience that evening unlike anyone else had yet had.
He was later assisted to the back area of the maloca, I guess so he could receive the special care and attention he needed at that moment but perhaps also to move him away from the other participants so as not to distract them from their own time with ayahuasca. I felt for him, he was clearly in a lot of discomfort and the ayahuasca was working very deeply on him.
The next day he said that he knew before his trip that he was sick but hadn’t realised just how sick he was. He said the reason for his discomfort and for his moaning and groaning,  was that ayahuasca  had been working to remove a lump of some kind from his stomach area, something that he had had for quite some time and gave him some discomfort, this he said had now been removed, another small miracle.
The old lady who had sciatica was also having quite a night. I could hear her talking, thanking who or whatever she was seeing and communicating with. She must have said thank you at least five or six times. They were the most sincere thank you’s I think I have ever heard. she was in communication with this entity or whatever it was but the exact words are now lost to my memory.
The next day we talked before breakfast for quite some time. She was so full of life, but during our conversation  she believed this would be her last ‘big’ trip away from home. I believed she had garnered a lot of comfort and probably no shortage of knowledge and perspective with her dealings with ayahuasca. She mentioned that she hadn’t loved enough in her seventy three years on this planet, that she had been to harsh on people, her own children included. I think ayahuasca had brought her some peace regarding that. I don’t know for sure of course as it’s impossible to know and understand what experiences people have had with the brew but I’m sure hers would have helped her for the remainder of her days.
On our boat trip the day after the third ceremony, down the Ucayali river her seventy three year old sciatica riddled body sat with legs dangling over the side at the front of the boat into the water. She had an aura of being a younger spirit, perhaps set free once again, because of the magical plant teacher. It was so good to see.
My own experience could be summed up by a phrase that kept appearing to me during this ceremony, ‘the horror’.  It was based upon the fact that ayahuasca had stripped down reality for me and shown me that reality as we perceive it, is just one way to see things, that there are other things at play here far more complex and bizarre than we can possibly even begin to imagine. It showed me that everything is essentially made of patterns, patterns of dots, lines, shapes that are all connected. This connectedness of everything is on the microscopic level way beyond the normal field of human vision. That there is some vibrating, harmonic force that flows through everything and is the heart beat of existence and consciousness.
On the face of it all this sounds quite positive, and looking back it was, however at the time it was a really difficult thing to see, compute and rationalise. The conclusions drawn by myself have only been reached after much thought and deliberation into my experience. At the time my reality was being torn down from around me, stripped bare, the saying “the horror”  kept coming to me, and is the best way I can describe the feeling. I could really relate to those words at the time.
Again all the visions felt like they were swaying or dancing in my mind. Nothing was ever still. I again wonder if this is one of the reasons we purge, the motion of the visions  may be something like people experience during bouts of travel and sea sickness.
After what seemed like hours I started to come round a little and my hellish experience relented somewhat. I was holding onto my torch as I had throughout the ceremony, and was twirling it around by it’s string in my hand, pondering deeply on what I had just seen and been through. I really needed the bathroom and had been fighting this purging side effect for a while. I also thought it would be nice to go star gazing outside and join some of the other group members who had ventured out of the maloca by now. I just couldn’t bring myself to stand or move much in general. I was still somewhat in ayahuasca’s grip.
The maloca was busy again now, with people moving around, coming and going, people still in need of help being attended to by the helpers etc, I was enjoying watching the spectacle, trying to work out who I was seeing and hearing, but I still wasn’t back to being my normal self or normality.
I remember seeing Nabeel walking quite gingerly across the maloca whispering for Emma his wife to be. It was an amusing sight for even in the darkness of the maloca he looked and sounded totally lost and bewildered. Nabeel had proposed to Emma during our time together at the retreat and she had said yes to his proposal. They were a wonderful people and a great couple. They undertook each ceremony sat at opposite ends of the maloca from each other. This was probably not only a wise decision on their part as it would have enabled them both to concentrate more on their own selves during their time with ayahuasca, and not be worrying about the other, and how he or she  was handling the medicine, but a brave choice to. It can’t have been an easy decision to arrive at collectively. I had an even deeper respect and fondness for the two of them because of this.
