Inside the loud, stuffy ceremony room, human beings were giggling, crying, chanting, gyrating, and, yes, vomiting, all round me. When my time eventually came, I think: Just aim for the bucket and keep your ass above your head just like the shaman informed you.
I try and wipe my face but can’t grab the tissue paper as its melting every time I try and reach for it. Nearby, a man starts to scream. I can’t make out what he’s saying due to the sounds of the shaman’s graceful Colombian songs coming from the other room.
I finish vomiting and begin crying and giggling and smiling . Relief washes over me, and I slowly make my way back to my mattress on the ground.
For 4 consecutive nights, a group of 78 people, at a retreat in the middle of Colombia had been voluntarily ingesting a nasty-tasting, molasses-like tea containing ayahuasca, a plant concoction that incorporates the herbal hallucinogen called DMT.
An Ayahuasca Boom!
Ayahuasca retreats still remain a contradicting type of medication, but it’s slowly making its way into the mainstream. Until pretty recently, you needed to tour to South America in case you wanted to give it a go, but now many Ayahuasca ceremonies are showing up in the United States and Europe.
Indigenous people in nations like Colombia and Peru have been brewing the concoction for many centuries, mostly for religious or shamanic practices. It’s considered a medicinal drug, a way to heal internal wounds and reconnect with nature.
It wasn’t until 1908 that Western scientists stated its existence; British botanist Richard Spruce become the first to observe it and write about the “purging” it invokes. He become particularly interested in classifying the different vines and leaves that made up the magic brew, and its’ wisdom and role in Amazonian tradition.
What My Soul Was Looking For
My interest in Ayahuasca retreat became more and more specific as the date came nearer: I wanted to cut through the illusion of self. Psychedelics have a way of ripping down our emotional boundaries. You can feel plugged into something greater than your self, and — for a moment, at least — the sensation of separation melts away.
Buddhists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers have all made persuasive arguments that there’s no such thing as a “fixed self,” that there’s no thinker behind our mind, and no doer behind our deeds. There is just a simple recognition and sense of joy; all else is the result of the mind projecting into the past or the future.
But this can be a hard fact to translate into your everyday existence. Because you’re conscious, because it’s feels like something to be your self, it can be very easy to accept that a wall exists among between your mind and the so called “playing field”. If you are having an experience, then there must be a “you” doing the experiencing. But the “you” in this case is just an illusion; it’s in your thoughts, a group of concepts we’ve created and accepted to associate and attach to this experience we call life.
