Grandmas’ Vine

I never knew my grandmothers, or my grandfathers. I never really met anyone elses. I met the medicine of Grandmother Ayahuasca in our fourth ceremony, and well, she wasn’t sitting knitting with a hand full of sweeties! The previously genial Mescalito was left to share Grandmas view through the eyes of our home-boy and our host, while Durga, Lakshmi and I, were offered, purely, to the old lady, rocking with the little red-riding hood.

There is no pleasant way to describe the re-materialization and projectile evacuation of 20 devoted years of intoxicating substance abuse, coupled with the revisiting of literally hundreds of past injustices and inflictions of malevolent intent. Add the super-scription of a backlash to the unfriendly fire of the brainwash and banality of media madness, all set to the screaming of psychedelic transcriptions of the ultimate battles of light v.s dark......well

Round One......Grandma.

Unanimous.

In fact, Grandma took the battles, the wars and ultimately the fight in a rampant and merciless display of the power of plant. Oh boy...how we laughed! Ayahuasca works the body, and there is no way you can protect your ribs, your guts, your head from her perpetual onslaught, she takes your legs by taking your mind. If that is how you call her up. And I did.

At the beginning of the day of the ceremony I knew I was in for a long haul, I felt agitated, angry, weak, claustrophobic, vulnerable and tired. I had overslept, sleeping for some 20 hours, and arrived at the site craving isolation. Thankfully I managed to find the motivation for an hour or so of yoga in the grass as we all prepared for what now felt collectively confronting. Shiva readily admitted nerves. Big breaths all round.

Within 20 minutes of taking the medicine, an overwhelming sense of peace swept through my body, as we sat in front of the fire. A fully connected state of self awareness like no drug/medicine has ever offered before. Within 5 minutes of that I was on the floor, incredulously lost in waves of nausea, blindness, and hallucinations. Innumerable hallucinations at impossible speed and deep tremulous shaking and spasming. Hours of this passed. The hallucinations slowed and began to take themes and I was vaguely aware of the meaning of these visions. More hours of constant nausea and leg-lessness passed. The themes now the detailed stories of past experiences, for me, too black to recount here. In intervals my mind reeled with the judgments of normal perception, detached wonderings, and thankfully, indications that the gut feeling that what was coming out of my body was healing some very old wounds, both personally and archaically inflicted. Occasionally Christopher, the carrier of Christ, was heard to bemoan his man..................JFC !

What for? I am fully confident in my experiences, not enough to totally decipher the intuitive implanting of universal medicine that is inherent in these plants, yet I know that the healing experience with Ayahuasca was a deep vibration that set up the capacity for me to decode information into a grounded form for our time here on earth. Just as a physical process, imagine the revitalized state that comes from physically drawing from the depths of your body, all the old foot-holes and head-loops that your lives have installed - protection for the deep patterning of the illusion of your separation, your victimization, or your addictions, or your fears of your own shadow, largely re-materialized and purged. If the body as our vehicle is an indicator and conductor, then where do we look for results? Yogi’s and body-workers may be interested to hear that despite sitting (read collapsing and crawling!) for 12 plus hours in this ceremony, after some sleep the following day, my capacity in asana was beyond what its has been when I have been in personal practice for some 15-20 hours per week. Smooth transitions across normally vulnerable planes, strength in static postures and improved balance across both feet from the energy of the vital centers and organs, all strongly suggest a thorough detoxification on a cellular level. There were no ill side effects once the medicine had run its course, in fact, I slept well, felt clear, recognized hugely improved eyesight, lucid mind, and a lighthearted and connected spirit.

Sure there are easier ways, but I am just an initiate here. This was my first encounter and most of the real teachings went by a little quickly this time. As my body detoxifies I will be able to sit with the Grandmother and hear the wisdom that she has for me. Her teaching is of a different nature to that of San Pedro, and for me more likely to hit at the heart of my reactions. The Ayahuasca is firm, she is uncompromising, she doesn’t need you to agree with her, to teach you.

