A Modern Quest for an Ancient Remedy....
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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26
10:14am, sitting in my room in Alfert's Hostel
There is something about the moment I lock the door and I'm alone in a private hotel room that makes me feel free. I've been thinking about everything I've learned, and been exposed to, on my adventure so far. It's liberating to feel as safe as I do here, sitting on my bed in a thoughtful mood and listening to music. Most importantly, I'm reflecting on everything I've learned about myself.
When we began the ceremony on Friday, I focused on my intention. It was written on a page in my notebook, laid on top of the Thai flag next to me, and in my sharp, messy handwriting, it said:
Give me the power to be me forever
Looking back on it now, I can see my intention was loaded with contradiction and duality.
Most of my time here has been spent healing, and releasing some sort of pain, and I feel lighter now. I have rested a lot, caught up on sleep, and I feel like some of the heaviness has disappeared. That's the reason I had written the intention for Ayahuasca to 'give me the power to be me.' I wanted to always feel as happy and light as I did then.
I thought that was me, in totality. I had been feeling good, just as good as I'd felt in the afternoon before the ceremony, and I thought being me was what I wanted—wasn't it?
The answer to that question turned out to be more complex than I anticipated. I believed this newfound confidence was the state of joy I had been seeking. But happiness is actually more like a noun; it's a tangible destination we are trying to reach. Being joyful is more like a verb; it describes the action of getting to that destination.
Just as there is no final destination in life, neither is there somewhere you will get to where you are happy forevermore. It is living with joy, active joy, which is what we want.
As quickly as I gained these feelings of happiness over the past few days, they left me during the ceremony. I became more sad and depressed as it continued and my feelings slid from joy, to indifference, and then on until I was miserable.
Not wanting to disrupt anyone, I sat quietly and hoped the feelings would pass. There was a slow leak somewhere inside of me and I could feel my confidence slowly deflating like air being let out of a balloon. It was amplified by the fact I was getting sad to begin with, and I continued to sink deeper.
Sure, I sang and played guitar, but it was a vicious and wicked cycle, as I was just trying my best to act the same way I normally did. I wanted the ceremony to end as soon as possible so I could go to bed. By that point I had completely lost my inner zest and I felt plain again. I was sunken and confused.
Looking back, I think Ayahuasca was giving me what I asked for. The bliss I'd been lucky enough to experience was so complete, I'd forgotten there are parts of me still in pain, drowned by sadness. That is understandable—there are no mountains without valleys.
The power to be me requires the strength to face these challenges. The feelings of bliss I want to have consistently were shown to me just so I could remember them. I was shown the polarity of these emotions when I went from joy to pain, and that's why I need to continue healing: so I don't have to keep going back and forth.

What happened as we got close to the end of the ceremony was unbelievable. I was certain my transformation from happy to sad was only occurring inside my mind. I didn't think anyone else could see, or feel, something was wrong, but Otillia could.
In my opinion, I thought I'd been acting the same way I do any other night. Then out of nowhere, Otillia walked straight towards me in the pitch dark and bent down in front of me. She asked me why I was so sad, "Por que tu es muy triste?" Her voice was soft and clear.
As I looked up at her I thought, how did she know? It was wild; somehow she knew I was sad, which at the time was something I was still trying to understand. She perceived something had changed in me, and suspected I was struggling—and I was.
By the time we closed the ceremony, I was broken. As much as I tried to let her songs and efforts heal me, they didn't work. On Saturday, I woke up feeling much better, but I still had residual sadness and sorrow carried over from the night before.

Just like on many other mornings, there was a loss of purpose which, for no defined reason, suddenly overcame me. It's part of me, this darkness. I thought it was gone, which was the part that upset me the most, but it's not. The fact that it can come back so suddenly is scary.
What is it? Where does it come from? I was certain all the hard work I've done released the parts that were as dark as the ones I had felt then. If that's not what I've been doing, then what the hell have I been fighting for this whole time?
Enough of my whining. The good news is that after the last few days in Iquitos, I'm noticing my moral compass has gained a heightened awareness. My ability to see good and bad, right and wrong, is more defined, and it makes me feel closer to being aligned with my true self. I am still me, but the vices, which are not me, don't have as much control as they did before.
It's as though the vices were covering the virtuous parts of me. By healing the dark parts, I uncover more of the bright ones. I still have the ability to make bad decisions, but my vision is becoming clearer, and my awareness wider.
It makes the right decisions easier to make. This is good because there are times when making the right choice can be harder than making the wrong one.
I will always be faced with temptation so it's up to me to make the choice to turn away. It has more to do with my values than it does the temptation. What tempts me is always changing in different places and at different times. Do I exhaust myself denying each specific offering of hedonism? Or is it better to focus on the essence of each desire, which is temptation itself?
No matter what I choose it will be right for me at the time. There is no such thing as making a choice we don't think is the right choice at the time. By having a defined direction, concerning my morals, it's easier to determine what is truly good for me.
I know my choices shape who I become, in accordance with what I want to become, and so I want to make the right choices, for me. As Sartre would say, by determining who I am, I commit myself to mankind. We all do. No one is born a coward; a man becomes a coward by acting cowardly. Just like no one is born a hero, a hero makes himself a hero by acting heroically. It is the action which determines the character.
If I want to be the most amazing, ecstatic, and blissful version of myself, I must be discerning and accurate in the decisions I make. I must attune my choices to the highest goals I have for my existence, and I must remember this in each moment of my life.