Another vivid moment was when I saw Lee re enter the maloca from a spell outside. It wasn’t easy to make out who each person was in the darkness, but for whatever reason I knew it was him, who at this moment had opened the door to come back inside. I saw him as a silhouette of a figure, as one does in such settings, however along with this outline of  a man. I also saw a smallish ball of bright light spinning at his centre, somewhere close to his stomach region. This I took to be a glimpse of Lee’s soul, his essence. It was like a miniature version of our sun/star.
So again, I had been to the depths of hell and then been shown something truly miraculous. I had believed in the concept of the soul for quite some time now, and that which we call our soul is some kind of energy source contained within each and all of us. As far as we know energy can’t be destroyed, and therefore I believe upon death, we (our souls) begins another journey, goes home or however you want to dress it up , but continues on existing after our mortal flesh and bone body perishes. Ayahuasca  seemed to be confirming  in one way or another these beliefs. Of course it is possible all of this was conjured by my own brain or sub conscious because my thought patterns were already along these lines. Perhaps my visions and experiences were all just projections in my own mind. It is also possible in  this case that I was only seeing what I wanted to see. Perhaps the human brain is more powerful than most of us are aware and perhaps during psychedelic experiences and the added dose of DMT (the brain already produces DMT which makes the fact it’s an illegal substance even more ridiculous as by that definition each and everyone of us is carrying around an illegal substance in our heads) it can be kicked up a gear or two without the use of our own mind and techniques used throughout the world such as meditation and yoga, and we are able to manifest our thoughts into perceived reality.
I wonder if Zac knowing the possible healing benefits ayahuasca can have, actually improved his own hearing, if the same applied to Alex and to the old lady and to everyone else who received some physical or mental assistance from the plant medicine, through some placebo like effect in their own brain. This effect being heightened by the DMT active in ayahuasca adding to that already in our brain.
If this is the case then it fails to explain how I came to perceive Nabeel seemingly wearing the armour he had attracted to him whilst meditating during the second ceremony. This leads me to believe that the ayahuasca experience is somehow real.
Alas I had no visions of giant spiders like the one waiting for me back in my room, that was something to be pleased about.
I remember hearing gasps from some of the people outside the maloca as a shooting star sailed high above the Amazonian night sky. Again I wished I had been able to stand and go outside to join them.
I don’t recall much beauty apart from some of the incredibly intricate colours and patterns I was witnessing during what would prove to be (on this journey anyway) my last ayahuasca ceremony. Apart from a few moments like seeing what I believe may have been someone’s soul, it was all rather dark, but I knew the next day and a little more with each passing day after that that the experience had been an enlightening one and one that had in some way benefited me.
As the ceremony was winding down and the machete sister shaman had ceased singing (exhausted no doubt) the comings and goings to and throe the maloca had ceased, the music from the centre began to play. A gentle and soothing type of music that I believe helped guide the participants back to this reality and to bring them round from their journeying.
I don’t remember to much towards the end of the ceremony other than I was still laid twirling the torch, physically and mentally exhausted. I felt quite battered, almost tortured I guess. I must have fell asleep perhaps around 1AM, but it could have been later maybe as late as 3AM. It had been a long night.
