Amsterdam, december 21, 2010
Et Alia,
Okay, there we go, in one go.
Saturday night I went to a ayahuasca ritual for the
first time since 3 and a half month.
Curious what the difference would be, compared to
this Santo Daime works, with all its Xian connotations.
The group is organised by a spiritual teacher/coach, who
gives this group 6 times per year. He prefers to not be
named as such, feels fine with how it is, newcomers come
by invitation. Yet he is a person that deserves a name,
let’s call him Alfa, as I already did in the title of the
webmap with the pics that were taken afterwards.
( Webmap (passwort: public) )
This above link still works but it used to be a direct working link.
I add those pictures now (September 17 2021) into the thext:
There were between 30 and 40 people, less than expected,
due to the snowy weather conditions.
For me it was easy, I could walk over to the place.
(I happen to know the place in detail. Few years ago
I kind of facelifted the place as a carpenter/handyman)
I carried with me a whole bag full of textiles: two
bedcovers, a few lungis and my ointment to keep
the sore and fiery hands going.
Alfa asked me if I was going to sleep there.
I explained about the eczema and the need for a
rather precise regulation of body temperature.
He just nodded and organized me a good place.
What can I say?
The atmosphere was quiet and relaxed and just before
it started I felt the excitement growing stronger and
was almost immediately aware that i was feeling the ‘room’.
In a short introduction Alfa sketched the outline of the evening.
There would be the drinking of the first dose of ayahuasca.
We would drink the 2 components of it separate.
The component being Mimosa Hostilis (Jurema) and
Peganum Harmala (Haoma).
(There goes the myth down the drain, that those two
component have to be prepared and mixed together
and boiled for days on special places in the Brazilian jungle,
while singing of hymns goes on by dedicated insiders).
Then we were invited to join in a meditation for half an hour,
humming mmmm, accompanied by a constant harmonious
drone to be played on one of those Indian harmoniums.
After that there would be bhajan singing, intermingled with
silences. Than a break, feel free to walk and go outside,
smoke if you need to. Then a second dose with music and
silences again. This is a meditation, please focus on yourself.
The rest is history. That’s how it feels.
I will put into words what comes back, mostly from reflecting
on what happened while and after the happening happened.
The first dose in the two little plastic cups were bitter and
sour as usual, but crystal clear.
(Afterwards Alfa said, when i asked him about this, that he prefers
it this way, cause the mixture curdles, and yes, Daime is muddy)
The m&m&m&m meditation seemed to last long but suddenly
it was already over.
There was a feeling of tiredness in the beginning, out of which
movement occurred. The pelvis and the hips were turning and
turning slowly from one side to another, with once and a while
a stretching out of the leg. Felt good.
There was a good surprize about the high quality of the bhajan singing by this people, about 5 of them, that I know from a
center where I go for retreats..
Then I went thru a whole series of aversions toward it.
(Meaning that those feelings and thoughts came along,
me just being aware of them while being grounded in the
body, or floating away with them while loosing ground).
One line was about this Indian bhajans being kind of stolen
by us westerners and, that’s what we do, perfected and
polished almost to the level of Bach music.
Incredibly beautiful and yet it was resented in a way.
Another line was pure resentment of memories from
over 30 years ago, singing this endless om nama shivayas
while not feeling happy at all and feeling all kinds of
unclear undercurrents in this positive thinking nonsense
movement that for me blurred the potential clarity of
the so called new age.
A third line was a variation on something simular as
felt before at Santo Daime meetings: here goes again
a alien cultural wrap around this shamanic plant ritual.
It felt very strange to suddenly hear/see Hanuman swing
thru the liana of the Brazilian rainforest.
Then slowly and unnoticed i slid into a warm body
feeling and a vivid dream state while wide awake.
Then there was this airy sound of a Tingsha Cymbal.
And, surprize, surprize….. break…..
Second dose.
Soon the by now well known effects reoccurred and
became stronger.
The music and the singing kind of materializes a bit.
There was all kind of energetics going on. I remember
a moment where my hands, in actuality and the
inner representation of them too, were moving and
at a point, one after the other, the hands fell softly
down, evidently by a relaxation from the wrists.
I remember having had a thought of hoping that
this would mean a healing to the hands.
(The last 2 month the hands are eczemic like crazy,
along a sharp and visible line around my wrists.
When i told a friend, she remembered hearing me
use the metaphor on myself as having had my hands cut
of during my upbringing, and sometimes the hands
look as if they are boiled in dark medieval oil).
Then, always suddenly, the dmt high falls upon you.
How to describe?
The energy starts moving and moving, the sensory
input gets an extra strength and intensity, the
energy takes wing and rises up, the third eye goes
wide open and the whole spaces gets filled, no,
the whole space is whirling colours and form,
for a while, or mostly, intens off white pink
with myriads of moving 3D forms, while it all makes
sense, it is self evident and yet no clue.
Something like that.
And then suddenly this spasmic explosion of the
vomiting reflex. Strong and irresitable.
Even the thought of it being irresistable blocks
the flow of it, and the instant knowing of that,
(nano seconds stuff), allows the relaxation to
set in. Four , five, six braking waves and done.
The bright awake part sets aside the washing-up
bowl that was close at hand.
The energy flows freely now, the ‘inner’ space
being filled with colours, movement and forms.
And in a way zillions of informative particles.
(How else to speak this?).
At one point there was an episode where the issue
was the 2D plane. For me the 2D plane was kind
of per definiton bound to the horizontal.
Then the plane began to move to the vertical,
kind of started to have a standing identity of its own.
One black erect plane was standing right next to me,
kind of close to the corner of my left eye, and from the
lower corner of it a dimmed colourfull streaming energy
event took place. It was as if it was telling me something.
It felt like an initiation again. In what? By what?
What for? No clue.
Meanwhile the silences are strong, the music begets
paradise qualities and the singing along lady in the
corner sounds like an angel.
Slowly, slowly the energy ebbs back to almost normal,
the group energy turns into a awake group energy.
More and more people sing along.
(Sjalom being one of the ‘bhajans’).
The beautifull afterglow of a great campfire.
Short end of the meeting words by Alfa and time
for fruits and cookies.
And then: out into the icy sugar snow under the
now full and then almost full moon.
hans
Very nice account Hans