In Padre Cocha (an island half an hour from Iquitos) I stayed in a house which was a cabin (or big hut) with three rooms for visitors. And it turns out that the woman who runs it, an European woman, also does ayahuasca sessions. She is 70 years old and has been in the spiritual world only since she is 56 years old and with ayahuasca for 10 years.
Her time of experience did not inspire me much confidence with what she would know and could do with it, but it gave me more confidence than getting somewhere with some guy who claims to be a shaman and gives me a drink that is not what it should be. I am aware of the danger that entails, especially because once in a trance there is no physical force and you are completely vulnerable. Also a couple of years ago, here, a shaman and his friends raped a young German girl. It is true that they were seized (everyone here know each other more or less) and put in jail for 25 years (or so I was told by a man of Iquitos) and it is possible that now men are more careful about what they do, but perhaps the next one would rather kill the victim so as not to leave witnesses. And even if they end up in jail, the trauma for the victim stays there for long or forever.
When visiting the village of the Yahue indigenous community, after the typical dance I talked next to the river with the youngest of those participating in their dances and later the oldest of the group came. He told me that there they have a shaman (in his language they call him Kuraca) who does ayahuasca ceremonies and gave me his phone number to ask when it might be possible and at what price.
When I was leaving the village there were a couple of men at the entrance of a hut and they lied to me, that´s why I decided not to do the ayahuasca ceremony with them but later I did. What happened I told in another post.
Actually, at the end I did it with them, but that is another story in another post in this blog.
So I decided to do the session with the woman of the Guest House, although I was not inspired that she knows what to do, but the option was better than to end up in the hands of a money-maker.
Of course, the woman ("Y") is an older Westerner who prefers the comforts and for her doing it during the day was better than during the night because she can not stand to be midnight without sleep. And I told her that if the shamans do it in the dark, it's because of melatonin, but she said it doesn't matter.
At the beginning of being in the GH she insisted on reading the tarot cards for me (paying 100 soles, which is not expensive, but I didn't really want it). She did the reading with a friend of hers. The two used the pendulum to find the answers, and I also find it hard to understand the people who use the pendulum to continually find answers, and the two use them for everything, not only with the tarot cards, but with the normal things of life. Above all, I don't understand it from people who are spiritual and claim to be Medium, because the information comes from the spirit, not from a pendulum where you often see how the arm moves. But well, with the concept of non-duality (which I explained in my previous blog), if the information comes from the spirit or comes from your conscious that moves the arm, at the end of the day it should be the same.
I told her that I had already done ayahuasca with "X" and "Z". She kept a stiff face without saying anything and asked me how it went. When I told her, then she told me what she knows about them. And among other things she told me that "Z" has had problems with people and that someone has died during the ceremonies (she was not sure if only one or more) and then I understood why he became hysterical when I did not react to his requests in the first session I did with him and he yelled at me and asked me to say his name. It was obvious that I had not died because I was sitting in the meditation position with my back straight, but of course, if someone has already died, if there is anybody else who does not want to respond, it puts him on the edge of a hysteria in case it happens again the same.
But anyway, she also confirmed that the two get high, especially "Z", and that he had problems with people who came to him for ayahuasca sessions. Some of them have gone to her afterwards, and no one has spoken well of their experiences with him. I keep wondering how it is possible for such people to continue doing sessions freely.
We did the tarot card reading the next day and it lasted 3 hours, but after 10 minutes I wanted to leave and ask her to give me back my money. The two of them kept in asking the cards (and pendulums) if related to my case, for example, was a woman who is writing emails to "Y" accusing her of something. Sorry? That´s why the reading lasted 3 hours, because they asked about the people THEY knew, as if they had something to do with my situation. Because they say we are all related even if I don't know them. Of course, with the theory of non-duality, as we are all one, then they do have something to do with what can happens to me in my life ... but since we are in this limited three-dimensional world, that is more difficult to assimilate from a normal point of view.
I filled up myself with patience and let them play with their pendulums, their cards and with all their acquaintances and relatives. Several times I was about to say that I was going to bed and they could tell me the next day, if still I wanted to hear such things which were making no sense to me. I paid them to have a nice time. "Y" said that there was so much negative energy in the situation, that it was physically attacking her and she kept in rubbing and scratching her hands to the point of bleeding. This experience did not fill me up with much hope for the ayahuasca session and I was about to say, better we don´t do it. But as I learned that the important thing is the ayahuasca and not the ceremony itself, I decided to go ahead and hope that the aya is of good quality.
