Ayahuasca - a healing journey ( part 3)

                                                  The truth is that,  I am generally a cynic and also a bit of a skeptic.

 I guess it is genetic, we French having perfected for the last three centuries, the art of shrugging our shoulders whilst looking slightly disgusted whenever the supernatural or anything vaguely unexplained is mentioned.   But I  must, at this stage, talk about the healing I did receive.

It is difficult to envisage being healed when you drink a potion  which make poison tastes positively appealing  and  you spend all night purging but five days into the retreat, I suddenly realized that “that pain” in my lungs, which had been bugging me close on six months, was now gone. 

“ That pain” I have to admit, I had  diagnosed (again, I have to admit to being a hypochondriac, a condition which comes with the territory when you're  French) as that most scary of diseases and I had though at the time, that the best course of action was ignoring it.  I had recently lost a very dear friend to lung cancer or rather to chemo I believe.  The stories of him receiving third degree burns on is head through chemo and all the other desperate times that he lived through during his treatment and until his death, conveiced me that I did not want to try the allopathic road.  A path, I believe to be ultimately a corrupt one, where the pharmaceutical and medical bandits lurked at every corner. 

But yes, the pain was gone and further more I noticed that a calcified cervical vertebrae which had given grief for years, a hard lump on the back of my neck, had just … melted away? When I mentioned those facts at Satsangha, no body seemed particularly interested in the various developments in my health even if for me they were nothing short of miraculous!

But you can’t blame them, people had been very busy meeting Ganesh or Shiva, or both in some cases.  Some of us revisited their early childhood and discovered things about themselves that, at last,  explained all their life’s problems to them.  Some went to hell, some where rocked  to sleep by a divine mother… on the same night.  Words like unconditional Love and daemons cohabitated .  One man puked a blue demon in his bucket, and the spritely little chap jumped back down his throat!  The wannabe hobbit saw his death one night whilst the universe and all its stars  sped towards him.  Some saw ancestors, tormented souls, jungles, jaguars and snakes. I saw …yellow cartoon figures, Homer Simpson like and sketchy pyramids…for ten minutes…then vomited. But, as Alex said – “if you want visuals, go to the cinema!” 

Even the ducks hesitated!

After the dieta, once we had taken salt again, I immersed myself (very briefly) into the frozen water ( it is glacier water!)of the pond.  I felt intensily alive. The fact is, that I have never felt more a live, the other fact is that my skin had become smooth and glowing, better than a facelift! After a week, I looked ten years younger …yes..really, and my lung and vertebrae were cured…And, not negligeable,  I lost 5kgs!  Miraculous stuff altogether!

Now a month on, the effects remain, though I am sure the apocalyse stach of liqueur chocolates  might remedy the five missing kilos.  I have gained a certain serenity and have to admit that I have not felt any pangs of depression, a curse that has plagued me forever.  I have also taken some executive decisions as to my future.  It seems also that I have gained  a certain self-confidence,  fingers crossed,  it’s still early .  
As for the dark ones…which is probably the only reason you're still reading this blog- yes, they do exist! Sometimes they take the shape of a blue devil you throw in you bucket  and which jumps back inside you...that type are your own demons who are reluctant to leave the comfy home  you have provided for them. The other sort is a human who, usually for power, has chosen to walk a  dark road, driven by egoticism and the gratification of all the basest urges . I have met a few in my life, thankfully not that many.   This Diablo, a big man, rather arrogant, wearing sunglasses, even indoors (hiding his eyes?) and very much a poseur.  He had, on arrival, insulted the very mild mannered hobbit, by passing some derogatory comments on the hobbits cultural background and spirituality.  Now, I hadn't witnessed the exchange and so decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. A doubt which quickly vanished however when he became my neighbour in the circle, that very evening!  He sort of took over the  ceremony, constantly gesturing emphatically in a wannabe shamanic manner, loudly addressing in  the two maestros continually.  He insisted on pointing his feet towards the mesa/altar despite being asked not to do so by the shamans (it shows lack of respect and is a bit like going to mass insisting on turning the crucifix upside down...not the done thing),  spoke non stop, touched me on a few occasions, whilst I was mariada, a very disconcerting and freaky thing to do to anyone under the power of ayahuasca, as you really do lose your sense of space.  I found it upsetting, it did feel like a violation of my own space (you’ve got a mat, a blanket, a bucket and this is your world for 6 hours a night, you ‘ve got to feel safe there).  He eventually grabbed my puke bucket ( he had lost his,  kicked it on to the Mesa/altar again not very respectful) whilst I was mid vomit leaving me to throw up in my hands - a rather  evil and not at all sociable thing to do. He also went on to vomit on top of the guy next to him, again, a a bit of a no no in the ayahuasca etiquette.  It was very much an “exorcist” sort of experience!  The next day he and his girlfriend left, saying this wasn't the place for them.  I was very ill subsequently, I think it was altitude sickness myself, but some have mentioned psychic attacks ( I had complained about his behaviour) I can’t help thinking they had a purpose on coming to this most magical of retreats, where goodness is omni-present and it wasn’t a good one.  But all the same, it was interesting, and quite amusing, to see the dark ones at work! 

  

It wasn’t all darkness and black magic however, for when my turn came to receive the healing from Don Roman, he told me he could see “dos caballeros de luz” "two men of light", one on each of my shoulders, who were there to protect me.  Straight away I thought of of my grand uncle and my father - my two aviators.

 "Caballeros de luz?" my father, and grand uncle with my beloved Blanche

So when later on, Leo brought me outside, I saw a shooting star and I saw the sky upside down.  I saw the very stars that Saint Exupéry, Guillaumet and Mermoz had read and I remembered 

The heavens over TiticacaNight sky

Night sky

She grew up amongst men

who flew by the stars

who read in the embered scrawl

each others stories mapped

hastily over the Sahara..

...Age nine,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          her father gave her 

the beaded sky.   Like them                                                                                                she read truths and prayers

in the flickering alphabet of fireflies...                                                                                                                                      

extract from Night Sky. "A Taste of Hemlock" Michèle Vassal (Salmon Publishing)