For most of the night I had been fighting the urge not to soil myself, fighting this urge had led me not being able to totally let go and relax fully during my time with the brew. I didn’t want to visit the bathroom whilst the maloca was still so active as it had been up until around the last half an hour or so that I had remained awake. Some of the participants were wearing adult nappies during ceremony, aware of the possible purging side effects, I know at least one of these people did use them. With hindsight this situation probably didn’t help me during the ayahuasca experience. I think that what you really should do when feeling the urge to purge is to relinquish to that urge and let go. I’m sure that if I had been able to do so (this would have meant having the strength to visit the bathroom and swallowing my stupid pride, or soiling myself) the experience may have been deeper, more powerful and perhaps even more meaningful than it proved to be. The sad truth is that it was my ego that stopped me (and the fact I didn’t feel confident enough or even capable of walking to the bathroom until the later part of the ceremony). I find such situations embarrassing for myself personally, despite it being totally natural. Perhaps I shall have to wear an adult nappy/diaper in any future ceremonies or at least swallow my pride and ego to overcome the stupidity of not being able to go to the bathroom/toilet for fear of embarrassment around such a non judgmental and compassionate people/group.
I awoke after a light sleep at around 5AM and decided to grab my bedding, water bottle and torch to head back to my room. Again I think I was one of the first to leave the maloca.
I returned to my room, used the facilities near by, including the compost toilet which was a novelty of it’s own and went out onto my  balcony. A bedraggled looking Jerry walked past my hut . I have never seen anyone look so dazed and confused. She wore the expression and now the hairstyle of someone who had been through one hell of an ordeal. She looked like she had just given birth while being dragged through a hedge backwards.

Writing my conclusions over nine months after my last ceremony I find myself realising  just how little I truly understand my experience with ayahuasca and the lessons learned. I did learn a number of things, that is for certain but I am still computing and trying to rationalise it all to this day, I will be for the rest of my life I’m sure. The lessons and teachings ayahuasca gave me were conveyed in such an alien manner  that it is quite possibly an impossible task to decipher all that occurred  to me during my three ceremonies, with only a human brain and human senses to perceive it all.
Drinking ayahuasca was by far the bravest and most difficult thing I have done in my life, and without doubt the strangest most bizarre experience I have had to date, I really can’t see this changing in the future either. The language I have at my disposal especially in the form of the written word can’t explain all that I experienced in a credible way. I have done my best to do so in the previous pages of this work but it really does fail to convey both  the horror and the beauty of all I was shown. Ayahuasca has to be experienced to be believed  in any way, shape or form.
Everything that I have written is honest and recalled to the best of my knowledge and abilities. I haven’t attempted to glorify anything that happened and neither have I added  any twist of fantasy to my story, hard as this may be to believe for some.
I believe the experience to be real in some way. I believe certain plants and certain concoctions of plants combined once taken either orally or smoked can heighten human consciousness, open otherwise unforeseen unavailable doorways to other realms and dimensions and dissolve boundaries between worlds.
I now believe our existence and every thing we see around us in the known universe to not only be miraculous but also to be a much stranger occurrence and thing than I had ever thought possible. The very fact that you are reading these words is in actuality a very bizarre occurrence as is life  and existence itself.  Ayahuasca gave me a glimpse at just how peculiar everything actually is, the universe that we reside in and the reality we live in is far more strange and complex than we can even begin to imagine. There are forces at play here that we don’t yet know about  and haven’t even imaged, never mind understood.
I believe that shamans and people with similar abilities are able to travel between these worlds or dimensions whatever you want to call them, and possibly manipulate some of these forces that are imperceivable to the average person without the necessary capabilities or understanding, and that with the right training, guidance, knowledge and intentions any or a high percentage of humans could indeed wield such power and capabilities.
The more I analysed my experience the more it dawned on me that we humans are manifestations of the universe created in order for it to be conscious of itself. I.e  we  are the universe looking back on itself, a reflection of itself or that we are made in god’s image as the Bible does indeed tell us (God in this case actually being the universe and the energy flowing in it). It seemed  to be a clear message for me from ayahuasca that God actually is the universe itself.
Ayahuasca also seemed to be suggesting or telling me that everything in this world as we experience, live, touch and feel it is merely illusion. This is why during my really bad  times in the second and third ceremony’s I felt so terribly depressed, totally empty and  completely alone. It was certainly one of the reasons anyway.
