America must take up life where the Red Indian, the Aztec, the Maya,
the Incas left it off. They must pick up the life-thread where the
mysterious Red race let it fall. They must catch the pulse of the
life which Cortes and Columbus murdered. There lies the real
continuity. . .A great and lovely life-form unprotected, fell with
Montezuma. The responsibility for the producing and the perfecting of
this life-form devolves upon the new American.
D. H. Lawrence - Letters
I try to travel with no other intent other than engaging the mystery.
I try to travel with no expectation, anticipation other than being
surprised.
I left the Mystic with no more of a plan than to go to the high
Andes and seek Ayahuasca Communities, Ayahuasca Shamanism. I left
Mystic with the intent of traversing the land of the Incas.
And then Ayahuasca Shamanism was seeking me.
After Merida, Venezuela we (the Chief Rollin' Rock and myself) went
to the border city and smugglers' haven of Cucuta, Columbia. We
stayed in the Jamaican Consulate, la casa de Ras Ayon. Then we were
bound to Bogota, Columbia.
As soon as it was decided it was going to be Bogota I got in contact
with my Columbian bruddah, da Lyon de Sion.
I know Lyon from my voyages in Chiapas last year (see 'the narrative
of the voyages of the bloody, snake chariot,'
www.libbyhome.blogspot.com ). He was a chess buddy at
Casa Babylon in San Cristobal de las Casas. He was there at the
rumble in the Lacondon Jungle. He participated in the night search
for The Lost in the Jungle.
He picked us up at the Bogota Airport. Lyon was eager to tell us that
there was going to be an Ayahuasca ceremony the coming Saturday, some
four days away.
For the next four days Lyon freely discussed the upcoming
ceremony with his acquaintances and anyone interested. Most said they
wanted to participate in the Ayahuasca Ceremony, or at least the
sweat (inipi) that was to follow.
There is an indigenas revival happening here in the high Andes. This
is, perhaps, the most important thing to have happened here since the
so-called Spanish Conquest.
It is the reconquest by the indigenas.
The conquest so fragmented the cultural, political, social, economic,
and sexual reality of Latin America. There is such a hugh
disconnect between the pre-conquest indigenas experience and the post
conquest reality.
It is only appropriate that the great sacrement, the age-old medicina
of the Incas, and many other indigenas people of South America,
Ayahuasca, has become the agency of the integration of the modern
Latin American experience, the modern experience in general. There is
such a great yearning for the integration of experience, reality, the
human circumstances.
We (Lyon, the Chief, Alexandro, Manolo - two of Lyons friends, y yo)
left Bogota on Saturday night and drove about an hour-and-a-half into
the mountains, to the pueblo of Huasca, and then to a farm about
seven miles from the pueblo.
As soon as I got out of the car I felt the presence of the medicina -
could tell that this was a place that for a long time has been
visited by the Ayahuasca entity. We went to a post-modern maloca (a
traditional round indigenas ceremonial/community building) with an
about 80-feet diameter.
Twelve adults, a 10 year-old boy, and two babies were present, during
the ceremony. There were old people, and young. Half were women, half
were men. Most were on the whiter side of the Columbian spectrum of
skin shades. Only a few had clearly indigenas physical features. Most
had the physical, spiritual blessings of the medicina. Most had the
vitality, the strong emanating life force.
Don Juan, the twenty-something leader of the ceremony, and his wife,
prepared for the ceremony by taking three large draughts of the
medicina.
Alexandero, Manolo, and myself prepared for the ceremony by jaming
with harmonicas, indigenas flutes, and drum. It was my first
sustained jam session with my three new and used harmonicas in the
keys of F sharp, G, D.
I was the first that Juan offered the medicina too - a large full
coffee cup. I raised the cup and made the traditional toast, 'Salud'.
All those that followed (including the Chief) gave the toast A
Salud y a la Pintar - To Health and to the Seeing/Visions.
As I waited for the seeing, the hearing, I left the maloca and looked
at the sky and saw, for the first time, the entire Southern Cross.
Much of the night sky was unfamiliar to me. I had a moment of
apprehension. In the enthogenic (entering God) experience I have been
able to orient myself by looking at and identifying the stars in my
familiar latitudes.
As I was entering the experience I heard Juan playing his harmonica.
We jammed. Alexandro and Manolo joined in. We were amazed by the
music. We would laugh often and ask, where did that come from? It was
a beautiful mediative, ultimately joyous song.
We jammed for hours.
Days before the ceremony, long before the first draught was drunk,
Lyon, and Alexandro were thinking about the second. They asked me if
I was going to do a second draught.
I would answer - 'I will do what the medicina tells me.'
We were working a beautiful thing in the music. And then Lyon and
Alexandro, and Manolo said it was time for a second draught.
Juan asked if we still felt drunk (boracho)?
I told Juan that I was feeling an effect - but I definitely was not
drunk.
He asked me if I wanted a second draught.
The first time I had done Ayahuasca I had vomited twice. This time I
had not vomited. In all ways I was feeling good. But when I began
contemplating a second draught, I began to feel stomach cramps.
I told Juan I was working a good thing with the medicina. I did not
need another.
Lyon, Alexandro, Manolo, the Chief took a second draught.
Alexandro had told me that during the last ceremony he had also asked
for a second draught and had immediately become very sick and
disoriented, so much so that he couldn't find the toilet and had
almost shit himself.
Before Lyon did his second draught he saw 'el hombre oscuro,' a
terrifying vision of darkness in a feline/human form. As he tried to
flee this vision, he heard IT laughing in his ears.
Before his second draught the Chief said he wasn't getting off. An
hour after the second draught, he still said he wasn't getting off.
I looked at him. The Chief looked completely demented. But he very
coherently asked Juan for a third draught.
I advised him to wait awhile and see what happened.
Juan spent at least ten minutes considering the Chief's request. And
then gave him a third draught.
Soon after, right around first light, I went to sleep. Soon after
that, the Chief went to Juan and asked for a fourth draught.
Juan told him it was too late for another dose.
Then everyone went to sleep.
The Chief watched the sun rise, alone, with no other person. He
watched the light fill the world, alone. He acknowledges that he had
some trouble walking. But he still claims he didn't get off. He says
if we weren't with him and telling him of our experiences, the
effects that we experienced from the medicina, he would think it was
all a scam - and want his money back.
After the sun was well risen, the Chief went to sleep - for a short
while.
All rose strong. All were focused, completely functional in making a
fire, making the inipi. The Chief had the least sleep of everyone.
But he too looked vital, focused, emanating strong life force.
That night, after we had returned to Bogota, as Lyon and myself were
having hamburgasas, Lyon asked me what I thought?
I told him I had thoroughly enjoyed the context, the experience of
the medicina. But I had one reservation about the postures before the
mystery that I had observed.
This thing about being drunk, about being a drunk.
I asked Lyon what he thought the medicina was trying to tell him in
the vision of 'el hombre oscura'?
Lyon thought for a while and said, 'It is something about my posture
before the mystery.'
And I said he was totally on it, that of course the mystery was going
to totally fuck with ya, if you approached IT in the posture of a
drunk.
Lyon acknowledged that this was something to consider.
But he asked me to consider this.
He has been attending this ceremony of Ayahuasca for eight years. In
all this time, until very recently, he has done only one draught in
the course of the ceremony. He has been advised by shamans that to
grow in the experience of the Ayahuasca, to grow in the seeing and in
the visions - requires more Ayahuasca.
I am considering this.
Know them by their fruit.
I have seen the fruit of this community of Ayahuasca.
And it is good.