She told me that we would start the ayahuasca session at 10 in the morning but until 11 we didn't sit down. The first thing she wanted to do is draw some cards, tarot style, to see if the energy was favourable. The three that I took out for me were good and inspiring, but the ones she took for her were bad and that's why it took us another hour, because she, she said, was not energetically and psychically prepared for the session and had to become clean and similar things. "Y" told me that if she was not ready, then the session for me would not go well. I thought it was because she will do many things on me, as did Sara, the Shipibo shaman with whom I had the previous session fuming, spitting different waters and cleaning me energetically. But to my no surprise, she did nothing.
She lay down and I realized she was not going to sing icaros because I heard her snore. After a while she woke up, threw some water on the floor, then went back to sleep and then woke up but stayed enjoying her own session (the shamans also drink ayahuasca with you, in smaller quantities). Only at the beginning she whispered a chanting North American Indians style for a minute or two, then she threw Florida water on the ground and that was it. She got up after 40 minutes to offer me if I want to drink more, which I did because I didn't feel that much happening, she threw more Florida water on the floor and continued with her “private session”.
As soon as I sat on the mattress after drinking another bit, it suddenly came to me in full power.
The first two hours (and I say that time to say something and because it could feel that way, but I don't really know how long time went by) were images without more information or importance than when you see cartoons without words and without grace. At the beginning I raised what I intended to achieve or to know during the session, but considering that Ayahuasca presents what she wants, I told her that she knows what I want, but that she can show me what she want but which is important for me, and if she doesn´t want it to be important, I accept whatever she wants, because I already knew from my experience in the previous three sessions, that the images were meaningless to my conscious side, and I don't think it makes sense either on my subconscious side, but who knows.
Then I saw jaguars and snakes, which is normal in these sessions, but suddenly, a huge snake opened its mouth and swallowed me and I slipped or flew down its body, which was a tunnel. I asked her to show me what was after the tunnel but the image changed before seeing the end. And it was from there that everything changed and I spent the next two hours watching other lives, flying and having conversations.
I say "other lives" instead of "past lives" because of non-duality, since there is no you and I, not here and there, there is no before and after. Everything exists simultaneously at this time in what some might say in other dimensions or parallel worlds. Therefore, I exist now in this place, in this body and with these experiences, but I also exist now in another place, in another body, with other experiences ... but still believing there is some kind of separation.
All the lives shown to me were indigenous peoples of the Amazon jungle and in general I was a shaman (of course, does my ego say that?).
On one occasion as a young woman, I was sacrificed. My insides had been opened and something was taken from my body, surely my heart but also something else since I was dead lying down face up with my stomach open. Surrounded by flowers and many people who directed their arms towards me, my body descended through a huge hole, kind of volcano. Which makes me think, because when the Dutch and her friend read me the tarot cards, they asked with their pendulums if I had been a victim of this man in another life where he was a kind of shaman belonging to a special caste, and he simply killed people in rituals by taking away their hearts. I don't know if I had that vision because of what they said, or because it really has something to do with the whole thing.
I'm not sure I have ever been a shaman woman, I think so, but I saw myself basically as a man on several occasions but with different bodies and in different ethnicities. I had an "AHA moment" when in one or several of those lives I lived in the area of the Amazon now belonging to Venezuela, Colombia and northern Brazil, and I remembered the strong feeling I had of "coming home" when I went to live to Venezuela due to my father's job when I had just turned 15 since it was the first time in my life when I felt comfortable in a place.
I didn't want to see my karma with India (where I lived for about 13 years), because Aya just wanted to show me my times in this region and for me it was very interesting. The clarification with India will come later.
On 2-3 of those occasions I went through a village at a certain height (not above, but below the height of the roof, and at a certain speed which is not that of walking), and I asked myself that for that to be like that, it must be that I was flying. And so I was. I was flying through the village (a different one each time) and from there I went through the jungle, the river and ended up getting into a tunnel, but I couldn't see what was at the end of it. I asked why I was flying and if it was because as a shaman I was transformed into a bird but I didn't get any answer.
The blows of the effects of Ayahuasca came in strong waves and disappeared, and then returned again strong, stayed a while and disappeared again. At one point Ayahuasca asked me to cover my eyes so that there was not so much clarity, even though the Dutchwoman had tried to make the cabin dark, but being a hut, light enters everywhere anyway. The moment I covered my eyes with the towel, the visualizations became deeper.
