The ritual with the sacred plant is a tradition of the native Amazonian communities. The author of this text participated in a ceremony and drank from the sacred plant. Can this introspective journey with ayahuasca reveal something about ourselves or is it just a search for new experiences?
1st Part
It was 10:20 at night and everything was ready to begin the session. We met at a house near the Via de Evitamiento, in East Lima.
While the teacher Lourdes Mahua finished getting ready, on the floor of the room, on a multicolored cloth with Amazonian designs, the ayahuasca, a bottle with Florida water and the mapacho cigars were already distributed.
Ayahuasca is made up of two plants: the ayahuasca vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) and the chacruna bush (Psychotria viridis), which provides the hallucinogenic component.
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Teacher Mahua has just turned fifty. She belongs to the Shipibo-Konibo ethnic group; she began to learn about ayahuasca ceremonies thanks to her father, teacher Manuel Mahua Ochavano. He introduced her to this world when she was only 12 years old. He gave her the confidence to drink small sips of ayahuasca while chanting the íkaros.
In this way, she grew with the strength and energy of the plant, and would continue with these traditions, taking her father's path.
Tourists often contact her through the social network Instagram to organize an ayahuasca ritual for them. They are mainly from Russia, Ukraine, Spain, Mexico and Brazil. In my case, I was able to contact her thanks to an artist from the Cantagallo community.
2nd Part
The teacher began the ceremony with the íkaros, the magical songs that are sung in these rituals as a first step towards the connection between us and the spiritual world.
Then, she proceeded to take the Florida water and splashed a little of it on my head with her mouth, then lit the mapacho and also blew the smoke on me.
Before taking the ayahuasca, having already poured the liquid into a small glass cup, she gave me the instruction: concentrate and ask what you want to see or ask the plant. I closed my eyes and ingested it. Contrary to what I believed, it was not so bitter, although possibly for others it is intolerable.
I lay down on the mattress next to me and prepared to rest. In the first few minutes, I wanted to concentrate as best as possible. However, if you force it, you feel like you are not getting anywhere. Then, I began to relax.
Minutes later, one of my greatest fears appeared: darkness. It manifested itself in a deep, black hole into which my body kept falling. That first contact may be a confrontation with fears, with that which you flee from and cannot face.
For those who are accustomed to control, it can be an uncomfortable experience. The body settles on the mattress, the arms are placed in positions that one cannot explain and one begins to perceive strange stimulations. The head does not direct, this time it only submits.
With each attempt to sit up, the dizziness increased. The teacher, who had already taken ayahuasca and smoked mapacho, did not interrupt the ikaros. Although I was aware of what was around me, my mind was elevated to visions that I did not understand; one after another, at full speed. My body was in a different situation: it was off, it was pure tranquility.
One of the images that I remember most was a mural. It was a background of green, orange and fuchsia colors. On the right side, I saw teacher Lourdes wrapped in icons of the jungle flora and fauna. She had an incredible red and blue outfit, with gold thread decorations. Several arms came out of her, as if she were an Indian goddess, and she projected a luminous energy like the sun.
On the left corner, the head of an animal was seen singing and several bright blue peacock necks emerged from it. All the heads were directed at the teacher as if they were singing to her. It was a majestic, royal spectacle.
A short time passed and the mural began to freeze. An intense cold took over my body. The curious thing was that I “saw” how that cold began in my insides, forming blocks of ice everywhere, reducing the colorful panorama to just a mix of light blue and white.
Another brief episode that also impacted me was when I felt my right arm “separated” from my body, as if it had been cut off and thrown to the floor. In an attempt to return to reality, I touched that abandoned limb with my left hand to verify what my eyes could not believe.
In this experience I was not able to see specific scenes from my life, but I did perceive an avalanche of sensations that led me to question aspects of my behavior or feelings that perhaps lay buried and that needed to be released.
During the ceremony with teacher Lourdes, you are not allowed to stand up. In an attempt to do so, I felt my knees shaking and the objects around seemed to spin like a carousel at high speed.
Fortunately, this effect begins to disappear towards the end of the ceremony, leaving an indescribable mark of peace and tranquility.
The Ayahuasca ritual can be a challenging experience. It is important to take it seriously and thus rescue the learning obtained in this spiritual journey.
At Tierras Vivas we give you the opportunity to participate in spiritual retreats and Ayahuasca diets from one to three weeks with shamans from Peru and facilitators from different nations, deep in the Tambopata National Reserve. The shaman and staff will teach you about the ritual, and other master plants.
You can also take any of the ecotourism tours and add a day to perform the Ayahuasca ceremony, a great way to do alternative tourism.
