The Eternal Grind of a Restless Mind

Washed, Dried and Folded

Last day:
Last night was the perfect last ceremony. I sat outside from 5.30pm practicing a mantra "I love my family, I love my friends, I love myself. Help me connect to the light, show me love". I was determined to put myself in a positive frame of mind and focus on what I wanted to achieve. As the ceremony got nearer I found it harder to focus. When we came in for quiet time the hour before the ceremony, there was a strange atmosphere in the moloca, a sense of tension. 30 minutes before the ceremony, the heavens opened and the wind was blowing wildly. The darkness, the wind chimes ringing and the tension in the air from the storm were making me feel uncomfortable, a darkness descended into the moloca. I kept fighting bad energies and thoughts but tried to focus on my mantra. My fear was escalating.
I drunk the standard dose, laid back and repeated my mantra. I'm not sure what happened next. I came to after probably 30mins. I knew this as they'd just started singing the Icaros. I had no recollection of where I'd been, no memories, no visuals, as if I just hadn't existed for that period of time. Paranoia set in, I had a faint feeling that the animals were lurking somewhere again but this time I couldn't quite make out who they were, where they were or if they were there at all. After the shaman spoke to me in detail earlier about having strength to overcome my fears, I felt confident. I looked up into the darkness, inhaled deeply so my chest swelled and confronted the demons. I told them that I didn't think they existed anymore, that I created them and could just as easily destroy them and that I'd found strength in an energy force more powerful than they could ever comprehend. I told them they were scared to show their faces because deep down they realised they had lost their hold over me. With these words, the room exploded into light. I suddenly became conscious and back in the room.
I felt an energy fill my body and suddenly felt more connected than I've ever felt. My heart opened up and the Icaros songs seemed to be piping knowledge into my heart, soul and mind. The healing started again. My jaw was locked in a wide open position and the Icaros were coming in through my mouth, down my throat and into my stomach where they loosened up more remnants of past traumas. I went to the toilet and purged and came back. This happened 5 or 6 times before I began to settle. I felt electric, clean, empty and deeply fulfilled.
Once this happened I downloaded hundreds of millions of years of knowledge through the songs. They were controlling my body and my mind. I sat on the edge of my mat again to smoke a Mapacho cigarette. I sat again in ape pose which has such a special connection for me. I felt like an ancient man except this time, instead of staring over vast landscapes, I was in the moloca, totally present with a tremendous sense of accomplishment, knowledge and peace. I realised that we had evolved from plants and that we were still hard wired with the same basic evolutionary code today regardless of how much we'd evolved. The plants understand, they show us compassion. When a little baby is crying, restless, frustrated and helpless, a mother can comfort them by making simple adjustments, perhaps to their clothing or position or offering some love and reassurance. The mother understands they are helpless and steps in to ease their suffering. Later on in life, parents have to watch their kids go out into the world and make so many mistakes. The kids think they know everything. The experienced, wiser parents watch from afar, offering love and guidance wherever needed. On a larger scale I felt our plant ancestors were doing the same to me. They were saying, we understand. You've developed from plants to become these amazing beings that have achieved so much. You create whole new worlds but sometimes you need to come back into our arms and connect with who you really are and what makes you happy. The plants allowed me to download into them, they sucked my pain out of my body without any judgement and sent me back on my way to explore myself and the universe.
They know I'll make mistakes again. They know I'll be back.
All this feeling came through the songs. The icaros have been passed into the shamans from the plants. Whilst the Icaros are in Shipibo language, they are used to channel the plant spirits right into our bodies. I was writhing at this point on my mat. Energy flowed through my body and my hands and legs were moving free form like seaweed swaying in the ocean current. I got called up for my one to one Icaros. I sat in front of my favourite shaman, Wiler, and he started singing. His vibrating, gurgling, modulating sounds piped into my heart. Because I was tripping so hard, and it was pitch black, I couldn't see him at all even though I was a foot away from him. I felt like he was coming nearer to my face as the sound of his voice increased, he was singing right into my core, my essence, the sounds reverberated around my body. I felt the words control my body, my posture and position. I was cross legged when I straightened my back and took a deep, slow breath. My hands drew together, palms faced firmly but gently together in prayer position and I brought them towards my heart shakra. This was the sort of pose you see both in Buddhist and Hindu iconography, it felt right, it felt innate, it dawned on me that far from these being poses that have been created to look peaceful, this was innate knowledge passed to us from the plants on how to centre ourselves and connect. It was a powerful revelation. Buddhism is only 2,500 years old but it was clear they had tapped into the essential knowledge. I felt fulfilled, complete.