It’s possible that during ancient times in places like Egypt, parts of South America, India, and the middle east and perhaps scattered all around the globe people back then were  far more in touch with our planet, the cosmos, nature and themselves than we are today. I think they may have been more aware of their divinity and their place amongst the universe, and  that the ancient monuments and hieroglyphs etc stand testament to this. The ancients in effect had knowledge that surpassed what we have now on many levels.
I think this knowledge and information has been all but lost to the common man and is preserved in certain tribes (like the Shipibo of the Amazon), certain esoteric groups (Free masonry etc) to a degree to this day. I think it’s possible this knowledge is purposefully hidden  from the public as it would make us question every thing from our own purpose and existence  to the people we allow to govern and control our actions with made up imaginary rules and regulations. I think our true potential is hidden and masked from us purposefully to keep humanity living in the constraints it currently does. If we were aware collectively of our abilities, potential and had more awareness of the cosmos the social system currently in place would collapse around us with people taking their power back from the governments etc.
My overall impression from the second and third ceremony’s is that we are a trapped species. This could be trapped in a number of ways. For example, we have many different religions in our world all of which pretty much claim to be the ‘one true religion’, i.e  the one true path to God, the creator, the divine and to enlightenment. These religions  teach us how to live and conduct our lives, and that all the other beliefs are incorrect, misguided  and in some cases even evil. I know of Christians that believe all Muslims are going  to Hell simply because they don’t believe in the ‘right’ God. This is one example of humans being trapped by their own beliefs and ignorance, which ultimately comes from someone else’s thoughts and beliefs.
Another example is that the inhabitants of this planet are required to pay for the privilege to do so with pieces of paper called money, that all have differing fictional values serving an equally fictitious electronic currency programme. This system makes it difficult for a large percentage of the beings on this planet to have access to regular food and water supplies, never mind fuel their dreams of travel etc with a lot of people living in debt  to the banks for large portions of their lives. It really is a failing system when so many of us are homeless, and starving at this point in our development and with the technology at our disposal. I do believe certain people or certain groups who are in possession of this ancient knowledge and that they use it against the general population on some level, or rather that this knowledge is used by them to keep them in power, possibly by heightening their own states of consciousness from those of the general public. That we are in effect slaves to these people bonded in invisible shackles. By that I mean most of the 99% of the world’s population or whatever actual figure it may be who are enslaved to the system around us are not even aware of the shackles that keep us from being truly free. We spend the vast majority of our collective existences working hours upon hours in job’s most of us don’t particularly want to do all to keep this system we live in going. A system built to occupy the masses by the masses. All to keep us from realising our true potential.
There are other examples of how we are trapped and enslaved by a system and society  that because of this cannot ultimately be our friend. We trust this system because we want to believe that the people in charge and in power have our best interests at heart and  in mind. Sadly this couldn’t be further from the truth. It seems to me that we are dumbed down as a species and that we are forced to live in a world of fear and oppression by the very same people charged with our collective well being i.e our governments, royal oligarchies and the banking systems etc. We have believed or have wanted to believe for many years that  these people only had our best interests at heart and that they want to help us all individually and collectively through our lives. The truth though is the opposite and we are kept from knowing our own divinity and from truly understanding the miraculousness  of our own existence by tools such as the monetary system, the war on drugs, the war on terror, mainstream religions etc. This devised system of enslavement for the masses is done so to stop us questioning existence and the powers that created it. It’s goal to keep us to busy for the 70-80 years most of us can hope to live for on this earth with the way we live our lives, to ever question such things, to keep us  living in fear of the next big threat to us individually and to our society’s in general and also to keep each and every one of us living with low vibrations. What systems we have in place work against everything we are meant and could be, keeps us from realising who we actually are. Most people are to rushed of their feet with their jobs, keeping up with fictitious bills and taxes that they have  to  pay for the privilege of existing, or looking after their children etc to even contemplate such matters, never mind the meaning of life or their existence at any great length.
