Around a week after the first retreat, a few realisations came together in my life in perfect synchronicity.
I had a feeling that I needed to go deeper into my issues - that the 4 nights of the first retreat were great, but not quite enough to unwind myself from all the layers of mental junk I had burdened myself with over the years. I had also begun to read the book Shaman, Healer, Sage by Alberto Villodo. In this book, the author gives great insight into the healing methods of the Inka shamans. A part of me knew I had to go deeper into my psyche to understand these spiritual ways with greater coherence. The more entheogens I have taken, the more my spirituality and my intuition have grown. I had also become aware of the 3 moon cycle - to do three 3-night ceremonies of Ayahuasca within 3 moon cycles gives us a greater cleanse. The 3 moon cycle is also a prerequisite for the school to become an Ayahuasca facilitator. This is not something I am sure whether I would like to pursue. However, I decided that regardless of whether I pursued it or not, the profound mental clarity I knew it could give me would enable me to understand the human psyche much better. This would still provide me with invaluable skills in my ambitions to be a healer. I still had money left from the 2018 cannabis budget I would now not be spending on cannabis. It was a no-brainer!
The retreat took place in a small town in the Swiss alps called Gyron. The scenery there is absolutely beautiful. I did not manage to take notes for this retreat so I wrote all the following from memory in the subsequent week.
Day 1
For the first night there were only 6 participants including myself. Nothing much happened after the first drink. The booster dose however picked me up into a state of mind never before experienced with Ayahuasca. It was an experience very close to the 3rd night of the first retreat yet even stronger. I remember getting lost on my way to the toilet again. My pupils were so dilated that I could barely see!
Waves of spiritual energy passed through my entire body as I lay there, allowing it to breach me. It seemed as though the core of my being was part of the very fabric of reality. The proximity to this made me a little fearful. I guess it was just fear of the unknown. I used my historical experience of psychedelics to let these thoughts blow over me. After all, it was beginning to turn my experience in the wrong direction, and I did not want a repeat of the hell I suffered on the 3rd night of the first retreat. I remember thinking that I had to endure another 2 nights of this, and so quickly attempted to quell my negative cognitions.
A huge lesson about my mind then came my way - I thought I had pretty much owned my own mind on the final night of the first retreat but oh, how wrong could I have been? That was just the tip of the iceberg. I could see my mind as an object in my visualisation and noticed that it had a huge amount of metaphorical clutter orbiting it. It was like the Ayahuasca was showing me all the things I allowed to cling to it. I then began to see all the thoughts of my mind flooding my inner psyche. I realised how it was making interceptions in every single thing that I did - every thought or action carried a ridiculous number of judgements from my preconceived belief system - a system that had built up over the course of my life. Some of these cognitions had absolutely no relevance to my life any longer, and yet they continued to plague me. I was absolutely horrified.
In that moment the Ayahuasca had shown me a distinct separation between my mind and my actual being. It was as if the mind had taken over my life and I was no longer in control. It was. But now I could see it for what it was. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to visualise this with such clarity back in a state of sobriety, so I took great haste in heeding the lesson it was showing me.
This evening’s session also saw some more purging, as seems to be commonplace on the first night of a retreat, for me at least. The sickness seemed to come from the deepest part of my being - It felt as if what was escaping me was a conscious being, which had its own nefarious reasons for living within me, such was the velocity, putrid sound it made and manner in which it ejected itself from within me.
I had again focused much of my effort around my heart area throughout this session - pressing on different areas with my hands and allowing the trapped energy to escape via my breath. I noticed as I did this there was sometimes a spasm in my chest. It was like there was something there just trying to hold on that did not want to let go..
I remembered reading in the book Shaman, Healer, Sage that parts of our old characters from spent lives can become stuck within our present selves. I recalled my past life regression from years ago, and then wondered whether my broken hearted sailor self was trapped within me.
We had been taught Hoʻoponopono by the facilitators over the last couple of days - a Hawaiian practice of forgiveness and reconciliation. We would learn to show unconditional love to inanimate objects, and say “thank you I love you” to the things that we felt had caused us suffering. This takes away the power to cause us suffering in the first place.
With this I decided to set my intention for the next night’s work to see if I could find a way to create dialogue with this part of me - to not force it out, but to talk to it and to love it away, so to speak.
It had been a difficult night, but waking up to a perfect picture postcard scene of the Swiss alps somehow made it all worthwhile.