When I went back to my mat these sensations increased as the Icaros continued. I found my body flowing free form and relaxing into further iconic religious positions. My thumb and index finger made a perfect circle with one hand and the other hand laid flat, palm up, almost cupping the base of my stomach. These postures seemed so essential, so natural, I felt connected in an organic way, understood our evolution, our place in the world in relation to our timeless life force.
One shaman's icaros ended and another's started. As the sounds flowed into my body I felt the urge to move my body. Laying on my back, I slowly and effortless slid my feet up so my knees were bent. Both knees then twisted and fell to the right hand side touching the matt. My right arm then stretched around so my hand held the left side of my stomach whilst my left arm remained touching the mat by my side. I inhaled slowly and deeply and exhaled slowly but purposefully. I felt still, energised, natural. I repeated this on the opposite side before realising the plants were teaching me yoga. Ways to move our physical forms to achieve stillness and fulfilment. I realised that yoga must have been given to us from the plants. Basic evolutionary knowledge of how we can find ways to live and make sense of our new found physical expression of essence.
The shaman finally brings the ceremony to an end. I feel complete. The perfect last night to a mind blowing week.
I've never been religious and I've always objected to using the word spiritual. What does it even mean when people say that? It's basically become meaningless. If you'd asked me before I came to Peru, I would have said that I don't believe in god but I'm fascinated by Buddhist teachings and it's the one religion that speaks to me because it makes sense and is non prescriptive. It offers guidelines not rules. Wisdom to help you find your own truths. Even Buddhism is a formulaic, more prescriptive version of Taoism which has the mantra "as soon as you explain it, it is no longer true". The idea that understanding something is feeling it yourself, not reading it and agreeing with it.
I am unable to truly write what I've experienced however I have felt something. I have experienced something. I have lived something. No words can describe what I've been through but my eyes have been opened. Our brains have fooled us into thinking that we are the masters of the universe. Humans have existed for 2.5 million years on a planet that's 13.5 billion years old. We have so much to learn. Through the disconnected way we treat our bodies, the wars we create through building walls between each other, through our selfish treatment of our planet, we risk wiping ourselves out.
Humans have become so deluded that our survival instinct has lead us into thinking that we have to win. However eternal bliss awaits us if we could only learn to surrender.
Why are we so fascinated with what is above our heads in space when we haven't yet fully understood the wisdom beneath our feet?
I can now say with honesty that I am a spiritualist. Whilst it sounds crazy, I firmly believe that there are animal and plant spirits and that we can tap into them. They're trying to look after us if we would just let them.
Mother Ayahuasca gives what you need not what you want. This means that it's sometimes very hard but certainly rewarding. She may solve a problem with love and light or she may take you to hell but it's all done with the best intentions. Healing. Once she's inside of you, she knows what you need to heal. Years of psychotherapy, meditation and healthcare cannot compare to a few weeks of ayahuasca. It's tailored to you. In addition to curing, if we listen to her knowledge and follow her guidance we would not need to be cured so much. Diabetes, cancer, the list goes on for conditions we suffer from so heavily in the western world. Our bodies and minds are polluted. Anger, insecurity, frustration find it easy to breed in these conditions. Imagine a world if everyone worked with plant medicines. If Donald Trump took ayahuasca and was humbled, or Theresa May, I believe the world would be a kinder place and the human race would be more sustainable.
Would we not rather be on ayahuasca journey than heading the way we're going now?
I've come to realise that, whilst this week was profoundly life changing, much of the week was spent cleansing my body and I haven't even scratched the surface of the work that I need to do with ayahuasca. I've finally found the truths that I've always been searching for. After 1 week I feel like a different person and ready to take on the world. Think of what I could achieve over time.