Our culture conditions us from a very young age to not only accept this system, but to not even really question it or notice it is actually there i.e. the invisible  constraints society holds over all of us, but also to fight for it, sometimes even with our own lives. Culture also  keeps us living in fear. We are taught subliminally also to fear that which is different to us. Here, once again, religion plays a key part in dividing people and keeping us from the realisation that we are all one, no matter what our particular individual beliefs maybe. But we in the west live in fear of ‘terrorism’, and are convinced by our governments and media outlets  of the need to wage war, bomb and destroy entire cities and villages wreaking untold  havoc on countless millions of fellow human beings all in the name of this ‘terror’ threat. Most of us rarely really question the authenticity of this threat nor the actions of our military and government in combating it. We blindly accept that what they tell us in the news and through the newspapers to be accurate and their consequent actions carried out in our collective names to be just and true.
This to me is another symptom of the collective enslavement and brainwashing of our  race. The fact that so many of us myself included stand back and allow such atrocities to be carried out in our name, while continuing our machine like everyday lives without really batting an eye lids is basically being complicit in these atrocities.
All these things hold us back and keep us trapped as a species and until we wake  up to these facts we will always be a sleeping species with unrealised potential.
Now of course there is much suffering in the world and it takes many forms such as famine, war, poverty, debt etc amongst the planet’s inhabitants as well as the suffering inflicted by these same inhabitants upon the planet itself to in the shape of deforestation of the Amazon (the lungs of our Earth), digging for oil to use as fuel and be burnt up to pollute our atmosphere, fracking lands, we have even built nuclear  power plants close to the ocean in and around  earthquake hotspots (Fukushima) that once damaged in such an event pours nuclear waste into our oceans, polluting the waters and seriously jeopardising marine life in the process there and for many thousands of miles around. Put simply and bluntly we are an insane species.
I believe that it is possible that somewhere deep down in each and every one of us  there  is a nagging thought or feeling telling us that this is all fundamentally wrong. I’m sure most of us feel this way but are to busy with life to really do anything about it or really notice it.
I think it’s possible that if we were to actually have some kind of collective awakening as a species then we would see the beginning of the end of such suffering. I think a collective awakening is exactly what the real powers behind our governments etc are most afraid of and keep the general public living in fear and feeding us distractions to keep this from happening.
I don’t believe it is in our nature when we are born to set out on paths that ultimately lead to harm for other beings on the planet. I think this is more a result of social conditioning, again fear being the most benevolent  aspect of this conditioning. I think it is in our nature to be at peace with one another and  the environment around us. Young children of different skin colour will more often than not play with one another without prejudice.  Give those same children a few months or years exposure to their respective cultures and the outcome may not be the same. Prejudices may now become involved in such a scenario. This is an example of how mother nature brings us into this world, only for figmentation and illusion to intervene and manipulate our mind and thoughts.
From the earliest times in recorded history man has been at war with himself (as a side note I wonder if in posterity women had been in positions of power instead of it being  predominately men where we would be as a species today).  In that respect we are no different from the people of the past we now class today as being savages, the Barbarians, the Visigoths, The Romans, The Vikings, the British, the Spanish conquistadors of South America etc. I believe we are witnessing a modern day crusade fought in the name of ‘terror’ waged by the elite  powers of the western world against Islam and certain countries of if not the whole of the middle east. Countless deaths on both sides of this war have occurred in the last fifteen years or so, and for what ultimate purpose? It’s hard for the casual observer to know just what the end goals of these wars are for sure but from the outside looking in it appears to be about oil, drugs, banking, money and  ultimately control, and to impose rule and order on another country.
Have we really developed as a species?  I have to say the evidence suggests not.
As I have said before we live in what we believe to be an infinite universe. If this is the  case then all that can be imagined is possible and the possibilities are infinite. I remain open to the possibility that we  are a slave race, and to pretty much all other possibilities because of this. The only true knowledge in this world is in knowing we know nothing.