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A day has passed again and my experience is sitting differently in my body. So on we go, the next ceremony imminent, and there are the emotions of anxiety and fear, with doubts, skepticism, claustrophobia and cravings for normality all to move through. Dawning now is the realization that this process has been in the constant reach of a darkness I have not been previously accustomed to. At least not in the form of black magic, spells, and curses. In understanding the nature of the protective light of the good soul, I have come to understand the exponential attraction the force of goodness creates to the darkness. As folk such as V., Shiva, and now myself work at the localized rebalancing of these archetypal forces, more and more care is needed, meaning more attention is spent in protection. There is an oppressive air to this for me, in this particular form here with V, and it is hitting me hard, now we are just hours from our fifth ceremony in two weeks. Today for the first time I feel I little overwhelmed by the pace at which I am learning, and really only have my trust to move forward with. That too, is being challenged.

Added to this, is that this time we are without without Durga who left us this morning for home. I will miss her for her strength and ready humor, but she will be remembered for being the catalyst for this whole adventure. Our strengths lie in our diversity, and as we sat during the days of ceremony, leisure or fasting, I have seen Durga as a broad portal of healing forces and intimate cog in the magical world of Shivas seemingly infinite ability. Our medicine is in our hearts now, and she will bring home the first of many dreams to unfold into the nature of our land. Peace sister.

Dios te bendiga. Aho Metakuye Oyasin

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It is now another day later and we have postponed all remaining ceremonies. It has been a tough and turgid ride to here from yesterday. The morning of Durgas departure was complicated by the thieving hands of children at the airport, alleviating her of her luggage and many treasures from her trip. Not a great way to end her journey. Our thoughts are with you, and always will be.

Yesterday, the group energy was interrupted abruptly, allowing deeper feelings to bubble to the surface. If anything, the Shamanic Circle is definitely a group process. I had been unable to shake my claustrophobia and began, hesitantly, to try to articulate it. That process brought about the recognition of a common experience in hesitation around the immediate ingestion of more medicine. Simply, there was so much to work with from our previous four ceremonies that there seemed a pressure around moving forward. There was a lot of tension and communications, for the first time, became strained and more than a little draining. Again more feelings flushing to the surface.The afternoons ceremony was cancelled. We slept on it and woke, today, to more intensity, from my end trying to follow my own intuition which was further disrupting the group, but also not wanting my choices to impact in the sacred space we have been, and are still, holding.

I don’t feel it necessary to go in to the nature of the obstruction here, but i will gladly tell you about it when I see you. What has come from our working through it is the reunion of the group energy and the protection of the healing work that the enormous trust we have put in each other has assisted the medicine to manifest. Most critical is the alliance that has been created here, and the threat that was being felt, albeit in different ways, has been addressed and nullified. Like all decisions in life, the aftermath sees some things gained and some things lost, for me what is gained is priceless, what is lost can be recreated.

What I learnt in the end is what I have been looking for as a healer for many years now. There are instructors in the arts, there are noble teachers of truth, there are guides and gurus and gods. We all look through the eyes of our exalted beings and see the truth of our own power, our own divine connection to universal medicine. Some of us act upon the information we receive, and in that moment open ourselves to the support of an entire universe of energy and form that is as beautiful as it is horrific. As we begin to place ourselves in that space we come hard up against the experience of a personal or impersonal force that we all feel over-sees the medicine. In our struggle to stay connected to a force we are constantly evolving from, and work with that force as healers, we witness the flux of power to placebo and risk being drained by the nature of humanity in all its disposable, yet beautiful form. In learning to trust the often unbelievable work of Shiva, I have been shown a doorway to the world, not just of the Shaman, of which he is an extravagant example, but also of facilitation in the opening of everyday folk who wish to act upon the information that they receive. The maps around the body are changing rapidly, the energy centers are receiving differently, our simple languages cant hold the truth that we are conducting, the new age and its cousins have failed through our own need to feel shiny and new : for healing, like the medicines of the Shaman, we can not just wash ourselves off from the outside.

What I have learnt is to work with the archaic wound in the hearts of men. Through mine and through the collective. The nature of my learning is confronting in the extreme, and I have now to work on how to move forward from here in the trust that we have reaffirmed. Naturally, the vehicles of the past deliver us perfectly to here, and from here we can see much........ there are avatars and seers in all of us.....................

Far from over, we are still taking stock of our position and looking at the way on from here. One thing is guaranteed, we have been thinking of you all along.

Aho Metakuye Oyasin

Christopher