Day 2
I did not sleep in the early morning and ended up getting some rest in the afternoon. When I awoke in the early evening, I went downstairs to find many new participants to the retreat. I think we totalled 11 that night. We all acquainted ourselves with one another and settled down into the facilitation room.
My first drink gave me some flowy visuals, the same as I had often experienced during the first retreat. It was lovely and relaxing, but had mostly worn off by the time the booster was ready around an hour and a half later.
The booster slowly but surely took me into my process, and I began to work around my heart again. As I started to feel the resistance in the form of the spasming, I began the dialogue with this stuck inner part of me. I told it that the lovelessness we shared was not serving either of us anymore. I told my “brother” that this is the ideal situation in which he can set himself free - to fly away into the beautiful Swiss mountains and be one with spirit again - to release himself from the turmoil that has tortured him (and me) for so long. I sensed that it was working. I was releasing energy through my breath as I was the night before but this time it felt slightly different. It actually felt like there was a conscious entity leaving me.
“Be free my brother. Thank you. I love you” I said in my head, with every exhalation when I felt him returning to source. An overwhelming feeling of love and lightness embraced my upper torso and I had an enormous feeling of redemption. Had this been the reason I was rejecting love all of my life?
I revelled in my sense of glory over succeeding in my mission for a short while, before remembering something else from the book. When an entity such as this, or even something parasitic has been removed, the luminous energy field of the body (the aura) should be flooded with light. This is achieved by being conscious in the 8th Chakra, the soul chakra, and raining beautiful white light down upon the entire luminous energy field. I was sure there was an exercise associated with this, but couldn’t quite remember it. Anyhow, I somehow knew that this would not be required while under the influence of Ayahuasca. It should be simple.. and it was.
I just took my awareness to the soul chakra and expressed gratitude for everything I needed to, but mainly about the result I had just achieved. I envisaged the chakra as a shower head, raining down brilliant white light upon me and within me. I lay there in spiritual ecstasy as I imagined the new positive future I had created for myself. As the night grew on and this began to diminish, I retired to my bed, but it was still there for most of the night. I again did not sleep immediately, for I was still revelling in my inner joy.
Day 3 & 4
A few more participants had left and a few joined. Tonight we would be treated to the most wonderful session of live music. We had been spoiled all weekend, but tonight the music was almost continuous for the entire session. Two of the facilitators are excellent guitarists and singers, and one of the others an excellent ukulele player and singer. There were other instruments too.
I felt hardly anything after my first drink, but I was not at all bothered. I was just laying there, chilled out, enjoying the music. I had intended to do some work on my lower chakras, but even the second drink hardly seemed to affect me. Or so it seemed.. The later the night drew on, the more beautiful the music seemed to become.
I hadn’t needed to get up to use the toilets as often as I had done on previous nights. I was quite content in my chill zone. When I did get up to go I realised how wired I was. I stumbled as I attempted to get up. The music had indeed been getting a lot more beautiful as the Ayahuasca had slowly been catching up with me.
Later on in the night as the music was finishing and the facilitators were closing the ceremony, I had realised I was just as high as I had been on the previous night. The only difference was that I had no real internal processes going on. I just lay there enjoying my new found love of love, contemplating the future joys of my new life without the baggage I had rid myself off the previous evening.
I spent another hour or so on my mat before retiring to bed. I knew I wouldn’t sleep but decided I would like to lay in my own sanctuary, with the gentle mountain air coming through my window, caressing my inner spirit. I would listen to my own music for a few hours while continuing to revel in absolute bliss. I arose around 7am to stand on the balcony and wonder in the marvel of the Swiss mountains once again, for later that day we would all be leaving.
Over the course of the 3 nights I had spent some time “fixing” some of the vertebrae in my neck and back. I have spoken about this tension before. It had almost gone completely following the work I had done on it during the first retreat, but then it had returned over the course of the next few weeks. I had already suspected something which the Ayahuasca had confirmed to me by the final evening..
This tension is associated with my kidney meridian, I have known this meridian to be weak within myself through my recent studies of Kinesiology. I have a few theories for this. One of them being my dehydration issue from my 18 year long cannabis habit. The other is from my 15 years of fear - the extreme anxiety I suffered between the ages of 11 and 26. I have always imagined that this must have somehow affected me long term.
Mother Ayahuasca has told me where to focus my intentions for the final retreat of the 3 moon cycle. The above issues combined with my niggling inflammatory bowel problems, mean I will be spending most of my time on my root, sacral, solar plexus and throat chakras.
It will be interesting to see if there are any repressed fears trapped within me. Interesting, although perhaps terrifying..
I will soon find out.