I myself had visions of Lizard or reptile like eyes that were seemingly watching not just me but ‘us’. Serpents, snakes and reptilian type eyes are prominent in a lot of people’s experiences with ayahuascsa and also feature heavily in many examples of art work drawn and painted by those who experience the brew. As a side note they also feature in paintings and works of art throughout and going back to the earliest parts in mans history. Therianthropes which are beings made of part man part animal are also reported with extreme frequency by people using psychedelic substances such as ayahuasca. I to had visions of these type of beings similar to the ones in the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Such therianthrophic  beings are also depicted in the earliest works of art created by man like in the cave  paintings at Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain and numerous other sites in Africa, South America and beyond. It seems humans have been using psychedelics and any means we can to depict what we have witnessed under their influence since our supposed earliest times.
Another point that I want to make regarding the eyes I saw and the eyes depicted such as the one on the dollar bill, the eye of Horus, the all seeing eye etc is that I can’t help but think we are being observed by someone or something. That we are perhaps watched and assessed on some level by a higher power. I can’t help but wonder if the figures in the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs similar to the one’s I had encountered were the real Gods or the entities that are sometimes referred to as the Watchers of human kind. These beings could be the worshipped figures of our past and the Gods that comparatively modern religion has hijacked for their own purpose. It is highly likely that Christianity ‘borrowed’ from the ancient Egyptians as well as the Sumerians texts and story’s whilst concocting  their own version of history. For example Jesus’s resurrection and immaculate conception along with the biblical flood of Noah are all stories told long told before the dawn of Christianity and the coming of Christ. I think all modern day religion has based it’s fundamental elements on Egyptian as well as other ancient civilisation’s beliefs, history, practices and story passed down throughout the ages.
Apart from thinking we are far from alone in this universe after drinking ayahuasca, I also learnt one truth above all else. The only thing that truly matters in this world and in  this life is Love. To love yourself and others unconditionally. Nothing else matters and everything else is in some way shape or form merely illusion. This is an on going lesson for me, something I must strive to implement in my own life.
If anything my time in Peru with ayahuasca only deepened the mystery of life and the universe for me. I realise now that it is highly unlikely that I will ever get the answers  to the questions I have (in this existence at least). My search will continue but I wonder if ultimately some things are just not meant to be known, whether we as humans even have the brain capacity and capabilities to comprehend the real secrets behind reality, and to understand and appreciate just what is going on around us, the forces at work that actually make and govern the universe, the planets our solar system and ultimately ourselves. I believe now, even more so after ayahuasca that there is more at play here than we are at present time can even begin to possibly imagine and there are things in this universe and on this planet that our human eyes and senses can not see nor detect. The mystery of our existence, the universe’s existence is a mystery to be embraced, and the faith I now have in the ‘Grand Plan’ of whatever force ultimately governs this incredible miracle of a life and of the universe itself is quite a comforting thing.
Ayahuasca gave me a glimpse of the divine and I witnessed some truly miraculous moments all of which will likely stay with me to my dying day. I think I genuinely got some great teaching and insight to from her that I am still thinking about and computing each day (I’m writing this nine months after my last ceremony) and I’m still learning and putting into practice (or trying) to into my daily life.
At some point during my third ceremony I had a realisation that I didn’t want to go on and have a fourth. It was just to dark for me in my previous two ceremonies where I had found myself trapped and isolated in that hellish world I have done my best to try and describe.
I felt at the time that I wasn’t really getting what I was looking for and that the darkness I was experiencing wasn’t worth another spell in that hellish world, to receive any kind of beneficial teaching. At least that is how I perceived my situation at the time.
Looking back now I wish I had I stayed and drank for a fourth time. Who knows what ayahuasca may have shown me, perhaps I would have had an even more powerful experience, maybe she would have helped me make more sense of my three previous ceremonies.