Throughout the session I had moments when simple things were clarified and that at that time they also became “AHA moments”. For example, the day before, I posted something on Facebook and wrote the word "blowgun" in Spanish. But since I have not been widely using Spanish for 24 years, there are words which are not commonly used and I forgot how it is written. In such cases I go to the internet to find out how to write them down, but the internet in Padre Cocha is very bad, or at least with the server I have on my mobile, which does not have much coverage here and to publish something on Facebook or Twitter can do it on about 15 minutes or for hours. I didn't have the patience to wait for the answer and I didn't look for it, writing “cervatana” with v, instead of with b, and I published it that day. During the session, I suddenly heard a little voice that told me "that blowgun (in Spanish) is written with b, not with v", showing me the word.
At another time she told me that "Y" didn´t pay me back the 10 soles of the change for the payment of the room. I thought she already pad me but when trying to remember, I couldn´t remember giving it to me. I told her the next day and she was sure she paid me, but that she would ask her pendulum. I thought "well, now she will move the pendulum so that it comes out that she did give me the change" but the message Aya gave me was so clear, that although the pendulum said yes, I was clear that no, simply because Ayahuasca told me . To my surprise, the pendulum said she didn´t pay me, so after that, it could be that the other answers she got while reading the tarot cards for me, could really be right and not the desire of her subconscious.
The conversations with Aya about a certain skill she told me I have, would last perhaps a minute or two before the image changed. When I was aware that the conversation was over a while ago, I called Aya to continue where we were because I still wasn't sure. She returned and we continued with the conversation until another image came, and so it was until everything was clarified.
Here I have to say that she was leading me to a way of healing. But this guide was not only in this session, it had already started two sessions before, so that all the information came to me in the last three sessions of Ayahuasca and also in the session I had of the San Pedro cactus (which I tell in my blog) .
In my previous blog I said that the difference between aya and my meditations is that with aya you can want something, but it is aya who decides what to show you. And so it was during the first two hours (that calculation is something I say, but I don't know because it is unknown), but after the snake swallowed me, if I asked her to show me something, she showed it to me. I don't know if it's because one first has to get acquainted with that force or if it is that she first shows you things “meaningless” to our conscious and then lets you choose.
At four in the afternoon "Y" approached me and asked me if I needed more time, but it was already four in the afternoon and the ceremony (?) was over. I said yes with my head since I still couldn't speak because I was still in a trance, and she went outside. I realized that she will need to have that area free because the other two people who were staying needed to move around the house, so I got up as I could and bent down to pick up the pillows, I bent down again to put on my sandals and I ducked again on a couple more occasions, and with so much movement the gut turned and I threw everything I already collected on the mattress to hurry to the bucket because I knew what was coming. I didn't vomit much, just a small finger, and most likely I wouldn't have vomited if I hadn't moved from the mattress.
I went to my bed and there I spent almost another two more hours, still with all my shamanic visions, flights through villages, rivers and tunnels, and conversations. Well, the last hour is not so much but of another style, but still informative and very valid.
At 6 pm I decided to get up to eat something, but I had no food in my room because there are cockroaches, so I asked the "Y" if she could give me something because I still did not walk very straight and my eyes saw everything with electric light scratches. She told me she was going to cook and by 7:30 in the afternoon she had made pasta (I don't eat pasta, but I made an exception because I needed to eat something) and I told her that I wasn't going to eat with them because I still needed to be by my own space in silence.
I began to write what had happened because my experience tells me that if I do not write it in the following hours I forget most of it, becoming a waste of time for the conscious side (the information is stored on the subconscious side). The first two hours of writing I still had the effects of aya, which I took to ask her to remind me what had happened since at first I had forgotten 80% of things, but she reminded me the stuff. I also asked her a couple more of details about the healing and she gave me the information, which she didn´t give me before but now those doubts came to me.
That is, although in principle doing it during the day does not make sense from an original, shamanic and hormonal point of view (since melatonin has its greatest effect between 1 and 4 in the morning, when there is more opportunity for mystical experiences to occur), the positive side is that since it is still a “decent hour” for when everything ends, you can write what happened even under the last ravages of the effects and thus have the opportunity to remember everything more clearly.
Ayahuasca gave me a lot of information, which I do not give here because it is personal, but at least after trying 3 times, this last time, precisely the least prepared session and without any ceremony or icaros, is the session which made the effects that should have been on the other sessions with the other people.
Funny enough, by chance in Lima I met the shaman
of "Y", her teacher from Padre Cocha, and we talked about what happened. It seems that she is doing what she wants, not really what she was taught. But at least she learnt how to make the ayahuasca and that seems to be of one of the best qualities.
Here is the video I made for YouTube about this experience in Padre Cocha.
