December 2nd, 2011 - 1st Ayahuasca Journey - Bliss

They say that the first one is usually an easy one. It can act like the carrot on the end of a stick, showing you the potential of what life can be like once you go through the work and release the stuck energy. This was definitely true of my first journey with Ayahuasca. She was gentle and kind to me, opening my heart and mind to the possibility of living a life of love and compassion.

I was invited to the ceremony just the night before it happened by a new friend in Santa Cruz, someone I trusted who was a part of the Satsang meeting I went to. It was an intimate group of 8 people joined in the living room of my friends house. My friend was the sitter and his friend was the facilitator/shaman. The medicine was made by a close friend of the shaman who lived in Hawaii. The situation felt safe and I was finally ready to try it.

From everything I had heard and read about Ayahuasca I was definitely scared. I had been investigating the medicine for many years now and was finally at a point of desperation where I needed to try it. Before the ceremony, I wrote a long letter to Mama Aya stating my intentions for healing and asking her to give me courage and strength to face whatever would come up. I asked her to be gentle yet stern with me.

When the medicine first came on I could't believe my mind was generating the incredibly colorful, diverse and brilliant fractal designs that were dancing to the music in the space all around me. I began to have alternating waves of fear and elation as my awareness went from the beautiful display in my mind's eye to the growing discomfort and rumbling in my stomach. My breathing got heavier and the waves of nausea increased in intensity, within 20 minutes of drinking I couldn't hold back anymore, I bent over and puked out the medicine breathing dramatically in between heaves. This catapulted the intensity up a notch and soon my body was laying down on my mat. My mind was partially in another dimension, swimming through galaxies singing, dancing and crying with my ancestors. And my body was alive with sensuality, I pet my own skin, feeling deep appreciation and love for my body and it's sensuality. The shaman alternated playing music and singing traditional songs with her magical voice, most of them in Spanish. Each one tickled my whole being with delight. During on the songs, my Native American ancestors sang to me from the universe, reminding me of my purity, innocence and beauty and assisting me to look down on my human self from my higher self. I saw myself as a sweet and lost soul who was very wrapped up in her story. I felt compassion for her and I laughed at her for taking herself so seriously. I was shown many things and with each revelation I would sigh an ecstatic sigh of relief. When someone else in the circle puked, I could see the puke as demons swirling in the bowl. The whole time I was writhing, laughing, humming to the music and sighing.  I felt bad I was so noisy for a minute but then I just decided to not hold back and let the noises come. At the time no one had told me that it's customary to try and stay quiet so the other people could be in their own journey. I wish I had known that and hopefully I didn't take away from the other people's experiences too much.